:: Guy in a Suit Productions ::

Monday 7.29.02 - 8:46pm PST

So..what have I been doing? Well, Kim and I have to start living in the new place on the 1st, so we've been trying to get a section of it livable. We have finished the walls of the master bedroom, swept off the floor, bought and ordered carpet, and moved most of our stuff. I am currently lying prone using my computer because the table it used to be on is gone as is the chair I used to sit in. The place still needs A LOT of work, but I can begin to see our vision and I like what I see...during the day. At night it can be a different story out there. Kim and I could not find a cart to move our boxes, so we had to rent one from Home Depot after wasting all of Sunday looking for one. We did not get the truck over to the new place until around 9:00pm. Also, we did not go through the garage. Instead, we opted to forgo a set of stairs and use the front entrance. Unfortunately, that means we lead a little parade of boxes down the long walk to the end of the line where our door is. There were some surly youths out there at night. Now perhaps I am just getting old, but I felt like they were up to no good. I do realize that not every group of kids out at night is up to no good, but I also remember when I was in a group of young men out at night unsupervised, I was generally up to no good. Needless to say, I was apprehensive about leaving my stuff there unguarded for the night (we are still sleeping in the 1BR in Los Feliz). However, when I got there this morning, it was all there undisturbed.

So, we will be "living" in the new place moving from room to room by Thursday.

My internet connection will be going dial-up (belly-up?) soon. That probably means another week of fewer updates. I'm sure there is other stuff on the internet to read while at work.

I did get my Direct TV installed in two places at our new house. FINALLY, I get to use S-Video for everything (except *shudder* VHS tape...like if I wanted to watch...say...Star Wars or Indiana Jones). I think we'll get some good sound in that big open room...or it will sound like we are sitting in a 60 gallon drum. I hope for the former. Perhaps I'll find some acoustic engineer at work to baffle the walls if I'm not happy with the sound.

I'm going to work on the module now so I can finish it and force it onto my friends.

-Travis

Oh...Austin Powers made a bunch of money...and Kim and I did not see it. We will be seeing Signs on Saturday, though...and maybe Full Frontal if I can find it at a good theater.

Monday 7.22.02 - 10:30pm PST

Kim and I led a wallpaper jihad tonight at our townhouse. Armed with the latest in solvents and wallpaper/paint stripping weaponry, Kim, I, and two others cut a swath of destruction through layer after layer of heinous wallpaper. And at the end, as I was washing the blood of my enemy (wallpaper paste) from my hands and forearms, a smile crept across my face. I went out to the field to survey the broken bodies of my slain opponent. It was a sight of beauty; white walls glistening like so much polished bone. The war is not over, but the battle was ours.

In other words, most of the wallpaper is now lying on the floor in wet piles.

Kim tells me that tomorrow we are taking the day off from working on the house. This is probably a good idea. Maybe, with some time off, removing wallpaper will not feel so...dramatic.

-Travis

Saturday 7.20.02 - 12:07pm PST

In another blog from one of the guys at work, I saw that he posted a link to his Amazon Wish List. I thought to myself, "I'll bet my friends would like to buy me stuff, and what better way to make it easy." So I'm adopting Brad's idea. There will be a link to my Amazon wishlist placed with the other links soon. I think you can learn a lot from what someone chooses to read, watch, listen to, etc.

While updating my wish list, I decided to try to cobble together a list of the Stephen King books that reference the Dark Tower series. I have read The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, and Wizard and Glass which are the first 4 Dark Tower books. The 5th book will probably be called The Wolves of the Calla (you can read the prologue here), the 6th book will probably be called The Song of Susannah, and the 7th and last book will simply be called The Dark Tower. Now these are the Dark Tower books of the main story concerning Roland of Gilead and his quest for the Dark Tower. If you want to get the whole story on all the characters and catch all the hooks, you will also have to read the rest of the books on this list. I'll need to reread the first 4 books to get them fresh in my mind before Wolves comes out.

In other Stephen King news, there is a trailer for Dreamcatcher up. Click the word "haute" near word "Trailer" to get the bigger link. I am hoping this will be as good as the book.

I've got some more stuff to put up, but Kim is rushing me out of the house so we can go work on the new place some more. Check back later or perhaps tomorrow.

-Travis

Wednesday 7.17.02 - 11:07pm PST

For the last 3 days, Kim and I have been going to the new place straight from work and working on the bedrooms until about 10:30 when we leave to come home. We are nearly finished preparing the master bedroom for painting. It also needs carpeting and some mild carpentry. I have stuff I could put up here, but I don't have the will to do it.

There is one thing that got my attention this week. Paul Anderson (who directed Event Horizon, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and Soldier...not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson) has been given the reigns to long-time fanboy favorite Aliens vs Predator. They are not basing it on the recent succesful games or the comic books. I think they are just taking the idea and running with it. The idea originally came from the end of Predator 2. Danny Glover is walking around the predators' ship and looking in the trophy case where there is an alien skull right in the middle. I always thought it was a very interesting idea. As long as they focus on the action and not try to tell a deep story, it will be good. All I really want is, "The aliens, predators, and humans find themselves on the same planet...begin." I hope it doesn't suck.

That should go on the movies page, but there it is. I wasn't even going to put that much up.

-Travis

Sunday 7.14.02 - 8:55pm PST

I have redone the archiving so it is per month instead of every two weeks. If you are looking at archives, you should be ready to see longer load times...and if you have dial-up...I really have little sympathy for you.

Also, here are some random pages whose links are in the archived sections:

My thoughts on Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones (SPOILER WARNING)

My E3 2002 Wrap up (complete with highlight reel)

My theory on the events that take place in Mulholland Dr (SPOILER WARNING)

-Travis

Sunday 7.14.02 - 8:00pm PST

I have a new enemy...and thy name is "wallpaper". I hate it. Why someone would slather this stuff up on the walls is beyond me. We're not having any fun taking it off of practically every vertical surface in our new house. Here is what I am dealing with, click for the full pain:

We bought some wallpaper removing spray stuff, and quickly ran out of it. I was not at all impressed with its removing ability. After we ran out, Kim said, "Did you try using water?" I laughed. "Of course not. I'm sure I need a powerful blue gel-like liquid to remove this stuff." But to humor her, I tried spraying water on the wall and scraping it off. Here are the results, once again, click for the big picture:


Expensive, very special wallpaper remover	Water

As if that was not enough to contend with, I have to deal with this carpet in areas, and it may not show up in the picture, but the walls above the wallpaper in that big room are a shade of pink.

After all is said and done, I think the place has great potential, and will be very nice when we are finished. By the way, does anyone know a good way to paint walls that go up that high? Is that something I might be able to do with a tall ladder or something? I really have no idea.

Here is the new washer/dryer set we got. They are stackables. I've never seen that many lights and buttons on the front of an appliance. I might need to flip through the manual.

If that isn't enough pictures, you can head here to see the whole lot of them. They also delivered a fridge and a range, but the range was the wrong color, so we sent it back.

I updated movies with my thoughts on Reign of Fire.

-Travis

Thursday 7.11.02 - 11:43pm PST

Saturday, we are having our appliances delivered and a Brinks security professional is going to come out and convince me how unsafe I'll be without all the finest security measures money can buy. Hopefully, we'll still have time to see Reign of Fire.

We went to Home Depot today, and I bought a "How To" book on home improvements. I think we can manage the refinishing of the floor, but the carpeting, plumbing, and gas line work will be done by contractors I think. I don't mess around with water and flammables. We bought a "paper tiger" (wall paper stripping device), some wall paper melting fluid, and a wall paper scraping knife. I also bought some ant spray. When we picked up the keys, we noticed quite an ant civilization in there. They had set up super-highways with on and off ramps, and they might have opened a Starbucks at the corner of the hall and master bedroom. I thought it should be addressed.

It looks like I'll need to be buying a lot of tools soon, and I actually picked up a magazine called WOOD (as in building benches and tables and such) and flipped through it.

I put some new stuff on movies and videogames, and I posted pics of Ron's newborn daughter in the forum.

-Travis

Sunday 7.7.02 - 9:34pm PST

Kim and I went to Best Buy today and bought $4000 worth of appliances. We went ahead and bought the good stuff so that we can keep it for 40 years. At least that is the way I've planned it. I'm hoping to only buy this stuff once. The Best Buy credit company tried to only give us a $3600 limit on the card. I've had at least two Best Buy cards in the past; one of them I cancelled long ago, the other one the bank cancelled because they stopped carrying Best Buy credit. I think each had around $4000 - $6000 limits. I talked to the girl over the phone and asked her to explain to me how two people with a combined household income of around $100,000, high credit scores, and carrying little credit debt would have trouble getting a Best Buy card with a $5000 limit. After a brief discussion, we had our $5K limit, and we bought the stuff on the "same as cash, no interest for 12 months" thing.

The washer and dryer we bought look like pods from 2001...very retro 50s sci-fi.

In order to help fund these purchases, and reduce the amount of stuff to move into the new place, I am selling some games and movies. So, if you're looking for some old games and would like to be overcharged for them, just look through my ebay auctions.

-Travis

Saturday 7.6.02 - 6:39pm PST

Some sad news in movies today.

-Travis

Thursday 7.4.02 - 7:30pm PST

It's the 4th of July...terrific.

Kim and I went to the movies today, so I updated movies. I'm still working on the module...endlessly.

-Travis

Wednesday 7.3.02 - 5:35pm PST

I just got out of a meeting, and here is what I did. I signed several pieces of paper wherein I agreed to take all the money I make for the next 20 years and give it to someone else. For that money, they will allow me to *own* a big room where I can put my stuff. Not only that, but in order to really live comfortably in this room, I am going to have to buy MORE stuff. This is quite a system we have going here. At some point in your life your parents kick you out, and you say to yourself, "Man, where am I going to put all this stuff?" So you pay someone so that you get a little room to put all your stuff in. But soon, you have too much stuff and not enough room. So you upgrade the room to a bigger one...but its too big! So you have to buy more stuff to fill it. This is the American dream apparently...to continue to buy stuff so that you will outgrow your current "room" and be forced to buy a new one which will necessitate buying more stuff. I guess I am well on my way.

Well, I guess we are moving in the next month or so. I'm sure my dad will want me to take the rest of my stuff out of his basement soon, which kind of amounts to me buying it all over again because it will need to be shipped across the country.

I got my Warcraft III today and have installed it on both computers. I have not played it yet, though. I'll let Kim do the honors. I need to keep working on this NWN module.

-Travis

Tuesday 7.2.02 - 11:59pm PST

Updates are coming less frequently because I am spending most of my computer time working on the Neverwinter Nights project. Warcraft III is supposed to be coming out tonight at midnight, but mine should be delivered by overnight mail tomorrow sometime. We are only working until noon tomorrow, so I may have some time to try it out, however, I fear that NWN will continue to steal away my attention. It is probably just as good that I am distracted, because I predict Kim will go into a zone playing Warcraft III and I won't get to touch it until sometime next week.

She keeps harping on me to write my script, which continues to turn in my head. It is that thing you know you should be doing, but keep finding other stuff to do instead. I do want to finish it soon, if for no other reason than to be able to shop it and get rejected. I've considered posting sections of it here to drum up interest from others, which would be more motivation to finish it.

It looks like we are going to buy this townhouse. We had another walkthrough today and the guy had taken care of all the stuff that we wanted fixed. I was pleasantly surprised. I think we sign the loan docs tomorrow and will probably close soon after that. We need to do some work, so we won't be moving in right away. We need to strip off the wallpaper, refinish the floors, things like that.

So, here is a brief, shallow, content-lite update for just the news page. Enjoy...and post in the forum if you don't like it.

-Travis