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| | Wedding invites are out and we re already getting RSVPs... so that s cool. I ve had a couple of people ask about where we are registered. I was talking to Dover about how this kind of information is supposed to be dissemitated... he said word of mouth (we both agreed adding a note in the invitation would be in bad taste and would really make it seem like fishing for gifts). The problem is word of mouth doesn t work for me... I don t talk to any of my friends... its the 21st century, verbal communication is all but obsolete... so I m putting it here in the blog.
It may be tacky... it may sound like I m angling for gifts... but really, I m just trying to be helpful in getting the word out. We re registered at:
Bon Ton
Pier 1
one other I can t remember... JC Penny I think.
I m thinking about making an Amazon wish list as well (although Kristyn frowned on the idea)... I ll let everyone know about that one.
So, for those of you planning on attending the big day (and if you re reading this, hopefully, chances are you are) there ya go.
Look for a Wish List update in the next couple days... the more I think about the more I m liking that idea.
-bampf | | |
Kristyn just got a new pair of glasses. Normally she wears contacts and hated her previous glasses. She loves her new glasses and wears them a lot.
Now here s the thing... I ve always had a major glasses obsession. I really think they re incredibly sexy (ironic that nearly every serious girlfriend I ever had wore contacts). I think she looks fantastic in her new glasses but Kristyn was convinced that I was the only male on the planet who thought this way. However, she has gotten a ton of attention from the opposite sex (moreso than usual it seems) with her new four-eyed look.
Tell me I m not the only one who goes for glasses. Back me up here. Somebody. I guess the theory goes glasses = smart = sexy. Right?
-bampf | | | I think we re hitting the wedding home stretch. Ten weeks. That s it. Invitations are going out as I type. Most everything is set. Tux measurements are in. Crazy.
The realization is really starting to sink in and quite frankly I m getting really excited about it. No reservations. No worries. I m thinking it may actually be a fun day.
I m excited to have all my friends together in one place. High school friends, college friends, Jersey friends, Guild friends, D&D friends, Argent Lupe friends, ex-co-worker friends, everyone. That in and of itself is pretty sweet.
Gee... I hope Kristyn doesn t expect me to pay attention to her when I have all these buddies to hang out with...
-bampf | | | For the estute in the crowd you may notice the messed up dates on the last couple of entries. Some time today there was a catestrophic loss of data at my website host s servers. They claim it was some sort of hacker attack. I figure it was just as likely a virus... as all my files were deleted... every last one. However the directory structure remained intact. Strange huh? Sounds like some sort of script written to traverse directory trees and delete everything it finds. Just plain malicious.
My hosting service (iGluon.com) restored the site from a weekly back-up, but I lost everything from last Friday or Saturday till now. So I ve had to peice the last two entries together from my IE cache. Pain in the arse, but I was happy I was able to rescue them... didn t want to loose the Albums list or have to retype it. I ll have to try to peice everybody s comments back in as well.
Fun fun.
Aren t the perils of the world wide web exciting? Just when you thought you were immune, those feelings of invulnerability come crashing down in a splendid pyrotechnic display.
-bampf | | | Bp made one of these lists a while back and I promised to follow suit. Finally getting around to it.
I should preface this a bit though with my music listening history. I was weaned on country music and it took me a while to shrug off those influences (although I ll always have a soft spot for classic country - Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash and the like). I never was a big fan of 80s music... I mean I sung along to the one hit wonders, but as a rule abhorred the glam hair bands. I dabbled in numerous disparate genres (from early rap to classical/opera) but it wasn t till the early 90s and the Seattle scene that I really found music that I felt spoke to me.
Since then my tastes have gotten even more eclectic. The grunge sound will always have a place in my heart but my current tastes typically fall in three vague categories depending on my mood: harder aggressive stuff (Tool, Disturbed, Ministry etc), geek rock (the kings of surreal lyrics and brilliant word plays... TMBG, Cake, BNL) and Electronica (Crystal Method, Oakenfeld, Aphex Twin).
I rarely buy albums any more and typically only download singles. So my favorite albums list won t have much in the way of recent works. I decided to allow soundtracks (just because excluding Conan would be a crime) but not compilations and that I should set a cap of one album per artist (otherwise a top ten list would be dominated by Pearl Jam and TMBG entries). I wanted to list only albums that are consistently good throughout the whole album not just albums with 2 or 3 great singles (thereby quite a few of my favorite artists are omitted).
So here s my list. Consume at yer leisure.
12. Weird Al Yankovich - Dare to Be Stupid
11. Moby - Animal Rights
10. Cake - Fashion Nugget
9. The Crystal Method - Vegas
8. Pi Soundtrack
7. Black 47 - Fire of Freedom
6. Nirvana - Nevermind
5. Matrix Soundtrack
4. Conan the Barbarian Soundtrack
3. Tool - Undertow
2. They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18
1. Pearl Jam - Ten
-bampf | | | During my Friday commute my car hit the 50,000 mile mark (I bought it new about 22 months ago, you can do the math to reveal my driving habits) signifying the expiration of my warranty. Friday after work Kristyn and I drove back to Shippensburg for more wedding preparations. I was convinced that my car would suffer some sort of catostrophic engine failure en route, but surprisingly all was well. Sweet. I m happy to report it s still running smoothly even after the return trip.
Of course, by mentioning this at all I ve invariably jinxed myself... oh well getting stranded in Philly could provide quite an adventure... wouldn t be the first time it happened (see the Chad and Jeremy car jinx in my 4/2/03 post). | | | A great article from ArabNews (the same guys who kept repeating the Iraqi Information Minister s claims that the coalition was never more than a few moments away from total annihilation by the righteous fury of the Iraqi people), not only is it historic, but it ties in with my previous post so well, I thought it was worth reproducing in full...
Exclusive: ‘Saddam Did Not Fall Alone’
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, Editor in Chief, Asharq Al-Awsat
LONDON, 10 April 2003 — Saddam Hussein didn’t fall alone yesterday. Along with him, more important things fell. The big lies that accompanied him and glorified him and cheered him fell. The minds that refused to refer to today’s truths and yesterday’s history and spoke for the Iraqi people falsely fell as well. In front of the whole world, the Iraqis clinched the truth themselves in their own capital Baghdad — about which it was said that if Basra was a passing city that cheered for the American and British soldiers, the capital would be the stronghold of the invincible regime.
That is exactly why yesterday’s news shocked the Arabs more than the rest of the world. It shocked the Arabs from the utmost east in Kuwait to the utmost west in Morocco, and in all the cities in between.
This is where the people had not been sleeping because of the demonstrations that were taking place continuously, led by people thinking that they were defending the Iraqi people whereas in fact they were defending Saddam himself.
The news shocked the people of Cairo, where the fundamentalists, nationalists, leftists and the deceived headed numerous campaigns to declare their preparedness to defend Saddam’s Iraq.
But by yesterday morning, the TV stations — including that advocated the campaign to defend Saddam and his regime — didn’t succeed in hiding the images of the happy people celebrating in the capital.
That’s why yesterdays’ images, in which the people of Baghdad tore down their dictator’s pictures and pissed on them, overthrew the biggest lie in the contemporary history of the Arabic world.
And I say with confidence that the collapse of Saddam and his regime was not an important event itself, because it was bound to fall sooner or later, caused either by the Americans and British missiles or by the Iraqis’ swords; but the real event was challenging Arab political and cultural certainties. This was one of the rare times that they were examined and then disappeared into thin air. The same media succeeded in ignoring what had happened in Basra and had described the rejoicing there as a matter of depredation.
However, the picture was much bigger in the capital and it was not possible to conceal the truth, which was apparent to the whole world.
The populist rejoicing in the capital over Saddam’s overthrow ridiculed the Arab regimes, which have been lying in the name of the people for 50 or more years.
Until the last minute last night, the Arabic media kept whipping up stories about invading forces going after the Iraqis, the Arabs and even Arabic journalists. One of the correspondents there shouted saying that the American Army was targeting the Arab journalists to silence them after the killing of one of the TV journalists in Palestine Hotel. Apart from the fact that it was a sad story, its cause was incomplete for the Arab viewers. They were not told that only one Arabic journalist was killed but that 10 other Western journalists were also killed, some of them belonging to the countries of the coalition forces.
This war divided the Arabs into two categories.
The first pretended that the war was a battle of sovereignty, dignity and conspiracy. The other remained silent, especially the Iraqis themselves.
They are exiled or oppressed within the country. The latter knew that it was a war of liberation, or at least a war to dispose of a corrupt regime the same way it came to power — by force.
Good stuff. In yer face mullahs and imams!
-b | | | So Iraqis are chanting "George Bush Thank You" in the streets of Baghdad, meanwhile they re burning effigies of ole W in Syria, Indonesia, et al. Why are these people so stupid? Have they been that brainwashed by the Islamic radicals? I mean they re seeing the same images on TV that we do, not even Al Jazeera could make this one look like the allies are the bad guys. These people are just dumb and ignorant.
Y know, the troops are there... we have the momentum... Syria s pissing us off... I say we set another example.
-bampf | | | Seriously. Why the hell is it snowing? I was out mowing the lawn yesterday in shorts and a T-shirt. Incredible.
This will probably kill my flowers, too. Yeah, I have flowers... I guess. Well, there are flowers planted in beds around the perimeter of the house and back yard. I didn t plant em-- they came with the house, but the lawn is my domain so I guess that makes em my flowers. And now they ll freeze to death. Pity.
-bampf | | | Starting the 20th The Family Guy is coming to Cartoon Network! YES!
Words cannot express my elation! Kick-ass! Now if only they d dump Futurama and Ripping Friends from the Adult Swim line-up the world we be a place of consumate bliss!
-b | | | Another tangential list as a follow-up to the last one. Favorite college memories. There were a bunch of us, at one point collectively dubbed 'Da Family' by bp, who hung out together. We never took any interest in the abhorrent typical college social scene and instead went to great lengths to amuse ourselves in other, non-traditional, manners. Here s a sampling of some favorites:
Bloody Apple The Bloody Apple Incident. To this day I may have never laughed so hard. grm hollowed out a cafeteria apple and filled it with fake blood (using Penn & Teller s recipe) and then threw it at the dorm room door of the aforementioned Silly Dork Boy (needless to say, none of us really liked him). The effect was amazing. The splatter pattern of the glistening blood and the small white hunks of apple created a very convincing gunshot-to-the-head-suicide scene. Hysterical.
Trip to PSU This was a fun trip. A Society of Physics Students trip to go hang out with other physics geeks. We had a blast. Highlighted by a daring Ball rescue, insulting of Indian icons (as in India, not injuns), and Chad getting a parking ticket that he has yet to pay to this day.
Liquid Nitrogen Talk about physics phun! Liquid nitrogen dissipates quickly so once a semester s super-conductor labs were finished the physics geeks had free reign on what was left. We did all kinds of crazy crap. We d freeze and shatter anything we could get our hands on. We made liquid nitrogen bombs. We made liquid nitrogen cannons. We made liquid nitrogen depth charges for in the fountain outside Masters Hall (the physics building). Even after a bomb went off in my hand (very painful) we still didn t let up on the liquid nitrogen games!
How not to get laid This story really just serves as a testement to our profound geekness. One dull Friday night for lack of anything better to do, we all ended up outside Masters Hall, writing physics equations in the snow using plastic telescoping light sabers (yes, this was our idea of a good time). So, all of this was happening when a couple of the ubiquitous really really hot gburg chicks walked by. At this point I made my now infamous statement, "And that s how not to get laid".
Immanuel Kant Not only did we not mind be labeled as freakish outcasts, we often reveled in it. It was not uncommon for us to boisterously sing Monty Python songs as we traipsed across campus, the Bruce s Philosophy Song (aka Immanuel Kant) was a favorite.
Doom There s a reason Doom rated as my all time favorite video game. We played it obsessively. My entire sophomore year was devoted to the game. When we weren t playing we were watching some one else play. Sad but true. Playing multiplayer was the be all and end all of existence. We d play with our phones tied to our heads so we could communicate with teammates... it was bliss.
Rio The Rio was a giant mall thing in nearby MD with a huge mother of all arcades. grm had a friend who worked there and she would hook us up with free tokens. That rocked. The Rio was also the site of the MotorError incident, where I punched a Super Blast Machine so hard it stopped functioning and displayed only MOTOR ERROR on its screen (for those not familiar with the game, it s an arcade game where you actually punch a pressure sensitive paddle... don t want people to thing I was just randomly assaulting video games).
Slurpees 'SLURPEE!' was our battle cry! We made countless walks to the 7-11 on the edge of campus for a late night Slurpee fix. Truly though the Slurpee runs were really just an excuse to get everybody to stop what they were doing and hang out.
Ball and clock faces Chad and I both carried rubber field hockey/lacrosse practice balls that could often be found lying around campus (we typically named them Ball, Ball II, Ball III etc). We just absent mindedly bounce them off of whatever was nearby as we traversed the campus. One night we took turns throwing our balls at the clock face atop Glatfelter Hall (a true campus icon), a daunting task to say the least, but with some practice we were both able score multiple hits.
D&D There were many prolonged Dungeons and Dragons sessions as grm ran his meticulously constructed campaign over the course of a couple years. When we weren t able to reserve meeting rooms or conference rooms we cramped 7 or 8 of us into limited dorm space. Twas glorious. I won t soon forget the exploits of Trisis Thuul.
Gettysburgian grm and I were able to procure cartooning jobs with the Gettysburgian school newspaper. They were supposed to be paid jobs, but we never saw a dime from it. Not that we minded. We were able to mock the general college populace on numerous occasions, and that was reward enough for us.
Taco Bell We made constant road trips. We d drive just about anywhere. Especially if there was a Taco Bell nearby... Hanover, Camp Hill, Hagerstown... the location wasn t nearly as important as the experience getting there and the sweet sweet grade D meat that greeted us when we arrived.
Ice Field During my college years central PA was beset by a couple of monumental blizzards. One of which transformed a giant field behind our dorm into a snow glazed sheet of ice. We would make near nightly treks across the ice field to play in the snow mounds in the adjoining strip mall parking lot. That rocked!
The Search for LDS The aforementioned strip mall contained a West Coast Video which served as an excuse for many walks to the mall (and across the ice field). Each trip culminated with a visit to the '18 and over' section to seek out and rent Long Dan Silver, which was rented every single time we visited. The term Long Dan Silver (or LDS) eventually became part of our shared vernacular and even became a unit of measure (incidentally, 1 LDS = roughly 18 inches).
Moving that scumbag s car There was a group a pseudo-goth, pseudo-punk, scumbags who lived in our dorm. One day they moved our buddy s motorcycle to the front of a parking space so they could park their boat in the space as well. We took great offense to that and proceeded to pick up the car by the rear fender and awkwardly wheel it into the handicap zone. Now mind you this was a whale of a car, Ford LTD or similar. It took a concerted effort by 4 or 5 of us to accomplish this feat, but it was definitely worth it.
Battlefield Excursions Our beloved bp was keen on leading us on frolicking adventures through various parts of the Gettysburg landscape... drainage ditches, sewer lines, railways, and of course the battlefields! Dodging park rangers all the while, we slept out on the battlefields a couple times (each time swearing it was the stupidest thing we d ever done only to return the following semester).
Warhammer My Games Workshop obsession was born innocently enough one summer at college. In those early days we mark the playing area on the floor with duct tape, use books and soda cans as terrain... we were the kings of improvisation, but we had a blast doing it... well, except for the time Limey squirted super glue onto his cornea... that kinda sucked.
WBZT Throughout our time at gburg we managed to do a number of radio shows for our college radio station. Chad and I even had our own weekly Sunday Sports Talk show, which featured such memorable moments as: me endorsing the assassination of JFK, denouncing of gays and lesbians in sports, and a surprise interview with The Undertaker. Good stuff. That and we managed to play Monty Python s Penis Song sans censorship.
Scavenger Hunt Once semester we split into two teams and had Chad devise a scavenger hunt list, that included an assorted array of items: Boo Berry Cereal, Street Signs, a police officer s signature and badge number on a Dunkin Donuts napkin, a magnetic mono-pole and scores of other completely random flotsam.
Well, that s the stuff that really comes to mind. There was lots more that I could mention ("We re going on a trip") but won t. Looking back introspectively, I can honestly say we were some really strange people.
I m OK with that, though.
-bampf |
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