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Just five more days. I ve only got 2 1/2 more work days. Man.
Right up front I m gonna say sorry that the blog is gonna be pretty much taken over with wedding thoughts (if ya hadn t noticed already)... I figure it s unavoidable... this is a pretty big deal in the bampf life line.
Still no nervousness... just a steadily growing excitement. Should be a really wondrous time.
I also wanted to make an announcement about the reception. For all those reading who will be attending the event: the open bars are not consumption bars (meaning we don t get charged per drink or per bottle), we ve paid a flat fee. I m usually not one to endorse wholesale alcoholic excesses but what this means to you guys is that the more you drink the less we pay per drink. That s right, the more you drink the better deal we get... so... have at it!! Feel free to imbibe with impunity!
There I said it. I may be inviting disaster but hey, that s all right as long as everyone has a good time.
-bampf |
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The countdown moves inexorably closer. We re still in a state of disbelief.
Six days. Wow.
-bampf |
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Yeah the countdown is really heating up. Not a day goes by when Kristyn and I don t express our disbelief about how soon the wedding is. These last couple months just absolutely flew by. Now keep in mind the early stages of the wedding plans began about 20 months ago. So the wedding was always in the distant future... now we re a day away from single digits. It s crazy.
Fortunately there hasn t been any anxiety as far as cold feet goes... the only anxiety at all has been in planning and Kristyn and her mom have been the recipients of the lion s share of that. Her mom has been labeled Ms. Anal Retentive by the hotel staff... she has shown up with an entire book of plans and details, including fully rendered maps and diagrams. She s been frantic about every detail (I m sure the hotel people love that).
The end result of all this should be an absolutely immaculate wedding. Too bad I ll probably be too dazed to notice.
I ve committed to being a complete wreck for the whole event. Not that I have any reservations about being married (far from it in fact), I ll just be nervous and overly emotional (I m just a big girl). I always cry at weddings so I figure I ll be wailing like a little bitch with a skinned knee for most of the ceremony (and there s nothing worse than watchin a fuckin fat man weep).
Oh well. I yam what I yam. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the pathetic show.
-b |
| 6/23/2003 2:04:07 PM A Matter of Personal Preference | Comments (6) |
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I assume when faced with the proposition of visiting a salon and then getting beat on repeatedly with a stick most people would embrace the former and dread the latter.
Well, certainly not I.
Saturday I had my offical 'wedding hair' appointment. At a real salon. I was overcome with forboding as I anticipated a lot of flamboyantly gay 'stylists' with lisps and names like Guy and Jean-Paul. The place wasn t nearly that bad. Upon my entrace to the Sagitarius Salon it was clear that I was an outsider... a stranger in a strange land, but Kristyn and her mom are regulars there so I was given a temporary writ of passage. There was one other male amongst the several dozen people in the building and he was sporting kind of strange 80s glam rock mullet... shudder. After a long period of awkwardness in the waiting area (I could feel the unwelcome stares) I had my hair cut by Kristyn s favorite stylist. I must admit she was amazing. Her skill with a pair of scissors was awe-inspiring. I swear she addressed individual hairs with laser precision as her scissors danced about my head at incomprehensible speeds (I swear I glimpsed plaid at least twice as she flirted with Ludicrous Speed). The end result was very impressive... her magically enchanted scissors even managed to make my giant block almost appear round... how s that for a miraculous feat (I figure if I go back a couple of times she could become eligible for canonization). After tip the haircut ran about $25 which betters the total I ve spent on hair care in the last three years combined, but I guess it was worth it... I mean it is my wedding.
Sunday was the day of the aforementioned stick beatings, as we had an SCA meeting. After some boring political stuff we had a prolonged fighter practice. It was my first time in armour in quite some time. It was a good time. I smashed some people and was smashed myself. I messed up my shoulder lifting so my range and selection of weapons was limited but I still made a good showing for myself. I ended the day with a number of bruises and the mother of all welts on my side... a nasty bruise/blood blister/abrasion combo that was hideous enough to scare off small children. Nice. War wounds are cool. Strangley the ugly side wound doesn t hurt nearly as much as my bruised pinky finger. Go figure.
So that was my weekend. Hope everyone else s was as eventful.
-bampf
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Maybe there is some justice in this world after all. Finally, Bubba-Hotep has got a distributor! Yee HA! About damn time. Glad to see that not all original ideas in Hollywood get immediately shit-canned (not all, just most). Anyway, details:
Bubba Hotep
Should make the Wanderer happy too, we ve both been clamboring for this film for nearly a year.
-b |
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OK, I promised this list a couple days ago, then lost it half way through completion and had to recreate it. Anyway, it s my favorite singles. Songs that I can listen to over and over without tiring of them. In many cases they re one hot wonders and I couldn t name a second song by the artist. For others it s only one of a countless songs that I love (I limited it to one song per artist to avoid glutting the list with TMBG and such). I know I m forgetting some really great songs, but that happens. Without further ado, and in no particular order at all:
"She's an Angel" They Might Be Giants
"Black" Pearl Jam
"Losing My Religion" R.E.M.
"Rooster" Alice in Chains
"One Week" Bare Naked Ladies
"Blister in the Sun" Violent Femmes
"Closer" Nine Inch Nails
"O Fortuna" Carmina Burana, Karl Orf
"Trip Like I Do" The Crystal Method
"What's Up" 4 Non-Blondes
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" Nirvana
"Battle on the Mound" Basil Poledouris
"You Can Call Me Al" Paul Simon
"Black Hole Sun" Soundgarden
"Bruces' Philosophy Song" Monty Python
"James Conolley" Black 47
"Ride of the Valkyries" Die Walkure, Richard Wagner
"Mr. Mastadon Farm" Cake
"Plush" Stone Temple Pilots
"El Paso" Marty Robbins
"Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" Tom Lehrer
"Shame" Stabbing Westward
"Once in a Lifetime" Talking Heads
"Angel" Massive Attack
"Wake Up" Rage Against the Machine
"Voodoo" Godsmack
"Theives" Ministry
"Damn Blue Collared Tweekers" Primus
"Creep" Radiohead
"Shoots and Ladders" KoRn
"Paul Revere" Beastie Boys
"That's When I Reach for My Revolver" Moby
"Human Behavior" Bjork
"Hunger Strike" Temple of the Dog
"Beautiful People" Marilyn Manson
"Hey Man, Nice Shot" Filter
"Kathy's Song" Apoptygma Berzerk
"Under the Bridge" Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Down With the Sickness" Disturbed
"Freshmen" Verve Pipe
"The Gambler" Kenny Rogers
"I Walk the Line" Johnny Cash
"Hotel California" Eagles
"Take on Me" A-Ha
"This is Your Life" Dust Brothers
"Judith" Perfect Circle
"We Didn't Start the Fire" Billy Joel
"Du Hast" Rammstein
"You Ain't A Man" Mucka Ferguson
"Firestarter" The Prodigy
"Wicked Game" Chris Isaac
"Sober" Tool
"Sadness" Enigma
"Song 2" Blur
"Higher" Creed
"When Doves Cry" Prince
"Fire Water Burn" Bloodhound Gang
"Bitchin Camaro" Dead Milkmen
"Loser" Beck
"Weapon of Choice" Fatboy Slim
"Fight the Power" Public Enemy
"Today" Smashing Pumpkins
There ya go. You can refer back to my favorite albums list for further insight into my musical tastes if you feel so inclined.
-b |
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Had an eventful, but near sleepless weekend. Rich and Christine paid a visit Friday in preparation for the Philly Grand Tournament. Consequently I was up past 5 am helping Rich paint and prepare his army for the following day. All in a day s work. It was nice to pick up a brush again, though. Glad to see I haven t forgotten how to paint.
Saturday was a family outting with Kristyn s folks after a groggy drive from Philly. As usual, Kristyn s mom and I cowered in a corner basking in our introversion.
Sunday was spent at the Guild, roleplaying for nearly 10 consecutive hours. Good stuff. While planning the session, I had mused with Svengar about how in our youth entire weekends would regularly be devoted to non-stop gaming. I recall weekends where a group of us would garner maybe 3 or 4 hours sleep between 30-40 hours of D&D, Risk, Axis & Allies or some Nintendo game du jour. Fueled by surpluses of Mt Dew and cheap-ass frozen pizzas, we were machines.
After Sunday s session, I was able to hang out at Angies with the Doyles, TB and Scheaf, so that was cool, despite not arriving home til after 1:30 am for my troubles.
Damn, I miss Angies. May be my fondest memories of my time living in the Hbg area. Countless zingos and an infinite number of coffee refills with good friends... musing over mind numbingly disparate topics from the grandly profound to the pathetically trivial. Ah... Angies.
Well, enough musing for now. I m working on a new list (you need to occupy your mind on boring turnpike trips somehow) that I ll hopefully unveil in the next day or two... you ll have to wait to find out the topic... the suspense is palpable isn t it?
-b |
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I guess summer is finally here. The three month long torrential down pour subsided a couple of times this past week long enough to notice the nasty heat and humidity. Signs of things to come. Although there was an impressive storm last night. A massive thunderstorm crashed all around me as I drove home from the gym last night... dozens of lightning strikes within a mile or so of me. One struck a traffic light just minutes before I arrived at its intersection (causing some lovely standstill traffic as motorists sat stationary, unable to comprehend safe traffic patterns without a functioning light... have we become complete automotons incapable of non-Pavlovian action?). In any case, mankind s stupidity allowed me to just sit in my car- listening to the pounding rain and thunderclaps as the lightning lit up the sky. It was pretty damn cool.
Unrelated, but something else I wanted to bring up... I was reading an article on MSNBC on Egypt banning Matrix Reoaded. Here are some excerpts from the article:
“Islam rejects presenting God in human form,” and the movie shows a character who portrays the creator carrying on an extended conversation with the star of the movie.
Therefore, the creator is given human characteristics, if only a voice, he said. “Most (censors) are of the opinion they don’t want to allow the kind of movie which touches on creator and creation. They felt that a movie portraying God in human form or voice would be destructive to moviegoers. ”
Although he is personally against banning the movie, Kassem says the vast majority of viewers are uneducated people who uncritically accept what they see.
But not everybody is upset about being denied the right to see the blockbuster. Maged Helmy, a father of teenage boys, applauds the ban.
“We are trying to raise our kids according to certain rules and traditions, and probably these kind of movies are giving them corrupt ideas.”
So they re saying most Egyptian moviegoers can easily be convinced that the matrix is real and we re all slaves to a machine-god. Some of these statements are near impossible to comprehend given the age we live in. This is the 21st century right? Wow. So what they re saying is the populace of Egypt (and probably most other arab nations) has no fucking clue about anything whatsoever. Wow.
-bampf |
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A good day at the Onion. Be sure to check it out... a new Smoove B article and in the AV Club a spot-on review of Gigantic: a Tale of Two Johns, the TMBG documentary currently making its rounds in art house theatres (it opens July 2 at the Prince Theatre in Philly for those who may be interested... I ll be there).
Peas will also be served.
Today is the beginning of Toilet Seat Up Week III as Kristyn heads back to Shippensburg after her last final to work on the finishing touches for the wedding. It ll actually be a week and a half. Cool. I can finally use my PC again, as Kristyn has been monopolizing it for weeks as she attended to the flood of end-o-term papers and assignments.
-bampf |
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First off, we all survived Guild Con. I can t say it was a smashing success. We had a couple hundred in attendence, but the numbers (and sales) were a fraction of what we saw the past two birthday parties held at the store. It was a good experience though and considering it was our first attempt at something like this I think everything went well. I m sure attendence next your will be exponentially better as word of mouth spreads... the first one is always the toughest.
I was running games pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. I ran the Dungeon Crawl... we created a dungeon using the amazing Dwarven Forge Master Maze dungeon peices and then had gamers take D&D characters through the dungeon hacking and slashing through hordes of creatures. We filled the maze with stagnant overstock miniatures and let the players keep any minis they killed. I deviced monsters, random encounters/events, traps etc and basically let the player fight til they died. I had three or four people say it was the best event at the Con. Cool. It was fun too. Tiring though.
Biggest snafu of the weekend was when the shelves containing most of our Warhammer product toppled just as we finished setting it up... nearly crushing one of our helpers with several hundred pounds of wood shelving and pewter minis. Other than that things went quite well, we had lots of volunteer help to pack/load/unload/setup/tear-down/re-load/re-unload/unpack when needed. And it was a pretty daunting task too, as we basically transplanted the entire store for the weekend. I foresee more events like this in the future.
In completely unrelated news, Kristyn and I went and got our marriage license this morning before work. The wedding is now impossibly close. Less than a month. Wow. We re both getting really excited. There s so much anticipation and so much build up to this one day, it s really hard to describe the emotions. It s nigh overwhelming.
Well, anyway, before I go, one other note... new poll concerning the AFI heroes/villians list that was exhaustively debated at length last week. Go vote. It ll make you cool.
-bampf |
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Big to do this weekend. The Guild s 4th Birthday and the first annual Guild Con to celebrate. Should be an intense two day orgy of games, gaming and stinky gamers! Yee HAH! Don t know about you guys, but I m pumped.
Seriously, though it should be pretty sweet. Hopefully attendance will at least match past birthday bashes which have always been extravaganzas. I m just excited to be able to revert to gamer geek mode... a rare occurence since my Philly move.
Hope everyone else has an equally exciting weekend.
-b |
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So AFI has given us another list of 100 Greatest... this time greatest heroes and villians. The list itself is nauseatingly PC. A couple of blatant affronts: Man listed as one of the greatest villians, Erin Brockovic not only making the hero list but being ranked a couple dozen slots ahead of Moses, Ripley and Thelma & Louis included to buffer their female quota...
I could go on, the list is truly despicable.
There are some decent choices- Indiana Jones, Rocky, Spartacus, Han Solo for heroes and villians- Vader, Hanibal Lector, Hans Gruber, the Queen from Sleeping Beauty (damn, did she ever scare the shit out of me when I was a kid), and it s cool that the Terminator made both lists.
Other choices seem completely random- Cool Hand Luke? Wasn t he an anti-hero protagonist? Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange ranked #12 villian... it s clear they missed the whole point of that film (same could be said about Travis Bickle s inclusion from Taxi Driver).
Obviously their definition of hero (and villian) is pretty ambiguous. So I challenge everyone to compile their own list of top 10 heroes and villians of film (or 20 if you prefer) to see if we can get a definitive list devoid of sycophantic kowtowing to political climates.
I ll be checking the comments section as I work on my own lists.
-bampf |
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A new edition to the coveted list of BampfBlog(tm) BlogFriends. Introducing: The BUG!!!
Hard core gamers like grm may actually get the obscure reference. For everyone else... gonna have to die wondering.
On other BlogFriend fronts, KBN has promised some further activity on the Klog as he has life altering news to deliver to the masses (no he s not coming out of the closet... he likes it in there).
TheRupps.net appears to be dead for good. RIP. Although his code will live on, reborn (and heavily re-worked) like the Phoenix in the soon to be unveiled Guild forum.
T-minus 1 month and 1 day till wedlock. And I m not just talking about wedlock in a Rutger Hauer way. Exciting shite.
-bampf |
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Not surprisingly, PA s endless string of rained out weekends continued on Sunday, so there were no Phils to be had. We went to the park and tried to wait out the rain, but to no avail.
So the Phils game outting turned into an impromtu Atlantic City trip. AC on Saturday night is pretty crazy. Playing table games means fighting crowds and exorbitant minimum bids, so Kristyn and I just dropped some cash to the slots.
We did however, get to have a gyro from Bill s Gyros... an old tradition that fell by the wayside a number of years back. Damn fine gyro.
-b |