Trog's Friends

Kwak Rebooted
Suppose I should use this thing again at some point.

Everything is lined up for attending the Siebel Institute's diploma program in February and the five-week stint in Munich: passport, tuition, somebody to watch the dog, and so forth. Really excited about it, and I can't wait until February. :)

I'll also be going to MAGFest as per usual over NYE weekend. I even found a way to transport homebrew there for people to try! So it'll be a long weekend of hanging out with friends I only see once a year or so, drinking, seeing concerts and playing video games. It's not terribly cheap to go, between admission, flight and splitting a hotel room, but it's always well worth the cost.

Christmas was... okay. ( Warning: Theo drama ahead. )

Speaking of homebrewing, I've still been busy on that front. ( Read more... )

I finished the Harry Potter series a few weeks ago, and although I think it had some stumbles here and there, it was quite good overall. As much of a "high" literature nerd as I often am, Harry Potter is just plain fun and addictive to read. There was some definite fridge logic in there, though, especially toward the end of the series, and certain things just didn't work in my opinion. Still, it was definitely worth reading, and I got into it enough that I finished books 6 and 7 in two days each. :) I've also finished Garrett Oliver's book on pairing beer with food, and am now back to reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer.

I saw the new Star Trek movie not too long ago, and although I generally had fun there's a lot about it that bothered me. The biggest thing is Kirk basically being a spoiled child and still getting everything handed to him on a silver platter. Hell, in the original Trek movies he got bumped down from admiral to captain for insubordination, which despite the "you're better as a captain" aspect is still pretty serious; in the movie, Kirk blatantly cheats at the Kobayashi Maru test, sneaks aboard a starship, and effectively mutinies against Spock... and gets the rank of captain and command of a starship just handed to him. That, combined with his general attitude throughout the movie, just rubbed me the wrong way. Shatner Kirk may be full of himself, but at least knows how to be a professional officer; New Kirk is just a pompous brat. The incessant references to original Trek got grating after a while too, and the "alternate timeline" thing just kind of made me groan. The scoring was rather clunky too. Still, it was at least fun to watch once, especially for things like Simon Pegg playing Montgomery Scott.

A few weeks ago, my mom took me, my sister and her husband to Star Wars in Concert, a live orchestral performance of some of the most famous music from the series. It was a big bit of nostalgia for all of us, since my sister and I grew up with the movies and my mom liked them too. The video accompanying the music and C3PO's original actor narrating the concert were definitely kid-oriented, but the actual performance was phenomenal. Hearing the Imperial March played live was just spine-chilling (and also kind of hilarious, since my sister actually destroyed my mom's old stereo replaying it over and over when we were kids). A week after that, Original Sound Version sent me to write an article on the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy performance in Chicago. It wasn't as good as the Star Wars one, but was still fun to see, considering I spent way too much time in high school and college playing the games. It mostly concentrated on the later games (FF8 and forward), though, which was disappointing to me, especially since it was much more even-handed the last time it came through town. The article is here if you want to read it.

Work is about the usual, Waldo is doing well, and life is generally okay, though I've been kind of mooody lately. Eh, so it goes.

Will probably post the usual New Year's spiel once I get back from MAGFest, but most of my resolutions are continuing processes or life goals that I've already been working on. A "decade in review" might be interesting to do, though.

Advertisement