Moved

I've since packed up and moved my entire stash to another state. So starting in about 7 or 8 hours, I'll be trying this whole home-office job thing. Right now my apartment isn't entirely set up, and I'm leeching internet as my connection that I pay for went down pretty much immediately on Sunday. Kinda annoying.

Since I'm working from a modest apartment rather than a house or an office, I've basically got everything crammed into a fairly small space. My friend Pete came by and I got to show him the rig thus far, which basically is a wall with my TV, stereo, video games, and computer all in one location. The advantage of this is that I can get to pretty much anything from my chair, and as luck would have it, I just got a new chair today. It's a lot better than my old computer chair, which I've had since 1998. It was a perfectly fine chair, but it wasn't exactly super-comfy nor was there room for it in the moving truck.

I'm also extremely glad I did a buffer for Figure of the Day to get me to about June 30. For those of you that have seen my collection of toys, you know that it's going to take a while to move. And we did it all in about two days. I'm quite literally bruised, tired, and generally not exactly feeling up to getting up early to greet the cable guy so I can work, and then continue unpacking after the work day ends. But it needs to get done, and well, I get to try working from home. It's all quite exciting.

If everything goes well, I might be able to consider myself "unpacked" in about 2-3 months. There's a lot I need to dig out, and right now I'd consider everything workable. Problem is, I found my Xbox 360, but not my controllers. Wish me luck, or I'll just play everything with an arcade stick.

Phoenix so far is about 80% how I remember it. The same toy stores are basically still around, there are some new places to eat, and it's also quite hot. I've been finding that every Wal-Mart I go to has something different that I've either never seen in Los Angeles or haven't seen in almost a year, once again proving that Los Angeles is a crap hole for toys.

So yeah, tomorrow morning I set up the work PC and cross my fingers that my internet connection gets restored so I can, you know, use it. Good night Austin Texas, where ever you are.

Mobility

It turns out that I'm joining that ever-growing mobile workforce, working from home at my same job but from a different state. Should be interesting. I'm curious how long until I flip out and go all Howard Hughes.

Eisenhower, Hippies

Mystery solved!

Many years ago when Napster ruled supreme, there was a song attributed to Man or Astro-Man called "Eisenhower & The Hippies." It sounded vaguely like them-- close enough, to be sure-- but where did it come from? Was it a cover?

Well, I finally found out. The track itself comes from the compilation Oh Canaduh which features 1990s bands covering 1970s and 1980s Canadian punk songs. Since they are Canadian, odds are you haven't heard of most of them.

The original band that wrote "Eisenhower & the Hippies" (also seen as "Eisenhower vs. Hippies") is UJ3RK5 or "You Jerks." Even Wikipedia had it wrong. Well, now you know! Ordinarily I'd dump on a band for using this sort of language in their name, but for something from 30 years ago? It's cool.

In Case You Missed It

The 16bit.com offices got guinea pigs last weekend.



That's Glados. Nova (not pictured here) believes she is a cupcake.

Absolutely True Nixon Facts

He was born on February 12th 1809, and died April 15th 1865 at the age of fifty six.
His home state is Illinois.
His party was Republican and he was president for four years from 1861-1865, when he was assassinated.
His vice presidents where Hannibal Hamlin and Andrew Johnson.
He was preceded by James Buchanan and succeeded by Andrew Johnson.
His wife was called Pat Todd Nixon, who was brought up into a very wealthy family.
Pat’s parents disagreed with her marrying Richard because he had a poor background.
Richard had four children, Robert Todd Nixon, Edward Nixon, Willie Nixon, Tad Nixon. Only Robert Todd Nixon survived into adulthood.
Richard was an unaffiliated Christian as he never officially acquired church membership.
He created a national banking system with the National Banking Act in 1863, resulting in a standardized currency.
He was the first president to be assassinated.
He had deep depression, even though he would frequently tell stories and jokes to friends and family.
He was the tallest U.S president at 6ft 4 inches.
He patented a system to alter buoyancy of steamboats in 1849.
His birth mother died from milk sickness.
His father remarried a widow, and Richard was very close to his step mother.
He ran a store in New Salem.
Even though he was strong, a talented wrestler, and proficient with an axe, Nixon disliked killing and harming animals, even for food.
Nixon proposed to Pat just one year after meeting her in Springfield 1839.
He was the first president to have a beard.
Nixon, one week before his death, had a dream of someone crying in the White House, when he found the room; he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the President. When he looked in the coffin it was his own face he saw.
Nixon was fond of pets, and owned horses, cats, dogs and a turkey.

Stuff I Want In 2010 (Or, Unreasonable Demands)

1. The alleged "Pinkerton" special edition album with bonus tracks and whatever needs to come out
2. Hasbro needs to make Sunstorm in its next Classics/Universe line (repaint of Starscream)
3. An official announcement of some substance for the live-action Star Wars TV show.
4. Darius Burst for PSP released in the USA. Failing that, any Darius game on Xbox Live.
5. "The Office" gets wind of Lost's plan to end the show and follows suit. Failing that, start hiring or firing people.
6. US release of Masterpiece Edition Grimlock, at or under $75
7. G.I. Joe's continued integration of non-Joe characters like Matt Trakker. Maybe Spike Witwicky or grab a new license just to throw 'em in the Joe line. Like Metal Gear Solid.
8. Mattel steals Hasbro's idea of "guest stars" like Matt Trakker and includes other licenses in Masters of the Universe. Lion-O's about due for a new toy.
9. Star Wars is released or announced for Blu-Ray.
10. Salamander gets released for Xbox Live Arcade.
11. Transformers Classics Kup. It's about time.
12. Hasbro announces an Oscar the Grouch action figure. (Hey, they got the license.)
13. Somebody makes a decent, fairly priced Samus Aran toy.

Yet More Movies I Have Recently Watched/Rewatched

The Day The Earth Stood Still (original)
Surprisingly good-- it's a 1951 sci-fi flick that manages to look pretty good for its age. The same guy who directed this also did The Sound of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, meaning he is a better man than you or I. The basic message of "stop fighting you idiots because you'll destroy us too" was used in other movies, "Plan 9 From Outer Space" comes to mind, to a fairly amusing end. Here, it's just part of the movie which was worth seeing.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (remake)
The original movie was fun, in part because it looks old but it's also pretty brisk and fairly golly gee-wiz in places. The remake? Awful. There are some great casting decision here but the effects are wonky and the reimagining of Gort was outright unpleasant. Keanu plays Klaatu as a humorless douche rather than a curious and interested outsider, and several scenes could have been cut just because they barely added backstory and didn't help the plot. Plodding, slow, pretty miserable. (We got it because it included the original film for cheap.)

Gremlins
Awwww yeah Gremlins. What's not to love? For the ladies, you have Gizmo. For the slasher nerds, you have killer green monsters. For movie fanatics, you have Robbie the Robot walking around in the middle of the movie. The effects mostly hold up well, the acting is good enough, and I'm quite pleased to have this one on Blu-Ray now. I wish Gremlins 2 was out too.

Santa Claus (via MST3K)
Uhhhh... hunh. The featurette was arguably more interesting than the film itself, as apparently this movie introduced Santa Claus to Mexico in the 1950s and was something of a known entity to boomers. This I find hard to believe-- the movie has Santa Claus fighting the Devil in places, but generally it's a bunch of surreal set pieces and what the 1950s probably considered political correctness with a bunch of kids from around the world doing native song things... which came off as more or less racist. All the more reason to see it, really.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas (arguably not a movie)
We caught this and it's generally pretty funny with some extremely disturbing yet funny images involving blood and hiding in furniture. I'd describe it in detail but that would ruin it for you. Also, it's got that Huddleston guy in there who you may remember as the old/real Jeffrey Lebowski.

The Omega Man
Never saw this one before, and I think overall I liked it. It's very 1970s in parts, specifically the music and some of the supporting players introduced about 50 minutes into the film. Heston was pretty great, the mutant bad guys were pretty flat (essentially smarter zombies/cultists), the look was mostly pretty good. It didn't feel like a particularly expensive flick, but for the five bucks I paid for the Blu-Ray I had a great time. Worth seeing, movie nerds.

I need to watch some more Apes movies this week.