Two new firsts.

I got my very first (Swedish) massage this week, after messing up my neck over the weekend. While it didn't do anything to resolve the soreness it was nice, relaxing hour, except for the few moments when the masseuse was grinding my shoulders into paste. I might go back at some point and try a deep tissue massage (i.e., more painful, but supposedly more rewarding), but other than that I think I'm good to go without massages in the future. A little disappointing to be honest.

My other first was going in for an audition for Wipeout: Season 5. It was just a quick recorded interview (which went okay) with lots of paperwork afterwards, but should they find me amusing enough I'll move on to a physical audition. If you're not familiar with the show it's a big obstacle course that contestants attempt to complete but usually fail, much to the amusement of the audience. This is also the same television series that my friend Donovan was on--and won--a year or two ago.

Random Things

My cell phone has a Notepad function which I have only sporadically used over the years. When I finally got bored enough to prune it, I was left with an interesting collection of items that I thought I would share.

Steven J. Levine - Tangerines and Water Goblet
I can't put a finger on what exactly it is that I love about this painting, but this is definitely something I will get a print of when I have the money and wall space available.

David Burdeny
Stark, clean and minimalistic--beautiful stuff. My guess is that I saw a portion of his Antarctica/Greenland 2007 exhibit which is my favorite of what I've perused of his website thus far.

Toba Khedoori
Uhm...I guess I saw the wooden man at LACMA and liked it? I dunno.

Old No. 38 Stout
I think I may have come across this when we hit up Tony's Darts Away bar in Burbank ages ago. I like beer but I'm not a big fan (and certainly not of stouts) so this clearly was a standout. I should probably go back and give it another go.

Jacob Jordaens - Allegory of the Poet
The image doesn't convey it well enough, but that Pegasus has the most ridiculous, confused look on its face in this painting. I like to think it is saying to itself, "What the fuck am I doing in this painting? Seriously. Can I leave now?" It's like the artist noticed he had a big chunk of canvas still empty and just threw something in there. That Pegasus could have just as easily been an octopus.

...that would have been pretty awesome, actually.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Clips of this were being shown in one of the exhibits at LACMA at some point in the past, and the sets alone were interesting enough to warrant a further look. It’s apparently a 1920 German silent horror film. Hopefully Netflix or Youtube will have it available.

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
No clue where I heard of this one, but it sounds bad ass.

The Fifth Head of Berberus - Gene Wolfe
During the Q&A session at the Penny Arcade Expo this year, someone asked Jerry Holkins what his favorite novel was, and this was his reply.

More games you should consider buying

I've played the Penny Arcade card game, Gamers vs. Evil, about 10 times now since I picked it up at PAX at the end of August. For those of you not familiar, it is one of many games that pull the deck-building mechanic best known from Dominion (another game worth owning), and putting their own twist on it.

In The Penny Arcade Game: Gamers vs. Evil, players will take from a shared group of cards representing icons from the Penny Arcade world, each character possessing a unique power. Purchase Gamer cards with your gold. Yes, put that Merch in your deck! CONSUME! If you'd prefer to battle, wield the Cardboard Tube and attack one of the Evil cards. Dodge PAX Pox, make friends with a Werewolf With a Top Hat, ally with Cardboard Tube Samurai, PvP with your opponents, and skewer Dark Tycho for his epic loot. Build your perfect deck and win the battle of Gamers vs. Evil.

...yeah, that's probably not going to make a lot of sense if you're not familiar with the webcomic. Trust me though, it's good times.

The other game is called Bausack, which is a hilarious competitive tower building game:

Players take turns choosing blocks and giving them to each other to place on their structure. A player may pay a certain number of 'beans' to refuse a block and it gets passed to the next player. When a player's structure falls, they are out of the game. Last player standing wins.

I never won a game as I ended up taking a lot of the more difficult blocks, but I did get lots of compliments on my complex and seemingly gravity-defying towers. :D

Week 8: Super Mario All-Stars vs. General Ass-Kickery

Sadly, I only managed two videos this season, but considering I was only there for half the games that's not too shabby. It's a shame though, as kickball seems to be my only creative source for videos these days, and I doubt I'll be back for another season. Too many fun things to do and not enough time.