My inner Opus

Note: JoCo = Jonathan Coulton

My favorite December special is A Wish For Wings That Work. It features Bill the Cat and Opus the penguin most notably from comic strips Bloom County and later Outland.

Since it was made in 1991, I do not feel guilty about spoiling because I am going to talk about the episode and if you have not seen it by now, you should:

The idea is that Opus is unable and really wanting to fly like those around him and his attempts end up failing spectacularly causing him to receive much grief from those around him who do fly.

What ends up happening is that a situation arises where Opus's ability to swim saves the day as the wings of a penguin are designed for swimming instead of flying.

OK, what does that have to do with this post? I do enjoy music and love the idea of singing. However, my inability to determine pitch or tone won't allow me to do it competently. I did try to learn how but knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things.

It has caused me unnecessary anguish and frustration and until I realized I show every symptom of a person with Asperger's syndrome including tone deafness, I had no clue why.

It makes sense to work on what a person can do well and not worry about what a person can't and to trust the intentions of those one calls friends.

Minion L Wood reporting

Comedy music artists Paul and Storm have a mostly weekly podcast where they "Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (On Average)" www.paulandstorm.com

In their most recent cast they asked people to compose a diagram explaining their Scooby Doo ratio in which they state what percentage of themselves they associate with someone on Scooby Doo. (or other group of people)

Being a member of the Paul and Storm minion squad and someone who posts a chart or diagram almost every week, I felt it was my duty to oblige.

FYI: Gary Coleman did apprear on an Adult Swim version of Scooby Doo made in 2001 and as the Ookla the Mok song goes, There's a little Gary Coleman inside us all. (I had to explain that reference to my best friend so it is an inside joke only to the writer)

One last post about last weekend

Of the 20 performers last weekend including the 12 who had their own main stage concert and the 8 who either split time on the main stage in the sideshow slot or had a show in a small room, this is the break down of the full length CDs I own from them. I did not count EPs or any CD not available for purchase last weekend in making this chart.

updates

On February 27th, I discovered I weighed exactly 270.0 lbs, .2 short of my 5% goal. As usual, my weight was a pound higher the Monday after but still the lowest Monday weight. Since my weight drops during the week when at work, though I did not officially step on a scale and had it read my goal of 269.8, I believed that by the time I left for the con, I had reached that point.

Returned van Tuesday morning. Drove it about 838 miles, everything with van went well.

Music was awesome. Guest of honor Wally Pleasant did a show worthy of the title along with his lovely wife who I discovered has read this blog.

Much alcohol was consumed; much fun had.

My pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18494407@N00/sets/72157615074820272/detail/

Pictures of me were taken by others. I will link them in future posts.

Most interesting performance was based on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMC2XJw5m6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISwdkkj1J7Q&feature=channel_page

C'on ride the bus

It is appropriate that this is post 27. A breakdown in percentage of the 55 people who I have ridden with, driven, or convoyed with to Marscon the previous 5 years or are expected to join me next weekend. Yes, people who have ridden with me multiple times and are counted multiple times from where they lived at that time.

With me enjoying Marscon in Bloomington, MN next weekend, I won't be posting.

5% update

I decided to vow to lose 5 percent of my Jan 2nd weight by Marscon which is less than two weeks away. Weighing at 271.5 leaves me 1.7 lbs away. As expected, three parties and the awesome food there created the bumps in the chart. I do admit that in February I have not been as strict in watching everything I eat so along with my body adjusting to the changed intake, the loss has been slower if not stagnant.

With 10 days until my last weigh in, I definitely need to be smart to get to my 269.8 goal.

Video gaming

This chart was composed from what I currently own plus looking at a couple of web sites which showed titles and my memory. Though I have rented other games, I decided to not include them unless I beat the game or rented it more than once.

Sports simulation - games that are designed to play like the sport (Madden football collection)

FPS - First person shooters, where you play a character and your view is designed to be from your character's eyes. (Doom, James Bond games)

TPS - Third person shooters, where you view the character that you play. (Grand Theft Auto, Twisted Metal)

Embellished sports games - A sports game where players have unusual abilities (NBA jam or my favorite Mutant League Football)

Racing games - Driving game where the goal is to win a race (Need For Speed, Rush, NASCAR games; even though NASCAR is a sport, I decided to include those games with other driving games)

Driving games - Driving game where the goal is not winning a race. (Crazy Taxi)

Cart game - Driving race game where characters pick up weapons to use either to help their vehicle or hurt others (Mario Cart)

Emulators - Games which contain collections of either classic arcade games (Midway, Namco) or classic console games (Atart 2600)

Music - Where players either dance or play an instrument shaped controller to music (Guitar Hero, Rock Band)

RPG - Role playing game - Where you control a group of people in a quest by telling them who and how to attack, heal or cast their spells. (Final Fantasy)

Misc - Games that I only had one from a category (Worms)