Vive La Resistance

Well after 3 days, 25,000 calories, and 45 million "We Surrender!" jokes (made mostly by me), we're back from Paris. As always, P-town continues to rock the house and rock it hard. This was my third trip to Paris, and someday when I sit down and write my Power Rankings for European cities there is no doubt Paris will be near the top, if not THE top, of the list. The food is awesome, the energy palpable on an NYC/Tokyo level, and the fact that there are hordes of cowardly French Fun Boys around for the mocking is only another plus. I always have a couple of moments in Paris where I pause and think - yeah, this city's got it. Because it does.

The main purpose for this particular trip was to reunite Gwen with her friend Rachel and Rachel's new baby Naomi, an adorable little 5-month old who cooed and social smiled our hardened hearts to puddles by the end of the trip. Rachel was out in another part of France for the bulk of the week at a computer conference and then returned to Paris for the weekend to meet up with "Wendy" and hang out for a spell.

We stayed, this time in the Latin Quarter, a bustling area of town just south of the island hosting Notre Dame on the Seine. We took a train on Friday morning arriving at about lunch time. Rachel and Naomi, as well as Rachel's mother-in-law Shelly (along for babysitting duties) came slightly later, and then we did our thing from there.

We'd spend the days and early part of the evenings with Rachel and crew, and then when baby and her pit crew had to go and bed down for the night Gwen and I would venture out on our own for the later part of the evenings. After dinner the first evening we strolled down the Champs-Elysees and took in the usual sights, the Eiffel Tower in the distance, the great buildings all around, and just enjoyed the scene.

Of all crazy things we actually went to movies on successive nights (yes, we go to Paris to go to movies - look we're starved for cinema. Starved! Especially considering Gwen wouldn't go see Rambo IV with me. I'm still upset - I don't want to talk about it.) . The first night we caught a '3:10 to Yuma' showing (good not great) and on Saturday we caught 'Vantage Point', which, from my vantage point, wasn't very good. (Oh the suspense, each scene revealing a little more information until it all spirals out of control - blah, blah blah. There's really no need for anyone to go see this thing unless you have a penchant for seeing Dennis Quaid constantly make a face somewhere between PTSD and constipated and/or want to know how to stage an assassination and a multi-tiered bombing using your iPhone.)

On Saturday we took a day trip out to Versailles, where we bore witness to French royalty's slightly elevated opinion of itself. The palace is ostentatiously huge and has sprawling gardens to boot. Regardless, Gwen and I might summer there - we're still undecided.

On Sunday we ventured out to the Hotel Des Invalides, a large museum complex bearing the tomb of Napoleon and also several other museums. We opted for the World War I and II museum which was well done. I actually learned something about WWI (which, honestly, I don't really know much about) , an unexpected surprise. Furthermore, I was amused at the French concept of a World War II museum - let's just say that the significance of the French Resistance was perhaps a tad overstated at this museum when compared to WWII displays elsewhere. To hear the French tell it, it was almost as if their Resistance (pronounce it with the snobby accent) was the essential cog in the wheel that brought down Hitler - and that whole British/US D-Day thing was more of a sideshow, a mild distraction so that some hairy Frenchman could plant the occasional bomb on a railroad track carrying German ordinance - that being the real reason the war was won of course. Furthermore, Charles de Gaulle was the hero of the war or so we were told. (I can only have imagined Pete's reaction - he who went ballistic in Berlin after hearing France even got a say at the Potsdam conference after World War II. He probably would have run around, furiously kicking down displays, just going nuts. It wouldn't have been pretty....)

On Sunday evening we parted ways with Rachel and headed back home on the train. It's still hard to believe that a city as cool as Paris is only a few short hours away.

And now, being a gracious king not unlike Louis the XVIXIVIVIXI, I shower you with photos...

Paris March 2008

The Beast is Slain

Our long national nightmare is over.

Well, sort of. I beat Bark at the Moon just a moment or so after I put up (and answered) the newest poll to the right.

Perhaps the night before provided a sign. I was driving into the hospital late, on call, and noticed a full or near full moon over the trees on the hilly road which leads to Landstuhl. There was a gray haze of cloud but the moon remained incredibly bright, straight out of a werewolf movie. I thought, is it mocking me? Do I need to stop the car and literally bark to pass the song? Is this some bizarre rite of passage? So many questions...


OK, I'm back. It wasn't pretty, but it's done. Done! It wasn't even one of my better lead ups to the final solo which vexed me for so long. (I think I was at about 70-something percent total with a wicked awesome 41 note streak. And, um, three stars...if you were wondering.) So while not quite Randy Rhoads, I am mildly proud, and I'm sure Gwendolyn is relieved, being quite tired of hearing me curse and yell repeatedly at a video game. (That isn't Madden.) Now I move on to Cowboys from Hell. But not today, people. Not today. Today I'm going to enjoy the fruits of victory, and savor the taste of this win.

In other news, I got nothing - here's an interesting little clip of news to highlight the world we live in:

"Michael Vick isn't finished dealing with his dogfighting charges. He has a state trial on June 27, rescheduled from April 2, where Vick is facing two more state felony charges. Vick is already incarcerated in a federal prison for up to 23 months, possibly up through November 2009. Now Surry County Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter says he will try to keep him locked up until 2014. Vick is definitely paying for his awful crime. Meanwhile we have Pacman Jones -- arrested or implicated in at least 10 criminal cases that involve striking women, drugs & booze, assault, coercion, resisting arrest, traffic violations & the shooting that paralyzed a man -- reportedly about to get reinstated and play for the Dallas Cowboys."


The lesson is: I hope Michael Vick burns in hell.

And with that, I'm out for today - Random Picture time:

Dreaming of a White....Easter?

We woke up this morning and saw snow covering the ground, finishing the dusting which began eerily last night. Spring started last week, right? Apparently not in Germany. We barely got any snow all winter, and then a week into spring we have two days of the stuff. It's melting fast, but still. Yeesh. Signs of the apocalypse.

Gwen and I are taking it easy this weekend. We're both on call and have taken turns going into the hospital at various times to do work. Otherwise, it has been another lazy weekend for us. Gwen's been reading mostly. I've been working out, drinking coffee, surfing the web, watching the reasonably-timed March Madness games (via ncaa.com which streams them free!), playing Madden and then putting in stints at trying to beat Bark at the Moon.

It's not going well. I'm routinely failing at about 94-96% now, during the second solo. Occasionally if I'm not careful I'll still fail in the first solo. My hands are cramping, my "strap shoulder" is sore, and the frustration is mounting. I almost broke the guitar on Friday, and then took Saturday off from the game to relax. I swear I can hear the song in my sleep. I have to be over 50 times attempted now in the past week. This is getting ridiculous. I've been experimenting with different hand positions on occasion, but it still comes down to my inability to nail the repeating hammer downs in the solos. I'm about 75% (average) on the rest of the song - unfortunately given how many times I play I have to simply conserve energy during most of the song, as a result I miss about 1/3 of the quickly repeating green notes which make up the bulk of the song. It's simply too tiring to strum that fast over and over again to try and nail them - which also kills me near the end, after the big solo, I'm often too fatigued to pound them all out and as a result I head into the final solo with less green and more yellow/red than I should. Also, having played the song poorly so many times, I have some bad muscle memory laid down which hurts my ability to improve and nail all the other parts of the song. I make the same mistakes over and over - my brain can't switch the gears after it becomes so ingrained. Correcting those mistakes is going to be difficult, but necessary to put me into the best possible position to get through the second solo.

Come to think of it, I really hate this game.

(Worse, Gwen picked put the guitar and rifled through expert (on GH one), which she had never attempted before, having gained the majority of her current skills from GH2 and later. She didn't fail a single song and after she passed Frankenstein (on the first try), I looked on agape in some sort of proud horror and immediately banned her from trying Cowboys from Hell and especially Bark at the Moon. I can see it now - she steps up to Bark at the Moon and nails it first time out. (Which I could see happening too - she is really good at hammer downs and pull offs compared to me. Plus she's seen me play at at least 30 times and knows all the strategy for star power, etc.) If that happened, if she stepped up and knocked it out of the park on the first attempt - I would cry. Just shake my head, lie down gently, sob, and go into the fetal position, never to come out. I don't have the emotional strength to watch that after failing so many times. As a result, she's banned. BANNED! She can continue to amuse herself with the other Guitar Hero iterations. Maybe in a few days I'll let her try Cowboys from Hell since I'm not really playing that at all right now. We'll see.)

So I'm stuck. I usually play one other song to warm up and go right into Bark at the Moon. After pouring my soul into 5-15 failures at a clip, I don't have the strength or interest to try anything else, or go back and try to get five stars (or four even) on some of the other songs. It's just not happening. It's Bark at the Moon or nothing now. I doubt I'll ever play another non-warmup song again until it's beaten.

It must be beaten.

In case you haven't seen it, here is my pain: (I picked one of the videos where the guy actually screws up a fair bit. He's still a jerk because he finishes the song, but less of a jerk than others - whom I'm convinced sold their souls - that get 100% on the damn thing.)





And back to rosier topics - the Easter "blizzard"....

An Old Friend...and Sworn Enemy

Last week I rediscovered Guitar Hero.

It had been months since I played a musical game of any kind with any regularity. And I'll be honest, I've been underwhelmed with Rock Band. I'm not that into it. The game looks great, and the song list is top notch, but the PS3 guitars are crap, the singing portion manages to take any fun out of actually singing, and the drums, though fun, often seem to be reduced to an activity of wearying noise making at times. As people everywhere rant and rave about Rock Band, I guess I've simply missed the boat.

I was thinking about my lackluster opinion of Rock Band the other day and wondering what happened. When I first played Guitar Hero, I took to it like moth to flame. I was on leave, from Iraq, and staying with Eryn, who had it. He showed it to me and I played. And played, and played. I was jet lagged on West Coast time then, and remember getting up early and slipping out to quietly whale on the plastic guitar while Eryn was still asleep. I must have played Boston's "More than a Feeling" about thirty times that week.

As my leave from Iraq neared its end, I knew I had to have this thing. I went to amazon, and ordered the game and two guitars and about a week back into the desert the magical package arrived. I hurriedly carried the bulky but light box the three-quarters mile walk (through the blistering 120 degree summer heat) from the mail room to my room. I ripped it open, plugged it in, and then played every waking, non-working moment for about a week straight. I got my roommate Jeff hooked, and then Pete later when he visited old FOB Falcon again, and even a handful of the other providers who I worked with.

By the time I was back from Iraq, my game was elevated past my early "Medium Days" and I was into higher levels. When Gwen returned four months later, I had already hooked Pete and Libby and was working on others. Gwen herself took to it quickly, and after a ski vacation a few weeks later we had Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Two, and one GMount sucked in too.

All told, I think I know at least six people who have bought playstations simply to play Guitar Hero, including several of those listed above. I've never seen a video game take down non-gamers like that before. It seemed infectious.

And thus we enjoyed our Guitar Hero. And things were good.



And then time went on, and I kept playing, but less so. Guitar Hero 80's version came out, and it was OK. Some good songs for sure, but nothing groundbreaking in terms of the play. And, at about that time, there was news of the supposedly groundbreaking Rock Band in the wind, so by the time Guitar Hero 3 came out (a game which had been farmed out to another company as Harmonix worked on its newest baby), I was like several others and already looking past it to the oncoming Rock Band.

Then Rock Band finally did come, and well, see my lukewarm review above. I played it a fair amount early, and then sort of soured on it. For the past couple of months, I haven't played any musical game other than a smattering of Rock Band at social gatherings, and at that I'm usually only interested in drumming or at times relegating myself to simply filling a spot, sitting lazily on a couch strumming away to some non-intense medium setting and watching the guitar be unable to handle the "fast parts" which look so easy that the whole exercise only becomes frustrating.

Gwen continued to play more than I. In particular she played a lot of Guitar Hero 3, and I would watch from my laptop while she rocked out and went through the game. As now, even after a week of frenzied playing, I would say confidently that she is now the superior player.

For some reason, last week I decided to pick the guitar back up. Not the PS3 Guitar, which resides over at Man Room - and which I hate with its mushy strum bar and non-clacky frets - but my old friend the PS2 guitar. And I didn't decided to try and finally play more than a song on Guitar Hero 3. I decided, unsure why, to fire up the original. Guitar Hero.

I think I did it because I never finished that game on expert. Even at my peak of Guitar Hero powers, I left Guitar Hero undone because of the newer, fresher, Guitar Hero 2. In particular I had never completed the songs Frankenstein, Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon.

So I picked the Guitar back up, and began to wail. At first I was predictably rusty, but much of the muscle memory was still there and soon I settled in. Surprisingly, I warmed up on some easier songs and even beat my old records on some of those songs right out of the gate.

After a fair warm up, it was time to move on to the uncompleted songs.

After a handful of failures, I was able to power through Frankenstein. I haven't really tried Cowboys from Hell more than about five times, and those were all dismal failures. I decided to work on it later. Bark at the Moon, as well, remains a bitch. I must have played (and failed) it 40 times this past week. About half of the time I get to 92% (mid-way through the second solo) which just makes it sting that much more. Often I fail at 62% (near the end of the first solo). I will say that I've somewhat proficient at the other parts of the song, especially the lead-in to the first solo, which I can nail, and must in order to get the bar green enough to face the brutal solo. One tough thing about the original Guitar Hero is that hammerdowns and pulloffs are much harder than in subsequent versions, and it's required me to tighten my playing a little.

I continue to try. I think I might have forgotten how frustrating the game can be. (Though having experienced Gwen's screaming at the TV all too often, even recently, it's hard to think I could have.) I've almost broken the guitar twice in artery-popping frustration, and I've sworn and cursed dozens of other times, but so far I've managed not to break anything. (Once, in Iraq, during a particularly bad day - on multiple levels - I slammed my guitar on the ground, cracking it. Still today, there is something rattling around in there, sternly reminding me of my misbehavior. Another interesting caveat to that story, is that since that smasing, the Star Power mechanism is moody, only working when it feels like it (I think it's still mad at me for what I did), and I've since failed countless songs while gyrating my guitar upward repeatedly, hoping fruitlessly for the saving Star Power that never comes...)

I guess, in conclusion, it's both good and frustrating to be playing again. I've enjoyed it for the most part. And for now I'll go ahead and call the frustration a bizarre form of passion.

And I swear I will not rest until I beat that damn Bark at the Moon.




Starting it all - Iwan and I square off back in 2006




Rockin' the 'Raq




Smilin' Pete can't believe it





The Ali/Frazier of Guitar Hero - Summer 2007

This Blog Needs an Enema

Do not adjust your monitor.

I thought this blog needed a change - a jolt of sorts - and here it is. Got a new color scheme, a new font, some new "Page Elements" including a poll (answer or die), and even a couple of new links on the side.

Penny Arcade is a column-with-web-comic site done by a couple of Seattle-based video game guys who discuss, what else, video games and their near cousins in exhausting detail. Sometimes I find the posts irrelevant, but I find the site's main writer, pseudonym 'Tycho', to be one of the better writers on the web. The comics are also solid - and occasionally spectacular. If you have any interest in video games check it out.

The Paul Tatara link is also interesting. Paul Tatara was a movie critic for cnn.com several years ago while I was in medical school. He tended to dislike most mainstream fare, and had a bitter and hilarious way of putting down the common blockbuster movie in his work which I found, well, awesome. Anyway, one sad day I saw that he was leaving cnn.com and I actually wrote an email to their web site passing along my thanks and kudos to the man who's reviews I had enjoyed so much. Amazingly, they passed along my email to him and he emailed me himself! We started this long email conversation about movies and entertainment. He even sent me a list of his favorites of all time which I diligently ran down on Netflix and through other means. I'd say we agree about 80% of the time, which is pretty good for me (and probably even better for him - he's pretty picky). He took a long hiatus from critiquing but is now back on the web with his own page where he posts links to his various columns and also just writes freely. His topics include movie reviews of course (both current and older), but also music and even pop culture. I must say I find him fascinating to the point of having a man-crush on him. (I've said too much.) He emailed me a few months ago about the new page and I've been meaning to link here since. If you dislike most of the generic garbage that passes for cinema these days then you'll probably enjoy reading some of his stuff.

And that's it. I've been toying with dropping the "Lord of the Funboys" moniker but I have to think about it. There can be no rash decisions on that.

With all these updates, I wasn't sure what else this blog needed at the moment. And then it came to me. A picture of Stormshadow. Yes, that's exactly the thing.

And without further ado...

A great many things...

It's Sunday morning and I've had perhaps a little too much coffee - so why not update the old blog?

Nothing too crazy to report lately. Other than the recent Dresden trip, we haven't traveled anywhere exciting. The weather here is slowly but spasmodically improving toward Spring - it'll be warm in the 50's for a few days and then lurch back to sub-freezing temperatures for the next week, but at least it's trying. We had snow one day last week despite really not having any significant snow to speak of through the bulk of Winter.

The Oscars came and went recently, which is significant only because it reminds me of how many movies I don't watch anymore. Just a few years back, it seemed, I didn't miss many of the "big" movies that came out, but this year I really haven't seen much of anything. Gwen and I have been trying to rectify this lately, but as always we are stuck at the mercy of the local theater. We caught "Juno" last weekend which I thought was good not great. I was worried it was going to try and be too clever with itself after the first 20 minutes but thankfully it settled down and turned into a decent little movie. I thought Jennifer Garner, whom I've actually never seen in anything before, was pretty solid.

Last night Gwen and I went to see "No Country for Old Men", which thanks to its recent best picture win just opened up at the old Kino. I'm not sure why this movie won best picture. I enjoyed it - don't get me wrong - it just doesn't seem like the kind of film that wins a best picture award. It was more like a niche film, typical of the Cohen brothers, whom I usually enjoy ("O' Brother Where Art Thou?" not withstanding - shudder). I never read the book, which obviously would explain more of the nuances, but I was amused at the Woody Harrelson character, who seemingly was only there to inform the hunted about the guy who was chasing him. (He might as well have strolled up and said, "Hi I'm Woody Harrelson, I'll be your exposition for the evening...")

Gwen bought "Michael Clayton" which we tried to watch on Friday night at Man Room but the DVD was a bad copy so we had to turn it off and settle for something else. 'Something else' turned out to be "Band of Brothers", which I had seen before back in residency and I had really enjoyed. Gwen bought it for me for my birthday, and I've been looking forward to watching it again, mostly because I understand the Army a hell of a lot more now than back when I viewed it the first time. I was also anxious for Gwen to see it given her experiences.

We watched the first two episodes and I can reaffirm that it is indeed a really, really fine piece of work. It's probably THE most accurate depiction of Army life of anything that I've ever seen, and again given my recent experiences with the Army, a deployment, a war, etc., I'm finding it even better than I did the first time. Now I understand the subtle but critical differences between the enlisted ranks, the structure of a line unit company, and all the rest. It's also quite powerful - I think both Gwen and I were pretty moved by the of the first episode and rolling into the second episode. Watching those old vets remember and discuss things, laugh and then quickly break down in the same sentence, is pretty powerful stuff. My hat's off to Spielberg and the rest of that production team.

(So far the only military inaccuracy I can spot in "Band" is the fact that too many people salute inside. Nobody EVER salutes inside - and I'm told that unless you're reporting for duty or making introductions this never happens - and even then it doesn't happen now. At least, for the love of God, nobody has headgear on inside at any time in "Band", like they do in every other Hollywood military piece. Nobody ever, ever, ever wears headgear on inside in the real military, unless they're armed, so if you see that on TV or in the movies it immediately ruins credibility, and they show this sort of thing all the time. It's ridiculous and seems like it would be such a simple fix.)

Anyway, I look forward to watching the rest of the Band. I remember some really moving stuff from that series, and I eagerly anticipate viewing it again. (I'm also going to put the over/under on Gwen tearing up at about 12 times for the series. Any takers?)

We've also recently watched the entire Jason Bourne trilogy over at Man Room. I had seen the first two in the theater, but not the third. I really liked all of them; they are pretty much the perfect action movies in my opinion. Suspension of disbelief is kept to a minimum, and Matt Damon (to be pronounced "Maattt DAYMON" a la Team America) is a likable, smart and solid actor - he makes for a guy I really ended up rooting for. A rock solid trilogy in my opinion, which is rare these days. (My only qualm is the fact that he unrealistically survives brutal car crash after brutal car crash with minimal injury, no concussion, or that even half the time his mangled car would be utterly undrivable. Oh well, can't have everything in an action movie I guess.)

Speaking of cars I just had to have the clutch replaced in my machine. Unfortunately this was not a cheap endeavor, despite the fact that we've found an honest mechanic who is also one hell of a nice guy. My car is a 1995 BMW 740i, which has a V8 in it - basically it's a beast. Unfortunately the V8 causes problems with repairs because it's vast and monstrous and expensive and creates extra labor to work around. Between the new clutch and valve caps (which needed replacing), I had to drop 750 Euro on the thing, which translates - at the current rate of exchange - to about 77,000 dollars. It's ridiculous. But what is one to do? At least the car has regained it's monster power again. The clutch had been degrading over time, and the power of the car had been going steadily down as the ability to engage the driveshaft deteriorated with the aging clutch. Now, it grabs smartly and the car jumps off the line. The difference is staggering - I'd almost forgot what I was missing. Time to dust off the Transformers soundtrack again, fire up 'Dare', and drive like a maniac, which is sanctioned on the Autobahn of course.

On the TV front the only show Gwen and I consistently watch is Lost. We're pretty hooked on this one, and though we can't watch it live, we can download it on iTunes the day after it airs and stay more or less caught up. Lost is good stuff - I fear it may slip out of control and beyond feasibility at any moment but so far it's been riding that edge with remarkable precision. Let's hope that keeps up. Other than that, we don't really watch any TV. We have all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD, and we're going through those for the second time - phenomenal series. Other shows on the list to view in DVD form are The Wire, Rome season 2, and Freaks and Geeks.

OK, coffee's wearing off. I think that'll do for now.

I leave you with this - which was number 3 on the German rankings recently and which we saw incessantly on the German MTV when we were in our hotel room in Dresden a few weeks back. The Germans are a strange folk....