europe!

As if buying a house wasn't enough for one week, Sabrina and I decided to take off to Europe for a while. I'd like to post updates along the way, but someone told me Europe has great beer, so I may get sidetracked.

Here's a quick breakdown of the trip. When we get back I plan to post a comprehensive "travel guide," Patrick-Ross style.

Wednesday: Leave for Edinburgh, Scotland

Saturday, July 2nd, 4 pm: Wedding (mine) that's right. I'm getting married saturday! :o We aren't registered for gifts but if you really want to get us something you can donate beer money to Paypal ID swepisodeii@yahoo.com :)

A few more days: Hang out in Scotland, drive on the left side of the road. Try real scotch. Probably decide I don't like it and go back to beer.

Next few days: Pass through Amsterdam and go to Belgium, drink beer.

Another next few days: Fly over to Munich, Germany. more beer.

After that: Two days in Switzerland. Rafting, hiking, cycling. Burning off all that beer.

Finally: Head to Italy. Two days in Tuscany, a night in Rome, a few more days near Pompeii.

Last day: Fly out of Naples.

Hope that wasn't too vague, I don't have the exact dates with me but I don't think including them would really improve the quality of this post. But it should at least give you a primer for the next few weeks on Cheezwhiz.

u-haul sucks

Just wanted to say it.

homeowner

Yesterday we closed on our first house. The closing meeting involved lots of signing and big numbers, but mostly it was about the cookies. See, they had all these cookies on a plate in the center of the table, and I usually go for salty over sweet, but for some reason I just couldn’t stop eating the cookies.

After all the paperwork we were handed two little keys and given some tips about the sprinkler system. Overall fairly painless. And on our 30-year fixed loan, in 2035, the house will be all ours.

*Actual house may vary from item shown.

lego star wars

so last week I told sabrina I really need some new games. we have big trip coming up and the games I have are just a little too played. I don’t usually go for brand new titles. in fact my meager game collection includes a playstation one, gameboy advance sp, and a sega game gear sitting in a box somewhere. I think the last new game I bought was tekken 2 (ps1).

of this vast collection, the gameboy is my system of choice. it’s small, sits on my desk and there’s an assload of used games, which are all new to me. (I picked up the gameboy about six months ago).

so, like I said, I told sabrina I need some new games for the trip. she was pretty hardcore against me buying any games. I tried telling her about LEGO star wars, but she wasn’t having it. a few days later (which also happened be my birthday) I open up my very own LEGO star wars game, courtesy of sabrina. turns out she had already purchased it for me and didn’t want me buying a duplicate. sweet!

the game itself is freakin awesome. I’ve never played a LEGO game before, so the whole concept of little LEGO men running around knocking each other down is still freshly brilliant to me. all the LEGO trademarks are there, including blocky movement and lego pegs covering rooftops.

in LEGO star wars, you get to play through episodes I, II and III, closely following the film plotlines. there are plenty of reviews online, so I’ll skip the point by point description. I summarize it by saying the game is a fresh twist on the familiar kill-everyone formula. the cutscenes are hilarious and you can tell the designers had fun honoring (or making fun of) the prequel stories. for example, in episode II you pay as anakin going to tatooine to find his mother, after you hack through all the sandpeople, you see his LEGO mom slump from a chair and onto the ground. anakin’s response is maybe the funniest movie parody I’ve ever seen. the whole scene from finding his mom to anakin’s comic mourning is maybe 5 seconds long. it’s almost exactly the type of scene you would expect from a kid playing with actual LEGO star wars toys, and that’s why this game is so cool.

I’m trying to take my time to complete what looks to be a fairly short game, but they packed in a little replay value by letting you unlock different characters at the end of each level. you can then go wander around the levels you’ve beaten as any character you want.

as much as I’m enjoying being a LEGO guy in the prequels, I’m hoping they do the same with the original trilogy, as that might just be more superdork than I can handle.

there’s a nice collection of screenshots at gamespot.

the michael jackson post

I’ve had a few days to let the whole jackson thing sink in and my overwhelming feeling is… relief. Do I think he’s weird? Sure. Do I think he’s a child molester? Maybe not. So where does that leave me with the verdict? Again, relieved. Why? Because now we can rock the old school jams knowing the genius behind the music has been found “not guilty” by a jury of his peers. In the words of Dave Chappelle – he made Thriller.

breakin’ the law!

well it looks like my cafepress shirts are a little out of line. if you’ve checked out moviemania (link in the left sidebar) you’ve seen the results of my short lived interest in selling t-shirts. it all started when I wanted to print a shirt for myself with the saturday night live phrase “the pen is mightier.” then came “buck futter,” followed by some quotes from bottle rocket and the big lebowski.

in setting up my little t-shirt shop on the web, I organized everything into neat little categories (ripping off countless other cafepress shops that do the same thing). that was several months ago. today I got this email:

Dear Shopkeeper,

It has recently come to our attention that you are using movie and/or television show titles in your section titles and information, product titles and descriptions, search terms, metatags, and/or images.

Unless you have written permission or a license agreement with the various studio, producer or rights holder of the movie or tv show, your use of the movie title gives the impression that you are selling official merchandise of the movie/tv show. This is not permitted nor is it in accordance with our Content Usage Policy.

Accordingly, please remove all section titles and information, product titles and descriptions, search terms, metatags, marketing text and images, and/or product images that utilize movie/tv show titles, or clips from the movie or tv show.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for using CafePress.com.

so yes, I who wants to make movies of my own, has been busted for profiting off others’ creative works. but before you judge me criminal, allow me to open the books on my lucrative t-shirt endeavor.

to date, I have spent $16.74 on a shirt for myself and, because for a couple of minutes I really thought I’d give it a go – I upgraded to a “premium” account allowing more options, designs, etc for $6.95/month (I figured why the hell not).

so, my shirt (which I ordered too small but have since washed so I can’t even wear or return it anyways) plus two months of “premium” service totals $30.64. so far I have had exactly one order, for a “buck futter” bumper sticker, on which I made 99 cents.

ok, so the logical thing to do is comply. I’m losing money (even without ordering the shirt for myself I’m in the red $12.91) and I don’t see an ordering explosion on moviemania merchandise anytime soon.

regardless, movie quote t-shirts are cool. finding a quote or phrase that hasn’t been marketed to death that still appeals to like-minded fans is tough (and my ultimate failure to sell even one actual shirt means I obviously don’t know what the hell I’m doing). the fact that I have to remove all section titles is fine, but to forbid descriptions, search terms, metatags, marketing text means there is no way in hell anyone would find my “How does an asshole like Bob get such a great kitchen?” shirt in a crowded place like cafepress. so what’s the point?

the thing is I really like my shirt designs. the fact that a total stranger found my “buck futter” sticker among the sea of cafecrap means at least one person likes them too. perhaps one day I’ll pull up behind a car at a stop light, only to be greeted by my very own clever idea for a bumper sticker. I don’t care who you are. buck futter is funny.

until then I’ve got some reworking to do on the old cheezstore. first step, cancel my “premium” account status and remove any references that could possibly lead anyone to buy any of my stuff. I read something that said it’s not possible to downgrade from a “premium” store back to a regular, free store. I have to think there’s a workaround, and now that I’ve spent the photoshop energy making these designs, I’d like to keep them alive.

to cafepress I say: thank you for bringing this to my attention. otherwise I may have just forgotten about it altogether, continuing to pay you $6.95/month indefinitely. assuming I live another 50 years, that’d come to about $4 grand, and that’s cash I could put into my other illegal activity, smoking crack.