Shout out (i.e., what what?!)

Kerr: Start blogging more. I need something interesting to read.

The concert and .. maybe some other stuff (I haven't decided)

So the Video Games Live concert: great. Just an awesome show. Some of it could have been better, and they really lacked an air of any sophistication sometimes, but besides that it was awesome. The people playing in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra were obviously feeling a little lowbrow having to play video game music for a huge crowd of smelly underdressed nerds. Seriously, the guy next to me must have had to choose between his XBOX Live account and his water bill. STINKY.

The conductor, Jack Wall, and the host, Tommy Tallerico, are both video game music composers and really hit on something big with this show. I can't even imagine the money they are pulling in. Some of the music was obviously going to be in there: Mario medley, Zelda medley, an old-skool arcade montage, Final Fantasy 7. The video game pianist also travels with them and played a couple pieces. If you don't know who I'm talking about, just google or lookup on Youtube "video game pianist". He played the Mario theme blindfolded, the Super Mario World theme, Tetris, and then this Final Fantasy medley he arranged himself. I wasn't impressed by the medley. He can play fast and do really impressive technique, but the medley was just badly presented. I need to email him a REAL medley .. err, written by yours truly. :)

A couple other pieces were really well received. There was a Sonic medley (which when the choir stood up at the beginning and did the "SE-GA!" ... woo, that was awesome), a Warcraft medley (that one got some props), Metal Gear Solid and One-Winged Angel as an encore (from Final Fantasy 7). Then there was music no one knew. They did a Kingdom Hearts set (good game, but who remembered the music?), and Medal of Honor (another one of these where I think they just found a game they could license for cheap and then arrange the music as filler). Then you've got a Myst trilogy set (Jack Wall wrote music for the Myst 3 game) and an Advent Rising 3-movement piece (Tommy Tallerico wrote the score for that one). Sure, the music was decent, but everyone came to this show for the nostalgia. No one has ever even PLAYED Advent Rising. Filler music.

Oh, and there was Civilization 4 piece. Very nice. Sort of an African tribal feel ... the poor choir though. The rhythms were so tough and they were lagging behind. The conductor looked up at them in the choir loft and was REALLY beating out the music and pointing right at them. LOL, it was almost a train wreck. On the encore song, Tallerico broke out his wireless electric guitar (which I'm still not sure he was really playing .. he seemed too spazzed out to actually be hitting the right notes), and at the end, the orchestra was holding out the last note, and he jumped up on the conductor's stand and the two of them jumped off of it together and the orchestra ended when they hit the ground. They were just really proud of themselves. The orchestra (you could tell) was not so impressed by this stupidity.

All in all, it was worth the price of admission. I saw one more OCRemix shirt there, and I randomly saw some people I recognized that were groupies of the 1-ups remix band up in Fayetteville. They said that the rest of the group traveled down and saw it the night before. SUCK! They chided me over on their forums. Who knew they were coming? They even got to hang out backstage after the show with Tallerico and Wall. Doh!

Guess that's about it. And I guess I really don't have anything else to say. Oh, right ...

Read your bibles.

GLEE!

The "Video Games Live!" concert is coming to the Dallas Symphony tonight and tomorrow night!

You can just SMELL the geek in the air. It's strangely reminiscent to B.O.

Carl: The evil cockroach wizard (pt. 2)

And now it all makes sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_Yang_Yo%21#Evil_and_netural

If you scroll down to the villians, the character is actually named Carl: the cockroach wizard.

I feel so humbled.

[Edited for the URL. Although they spelled "neutral" wrong. Who wants to bet this link goes bad some day?]

I'm positively glowing!

Sometimes they like to leave the door open to the scan rooms while they're X-raying a patient.

Eek.

Re: Cell phone woes, a la Annette

I had to call my cell phone company today because my minutes used never rolled over last month. Right now on my 1000 minute plan I am somewhere around 1500 minutes. I called Alltel and told the lady my situation. The whole system had gotten upgraded at the beginning of the month and I'm almost absolutely sure that's why things got screwed up on my account. She was absolutely sure that I was just talking on the phone. A BUNCH.

"Let me check your last 3 months of activity. Hmm, yes, you haven't ever gotten to the 1000 minutes on your plan." Yes, that's quite correct. Now I wonder why I would have talked not only 1500 anytime minutes, but an additional 800 night and weekend minutes ... and it's only the 15th day of this billing cycle. "I think we should put you on a new plan so you don't get a $500 phone bill."

As much as I am still sure this is not my fault, this part of the conversation made me way happy. She put me on a 2100 minute plan for this month. Like, the one I'm already in. So now if the minutes really ARE mine (they're not) then I'll just pay the $99 for the new plan this month. How cool is that? I'm pretty sure I got this kind of special deal because at the beginning of the conversation when I gave her all my info she said, "I see here you have been with Alltel for 10 years. We really appreciate your business!" Thanks, I can tell!

But seriously, let's think about this logistically. At 2300-2400 minutes used, I would have to have talked OVER 2 hours a day at this point. More like 2 1/2 or so. I KNOW how many minutes I use! I do NOT TALK THAT MUCH ON THE PHONE! And I couldn't get across to her the fact that I watch my minutes religiously. I check alltel.com once a day at least, AND I know the # and correct phone pad options to go straight to hearing the electronic voice at Alltel tell me my minutes of usage as well. Just admit that your crappy phone system didn't do it's job and don't tell me that I've talked on the phone like a teenage girl for 15 days.

I asked her to have Alltel send me an itemized paper bill this month so I could see some of these 5 hour phone conversations that I must have been having in the last 2 weeks. She for some reason couldn't look at the individual phone calls. The best thing is that if I find that they did screw up (WHEN I find that out, I mean), then they'll refund the money on the 2100 minute plan for this month.

All in all, even though I didn't get the answer I needed, I was really impressed by the service I got today. Thanks Karla (my sister) for getting an account with them so very long ago. Grandfather clause me!

Ahhh, looking forward to these days ...

Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

Jeremiah 33:3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

My mom: the middle(wo)man

My mom sent me this verse in an email yesterday.

Proverbs 22:3 A wise man foresees evil and hides himself, while the simple pass on and are punished.

Gotta keep your head down every once in a while. Even when you think that you should defeat that which is evil. Mom is awesome.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz..

So, the new client (RCA) had a staff meeting this morning at 7-8am. This means that the doctors and staff won't be on any of the servers and they can be switched from battery backup over to generator powered wall outlets. The catch? Me. Being here. At 7am.

I haven't seen 5:30am since the last time I drank a lot of water right before I went to bed. On the upside, the drive down here was cut down from 1 1/2 hours driving time to 45 minutes. Yay for no traffic! The downside? I ended up getting here at 6:45am. The meeting is still going and I'm way done. I've been cleaning the server room, and I'm just OUT of things to do at this point. At least the place looks nicer now.

I keep checking my email religiously. But who in the world is going to write me at pre-0700? Maybe I can take a server down in an unusually cruel way and test myself to see if I can get it up and operational in the 21 minutes before the meeting is ovezzzzzzzzzzzz....