I’m still recovering from last night, so I’ll keep this brief.

There are new photos in the Gallery. Look them over if you like.

And let me just say that Family Video is the sweetest video store in the history of video stores. A very wide selection of movies, new and old, at non-outrageous prices. I just wish Blockbuster would sink into the Hellmouth, so Family Video could move in.

Time to eat some cajun rice.

JAB

It’s been a fun day. Yes, I had to go into work, but only for three hours. We were so slow, that by noon we had only developed one roll of film. So I got sent home at one. Then I went computer supply shopping with my poppa and bought a crossover cable, so now I can directly hook my computer up to another and play video games multiplayer.

Speaking of video games, now that Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Lemmings are behind me, my newest video game obsession is Yahoo! Pool. Man, talk about fun, and it’s pretty easy, too. So if you ever decide to check it out, you may see me on it as earthdiestonight.

JAB

Just like Leonard in Memento, I too apparently have no short-term memory. I announced last Wednesday that I was stopping “Fade In.” What I forgot was I made that very same announcement eight days earlier.

It’s a damn shame I don’t have a polaroid camera. Then this wouldn’t be a problem.

JAB

I watched Memento at Nate and Erin’s last night, and I thought it was a very intriguing and good movie. It makes me want to see the director’s other movie, Insomnia. Also, before we watched the movie, we went to Don Pablo’s. Oh, it was heavenly.

So I had this mole removed from my back on Friday. It was kind of a “let’s get it off so it never becomes cancerous” deal. But damn — that shit hurts! The actual surgery didn’t because they used a type of Novocain anesthesia, but the last two days have been a bitch. It’s like someone keeps jamming a knife into my back. Sitting and standing has been unpleasant, so you can imagine I’ve been having a swell time. Today it’s not too bad though. Now I just have to be careful not to pop the stitches.

Does anyone remember the computer game, “Lemmings?” The original is probably about twelve years old now. It’s a sort of puzzle game, and you get these lemmings and you can have them do certain functions (blocking, tunneling, building stairs, and blowing themselves up), and the object is to navigate them to the exit. It’s very simple, but a lot of fun. I found my old copy of it so I installed it, and have been playing it quite a bit the last few days.

I think I’ll forego playing it today and instead work on the “Destiny” comic.

JAB

A little site news, so read on only if you care about stuff other than the blog…

I decided to discontinue monthly installments of my column, “Fade In,” beginning with this month. While I enjoy writing it, there are a lot more things I’d rather be working on right now instead of it. Also, since its focus is so broad, it makes it that much harder to come up with something to write about. Plus, no one reads it anyway. Though I may still irregularly post new columns, as topics that are interesting come up.

Additionally, the Store is acting funny. And by acting funny I mean all the data isn’t appearing anymore. It’s all saved in the actual files, you just can’t see it. I’m hoping to fix it sometime this weekend.

That’s it.

JAB

I have to admit, I’m glad to see that Dean is no longer the front-runner Democrat in the — as “The Daily Show” puts it — Race From the White House. I know this is just one little shindig and that there are other, more important events ahead, but seeing Dean taken down a couple of notches makes me feel a lot better. He’s too angry, and doesn’t seem enough of a leader to be an effective President. Of course, after the ’00 fiasco, Americans proved you don’t necessarily need to be a leader to be elected President.

So, if I remember correctly, Kerry won with 38% of something, Edwards came in second with 32%, Dean followed with only 18%, and I don’t remember nor care who placed after that. Personally, I hope Edwards wins the nomination, though if Kerry did, I’d be okay with that. Edwards is a nice guy who manages to stay above the rest of the candidates by not resorting to name-calling. Plus I went to his site and read where he stands on a lot of issues, and I gotta admit, I like him. Regardless, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, I’ll vote for him because hey, they’re all better than Bush.

Oh, in a slightly off-topic remark, did anyone watch “The Daily Show” last night? They were doing a bit on slogans and propaganda, and one Kerry bumpersticker that women could get read “Dated Dean, Married Kerry.” John Stewart then said it was slightly more popular than the old sticker, “Dated Dean, Married Kerry, Fingerbanged Kucenich.”

Now *that’s* funny.

JAB

Ah, the weekend is over and now it’s time to get back to the grind. Damn.

I hung out of people this weekend: Nate and Erin, Jason, Sarah and Steph (her roommate). Well, that about sums up everyone I know. I had a good time, and that’s really what matters. Of course, it would’ve been a *better* time if I hadn’t had looming over me two big tests to study for. Neither of which I am prepared for, I might add. A wiser person would be studying hard right now instead of recording his musings down in Microsoft Word. So I suppose I should attempt to elevate myself to at least the lowest rungs of wiseness and go read the chapters.

The one bright side about tomorrow I will be able to leave early, as I inevitably fly through tests quite swiftly. For all you naysayers, see, I can be a “glass is half-full” kinda guy.

JAB

Once more, that great bastion of freedom, the weekend, is upon us. Or at least for me it is, what with me not having school on Fridays and all. This is going to turn into a busy quarter in a few weeks, but for now, all is quiet.

I finished “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis” last night. Considering that I had school and work mixed in there, I finished it in only four days. That’s pretty good for me. My “Indy Quotient” (IQ, get it?) was 583. I’m not sure if that’s very high, since there wasn’t any scale to compare it to, but I like to think I rocked the hell outta the game.

I was listening to the radio today — which is a somewhat rare occurrence — and this interesting song came on that I haven’t heard before. It was real catchy and sort of a blend of rock, pop, and a wee bit hip-hop (Hmm…that last sentence was sort of Dr. Seussian. Odd.). I didn’t hear what band it was, but I caught the name of the song, which was “Hey Ya.” Since the song was on Z 93, which is Dayton’s popular music station, I assumed the band would probably be on MTV. So I went to MTV.com and searched for “Hey Ya” and was extremely surprised to see that Outkast performs it, and I *also* discovered that they perform one of my most hated songs ever, that being “Ms. Jackson.” After learning this, I became slightly worried that the paradoxical quandary of liking one song while utterly despising another by the same artist would overload my brain, and I would then promptly combust. Fortunately, it didn’t.

Okay, time to watch “The Daily Show” then work on the “Destiny” comic.

JAB

I’m sure many of you have already heard about this, but for the unitiated, go to Google, type in the words “miserable failure” without the quotation marks, and then click on “I Feel Lucky.” Trust me, it’s priceless.

In JBdN news, I’m temporarily suspending my monthly column “Fade In.” That doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t see any more issues of it, just not regularly and not for a while. I’ve come to said decision because I’m too busy doing other creative things that interest me more–and the column just isn’t working for me anymore. I do hope to have other neat things to look at and read in the future, so stay tuned…

JAB

P.S. – This is completely off topic (and isn’t everything around here?), but I’d like everyone to give Alan a big round of applause for actually signing up for the notification list, thus making me feel important and making my day. That makes a whopping three people who have signed up for it since November. So Nate, Erin, and Alan — thanks, guys!

I did a lot today, considering I really did nothing. I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks, hanging out with people regularly, so it was nice to just take a day to be antisocial and just do fun stuff, by my lonesome.

I installed and played for several hours “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis,” which was one of my favorite games for a long time. Even with its crappy graphics and lack of sound, the game still rocks. After I beat it, I’m gonna go back and hit the other LucasArts titles, like “Sam and Max Hit the Road” and “Day of the Tentacle.”

Aside from video gaming, I read comic books, which in turn inspired me to work on the script for the comic book Jason and I are working on. You may remember it, since it was originally a screenplay named “Destiny.” We chucked that a few months ago, fleshed out the story, and are now trying to turn it into a comic. So if you’re an artist and would seriously like to draw a comic book, email me.

Oh. And I worked on some lite school work.

Nate and Erin had their wedding reception/party last night. Though I got there as a lot of people were leaving, I nonetheless had a good time. I might have some pictures up from it in a few days.

Okay, I need to get a little bit more gaming time in before I head to bed.

JAB