Alex Vernon.com

A RotK EE trailer has been released! You can see it here.

Thanks to /.

-Alex

Have you ever noticed that 16 and 24 seem closer together than 8 and 16, even though they are the same distance apart?

-Alex

Last night I came to the conclusion that I’ve been partying too much and have not been getting enough physical activity. I have become soft physically and mentally, plus I have been spending way to much money and drinking more than I should be. To rectify this situation I am going to start taking Aikido again and I am also going to begin Kendo training. I took Aikido before a few years ago for a few months but fell out of practice. My purpose is not to become a Bad Ass, if that were the case I would train in Muay Thai and Brazilian JuJitsu. I want to start training for a number of other reasons including discipline, confidence, benevolence and to get in shape. I plan on starting Kendo in Janurary and checking out an Aikido dojo tomorrow. I am approximately 200 lbs. right now, I plan on losing some weight and then adding muscle. My ultimate goal is to weigh between 220-230 lbs. then go from there. Of course I need to start getting ready (especially for Kendo) and my plan is listed below.

Initial plan:

Stop smoking (again)
Start taking the stairs again at work (stopped when I started smoking again)
Start walking and sprinting with my dog, working up to longer periods of running multiple times a week
Try to meditate everyday
Work on abs and with dumbbells three days a week

-Alex

Here’s some cool stuff I stumbled upon this weekend.

First up, a trippy Zoom Quilt, this is very cool.

I was looking for a website for a band called “Long Knives” and found this site on viking weapons and armor. The illustrations are a little lack luster but the content is good.

For those who ever wondered how Japanese blade shapes changed over time this is the site for you.

Here is a wicked Half Life 2 case mod.

And finally watch the stylings of the Afro Ninja!

-Alex

Ok so my plan a couple of Fridays ago (the 19th) was to see seven concerts in a row (on consecutive nights). I already had a few lined up and I read an article recently in Stomp and Stammer about a music reviewer trying to do the same thing. I figured I might as well give it a shot. Friday night I went to see Neon Christ and Go-Devils. They also had a band called Ladies Night playing between the other band’s sets. That confused me at first because I thought the website meant ladies night at The EARL. That didn’t make any sense because they never have a problem getting people in there and that’s the cheesy kind of thing they do in Buckhead and Midtown. Ladies Night had there name on lite-brites in front of their setup. Lite-Brites (check out the link) cool, I’ve had hours of fun with them in the past. Anyway they show was very good and my self-imposed mission was off to a good start.

And that’s as good as it got. The next day I was awaken to a guy from down the street doing work on our roof. Since it didn’t seem like I would be getting any more sleep I decided to get up. About an hour later my roommate brought his Little Brother and a friend of his over. Since my roommate went on the roof to watch the work I was commissioned Big Brother for the day. My roommate’s little brother Devante has been bugging me for months to see my guitar and now I had to kids begging me constantly so I broke down. I pull my guitar case out and they comment on my “Don’t Mess with Texas” sticker, apparently the slogan is used in some current song. I open the case and a wave of noxious fumes hits me in the face like a pissed off girlfriend who just caught me checking out another woman. It basically smelled like a dead skunk that was feasting on rotten eggs before his untimely demise. I saw some mold at the end of the guitar and my heart shrank like the Grinch’s. The waning increased when I lifted the guitar out of the case, it looked like an elementary school science project gone awry. Multicolored mold in various stages of fuzziness inside the case and on the back of the guitar and the stench was unbelievable. After I had removed the guitar from the case I noticed the worst part of the damage, the soundboard was caved in. So basically my guitar is toast and probably my case as well. Not the best thing to happen with a wicked hangover.

The kids kept asking me to go play basketball, I was waiting on my roommate so I suggested we play some football in the meantime. Man was that a bad decision. It went well for about five minutes, then we started running routes. Sanchez Devante’s friend was running a couple of routes with Devante running coverage. I kept anticipating incorrectly so Sanchez and I weren’t connecting. I then told Sanchez to run a buttonhook, I guess I didn’t explain it well enough because he ran straight for Devante and instead of turning around he kept faking spins and ran to the right. He was getting close to the fence so I knew he would have to turn around soon, so I fired the pass. Not super hard but with a little pepper on it (this was an authentic fullsize football BTW). He turned around right when the ball was at head level and it promptly smacked him right in the eye point first. I didn’t know a kid his size could scream like that. Man was it loud! There was a slight delay so I think he was playing it up a bit and not being able to open his eye probably scared him more than anything. I get along really well with kids (maybe because we are on the same mental wave length) but a lot of times I seem to end up hurting them unintentionally. I need to learn to pull back a little better I guess. So after icing Sanchez’ eye down and explaining to him he doesn’t have pink eye they resumed their basketball nagging. Since football was out now (they would’ve played some more but I had enough) I finally acquiesced.

Because it was about four and I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I stopped by Australian Bakery first. The woman behind the counter asked if I was “a big brother” that day. I replied that I was subbing. She was really cool with the boys explaining what they had and suggesting things. When they brought out the food, she gave each of them a free bag of chips. Very cool! I love Australian Bakery, I go there quite often and I would make it a regular lunch stop if I worked closer to it. After eating and dropping off a library book (reviewing coming soon) we headed over to Brownwood park. I have two court options by me and I chose Brownwood since we were closer to it. As I pulled up I noticed that the courts were empty, there was a man and his little girl at the jungle gym and some guys playing cards at one of the picnic tables. Here’s where I made my mistake, I had a bad feeling about the guys but instead of going to the other park, I got out. A couple of minutes after we got on the court one of the aforementioned guys came down and asked if he could shoot with us. Sure I said, he seemed to be fairly young and fucked up on something but not too bad. right after that I realized my mistake, the other three were heading down the hill. The first thing I do when I meet another man for the first time is size him up and try to determine if I could take him out or not. It’s nothing personal it’s just something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new employee at work or a relative, or friend of a friend. Just habit I suppose. After sizing them up I figured I can take on two relatively easily. Four though would be very tough, the thing that really worried me though was that I had two kids with me. All of them seemed to be fucked up. Judging by their eyes, my guess would be crack. So instead of enjoying the game I spent most of the time conserving energy and keeping an eye on our new acquaintances. Fortunately we left without incident. I dropped the kids off and went home and promptly crashed for an hour or so. Later on that evening I went into work with my roommate to shutdown some servers for an impending power cut and went home after that. I was going to see Helmet that night but after the days events I wasn’t feeling up to it, hence my mission failed.

To sum things up here’s a handy key.

Good:

Got to play with kids
Received my new lighter
The kids said my muscles were “solid rock”
Free chips from Australian Bakery
Nothing happening with the crackheads

Bad:

Hitting Sancez in the eye with a football
Finding out my guitar was ruined
Stressed out from the crackheads
Going into work on Saturday

Winner: Good

-Alex

I do not think all women are evil. I was a little pissed off last night when I wrote Women. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone.

-Alex

Women

women are evil
what the fuck
what am I missing
so out of touch with the opposite sex
will I ever figure it out?
doomed to live alone
will I ever unlock the secret?
forever a mystery
forever longing

“Tell me are you a badfish too?” Sublime

-Alex

They don’t call dogs “Man’s Best Friend” for nothing. No matter how bad your night is or what happened, your dog can make everything alright. No other pet to my knowledge can do that. Dogs kick ass! If you don’t have one do yourself a favor and go to the pound, you won’t regret it. Dog’s are the shit, an ex-girlfriend’s dog saved me from a bad trip once and I count the times my dog has mad me feel better. Every single day since I picked him up from the Atlanta Humane Society, he is definitely one of the best investments I’ve ever made.

“Get your hands in the air now, and you will get no hurt mister” Toots

-Alex

I had a very interesting weekend. I’m not going to blog about it tonight because I have to work tomorrow. It should be a slow day though, so I should have a post tomorrow.

Anyway, I think I might be codependent. I seem to be much less self destructive when I have a girlfriend. However even when things are going relatively well I seem to find a way, or come up with a reason to screw things up. It’s like I like adversity, even with my jobs I will procrastinate much of the time and do things under pressure. I tell myself I work better under pressure and maybe that’s true but I’m starting to think it’s a cop out. Why do I do it? Why do I find a reason to end relationships? Granted at least one of them really needed ending but did the others? Why do I do this to myself? Ok, enough with the self pity. On to something more positive. When you have a chance do yourself a favor and listen to Eddie Boyd’s “Five Long Years” on From the Cradle by Eric Clapton. This is why the guitar was invented. One of the best solos of all time, after listening to this song you will know why Clapton is called God. Everytime I hear it I want to turn it up until my ears bleed. I can’t say enough about the song. Crunchy, deep feeling and just absolutely fucking amazing. Definitely check it out if you have a chance. After listening to it on my iPod I was having trouble picking a song to follow it up with. I eventually came up with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. I just saw him again recently and I was not disappointed. I plan on blogging about that show, hopefully I will have something tomorrow.

Keep on rockin’!

-Alex

Last Sunday I was calibrating my flash and TTL sensors for a class I’m taking. One of the things we had to do is take a picture of a black object against a black background. Of course I waited to the last minute and threw together what I had in my room. The ironic thing is the background is a meditation Zabuton, not the first thing you think of when you see a H&K P2000 and a combat knife. I think it turned out pretty cool, so I’m posting it.

-Alex