"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion..."

Buffy reboot?!?!?

athalran — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 03:37:02 GMT

via @feliciaday, I just learned that Warner Bros. is doing a remake of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the film). I also learned that Joss Whedon and the entire Scooby Gang are going to have NO INVOLVEMENT in said film.

I can't help but think this is Warner Bros. trying to cash in on the Twilight fad. It certainly doesn't help that Barnes and Noble now has a "Teen Paranormal Romance" section in its stores. I don't care it was pitched by a huge Buffy TV fan. Buffy is very much alive in Buffy Season 8 comics, and in the right hands. The fact that this film can be made without Joss's permission is in itself a travesty and reason enough for Browncoats and other Whedon fans everywhere to boycott this film.

For me, it will always be Joss, or nothing.
Must be Tuesday.

Buffy Reboot article
Joss's Response
Eliza Dushku: "Joss made the "Buffster" & w/out him... I just don't trust the girl. Or the world."
Emma Caulfield: Buffy reboot? ahahahhaha..
Someone told David Boreanaz

Edit: Oh, and #Joss #Whedon is still trending on Twitter. Not Buffy, Joss. If Warner Bros. Has Internet access they should be crapping their pants about now.
At least someone is reading the internet.

This Child Was Left Behind

athalran — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:21:33 GMT

I'm sorry if I'm super-saturating this, but I came up with this last week and I finally had time to put it together. If you like it, feel free to spread it.

I have brought about the apocalypse.....

athalran — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:48:35 GMT

Tonight, after weeks of debate, I bought an X-Box 360 from GameStop.com.

No, I haven't gone crazy.

I'm still not the biggest fan of the X-Box or the 360. I'm still bitter about both KOTOR games, plus some of Microsoft's press releases about reports of games crashing. I still laugh really hard about reports of the Red Ring of Death. And I think it's ~~crazy~~ silly that the console still uses normal DVDs for games, when there are a few better options out there.

What has changed? I have two words for you: Perfect Dark

"Are you fucking kidding me?! You just spent $300 so you could play a game worth 800 Microsoft Points?!"

Yes.

Let me tell you a story about six young kids in middle school. Everybody loved James Bond, and we were no exception. In 1995 we were treated to the first Bond movie that was close to our hearts; GOLDENEYE. In the summer of 1997 while Paul, Durkin and I were between elementary and jr. high as it was still called, the video game based on GoldenEye came out. I don't know who got it first, or where we played it first, but for the first time in history Mario Kart wasn't the multiplayer game of choice. GoldenEye was the first FPS I played that I actually enjoyed. And even better was that it was a Nintendo 64 game, so by default it was 4-player. My brothers and I played with Durkin and Paul, as well as Durkin's older brother when he was around. Naturally since we weren't adults game choices about who to shoot and what not often lead to tussles after the match, or sometimes before it even ended.

My dad's brother Tim was infamous for buying us things my parents didn't want us to have (like our first console, the Super NES). He came around after the Dreamcast came out and offered to buy us one. We told him we weren't interested. Instead he bought each of us something, and he bought David the director's cut of RESIDENT EVIL for PlayStation. We had played this game many times at Durkin's house, and were very happy to be able to play it in the comfort of our own home. Unfortunately, my mother caught one of us playing it and was horrified. She made us sell it to Funcoland (we got an NES there for Christmas the year before), and we were all ripshit. In his anger, my youngest brother Brian yelled at her "It's no worse than GoldenEye!"
My mother immediately decided we were getting rid of GoldenEye too.

I don't remember exactly when that happened. What I do know is that I subscribed to Nintendo's magazine, Nintendo Power, and in my freshman year of high school the sequel to GoldenEye was coming out. It was going to be called Perfect Dark. It wasn't a James Bond game, but that wasn't what mattered. It had the same soul. I talked to classmates about my dilemma, and they told me that Funcoland won't check ID for Mature rated games. So on May 22, 2000, I caught a bus to the Burlington Mall after school. It was the first time I'd taken the bus alone anywhere but home from school, and I was weirdly nervous. I tend not to like doing things for the first time because I have no idea what to expect. I mean trying games or watching stuff is one thing, but to take action and go somewhere where I don't know what's going to happen is something I've never been comfortable with. I got off the bus next to Macy's, and walked through the mall because it was hot as hell out. I came out of Sears, and managed to not even get close to dying crossing the street getting to Funcoland. I grabbed the game, paid for it, and was out the door as fast as I could. I did it. I had it in my hand. I got back to the bus stop as fast as I could. Once I was finally on the bus, I took a sharpie out of my bag and got rid of the ESRB Rating on everything I could find. When I got home, I showed my brothers our victory, and made them swear to never play it in front of our mother in case she realized what it was. That summer I worked for my dad and made almost a grand I think. The first thing I did was buy a 27" TV that lasted me a good 7 years before I got an LCD HDTV. More importantly, this moved the videogames into my room because I had the best TV in the house, so we could play Perfect Dark as much as we wanted.

Time passed, and dumb shit nearly scattered us permanently to the wind. Super Smash Bros. came out and became the game of choice in my family, and I didn't see my friends enough to make much of a difference in what we were playing. That was 2003.

College was an interesting time. My failures at school brought me and Durkin back together, since he was the only one still around. For the time being, our hang outs consisted of Jack & Coke and Super Mario Bros. 3, and eventually we upgraded to Guitar Hero. I was no good at it, since I never wanted to play it alone and therefore didn't skill up, but it was a good drinking game. As more time passed our lives continued to get more complicated. Durkin cheated on his girlfriend of 3 years (dumbass) and they broke up. Paul graduated college. I met Bunny. I think those three things actually happened in the opposite order. Anyway, on rare occasion we'd pull out an N64 and play GoldenEye or PD, but for the most part we played the newer games and rarely hung out all together. Why? Because in a world with HDTV, old videogames tend to look like shit if they're not 8-bit to begin with.

This year I put a stop to that, and gathered Paul, David, Durkin and myself as much as possible to play games. We were playing Super Mario Bros. Wii a lot, but we also played 1-3 and Mario World sometimes. It was good fun, but it wasn't as much fun as we used to have. And the Paul said we had to hang out, that RARE had just released Perfect Dark in HD. I managed to get Durkin and Mark Earnest over to play it. Coincidentally, this is the first time I've spent any time with Mark in five years. But then we turned on the game, and all the years that passed dissolved, and we were back in my bedroom in high school, getting our asses kicked by the computer players all over again as we tried to relearn the controls. When it was time to go, we made plans to meet up again ASAP. Those mostly fell through, but Paul and I played together for hours, and Durkin stopped by for about an hour.

Yesterday I went over to Durkin's to play it, since after Paul brought his X-Box to my house the first time, both Durkin and Mark had bought the game. We tried to get Paul or Mark to come by to, but no dice. Little did I know that when I arrived, Paul was at home waiting for us over X-Box Live, and even though he wasn't watching my screen as usual, he was still killing me with explosives even though we were on the same team. We had a blast for an hour and a half, and then Bunny and I went home, and Tony and Durkin played together.

We can't stop playing this 10-year-old game because we have way too much fun playing it. The first time I learned that just because we spent so many years apart doesn't make us any less able to enjoy the hell out of this game together. Yesterday I learned that playing each other over X-Box LIVE isn't nearly as inferior to playing split-screen in the same room as I suspected it was. Not only that, but when Paul said he couldn't make it to Durkin's to play with us, he still had the time to play us from home, and even barely being able to hear him without a headset, it was almost as fun as having him there. Playing this game with them made me for the first time see a reason to buy an X-Box, and yesterday made me see that buying one myself would greatly increase our opportunities to play together, and not just make things more convenient as I originally thought. Sure, it seems silly to get a console for what is essentially a DLC, but Bunny has wanted and X-Box for a while, especially for Fable II, so I knew she would get enough out of the purchase to make it worth it.

I had figured this out after the first night of playing with them, but then came the question of when I can fit it into my budget. Today, I got lucky and found a huge discount. Granted, this discount included two games I have no interest in, but in this day and age I can sell them online as new (since they will be) and get almost as much as they're worth. This combined with a $50 gift card in the bundle essentially allows me to get the system for half off. That's right. I just bought a 120GB HD 360 Elite with two games I'm going to sell to get back between $80 and $100, and I get a $50 GameStop card that will go towards Bunny's WoW: Cataclysm Collector's Edition, which we were getting anyway.

Bunny's response was more about the fact that I actually wanted one, and how badly I suddenly wanted it. After all it's been a complete 180 from my previous stances on the subject, such as "It's against my religion to touch an X-Box controller." In my defense, it's been a wicked fucking busy month for me as far as video games are concerned. Between all of this and PAX, there's been a lot to think about. A few of Wheaton's points in his keynote really hit home for me because of Perfect Dark, and it wasn't until I heard him talking about how games kept his friends together did I realize the complete significance of what had happened the week before with Paul, Durkin and Mark. With this realization, and this knowledge that playing this game can keep us in touch and connected on a completely different level than just chatting over the internet, I had to get both a 360 and Perfect Dark as soon as I responsibly could. I'm glad I waited until I found this deal, but I still don't like spending so much money at once. Reselling the free games feels like a mail-in-rebate; good in the long run but you still have to pay full price first.

PAX East

athalran — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:48:06 GMT

With PAX behind me and time to think on the subject, it was very awesome. I seem to have managed to escape without contracting the norovirus, or LARPilepsy as it was referred to by other attendees. We'll see if I suddenly get sick in a few days, but I think symptoms should've manifested by now.

Viral infections aside, since we were only able to obtain Friday passes and could only get that much time off of work anyway, ours was a short stay, and therefore had to be highly prioritized and caused us to miss out on a lot. Next year, without all this wedding stuff to clutter up the schedule, we will accept no excuses between us and a full-blown weekend at PAX, getting everything out of it that we can.

Our time was spent as follows
* Hours of lines, with Mario Kart DS and Rickrolling to make said lines fun. As far as Mario Kart goes, all you need to do is hold up the DS and scream "MARIO KART!" and players will join all around you.
* Watching Wil Wheaton essentially give an exclusive, hour-long podcast about the awesomeness of PAX.
* Wandering around the exhibit halls seeing shiny objects and computer cases which more resemble the Batmobile than something that you'd expect on a desk
* Getting Wheaton to sign all his books, and chatting with him about his podcast, and which version of a book he recommends.
* Managing to keep my shit together when meeting Wheaton, and having a conversation as a normal person.
* nVIDIA's unveiling of their new graphics card, and a demonstration of the tools they give with it to developers to start making games more photo-realistic.
* Watching people wait in line to play StarCraft II (laughs maniacally)
* Being handed t-shirts I don't want by people from ATI, and pawning them off to people who actually wanted them so they don't have to go through all the other people at the ATI booth.
* Dinner with Stephan (Coco), Chris and Yonatan.

What we missed out on
* All the video game freeplay stuff going on.
* A movie Bunny kinda wanted to go to, which they misplaced, and instead Gabe did a panel for the entire timeslot that was supposedly amazing.
* D&D with Chris and Yonatan, which used that new amazing Microsoft Surface.
* The Jonathan Coulton Concert Saturday night
* Saturday
* Sunday

Edit: Just announced that PAX East will definitely be in Boston for the next two years, in a bigger venue. If you want to join us next year let us know. If enough people are interested, we might get a hotel room on site next year to get rid all of that pesky travel time. And we will be buying our tickets the day that they are announced.

For the record, many have complained about the lines and the how cramped the convention was. According to the linked article (and PA newsposts I've read in the past) They really weren't planning on PAX East to be quite so big this year, expecting only 30,000. Final tally for attendees was over 60,000. I don't know how the lines were after Friday, but Saturday morning Gabe tweeted an apology to everyone who had a bad line experience at that point (like how Bunny, Parsons and I almost didn't get into the Keynote, and how Lolo and Stuart didn't get in), and said that they were taking steps to prevent it from happening anymore.

Update!

athalran — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:53:21 GMT

-crossposted from website-

For the record. Dreamweaver is awesome. I wish I'd been using it all these years. I'm sure as hell not promising a thing, but the ease of updating with Dreamweaver over GoLive might actually cause me to update more often. Might. Just like Firefly might someday get a second chance on TV. The odds are probably about the same.

At Bunny's request I'm looking into posting my iPhoto library on the website, but I haven't decided how I'm going to go about doing this yet. The said photo library is also fucking huge, so it'll take awhile to get organized and stuff. August is a very, very busy month, as is September. I'll try to look into it in some spare time. Part of the problem is Bunny's sister Kate makes videos for her kids' birthdays. These videos include slide shows and video clips. We have many pictures of Kate's newest child Lincoln, and Bunny wants an easy way to share these with Kate in time to make the slideshow. Yay deadlines. I may actually accomplish this. Stay tuned.

On the video game front, I'm almost up to Lich King alliance side. It's safe to assume this is taking up most of my online time, but I just finally got my hands on the Ghostbusters game. I am very eager to sink my teeth into it, but I may not have time until the end of the weekend. Sadness. I have downloaded the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo, and I assure you it's wonderful. It's like the style and tactics of Metal Gear Solid games, which is perfect for Batman. I'm greatly looking forward to the game's release at the end of the month. Now if I only had 72 hours in a day. I could work, sleep, do work around the house, AND get my video games all in.

Until next time.

Borg682 -> Athalran

athalran — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:18:30 GMT

Today I purchased new webhosting, and therefore a new domain name. Athalran.net. In an attempt to get away from the arbitrary numbers assigned to me by AOL a decade ago, I am also switching the name of this LJ from Borg682 to Athalran.

Edit: I am in the process of changing the main text font to something that's actually legible, but I need to eat lunch and go to work, so I'm done working on that until tomorrow.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, 1932-2008

athalran — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:35:24 GMT

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry Has Died

Sarah Palin could be the worst thing to ever happen to our country

athalran — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:44:56 GMT

People who have access to my LiveJournal might remember that my preferences in this election went Obama, Gore, Biden, Dodd, and then McCain. Yes, I wanted to see McCain in the White House more than Hilary, and so did the groundskeepers at the White House. As you can assume I was quite happy with an Obama-Biden ticket, promising to empower Al Gore to do what he wants to do. But now, with McCain's selection of Palin as a running mate, I can no longer abide the thought of a McCain administration.

First of all, McCain is old. My maternal grandparents had both spent a year in the ground at his age. He's had four bouts with melanoma. My grandmother died during her third bout with breast cancer. This doesn't mean he wouldn't be a good president. It just means his chances of surviving a four-year term aren't great. In the long search for a running mate, I believed that McCain was smart enough to consider the fact that he has to die sometime, and it could be while he has that job he wants so badly. In which case, he would have surely picked someone whose fitness and ability to do that job would never be in doubt. Two weeks ago he proved me wrong.

Sarah Palin has little to no experience in everything that matters. Rudi Giuliani was far more qualified than she is. Giuliani was the mayor of NY, while she was governor of one of the most unpopulated states in the country. She has spent her time in office firing people who don't agree with her, and I believe time will show, those who don't do what she wants them to do. Her environmental policy has been "Don't protect the endangered wildlife because that makes it hard to drill for oil," "We're shooting wolves from helicopters all over Alaska so that local hunters have more to hunt," and "We're killing wolf cubs because they can't survive without their parents (that we also killed)."

Palin opposes state-funded sex education and supports abstinence-only education. I think her daughter's situation is proof enough of how well that works, not to mention the STD rate in Alaska is high enough to call it an epidemic. There is nothing wrong with teaching abstinence, but there is NOTHING more important when we live in a world of HIV than teaching how do protect yourself against STDs. I was fortunate enough to have state-funded sex education, and I am very grateful of that, as is my fiance. We don't want kids for a decade, if that, and fortunately we are both armed with a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Palin likes to call herself a fighter of corruption. She doesn't like to talk about how she spent almost $50,000 of the State's money in the past 20 months on her family, money that is set aside for official state business trips by the governor. She took from this fund 300 times. Then there are her firings of people who didn't agree with her all of the time, not to mention repeated queries to the librarian in her town about banning books. I'm sorry but how is that not fascist? Her abuse of power is just as bad as Bush's. And she hasn't been around nearly as long.

Then there is Palin's stance on one of the most basic rights a woman can have: the right to an abortion. Legalized abortion might have been more important than women's suffrage. The abortion debate is one of the most heated debates going on anywhere in the world, but abortions will happen whether you want them to or not, and while that is the case, we must protect those who have them from exposing themselves to extreme risk. Studies have proven that the rate of abortions is the same globally in legal and illegal countries. The leading cause of death for women old enough to become pregnant in Canada used to be botched abortions. Globally, 13% of women are still dying from abortions. This same study also proved that abortion happens less where contraception is more widely available. You want to reduce abortion rates? Teach people how to use condoms instead of telling them not to have sex. I guarantee you'll feel much better about yourself. Abortions aren't easy no matter the situation. It's always easier to prevent something than to have to deal with it.

While we're on the subject of rights, there comes to mind gay rights. The Log Cabin Republicans, THE group of gay Republicans, petitioned the RNC this year to reverse the party's official platform on equal marriage, saying that half the party supports either marriage rights or civil unions. Alas their pleas fell upon deaf ears. Palin has yet to publicly say anything on the issue, however her church, of which she is a proud member, is very proud of its "Pray Away the Gay" philosophy of "rehabilitating" homosexuals through prayer and other means. I haven't set foot in my church since they had a crisis meeting on Massachusetts legalizing equal marriage, and I can't begin to describe my rage when I read about that phrase. 10% of organisms that have gender are attracted to their own gender. What happened to "God made everything and it was Good"? Do all these bibles have footnotes that say "Except the gays"?

I never thought I'd find the exact embodiment of everything that I feel is wrong with this country in one person. She is the enemy of the environment, of responsible government, of debate, of fundamental rights of choice and knowledge, holding no tolerance for different ideas or thinking. Hockey mom? She's Domi, out on the ice beating anyone in her way to a pulp, and it's time to call the penalties.

Dr. Horrible is amazing

athalran — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:39:21 GMT

So yeah, watched Act One last night, and then we watched it again. And then we watched it again. Then we went to bed and watched it again. Then we woke up, downloaded it from iTunes, and watched it again. Called David downstairs and watched it again. Copied it to my iPhone and watched it again.

I'll probably be watching it until Act Two comes out tomorrow night. And then I'll watch them both constantly.

DrHorrible.com

athalran — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:49:46 GMT

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

WTF?

athalran — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:33:23 GMT

Am I missing something here, or is this legitimate? If it is, I don't see how she can possibly still be running.

http://www.paulvclinton.com/

Charlton Heston dead at 84...

athalran — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 06:46:01 GMT

Quick! Pry the guns from his cold dead hands!!!

AIDS Walk Boston

athalran — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 04:50:59 GMT

So today while I was procrastinating I came across something for the AIDS Action Committee, and it reminded me that AIDS Walk Boston was coming up, sooner than I thought I might add (June 3rd). Since Lauren is in CT now I didn't know if anyone would be organizing a district team at Starbucks (like last year). There's a district meeting coming up, so I drove in to work and asked my manager to bring it up at the meeting, and to say that I would be willing to spearhead the team if nobody else came forward to do it. I figure I have barely enough spare time to make sure it happens again this year, and is hopefully a bigger success. I will keep you posted, as I do love to get donations big and small. After all, every little bit helps.

Obama '08

athalran — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:33:42 GMT

In case you weren't aware, I went to a town hall style meeting with Barack Obama at
UNH last night. Since then I've been going through CNN and reading up on the other candidates who have information to see how they compare at this early stage. As a result, I have this list of candidates ranked by how much I agree with them.

Sen. Barack Obama (IL) D
(Al Gore D?)
Sen. Joe Biden (DE) D
Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) D
(Sen. John McCain (AZ)?) R

So yeah, that's where I stand. As I suspected, practically none of the Republican candidates looked appealing to me, and at this point Obama is definitely my top choice. I don't like him 100%. He's more a God-fearing man than I'd like, in that his religious views keep him from doing what he wonders if is right. As a result he is against Gay Marriage, but a firm believer of equal rights for gay and lesbian couples to those of mixed gender relationships. In his words (paraphrased, I wasn't taking notes), the problem with gay marriage is that some people have trouble separating marriage in the legal worldly sense with marriage in the religious sense, and admits that he is one of those people. Getting married was a very religious thing to him, and (now my words and opinion) he is unable to reconsile what his faith tells him and what is fair and right. I don't think that lets him off the hook for that one. What says that it isn't a religious matter for those couples? I think he's wrong on that subject, but it's a better view than some have. Plus I don't think he'd actively hunt Gay Marriage, as there is a difference between not supporting a thing and trying to stop it altogether.

Other issues I want to hear him talk about:

Abstinence-only Education
He talked about HIV/AIDS and Abortion, having great stances on both. As far as condom distribution goes, he asked a crowd of evangelicals whether they thought God would rather people die than use condoms. Best line ever. He's pro-choice, and wants to make other options than abortion more appealing, and to cut down on teen pregnancies, therefore reducing the number while making everyone happy. Both of these skirt the issue of sex education, and I want to personally hear him say he will change this administration's policy of pushing abstinence-only education, and instead encourage a much more information-based approach.

USAPATRIOT Act
Obama spoke about how it's time we stopped ignoring the Constitution, but mentioned nothing specific as to what he wants to do with the USAPATRIOT Act. Personally, I say the measures that enhance fluidity of government organizations that do not violate the constitution or other established rights of individuals should be left intact, and everything else needs to be dismantled and destroyed. I'm hoping to hear something similar from him, but I expect something unpleasant like a bad timeframe or lack of power to really do much about it.

TV Thing

athalran — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:27:41 GMT

Bold if you've seen three or more episodes of a show. italicize if you're certain you've seen every one. Add three, in alpha order, please.

24
The 4400
7th Heaven
The A-Team
Adam-12
The Addams Family
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias
Allo Allo
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol
America's Next Top Model/Germany's Next Top Model
The Andy Griffith Show
Angel
Arrested Development
The Avengers
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
The Beverly Hillbillies
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boy Meets World
The Brady Bunch
Brimstone
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle's Show
Charlie's Angels
Charmed
Cheers
The Colbert Report
Columbo
Commander in Chief
The Cosby Show
Coupling (UK, for me at least)
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Daily Show
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci's Inquest
Dawson's Creek
Dead Like Me
The Dead Zone
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Different Strokes
Doctor Who (old Who)
Doctor Who (new Who)
Dragnet
Due South
Earth: Final Conflict
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
The Flintstones
Frasier
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Friends
Full House
Futurama
Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Get Smart
Gilligan's Island
Gilmore Girls
The Golden Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey's Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Happy Days
Hogan's Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
The Honeymooners
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell's Kitchen
JAG
Jack & Jill
Jackass

The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
Joey
John Doe
Kath and Kim
The L Word
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
L&O: Special Victims Unit
L&O: Criminal Intent
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
The Love Boat
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married... With Children
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
The Mighty Boosh
Millenium
Mission Hill (this one is nuts, got canned by the WB)
Mission: Impossible
Monk
The Monkees
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
The Munsters
Murphy Brown
My Family
My Life as a Dog
My Super Sweet Sixteen
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
The Mythbusters
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers
The Pretender
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
The Real World
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
The Shield
The Simpsons
Six Feet Under
The Six Million Dollar Man
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
So Weird
The Sopranos
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
That 70's Show
That's So Raven
Third Watch
Three's Company
Top Gear
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Unhappily Ever After
Veronica Mars
The Waltons
The West Wing
Wings
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
The Wonder Years
The X-Files

AIDS Walk Boston

athalran — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:31:28 GMT

In other news, this Sunday I'll be participating in AIDS Walk Boston with the Starbucks Team. We're trying to raise money for the AIDS Action Committee, and are in need of donations. I know most of you have little or no money to spare, but I also know that this is something important, and most of you care enough about others to give what you can. I'm not asking for much or anything really. If you can spare five bucks, donate five bucks. If you can spare 20 or 40 that's great. If you can't spare anything, just pass the word along to someone who can. Thanks for your support.

My AIDS Walk Boston Page

underGRADS

athalran — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:50:37 GMT

I gave my website a facelift

athalran — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:46:46 GMT

I finally finished my design for a symbol for the website, and after doing that I just kept going, and ended up giving the entire site a facelift (and a badly needed one at that). It's all nice and shiny, so you should check it out. One day when I have time I might even properly update it. Who knows.....

Wow, nothing I need to do for almost 24 hours...

athalran — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:56:28 GMT

Amazing; time to breathe. I don't get nearly enough of this stuff while the sun is out.

Goth--
[ ] Do you wear black eyeliner?
[x] Is most of your clothing dark?
[ ] Do you think about death often?
[ ] Do you want to die?
[ ] Are you a social outcast?
[ ] Are you pale?
[ ] Do you like Hot Topic?
[x] Do you enjoy Tim Burton movies?
[ ] Are you mean?
Total X: 2

--Punk--
[ ] Can you skateboard
[ ] Do you wear Vans?
[x] Do you do stupid stuff with your friends?
[ ] Have you gotten in trouble with the Cops?
[ ] Do you watch the x-games?
[ ] Do you have any piercings?
[x] Do you like/wear mohawks?
[x] Do you wear Band t-shirts
[ ] Have you called someone a poser recently?
Total X:3

--Prep--
[x] Do you say the word "like"? (not constantly, though)
[ ] Do you shop at Hollister/Abercrombie&Fitch/Aero?
[ ] Do you pop the collar?
[ ] Do the people in Hot topic scare you?
[ ] Is the only nerd you like Seth Cohen?
[ ] Do you watch LAGUNA BEACH?
[ ] Do you like pop music?
[ ] Do you want a little dog?
Total X: 1

--Hippie--
[x] Is your hair long?
[x] Do you own a tye-dye shirt?
[x] Do You want to save the animals?
[x] Do you think war is unneccesary?
[x] Do you like classic rock and trippy music?
[x Have you ever participated in a protest?
[ ] Have you ever been overcome with a desire to hug a tree?
Total X: 6

--Gangsta--
[ ] Do you act ghetto?
[ ] Do you wear do-rags?
[ ] Do you like hip-hop?
[ ] Was Tupac truly the greatest rapper in the world?
[ ] Do you believe he's alive?
[ ] Do you like afros?
[ ] Have you ever said "Fo Shizzle"?
[ ] Do you like to dance?
[ ] Do you own any Baby Phat or G-Unit?
Total X: 0

--Emo-
[ ] Do you cry often?
[x] Do you wear hoodies?
[x] Do you like soft music?
[ ] Do people not understand you?
[ ] Do you write your own poems?
[ ] Ever dyed your hair red, black or dark? [Blue]
[x] Do you cut your own hair? [When it gets cut]
[ ] Are you lonely?
[ ] Is "Ohio for lovers" by Hawthorne Heights, a good song?
Total X: 3

--Surfer--
[ ] Do you surf?
[ ] Do you wear flip flops year-round?
[ ] Is your hair shaggy?
[ ] Do you wake up before 6 every morning?
[x] Do you own any pairs of shorts?
[ ] Are you tan?
[ ] Do you want to be at the beach right now?
[ ] Do you hate tourists?
Total X: 1

--Geek-
[x] Do you wear glasses?
[x] Do you get good grades? [I get bad grades too]
[ ] Do you use an inhaler?
[ ] Do you stick pens and calculators into your shirt pockets?
[ ] Does your mom pick out your clothes?
[x] Are you on the computer often?
[ ] Do you ever get picked on?
[ ] Do you look forward to going to school?
[ ] Are you shy around the opposite sex? [Just the ones I'm really attracted to]
[x] Do you play video games?
Total X: 4

Goth 2, Punk 3, Prep 1, Hippie 6, Gangsta 0, Emo 3, Surfer 1, Geek 4

Huh, didn't quite expect this outcome.

And in the Best News of the Week...

athalran — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:30:31 GMT

Ian Lavallee has returned to the US from Iraq alive (and hopefully unscarred).

TPS Reports....

athalran — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:33:03 GMT

It seems the White House didn't get the memo.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20051204/D8E971TG8.html

Michael Piller, 1948-2005

athalran — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 21:24:21 GMT

The great minds of Star Trek were Gene Roddenberry, Ron Moore, Ira Steven Behr, Manny Coto, and Michael Piller. Gene of course is the creator of all things Trek, but Michael was the heart and soul of Star Trek's 24th Century. He came to The Next Generation at the beginning of Season 3, and thinking it was the last thing he'd ever have to write for Star Trek, made the Best of Both Worlds, Part I. When he was brought back, he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea that he had to clean up the mess he made in the last episode, but despite it he made the best two episodes of the series right there. From there he became in charge of the writing team, and then later co-created Deep Space Nine and Voyager with Rick Berman.

An avid baseball fan, he established baseball was a dead sport in 3x01 Evolution, and then made Benjamin Sisko three years later. In fact, he is mainly responsible for all character development in Star Trek from 1989 to 1996. That's not to say that others didn't have brilliant ideas, but he had a good number of his own and tied everything together. For all the episodes outsiders could watch and say "this is a quality TV show" when the thoughts beforehand were "Star Trek is for geeks" we mainly have him to thank, for the work he did, and because others like Behr continued it after him. He did so much not just for Star Trek but for writers everywhere, and I've only scratched the surface here. I however meant to be asleep four hours ago, and my next shift at work grows increasingly closer.

Thank God for "The Internet"

athalran — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 01:02:08 GMT

I have my Daily Show fix again, and life is good.

Orson Scott Card's review of Serenity

athalran — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:00:50 GMT

I just stumbled across this, and it's great. I'm going to link it on my main page soon, but here it is right away.

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-30-extra.shtml

Because I'm waiting for Family Guy...

athalran — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 16:58:08 GMT

You are a
Social Liberal
(75% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(6% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test