Looks like the LJ syndicated feeds are dead YET again, if the 10 posts since yesterday on my FL are any indication. Third or fourth time in the last month IIRC. They should just fucking pull the plug on that "feature" because they obviously can't make it work. I need to just bite the bullet and get a separate reader and set it up, but then my reason for coming to LJ regularly will drop by about half.

Nothing like all the LJ RSS feeds being down to shine a light on just how barren LJ has become these days.

"Dear midnightmadness,

We noticed that someone logged in to your LiveJournal account from a new
device or location. Detailed information about this login:

Country: [country]
Internet service provider: [ISP]
IP address: [ip]"



(actually, I do know it was likely me since I reset/cleared my work browser and my privacy settings, but still, how useless is this info/email? -this isn't a redacted info thing, this is exactly how it came.)

Sound Check: Journey - Feeling That Way / Anytime
Attitude Check: exanimate

So, Clue was this past weekend. It was a glorious clusterfuck, which I expected after 5 years of not shadowcasting it, but everyone knew their part, and the audience had a good time, so I consider it a success. So much so, that I can see it becoming an annual thing for us in November. That, or Hedwig. If they give us a choice in the future, I'll opt for Hedwig as it's easier to stage without blocking rehearsals, and then opt for Clue in the Jan- April quarter.

We had 4 Rocky Shows in a week (5 if you count the earlier DesPlaines show, which I do since I had to sell kits and do cleanup). Everyone stepped up in an amazing way. I'd run down the list of each individual person and their efforts, but I have to say that every single MM member was exceptional this time around. I've gotten quite spoiled by my cast as, even when it looks like things are going to blow up in our faces and it's going to be a big failure, everyone comes together and does their thing and does it well. We were talking at the rehearsal we had before the Halloween shows about Rocky "anxiety" dreams. Mine is almost always the same one. We're performing for the first time with no notice and no rehearsals or casting at a new theater, and the print/cut of Rocky is different (usually, it's a remake too - not even the same on screen cast). I'm stressed to fuckall about it and yet everyone does a spectacular job and the show is awesome. Even my subconscious knows that in the end, the MM kids will excel.

It's really by design though that we have the cast we do. Over the past half dozen years the cast execs/leaders have really made an effort to cultivate the cast and shape it into what it is. We've discouraged drama queens and nipped most bullshit in the bud before it has a chance to blossom. The execs have done this Rodeo / Circus before, and we usually know within a show or two whether someone is going to work with the cast... usually even before that - we have about a 20% follow through with everyone that applies. They think it's going to be a "show up and mess around" deal, and we shed light on the fact that it's a hell of a lot of work to do Rocky - at least, Good Rocky. We still do have a lot of fun - ask every last MM member and they'll tell you it's fun. It's even in our Cast Constitution, if you find that you’re not having fun anymore, consider taking a leave, or leaving the cast. Which is how we lose many/most of our longtime (more than a couple of years) members. They find they're not having fun anymore, or something else is more fun/important to them, and we wish them well as they move on. Thing is, every time we lose a couple-few, a crop of newbies seems to come in and they do a bang up job (I wish we could give them more time in their primary goal roles right off the bat, but a large cast with a once a month show hinders that). It's also fun for the Old Timers to see too, as there's nothing more rejuvenating or encouraging for us than to see the show/movie through the eyes of the younglings.

I know I said I wasn't going to single anyone out, but I do have to give much/most of the credit to Sarah. She's been our staging manager for several years now and that "cultivating" I described - a lot of that is due to her. She works tirelessly making sure everyone is in line, people know their parts and have costumes, and rehearse and grow, and whack them with a stick (or, spray them with a bottle ;-) when they get lazy or step out of line (even me - if you guys think I "escape" the wrath of Sarah when Imma Bad Cast Member, you're sadly mistaken). Dozens and dozens of emails and texts and phone calls a month to do that. She processes and posts all of the pictures too and that in itself is a HUGE job. You guys all see the 15 or 20 pictures from me and her and George in a few posts per show/month - but she has to sift through the 600-1200 pictures per show that George and I dump on her, and process the final shots, to get that end result of the handful of pictures that makes us look good. Earlier this year, I won the Boss Award for Rocky. Even though it was for efforts and accomplishments for the National Rocky scene, it just would not have been possible without my cast, or Sarah. The job she and the kids to with the cast makes me look good. For the most part, I'm a very hands off leader, only stepping in when I feel it's necessary, but that wouldn't be possible if we didn't have so may talented and wonderful people doing their part. It also has allowed me over the years to take the time to do things on a multi cast/national level, because I know they got it covered and the month to month shows with go off smoothly. Even on the local CRHAP level, Sarah is the one that organizes the annual bowling and picnic events. Without her, those important multicast group events would have died long ago. Honestly and frankly, if it wasn't for the great people we've had with MM over the last 15 years, I would have given up and left it all back in the 90's (likely in '98, after we lost the 400 / Village North).

Most of all Sarah keeps me sane. October 2012 was a VERY rough month for me personally, for reasons that I'll get into here later this week, but she took the personal crap life has thrown at me/us and dealt with all of it in addition to making sure the MM shows ran and came off without a hitch (frankly, the Rocky shows were pretty much the ONLY good thing to happen to me in October). Sure, we argue about stuff (I'd say the majority of arguments or heated discussions we have about things are mostly Rocky based). We try to avoid talking about Rocky much in our personal lives/time, but sometimes stuff just needs to get done (and, for those of you that think / believe I automatically back her on everything, you're also sadly mistaken - she will tell you that's not the case - and many of the MM execs and cast will too). It's just that most of the stuff, by the time it goes "public", has already made it through several filters / levels and it may *seem* like we agree, but many things never make it beyond discussion among the cast leaders. We vet and think most things through long before anyone else sees them. It's one of the reasons we all seem to be in agreement almost all of the time - by the time it's beyond the 2-7 of us (numbers vary depending on how important the decision is, or how much we feel all of us need to discuss or talk about something), it has been thoroughly worked over and out. Sarah, George, Chris, Bones, Mom Elaine, and Monika - they are my trusted advisors and strength to keep doing this.

So, long story short (too late). The reason I'm still her and still doing this - the wonderful cast of super hard working kids, and most of all Sarah. THEY are the ones that deserve the credit. Their dedication and hard work for very little "glory" is amazing, and I'm super proud and honored to be a part of this cast. You Guys make me fly.

Attitude Check: optimistic

So, it's been well over two months since I made my last post, and since early summer since I made any post of anything substantial. It's been a MEGA busy summer. I've probably done more in the last 4 months that the last 4 years... well, it seems that way.

I'm still here, daily. I'm still around on line (still hate Facebook, but slowly making my peace with it as a Necessary Evil). Missing the Ol' Day's of LJ. I'm actually writing, a lot, these days. Some will be posted here, some not. Right now, I'm just looking to get through October and the Mad Halloween season. It's Hell and Hard Work, but this is the time I live for every year, where it all translates into mega audiences, good shows and good times with good friends. 4 Rocky shows and Clue coming. Glorious Insanity. You should come to one of them - really.

In November, after things calm down, I'll talk at you all more ;-)

Gawd this post had a lot of "random" capitalization.



(Comments are screened on this entry for a variety of reasons - I'll likely unscreen anything/everything, just note if you comment if you don't want something public)

Attitude Check: recumbent
Sound Check: The Spinners - Working My Way Back To You

In the wake of tragedy, should Warner Brothers pull The Dark Knight Rises from theaters?

So, yeah, that's the LJ poll question today.

Not only is the answer NO, but it's a HELL NO from me.

Look, at this point we know nothing about the motives behind the shooting. It's likely they weren't related to Batman or the theater at all. Don't be a reactionary sheeple. Any way or reason, this is the deed of a very mentally unstable person that killed many people that he never knew or never would know him otherwise. In the coming weeks, we'll certainly have the picture of the killer painted for us quite thoroughly in the media, and miscellaneous calls for action to try to prevent this from happening again will be made (and, mostly ignored as the story fades away in the media - such is the way of the human race). Other than taking some time to pause and reflect on this, and maybe to help others that may be having a difficult time coming to terms with this, let me give a bit of personal advice; DON'T LET THE BASTARD WIN. That is to say, don't let the random terrible act of a single person change the way you live your life. Did you have plans to see a movie this weekend, maybe even Batman or Rocky at midnight, and you're considering not going now - please, go. You can't cower under your bed every time a monster roars somewhere in the world, or you're going to spend your whole life under your bed.


ETA: Don't Blame The Dark Knight Rises for Theater Massacre

The awesomeness of jefF cannot be limited to 10 words.

Tags: self description, writer's block

Most of this I wrote most of this a few weeks ago, but then shit happened that I needed to address and I only just now came back to it. Yes, I think I'm about pushing the limits of recall for a personal con wrap up. Did the last 10% or so yesterday, and posting today to get it posted in the *same* month. Pics to follow, in July.

I'm going to "bullet" point this otherwise it'll get into a 10 page wordy and rambly bit.

Driving. I drove all of the way there and back. Sarah and I usually drive separate vehicles when we drive to con (I believe TCJ1 was the only other time we drove together). It was nice and relaxing and reasonably stress free. I prefer to do the driving anyway. Our carload of people arrived early Thursday afternoon.

We settled in, relaxed, hit registration about 3 minutes after it opened. Looking at the BOsscar awards ballot, we noticed that Sarah and I got a nomination as cutest couple. Even though I knew we wouldn't win (that was John and Ed's award from the start ;-), it was just cool to be recognized for that. Me and Sarah in general had a great/relaxing con. After the total disaster that was Atlantic City, I was determined that I was going to make it as easy on her and that she had as good of a time as I could control, and it worked to mostly great success.

Drawbridge - It's a "Rocky Hotel" (a definition/post in itself). Liz' ( sexychicken ) comment put it the best (paraphrasing, since I wasn't there), "It's a weird freaky maze of rooms and corridors. It's like something out of The Shining. I keep thinking I'm going to turn the corner and find the twins there in a bloody hallway." I like weird hotels for Rocky cons, myself. I'll take a Drawbridge or Americus over a Hyatt or Hilton anyday.

Montgomery Inn. Ate there twice, just me and Sarah. Good food, nice wind down time for us.

Cos __cosmo__ and Kev richteaboy and Nathan nsummers . My brothers. Wished we all lived in the same area. Didn't get enough time to spend with any of these guys this con (running a con is just like that, and Nathan spent most of the con time working). Had to stop Kev in the hall to do a shot or two of Jack, because I knew that I'd never be able to get his time/attention otherwise.

BOSS Award. This is kinda a big deal that I don't want to consolidate or bullet point, so I'm going to do an entire separate post later. But a couple anecdotal things that don't really go with that post.

Lot's of kudos and congrats all around from everyone, and I do thank everyone. I think the comment I enjoyed the most was from Liz Stockton sexychicken when she said, "I was afraid the were going to pick someone lame - I was happy it was you - yay, not lame!"

Chelsea (Hand of The King!). No, she didn't slap me for my commentary to this pic I posted of her before con (because she hadn't seen it ;-), but post official Friday festivities through the course of talking, we got on the subject of Game of Thrones and we were geeking out over that, I think I said something like "it's good to be the king." She was wearing her broach at the after room parties, and she became, "Hand of the King." She did note, that wasn't necessarily a good thing as it hasn't worked out well for past Hands. ;-)

I won't be modest or lie, I did pretty much love or eat up walking up to groups or into rooms and having people shout, "Look, it's Rocky Horror Lengend / 2012 Boss Award winner jefF Nurkiewicz!" and having everyone applaud. Yeah, I like that.

Though I know that the vote between me and someone else (and I had no idea who the someone else was, until long after the con) was pretty close / even and I barely won, I took solace in something that (I believe it was) Bernie said to me (might have been Cosmo or Shawn, kinda fuzzy), he said "while the vote might have been close, there isn't a single one of us that doesn't believe you don't deserve it and that you haven't earned it." Bernie and Shawn were very congratulatory throughout the rest of the weekend, giving me kudos several times. I love that Bill Brennan came out for this and that I won it at what could be his last con appearance / performance. Bill has been in my corner to get a BOSS for a dozen years now, and I'm glad he was there for it.

Not being drunk. I spent a lot of the weekend surprisingly / mostly sober. I think I can only pinpoint about 3 hours total the whole weekend where I would put myself in the category of not being able to drive level inebriation.

FIRE! Well, fire alarm. Went off in the middle of Rocky on Saturday night, and we spent 45 minutes in a parking lot hanging out. Douchebag redneck / baptists tried to film us from their hotel rooms, and I got all up in them and started taking pics of *them*. When they closed the curtains on me, got a little bit confrontational and started yelling at them. Nothing threatening, just a lot of, "Oh, why is it okay for you to film us, but I can't take pics of you. Cowards!" Fuckers - just needed to remind myself, that even though it was a Rocky convention at a reasonably laid back hotel, we were still in a redneck area with redneck "Christian" morals and values. Monika moniusia calmed me the fuck down from that. Didn't help matters much that when Sean Weller started offering drinks from the bucket after 20+ minutes standing around in a parking lot and watching post show partying minutes dwindle away, I gave into my "no bucket" drink abstention.

MM/Trixie Brigade. Beautiful is all I can say. Looked spectacular from the audience, and I kept saying to myself, wow these ladies are all from MY cast! :-) Sarah did a great job putting it all together and with Amie, Monika, Holly, Julia, Mellissa, and Bones, they were all spectacular. Even if you weren't my cast, that would have been a highlight of the con.

MM bonding. Amie, Larry, George - the suite room *rocked*. So doing that again. While it wasn't the epic / party room of the con, it was a good fun place to be. Most of my non official con time was spent there. I like the bonding we have done as a cast over the last few cons. We don't get nearly as much group cast casual time in Chicago, so it's nice to have it at con.

Thursday Party - The Indiana room is where it was at. Most people I saw for the first time at con, it was at the party there. MM left en masse though when the security started warning us and we knew it was about to break up or bust up. Didn't do a whole lot after.

Friday Party - Spent most of the early part hours in the MM room, which was cool as the people were all coming to us for the most part. A couple hours into it, The Hand talked me into going up to the HOH room. It was kinda neat walking in to the cheers and applause for the award win. Hung out there for about 45-60 minutes, then they broke it up. And I decided to call it a night too.

Saturday Party - Was all about the MM room - didn't move around / float for the night. Was already too late after Rocky (FIRE!). We all know how that ended too. Was standing by Ruth and Wally and Audrey, and started hearing the all to familiar "uh-oh - MAKE A HOLE" callout from the back of the room, and looked over to see Ogre projective vomiting towards us. From my angle it seriously looked like a slew of arrows from a Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings battle coming at us. I only got a little on my shirt/arm. Wally took the full brunt of it (if they were arrows, he'd be dead). Only took me a few minutes to change/clean up, but by the time I got back, all non MM people had been cleared from the room. Tried to stick it out for a little while longer, but gave up shortly after.

Official Con stuff.
Thursday karaoke; not a big karaoke person myself, but was nice to see everyone who was there at the time.

BOSScars. Loved it. My plan is there will be a BOSScars type of award (award show with a Chicago twist or five) at Chicago 2014... prolly something phallic.

Panels - I *really* love the fan panels. I could sit in on a full day of fan panels and workshops. It's too bad they aren't better attended by con goers, but I'm a big fan of the technical, creation, business side of things Rocky, so these are totally in my interest zone. I learned from these - yes, BOSS award winner 25 year veteran me learned things. Sat on the Web Site / Rocky in the digital age panel. Not sure anyone learned anything from me, but didn't talk much either.

Shocky - Great as always, a highlight of the con for me, as always too.

Other Sat stuff. Once you've seen one costume contest, auction, raffle, there's not a whole lot of variation. Kinda Like what they did with the Costume contest questions, though not so much in execution. They should have pre pub'd the question list for the contestants, it would have been a lot more rehearsed, but would have been a lot easier (less lame) for most of the contestants that aren't used to having a mic shoved in their nads and thinking on their feet (it's a totally different animal than shadowcast performing, and an emcee I know this). Still, stuck around for it all. Didn't watch any films (outside of Rocky/Shocky), cartoons, or other stuff.

Rocky - Again, good show. The 45 minute fire alarm really took a toll on the tail end for post show partying, and it seems that at least half of the audience never came back after the alarm. Beyond acknowledging it, I'm not even going to get into the ridiculous childish drama that happened during / after the show. It's done and passed, and no sense rehashing it here.

And that was TCJ2 for me.
j

Sound Check: Elton John - Honky Cat
Attitude Check: recumbent

These are just the pics I cut out from the last post. Posting them here in case you don't want to go back to last years posts to review :-)


The "iconic" pic that Kev uses everywhere - I like knowing that I took it whenever I see him use it :-)


Kev and Cos with Kimmy and Perry

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Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: contemplative

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The third post here are pics from The Celluloid Jam (1) 2009. Many of these pics were posted before in my pre con pic posts from last year, but I didn't review that before I selected these. Guess my opinion of what is a good/favorite pic remains the same over time.
Actually, I took several repeat pics out to save bandwidth.

I may go back and add more captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.





Cosmo and Kev - two guys that know how to throw a damn fun cornholin' shin dig!

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Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: accomplished

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The second post here are pics from Atlantic City 2011.

I may go back and add more captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.




Sammy and Sean say, "Here jefF, peer pressure, drink out of this bucket."
(for the record, I am never drinking out of a bucket at a con ever again - most drunk I have ever been at a con, and top five in my life)

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Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: busy

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The first post here is actually the pics I was going to end the Atlantic City pre con posts with last year. I had them all uploaded and ready to post, then LJ shit the bed the last day before con and I never got to post them. So here they are now. (the other two posts will be about 20 Atlantic City 2011 pics, and about 20 TCJ1 pics)

I may go back and add captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.



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Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post

First of May, outdoor fucking starts today.

This also means that it's time for the semi-bi-annual Jonathan Coulton song / video post.

First one is NSFW (both video and song - as NSFW as YouTube gets, anyway)



Or, the lyrics one, for anyone that wants to sing along (song still is NSFW)

The full size / stand up arcade games or the late 70's and 80's... oh, that was the time. I used to be *huge* into it. I used to even "rank" my favorite games every month (I believe I even *still* have these lists saved somewhere). I spent thousands of hours and dollars on games. Like I am as an adult with misc geek stuff, what it commonly popular isn't what was necessarily my favorite, and vice versa. Among my favorites (i.e. the ones that got the most money from me) were

Mappy (prolly my #1)
Crazy Climber (essentially tied for my favorite)
Space Ace (and Dragons Lair)
Ikari Warriors
Gauntlet
Space Duel (Asteroids sequel, that had dual ships attached to each other)
Gaplus (Galaga sequel that I preferred, though I love Galaga too)
Joust
Donkey Kong / Donkey Kong Jr.
Tempest
Scramble
Zaxxon
Super Pac Man (and Ms Pac Man - was never much a fan of the original)
Tetris

...jeeze, now I'm all nostalgic.

In my adult years though, I've mostly left video gaming behind. Arcades have died, I'm not big into first person shooters and MMORPGs. Other than Angry Birds, any type of electronic gaming is not part of my life. I prefer boardgames now.

Tags: games, writer's block

I will probably not read a better article about anything, anywhere, this year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penn-jillette/celebrity-apprentice-blue-man-group_b_1395411.html

Penn Jillette explains "The Art" of Blue Man Group and what they did on last night's Apprentice.

He opens with a childhood anecdote of watching Kieth Moon of The Who (one of my favorite bands from the 60's/70's - and of all time, really) destroying a drum set and how that made him understand the value of Art over Money - and it just gets better from there.

My favorite line from that article, and pretty much one of my top 10 favorite quotes ever, "Trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money is like trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money." (a close runner up is, "The theme song is the O'Jay's "For the Love of Money," used as awkwardly as "Born in the USA" at a political rally.")

Needless to say, I'm probably going to read this at least 100 times more in my life... whenever "Artistic jefF" gets stifled down by "Real Life Thinking TOO Much About Money jefF".

Attitude Check: artistic
Sound Check: O'Jay's - For the Love of Money

Anyone that has known me IRL for any length of time knows that I hate Hate HATE waiting in line. At all. For anything. Seriously, I go shopping on off days and hours, avoid big movies in the first weeks of release, get anything on line that I possibly can to not have to wait in line at a store for it - and, hell, I'm not even going to get into traffic, which is just a form of waiting in line just in big metal boxes.

Longest I've waited in line for anything? I can remember the top 5 or so. Star Wars Phantom Menace (about 2-1/2 hours, first weekend), Star Wars Return of The Jedi (about 2 hours, 1st day), Batman (Tim Burton 1st one - about 2 hours, first weekend), Gen Con 2011 (almost 2 hours - I pre registered, but so did 10,000 other people and they fucked up will call in a serious way by only having about 20-30 staff on hand to take care of all of us - it was easily the LONGEST line I've ever been in - this year I'm having them mail my badge to me), and Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, about 2 hours (first night - though, almost all of that was spent sitting in the actual theater waiting until midnight, so not sure that counts, but I expected/thought I'd be "in line" for most of it, so I think it does). Obviously, Star Wars is the only thing I've ever considered worth it to knowingly wait in line for.

Lines hate me too. I can have a half dozen lines to choose from at the store, and I will *always* choose the wrong one. There could be 10 people in every other line and two in the line I get in and I'll have choosen the line with the 87 year old woman buying a case of Pabst... that the 17 year old checker has to call the MOD over to scan.... and it'l scan wrong and needs a price check for the 17 cents over it is... and then she's trying to pay with a check drawn on the Bank of Hong Kong that she's had in her shoe for the last 4 months that the register won't take it.... and then trying to use her debit card for the second time in her life and doing enough button pushing that I think she's trying to take over Bank of America through the keypad... and I'm stuck watching the people that got into those 10 person lines AFTER me be done with their transactions and walking out the door.

No kidding, and if you've ever been with me shopping you know about this little karmic quirk of mine, and how I will *always* let the person I'm with choose the line because it is Guaranteed Fail for me to do it.

Tags: writer's block