Suzanne and I like Costco.  We enjoy shopping there because one never know what wonderful things will be found.

For instance... One time? I picked up a complete season of Babylon 5 for fifteen bucks.  Wish I could find the rest of them for that price.  That was a good day.  Lately, Costco's DVD selection has sucked.

We like to try new things often finding wonderful items to bring home.  We've discovered some great sausage and pastas and wine... Really, some quality stuff.

On a recent excursion, we discovered the Ventera Ranch frozen Chicken Pad Thai entree.  We love Thai food.  So much so that Suzanne cooks Thai cuisine from time-to-time.  While no frozen dinner could ever measure up to the wondrous revelation that is Suzanne's Pad Thai, we thought this frozen dinner might be nice for an evening that we don't feel like cooking.

I prepared the Ventera Ranch Chicken Pad Thai this evening.  I chose the stove top method of preparation. 

Following the directions, I empted the contents of the sauce bag into the pan and began to heat over a low flame.  Then I emptied the noodle packet into the pan, stirring gently but frequently.  The noodles all broke apart into short shards.  The sauce had none of the creamy characteristics of an authentic Pad Thai sauce, rather it was gritty.

It looked more like something fed to prisoners at a Supermax facility than dinner for me and The Wife.  

Ventera Ranch's Chicken Pad Thai was one nasty assed mess in the pan.  

"I don't want to eat this," I said to Suzanne.

"Me neither," She said.

Twenty minutes later I returned to the house with Szechuan Beef and Mushu Pork from Royal Panda.  It ain't Thai food, but it did the trick.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 8:21 PM CDT

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Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo and Nebula award winnging author of such sci-fi classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, and Rendevous With Rama, died yesterday.

Well... actually he died today.  He lives... er lived... in Sri Lanki, which is on the other side of the world from me.  In fact as I write this, it's Tuesday night in Texas and it's Wednesday in Sri Lanka.  So... really, he's still alive to me.  But dead there?

Very confusing.

I think I'll do us all a favor and post this Wednesday morning, Texas time.  That way we'll all be in the same space-time continuum.

Except it'll be Thursday in Sri Lanka... Time space continuum at risk...!  This may have been an episode of Star Trek at some point.

I digress.

I have to confess that I have never cared for Clarke's writing.  While I enjoyed the movies 2001 and 2010, I didn't connect with the books.  His other books I've read, I wasn't able to finish.  I found his style very dry.

His books seem like works I should like.  But I don't.

Clarke has written things that are so true, they are now considered cliche.  For instance he coined this gem:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Regardless of what you think of his writing, you cannot deny his impact on  the culture... nor on science. 

The dude championed the whole notion of the geostationary telecommunications satellite as early as 1945.  Guy's got an orbit named after him!  As the International Herald Tribune put it: "Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits." 

Clarke was 90 years old.

Posted by Aron Head at 7:28 AM CDT

Updated: Wednesday, 19 March 2008 7:27 AM CDT

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Suzanne had a friend pass away.  This friend worked for an organization that Suzanned worked with several years ago.  The funeral was today.

In the minutes before the service, I receive an email from The Wife:

"I'm sitting here waiting for it to start.  Ran into Greg.  He's the one that always goes to Wizard World."

I read it.

Then read it again, struggling with my response.  Finally, I wrote:

"I can't quite think of what to write in response.  It seems inappropriate to say 'enjoy the funeral" or to ask 'has Greg seen my WWTX coverage?'"

"Wait, here we go...!

"Did you get wet going in?" 

Of course by the time I was able to get all that out, the service had started.  Decorum dictates that one not respond to email during funerals.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 5:38 PM CDT

Updated: Tuesday, 18 March 2008 5:45 PM CDT

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The water's ankle deep in my garden.

The rain's been coming hard since mid-morning; we're currently under a flash flood warning until 2:15 this afternoon; and the rain is anticipated to continue throughout the rest of the day and into the night.

They're saying that two inches have already fallen in the area.  The rain gauge situated on my garden fence shows three inches have fallen here.  As much as three additional inches are expected by the day's end.

I'm so glad I prepped the garden over the weekend.  These deep rains really worked wonders in my beds last year.  Fingers crossed.

Not everyone's happy about the rain.  

I'm sure if you're one of the many people whose flight has been cancelled at or diverted from DFW airport, you are probably less than excited about what this means for my garden.

I'm home with a cold today, so I've been afforded the opportunity to watch a little local weather. 

Buckets of rain are falling from the sky. 

Roads are flooding out... 

Animals are lining up two-by-two... 

And Pete Delkus is working hard.  Once again, he's come into the office early during a weather event since his not-ready-for-prime-time-weather-man Steve McCauley can't handle the wet. 

You can tell Pete's working hard because he's not wearing a jacket! 

I'm off to take a nap.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net

Posted by Aron Head at 1:27 PM CDT

Updated: Tuesday, 18 March 2008 5:39 PM CDT

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Here it is Saint Patrick's Day again. 

This is a big day at Suzanne's office.  They close the place down an hour early so that the entire staff can wander over to the bar a block over to drink green beer and consume irish nachos.  They bring their spouses and kids.  It's a whole thing.

So I joined them.

As I looked into my green beer, it dawned on me that this was the first time I'd shared a St Paddy's Day beer with anyone other than my father.

It's six five years now since he died.  Saint Patrick's was our day.

And it makes me a bit sad.

I sure do miss that guy.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 7:36 PM CDT

Updated: Tuesday, 18 March 2008 7:50 AM CDT

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I am now officially famous. 

It's true. 

Several days ago, I was approached concerning the image to the left of Laura Vandervoort, Smallville's  Supergirl.  I snapped the pic at last year's Wizard World Texas.  It appeared both here on the Bastard's Blog as well as on one of my Newsarama entries.  It has been living on my Flickr account since then.  I was asked if I would be willing to allow its use on Wikipedia.

I was willing, so  I flipped the rights to Creative Commons and voila!  Now it's out there on The Free Encyclopedia!

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 7:20 PM CDT

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Updated 03.13.2008:

Fear The Boot co-host, Fear The Con co-coordinator, and evil eye doctor Luke Meyer has his FtC wrap up over at his Live Journal page! 

I'm not the only person out here on the interwebs talking about the wonderment that was this past weekend's Fear The Con.  No, no.  Far from it, in fact.

Pimp of the Internet, Tony Mast, podcasted today about his Fear The Froot drive at the con on his Tony's Losing It show.  Tony, who's on a get healthy mission, secured donations for fruit and distributed free bananas, oranges, and apples all day Saturday.  Left overs were donated to the Violence Provention Center of Southwestern Illinois.  Myself, I munched on an apple and four terrific oranges throughout the day.  I now have a very clean, and tired colon.  Thanks, Tony!

Other Lives Than This One has a con report up.  The blogger was in a whole different track of games than I was.  I'm gettin' a kick out of reading other people's experiences.

Shamus over at Twenty Sided also has a post with some links.  He wasn't able to attend, so he's tracking the con through all the posts.

As I find more, I will post more links for your review...

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 5:21 PM CDT

Updated: Thursday, 13 March 2008 5:20 PM CDT

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Well, the long awaited Incredible Hulk movie trailer made its world premier tonight on MTV and was immediately loaded to their website.

What'd you think? 

I have to tell you, I was underwhelmed.  Ed Norton's dialogue is all one, monotone downbeat.  The action shown is all set in the dark - and I have to say that's a pet peeve of mine.  Putting your CGI in dark settings is just a cheap way of hiding your crappy SFX.

One of the strength's of Ang Lee's Hulk was that there were these brilliant daylight shots of the Hulk beating the tar out of the army's tanks and aircraft.  When I saw that trailer so many years ago, I was blown away.

While that movie didn't really measure up, the special effects were awesome.  Not at all crappy.

And speaking of crappy SFX...

The Hulk and the Abomination look like action figures, rather than gamma irradiated monsters.

Yeah, I think there's a reason they've been putting this one off. 

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net 

Posted by Aron Head at 9:39 PM CDT

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Earlier, I blogged about how I felt my game went at Saturday's Fear The Con in Missouri.  Here's what my players had to say...

Chris, who played The Teacher:

"Aron 's game And A Little Child Shall Eat Them... insane zombie apocalypse frenzy. Now I know why he chooses to call himself Evil Bastard on his blog. A woman breastfeeding in a diner gets her chest torn out in the opening sequence from a zombified baby that launches itself at one of our players after growling black ooze from its mouth.  Much blood was shed.  One fell valiantly and the rest escaped to fight another day."

Josh, who played The Accountant: 

"Third session was EvilBastard's All Flesh Must Be Eaten. His deadpan delivery of scenes of abject horror absolutely made the game. An electronics salesman dragged a zombified eight-year-old into a diner's freezer by her pigtails. An accountant (me) took out a crazed zombie baby with a desperate but well-placed throw of a sugar shaker. For a while, the standard anti-zombie weapon was a frying pan. The game felt like it really could have been a zombie movie, thanks to EvilBastard and the other excellent players at the table."

I get a kick out of people thanking the "EvilBastard."  It sounds so wrong, but it feels so right!

James, who played The Marine (comment added 03/13/2008):

"I was the zombiefied marine, and I would have been more pleased to no end (don't analyze my grammar too closely) if I could have brought someone down with me. I guess there's always next Fear the Con"

I have to confess, James, that I had hoped your character would put the chomp on a couple of your compatriots.  Really, it would have been GREAT to have a whole player-versus-player bloodbath at the end of the game.

Maybe next year? 

The Other James, who played The Farmer (comment added 03/14/2008):

"Thanks for the great game at the Con.  It was a whole lot of fun.  And I'm still impressed with how quickly and easily you immersed us in the world you created."

Glad you enjoyed, James.   It was a lot of fun to run!  

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net  

Posted by Aron Head at 7:30 AM CDT

Updated: Friday, 14 March 2008 6:47 PM CDT

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