Bren's Blog

Bad Boys

2011-10-12T18:59:00.000-06:00

Blogspot blogspot
Whatch ya gona do
Whatch ya gona do when I don't have time to blog on you
Blogspot blogspot....

Bren

Fraken-Byte Design Phase

2011-05-27T13:35:00.001-06:00

Hey all,

In this blog post I'm going to talk about the mental process I went through in deciding what the parts list would be in Franken-Byte. I would start with what I needed/ wanted the computer to do, then research parts and their costs to see if my $1000 budget was realistic or would I need to limit what I could do with the computer in order to reach my budget. In the next blog I will talk about the various "build" designs I went through as well as what I picked in the end and why.

Purpose:

First and foremost I needed to decide what I was going to use this new computer for. At the moment I'm mostly using my laptop to check e-mail, draft, download media to my NAS drive, and play the occasional game.

With an under $1K cost target I may have to make sacrifices on hardware and functionality. Sure, I could blow 2K on the machine and just put it on the card, but I’d rather put the effort into research and get the right tool for the job instead of some overkill computer I’ll only use to half of its potential. And hey, who wants to toss away an extra grand of hard earned cash?

So I want to pump video to my 37” LCD TV. That means I’ll need a dedicated video card (despite the progressing ability of today’s CPUs to do graphics) and a wireless keyboard and mouse.
I like to watch media on my computer but already have a 2TB NAS on my home network. This means that I’ll want a better LAN port (1GB/S or better) and I don’t need a huge hard drive as I have large amounts of file storage on the network.

I want to game on this computer. Originally I was going to wait for Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO to come out, find out its hardware requirements, and then design this computer to play that game. Since that thought, I’ve started playing games online at the Steam service. I’m enjoying the games and decided to gear towards that standard and assume that when SW: ToR came out I would still be able to run it on my machine.

So if I want to game on this build, I want to have a LAN line over WiFi network connection. I’ll need a mid to high end video card to run the demanding graphics of today’s games. I’m also going to want a quad core CPU, maybe not necessary for most of today’s games, but good for future proofing the system. Also, it sounds like I’m going to want to look at extra cooling in my computer case (and air filters to keep out cat hair).

Now that I know what I want this rig to do, I can start looking at what parts fit the bill. Might as well start by researching the parts specked for the Maximum PC “Sandy Bridge for under 1K” and figure out what they are and why they picked them.

Until next time,
CYA
Bren

Re-open for Biznass!

2011-05-27T11:34:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Well after some complaints that locking down the Blog was causing peoples RSS feeds to fail, I have "unlocked" the Blog.

I have "redacted" the offensive material that caused me to lock down the blog in the first place.

Enjoy.

Bren

Franken-Byte

2011-05-19T12:54:00.006-06:00

Hey all,

Well I still haven’t managed to get access to my NAS from outside the house. Although I haven’t had everyone look at it, I don’t think I’m going to get through my ISP’s firewall. Oh well, it is still handy around the house. I’m ditching that project (and pretending that it is complete) in favour of a new project.

My new project is… building a new desk top computer!

I last bought a desktop computer in 2001 (or maybe it was 2000) and switched to laptops some time in 2005. I stopped using desktop computers as they were hard to drag around and, at the time, portable memory was small and expensive. A laptop made sense as I was also touring at the time.

Well now a days my second laptop is starting to go (my year old netbook is fine though). I burned out the video card on my first laptop because I was using my 37” LCD TV as a monitor (Graphics use far outweighed the Laptops’ ability to cool itself). My second laptop video display is starting to do funky things even though I haven’t been doing a lot of external display (I think it’s a clash of drivers from another device/ program). This put me down the road of “wish I had a Desktop computer with a wiz bang graphics card…”

I started contemplating the new computer just after the start of the year. As usual with me, the idea starts as vague “wouldn’t it be nice if…” and over time developed into a “Yeah, I can do that, but I’ll need to plan, research, design exactly what I want.” About the same time as I finally decided to start down the path, I saw a Maximum PC magazine on the shelf at the store. Its’ cover article was “Build a Sandy Bridge gaming PC for under 1K!” Exactly the road I wanted to travel down and the price limit I wanted to set!

Now, I’ve never been great with computers. I’ve always been better than the average user as I’m geeky and I like to know how things work and how to use tools to the best of their ability (time permitting to learn). When I bought my desktop in 2001 (or maybe it was 2000) I had originally wanted to buy the parts and put it together myself. I thought it would be a great learning experience. Unfortunately due to lack of computer hardware knowledge and a budget that couldn’t afford to buy replacement parts if I cooked the first ones, I just bought a refurbished machine from some computer store.

I’ve done a lot of research and redesign on my new computer, Franken-Byte, over the last two to three months. I’ve been researching current technology, discovering what all the TLAs mean (Three Letter Acronyms), and asked a lot of opinions. I’ve finally come up with a final shopping list and have even started purchasing parts!

In the next few blogs I’ll take you through my three computer designs (all fairly similar) and why I chose the parts I did. I’m more recording my journey than asking for opinions but hey, feel free to chime in any way.

Note:

1) The Maximum PC article I found, and used as a starting point, can be read by clicking the link below. It was reposted in a Special Issue in March/April called “Build the Perfect PC”.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how-tos/build_it_sandy-bridge_powered_gaming_pc_under_grand

2) My computer’s name, Franken-Byte has nothing to do with this gratuitous use of a fog machine YouTube video (although I did like the sound track).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ureXso723k

That's all for now,
CYA

FTP setup = Fail (so far)

2011-02-23T12:46:00.005-07:00

Hey all,

Well it's a good thing no one reads this or they would realize I didn't post on Monday (Family Day) like I said I would.

I recently purchased a NAS drive to hook up to my home network so that I can access media files on all of my gaming machines (more convenient than lugging DVDs and CD up and down stairs). Also, my main laptop is starting to act up so I want a second back up of it (besides my Seagate external 500GB auto backup that I do not fully trust) I bought a D-Link DNS-323 with two 2TB drives and set them up in RAID1 configuration (anything that saves to the first 2TB drive automatically mirror saves to the second drive as a backup). So far it's great!

I was digging through the setup menus of the DNS-323 and noticed that it could act as an FTP server as well. Awesome, now I can save everything to my NAS drive and have access to it from work!

So far I have set up what I believe are the proper settings for my FTP server on my NAS drive. Also, I have set up a host name for myself so that I can direct it to my home router to access my drive from work. Unfortunately I am missing something as I cannot access my host/ domain name on the internet. I think I'm miss-typing something.

Now I consider myself fairly geeky but my computer skills are a bit lacking. I have many IT friends who could do this in their sleep, and I know I could turn to them for help. I'm hoping to use this as an excuse to broaden what little computer skills I do posses. Also, it is a good exercise in my research skills and figuring things out for myself.

I'll give it a few more tries and search some forums before I turn to the big guns for advice. It is really nice to have friends to count on :)

That's all for now,
CYA!
Bren

Password Reset!

2011-02-18T20:33:00.003-07:00

Hey all,

So my Wow account got hacked last year. I was being lazy and using a similar variation of the same password for all of my programs... including email. I scrubbed both of my computers and then madly changed all my passwords.

Unfortunately I forgot my Gmail password shortly there after. My computers and my phone had it saved but I couldn't for the life of me remember what the F it was and could not log onto my Blog.

Good news! My password is reset and I'm hoping to get in some self reflective Blogging this year.

Watch this Monday for my first real Blog in almost a year!

Now rto try to figure out this FTP/ Domain name stuff for my DNS-323 NAS...

CYA,
Brennan

Only 5 Posts in 2009!?

2010-03-23T13:50:00.002-06:00

Hey all,

Hm, apparently I've been lax in my blogging duties. I've only posted 5 times in 2009! Oops. As you can see it has been several months since my last confession... err, post. The reasons are many!

December is a very busy month for all people. In theatre you have back to back Christmas concerts followed by every ballet company wanting to do Nutcracker. And you need to find time to buy presents as well.

January was busy as Mari and I decided to move in together at the end of March so I had to start packing! We also started planning a trip to Mexico in February, which we had to push back to March to make it cheaper.

February was a hard month as Mari's 14 year old kitty, Batty, had to be put to sleep.In late 2009 Batty had been diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism and Dave (the 12 year old kitty) was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure. Despite being aware and treating both kitties, Batty's condition took a turn for the worst and we had to make the tough decision.

March so far has been really busy. Mari and I had a blast in Mexico! Mari can haggle with the best of them! Surf, sand, and sun for a week was great too. It was a nice break from packing the apartment.

I'm also doing another Lighting design that sets up March 30th and I'm working all this week at the Jub. Hope I can get my design done before load in! :)

That's all I have time for.
CYA

Too Much TV

2009-11-16T20:30:00.003-07:00

Hey all,

Long time no post. Seems like I'm saying that a lot lately :)

Today's blog is about all of the great TV shows I have been watching over the last year. There are quite a few!

Life on Mars (the UK version):
This show is about a straight lace, by the books, cop who gets hit by a car. When he wakes up he is in 1973. Has he gone back in time, is he in a coma, or has he gone mad? In 1973 he is working with a bunch of rough and rules scoffing police men who think the book is for leveling tables not catching criminals. This show is two series long putting it at about 16 episodes and is a complete story for once. A great watch.

Chuck:
Geek gets all of the governments secrets uploaded into his head. Two opposing government agents must now protect the "Intersect" until they can pull all the secrets back out of Chuck's brain and store them in a new super computer. It's a Revenge of the Nerds meets James Bond with a great cast and interesting characters. The main driving point of the series is the attraction between geeky Chuck and his sexy blond handler that turns out, dated Chuck's former best friend, now most loathed person in Chuck's memory. Chuck season 3 is due to air in March. March!? Can I wait that long?

Dollhouse:
Another sci-fi like series from Joss Whedon. An underground facility supplies just the right person for what you need. In fact, they will manufacture a personality, put it into a "Doll" (a person with a "blank" personality) and give you your ideal person. Great if you want that perfect weekend with the girl of your dreams, or a top notch hostage negotiator in a pinch. The series doesn't have very endearing characters in the first season but often leaves you reeling from the possibilities of the technology. This show has been canceled so after it's season two, no more Dollhouse. Maybe Joss will take this one to the comic realm (like Buffy) to finish any story.

Burn Notice:
What happens when I spy gets fired? They get their "Burn Notice". Spies get all of their assets taken away and with no real identity, you don't exist. This is a great show about a burned spy and what he does to stay alive, keep his friends alive, and keep his mother happy. Along with some fantastic characters and the friction between them, this show has a Robin Hood meets McGyver feel to it. One of my favorites! It's in mid season 3 and looks to be getting renewed for season 4. I have season one if you want to borrow it :)

True Blood:
Vampires are real. Scientist have found a way to make a blood substitute so vampires don't need to feed off humans. They sell it as "True Blood". This series, based on Charlaine Harris's series of novels (The Southern Vampire Mysteries), airs on HBO along with all of the T and A one would expect of an HBO drama. But that is not all the show has to offer. The show takes place in the deep south USA and how the locals deal with a real live vampire moving to town. The interactions of the myriad of characters, as well as the inclusion and discovery of more supernatural beings above and beyond vampires! If you're into the immortal vampire romancing the strong yet sensitive woman, this show is for you. Even if your not into that, it's still a pretty good show.

Big Bang Theory:
Another fun Geek goes for the beauty (does the girl always have to be blond?). The series is based on two geniuses living in an apartment building who have an attractive 20 something blond move in across the hall from them. One scientist is immediately smitten and the other is oblivious so social norms and doesn't understand dating. The first season starts off a bit contrived but as the characters grow so does the enjoyment of the show. Airing it's third season now, Big Bang Theory is a fun one, and it airs just before"How I Met Your Mother".

How I Met Your Mother:
This is one of my most favorites! About a true romantic architect living in New York, Ted Mosby is looking for his soul mate. With Ted's best friend getting married, and Ted's self proclaimed best friend being a hopeless womanizer, Ted is a little conflicted in the advice he gets. I have to say I liked the first three seasons better than the last two (currently airing season 5) I still get a kick out of Barney Stinson (played by Dr. Horrible him self, Neil Patric Harris) as well as the "token" Canadian (one of Ted's old flames).

Well that's it for me. There are a few other shows that I have been meaning to catch but haven't had time yet (just bought X-Files season 1). If there is any TV that you think should be shared among friends, feel free to leave a comment and tell me what it is and why I should watch.

CYA,
Bren

GenCon 2009

2009-08-16T00:37:00.002-06:00

Hey all,

Well GenCon 2009 is almost over. There is a half day left tomorrow and I need to be at the airport before it is officially over.

GenCon wasn’t the same this year.

Several factors contributed to this:

- I went alone

- Less need to reaffirm my geek cred.

- Wasn’t comfortable leaving work for a week

- Didn’t really have anything I was itching to see/ do this year.

I tried to tempt several people into joining me at GenCon this year. Unfortunately with flights and room it can be quite expensive to do GenCon (the con it’s self is quite cheap for around $200 for badge and 6 or 7 events). Like many things in life, the experience grows the more you share it. Last year was great as it was the first time I had been and everything was new! Aaron and I had a blast wandering the convention and playing all kinds of games.

I did get a chance to hang out with the Fear the Boot hosts and other forum users but started feeling like a stalker after the second day. I actually saw one of the hosts wandering the Dealer Room, looking unimpressed, with two fan boy forum users following behind him.

Maybe part of the downer was that my “heroes” of last year weren’t huge icons to me anymore. I’ll touch on that later.

Last year was great to feel like there were so many other like minded geeks out there. Hell, I’m one of the geekier people in my circle of friends and 75% of GenCon attendees put me to shame! This year, although I needed a geek fix, I didn’t feel like I was “coming out of the closet”. I’m comfortable about my geekness and proclaiming it isn’t as freeing as it once felt. It just feels like every day, run of the mill, me.

Work has been challenging since the start of July. We installed a new console and got ready for Lion King. During the first week of Lion King, things started failing. Although I fixed those (well most of them) I felt very nervous about leaving the Jub for a week. I feel nervous when I leave someone else in charge and the lighting system isn’t in top shape. When I’m out of town I can not swoop in and save the day.

I really wasn’t eager for any one thing this year. Last year I was going to meet Fear the Boot (favourite podcast), meet Ryan Sohmers (favourite online comic strip writer), and hit gaming Mecca (not to be confused with the plural version of Battlemech; Mecha) with my best friend Aaron. Much like a good movie, sharing an experience with someone makes it better.

I think a large part of it was that last year I had met some of my heroes. This year, I was their equal (or maybe some of the glitter had just cleared from my eyes). Maybe that is part of the funk I have been in for the past two months; I’ve overcome my past heroes and am last as to what to aim for next.

I do have another question in my life but I will not talk about it here. It’s a question I know the answer to but refuse that it’s the only path to take. My favourite quote from a book says” Any man can choose; but a hero takes both.” Heroes take the hard road that most of us see as to difficult to be an option. Usually the best way to tell you are doing the right thing is to do the thing that is hardest to do.

I’m undecided if I will return to GenCon next year. I have been contemplating ComicCon but am not a huge comic fan and not sure how much I would enjoy it. I have decided that I need to bring someone next year that has never been to GenCon before. By helping them experience the excitement of first “GenContact” I can help spread the fun and warm feeling I got my first year here.

Well I need to check what actual time my flight is tomorrow. Apparently entering schedules into your phone in a different time zone is problematic...

CYA,

Bren

Time Keeps on Slipping Slipping Into the Future.

2009-05-28T10:43:00.004-06:00

Hey all,

Long, LONG time no blog. Oops.

Anyway, I'll make more time to blog and give you all something to read while at work and waiting for that new pot of coffee to brew.

Lets see, what has happened to me over the last few months.

I went to Mexico (for the first time) with my family.

I had to reapply for my job when the government tried to move it from an IATSE union position to a AUPE union position. My union made enough of a case that the Alberta government dropped it (bigger fish to fry I'm assuming).

I burned out the video card on my old laptop and now I can't game on it (overheats and shuts down in 30 minutes).

I bought a new laptop.

I started running my 37" 1080p HDTV as my laptop monitor (awesome).

I made level 80 on WoW and am now gearing up to do end game dungeons. My WoW guild has also grown by quite a bit. Up to around 40 characters and I'm guessing about 15 individual players.

I've been running my try-monthly (we Try to play every month) D&D game. We are having our seventh session, in almost a year, this Sunday.

Started playing in another D&D Meetup D&D game at the Sentry Box. I've only been to 2 sessions so far but it seems to be going good.

Got to test and choose a new lighting control board for the Jub that we will be installing in July.

Looking forward to Lion King in August.

Finishing up preparations to solo Gencon this year. Didn't think I was going to do this year but I'm in need of a communal geek pool to reaffirm my geekyness.

Looking forward to wings with the IT crowd tomorrow and catching up with the North America hopping Aaron.

That's all for now. :)
CYA.

The IT Crowd

2009-01-07T18:22:00.002-07:00

Hey all,

Well if you know me, and you are reading this blog, you most likely already know about The IT Crowd. I am happy to hear that in March they will be releasing all three seasons in a DVD box set! Hm, hope it comes over here :)

CYA
Brennan

Welcome to 2009!

2009-01-03T14:09:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

Welcome to 2009!

Last year I said I would do a recap of 2007 and I didn’t, so this year I’m starting that now.

Work has been good this year. I’ve been taking more time off and doing more projects to organize my department and make it run the way I want. I’ve taken a page from the stage carpenter’s book and I’m just doing maintenance when I need to as opposed to thinking there is no money for maintenance. I can actually see my work bench for once! I still need to do more maintenance time though as there is still a big pile of things to fix.

I started going to a yoga studio in February. The Bodhi Tree has really stepped up my yoga as I went from doing a few 20 minute sessions to doing 90 minute sessions. I’ve also stepped up to going more often. I made it four times in one week! I’ve found that I feel a lot better about myself and I have more confidence. I try to make it at least once a week, but need to go at least three times a week to see improvement. I’m still going with Mari, so I have someone to help motivate me to go, and we have even been joined a time or two by our friend Jevon.

In March the gaming industry lost one of the greats who helped make the industry what it is today. E. Gary Gygax, the co creator of the D&D game, passed away. Being as I never met him, much less hangout with him daily, his death meant little to me. It wasn’t tragic, he was getting on with years, it was just the natural order of things. Gygax’s life on the other hand had a huge effect on who I am today. I will be thankful for all the things he did for the game in his life.

March and November saw two more World Wide Wing Nights from the creators of Fear the Boot. Both were great and many wings were devoured!

I finally filed for divorce in April and received my final papers at the end of July. It was good to put that behind me finally even if it didn’t really affect my life anymore. It’s nice to have that closure and the legal distance from Roxanne and her asking me for money.

June saw the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Although I’ve already invested thousands of dollars into other editions of D&D, I bought the new edition. It has breathed some life back in my gaming group, but it is still hampered by my crappy schedule. I also started delving into other Role Playing games this year by purchasing rule books that weren’t d20. Now if only I could get the group on board to try them 

Also in June, the Jub closed down for the summer allowing me to work out in Banff for the summer. This was the first time that Banff had brought me on as staff in the Lighting department. It’s about time they realized I do lighting.

August saw the fulfilment of one of my dreams. Aaron and I finally went to GenCon Indy! GenCon was freakin’ great! It showed me that being a geek isn’t bad and that there are a lot of gamers out there. I sampled a lot of new games, bought too much stuff, and had a blast with Aaron. I also got to meet some people who I worship. Fear the Boot had a gathering at the House, a bar opened just for GenCon, and I got to meet most of the hosts of my favourite podcast! Also, I got a chance to meet Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desousa, Writer and illustrator of my favourite web comic, Least I could Do. Ten tones of awesome! It was nice to hang with Aaron, reconfirm our friendship, and even deepen that friendship further. I plan on attending again this year.

November saw the release of Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for the World of Warcraft MMO. Despite this my time spent on the game this year has been more reasonable. The Guild is growing and now includes a few of the guys significant others. I still have to be careful not to spend too much time on it, but I do need to game from time to time. It is who I am.

All in all 2008 was a decent year. I’ve learned more about my nature and a few more things I need to do to stay happy. I’m more confident and I like myself a lot more now 

Well that’s it for now,
CYA

Podio Books

2008-12-27T13:50:00.002-07:00

Hey all,

I want to spread the good word today of Podiobooks.com

This is a web site with free audio books from authors who are either little known, or unpublished. You can donate if you like the books (note to self, get off but and donate) and 75% of it goes to the author. Personally I think it's great! I've also found some really good books on there. Great for a 7 hour drive to Moose Jaw. Each book is released in a Podcast like format with a chapter or two being read per episode.

7th Son:
Three weeks ago, the U.S. president was murdered by a four-year-old boy.
Today, seven men stare at each other in a locked conference room. Kidnapped and brought to this underground facility, the strangers are sitting in silence, thunderstruck. Despite minor physical differences, they all appear to be the same man, with the same name ... and the same childhood memories.
Descent
Deceit
Destruction

A Different Point of View:
A Different Point of View is a series of essays about the Star Wars Universe as seen through the eyes of lowly sandtrooper, TD-0013. It takes everything you thought you knew about the Star Wars saga and flips it around to expose the ugly underbelly of the Rebellion, The Jedi, and everything else.
All episodes

Playing for Keeps:
Playing for Keeps tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren't strong enough to make a difference. Or that's what they've been told. As the city begins to melt down, it's hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad.
All Episodes

Singularity:
What if the cataclysmic Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused, not by a meteor or a comet, but by a microscopic black hole?
What if that fantastic object - smaller than an atom, older than the stars, heavier than a mountain - is still down there, orbiting deep inside the earth, slowly consuming the planet?
What if only a rookie government agent and an uncannily-insightful consultant stand between a renegade Russian billionaire and his plans to use the black hole to change history - or end it?
What if it's all true?
All Episodes

The Arwen:
When a comet the size of a small moon threatens the remote world of Regal the Earth Alliance assigns the most decorated ship in the fleet, the Arwen, to destroy it. Its Captain, Marjorie Cook, sees this as an opportunity to redeem herself after a tragic mistake in her past causes the death of over 400 of her crew. It seems like an easy mission but, when the Arwen arrives, it finds things are not what they seem.
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3

Murder at Avedon Hill:
This is the story of Arames Kragen and his attempt not only to discover who killed Gretta Platt, but also to uncover the truth about a town that apparently has more secrets than inhabitants.
Episodes added here

So far there is only one book on the site that I wasn't a big fan of (Daughter of the Sun) and many more I still want to listen to. I tend to find the feed on iTunes and download episodes from there. If you come across any other good ones, feel free to share them :)

CYA
Bren

World Wide Wing Nite #5 pictures

2008-12-02T11:30:00.008-07:00

The graveyard overlooked by Deanne

Kat and Vance

Tarra and Deanne

Mari
Jevon, Aaron, and I.
Aaron and the die.

November 7th, 2008.

Wrath of the Lich King

2008-11-12T21:09:00.003-07:00

Hey all,

Well... Wrath of the Lich King releases at midnight tonight. Wrath is the third full expansion for the World of Warcraft on line video game. Hm, now that the list of people able to read this is so truncated, I probably don't have to explain that anymore.... anyway (note to self: invite Kim and Lisa).

Wrath releases at midnight with many stores (Best Buy, Future Shop, EB Games) opening for 1 hour at midnight for all those who want to be first to Northrend (the new continent that opens with the expansion). Personally I want to go grab a copy tonight. Also I want to wipe the the game off my hard drive.

I've had many ups and downs with my interest in WoW and I'm currently in a down swing. When I'm in a down swing I play for only a few minutes, get bored, and go do something else. When I'm in an up swing, I'll bring my laptop and a lunch to work so that I can play on my meal break. I don't get much (read ANY) house work done during an up swing. My quality of life would actually go up from deleting this game and I'm afraid the new expansion will put me into an up swing.

Why then, don't I get rid of it? Well, first off it is a cheap form of entertainment. I didn't have to upgrade to run the game, each expansion is only $30-$50 (with Wrath I will have paid slightly over $100 for all three games) and that's only every three years or so, the monthly fee is $15 (less than 1 hours worth of work), I've been playing it for over a year now and still have tones I could do (without the Wrath expansion), and most my non theatre friends play.

Yep, I play 'cause everyone else is doing it. It is difficult with my schedule to get together with my non work friends. With WoW I can log on and see who is playing. Then we can chat and plan to go do a quest together. It is a convenient way to stay in touch and have some fun together.

Final conclusion? I will go stand in line (as long as that line isn't too long) at midnight and get a copy. The biggest reason? I've never stood in line at midnight for anything and it sounds like it could be a bit fun :) Besides, I'm gona get the game eventually anyway. I might as well do it in an air of excitement!

Cya

Tempting, very tempting

2008-10-28T23:19:00.002-06:00

I'm impressed by all the cool applications coming out for the Nintendo DS (and that my spell checker has the correct spelling of Nintendo). This is the latest thing to hit that tempts me to buy one. Cooking.

Also on the tempting side:
Bettie Page. Hot.

So much for Red Bull

2008-10-27T16:56:00.001-06:00

Energy Drinks.

I hope these don't come out in a store near me.
Hm, I just got back from Vegas so I'm assuming you are waiting for a Vegas blog. Well keep on waiting 'cause I gota do laundry and go eat!

CYA,
Bren

I wonder...

2008-10-12T09:28:00.002-06:00

I'm starting to wonder where the hobby is heading. I guess this shouldn't surprise me at all though. Guess I 'd rather date hot women than "play" one.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=56643

Bren

The Pyramids solved at last!

2008-10-10T21:56:00.003-06:00

http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/newpage1

Above is the link to amazement. Some guy in the states is experimenting with leverage and fulcrums to reproduce the techniques use on the Pyramids and Stone Henge. It's all very easy and surprisingly simple to operate. Makes you wonder how we got to where we are while forgetting this. OK, some of this we used as kids but forgot as we grew up. We have all "walked" large furniture on end to get it somewhere but this guy made the connection.

CYA
Brennan

Make me a clean check!

2008-10-04T19:27:00.001-06:00

http://paizo.com/store/gameAids/dice/accessories/diceSoap&source=mailing

Die in a soap. Wow.

Due to popular demand...

2008-09-23T00:35:00.004-06:00

Hey all,

Due to popular demand (and people pointing out my own nativity) I have locked this blog to invite only. Feel free to suggest people who might be interested in this blog that I know well, but other than that I will keep it to a populace I can name. Such as:

Mari
Kat
Aaron
Tyler
Steve

Sorry to those that I lashed out at who were only trying to help. Hope that comes across more sincere than this text allows.

Bren

Back in Black

2008-09-18T16:25:00.010-06:00

Hey all,

Wow, what a busy summer! I'm not sure I can cover it in one blog but hey, if I don't try it will never get done.

June:

The Jub closed down from mid June to the beginning of August so I got a gig out in Banff for the summer. Well I had a week off then hit banff for five weeks. It was good to go back as a Lighting Staff Member as I had been trying to get into Lighting Workstudy years ago and gotten turned down both time. HA, I say HA! The other great thing was that I was single going out but had no desire to get into the Banff Summer dating scene. Too much drama and everyone sleeping with everyone. I had two maybe three girls that seemed to be interested but I wasn't. Don't get me wrong, they were attractive and no, I'm not batting for the other team now, I'm just not interested in the short term dating thing again. Mind you, I'm at the point where I'm happy enough with myself that I don't feel the need to date. In fact, I'm happy enough that someone else would be an interruption to the flow my life has taken on. Getting some once in a blue moon would be nice though :)

July:

Well as I just said, I spent most of July in Banff. I did drive back to Calgary once a week to check mail and hit yoga with Mari. Yoga was hard in July as I wasn't sleeping much in Banff due to the place I was staying in. Also I realized (eventually in August that is)I was holding in a lot of emotions that yoga was exposing causing me to start resenting yoga. Luckily I was only going once a week so it wasn't too bad and I didn't quit yoga.

I also met a few new people in Banff. One of the LX staff was moving to Calgary in September and I managed to get him in contact with someone who was looking to hire. Good thing to as Mat is stellar and no one else even close to him applied. The other was a "kid" from Saskatchewan that was an LX workstudy. I have to question what the University of Regina is teaching because this kid had the skills of a first year college kid. Don't get me wrong, he is a very hard worker, but he is not quick on the uptake and just doesn't seem to have much experience.

August:

Well August was HUGE! The Jub reopened to Spamalot the musical. This thing was almost as funny (certain parts were funnier) as the movie! I got tickets and went with Mari and a couple that are friends of ours. Lisa and my buddy Steve came down for the long weekend in August to catch some of the Calgary Fringe Festival. Unfortunately nothing really appealed to us and it was all the way over in Ingelwood, so we ditched and went drinking instead. Nicole came out one night as did Kat and we all got our drink on. It was good to see Nicole again, but talking to her just reminded me how different our tastes are. This text has been redacted.

This Text has been redacted.

Aaron and I went to GenCon in mid August. To say it was great would be an understatement. I'll have to do another blog about GenCon as I can't cover all of it here. Highlights of Gen Con are: going to the Fear the Boot party, meeting Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza and getting a Least I Could Do book signed by them, playing great new games! The best highlight was spending the entire Con with Aaron and not once wanting to kill him. As this is the first trip we have done together we were a little unsure about that.

GenCon was so good that just talking about it has gotten other people wanting to go next year. It's still up in the air for Aaron, but I'm definitely going back for 2009!

The rest of August was pretty down hill from there (and by down hill, I mean back to normal). Came back and did some maintenance at work. The one last jump in the summer was going down to Moose Jaw at the end of August for my Grandparent's 80th birthday party. I got to see almost all my friends (missed seeing Tyler unfortunately) and even got to see someone I haven't seen since high school!

All in all it was a revealing summer (this text has been redacted) and a self assuring one. I'm no longer hesitant to tell people about my geek games and habits. I also no longer beet myself up for playing games and not being more active and out of the house. I would like to get out more but I also have a lot of things (games, books, projects) on the go at home.

CYA,
Brennan

Two days in a row!? Must be end of the world!

2008-09-18T16:25:00.009-06:00

Hey all,

Well looky here, I'm posting two days in a row. WTF?

Well I just saw something amazing that I need to share.

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/06/17/the-10-hottest-new-tech-toys-for-summer/

This is from the "Geeks are Sexy" web site that I ran across in the Facebook Fan pages. The link itself takes you to today's article about the top 10 summer toys. They are all fun but a few of them are great! Guess I need to watch that site more closely from now on. A knife that injects compressed air into the wound? How is that freakin' legal? I'll take two please. :)

CYA
Bren

4th Edition has landed

2008-06-07T14:02:00.004-06:00

Hey all,

Well the 4th Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game is officially out today. I picked up my "Core Rules" 3 book set from the post office this morning with Aaron, and then we hit breakfast.

I've had the PDFs of the books for over a week now as someone leaked them to the internet before today's release date. I didn't feel bad about down loading them as I had already pre-ordered the books. This way I just get an extra week or so to read them before I have to run a game. It's actually been very helpful as my next week looks busy and I don't know if I could get through the majority of the PHB (Player's Hand Book) and DMG (Dungeon Master's Guide) before next Sunday.

So, what do I think of 4th Ed? Well, it's different. Not as different as 2nd Ed was to 3.0 Ed but it is different.

4th Ed runs off the d20 style system much like 3.0 and 3.5 did, but they are not the same. There are quite a few differences as they have updated the game to be more like WoW. Basically, they are changing the game to reflect the current popular market. I don't blame them as they need to sell product to stay in business. Not to mention, I can keep playing 3.5 if I want to.

When 3.0 came out it was a huge improvement to 2nd edition (even to the Skills and powers that was 2.5 essentially). 3 rd Edition stream lined everything compared to 2.0. The base was roll a 20 sided dice (AKA d20) add bonus and situation modifiers, and see if the result is equal to or greater than your target number. If yes, then you succeed at what you were doing. Easy, well except for remembering all your bonuses. 4th edition is not as much of a leap forward in playability as 2.0 to 3.0 was, but I'm waiting to get through a few game sessions before deciding how good or bad it is.

One of the good things about the new edition is that my gaming group is excited about playing again. Now not everyone is all geared up (I myself am only so so) but we are all going to play. We haven't played in almost a year I think, so finally getting back to the table will be great!

Also, Aaron and I signed up for Our GenCon events today! GenCon is a convention in the States the focuses on gaming. All gaming. There are RPGs, video games, LARPS, and even board games and seminars. Aaron and I have been talking about GenCon for almost 10 years now. It is nice that we are finally going! Woot!

Anyway, it's been a good couple of days and I'm looking forward to getting some time off soon.

Blog more next week I hope.

CYA
Bren

What's up?

2008-05-25T14:25:00.004-06:00

Hey all,

Well what have I been up to in the last month since my last real post?

The love life is still in stasis. I'm enjoying being single and not having to always worry about someone else. I am a supporter and I like to feel useful and needed, but it's nice not to have to constantly worry about the last time you bought someone flowers or whether that last text message had a subtle hint of "I want to go out tonight". I also enjoy being able to do my own thing without worrying what she might think (what a lazy guy, all he did was play video games today!). Being single for once is helping me build self image.

What else is news?

I have preordered Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. It drops on June 7th but I won't get my nooks until the 10th-17th. That's a bit of a problem as I want to start the new campaign on June 15th as it is my last weekend day off before going out to Banff this summer. Oh well, I'm trying to be rules light this time as in the past I've spent more time designing battles than writing a story.

I've been trying to do a lot of writing lately. I've resurrected an old world map I was working on years ago to set my new D&D 4ed campaign in. I can't find my notes from before (if I even wrote them down) but I still remember what little I had. This should be interesting as I've never had a chance to bring this world to the light of day. realizing that 4ed comes out in 2 weeks has me a bit concerned about the amount of material, or lack there of, that I have so far. I am hoping to start them off on a sample game and then write during July when I'm in Banff. Designing Fantasy should be a bit easier surrounded by majestic mountains.

I've signed up to work in Banff this summer. I will finally be going in as a Lighting Technician, something it has taken 11 years for them to realize. I've gone back as a lighting technician with shows I've toured through Banff, but they have never brought me on as a Lighting tech before. Should be interesting as I'm a very different person than I was back then. I'm hoping to stay out of the drama that always ensues when everyone starts hooking up. I don't know I will meet in Banff but I'm not expecting much. I've never had a successful relationship with someone I met in Banff. It's too temporary to be worth the time.

My divorce is finally being filed. The prerequisite time has passed for Roxanne to appeal the divorce so now we go onto the next stage. Now the papers get filed and in 3 months or so I will receive the final document in the mail. my divorce will be official on the first day of the month after the judge signs the paperwork. Yes, I will be having a party. :) Most likely the Auburn Saloon at the base of the Calgary Tower.

I've also bought myself a new toy a few weeks ago. I bought a 37" LCD TV that displays at up to 1080p resolution! Since my xbox 360 will display at that level, I'm playing a lot more xbox now :) I've also revamped my entire cabling situation into the TV as it has a lot more inputs than my old TV. I also bought a component video cable for my Wii so that it can display at 480i, a lot better than the crappy RCA video cable I had before. I've also hooked up my laptop to it via a VGA cable. I can use the TV as an external monitor for my laptop! I'm still playing with the resolution and the TV settings to make it work well, and I need to get a USB extension cable so that I can take the Keyboard and mouse to the couch, but it is still pretty cool.

What did I do with my old TVs? Well, I gave Roxanne my 21" TV that I bough my first winter in Banff with my first paycheck as a technician. Sentimental value yes, but I don't have the space. I moved the 27" TV from the living room into the now vacant spot in the bedroom. It takes up way too much room, and I almost never use it, but oh well. It's good for sick days you just want to stay in bed and watch movies.

My sister came to visit last weekend. It's always good when she comes down as we go shopping and I get some new stuff. I'm hoping to revamp my wardrobe before I go to Banff as I'm sick of the old clothes I have. They just don't feel like me anymore. There was a bit of drama when we went out on Saturday night, but we had smoothed things over by the time she left on Sunday.

Well that's it for me. There is more that has happened but I need to get writing if I'm going to have a first adventure worth playing next month.

CYA
Bren

Clone Wars

2008-05-23T21:45:00.001-06:00

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/starwarstheclonewars/trailer1/

Now I have the two disks of the animated Clone Wars that they released before Episode 3. Despite that I really want to see this flick! Hope the story doesn't suck like episode 3.

Bren

Blah Meh, Mr. Blah Meh to you kid.

2008-04-23T19:49:00.002-06:00

Hey all,

Wow, I haven't posted for almost a month and then it was just pics! Sigh.

It's been a month. Not sure what to make of it. It's been a good month I guess but I've been kinda down for the whole weekend and looking back at a chat I had last night has made today a poor day as well. basically it breaks down to neither of us was clear on what we were trying to say/ offer because we weren't coming out and saying it straight out. Any way, I won't get into it here.

What else has happened this month? Mari and I broke up again a few weeks ago. Since then we've spent more time together than the weeks before the break up and it makes me hopeful. That hopefulness also makes me cautious of getting hurt again. Hm, that's funny 'cause I always tell people not to be afraid of the pain because at least it shows you can still feel.

Also my Lighting booth at work got broken into. the thieves stole some computers that were old enough not to be worth much. The value of the computers was in the software on them that runs some of the lighting systems here at the Jub. None of these were critical, they just made my job easier (like remote access devices so I didn't have to run all the way down stairs). Funny thing is that these programs are keyed to hardware located in the Jub and are of no use elsewhere. Oh well. The up side to the booth getting broken into is that in reinstalling the software that was on the computers, I'm learning more intimate details of how the system works.

I finally filed for divorce. I got a lawyer recommended by a friend I met through Mari, filled out all the info, slapped down $1500, and hopefully by September I'll be a free man.

Every time I think of my dead marriage I wonder why there are so many now a days. Do we rush in too fast? Not faster than decades previous. I think it is because we give up to soon. I often wonder if I should have tried harder with Roxanne, but I know we did try and that we were not meant to be together. Not in the long run anyway.

I often think I should have tried harder with Nicole. When we broke up I just let her go. Mind you I had felt the relationship slipping over the last few weeks and be all end all, we were a tour fling that lasted two and a half years despite our VAST differences. Although I regret not putting up a fight at the end, I know that Nicole and I had nothing left. At the end I didn't feel good about myself around Nicole and that was the most damning thing I could have let happen. Oh well. On to awkward friendships! :)

Hm, what else?
Meh, my head isn't in the game today. I have tomorrow off so I'll try to blog more then.

CYA,
Bren

World Wide Wing Night #4

2008-03-29T12:31:00.003-06:00

Hey all,

Here are a few pics from World Wide Wing Night #4. We met at the Cat and Fiddle on 16th again on March 7th, 2008. Not as successful as last time but still fun. We also raised our glasses to E. Gary Gygax who had passed away the week before.

RIP: E. Gary Gygax and more

2008-03-10T11:30:00.003-06:00

Hey all,

Well as most of you may already know, E. Gary Gygax passed away last week. For those of you who don't know who he is:

E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson co-created D&D during a zeitgeist period of roleplaying. Did they invent roleplaying? No. Did they create the first of what we'd call a tabletop RPG? Probably not. Were they the first to commercially publish one? Bingo-- in 1974!

To the world, Gygax launched D&D and became the personification of roleplaying. More than launching a game, Gygax co-launched an industry, and in the process became the public face of the game. His was the name that the media reported on, his was the visage exploited as the archetypical GM, his was the name that usually was tagged solo to the D&D brand. In the mainstream world, Roleplaying meant D&D, and D&D meant Gary Gygax.

The rest of that article can be found at:
SANDY'S SOAPBOX #130: GYGAX, RPGS: A CONNECTION?

Anyone who has been reading this blog, and that knows me, will know how much gaming means to me. It is a place to escape the dull drums of life and be something you could never be in the real world. Even more, RPGs teach us to dream and reach for bigger and better things. Teaches us to be more open to other points of view (not as big of a stretch to see where a co-worker is coming from after playing that ostracized Orc barbarian that just wants a place to sleep for the night but can't get into an Inn due to all the pitchforks and torches). D&D has helped mold me into the person I am today and I find it hard to imagine a Me without RPGs as an influence in my growing years. I would definitely be a colder, meaner, person.

So, how is the rest of my life going? Not too bad. I made it to Yoga three times on my One Week unlimited (That's just under $7 a class) and bought a 10 class pass. I made it out three times last week and Mari and I are going on Tuesday again. I'm definitely enjoying a boost in energy levels (assuming I remember to eat right as well) and I'm starting to see some muscle definition I've never seen before! A great boost for the ego and I feal like getting out more and doing less gaming. Not that you could tell that from my last week.

The WoW thing is still taking up too much time, although it does fluctuate. The guild keeps growing and I'm starting to catch up. Having most evenings off due to the Kiwanis Festival being in at work helps. Unfortunately this means I've missed Playrites again this year :( Also the guild has added a Ventrilo server so that we can actually talk to each other while playing! This boosts communication (I'm a crappy typer) and adds more of a social aspect to the game.

Over the last month or two I've been trading Graphic Novels with my friend Kat. She works at SAIT which is right next to the Jub, so going for visits is quite convenient. She turned me onto such great series as "Runaways" and the ever popular "Sandman". Both are great and have inspired me to start collecting again. This is great as Joss Whedon is Executive Producer of a new comic line for Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8! I'm really enjoying the light reading that Graphic Novels afford me.

World Wide Wing Night #4 was a success! Started by the guys over at the pod cast Fear the Boot,
is basically an excuse for gamers to get out for beer and wings and socialize. So far this is the third W3N I've been able to get a Calgary contingent together for. The first one I had one person show up to. The second I had about 10 people show, and this last time I had 6 people. I missed W3N #2 as I was on tour and nearly missed this one as I'm behind on my podcasts. Anyway, it was fun and I like getting people together to socialize.

Unfortunately my table top gaming has declined. It seems impossible to get the whole group together to play D&D anymore, and most aren't interested in playing board games. I have managed to have one or two game nights in the last few months, but very few people turn out.

Also, my D&D Meetup game has gone away. The DM has been put on a big, career defining, project and doesn't have time anymore. This is disappointing as I was starting to like where the story was going and the character I was playing. I'll probably just join a different table and start a new character but I still would have liked to play the other story longer. Another disappointing thing is that I've had the free time to make it to the game this last few weeks but they kept getting canceled. Not sure how much I'll be able to keep lining up time off and the Saturday bi-weekly game.

On another note, looks like I need to stick around the apartment this Saturday (a D&D Metup Saturday) as my Landlord is kicking out one of the tenants. This guy moved in down stairs about a month or two ago and has had the cops called on him over a half dozen times. he is brining homeless people into the building (and I don't think it is to keep the warm or fed), and has guests breaking the front door and yelling stuff out front at night. The Landlord has asked a few tenants to be present when she kicks him out as she is not a big woman and doesn't know how he will react. Sigh, if only she hadn't let him in the building in the first place....

Well that's it for me. I'll try to be on more often but no promises.

CYA,
Bren

How Time Flies

2008-02-19T21:58:00.002-07:00

Hey all,

Sorry for the long absence, it's been busy.

January was sucked up by an Opera and a Ballet. I'm also trying to get a bunch of projects done and get together budget proposals on training, so I don't have as much time to blog at work anymore. What little time I did have off I spent doing Yoga, cleaning the apartment, trying to get friends together more, and trying to keep up with WoW (more on that later).

Aaron and I also briefly considered moving in together but thought better of it (which is good because I sure as hell don't want to pack again so soon if I can help it).

February so far has been very trying emotionally. Mari and I got back together in early February. Then we broke up a week later. Then we got back together two days later. So far so good and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We still have things to work on but we now both know that each of us wants to try.

One of my industry friends asked me about Mari and I when we were not together, "You didn't really think it would last did you?" Well there is no definite on relationships but a boy can dream can't he?

I like Mari a lot. Something about being around her just seems right. I can be myself and not feel like I'm being looked down on for not being as cool a boyfriend as she wants. Anyway, I'm not going to put my relationship on display for everyone. I've made that mistake ...

I've also started some more advanced Yoga in February. Mari has introduced me to Hot Yoga. Hot Yoga is doing 60-90 minutes of Yoga in a freakin' hot room. I have never sweat so much in my life! Good thing is that the heat really helps to loosen you up quickly so you aren't fighting to get into the asanas. The best thing is that it is at the Bodi Tree Studio just down the hill from the Jub! I'm hoping being on the way to work I'll be motivated to go more. I'm still on my "First week unlimited" pass until Friday so I want to try to make it out one more time this week (most likely Thursday during the day when it isn't so crowded). I've made it twice so far ($20 for the week, normal $16 for a one class drop in) and if I make it again I'm getting a lot of bang for my buck. My second class wasn't as good as my first so going a third time will make up my mind if I want to buy a membership or not.

Alright, on to WoW (World of Warcraft). Well I started a guild a while back called RAZ's Rogues. It started with a few of my D&D buddies and some random people we needed to get quorum to start the guild. Since then we have gotten rid of the random people, gotten everyone's alternate characters to join, and have even expanded the guild quite a bit. Now Wow has started to loose some of it's apeal to me but this sparks up my interest again. I like cooperative play to acomplish a greater goal. Grinding monsters to finish quests and gain levels by your self gets old quick. Joining up with 5 people to delve into a deep dungeon and beet the huge boss at the end takes team work and tactics. Much more fun than killing the same monster over and over again.

Unfortunately now that the guild is taking off I don't have as much time for WoW. I'm also determined to keep WoW as a hobby and not a life style (would that make Aaron my Life Style partner?). At the same time I am a gamer and I will continue to game as it makes me happy. I just have to keep it down a bit more than I have in the past :)

Well that's all for now folks,
CYA

Happy New Year!

2008-01-10T22:15:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

Well looky looky, we are in year two of the Blog. I was intending to write on the first but I've been busy trying to stay away from the computer. I've been doing more house work, more Yoga, more reading, and trying to get out of the house at least once a day. I'm also getting more green in my diet and so far I'm feeling better.

At some point I'll go through 2007's posts and do a postmortem on the year as a whole, how I've changed, what I think of my life now compared to then, where I'm hoping to be in a year. Why don't I just do that right now? Because I don't fucking want to! :) Also I don't have the time at the moment to read all the 2007 posts.

Well aside from a welcome to 2008 I wanted to give you an update on the Mari situation. Unfortunately I won't. I realize it may creep out some women (Nicole, I know you made comments once) that I talk about them on what is potentially a very public forum. I know Mari is a very private person (not afraid to talk about it but doesn't want to bill board it to the whole world) and most of it isn't my tale alone to tell.

Basically, we had a good talk on Dec. 17th (before she went to Egypt) that gave me hope things might get patched up down the road. Mari is back from Egypt now. We had a very good chat during a coffee break the other day. We went for lunch that same day and it went great (in my mind). I'm taking Mari out on Saturday night. I'm hoping this is the beginning to round two of our romantic relationship. I did a lot of thinking about Mari over the x-mas break and I'm ready to be with her. Not only have I moved on from Nicole but I'm now over her as well. I still like Nicole, and fondly remember the good times, but I know that we will never be together again romantically. I really hope she finds someone worthy of her.

Work. Well after a week and a half off, work doesn't seem so bad anymore. I don't have a bad job, I just need more time off. I'm working on getting more people in and even giving up the week or two long show runs. The only ones I won't give up are the Operas as they are harder than the rest (too hard to explain how to do them) and it is the only real programing I get to do. The long and the short of it is, I need to change my perspective on work (thanks for that tidbit Aaron).

Well I'm done for the night. Hope 2008 treats you well and visits previously unknown wisdom on your life.

Bren

What the Fuck?

2007-12-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Well that was quick.

Mari dumped me today. We haven't been going out that long and I wasn't THAT attached to her yet (pretty surprising considering how fast I fall for women) but it still hurts. Guess that's what happens when you hope. Mari is very cool and sexy in both a mental and physical way and I had hopes that with time this could turn out to be a very good relationship. Again when you hope you get hurt.

I don't blame Mari, I just got my hopes up and it hurts to have that rug pulled out from under you. Mari has been in a tough relationship (talk about getting the rug pulled out from under you) and my I believe my childish behavior last Saturday has scared her off. Fuck.

She gave me the reasons (stopped short of the cliche answers because she said they all sounded to cliche to give but I hear them), that she wasn't quite ready yet, thought I wasn't quite ready yet, and well at the moment I forget the rest. Quite frankly we sat down for dinner, she said we had to talk, and after that I was only half listening. Oh and one of the other reasons was that it was hard with our schedules to be together.

Think that's the straw that broke the camel's back. I need to quit my job. I need to get out of Theatre.

My big problem is when women dump you, and then cry because it is hard. I respect that, yes it is fucking hard and no one wants to be the bad guy, but if it's making you sad, why are you doing it!?

I just don't get it. I'm just gona stay away from dating and sex for a few months. It realy isn't worth the trouble.

CYA

Pictures from W3N3

2007-12-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

These are pics from November 9th, 2007. I'm posting them here so I can post them on the Fear the Boot forums.

First half of the peeps arrive,

The other end of the table

Everyone is here,

Crappy Week

2007-12-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

Well hello RAZ fans.

It's been one of those weeks. We are into the Christmas concert season and it's killing me. These groups do their crappy little concerts but don't have enough money to put into production. This means every show looks like crap because you have to focus lights on set pieces that AREN'T THERE YET! and then don't get time to do a touch up later. So much for the art.

I guess I'm just frustrated at being unable to improve the look of these shows after being at the Jub for 5 years. I've attempted to adapt the "House Hang" into something that is quick to use but still looks good. Well I'm still working on it as I'm still not happy with how most shows look. The big issue with most shows is time. Real shows get 8 hour hang days, 12 hour focus sessions, and 16 hour cuing sessions. I'm lucky if I get 4 hours to do all three.

What I'm doing to combat this is setting up systems. By using the same lights for the same thing I save time. I already know what they should look like (as opposed to experimenting with the light and hoping it will do what I want), and it makes programing faster as I already have it set up on the console. This still doesn't help. Grr!

Part of the problem is I'm still using a lot of what I inherited when I started here. I still use the exact same colours as the person before me used, and I'm still using lights from almost exactly the same angles. Guess I need to stop bitching and start redesigning the House Hang.

Another reason I'm so grouchy is I've been working too much again. I've only been working since Tuesday November 27th and my next day off is Tuesday Dec. 11. Hmm OK that is two weeks in a row, not unheard of in my industry. Also a week of that was show calls so really I didn't put in a lot of hours but it just feels like I've been here in the venue for months on end.

I tried to take Thursday and Friday off but the person who I asked to do them ended up being unavailable and didn't tell me until two days before. Too short of notice to get someone else. Just pisses me off that if I want to hang out with my friends that we can't do it until after 11pm and then I have to work at 8 or 9 am the next day. I'm starting to hate this industry.

Also on my plate right now, is training and meetings. I'm trying to get two days of First Aid training together for the Jub House Techs as well as getting in a lighting crew test day. On top of that I'm trying to get an IATSE meeting together for a venue I don't work at anymore. Pisses me off that the people who work there don't help me on finding good dates for the meeting or passing on the word. I don't work there, how do I know what is and is not a good date!? Fuck!

My D&D group doesn't seem to be interested in helping get another game day together either. Pisses me off when it feels like everyone expects me to plan everything! FUCK!

I'm also in the early stages of planning a trip to Aruba with Aaron in March. I need to go get my shots and start planning when exactly we are leaving, how we are getting there, and what we are doing. Obviously Aaron will help but he is too busy right now so I'll start.

I'm getting so bitchy that I almost walked out of Mari's Christmas party on her last night. That would have been the end to the relationship before it really even got a chance. Basically we had planned to hit Mari's EPCOR party first and then go to the party I was invited to after. Unfortunately Mari was one of the organizers of her party and was too busy to watch the time. Being a clock watcher I left my phone in my jack at coat check so I wouldn't rush us out. What a mistake. By the time we started to leave it was way late, I was getting a head ache and the second wave of people showed up, so we decided to stay for a bit longer. This caused us to stay until almost midnight. Well a bit pissed off that we didn't seem to make any effort to make it to my party, pissed off because my head ache was going from minor to major, and pissed off because I thought I had told Mari about the head ache but that she wasn't paying attention to that fact, all adds up to really pissed off. After waiting for an hour for what I thought was a quick round of good byes and then leaving, I got up and started to leave. Lucky for me Mari caught me on the way out and left with me. We talked it out after but I'm still a little ticked we didn't make it to the second x-mas party. Makes me concerned (that I didn't say I was getting pissed off) that I'm falling back on old habits.

Another part of why I guess I've been pissed off is that I've done yoga only twice in as many weeks and one of those sessions fail to do anything for me. Again I blame this on work and not being able to get someone to fill in for me. I blame this on the manager at work who refuses to acknowledge that we need to have an Alternate with guaranteed hours in order to keep them at the Jub.

Oh well, movies and alcohol are the cure I'm going to attempt tonight.

November in a nutshell

2007-11-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well I’ve been failing at blogging more as you can see. Lucky for you I’ve just come from Aaron’s blog where he was complaining about not blogging enough. My advice was to just blog about anything and forget about the readers being bored. On that note I decided to catch up on my blog. J

The end of October was a write off as we were doing a brand new Ballet here at the Jub. After that we went almost right into an Opera (two days between and both had shows). Both of these shows (Ballet and Opera) require 12+ hour days from me for 7-10 days at a time. After those types of days I don’t have the brain capacity or energy to blog (but I have enough time to check my WoW auctions. Hm…).

Once the Opera was open I had a few days off (we call them Dark Days in Theatre. A Dark Day is a day that the show isn’t running but is still set up on stage. At the Jub we like these days as it means almost nothing else can happen, near guarantee of a day off!) that I spent recovering from the Opera and playing my new Nintendo Wii and Guitar Hero 3.

I took off the Load Out of the Opera so that I could go play D&D down at the Sentry box with the Calgary D&D Meetup people. Good fun and it’s nice to play in a game again. Also it’s nice to meet new people and to realise there are others out there with my play style more than just Aaron and Greg (three don’t make a great D&D group). I was excited when a few of the guys playing at my table invited me to a private game they were starting at home (the guys who seem to have the same play style as me). Unfortunately due to a mix up of dates I couldn’t make the first session and I haven’t heard anything about it since. Oh well.

The week after was full of 1 and 2 night shows at the Jub so another busy week. Then I took the weekend off so that Mari and I could go down to Waterton and get out of town alone for a bit. That was the weekend I was supposed to play in the new D&D group but obviously I had higher priorities! J

Mari. Well let’s start at the beginning. I have always jokingly said that the best way to get over a woman is to find a new one. That isn’t what is exactly happening here.

I had spent my time moping over Nicole and feeling sorry for my self. Really with all the relation ships that have ended recently (Last 12-18 months) I got off real easy as Nicole and I are still sort of talking (she’s in India right now). Not to mention we left on good terms and willingly as opposed to someone betraying the other.

Near the end of my get over period (not that I’m 100% over Nicole, you don’t move past 2 ½ years that fast, but I am moving on) some one mentioned that Mari, a friend of mine for many years who had become single almost a year ago, didn’t think she was attractive. “Well,” I thought to myself, “that is just ridiculous!” So I started flirting (or my reasonably hand drawn facsimile of it) with Mari on Facebook. We also started talking about getting over break ups as we were both rowing that boat at the time.

Well I’ve known Mari for over 6 years but I guess I’ve never had the chance to really get to know her. I discovered that we had a lot in common! Not only were we both in Theatre (that is how we met) but we had recreational activities in common to! I had just started reading H.P. Lovecraft (as there is an RPG based around the mythos in his writings) and Mari was a big fan. Not to mention she has a brother that owns a gaming store so she grew up with the whole gaming thing. There are a bunch of things we have in common that I won’t get into as the list is too long, enough to say it seems like we have been hanging out together longer than the two or three weeks we have been dating.

I can definitely see a future with Mari. I don’t know how long that future will be but I’m trying to take it slow. It is still too soon to fall for another woman even if I can see myself falling for Mari when I’m ready. I normally would have waited longer but when I realized we had so much in common I didn’t want to let the opportunity slip away.

Well it’s nearing the end of November and I’m stuck at work doing “Movin’ Out”, a Billy Joel musical that is more ballet than rock concert. That will round out the end of the month and the start of December. As we have two shows on both days of the weekend, I will be doing little else.

I am managing to squeeze in a Saturday night beer with my cousin Kim tomorrow as I haven’t seen her in a while. Trick will be not staying out too late as I have two shows the next day and a load out. Also looks like my next day off will be December 15th so I need to start taking it easy so I don’t get sick before Christmas (if I ever get rid of this cough from the last cold that is).

Well I’m sick of typing so…
CYA,
Bren

Must...blog....more...!

2007-10-18T20:48:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Hope you all liked the movie of my buddy Steve doing his "Grover" act while celebrating Alexander Keith's birthday. I wanted to put it on Facebook but couldn't figure out how.

I need to start a blog list. Early in the day I start thinking of things to blog about, but by the time the evening rolls around and I sit down to blog, it is all gone. Or at least the motivation to talk about it.

Most of the things I think to blog about are pretty mundane. Dishes, yoga, work, TV shows I watch, laundry, yawn I'm putting my self to sleep! Well they say to write about what you know and I figure at least the mundane will get me practice on writing.

I'll do a little bit about yoga. I started doing yoga as exercise a little over a month ago (yes for those keeping track that does correspond with a recent big change in my life), and so far so good. I bought myself a cheap yoga mat at Zellers and I bought a Beginner's Guide to Yoga book. I'm following a yoga podcast I down load via iTunes, and yesterday I did a full hour of yoga.

Now originally I started yoga to help me trim down in anticipation of my future dating career. With a "Fat Burning" yoga routine I think I'm starting down the road. While reading my Beginner's Guide I started to realize how much more to yoga there is. From posture, to peaceful thinking, to breathing in order to control your body and emotions. It somewhat conflicts me.

The philosophy behind yoga as a way of life conflicts me. Mostly this is because in the last few months I've been listening more to what my emotions have been telling me and trying not to bottle things up. It would appear yoga would have me do almost the opposite. Well OK, that isn't true. Yoga teaches you to find a balance, resolve your emotions internally, and make decisions with mind and not heart. After so many years of controlling my emotions, and then the recent freedom of letting forth all that I feel, I guess I'm a bit reluctant to reform to something akin to my old habits.

Oh well, sounds like a new challenge and adventure :)

CYA

Steve does the Grover

2007-10-06T17:48:00.000-06:00

This is from a night out on Alexander Keith's Birthday (September 5th, 2007). Enjoy!

Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

2007-09-18T20:45:00.000-06:00

Wholly crap, No blog for over two months! I'm a slacker.

Well I'm definitely not something as I'm single again. Sigh.

Four (or so) years ago, when Roxi and I split, I didn't like the person I had become. I had become lazy, going out was more hastel than it was worth. I started playing more video games becoming immersed in my escapist world. I stopped paying attention to my wife. I told myself I was being who I was and I was going to be happy with that person because they say you should be happy with who you are.

Splitting with Rox showed me that I wasn't happy with who I was. You shouldn't be happy with yourself unless you are the person you want to be. I wasn't the person I wanted to be, I was the person it was easiest to be.

I vowed to get out of my comfort zone and find out who I was. I took jobs had never done before and might be really crappy at (like being a stage carp for a Barage tour). I actually started to pursue (in a shy way) women I wanted to date. I even asked a few out without them jumping on me first! The touring made me fitter and I had something more to talk about than video games and D&D. I was becoming someone I could be happy being.

This is the Brennan that Nicole met back in March of 2005. I noticed her right away but didn't think it would go anywhere. I knew I wanted to be with her the moment I saw her, a crush at first sight. She didn't notice me at first as she was misdirected with a misunderstood joke to watch out for the Deck LX as he was "trouble". To her defence she was new to town and the company and didn't understand every one's humor yet.But when we started talking she started to fall for me.

We ended up getting together on tour, constantly saying that it was just a tour thing and that it would be fun but over in a month or two. I was casual, as was she, but inside I was falling for her. I didn't want it to be over. I drover her to Banff for her summer contract (after leasing a car to do so, I'm a sucker for a skirt) and said good bye.

The next week I convinced her to go to Jasper with me for the weekend. It was great! I took the plunge and got the girl! I never thought that I could get a woman like Nicole for more than a short period of time, but here I was going for gold! Later that summer we would go to White Swan Lake in BC and we would confess our love to each other there. I was very happy with who I was!

That was two years after Roxi and I split. I had changed who I was and was happier for it. I still did geeky things but in moderation. I had things to talk to people about other than imaginary places that had no bearing on anything other than my recreational life. It was a great time in my life.

Unfortunately it was not to last. I started work at the Jub again (after the renovations) and started to fall back into old habits. To my defence as a lighting tech in a road house, you need to set up systems, to set up "standard practice" or "standard configuration" to get the job done in the short amount of time given. This need to put everything on a schedule or make a routine bled over into my home life.

I started to regress into my former self, and over the next two years I would become post Roxi Brennan that I fought so hard not to be. I stop telling Nicole what I felt, and I stopped having time to do the small things like buy her flowers or sneak into her apartment and do her dishes while she was at work. I stopped making that extra effort.

I started using the excuse "well she is at work so now is a good time to play video games". Not a bad idea unless you spend the whole day playing video games. Not very hot when you are asked "what did you do today" and you respond "I eradicated the French because they attacked my civilization, and then I invented the Nuke and Nuked them!" Yep, not very impressive.

Oh well live and learn.

Dungeons and Dragons, why?

2007-06-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

Hey lo (or HALO for all you X-Box players),

Well I guess it is time to tackle the subject that will bore some of you, interest others, and yet make another group say "what a fucking geek!" It is OK to call me a geek (just don't call me a looser unless you want your tires slashed) because I am. In fact I'm becoming rather proud and open about it. I'm a Gamer and I'm proud of it so you can go fuck your self.

Let's start with an explanation of what Dungeons and Dragons (D&D for short) is. D&D is a "Pen and Paper" table top game. What this means is that there is no board for this game, just rule books (3 books at it's most basic but I'm up over 30 books for this edition, one of four or five editions, of the game alone), a scrap of paper for recording things, and some dice. D&D is also classified as a "Role Playing Game" or "RPG" for short (don't get it mixed up with Rocket Propelled Grenade, that could be messy). What this means is that each "Player" runs a "Character" in an interactive story. Or if you are Tom Hanks it means you want to jump off the World Trade Centre. Guess we don't have to worry about that one any more (if you missed that you should look up an old movie staring Tom Hanks called "Mazes and Monsters". It's the movie that got me into the game. Came out Late 70s or early 80s).

The story of the game is told by one of the players referred to as the "Story Teller", "Referee", "Game Master (GM)", or "Dungeon Master (DM)". Dungeon Master comes from the D&D game so I'll be using that term (DM) in this explanation. This person is the narrator and tells all the other players what they see, hear, feel, smell, touch, and in general, all they perceive of the fictional world (no one can be told what the Dungeon Master Matrix is...). Also, the DM adjudicates the actions of the other players and tells them whether they succeed or fail. Obviously the DM has great power, but with great power comes great responsibility (thanks Uncle Ben, but Peter Parker isn't our DM). Being the DM can also require great artistic skill as a story teller if you decide to write your own games.

So basically D&D is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book that you can play with friends.

A game generally goes as follows. The Player Characters (PCs for short. Those are the characters that the Players of the game control) form an "Adventuring Party" that does odd jobs for gold pieces. The Party gets a quest from some one (usually while visiting a tavern. For some reason all story's start at the bar in this game) like "Go kill the Orcs attacking the local farms", and then they go out and do it, and then they return for the gold. Well that is a very basic plot anyway.

At the end of the game session (a game session lasts anywhere from 3 to 8+ hours depending on how long the group wants to play) the Players get experience (or XP for short) for their character depending on how difficult the obstacles in the plot were to overcome. The harder the obstacles the more XP the characters get (if they survive that is). When a character gain enough XP they become more powerful. This is measured in "Levels" of a "Class" (a class is like a profession), and the more levels you have, the more abilities your character will have. The more abilities your character has the tougher the jobs they can take on.

This game has no "End" to it. Like a good story it can just keep going and going. There really is no "Finish Line" so it is up to all of the game players to decide when they want to tell a new story. it is also fun once in a while to get together with an old gaming group, pull out the old character sheets, and tell one more story with that favourite adventuring group you enjoyed watching the exploits of in your youth.

This is a game that has it's creation (back in1976) greatly influenced by JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some of the story arcs can become pretty epic due to the influence of those books and others like it in the genre. Lord of the Rings was by no means the only fantasy literature to influence the birth of the game, but it is the easiest to use as it is so well known to today's readers.

As a side note, D&D is just one Role Playing game out there. It is based in a Fantasy setting but there are role playing games for everything. There are Star Wars role playing games, Werewolf RPGs, Vampire RPGs (apparently the only RPG that attracts female players), Battlestar Galactica RPGs, Call of Cthulu RPGs (based on H.P. Lovecraft's writings), and yes, even a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.

Obviously there are many different genres of RPGs (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Horror, etc.) but I mostly play Fantasy. You know what I'm talking about. Wizards, dragons, evil warlords and the like.

I like Fantasy settings because of the imagination needed to envision some of the fantastic locations. Bottom of the sea ruins, flying ships, cities built into the walls of a ravine, all the stuff that we can't do in real life.

I guess that means I play D&D as an escape.

That and I love stories. I am by no means a good story teller (as anyone stuck at the table with me at the bar late at night will attest to) but I love witnessing them. Books, movies, even T.V. shows and cartoons, give me a good story and I can't stop! hell I'll even get hooked on a crappy story as long as it twists and turns in ways I didn't predict.

A trilogy? man I'm a sucker for those, even bad ones. Once I start the story I have to find out how it ends (hmm... did they ever make a Blair Witch 3?).

Anyway, I hope this sheds some light for those not of the game. feel free to leave a comment to support or ridicule anything I've written here.

CYA

Upcomming Movies

2007-06-13T20:45:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Well I haven't posted in a while.

I've been working at the Jub as usual and I just finished Magnetic Consequences with DJD. I've been filling my off hours with working on getting my laptop back up to it's former glory, still unpacking and reorganizing, and playing way too much W.o.W. I need to erase that game off my computer, I might get something done with the six hours a day I play that damn game. Sigh.

But that is not what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about a bunch of upcoming movies that I just watched the trailers for! Some of these have been in the works for a while, and some have just come to my attention. Now I mentioning these because, well it's my fucking blog and I'll write about what the fuck ever I want, the other reason is, no not to sell movie tickets, but just to share with you the kinds of movies that look interesting to me. I realize some or most of these may end up being duds, but oh well.

Transformers
This was my favourite toy and cartoon from childhood (if truly I have ever left childhood). The original movie (1986) was the first movie I saw by my self, and I nearly cried. Hey, they killed off Optimus, it was a shock to me! This one is a live action as oposed to cartoon, so that should be interesting.

Resident Evil: Extinction
The Resident Evil games (well 1-4 as I stopped following the series after that) were great fun! It was like controlling a character in a movie, and some of the plots (especially RE2) were very involved and twisting. The previous movies in the series weren't too great (well I liked the first one) but I'm a sucker for a trilogy.

28 Weeks Later
I loved the first installment of this movie. I guess I've always been curious of what it would be like if our current society broke down to a post apocalyptic state. Hey I was raised in the 80s, every movie back then was about "after the bomb". Not sure how good it will be from the trailer, but then the trailer for the first one didn't spark me to watch it either.

Fido
While we are talking about flesh eating zombies, I present Fido. Fido is a 1950s suburbia where the zombie plague has come and gone and all the zombies are subjugated as slaves/ pets. It Lassy meets Night of the Living Dead in a campy 50s setting. I can't wait!

Stardust
Well anyone who knows me knows I like fantasy (if you haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, go rent it, put the kids to bed, and grab a box of Kleenex). This looks like a great fantasy film that isn't set in a Tolkien world. it's set more in a early 1800s type setting but with a lot of fantasy (witches, flying ships, pirates, shooting star princesses. Could be fun.

Live Free or Die Hard
I'm a sucker for the Die Hard films. Die Hard 3 was so good (I thought the plot was a bit more misleading and that made you think) I have to see this one. Again, I don't know if it will be good, but I'll go see it.

The Bourne Ultimatum
Again I'm a sucker for a trilogy. After seeing the second movie I started buying the books to see how they compare. Well I have yet to make it through the first book but so far it is a lot more intrigue, less action. I like the book, I've just been out of a reading phase for a while.

The Simpsons Movie
Um... not sure if I'll see this one in theatres, but I'll definitely watch. The Simpsons was one of the funniest cartoons when I was a teen. I hear they are getting funnier again.

I am Legend
A Will Smith movie about a lone man after the earth has become depopulated (looks like due to war from the trailer). He lives, all alone, in New York with free run of the city. Again this appeals to my "what if society collapsed" curiosity.

Bee Movie
Ok, I may not see this unless Nicole wants to (she's a fan of the Seinfeld show). Go find the trailers for this show because they are fucking funny! It's a computer animated movie but the commercials are them trying to do it in live action! And Jerry Seinfeld is dressed up as a big freakin' bee! So funny.

Dragonlance
I don't have a lot of info on this one but I will eat peoples souls to go see this one (even the non-fat free ones)! This is an animated version of my favourite book of all time Dragon's of Autumn Twilight. It is the stat of a trilogy that I still reread every half decade or so and every time I do, it's like visiting with old friends. Hope it doesn't suck.

So I'm looking forward to quite a few movies. I like movies because it is a quick way to share a story. I personally think there are many books that should never become movies as the to lend themselves to different types of stories. Lord of the Rings was one of them but they did do a decent job of it. The first harry Potter film was very close to.

Movies do not make good books as the plots and facts are meant to be viewed through a window, via a force fed perspective. It's good for a two hour story, not great for an in depth read.

Books do not make good movies as there is so much more nuance and info in a book that is too hard to get across in a movie.

Well time to sign off. Feel free to post your favourite movie as I'm looking to grow my list of Must Watch movies. I need to get out from in front of the computer and W.o.W.

CYA
Bren

Graduation Season Begins

2007-05-22T20:51:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Well looking back at the recent blogs, I think I need to Blog more! Oh well.

It's that time of year again in the city, Grad Season. For most of you that means watching over (or under) dressed teens riding around in limos and crying that life is over (god if they only had a clue what was in store for them!).

For those of us in "The Industry", and by industry I mean theatre, it is a time of great... boredom. Having to sit through crappy high school bands, with the only redeeming quality that they break up the monotony of reading 400+ names of kids walking across the stage, shaking hands with teachers they probably wouldn't break for if they saw them crossing the street. But hey, we get paid to do this so I'll shut up now.

Can you remember your grad? I remember my grad with as much accuracy as time and my poor memory will allow. I do still have the red and white cooler I won at the after grad party (it holds four bottles of bear and ice), and I still see my grad photo up at my grandparent's house every time I visit (I really should have gotten my hair cut THEN gone for the pictures).

I do remember a picture of me and my buddies (well the ones that got to graduate that year) and I did look pretty good in my suit and hair do. i never thought I was good looking in High School but in reality I probably would have been if I had more confidence at the time. Quite frankly I was not hard to look at, but because I didn't understand (and hence a bit afraid of) girls, I went stag.

I did have a date but decided not to take her. Most likely I could have gotten laid if i had taken Jo-Lynne but for several reasons I couldn't. First and foremost she had dated my friend Tyler earlier in the year and the break up hadn't been good (but then when has one of Tyler's break ups gone good). Tyler said it was OK, and I knew that he wouldn't have held anything against me, but I could hear the bitterness in his voice towards her. The other reason is that she was spending $200+ dollars on her dress for the night! The kicker, it wasn't her grad!! that's right, she wouldn't graduate for another two years and she was going to put down $200 bucks on a dress she might not even wear again! Anyway, I just couldn't do it.

X-box 360. Do any of you own one of these? I'm trying to convince my self to buy one. They are backwards compatible for most games with the original x-box (the new one plays the old games), and starting to come down in price. One of the great things is the on line arcade. You can get great old games (anyone remember the original Double Dragon from the 80s?) and some cheap new ones (multi-player Settlers of Catan almost pushed my to buy).

The other reason I haven't bought an x-box 360 yet is World of Warcraft (not to mention the dozen or so other games I have yet to finish). I've decided to upgrade to the Burning Crusade expansion after trying the free 10 day trial. there are some new areas and items to get, and the character I started I really like and want to keep playing (she is of a new race available only with the expansion). With that, me trying to get my Warlock up to level 40, and my addiction to getting my crafting skills up, I think I will be playing for quite a while. So far I've clocked almost 7 days of real time on the game. Well worth the $90 or so dollars I've spent on the game so far (considering the average $60 game plays 40 to 50 hours).

Well that's all for now.
if you disagree with anything I've said feel free to put up a note here. Also feel free to try and find me on facebook as I'm still checking that WAY too much.

Bren

Out of Debt

2007-05-01T12:48:00.000-06:00

Hey all, welcome to May.

Well as of two days ago, I am officially out of debt. I've paid off both credit cards, student loan (been done for a few years now), and my line of credit. The next time I will be in debt will be when I buy the car I'm currently leasing, or find and purchase a condo.

It feels good to finally be out of debt. Unfortunately I am still paying one of Roxanne's bills until she gets back into the country. I really doubt she will be able to take it over when she gets back but we will see. It isn't a lot of money a month and I can afford it while her parents can't. Oh well, she's back in September so we will see then.

On a happy note I'm almost done tour! It's fun being on the road but I'm sick of packing every other day. Also I miss my new apartment and really want to finish unpacking. I also really miss my 1Gbps LAN connection at home!

Write you all soon from Calgary,
Bren

Facebook Addict

2007-04-25T17:56:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Well after getting so many Facebook requests from people I know, I've joined. It is pretty interesting to see how many people you know, and realize that you always have someone to call when feeling lonely.

Facebook is also very addicting as you look through the people your friend knows to add them to your list. Then you look through a Group listing (such as your college or high school) and spend hours looking for people you had forgot existed (and maybe an old crush or two). Feel free to poke me if you sign up.

Facebook Link:
http://www.facebook.com/login.php

Tour is going well. We are in St. John, New Brunswick, today and have a day off here tomorrow. The day after (Friday) is a set-up day, and I'm hoping to get the show in in 5 hours. We have a show the day after that and then on to Fredricton. The tour is almost over and I can't wait to get back home.

Thanks goes out to Kim for getting my mail and watering Nicole's plants for us!

Well I need some quality WoW time since this hotel has free highspeed internet.

Well CYA later,
Bren

P.S. I don't know how good the Strippers are in your neck of the woods... but the ones in Montreal are better. ;)

Just an Update

2007-04-21T16:25:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Just an update on the tour so far. We do a show tonight in Beloeil Quebec at the smallest theatre on tour. This is the last of the bad and the rest of the tour is all down hill from here (as down hill as touring can be).

Tomorrow is a day off in Montreal and I have to say it is fantastic. Some with our show has a friend or two at Circ d'Sole (hope I spelled that right) so we are going for a quick tour of their production facilities on Monday before flying to Charlottetown in the afternoon.

There are only four more shows of this tour to go! Funny thing is we still have two weeks of tour left! That means the next few weeks will be a lot easier on us.

Well looks like I need to go do lamp check.
CYA.

P.S. I'd like to welcome Graham M. to the WoW community even if he is only on a 14 day trial.

Bren

Sleep? Sleep is for the weak!

2007-04-14T22:10:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Well day 4 of the 5 day hell is over. On Wednesday we did an 11 hour load in followed the next day by a afternoon rehearsal, evening show, and late night load out (10am-1:30am for the entire day), then be driven an hour to your hotel. After a day like that you sleep in right?

Nope. We started setup the next day at 8am, afternoon rehearsal, evening show and load out. Well after a 17 hour work day you then sleep in right?

Nope. We did exactly the same thing today. Only difference was that we had a good crew and we were done in record time (just before 12 am). After a stretch like that I'm looking forward to sleeping in.

But that won't be tomorrow because we load in at 8am, afternoon rehearsal, evening show and late night load out. The other bad news is that the last three venues have told us that the crew in the next venue are Fucktarded.

Fucktarded is a new word we came up with in one venue on the tour where the crew was so bad that our load out took 3 1/4 hours where normaly it runs a little over 2 hours. This is with us directing them and well labeled boxes and gear, so that a good crew almost doesn't have to be told where to put things. Oh well, if everyone colud do it then they wouldn't pay us.

Well at least Monday is a day off and we stay in the same hotel tomorrow to (no packing at 6 am in the morning). After that we travel by bus to Montreal which will be a full day event (8 hours or so).

Another cool thing that haapened today was that my assistant from my first DJD tour, Squirly Dan, came to the show (haven't seen him in two years almost), and our Production Manager convinced him to work for us tomorrow on the load in! Not only is he a very good technician, but the rig is so close the the tour he worked on with me, that I can let him work on his own with little or no direction. It will be like having two assistants! That may just enable us to do a show at 8 pm tomorow.

Well sleepy time.
night

One Quick Post

2007-04-04T12:46:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Quick post as I'm about to go shopping on my partial day off.
I've added a new link to the on line comics portion as I didn't realize one of my favorites was missing.

Tour update: We are in Victoria BC right now and do our second show tonight. After the show we load out and fly back to Calgary for the Easter weekend. I have to work 3 of the four days but only one of those days starts at regular time, the rest are at least overtime at the start of the day.

On Tuesday we fly out to Ontario and do the hardest part of the tour. We have one setup day and then we do a show the next day in the same venue. For the next three days after that we do one offs, where we do a new venue every day. Setup at 8am, finish load out at 1 or 2 am. Next day start all over. It will be a very lack of sleep part of the tour.

Well I'm off to enjoy the sunny Victoria weather. I'm hoping to get some WoW time in later this afternoon or tomorrow evening. In the very least, most of Monday will be spent on WoW (have to make at least level 32 before the next leg of the tour).

CYA
Bren

Laptop back on line

2007-03-27T00:31:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

Quick post. My laptop is back. There was some damage to the hard drive so I did loose some things (e-mail and internet bookmarks are the most noticeable).

I'm still trying to get Thunderbird to talk to Gmail, and I'm slowly but surly getting everything back up to speed. iTunes is back up, and podcasts are loading again. Being as I'm on tour it will be slow. Next thing will be to get my iPaq syncing again and using it as a wireless remote for the Grand MA lighting console we are touring with.

The people in the hotel room are making fun of me because I'm blogging. Got to go.

Try to get back to you soon

Busy month!

2007-03-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Howdy all,

Well it has been a while since the last post and for good reason.

I moved, I worked a lot, I found (finally) someone to fill in for me while I'm gone on tour (I get to keep my job for now), I've almost finished crewing the Kiwanis festival at the Jub, I've been unpacking, I've been trying to spend time with Nicole, I've been trying to spend time with Kimmy (my cousin), and I made it to level 28 in World of Warcraft. I've also been catching up on my podcasts and fighting off a resurgence of my cold from X-mas. It has been an eventful month.

My new place is great! The more I unpack the more I like the place! The neighbour hood is great, lots of things to do, and only the occasional homeless person. The heat works great so I'm not cold all the time. I do have to get the balcony door fixed before summer as I would like to spend some time on my balcony after the sun comes out. I have a parking stall out back and I'm walking distance (45 min. or less) from my three favorite bars (Auburn, Ship, Broken City). Also Nicole lives two blocks away and I just got a membership to Bird Dog Video. Co-op is eight blocks away and there are tones of fast food joints in the area if I get lazy (Pizza 73, Wendie's, A&W, Noodle King (great Thai subs), and Ginger Beef Express. All in all a good place.

The best part about my new place is that it is a 7 min. car ride from work. I leave a half hour before work in case traffic is bad, but I've cut at least an hour off my commute time per day! Yea for gaining back 365 hours of my life a year! Only down side is that it is too short a drive to listen to my podcasts.

The solution to that is the video switcher I have hooked to my TV. I have a direct audio and SVideo line running to my TV so I can watch downloaded shows on my TV and pump music through it's much beefier speakers. I could do that before in Theatre Belkie, but I had to move my computer (involving unplugging, coiling, uncoiling, and replugging several wires) from my bedroom to the living room. Now I can leave my laptop on my computer desk and only have to extend my desktop to my TV. It makes me happy.

Well that's it for now. I have to check on my laundry, start dinner, and meet Kimmy at the Ship at 6 or 7ish.

CYA
Bren

MMORPGs & WoW

2007-02-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well after reading this article, (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070209.gtgaming09/BNStory/AtPlay/home)
I'm compelled to write about MMORPGs. (Thanks Bruce L. for sending me the link)

"MMORPG? What the fuck is that, something stuck in your throat?"

MMORPG stands for "Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game". It is an online computer roleplaying game that exists in a persistent world. What this means is that while you are playing you can run into hundreds of other people, sitting at their own computer, playing the game at the same time you are. This also means that while you are not playing (when you are interrupted by work, friends, food, sleep, and the other of life's distractions) the world continues without you.

The great thing about this is you get to meet new people from all over the world. You get together in groups to tackle tougher enemies or team work quests, make friends, and have a good time.

As with any game, there are also a lot of jerks. People who will steal your stuff, wait until you do the hard part of the quest and then do the last part, finishing the quest and stealing your hard work from you. There are also a lot of load mouths who run around streaming curses and insults at people for the most Innocent beginner questions. Oh well, just mirrors the real world.

Now I've only played in a few MMORPGs (Finall Fantasy XI, Phantasy Star Online, Neverwinter Nights, World of Warcraft), and most of them are fantasy style play (think Lord of the Rings). Regardless I think I have a good grasp what is good and bad in an MMORPG, and so far I'm liking World of Warcraft (WoW for short).

Some of the problems with other MMORPGs that I have played, WoW seems to have solved. In Finall Fantasy XI it took an hour+ to get to where you needed to find challenging monsters (which are the ones that will give you enough experience points [XP] to make it worth your while), and then you had to find a group or you would die quickly at the hands of the rampaging monsters. The good thing was that this encouraged team play. The bad thing was that some people had played the game so much that they would berate you for not being an expert (or in Gamer Speak a "NooB" short for "Newbie") and getting them killed. Or you got stuck with someone who would leave the keyboard in the middle of a fight and get the whole part killed. Stupid NooBs.

WoW has several good systems for getting characters from one place to another relatively quick. You have a "Hearth Stone" that you can set to take you back to a specified Inn. This is handy for quickly returning to civilization once you have reached the end of a quest.

Also, WoW has the "Wind Riders" to help people get around. In select cities and outposts you can find trainers of large flying animals (Giant Bats, Gryphon's, Pegasus and the sort) that will fly you to a place you have been already for a small fee.

WoW also has Zeppelins with sailing ships strapped to them that carry you between three major cities on the Hoard side. On the Alliance side they have a Dwarven train rout, or so I hear. This transport is free and comes around about every 5 minutes or less. In FFXI you had to pay to get on the ship, had to be a high level just to buy a ticket, and then had to wait 20 minutes for the stupid thing to show up.

WoW also has a lot of variety in its quests. In Phasntasy Star Online, all the Solo quests (if my usual friends aren't on I usually travel alone) were numbingly repetitive. Every dungeon looked the same with a colour change every ten quests or so. Go in, kill monster or fetch item, then leave.

Don't get me wrong, I know that most computer RPGs have the same quest set up. Talk to person A, Kill monster B or Fetch Item C, return to person A, get reward.

With WoW they like to add in several steps that cause you to go to many locations with a bit more of the story told by each person. Also WoW has "Dungeon" quests (you need to assemble a party due to the high volume of monsters), and Raid quests (a quest against a really tough monster that requires a high level and 20+ people to do). This helps break up the monotony and encourage team play.

All in all I think the $56 spent for the game and three months of play (it requires a monthly fee to play) will be well spent. My MMORPG friends and I are already looking ahead on the calendar to plan days we can all log on and take on some of the larger team quests! It is a lot of fun to play in a group of people you already like.

Well that's it for now,
CYA

New Appartment at last

2007-02-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well the hunt is over. I will take possession of my new apartment on Feb. 12, 2007. It's about 8 blocks from the Sentry Box (I wonder if they cash pay checks?) and 2 blocks from Nicole.

I had to pass up a really nice apartment that would have been newly renovated for March 1st. It would have had all new appliances and was in a really neat building. The manager seemed like a really nice guy and it was far enough away from main traffic that you wouldn't hear any cars. Unfortunately it was too small and too expensive for it's size (if it had been an extra 50 sq ft I would have so taken it!) Sigh...

The place I did get is in a building that isn't in as good of shape, and it's close to a main road so traffic will be an issue (lucky the bedroom is as far away from the road as you can get in the apartment). The laundry is 24 hours which is a big thing for me and my schedule. Also it is a 10 minute drive from the Jub so my commuting time will go down drastically (yeah! more time for World of Warcraft).

I'll send my new address out in an e-mail and I'll try to clean the place up before going on tour so I can have a bit of a house warming. It's a no party building but I think a few friends and drinks won't be bad, as long as we are semi quiet.

CYA

Woot! A new month on the blog!

2007-02-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

That's right, this post has the sole purpose of seeing what happens on the main page when I have posts in a new month. :)

I'm just pausing in my search for a new apartment to check e-mail, web comics, and my blog.

I have today and tomorrow to find a new place or Nicole will leave me. Ok, Nicole won't leave me but I'm pretending that is the case so that it lights a fire under my ass.

I've resisted playing World of Warcrack today. Well ok, I went on for 5 min. after I moved the program from my C: to my D: to make sure it still worked before I deleted it off my C:. I moved it to make enough room on my C: to do a disk defrag and to balance out the available memory on my two halves of my hard drive.

It's hard to believe I have only 17 G available now on my 100G external hard drive! Mind you almost 15 G of that is Alias seasons 3-5 that I will erase after I watch them and Dan's 7 G iTunes library I have yet to sort through and delete unwanted or duplicate songs.

CYA

Bren

Sigh

2007-01-31T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well it's been a while since my last post.

I've been working on a D&D post but I'm not quite happy with it yet.

Also I've been up to my ears in a world premier Opera called Frobisher. With organizing the Hang (putting up the lights), running the focus (each of the 673+ lights must be pointed in a specific direction), and cuing the show (just a lot of button pushing but 12 hours a day spent in the dark for 10 days in a row can be quite taxing on the soul), I just haven't had the energy or the time.

"Well the Opera opened last Saturday and didn't have another show until Wednesday. What the fuck have you been doing with those days off?"

Well funny story that. I played D&D on Sunday so that day, although well spent, was a write off. Tuesday I had to come to work to help do a Follow Spot course for members of my Union. With a splitting head ache I really wasn't a joy to be around that day. And with my Monday and scant few hours off between this and that I've been playing World of Warcraft. Sigh.

That's right, last week I joined the hoards of gamers addicted to a fictional on line world. It's amazing how "just one more crafting skill point" or "just until I finish this one quest" and then I'll go to bed, turns into a 2am bed time. Oh well, I'll play my self to death the first few days and then get bored when advancement through the game slows down.

Well it is almost time for work so I should go. Maybe I'll do a bit on MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) and how I like/dislike World of Warcraft compared to the few other MMORPGs I have played.

Or maybe I should concentrate on finding a new apartment and moving. hmm.

Bye

What's been going on

2007-01-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

This is just an update as to what has transpired over the last few days of my life.

Well David Copperfield has come and gone. Very cool show, even after watching it a few times I still had trouble figuring out how it was done (some of the backstage crew filled me in on some of the stuff so I know them all now). Of course I can't discuss that as I signed a legal document that will get my ass sued off if I let the cat out of the bag. Regardless of that I don't think I would tell. No reason to spoil the show for others, I like magic and don't want to dispel the illusion. Also the only reason I would tell would be the selfish reason to make me look like a know it all. I do that too much already.

The road crew from Copperfield were very happy with the Southern Jub (we did thier load in in 4 hours as opposed to the 8 they usually get. Blame Regina and the storm that stranded their trucks there), and very happy that they were going to the "same" venue tomorrow (the Northern Jub is almost the exact same floor plan as ours here in Calgary). I didn't have the heart to tell them that the two Jubs are like twins, they look the same on the outside but have very different personalities (the Northern Jub operates very differently than us which has caused problems for shows in the past expecting the exact same thing in Edmonton as they get here). Oh well.

Now we are loading in a world premier Opera called Frobisher. Here is the blurb on the Jub website: "Using Martin Frobisher’s expeditions to Canada’s far north as an historical backdrop, this modern-day story explores the passionate pursuit of dreams that are vibrantly alive but beyond our grasp."

This show is a co-production between the Banff Centre for the Arts and Calgary Opera. The last co-pro was called Fillumeana and was a big hit. It toured across Canada and has appeared twice at the Banff Summer Arts Festival. I just feel proud to be the original programmer and that my show (the Lighting Designer, Harry, still uses the same back up disk I created to start his show) has gone across Canada. I'm hoping that Frobisher will see the same success.

As for my life, well...not very exciting at the moment. I got my hair cut yesterday. That's most of my excitement. The other excitement is that I'm at work early today to wait for UPS to drop off a package to me.

The package is a set of Soca testers I ordered from the States. I got the Jub to buy some so I could check them out ($200 for the pair, Male end and Female end) without waisting my money. Bad me. Anyway, they were cool so I ordered some for my personal tool kit.

For those that don't know, Soca is a six circuit cable. Think of it as six extension cords wrapped up into one cable. It is very handy for Rock Shows as it drastically cuts down on time and mess during set ups. I know a non Theatre guy who, upon hearing this explanation from a friend, called Soca "Rock Star Extension Cords". The only problem is that they are sometimes hard to trouble shoot if one circuit isn't working. With the testers this makes my job on tour a lot easier.

Other than that my life has been nothing but work. Nicole is out of town but due back this weekend. Unfortunately she flies to Vancouver for two weeks on Sunday.

A few Birthday announcements:
On Jan. 8th it was my Mom's Birthday. I'm glad she is still with us (had a cancer scare this year).
On Jan. 17th it is Karen Fluery's Birthday so say a happy Birthday if you see her in the next few days.
On Jan. 20 it is Aaron's Birthday! So if you know Aaron (that would be my non Theatre friends in Alberta reading this) send him an e-mail and wish him a happy Birthday! Guess that means I should get off my ass and choose what I want to borrow off him... err I mean get him for his Birthday. :)

I'll try to write more later this week.

CYA,
Bren

Hot Air

2007-01-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Just an update on the heat situation. It's back on!

The furnace guys arrived at 9:15 this morning and just left at 6:30pm.

For the first time since Tuesday morning the thermostat (a new one now) is going up.

Looks like I will be able to sleep in my own bed tonight (not as fun sleeping in Nicole's bed when she isn't here).

Unfortunately this completely killed my plans to look at apartments today, but oh well. I have a few days after the Opera opens so I can look then. All of the online sites are so out of date I don't really trust them anymore.

Oh well. David Copperfield is at the Jub tomorrow so that is a bonus. I used to love watching his shows on T.V. as a kid and now I'm getting paid to "work" on them. I do have a cool job.

Hope you all stay warm tonight,
Bren

So C-C-C-Cold!

2007-01-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Haven't blogged in a few days due to the following two reasons.
Monday was my Mom's B-day and I had some housework to do.
Yesterday I got home from work and there was no heat.

I got home Yesterday at about 3pm and found that it was chilly in the house (16 degrees according to the blinking thermostat). After changing the battery in the thermostat to no avail, I went down stairs to look at the furnace and found two things. 1) A dead bird in the furnace. Must have flown down the pipe and died. 2) The pilot light was on but the big heating coils had no fire coming out of them.

After poking around to see if there was anything obvious that I could fix (nope), I called Mark to get a furnace guy here. He was at work (finally installing the last of the surround speakers at Theatre Calgary) but between him and Susan (Mark's wife) they got some guy to come over at 8pm. The easy and cheep fix wasn't the problem so now it is an expensive fix or replace the furnace. Sounds like Mark and Susan are going to replace the furnace tomorrow (Thursday).

After shutting off the water and draining the pipes and toilets, I spent the night at Nicole's so that I could sleep warm. The thermostat was reading 14 when I left. When I came back this morning at 9:30am, the thermostat read 11. Now 10.

The furnace guy just popped over to drop off two space heaters to get me through until tomorrow. He will be back between 9 and 10 am tomorrow to install a new furnace. Good thing I have the day off.

Well, looks like I'll take advantage of the water being off to fix the leaking tap downstairs in Bruce's bathroom. You would think that being a carpenter Bruce would be handier. Oh well, lack of time and better things to do than fix his tap and save gallons of water over the last six months (yeah I know, I'm no better).

I'm off to Home Depot to see if I can get a washer for the tap.
CYA,
Bren

Spare Desktop Computer

2007-01-06T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I've got a bit of a project for those of you who read this crap.

I have my old desktop computer left over from when I bought my laptop a year ago. It is just a ten Gb hard drive but it does have a few USB 1.0 ports and an either net card on it. What I want to do is find something fun to do with it for when I hook it up to the network.

My first thought is to put DOSbox on it and use it as a retro gaming console! I would also put abandon ware (old games that no one really watches for copyright infringement anymore) like old SEGA and Nintendo games.

My other though is to put some D&D gaming aid software on it so that my gaming group can use it as a quick reference at the gaming table. I would buy PDF versions of the D&D books so that we could do a word search o them when we need to find a rule.

Your mission is to suggest other things to do with this computer. I'm thinking I may change the hard drive but I don't have a copy of windows to put on it. Not sure how much it would cost.

I would be willing to put no more than $500 into it to get it into what ever new form it will take.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Bren

Work, work, work (this one is boring)

2007-01-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well I'm blogging from work today (laptops are great!) as I've had little time to blog in the last few days. On the fourth I was busy finishing down loading Heroes episodes 6-11 for Nicole and BSG season 3 episodes 4-6. By the time that was done I was too tired to blog. Yesterday Nicole came back to town for the weekend so I went over there and we watched Heroes for six hours! It was great!

What did I do today? Nic and I got up at 9:30ish, had a shower, and went down town for breakfast (Nicole is working out of town so she has no food at her place) at the Avenue Diner. I don't know if you've been to the Avenue Diner but it is great! It's a bit expensive (breakfast and coffee for two was $30 before tip) and parking sucks (it is on 8th ave and 1st street SW down town Calgary so parking can be expensive) but we walk there so no worries.

If you go I highly recommend the hash browns. Most places give you potato cubes that are usually cold by the time they hit your mouth. Not the Avenue. These hash browns are warm off the griddle and tasty! I'm not sure what all they put in there but it looks like spices and Rosemary. Great to the last bite. The pastrami, bacon, white cheese, and tomato (i think, can't remember the last ingredient) omelet I had was good to. Nicole had the stuffed french toast with baked apples inside. MMM... breakfast.

On the walk there and back Nicole and I were looking for apartments for rent as well. No we are not going to live together, we don't wont to get annoyed with each other and keep our space. Anyway, I saw a few along 15th ave SW and 14th ave SW that looked OK. I want to be closer to Nicole so that it is more convenient to go to her place (or her to come over and check e-mail) but not so close that we crowd each other. I figure I can rent a place for a few years and try to put some money away for a real place for later. I haven't given up on the condo, just delaying it.

I came to work for 2 pm (yeah I know. Just wait until I tell you what I'm doing today) and directed a crew person to focus some lights (about 74 in total) in about an hour and a half. We then had coffee and waited for someone from the show (Ron White) to show up and OK what we did. They finally show up at 4:15 and we need to only refocus one light (yeah, I'm that good). After a quick run down of the show we all went for dinner (Craig and I went to the mall. I resisted the urge to buy a game from EB games, Craig didn't) and came back for show. I programmed some moving lights (just texture on the back curtain so that the comedian isn't floating in black) and we opened the House (let the ushers open the doors to the audience).

On the way up to the Lighting Booth I noticed that some of the aisle lights weren't working. The aisle lights for those tat don't know, are the lights that are on the end of the row of seats that allow you to see the steps if you have to go to the can during the show and the auditorium is dark (like at the movies). Well this is a safety concern so I run down stairs to check them and see if I can't get them working. No luck. So I have to go to the Front of House Manager (boss of the ushers in lay men's terms although they have a lot of responsibilities) and get them to post extra usher to light the aisles with flash lights just in case. I hate these aisle lights, they have yet to work 100%.

The saga of the aisle lights has gone on since we returned to the Jub after the renovations last year. The problem is no one has ownership of the crap-tacular job that was done. The manufacturer of the seats said that that LED (light emitting diode) has worked in their seats in the past. The electricians ran the wire according to no plan (as no one told them how it needed to run), and some third party brought in the units that power the lights and allow me to control them (and surprise surprise they don't make that unit anymore so finding parts has been a chore).

The big problem is that the wires come straight up out of the floor into the bottom of the LED unit. This means that for each row there are two wires, one red and one black, just hanging out in the middle of no where. If a cleaner comes by with their mop they snag the wires and rip them out of the LED unit. This causes a short and takes out whole sections (in this case half of the First Balcony and the whole of the Main Terrace Right, about 500 seats worth) of aisle lights. This causes a trip hazard in the dark. It's only a matter of time before the Jub gets sued. Oh well, I fix as much as I can but I still ave to get the show up and running on time. 2500 seats worth of tickets isn't going to wait for me (well not often anyway :) ).

Well at least the show is easy. I turn on a colour wash, the comedian comes out, the spot light operator picks him up, I turn out the audience lights, and I get to watch the show. The show has one lighting change between comedians but that is about it. Today is an easy show.

Why do I get paid so much for doing so little? Well a big part is a strong Union. Another part is that I am very good at what I do. The third part is that I'm not getting paid for what I am doing but what I could be doing. If something breaks down in the lighting system, I can fix it faster than almost anyone in town (possibly the province). There are other people who can do my job but I have a better knowledge of the building and its systems. AT least that's what I tell myself. :)

Mind you my job isn't always easy. On January 15th we start the load in and set up of a brand new, world premier Opera. These are big complicated shows. On these shows I'm the main lighting guy who works with the lighting designer to make sure the sow looks great. Operas at the Jub usually run about 500+ lights and 200+ lighting cues. Part of the reason I got this job was because I can program the lighting board.

The computer control console we use to control the lighting system works on it's own programing language. Basically the language is more of a syntax of what order and what to type in (it's all in English, but most of it is theatre terms so most people don't understand). It's complicated and if done wrong (like not recording looks once you have them tweaked to what the designer wants) it can waste a lot of time. Lucky for me I'm one of the top five programmers of this type of console (yes there is more than one type and they all program slightly to vastly different than the ones we have at the Jub) in the city, and possibly in the top ten for western Canada. Who knows, I don't run into a lot of other programmers outside of this province.

Alright, well now that I've justified my professional existence I'll sign off. Hope you all have a good day an I'll try to write something more interesting next time but it all depends what spills forth from by brain pan.

CYA,
Bren

Slow Day, the way I like 'em.

2007-01-03T23:27:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

Well it was a slow day on the home front today. Today was my last of four off and now I work four. After that I have a half day worth of work out of four days. It's nice to have some easy time as soon the Jub will be back in it's post holiday full momentum. I'll add a Work Links so you can see some of the shows I get paid to work on. Like I said before I have a great job.

Well one of my room mates moved out the other day leaving me the whole run of the house! The other room mate is working in Banff until the end of January (I think, who knows when he is really coming back) so it feels like I have the whole place to me.

I spent part of the day moving some all of my crap that I kept down stairs to the now vacant room across the hall. Tomorrow I plan on putting all the half pack boxes from the living room into there as well.

You see I had intended to be the first one to move out of the house (Mark, my landlord and buddy, will be selling the house once his life slows down enough to make a few calls. That should be June some time). I wanted to be out by the end of November but couldn't find a place I was willing to pay the asking rental price on. That didn't stop me from doing a preemptive pack while I was looking. After talking to Mark I decided to stall the move out for a few months (and with a new kid and x-mas coming, I figured he could use my rent money).

The new plan. I want to find a place for Feb. 1st so that I can spend what little free time I have in February moving. I want to be out of the house before I go on my next tour in early March. I'm going to continue packing and use the room across the hall as a staging area for boxes. That way when I move the moving guys don't have to tromp all over the house to get my stuff. Also this lets me take stock of how much gear I have to move.

I'm totally hiring a moving company this time. Something like those Two Guy trucks you see booting around the city. Last time I moved only 1 person showed up to help me move (thanks again Aaron!). If Aaron hadn't shown up I would have been royally screwed. So I figure I have used up all of my moving karma and will just rent some movers this time. I can afford it and it will make my life easier. Don't worry, I still plan to have people over for free beer and pizza on the day anyway.

What else did I do today? I call Toyota and booked my car's 32,000 Km tune up. I've had the Red Barron since June 8th, 2005. I'm kinda wishing I hadn't opted for the extended Km as I don't think I'll hit 100,000 Km by the end of four years. Oh well.

I also need to take the car in because I went into the ditch while driving back from Moose Jaw after x-mas. Passing lane was snowed over but I tried to pass anyway. Felt the car start to wobble and so I gently tugged left on the wheel and drove into the centre ditch. A lot of snow in the front grill that I never did manage to get out, but no other visible damage.

I had to go down the the EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts today to get my pay check. Usually I can go to the IA (short for IATSE) office, five blocks north of me, to get my check but not this time. It had accidentally gotten fold up and put in with someone else's pay check. At least that person was nice enough to call me and make arrangements to get it to me. Also I thought I could drop a rent check off to Mark at Theatre Calgary, but he wasn't in.

When I got home I checked to see that I had finished downloading Heroes episodes six through eleven so that Nicole can watch them this weekend. I got her hooked at New Years with episodes one through five so now I have to show her the rest.

I don't know if you watch the show Heroes, but if you don't you're dumb. It and Battlestar Galactica are the only things worth watching on TV right now (Ok except for : Myth busters, Daily Planet, and probably one or two other programs I only catch by chance). The only problem is that both Heroes and Battlestar (or BSG) are on mid season break. Won't see another episode from them until the end of January (Heroes: Jan 22, BSG: Jan 21 I think)!

I wound up my day by watching a 2hour long episode of Myth busters and then doing a rack full of dishes (about 1/3 of the dirty dishes on the counter. I'm too lazy to dry them so I wait until the next day to do another load).

Well I should wrap this up as I have to work at 8am tomorrow. I get to finally sit down and program the moving lights we got back in September (Mac 700s for those in the know). Moving lights are great (a lot faster and flexible then sending someone up to focus) but still take a lot of time to program. What I'm doing is preprogramming stuff into the console to greatly speed up programing time. Once they are setup properly I will be able to use them in all the shows at the Jub without wasting hour of clients rental time on programing them. They are great pull a rabbit out of your ass gear. A quick solution to lighting problems that would normally take 10-20 minutes each to fix.

Night all.
Bren

A Start to Something

2007-01-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Well I've always wanted to do something like a diary but have never gotten off my ass to do one. This won't be a diary but it will be me talking about a lot of stuff and all of it going on in my life at the moment. I will be editing out some of the more private things that I may not want others to hear (we all have problems with our friends and loved ones that are more annoyance than problem so no need to hurt any one's feelings {unless I think they can take it}).

Oh two things. I like tangents so you will see a lot of bracket use ({[ ]}). Also I'm not interested in precise grammer and spelling so if that annoys you then tough shit. Oh one more thing, lots O' swears.

Why now? Because it is the start of a new year (2007) and it is as good a time as any.

Mission Statement:
What the hell is this about anyway? Well it is a place for me to write down thoughts in order to work through ideas, annoyances, and generally think I'm a rock star because everyone will read this and think it is brilliant in some twisted sort of way. Hm, scratch that last one. This is for me. I want to share this with you or else you wouldn't have the URL to this blog. If someone other than me sent you the URL don't worry. You have received it from someone I want to read this and I trust them to hand it out to like minded individuals as well. Of course I'm not accounting for the friend of a friend of a friend scenario, because I don't think what I have to say will be that interesting to that many people. This is a place to record my thoughts and to look back later in life to see where I have come from. I'm very bad at remembering details so this is a way to remember what I was thinking and how I have evolved since then.

Well who are you then?

Me? My name is Brennan but you already know that if you are here. Some people know me as RAZ in the theatre community because it is a nickname from college. I liked it so I didn't discourage its use (and may have helped its spread as well).

No. I don't give a flying F about your name. Who Are YOU?

Oh, that me. Well let's see, maybe I'll just tell you where I am in life as of today and that will help. I turned 30 last year (July of 2006) and have a great girlfriend that I have been dating for over a year and a half now. With the exception of my wife, Nicole is the longest I've ever dated someone. I love her. I won't talk too much about her right now 'cause that could go on for a while.

Yes that's right my wife. I'm married. Have been since August 6th, 2000. We separated officially (we had been living apart for a few weeks) on May 16th, 2003. We have yet to get a divorce (I'm lazy and in no rush to ever get married again and she has been in China for most of the last two and a half years). I do plan on getting a divorce some day, hopefully before the summer hits (Nicole suggested that when I get divorced that we should go on an anti-honeymoon somewhere and that sounds like a good idea to me).

I'm the House Lighting Technician at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium here in Calgary Alberta. I'm proud to have the job I have as it is one of the most sought after theatre gigs in town. Although I work in theatre and my union (IATSE local 212) covers theatre and film, I have no desire to work on films. Pulling cable through mud in almost freezing temperatures isn't worth the money in my books. I'm an indoors cat (well dog I guess, as I'm a dog person not a cat person).

For fun I like to trip nuns. Oh wait that wasn't me. Actually I like video games (console or PC), I read a lot (mostly Fantasy Fiction), and I play Role Playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (Fuck you I am not a looser my Mom says so!).

I also listen to podcasts:
http://www.dragonslanding.com/dli/ (a podcast about D&D and other RPG games)
http://feartheboot.libsyn.com/ (another RPG cast but this one is my favourite)
http://www.podiobooks.com/podiobooks/book.php?ID=53 (a podio book called 7th Son, I love a good clone conspiracy at the expense of the USA Government)

I do have an artistic side that I like to use every now and then but not much chance for that. I did just do a Lighting Design at the end of November that was a good flex of my artistic side. it was great to finally do a real lighting design (as opposed to the one offs I do at the Jub). I also like to paint miniatures (yes for D&D, fuck you), and some day I'd love to get into fictional writing or game design.

Anyway, I think that is good enough for now. I did start to write out the story of Roxanne and I but I cut and pasted it to a word document as that is a bit of a down storey for a first post. It is a storey I want to tell and one that those who know Roxi and I need to hear (some day). Anyway, I'll save that for later.

Well I hope you come back and read some more but don't worry if you don't. I'll keep writing and assume that no one is reading it (but still edit it as if there was).

Brennan