I attempted to write this into a funny story, but I find the screenplay version to be so compelling as to render any retelling feeble. So, I now present The Weirdness of my Workplace – Part One.

INT. OFFICE
[An over-designed cubicle seen from the entrance. A man’s back is silhouetted against the glow of a computer screen. From off-camera someone speaks.]

Voice of TM: Hey buddy, what’s happening?

Man at Computer (SB): (closes tab of non-work related item and hurriedly removes ear buds) Hello? Oh hey, nothing much. How are you doing?

TM: Fine, fine. Listen, what size shoe do you wear?

SB: Um.

TM: I know it’s a weird question.

SB: 12-13, depending on the shoe, I guess.

TM: Cool. Can I borrow your shoes?

[cut to SB’s face. Voice-over of internal monologue.]

SB (voiceover): Why does he want to borrow my shoes? Is this some kind of prank? Maybe he needs them for a photo shoot or something. But this guy is known for having lots of different cool pairs of shoes; why does he want my cheap-ass skate shoes? I really don’t mind lending them to him, but my feet have been pretty sweaty lately. But we know each other pretty well. Jesus, what do I say?

SB: Sure, I guess. (looks at TM’s feet)

[cut to TM’s feet. He is wearig only dark socks. Cut back to conversation.]

SB: Why don’t you have any shoes?

TM: I loaned them to JV.

SB: Oh. (pause) Why… exactly did you do that?

TM: Well, I wasn’t going to need mine.

SB: Ah. And why did he?

TM: He tore the soles of his this morning and considering the weather, he needed to have shoes to go get some replacements. My plans to run errands were cancelled, so I let him borrow mine.

SB: So, then… why do you need shoes?

TM: Turns out the weather is looking a little better, and my plans are back on.

SB: Oh, OK. Well, I hope they fit.

TM: Yep, thanks!

[JR’s head pops up over the cubicle wall.]

JR: Seems like a pretty flimsy excuse to support your shoe fetish, man.

[Cut to black. TITLES: The Weirdness of my Workplace.]

Thanks to everybody who voted for me in the MKE Online blog contest. Here’s hoping Sara, our blog contest hostess, gets well and all my peeps in Milwaukee get their shot at the title.

Buddha’s Bellyaching is this week’s winner

It’s been 10 years (nearly 11, actually) since I was a high school student. In March, I am meant to attend my ten-year high school reunion. I even helped make a website to that effect. But to what end these reunions?

(more…)

I am in the running for MKE Online’s Blog of the Week, (and right before I was about to start implementing a redesign, too.) If you’ve got the time and inclination, please send a vote my way.

As far as a mission statement goes, my blog is mostly just for aggregating links of interest to tech-heads, geeks and anyone with a sense of humour similar to mine, infrequent heavy-handed reviews of a performance or movie I’ve seen, public diary entries that tend to cause controversy among my readers and the occasional screed just to get something off my chest.

The categories pages pretty much spell this out:
Best of the Buddha – Things I wrote here that I think are most worth reading.
Ennui – General snarkiness and a catch-all for posts that didn’t fit elsewhere.
For the Geek in You – I am a huge nerd, and these link entries prove it.
Found Art – Links I found simply by surfing.
Link Larceny – Links found at other people’s blogs or sent to me by friends
Self-service – Diary-style entries, sometimes funny. Internet voyeur urges satisfied.
Too Little, Too Late Movie Reviews – Untimely opinions on performances.

Want to know more about me as a person? You could start with Who is this Steelbuddha?, Seven Things, and Four Things.

With all that said, welcome. I’ve got some posts lined up for this week, so if you are withholding your vote, I may sway you with fresh content.

…I bring you seven things. Brendan got it from Sherri, and they told a friend, and they told a friend, etc.

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
Be paid to pretend to be beat up.
See other places than North America.
Make my own sword.
Write something that I think “says something.”
Raise a child.
Become famous.
Attain enlightenment.

Seven things I can do:
Play the drums. (and the euphonium, ha!)
Break bricks with my hands.
Make people laugh.
Sing well enough.
Build a kick-ass website from scratch, or a PC from parts.
Talk loudly.
The worm.

Seven things I can not do:
Save money.
Save the world.
Tolerate the shallow.
Grow hair on the top of my head.
Keep hair from growing other places.
Help feeling gullible when I give a stranger money.
Live down certain stories that I myself embellished.

Seven things I found attractive about the opposite sex:
Skin.
Hair.
Smile/ laughter.
Legs.
Hips.
Voice.
Breasts.

Seven things I say the most:
“So… yeah.”
“It boggles the mind.”
“I could do that.”
“What did you say?”
“When I say I’m too busy, I really mean it.”
“Fuck him/her/them.”
“Hey!”

Seven Books I love:
“Impro” by Keith Johnstone
“Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
“V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
“Mona Lisa Overdrive” by William Gibson
“Lamb” by Christopher Moore
“The complete works of William Shakespeare” by William Shakespeare (I know I cheated.)

Four things (proliferated from Czeltic Girl)

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Photo developer, Dairy stocker, Hardware store clerk, Web programmer

Four movies you could watch over and over: The Princess Bride, Office Space, The Big Lebowski, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Four places you’ve lived: Milwaukee, Kenosha, Vernon Hills, Mt. Prospect

Four TV shows you love to watch: Mr. Show, Firefly, Buffy, Family Guy

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Boston, San Francisco, Boca Raton, Lake Tahoe

Four websites you visit daily: imdb, wikipedia, Guaranty Bank, flickr

Four of your favorite foods: Ice Cream, Cousins Pepperoni Melt, Burritos, Beef.

Four places you’d rather be: Home, a LAN party, band practice, a stage fighting workshop

Four albums you can’t live without: Under the Pink – Tori Amos, Apollo 18 – They Might Be Giants, Pretty Hate Machine – Nine Inch Nails, Weezer – Weezer … and many more, really. I’m not even much of a music buff, and I find this question unfair.

Four magazines you read: Oh. I don’t. Whatever gets left in a public bathroom, I guess.

Four cars you’ve owned: 1982 Ford Escort, 1987 VW Fox, 1996 VW Golf, 1995 Chevy Rumina

A friend emailed me this, but rather than pick and choose who to send it to and flood inboxes, I put it on my blog, where it probably belongs.

—

Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people including the person who sent it to you. Put your name in the subject line. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends:

1. What time did you get up this morning? 8:30 a.m., called (emailed in), went back to sleep and got up f’realz at 1.

(more…)

Recently, I received a phone call from an old friend. We knew each other in high school, but it wasn’t until after he had returned from his time in the Army that we became close. He came back to UW-Parkside and we began to hang out together on a fairly regular basis.

Don was (is) an artist. His freehand ability rivals even the greater comic book artists of the day, and he can finish a flawless character sketch in pencil in under ten minutes. His talent is peerless, and he is currently being discovered by major market comic book companies like DC Comics.

Our time at Parkside was like most people’s college careers, full of melodrama that made the good times seem eternal and unique. There were three of us eventually: Arman, Don and me. We were inseparable, despite the occasional throwdown. But Arman had the unenviable task of having to drive 40 minutes from his home in Racine in order to be around, so often it was just Don and me.

When Don got me a second job at the local arcade where he worked, we started conceiving big plans in the little cramped office where the tokens were exchanged. With my stories (I was a consummate storyteller in college) and his art, we had the opportunity to create some incredible work… and make boatloads of cash so we wouldn’t have to work for the pedophile who managed the arcade or kick drug dealers or underage gay lovers out of the disgusting bathroom.

So, I set about storyboarding for Don. I had five main characters.

• An army brat, Sophie Yakamura, who became a modern witch. Due to her hedonistic pleasure in excess, her comic hero name was Lush; her arch-villain at the end of the arc was to be her ambitious coven leader, Absinthe. Lush was my favorite, I think, and Don drew her frayed hip-hugging bell-bottoms with trailing fringe similar to the torn cloth renderings of my favorite comic book artist Sam Kieth.
• A reluctant Superman-type named Prime (real name unknown), whose powers came to him by means of a government experiment. Prime was going to become the leader, but be reviled due to his vanity and lack of leadership skills. A military-style leader with a bunch of teenagers spelled no fun for Prime*.
• A travelling alien who brings them all together under his arcane wisdom. Rockhopper (real name unknown) was a balding dwarf dressed in checked golf pants, a trenchcoat and no shirt, with a cigar always dangling from his Edward G. Robinson lips. While his outward appearance and demeanor was comical, his knowledge was near-infinite and he often alluded to things long before the characters encountered them. I may as well have called him Foreshadow. Rockhopper was not “on the team” per se, but he was their guide in dark times; his unfamiliarity wth the human condition, however, had him make the poor choice of putting Prime in charge.
• Aria, an overweight (not obese, mind) goth-girl (not sexy-nouveau-goth, but pseudo-hippie, black-velvet skirt with combat boots-goth, mind) with the ability to control emotions using her voice. Her real name was Molly Jensen. She was the heart of the group, sensitive and reluctant to use her abilities, as the emotions of others would flood into her own when she attempted to change them.
• And Glass, a frail but brilliant young black boy from a rough part of town. (Phil) Glass had the ability to channel electricity through his body and to control machines. He suffered however from hemophilia and was often hurt or hospitalized. Glass’ secret dream was to play basketball like his older brother, but he was shunned by his peers for his condition and his bookish demeanor.

So, while these characters may now seem a little “over,” you should keep in mind that I wrote them in 1998. Particularly Glass seems to have slipped into the universal consciousness, as M. Night’s Unbreakable villain. But, as I was writing this I realized that Lush could be a combination of O-ren and Sophie from Kill Bill (with a dash of Willow from Buffy) and that Prime’s initial storyline would follow something akin to River Tam’s.

Some would argue that I’m over-relating and trying to inflate myself (or my former self) into the equal of these fantastically successful people. Touché, but the above story is true and untouched. Perhaps my writing and follow-through are simply not good enough to convey such potent stories as powerfully as the creative monarchs listed.

Maybe, some would argue, those are simply standard comic book or sci-fi plots and characters. I certainly thought so at the time. But had I known I could have run with these stock ideas to fame and glory, I would have made Don finish more than the first couple of pages.

* – Later, in a seeming fluke, I played a character in a comic book RPG named Prime who was a sleeper agent of the government. He was the leader of his team, but rarely respected. His leadership style, however, was actually well-suited to his team. I think the other players were simply uncomfortable taking orders from me. Except Dave. Thanks Dave for making Prime into what he should have been, my favorite character to date.

Bioware, makers of excellent games like Jade Empire and Neverwinter Nights has expanded even further on their near-open-source approach to computer RPGs, offering to possibly hire the person who can create the best story using their impressive module generator.

I’ve been quite taken with Bioware’s dedication to creating an online experience on par with a tabletop role-playing game, so I’m planning on entering one of my modules. I encourage anyone else interested to compete for free shwag and the possibility of becoming a writer for one of the more enterprising companies in the expanding media of games.

I didn’t mean that to come across as so brown-nosey. They’re not going to read this; I really do appreciate their games and their philosophy.

BioWare: The Contest That Might Become Your Career

In a continuing effort to better myself, I will be attending the Winter Wonderland Workshop in Chicago, my first official training in stage combat since I was in high school. It is my goal to eventually become a certified Fight Director under the Society of American Fight Directors within the next five years.

The next time I can likely be certified would be at a three week conference in July in Las Vegas. While I’d love to do this, the ~$2000 price tag (not including room and board) combined with the necessity of taking so much time away from work is likely to be a bit more than I can manage.

Perhaps I can barter my web skills to offset some of the costs. Wish me luck, if you’re so inclined.