@Congress

The following is the letter which I both e-mailed and literally wrote and mailed to my congressman. Knowing that the Senate was going to rubberstamp this thing, I didn't see much point in sending one to Hutchinson or Cornyn. Anyway, thought I'd share;

Dear Rep. Johnson,

As a constituent of yours, I felt it necessary to alert you to mysevere disdain for the $700b bailout package being debated in congress, and urge you to vote against it.

Like most responsible Americans, I did not take out a loan in excess of my means, or attempt to purchase a house outside my means. Furthermore I am well aware that the stock market is a risky proposition and while much of my savingsare tied up in stocks and my 401k plan, I am willing to take the short term hit to improve the long term health of the American economy. It's going to get worse before it get's better, I understand and accept that.

I find it extraordinarily disturbing that the American government hasseen it fit to even consider this package, one that further erodes at the free market and once again bails out the haves on Wall St. in the face of the rest of America that is already struggling in this economic recession. The estimated $2,300 cost per every man, woman, and child in the United States tied into this bill is simply unacceptable.

This may or may not turn into a crisis, but it needs to be a crisisthat resolves itself and not one that is again patched with a band-aid solution only to re-appear months or years down the road with taxpayers already holding the bag. I implore you, please do not vote for this bill, and please convince your colleagues to join you in voting against it.

It's not only prohibitively expensive, but it is recklesslyirresonposible.

Sincerely, M.A. Gunter

And that's all you're going to get out of me tonight. After 9 hours of holiday meetings at the office today, I'm going to enjoy a glass of Scotch and an hour of Warhammer Online and then sleep.

Regarding Meridian Room and CD World

This morning as I was having breakfast I was alerted to the fact that a couple of Dallas institutions were closing. And when I say institutions, I mean great establishments that were quite dear to me and I am quite sad to see them go. Per this entry at Unfair Park though, and it is indeed true, both the Meridian Room and CD World both closed yesterday.

People have often been known to argue about it, especially with Bill's and Good Records, competing in a city notorious for not just lacking support for local musicians, but of being often culturally void and fickle, but I've always felt CD World to be the best record store in this town. As a teenager I treasured my visits there, often unloading what at the time seemed to be an absurd sum of money on Mudhoney CDs, Nirvana t-shirts, and assorted vinyl, stickers, and buttons. It was conveniently located in East Dallas (as opposed to Good Records which didn't exist until I was a senior in High School, and Bill's which was in Richardson then), had bargain prices with $8 CDs, and an assortment of general crap which any music fan would love. And unlike Bill's, it was actually organized. And as I got older, the store just kept getting better as I did enjoy perusing the bargain bin of $3 CDs and for every Mariah Carey or Guns 'n Roses CD you'd come across a gem like a hard to find Seaweed or Stanford Prison Experiment record.

And while I may be responsible in some small part for it's demise, what with my complete and total embrace of on-line music piracy (with the exception of local bands), it doesn't mean I'm sad to see it go. In the height of my hypocrisy, there really is still something magical about the record store experience, and I really will miss CD World. As a parting gift though, I did get my ticket for Mudhoney there a few weeks back.

So as though that weren't enough of a bummer day, as the stars aligned also closing yesterday was the Meridian Room. Besides having a killer Guinness Steak Sandwich and half-price food on wednesdays, Meridian Room also provided me so, so many memories. For while I live walking distance from both Lower Greenville and Lakewood, I've always loved Expo Park. It's like Deep Ellum except without the douchebags, trendy bars, and cops. I have fond memories from high school of spending afternoons in what is now Amsterdam Bar (it was then New Amsterdam Coffee Haus) drinking coffee, reading, playing chess, watching 'Walker, Texas Ranger' filmed on the street in front, and buying cigarettes. But this isn't about Expo at large, or Amsterdam, it's about Meridian Room.

The Meridian Room, well, it was a one of a kind place. With Expo Park being right on the cusp of South Dallas, it was the farthest tip of civilization, and yet it was a great European style bar serving fantastic food and great beer (even if Blake is still bitter they got rid of Boddingtons on draft). Flanked by a dive bar (Bar of Soap, also now closed), a '50s style barber shop (Rob's Chop Shop), and what used to be a very strange antique store before becoming the short-lived Sloppyworld-Meridian Room joined Amsterdam Bar in bringing just a touch of drunken class to a chaotic and yet fantastic neighborhood. Whole inside you had so much fun you forgot about being propositioned by 6-month pregnant Mexican hookers as you entered the bar, or the crackheads that would wander over from South Dallas.

Beyond my normal patronage, every year I would meet my out of town friends there for drinks right around Christmas time, including the weirdest reunion ever last year of Elementary School people, which turned out to be a blast. And despite living in Denton, I spent a great many nights there with my now ex-girlfriend, with T-bone, with Trish, with Jordan, and with all manner of people. Maston made the strangest marriage proposal ever there, followed by Stacy's now ex-husband finding some great tacos. And while I do enjoy the Libertine, and it helps that it's 3 blocks from my house, I will always have a place in my heart and a little sadness regarding the closing of the Meridian Room.

So as the Meridian webpage says, Civilization Began With Distillation, and Cheers!

Ocean's 12

There's this part of Ocean's 12 (prequel to Ocean's 13, sequel to Ocean's 11) where the crew is planning a heist of this extroardinarialy rich man. He's got this extraordinary collection of rare historical and art pieces, but he's an OCD shut-in with absurd security measures to protect his stuff and no designs on ever leaving the house. I often think to that, and then think that if I were a professional athlete (which I'm most assuredly not) I might consider that approach.

I mean, consider Pac-Man and his various scrapes with the law. I'm not excusing the guy, but if I were a millionaire celebrity I highly doubt my experience at strip clubs would be like it has been. But that's not the point. The real reason I bring that up is this;

Jackonsville Jaguars offensive tackle Richard Collier , shot while sitting
in a car outside an apartment complex earlier this month, is paralyzed below the
waist and his left leg was amputated, his doctor said Monday. Collier was on a
ventilator for about three weeks and has no memory of the shooting, said Dr.
Andy Kerwin, a surgeon for the University of Florida at Shands Jacksonville
hospital.

"His overall condition has improved greatly," Kerwin said. "We expect him to be discharged soon."Kerwin said Collier suffered 14 bullet
wounds to the back, left groin, left legs and right buttock. In addition, a
bullet severed his spinal cord, causing the paralysis. The amputation was the
result of damage to his left leg and groin, where blood clots formed. Five
bullets alone were removed from his urinary bladder and the 26-year-old player
also had bouts of pneumonia, infections and renal failure.

I am sure there are other circumstances at play. I am sure there's a lot more to this story. But can you imagine being a 25 year old man playing in the NFL-in line for your millions-a physical specimen and a rare talent, and have it all taken away?

Furthermore, can you imagine that same incident taking not just the use of your legs, but also a leg proper? It's just a sad story.

When God Closes A Door.....

It started as a simple proposition. Monique had asked if T-bone and I wanted to join her and some other people friday evening at the Lakewood Landing to watch the Presidential debate over a hamburger and some cheap beer. Sounds like a pleasant evening, no? I mean combining alcohol with your civic duty is a win-win situation, leading me to wonder how much higher voter participation would be if you got a voucher for a free 6-pack every time you voted, but I digress.

So friday night arrives, I call up some other people, and we decided to make an evening out of it. Start there, watch the debate, and see where the night takes us. There's just one problem....the Landing? Well, they said no dice to watching the debate there. Seems someone forgot to, you know, ask the bar first. So there we are, all planning to meet up but with nowhere to go. At which point, we begin going down the list of alternate bars.

Amsterdam Bar? They usually show it, but they don't want the, ahem, less than enlightened folks attending the State Fair to stop in and create a less than pleasant situation. Besides, the State Fair is a block away and who wants to fight through that traffic? Which also rules out the Meridian Room. Having spent the weekend before (and too much money) at Cosmos, we rule it out and call The Tipp. No dice, they're not showing it. Likewise for the Libertine, and we even called a hail mary and called the Cock & Bull. You getting the theme here? What seemed like a simple task has become nearly impossible....we can't find a bar that will show the debate. Eventually we end up just going to the Dubliner and they graciously allow us to watch it. And serve a really lousy french dip sandwich.

And for my liver's sake the evening probably should have ended there. But it didn't, Nick and Austin talked me into going to the Old Monk which it turns out was having it's Oktoberfest. Which means high alcohol beer served in gigantic 1L glass mugs (which would make as good a weapon as a drinking receptacle, these things weighed like 10lbs). Funny thing about drinking beer in 1L servings, you don't realize how much you're drinking. And while I had a great time (somehow running into a co-worker and three people I hadn't seen in years), it completely ruined my weekend as I spent the entirety of Saturday lamenting my age and inability to drink like I once did.

What I Wouldn't Give For A Tivo Brain Implant

I'm not gonna lie, Warhammer Online is most assuredly a part of why I've been conspicuously absent from blogging the past few days. So to has work, with a couple of unexpected things coming up and some more on the horizon for next week, but the work excuse is boring-it's much easier to blame it on Warhammer.

But also factoring into the mix, is television. Over the past few weeks some of our favorite shows have returned, but this was the big week where everything returned and the new shows debuted. So needless to say, the Tivo has been working doubletime to record everything as needed and provide it to me commercial free during non-primetime hours.

Let me start off by saying do yourself a favor, get into Sons of Anarchy on FX. It's brilliant, it's great, and wildly entertaining. As I mentioned in this entry when I was previewing the Fall TV lineup, it reminds me a lot of Oz, without the carte blanche HBO had for violence, sex, and swearing. And while I wasn't sold on the first episode, after three episodes I'm totally on board. And it seems I'm not the only one. It's not too late, this wednesday is just episode four and FX re-runs everything into the ground. Get on board, it's freaking great.

Speaking of great, last night's season premiere of The Office was fucking hilarious. There has been the occasional dud of an episode, and last night was certainly not one of them. I wasn't positive they could make this hour long episode thing work, but they have. Those writers need to get a raise, because I haven't laughed that hard in ages. It was awesome. Jim and Pam finally got engaged, Angela's cheating on Toby with Dwight, and Michael in fatsuit doing that character is hilarious.

ER returned as well. I can't believe they killed off Dr. Pratt. I really liked that character, and while I've long been an ER fan I think even I am ready for the show to finally end. They've killed off so many good characters over the years, it just gets tiring. Couldn't they just keep killing off secondary characters like that Army reservist doctor (Dr. Gallant?) who died in Iraq and Dr. Romano instead of Dr. Green and Ray?

All that, and I've still got to get through this week's episodes of Fringe, My Name Is Earl, and Heroes. Life's rough, huh?

White Horse Scotch Whisky

I am well aware that the odds are, you're probably not a big whisky drinker. Even lower are the odds that you're a Scotch whisky drinker. I understand that whisky isn't for everyone, really I do. But the thing is, I am a big fan, and this is my blog-and I've absolutely fallen in love with White Horse Scotch over the past month or so, and it is for that reason that it's this week's selection for Booze Of The Week. Well that and I haven't delved into the realm of spirits yet, choosing instead beers and wines thus far.

White Horse was originally distilled in 1861, and was used as the carriage whisky for the White Horse Inn in Edinburgh (hence the name). It is a blended whisky, containing 40% single malts including the infamous Talisker Scotch whisky. Talisker is well know for being an extremely peat-y single malt (unlike other whiskies, Scotch's malted barley is cooked in peat-fueld kilns which gives it that smokey flavor), and that taste of peat definately translates to White Horse. It's a mellow, full-bodied Scotch with a fair amount of honey and peat in the taste profile.

It's not a starter whisky, but instead a nice bridge between blended whiskies and single malt whiskies, giving homage to both. Some folks swear by blended Scotch's like Johnnie Walker, while others swear by single-malt whiskies like MacAllen. I think this is a scotch that can satisfy both palates, and that is why it's this week's selection for Booze Of The Week.

Warhammer Online

I would never claim to be an expert on MMORPGs (short for Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, and shortened further to MMOs). As a lad I spent a fair amount of time playing the original Everquest until I got frustrated with having my Savant's Cap looted for the 14th time (yes, was a pvp server, you will see a theme). I played the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL, back when a 56k modem was the shit and you paid by the minute for internet access-and my parents almost killed me for it. Before EQ and after NWN I spent a fair amount of time playing text-based MUDs (short for multi-user dungeons) such as Gemstone III and Dragonrealms. After a few year break, my second year in college I got talked into Dark Age of Camelot, in which I spent over three years-and which is still my favorite MMO ever. During and since I've flirted with and/or had short stints with Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft (sold my account for $500 to buy my girlfriend at the time a Valentines gift), Lord Of The Rings Online, and finally a few months back spent about 5 weeks with Age of Conan before realizing it was fucking terrible.

The point of all this isn't to stroke my own ego, as though admitting that i've wasted chunks of my life on pointless MMOs is some sort of badge of honor (and let me assure you, it's not), but instead to give some credence when I claim that I do, in fact, have some experience with this genre. And while me and MMOs tend have a very bad relationship, ever since the death of Granarc and my soon-after departure from Dark Age Of Camelot (henceforth known as DAOC), I've been looking for the next one. The one that will finally grab my attention, will depart from the tired MMO formula and offer me something new.

And finally, I think I've found it.

Warhammer Online (henceforth known as WAR) isn't perfect. As someone that didn't participate in beta and did barely any research into it going in, I was extremely frustrated with it early on. The game does an absolutely abysmal job of explaining itself. When you start, short of some vague tooltips, you're on your own to figure out wtf you're supposed to do and how things work.

But while it's not perfect, it's damn good. For transparency's sake, I'm currently sitting pretty as a rank 13 (of 40) Goblin Shaman (see picture above) on Phoenix Throne server, so no I'm not at the end game and it could easily shit a brick for the last several levels after a promising start the way Age of Conan did. I'm just reviewing what I've seen.

In the classic Mythic way, leveling is slow. Over the first week I've got 24 hours /played and that's gotten me to level 13, and while there are only 40 levels I'd consider that a bit slow. That said, unlike classic Mythic levelling isn't a grind to end all grinds. If memory serves I was sitting somewhere around 50 days /played when I hit 50 on DAoC, and it was even worse for EQ, this isn't nearly that bad. More importantly though, levelling is a blast in WAR.

RvR (their twist on player versus player combat where its instead realm versus realm, as it was in DAOC) is a core element to leveling, you secure not only a very nice return of XP for your time through RVR, but you can do it starting at level 1. That's right, there's no carrot and stick where you have to grind PvE (player versus enemy, against the AI) to get to the fun stuff (PvP). From the get go there are scenarios (instanced RvR engagements, much like in World of Warcraft) set up for each set of 10ish levels in the game (insuring a relatively even battlefield) that will provide you with not only the XP to level, but also Renown Points, which are just as they sound-and are spendable for items as well as garnering ranks and titles.

So if you're a PvP junkie like me (needing the thrill of fighting others rather than a silly AI), you can queue up for a scenario at anytime, anywhere, and go about your PvE business-the game will alert you when a slot opens up, and you can enter it, and when it ends you're right back where you started. It's beautiful. Seriously.

The PvE is pretty straightforward. The game seems very soloable, although there is grouping to be done if that's your thing. There's a very nice mix of classes between the races, with lots of unique roles and abilities, and most importantly a fair amount of customization. No one likes being pigeonholed into a role, and you've got options.

And in the classic DAoC twist, beyond the PvE and instanced RvR, there is world RvR. Even at lvl 10, there are overlapping zones where you will run into your enemies and be forced to fight or flee. There are world objectives to be captured, and bonuses to be had as a result. It's the coup de grace that WoW never had-RvR not only matters, but isn't bottled up into instances.

If you're a DAoC fan, buy this game. If you're a soured WoW player, buy this game. If you made the mistake I did thinking AoC would be worth a damn, don't let it sour you and give WAR a try. If you're still playing CS, then don't bother.

Seriously, it's good....it's damn good. It's fun, lots of fun.