Andrew Koenig

I would like to be serious today and acknowledge a loss and a terrible wound for a family. Andrew Koenig, son of Walter Koenig, best known as Pavel Checkov in the original Star Trek series, was found dead in Vancouver today.

Walter Koenig had previously issued a plea to the public asking for help in finding his son, last seen in Vancouver. Andrew had allegedly sold his possessions and had written a letter to his parents, and while the contents of the letter are not public knowledge, the intent scared the Koenigs enough to come in search of their son, fearing he would hurt himself.

Andrew Koenig was an actor with a very limited career. His biggest claim to fame was an 80's sitcom Growing Pains. Andrew played "Boner", the lead characters best friend, where he didn't have a defining role in the show, he instead was a supporting character, the type that often make shows worth watching, and he did his role well. Andrew had what, in my opinion anyway, was the most defining and poignant moment in the entire run of the show in his last appearance where he says goodbye to Mike to go join the marines. I was going to try and find a clip of this, but without the rest of the shows as a background it would have been trite and schmaltzy, not the image I want to convey.

After that he didn't do much celebrity work, he had an appearance in an episode of Star Trek: DS9 and did some less public roles. In recent years he was reported to have sunk into a depression and finally had had enough. He did not make a public cry for attention, it doesn't sound like he made many private calls for help either, he simply decided he'd had enough and he went to a place where he had fond memories to look for peace.

I have no delusions that Walter Koenig reads this blog, or that he ever likely will, but I do want to send a message out to him and his family just the same. I'm sorry for your loss, nothing can ever make right the wrong that has been done here, and I hope you can find the strength to carry on past this.

Shit My Dad Says: The Next Iteration

OK, i had previously meant to do a blog on WoW, talk about my hunters new pet, but that will have to wait because this might be the coolest thing ever (Yes even cooler than taming a plague hound).

If you'll remember, my best buddy guy gave a review of a Tweet titled Shit my Dad Says. Now I, as I have gone to great lengths to point out in the past, have no love for social networking, especially Twitter, but I also enjoy a good laugh regardless of the source, and this was a good piece that has a form of home spun wisdom to it.

Now what is cool about a rehashed blog? Nothing really, which brings me to the crux of this post, apparently the rights to this account have been optioned to CBS who is turning it into a TV show. Now to be fair I don't watch much TV, but when you consider they've signed none other than William Shatner to be Dad I gotta at least show up for it.

Seriously, how cool is that? William Shatner rocks man, he fully realizes his career is largely a joke so he's just trying to make the best of it. Can you think of a better actor to play a crotchety old man spitting out verbal abuse in the form of advice? Me either!

Puppy Tweets

I have no love for social networking, Facebook is at best a voyeuristic tool for people with no lives and Twitter is complete twaddle; I said it, I meant it, I'm here to represent it. Now on the other hand I do love my dog, Charlie! I'm pretty sure the Pug is the ideal lifeform, and if it isn't I don't need to know what is. Which leaves me torn with how to describe the utter inanity of the idea of Puppy Tweets, is this social networking at it's worst or humanity at it's most ridiculous?

As stated earlier, I really really like my dog, but I wouldn't bother to check Tweets from my best buddy guy Darcy, his lifestyle just isn't exciting enough for me to wonder if he's out buying groceries at this moment, so I really don't think I need to check Twitter to find out if my dog is still licking his crotch or if he's hungry; I know from experience that chances are yes to both.

At the end of the day I can't really blame Mattel, they're just trying to make a few bucks, the same as everyone else. I would have to lay this directly at the feet of the masses of people who follow trends mindlessly and just do what everyone else is doing, whether it makes sense or not. Having said that though, let me leave you with this thought: Traditionally shepherds have used dogs to drive the sheep, I guess some things never change, the only difference is that now the shepherd is named Mattel.

How Tough were NES Cartridges

Let's be honest here, it's a thought that crosses your mind every time you man-handle one of those optical media discs that Sony took mainstream almost 15 years ago: Man these sure aren't as rugged as the cartridges!

Now to be fair, the advent of optical media was a godsend for the gaming industry, you could pack in way more data, hello graphics power, the console was smaller, and the production cost on copies dropped from dollars to pennies each, however that doesn't change the fact that one scratch costs you, the consumer, a great deal.

I recently found this video which answers the question with painful exactness, they were pretty damned tough. The only test they miss, in my opinion, is the dust bunny test; it seemed to me anytime my games got more then a 3 molecules of dust on them it required a lesson in oral sex to get them working again, blowing and puffing, spitting and ramming it in and out of the damned thing.....

Pretty cool isn't it? You know, my one great regret is that I don't have what it takes to think this type of stuff up, god as my witness, I barely have the wherewithal to think up half a dozen random things to Google on any given day.

The Room .. WTF

A couple weeks ago my buddy Mo came over for cigar and movie night. He picked the movies and for some reason decided we should watch two movies scoffed on the internet as two of the worst movies made: The Room and Postal. I elected to watch The Room first as Postal is a Uwe Boll movie a man with an internet petition to get him to stop making movies. If you haven't done it please go to, http://www.stopuweboll.org/, now and do some good for mankind. Anyway knowing this I thought The Room would be a better movie and thus prepare me for the real shit.

Well my friends I was wrong, Tommy Wiseau, managed to make a movie that made Uwe Boll look like a genius. There is some debate on whether it was intentionally that bad and meant to be a comedy or spoof but you know what I'm pretty sure that wasn't the original intent.

I actually have trouble identifying why it's such a bad movie as everything thing is bad, editing, acting, dialogue, directing, cinematography, .... really nothing and I mean nothing positive. It looks like something a couple elementary school kids slapped together ... no that would be giving it to much credit as they would probably attempt a story flow that made sense.

Here's an example for your viewing pleasure and there's lots more on youtube.



Notice the football, if you watch the movie it will really really annoy you later.

BioShock 2: 1 Week and Waiting

Oh my god, I'm almost drooling over getting my hands on this baby. Official release date February 2, 2010 exactly 1 week from the time of writing this and the anticipation builds with a trailer:

Video Games | BioShock 2 | Siren Alley Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I ask of you, whats better than being a Big Daddy? Only one thing I can think of: a Big Daddy with a mini-gun baby!!!