Civin.org
Stu’s Blog

…It’s time for some changes! Aside from the new look to the blog there will be some slight changes in content. I’m going to be mainly switching to reviews and updates on my projects. I want to focus fully on all of my projects at hand. I’ll throw out the occasional updates on life as well for big changes and events.

On a site note there maybe some progress my idea for Riotnoise. I know it is currently my link page but I’ve had plans off of that for quite awhile and as time has gone by with it’s two search affiliate programs showing profit… there’s a chance they will happen. We’ll see how the next month goes.

So while everything is run off my civin.org address, I have decided to branch out a bit for both my blog and projects. So for starters I have purchased http://www.stuartconover.com and have it forwarding to this site. Eventually I will probably setup a second personal blog on it. I plan on keeping this one for movie reviews/personal life and setting up that domain as a slightly more serious blog for projects that I’m working on / etc. Or I may just leave it forwarding to this site. We’ll see!

So I haven’t made an update in awhile. I’ve got some movie and TV show reviews coming up soon. My main time has been being eaten up quite a bit by work as of late. On the one hand I’m being trained for a promotion and on the other I’ve been working a lot of overtime on a project that’s going on. Today is the last day so I should be able to catch my breath just a bit soon.

Free time? More of the same. Movies (reviews soon) TV (commentary soon!) reading.. and a bit of work on projects. *breathes deeply*

Many changes soon!

Thursday at midnight all that mattered was one thing.

Well. There is not a whole lot to say about this movie that hasn’t been said. The special effects were amazing. Christian Bale as the Batman perfect, Heath Ledger as the Joker so spot on aside from one small complaint I’ll say in a second. Aaron Eckhart was GREAT as Harvey and the special effects with him in the movie were 100% perfect. Hell the special effects studio they use I’d love to hire to make a zombie movie. EVEN the “Bat-Cycle” which shown in the previews made me think that they would finally add cheese to the new world of Batman came out strong in a way that you couldn’t help but get into. I thought it would be nothing but bad and loved it. Now.. for the 2 complaints: If you don’t want a spoiler skip to the next paragraph. First, in the beginning of the movie the scarecrow makes a guest appearance with a ‘gang’ of batmen. It doesn’t make sense to me what point they were in there for any reason what so ever aside from the guest spot. Seriously it was disappointing to have that in there for no reason. The second complaint? The Joker has always been insane and would rant like mad. He was more than clearly shown as crazy however I’m picky and all I wanted was a 5 minute or longer monologue that showed me nothing but how truly insane he was. I felt it was a necessity that they overlooked. I mean he’s the Joker, he’s obviously insane. There’s no question. I just wanted the true madness to be fully shown and felt that they didn’t tackle it without the rant, and sadly we will now never see it.

Friday night I was suffering from the lack of sleep from the night before but how could I pass up on Jen’s birthday? I drove out to Walter Payton’s Roundhouse and spent far too much money on booze which of course means it was a great night. Hi Infidelity was playing so there was 80’s music playing all night long and Jen had a good time which is all that matters for the B-Day. All in all a good night. When I got home it was straight to bed to kick off sleeping in on the first day of my 3day weekend. Woke up to Neil and Ashley passed out on the couch and spent the majority of the rest of the weekend relaxing, watching Sopranos, reading, and playing CoD4.

I wasn’t however FULLY unproductive.

To start with Neil and I got the banners section going on BuyZombie.

Which has been quickly getting added to other Zombie fan sites. Score! Also we added a favicon to the top (which was a lot trickier with Wordpress than I thought it would be.)

Aside from that you might notice there is now a forums option at the top of the screen after about! I added a direct link to my forums from the main site and not just my link page Riotnoise. I haven’t quite figured out how to get the forums to use the same header as Civin.org though. I am working on it. We’ll see.

Honestly I haven’t been too productive since Rex’s party. I got into season 5 of The Sopranos and it’s… finished up! Yes I spent a huge pile of time watching through Season 5 with Neil and last night (God I’m tired) it ended off and we made the mistake of starting Season 6. S6 of The Sopranos had the STRONGEST opening of any season of a series that I have ever seen (which of course meant we had to watch the second episode too, which should explain why I’m so tired.) The show has so much more depth that I thought would be possible and I can’t wait to see how the series ends up at the end of this season. Isn’t it strange that I never watched this before?

Aside from that I wasn’t COMPLETELY lazy! Neil and I finished up getting a banner into place over at Buy Zombie as well as some icons to make the site appear more streamlined. We also talked a bit on the 3 main projects we’re getting going. Did some grocery shopping, laundry, and other misc. chores that you have no interest in and was able to hang out with my cousin a bit.

Ok Ok yes I know I slack in updates. Surprisingly it’s only on my blog nowadays that I haven’t been keeping in updates as I’ve been on top of everything online related. Getting projects going, keeping current ones up to date. Strange stuff.

At any rate in the past week I’ve caught up through season 4 of The Sopranos (still a great show!), watched The Jacket(much better than I thought it’d be, worth a rent.) and had the worst thing that could happen to a gamer since I moved to Chicago.

The dreaded Red Ring of Death! Yes my X-Box died, and being impatient as I can be (combined with being sick when it happened), I am now the proud owner of a new Elite. Still kind of a pain. Most of the week was spent at home while not at work as I’ve been sick since last Friday but finally I’m feeling almost 100%. Spending time at home meant a lot of Call of Duty 4, getting around to beating the Penny-Arcade game which has just been sitting there, and reading a couple of books which I may or may not post on in the near future. I wasn’t completely unproductive as I did manage to get over to my dad’s to ‘fix’ his computer which was acting up (amazing what happens when your computer’s date is set to march of 2013…)

Right now? Recovering from Rex’s Nacho and Beer party last night that my cousin Molly and I went to. It was a combination of his birthday and moving out party as he moves out of the apartment that’s been in his family for 7-8 years. Extra bonus from that: In a few weeks that means he moves to his new place in the south loop which is a 5 min drive instead of a 10 min drive *snickers* It was good to hang out again, was a good time, and he seemed to have a good birthday, which is all that matters.

On a side note.. It’s pretty bad. I use Firefox at work now for regular web browsing and honestly I’ve become tempted to switch to it full time. Sadly it’s only because of *1* feature. Built in spell check.

So I found myself suddently off on the 4′th instead of having to work the half day that I was scheduled. What did this mean? Well for one I let myself sleep in! It was a nice change of pace from having to be awake and while working Saturday may be a bit painful it will be a lot better knowing I’m still off Sunday/Monday after. So what did vegging consist of you may as? Considering out of the blue I CAME DOWN WITH A COLD.. Well I did get some movie watching in:

Martian Child had John Cusack playing… who else? Himself! This time as a successful science fiction writer whose wife has died. He ends up wanting to follow through with one of his wife’s dreams of adopting a child and eventually does, in the form of a young boy who thinks he is from Mars and is only on Earth to examine humanity. Cusack helps the boy learn to interact with other people and be ‘normal’ while also learning to be his own creative self. There was an Adam Sandler movie ’similiar’ to this you may have heard of called Big Daddy. Of course. That was a lot more to do with slapstick than quality of acting and plot. Of course being a Cusack movie it involves a built in love story as his, apparently.. mmm childhood friend? and he get along and become close. Being a movie regarding adoption there is of course a decently constant threat that the child is going to be taken away: that the parent isn’t properly helping the child, that the child isn’t in a healthy environment, etc etc. A lot of the movie is predictable but you can never really say anything all that bad about Cusack movies. He’s always the same character and it works. It’s one of those situations where it’s ok to be typecast. It really is.

Jumper was one of the most hyped action movies from when it was due out early this year. With Samuel L. Jackson in it one would assume it would be a decent action flick. Add in Hayden Christensen and you have to start wondering how the movie will be as his track record has been a bit iffy. The hotty co-star is extremely cute, she’s from the realm of TV though and with only an iffy movie as her start into feature films I’m afraid we won’t see too much more of her.. and that’s a shame. Hayden’s character finds out in high school that he has the ability to ‘jump’ from place to place. Basically the whole thing is a ripoff of Nightcrawler from the X-Men short of all the tail and blue skin. He than finds that there are more people who are able to ‘jump’ as well as an organization called the ‘paladins’ who hunt down ‘jumpers’ and kill them because, ‘they all turn bad.’ Rediculous fights ensue and the Paladins have tech. that can stop jumpers from jumping and if uses quick enough can follow them. Its enjoyable but by no means worth a buy. A quick rent could be good just don’t get your hopes up for a movie of the year title.


At night I went up to the room to catch some fireworks to the south and west but felt too sick to walk north to see the real show. Saturday was a day of work, followed by a family party, and finally home where I passed out from being way too tired(see: still sick) and slept for 12 hours. Score.

So it’s been awhile since the last update. Honestly I haven’t been doing too much of interest as of late. Mainly work, CoD 4, hanging out, working on making some progress on online projects, enjoying the weather with the top down.. etc.. I did hang out with Rose lately and we ended up going to see:

So recently there was a movie that came out called “Shoot ‘Em Up” which promised over the top action. When it came out I agreed that it was just a rediculously fun action movie with no movie at it’s level for the type of action flick that it was. Until now. Honestly I wanted to go see the Incredible Hulk and am SO glad that Rose talked me into seeing Wanted. Wow. The action sequences were just so.. .. well I already said it but over the top just works, yet done in a way that makes you feel that many of them ‘could’ be happening. If your looking for an action flick and aren’t overly going to be nitpicky on the plot this is a must see.

One of my pet projects, BuyZombie.com, has a new look! While there is still a ton of content that needs to be added in not yet posted sections the new look is a great start. At any rate, check it out… new look!