Random Access

Saturday
I was at work for a little longer than I had planned. But, I accomplished the things that I set out to do. That’s always a good thing. After work, I headed to the park for Ultimate… which did not come to pass, as most people decided to take a “bye” this week. *shrug* I still had a good time hanging out with , Megan, Austin and John. Following that, I came home, cooked and got ready (meaning: I sat around playing on the computer) until it was time to go bowling.

Stray Toasters

• sent me two interesting links today: This and this.
• Excerpted from a conversation with :
  

  [16:01] : Is it… “pneumonoultravolcanosis” (sp) ?
  [16:01] : you forgot a bit of it ;P close though! ;D
  [16:01] : pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis ;D
  [16:01] : It’s been…. a LONG time…. since I’ve thought of it, let alone tried to spell it!

  [18:56] : pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
  [18:56] : …expialidocious!
  [18:56] : hehe

• One of my new away messages: Bowling. It’s not just a game, it’s fun with 2-dimensional physics!
• sketched this for me at breakfast tonight.
• “Whacking the chicken.” I didn’t make it up; I just wrote it down.
• Also from the Lady Nyx came this

And with that, I say “Good night.”

Namaste.

Friday
As the morning program on a radio station back home used to say on Friday mornings: “It’s the weekennnnd, baby!” Or, in my case: “Almost the weekend.” I’m going in tomorrow morning to take care of some systems maintenance and a little paperwork. Once I get that out of the way, the weekend officially begins.

A little before lunch, I rediscovered something that I had not thought about in a while: To take a short break, step outside and just… be… in the sun is a good thing. I tried to do it at least once a day when I worked for the USPS. It’s nice to get outside of the office/cubicle/box/whatever and get a little fresh air and natural light. It usually seems to give me just enough of a “recharge” to get through whatever I am working on.

Song of the Day
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer by George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers

Stray Toasters

• Let’s get this one out of the way, right off the bat: Kudos to for pointing this out. Very funny.
• I’ve heard rumours about this for years. I think that it first surfaced around the time that Team Knight Rider was in development. *shiver* Pray that it stays (and hopefully dies) in pre-production Hell.
• Can anyone confirm whether or not Kevlar® would be effective protection against a knife? Stabbing and/or slashing attacks.
• Hi, Sparky!
• ::: Intermission :::
• Two words: Battlestar: Galactica This ought to be interesting. I spent many a Sunday night in front of the television watching the show. Confession: I even watched the abortive Galactica: 1980, when they finally found Earth. *sigh*
• Thanks to for showing me the URL for The American Pantheon. Interesting concept… and I think that they have captured the avatars of America rather well.
• I just saw a promo for an NBC summer show: Fame. There weren’t many (read: “any”) details about the show, but I think that it’s safe to say that it is not based on the movie or the former NBC show. This one seems to be a… *sigh* reality TV show, a la American Idol. Where’s the drain plug? I’ll pull the damned thing myself.
• And there was a promo for another upcoming NBC show, called “Love and Money.” From what I saw and heard, it sounds like it should be called Dumb Guy and the Gold-diggers. Umm, I meant: Son of Joe Millionaire. There’s got to be a bottle of Drano® around here somewhere…
• Can you name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?

…and they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Namaste.

[21:21] : I wish i had a cool nickname
[21:21] : Sparky!

Thursday
The weather was great. Work was good and I didn’t blow anything up in ColdFusion. And tomorrow is Friday. That all adds up to a rather good day here in the land behind the Zion Curtain.

Song of the Day

• One Shot by Tin Machine, from “Tin Machine II”
• Two Pieces by Yaz, from “Upstairs at Eric’s”
• Three Is a Magic Number by Blind Melon, from “Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks”

Stray Toasters

• This morning I was thinking about the new “Click It or Ticket” campaign that will commence on the 19th of this month. The basis is fairly simple: Officers can (and apparently will) pull over a vehicle and issue tickets drivers and front seat passengers who are not wearing seat belts. I really have no problem with this – I’m a firm believer in the use of safety belts. The thing that I do wonder about is how this will affect people who drive older cars and trucks, specifically those whose vehicles are equipped with lap belts only. Will they be more prone to being pulled over because the officer did not see a shoulder belt? I wonder if there would be any way to track that data…
• Excerpted from tonight’s IRC ramblings:
  

  [00:37] Marco….
  [00:39] -Naimad- Pollo!
  [00:40] -Naimad- Who is this marco chicken anyway
  [00:44] Good question.

• I am not a big Conan O’Brien fan. I have nothing against him, but he’s not my first choice for late-night viewing. I had, however, intended to watch tonight’s show because it was their claymation show. The entire show… done in claymation. I forgot about it and only caught the last few minutes of it. But that was enough to see:
  • Claymation Conan and Mr. T doing “In the Year 2000…”
  • A claymation David Bowie singing I’ve Been Waiting for You as the show’s closing song and…
  • Claymation out takes (which primarily consisted of watching many of the figures falling over, falling about and generally just not doing what the modelers wanted them to do)
• Does anyone else remember Solomon Grundy from the Legion of Doom or, more recently, as a member of the Injustice Gang on Justice League? (Not to be confused with Miss Grundy from the Archie comics or cartoon.)
• Cherry Coke commercials. Not a bad thing. Cherry Coke commercials featuring Simon from American Idol…. *shiver*
• While I didn’t get to see much of the eclipse, I did get to see a mottled, orange-tinted moon as it emerged from Earth’s shadow. Rather cool.

To sleep,

Wednesday
Once again, the middle of the week has been reached. More fun with ColdFusion. It was an otherwise uneventful day at work. After work, it was beer night with the coffee/beer group; we went to Brewvies. And, might I add: They make a rather tasty pizza.

Song of the Day
Boogie Nights by Heatwave

Stray Toasters

• Captain Peter Peachfuzz and Simon Bar Sinister. Yep, I was watching The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show on Boomerang. It’s fun to watch it, every once in a while. An Underdog promo aired in the middle of it.
• Science!
• On tonight’s episode of Stargate SG-1 (“Message in a Bottle”), there was a scene with O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Teal’c (Christopher Judge). They talked – briefly – about their friendship. The way that they talked reminded me of Hawk and Spenser from Spenser for Hire.
• Sugar Ray Leonard… doing a Glad garbage bag commercial. O_o
• On tonight’s episode of 7 Days (“Pinball Wizard”), there was a scene featuring an attack on the Pentagon… in a manner similar to the attack on 11 September 01. The difference was that this attack was executed with a missile. This episode aired in October, 1999. Curiouser and curiouser…
• forwarded this to me: Lawsuit seeks to ban sale of Oreos to children in California You have to be kidding.
• Robert forwarded this link to me: BushCo Reams Nation Good (an editorial)
• Whack-a-Mole. Krispie Kreme Doughnuts. Magic Shell.
• Do you get lost easily? This should help.

And with that, good night.

Namaste.

Tuesday
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m learning ColdFusion at work. Today was better than yesterday. Thank God. I managed to not only get the program that I was working on to work, but I even managed to do a little more with it than was expected. I’m still a little grey on some of the details, but I think that’s normal for only having been at this for two days.

Song of the Day
Amnesia and The Big Issue also by Chumbawamba

Stray Toasters

• Cadbury Creme Eggs.
• What I Hate About Your Programming Language
• I just saw a commercial for the Star Trek: Nemesis DVD/videocassette. There was a clip of Capt. Picard giving the order “Fire at will!” I instantly got an image of Riker, looking dumbfounded, running around the bridge (arms flailing wildly) and shouting “WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!!!” It made me laugh.
• [19:57] : “A good friend helps you up when you fall. A best friend pees in their pants laughing, trips you again, and then calls you an asshole”
  [19:58] : “A good friend will bail you out of jail. A best friend is sitting next to you, laughing, saying ‘Man, can you believe how crazy that shit was?!’ ”

• Spider-Man, Spider-Man… Does whatever a spider can! But not a Spydr.
• The Gospel According to Neo

And, that’s all there is.

Namaste.

Monday
Last night was another “Please let me fall asleep before the sun comes up” night. I think that I phased in-and-out of sleep from about 2:30 until somewhere just before 5:00. And then I tossed and turned for the three-and-a-half hours that I managed to semi-sleep. It was not fun.

Surprisingly, work wasn’t too bad, despite the lack of sleep and the noted lack of espresso-laden mocha goodness. I spent most of the day learning ColdFusion. The first half of the day, it went pretty smoothly. But, sometime during lunch, my higher-level cognitive functions decided to go on holiday, because things just were not clicking.

After work, gaming night! “World of Darkness” featuring aspects of White Wolf’s Mage: the Ascension, Werewolf and Vampire: the Masquerade. It was a nice way to unwind after a long day.

Song of the Day
In light of tonight’s gaming and as a nod to , we’ll make today’s song Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon.

Stray Toasters

• I understand – and fully appreciate – the concept of pedestrians having the right of way in crosswalks, but it amazes me how people will come to a dead stop in the middle of the street when someone even looks like they are considering crossing the street at a place other than a crosswalk. I mean, I believe in courtesy, but that’s a bit much.
• Funny.
• We were talking about the Street Fighter and Tekken video games earlier. I was more of a Street Fighter fan. *shrug* My favorite character was Chun Li…. or “Thunder-Kick Barbie” as my friends and I called her. Of course, between those games and SoulBlade/SoulCalibur… SoulBlade/Calibur wins. Easily.
• I was checking out Micros on the MicroHeroes Group page over the weekend and someone posted a Micro of Captain Confederacy. I haven’t seen an issue of that in many years. It was set in an alternate timeline and was about a hero (and later heroine) from the Confederate States of America… a CSA that remained separate from the USA after the Civil War. The issues that I read (and bought) were done through Marvel Comics’ Epic Line and featured the female Captain. Even more noteworthy was that she was African-American. As I recall, it was a good read.
• Spree. The candy.
• : According to Merriam-Webster Online, a condiment is: “..something used to enhance the flavor of food.” By that rationale, sugar and sugar substitutes could be considered condiments. And, thus, they would be suitable for use as Justice.

Quote of the Day
“Yellow is a genital color.”
(as told James Howard by a someone only referred to as “Babe.”)

And with that, Guten Nacht.

Namaste.

Sunday
It was another lazy day around the homestead for the first part of the day. Of course, being lazy did not preclude my talking with my mother and grandmother to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day.

After getting in gear, we went out to dinner and then off to see The Matrix (the first one… the ‘I know Kung-fu’ one); IMDb also has good sections for trivia, goofs and quotes for the movie. It was great to see it on the silver screen again. And, it was a good preview/review for The Matrix: Reloaded next Sunday. And, of course, there was post-movie coffee.

Stray Toasters

• : I agreed with the message that you left for me and thus, “Delete Comment” was used tonight. It felt… good. I may use it more often.
• Womens Billiards Tournament on ESPN was on this afternoon. Nine-ball. It was a rather impressive display of geometry and physics prowess.
• Pirates of Dark Water!!!
• “Crepes Melissa”
• Got Photography? Robert does. Take a look.

That’s enough for now. Until the morrow…

Namaste.

The Internet Movie Database offers a plethora of information on television, movies, actresses/actors, etc. While chatting on IRC a little earlier, we referenced The Love Boat (the 70s series) – more specifically, “Julie, the Cruise Director.” Don’t ask “why,” just accept it and move on… it’s easier. Trust me.

For some reason, I decided to check imdb to see what they had listed for the show. From there, I looked up the info on Lauren Tewes, the actress who played Julie. I discovered that we share a birthday. So, I decided to see whom else (that I knew or had at least heard of) imdb had listed as having the same birthday. This is what I found:

• Mahalia Jackson: Singer
• Jackie Coogan: actor
• Francois Mitterrand: former President of France
• Bob Hoskins: Actor
• Pat Conroy: Author (The Prince of Tides)
• Pat Sajak: Game show host, former talk show host
• Hillary Rodham Clinton: Senator (NY), former First Lady
• Jaclyn Smith: Actress – Charlies Angels (series)
• Bootsy Collins: Musician – Parliament-Funkadelic
• D.W. Moffett: Actor
• Lauren Tewes: Actress
• Dylan McDermott: Actor
• Cary Elwes: Actor
• Natalie Merchant: Musician – 10,000 Maniacs and solo artist
• Lisa Ryder: Actress – Andromeda (series)

Curious to see who shares your birthday? Click here and enter the date on the left side of the screen.

Namaste.

Happy Mother’s Day!

This is a two-parter:

1. What is your favorite Schoolhouse Rock! cartoon?
2. Does anyone remember the Schoolhouse Rock!-like The Metric Marvels¹?

My favorite SR! toon: Conjunction Junction.

¹ – The Metric Marvels were seven (7) 3-minute shorts, like the SR! toons, that NBC put on in the late-70s to teach kids about the Metric System. Oddly enough, with the exception of one song, they were copyrighted by Bob Dorough, George Newall and Lynn Ahrens… three of the people behind the Schoolhouse Rock! toons/songs. The characters were: Meter Man, Wonder Gram (complete with a Wonder Woman-like costume), Liter Leader and Super Celsius (who looked like a weather forecaster with Elton John glasses).

Yar’s Revenge

First, there was the rock climber from Colorado who amputated his arm after being pinned in a narrow gap in southern Utah. Then, there was this.

Diametrically opposed? I think so.

Friday
Another week comes to an end. An intermittently rainy end. I took it as a good omen that the day would be good when I started Winamp this morning and the first five songs were:

1. The Monkey Song from Animaniacs
2. Tom’s Diner (The original, sans DNA, a cappella version) by Suzanne Vega
3. Driven by Rush
4. 17 Hours by emmet swimming and
5. Bodies by Drowning Pool

And the music didn’t lie; it was a good day.

Song of the Day
The Boomin’ System by LL Cool J, from the CD “Mama Said Knock You Out”

Stray Toasters

• This came from Backwash.
• This came by way of Robert.
• Are you or someone you know scheduled to take the SAT or have you/they recently taken it? Worried about your (their) score? Well, look here and let your worrying come to an end.
• Junkyard Wars is doing a national tour. It’s not quite the same as the show, but it still sounds interesting. Details here.
• I think that I want a snack… but have no idea what I want.
• Another “serious security flaw” found in a Micro$oft product? As Shirley Bassey and The Propellerheads said: “It’s just a little bit of history repeating…”
• And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it seems that a man from Britain is suing Microsoft over the “iLoo.” Read about it here.
• It seems that there will be no video to accompany Couch Potato, Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of Eminem’s Lose Yourself. On the positive side, he did have consent to do the song, unlike the case with Amish Paradise, the knock-off of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise.

I’m off to wander the wildways between the Waking World and The Dreaming.

Namaste.

Thursday
Welcome to Utah. If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 – 15 minutes. Today went from sunny to rainy to dreary to clear to just plain drab and overcast. But, one of the benefits of being indoors almost all day was that I didn’t have to deal with it. To top off the evening, I had dinner with Jess and .

Song of the Day

• The Dream of the Blue Turtles, from the CD of the same name, by Sting
• Cristofori’s Dream, from the CD of the same name, by David Lanz
• The Dream of the Dolphin, from the CD “The Cross of Changes,” by Enigma

Stray Toasters

• Happy Birthday to my brother and my stepmother. I also got to type to Rana for a bit, this morning.
• I was shown a site this afternoon that almost made me reconsider last night’s comment about personal web pages. The basis of last night’s comment said that it was a “good thing” that the author took the time to create a site that was personal and represented something that he liked. For me to look at the site that I saw today and think that it shouldn’t exist – just because I found the content antithetical – was a bit hypocritical. (Just a bit.) So, I re-evaluated and saw that it was exactly the same principle; my opinion of the content did not negate that. The site in question can be found here. I had a follow-up conversation about it with :
  

  [14:37] : Someone just showed me {URL}
  [14:38] : Look at the gallery.
  [14:42] : gotta be a joke
  [14:42] : not a good one
  [14:42] : but gotta be a joke
  [14:43] : Probably so, but…
  [14:43] : *shrug*
  [14:43] : s’not funny tho
  [14:43] : Again, though, based on last night’s post: I have to give credit for putting something up that appeals to the owner.
  [14:44] : No, it’s not funny.
  [14:44] : eh…i’m easy to amuse and i’m not grasping it
  [14:44] : As a cat owner, I find it a tad offensive.
  [14:44] : nah. i’m not easily offended. this is just some tool thinking he’s funny
  [14:45] : Okay, maybe it’s just the “not funny” factor.

  I felt… vindicated, I guess, after that.

• A new flag now flies over the State Capitol Building in Atlanta, Georgia. Why is this noteworthy? Because the new flag does not feature the “Stars and Bars,” or ‘Rebel Flag’ of the Confederate States of America.
• I was listening to Rick Springfield’s Human Touch at work this afternoon. (Insert jokes here.) I had flashes of the video run through my mind while it played.
• I came across this, thanks to .
• Although it’s not quite the Batcave, this comes pretty damned close.
• According to an article on Comic Book Resources, it seems that a certain Kryptonian will once again be getting the animated treatment. Superman? No, we’ll still have to be content to see him on Justice League. Superboy? No… watch Smallville. Supergirl? No. After the Helen Slater/Faye Dunaway bomb that appeared in the 80s, I was surprised (pleasantly) that they showed her on Superman: The Animated Series. So… who is the mystery Kryptonian?!? It’s…. It’s…

  Krypto, Superman’s dog. Well, technically (according to pre-Crisis continuity) he was Superboy‘s dog… but why kibble quibble? And, I’ll even attempt to refrain from making comments about how comics are going to the dogs.

• In the same article, there was mention that Genndy Tartakovsky (the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff Girls) is working on twenty (20) three-minute animated shorts… called “Star Wars: Clone Wars.” The shorts will bridge Episode II – Attack of the Clones and the as-yet untitled Episode III. Look for it later this year.
• Roger Moore, best known as James Bond through the 70s and 80s, was admitted to a hospital today after he collapsed on a Broadway Stage.
• For anyone who might have missed it: The Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy is (FINALLY) going to be released on DVD on November 4th.
• According to this article from The Independent (U.K.), a new “bionic eye” has been developed and has restored partial vision to three (3) people. “Better, stronger, faster…”

And with that…

Namaste.