Random Access

Tuesday
Sissy seems to think that if she is up at 5:30 AM that we need to be up, as well. Both Jess and I disagree with this notion, but we are having a very hard time dissuading her of it. I need to find my spray bottle. That might help.

Went to work and waited for a new DSL router that was supposed to be there this morning. It wasn’t. Nor was it there early this afternoon. It will be there tomorrow. *twitch*

I left early because Jess and I (still) had errands to run. One of them included a trip to Home Depot. I discovered something: When you’re there because you actually need something, it’s not as much fun as when you’re there “just because.” We also stopped by Circuit City and picked up a wireless router and card for Jess’ puter. Now, I have a few less holes to drill. (Don’t worry, … there are still a few holes that I’ll have to drill anyway; the loan of your drill and bit won’t be in vain!)

We stopped by to chat with for a bit. The three of us went to dinner at Cheers North for the first time since God was a boy. Vivi was there and she came to the table and chatted with us for a bit. Twas fun.

After we got home, I fought with the wireless setup. I won. Jess’ computer is now in upstairs in her room (I don’t think that she has a name for it other than her “Crafts Room,” yet. I don’t know if she’ll come up with anything as snappy as “HALO Command Center,” though.) Now that her computer is there, I need to figure out where to put the mp3 server and the G3. That will still leave me with plenty of free ports on the hub for more computers.

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation: Drug Marketing
Talk of the Nation: Religion and Politics
All Things Considered: Herb Festivals Make a Splash
All Things Considered: Satirical View of FDA’s Approval of Marketing Leeches
The World: Global Hits – Janice deRosa

Stray Toasters

• I am going to the Rush concert tomorrow!
  Kudos and high-fives to and his brother.

• We let Sissy out of the house (for the first time since moving) and into the backyard this evening. She seemed to enjoy it.
• I have had snippets of Paul McCartney’s My Brave Face buzzing through my head for the past two days. I can’t prove it beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that is to blame. Or knows who is.
• Fascination with dinosaurs is one thing. London’s Natural History Museum has gone one GIANT step past that: They have recreated the breath of a T. Rex. My question is: “Why?!”
• We get our fridge tomorning, too!
• I need to find the power supplies for our computer speakers.
• Is it a bad thing that I’m willing to rent The Punisher, but absolutely refuse to see Catwoman?
• 30th Anniversary Tour.
  (NOT to be confused with “…a three-hour tour.”)

• ::: This space left intentionally blank :::
• Boxes, boxes everywhere!

“Goodnight, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea…”

Pax.
Namaste.

Monday
After the moving experience, waking up for work wasn’t a “big fun” thing. Add to that: Sissy deciding that 5:45 AM was a good time to start batting at the blinds. When the alarm went off, it wasn’t easy to get in gear.

Before heading to work, we picked up Jess’ nephew, Connor; Jess and he spent the day together. He also helped her find our new refrigerator, which will be delivered on Wednesday! (Thank you, Sears Grand!) They picked me up after work and we met Jenny (Jess’ sister) for dinner. We came back here and hung out for a while.

There was no gaming tonight, so I got in touch with . Jess and I headed over to pick up the Apple G3 that she was giving me. We called because there were a few things that wanted to give her, too. Good thing that we did… we needed her truck to haul all of the shwag home! Among other things, we came home with:

• G3, 17″ monitor and software (for me)
• A computer desk (for Jess)
• A bike (Jess)
• A file cabinet and folders (me)
• A wicker hamper (uh… both of us)
• Assorted stuff!

Quite the haul. Thanks, luv! We’ll do our best to give ’em a good home.

NPR and Other News
All Things Considered: ‘Echoes of the Lost Boys of Sudan’
All Things Considered: Court Warns Police on Miranda Procedure
Fresh Air: Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (Friday)
Fresh Air: Cabaret Singer Bobby Short

Stray Toasters

• Catching up on four days’ worth of webcomic goodness…
• The Rush concert is Wednesday. The 30th Anniversary tour. I want to go.
• I’ll be happy (umm…”happier”) when the fridge gets here.
• Slashdot Poll: Most Likely to Take Over the World?
• KiteCam As described by Slashdot:
  

  Build Your Own KiteCam
  from the sacrifices-necessary-in-the-cause-of-Science dept.
  wally writes “Paul Mutton successfully managed to kill an expensive digital camera taking aerial photos using a kite, parcel tape and some bubble wrap. The geek explains the ups and downs (excuse the pun) of his attempt to take some aerial photographs with a friend using a Casio EX-Z3 digital camera attached to a kite in good ol’ Blue Peter style bubble wrap and parcel tape. Paul did however manage to take 2 or 3 pretty photos of Kent University before his precious camera speed to the ground at a speed with enough force to render it quite unusable. Out of bits left intact was the flash card and a 30 second clip leading up to the crash. Remember children: Don’t try this at home!”

• Gatorade Frost Alpine Freeze
  (or as I tend to call it “Smurf Pee!”)

• Also by way of Slashdot: Retro Gaming Gets Hot
  Well… DUH! This isn’t news. Take a look at my recent foray into playing Donkey Kong and Joust.

• Fan reactions to previews of Constantine have been favorable. I may… may… have to give it a shot. Especially since there’s no way in Hell I’m seeing the Halle Berry debacle.
• Steve Buscemi… as The Joker? That would be very interesting, indeed.
• The Justice League Unlimited premiere has been moved forward to Saturday, 31 July 04 at 8:30 PM. As a lead-in, Starcrossed, the last episode of Justice League will air on Saturday, 24 July 04 at 7:30 PM.

I’m beat. Time for bed.

Pax.
Namaste.

Sunday
It’s all over but the shouting.
And the last of the cleaning.
And the arranging of furniture.

But, we’re here.

Thank you (AGAIN) to , , , , Lisa H., , Scott, Pat and Adrian for your help in getting us here.

We have boxes and furniture and… and… STUFF… everywhere!!! The new HCC is a mess of boxes and bins. (But the futon is together!) The family room… *ugh* The kitchen is coming together; Jess is working on that now. The master bedroom furniture is in place. Mostly. We still need to put the mirror on the dresser. The spare bedrooms will be “works in progress” for a while.

Thanks to Land and Catherine for stopping by… and helping me get the pilot for the water heater lit.

Time to get back to moving things.

Pax vobiscum.
Namaste.

Saturday
After a full day of moving, we’re here.
“Thank you very much” to those who helped out.

I’m beat.
Time for sleep.

Namaste.

I don’t remember who offered to help us move on Saturday (tomorrow), so I figured that this would be the fastest way to find out and to coordinate plans.

We’re getting started at noon – for the convenience of those who enjoy sleeping in.

If you have any questions or problems, give me a call or text message me.

Thanks!

Thursday
Apparently, Barry Manilow never visited Utah in the summer.
In a house with the air conditioner or swamp cooler turned off.
Because, in the words of Nelly: “It’s gettin’ hot in herre…”
(And, no, the double “r” isn’t a typo.)

The Sprint technician moved the antenna today, so I will be scarce until Saturday night. *twitch* What am I going to do without instant access to the Internet at the apartment?!?

Pack.

That’s what I’m going to do.

Catch up with everyone on Saturday or Sunday.

Namaste.

Wednesday
Midweek. And all is well.

I should get some more packing done. I really should. But I’m feeling reeeeeally lazy. If the Olympics had a lazy competition, I’d take the gold. If someone brought it to me.

I got a call from the Sprint Broadband installer yesterday. He said that they could do the installation at the house on Thursday. GREAT! I asked him about uninstalling the antenna from the apartment. *silence* (Just for the record: Hearing nothing from the other side of the phone… not a good sign.) He said that he’d have to get back to me about whether they could do both on Thursday. If not, they could uninstall the antenna on Friday, as scheduled… and possibly install it at the house next Friday. *sigh* At this point, I was considering Comcast as a viable option. He called today: They are removing the antenna between 8:30 and 9:00 tomorrow morning and doing the new installation immediately after.

NPR Stories
Talk of the Nation: Library List
Talk of the Nation: Police and Personal Identity
Talk of the Nation: Diversity on Campus
Talk of the Nation: Idiot Proof
All Things Considered: Return of Asimov’s ‘I, Robot’ Stories
All Things Considered: Wal-Mart Faces Largest-Ever Sex-Discrimination Suit
All Things Considered: N.E.R.D. Brings Rock, Hip-Hop on Tour
All Things Considered: Remembering Mattie Stepanek
All Things Considered: Marketing Milk as a Diet Aid

Stray Toasters

• Thank you to everyone for your well wishes yesterday. They meant a lot to both of us.
• I had random scenes from Stripes (1, 2) running through my head this afternoon.
• Pop Quiz, asshole! What do you do?
  (I just quoted something from Speed. Kill me now.)

• Halle Berry turned down the role of Annie, portrayed by Sandra Bullock, in Speed.
• I looked at and realized that reminds me of a young Hugh Jackman.
• Neither Hugh Jackman nor were up for roles in Speed.
• Superheroes and a Maxim knock-off. A match made in… umm… somewhere.
• First Wonder Woman kicked his ass, now it looks like the Scarecrow is getting in on the action. Some days nights, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.
• I [heart] Law & Order. An former Nazi Trooper is under suspicion for murder. During the investigation, the NYPD discovered a link between the suspect and a white supremacist music label. The ADA asks the precinct lieutenant to send a couple of officers to visit the producer of the label.
  

  A.D.A. Southerlyn: Send Briscoe and Green to pay Mellers a visit.
  Lt. Van Buren: Briscoe and Green… That ought to push his buttons.”

  For those who don’t watch the show: Det. Briscoe is half-Jewish, Det. Green is African-American.

• For : Joss Whedon rewrote the script for Speed, uncredited.
• Tank!
• I’ve heard it said that jazz fans typically aren’t blues fans. *shrug* I like both.

I should stop being lazy now.
Really, I should.
But it feels good.
Oh, well…

Namaste.

Tuesday
We took Xena to the vet this morning to have one of her teeth pulled; it had been problematic for a while, but with the other problems, the vet didn’t want to do it until she got better. She hadn’t been eating (much) lately and this seemed a likely reason.

The vet called an hour later to say that she couldn’t do the extraction because Xena’s liver had failed and that she attempting to sedate her could kill her. She also said that despite all of the treatments that she’s undergone in the past six weeks, nothing had any effect – the liver damage was too far gone.

She had been in pain for the past couple of weeks and to prolong it would have been cruel, so we had her euthanized. I never had pets (except for fish) growing up, so this is my first experience in losing one. I’m doing all right with it… she was “Jess’ cat,” but I’m not sure that I’d be so “fine” if it was Sissy. Jess took it as well as could be expected. I asked to meet us after work. She did. She helped keep Jess’ mood up. Thank you for taking time out of your evening to spend with us.

Xena could be a holy terror (oxymoron, but apt). I remember when Jess would bring her over to my apartment and she would run laps from the living room to the bedroom and back. It wasn’t a big apartment, so they were very short laps. She would also jump on the bed and climb the rug that I had on the wall behind it. When she got to the top of it, the concept of “I have nowhere to go” would dawn on her. She’d hang there for a few seconds before dropping to the bed. Fortunately, she never landed on us.

She was a good pet and companion.
We’ll miss her.

NPR and Other News and Stray Toasters will return tomorrow.

It’s late and it’s been a long day.

Pax vobiscum.
Namaste.

Monday
Oy. Yesterday, I woke up with a sore throat; this morning, congestion joined in. After night of poor sleep, “waking up” this morning was not pleasant. Fortunately, the rest of the day was good.

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation: Blogging: A Web Diary Tour
Talk of the Nation: Terrorist Web Sites
All Things Considered: Court Rules on Privacy of Personal Identity
All Things Considered: Building a Town on Sign Language
All Things Considered: Jesse’s Story: Beyond Myself

I remember listening to the May 2002 story that introduced ATC‘s audience to Jesse. I don’t say this often, but these segments make up an excellent motivational/inspirational story; I highly recommend them.

Stray Toasters

• Coming up on Tuesday’s episode of The Screen Savers: “The Cyberpunk Creator Speaks.” Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling, discusses his new book, Zenith Angle.
• Hits or Misses: Who Is Your Website’s Audience?
• Wired’s Webmonkey is back.
• From SciFi.com: B5 Creator Pitches Trek
• – eBay, Nintendo Cereal and Captain N.
• “You obviously… do not… KNOW WHO YOU’RE FUCKING WITH! “
• From BBCNews: Adam’s voice in radio Hitchhiker
• From Comics2Film’s DCG: Gallery of the Endless: Dream

It’s Game Night.
I’m ghost.

Pax vobiscum.

Sunday
Happy Father’s Day to all LJ fathers out there.

Today has been a good day.

I called my father and stepfather this morning to wish them a Happy Father’s Day; all is well with both of them. One of my stepsisters and her family went to NC to spend the weekend with the folks; I spoke with her, too. I haven’t talked with her in a very long time, which isn’t good because we have always gotten along well. But, she works for Northwest Airlines and has apparently flown through here a couple of times, so the chances of me seeing her in the not-too-distant future are pretty good.

, , and I headed to Park City for brunch and store/gallery-hopping. We ate at The Eating Establishment. After that, we walked down and up Main Street. There were a couple of new galleries there and some of the stores that we have previously visited have changed a bit. We stopped for refreshing beverages at the No Name Saloon before heading back. We “met” (I neglected to get his name) and chatted with a guy who lived in northern Virginia. He was funny. And he has season tickets to the Ravens. *swoon* I don’t know if he was serious or not, but he offered me the use of the tickets if he wasn’t going to use them and if I was in Maryland. It was too short a trip… but that just means that next time, we’ll stay longer.

came back to the apartment with us; she offered the use of her truck so that we could take a load of boxes to the house. We loaded up the truck and the car and were off. She was our first house guest! We unloaded the vehicles and headed back here. We were going to swim, but we realized that we were hungry, so we went to dinner.

NPR and Other News
Weekend Edition – Sunday: Sunday Puzzle
Weekend Edition – Sunday: Aimee Man: Summer Books for the Road
Weekend Edition – Sunday: Making One Movie in Two Days

Stray Toasters

• is on a quest to receive 1,000 comments on this post. If you have a few seconds to spare, add to her total.
• : Click here.
• My throat hurts.
• From Slashdot: C-3PO inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame
• Also from Slashdot: Star Trek: New Voyages, Downloadable Video
• By way of Backwash: HeroBuilders: On-Demand Stylized Action Figures
  That’s right… you can build your own action figure. And the prices aren’t too bad, either.

• Want to see the only machine gun that’s legal in all 50 states? Click here.
• Linked by Heartless Wonder (We need to go out for drinks one night when I come back to Greensboro): Godless devil-worshipping evil computers

It’s fairly early and I can’t decide what I want to do now. I could play a game (which one?!) or have a cup of tea (Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.) and read while relaxing in a hot bath or both or… something else.

Namaste.

Saturday
I got to bed at 5:00 and woke up a little after 9:00.
Those are the makings of a long day.

I was going to help move this afternoon when I found out that needed a ride to North Salt Lake. I called Lux, told her that I would be a little late and headed to get Nyx. A short while later, I was back in Salt Lake City and on the way to Lux’ soon-to-be-former-residence. She and Joe had loaded 95%+ of her things into the truck by the time that I got there. We drove to her new place and unloaded the truck. I followed her to the U-Haul rental center and took her back home.

I came home and did nothing for a while. The lack of caffeinated beverage intake began to hit me. Rather than take a too-brief nap, I got 10 boxes of assorted items to the new house. Speaking of which: The pictures are now posted. I still intend to make a gallery for them, but this will have to do for the moment.

I picked up Jess from work, came home and took a much-needed shower, ate and then headed off to 2-D Physics. , , Chad (Gazehound’s S.O.), and Bryce met us there. Tonight’s scores: 173,143,142, 120-something. Post-bowling breakfast was good, too.

A hearty “Happy Father’s Day” to all of the fathers and father-figures who may read this.

Tomorrow, it’s off to Park City for brunch and hanging out.
But for now, I am in search of a path that leads to the wildways of The Dreaming.

<edit>

I remembered that CompuPic generates a decent thumbnail gallery… and so, there is actually a gallery there.

</edit>

Namaste.

Friday
We picked up the keys for the house a little after 3:00 PM. We walked through and I took pre-moving pictures (while we can still see the floor); I should have them posted sometime tomorrow. I talked with the ‘rents again (to let them know that we had the keys) – all’s well on that side of the country. I called Sprint and DirecTV to get the broadband and satellite services uninstalled here and reinstalled at the house. DirecTV was a breeze. Sprint is a different issue:

They can disconnect service here on the 25th, but “the earliest available installation date” that they had is 20 July 04. Yes, a month away. *braincramp* The CSR that I talked to said that it had to go to the Area Manager and from there to a dispatcher who could then check for an earlier date. Right. I find that amusing because Sprint Broadband isn’t accepting any new customers nor have they for about a year. You would think that for a service that isn’t expanding, they would be able to unmount, move and remount an antenna fairly quickly. AND… since they already have someone coming to take the antenna down, doesn’t it make sense that the same person could install the antenna a couple of miles away? It does to me. Maybe that’s just the way I’m wired. *shrug* Maybe I’ll start looking for a new broadband provider. I’ll wait to see if they get back to me by Monday.

Tonight’s coffee turnout was small (Jess, , , , and me) but good. After that, Jess and I headed to Cheers for a bite to eat.

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: Science Fiction Museum Co-Founder Paul Allen
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: The Interplay of Science and Science Fiction
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: The Red Planet in Fiction
All Things Considered: U.S. Struggles for World Cup Soccer Respect
All Things Considered: Tom Hanks Talks About His Role in ‘The Terminal’

Stray Toasters

• Life on the I-15 parking lot. Whoop-de-fuck.
• Jesusita
• From Slashdot: Sen. Hatch to Introduce Wide-ranging Copyright Bill *sigh*
• : This is for you: Batman returns to his darker roots
• Coffee-and-Cookie Shake. A new twist on a couple of old favorites. Tonight wasn’t the first time that I made one, but this one was rather tasty, if I do say so myself.
• From Broken Frontier: Cover Me: The Purpose of a Comic Book Cover
• It’s the suburb of the week…
• Animation Express
• Behind the Name (Results for Robert)
• By way of Backwash: RetroCrush: Exploring Flintstones Mysteries
  As if this couldn’t stand on its own merits, I had to include it for this quote:

  Ever wonder why there weren’t any black people in The Flintstones? I mean we’re talking about an ancient society that predates the great Pharaohs in Egypt, surely there would be someone in town with darker skin. Bedrock must have been The Stone Age version of Salt Lake City.

• I stopped carrying my Palm Pilot (Palm Vx) a few weeks ago. The digitizer – which tells the Palm where the stylus is on the screen – had shifted upwards, thus rendering the top few millimeters of the screen useless. The rest of the screen was also off by that same amount. When I would touch one part of the screen, it would activate something else. And, since the top of the screen was “unavailable,” I could not access the recalibration program. *sigh* I was ready to relegate it to The Palm Graveyard. On a whim, I did a search on Google for palm digitizers problems and was surprised by the number of results. One of them pointed to a program called “DigiFix,” a freeware program that recalibrates the digitizer. I downloaded and installed it… and it worked! Hallelujah!

I should get some sleep… especially since I’m helping move tomorrow morning/afternoon and then get to move some of our stuff to the house.

Namaste.

Thursday
One more day till we get the keys to the house.
And the weekend, too.

Today was a… “mixed”… day. On the whole, it wasn’t bad. But, I’m feeling a little… on edge/irritated. I think that it’s at least partly due to trying to figure out some technical problems earlier. But I am not sure that was all. *shrug* On the “plus” side, I talked with the parental units earlier.

The call to my mother was precipitated by a chat with a friend of mine last night; he wanted me to take a look at a drill that he wrote for his band. I did and it was good. He also informed me that my stepfather was offered – and accepted – a principalship at another school.

So… I called Mom to confirm it. It’s true. Verra cool.

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation: Summer Reading List
All Things Considered: NASA: Comets Richer Than Previously Thought
All Things Considered: Truth and Reconciliation in Neshoba County
All Things Considered: Chaotic Civilian, Military Reaction to Attacks Recounted and Gorelick: Agencies Were Unprepared for Attack
All Things Considered: Commentary: Reality TV Pushing Out Writers

Stray Toasters

• I’m drinking milk from my new Bayou/The Beer Nut Pilsner glass.
  Thanks, !

• The best things in life are free
  But you can give them to the birds and bees
  I want…
  (…and either one works, in this case!)

• Two views of the French:
  1. From
  2. From
• How do I remove a burned in image from my monitor?
• : I think that you’ll appreciate this.
• The afternoon news on NPR is given by Corey Flintoff, but whenever I hear his name I think “Tasselhoff Burrfoot” (1, 2) And it makes me giggle inside. Every time.

Quote of the Day

[11:12] : It’s morning. You know what that means?
[11:12] : Umm… time for a nap?
[11:13] : Nope. The world sucks and I want to blow it up right after at goes and does the anatomically impossible
[11:13] : That was my next guess.
[11:13] : you’re a smart man, Charlie Brown

This post has been brought to you by the letters “M” and “V” and by the number “2”.

Namaste.

Wednesday
I was up late again last night… and I can’t even blame Donkey Kong for it. How wrong is that?!

I went to the gym at 11:30 and got home around 1:00. It was good, but I can see that I still have a way to go before I’m back to where I was a few months ago. That’s fine – getting there is part of the fun. I’ll probably go again tonight. While I was working out, the video for Alicia Bridges’ I Love the Nightlife came on. Imagine my surprise not only to see Agent Smith Elrond Hugo Weaving in the video… but to see him in drag! (Note: I have never watched The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and didn’t know that he was in it.) It made me laugh. Quite a bit. I may have to rent the movie.

I came home and helped my self to a Hungry-Man® sized portion of Wasting-Time-Sitting-on-My-Lazy-Ass until 3:30. This, of course, meant that waking up this morning wasn’t fun. The early part of the day wasn’t bad, though. I even managed to be productive. Always a plus. After picking up Jess at work, we met up with and Christopher for lunch.

Then it was off to the title company! Matt, the title company agent/lawyer, was amusing. A seemingly nice guy, but definitely amusing. At one point, he was talking about his regular poker game with John (our real estate agent) and told him that he would love to take his money. He made another comment about someone else “cheating” at the last game. I corrected him and told him that it was “creative poker management.” He laughed at that. Forty minutes later, the deed was done: The funding should go through tomorrow (maybe Friday, at the latest) and we should have the keys no later than Friday! And then, we’ll begin the process of moving small items. The big move will be 26 June 04.

And tonight’s a beer night. How cool is that?!

NPR and Other Stories
Talk of the Nation: Bloomsday
All Things Considered: Deep Suffocation and Climate Change
All Things Considered: Confederate Widow
Fresh Air: Interview with ‘Six Feet Under’ Producer Bruce Eric Kaplan

Stray Toasters

• First off: “Thank you” to everyone who sent well wishes and congratulatory greetings about the house!
• I’ve found (yet) another webcomic that amuses me:Check out the newbie guide for the backstory.
  (…and : I think you’ll appreciate this and this.)

• forwarded this link to me. The payoff makes it worthwhile.
• One of the best pictures of Storm that I have seen in a long time.
• 1. Put head between legs.
  2. Kiss ass goodbye.

• Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame
• I wonder what it’s like to be a superhero.
  I wonder what I’d do if I could fly around downtown…

• Oreo cookies. Tasty.

And, in the words of A Modest Destiny‘s Sir Hubert: Beer! Need Beer!

Namaste.

Tuesday
Today’s been a pretty good day.
I talked with Mom and my uncle this afternoon – that was good.
Otherwise, not too much happened.

Last night, I was up later thank I should have been. I was playing a game. Tom Jones might say “It’s Not Unusual.” And that would normally be true. But, it’s not like I was playing HALO or SW:KOTOR… I was playing Donkey Kong. Donkey. Kong. The game that made Mario a household name. I [heart] MAME.

Tomorrow will be dull and boring. Until 4:00 PM.
I can’t wait.
*twitch* *twitch*

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation: When the Government Investigates Itself
Talk of the Nation: No Sex with Minors Campaign
Talk of the Nation: USDA and French Fries as a Fresh Vegetable
All Things Considered: ‘Ship Ablaze’: Remembering the General Slocum
All Things Considered: Commentary: A Teenager’s Take on Racial Politics
All Things Considered: Analysis: New U.S. Army Uniforms

And, for , and …
Fresh Air: Interview with David Sedaris

Stray Toasters

• I’m watching tonight’s NBA Finals game with … via AIM. We’ve been lamenting the fact that this series doesn’t have the intensity of previous years’ games. This isn’t to say that it’s “dead,” but it’s… lopsided. The Pistons definitely have the drive (pardon the pun), but the Lakers just look tired. And lost. They’re being outplayed. Severely.
• A Modest Destiny: Squidi’s Blog – “So, We Bought a House”
• From the Comics2Film DCG: The Batman: Manga Style
• A commercial for the upcoming ABC series Lost was just on. The premise is: A plane crash lands on a remote island; the survivors have to endure not only each other… but the island’s dangers, too. I’ve seen this commercial – and a longer version of it – before. But tonight was the first time that I thought: “Welcome to the New Gilligan’s Island.”
• Hack/Slash: Girls Gone Dead
• From Modified Living: Amish Porn
• How to Argue Religion
• …and since I believe in equal time: How to Be a Cultist
• By way of Backwash: Acme License Plate Maker
• I just saw an ad for Fleet Street, ABC’s spin-off from The Practice. It stars William Shatner and James Spader. I had never noticed how much Spader’s voice and patterns of speech remind me of Brent Spiner, another Star Trek alumnus.
• Some Great Moments in Annoying Public Behavior

Quote of the Day
I was flipping channels and came across Judgment Day on G4TechTV. They were talking about a multi-console steering wheel when one of the hosts popped off this gem:

“I would have loved to have seen a lot more force-feedback for my crotch-ramming jollies.”

That was a longer post than I was expecting. Who knew?!

Namaste.