Random Access

<groove>
   Fatboy Slim – Weapon of Choice (which made me chair dance, although not as suavely as Mr. Walken)
   emmet swimming – 8:45
   Rush – You Bet Your Life
</groove>

How does your Friday morning sound?

Thursday : 30 March 2006
Another No Bad News Thursday in the slot.

After work, I came home and hung out while chatting with friends from home. I had dinner and watched CSI and Without a Trace, both of which were good. The last few lines of dialogue on CSI were chilling.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I headed to Paragon City to get rid of some XP debt and to try and hit Security Level 31.

I was 50% successful.
I made Level 31.
I also accrued an additional 16,000 points of experience debt.

One of my missions took me to the PVP area in Warburg. I was doing a waypoint (check out five areas in the zone) mission. And I was killed – twice – at the first waypoint. *sigh* I’ll deal with that mission another time. I was invited to join a team in Croatoa; I joined and ran that mission. Then, did the mission that I didn’t get credit for the other night. This time, I made sure that I checked in with my contact before doing anything else. And, I got credit for the mission. We ran a couple of other missions in Croatoa before taking on a rather easy mission in Boomtown.

In addition to making the new level, I managed to get back down to about 5,300 points of experience debt. I’ll try and deal with that tomorrow.

Stray Toasters

• I still want an Oreo Blizzard.
• will be here… sometime… tomorrow. Hopefully, she’ll make it in time for Clitorati.
• As if I needed anything else CoH-related: City of Heroes Roleplaying Game Quickplay Pack
  A hale and hearty “Thank you,” to for pointing this out. (…and I just realized that I could actually put the CoH/CoV ‘Clix I have to use – including the custom Indigo Bolt ‘Clix that Perry made for me – as figures in the game, if I got the wild hair to play it.)

• And, while we’re talking about superheroes and whatnot… Old School Avengers to the Rescue!
• Heh.   
• I was talking with about Mystery Men, which he hasn’t seen. Then, I decided to look up quotes from the movie. Some of them made me laugh.
  

  The Shoveller:We’re not your classic heroes. We’re the other guys.

• By way of slashdot: Device Developed to Help Socially Challenged
• Balloon art, really good balloon art. The site’s in Russian, but the pictures say enough.
• The Oblivion of Western RPGs
• By way of boingboing.net: Intelligent Brains Grow Differently
• Carol Danvers. Air Force pilot. Super heroine. Exotic dancer?
• Bruce Sterling has designed some bumper stickers for bumperactive.com. Check ’em out.
• A coworker and I were talking a little about the upcoming Star Wars television series. We both hope that Lucas ends his direct involvement before the scriptwriting phase. From there, the conversation meandered into other movies and television shows, eventually winding up on The A-Team. My comment about that show was: “The A-Team was like G.I. Joe, for adults.” Think about it: On The A-Team, LOTS of ammo was fired, both by and at the team… but no one ever got hurt or died. Just like G.I. Joe.
• I don’t know if this is any kind of a DCU/A-DCU tie-in, but I wonder if this episode of JLU is foreshadowing what’s happening in the current storyline in Supergirl.
• I was reading ‘s journal today – she got an idea from and posted it. With her permission, I am reposting that idea. Hopefully, you will respond to this… and maybe, just maybe, add this idea to a post of your own.
  

  We think we know each other on this medium, in this exchange of fact and literature, in this intersection of glacial remoteness and desert-hot revelations. We believe we are safe and completely isolated,warm and completely secure.

  But do we really? Do we really know? Do we really know anything? Do we really know anything about one another?

  I think so. I think not.

  Let’s bridge the gap. Let’s create new chasms.

  Write a paragraph in the comments to me, knowing that this paragraph will be read by others who are not on your friends’ lists, and will be an open and public document for all to see.

  Write to me a paragraph that will help us all to know you a bit better. I don’t mean the old-school project “write your biography in five paragraphs” or even “write ‘what I did last Summer'” (or even “I know who you are and I saw what you did”). Make your paragraph a moment in time, a slice, a snippet, an edited sample from your life.

  We, that is, me and those who read comments to my journal, will read what you write, and take it in, and accept it, and try our best to have fellow feeling with you. You may choose what you write. My only caveat is that a prurience sometimes infects this form of exercise, in which people feel compelled to be participants or voyeurs in a kind of “life pornography”, a sense of reality-show revelation for the prematurely desensitized. My caveat is that while you are free to write as you choose, and what you choose, I and your probable audience have access to enough shock and awe to last a millennium. Sometimes the tragic or the transcendent is essential to the story, as with a person who experienced a trauma or found transport in transcendent romance. So often, though, the “reality paragraph”obscures, rather than revealing, the inner truths within.

  Write me your paragraph to show yourself as if you were the steam rising from hot mint tea–at the edge of the tongue, in mid-air, ready to be savored, yet still a mystery.

  I will read your paragraph, and taste your fullness, and perhaps you will be a little less lonely in this life. I will not understand you at all, no matter how compelling your paragraph. I understand you already, regardless of your paragraph.

  Write in a mad dash, without calculation, as if the words are part of the fabric of who you truly have become.

  My comment to her post was:

  I’m an East Coast kid living on the near-West Coast. I laugh. I dream. I take life one day at a time; some days are good, some not-so-good…but I persevere. Inside me is the legacy of my parents… and their parents… and generations before them. Inside me is also the LEGO-playing, cartoon-loving and comic book-reading boy who still believes that a man can fly. Inside me is also the man who enjoys the company of his family and friends.

  Somewhere in the middle, they all meet.

  And become… me.

Namaste.

Wednesday : 29 March 2006
Today marked exactly one year that I have been at my job. It’s been a good year. I consider myself rather fortunate to have been given the opportunity to work here. I like the company; I like my coworkers (when they aren’t being stupid monkeys). The overall workday wasn’t too bad, either. I realized that I needed to look at another ColdFusion program to try and get my head around what I want to do. So, I spent some time this afternoon inputting that; tomorrow, I will work on converting it from CF to PHP. I also found a rather nifty little utility that converts MicroSquish Access files into MySQL files. Handy thing, that.

Tonight was Stephen’s Last Night in Town Brenda’s last night in town, so I had dinner with ‘s family. Other than that, it’s been a pretty quiet evening… not that dinner was necessarily a boisterous affair.

Stray Toasters

• At one point this afternoon, I actually looked up “flying toaster” images for an icon for “Stray Toasters.” Surprisingly, there were a fair number of them that were not pictures from the old After Dark screen saver program.
• “Cracked by an L”
• Reason #9853762 of “Why I Love ” is: She points me towards some interesting sites. Today, it was a site containing icons with Neil Gaiman quotes. As an added measure, she even threw in this icon:…which sparked the following conversation between a coworker and me:
  

  [10:41] Tommy: ok, then. Where’s the answer? (Or, do I Not want to Know?)
  [10:41] : I guess that MacGuyver would write the effin’ manual… out of the toilet paper tube, toothpaste and a bobby pin.
  [10:44] Tommy: Hmm. I was thinking Mac would use the sharp edge on the end of the wire to carefully separate the cardboard into thin layers, more suitable for bum-cleaning.
  [10:44] : Sure…. after writing the manual. 😀
  [10:44] Tommy: lol
  [10:45] : He’d write the manual, to keep himself occupied, while he was… um… busy.
  [10:45] Tommy: actually, he’s going to use the metal holder to dig a well, and the cardboard tube as piping, thereby having an improvised bidet
  [10:46] : A-HA!
  [10:46] : Quite so.

• Specs for the upcoming Nintendo Revolution
• By way of Slashdot: The Man Who Said “No” to Wal-Mart
• How to clean your ear with a bobby pin
• I finally got around to watching Ultimate Avengers today. It’s an adaptation of the first story arc from Marvel’s The Ultimates. It wasn’t bad. There were a couple of things about the animation that seemed a little dodgy, but on the whole, I enjoyed it.
• By way of Toolspotting.net: Dremel 220 Workstation
• 101 Fabulous Freebies

Quote of the Day

(10:28:39 AM) Dave: who let this guy in here anyway??!?!?
(10:28:58 AM) : That little window in the back room was open.
(10:29:02 AM) : I crawled in through that.
(10:29:42 AM) : or did you.. HOVER?
(10:38:52 AM) : Um… well, kind of… yeah.
(10:39:03 AM) : Like I have amended: It does have it’s uses.
(10:39:22 AM) : Even if it is the second most stupid superpower in the world.
(10:42:19 AM) : bah. i could come up with way more worse super powers than that.
(10:42:34 AM) : did i just use the phrase “way more worse”?
(10:42:35 AM) : sigh.
(10:43:10 AM) : You did.
(10:43:29 AM) : Looks like you require more caffeination.
(10:43:48 AM) : *holds up my cup of frozen mocha goodness*
(10:45:22 AM) : /cry
(11:08:50 AM) Dave: now that’s just cruel…
(11:09:10 AM) Dave: you could have smiled to yerself, taken a sip, and just been done with it, but no….
(11:09:13 AM) Dave: are you hovering again?
(11:10:15 AM) : Of course! DUH!
(11:11:07 AM) : *aims orbiting nuclear missile silo #8 at American Fork*
(11:20:21 AM) Dave: make sure to use the *low yield* this time, Steve, we don’t need another salt lake to the south of us…
(11:20:43 AM) : what is this “low yield” you speak of?
(11:22:49 AM) Dave: um, say, less than a megaton?
(11:23:03 AM) Dave: you heading, er, hovering to yer car yet Rob?
(11:25:01 AM) : baby got an atom bomb. 22 megaton.
(11:29:14 AM) : *exit stage away-from-nuclear-doom*
(11:30:12 AM) Dave: nuclear doom? bah, humbug. that’s just a bunch of dirty-hippie crap. we’d all be better off with a little fallout… make you a man it will!
(12:10:30 PM) : DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Namaste.

Tuesday : 28 March 2006
Today’s been grey and rainy and drab… all day. I did more work on my PHP code. Someday, it will live. Without a respirator. But, until then, I’m still enjoying the learning experience. Today’s workout was good, too. I concentrated on my upper back and triceps – I’m beginning to think that this is probably my favorite workout.

I headed to Borders to hang out for a bit until got off work. The store was closed – there was some sort of electrical problem which was may have been creating – or at least contributing to – the smell of smoke in the store. We pulled into the parking lot to see three fire engines, two of which were parked directly in front of Borders. One of the trucks was the hook-and-ladder truck… the ladder of which was extended to Borders’ roof. I stood outside and chatted with Jeff, whom I used to work with at the REC. He kept me more or less up-to-date on what the employees were being told by Murray Power and the fire department. They let the (remaining) staff in the store nearly an hour after closing the store.

Stray Toasters

• I’m eating potato chips. I am craving an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen, however.
• Thanks to for pointing me in the direction of the following User Friendly and the following ‘toons:
  
• A Phantom Opportunity
  

  Before Batman, before The Shadow, before The Green Hornet, before The Lone Ranger, there was The Phantom.

• Jazz. The music, not the basketball team.
• Thanks to for pointing me in the direction of the City of Heroes CCG Card Creator
• Free Comic Book Day Stargate SG-1 Figure
• And, speaking of Stargate: Anderson Returns to SG-1
• Someone either wound up – or stuck quarters in the butts of – the cats again.
• – Video games tackle ‘lazy eye’
• Blizzard sued by WoW guide author
• Fractal chandelier

Namaste.

Monday : 27 March 2006
Beginning of the work week. Hoo-AH! Today was pretty good, as far as work days go. I debugged some more of the PHP code I’m writing. I was comparing it to the old ColdFusion code that I wrote a couple of years ago… and realized that I was working on the wrong thing. Kind of. It was the right program, just the wrong version of it: It went through a couple of iterations and I was working on an old one. It wasn’t too hard to find out where the differences were and to make a simple course correction or two. But, that led me to a few new bugs. But that’s fine; I am still having fun.

After work, I had dinner with and . The food was good, but tonight’s service left a little something to be desired. Back home to take care of some laundry (…and some criminals).

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I was messaged by Ice E Hot, my friend Don’s character, right after logging in. I headed to Crey’s Folly to: a) see the zone and b) say “Hi.” You aren’t allowed into the zone unless you are at least Security Level 30. I quickly found out why: There are Rikti and Crey all over. And the lowest one that I saw was Level 33. And, from what Don told me, they had lots of firepower, too. Enough to give him 56,000 points of XP debt. We chatted for a bit before he logged off and I headed back to “safer” zones.

I was dinking around, trying to find ways to rid myself of about 6000 points of experience debt when I was messaged and asked to help someone with a mission. I figured, “Sure… why not?” I joined his team (of one) and headed for the mission. He was fighting members of The Council in Striga. Sounded easy enough. I should have known better. Not long after I hit the mission map and found him, I found myself in one of Paragon City’s finest hospitals. That’s right: We died. At the hands of five Equinox Parasites – the closest thing to vampires that I’ve seen around the city. Mm-hmm, rackin’ up the XP debt. *sigh* I suggested that he recruit more firepower and/or a Defender (for wound-tending); he said that there weren’t any online. *blink blink* I found one, right off the bat. She agreed to join us and – guess what: We didn’t die. Go figure. While I would have been completely out of debt, had I not died so unceremoniously, I’m only 4100 points out… and roughly 9000 points from Security Level 31.

Stray Toasters

• Open up my head and let me out…
• By way of boingboing.net: Gilles Trèhin, a savant and his imaginary city
• Catharsis.
• The American Way, from DC’s Wildstorm line, is a good read. Not your “typical” cape-and-tights kind of story. Read it.
• The Movie Timeline – A look at history (kind of)… using movies.
• : HorrorClix: Cthulhu
  Take a look at a few other figures from the set, too.
  (Is it just me or does the cop look like an extra from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video?)

• “Aaaaand we’re back.”
  

• Hey, : Liefeld Onslaught
  

  I hear a potential return to the Onslaught/Heroes Reborn is being planned by Marvel to follow up their recent “Age Of Apocalypse” revisitation. Along with an insanely-demanded TPB collection of the ten year old crossover, it looks like Rob Liefeld will be revisiting the world he recreated.

  No jokes about Captain America’s breasts. Save them for a more appropriate venue.

• I want a copy of Atlas of the DC Universe… if for no other reason than to prove (if only to myself) something that I thought I read many rains past: That Metropolis is supposed to be in Delaware, not in Kansas or New York.
• Celebrate 10 Years with Palm’s Pilot
  *holds my Palm Vx proudly high in hand* (…in lieu of the Red Star)

• Geocaching 2: Electric Boogaloo

Quote of the Day

(1:55:48 PM) : sorry. just got railroaded. please hold.
(1:56:20 PM) : Z-Scale? N? HO? O? S? LEGO?
(1:56:48 PM) : N is my favorite.
(1:56:53 PM) : or lego, of course.

Namaste.

Sunday : 26 March 2006
And another weekend draws to a close. It’s been a good one. ‘s mother was in town this weekend, so we hung out with her (and other members of the family) most of the weekend. This also included another trip to Chuck E. Cheese. On a Saturday. This time, however, there wasn’t much of a wait to get in. This was a plus. The line for ordering food was almost non-existent, too. Another bonus. This was followed with a trip to Baskin-Robbins. Today, there was a family dinner at an aunt’s house. Lots of food. Lots of people.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I spent a couple of hours running around Croatoa with a small team. Our mission: Rescuing Tuatha from the witches of the Cabal. I died (at least) three times… but we completed the mission. One problem: When I returned to my contact, I didn’t get credit for finishing the mission. So… it looks like I will be running that mission again. Great. On the plus side, however, I am about 15,000 points from Security Level 31.

Stray Toasters

• I really am liking the way that the Graphire 4 mouse feels and responds. It’s much more smooth than my 3’s mouse was. I really may just fire my old mouse.
• “Welcome to BST” –
• IKEA billionaire founder proud to be frugal at 80 (Thanks to for pointing this out)
• : I read Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16 this weekend. Interesting. I would be interested to see what you thought about it.
• 
• For (among others): Lost 1975 Monty Python interview
• – Revolutionary jet engine tested
• U.S. Planning Base on Moon to Prepare for Trip to Mars
• From Real Tech News: Wi-Fi Piggybacking: Watch Out for the Fine
• 10 Things Apple Did to Make Mac OS X Faster
• The perfect t-shirt for the gamer girl in your life.

Namaste.

Friday : 24 March 2006
Today was a good day. It started with frozen mocha goodness, which is a good way to start almost any day. I had to head back to the SLC office to pick up a couple of odds and ends before heading to my office.

I made it to Happy Valley without much ado. My Team Lead came up to me a short while later and asked if I “…wanted to go over my goals.” That’s right: Annual Review time. Yay. I wasn’t terribly worried about it, but there’s still that measure of sphincter tightening when your boss wants to have a meeting. It went very well. He paid me a couple of very nice compliments – I worried were the “attaboys” before the butt chewing… but the butt-chewing never came. In a nutshell, he is been happy with my performance and the projects that I have taken the initiative on. We talked about some things that both he and I think that I should do in the future – he had some pretty cool thoughts on the matter and liked things I mentioned that I wanted to do.

Then came the more subjective questions. He asked how I liked the work environment and other things in our office. I gave him the honest answer. I’m not sure what he expected, but my first answer made him laugh – which was the intent. I went on to explain how I feel about my team coworkers and the other teams in the office. I didn’t really have any negative things to say, so that part was pretty easy.

In the end, it was a painless review; in fact, I would rate it among the best/easiest reviews that I have had.

After dinner (and some frisbee-playing) with and her family, I had a couple of errands to run and then it was off to Clitorati. On the way, I wound up behind and Matt on State Street. I almost didn’t recognize them because of a couple of MASSIVE wigs they were wearing. I called them to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things; I wasn’t. Then, it was on to coffee. Moderate-sized group. Good conversation. I think that The Not-Yet-LJer Known as BabyArmadillo42 and I bonded tonight. That was fun.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I reteamed with the group I’ve been playing with for the past few nights. Had a few good runs. Now I’m about a bubble-and-a-half away from 31st Level.

Stray Toasters

• I have spun sugar confectionary goodness!
• A few months ago, I stopped reading The Tao of Geek regularly. That’s a shame… especially because that means that I missed this story arc.
• Joss Whedon is considering using Lynda Carter in his forthcoming Wonder Woman movie “…[if] it’s right for the movie. It’s just a question of I’m not going to do something that isn’t integral to the film. If I found something that was right,absolutely, but not if it takes you out of the narrative.”
• Gamemaster’s lament:
• : Broken Frontier’s look at Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16″

Namaste.

Thursday : 23 March 2006
All-in-all, it was a good day.

I started off the work day with a stop in the SLC office to pick up a few things. Grabbed a cup of frozen mocha goodness and I was on the way to the south office. I’m making some decent inroads with the program I’m working on. Fortunately, there are plenty of similarities between ColdFusion and PHP, so the going isn’t too bad. Of course, it’s been about three years since I worked with ColdFusion, so I’m a little rusty with a few things. But, this is actually kind of fun and I’m a bit excited about it.

Tonight, I hung out with and her family. We watched part of the Jazz-Wizards game. That was amusing as her family members are Jazz fans… and, while I’m not necessarily a Wizards fan, they are the “close-to-hometown” team. So, tonight I was a de facto Wizards fan. I didn’t see the end of the game, but it seems as though the Capital Beltway boys took the Jazz to task.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I joined a team for a few higher-than-my-level missions. I wound up dying twice, but the experience that I got more than covered my XP debt. We fought The Council and Devouring Earth. It was a good team; I’ll have to look them up again.

Stray Toasters

• I’ve been using my Wacom’s mouse this evening. I’m getting more used to it. And, it’s a lot smoother than the Graphire2 was. I might just fire my regular mouse.
• 25:17
• Coming soon: Download-to-own films
• “Didn’t I just say ‘Don’t spend all the money?'”
  “But I always ignore you.”
  “And that’s why I always want to kill you.”
  

• Adults Love Video Games
• 10 Emerging Technologies

Quote of the Day

[14:38] : Hoi.
[14:38] : please. kill me.
[14:39] : Ordinarily, I would….
[14:39] : …but are you aware of the shitstorm that would unleash?
[14:39] : I kill you…
[14:39] : Amber kills me….
[14:39] : No one is left to defend the portal between this world and the one where The Sleeper dwells….
[14:39] : The universe explodes….
[14:39] : Well, you get the idea.
[14:40] : and Life Goal #18 would be accomplished. [18. Blow up one universe.]
[14:40] : Oh.
[14:40] : So it’s a whole… “Circle of (anti- )Life kind of thing.
[14:41] : Very well, great Darkseid.
[14:41] : It shall be as you wish.
[14:41] : naa. mostly i just think it would look cool.

Namaste.

Wednesday : 22 March 2006
Today was a good day. I made some pretty headway with MySQL and I was able to see some of the ways that ColdFusion and PHP are alike. I can work with this. If I can maintain this kind of groove tomorrow, I will be quite happy.

Stray Toasters

• I’m really tired, for some reason. It’s not normal for me to be this tired this relatively early.
• Instructables: Magnetic Refrigerator Lights
• Faust
• It’s official: Dell acquired Alienware
• 5:15
• Battlefield 2142 trailer – Watch. Learn. Covet.
• 
• I wrote down a number of links to check – and to possibly use for ‘Toasters… but they’re in a notebook upstairs. And I’m not feeling the urge to get up and go upstairs. Oh well, they’ll keep for another time.

Namaste.

Reason #39478 of “Why Winamp Amuses Me”

This morning’s first three songs:

• Cafe Brazil – The Girl from Ipanema
• Garbage – Androgeny
• Barry Manilow – Copacabana

That combination of songs – and to some degree, the order in which they played – literally made me laugh.

Have a good one.

Tuesday : 21 March 2006
Another day put to rest. The day started off with snow… and ended with blue skies and puffy clouds. Welcome to Spring in Utah.

The work day was good. I found a solution to the problem that I was having. That made me happy. Today’s workout was good, too – I did my upper back/shoulders and triceps workout.

Tonight was Shadowrun night, the first chance to put the players through the paces after the “seven-year gap.” Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to play – Chris had something come up this evening, so he and couldn’t join us. That’s fine. I can save “impending doom” for another week or two.

Stray Toasters

• I’ve mentioned before that I like this back massager. Well, I am mentioning it again.
• I spoke with my uncle for a bit tonight. He had… some problem… with his laptop, so he took it into a store’s service department to have them look at it. A nice chunk of change later, it’s even worse. That’s when he called me. I’m not sure what wand-waving, spell-chanting magic he thought that I could work from so far away.
• Oh, for God’s Sake! FBI Can’t Afford E-mail??
• I have heard rumours and rumblings about the possibility of George Lucas wanting to do a Star Wars-based TV program. Well… we have reached beyond the speculation stage and gone headfirst into “So shall it be done.” Read more about it here
• Keyring Kite!!! *covet*
• DC’s “One Year Later” + Superboy + Wonder Girl = ??? This could prove interesting.
• The Brood? Back in the Marvel Universe? Fighting Ms. Marvel? Hmm….
• For : Fun with Tentacles: Cosby and Stokes talk Cthulhu Tales

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Monday : 20 March 2006
The work day… was. Not that it was bad, but I’m having a problem bending MySQL to my will. I’m sure that it’s something that I’ll be able to figure out, but it’s still a bit annoying. Oh, well, I will persevere and fight my way through it.

Post-work, I had dinner with at Cafè Med. Lynne, our waitress, was great… and rather funny. She had that nurturing mother/grandmother feel and she was definitely on top of her game.

Then, it was time for D&D night at ‘. Our group traveled back to a site of a previous adventure to see if we could put a cork on a problem that a previous adversary had opened. We had two possible responses: A diplomatic one and a show of force. We wound up taking the diplomatic path, which was good. Very good, in fact. Why? Because the last… “person”… that we faced would have mopped the floor with our characters. All of our characters. And he wouldn’t have broken a sweat (mostly because he was already dead). So, we were able to enter, leave and head back home without much ado.

Random Access
And if the music stops
There’s only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory
All the sacrifice in vain
If love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
  &nbsp  -“Bravado,” by Rush, from “Roll the Bones”

There are thousands of men and women in the Armed Forces who have pledged to protect and defend our freedoms, both at home and abroad. They know that at any time, they could be called up to honor that pledge. And they do so. Day in. Day out. Yes, many would say that it’s just their job. I would say that it’s more than that… or even more than “an adventure,” as the 80s and 90s Navy commercials claimed. I’m not sure if I would designate it as “a calling,” but that seems to best fit what I’m thinking of.

Today, I was looking at an issue of Newsweek when I came across an article about USMC Corporal Jacob Knospler, who was injured in Fallujah, Iraq. To simply say that he was “injured” does not adequately convey a sense of what happened to him: He lost most of his jaw due to a grenade. The following is the lead paragraph of his story.

Cpl. Jacob Knospler, his jaw mostly blown away by a grenade, did not wake up for a month. His first clear memory is of President George W.Bush standing over his bed at Bethesda Naval Hospital. “How the hell you doin’?” asked the president. Knospler couldn’t really answer, but he liked Bush. “I felt bad for him ‘cuz he comes down to the hospital,sees all the wounded people there and knows he put them there,” he said.

What amazed me about this story was: Despite what had happened to him, Corporal Knospler’s concern wasn’t for himself. It was for the president. “I felt bad for him…” Empathy. He suffered massive trauma and had been unconscious for a month, but his thoughts were for the man who had sent him overseas to fight. I don’t know – nor could I possibly guess – what level of remorse President Bush feels when he walks into Bethesda Naval Hospital or Walter Reed Army Hospital and sees the faces of soldiers who have returned home, battered and bruised…or even broken, but I hope that it is commensurate with the level of hope and trust that they have placed in him and the mission that he laid before them.

I have family and friends who have heard – and answered – the call of serving in the military. It wasn’t a path that I chose to follow, but I am grateful for the freedoms that I enjoy thanks to their service.

Just like I am thankful for people like Corporal Knospler.

He feels a jumble of emotions about his wound, including bitterness,though never regret. “I’m a Marine,” he says. “Marines were going down and I had to go in and help them.”

Stray Toasters

• Na na na, gonna have a good time… Hey! Hey! Hey!
• Days of Future Past – a photomanip
• Gamers get pwned video
• 
• City of Heroes
  City of Villains
  City of Eggs

• Hey, (and any other anime buffs): The World of Miyazaki
• “I’m just headed to Tokyo to get back the robot I built to be my girlfriend.”
  

• Through Athena’s Eyes – A look at Greg Rucka’s three-year run on Wonder Woman.
• Taunts during video gaming lead to stabbing

Quote of the Day
While sitting at the restaurant, a couple walked in and the guy squeezed his date’s butt before she sat down. I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of PDA (call me “old-fashioned”), but this was apparently their thing, so more power to them.

The first “problem,” however, was that saw the the grab and thought that it was “cute,” which prompted her to say:

“Your butt is my plaything!”

The second problem was that I was eating a spoonful of saffron ice cream… which I almost spit out because it made me laugh in surprise (and maybe a little bit of fear). A lot. Hard enough to start crying. A lot. I don’t know whether the ice cream would have made it into the bowl or onto the table, but I’m glad that I didn’t find out. I think that we both laughed for almost two minutes before we managed to compose ourselves. I’m sure that it must have been rather entertaining for the restaurant’s other patrons.

Namaste.

Sunday : 19 March 2006
It’s been a relatively lazy day. The highlights included:

• Sleeping in.
• coming over to finish shampooing the carpet in the den.
• Talking with my father.
• Finishing off the new computer… Intrepid.
• Reading this past week’s four-color goodies.

All-in-all, it was a good day.

And the work-a-day grind begins anew tomorning…

Namaste.

Saturday : 18 March 2006
Late-night superheroics take their toll on you. I slept in again this morning. This was a hardly a bad thing as I: a) needed the rest and b) am trying to kick the last bit of this head cold (i.e.: lots of congestion in my sinuses). came over to put her new carpet steamer to work in a couple of rooms.

We had lunch at Jitterbug Coffee Hop (1855 South 700 East). One of the things that I like about Bruce is that he remembers (semi-)regular customers. So much so that we didn’t even have to tell him what we wanted to eat – he only had to ask what kinds of cheese we wanted on our sandwiches. And, for the record: The sandwiches there are massive. If you’re in that part of town and looking for a good cup of caffeinated goodness and/or a bite to eat, drop in and say “Hi” to Bruce – tell him that Robert sent you!

From there, it was off to take to her nail appointment. While she was there, I absconded to Dr. Volt’s for my weekly fix of paper crack. And, yes, a few pieces of plastic crack, too. Back to the salon and then off in search of adventure. Or something that nominally approximated it. We wound up at CompUSAirways. I picked up a simple (basic, no bells-and-whistles) mid-tower case for $19.99! What a bargain! What a bargain for me! This will be the new home of my secondary rig… which would have been finished last night, if the hard drive hadn’t been giving me fits. From CompUSA to Best Buy. Grabbed a stick of memory for DS9 (I’m getting tired of the lag when I zone in CoH/CoV…), a new drive and a copy of Ultimate Avengers.

We considered seeing a movie, but missed the 7:30-ish showings. *shrug* So, we headed to ‘s to watch North Country. Very good movie. Good script, good direction and good acting. After the movie, I planned to catch the new ep of JLU – featuring the Legion! Unfortunately, Comcast didn’t think that I should watch it. So I didn’t. *rails at the Fates*

There was a small group at breakfast, but was there; I haven’t seen her in a while. There was some decent people-watching material, for an added bonus. Gabbing, gossip and food. And then it was time to call it a night.

Namaste.

Friday : 17 March 2006
Happy St. Patrick’s/Green Lantern Day!

The work day was good. There was nothing of note to write home or sing about, though.

After work, it hung out at Borders for a bit of reading and drawing. I talked with a gentleman – whose name happens to be Robert, as well – for a bit; he’s from Haiti. A bit on the talkative side, but he’s a nice enough fellow. stopped by to recruit me to help her move some furniture – she got a new steam cleaner and need stuff moved so that she could use it.

Clitorati. Not a huge turnout. wasn’t there, so I had to do the crossword puzzle alone. I couldn’t figure out two squares, but I finished the rest in about 25 minutes.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
I joined some former teammates to run a couple of missions in Skyway City and Kings Row. Most of the people we fought were three to five levels ahead of me… so I had someone to sidekick me. That worked much better. I wound up accumulating a bit of experience debt (down to 3100 points, now), but I’m also five-and-a-half bubbles into Security Level 30.

By the time the last mission was done, I was quite ready to log out and conduct an inner eyelid study.

Quotes of the Day
Tonight’s quips come from Clitorati… and both of them from :

: “I’m going to be a sex goddess!” (And, yes, it was pretty much that random.

…and…

Josh: What do you have to do to be trained to inject people with botox?
: Practice on an orange.
: I thought you had to be good at heroin.

Namaste.