Random Access

Friday – 31 August 2007
Day Two of the Great Vegas Road trip.

I put the SL and Utah Valleys in the rear view mirror and headed south on I-15. I stopped over in Cedar City to visit the fabulous Ms. Sara. We had dinner – at a restaurant… that served Louisiana-themed cuisine (very tasty) … in southern Utah (*blink blink*) – and then went to see Twelfth Night at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. After that, we chatted away a good portion of the night.

This morning: Drive a-go-go. Part two.

Most of the drive was good… then I got into Vegas… and traffic came to a crawl. On the freeway. *sigh* Oh, well, I finally made it to my hotel and contacted the family-unit to see where they were. We met up at the ESPN Zone in New York New York. We wandered around for a bit, after lunch. And… there was some roulette involved. Down $15. I can live with that.

And I’m still on the fence about BBVD tonight. I’ll let Fate decide.

Stray Toasters

• And I’m still on the fence about BBVD tonight. I’ll let Fate decide.
• “What are you…?! 12?!?”

Quote of the Day
I love my stepmom for a number of reasons. Among them, was the gem she spouted off while we were in the Coca-Cola store on The Strip:

“I’m going to get you some squirrel nuts.”

The looks around the table – and the silence, then broken by lots of laughter – were priceless.

Namaste.

Thursday – 30 August 2007
This morning, getting up wasn’t a problem. Deciding what to do was. For about five minutes.

I was on the fence about taking a partial day or the whole day, as I am heading in the general direction of Las Vegas in a few hours.

I decided that I’m taking the day off.

City of Heroes/Villains
As I’ve been playing this game for a little over two years now, it’s pretty safe to say that I enjoy the game. I think that would refer to it as one of my “warm, happy places.”

What I don’t enjoy is racking up over 60,000 points of XP debt in one mission, because the team’s Tanker (built like a brick house – OW!) and one of the Blasters (long-range damage-dealer) were a bit… “overzealous”… in their play. The Blaster would run into rooms with multiple villains, get them riled up and then lead them back to the group. And the Tanker, according to another team member, “…leaks aggro like a sieve.” In other words, his job was to basically stand around and look pretty… and to take abuse from the bad guys while we mopped them up. Unfortunately, this became a case of “practical theory vs. real-world application.” In fact, he even had an ability to hold the villains’ attention, just for that purpose. Did he use it? Not that any of us saw. *sigh*

I was asked to join another team later. That one went much better. Not only did I manage to get rid of my accrued debt, but I am probably…. 7/10 to 8/10 of the way to Security Level 35.

Stray Toasters

• I’m not sure if I’m going to see BBVD tomorrow night; it depends on whether or not Sib-1 and want to go.
• With a write-up like this, I may have to see if I can get a copy of 5.
  

  This comic will give you pet tigers, chained artists, lizard eggs, space ships, mutated dogs and kung fu blaxploitation sci fi craziness. It will give you joy. It will make you want to create your own comics. And that is the highest praise I can give it. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

• : Three words – “Sunday. Night. Football.” Oh, add a fourth: “Beer!”
  Think about it.
• I had a couple of blasts from the past last night.
• Tires are not inexpensive.
• FLCL (because the pillows are playing on the iPod).

Up out.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 29 August 2007
Waking up wasn’t quite so bad this morning. That’s not to say that I leapt out of bed as soon as the alarm sounded, but it wasn’t an ordeal.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Right out of the gate, Nomad started playing The Jackson 5’s ABC on the morning commute. Not a bad way to kick off the drive, to be honest.

ABC
Easy as…
123
As simple as…
Do re mi
ABC, 123, baby, you and me girl

I occasionally think of how one would perform a song in sign language. I had one of those moments this morning:

ABC
(simple enough, you would finger-spell this)
Easy as…
(again, I think that this should be fairly straight-forward)
123
(finger-spell, so to speak)
As simple as…
(again, this should be simple)
Do re mi
(Ummm…)

That’s where I hit a blocker. Do re mi. *blink blink* “Do re mi fa so la ti do” is a solfege (NOT to be confused with Soul Edge), used to help in sight-singing, where each syllable correlates to a specific tone/pitch… but I don’t know that it really “translates” into sign language.

If anyone knows anything about this, help me out.

Stray Toasters

• Coffee, ice cream (as creamer) and a dash or three of chocolate syrup.
• Thanks to for sending a link to this.
• 
• Human-like robotic arm, with familiar muscles and bones: video
• AT&T Stops “Time,” Ends an Era
• 

Namaste.

Tuesday – 28 August 2007
Waking up wasn’t quite as hellish as I had expected, especially considering the time that I finally wound down enough to attempt sleeping. It was “You-should-have-been-in-bed-long-ago o’clock” when I hit the rack.

It was raining on the way to Happy Valley this morning. It started at Point of the Mountain and wrapped up by the time I passed the first Lehi exit. That’s about… six-and-a-half miles. In that span, it went from drizzle to nearly-torrential downpour to “What rain?” Traffic slowed to a crawl. To be honest, I was surprised to see that – it’s not often that the road monkeys figure out: “Hmm… these may be less than ideal driving conditions; maybe I should slow down.” I wanted to give them all cookies. Then I had a couple of lyrics run through my head:

The first was Sting’s Desert Rose:

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand

The other was Everything but the Girl’s Missing:

And I miss you
(Like the deserts miss the rain)

The former was amusing because it came to mind as I was passing Thanksgiving Point… which has a rather large and elaborate garden… in the middle of the desert. The latter always strikes me as funny because I never really think of deserts “missing” rain.

Today’s workout was good. I discovered something: 300 pounds is heavy. VERY heavy. Eric and I decided to give it a shot… just to see if we could; Eric did it once back in February. We couldn’t today. But, we did get 275 again. I was good with that. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to press 300, but I wanted to try. I was able to lower it slowly and get it (just barely) off my chest; I couldn’t make the transition from there, though. Oh, well. That just gives me something to work up to.

City of Heroes/Villains
The Hand of Nefer-Tem.
Security Level 34.
Boo-yah.

Stray Toasters

• I completely forgot about last night’s eclipse.
• Doesn’t this look like an out-take from Dragon’s Lair? It’s not. It’s a picture of DC Comics’ Shining Knight.
• Psychology of risk-taking
• 
• Chaos Computer Club Congress goes steampunk
• Although not necessarily “dystopian,” would the upcoming Bionic Woman series be considered cyberpunk?
• It’s gonna be the future soon
  I won’t always be this way
  When the things that make me weak and strange
  Get engineered away
• At the risk of losing a lot of cool points: I like the music of Jim Croce and Gordon Lightfoot.  Both men do/did some very nice guitar work… even though Mr. Lightfoot wrote what I consider one of the most depressing songs ever: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
• 
• I want to build… something… out of LEGO. I might even break out the Rokenbok, too.
• Tyranist, I need some feedback on this: Gore Is Less – Videogames Bake Better Horror Than Hollywood
• A little while ago, our Director of Operations and the Operations Manager asked me if I’m getting bigger (bulking up)… separately, but within five to ten minutes of each other.  I’m not working out for others’ recognition, but it’s nice that it’s noticeable.  It was amusing to see their expressions when they asked if I was taking any supplements or doing anything else to aid in the development and I told them “No.”

Namaste.

I decided to hang the last two Rush tourbooks while waiting for dinner to cook.

I had finished getting them all on the wall when I noticed that I needed to move the nail that Snakes & Arrows was on – the Vapor Trails book/frame had previously hung there and there was about a 5/8″ difference in how the two frames hung. I took S&A off the wall, measured and marked the distance and started pulling the nail out of the wall.

That’s when Far Cry started playing.

That made me chuckle.

As I finished rehanging Snakes & Arrows, I noticed that I needed to make a couple of minor adjustments to Roll the Bones.

That’s when Ikea (where I got the frames) started playing.

That made me laugh.

But, I got them all on the wall.

(click image for larger image)

Monday – 27 August 2007
Another work week begins.

Yesterday, I saw The Bourne Witch Project
The Blair Witch Ultimatum
I mean The Bourne Ultimatum. with . It was a good movie, but damn-and-a-half…. someone needs to buy Paul Greengrass a Steadi-Cam mount. Hell, buy him two, just in case one of them breaks.

Post-movie, we stopped in to say hi Kate, Perry and the kids. One thing about playing with the kids: I don’t need to worry about needing a workout – they keep me pretty busy. (Not a bad thing at all.) From there, it was on to ‘ place for a cookout. Mmm, pork loin.

I also framed the tourbooks for R30 and Snakes and Arrows yesterday afternoon. In “an unfortunate mishap,” I managed to break the glass in the frame for Roll the Bones. Yep, two great glass events in three weeks. I’m batting 1.000. Fortunately, the glass didn’t shatter; it just fractured into large, easy-to-clean-up pieces. I still need to hang the books. Maybe I’ll do that tonight.

Four-Color Coverage / Reeling by on Celluloid
I’m not sure exactly where this fits best, as it covers both categories. Rather than try to sort it out, I’ll just make it a combined entry.

Code Monkey BB and I went for a constitutional Friday afternoon and a snake was slithered across the walkway.

I’m not a fan of snakes.

After it had gone on its merry way and we continued walking, an odd thought crossed my mind: Would Indiana Jones have made a good Green Lantern?

I’m not saying that the erstwhile Dr. Jones was a slouch in the bravery department, but let’s face it: Most of the time, he was probably either dusting off artifacts on a dig of fending off the advances of a co-ed during a lecture. Neither of those is the most courage-consuming of tasks. (Well, I guess that depends on the co-ed, really.) But, I digress…

Fairly early in Raiders of the Lost Ark, we discover that Indy is afraid of snakes. We see it again, when he drops into the Well of Souls… next to a cobra and its friends. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we learn the origins of his phobia.

Green Lanterns derive their power from their willpower, as channeled through their rings. The reason that rookie Lanterns are still affected by “the yellow impurity” is their inability to overcome fear. Once their fear has been overcome, their constructs are only limited by their willpower and imagination.

I posed the Indy/Lantern question to lj user=”everydave” Friday night. He pondered it for a moment and noted that in the scene where Indy and Jock are taking-off after Jones’ daring escape from the Aztec (or was it Mayan?) temple:

Indiana: There’s a big snake in the plane, Jock.
Jock: Oh, that’s just my pet snake Reggie.
Indiana: I hate snakes, Jock. I hate ’em.
Jock: C’mon, show a little backbone, will ya?

‘s point was: He apparently was able to overcome his fear, in that he dealt with the fact that the snake was in the cockpit rather than leap out of the plane.

Then there’s the scene in the Well of Souls:

[Upon opening the Well of the Souls and peering down into it]
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Sallah does, and Indy drops it in]
Indiana: Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.

…and he did.

So… I guess that Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. would have made a potentially good Green Lantern.

City of Heroes/Villains: The Scales of Justice
The Hand of Nefer-Tem made the rounds in Paragon City last night. I teamed with some upper 40s and 50s on a couple of Praetorian missions. By the end of the night, I was about a bubble-and-a-half away from Security Level 34.

Stray Toasters

• NX Server. I like.
• Comics Should Be Good’s Top 100 Marvel and DC Characters
• Jeff: I’m going to be sitting there, trying to convince them that I’m a safe choice for Senior Accountant… and suddenly, I’m a naked man saying, “Vulva!”
  Steve: You’re just going to sit on a chair and talk. It’s not difficult.
  Jeff: Not diffi… not difficult?! I’ve got accidental words to worry about… thanks to Patrick here, I’ve got nudity projection. And there’s the giggle loop, of course.
• Original Haunted Mansion documentation
• “plot synopsis”
• By way of Dwim: Nixon-Peabody’s ego masturbation (click on the “MP3” link) *shakes head*
• Sad news for denizens of The Dreaming…
  

  I understand that, to celebrate Sandman’s 20th Anniversary, Neil Gaiman was to write a “Sandman” mini-series. However, recently the project was pulled.

  When asked, Neil told me, “We couldn’t come to an agreement that would allow me to do a new six issue Sandman story for DC, and many people at DC and my agent tried hard to make it happen. Pity.”

  I understand that certain people at DC are quite upset – though not with Neil or his agent. Given the performance of the “Endless” hardcover volume, this could have been expected to be a No.1 best seller in the direct market for all six months and the No.1 in the bookstore bestseller lists.

• 
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak LEGO playset
• Patrick: What’s the matter?
  Jeff: I can’t turn off the naked people.
• 
• Michael Vick (finally) plead “guilty” to federal charges. Great. Can we move on to other news now? PLEASE?!
• Steampunk in the Boston Globe

Namaste.

Sunday – 26 August 2007
Yesterday was good. I mean… come on… the day started with coffee and IKEA and ended in Park City watching India.Arie. How could that not be a good day?! I’ve listened to some of her music before, but seeing her live was very cool. She had great stage presence and just seemed to be having a good time. The crowd really seemed to enjoy her performance, as well.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
At last night’s concert, India.Arie played/sang bits of many different songs – songs made popular by other artists, including a really good cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s Tell Me Something Good. But, she put her own twists on them and changed the way they came off… and, in that way, made them her own.

That made me consider something that I wrote a couple of years ago:

I’m having a bit of a John Stewart moment, not to be confused with a Jon Stewart moment.

When I say that I’m having a John Stewart moment, I don’t mean that I’m dressing up in a black and green outfit (I did that last Hallowe’en) and saving the world (I do that in City of Heroes). What I do mean is that I think that I am in the middle of rediscovering/redefining what makes me tick.

I used to use a lot of quotes when I was young. To make me sound mature. To make me sound serious. To make me feel like I wasn’t the second-class entity I’d always thought I was.

But the courage to use your own voice, that’s the test of maturity. That’s the proof of seriousness. Maybe that’s my mission here.

To find my own voice.

To find a voice for all these creatures and let them speak in harmony.

Yeah. Maybe. But in the meantime… there’s business.

I don’t think that I have changed that much since I started writing in this. Maybe I have. Maybe I’m “too close” to it to see. I do know that this journal has changed – it has a flavor that is distinctly mine, but does it speak with the full timbre of my voice? Or the voices in my head – past, present and future? I don’t know. Quite possibly so. But, there are still questions to be asked. And voices that need to be heard.

I should find that voice. My voice. And then, I can find the voice for this journal. Will it change the way that I write in here? Possibly. It’s hard to say until I undertake the process. Maybe it will metamorphose into something new. Perhaps it will revert to something like it was before. We’ll see how it goes.

One of the things that I had been worried about was using others’ quotes to express my thoughts, feelings and/or opinions. Listening to the way the India.Arie used other artists’ songs and wove them into and through her own pieces made me realize something: The things that I listen to and read have become a part of my voice.

They are things that have found an anchor and resonated within me. They’ve made a connection. Brought life to some spark. And, eventually, provide a pathway that I can use to relate/convey what I’m thinking or feeling. Even better, they aren’t the only weapons in my arsenal. They are handy, sometimes even convenient, but I have a versatile array of tools at my disposal. No matter which one I choose, it is mine to use.

That’s something that I think I have known – at some level – for a while. But, sometimes, it takes a different lens to help bring things into focus.

And I like the view.

Stray Toasters

• I have Honeycomb cereal. Before this last grocery run, I don’t think that I could tell you when the last time I had bought Honeycomb was.
• As promised: Pat, here is your mention in my blog.
• The War(s) They Fought
• By way of comes “proof” that I’m Chinese. (Which isn’t really true… I’m Negro-Saxon.)
• From NPR: My Cancer
• Tori Amos is apparently coming to SLC in November.
• 
• If they were to make a Sandman movie, I think that Tori Amos would make an interesting Delirium. Or maybe Evanna Lynch, the young lady who played Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
• 
• I need to hang my banner. Of course, that means cutting it and prepping it for hanging. And that requires effort.
• In this picture, we see U.S.Agent (at one point chosen to be Captain America’s successor) getting ready to tear into… someone. (I don’t read Omega Flight, so I’m not sure who that is.) But, that’s not what struck me. ‘Agent’s costume is based on Cap’s. I thought that I had read somewhere… somewhen… that Cap’s tunic was chainmail. That picture looks more like scale mail. And, according to the Wikipedia entry I just found, apparently it is supposed to be scale mail. Now I want to see if I can track down the source that made me think it was chain.
• I am craving a frozen mocha. But that requires a bit of effort, too.
• 
• Great. Just found an item that said Cap’s tunic is chainmail.
• Speaking of which: I remember playing Chainmail many moons past at The Armory.
• The Armory used to make the best miniatures paints, too…
• I need to get some paints: I am going to do custom ‘Clix for Hand of Nefer-Tem and Corvus Nox. Because I’m a geek like that. To date, the miniature paint job of which I am most proud was the tattoo I did on Alias‘ arm. I wish I still had the miniature, but I think that it fell prey to one of Mom’s cleaning sprees many years ago.

Time to do… something.

Namaste.

Saturday – 25 August 2007
Any day that starts with coffee and a trip to IKEA can’t be all bad. This was no exception. The unusual thing is that this trip was not for me and I walked out with nothing new. Well, except for a new bible. I mean “catalog.” I then spent the better part of the afternoon helping Perry to assemble his newly-purchased bed frame… and then hanging out with him and the family.

Home now.

Soon, I’m off to Park City for the Park City Jazz Festival. (Thanks, !)

Stray Toasters

• For :

  

• While standing in the checkout line at IKEA, a couple walked up behind me and the guy said something to the effect of: “Oh my God…” when he looked at how crowded the lines were. I turned around and asked: “First time…?” He said,”No, I was here last weekend, but it wasn’t as bad as this.” I nodded. He asked me, “How long have you been doing this.” I smiled and said: “About 15 years.” He wrinkled his brow and said, “Not here…?”

  INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Of course, not here, idiotstick. The IKEA here has been open for what… three months? *sigh* Common sense, unfortunately, isn’t.My response: “No, not here. There was one back home.”

  INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Idiotstick.

• So… let’s take a quick look at some Civil Bore items a bit of the aftermath:
  • Tony Stark gets the wild hair to turn into Ash from Pokèmon and get people to sign up to play for his team… or get thrown in jail. (Gotta catch ’em all!)
  • As part of his master plan, he takes a bit of DNA from the late God of Thunder, Thor.
  • …and he makes a clone of him, not-so-affectionately referred to as “Clor.”
  • Clor, is.. um.. “a little” unstable.
  • Clor kills the former avenger, Goliath.
  • Civil Bore wraps up.
  • Thor… comes back from the dead. (Maybe he’s part-Vulcan or part-Kryptonian… who knows?!)

  Now, I mentioned Ash… I mean Tony Stark… at the beginning of this, right? Okay, good. So, when you first meet up with (read: “confront”) your former comrade-in-arms, especially an Asgardian god… AND the same Asgardian god that you, in your infinite wisdom, decided to clone, how can you expect that meeting to go any way other than this: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) ?!? Oh, that’s right… you’re Tony Stark. Iron Man. A futurist. You don’t have to think about the rules.

  Or you’re just plain stupid.

• Transformers in IMAX? Hmm…
• Guy Gardner may not be my favorite Lantern, but WizKids got his ‘Clix figure and stats right.
• I should eat something. Soon.

Up out.

Namaste.

Friday – 24 August 2007
Last night’s “What should I have for dinner” conundrum was solved thanks to the timely intervention of lj user=”khayla”. She suggested sushi (Ika! Ika! Ika!). I agreed and we were off to the races, as the saying goes. We went to Tepanyaki; our chef, Don, was good. Not just that he was a good cook, but he also had personality. (“Personality goes a long way….”)

City of Heroes/Villains: View from the Aerie
After dinner, I took Corvus Nox back to Paragon City to get the last few thousand points he needed to hit Security Level 17. I joined a pretty good team and got the points needed… and moved a decent way towards getting to Level 18.

As I was preparing to log out, I stopped outside the Talos Island train station to try and resurrect a player who had been ambushed. The attempt was successful… to a degree. There were two problems, minor things really…

• The person would have rezzed fine… had they been paying attention. But, they weren’t so they just continued to lie there.
• The type of power that I was using requires me to drain life from nearby enemy characters – to redirect their energy into the body of the fallen hero. That part worked, but as soon as I did that, they started attacking me. And they were WELL above my level. So, I wound up dying. With the quickness. *sigh*

Stray Toasters

• I introduced a couple coworkers to Avenue Q, by way of the The Internet is for Porn machinima and the Avenue Q Wikipedia entry.
• It’s a good thing that it’s Friday: I just scrolled up to edit something in the top paragraph, saw the “Ika! Ika! Ika!” comment… and immediately started trying to reparse it to fit Iko Iko. Yeah… I need a weekend.
• Coworker Susan sent me a link to Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. (As if I needed yet another distraction…) I countered with Instructables.
• forwarded this to me. It made me laugh.

  

• Wife of Police Chief Arrested on Drug Charges.
  “Wife of Police Chief.”
  “Drug Charges.”
  *facepalm*
• Tag: The Ring meets zombies
• Liz sent me this; I should print it and put a copy of it on my cube wall…

  

• Grindhouse breakfast cereal photoshopping contest
• Here’s another way I can tell that I need it to be Friday:
  • I was looking at the cover art to Tag (from the ‘Toaster posted above)
  • It reminded me of the artwork for Chess
  • Chess reminded me of Deep Blue
  • Deep Blue kicked off a tangent about “…the Devil and the deep blue sea”
  • …which morphed in my head to “Devil and the Deep Blue C,” as in the programming language (naturally, I had to look up what language Deep Blue was programmed in – it was C)
  • …which somehow triggered a thought about Crystal Blue Persuasion.

  At that point, I forced myself to stop thinking about tangents. Yeah, I need a weekend.

• By way of boingboing.net: someecards – When you care enough to hit send.

Namaste.

Thursday – 23 August 2007
After a poor night’s sleep (partly from being a little sore from Tuesday’s workout and partly from staying up working on a new system), I slept in a bit.

Today’s workout was good. I did three sets of 205 pounds… followed by a “cool down” set at 135… followed by five reps of 225.  The rest of the workout went pretty well.

sldfslfdh

Stray Toasters

• Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Ben & Jerry’s. I have some and I am eating it.
• A tripod.  A trio of remotes.  And a Sprite.
• Klingons Crossing the Delaware
• 
• Forbidden LEGO: Dangerous LEGO Projects
• I should do some cleaning tonight.
  And the motivation to do it.
• Galaxiki
• Vintage ads for new stuff photoshopping contest
• Remote controls.  Who knew?!

Networks.   *grblsnrkx*

Namaste.

Wednesday (coda)

Stray Toasters

• I pretty much positioned myself as the de-facto Office Manager of our Utah County office; we don’t have an Admin in that office and since I handle the equipment requests (I’m the IT guy… go figure), I thought: “I might as well do the general supplies, too.” Today, our Controller brought in some replacement pull-chains for the blinds in some of the offices and asked me to find a home for them. As I was taking them back to my desk, I had an epiphany…
  

  I walked over to one of the programmers areas and stood there for a second, chains hanging from my clenched fist. I looked at one of the programmers, held up the chains, and said: “Your name is Toby!”

  He stared at me, blankly… absolutely no recognition of what I was doing on his face.

  So, I repeated myself.

  Another programmer, across the aisle, spoke up: “Kunta Kente!”

  I looked at him and laughed and said,”See… [He] knew the reference!”

  A third guy looked up and said,”No. He was just the only one not afraid to say anything.”

  It made me smile.

• Jason sent me a copy of Coupling (Season 1, episode 4: “Inferno”). Nine Hells… it was funny. Tyranist had loaned me the first season on DVD, but I haven’t had the opportunity to watch it. Or I haven’t made the time to watch it. One or the other. Or both. Or something like that. I will have to make the time to watch it… from the beginning.
• A friend sent me a link to If My Nose Was Running Money, kind of a… country version of If I Had $1000000. Kind of.
• Applegeeks Blog: Mr. Grenade
• The night I baked brownies, I sent a quick email to my mother. It simply said: “How domestic am I? I just baked brownies.” She sent this back, in reply:
  

  JUST HOW DOMESTIC? Obviously, far-r-r-r-r-r-r-r more than your Mother and your Baby
  Sister…if you BAKED brownies! CONGRATS! Were they good? Edible? 🙂
  MOM

  “Edible?”
  She cracks me up.
  (And, yes, they were – and continue to be – edible.)

• 
• Virtual Recruiting for Real-World Jobs
• Ted (sixth one on the page) obviously thinks:
  

  1. That it is 2750 (or after).
  2. That he has jump jets.
  3. That he can pull off “Death From Above.”

  Click here to see why.
  Click here and here and here for explanation of the above points (if you don’t already get it, that is).

• 
• Earth, Space, Hendrix: The Most Significant Album Ever

Okay, enough of this. Time to fight crime… or something to that effect.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 22 August 2007
It’s not Tuesday.
This isn’t Belgium.
But I am in Amurric’n Fark today. Unexpected trip to the south forty, but work is work. So, I can’t complain.

Last night’s game went… well. Translation: “We didn’t get our asses handed to us. Much.” Sure, we took some damage. But the Luck Lords of Ventura smiled upon us (along with a bit of goodwill from lj user=”nox_aeternus”) and we survived. Thus, our characters live to adventure another day.

Stray Toasters

• I need to make or find a Master Chief icon.
• Tyranist brought in his copy of Black Seas of Infinity, a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories. So much for catching up on other reading…
• “I’m sorry… I don’t speak Blonde.”
• From the “How NOT to Use The Internets” file: An IM Infatuation Turned to Romance, Then the Truth Came Out
• One day I feel I’m on top of the world
  And the next it’s falling in on me
  I can get back on
  I can get back on
  One day I feel I’m ahead of the wheel
  And the next it’s rolling over me
  I can get back on
  I can get back on
• sent me a link to this; I shall have to print a copy of it and put it on my cubicle wall.
  
• Most Dangerous Object in the Office This Month: $2 Pocket Shots
• From the “Almost Too Absurd to Be True” file: China to Tibetan Buddhist monks: no reincarnating without our ok
• Cheesecake from The Fresh Market (GSO) would be very good right now.
• Halo 3: How Microsoft Labs Invented a New Science of Play
• Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus… A friend has a couple of kids who will be going to this school. Brand-spankin’ new school. State of the art. Green. Check out the information brochure (.pdf) on it.
• NMKY (Finnish cover of YMCA)

Quote of the Day

: Wow. You could teach the Japanese something about polite rudeness.
Me: *bow* I’m going to take that as something of a compliment.
: You should.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 21 August 2007
Waking up this morning was something of a chore. And one that I didn’t really want to do. But, who really enjoys chores? But, I mustered up some go-get-’em and did it anyway.

I don’t know what happened, but about 2/3 of the way through the commute, it seems as though a couple of road monkeys decided to have a meeting. Physics was involved. And I’m sure that there was a measure of deceleration trauma involved as well. There had to be…

…because that’s the only rational explanation that I can devise for the two-mile backup on I-15. Rather than try to navigate an alternate route, I rolled down the windows, fired up the iPod and crept down the road.

The rest of the day went well, comparatively. Including the lunch workout. I’m getting more comfortable with my sets of 205; I was able to do all three sets without having to break up the third set or having to decrease the weight.

On the way home, there was another accident on I-15.  Northbound.  Around 80th South.  There was a notification of the accident around the time that I crossed the county line, which was around… 150th South.  Traffic stopped around 120th South.  And it took about :20 minutes to go five miles.  Good thing I had the iPod.  Again.

Tonight is D&D Night.   The highlight of the game: We had to figure out how to get into the lower levels of a fortified pyramid.   Which was a bit of a problem since the hunger god’s follower’s had set spiked walls of doom at the bottom of the “chimney” that we were planning to use as an entrance.

Our solution was to pour pitch and Greek fire into the hole… and send a dragon down to light it on fire.

…and hilarity ensued.

City of Heroes/Villains: View from the Aerie
Last night, for the first time in a while, I took Corvus Nox to Paragon City. I was invited to join a team shortly after logging on. Unfortunately, they grabbed me because I am a Defender. Defenders are most often the class of healers. I’m more of a…. field medic. At best. And, I warned them of this right off the bat. The invitation stood. But, they apparently didn’t take me seriously. For which a few of us died. A few times. But, we did manage to make it through that mission. And, eventually, we found another healer… with roughly the same Health set as mine, but working in tandem seemed to work well for us. And there were a lot fewer deaths.

By the end of the evening, I had tacked two-and-a-half levels on to Nox.

Stray Toasters
No Toasters, especially since I:

• …have been working on this post (thank God for “Save” and “continue editing”) for hours.
• …am in the middle of figuring out what to do now that our characters have made it into the hunger god’s pyramid… and we don’t want to die.

Namaste.

One word: “Brownies.”

That’s right.  Brownies.  Fresh out of the oven.

And they shall be washed down with a nice glass of milk.

Monday – 20 August 2007
A new work week begins.

So far, the day’s been nominally busy, but not overly so.

Football Update
The Ravens played last night. Pre-season game. I went to Fiddler’s Elbow to watch the game… and to enjoy Guinness by the pint. Draft. Mmm. The Ravens wore their “Pitch Black” uniforms, but the intimidation wasn’t quite enough to help pull off a win. But it was a decent game.

• Steve McNair looked good for the time that he was in.
• Kyle Boller looked MUCH better than he has in the past few seasons – not jittery or unstable, fairly confident in his choices.
• Drew Olson, one of the candidates for the 3rd QB spot was…. there. I didn’t really see anything that made him stand out.
• Troy Smith, however, looked good. He got sacked on his first snap – the offensive line fell apart in front of him – but the rest of his game was solid. Not bad for the 2006 Heismann Trophy winner from *ahem* “THE Ohio State University.” , what can you tell me about Mr. Smith’s college years?
• The defense looked decent, but there were a few problems. They should be able to suss out the issues and get things to gel by the time the regular season rolls around, though.
• NY suffered four (4) pretty big casualties of war during the game, including the loss of WR Mike Jennings for the rest of the season.
• NY backup QB Jared Lorenzen…. You just don’t think of someone his size as a QB. But, he has skill and moves better than you’d think he expect. AND he has an arm. Well, it’s more of a gun, but you get the idea.

Stray Toasters

• Brownies. I am craving brownies. I may just have to bake some this week.
• “Excuse me… who are you?”
• Everyone knows it’s Windy!
• Scotty doesn’t know… but Jason is figuring it out.
• US property tycoon Helmsley dies
• 
• Radioactive, by The Firm
• Dwim came by a little while ago to tell me that he was taking Acolyte Derek somewhere. In and of itself, that’s pretty mundane. But, he told it in MMORPG terms. That made it much more amusing. And geeky. And stuff.
• If Victor Von Doom Developed a SuperSoaker…
• Joker. Lurch. Riker.
• Anotherloverholeinyohead (video)

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Um… I mean.. uh…

Namaste.