Random Access

Thursday: Coda
After work, I headed home to grab a few things, filled up the car, picked up SaraRules’ mom…

…and hit the road.

A shade under seven hours later, we were in Snowmass Village. We listened to The Areas of My Expertise from Price all the way to the condo. It was entertaining; SaraRules’ mom seemed to enjoy it, as well.

Tomorrow:

• Work from the Aspen office in the morning.
• Beethoven and Brahms concert at the Aspen Music Festival in the evening.

Namaste.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
I’ve seen a couple of links to this article today.

I can’t fathom the amount of… malice?… apathy?… evil?… that it would take to commit a crime like this.

And, from a different perspective: What about the other passengers? What goes through your head when you turn and see something like this occur mere inches from you? Or if you were the guy he smoked a cigarette with? Or the young lady he chatted up?

I’ve heard people say – and even said myself, on occasion – “People suck.”

This goes a long way to reinforcing that belief.

Stray Toasters

• Sushi == good
• From the “Too Much Free Time” file: HALO Corpse Alphabet
• Congratulations to
• Thanks to for pointint out Time-lapse video: Building the LEGO Death Star Diorama
• ‘Smart shoe’ could prevent elderly falls
  
• By way of : My Disguises

Thursday – 31 July 2008
Happy Birthday to

This morning has started off decently. When the alarm started up this morning, I turned it off. Then I had an amazing revelation: I didn’t want to be awake. So I rolled over and indulged in another hour’s tour of The Dreaming. It was nice. The rest of the morning prep went smoothly. I even put a load of dishes in the dishwasher and started it before walking out the door. I picked up a frozen mocha and was on my way.

And, to top it all off: I turned on the radio to find The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’ playing.

Yep, nice way to start off an NBN Sushi Thursday.

Selah.

Wednesday: Coda
After work, I met Liz for dinner at Outback; it was nice to catch up and hang out.

I came home and opened the new brick – no Susan Richards or Spider-Woman, but I did wind up with a few new figures:

• Annihilus
• Attuma (You know you want to say “It’s naht Attuma,” in your best Ah-nold voice)
• Clea
• Dum Dum Dugan (Skrull)
• Elektra (Skrull)
• Mole Man
• Ms. Marvel (Skrull)
• Punisher
• Skrull Emperor
• Speedball

And, I now have a plethora duplicates that I need to determine how to group for sale on eBay.

Stray Toasters

• It’s 12:40 and I just finished baking a batch of brownies.
• Who doesn’t like zombies? Well… how about Claymation zombies?! I KNOW! Win- Win!

• I need to finish packing. Yay.

Namaste.

Stray Toasters

• I picked up another brick of ‘Clix over lunch. Hopefully, I’ll be able to round out my set… and/or find some eBay-worthy figures.
• I also picked up the three trade paperbacks of The Middleman.
• Other Middle-stuff
  • Javier Grillo-Maruach has a LiveJournal.
  • The Middleblog
  • The non-ABC Family Middleman site
• By way of : Al Gore Places Infant Sun in Rocket to Escape Dying Planet
• I took a look at the stats for the Invisible Woman and Susan Richards (Skrull) ‘Clix figures. Wow. They’re getting used in a game soon, I think.

  

• 10 Things to Scratch from Your Worry List
• Back in the day, I bought The Typing of the Dead for my DreamCast. Until today, I had simply thought that it was a port of The House of the Dead. I had no idea that there was an actual arcade version of TotD.
• Just as a point of reference, Google Maps “doesn’t understand” the following phrases:
  • “Nuke this location”
  • “Bomb this location”

  It does, however, recognize “Target this location”

• Looking for a place to get away from it all? Try Private Islands Online, they offer islands for rent and for sale.
• Maybe I’ll actually buy some eggs so I can (finally) make some brownies tonight.

*voop*

I’ve been talking comics, movies and other assorted geekery with through the day. I was checking my Friends List a few minutes ago, when I stumbled across her most recent entry:

“I would love to see The Dark Knight on IMAX, but the only one around here is tasked for educational purposes and only shows films like Dolphins of the Deep, Holy Fuck, It’s a Shark!, Creatures of the Deep, Here’s Some Clownfish Or Some Shit, Depths of the Deep, and Holy Fuck, It’s A Shark! in 3D.”
–Miss , over here

Come on! You know Holy Fuck, It’s a Shark! would be a great movie. It’s what educational films would be if Douglas Adams wrote them.

Though she was quoting in the first part, it was her Douglas Adams comment that cemented my decision to name Ms. today’s Human of the Day.

By way of Schoolhouse Rock! – The Good Eleven

(lyrics here)

Wednesday – 30 July 2008
Midweek.

Coffee: Check.
Failsafe lunch: Check.
Lack of road monkeys: Check.
Hooverphonic’s 2 Wicky on iTunes: Check.
Butterscotch Krimpets for breakfast: Check.

It’s also the day that Baltimore, MD was founded.

Man… all that AND a reference from The Wiz (Broadway, not the movie), too.

Let’s get this started.

Tuesday: Coda
After work, I made haste to get to Far West Comics for the HeroClix tournament. Keith, the judge got there just after me. And no one else did. Fortunately, Matt and Nano (the store owners) were playing in the event, so it wasn’t a complete wash. I got my two boosters and pulled the following figures:

• Iron Fist
• Yellowjacket (Skrull)
• Arachne
• Captain America
• Kristoff
• Dum Dum Dugan (Human)
• Iron Man
• Doom
• Super Skrull: X-Men
  
• Impossible Man

I was very pleased to pull the Dugan, Doom and Impossible Man figures… very pleased, indeed. The others were all duplicates of figures that I got in my brick. I constructed my team of:

• Arachne
• Dum Dum Dugan
• Iron Fist and
• Kristoff

I used a Feat card – Loner – on Dum Dum, which gave him a bonus to his defensive value. And then, we went to work.

My first match was against Matt, he also fielded four figures:

• Clea
• Iron Fist
• Speedball
• Thor Girl

I split my force and moved to positions that afforded me decent lines of fire, while still providing cover. The first game went fairly quickly. I took out two of Matt’s pieces without losing anyone. Next up, I fought Nano. He brought

• Mole Man
• Spider-Man
• Spider-Slayer
• Tombstone
• Yellowjacket (Human)

I divided my force again, but in a slightly different pattern – I remembered to array my figures in a pattern that allowed the ranged members of each team to provide cross-field support to each other. That came in pretty handy. And some really good dice rolls didn’t hurt, either. I was able to eliminate Mole Man and the Spider-Slayer and was working on taking out Spider-Man when time ran out. Once again, I was able to keep everyone on my side alive, although Kristoff took a couple of solid hits.

For going 2-0, I got an Illuminati event dial, a Nowhere to Hide battlefield condition card and a map.

After the tourney, I came home… and had a lazy evening. Me, the couch, the TV and a crossword puzzle book. Mm-hmm, that’s right. And it was good.

Stray Toasters

• It’s almost 1:00 AM. I am craving brownies. I would be making them now… if I had one more egg.
• George W. Bush as The Joker
• 
• This cake, however I don’t think would be more delicious than carrot cake.
• 85 Works of Art ‘Improved’ via Modern Technology
• Comedy Central is having a roast for Bob Saget. In honor of that, I give you Rollin’ with Saget

• Laurie Anderson interview from Smithsonian.com
• Rocket Racers: Like crazier NASCAR in the sky

And that’s all.

Stray Toasters

• House to apologize for slavery, Jim Crow
  • My first inclination was to think: “Thanks… 150 years after the fact.” I’m not a reparationist. To be honest, I don’t really care about them, let alone want them. It’s great that there’s being recognition of the problem… but I think it’s a bit “too little too late.”
  • My second inclination was to change it to mean Dr. House, from the Fox TV show. That made the whole thing play out differently in my head… in a far more amusing manner.
• I’m not entirely sure if it’s jumping the shark or not, but apparently Clark Kent will meet three teens from the 31st Century on Smallville this season. I may have to tune in for that.
• Baltimore Business Journal
• I apparently have a version of Do Ya Think I’m Sexy… by The Revolting Cocks. That amuses me greatly.
• 
• The Obama Veepstakes
• Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew
• Tonight’s ‘Clix tourney is a 300 point sealed box draft. This means that each entrant has to purchase two boxes and construct a team from the figures he just purchased. I’m both intrigued and concerned about this: I’m used to being able to select the figures I want. This will prove very interesting. In order to get a rough feel for what it’s going to be like, I did a mock draft. I asked SaraRules to come up with ten numbers, from 1 to 60. Based on the numbers she gave me, I used the figure numbers to come up with a couple of options for teams.
• Carlin gets last laugh on death
• Just when you thought the three seashells was bad enough comes this.
• Tor.com
• Active Directory

Tuesday – 29 July 2008
No marshmallowy alarms this morning. I take that as a good sign.

This morning’s work music is: Ride of the Valkyries.

I have both frozen mocha goodness and a bagel sandwich. Win-Win.

Attack the day…

Monday: Coda
This evening has been low-key. I ran a couple of errands… including taking back the USB adapter for the iMac. I considered picking up a new one while out, but I’m not that pressed about it. For now.

I watched some TV.
I played some Poker… and lost some fake money.
I watched The Middleman.

Stray Toasters

• I just noticed something on the M&M’s Addams Family commercial: The Wednesday M&M is carrying a “beheaded” M&M doll. That made me laugh.
• Why do I enjoy The Middleman? Like I’ve said before: Because it’s just damned fun. But tonight, I was even more entertained when they managed to slip a reference to The Spirit of Radio in an exchange between Wendy and Noser.
• 15 reasons Mr. Rogers’ was the best neighborhood ever
• Thanks to for pointing out Bush or Batman?
• White House projects record deficit for 2009
• 
• pointed out the very wrong (yet amusing): Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like a Horse
• SDCC: Starship Smackdown
• posted a link to this picture.
• The Bud Ice Penguin
• Famous historical beheadings recreated with mantises

*voop*

Namaste.

SaraRules sent me this picture last week, after returning from a walk:

Returning from her walk this morning, she told me:

The troll sign was gone. Perhaps he, like the students, takes Monday off.

I never really thought of trolls as taking time off to go on holiday before.

Monday – 28 July 2008
You know that it’s going to be an interesting day when you wake up and the first question that pops into your brain when turning off the alarm is:

Who put all those giant marshmallows in the alarm!?

Seriously. That’s what went through my head as I rolled over. I actually laid in bed and pondered the question for a moment, before I began to ponder its absurdity. *shakes head*

That was the cap on a strange trip through The Dreaming, which included a visitation from an odd – and highly unexpected – Ghost of Christmas Past. Weird.

Last night, I spent a couple of futile hours trying to get a certain USB wireless networking adapter to work with the iMac. After checking a number of forums, I found that this model – mainly due to lack of fully functional drivers – doesn’t work with Panther (OS X 10.3.x)… Oh, well. I found one that does. And it’s locally available, I think. I’ll find out after work. (EDIT: Turns out that it’s on order.)

Benefit of being the first one in the IT area: I can listen to 2112 – loudly – on my speakers.
I just made a reference to “Raiders of the Lost Arcade,” since I’m listening to Rush. The person didn’t get it.

Stray Toasters

• I stopped in and chatted with , freshly back from the Left Coast, for a few minutes yesterday. Among other things, we talked a little about The Dark Knight, about which she raved. Speaking of which:
  • The Brave and the Bold trailer

  • Neil Gaiman writes Batman
• Thanks to Drew for linking me to video of Rush on The Colbert Report. I only watched the first, second and fifth sections… but they made me laugh.
• For :

  

• I’ve got the brains
  You’ve got the looks
  Let’s make lots of money…
• How many children in your state are in foster care (.pdf)
• There was a road monkey in one Hell of a hurry this morning. In the… mile and half to two miles that I was around her, I saw her nearly cause two accidents – both of which involved her cutting people off. Idiotstick.
• There’s a new episode of The Middleman tonight.
• Where are the new movie themes?

Back to it.

Namaste.