Random Access

Wednesday
As Matchbox 20 said, “It’s been a long day…” But, it wasn’t a bad one. In fact, it was a fairly productive one. But, after nearly 11 hours at work, I was far past “ready to go.” And, the drive home was rainy, but uneventful.

Song of the Day (Tie-In with Stray Toaster Item #4)
Strange Relationship by Prince
Maddest Kind of Love by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (thrown in as a bonus)
She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals (added B-side bonus )

Stray Toasters

• Whomever it is that has the remote control for the radio in my head has a warped sense of humor. When I got into the shower this morning, the first song that came to mind (and got stuck there) was I Go to Extremes by Billy Joel. WTF?!? When I realized how absurd that was, I laughed. Of ALL of the Billy Joel songs that I know… THIS ONE!?!? *boggle*
• Someone, and I can’t remember whom, mentioned The Maxx the other day, but I can’t remember the conversation. Well, it seems as though Cliffhanger Productions (A division of Wildstorm… who is owned by DC Comics) is collecting the entire run of The Maxx in a trade paperback.
• posted a link to this site earlier. I think that this is exactly what personal web pages are about – the ability to fill it with whatever you like. And to Hell with what anyone else says. Yes, this could easily fall in to the “too much free time” category, but points have to be given for creativity and persistence.
• It’s been a while since I’ve commented on it, but Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About is always good for a laugh. And, the book will be out this summer. Mil’s Mailing List #18
  

  Spike Milligan once said, ‘Never trust a man who, if left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on as a hat.’

  Margret said, just the other week, ‘Why are your toe nails painted green?’

  It is, I think you can see, all part of the same thing.

  So, I’m sitting in a restaurant in London talking to Jake Arnott about wearing women’s underwear. (To truly grasp quite how surreal this tableau is, you really need to know the kind of books Jake Arnott writes – http://makeashorterlink.com/?L56552464.) My thesis is that if you want to know (for some reason – perhaps you’re choosing a gift) if a man is gay or not, but it feels impolite to ask outright, then merely enquire if he’s ever tried on any pieces of women’s underwear to see what they’re like. If he replies “No” then he’s *definitely* gay. No straight man in the world, who’s girlfriend has popped out – temporarily leaving unguarded both him and the black thong lying with high-visibility across the back of a nearby chair – can prevent himself looking across at the garment and thinking, ‘Hmmm….’ For a man to say he’s never tried… well – it’s like Tom Robinson used to remark: ‘I can always tell who’s gay in the audience – they’re the ones who don’t sing along with ‘Glad To Be Gay’.’ So, I express this opinion, and Jake animatedly agrees. I believe, therefore, that if both Jake *and* Mil declare something to be correct, then it can’t be a mere matter of opinion or perspective, but is, unarguably, The Truth.

  That established, let’s change scene.

  I’m getting undressed in the bedroom.

  ‘What the hell’s *that*?’ asks Margret abruptly and with alarm.

  This is not something you really *ever* want to hear when getting undressed in front of a woman, so I’m briefly barged into a panic of rapid self-examination. Finding nothing more depressing than usual, I check her eye line and see that she’s looking at my feet. ‘Why are your toenails painted green?’ she asks.

  I’d forgotten about this, but, relieved, I tut. ‘Tch. Because I painted them green this evening, of course.’

  Instead of this being the end of the matter, Margret seems to want to keep on talking. ‘And… why?’

  ‘What do you mean “why”?’

  ‘I mean “why?”.’

  She’s got herself stuck in a loop here, clearly. As everything has already been explained, there’s not a lot I can do to help her. I have to fall back on merely going over things again, adding trivial detail.

  ‘You went out this evening,’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tch.’ (What *is* the problem here?) ‘You went out this evening… so I was left in the house on my own… and I was bored… and when I went for a pee I saw the nail varnish in the bathroom.’

  ‘So you thought you’d paint your toe nails?’

  ‘*Obviously*.’

  ‘Why?’

  (How did we manage to get back to that?)

  ‘Dunno.’ I shrug. ‘It just seemed… I mean – you go out and leave me completely unsupervised, all evening, in a house with nail varnish in plain view… *What do you expect, for God’s sake*?’

  You know, I’m sure Margret would tell you that she’s the level-headed one, but this just demonstrates how, sometimes, she simply has no common sense *at all*.

• Once again, thanks to for sending the link to The Index of Evil.
• ::: sidestep ::: (Not to be confused with 7 Days’ “Project: Backstep”)
• Even though I still think that it’s unnatural for it to snow in April, I have to confess that snow on the mountain tops in spring and summer just looks cool. (No pun intended.)
• It’s time for Animaniacs…

Quote of the Day
This was gleaned from tonight’s IRC gab-fest:

[23:19] Are there nuclear silos in Texas?
[23:20] I know that there are in Kansas.
[23:20] Hrm.
[23:20] Somebody ought to mention to Bush that Texas is full of oil and has weapons of mass destruction.
[23:20] lol
[23:20] See if he invades Texas.
[23:20] *cracks up*
[23:20] Can I quote you on that? 🙂
[23:21] Sure. 🙂
[23:22] Hell, just telling him about the oil might do the trick.
[23:22] Since he made up the part about weapons of mass destruction anyhow.
[23:23] I think the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” should be replaced with the word “stuff”. Because I’m sick of hearing it over and over o.O
[23:23] No kidding.
[23:23] I think Iraq is going to be the new Puerto Rico.
[23:24] o.o
[23:24] what fun
[23:24] They’ll be given the option to vote for statehood, but they’ll stay a province or whatever so they don’t have to pay taxes. 🙂
[23:24] hey. then we can all move to Iraq
[23:25] Hooray!

This post has been brought to you by the letters “G” and “V” and by the number “3.”

Namaste.

Tuesday
Just another day in the neighborhood.

Song of the Day

• She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult
• Sanctified by Nine Inch Nails

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to the lovely , I woke up to this link. That is NOT the first thing that I had expected to see after getting out of bed. It wasn’t in the Top 13,683,729,650 things, either.
• The following comments were culled from Comic Book Resources. They interviewed members of the comic book community about some of the things that their teachers/professors had said and done to inspire them, I found this one to be amusing :
  

  BRAD MELTZER – Green Arrow writer and real-world novelist

  Ms. Morris – eighth grade English teacher – Highland Oaks Junior High School, Florida (1983) to a young, fresh-from-New-York smart-assed know-it-all Brad Meltzer:
  “What the hell are you talking about?” Brad asks.
  “What’d you just say?” Ms. Morris shoots back.
  “What the hell are you–” Brad begins.
  “Did you just swear in my class?” she interrupts
  Brad looks around, not realizing “hell” is a “swear.” (C’mon, in Brooklyn it wasn’t).
  “What the hell–”
  “What’d I tell you about swearing?”
  Brad’s still dumbfounded. “What…the…[beat…beat…beat]… Is hell a swear?”

  She despised my ass. And thus, a writer was born.

  …and this, about the highly successful…

  ROB LIEFELD – writer/artist and Image Comics co-founder

  Mr. Genberg – Art 3 teacher – Whittier Christian high school (1985)
  “Needs to expand his interests outside of comic books, explore advertising and design work. Questionable future in comic illustration.”

  I wonder if these people ever have the urge to go back to their old alma maters, track down their former teachers and say (in what ever manner appeals to them): “Now, what was this that you said about me lacking focus and wanting to write/draw comics for a living…?”

• Thanks to for passing this along.
• They have made a TV movie about Three’s Company; it airs on NBC on Friday. One question comes to mind: WHY?! From the looks of the teaser/commercial, it’s a look “behind the scenes” at all of the angst-ridden moments about which the viewing public was unaware. I think that I’ll take my chances and remain unaware. Blissfully.
• : Just glad to be able to help. And now, I have a good story to share with the rest of the cape-and-cowl crowd when next we gather to foil our archenemies’ next nefarious scheme!
• Suicidal mocha story. Hmm. That might make an interesting band name, too.
• posted a link that worried me. It worried me because the writer wrote about how cool it was that the Trojan Horse worked just as well as the “Trojan Rabbit” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. *boggle* Ancient Greek history vs. a fictionalized account of a mythic/legendary English king. And, unless there was a retraction that I missed, he seemed to think that the Rabbit really did precede the horse (which is not the same as putting the cart before the horse… or even Descartes before the horse, although it WOULD impress me if a horse was able to grasp Calculus). It speaks poorly of the state of public education in America. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Monty Python as much as the next person (maybe every third person, I don’t have the statistics in front of me)… but has “classical history” been relegated to mythology? I truly hope not, although the song History Will Teach Us Nothing, by Sting, does come to mind.
• Lady Godiva. Not the song; nor the chocolatier.

And that’s all the news from Lake Wobegon Lake Saline for tonight.

Namaste.

Monday
The beginning of the (work) week and it was good. Work wasn’t bad, even for a Monday. The weather was nice. And, hanging out with friends was how I rounded out the day.

Song of the Day
A Kind of Magic from the CD of the same name by Queen

Stray Toasters

• I’m a fan of Sting (with and/or without The Police). From his CD “Brand New Day,” I think that it is fairly safe to say that the song Desert Rose is my favorite track. One thing that I’ve noticed, and failed to comment on (until now) is the fact that there is a “radio edit” of the song. The question that comes to mind is: “WHY?!” The lyrics in question are:
  

  Sweet desert rose
  This memory of Eden haunts us all
  This desert flower, this rare perfume
  Is the sweet intoxication of the fall

  …the “radio edit” version’s lyrics are:

  Sweet desert rose
  Each of her vails, a secret promise
  This desert flower, this rare perfume
  Is the sweet intoxication of the fall

  I wonder if he recorded the alternate version as an appeasement to those who would take offense at what a radical element could consider a “positive spin” on The Fall (of Man and being cast out of Eden). *shrug* I also have to admit that this version of the lyrics make me laugh, too. I’ll give credit for the effort, after all, they are close… but no blue ribbon.

• Bamf dolls! (Bonus points to those who can cite the origins of the Bamfs (the creatures, not just the sound).
• Courtesy of : This. She didn’t do it, she just pointed me to it. And then, I attempted to claw my eyes out.
• thinks that I should change my “standard” Trillian away message from
  

  “I’m out playing… or watching someone else play.”

  …to…

  “I’ve found something to do that doesn’t involve the computer… so fuck off or leave me a message or call.”

• Property managers in rural Virginia, their wives, and the rules about tenants having pets. *sigh* Some peoples’ children just should not reproduce.
• The Girl from Ipanema and mute vampires.

Idiotstick of the Day
had asked why I didn’t write more “angry-rants.” Quite frankly, because I haven’t had anything that has really aggravated me recently. Until this evening. And, also note that it was not one of the methods listed in his experiments to induce an “angry-rant.”

Once again, my patience for Utah drivers was tested on the way home from work. Again. And, it was at the off-ramp from I-215 onto southbound Redwood Road. AGAIN. (For a map of the area, click here.) A lady driving on Redwood – who wanted to get into the lane that I was in (it becomes a right turn lane at 6200 South/Bennion Blvd.) decided to:

a) pace me… just off of my left rear and then
b) speed up enough to pull ahead of me and cut in front of me

… as I’m trying to merge out into traffic. Why is this so irritating?

1. My left-hand blinker was on before I hit the bottom of the ramp… giving PLENTY of notice that I was intending to change lanes;
2. The distance from the bottom of the ramp to 6200 South is 1/4 mile;
3. Traffic behind both of us was sparse enough to have allowed her to pull in behind me and safely allow both of us to make the necessary lane changes;
4. She did not indicate that she was making a lane change until after she had pulled ahead of me!!! This I know because I was watching for her to turn on her signal lights.
5. Southbound traffic at the Redwood/6200 South intersection was stopped at the light. (This also meant that I had to stop a little short so that I did not hit the minivan in front of me as she darted in front of me.)

If I had known that she was attempting to get into the turn lane, I would have paced her up to the point where she would have had to either stop or risk plowing into the minivan herself. GRRRR.

And with that, I shall call it a night.

Namaste.

Sunday
It was supposed to start off as a day in the park, hanging out with friends. But, Mother Nature cried and her tears fell across the valley. Instead, we met for coffee and then went to dinner. And then… we saw X2.

::: jawdrop :::
Wow.

I was impressed that they managed to incorporate four (4) story lines – from different points in the X-Men mythos – into a coherent story.

1. An adaptation of God Loves, Man Kills
2. More on the Weapon X project
3. The introduction of Nightcrawler
4. ::: Deleted for Potential Spoilers :::

Of course, there were plenty of items for fans of the series to catch. And, there is definitely an opening for a third movie… if they can get all of the principals to return – the only person whom I think will have a conflict is Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), due to a contract to perform on Broadway.

Stray Toasters
As there was nothing on television that I wanted to watch this afternoon, I resorted to watching video music stations. Specifically, VH1 Classic. I was treated to a bevy of videos from the 80s. Like some macabre accident, I could not turn away. Thus was I treated to:

• Donnie Iris – Do You Compute
  This one earns special notice as the lead singer (whom I will, for the sake of argument, assume was Mr. Iris) was building/programming a female android… with an Atari 1200XL computer!

• Catholic Girls – Boys Can Cry (Imagine: The Bangles, if they were all rather plain-looking …and wearing Catholic school uniforms.)
• Nick Lowe – I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)
• Speaking of The Bangles – Walk Like an Egyptian
• Culture Club – I’ll Tumble 4 Ya
• Danny Wilson – Mary’s Prayer (A song that I used to enjoy and had not heard in many years)
• Sugar Hill Gang – Rapper’s Delight (Some/many/most of the “fashion” that the dancers wore were…. scary. Very much so.)
• Ray Parker, Jr – Ghostbusters (The song that pretty much ended his career because he used the bassline from I Want a New Drug, without permission… and Huey Lewis sued ‘im.)
• Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart (Another old favorite)

watched (suffered through) a lot of these with me. And, she was still talking to me when we went out for coffee. But, we did get many laughs from how bad and/or dated most of the videos looked.

Namaste.

I decided to listen to some music while getting ready to face the day. I put on “The CD Formerly Known as ‘Androgyny'” by Prince (the CD whose title was that symbol to which he changed his name). The first track is My Name Is Prince, simple yet effective and introductory at the same time. One of the verses contains the line:

My name is Prince
And I am funky
When it comes to funk
I am a junky

… but it sounds like he’s saying…

My name is Prince
And I am funky
When it comes to funk
I am the chunky

And that always makes me laugh.

Stray Toasters

• Talked with for the first time in months.
• pointed out this item. There is no way that I could have done something like that. Of course, I would not have gone climbing like that in the first place…
• Billiards Shootout “Trick Shot Magic” Final Match on ESPN. From the Baltimore ESPNZone. These players make it look incredibly easy and (almost) effortless. Stefano Pelinga is amazing; this is the first time that I’ve seen Tom Rossman shoot… and he’s pretty damned incredible, too.
• John Schneider is doing ads for Ortho lawn care products. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that he plays Jonathon Kent (a farmer) on Smallville. I would not be surprised, if so.
  

Friday
And so, another week comes to a close… more or less. After work, I enjoyed a nice evening of coffee and sketching at the local Borders with Jess and . From there it was on to a late dinner at Village Inn.

I think that I’m going to work for a couple of hours tomorrow to take care of some paperwork, but that’s pretty much a piece of cake. Besides, I’ll still sleep in. The best of both worlds.

Song of the Day
Working for the Weekend by Loverboy (with the video featuring Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, of course…)

Stray Toasters

• I neglected to mention something in last night’s post. I called Bret yesterday; it was his birthday. He has an interesting take on birthdays: He tells everyone that he’s aging in reverse, so that he won’t ever get “old.” I have to admit that sounds much better than saying that you are “celebrating the anniversary of my (fill-in-the-number) birthday.”

  He called me today just to tell me that he had seen X2. On his lunch “hour.” It wasn’t a long call, but it was good.

• Holy “Need for Speed,” Batman! Take a look at this.
• Purple bunnies dancing the Watusi in the desert.
• Build Your Own Cruise Missile What happened to the days of “Build Your Own Soapbox Derby Car?”
• Micro$oft has done many an odd thing in their time (Do we really need a flight simulator imbedded in the code of Excel?), but this pretty much takes the cake.
• While at Borders, looking though magazines for things to draw, I came across this in issue No. 230 of i-D. It made me laugh. Quite a bit, in fact. And, on the basis of that alone, I bought the magazine.

There are probably many other things that I had planned to write about, but they have dissipated in the aether. Oh, well. There is always another time. But for now…

Namaste.

Thursday
Thor’s Day. The God of Thunder. Wielder of Mjolnir. Son of Odin.
And a good day it was.

Song of the Day
Palm Sunday Downpour, Mr. and Mrs. Hammer and Without Roses or Charms by Hat

Stray Toasters

• Today started and ended with me talking to the two youngest members of my sibko: Youngest sister and brother – Kris, this morning; Adam tonight. And, I got to play travel agent, again… couldn’t have Adam stranded in Oklahoma this summer. That just wouldn’t be “right.” Although, it might be funny.
• It’s amazing how far we, as a country, have come in the past 220-something years. And how many times the adage “One step up, two steps back” can be proven true. Why do I say this? Read here. Welcome to 2003.
• From salon.com:
  

  “K-Y Jelly, we hardly knew ye”
  http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/05/01/k_y/index.html
  The venerable lubricant with the kinky associations is getting a brand makeover. But will it be able to maintain market penetration?

  Oh, the joys of the double entendre.

• I don’t do this often, so you might want to mark your calendars…
  

  Disclaimer: The following point refers to something that many know only as an offensive symbol. I want to present a counterpoint to that. In the middle of the 20th Century, the symbol was adopted and perverted into a sign of hatred and oppression which represented a 180° shift from its original meaning.

  That having been said…

  brought this little nugget of joy to my attention. Is it unusual that my first reaction was,”What about the original meaning and connotation behind the swastika?” I empathize with Rabbi Kermaier’s discomfort with seeing it on the figurine, but by the same token he is in a country in which a great number of the people (read: “Pretty much ALL…”) are Buddhist; sects of that faith use the classic -reversed and non-rotated- symbol with a positive meaning. For a somewhat similar argument, one could look to the “Heritage vs. Hate” debate over the use of the Confederate flag as part of southern states’ flags.

  I also think that it was noteworthy that, according to the article: “…the figurines were ‘exact replicas’ of characters featured in the television series.” It would be interesting to find whether anyone gone to he executives at the television studio and/or the creators of Robocon to protest the offensive design?

  Here is something that I found on this part of the indiayogi.com site.

  Question: What does the Swastika Symbol mean?
  A very famous solar symbol that has been used for luck and auspiciousness in India for millennia – and then Hitler got hold of it, reversed it, rotated it off its central axis and made it a hated and feared emblem of evil. There could be no greater irony and it is time the swastika was rescued and restored to its true stature.

  The word is derived from ’su vasti’ and means ’the essence of everything good’, a far cry indeed from the appalling perversion to which Nazi idiots twisted it. The swastika is common to the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions equally; it was an Indian cultural archetypal symbol, not a sectarian mark. Hence its power and hence the disastrous energies released when it was reversed. A reversed swastika is used only on special occasions when there is some necessary clearing of Psychic clutter to be done and even then it is dangerous to keep it active for too long. The Nazis not only reversed it they tilted it and then put it in Tantrik colors. They were guaranteeing their own demise with such monkeying around with archetypes. The swastika however is a very pure and auspicious symbol in essence, a bringer of luck and fortune and it should not get a bad reputation because of some historical distortions. -Rohit Arya

  Here is more about it, including some of the history behind it.

And with that, good night.

Namaste.

Wednesday
Wodensday. The day of Woden or Odin, as he’s known in modern languages. Father of Thor. Lord of Asgard.

Decent weather, a good day at work and every-other-Wednesday night coffee made for a good day.

Song of the Day
Tiny Toon Adventures theme.

Stray Toasters

• More interstate 7 Days-watching with the youngest member of my sibko¹.
• There was an article on Google News this morning. Rather than try to explain it, I’ll show you what it said:
  

  Traffic pollution damages men’s sperm
  New Scientist – 3 hours ago
  Traffic pollution damages sperm and may reduce fertility in young and middle-aged men, reveals an Italian study of motorway tollgate attendants.

  All that I want to know is: Who thought up this study? What made them think of it in the first place? Who agreed to fund it? How much drinking/smoking/injecting was involved in getting the approval vote to pass?

• This was another item on Google News. *sigh* Okay… let’s take it step by step:
  1. I’ll even start by saying that I enjoy(ed) Deee-Lite’s music.
  2. The original Space Channel 5 came out in 2000. Three (3) years ago.
  3. Sega offered a sum for the license. You would think that a multi-national company would be a little more savvy about things like changing the look/identity of their character if the license request was denied. But… Deee-Lite was big in the early 90s; as mentioned earlier, the game came out in 2000. I’ve heard of dragging your feet on a project (see: Lucas, George and the Star Wars saga), but this is ridiculous.
  4. Under what rock was she living for the past three years? Did she just wake up one morning, blink twice and think: “I think I’ll sue the bloody wankers.” *boggle*

  It should prove most interesting to see how this pans out.

• Waltzing for Venus
• “It’s time to play the music… It’s time to light the lights… It’s time to _____”
• Boyd. Rufus. Flipper. “Plausible deniability.”
• Toblerone white chocolate.

Quote of the Day
During tonight’s coffee chat, we somehow wound up referencing “The Ice Capades.” I don’t remember how, but we did.

Matt: What the Hell is a ‘capade,’ anyway?
Steve: It’s kind of like a ‘crusade,’ but not quite as bloody.

Namaste.

¹ – Sibko: A sibko consists of a group of children produced from the same male and female geneparents in the warrior caste eugenics program. The members of the sibko are raised together, then begin to undergo constant testing. As various members of the sibko fail at each test, they are transferred to the lower castes. A sibko consists of approximately 20 members, but usually only four or five remain at the time of the final test to become warriors, the Trial of Position. These tests and other adversities may bind the surviving “sibkin” together.
(taken from classicbattletech.com)