Random Access

Tuesday
Oy gevalt.
Yesterday wasn’t too bad… until 00:20 before I was ready to leave. It was brought to my attention that there was LOTS “catch-up” to deal with. It was a problem that someone else left. Yay. It was enough of a stress point that I actually needed to call home to vent to one of the parental units. That helped immensely. Last night’s gaming was a good release; it didn’t remove all of the tension, but it got enough of it out of the way for me to regain a good personal balance. I am seriously beginning to dislike Mondays. That’s not a good thing, especially when you consider that Monday Night Football (which starts in a month) is on… that’s right: Monday.

While I still have more to deal with tomorrow, Day One of “Damage Control” is out of the way. I should have feedback on it in the morning – that could be something of a mixed bag. Some of it will be good (at least, I hope that it will…); some might not be so good. *shrug* We shall see…

After work, it was home for a bit and then off to Borders to meet Mary… and harass Jonahs. I took the opportunity to look up details for my next drawing and to blue-line some of the repetitive parts of the piece. I can see that this is going to take a while. A long while. Something odd also happened while we were there: A girl (late teens… maybe) walked up to us, looked at Jonahs and said “I know who you are and I know what you did…” and then walked off.

::: boggle :::While we are not 100% sure who she was, we have a pretty good idea who put her up to that. And why. *sigh* Oh, to be young and stupid again….

Post-Borders, we headed to Ye Olde Inn of the Village for dinner. Between dinner and talking with Kris and Swanny, we killed almost two hours.

NPR Stories
Talk of the Nation
All Things Considered
The World

Song of the Day

• The Envoy by Warren Zevon
• Dirty Laundry by Don Henley

…inspired by a lunchtime conversation with .

Stray Toasters

• Happy Birthday to my grandmother. The chances that she’ll see this are rather slim… but I’m not going to let that stop me from posting it.
• A water pipe in one of the ground floor apartments burst yesterday. The rooter service that was called to repair the problem was here most of the day yesterday – from the time that I left for work (around 9:45 AM) until after I got home from work (7:30-ish PM). There was a note on the door this afternoon informing us that the water will be off tomorrow from 8:00 AM until whenever-they-finish… for which they are allowing up to eight (8) hours.::: braincramp :::It seems that they had to not only repair the pipe in the apartment, but they have to replace one of the water mains for our building. Yay.
• It’s amazing how true the adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is.
• Paul Harvey. Christopher Guest used to do a great send-up of him on Saturday Night Live in the mid-80s.
• Integrity and character are important characteristics for the workplace.
• “In brightest day, in darkest night…”

And now, The Dreaming awaits…

Namaste.

In this morning’s email from Backwash, there was a link for The Best of ‘Stupid Protests’. I looked. I laughed.

Enjoy.

Sunday
Another Pleasant Salt Lake Valley Sunday-ay-ay. It was a good day.

It started with a trip to Borders. This was the outcome:

Although it’s not very clear on the picture, it’s based on a photographic piece by Mark Frank. I started it yesterday evening, but only got about 00:30 worth of time in it. It took about… three hours to finish this afternoon. Unfortunately, I can’t find a copy of the original online for comparison. *shrug* I’m happy with it.

After that – and a brief stop at home – it was on to tonight’s movie: Bad Boys II with , , Spydr and Larry. Damn the critics and their “Boys is just bad” reviews: I had fun. Will Smith. Martin Lawrence. Gabrielle Union (Woo!) And, lots of things blowing up. I may get this (and the first Bad Boys) on DVD.

Stray Toasters

• : You might be interested in this… and the related files.
• We saw the trailer for S.W.A.T. again tonight. This sparked a (…or “yet another…”) wave of nostalgia. I remember being in Kindergarten and First Grade and running around the school playground pretending to be characters from the show. And, of course, I had to look for a copy of the original series‘ theme song.
• I watched the premiere of the new Cartoon Network series Teen Titans. It’s based on the DC Comics book of the same name – not the current version, but the one from the mid-80s. The style is based on the ones used in Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League… but scaled back a bit. The closest analogy that I can make would be: If JL was anime, then TT is a chibi version of the animation. It was good. And it wasn’t too over-the-top. It doesn’t have the “We have to save the world/galaxy” feel of JL. As the tagline in the trailers said, they are “Fighting for truth, justice… and the last slice of pizza.” And they did a good job of it. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

And that’s all there is. Tomorrow, it’s back to the grind. Wahoo.

Namaste.

The computers at least acknowledge each other’s existence.

This is progress.

…or trying to, anyway.
Linux is giving me a few problems in setting up Samba.
But that’s okay.

This song is just cool enough to get me through it.

Friday
Woo.
Today was a pretty good day. and I were working in the warehouse mostly. It was hot back there and the part of the inventory with which we were working was dirty, dusty and just all-around *blah*.

I came home and showered before heading to Borders. , , , , Steph and Jonahs were there. We all harassed Jonahs…. even though he wasn’t on the clock. Or maybe that should be “…especially since he wasn’t on the clock.” *shrug* I had a great time. I even “finished” the Wonder Woman piece that I have been working on.

According to , it could use a little touching up around the eyes and mouth (…and that’s true), but I’m pretty happy with the way that it turned out. Pretty damned happy, at that.

After Borders, , , Steph, Jonahs and I headed to the nearby Applebee’s for a late dinner. We were attended by our favorite (at that restaurant) server, Vivi.¹ We ate. We talked. We ran other customers out of the restaurant. Well, that may not be true – it was never actually proven that they left because of us.

There’s nothing like wrapping up a week that started off so ludicrously poorly with a Friday evening that is nearly perfect. And spending said evening in the company of good friends is far from a bad way to spend time.

NPR Stories
Talk of the City discussed Utah drivers and some of their idiosyncrasies – speeding, obeying traffic laws, etc. – on Thursday’s show. I found it (amusingly) ironic that as I listened, I saw someone getting pulled over for speeding. And this morning, I watched as someone three to five car lengths in front of me decided that he wanted to cross three (3) lanes of traffic – from the second lane from the left side of the highway to the exit ramp on the right side of the highway – more or less regardless of the other drivers on the road. What fools theses mortals Utah drivers be…

Song of the Day
Strangers in the Night by the Chairman of the Board – Frank Sinatra

Stray Toasters

• made horns out of my kneaded eraser. She then stuck ’em on my head. And thus was a new user icon born…
• “Coloring the Comic Books” is a good article about race and sexism in comics over the years.
• Computers… teaching themselves to think? Yep. Using a technique called a “genetic algorithm.” Pretty interesting stuff. Check it out.
• King Kong and Ozzy Osbourne impressions.
• “Are you telling me that you built a time machine…. out of a DeLorean?!”
  No. But you can build a rocket pack for your bicycle… or a two million volt Tesla coil. How? Thanks to the friendly folks at United Nuclear, that’s how! Check out the Dangerous Products part of their site.

• How far is Airport A from Airport B? Does it really matter if: a) the airports are in the same city, and b) the people flying into those airports are arriving eight (8) hours apart?
• MicroSoft… giving away…. money?! To users of the new MSN Messenger? It’s true.
• Adhesive-backed insulated foam strips. HVAC conduit tape. Right-angle speed reducers. These are the harbingers of a long work day. And LOTS of dust.

Namaste.

¹ – If you live in the SLC area and eat at the Applebee’s at Fascist Place Fashion Place Mall, ask for Vivi’s section.

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
-Gustave Flaubert

Thursday
Not too bad a day. The only real ‘problem’ came when a wire came loose from our punch-down box. It had to be reseated, but that didn’t take too long… and it shouldn’t be a problem again.

It’s been a quiet night of C.S.I., TechTV, Cartoon Network… and a lot of drawing.

Song of the Day

• Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo
• Dead Man Walking by David Bowie
• Drop Dead Gorgeous by Republica

Stray Toasters

• There’s a new bill in the works that would make file sharing an automatic felony. ( O_o) Read about it here.
• “Hullo” to Nancy Pistofgrl!
• Exiled poets share experiences
• Ray Charles. Nuff said.
• I just saw a Metamucil commercial where they attribute the regularity Old Faithful’s eruptions to… you guessed it…. Metamucil. Now, when you think about it, that’s a rather graphic method for getting a point across. Effective, yes. But still just a bit out there.
• Excerpted from an IRC conversation:
  

  [18:46] [Nizlee] “A German man who confessed to killing and eating a man he met through a website for cannibals has been charged with murder, prosecutors have said”
  [18:46] [Nizlee] O_O
  [18:46] [Nizlee] I don’t know where to begin…
  [18:53] Yeah, I saw that.
  [18:53] [Nizlee] I…I…
  [18:55] *shrug*
  [18:56] [Nizlee] I worry about this planet…
  [18:56] The planet’s okay.
  [18:56] [Nizlee]
  [18:56] It’s the hairless apes running around on it that should give you concern.

• A new Cadillac commercial was just on. It had Led Zepplin’s Rock and Roll playing in the background. Then it cut to different drivers in their cars… singing along with the band. One of the drivers seemed to be getting into the song as he drove. I wonder if that’s what I look like to other drivers (and their passengers) when a song that I really like comes on? Doesn’t really matter. It’s the mood and the music that matter.
• I’ve been working on a couple of drawings over the past few days.
  This is the original – Alex Ross’ cover to Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth
  
  This was what I did Monday night, while gaming:
  
  This is the most recent and larger version – a work-in-progress:
  (This is taking a l-o-n-g time to do, but I’m actually enjoying it.)

• K-9 Officer Dies Inside Hot Police Car This is sad. You would think that something like this could be avoided, especially given the number of alerts and warnings out there about the dangers of leaving one’s child and/or pet in a car in the summer.
• Thanks to for pointing this out. We have a running joke about pirates; seeing this made me laugh.

Namaste.

That’s what time the cats decided was a good time to play Tag and to play with a bag on the floor. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with them at that point.

Getting back to sleep – and staying asleep – was not very easy after that.

Maybe this was a practical application of the adage: No rest for the wicked weary.

Time to make a pot of coffee.

Wednesday
Urk.
Today tried to be Monday Redux. It almost succeeded. Almost. But it didn’t. And that’s not a bad thing. Thanks to for helping to keep me sane during the day, too.

The post-work evening was quiet. And there was pizza. And it was good. Amen.

Song of the Day
Everyday Glory by Rush from “Counterparts”

Stray Toasters

• Is this live… or is it Memorex?¹
• Engineering from Science Fiction
• Microsoft Wins Homeland Security Contract Didn’t anyone on the review board notice the inordinate number of “Service Packs,” patches and updates that Microsoft has to put out for their other products? Did they take that into account? Did they even care? *sigh* Big brother is watching you… between upgrades, that is.
• From the Comics2Film Digital Concept Gallery: Avril Lavigne as the X-Men Evolution Scarlet Witch (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Ever wonder what The Matrix‘ rooftop shoot-out between Neo and Agent Smith would look like as an ASCII movie? No? Then, move along. There’s nothing here for you to see. For the rest of you, however, have a click. (Thanks, yet again, to for pointing this out.)
• Good night, Wonder Girl.

And that’s going to do it for tongiht.

Namaste.
¹ – It’s a fake, but it’s a pretty well-done fake.

Tuesday
The differences between my mental state today and yesterday are not quite diametrically opposed, but there’s at least a 135° difference.

Things are getting back on track with my ColdFusion forms. A few synapses finally started firing and made the connections that I had previously been missing. I think that I should be able to finish off at least two forms tomorning.

Song of the Day

• This Masquerade by George Benson
• Sunrise, Sunset from the Fiddler on the Roof Original Cast Recording

Stray Toasters

• Gamespot has just reviewed the ultimate MMOG: real life.
• I think that I was revisited by part of my childhood and adolescence this afternoon. I downloaded a few songs that I haven’t heard in years.
• Sissy (the Wonder Kitty) is sprawled out… and I think asleep… under a chair across the room. It’s rather cute.
• Online voting will be available in 2004 for 100,000 voters (in the military and some U.S. citizens living abroad). And it will require voters to use a computer with a Windows OS. Read more about it here.
• I’m not sure exactly what I did, but sometime this weekend I apparently changed my customization settings on here. I think that I got most of them back to where they were. The rest can be dealt with at a later time.
• “I turn my face to the sun and close my eyes – let my defenses down. All these wounds that I can’t get unwound…”
• Backwash: “25 Latest Silver & Gold choices links”

There seemed to be more that I wanted to say, but it must have dribbled out of my left ear. *shrug* Oh, well. It (or they) will just have to wait until later.

Namaste.

…I’d like to say “Thanks” to:

• (and the dragonfly flitting about my office)

…for their concern and well-wishes.

Today has been a little “edgy,” but it has been nowhere near yesterday’s level of angst.

Monday
It’s been a day.
Aside from spending the evening in very good company, it was not a good one.

Namaste.

Sunday
The day started off with me sleeping in this morning. Good way to begin the day. From there, it was off to Borders and spending some quality time with my pencils, paper and a few magazines. Steph and Mary were there and hung out, as well. On the down side: Today was Jonahs’ next-to-last day; he’s moving this week.

After drawrin’ time, came home for a bit and then headed out to see Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Verra good movie. And, it was fun. There were even “Easter eggs,” for those who have ridden the Pirates ride at one of the Disney Parks.

And with that…

Namaste.

One of the things that I enjoy about Wednesday night coffee/beer nights is the dialogue with the members of the group. Sometimes, we have one big conversation, but the most common trend is for smaller groups to form their own conversations. One thing is consistent: The conversations are usually very interesting.

This week was no exception.

Matt and I returned to a topic that we had started discussing a few weeks ago, but didn’t manage to finish. The general topic was faith and religion; more specifically: He asked me about my beliefs – past and present. Anyone who’s read more than a few of my posts knows that I’m not shy about sharing my views. I explained that I was raised in fairly religious households (yes, plural – one of the traits of having parents who were divorced). I was raised with a Baptist foundation… with a few Methodist teachings thrown in. Belief in God has always been a part of what makes me… “me.”

I’ve listened to the things that I’ve been taught, but I have also independently explored some topics. One great thing is that I have met ministers, preachers, priests, prayer leaders and “just plain folk” who are open about their faith and the questions that they have had about some of the teachings within their given belief system.

As I have grown older, my faith hasn’t changed… but some of my views on religion have. I still believe, but I tend not to be as narrow in the way that I think as many. I have integrated things from a few different faiths into my paradigm. I’m no angel… but I’m not the worst demon in my circle of Hell, either.

I have often been asked if it feels “odd” to live in Utah but not to be Mormon. Nope. They believe differently than I do. *shrug* That’s it. But, then again, so do Buddhists, Seventh Day Adventists, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, and… well, you get the idea. Last Saturday, I posted the following quote from Ray Charles:

I’m a firm believer in God himself, but that’s as far as I can go. I’m not any denomination. I’m not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I’m none of those things. And I’m sure that’s just fine with God.

If asked what denomination I am, my most common answer is: “Baptist… with a few Methodist tendencies.” It works for me. And, unless George Burns, Morgan Freeman or Alanis Morissette shows up on my doorstep, I’ll assume that it’s good. I haven’t received any phone calls, messages or stray lightning bolts from on high, either, so I’m taking that as a sign that it’s an acceptable way to go.

The conversation with Matt reminded me of something that Neil Peart had written for the programme for Rush’ 1992 Roll the Bones tour.

Be-bop or a one-drop or a hip-hop lite-pop-metalist.
Yep – no matter what kind of song you choose to play, you’re betting your life on it, for good or ill, and what you believe is what you are. So there. However you slice it, you’re taking a chance, and you might not be right. (Just this once.) No one can ever be sure, in this best of all possible random universes.

That’s why the essence of these songs is: if there’s a chance, you might as well take it. So what if some parts of life are a crap shoot? Get out there and shoot the crap. A random universe doesn’t have to be futile; we can change the odds, load the dice, and roll again.

And there’s no escaping the dice; even if you try to take the sting out of a random universe by embracing the prefab structure of Faith, you still have to gamble that it’s the right one. Say the secret word and you win a hundred dollars. For anyone who hasn’t seen Groucho Marx’s game show “You Bet Your Life,” I mean that no one but Groucho knows the secret word, and one guess is as good as another. You might have lived a good long life as an exemplary Christian, only to be met at the gates of heaven by Mohammed…

Anything can happen. That is called fate.

That comment, along with the lyrics from Totem, from the Test For Echo CD, summarize things for me rather well.

Namaste.