Random Access

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What’s in your ‘break today?

Tuesday : 04 October 05
I had to call my father this evening.

I had to continue my tradition of calling him when it snows here. Well, it fell on the mountains. *sigh* I really don’t mind Utah, for the most part, but I still just don’t grok this “snow before December” thing… let alone the fact that it isn’t even November yet. Hell, it isn’t even my birthday. Yet there’s snow. (The weather reminds me of this Two Lumps strip.)

As usual, Dad laughed when I told him about the snow. He also said that we were welcome to keep it here and not send any towards Baltimore. That, as usual, made me laugh.

and I stopped at one of the local Arctic Circles to grab a bite to eat tonight. Fast food should be simple. Tonight, the stars must have been out of alignment or something because I had a problem with my order that I don’t think I’ve ever encountered:

I am a rather finicky eater. *shrug* It’s something in the way I’m wired. We pulled up to the drive-thru and ordered the following for me: “Number 1 combo meal, with cheese, lettuce, tomato and bacon ONLY on the burger” (like I said: I’m finicky) along with an Oreo shake (which I just realized is still in the freezer). Really, that’s rather simple.

The person with the headset read back the order. It was fifty-leven different kids of wrong. So, repeated the order. Again, the cashier read it back incorrectly.*braincramp* Just for shits and giggles, she tried to place the order again.

No go, Flight.

So, we wound up going in. A cashier at the front counter had our ticket and was attempting to put the order in through his terminal when we walked up: “Oh, are you the people from the drive-thru?” No, smart boy, I’m Isaac, the bartender from The Love Boat! YES, we’re the people from the drive-thru! Moron. He called Aaron, one of the cooks, to the front. We placed the order. We apologized to Aaron for the trouble; he just looked at and pointed to the… (y’know, I don’t really know if the drive-up person was male or female. S/He had a very It’s Pat thing going on.) …drive-up person and rolled his eyes, as he walked back to the make line. When my order came out, it was just as I had originally – and repeatedly – ordered.

Aside from this little slice of life, it was a good day.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –
After a too-long hiatus, it was time to patrol the streets of Paragon City. I flew around Talos Island for a while before I remembered that I had a mission to complete on Striga Isle.

Veni, Vidi, Bolti.
“I came, I saw, I snapped off a few lightning bolts up their asses.”

I soloed the mission, without dying, and reported back to my contact. She tried to give me another mission, but it was a timed one… and I want some backup for that.

I headed back to Talos Island. I was flying around the bay when I saw a ferry. I thought that I’d see if I could just fly through it, on the car carrier level. I couldn’t. The ferry was the zone portal to Peregrine Island. I flew around for a few minutes. Nice place. WAY above my level. I basically pulled an Interplanet Janet and “…didn’t even stop to say hello.” But, I’ll go back there someday. Oh, yes… I will.

Stray Toasters

• A few days ago, I posted a question to , asking if any SLC area people knew of a good local computer store since LS Micro had closed shop. I got a few responses. Today, I decided to check Google Groups. Someone had a similar question a while back, it would seem.
• and , you get to share this.
• By way of comes more proof that I truly live in the Land Behind the Zion Curtain: G-word used in G-rated film.
  I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that this lady also uses popular Utahnics phrases such as:”Oh, my heck!” and/or “What the fetch (or ‘flip’)?!” to keep from saying naughty words. *sigh* (: I would love to start up a conversation with her the same way that I left that message on your voicemail a few weeks ago.)

• 15 Years in a Fridge
• Microsoft Invents a ‘Play-Once Only’ DVD
• Um… yeah. Alaska Airlines’ 737 decorated with van-art salmon
  I guess that they felt a bit inadequate compared to Southwest Airline’s Shamu One.

• …in an interesting sidenote to the above ‘Toaster: I was unaware that they had a “Maryland One,” but that makes me smile.
• , this one’s all yours: Winchester Mystery House tour-guide blogs off-limits rooms
• LTT illuminated bathtub
• What do you get when you mix (NOT “cross”) Darth Vader and Elmo? Something like this.
• and I are still amused by the whole “Kal-El Coppola Cage” thing.

Namaste.

<post-gym dance break>
     Sting and Cheb Mami – Desert Rose (Victor Calderone Mix)
</post-gym dance break>

What’s on your ‘break playlist today?

Monday : 03 October 05
Someone turned Utah’s thermostat down. Way down. And for those of us for whom anything under 80° is “cold,” it wasn’t fun. Add to that the fact that the sky couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to rain and you have the makings for a crappy day.

My day, however, was anything but crappy. In fact, it was pretty damned good. The work day sped along nicely. After work, Land came over for me to review his resume. The resume that he left at his office. So instead, he, and I sat around and chatted most of the evening away. And watched football. And moved the furniture (loveseat, chair and ottoman) from the… hm… I guess I’ll have to start calling it the “den” into the living room. They go well with the new paint job. I shudder to think just how atrocious it would have been had we stayed with the other shade of green.

Stray Toasters

• Cinnamon rolls and ice cream are tasty. Not as tasty as the Captain and Coke that I was going to have, but that just means that I will have more fine beverage available for morrownight’s game session. (MENTAL NOTE: Don’t forget to pick up some orange juice for Pirate’s Tea.)
• So what do you have to do to find happiness?
• Both my inner former postal worker and my inner anarchist find this amusing.
• Interview with Amy Crehore from The Drama Magazine
• I have (finally) updated the LJ card that I created for my “User Info” page. Well… maybe not “updated,” exactly. Using the MtG Editor that’s become so popular, I redid the card in that format. Here’s what it looks like now:
  My ever-cherubic little sister, , confirmed that the text was, in her words, “…all terribly suitable.” I enjoyed making that card, so I completely gave in to my inner geek and made a card for Indigo Bolt, too.

• I like this cover for JSA Classified #2. It’s simple and understated… yet it conveys a sense of the underlying emotion involved in the storyline.
• Target has season collections of various series on sale for $18.88 (USD). Click here to see what’s on the list. (Psst! , Two words: “Gilmore Girls.”)
• If you want the fruit to fall
  You have to give the tree a shake
  But if you shake the tree too hard,
  The bough is gonna break

  And if I can’t reach the top of the tree
  Mary you can hold me up there
  What I wouldn’t give to be
  When I was Mary’s prayer

• I think that I may have confounded my friend, Don, with the fact that I like Day By Day, as it is a comic with a conservative bent. *shrug* What can I say? Entertainment is entertainment, regardless of political lines.
• Yet another sterling example of Home Depot saving the day:

Quote of the Day

(13:03:41) : Hoi.
(13:03:42) : http://www.nbc5.com/entertainment/5050524/detail.html
(13:03:49) : See? EVERYONE wants to be a superhero.
(13:04:33) : oh. my. god.
(13:14:56) : damn. it’s not just Kal-El Cage, it’s Kal-el Coppola Cage.
(13:15:01) : Yeah.
(13:15:06) : No escaping that one.
(13:15:19) : That’s not a name. That’s a zone in a Nintendo Game.
(13:15:32) : “Mario! Don’t fall into the Kal-el Coppola Cage! Nooooooo!”

Namaste.

< rainy morning dance break>
     
</rainy morning dance break>

What’s in your dance break today?
(And , I ‘spect to see one from you, too.)

Sunday : 02 October 05
Today was a rather lazy day… which was just perfect for a weekend.

I slept in this morning. Way in. 11:00 in. And then I just laid in bed for another… thirty or forty minutes. Yeah, when I said “lazy,” I wasn’t kidding. I got up and came down to the HCC to watch some of the early games. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t what I was looking for. I lost interest and started to do some light cleaning. (Okay, so I wasn’t completely lazy…) A short while later, came over – we were going to watch the Ravens game together. (More football coverage to follow.) After the game, we had dinner at Mimi’s Cafe. It was a good meal, even though our waiter apparently did not hear me order an entree. Yeah.. all I wanted was a small salad. *blink blink* When he came around to see if we “had saved some room for dessert,” I told him that I was still awaiting my entree. He looked stunned. But, he hurried off to get the order in. I didn’t get upset; this kind of thing happens.

After dinner, I came back home and watched the late game while I tried to reduce some of the paper waste (old papers and magazines) from my office. After that, I watched Double Jeopardy with and Heather. It wasn’t a bad movie, despite a couple of plot holes.

Football

New York Jets at Baltimore
3 – 13
The Ravens looked like an honest-to-goodness NFL football team this week. The offense, led by Anthony Wright, moved the ball. The defense, led by Ray Lewis, held their ground against the Jets’ offense. And Matt Stover proved that he is still capable of putting the ball between the uprights.

vs. Sorry, , but I still can’t get behind this win for the Bengals. According to every sportscaster that I’ve heard this evening, the refs botched a call – a reviewed call, at that – that would have actually given the Texans a chance to tie, if not win, the game.

vs. Sweet Mother Mary… What got into the Bolts?! They went into Foxboro and whooped up on the Pats. 41 – 17. Damn, Gina!

vs. Donovan McNabb and the boys from the City of Brotherly Love came back from a 13 – 24 halftime deficit to beat the Chiefs – who have now lost back-to-back games at home – by a score of 37 – 31.

vs. What has become of the Niners?! They lost to… the Cards? The CARDS!? 14 – 31?!? I think that has to be another sign of the coming apocalypse.

Stray Toasters

• I have snacked on a cinnamon roll with tasty iced creams.
• PC World’s The 100 Best Products of 2005
  I find this amusing since there are still nearly three months left in 2005. Go figure.

• What do George Bush, hurricanes and Superman have in common?
• Duct Tape Band Aid – I have no joke for this. Yet.
• Broken Frontier’s review of Mirrormask.
• Boing Boing’s review of Mirrormask.
• My review of Mirrormask.
• , click here.
• While sitting at dinner, I recalled a fond memory involving my paternal grandmother. It was funny, in a nostalgic way, and nice.
• C is for Cookie! (That’s good enough for me.)
• Harvey Danger is releasing their new album – for free – online.
• For : Call of Cthulhu Available on DVD
  

  “The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is finally finished with the ultimate labor of mythos-love. The Call of Cthulhu is now available on DVD! For those not familiar with the long-awaited project, The Call of Cthulhu is a silent film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s famous literary masterpiece of the same name. It really looks like something that would have been shot in the 1920’s silent film era. I, for one, welcome our new multi-tentacled, aquatic, ancient overlord. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn.”

• George, George, George of the jungle
  Strong as he can be…
  Ahhh!
  Watch out for that tree!

• From Real Tech News: The Truth About Today’s Hybrid Cars: They Don’t Save Money
• 
  (He can go as a bullet, I think I’ll just stick with going as Mace Windu.)

Namaste.

Saturday : 01 October 05
First off, “Happy Birthday” to my fellow October LJers:

Today’s been pretty good, despite the fact that I kept waking up during the wee hours of the morning.

After spending the time getting the living room prepped and painted, I made a grand discovery this week: The color was horrible. Period. It looked bad. And I don’t mean “Bad” as in “good.” I mean “bad” as in “bad.” As in Huey Lewis and the News’ Sometimes Bad Is Bad. Yeah. Like that. If you’re familiar with the green color of an Andes chocolate mint candy, you have an idea of the shade I’m talking about. While that color’s great for confectionery, it’s not so keen for walls. It looked so promising on the paint sample card…

I went to Big Kids’ Toys ‘R’ Us… I mean, “Home Depot,” in search of something that would look better. I was in search of something a little more muted. I got a paint card with the old color on it and compared it to other cards in the green family. Unlike Bono and The Edge, I found what I was looking for. I took the paint card, got a can of base paint and took them to the counter to have an associate mix the color into it. A few minutes later, it was ready. I will admit that when I saw the final product, I was still a little leery – it still looked a bit light. But, I had taken the plunge, might as well see what was in store.

I came home, stirred the paint, got the roller and went to work. The difference was immediately apparent, even while the new coat of paint was still wet. It looked good. Very good. $5000 shopping spree in IKEA good. It was more in line with what I had expected the previous color would look like. I was so jazzed at the effect that I finished the bulk of the job in roughly an hour. I still need to do the corners and some edging, but by and large: It’s done. Selah.

A shower and change of clothes later, I was off to Red Lobster (not my choice, but I could deal with it) for dinner with , , Heather, Staci, Matt and Pat. I arrived first and put my name on the list for a table. “The wait will be about forty minutes.” *sigh* So, I sat… and waited. A short while later, I saw a couple of familiar – but unexpected faces: Monica and Brian. They told me that and Jen were on their way as well. We wound up commandeering another table and all sat together. It was a fun dinner… even if it was at Red Lobster.

Next on the agenda: Breakfast.

::: intermission :::

Breakfast was good, but again, there was a small turn-out.

Stray Toasters

• I actually remembered to tune into Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me this morning. And, as an added bonus, I even listened to A Prairie Home Companion while I was painting this afternoon.
• Once again, I neglected to tape Justice League Unlimited. I’m about this far from breaking down and getting a DVR receiver for DirecTV.
• From boingboing.net: Laundry: 416-page “How To” for clothes-washing fetishists
• Also from boingboing: Black bumwad
  I really don’t think that I could say anything more about this one.

• I was listening to Me Ol’ Bam-Boo while driving today. Damn and a half if it isn’t just a fun song to sing along with!
• From (with a nod to a quiz that Nyx shared with us):
  

• For some reason, Peter Gunn is running through my head. Not the original version. Not even the Art of Noise version. But, the midi version from the old Spy Hunter game.
• From the L.A. Times: This just in: Flops Caused Box Office Slump
• Vintage Skivvies: Archives

I’m tired. That’s plenty for now.

Namaste.

Friday : 30 September 05
Five in the “Out” box and we call that a week.

Today was another good day. A highlight of the day was going out to lunch – we (Eric, Nathan and I) went to Pho Hoa for Vietnamese noodle soup. We met some of Eric and Nathan’s former co-woerksI had Pho Chín, Nam, Ga`u, Gân, Vè Dòn (Noodle soup with brisket, flank, tendon, fatty, and crunchy flank [steak] ). It was very good.

Tonight’s Clitorati was small. Very small. Five people “small.” And, y’know what? That was fine; we had a great time. While we were out, I picked up the Mirrormask soundtrack!

This makes for a very happy Rob. I now know who the vocalist for Close to You is: Josefine Cronholm. She performed all eight of the vocal tracks on the song. And, naturally, that was the first song that I played when I got in.

Stray Toasters

• Adam called me tonight. He had a question about the new Battlestar Galactica. Fortunately, I had close at hand to consult for the answer.
• : I think that I have found something that needs to be added to “zigazig-AH’ and “sh’mo” : “sh-boogie bop.”
• Neiman-Marcus is offering the prototype M400 Skycar in its 2005 Christmas Catalog of Fantasy Gifts.
  The price? Only $3.5 million (USD).

• From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult”
• By way of Buzzscope: Neil Gaiman Called Me Fat
• Most of you are familiar with Wallace and Gromit of… well… Wallace & Gromit. But, did you know that Gromit was almost a cat?
• …and, while we’re on the subject of cats:
  

Quote of the Day

[22:36] : <sigh>
[22:36] : can i have a “What the fuck?!” brothers and sisters?!
[22:37] : Ni hao
[22:37] : What the fuck, reverend?!
[22:37] : Preach!
[22:37] : Preach!
[22:37] : AMEN thank you brother rob
[22:37] : jesus
[22:38] : ??
[22:38] : don’t people freaking stop to think before they talk
[22:38] : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9535204/
…
[22:38] : mind you
[22:38] : this is the same guy who wrote “book of virtues” and is also a confessed problem gambler
[22:38] : Yeah. Read that this morning.
[22:38] : i love hypocracy and stupidity all wrapped up into one
[22:40] : what i also don’t undersatnd
[22:40] : well…among the many things i don’t understand
[22:40] : this guy is obviously a republican
[22:40] : *nod*
[22:40] : mostly because repubs hate black people
[22:40] : and dems hate white people
[22:40] : so it’s easy to discern
[22:41] : so why don’t the dems just stop being weenies and asking for apologies and simply focus on this bullshit as the “other party”
[22:41] : the repubs do it all the time
[22:41] : screw apologies, mock them!
[22:41] : Can I quote you on that?
[22:42] : these are the moments i’m happy to be a registered independent. i hate everybody
[22:42] : Ditto.
[22:42] : hell why not, i’m a very wise person at times
[22:42] : usually when drunk
[22:42] : but not today
[22:42] : i just don’t get it
[22:42] : one dude says the country would be better off if strom thurmond won the presidency
[22:42] : and he’s still a senator
[22:42] : Apparently, neither does he.
[22:43] : robertson says 9-11 was god’s revenge, wants to kill foreign leaders, and so on
[22:43] : still has millions of followers
[22:43] : douchebags are now saying new orleans was demolished b/c of the 5 abortion clinics
[22:43] : again i ask
[22:43] : WHAT THE FUCK?!
…
[22:44] : i think my political x-rated dream is mccain telling the repubs to fuck themselves and declaring as an independent
[22:44] : taking bill bradley as his VP
[22:44] : and kicking ass
[22:44] : Hm. Interesting ticket.
[22:44] : ya. poor bill was probably the smartest guy out there
[22:44] : but the personality of a flea
[22:45] : if he made gore look animated, there’s a problem
[22:45] : heh
[22:46] : still praying for colin to get revenge for being trotted out by bush and run for prez
[22:46] : but i have little faith in the people of america to be smart enough to vote for him

And with that, I’m done.

Namaste.