Tuesday – 11 September 2007
Six years ago
Four planes were used as weapons
Two towers fell
One nation was brought low by a previously unthinkable act.
Click here for previous posts and thoughts about the day.
Namaste.
Monday: Coda
The Ravens lost to the Bengals.
Okay. There. I said it. And with that, I’d like to offer a hearty “congratulations” to
It was a “good” loss, though… despite some craptacular calls in the first quarter. And that’s not just my opinion:
I don’t know who was suited up in the first quarter, but I don’t think that they were pro players. They couldn’t have been, given some of the mistakes they made. Both Nox and I were flummoxed by some of the blatant errors. Fortunately, the Ravens seemed to find their key players in the second quarter.
I’m going to armchair QB for a moment and say that I disagree with Brian Billick’s decision to keep Steve McNair in the game as long as he did… and then throw Kyle Boller in, with about five minutes to go, to try and pull it out. To his credit, Boller did a good job. He was shaky for about two plays and then settled in…
…but it was a bit late at that point. Granted, he engineered a good drive and some nice plays, but at the end, he was still “too fresh” on the field and fired a rocket shot at TE Todd Heap – at short range – that just bounced off Heap’s hands.
Oh, well. It’s the first game of the season. There are still 15 more to play.
Nox and I watched the game at Fiddler’s Elbow. Decent food. Good service. And, a decent crowd. Not too rowdy. Non-smoking. And just all-round “good.” Along with Guiness (on tap, no less) I tried their Cajun Chicken Sandwich. It was rather tasty. I tried their buffalo wings and barbecue wings, as an appetizer. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t quite as good as the ones at Moab Brewery.
Stray Toasters
And now, to find some trouble to get into.
Or maybe I’ll just watch a movie.
Namaste.
Monday – 10 September 2007
New day. New week. Same old same.
After I (finally) managed to nod off this morning, I slept pretty well. I woke up, however, with a slight twinge in my left knee. Haven’t felt that in a while, but I didn’t think too much about it. As I was getting ready for work, I decided that wearing my knee brace might not be a bad idea, just for a little extra support and whatnot.
Too bad I couldn’t find it.
I believe that it is a “casualty” of the Great Closet Migration. I thought I remembered where I placed it in the chaos. I was mistaken. At least the ache hasn’t been bad and it’s far from debilitating, so I’ll hunt the brace this evening or sometime this week.
The commute wasn’t bad, but there were a few slow-on-the-uptake monkeys. The soundtrack of the drive-time commute was my Crüxshadows playlist. I have had echoes of Heart on My Sleeve running through my head this morning.
Football Update
Ravens. Bengals. Tonight. 7PM Eastern.
I think that I will, once again, watch the game at Fiddler’s Elbow. Anyone up for Guinness on tap and some football? Hit me up and let me know.
Stray Toasters
Quotes of the Day
Namaste.
Sunday: Coda
Today was a good day.
Post-errand running and spending time at the driving range, I acquired a cup of frozen mocha goodness, picked up Sara and headed to the Hogle Zoo.
Click for pictures (and they’re great-huge, sorry to those of you on dial-up).
The weather was perfect: Sunny with a light breeze. After seeing the animals (and some prime people-watching), we headed up Emigration Canyon to see if the foliage had started to change. It had… but not much.
From there, it was back down to Parley’s Canyon… and on to Park City. For ice cream. Look, if Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed could go to Texarkana for beer, we could go to Park City for ice cream. And we did. So there.
Westbound and down to SLC for dinner (and a little football) with Sara’s family. I met her brothers a few years ago – and, in a case of “small world gets even smaller,” I discovered/realized that one of them is a DJ at one of the local clubs – but hadn’t met her parents. Dinner was good. Football was football… but the game I’m concerned about is the Monday night game: The Ravens vs. Cincy. (That’s right, Ms.
Then, home to load up on orange juice and Sudafed. Again. And work on the pics from the day.
Copy this list. Leave in the bands you’ve seen perform live. Delete the ones you haven’t and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list. Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list. Three asterisks etc…
- Nine Inch Nails*****
- Aerosmith
- Babyface
- Barenaked Ladies
- Ben Folds Five
- Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
- Boyz II Men
- Cake
- The Cruxshadows
- David Bowie
- emmet swimming
- India.Arie
- Information Society
- Jonni Lightfoot (pre-Air Supply)
- Luscious Jackson
- New Edition
- Poe
- Preservation Hall Jazz Band
- Rockapella
- Rush
- Sister Hazel
- Shawn Colvin
- Squirrel Nut Zippers
- Sting
- The Who
Stray Toasters
And, that’s a wrap.
Namaste.
Sunday – 09 September 2007
I slept rather well last night, getting to bed somewhere around 3:00 AM.
I was up at 10 ’til 8:00.
Even better: I didn’t need to be up until 8:45.
*grblsnrkx*
I laid there/semi-dozed for the next hour. I finally dragged myself out of bed and prepared to run a few errands. The errand-running was uneventful, but productive.
On the way home, I treated myself to a large bucket of balls at Murray Parkway. Today’s results were… mixed, leaning towards poor. I had a few good drives, but nothing really consistent. About 2/3 of the way through the bucket, a gentleman from a couple of tees over approached me and gave me a suggestion about my grip. I adjusted and there was a noticeable difference. He also asked if I ever made it to Golf in the Round; I told him that I had been there before. He suggested that I talk with the golf pro there – he said that the pro had helped him more in 30 minutes of instruction than anyone else had in his 30+ years of playing golf. Might be worth a shot.
Stray Toasters
I should probably do something along the lines of getting ready for the rest of the day.
Namaste.
Saturday: Coda
I played a couple of hours of CoH this afternoon. As soon as I logged in, I was invited to join a team. Caught me a little off-guard, as I didn’t recognize the person who had asked me to join. Clarity came a few minutes later. And then it was off to adventure.
The Hand of Nefer-Tem is now at Security Level 35. And, with the new level came a new power. I decided to go for Dark Extraction, which basically allows me to extract the (waning) life essence from a defeated enemy, infuse it with energy and turn it into a “pet,” of sorts… kind of like Sparky was for Indigo Bolt.
I was feeling run-down, thanks to this lovely cold, so I decided to leave Paragon City and head to Arkham. I read a bit of Black Seas of Infinity, while chugging yet more orange juice. Reading soon gave way to sleep – I took a two-hour nap (a two-hour naaaaaap!). I felt a bit better, post-nap.
Then, it was on to breakfast.
Stray Toasters
Quote of the Day
While talking about travel, we wound up discussing the need to remove one’s shoes at airport security. This led into the best types of shoes to wear and wearing socks. This, in turn, led to talking about removing one’s shoes at various airports. On the subject of McCarran International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas:
: “There’s syphilis on the floor! C’mon… Drippy hookers!”
Namaste.
Official: Jim Shooter returns to DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes
Thought you might want to know.
Saturday – 08 September 2007
First off, Happy Hatching Day to Sib-4,
Last night’s Clitorati was good. Sara, in town for the weekend, put in a special surprise guest appearance. The conversations were good, but the people-watching was a little lax.
This morning, Perry called to see if I wanted to get together for coffee. Not one to pass up early morning caffeination, I said that I’d be along shortly. I rolled out of bed, came in to check my email….. and the power went off.
*blink blink* Oooookay.
I checked the breakers, they were fine. But still, no power. So I called the power company. No reports of problems in the area, but they could send someone to check it out. The agent also suggested that I check with the apartment management or maintenance. I hadn’t thought of that angle; that’s what I did. I finished getting ready and rolled out. The ladies in the front office said that others had reported outages, throughout the morning, but that they weren’t long-lasting. I asked to have someone from maintenance check, just in case I had missed something.
Coffee with Kate, Perry and the kids was good. After I had thinned the blood in my caffeinestream, they invited me to go with them to Gardner Village. I have been “to” Gardner Village before, but that was usually on Sunday bike rides along the Jordan River Parkway; and the shops are closed on Sundays. It’s a quaint little shopping… village with a couple of restaurants. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours.
When I got home, the power was back on. I have seen no notifications from Rocky Mountain Power nor from maintenance as to the nature of the problem, though.
And with that: Electricity, Electricity!
Enjoy!
Stray Toasters
I believe that a trip to Paragon City is in order.
Namaste.
Friday – 07 September 2007
It’s Friday.
On a short work week.
What say we just bang this thing out and get on to the good stuff? Namely, the weekend.
Up out.
Thursday: Coda
Post-work, I came home, took care of a few errands and headed to Jitterbug to have coffee – and a light dinner – with
After that, I came home to face a project – rearranging a couple of my closets – that I left undone last night. Well… “half-done,” I guess. Either way, there was a good bit left to do. It’s still going to take a bit of tweaking, but I’m happy with the preliminary results.
Chew on This: Food for Thought
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you come across something – or several things – that offer(s) up a glimpse at how good things are.
I had posted the following as a Toaster a couple nights ago…
I believe in what I see
I believe in what I hear
I believe that what I’m feeling
Changes how the world appears
…and didn’t realize that how fortuitous it was.
Tonight, while going through one of the closets, I found a few things that I had forgotten about. And they made me smile. Every last one of ’em.
Stray Toasters
Namaste.
Thursday – 06 September 2007
Another NBN Thursday is well under way.
Even with last evening’s nap, I slept well last night… despite some rather unusual dreams that included an inordinate number of spiders. Large spiders. And none of them were named “Peter,” “Jessica” or “Julia,” either.
I got back from the gym a little while ago. Eric had another go at benching 300 pounds; it just wasn’t there – he got it off his chest to the point where his upper arms were parallel to the floor, but couldn’t pass that threshold. I gave him a bit of assistance to get past that point. He was able to push a little more, but the bar started sagging. I helped him finish the lift and re-rack the bar.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try 300 again. I got on the bench and had Eric assist on the lift-off from the pegs. I brought it down fairly well, got it to and off of my chest and…. stalled a bit at the same point Eric did. He gave a little assistance (two fingers, just enough to keep the upward momentum going) and, with that, I was able to extend through the threshold and finish the lift.
But, I can’t claim the weight. Yet. I should have it within the next week or two, though.
The rest of the workout was good. We’ve been adding pull-ups/chin-ups to the routine. We start with unassisted sets and then finish out with some machine-assisted ones. When we started, I could do one set of ten unassisted pull/chin-ups and two sets of assisted. I’m up to two unassisted sets… and sometimes, I can make it 2½ unassisted sets.
Stray Toasters
Just one, so far… but it’s a doozy.
Someone in the office upstairs, Mentoring of America, has been parking his chopper in the lobby of our building.
Yes, we have a parking lot.
Yes, there are plenty of places to park.
Apparently, the guy is just a dink and his bike just can’t be rained on.
So, this afternoon, Coworker Matt (not Dwim)… which is kind of like Was (not Was), if you think about it… decided to have a little fun: He put a box and some entry forms out there, next to the bike. The entry form reads:
Enter To Win!!!
We’re giving away a CUSTOM West Coast Chopper
Enter Below And You May* Be Our Lucky Winner
Name:____________________________
Email Address: ____________________________
Why Motorcycles Shouldn’t Be Parked Inside: ____________________________
*Employess of Mentoring of America NOT eligible. Odds of winning are 0/100000000 since we don’t own the bike. However, raffle will continue until bike is removed.
The beauty of this is that people have been filling out forms and stuffing them in the box. Including people from Mentoring of America. In fact, one of them filled out an entry while I was out there. Classic.
I put an entry in. My reason for Why motorcycles shouldn’t be parked inside:
Motorcycles are free-range creatures. They weren’t meant to be cooped-up inside office lobbies. FREE THE BIKES!
Namaste.
Wednesday: Coda
I drove home from work with grand designs of taking a nap. After a restless night’s sleep, it seemed like a good way to go. I even planned it out so that I would start dinner (baked chicken breasts) and doze while they cooked.
Naturally, when I got home, I remembered a couple of things that I wanted to accomplish this evening and thus… pushed dinner and my nap onto the back-burner.
About an hour later than I had planned, dinner was under way and I prepared myself to visit Morpheus and the other denizens of The Dreaming. I was apparently more wiped-out than I had thought: My planned 30-minute nap stretched into an hour. I did wake up and turn off the chicken, but I stretched out on the couch again afterwards. When I roused myself, it was time to eat: chicken breasts, angel hair pasta and what would have been “stir-fry vegetables,” had I not put them in the oven alongside the chicken… and a glass of Gewürztraminer.
Four Color Coverage
There is an article on Broken Frontier about the 50th issue of (the current run of) Teen Titans. In it, it mentions how a number of writers and artists collaborated on the issue and how long-time fans would appreciate the four pages of work by George Perez, who pencilled the Titans’ adventures for many years in the 80s. In fact, many would say that he was the definitive Titans artist.
That got me thinking: Who are my “definitive” artists for given books? Whose style stands out when you picture a given title?
For me, the list includes:
I’m a little torn about the Legion: I grew up with Keith Giffen’s art, but I really liked Barry Kitson’s Threeboot run.
I’m sure that if I were to go through my collection, I’d come up with dozens more artists, but for now, this is a good start.
For those of you who read comics, who are some of your definitives?
Stray Toasters
(Yes, I did hear about Friday’s “Batman got beat up by a girl” conversation. Many thanks to
And that’s a wrap.
Namaste.
Tuesday: Coda / Wednesday – 05 September 2007
The post-work day has been… a bit… interesting.
I went to dinner with
The mayhem came in the form of a blown transformer that took out power on 33rd South from just shy of 7th East almost all the way to State Street. So… dark restaurant. No food. Yay! We regrouped at one of the local Lone Star Restaurants. I haven’t eaten in a Lone Star in a couple of years – something about my aversion to what
From there,
Four-Color Coverage: Animated Edition
I borrowed the new Doctor Strange DVD (IMDb page) from Perry the other day. The good doctor has never been one of my A-list favorites, but I haven’t turned a title or story down just because he’s in it. I know the basics of his back story and that he’s Marvel’s Sorceror Supreme (read: “He’s the Grand Poobah of Magical Mojo in the Marvel Universe”). He’s been a part of the latest incarnation of The New Avengers, The Defenders… and he’s also part of Marvel’s Illuminati.
With that knowledge in mind, I sat down to watch the new release from Lionsgate and Marvel Entertainment.
The Stephen Strange to whom viewers are introduced is a brilliant neurosurgeon… who just happens to be aloof, arrogant and an all-around ass, quite frankly. He doesn’t have time to be “bothered” with things that aren’t going to bring a healthy fee and/or notoriety. He’s the walking epitome of hubris.Soon, he has a horrible automobile accident and loses the fine motor control of his hands, spelling the end to his career as a surgeon. From there, viewers see his descent into a broken man with no hope.
Enter: Wong, a disciple of a mystic known only as “The Ancient One.” With him, Wong brings the promise of healing for the former doctor. And hope.
And, from that point, the journey of Doctor Strange begins.
I have to admit that I was rather impressed. This movie, though given a PG-13 rating, wasn’t dumbed down. It was well-written, well-voiced and (with a couple of brief exceptions) well-animated. With the exception of young children, I’d say that this feature is something that the entire family could enjoy.
Stray Toasters
It’s early and I have to get up later.
Namaste.
Mid-day Toasters
We’ll call it a “work in progress,” but I’m shooting for 215 to be my base bench press weight.
Back to it.
Namaste.