Random Access

Paul (coworker) just came over and told and me that our corporate parent is doing some sort of “cultural awareness week” in September. Julie, one of the executive admins, is being tasked with getting ideas for things to do. Paul came to us to let us know that he’s going to send Julie to and me for ideas.

I asked Paul if he had ANY idea the kind of Hell we could wreak upon this place?

He simply nodded and smiled.

And when he heard some of our immediate ideas, he laughed. A lot.

I told him that giving us something like two months’ lead time is FAR too much time. Then I realized that giving us anything more than a week qualified as “too much time,” as well.

I also mentioned that I was thinking of changing my workstation’s wallpaper to this for that week:

I mentioned the same thing to , who suggested that I should consider using this instead:

EIther way, it’s win-win.

and I tried to ‘splain to Paul that we’re sure that our corporate robot overlords protectors were doing this with the best of intentions… but that they didn’t seem to account for those of us who like to push buttons and break things from the inside. He grinned knowingly and appreciatively at that, too.

Tuesday – 17 June 2008
I was awake before the alarm went off this morning. Which set me up to be nominally coherent when it did go off… enough to turn it off and roll over for Anotherloverholeinyahead another 20 minutes of sleep. I had an odd dream that involved me being back in middle or upper school. And getting to school. And snow. And living in Baltimore. Odd combination.

I was in the office at 8:00. Nice, as the office hasn’t really started to hum yet. I have a meeting today from 2:00 to 3:30, allegedly. At this point, I’m of the opinion that I’ll be taking Defiant into the meeting to find novel and creative ways of staying awake. Focused? Well, we’ll see how good the meeting is at holding my attention.

Stray Toasters

• What’s ‘fair use’ in a blog?
• ‘Teach the Controversy’ t-shirt designs

  
  (click image for more information)

• I may wind up re-lobotomizing ‘Nine. The current installation of XP seems… to have issues.
• By way of BBC News: 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
• Inventor of the Internet, Oscar winner and former Vice President Al Gore has thrown his weight support behind Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
• Building Your Perfect Wardrobe: Spring/Summer ’08
• After seeing LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman and Robin and LEGO Indiana Jones, I wouldn’t mind seeing a LEGO X-Men game. (And I won’t even mention that a LEGO Legion of Super-Heroes game would be an ‘automatic covet/buy…)

And, now, coffee cup in hand, it’s time to “…attack the day like birds of prey.”

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
This evening, I just… kind of… hung out. MarknTyme and I killed some time by beating on thugs in Paragon City. After that, I watched an episode of Justice League Unlimited, “The Great Brain Robbery,” which I had not seen all the way through before. It wasn’t a bad episode, but not one of the best, either.

Next, I watched… Superfriends. It was an episode called “Professor Goodfellow’s G.E.E.C.” (1, 2) Wow. After watching JLU, this was a complete gear-shift. And, it was SO dated. More than once, I heard someone say “Groovy.” And, as if that wasn’t enough, Superman actually told Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman to “Hang loose” at one point. *jawdrop* However, as weird as some of these things were, they didn’t take me aback as much as seeing a cameo from Plastic Man.

Having just bagged on Super Friends, I’m going to admit that the Boomerang commercial bump for That Time Is Now – a remix of the Super Friends theme – is pretty decent. Check it out:

And, it seems as though someone has done a mashup of this song using footage from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, instead:

Next, I watched the pilot for the new ABC Family series, The Middleman (1, 2), based on a series of graphic novels by the same name.

The show doesn’t take itself too seriously, in the same way Moonlighting did – but even more so, in some instances. It was…. quirky. And fun. Check out the Newsarama review of the pilot. I just realized something: The Middleman kind of reminds me of Men in Black… meets The Avengers. That’s the British series, not the comic book super-team. And subtract the aliens. The special effects weren’t necessarily ILM-grade, but somehow, they didn’t need to be. The writing was good. Since this was the pilot, the actors are still getting used to their characters’ voices, to some degree… and sometimes the extras’ acting was a little over the top. But, I have to say that I don’t think I’ve had as much fun watching a square-jawed, milk-drinking hero save the world in quite some time.

The pilot is available on iTunes as a free $1.99 download. Check it out. Sure there’s a good amount of suspension of disbelief (sometimes by the truckload), but that’s okay, it’s a fun ride.

Namaste.

The day has been pretty good. The highlight (at least so far) was heading to ‘s house with looneybin88 and JG to play a few games of Twilight Zone pinball at lunch. Other than that, it’s been a rather run-of-the-mill day in the neighborhood.
(…in the neighborhood…)
(…in the neigh-bor-hood.)

Not sure what trouble I plan on getting into this evening. Maybe a trip to Paragon City… or *gasp* even The Rogue Isles.

Stray Toasters

• 10 Awesome Shirts for Geeks
• From the world of golf: After 19 Extra Holes, Woods Captures His Third U.S. Open
• Stan Winston Dies
• By way of : Death of Spock Mash-up

• …which led me to: William Shatner or…

• Hulk vs. The Universe
• I’ve rediscovered Exiern



• How to improve your home wi-fi network
• was on a roll today: He told us about a video of a teenager kicking a cement wall… and the aftermath. As neither looneybin88 nor I had heard of this, let alone seen the video, he sent us a link to it. (Disclaimer: If you’re squeamish, you may just want to skip this one. Seriously.)

• Top Ten: Comics’ Bad Dads
• Wizard World Chicago…
• Wait… wait… wait. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2? And it may be a Civil Bore War storyline? Not sure how I feel about that.

Quotes of the Day
Today’s gems both came at lunchtime and qualify as “Unintentional Porn Overheard While Playing Pinball”

1. looneybin88 was on the machine… and doing quite well. He made a play that resulted in playing with three pinballs on the table. (You have no idea how many permutations that last sentence went through before I came up with something that wasn’t porn-tastic.) Someone commented on his making a good play and the rest of the conversation went down the proverbial chute:
   

   Me: Sun. Dog. Ass. (My usual ‘shorthand’ for “The sun shines on a dog’s ass, too…”)
   looneybin88: What can I say? I got skills!
   : You have skills… with a dog’s ass? I’m calling animal control.

   At that point, all three balls left the field of play as looneybin88 doubled-over, red-faced and laughing.

2. All of us had a horrible third game… except JG. When he was coming to the table to play his second ball, he looked at our scores and said:
   

   Huh, all I have to do is beat myself.

   The rest of us looked at each other… and broke out in raucous laughter. JG, to his credit, stoically kept playing.

And now, to find some trouble to get into.

Namaste.

Monday – 16 June 2008
Mondays, simply by virtue of being “Monday,” are wide open to being… odd. This morning was no exception:

While in a half-awake state, between exiting The Dreaming and entering The Waking World, I had a dream that featured Dick Van Dyke (as Bert the chimney sweep), singing Chim Chim Cher-ee, from Mary Poppins.

It was a childhood favorite movie (and song), so I don’t find that part too terribly weird.

The weirdness came as the song reached a chorus…
Bert opened his mouth…

…and instead of lyrics, out came the sound of my alarm.

“It’s so bizarre,” as Dr. Rosenblatt would say.
And it was rather amusing, as well.

Good morning.

Sunday: Coda
Back in the USSR Land Behind the Zion Curtain. I made it back in a little over six hours, including two stops. That’s not bad, considering that I was only a few (usually 3 -5) miles over the posted limit. I saw a prairie dog, just inside the Utah state line. I also saw one on the way to Colorado, but forgot about it until I saw the one this afternoon.

Jiggety-jig.

Sunday – 15 June 2008
Happy Father’s Day

This morning started lazily. SaraRules made sauteed spaghetti and coffee for breakfast. (By the way: Drew, I did get the recipe.) Rachel hung out through breakfast and then went out for a hike. Next up: Hygiene rituals and a spot of laundry.

I’ll be heading west again in a couple of hours. It has been a good (though brief) trip – it was nice to see SaraRules and some of the places that she has talked about for the past few weeks. I’m going to try and get back out here sometime next month, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

A couple of shots from the front porch of the condo:

(click for larger versions)

Stray Toasters

• Last night, we watched Across the Universe again. We’ve been trying to see this for a couple of months. I love the arrangements of the songs… and I had forgotten how much I liked the arrangement of Let It Be. And the visuals are great, as well. If you have somehow not seen this movie, I strongly recommend renting it. Soon.
• Congrats to and Team Chalk-o-Licious for winning “Best of Festival” at this year’s Chalk Art Festival.
• The Things That Carried Him – This is a story that I first heard about on RadioWest a few months ago. It tells the story of a U.S. soldier’s final journey – the journey home to be buried. It’s a pretty amazing story. Hearing the interview with the author, Chris Jones, made me look forward to getting that issue of Esquire.
• This American Hero Wins Machinima Contest
• By way of BBC News: The United States of Advertising
• What the iPhone 3G Is Still Missing
• I’m not going to get my entry for “Superman: Man of Style” done in time to submit it to Project: Rooftop… but I’m going to keep working on it. Because I can. And because it’s been pretty fun.
• William Katt: The Hero Guest Stars on Heroes

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

SaraRules and I headed into Aspen this afternoon.  We went to the Aspen Music Festival and School campus.  From there, it was into town to the Aspen Art Museum and to wander around; it reminded me a bit of Park City – a decent place to visit, but I don’t think I could live in either place. Next, we headed to the Aspen Music Festival concert grounds.  And then… back to Snowmass Village.  Jiggety-jig.

All that and pictures, too.

Stray Toasters

• Sock Monkey Named for Obama Criticized as Racist
• 3G iPhone coverage from…
  • Gizmodo
  • Engadget
• Shakespeare… in manga form: Much ado about manga.
• Sweet Christmas!

Zoom!

Saturday – 14 June 2008
It’s clear and sunny out; hopefully, it will be a little warmer than yesterday.

This day started with a good morning ping from , not a bad way to start the day. He pointed me in the direction of this article from John Scalzi’s Whatever blog. I don’t suppose that I should have read the NPR article, Obama’s VP Search: Avoiding Party’s Past Mistakes, because about the time I hit the third sentence in the section entitled “Handicapping the VP Short List,” I was done. “Gracious exit…!?” My ass. That exit was to “gracious” as Utah’s Black population is to the state total population. (Translation: “Not very.”)

Quick note for those of you in the SLC metro area: The Utah Foster Care Foundation Chalk Art Festival continues today. Go down and cheer on/vote for and Team Chalk-O-Licious. Here’s their work-in-progress:

(click for ‘s (quick) post about this piece)

SaraRules and I are going to head into Aspen in a little while. That should be fun and interesting.

Stray Toasters

• From NPR: Songs for Dad: Father’s Day Jazz
• Men in Black is still fun – and funny – movie.
• By way of Wired: Coolest Movie Metamorphoses – From Wolf-Man to Hulk
• USA Today has a poll asking how readers would feel about an Obama/Powell or McCain/Powell ticket.
• I skipped “Blog Like It’s the End of the World Day” – not for lack of ideas, I just couldn’t get into it.
• Worthplaying.com takes a look at LEGO Batman

Quote of the Day
“Football (soccer) is like chess, only without the dice.” – Lukas Podolski

Up out.

Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment wasn’t really hitting on anything today.
Instead, I returned to DNS & BIND. And by “return,” I mean “started reading anew.” It’s been a while.
That worked out better.

Even though I’ve never been to the Aspen area, I wasn’t inclined to go out gallivanting today… for two reasons:

1. SaraRules is at work… and, thus, not around to hang out
2. I was “on the clock” and had work to do. (I have a work ethic, sue me.)

Today’s reading locations have included:

• The dining room table… under the lamp of antlers.
• The window nook
• The front porch
• The back porch
• The kitchen counter

The view from the front porch isn’t awesome, but I wouldn’t mind catching a sunrise over it… if the sunrise wasn’t 5:41 AM. The back porch looks up the mountainside. It’s green and has a few trees. And, by the time I moved out there, it had the sun. Oh, the warm, joyous sun. (Not to be confused with the angry sun.) Aside from a butterfly, some birds and a few other assorted insects, I haven’t seen any of the local fauna.

Speaking of fauna: I saw some deer or antelope (hard to tell in traffic at 80 MPH) on the… dunes?… outside Green River yesterday. And, I saw my favorite not-sheep along Route 6, too.

Stray Toasters

• The local wireless connection doesn’t like iChat, it seems. Other programs do just fine, but iChat craps out at random. I’ll have to test it with City later.
• The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen starts today. Check out the ticket prices. Somehow, I think we’re going to skip this.
• “Unboop”
• I had iTunes on random and Rocket Man came on.
  Not Elton John.
  Nor Kate Bush.
  Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Interesting version. I checked All Music Guide and it seems as though it’s been on a LOT of albums/CDs.
• Robert Cray’s Smoking Gun is still a great song.
• So is Diamond in the Rough, by Shawn Colvin.
• Thanks to for making sure that I saw Classics in LEGO
  …which, in turn, led me to this…
  



• She bop -he bop – a we bop
  I bop -you bop – a-they bop
  Be bop – be bop – a-lu-bop,
  (I hope He will understand)
  She bop -he bop – a we bop
  I bop -you bop – a-they bop
  Be bop – be bop – a-lu-she bop

And that’s all for now.

13 June 2008
Greetings from Snowmass Village.

As it had been almost three weeks since I’d seen SaraRules, I decided that a trip was in order. I had originally planned on taking the train out here, but Amtrak apparently decided that this was the weekend to do track maintenance. So, no go. *blah* We looked at other methods of getting me here: Airplane. Bus. ICBM. We finally settled on me coming out next week. Okay, to say that “we” settled on it, isn’t exactly right. We said that it seemed as though it would be next week before I would be out here. In the back of my head, I was calculating the mileage and planning to just hop in the car and drive it. And that’s exactly what I did. Hello, surprise visit. The hard part, as usual, would be making sure that I – or anyone else who knew what I was planning – didn’t tip my hand.

Fortunately, as most of my work for the past few weeks has been training-related (i.e.: LOTS of reading) – and since books are rather portable – I was able to parlay that into working on the road. The drive out here was rather nice, despite a few construction zones in both Utah and Colorado.

I have driven through Colorado twice before – when I moved to Utah and again a couple of years ago – but, both of those trips were east-to-west. And, both of those trips were along I-70, so I’m… familiar… with the road. But, I noticed things heading eastbound that I hadn’t seen before. And, I also stopped in a different part of Grand Junction than usual.

Before last night, I had never seen more of Glenwood Springs than what you get from I-70. That’s a shame. The part of it that I drove through last night seemed nice… for a small town. And, from what SaraRules has told me, the cost of living here is still a little higher than SLC, but not quite as bad as in Aspen.

The drive into Snowmass Village wasn’t bad. Until I got “to” the condo complex where AMFS is lodging SaraRules for the summer. Apparently they don’t believe in putting street signs in locations where you can see them easily, especially at night. I drove right past the entrance. I continued all the way up to Snowmass Village Town Center, which I knew to be too far. *sigh* Turn around and drive back towards Aspen. Fortunately, I was able to see the sign for SaraRules’ complex this time. Turned in, found the building, parked.

The look of surprise on SaraRules’ face – a combination of “I’m glad to see you” and “What are YOU… doing HERE… NOW?!” – was worth the drive. We unpacked the car and I got to relax. I also met her roommate, Rachel. The condo itself is nice: 2BR/2BA, nice kitchen and living/dining areas. It’s roughly the size of my apartment, maybe a little bigger. And one of the owners has a thing for bears. Pictures. Figures. I am almost at the point of wondering if she’s a shaman and it’s her spirit guide.

Today’s biggest hurdle was getting Defiant (in Windows mode) to recognize that there really was a wireless connection, so I could connect to work’s network and do some morning housekeeping. In OSX mode, it found it immediately. A few button-pushes later and I was in like Flynn.

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with MarknTyme a little while ago; there have apparently been a couple of teen phone pr0n incidents in his school system.
• 3 Smart Things About Music
• The Onion has news about the new WoW sequel: World of World of Warcraft
• Adoption system seen failing kids from minorities
• A question to those of you who use laptop/notebook computers: If/when you connect to a secondary monitor, how do you configure your setup? For example, I use Defiant‘s monitor as my primary monitor, whereas uses his laptop’s screen as his secondary. What do you do?
• Egypt bans 92-year-old’s marriage
• 
• I still have no idea who I want to use in next weekend’s ‘Clix tourney… although I still think that Phoenix would be fun as a power piece.



• Celtics stun Lakers to move to brink of title
• Leonardo DiCaprio as Captain America…? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be upset if they went with an unknown here, to be honest.
• Internet addiction nominated for entry in the Manual of Mental Disorders
• Hmm, maybe Gary Gygax was “a little” older than he let on…
• For :

Two cups of coffee into the game, I can make like Tom Sawyer and get “…right on to the friction of the day.”

Namaste.

Derek read the article in my earlier post about teens sending naked pics of themselves via their cellphones and had this to say:

(3:07) cell phone porn…. wtf did you expect people
(3:07) the phone has a camera on it
(3:07) not to mention the internet

(3:09) and if the kids were smart, they would do it on their nintendo wii, because they only need 1 hand to operate that 🙂

I don’t think that there’s anything that I could even attempt to add to that… other than to say “Quote of the Day.”

Happy Hatching Day to:

…and…

Today’s workout was good; it was a rehash of Tuesday’s routine, with a change in some of the weights:

• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps – 1 set each at: 225 lbs, 205 lbs and 185 lbs
• Flys (Nautilus, high-to-low): 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Bent-over Rows (barbell): 3 sets/12 reps – 1 set @ 95 lbs, 2 sets at 105 lbs
• Bench Dips: 3 sets/15 reps with 45 lb plate
• Lateral Raises (with forward extensions x3): 3 sets/4 reps, 12 lbs
• Push-ups: 1 set/10 reps

Pre-workout weight: 174.6 lbs.

Hopefully, I won’t be as sore on tomorrow or Saturday as I was yesterday and earlier today.

I also noticed something today that was rather geeky/amusing: When I was working up to my 300-pound bench press, I would internally emphasize that moving the weight was a matter of willpower. Which, all things considered, it is: Push the body, push the weight. “Mind over matter.” Pretty basic. It’s still in the back of my head when I’m working out, more often than not.

Today, I noticed something else: I was reciting the Green Lantern oath (the second one, “In brightest day…”) in my head as I was doing some of the exercises… especially the ones that “hurt” or that I didn’t want to do. To be honest, the cadence of the oath even fit the pace of the exercises. And GLs are all about willpower… so, it fit.

Geeky, yes.
But that’s just the way I’m wired, I guess.

Thursday – 12 June 2008
So far the day goes well. That’s always a good thing.

<< Rewind <<
Last night, I was unbelievably lazy. I’d planned to do some straightening around the apartment. Nope. Didn’t happen. I think that the closest I came was putting the Sentinel in the case behind Phoenix… and then deciding that I liked the way Phoenix looked alone on the shelf better.

I did play City of Heroes, though. Not only did I play, I tacked two-and-a-half levels onto Kurigari. I hooked up with a good team and we ran through a few missions in The Hollows. It’s still a crappy zone for ground-pounders, but at least I’m less than two levels away from Superspeed. (Hover and Flight just don’t fit this character, so I’m not using them.)

I also watched Justice League Unlimited and ST: DS9, along with a couple of episodes of L&O: SVU. Decent episodes of each show: “Chaos at Earth’s Core,” “Emissary, Part II” and… I don’t remember which SVU episodes.

One thing that’s not a win: I’m remembering why I don’t watch G4’s Attack of the Show with any regularity. I keep comparing it – unfavorably – to The Screen Savers. TSS was a good show, you got tech news and info… with a little levity thrown in on the side. But the humour was smart and witty. AotS… just seems to go for the quick/cheap laugh or thrill and throw in something technical for fun or as an afterthought. Or maybe I’m no longer part of their core demographic.

> Play >
Coffee is a wonderful thing.
Coffee cake would be a nice addition… but I don’t have any.

Stray Toasters

• I have a doughnut. It’s not coffee cake, but beggars should not choosers be.
• Dinosaur
• By way of Indexed:



• Thanks to for pointing out Religulous. I’m interested in seeing this.
• Teens sending nekkid pics of themselves on cell phones! Oh, my! We never saw this coming, did we? Not in a million years. Apparently, Utah news sources are jumping on the bandwagon. Let’s hope that this doesn’t go over the same way as “the emo epidemic” did.
• …of course, then there’s this: Health group denounces Incredible Hulk for smoking
  Because, Heaven knows that kids would never see anyone smoking out on the street or anywhere else in everyday life. Flaming idiotsticks.
• 
• I’m spoiled. I had to change out a workstation’s power supply… with a manual screwdriver rather than a drill/driver.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Man in court over comedy TV show
• Trial halted over judge’s website

The show must go on.

Namaste.