Random Access

Wednesday – 10 June 2009
Today is my kid sister, Kristen’s, birthday:

Last night, Chris called me. We had talked about getting together for a ‘Clix game, but neither of us could remember what day/date we’d agreed on. So… we played last night. I took a couple of boxes of figures to choose from; I wound up using:

• Apocalypse (with Fortitude and Trick Shot)
• Fantomex (with Outsmart)
• Scandal Savage and
• The Joker

Chris, wanting to use his custom “Lamppost Batman” figure, basically built his old tournament team (Flash and Green Lantern)… and brought his custom KC Superman (with Fortitude), to round out the points. He also picked “The Prison,” a map that I don’t like playing on (read: “Hate”).

Then it was game on. I maneuvered Scandal and Apocalypse into position and waited for Chris to move in. He did and put Batman in jeopardy:

1. He didn’t count how far away he was from Apocalypse
2. He forgot that Apocalypse had Trick Shot – which ignores characters, terrain and (most importantly) stealth.

Batman took a quick 5 clicks of damage. I managed not to grin like a fiend; Chris was not grinning at all. There was a lot of jockeying back and forth, and I was able to remove Batman from the game shortly thereafter. I even did some decent damage to Green Arrow and The Flash before Superman came in and saved the day pummeled Apocalypse (and the rest of the team) to death.

I wound up losing, but… I learned that Trick Shot is a good Feat card (Must get more…) for characters other than archers – I will have to try it on Storm… or Professor Xavier.

Stray Toasters

• I found out why Wordbook “wasn’t working” until last night: My host allows users to choose whether they use PHP 4.x or 5.0 and my account was still set at 4.4.7. After I switched it to 5.0, things worked according to plan… or so it seemed.  *grblsnrkx*
• The Ogden Arts Festival is coming up this weekend.
• Shockpuppet sent me a link to 60 Marvelous Superhero Wallpapers
• I just introduced Sean to The Best Page in the Universe and The Alphabet of Manliness.
• NTSB: Pilots ill-trained for water landings
• By way of NPR:
  • Get to Know: The Cole Porter Songbook
  • Vivaldi: A Man for All Seasons
  • From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: $1 Million Hidden in Mattress Gets Thrown Out with the Trash
• 
• Also from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Cop Tasers 72-Year-Old Granny
• Eddie Bauer may be heading into bankruptcy court
• Do we really need a remake of this?
• Bland New Day

And, it’s Sushi and Comics Day.

Namaste.

Sunday – 31 May 2009
Yesterday, SaraRules and I decided to visit the International Peace Gardens. We were concerned about the weather, it looked as though it might pour down rain before – or while – we were there. Fortunately, it didn’t. We were there for about an hour (give or take); I came away with over 200 pictures, but narrowed it down to roughly 160. Pictures of our excursion can be seen here.

Last night, we went to Arbavanel Hall to hear Bernstein’s MASS (1, 2, 3), which also served as Keith Lockhart’s final performance as Music Director and conductor of Utah Symphony. It was an amazing performance. There were roughly 200 performers on-stage – musicians, singers, dancers. It was an epic production; Mr. Lockhart chose well for his final work. The piece followed a Catholic Mass, over the course of which both the congregation and the celebrant come to question their faith. There are some themes that might prove disturbing to some, but as a whole, it is a great work of art.

Stray Toasters

• I used to get Hess toy trucks when I was younger. I didn’t realize that they would become collector’s items.
• NFL announces 2009 AFL ‘Legacy Games’
• 
• Cuba, U.S. to resume talks on migration
• Planet of the Apes (1968) is on Retroplex. Monkeys!
• Undercover at Liberty University
• Canadian cinema fined $10,000 for privacy invasion over bag-search
• 
• Obama meets pre-election pledge: taking Michelle to Broadway
• Homeless people and the Internet
• Dwayne McDuffie fired from Justice League
• Scientists can grow stem cells in a petri dish

Namaste.

Thursday – 07 May 2009
Happy Anniversary to Adam and Chelsea:

After work yesterday, SaraRules and I met Bill Byrnes – Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts at SUU – for dinner. We went to Desert Edge at Trolley Squre. I had a rather tasty roast beef/French Dip sandwich, that had a little “kick” to it. Both the food and the company were good.

After dinner, we stopped in to say “H’llo” to SaraRules’ parents before heading home. Once at home, we watched The Dark Knight. It’s still a rather watchable – and enjoyable – movie. I still have some reservations about whether or not Harvey Dent/Two-Face is actually supposed to be dead (or just very broken) at the end of the movie.  Yes, there was a memorial… but they never showed a body or even a casket. Just sayin’.  (And, after all, it is based on a comic book – people in those come back from the dead all the time.) And, as I have said before: The late Heath Ledger provided the right Joker for that Batman.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules made brownies last night.
• NASA mission aims to revive Hubble telescope
• The Awesomer – Awesome Stuff
• Pullman Porters Helped Build Black Middle Class
• Duke Nukem Developer Shuts Down
• 
• Best worst Star Trek parodies
• The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite
• FDA is failing to meet its food safety inspection audit goals
• 100 Years, 100 Novels, One List

And, tonight: Star Trek.
Win!

Namaste.

Monday – 04 May 2009
I slept in this morning. I was surprised to find out by how much I slept in, actually. But, it both felt good and I apparently needed the rest.

As I noted yesterday, we – and a few of the usual suspects – saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was a good summer popcorn movie. Yes, they played a little fast and loose with some continuity, but not so much that it was disturbing to me; I found it a nice blend of comic continutity with (some of) the previously established continuity of the first two X-Men movies. I give it a definite thumbs up with an okay.

We then headed over to SaraRules’ parents’ for dinner and the start of a movie. Dinner was a very tasty beef stew; the movie was Catalina Caper. More specifically: The Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Catalina Caper. While I realize that virtually any movie that wound up on MST3K was “bad,” this movie set the bar to an all-time… low, I guess. The most entertaining thing about the twenty or thirty minutes that we made it through was Little Richard, and he wasn’t even “all there,” it seemed.

Back home for a rather lazy evening: I played a little City of Heroes and worked on some props for my Heroclix City; SaraRules did some reading.

Stray Toasters

• Art student’s car vanishing act
• Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41
  ::: adds to The Covet List :::
• LEGO Torture Scenes Protest Media Censorship
• 
• Photoshop Contest: Cartoon Ren 3
• NASA to begin layoffs as shuttle retirement nears
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” files: Warner Music to Warner Music: You are pirates!
• Free Range Kids author says: Raise kids without fear!
• Photos of food and their sugar cube equivalent
• Five years (FIVE YEARS!) after the “wardrobe malfunction” incident, it seems as though CBS is still under the gun and may still be fined for it.

And, as I’m taking the day off, there’s nothing officially on tap. I like that.

Namaste.

Friday – 01 May 2009
It’s May Day, but more importantly (to me, at least) it’s my friend’s birthday.

Happy Hatching Day, Bret.

Last night, SaraRules and I had dinner at the local Olive Garden. We both had the Chicken & Gnocci Veronese; we also both had the same opinion of it: It was good, but the dumplings left a little something to be desired. They felt/tasted “too doughy,” as though another few minutes of cooking would have firmed them up just a little more. Otherwise, dinner was good. Our waitress, Kyrsten, was good and rather attentive, which is always a plus.

We came home and had a laid-back evening, including reading this week’s comic book haul and watching CSI: and a good portion of Hellboy. I also built a bus, from the Bits of Mayhem set, for my city. We also watched The Late Show (Dave’s laryngitis was much better) and The Late Late Show, on which Craig’s monologue included an amusing bit about Olive Garden.

This morning has been quite lazy. Despite turning off my alarms, I was awake at 7:08 this morning. Fortunately, I was able to turn over and fall asleep again. After all, getting up that early is no way to kick off a long weekend, now is it? I’m not sure what’s on tap for the rest of the morning and afternoon, but I’m good with the idea of just being lazy.

Four-Color Coverage
This week’s haul was a bit of a mixed bag. But, by the numbers, the “good” outweighed the “bad,” fortunately.

• Green Lantern #40 – This was another “Prelude to Blackest Night” issue. We start with a look at Yrra Cynril, the Star Sapphire formerly known as the Green Lantern-killer, Fatality. From there, we move to Oa and witness the creation of the Fourth Law of the Book of Oa. And that leads to a run-in with the Orange Lanterns.
• Justice Society of America # 26 – This issue was a great example of what the JSA stands for: Family and legacies. We get to see this, in a unique way, through the vantage point of Stargirl. Though she’s one of the younger members of the team, we see the affect she’s had on her peers – older and younger.
• Uncanny X-Men #509 – Just when it looked like things were going (relatively) well for the X-Men and they were settling into their home in San Francisco, it seems as though someone wants to pass (yet another) new legislation limiting mutants’ rights. On top of all of this, Madelyne Pryor’s master plan is brought to light… and, she decides to pay the X-Men a visit.
• Wonder Woman # 31 – Former head of the Queen’s Guard, Alkyone, made a deal with [SPOILER DELETED]. Achilles paid a visit to the United Nations. Diana got a visit from [SPOILER DELETED] and learned a few interesting facts about Genocide’s origins. None of these came under the heading of “good things.”

…and, last, but far from least…

• Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #4 – I have been enjoying this series and will be sad to see it end. This issue bounced between the 21st and 31st Centuries… and the end of time. [SPOILER DELETED] is back and Superboy-Prime is not happy to see him; nor is he thrilled about seeing Sodam Yat, for that matter. The Time Trapper makes his move. Starman’s mission in the 21st Century is revealed. [SPOILER DELETED] joins the fight. And, in one of the best origin revisions I think that I’ve ever read, the true identity of [SPOILER DELETED] is revealed.

Stray Toasters

• I’ve been given the green light to post a link to robandsara.org
• Daily LEGO: Exterminate!
• Someone has created a papercraft Defiant…
• ArtWerk’s map of his “beloved Europe

  

• sent me the following: IKEA lover or hater? You’ll know soon enough
• Apple not paying iPhone developers, reports of lawsuits brewing
• Have you ever wondered “What if Cthulhu was a furniture-maker?” Wonder no more.
• The Mind-blowing World of Human Chimeras
• Can’t get enough of William Shatner? Shatnerquake might be up your alley.

Quote of the Day
From this week’s issue of Legion of 3 Worlds:

Brainiac 5 (Legion 1): Have you ever read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?
Brainiac 5 (Threeboot Legion): Frankenstein? That book is for children.
Brainiac 5 (Zero Hour Legion): And incomplete. I followed it step-by-step with little success.
Brainiac 5 (Legion 1): You’re both missing the point.
Gates: What is the point?
Brainiac 5 (Legion 1): “The point is, with the right amount of genius and a touch of perceived insanity, science can conquer anything.”

Namaste.

Wednesday – 29 April 2009
Last night, I went over to Chris’ to play the second half of our Brotherhood vs. X-Men match. (Pictures can be seen here.) This time, he fielded the Brotherhood and I had the X-Men. The game, again, was rather balanced… mostly because I decided not to use my biggest gun, Phoenix, although I did take her. I wound up losing the game, in no small due to the fact that I completely forgot something that would have been a huge game-changer during my first turn. *grblsnrkx* On the whole though, it was a good match.

This morning, it took a few moments for my brain to process that the alarm was going off. Once I did, however, things fell into place.  Now, if only the last of the network issues would resolve themselves, as well…

No comics or sushi today. But tomorrow, oh tomorrow, there shall be blood raw fishes and four-color goodness.

Stray Toasters

• Coffee and homemade blueberry muffins.
• Past Chiefs of Staff Analyze Obama
• Metropolitan Opera cuts back on live park performances
• 
• Sean just informed me that the Cardinals cut Edgerrin James. O,o ?!?
• ‘Camina Burana,’ Music of Monks and Drunks
• Cirque du Soliel, in New York (Mostly) to Stay
  
• From Comic Book Resources: Sample Pages from Was Superman a Spy?

I turn my back to wind
To catch my breath
Before I start off again…

Namaste.

Wednesday – 22 April 2009
It’s Earth Day.

It’s also Administrative Professionals’ Day.

Last night, SaraRules had Book Club, so I spent a fair portion of the evening finishing up the chapel for Wildwood Grove and assembling a train stop for Mayhem Rail. I like the way that the chapel turned out; I still need to do a little work on the rail station, but it’s coming along nicely. Pictures will follow… eventually.

Stray Toasters

• ‘Deeper’ recession ahead says IMF
• Opening Skinner’s Box: ten psych experiments that remade the world
• The Geeks’ Guide to World Domination
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Gummy Bacon
• 
• Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack, by way of
• 747 converted to a restaurant, then abandoned
• From NPR Music: Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’ At Its Best
• Star Trek’s Beast Master Reveals How to Create a Monster

Namaste.

Monday – 20 April 2009
Another work week begins.  Today, they are putting new cooling units for our server room on the roof. There’s a crane out in the parking lot and they are getting it set to move the coolers and their frame. Pictures to follow at some point today.

Last night, SaraRules and I had Logan over for dinner. SaraRules fixed a tasty chicken mole. We watched Infernal Affairs as we ate. It was the movie upon which Martin Scorsese’s The Departed was based. This version left a few more things “open for interpretation” than The Departed. I’m not sure which version I prefer; both of them stand on their own merits.

I also started assembling the chapel from Wildwood Grove. I decided to put it on a foamcore board, which meant that I had to figure out where I wanted it to go on its base before I could begin the main assembly job. I left a little space behind the chapel for figures to walk around (or, more to the point: “hide behind”). Next up is to finish the roof and steeple. I should be done with it later tonight. Then, I’ll work on the rail station.

Stray Toasters

• I have a new tuxedo… and two new suits. Having retired my old tux (and given it to The Salvation Army), I have been looking for one for a few months. Joseph A. Bank had a “Buy One Suit, Get Two Suits Free” sale this weekend; I jumped all over it. Now I just need to get the pants hemmed.
• Garden impossible
• Apple aired four new Get A Mac ads over the weekend. Thanks to for pointing them out.
• Cold War Bunker Becomes Modern Mansion
• ‘How to Talk to Girls’ author, 10, juggles life, school, more
• US marks 10 years since Columbine
• I hit some weird key combination and wound up publishing this before I was ready.  ::: EDIT :::
• Reaching out, lifting up: Prison ministry now Dungy’s priority
• Gaiman’s “Blueberry Girl”: A benediction for a girl’s happy life
  When Neil Gaiman came to SLC a few years ago, he read this. He asked that people who were recording the event to please turn off all recording devices, as it was something that had a special sentiment and he didn’t want it showing up “everywhere.”
• Brazil cracks down on sat-hackers who bounce ham signals off US military satellites

Now: Back to work.
Tonight: Dinner with SaraRules and .

Namaste.

Friday – 17 April 2009
Another 9/80 “off” Friday has begun. I managed to sleep in until a little after 9:00 this morning. That was nice. After a quick bite to eat, SaraRules and I headed to the gym to get in a workout. Today’s routine included:

• Leg Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 140 lbs
• Kick-backs: 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs
• Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 100 lbs
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps
  • 2½ sets @ 205 lbs
  • ½ set @ 185 lbs
• Fly: 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Curl w/ Shoulder Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 20 lbs
• Bent-over Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 35 lbs
• Tricep Extension (rope): 3 sets/10 reps, 45 lbs

Post-workout weight: 182.5 lbs.

We also ran into Josh, a former coworker, while in the free weight room. That was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.

Stray Toasters

• I wound up getting the Mayhem Rail and Wildwood Grove sets for my masterboard. With the other corners that I have, I can fully populate two city blocks… and then some.
• SaraRules showed me LEGO Chocolate Wedding Favors.  (If only I could find some LEGO  ice trays…)
• forwared a link to Uncomfortable Plot Summaries
• For those of you in the SLC metro area:

  
  (click image for details)

• Obama Proposes High-Speed Rail System for the US
• Motorized LEGO Mech
• CIA Officials Won’t Face Charges for Waterboarding
• Green Lantern to film in Australia in November
• 
• How did Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, get his name? Find out here (about halfway down the page).
• Trendsetters on the Streets of New York: Then and Now
• Faster Than a Speeding Bullwhip: Superman Creator’s Kinktastic Art
• 

  (click image to read the Brothers Brick article)

• From NPR Music:
  • Bringing Up Baby, As Music Lovers Might
  • How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? YouTube, YouTube, YouTube
• Device Keeps Lungs Breathing Outside Body

Next up: Errand-running and miscellaneous stuff.
Later: Clitorati

Namaste.

Wednesday – 15 April 2009
It’s Tax Day in America once again. Appropriately, it’s a grey and rainy day in Salt Lake City.

Last night, Chris came over and we played ‘Clix. The matchup: The X-Men (Chris) vs. The Brotherhood of Mutants/Hellfire Club (pictures). It was a very good fight; it was probably the most balanced match we’ve had. We had to call the game before things got cooking, but at that point, Chris had a 24 point lead. He said that he didn’t really call it a “win” because we didn’t really get too far into the game. *shrug* It was fun, either way.  I’m looking forward to the flip-side rematch.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules and her mother met with a potential our wedding photographer yesterday.
• Education Standards Likely to See Tightening
• April 15, 1726: Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From Physicist
• Mythbusters: Compact Compact Rocket Sled

• The Ravens’ 2009 schedule was released yesterday. They didn’t soft-peddle them this season.
• A Grand Entrance at St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Man bites snake in epic struggle
• Simulated crime scene bathroom accessories
• Manifesto of a Comic Book Rebel
• 
• forwarded a link to Pulp Browsers…
• …which reminded me of this.  (Audio will most likely fall under “NSFW”)
• T. Boone Pickens relishes role in push for alternative energy
• Chesney’s “Victorian Underground” – the secret Victorian underbelly of cyberpunk
• Tetris Furniture

And that’s a wrap.

Oh, look… it’s snowing now.

Namaste.

Thursday – 09 April 2009
It’s overcast, rainy and… cool (not really “cold”) and I find myself thinking: “We left California… and the sun… and the warmth… for this?!” Oh, well.

The drive back was just as long as the drive down, although it was shorter in terms of time, because we didn’t make quite as many stops; we did stop at the In-N-Out in St. George, though. I phased in and out of sleep, many times. (I realized later that was due to a sleeping poorly Tuesday night.) On the whole, the trip was uneventful.

As we were getting stuff out of SaraRules’ parents’ car, it started to sleet. That urged us to hasten our efforts to get things into the house, oddly enough. We said our goodbyes and headed off to pick up the apartment key from . (Thanks again for keeping an eye on things!) Next, a quick stop at Rumbi to get some dinner and then home. We were both beat; we watched last week’s CSI: while we ate. We watched a bit of The Late Show and called it a night.

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to for pointing out Dr. Funkenberry.
• The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You
• In world news: Georgians rally against president
• Gentleman in New Orleans Loses Chunk of Arm in Possible Zombie Attack
• Sandy Collora, possibly best known for his Batman: Dead End fanfilm, has a trailer out for his upcoming fanfilm, Hunter Prey

• Dungeons & Dragons Co-Creator Arneson Dead at 61
• Self-Resucing Princess t-shirt
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Women Meat Pioneers
• By way of comes “Your Business Card Is CRAP!”

Quote of the Day
Julie, our Property Manager, was asking me how our trip went.  I was recounting it and told her that SaraRules had found her dress… but that I couldn’t tell her anything about it, because I haven’t seen it and won’t see it for six months. That led to the following exchange:

Julie: That’s right, you’ll be getting married on the next Conference weekend.
Me: Oh… yeah… Well, there goes about half of our guest list.
Julie: That’s what TiVo is for!

We both got a good laugh out of it.

And, with that, back to the grind…

Namaste.

Thursday – 02 April 2009
Sushi Wednesday was postponed until today. But, I’ll have to miss it, as I have a lunch meeting. I may also have to fore go (or maybe just postpone) today’s workout, for the same reason. On the plus side, I stopped by to visit for a bit, after work.

Next, home for dinner and a movie with SaraRules and her mother.  Dinner was shrimp jambalaya, the movie was Australia. The movie was… interesting. It looked really nice. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman did well in their roles. The main problem was… no, “problems were”… that:

1. The movie was long, nearly three hours. (Granted, it didn’t feel long.)
2. It felt like they tried to shoehorn too many movies – not just stories – into that time.
3. It was a bit disjointed – the movie seemed to take a huge left turn about 2 hours in.
4. Elton John’s closing song.  (He should not be allowed to write lyrics. Ever.)

Despite these things, I did enjoy the movie; although, as SaraRules put it: “It’s not like I need to see it again.” It was an entertaining way of spending an evening. And, at one point, I even broke out a “Wolverine in a cowboy hat” ‘Clix, just to get a smile/eyeroll out of SaraRules. It worked. (Thinking about it, with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, I could actually see Nicole Kidman as Emma Frost, the White Queen (1, 2)… especially after her turn as Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass.)

Stray Toasters

• I heard part of an interesting cover of Major Tom on a Lincoln ad last night. You can see the ad here. The ad made me want to look up trivia about the song. And, by the power of Greyskull with the power of the Interwebs, I did:
  • Wikipedia
  • The Straight Dope
• By way of : Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man
• The Beats: A Graphic History
• Cute and amusing: Bunnysong (video)
• 
• The title of this is self-explanatory: Giant Star Wars pool toys and kites
• What would President Obama look like as an action figure? Something like this, I’d suspect.
• Marvel prepares to showcase Wolverine from a very different perspective
• I found Code Monkey: Stargate Atlantis online again. Now, I must find a way to procure it for my collection…
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Lindon (UT) police bust family-run prostitution ring

Namaste.

Wednesday – 01 April 2009
Welcome to the first day of April and April Fool’s Day. As I was getting ready this morning, I tried to think of a AFD prank/joke to play, but drew a blank. Shortly after that, I discovered that Mother Nature had decided to join in the AFD fun: It’s snowing.

Stray Toasters

• New variation on a theme: I almost typed “Stray Taosters” for the heading.
• French museum posts Concorde hoax
• While watching The Late Show last night, they ran a promotion for Coming Home: Military Families Cope With Change. At first I thought that I might have misheard something or that it might have been a joke, so I did a little digging. It wasn’t a joke:
  

  Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, is producing, in association with David Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants Incorporated and Lookalike Productions, a new PBS primetime special, Coming Home: Military Families Cope With Change, featuring Queen Latifah, John Mayer and Elmo. This half-hour HD special tells stories of service members who return home with injuries, visible and invisible, and explores the heroic struggles their families face in discovering a new way of finding a “new normal.” It salutes the extraordinary courage and strength of these military families and offers the general public a powerful glimpse into what they often must endure. The special will air on PBS on April 1, 2009 at 8PM (check local listings) in conjunction with April as the “Month of the Military Child.”

• Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed Interactive Entity, courtesy of
• 
• Tobacco tax hike for US smokers
• New book on the market: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

  

• From NPR Music:
  • Brahms’ Best: The Violin Concerto
  • The Year’s Best Jazz (So Far)
  • Rockabilly’s Wanda Jackson Hits Hall of Fame
• Medicine crisis hits Russia’s poor
• HALO + LEGO = This.

Namaste.

Thursday – 26 March 2009
There are light flurries again this morning. *shrug* I think that it’s supposed to creep back into (or at least near) the 60s this weekend.

Last night, after stopping to say “Hi” to , SaraRules and I went walking. (Hey, it’s exercise…)  As it was cold and wet outside, we opted to go walking at South Towne Center. I hadn’t been there in… longer than I can remember. Mall-walking has the added benefit of allowing you to pick and pan the latest fashions in the window displays. We did. There were a number of dresses in one store’s windows that we found… “aesthetically unpleasing.” But, we were also pretty sure that somewhere a high school-aged young lady would think that they were the greatest things ever. Also while walking through the mall, I found $20 USD. Just lying there on the ground. WIN! We also discovered that there are TWO Bank of America ATMs in the mall. O,o ?!? (For those of you who don’t understand why this is noteworthy: BoA doesn’t have branches in this state… AND they happen to be my bank. Thus, finding a veritable last bastion of banking goodness makes me quite happy.) Seeing the ATMs also raised a question: Who services these machines? We guess that someone from either Idaho, Nevada or Wyoming must have to cover them on their routes.

After getting back home, we watched NCIS, The Late Show and The Late Late Show. Just before heading off to bed, I decided to give “The Fickle Finger of Fate” method to channel surfing and see what was on. One of the things I found was Blacula. I haven’t seen that in ages. It made me laugh, but I still turned off the TV and called it a night.

Stray Toasters

• How to Change the World
• Bankrupting the Arts: State budget cuts could change Baltimore’s cultural landscape forever
• Thanks to for pointing this out: LEGO Batman is being ported to the Mac
• Also from : Project Runway finalist denies cat used as weapon
• From baby to blog to memoir for Heather Armstrong – I couldn’t remember why the name “Heather Armstrong” sounded familiar until reading this article. She’s a blogger from SLC, whose site I’ve read from time to time.
• Mythbusters Accidentally Bust Windows in Nearby Town
• Internet Explorer 8 “critical” flaw in final version – Is this a surprise? Really…?
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: British local governments deploy anti-teenager pink lights designed to make kids ashamed of their appearance
• 
• id Releases Open Source Wolfenstein 3D for iPhone
• The whole wide world
  An endless universe
  Yet we keep looking through
  The eyeglass in reverse
  Don’t feed the people
  But we feed the machines
  Can’t really feel
  What international meansIn different circles
  We keep holding our ground
  Indifferent circles
  We keep spinning round and round
• Remixes of the paranoid London police “anti-terror”/suspect your neighbours posters
• TV, films go boldly down scientific path
• Does this mean that Banjo Hero is around the corner?
• Anatomical models for artist’s reference – Now available in Dr. Manhattan model, too!

…right on to the friction of the day.

Namaste.

Thursday – 19 March 2009
After work yesterday, I hooked up the new cable receiver. There was still heavy pixelation on the screen and intermittent sound. *sigh* I decided to get back to it later. Next, I went to visit . I hung out for a couple of hours and then went to get a bite to eat with and Mr. and Mrs. … during which time I got to play 20 Questions with respect to a lot of wedding plans.

When I got home, I decided to check on the cable box one more time. Still “No Go,” Flight. *grblsnrkx* On a whim, I tried bypassing the box and plugging the cable directly into the television. Lo and behold, I had a picture – and sound – with NO pixelation. All the same, I should be getting a visit from a technician this afternoon to try and track down the source/nature of the problem. I wound up watching The Late Late Show and then the Janeway and the Barbie Borg Show (for the first time in many, many months). Realizing that it was closing on 0200 – and that I had been up since 0530 – I figured that I should call it a night.

Falling asleep was no easy task: My neck and shoulders were achy and I couldn’t find a comfortable position to alleviate any of the pain. But, I managed to nod off. I woke up a little after 0400 and the pain felt just as bad – if not worse. Enter: Aleve. Back to sleep. I neglected to set my normal alarm (BAH!), but woke up with my secondary went off… for a minute. I decided to catch a few more minutes of sleep. When I got up, my neck and shoulders felt MUCH better and I figured that I could pretty much start the day. And I did.

Stray Toasters

• I have been blessed with some very cool friends.
• Egyptian women blog for their rights
• I forgot to post my 2009 NCAA brackets last night; here they are, for better or worse:


(click image for larger version)

• Drawn!
• On a whim, I decided to see if there was a site called “Quartered,” too. Turns out there’s… something… at quartered.org.
• Competition committee aims to change ‘Hochuli Rule,’ others
• By way of Jake Theis: Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress
• 
• Austrian Fitzl sentenced to life
• Robo-Voice’s Greatest Hits, or How Advanced Spy Tech Topped Music Charts
• One of the better LEGO interpretations I’ve seen: LEGO iPod Racer, powered by Mac Mini

Back to it.

Namaste.