Saturday – 26 July 2008
Yesterday, after work, I started tinkering with the iMac. I want to have it in the living room area, so I was looking at bridging two routers. The older router wouldn’t do what I wanted/needed, so I had to investigate other options. While an AirPort card would work, I think that I’m just going to pick up a USB network adapter and call it good.
Coffee and dinner were good. Mary found a book that amused me. I bought it and decided that I would have to go on my desk at work… alongside this. That made my little inner subversive smile.
I slept in until 9:30 this morning. It was nice. Too bad there aren’t any good ‘toons to watch. I killed an hour or so flipping channels, until I hit on Nickelodeon. Sozin’s Comet, the Season 3 finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender was on. I’ve only caught sporadic episodes of Avatar, but I’ve enjoyed what I saw. The finale was no exception.
I had to survey 15 servers today. For the most part it went without any hitches… aside from taking down two servers out from people who were working on them: I felt bad about one of them; the other was Chimpy.
Human of the Day
Today’s Human is for the reasons posted below.
Stray Toasters
had to help me recall the proper syntax for using Web Sharing to find something on Defiant. I felt like a complete n00b when I finally remembered it. To make me feel better, showed this to me:
I started to wind down a little after 1:00 last night/this morning… and it wasn’t a gradual decline, either. It was more like a shelf edge. Seeing the signs, I got up and promptly started the end-of-the-day rituals. I attempted to read a few pages of Snow Crash before calling it a night. I think I read a paragraph (maybe two!) before the text degraded into indecipherable gibberish. I put the book down and went to sleep.
I vaguely remember turning off Alarm 1 this morning. I distinctly remember turning off Alarm 2… and sprawling across the bed for what I swore would be “just a minute.” The next thing I know, there were landscapers outside my window. I checked the clock – it was well past time for me to be under way. I was done – including a shower, brewing coffee and a rousing game of “What Am I Going to Wear Today?!” – in just over 30 minutes. For those of you who are unfamiliar with WAIGtWT, the rules are very simple:
Got to your clothes closet
Open the door
Stare blankly at the clothes
Wait for something to magically leap off the rack and into your hand.
(If nothing happens at Step 4, you’re doing something wrong.)
Walk away, to attend to some other aspect of getting ready.
Return to closet, to see if anything has thrown itself on the floor (or bed, if close enough).
Swear. A lot.
Repeat Steps 4 through 7, as necessary.
So far the day looks good. I keep having the nagging suspicion that there’s something that I had tentatively scheduled for this evening… but I can’t put my finger on what it was.
Today’s sushi was good. Tony even threw in a couple of extra nigiri for us to try; I had albacore. Not bad.
Before lunch, I finally picked up my guitar from Acoustic Music. I’m a bit anxious to play. And, speaking of play, I’ve realized something: I want to play some of my older XBox games. Just because. Like X-Men: Legends and X-Men: The Next Dimension… and even X2: Wolverine’s Revenge and Spider-Man.
Stray Toasters
For Derek:
Pop culture + bukkake + macaques = ???
(And I’m not really sure that we really want to know, either.)
The Artist Formerly Known As The Fresh Prince (not to be confused with “just” Prince) backs Barack, too. BBC News has the skinny. Will Smith has been on The Late Show and The Colbert Report over the past couple of days, both interviews were entertaining.
Mayor Mick’s bike returned
(Did this kind of thing ever happen to Rocky Anderson? Richard Daley? Ed Koch?)
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.
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:
SaraRules is at work… and, thus, not around to hang out
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
Friday – 06 June 2008
This morning started off with the alarm going off… and me waking up with a headache. I didn’t consider that the most auspicious start to a Friday morning, so I stayed in bed for a bit. I should have gotten up then, because I wound up in an odd, rather disturbing corner of The Dreaming.
The second go-round of waking up went considerably better. I hit B&B for a large cup of frozen, triple-shotted goodness and Einstein Bros. for a bagel sandwich. Add to that having some decent commuting tunes and Bob’s your uncle, as the saying goes.
The Best: Sugar Sugar
The Archies vs. Mary Lou Lord (with Semisonic)
This song was originally done by The Archies in 1969.
It was covered by Mary Lou Lord in 1995 for Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits.
It’s a bubblegum pop song at heart – and one that I’ve liked since I was a kid – but the edge that Ms. Lord gives it, pushes it ahead of the original in my book.
Winner: Mary Lou Lord
Stray Toasters
Would LeVar Burton have had Windows Server 2003 books on Reading Rainbow? Should he have added them to the line-up?
Cosby sweaters for auction
I just want to know if you get Jell-O Pudding Pops and/or a TI-99/4A with each sweater?
Wednesday: Coda
This evening, I saw Iron Man again; I went with Max and Perry. It was just as much fun this time as it was opening day. Perry and Max both enjoyed it, as well. And this time I was able to catch a glimpse of Captain America’s shield in Tony’s workshop.
After the movie, I headed back to Kate and Perry’s and hung out for a while. This translates mostly into getting some surrogate uncle time with the kids. And, as a new twist, the two youngest asked me to read them a bedtime story: Go, Dog. Go! That was both unexpected and fun. After the youngest kids went to bed, Perry, Max and I watched Justice League Unlimited; tonight’s episode was “Question Authority,” in which The Question discovers the truth behind the founding members’ secret concerning an alternate/future President Luthor and The Justice Lords. This episode also contained one of my favorite lines from the series: The Question confronts the contemporary Lex Luthor about his plans to run for President of the United States. Luthor laughs and responds:
“President?! Foolish, faceless man… my campaign is a farce! A small part of a much grander scheme. President. Do you know how much power I’d have to give up to be President?! That’s right, conspiracy buff… I spent seventy-five million dollars on a fake presidential campaign… all just to tick Superman off.”
(You can also listen to it – as Luthor smacks The Question around his office – here.)
Perry just looked at me askance as I quoted most of that line while Luthor was saying it. Kate just laughed and shook her head.
Stray Toasters
I was (pleasantly) surprised to see a news item saying that Senator Clinton is (finally) ending her bid for the Democratic nomination… especially as Senator Obama got the magic number last night.
I asked our HR guy if I could post A Different State of Race Relations – and a commentary – on our internal site or an internal email. He thought about it and then decided that it would probably be best to get some sort of go-ahead from corporate HR. So, I’m going to kick it up the chain of command tomorrow, I do believe.
Thursday – 29 May 2008
A couple of things that started the morning nicely:
I Am LEGO
Sent to me by CoworkerJG, who knows my proclivity for City of Heroes/Villains:
I think that these were good ways to kick of any NBN Thursday. And this morning’s coffee didn’t hurt, either. Nor did “The Boys in Brazil,” the behind-the-scenes movie from Disc Two of Rush in Rio, made during the Vapor Trails tour, playing on my port side monitor; it’s not only a cool look at what you might not otherwise see or know about putting together a concert and/or a tour, but it’s fun, too.
So, all together, I guess that it would be “No Bad News Sushi and Comic Book ‘Wednesday’,” too.
Stray Toasters
I am “this close” to ordering a set of HeroClix Giants. It has Colossal Boy and Validus ‘Clix. Must have.
sent me a link to an article about Nepal abolishing it’s monarchy. In honor of that, I dedicate this Schoolhouse Rock! toon:
No, it’s not entirely the same thing, but it’s as close as I could get.
also (indirectly) had to deal with a monkey today:
: there was a goddamn monkey in my yard today : O.o : while the movers were packing things up : Did it get packed into the truck? : you assume there was a moving truck : Oh. : the 9 crates are still in my yard : Right.
Wait…. WHAT?! : they have to take them to the airport one by one in a tiny little jeep : …
Wow. : yea
so this little fucker is running around trying to bite the movers
he climbed inside the crates while they were packing boxes into them
i was laughing my ass off
but admittedly
i was laughing from behind the window inside
those things are freaking mean
Ken Jennings, the man who holds the record for the longest winning streak on Jeopardy!, has written a blog post about Mike Allred’s Madman!, whose protagonist is apparently Mormon. I recall reading many rains past that The New Mutants’ Cypher was supposed to be Mormon, but the only other character that I knew was definitely LDS was Dr. Deseret (1, 2) from Will Shetterly’s Captain Confederacy.
Wednesday: Coda
Today hasn’t been bad. I started the day (briefly) in SLC and then headed to AF. Not too much was going on there, but there were a couple of small… not even fires… to deal with. And the first workout in about two weeks. It was a decent workout, but having been out of the gym for so long, it was a definite challenge:
asked me if I had seen this article about PHP coding (all functions that begin with the letter “a”). I hadn’t. I asked him if he had heard A, by Barenaked Ladies. He hadn’t. He has now.
…however, although I don’t think that injections of radioactive scorpion venom will turn Senator Kennedy into a superhero, it will hopefully slow the progress of his tumor.
Spider-Bot!
Spider-Bot!
Does what Ted Kennedy cannot!
(Climb walls, that is.)
I bagged on Twitter a few of days ago. I still agree with ‘s comment – and I find this Penny Arcade toon to be fairly spot-on (and amusing) – but I think that Gizmodo found a good use for Twitter.
Monday: Coda
I had a quiet night in. I watched a couple of episodes of L&O: TNG L&O: SVU and last week’s episode of CSI:, which included a cameo from MythBusters’ Adam and Jamie. And, I read a bit more of Guards, Guards.
Stray Toasters
How did I not know that there’s a fourth Terminator movie, starring Christian Bale, coming out next year?
A tip of the hat to for the inspiration for tonight’s post’s title.
It’s going to be in the 80s in Florida this weekend.
Hugh Laurie (you know… the guy who plays Dr. House on House) is on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I’m not really sure that I could have pictured him as Perry White in Superman Returns.
Saturday – 26 April 2008
It’s always that last 10-15% that gets you. Thursday and Friday, I felt phenomenally better than I did Wednesday. But, still not completely better. Today, I would actually say that I’m in the 95-97% of normal range.
There’s still this… one… thing: Gas.
Seriously. I’m thinking of changing my name to Exxon. I don’t know how or why – it’s not like I’ve eaten a whole lot in the past three days, but here it is. Yay.
I miss having an appetite.
Aside from that, I’m doing well. I made it to southern Utah without any problems or monkeydom. I always consider that a “good” thing. Yesterday/last night was pretty low-key. Today, I think we’re heading to the Braithwaite to check out the Senior BFA Portfolio Show. Other than that, no idea what’s on tap for the day.
Stray Toasters
SaraRules made me a Mickey Mouse pancake for breakfast, since I haven’t been feeling well. How cool is that?
I found two items on Comic Book Resources that are nice takes on Marvel’s “Secret Invasion”: This article, by Eric Larsen and this comic by Chris Giarrusso
This isn’t to say that I know anyone who enjoys being sick, but I am just asserting that as a preface to the following:
I started feeling a little “off” yesterday around lunchtime. While it wasn’t doing somersaults, my stomach felt a bit queasy. I finally decided to go to lunch around 1:00. Since I was working in the north office, I figured that I’d just go home, take a nap have something light to eat and then head back to the office.
“The best-laid plans of mice and men…” as the saying goes.
I got home and had a difficult time falling asleep. It felt as though as soon as I did, the alarm went off. BAH! I was also feeling a bit cold. I figured that a hot soak would help. It did. Kind of. But I still wasn’t feeling top-of-the-line when I got out, so I crawled back into bed.
Three-and-a-half hours later, I felt a little better. Not great, but enough to function to head back to the office long enough to gather my personal belongings and head back home. Which I did. On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things that would be considered “bland food.”
I got home, put away the food and took up a position on the couch. I watched S.W.A.T. and most of Law & Order before it felt like I needed to spend a little “quality time” in the sanfac. (Bonus points to those who know where ‘sanfac’ comes from.) The chills that I had felt earlier began to give way to sweats. Yay! When I felt up to it, I decided to have another hot soak session. That seemed to help a bit. After finding something comfy – and warm – to put on, I put on some soup, grabbed a Gatorade and resumed my post upon the couch. I watched a bit of David Letterman and Jonny Quest. I don’t remember seeing the end of Jonny Quest…
…I don’t really remember much of anything until The Snorks came on. I checked the clock. 6:00 AM. Hm. Okay. I ignored The Snorks – and pretty much everything else – until the alarm went off at 6:35. I headed for the bedroom, turned off the alarm and sprawled across the bed. I fell asleep again. When I finally woke up, I noticed something: I was feeling much closer to baseline “human” than I did last night. I started milling around the apartment. There was a definite improvement in the way I was feeling. A definite fringe benefit of my metabolism (“ferret on crack,” as puts it) is that I don’t tend to get really sick very often; and when I do get sick, I don’t tend to stay sick very long. And, to be honest: Last night/this morning was one of the times I was very glad of that. I’d say that I’m feeling probably 85-90% of normal.
Tonight, I’ll probably wind up on the couch again, watching CSI: and generally taking it easy. I think I can handle that. Besides, I have Jell-O! “There’s always room for Jell-O.”
Stray Toasters
loonybin88 pointed out this article to me yesterday. My response: “It’s a fucking bear! DUH!” Let me first say that I feel badly for Stephan Miller’s family’s loss. But… IT WAS A BEAR! No matter how many safety precautions one takes, at the end of the day it’s still an animal that acts on instincts; the bear may have just been playing, as far as it was concerned. The consequences of its actions, however, have now raised a quandary as to what should be done with the bear:
Should it be put down? In my opinion, “No.”
Should it be released into the wild? I don’t think so… are its survival instincts refined enough to deal with being returned to its “native” environment? I don’t know.
Could it possibly be donated to a zoo? I don’t know, but this seems like the possible “best of both worlds” option to me.
One of the last things you feel like doing when you’re sick is check your mail. I didn’t check mine yesterday. Had I, I would have found my Green Lantern John Stewart Minimates figure. That would have been something to smile about yesterday.
Wait… I did have something that not only made me smile, it downright made me laugh: invited some folks to dinner at Jitterbug and a showing of Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. When I got her message, I told her that I wasn’t feeling well and would have to take a raincheck. That spawned the following messages:
applevenus: Sorry about your herpes. applevenus: Spydr says sorry about your herpes. me: I’ll get some ointment. applevenus: Ha. Ha. Ha. Have fun.
Monday – 21 April 2008
I am back in the northlands once more. Today’s commute was uneventful. There was one odd/amusing thing, though: Driving through Meadow, you pass a cattle ranch on the east side of the interstate. This morning, there was a calf outside the cattle pens, grazing along the outside of the fence. It seemed rather nonplussed about the fact that the other cattle were “over there” and just kept chewing at the grass near one of the fence posts.
I had dinner with SaraRules and Rachel last night; we invited Lish, but he punked out on us. (I’m trying to attribute his reluctance to join us to the fact that he was working on a project and not to the fact that I kind of, sort of… threw him through a door Saturday night.) Dinner was nice. After that, SaraRules and I stopped at the local Hollywood Video to pick up a copy of The Magnificent Seven, a movie which I have (somehow) managed to never see before. I liked it. Quite a bit. I will have to add it to the collection at some point.
Workout
Today saw a subtle shift in the workout: Eric wanted to give a little more focus to biceps, so we alternated bicep exercises with other exercises:
As I had that thought, I had another one: Aside from the fact that they are water-breathers (and, in some cases, magic-users), Atlanteans (see Aquaman, Namor and Patrick Duffy) are basically normal humanoids. The water-breathing thing is the key here, because… well… Where do they go to the bathroom?!
