Random Access

Stray Toasters

• I checked my mail this morning, on a whim. (Mostly because I couldn’t remember whether I checked it yesterday…) I’m glad that I did – there was a letter waiting in there that made for a great start to the morning.
• Sara posed an interesting – and somewhat unusual – question last night: “What is your favorite texture?”
  My counter was “Tactile or other, such as ‘food texture,’ for example?”
  “Tactile.”
  So, I started thinking about it. The one that I’ve come up with so far is: Skin. It is common and similar… yet it can also be so varied: rough, smooth, calloused, pitted, wrinkled.
• Last night, I continued my reading of the graphic novel V for Vendetta, on which the movie was based. I had the iPod playing in the living room. I was reading the scene where Evey is being tortured in “prison” and Madonna’s Die Another Day started playing. It reminded me of the opening scenes of Die Another Day (the movie), where Bond is being tortured in time with the song.
• Along those same lines, I had forgotten that the fight between the pirates and Prince Septimus’ guard in Stardust had been choreographed against Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (“Can-Can”), until seeing the movie again this past weekend.
• By way of CNet: Blocking memorable scenes with LEGOs
• The drive-time commute included Van Halen’s Dreams. I like the video for the song, it features the Navy’s Blue Angels. The song started playing just as I was coming to the summit of I-15 on Traverse Mountain. When I looked to my left, there were paragliders floating around the ridge. Sure, they aren’t F/A-18 Hornets, but the overall effect was good enough for me.
• , Comics2Film has a few stills from the upcoming season of Legion of Super Heroes.
• If you haven’t heard about Warner Brothers upcoming adaptation of New Frontier (1, 2), a graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke, check out this teaser/preview.
• Tonight, God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’m going to a preview of Resident Evil: Extinction. Zombies!!!

Quote of the Day
I responded to a department email with lyrics from Working in a Coal Mine, by Lee Dorsey:

Working in the coal mine
Going down down down
Working in the coal mine
Whoop about to slip down

This was the IM response I received from :

(10:38:03 AM) : Oh LORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD.
(10:38:12 AM) : I am SO TIRED.
(10:38:20 AM) : 🙂
(10:38:21 AM) : How long can this GO ON?
(10:38:41 AM) : Good morning, Mr. B.
(10:38:53 AM) : (ps- damn you for getting that song stuck in my head this early.)
(10:39:07 AM) : Could have been worse.
(10:39:13 AM) : I could have gone with Sixteen Tons.
(10:39:15 AM) : …or…
(10:39:20 AM) : The Pina Colada Song.
(10:39:21 AM) : 😀
(10:39:24 AM) : eh, sixteen tons wouldn’t have been…. FUCK YOU

Back to it.

Just a few quick hits:

• I was checking out boingboing and found this item for the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file… (potentially NSFW)
• Then, there was an article for this music video, by a group called Familjen, out of Sweden… made from vintage religious event footage.
• After showing it to a couple of coworkers, I then turned around and showed them Hurra Torpedo’s version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. After all, why pass up a perfectly good opportunity to break coworkers?!
• Nebraska Senator Sues God to Stop Terror Threats
• Thanks to for pointing out the Simuring feature on Vonage.
• Thanks to Tyranist for pointing me in the direction of the Marvel Database Project. I’ll need to check out how it compares to Marvel’s site/database.
• Brain surgery changes boy’s accent

And now… gym time.

Monday: Coda / Tuesday – 18 September 2007
Tonight, I got to play “Favorite Uncle” to the kids while Kate and Perry took care of a couple of things. The kids were finishing dinner when I got there, so they were ready for a little play time before bed. Aside from using my lap as an occasional playspace, they pretty much entertained themselves.

About an hour before bed, I sat them down for some quiet time while they watched cartoons. Then, the boys decided they wanted to watch Doctor Strange before bed… so I let them watch it, with the understanding that when it was time for bed, they’d have to turn it off and go to bed. So, popcorn was popped and they sat down and watched the movie. If someone had been watching through a window, it would have looked as though the two youngest had tried to attach themselves to my hip: The baby was on my left, feeding herself and handing me kernels of popcorn when I was taking too long to get them myself; the middle child was on my right, half-watching the movie, half-trying to feed me popcorn, too. And now that I think about it, the oldest was hovering pretty close, too.

When it was time for bed, they went to their respective rooms and got into bed. No fuss. Even the baby – She ran into her room, made a bee-line for the crib, asked for one of her dolls and laid down. Just like that. I tucked them in, closed their doors and didn’t hear a peep from them for the rest of the evening.

When Kate and Perry got home, Kate asked if I “…survived the kids alright?” I told her that as far as babysitting gigs went, this was cake. The kids took care of themselves (with the exception of one pre-bed diaper change, for the baby) and were great all night long.

The Best: Killing Me Softly (prompted by post from )
Roberta Flack vs. The Fugees

While I like the up-tempo groove of The Fugees’ cover, for my money, this song is best as done by Roberta Flack. No contest.

The Best: I Can’t Make You Love Me
Bonnie Raitt vs. Prince vs. George Michael

This one was pretty close. Sara and I were listening to Prince’s Emancipation this weekend and his cover of the song started playing. I asked if she had heard the George Michael version of it; she hadn’t. Fortunately, I had Nomad with me (A road trip without my trusty iPod?! Unheard of!) and played it.

Both covers are good… but for me, this round goes to Bonnie Raitt. There’s something that sounds more emotionally charged in her version, although I’d say that the Prince version runs a not-too-distant second.

Stray Toasters

• I posted the pictures from this weekend’s Cedar Breaks hike. (Apologies to those on dial-up connections…)
• , what’s this about Maoists quitting the Nepalese government?
• For some reason, I just had the thought of a wheelbarrow race pop into my head.
• Jamie McKelvie talks Suburban Glamor
• By way of : LOLthulu
• This sounds like an interesting idea, but “Lemon-squeezin’ Jesus” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. I think I’ll stick with monkey-squeezin’ Jesus, thank ya kindly.
• Hmm… Monkey-squeezin’ Jesus vs. Micro-Jesus. That could be interesting.
• Rare Timothy Leary document on eBay
• …speaking of which: I was in a chat/conference/speech with Timothy Leary waaaay back in the days of Quantum Link – the service that eventually became the AOHell behemoth.

I should try that “sleep” thing.

Namaste.

Friday – 14 September 2007
Last night, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about dinner, so I decided not to make a choice… so to speak.

Instead, I rang up to see what her plans were. She had none. She asked if I had a taste for anything in particular and I answered with my generic response: “Food.” She said that didn’t help. *shrug* She threw out a couple of suggestions. The one that stuck was Olive Garden. And so, we went. I tried one of their new dishes: Chicken and Gnocchi Veronese, a chicken and dumplings dish in a garlic cream sauce. It was rather tasty, but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of dumplings to chicken bits. Oh, well.

The rest of the night was spent being rather aimless and taking care of a few things around the apartment.

This morning, I woke up, got ready for work and hit the road. Short commute today. I can tell that I am ready for it to be the end of the day because I didn’t notice that I was missing my ID badge until I was in the elevator, on the way up to the office. I toyed with the notion of running home to get it, but decided against it, as it would be “too much” effort. A guest badge would do. Today, I am #10. For some reason, I started thinking, “What if this wasn’t written in Base 10? What if it’s Base 2? Or hex…?” From there, it only got worse: I started thinking of how to write “007” in different bases.

Yeah… it’s Friday.

Stray Toasters

• I’m handling Day 2 of a server upgrade survey. I talked with the person responsible for these servers yesterday, in an effort to coordinate shutting them down without affecting too many people adversely. Overnight, he apparently forgot part of what we had discussed. *sigh*
• Happy ‘coastering (not to be confused with ‘Toastering) to and onlyaly.
• I caught this meme by way of :
  1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.
  2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
  3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” questions.
  4. Post the top ten results.

  My results:

  1. Multimedia Developer
  2. Electronics Engineering Tech
  3. Electrical Engineering Tech
  4. Website Designer
  5. Optical / Ophthalmic Lab Technician
  6. Industrial Designer
  7. Architect
  8. Computer Support Person
  9. Interior Designer
  10. Tailor / Dressmaker

• World’s Worst Poluted Places 2007
• Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop
  Shimmy Shimmy Bop
• 
• Video for MC Frontalot’s nerdcore song about Zork

Back to the grind. Need to get this stuff sorted out and done so I can get on to my weekend.

Namaste.

Thursday – 13 September 2007
A new NBN Thursday begins.

Last night was a lazy, do-a-lot-of-nothing kind of night. And you’ll hear no complaints from me about that. I got home, figured out what to do about dinner and just… hung out. And, I talked (actual vox) with . Twas fun. The conversation ranged from silly to serious, with quite a few stops everywhere in between.

This morning, I actually did something that I haven’t done in a very long time: I wrote a letter. A real-life, honest-to-God, pen-and-paper letter. Not an email. Not a few lines on a greeting card. A letter. Granted, it was a bit short, but that’s not the point here. The point is: I wrote a letter. Not only that, I folded it, put it into an envelope, sealed, stamped and addressed it and put it in the mailbox.

City of Heroes/Villains: The Hand of Nefer-Tem
Since it had been a few days, I decided to do some crime-fighting in Paragon City. I logged in right as a Rikti invasion fleet was attacking the zone where I usually park my characters. So, I joined the fray. I was invited to join an invasion team and we started beating on things. After that portion of the invasion was repulsed, we went to another part of town to fight. After the invasions broke off, the team broke up.

A short while later, a member of my supergroup messaged me and asked if I wanted to join a team and run a few missions… some of my missions, at that. Hm… let me think about that… I joined. I had a few Devouring Earth missions to run. The first one kicked our collective asses eight ways from Sunday. After numerous deaths and some team restructuring, we muddled our way through it. We ran another D.E. mission, after that; it wasn’t nearly as disastrous.

Stray Toasters

• Aside from a little congestion – and a little frog in my throat – I am pretty much done with this whole cold thing.
• How to Survive a Horror Movie
• Have I mentioned how much I like this whole “Save and Continue Editing” feature? Lots.
• And, in continuing coverage from our “Tony Stark Is a Dick” file comes this gem, by way of Wizard:
  

  TONY’S TOY COLLECTION
  Unimpressed by G.W. Bridge’s houseboat, Stark feels the need to run down the inventory of his garage, which includes a boat, some planes, a spaceship and a flying submarine. Arrogant as always, he does, to his credit, segue very awkwardly from his brag session into his real business with Bridge. It’s hard to understand where Bridge’s reluctance comes from with a proposal that begins like this.

  

• By way of contrast: From the “Before Tony Stark was a complete dick” file: the Iron Man movie trailer.
• And, from the trailer: Would the Iron Man (Mark I) suit qualify as “steampunk?”
• By way of : IKEA room planners
• For the Bruce Campbell fans out there, Comics 2 Film is having a The Man with the Screaming Brain giveaway.
• For : Morris Day and The Time – 777-9311 and Color of Success
• From NPR: John Ridley’s Visible Man – Life After the NF-Hell
• 
• Apple, AT&T: Bosom buddies or odd couple?
• Jake, a coworker and workout partner, came over to ask a question about work and noticed that I have a Green Lantern figure on my desk. He asked if that was my inspiration/goal for working out. I looked at it and told him, “No, but I would have filled out my Hallowe’en costume a lot better if it had been!”

And, that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 12 September 2007
Two down, three to go… with one in the chamber.

Yesterday’s workout was good. I opted out of going for 300 pounds again. I just wasn’t feeling it. I did get in three sets of 215 pounds, though. The last few of the third set were not pretty. The rest of the workout was good – I even managed to pull off two sets of unassisted pull-ups before moving to the assisted dip/pull-up machine.

Last night’s “Game Night” was more “Night” than anything. We talked about possibly wrapping up the All Flesh/40K game and moving on to something else. Then, we watched Doctor Strange. I picked up on a couple of things that I had missed when I first watched it. And it was just as enjoyable this time as it was the first time.

This morning, I woke up “remembering” that I had an odd stay in The Dreaming… but the details were dodgy.

Stray Toasters

• Just for the record: I don’t think that barley was ever intended for use as a nasal projectile.
• Angular momentum.
• “Triangle…” whoWHA?!
• The next contestant on The Price Is Right large-sized HeroClix figure is… this.
• 
• Collector’s Edition Slinky
• …which, of course, reminded me of this:

  

• AMD or Intel? What’s your weapon of choice? I’ve had Intel chips before, but I prefer AMD.
• 
• By way of : Superhero Supply Store.

I’m doing something that, for whatever reason(s), I haven’t done before: I came home for lunch. It makes sense to do it, I just… haven’t. I might just make a trend of this.

Namaste.

Tyranist and I were talking about books…

…and that led to library software…

…and that led to software that will catalog any/all media…

…which, somehow, led to talking about Heaven.
(I was there and I’m not even sure how we took that turn.)

That reminded me of my post about who would be in my Heaven, which I then showed him. When he hit the part of who would be my Judas Iscariot, Tyranist tried to recall what movie it was that portrayed – or alluded to – Judas as the first vampire. A couple of clicks on IMDb brought us to John Carpenter’s Vampires; he thinks that’s the correct film.

It would have been fine… had we stopped there. But, talk of Judas and his betrayal of Christ reminded me of this: Party Up – Jesus Christ Superstar.

He made it through about a minute or so of the video before he pulled of the headphones.

Handbasket? Check.
Road paved with good intentions? Check.
All I need is to find my gasoline drawers and I’m set.

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

• I am pleased to announce that the LJ-to-WP migration is complete: All entries from 2001-2006 have been imported.
• TCP/IP… DNS… SSH. Oh, my!
• For : Kitty Pryde
• The .wav file that I use for “contact logging out of chat” on Trillian is a slamming door. I just noticed that it sounds like the bass drum in Hollaback Girl.
• How to explain terabytes to management
• Jason sent me a link to this earlier. People are dumn dumb.
• AMD Launches Barcelona
• 
• Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys chipmunks.
• introduced me to the Bloodhound Gang song A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When the Stripper Is Crying this weekend. Dear Lord…
• Photos: A Century of Helicopters

Quotes of the Day

• “So… you ever spend much time around sheep?”
• “My brother has a thing for goats.”

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. , it’s on!)

Then, home to load up on orange juice and Sudafed. Again. And work on the pics from the day.

posted this meme. I liked it. I’m copping it:

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…

1. Nine Inch Nails*****
2. Aerosmith
3. Babyface
4. Barenaked Ladies
5. Ben Folds Five
6. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
7. Boyz II Men
8. Cake
9. The Cruxshadows
10. David Bowie
11. emmet swimming
12. India.Arie
13. Information Society
14. Jonni Lightfoot (pre-Air Supply)
15. Luscious Jackson
16. New Edition
17. Poe
18. Preservation Hall Jazz Band
19. Rockapella
20. Rush
21. Sister Hazel
22. Shawn Colvin
23. Squirrel Nut Zippers
24. Sting
25. The Who

Stray Toasters

• Just in case I haven’t mentioned it enough or there was some lingering question about it: I’m sick of being sick.
• Toll the bell
  Pay the private eye
  All’s well
  20th century dies
• Zaz!
• I think that I have a plan for the dining room: Railroad motif. I have some old railroad pictures that I think would look good, once framed. And then, although I’m still a little indecisive on this part, I may get some free-hanging shelves and put my HO and N-scale trains on them.
• How do I swear in foreign languages?
• I need to buy a new architect scale. *sigh*
• Going back through some old posts, I came across this one. It made me laugh.
• Y’know what…?
  The Candy Man can.
  Even after all these years.
• needs some attention.
• O-E-O-E-O!
• RFID implants linked to animal tumors
• VIKA Blecket

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

• Jimmy Buffet’s He Went to Paris is a very good song.
• Harambee
• Sudafed.  Mmm, Sudafed.

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

• Velocirobs vs. T-Robs.
  “I’m learning to open doors.”
• The Elevens.
• I may try to squeeze in a trip to the driving range in the morning.
• Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit
• While driving to breakfast, LL Cool J’s The Boomin’ System came on the iPod. What is it about that song that makes it so timeless? And just damn good and fun to listen to? I think that it has secured a place on my list of “Driving Songs.”
• Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!!!
• I can tell that I’ll be making a pilgrimage to the Garden of Sweden soon: I’m looking up the prices for picture frames.
• Tiny Titans…. interesting….
• Behold the inertial-dampening powers of coffee creamer!

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.

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!

• Schoolhouse Rock! version
• Goodness version, from Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks

Enjoy!
Stray Toasters

• I have apparently picked up a cold. Let me add: I am getting seriously tired of the congestion and of having my voice intermittently decide that it doesn’t want to work.
• Wired’s How To Wiki: Write a Perfect Email
• Vikki just jumped up a few spaces on my “Favorite People” list.
• I had two people come up to me at work yesterday to ask me some “getting started” questions about working out.
• The Great Closet Migration is pretty much done. I still need to tweak a few things, here and there, but I am rather satisfied with the way it’s turned out.
• WB Unveils T-Works; free, expansive online animation
• Water, Gatorade or juice…? I should probably go with juice. Orange juice.
• Oran “Juice” Jones. The Rain.
• Juice: Pulp or pulp-free? I prefer pulp-free.
• 
• I feel a pilgrimage to the Garden of Sweden coming up…
• Toilet paper and paper towels: Over the top or under the bottom?
• Tentacle Hentai Birthday Cake
• 
  As if we needed yet another team break-up in the Marvel Universe. Who knows…? Maybe we’ll get “The New X-Men” and “The Mighty X-Men” and “Young X-Men” spin-off series outta the deal.
• Sorry, I just found a new low: Marvel Zombie Dark Phoenix. *shakes head*

I believe that a trip to Paragon City is in order.

Namaste.

: So… is something like this a little more in line with what you were thinking as far as a theme goes?

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:

• John Byrne – Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four
• John Cassady – Astonishing X-Men
• Alan Davis – Excalibur (I’m sorry… no one drew/draws that book like Alan Davis.)
• Keith Giffen – Justice League International
• Ethan Van Sciver – Green Lantern

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

• From the Broken Arrow file: Commander dismissed for nuclear mistake
• X-babies! (1,2)
• And, yet another addition to the Covet List: Phoenix
• , do I even want to ask about this: Nepal’s airline sacrifices goat to fix jet !?
• “A Wynn-Wynn situation”
• Psychological “torture bible” published in 1961 resurfaces online
• tried to kill me once again. This time, she tried with this. The even more odd thing: I had seen it, at behest, a couple of years ago.
• Thus, for Ms. Lightning: This.
• Or maybe…. this:

  

  (Yes, I did hear about Friday’s “Batman got beat up by a girl” conversation. Many thanks to for taking up the role of The Voice of Reason in my absence.)

• Dear Angie and John, a columnist’s introduction of a couple of friends to the world of comics.
• Partial Face Transplants – An advanced Photoshop pictures gallery
• I like Elton John’s Rocket Man; I also appreciate a good joke or comic that references it.
• COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Terra was created as a sort of parody of Kitty Pryde.
• Tyranist: It Came From the Quarter Bin: Star Brand #1
• The power just blipped out. Followed by a lovely reboot – my UPS needs a new battery or to be replaced. I thought that I had lost this post, as I hadn’t used “Save and Continue Editing.” Fortunately, Firefox somehow managed to save it. All.
• : Journey into Comics: Legion Season 2

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Monday: Coda / Tuesday – 04 September 2007
And so, the day (and the holiday AND the long weekend) comes to a close.

I found a few things to do that, while not “labor,” per se, were nevertheless good and fun:

• I had a craving for sushi for lunch, so I met at Tsunami. Today’s fare included: a Steak and Chicken Teriyaki lunch combination, with Ika nigiri and a Bonsai roll. All of it was quite tasty.
• From there, I visited Kate, Perry and the kids. (Who needs a workout when you have adopted nieces and nephews?!)
• Perry and I snuck out to check out a few stores. Okay, we didn’t “sneak,” but saying “…and we heading to a few stores” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
• I went to Murray Parkway Golf Course, to swat a bucket o’ balls on the driving range. They had closed a little before I got there…
• …so, I headed to Golf in the Round. They were still open! I got a large bucket and was on my way. I mixed my use of the irons, rather than just the 2, 4, 5 and 7. I need some work with the 9-iron, but on the whole, I think things went well. The 2- and 5-irons did well. And, I had a few really decent drives with the 5-wood and my driver. I tried to incorporate the things that told me (which helped quite a bit) and I tried to be more aware of how I was positioning myself relative to the tee and how I was swinging the clubs. Still not perfect, but getting better.

Now, I’m about to put in a little time on (what will hopefully be) the actual lyric-to-drawing piece for Ed’s Song, as opposed to the dry runs and fly-bys that I’ve been practicing on.

Stray Toasters

• I may make a decaf and Irish cream nightcap, to cap off the long weekend with a (minor) flourish.
• leucism vs. albinism
• I’ve added everydave.com to the blogroll on Random Access; I don’t know why I hadn’t done it before.
• laughter is infectious
  excitement goes to my head
  winds are stirred by planets in rotation
  sparks ignite and spread new information
• Nepal’s gadget-loving, 10-year-old Living Goddess: Interview
• I need to find a copy of The Prophet of Akhran, the third book in The Rose of the Prophet series. A trip to Mecca might be in order.
• Huh. Mentioning a possible trip to Mecca made me consider the following:
  • I refer to Utah as “The Land Behind the Zion Curtain.”
  • I refer to The Bookshelf as “Mecca”
  • IKEA (*genuflect*) is affectionately referred to as “The Garden of Sweden.” (Maybe I’ll start writing that as “SwEden.”)

  The only thing missing is Totem (click “Totem” for lyrics) playing in the background.

• From NPR: Dad Finds Answers to Kids’ Darndest Questions
• For some reason, The Who’s The Seeker just popped into my head. It was immediately followed by a random Harry Potter thought (as Harry was a Seeker on his Quidditch team). Then the two, like some horrible Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup accident, combined to form the following question: I wonder if any aspect of the song played a part in the outline that became the story of Harry Potter?

And, that’s a wrap.

Namaste.