Monday – 29 Sep 2008
Another work week begins. I think that I’m settling in to getting up around 6:20… I just wish that I’d stop waking up at 5:20. *shrug* Oh, well. At least I’m able to get back to sleep.
Today’s another fun day in the mines, but tonight’s MNF match-up has the Ravens taking on the Steelers in Pittsburgh. One way or the other, I’m going to get (at least) two phone calls about the game.
vs.
Speaking of football, what was the deal with the Eagles-Bears game last night? I expected a decent game, but I wasn’t expecting The Turnover Bowl.
She’s chocolate in my pocket
She’s gum in my hair
She’s the kind of girl that drives you crazy
But I don’t really care
She’s a superstar on my stage
She the sunlight in my shade
She’s the sweetest scent that fills the air
You will always find her there
Kenneth Branagh… wants to direct… the movie adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Thor?! WHAT?!?!
Sunday – 28 Sep 2008
This morning started out with SaraRules and me picking up her brother and heading up to Park City. We went to Cisero’s for brunch. Mmm, brunch… As usual, the food was quite good. After eating, we headed down to the Tanger Outlet to do a little shopping – Logan was looking for some inexpensive additions to his wardrobe for work. We were successful in that endeavor; SaraRules picked up a “fabulous, new purple coat.”
We headed back down Parley’s Canyon and made a side trip to the local Stein Mart. I showed Logan a few items that would also make good additions. He came out of there with a new shirt and tie. He seemed to like the store – and the prices; I think that he’ll be heading back there relatively soon.
Next, we went back to SaraRules’ parents’ for football. We’re also fixing jambalaya for dinner. (“We” meaning “I peeled the shrimp.”) Then, there will be more football, a little later.
Stray Toasters
Eventually, I’ll stop going on about last week’s Project Runway. But today’s not that day. I mentioned how bad Kenley’s “Hip Hop”-themed outfit was. Now, you can check it out for yourself. And, as an added bonus: Check out Tim Gunn and Craig Ferguson talking about the episode, during Tim’s appearance on The Late Late Show. (Thanks, to SaraRules for the link to Project Rungay)
What the Hell happened!? WHO let the Browns win!?!
(I just realized that I could have gone with “Who let the Dogs/Dog Pound out…”, but I’m glad that I didn’t.)
Saturday – 26 Sep 2008
Yesterday, after work, I went to Far West and played Matt in a friendly game of Heroclix. He won. My dice hated me, especially in the middle of the game. They proved this by missing any target number I needed by 1. Almost consistently. But, it was a fun game.
Post-game, I came home and watched part of the Presidential debate with SaraRules. I’m still curious about CNN’s real-time stat tracker, used to get the mood/opinion of Democratic, Independent and Republican voters. I’ll have to look up information on how it was gathered/tallied.
Clitorati was up next. Coffee, dinner and the conversations were all good. I still need to finish the crossword puzzle I started, though.
This morning, “sleeping in” was over a little after 8:00 AM. I think that I’ve figured out “why” I’ve been getting up so early on the weekends: I have been pushing my weekday wake-up time forward (I’m close to 6:15 at the moment), so my body feels that 7:30 – 8:00 IS sleeping in. Oh, well. SaraRules fixed omelettes and hash browns for breakfast. They were a nice change of pace. Then we got ready for the day.
Today was “Company Party Day,” as both of our companies held their end-of-summer get-togethers today. SaraRules’ was up first; it was at Boondocks. We played mini-golf and arcade games (including Galaga and skeeball) and just hung out for a couple of hours. Next was my party; it was at Lone Peak Park. As this party is our “family-friendly” gathering, they had an inflatable balloon-house where the kids could jump around, a climbing wall, games and cotton candy. It was fun. SaraRules and I ate with Dwim and his wife. We talked about comics and politics and other assorted and sundry things.
We stopped in to say “Hi” to SaraRules’ family on the way back to my place. They were watching Doom (not to be confused with Dhoom). “Somehow,” I’d managed to miss that movie when it was in theatrical release; seeing it with the family-unit, however, allowed for some prime MST3K-ing.
Thursday – 25 Sep 2008
How do you kick off a great NBN Thursday? How about with a text message from your father saying that you have two (2) tickets to the Raiders-Ravens game for your birthday? Boo-yah. Yeah, I’d say that qualifies.
After work last night, I went home and decided – after almost a year – to hook the 360 up to the Interwebs and download firmware updates. The main problem: The 360 is in the living room, my router is in my office – in the back of the apartment – and I didn’t have an ethernet cable that was long enough to reach. I thought about – and tried – using my old router (as a hub) to daisy-chain a couple of cables. Which I would have gotten away with, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids and your dog! the fact that I didn’t have any 10′ cables to run from the second router to the 360. *sigh* Then, on a whim, I decided to see if I could share Defiant‘s wireless connection to give the 360 access to the Interwebs. After a quick consultation with and a look at some Mac forums, I found what I was looking for. And it was pretty simple, too. And it worked.
SaraRules came over a little later. Wednesday nights have become Project Runway (and, often, The West Wing) nights at my place, as SaraRules doesn’t get Bravo at her place. I’m not a huge “reality TV” fan, generally speaking, but I like seeing some of the designs that the contestants come up with on the show. Last night’s episode had an interesting challenge: The designers had to design outfits based on specific music genres… for each other. The genres that were chosen were:
A couple of the designs (Pop and Punk) were spot on;the Rock outfit was… a little bland; the Country look was a bit too subtle. But the Hip Hip look was… just… bad. Which was sad for a two reasons:
Despite her occasional attitude, I like Kenley and most of the pieces she comes up with.
LL Cool J was the special guest judge.
Yeah. You get tagged to design a Hip Hip look… and get it all wrong… AND you have to show it off in front of LL Cool J. Triple whammy.
It was also funny hysterical to hear some of the snarky comments by the other designers about the design – including a couple of “sabotage” comments, when they were asked, “So, do you think that this looks Hip Hop,” as she would try different accessories with an outfit. And they would say, “Yes…” and turn away before they burst out with laughter. Surprisingly enough, Kenley did survive elimination this week. But the preview for next week’s episode featured a couple of shots of the remaining designers in tears as their designs were critiqued, so it should be worth a look.
After Runway, I flipped over to The Late Show with David Letterman; I wanted to see who they got to fill Senator McCain’s guest spot. I had considered flipping over to MSNBC to see if Keith Olbermann had anything to say about it. I didn’t need to – Olbermann was Letterman’s guest. And they both had opinions to share about the senator’s decision. Letterman’s comments, by way of :
And, I found this copy of Olbermann’s thoughts:
Wait… did he say that making a bi-partisan/joint announcement was originally Senator Obama’s idea? And it was copped by the McCain camp? Huh.
Derek posted this in his blog a couple of days ago, reprinted with permission:
Story time! Before the midnight Sabbath day barrier, we went to Albertsons, because Number 5 needed food. I stayed in the car with some others. Jill, unaware that I have Tourette’s, began telling a story about some kid in church with Tourette’s, yelling in Sacrament Meeting. Now let me officially state this: I love funny stories about people with Tourette’s, being crazy. They are funny and make me laugh. There I said it. But no one else can laugh at it, because they don’t have the disease. Now all you white people, you can no longer laugh at that OR say the N word.
Anywho, she began telling the story and everyone else in the car, who knew that I had it, got really embarrassed and felt awkward. It was awesome!
NO. SHIT. Thanks for the newsflash.
I guess that’s why I’ve been getting such dirty looks walking around whistling We’re in the Money.
It explains so much.
With that, I clicked over to Google News to check out some other headlines. Most of them were rather mundane, but there were two that I saw that immediately went on the “Why should I care about this?” list:
Ms. Lohan’s “fifteen minutes of fame” has been at 13:55 for a long time, as far as I’ve been concerned. Yes, I think that Mean Girls is a fun film and her SNL Harry Potter skit is still amusing, but other than that… *shrug* And Clay Aiken? I’ve never been a big American Idol fan, so… yeah.
And the bottom line: They’re living their lives. Let them. Is it really anyone else’s business? Um… no. Thank you, move along.
Wednesday – 24 Sep 2008
Some of my recent forays into The Dreaming have been odd. This morning, my subconscious apparently found a rather twisted path along the wildways in a dark area of The Dreaming… and skipped merrily along its way. Thus, I’ve been awake (for the most part) since 5:30 this morning, thanks to a lovely dream about my apartment being broken into. It was “a little” disturbing. After proving to myself that it was just a dream – but being too keyed up to sleep – I wound up sprawled on the couch watching SportsCenter. I apparently dialed down enough to nod off somewhere around 6:10. Just in time for the alarm to go off at 6:20. Yay.
Last night was very uneventful. I played my guitar for the first time in weeks. Adam called while I was cooking dinner – baked chicken over spaghetti, with a side of spinach; he had picked up The Invincible Iron Man animated movie that came out last year and had a couple of questions about it and how it related to the mainstream Iron Man. That led to questions about Watchmen – he’d seen the trailer and wanted to know if it was based on a comic. I told him that it was and that he should check it out. He then suggested the new Fox series, Fringe, to me. The show happened to be just starting as I finished cooking, so I watched it. It was good, but it may take a week or two to fully grow on me.
I also read two-and-a-half TPBs of Gotham Central (1, 2, 3). I had read the first and second ones before, but it has been a few months; I’d forgotten their storylines. I like what I’ve read of the third book, which I will probably finish tonight.
Stray Toasters
Jeff came by – to ask if SaraRules had already gone by (she had) – and noticed a pile of hard drives near my desk. He asked what we were planning on doing with the dead ones. I told him that we were keeping them aside and preparing them for destruction/disposal. He said that if it involved thermite or shredding, he wanted to watch. That reminded me of a video of a BMW getting shredded. I contacted Oracle for information on the video, which was on YouTube. But, there was a link to the main shredding site, where I had originally seen the video – SSI: Watch It Shred!
Tuesday – 23 Sep 2008
Guess who’s having Eggo LEGO waffles for breakfast.
Mm-hmm, that’s right.
I am.
Last night’s tourney was a wash: Only Chris and I showed. So, Keith basically rolled the dice: I “won,” Chris got Fellowship. The prizes were a Johnny Storm LE ‘Clix. With the “formalities” over, Chris, Keith, Nano and I played a four-way free-for-all. Since it was a just a fun game to kill some time, I tried a random team:
Keith brought the Fantastic Four (starter set), including the Sue Storm and Johnny Storm LE figures. I have two things to say about this team:
Watching someone play the FF as a team – and play them well – is a thing of beauty.
Getting beat down by that same someone/team is a bittersweet pill… though still fun.
I think that my dice thought that we were playing a game of “Suicide ‘Clix,” because I couldn’t hit my target numbers half the time. I wore down a couple members of the FF, but Keith wound up taking me out. Chris and Nano duked it out on the far side of the board, with Chris winning that fight. Then it came down to Chris and Keith. They danced around the playing field a bit, but Keith finally wound up taking Chris out.
After the game, I headed over to SaraRules’ to hang out with her and her family and watch Monday Night Football. (Four shots at a two-point conversion – FOUR – and you THROW it?! ALL FOUR TIMES?!?) Her parents just returned from a ten-day Oregon excursion and it sounded like they had a lot of fun. And, as an unexpected bonus, they brought back some smoked Brie.
Back home. Chilled on the couch… started nodding off on the couch… called it a night. However, before I hit the rack, I watched a little of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. One of his guests was Marianne Jean-Baptiste, from Without a Trace. I don’t think that I’d ever heard her speak out of character, so I was “a little” surprised to hear a British accent.
This morning, I saw SaraRules drive by as she headed to work.
In a rare occurrence, she apparently saw me – and Jeff, a coworker with whom I was talkin – as well.
Stray Toasters
Bit is speaking!
Her first word: “Dada”
Bot is not so amused.
From last night’s conversation with :
11:00 hahaha bot is ragingly annoyed
11:00 and thusly i am ragingly amused
11:00 bit’s first word today
11:00 or in the words of rana
11:00 I SPEND ALL DAY WITH THIS CHILD
11:00 I CHANGE HER DIAPERS
11:00 I FEED HER
11:00 EVERY
11:00 DAY
11:00 EVERY NIGHT
11:01 AND WHAT’S HER FIRST WORD?!!?
11:01 DADA!!!
11:01 lol life is good
I’ve been playing HeroClix for a couple of years now. It’s taken me this long to realize something about two teams’ abilities that bears out some testing. While it won’t make me unstoppable/unbeatable, it will change a couple things about the way I play the game… and who I consider for team builds.
There was a lot of good football yesterday, but I don’t think that anything amused/pleased me as much as seeing “Big Ben” Roethlisberger and the Steelers drop a game to the Eagles. Of course, ANY Steelers loss makes me smile, but the Steelers never found the end zone and were held to two field goals. We’ll see if they’re still playing this “well” next week, when the Ravens make a trip to Steeltown and face them.
SaraRules and I finished The Orphanage last night. Good movie, but not quite what we were expecting. Given the Guillermo Del Toro name, I think that we were expecting a little more “horror.” There were definite horror elements, but I wouldn’t call it a “horror movie.” I’m sure that Tyranist would disagree with me, though.
I’ve read some complaints about the “I’m a PC” commercials that MicroSquish is now running. Personally, I find them amusing… and far more palatable than the Bill & Jerry commercials. What I would really love to see would be a new wave of Apple “Mac vs. PC” commercials where they start off:
PC: I’m a PC. Mac: I’m a PC, too… but I’m running Mac OS X. PC:*sputter* What?! Mac: Yeah, I’m a PC. I just happen to run a different OS. But, when you really look at it, our hardware isn’t really that different. PC: But, that’s just going to confuse people. Just say you’re a Mac and be done with it. People don’t want to have to think. Mac:*stares at PC* Are you saying to just keep the sheep quiet and happy…? PC:*deer in headlights look* No… no! I’m not saying that. I’m saying that you’re just going to… confuse them. Mac: So… they’re too slow to understand the difference between hardware and software? PC: I…. You…. oh, forget it! *throws hands up in the air* There’s just no talking to you! Mac: Actually, there are lots of ways! Wireless networking. Wired. Even good, old-fashioned SneakerNet. PC:*rolls eyes and walks off-camera*
A few of us went to The Melting Pot last night to celebrate ‘s birthday. Many of us had never been there before, so it was an interesting – and fun – experience.
After dinner, SaraRules and I headed back to my place to watch The Orphanage. Good movie, but I was tired from having gotten up far too early, so we stopped the movie early so I could call it a night.
Today, nothing much on tap… and there may be a trip to the Garden of Sweden. We’ll see…
Saturday – 20 Sep 2008
Yesterday after work, I stopped by to see Code Monkey BB and shoot the bull for a few minutes. He is doing well and is enjoying his not-as-new-as-it-used-to-be job.
After that, I headed over to Far West to play a pick-up game of ‘Clix with Matt. We decided on a 400-point game. I went with:
We played an indoor map – I’m typically a fan of outdoor maps, as I like to use fliers, so I figured that an indoor would add to the challenge for me. Another challenge of the game is not thinking of certain pieces as playing like other pieces. For example, Guy Gardner is a Green Lantern, but he’s not a blaster, he’s a scrapper – he works best when he can get into close quarters and go mano-a-mano with an opponent. I remembered that when playing yesterday and it worked well. For a while. Getting him in close to Mary Marvel and The Thing wasn’t what killed him – it was The Flash. Damned Hypersonic Speed. But he was my only casualty. I managed to eventually mill through Matt’s force. Yes, a good portion of that was due to the Psycho-Pirate’s special Perplex ability (reduce one ability of an opponent by two), but I will gladly admit that I like having him on my teams because of that ability.
After that, I came home for a bit before heading out to meet up with the Clitorati group. Coffee and dinner were both good. I have apparently picked up a head cold in the past few days. By the time dinner was done, I was feeling a bit run down. So, I decided that a hot soak was in order. It fit the bill nicely. And, I called it a fairly early night. That’s not necessarily a “bad” thing…
…but I was awake this morning at 7:40. O,o
I watched Heavy Metal – The F-15 on The History Channel. It discussed the history of the airplane and its effectiveness in modern air warfare. It was very interesting. SaraRules woke up a little later. She fixed breakfast; I fixed coffee and then we watched Rocky, which happens to be SaraRules’ favorite movie.
Pop Quiz: How many of you knew that Rocky won the Best Picture Oscar for 1977?
Daily Double: How many other Oscars did it win?
Triple-Play: How many Oscar nominations did it have?
I haven’t seen Rocky in many, many years. It’s been long enough that I didn’t remember some of the details of the movie. But, I have to say that it remains a good film. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s “an enduring film.”
After the movie, we dived into some… cleaning. Yep, cleaning. I have a living room again… and about 75% of my dining room, too. A few weeks ago, I knocked over some of the ‘Clix lots that I’ve been wanting to put on eBay. And I haven’t had the motivation to resort them. Until today. I daresay that we were productive today and there’s still a good portion of the day left.
Speaking of which, it’s about time to get on with the rest of the day.
Thursday – 18 Sep 2008
Three down.
One in the chamber.
One to go.
Yesterday, after work, I went home and enjoyed a tasty dinner prepared by Ms. SaraRules – baked chicken with rice and a salad. Yes, I said “salad.” As in “food that food eats.” Move along. After dinner I stretched out on the couch… which lead to intermittent bouts of non-consciousness. I did the only appropriate thing to do in that situation: I took a nap. An apparently much-needed nap.
After the recharge, I played a City of Heroes, for the first time in a couple of weeks. I was invited to a group shortly after logging in – we had a nice balance of damage-dealers and a good healer, not to mention a non-tank Warshade who did a good job of tanking. I was a couple of bubbles from 29 when I started; by the time I finished, I was almost halfway to 30. Not bad for less than two hours’ worth of play time.
The alarm went off early again this morning. I opted to stay in bed for a little while longer, but I still managed to get here a few minutes after 7:00.
Stray Toasters
I got to chat with for a while this morning. It was a fun way to kick off the morning.
Tuesday – 16 Sep 2008
I just had the old NBC tagline: “Tuesday is Blues day” run through my head. For those of you not old enough to remember, that was how NBC used to promote its series Hill Street Blues.
Last night, SaraRules, Logan and I watched the Philly-Dallas shootout. The first half of that game was just a romp. I’m not a big Dallas or Philadelphia fan, so I didn’t really care who won, but some of the plays – or lack thereof – were just… sad. The second half looked more like an NFL game.
Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Slaughterhouse 5 and Invader Zim. The story should use getting sucked into the “real world” as a plot device!
Quote of the Day
From World of Warcraft to Prince… gotta love IRC:
(08:46:40) Ahpuc_: You know the worst part about having so many damned alts? Having to read the class-specific patch notes for EVERY CLASS.
(08:47:21) : heh
(08:47:28) : Gotta play ’em all!
(08:47:31) : Gotta play ’em all!
(08:49:04) Ahpuc_: Well…basically, yeah. 🙂
(08:49:08) Xeen entered the room.
(08:49:31) : PokeWoW
(08:50:05) Ahpuc_: I may be fooling myself, but I think I play my rogue better because I also have tanks and healers, and I understand what they are focused on better as a result.
(08:50:12) : “Level 58 Troll Shadowknight, I choose you!” *throws ball*
(08:50:36) Ahpuc_: Deathknight, you mean? Not til the next expansion is out. 🙁
(08:50:42) : Death.
(08:50:45) : Shadow.
(08:50:47) : *shrug*
(08:50:48) : 🙂
(08:51:12) Ahpuc_: If you don’t know the difference between death and shadows, I don’t want to be near you on a sunny day. 🙂
(08:51:30) Ahpuc_: Like the old joke about the difference between a man and a shower. 🙂
(08:51:42) : There are shadows in the rain, according to Sting, too…
(08:51:55) Ahpuc_: And death in the rain.
(08:52:14) : Death of a Salesman… in the Rain.
(08:52:18) : Wait.
(08:52:20) Ahpuc_: Hmmm…But doesn’t Death cast no shadow?
(08:52:55) : Death of a Salesman in the Purple Rain, a new heart-touching movie… coming soon from Oxygen
(08:52:59) Ahpuc_: And shadows never die, they just move, or expand to envelop the entire hemisphere at night.
(08:53:15) Ahpuc_: Don’t touch my heart!
(08:53:19) Ahpuc_: BAD TOUCH! DO NOT WANT!
(08:53:31) ***Ahpuc_ goes into cardiac arrest.
, for example, has seen the first one and finds it amusing.
I, on the other hand, am not overly enthused or amused by them.
(Maybe it has something to do with my apathy towards Jerry Seinfeld – I just don’t find him funny.)
In fairness, I’m something of a Mac convert (or is that really “re-vert,” as I used Macs MANY moons past…), but I still find some merits in pre-Vista Windows, including (and mostly limited to) the fact that it runs all of my favorite games.
If you have seen either or both commercial(s), what do you think of them?
Sunday – 14 Sep 2008
I had a ‘Clix tourney yesterday afternoon. I tied (2-1) with another player, but he KO’ed more figures – higher total points – so he won the day. I took the Fellowship prize, so I got a Sue Storm Limited Edition figure. Not bad.
After the game, I had dinner with SaraRules before heading off to Chris’ for the first Dark Heresy game I’ve been to in… probably a month to a month-and-a-half. Back home… to find that SaraRules wasn’t feeling well. We decided not to go to breakfast and called it an early night.
This morning, we got up and watched football. SaraRules fixed breakfast while we flipped back and forth between the early games. After the first group of games, we headed to the Garden of Sweden – she wanted something for her office and I wanted to look at some new desk and bookcase options. After that (and lunch), we went to the Utah State Fair – Attractions. Exhibits. Food. Livestock. People on parade. Rides. The usual. And cotton candy. Sweet, sweet cotton candy.
Back home for the late game and then over to SaraRules’ parents’ for a bit.
All-in-all, it’s been a good weekend. Can’t really ask for more than that.
Stray Toasters
I saw this shortly after waking up this morning; I think that this is my new favorite Sinfest cartoon.
We watched The Running Man tonight. I haven’t seen that in many, many rains. And it’s so ripe for being MST3K’ed, too. And we did.
I showed Logan, SaraRules’ younger brother, a picture of the Burger King mascot from when I was a kid. I do believe that he found it just about as creepy as the current mascot, if not more so.
vs. 
