Random Access

Wednesday – 14 November 2007
It seems as though Scion will be an interesting game. I opted not to try a character based on Hand of Nefer-Tem’s concept. Instead, I chose to go with a voodoo pantheon. This should be… interesting, to say the least.

So far, the day has been good.  Let’s see if the trend continues.

Stray Toasters

• My complex has already strung up – and lit – Christmas lights.  *sigh*
• While clicking through some of the artists on Gawker Artists, I saw a piece by Julius Santiago. That, in turn, caused me to click through to his site, where I found – among other things – this:

  
  (click for larger image)

• …and, by way of his Flickr page, this sign from the Central Florida Zoological Park:

  

• Urban Art Warfare: Gallery
• By way of Gizmodo: Engraved iPods: Worst Gift Idea for Someone You’re Merely Banging
• The Future Soon (machinima video)
• Can Michelle Obama Be First Lady No Matter What?

You know… hitting “Publish” when you’re done writing a post makes it upload MUCH faster than just leaving the verdammt thing sitting on the “Write Post” screen.  *sigh*  I need to up the frozen mocha intake; there’s obviously too much blood in my caffeinestream.

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
The post-work day has been relaxing. I stopped by to say “Hi” to Kate, Perry and the kids on the way home.

Stray Toasters

• Ou.
• called me out on something: I keep congratulating/mocking on Bengals’ win/losses… but never give a shout out/raspberry to her, even though she lives in Cincy. Rest assured, it won’t happen again. Bank.
• LEGO steampunk creations:
  • Behold, the SteamWalker!
  • Steam-powered Flamethrower
  • Steam Tractor
• Lung-on-a-Chip Replicates the Tiny Explosions Inside Diseased Lungs
• Onion rings.
• Framed: A Heretic’s Guide to Suiting Up
• If you need me
  I’ll be downstairs
  With the shop vac
  You can call but I probably won’t hear you
  Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
• She kicked Batman’s ass (and Superman’s on at least two or three occasions), so this should be a walk in the park…

  

• By way of Eric: Renault F1 “plays” God Save the Queen (yes, a car playing a song… kind of. Just watch it.)
• Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?
• Defiant now contains all of the mp3s that I’ve ripped at work.
  Ripped from my CD collection. (That’s right… up yours, RIAA!)
• Speaking of “Up yours, RIAA” – and breaking my “No Christmas songs before Thanksgiving” rule – AND invoking Jonathan Coulton (again): Podsafe Christmas Song
• Atari 2600 enters Strong National Museum of Play’s Hall of Fame

Hm. Maybe I’ll take a little trip to Paragon City…

Namaste.

Saturday – 10 November 2007
After work yesterday, I hit the road for Cedar City. It was overcast for part of the drive, so I didn’t get to look at the starscape. By the time I got to Cedar, SaraRules had already left for the musical; I hung out with her roommates until she got in.

Today, started with sleeping in. Much-needed sleeping in. Then came breakfast and cartoons. After breakfast – and the hygiene rituals – SaraRules I went to meet Claire, an artist from whom Sara had commissioned a picture for my birthday: It’s a train. And, it’s very cool. Claire brought two prints for me to choose from; I took the first one – I liked the color separations on it a little better. I’m going to have to reorganize some of the pictures in the dining room so that I can add it to the collection.

The rest of the day has been fairly lazy and relaxed. Tonight, I saw the musical (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) with Vince.  I saw Rachel and Steve at intermission.  After the play, SaraRules, Rachel, Steve and I went to Applebee’s for dinner and drinks – not a bad way to wind up the day.

Human of the Day
Today’s Human is Claire. She was fun to talk with and I’m quite taken with the piece that she did.

Four-Color Coverage
It’s been about three weeks since I’ve done one of these. In that time, I have decided to revamp the comic reviews a bit: Rather than review everything that I’ve read from a given haul, I’m going to stick to covering the stand-outs – the issues that I consider particularly noteworthy. That being said, let’s dive in:

• Action Comics #858 – This is the book that made me late for gaming a couple of weeks ago. Why? It’s a Legion tie-in story. Not just “any” version of the Legion, either. The Legion that I grew up reading. Apparently, there’s trouble in the 31st Century that requires the help of the Man of Steel. But, things in the 31st Century aren’t quite the same as the last time Superman was there…
• Astonishing X-Men #23 – Short and sweet summary here: Wow. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after the bombshell from Issue #22, I wasn’t expecting much.  I was wrong.  I seriously underestimated Joss Whedon. Excellent issue and I can’t wait for Issue #24, the final chapter in the Whedon-Cassady run of the book.
• Elephanmen #006 – I somehow missed picking up this issue when it was first released. In it, we get a little more background on the relationship between Elephantman Obidiah Horn and his fiancee, Sahara.
• Fantastic Four #551 – The Black Panther, Namor and… Doctor Doom… come back in time to prevent Reed Richards – and the rest of the Fantastic Four – from making one of his greatest mistakes. But, will Reed listen to what they have to say?
• Justice Society of America #10 – The “strange visitor” who appeared at the end of Issue #9 was none other than the Superman of Earth-22… the Kingdom Come Earth. He’s here to make sure that what happened on his Earth doesn’t happen on New Earth.
• The New Avengers: Illuminati (5 of 5) – I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this series when it started…. and I wasn’t sure that I would collect the entire run. Yeah, I know… only five issues. But, given some of the bumps along the way, I wasn’t sure that I’d make it. But, I did. And it wasn’t as much of a train wreck as I had thought. In fact, the ending made up for a lot. And, it (the ending) tied in well to a continuing storyline in The New Avengers. On the minus side, it’s leading into what I assume will be a Marvel-wide crossover called “Secret Invasion,” for which I may wait for a trade paperback.
• Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #35 – Atom Girl, Shadow Lass and Timber Wolf – with long-range assistance from Brainiac 5 – take on former Legionnaire E.R.G.-1 (Wildfire) as he attempts to assassinate the President of the planet Lallor.
• Superman #670 – The final chapter of “The Third Kryptonian” storyline. Superman, Power Girl, Supergirl, Chris Kent, Krypto and… “the third Kryptonian” against Amalak, a being intent on making sure that there are no Kryptonians.
• Uncanny X-Men #492 – Chapter two of the “Messiah Complex” crossover currently running through the X-titles. Since I’m not collecting the other books, I came into the game late, so to speak. But, what this issue did have was a fairly solid story, and it was interesting to see Scott and Professor X finally get to the heart of the matter of the wedge between them… if only briefly.

Stray Toasters
Nope.  Not tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.

Namaste.

Thursday – 08 November 2007
Another NBN Thursday draws to a close. Work was good. Today was “Sushi Wednesday.” (Yes, I know it was Thursday. Deal with it.) I picked up this week’s four-color goodness. And, I have brand-spankin-new sexy black hotness.

Human of the Day
There are actually three HotDs today: Joanne, from the laundry where I get my clothes done and Jerry and an unnamed manager at the Apple Store.

I decided to kill two avians with a single piece of silicate tonight and get my laundry done while I was exchanging my MacBook. (Sidenote: One of the Coworker Daves, misheard Code Monkey and me talking about the laptop and thought that we had referred to it as my BlacBook. That amused me.) So, off I went in search of adventure to swap my BlacBook MacBook and to get some clean drawers…

• Joanne: I got to the laundry a little later than planned, but was still hopeful that I could get same-day service. Couldn’t hurt to ask, after all. So, I walked in… got up to the counter… and posed the question. Joanne looked at the clock, thought about it and said yes. When I went back later to pick up the clothes, she said that she basically did it because I’ve been a fairly regular customer and that she knew that if I said I needed them tonight, that I’d be back for them. (Truth be told, Joanne has consistently been the easiest-to-deal with person at that laundry in all of the time that I have been going there; I think I actually sigh in relief whenever I see that she’s working.)
• Jerry and the unnamed Apple Store manager: While waiting on the laundry, I took the old and busted MacBook to the Apple Store to trade it in for new hotness. An associate named Jerry came up to help me. Bang. Zoom. I summarized last night’s call to the store and told him with whom I had spoken. He said that he could take care of it; he took the receipt and the MacBook and headed to the Genius Bar. A couple of minutes later, he came back – he needed my password to get into the system. And then, he was off again. He returned with the old MacBook and a fresh-in-the-box new one.There was a slight problem in matching the receipt to the MacBook – there had been some arcane workings in getting proper credit applied when the purchase was made. Enter: Unnamed manager. She came over, sussed out the deal and got the proper ducks in a row. A few minutes later, Jerry returned and told me how much it would cost to complete the exchange.

  Cost? Huh…wha?!?

  When I called last night, that was one of the things that I specifically asked. The associate said that his manager had authorized a waiving of any restocking fee. Jerry disappeared again. While he and Managerette were trying to hammer out the particulars, I wandered about the store. I also made a discovery: Battlefield 2142 has been ported to the Mac. I wandered back to the front of the store, just as they were trying to figure out where another discount had been taken in purchasing the old MacBook. I tried, unsuccessfully to call (who picked up the MacBook for me) to help sort things out. But, Managerette came up with a solution and… no more than three minutes after that, I was walking out the door with the new system.

Stray Toasters

• I picked up a copy of Peaceful Warrior this evening. It was a good adaptation of the book.
• Ou.
• Apparently, the Chasing Amy “What’s a Nubian?” clip has been removed from YouTube. But, I found a link to a similar clip of it (minus about 30 seconds) on MySpace.
• Tesla Coils Playing the Mario Bros. Theme Are Unsurprisingly Awesome
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Teen Gets Strippergram at School
• Gawker Artists
• Zombeatles’ Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead
• By way of Maddox: Fashion tips for women from a guy who knows dick about fashion and 9 things I learned about the world from anonymous stock photo models

Namaste.

Wednesday: Coda
I am tired. Not completely worn out and run down exactly, but I can tell that I should sleep well tonight.

On the way home, I stopped in to see Kate, Perry and the new baby. Cute. And tiny (but not toony). Both he and Kate are doing well, with no complications. Kate and Perry are now referring to me as the kids’ “bluncle.” That amuses me. I can live with that.

Human of the Day
Yep, this is another new item. Sometimes, you come across a person who is the polar opposite of a “monkey.” Since I so frequently mention (rant/rage/bitch about) monkeys, why shouldn’t I give equal time to people who actually are good and decent? Don’t they deserve a shout out, too? Of course they do. And thus, we have the “Human of the Day.”

Today’s (and the first) Human of the Day: .

I got the new sexy black hotness that is Defiant on 26 October. Leopard, the latest version of OS X, also came out that day. It wasn’t pre-loaded, but came packaged with the laptop. Win-win.

On 31 October, MacRumors.com began posting items about upgrades to the MacBook.

YeahbuhWHAT?!

• Faster processor
• New mainboard chipset
• Faster front-side bus
• Upgraded video card
• Added memory capacity

Yeah. All of that… at the same price point. *grblsnrkx*

For the past few days, has been asking me whether I had considered contacting Apple and asking a few pointed questions. Today was no exception. And, while I had planned on calling sometime this evening, I figured, “What the Hell…” and decided to call while still chatting with .

I called and after a little dealing with an IVR, got through to an associate in the store. I explained that I had just bought my MacBook and that I had even waited until Leopard was released so that I could have the new OS for the new machine… and that the new, updated hardware was released six days later. “So… what are my options to return or exchange my notebook for the newer hardware.” The associate said that he wasn’t sure, but that he would talk with a manager and find out.

He was gone for a few minutes. I listened to hold music – it was reggae. He came back to the phone and explained that there was a fourteen day grace/return period and that situations like mine were covered under that. All that I had to do was bring the notebook, box and all of the included accoutrements to the store… and I could exchange it for one of the new MacBooks.

Just. Like. That.

So, by this time tomorrow, I will have even newer, sexier black hotness.

So, once again, a shout out and a big thanks to for his persistence.

Stray Toasters

• Kate can sing the theme from The Snorks; I’m not sure whether to be impressed… or scared.
• Tossed-Out Electronics Are Reincarnated as Stop-Mo Animal Bots
• 
• The Ultimate Guide to Freezing Food

.eof

Wednesday – 07 November 2007
*WHEW* That’s really the best way to describe the past 36 or so hours, they’ve been something of a whirlwind.

Monday night, after football, I stopped to borrow a cooler from , more on the “why” below. I got to see and play with the cats for a bit. Lightning and Presto were moderate attention whores, go figure; Sissy was a little more low-key.

Tuesday was a quiet day in Cubeville. I didn’t have anything new in my task list, so I plowed through some more reading. Yay, reading! Actually, I really can’t complain: I am learning a lot (as dry as some of it may be…) and improving my skill set.

After work, the fun began…

I headed to Scandia, to pick up the cake that I had ordered for SaraRules’ birthday. A raspberry marzipan cake. A cake that needed to be kept cool/cold, hence the need for the cooler. I had ice. I had gel packs. As far as I knew, I was ready to rcok. Unfortunately, the cake box was significantly larger than the cooler. *grblsnrkx* This meant that some creative adaptation was in order. I wound up adding a half-gallon of ice cream to help with the cooling process. Grabbed a bag o’ clothes and headed out. Next, a stop to pick up to pick up some decorations and fill up the tank… then it was time to burn the breeze. Until I went to get onto I-15 South. Drive-time gridlock. yay (lower case intentional). I got through that and made it to Provo… only to hit two more pockets of resistance. >.< But, once I got down to Springville, things moved at a steady pace. Next stop: Cedar City.

One thing about the drive between SLC/AF and Cedar City, you have time to kill. A LOT of time. Last night and this morning, I listened to the (abridged) audiobook version of John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise (iTunes Music Store link). It’s a fun read. Um, “listen.” Whatever. And, it features Jonathan Coulton, as well. Win-win! (All that and you learn about the 51st U.S. state!)

I made it to Cedar without any problems. And the cake survived the trip intact. Sara wasn’t in, which I was counting on – she was in a rehearsal for an upcoming production at the school. Perfect. I had conspired with her roommates to keep this trip a secret and so far, it was working out well.

That’s when I remembered that I had neglected to pick up birthday cards before I hit the road. Greeeat.

We put up the decorations and I made a mad dash to the store for cards. I got back to the apartment and signed the cards with plenty of time to spare – the rehearsal started late. Fortunately. So, I hung out with the roommates. Sara got in, saw the decorations and was met/accosted by her roommates; I was reading a couple of articles in GQ, in her bedroom (i.e.: “hiding”). The look on her face when she got to her door was well worth the trip. (And, of course, none of us thought to take any pictures.) We all went back into the kitchen. We sang “Happy Birthday.” We ate cake (which was quite good, I must say). And everyone went to bed.

This morning, back on the road and on to work. There have been a few questions/problems to deal with, but it’s been pretty quiet, overall. (Translation: “More reading!”) Today’s workout was short, but painful (in a more-or-less good way):

• Leg Raises: 3 sets / 20 reps
• Dip: 3 sets / 20 reps
• Bench Press: 3 sets / 15 reps, 155 lbs.
• Lat Pull-downs: 3 sets / 15 reps (sets 1 and 3 at 120 lbs., set 2 at 100 lbs.)
• Incline Press: 3 sets / 15 reps, 95 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• I had somehow managed to forget that I had Butterscotch Krimpets in my desk drawer.
• Dastardly pounce!
• William Gibson: The Rolling Stone interview
• Tyranist recently acquired Infernal Contraption. It seems like a “Rube Goldberg meets Munchkin” kind of game, from the information.
• That reminded me of – and I decided to show Tyranist – Sim City: The Card Game. I went to the Mayfair site, but didn’t find a link to it. I tried Google. Bingo. First result. And it was on… the… Mayfair site. *blink blink* Apparently, they didn’t remove it, they just buried it. Bizarre.
• Top Marathoner Collapses and Dies in Olympic Trials
• Wow. From BBC News: Girl separation surgery a success
• Georgia under state of emergency (The country, not the state)
• SaraRules and : Prince fan sites face legal threats
• Rune Olsen’s Twisting Sculptures
• Spooler. Processor. Monitor.
• Jason is buying an iMac… ostensibly, for his wife. (One of us… One of us…)
• City of Heroes “Thank You” goodies.

Like I said: *WHEW*

Namaste.

Tuesday – 06 November 2007
Happy Birthday, SaraRules:

Wait… I already called. Okay, disregard that last one then. Seriously, though, I hope that you have a wonderful birthday!

So far, the day has been good. And there is frozen mocha goodness to thin the blood in my caffeinestream.

There’s no game tonight, so I’ll have to find other ways to entertain myself; I’m fairly sure that I can come up with something.

Stray Toasters

• I have rediscovered the joy that is Indexed.
• SupercaliMACiliciousexpialidocious.
• 
• By way of and Gizmodo – Misnomers: Sony TWA/T Camera Case Is Unfortunately Named
• …and, Gadget Art: Pierre Matter’s Steampunk Sculptures Belong in Batman’s Art Gallery
• Comet surprise makes it visible to the naked eye
• By way of Jason: Flight of the Conchords – The Humans are Dead
• …which remined me of Jonathan Coulton’s Chiron Beta Prime and The Future Soon
• 
• The above picture reminded me of something: There’s an LDS Primary song called, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam… which, for the past few weeks, has been getting reparsed in my head as Cthulhu Wants Me for an Appetizer

/lunch

Namaste.

Sunday – 04 November 2007
Sleeping in is even better with Daylight Saving Time. That whole “Fall back…” thing. It kicks grass. I woke up this morning thinking that I had fifteen minutes until the first round of NFL games. Wrong. I had an hour-and-fifteen minutes. So, that time was spent reading the two most recent issues of GQ, with a cup of coffee, while SaraRules read the latest Vogue. After checking NFL.com, I realized that there weren’t any games in the early set that I was really jazzed about watchng, so I was able to enjoy my reading time.

Last night, we went to see American Gangster. The movie tells the story of 1960s/1970s Harlem drug dealer Frank Lucas and New Jersey police office Richie Roberts, the man who brought him down. Wow. It was a very well-done piece of cinema. As usual, Denzel Washington did an excellent job, as did Russell Crowe. In fact, this movie did many great things to wash the lingering memories of Virtuosity out of my mind – the last picture in which I can recall both Washington and Crowe starring. I give this movie an enthusiastic thumbs-up with an okay.

Stray Toasters

• I played Backgammon for the first time in probably… ten years… last night. I lost fabulously.
• By way of : Shatner woo remix
• : Glad to see that you enjoyed Across the Universe. (Told ya so!)
• 
• Wal-Mart’s Terrible Nintendo Wii Knock-Offs
• By way of Slashdot: Elephants on acid – the 10 wackiest experiments of all time

*voop*

Namaste.

Saturday – 03 November 2007
So far, it’s been, to quote Mr. Rogers, “…a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

As with any good Saturday, it started with sleeping in. This was followed by breakfast and coffee (and college football) and then cartoons (Legion and The Batman, natch). After observing the necessary hygiene rituals, SaraRules and I headed out to check out the shops on Main Street. Highlights included a couple of bookstores (picked up a new-to-me Spenser book!), the kite shop and the sporting goods store. The latter store amused me because I noticed that the guy working the desk was playing poker on PokerStars; he seemed a little surprised when I mentioned it. Back home for lunch (and more college football) and some other random TV watchin’.

Tonight, we – along with a couple of the roommates and their S.O.s – are going to see American Gangster. We had considered making it a double-bill with Across the Universe, but the roomies’ schedules wouldn’t work with it. Oh, well.

Stray Toasters

• I think that I have found the perfect item for use in this year’s Christmas card. Perfect, I say!
• Duane “Dog” Chapman has had his show placed on indefinite hiatus, after a conversation in which he used racial epithets in trying to convince his son to dump his girlfriend was brought to light. But, he apologized. I would like to think that he apologized because he was sorry for what he said… rather than simply because he got caught.
• Whose Kingdome Come? Geoff Johns Talks JSA
• “What’s a Nubian…?”
• BBtv: American Furry – Life, Liberty and the Fursuit of Happiness
• 
• 8-bit retro game sound synthesizer
• I have been wanting to play some good, old school fashioned Lode Runner, lately.
• Impossible Mission, too.
• Steampunk Pac-Man
• From Baltimore’s City Paper: Hallowe’en Masks VIII… especially notable/amusing – the “Play Caller of Cthulhu” mask.
• Here there be zombies!
• For those of you who watch NFL on Fox, you’re familiar with “the Touchdown Robot.”  Well… guess who’s getting his (its ?) own action figure?
• Hot chocolate.  Boo-yah!

Namaste.

Friday – 02 November 2007
And so the weekend starts. Actually, it started last night: I cleared things with and got on the road for Cedar City. Late start, but that also meant that there was almost no traffic. Which means… say it with me…. “No monkeys!”

This morning, I slept in. Oh, glorious sleeping in… how we love you. While waiting to SaraRules to get done at school and work, I ran to the bank and the gas station and the car wash (Oh-oh-oh-oh, at the car wash, yeah!). After we met back at Sara’s, we decided that we were hungry. Next stop: Costa Vida. With food out of the way, we headed back to campus for a few, so I could say “Hi” to a few people.

I wanted to do some shopping – slim pickin’s in Cedar – so we went to St. George. Outlets. Dairy Queen. And Best Buy. Amen.

Back to Cedar. Tonight, it’s Papa Murphy’s and Dog Soldiers.

Tomorrow… we’ll see.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 31 October 2007
Happy Hallowe’en.

I don’t remember the alarm going off this morning… and I left the iPod in the car, so I didn’t have my usual backup. Oh, well. At least it’s the short commute today. The day started nicely, though: a quick message from SaraRules followed, almost immediately, by a brief chat with Mom on AIM. The two conversations called to mind a lyric from Barenaked Ladies’ Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank:

Mother Nature & Mother Earth
Are two of three women who dictate what I’m worth

Weird, but that’s the way I’m wired. Go figure.

Now it’s time to Get Down on It and Ease On Down the Road.

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
It’s been a relatively quiet post-work day. And that isn’t a bad thing. At all.

After work, I came home and decided to spend a little time in Paragon City. I caught one of my Super Group-mates online, so I asked her about the Hallowe’en event – specifically, where were places that I could Trick or Treat. She (and one of our coalition members) hooked me up with the zones where I could knock on doors and hopefully not die.

So, I headed to one of the zones…

…knocked on a door…

…and received a Trick: A Fir Bolg, a Witch and a Zombie walked into a bar attacked me. Yay. I fought them and won. So, I tried again. Another Trick: A Witch and a Sorceress. Whoop-de-damn-doo. I beat them… but not before they landed a few solid hits on me.

About this time, I remembered a couple of real world things that I needed to take care of, so I logged out and handled them. When I came back home, I decided that “food” came under the heading of “good thing,” so I fixed something to eat.

And then I headed back to Paragon City. C’mon… it’s the Hallowe’en Event! And I haven’t really played much in the past few weeks. No sooner than I logged in and said “Aloha” to my coalition, I was invited to join a team. I did. We kicked some Council and Devouring Earth… um… well… robots don’t really have butts – with the possible exception of Bender – and I don’t want to think about the DevEarth having recta, either. So, suffice if to say: We whooped ’em. Soundly. After the team broke up, I did a little more Trick or Treating. This time, for my efforts, I scored a couple of temporary powers: Hallowe’en costumes. I’ll get a couple of pics up in the next few days.

Stray Toasters

• I almost mistyped that as “Stray Tiasters,” which (for some reason) made me think “Stray Tiamats.” And absolutely no good would come from that.
• Speaking of Stray Tiamats (but hoping not to see one), morrownight is Game Night: D&D.
• And, Wednesday night is Hallowe’en… which means that will be running his annual Hallowe’en Horror Game. This year, it’s Call of Cthulhu. And I get to dust off a character who hasn’t seen the light of day in some time… a character that I had a lot of fun playing.
• This one’s for SaraRules, Tyranist and Nox: From Wizard – The 21 Greatest Horror Movies of the 21st Century. Examine and discuss.
• “Thanks!” to and for their helpful hints in getting acclimated to the Mac way of thinking.
• This post is being written on Defiant, now that I seem to have it properly trained on the network.
• I need to remember that there is NO mouse attached to Defiant. Just the touchpad. *sigh* I keep reaching for ‘Nine‘s mouse when I try to move the cursor across the screen.
• I just described Defiant to Code Monkey BB as “Black as midnight, sweet as sin.” He got a chuckle out of it… as did I.
• Style is like a second cousin to Class…
• UK Minister detained at Dulles Airport
• While trying to see if someone had posted a copy of Joe Cocker’s performance of Come Together, from Across the Universe, I found this video of the cast singing Hey Jude in Central Park. It’s a little rough, but pretty cool… and you can see that they – and the crowd – were having fun.
• Steampunk Time Machine
• One of the Coworker Daves – I swear, I’m going to have to number them to keep “who’s who” straight – emailed a link to today’s post from The Best Page in the Universe to a few of us in the office. I was chatting with both of them at the time and mentioned to Maddox that the link was going around the office… and to Dave that Maddox is a friend of mine; Dave seemed surprised by that, even though he knows about my superpower of knowing just about everyone. On the plus side, this encounter reminded me that I hadn’t added Maddox’ page to Random Access’ blogroll – an oversight that was quickly corrected.
• “party representative submission position”
• Celebrate Halloween with Halo, Lord of the Rings Online
• From Wired.com’s How To Wiki: Shred Like a God in Guitar Hero 3

.eof

Monday – 29 October 2007
A new week begins.

Getting up and on the way wasn’t so bad this morning. I chatted with for a few minutes before hitting the street. It seems as though there was a 5.0 earthquake in Kathmandu this morning. Oddness. And here are some interesting stats about Nepal.

Stray Toasters –

• Defiant is now running Leopard (Mac OS X – 10.5). New hotness for the new hotness.
• By way of SaraRules: ‘Fall Trio’ at Bountiful gallery; Mössel’s magic realism at SUU
• 
• The 13 Scariest Things in IT in 2007
• My Green Lantern ‘Clix should arrive soon. Very soon.
• Preparing for Diwali
• 
• Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi…
• I feel yet another pilgrimage to the Garden of Sweden coming on.
• 
• Man place on sex offender register for sex with bike
• Driver denies threatening officer

Quote of the Day
Land called Saturday to share this gem, from a consultant (obviously not from Utah) with whom he was working. She had apparently asked about getting some coffee and, when met with odd/curious looks, spouted off this beauty:

Oh, that’s right… you don’t drink coffee. Something to do with the purity of your temple or some shit like that.

Yay for ignorant and insensitive monkeys!

Namaste.

Sunday – 28 October 2007
Last night and today were both quite good.

After Friday night’s festivities, we slept in Saturday morning. Ms. SaraRules fixed a… sauted (I think) pasta dish for breakfast; it was pretty damned good. We ate and had coffee while watching ‘toons and Jim Croce videos.

Next, it was off in search of costume goodness. I had toyed around with the idea of doing a Hand of Nefer-Tem costume and even taking a suggestion from and going as Bill Cosby – Heaven knows that I have more than enough sweaters to pull it off. Sara was going to go as Little Red Riding Hood, but wasn’t able to find a red cloak… so, a trip to Target later, she went as Red Riding Hood… in the ‘hood. That made me rethink my idea. Instead of America’s favorite Jell-O Pudding-eating dad, I opted to redo my White Trash Party outfit and go as Tha’ Wolf. Complete with 40 of Miller Genuine Draft (which I think will be used to cook brats or shrimp). Home to change and then we were off…

First we stopped at Chris and Mary’s. Horror movie party. We sat around and shot the bull for an hour or so before starting the first movie: Eight-Legged Freaks. Unfortunately, the movie decided to be… uncooperative, so we only made it about 30 minutes into the movie. That’s when we noticed the time; we needed to roll out. We headed across town to and onlyaly’s place… unfortunately, we missed out on ‘s gathering. For pics of some of the Hallowe’en costumes, click here.

Sunday morning started with breakfast at Sara’s parents’ house. Waffles. Homemade, none of that Eggo stuff. Then… football. The Ravens had a bye this week. We watched the Pitt-Cincy game. As much as it hurt to do, I was rooting for Cincinnati to win. They didn’t. We left to meet up with and to take some pictures in Memory Grove. After that, we all stopped at Redrock for drinks. Back to Sara’s parents’ place for dinner… and MORE football.

Back home.

Stray Toasters

• I am typing this post on the new black hotness that is the new Defiant. I think that I shall rechristen the old laptop either Valiant or Sao Paulo.
• I still have two boxes of Butterscotch Krimpets… and haven’t eaten any of them – I gave one box to , as she is rather fond of them.
• Talking Action with Gary Frank (: This includes some LSH news)
• 114
• Simon Pegg (you know, from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz)… as Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek film? Interesting.
• If the Dead Ruled – a Worth1000.com Photoshop contest
• From The Salt Lake Tribune: Liquor commissioner wants booze out of view
• Failed Futuristic Predictions

And there you have it.

Namaste.

Wednesday: Coda
Today, I was given “The Leash,” as would put it. I’m now in the on-call rotation for servers, one week out of every… six, I think. and I had talked a few months ago about adding me to the rotation at some point, now that I’m working out of the Salt Lake office a few days a week. In the words of Lita Ford, Reel Big Fish and (according to ) Generation X: “It ain’t no big thing.”

After work, I remembered something that Dwim said earlier in the day: “It’s Wednesday…” Now, I knew that it was Wednesday, but I wasn’t following his drift. I made some comment about it being another day closer to Friday. And, as Friday is International Annual Rob Day – not to mention New Black Hotness Day – I was kind of in a one-track mind. Dwim, however, was referring to the fact that:

Wednesday == New Comics Day.

In light of this fact, I headed to Dr. Volt’s to feed the need. I also treated myself to twelve pieces of plastic crack, two singles and two boosters. The singles I picked up were Batman and Dr. Light; in the boosters I got:

• Aztek
• Batman (same as the single that I picked up… go figure)
• Batman (from the Justice Legion A)
• Bouncing Boy (to add to my growing plastic Legion!)
• Bronze Tiger
• Bulleteer (two of them, one in each booster)
• Firestorm
• The Flash and
• Major Disaster

After a stop at the local SuperTarget, I came home to deal with the fact that I was hungry. I decided to make spaghetti; I even made sauce. In an even more rare twist, I made garlic bread from a couple of hot dog buns. It was good, despite burning the little finger on my left hand by being a bit upid-stay.

While eating dinner I watched the last few innings of the World Series – The BoSox opened a six-pack on the Rockies. They set a new World Series Game 1 record also: Largest win margin – 12 runs.

Stray Toasters

• I picked up a box of Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches tonight. I like ice cream sandwiches.
• Zaibatsu
• “Creative counting”
• I am still digging the Across the Universe soundtrack.
• asked what I plan to name the new laptop. I told him that I would probably christen it “Defiant,” like the old laptop, in the same way that the Sao Paulo was renamed/renumbered (fourth paragraph from the bottom) to become the new Defiant.

I should hit the rack.

Namaste.