Random Access

Thursday – 04 January 2007
I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night – when the alarm went off yesterday, I turned it off and proceeded to get another hour’s worth of sleep. It helped.  Apparently, this caught up to me last night: I was nodding off at the computer and wound up crashing.
Yesterday wasn’t bad. It was somewhat busy, but not horribly so; that helped the time seem to go by even more quickly.

I came home and just… wanted to stay in. I wasn’t too sleepy/tired, but I was a little weary. So, I locked the door and battened down the hatches. Okay… truth be told, there was more “sitting around” than “battening down.” But, I did get the wild hair to clear some of the mess and clutter out of my office. That was a grand undertaking. I’m still not done, but there is a very noticeable difference in how it looks now than it did when I started.

The Adventures of Indigo Bolt
I teamed up with some members of my Super Group and a few other friends for some missions tonight. Carnies on one mish. Black Swan on another. Babbage in the last one. I died a few times, but the missions were of high enough levels that I didn’t stay in debt very long.

I hit Security Level 48 towards the end of the Black Swan mission. Finally!  Two more levels – two more very LONG levels – to Warshade.

Stray Toasters

• The Black, White and Shades of Grey in Collecting Black Americana
• A few people have taken the “Which Super Villain Are You?” test. Being the comic book geek/lemming that I am, I jumped off the cliff, too…
  Your results:
  You are Lex Luthor

  Lex Luthor 55% Apocalypse 53% Dr. Doom 47% Mr. Freeze 39% Magneto 39% Kingpin 31% Mystique 28% Juggernaut 28% The Joker 27% Dark Phoenix 25% Venom 24% Riddler 23% Catwoman 23% Poison Ivy 19% Green Goblin 12% Two-Face 4%

  A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!

  Click here to take the “Which Super Villain am I?” quiz…
• The stuff of dreams – a list of “fun” materials.
• What Do 200 Calories Look Like?
• , you might be interested in this one: Erasable Tattoos
• Star Wars as a silent movie

Time to get up and get out.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 02 January 2007
First work day of the new year. And it wasn’t bad. I was up early this morning… but that didn’t preclude me from enjoying the warmth of the bed for a while, as the iPod played in the background. Then it was up, prep and out the door…

Work wasn’t bad. The lunchtime workout was good, too. Last week, I set a new goal for myself: Being able to consistently bench press 185 lbs for three sets; Wes and Eric are stepping up their weights, too. Today was the first day to try it. We warmed up with 135 lbs. Then I did a set at 185. It wasn’t horrid. After the guys worked through their weights, I did another set at 185. It got a little ragged at the end, but I got all ten in. I only made it through six reps of the third set, but I polished off the last four reps at 135. And I did a “cool down” set at 135. It felt good. Post-gym, Georgia invited me to lunch… so I went. The back half of the work day was a little long, since I stayed to make up for the extra time I took at lunch.

I came home and made a side trip to Paragon City. I teamed up with some members of my Super Group and we went on an AV mission. This was good because I still had roughly 100k of XP debt to work off. I worked off that debt and the debt that I accrued from a painfully stupid death during the mission, too.

Game night. I headed to Chris and ‘s for tonight’s gaming session. Tonight, we were deciding whether to keep the current Robotech game going or to switch to something else that Chris wants to run. The final tally: We’re starting up a new game.  It will be set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe… with zombies.  (All we want to do is eat your brains…)

Stray Toasters

• The Future We Were Promised
• Two pennies.  A camera.  And a casket.
• From CNN.com – Lucas: 4th Indiana Jones to film in 2007
• From this weekend: “What would a vagimullet look like?”
• The 2006 Foot-in-Mouth Awards
• 
• 2007: 30 Years of Star Wars

Namaste.

Happy New Year 2007.

2006 was ushered out in the company of friends.

I hope that everyone has a safe, happy and prosperous new year. All the best to you.

Namaste.

Saturday – 30 December 2006
Thus far, it’s been a quiet day.  Well, relatively quiet.  I’ve been playing Battlefield 2142.  So, there’s been some obligatory swearing mixed in with the game sounds.  But, it was fun.  I had been playing for a little while when I got an in-game message from , so I hopped servers to join him.

Bird’s-eye View from The Aerie
I made a side trip to Paragon City last night.  Indigo Bolt, after a week’s vacation, had to make an appearance.  I joined a Hamidon (1, 2) raid team; I think that were roughly 90 people involved.  And there was a lot of dying involved too, unfortunately.  But, the raid was successful.

Post-Clitorati, Corvus Nox winged ran his way through the crime-ridden streets of the city and left his mark.  I need to get him to Security Level 14 so he can actually fly; this running everywhere crap is for the… um… birds.  (There.  I said it.)
Stray Toasters

• First things first: I saw the new Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer trailer Friday afternoon.  Wow.  It did what a teaser trailer is supposed to do: It piqued my curiosity and left me wanting to see the movie.  It’s only one scene (a very long look at the scene…), but as a comic book fan, it was well-executed and it was done “right.”  It’s going to be a long seven-month wait.
• Top Ten Apple Rumours of All Time
• One of our test engineers found this video on YouTube: The Evolution of Dance.  Comedy.  Pure comedy.
• 
• Okay, this is a little surreal: I am looking at a preview of Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #27 (which was delayed because of the holiday and the storm in Denver *GAH*)… and the theme from Superman: the Movie starts playing on my iPod.
  

  , you will want to check this out… assuming that you haven’t already.  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)  Good stuff.

• Casting call?  For a Green Lantern series…?  Starring John Stewart?  Color me curious.  I mean “green.”  Color me green.
• Former Denver Bronco and Baltimore Raven Shannon Sharpe and the Press Conference Meltdown of the Year.  Shannon has always been an entertaining figure – on and off the field – even going so far as to parody Eminem’s Without Me during a Ravens-Broncos Monday Night Football meeting in 2002.   This had me cracking up.
• Watch his every move
  SUPERCONDUCTOR
  Orchestrate illusions

Okay… time to find some trouble to get into, namely: Lunch, coffee and a trip to Target and Best Buy.

Namaste.

Friday – 29 December 2006
“…another town, one more show.”
Yesterday was far from “bad,” as first days after vacation go. I think that knowing that it was a very short work week helped, though. But, there weren’t any speed bumps, nor were there any monkey issues.

I should get out of here and polish off the last work day of 2006.

And coffee. I should get coffee, too.

Namaste.

I have had The Crüxshadows’ Carnival running through my head for a while now.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I attribute it to the influence of .

Wednesday – 27 Decemeber 2006 (…as it bleeds into Thursday morning)
I am back in Utah.

I had a wonderful time with my family and friends.  I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my family today – again, the “real world” reared it’s ugly head – but I did get to spend some time with them.  I was a bit irritable – I had to drive myself to Charlotte and my goodbyes to them were almost three hours before I left – but, as they say: All good things must come to an end.
I wish that I could say that the drive to the airport was uneventful.  It wasn’t.  About thirty-five to forty miles north of Charlotte, I got caught in construction traffic.  Between exits.  I lost about fifteen minutes trying to get to the next exit.  Then, I got off the highway and drove through Spencer and Salisbury in an attempt to bypass the traffic jam.  It worked.  I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

A few things struck me on the flights back.  I guess that they could technically be ‘Toasters, but I won’t tag them as such.  This time.

1. I flew on Northwest Airlines.  Their logo just says “nwa” and is plastered over everything.  That’s all well and good… but I am Ivory Soap sure that 15 – 20 years ago, that would have never happened.  Call it a hunch, but I doubt that they’d want to be associated with “the other NWA.”  But, the thought amused me quite a bit.
2. Don: I discovered a variant of the “Go – No Go” game  while waiting for my flight out of Minneapolis into SLC: The Mo-No Mo game.
3. Until the past few years, I never really “got” what my uncle meant when he used to talk about being so far from home (when he lived in Anchorage).  I always thought “It’s not that bad.  You can just hop on a plane and be there.”  Which is true… but it’s not the same.  I may be slow on the uptake, but I get there eventually.
4. Learning to Fly, the Pink Floyd version, played on the iPod on the way back from Minneapolis.  It sparked a line of thought about flying, literal and metaphorical.
5. As we got nearer to SLC, the cloud cover got more dense, until there was a blanket of clouds below us.  It reminded me of the Can You Read My Mind portion of Superman: the Movie.
6. I had a window seat, over the wing, from Minneapolis to Salt Lake.  When I looked out the window at the engine and the wing, I thought about The Twilight Zone episode (and the Twilight Zone: The Movie movie vignette) “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”  And the 3rd Rock from the Sun parody of it, too.  There were no gremlins on the wing, though.  Nor were William Shatner or John Lithgow on my flight.

Okay.  To bed.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 26 December 2006
The hours tick away and will soon bring an end to my winter excursion. It’s been a good vacation – good (and needed) time out of Utah. It has been great to see family and friends again, but “the real world” beckons. Tomorrow afternoon, I board a plane to chase the sun; tomorrow night, I will step off of a plane in the Land Behind the Zion Curtain. (Maybe matchbox twenty was on to something when they said “I wish the real world would just stop hassling me…”)

Christmas was good. My folks and I slept in a little and then opened presents. Correction: Most of our presents – we decided to wait until my uncle got in to open our gifts from him, so that he could open our gifts at the same time. Kris and I went to PTIA to pick him up and brought him home. By the time we got back, company had arrived for dinner – we had nine people join us for dinner. The meal was, as usual, very good.

We – the fam-unit, a couple of friends of the family and one of Mom’s former students – went to see The Pursuit of Happyness. I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I first saw the trailer for it. It was worth the wait. I’d be highly surprised – and very disappointed – if Will Smith doesn’t get an Oscar nod to go along with his Golden Globe nomination.

Today was pre-travel prep day. Translation: “I washed my dirty clothes and started packing things for tomorrow.” It didn’t take too long. Aside from waiting for the laundry to finish. That took a while. But, it was anticipated. (Anticipa-a-tion… It’s making me wait…) I ran a couple of errands around town with my uncle and then spent a portion of the afternoon hanging out around the house.

Tonight, I went to dinner at Smokey Bones with Christine, Thomas and Don. Good food… and I got to cross it off of my “places to eat while at home” list. So, I batted 1.000 in that respect. It was good to see and spend time with Don & Co…. and Thomas is getting big FAST. And precocious…? Yeah. In spades. And he’s definitely Christine and Don’s kid. After dinner, we headed to Borders (yeah, 2000 miles away and I can’t stay out of that place…) for coffee and books.

After that, I paid a visit to William, Charlie and their kids. The kids are getting big, too – Britney and Josh can almost look me in the eye and Connor’s grown so much in the past six months that I almost didn’t recognize him. (Okay, that’s not entirely true, but he has put on a few inches.) Hanging out here was good, too.

I didn’t quite bat the cycle, as far as seeing people goes, but it’s the holiday season and that’s the way it goes sometimes. I’m glad for being able to spend time around those with whom I was able to catch up, though.

Stray Toasters

• Soul Brother Number One, James Brown, has exited stage left…
• …as has President Gerald Ford.
• Before I slough this mortal coil, I want it in writing that unless I have met and had at least one conversation with Al Sharpton – no matter how brief – he is NOT allowed to get on any news channel and say anything about me.
• The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part I: The Early Years (1980-1983)
• Being outside the Zion Curtain, I get to hear what’s new and hot on the radio. Hell, I can even hear them say “placenta” in Lightning Crashes.  This week, I have discovered my new favorite amusing line in a popular song. It’s from Smack That, by AKON:
  

  I feel you creeping on, I can see from my shadow
  Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo
  Maybe go to my place and just kick it like Tae-Bo
  and possibly bend you over look back and watch me

  “Kick it like Tae-Bo…”
  Makes me laugh every time I hear it. Every. Time.

• Treasure Chests book from 1967
• By way of Slashdot: What Movies Got Computers Right?
• Epyx’ Impossible Mission
• Twizzlers.  I have a bag of them and they are tasty.
• I didn’t know that Queen covered Styx’ Mr. Roboto.
• 
• : Maybe this will make it easier to bear: Old FBI Memo: It’s a Wonderful Life is commie propaganda

Namaste.

Monday – 25 December 2006
Merry Christmas.

I hope that everyone’s holiday is safe and happy.

Sunday – 24 December 2006
One more day until Christmas.

*bides my time*

Today was good. Got up this morning and went to church with the ‘rents. Then, it was game time. And I don’t mean Ravens-Steelers, either. I mean “Go finish the last of the shopping” time. Hoo-boy. I only had 2 stops that I needed to make. Quick hits. In. Out. Done. Mom, on the other hand… she had “a few” more to make. So we did. It wasn’t as hellish as I had feared that it might be. But, the shopping monkeys were out in force. Fortunately, I was able to find some monkeybane (although it was Starbuck’s… but beggars cannot choosers be). I also managed to hit the local Krispy Kreme for a couple dozen baked confections. Selah.

On the way back from Greensboro, we stopped to place flowers on my great-grandmother’s grave. Someone, or the wind, had knocked over an arrangement on an adjacent grave, so I took a few moments to set them back up. After we made it back from Greensboro, we delivered some presents to one of Mom’s students who might not – although I think it was more like would not – have had a Christmas, to speak of. That was a nice way to cap off the day.

Back home. Kris wasn’t here when we got in; she’d gone foraging in town, but was back shortly after we arrived. Next: we wrapped the last of the gifts. Wahoo. A few people have shown up and the spirits have been flowing. I don’t think that Kris and I will go to Midnight Mass, since my uncle won’t get in until tomorning… but this is a nice way to spend the evening.

Football Update (abridged)
The Ravens beat the Steelers , in Pittsburgh, 31-7. This not only gives us another conference and division win, but it just makes me happy in general.

Coda
To those who celebrate/recognize it: Merry Christmas.

To those of you who don’t: Best wishes and good cheer for the holiday season to you.

To all: May you have a safe and happy holiday season.

Namaste.

Saturday – 23 December 2006
It’s been a quiet, slow (and fairly boring) day around the homestead.  I hung out with the Matriarch.  We broke out for a while and did some shopping and then went to visit some friends of the family.  We got home relatively early and I contemplated going back out… but found that I had come down with a case of the Lazies.  So, I hunkered down and finished off The Last Command.  And watched Law & Order… and some other shows (including the Met-RX World’s Strongest Man competition).  And surfed the Interweb.
My stepfather, on the other hand, had an interesting day.  Or at least an interesting end of the day:  He was at one of the local malls when shooting broke out.  He was leaving the mall when people started pouring out around him.  He’s fine, but it was a little odd to hear him talk about it when he got home… and then to hear about it on the news a few minutes later.

Stray Toasters

• There were blue skies (“over Dundalk when I break your heart…”) and honest-to-goodness sunshine in the Triad today.  The temp was in the upper 60s.  It ain’t Tampa, but that’s not a bad Winter day to me.
• Hardcastle?
• While looking up some character information on Wikipedia, I decided to check out smooth-talking, malt liquor drinking Cloud City Baron Administrator Lando Calrissian.  Part of the entry included Trivia and Pop Culture References.  The last entry in that section mentioned Pope Lando, “the last Pope to adopt an original name until the election of John Paul I in 1978.”

  Armed with this knowledge, I have decided that when I take over the world and become Pope, I shall be known as Pope Lando Groovalicious.  But I won’t be “Lando Groovalicious I.” Instead, I will be “Lando Groovalicious the Chocolate.”  And all will be right with the world.

• : I think that this is going to be up your alley: Evil Christmas Carols (Volume 1) – Christmas Carols played in minor keys.
• :  I’ve got a little somethin’ for you, too: 9 Days of Judgment
• It has not quite hit the “withdrawals” level, but I am missing Paragon City and the Rogue Isles…. and 2142.  Of course, the system here couldn’t handle either/any of them, so it’s kind of a moot point.  *sigh*
• McCormick?
• Evil Christmas Carols (Volume 2)
• One of the young ladies doing gift wrap in one of the stores we stopped in today was wearing a pink-and-white striped shirt.  She was talking with one of the other store associates and said that she “…looked like a big pink candy cane.”  I laughed at that; she saw me and said, “Well, I do…!”
• Thrawn caught his eye; and to Pellaeon’s astonishment, the Grand Admiral smiled. “But,” he whispered, “it was so artisically done.”
• For Nox, and the consort of : Broken Frontier’s look at Warhammer 40,000 #1
• Chief?

Namaste.

Friday – 22 December 2006
Today has been an extremely lazy day. I slept in. I sat around the house (mostly because I didn’t know when my suitcase would arrive). I hung out with the ‘rents for a bit when they got in from work.

This evening, however, I was gone baby, gone. I headed into Greensboro to pay some people a visit. First stop was to visit Theo. Next, a late-night trip to one of the local Steak ‘n’ Shake restaurant for burgers and shakes with Robin and Chad. Both visits were good. Hopefully, I’ll get to catch up with the three of them again before I head west.

Bojangles: Check.
Steak n Shake: Check.
I still want to hit Houlihan’s and O’Brian’s (or the other rib place) before I leave.

Namaste.

I have luggage once again.

The USAirways courier just dropped it off.

Selah.

Thursday – 21 December 2006
Mary, sweet mother of God, have mercy. This day has been long and has include some things that approximate comedies of errors:

• I did not make it onto my flight this morning.
• The counter agent rebooked me on a Delta flight – First Class, no less. w00t!
• I went to stand in a VERY long line to be issued a Delta ticket.
• I stood in another long line (for security screening).
• I flew, rather comfortably, to Philadelphia… while watching the pilot to Blade: the Series on my iPod.
• Discovered that I am not a fan of the Philadelphia International Airport
1. I arrived at one terminal and had to walk across four other terminals to make my connection.
2. I had to exit the secure area at my arrival gate to go to the departing terminal… where I got to go through security again.
• I had my own row on a 767 from Philly to Charlotte.
• I arrived in Charlotte to discover that my luggage had decided to go sightseeing… without me. This would have been far more irritating if quite a few other passengers hadn’t had the same problem. We were all staring at each other around the baggage carousel – and in the USAirways Baggage Claim Office line – with “What the fuck, mate?!” looks in our eyes.

Despite all of the above, the following stands out: I’m home and things could have been a lot worse.

I’m beat, so that’s all for now.

Namaste.

Wednesday (coda)
The day proceeded without any major incidents. Today’s lunch restaurant of choice was Yamato. Teriyaki chicken and shrimp tempura. I rounded out the day by cleaning off – and cleaning up – my desk and hutch. Now, I can come back to what I hope will be a still-clean work area.

After work, I dropped off my laundry to the one place that hasn’t let me down in… years. Years, I say! I ran a few errands and came home for some dinner and downtime. Downtime in Paragon City, that is. Corvus Nox added another level to his… whatever it is that heroes add levels to. After that, I headed back out to spread a little holiday cheer and to pick up my newly-cleaned clothes.

Back home to shower, pack and otherwise waste time before bed. So far, I’m batting 1.000 (that’s “batting a thousand,” for the sports jargon impaired).

Tomorrow morning, I will be on my way to the Right Coast for a week. Selah. This is the kind of weather that I will be dealing with. Mm-hmm, that’s right.

Stray Toasters

• I will have a Bojangles Cajun Filet Biscuit for (late) lunch tomorrow.
• Do we really need an iron with a lift kit? Can you go low-riding in it? Take corners on three wheels… um… steam vents?
• Dr. Who Sings The Kinks
• From CBS News: The LEGO Legacy and Revisiting the Horrors of the Holocaust
• The 20 Strangest Gadgets of 2006
• 
• Is there a new Rush studio album in the works…? You Bet Your Life there is.

Time to catch some shut-eye.

Namaste.