Random Access

<midday dance break>
      *groove*
</midday dance break>

Tuesday : 13 September 05
It’s been a good day and a good evening…

…despite the fact that we weren’t able to get together for our now twice-delayed Shadowrun game. *shrug* We’ll be “back” on-schedule when we (finally) get to play next Tuesday.

came over for a while, then he, and I went out for dinner at Chuck E. Chinese. I mean “Chinese Gourmet.” I think that I might have overdone it on the Mongolian stir-fry, but it was tasty.

Stray Toasters

• I’m beginning to suspect that is secretly Wolverine. Undercover or something.
• A movie about the deaf, but not for the deaf
• Mario Turns 20
• City of Villains preview, from Gamespot.
• Recall notice: Turn off, unplug, your PlayStation2 now!
• Dr. Light… Dr. Polaris… Deathstroke… Black Adam… The Psycho Pirate… Sinestro… Cheetah… Bizarro… Professor Zoom.
  I don’t think that they’re here to sell Girl Scout cookies.
  Bring on the pain.

• For : Doom Patrol will be appearing on Teen Titans this season. And, they’re sticking with the DCU continuity, in that Beast Boy will have been a member of DP before joining the Titans.
• Piercers’ horror stories
• As state and county fair season approaches, this article might come in handy: How to Win at Carnival Games!
• 
• The premiere of The Boondocks, the animated series based on Aaron McGruder’s comic strip, has been postponed until 06 November 05.
• When you mix NASCAR with the Army

Namaste.

Excerpts from a couple of this morning’s conversations:

[In response to ‘s latest post]
(07:50:04) : (07:42:23) : Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?
(07:42:37) : I mean: “Good Morning.”
(07:42:44) : WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCK?!

(07:42:47) : I think I agree with your first statement more haha
(07:42:50) : *feels better*
(07:42:52) : OK, maybe your third.

[On deciding what to have for breakfast]
(07:58:26) : Right now, I am debating breakfast.
(07:58:45) : You… talk…. to your breakfast?! o.O
(07:59:03) : I really hope it’s Rice Krispies
(07:59:08) : Otherwise….. *shrug*
(07:59:46) : What about a rousing bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran?
(07:59:55) : Ha ha ha.
(08:00:02) : dont hate.
(08:00:07) : Cracklin’ Oat Bran is good.
(08:00:14) : I’ll have to try it sometime.
(08:00:26) : ….when I can stop laughing long enough to pick up a box.
(08:00:27) : It has like 25% of fiber.
(08:00:34) : for the day.
(08:00:55) : Is there a joke that I am missing here? Why is Cracklin’ Oat Bran? So funny?
(08:02:07) : Sorry… but when I hear the name, I just picture some old Vaudeville or Apollo Theatre comedian going out and doing some goofy dance and saying: “mmm-MMM! It’s Cracklin’!” as he spoons heaps of the stuff in his mouth.
(08:02:48) : Well, it tastes good.
(08:02:57) : And its crunchy.
(08:02:58) : I don’t doubt it.
(08:03:08) : People wouldn’t buy it otherwise.
(08:03:14) : It looks like dog food though.
(08:03:19) : You aren’t helping.
(08:03:20) : 🙂
(08:03:22) : Kibble.
(08:03:44) : …and that REALLY didn’t help. 🙂

---

I’ve had a couple of lines from It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere running through my head for the past few hours. It’s a good thing that I like the song… but I wish that the stupid needle would stop skipping.

Monday : 12 September 05
This wasn’t a bad start to the week. It wouldn’t bother me in the least if the rest of the week proceeded like this.

Today’s lunchtime discussion included racism and race relations/interactions. It was pretty good. One of the guys at the table didn’t have a lot to say… so Doug and I did most of the talking. And, oddly enough, we agreed on a lot of points. At one point, Doug looked at me and asked: “So, why is it that you’re a grey liberal?” That made me chuckle. I told him that it was mainly due to the fact that I have enough paradigmatic differences from the right’s viewpoints to be considered “conservative.” That made him chuckle.

It’s been a quiet night in.

News
Wired News: Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio Home

Stray Toasters

• I’m not sure if I’m going to save the world tonight or not. (Oh, Hell… of COURSE I am.)
• By way of : How to be a Cultist
  (Parts of it remind me of The Evil Overlord List.)

• Best Buy $1, $5 and $10 video game clearance (multiple game systems)
• “If you don’t relax your face muscles, you’re going to invert your entire skull.”
  

• While discussing the ages at which certain things are considered socially acceptable, Eric asked me “At what age is drinking coffee considered okay?” I didn’t have a solid answer other than: “Probably towards the end of one’s high school career or in college,” which would be around the ages of 16 to 18. I’m not sure if that’s a high or low estimation, but it seemed as though it made a good approximation.

• “If Goths Ruled” Photoshopping Contest
  And we all knew that this would lead to this, didn’t we?

• (Some of) Rob’s Pet Peeves, in no particular order:
  • Failure to use turn signals when changing lanes – even if the lane opens into a turn lane.
  • “Sandals” being misspelled as “sandles.”
  • “Across” being mispronounced as “acrost” or “acrossed.” (Not really a ‘peeve,’ but it does catch my ear whenever I hear it.)
  • When I order a burger from a fast food restaurant… and they completely and utterly botch it. Especially if I’ve been rather specific about what I did or did not want on it.
  • Tailgaters – Ones on the road, not the ones in stadium parking lots.
• 365 tomorrows
• Cheetos.
• Woman Shoots and Kills Fianceè Over His Video Game Addiction
• While watching MNF (that’s “Monday Night Football”, for the uninitiated), I saw another funny Southwest Airlines ad:
  

  [Shots of kids in a preschool/Kindergarten room]
  Offscreen: *SLURRRRRRP*
  (Sound of someone using a straw to get the last drops out of a cup)

  [Shot of other shocked kids and the teacher]
  Offscreen: *SLURRRRRRP*

  [Another shot of shocked kids]

  Onscreen: *SLURRRRRRP*
  [Picture of two boys, “G” and “O” on their red-and-green-painted chests… wearing “milk helmets”]

  [Overlay: “Must be FOOTBALL season”]

  [Fade to black and Southwest logo]

• Lego® Junkbot
• For : Nightmares of Lovecraft: C’thulhu
• …also for Nox: Dario’s HeroClix Top Ten Worst Powers
• 

This pre-midnight post has been brought to you by the letters “N” and “B” and the number “6.”

Namaste.

Sunday : 11 September 05
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. For what I had to say before and continue to believe, I direct you to this entry.

---

I woke up this morning to the sound of the phone ringing. It was . Not good. Why? Because I should have been up a half-hour before… and getting ready to meet him at the airport. Verdammt! We hit the hygiene rituals and managed to arrive at the airport only a few minutes later than we should have been there. We picked him up and headed to a local restaurant for breakfast. We spent the next two hours catching up on the news from our respective parts of the country. He had spent a week or so in Mississippi helping with communications for the disaster relief/recovery. He showed us some pictures of the devastation. Wow. It’s one thing to see the news reports. It’s an entirely different matter to see pictures that someone you know took firsthand. Amazing.

After we dropped him back at the airport, we came home. We mowed the too-long neglected lawn. After that, it was off to Kate and Perry’s for a while. Then it was time to head back home because it was time for…

Football

Indianapolis at Baltimore
24 – 7
The Ravens, wearing their all-black uniforms, opened the season at home, hosting the Indianapolis Colts (a.k.a. “The Team-Formerly-Known-As-The-Baltimore-Colts”). Peyton Manning and company came with their ‘A’ game. The first half was scoreless until the end of the second quarter, when Indy put three on the board… with fifteen seconds to play. From that point on, it was all about the Colts. Manning connected for two touchdown passes in seven passes. The defense was firing on all cylinders; Dwight Freeney ran circles around Jonathan Ogden. Their offense pounded out the yards. *sigh* Baltimore, on the other hand, couldn’t buy a break. I really can’t fault the defense for their work. The offense… just couldn’t seem to get it in gear. The usually-reliable Matt Stover missed three straight field goals – two wide to the left, one wide to the right. ALL from within his range. Penalties took their toll on the team, too. Including one that chopped 86 yards off of a beautiful punt return. I do have to commend a couple of Ravens, though: Anthony Wright, Baltimore’s backup QB, put in a good effort after Kyle Boller got injured in the third quarter and former Tennessee Titan Derrick Mason made an impressive debut as a Raven. Unfortunately, they didn’t have quite enough support from the rest of the offensive line.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt
I did my cape mission tonight. Actually, I ran three cape missions – mine and two teammates. While it’s nice to have the option of wearing a cape, I think I’ll pass on actually using it. If there had been a cloak option, however, I might have considered it as part of a “dress uniform” accessory. *shrug* Maybe I’ll do a cape for a dress option at some point.

Stray Toasters

• I am eating a cinnamon roll with Cookies & Cream ice cream.
• I saw a Southwest commercial with women in linen store. One woman bends over to look at a towel on a low shelf… and another woman swats her in the butt with a towel. Woman #2 then just looks around like “What? Who? ME?!” The overlay comes up: “It must be football season,” just before the fade-to-black and the Southwest logo.
• For : LMD
• Until Perry mentioned it this afternoon, I was completely unaware that Kindred: The Embraced – based on White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade had been a television series.
• From this USAToday article, I discovered this site: Simply Fired.
• Boomerang is showing “The Lion and the Unicorn”, an episode of Batman: The Animated Series. In it, Batman and Robin take the Batplane (I don’t recall whether or not they call it the “Batwing” in this series) to London, England. That raised a question in my mind: How does Bruce Wayne explain “just showing up” in England? No passport. No registry of entry. No nothing. And where does Batman park his plane? It’s not like he can just fly into Heathrow or Gatwick.
• The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

Namaste.

Saturday : 10 September 05
It’s been a fairly lax day. But, it’s the weekend… and that’s all the explanation that is necessary. It’s also been a rather cool day. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that we broke 70°.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt
Three words (well, two words and a number): Security Level 21.

This evening, I adventured as Ice E Hot’s sidekick in Brickstown and Croatoa – zones in which I, as a solo player, have no business entering. We ran around and beat on things and I accumulated enough experience to break out of Level 20.

After we were done, I considered changing my civilian outfit. Not a complete change, but modifying some of the colors. I opted to leave it the way it is.

Stray Toasters

• I need to mow the lawn tomorrow.
• Automoblox – I think that these are pretty neat.
• A few items from “Harper’s Index,” in the September 2005 issue of Harper’s Magazine:
  • Average number of $75 anal bleachings that an L.A.-area salon performs each day: 5
  • Months after his 2004 defeat that Ralph Nader said the Democratic Party had made him feel “like a nigger.” : 7
  • Chance that a teacher in a U.S. public school is a man: 1 in 5
  • Minimum number of American universities with their own student-run erotic magazine: 6
• Flax Art & Design
• For : Cue the Theme Song: It’s the Batman PC
• From PCWorld.com: 20 Things They Don’t Want You to Know
• From boingboing.net: Mechanical papercraft toys
• from Comic Book Resources: One Fan’s Opinion, by Erik Larson
• For : City of Villains Collector’s Edition
• From Cinescape: Shatner to Sing Trek Theme for Emmy
• The Million Dollar Homepage

  Quote of the Day
  From the opening page of Flash #223:

  “My name is Hunter Zolomon. Despite what the public believes, I am the fastest man alive.

  I am Zoom.

  But I am not a rogue. Far from it.

  I have taken the name and colors of Eobard Thawne — the time traveler known as Professor Zoom — in order to terrorize my friend.

  Wally West. The Flash.

  I suffered through tragedy. I lost my family to it. I understand the depths it will drag one down to. Only by surviving it does one become stronger.

  I will recreate myself to help my friend, and in turn — the world.

  I will do anything to make the Flash a better hero.”

  Time to call it a night. and I are meeting at SLIA tomorrow – he has a three-hour layover – so we’re going to get breakfast/brunch and catch up on what we’ve been up to since the last time we’ve seen each other.

  Namaste.

Friday : 09 September 05
It’s been a good day.

I’m tapped.
I’ll write something tomorrow.

Namaste.

<late-afternoon dance break>
       *groove*
</late-afternoon dance break>

Thursday : 08 September 05
Today’s been a rather decent day. I didn’t stop for coffee on the way to work, so the first couple of hours were… slow. Fortunately, I was able to convince that we could both benefit from a field trip to the nearby Beans & Brews.

I had a conversation with a couple of my coworkers about the use of sex to market everything from chewing gum to steel-belted radials. I brought up the Joe Boxer ad from a couple of years ago, with Vaughn (the actor) dancing around the room in his boxers. John looked at me, pointed at Phil and himself and said, “We don’t get that whole ‘boxer’ thing.” To which I retorted,”Oh, yeah… right… Mighty Mormon Power Panties.” They both looked at me, then at each other… and then burst out laughing. In fact, I caught John using the term a little later in the day. Subversive? Me?! No…

I didn’t go to the gym today. Instead, I went to lunch with and Chris. Over lunch, I recounted the “MMPP” story. Chris told me about someone with whom he went to school who told them that the garments that members of the LDS Church wear help to “protect them from evil” (loosely paraphrased). He then said that raised a question – but I don’t recall if he or anyone else ever asked it: “So, if you turn them inside-out, does that attract evil to you?” This made me laugh a bit. Then I thought about it. After lunch, I went back to the office and asked John. He looked pensive for a moment and said,”I don’t know… but I’ll tell you when I find out!”

I like the fact that (most of) my coworkers have good-natured senses of humor.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt
Tonight marked a new chapter in the career of Indigo Bolt: I hit Security Level 20. Leading up to that was a lot of dying – I died at least three times in the course of the night’s adventuring. But, that’s not the point. The point is: I made it to Level 20. And with that accomplishment, I got a new costume ( 1, 2, 3). That’s right… my new costume is civilian wear:

• A tailored wool-blend jacket (shown with the sleeves rolled up)
• A 60-40 cotton/polyester blend dress shirt – it resists wrinkles better than 100% cotton
• A pair of 100% wool dress slacks with a 1½” cuff, with a slight break across the instep.
• …and a sturdy (yet comfortable) pair of dress shoes.

Accent the outfit with a 100% silk tie and you have what the well-dressed hero wears when he’s not saving the world from the disaster of the day. After all, even that Kent guy hangs up the cape and tights at night.

A few nights ago, I was invited to join the a supergroup, the Orange County Supers. (For those of you who are WoW whores, it’s the CoH equivalent of a guild.) For those of you who are not World of Warcraft players, this essentially means that I am part of a permanent team. Supergroups get the added bonus of being able to choose team colors. As such, you can enter “supergroup mode” in the game and redo your costume – at no extra charge – in the colors of your group. It’s kind of impressive to see a team of heroes running/flying around in similarly-themed costumes (think of X-Men or X2: X-Men United‘s black leather uniforms or the bird-themed costumes of Gatchaman/G-Force (from Battle of the Planets). Our colors are red and blue. So, I redid my costume in the group colors. I went with the blue on red because, in my opinion, the red on blue just didn’t look right. I can switch between my normal costume and the supergroup version whenever I choose to do so.

Tomorrow night (or sometime this weekend): I go on my cape mission. I don’t have to actually wear a cape – nor do I want one – but I might as well go on the mission.

Stray Toasters

• It was “just” two cups of coffee.
• “Zig-a-zig-ahhhh!” (for the birthday girl)
• I stumbled across Comic Art Community while surfing this evening. More specifically, I spent a good bit of time perusing their extensive gallery. Comic… art… overload.
• Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has acquired IGN
• By way of boingboing.net: Katrina: Evacuees with criminal records can’t get housing
• For the audiophiles: Flat, adhesive-backed speaker wire you can paint over
• : Hunter S. Thompson’s last written words
• From Broken Frontier: Career Retrospective: Neil Gaiman
• I wonder if WizKids has fixed the horribly unbalanced Batman team ability rules in the latest release: Icons.
• The iPod… Nano?! *shrug*

Quote of the Day
This was from one of today’s random conversations with :

(13:55:47) : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/08/superman_lacking/
(13:56:11) : “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
(13:56:23) : …
(13:56:25) : I…
(13:56:27) : I….
(13:56:34) : Aye aye aye.
(13:57:20) : Y’know, I think that I could have gone my entire lifetime without wondering whether or not he’s swinging a heavy bat.
(13:57:41) : Bwahahahahah!
(13:58:41) : It wasn’t the size discussion that got me, it was the “pointy” debate.
(14:07:47) : That, too.
(14:07:51) : Di’n need to know.
(14:08:06) : Information requested: –>|  |<-- (14:08:17) : Information received: –>|                      |<-- (14:08:21) : (no pun intended)
(14:08:23) : bwahahahahahaha!

Namaste.

Wednesday : 07 September 05
Mid-week and all is well.

…other than the fact that this seems to be “Rob Suffering from Alzheimer’s” Week. Monday, I left my cell phone at Home Depot. Yesterday, I left my check card IN THE ATM at a local credit union. *blink blink* Even better: I didn’t notice it until this morning! I was getting my morning cup of frozen wake-me-up and noticed that it wasn’t in my wallet. I figured that it was in one of three places: The car, at home on my desk… or in the deep recesses of the ATM.

I checked the car.
     No go, Flight.

I asked to check my desk.
     No go, Flight.

Which left one option. And, let’s be honest: We know what typically happens to cards left in ATMs. I wasn’t overly thrilled by this prospect… especially since BoA doesn’t have any offices/branches behind the Zion Curtain. That meant two to three days without access to anything from that account. Not good.

I called the branch…

Lo and behold, they HAD the card! But, they couldn’t just release it to me on my own say-so. They needed someone from my bank to authorize the release. Ok, cool. I’m down with that. It protects all parties involved.

I called my old branch back home, spoke with the manager, answered eleventy-billion questions, the manager called the local C.U…. and the next thing I know: There’s a message on my office voicemail saying that all is right with the world again. Not only that, but she noted that I’m charged a recurring service fee that I shouldn’t be paying… and that she corrected that. No fee! Hoo-AH! I love my bank.

After that, the rest of the day has been cake.

We rented a four-year-old for the night. Okay… not really. We volunteered to watch Max while Kate and Perry attended a meeting. When you’re dealing with a well-behaved kid, you tend not to mind babysitting. He was no trouble at all. In fact, he was so low maintenance, that HE told US when it was time for him to go to bed… despite the fact that he had been given permission to stay up. And then he promptly went to bed. Just like that.

Stray Toasters

• I had a cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting… topped with Cookies ‘n’ Cream ice cream for dessert.
• I don’t remember where I first saw this, but I liked the fire in it and thought that it deserved to be shared.
  This Is Not Over: Here’s What Gets Me

• You can talk about cha cha
  Tango, waltz, or de rumba
  Senora’s dance has more title
  You jump in the saddle
  Hold on to de bridle

• Words fail me… Click here.
• Has anyone else ever read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty?
• Fresh Air: Wu-Tang Clan’s The RZA
• “Hi, again” to my favorite icon addict.
• I watched Undercover Brother for the first time in a long time today. It still cracks me up.
• With the possible exceptions of the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist (maybe even the death of Bob Denver), can’t we find ANY other news than “Katrina Watch 2005?” I don’t mean to sound callous, but we KNOW what’s happening… and what’s not happening. I don’t need to know that the city is (still) flooded. I know that. Looters? Know about them, too. Hundreds of dead? Yep, you covered that two days ago, with the knowledge that there would be more to come.

  I want NEWS.
  Hard information.
  Data.

  What do I get?
  The same story – maybe (if I’m lucky) with some words changed – that I heard earlier in the day. Or yesterday. Or last week. No, wait… I get Dirty Laundry, just like Don Henley sang about. Gee, thanks.

• Frank Deford: In Need of Another America’s Team
• , Ghost Rider will arrive in theatres on 14 July 06.

I’m going to save the world for a little while before I call it a night.

Namaste.

Tuesday : 06 September 05
Waking up and being even nominally “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” for work after a three-day weekend isn’t easy. Not at all. I slept in this morning, rather unintentionally. Not terribly so, but enough to make it worthwhile. I ran a few errands before work and then got down to brass (or at least brass-plated) tacks.

I got in a good workout at lunch. I returned to one of my former routines. While I know that it’s good for me, it hurt like a sonuvabitch when I got about 2/3 of the way through it. But I finished it.

I postponed tonight’s Shadowrun game as was under the weather. I could have still run the scenario, but I would have had to make some adjustments… and I wasn’t really up for that. So, we’ll probably just do it next Tuesday. Instead, I watched the 2005 Drum Corps International Finals on ESPN2.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt
I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it looks like last night’s Task Force fell apart. I had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it would have been nice to complete the TF mission. On the other hand, being on the Task Force precluded me from taking on any solo/team missions. And when you’re talking about a TF whose members are in different time zones, coordinating game time isn’t always the most easy thing to do.

After the Task Force folded, I ran a couple of solo missions. I went to Faultline and took on some Clockworks and a few members of the Circle of Thorns. The Clocks were cake. The Circle killed me. That didn’t make me happy. Pretty far from “happy,” in fact. So, I went back and mopped up the bottom of a gully with them. That made me feel better.

A former teammate, HiMaintenance, sent me a message to come to Independence Port to help take on Lusca, a giant octopus who has been attacking dockworkers. So, I left Faultline and headed to Indy Port. To say that Lusca was a “giant” octopus would be akin to saying that Buckwheat could use “a little” Afro Sheen on his hair. “Gross understatement” would be the operative words in both cases. This is what Lusca looked like from the air… with me zoomed out a few steps: (1, 2, 3 and 4). Yeah. BIG. I wound up dying once while fighting it. But, we – and I mean a LOT of “we,” something on the order of fifteen of us – fought it. And we beat it. And we wound up getting a new Badge out of the deal.

Hi and I then went to Boomtown to take on a group of Mystics… who were operating out of the sewers. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get that… that… SMELL… out of your costume?! We found the mystics and their guards and guardian spirits and took them on. And won. Without dying. From there, we took on a mission against the Tsoo in Kings Row. These were not easy fights. And the Tsoo have this nasty habit of employing sorcerers who heal their warriors in the middle of fights. I have come to have a “severe dislike” for sorcerers. We beat the Tsoo around “daybreak.” So, I flew to the top of the building in which our mission had been and watched the sunrise. It might not seem like much from that picture, but watching the sun come up over the cityscape showed a lot of planning and coding on NCSoft’s part. My comment to Hi as I watched it was “Wow.” It was pretty impressive. After checking in with my contact, we both decided to leave Paragon City for the night.

Stray Toasters

• I want a snack. Two problems:
  1. I’m not sure what I want.
  2. I can’t find anything here that seems to fit the bill.
• World’s First Mech Warrior Becomes Reality – I want one!
• I chatted with for the first time in… far too long this evening.
• For : Pirate book 1903 illustrations on Flickr
• The cover story in this month’s issue of Wizard Magazine is: “100 Greatest Cartoons of All Time.” Their #1 cartoon that is currently in production: Justice League Unlimited. ‘Nuff said. Other cartoon-related gems from this article:
  

  Didja Know? – Larry Hama pitched a comic about Nick Fury, Jr. and S.H.I.E.L.D. fighting the forces of Hydra; Marvel passed, and the premise became G.I. Joe. Now you know!

  Didja Know? – To avoid paying Black Lightning creator Tony Isabella royalties for the use of his character, Superfriends featured Black Vulcan instead.

  Didja Know? – Bill Murray played Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters, who was then played on Real Ghostbusters by Lorenzo Music; Music also voiced the cartoon cat Garfield who was then voiced in the movie Garfield by… Bill Murray. Full Circle!

  Didja Know? – Mickey Dolenz, former Monkee and radio host, voiced the moth sidekick Arthur on The Tick during the show’s first year.

• By way of boingboing.net: Pre-microcomputer ASCII art gallery
• Also from boingboing: FEMA to Mac, Linux users: drop dead
• For : Browser-based zombie MMO
• New York Times article: Is World of Warcraft hurting or helping the game industry?
• Hitachi Unveils World’s First Hard Drive Upgrade Kit for Laptops
• GasBuddy.com Finds Lowest Gas Prices in Your Area
• Computer Science Lesson: Technology for Country Folk

That’s it for now.

Namaste.

Monday : 05 September 05
I spent my Labor Day enjoying a day of no labor. The closest that I came to “work” was going to Home Depot. (Twice, but I’ll cover the second trip in a minute.) This wasn’t an “Ooh, let’s go see what’s new at Home Depot” trip. It was a “We need to get some paint and spackle for the living room walls” trip. And, it was successful.

On the way home, I noticed a plume of smoke on one of the mountains on the east side of the valley.

After I got home, I got an email from my mother. She had received a call… from Home Depot… from my cell phone. *sigh* I don’t know if I left it on a counter or if it fell from my pocket. Either way, I had to go back to the store to retrieve it.

On the way back to Home Depot, it was dark enough to see an orange glow on the mountain where I had previously noted the smoke plume.

Home again. And this time, everything that should have been here was here. And it was good.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt
I caught Don online this evening and we patrolled ‘Boomtown,’ one of the city areas that looks like it has been through Hell. If you remember what New York City (I think) looked like after the meteorites fell in Armageddon, then you have a decent idea of what Boomtown looks like.

After we finished that mission, I joined another Task Force tonight. It turns out that we took on a TF mission that I had started with another group a few nights back. Even though I died a couple of times, it wasn’t a harrowing an experience. We still had a couple of parts of the mission to complete, but it was getting late, so we called it a night. We will get to them soon enough.

I also made it to Security Level 19 tonight. In the middle of the aforementioned mission. And I’m (only) 21,000 points away from Level 20… and my new costume. Well, let me rephrase that: “My new costume for which I have to do a special mission to allow me to ‘unlock’ that option.” Yeah, that’s closer to home.

Stray Toasters
Doesn’t look like there will be any tonight, either. I’ll try to get a few in tomorrow.

Namaste.

Sunday : 04 September 05
, , Chris and I headed to Park City for brunch this morning. Um, “afternoon.” Oh, Hell… we went today. The drive up wasn’t bad, at all. The weather was warm, without being oppressively hot. We ate brunch at Cisero’s. Our waitress, Bree, was a good-spirited person; I kind of put her on the spot and engaged her in more than the typical “Oh, just bring us something to drink” conversation when she first came to our table. And she rolled with it. Adeptly, at that. Brunch, as always, was very tasty. From there, it was on to roam up and down Main Street. Here are a few pictures of the things that we saw.

On the way back to SLC, and I decided to come back through Emigration Canyon. We took the turn that would take us to Emigration, but rather than come back that way, we decided to see where the road into East Canyon would lead. Miles and miles and up and down and right and left later, we wound up in Henefer, Utah. Small town. VERY small town. “Half-blink and it’s gone” town. We found I-84 and took it to South Weber.

Since we were so close, we decided to pay Dee, Kim and their boys a visit. We hadn’t seen them in far too long. Which is doubly bad since I seem to be at The Bookshelf every few weeks or so. We hung out with them for a couple of hours – it was a nice visit.

And then, we came home. Jiggety-jig.

I posted the wedding pictures from and Matt’s ceremony, too. Have a look!

And now… I’m going to save the world.
<EDIT>
       Less than four hours later, I am three bars into Security Level 18.
       
</EDIT>

Namaste.

Saturday : 03 September 05

<< REWIND <<
Friday was a good day for a number of reasons, the best of which was that it was and Matt’s wedding day. They had an “Aloha-style” wedding – not quite full-on luau, but pretty damned close. They even had hula dancers. And a roasted pig. And an open bar. But more importantly than that: They had friends and family there to wish them well as they begin a new chapter in their lives. And that was very cool. I took a few pictures of the ceremony and the events before and after it; they will be forthcoming.

> PLAY >
I stayed up far later than I should have last night – I was saving the world – so I made up for it by sleeping in. Until noon. And it was good. I puttered around for a while and then realized that I needed to get ready to head to Kate and Perry’s. Cookout! Hoo-AH! I had planned to ride my bike over – part of the Jordan Trail that ends near the Midvale/West Jordan/South Jordan borders isn’t too far from their place, so I thought that it would be a good ride… despite the fact that there would be a few uphill grades to deal with. *shrug* Oh, well… good training and whatnot. Everything was hunky-dory until I went outside to see what the weather was like. Hot. Sunny. Ordinarily, those are good bike riding conditions. Today, however, I wasn’t having any part of it.

Perry cooked out (brats, steaks and salmon) and it was very good. He and I talked geek – comics, cartoons and ‘Clix – while Kate and talked about… about… Oh, Hell… they talked about something. We also watched “Epilogue,” this season’s Justice League Unlimited finale. Wow. For a thirty-minute episode, they hit on a lot of the ADCU – past, present and future. Damn fine episode. We hung out for a while before coming home. It was a nice way to pass the afternoon.

We came home and I flew off to save the world. (More on this below.) Tonight’s breakfast roundup was a fairly small affair: , and , and Chris (whom we all got to meet for the first time), Brent, Alyca and me. The conversations were as random as ever, but we spent a good portion of the time talking about the wedding. And being catty. And stuff. It was nice to meet Chris. He seems like a rather nice young man. Head’s on straight and whatnot. And we didn’t seem to phase him (too much) with our conversations over breakfast. *nod* Keeper.

The High-Flying Adventures of the Daring Indigo Bolt
Yep. The “Daring” Indigo Bolt. I hit Security Level 16 on Friday. With the new level, I also got to choose a title. A lot of them were very pretentious-sounding, so I went with “Daring.” I like it.

Tonight, my friend, Don, was on. His character, Ice E Hot (yep.. he’s playing a female character), sidekicked me and we went adventuring.

This picture is amusing because of something that didn’t make it into the screen capture.
Just before I pressed the button to create the capture, Don asked “Should I sing Jungle Fever?”
Priceless.
It made me laugh. I just wish that it had made it into the picture.

Our first stop was Talos Island, where we took on a mission against some members of the Circle of Thorns. Mages and demons and spells! Oh, my! It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, but we got through it in fairly short order. From there, we headed to Croatoa, one of the new zones in the game. Wow. It’s way above my normal level, but I like it. I like it a lot.

After Don left the game, I got together with another team and took on a couple of Task Force missions. More difficult, but they offered much more experience. Enough experience that I made it to Level 17. Yeah… it was like that. I died a few times on those missions, but my overall experience debt load isn’t too bad. AND… I’m already more than halfway to Security Level 18. Mm-hmm. That’s right!

Stray Toasters
Check back tomorrow or Monday for new ‘Toasters.

I think I’m going to save the world (again) for a while. Then I’ll call it a night. Tomorrow: and I are heading up to Park City with and Chris. Cisero’s. Brunch. Shop and gallery stroll. *nod* I predict that tomorrow will be another good day.

Namaste.

Friday : 02 September 05
It’s been a good day.

…but I’ll write about it later.
Because I am beyond tired.

Namaste.