Random Access

Thursday
Today was not as doom-laden as the other days of this week. For that no-so-minor blessing, I am grateful.

It was a little cooler than it’s been over the past few days, but still rather warm. It seems as though we might have rain pass through the area tomorrow. That’s fine… as long as it’s relatively clear on Saturday. and I are heading to the downtown library (again!); there are pictures to be taken and she has agreed to be my human sacrifice subject. And speaking of my arty sib, Jess and I spent the evening with her, , , and Matt.

Stray Toasters

• Leo LaPorte is leaving The Screen Savers. Wow. He’s not leaving TechTV altogether, but it’s going to take some time to adjust to him not being on TSS.
• I get my thing in action (Verb!)
  To be, to see, to feel, to live (Verb!)
  That’s what’s happenin’

• Haven’t you always wanted a monkey?! (courtesy of )
• What ever became of the Squirrel Nut Zippers (the band, not the candy)?
• d20 Modern and Urban Arcana. This summer could prove rather interesting…
• has… “strongly suggested”… that I enter a manga-style art competition. I entered it once, a year or so ago, when she was the featured artist, so it isn’t a completely out-of-left field idea. One big difference is that my Wacom tablet is borked. *sigh* I could do the linework in pencil and scan the image in to do the color and post-work. Decisions, decisions…
• As someone who never saw the need/use for instant messaging on a cell phone, I will admit that getting messages provides a nice break in the day. Ditto for non-AIM text messaging, too.

May the road rise up to greet you and the wind be at your back.
May you be half an hour inside Heaven’s gates before the Devil knows you’re dead.

Namaste.

Wednesday
Today started out poorly: I didn’t sleep well and woke up irritable. I’m not a “morning person,” to begin with, so this was not an auspicious start to the day. Fortunately, the day got better. I attribute that to closing the evening with coffee and in the company of good friends.

NPR Stories
Morning Edition: Oregon County Halts All Weddings
Morning Edition: Man Steals Daughter’s ID
Morning Edition: Wynton Marsalis: ‘The Magic Hour’
Talk of the Nation: One Nation under God
Talk of the Nation: Wine (for )

Stray Toasters – The “Chock Full o’ Links” edition!

• By way of : I give you this.
  It’s cute… and work-safe (at low volume).

• Escape.
• I’m just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control
  Beyond my control, I need control
  I need control, We all need control

• From : The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss and Trojan Games (not-so-work-safe, but funny)
• As if I needed more reasons to like RetroCRUSH:
  • A LOOK AT CRAZY 70s CELEBRITY ALBUMS
  • THE 80s MAKEUP MASSACRE, and…
  • YEAR OF THE MONKEY!
• Short Bus Magazine – check out “Backseat Confessional”
• Blue skies and warm weather are good. Very good. Hopefully, it will last until (and through) the weekend.
• There’s updated info about the Batman: TAS, Superman: TAS and Superfriends DVD boxed sets.
• …and speaking of Batman: Tada!
• While I’m putting out links from the DCG, take a look at android’s work. While Supergirl_01 and Powergirl_01 aren’t bad, the rest of his work is pretty damned good. I think that he did an excellent job with the Thundercats pieces.
• A certain Kryptonian… with Mjolnir and Captain America’s shield? (pic)
  Line up the asses. Some serious kicking is about to get under way.

Quote of the Day
: (name withheld) may think he’s all tough, but I don’t think he could take on five queers.

This comment was made after she considered calling out the Fab 5 from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on a friend.

Namaste.

Tuesday
Overall, it was a decent day.

Stray Toasters

• : I found the official WHR site.
• There was a link to The Order of the Stick on squidi.net. Like any good and inquisitive lemming denizen of the Internet, I clicked on it. And I was amused.
• Calvin and Hobbes. Fight Club.
  You might think that they have nothing in common. According to this link, forwarded to me by , you’ll see some eerie connections.

• News of the Week from SciFi.
• “Brooke.” Deviant behavior. 10% poverty. Natural disasters.
• I like John Singleton as a director; I think that he’s quite talented. He’s doing a movie based on Marvel Comics’ Luke Cage. He made a few teasing comments about the film in an interview on Comics Continuum. However, I got a little scared when I read:
  

  “It’s a fun movie. It’s hip. It’s so cool,” Singleton said. “Imagine if 50 Cent got super-powers.“

  Blood… runs… cold.

• I’m still taking suggestions for new user icons.

Namaste.

Monday
Today was a pretty laid-back day. I like those. They are a welcome change-of-pace. Work went by pretty quickly and Game Night was not doom-laden. Those things, along with the warm weather, added up to a nice day.

Stray Toasters

• I started the day listening to/watching a few videos. One of the songs was Behind Blue Eyes, one of my favorite songs by The Who. I had heard that the song had been covered recently, but I couldn’t remember by whom. On my way to and ‘ place, the remake came on the radio. It was Limp Bizkit. They didn’t do a bad job.
• “Welcome back” to !
• I’m thinking of trading out my rarely-used Mace Windu user pic for something/someone else. Any suggestions?
• Hey : Aviation Videos from Alexis Park Inn & Suites in Iowa City, Iowa. I’m not sayin’… I’m just, you know, _sayin’.
• Two words: “Homemade cupcakes.”
  Two more words: “Devil’s Food.”
  Three more words: “Cream cheese frosting.”
  Feel free to suffer intense pangs of jealousy.

• Someone in Comics2Film’s Digital Concept Gallery has “recreated” The Justice League, The Justice Society and The Outsiders… using Care Bears. õ_Ô To see (most of) their non-stuffed animal counterparts, check out Secret Files & Origins, from the DC Comics website.
• From Broken Frontier: What’s so Super about Heroes?

Quote of the Day
: He’s wearing Chthulu as a codpiece!

And with that, good night.

Namaste.

The rest of the day was good:

• We met at Borders. Jess’ stepsibs showed up and hung out with us, too.
• We saw Dawn of the Dead. It was fun. Ving Rhames is a rather imposing figure; maybe not Michael Clarke Duncan imposing, but he is a big man. And, as if one could forget his role as Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, he pulls angry, snap-my-foot-off-in-your-ass characters very well. I also spent a good portion of the movie trying to suss out why Sarah Polley looked so familiar – she was Ronna in Go. (Thanks, IMDb!)

  The soundtrack/score was good, too. Muzak (*ack-thbbbpt*) versions of Don’t Worry, Be Happy and You Light Up My Life… in a zombie movie. Hysterical. And Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine doing Down with the Sickness? Classic.

• We went to one of Jess’ stepsib’s after the movie. We watched “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” on Comedy Central. I’ve never been a huge fan of Jeff Foxworthy or Bill Engvall, but they made me both laugh. Ron White, however, I had never heard of, but his pacing, delivery and style were great.
• Did a bit of late-night grocery shopping and the Wally World Supercenter. It’s nice to go in there when it’s not teeming with shoppers and their kids. And who can complain about not having to wait in long lines? Not me.

It’s early and I have to get up later, so I should wrap this up.

Namaste.

Sunday
It’s been a lax day around the HALO Command Center. Sissy decided that 9:45 was the time that I needed to get up. Nevermind the fact that I didn’t get to bed until a little after 4:00. I’ve been trying to decide what to do this afternoon. I’ve had little success. I think that we will go with the pre-Sunday activity default and head to Borders for a bit.

After yesterday’s bike excursion, I came home, cleaned myself up, picked up and headed to the downtown library. In theory, we went to do some drawing; it turned into a people watching session… and a very good one, at that. We picked up from work and headed back to the library, but it was closed – they were hosting a junior prom. We headed to The Gateway, but it was crowded and there was a “Disney World on Ice” show across the street at the Delta Center which made for poor parking conditions. We opted to head to Borders.

Bowling was decent: 180-151-159-151 and 107/135 (ironman games). and Jen stopped in on their way home from the BNL concert. Breakfast was fun; it was amusing to look over and watch , , , and Nyx’ friend, Celia, playing poker and blackjack… using jam, jelly and honey packets as “chips.” Oh, and coffee creamer packets, too. I had to recount the beaver story and the Christmas fire story for Pat, Brent and Jon. All around, it was a good night.

Stray Toaster
Vanity 6’s Nasty Girl just came up on the Winamp playlist rotation. Jess just asked, “Is that Britney?” I told her that it wasn’t, but I have to admit that Ms. Spears’ Slave For You (or however she spells it) sounds eerily similar to the opening of this song. *shrug*

And now, off to enjoy the day.

Blue skies and gentle landings.

…so why am I still sitting inside? It’s a beautiful day.

After taking Jess to work, I decided to check out the model airplane strip off of 22nd North. I drove past it to see if I could figure out what a building on the same road was used for. It’s at the entrance to a dirt racetrack, apparently. Good to know… I turned around and headed back to the “Modelport,” as it’s called. There were about 20 cars there, people with model planes and one person with a model helicopter. Someone executed a beautiful hammerhead stall with their plane. It brought a big smile to my face.

I drove up I-215 to Woods Cross and then back home on I-15. And now, here I sit. But not for long. I brought the air pump in and there’s 2.5 miles of road between here and the library that my bike and I are going to ride. Not to mention the fact that I could use the exercise.

Namaste.

Friday
What a day.

The work portion of the day was productive, but I was tired, irritable and surly for most of the day. That’s not a good combination. And I didn’t have any coffee, which didn’t help matters.

After work, it was off to Friday night coffee; tonight was a very small group: , and friend/ex-coworker Dee. was there for a little while, but had plans for the evening. There were many things that we talked about. Many things about which we laughed. And I can’t help but wonder if we didn’t run off at least two groups of people; I want to say “three,” but I can’t be sure. We headed to get a bite to eat and were joined by , Bill… and the return of . Vivi was in rare form tonight; she regaled us with stories about her home life. Funny stories. Nearly-spit-your-drink-on-your-neighbor stories. Twas fun.

I came home to find my main PC off. Odd, especially considering that the computer is on a UPS and that the other PC was on, but not a big thing. WRONG. The power supply had burnt out. *braincramp* This is never an auspicious thing. Fortunately, I had another power supply available for use: The one in the PC that I am putting together for ‘s little miss. *sigh* But, I was able to get the system up and running. And that’s the key thing.

Stray Toasters

• I saw a great sunset while driving west on 17th North. “Red skies at night, sailor’s delight.” Except that I was looking over the airport. And the southern part of the Great Salt Lake. But, it was still a great sunset.
• It’s amazing what Corona can do for one’s attitude.
• Helicopter!
• There was something about a cartoon that I watched as a kid that I wanted to put here, but I don’t remember what it was. Oh, well. Perhaps another time…

Apparently, I am rapidly approaching “shutdown.” This is good; I’m tired and welcome the sweet oblivion of sleep.

Namaste.

Thursday
Today was a good day. And it gets us one step closer to the weekend. Selah.

I got a call just after work from Catherine. She asked what Jess and I were doing this evening. “Nothing,” as far as I knew. So, she invited us to join her for dinner at Cafe Pierpont; her husband (and our ex-coworker) Land started working there this week. We did. Finding the place was a bit of an undertaking, though – Catherine gave us the wrong address. She was a couple of blocks off. But we managed to find it… after asking a couple of parking lot valets where it was. The food was good, as was the company.

On the way to the car, we passed the downtown location of Reuel’s, an art/drafting supply store. They have hands. (Wooden hands, that is.) Even in smaller sizes than the one that I have. And from the way that the display was set up, it looks like the joints are a bit more stable than the ones in the hand that I have. I may have to return to the store and acquire one…

Stray Toasters

• While I was taking a break this afternoon, I had the notion to go back to a couple of stories that I started writing many rains past. One story will stay pretty much the same, but I am thinking of taking a new direction with the other.
• (I’m sure that you’ll see this before you return to the Land Behind the Zion Curtain): Enjoy your vacation and get some well-earned and much-deserved rest!
• Does anyone else remember the PTL Club and/or Heritage USA? Here’s a little hint to jog the memory: Think “Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Yep, them. It seems that after PTL went belly up, Heritage USA was simply left to… become a ghost town. Read more about it here. Thanks to for this little nugget of nostalgia.
• By way of : Gay Trekkies… and from that: Trekkie Humor
• Who ya gonna call?
  

  Dr. Raymond Stantz: I tried to think of the most harmless thing… something that could never destroy us… something I loved from my childhood.

  [A giant marshmallow man crashes through the streets of New York]

  Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, there’s something you don’t see every day. We’ve been going about this all wrong, this Mr. Stay Puft’s okay. He’s a sailor, he’s in New York, we get this guy laid we won’t have any trouble.

  And with that, I give you: this (the bottom of the list). And this.

• “Blue Sox fans never leave the game early!” – Miles, from ‘Bebop
  It was nice to see Columbia fly again… even if only in animation.

• Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Orson Welles have this in common.
  (Don’t forget to phrase your response in the form of a question.)
  Here is a hint.

• Forbes is reporting that Vocera Communications has developed Star Trek-like communicator badges. Now, if they would just get busy on a transporter…

That’s it.

Namaste.

Wednesday
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

After work, it was off to spend a little time with and ‘ place for dinner and hanging out. I even popped in to say “Hi” to (Hope you’re feeling better soon!). I got a call from … and then it was on to Cheers to hang out with her and . Twas fun.

Stray Toasters

• There’s a new Firestorm in town (if your town happens to be Detroit, that is).
• Star Trek parody on Futurama. It even featured the ST: TOS crew and Jonathan Frakes. With a Space: 1999 reference, to boot! *cracks up*
• The art of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell
• An ex-coworker of mine sent me this. May Heaven have mercy upon us.
• While at Cheers tonight, we heard a Muzak version of Under the Sea (from Disney’s The Little Mermaid). I have nothing against Disney songs; I even own the soundtrack to TLM. Muzak versions of the song, however… *twitch*
• Sorceress Queen, Transmute and Animate Dead. A nice combination.

I seem to be winding down rather quickly. This would be a good stopping point.

Namaste.

Campbell’s Condensed Newspaper has an interview with Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriweather and Julie Newmar, the women who played Catwoman on the 1960s Batman series.

You could call it a once-in-nine-lifetimes gathering. Three Catwomen who purr-fectly embodied Batman’s feline archnemesis Julie Newmar, 68, and Eartha Kitt, 77, in the 1966-68 TV series, and Lee Meriwether, 68, in the 1966 movie — gathered for the first time earlier this month at the TV Land Awards (tonight, 9 ET/PT). The trio talked to USA TODAY’s Bill Keveney about the appeal of a character who returns to the screen in July, when Halle Berry stars in Catwoman:

The questions were fairly run-of-the-mill. It seemed like Ms. Newmar was having a lot of fun with the interview. Especially with her answer to the next-to-last question:

Q: What are you doing now?

Kitt: I finished Nine on Broadway. I’m putting my own show together to tour. It’s called Dare Me.

Meriwether: Nunsense. It’s the 20th anniversary all-star tour.

Newmar: I’m just rich. I own businesses and I love it.

Have a good day, all.

Tuesday
All-in-all, today was a good day.

Lonely things like nights,
I find, end finer with a friend
The fact that I spent the evening in the company of five friends made the night that much better. We had super-secret stealth coffee tonight. Twas good.

Stray Toasters

• “What’s cooler than Sprite when it’s hotter than the Devil’s drawers out?” The new Sprite commercials still make me laugh. As does the 7Up “Slam Dunk” commercial.
• This came to me by way of a friend from IRC. Odd. Madness. But amusing.
• Thanks (I think) to for pointing me in the direction of the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division. Lots of interesting information there.
• From Adult Backwash: Lots Oh Lixxx Launches Erotic Ice Cream Sales at AEE
• and : Click here. Items #2 and 3, respectively.
• The conclusion is inescapable, my friends. We face… Darkseid.
  (Yes, it’s a quote from LSH #294, but it fit well here. Deal with it.)

• From : Man treated after attempting to nail himself to cross
• What’s wrong with this picture?

Quote of the Day
Jess and I were on the way to work this morning (carpooling = good) and stopped at a red light. A car pulled up beside us with three women in it. One woman leaned forward and looked at us. I made a comment to Jess. We bantered about possible reasons “why” she was… less-than-staring-but-more-than-casually-observing… us. Jess finally broke out this little nugget of amusement:

Maybe they want you to help them to realize their inner-penis longing.

After the initial shock of what she said wore off, I did the only thing that came to mind: I laughed. A lot.

Blue skies and gentle landings.
Namaste.

Monday
Another blue sky and white cloud day. And, it wasn’t bad for the start of the week. As an added bonus, talked with my father, a member of the sibko and my uncle today. All seems to be well on the Right Coast.

Stray Toasters

• Tonight we started the new storyline in ‘s game. We spent most of the time figuring out why our group is together and whether or not we get along. And I even managed to refrain from breaking into choruses of Arabian Nights and Prince Ali (from Aladdin)… not to mention Istanbul.
• From Broken Frontier: Comics as a Valid Art Form
• Ooh Ee Ooh Ah-Ah Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang
• : 97-162-155-147. *sigh* Congratulations.
• Following a link from here, I wound up at Girlamatic.
  

  Girlamatic.com features webcomics (mostly) by women, (mostly) for women. It’s not about busting anybody’s, um, balls, though. It’s about good webcomics. If you like good webcomics, you’ll like girlamatic.com. And girlamatic.com will like you!

• I was in one of the local Toys ‘R’ Us stores the other day and saw a display for “My Little Pony.” That reminded me of a D&D game from college – I had a Spellsinger who needed a horse and wound up creating one: A 6″ tall unicorn… that shot lightning bolts from its horn. (I had to make a percentage roll; I didn’t do as well as I needed/wanted. And the DM had a warped sense of humor.) It made me laugh.
• I was later reminded of the dragonmouse that another character of mine had. Yes. “Dragonmouse.” As in “mouse that breathes fire.” It made the other party members rather nervous. But, it was handy around the campfire.
• Babysitter Robin: The post-Witch Hunter years.
• From BBC News: Lifting the Lid on Computer Filth
• When she isn’t causing me to awaken in an adrenaline-spiked panic, Sissy can be a rather cute cat.
• Chron X – A friend introduced me to this game when it first came out. I haven’t played it in a few years, but it’s good to see that Sony has kept it up and running. (: This seems like it would be something up your alley.)

I just noticed what time it is. I had planned to be in bed by now. Time to remedy that.

Namaste.

Today was grey with high clouds. There were a few “less-grey” spots in the sky, but nothing that I saw had a blue hue to it. It was still temperate and there was a bit of a breeze. I did not, however, take the kite out.

and I were going to visit the downtown library this morning, but we discovered that it didn’t open until 13:00. BAH! So, I went to Borders, instead. Lisa and Shauna, a couple of ladies I met there last year, were there. We talked for a while. I did some figure drawing and drank mocha. dropped in later. We sat around and talked.

I came home to discover that my email host’s server had gone pretty much belly up. This was not auspicious as I needed to get an email out concerning tonight’s movie. *braincramp* Apparently, the server came back online sometime after 9:00. “Better late than never,” I guess.

Jess and I went to dinner at the new Golden Corral, a couple of blocks from here. It was more crowded than I expected it to be for a Sunday. *shrug* We got in and were seated fairly quickly, so it wasn’t a major concern. After dinner, we were off to meet , and at Larryland South for Secret Window. I liked it. It reminded me of a couple of other movies, but that didn’t detract from its appeal. And it had a “Ted” in the movie; he wasn’t a barista, but Nyx and I still got a good laugh out of him. The five of us hung out and talked for a bit before heading our separate ways. Jess and I headed to the Fort Union Barnes & Noble for a bit: More drawing time! We ran into a friend there (whom I haven’t seen in a long time; Jess still works with her).

And now… home.

Stray Toasters

• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file comes: this.
• In light of the problems that I had with the email server today, I found this funny.
• Do you like Neuromancer?
  Do you like comic books and graphic novels?
  Now you can have the best of both worlds in one package.

• Transparent Aluminum?! I thought that Scotty “created” this when the ST: TOS crew came back to take the whales into the future…
• Have you ever wanted your own secret lair? Win this and your dream could come true.
• Tight pants. Reach-around. *snicker* Almost falling down.
  (not to be confused with: “Big Mac, Filet-o-Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fries, icy Cokes, thick shakes, sundaes and apple pies!”)

Anime (and maybe game-playing) time.

Namaste.

Saturday
Blue skies. Warm(ish) weather. Lots of sun. Warm enough for me to go out in a short-sleeved shirt without a jacket. And, very little – almost no – inversion.

I went to the library for a while this morning and did some drawing. As if I haven’t gone on about it enough, I really like the downtown library. After that, I headed to a meeting… which wound up getting moved to the library. Nothing like driving around in circles!

Now, I’m just killing time until we head to 2-D Physics. And I’m trying to decide what I want to cook for dinner. I’m thinking that it will be something with a very low “need to watch over” factor.

Stray Toasters

• I’m enjoying Last Exile on TechTV’s “Anime Unleashed.”
• I may take my kite out for a fly tomorrow, assuming that the wind is cooperative.
• A friend just emailed me a few things from LDS teachings about race. I haven’t read them all yet, but some of them are rather… fascinating.
• I spoke with my mother and a member of my sibko this afternoon.
• Speaking of which: I got a package from home. In it were some old pics of my parents and a gift from a sib’s trip to the Orient.
• I brush against the freckles that I hate it so
  but life goes on and I heave a little sigh for you
  It’s heavy, the love that I would share with you
  then it dissolves like it was just a sugar cube

• Thanks to for passing this along.
• Heh. Samurai Jack. Beth does a good Aku impression.

That’s it for now.

Namaste.