Random Access

…has absolutely nothing on this guy.

http://home.comcast.net/~trunks3166/cj_29737.wmv

Unglaublich!

Thursday
If it wasn’t almost the end of the week, I would have to loose the gates of Hell and unleash all manners of chaos and doom upon the face of the earth. But it is Thursday. And, thus, mankind is spared. This time.

Work was 50/50.

After work, I came home and watched part of CSI (I fell asleep about halfway through, but it was one that I had seen before), ate dinner, got my anime fix and have done a lot of “absolutely nothing” since then.

NPR and PRI Stories
Talk of the Nation: Chinese Premiere Visits United States
Talk of the Nation: SUVs to Be Made Safer
All Things Considered: Reservists Refuse Overseas Posts

Stray Toasters

• From USAToday comes more Battlestar: Galactica news. And remember: It premieres on Monday (08 Dec 03) night.
• This looks like a pretty good way to explain the concepts behind CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
• Feeling under the weather? You might have GIANTmicrobes.
• Interview with Alien Legion creator Carl Potts.
• Hmm. I’m not sure if this is the best or worst of both worlds: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – Demon House mini-series by IDW.
• Is there a gamer on your Christmas list? (And, yes, you can add your own name to your Christmas list.) Check out the Gaming Horizon 2003 Holiday Gift Guide.
• Days go by I’m hypnotized
  I’m walking on a wire
  I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
  Into the fire.

• I have the cover off of one of the computers (it’s an old one-piece, wrap-around-the-top style). Sissy and Xena have decided that it’s the perfect place for them to hang out… or hide, if one of them is in trouble. I should get a picture of one of them in there; it’s actually rather cute.

Almost time to hit the rack.

Namaste.

Wednesday
Waking up… not a problem.
Staying awake… not too much of a problem.
Wanting to get out of bed… Problem.

But, we do what we must.

The workday went by pretty quickly.

After work, , , , Sara, , and I got together for coffee at Cocoa Kaffe. Nice place, very quaint. One of the ladies who works there is named Bronte (as in Emily and Charlotte); I believe that is the first time that I have heard that as a first name.

NPR and PRI Stories
Talk of the Nation: What Makes a Great _____ This week: “Athlete”
All Things Considered: $100 Million Settlement in Overcrowded Cemetery Case
All Things Considered: Schiavo Unlikely to Recover, Legal Guardian Says
All Things Considered: Legal Limbo for Living Wills
All Things Considered: Commentary – Changing How You See the World
All Things Considered: Dealing with Bullies in an Uncivil Era
All Things Considered: For 75th Anniversary, Mickey Gets a Makeover
All Things Considered: ‘Alladeen’: An Indian Telemarketing Multimedia Drama
All Things Considered: Five-State BATF Crackdown on Hells Angels Gang

Stray Toasters

• A few words with Jack Nicholson
• Looks like Backwash got a facelift. I like.
• I don’t care what anyone else says: I think that is Job reincarnated.
• Something for : Longest Physics Lecture in History?
• RIAA’s on the attack again.
• How to Misunderstand Open Source

Namaste.

As I was going through my Backwash page this morning, I saw a message that I received last month. It was one that I had intended to make a post about… but put on the back burner. Here it is, along with my comments.

From: Aicha4lov
Date: Nov 04, 2003 09:13
Subject: aicha
Message: Dearest One¹,

It is a good a thing to write you. I have a proposal
foryou-this however is not mandatory nor will I in
any manner compel you to honour against your will.²

Your profile pushed me to send you this
mail,Actually, I am Miss Aicha xxxxxx,21year s old and
the only daughter of my late parents Mr.and Mrs.xxxxxx.

My father was a highly reputable busnness magnet³-(a
cocoa merchant)who operated in the capital of Ivory
coast during his days.

It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in
France during one of his business trips abroad year
12th.Febuary 2001.Though his sudden death was linked
or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an
uncle of his who travelled with him at that time.But
God knows the truth!

My mother died when I was just 4 years old,and since
then my father took me so special. Before his death on
February 12 2001 he called the secretary who
accompanied him to the hospital and told him that he
has the sum of twenty two million,seven hundred
thousand United State Dollars.(USD$2 2.700,000) left in
one of the leading security company here in Abidjan
Ivroy coast West Africa.

He further told him that he deposited the money in my
name,and finally issued a written instruction to his
lawyer whom he said is in possession of all the
necessary but legal documents to this fund and the
security company .

I am just 21 years old and a university undergraduate
and really don’t know what to do. ⁴ This is because I
have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of
incessant political crisis here in Ivory coast.The
death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life.

I am in a sincere desire of your humble assistance
in this regards.Your suggestions and ideas will be
highly regarded.

Now permit me to ask these few questions:-
1. Can you honestly help me as your daughter?⁵
2. Can I completely trust you?⁶
3. What percentage of the total amount in question
will be good for you ?⁷

Please,Consider this and get back to me as soon as
possible. Through my private email box bellow for
security reasons(axxxx@zxxx.com)

Thank you so much.

My sincere regards,
Aicha xxxxxx

—————-
¹ – “Dearest One?” But, we just met! Wait. We haven’t met before! Isn’t that a wee bit forward?!
² – “…compel you to honour against your will.” Umm… if one has to be “compelled” to action, isn’t that typically a sign that it isn’t really a matter of honor? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it is.
³ – This should have been “magnate,” if I remember correctly. *shrug* Maybe he really was an attractive (or repulsive) man.
⁴ – Let me get this straight: 21 years old. $22.7 million (USD). College student. Doing the math, I’m not seeing a problem here.
⁵ – Hmm. Nope. Why not? Because I have cats, not kids. And sometimes, they give me reasons to not trust them. (Of course, according to : Cats, like French women, are incapable of love… only guile.)
⁶ – Of course. *Cheshire Cat grin*
⁷ – “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing…”

Has anyone else received spam along these lines? Or at least this amusing?

Tuesday
Today wasn’t bad. A little on the cool side, but there were blue skies. And, there was a good episode of 24 to cap off the evening. And did I mention the homemade chocolate chip cookies? No? Oh… Well, throw those into the mix, too.

NPR and PRI Stories
Talk of the Nation: Museum of Black History and Culture
All Things Considered: W.E.B. DuBois’ African-American Portraits
All Things Considered: Court Allows 20 Seconds to Admit Police
The World: Bad English Interview

Stray Toasters

• and I have been chatting about adding new icons to our journals. I finally got around to adding one: John Stewart, Green Lantern from Justice League. And I still have four more slots left. thinks that I need a Morris Day icon. We’ll see…
• I’ve gotten so used to going to Google for searches, that I had nearly forgotten about Metacrawler, All The Web, and Teoma. I was using Google’s Image search to look for a picture of the Teen Titans‘ Cyborg icon. It wasn’t finding anything overly useful. I went to All The Web… BAM! There it was. Of course, by this time, I had already found my GL icon.
• Dude, are you getting a Dell? You might want to read this first.
• From Slashdot: Peter Jackson Hints at The Hobbit
• From Slashdot: Nine Crazy Ideas in Science
• Chris Claremont and Alan Davis… back on Uncanny X-Men?! Looks that way, according to this.
• Alan Colmes had a segment on his radio show where he was talking about the arrest made in the Dru Sjodin case in North Dakota. He made a comment about the suspect, who has been to prison for sex crimes, being arrested because he had “…a history of sexual contact with adult women.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but strictly on the basis of what he said, doesn’t that put a good percentage of the male (and a portion of the female) population in America at risk of being arrested? (Yes, that was both a rhetorical and a sarcastic question.) There seemed to be a good split among the callers as to whether or not someone who has been convicted of sex crimes can (or even should) be rehabilitated.

Namaste.

Monday
Right off the bat, Happy Birthday for the December LJers:

• ¹
• and

Today started off less-than-auspiciously, but gathered steam and ended up in the “not too bad” category.

NPR and PRI Stories
Talk of the Nation: Safe Sex/World AIDS Day
Talk of the Nation: Mark Twain
All Things Considered: Hundreds Volunteer in Search for North Dakota Student
All Things Considered: Hospital is Frontline in Africa’s AIDS Struggle
All Things Considered: Disney Heir Quits Board; Wants Eisner to Follow
( posted a copy of Roy Disney’s resignation letter yesterday)

Stray Toasters
Nothing is coming readily to mind, but that might change as the night progresses…

Quote of the Day
…and Reason #428 of “Why we love ” (who used to work for Access, who made the game mentioned below):

[19:16] : Speaking of which, (finding the good in anything) Did I ever tell you about one review of Links Extreme? I hung up my shirt from the laundry and it made me think of it.
[19:16] : No, you didn’t.
[19:17] : “When you’re tired of masturbating, play Links Extreme”
[19:17] : Ouch.
[19:19] : They expounded on how the disc makes a nice coaster, how it came in a handy jewel case, etc…
[19:19] : Man.
[19:19] : The game wasn’t a total piece, was it?
[19:20] : Let me ask you this. When are you tired of masturbating?
[19:20] : Exactly.
[19:20] : It blew goats.

Speaking of which, it’s Game Night at and ‘ place. Time to hit the road.

Namaste.

¹ – I did not exclude you intentionally. Your name/birthday does not appear on this page.

Apparently, I was very tired this morning. I remember looking at the clock around 10:00 and thinking that I still had a little more time to rest. It was 11:34 when I saw the clock again.

Football Wrap-Up
With Miami’s win over Dallas on Thursday, I’m 2 – 3 in Week 13.

San Francisco at Baltimore
Final Score 6 – 44
Baltimore dominated this game. Yes, the score shows that, but they brought the total package today. The offense was on. The defense was a juggernaut. Special teams performed well. There weren’t a lot of costly penalties. It was good ball-playing.

Philadelphia at Carolina
Final Score 25 – 16

Other games of note:

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Final Score 24 – 20
As much as I talk trash about the Steelers, I wanted them to win this game. No, my motives were not entirely pure: I wanted Baltimore to have the AFC North Division lead to themselves. Until the last 00:01:05 of the game, it looked as though Pitt was going to pull it off. And then, Cincinnati engineered a fast 00:00:52 drive and scored the touchdown that cemented the win with 00:00:13 left to play. And, so… B’more and Cincy are tied for the Division. Again. And we get to play them next week at home.

Cleveland at Seattle
Current Score 0 – 7
A Cleveland win would leave Pitt all alone at the bottom of the AFC North. And a win would make happy.

Quote of the Day
Jess and I were watching the World Championship of Poker on ESPN a few minutes ago. During one of the hands, one of the commentators, talking about a player’s style dropped the following gem:

Sometimes you don’t play the cards, you play the man. I tried that in my first marriage. It didn’t work.

We both got a good laugh out of it.

And, now… off to face the day.

Namaste.

Tonight’s episode of Justice League was called “Hereafter.” It involved a “Death of Superman” plot. (This is the second series that I know of that has done this type of story; ABC’s Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians did one in the late 80s.) There were cameos by characters from both the Batman and Superman Animated Series; I *think* that they even shown Green Lantern Kyle Rayner (introduced in the Superman: TAS), but the character didn’t say anything. But… they did show the Lanterns in their dress/ceremonial coats. I thought that was pretty cool. They also showed Wonder Woman in her ceremonial armor. Batman even seemed to have a “human” moment. The part of the story that included Vandal Savage was handled very well, also.

Bowling wasn’t bad: 160, 141, 148, 157, 114 and 130-something (the computer killed that game in the ninth frame for reasons that we nor the counter staff understand). The last two games of the session would have been in the low 100s and 130-something, also. , his wife Jen and Bill showed up for a while and hung out with us.

Breakfast was the same as it ever is… for the most part. , and were there waiting for us. Pat (our friend in the Sandy P.D.) and Brent (Sheriff’s dept/Mall security) showed up and ate with us. We were all having a decent time until someone at another table decided to:

• Attempt to stare me down. He was FAR from intimidating and I don’t intimidate easily.
• Mouth off and try to trash talk

I did mention that we had two off-duty cops sitting with us, didn’t I? Pat was in a bit of a rough-and-tumble mood and wanted the idiot to actually start a fight. It would have been amusing to see what might have happened had still been there, but he and the Lady Spydr had left about 00:20 before. Oh well.

Namaste.

I am sitting here watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yes, that one. Starring Dick Van Dyke. And, I’ve mentioned my affinity for Mr. Van Dyke before.

What I wasn’t aware of was the fact that the following people were also involved with the movie:

• Ian Fleming
• Albert Broccoli (better known as “Cubby” Broccoli)
• Desmond Llewelyn

Individually, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But those three have ties to another movie series: The James Bond films.

• Fleming, author of the Bond books, also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• Cubby Broccoli produced all of the Bond films through 1989’s The Living Daylights
• Llewlyn portrayed British Secret Service agent Major Boothroyd (although he is better known as “Q”), the inventor of all of Bond’s gadgets from From Russia with Love through The World Is Not Enough (he died shortly after T.W.I.N.E. was released).

All this and Benny Hill, too.

Silly movie. But fun. And it brings back a few fond memories.

Friday
Work… blah blah blah.

Off to the airport to pick up . It sounded like she had a great time on the far side of the country. That’s definitely good.

Home for a quick stop and then off to Borders. I asked to give me a new “project” to practice on. She did. So far, so good. After that, , , and I headed to the rather empty Applebee’s for food. While sitting there, we started thinking about two compilation CDs:

• One based on the characters and places related to Batman
• One based on the characters and places related to Superman

We came up with a few good ideas. Now, it’s just a matter of going from “theory” to “practical application.”

Stray Toasters

• Black Friday. The most anticipated (or “dreaded,” depending on which side of the register that you’re on) day of the shopping year. For some, it was “National Buy Nothing Day.” The extent of my contribution to the day’s economy: I bought something to eat and something to drink.
• I checked this out again:
  

  I’m trying to get all my Livejournal friends’ locations plotted on a map – please add your location starting with this form. Username: (Then get your friends to!)

  It seems like a few more people have been added since the last time I checked it.

• Monkeys. Shakespeare. You know the old adage. This is a model of how that would actually work out.
• From Slashdot: Microsoft Drags Feet with Settlement Claims
• The Pillows. They did at least some of the music for FLCL. If you can track down some of their music, do so.
• Have I mentioned “HALO action figures” before? Well, consider them mentioned again.
• From Slashdot: Human Pac-Man
  (Warning: This has a knack for loading slowly….)

• Libcaca: Colour ASCII Art Library
• From Slashdot: The Economics of File-Sharing (Not to be confused with The Politics of Dancing)

And that, as they say, is that. Considering that I got somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of sleep last night, I should probably make an effort to begin tonight’s inner eyelid study. Good night and good morrow to all.

Namaste.

According to this article from BBC News, toy expert Barry Eldridge has devised a formula for determining the “perfect family game.” And the winner is…

Sorry, you’ll have to read the article to find out.

Today was a good day.

It would take a long time for me to list all of the things for which I am thankful. I will cut to the chase and simply say that I am thankful for my family, friends and all of the things that I have had the blessing and benefits of experiencing over the past year.

Dinner with , her parents, family and friends was excellent. Plenty of food. Lots of wine and champagne. Good conversation. It was a great way to spend Thanksgiving away from our far-away families.

‘s father “threatened” to teach me how to line dance. It started after I said that I wasn’t a fan of country music. A couple of jokes were made and then he asked “Wouldn’t you like to learn how to line dance?” I looked at him, smiled and said: “Actually, I would.” I think it caught him a little off-guard. Then I went on to explain that the only reason that I had even entertained the idea of learning to line dance or two-step was because of Madonna’s Don’t Tell Me video. And the fact that I could catch other people off-guard by telling them “Yes, I can line dance/two-step, as a matter of fact.” And then smile, evilly.

“Thanks” to , who came over after we got back and helped me set up FreeBSD on the new rig. Now, it finally has a fully-functional OS. I still need to insert the network cards, but it’s ready to go otherwise.

Football Final
The Dolphins soundly defeated the Cowboys: 40 – 21.

Namaste.

I hope that it has been good for everyone.

So far, I slept in. A little. It seems that unless I am completely worn out, I am awake after about 6 hours. *sigh* So, I got up and proceeded to be lazy. I talked with the family unit – including the rest of the sibko. Apparently, Mom had Kris up at O’Dark-Thirty to set up the Christmas trimmings. While I miss being at home for the holidays, I don’t miss that aspect of things.

Other than that, I have been watching football and sitting here on the nerd. And that’s been about it.

Football!

Green Bay at Detroit
Final Score 14 – 22
I started watching a little into the second quarter. Yeah, yeah… I know. But I’m not a fan of either team, so it wasn’t critical for me to be there for the opening kickoff. It was a good game. Green Bay had a chance, albeit a slim one, to tie things up at the end of the game, but the Lions’ coverage took that chance away. With gusto.

Miami at Dallas
Current Score 10 – 0
Also a good game. Miami has been effective on both sides of the game. Dallas hasn’t looked bad, but they have had troubles on converting 3rd downs into 1st downs… although it looks like they might be close to a touchdown here. More on this game later.

If you get a chance, drop a Thanksgiving note. This is his first major holiday away from home, family and everyone else. I’m sure that he’d appreciate the thought.

With that, I’m off to finish getting ready to head to ‘s parents’ for dinner.

Namaste.

It’s after midnight, so… Happy Thanksgiving to all. I hope that it’s safe and pleasant for all.

NPR and PRI Stories
Talk of the Nation: Overtime
Talk of the Nation: Gluttony
Talk of the Nation: ‘These United States’
All Things Considered:Commentary: Drive-Thru AIDS Test
All Things Considered: Flap Erupts Over Bush State of Union Ad
All Things Considered: Piecing Together Joseph Cornell
Fresh Air: They Might Be Giants Interview

Stray Toasters

• New Stickfas! ::: covet :::
• From Comics2Film’s Digital Concept Gallery: Monkey Fight Club
  (I personally hope that Blip mops the floor eight ways from Sunday with Gleek)

• Season Two of Teen Titans begins on 10 Jan 04 and it looks promising: They are introducing Terra. Add to this the fact that the Titans’ main antagonist is Slade (better known to fans of the comic as Deathstroke the Terminator). Shake well. Serve chilled.
• From Slashdot: After Linux, it seems that Google could be next on SCO’s chopping block. Details here.
• I saw an ad this evening for a site that helps you locate symphony performances in your area: Find A Concert

Namaste.

There’s something good to be said for a cup full of Earl Grey tea on a not-quite-Winter (although it’s cold and snowy enough to be) afternoon.

Of course, it would be nicer if I was enjoying it at home (and in front of the XBox) rather than at work. C’est la vie.