Random Access

More mid-day randomness:

• I want a miniature golf course. I think that it would be neat to have one in my backyard… when I have a backyard (and one large enough to support it). It wouldn’t have to have 18 holes – although that would be nice.
• Music with didgeridoo GOOOD!!! ::: gesture :::
• My Palm Vx is being schizophrenic. Again.
• Does anyone else remember the Marathon candy bar?
• This just in: Seems that the box of Magic: the Gathering cards that my friend’s student had was not an unopened box, after all… but it was a complete box.
  

Some of this song’s lyrics crack me up:

• “They be like he the man when I’m really a Thundercat”
• “Collect so much grass popo thinking we mow lawns”
• “Plus my rats come in packs like Sammy and Dean Martin
  And I got so many keys you’d think I was valet parking”

Friday
The work week is over.
On to the weekend at hand!
Selah.

Post-work hijinks included the traditional Friday trip to Borders with , and . My new drawing is coming along decently; I’d post a picture of it but I’m drawing it in non-photo blue pencil – nothing would show up. *shrug* I’ll post it when it’s done.

Song of the Day
Up on the Roof by The Drifters (or the covers by either The Persuasions or Rockapella)

Stray Toasters

• Why does this (the last item on the list) not surprise me?
• Windows crash statistic
• In-vitro fertilization – 25 years later (or… “Happy Birthday, Louise Brown!”)
• and I were discussing movie casting this afternoon. We touched on the fact that it’s more important to stay true to the nature of a character than to attempt to live up to the standards and expectations of every fanboy (and fangirl) in the target audience. Case in point: The Kingpin in Daredevil, as portrayed by Michael Clarke Duncan. In the movie, he was Black; in the comics (for the past umpteen years), he’s Caucasian. *shrug* To me, the change didn’t matter… as long as he was the same ruthless bastard that we’ve come to know and love through the years. Mr. Duncan did a great job with the role. I mentioned to her that many years ago – when the first rumors of bringing X-Men to the silver screen were being bandied about – I had another casting idea that was also against the norm: Louis Gossett, Jr. as Professor X.
• Craisins!
• Who knew that cats fought going to sleep (okay… lying in a corner and falling asleep) almost as much as children do?
• Amusement! This almost makes me want to post my “Men on Bikes” send-up of Will Smith’s Men in Black again.

Quote of the Day
: “She’s got more cleavage than I have asscrack!”

Namaste.

Thursday
Four down… one to go.
Work wasn’t too bad today. Fairly quiet, in fact.

After work, , and I went to Sampan for dinner and then on to Spydr’s to watch the Pioneer Day fireworks display. Spydr’s back yard had a great view of the show.

Song of the Day
Lakeside Park by Rush, from “Caress of Steel”

Stray Toasters

• Spam (Part I): I got to work this morning and found an email for a site called Date911. It advertises “The Hottest Casual Sex Encounters.” I laughed. Then it went into the Trash Folder.
• Spam (Part II): I’ve been getting email (at home) from… *shrug*… I don’t know whom. Different names on the “From:” line. These emails have files attached to them: .exe, .pif, .scr and files. *sigh* A couple of years ago, I learned the hard way about “problem” files that people send. These days, I have a “Quarantine” folder into which these unsolicited little gems are deposited. It makes life simple.
• Having personal problems? Air them out on a gaming forum. You’ll feel better.
• DirectX Flaw Leaves Windows Vulnerable… from Slashdot. If you use Windows, you might want to take a look at this one.
• Hungry? On the road? Take a look at this.
• First, RIAA issued subpoenas for music swappers. Now, they are subpoenaing their parents.
• Flash mobs. “What’s a flash mob,” you ask? Voila.

Off to The Dreaming…

Namaste.

Wednesday
Day Two of “Damage Control.” It went well. The people whom I contacted yesterday seemed to be rather understanding of our problems. *whew* I still have a few more people to contact, but I’m a lot less stressed than I was 24 hours ago.

After work, I met up with a few friends for an impromptu coffee night – it was the right night (this week was a beer week, though); but most of our group went to see They Might Be Giants perform. Tonight’s conversation ranged from comics to Lakota rituals to meeting Mark Hamill. After that, we headed to Applebee’s for dinner. As the hostess seemed to be in a bit of a mood, we weren’t able to sit in Vivi’s section. *BAH* She came over to visit us, though. And had the entire table laughing.

Song of the Day
Les Poissons from The Little Mermaid Original Soundtrack

Stray Toasters

• I was chatting with a friend from back home and he told me that a student of his went into a local sports card store and asked if they sold Magic: the Gathering cards. The owner of the shop went into the back and returned with an unopened box of Alpha cards. (For those of you who don’t grok that: First edition and first printing of the game.) The owner had bought them when the game first came out… but they didn’t sell, so he just put them in his back stock. He sold them to the kid for twenty ($20) dollars! The kid and/or his father put the cards up for auction on eBay. As of the last price that I could find (Sept. 2000), an unopened box was worth $2800.
• RIAA’s got subpoenas…. TechTV’s got the names. Are you one of them?
• VH1’s 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons. The complete list is about 2/3 of the way down the page.
• Sacre bleu!
• Digitized Gutenberg Bible Available
• Microsoft… losing a patent battle? Seems so. Check it out.
• Hmmm. I’m a little disturbed/irritated. I just saw an ad from Partnership for a Drug-Free America. It showed roughly 20 goldfish swimming in a water-purifying jug – like a Brita jug that you’d fill with tap water to purify. The tap was open and water was draining out of the jug. As you can expect, the fish were trying to swim in an ever-decreasing amount of water. When it got to the level of the spout, it stopped draining…. but there was only about 2-3 inches of water in the jug. As you can imagine, the fish were more-or-less on top of each other just trying to survive. There was a voiceover about using inhalants and how that destroys brain cells which are necessary for us to live. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but that was the gist of it. Somehow, I think that they could have found a better way to get the point across.
• A new Cheech & Chong movie? Yep.

Tomorrow is “Pioneer Day” here in the Land behind the Zion Curtain. Or, as calls it: “Mormon Christmas.” (I have to admit: That makes me laugh.) This is the day when (almost) everyone celebrates the Mormon pioneers coming to the Salt Lake Valley and Brigham Young saying “This is the place.” It’s a state holiday – some businesses will be closed, some will close early. This holiday gets more fanfare and hullabaloo than the Fourth of July here. Call me a “Colony snob” if you want – being from one of the original thirteen colonies/states – but I still don’t think that a state holiday should outshine the federal one. *shrug* Nevertheless, I’m going to watch the fireworks display tomorrow night. NEVER pass up an opportunity to see a good fireworks display.

And with that, bon soir.

Namaste.

*sigh*
It seems as though my domain host is having issues. Not good. It’s been about 3 hours since I called them to alert them to the problem – it wasn’t just my site that was affected, the main site was down, too. (It’s nice to be on personal terms with the head honcho.) The fact that he hasn’t called me back yet bodes ill.

And so, I wait.

UPDATE (18:45)
Apparently, their server ate something that it didn’t like and is now being moody… but they are working on it. All should be well again in fairly short order.

Tuesday
Oy gevalt.
Yesterday wasn’t too bad… until 00:20 before I was ready to leave. It was brought to my attention that there was LOTS “catch-up” to deal with. It was a problem that someone else left. Yay. It was enough of a stress point that I actually needed to call home to vent to one of the parental units. That helped immensely. Last night’s gaming was a good release; it didn’t remove all of the tension, but it got enough of it out of the way for me to regain a good personal balance. I am seriously beginning to dislike Mondays. That’s not a good thing, especially when you consider that Monday Night Football (which starts in a month) is on… that’s right: Monday.

While I still have more to deal with tomorrow, Day One of “Damage Control” is out of the way. I should have feedback on it in the morning – that could be something of a mixed bag. Some of it will be good (at least, I hope that it will…); some might not be so good. *shrug* We shall see…

After work, it was home for a bit and then off to Borders to meet Mary… and harass Jonahs. I took the opportunity to look up details for my next drawing and to blue-line some of the repetitive parts of the piece. I can see that this is going to take a while. A long while. Something odd also happened while we were there: A girl (late teens… maybe) walked up to us, looked at Jonahs and said “I know who you are and I know what you did…” and then walked off.

::: boggle :::While we are not 100% sure who she was, we have a pretty good idea who put her up to that. And why. *sigh* Oh, to be young and stupid again….

Post-Borders, we headed to Ye Olde Inn of the Village for dinner. Between dinner and talking with Kris and Swanny, we killed almost two hours.

NPR Stories
Talk of the Nation
All Things Considered
The World

Song of the Day

• The Envoy by Warren Zevon
• Dirty Laundry by Don Henley

…inspired by a lunchtime conversation with .

Stray Toasters

• Happy Birthday to my grandmother. The chances that she’ll see this are rather slim… but I’m not going to let that stop me from posting it.
• A water pipe in one of the ground floor apartments burst yesterday. The rooter service that was called to repair the problem was here most of the day yesterday – from the time that I left for work (around 9:45 AM) until after I got home from work (7:30-ish PM). There was a note on the door this afternoon informing us that the water will be off tomorrow from 8:00 AM until whenever-they-finish… for which they are allowing up to eight (8) hours.::: braincramp :::It seems that they had to not only repair the pipe in the apartment, but they have to replace one of the water mains for our building. Yay.
• It’s amazing how true the adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is.
• Paul Harvey. Christopher Guest used to do a great send-up of him on Saturday Night Live in the mid-80s.
• Integrity and character are important characteristics for the workplace.
• “In brightest day, in darkest night…”

And now, The Dreaming awaits…

Namaste.

In this morning’s email from Backwash, there was a link for The Best of ‘Stupid Protests’. I looked. I laughed.

Enjoy.

Sunday
Another Pleasant Salt Lake Valley Sunday-ay-ay. It was a good day.

It started with a trip to Borders. This was the outcome:

Although it’s not very clear on the picture, it’s based on a photographic piece by Mark Frank. I started it yesterday evening, but only got about 00:30 worth of time in it. It took about… three hours to finish this afternoon. Unfortunately, I can’t find a copy of the original online for comparison. *shrug* I’m happy with it.

After that – and a brief stop at home – it was on to tonight’s movie: Bad Boys II with , , Spydr and Larry. Damn the critics and their “Boys is just bad” reviews: I had fun. Will Smith. Martin Lawrence. Gabrielle Union (Woo!) And, lots of things blowing up. I may get this (and the first Bad Boys) on DVD.

Stray Toasters

• : You might be interested in this… and the related files.
• We saw the trailer for S.W.A.T. again tonight. This sparked a (…or “yet another…”) wave of nostalgia. I remember being in Kindergarten and First Grade and running around the school playground pretending to be characters from the show. And, of course, I had to look for a copy of the original series‘ theme song.
• I watched the premiere of the new Cartoon Network series Teen Titans. It’s based on the DC Comics book of the same name – not the current version, but the one from the mid-80s. The style is based on the ones used in Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League… but scaled back a bit. The closest analogy that I can make would be: If JL was anime, then TT is a chibi version of the animation. It was good. And it wasn’t too over-the-top. It doesn’t have the “We have to save the world/galaxy” feel of JL. As the tagline in the trailers said, they are “Fighting for truth, justice… and the last slice of pizza.” And they did a good job of it. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

And that’s all there is. Tomorrow, it’s back to the grind. Wahoo.

Namaste.

The computers at least acknowledge each other’s existence.

This is progress.

…or trying to, anyway.
Linux is giving me a few problems in setting up Samba.
But that’s okay.

This song is just cool enough to get me through it.

Friday
Woo.
Today was a pretty good day. and I were working in the warehouse mostly. It was hot back there and the part of the inventory with which we were working was dirty, dusty and just all-around *blah*.

I came home and showered before heading to Borders. , , , , Steph and Jonahs were there. We all harassed Jonahs…. even though he wasn’t on the clock. Or maybe that should be “…especially since he wasn’t on the clock.” *shrug* I had a great time. I even “finished” the Wonder Woman piece that I have been working on.

According to , it could use a little touching up around the eyes and mouth (…and that’s true), but I’m pretty happy with the way that it turned out. Pretty damned happy, at that.

After Borders, , , Steph, Jonahs and I headed to the nearby Applebee’s for a late dinner. We were attended by our favorite (at that restaurant) server, Vivi.¹ We ate. We talked. We ran other customers out of the restaurant. Well, that may not be true – it was never actually proven that they left because of us.

There’s nothing like wrapping up a week that started off so ludicrously poorly with a Friday evening that is nearly perfect. And spending said evening in the company of good friends is far from a bad way to spend time.

NPR Stories
Talk of the City discussed Utah drivers and some of their idiosyncrasies – speeding, obeying traffic laws, etc. – on Thursday’s show. I found it (amusingly) ironic that as I listened, I saw someone getting pulled over for speeding. And this morning, I watched as someone three to five car lengths in front of me decided that he wanted to cross three (3) lanes of traffic – from the second lane from the left side of the highway to the exit ramp on the right side of the highway – more or less regardless of the other drivers on the road. What fools theses mortals Utah drivers be…

Song of the Day
Strangers in the Night by the Chairman of the Board – Frank Sinatra

Stray Toasters

• made horns out of my kneaded eraser. She then stuck ’em on my head. And thus was a new user icon born…
• “Coloring the Comic Books” is a good article about race and sexism in comics over the years.
• Computers… teaching themselves to think? Yep. Using a technique called a “genetic algorithm.” Pretty interesting stuff. Check it out.
• King Kong and Ozzy Osbourne impressions.
• “Are you telling me that you built a time machine…. out of a DeLorean?!”
  No. But you can build a rocket pack for your bicycle… or a two million volt Tesla coil. How? Thanks to the friendly folks at United Nuclear, that’s how! Check out the Dangerous Products part of their site.

• How far is Airport A from Airport B? Does it really matter if: a) the airports are in the same city, and b) the people flying into those airports are arriving eight (8) hours apart?
• MicroSoft… giving away…. money?! To users of the new MSN Messenger? It’s true.
• Adhesive-backed insulated foam strips. HVAC conduit tape. Right-angle speed reducers. These are the harbingers of a long work day. And LOTS of dust.

Namaste.

¹ – If you live in the SLC area and eat at the Applebee’s at Fascist Place Fashion Place Mall, ask for Vivi’s section.

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
-Gustave Flaubert

Thursday
Not too bad a day. The only real ‘problem’ came when a wire came loose from our punch-down box. It had to be reseated, but that didn’t take too long… and it shouldn’t be a problem again.

It’s been a quiet night of C.S.I., TechTV, Cartoon Network… and a lot of drawing.

Song of the Day

• Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo
• Dead Man Walking by David Bowie
• Drop Dead Gorgeous by Republica

Stray Toasters

• There’s a new bill in the works that would make file sharing an automatic felony. ( O_o) Read about it here.
• “Hullo” to Nancy Pistofgrl!
• Exiled poets share experiences
• Ray Charles. Nuff said.
• I just saw a Metamucil commercial where they attribute the regularity Old Faithful’s eruptions to… you guessed it…. Metamucil. Now, when you think about it, that’s a rather graphic method for getting a point across. Effective, yes. But still just a bit out there.
• Excerpted from an IRC conversation:
  

  [18:46] [Nizlee] “A German man who confessed to killing and eating a man he met through a website for cannibals has been charged with murder, prosecutors have said”
  [18:46] [Nizlee] O_O
  [18:46] [Nizlee] I don’t know where to begin…
  [18:53] Yeah, I saw that.
  [18:53] [Nizlee] I…I…
  [18:55] *shrug*
  [18:56] [Nizlee] I worry about this planet…
  [18:56] The planet’s okay.
  [18:56] [Nizlee]
  [18:56] It’s the hairless apes running around on it that should give you concern.

• A new Cadillac commercial was just on. It had Led Zepplin’s Rock and Roll playing in the background. Then it cut to different drivers in their cars… singing along with the band. One of the drivers seemed to be getting into the song as he drove. I wonder if that’s what I look like to other drivers (and their passengers) when a song that I really like comes on? Doesn’t really matter. It’s the mood and the music that matter.
• I’ve been working on a couple of drawings over the past few days.
  This is the original – Alex Ross’ cover to Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth
  
  This was what I did Monday night, while gaming:
  
  This is the most recent and larger version – a work-in-progress:
  (This is taking a l-o-n-g time to do, but I’m actually enjoying it.)

• K-9 Officer Dies Inside Hot Police Car This is sad. You would think that something like this could be avoided, especially given the number of alerts and warnings out there about the dangers of leaving one’s child and/or pet in a car in the summer.
• Thanks to for pointing this out. We have a running joke about pirates; seeing this made me laugh.

Namaste.

That’s what time the cats decided was a good time to play Tag and to play with a bag on the floor. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with them at that point.

Getting back to sleep – and staying asleep – was not very easy after that.

Maybe this was a practical application of the adage: No rest for the wicked weary.

Time to make a pot of coffee.