Random Access

Tuesday: Coda
When I got home, I turned on the TV and started surfing. I landed on CNN. As the Montana and South Dakota primaries were tonight, I watched the coverage. I missed Hillary Clinton’s… “No I’m not done, yet” speech. There’s a part of me that’s glad I did. I did watch Barack Obama’s speech. Once again, it was a classic. He didn’t bash Senator Clinton and there was only one jab (that I picked up on) at Senator McCain. Other than that, he seemed sincere and humble and appreciative.

After I watched a little more primary coverage, I flipped over to L&O: SVU. It was a rebroadcast of the season finale, which I didn’t see in first-run. It was a good episode, but it left a few questions about next season.

While waiting for dinner to cook (i.e.: “putting it the nukerator”), I installed a light in one of the display cases. It looks nice. I may move some things around to catch the light better. I may not. We’ll see.

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with Rana briefly this evening. She and Bit are back in the States and doing well.
• Liv Tyler is on The Tonight Show. She seems so… grounded. I find that odd/interesting, as her father is Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler. I guess that I was expecting her to be more Jack and Kelly Osbourne.
• , guess what character is getting a new action figure made. Here’s a hint:

  

• With Eric’s help, I was able to recover data from DS9’s former hard drive. After the process, I dismantled the drive – it was the first time that I had done that.
• I made the mistake of flipping to Boomerang a little while ago. Space Ace was on. That reminded me of the proliferation of video game-related cartoons that were part of the CBS Saturday morning lineup in the 80s.
• By way of Despair.com:



• AirPort Extreme. Hmm.
• A commercial for Burger King, featuring The Artist Formerly Known as Puff Daddy, was just on. In it, a BK marketing guy tells P. Diddy (as he is now known),”We need a new ad campaign.” Young Mr. Combs looks at him and, very simply says, “Tell ’em Diddy says ‘BK is open late.'” And then something FINALLY hit me: Something about the name “P. Diddy” struck me as both odd/ridiculous… but strangely familiar, however I didn’t make the connection until tonight:

  

  That’s right: Diddy Kong. He renamed himself… after a cartoon/video game monkey.

• Donkey Kong was adapted into a cartoon, too. Also on CBS. Also far from good.
• There’s a Utah Blaze game Monday night. That could be a nice change of pace way to spend the evening.

Time to figure out what I want for a pre-bed snack.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 03 June 2008
Last night, I got home to find that my Giants set of ‘Clix had arrived. As I had some errands to run, I took the package, unopened, with me. I’ll come back to that one in a minute.

One of the evening’s errands was to take my guitar to Acoustic Music. The bridge had… separated… from the body, rendering the instrument pretty much useless. They will reattach the bridge and restring the guitar; I should have it back inside of a week. I had asked Tom (SaraRules’ friend) and Bruce (from Jitterbug) where the best place to take it would be – both of them said Acoustic Music. First choice. No hesitation. (Well, there was a little hesitation from Tom, as he tried to recall the name of the place, but it was still his first choice.)

One of the other “errands” was to see if Chris was home and show him the Giants set. He was. I did. He laughed when I told him that I came by just to show him the figures, but he liked them. (The sculpts and paint jobs are really good, the pictures on the site don’t do ’em justice.) He didn’t recognize all of the characters, but he did know a few of them.

On to the store to pick up a few groceries and then home. I cooked dinner: Grilled chicken over angel hair pasta with a garden salad and a glass of Gewurtztraminer to wash it down. Aside from neglecting to turn on the range hood fan while cooking – and thus having a little too much smoke in the apartment and THUS setting off the smoke detector – it was good.

I even got to watch ST:DS9 and Seven Days. before calling it a night.

Workout
Back in the saddle again:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
• Pulldowns (close grip): 3 sets/12 reps, 120 lbs
• Shoulder Press (dumbbell): 3 sets/15 reps – 30 lbs (1 set), 35 lbs (2 sets)
• Bent-over Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 35 lbs
• Wrist Curls: 2 sets (each)/15 reps – 55 lbs (reverse), 45 lbs (forward)

Pre-workout weight: 172.4 lbs.

I don’t know what I did to lose two pounds over the last week, but I’m not going to argue.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules got to interview the Mayor of Aspen yesterday. Her recap of it made me laugh.
• Radio From Hell (known as “Radio from Heck,” in Happy Valley) has a LiveJournal account. Who knew!?
• “Secret Agent” and “Salmon”
• America’s Unhealthiest Drinks Exposed
• 
• Steampunk R2
• Interesting note: Jonathan LaPaglia, Seven Days‘ protagonist and his brother, Without a Trace‘s Anthony LaPaglia, are Australian; you’d never know from their accent… or lack thereof. Jonathan LaPaglia was a physician before switching to acting. He graduated with an M.B.B.S. degree from the University of Adelaide.
• Mel Gibson, however is NOT Australian; his family moved there from New York when he was a young boy.
• 13 Movie Mementos Lost in the Universal Studios Fire That No One Will Miss
• 
• Hugh Jackman is still Australian.
• Bardot fined for stoking hate race

/lunch

Namaste.

Sunday: Coda
I took the scenic route to Jitterbug this afternoon. About five minutes from the shop, I got a text message from Pat, saying that he wasn’t going to make it. A few minutes later, I got a call from , asking if I had gotten Pat’s message. I told her that I had and that I was going back to my original plan of heading to Borders to do some drawing.

And that’s exactly what I did. I picked up a couple of photography magazines and took about thirty minutes to see if I could glean any ideas. I found a few things that caught my eye. Then I got down to brass tacks. I’ve had something nagging at the back of my head for a couple of weeks, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the idea. It finally came to me today. It’s probably going to take some time to to flesh out, but I’m really liking what I came up with.

After Borders, I headed down to Kate and Perry’s to hang out with – and play City with – Perry. We teamed up with a couple of members of my supergroup and a couple other people (Defenders!) to tackle some Rikti and Malta missions.

Next on the agenda: Over to Chris and Mary’s to play ‘Clix. Chris and I faced off against Matt and Emiliano, from Far West Comics. I tried out a variation on my tournament Legion team, while Chris played with a variant Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants:

• My team:
  • Brainiac 5
  • Dawnstar
  • Dream Girl
  • Saturn Girl
  • Supergirl and
  • Ultra Boy
• Chris’ team:
  • Black Tom Cassidy
  • Fabian Cortez
  • Jean Grey
  • Juggernaut
  • Magneto
  • Mystique and
  • Sabertooth

Matt and ‘Mano brought an assortment of characters, with no particular theme in mind:

• Alex Luthor
• Captain America
• Deathstroke
  
• Flash (Justice Legion A)
• Hourman (Justice Legion A)
• Monarch
• Superman (Justice Legion A)

And… they beat us down. Hourman and Monarch both had Probability Control… you know, my new favorite power that Dream Girl has. It’s great when you have the power, but when your opponents have it – and have it on two characters with line-of-sight on your characters who have a snowball’s chance in Hell of doing anything with – it can be a royal pain in the ass. Between Probability Control and craptacular dice rolls on our parts, Chris and I were sunk early on. The first two characters that they took off the board were Supergirl and Ultra Boy, my two heaviest hitters. After that, it was just a matter of watching us bleed out.

But, it was fun.

And I still need to figure out who I’m using in this weekend’s tournament. 300 points and restricted to only sets in print since November of 2006. I’ll come up with… something.

Stray Toasters

• I just saw something really fun on TLC: Rock the Reception. I only caught the last two or three minutes of the show, but I came in during a couple’s first dance, done to Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl? About halfway or two-thirds of the way through, the bridesmaids and groomsmen joined in. And it looked like they were all having a blast.
• Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has died; he was 71.
• I’m not sure what I want for a late-night dessert.
• There are a handful of people who grok why I find this so amusing..

  

  …and they are either shaking their heads or laughing (or both) as they see this.

• Project Rooftop has a new contest up: Superman: Man of Style.
• Action Comics #1 cover… redone in LEGO

Time to figure out what I want for a late-night snack.

Namaste.

Saturday: Coda
I had lunch with at Jitterbug. Then I headed down to hang out with Kate, Perry and the kids for a bit. I left with a few new (to me) ‘Clix – ones of which Perry had spares and I had none.

Around 7:00, I headed to Chris and Mary’s go talk about the new Dark Heresy game that Chris wants to run. We got the bare-bones basics of what our characters would know and then rolled up characters. Tomorrow evening, I’m heading back there to play ‘Clix with Chris and Mark. Hopefully, I will get some ideas about who I want to use in next Saturday’s tournament, too.

Breakfast with the usual suspects. There was some decent people-watching tonight. The conversations were good, too.

Tomorrow, assuming that I’m awake early enough, I intend to join for one of his Sunday morning meditational/inspirational treks. I also plan on getting in some drawing time – I’ve realized that it has been FAR too long since I’ve really done any drawing of note. It’s time to rectify that.

Stray Toasters

• I saw and Uriah while at Jitterbug today. That was a nice surprise.
• According to SaraRules: Aspen is ‘spensive.
• Steve Harvey, from The Original Kings of Comedy DVD:

  The part that always cracks me up about this starts about 2:45 into it… and the song that starts around 5:30 in.

• “Pubic Toupee” and “Black Hole of Misery”
• When I saw this article, it made me a bit sad. I realize that running for political office puts a candidate’s life under scrutiny, but come on… to drive a person out of their home church? That’s a bit too far.
• The upcoming “Secret Invasion” set of HeroClix will include a new Cloak and Dagger figure:



• According to this item, the new set will also see the debut of Power Pack in the game. Yes, Power Pack still holds a happy, warm spot in my comics-loving heart.
• Purple monkey dishwasher.

It’s early and I have to get up later.

Namaste.

In no particular order:

• and I walked over to Dask’s for lunch. When we got to the little shopping center where it is, he noticed that a new restaurant, Cafe Zupas, had opened. We decided to give it a go. It specializes in salads, sandwiches and soups. I had the Honey Bacon Club and it was good.
• is on a roll today. She sent me this:

• , having watched the above video, went on to watch this one… and send a link to me:

• I am looking for a new hard drive for Defiant. I guess that I should get an external HD, too, for use with Time Machine.
• , Mike and I discussed adding a new class to FRPGs/MMos: Barbarian Lush.
• Stormtroopers vs. London Cops

  

Back to it.

Thursday – 29 May 2008
A couple of things that started the morning nicely:

1. I Am LEGO



2. Sent to me by CoworkerJG, who knows my proclivity for City of Heroes/Villains:

I think that these were good ways to kick of any NBN Thursday. And this morning’s coffee didn’t hurt, either. Nor did “The Boys in Brazil,” the behind-the-scenes movie from Disc Two of Rush in Rio, made during the Vapor Trails tour, playing on my port side monitor; it’s not only a cool look at what you might not otherwise see or know about putting together a concert and/or a tour, but it’s fun, too.

So, all together, I guess that it would be “No Bad News Sushi and Comic Book ‘Wednesday’,” too.

Stray Toasters

• I am “this close” to ordering a set of HeroClix Giants. It has Colossal Boy and Validus ‘Clix. Must have.
• Terminator Salvation: The Future begins principal photography
• principal != principle
• sent me a link to an article about Nepal abolishing it’s monarchy. In honor of that, I dedicate this Schoolhouse Rock! toon:

  No, it’s not entirely the same thing, but it’s as close as I could get.

• also (indirectly) had to deal with a monkey today:
  

  : there was a goddamn monkey in my yard today
  : O.o
  : while the movers were packing things up
  : Did it get packed into the truck?
  : you assume there was a moving truck
  : Oh.
  : the 9 crates are still in my yard
  : Right.
  Wait…. WHAT?!
  : they have to take them to the airport one by one in a tiny little jeep
  : …
  Wow.
  : yea
  so this little fucker is running around trying to bite the movers
  he climbed inside the crates while they were packing boxes into them
  i was laughing my ass off
  but admittedly
  i was laughing from behind the window inside
  those things are freaking mean

• NBC launches horror anthology series Fear Itself
• Does anyone else remember Tales of the Gold Monkey?
• Private Donor Saves Fermilab
• Update: I bought the ‘Clix Giants.
• Tyranist: James Bond Book Covers
• Ken Jennings, the man who holds the record for the longest winning streak on Jeopardy!, has written a blog post about Mike Allred’s Madman!, whose protagonist is apparently Mormon. I recall reading many rains past that The New Mutants’ Cypher was supposed to be Mormon, but the only other character that I knew was definitely LDS was Dr. Deseret (1, 2) from Will Shetterly’s Captain Confederacy.

/lunch

Namaste.

Tuesday: Coda
I planned to leave work around 4:15, in order to make it back to SLC by 5:00 for the HeroClix tournament at Far West Comics. That didn’t quite work out the way I had planned. I got out of the office at 4:34. I didn’t fly up to Salt Lake, but I did get to the comic shop a few minutes after 5:00. I got in, put my things down and decided on my team – I went with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Of course. The rules called for four-hundred point teams, so I tried to give myself a good mix of characters:

• Cosmic Boy
• Dawnstar
• Dream Girl
• Saturn Girl
• Shrinking Violet and
• Ultra Boy

Three of the choices – Dawny, Dream Girl and Saturn Girl – were no-brainers: Dawnstar has an ability called “Quarry,” which allows her (and friendly characters) to have a +1 to my attack rolls; Dream Girl, through “Precognition” (Probability Control), which lets me roll dice or force my opponent to reroll; and Saturn Girl has Mind Control (control an opposing figure), Outwit and “Telepathic Coordination,” which allows me to modify one friendly figure’s attack or defense stats by +2. The guys and Vi were there for ranged attacks, strength and to round out the points for the team. I clocked in at an even 400.

The tournament was three rounds. There were seven players, so one person got a first round bye. As the luck of the draw would have it, I had to play Chris the first round. Yay. His team consisted of:

• Batman (I forget which figure)
• Green Arrow
• Logan and
• Sinestro

Suffice if to say that he not only cleaned my clock, but he picked my team apart. Systematically. If I hadn’t been playing against him, it would have been a thing of beauty to watch. But, as I was his opponent, it was just painful.

I drew the bye in the second round, so I got an “automatic win.”

Third round, I played a guy named Shane. He is a Superman fan, and apparently he’s a BIG fan. His team was comprised of:

• Superman
• Superman Blue
• Superman Robot
• Thunderstrike

I made Superman the Legion’s quarry. (Given the LSH’s ties to Superman, this was amusing, in many ways.) Then it was game on. I had a lot of good rolls; Shane had some bad ones… or at least Probability Control helped him to have to reroll a few really good rolls. Between Dawny, Saturn Girl and Ultra Boy, I took Superman off the table. He was followed shortly by the Superman Robot. Next on the menu was Thunderstrike. I was working on taking down Superman Blue when time ran out. Shane had managed to do some serious damage to Cosmic Boy and had taken a couple of clicks off of Saturn Girl, Vi and Ultra Boy… but he didn’t KO any of my team. And, I won my Round Three game.

So, my final tally for the night:

• 1 Win
• 1 Bye (automatic win)
• 1 Loss

I’m pretty happy with that for my first real ‘Clix outing against other players than Chris.

I headed over to and ‘s place for Scion, but we didn’t play. Instead, we and sat around and chatted a few hours away. It was a nice way to cap off the day.

And, for my next amazing feat: Sleep! (It’s been a long day).

Tuesday – 27 May 2008
The rain is gone.
The boxes are no longer in my car.
SaraRules is on her way to Colorado for summer camp The Aspen Music Festival.

Today’s going pretty well. For today’s workout, I wanted to do a few back-related exercises, as I feel like we’ve been ignoring that area. So, it went a little something like this:

• Leg raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Bench press: 3 sets/12 reps, 185 lbs
• Reverse fly: 3 sets/10 reps, 82.5 lbs
• Decline press: 3 sets/12 reps – 135 lbs (first and third sets), 155 lbs (second set)
• Rows (standing, barbell, close grip handle): 3 sets/12 reps – 45 lbs (first set), 70 lbs (second and third sets)
• Leg raises: 3 sets/10 reps
• Back extensions: 2 sets/12 reps

All-in-all it was a good workout. Today’s weigh-in weight: 174.4 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• I’ve been trying to convince a coworker to buy a (at least one) MacBook. He’s considering it.
• Pain Lies on the Riverside
• Do whites need training before raising black children?
• Happy 5th Birthday to WordPress.
• Plants, for your health
• I may have to make a trip to Aspen to attend this.
• If Will Smith had one of these, I Am Legend might have been a (slightly) different movie.
  (Thanks to for pointing this out.)
• Adult balloon-twisters and gospel balloon-twisters battle
• SaraRules just called; she made it to camp Aspen safely and is getting settled in.

Quote of the Day
Just when I think that conversations with can’t get any better, he proves me wrong:

: bot/bit made it to US soil. not to DC yet tho
: Good deal.
They still have about 1:30 to go before they hit DCA, right?
: give or take. she said they were running late but not sure if it was them being late or the planes
: Gotcha.
: How are you this evening/early morning?
: eh…didn’t sleep last night. probably won’t sleep much tonight. frazzled. and in the middle of a packout. no pressure.
: Packout?
: yeah, movers came and started to pack and crate all our stuff
: ah.
: Dude. Condi… on the piano?
In Aspen?
: yeah she’s actually really good
: HAVE to see if SaraRules can score tix for that.
: wait…black person? in aspen?
: *ding*
: is that allowed?
: We’ll find out in 3 weeks.
I’ll send detailed reports.
But… Condi’s there in August. Performing, apparently.
http://www.aspenmusicfestival.com/index.cfm?&swf_plugin=0,9,0
: she going to take over any small countries full of brown people w/oil on her way over?
: No idea.
: there are brown people in texas. maybe we can make arrangements
: True enough.
And there are a FEW in Kansas.
: doubtful. it’s kansas.
: Seen ’em.
Been in a couple of rib joints.
: people see bigfoot too, rob
: But…
*sigh*
FINE.
: lol i think we have the makings of a really offensive comedy sketch
“crikey…i’m on the lookout for a negro…”
: By Jove! Kansas!
: i believe you. really i do
next thing you’ll tell me is that there are black people in utah.
: No.
There aren’t.
Just me.
And I tell people that I just had a really bad sunburn.
: damn. that’s some 4th degree shit
: You’d be amazed what people believe here.
*rimshot*
: dammit. now you have me thinking of ribs.
: 🙂
: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/27/tranracial.adoption.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
: so….moral of the story is that it’s better to leave the little black kids in orphanages/foster homes?
: Apparently.
: i noticed no mention of any white kids being adopted by non-white families
: What self-respecting “person of color” wants to adopt a white kid?
Hell…
Bruce Wayne didn’t even want to.
He just made Dick Grayson a “ward.”
: well if you’re looking for well adjusted, master wayne isn’t the way to go
: I’m just saying…
Mr. Drummond adopted two!
: yes but one of them was a sassy midget
who wouldn’t take that kid?
: Touche.
: he’s the rich man’s webster
: And there’s another case: Webster.
White folk.
Black kid.
Adopt a white kid?
No way, man.
: big fat greek guy.
: I see…
Greek guys want to have black kids.
Is that why you married Bot?
: lol yes, we’re all infected with the fever
: (I’ll allow you to decline to answer that)
: me? decline? please.

Tonight: ‘Clix and Scion.

Namaste.

Monday – 26 May 2008
Once again: Up at 6:00. But, I managed to nod off again until a little after 10:00. So, it wasn’t a complete loss.

SaraRules and I got up, observed the hygiene rituals, had breakfast and then she started packing for summer camp her internship in Colorado. When she was (nearly) done, I asked if she wanted to go with me to run a couple of errands before she took off. She agreed… and we were off:

1. Trip to one of the local Deseret Industries locations to drop off three boxes of clothes. Unfortunately, they were closed for the holiday, so I still have three boxes of clothes in the car.
2. Trip to Expercom to pick up some new memory for SaraRules’ PinkBook. We ran into there. Random. There was a new employee in the store; when he rang up the memory, it came up at FOUR TIMES the price listed Expercom’s website. Needless to say, I was “a little” concerned by this. The more seasoned employee looked over at the screen, pushed a few buttons and the price dropped down to a much more reasonable rate… and so did my blood pressure.

Home again, home again.

SaraRules did more packing and I set about putting more ‘Clix away in their new homes. I still have a plethoric butt-load of them to deal with, but I’ve reclaimed a large portion of the floor. I still need to figure out who I want to use in tomorrow’s tournament.

Speaking of which, tomorrow will be a two-game day: I have the ‘Clix tournament at 5:00 and Scion around 7:30… or whenever I get done with the tourney. This should be interesting.

SaraRules decided that she doesn’t want to deal with the weather, so she’s leaving in the morning. Win-win!

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with a little while ago. Rana and Grace are on their way back to the States; they should arrive tomorrow. He also shared an amusing story:
  

  rana is in full mother hen mode too
  today on the flight to bkk
  some chick went to compliment her on how good grace was the entire flight
  and then the asshole went to touch grace on the face
  rana said she wanted to punch her in the gut
  i would’ve bought her a car if she did that
  talk about an awesome story
  “i had to bail my wife out of a thai jail for punching an asshole in the gut”

  Reason #283794 of “Why is such a cool brother-in-law”

• 
• The original Indiana Jones: Otto Rahn and the temple of doom
• will be able to appreciate this:



• By way of Comics2Film: G.I. Joe‘s bloody Baroness
• Iron Man has grossed over $252 million (USD) since opening almost four weeks ago.
  It had a $140 million (USD) budget.
  If the honchos at Marvel Studios aren’t happy about these numbers, I don’t know what will do it for them.
• New icon:

And now, time to find fixin’s for dinner!

Namaste.

Sunday – 25 May 2008
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was fun.  It wasn’t a “great” film, but it was a nice end piece for the Indiana Jones franchise… if, indeed it is the end of the franchise.

This morning was a sleeping-in morning.
In theory.

I woke up a hair after 6:00.

Fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep.

Until 8:00.

I snuck back into The Dreaming for another hour.  After that, I figured that trying to sleep any longer would just be an exercise in futility.  So, I headed into the living room and surfed the interwebs for a while before  logging into City of Heroes for a bit.  I have forgotten how squishy low-level characters were.  But, I’m enjoying the new guy.

SaraRules, after she woke up,  fixed breakfast – sauteed spaghetti – and we watched a couple of episodes of MythBusters.

Now, we’re going to gallivant about the countryside until it’s time to head to her parents’ for dinner.

Namaste.

Friday – 23 May 2008
After throwing my hands in the air in frustration of dealing with ‘Nine and trying to get City of Heroes installed on it, I patched the installation on Defiant and headed to Paragon City. was on and we decided to start a couple of new characters on the Virtue server – I created a Scrapper, created a Peacebringer – and ran a mission.

I decided to take the day off and enjoy a four-day weekend. Good call, as far as I’m concerned. SaraRules and I went to IKEA – this weekend is their 1st anniversary of the Draper store opening. I came back with some storage bins and some new pictures for the guest bathroom, along with a new desk lamp.

Next, we headed up to SaraRules’ parents’ house to join them on a trip to Red Butte Garden. After almost ten years in Utah, this marked my first trip to the gardens. Not everything was in bloom, but the things that were in bloom were quite nice. (Pictures here… LOTS of pictures) We left there and headed back to SaraRules’ folks’ place for coffee and pastries.

Next, a trip to Dr. Volt’s to pick up my Anti-Monitor HeroClix figure, some card sheets and some books.

Home… and the rest of my pre-Clitorati time shall be spent in Paragon City.

Namaste.

Thursday – 22 May 2008
It’s a wet and rainy morning in the Land Behind the Zion Curtain.
After Tuesday’s 90° high and yesterday’s (possible) 60° high… today’s projected high is 50°.
Fifty. Five-zero.
Unglaublich!

Last night, SaraRules and I watched Poolhall Junkies. Christopher Walken. Rod Steiger. Chazz Palminteri. Lex Luthor Michael Rosenbaum. And where in the world has Carmen Sandiego Ernie Reyes, Jr. been?! Somehow, I had managed never to see this movie. That’s a shame – it’s a good movie. And, although they never overtly say it, it was filmed (and set) in Salt Lake City – you can even see the SLC LDS Temple in an exterior shot. (That, I did know before seeing the movie, though.) Being a film about a young hotshot pool player, it reminded me of The Color of Money. I even considered watching both of them for a better juxtaposition. And, if I do that, I am Ivory Soap sure that I will add The Hustler to the mix, just for good measure.

Not only is it NBN Thursday, it’s also “Sushi Wednesday.
And “Comic Book Day-After-Wednesday.”

Stray Toasters

• I’m not a fan of “reality TV,” generally speaking. I think I’ve made that fairly apparent over the years. However there are two things that have come to my attention this season that are somewhat noteworthy:
  • American Idol. I didn’t watch the show, but I caught a couple of episodes at Kate and Perry’s over the past couple of months. I mentioned David Cook back in March as having caught my attention. And, as of last night, he was chosen as American Idol’s champion for the 2007-2008 season.
  • Deion and Pilar: Prime Time Love. Kris (Sib-2) brought this show to SaraRules and my attention when we were in Florida. This show is… to call it “a trainwreck” doesn’t do it justice. You just can’t help but stare at, mouth agape. And laugh. Doubled-over on the floor, holding your sides laughing. And the opening theme? Comedy. Pure comedy. , I take back (just about) everything I ever said about your fascination with The Anna Nicole Smith Show after watching Deion & Pilar.
• Claire Beale interviews Apple’s Jonathan Ive
• I am looking for suggestions of new musical artists/bands.
• Pirate’s Booty: An ex-Jack Sparrow spills on life at the Magic Kingdom
• Getting ‘Nine back into shape is becoming… tedious. Certain things don’t seem to want to install properly. It’s getting a little annoying, in fact. And, it really is making me give more consideration to picking up a Mac Mini or an iMac this year, maybe as a second birthday present or Christmas present to myself.
• Sushi Jihad!
• The Secret History of Star Wars
• SaraRules left me a message: My friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man letter carrier brought me a package chock full of plastic crack. Selah.

Quote of the Day
Somehow, Christopher Walken always manages to get both some of the most random – and some of the most cool – lines in any movie he’s in:

Mike: You watch those nature documentaries on the cable? You see the one about lions? You got this lion. He’s the king of the jungle, huge mane out to here. He’s laying under a tree, in the middle of Africa. He’s so big, it’s so hot. He doesn’t want to move. Now the little lions come, they start messing with him. Biting his tail, biting his ears. He doesn’t do anything. The lioness, she starts messing with him. Coming over, making trouble. Still nothing. Now the other animals, they notice this. They start to move in. The jackals; hyenas. They’re barking at him, laughing at him. They nip his toes, and eat the food that’s in his domain. They do this, then they get closer and closer, bolder and bolder. Till one day, that lion gets up and tears the shit out of everybody. Runs like the wind, eats everything in his path. Cause every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals, who he is.

/lunch

Namaste.

Wednesday – 21 May 2008
It’s raining.
It’s currently 49° outside.
Not only that, today’s projected high is 60°F.
Yesterday’s high, according to The Weather Channel, was 92°.

Last night, after dinner, I stretched out on the couch for a bit. What I had intended to be a few moments’ rest turned (almost immediately) into a nap. Go figure. After watching CSI: and L&O:SVU, SaraRules and I watched Kingdom of Heaven. I had not watched it since its theatrical release, but remembered it to be a solid movie; I did not misremember it.

Stray Toasters

• A few minutes ago, a kid getting ready to catch the bus was humming the theme from Super Mario Bros. If you have to pick a theme song for the day, I suppose that’s not a bad one to choose.
• Morpheus has led me into strange corners of The Dreaming lately.
• From CNN: Commentary: Make wearing a flag pin the 28th Amendment
• Does this offend you? Why or why not?
• At lunch yesterday, Naked Eyes’ (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me played over the sound system. Code Monkey, Scott and I remembered the song… but couldn’t name the band. We mentioned it to and stumped him, too. Wikipedia to the rescue! What none of us knew was that the song was co-written by Burt Bachrach. In the ’60s. And the demo was recorded by Dionne Warwick.
• 
• Yes, the new iPhone will be on sale 09 June.

Time to finish getting ready and get on the way to work.

Namaste.

Saturday – 17 May 2008
One of the great things about the weekend is the ability to sleep in.

Too bad nobody told my body about that.

I’ve been awake since 6:45 this morning.  In an effort not to awaken SaraRules, I headed into the living room and read some of the books that Dave set aside for me during Free Comic Book Day.  When I tired of that, I fired up the XBox 360 and played a bit of Marvel Ultimate Alliance.  I figured that if I couldn’t watch superheroes (since my favorite ‘toons are off the air), I would play superhero.  I haven’t played this game in a LONG time – and the last time I played was on the old XBox… so I was starting over.  From Square One.  But it was fun.

After SaraRules woke up, she made – MADE – a coffee cake.  We also channel-surfed a bit, until settling on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Today, we’re going to run some errands and just… hang out.

Tonight, breakfast.

In between… well, we’ll just see what comes up.

Namaste.

Friday – 16 May 2008
Another week draws to a close…

Last night’s (first) CSI: episode was, thankfully, much better than last week’s episode; I didn’t watch the season finale as SaraRules wanted to see The Office season finale. (And, thanks once again to On Demand, I’ll be able to watch the CSI: episode at my leisure.) While she watched The Office, I finished reading this week’s four-color shwag. I’ll come back to that in a few.

I believe that jet lag – and just general weariness – caught up with me last night, too. While watching an episode of L&O: SVU, I started getting tired. With twenty minutes left in the show, I realized that there was pretty much NO way that I was going to make it that long. We got up, got ready for bed and I was out within minutes of my head hitting the pillow…

…which must have been fairly hard, because I woke up with a lovely headache. *blah*

Four-Color Coverage
Part of this week’s comic haul included a couple of books that I didn’t get last week because of the trip to Florida. A few of the books included Secret Invasion tie-ins/crossovers. While I really hope that Marvel isn’t taking a cue from Staples and just pushing the “Easy” button…

…I have to admit that I am finding the storyline rather interesting. So far, we know that:

1. Some heroes are not who they appear to be.
2. The Skrulls have a SERIOUS mad on for Earth.
3. October 12th is important to Hawkeye.
4. Johnny Storm’s ex-wife has some… unresolved issues.
5. Tony Stark is still a jerk (at least in the comics).

I’m waiting to see how this storyline plays out and what it means for the Marvel Universe after the dust clears.

I also read the long overdue Action Comics Annual, which wrapped up the “Last Son” storyline which began over a year ago in Action Comics. Unfortunately, there have been so many problems in getting that story to print that DC had actually gone ahead and run stories that followed the “Last Son” story… which means that we already know how things wound up. Sure, we might not know all of the “hows” and “whys,” but we can connect the dots fairly easily.

I have a similar problem with Astonishing X-Men, by the way. Joss Whedon’s run was supposed to be 24 issues, but because of delays it ran to 25 issues… with the final issue still not on shelves yet. But, once again, we know how things wind up, to some degree; there are just a few loose ends to tie up.

Stray Toasters

• I have been greatly amused by some of the Lil ‘Formers cartoons, including this one:



• BET Struggles to Relate with Black Viewers
• From NPR Music: Esperanza Spalding – Voice of the Bass
• Cracking open the Atari 2600
• When it was introduced, the 2600 was known as the “Atari 2600 VCS.” Bonus points if you know what “VCS” stood for… without having to look it up, of course.
• Fullscreen Multitouch Mac OS X Is Here (but not from Apple)
• I think I’m going to have a go at making a character card for Phoenix.
• Upcoming Star Wars minifigs

Quote of the Day
Quote #1 comes from conversations with shockpuppet and :

Me: If you and shockpuppet ever get to this point, you HAVE to get it on video: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080515/ap_on_fe_st/odd_frying_pan_assault_3
: oh. we do that for fun every friday night.
shockpuppet: totally
shockpuppet: I prefer a panini maker though
Me: Huh.
shockpuppet: it’s a little harder to get swinging
shockpuppet: but

1. it’s heavier
2. it leaves a funny pattern on his face

Me: Best of all possible worlds, huh?
shockpuppet: Well, I’m a believer in efficiency and aesthetics.
Me: I see
: mmm. panini face.

Quote #2 comes from another conversation with :

Me: Did you tell loonybin88 that he’s on point for [project]?
: That’s what I’ve been trying to do.
Me: Is he trying not to hear you?
: Yeah, I think so, actually. But, I figured that I’d go ahead and volunteer him for it and just ask forgiveness later.
Me: What is this… “forgiveness?”
: You wouldn’t understand. It’s like a haircut.

Namaste.