Random Access

Tuesday – 14 July 2009
If you couldn’t guess by today’s title, it’s Bastille Day.

Yesterday, SaraRules went to have her bridal portraits taken. From the stories she related when she got home, it was an experience. A fun one, but an experience, nevertheless. While she was off playing supermodel, I hung out with her grandparents, who are in town for a few days. Sitting with them and trading stories was a nice way to spend the evening.

Stray Toasters

• I got two walls of the kitchen added to my new model last night. I also rediscovered why you should always “Measure twice, cut once” when constructing (or even destroying) something: I have a wall section that looks like it’s going to be about ” shorter than I had planned. It’s a small enough difference that I could let it go, but I will most likely recut one wall.
• From the “Is There Life On Mars” file: Men emerge from Mars experiment
• Infernocrusher fiction: dinos, guns and motocross
• If you need a good reason not to have a bouquet toss at your wedding, take a look at this.
• Paul just came over and showed me: My Favorite Movie
  See more funny videos and Entertainment Videos at Today’s Big Thing.
• Ravens’ Derrick Mason tells JockLife.com he’s retiring
• Phones confiscated at preview screenings: Whose hypothetical risk is greater?
• The Evolution of Multiplayer Games and Online Play
• Want to know how to handle all of these? – Speechwriting tricks you can use in everyday life

Namaste.

Monday – 13 July 2009
Waking up and getting up
Has never been easy

…especially when you start to fall asleep on the sofa…
…and then have a hard time falling asleep when you get into bed…
…and the first alarm doesn’t trigger your “I should get out of bed” senses.

But, other than that, it’s been a decent morning.

Last night’s Tower of Power concert was fun. SaraRules and I took her father as his belated Father’s Day present; he had a ball. We also ran into Paul (my boss) there; he grew up in Sacramento and has been a ToP fan for many, many moons. He enjoyed the concert, too.

Stray Toasters

• I think that my mother just signed up for Twitter…
• How Cats Manipulate Us
• Girl Falls into Manhole While Texting, Parents Sue
• 
• …speaking of which: Top 10 San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives
• Perry sent me a link to a plethora of texture files. I might just have to see about making some custom tiles for HeroClix City.
• Russian Roma face image problem
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Wells Fargo Sues Itself
• Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End
• Meet the new boss
  Same as the old boss…

Namaste.

Friday – 10 July 2009
It’s finally the weekend; thank Heaven for 9/80 Fridays.

The second half of yesterday’s workday was slow, which wasn’t necessarily “bad.” I was able to clear a few things off my task list and there weren’t any large fires to dowse. And, we once again had ice cream! Nevertheless, I was glad when quittin’ time rolled around.

Last night, SaraRules and I headed to the gym. For a change of pace, we stayed in the free weight room for our entire workout:

• Lateral Raises (with forward rotation): 3 sets/10 reps, 15 lbs
• Shrugs (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Reverse Punches (with dumbbells): 2 sets/20 reps, 10 lbs
• Curls (barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 50 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, hammer grip): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Overhead Tricep Extensions: 3 sets/15 reps, 45 lbs
• Decline Sit-ups: 3 sets/15 reps
• Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Bench Dips: 3 sets/10 reps – w/ 25lb plate on sets 2 and 3)

Later in the evening (read: “In the wee hours of morning…”), I played City of Heroes. I wasn’t able to find a team to join, but I was able to solo a couple of story arc missions that I had pending.

Stray Toasters

• While I was preparing to play CoH, I left the TV on. Oprah follows The Late Late Show. Last night’s show was about Dani Lierow and her family. All that I can say is: “Wow.” Major kudos to the Lierows for the love, time and patience that they’ve had to give to a little girl who had been dealt a bad hand. They get half of today’s nod as my Humans of the Day…
• …the other half of the honor goes to my friend Joe, who’s shipping out today to provide IT support in Iraq. For a year. He is chronicling his adventures at: On the Rear Lines.
• Item Not As Described
• pointed out: ‘City of Heroes’ character ‘Twixt’ becomes game’s most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor. The article tells the story of David Myers and the “social experiments” that he conducted via the online game. I hadn’t heard about this before and did a little digging; I discovered that he did not play on the same servers that I do.
• 
• From NPR: The Trick to Teaching Is Sometimes Magic
• Lawyer asks judge to force rival to wear nicer shoes
• MarknTyme sent a link to The Absolute Greatest Gaming Table Ever
• New ‘Burger Time’ serves up a good time
• Artists live high on outside wall
• Most epically bad food movies

Namaste.

Thursday – 09 July 2009
It’s supposed to be an NBN Thursday and my technical Friday… but this morning, it was pushing the envelope.  That’s not entirely true: GoogleTalk was a righteous pain in the keister this morning. For some reason, it decided to tell iChat and Adium to “Sod off!” It’s working now. So, all things considered, it’s still a good day.

Last night, while SaraRules went off to a Zumba class, I fired up City of Heroes and patrolled Paragon City with a pick-up team. The mission level was “a little high” on the first mission we ran, but the others went well. By the time it was all said and done, I had tacked a couple more levels onto Khnurn.

This morning, someone came over and commented about how large my monitor (the 42″ TV) is. I retorted that it is, in fact, large. He asked if it was for a project; I told him that it “kind of” was. He asked if it was for work or personal. At this point, I had a very quick internal monologue… that somehow managed to stay internal:

“Is this for a personal project?”

Come on.  Rub two – JUST TWO – brain cells together and get a synapse or two to fire.  If this was for a personal project, don’t you think that someone (ANYONE!) – from my manager all the way up to one of the execs – would have said something and/or repossessed it long before now? Idiotstick.

It didn’t help that this was one of my “not-as-favored-as-others” coworkers. *sigh* Monkeys.

Then I had a presentation to give in today’s staff meeting. That went well. At least, I think it went well. And really, that’s all I am concerned with right now.

Stray Toasters

• US federal security lapses found
• Hardware makers support Google OS
• Rupert Murdoch reporters in the UK illegally hacked thousands of peoples’ data
• Man, our President is cool
  

  

• Marvel’s Marko Djurdjevic Injects Soul into Comic Art
• Creative Commons licensed secret society for promoting girls’ literacy
• Hot and Bothering: Media Treatment of Sarah Palin

  
  “Debate” © Zina Saunders
  (For more art by Zina Saunders, click the image.)

• Sci-fi couture on the runway
• 3 Smart Things about Beer Marketing
• From the “Wait… WHAT did you just say?!” file: US worker dies in chocolate vat

I should eat something now, for I hunger.

Namaste.

Monday – 06 July 2009
A new work week begins. Not too oddly, when the alarm went off this morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed. However, “Time and tide…”

Yesterday, SaraRules and I went out so that I could do a little shopping. While out, we stopped at a 7-11 and tried the “Liquid Artillery” Slurpee^®, their fourth movie tie-in flavor in the past two months. After that, we had coffee with Perry, followed by dinner with SaraRules’ family. After dinner, we watched Futurama: Bender’s Big Score. It was fun, but more like an extended episode of the show.

Once we got back home, I logged into City of Heroes while SaraRules did some quilting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a team to join, so I mostly wandered through Paragon City. After game/quilting time, we watched a movie left over from Bad Movie Night: Undead or Alive – a zombie western. It was fun… and funny. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the movie came in the first minute (maybe minute-and-a-half) of the film – during the intro text. It wasn’t a “great” movie, I’d still put it on the Cool World/Long Kiss Goodnight Scale, but it’s probably an 8 or 9 on that scale. (Man, I really need to figure out an image to use for the CW/LKG Scale…)

Stray Toasters

• sent a link to “Blasted Behavior,” which features the Star Wars characters… in therapy.

• This weekend’s Riverwalk Jazz featured an adaptation/interpretation of The Wizard of Oz. While listening to it, I realized that I have never read that book.
• I just received confirmation that my new jersey has shipped. I had been thinking of getting a new one for a while, but hadn’t committed to it. Steve McNair’s passing cemented the decision.
• Manchester’s steampunk difference engine adventure
• Ex-Pentagon chief McNamara dies
• 
• I’ve finally started reading American Psycho.
• Insane Sarah Palin, Late At Night On July 4, Threatens To Sue Entire Internet, Via Twitter
• Fellow students smell your exam fear
• This post has been brought to you by the letters “D” and “X” and the number “7.”

04 July 2009
Today is Independence Day in the U.S. Let’s all take a moment to thank The Fresh Prince and The Fly for repelling the alien invasion that threatened to destroy all human life on Earth.

Yesterday was a very lax day for SaraRules and me. That lasted until mid-afternoon, when we did another round of “Closet Cleanout.” We have five or six bags of significant size full of clothes that are ready to go to The Salvation Army.

Before coffee, we visited Kate, Perry and the kids. They were having a cookout with some of their neighbors, which may have also included a few pyrotechnics. From there, it was on to Clitorati. There were nine or ten of us there.

Stray Toasters

• Nine reasons to celebrate America
• Schoolhouse Rock! Fireworks

• Part of last night’s coffee conversation centered around the question: “Are the crunchy bits inside a fig seeds or wasps?” pointed out that they are, in fact, wasp larva. This prompted a little more investigation. How Stuff Works (not too surprisingly) has an article called Are Figs Really Full of Baby Wasps?, which serves up a more complete truth on the matter.
• Alaska Governor Palin to resign
• 
• Compuserve Shuts Down
• Venice rolls out citywide wi-fi
• Blade Runner Tokyo (in Large-Format Photography)
• Spunky Kitty Style

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

Namaste.

Friday – 03 July 2009
Last night, we went out to dinner with SaraRules’ family, to celebrate her mother’s birthday. Post-dinner, we headed to her parents’ house for a birthday cake pie – a rich, multi-layered chocolate affair that SaraRules made from scratch, including a crust made from crushed nuts. It was very good and VERY rich.

Back at home, we vegged. After watching a bit of TV… and having the TV watch me, as I nodded off on the couch… I finished up my new ‘Clix building.

Sleep was intermittent; it felt like I woke up eleventy billion times during the night.

Stray Toasters

• One of the designers from WorldWorks Games is a Transformers fan. He still is, even after seeing the new movie; but he wrote a review that made me smile.
• NAACP comic from early 1960s
• WHO warns swine flu ‘unstoppable’
• Opus Dei: Separating fact from fiction
• 
• Tower of Power and Spyro Gyra will be here next weekend for the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival
• Statue of Liberty photoshopping contest
• How to Perform a Trebuchet with a Butterfly Knife
• Ript: The dude equivalent of a padded bra

Right on to the…
…well, it’s a day off, so I don’t anticipate a lot of friction.

Namaste.

Thursday – 02 July 2009
Today has been… a day. It hasn’t really been “hellish,” so to speak, but there has been a lot going on. However, there is a plus side to the day: IT is having “Team Jersey/T-shirt Day” and we’re having ice cream (with cookies and toppings and waffle bowls).

Last night, I got the roof on the lobby of the new ‘Clix building and the water feature in front of the building. It required buying a new set, Seaworks: Atlantis, but I realized that I can now make the “Great Arena” Map in 3D using parts from the Atlantis kit.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules and I went for a walk yesterday evening. While out, we stopped at Red Mango; I had a yen for a Green Tea Yogurt. I discovered something… horrible: Red Mango no longer makes/carries the Green Tea Yogurt.
• Neverland could rival Graceland as tour attraction
• , with a generous donation from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file, sent a link to this: Universal Lands Rights to Asteroids Movie
• LEGO’s Temple of Adorable Doom
• 
• An exciting stats website? Believe it
• It’s raining again.
• Speaking of which, SaraRules noted that Salt Lake City had 17 days of rain in June.
• SurvivalStraps Survival Bracelet

Namaste.

Wednesday – 01 July 2009
A new month begins… with a brief rain shower.

Yesterday, SaraRules, Marci, Wes and I hit the gym at lunchtime for a short workout:

• Sit-ups: 3 sets – 20/10/10
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs
• Incline Chest Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs
• Reverse Flys: 3 sets/110 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs

Post-workout weight: 185.4 lbs

Last night, SaraRules and I watched Vantage Point, by way of Netflix’ “Instant Queue” on the 360. Streaming movies on a game console… over the Interwebs.  Who knew?! The movie depicts the attempted assassination of an American President from eight points of view. It was an interesting concept and it was pulled off fairly well. We realized, after the movie was done, that this was the second consecutive movie that we’ve seen with Forest Whitaker in it wherein his character’s life intertwines with other characters’ lives in an unusual synchronicity, the first being The Air I Breathe.

After the movie, I did a little more work on my ‘Clix building. All of the walls are up, now I just need to put the main roof and the lobby roof on and add a few tiles of water and it will be complete.

This morning, I really didn’t want to get out of bed when the alarm went off. But, I did. And took care of the morning hygiene rituals. And, as I was finishing with the work-prep, I turned on the TV… and Breakin’ was on. And, yes, I did stop and watch a bit of it.

Stray Toasters

• sent me a link to Star Trek Look-Alikes Open Restaurant
• Greek mental care failures exposed
• From NPR Music:
  • A Mix for America
  • What the Heck Is That? Odd Instruments in Jazz
  • Jay Smooth: On Hip-Hop, Blogs and Race
• By way of Rachel:

  
  (click image for larger version)

• There’s a good article on ToyChop called “Good Fences,” about house rules for barriers in HeroClix.
• By way of and the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: “I was not prepared to see a… woodland creature… in the interview room.”
• 

• Tables turned on Russian gamblers
• dot.life: Listening to Mr. iPhone
• Also from Nyx… and the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: GOP Rep. to Environmentalists: Jesus Already Saved the Planet

Namaste.

Tuesday – 30 June 2009
It’s the last day of June. I’m sure that this is important – or at least “notable” – for many reasons, but prime among them is the fact that the new IKEA bible catalog will be out soon.

Last night, we had a tasty dinner with SaraRules’ family. After dinner, and some errand-running, we headed home for some downtime. I started putting together walls for my new ‘Clix building. Of the eight main walls, I have five complete; the last three should go much faster. Then I can start in on the “lobby” section, which should go quite quickly. I’m looking forward to getting it completed.

This morning, I was at work at 0700. One of our teams has a couple of days’ worth of meetings and we had to get some networking ready for it. So, loonybin88 and I were in here – neither bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed – to get it taken care of.  Naturally, while we were wrapping up the setup, there was a pushy monkey who wanted to have something done his way; little did he know that he was mere moments away from having the closest live power cord plugged into a place neither God, Mother Nature nor Darwin ever intended for it to go. *sigh* Monkeys, go figure.

Stray Tourists Toasters

• June 30, 1953: Corvette Adds Some Fiber, Flair to American Road
• I have frozen mocha goodness!  And a bagel!
• L.A.’s vegan restaurants are full of egg
• Tourist Remover photoshops stray tourists out of your snaps
• Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard
• Did I mention “monkeys?”
• Jackson’s Death Puts Lucrative Beatles Copyrights In Play
  The man may have been… “odd,” to say the least, but he was a great entertainer. I had forgotten that he had a major share of the rights to many/most of the Beatles’ music catalog. I was also unaware of this performance of Come Together until yesterday:

• U.S. ‘concerned’ over cyber threat
• Force of Nature: Artist Puts Petal to the Metal for Electrifying Images
• Lord of the Rings considered as a D&D game (webcomic)
• Super Small, Super Powerful Quantum Processor Can Solve Multiple Problems at Once
  (Repeat after me: “SkyNet is now online…”)

Right on to the friction of the day…

Namaste.

Monday – 29 June 2009
We opted not to go back to the Utah Arts Festival yesterday and enjoyed a lazy day at home.  It was rather nice. When SaraRules asked me what I wanted for dinner, I had an idea: Grilling some steak and/or chicken. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. And that’s what I did: Steak, chicken, corn on the cob, zucchini, mushrooms and red peppers. They turned out well.

Logan came over and joined us for dinner; we watched Aliens while we ate. After that, the three of us played Trivial Pursuit. (I really need to get some updated cards for the game…) When we played, we kept our wedges in our respective corners and used HeroClix figures as our playing pieces:

• SaraRules used Wonder Woman,
• Logan used The Riddler and
• I used the custom GL John Stewart figure that Perry made for me a while back.

The “Literature” category of the Genus Edition often kicks my trash; last night, the universe threw me a bone, almost literally, when I was going for the brown wedge:

What is the name of Superman’s dog?

I couldn’t believe it when Logan asked the question; I thought he was kidding. Then he reread the question. It gave me a good laugh when I answered: “Krypto.” I was so amused by the question that I switched my game piece to my Krypto ‘Clix, because I could… and because it amused me to do so.

After the game, Logan and I played through a board of HALO3. After seeing the amount of crap that we had to wade through, I was happy to have the help.

After Logan left, I started working on a new building for HeroClix City, based on a design that I came up with on Friday. I knew that I was going to have to adapt the building faces to fit the design, but I thought that three of them would be the same. Nope. Two of them are, the third one was much easier to work with. I’m also going to have to work out the details of five other faces. We’ll see how it shapes up.

So far, today’s been a good – and relatively quiet – day. There haven’t been any major fires to put out. There haven’t been any monkeys to beat down. Not a bad way to kick off a Monday and a holiday week.

Stray Toasters

• Yesterday was the first time I’ve fired up my grill in two years, I think. The igniter on the grill wasn’t working, so I had to use a camp stove lighter to kick things off. Great theory and nominally good application… aside from the fact that I had turned up the gas “a bit” too high and wound up creating a small fireball that singed the hair off the back of two of my fingers.
• In a related note: I went online to look for the manual for the grill – I need to know how to repair or replace the igniter. Sears has 119 of them posted. I looked at all of them, but only found two (2) that look close to my grill. I’ll have to compare and contrast them when I get home.
• 13 year old kid reviews 30 year old Walkman
• showed us the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG.
• Google Mistook Jackson Searches for Net Attack

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

Friday – 26 June 2009
Hello, weekend.

I slept in this morning… more or less. I woke up at some very early point of the morning because of a rather odd and disturbing dream. Pre-dawn early. I wound up getting back to bed a short time later… only to have another bizarre dream awaken me. Not quite as disturbing, as I recall. I finally woke up around 0915. So far, this morning has consisted of breakfast and coffee, The West Wing… and a little bit of Avatar: The Last Airbender. All-in-all, it’s been a nice, relaxing day.

Stray Toasters

• Can Aquaman Ever Be Cool?
• Tori Amos will be performing at Abravanel Hall on 20 July 2009.
• How Nicotine Works
• Junk Steampunk Sculptures
• I cut so much
  You thought I was a D.J.
• What the non-English-speaking world is doing with science fiction

Time to run some errands and hit the Utah Arts Festival.

Namaste.

Stray Toasters:

• SaraRules and I actually encountered a mythical “good Samaritan” doing a random act of kindness yesterday. It was a refreshing change from all of the “People are no damn good…” stories you hear. He’s today’s “Human of the Day.”
• Tickets for Transformers Giant Robots Blowing Shit Up have been acquired.
• Brownies! (Unfortunately, I have no ice cream here at work with which to eat them.)
• I just had a conversation with some folks at work… that included Star Trek, Superman and the Legion. During that conversation, I had an epiphany:
  

  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was really just an update of Smokey and the Bandit. Seriously. You have to make the following substitutions, but they all track… more or less:

  • Substitute going back in time for going to Texarkana,
  • Substitute picking up a couple of whales for picking up a truckload of beer,
  • Substitute the Klingon Bird of Prey for either the Trans-Am or the semi (or both!) and
  • Substitute William Shatner for Burt Reynolds.

  challenged me on a few of the more esoteric points:

  • What about Paul Williams?
    Answer: The Space Probe.
    Why? Because Paul Williams (along with Pat McCormick) was the reason Bandit and Snowman went to get the beer… just as the probes were the reason Kirk and crew went to get the whales.
  • What about the sidekick?
    Answer: Jerry Reed was Bandit’s partner-in-crime, Cletus (The Snowman).  In ST:IV, Spock provided that role… and comic relief.
  • What about Sally Field?
    Answer: Dr. Gillian Taylor, the whale biologist that Kirk “picked up” and took back to the 23rd Century… just like Bandit picked up Carrie (Field) on the side of the road.
  • What about Jackie Gleason?
    Answer: Gleason, along with every other cop in the movie would be embodied by the Federation.
    Why? Because The Federation represents “The Man,” especially when they bust Kirk – the man who just saved the planet – back down to Captain from Admiral. DAMN THE MAN!!!

  Quod Erat Demonstratum.

• This is my 9/80 week.  And I get next Friday off for 04 July.  AND… the following Friday is a 9/80 day, too.  Three Fridays off in a row. SCORE!
• We had a shipment arrive a little while ago. The driver, who recently won a truck driving competition, and a coworker of his are going to Pittsburgh to compete in the national competition. How often does one get to say “I met someone who won a truck driving competition?”  I think that this is the first time I’ve ever been able to do that.

Thursday – 25 June 2009
This morning started at 0630… and restarted at 0800. How/why? Because, after showering and having a bite to eat, I decided that I wasn’t quite ready to kick off the day. Instead, I crawled back into bed and caught a little more shut-eye. And it was nice.

Last night, SaraRules and I went to Liberty Park and walked the inner loop. It was nice… except for the clouds of gnats hovering around the south end of the park. Clouds of them. Literally. Bah! After we got back home, I fired up the 360 and played more HALO3. I also discovered something annoying: Apparently, I neglected to use the “Save and Quit” option on Tuesday and wound up having to repeat the last mission that I completed Tuesday night. *grblsnrkx* On the “plus” side, I remembered where I needed to go to exit that mission, rather than wandering aimlessly through the complex, so my retreat “strategic advance to the rear” was expedicious. I also added another weapon to my “favorites” list: the Plasma Cannon, the Covenant’s answer to the Machine Gun Turret.

Stray Toasters

• posted a link to an excellent article: What to do if your child has superpowers. This will tie in nicely with “The Kal-El Clause” that SaraRules and I have devised.
• What’s your gamertag?  (This makes sense if you’re a Xbox Live subscriber…)
• Strip-search of U.S. girl illegal
• How to Have a Persuasive Handshake
• The website for the upcoming The Last Airbender movie is now live.
• Stephen King has a novella, Morality, that was printed in the July 2009 issue of Esquire. The synopsis of the story:
  

  Chad, an aspiring writer who is teaching school until he lands a publishing contract, and his wife, Nora, who is working as a home nurse for a retired minister are, like most people these days, struggling financially.  Nora is approached by her employer with a proposition that could make their dream of a home in Vermont a reality.  But will it be worth the moral consequences?

  It was a good story, but far from a happy story. It’s not often that one feels “dirty” – and possibly even “damaged” – after reading something, but this story puts you in that position.

• Oscars expand Best Film category
• ‘Charlie’s Angel’ Farrah Fawcett dies at 62
• Mania.com has an interview with former JLA writer Dwayne McDuffie
• Bettye LaVette was on The Late Late Show last night. She performed one of my favorite Sam Cooke songs, A Change Is Gonna Come; I will have to look for some of her CDs.
• Burton’s WONDERLAND Revealed
• 20 Best (and 20 Worst) Pets in Science Fiction
• Watchmen Director’s Cut Gets Theatrical Release

Namaste.

Wednesday – 24 June 2009
Middle of the week and all’s well.
It’s also “Sushi and Comics Wednesday,” which is always a good thing.

Last night, SaraRules and I headed over to Gardner Village for an evening stroll. For as much of a madhouse as that place is on Saturdays, it was practically deserted last night. We only saw a handful of people the entire time we were there. One of the places we checked out was “Country Furniture and Gifts,” in the building that has the waterwheel. It was like entering “The House That Never Ends” in that it had stairwells hither and yon and new rooms just seemed to fold into and out of 3D space; Escher would have been proud. (I deduced that the pioneers must have figured out how to create a tesseract using the energy harnessed from the waterwheel – it’s the only logical conclusion of how “that much” house wound up in “that little” space.)

Once we got back home, I fired up the 360 and played HALO3, a pleasure I have recently rediscovered. I have been stuck on a board for the past few weeks – which has been a bit discouraging – so I took a sabbatical from playing it. Last night, I got past that scenario and discovered my new favorite weapons: The Machine Gun Turret and the Battle Rifle. Nothing says “Love” like tearing a 50-caliber gun off its tripod and walking down a hallway with it, lighting up any and all Covenant forces like a Christmas tree. (Yes, a very bloody Christmas tree, but that’s not the point here.) And the Battle Rifle..? It lets me take head-shots – like my former HALO and HALO2 favorite weapon: The Sniper Rifle – and it has a burst fire mode, too.

Stray Toasters

• I woke up with the Good & Plenty jingle – from the 1950s(!) – in my head for some reason:

• Michelle Obama knows what works, style experts agree
• Rethinking Gender Bias in Theater
• Bozeman, Montana changes its mind about job applicants’ social networking passwords
• 
• Gone hiking? Missing governor sparks political fight and “Missing” governor was on private Argentina trip
• Giant code wheel for sale, proceeds to EFF
• Britain’s secret plan for surviving a nuclear war

Feelings, sensations that you thought was dead (yup)
No squealing, remember that it’s all in your head

Namaste.