Random Access

Tuesday – 19 August 2008
I was up far too late last night.
FAR too late.

Coworker Eric came to SLC last night to pick up my old desk: I wanted something different, he wanted a desk. Win-Win. I discovered that it is much easier to make a mess when clearing out furniture than it is to return the same space to a nominal sense of order and coherence. Hence the reason that I was up late last night/this morning. Let’s just say that caffeine and I are on a first-name basis this morning.

I watched some of the Olympic Summer Games last night. I watched Men’s and Women’s 400M hurdles. For those who didn’t see the USA Men’s team take gold, silver AND bronze, it was a pretty amazing race.

The women’s races were equally stunning – especially the event in which Jamaica’s Melaine Walker ran. I also watched some of the gymnastics events… and, after seeing He Kexin, I can now understand why some people question whether or not some of the Chinese gymnasts are of official competing age.

Stray Toasters

• should be here tomorrow evening… assuming that he doesn’t get distracted by bright, shiny objects between Kansas City and here.
• 10 Great Webcomics You Should Not Share With Your Kids
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Cake Wrecks
• The art of Andrea Gianchiglia
• From the “I have an opinion and I’m not going to keep it to myself” file: Robert Downey, Jr: ‘Fuck DC Comics.’
• Shocka-locka-BOOM!
  What was that?
  Aftershock.
• By way of : Top Secret Drum Corps from Basel, Switzerland:

  
  Top Secret Drum Corps Basel Tattoo – A funny movie is a click away

• There’s a new Lara Croft in town.
  • Photo shoot pictures
  • Interview
• MarknTyme introduced me to BabySmash last night; he said that his youngest son loves it.
• I know that some people really their cars, but this takes it to a new level:

• Virtualization eSeminar. *nod*

Namaste.

Monday – 18 August 2008
On the way to the office, Chiron Beta Prime started playing over iTunes. I’m not sure if Nomad was just mocking me through our technopathic link; I’m Ivory Soap sure that it knows I refer to work as “CBP.” As a follow-up, it played Inside Out’s Jackie Chan… and follwed that with Monty Python’s I Like Chinese*.

We finished Round Two of the server upgrades yesterday. We also noted a… discrepancy: There were nineteen servers for which we did not account. So, there will be a reckoning Round Three. Which is fine with me. It’s all part of the job. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I had the calamari appetizer and the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta entree. Holy cow… it was GOOD. And, a piece of cheesecake followed me home.

I got home last night and considered rearranging the office. The fact that it was 10 PM didn’t phase me… at first. Eventually, I came to the realization that I had just put in nine hours of work and that I didn’t really feel like making that much more work for myself. Instead, I played City of Heroes.

This morning, I was back in the office at 7:40. Aw, yeah!

Stray Toasters

• WARNING (for Firefox users): Clipboards hijacked in web attack
• How to Be Good
• Is there a way to justify shuriken as an “office supply?”
• Pakistan’s Musharraf Steps Down
• Michael Phelps: 8 Gold Medals, 7 world records.
  He’s only 23. I think he’s got at least one more Olympic Summer Games in him
• How to Hypermile
• 
• Reasoning is partly insane
  Image just an eyeless game
  The night is turning thin
  The saint is turning to sin
• What was your videogame system of choice, back in the day?
  I was an IntelliVision and Sega Genesis kid.

…right on to the friction of the day.

Namaste.

Sunday – 17 August 2008
Happy Birthday to :

Last night, I was pretty wiped after getting in from breakfast, so I called it a (relatively) early night. I was awakened by a phone call at 9:00… no, “9:13,” I was corrected. I wasn’t very thrilled by it and made it rather plainly known. I slipped back into The Dreaming until a little after 10:00. Then, it was up, shower and prep for work and on my way.

I’ve stopped in at Bad Ass Coffee Company for the morning’s caffeine intake. For the past half-hour or so, there have been waves of motorcycle riders heading north on State Street. There is apparently a bike rally being held at/near the Capitol today.

I, on the other hand, will be elbow-up in servers again today: loonybin88 and I are doing what will hopefully be the last wave of test server upgrades this afternoon. I can’t complain too much, though – it means that my weekend starts Thursday.

Stray Toasters

• will be in town later this week, on his way to Vancouver. Bot and Bit will not be with him, though.
• By way of : Galactic Empire Begins Invasion of San Francisco

  (, do you have any on-the-ground news/information about this?)

• Why does living in Utah amuse me so much, sometimes? Things like this, would be one example:

  

  In case the amusing item is eluding you, take a look near the middle of the picture. That’s right: “White City.” I’ve seen buses heading there, but have never had my camera handy/ready to snap a picture before they had moved. “White City.” *snicker* Yet another thing to take with a grain of salt and laugh… kind of like they still refer to the southern portion of the state as “Dixie.” Go figure.

• Comic Book Legends Revealed #168
  • Writer/Artist John Byrne has been involved in an inordinate amount of eerie coincidences.
    (There are some odd disasters that have followed John Byrne’s art/scripts)
  • Billy Dee Williams was paid to NOT be Two-Face in Batman Forever.
    (He may have wound up better for not being in it!)
  • Grant Morrison intended for the Beast to be gay during his New X-Men run.

  Check out the article to find out the real stories behind these items.

• 10 Things We Didn’t Know Last Week

And with that, I’m off to work.

Hi-ho, hi-ho.

Saturday – 16 August 2008
On the way home from work yesterday, I thought about coming home and taking a nap. It sounded like a really good idea. Instead, I wound up taking more pictures for auctions I plan on putting up today or tomorrow. So, while I didn’t get any shut-eye, I was nominally productive.

Last night’s Clitorati was kind of small, but nevertheless fun. While at the bookstore, I decided that I’d get the newly-taken pictures ready for their respective auctions – resize them, make any brightness/contrast adjustments, and so on. That’s when I discovered that some of the pictures came out a bit blurry. *BAH* So, I’ll be retaking those.

On the drive home, I considered playing a little CoH when I got in – nothing like beating down some criminals to wrap up the day. After I got in and started winding down, I realized that it was not to be. Instead, I hit the rack. I think I was out within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

This morning, I was greeted with a lovely headache. I have no idea why. Two Aleve, a few sips of water and a short trip back to The Dreaming later, it was gone.

I have pretty much no idea what I’m doing today, aside from meeting Perry for coffee in a little while. That’s something. I’ve considered heading to the Capitol to check out the Declaration of Independence display… but I’m not 100% committed to it. I’m sure that something will come along…

Stray Toasters

• While chatting with Dwim, we were talking about Galactus. That reminded me of a Lil Formers toon that I had seen involving Galactus and Unicron. That somehow degenerated into something about Star Wars, which reminded me of this toon, also with Galactus and Unicron, but also incorporating The Darth Vader-Death Star Star Wars toy that Hasbro came out with a year or two ago.
• Having not looked at the series for a while, I went looking through some of the other Lil Formers toons. This one made me laugh:



• I came across an interesting book last night: 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide. I thumbed through a bit of it – there were a lot of good selections in there, although I didn’t agree that all of them were “essential.”
• Maybe I’ll (finally) head to the driving range before going to work tomorrow…

Quote of the Day
At dinner last night, we somehow got on the topic of Jimmy Carter and how, as a representative of The Carter Center, he’s visited a number of countries… often, against the wishes of the current administration. came up with his take on Carter’s response to a government official trying to tell him that he couldn’t go to a given country:

“Fuck you. Have some peanuts!”

To be honest, I would love to hear President Carter tell someone that.

Friday – 15 July 2008
Belated Happy Birthday to :

Today marks ‘s last day with our robot overlords here at Chiron Beta Prime. (Did I say “overlords?” I meant “protectors.”) It’s been good working with him and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Stray Toasters

• Yesterday, I rushed home from work to see if Dark Phoenix had arrived. She had. And there was great rejoicing. Earlier in the week, Dwim asked me to post pictures of Starro, but I wanted to wait until I received Dark Phoenix before doing so. Now that she’s here… here are the pictures.
• Monster Munch
• From today’s “You! Out of the Gene Pool” file: I’m Pregnant, Now Who’s the Dad?
• 
• Top 10 DC Comics Characters We Want to See Turned Into Movies
• Burn Notice. If you’re not watching it, you should be.
• Michael Phelps. ‘Nuff said.
• By way of comes Fabulon

…right on to the friction of the day.

Namaste.

Thursday – 14 August 2008
It’s Thursday.
Thor‘s Day.
Thor had a hammer.
It was called Mjolnir.

John Henry, steel-driving man that he was, had a hammer, too.
I don’t believe his hammer had a name.

Beta Ray Bill – also known as Beta Ray Thor – has a hammer.
It is called Stormbreaker.

Stray Toasters

• Not only is it NBN Thursday, it’s sushi day.
• I keep trying to like From Russia, with Love, as performed by Matt Munro… but it really doesn’t do anything for me.
• I also keep forgetting to take screenshots of Kurigari when I’m playing City of Heroes.
• “My mon Bats, he don’t shiv.”
  For those of you who don’t get this, the dialogue is from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Stop! Hammertime.

Wednesday: Coda
After work, I came home to see if my Dark Phoenix had arrived. It hadn’t.

Forlorn and dejected, I left to run some errands. When the errands were done, I headed to Dr. Volt’s for a little Wednesday afternoon retail therapy. Exerting near-Green Lantern-like willpower, I managed to avoid buying yet another brick. Actually, it wasn’t even that much of a challenge – I looked at the brick, shrugged and just walked on. But that doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic.

Before heading home, I stopped in to see SaraRules’ family. We talked about movies. And the upcoming camping trip. And laptops. And how to install RAM into Pegasus. And stuff.

Coming around I-215, I had an apostrophe epiphany as to what I wanted for dinner: Pizza. When I got home, I dialed up the local Papa Johns and ordered some bring-it-to-me goodness.

Stray Toasters

• I have started listing my extra HeroClix lots. Finally. We’ll see how they fare.
• Because it continues to make me laugh:

  What’s a Nubian?
  

• Both Dwim and sent me links to pictures and videos of Janos Baranyai’s unfortunate accident at the Beijing Olympics. They are NOT pretty. I asked if this qualified Mr. Baranyai to be the new face of “The Agony of Defeat.” He said that it did not:
  

  : no way
  : this is too short of an OW OW OW moment
  : the agony of defeat was more strung out and lasted a while as he plummeted
  me: Couldn’t they just show it over and over in replay?
  : think about it tho
  : have you ever thought “OW!!!” when watching the former? this one made me cringe
  : can’t have people cringing
  me: I don’t know that I thought “OW” for AoD.
  me: Definitely “Daaaaaaaaamn”
  me: And no cringing.
  me: http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/gif/omnomnombleeahchav.gif
  : see now that guy just deserved it
  me: So, this is a case of “Double dumb-ass on you.”
  me: The lifter is… just “Oh, damn. Sorry, guy?”
  : on the first, yes, i agree with the colorful metaphor
  : on the second, it’s more of a DAAAAYUM…

  I then asked him about the lip-synching and George Lucas-esque “enhancement” of the opening ceremony fireworks display. He wasn’t surprised. He said that “…EVERYTHING is about image. It’s all about the collective face… everything has its base in ‘how will this look.’ And the thing is, they don’t care collectively how their own people view them, it’s all about everyone else.”

• CCI: Legion of Super-Heroes 50th Anniversary
• MarknTyme: Check this out. My friend, , just got back from the Level II course. I thought it looked like something that might interested you.
• 

Namaste.

The Cruxshadows’ Defender (1, 2) is playing on iTunes.
The video game Defender (1, 2) popped into my head moments later

The song seems to refer to the loss of the singer’s significant other.
The premise of the game is that a lone pilot protects a few humanoids against an alien invasion/attack.

The two combined in my head, like a darkly twisted Reese’s Cup, in the following manner:

• The woman referred to in the song is captured by alien landers.
• The pilot, in rage/grief/frustration, fires up his trusty starfighter and takes to the skies to fight the aliens.
• The song plays in the background as he flies through the invasion force, blasting alien ships out of the sky and saving the remnants of humanity… in the hopes of either saving or avenging his lost love.

The scary thing is that the connection was made – and played out – in my head within seconds.

I just learned a new word, thanks to TechTarget’s “Word of the Day”:

Honey Monkey

Okay, technically, that’s two words, but I’m writing this post and you’re not, so deal with it.
(and it’s an excuse to find a way to use my pic of a LEGO monkey, too!)

Wednesday – 13 August 2008
Midweek.
I have a frozen mocha.
Tank! is playing on iTunes.
All-in-all, not a bad way to kick things off.

Happy Birthday to

…and to

Stray Toasters

• Random Question #1: If you had superpowers, who – if anyone – would you tell?
• Random Question #2: For the ladies – Would you wear a bikini made from an old t-shirt?
• Early Word: Dems Name Warner as Keynote Speaker
• 
• Marvel Legends Two-Packs
• Yes we know
  It’s nothing new
  It’s just a waste of time
  We have no need for ancient ways
  The world is doing fine
  Another toy
  That helped destroy
  The elder race of man
  Forget about your silly whim
  It doesn’t fit the plan
• Michael Phelps now has the distinction of having won the most medals of any Olympic athlete.
• Jean Grey: Marvel Girl
• Jean Grey: Black Queen
• Emma Frost: White Queen
• Sideshow Collectibles just needs to add Lee Forrester and Madelyn Pryor statues, then they could have “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Scott Summers” set.

Alright, 3…2…1, let’s jam.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 12 August 2008
Happy Birthday to :

Last night, I stopped by Far West Comics (again) to talk with Matt and Nano about some suggestions I had made to changing their weekly update email and to bounce around a few ideas they had been asked me about for making some changes to the store. I even helped move a couple of fixtures into new positions, too. As a thank you for helping out over the past few days, they gave me a HeroClix figure.

A big one: Starro the Conquerer, the 2007 Fall Convention Exclusive figure.

That’s right, it’s an alien, evil, giant starfish.
Yes, I actually put “alien,” “evil” and “giant starfish” in the same sentence.
And, yes, that felt almost as ridiculous/ludicrous to say (or type) as it was to read it.
At least I didn’t even mention that it’s really a mind-controlling, alien, evil, giant starfish.
(My operational theory: I think a lot of people at DC enjoyed a few too many recreational drugs in the 60s.)

It’s roughly the size of the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix ‘Clix. It’s currently on the shelf with the Jean Grey Phoenix, but I’ll have to see how well it fits once the DP figure gets here.

After some errand-running, I came home and geared up for watching The Middleman. Last night’s episode featured Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda) as a cryogenically frozen Middleman from the 60s. It was amusing to watch him not only play a MM whose style was so completely different than Matt Keeslar’s MM, but it was entertaining to see him in a role that afforded a bit of latitude with the tongue-in-cheek style of the show.

After the show I started taking pictures of the ‘Clix that will going up for auction on eBay. So far, I’ve got pictures of seven sets ready; I just need to set up the auctions themselves. We’ll see how this goes.

Stray Toasters:

• SaraRules: Apparently The Walking Dead TPB #8 is out… or will be out this week.
• For :

  

• By way of : Simpsonized Superheroes
• Gas price decline: Day 26 – Even though prices in the western states haven’t fallen quite as much as in the eastern states.
• Cops break into wrong house, leave note in magnetic fridge letters
  (But did they drink all the milk?)
• LEGO + Video game = LEGO Mindstorms Donkey Kong
• Yar’s Revenge
  (Hmm… maybe the folks at Atari found the DC Comics stash.)

I should finish getting ready and get out of here.

Namaste.

Drew and Mark were heading over to Cafe Blue for lunch. I tagged along to see if they had anything that looked interesting and worthwhile. I wound up getting a chicken fajita panini; it was pretty good. And it wasn’t very spendy, either.

Stray Toasters

• The 2009 IKEA catalog is available online.
• A few weeks/months ago, I started an Amazon Wish List, which I not-so-coincidentally named “The Covet List.” While eating lunch, I tried seeing if I could find a direct link to the list rather than having to go to the Amazon main page and then click through to it. I found it. Then I noticed that one of the items on my list, X-Men Darktide DVD Box Set, had a list price of $2.95 under “New and Used.” Curiosity got the best of me, so I clicked to see what the deal was. And there it was, listed under “Collectible” for $2.95, but it was for the DVD only. There was another item listed there for $5.95, with the descriptor: “Like New.” So I read the item details:
  

  Comments: JUST THE DVD MOVIE! (no dolls).

  *blink blink*
  Wait… but it said “Like New.” To me, that means: “We’ve watched the DVD and played with the figures, but they are all included.” I commented on this to who just said:

  “Sure, it’s like new… if you by it from someplace that sucks.”

• I brought my Sennheiser headphones up here from the south office. I had forgotten both how good they sound and how well they drown out the sound of the office.
• 
• By way of Drew: Freak Accident – Revolving Door

• The picture in this article almost… ALMOST… made me like the Shrub. Who knows, if it had been around a few years ago, I might have held out a smidgen of hope for the guy. Oh, well.
• Or this one.
• Or even this one.
• Laminate the Masses

*voop*

Sunday – 10 August 2008

Last night’s breakfast was good. The people-watching was a little lackluster, though. But, came up with a cereal that could/should be marketed alongside Chocolate Jesus Crunchies:

Gettin’ Lucky Charms

It brought a lot of amusement from the table.

This morning, I met Shelley and Billy for brunch. Shelley is one of my oldest friends in Utah… but we haven’t seen each other in, at least, a few years. Thanks to the power of the Interwebs and the telephone, we do talk from time to time, though. Our original plan was to go to David’s Kitchen, but they are not open on Sundays, it seems. We wound up at Sampan in Sugar House. Good food and good company. I had the beef lo mein, with wonton soup and an eggroll.

I stopped into Jitterbug to get my daily dose of caffeine. Spydr and Uriah were there… and we started talking about The Dark Knight and other geekery. Uriah pointed me in the direction of Shaffer the Dark Lord’s Supervillain. It made me laugh.

Stray Toasters

• For SaraRules, Meliko and Tyranist (and others): Zombie Tools – Accessories for the Apocalypse
• First Bernie Mac died (complications from pneumonia), and now Isaac Hayes has died.
• I stumbled across this when trying to show something to Spydr. It made me laugh again; Spydr laughed, too:

  

• Hot Chicks: The Roleplaying Game
• Exclamation point.
• Superhero Fashion Emergency
  See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

• The Flat Earthers Are Still With Us
• From the “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys” file: Shrinky Dinks As a Threat to National Security

This post brought to you by Spydr, a rocket, and the Angry Yellow Sun.

Namaste.

Saturday – 09 August 2008
I woke up this morning and took the leisurely path to getting ready. There was another sealed box Secret Invasion tourney at Far West, so I couldn’t be a complete slacker about the morning, however.

Breakfast.
Shower.
Dress.
Zoom.

I stopped for a frozen pick-me-up on the way to the store. Bonus: It was a free drink.

I got to Far West to find Matt (owner) and Keith (event judge)… and no one else. *sigh* I knew that Chris was out of town, but I expected to find at least a couple of other players there. Oh, well. So, once I again: Win, by default. Whoop-de-damn-doo.

I did play Keith and Matt. We played under the draft rules. I got (yet another) Iron Man and another Cloak and Dagger. I decided that they would be the overall best use of points and went with them as my team. Keith’s team consisted of:

• Clea
• Gamora and
• Namor

… with whom, he cleaned my clock – it’s amazing what happens when someone mind controls your figure and then proceeds to use them for target practice. Lemme tell you: It ain’t pretty. Iron Man folded more like Tin Foil Man. After that, his team just kind of… beat on Cloak and Dagger. But, I kind of expect that when playing a judge. Or Chris. (The experience is oddly similar.)

Matt and I squared off next. His team consisted of:

• Morbius
• Ms. Marvel (Skrull) and
• Tarantula

Once I got into position, I started picking on Tarantula. Hey, she was the easiest… and the only one I could see, thanks to Morbius and Ms. Skrull’s stealth abilities. *blah* Matt, with some helpful assistance from Keith moved Morbius in to melee range. Fortunately, his attacks missed. Mine didn’t. Scratch one vampire. That just left his all but invisible-to-me tank. Then, the unthinkable happened: Customers came into the store. So, Keith took over for Matt. And then the beatdown resumed. Ms. Skrull took out Iron Man… and then we played a game of cat-and-mouse until she finally felled Cloak and Dagger. So, I effectively lost to Keith twice.

In the process, I learned a couple of things about Duo-Attack and stealth, which should come in handy in the future.

Stray Toasters

• I talked with the parental units today. Both of them are doing well.
• I’m almost ready to start putting some of my ‘Clix extras up for auction on eBay
• By way of : The Amazing Wooden Mirror
• Spaghetti!

Tonight: Breakfast with the usual suspects.
Tomorrow: Brunch with Shelly and Bill.

Hoo-AH!

Today is apparently “Bird Day.”

Why is that, you ask?

A couple of reasons:

1. I just found out that the Ravens beat the Patriots in their preseason game last night.
2. I just won a Dark Phoenix HeroClix (1, 2) figure.

Win-Win.

This post was brought to you by the letters “B” and “X” and the number “7.”
And Morris Day, of course.