Random Access

Tuesday – 08 July 2008
Last night, after having a bite to eat and watching a little TV, I decided to head to Borders to do some drawing. I took a few ‘Clix figures with me – it’s been a while since I’ve drawn anything, so I thought it best to work on simple figure studies. Did I say “a while?” I meant to say that I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do everything beyond the point of “hold the pencil.” *sigh* As the song says: It’s a long, dark road out of Hell. But, I’ll eventually get back to where I was.

Back home in time for The Middleman. Apparently, we’re on the West Coast feed of ABC Family – the show comes on at 11:00 here. Not a major hassle, but I wouldn’t mind catching it at 9 or 10. I read something… last week, I think… that says that Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda) will be guest starring on an episode. He will be playing a Middleman who’s been in suspended animation. That should prove amusing.

I flipped channels for a bit after The Middleman. I started with Deep Space Nine, but wound up spending a bit of time watching The Late Late Show… before winding up back on DS9. I was mostly killing time until Burn Notice came on. Which I did. And then only made it through twenty (20) minutes of the show before realizing that I needed to call it a night.

Stray Toasters

• I made corn muffins this morning. They’re a nice change of pace to my sporadic breakfast routine.
• Ten
• Classic Nick Fury is back in comics… and has a new ‘Clix figure, to boot.



• For SaraRules and Tyranist: Zombie lawn sculpture
• Stephen Colbert is running for President of the United States… in the Marvel Universe.

(click image for more information)

• Balloon animals from trash bags: Joshua Allen Harris
• It’s a definite sign of the times when even LEGO minifigs are riding scooters.
• Builder discovers ‘priceless’ Tolkien postcard

Namaste.

Mark, Wes and I headed to the gym at lunchtime. We repeated the routine that Wes and I did last week, for the most part:

• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs.
• Flys (machine): 3 sets/10 reps, 100 lbs, with 10 sec. hold on the 10th rep
• Curls (standing, hammer): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs.
• Lateral Raises (with forward extension): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs.
• Tricep Extensions (standing, dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 45 lbs.

Today’s post-workout weight: 175.3 lbs.

Overall, it felt good. We’re going to try to squeeze in another workout on Thursday, if possible. And, hopefully, we didn’t make Mark want to murder us… assuming that he’s able to lift his arms high enough to do so.

Stray Toasters

• Speeders to pay for police chases
• Thanks to Derek for this one: 35,310 LEGO Star Wars Clone Trooper Army Invades Earth
• By way of The Weekly Crisis
  • 10 Stories Essential to Understanding the Current Marvel Universe
  • 10 Stories Essential to Understanding the Current DC Universe
• From the “It shouldn’t be like this” file: Woman dies ignored on hospital waiting room floor
  

Back to it…

Being done with the work week is a nice thing.
Lunch at Jitterbug == good

Stray Toasters

• By way of Indexed: “On roads and online forums”



• Thanks to for pointing out Giant LEGO Storage Buildings: 65-foot-high LEGO Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year
• I caught myself whistling You’re the One That I Want, from Grease, a little while ago. I was about ready to shoot myself when I realized it.
• Happy 90th Birthday to Nelson Mandela



• Mandela != Madonna
• 
• Two cards down, two to go.

Pow!

Monday – 23 June 2008
Three hours’ sleep? Check.
Frozen caffeine? Check.
In the office just after 8:00? Check.

You would think that with a four-mile commute, my road monkey-to-miles ratio would be slim to nil. This morning proved that to be untrue. I even encountered one of them when I was parked. If my math is correct, I actually had a 1:1 ratio today. Four. Miles. Unglaublich!

Stray Toasters

• Shirley Bassey to miss Mandela concert in London
  And… just in case the name doesn’t ring a bell:
  • Diamonds Are Forever
  • History Repeating
• I find it odd, amusing (and a little scary) that I found these two articles within a couple minutes of each other:
  • Portable Karaoke Machine for Singing on the Fly
  • Brando’s Portable Disco Lights Do It Psychedelically with Lasers
• What do you get when you cross Fargo with snowglobes? Something along the lines of this, I’d guess.
• 750,000-brick Kennedy Space Center Is the Mother of All LEGO Models
• They’re… um… “rebooting” ReBoot. For more info, click here.

Let’s get this show on the road.

Friday – 20 June 2008
The end of the work week is at hand. Thanks to putting in a few extra hours, I’m done and gone at 1:30 today. That’s worth skipping lunch for. I’m going to run a few errands and enjoy the early start to the weekend.

Last night, I watched Fear Itself, the new anthology horror/suspense summer series on NBC. Thirteen episodes, each done by different directors. Last night’s episode was “The Family Man.”

Family Man – A likeable family man switches bodies with a serial killer during a near-death experience. Now he must keep his loved ones from being added to the long list of the killer’s victims.

It wasn’t bad; it reminded me of a modern Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. I’m going to have to investigate the previous three episodes.

I also listened to the new Duffy CD, Rockferry. You may remember that I posted the video to Mercy a few weeks back:

The whole CD is good. It has a definite British soul feel, with a number of songs making nods to the 60s style of Brit soul/pop. I give it an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with a little while ago, he has left Nepal and is currently enjoying a layover in Bangkok. He should be home tomorrow evening. More on his travel adventures below.
• After sending her a link to zombie drawings on DrawerGeeks, I just typed “Zombees!” to SaraRules… which made me think “zombie bees.”
• By way of BBC News: One tonne ‘Baby’ marks its birth
• Drawn! (Which I had once again forgotten about…)
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: The Baby Borrowers
• Sailors fighting in the dance hall
  Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
  It’s the freakiest show
  Take a look at the Lawman
  Beating up the wrong guy
  Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know
  He’s in the best selling show
  Is there life ice on Mars?
• I found this by way of DeviantArt:


(click for more work by DarkAngelDTB)

• Auto Test Tracks Revealed From Above
• 
• Puzzle Calendar Is Not LEGO Compatible
• …however, this is pretty cool: LEGO Employees Have Minifigs As Business Card
• I think I’ll treat myself to either The Incredible Hulk or Get Smart after tomorrow’s ‘Clix game.

Quote of the Day

From this morning’s conversation with …
He was telling me about an email that he sent to Bot and a couple of his brothers:

I had to go through multiple roadblocks, burning tires, and brick throwers to get to the airport this morning. Today’s asshole Kathmandu protest is brought to you by students, who are demanding that fuel prices come down. Took us 90 minutes to get to the airport.

Anyway, I’m here, I’m in the Thai Airways lounge, and all is well. See you soon…

Then he added:

I almost went with the sesame street theme and said “today’s asshole kathmandu protest is brought to you by the letters AMF” but i think only andrew would’ve understood it

…where “AMF” stands for “Adios, motherfucker.”

I think that he should have added it.

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 17 June 2008
I was awake before the alarm went off this morning. Which set me up to be nominally coherent when it did go off… enough to turn it off and roll over for Anotherloverholeinyahead another 20 minutes of sleep. I had an odd dream that involved me being back in middle or upper school. And getting to school. And snow. And living in Baltimore. Odd combination.

I was in the office at 8:00. Nice, as the office hasn’t really started to hum yet. I have a meeting today from 2:00 to 3:30, allegedly. At this point, I’m of the opinion that I’ll be taking Defiant into the meeting to find novel and creative ways of staying awake. Focused? Well, we’ll see how good the meeting is at holding my attention.

Stray Toasters

• What’s ‘fair use’ in a blog?
• ‘Teach the Controversy’ t-shirt designs

  
  (click image for more information)

• I may wind up re-lobotomizing ‘Nine. The current installation of XP seems… to have issues.
• By way of BBC News: 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
• Inventor of the Internet, Oscar winner and former Vice President Al Gore has thrown his weight support behind Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
• Building Your Perfect Wardrobe: Spring/Summer ’08
• After seeing LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman and Robin and LEGO Indiana Jones, I wouldn’t mind seeing a LEGO X-Men game. (And I won’t even mention that a LEGO Legion of Super-Heroes game would be an ‘automatic covet/buy…)

And, now, coffee cup in hand, it’s time to “…attack the day like birds of prey.”

Namaste.

Saturday – 14 June 2008
It’s clear and sunny out; hopefully, it will be a little warmer than yesterday.

This day started with a good morning ping from , not a bad way to start the day. He pointed me in the direction of this article from John Scalzi’s Whatever blog. I don’t suppose that I should have read the NPR article, Obama’s VP Search: Avoiding Party’s Past Mistakes, because about the time I hit the third sentence in the section entitled “Handicapping the VP Short List,” I was done. “Gracious exit…!?” My ass. That exit was to “gracious” as Utah’s Black population is to the state total population. (Translation: “Not very.”)

Quick note for those of you in the SLC metro area: The Utah Foster Care Foundation Chalk Art Festival continues today. Go down and cheer on/vote for and Team Chalk-O-Licious. Here’s their work-in-progress:

(click for ‘s (quick) post about this piece)

SaraRules and I are going to head into Aspen in a little while. That should be fun and interesting.

Stray Toasters

• From NPR: Songs for Dad: Father’s Day Jazz
• Men in Black is still fun – and funny – movie.
• By way of Wired: Coolest Movie Metamorphoses – From Wolf-Man to Hulk
• USA Today has a poll asking how readers would feel about an Obama/Powell or McCain/Powell ticket.
• I skipped “Blog Like It’s the End of the World Day” – not for lack of ideas, I just couldn’t get into it.
• Worthplaying.com takes a look at LEGO Batman

Quote of the Day
“Football (soccer) is like chess, only without the dice.” – Lukas Podolski

Up out.

Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment wasn’t really hitting on anything today.
Instead, I returned to DNS & BIND. And by “return,” I mean “started reading anew.” It’s been a while.
That worked out better.

Even though I’ve never been to the Aspen area, I wasn’t inclined to go out gallivanting today… for two reasons:

1. SaraRules is at work… and, thus, not around to hang out
2. I was “on the clock” and had work to do. (I have a work ethic, sue me.)

Today’s reading locations have included:

• The dining room table… under the lamp of antlers.
• The window nook
• The front porch
• The back porch
• The kitchen counter

The view from the front porch isn’t awesome, but I wouldn’t mind catching a sunrise over it… if the sunrise wasn’t 5:41 AM. The back porch looks up the mountainside. It’s green and has a few trees. And, by the time I moved out there, it had the sun. Oh, the warm, joyous sun. (Not to be confused with the angry sun.) Aside from a butterfly, some birds and a few other assorted insects, I haven’t seen any of the local fauna.

Speaking of fauna: I saw some deer or antelope (hard to tell in traffic at 80 MPH) on the… dunes?… outside Green River yesterday. And, I saw my favorite not-sheep along Route 6, too.

Stray Toasters

• The local wireless connection doesn’t like iChat, it seems. Other programs do just fine, but iChat craps out at random. I’ll have to test it with City later.
• The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen starts today. Check out the ticket prices. Somehow, I think we’re going to skip this.
• “Unboop”
• I had iTunes on random and Rocket Man came on.
  Not Elton John.
  Nor Kate Bush.
  Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Interesting version. I checked All Music Guide and it seems as though it’s been on a LOT of albums/CDs.
• Robert Cray’s Smoking Gun is still a great song.
• So is Diamond in the Rough, by Shawn Colvin.
• Thanks to for making sure that I saw Classics in LEGO
  …which, in turn, led me to this…
  



• She bop -he bop – a we bop
  I bop -you bop – a-they bop
  Be bop – be bop – a-lu-bop,
  (I hope He will understand)
  She bop -he bop – a we bop
  I bop -you bop – a-they bop
  Be bop – be bop – a-lu-she bop

And that’s all for now.

Wednesday: Coda
This evening, I saw Iron Man again; I went with Max and Perry. It was just as much fun this time as it was opening day. Perry and Max both enjoyed it, as well. And this time I was able to catch a glimpse of Captain America’s shield in Tony’s workshop.

After the movie, I headed back to Kate and Perry’s and hung out for a while. This translates mostly into getting some surrogate uncle time with the kids. And, as a new twist, the two youngest asked me to read them a bedtime story: Go, Dog. Go! That was both unexpected and fun. After the youngest kids went to bed, Perry, Max and I watched Justice League Unlimited; tonight’s episode was “Question Authority,” in which The Question discovers the truth behind the founding members’ secret concerning an alternate/future President Luthor and The Justice Lords. This episode also contained one of my favorite lines from the series: The Question confronts the contemporary Lex Luthor about his plans to run for President of the United States. Luthor laughs and responds:

“President?! Foolish, faceless man… my campaign is a farce! A small part of a much grander scheme. President. Do you know how much power I’d have to give up to be President?! That’s right, conspiracy buff… I spent seventy-five million dollars on a fake presidential campaign… all just to tick Superman off.”

(You can also listen to it – as Luthor smacks The Question around his office – here.)

Perry just looked at me askance as I quoted most of that line while Luthor was saying it. Kate just laughed and shook her head.

Stray Toasters

• I was (pleasantly) surprised to see a news item saying that Senator Clinton is (finally) ending her bid for the Democratic nomination… especially as Senator Obama got the magic number last night.
• I asked our HR guy if I could post A Different State of Race Relations – and a commentary – on our internal site or an internal email. He thought about it and then decided that it would probably be best to get some sort of go-ahead from corporate HR. So, I’m going to kick it up the chain of command tomorrow, I do believe.
• “Elitist.” *chuckle*
• Number Five… made of LEGO
• I caught the tail end of DS9‘s series finale, “What You Leave Behind,” tonight.

I think that there is a glass of milk calling my name. I don’t know if it’s chocolate or not. Yet.

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.

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.

Monday – 19 May 2008
A new (work) week begins. At least this one is sunny. And it’s supposed to be warm/hot today, too. But, it’s a dry heat.  Should I be… concerned… that Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train just felt like the “right” song to listen to? I mean, that shouldn’t be taken as an omen for the day, should it?

*looks around for Cthulhu cultists*

Last night, SaraRules and I watched Constantine. All-in-all, it wasn’t a horrible adaptation of Hellblazer… although, it would have been nice if they had stayed a little closer to Alan Moore’s vision/version of John Constantine and Hellblazer, but isn’t that the way things seem to go with adaptations of his work? I had forgotten that Shia LeBeouf was in the movie. He’s everywhere these days.

Stray Toasters

• Gewurtztraminer
• A couple of bits of LEGO-related goodness:
  • 5 million-piece LEGO boulder chases Indy, crashes into car
  • Builds LEGO model inside bag without telekinesis
• Just a friendly reminder: Towel Day is coming up!



• DS9 has contracted… something. It will boot in Safe Mode, but I can’t get it to boot in normal mode. It’s not the power supply. It’s not (as best I can tell) a problem with the motherboard. I should just get an iMac and be done with it.
• Hello Kitty comes to Warhammer 40K with the Sisters of Battle
• 
• While flipping channels last night, I saw that The Empire Strikes Back was on TNT. So, we flipped back and forth between that and The Office. One of the scenes we watched was the one in which Han Solo is frozen in Carbonite. I noticed a continuity goof that I had never noticed/overlooked:
  

  Continuity: When Han Solo is lowered into the carbon freezing chamber, his hands are bound by metallic handcuffs. As soon as he’s frozen, his hands are separated in the carbon block. (from IMDb.com)

• Museum of Counterfeit Art
• 

Quote of the Day
When Code Monkey and I went for our morning constitutional, he related a comment that had been attributed to a former coworker of ours:

Code Monkey: Doug’s definition of “perfect democracy” – Two wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner.

/lunch

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.

Friday – 09 May 2008

It’s… a little after 8:00 AM EDT. I’ve been up since about 6:30. (This is a vacation, isn’t it?!) I’ve been hanging out with Mom – having coffee, watching news, watching her start cooking dinner – since waking up. I’m sure that having been up since O’dark-thirty will catch up with me sooner or later. And, did I mention that Mom is following this year’s election coverage with the same hawkishness with which she followed the O.J. Simpson trial back in the 90s? She is. It’s kind of amusing.

Today will involve a good bit of errand-running, I’m sure. That’s cool.

Stray Toasters

• Severe storms hit the area of NC near Mom’s. I’m waiting to hear what kind of damage the area around the house sustained. I chatted, briefly, with Markin’ Time, this morning; he said that his area was pretty much spared. , what’s the story from your part of the state?
• Burma impounds UN aid deliveries
• 
• Preview of Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1
• I haven’t had an NES for over fifteen years, but this NES Controller Coffee Table makes me kind of wish that I did…
• …of course, if they’re putting an XBox in a Microsoft Surface Table, well, I wouldn’t mind one of them, either!
• Close to the Wind
• 
• John Ridley (1,2) author of The American Way (which, if you haven’t read, you need to read) and Undercover Brother, is a commentator on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Who knew?!
• Mmm, coffee.
• Steampunk in The New York Times
• LEGO + Nathan Sawaya = Skateboard

Namaste.

I have forgotten how much of a piece of piece Windows XP can be. Yes, I’ve been spoiled by the simplicity of OSX and program upgrades and installations. I recently had to wipe and reinstall XP on one of my machines in the north office. I forgot about that today when I had to do some online training. Which means that I had to reinstall a number of helper applications in order to use the training modules.

Install.
Reboot.
Install.
Reboot.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

I got everything installed. I went through the training modules. Life was good. Yay.

Earlier in the afternoon, Code Monkey and I went for a constitutional. We were talking about how temperate it was today. From there we went off on a tangent about skin color and heat absorption. That, in turn, led me onto a tangent about Kryptonians’ (and Daxamites’) ability to absorb energy from yellow solar radiation. Then, came the big tangent:

Where were the Black Kryptonians?!

CM and I then had a couple of other questions:

1. Would the concept of Black Kryptonians work? If high melanin-content in the skin reflects heat, then would the darker-skinned be as “super” under a yellow sun as their light-skinned counterparts?
2. If Krypton was a cold/ice planet, as seen in Superman and Superman II, would there even be any dark-skinned Kryptonians?

Of course, this meant that I had to look up whether or not there had ever been Black Kryptonians in the comics. Lo and behold, there were! Evidence was found here, here and even here.

Still no word on Black Daxamites, though.

Stray Toasters

• Newsarama had a link to Legion of Super-Potatoes. The second page, with the Legion of Substitute Potatoes, nearly made me double over and smack my head on my desk from laughter.
• This is the cover of the first issue of Legion of Super-Heroes that I ever bought:



• Living Between Wednesdays had an amusing look at The Invincible Iron Man #172, featuring a drunken Tony Stark…
• …which makes a perfect segue for this:



• Isabella Rossellini Does Bug Porn
• What if John Byrne had written the X-Men?
• Also, check out the official trailer for Wolverine and the X-Men, the upcoming animated series from Marvel. It looks like an interesting twist on the X-Men mythos.



• Not the droids you’re expecting…
• While watching CNN’s primary coverage, SaraRules mentioned that she was fascinated by the multi-touch interactive display they used to track/follow voting reports. So, I showed her the multi-touch exhibition from TED in 2006:

  Then I showed her an item from Popular Mechanics.com about the Microsoft Milan. That made me wonder when the Milan was going to be available to the public. Apparently, it hits the market on 30 May 2008.

Namaste.