Random Access

Thursday – 06 March 2008
I woke up a little later than planned this morning. I made up for it by doing my best impression of The Flash and was ready to roll shortly thereafter. Of course, to make up for such a metabolic surge, I stopped at the local B&B for a frozen mocha. Double shot. Shaken, not stirred.

The crew from SageWater showed up this morning a couple of minutes before eight. One of the guys – I’m assuming the lead on the project, if not just for my apartment – noticed my Ravens pennant on the wall. He asked if I was familiar with Baltimore; I told him that I grew up there. He then mentioned that their company was based out of North Carolina (which I already knew), so I asked which part (which I didn’t know). Raleigh. I then mentioned that I had a sister who went to school in Durham and grew up outside of Greensboro. He went on to tell me how broadly he travels with the company. (A LOT!) His next job is in Seattle. I neglected to ask how long they are typically on the road.

Stray Toasters

• If I needed any (ANY) proof that and I shouldn’t be left unsupervised with the unlimited power of the Interweb at our fingertips, this proves it:
  • http://youtube.com/watch?v=PsesC2iS06o
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZA2A2zoz-A&NR=1
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMD9_QYfzb8
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyyW-n8aook
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NozOppLXh18&NR=1
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoNI4N3xYmE&NR=1
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqjBpHsW5x4&NR=1
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJbaxqG-3k
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEG15CLTqo
• By way of Yahoo! News and 60 Minutes: Gustavo Dudamel
• Kilowog == Covet.
  (That would complete my set of GLs.)
• The (New) Laws of Casual Style and This Is Not Steve McQueen
• Yes, I am watching/trying to watch some of the work they are doing in my apartment. I can’t because they have a tarp over the entrance to the master bathroom… which is a “good” thing, as it means a minimum of debris/detritus that will spread over the rest of the office and apartment.
• From Rotten Tomatoes: Total Recall: Steal These 11 Heist Movies
• HALO3 Series 1 Action Figures in Stores Now
• LEGO HALO
  • …and the explanation
• Pink, it’s like red, but not quite…
• I think that I’m going to get a new display case after the SageWater work is done. And that means… a trip to the Garden of Sweden! *genuflect* Amen.

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
Ten-and-a-half hours.

That’s how long my Monday work day wound up being. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not complaining. Sure, it was a long day and I had a fairly boring and rote task that took up the back half (or more) of the day, but I was not a bad day by any stretch of the imagination. Just… long. And, on the “plus” side of the equation: That gives me an “extra” two-and-a-half hours to play around with on this week’s schedule, if I want.

After work, I came home for a short bit and then headed back out to take care of a couple of errands before heading over to Mary and Chris’ so that Chris and I could play dolls HeroClix. As usual, he cleaned my clock, but I had a lot of fun. The first game (400 points), I tried a team with something of a Green Lantern focus:

• Green Lantern (John Stewart)
• Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first of Earth’s Green Lanterns)
• Star Sapphire (GL Hal Jordan’s ex-flame… and later arch-enemy)
• Hawkgirl (I needed to fill in the points. Sue me.)

This was something of a war of attrition, but Chris’ tactics and skill wore me down. We decided to play one more game (200 points) before calling it a night. I decided that I wanted a “fun” team, so I went with a Justice League International theme. (I deserved to get my ass kicked just on principle for that one.) This team’s lineup included:

• Blue Beetle
• Booster Gold
• Fire
• Ice
• Rocket Red #7

Chris brought out Nick Fury and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And Blade. Between some rather craptacular dice rolls on my part and some pretty good ones on his part, he picked my team apart. It was almost as funny to watch/play as the JLI comic series. Almost. But, again, it was fun.

We loosely talked about getting together again and playing in the not-too-distant future. I had a couple of ideas for themes, based on the point values we decide on: The Earth GLs, The New Mutants or the Captain Marvel family.

Stray Toasters

• By way of SaraRules: Adult Brains Wired to Go Ga-Ga Over Babies
• The 10 Coolest LEGO-Inspired Gadgets
• 
• pointed me in the direction of this article on BoingBoing: Interview with producer of swords and sorcery themed porn…
  • …which led to this article, The Magical World of Warcraft Erotica, in The Village Voice
  • …which included this gallery (some of which is NSFW)
• SIW
• 
• Alex Ross’ Age of TV Heroes cover (first look)
• Toll the bell
  Pay the private eye
  All’s well
  20th Century dies…
• Giant comic collection donated to U of Minnesota

That’s close enough for jazz for tonight.

Namaste.

Saturday – 01 March 2008
Jason and I went to the driving range at Old Mill for lunch yesterday. It was the perfect day for it – not too warm, not too cool; sunny; almost no wind. I had a few good drives and a lot of “Why, yes it has been six months since I did this…” ones, too. It was a lot of fun and a great change of pace. If the weather holds, we’re going to go again next week; we even have a couple of other guys who sound interested in joining us.

Last night’s Clitorati gathering was quite good. Mary and Chris joined us. After last week’s adventures with Wolverine and Colossus, I decided to take my Sentinel a bag of LEGO bricks (and assorted pieces) with me.

Who knew that Sentinels could be left-handed?!

Holy cow! The LEGO pieces were a big hit! got some good-natured ribbing from OnlyAly about how quickly he opened the bag and started the play… until she grabbed some pieces and started build things of her own.

OnlyAly’s LEGO Condo

joined the building party, as did . All-in-all, a good time was had. And no coffee was spilled nor were any cameras dropped in the taking of these pictures.

I’m not sure what’s on tap for today. SaraRules and I have talked about heading to the State Fairgrounds to see the Sixth Annual Bellydance Spring Fest, so that’s a possibility.

But first up: Breakfast, coffee and cartoons.

Stray Toasters

• I found this on MacRumors, while looking up some information: Best Use for Apple Stickers?
• High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace
• 
• From Wired: First Look – New D&D Stats Leak Onto Web
• I was talking with a couple coworkers about Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles the other day. This perfectly sums up part of our conversation:

  

• $31 million worth of lost valuables on the TSA’s watch
• As noted to me by last night: Family Guy spins off Cleveland

And with that… Long Live the Legion!

Sunday: Coda
I made it to Cedar City without any incident. That’s always a good thing. I took a few pictures along the way.

SaraRules and I headed to the nearby Chili’s for dinner and then over to the Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Proving, once again, how cool she is, she picked up two packs of Cadbury Creme Eggs and the following for me:

Mm-hmm. That’s right.

Friday – 22 February 2008
I wound up staying in SLC all day Thursday. I was going to head down to AF after working on a system here, but was… convinced to stay north of the county line. The day was… something. In fact, at one point it came precipitously close to breaking the No Bad News Thursday rule. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t bad news, just a very poor presentation of information.

After work, I ran a couple of errands and then headed to Jitterbug to meet and for dinner. And coffee. And catching up on the latest things going on. After that, I headed home for a few.

Next up: A jaunt to ‘s to help her with a computer problem. Nothing earth-shattering (or even earth-shaking, like yesterday’s earthquake – which I, again, slept through). While there, I saw and played with the kids. They have new collars – Sissy has a green one. That’s right: My cat wants to be a Green Lantern when she grows up. (I’m so proud of her…)

Home again. I fired up City of Death Heroes and joined a team with a couple of guys whom I’ve grouped with before. They’re both “a little” gung-ho. Unfortunately, they were both Scrappers and not Tankers. Suffice if to say that there was plenty of death to be had for everyone. *sigh* I left that team and was invited to join another. The second team had their act together.

Stray Toasters

• and I had to explain Zork and grues to Jason yesterday.
• Speaking of which, you can play an HTML/PHP version of Zork here.
• You can play ports of other Infocom games here.
• Clinton doesn’t vow to go on beyond March 4
• And now, another episode of “How Rob’s Mind Works”:
  

  While getting ready for work, I saw the packaging for some toilet paper in the trash can and had the following thought: “Cottonelle… Cotton-elle… Hm… Superman’s Krytonian aunt… who was a sanitation engineer? Yeah, that works.”

• Smurfs at 50: Ready for a Comeback
• Next week’s release of the Crisis set for HeroClix includes another Legionnaire: Karate Kid

  

• From Gamespot: GDC ’08: LEGO Batman First Look

  

  

• Pleas for condemned Saudi ‘witch’
• Yeah, toast!

Namaste.

Tuesday: Coda
Part of today’s lunch break was spent picking up a new sleeve for Defiant. As I don’t want to (and can’t) have eleventy-seven carry-on bags, I wanted to be able to carry the laptop, as well as books and assorted distractions in my backpack. A sleeve seemed the best way to carry and protect Defiant in the backpack. As CompUSA is going out of business, I decided to see if they had any good deals. They did; I wound up getting a Brenthaven Eclipse Sleeve I.

After work, I came home and relaxed for a bit before heading to Kohl’s in search of a new suitcase. I saw online that they had up to 50% off on luggage; how could I pass that up? I wound up buying a complete set, instead: 5 pieces for $60 USD. Not a bad deal.

I was hungry, but indecisive, on the way home, so I meandered my way from West Jordan back to Fort Union. I finally settled on something, picked it up and headed home. While eating, I killed a little time in Paragon City – four more bubbles to Security Level 43.

Stray Toasters

• I went to the Art Asylum site, to see if I could find any information about upcoming releases of Marvel and/or DC MiniMates. Just like U2, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. But… I did find a couple of other things:
  • 
  • 

  MiniMates movies! and : You both might want to check out New Times. (Here’s a hint: Mark Hamill as The Joker.) I’m just saying.

• Kyle McLachlan: A new Superman for a New Frontier
• I think that I’ve found my new desktop wallpaper for work: This. Of course, I’m thinking that I’ll have to change it and add this picture, instead… but you get the idea.
• The Randall Scott Gallery presents the art of Lori Nix
• Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primaries. Wow.
  (So, who’s Hillary going to fire now?)
• SaraRules sent me a link to this parody of Will.i.am’s Yes We Can: john.he.is
• and Tyranist: I don’t remember whether I pointed this out to you or not: Ultra Cthulhu Statue
• LEGO Indiana Jones Q&A
• How many of you remember The Electric Company?
  How many of you remember Silent E ?
• By way of : Song Titles that Espouse Bad Ideas
• Spore

Time to finish packing (48 hours from now, I’ll be in Bawl’mer) and call it a night.

Namaste.

Friday – 08 February 2008
The weekend steadily approaches. Selah.

I was up on-time this morning. “On-time” meaning that I didn’t ignore the alarm (multiple times). This doesn’t necessarily mean that I didn’t have a leisurely time getting ready… but I was awake and mobile, at least. And, I was still in the office by 8:15… with frozen mocha goodness and a bagel omelette sandwich, no less!

I took a few pictures of the mountains at sunrise. I made the gallery using iWeb, rather than iPhoto. It wasn’t quite as automatically intuitive as iPhoto, but it was still rather easy.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Coffee, in its various forms, is not something that you buy.
You rent it.

The same holds true for alcohol.

Stray Toasters

• brought in the Dragonlance DVD for me to borrow. This should be… interesting… if not entertaining.
• Thanks to for making sure that I saw Super LEGO Mario.
• By way of Drive Thru RPG: Xpress Core System
• Eric mentioned that Top Gear did a show where the hosts drove a charity “rally” through the southeastern states. Part of the race was through Alabama. Click here to see what they did for this part of the race.
• 72 Tips for Safer Computing
• Martin Scorsese is gearing up to do a Bob Marley documentary.
• 
• At the beginning of A Show of Hands, Rush used The Three Stooges’ “Hello… Hello… Hello… HELLO!” as their introduction. Now, no matter when I hear it, I expect to hear The Big Money immediately afterwards. Every time.
• Millions of peaches, peaches for me
  Millions of peaches, peaches for free
• Compubeaver
• Seeing the root domain name of the Compubeaver site reminded me of Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About.

Namaste.

Thursday – 07 February 2008
I talked with briefly this morning; Bot and Bit are both doing well.

I started my morning in the SLC office, but was due to be in the AF office today. The commute was relatively uneventful… except for the snow that I ran into at Point of the Mountain.

Things have been fairly quiet around the office today. I consider this a good thing.

Workout
Today’s workout varied from Tuesday’s workout, with more of a focus on upper back:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Pull-ups: 3 sets/10 reps (2 sets unassisted; 1 set assisted @ 80 lbs)
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs (third set broken up into 5-and-5)
• Pull-downs (wide-grip, behind the head): 3 sets/15 reps, 100 lbs
• Reverse Deltoid Fly: 3 sets/10 reps, 75 lbs
• Dips: 3 sets/10 reps

Today’s weight: 172.6 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• I tried a couple of new-to-me tech items yesterday; I think that I like them both:
  • iGoogle
  • Spaces
• Mitt Romney is bowing out of the 2008 Republican race. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.
• New iPhone and iPod Touch Safari exploit discovered
• How much of a toy geek am I? I present Exhibit A: Action Theatre: Colossus vs. Train

  

  

  

  I actually powered up the train… and Piotr did keep it from moving.
  Colossus: 1
  Train: 0

• Speed & Angels: fighter pilot documentary
• I need to go to the Garden of Sweden soon.
• TANSTAAFL… or is there?
  I had one.
  Granted, it was left over from a manager meeting that was held here, but it was free.
• 

Namaste.

As I mentioned last night (and had noted to me this morning by Liz, and ): January 2008 marks the 50th Birthday of the LEGO Brick.

also pointed out the LEGO Brick 50th Anniversary Timeline.

If you can’t run right out and pick up a box of LEGO, you should download the LEGO Digital Designer (Mac and Windows flavors):

And, don’t forget The Mini-mizer, where you can make a LEGO minifigure of yourself.

Play!

Sunday – 27 January 2008
Last night, SaraRules and I went to play Minister G’off after all. We got her brother, Logan, to go along with us. We have the pictures to prove it.

Today, we slept in a bit. Later, while SaraRules was reading The Walking Dead, I finally remembered how to make an animated icon in Photoshop:

This afternoon, we went to the Capitol Theatre and saw Utah Opera‘s production of Tosca. It was a great production. The set was from the Seattle Opera; my favorite part of the staging was in Act Three, when they took the set from pre-dawn to early morning.

After that, we headed to SaraRules’ parents’ for dinner and to hang out for a while.

Back home for SaraRules to do homework and for me to save the world. For a bit, at least. When she was done, we watched Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I had forgotten how fun it was… and a decent story, too.

And that’s how I spent my Sunday.

Oh… and it’s the 50th Anniversary of the LEGO brick!

Friday – 25 January 2008
I have The Leash again this week. Once in every six weeks isn’t so bad, unless it goes off at 5:00… because someone has sent spam to it. *grblsnrkx*

Otherwise, last night was something of a mixed bag:

• I got to play CoH for a couple of hours with members of my supergroup.
• I caught an episode of pre-writers’ strike CSI: from earlier this season.
• I thought about – but decided against – making brownies.
• …and I seem to be on the front side of possibly coming down with something.

The top three == good.
The last one != good.

But I’m fighting the fight, so we’ll see what comes of it.

I think that we’re actually going to see the sun today. That would be a pleasant change of pace from the “living in a dirty fishbowl” haze that we’ve had for the past few days.

Stray Toasters

• I saw this icon, for , last night in an Apple (computer, not fruit) forum. It amused me.

  

• Nathan Sawaya: The Art of the Brick
• I had forgotten that they are doing a movie version of Get Smart, starring Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway. I remember watching the TV show, starring Don Adams and Barbara Feldon, with my father, many years ago. You can see the trailer for the movie here.
• Sweet monkey-squeezin’ Jesus…. The Juggernaut, Bitch is back on YouTube!
• 
• By way of NPR Music:
  • The Incredible Disappearing TV Theme Song
  • ‘Kiddie Soul’ Compilation Not Just Kidding Around
• 
• They Started as Cheerleaders
• For :
  

  

And that’s that… for now, at least.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 23 January 2008
Mid-week and all’s well… if grey, gloomy and generally “blah” can be considered “well.”

I got a decent start on the morning… even after someone dialed my number at 5:45 AM. No idea who it was, because no number came up on the Caller ID. Monkeys. I was up and nominally mobile a little after 7:00 this morning and out the door, caffeinated (and bagel-laden) and in the office by 8:30. As an added bonus, the first song on Nomad’s shuffle play was Big Daddy Kane’s A Job Ain’t Nuthin’ But Work. Nice way to kick off the short commute.

Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money got get made
To get paid in this trade
And I believe that I can acheive
To make ends meet like a hair weave

Survivin’ in this economy people in the world wanna be
Stayin’ in the upper class so you’re the path
The rich gets the most and the poor gets so little
And only Monie Love can make it in the middle

The work day wasn’t too chaotic. Fortunately. I was asked to check out a problem with a server… which not only was not having a problem (today), but was also in the middle of running some tests for one of our engineers. So, that got downgraded from “Put this at the top of today’s to-do list” to “Keep an eye on this.” I’m okay with that. I’ve also managed to work in some hardware testing… which means that I have been able to clear stacks of dysfunctional machinery out of my work area. I actually found some work space under all of the dreck!

Sushi Wednesday.
New Comics Day.
‘Nuff said.

Genius that I am, I left the power cord (POWER CHORD!) for Defiant at work. *sigh* This meant that – rather than go buy a (“yet another”) new one – I had to go back to the office to retrieve it. This was good on a couple of counts… as I also forgot that I needed to pick up a few things at the store, too. So, I headed to the office to find…

…neither of my badges worked on the main doors of the building. *grblsnrkx* Fortunately, I had messaged Code Monkey BB to see if he was still at work before leaving home. He was. I called him and he brought my cord down to the lobby. We chatted a bit before I took off to run some more errands and he went back upstairs to sling some more code.

After errand-running, I decided to see if was in. She was. I told her that I had her Trader Joe’s shwag with me and would drop it off, if that was alright. Not only was it alright, she asked if I’d mind lending a hand to , who had been helping her resurrect her PC – at this point they were having a problem getting her mouse to respond and needed to rejoin the PC to the wireless network.

No problem!
Piece of cake!
We’d have it back online and humming in no time!

An hour and a half later, we finally had things up and running again. Just like Tom Tom the Piper’s Son… but without the pigs.

Stray Toasters

• I had many things in the four-color hold today… and I picked up a couple new Stikfas:
  1. Alpha Male Samurai with Stallion
  2. Omega Male Black Knight
• By way of comes Gaslight Justice League, a steampunk/Victorian Era look at the JLA.
• had a few things to say about peoples’ reactions to Heath Ledger’s death.
• Today was also Sushi Wednesday for … who, along with the Sib-1 sister-unit, has been interviewing pediatricians. It sounds like it has been a feast-or-famine kind of thing.
• : has your Trader Joe’s items, as you are more likely to see her on Friday evening.
• Area 51 designated with a new name
• By way of : The Internet Party: What happens when Google’s parents leave town for the weekend?
• By way of : The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World
• SR-71A… made out of LEGO. Win-Win!

I’m sure that there was probably more that I was going to add to this… but all I want to do now is save the world (if I can find a team) and read the rest of this week’s four-color haul.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 22 January 2008
And… we’re back in the Land behind the Zion Curtain.

Actually, we got back last night. We arrived in Utah as snow began to fall a little south of Cedar City. *sigh* I left (relatively) sunny southern California for this?!

Yesterday, SaraRules and I hit the Trader Joe’s in La Cañada before hitting the road. I haven’t been to a Trader Joe’s in a few years – since the last Disneyland trip, in fact. I stocked up on a few bottles of Two Buck Chuck, among other tasty wines and some assorted snacks. Then, we were northbound and down. We stopped at an In and Out Burger in Vegas. ‘Twas tasty.

Today’s commute wasn’t as hellish as I had feared that it might be. The roads in southern Utah were fairly clear. I didn’t really have to deal with any road monkeys, which was also nice. Today’s workout was good:

• Bench press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs.
• Curls (standing, barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 50 lbs.
• Fly (Nautilus): 3 sets/10 reps, 95 lbs. (ten-second hold on the tenth rep)
• Decline press (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 50 lbs
• Tricep press: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs.
• Dips: 2 sets/15 reps

It was definitely tiring, but good. I think that I will start increasing my weights next week, by at least 5 lbs per exercise. And, speaking of increasing weight: When I stepped on the scale today, I tipped the scales at 169.6 lbs. I don’t think that I’ve weighed quite that much since my freshman year in college.

Stray Toasters

• Last night, somewhere north of Las Vegas, SaraRules put Queen’s Greatest Hits in the CD player. While we were listening to Killer Queen, I started thinking, “What would you do for a video for this song?” Almost immediately, I thought of the Queen of Hearts, from Alice in Wonderland, running around going “Off with ‘is head!” From that point on, it became something of a game to see what Disney movies/characters could be best matched with the rest of the songs on the CD.
• Chris Anthony’s Dream Photo Exhibition
• 
• Beer Can Dan
• By way of Wired (and Sarah Silverman): The 33 Things That Make Us Crazy
• Retro-gamer cupcakes
• From xkcd: “The Data So Far”

  

• I have a fresh supply of Twix.
• Steampunk LEGO Naboo Fighter and UK Church of the Jedi

Quotes of the Day

Item 1 comes from a brief (though not brief enough) conversation with a coworker:

Office Simian: Is there a color printer around here?
Me: No, there’s one in Salt Lake
Office Simian: Well, that makes it kind of difficult, doesn’t it?
Me: Not really… if you’re going to be in Salt Lake

Item 2 is from a conversation with :

(4:36:13 PM) : please. kill me.
(4:36:33 PM) : Can I just… wound… you?
(4:36:40 PM) : but..
(4:36:41 PM) : shockpuppet would kill me if I kill you.
(4:36:51 PM) : if you strike me down now i will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
(4:37:45 PM) : I dunno… I can imagine a lot.
(4:39:47 PM) : MORE.
(4:41:53 PM) : But, shockpuppet…
(4:43:39 PM) : yeah. she would really fuck you up.
(4:43:57 PM) : and then she’s have SaraRules to deal with…
(4:44:01 PM) : she’d..
(4:44:12 PM) : in the end it would probably kick off a world war.

Tonight: Scion… and maybe saving the world, after I get home.

Namaste.

Sunday – 20 January 2008
This morning, we got up and breakfast at Noah’s Bagels with Meliko, Cat and Adrienne. After that, we headed back to Meliko and Cat’s apartment to get our gear and get on our way. We made a… somewhat… quick stop at the comic shop around the corner from the apartment. I’m glad I did: I found a Time Trapper ‘Clix.

On to LEGOland! Sweet Mary, mother of God… it was fun! The park was bigger than I expected. We got to pretty much all of the sections, but there are still some things that we’d like to go back and check out. We saw the exhibits. Rode a few rides. Walked. Toured. Shopped. Had a good time.

From there, we headed up to Montrose to meet up with the infamous Tom C., his girlfriend Jo and their roommate, Blair. (, both SaraRules and I hugged him for you. His reaction was worth it.) We went to dinner at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio City. Our waiter looked like an adult Peter Brady (NOT Christopher Knight… but, rather, what Peter Brady would have looked like had “he” grown up). And he wasn’t exactly the most attentive waiter. *sigh* Oh, well. Back to Tom’s to chill and hang out.

Here are today’s pictures… with a warning: After the pictures of SaraRules and Meliko and of Cat and me, there are over 350 pictures in LEGOland.

Human of the Day
Today’s HotD is SaraRules, for putting up with me being a horribly overgrown kid – with a camera – at LEGOland. (Or, as she put it: “It was fun watching you be so excited about being at LEGOland.”)

Time to relax and unwind.

Namaste.

Saturday – 19 January 2008
This morning SaraRules and I got up, observed the hygiene rituals and then headed off to enjoy a few things in the greater L.A. Metro area. But first… on to the nearby Target for a couple of new SD cards for the camera. Next, we went to a bagel shop around the corner from Meliko’s place. I had ham, egg and swiss on a sesame bagel, which was rather good.

And then…Seal Beach. (pictures) We walked down the pier and then walked down on the sand… and a little way into the surf. The ambient temperature was in the mid-60s and the water 57°F, pretty chilly but still okay to stand in (briefly!). There were surfers on the north side of the pier and sunbathers on the south side. And, we even saw one wakeboarder trying to “surf” down a sand dune. He was unsuccessful in all four attempts that we watched. There was no wind, so I didn’t get to fly my kite.

Back to the apartment to meet/pick-up Meliko and then we headed to Messob, an Ethiopian restaurant. The ladies split a vegetarian platter; I had Sigo Wat – a braised beef dish. All of it was good and I understand why it is that SaraRules tries to make this one of her “must go to” places when she’s in L.A.

After lunch, we went to Beverly Hills (cue Axel F) to go to Sprinkles Cupcakes. I had heard them both rave about the cupcakes… and bemoan the fact that there was usually a wait to get in the door. When we got there, we had 20-ish minute wait to get in. That gave us the perfect opportunity to do some people-watching. We weren’t let down. We counted more than “a few” fashion faux-pas and straight-up “fashion don’ts.” Finally, we went inside, ordered our cupcakes and were on our way to…

…Gallery 1988 for Under the Influence: A Tribute to Stan Lee. As cool as the pieces looked online, they were even more impressive in the gallery. If I had the money to do so ($$$), I would have added a couple of pieces to my burgeoning art collection. If you’re in the L.A. area – and are a fan of comic-related art – you should definitely see this exhibit (on display through 01 Feb 08). After looking at the exhibit, we went next door to Golden Apple Comics.

*bliss*

I found some old issues of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, a handful of Legion of Super-Heroes and an Elseworld title that I haven’t seen in a while: Speeding Bullets. Not only that, I picked up a few pieces of plastic crack, including:

• Captain America
• Lex Luthor
• Shadowcat
• Superman Blue
• Triplicate Girl (!)
• Wasp and
• Wonder Girl

Yeah, I was pretty stoked. Back to the car – by way of a nearby Baskin-Robbins – and back to the apartment.

Next up, we’re going to see Cloverfield in a bit.

::: time lapse :::

So, SaraRules, Meliko and I just got back from Cloverfield. It was well-done. Very well done, in many ways… but be warned: It’s shot in Blair Witch cam. Even more so than the second and third Bourne movies. However, the technique was used very effectively in this movie. And the characters were rather believable. And the movie was written with the assumption that the members of the audience actually had functional brains. So… I give the movie a thumbs-up with an okay.

Tomorrow: LEGOland.

Namaste.