Random Access

This morning’s meeting was not a complete waste – they showed of a couple of projects that one team has been working on that looked pretty cool. Other than that, I would refer to it in the same manner that I once referred to a meeting at the USPS: “upper management ego masturbation.”

I didn’t know what I wanted for lunch. I was on the fence, leaning towards Pho, when JoeT said that he was going for lunch, too. The only problem: He didn’t know what he wanted, either. We opted to head to Dask’s for gyros. Good call.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules sent me a link to Americans for the Arts ads. That, in turn, led me to the following banners:

  

  

  

• Woman sues Victoria’s Secret Over Injury from Defective Thong
  You can find more information about this on CNN – an item about it aired on Headline News while JoeT and I were at lunch. And it raises a few questions for me:
  • If the panties were “defective,” why refuse to let VS’ attorney look at them?
  • Were they “defective” because she bought them 2 sizes too small?
  • Had she worn them before without a “wardrobe malfunction?”
• ‘Geek Girl’ helps keep Mozilla safe in scary times
• 
• Easy Ways to Save Money on Gas
• Does anyone remember Skate or Die or its follow-up, Ski or Die?
• Dale Mathis’ Clockworkpunk Executive Desk

/break

Actress and singer Cyd Charisse has died; she was 86 years old. She is best known for performing in a number of movies with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire…

…but my recollections of her come mostly from the video for Janet Jackson’s Alright, in which she dances briefly with Janet (around the 3:00 mark):

Obituary, by way of BBC News

asked if I had seen this article:

GOP convention button asks, ‘If Obama is president…will we still call it the White House?’

I hadn’t… but, my first thought was “People. Chainguns.”

I shared the link with , whose response was a simple: “nice, they’ve completely given up subtlety”

I think that sums it up nicely.

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.

The day has been pretty good. The highlight (at least so far) was heading to ‘s house with looneybin88 and JG to play a few games of Twilight Zone pinball at lunch. Other than that, it’s been a rather run-of-the-mill day in the neighborhood.
(…in the neighborhood…)
(…in the neigh-bor-hood.)

Not sure what trouble I plan on getting into this evening. Maybe a trip to Paragon City… or *gasp* even The Rogue Isles.

Stray Toasters

• 10 Awesome Shirts for Geeks
• From the world of golf: After 19 Extra Holes, Woods Captures His Third U.S. Open
• Stan Winston Dies
• By way of : Death of Spock Mash-up

• …which led me to: William Shatner or…

• Hulk vs. The Universe
• I’ve rediscovered Exiern



• How to improve your home wi-fi network
• was on a roll today: He told us about a video of a teenager kicking a cement wall… and the aftermath. As neither looneybin88 nor I had heard of this, let alone seen the video, he sent us a link to it. (Disclaimer: If you’re squeamish, you may just want to skip this one. Seriously.)

• Top Ten: Comics’ Bad Dads
• Wizard World Chicago…
• Wait… wait… wait. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2? And it may be a Civil Bore War storyline? Not sure how I feel about that.

Quotes of the Day
Today’s gems both came at lunchtime and qualify as “Unintentional Porn Overheard While Playing Pinball”

1. looneybin88 was on the machine… and doing quite well. He made a play that resulted in playing with three pinballs on the table. (You have no idea how many permutations that last sentence went through before I came up with something that wasn’t porn-tastic.) Someone commented on his making a good play and the rest of the conversation went down the proverbial chute:
   

   Me: Sun. Dog. Ass. (My usual ‘shorthand’ for “The sun shines on a dog’s ass, too…”)
   looneybin88: What can I say? I got skills!
   : You have skills… with a dog’s ass? I’m calling animal control.

   At that point, all three balls left the field of play as looneybin88 doubled-over, red-faced and laughing.

2. All of us had a horrible third game… except JG. When he was coming to the table to play his second ball, he looked at our scores and said:
   

   Huh, all I have to do is beat myself.

   The rest of us looked at each other… and broke out in raucous laughter. JG, to his credit, stoically kept playing.

And now, to find some trouble to get into.

Namaste.

Sunday: Coda
Back in the USSR Land Behind the Zion Curtain. I made it back in a little over six hours, including two stops. That’s not bad, considering that I was only a few (usually 3 -5) miles over the posted limit. I saw a prairie dog, just inside the Utah state line. I also saw one on the way to Colorado, but forgot about it until I saw the one this afternoon.

Jiggety-jig.

Sunday – 15 June 2008
Happy Father’s Day

This morning started lazily. SaraRules made sauteed spaghetti and coffee for breakfast. (By the way: Drew, I did get the recipe.) Rachel hung out through breakfast and then went out for a hike. Next up: Hygiene rituals and a spot of laundry.

I’ll be heading west again in a couple of hours. It has been a good (though brief) trip – it was nice to see SaraRules and some of the places that she has talked about for the past few weeks. I’m going to try and get back out here sometime next month, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

A couple of shots from the front porch of the condo:

(click for larger versions)

Stray Toasters

• Last night, we watched Across the Universe again. We’ve been trying to see this for a couple of months. I love the arrangements of the songs… and I had forgotten how much I liked the arrangement of Let It Be. And the visuals are great, as well. If you have somehow not seen this movie, I strongly recommend renting it. Soon.
• Congrats to and Team Chalk-o-Licious for winning “Best of Festival” at this year’s Chalk Art Festival.
• The Things That Carried Him – This is a story that I first heard about on RadioWest a few months ago. It tells the story of a U.S. soldier’s final journey – the journey home to be buried. It’s a pretty amazing story. Hearing the interview with the author, Chris Jones, made me look forward to getting that issue of Esquire.
• This American Hero Wins Machinima Contest
• By way of BBC News: The United States of Advertising
• What the iPhone 3G Is Still Missing
• I’m not going to get my entry for “Superman: Man of Style” done in time to submit it to Project: Rooftop… but I’m going to keep working on it. Because I can. And because it’s been pretty fun.
• William Katt: The Hero Guest Stars on Heroes

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

SaraRules and I headed into Aspen this afternoon.  We went to the Aspen Music Festival and School campus.  From there, it was into town to the Aspen Art Museum and to wander around; it reminded me a bit of Park City – a decent place to visit, but I don’t think I could live in either place. Next, we headed to the Aspen Music Festival concert grounds.  And then… back to Snowmass Village.  Jiggety-jig.

All that and pictures, too.

Stray Toasters

• Sock Monkey Named for Obama Criticized as Racist
• 3G iPhone coverage from…
  • Gizmodo
  • Engadget
• Shakespeare… in manga form: Much ado about manga.
• Sweet Christmas!

Zoom!

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.

13 June 2008
Greetings from Snowmass Village.

As it had been almost three weeks since I’d seen SaraRules, I decided that a trip was in order. I had originally planned on taking the train out here, but Amtrak apparently decided that this was the weekend to do track maintenance. So, no go. *blah* We looked at other methods of getting me here: Airplane. Bus. ICBM. We finally settled on me coming out next week. Okay, to say that “we” settled on it, isn’t exactly right. We said that it seemed as though it would be next week before I would be out here. In the back of my head, I was calculating the mileage and planning to just hop in the car and drive it. And that’s exactly what I did. Hello, surprise visit. The hard part, as usual, would be making sure that I – or anyone else who knew what I was planning – didn’t tip my hand.

Fortunately, as most of my work for the past few weeks has been training-related (i.e.: LOTS of reading) – and since books are rather portable – I was able to parlay that into working on the road. The drive out here was rather nice, despite a few construction zones in both Utah and Colorado.

I have driven through Colorado twice before – when I moved to Utah and again a couple of years ago – but, both of those trips were east-to-west. And, both of those trips were along I-70, so I’m… familiar… with the road. But, I noticed things heading eastbound that I hadn’t seen before. And, I also stopped in a different part of Grand Junction than usual.

Before last night, I had never seen more of Glenwood Springs than what you get from I-70. That’s a shame. The part of it that I drove through last night seemed nice… for a small town. And, from what SaraRules has told me, the cost of living here is still a little higher than SLC, but not quite as bad as in Aspen.

The drive into Snowmass Village wasn’t bad. Until I got “to” the condo complex where AMFS is lodging SaraRules for the summer. Apparently they don’t believe in putting street signs in locations where you can see them easily, especially at night. I drove right past the entrance. I continued all the way up to Snowmass Village Town Center, which I knew to be too far. *sigh* Turn around and drive back towards Aspen. Fortunately, I was able to see the sign for SaraRules’ complex this time. Turned in, found the building, parked.

The look of surprise on SaraRules’ face – a combination of “I’m glad to see you” and “What are YOU… doing HERE… NOW?!” – was worth the drive. We unpacked the car and I got to relax. I also met her roommate, Rachel. The condo itself is nice: 2BR/2BA, nice kitchen and living/dining areas. It’s roughly the size of my apartment, maybe a little bigger. And one of the owners has a thing for bears. Pictures. Figures. I am almost at the point of wondering if she’s a shaman and it’s her spirit guide.

Today’s biggest hurdle was getting Defiant (in Windows mode) to recognize that there really was a wireless connection, so I could connect to work’s network and do some morning housekeeping. In OSX mode, it found it immediately. A few button-pushes later and I was in like Flynn.

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with MarknTyme a little while ago; there have apparently been a couple of teen phone pr0n incidents in his school system.
• 3 Smart Things About Music
• The Onion has news about the new WoW sequel: World of World of Warcraft
• Adoption system seen failing kids from minorities
• A question to those of you who use laptop/notebook computers: If/when you connect to a secondary monitor, how do you configure your setup? For example, I use Defiant‘s monitor as my primary monitor, whereas uses his laptop’s screen as his secondary. What do you do?
• Egypt bans 92-year-old’s marriage
• 
• I still have no idea who I want to use in next weekend’s ‘Clix tourney… although I still think that Phoenix would be fun as a power piece.



• Celtics stun Lakers to move to brink of title
• Leonardo DiCaprio as Captain America…? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be upset if they went with an unknown here, to be honest.
• Internet addiction nominated for entry in the Manual of Mental Disorders
• Hmm, maybe Gary Gygax was “a little” older than he let on…
• For :

Two cups of coffee into the game, I can make like Tom Sawyer and get “…right on to the friction of the day.”

Namaste.

Derek read the article in my earlier post about teens sending naked pics of themselves via their cellphones and had this to say:

(3:07) cell phone porn…. wtf did you expect people
(3:07) the phone has a camera on it
(3:07) not to mention the internet

(3:09) and if the kids were smart, they would do it on their nintendo wii, because they only need 1 hand to operate that 🙂

I don’t think that there’s anything that I could even attempt to add to that… other than to say “Quote of the Day.”

Thursday – 12 June 2008
So far the day goes well. That’s always a good thing.

<< Rewind <<
Last night, I was unbelievably lazy. I’d planned to do some straightening around the apartment. Nope. Didn’t happen. I think that the closest I came was putting the Sentinel in the case behind Phoenix… and then deciding that I liked the way Phoenix looked alone on the shelf better.

I did play City of Heroes, though. Not only did I play, I tacked two-and-a-half levels onto Kurigari. I hooked up with a good team and we ran through a few missions in The Hollows. It’s still a crappy zone for ground-pounders, but at least I’m less than two levels away from Superspeed. (Hover and Flight just don’t fit this character, so I’m not using them.)

I also watched Justice League Unlimited and ST: DS9, along with a couple of episodes of L&O: SVU. Decent episodes of each show: “Chaos at Earth’s Core,” “Emissary, Part II” and… I don’t remember which SVU episodes.

One thing that’s not a win: I’m remembering why I don’t watch G4’s Attack of the Show with any regularity. I keep comparing it – unfavorably – to The Screen Savers. TSS was a good show, you got tech news and info… with a little levity thrown in on the side. But the humour was smart and witty. AotS… just seems to go for the quick/cheap laugh or thrill and throw in something technical for fun or as an afterthought. Or maybe I’m no longer part of their core demographic.

> Play >
Coffee is a wonderful thing.
Coffee cake would be a nice addition… but I don’t have any.

Stray Toasters

• I have a doughnut. It’s not coffee cake, but beggars should not choosers be.
• Dinosaur
• By way of Indexed:



• Thanks to for pointing out Religulous. I’m interested in seeing this.
• Teens sending nekkid pics of themselves on cell phones! Oh, my! We never saw this coming, did we? Not in a million years. Apparently, Utah news sources are jumping on the bandwagon. Let’s hope that this doesn’t go over the same way as “the emo epidemic” did.
• …of course, then there’s this: Health group denounces Incredible Hulk for smoking
  Because, Heaven knows that kids would never see anyone smoking out on the street or anywhere else in everyday life. Flaming idiotsticks.
• 
• I’m spoiled. I had to change out a workstation’s power supply… with a manual screwdriver rather than a drill/driver.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Man in court over comedy TV show
• Trial halted over judge’s website

The show must go on.

Namaste.

Hello, knee-jerk reaction: Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint to Block Usenet

Wednesday – 11 June 2008

That’s representative of today’s weather in Salt Lake City. The forecast says that we should even break 60°F. Considering that Monday’s high was 80°F, I’m not overly enthused. I shouldn’t complain too much: SaraRules said that there was snow in Aspen this morning.

The morning has been relatively uneventful. So far.

Last night’s Scion game was fun. No one died. Correction: “No one from our group died.” A few otherwise-innocent bystanders? Well… um… oops.

Stray Toasters

• called me this morning to relate the following story: She heard someone (on the radio, I believe) singing a song called If You Could Hie to Kolob…to the tune of the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies. I was intrigued by this. I looked up the lyrics and hummed the theme to myself. It worked. Beautifully, at that.
• If you’re unfamiliar with “Kolob,” click here for more information.
• Thanks to for pointing out the following t-shirt/bumper sticker:

  

• I took some… creative license… with a couple of HALO 3 screenshots a few months ago, but neglected to post them:

  
  (click images for larger size)

• Time travel back to 1000 A.D. : Survival Tips
• Loonybin88 sent me a link to this:

• My friend Jonni has posted a new song on his MySpace page: End of Alone. Check it out.

Namaste.

Today is Kris’ birthday. I called her this morning… but didn’t get an answer. I tried again this afternoon with much better success.

After work, I headed home to change clothes and have a bite to eat.

Next up: Scion… for the first time in nearly two months.

Workout
Today’s workout wasn’t too bad… considering that it’s been a week since I was last in the gym.

• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
• Flys (Nautilus, high-to-low): 3 sets/12 reps – 1 set @ 95 lbs, 2 sets @ 110 lbs
• Bent-over Rows (barbell): 3 sets/12 reps – 1 set @ 55 lbs, 2 sets at 70 lbs
• Bench Dips: 3 sets/15 reps – 1 set with 40 lb dumbbell, 1 set with 45 lb plate
• Lateral Raises (with forward extensions x3): 3 sets/4 reps – 2 sets @ 15 lbs, 1 set @ 8 lbs
• Push-ups: 1 set/10 reps

Post-workout weight: 175.6 lbs

Stray Toasters

• Terence Stamp talks Valkyrie and Superman II
• …which reminds me: General Zod – 2008 Presidential Candidate

  

• Best and Worst-Dressed in Sci-Fi
• “Genuine Leather”



• How… HOW… in the Nine Hells do you manage to hit yourself in the head with a nail gun?!
• Edo Period-style Pac-Man fan art
• Giger-esque furniture from old motorbikes

Namaste.