Random Access

Sunday – 26 July 2009
SaraRules and I did a little shopping yesterday. I picked up some new gym gear and a few pairs of shorts. Later in the evening, we hung out with shockpuppet, and others for Rib Fest last night. It was a lot of fun.

This morning was a lazy sleep-in day. I woke up and picked up American Psycho again. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten where I stopped reading, so I had to go back and cover about 10 pages again. Then, it was time for breakfast and the first three eps of Wolverine and the X-Men. And then…

Workout
…SaraRules and I went to the gym for a workout:

• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
• Upright Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs
• Sit-ups (decline): 3 sets/20 reps
• Compound Row: 3 sets/12 reps, 125 lbs
• Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/10 reps
• Curls (dumbell, with shoulder press): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Tricep Press (T-bar): 3 sets/15 reps, 80 lbs
• Lunges: 3 sets/10 reps
• Core (plank, side): 3 sets/30 seconds

Weight: 184.5 lbs

Stray Toasters

• Rebecca, Joe or Jim (can’t remember who pondered this with me): It does not seem as though glow sticks have made it onto the “Stuff White People Like” website or book. Yet.
  • In a related note, Stuff Mormons Like is my favorite parody site of the SWPL site.
• I haven’t been G4‘s biggest fan since they became “G4” – I miss the… intelligence and variety, I guess… of TechTV. However, I have to give them props for their coverage of Comic-Con 2009.
• 
• Baptist Leaders Face Challenge on Women’s Roles
• From the “SkyNet is now online…” file: Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
• Taqwacore: Muslim Punk Underground
• This shit is bananas…
  (I still think that MarknTyme should teach this to his band as a stand song.)
• Three reasons Palin’s move might be about money
• After a few days with Safari, I’ve found the transition hasn’t been too bad. There are still a couple of relatively minor things that I miss from Firefox, but nothing yet to make me go kicking and screaming back to it. Yet.
• First, Geoff Johns did a Legion episode of Smallville… and now he’s writing a JSA episode? Hmm…

Namaste.

Saturday – 25 July 2009
For some reason, it feels like a Sunday morning. I can’t really put my finger on “why,” though. It might have to do with the abbreviated work week, but I don’t think that’s it. *shrug* Oh, well… I’m not going to spend too many cycles trying to figure it out.  Instead, I’ll enjoy the “extra” day of relaxation.

Rachel made it to town yesterday; she was stopping over on her way home to California. The s’mores brownies she’d requested were ready shortly after she arrived. Later, she, SaraRules and I went to dinner at Red Iguana; despite living in SLC for over 10 years, I had never eaten there before.  I had the Chimichanga Original with a side of Spanish Rice, both of which were very good.

After dinner, we met up with the usual suspects for Clitorati. Fortunately, sent out a message letting us know that Borders was closing early for Pioneer Day… because SaraRules and I went by Thursday evening to investigate any signs of an early closure and there were none. *shakes fist* So, when Borders closed for the evening, we headed to Barnes and Noble, instead. It was a good change of pace. It’s also a change that we might make a more regular occurrence.

This morning, SaraRules, Rachel and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and eggs (fixed by Ms. ‘Rules). After breakfast, Rachel got back on her westward trek.

Stray Toasters

• NECA Gets Wizkids (and we’re awaiting more news about the deal and what it means for the game)
• Obama Tries to Defuse Gates Controversy
• I’m surprised no one thought of – or did – this sooner: Tom Hanks Trash Can
• Sports of the Times: Chugging Along, His Ego in Tow
• Are RAID Controllers the Next Data Center Bottleneck?
• 
• From NPR Music: Allen Toussaint: The Road Through America
• Bennett signs one-year deal with receiver-needy Ravens after tryout
• The Best First Language for a Young Programmer
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!” file: Dead Goat Polo Arcade Game
• 
• iPhone 3Gs Encryption Cracked in Two Minutes
• Star Wars: In Concert, narrated (live) by Anthony Daniels

Namaste.

Wednesday – 22 July 2009
Last night, after dinner, I crashed on the sofa for about an hour. Crashed. And the fact that I made it through dinner was a feat of willpower in itself. I was that tired. After waking up, I felt better and then proceeded to just lounge around for the rest of the evening.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
In a rare – but not unprecedented – instance, Craig Ferguson had a bit of a rant last night in his… pre-monologue:

Intersting… and rather insightful, too.

Stray Toasters

• I’m giving Firefox a break and taking Safari on an extended test drive. So far, so good.
• From NPR Music: Lee Fields: Soul Survivor
• By way of : World of Warcraft movie: From computer screen to the big screen, with Spider-Man’s Sam Raimi to direct
• The View from the Middle: Javier Grillo-Marxuach
  • Part 2 of the interview was posted this morning.

  

• If advertisers were supervillains, or vice-versa
• The ground floor of my new ‘Clix building is complete. At some point, I’ll finish off the second story.
• Guide to Pirate Parenting
• Sussex cops try to supress publication of damning traffic-cam photos by claiming copyright
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Commissioned paintings using ashes of dead person
• Explain emergency, Musharraf told
• 
• Intergalactic Playground: engrossing, insightful history of sf aimed at kids
• Also from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: PowerPoint considered militarily harmful

Tonight: High Noon, with Gary Cooper. (“Super duper…!”) ¹

Namaste.

¹ – Bonus points for anyone who can identify this reference.

Tuesday – 21 July 2009
Apparently, the seventeenth fourth time is the charm. The water pump is in and things seem to be as expected.

After getting the car, SaraRules and I went out to Hobby Lobby and IKEA. Our trip to the Garden of Sweden came after learning that a sofa we were considering, Varnamo,  had been discontinued; we went in search of a suitable alternative. We think that we found it in the KARLSTAD series.

Back at home, I finished up the first floor of my ‘Clix house… only to discover that the plan we’d come up with for the second floor wasn’t going to work. *sigh* Back to the literal drawing board. After moving a staircase here and a wall there, I think that things will pan out pretty well.

Stray Toasters

• The Park City Kimball Arts Festival is a week-and-a-half away.  Who’s up for a Sunday excursion?
• Rachel’s coming to town Friday and has requested that I make S’mores Brownies.
• Magazine Writes New Rules for Polite Digital Society
• The 10 Worst Evolutionary Designs
• Barnes and Noble to Create an E-book Megacenter
• From last night’s The Late Late Show: Fireball XL-5

• Deal reached to close California’s $26B Budget Gap
• I just had an apostrophe epiphany. Julie and I were discussing shows we watched while growing up and (for whatever reason) Gilligan’s Island came up. We were talking about it for a minute or two when I realized: Gilligan’s Island was the Lost of the 1960s.
• …and, somehow, remembering that reminded me of Gilligan’s Planet. *shiver*
• sent me a link to: Palin’s Resignation: The Edited Version
• My name is Prince
  And I am funky
  When it comes to funk
  I am a junkie
• Glasgow steampunk fair at the world’s oldest music hall, the Panopticon

Namaste.

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

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

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

“Is this for a personal project?”

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

  

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

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

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

I should eat something now, for I hunger.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 08 July 2009
The work week is half over. Selah.

Tonight is Corps Encore in Ogden; I don’t think that I’ll be attending this year.

Stray Toasters

• I have a couple of new building designs in mind for ‘Clix.
• SaraRules posted a couple of interesting links:
  • ViewMaster Wedding Invitations
  • Nothing will stop… THE WEDDING
• 
• By way of Eric: Quote of the Day: Walter Williams on Slavery
  Don’t forget to click on the “Click here” link at the end of the post – it’s worth it.
• Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice
• From comes: Why Just 2 Seconds of Transformers 2 Took 3 Months to Complete
• Casting Caution Aside as Violetta
• Senator Hatch suggests Justice Department look at BCS
• Monkeys recognize ‘bad grammar’, not to be confused with Nelly’s Country Grammar

• From NPR Music: Summer Road Trip: Songs for Speed and Spirit
• Guerilla swimming pools made from dumpsters
• Five Things Google’s Chrome OS Will Do for Your Netbook

Namaste.

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

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

Sunday – 05 July 2009
Yesterday was another mostly lazy day in the valley. I slept in (a little) and then made my way into the living room, where I started reading American Psycho. I’m only 20 or so pages in, but I’m enjoying it so far. After SaraRules woke up, we had breakfast and headed to the gym:

• Leg Extensions: 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs
• Leg Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs
• Glutes (Kick-backs): 3 sets/10 reps, 70 lbs
• Flys: 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/15 reps, 160 lbs
• Lat Pull-downs: 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Forward Lat Raises (w/ rotation to the side): 3 sets/10 reps, 15 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Sit-ups (decline): 3 sets/15 reps

On the way home, we stopped at SaraRules’ parents’ so that she could get a recipe for coffee cake. (More on this below.) We had a lazy aftenoon. For dinner, we headed to Outback Steakhouse – I had been craving Aussie Cheese Fries and decided to fulfill that desire. They – and the rest of dinner (prime rib, salad, baked potato) – were just what the doctor ordered.

We headed up to Eastwood Elementary School to watch the Sugar House Park fireworks display. When we returned home, SaraRules put in Clash by Night, featuring a pre-The Big Valley Barbara Stanwyck as well as Marilyn Monroe.  I was distracted/put off by some of the storyline, but it was a decent movie.

I’m not sure what I want to do today. I have an option on playing ‘Clix with Chris and , but I’m not sure that I’m in the mood for it. (I know…!) I wouldn’t mind playing a little City, either. Or even Marvel Ultimate Alliance. And there are a couple of new ‘Clix building designs running through my head that I need to get onto paper, too.

The Best: The Man Who Sold the World
David Bowie vs. Nirvana vs. Lulu

David Bowie released this song in 1970. And it was good.
Lulu, possibly best known in the States for To Sir, With Love, did a cover in 1974.
Nirvana, a band I’ve never really been a fan of, covered the song in 1993.

I’ve liked the Bowie version since I first heard it, many moons ago.
I thought that the Nirvana cover was… decent, but didn’t really do anything “different” to put their own spin on it.
I heard the Lulu version yesterday, for the first time.

My rankings for the versions:

1. David Bowie
2. Nirvana (I know, this surprises me, too.)
3. Lulu

Stray Toasters

• Former NFL QB Steve McNair found shot to death
  • Baltimore Ravens respond to the news
  • Titans Coach, Jeff Fisher, comments
    
• Getting a summer job: Entrepreneurship for teens
• Fritz Lang directed Clash by Night. He also directed Metropolis, which I own and still need to watch the last forty or so minutes of.
• Personal details of new UK spy chief on Facebook
• It’s snake-eyes for Atlantic City for time being
• I am three weeks behind on Four-Color Coverage.
  This is both an observation… and a warning.
• Disney World monorail crash kills driver
• Michael Jackson book a headache for Jackie O
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Insane Sarah Palin, Late at Night on July 4, Threatens to Sue Entire Internet

Namaste.

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

• Nine reasons to celebrate America
• Schoolhouse Rock! Fireworks

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

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

Namaste.

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

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

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

Post-workout weight: 185.4 lbs

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

  
  (click image for larger version)

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

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

Namaste.

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

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

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

Namaste.

Monday – 22 June 2009
As it’s the beginning of a new work week, Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders might say:

Oh, back on the chain gang…

But, as Mr. Rogers would say:

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

So, it’s something of a wash.

I’m not sure what is on tap for this morning – or this week – yet, but hopefully there’s nothing too maddening coming down the pike. Tonight, however, is Bad Movie Night with Chris and Mary. We haven’t done one of those in a while, so it should be fun.

Stray Toasters

• Friday, in a move that comes under the heading of “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” I reallocated a work asset – a 42″ television – as a temporary monitor. There is actually a method to the madness, as I’m using it to prove a couple of points:
  1. We’ve been having some questions about our response time to some requests. I’m using the new large screen to keep a list of such requests visible all day,
  2. The television has been sitting – unused – for the past few months. We’ve been asked to see how/where we can use resources in different ways to maximize our overall effectiveness… so, really, I’m just following orders.

  Now, I’m waiting for the-powers-that-be to get into the office and comment on my “creative solution.”

• Same-sex weddings, heartland style
• Art Canvases That Include Shag Carpet
• Mayo Clinic Announces Dramatic Outcomes in Prostate Cancer Treatment
• Check out Back to the Cave, The-Blackcat’s take on Batman… as father to three Robins and a Bat-Baby.
• Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort
• Vocabulary 101:
  • lightning
    1. the flashing of light produced by a discharge of atmospheric electricity ; also : the discharge itself
    2. a sudden stroke of fortune
  • lightening
    1. to make light or clear : illuminate
    2. archaic : enlighten
    3. to make (as a color) lighter

  lightning != lightening

• California’s Solution to $24 Billion Budget Gap Is Going to Bring Some Pain
  
• 
• Pilot buries helicopter crash survivor in sand
• Iranian Guards Issue Warning as Vote Errors Are Admitted
• SSN Required to Buy Palm Pre

Paul came over and saw my new upgrade. After asking if I was trying to cause problems, I informed him that all of this was actually HIS fault: When I asked him about doing this back in April, he just laughed… but he never said “No.” And then, he actually asked to look at one of the items being displayed on the task list. I think that means that I’ve justified one point and proven another. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Namaste.

Friday – 19 June 2009
Good Juneteenth to all.

…and a belated Happy Birthday to sister-in-law-to-be Meliko:

I ate something – I have a pretty good idea of what it was at this point – on Wednesday that seriously did not agree with me. I’m Ivory Soap sure that I’ve spent more time looking at the walls (and shower curtain and pictures and towels and… and… and…) in the bathroom in the past two days than I have in the past two weeks. This has definitely come under the heading of “not fun.” On the flip side, when I weighed myself this morning, I was down to 180.5 lbs; so apparently there was a nominally “positive” side effect.

Yesterday, our company held a little shindig for our most-recent software release. There was a cook-out in a park down in Utah County and a “team-building” exercise – the new Star Trek movie. It was as much time the third time as it was the first two times I saw it. And I managed to catch two Easter eggs that I had previously missed: Scotty’s tribble and the reference to “Cadet Vader.” I did not, however, see the R2-D2 in the debris field over Vulcan. Oh, well, just something to look forward to when the DVD comes out.

Stray Toasters

• It rained again in the valley yesterday, just a trace amount here (Utah County apparently got the lion’s share of the rain), bringing us to thirteen (13) days of rain. Two more days and I would have started building an ark. We’re supposed to get a reprieve today, but possibly more rain this weekend.
• is at Wizard World Philly. (I’m only slightly jealous…) She’s been messaging me with not-quite-play-by-play of some of the goings-on while waiting to go inside.
• Proposed tire label could improve gas savings
• A couple of items for :
  • IGN Video: Metroid: Other M
  • Well-Suited, Well, Lit: Phazon Suit Samus
• Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns
• Florida town orders employees to wear underwear and cover wounds
• All US one-time expenditures vs the bailout

  

• Adopt a Classroom
• On NPR this morning, there was an item about Iran’s Supreme Leader, The Ayatollah. That triggered something in my head that made me think of Cobra‘s Supreme Commander, Serpentor. Every time they said “Supreme Leader,” The picture of Iran’s top religious leader parading around in a tacky snake suit popped into my head. That made me laugh… every time.
• Washington is morphing into a pretty cool district
• What happens when a pilot dies?
• A few Top 10 lists from Wired’s GeekDad:
  • Top 10 (More) Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument
  • Top 10 Ways You Know You’re Married to a GeekDad
  • 10 Internet Memes You Can Share with Your Kids – And a Bunch You Can’t
    
• Lift off for NASA’s lunar probes
• The name game: Tracing the etymology of game character names

Namaste.

Wednesday – 17 June 2009
Midweek. It’s already been raining/drizzling this morning, bringing our “Days of Rain” total to twelve. Yep… it’s about time to start measuring things in cubits.

Our robot overlords protectors are offering free heatlh screenings this morning. One of the announcement emails said that we should fast for eight hours before getting our screening. Ordinarily, that would be fine. However, this means that I haven’t had any caffeination yet. That holds a potential for danger to the general populace. I forgot that today, Sushi and Comics Wednesday, was the same day as the screenings. I came in to see if I could reschedule my appointment for earlier, so that I didn’t eat before getting my screening… only to find out that they can do/could have done it after I eat. *sigh*

Stray Toasters

• Every so often, Julie (our Property Manager and unofficial “Distinguished IT Admin”) and I wind up wearing similar outfits on the same day.  Today is no exception: We’re both in black slacks and light blue shirts; I’m wearing a tie, though.
• US to Extend Its Job Benefits to Gay Partners
• Windows 7 Licensing a “Disaster” for XP Shops
• Green Lantern: First Flight comes out in (just over) a month.
• 
• Kids lose summer break due to impenetrable bureaucratic mess
• Natal Technology a Gift to the Disabled, Amputees

Namaste.

SaraRules and I headed to the gym this evening, after dinner (and episodes of NCIS and Wolverine and the X-Men). We did a routine that she put together:

• Leg Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 140 lbs
• Kick-backs: 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs
• Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps – 1 set @ 100 lbs, 2 sets @ 120 lbs
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 190 lbs
• Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/15 reps, 140 lbs
• Flys: 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Decline Sit-ups: 3 sets/10 reps
• Reverse Flys (Dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs
• “Arnold” Press (Dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Upright Row (Barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 50 lbs
• Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs

Post-workout weight: 189.1 lbs

Stray Toasters

• Art show fracas in Russia
• Moving Day
• How Our Game Platforms Will Change in 2009
• , get ready – Team Ninja Gets Back in Game with Metroid: Other M for Wii
• Small LEGO Zombie Canvases
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Icelandic Phallological Museum
• By way of – 10 Awesome Tools to Get More Out of Wikipedia
• I watched Jonny Quest earlier. There’s been talk of a live-action Jonny Quest movie… and I’m not sure that I’m looking forward to it. I’m leery of it because I fear that they’ll dumb it down to make it “safe” and “palatable” for the masses.
• Master the Art of Web Commuting
• Senators wonder aloud if only AT&T should be able to sell the iPhone
• Giant Burning Holes of the World

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.