Random Access

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.

Monday: Coda
The work day wasn’t too bad. It was fairly quiet, so aside from dousing a couple of small fires, I got some reading done. I also stayed a little later at work than I had originally planned, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I may put in a few extra hours tomorrow and Wednesday so that I can shave a few hours off the PTO I am taking.

Workout

• Chin-ups: 3 sets/10 reps
• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Incline Bench Press: 3 sets/12 reps @ 135 lbs.
• Curls (standing, hammer grip): 3 sets/10 reps @ 30 lbs
• Bench Dips: 3 sets/15 reps (with additional 25 lb plate in the lap)
• Decline Bench Press (wide grip): 3 sets/10 reps (1 set @ 135, 2 sets @ 155)
• Pull-overs: 3 sets/10 reps @ 45 lbs.

Today’s weight: 171.0 lbs

Stray Toasters

• I upgraded the back-end of WordPress to 2.3.3 today. It went much more smoothly than the 2.3.2 upgrade/debacle.
• In a related note: Over the past few weeks, I have been weighing the pros and cons of moving all commenting to my main site, rather than splitting it between LiveJournal and my site. At this point, I’m Ivory Soap sure that I’ll be making that move in the next week or two. Consider this your friendly, neighborhood “warning shot across the bow.”
• Tertiary note: I have been relocating some pictures in the gallery in a manner that (hopefully) makes more sense. If you find that a picture is no longer where you once found it, let me know and I’ll (try to) point you in the right direction.
• sent a couple of new pictures of Grace; click here to see them.
• I took a few new pictures of my new display case and its contents.
• 
• The 20 Worst Foods in America
• Newsarama had a few interesting articles today:
  • Geoff Johns re-ups with DC Comics
  • Sterling Gates on the Alpha Lanterns in GLC
  • The Q: What brought you in?
• By way of BoingBoing: Which Book Should Neil Gaiman Post Online for Free?
• ThunderLOLcats

I should have called it a night long ago. Time to rectify that.

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.

Friday – 01 February 2008
Welcome to Black History Month.

(from http://pioneer.utah.gov)

Last night, I had dinner with Land at Biaggi’s. I haven’t eaten there in… over a year. I had the Chicken Marsala entree; it was quite good and very filling. I think that I saw the waiter who waited on us the first time that and I ate there… I think. But, I’m not sure. Fortunately, we had a different waiter and he was good – he was a little slow in bringing our drinks at first, but once he got going, he was rather attentive. After dinner, I ran a few errands then headed home.

I slept in a little this morning. Not much. Just enough. And it was good. A quick stop at the SLC office and then I was on my way to AF.

Things were fairly quiet in AF. Selah.
The lunchtime workout was a repeat of Tuesday’s workout.
I weighed in today at 172.0 pounds. (Wow.)

City of Heroes: The Hand of Nefer-Tem
I put in a couple of hours in Paragon City. Not quite enough to hit Security Level 40, but it got me a good portion of the way there. I should – hopefully – be able to get there by the end of the weekend.

Next weekend is another Double XP Weekend event. Double XP == good.

Stray Toasters

• I need to replenish the Twix and Butterfinger stores in my AF desk drawer o’ goodies.
• Eric and I just figured out who one of our coworkers reminds us of: Homsar.
• The Internet may (or may not) be a series of tubes, but this is.
• With John Edwards out of the race, commentators on this morning’s Diane Rehm Show speculated as to whether we could possibly see an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket in the Fall…
• Microsoft wants to buy the flagging Yahoo! Interesting.
• Microsoft is also doing a webcomic: Heroes Happen Here
• Frozen Grand Central – the latest prank from Improv Everywhere.
• 
• sent me a link to this. O.o

Time to make like the cast of The Wiz (Broadway) and Ease on Down the Road.

Namaste.

Thursday – 31 January 2008
After a few post-work errands, I holed up in the apartment and waited for the MythBusters “Plane on a Conveyor Belt” episode. It was good. They did a couple of other interesting experiments, including a test to see whether cockroaches would truly be able to survive a nuclear war.

After that, I logged into City of Heroes to see if anyone from the SG was on and to try and get closer to Security Level 40. I found one SG member on, but he was helping people with the Katie Hannon task force. I looked around for a while, but didn’t find anything else that looked promising, so I logged out.

I started reading some of yesterday’s four-color goodness. Even the “low priority” reads were good. When reading a week’s comic haul, I usually read books starting with the “little-to-waning interest” group and finishing up with the “warm, happy place” books. After all, why start off big only to work your way down to “Wow… that was completely craptacular,” when you can go the other way and (usually) end on a good note.

Somewhere in the middle of reading Fantastic Four, I konked out.
For the night.
On the sofa.
Again.

I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

I prepped for work in a fairly leisurely manner, including taking the time to brew a pot of coffee and to enjoy a bowl of Honeycomb before heading off to face the day. And I remembered to bring my coffee to work this morning. Go, me.

The work day hasn’t been too bad. I discovered that I needed to reconfigure one of my MCSE test machines. Oh, well. I’ll probably wind up adding (yet) another machine to that group, so that I don’t have to keep reformating and installing an OS on the secondary box.

Stray Toasters

• I stumbled upon a new webcomic last night: Looking for Group. If you’re a gamer – and if you have an eye/ear for pop culture references – you might enjoy this one.
• VideoJug – Life Explained. On film.
• PHP. I need to get back into that.
• 20×200
• By way of : Election 2008 – Issues
• There is apparently a SWAT stand-off in Utah County. Not terribly far from the south office, as the crow flies, that is.
• 
• In addition to wanting to redo Queen videos with Disney movies, I am having the urge to make a “video” for Red Sector A using my X-Men MiniMates, some LEGO minifigs and my Sentinel.
• From Apple.com: Robert J. Lang – The Art and Science of Paper Folding

And stuff.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 29 January 2008
Last night, after the ordeal of the afternoon commute – it took about 75 minutes to get from AF to SLC – thanks to post-storm, near-whiteout conditions – and finishing out my day I went home and watched the State of the Union address. I had a few things go through my mind as I was watching:

1. When GW turned his head a certain way, he reminded me of Johnny Carson.
2. I don’t get why the Peanut Gallery Congress feels the urge/need to give a standing ovation for some of the most mundane bullet point items in a speech. It reminded me more of a pep rally than a presidential speech when they did it… even though I’ve seen it many times before.
3. I wound up watching the C-Span broadcast, because I got tired of the way the networks would always try to find Senator X, Y or Z for a “reaction shot” whenever GW was applauded for a particular note – especially Senators Obama and Clinton.
4. I want to download a transcript of this speech and – over the course of the next year – see how many of the stated/proposed items come to fruition.

After the speech, I took the Hand of Nefer-Tem on a field trip to Paragon City. I hooked up with members of my SG and we took on The Council and the Circle of Thorns. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I not only racked up the points I needed to make Security Level 39, but got about… 4.2 bubbles on the way to Level 40.

I stopped playing a little before midnight. I stretched out on the couch with the intent of watching a little TV before calling it a night. I was out in less than ten minutes. I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t even five minutes.

Next thing I know, it was 5:00 AM.
I stretched… and nodded off again.

Phone alarm. 6:15. Ignored.

I finally managed to leave the gates of The Dreaming at 8:00. I got up and started the day.

I headed to the SLC office to take care of a few things. Then on to the AF office… and the gym. Today’s workout was good (but a little short):

• Bench press: 3 sets/8 reps (2 sets @ 205 lbs; 1 set/7 reps @ 205 lbs, 3 reps @ 185 lbs)
• Rows (cable): 3 sets/12 reps @ 120 lbs
• Shoulder press (seated, dumbbell): 3 sets/12 reps @ 40 lbs
• Bent-over row: 3 sets/10 reps per arm @ 35 lbs
• Curls (cable): 3 sets/10 reps @ 50 lbs

And, when I did my weigh-out: 169.4 lbs, which is down from Thursday’s 169.8. I’m not necessarily trying to hit 170 lbs, but I won’t cry if I do.

The Best: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Gladys Knight & The Pips vs. Marvin Gaye vs. Creedence Clearwater Revival vs. The California Raisins.

The song was originally performed by Gladys Knight and, shortly thereafter, by Marvin Gaye and in the nineties, it was used by the California Raisin Advisory Board (no, I didn’t make that up) to promote… well, if I really have to tell you what it was for, you should just turn off the computer now. Seriously.

In my book, it comes down like this:

1. Marvin Gaye
2. Gladys Knight & The Pips
3. The California Raisins
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival

I don’t really have anything against CCR, but I don’t particularly care for their cover of this song… hence, the Raisins knocking them out of the Number Three spot.
Stray Toasters

• I got a call from Land this afternoon. Turns out he’s still in town. We may do dinner this evening.
• Coworker DaveW mentioned The Power of Two: A Twin Triumph over Cystic Fibrosis to me this afternoon. Turns out that he grew up with the authors.
• Bug (be sure to hover over the image for “ALT” text)
• Sock Zombie: Like a Sock Monkey, but undeader
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Apple Prohibits Movie Rentals on Recent iPods
• Eight promising games for ’08
• “the return of the revenge of the son of jones”

  

• Video Games Live is coming to Utah Symphony in March. I think that this would be a lot of fun. And, I want to go.
• “Wii the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”  (Sorry.  It slipped.)
• Casas’ ballpoint pen artwork

Namaste.