Random Access

Grandpa’s Wake:

I am apparently in need of a gaming session. I just went to look up part the lyrics to Manic Monday… but typed “Manic Monkday” instead. *blink blink*

Project: Rooftop has released their list of finalists from the “Superman: Man of Style” contest. I’m partial to entries #2 and #12.

Check out the DeviantArt gallery of Cat Stagg.
(, you’ll want to check out the middle of the right column on Page 5)

Doll on a Music Box/Truly Scrumptious

When did the term “jet lag” come into use?

Subnetting/Supernetting == *bleargh*

Friday – 04 July 2008
Happy Independence Day

Yesterday, I got off work a little after noon. I headed to Oh Sushi! to see if the lunchtime group was still there. They were. And, they were getting ready to leave. I picked up an order of Ebi and a California Roll to go.

I stopped at SaraRules’ parents’ house to see if Meliko was there; she had gotten into town Wednesday evening. She was. We hung out and talked books, movies and comics until her folks got in. I hung out with the family for a bit and then headed home.

I dropped off a few things, picked up my Pivot Driver and headed to ‘s to help with the assembly of Vikki’s bed. That went fairly quickly. I also helped troubleshoot a problem that was having with her email. And, as an added bonus: I played with the kids for a bit; I didn’t get any new pictures, though.

Next stop, Borders for a rare Thursday night Clitorati. , , OnlyAly and showed up to hang out. The people-watching was pretty choice, too. When we’d had our fill of the people there, we headed to Applebee’s to get something to eat. Land met up with us a little later.

I got a couple of text messages from SaraRules as we were finishing up dinner. She mentioned that she was having a quiet relaxing evening. I figured that she was due, given all of the running around that she’s been doing for her internship. About thirty minutes after the last message, she called. I figured that it was just our usual pre-bed, “How was your day?” call. Nope. She was calling to find out when I would be home.

*blink blink*
What?

I basically said that I should be home soon… to which she replied that she would just go to bed then and see me later.

*blink blink*
WHAT?!

And that’s when I finally managed to find two brain cells to rub together to come up with “a clue” – She had come to town a day early. My “goodbyes” and “good nights” to the dinner crew were quick. And I may have set a new personal land speed record in getting home.

Best pre-Fourth of July surprise ever.

All was fine until this morning at 8:00, when the Leash started going off about a problem in the office. I gave it a couple of minutes, to see if it would correct itself. It didn’t. I logged into the system to see what I could suss out at a glance. Problems. Yay. I called to see if he knew what was up. He didn’t, at the time, but he surmised the problem – and the solution – rather quickly. And neither of us had to actually go into the office to take care of it. Selah.

SaraRules and I ran out this morning to run a few errands and to pick up some breakfast. She is working on an article for the AMFS and I’m going to squeeze in a little time playing Ultimate Alliance, until she finishes. Then, I believe that we’re spending the afternoon and evening hanging out with her folks. Not a bad way to spend the holiday.

Stray Toasters

• I realized – and remarked to – yesterday that it must sound odd to have someone say they spent an afternoon just hanging out with their girlfriend’s sister, their ex-girlfriend and doing a favor for their ex’s sister. She laughed and said that while it wasn’t odd to her, she could see where it might sound odd to others.
• North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms passed away. He was 86.
• The emmet swimming song Hey, Jesse was about Senator Helms.
• Top 10 Famous Hotel Rooms
• Thanks to for linking me to this video:

  
  Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

• New Hunter S. Thompson film focuses on writings

Quotes of the Day
All of these were gleaned from last night’s dinner conversation:

• : The rubbing makes it sensitive, the sweat makes it sting.
• : What’s an “Olympic Queen?”
  Me: East German
• “So, do we need to get you some landing lights?”
• “Does he fly First Class?”
• “Crisco… the natural lube.”

Have a safe and fun holiday and/or holiday weekend.

Namaste.

Thursday – 03 July 2008
Last day of the work week… sort of. I am keeping the Leash for an extra week, so a coworker can go camping with his family. The up side to this: I’m of pager duty for the next… 8 weeks, I think. That’s not a bad deal.

Last night, I watched Star Wars: A New Hope on Spike. Sure, it was the 90s remixed edition (you know… the one where Han doesn’t shoot first), but I was able to overlook that. For the most part.

I seem to recall Luke Skywalker being known as “the last survivor of the Death Star battle.” ( I just checked with , he remembers that, too.) I also remember this being somewhat retconned:

• Han Solo (and, ostensibly, Chewbacca) was there – he afforded Luke the opportunity to make the shot.
• Wedge Antilles survived – his X-Wing was damaged in the final run on the trench and Luke told him to wave off.

So, we have three (or four) survivors there. I realized something last night and I am not sure if it’s endemic to the updated version only or not: There is a Y-Wing bomber that also flies away from the exploding Death Star:

Let’s examine that picture…

• Millenium Falcon? Check.
• Red Two (Wedge’s X-Wing)? Check.
• Red Five (Luke’s X-Wing)? Check.
• Y-Wing bombe…. wait…. Y-Wing?! What’s that doing here?!

And so, my question is: Who was the mystery pilot?

I also spent some time in Paragon City. I got Kurigari to Security Level 20 a couple of nights ago, but didn’t feel like running his costume mission then. So, I did it last night. I had another character in Icon offer to help me out. Far be it from me to turn down a helping hand. A few minutes later, I was back in the tailor shop, getting hooked up with new threads. (And I STILL need to get a picture of this character…)

Four-Color Coverage
I picked up three (that’s right, “three”) books yesterday. It made for quick, but entertaining, reading:

• Astonishing X-Men #25 – Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi’s debut issue hits the stands. And, it’s good. The take seems to be a bit of The X-Men meets The X-Files – there is a definite sci-fi edge to the story, so far. The X-Men seem to be settling in to their new locale fairly well. They’re even on good terms with the local government. YeahbuhWHAT?! There’s even a visit from a certain wind-riding Queen of Wakanda. I must give Mr. Ellis a bit of credit for the way he handled the interaction between Ororo and Emma when Ororo asked about joining the team. If I have a problem with the book, it would be with Bianchi’s artwork… but, not for the reasons you might suspect. The art looks amazing, to be honest, but in a few cases it looks like he’s trying “too hard.” Yes, we know that the X-Men’s world is fantastic (wait, no, that’s the Four)… um… Uncanny? Extreme? New? Ultimate? Well, whatever the word is that you want to use, Bianchi seems to want to make it abundantly clear through the art. Their “car” looks like something that NASA could use for a shuttlecraft. The new X-Jet doesn’t look bad, though. Maybe his style just has to grow on me. Regardless, it was a good read and I look forward to seeing in what direction(s) Mr. Ellis takes the book.
• Legion of Super-Heroes #43 – The Legion is still facing lots of political red tape from the UP… even as they send a team to go save the newly-minted, UP-sponsored team of heroes that just had their collective recta handed to them. No rest for the weary, it seems. And who’s the kid talking with Brainiac 5 and what is his angle?
• Trinity #4 – This is DC’s latest weekly title, featuring “The Big Three,” Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman. The book is divided into two parts – the first, featuring the aforementioned trinity; the second focusing on subplots, occasionally featuring the heroes’ antagonists. Kurt Busiek presents a good take on the characters, but unless something picks up or changes in the next few issues, I may be dropping this one.

Stray Toasters

• Thank God, the angels and the Heavenly host for short work weeks.
• 33-ish
• How can you not love a webcomic that does things like this:
  • 
  • 
• Frozen mocha goodness!
• Google must divulge YouTube log
• Despite (or because of) that, I give you:

• Iron Sky. Check out the trailer.
• Inka dinka doo.

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

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

Today’s post-workout weight: 175.3 lbs.

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

Stray Toasters

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

Back to it…

Yep… it’s been a while, but this is one of those days that requires a little extra somethin’ to keep it moving:

• Sneaker Pimps – 6 Underground
• Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything’s Alright)
• Erasure – Chains of Love
• The Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head

That should help a bit.

And, as an added… um… bonus(?), tossed this my way:

…which led me to…

Groove in peace.

and company are talking about World of Warcraft. Apparently, they had a bad run-in during one of their runs. used the word “debacle”…

…which immediately reparsed in my head to “Debacles” (DEB-uh-kleez)

…which I immediately envisioned as a Greek god: Debacles, the god of disaster and mayhem.

Shoot me now.

A little while ago, I was talking with Drew, Mark, Wes and Bryan.  Mike came in a few minutes later.  He joined the conversation, as he was setting up for the work day. Mike told Drew to check out something on his blog.  Drew went to the site, checked out the item and continued to scroll down.  Then he scrolled past the title of the next entry.

As I was looking at the site over Drew’s shoulder, I caught the title as Drew scrolled past it.  In near-shock, I told Drew to stop and scroll up so I could reread the title.

When I read it again, I saw what I had misread and said,”Oh… Virginia Update.  That’s not at all what I read the first time.”

Laughter ensued.

Someone (and I wish I could remember “who”) posted this yesterday or Wednesday… but I didn’t get a chance to watch it until this morning. That’s a shame because it’s chock full of funny, especially if you’ve ever been in IT.

The Website Is Down

(Some of the audio is NSFW… and one image, about 7 or so minutes in)

Today’s sushi was good. Tony even threw in a couple of extra nigiri for us to try; I had albacore. Not bad.

Before lunch, I finally picked up my guitar from Acoustic Music. I’m a bit anxious to play. And, speaking of play, I’ve realized something: I want to play some of my older XBox games. Just because. Like X-Men: Legends and X-Men: The Next Dimension… and even X2: Wolverine’s Revenge and Spider-Man.

Stray Toasters

• For Derek:



• Pop culture + bukkake + macaques = ???
  (And I’m not really sure that we really want to know, either.)
• What Would Barack Obama Do Listen To? Wired took a few guesses… check out how they did.
• The Artist Formerly Known As The Fresh Prince (not to be confused with “just” Prince) backs Barack, too. BBC News has the skinny. Will Smith has been on The Late Show and The Colbert Report over the past couple of days, both interviews were entertaining.
• Mayor Mick’s bike returned
  (Did this kind of thing ever happen to Rocky Anderson? Richard Daley? Ed Koch?)
• 
• Orwell’s 1984 as a pulp novel

*voop*

Thursday – 26 June 2008
Last night was a relaxed night. After work, I headed to Dr. Volt’s to pick up this week’s comics. Home. Dinner. City of Heroes. I was invited to join a team for some Tsoo missions and nearly tacked on two levels before logging off. And, in an unusual turn, I felt tired fairly early – so early that I was showered and in bed a little after 12:30.

When the alarm went off this morning, I wasn’t quite ready to roll out of bed and face the morning, so I laid in bed for a few minutes… which turned into me falling asleep again. I woke up when alarm 2.0 went off. After staring at the ceiling and walls for a few, I got up, got ready and got under way.

Of course, I didn’t notice that I had left The Leash at home until I got to the office. Fortunately, the monitoring/notification software that sends alerts to the pager has a web interface. So, really, I’m just cutting out the middle man, not to be confused with The Middleman.

I need to decide whether today is a sushi day or a workout day. Bah.

Stray Toasters

• I got another package from my father yesterday: The 47 currently released state quarters.
• SaraRules has updated the Aspen section of her site with a couple of recent goings-on.
• Dave Koz: You Make Me Smile

• MarknTyme: Fix your GoogleTalk settings – you keep bouncing on/off.
• By way of : Christopher Titus Apologizes

• The 10 Best Fan-Made Hip-Hop Videos with The Sims
• DNS & BIND == *bleh*
• Brothel bus makes last stop in Miami Beach
• 

It’s a sushi day.
Decision: Rendered.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 25 June 2008
During the work day, I (and usually a coworker or two) take walks around the complex/campus/whatever you’d care to call it. This week, I’ve had a couple of amusing/interesting experiences:

1. There are trees along the south end of the path where we walk. Apparently, there are a couple of new nests in some of those trees. Wes and I were… not quite “dive bombed”… more “strafed”… as we walked along the path. The first time it happened, I felt a little like Tippi Hedren in The Birds. And the second and third times, too. I may suggest altering our walking path for the next couple of weeks.
2. On Monday afternoon’s walk, I was almost done with my walk when I approached a couple of ladies walking in the same direction, but more slowly, than me. I was a few feet behind one of them when I said,”Excuse me, please, ladies.” One froze, the other… yelped (best word for it). Hell, I froze, too. They hadn’t heard me approaching; I had figured that since I was wearing hard-soled shoes and was on a cement walkway, they had heard my footsteps. No go, Flight. It took the yelping lady a few moments to regain her composure.

Yesterday also included a workout with Wes. It’s the first time I’ve been back to the Gold’s on Van Winkle in close to two years. Nice gym… although a couple of the patrons were ass-monkeys. “It takes all kinds,” I guess. The routine was a little short, but good:

• Recumbent Bike: 0.5 miles, 100 rpm
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs.
• Flys (machine): 3 sets/10 reps, 100 lbs.
• Curls (standing, hammer): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs.
• Lateral Raises (with forward extension): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs.
• Tricep Extensions (rope): 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs.

Last night was lazy. I came home, cooked dinner, sat on the couch and vegged. I also finished off the Superman card I’ve been working on:

I’m pretty happy with it. Once again, finding quotes was a right royal pain, but I wanted to find some from various sources (comics, TV series and movies). I think that the quote I’m most fond of is “Excuse me, sir. Would you care to step outside,” from Superman: The Movie.

Stray Toasters

• I just chatted with ; all’s well with him, Bot and Bit.
• “Can You Hear Me Now?”
  A cellphone. *shakes head*
• You don’t need no finesse or no personality
  You just need two arms and an attitude.
  And everybody sing with me, come on now!
• I found these images in Derek’s blog. I’m liberating them in the name of the people:
  • 
  • 
• , this sounds like something you might want to check out: Sarah Milstein on urban hiking
• By way of Indexed:



• Man in wheelchair charged with drunk driving

Time to hit it.

Namaste.

DaveW just shared this with some of us: http://i30.tinypic.com/314sbw5.jpg

It follows part of yesterday’s lunchtime conversation… a little too well.

and DaveW were talking a few minutes ago and the word “colloquialism” came up. Well, it sort of came up – DaveW was having… issues… pronouncing it. After a couple of fumbles, I looked over and said,”Colonic?” After he stopped laughing, he said that wasn’t what he was looking for and actually managed to wrap his tongue around “colloquialism.”

, without missing a beat, asked if I could work “iconoclast” into the word.

It took me a bit, but I managed to do it: Icoloniclasticoquialist (Eye-co-LON-ic-las-tih-COH-kwee-uh-list).

Then came the difficult part: Coming up with a definition for the word.
After pondering it for a few minutes, I figured it out:

“An individual who’s well-known for being full of shit… and incessantly foists¹ it upon others.”

An example would be:

Office Worker 1: Did you go to the team meeting this morning?
Office Worker 2: No, I had a doctor’s appointment. Did I miss anything important?
Office Worker 1: I don’t know about “important,” but you missed Martin being a diarrhetic icoloniclasticoquialist again.
Office Worker 2: Oh, Lord… what did he go off on this time?
Office Worker 1: Well, Virgil was asking for some ideas on how to improve our numbers… and Mr. “Let Me Share My Brilliance With You” spouted off some jargon-filled, market-speak double talk horse shit. He looked so smug, too. I looked around the room to check peoples’ expressions. I was amazed that everyone was able to keep from laughing out loud.
Office Worker 2: Damn… I’m sorry I missed that!

¹ – Thanks to DaveW for coming up with “incessantly foists,” because “…share it with…” just didn’t have the right punch.

Thursday – 19 June 2008
Today is Juneteenth.
It’s also NBN Thursday.
And possibly Sushi ‘Wednesday.’
(I’m still deciding if it’s going to be New Comics Day…)

Last night, while watching TV, I put together a card to go with my Phoenix ‘Clix:

I’m thinking of using it in this weekend’s tourney, and find that character cards make remembering what powers are available at a given time much easier.

Last night’s episode of JLU was “Far From Home,” the episode that featured the Legion, so I happily watched it while tinkering away on the card.

Last night’s sleep was broken by a lovely bout of acid reflux (or the closest analogue).  Blah.  I wasn’t awake for long, but it was enough to break up what was an otherwise decent night’s sleep.  So, I decided to hang in bed for an extra half-hour this morning.  While in the shower, I had the Spider-Man Theme – as done by The Ramones – stuck in my head.  When I got to the…

Wealth and fame he’s ignored
Action is his reward!

…part, I got stuck.  On ‘Action is.”  Except, in my head, it was “Action Isz,” (1, 2) like from The Maxx… but more heroic.  (Although, not necessarily in a cape or tights way.)  And, for some reason, the Action Isz looked like Rikti Monkeys (1, 2).  Bizarre.

And I was still in the office a few minutes after 8:00… including a stop for some frozen mocha refreshment.

And now… I’m in (yet another) meeting.
Yay.