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

Wednesday – 18 June 2008
Happy Hatching Day to SaraRules and ‘s sister, Meliko:

Today started a little slowly. I woke up a little after 6:00, thinking that I’d missed the alarm. When the alarm did go off, I don’t remember turning it off. Fortunately, my secondary alarm did the trick.

I attempted making a coffee shake before heading out. It actually turned out pretty well, not “great,” but I was happier with this morning’s result than I have been with most others. I added a couple of Butterscotch Krimpets for breakfast and set the day on “Go!”

I have a meeting – ostensibly an hour-and-a-half long meeting – that starts in fifteen minutes. I don’t really want to go to it. I’m fighting the urge to take my GameBoy into the meeting. I think I’ll be taking Defiant and finding things to keep me occupied and entertained.

WHEE!

Paul (coworker) just came over and told and me that our corporate parent is doing some sort of “cultural awareness week” in September. Julie, one of the executive admins, is being tasked with getting ideas for things to do. Paul came to us to let us know that he’s going to send Julie to and me for ideas.

I asked Paul if he had ANY idea the kind of Hell we could wreak upon this place?

He simply nodded and smiled.

And when he heard some of our immediate ideas, he laughed. A lot.

I told him that giving us something like two months’ lead time is FAR too much time. Then I realized that giving us anything more than a week qualified as “too much time,” as well.

I also mentioned that I was thinking of changing my workstation’s wallpaper to this for that week:

I mentioned the same thing to , who suggested that I should consider using this instead:

EIther way, it’s win-win.

and I tried to ‘splain to Paul that we’re sure that our corporate robot overlords protectors were doing this with the best of intentions… but that they didn’t seem to account for those of us who like to push buttons and break things from the inside. He grinned knowingly and appreciatively at that, too.

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.

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.

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.

The meeting was… a meeting.

• Strategy.
• Vision.
• “You’re doing a great job.”
• Blah Blah Blah

After the meeting, Coworkers Mike and Tyranist came over to my desk to shoot the bull. In the course of conversation, Tyranist asked Mike about his new baby. Mike, not missing a beat, quipped back:

“Oh, she’s fine. Healthiest of all our children, at that age. But, you know… since she was an artificial insemination baby, we were kind of hoping for a fun, ethnic child.”

Tyranist and I both laughed – quite a bit – over this. After I regained enough composure to speak I had to ask if the kid was either half-his or half-his wife’s. He confirmed, “Oh, no. It was her eggs and my guys, but you never know. *shrug* That’s why we were kind of hoping.”

A few minutes later, and I wish I could remember exactly what led up to it, we were talking and Mike held up his right hand, clenched in a fist, and said: “Power to The Man!” Again, Tyranist and I found this amusing. And to that, I say to Mike:

All this fun and it isn’t even lunchtime, yet.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 10 June 2008
Okay… it’s not really 4:30.
But it is 7:30.
And I’m already in the office.

We’re having an 8:00 meeting and they have breakfast here for us.
Is this to make us full and complacent and amenable to anything that comes up…?
Doubtful, but it makes my inner conspiracy theorist grin.

More later, the robot overlords protectors have provided me with a banana and a bagel.

just sent me a link to the following:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Pon Farr Edition) from Darth Mojo on Vimeo.

Two disclaimers:

1. The audio is pretty much NSFW in 98.3% of work environments
2. You can watch the first… minute or so… and just skip to the 3:20 mark without missing anything.

What made this even more surreal was that a Goldfrapp’s Strict Machine (audio only) started playing on iTunes almost immediately after I was done watching the video.

Monday – 09 June 2008
Here comes the work week.

I can’t complain about the weather, though.

It’s supposed to get up to the upper 70s. I can deal with that… especially since SaraRules just told me that it’s cold enough in Aspen that she had to wear a sweater this morning. In June. That just ain’t right.

I played a little CoH last night. I may switch over to CoV in the next day or two and show Mr. Dhoruba some love. Speaking of whom, I need to get a screenshot of his updated look… as well as a shot of my new Hero-side character, Kurigari.

This morning, I apparently woke up long enough to turn off the alarm… and roll back over. I don’t really , remember it, though. I was up about twenty minutes later, though. It didn’t take too long to kick the morning into gear. And the frozen mocha didn’t hurt, either.

Stray Toasters

• WWDC.
• SaraRules and kind of bonded over a common… um… “lack of bonding” experience.
• Have you ever listened to Space Oddity with only one channel (right or left)? Try it sometime.
• I have started trying a couple of new layouts of items in one of the display cases:

  

  I know that this leaves a lot of empty space on that shelf, but I really like the way it accents the figure. The only better thing that I could imagine would be to have an LED in/on the figure, similar to the McFarlane HALO3 Cortana figure. I also wish that I had about a half-inch more height to work with – Galactus would look nice behind Jean.

• New rocket car spotted in Silver Lake
  (Why does this many me want to hum the theme from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?)
• My coworker Robert came over a little while ago to ask me if I had seen Stuff White People Like. I told him that I had and that I found it amusing.
• I find this particularly apt, especially given many Utah drivers’ aversion to roundabouts:



• Okay… this is a little uncanny (and weird): Without any input/coercion from me, a dialogue clip from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang just played on iTunes.
• Joshua Ellingson Fine Art & Illustration

Whee!!!!

Namaste.

I’ve apparently been misreading the title of this book. I’m Ivory Soap sure that it should have really been called:

Windoze Sleeper 2003 Training Kit

Wednesday: Coda
This evening, I saw Iron Man again; I went with Max and Perry. It was just as much fun this time as it was opening day. Perry and Max both enjoyed it, as well. And this time I was able to catch a glimpse of Captain America’s shield in Tony’s workshop.

After the movie, I headed back to Kate and Perry’s and hung out for a while. This translates mostly into getting some surrogate uncle time with the kids. And, as a new twist, the two youngest asked me to read them a bedtime story: Go, Dog. Go! That was both unexpected and fun. After the youngest kids went to bed, Perry, Max and I watched Justice League Unlimited; tonight’s episode was “Question Authority,” in which The Question discovers the truth behind the founding members’ secret concerning an alternate/future President Luthor and The Justice Lords. This episode also contained one of my favorite lines from the series: The Question confronts the contemporary Lex Luthor about his plans to run for President of the United States. Luthor laughs and responds:

“President?! Foolish, faceless man… my campaign is a farce! A small part of a much grander scheme. President. Do you know how much power I’d have to give up to be President?! That’s right, conspiracy buff… I spent seventy-five million dollars on a fake presidential campaign… all just to tick Superman off.”

(You can also listen to it – as Luthor smacks The Question around his office – here.)

Perry just looked at me askance as I quoted most of that line while Luthor was saying it. Kate just laughed and shook her head.

Stray Toasters

• I was (pleasantly) surprised to see a news item saying that Senator Clinton is (finally) ending her bid for the Democratic nomination… especially as Senator Obama got the magic number last night.
• I asked our HR guy if I could post A Different State of Race Relations – and a commentary – on our internal site or an internal email. He thought about it and then decided that it would probably be best to get some sort of go-ahead from corporate HR. So, I’m going to kick it up the chain of command tomorrow, I do believe.
• “Elitist.” *chuckle*
• Number Five… made of LEGO
• I caught the tail end of DS9‘s series finale, “What You Leave Behind,” tonight.

I think that there is a glass of milk calling my name. I don’t know if it’s chocolate or not. Yet.

Wednesday – 04 June 2008
A grey and wet day in the valley. It was in the mid 70s (at least) yesterday; today, we’ll be lucky to break 60°F. Welcome to Utah.

Human of the Day
Speaking of “Welcome to Utah,” pointed out an article in The Washington Post entitled A Different State of Race Relations, about… well… race relations in Utah. For this, I name him today’s Human of the Day.

Windows Server 2003. Blah.

Stray Toasters

• I think that these should go on the Covet List not only because they would be neat, but also because I can see more or less practical uses for them, especially when dealing with monkeys.
• By way of SaraRules: Metropolis Symphony. Now, I just need to find an excuse to get to Aspen on a Wednesday. Maybe I’ll call in sick. Or ask if I can work in the Aurora office that week. Or something.
• Yesterday’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day was “tokenization.” This made me laugh because Marci, one of the QA testers, had come to me with a deliciously subversive idea: Being the only woman in the QA department – and the only woman in a non-executive or non-admin position in the SLC office – she is planning on getting a shirt that says “Token.” She recently asked me if I wanted one, too. I told her that I’d take one in black, if she got one in pink.
• Bone Chillers Ice Tray
• I don’t know what to say
  The monkeys won’t do!

  

• Mr. Spock: The ‘Mystery of Masculinity’ Embodied
• The Zurich Chamber Orchestra put this together as a promotional piece:

• As soon as I typed that, “Cantaloop Flip Fantasia 2000” went through my head. That would make for an interesting remix… of some sort.
• Thanks to and for pointing out the following “cubicle rage” videos:

  …and, from a second angle (and in color):

  
  Office Worker Meltdown Second Angle – Watch more free videos

• By way of NPR: Bobblehead of State?

Namaste.