Random Access

Wednesday – 15 July 2009
I went out to dinner at Redrock Brewing Company with SaraRules, her parents and her grandparents. I had the French Onion Steak Sandwich (which, although very messy, was delicious) and washed it down with a tasty Cream Stout.

After dinner, I went to play ‘Clix with Chris. We decided to play a non-themed game, which allowed us to play with some figures that we hadn’t used before. I threw a decent team together…

• Black Widow (Ultimates)
• Captain Marvel, Jr.
• Dark Beast
• Iceman and
• Spider-Girl

…but didn’t adhere to the strategy that I’d started with and put the wrong pieces in the wrong places at the wrong time. Thus, Black Widow – a lynch-pin in my game plan – wound up getting beaten down. Game plan go *poof*. Dark Beast fell next. Spider-Girl went next and was followed, very shortly, by Iceman. Despite all of this, CMJ did well… relatively speaking. He took a fair bit of punishment, but was still dancing toe-to-toe with Chris’ Hulkbuster Iron Man. In the end, he got taken out, but he went down swinging; I was impressed with the figure – I’ll definitely be putting him in the field again.  (Hopefully, with better dice rolls…)

This morning has been… not too bad, but there were a couple of items that were on the fast-track when I got into the office. One was fairly easy to deal with, the other was… out of my area of expertise. (I’m willing to bet that John Hodgman could have handled it, though.) Fortunately, a workaround was found and life continued apace.

Stray Toasters

• It’s Comics and Sushi Day.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Rifle-mounted cup holder
• 100 Geeky Places to Take Your Kids This Summer
• After seeing this a week or two ago, I’ve had the song intermittently stuck in my head.
• 
• “No one expects the…”
• From the “Jane’s Addiction” file: TSA officer caught stealing laptops at JFK
• New items for the Covet List.  Too bad I’m not going to SDCC…
• From the “Headline That Didn’t Make Sense out of Context” file: Holy water ban to halt swine flu

Namaste.

Tuesday – 14 July 2009
If you couldn’t guess by today’s title, it’s Bastille Day.

Yesterday, SaraRules went to have her bridal portraits taken. From the stories she related when she got home, it was an experience. A fun one, but an experience, nevertheless. While she was off playing supermodel, I hung out with her grandparents, who are in town for a few days. Sitting with them and trading stories was a nice way to spend the evening.

Stray Toasters

• I got two walls of the kitchen added to my new model last night. I also rediscovered why you should always “Measure twice, cut once” when constructing (or even destroying) something: I have a wall section that looks like it’s going to be about ” shorter than I had planned. It’s a small enough difference that I could let it go, but I will most likely recut one wall.
• From the “Is There Life On Mars” file: Men emerge from Mars experiment
• Infernocrusher fiction: dinos, guns and motocross
• If you need a good reason not to have a bouquet toss at your wedding, take a look at this.
• Paul just came over and showed me: My Favorite Movie
  See more funny videos and Entertainment Videos at Today’s Big Thing.
• Ravens’ Derrick Mason tells JockLife.com he’s retiring
• Phones confiscated at preview screenings: Whose hypothetical risk is greater?
• The Evolution of Multiplayer Games and Online Play
• Want to know how to handle all of these? – Speechwriting tricks you can use in everyday life

Namaste.

Monday – 13 July 2009
Waking up and getting up
Has never been easy

…especially when you start to fall asleep on the sofa…
…and then have a hard time falling asleep when you get into bed…
…and the first alarm doesn’t trigger your “I should get out of bed” senses.

But, other than that, it’s been a decent morning.

Last night’s Tower of Power concert was fun. SaraRules and I took her father as his belated Father’s Day present; he had a ball. We also ran into Paul (my boss) there; he grew up in Sacramento and has been a ToP fan for many, many moons. He enjoyed the concert, too.

Stray Toasters

• I think that my mother just signed up for Twitter…
• How Cats Manipulate Us
• Girl Falls into Manhole While Texting, Parents Sue
• 
• …speaking of which: Top 10 San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives
• Perry sent me a link to a plethora of texture files. I might just have to see about making some custom tiles for HeroClix City.
• Russian Roma face image problem
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Wells Fargo Sues Itself
• Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End
• Meet the new boss
  Same as the old boss…

Namaste.

Sunday – 12 July 2009
Last night, SaraRules and I wanted something a little different for dinner. We decided on Thai food. And with that, we headed up to Holladay to visit Pawit’s Royale Thai Cuisine. We had Por Pia Sod (spring rolls, with shrimp and chicken) for an appetizer; I opted to try something new and had the Pad Puck with chicken, while SaraRules had the Pad Gra Prow with chicken. As usual, the food was excellent.

We stopped at SaraRules’ parents’ for a few on the way home. Once in, we were in. That’s not to say that we didn’t do anything else: SaraRules worked on our wedding quilt (and finished the top), while I worked on a new building for ‘Clix. I also helped with the quilt. A little. I did a seam. I was also informed that I’ll also be enlisted to help with a little of the hand-quilting when it’s closer to being done.

Today started off lazily, but we’ve actually been nominally “productive,” as we’ve already been to the gym…

• Lat Pull-downs: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
• Compound Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 125 lbs
• Reverse Flys: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs
• Rows (T-bar style, with a barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 55 lbs
• Dips: 3 sets/10 reps
• Tricep Press (T-bar): 3 sets/15 reps, 80 lbs
• Tricep Extensions (Rope): 3 sets/10 reps, 45 lbs
• Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets, 10 reps – reverse fly at the top, 10 lb weights in each hand
• Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Decline Sit-ups: 3 sets/15 reps

Post-workout weight: 182.0 lbs
I think that I will start checking my weight either at the beginning or end of a day, rather than at the gym from this point forward… if I remember to do so.

…and we (finally) met our neighbors across the breezeway.

Time to have a bite to eat and then I’m going to try and wrap up as much of the first story of this new building/map that I can before we head to SaraRules’ parents’ place for dinner.

And, tonight: Tower of Power is performing at the Salt Lake Jazz Festival.

Namaste.

Friday – 10 July 2009
It’s finally the weekend; thank Heaven for 9/80 Fridays.

The second half of yesterday’s workday was slow, which wasn’t necessarily “bad.” I was able to clear a few things off my task list and there weren’t any large fires to dowse. And, we once again had ice cream! Nevertheless, I was glad when quittin’ time rolled around.

Last night, SaraRules and I headed to the gym. For a change of pace, we stayed in the free weight room for our entire workout:

• Lateral Raises (with forward rotation): 3 sets/10 reps, 15 lbs
• Shrugs (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Reverse Punches (with dumbbells): 2 sets/20 reps, 10 lbs
• Curls (barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 50 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, hammer grip): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Overhead Tricep Extensions: 3 sets/15 reps, 45 lbs
• Decline Sit-ups: 3 sets/15 reps
• Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Bench Dips: 3 sets/10 reps – w/ 25lb plate on sets 2 and 3)

Later in the evening (read: “In the wee hours of morning…”), I played City of Heroes. I wasn’t able to find a team to join, but I was able to solo a couple of story arc missions that I had pending.

Stray Toasters

• While I was preparing to play CoH, I left the TV on. Oprah follows The Late Late Show. Last night’s show was about Dani Lierow and her family. All that I can say is: “Wow.” Major kudos to the Lierows for the love, time and patience that they’ve had to give to a little girl who had been dealt a bad hand. They get half of today’s nod as my Humans of the Day…
• …the other half of the honor goes to my friend Joe, who’s shipping out today to provide IT support in Iraq. For a year. He is chronicling his adventures at: On the Rear Lines.
• Item Not As Described
• pointed out: ‘City of Heroes’ character ‘Twixt’ becomes game’s most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor. The article tells the story of David Myers and the “social experiments” that he conducted via the online game. I hadn’t heard about this before and did a little digging; I discovered that he did not play on the same servers that I do.
• 
• From NPR: The Trick to Teaching Is Sometimes Magic
• Lawyer asks judge to force rival to wear nicer shoes
• MarknTyme sent a link to The Absolute Greatest Gaming Table Ever
• New ‘Burger Time’ serves up a good time
• Artists live high on outside wall
• Most epically bad food movies

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.

Tuesday – 07 July 2009
Waking up this morning wasn’t exactly “the easiest” thing to do. I delayed it a bit, but still managed to be at work by 8:00. George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic provided the soundtrack to the morning commute.

I talked with Rana for a bit last night; she’s about seven weeks from giving us Niece or Nephew #2; Adam and Chelsea provided Nephew #1 last year. A little later, SaraRules and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. By the time it was all said and done, we had put in a little under 1.75 miles. It was a nice change of pace.

Stray Toasters

• July 7, 1752: Jacquard’s Loom Will Weave a Durable Web
• Clock will strike 04:05:06 07/08/09 tomorrow
• The Craziest Costume Changes in Comics
• What do you get when you mix comics and alcohol: Reno Superhero Crawl

  

• Classic Arcade Games Recreated Using Stop-Motion Animation of LEGO bricks
• Straight out of the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Shmucks of the Week: The threesome from Hell
• Some iPhone owners crave freedom to unlock from AT&T
• 
• By way of comes 11 Yearbook Photos that Musicians Wish We’d Never Seen
  Having seen this, I was compelled to click on the following links:
  • 11 Most Ridiculous DMX Moments
  • 11 Songs About Different Lengths of Time
• Pez Candy Inc sues Museum of Pez Memorabilia for copyright infringement
• U.S. Hospitals offer $155 billion for health reform: report

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.”

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.

Friday – 03 July 2009
Last night, we went out to dinner with SaraRules’ family, to celebrate her mother’s birthday. Post-dinner, we headed to her parents’ house for a birthday cake pie – a rich, multi-layered chocolate affair that SaraRules made from scratch, including a crust made from crushed nuts. It was very good and VERY rich.

Back at home, we vegged. After watching a bit of TV… and having the TV watch me, as I nodded off on the couch… I finished up my new ‘Clix building.

Sleep was intermittent; it felt like I woke up eleventy billion times during the night.

Stray Toasters

• One of the designers from WorldWorks Games is a Transformers fan. He still is, even after seeing the new movie; but he wrote a review that made me smile.
• NAACP comic from early 1960s
• WHO warns swine flu ‘unstoppable’
• Opus Dei: Separating fact from fiction
• 
• Tower of Power and Spyro Gyra will be here next weekend for the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival
• Statue of Liberty photoshopping contest
• How to Perform a Trebuchet with a Butterfly Knife
• Ript: The dude equivalent of a padded bra

Right on to the…
…well, it’s a day off, so I don’t anticipate a lot of friction.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 30 June 2009
It’s the last day of June. I’m sure that this is important – or at least “notable” – for many reasons, but prime among them is the fact that the new IKEA bible catalog will be out soon.

Last night, we had a tasty dinner with SaraRules’ family. After dinner, and some errand-running, we headed home for some downtime. I started putting together walls for my new ‘Clix building. Of the eight main walls, I have five complete; the last three should go much faster. Then I can start in on the “lobby” section, which should go quite quickly. I’m looking forward to getting it completed.

This morning, I was at work at 0700. One of our teams has a couple of days’ worth of meetings and we had to get some networking ready for it. So, loonybin88 and I were in here – neither bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed – to get it taken care of.  Naturally, while we were wrapping up the setup, there was a pushy monkey who wanted to have something done his way; little did he know that he was mere moments away from having the closest live power cord plugged into a place neither God, Mother Nature nor Darwin ever intended for it to go. *sigh* Monkeys, go figure.

Stray Tourists Toasters

• June 30, 1953: Corvette Adds Some Fiber, Flair to American Road
• I have frozen mocha goodness!  And a bagel!
• L.A.’s vegan restaurants are full of egg
• Tourist Remover photoshops stray tourists out of your snaps
• Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard
• Did I mention “monkeys?”
• Jackson’s Death Puts Lucrative Beatles Copyrights In Play
  The man may have been… “odd,” to say the least, but he was a great entertainer. I had forgotten that he had a major share of the rights to many/most of the Beatles’ music catalog. I was also unaware of this performance of Come Together until yesterday:

• U.S. ‘concerned’ over cyber threat
• Force of Nature: Artist Puts Petal to the Metal for Electrifying Images
• Lord of the Rings considered as a D&D game (webcomic)
• Super Small, Super Powerful Quantum Processor Can Solve Multiple Problems at Once
  (Repeat after me: “SkyNet is now online…”)

Right on to the friction of the day…

Namaste.

Monday – 29 June 2009
We opted not to go back to the Utah Arts Festival yesterday and enjoyed a lazy day at home.  It was rather nice. When SaraRules asked me what I wanted for dinner, I had an idea: Grilling some steak and/or chicken. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. And that’s what I did: Steak, chicken, corn on the cob, zucchini, mushrooms and red peppers. They turned out well.

Logan came over and joined us for dinner; we watched Aliens while we ate. After that, the three of us played Trivial Pursuit. (I really need to get some updated cards for the game…) When we played, we kept our wedges in our respective corners and used HeroClix figures as our playing pieces:

• SaraRules used Wonder Woman,
• Logan used The Riddler and
• I used the custom GL John Stewart figure that Perry made for me a while back.

The “Literature” category of the Genus Edition often kicks my trash; last night, the universe threw me a bone, almost literally, when I was going for the brown wedge:

What is the name of Superman’s dog?

I couldn’t believe it when Logan asked the question; I thought he was kidding. Then he reread the question. It gave me a good laugh when I answered: “Krypto.” I was so amused by the question that I switched my game piece to my Krypto ‘Clix, because I could… and because it amused me to do so.

After the game, Logan and I played through a board of HALO3. After seeing the amount of crap that we had to wade through, I was happy to have the help.

After Logan left, I started working on a new building for HeroClix City, based on a design that I came up with on Friday. I knew that I was going to have to adapt the building faces to fit the design, but I thought that three of them would be the same. Nope. Two of them are, the third one was much easier to work with. I’m also going to have to work out the details of five other faces. We’ll see how it shapes up.

So far, today’s been a good – and relatively quiet – day. There haven’t been any major fires to put out. There haven’t been any monkeys to beat down. Not a bad way to kick off a Monday and a holiday week.

Stray Toasters

• Yesterday was the first time I’ve fired up my grill in two years, I think. The igniter on the grill wasn’t working, so I had to use a camp stove lighter to kick things off. Great theory and nominally good application… aside from the fact that I had turned up the gas “a bit” too high and wound up creating a small fireball that singed the hair off the back of two of my fingers.
• In a related note: I went online to look for the manual for the grill – I need to know how to repair or replace the igniter. Sears has 119 of them posted. I looked at all of them, but only found two (2) that look close to my grill. I’ll have to compare and contrast them when I get home.
• 13 year old kid reviews 30 year old Walkman
• showed us the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG.
• Google Mistook Jackson Searches for Net Attack

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

Sunday – 28 June 2009
Last night, I came home from poker night at OnlyAly and ‘s to find that I was far more tired than I had realized – I was starting to nod off a little after midnight. I called it a relatively early night.

I woke up a little after 0900. So far, I haven’t done much other than surf and watch Boneyard on The History Channel. This episode is entitled “Railroads,” so it’s pretty much held my attention for the past forty-five minutes.

Today, we don’t have much on tap. We’re considering heading back to the Utah Arts Festival later this afternoon. Before that, I may try to assemble a new building that I designed for my ‘Clix city… and/or play some HALO3. I realized something last night – I never finished HALO2, so I have that to look forward to when I’m done with H3.

Namaste.

Saturday – 27 June 2009
This morning, SaraRules and I got up and headed to the Downtown Farmer’s Market. We’ve wanted to go for the past couple of weeks, but hadn’t managed to do so. Today, we made it. It was interesting to juxtapose the number of exhibitors there today with the number there when we went in October – far more now than then.

On the way home, we stopped in to say “Hi” to SaraRules’ parents. Back at home, I took a little time to play HALO3… and to remember to “Save and Quit.”  Although, when I went to verify that it saved at the proper point, I found that it was putting me back at the beginning of this mission, rather than three segments into it. *sigh* Fine. Whatever. I remember a few things that should serve me well in getting through these sections – again – and on to where I need to be.

Next on the docket: Heading out to watch Transformers Giant Robots Blowing Shit Up with some of the usual suspects.

Namaste.