Random Access

Wednesday – 10 October 2007
Middle of the week and all’s well.

Last night, I made a couple of stops on the way home: One to drop off some plastic crack to Perry; another to finish configuring ‘s wireless network.

Then, home.

Being rather tired, I was rather happy to be – and stay – at home. I played a little City of Heroes last night; I “ran into” my friend, Don… whom I haven’t seen online in a while. I ran a couple of hunt missions and I even remembered that I have a “summon temporary pet” power, which came in quite handy in thinning out the ranks of Devouring Earth creatures that I had to fight. Quite handy, indeed. I need to think up a name for my pet. “Sparky” was good for Indi’s pet, but just won’t work for Nefer-Tem’s.

You would think that with a (roughly) four-mile commute, I wouldn’t have to deal with monkeys. At least, that’s what I thought. Boy, was I wrong. There were two of them this morning. And, both were encountered within the middle two miles of the commute. As I’m fond of saying: “With monkeys like these, who needs pets?”

The work day has been good. There hasn’t been anything too bad to deal with. Hopefully, that trend will continue through the day.

Stray Toasters

• A Slurpee® would be good right now.
• CNet’s Weekly Hit List
• Not-a-star. (Definitely not to be confused with Baby, I’m a Star)
• Sara sent me a link to this video. One word: Zombies.
• Battlefield 3 details leaked?
• sent me a link to this video. Compound word: Bear-blasting!
• From MMORPG.com: City of Heroes – Issue 11: A Stitch in Time – Interview with Matt “Positron” Miller
• 51
• Copacabana. That’s right, I said “Copacabana.” And I meant it, too.
• Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a “disaster”
• From the “Unintentional Porn in a News Item Title” file: Robot Masseur Gives Facials
• I’m still a bit torn about what to do for a Hallowe’en costume this year. I have a few ideas/options, but need to settle on one. Soon.

Quote of the Day
From an IM conversation this morning:

(11:57:09 AM) [name withheld]: At any rate, I was writing to tell you that IKEA was a scary, scary place.
(11:57:21 AM) Me: The Garden of Sweden is a WONDERFUL place.
(11:57:34 AM) [name withheld]: Think about it this way:
(11:57:52 AM) [name withheld]: You love books. LOVE them. You walk into the showroom where there are books on every shelf.
(11:57:59 AM) [name withheld]: Feels a bit like heaven, doesn’t it?
(11:58:06 AM) Me: Indeed.
(11:58:25 AM) [name withheld]: But then you start pulling books off shelves at random and you notice that you can’t read a single one of them because they’re all written in gibberish.
(11:58:33 AM) [name withheld]: Suddenly, paradise seems like hell.
(11:58:42 AM) Me: Are there pretty pictures?
(11:58:45 AM) [name withheld]: No.
(11:58:48 AM) Me: Oh.
(11:58:48 AM) [name withheld]: Just words.
(11:59:09 AM) [name withheld]: Then you look up from the books and notice that the whole place is really a bit soulless.
(11:59:19 AM) Me: I don’t need my store to have a soul.
(11:59:25 AM) [name withheld]: Empty kitchens with place settings that will never be filled.
(11:59:32 AM) [name withheld]: Bedrooms that no human could ever sleep in.
(11:59:37 AM) Me: If I did, I would never enjoy a Toys ‘R’ Us or a Best Buy.
(11:59:37 AM) Me: Ever.
(11:59:42 AM) [name withheld]: Couches that are smiling just a bit too much.
(11:59:51 AM) [name withheld]: Hell.
(12:00:00 PM) Me: Couches that smile…?
(12:00:09 PM) Me: You’ve been watching too much Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
(12:00:19 PM) [name withheld]: I couldn’t watch that show.
(12:00:23 PM) [name withheld]: It scared me too much.
(12:00:32 PM) Me: Wait.
(12:00:55 PM) Me: [You]…. scared… by Pee Wee’s Playhouse?
(12:01:07 PM) [name withheld]: Let’s see.
(12:01:13 PM) [name withheld]: All of the furniture talks.
(12:01:18 PM) Me: You’ll excuse me if I relish this for a moment or two…
(12:01:22 PM) [name withheld]: The house itself is vaguely alive.
(12:01:52 PM) [name withheld]: And the whole thing is orchestrated by a man who seems like all he really wants to do is strip the meat off your legs for his Sunday dinner.
(12:02:09 PM) [name withheld]: That voice.
(12:02:11 PM) [name withheld]: That smile.
(12:02:27 PM) [name withheld]: I still can’t watch anything featuring Paul Reubens without shuddering.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 02 October 2007
Road monkeys. Fast lane, slow car. Days like this make me (somewhat) glad that I wasn’t granted infinite cosmic power at birth (or by being visited by a fiery cosmic force as I piloted a space shuttle from a space station). Although, the idea of displacing the driver in question to midtown Manhattan at rush hour does hold more than “a little” appeal.

Reeling by on Celluoid: The Punisher
Last night, I watched the 2003 version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta. It was definitely “an adaptation” of the origin of the Marvel Comics character.

This isn’t to say that the movie was entirely “bad,” but let’s just say that there was room for some improvement. The characterizations were good – you understood what drove Frank Castle (Jane) to pursue his brand of justice, just as you understand what drove Howard Saint (Travolta). Yes, there was some over-acting. And the fight scene with The Russian…? Um, let’s just say that it was more over-the-top than it needed to be, but c’mon… you’re talking about a scene with a WWF/WWE wrestler – over-the-top is par for the course.

I might it on the Cool World–Long Kiss Goodnight Scale, but all things considered, it was a decent distraction. I might even call it “mindless fun.”

Four-Color Coverage
I started in on some of my four-color haul from the weekend. I’m up-to-date on Countdown and “The Sinestro Corps War,” as well as a few other titles, but there are still things in my hold box at the shop.

Stray Toasters

• I should reread Inferno, the one by Dante Aligheri, not the 80s Marvel X-book crossover.
• Coworker John “The Flash” Fox (hero to millions) pointed me in the direction of this video: Amazing Grace – Wintley Phipps. Not only does he sing the song; first, he gives an interesting background lesson in the song’s history and a little music theory, as well. I knew the story of John Newton, so that didn’t surprise me. What I didn’t know was that most Negro spirituals were written in the pentatonic scale. And, I like his rendition; I might even have to add this to “The Best” list.
• Don’t use the magical
  Mysterious, intoxicating, joy fantastic
  Fascinating word called love
  Unless u love me 2 the 9s
• Herbie Hancock Talks Math, Music and Mastering the Tech Toolbox
• From Computerworld: Five free Web apps we can’t live without
• I need to finish Season 2 of Coupling.
• Charlie Stross’ Halting State: Heist novel about an MMORPG
• 
• 7 Deadly Sins,7 Heavenly Virtues
• Said Superman had come to town to see who he could rock
  He blew away every crew he faced until he reached our block
  His speakers were three stories high with woofers made of steel
  And when we brought our set outside, he said “Ha! Be for real!”
  He said, “I’m faster than a speedin’ bullet when I’m on the set,
  I don’t need no fans to cool my amps, I just use my super breath.
  I could fly three times around the world without missin’ a beat
  I socialize with X-ray eyes, and ladies think it’s sweet.”
  And then he turned his power on and the ground began to move
  And all the buildings for miles around were swayin’ to the groove
  And just when he had pulled a crowd and swore he won the fight…
  We rocked his boat with a 12 inch cut called Disco Kryptonite
• Things you shouldn’t do in science fiction/fantasy fiction writing
• Do you have any idea how amusing it is to have people stop to look at comics I posted (start with that link and read the next nine or ten) on one of the cube walls… about starting a new religion? In Utah? And the new “religion” is based on video games? Hint: It makes me grin like a fiend.
• Russinovich finds his place at Microsoft

/lunch

Namaste.

Monday – 01 October 2007
New week.
New month.
T-minus 25 and counting.

This morning, after about ten seconds of thinking “I really could just lie here for a while,” I actually rolled out of bed after the alarm went off. Pre-work hygiene rituals went off without a hitch and I was out the door. I picked up a cup of frozen mocha goodness and was in the office by 7:40. Not too shabby.

With one exception, the commute wasn’t bad. Which brings us to the Monkey of the Day: I was heading up Traverse Mountain in the middle lane when a pickup truck, hauling a large horse trailer decided that he wanted to be in my lane. The fact that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time came to mind. *sigh* Physics, go figure. So, I put on my blinker, gunned it and pulled into the so-called “fast lane.” I apparently forgot that putting on a blinker in Utah means “Hey, I’m trying to move over, so speed up just enough so that I can’t…” to the nearest driver in the lane into which you’re trying to merge. The idiotstick in the lane sped up – but not enough – to try and block me out. Then, he proceeds to dog my six all the way to American Fork. Every lane change and speed variation. Some peoples’ children, I tell you.

Stray Toasters

• I chatted with Sib-2 last night; she’s doing well.
• Shakespeare and coffee. (Not to be confused with Starfish and Coffee.)
• pointed me in the direction of these items.
• M.C. Escher
• Dwim made this over the weekend. His brother, Acolyte Derek, submitted it to Digg. Start the clock on Dwim’s fifteen minutes, please.
• The World’s Languages Are Fast Becoming Extinct
• 
• HOWTO make a robotic ElmoSapien chimera
• What is your email client of choice? I have recently switched (back) to Thunderbird after years of Eudora use.
• Bose Founder Discusses Audio Perfection and Digital Music
• I gained a new-found appreciation for my car’s seat warmers over the weekend. The cold, wet, snowy weekend.
• The Adorkable Nizlee
• The Most Irksome Employee Poll, by way of TechRepublic

/hunger

Namaste.

Sunday – 30 September 2007
Yesterday’s move went well. And quickly. I believe that the “official” time was three (3) hours, start to finish. That doesn’t include unpack and organize time, but still… that’s pretty damned impressive. (And, it covered any “need” for a weekend workout, too.) After the move, we went out for brunch.

And it started to snow. Yes, snow. Not even in October. *grblsnrkx*

Came back home for a much-needed nap.

Sara and I went to see Across the Universe; more on this below. After the movie, we headed to Cheers: South for breakfast. The restaurant was rather busy, which made for some rather “interesting” people-watching.

Today started off lazily. When we finally got in gear, Sara and I met Perry for lunch at Jitterbug. Post-lunch, the three of us headed to Dr. Volt’s to pick up my four-color shwag and a half-brick of plastic crack… and a box of Stikfas that I had forgotten thatI had ordered. Next, a quick stop at REI to make sure that hadn’t fallen off the face of the planet. (He hadn’t.) And then, a trip through Parley’s and Emigration Canyons to see the fall colors. The foliage was making progress towards the red end of the spectrum… but it wasn’t as prevalent nor as vibrant as I had expected. Oh, well.

Reeling by on Celluloid: Across the Universe
Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?

There’s a saying that goes “Parallel lines meet at infinity.”
There’s a variation of it that says “Parallel lives meet at infinity.”

This movie is about those parallel lives, their meetings and is told through the use of the music of The Beatles. I was pleasantly surprised at how it all came together. I was, likewise, pleased to see that there was more to the movie than the simple “boy meets girl” love story implied by the trailer.

The music, as I mentioned, was by The Beatles, but the songs were deftly re-arranged by Elliot Goldenthal and sung by the characters/actors. Not only that, but the songs also tied-in to the events of the movie, similarly to the way that Orpheus in the Underworld (Can-Can) and Die Another Day, were used in Stardust and Die Another Day, respectively. I believe that my two favorite pieces were Let It Be and Come Together… so much so, that I might have to reconsider my choice for “The Best” from a few weeks ago.

At two hours and twenty-one minutes, the movie is long… without feeling long. The casting was good. The plots/subplots were good. And with one exception, the stories didn’t feel forced or contrived.

I give the movie an enthusiastic “thumbs-up with and okay.” And it has renewed my interest in seeing Cirque de Soliel’s Love.

Football Update
Just a quick hit here: Congrats to on his Browns 2.0’s win over the Ravens today. Operative words: “Beat down.”

Stray Toasters

• I still have three bags of cotton candy. I shall put a dent in that tonight, while I am saving the world.
• “Greenie Weenies”
• Sara’s Deviataion vs. Rob’s Deviation.
• Monkey of the Day: While in Dr. Volt’s, Perry and I were talking about our plastic crack purchase (part of which is supposed to be Kate’s Christmas present to him). We were tossing jibes back and forth when another customer decided to chime in with: “Wow, I can’t believe all the testosterone and posturing being tossed around over here…” I had my back to him, but Perry said that he looked at me and straightened up a bit when I saw my build; then he looked at Perry, who was wearing a his badge and his holster. The guy then said “But, since I don’t know either of you, I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut.” And he walked to another aisle.
• I’m thinking of rearranging the office. I might put my eight-foot table up in there… and possibly throw my LEGO train and the Rokenbok Monorail up on it.
• 

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

The inbound commute was relatively painless. There was a PoW monkey that I got stuck behind from Lehi to just shy of my exit, but she was able to intermittently find the skinny vertical pedal with her right foot, so I didn’t have to run her off the road. (Although the temptation was there a couple of times…)

Stray Toasters

• Happy Birthday to

  

• By way of : “Sabbasattā bhavantu sukhitattā” — May all beings without exception be happy — Metta Sutta
• By way of : World Clock – “…shows current statistical figures for world population, births, deaths, deforestation, and much more.”
• NASA’s Dawn takes off for asteroid belt
• By way of Eric: Picture of the Day
• Happy SGN Thursday to !
• From the “Nucular Toonami” file: First New Nuclear Power Plant in US in 30 Years
• 
• I’m sorry, but whenever I think about this article, my first thoughts are either:
  • Take the Lobster-heads Bowling
  • Take the Skin-suits Bowling
• LEGO Millennium Falcon goes on sale

Quote of the Day
The following was sent to me in a text message, it was the perfect way to start an NBN Thursday:

May the crabs of a thousand whores infest the crotch of the person who fucks up your day and may their arms be too short to scratch.

Namaste.

Wednesday: Coda / Thursday – 27 September 2007
Three down, two to go.

I cleared – or at least did some damage to – a few items on my task list today. Productivity = good. I had lunch with Jason (coworker) and Perry at Tres Hombres. It was a little more than I had planned on spending for lunch… especially since I had taken a lunch with me today, but it was good.

As I was winding up the day, Land called and asked if I was free this evening. I was, and told him to swing by the apartment and we could go in search of food-type items. We wound up at Cafe Rio. Dinner and a good conversation later, I wandered over to Office Depot to replace my broken architect’s scale. And then, on to Barnes & Noble, to introduce Land to Way of the Peaceful Warrior. He had heard of, but not seen, the movie; I told him that it was worth the price to purchase the book. He did. Mission: Accomplished.

When I checked the mail, there was a package from my father. Ô.õ I opened it to find sections from The Baltimore Sun about Cal Ripken, Jr.’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. There was also a letter in the package. An old letter. 30+ years-old old. And some note card-sized sketches. I didn’t quite get the gist of what they were for… so I called home. Dad said that they were ideas that he and a former coworker of my mother’s had come up with as a proposal for a set of stationery/seals with patriotic themes. They never really did anything with them, but he thought that I might be able to find a use for them. How cool is that?

Stray Toasters

• I still have four bags of cotton candy.
• A word and a movie
• 50 Years of ‘West Side Story’
• 26
• Titan missile silo for sale
• Wizard First Look: Millar and Hitch’s Fantastic Four
  
• 
• Why women read more than men
• A year of following all the rules in The Bible
• From the “Things We Don’t Need” file: NBC Revs Up New Knight
• Kurt Busiek on “The Third Kryptonian” and more
• …and, since we’re on the topic of Superman: Incoming: All-Star DC figures

And, with that… bed.

Namaste.

Thursday: Coda
After work, I met Mary, Chris, and for tonight’s entertainment: Resident Evil: Extinction. Yep. Zombies-a-go-go. And Milla Jojovich beating ’em down. It wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, Oscar-fare, but it was a nice way to spend an evening with friends. And, it was fun.

After the movie, Nox, Lavynder and I headed to one of the local Sampan restaurants for a late dinner. The food and company were good, as was the conversation.

Stray Toasters

• Another glass of chocolate milk might be in order this evening.
• posted about her mother’s passing last year. It reminded me that my grandmother died four years ago, this past Monday. Last week, while moving things from LJ to WordPress, I took another look at the post I did on that day. It occurred to me that I hadn’t shown it my father; so I printed it out and sent it to him. He messaged me over the weekend to let me know that he received it… and liked it. That made me smile, although I felt a little bad about having not shared it with him before now.
• posted a link to the following video:
  
• …I cringe and pretend like it won’t peel paint.
• Acolyte Derek pointed me in the direction of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. I am amused.
  
  

Anything else can wait until after the sun has put in an appearance.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 19 September 2007
Ugh.

I had to take the car in to have some service work done. That, in and of itself, isn’t so bad. My appointment was for 7:00 AM. Again, not so bad.

The problem, however, came in not sleeping very well last night. I don’t know if it was a subconscious fear of oversleeping or what. Whatever the problem, my journey through The Dreaming was troubled. I am hoping that by thinning out the blood in my caffeinestream, I can find a modicum of sanity… or at least enough mental stability to make it through the day without painting the walls red. It is Talk Like a Pirate Day, after all; why stop at just talking like a pirate? lj user=”asdf_cat” and I have been upholding the pirate talk… at least through IM.

::: meeting break :::

And, we’re back. On a plus note, Wes was in the office today. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he went out for his surgery a couple of months ago. He looks good. And he says that he feels much better and that he’s improving daily. That’s good to hear.

Stray Toasters

• I need many of these for the office. Both offices.
• Cats Harbor Sercet Plan to Turn Us Into Litter-Scooping Robots

  

  

• I don’t know how I missed this story over the past few days.
• 
• Report: Insiders cause more computer security problems than viruses
• By way of lj user=”ferriludant”: So by now, you know all know about the meteorite in Peru…
• 
• The Hypertext d20 SRD
• From boingboing.net: Home Inspection Nightmares from This Old House

Namaste.

Friday – 14 September 2007
Last night, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about dinner, so I decided not to make a choice… so to speak.

Instead, I rang up to see what her plans were. She had none. She asked if I had a taste for anything in particular and I answered with my generic response: “Food.” She said that didn’t help. *shrug* She threw out a couple of suggestions. The one that stuck was Olive Garden. And so, we went. I tried one of their new dishes: Chicken and Gnocchi Veronese, a chicken and dumplings dish in a garlic cream sauce. It was rather tasty, but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of dumplings to chicken bits. Oh, well.

The rest of the night was spent being rather aimless and taking care of a few things around the apartment.

This morning, I woke up, got ready for work and hit the road. Short commute today. I can tell that I am ready for it to be the end of the day because I didn’t notice that I was missing my ID badge until I was in the elevator, on the way up to the office. I toyed with the notion of running home to get it, but decided against it, as it would be “too much” effort. A guest badge would do. Today, I am #10. For some reason, I started thinking, “What if this wasn’t written in Base 10? What if it’s Base 2? Or hex…?” From there, it only got worse: I started thinking of how to write “007” in different bases.

Yeah… it’s Friday.

Stray Toasters

• I’m handling Day 2 of a server upgrade survey. I talked with the person responsible for these servers yesterday, in an effort to coordinate shutting them down without affecting too many people adversely. Overnight, he apparently forgot part of what we had discussed. *sigh*
• Happy ‘coastering (not to be confused with ‘Toastering) to and onlyaly.
• I caught this meme by way of :
  1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.
  2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
  3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” questions.
  4. Post the top ten results.

  My results:

  1. Multimedia Developer
  2. Electronics Engineering Tech
  3. Electrical Engineering Tech
  4. Website Designer
  5. Optical / Ophthalmic Lab Technician
  6. Industrial Designer
  7. Architect
  8. Computer Support Person
  9. Interior Designer
  10. Tailor / Dressmaker
• World’s Worst Poluted Places 2007
• Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop
  Shimmy Shimmy Bop
• 
• Video for MC Frontalot’s nerdcore song about Zork

Back to the grind. Need to get this stuff sorted out and done so I can get on to my weekend.

Namaste.

Monday – 10 September 2007
New day. New week. Same old same.

After I (finally) managed to nod off this morning, I slept pretty well. I woke up, however, with a slight twinge in my left knee. Haven’t felt that in a while, but I didn’t think too much about it. As I was getting ready for work, I decided that wearing my knee brace might not be a bad idea, just for a little extra support and whatnot.

Too bad I couldn’t find it.

I believe that it is a “casualty” of the Great Closet Migration. I thought I remembered where I placed it in the chaos. I was mistaken. At least the ache hasn’t been bad and it’s far from debilitating, so I’ll hunt the brace this evening or sometime this week.

The commute wasn’t bad, but there were a few slow-on-the-uptake monkeys. The soundtrack of the drive-time commute was my Crüxshadows playlist. I have had echoes of Heart on My Sleeve running through my head this morning.

Football Update
Ravens. Bengals. Tonight. 7PM Eastern.

I think that I will, once again, watch the game at Fiddler’s Elbow. Anyone up for Guinness on tap and some football? Hit me up and let me know.

Stray Toasters

• I am pleased to announce that the LJ-to-WP migration is complete: All entries from 2001-2006 have been imported.
• TCP/IP… DNS… SSH. Oh, my!
• For : Kitty Pryde
• The .wav file that I use for “contact logging out of chat” on Trillian is a slamming door. I just noticed that it sounds like the bass drum in Hollaback Girl.
• How to explain terabytes to management
• Jason sent me a link to this earlier. People are dumn dumb.
• AMD Launches Barcelona
• 
• Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys chipmunks.
• introduced me to the Bloodhound Gang song A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When the Stripper Is Crying this weekend. Dear Lord…
• Photos: A Century of Helicopters

Quotes of the Day

• “So… you ever spend much time around sheep?”
• “My brother has a thing for goats.”

Namaste.

Thursday: Coda
Post-work, I came home, took care of a few errands and headed to Jitterbug to have coffee – and a light dinner – with and . The food, drink and the company were all good.

After that, I came home to face a project – rearranging a couple of my closets – that I left undone last night. Well… “half-done,” I guess. Either way, there was a good bit left to do. It’s still going to take a bit of tweaking, but I’m happy with the preliminary results.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you come across something – or several things – that offer(s) up a glimpse at how good things are.

I had posted the following as a Toaster a couple nights ago…

I believe in what I see
I believe in what I hear
I believe that what I’m feeling
Changes how the world appears

…and didn’t realize that how fortuitous it was.

Tonight, while going through one of the closets, I found a few things that I had forgotten about. And they made me smile. Every last one of ’em.

Stray Toasters

• I have Black Cherry Kool-Aid…
• …but I think that I want some chocolate milk.
• By way of Dwim: Internet People! – The Meth Minute 39
• Because it pops up every once in a while (and I like it): An American Pantheon
• I’ve been reading Starslip Crisis… and enjoying it.
• William Gibson WashPo interview “one of the best ever”
• Road monkeys. *grblsnrkx* In the… roughly three miles from I-15 to Union Park Avenue, I believe that I hit my Recommended Daily Monthly Annual Allowance for road monkeys.
• This was me, two nights ago.
• “Conundrum.” (They really need to put 7 Days on DVD.)

Namaste.

Thursday – 06 September 2007
Another NBN Thursday is well under way.

Even with last evening’s nap, I slept well last night… despite some rather unusual dreams that included an inordinate number of spiders. Large spiders. And none of them were named “Peter,” “Jessica” or “Julia,” either.

I got back from the gym a little while ago. Eric had another go at benching 300 pounds; it just wasn’t there – he got it off his chest to the point where his upper arms were parallel to the floor, but couldn’t pass that threshold. I gave him a bit of assistance to get past that point. He was able to push a little more, but the bar started sagging. I helped him finish the lift and re-rack the bar.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try 300 again. I got on the bench and had Eric assist on the lift-off from the pegs. I brought it down fairly well, got it to and off of my chest and…. stalled a bit at the same point Eric did. He gave a little assistance (two fingers, just enough to keep the upward momentum going) and, with that, I was able to extend through the threshold and finish the lift.

But, I can’t claim the weight. Yet. I should have it within the next week or two, though.

The rest of the workout was good. We’ve been adding pull-ups/chin-ups to the routine. We start with unassisted sets and then finish out with some machine-assisted ones. When we started, I could do one set of ten unassisted pull/chin-ups and two sets of assisted. I’m up to two unassisted sets… and sometimes, I can make it 2½ unassisted sets.

Stray Toasters
Just one, so far… but it’s a doozy.

Someone in the office upstairs, Mentoring of America, has been parking his chopper in the lobby of our building.

Yes, we have a parking lot.
Yes, there are plenty of places to park.
Apparently, the guy is just a dink and his bike just can’t be rained on.

So, this afternoon, Coworker Matt (not Dwim)… which is kind of like Was (not Was), if you think about it… decided to have a little fun: He put a box and some entry forms out there, next to the bike. The entry form reads:

Enter To Win!!!

We’re giving away a CUSTOM West Coast Chopper

Enter Below And You May* Be Our Lucky Winner

Name:____________________________

Email Address: ____________________________

Why Motorcycles Shouldn’t Be Parked Inside: ____________________________

 

*Employess of Mentoring of America NOT eligible. Odds of winning are 0/100000000 since we don’t own the bike. However, raffle will continue until bike is removed.

The beauty of this is that people have been filling out forms and stuffing them in the box. Including people from Mentoring of America. In fact, one of them filled out an entry while I was out there. Classic.

I put an entry in. My reason for Why motorcycles shouldn’t be parked inside:

Motorcycles are free-range creatures. They weren’t meant to be cooped-up inside office lobbies. FREE THE BIKES!

Namaste.

Tuesday – 28 August 2007
Waking up wasn’t quite as hellish as I had expected, especially considering the time that I finally wound down enough to attempt sleeping. It was “You-should-have-been-in-bed-long-ago o’clock” when I hit the rack.

It was raining on the way to Happy Valley this morning. It started at Point of the Mountain and wrapped up by the time I passed the first Lehi exit. That’s about… six-and-a-half miles. In that span, it went from drizzle to nearly-torrential downpour to “What rain?” Traffic slowed to a crawl. To be honest, I was surprised to see that – it’s not often that the road monkeys figure out: “Hmm… these may be less than ideal driving conditions; maybe I should slow down.” I wanted to give them all cookies. Then I had a couple of lyrics run through my head:

The first was Sting’s Desert Rose:

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand

The other was Everything but the Girl’s Missing:

And I miss you
(Like the deserts miss the rain)

The former was amusing because it came to mind as I was passing Thanksgiving Point… which has a rather large and elaborate garden… in the middle of the desert. The latter always strikes me as funny because I never really think of deserts “missing” rain.

Today’s workout was good. I discovered something: 300 pounds is heavy. VERY heavy. Eric and I decided to give it a shot… just to see if we could; Eric did it once back in February. We couldn’t today. But, we did get 275 again. I was good with that. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to press 300, but I wanted to try. I was able to lower it slowly and get it (just barely) off my chest; I couldn’t make the transition from there, though. Oh, well. That just gives me something to work up to.

City of Heroes/Villains
The Hand of Nefer-Tem.
Security Level 34.
Boo-yah.

Stray Toasters

• I completely forgot about last night’s eclipse.
• Doesn’t this look like an out-take from Dragon’s Lair? It’s not. It’s a picture of DC Comics’ Shining Knight.
• Psychology of risk-taking
• 
• Chaos Computer Club Congress goes steampunk
• Although not necessarily “dystopian,” would the upcoming Bionic Woman series be considered cyberpunk?
• It’s gonna be the future soon
  I won’t always be this way
  When the things that make me weak and strange
  Get engineered away
• At the risk of losing a lot of cool points: I like the music of Jim Croce and Gordon Lightfoot.  Both men do/did some very nice guitar work… even though Mr. Lightfoot wrote what I consider one of the most depressing songs ever: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
• 
• I want to build… something… out of LEGO. I might even break out the Rokenbok, too.
• Tyranist, I need some feedback on this: Gore Is Less – Videogames Bake Better Horror Than Hollywood
• A little while ago, our Director of Operations and the Operations Manager asked me if I’m getting bigger (bulking up)… separately, but within five to ten minutes of each other.  I’m not working out for others’ recognition, but it’s nice that it’s noticeable.  It was amusing to see their expressions when they asked if I was taking any supplements or doing anything else to aid in the development and I told them “No.”

Namaste.

Saturday – 25 August 2007
Any day that starts with coffee and a trip to IKEA can’t be all bad. This was no exception. The unusual thing is that this trip was not for me and I walked out with nothing new. Well, except for a new bible. I mean “catalog.” I then spent the better part of the afternoon helping Perry to assemble his newly-purchased bed frame… and then hanging out with him and the family.

Home now.

Soon, I’m off to Park City for the Park City Jazz Festival. (Thanks, !)

Stray Toasters

• For :

  

• While standing in the checkout line at IKEA, a couple walked up behind me and the guy said something to the effect of: “Oh my God…” when he looked at how crowded the lines were. I turned around and asked: “First time…?” He said,”No, I was here last weekend, but it wasn’t as bad as this.” I nodded. He asked me, “How long have you been doing this.” I smiled and said: “About 15 years.” He wrinkled his brow and said, “Not here…?”

  INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Of course, not here, idiotstick. The IKEA here has been open for what… three months? *sigh* Common sense, unfortunately, isn’t.My response: “No, not here. There was one back home.”

  INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Idiotstick.

• So… let’s take a quick look at some Civil Bore items a bit of the aftermath:
  • Tony Stark gets the wild hair to turn into Ash from Pokèmon and get people to sign up to play for his team… or get thrown in jail. (Gotta catch ’em all!)
  • As part of his master plan, he takes a bit of DNA from the late God of Thunder, Thor.
  • …and he makes a clone of him, not-so-affectionately referred to as “Clor.”
  • Clor, is.. um.. “a little” unstable.
  • Clor kills the former avenger, Goliath.
  • Civil Bore wraps up.
  • Thor… comes back from the dead. (Maybe he’s part-Vulcan or part-Kryptonian… who knows?!)

  Now, I mentioned Ash… I mean Tony Stark… at the beginning of this, right? Okay, good. So, when you first meet up with (read: “confront”) your former comrade-in-arms, especially an Asgardian god… AND the same Asgardian god that you, in your infinite wisdom, decided to clone, how can you expect that meeting to go any way other than this: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) ?!? Oh, that’s right… you’re Tony Stark. Iron Man. A futurist. You don’t have to think about the rules.

  Or you’re just plain stupid.

• Transformers in IMAX? Hmm…
• Guy Gardner may not be my favorite Lantern, but WizKids got his ‘Clix figure and stats right.
• I should eat something. Soon.

Up out.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 21 August 2007
Waking up this morning was something of a chore. And one that I didn’t really want to do. But, who really enjoys chores? But, I mustered up some go-get-’em and did it anyway.

I don’t know what happened, but about 2/3 of the way through the commute, it seems as though a couple of road monkeys decided to have a meeting. Physics was involved. And I’m sure that there was a measure of deceleration trauma involved as well. There had to be…

…because that’s the only rational explanation that I can devise for the two-mile backup on I-15. Rather than try to navigate an alternate route, I rolled down the windows, fired up the iPod and crept down the road.

The rest of the day went well, comparatively. Including the lunch workout. I’m getting more comfortable with my sets of 205; I was able to do all three sets without having to break up the third set or having to decrease the weight.

On the way home, there was another accident on I-15.  Northbound.  Around 80th South.  There was a notification of the accident around the time that I crossed the county line, which was around… 150th South.  Traffic stopped around 120th South.  And it took about :20 minutes to go five miles.  Good thing I had the iPod.  Again.

Tonight is D&D Night.   The highlight of the game: We had to figure out how to get into the lower levels of a fortified pyramid.   Which was a bit of a problem since the hunger god’s follower’s had set spiked walls of doom at the bottom of the “chimney” that we were planning to use as an entrance.

Our solution was to pour pitch and Greek fire into the hole… and send a dragon down to light it on fire.

…and hilarity ensued.

City of Heroes/Villains: View from the Aerie
Last night, for the first time in a while, I took Corvus Nox to Paragon City. I was invited to join a team shortly after logging on. Unfortunately, they grabbed me because I am a Defender. Defenders are most often the class of healers. I’m more of a…. field medic. At best. And, I warned them of this right off the bat. The invitation stood. But, they apparently didn’t take me seriously. For which a few of us died. A few times. But, we did manage to make it through that mission. And, eventually, we found another healer… with roughly the same Health set as mine, but working in tandem seemed to work well for us. And there were a lot fewer deaths.

By the end of the evening, I had tacked two-and-a-half levels on to Nox.

Stray Toasters
No Toasters, especially since I:

• …have been working on this post (thank God for “Save” and “continue editing”) for hours.
• …am in the middle of figuring out what to do now that our characters have made it into the hunger god’s pyramid… and we don’t want to die.

Namaste.