Random Access

Friday – 15 July 2008
Belated Happy Birthday to :

Today marks ‘s last day with our robot overlords here at Chiron Beta Prime. (Did I say “overlords?” I meant “protectors.”) It’s been good working with him and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Stray Toasters

• Yesterday, I rushed home from work to see if Dark Phoenix had arrived. She had. And there was great rejoicing. Earlier in the week, Dwim asked me to post pictures of Starro, but I wanted to wait until I received Dark Phoenix before doing so. Now that she’s here… here are the pictures.
• Monster Munch
• From today’s “You! Out of the Gene Pool” file: I’m Pregnant, Now Who’s the Dad?
• 
• Top 10 DC Comics Characters We Want to See Turned Into Movies
• Burn Notice. If you’re not watching it, you should be.
• Michael Phelps. ‘Nuff said.
• By way of comes Fabulon

…right on to the friction of the day.

Namaste.

Wednesday: Coda
After work, I came home to see if my Dark Phoenix had arrived. It hadn’t.

Forlorn and dejected, I left to run some errands. When the errands were done, I headed to Dr. Volt’s for a little Wednesday afternoon retail therapy. Exerting near-Green Lantern-like willpower, I managed to avoid buying yet another brick. Actually, it wasn’t even that much of a challenge – I looked at the brick, shrugged and just walked on. But that doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic.

Before heading home, I stopped in to see SaraRules’ family. We talked about movies. And the upcoming camping trip. And laptops. And how to install RAM into Pegasus. And stuff.

Coming around I-215, I had an apostrophe epiphany as to what I wanted for dinner: Pizza. When I got home, I dialed up the local Papa Johns and ordered some bring-it-to-me goodness.

Stray Toasters

• I have started listing my extra HeroClix lots. Finally. We’ll see how they fare.
• Because it continues to make me laugh:

  What’s a Nubian?
  

• Both Dwim and sent me links to pictures and videos of Janos Baranyai’s unfortunate accident at the Beijing Olympics. They are NOT pretty. I asked if this qualified Mr. Baranyai to be the new face of “The Agony of Defeat.” He said that it did not:
  

  : no way
  : this is too short of an OW OW OW moment
  : the agony of defeat was more strung out and lasted a while as he plummeted
  me: Couldn’t they just show it over and over in replay?
  : think about it tho
  : have you ever thought “OW!!!” when watching the former? this one made me cringe
  : can’t have people cringing
  me: I don’t know that I thought “OW” for AoD.
  me: Definitely “Daaaaaaaaamn”
  me: And no cringing.
  me: http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/gif/omnomnombleeahchav.gif
  : see now that guy just deserved it
  me: So, this is a case of “Double dumb-ass on you.”
  me: The lifter is… just “Oh, damn. Sorry, guy?”
  : on the first, yes, i agree with the colorful metaphor
  : on the second, it’s more of a DAAAAYUM…

  I then asked him about the lip-synching and George Lucas-esque “enhancement” of the opening ceremony fireworks display. He wasn’t surprised. He said that “…EVERYTHING is about image. It’s all about the collective face… everything has its base in ‘how will this look.’ And the thing is, they don’t care collectively how their own people view them, it’s all about everyone else.”

• CCI: Legion of Super-Heroes 50th Anniversary
• MarknTyme: Check this out. My friend, , just got back from the Level II course. I thought it looked like something that might interested you.
• 

Namaste.

Wednesday – 13 August 2008
Midweek.
I have a frozen mocha.
Tank! is playing on iTunes.
All-in-all, not a bad way to kick things off.

Happy Birthday to

…and to

Stray Toasters

• Random Question #1: If you had superpowers, who – if anyone – would you tell?
• Random Question #2: For the ladies – Would you wear a bikini made from an old t-shirt?
• Early Word: Dems Name Warner as Keynote Speaker
• 
• Marvel Legends Two-Packs
• Yes we know
  It’s nothing new
  It’s just a waste of time
  We have no need for ancient ways
  The world is doing fine
  Another toy
  That helped destroy
  The elder race of man
  Forget about your silly whim
  It doesn’t fit the plan
• Michael Phelps now has the distinction of having won the most medals of any Olympic athlete.
• Jean Grey: Marvel Girl
• Jean Grey: Black Queen
• Emma Frost: White Queen
• Sideshow Collectibles just needs to add Lee Forrester and Madelyn Pryor statues, then they could have “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Scott Summers” set.

Alright, 3…2…1, let’s jam.

Namaste.

From today’s “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Olympic Girl Seen But Not Heard

The basic jist: The little girl who sang at the opening ceremonies was pulling a government-sponsored Milli Vanilli. Why? Because, and I quote:

Games organizers confirm that Lin Miaoke, who performed “Ode to the Motherland” as China’s flag was paraded Friday into Beijing’s National Stadium, was not singing at all.

Lin was lip-syncing to the sound of another girl, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was heard but not seen, apparently because she was deemed not cute enough.

“The reason was for the national interest,” said Chen Qigang, the ceremony’s musical director, in a state radio interview. “The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression. … Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects.”

“Because she was not deemed cute enough.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

I understand the whole “Put your best face forward” idea, but come on. This is taking it to a whole new level.

Way to go, China.

Drew and Mark were heading over to Cafe Blue for lunch. I tagged along to see if they had anything that looked interesting and worthwhile. I wound up getting a chicken fajita panini; it was pretty good. And it wasn’t very spendy, either.

Stray Toasters

• The 2009 IKEA catalog is available online.
• A few weeks/months ago, I started an Amazon Wish List, which I not-so-coincidentally named “The Covet List.” While eating lunch, I tried seeing if I could find a direct link to the list rather than having to go to the Amazon main page and then click through to it. I found it. Then I noticed that one of the items on my list, X-Men Darktide DVD Box Set, had a list price of $2.95 under “New and Used.” Curiosity got the best of me, so I clicked to see what the deal was. And there it was, listed under “Collectible” for $2.95, but it was for the DVD only. There was another item listed there for $5.95, with the descriptor: “Like New.” So I read the item details:
  

  Comments: JUST THE DVD MOVIE! (no dolls).

  *blink blink*
  Wait… but it said “Like New.” To me, that means: “We’ve watched the DVD and played with the figures, but they are all included.” I commented on this to who just said:

  “Sure, it’s like new… if you by it from someplace that sucks.”

• I brought my Sennheiser headphones up here from the south office. I had forgotten both how good they sound and how well they drown out the sound of the office.
• 
• By way of Drew: Freak Accident – Revolving Door

• The picture in this article almost… ALMOST… made me like the Shrub. Who knows, if it had been around a few years ago, I might have held out a smidgen of hope for the guy. Oh, well.
• Or this one.
• Or even this one.
• Laminate the Masses

*voop*

Monday – 11 August 2008
Belated Happy Birthday to :

I spent the latter part of yesterday hanging out with the guys at Far West for a bit before heading down to see Kate and Perry.

When I got home, I decided that it was time for to look in on Paragon City. I logged in (for the first time in THREE weeks!) and was invited to join a team for radio missions. I ran four or five missions and tacked another 2½ levels on Kurigari. Not too shabby for less than two hours’ work.

And today? Well, today is Monday. Selah.

Stray Toasters

• Lauren is right on the button with Team USA’s uniform
• Everclear. Can you call them “one hit wonders” if – despite the fact that many/most of their songs sound the same – they change the lyrics to the songs?
• First it was Michael Phelps.
  Now it’s Katie Hoff.
  Both from Maryland… more specifically, both are from the Baltimore metro area.
  Mm-hmm, that’s right.



• The Sartorialist
• That Time Is Now
• Peep this, Harry Potter and Susan Richards. I can (almost) be invisible, too.
• Here come old flat-top
  He come grooving up slowly.

Namaste.

Today is apparently “Bird Day.”

Why is that, you ask?

A couple of reasons:

1. I just found out that the Ravens beat the Patriots in their preseason game last night.
2. I just won a Dark Phoenix HeroClix (1, 2) figure.

Win-Win.

This post was brought to you by the letters “B” and “X” and the number “7.”
And Morris Day, of course.

Friday – 25 July 2008

It’s SysAdminDay!

In honor of this, I once again bring your Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie’s System Administrator Song.

Last night, I hung out with Allie and her friend, David; I haven’t seen her in close to a year, I guess. She’s in town for a CF treatment. When I talked with her earlier in the week, I told her that I’d come visit her. I asked if she wanted anything. Her response: Tiramisu. So, I picked some up and took it to her. It was a fun visit.

I got back home around 11:00. I turned on the TV and watched the tail end of The Late Late Show. I thought about hopping on PokerStars, but realized at 12:30 that I was tapped. So I called it a night.

Stray Toasters

• If the weather stays decent, I may head to a driving range this weekend.
• From the Council for Better Driving: Utah comes Utah Code Section 41-6a-801 – Turning – Manner – Traffic Control Devices

  Loosely translated: “To the road monkey in front of me this morning: You could have turned left – into your designated lane, even though there was oncoming traffic turning right… into their designated lane.”

• No, I don’t play for the 49’ers
• Last Lecture Professor Randy Pausch, 47, Dies
• Wizard People
• 
• Oil paintings of computer cables
• The Shining recreated with WowWee robots

• LEGO Beijing Olympics

Namaste.

Monday – 21 July 2008
A new week begins.

Last night, Perry and I spent a few hours in Paragon City – I played Corvus Nox, he played his Reforming Demon character. We joined a team that was running a few missions in the low to mid-20s. The team was “top heavy” with Tankers. This was a good and bad thing:

• Good: We had people who could hold aggro (keep the bad guys’ attention).
• Bad: They had to be elbow-up in bad guys… which meant that as the de facto healer, so did I.

I’ve mentioned before that Corvus Nox can heal, but that he’s not a primary healer. I tried making this point more that abundantly clear to my teammates. I think that the multiple deaths helped to underscore my point. Nevertheless, thanks to Double XP weekend, I put three-and-a-half levels on ‘Nox.

In an amusing side note, I ran into another character on the server named “CincinnatiJen,” who was a Bengals fan. In fact, the character concept was that of a super-powered Bengals fan. I commented to the player that, as a Ravens’ fan, I found it amusing. I’m not sure whether he/she knew enough Latin to know that “Corvus Nox” (roughly) translates to “Night Raven.” Oh, well.

And… I got my Rikti Monkey last night!

I’m not sure what to name him.. er.. her… um… it… though.

I wasn’t tired when I went to bed, so I used a crossword puzzle to help induce sleep. It worked… about 20 minutes later. I should have just stayed awake – I had one of the most disconcerting dreams I’ve had in a long time. It not only woke me up, but rattled me enough to make getting back to sleep difficult. *grblsnrkx* Thus, when the alarms went off this morning, I turned them off – with gusto – and returned to The Dreaming for a bit.

It’s Monday, but I’m hoping that wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.
On the plus side, Take Me There, by Blackstreet and Mya, greeted me on the morning commute and I have sauteed spaghetti for breakfast.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules made it back to Aspen in good time.
• I finally found the link to the Heroclix Batman: Alpha site.
• Speaking of Mr. Wayne, The Dark Knight made $155 million in its opening weekend, setting a number of records.
• S’mores brownies.
• Band Geek Hero
• A couple weeks ago, I picked up four packs of NYTTJA frames from the Garden of Sweden, in red, green, yellow and blue. Yesterday afternoon, I pulled a number of comics out of my collection. Once I figure out which covers and frames will compliment each other best, I’m going to hang copies of cover art on the walls in my office. (Oddly enough, the green frames were easy to find cover are to match.)
• Comcast. *shakes fist*
• I picked up A Show of Hands (DVD) at Best Buy yesterday. It shall be included in today’s musical oleo.
• just had to deal with an issue – which should have never been an issue – that someone in the office created… all because that person wanted to have things his way. Apparently, he forgot that we do NOT, in fact, work for Burger King.
• Wow… and Mr. just did a little jig. Welcome to Monday.

Attack the day…

Namaste.

Friday – 18 July 2008
Welcome to the weekend.

This morning’s goal was to sleep in. Apparently, my body had other ideas: Despite turning off the alarm, I was up a little after 7:00. And 8:15. And somewhere around 9. I got a call from Perry at 9:15 and decided to finally take the hint that I wasn ‘t really going to get much/any more sleep. He asked something that made me laugh though: “Did you take the day off because of [City of Heroes‘] Double XP Weekend?”

I’ll try the sleeping in thing again tomorrow.

Assuming I get in gear and out the door in short order, I’ll probably head up for a cup o’ Joe with Perry before heading to lunch with and Steph (former coworker of his). Maybe I’ll just go post-lunch.

This afternoon’s agenda includes (but is not limited to) some cleaning… although, I may sneak in a little game time, too. And the idea of hitting some balls at the driving range isn’t entirely off the table, either.

To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, I’ve got “nothing but air and opportunity.”

Stray Toasters

• 12
• Just Put a Walkie Talkie in His Hand!
• Watchmen Trailer-to-Comic comparison
• I just chatted with ; she’s having a good time in The Big Easy.
• Keeping His Eye on the Ball
• It’s been a while since I’ve linked to this: Best of Craigslist
• Imposter
• 
• YouTomb: Where copyright-clobbered YouTubes go to die
• From The Brothers Brick: Darth Vader has a tough go of it in Gotham City

Quote of the Day
From a conversation with SaraRules about Mamma Mia!, a movie that she wants to see… and that I’ve agreed to sit through:

SaraRules: Entertainment Weekly called Mamma Mia! “exuberantly vapid”
Me: Yeah…
Me: I saw something along those lines online last night
SaraRules: Awesome. I can’t wait.
Me: hahaha
SaraRules: Dude, I’m sorry, but it’s a hollywood move musical based around the music of ABBA. How can anyone expect it to be art?
Me: High hopes?
Me: Wishful thinking?
Me: Miracle?
SaraRules: Pshaw. Delusions
SaraRules: Pshaw, now i have ABBA running through my brain.
Me: I’m sorry.
SaraRules: Hell, I’m not. Finding it on iTunes right now. 
Me: I love you… but sometimes, you scare me.
SaraRules: Because I like ABBA?
Me: No.
Me: Because you’re actively seeking ABBA out on iTunes. 😉

Time to start/finish getting ready to jet.

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.

Monday – 28 April 2008
Indulge

Pronunciation: \in-ˈdəlj\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): in·dulged; in·dulg·ing

Etymology: Latin indulgēre to be complaisant

Date: circa 1623

That’s exactly what I did this morning: Indulged myself with staying in bed. Forty-five whole extra minutes. Alarm? Yep, it was set. And it went off. A few times.

Didn’t matter.
Didn’t care.

This morning was about enjoying the last vestiges of the first full good night’s sleep that I’ve had in almost a week. And it was totally worth it. As an added bonus, I got to spend a little more time with SaraRules. Can’t beat that at twice the price, either. Sure, it meant a later start to the commute. And a later end to the work day, but like I said:

Didn’t matter.
Didn’t care.

Workout
Coming back to a workout after a week off is not fun. Today was no exception. We pretty much did (most of) last Monday’s routine:

• Bench Press (barbell): 3 sets/8 reps – 2.5 sets @225 lbs, half-set @ 185 lbs
• Curls (barbell): 3 sets/10 reps – 2 sets @ 70 lbs, 1 set @ 50 lbs
• Flys (Nautilus): 3 sets/15 reps, 95 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, Hammer grip): 3 sets, 10 reps, 25 lbs
• Dips: 2 sets, 20 reps & 15 reps

Post-workout weight: 170.2 lbs.
(If nothing else, not having an appetite for four days helped get rid of a few pounds…)

Home. Everything seems to be in one piece. That’s a good sign.

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to an excellent suggestion from , The Covet List is now being given form as my Amazon Wish List.
• America’s Dirty Little Oil Secret: Plastic Bottles and Bags
• 
• Chris and I are playing ‘Clix tomorrow. I get to try out Galactus. I should probably bone up on the special rules for him before we play…
• Apple has upgraded the iMac.
• , can you explain why your team gave up all their draft picks until the fourth round?!
• Guilty: Jury Convicts Reiser of First-Degree Murder
• Wow… sounds like my desk:



• I’ve mentioned before, but you should also check out Brad Guigar’s other comics, Courting Disaster and Phables.
• Even though the content is often very similar, I think that I like Gizmodo a little better than Engadget.

And now, to see if I can figure out what sounds good for dinner…

Namaste.

We got back a little while ago from seeing the Utah Valley Handbell Choir perform; a friend of SaraRules is a member, so that was added incentive to go.  The performed ten pieces:

1. Allegro Glorioso, by Catherine McMichael
2. Grazioso, Arnold Sherman
3. Staccato Giocoso, Cathy Mokelbust
4. Psalm Nine, Carl Wiltse
5. Pirates of the Carribean, Hans Zimmer
6. Takeda Rhapsody, T. Kanzaki
7. Hava Nagila, Traditional Israeli
8. Colonel Bogey March, F.J. Ricketts
9. Fantasy on “Lasst Uns Erfreuen”, Traditional German (arr. by Glen Hicks)
10. Hymn to Joy, Ludvig van Beethoven

The performance reminded of drum corps productions, in the timing and the similar tonalities.  It was also a little amusing to find that I remembered all of the words to Hava Nagila, which I haven’t really sung in over 30 years.

Stray Toasters

• As of Round 2, Baltimore has drafted Joe Flacco (QB) and Ray Rice (RB).
• Babies seized by Robert Mugabe’s forces as Zimbabwe hounds voters
• I just bought three (3) pieces of plastic crack:
  • The Dark Knight
  • The Mighty Thor
  • Vlad the Impaler

Quote of the Day

SaraRules: “I love you more than garlic.”

Namaste.

After 13 seasons, Steve McNair is retiring.

What does this mean for the Ravens QB position? I don’t know. I do know that we have two pretty solid QBs in Troy Smith and Kyle Boller, but I am curious to see who they’ll tap for the #3 slot.

Blue skies and gentle landings to Mr. McNair.

Thursday – 17 April 2008
NBN Thursday in the valley. Sunny, trying to be warm.

Today has been pretty good. I have been trying to figure out a (better) way to build a list with checkboxes, pulling data from my database. Slow-going, but it’s coming along. It is also “Sushi Wednesday.” I had a Seattle roll along with Ika and Ebi (shrimp) Nigiri.

There is construction on 33rd South. There’s a deep trench running down the middle of the street. On the way to the restaurant, Joe asked what they were doing. I responded: “Laying pipe… and in this case, it’s not a euphemism.” A little later Mike showed up and asked,”What are they doing out there,” to which Joe quickly retorted: “Laying pipe,” at which we just ran with the joke:

“Laying pipe.”
“Yep, lots of men… laying pipe.”
“Pipe so big they need heavy equipment to lay it right.”

Hilarity ensued.
Stray Toasters

• I hung out with last night. She was having an issue with pools of water collecting on the carpet outside her bathroom. (Hm, that sounds vaguely familiar.) She called maintenance to look at it; the guy did what he could, but noted that he would have to check the apartments above hers for signs of leakage. (That sounds familiar, too…) After he left, we went out for dinner. Aside from the plumbing issue, it was a nice way to spend the evening.
• Two Minutes and 42 Seconds in Heaven
• By way of Markin’ Time: Coolest Fighter Jets… EVER!
• Superman and Superboy: Newsarama takes a look at the ongoing cases
• I just received the following email from my mother:
  

  Slap Your Co-Worker Day Is Coming!

  

  Do you have a co-worker who talks nonstop about nothing, working your last nerve with tedious and boring details that you don’t care about?
  Do you have a co-worker who ALWAYS screws up stuff creating MORE work for you?
  Do you have a co-worker who kisses so much booty, you can look in their mouth and see what your boss had for lunch?
  Do you have a co-worker who is SOOO obnoxious, when he/she enters a room, everyone else clears it?

  Well, on behalf of Ike Turner, I am so very very glad to officially announce tomorrow as SLAP YOUR IRRITATING CO-WORKER DAY!

  There are the rules you must follow:

  • You can only slap one person per hour – no more.
  • You can slap the same person again if they irritate you again in the same day.
  • You are allowed to hold someone down as other co-workers take their turns slapping the irritant.
  • No weapons are allowed…other than going upside somebody’s head with a stapler or a hole-puncher.
  • If questioned by a supervisor [or police, if the supervisor is the irritant], you are allowed to LIE, LIE, LIE!

  Now, study the rules, break out your list of folks that you want to slap the living day lights out of and get to slapping…..and have a great day!

• D&D Ability Score Quiz
  • Strength: 12
  • Dex: 15
  • Con: 13
  • Int: 15
  • Wis: 15
  • Cha: 15
  • Special Abilities: Sarcasm
• Young Me / Now Me

And that’s a wrap… for now.

Namaste.