Random Access

Monday – 14 July 2008
It’s Bastille Day.

I don’t remember “what” they were, but I recall having a couple of odd dreams last night.

It’s 7:30 and I’m not exactly feeling rushed about getting to work. I should still be there between 8:00 and 8:30, but I’m really not pressed about it.

Stray Toasters

• Add something new to the Covet List: Aluminum LEGO brick keychains.
• For your Monday morning amusement, from In Living Color: The Wrath of Farrakhan:

• SciFi has information about 30 Days of Night: Blood Trails
• ‘Drunk’ referee shown red card
• The trailer for the upcoming NickToons Iron Man: Armored Adventures is online

Up, up and away!

Stray Toasters

• It’s 7-11 Day. Get your free Slurpee!



• While I doubt that they had ‘s affinity for cow-themed things in mind, it is apparently Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, too.
• does this seem at all familiar?



• It looks like I’ll be working for a few hours on Sunday. All things considered, this isn’t a “bad” thing, as it will be in the middle of the day, when I’d otherwise probably just be doing my couch potato impression. And, as an added bonus, that cuts down the hours that I’ll have to be here on Friday… possibly even eliminating the need to be here on Friday. Win-Win.
• Rob Worley, from Comics2Film, has discovered a link (of sorts) between The Middleman and a certain Michael J. Fox movie
• For the WoW gamers out there:



• Mandelbrot Set you’re a Rorschach Test on fire
  You’re a day-glo pterodactyl
  You’re a heart-shaped box of springs and wire
  You’re one badass fucking fractal
  And you’re just in time to save the day
  Sweeping all our fears away
  You can change the world in a tiny way
• 

Thursday – 10 July 2008
Last night, Dr. Z brought my XBox from the AF office up to SLC. Along with it, came the six games I had stored in the carrying case, including X-Men: Legends. Win-Win. I took them home and put Legends in the 360 and sat down to enjoy some comics-based gaming.

I had, however, neglected one very important factor into account: The 360’s poor backwards compatibility.

After some research, I found that I needed to download an emulator – to trick the 360 into thinking that it was an O.G. XBox.¹ (Yes, calling it “O.G.” just made me laugh.) And, even then, there’s no guarantee that the emulator will play Legends properly. *sigh* As the home network is mostly wireless, I looked to see if I had a long enough Cat-5 cable to run from the living room to the office. Nope. Next, I considered trying to cascade wireless routers, since I have SaraRules’ router for the time being. Then I decided that was more effort than I really felt like putting into it last night.

So, I opted for playing City of Heroes.

Which had a new patch release. So, I waited for it to download and then clicked to apply it. I was apparently so wiped from the poor sleep Tuesday night – possibly aided by the Shiraz I had with dinner – that I nodded off before the patch finished applying.

So I called it an early evening, relatively speaking.

This morning, I was up and ready to roll in just over 40 minutes, including the time it took to iron today’s outfit. Not too shabby. It would have been even better if I had remembered my cell phone before leaving the complex. *sigh* At least I have frozen mocha goodness to see me through the morning.

And it’s Comics and Sushi ‘Wednesday.’

Stray Toasters

• Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Sheila E. are performing Saturday. I’m a little torn about which show I’d rather go to… but leaning towards BBVD.
• The new season of Burn Notice starts tonight.
• The HeroClix Fantastic Four Starter Set should be in stores today.
• As bad as I’ve (re)discovered that Super Friends can be, this sounds like an interesting compliation.
• I haven’t played Second Life in probably a year. This is almost enough to get me to check it out again: New Babbage – A Steampunk City in Second Life:

• iPhone 3G meets the masses tomorrow.
• It looks as though the right reverend Jesse Jackson could use a good talking-to.
  But, he’s still my top choice for reading Green Eggs and Ham:

• I just introduced DaveW to Christopher Titus Apologizes. In return, he sent me back to my desk with a video from Lisa Lampenelli: Take It Like a Man

Namaste.

¹ – O.G. XBox – A conversation between a classic XBox and an XBox 360:

XBox 360: So what are you supposed to be?
XBox: Me? I’m O.G.
XBox 360: “O.G.?” Shit… you ain’t gangsta.
XBox: Gangsta? Naw, man… not gangsta. O.G. “Original Gamer.” Word.

Lunch time.  I should be going to the gym, but neither Wes nor Mark are in this office and I really dislike working out alone.

Stray Toasters

• Interviews with Matt Keeslar, The Middleman in… The Middleman
  • A Slice of Sci-Fi
  • iFMagazine
  • TV Guide
• The best video games of the year — so far
• Tyranist: You should click here.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?” file: Teenager finds baby bat in her bra
• … and in a semi-related note: Die off of bats mystifies experts
• First Look: Wonder Woman DVD Movie
• NASA sets date for final shuttle mission in 2010
• Another from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!” file: The World’s Weirdest Health Mascots
• MK vs. DCU screen shots: Now with more Catwoman

I should eat something.

Tuesday – 08 July 2008
Last night, after having a bite to eat and watching a little TV, I decided to head to Borders to do some drawing. I took a few ‘Clix figures with me – it’s been a while since I’ve drawn anything, so I thought it best to work on simple figure studies. Did I say “a while?” I meant to say that I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do everything beyond the point of “hold the pencil.” *sigh* As the song says: It’s a long, dark road out of Hell. But, I’ll eventually get back to where I was.

Back home in time for The Middleman. Apparently, we’re on the West Coast feed of ABC Family – the show comes on at 11:00 here. Not a major hassle, but I wouldn’t mind catching it at 9 or 10. I read something… last week, I think… that says that Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda) will be guest starring on an episode. He will be playing a Middleman who’s been in suspended animation. That should prove amusing.

I flipped channels for a bit after The Middleman. I started with Deep Space Nine, but wound up spending a bit of time watching The Late Late Show… before winding up back on DS9. I was mostly killing time until Burn Notice came on. Which I did. And then only made it through twenty (20) minutes of the show before realizing that I needed to call it a night.

Stray Toasters

• I made corn muffins this morning. They’re a nice change of pace to my sporadic breakfast routine.
• Ten
• Classic Nick Fury is back in comics… and has a new ‘Clix figure, to boot.



• For SaraRules and Tyranist: Zombie lawn sculpture
• Stephen Colbert is running for President of the United States… in the Marvel Universe.

(click image for more information)

• Balloon animals from trash bags: Joshua Allen Harris
• It’s a definite sign of the times when even LEGO minifigs are riding scooters.
• Builder discovers ‘priceless’ Tolkien postcard

Namaste.

Monday – 07 July 2008
I hope that the holiday weekend was safe for everyone. As yet, I’ve heard no reports of anyone having to be
rushed to their local medical facility to have fireworks-related injuries treated. I take that as a good thing.

Aside from being slow on the uptake in figuring out that SaraRules had gotten into town early and Friday morning Leash doom, it was a rather good – and relaxing – weekend.

After SaraRules left for Aspen, I headed down to Kate and Perry’s to do a little tech support and to hang with the family. It also turns out that their youngest added +1 to his Crawl skill while they were on vacation. It also seems like he added +1 to his Stand (with support) skill, too.

When I got back home, I planted myself on the couch and watched a couple of episodes of Law & Order: SVU. I flipped over to watch a little bit of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi before deciding to play City of Heroes. I was invited to join a team fairly quickly; we ran a few missions against The Council and Tsoo… and a bank mission. Despite a few inglorious deaths, I was able to put on a couple of levels.

All-in-all, it was a good end to a good weekend.

Stray Toasters

• I am having Butterscotch Krimpets and coffee for breakfast. Not quite the so-called “Breakfast of Champions,” but good, nonetheless.
• July 7, 1936: Get a Grip – Phillips Screws Up the Toolbox
• Hulk vs. Wolverine

• The manual I’m reading just made an analogy between IP addresses and USPS addresses, that impressed me:
  

  “In the same way that a house address has two parts – a street address and a ZIP code (the city and state are not really used anymore – an IP address also has two parts…”

  The impressive part is that not many people outside the USPS really know (or at least think about the fact) that the City and State parts of an address are somewhat superfluous. As a rather high percentage of the mailstream is routed by automated systems, they can usually determine exactly where a mailpiece goes from just the ZIP Code and the street address.

• I’m going to a DCI show in Ogden on Thursday. I haven’t been to a drum corps show in… at least… 10 or 11 years. That should be fun.
• By way of the “You Can’t Do That on Television” file: Porn appears on rugby programme
  (The expression of the guy in the accompanying picture makes the whole thing for me)
• I am amused that this xkcd comic has had the following effect on the Wikipedia entry for “wood”

And… back to it.

Namaste.

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s examine that picture…

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

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

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

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

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

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

Today’s post-workout weight: 175.3 lbs.

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

Stray Toasters

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

Back to it…

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

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

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

Laughter ensued.

Sunday – 29 June 2008
It’s seems as though June just got here… and now it’s almost gone.

Playing ‘Clix with Chris last night was good. We played two games, a one-on-one game and one with Matt and me taking him on. Chris won both. (Yay for sporadically crappy dice rolls!) I also understand now why he hates the “Indoor: Prison” map from the Sinister set… although, I think that it would be an interesting map to play with non-powered figures (S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, various law enforcement figures, A.I.M., Checkmate and/or thugs).

After gaming, I headed down to Sandy for breakfast. Not only was a small group, but we wound up leaving relatively early as everyone seemed to wind down from their week/day pretty quickly.

This morning, I managed to sleep in – I made it to the double-digits. Barely, but I did. I also woke up with a less-than-delightful headache. I assumed that it was lack-of-caffeine induced, but coffee has not as yet done anything, so I set two Aleve tablets on the job. Hopefully, they will do some good.

I’m trying to gear up to head downtown to visit the Utah Arts Festival. However, the whole “lazy” thing has had me firmly in its grip.

Stray Toasters

• This test is something of a test – I am trying to determine whether one WP-to-LJ cross-posting plugin is better than another.
• I finished the HeroClix character cards I was working on for Chris:
  • Logan
  • Magneto
  • Parallax
  • Superman
  • Wolverine
• Big haul of Crohn’s genes shows disease complexity
• 
• Checkmate
• Floyd Landis, winner of the 2007 Tour de Lance France, has been stripped of his win and had a two-year ban imposed on him.
• Teen killed by roller coaster
  While it’s sad to hear about this, I have to chalk this one up to the boy’s own lack of regard for the warning signs.
• 
• This place could almost be the USPS…

I should kick it into gear…

Namaste.

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

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

Stray Toasters

• For Derek:



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

*voop*

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

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

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

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

It’s a sushi day.
Decision: Rendered.

Namaste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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



• Man in wheelchair charged with drunk driving

Time to hit it.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 24 June 2008
After work, I headed home to figure out what to do with my evening. I decided that I’d watch The Middleman and then head to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. Turned out that the 8:00 episode was a rebroadcast of the pilot. So, I went to the store first. Came home, started dinner and watched The Middleman. I had another thought on how to “define” it. Somewhat. It’s The X-Files meets Men in Black, leaning most heavily towards MiB.

After a little channel surfing (including a 45-second delay on Boomerang – man, Super Friends really did blow), I found the second hour of Beverly Hills Cop on Bravo. And there I sat. I haven’t watched BHC in years… and I have somehow not purchased it yet.

After ‘Cop and The Late Show (featuring a really funny Will Smith interview), I decided to call it an early night.

Stray Toasters

• I am working on a few new ‘Clix cards for Chris. It’s… oddly fun and the “worst” part is trying to come up with some of the quotes – I still need to find something for Superman (Icons, veteran) that works for his “Ranged Combat Expert” ability.
• Thanks to MarknTyme for pointing me in the direction of DC Elseworlds
  

(Click image for site)

• By way of SaraRules: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (Part I)

• “whiffy”
• Uptown got its hustlers
  Bowery got its bums
  42nd Street got Big Jim Walker
  He’s a pool-shootin’ son of a gun
• With the disclaimers of: 1) I’m a guy and 2) I don’t have kids, I have a question: Is there something offensive about the cover of the July 2008 issue of GQ?

  

  The reason that I ask is this: I was in Target last night and there were copies of this issue in the news rack next to the candy and gum. Something that I’ve noticed here in Utah – and it may exist in other places, but I haven’t noticed it – is that when a magazine cover is deemed “too racy,” they put an opaque plastic insert in front of the magazine, so that only the title shows. And, lo and behold, this issue was one of them.

• And, since we’re already talking GQ: 2008 Fall Preview: Reinvent Yourself
  

Namaste.

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

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