Random Access

and :
I really wasn’t trying to start something when I posted the Dreamweaver video. But, apparently… I did.

Said you wanna be startin’ somethin’, ya gotta be startin’ somethin’.
I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’, ya gotta be startin’ somethin’.
It’s too high to get over and too low to get under,
You’re stuck in the middle and the pain is thunder.

So, with that in mind, I leave you with the following:

I was about to fire up Dreamweaver, to do some more PHP work, and I started whistling the chorus to this.

I think I need to scrub my brain now.

Monday: Coda
Ten-and-a-half hours.

That’s how long my Monday work day wound up being. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not complaining. Sure, it was a long day and I had a fairly boring and rote task that took up the back half (or more) of the day, but I was not a bad day by any stretch of the imagination. Just… long. And, on the “plus” side of the equation: That gives me an “extra” two-and-a-half hours to play around with on this week’s schedule, if I want.

After work, I came home for a short bit and then headed back out to take care of a couple of errands before heading over to Mary and Chris’ so that Chris and I could play dolls HeroClix. As usual, he cleaned my clock, but I had a lot of fun. The first game (400 points), I tried a team with something of a Green Lantern focus:

• Green Lantern (John Stewart)
• Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first of Earth’s Green Lanterns)
• Star Sapphire (GL Hal Jordan’s ex-flame… and later arch-enemy)
• Hawkgirl (I needed to fill in the points. Sue me.)

This was something of a war of attrition, but Chris’ tactics and skill wore me down. We decided to play one more game (200 points) before calling it a night. I decided that I wanted a “fun” team, so I went with a Justice League International theme. (I deserved to get my ass kicked just on principle for that one.) This team’s lineup included:

• Blue Beetle
• Booster Gold
• Fire
• Ice
• Rocket Red #7

Chris brought out Nick Fury and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And Blade. Between some rather craptacular dice rolls on my part and some pretty good ones on his part, he picked my team apart. It was almost as funny to watch/play as the JLI comic series. Almost. But, again, it was fun.

We loosely talked about getting together again and playing in the not-too-distant future. I had a couple of ideas for themes, based on the point values we decide on: The Earth GLs, The New Mutants or the Captain Marvel family.

Stray Toasters

• By way of SaraRules: Adult Brains Wired to Go Ga-Ga Over Babies
• The 10 Coolest LEGO-Inspired Gadgets
• 
• pointed me in the direction of this article on BoingBoing: Interview with producer of swords and sorcery themed porn…
  • …which led to this article, The Magical World of Warcraft Erotica, in The Village Voice
  • …which included this gallery (some of which is NSFW)
• SIW
• 
• Alex Ross’ Age of TV Heroes cover (first look)
• Toll the bell
  Pay the private eye
  All’s well
  20th Century dies…
• Giant comic collection donated to U of Minnesota

That’s close enough for jazz for tonight.

Namaste.

Sunday – 02 March 2008
It’s been a quiet and lazy day.
And that’s not a bad thing.

The morning didn’t start (for me) with comics and coffee in bed. It did start with coffee – and SaraRules did read the most recent acquisition of The Walking Dead in bed – but we wound up in the living room listening to music and hanging out.

In the afternoon, we headed to Jitterbug for a coffee and a quick bite to eat with . Next stop, Toys R Us. After all, it’s “The World’s Biggest Toy Store.” It wasn’t the longest TRU excursion on record, but it was nevertheless fun. And I managed to find a Justice Lords (1, 2) 3-pack of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

From there, on to SaraRules’ parents’ house for dinner and to hang out. After dinner, we watched 30 Days of Night. During the first third to half of the movie, I multi-tasked and played City of Heroes while watching the movie. By the time I was done, I was three bars closer to Level 46. Not too shabby for 30-40 minutes’ work. After the movie – and talking geek with SaraRules’ dad for a bit – we headed home. Since it was still early, we decided to watch something fairly light before calling it a night. We agreed on Justice League: The New Frontier. SaraRules liked it, especially because of its different spin on the characters; I liked it because… well, yeah.. “just because.” Duh.

This morning came early. Very early. We got up, ready and out the door and had breakfast at Paradise Bakery and Cafe before SaraRules had to head off to pick up one of her roommates and hit the road for southern Utah.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
This I Believe – Leaving Work Early to Watch the Sunset

Stray Toasters

• A tip of the hat to for his considerate gift of a couple of tickets to see Garrison Keillor when he comes to Abravanel Hall in a couple of weeks.
• Thanks to SaraRules for reminding me that Daylight Saving Time starts 09 March 2008.
• Prince Defines Hip in a New Way
• 
• For gamers who want their old-school fix: Genesis emulation comes to the Wii
• Cal State University fires Quaker for inserting “nonviolently” into oath.
• I can actually see downtown – and across the valley – this morning. I have pictures to prove it.
• Steampunk Mac Mini
• And, in other old-school-meets-new(ish)-school news: Serial-mouse-driven Etch-a-Sketch

“…right on to the friction of the day.”

Namaste.

Jason sent me a link to this earlier this afternoon.
I’m sharing the love. Or is that “the pain?” Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Wednesday – 27 February 2008
Last night, I couldn’t find a team in City of Heroes – and I didn’t want to solo – so I called it an early (for me) night. I picked up Guards, Guards and managed to read a few pages before Morpheus bid me welcome to The Dreaming.

Today’s been rather good. For lunch, James, Jason and I went to ‘s to play pinball. That’s right: Pinball. He has a full-size Twilight Zone pinball machine. It had been a long, long time till touchdown brings me ’round again since I had played. And it was fun. A very pleasant change of pace. Of course, this meant that I missed out on Sushi Wednesday and picking my this week’s comics at lunch, but I think I’ll survive. And, I think that may just have to go to the driving range that’s across the street from the office for lunch on Friday.

The Best: Pinball Wizard
The Who vs. Elton John

As much as I enjoy The Who’s version of this song, I have to give props to Sir Reginald Dwight for some rather adept finger work and a fine cover of this song. Both versions have their own flavor and their own merits.

Verdict: Tie.

Stray Toasters

• showed us $240 Worth of Pudding before we started playing pinball. Comedy.
  
• PHP.
• By way of Coworker JoeT (not to be confused with ): Failblog
• Yesterday, showed me the site for LightTape.
• Today, I countered with Digital Tattoo Interface. That’s right, we’re all going to be cyborgs soon.

Namaste.

Sunday – 24 February 2008
Last night’s breakfast was fun.  And a bit unusual.  I have pictures to prove it.  The dolls – FAR from what I was expecting to see in the claw machine – just about killed me.

After I got home, I was up for another two hours, playing City of Heroes.  At 3:30, my eyelids became an irresistable force; I got up from the desk and went to bed before I became an immovable object.  I woke up this morning and played for another hour and some change.  I’m roughly a bar and a half from Security Level 44.

Next on the docket: Moving things out of a few rooms so that some plumbing work can be done. “Sometime in the next 5-7 days,” the potable water lines in my building are being replaced.  This means nothing under or on the cabinets in the kitchen or either bathroom.  And, because of where some of the pipe access is located, I have to clear out some space in a couple of closets and my bedroom, too.  Yay.

Then, it’s off to the south, once more.

Namaste.

Saturday – 23 February 2008
Last night’s Clitorati gathering was fun. It was a very nice way to wind up the week. And, even though I was told “Don’t play with your food” while I was growing up… there are just some things that can’t be passed up:

The second pic nearly did not get taken:

While setting up the shot, I asked to move a bit. He did. Just as I prepared to take the picture, the cup – with coffee still in it – tipped over. I put down the camera and reached for the cup.

And the camera fell off the table.

Fortunately, I was able to catch it between my legs.

As the camera was falling, looked over and saw me catch the camera. After we all shared a “Did that really just happen?!” moment, she reached over to get it…

…just as the camera took a picture.

There was a pregnant pause and then we all broke out in laughing fits.

Today has been a mix of what I planned to do, a few things I didn’t plan on… and completely skipping a couple of things that I planned on. All-in-all, not too bad.

The morning started, as usual, with the Legion and The Batman. Both, however, were repeats… but that didn’t stop me from enjoying both. As I was rounding the clubhouse turn and watching Stargate SG-1, called and asked if I had eaten lunch yet. I hadn’t. So, we went to Macaroni Grill. I had the Chicken Marsala; the pasta was a little dry, but otherwise everything was fine.

After that, I ran a few errands and then went to visit Kate, Perry and the kids. Next up: A stop in the Red Balloon to see if they had anything that I just couldn’t live without for my Rokenbok set. I considered a couple of things, but ultimately walked out empty-handed. There is a set that I am looking for, but they didn’t have it in stock.

I headed up to say “Hi” to SaraRules’ parents. I finally remembered to take over a couple of movies that they hadn’t seen. When I got there, they kindly invited me to stay for dinner; I did. Over dinner, they asked how the trip was; I gave them my side of the story (which was a positive accounting of events). I showed them pictures from the trip, as well.

Back home to chill out and spend some time in Paragon City.

Now, off to breakfast!

Namaste.

Friday – 22 February 2008
I wound up staying in SLC all day Thursday. I was going to head down to AF after working on a system here, but was… convinced to stay north of the county line. The day was… something. In fact, at one point it came precipitously close to breaking the No Bad News Thursday rule. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t bad news, just a very poor presentation of information.

After work, I ran a couple of errands and then headed to Jitterbug to meet and for dinner. And coffee. And catching up on the latest things going on. After that, I headed home for a few.

Next up: A jaunt to ‘s to help her with a computer problem. Nothing earth-shattering (or even earth-shaking, like yesterday’s earthquake – which I, again, slept through). While there, I saw and played with the kids. They have new collars – Sissy has a green one. That’s right: My cat wants to be a Green Lantern when she grows up. (I’m so proud of her…)

Home again. I fired up City of Death Heroes and joined a team with a couple of guys whom I’ve grouped with before. They’re both “a little” gung-ho. Unfortunately, they were both Scrappers and not Tankers. Suffice if to say that there was plenty of death to be had for everyone. *sigh* I left that team and was invited to join another. The second team had their act together.

Stray Toasters

• and I had to explain Zork and grues to Jason yesterday.
• Speaking of which, you can play an HTML/PHP version of Zork here.
• You can play ports of other Infocom games here.
• Clinton doesn’t vow to go on beyond March 4
• And now, another episode of “How Rob’s Mind Works”:
  

  While getting ready for work, I saw the packaging for some toilet paper in the trash can and had the following thought: “Cottonelle… Cotton-elle… Hm… Superman’s Krytonian aunt… who was a sanitation engineer? Yeah, that works.”

• Smurfs at 50: Ready for a Comeback
• Next week’s release of the Crisis set for HeroClix includes another Legionnaire: Karate Kid

  

• From Gamespot: GDC ’08: LEGO Batman First Look

  

  

• Pleas for condemned Saudi ‘witch’
• Yeah, toast!

Namaste.

Wednesday: Coda
I came home and cooked dinner. Not fish fillets and fries. Not ramen. Not soup. Not spaghetti. I actually fired up the stove and the oven. Tonight’s fare:

• Baked chicken
• Rice, cooked in cream of mushroom soup
• Corn
• And a glass of milk. (Milk, it does a body good. Pass it on!)

Not only that, but I watched last week’s CSI: (kind of hard to watch live at 35,000 feet) and tonight’s Law & Order (well, I’m watching it now). AND I read this week’s four-color haul. And I may still make a trip to Paragon City. All-in-all, not a bad evening.

Stray Toasters

• I found the following articles while looking up some completely unrelated information this afternoon…
  • How to Know if You Are Irritating
  • How to Not Be Annoying

  I hung a copy on my wall in SLC; I’m doing the same in AF tomorrow.

• I also want this bumper sticker. Lots of them.

  

• I found a home for Sao Paulo (the laptop formerly known as Defiant): It’s going to my father.
• Are you using Windows? You might want to check this out – Killer Download: The Big Three free security applications
• FAA investigates whether go! Airlines flight crew fell asleep
• Microsoft… makes… action figures. I think my world just collapsed a little.
  (But, you should read some of the character bios. Dear Lord…)
• CNN Fires Producer Over Personal Blog
• Is your King James or New International Bible too boring for you? Give The Manga Bible a try.
• Nautilus-themed steampunk home theatre
• Geek-to-Geek: ‘grats to on your new flying mount.
• Old school:

  

  

  If I need to explain this, you just need to skip on to the next ‘Toaster. Seriously. Right now.

• The Century’s Top Engineering Challenges

Time to go fight some evil.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 20 February 2008
Midweek already. Where does the time go?

Little Miss Bit is two-weeks-old today.

Quote of the Day (so far)
From yet another conversation with :

(10:02:56 AM) : The person sitting across from you wants to kill you.
(10:03:12 AM) : Are you sure…?
(10:03:17 AM) : I can’t see anyone.
(10:03:19 AM) : O.o
(10:03:26 AM) : I am sending these messages from the future.
(10:05:55) : But.. but… why ME?!
(10:11:54) : *checks to make sure that my name is not Sarah Connor*
(10:11:56) : In the future you become the leader of a group of super heros.
(10:12:56) : your mild mannere.. oh.. wait.. we don’t have any of those…. your co-worker becomes the leader of a group of super villains.
(10:13:08) : and since we know that evil always wins because “good” is dumb……
(10:13:38) : wait. you are dating a Sara. HMM.
(10:13:49) : perhaps it’s your kids! 😀
(10:13:51) : But, she’s a [last name], not a Connor.
(10:13:59) : Marty.
(10:14:14) : But, neither of us has a DeLorean.
(10:14:29) : Or a flux capaci…. Oh, crap.
(10:14:53) : ahh. now you begin to see the tangled and painful weave of the future as it is to play out.
(10:15:11) : Damn the Fates! *shakes fist at the sky*
(10:15:30) : I did not say this. I was never here. The spice must flow.

And now, back to the grind.

Tuesday – 19 February 2008
Home again.

I tried getting in touch with Tammy, but didn’t catch her… so Monday was “spend the last few hours of vacation hanging out with the family before getting on a plane” day. We did head out for a bit, so that I could take SaraRules over to Pimlico Race Course, home of the Preakness Stakes… which is only a couple of miles from the house. After getting back from that, we hung out with Bot, Bit and . Pictures were taken. (Granted, these were lumped in with other pictures taken over the course of the weekend – including two with my uncle and one with Bret – but there are pictures nonetheless.) Also, here are pictures of the quilt that SaraRules made for Grace. When the time came to leave, we said our goodbyes, threw our things in the car and headed to BWI. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We checked in and made it through security quickly and painlessly. Then… we waited.

We boarded our plane and we were on our way west again. The flight was rather uneventful; to pass the time, SaraRules and I watched Transformers. She hadn’t seen it before, but enjoyed it. An hour and some change later, we were in Las Vegas. Our bags were on the carousel almost by the time we got there. To the car. Out the garage and we were on our way…

…to In-n-Out Burger. After that and a stop for gasoline, we were on the road back to Cedar City. By the time we got in, we were exhausted. So, we crashed.

This morning, we got up, ready and on our respective ways: SaraRules to class; me to work.

The work day wasn’t very eventful, which is not a bad thing. Eric and I had a special guest star for today’s workout: Wes, who in the AF office today. Today’s routine included:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Pull-ups: 3 sets/10 reps
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs.
• Cable Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs.
• Shoulder Press (seated, dumbbells): 3 sets/10 reps, 45 lbs.
• Cable Fly: 3 sets/10 reps, 95 lbs.
• Core Exercises
  • One-leg, with twist: 2 sets
  • Standard (plank): 3 sets – 45 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds

Today’s weight: 172.4 lbs.
It was a good mix. And tiring. It was Wes’ first time really working out in about six months. (Having brain surgery will do that to you, apparently.) He did fine. While he had to back off of some of the weight that Eric and I did, he was still right there with us otherwise.

Post-work, it was Scion game night. We didn’t do very much, as a couple of players weren’t there, but we were able to move the story along a little. And it was fun to hang out with the gaming crew.

Monkey of the Day
On the way home from gaming, I stopped at the grocery store. While I was in the checkout line, a young-ish guy (mid 20s, I would guess) came in, carrying a gallon of milk. He asked to speak to one of the managers. When she came to the front of the store, he told her that he’d purchased the milk at another location, but it was apparently past its “best if used by” date and wanted his money back. The manager offered to exchange the bad milk for a new one. The guy wasn’t having any part of that – he wanted his money. The manager said that she couldn’t just refund his money – as the milk wasn’t purchased at this store – but re-offered to replace the bad milk. His response: “Yes you can! This is all just one big chain. You can give me my money! It’s all the same store!” The manager countered that it was not, in fact, “…all the same store.”

This went around and around a couple of times. The guy finally started cursing at the manager. She walked away, saying, “I’m not going to go on with this if you’re going to speak to me this way.” She never raised her voice. She didn’t get confrontational. The guy just wouldn’t quit. He asked… no… “demanded”… that she get him the general manager’s name and contact information. She politely refused, as the guy was still slinging expletives at her.

He was still arguing (is it right to say “arguing” if he was the only one talking?) after I checked out and left.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules sent a lovely bouquet of flowers to my parents as a “thank you for your hospitality” gift. Dad replied by text message to her and to me. If I had to guess, I would say that she made a good impression on the folks. (Not that I really had to guess, though.)
• Cherry Hill to Capitol Hill: Barry C. Black marks several ‘firsts’ as U.S. Senate Chaplain
• Senators Obama and McCain both won in Wisconsin.
  And with 51% of precincts reporting, Senator Obama is well ahead of Senator Clinton in Hawai’i.
• 
• D&D Insider Flash Interviews
• By way of Deacon Derek: Subnormality: “Supervillains Anonymous”
  
• 
• Tyranist: Library built into a staircase
• Classic SF movies rendered as Russian folk-art woodcuts

I suppose that I should move from “the theory of sleep” to “the practical application of sleep.”

Namaste.

Sunday – 17 February 2008
Today’s been a good – and full – day.

SaraRules and I got up this morning and went to church with Dad. While Dad’s church usually has a fairly short service, today was a red letter day for short services – I think that we were in and out inside of an hour. (They had a special service between the regular services that they had to fit in.) We got back home… and took naps. For me, three hours. Apparently, I needed it.

After that, we headed to Columbia to meet up with Bret and his girlfriend, Elizabeth. We met at The Mall in Columbia. That place has changed quite a bit since the last time that I had been there. And… there’s an Apple Store there. I have finally seen and held a MacBook Air. Just as I was examining it, a young lady was looking at the Macbook Air next to me. She closed the lid, to see how thin it was…

…and an alarm went off.

She had the “Oh, God… What did I do?!” look on her face. Her boyfriend/husband/guy-with-her just looked on like, “I don’t know this woman.”

Turns out that the alarm was connected to a computer on a different table altogether. It just so happened that the timing was perfect.

After we left Bret and Elizabeth, we headed to Ellicott City to visit Aunt Rea and Uncle Marion. I took the laptop, so that I could show them pictures of Grace, Adam’s graduation and wedding weekend and a few pictures of Utah. It was a nice visit.

Back home for dinner and to hang with the family. I finally took my official first turn as “Uncle Rob, holding Grace.” She was a little fussy at first, but quieted down rather quickly… and then drifted off to The Dreaming. All of us sat around and talked for a bit. While we were chatting, heard about his next posting. Shortly after that, Grace decided that it was feeding time again, so we called it a night.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on during the day tomorrow – aside from trying to catch up with Tammy – before heading back to Utah, but I’m sure that we’ll (try to) squeeze something in.

Stray Toaster
SaraRules taught me something about a function on the computer. Granted, it was something on a Mac and not something that I was familiar with doing… but she still taught me something. And I promised that I would document it. “For posterity.” (And for her to get the satisfaction of being able to say “Do you remember that time when…?”)

Namaste.

Friday – 08 February 2008
The weekend steadily approaches. Selah.

I was up on-time this morning. “On-time” meaning that I didn’t ignore the alarm (multiple times). This doesn’t necessarily mean that I didn’t have a leisurely time getting ready… but I was awake and mobile, at least. And, I was still in the office by 8:15… with frozen mocha goodness and a bagel omelette sandwich, no less!

I took a few pictures of the mountains at sunrise. I made the gallery using iWeb, rather than iPhoto. It wasn’t quite as automatically intuitive as iPhoto, but it was still rather easy.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Coffee, in its various forms, is not something that you buy.
You rent it.

The same holds true for alcohol.

Stray Toasters

• brought in the Dragonlance DVD for me to borrow. This should be… interesting… if not entertaining.
• Thanks to for making sure that I saw Super LEGO Mario.
• By way of Drive Thru RPG: Xpress Core System
• Eric mentioned that Top Gear did a show where the hosts drove a charity “rally” through the southeastern states. Part of the race was through Alabama. Click here to see what they did for this part of the race.
• 72 Tips for Safer Computing
• Martin Scorsese is gearing up to do a Bob Marley documentary.
• 
• At the beginning of A Show of Hands, Rush used The Three Stooges’ “Hello… Hello… Hello… HELLO!” as their introduction. Now, no matter when I hear it, I expect to hear The Big Money immediately afterwards. Every time.
• Millions of peaches, peaches for me
  Millions of peaches, peaches for free
• Compubeaver
• Seeing the root domain name of the Compubeaver site reminded me of Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 06 February 2008
Jason called a little bit ago to ask how the roads on the way to the office looked.
Odd, but okay…
I told him that I thought that they were fine.

His “Uhhm…” gave me a little pause.

I went to the window.

It’s snowing.
Yet again.

Stray Toaster
For some reason, I had a couple of The Metric Marvels, NBC’s attempt to teach kids the metric system by way of a knock-off version of ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock!, running through my head this morning.

Namaste.