Random Access

Thursday – 18 October 2007
I know that I’ve used the line “Waking up and getting up has never been easy,” from Elastica’s Waking Up, many times before, but it was especially apt this morning. I really couldn’t muster the get-up-and-go to… um… get up and go. So, I slept in a bit. And even then, it was still a bit of a struggle. But I managed to do it.

So far, the work day has been good and rather uneventful. And, on the short commute side: I came in to the north office to finish up an item. I got an email from a couple of the AF guys that they weren’t going to make it to the gym today, so I decided to skip today’s drive to Happy Valley.

…and, thus, no workout today.

Stray Toasters

• I picked up Renaissance and Reservoir Dogs yesterday. I started watching Renaissance last night; I would have finished it… had I not been so tired and fallen asleep. Of the… 2/3 that I saw, I like the movie; I’ll probably finish it off tonight.
• “Anything else is frosting.”
• Never mind the b******t, swearing at work is a good thing
• , , … and others might enjoy this: 28 Ways to Interpret a Photo
• 
• Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along) on Threat Level
• 8 minus.
• Excellent liquor store name of the day
• Hang Fire Books
• This, in and of itself, is kind of cool. I was talking with SaraRules (with a nod to for that) about possible uses for it. The best thing that I came up with: Drawing a chalk summoning circle outside the front door, with the skeleton partially in/partially out of the circle – as if the spell failed. I wonder how damaging that would be to the fragile psyches of the neighborhood kids…
• Look Like Your Enemy: Create signs that confuse, astound and parody! (Have I mentioned that I [heart] Instructables?)

Namaste.

Stray Toasters

• Today’s workout was good. I did another 300 pound 1-rep. It was a little wobbly in the middle, but it came down and went back up. That’s what counts. The rest of the workout proceeded apace:
  • Bench press: 225 lbs / 3 sets of 8 reps (which was more like 8, 8, 4-3-1)
  • Pull-ups: 2 sets unassisted; 1 set of 5, unassisted and 6 assisted (90 lbs)
  • Machine Row: 90 lbs / 3 sets of 10 reps
  • Machine Fly: 120 lbs / 3 sets of 10, with a 10-second hold at the top of the 10th rep
  • Decline Dumbbell Press: 50 lbs / 3 sets of 10 reps
  • Tricep Press and Rope Extensions: 100 lbs / 2 sets of 10 reps (rope) and 1 set of 15 reps (bar)
• This past weekend, I discovered a side effect of working out: I took a couple of sportscoats with me to wear to the plays that we were attending. One was… snug… around the arms. The other was just plain too tight. *sigh* And I like both of those jackets. One should be fairly easy to replace; the other… no idea.
• I haven’t posted a link to this in a while: Echo-X – The Artwork of Echo Chernik
• Hush, hush
  Keep it down now
  Voices carry
• Helloooooo, Caps Lock.
• Tonight, God willing and the creek don’t rise, is Game Night.
• Debbie Harry in The New York Times
• 56
• “Math is hard. Let’s go shopping!”

.eof

Just back from the gym. Today’s workout was easily as good as Tuesday’s. I managed to pull off two reps of 300 pounds today. The reps were spaced out: I tried one, to prove that Tuesday wasn’t a fluke, waited for Eric to try one, then did another. The second one was a little slow, but I moved it. And, I increased my standard bench weight to 225 pounds.

• Bench press: 225 pounds / 3 sets of 8 reps
• Wide-grip bench press: 135 pounds / 3 sets of 10 reps
• Decline dumbbell press: 40 pounds / 2 sets of 10 reps; 45 pounds / 1 set of 15 reps
• Dumbbell pull-overs: 40 pounds / 3 sets of 10 reps
• Side bends: 35 pounds /3 sets of 15 reps
• Crossover dumbbell curls: 20 pounds / 3 sets of 10
• Pull-ups: 10

Other than that, the work day has been good.

The day, in general, has been good.

And tomorrow is Friday. Amen.

Stray Toasters

• and I were talking about some of the traffic on his site and I decided to take a look at the traffic on mine. I checked out the monthly stats… and the daily stats… and who’s been looking at the site… and the Top 10 Search Keyphrases and Keywords.

  And that’s where I stopped.

  Because I was laughing so hard.
  Number one search keyphrase: KKK

  *FLOOR* The overall exchange went a little something like this:

  [10:54] : Okay… want to see something odd?
  [10:59] : sure, shoot
  [11:15] : [URL]
  [11:15] : Bottom of the page
  [11:15] : “Search Keyphrases”
  [11:15] : Look at the #1
  [11:20] : HA!
  [11:20] : Yeah.
  [11:20] : 🙂
  [11:20] : something in your closet we should know about?
  [11:20] : These are not the hood and robes you are looking for….
  [11:20] : i love irony
  [11:21] : “this don’t look like no grand wizard”
  [11:22] : Wow.
  [11:22] : Horrible crossover thought.
  [11:22] : and that is?
  [11:23] : I’ve had random songs from The Wiz going through my head. (Listened to the Broadway recording many times as a child… and recently bought it on CD for myself)
  [11:23] : There’s a song called So You Wanted to See The Wizard
  [11:24] : HA
  [11:24] : …which just got reparsed in my head as: So You Wanted to See the Grand Wizard
  [11:24] : that should be your song o’ the day

• NBN Thursday’s Theme Song: Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News
• sent me a link to this video. If the melody sounds familiar, but you can’t quite place it, try this.
• Glitter.
• 30 Days of Night. Next week!
• “Shithead granola-eating douche bags” – Jake on the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (1, 2)
• Hawk, from Applegeeks, has started a non-AG drawing journal.
• How it feels to die.
• This comic appropriately sums up my feelings about the 15-mile construction zone near Scipio:

  

  The Council for Better Driving: Utah endorses this comic.

/lunch

Namaste.

Tuesday – 09 October 2007
Last night’s sleep was… broken. I was up and down all night. When the alarm went off this morning, it was immediately shut off, and I lazed in bed until the iPod started to play. Then it was time to face the day. Work prep was relatively quick and painless, but I had to skip the “Have a bowl o’ cereal” part of the agenda as I had neglected to pick up some milk. *shakes fist* I did brew coffee so that I could start thinning the blood in the caffeinestream.

The commute wasn’t painful and, so far, the day hasn’t been bad.

::: gym break :::

I hit a new max benchmark on my bench press today: 300 pounds. One – and ONLY one – rep, but I did it.

Stray Toasters

• I should start thinking about what I want for lunch.
  (EDIT: I figured it out – Fazoli’s Rigatoni Romano)
• There was an item on boingboing about this cutlery set. After seeing the boingboing article, I followed the link to the Flying Peas site. And there began the downward spiral into madness, culminating in: The Camo PeePee Teepee, for which I have no joke or punchline.
• M is for Monkey.
  C is for Cookie Chimpy.
• From NPR: Keeping Gospel’s Legacy Alive
• allmusic.com
• respond, vibrate, feedback, resonate
• Eve figure
• 

/lunch

Namaste.

Stray Toasters

• For (and/or anyone else who’s interested): Someone made a set of custom New Mutants figures.
• 68
• *cackle*
• Today’s workout was good. My flat bench was okay for the first two sets, but I had to break up the third set into: 9 – 1 (reverse) – 1 – 1. But, on the plus side, my pull-ups are getting better: I can do two sets, unassisted, without much problem. And today, I fought my way through the third set of ten, unassisted. It was closer to: 8 – 1 – 1, but I didn’t have to use the machine assist.
• After I got back from the gym, Acolyte Derek asked me to come join a push-up “contest” with some of the developers. (Why they keep deciding to do these challenges on the days when I work out is beyond me.) Oh, well. Mine “is not to reason why…” So, I went to that side of the office and joined in. I did 57, topping the then-leader by two.

Quote of the Day
I have the following picture set as my desktop (this size, centered) in the Salt Lake office:

I received the following message from Dave, who sits next to me, when I’m in SLC:

(10:48:00 AM) Dave: hey man
(10:48:12 AM) Dave: I got my 5yo here and I was wondering if he could use your desk to do some coloring?
(10:48:23 AM) Dave: and by coloring, of course, I mean cracking into your computers…
(10:48:25 AM) Me: Sure!
(10:48:30 AM) Dave: chewing on your stuff…
(10:48:37 AM) Dave: no, that’s the 3yo, sorry, he doesn’t chew anymore
(10:48:39 AM) Me: Well, that’s a given with a 5y0 isn’t it?
(10:52:23 AM) Dave: thanks alot, man.
(10:52:29 AM) Me: Anytime
(10:52:38 AM) Dave: btw, he saw your ‘cute little picture’ on your monitor and I think it left a lasting impression…
(10:52:50 AM) Me: Oh, dear…
(10:52:56 AM) Dave: 🙂
(10:53:03 AM) Dave: I’ll tell you about the nightmares later
(10:53:07 AM) Me: Please. 😀

.eof

Wednesday – 26 September 2007
Yesterday was pretty good, all the way around. No real problems. I had to demonstrate my technopathic abilities to a new coworker. And, I had cotton candy. How can you beat a combination like that? You can’t.

Yesterday’s workout was good, too. My sets of 215 (10 – 10 – 9 and a reverse) were decent. My pull-ups (the exercise, not the training pants) are getting better, too: I did two-and-a-half sets (10 pull-ups, each) with no assistance. That’s a nice – and noticeable – improvement. And then, there were the side bends. *urk* Good for the obliques… in theory. I woke up this morning to pain, which is pretty normal the day after doing side bends. I keep trying to convince myself “It’s good training” and “It builds character.”

Last night was zombie-killin’ game night. We came. We saw. We dropped grenades and retreated made a hasty advance to the rear. We lived, which is a good thing… but we returned to base tas it was about to be overrun by the Chaos-infused armies of the damned. Yeah, we are screwed. Who wants to live forever?

Stray Toasters

• I talked with Adam yesterday. He pre-ordered the limited edition of Halo 3. *genuflect* And, as with almost all of the limited edition copies, his was scratched beyond the ability to be played.
• Thirty-eight degrees. That ain’t right.
• Back to the Future: Shooter talks Legion of Super-Heroes
• I’m nearly done reading V for Vendetta. I like the graphic novel, but I can appreciate the cuts that were made in the screenplay. They were necessary, to fit time constraints, and didn’t detract (too much) from the overall story.
• List of the “World’s Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories”
• 
• Oliver Sacks explains how your brain does music
• Okay… you’re the Master of the Mystic Arts, do you really need to peep in on women in tanning booths to get your jollies?

Time to go “politely explain” why my someone needs to come take a look at/fix my furnace -  today – to the lovely ladies in the leasing office.  *sigh*  No rest for the wicked, I tell ya.

Namaste.

Thursday – 13 September 2007
A new NBN Thursday begins.

Last night was a lazy, do-a-lot-of-nothing kind of night. And you’ll hear no complaints from me about that. I got home, figured out what to do about dinner and just… hung out. And, I talked (actual vox) with . Twas fun. The conversation ranged from silly to serious, with quite a few stops everywhere in between.

This morning, I actually did something that I haven’t done in a very long time: I wrote a letter. A real-life, honest-to-God, pen-and-paper letter. Not an email. Not a few lines on a greeting card. A letter. Granted, it was a bit short, but that’s not the point here. The point is: I wrote a letter. Not only that, I folded it, put it into an envelope, sealed, stamped and addressed it and put it in the mailbox.

City of Heroes/Villains: The Hand of Nefer-Tem
Since it had been a few days, I decided to do some crime-fighting in Paragon City. I logged in right as a Rikti invasion fleet was attacking the zone where I usually park my characters. So, I joined the fray. I was invited to join an invasion team and we started beating on things. After that portion of the invasion was repulsed, we went to another part of town to fight. After the invasions broke off, the team broke up.

A short while later, a member of my supergroup messaged me and asked if I wanted to join a team and run a few missions… some of my missions, at that. Hm… let me think about that… I joined. I had a few Devouring Earth missions to run. The first one kicked our collective asses eight ways from Sunday. After numerous deaths and some team restructuring, we muddled our way through it. We ran another D.E. mission, after that; it wasn’t nearly as disastrous.

Stray Toasters

• Aside from a little congestion – and a little frog in my throat – I am pretty much done with this whole cold thing.
• How to Survive a Horror Movie
• Have I mentioned how much I like this whole “Save and Continue Editing” feature? Lots.
• And, in continuing coverage from our “Tony Stark Is a Dick” file comes this gem, by way of Wizard:
  

  TONY’S TOY COLLECTION
  Unimpressed by G.W. Bridge’s houseboat, Stark feels the need to run down the inventory of his garage, which includes a boat, some planes, a spaceship and a flying submarine. Arrogant as always, he does, to his credit, segue very awkwardly from his brag session into his real business with Bridge. It’s hard to understand where Bridge’s reluctance comes from with a proposal that begins like this.

  

• By way of contrast: From the “Before Tony Stark was a complete dick” file: the Iron Man movie trailer.
• And, from the trailer: Would the Iron Man (Mark I) suit qualify as “steampunk?”
• By way of : IKEA room planners
• For the Bruce Campbell fans out there, Comics 2 Film is having a The Man with the Screaming Brain giveaway.
• For : Morris Day and The Time – 777-9311 and Color of Success
• From NPR: John Ridley’s Visible Man – Life After the NF-Hell
• 
• Apple, AT&T: Bosom buddies or odd couple?
• Jake, a coworker and workout partner, came over to ask a question about work and noticed that I have a Green Lantern figure on my desk. He asked if that was my inspiration/goal for working out. I looked at it and told him, “No, but I would have filled out my Hallowe’en costume a lot better if it had been!”

And, that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 12 September 2007
Two down, three to go… with one in the chamber.

Yesterday’s workout was good. I opted out of going for 300 pounds again. I just wasn’t feeling it. I did get in three sets of 215 pounds, though. The last few of the third set were not pretty. The rest of the workout was good – I even managed to pull off two sets of unassisted pull-ups before moving to the assisted dip/pull-up machine.

Last night’s “Game Night” was more “Night” than anything. We talked about possibly wrapping up the All Flesh/40K game and moving on to something else. Then, we watched Doctor Strange. I picked up on a couple of things that I had missed when I first watched it. And it was just as enjoyable this time as it was the first time.

This morning, I woke up “remembering” that I had an odd stay in The Dreaming… but the details were dodgy.

Stray Toasters

• Just for the record: I don’t think that barley was ever intended for use as a nasal projectile.
• Angular momentum.
• “Triangle…” whoWHA?!
• The next contestant on The Price Is Right large-sized HeroClix figure is… this.
• 
• Collector’s Edition Slinky
• …which, of course, reminded me of this:

  

• AMD or Intel? What’s your weapon of choice? I’ve had Intel chips before, but I prefer AMD.
• 
• By way of : Superhero Supply Store.

I’m doing something that, for whatever reason(s), I haven’t done before: I came home for lunch. It makes sense to do it, I just… haven’t. I might just make a trend of this.

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
The Ravens lost to the Bengals.

Okay. There. I said it. And with that, I’d like to offer a hearty “congratulations” to .

It was a “good” loss, though… despite some craptacular calls in the first quarter. And that’s not just my opinion: thought so, too. Some of the calls made us wonder what game the refs were watching. *shrug* Oh, well.

I don’t know who was suited up in the first quarter, but I don’t think that they were pro players. They couldn’t have been, given some of the mistakes they made. Both Nox and I were flummoxed by some of the blatant errors. Fortunately, the Ravens seemed to find their key players in the second quarter.

I’m going to armchair QB for a moment and say that I disagree with Brian Billick’s decision to keep Steve McNair in the game as long as he did… and then throw Kyle Boller in, with about five minutes to go, to try and pull it out. To his credit, Boller did a good job. He was shaky for about two plays and then settled in…

…but it was a bit late at that point. Granted, he engineered a good drive and some nice plays, but at the end, he was still “too fresh” on the field and fired a rocket shot at TE Todd Heap – at short range – that just bounced off Heap’s hands.

Oh, well. It’s the first game of the season. There are still 15 more to play.

Nox and I watched the game at Fiddler’s Elbow. Decent food. Good service. And, a decent crowd. Not too rowdy. Non-smoking. And just all-round “good.” Along with Guiness (on tap, no less) I tried their Cajun Chicken Sandwich. It was rather tasty. I tried their buffalo wings and barbecue wings, as an appetizer. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t quite as good as the ones at Moab Brewery.

Stray Toasters

• I messaged Kris, to see if she was watching the game. She wasn’t (she was in class), but she was recording it.
• Joust gets movie, graphic novel treatment… wait, what?
• 
• Batgirl concept, for .
• …speaking of whom, I talked with her for a little bit this afternoon. It was a pleasant surprise.
• “In the year 2000…”
• I’m not sure whether or not I want to give 300 pounds a shot tomorrow.
• Cogito Ergo Zoom

And now, to find some trouble to get into.
Or maybe I’ll just watch a movie.

Namaste.

Saturday – 08 September 2007
First off, Happy Hatching Day to Sib-4, !

Last night’s Clitorati was good. Sara, in town for the weekend, put in a special surprise guest appearance. The conversations were good, but the people-watching was a little lax.

This morning, Perry called to see if I wanted to get together for coffee. Not one to pass up early morning caffeination, I said that I’d be along shortly. I rolled out of bed, came in to check my email….. and the power went off.

*blink blink* Oooookay.

I checked the breakers, they were fine. But still, no power. So I called the power company. No reports of problems in the area, but they could send someone to check it out. The agent also suggested that I check with the apartment management or maintenance. I hadn’t thought of that angle; that’s what I did. I finished getting ready and rolled out. The ladies in the front office said that others had reported outages, throughout the morning, but that they weren’t long-lasting. I asked to have someone from maintenance check, just in case I had missed something.

Coffee with Kate, Perry and the kids was good. After I had thinned the blood in my caffeinestream, they invited me to go with them to Gardner Village. I have been “to” Gardner Village before, but that was usually on Sunday bike rides along the Jordan River Parkway; and the shops are closed on Sundays. It’s a quaint little shopping… village with a couple of restaurants. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

When I got home, the power was back on. I have seen no notifications from Rocky Mountain Power nor from maintenance as to the nature of the problem, though.

And with that: Electricity, Electricity!

• Schoolhouse Rock! version
• Goodness version, from Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks

Enjoy!
Stray Toasters

• I have apparently picked up a cold. Let me add: I am getting seriously tired of the congestion and of having my voice intermittently decide that it doesn’t want to work.
• Wired’s How To Wiki: Write a Perfect Email
• Vikki just jumped up a few spaces on my “Favorite People” list.
• I had two people come up to me at work yesterday to ask me some “getting started” questions about working out.
• The Great Closet Migration is pretty much done. I still need to tweak a few things, here and there, but I am rather satisfied with the way it’s turned out.
• WB Unveils T-Works; free, expansive online animation
• Water, Gatorade or juice…? I should probably go with juice. Orange juice.
• Oran “Juice” Jones. The Rain.
• Juice: Pulp or pulp-free? I prefer pulp-free.
• 
• I feel a pilgrimage to the Garden of Sweden coming up…
• Toilet paper and paper towels: Over the top or under the bottom?
• Tentacle Hentai Birthday Cake
• 
  As if we needed yet another team break-up in the Marvel Universe. Who knows…? Maybe we’ll get “The New X-Men” and “The Mighty X-Men” and “Young X-Men” spin-off series outta the deal.
• Sorry, I just found a new low: Marvel Zombie Dark Phoenix. *shakes head*

I believe that a trip to Paragon City is in order.

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.

Mid-day Toasters

• The lunchtime workout was good, despite a week-long absence from the gym. I increased my bench press weight up to 215 pounds for the second and third sets.
  • Set 1: 205 / 10 reps
  • Set 2: 215 / 10 reps
  • Set 3: 215 / 8 reps and 205 / 2 reps

  We’ll call it a “work in progress,” but I’m shooting for 215 to be my base bench press weight.

• Steampunk stormtroopers and Alien spotted in Dubai
• What do you get when you cross YouTube, Weird Al and World of Warcraft? This. Thanks to for pointing this out.
• I have bacon-cheese popcorn, once again.
• Woman visits own heart

Back to it.

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.

Thursday – 23 August 2007
After a poor night’s sleep (partly from being a little sore from Tuesday’s workout and partly from staying up working on a new system), I slept in a bit.

Today’s workout was good. I did three sets of 205 pounds… followed by a “cool down” set at 135… followed by five reps of 225.  The rest of the workout went pretty well.

sldfslfdh

Stray Toasters

• Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Ben & Jerry’s. I have some and I am eating it.
• A tripod.  A trio of remotes.  And a Sprite.
• Klingons Crossing the Delaware
• 
• Forbidden LEGO: Dangerous LEGO Projects
• I should do some cleaning tonight.
  And the motivation to do it.
• Galaxiki
• Vintage ads for new stuff photoshopping contest
• Remote controls.  Who knew?!

Networks.   *grblsnrkx*

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.