Random Access

Happy Hatching Day to !

And, I’m even going to name Ms. today’s Human of the Day, too.
Because I’m The Pope.
And I can.

Just like that.

Pow!

Monday – 25 August 2008
Every Monday should != start like this:

• Walk in the door
• Put bag down
• Unpack/connect laptop
• Log into The Matrix company network
• As systems come online, have Coworker #1 come to you and say,”I have a problem…”
• Go to look at said problem only to determine that “something” in his computer is borked.
• Take computer back to my desk to lobotomize it.
• Have Coworker #2 come to you and say,”I have a problem…”
• Determine the Coworker #2’s issue is potentially BIG and that it supersedes Coworker #1’s issue.
• Tell Coworker #1 that he just got put on hold, until further notice.
• Start in on C2’s problem.
• Determine that it requires another IT guy’s skill set.
• Get IT Guy #2 to take a look at the problem.
• Have Coworker #3 come to you and say,”I have a problem…”
• Determine that C3’s problem, while not as OMGWTF! as C2’s problem needs immediate attention.
• Try to track down the hardware to solve C3’s problem.
• Find two viable solutions and go with “Option A,” which is functional and fairly painless.
• Resolve C3’s problem.
• Check back with C2 and ITG2 to determine the status of that problem: Resolved.
• Back to C1’s issue… and determine that it could be ANY of a number of problems.
  • Look for replacement hardware.
  • Replace Item #1
  • Not the problem.
  • Replace Item #2
  • Still not the problem.
  • Begin ancient Martian meditiation technique known as “Screaming”

    

  • Replace Item #3
  • Still “No go, Flight…”
  • Replace Item #4
  • BINGO!
• Return C1’s computer to him.
• Sit down and breathe. Finally.

That was the quick, Cliff’s Notes version of my first three hours today. Fortunately, Julie (the admin who sits near my desk) reminded me that we’re off next Monday, for Labor Day. At this rate, I’m thinking that I’m taking this Friday off, too.

Stray Toasters

• By way of : Death and Taxes 2009
• From Not Always Right: Holy F***, Indeed
• 

Back to the fun…

23 August 2008
And the whirlwind is over, it seems.

is in Las Vegas.
SaraRules is back in SLC.
He and she are in the house
But there’s only me at home.

After I wrapped up the workday on Thursday, and I hit the road for Cedar City. SaraRules preceded us by a few hours, as she had to do her Capstone defense (which, I heard from the other MFAs, was amazing). Once we got in and took our things to the hotel, and I headed to Applebee’s to get a bite to eat; SaraRules was supposed to bring Lish with her… but he punked on us. The three of us sat and talked and hung out for a while.

Friday morning, SaraRules got up and did her “exit interviews” with the Dean and other faculty members. I slept in. Apparently, wasn’t able to sleep in. After I woke up and got ready, he and I headed to Cafe Orleans for lunch: I had the Shrimp Etouffe, he had a Shrimp PoBoy.

After polishing off lunch, I took up to Cedar Breaks. It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one for whom the phrase “sphincter pucker factor” comes into play when driving/riding on high-altitude roads without guardrails. We made the journey up to Cedar Breaks and took a few pictures at a couple of the overlooks. (To be posted later) I also took him along the Alpine Pond Trail that SaraRules and I hiked last year. He seemed to enjoy it. Once we got back into town, we met SaraRules at the local Dairy Queen. We needed our ice cream fixes. We also took in a bit of people-watching. Chalk it up as an afternoon full of “Win.”

After a little down time, SaraRules and I headed over to SUU to meet the other MFAs for dinner and a show. Dinner was at Costa Vida; the show was Fiddler on the Roof, which I had never seen… although I know three or four songs from the production. Go figure. I enjoyed it and thought it was a fun production. The pre-play plan was that Lish and Steve would come back to the hotel with us and have drinks. The reality was that everyone decided that they were pretty tired – and the MFAs were going on a hike this morning – so drinks fell by the wayside. Again. Oh, well.

This morning, the alarm went off far too early. 6:00 AM. I managed to hang in bed until almost 6:30, though. SaraRules and I got up, ready and were on our way. I headed over to the grad house, to say goodbye to Lish and the others before I headed north. I was pleased – and a bit shocked – to note that gas was cheaper in Cedar City than in Salt Lake City. I made decent time back to SLC. I came home to find that there had been a power outage in my absence. This was a “good thing,” as I realized Thursday evening that I had neglected to turn off my alarm clock. Whoops.

I shaved (including adding a new cut that required a Marcellus Wallace-like bandage) and headed out to meet and her teammate, JillDozer, for breakfast. I managed to catch , , and OnlyAly and invite them along, as well. We met a couple other skaters, only one of whose names (Movin Violation, from Salt City Derby Girls) remains with me.

When we broke from breakfast, I headed to Far West Comics. Today was their first anniversary and they had Lou Ferrigno there as a special guest. I told Matt and Nano that I’d be available to help out, if they needed an extra body around; I wound up manning the cash register. There were a LOT of people there; I’d say somewhere between 200 and 300 showed up, including ‘ sister and her family. Mr. Ferrigno seemed to be a nice enough guy. He took pictures with the patrons and signed autographs. Three hours later, he packed up and was on his way… to wherever it is that Lou Ferrigno goes. But, before he left, we (the guys working the event) were able to get a few pictures with him, too. (Also to be posted later)

Home.
Shower.
Back out again – I had to put a couple of eBay items in the mail.

Back home.
And, in a few minutes, I’m heading out again: SaraRules and I are meeting and some of the skaters for dinner.

*whew*

Namaste.

Thursday – 21 August 2008
The end of the work week is nigh. Selah.

arrived last night around 5:30 PM. He came in and gave us (SaraRules and me) a quick recap of his trip, thus far. Then, it was time for food! The three of us and went to Poplar Street Pub for dinner.

Post-dinner, SaraRules, and I headed home. He and I watched some of the Olympics, while SaraRules worked on her Capstone presentation. I watched Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh win their second consecutive gold medal in Women’s Beach Volleyball against Tian Jia and Wang Jie. In the rain. In two sets. It was an amazing match to watch. Next, we watched South Park. I haven’t watched the show in… at least five years. It was amusing, but I’m not sure that I feel compelled to tune in next week.

This morning, the alarm went off at its appointed time… but I wasn’t ready to let go of the pillow. So, I didn’t. I waited until about 7:20 before either SaraRules and I were ready to greet the day. We got ready, while slept in. She got on her way to Cedar City; I headed to work. As today is my “Friday,” and I are heading to southern Utah to hang out with SaraRules and the other MFAs for a couple of days.

And on to more server surveys!

News from The BBC: The head of a Nigerian government agency has been charged with stealing money to hire a witchdoctor or “juju” sorcerer to bring him success.

Wednesday – 20 August 2008
After work, I picked up Chris and we headed to Far West for this week’s HeroClix tourney. We played a new (for us) format: “300-Point, Floor: 50% Restricted.” This means that we had to build 300-point teams, with at least half of our force built from the latest release: Secret Invasion. Aside from Chris, we had a couple of other people show up, too: Ma’afu and Chris2, both of whom are fairly new to the game, but were pretty eager to dive in with both feet. I wasn’t sure if we would have to draft (buy a booster pack) our first 150 points; we didn’t. We were able to pick from our existing figures. This was good for me, as I had been wanting to test out a couple of figures, especially the Susan Richards figure… so I did. My team consisted of:

• Batman
• Nick Fury
• Susan Richards

I played Chris2 in the first round. He brought a four-figure team:

• Nick Fury
• Ringmaster
• She-Thing
• Spider-Girl

Matt and Nano helped coach him, since it was his first real game, I think. Spider-Girl and She-Thing got up front and personal, fairly quickly. I learned that Susan Richards’ Barrier power is a great thing… especially when you want to make someone go through Hell and half of Georgia to get at you, rather than make a bee-line for your and whomp on you. And, having three characters with Outwit didn’t hurt, either. I took out Spider Girl, She-Thing and… either Nick Fury or Ringmaster (I forget which), before time ran out. Win.

Next up: Chris. *sigh* At least it wasn’t a first-round game. His team consisted of:

• Batman
• Doctor Strange and
• Gamora

And he went to work. Having played a game with Chris where he used Gamora, I assessed her as the first/biggest threat. I wasn’t necessarily wrong in considering her a threat, but Doctor Strange is no slouch, either: He can see through Stealth(!) and, thanks to his team ability, is able to copy others’ team abilities. In last night’s case, he took on the Batman team ability. Gamora stepped up and wailed on Nick Fury… but, being the master spy that he is, I used his LMD ability, reducing his damage and got him out of Dodge. That still left Batman and Sue as targets, but I managed to take Gamora out before Chris’ Batman and the good Doctor took me completely out of the game. Loss.

Next up: Ma’afu. He actually said that he had been waiting to play me. I was a little surprised by the compliment – I don’t think that I’ve had someone who wanted to take me on (Take on me! I’ll… be… gone…. If you don’t taaaaaaaake….) like that. Comments like that are usually reserved for people waiting to test their mettle against Chris and his team du jour. His team consisted of:

• Gee
• Human Torch and
• Ms. Marvel (Human)

Ma’afu also got a little sideline assistance from Matt. My first assessment: Take out Ms. Marvel. I neglected to Outwit her Hypersonic Speed in the first round, but I didn’t make that mistake again. After she punched Nick Fury (and I LMD’ed him to a far corner) I made sure that Batman and Sue didn’t let her pull a stunt like that again. Nick took out his frustrations on Gee. I should have probably felt guilty about having a WWII vet gun down a little kid, but this was war (sort of), so he was fair game. Nick’s next target: the Human Torch. It took a few rounds, but I managed to snuff him out. And that just left Ms. Marvel. I beat on her a bit, but didn’t manage to take her out before time ran out. Win.

All-in-all, coming in second to Chris wasn’t bad. And above all, it was fun.

After the game, I dropped Chris off and headed home. I had no time to tarry: SaraRules got back into town about 8:00. And, aside from needing to go to Cedar City tomorrow to do her Capstone defense, she’s back for good. (That pretty much comes under “Win,” too.) I got home a few minutes before she got there. We hung out and talked about her last few weeks in Aspen, the overall experience and bidding farewell to her former coworkers. Then she had to get a few things ready for meetings she had today.

I was completely tapped from the lack of sleep Monday night, so when the alarm went off, I turned if off and rolled over. The second alarm, was not ignored, though. We got up, observed the necessary hygiene rituals, made coffee(!) and got ready for the day.

I had planned on doing Round 3 of server inventories today. I still plan on doing that. However, the first part of my morning was spent moving Julie from her old desk to one behind mine. No rest for the wicked.

Stray Toasters

• should be in around dinnertime. Now, to figure out where to take him for dinner…
• Did The Banana Splits inspire Bob Marley?
  (Regular readers may remember that I’ve asked this before.)
• Wild monkey loose in Japanese subway eludes police
• Apple tries to debug iPhone

…right on to the friction of the day

Tuesday – 19 August 2008
I was up far too late last night.
FAR too late.

Coworker Eric came to SLC last night to pick up my old desk: I wanted something different, he wanted a desk. Win-Win. I discovered that it is much easier to make a mess when clearing out furniture than it is to return the same space to a nominal sense of order and coherence. Hence the reason that I was up late last night/this morning. Let’s just say that caffeine and I are on a first-name basis this morning.

I watched some of the Olympic Summer Games last night. I watched Men’s and Women’s 400M hurdles. For those who didn’t see the USA Men’s team take gold, silver AND bronze, it was a pretty amazing race.

The women’s races were equally stunning – especially the event in which Jamaica’s Melaine Walker ran. I also watched some of the gymnastics events… and, after seeing He Kexin, I can now understand why some people question whether or not some of the Chinese gymnasts are of official competing age.

Stray Toasters

• should be here tomorrow evening… assuming that he doesn’t get distracted by bright, shiny objects between Kansas City and here.
• 10 Great Webcomics You Should Not Share With Your Kids
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Cake Wrecks
• The art of Andrea Gianchiglia
• From the “I have an opinion and I’m not going to keep it to myself” file: Robert Downey, Jr: ‘Fuck DC Comics.’
• Shocka-locka-BOOM!
  What was that?
  Aftershock.
• By way of : Top Secret Drum Corps from Basel, Switzerland:

  
  Top Secret Drum Corps Basel Tattoo – A funny movie is a click away

• There’s a new Lara Croft in town.
  • Photo shoot pictures
  • Interview
• MarknTyme introduced me to BabySmash last night; he said that his youngest son loves it.
• I know that some people really their cars, but this takes it to a new level:

• Virtualization eSeminar. *nod*

Namaste.

Monday – 18 August 2008
On the way to the office, Chiron Beta Prime started playing over iTunes. I’m not sure if Nomad was just mocking me through our technopathic link; I’m Ivory Soap sure that it knows I refer to work as “CBP.” As a follow-up, it played Inside Out’s Jackie Chan… and follwed that with Monty Python’s I Like Chinese*.

We finished Round Two of the server upgrades yesterday. We also noted a… discrepancy: There were nineteen servers for which we did not account. So, there will be a reckoning Round Three. Which is fine with me. It’s all part of the job. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I had the calamari appetizer and the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta entree. Holy cow… it was GOOD. And, a piece of cheesecake followed me home.

I got home last night and considered rearranging the office. The fact that it was 10 PM didn’t phase me… at first. Eventually, I came to the realization that I had just put in nine hours of work and that I didn’t really feel like making that much more work for myself. Instead, I played City of Heroes.

This morning, I was back in the office at 7:40. Aw, yeah!

Stray Toasters

• WARNING (for Firefox users): Clipboards hijacked in web attack
• How to Be Good
• Is there a way to justify shuriken as an “office supply?”
• Pakistan’s Musharraf Steps Down
• Michael Phelps: 8 Gold Medals, 7 world records.
  He’s only 23. I think he’s got at least one more Olympic Summer Games in him
• How to Hypermile
• 
• Reasoning is partly insane
  Image just an eyeless game
  The night is turning thin
  The saint is turning to sin
• What was your videogame system of choice, back in the day?
  I was an IntelliVision and Sega Genesis kid.

…right on to the friction of the day.

Namaste.

Sunday – 17 August 2008
Happy Birthday to :

Last night, I was pretty wiped after getting in from breakfast, so I called it a (relatively) early night. I was awakened by a phone call at 9:00… no, “9:13,” I was corrected. I wasn’t very thrilled by it and made it rather plainly known. I slipped back into The Dreaming until a little after 10:00. Then, it was up, shower and prep for work and on my way.

I’ve stopped in at Bad Ass Coffee Company for the morning’s caffeine intake. For the past half-hour or so, there have been waves of motorcycle riders heading north on State Street. There is apparently a bike rally being held at/near the Capitol today.

I, on the other hand, will be elbow-up in servers again today: loonybin88 and I are doing what will hopefully be the last wave of test server upgrades this afternoon. I can’t complain too much, though – it means that my weekend starts Thursday.

Stray Toasters

• will be in town later this week, on his way to Vancouver. Bot and Bit will not be with him, though.
• By way of : Galactic Empire Begins Invasion of San Francisco

  (, do you have any on-the-ground news/information about this?)

• Why does living in Utah amuse me so much, sometimes? Things like this, would be one example:

  

  In case the amusing item is eluding you, take a look near the middle of the picture. That’s right: “White City.” I’ve seen buses heading there, but have never had my camera handy/ready to snap a picture before they had moved. “White City.” *snicker* Yet another thing to take with a grain of salt and laugh… kind of like they still refer to the southern portion of the state as “Dixie.” Go figure.

• Comic Book Legends Revealed #168
  • Writer/Artist John Byrne has been involved in an inordinate amount of eerie coincidences.
    (There are some odd disasters that have followed John Byrne’s art/scripts)
  • Billy Dee Williams was paid to NOT be Two-Face in Batman Forever.
    (He may have wound up better for not being in it!)
  • Grant Morrison intended for the Beast to be gay during his New X-Men run.

  Check out the article to find out the real stories behind these items.

• 10 Things We Didn’t Know Last Week

And with that, I’m off to work.

Hi-ho, hi-ho.

Saturday: Coda
It wound up being a rather quiet day. I ran an errand or two while trying to catch up with Perry… which I never managed to do. So, I went to Jitterbug and had lunch and topped off my caffeination levels. From there, I headed over to Far West Comics; I picked up a few ‘Clix to add to my auctionable items. I came home for a bit… and then, on to breakfast.

It was fairly dead in the Village Inn… until the security guys showed up: Justin decided to let Mitch spray him with pepper spray. Voluntarily. For fun. (I’ll let you chew on that one for a minute.)

They went outside and the show started. I – along with OnlyAly and – opted not to watch the proceedings. But, we got enough reaction from the people who did watch. And the common reaction was: “That was phenomenally stupid.” A few of us wondered at what this said about humanity circling the drain; it may have also destroyed any thoughts OnlyAly and had about having kids. (I suppose that I shouldn’t recommend that they watch Kids, either…)

Stray Toasters

• offered up an additional item for the “Stupid Things People Do” file: Teen Injured Drinking Liquid Nitrogen
• Fortunately, there is some good – though sad – news: Gutsy Radcliffe Finishes Marathon

Quote of the Day
Once again, from :

You can’t fix “stupid.”

…to Karl (a paramedic), in response to the pepper spray incident.

Namaste.

Saturday – 16 August 2008
On the way home from work yesterday, I thought about coming home and taking a nap. It sounded like a really good idea. Instead, I wound up taking more pictures for auctions I plan on putting up today or tomorrow. So, while I didn’t get any shut-eye, I was nominally productive.

Last night’s Clitorati was kind of small, but nevertheless fun. While at the bookstore, I decided that I’d get the newly-taken pictures ready for their respective auctions – resize them, make any brightness/contrast adjustments, and so on. That’s when I discovered that some of the pictures came out a bit blurry. *BAH* So, I’ll be retaking those.

On the drive home, I considered playing a little CoH when I got in – nothing like beating down some criminals to wrap up the day. After I got in and started winding down, I realized that it was not to be. Instead, I hit the rack. I think I was out within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

This morning, I was greeted with a lovely headache. I have no idea why. Two Aleve, a few sips of water and a short trip back to The Dreaming later, it was gone.

I have pretty much no idea what I’m doing today, aside from meeting Perry for coffee in a little while. That’s something. I’ve considered heading to the Capitol to check out the Declaration of Independence display… but I’m not 100% committed to it. I’m sure that something will come along…

Stray Toasters

• While chatting with Dwim, we were talking about Galactus. That reminded me of a Lil Formers toon that I had seen involving Galactus and Unicron. That somehow degenerated into something about Star Wars, which reminded me of this toon, also with Galactus and Unicron, but also incorporating The Darth Vader-Death Star Star Wars toy that Hasbro came out with a year or two ago.
• Having not looked at the series for a while, I went looking through some of the other Lil Formers toons. This one made me laugh:



• I came across an interesting book last night: 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide. I thumbed through a bit of it – there were a lot of good selections in there, although I didn’t agree that all of them were “essential.”
• Maybe I’ll (finally) head to the driving range before going to work tomorrow…

Quote of the Day
At dinner last night, we somehow got on the topic of Jimmy Carter and how, as a representative of The Carter Center, he’s visited a number of countries… often, against the wishes of the current administration. came up with his take on Carter’s response to a government official trying to tell him that he couldn’t go to a given country:

“Fuck you. Have some peanuts!”

To be honest, I would love to hear President Carter tell someone that.

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.

Apparently, I have fallen down the rabbit hole.
Or warped through time/space.
Or something.

I just saw a couple of news items declaring that Hillary Clinton’s name will be in nomination at the Democratic Convention.

• L.A. Times
• CNN

*blink blink*

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

Thursday – 14 August 2008
It’s Thursday.
Thor‘s Day.
Thor had a hammer.
It was called Mjolnir.

John Henry, steel-driving man that he was, had a hammer, too.
I don’t believe his hammer had a name.

Beta Ray Bill – also known as Beta Ray Thor – has a hammer.
It is called Stormbreaker.

Stray Toasters

• Not only is it NBN Thursday, it’s sushi day.
• I keep trying to like From Russia, with Love, as performed by Matt Munro… but it really doesn’t do anything for me.
• I also keep forgetting to take screenshots of Kurigari when I’m playing City of Heroes.
• “My mon Bats, he don’t shiv.”
  For those of you who don’t get this, the dialogue is from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Stop! Hammertime.

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.