Random Access

The Cruxshadows’ Defender (1, 2) is playing on iTunes.
The video game Defender (1, 2) popped into my head moments later

The song seems to refer to the loss of the singer’s significant other.
The premise of the game is that a lone pilot protects a few humanoids against an alien invasion/attack.

The two combined in my head, like a darkly twisted Reese’s Cup, in the following manner:

• The woman referred to in the song is captured by alien landers.
• The pilot, in rage/grief/frustration, fires up his trusty starfighter and takes to the skies to fight the aliens.
• The song plays in the background as he flies through the invasion force, blasting alien ships out of the sky and saving the remnants of humanity… in the hopes of either saving or avenging his lost love.

The scary thing is that the connection was made – and played out – in my head within seconds.

I just learned a new word, thanks to TechTarget’s “Word of the Day”:

Honey Monkey

Okay, technically, that’s two words, but I’m writing this post and you’re not, so deal with it.
(and it’s an excuse to find a way to use my pic of a LEGO monkey, too!)

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

Happy Birthday to

…and to

Stray Toasters

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

Alright, 3…2…1, let’s jam.

Namaste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Way to go, China.

Tuesday – 12 August 2008
Happy Birthday to :

Last night, I stopped by Far West Comics (again) to talk with Matt and Nano about some suggestions I had made to changing their weekly update email and to bounce around a few ideas they had been asked me about for making some changes to the store. I even helped move a couple of fixtures into new positions, too. As a thank you for helping out over the past few days, they gave me a HeroClix figure.

A big one: Starro the Conquerer, the 2007 Fall Convention Exclusive figure.

That’s right, it’s an alien, evil, giant starfish.
Yes, I actually put “alien,” “evil” and “giant starfish” in the same sentence.
And, yes, that felt almost as ridiculous/ludicrous to say (or type) as it was to read it.
At least I didn’t even mention that it’s really a mind-controlling, alien, evil, giant starfish.
(My operational theory: I think a lot of people at DC enjoyed a few too many recreational drugs in the 60s.)

It’s roughly the size of the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix ‘Clix. It’s currently on the shelf with the Jean Grey Phoenix, but I’ll have to see how well it fits once the DP figure gets here.

After some errand-running, I came home and geared up for watching The Middleman. Last night’s episode featured Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda) as a cryogenically frozen Middleman from the 60s. It was amusing to watch him not only play a MM whose style was so completely different than Matt Keeslar’s MM, but it was entertaining to see him in a role that afforded a bit of latitude with the tongue-in-cheek style of the show.

After the show I started taking pictures of the ‘Clix that will going up for auction on eBay. So far, I’ve got pictures of seven sets ready; I just need to set up the auctions themselves. We’ll see how this goes.

Stray Toasters:

• SaraRules: Apparently The Walking Dead TPB #8 is out… or will be out this week.
• For :

  

• By way of : Simpsonized Superheroes
• Gas price decline: Day 26 – Even though prices in the western states haven’t fallen quite as much as in the eastern states.
• Cops break into wrong house, leave note in magnetic fridge letters
  (But did they drink all the milk?)
• LEGO + Video game = LEGO Mindstorms Donkey Kong
• Yar’s Revenge
  (Hmm… maybe the folks at Atari found the DC Comics stash.)

I should finish getting ready and get out of here.

Namaste.

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

Stray Toasters

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

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

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

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

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

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

*voop*

Monday – 11 August 2008
Belated Happy Birthday to :

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

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

And today? Well, today is Monday. Selah.

Stray Toasters

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



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

Namaste.

Sunday – 10 August 2008

Last night’s breakfast was good. The people-watching was a little lackluster, though. But, came up with a cereal that could/should be marketed alongside Chocolate Jesus Crunchies:

Gettin’ Lucky Charms

It brought a lot of amusement from the table.

This morning, I met Shelley and Billy for brunch. Shelley is one of my oldest friends in Utah… but we haven’t seen each other in, at least, a few years. Thanks to the power of the Interwebs and the telephone, we do talk from time to time, though. Our original plan was to go to David’s Kitchen, but they are not open on Sundays, it seems. We wound up at Sampan in Sugar House. Good food and good company. I had the beef lo mein, with wonton soup and an eggroll.

I stopped into Jitterbug to get my daily dose of caffeine. Spydr and Uriah were there… and we started talking about The Dark Knight and other geekery. Uriah pointed me in the direction of Shaffer the Dark Lord’s Supervillain. It made me laugh.

Stray Toasters

• For SaraRules, Meliko and Tyranist (and others): Zombie Tools – Accessories for the Apocalypse
• First Bernie Mac died (complications from pneumonia), and now Isaac Hayes has died.
• I stumbled across this when trying to show something to Spydr. It made me laugh again; Spydr laughed, too:

  

• Hot Chicks: The Roleplaying Game
• Exclamation point.
• Superhero Fashion Emergency
  See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

• The Flat Earthers Are Still With Us
• From the “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys” file: Shrinky Dinks As a Threat to National Security

This post brought to you by Spydr, a rocket, and the Angry Yellow Sun.

Namaste.

Saturday – 09 August 2008
I woke up this morning and took the leisurely path to getting ready. There was another sealed box Secret Invasion tourney at Far West, so I couldn’t be a complete slacker about the morning, however.

Breakfast.
Shower.
Dress.
Zoom.

I stopped for a frozen pick-me-up on the way to the store. Bonus: It was a free drink.

I got to Far West to find Matt (owner) and Keith (event judge)… and no one else. *sigh* I knew that Chris was out of town, but I expected to find at least a couple of other players there. Oh, well. So, once I again: Win, by default. Whoop-de-damn-doo.

I did play Keith and Matt. We played under the draft rules. I got (yet another) Iron Man and another Cloak and Dagger. I decided that they would be the overall best use of points and went with them as my team. Keith’s team consisted of:

• Clea
• Gamora and
• Namor

… with whom, he cleaned my clock – it’s amazing what happens when someone mind controls your figure and then proceeds to use them for target practice. Lemme tell you: It ain’t pretty. Iron Man folded more like Tin Foil Man. After that, his team just kind of… beat on Cloak and Dagger. But, I kind of expect that when playing a judge. Or Chris. (The experience is oddly similar.)

Matt and I squared off next. His team consisted of:

• Morbius
• Ms. Marvel (Skrull) and
• Tarantula

Once I got into position, I started picking on Tarantula. Hey, she was the easiest… and the only one I could see, thanks to Morbius and Ms. Skrull’s stealth abilities. *blah* Matt, with some helpful assistance from Keith moved Morbius in to melee range. Fortunately, his attacks missed. Mine didn’t. Scratch one vampire. That just left his all but invisible-to-me tank. Then, the unthinkable happened: Customers came into the store. So, Keith took over for Matt. And then the beatdown resumed. Ms. Skrull took out Iron Man… and then we played a game of cat-and-mouse until she finally felled Cloak and Dagger. So, I effectively lost to Keith twice.

In the process, I learned a couple of things about Duo-Attack and stealth, which should come in handy in the future.

Stray Toasters

• I talked with the parental units today. Both of them are doing well.
• I’m almost ready to start putting some of my ‘Clix extras up for auction on eBay
• By way of : The Amazing Wooden Mirror
• Spaghetti!

Tonight: Breakfast with the usual suspects.
Tomorrow: Brunch with Shelly and Bill.

Hoo-AH!

Today is apparently “Bird Day.”

Why is that, you ask?

A couple of reasons:

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

Win-Win.

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

Snoop Bolly Dogg!

Friday – 08 August 2008
Eight-Eight-Eight.

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games have gotten under way.

Last night, I went to see The Knight (explanation) The Dark Knight with Perry. He’d never seen it and I was up for seeing again. Hell… I’d even see it again, in IMAX. It was a nice way to spend a Thursday evening.

I got home and found that I wasn’t very tired, so I puttered around the apartment for a bit. Then, I remembered that ‘Nine has been semi-lobotomized for a while and started to reinstall XP on it. Suffice if to say that it’s still dysfunctional. Around 1:00, I could tell that I was winding down, but not “sleepy,” so I got Wednesday’s still-unread comics and sprawled across the bed to read. And read I did. About 1:30, took my glasses off, to “rest my eyes for a minute.”

A few minutes after 5:00, I was apparently done resting my eyes.

It was still too early to start prepping for work, so I did the only logical thing: I finished reading my comics. That took another twenty or thirty minutes. Plenty of time to return to The Dreaming… which I did. When I finally woke up to face the day, I decided that I wasn’t in a big rush to get to the office – I have a short work day, as I put in some extra hours over the past few days – so, I lounged about for a while. It was nice.

The morning’s commute – without any input from me – was rather heavily comic-themed:

• True to Myself – Eric Benet (from the Batman and Robin soundtrack)
• Give Up the Funk – Parliament (adapted by Snoop Dogg for the Undercover Brother soundtrack)
• Supergirl – Krystal Harris

Yep, technopathy is a good thing.

And for those who weren’t aware of it: Undercover Brother began as a webcomic before being picked up and adapted into a movie.

Food for Thought: Chew on This
It’s been in the news that Morgan Freeman and his wife are preparing to divorce.

You know what?
I don’t really care.

For me, it’s like…

• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s kids…
• Jewel eloping…
• Verne Troyer’s sex tape…
• Gwen Stefani being pregnant again…

What affect does it – or any of the above items – have on my day-to-day life?
Zip.
Zero.
Zilch.
None at all.

At most, I could say that I feel badly that their marriage has come to an end. But, I’m Ivory Soap sure that they didn’t just wake up one morning and decide: “Hey, you know what sounds like fun? Let’s get a divorce!” It seems to me that decisions like this take some time – and soul-searching – to reach. And, if they have come to the realization that the best of their time together has passed, then I wish each of them the best of luck and hope that they find the happiness that they seek elsewhere… assuming that they haven’t achieved that level of happiness and/or satisfaction already.

Stray Toasters

• Clitorati: Check your email.
• and I had a brief discussion about steampunk and LEGO computer case mods (1, 2, 3) this morning. Helluva good way to kick off a Friday.
• Thanks to for pointing out this Puzzle Calendar
• Intel and the (lack of) SATA controller recognition on their DG33FB motherboard can bite my entire chocolatey ass.
• By way of Coworker Drew: Star Wars-Coming to America mashup:

  
  Star Wars Coming to America – Watch more free videos

• From the “Kids Have No Fear” file: Video of Kid Climbing into a Claw Machine
• Reporters booted from Black Hat conference for hacking
  (Umm… isn’t that part of the whole “black hat” thing?! *blink blink*)

Namaste.

Thursday – 07 August 2008
Belated Happy Hatching Day to :

After work, and I headed downtown to have dinner at Poplar Street Pub.

We had barely gotten in the door when Kade came up to us and invited us to join him, his girlfriend Emily and Rob and Michelle K at their table. The atmosphere is rather Cheers-like. They have a full bar and offer a menu of fairly typical pub fare:

• Burgers
• Bratwurst
• Fish and chips
• Chicken sandwiches
• Pizza

The difference is that the food is made on-site… even the bratwurst is ground and packed in the restaurant. And the food is VERY good. I had a burger with fries, chased by a Guinness (on tap!), but I tried some of Michelle’s pizza, which was quite tasty. For dessert, I had a bowl of Guinness ice cream (yes, I said “Guinness ice cream”) and a chocolate chip and pecan cookie. And the prices were rather reasonable.

and Jack showed up a little before we left, so we hung out an chatted with them for a bit.

All-in-all, it was a fun evening. I recommend checking out Poplar Street Pub if you’re looking for someplace different to dine and/or have a drink. Yes, being Utah it is “a private club for members;” memberships are:

• $5.00 (USD) for a temporary membership
• $12.00 for a one-year membership

After dropping off I headed home… and found that I was winding down fairly quickly. I was showered and ready for bed before 12:30.

And I slept well. Very well, indeed.

Stray Toasters

• I just had a conversation with Meliko. That was a nice – and pleasantly unexpected – way to kick off NBN Thursday.
• Zombie Rhymes
• By way of Reverend Tom: Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions
• Cthulhu Fonts
• 
• Demographic landscape shifts across United States
• DC Comics has updated their website
• …speaking of which, I still haven’t read yesterday’s comics.
• Legion of Substitute Heroes
• What goes up must come down
  spinning wheel got to go round
  Talking about your troubles it’s a crying sin
  Ride a painted pony
  Let the spinning wheel spin
• By way of comes news of Colorware’s iPhone customization
• Another Police Raid; More Dead Dogs
• This Courting Disaster comic made me laugh:


(click image to go to the accompanying CD item)

Attack the day…

Namaste.

Wednesday – 06 August 2008
Sometimes, it’s amusing to realize what it is that breaks us out of our morning doldrums and gets us ready to face the day. For me, this morning, it was remembering that I was planning on trying a fruit smoothie recipe this morning before heading to work. And I did. And It’s pretty good.

Last night’s Scion game was good. I almost got half the party killed… all because an NPC didn’t like the answer I gave to a riddle. So, a few rounds later: Sphinx: 0, Us: 1… kind of. In the process of some rather fancy bow (archery) work, it seems that ‘s character has taken over the role that the Sphinx held. We need to find a way to liberate her from that so that she can come party adventure with us.

Stray Toasters

• Kris called me yesterday as I was leaving AF. The first thing she said was “You’re going to be an uncle!” After a couple seconds’ bewilderment/pondering/pause, I came back with,”Oooookay.”She’s getting a puppy.But, she said that the look on Mom’s face when she said it was priceless.
• Laurence Fishburne is prime CSI: suspect
• Port forwarding only works when you remember to set it up.
• The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away — story about geek monasteries for smart people who don’t fit in
• Paris Hilton responds to John McCain’s ad:

• Pulp City
• Guy gets locked out of all Google apps
• I’m sore from yesterday’s workout.
• I stumbled across this article on BoingBoing yesterday: How to give yourself elf ears. It’s a body modification how-to. The article was linked from an item on Instructables; I wasn’t aware, until yesterday, that there was a “Kinky” group on there – probably because I didn’t really care or even think about it. Learn something new everyday, I guess.
• *shake fist* at for getting Sir Mix-A-Lot stuck in my head

Namaste.

I spent the better part of the afternoon in the AF office today. I took care of a couple of items and wound up bringing one of the troubled kids back to the north office.

Workout
One of the benefits of being in AF, I was able to work out with Eric… and Dwim joined us, as well. Today’s routine:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets / 20 reps
• Pull-ups: 1 set / 10 reps
• Bench Press: 3 sets / 8 reps, 205 lbs.
• Curls (standing, dumbbell, crossover): 3 sets / 12 reps, 25 lbs
• Flys (Nautilus): 3 sets / 10 reps, 110 lbs
• Upright Rows (barbell): 3 sets / 10 reps, 50 lbs

Pre-workout weight: 173.2 lbs

Stray Toasters

• The World of Web Trolling
• By way of : Open Source Food
• VisionAire
• 
• “And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids and your pesky dog!”

I should probably pay some more attention to the game… as I’m being attacked by a Sphinx. Yay.

Namaste.