Tech Support: “All right…now double-click on the File Manager icon.â€
Customer: “That’s why I hate this ‘Windows’–because of the icons–I’m a Protestant, and I don’t believe in icons.â€
Tech Support: “Well, that’s just an industry term sir. I don’t believe it was meant to-â€
Customer: “I don’t care about any ‘industry terms’. I don’t believe in icons.â€
Tech Support: “Well…why don’t you click on the ‘little picture’ of a file cabinet…it’s a ‘little picture’, okay?â€
Customer:*hangs up*
It amused me on many levels. Enough so that I started perusing the rest of the “Tech Support” section. As much as some of them made me laugh, I’ve had a couple of encounters that rivaled a few of the stories.
I’m almost afraid to look at the “Customer Service” section. Almost.
Thursday – 19 June 2008
Today is Juneteenth.
It’s also NBN Thursday.
And possibly Sushi ‘Wednesday.’
(I’m still deciding if it’s going to be New Comics Day…)
Last night, while watching TV, I put together a card to go with my Phoenix ‘Clix:
I’m thinking of using it in this weekend’s tourney, and find that character cards make remembering what powers are available at a given time much easier.
Last night’s episode of JLU was “Far From Home,” the episode that featured the Legion, so I happily watched it while tinkering away on the card.
Last night’s sleep was broken by a lovely bout of acid reflux (or the closest analogue). Blah. I wasn’t awake for long, but it was enough to break up what was an otherwise decent night’s sleep. So, I decided to hang in bed for an extra half-hour this morning. While in the shower, I had the Spider-Man Theme – as done by The Ramones – stuck in my head. When I got to the…
Wealth and fame he’s ignored
Action is his reward!
…part, I got stuck. On ‘Action is.” Except, in my head, it was “Action Isz,” (1, 2) like from The Maxx… but more heroic. (Although, not necessarily in a cape or tights way.) And, for some reason, the Action Isz looked like Rikti Monkeys (1, 2). Bizarre.
And I was still in the office a few minutes after 8:00… including a stop for some frozen mocha refreshment.
This morning’s meeting was not a complete waste – they showed of a couple of projects that one team has been working on that looked pretty cool. Other than that, I would refer to it in the same manner that I once referred to a meeting at the USPS: “upper management ego masturbation.”
I didn’t know what I wanted for lunch. I was on the fence, leaning towards Pho, when JoeT said that he was going for lunch, too. The only problem: He didn’t know what he wanted, either. We opted to head to Dask’s for gyros. Good call.
Wednesday – 18 June 2008
Happy Hatching Day to SaraRules and ‘s sister, Meliko:
Today started a little slowly. I woke up a little after 6:00, thinking that I’d missed the alarm. When the alarm did go off, I don’t remember turning it off. Fortunately, my secondary alarm did the trick.
I attempted making a coffee shake before heading out. It actually turned out pretty well, not “great,” but I was happier with this morning’s result than I have been with most others. I added a couple of Butterscotch Krimpets for breakfast and set the day on “Go!”
I have a meeting – ostensibly an hour-and-a-half long meeting – that starts in fifteen minutes. I don’t really want to go to it. I’m fighting the urge to take my GameBoy into the meeting. I think I’ll be taking Defiant and finding things to keep me occupied and entertained.
Tuesday: Coda
After work, I came home to find a package waiting for me. I wasn’t expecting anything, so my curiosity was “ever so slightly” piqued. I picked up the box and looked at the handwriting: It was my father’s. “Curiouser and curiouser,” said little Alice…
I took the box into the apartment and opened it.
Inside, there were four (4) boxes of Butterscotch Krimpets!
I called Dad to thank him; he laughed and said that he sent them because I deserved a good surprise. We talked for a few more minutes; all’s well there.
I headed to Chris and Mary’s for a few games of ‘Clix with Chris. We both wanted to try out teams before Saturday’s tournament. 1000 points. Unrestricted. I tried a rough team, built around Phoenix the first game and a version of the Green Lantern Corps the second game. Chris brought out The Anti-Monitor, the new Sinestro and Psylocke, for both games. We played timed rounds; Chris won both of them on points. I picked up a few things, but still wasn’t entirely happy with the way I played either team. But, I didn’t want to just fall back on the Legion, because I want to be a fairly well-rounded player and not a one-trick pony. But, I still had fun. We may try to squeeze in another game later this week.
Olly olly oxen free!
Did you know that one of the collective nouns for “ox” is “a span of oxen?”
I didn’t until working on a crossword puzzle today.
I did, however, know that a collective of crows is called “a murder.”
Actress and singer Cyd Charisse has died; she was 86 years old. She is best known for performing in a number of movies with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire…
…but my recollections of her come mostly from the video for Janet Jackson’s Alright, in which she dances briefly with Janet (around the 3:00 mark):
Paul (coworker) just came over and told and me that our corporate parent is doing some sort of “cultural awareness week” in September. Julie, one of the executive admins, is being tasked with getting ideas for things to do. Paul came to us to let us know that he’s going to send Julie to and me for ideas.
I asked Paul if he had ANY idea the kind of Hell we could wreak upon this place?
He simply nodded and smiled.
And when he heard some of our immediate ideas, he laughed. A lot.
I told him that giving us something like two months’ lead time is FAR too much time. Then I realized that giving us anything more than a week qualified as “too much time,” as well.
I also mentioned that I was thinking of changing my workstation’s wallpaper to this for that week:
I mentioned the same thing to , who suggested that I should consider using this instead:
EIther way, it’s win-win.
and I tried to ‘splain to Paul that we’re sure that our corporate robot overlords protectors were doing this with the best of intentions… but that they didn’t seem to account for those of us who like to push buttons and break things from the inside. He grinned knowingly and appreciatively at that, too.
Tuesday – 17 June 2008
I was awake before the alarm went off this morning. Which set me up to be nominally coherent when it did go off… enough to turn it off and roll over for Anotherloverholeinyahead another 20 minutes of sleep. I had an odd dream that involved me being back in middle or upper school. And getting to school. And snow. And living in Baltimore. Odd combination.
I was in the office at 8:00. Nice, as the office hasn’t really started to hum yet. I have a meeting today from 2:00 to 3:30, allegedly. At this point, I’m of the opinion that I’ll be taking Defiant into the meeting to find novel and creative ways of staying awake. Focused? Well, we’ll see how good the meeting is at holding my attention.
Inventor of the Internet, Oscar winner and former Vice President Al Gore has thrown his weight support behind Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
After seeing LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman and Robin and LEGO Indiana Jones, I wouldn’t mind seeing a LEGO X-Men game. (And I won’t even mention that a LEGO Legion of Super-Heroes game would be an ‘automatic covet/buy…)
And, now, coffee cup in hand, it’s time to “…attack the day like birds of prey.”
Monday: Coda
This evening, I just… kind of… hung out. MarknTyme and I killed some time by beating on thugs in Paragon City. After that, I watched an episode of Justice League Unlimited, “The Great Brain Robbery,” which I had not seen all the way through before. It wasn’t a bad episode, but not one of the best, either.
Next, I watched… Superfriends. It was an episode called “Professor Goodfellow’s G.E.E.C.” (1, 2) Wow. After watching JLU, this was a complete gear-shift. And, it was SO dated. More than once, I heard someone say “Groovy.” And, as if that wasn’t enough, Superman actually told Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman to “Hang loose” at one point. *jawdrop* However, as weird as some of these things were, they didn’t take me aback as much as seeing a cameo from Plastic Man.
Having just bagged on Super Friends, I’m going to admit that the Boomerang commercial bump for That Time Is Now – a remix of the Super Friends theme – is pretty decent. Check it out:
And, it seems as though someone has done a mashup of this song using footage from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, instead:
Next, I watched the pilot for the new ABC Family series, The Middleman (1, 2), based on a series of graphic novels by the same name.
The show doesn’t take itself too seriously, in the same way Moonlighting did – but even more so, in some instances. It was…. quirky. And fun. Check out the Newsarama review of the pilot. I just realized something: The Middleman kind of reminds me of Men in Black… meets The Avengers. That’s the British series, not the comic book super-team. And subtract the aliens. The special effects weren’t necessarily ILM-grade, but somehow, they didn’t need to be. The writing was good. Since this was the pilot, the actors are still getting used to their characters’ voices, to some degree… and sometimes the extras’ acting was a little over the top. But, I have to say that I don’t think I’ve had as much fun watching a square-jawed, milk-drinking hero save the world in quite some time.
The pilot is available on iTunes as a free $1.99 download. Check it out. Sure there’s a good amount of suspension of disbelief (sometimes by the truckload), but that’s okay, it’s a fun ride.
The day has been pretty good. The highlight (at least so far) was heading to ‘s house with looneybin88 and JG to play a few games of Twilight Zone pinball at lunch. Other than that, it’s been a rather run-of-the-mill day in the neighborhood. (…in the neighborhood…)
(…in the neigh-bor-hood.)
Not sure what trouble I plan on getting into this evening. Maybe a trip to Paragon City… or *gasp* even The Rogue Isles.
was on a roll today: He told us about a video of a teenager kicking a cement wall… and the aftermath. As neither looneybin88 nor I had heard of this, let alone seen the video, he sent us a link to it. (Disclaimer: If you’re squeamish, you may just want to skip this one. Seriously.)
Wait… wait… wait. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2? And it may be a Civil Bore War storyline? Not sure how I feel about that.
Quotes of the Day
Today’s gems both came at lunchtime and qualify as “Unintentional Porn Overheard While Playing Pinball”
looneybin88 was on the machine… and doing quite well. He made a play that resulted in playing with three pinballs on the table. (You have no idea how many permutations that last sentence went through before I came up with something that wasn’t porn-tastic.) Someone commented on his making a good play and the rest of the conversation went down the proverbial chute:
Me: Sun. Dog. Ass. (My usual ‘shorthand’ for “The sun shines on a dog’s ass, too…”) looneybin88: What can I say? I got skills! : You have skills… with a dog’s ass? I’m calling animal control.
At that point, all three balls left the field of play as looneybin88 doubled-over, red-faced and laughing.
All of us had a horrible third game… except JG. When he was coming to the table to play his second ball, he looked at our scores and said:
Huh, all I have to do is beat myself.
The rest of us looked at each other… and broke out in raucous laughter. JG, to his credit, stoically kept playing.
Monday – 16 June 2008
Mondays, simply by virtue of being “Monday,” are wide open to being… odd. This morning was no exception:
While in a half-awake state, between exiting The Dreaming and entering The Waking World, I had a dream that featured Dick Van Dyke (as Bert the chimney sweep), singing Chim Chim Cher-ee, from Mary Poppins.
It was a childhood favorite movie (and song), so I don’t find that part too terribly weird.
The weirdness came as the song reached a chorus…
Bert opened his mouth…
…and instead of lyrics, out came the sound of my alarm.
“It’s so bizarre,” as Dr. Rosenblatt would say.
And it was rather amusing, as well.
Sunday: Coda
Back in the USSR Land Behind the Zion Curtain. I made it back in a little over six hours, including two stops. That’s not bad, considering that I was only a few (usually 3 -5) miles over the posted limit. I saw a prairie dog, just inside the Utah state line. I also saw one on the way to Colorado, but forgot about it until I saw the one this afternoon.
This morning started lazily. SaraRules made sauteed spaghetti and coffee for breakfast. (By the way: Drew, I did get the recipe.) Rachel hung out through breakfast and then went out for a hike. Next up: Hygiene rituals and a spot of laundry.
I’ll be heading west again in a couple of hours. It has been a good (though brief) trip – it was nice to see SaraRules and some of the places that she has talked about for the past few weeks. I’m going to try and get back out here sometime next month, God willing and the creek don’t rise.
A couple of shots from the front porch of the condo:
(click for larger versions)
Stray Toasters
Last night, we watched Across the Universe again. We’ve been trying to see this for a couple of months. I love the arrangements of the songs… and I had forgotten how much I liked the arrangement of Let It Be. And the visuals are great, as well. If you have somehow not seen this movie, I strongly recommend renting it. Soon.
Congrats to and Team Chalk-o-Licious for winning “Best of Festival” at this year’s Chalk Art Festival.
The Things That Carried Him – This is a story that I first heard about on RadioWest a few months ago. It tells the story of a U.S. soldier’s final journey – the journey home to be buried. It’s a pretty amazing story. Hearing the interview with the author, Chris Jones, made me look forward to getting that issue of Esquire.
I’m not going to get my entry for “Superman: Man of Style” done in time to submit it to Project: Rooftop… but I’m going to keep working on it. Because I can. And because it’s been pretty fun.
SaraRules and I headed into Aspen this afternoon. We went to the Aspen Music Festival and School campus. From there, it was into town to the Aspen Art Museum and to wander around; it reminded me a bit of Park City – a decent place to visit, but I don’t think I could live in either place. Next, we headed to the Aspen Music Festival concert grounds. And then… back to Snowmass Village. Jiggety-jig.
