Random Access

Thursday – 15 March 2007
The Ides of March are upon us.

I haven’t slept incredibly well the past few nights, so I slept in this morning. It was nice. I got out of bed, dealt with the necessary hygiene obesiences, dressed and headed out. I wore my Mickey Mouse tie today. Just because. I even got a few compliments on it.

I stopped at B&B for a cup of frozen mocha goodness. Selah. Next stop, the SLC office and then I was on the way south. The road monkeys were fairly well-behaved and the drive was leisurely. Work was okay… it wasn’t enough to knock it out of NBN territory, which was good. I dealt with a few issues, right out of the gate. Wound up having to do a workaround on one of them… but it sufficed. And it will do until tomorrow. Or Monday. However, dealing with that issue made me miss today’s workout; I’ll make it up tomorrow.
Post work, I picked up my four-color shwag. I also treated myself to four pieces of plastic crack from the new Origins set:

• Animal Man
• Cyborg Superman and Steel, from DC’s Reign of the Supermen storyline
• Mon-El, from the Legion (Yes, my little plastic LSH continues to grow.)

Then, I came home. I had planned on watching CSI:, but that was supplanted by the Xavier – BYU game… in which I had less than “no” interest. So, I read this week’s haul.

Stray Toasters

• I talked with the ‘rents today. Both are well.
• This is pretty cool: Toys ‘R’ Us: Autism Awareness Month
• Human Beatboxes. Check out the link for the French Idol show – that one was rather impressive.
• 
• Cap’s been dead a week. Or is he (1, 2)? Wizard posits the question: What would it be like if Captain America existed in the real world?
• …speaking of which, John Mayer and matchbox 20 seem to have differing opinions on “the real world.”
• 301 – 919 – 910
• I’m craving cotton candy. But, only slightly.
• 
• I came across an ad for Sumo Urban Lounge Gear yesterday. I think it looks pretty neat; I wouldn’t mind having a couple pieces.
• 
• It seems that HALO 3 should be out in September. *genuflect*
• Pierre Matter’s biomech-steampunk sculptures
• Your Baby Is a Level 1 Nerd, by way of Matt

Namaste.

Kris (Sib3) makes me smile.  And it’s usually just “little things,” but they’re always enough to put a stupid grin on my face.  Today, it was comment.  Nothing major, just a little something.
I’m pretty damned lucky to have her for a little kid sister¹.

I wish everyone could meet her.

¹: I can’t call her my “little” sister, she’s been taller than me since she was about… 11 or 12.

Wednesday – 14 March 2007
Today was a good day. And, for the second day, it started with a trip to the SLC office. And, guess what: I get to go back again tomorning. Of course, that means that I could sleep in a little… and still be in the office early. Win. Win. Gotta love that.

Post work, I stopped at Borders and did some drawing. It was a nice way to wind down the day.

On a whim, I just did a Google search for “she builds monsoons.” And, I got a few hits. All but one of which was for a band in Greensboro called The Moe Greens. I checked out their MySpace page… and saw an audio link for She Builds Monsoons. It was the right song… but a little different; the original version wasn’t as “heavy” sounding and was a little more uptempo. I looked at the member info. And then I saw it: My friend Rob, formerly of Hat and author of the song, is the guitarist/vocalist.

Stray Toasters

• Tasty popped corns.
• Cafè Corner… from the fine folks at LEGO
• Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance
• – Iranians outraged by 300 movie
  Did they miss Paragraph 3 altogether? Especially the “…is based on a comic-book fantasy version of the battle of Thermopylae…” part? Comic book. Fantasy. Version.
• pointed out this news item: The girl whose hair was too big for her mugshot
• “So how’s it look, Doc?”
  
• Second Life. Interesting.
• From Newsarama – The Q: Does Death Matter?

“Beware the Ides of March…”

Namaste.

As if the last Star Wars-related post wasn’t enough… what happens when you add a liberal amount of Sesame Street into the mix? Probably something like this:

[12:02] : do you think wookiees eat cookiees instead of cookies?
[12:03] : You.
[12:03] : Fired.
[12:03] : Out of a cannon.
[12:03] : *G*
[12:03] : sorry
[12:03] : Into the angry sun.
[12:03] : i just wrote cookiee on accident
[12:03] : too much writing wookiee 😛
[12:03] : Which leads to things like:
[12:03] : “If Cookie Monster was a Wookiee, would he be Cookiee Monster?”
[12:05] : Wookiee Monster!
[12:05] : Sesame Street Wars
[12:06] : Wait..
[12:06] : That might actually work…
[12:07] : Because we could then put Jar Jar Binks in the Mr. Snuffleupagas role…. and then he’d be imaginary and only…. hm…. Threepio, I guess…. could see him.
[12:07] : hahhaha
[12:07] : oh god
[12:08] : the count would dig c3p0 and r2d2 😛
[12:08] : er yeah
[12:08] : m00
[12:08] : AH AH AH AH AAHHHHHHH!

Hell. Handbasket. That’s all I’m sayin’…

I don’t want to get into a Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate here, but there are a couple of items that have popped up recently that caught my eye and made me chuckle:

1. – Trekkie Recreates Awesome Set of Star Trek: Voyager in a Studio Apartment

…and…

2. – Awesome TIE Fighter Speakers Flew Out of Star Wars and Into Your Living Room

Thanks to for the link to the speakers.

Tuesday – 13 March 2007
Two down, three to go.

The day started in the SLC office.  I needed to pick up some items to take to the southern outpost.  Unfortunately, those items weren’t there.  I waited a little bit, to see if they would show up.  They didn’t.  So… I left.  The rest of the workday was decent.  Even “good.”  The lunchtime workout was good, too.  I went back to an old routine: Back and triceps.  It was a very nice change of pace; and I could definitely feel it when I was done.  That’s a good thing.  Back to the ranch to finish out the day.

I remembered to call this afternoon.  I’ve been meaning to do it for about five days now, but something has always wound up rearing its ugly head.  I went for an afternoon constitutional – the weather was sunny, clear and low 70s – and called her.  We talked for about :20 minutes.  She sounds like she’s in good spirits, despite having been cooped up for the past 5½ weeks.  We talked about this, that and the other.  Bouquets and brickbats.  The whole nine yards.  By the way: , she said that she just finished the last of the books that you sent her.  It was good to talk with her.
Stray Toasters

• Friday, I get the tickets for my trip home in May.  There are even good rates into Greensboro!  *shocked*
• Zaz!
• I need to pick up a copy of Casino Royale.
• I can’t find my tape (yes, “tape”) of Hat, a band that some friends of mine were in.  That’s a shame, because I’m really in a mood to listen to Palm Sunday Downpour and She Builds Monsoons.
• Be yourself, that’s fine
  Find yourself, there’s time
  Lose yourself, well I’m right here beside you
• Is this the new Captain America?
• 
• Bananas.
• 200+ MPG car
• “I don’t get it.  The label says this is an ‘easy open’ can.”
  
• The new Ninja Turtles movie opens in a week and a half.  I’m… not sure, but I think I want to see it.
• “S.S. Botany Bay…  S.S. Botany Bay…  Damn!   Damn!  We have to get out of here!”
• The Big Fig – Marvel Legends’ Build-A-Figures prove that bigger is always better.   Sentinel.  *nod*  Although, I wouldn’t have minded getting my hands on an Apocalypse or Galactus figure, either.

Quote of the Day
While gaming tonight, we were talking about Star Trek: TOS.  Somewhere in the conversation, we wound up mixing Star Trek with, of all possible things, Pulp Fiction.  Shortly thereafter, derived from the “What does Marcellus Wallace look like?” interrogation (NSFW), I came up with the following:

“Does Mr. Spock look like a bitch?”

…which became the running joke of the night.  And it only went downhill from there.  But it made us laugh.
Namaste.

Marvel has just released 7½ minutes of footage from the upcoming Spider-Man 3.

You can watch it here.

Enjoy!

Monday – 12 March 2007
And so, another week begins. It wasn’t a bad day in the southern compound. I got to work on the report that I’ve been putting off to the side for a while. There were a couple of other issues that came up, including dealing with the “new and improved” Daylight Saving Time, but nothing insurmountable.

And, speaking of the new DST, I realized something that I didn’t consider until this morning: Where in the Nine Hells were the scientists planning on magically coming up with the “extra daylight” for the energy savings?

I get up between 6:15 and 6:30 AM, during the week. This morning, because I hadn’t put the necessary brainpower behind the logistics, I expected there to be a little more sun around the time I woke up. So, you can imagine my short-lived surprise when I found that wasn’t the case. When the synapses finally fired, I thought about the fact that it was technically only 5:30 AM (in Standard Time)… and that it is still dark at that time. Once I got my head around that, I was okay. Sure, it means that we’ll have a little more sun at the end of the day – which I can’t say is a “bad” thing – but, did the big heads that said “this will save LOTS of money and energy” not consider the fact that we’d still need to use lights/power in the morning? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not a big fan of stumbling around in the dark, morning or night. If I can’t see, I’m turning on the light. Maybe even a couple of them, depending on what room/rooms I’m in.

Even The Register noted Y2K7 bug fails to bite.

< /soapbox>

24 was good tonight. And there was more watching of The West Wing; in one episode, “20 Hours in L.A.,” the audience was introduced to Zoe Bartlett’s new Secret Service bodyguard, played by Jorja Fox – probably best known in her role as Sarah Sidle on CSI:. The episode was chock full of cameos, including David Hasselhoff… which was amusing in itself.
In other news: I called Dad the other night… just to ask him to send Butterscotch Krimpets. They’re as good as on the way.

Stray Toasters

• One of my neighbors asked if they could use the outlet on my porch for their car charger. About 10:45 PM. It was a little… odd.
• You define what you believe…
• Wednesday is Pi Day
• Thanks to for pointing out the typo… in my typo post.
• The 51 Best* Magazines Ever
• From the “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Dead” file: Northern Ireland Mortuary Begins Funeral
• “What, pray tell, is that?”
  “It’s my new invention.”
  
• From CBR: Doom Patrol Creator Arnold Drake Dies
• 
• Matt: Warren Ellis’ NEXTWAVE – subverting the underwear perverts
• When I finish reading Specter of the Past, I think that I’ll re-read the DragonLance Chronicles trilogy.

Time to finish off my tasty beverage and contemplate the idea of getting into bed.

Namaste.

I was chatting with and we were talking about typos. I mentioned my randomly occurring typo of choice: Typing “Stray Taoists” rather than “Stray Toasters.”

[16:25] : That’s okay, I intermittently have the…. habit (? ) of typing “Stray Taoists” when I mean to type “Stray Toasters.”
[16:25] : And they’re nothing alike.
[16:26] : I like Taoists, but I don’t think that they like being sugared and cinnamoned.

Then, I had a horrible image pop into my head: A group of robed monks singing Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight.

Sunday – 11 March 2007
So far, it’s been a fairly lax day. I slept until 9:40 10:40, got up, observed the hygiene rituals… and then sat around for a bit. I decided that I wanted to get out and do something… but wasn’t sure exactly “what.” Then, I decided that I wanted to draw; I haven’t really done any of that in a while. I could go to the library or Borders and just hang out. Cool, there was the tentative plan, all that remained was to set it in motion.

Which means: I sat around for a bit longer.

messaged me a short while later and said that she was thinking of heading to Borders herself. I told her that I was thinking of heading there and so, we decided to meet up there and hang out for a while. Which we did. And… AND… I managed to actually get some drawing done. It was just a couple of headshots… okay, one-and-a-half, but that’s not the point. The point is: I drew.

And that’s a good thing.

Stray Toasters

• I’m (more than) “a little” irritated: I talked with Mom yesterday.  That wasn’t the irritating point.  Quite the contrary, in fact… it was a very good thing to talk with her.  The irritating point was a bit of news that she shared:  Someone broke into my great-grandmother’s house.

  The house has been empty for a number of years, but it was still fully-furnished and had lots of momentos and memorabilia in it.  The house had been under the care/watch of a trusted friend of the family, in our absence.  This person, however, passed away not too long ago.  Apparently, the people who broke in knew this… and took advantage of the fact.  *sigh*  There’s a chance – a slim one, but a chance, nonetheless – that they might be able to recover some of the stolen property – it seems as though the  identity of the perpetrators may be known.  We’ll have to see.

  So, now Mom has to go there this week to file all of the necessary reports… and then she and my uncle are going back next weekend to figure out what to do with the rest of the property.  Yay.

• The Luckiest Man in the World
• I hadn’t heard of a Fire Rainbow before this, but it looks pretty cool.  And, according to Snopes.com, they really do occur.
• For (and tyranist, if he should happen to see this…): 15 Best Bond Gadgets of All Time
• 20 Must-Have Firefox Extensions
• I was checking out popurls.com a little earlier and found a link to: A Web Developer’s Cheat Sheet List
• I’ve heard of theme hotels before; there are at least three or four here in the greater SLC-Ogden area… but I think that this hotel in Berlin takes the cake.  or , have either of you heard of this place?
• Top 12 Weird Japanese Inventions
• Toy Story 3.  Right.

Off to find out what kind of trouble I can get into.

Namaste.

Just got in from breakfast…

…where I just met Ed Mulitalo.

Saturday – 10 March 2007
I finally did it.

I finally watched KidsWB’s Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon.

And, I liked it.

I’ve been a Legion fan for nearly 30 years. It may have been one of the – if not the – first comics that I collected regularly; I’m a little dodgy on the details, it was either LSH or reprints of 60s X-Men. But, it’s probably the one series that I’ve been the most diligent about collecting.  When I first read about the show, I was curious, but dubious – there had been rumours and whispers about trying an LSH show in the… late 80s or early 90s, I think.  So, I waited… and when I saw that his show had been greenlighted, I was expectant.  Then I saw the character shots and was a little disappointed.
The animation style  isn’t exactly what I would have chosen; I would have preferred a style closer to Bruce Timm’s, as seen in Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. I will say that it is similarly “distracting” as the animation style used for Teen Titans was… but not as much. I think that this is mainly because LSH doesn’t try to go for the “cheap laugh” by breaking into chibi animation to lighten up some moments. Actually, I just noticed that the style seems like a blending of the Timm style and the style used on Batman Beyond.

Today’s episode was “Lightning Storm,” featuring a team known as the Light Speed Vanguard, whom canny Legion readers will recognize as a thinly-veiled Legion of Super-Villains. One of the members of the LSV was Lightning Lord, Mekt Ranzz… older brother of Legionnaire Lightning Lad. They did a brief “how they got their powers” flashback and showed the sibling rivalry that has been portrayed many times over in the LSH print titles. In an interesting side story, the Legion was holding tryouts back on Earth – something that hasn’t been seen in the print titles in a long time. Astute viewers could see members of the Legion of Substitute Heroes as well as Jacques Foccart, the second Invisible Kid.

The writing was good. The dialogue was pretty snappy. The characterizations were good. And, well… it was just fun. I’ll have to pay more attention to this in… the… future. Wow, I didn’t think about the pun in that until after I had typed it. But, I’m sticking with it anyway.

And, , There is an Interlac TrueType font available for Windows and MacOS.

Friday – 09 March 2007
Today has been good. I didn’t have to fight too many road monkeys. I was able to work on something that I haven’t had a chance to do anything with since God was a boy. Went to off-site training. Went back to work. Worked. Came home.

Today’s off-site training was held at the Cinemark at The Meadows in American Fork (or, if you want to sound more like a native Utahn: “Amurrican Fark”). It was titled 300. For those of you who don’t know, the movie is based on the Frank Miller graphic novel 300; it is about King Leonidas of Sparta and the 300 soldiers who battled the combined might of Xerxes‘ Persian army at Thermopylae.

It was good. And gritty. And bloody. And passionate.  And, like Sin City, also by Frank Miller, it is not going to be for everyone.  It did a good job of conveying the importance of freedom. And honor. And duty. And the costs of being free. Yes, there was creative license taken, but from what I’ve read of the actual Battle of Thermopylae, I still think that, all in all, it was a well-crafted and well-told story. I haven’t read the graphic novel yet, but I’m going to; I want to see how faithfully this was adapted.

Stray Toasters

• Note to self: Call Mom tomorrow.
• New bicycle routes trace Underground Railroad.
• Thanks to for pointing this out: Disney creates first black animated princess
• Brad Delp, lead singer of Boson, has died.
• Fly.
• From eWeek: The Worst Cube-Dwelling Offenses
• Maggie Gyllenhaal will be replacing Katie Holmes (or is it “Katie Cruise?”) as Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight, the sequel to Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.

It’s coffee time, so I’m up out.

Namaste.

It’s been a good morning, so far.  Add to that the fact that a few of us have been playing video tag and you’ve got yourself a good Friday, not to be confused with Good Fridayâ„¢.

Today’s goodies have included:

• Come Closer Together – I’ve long thought that NIN’s Closer and The Beatles’ Come Together could be successfully remixed; someone proved me right.
• Superman and Batman vs. The 40-Year Old Virgin
• The Office – Mahna Mahna
• …which led me to looking for – and finding – Sandra Bullock Mahna Mahna
• Star Wars LEGO® Symphony

And, with that, back to the grind.