Aaah... the edge is back

I haven't really had time to watch "Burn Notice" and "Battlestar Galactica" until just this morning.

So that's how I've spent my morning.

And I'm pleased.

"Burn Notice" wasn't at its best, but it was certainly edgier and better than last week's disappointment.

It's BSG that really surprised me, though. Watching the endless disintegration of everyone in this show has made the final season quite the yawner, but now that the fleet is in the middle of yet another power struggle, there's crap going down that's making everything a bit exciting, at least.

Gives me a glimmer of hope that the end of the series may not completely suck ass.

Maybe.

Ayu

Friends in Japan got me hooked on Hamasaki Ayumi, a Japanese pop star. I own more of her albums than I'm comfortable with.

Why do I even bring this up?



I don't follow Dragonball. It never grabbed me. This movie looks pretty stupid. Oh, except for the one hot actress morphing into another hot actress. I like that part.

I'm shallow that way.

Regardless, the song, "Rule", is sung by Hamasaki Ayumi. I want it. Alas, I must wait 'till Feb. 25 when it's released.

Patience is not a virtue I have a lot of.

And so ends the week

I survived my first "official" martial arts class. It was more low-key than I expected, but that's fine. I bought a couple of uniforms later in the evening for future class use.

Good lord... I feel like I forgot everything I learned in my prior martial arts classes. Stances, how to move, all of it... whoosh. Completely gone.

This ought to be very educational for me.

Work-wise, it was a productive enough week. I finished a bunch of lingering maintenance projects while I await things to stabilize for my main projects.

I'm thrilled it's the weekend. I need sleep.

Cookie Monster

I wanted to thank my neighbors for feeding me on Sunday as part of the lunar new year celebration.

After gently quizzing the family's daughter earlier in the week, I opted to make my double-chocolate oatmeal cookies.

On the face of it, that was a good idea. They're not too sweet. They have oatmeal in them, so you can pretend they're "healthy". I sub out as many ingredients as possible to make them less horrifically unhealthy (egg beaters instead of eggs, some kind of vegan-non-hydrogenated-fats margarine, etc.), and they still taste good.

I wasn't certain they'd like the cookies, so I took about a third of the batch over. They were happy with the warm cookies and made happy noises, but were content with the plate-full.

So I have the remaining 2/3 of the batch sitting in my freezer now (less temptation for six-legged intruders).

Why the hell didn't I bring them into work? Now I have a whole weekend of terrible temptation...

Mmm... cookies...

Damnit.

So it's the cookie

My MP3 player has tracks from "Once More With Feeling" followed by tracks from "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog".

I don't think I'd planned that. It just sort of happened.

I love that blogspot lets me delete blog posts I don't like. I don't know what possessed me to do that "seven things" list. Thankfully, deletion power is mine!

The RTD-era Cybermen battle cry of "delete" lacks the pure awesome of the Dalek's "exterminate", by the way.

I've done my level best to help put a stake through the heart of the 1970's. Aside from a brief moment in 1977, I see no reason to revive that decade at all.

I've got fond memories of lots of craptacular 1970's TV shows (Space 1999, Space Academy, Jason of Star Command, Ark II, and others), but I see no need to revive those.

I especially hated fashion in the 1970's.

So why the hell am I wearing the craptacular quasi "earth tones" of the 1970's today? How did that happen?

I remember eating a cookie and...

Oh that's why.

Doom and Gloom

Not exactly the first words that popped into my mind on a Friday morning.

No, the first words were: "What the HELL is that noise? Oh yeah... alarm clock."

Then: "FRIDAY! YAY! I can sleep in tomorrow!"

Then: "Oh wow! I got paid!"

Then I watched, and later read, the news.

Worst drought in California's history was pretty much an eye-opener.

Add to that the craptacular economy, the overall global environmental issues, the global political issues and it's enough to make that bottle look like a really interesting place to retreat to (I hear those little pills are an awesome vacation spot as well).

Meh. It's easy to freak out over stuff like that. We'll adapt somehow. Won't be easy or fun, but life's often like that.

It's not like the Lectroids of the Eigth Dimension are invading or the Visitors have come to steal our water and eat us.

Yet.

There's an easy solution: grant me absolute power over all the Earth and its peoples.

Note I said "easy" not "good".

Happy Friday.

This week's offerings of TV goodness

Tuesday's "Fringe" was pretty much pure awesome. Some crazy guy created a computer program that melted people's brains.

Oh, c'mon. It's a Fox show. What are you expecting? Shakespeare? Seriously? This show is gold! Pure gold!

Whatever...

Wednesday's "Lost" was more Abrams-awesomeness. It was a rare treat in that the episode completely lacked Jack and Kate. It had lots of time-traveling goodness. It had something that might maybe be answers to the overall plot. It was pretty damn cool.

Tonight is another "Burn Notice". I hope it's better than last week's mediocre offering.

And then tomorrow night is "Battlestar Suckastica". I could correct that misspelling, but after the last two episodes, I'm not inclined to hold out hope that the remaining episodes will be any good.

Maybe if they melted the brains of most of the Colonial fleet and the Cylons... ah, I can dream...

Ant War: Day Nineteen - Revision One

Who would've thought ants could read?

Hell, who would've thought they'd read my blog?

Little f***ers are clearly taunting me, 'cause they're back.

Well, they were...

Ant War: Day Nineteen

Thus far, no more sightings of my six-legged foes. Neighbors report troubles, so it may be that they are focusing on a different front for the time being.

No matter. I remain vigilant and prepared.

It hurtssssss

I'm not a huge fan of "The Battle for Gobwin Knob". I read it occasionally because I read OotS.

Today's is funny/disturbing/wrong.

My brain hurts.

Attire for the Modern Bad Guy

My source of software annoyance was quickly staked and bonfired by one of the wise and helpful engineers I work with.

As I trekked to and from said engineer, the A/C came on, giving my naked skull a chill.

Hoodies are nigh-perfect attire. Built-in cowls for the aspiring villain.

And they're awesome if you're lacking in a full head of hair (or in possession of a head that lacks any hair).

Plus they usually have big, roomy, pouch-like pockets in the front.

Pockets == good.

Another thought

So I wonder if I could wish for an army of unstoppable djinni who each owe me their unconditional obedience and three wishes apiece?

Sure, it's greedy overkill, but you have to admit that the idea has merit.

Though if I'm going to wish for that, I may as well go for broke and just insist upon godlike powers.

Meglomania isn't for the meek.

Sometimes I wonder...

... how would I fare if I had a totally obedient army of slavishly-devoted cultists, unstoppable robots, and the undead?

Or even, how would I fare if I found a magic lamp with a djinni inside?

I expect my first wish would probably involve the creation of an army quite similar to the one I just mentioned.

Hopefully I'd do better with that then I would launching the product I'm supposed to support this morning.

The world economy is ripe for warlords, don't you think?

Inconceivable!

Did you know there are people out there who do not like chocolate?

It's mind-boggling!

I'm thinking this is evidence of an invasion by extraterrestrials.

That's the only reason I can think of for why the Scharffenberger plant in Berkeley is closing.

It makes perfect sense.

Tick-Tick-Tick

My ninja clock is very loud.

Ironic, really.

Best Exposition of the Day

From Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic (YAFGC) (WARNING: archives are mostly NSFW!)

Most Appropriate License Plate

Saw just now:

F8 4ALL

Best of all, it was on a hearse.

How to Win a Psychic Duel

We've all seen Scanners. (If you haven't seen Scanners, I'm not talking to you. I'm mocking you from the depths of what passes for my soul and may attempt to make your head explode later with my awesome psychic powers... but I digress).

Should you find yourself in a situation where you have to enter into a psychic duel with another, here's a few things to keep in mind.

1) Telepathic powers don't always trump telekinetic powers. Keep in mind, a telekinetic can move things with his or her mind. That means - YOINK! - your brain can be pulled out through your nose. It's all about who thinks first.

2) Just 'cause you're a MENSA member doesn't mean you're going to be able to take down Jethro the Janitor.

3) Don't duel people with precognative powers if you can avoid it.

4) Try to disrupt your enemy's focus. Anything that kills a few of your foe's brain cells before you fight is a plus. Good options include:
- attacking after your foe has watched "American Idol"
- putting some cute kittens or puppies in line-of-sight. ("Aww... how cutAARRGGGH!!!!!" [head explodes])
- switch any caffeinated coffee/soda your target has with decaf

5) Crush your enemy's morale. Good options include:
- Wiping any saved music and "other data" on your enemy's hard-drive or iPod
- Use your mind-control powers to have your target's boy/girl-friend dump the target before the duel
- swap out any beer in your target's 'fridge with non-alcoholic beer
- switch any caffeinated coffee/soda your target has with decaf

6) Switch your target to decaf. I can't emphasize this enough.

7) Don't duel any high school outsiders who have been the target of any kind of bullying.

8) Don't duel any prepubescent kids with psychic powers. Period.

9) There is no such thing as "overkill".

10) Remember: bystanders are there to help you win your duel.

11) Dirty fighting gives clean victories.

Update

First of all, I'd like to apologize to any gnomish viewers who are offended by my take on European gnome hats.

I'm sure they're very stylish. I'm not really a fit judge of fashion, gnomish or not.

Secondly, I don't advocate going around with cannons all day long on the off-chance you'll encounter a pirate and be able to trade broadsides.

Unless "trading broadsides" is a euphemism for something you want to do with a pirate. I'm not going to comment on that, save to point out that pirates aren't exactly known for their hygiene.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

In other news, someone appears to have stolen our rainclouds here. If you should find them, please send word to Sacramento, California attention: the Governator.

Thanks.

How to Prepare for the Robot Uprising

There's really only one way: cybernetics.

Lots and lots of cybernetics.

Actually, if there's a way to upload your mind in digital form into a robot body, you're golden, but let's face it... once you've done that, you are the Robot Uprising.

Power to the Machines, my fellow mechanoid!

How to Spot a Pirate

If you see any of these things:

* eyepatch

* parrot on the shoulder

* peg-leg

* cutlass

* bandoleer of pistols (or just a couple in a sash)

Odds are pretty good you're seeing a pirate.

If any of those are in combination with a gnarly beard, then it's almost a sure thing.

If the words "Arr" or "Avast!" come up in conversation, or there's a request for "grog" and "wenches", or a reference to timbers being shivered, then it's a sure thing.

What to do:

1) Step away slowly.

2) Load cannons.

3) Come along broadsides.

4) Fire.

This tactic is not a sure thing, but how many of us have real nautical experience?

I mean really?

Feeding habits of the common ninja

When feeding ninja, keep in mind that they need to take off their masks to be able to properly eat.

Also keep in mind that ninja can turn anything into a deadly weapon (assuming they don't use the various deadly weapons they carry).

Finally, keep in mind that if you see a ninja's face, the ninja must kill you.

So, the moral of the story: don't feed ninja. Pray they're distracted by other ninja.

Or pirates.

Or robots.

Your best bet is robots.

Failed business ideas

* Shoggoth Adoption Agency

* Mordor Tanning Booths

* Vashta Nerada Meat-Alternative Cuisine

* Kryptonian Pet Rocks

* Yahoo Instant Messenger for the Borg

* Pern Dragon Burgers

* Mongo Branch of the ACLU

* Elven Barber Shops

Sidhe dancing on a pin

Soylent Brown is a bad idea.

I leave it to your imagination as to why.

Soylent Grey, however, has a lot of potential, especially with our life-challenged customer base.

Once we've successfully colonized the five Lagrange Points, we should be able to position mass drivers to deliver all the Crunchberry we need.

It's the only way to keep the Andromedan Squids from intruding and messing with our daytime TV talk shows.

Though, I'm of the opinion that the Squids would be a kinder fate.

At least we can use carrots to drive them off if they get to be too much trouble.

Fnordalicious

The wire people dropped by via phase shift to raid my supply of zip lock bags.

Thankfully I keep my arsenal well-stocked.

After I cleaned up the mess, I got back to business and discussed exactly how my partners and I will be divvying up the mass-exorcisms. I've been of the opinion that well-cooked noodles work well for those of our number who are members of the Church of the FSM.

I'm trying to figure out how to properly deploy flying monkeys after phase one is complete.

In other news, things are not looking up for the aura massage business. The economy isn't right for that particular model.

A shame.

Menehune recruitment is way down. Some of the others want to blame rising fuel costs, but I maintain that gas prices have nothing to do with cloud bridges. It's all about the drought.

None of us want to consider outsourcing at this juncture.

Besides, have you seen European gnome attire? Those red hats get in the way of everything.

I think I need to cut down on the Ephemerol. It's giving me a terrible headache and it's making the poltergeist jealous.

I've considered putting my Vorpal butter knife up on eBay, but the shipping restrictions via USPS are pretty severe and the only other shipping company that can handle it requires a four-soul deposit. Besides, you can't trust zombies to carry these things.

Oh well. I'm sure things will get better once the LHC test re-opens the portal for the bees to return.

What's the score?

Since I'm obsessive that way, I tracked down and purchased scores to:

* Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin: The Last Princess

and

* The Sword of the Stranger

Note that in the latter case, I haven't even seen the movie yet. I got the score based on a trailer I saw on YouTube.

I have not regretted either purchase. They're quite enjoyable (in the nerdly way I enjoy them).

I have noticed they make me type in to a strange cadence.

Heh.

Well... crumbs

The new martial arts class I signed up for could stand to be a bit clearer in their communications.

I guess formal instruction doesn't start 'till this coming Friday.

Oh well, that's cool. I don't have to scramble around after work 'till actual Friday.

W00t-a-riffic

I got my 1.5 TB external hard drive up and running.

It's good times, for the most part. The Seagate synchronization program seems to suck up memory on my PC in odd ways and, for reasons I can't fully understand, it stopped recognizing my USB ports for a bit, but I'm not sure that was the hard drive's fault.

I still have my other external (100 GB of goodness) as well. I'm getting a cable to let me exploit some more USB connections so I can connect both.

Ah technology... you do suck a lot of my money away.

Gong hei fat choi/Gong xi fa cai

After a rather massive meal with the 'rents (a full rack of ribs plus extras), I got home and went about the normal tasks of preparing myself for crashing and work the next day.

I heard a tap on my front door.

My neighbors from across the hall invited me over for dumplings and what-not in honor of the Chinese (Lunar) New Year.

At first I started to beg off... I was really, really full. I'm not sure at what point in conversation I accepted their gracious offer, but I wound up across the hall and enjoying an impromptu (for me) celebration of the Lunar New Year.

(An aside: I've gotten in the habit of calling it Lunar New Year because I have a lot of Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai friends who celebrate the New Year and they have advised me it's rude to refer to it as "Chinese" New Year... it's their New Year as well.)

So my neighbors taught me how to make dumplings (I learned that I shouldn't quit my day job) and how to say "delicious" in Mandarin (since I've slept on it, my brain has completely forgotten).

I entertained them with my ability to use chopsticks and I ate samplings of everything they put in front of me, including some lovely rose(?) tea.

I could have gorged myself on the dumplings. They were outstanding. If I only had room in my stomach...

It was a very pleasant surprise for me and great fun. My neighbors rock.

Good lord I'm still full...

I love Saturdays

I love having a day of pure slack.

It's the little things in life that make it all worthwhile.

Glee and Pain

Glee: My 1.5 terabyte (yes, TERABYTE) external drive arrived yesterday along with the UPS package I'd redirected and some other stuff I'd ordered.

Pain: Second martial arts class. Ow.

Glee: Went drinking with Steve in the city.

Wierd: I'm not entirely sure, but I think one of the doormen hit on me. Weird, but I was in SF.

Pain: None of the extraordinarily beautiful women in the bars seemed terribly interested in talking with either of us.

Glee: No ant sightings for two days now.

Pain: My muscles still hurt. A lot.

Glee: Got a CD I ordered.

Pain: It's pretty bad.

Glee: I'm now formally a student of said martial arts class (I cut a check Friday).

Pain: The bank account is running on fumes.

Glee: Last night's BSG didn't suck.

Pain: Last night's BSG wasn't great.

Glee: It's Saturday.

GLEE!!!!

My Superpower

I have a superpower.

Okay, I have several, but to reveal them all would endanger my secret identity.

I have one I can reveal, though.

I have incredible timing.

Insert "bad" into the above sentence, and modify "incredible" appropriately.

I was home for the bulk of yesterday. I wasn't really doing much. Just wimpering in pain from my sore muscles, doing laundry, working on some personal projects, and catching up on TV.

I had a package coming from UPS. I knew I'd be home 'till about 5 or so, when I was set to go out, get 'za, and watch "Burn Notice".

UPS tracking said they went out on delivery in the wee hours of the morning.

Yep.

So when did they come by? 7pm

Was I home? Of course not.

Doesn't matter what's going on. If I were home, they would have come by in the five minutes I ran to the store, or was taking a shower, or whatever.

I'm thinking of getting a costume and going around as Captain Badtiming or something like that.

It's a fall-back position if my super villain career stalls.

A warm happy hug for Friday

Ah Friday...

So I'm very out-of-shape. I thought I was in reasonably good shape. I run or bicycle regularly. I do the push-ups, the chin-ups, all that stuff.

Wednesday's martial arts class has taught me differently.

I stretch every morning as a matter of habit. I think that's the only reason I can move at all today. I hurt in all sorts of new and interesting ways.

Yes, I do plan to continue whining about this.

In other news, "Burn Notice" started again last night. I watched it and enjoyed the first pizza I've had in 2009. (Mmm... Zachary's...) The show was okay. I like some of the plot stuff they're doing, but they're making the main character a little too warm-and-fuzzy now. I get what they're trying to do, but it's not working for me.

I still love the show, mind you. It's much better than most of the banal crap on the tube these days.

I think someone may have attempted to break into my apartment in the last few days. I set... well, it's sort of a "booby trap" of sorts on my balcony. Yesterday I noticed it looked like it was messed with.

Couldn't be a cat or squirrel or something like that. I'm too high up for them. Maybe a bird, but I doubt it.

A little disturbing. If I had more concrete information, I'd call the police, but I don't have anything to back up my suspicion.

If it was an attempt to get on to my balcony, whomever tried it ought to consider getting tetanus shots. Heh heh heh...

I'm going back to the martial arts class tonight. I expect I won't be doing much moving around tomorrow. Heh.

What a day

I took today off from work to resolve some appointments. One of said appointments requires me to fast for quite some time. Since fasting means "no coffee", I took the day off from work.

I recognize my limitations.

After resolving the eternity that was my morning appointments, I got a heavenly breakfast in the pleasant mist that passes for rain today, then returned home to watch my recordings of "Fringe" and "Lost".

"Fringe" did not disappoint. Good, clean fun there. Oh, and giant microbes that eat people out from the inside.

Love me my mad science.

"Lost" was even better. I get the time-travel aspects now. I think I'm getting what the show is actually about. I usually hate time-travel stories on TV ("Dr. Who" really doesn't count), but I'm loving how "Lost" is handling things.

And tonight: "Burn Notice"!

I'm getting a Zachary's 'za, visiting the unnamed and Wendel the cat, and watching "Burn Notice".

Now I'm listening to some music CDs I ordered. I'm enjoying them more than I thought I would.

Tomorrow I return to work and plan to do another martial arts class afterward.

The martial arts class required me to use muscles I haven't really used very much. I'm suffering as a result. Good times.

Ant War: Day Twelve

Sporadic sightings of scouts.

They get killed. Others come later. No big infestations yet.

Dunno why they like the bathtub so much.

ow

So I just had my first martial arts class in a few years. It ended about an hour and a half ago.

I can already tell I'm going to feel it tomorrow.

I'm glad I've been running regularly and doing the push-ups and all that stuff. I'd be in agony otherwise.

I liked it. Good fun. I may stick with this one for a while.

Ow.

Ow-ow-ow.

Ow.

WANT!

I really, really want this.

Access Privileges

User Friendly for the win.

Yawn

The last couple of days have been an unexpected challenge when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning.

I'm quite, quite tired.

I have only myself to blame, of course. Nobody's putting a gun to my head and making me come into the office this early.

Still, I'm more productive in the mornings... gah.

Part of me was afraid that I'd wake up this morning and find that I'd dreamed Obama won the election and got inaugurated. I'm glad that wasn't the case.

Still giddy...

Why?

A question from a friend:

"Why don't you add labels for your posts?"

My answer(s):

Why the hell would you need me to organize these? Who even reads this?

And I'm lazy, so why would I want to do extra work?

Sheesh... most of my friends already know this about me...

That was awesome

I just saw the inauguration and listened to President Obama's speech.

That was the most polite "f*** you" to I've ever heard anyone give to Bush.

It was a fantastic and energizing speech.

I hope he's able to maintain this energy and enthusiasm for his administration and I hope it's a long and productive one.

The Way of Shadows

As I mentioned before, I'm currently reading "The Way of Shadows" by Brent Weeks. It was a recommendation from my friend Charles the Book Pimp and Chuck's rarely led me astray.

I'm 408 pages in (about 3/4 through, I think) and finding it to be an enjoyable read.

Weeks writes good narrative. It's sophomoric in parts, but given that the main characters are late teens/early 20's at this point in the book, it fits fine.

I enjoy his characters. They're fun. He's got some truly f***ed up and evil personalities among them.

I got the balance of his "Night Angel" trilogy. Gives me reading material for the next week or so at this rate.

Hee hee hee

As a former musician, I find this hysterical.

Get Fuzzy

A Very Interesting Day

Today is the inauguration.

While I'm trying not to be one of those "cult of personality" people, I gotta say, I'm jazzed.

My office is actually going to stream the event in two conference rooms (partially so we don't all stream it at our desks and kill our bandwidth).

President Barack Hussein Obama II.

I love saying that.

Ant War: Day Nine - Revision One

Yep... I spoke too soon. Found a scout.

My bathroom now smells like the fresh citrus sent of Orange (the spray, which I'm finding quite effective).

2009 and geeks

2009 is not treating geeks well.

Patrick McGoohan, Ricardo Montalban, and Bob May (the Robot from "Lost in Space") all died in the last week or so.

Hollywood has announced that Roland Emmerich is making a movie based on Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series and that Keanu Reeves is lined up to play Spike in a live-adaptation of "Cowboy Bebop".

What's next? Torturing puppies? Skinning kittens alive? Making baby-burgers?

Evil. Pure evil.

Whomever is behind this MUST BE STOPPED!

Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm more pissed about the lameness of the final Cylon than I thought?

Or maybe I forgot to take my meds this morning.

No... I'm sure I had coffee.

Rising from the dead

(aka Monday)

The weather report says today is a "spare the air" day. The forecast also predicts possible rain Wednesday and Friday through Saturday. The latter two days are predicted to give us up to an inch of rain.

YAY!!!!

Lord knows we could use five to ten times that amount (spread over many weeks, of course).

Today is also Martin Luther King Jr. day. It's interesting that he's the only private citizen to get a national holiday in his honor. I wish I automatically got the day off. I had to choose between MLK and President's Day. I opted for the later holiday simply out of pragmatic need to break up the loooong stretch between now and Memorial Day.

Of course at this hour, I'm really wishing I'd taken the day.

Ah well.

A sign of a problem

So that movie? Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin: The Last Princess?

The actress who plays the princess got her start in a movie called Kurosufaia (aka Cross Fire or Pyrokinesis).

The things that bother me about this:

1) I own the movie Kurosufaia.

2) I recognized the actress.

Even better? I recognize the guy who plays the main heroic samurai from a good half-dozen shows, movies, and what-not that I've seen offered from Japan.

And I still don't understand the language.

I find this really funny.

Remakes

I finished Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin: The Last Princess, a remake of The Hidden Fortress (see the Wikipedia article if you're remotely interested).

As remakes go, I've seen worse.

They sure made the character of Yuki-hime a ditz. She was fine until about halfway through the movie and then suddenly became this helpless damsel awfully quick.

I kind of like the nod to Star Wars: A New Hope with the Darth Vader-like samurai villain.

It's kind of a full-circle there (The Hidden Fortress was an inspiration for Star Wars: A New Hope)

I guess I would have understood this better with subtitles (or fluency in Japanese).

I'm not sure I would have liked it more, but I don't regret obtaining it.

Shows - revised

"Fringe" - Jan. 20 @ 9pm
"Lost" - Jan. 22 @ 9pm
"Burn Notice" - Jan. 22 @ 10pm
"Dollhouse" - Feb. 13 @ ??
"Reaper" - mid-March @ ??

So that sets me up nicely.

Tuesdays I have "Fringe" at 9pm
Wednesdays I have "Lost" at 9pm
Thursdays I have "Burn Notice" at 10pm
Fridays I have "Dollhouse" at god-knows-what-hour

Dunno about "Reaper". I suspect my recordings of "Reaper" will lose out to "Burn Notice". Maybe not.

Of course, all this could crap out when the networks all go digital. It's not supposed to f*** my stuff up, but I know it will.

Ah, technology

There's nothing like setting up a VCR to make a person feel like a total idiot.

Add two short-tempered college-educated people who aren't really used to being baffled by everyday technology and you have a recipe for pure frustration.

At the end of the day, the prognosis was that the 'rents need to return the POS Sony VCR/DVD-R combo unit for something a little less of a pain in the arse.

I blame Sony.

Ant War: Day Nine

No sign of the enemy at all.

I'm still ready to douse areas of the apartment liberally with various sprays. I'm now in the habit of double-bagging things like honey.

They'll reappear again. They always do.

Little f***ers.

A mystery

Why am I watching a modern remake of The Hidden Fortress that is in the Japanese language (which I really don't speak) and isn't subtitled in any language other than... um... Japanese?

Why did I buy this?

What the hell is wrong with me?

These questions are rhetorical. Don't bother commenting. I know the answers. I just like to whine.

It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

Catchy... that could be a song.

In my spare time, I'm still running an email game with three of my GURPS rpg group (the fourth apparently has nothing to say... so I'm not pressing him).

The stuff these three guys are doing... it's a mix of insane (in a bad way) and genius (which can only be good). I'd blog more about it, but I'm still in the middle of it and it would make absolutely no sense (or be of no interest) to anyone aside from us four.

Huh 500

500 posts. Weird.

And I just logged-on to comment about REI.

Well, down to business from my chatty self... REI is having a clearance sale on some items. 50% off some stuff.

I am beside myself with glee.

I went there to pick up a (sadly not-discounted) bike helmet and wound up coming home with so much more for so very, very little (relatively).

I am beside myself with... oh wait, I already said that.

So if I'm beside myself, shouldn't I say it twice?

Huh.

An interesting aside... as I walked to REI, I stopped at an ARCO to get something to drink and had the joy of witnessing the most insane lack of customer service I've ever seen.

So apparently some supermarket sold or gave away some free gas cards for ARCO. Apparently said cards had an expiration date.

I walked into ARCO and saw this lady getting into a really nasty shouting match with the guy behind the counter. And I gotta say... the guy behind the counter was a serious dick about it.

There were tons of ways he could have nicely-explained that he was sorry and he couldn't accept the expired card. Instead, he effectively called the woman an illiterate dumbass and started getting kind of personal. A little misogynistic there..

Meh. I bought my drink and took off. I don't expect I'll be giving that ARCO my business ever again.

500 posts. Wow.

I have a lot to say, apparently.

Well, a lot of inane stuff, anyway.

Battlestar Jump-the-shark-tica?

So BSG premiered last night with the final... ten or so... episodes.

It wasn't a bad episode, all said. Weird, neat twist with Starbuck.

The death of a character I actually quite liked.

The reveal of the final Cylon.

They've been building to the final Cylon reveal for months. What an utter disappointment. I knew they couldn't delver but, damn. That reveal was a whole new level of suck.

I'll still keep watching. It's like a terrible car accident. I can't tear my eyes away.

Oh wait, I don't actually stop and look at car accidents.

Nevermind.

New Reading Material

Chuck the Book Pimp shoved another one my way:

"The Way of Shadows" by Brent Weeks.

I'm only a few chapters in. Seems cool. I like the narrative style enough that I bought the next two books in the series.

Yay! Books!

Ahead

The weekend is still several hours ahead of me, alas. I have the new BSG episode to look forward to (I suppose... I've been disappointed in this season so far).

My other TV shows start soon:

"Fringe" - Jan. 20 @ 9pm
"Burn Notice" - Jan. 22 @ 10pm
"Dollhouse" - Feb. 13
"Reaper" - ??

Hopefully I won't have any unexpected snafus when the cable goes pure-digital. I have no faith that Comcast's idiots can get their sh*t together. It's not supposed to affect me...

Heh.

The weekend is otherwise pretty clear. I'm going to take it easy and try to deal with these allergies and get caught up on my sleep.

Mmm... sleep...

STOP! FRIDAY TIME!

You're supposed to interpret that title as a clever take on "Stop! Hammer time!"

It's understandable if you don't.

Been quite the week. Work is ramping up. I'm trying to wrap my head around how to handle my part in the projects my team is working on. It's an overly-complex, icky bit of system operation that my team is tweaking. I'm going to have to explain it a fair amount.

So I'm trying to understand it. Bleah.

To keep my head from exploding, I'm running an email role-playing game and updating during breaks or during lunch as well as off-hours. It's logistically challenging. I'm wondering why I find this stuff relaxing.

I finished Joong-cheon this morning. Very pretty movie. Nice fights. The ending made no sense whatsoever.

Seriously. I had no friggin' clue what that was about at the end. I guess I don't care. Very few wuxia-style flicks actually have coherent plots all the way through.

It might have made more sense if I spoke Korean. It may well be a subtitling issue. Another movie I enjoy, Muyeong geom (aka Shadowless Sword) apparently suffers from that. One of my friends speaks Korean and said the subtitles on my copy suck arse.

Nice.

AICN claims Keanu Reeves play Spike in a live adaptation of Cowboy Beebop.

He must be stopped.

Ant War: Day Seven

No sightings thus far.

I am not, however, relaxing my guard. These little f*ckers reappear as soon as I think they might be gone.

What a neat day

Allergy siege aside, this was just a really nice day.

I took an early lunch to help my friend 3 (nickname for this blog) return something... to a store in friggin' Concord. That was a hoot.

Why my help? The box was nearly as big as she was... so I did heavy lifting. I got lunch out of the bargain and a shakeup of the humdrum schedule.

Marc, as noted previously, gave me the much-needed tip my Luddite brain required to figure out how to read those drives. They're now read, parsed, and the relevant parts backed up to other, more accessible media.

It was like an archaeology expedition for a bit.

I watched more of Joong-cheon as I ate dinner. Haven't finished it yet, but the wire-fu got much more awesome.

I didn't finish it 'cause Marc also gave me another installment of "Bleach", one of my favorite animes. There was more throw-down action. Good times.

One of the several packages I've been waiting for arrived. It's a small, but welcome little doodad. I'm still waiting for my DVD from Japan. Apparently customs got upset with the company over something and they had to re-ship (or so the company says...). I wait less-than-patiently.

Oh, and I got paid today. YAY!

Today is also Rimu's birthday (I think). Who is he? He's the youngest in a family who are dear friends of mine.

Happy birthday, little guy.

W00T

My friend Marc held the answer.

It was, predictably, simple. Just reboot the machine while the drive is plugged-in.

Duh.

Worked, too.

Interestingly-enough, while the instructions said to change the jumpers to "master" setting, I opted for "slave" and they worked fine.

I found a treasure-trove of old, old data there. Old game files. Old emails. Old, old stuff.

I even found a pic someone emailed me from New York on 9/11/01. It was creepy, to say the least.

Wuxia-riffic

On the sorts of whims I shouldn't be entertaining, I got a movie at Borders (using a nice coupon) called Joong-cheon (aka The Restless).

It's a Korean wuxia flick. It's awfully purdy.

I just started it. In a nutshell, this guy Yi Gwak, who can see spirits/ghosts/whatever watched his wife, Yon-hwa, get burned alive as a witch for being able to see ghosts (the crazy villagers confused him for her? I dunno...). Later, Yi Gwak was recruited into the Chuhyongdae, a corps of royal demon hunters.

At some point, the royal government outlaws the demon hunters and has them all put down. Yi Gwak escapes and lives as a vagabond, hunting demons. After he rids a village of some demons, some villagers betray him for the price on his head and drug him. He escapes, passes out, and wakes up in an afterlife place called "Joong-cheon" or "Midheaven". In Joong-cheon, souls rest for 49 days before getting an opportunity to reincarnate.

Yi Gwak isn't dead. This causes a bit of bafflement for about ten minutes until a bunch of white-clad warriors (the White Reapers) arrive led by a white-clad young swordswoman who (of course) is the spitting image of Yi Gwak's dead wife.

And then a horde of demons attack, killing all the White Reapers. Yi Gwak rescues this woman, So-hwa, but she can't remember him and... well, it gets more complicated.

And I'm not even done yet.

It's pretty ass-kicking so far. Me likey.

Techie stuff

So the cable/power-supply combo I ordered arrived yesterday.

Last night I attempted to hook up my old hard drives with my current PC.

The connections work. My PC realizes there's an attached drive. It just won't read the data on them.

I can't figure out why. I expect that's 'cause I'm a bit technologically inept, especially with hardware. I'm going to spend more time fiddling with settings.

I will get these things to work.

Mmm...

I went to Korean for lunch today with some of my friends from work. My friend E survived lunch with three odd guys. Then again, two of 'em are her neighbors.

For the first time in ages, I opted not to have the dol sot bi bim bap. Instead I went with tofu soup.

My reasons were simple:

- I'm trying to lose weight

- Soup flows better with these craptacular allergies

- I have a late meeting in the office today and I didn't want to compound that boredom with food coma

Was an interesting group to dine with, actually. The four of us are very, very different people.

Good fun.

Ugh. I really wish this meeting got cancelled.

KHAAAAAAN!!!!

And now Ricardo Montalban is reported dead.

What the hell?

Oh well. He's off to that Fantasy Island in the sky, I guess.

You'll be missed, sir.

Not a Number

Patrick McGoohan died. The man best known as #6 in the TV show "The Prisoner" has now gone to that great big Village in the sky.

I picture the Angel of Death coming for him in the form of a giant white ball.

That's how my mind works.

Don't judge me.

Bleah

Allergies are smacking me around like a schoolyard bully on the class nerd.

I feel mauled.

I got Mononoke-hime (aka Princess Mononoke) on Monday after a brief conversation with a friend of mine. I've been re-watching it.

I forgot how awesome this movie is.

Hayao Miyazaki rocks. I saw his son, Goro's offering Tales of Earthsea. Pretty, but the plot was a nightmare.

Helps take the edge off.

Ant War: Day Six

Stocked up on "non-toxic" ant-killing sprays.

They smell pretty toxic to me.

A few random scouts have resurfaced here and there. I tested the very effective (and pungent) "non-toxic" sprays. They work.

At the moment, things appear more-or-less under control. I don't believe the landlord is going to go the exterminator route at the presumed source (at least based on communication with him), so this is all I can do for now.

There's a TARDIS in your office

This about sums up my feelings on the matter.

From PvP.

Okay, seriously... what the f***?

It's in the 70's. It's January. The air is hot. It's windy as all f***ing hell. My allergies are in full-force to the point where I thought I was catching a cold.

What really gets me is watching the weather newscasters gush about how "nice" this weather is.

We're in a drought. It's January, the month we need the most rain. Instead of rain and cool temperatures, we've got wind and unseasonably warm temperatures that bring back the fire danger.

And these idiots are babbling on about how "nice" this is.

It's freakin' WINTER! It's not SUPPOSED to be like this! How is that nice???

Stupid people...

Ant War: Day Five

No sign of the enemy.

Wow

This is cool.

STOP!

Hamma time.

Courtesy of Sheldon.

Ain't that a bugger?

It's supposed to be a thirty-degree record high today.

Thirty. Degrees.

Farenheit.

[Edit] So that statement made no sense. Let me clarify. Normally it should be about 40 degrees Farenheit. It's supposed to hit 70 today. 70. In January.
[end Edit]

And it's windy as blazes today (one of the two reasons why I opted to drive instead of bike to work).

That explains a lot about this "cold" I'm suffering from. I don't have the ever-familiar achiness of a cold. Therefore, I'm suffering from horrific allergies.

And that's not a comfort.

None of this is a comfort. It's friggin' January. It should be cold as blazes and/or raining like it's the endtimes.

Crap.

Ant War: Day Four

In the wee hours o' th' mornin' there's no sign of the little bastards.

Yet.

I suspect when the sun rises and it gets warmer, they'll be about again.

All sugar is packed in sealed, airtight containers. The honey is now stored in two zip-lock plastic bags. That takes care of their primary targets.

I'm sure I've missed stuff. I'll find out this afternoon.

"Outdoor scent Raid" only smells like outdoors if you live right next to a chemical plant, by the way.

teknolugy

I just spent the last few hours attempting to get a Samsung LCD-HDTV to play nice with a Sony DVD-R/VCR.

I still haven't figured out why they won't work together.

We can't get the Sony VCR to record shows off the air. I initially believed it was because we can't pipe the signal directly through the Sony device and on to the TV, but we managed to get sound in one configuration (though no picture), so it seems that the TV can act as the tuner.

The VCR should just take the output and record it. Can't get it to recognize an output channel from the LCD.

It's driving me friggin' insane.

Had to walk away at the end. The head cold makes it hard for me to think.

Ant War: Day Three - revision two

Spoke with my next-door neighbor. She's got ants too. My excessive spraying of the kitchen seems to have temporarily blunted the enemy advance.

Just shot off an email to the landlord to request an exterminator's expertise in this matter.

No time to be jerking around.

Saturday and fallout

Yesterday I went to Erik's for a GURPS game. It was up to his usual standards of excellence. I quite enjoyed myself.

I had resolved not to eat too much junk. That resolution lasted about twenty seconds. I got home feeling mildly-sick from the combination of cat allergies and eating too much Chinese food, pretzels, cookies, and tootsie pops.

Even more fun, I went to bed with a sore throat tickle that has turned into some kind of head congestion. I think I have a cold.

Iffy timing, but there's never good timing for catching a cold. It doesn't seem too bad so far.

Ant War: Day Three - revision one

I spoke too soon, of course. The enemy has made an advance. There's more of 'em.

I've fallen back to using chemical warfare (Raid). I am now awaiting their next move impatiently.

Ant War: Day Three

Caution prohibits me from being too optimistic. The numbers in the kitchen haven't appeared to increase.

Spotted stragglers in odd parts of the apartment. Scouts?

Very annoying.

Ant War: Day Two

My enemy is cunning. The battle has taken a turn for the worse.

They have managed o access the kitchen area and quickly gained access to the pantry cabinets holding the honey and the sugar.

Little bastards.

Having obliterated their advance force, I have sanitized the area and set out Grant's Ant Stakes while securing anything sweet in double-layers of zip-lock plastic bags.

Clearly it's on.

The Quandry of Mathematics

I dislike math.

Okay, I don't dislike it. I'm just not good at it.

So why am I spending my Friday evening updating statistics for my RPG handouts?

I mean besides being a socially-dysfunctional ner... oh wait.

Nevermind.

It all makes sense now

Ever wondered exactly why Godzilla and his giant brethren keep attacking Japan and stomping Tokyo flat?

The stories are wrong. It's not that the giant, rubber-looking monsters hate humanity.

Quite the opposite.

They're protecting us from an impending robot revolution!

Think I'm wrong? Watch Godzilla fight Mecha-Godzilla. Clear case of robot enmity there.

Wow

Aaron sent me this.

I love this stuff.

Commentary: The Musical

The Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog has, as I've previously mentioned, an addition known as "Commentary: The Musical".

It is pure, utter genius.

It also has subtitles in Wiccan.

Yeah.

There's apparently a ton of really weird Easter Eggs. I've briefly Googled a few. Entertaining.

Revisiting

So... Tales of an Ancient Empire...

Per Twitch, this is going to be a "very hard R".

But... it has Kevin Sorbo! It's not going to be another King Kull? Really? No more Hercules ripoffs?

If that is indeed true, I am now more interested in this flick.

The Score

I like musical scores. Movie scores. TV show scores. Video game scores. I have examples of the entire lot in my insane collection of DVDs.

It started with Star Wars. It spun out of control shortly after that.

I've developed a theory that the worse a movie is, the better the score will be. The Empire Strikes Back, does not support that theory, but the Lucasfilm productions tend to throw a lot of monkey wrenches in my worldview.

So the other day I got the soundtrack/score to "Torchwood".

For the unenlightened, "Torchwood" is a spin-off of the revived "Dr. Who". It's sort of a socially-retarded "X-Files" ripoff with sex tossed in to titilate all the 13-year-olds who torrent the show.

Well, that was season one, anyway. I didn't really give season two a chance.

Anyways, I got the score and I've been listening to it.

I quite like it. I'm almost tempted to give season two a go.

Almost.

Maybe after I finish season one of "Reaper". Or maybe never.

Well how about that

First working Friday (for me) of 2009.

Sweet mother of mercy it's taken f***ing forever for this day to get here!

And finally, finally, I can sleep in again come tomorrow morning!

Woo-hoo!

Ant War: Day One

No sign of the enemy. Perhaps my declaration of war has them huddled in fear in their lairs?

Or perhaps the little six-legged bastards are planning their next move.

I remain vigilant.

Oh, and...

io9 has a trailer for Dead Snow, a Norweigan zombie movie.

The trailer is so filled with awesome that I felt tears stinging my eyes.

Zombie nazis. Yep. That time has come.

Good ass-kickery

Vicky shared this Coweb info with me.

I watched the trailer. Holy sh*t does this look good.

I do like my ass-kickery martial arts flix.

This comes a day after I saw this on Tokyomango.

I kind of knew about High Kick Girl already from the Snowblood forums.

This trailer is spot on for awesome.

I really need to get out more.

A bit related, I purchased a copy of The Last Princess, a "remake" of The Hidden Fortress. My copy is apparently en route from Japan and will lack subtitles.

Yeah. That's going to be troubling. Why do I do these impulse buys?

Dire need for brain bleach

There's going to be a sequel to The Sword and the Sorcerer.

Twitch has stills.

Tales of an Ancient Empire

I can't decide if I'm excited or horrified, really. The Sword and the Sorcerer is a very guilty pleasure, but I can only watch it when I'm in a certain frame of mind.

And now for another kind of creepy

Saw this on Warren Ellis' blog.

If I ever had any doubts that we, as a species, were going to destroy ourselves... they're gone now.

Actually, Ellis has another post that's quite topical on the Oakland riots. He's bang-on with it.

I understand outrage over a man being shot at point-blank range in a police incident. I get that. Burning random cars and trashing local stores in Oakland? I don't really get that. Hell, on SFGate, one protestor is quoted over some of the damage:

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life,"

Yeah... way to win positive attention to your cause, dumbass.

That said, the frustration is understandable. The officer implicated in the death of Oscar Grant has apparently resigned. News stories claim he's not cooperating with investigators. WTF? Yeah, this will end well.

I mean, Grant is on film as unarmed and face down on the ground. He was shot. Under normal circumstances wouldn't the shooter be under arrest? Did I miss something?

The world gets more insane every friggin' day.

It's on

Okay, I gave you little six-legged bastards a chance.

I did.

Your scouts were removed from the field of battle. You should've taken the hint.

Did you?

Noooooo....

What are you doing now? Sending more scouts? What do you think this will accomplish beyond more dead bugs?

I'm getting traps today for you little f***ers. Oh sure, it was only a couple more scouts, but we both know where this leads.

I'm a disciple of the Hicks/Ripley scenario, you bastards. That's right... dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Tech retarded

Just a tip to any other Luddites out there besides me. If you're buying something like this to read old hard drives off of old PCs... make sure you have the right kind of hard drive.

Apparently there are different kinds.

Who knew?

Well, most people would know. Me? Not so much. Well, not 'till... um... now.

Slogans

Erik and I were thinking of slogans for Tentacle Grape... mainly 'cause we're bad, bad people.

A few:

"Thirsty? Try Tentacle Grape! It refreshes and clears you out completely."

"Reach and grab one (or eight)"

"For when you're Thirstai"

"Drink all you want, we'll spawn more."

"Enjoy drinking with your probing questions? Try Tentacle Grape!"

"Feeling parched and lonely? Try Tentacle Grape!"

"Tentacle Grape: A full-body taste sensation."

"Tentacle Grape - put it in your hole"

"Tentacle Grape: it really fills you up."

Erik came up with some awesome alternate brand ideas, but I'll let him blog about those himself.

The Hammer is my...

Got my DVD and CD of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" yesterday.

"Commentary: The Musical". Hysterical.

I actually did a run-through of the pure musical first while being uncommonly-productive (making pasta sauce, running my credit report, and scheduling long-delayed appointments of various types).

I haven't actually gotten very far with "Commentary: The Musical" after all that. This has been my week of visits by neighbors. Another neighbor called me to help her get back into the building and locate the landlord to let her back into her apartment.

I guess it's nice all my neighbors consider me approachable.

Someone dropped a sweater/sweatshirt thing on my chair last night. Found it this morning. No idea who left it there or why.

Weird. Very, very weird.

Swirly

Lifted from rpg.net.

Tuesday morning brain dump

I'm most certainly fighting some kind of bug. Not only am I easily tired (which may simply be me being still-lazy from my long break), but I have an annoying tickle in the throat that is kind of sore.

And I'm having the weirdest goddamn dreams. They're like Nyquil/fever dreams only without the Nyquil or the fever.

And they're vivid ones, so I can remember them when I wake up the next morning.

They're too weird for me to want to put in writing. Ever.

---

I've been getting a ridiculous amount of wrong number calls for someone who:

a) doesn't live at my place

b) has my landline phone number

I've had the same phone number for... five or six years now, I guess. All I can think is that some idiot is going around most of the greater Bay Area and giving out the wrong phone number to a lot of people.

I've changed my answering machine message accordingly. I suspect this is really just some kind of elaborate prank (possibly related to my missing flash drive), but who knows?

---

I'm re-reading Stephen King's "Firestarter". It occurred to me that if the character of Charlie McGee were a real person, she'd be in her late 30's/early 40's by now. In that world, her hypothetical pyrokinetic potential would be such that she'd be able to vaporize buildings with a thought or be a walking nuke.

I get into some novels a bit too much. Thank you, Mr. King. I really needed more issues to add to my list.

---

One of my buddies handed me more episodes of "Naruto: Shippuden" and "Bleach". Lordy but I do love those animes. "Naruto" is actually getting a lot better. A shame the fansubbers will soon stop offering it. "Bleach" is my favorite, but some of these battles take a ridiculously long-time to resolve.

Anime is an acquired taste.

---

Yesterday I had another revelation while interacting with a neighbor. An awful lot of communication is nonverbal. Some of my neighbors have English as a second language. At least one has spotty fluency. While her daughter was off talking with some maintenance guys, I briefly was exchanging pleasantries with my neighbor. Basic stuff like "Happy New Year" and the like.

I'm pretty sure she has no freaking idea what I said. She repeated my words three times, as if parsing out exactly what I said. We've had verbal misunderstandings before, but I always have tried to make sure she doesn't get the impression I'm being insulting (I like all my neighbors and wouldn't insult any of them intentionally).

I think she got it. With luck, she repeated it to her daughter later for clarification. Her daughter gets it, since I exchanged the exact same pleasantries earlier.

Yes, I obsess about being on good terms with my neighbors. Part of that is OCD. Part of that is just a need for harmony at home.

I've had conflicts with neighbors at a prior apartment. That was not fun. I'm a fan of harmony.

Well ain't that a bugger?

I was all set to get signed up for a martial arts class today. Then my friend pointed out that class doesn't actually start until late January.

Well... hell. I guess I don't have to scramble just yet.

Fair enough. My throat has been a little sore the last couple of days. I could do with some recovery time.

So much wrong

Lifted off of My[confined]Space.

Badwrongbad.

Time for a chemical dousing

I found an ant on the wall of my bathroom the day before yesterday.

Having lived past places with terrible ant infestations, I overreacted in killing it then tossing the entire bathroom looking for more.

Nada.

I figured I got the scout.

Yesterday, I found two more. I all-but-nuked the entire bathroom in bleach-cleaners.

No sign of 'em yet in the wee-hours of this morning, but it may be that it's still a bit cool for the little f***ers.

It's supposed to be unseasonably warm later this week. That will determine if I nipped this problem in the bud.

Ants. Once the little bastards get to you, it's all over.

And this was the one problem this apartment hasn't had.

Crap.

What I did on my not-summer vacation

It was only a week and a half, but it was a nice break.

* I finished "The Born Queen" by Greg Keyes. It was okay. Better than I expected, but not a great finish to the series.

* I cleaned my stove (you have no idea what a milestone that is). Okay, I cleaned it as much as I could without using industrial-strength corrosives.

* As mentioned in previous whiny posts, I got new running shoes, returned them, and got even newer running shoes. The newer shoes work nicely.

* I ate ridiculous amounts of food.

* I drank a fair amount, but never really got drunk. Not even on NYE.

* I went hiking.

* I watched way too much TV - both in the form of DVDs and of trash offerings on cable.

* I got a ridiculous amount of sleep.

What I didn't do, but had planned on doing:

* Work on any of my writing projects.

* Work on any of my game-related projects.

* Get signed-up for the martial arts class I want to take (though I did try... they were just closed).

All-in-all, it was a nice break. I had more social engagements than I expected. Good times.

Paying the piper

So as I shambled forth on my first early morning of 2009 I thought I'd weigh myself and see what the damage is.

Ouch.

Yeah... I ate way the hell too much over this break.

While I thought I got a fair amount of exercise, I think that didn't really cover the binge eating/drinking.

And now, five days into 2009, I'm depressed.

Right on schedule.

Crap.

Coyote Hills

My buddy Tim and I hiked around Coyote Hills today in Fremont.



Some nice views...



... though the hills were a bit steep at points.



Still, I handled them better than I expected.





The last two pics are of an archaeological site for some native tribe. It was fenced off (the pics are with my camera through the fence, we didn't actually step into the forbidden area).

All-in-all a pleasant, if slightly chilly, day. My feet hurt.

On the topic of Who...

I just saw the latest Xmas special for "Dr. Who", courtesy of a friend's zealous fan-power.

I agree with said friend's appraisal of it. It wasn't great. It wasn't bad.

There were neat parts, but I'm really, really tired of some of Russel Davies' trademark story elements.

I get what he's trying to do. Part of me approves. The rest of me doesn't like someone trying to "sanitize" history the way he does.

I get caught up in the details that way. That's probably why I hate most time-travel stories.

Still, it wasn't bad overall.

I have good friends.

Who?

io9 just posted an article claiming who the 11th Doctor will be.

I've never heard of this guy.

I got the faith in Moffat. This guy must have chops for the Moff to go with him.

Don't dash my hopes, Moffat.

I take my "Dr. Who" very, very seriously.

On a related note, I was talking with a one-removed friend at a party on the first. This guy (named Guy) doesn't like Dr. Who.

Now I can appreciate that "Dr. Who" isn't to everyone's tastes. His reason was that he hated Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and was unimpressed with the Eccleston season of "Who".

To be fair, I was not a huge fan of Rose Tyler, though my distaste for the character grew as she continued in the series. I agree with Guy that Rose's extended family was a giant yawn and/or a huge embarrassment to the series.

And Russell T. Davies did include farting aliens in the first season.

Farting. Aliens.

For that, he (Davies) should probably be beaten, but Eccleston was a rocking Doctor. I wish he'd had a second season to get more into the role before Tennant took over.

Tennant was/is awesome. Some fans think he's to frenzied and over-the top. Silly fans... he's a Doctor. Hello? Seen Tom Baker? Seen Colin Baker? Hell... check out Sylvester McCoy's umbrella.

Over the top? Puh-leeze.

Tennant owned that role. I'm sad to see him go.

I hope this new guy can fill the shoes of the impressive legacy before him.

And I hope Moffat's helm as producer is devoid of some of Davies' trademarks.

'Cause in some ways, I agree with Guy...

2009

I've been giving some thought as to how I want to approach this whole "new year" business.

Oh, I could make resolutions. Been there. Done that. Broke those.

Still, the cliche of New Year's being a time of new beginnings has some merit. It helps to have those landmarks when one wants to psychically and spiritually "clean house" (I tried physically cleaning house today, but I gave up and played on the Internet).

So now I ponder what changes I want in my life. What do I want to discard, what do I want to improve, what do I want to maintain as-is?

I'm thinking my collection of samurai movies needs improving, so I just added another to the mix (thank you Internet).

Perhaps I should think of deeper things in life, but I'm a shallow, petty creature.

I can live with that.

A difference of dollars

The damn running shoes finally got to the point where they were delivering pain unto me.

I put in those gel soles. Didn't help. Actually made things worse.

After standing in line at REI for fifteen eternally-long minutes, I returned said shoes for the hundred I paid for them and looked around for new ones.

REI failed me. I tried some walking store in Berkeley. Turns out they don't sell running shoes. No help there.

So I went north to El Cerrito. Sketchers Outlet, to be precise.

Forty dollars later, I got home with new running shoes.

I just got back from giving them a test run (jog... stagger... whatever).

Just what I needed.

Funny... the paracord bracelet one of my friends bought me just arrived. It's about a half-inch too loose. Nice little pin-securing mechanism they use, though.

Heh.

What the...? 2009???

Is that what I'm supposed to write on my checks now?

Yes, I still write checks.

Last night was fun. Fantastic food and great beer. Too much of both, truth be told. I went to bed on a more-than-full stomach.

Yeah. I slept as well as one might expect.

Shortly I head out to another party. More fun to be had.

It is 2009.

How, exactly, did that happen?

Huh.

Well, good times. It's well into the 21st century. I'm ready for my flying car and personal force field.

Okay, maybe not the flying car.

People who can't handle driving on the ground shouldn't fly. Seriously.