ahem

I hate writer's block.

That is all.

blarg

You know what's cool?

* ray guns
* robots
* double-taps on zombies
* ninjas
* monkeys (yes ninja space monkeys are the ultimate in cool)
* pens that are heavy enough to break windows or concuss people
* Hayao Miyazaki movies
* lightsabers
* power rings
* swords
* fedoras
* vikings
* dragons
* Time Lords (especially the kind who go by medically-themed pseudonyms)
* music
* chocolate
* beer (not necessarily in conjunction with chocolate, though one can make compelling arguments in favor of this)
* Orbit Spearmint Gum
* comfy chairs (good enough for the Spanish Inquisition!)
* coffee (the stuff of life)
* gear rings
* being too lazy to continue this list

Cold-Blooded

This morning I managed to watch "Cold Blood", the conclusion to the Matt Smith Doctor's encounter with the Silurians.

It was good, clean fun. A little uneven in plot and fairly predictable, but cool... up to about five or ten minutes or so from the ending.

I didn't see that coming.

I find myself a wee bit upset.

Argh!

Good Times

I'm getting old.

I met up with a family member yesterday and had some beers. If memory serves, I think I had four or maybe five imperial pints. And it was pretty strong stuff for beer.

I didn't have it on an empty stomach. I had it with half a pizza.

Usually that sort of thing would cause me to get tipsy at best.

Instead, I have no recollection of leaving the bar nor coming home. The last thing I clearly recall was finishing my beer. I think I remember getting up to leave. Then I'm face down on my bed and it's five hours later.

Kind of disturbing.

My best guess (beyond being old) is that my system is still processing bits of that bug from last week. I've noticed that everything (caffeine, sugar, etc.) has hit me harder since that bug. Stands to reason booze would have a stronger effect too.

Kind of scary.

And, not one to learn my lesson, I went out after I woke from my unscheduled nap for even more drinking last night.

At least I remember that... ye gods.

Time to find that wagon and climb back on.

Whodunnit

I'm amazed at the number of "Doctor Who" fans in my office. I may have problems with Russell T. Davies and his overly-sentimental spew-everything-on-the-wall style of writing, but he did wonders to make "Doctor Who" cool...ish.

What's kind of funny is the uneven reactions to the "old" series amongst the fans. We universally loathe the FOX TV movie with Paul McGann. We all think McGann was good enough, but the rest was just... [shudder]

I'm filling in gaps in my old collection as time (and money) allows.

The Hartnell stuff is pretty dated and... um... let's just leave it at dated.

The Troughton stuff works better for me, but I've always thought Troughton rocked.

The Pertwee stuff isn't as good as I recall from when I watched it on PBS, but it's quite possible I've developed standards since then.

The Tom Baker stuff still rocks. Except "The Pirate Planet". I still can't stomach that one.

Moving on...

The Davison stuff still bores me. I got "Earthshock" purely 'cause I get to see a hated companion DIE and that makes me happy. I got "The Five Doctors" 'cause... it's the FIVE DOCTORS! 'Nuff said.

The Colin Baker stuff... um... yeah. Poor Colin Baker. Moving on.

The McCoy stuff is delightfully-weird but I have to admit it's growing on me. I need to get more of those. I'm missing episodes and I'm pretty sure I didn't see some.

My fellow fans and I are pretty solidly-united behind Matt Smith being an excellent Doctor. Amy's merits as a companion are debated by some heathen, but I just shout down the naysayers.

I'm seriously-intrigued to see where Moffatt is going with the story arc for this season. I just pray I don't see a Dalek again this season. Ye gods what an awful episode "Victory of the Daleks" was.

Not just paved with good intentions

I can't figure out what happened to my shame. I used to have a certain baseline of manners and taste that kept me from crossing a certain line.

I don't know when that line got wiped out.

What the hell am I talking about?

So, I just had this converation in IM with a friend:

[my friend]: Huh. Gary Coleman is dead.
[my friend quoting the Twitter of a friend]: Wait, Gary Coleman died of a brain hemmorage? Is that a different stroke?

And I couldn't help but laugh.

Oh well. I already knew I'm going to Hell.

Rest in peace, Gary Coleman. I'm sorry for my tasteless laugh and I hope whatever follows is more peaceful for you.

Pilgrimage

Thanks to the pure evil that is the staff of my comic book store (I'm kidding... they're not pure evil, just good at getting me to spend my money there) I discovered the "Scott Pilgrim" series.

While I tend to like the non-DC/Marvel titles more as time passes, I don't normally go for hipsterish, indie comics like "Scott Pilgrim".

I must've been bored when the push...um... comic folks convinced me.

Anyway, I got the first volume with my usual batch of material then eventually made my way home and read it.

I loved it.

The next time I was there, I got volume 2.

Yesterday I broke down and hit Borders for volumes 3 and 4.

I'm aiming to get volume 5 this weekend at some point.

It's essentially about a scatterbrained slacker named Scott Pilgrim who meets Ramona Flowers, a ninja delivery girl who can skip through alternate dimensions to make her deliveries (Scott's dreams are one of those dimensions).

Scott is smitten with Ramona and asks her out. She accepts, but warns him that he will have to fight her seven evil exes. They're so evil they've actually formed a league of evil united by the fact that they all dated Ramona.

And they all have superpowers.

Scott isn't exactly without his abilities, though.

The series is a delightful mix of the surreal and the mundane in a humorous mix of real-life 20-something aimless angst and pop-culture fantasy (lots of gamer humor gets mixed in).

There's a movie coming out soonish that supposed to adapt some - or all - of the series. I expect I'll have to check it out.

Regurgitating Electrons

In retrospect, it might not have been the best possible idea to download and install the lightsaber and phaser apps to my iTouch.

It's going to play merry havoc on the battery life and may well get me beaten or shot.

In other news, Friday has arrived and a delightful three-day weekend awaits.

There is much rejoicing.

It's going to be freakin' JUNE next week.

JUNE!

I'm trying to figure out what happened to May. Hell, I'm trying to figure out what happened to April.

Huh. Why is it that "April", "May", and "June" are girl's names, but I never meet any girls named "January", "February", "March", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", or "December"?

If I have a daughter, I'm going to name her "October". Just 'cause I can.

If I have a son, I'm still leaning towards "Darth Apocalypse Nyarlathotep". I'll let him go by "DAN" for short.

I look forward to the hellhole nursing home they'll pick for me, should either of them ever manifest in reality.

Wireless Woes

I recently obtained an iPod Touch (or an "iTouch", as the kids are callin' it these days).

It's very shiny, but I refuse to get distracted from my ramblings with its shiny shiny-ness.

So... shiny...

[SMACK!]

Must... focus...

So, yeah. Wireless.

To put stuff on my shiny little iTouch requires wireless. [EDIT: Yes, I've since learned differently. Moving on. /EDIT]I don't have wireless at home. I use a wired router, mainly 'cause it was cheaper when I bought it and they're inherently more secure than wireless routers.

I never really needed wireless until I got my laptop some time back. I didn't bother getting a wireless router 'cause I could just use a spare data cable and jack my laptop into an extra port on my wired router and I was good to go.

I really don't need to websurf on my laptop from anywhere in my cave dwelling. I websurf too much as it is.

The iTouch has inspired me to revisit this strategy. Some time in the past, my good friend Erik gave me an old/unused wireless router of his.

Loathe to mess up my existing setup and swap out the wired router, I put Erik's gift on a shelf and promised myself I'd look into installing this later.

"Later" became last night. I grabbed the router, the installation CD, and a spare data cable and immediately looked on the Web to see if it would be possible for me to run the wireless router through my wired router.

Sure, it's a weird setup, but as I said, I'm tweaky about messing too much with what I've got in-place.

Turns out it's quite possible to run a wireless router through a wired router. I have to disable a setting on the wireless router and make sure it has a different IP address, but otherwise it seems like it should work fine.

So I started to look into setting it all up.

And then I realized my problem: I don't have a power cord for the wireless router.

I'm actually not sure I even have a spare outlet for yet another plug, but the lack of a power cord is a slightly bigger problem.

Argh.

So, for now, my iTouch is just a very shiny iPod instead of being able to do web-browsing and app stuff.

But it's so... shiny...

SHINY!

Post-Traumatic Lost Disorder

My irritation with the "Lost" finale hit me as I lay down to go to sleep last night. It even seeped into my dreams.

What an amazing disappointment the finale was. Seriously, would it have been that hard to give a few answers? Really?

I did see this coming. The disappointing end to "Alias" gave a clue and I still find the BSG ending to be worse.

It's kind of funny that the irritation is hitting me harder a few days after the finale.

Oh well.

and a robot!

Erik posted about a Webcomic I'd never heard of called Mal and Chad.

I'm hooked.

So it is written

And so it came to pass that Tuesday returned again for a final time as part of the month of May in the year 2010.

And, lo! The morning was warmish with the promise of precipitation in the later hours. Strange folk walked the streets in the darkness of the pre-dawn time. Odd-looking youths with movements indicating a desire for mischief and obese men who muttered to an unseen audience.

The signs pointed to another Tuesday. A Tuesday that would mark a week since the beginning of the turbulence of the stomach flu.

A stomach flu now past.

And there was much rejoicing.

Yay!

Lost [SPOILERS]

Okay... if you give half a rat's ass about "Lost" and you haven't seen the finale, don't read any further.

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Okay?

It sucked about as much as I expected. Not quite as bad as "Battlestar Galactica", but close.

Things I liked:
* Laputas surviving the submarine.
* Laputas, Claire, Richard, Sawyer, and Miles getting off the island. I don't even mind Kate getting off the island.
* Desmond surviving and getting off the island was a real bonus.
* Hurley becoming the next "Jacob" with Ben as his number two was pure awesome.
* Watching Jack die. What? I really hated that character.
* Seeing Bernard and Rose living happily.

Things I hated:
* Mainly the self-indulgent last fifteen minutes of dreary, incoherent bullshit.
* The fact that Sun and Jin were still dead.
* The lack of any answers pertaining to Aaron being special or Walt being uber-special.
* Shannon is Sayid's "true love"? WTF?
* The lack of any substantive answers regarding the island, the Black Smoke, the Egyptian symbols, and the mystical powers that the guardians of the island possessed.
* The lack of any substantive answers regarding the "cork" and what it held in. Lava? It's a life-generating lightbulb? Huh?
* Every possible scene with Jack and Locke. Argh.

Yeah, the last fifteen minutes is right up there with BSG's "angel" bullshit.

I'm glad this goddamn show is done.

I! Am! Alive!!

After four days of stomach flu I awoke this blustery Saturday morning to an unfamiliar feeling: hunger.

Not super-hungry, mind you. I'm not at 100%, but I'm pretty sure I'm past the worst of this awfulness.

I'm hoping I can start drinking coffee again by Monday.

It's the little things, I tell you.

bleah

I made it four (technically, five) hours.

This bug. It is persistent.

Thank goodness I have lots of PTO.

At the salt mines

I've returned to work.

Ugh.

I've felt better but I've felt worse. At least it's Friday.

Is that a... train?

I think I see light at the end of the tunnel. Soup and crackers seem to be the workable things for food.

I'm past caffeine headaches from withdrawal at this point.

I'm hoping I can eat like a human being next week. Ugh.

bleah

And now the reverse. No aches. No weakness. Food, however... just ain't stayin' put.

Ugh.

Maybe time to call the doctor.

More whine with my cheese

On the plus side, food is staying down.

On the minus side, I feel achy, headachy, and weak as a kitten.

This illness sucks. A lot.

so sick

Sometime early on Tuesday morning, I noticed something was amiss. Breakfast wasn't settling very well. I was nauseous and... well, I'll spare you the details.

Before too long, I realized I was going to have trouble functioning at work, so I went home sick.

And oh did I get sick.

I wasn't home an hour before I got the chills, body aches, and realized I was developing a fever. Food was completely unappealing and wouldn't stay down anyway.

Sometime around 5pm, I took a shot of Nyquil and put my head down on the pillow for the requisite weird dreams.

Fourteen hours later I awoke. I'm fairly sure I got up over the night to... ah... deal with calls of nature. I know I called into the office saying I wasn't going to be at work today.

Otherwise, it was pretty much a solid fourteen hours of sleep.

The chills are gone. The fever appears to be gone. The body aches are mostly gone. I was able to eat breakfast (the only food I've had in nearly twenty-four hours) and it's... restless.

I'm still sick. I can feel it. The loooooong nap certainly helped me get over the worst of it (so far). I'm gonna chill today and hope I shake it completely so I can return to the office tomorrow.

On a whim, I've weighed myself. I've lost a good five pounds so far. Yeah... that's not good.

Alt-Universal

I'm apparently watching and reading too much material pertaining to alternate universes.

Well, strictly-speaking, any fiction book deals with an alternate universe, I suppose.

Bah.

Last night was a particularly-vivid night of dreams. I think I'm fighting another bug, so I crashed early and slept the sleep of the dead. Except for that whole dreaming bit. I'm not sure the dead dream when they sleep. Dunno. I haven't found a dead to answer my question.

Um... yeah. Moving on.

So, the first sign I was dreaming of an alternate universe was the zepplins. It's become a cliche now that if you're seeing zepplins in the sky, you're in an alternate Earth.

I dreamt that Richmond had gotten it's act together and was hosting an airfield for zepplins.

Oh, and they had wind and solar farms set up amidst actual farms. It was all strangely-idyllic.

And I don't even like Richmond. I have no idea why I was dreaming of that city getting all cleaned up and everything.

I suspect it was a mix of my reading material (in Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air, there are zepplins... and steampunk) and my frustration with developments in the news (increased failure of municipal infrastructures, increasingly-creepy developments in technology, increasingly-frustrating directions with air travel, etc.).

My subconscious. It's got strange ideas.

Wasn't really a steampunk-dream, though. There wasn't steam-stuff. There was just a lot of really cool and off-kilter stuff.

Would be fun to live there.

It sure ain't Vegas

[Political]

What happens in Arizona stops in Arizona.

I love the ACLU.

[/Political]

Awww HELL YEAH!

Now THIS is what I'm talkin' about!

I love this song

Car Ma

It started as I roused my lazy self and went to the farmer's market. I was inspired to get some oranges as part of a no-doubt fleeting attempt to have healthier food in the house.

My neighbor has a college-age girl renting a room. With the semester over, she's headed back to the homestead. I ran into her and her kinfolk moving a massive assortment of boxes and such.

I wished her luck in whatever her summer plans are and entered my apartment to begin a baking experiment.

I ran to the local supermarket to get some missing ingredients and continued with my mad experiment when there was a barely-audible tap on the door.

It was my neighbor's tenant (yes, that also makes her my neighbor... whatever). She wanted to make sure she'd returned a data cable she'd borrowed many months back and then ask a favor. It seems her plans A and B for getting to the airport failed her.

I assured her it was no problem to give her a ride to the airport. I finished up my bit of mad science in the kitchen and dropped it in the 'fridge while she finished whatever odds-and-ends needed to be done.

I then drove her through the insanity that is the freeway traffic to the airport with roughly two hours to spare before her flight was scheduled to leave.

Hopefully she got through airport security okay. I assured her she could call the family she stayed with if there was any trouble and someone would come get her. In a worst-case scenario, I would.

Having done my good deed for the day, I blazed home and baked my experiment. As it cooled afterward I prepped to go running when the phone ran.

My buddy Erik was in town and returning a book I'd loaned him.

Why is any of this significant?

Well, I'm cursed with incredibly bad timing. It hangs around me like a smoggy cloud of doom under most circumstances.

In today's case, my timing couldn't have been better. Giving my neighbor a ride to the airport let me refrigerate my baking experiment, which helped it turn out better. Because everything got a little delayed, I was home for Erik's call and able to rendezvous for my book, which is getting passed-along to another fortunate come Monday.

One little good deed paid off in small, but pleasant, ways.

Funny how life works out.

Deja View

Didn't take long for me to make up my mind. A little over an hour after I got home, I was immediately out the door and back at the theater to catch How to Tame Your Dragon again.

Just as good on a repeat viewing.

Damn but that's a lot of dragons.

With my inner-child sated on fantastic beasties and all that, I returned home to eat some actual food and watched last night's "Fringe" episode... again.

Yeah. That was a good hour (including commercials) of alternate-reality goodness.

Sated. For now.

Friday

I feel obligated to post something on a Friday.

Yay! Birthday lunch for my cube-neighbor went off without a hitch!

Good Korean lunch.

Yeah, that's about it.

Movies

In a more wholesome follow-up to the mad chaos of Kick-Ass, I indulged myself last night and went to go see How to Train Your Dragon.

I was expecting a cute kid's film with good effects.

I got a surprisingly well-done and somewhat sophisticated movie with little moral lessons in understanding and communication.

Oh, and dragons.

Holy mother of mercy were there a lot of dragons.

The animation was very "Dreamworks-y". I stopped noticing (and caring) about three minutes into the movie.

Didn't matter to me one bit that this was a cgi flick. The voice actors and the animation meshed perfectly. The plot kept moving at a steady clip. The puppy-love kid-romance didn't feel cloying or heavy-handed. Came off as kind of sweet, actually.

And the dragons. Yeah. Me likey.

Sure, it was surreal that all the adult vikings in the movie had bad pseudo-Scottish accents while all the kids spoke like contemporary American youth.

Sure, the violence was minimal.

Didn't matter.

There were surprising developments in the movie for an American children's film. I was startled by the ending.

All the same, I thought the movie was brilliant. I'm tempted to see it again and I'll own this the minute it comes out on DVD.

Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourettes

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I cried.

Lock n Load

AAAAH!!!!!!

WANT!!!!!!!

Would go perfectly with another Maverick

Pure Awesome

This may well be the most awesome thing I've ever seen. It makes me weep that this isn't a full-length movie. Jeff Smith's Bone is one of the best comics ever produced.

aaaaalmost there...

Today's "Count the Hookers" game came up with a zero. Guess it's a slow season?

Felt good to ride the bike. I'm somewhat surprised how comfortable my briefcase is when converted to a backpack. It's not as comfy as my Chrome backpack, but it's not bad and it saves me the trouble of transferring stuff.

I'm finding the Fates seem to be in a thwarting mood of late. Just as I was planning my next GURPS game (literally as I was working on details), I was called to a somewhat-unavoidable family thing.

Meanwhile, I labor away to organize a birthday lunch for a friend at work. Herding cats is easier by comparison.

The list goes on a bit from there. Meh. Could be worse.

The Sound of Tuesday

Hello Tuesday, my old enemy
I've come to swear at you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its scars while I was sleeping
And the vision that was stabbed into my brain
Still remains
Within the taint of Tuesday.

(Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)
---
The work week is entering into its second day and already little seeds of drama are starting to bear fruit. I have zero tolerance for drama this week, so I shall probably respond with weed-killer.

I always forget that wisdom borne of "M*A*S*H" episodes: never volunteer.
---
I'm lukewarm to the whole "steampunk" scene. Done right, it's cool, but as with many things I've seen it done in a fashion that only makes me shake my head and think of the S.C.A. (and not in a good way).

Out of a desperate need for interesting reading material, I picked up The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt. It's billed as a fantasy-steampunk thriller with a strong flavor of Charles Dickens in it.

I thought I'd give it a try.

I've been keeping it in my bag at work and only reading a few pages at lunch. That's just not enough.

This book is good. I'm only about 75 pages in and it's got my complete attention. I'm dismayed to find that paperbacks of the other books in this series are imports and a bit more difficult to get.

The Kingdom Beyond the Waves is supposed to come out in domestic paperback on May 25. The Rise of the Iron Moon looks like something I can get through dealers elsewhere. No idea when Secrets of the Fire Sea will be available in paperback.

Time to hit a few local bookstores, I think.
---

the pain, the pain

Quite the Monday!

* Learned a friend of mine is suffering from something that sounds like a paranoid disorder

* Polished off a project that I thought would be much harder than it turned out to be

* Got a call from my mom telling me how much she enjoyed some cookies I baked for her

* Came across a potentially-useful GURPS game supplement

* Started to organize a friend's birthday lunch in a vain attempt to keep drama under control

* Was told by a random person that I reminded him of his grandpa (due to my hat and how I was walking with my umbrella)

With that last point, I opted not to tell him to f*ck off in an uncharacteristic show of self-restraint.

How to Terrify the Norms

1) Wear this shirt under this coat while wearing this helmet. Ideally, wear these boots to complete the ensemble.

2) Walk out in public with the appropriate umbrella.

3) Interact with as many people as possible. Ideally, be drinking as you do so.

Repeat steps 2 and 3, as needed.

Kicking Ass

I saw Kick-Ass on Saturday.

Before I go any further, I should add a caveat: I'd spent a few hours earlier imbibing four powerful rum drinks.

Just sayin'.

So... Kick-Ass. I'd picked up the trade paperback of the actual comic book a few weeks back and read it cover-to-cover a few times. Loved it. Grim, dark, funny, and sad. The ending was very much not-Hollywood.

So, of course Hollywood had to mess with the formula.

The overall plot is pretty much the same. Dweeby comic book fan decides to buy a costume and become a superhero (a-la "Batman"). He gets hospitalized the first time he crosses paths with some thugs and winds up with some nerve damage.

Turns out to be to his advantage, as he doesn't feel pain as much as most people do.

Then it deviates a bit from the comic book. The hero, Dave Lizewski, is more functional than he is in the actual comic but less of a capable fighter. Probably for the best, given how he fares in the comic.

I'm trying to tip-toe around the real spoilers here, so forgive the vague language.

Dave, as Kick-Ass (his superhero pseudonym) does manage to interrupt a second mugging and his incredibly-stupid heroism gets caught on video. He becomes an Internet sensation.

Meanwhile, a mob boss is having trouble with his people getting killed. He thinks it's Kick-Ass (of course), but it isn't. A shadowy duo of actual badasses, "Big Daddy" and his homicidal daughter "Hit-Girl" are cleaning up the streets the old fashioned way.

Yeah, that's enough of the plot.

Aaron Johnson is a fairly good Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass. He's convincing as a geek with heroic intentions. His friends are funny and remind me of the kids I hung out with in junior high school.

Lyndsy Fonseca is good as the love interest, Katie. Her character certainly isn't much like the comic. Again, very Hollywood.

Nicholas Cage is freakin' hysterical as "Big Daddy". He was born for that role.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse steals the scenes he's in as "Red Mist", in my humble opinion.

And Chloe Moretz steals the entire movie as the unstoppable killing machine known as "Hit-Girl". This is really her movie and she shines in it.

Kick-Ass is pretty violent, albeit nothing like the comic. Kids shouldn't see this film, nor should the squeamish, but it's an enjoyable flick nonetheless. As I said earlier, the movie is "Hollywood-ized" to lessen some of the harsher elements of the comic. It actually works well.

I'm buying this when it hits DVD.

Just felt like it

I'm not sure if I believe in the soul. If it exists, then music is what sustains it on this end of the mortal coil.

I'm not sure I believe in damnation, but if it exists, I'm sure good intentions make up a sizable portion of the road to there.

I'm not sure I believe in heaven, but if it exists, they have chocolate. I wonder if the road there is made up of bad intentions?

Either way, I'm pretty sure both routes are liberally-sprinkled with regrets.

I'm not sure I believe in God, but if God exists, God's sense of humor is pretty wild.

I believe in wrath. I feel that pretty much every day. I believe in patience. I just don't have much of it.

I believe in lust. Oh yes, I believe in lust. Chastity? That's an annoying one.

I believe in sloth. It may be one of my favorite of the deadly sins. I believe in diligence. When I find it, it's often called "OCD".

I believe in gluttony. It may well be my other favorite of the deadly sins. What the hell is "temperance"?

I believe in pride. It's elusive on days when it's needed and pops up when it should take a break. I believe in humility. That seems to be life's main lesson.

I believe in envy. It often shows up when pride is off dithering somewhere. I believe in kindness. It's surprisingly common and shockingly elusive.

I believe in greed. I think the other sins are just this one with different wrapping. I believe in charity, I guess.

I believe perversity and irony make up the foundations of a Universe on a dance with entropy throughout a period of time we call "existence" or "life". It's an obnoxious viewpoint, but I'm not asking others to share it.

Jon Stewart is holy

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Strong Week Ending

Friday is here and there is much rejoicing.

Yay!

Mother's Day is Sunday and, for once, I think I'm all-set for my obligations. Hopefully my Saturday plans won't cause complications on Sunday. We'll see how that goes.

I'd considered the options of hitting the movies tonight. There's at least three films out that interest me, but I have an eye doctor appointment and that's going to result in dilated pupils. The light will burn more than usual after that.

Hisss.

Science of Fringe

Huh. A Peter-centric "Fringe". Didn't suck, but it didn't rock.

I'm starting to think they should nuke the Peter character in favor of someone new.

Therapy

There are certain things that rarely fail to set my mind at ease when life's myriad bits of crazy damage my calm:

* exercise

* baking

* music

I broke down and got the "Two Steps from Hell" album, "Invincible" and have thus far managed to get it to work with iTunes without mishap. My apartment smells of double-chocolate oatmeal cookies and my muscles feel comfortably-sore (yes, that shouldn't be a real feeling) from bicycling today.

I've finished watching last night's "Happy Town". It's got good stuff going on, but this show isn't super-compelling. I think it's doomed.

"Fringe" tonight. YAY!

WTF???

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Glenn Beck? Reasonable? Are we in Bizarro-land?

BEST! IDEA! EVER!!!!!

(via Fashionably Geek)

Splattering Brain Matter

Today's game of "count the hookers" came up with nada. I'm mildly-surprised.

Two Steps from Hell finally released a commercial album today. Their "Invincible" album went on-sale on a site I've never heard of called CDBaby.

It's also supposed to be on iTunes (hissss!!!) and Amazon, but it doesn't appear available through Amazon yet (I refuse to install iTunes on my work PC).

I'm disinclined to create an account at this CDBaby site just yet, although I must say I love their privacy policy.

Tonight is yet another episode of "Fringe". I hope this doesn't suck. Tuesday's "Lost" still has me twitching in rage.

A few months back, I got some Chrome Saipan shoes. While stylish (as much as anything I own is stylish), they had a bit of a long breaking-in period. Longer than I'm used to, anyway.

This morning, I think they've finally hit the "broken in" point. They feel comfortable. Yay!

... yeah, I think that's about it. Moving on...

Irritable

I'm having one of those days when absolutely everything seems to be ticking me off.

* Fucking goddamn fascist douchebag Joe Lieberman and anti-terror bullshit

* Goddamn neoconservative nazi ratbags bemoaning Shahzad being read his Mirada rights instead of being tortured

* "Lost"... okay, I already ranted about that.

* Massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

* Pollen in the windy air outside.

* Facebook

And the list goes on and on and on...

Maybe it's time to bring the punching bag out of storage.

The Vidiot Box

At this rate I may well cancel cable TV by summer's end.

"Lost" has lost me. Even if the show wasn't ending in a few weeks, they've already killed off or maimed every character I give a damn about.

"Fringe" I can get via basic cable, antenna reception, or Hulu.

"Doctor Who" I can watch through various sites online.

I'm undecided whether "Happy Town" will be worth my time, but even if it isn't, basic cable or antenna reception would cover it.

I enjoy most USA network offerings, but I can rent or Hulu those. So I won't miss out on "Burn Notice" when it returns.

The only expanded channels I regularly care about beyond USA have been Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, and (once upon a time) Sci-Fi before they became SyFyk'd.

Neither Cartoon Network nor SyFy have had anything good to offer in a couple of years now.

*sigh*

Feeling Lost

Argh.

I don't even have the energy left to add an exclamation point.

Last night's "Lost" was a shitload of crazy.

Jack... he annoys beyond words.

And that they appear to have killed off two of my favorite characters has made me rather cross.

The Truth of Tuesdays

Tuesdays and drama. Why do they always seem to go together?

There's some kind of nefarious malign intelligence behind this.

Count the Hookers

In today's game, we have a count of one.

Interesting choice of attire. Bright pink jacket and bright pink... I guess you could call it a skirt... barely.

Weekending

Exhausting weekend. Jupiter's beers are stronger than I was prepared for, thus throwing my Friday into unexpected tipsy-ness.

In retrospect, that may have been for the best. I was too tired to rouse myself to go out after I got home.

Saturday morning was not a terribly-fun experience, but it could have been worse. Breakfast helped subdue any lingering effects from Friday's pints.

I then opted to get out-the-door and re-stock on my supply of baking chocolate. Since Scharffenberger closed their Berkeley location, it's been a bit of a pain in the arse to get the 99% cacao baking bars that I require for brownies. The ferry building in San Francisco has a Scharffenberger stand, so I braved the tourist insanity to get what I needed.

Sweet bejebus there were a lot of people.

I notice a certain behavior with crowds. When I'm walking briskly in a stright line to get to my destination, people in front of me sort of zig-zag as they meander. It's a subtle thing, but it's real and three-quarters of the time they're zagging their damn zig right into my path.

Usually I try to flow around these people, but I was testy and hung-over Saturday, so I sort of body-checked a few people. I wish I felt sorry about it.

I hate crowds.

I left the city quickly upon obtaining what I needed. The number of people was giving me a slight anxiety attack (no doubt assisted by my lingering hangover).

I wasn't really in any state to be interacting with people, so I went home and only left my apartment to grab lunch, groceries, or do a bit of jogging.

Sunday was some welcome family time. I spent most of the afternoon bonding with my dad then caught up with the rest of the family as they trickled in. We feasted on an insanely-delicious dinner and I think I'm still full from it this morning.

Gonna be a long week now.

Nerding

I own four replica sonic screwdrivers and a replica laser screwdriver, all from "Doctor Who". One of said replicas is an old plastic monstrosity from the original series back in the day.

I also own a replica fob watch matching one of the series three props from the new series.

The replica fob watch is pure awesome and wasn't cheap. I consider it a testament to my nigh-insane devotion to "Doctor Who".

I note all this 'cause I spent much of today watching various episodes of "Doctor Who" and fiddling with every replica as I was doing so.

No doubt my neighbors have heard all the electronic warbling sounds. I shudder to think what they're imagining.

It's not stopping me, of course. Not at all.

Nope. I'm gettin' the battery-powered Dalek and cycling through its programmed list of catch phrases.