Summer, Beer, and such

* The ideal profession: Beer Archaeologist. I cannot express how badly I'd love being this.

* I'm going to pimp for a moment. Let me ditch the fedora for the pimp hat. If you don't have a Stein of Science, now is a good time to get one.

Think on it: it's going to be hot soon (or is if you live in a part of the Northern Hemisphere that doesn't have our awesome microclimate). You want something to keep your beer (or other beverage of choice) cool/cold.

Disclaimer: While I am not affiliated with Funranium Labs in any kind of professional capacity, I am a customer/patron, so my point-of-view is understandably a little biased.

Ponderance

Given the ungodly amount of caffeine in this morning's cup of coffee, I shouldn't be feeling as sleepy as I currently feel.

And this headache shouldn't be this bad, all things considered.

*sigh*

Thoughts

Random bits:

* Bamboo apparently can overcome the plant-killing powers of those with an "anti-green thumb".

* Obsessing over things doesn't help.

* Buying shiny, useless things - while fun - isn't good for one's finances, especially during a bad economy.

* Buying shiny, awesome things rocks, regardless of finances and economy.

* When pulling a band-aid off, best to yank hard and pull it off quickly. Unless it's one of those new, super-sticky band-aids. Those tear. Then you have to repeat a lot.

That kind of sucks, actually.

* A steady diet of news leads to depression. Best to mix liberally with brain-candy programming (DVDs, cheesy tv, etc.).

* Trying to teach is the best way to learn.

Seriously?

Okay, isn't the zombie preparedness thing going a little too far?

Zombie killer knives? Really?

*sigh*

Pedaling a story

I've recently returned to bicycling after dropping a hundred bucks on bicycle maintenance and repair.

Money well-spent.

So I'm back to taking the "green" route to work from time-to-time. Oh, how things change. Oh, how things don't.

It's been a year since I last bicycled to work. It's interesting how much construction has gone on along my route since I last rode. I don't normally take note of this when I drive as I'm far too interested in threats to my precious car.

There's more new buildings than I expected. There's an awful lot of vacant buildings as well. The economy is showing the strain all sorts of places.

My game of "count-the-hookers" appears to be on-hold for a while. Haven't seen any this week. I find that interesting, as Tuesday was a warm morning. You'd think it would be comfortable to be out in skanky attire in warm weather.

Clearly I know nothing.

blarg

Had the weirdest dream last night. I have a pocket watch that's a mock-up of the Chameleon Arch watch from "Doctor Who" (yes, I am that level of nerd... moving on...).

I dreamt I was wandering around Waikiki and had said watch on my person. I popped it open and then suddenly it was an Omni from the old "Voyagers" TV show.

If you don't know what that is, I pity you.

So I push the big button. Boom. Next thing I know, I'm in an Irish pub, enjoying a Smithwick's, and watching some ridiculous battle that kept morphing. It started with knights and crazy Scots fighting, then there were ninjas, then Daenerys Targaryen leads some dragons and such into the field and pretty much fries the competition.

I think there were Nazgul from The Lord of the Rings in there too. They were flying their dragon things. They were on the other side.

And they lost.

So the lessons here are:

1) Be careful what you eat for dinner.

2) Don't watch Lord of the Rings with a late dinner and then read one of the "Song of Ice and Fire" books before bed.

3) You never forget those cheesy '80's shows.

4) Apparently I have a fondness for Irish pubs.

Oddly enough, now I'm craving a mai tai.

Tipping Point

It's the Summer Solstice. Longest day of the year. First day of summer. Blah-blah-blah.

My first bike ride to work in nearly a year. I was disappointed at the lack of freaks and such.

On the plus side, my time door-to-door was a personal best: 20 to 25 minutes. I bet I'll feel this later.

Super 8

Spoiler warning: so I don't plan to spoil the entire film, but some people have very low spoiler thresholds. If you don't want to know anything, don't read further.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I caught a matinee of Super 8 yesterday.

A bit of a disclaimer first: I love J.J. Abrams' stuff. I loved "Lost" (until its un-spectacular final season), "Alias" (okay, maybe the first half of "Alias"), Cloverfield, and the rebooted Star Trek.

I'm also absolutely devoted to "Fringe".

So when I found out Abrams had a new movie out, I decided I'd see it knowing absolutely nothing about it. I read snippets here and there as the film came closer to release, but never really had a clear idea what I was going to see, save that it was set in 1979.

The protagonist is a boy who has a disconnect with his father (a common Abrams theme, really... makes me wonder what his deal is, but never mind that...). The boy and his friends are filming a zombie movie, which allows the story to introduce the various Goonies-style characters that are the gang of kids.

While filming a scene at night, the kids witness a train wreak. And then the crazy stuff starts to happen.

Yes, there was an alien on that train. And the alien is pissed at the Air Force.

Cue the crazy stuff: disappearances, half-seen monsters, sinister government troops, conspiracies, and all that fun plot development.

The alien is pretty damn scary-awesome. The story goes in a few interesting directions.

The ending is fairly satisfying, given Abrams' main weakness is his inability to end his stories well. It's my not-so-secret hope that Abrams has now learned how to do endings and "Fringe" won't have the same kind of crappy finale that "Lost" and "Alias" suffered from.

Oh, but I digress.

Super 8 was an homage to all those classic films from the late '70's and most of the '80's, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and The Goonies but with a more 21st-century feel to things.

It's not a kids' film, though. I personally think the alien would traumatize most younger kids. Teens would probably love it.

THERE IS A GOD!!!!

A god of Fridays!

My Name is Inigo Mon... no wait... that's not right.

(via Erik)

I've actually seen most of these movies. I love the ever-so-brief shout-out to Azumi.

Watch Out

My wristwatch failed me yesterday.

Strictly-speaking, the watch is fine. The band was crap. It was attached to the watch by way of some kind of crappy adhesive that failed finally.

I bought a new watch band and attempted to remove the remaining bits-and-pieces of disintegrating watch band from the watch body, only to find out that this watch isn't secured by two pins like normal watches.

Insert rage here.

So I'm sitting around with a watch band I can't use with a watch that doesn't have a working band anymore.

I'm thinking Crazy Glue then remembering the last time I played with that stuff.

The words "epic disaster" come to mind.

Oy.

So as loathe as I am to abandon my old watch, I got a cheap-ish Timex yesterday. I popped off the less-inspiring band and plugged it in to the new watch band.

Oddly enough, the new watch has three times the functionality of the old one but is maybe a fifth the cost.

Doesn't look like something out of a bad James Bond movie, though. *sigh*

I guess life could be worse.

I mean, I could cut my hand open using tools to try to fiddle with something in a particularly stupid way.

Gosh, that would be pretty stupid.

And painful.

Yep. Glad I'm not that stupid.

*whistles*

So it's June now?

For the first time since... um... February, we're supposed to get warm-ish weather in the Bay Area.

Looking forward to the sunshine. Not looking forward to the possibility of allergies.

I've even busted out shorts for the weather. I look forward to blinding people with my pasty white legs.

---

A friend of mine asked me to help out her son by reviewing papers said boy writes as part of a project to get his English grades up to snuff.

The theory here is that since I'm a writer (allegedly), I could probably have a few tips and such.

I'm reminded why I never chose to go into teaching as a profession. Reviewing papers is... draining.

---

What kind of jackasses would steal a little girl's TARDIS?

---

It's nice to be back in my martial arts class. It's a good treatment for the blahs. One of my instructors gave me tips with exercises to deal with an old injury that are pretty awesome.

I'm looking forward to the day when ten year olds can't easily beat the crap out of me.

I have high hopes.

---

I finished watching An Idiot Abroad over the weekend.

God damn this is a funny show. I'm moderately-convinced the persona of Karl Pinkerton is a put-on. Regardless, this guy is damn funny.

The Pagan snapperheads in Egypt may well have been the funniest thing I've ever seen.

I also think Ricky Gervaise is kind of a dick in this. If any of my friends pulled that crap with me, someone would be on the ground with a bloody nose. Just sayin'.

Useful information

(via Erik)

I'm disappointed at the lack of red and throwing of lightning.

the blahs

The blahs.

It's that feeling one gets when nothing really engages the imagination or the attention. Everything seems uninteresting and vaguely gray.

I hate the blahs.

I recognize part of it is simple depression. In the last few months, three people whom I considered fairly dear to me have passed on. That sort of thing takes its toll.

Part of it is the more petty disappointment of geeky pleasures failing. "Doctor Who" is on hiatus until the fall. Broadcast television has yet to air anything that makes me want to give a shit this summer. "Game of Thrones", while quite nice, doesn't fully-engage as I've read the books. My RPG stuff has disintegrated under internal pressures that may be unfixable.

There's nothing out in terms of reading material that particularly inspires me of late.

Thus: the blahs.

Bleah.

Facepalm

It troubles me what a short drive it is to crazy these days...

Ray Guns are Cool

WETA Workshop does awesome stuff.

Dr. Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators are truly wonders of the imagination.

Pricy wonders.

Very pricy wonders.

Too pricy for me.

For all that, I am tempted by the Saboteur 66. In the interests of keeping the gendarmes from hunting me down, I don't want such to engage in the practice of assassination.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm not really a "steampunk" fan, but Dr. Grordbort's stuff (I always want to type his name "Gnordbort"... dunno why....) is pretty goddamn cool.

I need to win the lottery.

Statistically-speaking

I don't know why I never looked at the site statistics Blogspot offers before yesterday.

I love this stuff!

Apparently someone looked at this site using a PlayStation Portable.

Really? Isn't PlayStation for... um... games?

And there's been 312 hits from Russia. That throws me nearly as much as the 91 hits from Malasia, but I guess it's a small world after all.

Goddamnit. Now that song is in my head.

Anyway, this stuff is educational for me. I'd never heard of the "Jakarta Commons-HttpClient" before today. Apparently some folks use it to browse. Go figure.

And apparently people search this site for "Triple Aught Design". I guess if you're going to search a site, that's a good term to look for.

I'm easily amused.

Pageviews from where now?

According to Blogger, people actually read this blog!

Oh my lord, I'm so, so sorry!

Apparently either folks are proxying through some interesting countries or there's people out there all over the world who thought this blog was something interesting.

Sorry to disappoint.

Though, given that a lot of the referrals appear to be spam sites, I guess I'm not all that sorry.

And the pageviews... Really? this got 45 views? Seriously?

My mind. It is boggled.

Thoughts

It's ridiculously-hard to type with multiple fingers wrapped in band-aids.

It's painful to type when those band-aids cover nasty cuts caused by sharp objects.

It's humiliating when the sharp objects caused the nasty cuts due to careless stupidity.

It's annoying when other people try to do my job for me.

It's disturbing to find old photos of myself.

It's awesome to watch characters in a movie/tv-show have their first encounter with the undead.

It's humbling to realize you have a problem. It's sad when you realize the problem and do nothing to address it.

It's weird to realize how much technology has advanced society and how much it's restricted society.

It's funny how much the little things matter.

It's not "addiction" when referring to a coffee need. It's not. Really.

It's not denial to say that. Okay, maybe it is.

Sigh

And now post-"Doctor Who" depression sets in.

I don't get another fix until September.

SEPTEMBER!!!!

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO HOLD OUT THAT LONG?????

I'm curious where the Moff is going with the storyline. I'd like to speculate in detail, but I don't want to spoil things for anyone who has yet to get caught up to "A Good Man Goes to War".

On the topic of S06E07, I re-watched it yesterday. I wish there had been... oh... three or four more buildup episodes to get to that point. Maybe even having some of those episodes in last season would have been nice. I suspect there are back-stories that would have been great episodes. I'm hard-pressed to decide what I would have cut from last season to make room... aside from that horrible Dalek episode.

I'm of mixed-feelings as to how the character of the Doctor is getting handled in the rebooted series. RTD and the Moff do have one common theme they like to maintain in the new series: a lot of homage to what a badass they perceive the Doctor to be.

I have a bit of a problem with the Doctor's "fame" in the overall series (this shouldn't spoil anything unless you haven't watched any of the 2005 reboot).

The Doctor is a time-traveller. He pops in. He interferes. He pops out. Done and done.

Time may not be a strict linear progression of cause to effect (thank you number Ten), but from a non-Time Lord perspective it pretty much is. So there should be a sort of continuity.

Thus, when one is back in Roman times on Earth, there shouldn't be that many aliens wandering around who know who the Doctor is.

Hell, there shouldn't be Cybermen at all prior to the late 20th century.

Oh, they can explain away a lot of this stuff... "the Doctor has been around"... whatever.

It makes the show's universe small when they do that. Too small. It becomes a little too self-referential. It's the same trap Star Wars fell into with the prequels. Too much going back to old stuff and closing loops.

The Moff has done a wonderful job of expanding the "Doctor Who" universe, but I could do with a little less "everyone is out to get rid of this terrible threat who is the Doctor" stuff.

Gets old.

Kung Fu Cooking Girls

Somewhat NSFW. Just a warning.


(via Twitch)

A Good Man Goes to War

I've seen the mid-season finale for series six of the 2005 revival of "Dr. Who".

Ouch, that's a mouthful.

Without getting too spoiler-y, it's a quest that mixes some characters from past episodes and some characters whom I wish were from past episodes. The new characters were - to me - the most interesting.

There was a fair amount of awesome buildup tempered by a lot of trash talking about what a badass the Doctor is.

I'm actually not keen on that. The Doctor is a time traveler, yeah, but really? Everyone in the universe has heard his name? Seriously? Seems... a bit much.

That's hardly a spoiler, by the way. They've been doing this since Russell T. Davies revived the show back in 2005.

So there's about a half-episode's worth of buildup and then suddenly a confrontation. And that was a bit anticlimactic to me. The revelations weren't particularly surprising or anything. The conclusion felt a bit contrived, even for a show like this.

Still, for all that, it was pretty cool.

Who Sensei

The combination of anime and "Dr. Who" is just... sublime.

And goddamn weird.

(via io9)

Excitement

This weekend is the mid-season finale for "Dr. Who".

It's titled: "A Good Man Goes to War".

To say I'm jazzed about this episode (especially given how "The Almost People" went) would be understating things a tad.

Lists

InStash has a list of 10 Gadgets for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.

Y'know, 'cause that meme never gets old...

I'm disappointed they don't list the Crovel.

Sure, a katana is the epitome of coolness, but the Crovel looks more practical than carting around both an axe and a sword.

Plus you can use it to dig graves for zombie bits.

In all fairness, InStash does list the Crovel in a previous post. I just find it odd this bit of crazy awesomeness didn't make it into their top ten list.

NAU see this

The conceptual NAU Mobile Home looks pretty useful for when civilization falls utterly.

Unless civilization devolves into Waterworld (kill me now) or a Zombie Apocalypse.

I just can't see the mobile home staving off a zombie horde. It needs more fortifications added.

(via The Awesomer)