With even more flu

This is the sickest I can remember being in a long time.

Even Nyquil's magic powers couldn't give a good night's sleep last night. There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

And I even got a flu shot. Go figure.

The fun never stops

So far today:

1. The flu, part deux.
2. Increase to my rent.
3. Attempted burglary in my building.

And it's not even noon.

I am grateful that the chills and fever are gone. That was remarkably sucky.

ugh

Pretty sure I have the flu.

This sucks.

Zero to sick in two seconds

I thought it was allergies.
I got home from work with a cough and thought it was just a sinus thing.

By 6pm, I knew it was more than allergies.

Fourteen hours of sleep later, I've got a cough that's drawing sea lions from the ocean. I feel so weak, a five year old could knock me down.

I do not feel very good at all.

Goddamn colds.

Weekend Recovery

After a weekend rife with the unexpected, I greet the last week of January with the beginnings of a lovely chest cough.

I've been overdue, I suppose.

---

I'm not a terribly great fan of the animated version of "The Clone Wars". Not the CGI version, anyway.

The animation is moderately-horrible and I didn't like the first couple of eps I watched. Further, I've resisted it as I loved Gennedy Tartakovsky's versions.

That said, I caught the latest one set on Boba Fett's planet of Mandalore (or, the Fett Planet, I like to call it). It was silly. Darth Maul is apparently alive and there's much scheming.

There's lots of Fett-armored people doing Fett things with lots of weapons and jetpacks.

It was good fun.

Doesn't convince me to continue watching, but I did enjoy it a bit.

---

I'm craving a nap right now like nobody's business. I knew going out on a Sunday night was a bad idea.

Wait... rational responses? GTFO

Twelve rational responses to irrational gun arguments.

'Nuff said.

And Friday arrives again

I can't properly tell through the clouds, but I think it's a full moon.

That would explain some of the crazy people.

Then again... what explains the rest of the days of the month?

---

So, the Interwebs buzz over the latest bit of crazy: J.J. Abrams may direct the next Disney-produced "Star Wars" movie.

I'm already seeing the lens flares.

Honestly, I don't see how it could possibly be worse than the prequels. Abrams does great build-up and I must admit I loved the re-imagined Star Trek (even though I can imagine Gene Roddenberry spinning in his transporter stream). Star Wars is definitely more Abram's style.

I swear TO GOD that if he gets Lindelof involved and there are goddamn ANGELS involved I will learn how to Force choke from across the country...

---

I continue to watch "Arrow" and I'm wondering why they didn't just come out and do a "Batman" TV show. I mean, there's precious little difference...

---

I have a new quest: I seek beer from Calicraft Brewing Company known as "Oaktown Brown Ale". I've had it on draft a couple times and found it to be tasty, delicious, and worthy of storage in my 'fridge.

There's a few liquor stores reported to carry it bottled. I hit Ledgers Liquors in the People's Republic yesterday to no avail. I plan to continue the quest. There's rumored to be a couple of places east of the Oakland Hills that might have what I seek.

It's good to have goals.

---

Today's "Worst Case Scenario" daily calendar lesson is: "How to Survive a Hostage Situation".

Actually pretty germane, what with all the gun crazy shit going on these days. Though I guess there's less hostage-taking and more shooting-people-like-homicidal-nuts.

All the same, here's the advice from the WCS folks:

1. If shots are fired, keep your head down and drop to the floor.

Kind of a 'duh', but people are prone to panic in situations like that and may instead try to run... thus catching the eye of a gunman and bang.

2. Carefully follow your captors' directions.

I've always ceded authority to whomever has a weapon pointed at me.

3. Keep the following tips in mind:
* Do not make any sudden movements.
* Do not attempt to hide your wallet, passport, ticket, or belongings.
* If your captors speak to you, respond in a calm, self-possessd tone of voice. (I can't do that under normal circumstances. How the HELL would I do that with gun-toting nuts?)
* Observe the characteristics and behavior of the hijackers.

4. If you are singled out by the captors, be responsive but do not volunteer information.

And here I was thinking this would be a great time to convert them to the Word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

5. If a rescue attempt is made, remain calm and get on the ground.

I love the advice about staying calm. Plus the scenario with more of the shooting.

---

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Those twin gods

I was all set to come to work in a bad mood and have a bad day.

In fairness, my day isn't even half-over, so it could still take a turn into the bad place, but the gods of perversity and irony do appear determined to cheer me up.

• A book I ordered was sitting on my chair as I came in.
• A pair of nagging, lingering assignments I've been trying to deal with were suddenly concluded.
• Best of all: a weekly, recurring meeting that crunches right into my lunch hour was cancelled.

I hate meetings. I hate meetings with a passion beyond my ability to express. I especially hate any and all meetings that run longer than sixty minutes on the dot.

If you can't address an issue, discuss it, and come to some kind of constructive conclusion in under sixty minutes, you should not be meeting, in my humble opinion. Or if you do, it should be with smaller, discreet groups better-tuned to the issue at-hand.

Plus, I find meetings boring beyond words.

I'll be curious to see if the day continues in this surprisingly-pleasant fashion or if that light I see is... hm... is that a train's whistle?

How the hell did I get on these tracks, anyway?

Oh SHI.....!!!!

Ooh! I KNOW! I KNOW!

Ars Technica asks why was the Earth bombarded wtih high energy particles in the year 774 A.D.?

It was clearly the Doctor's doing.

Duh!

More rumblings

I'm finding this daily "Worst Case Scenario" calendar to be kind of pathetic.

---

I might be in love.

Or I'm confusing that with mild terror. Hard to say, really.

---

Is it wrong of me to enjoy watching this Kim Dotcom drama go on? It's better than most TV.

---

A little over a week ago, it was freezing cold. Literally on some evenings. Now? Now it's like spring here in the Bay Area.

Allergy-issues aside, I would probably enjoy the sunshine for getting out but it's just weird in January. Goddamn global warming.

Plus we need more rain.

Working on a Holiday

My office doesn't automatically give us MLK as a holiday, so I'm pounding away on the keyboards this early Monday morning as I try to catch up on the stuff I missed while plague-ridden.

The fun never stops.

Finished season one of "Person of Interest". Goddamn but I love that show! The first season had great pacing, interesting characters, and some clever plots for that kind of TV show.

While I enjoy the Finch-Reese dynamic, I have to say I think I'm more into the two cops: Carter and Fusco. They're just awesome.

Loving the weird little subplots and arcs that are woven through the backstory. What the hell was the deal with the laptop in China? What's Snow's deal? What's Root's story? What happened to Ingram? What did Ingram do to the Machine? Who the hell is Finch, anyway? Who the hell is Reese? Who are the other seven who know about the Machine?

Good times, that.

Au Revoir, Fringe

"Fringe" ended its five-year run last night.

I'm still processing the two-hour finale.

As J.J. Abrams shows go, this finale didn't suck. Not as compared with "Lost", certainly, but it wasn't entirely satisfying.

The entire fifth season felt rushed and compressed. The last two hours of the series especially so.

I'll always feel disappointed that Astrid got very little actual story development of her own or that they did very little with Peter's nomad background before joining the Fringe team.

That said, the finale offered closure in a timey-whimey weirdness fashion that would have made Steven Moffatt proud. I maintain that TV shows just can't do time-travel well and I'm moving on from there.

I'll miss "Fringe" and its weird-science-of-the-week. I'll miss Walter and his random, yet hysterical utterings. I'll miss the cow. I'll miss the Observers (prior to the invasion). I'll miss the blimps.

*sigh*

Interesting

As I try to shake the plague, I've been catching up on CBS's "Person of Interest".

The premise is that a brilliant computer mogul designed a super-computer ("The Machine") that can magically interface with any and every computer, cell phone, camera, and what-not anywhere to determine threats. Think super-ESCHELON times a million and you're in the neighborhood of what the Machine is supposed to be.

The mogul, one Harold Finch, is dead as far as the world is concerned. He taps into the Machine to get lists of names of "unimportant" people whose lives are in danger, according to the Machine's super-spying.

Finch recruits one "John Reese", an ex-CIA agent who specializes in monotone speaking and inflicting harm on others. The two manage to get a couple of NYPD cops - Detective Joss Carter and Detective Lionel Fusco - to assist them in their episodic schemes to save lives and thwart bad guys.

As stories go, it's kind of silly, but I have to say I like the episodic twists and I'm completely enthralled by the characters.

Finch is a true paranoid. He's partially-crippled from some unknown injury and had a business partner who helped fund the Machine and sell it to the U.S. Government for a dollar. Finch's partner is dead and Finch is underground.

Reese is your stereotypical haunted-ex-spook who regrets a life of killing people horribly. He's a badass and has some shady spook backstory that comes up occasionally. The character gets surprisingly-interesting especially when he interacts with the two cops:

Detective Joss Carter may well be my favorite. A tough-as-nails single mom and former Army interrogator, Carter is scrupulously-honest and sharp as hell. She appears to be the only person Reese really respects. Unlike:

Detective Lionel Fusco is (was?) a dirty cop. He gets blackmailed into helping out Reese and Finch, then Finch arranges for Fusco to become Carter's partner. Fusco seems to start to warm to his blackmailers a bit and never seems to realize that he and Carter are on the same team with respect to Reese and Finch.

It's trash, but it's entertaining trash. I'll probably finish the first season today or tomorrow, if the plague cooperates.

I guess there are pluses to getting sick.

Plague

The tendrils of plague have got me. I'm not sure if it's a cold or hints of pending flu. Thirteen hours of Nyquil-induced sleep helped, but the ick remains. Ugh.

Amazing

According to The Awesomer, one guy did this.

Just... wow.

It begins

The plague is starting to ravage my office.

It's an even mix of a few colds and the flu.

Last night, I went to bed with a throat tickle. This morning, the tickle is still there and I'm starting to feel the warning signs.

I sense a half-day in my immediate future followed by some serious naptime.

Arming Bears

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. -- The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I don't particularly like guns. Yet, like many people, I'm fascinated by them (and weapons in general).

Further, I don't own a gun. Well, strike that. I own NERF guns (and I think I have a few other toys that fire projectiles) but I don't own a firearm that can discharge a bullet likely to kill anything bigger than a housefly.

Gun Control has been a political hot topic for longer than I've been alive and it's likely to continue to be so long after I'm dead and buried.

I kind of get both sides in the argument.

I get the idea of people wanting a tool for hunting (for folks who live in areas where that's feasible) or for home defense.

I get the idea of people wanting to protect themselves. At the core of it all, the desire to own firearms stems from an inherent fear and distrust of authority, I think.

I find guns distasteful because they're incredibly destructive, especially in the heat of passion. An irrational person can conceivably kill multiple people with relatively compact and simple movements in an incredibly short period of time.

For defending one's self, I can see where that's tactically desirable. On the flipside, one person with a gun can kill a group of people with terrible ease (as events have often shown us).

I find it interesting that all the devout claims of a right to bear arms (weapons) seems almost exclusively applied to firearms. Go to a dozen U.S. cities across the country and you'll find some pretty wild and harsh restrictions on all kinds of weapons: sticks, knives, swords, etc.

Hell, there's parts of Texas that restrict owning a Bowie Knife but don't appear to give a rat's ass about guns at all.

Seems a bit weird to me. I mean, if you're going to take a stance that it's okay to own weapons, seems to me you should open it up to a variety of personal defense weapons.

You support someone owning a rifle or a concealable pistol? Okay, then back the right to wear katana in public and balisong knives in their pockets.

California's got "open carry" ordinances in place allowing you to carry a pistol on your belt openly (with ammo in a separate pouch, for what that's worth) but you're pretty much forbidden to carry any kind of blade longer than three inches or with a double-edge.

Seems an odd distinction to make. Sure, a knife doesn't require ammo but a gun can kill more people efficiently.

And then there's telescoping batons, mace, and all sorts of other ways folks have come up with to fight.

The argument seems to have gone into some really odd directions. A lot of that is a money-thing. The firearm industry in the U.S. is a huge deal and their lobby is very powerful but a lot of that is just cultural as we cling to an ideal of frontiersmen and the Wild West that just isn't the modern world.

Do I support gun control? Absolutely. I don't think private citizens should have weapons that can clean out a room of people in a few seconds.

I think those restrictions should be placed on a higher level with arms manufacturers themselves to better account for where their weapons are sold and how they can be traced.

Do I think guns should be forbidden altogether? I am unconvinced, I suppose. Personally, I'd like to learn basics of gun safety so I'm a little less-freaked by them as a whole. I can see arguments behind private ownership of a pistol, shotgun, or rifle but I could go either way, I guess.

Oh well. It's not like anything's changing anytime soon.

Even more banality for the same price!

I'm trying to keep the momentum going with the whole exercise routine. I really am. This cold snap isn't really helping.

Compared to parts of the country (or the world) that gets snow, we're doing just fine here. It's goddamn cold in the mornings but by late afternoon, it's just chilly.

Still, as a Bay Area dweller, my tolerance for temperature differentials has pretty much been tossed out the window.

If it's hotter than 78 F or colder than 60 F, then I find myself quite unhappy.

It's been a bit colder than 60 F of late.

Still, I did manage to get a run (or something that might resemble a run if you didn't look too carefully and you had a lot to drink... and something in your eye... and dark sunglasses... and... oh wait, I'm getting off-track) in yesterday.

It's my hope that when martial arts starts again, I won't be too horribly fried by warm-ups.

---

I'm trying to parse out just how incredibly insane some people in my home country can get.

The whole "truther" bullshit behind the Sandy Hook shootings is kind of boggling my mind.

I consider myself a bit of a cynic in that I espouse a belief that human beings can always get more insane, ridiculous, or stupid, but the claim that Sandy Hook was some kind of government black op to take away people's guns is just... wow.

I don't think the words: "MIND-NUMBINGLY FUCKING INSANE AND STUPID BEYOND WORDS" adequately cover how appallingly stupid I find that idea to be.

A school full of kids and their teachers were shot and killed by a nut with access to weapons that can clear a room in seconds of all life.

That's just fucked up and it's wrong and the current system needs to be fixed so that kind of thing can't happen again.

It's that simple. There are, of course, other opinions on that subject (Google the NRA for those views).

Fucking hell.

---

So the payroll tax hit... um... hit.

Ouch.

I'm curious how this will affect the economic recovery. Average take-home pay just dropped at a time when we're all trying to get our finances in order.

I suspect people will opt to spend less, first out of mild panic, then out of necessity. That's going to slow things down, I expect.

Except for the folks buying guns. Gah.

Grubbin'

Milk and I do not get along.

You don't want more details.

That said, I had a milkshake this weekend for the first time in eons. The place (Victory Burger in Oakland) offered some kind of vegan shake.

Yeah. Vegan.

Usually when I read or hear "vegan", it conjures up images of something that tastes sprout-y and unappealing. In this case, it was some kind of coconut milk and soy-whatsit. Only it was blended with Belgian chocolate powder.

Now, on top of all of this, I detest the taste of coconut. I absolutely loathe it.

All that said, the vegan whatsit chocolate shake was absolutely sublime. It was to die for. The burger was damn good too. Victory Burger offers some kind of interesting bun option called "arepa", which is some kind of cornmeal street-snack in Venezuela and Colombia (or so their menu says).

It was very dense but tasty. The burger was the kind that gets all over the damn place and tastes like nine different kinds of heaven.

I love living in the Bay Area.

Wonderous Friday Goodness

Another blessed Friday arrives. Thank the FSM!

The latest cold snap is really doing a number on me. I keep thinking I'm fighting a bug (which may be true... half the people I know are down with colds or the flu). Could also be allergies, as I'm pretty sure the heating vents in every building I spend time within have not been cleaned in my lifetime.

Once again, the alarm woke me out of a deep sleep. Sadness.

---

According to today's "Worst Case Scenario" calendar, today's hero is Amelia Earheart. Why did they pick her for today? I've no idea.

Tomorrow's is a list of some marine creatures that can kill you without using their teeth. They include the Box Jellyfish, the Rabbitfish, the Cone Shell Snail, and the Barracuda.

The Box Jellyfish apparently uses toxin. Kills in minutes. Good times.

It's just one of those many deadly creatures that like to linger in Australia, apparently. I swear Australians must be the toughest people on the FSM's green Earth. Seems to me that every other damn thing in that country is potentially lethal.

But I digress. Next is the Rabbitfish. Found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the spines are insanely venomous. So deadly are they that the poison can still kill after the fish is dead and being prepared by a butcher.

Good times there.

The Cone Shell Snail apparently is all over the damn place in the tropics. Has a barb of paralyzing venom that can kill a human.

That's just all manner of wrong.

This is one of the many reasons why I'm not keen on swimming in the ocean.

Barracuda apparently have some kind of toxin and "kill humans who eat flesh of infected fish." Wait, what? So it kills people who eat infected barracuda or fish that barracuda inflicted their nasty little toxin upon?

I don't think I really want to know. Another tropical death machine, regardless.

Sweet Raptor Jesus that's just wrong.

Discovery of the moment

Personal log:

Excavation of beige site 7.

After some time inspecting site 7, I have initiated excavation at the behest of my superior.

I've discovered something curious beneath several layers of compressed vegetable matter containing various incomprehensible records of the local civilization.

The discovery is a cool, grey, solid surface beneath the layers. At this point I cannot excavate further without specialized tools.

This seems to indicate that site 7 is actually supported by some sort of infrastructure. According to the locals, they call this a "desk". Under some sort of local legend, such structures are usually not obscured by layers of compressed vegetable matter.

Most curious. I continue to excavate in hopes of learning more.

Today in Banality

Comcast finally synchronized my cable access with the downgrade to my plan I got a few months back. Lost all sorts of channels, including SyFy.

I feel strangely unconcerned.

It was nice to catch reruns of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Big Bang Theory" on TBS, but I can see reruns of that other ways.

Sure beats paying through the nose for all that other crap.

---

Today's lesson in the "Worst Case Scenario" calendar is How to Land a Runaway Hot Air Balloon.

I hope to never, ever need this knowledge. Mostly 'cause I do not plan to ever willingly go up in a balloon.

---

Trader Joe's, in their never-ending goal to induce diabetes and/or heart failure in my life, are pimping a new form of crack: "Trader Joe's Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels".

They are unreal.

Servings per container: about 5. Calories per serving: 200. Calories from fat: 80.

They're little bite-sized things the size of a peanut M&M. They remind me a bit of Trader Joe's "Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels" (which are also addictive and deadly).

So deliciously deadly.

A mid-week diatribe

Apparently the military judge overseeing the charges against Bradley Manning (the whistle-blower accused of leaking diplomatic cables to Wikileaks) ruled that his pre-trial treatment was illegal and inappropriate.

The military put the poor kid in solitary confinement and on suicide watch. They kept him in restraints in his cell and apparently denied him garments at some point.

And he hadn't even been charged with a crime.

Yeah... I'd say that call is valid. Go military judge lady!

In net, he gets something like 112 days served to his credit against any potential sentence. I'm sure that will be a huge comfort to him if they convict him and sentence him to life.

---

I got a "Worst Case Scenario" daily calendar for Xmas. You know those books. They're the "what do I do if an alligator tries to bite off my arm" or "how do I parry a sword" or "what do I do in an avalanche" kinds of scenarios written up in a semi-humorous fashion.

I love 'em.

So today's tip: "How to Survive in the Line of Fire If You Are Not the Primary Target".

Handy these days. Fortunately I haven't been directly exposed to the insane levels of gun violence we see in the news, but that means exactly nothing.

The tip is - boiled down - go prone. Get behind cover (a car's wheel, the lip of a curb, etc.).

You know, stuff that a sane person would do when bullets are flying.

I say this knowing full well I'd panic like a crazed chicken in a coop if I were on-the-spot.

---

While I'm still bitter about Ronald D. Moore's final season of "Battlestar Galactica", I am suitably attainted when it comes to certain dialog.

So when the news has articles on "fracking", my first thought is "dirty intercourse?" instead of "shooting fluid into the ground to get at oil".

I guess if the results are as dangerous as critics believe, people are getting "fracked" no matter how the term is intended.

---

Pinched nerves suck.

---

I miss good, rousing, science-fiction adventure stories. Space opera-style stories where you have rag-tag heroes with blazing blasters fighting unequal odds against sinister foes.

You know. Han Solo, "Firefly", "Blake's 7". That stuff.

Only in books.

The late Brian Daley had a great series that captured the feel of what I'm craving. They were the Adventures of Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh. I think the titles were "Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds", "Jinx on a Terran Inheritance", and "The Fall of the White Ship Avatar".

Those were great, as was Daley's "Han Solo" stories.

Timothy Zahn's "The Icarus Hunt" had that sort of feel. Kind of.

I just really miss that. I can't seem to find new authors who go there anymore. Makes me sad.

And then it was Tuesday

Okay, I'm still weirded-out why this post has 132 page views.

I suppose linking to it doesn't help clarify matters for me.

---

Started running again.
By which I mean "jogging".
By which I mean "moving at a pace that might, maybe, be slightly-faster than walking, but not much and only looks like I'm exhausting myself."

Yeah, kinda sad.

---

My sinuses are killing me today.

---

I am completely unable to generate anything interesting to say today. Okay, I usually don't, but even I'm bored by what I have to say. Sad.

Not disturbing at all

The sun's rays are hitting the low clouds, giving everything a reddish-pink hue.

Strangely-beautiful and vaguely-sinister at the same time.

Speaking of vaguely-sinister, why in the FSM's name is this post so damn interesting to people? It had something like a hundred and twenty-three page views. (EDIT: 130 page views as of now)

Seriously? WTF?

In today's uninteresting news

• My office heat is still broken. Piping in cold air from outside. Makes typing fun. I look forward to the inevitable cold/flu.
• Randomly discovered an elementary school classmate of mine became a Hollywood producer. At least I think it's her based on the Google image I dug up. Kind of random.
• Read "The Lost Continent" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I don't recommend it. It hasn't aged well as a story and is pretty dubious in some of the more racial aspects of the story.
• Spent much of the weekend fixing my laptop after a botched software update. It's my deepest hope that the blasted thing is working now and will connect to the Internet as designed. Thank the FSM for system restore points.

Resolving

I'm not one to make New Year's Resolutions anymore.

The idea is sort of bullshit, as far as I'm concerned. If you need to make a change in your life, seems to me it's best to just do it instead of waiting for some arbitrary event, like New Year's or birthdays, or the like.

Not that I follow my own advice, mind you, but such is life.

Still, I suppose it doesn't hurt to set a few goals.

So here I go:

1. I resolve to test out my Cthulhu Tiki Mug with a proper rum drink (preferably a Zombie) before the end of March of 2013.
2. I will do some sort of cardio activity at least three times a week until sloth or ADD distra... ooh! Shiny thing. What was I saying?
3. I will ramp down on my impulse buy... oh who am I kidding?
4. I shall endeavor to refine my snark but deliver it only upon those who have earned the honor of my scorn and derision.
5. I shall not destroy my alarm clock in a fit of bloody-minded rage in the wee-hours o' th' mornin'.
6. I shall get the proper equipment to make my own rum cocktails before the end of August 2013 and make a mai tai worthy of my Cthulhu Tiki Mug.

Okay, no sense overdoing things here. I'll stop while the list isn't too unreasonable.

Let us not run to Camelot. 'Tis a silly place.

While perusing my morning list of interesting links, I saw ApocalypseEquipped post something about chainmail shoes.

Wait. What?

I forwarded to a friend of mine who put me on to Vibram Five Finger shoes (which foot issues usually keep me from wearing, but I digress).

Then I went to the referenced Gizmodo article in the ApocalypseEquipped post.

I was curious and anything on Mr. Orth's "lust lists" usually gets my attention.

From Gizmodo, I found myself skimming the PaleoBarefoots site that makes said chainmail shoes.

I've only lightly-skimmed the page. I really just want to see the bottom of these shoes. I'm supremely-curious if there's any kind of rubber-like tread or if the sole is also chainmail.

Seems to me a chainmail sole:

• Offers no grip
• Doesn't protect from small, sharp rocks or small glass shards
• Doesn't protect worth a damn against thorns, sharp pointy sticks, needles, and such

That said, the concept is certainly neat. If I were still of a mind to hit Ren Faires and the like, this is the footwear I'd totally want to have.

Seems to me it would go really well with a Utilikilt (he says, slyly addressing his friends who own such clothing items).

A new one, huh?

Hello 2013. What do you have in store for us for the next twelve months?