Happy Family Stuff

Happy Halloween.

Signs and Portents

Sometimes the Universe is just trying to tell you something and it's time to shut up and listen.

I woke today determined to attend martial arts class. My neck is in pain and I knew tonight's topic would end up straining my neck and shoulder, but I opted to ignore that. If I blew off stuff 'cause I'm in pain, I'd never get anything done aside from making delicious cocktails.

I hopped on BART and, just as I sat down, realized I forgot several items, including my ID.

On top of that, I woke this morning feeling a bit dubious. That feeling hasn't really properly subsided.

For a chance, dim thought penetrated the vast emptiness of my skull and I decided it was time to just call it. So, that's that. Sigh. So why do I feel guilty?

A few sputterings of nothing

• I continue to make my way through "The Republic of Thieves". I'm not even a quarter in and I'm remembering why I love Lynch's characters so much. I wish I'd taken the time to re-read "The Lies of Locke Lamora" and "Red Sails Under Red Skies", but I can vaguely remember the previous plots just fine.
• I never sleep quite so well as I do when Autumn starts to get cool. Then it's so very, very hard to get out of bed in the morning. It's slightly easier when heavy-footed upstairs neighbors are fucking around at 1:30 am, but that's a bit early for me. *sigh*
• If anyone tells you that your upstairs neighbors have hardwood floors but the insulation will prevent you from hearing them, know this: it's a lie. A terrible, terrible lie.
• I'm developing a taste for a Whiskey Rebellion (essentially a Manhattan with an extra half-shot of bittersweet Vermouth).
• I'm a fan of the music of Bear McCreary, the fellow who did the score to the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" series as well as the excellent first season of "Human Target". Out of an urge for new instrumental listening, I picked up the score to the blissfully-cancelled disaster known as "The Cape" (Google it if you don't know of this show... and for the love of the FSM, don't poison your mind by watching it). Good score. So much better than that awful program deserved.

Where's a baseball when you need one?

My laptop, back from its repairs and woes, now has a fresh reinstall of Windows Vista.

Yes, that's right. My laptop is possessed by the Devil.

It's what came with the damn thing. I downgraded Vista to XP, back in the day. For whatever reason, repeating the process prevents XP from running updates so the laptop is now running Vista. And I'm wondering if it was worth it saving $300 to go through this when I could have ponied up four bills for something newer.

Gah. So I'm running updates on it while my PC is running its pokey backup and the laptop takes a good 40 minutes to retrieve its updates from Microsuck. A good 124 updates, I should add. For three-and-a-half hours later, I'm watching the pokey thing update. My PC's backup finishes and the laptop is still chugging away at its downloads. And then the installation... gods damn. I can't believe how long that took.

I'm half-tempted to wipe the entire OS and just load Ubuntu, but I'm not yet convinced I want the laptop there just yet.

Give me time. I'm sure the demonic powers of Vista will drive me to that sooner rather than later.

Mondays Blow

• We had a bit of a windstorm last night into this morning. I think the average wind-speed I saw on the news this morning was about 43 mph. Needless to say, I didn't ride my bike today. Looks like our Indian Summer ended in a hurry. Hope this means rain.
• Started reading "The Republic of Thieves" by Scott Lynch. The third book in the Gentlemen Bastards series (the previous two are "The Lies of Locke Lamora" and "Red Sails Under Red Skies") continues where "Red Sails" left off. Locke is in a bad way and his one way out is... not a good one. This book finally starts to introduce the elusive, oft-mentioned but never-seen Sabetha, the off-camera love-interest of Locke. So far it's a fun read.
• Re-watched Pacific Rim over the weekend. I'm still a bit shocked it didn't do all that fantastic in theaters. Sure, the acting is fairly-awful and cliche. The characters are cardboard cut-outs. Still, how is that different than most movies that do well in the box office? And this had giant robots fighting giant monsters! Plus Ron Perlman! I weep for the future.
• Tweaked my neck on Friday night doing a bad roll in my martial arts class. Will this stop me from going again this week? Probably not. I believe that's a definition of stupid. Or insane. Or both. Could be both.

Review: "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan

I finished "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan yesterday. The first novel in his "Raven's Shadow" series, it's... just... wow.

Okay, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking with names like "Blood Song" and "Raven's Shadow" this is some kind of Dungeons and Dragons knockoff series.

Sure, there's a few tropes, but this book is nothing if not pure awesome.

Vaelin Al Sorna is handed over by his father to the Sixth Order of the Faith in his homeland. Trained to be an utter badass holy warrior, he starts to learn all kinds of crazy stuff. Turns out his dad was someone kind of important. His mom was a big deal too. And Vaelin himself has some serious stuff going on in his own life.

The novel is told over the passing of years, interspersed with interludes that make most of it a flashback.

I'll be honest, I found myself dizzy with the details of his world and the range of things going on. I found the protagonist, Vaelin, to be interesting and engaging. The magic is a fascinating thing and the world cultures were intriguing. The characters had me hooked across-the-board and there's certainly no shortage of action.

Apparently there's more books pending (the series is named "Raven's Shadow", after all).

I can't recommend this novel enough. If you doubt me (and I would doubt me...), check out the Amazon reviews.

Person of Interest

I will admit I was unenthusiastic about the latest season opener for "Person of Interest". It did nothing for me.

Then the show started to get its feet under it.

This season has mainly been focusing on exploring the addition of Samantha Shaw to the merry little band. With Shaw on board, the ladies up their badassery. Carter is doing more solo stuff in her crusade against the corrupt organization known as HR and Shaw is stone-cold death with a solemn face. And Root is now a regular with her ambiguous morality and endgame.

All of this hasn't given Finch much to do other than be Finch. Fusco has barely been present and Reese is pretty much in the background now. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I can handle the ride.

Reese and Finch got some good time in "Nothing to Hide", which exposed the new threat the Machine Team faces. "Reasonable Doubt" had some solid twists and turns. "Lady Killer" focused on the ladies: Shaw, Carter, and the semi-regular Zoe Morgan. It lacked a good story (the moral seemed to be that stalking can be okay at times... which is - at best - dubious) but it was nice to see the ladies take charge and kick ass.

The latest was "Razgover" and it really hits it out of the park. With a focus on Shaw and her interpersonal skills, the new Person of Interest is a young girl with odd hobbies. The story proceeds pretty normally then suddenly goes into awesome territory when the goal of protecting the girl goes sideways. The girl is spunky without being excessively annoying and her chemistry with Shaw is rock-solid. Bonus points for tying in Carter's side-crusade. The last ten minutes were just magnificent.

Best show I'm watching. Hands down.

Addictive Sugar Cookies!

• My mom gave me some leftover Snickerdoodles and brownies from a family event over the weekend. While the brownies are delicious, they're also rich so I can't eat a lot.
  The Snickerdoodles, however, are like sugary crack. Cannot...stop... snacking...
• The BART strike is (apparently) over! Yay for a return of public transportation populated by mentally-ill lunatics! Waitaminute...
• Ah cool Autumn mornings with the fog and the chill in the air. Lovely for morning bike rides. Added bonus: nobody out to bug me as I pedal in to the office!
• The BBC has a trailer out for the 50th anniversary special: "The Day of the Doctor". As teasers go, it's purdy. I'm not getting my hopes up for this. I'm expecting bitter disappointment and hoping it's better than that.

Just another manic Monday

• Still hating Google's new login portal. I have to go to the damn Help menu to actually get a prompt for login/password. Fucking nonsense.
• On the topic of nonsense: BART strike! Yes, BART is on strike and the Bay Area is fucked nicely. The news is split between blaming BART management and the unions. I suppose there's plenty of blame to spread around, but most of the news I'm hearing has it that there's two remaining points of contention. The unions apparently said something to the effect of "Okay, let's take these outstanding points to binding arbitration and go with that" while BART management said something to the effect of "Nuh-uh! That sounds too logical! We put everything in binding arbitration or we're taking our toys and going home!" And thus we have a strike. I dunno. I'm thinking I like the union stance, colored as I presented it.
• Pacific Rim on DVD! YAY!
• The BART strike doesn't affect my commute, thank the FSM, but it's utterly hosing the other things I had lined up this week. Feeling a smidge of rage there.
• Still hating Yahoo's email redesign. Period. Looks like it's time to start transitioning away from Yahoo for my email purposes.

UI

UI (user interface) is an important element of web design. One could argue it's an essential consideration.

It's a surprisingly-complex job, from what little I've observed of my company's UI staff.

I'm of the opinion that UI really should incorporate some kind of realistic end-user feedback, myself. It's been my experience that many people really just want a web interface to work, and - more importantly - not to change too much. If change happens, it's best not to make the change too sudden or jarring.

It shocks me when major software companies ignore their potential audience/customer base by introducing sudden, and often jarring, changes.

The best examples I've seen just this week:

• Microsoft's Windows 8. Yeesh.
• Yahoo's new mail. What a bug-filled, craptacular lemon this is.
• and now Google's change to Gmail login. I don't know what the fuck Google is doing, but it's nigh-impossible for me to get to the actual prompt to log in to Gmail.

That's three major companies, right there. All three have managed to annoy me and piss off several people I know.

It's this kind of behavior that makes people like me look for alternatives and this kind of arrogant, arbitrary behavior that ultimately becomes the undoing of these kinds of big companies...

No sense keeping something that works.

Oh Yahoo. You so silly. Your email client was working perfectly fine and then you had to go and try to make yourself like Google. Now... well... yeah. This reaction can't be a huge shock.

Reactions: Arrow and the Tomorrow People

Watched episode 2 of season two of "Arrow" and the remake of "The Tomorrow People".

"Arrow" seems to be struggling a bit this season. While they've returned to fast-paced action in the second episode, there's just really stupid stuff going on that's above-and-beyond the levels of a CW show. Examples:

• Caricature rules, even added ironically, are not appropriate (Felicity as Oliver's secretary? Diggle as Oliver's driver? WTF?).
• Laurel's sudden zeal to take down the Hood is feeling forced and contrived. It was more convincing when her father was leading the charge.
• Roy and Thea are... just... painful. They're a migraine in TV format.
• The Island flashbacks are seriously going into "Lost" territory. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
• The Queen Consolidated politics is making me yawn. Corporate takeover. Oh how... exciting. Oh the public hates the Queen name. *Yawn* I'm sorry, what were we talking about?

There were good things. Kelly Hu's character, China White, got a little more action. I like bringing in Michael Jai White as Bronze Tiger. Good fight scenes.

Still, I would like to see them get away from the cliches a bit. Of course there was something that would keep Oliver from attending some kind of benefit. Of course the politician was going to turn on Oliver and lambast him. Yawn. If the writers really want to impress, have everything turn out okay and then have some villain swoop in and do something horrible.


"The Tomorrow People" remains bland entertainment. I'm curious where they find these actors. Abercrombie and Fitch? I like the effects and keeping true to elements of the original series, such as the fact that the superpowered people can't kill. I find it nearly-impossible to like any of the characters. The only character who appears to have any kind of personality at all is Aaron Yoo's character, Russell Kwon. And he's still a bit of a cliche as the token non-white-guy-who-plays-the-smartass. Still, I'm loving Mark Pellegrino's cartoonishly-evil Dr. Jeddikiah Price. He's so gleefully psychotic! Maybe I need to root for him...

Friday go boom

• BART decided to go on strike. Whee. At this point I'm so pissed off at both sides in the BART conflict that I would not shed tears if the entirety of them were devoured by a horde of zombie gerbils.
• Holding out hope that my laptop is repaired today. Oh, I don't really need it, but I'd like to check one worry off my list today.
• Just dawned on me that the goddamn BART strike is going to hose my plans next week if it's still going. Gah!

Just 'cause I'm paranoid...

First it was a missing bill.

Now I'm noticing a bit of a trend. Some mail is just... gone. It could be held up in the chaos of the USPS, but I'm starting to wonder what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, I calmly await word of my laptop. And by "calmly", I mean "I'm really trying not to annoy the techs with constant are you done yet? phone calls."

On the plus side, a couple of Kickstarters I backed have come through. Good times there!

So far Kickstarter is a crapshoot, but it's a little over 80% solid. So far.

Adorable getting sick .gif

Mostly testing to see if this displays... plus Karen Gilan is awesome.

From Dys to Barely-Functional

Looks like Congress figured out how to pull its collective head out of its collective ass to get the Federal Government running again. I'll admit I was expecting a default and utter collapse. Wonder what it would take to Gitmo the Teabagger/GOP jackasses under some kind of terrorism charge? I mean, they've managed to do more damage to the country than anyone else thus far...

Looks like BART is still running, day-by-day. They're taking a Dread Pirate Roberts cue, it seems. "Good night. Sleep tight. Most likely kill you in the morning." Oh c'mon. I worked hard to slip in that Princess Bride ref!

AC Transit now plans a strike but looks like the Governor is going after that 60-day cooling off period play.

The mind boggles as to what the Bay Area would have been like had the Federal Government remained shut-down (and defaulted) while both BART and AC Transit went on strike. "Mass hysteria" doesn't come close to fitting that picture.

Sigh.

... almost... there....

I can almost taste the weekend! So... close...

• I think I found someone who can fix my laptop. The money involved is somewhat less than just dropping four bills on a new laptop and cash is tight these days, so I'm going to see if it can be fixed.
• Watched my "Person of Interest" recording. This season lacks the "oomph" of the prior two, but I have to say I enjoyed last night's offering. Good ending. Seems like they're figuring out the balance between the cast.
• You've heard the expression: "a watched pot never boils" (or variations thereof)? I think I have a new one: "Waiting for mail ensure it will never come."
• Pacific Rim is out on DVD! JOY AND HAPPINESS!!!! Must...get...my...copy...
• I'm going to claim my ratatouille cooking experiment was a success. I wound up making a lot, so I've been eating the balance as leftovers over the week. I think I know know how to properly handle eggplant next time I try this. A tasty way to ingest veggies, I suppose.

Reactions: Ep 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Watched "Eye-Spy", episode 4 of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." last night. It was the best of the four thus far, but the series is still feeling tepid, directionless, and bland. In a nutshell, Coulson takes the team after a rogue agent, then shit gets real.

It was a good episode for Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen. They got good scenes and I kind of love their on-screen dynamic. Solid professionals without any contrived sexual tension. Fitz and Simmons are slowly (ever so slowly) growing on me, but I mostly tune them out as banter-engines and technobabble-suppliers at this point. Ward and Skye are fast becoming my least favorite characters and consistently bug me. They should axe both characters and bring in Pascale Armand's character as a replacement. The Skye-Coulson dynamic is also bugging me. It feels too forced and contrived.

I'm really hoping the writers figure out what they're doing and get this series on some kind of interesting course.

Getting Mooned

Rarely have I wished so much to have a dashboard camera as I did this morning.

I rounded a corner to get on to the freeway and bam!

No, it wasn't a collision with a car or anything, thank the FSM. Hanging in the sky, just above the horizon, was the nearly-full moon. It was an amber/yellow color and seemed oddly bigger than normal.

With our normal Indian Summer in full-swing, the air is clear and still this morning. It lent the entire scene a degree of surreality and other-worldliness that has left me a little discombobulated for the balance of my drive in to the office.

Oh well, I'm sure that's an end to it. Nothing weird ever happens around a full moon, right?

A weekend of stuff

Not sure if I can chalk this weekend as a win or not.

The game I ran seems to have gone reasonably well. New player added to my group and he seemed to have meshed well with others. It was a larger group than I'm used to and there was personality stuff going on in the background that could become a bad problem if not addressed... and I don't know how to address it (or if I even want to).

Adding to that was my laptop melting down. The Internet did not have many solid reasons why my laptop had a tendency to freeze up. The best reason I could find was a possible overheating issue, but I don't know how true that is. Certainly it's looking like time for a new laptop. Yeah, 'cause I have that kind of money lying around...

Got my flu shot last week and I think it hosed my immune system a little. That or my allergies are starting to kick my ass more. Having a rough time staying awake and focused today.

Early bedtime for this little camper, that's for sure.

Attempted to make a ratatouille for dinner tonight.

I'm going to start off by saying that one really has to be careful when cooking eggplant. Beyond that, it's not a terribly difficult dish but my first try could have been better. Still, kudos for attempting to eat healthy and all that.

Real life demands more of my attention now and I need to focus... after a nap.

C-double-suck

Watched my recordings of "Arrow" and "The Tomorrow People" from Wednesday.

Ye gods what a couple of turds those were.

"Arrow" just opened to tepid, weak, and badly acted storyline. Not too shocking there, but the action was underwhelming and the antagonists were just plain silly. I hope they improve the stories soon.

"The Tomorrow People" was, if anything, even worse in terms of acting and plot. I'm totally rooting for the villain, the guy who was in "Lost". He's actually somewhat entertaining. The main cast all look like Abercrombie & Fitch models. How disappointing.

Awe inspiring

This girl: I... just... wow. If I had one hundredth of this girl's strength, I would be a thousand percent stronger than I am today. This girl is just amazing. Utterly amazing.

EDIT: Make this girl boss of the world, please.

So glad it's Friday...

FSM what a week.

Busy doesn't cover the half of it.

• Caught up on "Person of Interest". The latest one... not so good. I'm liking the addition of Shaw, but it's coming at the expense of the Finch/Reese dynamic, which was starting to get good. Loving the Root side-story, though.
• I meant to watch my recordings of "Arrow" and "The Tomorrow People" (both of which cannot be anything better than awful), but... time. It's an elusive bugger.
• I think I managed to finally get my PC's booting issue squared away. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.
• I'm really enjoying "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan. Oh, it's cheese, but it's entertaining cheese.
• Oh Facebook. You consistently keep me happy that I deleted my account with you fuckers.

...

The Daily Show
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Laugh. Cry. Laugh. Cry. Drink.

A decline in quality

I watch three broadcast TV shows (other than the news) at the moment:

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Person of Interest
• Sleepy Hollow

I'll probably give "The Tomorrow People" a try tonight, just out of nostalgia for the crappy old ITV series from the '70s and I'll watch "Arrow" when it returns. That said, I freely acknowledge that "Arrow" is pretty bad and I have very low expectations for "The Tomorrow People".

Where I ran into problems was my elevated expectations on two of my current-three viewings.

"Sleepy Hollow" had promise. Headless horseman. A Revolutionary War soldier thrown into the present. Witches. Demons. It was like "Supernatural" only weirder. Then they decided to take everything in the direction of Revelations from the Bible and... just... yeah. It's not working. "Supernatural" did it much better and... just... yeah. Not working at all. "Sleepy Hollow" would have made an outstanding mini-series, but it's already been renewed for a second season. They're... what? Three? Four episodes in? I'm already bored. I may drop this from my list.

That said, I'm liking the nutjob sister character they added. I may give it more of a chance.


"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." aired their third episode last night. I dunno. I just expected more from Team Whedon on this. You have Marvel's rich backstory and mythology coupled with the nearly-limitless storytelling potential of S.H.I.E.L.D. You could dump in Hydra, A.I.M., and countless other nefarious villains. What do they do instead? Ambiguous and forgettable antagonists. A contrived group of pretty-people who fill cliche slots. Stories that are really just very "meh".

Even the pilot, which should have been a crowd-grabber, was surprisingly low-key.

Then there's the forced-feeling "mystery" surrounding the resurrection of Agent Phil Coulson. He's either a clone or a Life Model Decoy (android). As of last night's ep, I'm leaning towards clone and finding myself really not interested in the mystery at all. I'm hoping they leave it a mystery at this point 'cause any explanation they come up with will pretty much suck.

They're toning down the everyday quiet badassitude of Coulson and making him a little more bumbling. I'm not sure I approve. Oh, I like that he's a very mortal everyman, but he's a high-ranking agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Lessening his badass factor is just a bad idea.

Honestly, the only show that's remaining fairly awesome is "Person of Interest" and I read somewhere that their ratings are slipping. FSM knows why.

Time and Place

I don't believe in fate, destiny, predestination, or any of that crap. I believe life is a chaotic series of unordered events to which human beings assign meaning due to some psychological makeup in our wonky grey matter.

That said, I do find my stubborn, cynically-rational worldview challenged from time-to-time.

I find myself often in a weird position, just going from point A to point B where I'm called upon to help out someone.

Sometimes I initiate the interaction. I see someone who is obviously lost, upset, or whatever and try to help out.

Quite often, it's a lost or distressed sort who decides that, for whatever reason, I look trustworthy and asks for my help (in the form of directions or whatever).

I'm not including in this list the scam artists who always open with the same "Excuse me sir, but might you have a few dollars? My car is out of gas just around the corner and my pregnant wife is inside..." blah blah blah, though that happens a lot as well.

I've lost count of the number of folks I've helped get "un-lost" who clearly have English as a second (or third) language. I helped out some tourists who were very lost get to the right train to San Francisco. I'm still not sure what confluence of events got them to where I encountered them in the East Bay.

I'd think I "just have one of those faces", but I know for a fact that I don't. I've been described more than once as looking like a thug, especially in my sunglasses (which may as well be surgically-attached to my face).

The world is a freakin' weird place and I want to thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for making it so. Now if the FSM can just do something about these damn allergies...

The Day of Tues shambles forth

• My PC is still experiencing problems booting up. I think I've got it working now, after countless experiments, but I thought that before...
• Preparing for a game. New players joining. I anticipate chaos and insanity. So, situation normal.
• I think "Sleepy Hollow" is starting to lose me. Good start to a series, but this should really be a mini-series. "Supernatural" has done a better job with this material.
• I'm now convinced that my continued attendance in my martial arts class is proof that I've got some kind of latent masochism going on. Funny, given that I really don't like pain. I must live in an Egyptian river.
• Reading "Raven's Shadow" by Anthony Ryan. Very enjoyable thus far!
• One of my current addictions is a webseries called RWBY. An "anime" created using the Poser 3D animation program. The animation is okay. A little clunky, but the voice actors and story make up for it. And the music... so the creators did four "preview" trailers set to music for the four main characters. Each involved music with vocals by a singer named Casey Lee Williams (who is apparently related to the composer, Jeff Williams). The songs just kick my ass. I've grabbed all the MP3s from Amazon and find myself hooked.
  No, I don't think you need to care about this. I share as a brain-dump.
• Every time I turn on the news now, it's about some kind of meltdown. The U.S. government is shut down (and about to default on its loans) thanks to some right-wing terrorist nutjobs. BART is about to go on strike. Again. I have to say I'm starting to experience a bit of outrage fatigue over this. A bit.

Spitting up brain bits

• Arrrgh! NO! BAD WRONG BAD!
• Allergies. In Autumn. This sucks.
• ... the hell?

And finally:



Seriously.

I think I've heard this one before

Apparently 106 lost episode of "Doctor Who" were "uncovered" in Ethiopia.

I've heard variations on this before. I'll believe it when I see it.

PC go boom

Ever had that heart-sinking moment when your PC won't boot?

I hope not. It kinda sucks.

After a reasonably-panicked hour of startup restore goodness followed by a mad scramble to make sure all my stuff is backed-up, I appear operational for now. And worried...

Bit of a breeze

The wind is crazy strong here. There's tree branches all over the road and windows rattling like a baby's toy.

At least it's Friday.

Thoughts on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I've now seen two episodes of Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.". My reactions:

• I feel a little bit as though I'm watching "Human Target". Humorous moments with hyper-skilled characters against cartoonish shmucks. I kind of like it.
• Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen pretty much make the show. Their understated awesomeness is pretty much keeping me hooked.
• I'm having trouble with the rest of the cast: Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennett, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge. They're all "generic", for lack of a better term. I had this problem in Pacific Rim with the main hero guy and the Australian cliche characters. They all looked the same to me and didn't communicate any kind of unique qualities that imprinted on my mind.
  
  Dalton seems to have some range, but his character is so... bland... that I have trouble remembering what he even looks like.
  
  Bennett looks and like a typical Whedon character. She's a bit like a mix of Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau. She's engaging enough but I'm having the same trouble remembering her character as soon as she's off-screen. There's just been no surprises there.
  
  De Caestecker and Hendstridge are so cliche that I can barely remember what they look like when they're on-screen. Good lord.
  
  Would it have killed ABC to cast someone who doesn't look like a 20-something hipster-model? Just so my brain can imprint who they are...
• I'm liking that ABC is sinking money into this. Getting Samuel Jackson in a cameo was awesome.
• I'll keep watching. I really can't stop. I'm not prepared to claim I like this more than "Person of Interest" but it's beating out "Sleepy Hollow" for entertainment value so far.

Want to understand the Government Shutdown?

Jon Stewart spells this out perfectly:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Seriously. What. The. Fuck? At this point, the Republican Party is pretty much a terrorist organization. Fuckers.

A Marriage Made in R'yleh

ThinkGeek now sells Cthulhu Tiki Mugs.

This is a moment that was meant to be.

Oh, it won't be as awesome as when I got mine from the Kickstarter. I love how Byakhee and Dimensional Shamblers were used to do the actual delivery. I'm a huge fan of how it makes the shadows in my apartment even darker. And I love the odd, eldritch glow that seems to emanate from my refrigerator (though that may be unrelated to the Great Old Ones and simply be due to leftovers).

Ia Ia Mai Tais F'tagn!!!