PMO WFH

The title refers to the code we use in work emails to indicate that we are working from home. This picture was taken at the corner of the office that I work at about 11 am today. When I arrived at 6, the North Creek was in its normal stealth mode.

Here Ducky Ducky

Thanks for making my Day Gizmondo.

Crap on a stick

I have been working on #31 Earn one Xbox 360 Achievement every day for a month since the 5th of November. Which has been quite the pain since I have also been working my ass off. Well last night I went to Brad's to watch the new Futurama movie and forgot to get an achievement when I got home. D'oh!! Now I will have to make another attempt without the massive amount of easy achievements available in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Targeted Marketing is Out of Control

Went to the store to buy some food and was confronted with this:



I know that I was made in 1968 but it seems kind of exclusionary for those born before and since. I guess they must know what they are doing since they got me to buy a copy.

Damn You Internet

Questions I did not want to think about:

What if everybody in the United States flushed the toilet at the same time?

Science is always better with a rubber duck

Project Falcon

I finally made time to build the Millennium Falcon Ultimate Collectors Lego set over the weekend. It was a long tough build. Project scope: 5,194 pieces, 24 pounds, 307 page manual.
After 5 hours on page 58

After 8 hours on page 75

After 12 hours on page 137

After 14.5 hours on page 168

After 16 hours on page 189

After 20 hours on page 252

Complete after 23.5 hours

Different view of finished model

56. See something at the Paramount Theater.

Last night Jim 2.0, Quiana, Jason, Deuce, George, Robin and I went to see Spamalot at the Paramount Theater. It was my first professional play and I was quite impressed.

During the show they sing "Always Look on the Bright Side" from The Life of Brian twice. Anyone that knows the song knows that this is a very catchy tune and I ended up with a very bad case. This morning when I came in to work I was still humming the tune and wanted to get it out, so I started up iTunes and found this waiting for me on Party Shuffle (click to jumbo size).



Thanks Steve Jobs you are not helping me.

Tacos don't hit back but I do.

Taco Bell has a new webgame TacoFu

Lego Mecha-Godzilla

I am going to visit NWBrickcon tomorrow but saw this and wanted to give everyone a preview.

Stop Motion Lego Music Video

28 - Go to one Mariner's game each homestand for a season

Mission Complete!!!

Went to the game that officially eliminated from all playoff possibilities. I have lots of pictures that I will eventually post on my album but I don't have time to drop more than a quick note before heading back to the work grind.

Scott Wisecarver is a Genius

And the fact I said it on the internet makes it true.

One less thing to make fun of Canadians

$1 Cdn = $1 US

I guess I should fell bad for all the Canadians that are paying the Canadian price for comics and such. I guess we will just see lots more Canadian tourist.

Spider-man's an Ass

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

WTF?

Foreign people are weird.

Everything I learned from Jet Lee Movies..

Is true!!!
A Japanese Television Program answers the question if a sword can stop a bullet.


Then asks the same question with a machine gun.

Dear Mariners' Fans

I'm sorry.

I was just looking at the calendar and realized that this collapse that the Mariners are in is quite possible my fault. You see the day that the skid started was the same day that I went from cautiously pessimistic to cautiously optimistic. That was the day I put my money down on 2007 Mariners' Playoff tickets.

I really should have known better. I knew that this team was not as good as they appeared in the standings. I recognize the look of things held together with duct tape and bailing wire. Yet I had to add one more straw on the back of the camel.

Upcoming Video Games?

I get the feeling that the developers have truly run out of ideas.




Or the guy at Something Awful have too much time on their hands.

Godzilla vs The Cat

Not us fun as I hoped.

I sent spam to myself

This morning I had a spam email that the From: address was spoofed as the receiving email address. As with most spam this particular piece was talking about the benefits ED medicine. Well my brain wandered for a moment and imagined a world where we really could send mail to ourselves and our name is not George. Here is how my overworked brain imagined this conversation going:

"Me and myself were watching last night and it appeared I had trouble getting it up."
I replied "Well I would have been better off if you two would shut up for a minute. I need to concentrate to achieve full potency."
"Leave me out of this conversation, he did not send the email. Plus we can't stand it when you talk about yourself in first person!" exclaimed myself.

84 - Seatle Sandfest

Went to the Seattle Sandfest with Quiana and Jason.

This was Jason's favorite:

This was Quiana's:

This was mine:

My favorite part was the little bird on the hat.

More pictures here.

I am even more scared for out future

Microscale Transformers

From MicroBricks

Where do most tigers live?

In the United States it turns out. There are 4,000 tigers residing in captivity in Texas alone, where private ownership of tigers is legal. The number of tigers left in the wild is perhaps no more than 5,100-7,500.

From Marginal Revolution

Breakfast of Champions

So for breakfast, I like to have a pack of Pop-Tarts. My favorites are Brown Sugar and Cinnamon, Frosted Strawberry, and Wild Berry. Wild Berry is not a standard flavor. It is only available with licensed product of the month. This is the latest version of Wild Berry Pop-Tarts:

I fear that I will soon have my sexuality questioned.

Jason Bourne is a Dick

Latest Lego Project

Sunday and Monday night I worked on my latest large Lego project: A 1:300 Eiffel Tower.

It has 3,428 pieces and is really, really big. I have no idea what I am going to do with it.

Achievement Unlocked

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Strange Room

So I have moved to a hotel closer to the airport since I have a 6:05 Eastern time flight and I did not feel like getting up 45 minutes earlier to make the drive into Boston. I was kind of shocked when I opened up my room and found this:

A freaking conference table smack dab in the middle of my hotel room. It makes me want to call a meeting so that it wont go to waste. In all seriousness I have used my hotel room as a work area many times in the past and a big ass table like this would so come in handy.

Update: I was just saying to myself sometime over the last week that I was surprised that hotels had not started putting iPod docks in them. Well low and behold this room has one on the clock radio.

Yes I have seen this..

but thanks for the forward(s) none the less. :)

From the Brothers Brick

The funny thing is that on my first trip to the Netherlands I said at a resort hotel in Zandvoort. It was off season so my recollection is of the very cold wind and not the topless beach.

Happy Birthday Lego

Master carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen started the company on August 10, 1932 in his studio in the town of Billund in Jutland

From Earthtimes

71a - Take a walking tour of Boston

Instead of just taking in one tourist site I decided to take in a bunch by taking a walking tour of Boston.

My day started by going to the start of one of the spurs of the community rail. While this was very convenient, I was kind of surprised at the cost. A round trip ticket was $15.50. The trip in to Boston took about an hour but rail travel is always fun and relaxing. The train ended up in South Station which is also a subway stop. I took the subway to Fenway Park. I must say that the subways of Boston are very confusing. Has I not been following a family that I overheard saying that they were going to the Park, I could have very easily gotten lost. My adventures at Fenway Park are covered here.

After my Fenway Park, I went back to the subway stop and headed to Faneuil Hall.

Faneuil Hall is a very historic location but has been turned into a giant commercial market. It reminded me a lot of Pike Place Market in Seattle but with a giant Cheers Bar.

From there I got a free map and headed towards Paul Revere's home.

My biggest surprise was that his house was 90 years old when he moved in and it was in better shape then parts of Fenway.

From there I walked to The Old North Church.

Fun Fact: The church is still in use as a church.

Outside of the church, there was a band and a float. At this time I had no idea what this was for but I was surprised that they actually had a float with a Saint with money pinned on it.


After the band moved on I headed down the street. Along the way I noticed that I was following a trail:

Turns out it is called the Freedom Trail and goes from historical landmark to historical landmark. I found out more information as I was using the free restrooms at the Freedom Trail Visitor Center. While I was there I checked out the brochures on the rack I discovered what maybe the greatest tourist attraction of time: Codzilla. Yes you read that correctly Codzilla!!!! Well Codzilla was back where I started so I decided to throw out my original plan and head back to One Long Pier.

Before I headed back I thought I should go a bit farther and check out the USS Constitution.

I decided that I did not want to spend an hour waiting to get on the boat so I would just live with pictures from the pier. I was really impressed with museum. They have a book called Six Frigates that I plan on checking out when I get home.

After that I headed back to my starting point. On the way I found out what the float was about.

Turns out it was Saint Agrippina Day and there was an actual Italian street fair.

After checking out the festivities I headed to Codzilla!!!

It was to bad that they broke the boat the day before. I wonder if they had an encounter with a Large Mothra Bass?

On the way back the there was incident on the train where an older lady was having heart issues but did not want emergency service until she got to her stop. Lucky for her the train crew called EMS and they arrived and took her to the hospital before she got any worse.

More pictures of the day here.

99 - Visit Fenway Park

So I am currently in Massachusetts for work. Originally I was scheduled to be there a couple weeks ago. This schedule was pretty firm so I went on-line and purchased a ticket to the July 22nd game between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox in historic Fenway Park.

Of course nothing ever goes as planned and the trip was pushed back a week and a half, the day before I was scheduled to fly. So now I am the proud owner of an unused ticket that I paid $105 dollars for and of course my rescheduled trip ended up during a long road trip for the Red Sox.

Well yesterday I did the next best thing to seeing a game at Fenway Park by taking a tour of Fenway Park.

The picture below is from the same general location as my ticket would have been, except on the first base side instead of the third.

This one shows the seats that I would have been in. According to our guide they are not the original seats but were a part of the renovations in the late 1930s. They are also the smallest seats in baseball.

The condition of the seats bring to mind my overall feelings of the park. It is a rundown poorly maintained and poorly planned facility. While I can forgive the planning because I can tell they are constantly trying to squeeze more seats in to a very small space. But I can't really forgive the walls that do not appear to have been painted in over 20 years or the brick walls that are crumbling or the seats that are falling apart. To get to many parts of the stadium you actually have to walk on the roof. In some places they have put a haphazard array of mats, but there are quite a few places where you are actually walking on just the roofing paper. I really would not have been surprised if I had found places that were just held together by duct tape.

So in conclusion I am sure I would have been more impressed had I actually seen a game, but without thirty thousand others the flaws of the stadium really stand out.

Well anyway here are more pictures.

101 Things in 1001 Days

After a false start last year, I have finally got my 101 list finished and posted. I am breaking "the rules" a bit by adjusting my start time and including items that were completed before the official posting date. I assure anyone reading this is that all of the items that are crossed off would have been on the list had it been posted on April 2, 2007.

The reason I selected April 2nd is that it was the start of the Mariner's baseball season and the first step that is needed for completing thing 28. Over the next couple weeks I will be doing post for all of the completed items.

The items marked with Redo: are things that were on my list the last time I tried to do this mission. I completed the tasks then but felt that since it happened before I officially started I would need to redo the tasks to get credit.

Demolition from the ground up

As found at Gizmodo

When the P&O building was constructed in 1965, each floor was hung from a huge beam at the top of the tower and supported by the central core. According to Matthew White, project director, the weight has to be removed from the structure from the bottom up. "Eventually the beam will be deconstructed at roof level, leaving the core, which will be demolished from the top down."

PS3 Quote of the Quarter

Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation.

From Kotaku

Lego Jones Trailer

Everyone I know fromTennessee has been a dick

From Bits and Pieces

Puzzle Quested

From the Folks at Ctrl+Alt+Del

Apology NOT accepted

Funny Sign

Funny signs are everywhere on the internet. So I guess it is not that big of a deal too add my own picture of on I saw in Everett, WA

An apology to Jim

How to make your own Power Ring from Instructables

Thanks Gizmodo

Steroids Scandal Hits Major League Superheroes

Wired has something to say about Superheroes.

My favorite quote:

All other members of the league, including the Batman, have come out clean in their tests, although it was discovered that what Elongated Man was calling "Gingo juice" is actually 180-proof grain alcohol, and has nothing to do with his powers. He is currently in rehab.

Let us not forget the much needed Green Lantern slam:

"You have to understand here," he said, visibly weary from the ordeal. "The rest of the guys, they're always running and punching and lifting things. They get a workout just by doing their jobs. Me, what do I do? I think. I just hover there and whatever I think of, my power ring does. I may be flying around, but I have the superhero equivalent of a desk job. If I didn't watch my figure, I'd end up putting on so much weight I'd have to change my name to the Green Lighthouse. Given a choice between spending half my time in the gym and actually, you know, saving the world, yeah, I did a few 'roids."

That's right Jim. The entire Paralax saga was because of 'roid rage.

Lebron Etch-a-Scetch

Did Pirates really say Arrr?

Apparently not. Damn you Explainer and you dream shattering.

Mr Potato Head Jumps the Shark

I was OK with Darth Tator

I was OK with Spider Spud

But Optimash Prime just goes to far.