The S is for Shakespeare

From Chris's Invincible Super-blog

Cool Product

This is such an obvious idea. Why is this the first time I am seeing this.

Why Heroes is going to ruin next years TV season.

So if you are reading this then you know that I am a huge fan of sci-fiction and fantasy and I am always excited when a genre show like Lost and Heroes is successful. The problem is that Hollywood is notorious for trying to recreate successes by looking at the surface of show instead of what actually makes it good. What that means is that the 07-08 television series is going to be very heavy on genre shows.

NBC:

Bionic Woman - Remake of the original by 1/2 of the team that recreated Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck from Battlestar is the bad guy in the pilot.

Journeyman - A time travel show staring the Lucius Vorenus from Rome.

Chuck - A nerd gets a spy database downloaded into his head. The second clip is great, Chuck vs a Ninja. Clips were very funny.

Heroes: Origins - A Heroes spin-off that will air while Heroes is on Hiatus. It will be stand alone episodes with none of the main cast.

CBS:

Moonlight - Vampire detective. Link is just to schedule but you can click on the schedule to see a clip. Looks very soapy.

ABC:

Pushing Daisies - A detective that can bring the dead back to life. My favorite of all the clips I saw.

Eli Stone - An attorney that hallucinates. Ally McBeal but with a male lead? George Michael!?!?

Cavemen - Geico Cavemen in a half hour dramedy. May actual be able to talk about race issue without people getting fired.

FOX:

New Amsterdam - An immortal cop in New York. The clips make this show look HORRIBLE.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Terminator spin-off. Can this really work as an on-going series?

The CW:

Reaper - A bounty hunter for the Devil. The pilot was directed by Kevin Smith.

Lady Liberty may be in trouble

I am not one to believe in omens and that might be a good thing. Last month my cleaning women accidentally knock the arm of my micro-scale Statue of Liberty Lego sculpture. Not a big deal easily repaired.
Then a couple of weeks later, I closed my freezer door and the arm fell off of my Master Builders Statue of Liberty Lego sculpture.

As you can see it fell it to a bunch of pieces. So this is going to take a little more time to fix. I will probably even need to find the original instructions.

I am just hoping the trend does not keep up the food chain.

Go to one game in every M's homestand - Take 2 - 2

Still on my Quest to catch one game during each homestand.
April 28th Against the Kansas City Royals. Went with Jason "Duece".


Unfortunately Weaver was pitching for the M's, so the final score was 3-8.

On the plus side it was Rally Towel night.

It was the hottest day so far this year and Felix was pitching so I made a solo trek to Safeco on May 15th (Super Tuesday!) to watch the Los Angeles Angels.

Final Score 11-3

Blog-a-rama

I have been busy at work and not wanting to touch a computer when I got home so I am WAY behind on my blogging. So I have set aside today to get caught up on the Stuff To Say. Let the flow begin...

Top Ten Surprises In The "Heroes" Season Finale

As read by Masi Oka (Hiro) on 5/15/2007 Late Show With David Letterman

10 - One of us gets whacked by Tony Soprano
9 - Show's slogan changed to "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World, Save 15% on Your Car Insurance by Switching to Geico"
8 - Judges go nuts after the pulse-pounding rumba I do with Billy Ray Cyrus
7 - We use our powers to lower gas prices, am I right, people?
6 - Devote entire show to figuring out what the hell is happening on "Lost"
5 - The telepathic cop wins a new car after reading Pat Sajak's mind on "Wheel Of Fortune"
4 - New hero has the ability to reduce acid reflux
3 - I beat the crap out of Spider-Man
2 - The invisible man gets caught sneaking into dressing rooms at J.C. Penney
1 - I use my teleporting powers to bust Paris Hilton out of the slammer

Ego Search

So I found this article on Lifehacker. It is about using a MonitorThis to build an opml file that can be upload in to you RSS Reader. With this opml file you can now monitor a group of RSS feeds that check for new instances of your name in the Interweb. I created one for my name and it found articles on my Uncle Jerome and Rugby player named Chris. Apparently Chris is actually a stud of a Rugby player and will be representing the US in the Rugby World Cup. Yeah I was surprised that there was a Rugby World Cup too.

This is just for people named Jim

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Things to Avoid

Listed in no particular order

1. The Plague
2. Stick in the Eye
3. Spider-man 3

How Many of Me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Apparently 332 people share my last name in the USA.

Update: I just did a little playing around with this site and Jim and George will be sad to learn that they don't live in the United States. I will miss them.

Rant

Do you know what I can not understand...

Chocolate Covered Altoids.

I like chocolate. I like Altoids. But these are not two great tastes that work great together. I feel that chocolate is best chewed and Altoids are best sucked. So when I put a chocolate covered Altoid in my mouth, I want to bite down but I know if I do I will miss out on the curiously strong flavor. Food should not be confusing.

On a side Altoids Note, I discovered that I have three different collector's edition Altoid tins.


From looking on Wikipedia and eBay, it looks like I am missing Strong Man, Devil Pinup Girl (same image but with horns), Abominable Snowman (Rankin and Bass) and Ralphie (A Christmas Story).

Return of the Typing of the Dead

I am so psyched. One of my favorite Dreamcast games has a sequel coming.

Go to one game in every M's homestand - Take 2

So last year I started a do a 101 things in 1001 days list. I never actually got to the point of finishing the list but I still want to do one of the things on the list. And that list is to go to one game in every Mariner's home stand. Last year I made it until the middle of June until a sold out three game home stand against the Chicago White Sox ruined the streak. I did hit a couple of more games but gave up on the list.

Well this year I am making my second attempt:


April 2 against the A's:

As part of a Post Emerald City Celebration, I went to the game with Jim D., George, Jason, Jim H. and Chris. Jason and Keith were there as well but had seat in a different section. Mariners win 4 - 0. After the game we went to 13 Coins for dinner. I had heard many times how amazing it was. I had the ham and cheese omelet. It was good not great but good.
Here is the first pitch.
April 17th against the Twins:

I got tickets for work and went with Jason. The Mariners lost 2 - 11.
Here is the first pitch. As you can see these were amazing seats. I am so hoping to score these tickets again later this season.
This year they are doing a series of bobbleheads and as a promotion of the promotions, they had life-sized versions of the giveaways on display.

Stupid Blogging

I know it has been a week since my last entry but I have been busy and the gods of the computing have stolen my last two post. OK once was me when I accidentally closed my browser before saving the post I was working on but the other time was when my laptop crashed when I had largely finished a redo of the same post.

Well to make up for it you well see an inrush of backed up shitty posts. Consider yourself warned.

Update-a-rama

It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything here. Mainly because I have been doing some heavy duty documentation at work so my desire to spend any more time on a keyboard has not been there. I am currently sitting in my office waiting for my ride to the Mariner's game to get ready, so I though I would spit out some posts.

First in Tech Stuff:

From Gizmodo:

Wi-Fi Fish Tank Lets You Care for Your Goldfish From Afar

Thanks to the magic of technology, soon you won't have to rope one of your friends into feeding your fish when you go on vacation. Mohamad Abou El-Nasr, an assistant professor at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology in Egypt, has developed the Wi-Aquarium, a Wi-Fi–equipped fish tank that allows you to feed your fish, control the lights, filter, and temperature, and even see your fish over the internet using a webcam. It'll even send you an email daily on the status of your precious aquatic friends. Now you'll never have to come home to a floater again — at least not one you weren't ready for because you saw it a few days ago via the webcam feed. –Adam Frucci

Quick update

The con was a ton of fun.

Saw a M's game was also fun.

Got a cold but am feeling better. Will do expanded update later when 100%.

Will leave you with best commercial I have seen in a long while.

Driving Directions

Between Seattle, Washington and London, UK
6,800 Miles and 31 days 4 hours
Step 18 is going to be tough though.

Thanks Google

Good Lordy

Just in case you were wondering 2:45 AM is way to freakin' early to get up. I am setting in the Plant at North Bend waiting for anybody to show up. I was told that I MUST be here by 4:30 if I was going to help with their problem. It is now 4:45 and I have seen no one save the security guard.

It's Back

My 360 is back in my possession. A day later than promised, but a day earlier than expected. Now I just have five hours of work to go before I see if I have a functioning device.

UPDATE: So the 360 is working but now Live is down!!!! I want my Castlevania!!!!

Flying Sharks

I watched the first episode of Planet Earth last night. Sorry about the lameness of the link but Discovery HD does not seem to have a page devoted to the series. I highly recommend anyone with access to a High Definition Television check it out. The episode I watched was called Pole to Pole and featured visuals from the North Pole to the South Pole. It was a week theme for the episode but the visuals were amazing.

• The world's rarest cat: the Amur leopard
• Mating dance of a Bird of Paradise
• The first hunt of African hunting dogs caught on film
• A Great White Shark jumping completely out of the water

The first three episodes aired last Sunday but are being replayed in heavy rotation. The next three episodes are scheduled for this Sunday.

Now that is what Willis was talkin' about!!!

Much spoilage on the season 3 finale of Battlestar Galactica. Consider yourself warned.

So Saul Tigh, Samuel Anders, Galen Tyrol, and Tory Foster are Cylons. I am not sure if the characters know they are Cylons or if the just suspect they are Cylons. Since the show has set up some Mystical Mumbo Jumbo in the past, it could be that is the actual reasoning behind the music and the meeting. Then again the people the have experienced the MMJ, has been Tyrol and Thrace. And since Thrace just returned from a certain "death", she could be the last Cylon model so all of the MMJ could just be programming.

Having these four be Cylons does bring up some interesting stuff:

• The three main leaders of the Cylon occupation of New Caprica were all Cylons.
• Hera is not the only Human-Cylon hybrid.
• There have been human models alot longer then expected, if Tigh has been in the service for 40 years. It is my understanding the Cylons were just created 50 years ago.
• Did Tory leave Hera for the Cylons on New Caprica on purpose?
• Are Cylons attracted to each other? Tyrol/Boomer, Sam/Starbuck?, Sam/Tory
• 20% (or more) of the Cylon models were on a ship scheduled to be decommissioned when the attack on the colony happened.
  

Lee finally gets a back bone and has probably his best scene of the entire show, but in doing so airs a bunch of dirty laundry to the fleet. Now that the legal system is up again do you see a civil suit for all the "forgiven" shit that has gone down?

To the surprise of no one, Starbuck returns. Does this mean that she is a Cylon? Only the creators no for now I guess :( I was really hoping that she would have been wearing a white version of her uniform. If there are any fans of the original series reading this they know what I'm talking about.

UPDATE: Ronald says they are!

Finally a compelling reason to own a PS3

Sony just released a new firmware update and new new free application. The free application is called Folding @ Home. It is a distributing computer application that is being used to sequence DNA to look for a cure for Alzheimer. Well according to Gizmodo, adding the idle PS3's to the mix has tripled the available processor cycles and that is with just 14,000 units online.

A good idea?

Today's Onion Radio News has a story about a "New Bill Will Send Illegal Immigrants To Iraq". I know this was posted as a joke but why is this a bad idea? Why not have a new path opened up to US citizenship for any qualified candidate that signs up for four years of military service. I would keep the existing paths to citizenship, and would just use this as an alternate path. I know this is not a new idea, since it was used as the motivation to join the service in Starship Troopers.

How we Wii

Popular Science has an article on how the Wii Remote works. Nothing ground breaking but still cool.

Long week

The stupid pink flowering trees are flowering again. So my allergies are acting up.

I was at the plant in North Bend until 7 PM on Monday. Went to help my mom with some computer problems in The Dalles on Tuesday. And I had to be back for a 9 AM for a meeting on Wednesday. Tomorrow I get to fly to Spokane for a project kickoff. The original plan was to drive to Spokane, so at least I am spared the ordeal of that 10 hour round trip car ride. Friday I get to try and squeeze 5 days of work into 1 day.

On my trip to The Dalles, I listened to "The Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell". It is a very unusual book. It relies heavily on quantum physics as both the narrative topic and the narrative force. The majority of the book seems to just ramble on and on about things that just seem to mean nothing. There is a point in the book were they spent 15+ minutes discussing the creation of a new drink...

Flaming Rum Monkey

Put a teaspoon of brown sugar, a sprinkling of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and a teaspoon of coconut syrup (the kind used in pina coladas) in a warm mug. Add a little boiling water--just enough to dissolve the sugar. Let the mixture steep for a minute. Pour in two ounces of dark Jamaican rum and one ounce of dark creme de cacao. Fill the mug with boiling water and stir.

Now for the flames! Put a pinch of brown sugar in a big spoon. Fill the spoon with 151 rum. To warm the rum, hold the spoon over the mug filled with hot water.

Light the rum in the spoon. Tip the spoon into the mug. The mixture in the mug will burn with a lovely blue flame.

Don't singe your eyebrows. Don't burn your tongue. Blow out the flames and try a sip of your Rum Monkey. Hot, sweet, and touched with coconut. Enjoy your Rum Monkey and dream of possibilities.

So the thing is the real author of the book is a minor character in the book. The book itself is about an author that is being pursued on a luxury liner by two of his pen names come to life. Kind of weird huh.

Hockey Night in Canada

This Saturday the gang and I went to see a hockey game in Vancouver. It was the Canucks vs the Red Wings. Since there were eight of us we decided a road trip was in order. And to make this a proper road trip, we even had a "it's just rental" moment. The hotel had an underground garage for us to park in. The height level of the garage was 6 feet 5 inches. The problem is the van was 6 feet 6 inches. Jim managed to scraped the top of the van. It was a white van so the scraped off paint did not show up, so returning the van should not be an issue.

We walked around downtown Vancouver in the rain. Had a great time, ate at a Greek restaurant for Liner (or is that Dunch). We stopped at this strange underground mall on the way back to the hotel. It was in the process of being remodeled, but was still pretty upscale. It was also pretty much all below street level.


As you can see, we had OK seats. The view was good but kind of high up. This picture was taken during the the player warm-up.

While this one was take during the first period.

Everybody loves the Zamboni. Not sure why, but they do. There is scientific studies that prove it. I'm sure that it was good old American grant money that was spent studying things that everyone knows.

Something I was not prepared for - Flying Killer Whale!!! I saw Orca, those thing are scary. And now they can fly and drop movie passes to "Blades of Steel"
The crowd was fairly rowdy. There was an problem during the second period when someone above us was throwing things at two Red Wing fans that were below us. Even after they were asked to stop the throwing continued, so they through a beer at the loudest group of fans. These fans of course returned the favor. This beer was not as thrown as well and managed to get some on us. There was a shouting match that ended up with ejections on both sides. The problem was that they apparently did not take the tickets of ejected parties because the Canucks fans were back by the third period laughing about the security. Thankfully no beer more beer was flying the rest of the game.

The final score of the game was 4-1 Canucks. The Red Wings fans among us felt this was because the Red Wings were sitting all of their stars so the they would be rested for upcoming conference games. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that the Canucks took them to school.

After the game, we went back to the hotel and ordered pizza and pasta. We took the food up the activity room were we could all comfortably hang.

I may not have mentioned that Saturday was St. Patrick's Day. Jim (2.0) has on his 101 in 1001 day list to drink a green beer on St. Patrick's Day. So the Jims, Jason (Duece) and I went looking for some green beer. On our way we found the results of a pretty spectacular accident. Unfortunately my pictures did not turn out so you will have to deal with my less than thousand word description. Basically a white SUV crashed in to a parked black SUV and then continued on in to a shop window. The black SUV was hit so hard that it pivoted 90 degrees.

I was very impressed at the crowds at the bars and pubs in downtown Vancouver. It made sense that all of the Irish pubs would have a long wait to get in, but all of the bars seemed to have a 30 minute wait to get in. Well at least for us normal folk. We did see a professionally dressed lady spit and slap in the face of a bouncer.

We basically gave up on finding the beer and were heading back when we found an off the beaten path bar, that was closing in 30 minutes but it did have green beer.

As you can tell Jim likes to bogart the alcohol.

Jim did get his green beer. I never did get a good explanation for why he had a crayon behind his ear. I am thinking he is hoping that we would eat at another restaurant with paper on the table like the Greek restaurant we had Linner at.

Happy Pi Day George

Yesterday was George's Birthday. Since he is the kind of person that would not volunteer that kind of information, I thought I would let the world know.

Well at least our small part of the world know.

I was a little disappointed that he did not remain clueless very long. About 20 minutes after putting up the sign, someone comes in and points at the sign and says "Which George?" Way to not follow directions. These are the kinds of people that make us have warning labels that say thinks like "Do not iron clothes while wearing them."

RSS Reader showdown

A couple of months ago, I was talking about my love of bloglines and how it had transformed my websurfing in the same way that Tivo had changed my TV watching. Well I was bored on a job site waiting for someone else to catch up to me so I decided to check out Google Reader again. I liked what I saw the first time I checked it out, but every time I would go and check out the new messages on a feed it would display all of the messages not just the new ones. After so tinkering, I found the "show only new message toggle" which made it a much more pleasurable experience.

Things I liked:
- Post's original formating is kept intact. Bloglines tends to show all html code as if you are viewing it with Notepad. After all formatting is for fancy ass programs like Word.
- Embedded videos actually show up. Not only do they not show up in Bloglines there is no indication they are even in the original post.
- Able to go to next post/page by pressing the space bar. Makes lunch time reading more convenient.
- Able to star articles that I find interesting so that I can come back and look at them latter.

Things I hate:
- VERY SLOW update time on some feeds. I first noticed this when I was asked about a post on a feed I read. I knew I was up to date, so I went to the originating site and saw many posts that I had not seen. I then checked Bloglines and saw that it too showed the post in question. Then on Saturday, I was doing a comment check run through the blogs kept by people I know and noticed that Technogreek had added a post 5 + hours ago and I had not seen squat. After some searching on-line and my own massive experience I think that they way Google looks at feeds is based on how many people are subscribed to the feed. I am guessing this because the feeds that are popular are the ones that seem to have quick updates, but my friend's feed seem to be dog slow.
- Unable to publish a list of my feeds. I am able to publish articles that I think are interesting which is kind of cool.

I had made up my mind to go back to Bloglines, but in the process of doing so I managed to delete all of my feeds. PEBCAK. So for right now I am going to stick with using both of them for right now, with Google Reader being used for the major sites and Bloglines being used for the friend sites.

I somehow doubt I will mention if I make a change again :)

UPDATE: So I am still liking Google Reader, but I liked to have my feeds listed. So I figured out how to export my Google Reader feeds and re-import to Bloglines. So you can once again check out my 88+ feeds here.

Red Ring O' Death

I decided I wanted to play a little 360 last night. Only 2.0 was online, but when I went to look at his gamer score the screen when blank. When I restarted the machine it came up with the "Red Ring of Death" I was tired and kind of pissed so I did not want to deal, so I left the research into what to do next until today. I found this site that looks helpful.

Travel Adventures

I finished up in LA quicker than my planed Wednesday departure, so I decided to try and get out of town earlier. Before making a final decision I checked the Alaska Air Website and discovered that there were seats available on all of the afternoon flights out of LAX. If you have ever flown out of LAX to Seattle, you may have noticed that there is a flight an hour between 3 PM and 10 PM, so I felt my chances of getting home on Standby were pretty good.

Little did I know the 11:30 AM flight was going to be canceled due to mechanical difficulties. Because of this standby was not going to be an option. So when I arrived at the airport at 1 PM, I was forced to pay a change fee to get a seat on the 5:30 flight. I was only able to do this much because of my MVP status with Alaska Air. Without this I would have had to get tickets on the 8:30 PM flight.

Well I found a quiet little corner of the airport and played a little Final Fantasy III on the DS while I listening to Stephen King's Cell on my iPod. After a bit I noticed that my battery was running out on the DS, so I went hunting for an outlet. While looking to find an unused outlet I noticed that my 5:30 flight had now been delayed until 7:00. I decided to play it safe and check with customer service. They told me that the plane was having mechanical problems in Seattle and had not even left yet. He put me on the Standby list for the 7:20 flight because there was no way I was going to get on the 6:40 flight.

So at 7:00 PM I am waiting for them to call my name off the standby list when I notice that there is no plane at the gate. Since they are supposed to be boarding this is not a good sign. It turns out this was supposed to be the second flight out for the plane that was canceled this morning. The good news was the plane was fixed. The bad news was they were having problems getting the plane moved to the gate. At about 8 PM they call out a bunch of names off the standby list. Mine was not on the list. So I am hovering by the desk waiting for the next batch when I here my name over the PA telling me to go to gate 33B for a seat assignment. I push myself through the crowd at 32, to stand in line at 33B. After about 10 minutes I get to the front of the line and they have no idea why they would have paged me to go to that desk since they were going to Vancouver, she suggested I try gate 34 since it was going to Seattle. This was of course the 8:30 flight that I would have gotten tickets on if I had not been an MVP.

I get over there when I over hear them say to grab the next names off the standby list since no one showed up. I quickly speak up that I had gone to Gate 33B like the message had said. She turns around and looks where she was and says "Opps". So I did get a seat on the plane. It was a middle seat... Next to a crying infant... Whose mother did not speak English and did not understand that the area underneath the seat in front of me was for MY carry-on luggage... Next to a smelly old lady... That had never learned that if I have my headphones on it is because I don't want to talk about your vegetable garden...

Well I made it home without killing anyone. I even had 35 minutes to spare until being forced to say that I came home on Tuesday.

Welcome to the 300 Club

Went to see 300 today and it was freakin' awesome!!!

Before I get in to the details of the movie, I wanted to talk about the journey that I took to get to see the film. It was not quite up to Homer's scope but it was at least mildly entertaining. Well at least to me. :)

Last Saturday, George mentioned that the Stop had gotten in passes to see a sneak preview of 300 on Tuesday and were we interested in having them. The answer was of course not yes but Hell Yes! With passes in hand I sent out the call to arms and it was answered by six of the usual suspects.

The original plan was that Jim D. was going to me me at my place at 4:45 from there we were going to pick up Beau and Mary Anne at 5:15 and Quiana at 5:30 and meeting Dawn and Jason at the theater at 6. As always plans never survive the battlefield.

You see I had scheduled to sign the papers on my refinance on Tuesday as well but that was at 10 AM. When I got in the morning, I found out that I need to go down to Boeing Auburn and that I needed to be there before 11. There was no way I was going to get both done, so I called the Title Company and asked to reschedule. At first they only had 4:30 available, but I would not have been able to meet up with Jim in time to get the 300 train on the track. luckily they called back and were able to schedule a 3 PM signing. While I was there Jim called and asked if I would be able to start a bit earlier, since he needed to stop at the Stop on the way. Since I had left work early anyway it was easy for me to meet him at 4:15. Well the stop at the Stop was much quicker then expected so we were at Beau's at 4:45 and Quiana's at 5. We took much shit from everyone for being early.

We arrived at Pacific Place at at about 5:20 and at that time the line wound around the top of the atrium. Well to make a long story shorter, after an hour plus wait we were about 15 people short for getting in. The evening was not a total waste because Jason took us all out to the Dragonfly (an aSian restaurant). Thanks again Jason.

So the moral of this overly long story is that if we had arrived when we were scheduled to we would not have even been allowed in the line since it had been capped by the management by that time. We still would not have seen the movie but we would have missed out on all the line enforced bonding.

While I was waiting for the non-movie, I had finally received word that the long planned but unfunded trip to LA was actually going to happen. So I knew I was not going to be able to see the movie with the regular gang. But since I was going to be a short two hours from San Diego, I figured that I would try and see the flick with Drew and Stacy. This of course meant that I was going to have to get two days of work done in one, but I was game. To do this I stayed late on Friday and went in early on Saturday. I was able to get everything I needed to get done but not all I wanted to. I got up early this morning and headed to SD. It was actually earlier then I like since this was the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. I got to see Drew and Stacy's house. It was nice.

Now the movie...

Last weekend I pulled the issues of 300 out of the comic boxes since I had not read them since the original issue had come out. Because of this I was able to notice some of the changed and missing elements of the story. The biggest change was addition of the subplot of the wife and "McNulty". I am not fond of this addition because it takes away from the narrative of having the last Spartan telling the story of the last stand since he was not there he should not know what happened. Then again how did the narrator know what happened after he left? I guess I should not look too deep. And that end credit sequence was cool. Frank Miller's art made 3D and brought to life.

To blog or not to blog

I had the need to go back and look for a link that I knew that I had blogged in the past. In the process of this, I realized that I kind of liked having a historic record of what I was doing and when I was doing. So even though I never seem to have time that I want to spend on this endeavor, for the sake of future generations I feel that I must...

OK the real reason I am going to start blogging more is that I have been working on a personal improvement project. For years I have been a pretty fair hunt and peck typer. Well I have been using a copy of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 17 for a couple weeks and now find my self needing more practice. While I use a computer at work, my job does not require me to do much real typing since most of the programing I do is mouse driven. So let this be my first official non-hunt and peck blog post.

What are the odds of that?

Interesting factoid from the Sci-Am Podcast:

If you drive 10 miles to pick up a lotto ticket, you are 12 times more likely to die in an auto accident then you are to win the jackpot...

Now you know why I always buy 12 tickets.

Water to Snow

This is Freakin cool.

This footage was shot at Mount Washington Observatory on March 6, 2007. Water was boiled to a temperature of approx. 200F and then thrown into the air which was at -35F. This turned it to snow instantly. The video has shots in real time and shots in infrared to show the water leaving the objects hot then dissipating in the cold air without touching the ground. Mount Washington Observatory is a nonprofit, member supported organization. For more information visit: www.mountwashington.org

Necco Sweethearts

I just finished my last box of Valentine's Day candy. I think just I shed a little tear.

Is The Lake House so bad it's cool?

I have not actually seen the Lake House, although I do have a small desire to see it since it apparently has something to do with time travel and I am such a mark for time travel movies. Though I have not actually seen the movie, I am under the impression that it blow quite large chucks. The thing that is weird is that I just watched two different TV shows back to back (The Class and Gilmore Girls), that referenced The Lake House as a bad movie that you can't turn away from.

Mariners go all the way?

Back in 2001, I stayed in a Reno Casino as the kick off of a major project. While I was there I put down 20 bucks on the Mariners to win the world series. Upon my return, I placed the betting slip on my cork board where it has remained untouched by all save time.



As many of you know 2001 was the year the the M's went on to win 112 games and then collapse in the playoffs. Well I have always held the belief that the reason they did so well was because I had money ridding on them.

Well this year I had reason to re-visit the same large project during Spring Training, so I put down another 20 bucks to win. I realize that I am taking a risk in switching Casinos, but the Peppermill was were I was staying this time and I could just as easily be that the luck comes in staying at the betting hotel.


One side note: in 2001 the odds were 20 to 1 and the beginning of the season. This year the odds are 50 to 1. I am going to make a huge profit on this deal.

More Lego Greatness

The latest Ultimate Collectors Series has been announced. This is Lego's third try at a Millennium Falcon and looks to be the best. At 5,195 pieces, it is also the new record holder for the largest set. I of course placed my pre-order this morning.

Just in case you were curious because I know I was here is a list of the top 5 Lego sets based on piece count:

1. UCS Millennium Falcon - 5,195
2. UCS Death Star II - 3,441
3. USC Imperial Star Destroyer - 3,104
4. Statue of Liberty - 2,882
5. Lego Factory - Skyline - 2,747

And yes I have them all... As a matter of fact they are all still put together.

The Science of Gojira

Not that anyone reads this infrequently updated site anymore... Time to face reality: Not that anyone has ever read this site, I found this cool article on Godzilla that I wanted to share. From what I can tell it is a true science blog that is dipping it's toes into the made up world of Kaiju-biology.

While I am on the subject of Godzilla...

It is the Reece's Peanut Butter Cup of my loves: Lego and Godzilla!!! I do wish I had the time and skill to do thing like this. More pictures here, but be warned the site is in Japanese, it is not your eye sight going bad.

D'ohnuts

Simpson's Donut Maker from Gizmondo

I would think these are more donut shaped waffles rather than true donuts. I think there needs to be hot oil involved in the manufacture of donuts.

Blogging about Bloglines

About 6 months ago I started using Bloglines as an RSS feed accumulator. What this means in lame speak is that it looks at all of the RSS Feeds of all of my selected websites and looks for updates and then displays only the updated information. Well I was playing around and discovered that I could publish my Blogline subscriptions. So without further ado my subscriptions.

Itsa Mii

Added a picture to my blog profile finally. It is of course not really me but mii. This is not an official mii but was instead created with the Mii Generator from Joystiq. It is a cool tool but is missing some of the customization of true miis. Most noticeably the lack of eye color.

A Song of Fire and Ice on HBO

'Nuff Said

Best of CES

I have been scouring the gadget sites to bring you The Best from CES:

1) Phone Condoms



See Gizmodo for more.

Fun Advent Calender

Nintendo of Europe has a fun Advent Calendar online

It is Super Mario Brothers, but with a Snowman as your avatar. For each day that you complete, you get ringtones and wallpapers based on Nintendo games that you can download.

XNA Party

I went to the Microsoft XNA release party last night. XNA is a plug-in for Visual Studios that simplifies the programming of games for the X-box 360. Microsoft's goal is to add a shot in the arm for the home brew crew. Most of the time was spent watching some of the developers showing some sample code which was cool, but the sound system blew so I could not hear much of what they were saying.

They also had some of the games that were made by during the Beta testing of XNA. My favorite was a four player Asteroids rip-off. It was very pretty and fast paced.

There was no swag, but they did give away some raffle prizes. 527604 got a four month subscription to XNA Creator's Club. 527606 got a Premium X-Box 360. I was of course 527605. Bet you wish you had come now Ian/Jim.

Wii came Wii Saw Wii had fun

Spent last night playing Wii with the gang. Spent most of the night playing Trauma Center: Second Edition.
It is a fun game that really ratchets up the difficulty level. I was checking out the gamefaq when I saw this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ending
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam: "As it is written in Revelations 9:6. 'During those days men will seek
death, but will not find it -- they will long to die, but death will elude
them.' Just as the prophecy states, I have set a plague upon mankind to torment
those who have betrayed natural law. ...At the end of all life, I alone will
stand as an angel before the gaping abyss... I, who have become the great
destroyer Apollyon! ...Your medicine is deceit, and you are nothing but a false
prophet..."

"Derek Stiles and Naomi Kimishima overcame Adam's ordeals and triumphed over
GUILT. But, what does the future hold for these two gifted surgeons...?"

"Congratulations! You've completed the most difficult surgeries ever devised.
However, remember that you're not actually a doctor, so you shouldn't perform
surgery in real life. ...Unless, of course, you are a doctor. In which case,
we would advise you not to tell your patients how many tries it took you to
complete a game about surgery."

The Ultimate Rejection Letter

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I
regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me
an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually
large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field
of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at
this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor
in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

This was "stolen" from here, but in reality he stole it from me since that is how I got my last two jobs.

Animation vs Animator

Return of Me

It is been a while but I have returned.... At least for today.

I am typing this a Lynnwood Honda. I can't believe I am back after the shit from last time but I am all about the momentum.

Anyway the thing that made me post today happened here in the waiting room. When I arrived there was a lady talking alone in the room. My assumption was that she was talking on a cell phone. I really wasn't paying attention but it sounded like she was talking to her daughter. Well it turns out she was NOT talking on a cell phone she was talking to a ghost. I found this out when she was explaining this to the police officer that arrived to take her away.

There are sometimes bothers me that I don't notice what is going around me.

Hurricane Paul

I hope I don't kill anyone.

I find your lack of pants disturbing.

Top 176 Star Wars Lines Improved By Replacing A Word With "Pants"

Lego Batman gets a place to hang out.

I have been really busy lately but thought I would share this when I saw this:



More here.

The Secrets Behind the Numbers on Lost

This summer the Producers of Lost have been running an On-Line Information Hunt. Well the game is over and this video is the results.



Kind of interesting, but disappointing as well since it really answers little. For more information go to the Lost Experience.

Cool Video

We used to have one of these in Billings when I was growing up. I even got to go up in the American Mud balloon a couple of times.

Just Four Words

LEGO Batman Video Game

'Nuff Said

TiVo is from Aliens

Funny but not 4 minute funny

Best Movie of the Year

Went and saw a movie last night and it RULED. You should all drop everything and run out and see Little Miss Sunshine

It is a comedy but it is a independent movie comedy not a Hollywood comedy. I have not laughed out loud so much in forever. This movie is a must buy when it comes out on DVD.

10 Freakin' Years

So on last Thursday, the company that I work for celebrated my tenth anniversary. My actual anniversary was on the 22nd, but I am not complaining. So as part of the celebration they gave me a cool plaque
and an X-box 360. I have been totally digging the 360. So far I have purchased Dead Rising and downloaded Geometry Wars: Evolved and a bunch of game demos. Here is my x-bow 360 gamers tag if you are interested.




One of the cool things about the X-box 360 is Achievements. If you look at the line with the G in the circle you will see my Achievement points, these are earned by doing different tasks in the games you play. It adds a new level to games when you have new goals to meet.

Link Blogging about Lock Bumping

This Article from Engadget is fascinating. I simultaneously want to run out and change my locks and to get one of those "bump keys" so that I can try it.

You Will Believe In Magic

P33 vs Wii

I know everyone is linking to this but...

One Humdinger of a Story

This is a long one so you may want to go to the restroom first...

It's OK I'll wait...

I hope you washed your hands.

So about 6 months ago the SRS light came on in my Honda. I looked it up and discovered it was the Supplementary Restraint System light and since I will never die, I knew it could wait until my next tune up. So fast forward 4 months until the Service Engine Light comes on. BTW I like the light system, it make me so lazy. I wish I could get a navigation system to tie into the turning signals so that I could just follow the lights. But anyway I went in to the Dealer where I bought my car, and got my service done. It turns out the light was because the seat built had a faulty sensor. Unfortunately they did not stock the part so they would need to order. I told them I was going to be traveling a BUNCH over the next few months so that it would be difficult to get our schedules to match. Well after 3 + weeks I was finally able to make an apointment that worked with my schedule, so I went in at 1 pm to get this work done. Since the work was only supposed to take an hour or so I decided to wait in the waiting area. And wait is what I did... Two hours later my service dude comes to get he tells me there was a problem with the part and I would have to come back. As I was getting in the car I asked what the problem was and he told me that the part had been sent back to the factory!!!! Now had they told me this after I had been there after 15 minutes, I would not have been upset since mistakes happen, but after 2 hours!!!!

So last week I got a call from the research firm that Honda uses to figure out how they are doing and I laid in to them. I don't think I gave them higher than a two and my score was so low that they wanted me to complete a more detailed survey to get to the root of the problem. In the spirit of honesty I guess I should mention that I was waiting at the airport and that my flight had been delayed an hour, so I was already not in a happy place.

Jumping ahead to the present. I got a call from Glenn at the dealer and they have my part. Since I have short timer's, what with my trip the San Diego Comic Con starting tomorrow, I adjusted my schedule so that I could drop it if. In compensation for the inconveniences they offered a rental car for the day and a detailing of my car at a latter date.

Now that the back ground is done, I can now get to the punchline :)

So the dealer uses Enterprise as their loaner car program, and when I went in to the office there are two hotties and one guy. So as par for the course I ended up getting a Hummer from the guy and not one of the hotties. Sometime life is just not fair.

BTW I am not at all impressed with the H3. While it drives OK, it seams really small inside but still too large for any sort of normal parking.

Someone has moved Lynnwood

I was driving to Work from Lynnwood, but that is another story that I may share if I can find the time, when I noticed that my old apartment went Condo. I will know quote from Website since it is not easy to link to:

Life at WildWood Townhomes is picture perfect. Come visit our Sales Gallery and model home!

Situated in one of America’s most desirable, thriving communities, life at WildWood Townhomes has everything you’re looking for! These spacious, well-appointed, and affordable homes are set against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, sparkling water, and spectacular sunsets. WildWood Townhomes is ideal: a peaceful place you can call home.

This ideal location is convenient to work, the University of Washington, to SeaTac International Airport and beyond. Vancouver BC is only a short drive away. And nearby ferry service carries you quickly to the Olympic peninsula. WildWood Townhomes is located just 15 miles north of downtown Seattle, known worldwide for its natural beauty, cultural diversity, vitality and innovation. From the historic Pike Place Market on Elliot Bay, to cutting edge art galleries and museums, and state-of-the-art professional sports stadiums, Seattle is the cosmopolitan hub of the Northwest. Easy access to mountain biking, sailing, hiking, and skiing completes the picture of the active lifestyle awaiting you at

WildWood Townhomes.

On the quieter side, enjoy a dip in the private swimming pool. Relax in the Jacuzzi. Entertain friends in the club house. Or, stretch your legs in the on-site fitness center and serene nature preserve. WildWood Townhomes delivers comfort, convenience and provides a quiet refuge from the world outside. And with the region’s premier shopping, dining and movie-going experience (Alderwood Mall) only minutes away, life at WildWood Townhomes has it all.

The only thing missing is you.

The funniest thing for me is the fact that they are convenient to Sea-Tac Airport. I am not sure if this company has every been to this sight because travel to Sea-Tac Airport is NOT convenient at all.

I am glad that this did not happen when I was still there because I would have bought my unit with very little thought. I guess I would not of been sad, but even with the Pending Litigation on my current place I am very happy with the move.

Now this is Just Plain Wrong

I will never look at "The Hoff" the same way.

So I've been busy

I have not been updating so sue me :)

The real reason is that a couple of months ago I joined eHarmony, and I have been seeing someone that I met there for a couple of weeks. Her name is Casey and she is 30 years old and lives in West Seattle. So far we have been having a great time and I can only hope it continues.

One of the cool things we did was on the 4th we went to Alki Beach and watched the fireworks. It is really cool place to watch the fireworks because you can see two different shows. We could see both the Forth of Jul-Ivars show and the WaMu Family Forth over Lake Union. While the Ivars's show was closer the WaMu show was much cooler. They had fireworks that made Smilies, Hearts and even Cubes. I wish I had thought to bring my camera :)

The Pilots are 1-0 in 2006

Went to a Seattle Pilots game this weekend. Actually it was a Turn Back the Clock Game for the Seattle Mariners.
Here is the 1st pitch to Ichiro.
Hard to see but a closer picture of the uniforms.
They put all kinds of little touches on stadium to show that it was a Pilot game instead of a Mariners game.
Check it out the Pilots beat the Tigers 3-2. Go Pilots!!!

Futball

Went to a Soccer game with Beau, Maryanne, 2.0, Jason and George.

The Sounders were beaten by Club America. Club America (in Yellow) is from the Mexican League.

While I was not very excited by the game it was kind of cool to be surrounded by people in love with the game. So that was a cool feeling. You can see in the below picture the fun that they were having.

Yet Another Template

I don't like as well as the last but I can read it...

May not last long

The Scary Thing is he is Better Than Me