In which I conspiritize

So, did you all hear about the hundreds of people who reportedly saw a giant UFO in Texas? I found the story interesting because of how many people reported seeing it and how the air force denied it had anything going on in the area. People described it as a huge thing, "bigger than a walmart" that was rapidly changing speeds. Now the Air Force is saying that, oops, we did have fighter jets in the area and that's probably what everyone saw. However, several of the witnesses know the difference between fighter jets and . . . other things and claim that they are sure that jets are not what they saw.

I guess the only reason I'm commenting on this is that this is the first UFO story that I actually think could be stranger than air force training exercises or media hype. It surprises me a little that I so quickly bought into this story (granted the governments response seems almost designed to provoke suspicion) because rationally I don't really think aliens would be visiting this planet nor do I think the air force is secretly advanced enough to have sci-fi space ships. However, it is probably true that I WANT either of those possibilities to be true.

In any case, it leaves me with a lingering question: What the hell were aliens/air force experiments doing coasting over texas? Looking for a souvenir store where they could buy a ten-gallon hat?

bonus Lily Allen

The song that introduced me to her music (by way of Australia)

Unsurprising

Those who know me well will be unsurprised to learn that I am playing this song to death now. It's so oddly cheerful and catchy I can't stop playing it. So I pass the demon on to you as a curative for me.

You're welcome.

Unprepared

So it ended up Christmas eve that I needed tortillas. Apparently. So I went out hunting at about 10pm, hoping something was still open. Nothing was, of course, and the convenience stores don't carry tortillas so I ended up out of luck. Which was okay in the end, but what's funny to me about the whole thing is how many OTHER people there were floating around looking for open grocery stores as well. In the time it would take me to drive into a grocery store parking lot and determine if it was open or not, 4 or 5 other cars would do the same. At EVERY store I tried, there were 4 or 5 other people doing the same thing. There wasn't much traffic on the road and I like to imagine that the only people out that night were a legion of poor planners, still hoping to find a store magically open for them in some sort of Christmas Miracle.

WoW Navel Gazing

My latest thought about Wow over the weekend was: "World of Warcraft is where people go to hide from the rest of the world." I think this is largely true*. In World of Warcraft you can feel useful and do things to help people and feel popular, regardless of how shitty your life is going. Because in an online game, when I help someone with a quest that they can't do alone, I feel like I'm contributing and useful even though the thing I'm actually helping someone with has no real value. But still, I feel like I've helped, and they feel happy to have been helped and that I think acts as an emotional salve if you don't feel like you contribute much or are helped much in the real world. Of course, this is only true in an MMOG where the person in question is real and breathing behind another computer somewhere else and not an NPC. None of this is really to chastise the people to play, but only really to admit to myself why I play the game and why I think other people do as well. It's largely because my life IS kind of shitty at the moment, and WoW is the place I escape to while I wait for some things to play out or (worse) when I can't make the hard decisions I need to and so avoid them.

Of course, the positive aspect of this, is that I am playing with real people. Usually your encounters with players are friendly, but shallow and brief. You might chat a little amiably, but mostly it's strategy and game-play focused. But, in the last month or so (after like 2 years of playing this game) I have formed a genuine friendship with two guys who live in Australia.

In Reno, I have completely failed to find local friends I can hang out with a few nights a week. While the co-authors of this blog are my dearest friends (at least from my perspective), I only catch up with a couple of you every few months, one of you weekly, and the other about twice a week. Of course, if we were all in the same town, I have no doubt we would see each other more often. Maybe only once a week as marriages and now children allow, but it would happen. Of course, life being life, we don't live in the same town, we are spread out all over the western U.S. and while we still keep in contact, we all have formed local networks of friends that we can count on and hang out with. That is, except for me. Now I hasten to add that I'm not going for a big pity party here. I'm just in full-on navel gazing mode and I'm trying to analyze why my life is the way it is and what I'm going to do about it. Also let me hasten to add that I do have some friends locally (and this sentence is for them if they have pierced the anonymous veil around this blog) and while I do honestly like each and every one of them, I don't really interact them much outside of work. But I've discovered that part of what I need to not go crazy is local friends that I can hang out with weekly, few times a week whatever. Go out and eat dinner, watch a movie, play guitar hero, whatever, and I just don't have that.

What I DO have right now, is two friends from Australia that I play WoW with nightly. We don't live quite close enough to go out and watch movies together, but we talk about life, and play and have fun, and have even exchanged emails and real names so we know who we are in real life. And right now, that's freaking GREAT for me and makes WoW a good thing. Because while it's still a place I go to hide from the world, at least now I'm hiding WITH friends. And for a guy that's been hiding away in his house for years while Reno ate his soul, it's fucking FANTASTIC.


*The other main reason I would say people play this game a lot, nightly, whatever, is that it is designed to be addictive to certain personalities (i.e. mine) and is pretty much comparable to those experiments psychologists used to do on mice to keep them pressing a certain lever for tiny rewards over and over and over and over. In that sense, I think that games like World of Warcraft are directly comparable to Slot machines. They are both designed to exploit psychological reactions using a system of carrots and sticks to keep us playing and playing, no matter how much time or money it ends up devouring. This is an idea I am still coming to terms with.

Second Video of the Day

One of my favorite Robbie Williams songs. The video is crazy though. I think Robbie has a very dry sense of humor. Once I understood what the joke was though, I couldn't stop laughing.

Videos of the Day

It occurred to me that instead of describing funny Robbie Williams videos, I can just link them. Here's the one where he portrays himself as the leader of a cult. Guaranteed to make you smile.

Saving the best for last

That last song on the new TMBG album (The Mesopotamians) is great. I loves it. Watch so that you might loves it too.

And while I'm at it

Here's the middle song from the newest TMBG album. There's one more coming, the last song, and it's probably the best, but I'm trying to get some word of mouth going. Or something. In any case, it won't be posted until later when you've had a chance to digest properly. Actually, this video fits nicely with the one just below it as it is anti-establishment in nature, albeit in a "light-hearted romp through authoritarianism" kind of way.

Thursday night video

Hi all,

This is the first song off of the new TMBG album. I like it, but you can disagree in comments if you like.

Parking Brake!

Parking Brake!
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

This is what I walked out to this morning. Apparently my parking brake has seen better days. What's funny, is that this happened last night when I left the car in idle in drive-way without parking brake at all. So I parked it in driveway again, this time sure to use the parking break. And then walk out to this, this morning.

Wheeee.

Quote of the Day

"I don't want to say that I'm special . . . but I'm a bit special? Do you know what I mean?" -- Robbie Williams in "She's Madonna" music video

What I did this Week

Monday: Did not eat Beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, nuts or seeds.

Tuesday: Drank clear liquids all day. Starting at 5:00, drank god-awful salt-water mixture in tall glass every ten minutes for 3 hours. Imitated some sort of hideous human water rocket rest of evening.

Wednesday: Let's just say there is now photographic evidence of what the inside of my stomach and bowels looks like. I won't go into detail about the process (largely because they gave me a drug that made me forget it), but think Japanese tentacle sex.

Thursday: No problems detected, recommence solid food intake.

Friday: To Be Determined.

Good times.

Minmei fan club

This will make no sense to you if you don't know what Robotech is and/or find the cartoon unwatchable.

Why the hell does Minmei only have 3 crappy songs in her repetoire? It's maddening.

Our collective brain

What the hell am I going to do if the internet ever goes away? I had a random thought just now wondering if there was any video of the hindenburg disaster, considering I had only seen stills or very short clips up until this point. It took me under a minute to find the original film, complete with commentary. How crazy is that? I pulled random information from our collective digital memory and experienced it in under 3 minutes. Are there any negative consequences to our thinking patterns as a result of this? For instance, the urge to memorize certain categories of information? Why bother, when I can pull it up in under a minute?

Digression: The reporter was interesting. He struggles to remain professional and ends up breaking down as it happens in front of him. He came across as a human being, who is a reporter, reacting honestly to a tragedy. Conversely, modern talking heads on TV come across as reporters/anchors, who imitate human life, reacting eagerly with ghoulish hunger to a tragedy. Homework: What is bullshit about this perceived dichotomy?

Returning to main point: What the fuck are we going to do when we can't google text and video knowledge anymore? I predict rioting in the streets.

Musical Fixations

My new favorite band. You may enjoy or dislike them as you see appropriate. You may or may not have to get over the fact that their band name is the ditty bops.

scattered and streaming

I don't do a lot of things to edify myself.

The first mention of self-edification I recall came through my religious education in my pre-teen years. Various authority figures asserted, in writing or verbally, that studying the Bible every day was the preferred and approved method of edifying myself [Edify: To instruct or improve, especially in moral or religious knowledge]. Of course, reading the definition as an emphasis on religious self-improvement, there's nothing wrong with that assertion. If my religion is indeed Christianity, then reading the the Bible is the best way of improving myself spiritually.

But let's not get hung up on that word. I usually take it to mean "general improvement of self in knowledge or character", which is suppose is my own murky, but similar definition. In any case, assume that's what I mean by edify.

In any case, I never really bought the assertion presented. In essence, I cannot now, and could not then, understand how delving deeper into religious abstraction made me a better person. True, by pursuing a daily ritual of study of the Bible and reflective thinking I would form habits of discipline and careful thought, but couldn't I do that by reading and thinking on many other non-religious philosophical, scientific and other-wise instructive tomes? It seemed that the hidden assumption there was that by studying the Bible, God was going to magically align my thinking into clearer and deeper patterns, whereas he would refuse to do so should I decide to study works of a secular nature. And so I rejected the idea that the Bible was the thing I needed to study in order to edify myself. I could edify myself just fine on my own thank you.

But let's not get hung up on whether studying the Bible is really, truly self-improvement. The funny thing here, is that while I was averse to Biblical study to improve myself, it turns out I was also averse to almost ANY OTHER FORM of self-improvement.

Why? Starting mid-way through college, I finally had some money and a lack of parental oversight and could finally start supplying myself with all the things I had been forbidden or could not afford as a child. Namely video games and comics. Now, I am not blaming video games and comics for anything per se, I will continue to enjoy them greatly in the future. What I am saying is this: Using video games, comic books and movies as my only focus outside of work and friends has not strengthened me in mind or body. Again, it's not that these things are bad, or should be discarded, but I focused on them to the exclusion of everything else. I have spent 11 or so years viewing work as "that thing I have to do until I can go back to playing games or reading comics." It's true, the other 3 contributers to this blog enjoy those things as well, but while they would play games and read comics, they were also teaching themselves to program, editing and writing for the school newspaper, and playing in bands. And while they were doing that, I was playing through starcraft again, wondering why I was so inept socially and had such a hard time meeting girls.

My sleep doctor would tell me that I've probably had apnea since I gained weight in college, and because of that have not had a decent nights sleep since college which has led to scattered, ADD type thinking patterns which lend themselves naturally to video games and comic books. Actually, he did kind of argue that with me a little bit. And there may be something to the fact that these revelations are starting to sink in after I've been on a breathing machine that enables me to have R.E.M sleep again. But I don't think my lack of self-edification can entirely be the result of outside forces. In other words, choices were made in regards to how and when to improve myself.

Please understand, this is not intended to be some sort of angst-ridden confession. It's just that I look back at the last decade or so, and I realize I've done very, very little to edify myself. Yes, I got my Bachelor of Science, and then my Master's degree. Yes, I have a great job where I am appreciated. But I think I could have done all of them much more rigorously and impressively. If you'll pardon the massive white-boy ego, I am looking back on the last decade of my life and realizing I have fallen far short of what I believe I am capable of. It feels like I have put 90% of my energies into memorizing the changing dynamics of the X-men over 400 issues (and other similar projects) and about 10% of my energies into my school, work and learning new fun and/or useful skills. And that disturbs me. So I'm thinking that with my thinking patterns emerging from the no-sleep cocoon, I should probably re-consider how I spend my time. Not to cut the things I like out, just maybe to put them in their proper proportion.

What I've also realized, is that as interactive as a video game is, it's not really a creative outlet. And due to all the other crap going on with my life now, I'm starting to realize I need to really develop a creative outlet. One of the edifying things I wanted to do over the last ten years, but never did of course, is write. So for now, I'm going to start by doing more of that. Not that it needs to be good, just that I want to do it. The most perverse consequence of this re-awakened ambition has been the urge to write poetry. Really, godawful poetry similar in nature and design to those that I used to torture others with in high school. I probably won't be torturing the blog with it, but should it appear, now you know why.

On a related note

I love this post by Arthur Silber. It might be a little much for some of you, but I whole-heartedly agree with it. Nothing in this country will change until we start pissing off people who have gotten entirely too comfortable.

My very own spawn.

I've been trying to figure out how to write this announcement in such a way that you all could share in the wonder and awe that I feel. Or is that icy terror? Hard to tell. . .

It's true: my wife is playing host to my parasitic spawn. I'll post some photos when the opportunity arises, but for now I will simply declare that I have known my wife and sired a daughter. We expect her to make an appearance in late February.

So in addition to the cradle, changing table and other furniture necessities, I will also be investing in firearms, security cameras, and robotic canine escorts capable of humane castration in 0.75 seconds.

--Hazmatt out--

Stop dying

I'm a few days behind on this but I just found out Robert Jordan died. My reactions to this are:

Crap, I needed closure on that series.

And, with a touch more humanity:

Crap, an author I liked just died. This is a sad thing.

It's not a fitting eulogy to a guy who was by all accounts very nice but:

Crap, this sucks.

It's incredibly unfair that we don't get to be immortal.

Office View

Office View
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

This is the view from my office. Today I set up the webcam monitor on one of my desktops. It's kind of funny that as much as I have a view now, I hardly ever look outside. Hopefully the webcam monitor will encourage me to change that.

The Dark Lord of the Bedroom

Tuesday night I was wired to a circuit board in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the matrix. I was then asked to fall asleep, which did not go as planned. 3 blissful, wired-to-15-instruments hours later I guess I finally did, although I don't think I slept very well, for reasons that were difficult to fathom.

2 days later they informed me that the results of the test indicate that I have mild to moderate sleep apnea, which is not a problem in the short run, but possibly leads to bigger health problems long term. They casually mentioned that if I WANTED they'd be happy to remove my uvula, tonsils and assorted unnecessary fleshy bits at the back of my throat. I decided to forego that option in favor of positive pressure air masks favored by sith lords and bounty hunters alike. But other than questionable bedtime machinery, I am fine.

Apart, that is, from a nagging suspicion that I was programmed with a secret objective by whatever agency uses the sleep clinic as a front. I keep trying to find my trigger phrase.

"Apocalypse cow!"

"The Blind Pig Flies North."

etc.

I should probably stop.

How I learned I was undead

Soooo, after many complaints of my loud, heard-from-several-rooms-away snoring on vacation this summer, and talking about these and other symptoms with my physician, I went to a sleep clinic. The nice doctor palpitated the fleshy outsides of my throat and took a peak at the topside of my airway and declared "You have a small throat!" After a brief discussion on how that affects my worth as a man (a conversation which was entirely imaginary), she told me I probably have sleep apnea (which was not imaginary). I don't think this is a big deal, it's generally not a serious condition, but now I have to go do a sleep test this coming Tuesday night. As far as I can tell this involves being wired up to 50 machines and then asked to sleep. so, you know, fun.

My only concern is that it's being run by a cult and I'll wake up the next morning brain-washed. "Why yes, I do worship a highly evolved form of the color purple, why do you ask?"

In any case, I do not look forward to sleeping with a breathing mask. Although I suppose it does have darth vader appeal.

"LUKE! I am your pillow!"

Herbie the love civic

So my Honda died and had to be towed to the shop the other day. Two otherwise rational people have now told me it was because I was openly discussing selling the car in front of it. Am I crazy for arguing that the car is, in fact, inanimate? I mean, I understand the urge to anthropomorphize the hell out of everything I use in daily life, but I draw the line at giving people crap for discussing certain things in front of in-organic objects for fear the object might take offense. I'm sorry, that's just how I roll.

Hirsute Kiln-boy

So last night, I was busting through harry potter and the deadly marshmallows, in the final legs, ready to finish the book and devour it's secrets when I hit page 610. Now, there was nothing in particular wrong with page 610. In fact, it was a rather exciting moment in the book. It's just that it was followed by page 643 all the way up to where 643 should have been, at which point page 643 started all over again. So . . . huh . . . how irritating.

No worries though, I have a second copy for the girlfriend! I'll just go read that one. Oh, huh. It seems it suffers from the exact same flaw. Oh good. So anyway, I will be journeying to the book store tonight to buy two more copies. Wish me luck.

What are the odds I can sell two flawed books from the first printing to a collector someday?

Bumper Sticker of the Day

"Ask me if I give a shit!" which was pasted just below a christian fish symbol on a modest sedan.

Aqua-tappa tappa tappa

Pepsi admits today that the water in aquafina is just tap water. So is Dasani which is bottled by Coke. I have a mostly-full box of Aquafina sitting at home. I am paying for the privilege of having someone bottle the water from my sink for me.

God I feel stupid.

Phone Fuckery

I hate my phone. This is the second LG Chocolate that has died on me. I went to check it in the middle of winco only to find that my cell phone is now displaying the white screen of death again. And this is a completely different phone than last time. On the bright side, the phone isn't actually dead. I can still receive and make calls. It's just that the screen is completely useless now. And this is after treating this phone pretty well. Hadn't dropped it, spilled water on it, or sat on large, powerful magnets. I have no idea whether my warranty is still good, but, if so, I am sure that Verizon, in their infinite benevolence, will bless me with yet another shitty plastic phone.

In closing:

LG Chocolate phone, I fucking hate you.

Anonymous Rex

My first name is unique enough that typing it and only it into google yields a hit with my full name on the first page of results. This is pretty much the entire reason I try to have an anonymous web identity. Really, in the interests of being able to speak one's mind to the fullest extent, is there any good reason to use your real identity on a web site?

Back in Tack

Pardon my lack of posting. I was busy for a few weeks and then I spent a whole week minus the internet in Montana. Which wasn't as painful as I thought (being bereft of internet I mean), but I still had the occasional impulse to look something up and found myself needing some google. If I really needed to know something I could drive 20 minutes into Great Falls and use the library. What's funny about that is that I wouldn't be going to the library to look up the information in a book, I would be going to use the free wireless internet to google as I like to do. Which makes me laugh for some reason.

Also, if you have long hair (in a pony tail) and are a man in Montana your automatic nick-name is "Willie Nelson" or "California". So, yeah.

Tales to WoW you, part 4

I see by the comment two posts down that I still have people who read this blog. This is a situation that must be rectified. Therefore, I am excited to unveil part 4 in our ongoing series, "Tales to WoW you". Yes, World of Warcraft fan fiction at it's absolute worst. You will read it and wish you hadn't. Now that I've intrigued you,

Narrator: Our heroes lie, in pieces, amidst pools of blood and murloc drool. They appear to be dead. Again.

Karibou: Well, you've killed me again Gul.

Gulveris: What do you mean "again"? We died from the plague the first time remember?

Karibou: . . . Gul, do you remember what happened the day we died?

Gulveris: Well, let me think. In the morning I believe I bought some cheap bread from the new baker in town. For lunch I made us sandwiches with said bread and I believe by late afternoon we, along with the rest of the town, had been infected with the undead plague and subsequently died. What part of that was my fault? The only thing I'm guilty of is making your last meal a tasty one.

Karibou: No.

Gulveris: What do you mean "no"? That's EXACTLY what happened.

Karibou: No, Gul, it is ALMOST what happened. What actually happened was a little more interesting. Do you remember what the new baker looked like that day?

Gulveris: Um . . . I think so. Pale guy, black cloak, hood, smelled bad.

Karibou: Uh huh, uh huh. I thought so. Tell me, did the bread he sold you look, in any way, fresh?

Gulveris: Well, it had a bit of mold, but you couldn't beat the price!

Karibou: No. No Gul, that was not "just mold". You bought infected bread from the undead scourge, and we ate it for lunch. THAT is how you killed me the first time.

Gulveris: Well, hey, I'm sorry for not being perfect Mr. "I know so much about everything", excuse me for not noticing the thing that no one else in town noticed. If you'll recall, they all died of the plague too.

Karibou: Again Gul, close but not quite. Do you recall seeing any notices that day on your way to buy bread?

Gulveris: Um, the only one I noticed said "For a good time, find Gronkelina."

Karibou: Well, my good friend Gulveris, if you had happened to read the notice just next to that one you would have seen one that said "Beware shady bread vendors selling scourge infected bread." As it happens, the rest of the town DID see that notice and thus were not infected by the scourge.

Gulveris: Well, how did they die then smartass?

Karibou: Do you remember what happened after we died?

Gulveris: If I recall correctly we un-died later that night.

Karibou: Do you remember what we did then?

Gulveris: Well, I dimly recall being hungry.

Karibou: Gul, you dimly recall everything. But let me refresh your memory. We were not just hungry, we were RAVENOUS. And do you remember what we were ravenous for?

Gulveris: Cake?

Karibou: No! No Gul! We were hungry for Brains! Brains! Which is why, undead zombie Gulveris, we went from house to house that night and killed everyone else in town, eating their brains.

Gulveris: So what you're saying is, I killed you by feeding you infected grain and then both of us became undead and killed the rest of the town?

Karibou: Yes, Gul. That is what I'm saying. Hence, this is the second time you killed me.

Gulveris: Fine, I get it. But you didn't have to be such a dick about it.

Karibou: My dear friend Gulveris. Please forgive me for causing you any emotional incovenience as I lie here, dead, in a pool of blood and murloc drool.

Gulveris: Aw, Karibou, you know I can't stay mad at you. Besides, I understand how dying for the second time must be stressing you out. Which brings up an interesting point. How are you stressed about anything at all? I thought we were dead?

Karibou: You know, Gul, that IS interesting.

Narrator: NO! It isn't! But join us next time as our dead undead heroes explore this and other equally tepid topics in "Murder-squared: For the love of the Light, why can't I die?" We guarantee you'll be wondering the same thing! See you next time, in TALES to WOW YOU!

Tales to WoW you, part 3

. . .in which my World of Warcraft fan fiction almost kills you.

In order to get myself back into blogging, I have decided to finish some of the WoW stories that I had in my head when Eric and I were playing. In addition to getting my blogging groove back, I expect to drive the remaining portion of my readers screaming into the twisting nether with my god-awful prose, thus making them able to find this blog afresh later on, as we both start anew.

With that, read on! If you can stomach it . . . and be warned, I don't feel like spell-checking today (you know, I think I have a future in public relations). Also, I'm not sure, but in my mind undead swear as much as possible, so apologies for that.

When we last left Gulveris and Karibou, Gulveris had wandered off to Undercity to find his destiny leaving Karibou to fight the denizens of Tirisfal Glades alone.

(SCENE: Karibou fights a battle against two hideous murlocs in northern portion of Tirisfal Glades.)

The Sounds of Battle: CLANG! SMASH! Mrggrggglrlgle (that was a murloc) THUNK! SLICE! POW! (Adam West was riding by) CLANG! . . . . BOOOOOOOOOM!

Karibou: . . .

Gulveris: Hey, Karibou! Looks like I arrived in the nick of time!

Karibou: . . .

Gulveris: (Looking Confused, which is difficult when your jaw has almost fallen off) What?

Karibou: . . . What . . . (spits out murloc foot) . . . the fuck . . . (removes murloc eye from his own eye socket) . . . was that!

Gulveris: Oh, you mean the method of your deliverance from those rotten little savages? Well, I'm glad you asked, it was (rummages in back-pack and soon hefts a red stick) Dynamite! Cool, huh?

Karibou: Gul, right now I'm tasting murloc toe-jam, I am nearly deaf from the explosion (and possibly the murloc spleen lodged in my ear) and I have, if I am not mistaken, a fucking fish femur sticking through what's left of my lower intestine.

Gulveris: You know, a little gratitude would be nice. (Begins to perform first aid while casually picking murloc remains off of his friend).

Karibou: (with a hint of sarcasm) Yes, thank you Gulveris, if it hadn't been for you I might have easily killed two murlocs without draping myself with their entrails.

Gulveris: (Finishes bandaging Karibou) There, that should keep you together until the Apothecary can look at you.

Karibou: . . . Gul, you packed murloc intestine in with my personal intestines.

Gulveris: Well, you shouldn't have left yours hanging out like that then!

Karibou: (Irritated) I . . . Didn't!

Gulveris: Oh, you'll get over it. What, are you worried it will get infected? Anyway, enough of your bitching and moaning, guess what I did in Undercity?

Karibou: Well, you either explored your necro-sexuality in ways I don't want to hear about or you learned to make dynamite.

Gulveris: (Laughing) Silly, Karibou, why can't it be both! In any case, you are looking at the newest member of the Undercity Engineering Guild! Look how much dynamite I made! (hefts back-pack crammed with explosives towards Karibou)

Karibou: (Steps quickly back) Congratulations, you have managed to complete number 32 on my list of "Ways Gulveris is Likely to Get me Killed" just under "Pushed into Lava" and just over "Trampled by Kodo".

Gulveris: Oh stop it. These things are perfectly safe (starts tossing a stick of dynamite lightly into the air). A sizable majority of my graduating class managed to do so with their limbs intact.

Karibou: Fine! Fine. I'll take your word for it. You know, your natural inclination to get me killed aside, your massive bag of explosives has great potential. Let's blow something up.

Gulveris: (Grinning) I thought you'd never ask! Look at that rabbit!

BOOOOM!

Karibou: (Clapping excitedly) Ooh, that was fun. Now me!

Gulveris: (tossing stick to Karibou) Sure, here you go!

Karibou: (Briefly glaring at Gulveris for tossing high explosive at him. Then trying to light the dynamite) Hey, how do I light this thing? Why can't I ignite the fuse?

Gulveris: (Looking embarrassed) Ah, I forgot. Let me see it? (retrieves dynamite) I'm afraid you won't be able to use this dynamite because you're not an engineer.

Karibou: What do you mean? It's just light and throw right?

Gulveris: (looking smug) Oh, I'm afraid it's much more complicated than that.

Karibou: (looking increasingly irritated) What the fuck is so complicated about "light and throw"!

Gulveris: (thinking hard, then condescendingly) Well, there are many aspects to it that a non-engineer just isn't likely to grasp.

Karibou: Like what?! (Making exasperated motions with hands) You just light and throw! Light and throw!

Gulveris: Well, for one thing an engineer would know to keep his calm around a large satchel full of dynamite. Oh, you know what! I totally forgot, I learned a new recipe just before I left! (Rummages in satchel and comes up with a pink stick of dynamite painted with flowers and puppies and a plastic cap on top) Here, try this one!

Karibou: (Looking at the stick skeptically) What the hell is that?

Gulveris: You my friend are looking at "EZ-throw" dynamite. Fun for engineers and non-engineers alike!

Karibou: So what, I can only use the kiddie dynamite? How freaking insulting is that? And why did you paint it pink! What, am I 12?

Gulveris: Well, if you were 12 you would be substantially more grateful about receiving high explosives I think.

Karibou: I'm not 12!

Gulveris: I thought you'd like it!

Karibou: Gul, pink dynamite painted with flowers and puppies will NOT strike fear into the hearts of my enemies!

Gulveris: You know I think you're just cranky because you stink like murloc intestine.

Karibou: . . .

Gulveris: (realizing the situation is going downhill) Wait, look how easy it is! (Pops plastic cap off of EZ-throw dynamite and tosses backwards down to the beach).

In the distance: BOOOOOM! Mrglglgrlelglelrle! (Both turn to look at the pack of furious murlocs racing up the hill towards them)

Karibou: Number 23.

Gulveris: "Killed by a pack of furious murlocs?"

Karibou: Yup.

Gulveris: You know me too well.

Karibou: (Pulls out his sword) To know you is to hate you.

Gulveris: Aw quit yer bitchin', I have a plan.

Karibou: Me too.

Gulveris: Mine's better. You charge and hold them off while I destroy them with dynamite.

Karibou: . . .

Gulveris: What?

Mrlglggggrlgrlgl!

(to be continued . . .)

Follow-up on Catch Scratch.

I later recovered from my cat bite.

Thanks to "Busty Karen takes it 3 ways" for caring enough to leave a comment.

cat scratch fever

My wonderful, friendly cat Minino gave me four bloody puncture wounds and a trip to the ER this week.

I am used to pushing his nosy little head out of the way all the time, usually to keep his head from being crushed by the refrigerator/sliding/front door. He usually is okay with that. However, Tuesday night he was trying to kill a stray cat through the sliding glass door and I made a crucial error. I opened the sliding glass door to hiss through the screen to scare the other cat away. Having done that, I was trying to close the sliding glass door again. So, in my bare feet, I do my usual shove-cat-aside -with-foot maneuver and get bit hard for my trouble. Four nice neat puncture wounds just behind the pinky toe on my left foot. If I were a higher class of sentient I would have realized that he was in fight-mode with the outdoor cat and not put my bare foot anywhere near him.

In any case, my patient girlfriend helped me dress the wound and 24-hours later it had swollen and was looking red. So into the ER we go to get anti-biotics. So now I'm limping dramatically everywhere I go and trying not to think about teeth and/or bacteria. Also, I'm supposed to elevate my leg at every opportunity. How to do this at work and retain dignity, I don't know. And all this on top of a $500 car repair, $1000 dollar estimate for cleaning the teeth for both cats (sum, not individual), and x-rays on my wrist, for which I have not been charged yet.

It's not the crappiest week anyone has ever had, but you know.

Okay, last post on this topic

So the other day I was in the guest bathroom, "doing some contemplative work" when the cat noses his way in (the guest bathroom door doesn't latch very well). So he slides into the bathroom, bothers me for about 30 seconds and then wrinkles his nose and races back out of the bathroom. Then, I swear, I see his little paw reaching in from the outside, frantically trying to close the door as if to say "That smell! I'm gonna throw up! Close the door! Close the door!"

And in answer to your as-yet unspoken question: because you deserved to know.

GSA Forevah

Kvc's post reminded me of something Mr. Unwilted put up over on youtube (the Brandon part, not the pooping part. :-). It's the 1992 Gem State Academy Video Yearbook, complete in six parts. Hooray! Here's part one:

Some Pooping some Nudity

I was sent to the below movie by a Mr. Todd Jarnes. I thought several of you would get a kick out of it.

Things you don't want to think about

I make my 53rd triumphant return to the blog with poop stories. Now, I don't plan on getting too graphic, and I typically stay away from this topic for obvious reasons ("hey! Where are you going? Don't you want to hear more about my poop?"), but I have observations about male bathroom behavior that I wish to share. You may stop reading now if you're not interested.

I don't like using public bathrooms. In my dream world, a public bathroom stall would be completely enclosed, floor-to-ceiling, well-ventilated and sound-proof. Alas, public bathrooms do not meet this standard. Which is all to say that I hate using public bathrooms. But I have noticed a few things about the behavior of the people who use them (including myself).

First, there are 4 basic types of strides that men take when they head towards the bathroom door.
1) Confident and Mature. They're going to go in, do their business and get out and not think about it anymore. Obviously the best way to approach life (i.e. as an adult).
2) Overly Casual. They stroll along whistling, happen to notice the bathroom door and open it on a whim. They wouldn't normally go into such a place you understand, and it certainly wasn't imperative that they head there, but they'll go in and check it out. This is generally my category. They're trying to be an adult but clearly a little too conscious of the whole event.
3) Slinking. On some level, this person is embarrassed about going to the bathroom and slinks as close to the wall as they can on their way to the bathroom door. Because, you know, no one can see them that way.
4) Power walking. Most people do this walk from time to time. It's an emergency and you can't walk normally because it's all you can do to contain it until you get to the toilet and hope to god you don't run into anyone in the hallway.

As for how people act in the bathroom, let me just say that the funniest thing I hear while I'm in there is people talking to themselves while they do their business. Whether it's the incoherent mumbling I hear from the guy at the urinal or the loud "Oh GOD DAMNIT!" as someone goes through a rough patch in the stall next to me, it's all I can do not to giggle nervously.

As for the walk away from the bathroom, the first 3 strides all still apply. But to that, we must add:
5) the Big Boy. This is when a guy comes out of the bathroom with a certain jauntiness and/or swagger. You're not sure what he did in there, but by God is he proud of it. I also have to stop myself from laughing when I see this one. A variation of this is just a look of simple relief. It was a trying time, but now it is over and there are rainbows and butterflies everywhere.

I don't know why, but I've had this particular post bouncing around my head for months now. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to write it, but you may rest easy knowing it has been catharsis for me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to walk down the hallway in an overly casual manner.

Half-Remembered Quote of the Day

"Why should I have to change all of the clocks in my house just because farmers can't wake up at 4am unless you tell them it's 5?" -- Stephen Colbert (more of a half-remembered paraphrase, but you get the idea)

Enter Zatanna!

Enter Zatanna!
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

It was my Birthday last Sunday, and I was far, far too lazy to post about it. So I'm doing it now. Yay me.

Also, I'm going to need this song (you tube video) sung to me at all future birthdays. Just so you know.

Anyway, that's not really the point of this post. The point is that on my birthday, my lovely girlfriend and I adopted a new cat (as you may have guessed, the one in the picture here). She is very, very sweet. She was left behind by her owners when they moved and then brought in as a stray. She's been locked in a nice room for a few days to get her comfortable with the new house ( and get the existing cat used to the idea of a new cat). We let her into the house at large for a while last night. Minino (existing cat) is a complete coward and hisses at her and runs half the time. But overall their first meeting was surprisingly amicable.

As alluded to in the title, I have named her Zatanna after a Justice League Heroes character we both like. I feel good about it.

M.I.

I’m very down today that Molly Ivins died. From jan. 5 of this year:

What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they're arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we've let them do it.

She had a way to speak the unpopular truth that I admired. I am sad to see her gone.

Rebooting . . .

It’s weird, what was keeping me from blogging was needing to upload those photos. It was some sort of weird mental block. Now that that’s done, blogging will likely resume. This is assuming there is someone besides me still reading this.

Now taking bets on whether you are reading this.

Step 1, Remove the pins and needles . . .

SF-Fog2
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

Finally, I have uploaded the photos from my trip to San Francisco. This particular one was from my favorite day in the middle of the week where the buildings disappeared into the very low clouds. Click the picture through to flickr in order to see the rest. They were all taken from my cell phone, so the quality isn't that great.

Looking through these again, none are particularly fantastic. The best I had were of the day we saw Al Gore's keynote speech (which was freaking great. contrary to the "common wisdom", he's a great speaker). Unfortunately, those were destroyed when my cell phone died, which brings me to:

The LG Chocolate phone is a piece of shit. I checked the time outside of a book store in SF and when I went to check the time 30 minutes later all I could get was a white screen of death. I had only had it for a month so they just gave me a new one for free, but still. I seriously regret getting into a new 2 year contract with that piece of crap. What's even more irritating about it is they try and get you to join up with their own version of itunes, the selling point of which seems to be that all the music is sold in .wma format and at twice the cost of itunes files. How can I resist that tempting offer? Especially now that the iphone is coming out. Oh how I wants it.

Tangential trajectory

(Strolls down street, whistling non-chalantly.)

(Notices blog, stops suddenly.)

(Looks in around in panic, then dashes down street, ducking around the nearest corner.)

(Peers fearfully around corner.)

(Dogs barking in distance.)

Where was I?

I return triumphantly to the blog with a location update.

I am in San Francisco for the week for a huge conference. Pictures are forthcoming.

So far it’s been nothing but rainy, but that’s been okay. Lupita and I have been having fun. I am, as always, a little freaked out by the sheer mass of humanity around me, but so far have not gone on any psychotic rampages.

I actually like it here a lot, lots of stuff in walking distance and a good metro system. I really like all the rooftop gardens and so forth that I’ve seen. The first thing I noticed on the 10-block walk to the convention center is that apparently the things that people need the most are cell phones and coffee as, on first glance, that’s all that the city seems to offer. I’m just astounded that there’s enough foot traffic to keep a verizon store in business every other block. Also, I count about 9 starbucks just on my walking route. The funniest spot is, of course, where they are literally across the street from one another. I thought that bit in Shrek 2 was hyperbole, but no, apparently not. I know I betray my county rubeness by my amazement at what are apparently common things here, but still.

Also, they have gay people here. Shocking I know, who would have thought in San Francisco? The only reason I mention it is that I think Lupita’s advisor got us a room in a hotel popular with the gay community. I only say this because I’ve seen mostly gay couples there, people looking at gay porn on the computer in the lobby, it’s called “Club Quarters” and is next to “Elephant and Castle” and smells powerfully of semen at times.

Make of that what you will. I have already, however, formed opinions.

Thought for the Day

If I’m such a good driver, why do all the other cars on the road give me such a wide gap when they pass me?

Finale'

Actually, this guy writes very well about the Kerry nonsense. and he’s British. I am ashamed.

Check that

Ugh. It’s worse. What Kerry meant to say (as is in his prepared notes) is that if you don’t grow up and study and try to be smarter, you’ll be as dumb as George Bush. I think my rant below still stands considering republicans are pretending he didn’t mean to say that, but still. This is about the silliest controversy ever.

You cut me deep there Shrek

Oh John Kerry. What to do with him? He gets on TV for saying that a) unless you like suicide bombers, you probably don’t want to join the army and go to Iraq right now and b) Richer and/or more educated kids don’t join the army, that’s for poorer people. And now it’s a shit storm of epic proportions as the media and republicans try to stall The Democrats’ momentum going into the election. And today, John Kerry apologized.

Jesus, grow a pair John. I’m not the biggest Kerry fan, but he should never have apologized. Why? He was exactly correct in a way the Republicans can’t admit. Republicans are trying to say that because soldiers are good and true (we all appreciate their service, this is true) then any criticism of the war must therefore be a criticism of the troops and how dare we. No you stupid fucks, John Kerry was saying you fat, ignorant, draft-dodging pricks in charge of the war just spent 3 years and many, many American and Iraqi lives turning Iraq into place WORSE and more horrifying than it was under Saddam Hussein through sheer, unadulterated hubris and incompetence. And that that’s a disincentive to join the army right now. This is what both the Republicans and the public and the media that supported them have to admit to when they admit John Kerry was right. So John Kerry, will never, ever be right.

Election day can’t come soon enough. That said, I’m very excited about voting the bastards out until I remember the stellar job the democrats have been doing. More options please.

Oh, and CNN? John Kerry isn’t up for election for any office this year. Just FYI.

That hideous ratio

Specifically, the ratio of how long it takes to pack versus how long it takes to finish unpacking after the moving. I think it will be small. I actually moved about 10 small boxes that I had never unpacked from the last move this time. So, uh yeah. I’m a lazy bastard with a small ratio.

Which is all to say that we have moved to a new house now and it is lovely. Pictures are forthcoming.

Also, you bastards who couldn’t spare a simple day or two and a couple hundred dollars to come help me move are all on notice. Granted, I had 6 people from work helping, but still. Your failure and disloyalty has been noted.

On a big board in my house.

With your names in big angry letters.

(Shakes Fist).

Proud to be a U.S. citizen

So the new torture legislation makes all the torture we’ve been doing legal. Sure, we don’t kill, rape or mangle our prisoners, but anything short of that is A-OK. The Republicans had a meeting with the Republicans and decided torturing people is an effective element of national security. Of course, it’s not, but oh well. I’m sure it’s not a big deal.

Oh, and Democrats? Way to contribute to the debate there fellas. We all appreciate the effort it took to wrinkle your brow in consternation during the debate that the Republicans were having.

In other news, the White house asserted recently (via official mouthpiece Tony Snow) that the Supreme Court actually can’t decide the constitutionality of something, that’s the president’s job. No one’s really called them on it yet, but I’m sure someone will get around to it.

Our government is horribly broken. What I tend to wonder is, at what point does my government killing and torturing of innocent people tar my own soul? Does voting for the other guy get me off the hook? I hope so, because that’s what I’m doing this term. And I’m thrilled that I get to vote for the spineless mute party as opposed to the pro-torture, pro-war, all incompetence party. It’s a smorgasbord of options that overwhelms me with delight.

Quote and Code of the day

“Yeah, how I miss those days,
more than a little
growing young in the dumbo sun.” -- Tracy bonham (Dumbo Sun)

* hbot3000 primary algorithm

age = 0

do while(age.le.ageofdeath)

maturity = age
if(numactionfigures.gt.50.or.numlegos.gt.50) maturity = maturity - 12
if(age=30) then
call commencerandomnostalgia()
end if
if(maturity=30) then
call commencemidlifecrisis()
end if

age = age + 1
end do

A case of the Tuesdays

It’s official: I make too much money to live in my apartment now. And I need to be out before the end of September or I don’t get my deposit back.

In other news: fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

P.S. FUCK. A. DUCK.

More eloquently: God damn it! FUCK. FUck fuCK.

Okay, I feel better now.

not really.

A case of the Mondays

Short Story:

Last Thursday I check my voicemail to find the following message:

“This is Mike from The Bluffs [my apartment complex], please give me a call back, it’s a matter of some urgency.”

I dutifully call back the next day, some airhead answers the phone, doesn’t know what I’m talking about, says “oh, from Mike? it’s nothing, he’ll call you back if he needs to. la la la.”

So today upon leaving the apartment I notice an envelope attached to my door. It essentially tells me that upon review of my account, I may now be making too much money to live there (they are low income housing, and get a tax break if X percent of their tenants are low income). It says that I may now reapply for housing, or move my ass out in 30 days. I am not confident that reapplying does me any good as that’s what started the problem in the first place. I will reapply because I don’t particularly feel like moving, but I am not confident that it will do much good. In the meantime, I guess I’m apartment or house hunting in case I need to move.

I didn’t need this right now.

Oh Pluto, what have they done to you?

So Pluto is now demoted. Actually, I like this definition better. Dwarf Planets. Yes. That is a decent name. And the definitions seem to be better and more accurate. Oh the controversy, I know, but poor Pluto. Nobody loves large rocks of ice anymore.

I predict in another two weeks the controversy will get so large that Pluto will be declared never to have existed in order to solve the problem. Immediately after which all of our space program resources will go to making sure that is true, using as many nuclear weapons as possible. Come to think of it, what a killer way to de-nuke this planet eh? This is why I should be a world leader.

Lazy or Incompetent?

I have never seen this movie, but it’s very existence has been gnawing at my soul.

Dr. T and the Women, Lazy or Incompetent?

In this case, your answer may refer to either to the title or the movie itself. For my money, this has to be the worst, most hideous movie name in the history of time.

Getting back to my roots

I am not sure what to think about such decisions. On the whole, I think I like the change overall. It gives planets a more decisive definition that I tend to like. Also, it distinguishes nicely between the classical, large planets and the smaller, icy ones. Essentially it distinguishes the planets by formation type, which I also approve of. Also, I find it interesting that the asteroid ceres is now considered a planet.

What I don’t like is calling these smaller planets “plutons”. It sounds more like the name for a sub-atomic particle. Also it is very silly. Why not names reflecting the formation of each type? Why not Kuiper planets (well, that wouldn’t work for ceres I guess)? Or even a simple Rank A planets and Rank B planets. Or hell, Planetoids works great. But Plutons? Give me a frickin break.

I believe this starts a new feature here on the blog:

Lazy or Incompetent?

Was giving lower rank planets the name of “Plutons” lazy or incompetent?
(where here incompetent is defined as “couldn’t have thought of a better name if they tried.”)

I have nothing to add

to this.

I must regenerate

My fanboy credentials are clearly fading. I’ve missed a few crucial fanboy products that I should have caught. Therefore, I will be returning to San Diego this weekend to indulge in all that is the San Diego Comicon. My sweet Lupita and I will be making a daring one-day visit on Saturday this year due to work constraints. But there we shall bathe in the non-judgemental purity of geek paradise. Or something like that. In any case, not too lake to make your last-minute, impulse travel arrangements.

Speaking of comic books, in reading 40 years of X-men I have so far discovered the following:

1. The professor had a crush on Jean Grey early in the series. As it seemed incredibly creepy (especially since Jean spends most of her energy early on keeping the other 5 students from humping her leg) it was a plot thread soon lost. Only to reappear somehow during the onslaught miniseries if I’m not mistaken.
2. The blob was originally a circus performer. After rejecting Xavier’s offer to join the x-men, the blob rounds up the circus to destroy the mansion. So the big fight at the end is of the mutants beating the crap out of circus clowns and acrobats. Also, cyclops shoots an elephant in the face at point-blank range. I did a little head-scratching on that one.
3. The weirdness of Stan Lee’s stories aside, Jack Kirby’s art was very good and I found myself enjoying the first run of issues with Stan as author and jack as artist very much. But they are pretty cheesy.
4. the other mutant power that all x-men have is to have 8 complete sentences worth of dialogue while doing a backflip or falling 5 feet. There was actually a panel where I think cyclops and jean have this whole conversation while falling 5 feet and they end it with something like, “Watch out for the ground!” They either talk very fast or gravity doesn’t work the same for them as it does for us.

Quote of the Day

“There is no fish of the second freshness.” -- Apparently a Russian saying, but the internets have lied before. In any case, I liked it.

Pigeon hole

While showering yesterday I thought I heard several thumps. Nothing was repeated so I assumed they came from the apartment below and forgot about them. When I walked out of the bathroom, the cat was patiently waiting for me. As soon as I came out he ran down the hall started meowing loudly and frequently. I wandered down and said, “what’s all this noise abo . . . oh.” Much to my dismay, a large, crap-filled pigeon had flown in through the open patio door (so the cat can go out there) and refused to leave. It was immediately clear that the thumps I had heard in the shower came when the cat, in an attempt to reach said pigeon, had knocked over his cat tree. He must have then decided to wait for me to solve it and come back by the bathroom to wait until I got out of the shower. Although, I suspect he didn’t so much want me to get the bird out, as to get it for him so he could play with it.

Wielding broom and chair, I then began to try and shoo the thing out of the door. Unfortunately, the pigeon first confused the un-openable pane of glass above my patio door as an exit. So he kept flying into the pane and cracking his head. Feeling bad and not wanting to kill him, I put up a cloth over it so he wouldn’t think it was a window anymore. Shortly thereafter He found his way behind the cloth and proceeded to pace back and forth along the window, looking for a way out. So I took the cloth down again, shooed him away and put the cloth back up so he couldn’t sneak behind it. This is about 2 hours worth of fun. The next and final hour was spent thinking up more exciting ways to get him to leave. I did some googling and read about people gently knocking the bird senseless so it could be removed outside, but felt that required too much finesse. A capture and release program was briefly implemented, with no luck on the capture portion (the cat was locked away during these crucial endeavors). The quest began to take more immediacy as I was late for work and the damn thing was crapping everywhere (which was oh-so-much fun to clean up last night). Finally, the damn thing landed on the ceiling fan. So I stared at it, silently cursing. The problem now was that it wouldn’t fly low enough to see the sky through the patio door. It was either too afraid to fly that low or didn’t think it was an exit. So a weird thought came to me. What if I start the blades spinning? I turned the fan on briefly and got the blades moving a little. The pigeon, while apparently getting a little dizzy, was unperturbed. Hmmm. But I had made it dizzy. So I put them on a bit longer, get the blades going a bit faster and now hope to make the bird dizzy enough to fall so I can grab it and throw it out the window. What actually happened was a little funnier. It got spinning just fast enough that the bird had to use it’s wings to stay on the rotating blade. Eventually it was too much and the bird was actually flying a few inches behind the blade trying to land on it again. Unfortunately, the wings were flapping hard enough to keep the blade moving and the bird began a futile chase of the blade for about 3 revolutions. At this point he was just tired and dizzy and finally dropped alititude by a few feet, saw the sky through the open patio door and few out. Success! I ran over and yelled at it to “stay out!” and slammed the door.

Lesson: Whenever you get a captured bird in your house/apartment, simply get them to land on the fan and spin the blades. Foolproof!

P.S. The cat was very disappointed at my solution to the problem.

Forehead Smacking, Part the Second

This isn’t really THAT big of a deal, but our illustrious president made fun of a blind reporter this morning for wearing sunglasses at the press conference. Basically it makes me shake my head and laugh at our magnificent leader.

Because This Blog Needs Another Post

powered by ODEO

When I think of HBOT3000 choirs of school girls sing.

this is the end, my friend

Here’s a disrespectful look at some end times national ID and mark of the beast stuff. I could go on at length about this, but I’ll keep it short. I just want to point out how growing up Adventist it was about how Adventists were going to be persecuted by such technology and other churches. Later, one might admit that God’s chosen existed in other flocks, but by and large it was Adventists who were going to be persecuted. When I read articles like this, it reminds me that other denominations think they’re going to be persecuted by everyone else as well which leads me to wonder: Just how many churches think all the other churches (along with the athiests that are part of Satan’s church) are going to persecute them? It’s this type of thing that helps keep me away from church these days.

The Price is Wrong, Bitch!

The Price is Right has infected our culture in an odd way. I occasionally encounter people that think that the better approximation of a number is always the lower one. For instance, in an admittedly trivial discussion on whether the price of gas was $3.20 or $3.19 when the price is $3.19 and 9/10, I took the position that $3.20 was obviously a better estimate of final price than $3.19. His main argument seemed to be “yes, but $3.19 is under the actual price.” This argument only makes sense on the price is right and it is not the first time I have encountered it. I can only attribute it to Bob Barker’s ever-growing demonic powers.

Twice Removed

I just got an email from the parents’ church (of which I guess I remain, technically, a member). It says they’re going to the park or some such nonsense to hand out this book. Yeah, I’m not sure I’ll be turning up for that. While the scare tactics about the end of the world hold a special place in my heart (as they were the main source of adrenaline for me into high school), I’m not sure spreading the fear around as a means of increasing the flock is identified as particularly christian in my book.

“It’s the end of the world! Only by joining our church and giving us 10% of your income can you be saved! Hurry! It’s happening now! Is that Satan behind you? Quick, run in here!”

Okay, now I’m just being silly.

Conquering Thailand

Check out this commercial (look for yellow text and play button to play) and see if you don’t spot someone from the same factory as the hbot3000. It is very cool and I am, sniff, so proud!

Good Citizenry

Matt was gracious enough to give me “The Good Citizen’s Handbook.” What hidden message there was in that gift, I don’t care to speculate. Regardless, on first glance it is a camp classic. In fact, I’m trying to decide if it’s serious or some horrible parody. In any case, I thought it would be amusing to read through and decide how much I fit this person’s model of a good citizen. So, the introduction begins, “A good citizen is well-groomed . . ..” Huh. Well, I’m damned six words into it (tosses book out window). I see “Big Hair” (as opposed to Big Tobacco) has bought and paid for this advocate’s book. Sad. More later, once I get past the horrible dejection I feel from having failed the good citizen test in the first sentence.

Disaster Porn

You know, I enjoy reading the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles (linked to the right), but it’s become hard to take seriously. Someone on his site described what he does as “Disaster Porn” and I find that description hard to dispute. I must admit I like reading his site for the same reason I like disaster movies, just an abject fascination with apocalyptic/disaster scenarios. So, for the record, I don’t want an oil crisis to destroy the country. As much as I find it interesting to examine the possibilities, I do cherish my electricity and my easy motoring. Having said that, I do agree with Kunstler on what a silly idea suburbs, strip malls and long commutes are. I do think that gas prices are going to become higher and cause some significant problems, but I in no way really want it to happen. In any case, gas is edging up again this summer and my thoughts once again drifted to the demise of oiled civilization. Having said that, it is funny to watch the “we’re all doomed” side crow when oil and gas prices go up with the “sensible” I-heart-my-SUV crowd saying fluctuations are normal, only to see positions reversed completely with no trace of irony when prices go down again.

In a related note, I see that some people are getting a little upset about the confirmed report that the Chimperor is considering using nukes (“but they’re tiny!”) to destroy some targets in Iran. The report says that the Bush Administration believes that they can bomb Iran into Democracy. So, uh, yeah. Crazy people run the government. This guy probably sounds a little hysterical, but his feelings closely mirror my own. In short: Bombing Iran with tiny nukes = Stupid Fucking Idea. That is all.

An open letter

Dear Daylight Savings Time,

FUCK. YOU.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Hbot3000

About that Forecast

snow1
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

As of 3:30 this afternoon, the national weather service forecast said fairly confidently that the snow storm in the mountains wouldn't deposit any measurable snow in Reno. As of 5:00, this is what the view outside my apartment looked like. So yeah, not their best forecast. I'm not saying they're terrible, they do a pretty good job usually, it's just telling about the state of weather forecasting that we still have days where the forecasts are this wrong. In any case, it made me laugh.

On a more insane note . . .

Nuclear non-proliferation is widely regarded as a Good Idea. This is not nuclear non-proliferation. The funny thing about nuclear weapons, is that not only do they kill lots of innocent people and render whole swaths of ground uninhabitable for many, many years, they also blow lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of tiny, yet harmful radioactive particles into the air. The funny thing about air is that it can actually transport these particles from one place to another using things like “wind” which is caused by “pressure differences” (stop me, Mr. President, if this gets too technical for you). These particles can be transported by this “wind” hundreds and thousands of miles to entirely new places with new people and will eventually be deposited in things like, oh say, drinking water. This in turn leads to things like “radiation poisoning”. In fact, in a study I read a year or two ago (but am too lazy to look up and link to) atmospheric scientists actually did a study about where the air from our atomic testing in the Pacific Ocean went and what effect that might have had on people. They found that the air from some of these tests made their way to certain regions of the united states which, oddly enough had had much higher rates of cancer for the 20 or 30 years after the tests were completed. Hmmmm. This is just one reason why allowing India to make lots more nuclear weapons, is a Bad Idea. Another quick one is that India doesn’t really like Pakistan, who also happens to have a couple of nuclear weapons. So now, we have a new arms race in Asia. Wheee!

Here’s another bad idea: electing as leader of the free world someone who doesn’t see that casually allowing India to make lots of nuclear weapons is a Horrible, Fucking Retarded and Bad Idea. He’s not a harmless, nincompoop president, when he pulls shit like this. It is actually a good thing to have leaders with a higher intelligence than the rest of the population. It would be nice if some grown-ups could speak up around election time and say “Hey everybody, you actually don’t want to vote for a guy you could have a beer with, because he says the craziest shit when he’s drunk. It would probably be good to have a guy who’s smart and inquisitive. Just saying.”

Just saying.

Do you really, honestly care?

The commentary for today's Penny Arcade highlights for me exactly what is both the best and the most terrifying aspect of geekdom. The obsessiveness of fangeeks. I was laughing out loud, which is unusual for me at work. It tends to raise awkward questions, like, "What are you doing reading that instead of working?"

Anyway. . . Why is it that geeks (perhaps that should be we geeks) take so much pride and pleasure from knowing that which others do not? Even (perhaps that should be especially) that which others don't care to know? I understand it a lot more with the young geeks here at Information Services: They're trying to establish pecking order and a little informational one-upsmanship helps them with that. But shouldn't we be able to outgrow that? Or is that just one of those features that defines the geek his whole life? Of is it a guy thing?

And why, oh why, do all of my posts tend to be filled with questions? Am I attempting to be Aristotilian, or am I just trying to encourage the sort of commentary that makes blogs so interesting? I think that that's the one feature that threatens my geek status more than anything: The willingness to use the question mark rather than favoring inflammatory declarative statements.

Yes.

Fuck Yes. (Pre-click Hint: rhymes with Shew Fobotech Martoons)

"Good night, and good luck."

I saw this film last night. My reaction is a simple one. Go see it. Immediately. Tell your friends and family to see it. Tell them to tell their friends. Go see it, even if you have to spend your lunch money to do it. Then think about it.

A couple of quotes from Edward R. Murrow (not all from the film)

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. "

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility."

"If we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the . . . confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought."

Disillusionment

Man, that groundhog Phil is full of shit. It's 55 deg F here. Supposed to be 60 deg F tomorrow. 6 more weeks of winter my ass. If you can't trust a groundhog to predict the arrival of spring, what can you trust? Nothing and no one, that's what.

I am very childish

Whenever I randomly remember this exchange, it's always in this form:

Darth Vader: "The Circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master."

Obi-wan: "Only a Master-bator, Darth."

Why is this? Discuss.

N-E-G-L-E-C-T

That is all you get from me.

N-E-G-L-E-C-T

Oh, sock it to me, sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me , sock it to me. . .

(Just a little bit)

Kick-ass Tree

tree2
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

"Oh Kick-ass tree, oh Kick-ass tree, how much you do kick aaasss?"

I am all class. A few more tree pics if you click through to flickr.

Happy Holidays everyone! May your holiday greed by ever-sated!

Sign of the coming apocalypse

The Seattle Seahawks have the best record in the NFC at 12-2 and the second best record in the league (they trail only the Colts, their next opponent this weekend). Oh my God the earth quaked when I wrote that sentence.

Start stocking up on food and water now. This may also be a good time to have a place to meet or a plan in case of severe societal disruption. This isn't a drill people! Move! Move!

Tales to WoW you, part 2

Day 3, Brill (Ruminations on Unlife)

***************************

"How many Rot Hide Gnolls did we kill today?" I ask , as we sit surveying the carnage in the field below.

"I don't know. 40 maybe?" Karibou is wiping the blood and ichor off of his sword.

"Filthy buggars. I hope the apothecary will be happy with the embalming fluid we collected from them. Ooh, I think I'll ask him if he has enough extra for another embalming treatment. I think I'm starting to rot again."

"Dude . . .." Karibou shakes his head. Clearly it was more than he needed to know.

"So, what's up with your name?" I ask as look through all the potentially valuable rubbish I picked off the rot hides.

"What do you mean?"

"Karibou kind of sounds like someone who's in touch with nature, like a druid or something. It's just strange since, you know, our goal in unlife is not so much to be in touch with nature as it is to kill it and twist it into a something resembling our own hideous state of undeath."

Karibou shrugs and stands up. Clearly he's decided he has no back-story either. "Let's go back to town and give this crap to the apothecary," he says.

"God I hate Brill." I mutter as we lope breathlessly (literally) back towards town.

"I know, it's a fucking rat's nest," he shakes his head.

"You know, I understand that as magically reanimated corpses we don't really worry about comfort anymore, but still, you'd think someone would pick up a fucking hammer at some point and fix the gaping holes in the walls. Seriously, we're supposed to be at war with the alliance and here we are with buildings that look like they'll collapse the next time we get a breeze passing through."

"Tru dat."

"I mean, for god's sake, pretty much all we have to worry about anymore is the war with humans and brewing up a new plague to rid the world of them once and for all. But I mean, we don't need to eat, sleep, take baths, nothing. I mean, I've got a lot of fucking time on my hands these days, and I can only roam the forests killing rot hides so much before it starts to get a little dull, you know?"

Karibout nods, clearly, and somewhat ironically, already bored with the conversation.

"I mean, you'd think a few of us would be resurrected neat freaks and would spend all this time we got obsessively cleaning and fixing up the place. Don't you think?"

"I dunno, maybe. Oh hey, there it is," Karibou points ahead, clearly eager to change the conversation.

"It's as lovely as I remember," I say as we head down the hill and into town. God I hate Brill.

***********LATER*************

"You know, I think I'm going to Undercity for a few days," I say as we pocket the pittance the apothecary gave us for our troubles.

"Why's that?" Karibou asks.

"I'm thinking of picking up a trade of some sort to fill in the hours when we're not out killing things." I think, looking off in the distance towards the ruined castle.

"A trade? You mean like sewing?" He seems doubtful.

"Well, I don't think I'm going to learn sewing per se, but something."

"Well, you go learn your knitting. I'm going to stay here and, you know, fight threats to the Forsaken."

"Hah, you do that. See you in a few days."

"Later. Hey, knit me a sweater while you're there."

"Bastard." And with that, I trot off to Undercity to find my non-sewing tradeskill destiny.

Tales to WoW you, part 1

Presented for your amusement I bring you tales of the many adventures of Karibou (Eric) and Gulveris (me) in World of Warcraft. Many of the incidents and conversations you read in this post and others probably never happened. But they COULD have. In any case, dear reader, they are sure to astound and WoW you (I know, I've made that bad pun twice now, and no, I'm not any happier with it than you are). Read on, intrepid adventurer!

Note: I mostly intend these to be funny and not self-indulgent fan fiction. That said, this will likely have waaay too much self-indulgent fan fiction and be the death of this blog. Enjoy!

Day 1, Deathnell (In which Our Heroes are introduced)

I pull the cobwebs off of my eyes and sit up, bones creaking. I jump out of the coffin I had so gracefully been dumped in and assess the situation. I smell horrible, my jaw won't close and my fingers and toes are nothing but bones. Oh good. I also appear to be rotting, which I guess explains the smell. I think back to my last memory and decide I have no back story. That settled, I step out into the crap hole that is Deathnell.

"Sup." An equally dead warrior staggers up to me as I wander the dilapidated town. He is also rotting. "Want to team up?"

I nod, catching my head before it falls too far foward. "Sorry, newly undead," I pop my neck back into joint. "Sure, let's go kill something."

"Karibou" he extends a bony hand.

"Gulveris." And we trot off to kill something.

***** LATER ******

"Wait up, I need to eat some mushrooms and regain some health." Karibou searches the wolf's remains before sitting down. "Holy shit, this wolf was carrying a bastard sword."

"Really?" I sit down and pull out some bread and begin munching.

"Yeah. I'm gonna use it."

"Cool. You don't wonder why the wolf was carrying that type of thing?" Karibou shrugs. I look down at the bread I'm eating. It looks good. "Why do we like eating bread?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're undead, right?" I continue chewing. I'm not sure if I'm tasting bread, or just remembering the flavor. "Shouldn't we crave brains or something?"

"I don't know." Karibou stands up, wielding his new bastard sword. "What I want to know is, how do you chew with your jaw hanging half-off like that?"

I self-consciously close it with my hand. "Been wondering that myself."

"Okay, let's go kill something." Karibou runs off towards a nearby wolf, dragging his sword behind him in the dirt.

"Okay." I stand up and pull out my daggers. Time to bring the gift of death to a world that needs it.

*********************

Me: What do you think of the game so far.
Eric: It's okay.
Me: You mind if I chronicle our adventures on the blog?
Eric: . . . I suppose.
Me: I'm running out of things to write about.
Eric: I see. Let's go kill something.
Me: Okay.

I sleep now

A few quick reviews in lieu of actual interesting posting.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is B-movie spoofing at its finest. I laughed quite heartily throughout, although it begins to wear at the end. Still, it has many classic lines that you will want to repeat over and over with your friends in public until the people haven't seen it yet get annoyed and tell you to shut up.

Alfred Hitchcock presents, season 1 is 39 episodes of entertainment. I find it quite enjoyable. And 39 episodes for one season? That is 2 normal seasons and 3 first seasons today.

Smallville is pretty good this season. Slightly less angst, a lot more comic book type action. Nice to see James Marsters back too. And the episode of Aquaman was classic. Rumor has it that they're going to do Aquaman as a TV series, although it won't be a spinoff of Smallville.

Of the 3 new Alien Invasion series, Surface is by far the best. In terms of actually moving the plot forward, weird and scary moments and great special effects for a TV series. Invasion is okay, but it feels like the plot is inching along. Like all they had was the premise and don't know what to do with it from there. Threshold is okay, sometimes it's really good, sometimes not. It's certainly the grossest. It will probably be the first to be cancelled though. Lost is still entertaining, but I still need to be convinced that the writers are going somewhere interesting with the show.

I went to a midnight showing of Harry Potter and found it pretty enjoyable. Although I continue to think of Harry as a mediocre individual, only able to do the things he does by cheating and the help of other people. But that's just a nitpick.

News Flash!

Okay, this may not be news to some of you, but after 3 near misses in traffic today, I have come to the following realization: I am a horrible driver. I think I was pretty decent at one point in time (or maybe not, who knows?). But now, oh god now, I'm amazed I'm still alive. So . . . yeah. Try and forget this post when you visit me and I insist on driving you around town.

Regurgitation Station

"So, when you want incredible entertainment experiences in your lap . . ." -- latest intel commercial.

I'm juvenile for thinking this is funny, I know, but I laughed a bit when I heard it. Does Intel really think they're the #1 source for "incredible entertainment" in your lap?

Regurgitation Station

"They said we were going to be greeted with sweets and flowers . . . they left out the crucial modifier 'exploding'" -- Al Franken

If only my house had this view

oh canada eh
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

I want to go back to the Banff gondola. I didn't really have time to explore as much as I wanted to. Got some nice shots of the view though (which I'll finish posting to flickr later). Good times.

Funny Story, True Story

My Great Uncle Clyde has a son named Clyde Jr. and a daughter named Clydetta. I have mixed feelings about this.

A Dish Best Served Warm

Can y'all remember what you were doing 2 years ago? I remember exactly what I was doing. It was the day after my wedding.

On the way home S and I were talking about how helpful F. McMatty was at the wedding and how cute hbot3000 was in his tuxedo. We arrived home in a state of marital bliss. At the door I said: "Wait wait."I put down the bags and picked up my giggling bride. I carried her over the threshold and we were home this was to be our new life.

Immediately upon entering we were hit with an unholy stench, Shereen said, "Oh my God." I said, "Get out, get out." We left the door open hoping the apartment would air. Pixel stood at the screen door eyes watering, mewing piteously.

Shereen asked if I thought the cat was sick over the weekend while we were gone. I had my own suspicions. See, I remembered three hot and sunny California days prior when Todd and I went to the store. He asked if I had any draino. I asked why. He said, "Never mind I'll take care of it." We left it at that.

Oh, he took care of it all right. He made sure to spread that ungodly mess evenly about the toilet. Further inspection proved my worst fears to be true. And there was no water left in the bowl.

"Well, maybe it's disintegrated enough over the weekend." But I was wrong.

We watched in horror as the bowl kept filling and filling and filling, until it spilled over the edge. Shereen began gagging in the hall way and I just ran.

Yes, Todd Jarnes is on my shit list. I can hardly wait till he gets married. I'm cooking up something special even as I type. Though I hope it's soon, the constipation is killing me.

Regurgitation Station

"Yes, maybe Reno was disgusting. Yes, maybe it is a cesspool of vice and boredom . . . an abysmal hell-hole of nothingness . . . but, eh, we had a nice time." -- Captain Dwayne Hernandez (Reno 911)

The sentiments expressed in this quote are so perfect I can't begin to explain it to you.

Update on my life

I have thoughts I still need, nay, WANT to share with you all. But I've had the september blues. Also, I discovered that the druid is, in fact, my favorite class in World of Warcraft and that a Night Elf druid is incredibly fun to play. There's a certain joy to being able to transform into a big scary bear and a fierce sea lion. So, um, been spending a lot of time doing that. And hanging out with Lupita. And working. And stuff. But never fret, I haven't forgotten you. I'll post the best post ever next time. Promise.*

*I can't actually promise that.

I Play Penguin With the Train

I thought I should memorialize/eulogize this before it slips into nothingness:

"I'm big and black, clickety-clack"--Cowboy Troy

A brilliant magical tragedy happened in the 101 Safety Corridor, north of Eureka. Shereen, myself and S's friend Minnie from DC were going to the North Coast "Hippy Dippy" Fair. The truck in front of us pulled off the road and put on it's blinkers, and something black and white could be seen in the right hand lane. I saw it first, Shereen was driving and talking. I said, "Pull over into that lane." I didn't say, "Oh my god it's a live penguin." Because that would just be crazy. But Shereen and Minnie both said, "It's a penguin." And it was.

What space time warp brought this little penguin to waddle across 101 North thousands of miles from the artic circle? A surreal realization, almost like discovering a leprachaun under your rose bush. And our wonder lasted for 5 seconds, the next car nailed it. What the fuck was going on? Our car traveled on in silent horror all the way to Arcata. We haven't really brought it up since. Trying to forget.

I don't think it's last thought was, "Will you be my friend?" I think it was, "Holy shit what's a Volvo?"

As seen on TV

According to Arrested Development, the new ad campaign for Reno is:

Make the Biggest Little MIstake of Your Life in Reno.

I love this show.

Regurgitation Station

"Some of you may have heard me observe a time or two -- going back to when George W. was still governor of Texas -- that the trouble with the guy is that while he is good at politics, he stinks at governance. It bores him, he's not interested, he thinks government is bad to begin with and everything would be done better if it were contracted out to corporations.

We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people in charge of government who don't believe in government and who are not interested in running it well is ... what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

Many a time in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn't annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, "I told you so." But, dammit it all to hell, I did tell you, and I've been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -- all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and "Christian" moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention. " -- Molly Ivins