Music Friday

New favorite band. Lots of room to dislike them, but for now I am fixated.

Discrimination

IMG_0169
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

As you can see, I had some trouble getting in.

Time Travel Bargains

Time Travel Bargains
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

When I saw this sign all I could think of was putting a pair on and flip-flopping my way into the future much the way Michael J. Fox did. Also, do you think there's any difference between the summer and winter versions? Maybe summer only goes to the past, and winter only goes to the future?

"Time Sandals, you never forget your first trip to the Jurassic in flip-flops."

Comicon Report, part the second

buddy jesus
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

This was one of my favorite costumes, the Buddy Jesus. He was remarkably soft spoken and Jesus-like as well. He had a large crowd following him around wanting pictures taken with him (when I took this there were 10 people behind me waiting to get in one with him). Anyway, greatly entertaining.

Things that make me sad

The Star Trek Online forums make me sad. Full of people declaring that only this or that game format will be "truly Star Trek". And playing the old game forum favorite of "I have 5 people that agree with me! Surely the game developers should turn over control of the game to us!"

My favorite are the people advocating that everyone start at the academy in starfleet and spend most of their time in-game taking orders from some unemployed 28-year-old mouth breather who is the "captain". And very thoughtfully pat each other on the back one someone agrees with them "Truly you a Star Trek Scholar and Poet, because you have captured exactly what star trek should be." Wait, no, my favorite was one of the afore-mentioned casually posting that they wanted to be able to have "erotic" star trek adventures because mature people like to do that. They were pretty clearly part of the erotic Stak Trek fan fiction community and wanted to take that online.

Essentially they want to live in star trek and if this MMO doesn't do that for them they are going to revolt or something. They just remind me how out of touch and sad geeks can be.

On another note, have I showed you my collection of veritech fighters? Sigh, I would love to live in Robotech. Of course, for anyone to make a game that lets you do that, they would have to incorporate the following things or it would be worthless and I would hate them. First, the controller would need to be a life-size, full scale veritech . . . . .

Rant Interlude

So this post on a few police incidents kind of has me furious. Especially the one where they taser a guy with a goddamn BROKEN BACK 18 times because he "seems dangerous". Also, invading the home of a fucking mayor without warning and killing his dogs (one of whom was running AWAY) because someone sent him a package they thought might have had drugs. HE GOT A PACKAGE FROM SOMEONE AT RANDOM AND THEY ENTERED HIS HOUSE AND KILLED HIS DOGS. This is all bad enough. Worst aspect? No penalties to the authorities for acting this way. Why the fuck aren't more people concerned about police acting like thugs and abusing their authority? Are we really that cowed by an irrational fear of "bad people" that we're willing to let the police fuck up big time without fear of consequence?

FUCK and GOD DAMN IT.

That super Suavey feeling

There's nothing quite like walking into the Apple store, making a purchase with a cute clerk, and then walking out to the car and discovering your fly has been down since you left the house. Smooth.

Making fun of movie trailers

You know, I liked the X-files. I started a couple seasons late, but I watched it all the way to the bitter, bitter end. So you must understand that I'm a little confused about the trailers for the new movie. X-files has had some really interesting and mysterious storylines that thrill and terrify. So I'm trying to figure out why they decided to ignore all of those interesting stories and instead put together, as far as I can tell, the least interesting plot imaginable. I'm hoping it's just a matter of only some of the intro shots being ready for the trailer, but so far in a season with movie trailers that make me want to see every movie every weekend, I think it's quite an accomplishment to take the X-files franchise and reduce it to "meh" in the TRAILER.

Chris Carter, you have disappointed me for the last time.

More musak

Just for fun. And just the song, the image is a still.

What's in a Name?

Zapp Brannicat
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

This poor guy, I have had him for several years now and I've never settled on a good name for him. He arrived to me as "Bouncer" which was decent, but a little too Looney Toons for my taste. I had always intended to give him a good name, but didn't. He's picked up a lot of nicknames over the last couple of years (mostly from me searching for the right one), but none of them seemed to fit. Among other things he has been called:

Bouncer
Buddy
Thunder cat
Battle Cat
Minino
Long Paw (of the law)
Lady Marmalade
Zaphod (the most recent attempt at a Z name to match Zatanna)

None of those have that special ring though. Until I happened upon the perfect name (starting with a Z no less!) while watching an episode of Futurama.

Feel free to call him what you want, but as of today he has a new official name. I present to you:

Zapp Brannicat!

Dynamic Duo

Dynamic Duo
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

Normally when these two are this close to each other there is lots of hissing and claw swiping involved, but this morning they decided to pose. In actuality this may be some sort of passive-aggressive territory squabble, but I'll take peace when I can get it. Anyway, they are also cute and deserving of pictures so there ya go.

New Music Fixation

The Fratellis are my new musicians of interest. The first album (that this video is taken from) is pretty much catchy, raucous rock and roll meant to be sung loudly in bars or brothels (apparently). I really like it, although the girls they have in their videos are kind of silly. Second album is pretty good as well, although their sound changes somewhat, which is okay of course , still pretty good. I imagine next few days are going to be pretty much full of fratelli links so prepare yourselves.

okay, Rant Time (hooray!).

I have become a chubby bastard. One of the side effects of this is that my fat fleshy neck collapses my already small airway at night, causing me to stop breathing repeatedly while I sleep. This keeps me from reaching REM and deep sleep almost every night. That is of course, unless I sleep hooked up to my darth vader CPAP machine which keeps my airway open enough at night to keep my breathing constant which allows me to achieve every sleep cycle known to man, even those reserved for non-fatties (Oh how I hates you non-fatties).

ANYWAY, because I am stupid and lazy and occasionally depressed I missed a few payments on CPAP machine (not because I didn't have money, purely because of stupid and lazy and depressed, hooray for me). How it works is insurance and I pay off machine for 6 months until the machine is mine, as in I own it. So a few weeks back, the company that "rents" me the machine calls wanting to take it back (they can't have my magical sleep machine, mine!). So I call the sleep clinic the originally diagnosed me (because they like to help patients, odd, I know). I had just gotten my act together and mailed in all my missing payments that week, and told everyone so. After a few days, it all gets worked out. The company that wants to take the machine back says my payment came in, all is well, I'm their new favorite customer, would I like candy?, etc. I have received no further bills from them since then.

A week after that I get a call from another guy from the same damn company, saying he needs to pick up the machine. I assume this was a hiccup in the bureaucracy and ignore it. Today, I get some damn guy at my goddamn house trying to pick the damn machine up. I asked him why and he said I was being "transitioned" to another company, which is the same damn thing they told me back when the problems started. I'm fairly sure "transitioned" means "we're trying to drop you and take the machine back and resell it" because they haven't told me why they're dropping me nor are they "transitioning" me to another company. They're "transitioning" me from covered to screwed. I told him the story in miniature, that last I heard they were completely happy with me, and that I need them to call me again to see what's going on. If necessary, I'm sure my sleep clinic will back me up again (they tell me the machine is nearly mine so under no circumstances give it back to them).

What I think is going on is said company is engaged in bureaucratic douchebaggery, and is attempting to take the machine back and resell it using some crap excuse purely in an effort to screw me over to save themselves money. For once in my life I am standing up for myself and they seem to back down quickly which makes me think they don't have a particularly good excuse for taking it.

To sum up: I'm getting pretty goddamn tired of the fact that the companies and people that are supposedly supplying me with medical equipment are intentionally looking for ways to screw me over to save money. I've read several articles about how most insurance companies do the same thing. Try to deny service whenever possible to save money. I"m not saying these are evil people, I'm saying how messed up is it when half the medical establishment is actively looking for an opportunity NOT to help you when you need it? The only angel in all this has been the doctors at my sleep clinic who are 100% on my side in all of this.

To sum up the sum up: The next person that patronizingly tells me we have the best healthcare in the world gets a kick to the crotch.

Work computer

Work computer
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

And for pure bragging rights, here is my work computer set-up. I hope one day to be as productive as this set-up would indicate I am.

Zatanna

Zatanna
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

Here's a pretty good picture of Zatanna. She can be elusive. She's just about the cutest cat I've ever seen. Always has a wide-eyed look about her and will talk to you if you talk to her. Perhaps I'll get video of it. In any case, two other things:

1) Yes, she has a tail, she's it's just curled over.

2) As you might tell from the previous cat picture, my house is as spartan as it is neat.

Cat Gremlin

Cat Gremlin
Originally uploaded by hbot3000

I haven't had time to blog recently, here's a few pictures. First, my kitty attempting to imitate or infiltrate the electronic appliances.

Little Earthquakes

So after my last post there was a 4.7 (like I think late that night) which freaked everyone out, and broke a few knick knacks in my house, but otherwise left most of us unharmed. I think a few people right over the epicenter had cracks in their walls and moved off of foundations a little bit, but mostly everyone was okay. Since then earthquake activity has died down a bit in frequency, although there was a 3.7 late last night. In any case, in the meantime I have purchased a disaster emergency kit which I don't expect to have to use but find comforting, and I have done some interior redesigning with the possibility of earthquakes shaking things down in mind and find that I feel pretty confident in case of earthquake now. Not a lot can fall in the house now that would hurt me or the cats and I have supplies in case of disruption. So hooray for being prepared.

*crazy*

Although, somewhere out there, under the earth, I know those earthquake worms are biding their time, waiting for their time to strike. Right now they are lulling us all into a false sense of security, but they can't fool me. They will never get me!

*/crazy*

Quakin' and a shakin'

Two, 4+ magnitude quakes today. Both of these felt all the way at work (10 miles away or so). Remember, you can pinpoint my house on this map.

Deep breaths . . . remain calm . . .

. . .

. . .

Agggh! It's the last days of pompeii!

IT'S THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEEIIIII!!!! (runs off screaming)

Age wars

This new mosquito device that emits an annoying noise that only teenagers can hear is the funniest thing to me. It is, of course, used by the elderly, who are in general afraid and jealous of the young, to "keep them from loitering". Which is a funny way of saying it, because loitering assumes that young people may have legitimate business in the area in question and perhaps linger too long after completing said business, but the device would keep them from even showing up in the first place. So I am just young enough to be amused that old people no longer have to come out and shout at the kids to "get off of their lawn", they just activate the sonic device that causes young people to run away screaming, hands held over bleeding ears. It's the elderly version of a safety blanket. I'm predicting portable versions that will keep a kid-free bubble of sonic assault around the elderly at all times in the future.

However, I am also just old enough to be incredibly amused at the effects it has on young people. For instance, the anecdote about teenagers no longer congregating and getting into fights in the parking lot made me chuckle for the mental image it created. Kids acting all rambunctious then fleeing in all directions when "pest-be-gone" is activated just makes me laugh. Probably because it makes them seem like animals in my head. And I am amused by this because I am just old enough to start resenting young people for the crimes of being young: i.e. so naive and stupid, but so convinced they are the only smart people ever ( as we all were), so contemptuous of people older than them even though they're doing crap all with their lives, and, of course, because they are younger and prettier than me. So yes, the idea of these youngsters about to fight in some barely sentient display of primate aggression then dispersing upon hearing a loud noise, perhaps to run home and indulge in a tasty banana, entertains me greatly.

That said, it may be cruel and pointless and maybe not a good idea in practice. But as I can't hear the noise myself probably anymore and won't be needing to use the device, I am not as interested in the practicality of it just yet.

The panic of my small mind

I experienced 3 tiny earthquakes in a row before leaving the house today. Here's the map with all activity up until now. I just need to get used to it, but it does set me on edge. My co-workers laugh at me for my unease, and rightly so, but the primitive part of my brain just wants to run, run away from the place where the earth is not content to lie still. Which brings me to my favorite song this week. Run children, run away! I have the monster at bay!