“I yam a jalapeno onna steeek.”
raininva and I went to the Virginia Beach Funny Bone to see Jeff Dunham tonight. Lots of you might have caught part of his act, because he’s been doing it for a while – I swear I saw him on “Solid Gold” once. I haven’t laughed that hard since the first time I saw Eddie Izzard do his act. The tickets were pricier than usual, so it’s good to leave feeling like we got our money’s worth.
Our oil heater, once again, isn’t working right. In what I think is an intentional snub, it’s getting air in the line and failing every time the weather gets cold out. I woke up this morning to a 50-degree house. On the bright side, I got a couple points to spend in “Driver’s Seat Replacement” today and made the skill check just fine. Rain’s Pontiac should be much more comfortable to drive, now.
A few weeks ago, I bought the first book of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, thinking if the first one was any good, I’d buy the rest. It seems Pullman knew I would do this, because the first book isn’t a bad start at all, but the second two fall apart almost immediately. The books are being marketed to the Harry Potter crowd, but while Rowling does a fair job of writing about adult themes from an adolescent’s viewpoint, Pullman tries to stuff in philosophical observations of the nature of good and evil, the way that people’s souls change over time, and a literal war to destroy Heaven. Throw in a large cast of characters we’re given no reason to care about, and I’m reminded of Steve Martin’s line: “I’ve written a number of children’s books. Not on purpose.”
Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” is a slightly better read, but only if you are willing to assume that everything you saw in the movie (I haven’t read the original books) was a propagandist’s lie. At this point in my reading, the WWW isn’t any more evil than your average misunderstood goth chick, while the Wizard is a fascist dictator bringing all the worst kinds of “progress” to Oz. If the writing wasn’t pretty decent, I think I might have moved on from this one by now… and I can’t imagine this being the Broadway musical that’s it’s been adapted into.
It’ll take a while to load, but you should watch this Flash animation. Any non-geeks on my friends list (are there any?) may understand the rest of us a little better 🙂
Speaking of web video… Rube Goldberg meets Half-Life 2 in the “Doctor Breen Butt-Kicking Machine“.
Oh, and over the course of Thursday and Friday, I put 22 hours in at work. Yeek.
WANDA WANDA
Real post coming later today, or perhaps tomorrow.
For now, 2-D Katamari Damacy.
(In the beginning of the game, you control the King, and the Prince follows him. Don’t let them touch! It’s easiest if you try not to move the mouse outside the play area. And don’t click!)
Adobe Priceyshop
From a humor website: Encyclopaedia Dramatica. I think this may actually be true…
“Photoshop: Adobe’s® professional photo editing software, often used to create background images, icons, image macros, and to airbrush webcam photos. Nobody actually knows how much Photoshop costs, because nobody has ever actually purchased a copy of it before. Every copy of Photoshop out there is actually the same pirated copy downloaded off of a file sharing system. In fact, it is now believed by computer scientists and warez kiddies that Adobe doesn’t actually even create Photoshop anymore.”
Good choice of reward, too
For the diminishing (but still a majority) group of folks who don’t play World of Warcraft, advancement in power within the game is measured in Experience Points (XP, in gamer lingo). XP is usually gained by slaying monsters over and over (often a tedious process), or, more profitably, completing quests (which usually involve slaying monsters, so doubleplusgood).
How does one receive a quest? In any populated area where the monsters are close to one’s level, citizens will have a yellow exclamation point over their heads, announcing that a quest is available. Usually, one returns to that citizen after completing the requirements, and is rewarded with XP, and often coins, weapons or armor, reputation increases, or other valuables. Sometimes, the quests are almost silly: “Take this note to the person standing outside this room”; and sometimes, daunting: “Kill 20 of this monster, 15 of this monster, and 10 of this one, and bring me their gall spleens. Oh, they travel in packs, so bring a friend or two… did I mention that only one out of four of them even possesses a usable gall spleen?” Blizzard has shown great creativity in inventing different types of quests and related rewards, and is to be commended.
But someone recently wondered how this bore any relation to reality. In the scientific tradition, he decided to put it to the test… though he didn’t figure out a way to generate a holographic punctuation mark over his head…
I’d Be Thinner, I’d be Taller…
This is the second Heineken ad in this campaign that’s tickled me.
I would totally go to this club 🙂
The “Are You Unique?” meme
I’ll try this one out, since it was an interesting mental exercise.
Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Matsuri Za: Matsuri Daiko (taiko drumming)
Signed by the artists, who were performing at Epcot while raininva and I were there.
Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A book on number theory, surrealist art, classical music, computer programming, cellular biology, and more. Not light bedtime reading.
Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
“J-Men Forever”
This was a HARD one. Movies are social for me, so nearly every one I have was purchased off a recommendation or was a gift from someone else who already has it. (I assume we’re excluding those films which celebrate the inventiveness humanity brings to the act of reproduction.)
Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
The Ghiradelli Chocolate factory in S.F.
My first choice was the National Geographic Society building in D.C., but it’s just too close by, and I know too many intellectual types who might have swung by there 🙂
Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
An Apple Newton MessagePad
This one, OTOH, I feel quite confident about!
Slang of the Trade
I have learned something new today.
At certain auto parts places, the phrase “sure, we have that, come on by” means, “well, we have a junkyard out back, you’re welcome to take a look”.
Bloody hell, if I have to dig through junk to find it, and wrench it out myself, I feel like I should be able to just walk off with it. Moot, though, since they didn’t even have anything close to what I needed.
P.S. If you have an over-active imagination (I do), an auto junkyard is a damn morbid place.
Feeling like a ‘Prisoner’
All the typesetters here have code numbers that go on the printing plates, to assist with correcting errors. (I’m Number Nine. Turn me on, dead man.)
Still, when one of the pressmen walked in asking, “Who is Number Four?” it was difficult to resist answering, “You are Number Six.”
(Wouldn’t be accurate anyway. Number Six hasn’t come in for the day.)
People who dress odd
I suppose it’s not very convincing to call in sick when one’s already reported for work. Darn it. It’s nice out, and has been for the last couple of days.
An offhand comment about fashion (and the broken air conditioner in the typesetting room) led to my co-workers discovering I own a Utilitkilt. Now everyone wants me to wear it to work sometime soon – including my supervisors. (This is a workplace where one person has actually come to work in her pyjamas… so there’s not exactly a strict dress code.)
My jacket is currently sporting a button that reads “Paranoia, n. A healthy understanding of the way the universe works.” This made the day of a clerk at FYI Music over Christmas… apparently it hadn’t been a happy shopping morning. That same day, a customer in Red Robin went nuts over the “Team Banzai” emblem on the back of the jacket, and we spent about ten minutes swapping Buckaroo trivia.
Finally, I managed to watch “The Christmas Invasion” last night. That’s one of the darkest Dr. Who episodes I’ve ever seen. Someone makes a very nasty decision at the end, and though my knee-jerk reaction was to condemn it, I can sort of see both sides. I have to say that the new direction for the show impresses me… I never before expected to call an evening with the Doctor “thought-provoking”. I know I’ll be looking forward to “Torchwood” when that comes on. (Also because it’ll have Captain Jack Harkness in it.)
