Where, oh where is my beautiful, sweet beloved?

Ah well, I’ll putter about while I wait for her to appear.

Congrats to Kidalicious on the new arrival! go say hey, and give ’em hugs!

New Moon tonight… dark and lovely out.

The baha men are trying to push a new album… didn’t anyone tell them that “who let the dogs out” is a one hit wonder song?

I’m sort of fiddling with pictures lately, making skins of my beloved, Newton (once I get a big-cat framework), and myself as superheroes for freedom force.

The Carpet Cougar, Magnificent Moonflower, and being known only as the Pod…I’m still debating what powers to give each.

I think Newt-hero will get a cybernetic brain, blitzkrieg, claws, superleap, running speed and charming appearance, to start…. Maybe a surprise attack, too… stealth?

Holy cow! look at the time! I’ve got to get to work!

angry kid, from the guys who did wallace and gromit.

not for the easily offended. cracked me up! Thanks to for pointing me there, and all the laughies!

off to work… some hip tunes on blue tube.. I’m jamming to this one right now… a nice start to the work day.

See you later, dear LJ. Let’s Roll!

I’m going to hold off on reformatting the laptop until monday, in case of a fatal crash… I want my machine working on the weekend… glad that I’ve backed up the important parts of my machine, though. Some very important pictures and data I would prefer to not lose.

A Programmer and an Engineer were sitting next to each other on an airplane. The Programmer leans over to the Engineer and asks if he wants to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to sleep so he politely declines, turns away and tries to sleep. The Programmer persists and explains that it’s a real easy game. He explains,”I ask a question and if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5. Then you ask a question and if I don’t know the answer I’ll pay you $5.” Again the Engineer politely declines and tries to sleep.

The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5 and if I don’t know the answer I pay you $50!” Now, that got the Engineer’s attention, so he agrees to the game. The Programmer asks the first question, “What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?” Then Engineer doesn’t say a word and just hands the Programmer $5.

Now, its the Engineer’s turn. He asks the Programmer,”What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?” The Programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the Engineer and hands the Engineer $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 turns away and tries to return to sleep.

The Programmer, a little miffed, asks, “Well what’s the answer to the question?”

Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the Programmer, turns away and returns to sleep.

If Newton could yell “Death from above! Suffer, Yeti who is my father!”, he would have. I just got up to go to the bathroom, walked past my dresser, and was tackled by a predatory psycho-kitty. He is now sitting on my shoulders. He initially landed on my head, and I was totally unprepared for his oomph-tackle, and replied with a *waugh*. almost immediately after, I cracked up, laughing.

Want to see my freedom force dream team? I think they should fight the naked robot monkey (I bet my beloved would say “he’s just misunderstood!”.)

Click image to view larger version

no? Well, here they are, anyhow. lj cut to save friend’s pages.

Step one on the laptop trail… got her on the worknetwork, and backed all 9 gigs to one of the servers (the silly thing had over 100 gig free, so little guilt taking the space for a few days), and have begun burnnig it to CDs, for more perm personal backups. Tomorrow, I will reformat the thing, reset it tofactory, and copy just what I wanted to save locally. The Laptop will ideally run much better, and I’ll have freed up a healthy chunk.

Heard from my brother, and he’s doing a lot better, and has the next two days off to rest, soak, and recover. Now, he just needs to stay in, and not go stir crazy. I’m going to see if he wants any comics or books to read tomorrow morning. He’s set for food, and living cash, so we’re good.

I like the word sustained. It’s an excellent beginning to something even better, all things considered. That said, I think I’ll seek sustanance, and return in a moment.

I’m also happy in doing a job well. The monkeys in the laser department haven’t broken my tracking system yet, and neither have they made any unreasonable requests for future features. Fester *loves* that I made him a 16 point font version just for him. (his eyesight is poor… and it was an interesting test. when he logs in, it goes *boom*, with all the fonts and field sizes swelling out evenly.)

I cleaned out the laptop keyboard (aka, Newton shed-bench), and got about another kitten’s-worth of hair out of the cracks. Yeesh… at least it’s clean!

links found in sundry holes –

Eeek! David Hasselhoof Video. Is it wrong for me to say I like the guy? He seems like a nice fellow, and has never really done anything bad… I liked knight rider as a kid. (Must be the German side of me… they love him over there.) I do, however think that the video is extra cheezy. It’s the same sort of cornball foolishness that my buddies and I put together in high school… over a decade ago… except we mocked Zamfir ,master ofthe pan-flute. DH looks like my uncle bobby. that must be it. Coolby association. Bob is one of the coolest cats I know. (Married to my Dad’s Sister).

froguts.com is a great interactive frog dissection.

Scary Paintings of Michael Jackson. Nuff Said.

Do you remember wacky packages? I swear… I had about 50 of the raw goo stickers.

Fascinating dreams last night.Very surreal. Reality impaired, but hard to place where the “mistakes” were, as everything seemed quite natural. Whoops, running late! Music reminds me it’s time for a shower before delivering sundries here and there.No walkies this morn, overslept.

dream elements to recount later – mannikin-like bodies, thick atmosphere / red mists, free-roaming animals, hunting

Wearing my gi pants and reading a bit of lj before retiring for the night.

I want a magic wand to wave that’ll make everyone I care about happy, healthy, and comfortable. The best I can do is to be there for ’em in the tough times as well as the swell ones.

I feel my mental gears slipping into place on my new project at work… crystal reports is coming to me rapidly and is very powerful. not really using it for the web, but for an internal network system. very clean. It looks like a good skill to have.

I think I’m going to name my network for Virtues… Hope, Faith, Charity and Fortitude? (gives me room to add three more, later, too)

China’s First Emperor was killed by a meteor?

Just got a call from my brother… his back is killing him tonight, now… apparently he overexerted himself, and now he’s laid up in bed. (this is more fallout from the cop accident.) I tried to convince him to let me bring him stuff tonight, but he’s not into it. tomorrow morning, if he’s not feeling any better, I’ll bring him some gel-packs for cold therapy on his back, and some non-narcotic painkillers… naproxin sodium, probably. I don’t want to give him percocet or oxycontin… I think of those drugs as sort of a loaded gun. I don’t think that two alieve = one percocet, so the chart below really isn’t additive, just a one-to-one comparison. I am worried about his health and well-being.

I guess the magic statement above jinxed as I was writing it. I need a pair of wands. two hands, no waiting.

Really, if popup ads weren’t enough, now we’re going to have to deal with popup downloads? I would say that a general uprising of disgust by the web community would put and end to this kind of thing, but I suspect it wouldn’t, given that popup ads are not only alive, but present on a ton of otherwise respectable sites these days. Mozilla has an option to prevent the ads, but since I haven’t found a site with the downloads, I don’t know how it deals with them; it’s about time for Internet Explorer to follow suit, though.

Enough negativity. Time to end on an upnote or two.

Regarding Animal Crackers – The product we know today as Animal Crackers came into being in 1902, but it they had existed in similar forms for generations. In the late 1800s, “Animals” (animal shaped fancy cookies) were imported from England. Many of the small, local bakeries in America made different versions called ‘Animals’ or ‘Circus Crackers’. Bakeries began to unite into larger companies with regional and eventual national distribution at the end of the 19th century. One of these was the National Biscuit Company. (Nah-biz-co…Ding!) Packaging became an important factor in marketing on a national scale. Their “Animal Biscuits” were officially renamed ‘Barnum’s Animals’ in 1902. During the Christmas season, the package was redesigned as a circus wagon with a string attached to it, so it could be hung as a Christmas tree ornament. They sold for 5 cents, and they were an immediate hit.

In total there have been 37 different varieties of animal crackers since 1902. The current 17 varieties of crackers are tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes. There are 22 crackers per box.

More than 40 million packages of these are sold each year, and they are exported to 17 countries. They are turned out at the rate of 12,000 per minute, and nearly 6,000 miles of string are used on the packages…. I want to give my beloved a custom bowl of all elephant crackers to go with vanilla pudding.

“Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think.
When I’m grown up and can have what I please,
I think I shall always insist upon these.”
— Christopher Morley.

I dig animal crackers because army men can hunt them on safari, and then I can eat them. Invarably, the minesweeper guy gets trampled by hippos and ellies, before the melee is over. Ironically, Animal crackers are vegetarian, being made with no dairy or animal fat. I wonder how well a version with a “chocolate backing” would sell, leaving the beige critter-shapes on the front to admire.

I think I’m going to pick up a box or two tomorrow. make it three. One for me, one for my sweetie, and one for my brother.

Animal Cracker Combat Rules

Ages: Two and up (young babies can eat and enjoy animal crackers, but will miss the point of the game)

Number of Players: One or more

Nutrition Information: 140 cal; 4 g of fat; 0 g Cholesterol; 2g Protein (2 servings per box)

Instructions:

1. Acquire a box of animal crackers.
2. Shake box well (if you are a small child, you have probably already done this).
3. Wagers may be taken at this point, where legal. Note: we do not recommend this in games involving small children.
4. Each player should remove one animal cracker. If you are playing alone, remove two.
5. Determine which animal would win in a fight. For example: would the headless lion win against the zebra missing two legs?
6. Rules for determining the winner are open to many variations. See below.
7. The losing animal (cracker) should be eaten first.
8. Return to step three (until there are no more animal crackers, then return to step one).

Rules for determining a winner:

• Whole animals always beat animal parts.
• Carnivores generally beat herbivores.

Further variations:

• Best argument in support of an animal wins
• Monkeys wild
• Head beats any other limb
• Head alone loses to any other limb
• Winning animal remains for next round

Nighty night, dear journal.

relative drug strengths – 10 being mighty potent, and 1 being weak-weak.

Back from this morning’s walk… dreamed that I was riding with my sweetie on the back of a woolly mammoth…(I tell you what, I bet washing and brushing it would be a full-time job. I’ll bathe it if she takes care of the Mammoth’s snarly locks.) But we were in a covered howdah, with the bottom removed, so we could pet the ellie’s pelt, but still have cover from the weather…it wasn’t bad though… night time, clear, cool. I would prefer being there right now, actually. we were riding through a high-grassed meadow, laying on our backs, looking a the stars…a slow, loping walk, just letting the hairy beastie go where it wanted to.

big piccie of ellie armor (I’m going to slightly modify it and make it desktop wallpaper… by putting my sweetie, Newt and myself on his back)

some more pictures of that armor

Sleeping in airports. (here’s mine! How nice, it’s an acceptable one.) Hmm… scary that Miami is as acceptable… must be the security. I wish I’d known about it when I was sans a place to live. Living on the beach isn’t too bad, but I’m glad those days are behind me.

singing eugene has added a few songs since last year, too. go visit virtual om, too. I could stare stupidly at either for quite a while.

going beddy bye, now… nighters, all.

Mondays are wonderful to come home to Newt… he missed me after having me around all weekend, so he’s all crazy-lovey. It took ten solid minutes of cat-squishing to get him to relax and knowI’m in with him for the night…so he can dash off, and hang out on the cardbard boxes.

found a new supplier for goodies… that video card is $100, and looks to be easily installed. I look forward to having that machine up and solid…I’m going to bring the laptop in to work once I have the big machine solid, and back her up there… I’m contemplating the new network… point (palm), Line (laptop), Square (Web server), and Cube for Big Boy. Or maybe not.

Ack! Dang Yahoo!

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bah!

ah… scalding hot shower on my rhino hide feels sooooo good after a long day. my shoulders are still steaming.

War Ellie figs from Warhammer Ancient Battles. I want a battle elephant! If I don’t get carving soon, I’m going to yodel or something. (note, of course, my ellie-carving skills are mighty crude, compared to the folks that did those miniatures. I really like the quilted armor about five down.)

Continue reading Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. →

I slept eight hours last night, but it doesn’t feel like it was enough… usually a hot shower and a walk fixes me up, but no dice this go around. no recollection of the evening’s dreams. I’d like to blame the time change, but I’m not sure that’s what did it.

I wonder if I’m the only one suffering with yahoo mail this weekend… lots of trouble getting into the inbox the first time in. usually, I’ll see everyone else griping about thaty sort of thing in their lj’s.

part of an email from Rick…

Heh… I’ve never seen QAF, but I trust his judgement. I’m not sure why it’s ok for people of any group to hold themselves up to a stereotype when nobody else can. I’m sort of an all or nothing mindset, really (leaning to the everyone can mock everyone, if they want to). I’ve never been very fond of political correctness…I think some things are simply correct or not.

on another tack –

custom signs – http://www.electromark.com/ffsignwizard.asp?templateXML=S-50_3.5X5.xml&catgid=3 … I want to make a bunch… silly, the things that amuse me. I only wish that they had more “falling rocks and children crossing” style, but you can upload your own image, if you like. I’m probably going to play with it more when I get home from work tonight.

I’ve watched a pot until it boiled, and I don’t even have heat vision. I then made macaroni and cheese, with peas and little pearl onions… so take that, cliche’!

I’m wondering about my beloved today, and hoping that she’s feeling better.

Spent a long time today working on a programming project, and learned quite a few nifty tricks… Code Guru has some handy tips, and the article on the joy of rotor makes a few interesting observations.

Newt’s been a sleepy boy all day, but now he’s in full-gear paper wad fetch mode. He just leapt up, and deposited the wad at my left foot, and took off like a flash…. he ran left, so I tossed right… I saw an orange and cream streak whiz past, and start to hockey it around before picking up the “dead” ball of paper, and returning it to me. He’s going to keep this going until he wears himself out again, I’d wager…keeping his predator skills up. I really care for that little monkey-kitty. He hasn’t flipped the kitchen lightswitch lately…I wonder if he got tired of it, or forgot how.