Making Fiends Episode 8 Just in time for D’s Birthday!

Many Misc Crowd Scenes from the last night of CoH beta.

It’s one of those times. I can feel where light is hitting my body, sort of pick up on the varying thickness of the air’s textures.

I want to go for a swim… well, not a true swim. An extended soak in a natural pond is more like it. Someplace peaceful, with smooth, round stones and not a lot of overbearing sound.

Without horseflies. With Limeade, s’mores and Pita Sammiches.

So, Dear journal… it’s Friday, at last. I’m looking forward to taking it easy tomorrow… this week has been heavy duty, and I suspect that today may be a bit stressful before this afternoon. I think there’ll be more time to breathe after the fund-raising events next week.

Final night for the CoH beta was a lot of fun… all the heroes on the server fending off an alien invasion… quite a way to end the run! (I still like fighting Nazis the most.) It was amazing to see literally hundreds of supers mobbing the streets in a massive free-for-all. Got to play a bit with Rogana and Willow Whisp, but sadly, Sambot and Tiny weren’t around.

I’m still astounded by the design and graphics that have gone into the system…truly amazing stuff to be controlling real time, with thousands of people playing.

The CoH Timeline –

Thursday, 4/22, 11:59pm (CDT) – Beta officially ends. Servers go down and are character wiped. Blackout period begins.

Sunday, 4/25, 12 noon (CDT) – Head Start begins. Pre-order accounts are the only accounts with access to the game servers.

Wednesday morning, 4/28, 12 midnight (CDT) – City of Heroes officially launches! Access to the game is only allowed to those with a retail version of the game. Pre-order people must have a final version of the product in order to continue playing past the Head Start. Again, all pre-order players have until end of day May 15th to buy the game and claim their reserved character names.

Worst Bruce Campbell movie I’ve ever seen – Tornado! (Basically Twister, without the nifty effects crew.) Bruce was uninspired and pretty dang flat. It was playing briefly in the background on the hallmark channel while I beat up invaders.

Be back soon. Don’t eat any wooden nickels, even if you’re a termite.

The British Museum has finally released the beginning volumes of its project to digitize historical manuscripts from its collection. On the Turning the Pages site, you can actually see and turn the pages of several great books, from Leonardo’s notebooks, to a 14th Century Haggadah, to an ancient Qur’an, to the beautiful Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell (the copy was King George III’s personal copy). The revolutionary software (it uses Shockwave) lets you click to turn the pages of the books, then magnify them to read. This is truly bringing libraries to the people.

http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation1.html

Just the thing to browse during my lunch hour.

Long day yesterday, hopefully today will be better. Not bad, exactly, just busy-busy like a bee convention. Fortunately, it was productive-busy rather than wheel-spinning.

This morning, I find myself wondering how far those little Eucharist wafers would fly, if you flung ’em like a bottle-cap or tiny Frisbee. I don’t think it’d be sacrilegious, as long as it wasn’t blessed or otherwise set up for transubstantiation yet.

Got a wake up call from RI at 2:30 am… because she is unwilling to even f-ing call him when a child’s life is on the line. making me the third step in the loop is stupid and poorly thought out. She shouldn’t hold an emergency beeper, if she can’t use it correctly.

Beta of There is pretty impressive so far. The roller coasters are nifty, but I really like the 2-man scooters and the portable housing. (The new houses on Tyr are beautiful, too.)

My daughter in the vampire game helped me to achieve thievery2 last night… she’s been very kind to assist in growth there. I haven’t talked much to my other relations yet, but look forward to doing so.

Built another super… “Stinkbug Junior” a insect-motif, with a robot arm that shoots dark miasma gas / tar pits like powers. a lot of fun, the “fart joke” humor is fine for this pre-wipe era.

Anydangway, have a good one, dear journal.

Dream fragment-

Brother was living with me at the old house in Boynton, and was having an athsma attack… he told me that he had to go to the emergency room, and that his friend (Patrick) had left rather than be put out by taking bro to the ER. I sat bro in front of the computer, which had an american lung association logo on it… he was bathed in a soft pink light until his symptoms stopped. Bro was fairly thankless, and just got up and took off – I told him to be sure and close the door, so that Newt wouldn’t get out. Of course, he didn’t, and Newt got outside.. but fortunately he was just sunbathing on the front lawn, and wasn’t creamed by a car or anything. Bro returned home and I bawled him out for being irresponsible, and he was very uncarnig about it…”hey, you know me, I can’t be relied on”… so I told him that if I couldn’t depend on him to close the door when he leaves, then he’d best find another place to live, becaus eI wasn’t going to put myself, loved ones and valuables at risk just because he’s a jerk. When the mailman came, I filled out a form, and had bro reassigned to a new address in cocoa beach… at 4pm the post office truck came by, picked him and all his stuff up, and unpacked him at his new address… bro didn’t seem to mind, the surfing was good, and we talked on the phone.

Dream fragment-

Brother was living with me at the old house in Boynton, and was having an athsma attack… he told me that he had to go to the emergency room, and that his friend (Patrick) had left rather than be put out by taking bro to the ER. I sat bro in front of the computer, which had an american lung association logo on it… he was bathed in a soft pink light until his symptoms stopped. Bro was fairly thankless, and just got up and took off – I told him to be sure and close the door, so that Newt wouldn’t get out. Of course, he didn’t, and Newt got outside.. but fortunately he was just sunbathing on the front lawn, and wasn’t creamed by a car or anything. Bro returned home and I bawled him out for being irresponsible, and he was very uncarnig about it…”hey, you know me, I can’t be relied on”… so I told him that if I couldn’t depend on him to close the door when he leaves, then he’d best find another place to live, becaus eI wasn’t going to put myself, loved ones and valuables at risk just because he’s a jerk. When the mailman came, I filled out a form, and had bro reassigned to a new address in cocoa beach… at 4pm the post office truck came by, picked him and all his stuff up, and unpacked him at his new address… bro didn’t seem to mind, the surfing was good, and we talked on the phone.

Dear Journal, remind me to put a better disclaimer on potentially off-putting news items. Apparently the last toe-fry tale squicked a good half-dozen people. Sorry!

I just found out that The B-52s were at Calder race track on Sunday! Aww.. I’d have enjoyed seeing them. I wonder if they have a new album out?

Hooked up with a gmail account yesterday…I’ll be interested in seeing how long it stays spam-free. A gig of storage is nice… (work’s config for all users there is only 300 meg for the whole squad) makes file-tranning CD ISOs possible, if nothing else. My first test was a nice fat file of the Monkey vs Robot. (This won’t be my primary email, but it’s a nice backup. What’s next? Google-IM?

Rock art hints at whaling origins

Capture of a whale, showing a boat carrying whalers (left of the whale) and a float (on the right)

Stone Age people may have started hunting whales as early as 6,000 BC, new evidence from South Korea suggests. Continue reading 6608 Whale art, “Sasquatch and the Bologna Caper”, gmail →

Dear Journal, remind me to put a better disclaimer on potentially off-putting news items. Apparently the last toe-fry tale squicked a good half-dozen people. Sorry!

I just found out that The B-52s were at Calder race track on Sunday! Aww.. I’d have enjoyed seeing them. I wonder if they have a new album out?

Hooked up with a gmail account yesterday…I’ll be interested in seeing how long it stays spam-free. A gig of storage is nice… (work’s config for all users there is only 300 meg for the whole squad) makes file-tranning CD ISOs possible, if nothing else. My first test was a nice fat file of the Monkey vs Robot. (This won’t be my primary email, but it’s a nice backup. What’s next? Google-IM?

Rock art hints at whaling origins

Capture of a whale, showing a boat carrying whalers (left of the whale) and a float (on the right)

Stone Age people may have started hunting whales as early as 6,000 BC, new evidence from South Korea suggests. Continue reading 6608 Whale art, "Sasquatch and the Bologna Caper", gmail →

Well, I brought the power supply back, exchanged it, and ol’ Bigger Brain is up and running fine again. Silly Scotto.

I heard from GP yesterday, but we couldn’t get together, due to a last minute situation with family obligations. Oh well, Christmas-time, then! At least I got to gab for a few minutes with him.

Let’s Draw Birds / Let’s Draw Robots (via waxy_org)

Scientific “Goof Gallery” of Organisms.

My New nickname is Lieutenant Looney B. Dweeberson.
Take The Third Grade Insult Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey‘s Name Generator Generator.

Man eats own toes

An Austrian man cut off his toes, fried them up and ate them between two slices of bread after getting high sniffing butane gas. Continue reading 6607 Walk without rhythm and it won’t attract the worm →

Well, I brought the power supply back, exchanged it, and ol’ Bigger Brain is up and running fine again. Silly Scotto.

I heard from GP yesterday, but we couldn’t get together, due to a last minute situation with family obligations. Oh well, Christmas-time, then! At least I got to gab for a few minutes with him.

Let’s Draw Birds / Let’s Draw Robots (via waxy_org)

Scientific “Goof Gallery” of Organisms.

My New nickname is Lieutenant Looney B. Dweeberson.
Take The Third Grade Insult Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey‘s Name Generator Generator.

Man eats own toes

An Austrian man cut off his toes, fried them up and ate them between two slices of bread after getting high sniffing butane gas. Continue reading 6607 Walk without rhythm and it won't attract the worm →

Well, since it’s still under warrenty, Mr computer is going to fly off to santa’s workshop, and be repaired and back home inside of 8 working days, for free. (rather than me having to crack it open and replace a power supply, which is a pain in the rump with this particular case.)

Maybe I’ll see what I can cobble together of my old parts, video card and such in the meantime, and continue to work on assorted hubbub. I know that middle-brain is There-capable, but I doubt it’s up to superheroics.

I get to do trainings for Sat-mapping and codeRED via teleconference to Oklahoma, Nevada, Ohio, Florida and Rhode Island in about a month’s time… I’m enthused about that… it means that expansion is actually taking place. We’ve also put a lobbyist on the payroll (I wonder if that was BK’s final reason for droppping CS to a more drastically cut schedule…) Hopefully that’ll mean more funding in place for us next Fed-pay time. I have to produce lists of duties for CS to perform during his twin six-hour shifts each week, and he has to show that he’s on top of them, and not just checking his personal email on the clock. BK’s major gripe is that she doesn’t *see* work being done, so she doesn’t know if it is… thus, the work order list for him. She knows I do things, because of a monthly and weekly progress report that I email to her, (keeping a copy for myself, should she decide to ask “What did you do last october? We need to validate funding for Ohio,” or whatnot.

Crazy day, so off to actually eat some lunch during my lunchtime, and I’ll catch you later, dear journal.

Posting from the laptop… lost the power supply on the desktop system yesterday, about midday. Thank goodness for lappie…especially considering I’m on call. It’s been a little while since I’ve used ol’ lappie, and it’s a minor thing to get back to the smaller keyboard.

No Supers, no There, no major surfing until I get that one back to business.

There is something to be said for sitting Indian-style, typing at the end of the bed, rather than at the desk…a more comfortable, natural feeling. The big trick is to make a sitting-place more appealing than the keyboard here, considering this is also the position I sit in when I’m going to give him some playtime. We’ve found a solution…he’s curled against my back swatting at the ponytail (I’m goading him a little, by shaking my head.)

After I get my day’s duties taken care of, I’m going to swing by the computer store on federal to gather some fresh innards for my poor broken brain. I rand windows update, and for about a half hour feared that I’d caused my backup computer to crash out, too.

Well, I see by the clock in the corner that it’s time for me to fly once more. Until later, dear journal. Have a good one!