And now it’s time to relax. The one place I really liked has been bid on by someone else, and most of the others I scoped out didn’t tickle my fancy. One in Hollywood, East of 95 looks nice, in a quiet community, but needs some work. I will continue my search.

At the ‘mat, a little girl gave me a piece of Valentine’s day candy. (After asking her mother first if it was ok…) Very cute of her, I accepted and it was quite tasty.. a dark-chocolate covered raspberry whip. The mom, little gal (six years old) and I gabbed as laundry spun. the Dad is a fireman, and on call… the mom is a homemaker, so they get to spend lots of time with the munchkin, who was *very* well-spoken and on good behavior.

draw your boss
“The purpose of this site is to stick it to the man by showcasing pictures people draw of their bosses. An easy way to make a drawing on your computer is to use the “Paint” program in Windows, then save the file as a .JPG file. Mac users can make a picture using Appleworks.”

I feel great!

(sent to me by a zillion people) made by these guys Punching guy looks a bit like Rik Landis to me… the easy gap-toothed smile.

Looks like most of the condos will run about $650-750 a month, with mortgage, maintenance and misc charges. A trifle more than I was expecting, but still quite well within budget. Off to look at more on what I hope to be a fine Sunday morning.

tmi

I hope that as many people as possible give and are given some sort of love today.. life’s to short without some emotional warmth. Actually, I hope that about every day, but since Feb 14 is earmarked as the holiday it comes to mind all the more. I hope I continue to get lots of opportunities to tell my loved ones how I feel, no matter what part of the year it is.

This is the day for lovers and birds. Nowadays we choose our valentines and send them unsigned cards. In the older days men and women used to put their names on slips of paper and draw lots as to who should be their love for the day.

It was believed that this was the day that birds chose their mates. What bird you saw on this day was meant to foretell the type of person you would marry. Another way was to put some bay leaves under your pillow and you would dream of your future husband or wife.

I won the 300 point game (first one) and Dave won the 200 point game (I played 2 big baddies, and he had a balanced army.) I swear, necromancers drag out the length of a game… raising things from the dead can take a toll.

Mental note – best way to win against Dave is –

• Destroy any healers as fast as possible (they’re usually weak, and drop quickly)
• Dogpile on the toughest piece, and knock it out.
• keep his ranged pieces distracted by annoying close combat.

We had burritos made with veggie burger crumbles, and low fat cheese… it was good stuff, a little spicy. It didn’t mix well with my belly, though, and my body evacuated it rapidly later after a lot of very noticeable tummy rumbles. Some minor aftershocks still this morning. Rough night sleeping… another evening of “too hot / too cold” and potty trips.

Hayley is a lovely baby (2 mos), Mayah(2yr 2 mos) is so big! I got piccies taken with them both, hopefully they’ll email them to me soon. Hayley is still very attached to being carried by Mommy or Daddy… isn’t happy if put in the swing or down anywhere yet. Mayah is a lot of fun, plays hide and seek, and is able to carry an entertaining conversation for person her age. We had an in depth discussion about gorillas, other apes as well as the Spanish words for numbers, animals and other items. (Dog, water, twelve, etc.)

Zen Kitty is looking good… though Kringle has seen better days. Kringie still has his nose-rash trouble, it keeps coming and going despite medication. Luna-dog is getting quite heavy-set, too, and she’s very sweet-tempered these days.. little sign the total spaz when I first met her, what was it… seven years ago?

“Nefertiti Resurrected, brought to you by the Discovery Channel, was seen by millions around the world. But how much of it was documentary – and how much was drama?” (for one thing, DNA shows the mummy to be a male.)

You may not know much about art, but you no doubt know what you like to eat. Santa Fe’s Lapides Gallery apparently allows doodles. Two great tastes that display right together. (via sjgames)

Amazon accidentally revealed the real names of many anonymous reviewers this week, through a bug in the amazon.ca back-end. It turns out that many of the reviewers are writers saying nice things about their own books or trashing their colleagues.

“That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd,” said Mr. Rechy, who, having been caught, freely admitted to praising his new book, “The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens,” on Amazon under the signature “a reader from Chicago.” “How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them….”

One well-known writer admitted privately — and gleefully — to anonymously criticizing a more prominent novelist who he felt had unfairly reaped critical praise for years. She regularly posts responses, or at least he thinks it is her, but the elegant rebuttals of his reviews are also written from behind a pseudonym.

via boingboing_net

Remembered to take home my carrot cake, and now I’m getting ready to go play some mage knight and hang with the hippie-folk.

I think I’ll take an Orc army or two with me, and toss in a few Zombies for fun.

Orcs and zombies go together like peas and carrots! I’ll toss in a grave digger. too. Got to keep those Zombie front-liners lurching!

Wish me victory, dear journal! (or at least a fine game!) Be back in a few.

I feel physically quiet lately. Sort of unassuming, silent, a little sleepy. I think it’s a low-grade follow-up to the nasty flu I had last week. I’m pretty good at tossing aside any case of the bummers that I might pick up, and instead of being a mope, I’m just sort of sleepy and shushed.

This may be partly due to the fact that I’m spending more time near family lately… Mom and Bro seem to tap my batteries if I have to be the diplomat for too long. Bro’s court date is coming up on the 23rd, and it’ll be nice to have him past that particular hurdle. Mom’s helping with the real estate search, too, and for the care they both have, I’m thankful. (I think Bro found me the place I want to invest in, if I can get the price down.)

Tonight, I visit with the hippies, and I hope my energy is sparked up a little by then. Maybe play some heroclix and enjoy a little good conversation. (I fear that Dave and Cathi may both be fairly drained, too, considering the workload they’re dealing with lately.)

My body’s thermostat still is bouncing from a little too cool to a little too warm.

Some great research links to waste time on –

• infoplease
• How Stuff Works
• Your Dictionary
• Bloomsbury reference search

Many pictures, if words are too much bother.-

PhotoMemes.org is intended to be a simple site that lists photography-related memes on the web. Please tell us about any new memes, so we can add them to the list. What is a meme? In simplest terms, a meme is a contagious idea. Therefore, these are all interesting photo projects that focus on a uniquely contagious idea or theme. Also, not all photo meme projects need to be collaborative, although many of them tend to be.

The Urban Beast Project (I rather like Fernando, the Miniature Trash Mammoth but the others are sort of scary. )

CS, (or possibly the Big Kahuna… she was probably the last one out the door) neglected to switch the on-call phones over to MA tonight after work yesterday. MA called me about 9 pm and let me know… I *really* hope there’s no major ramifications as a result.

There’s a *lot* of f-ing up lately. CS failed to launch 2 notifications until I called him to remind him, and he just can’t seem to stay on the ball. He’s a fine tech on site, but after hours, he sucks pretty badly. I think he might be more useful to us as a part-time network guy, just coming in when we’re swamped, killing the cost of benefits and a salary.

I think BK might just have too much on her plate, and is unable to delegate effectively. MA, VS, and I all have a decent workload, a lot, but it’s doable. CC needs to offload some of her duties to DL and ADP, so she can get back to what she does best, expansion.

A Good thing – success #54 in Plantation. Press release soon.

Playing the recorder was rather soothing to me last night.

I have to remember to bring the last of Monday’s birthday carrot-cake home tonight, or chuck it. It’ll no last the weekend.

I *still* really dig the simplicity of “Elephants, Yeah!”. I’m glad he got the quiznos Gig. Anyone that sings the Giant Bee song is aces in my book.

Never did get around to having supper last night. I ended the day *under* my WW point-scale, at 13 points for the whole day. I wonder if that’ll screw up my week, because of storage issues? Maple and brown sugar oatmeal is a good way to get rolling this morn.

Hooray for mimi and snail-mail goodies!

I got some fun loot yesterday in the mail. A nice letter, a cool little turtle with googly-eyes made of cowrie shells, wearing a straw sombrero, nirvana “in utero”postcard, a nifty “I <3 livejournal” pin, and a Hello Kitty Puzzle-valentine to me and Newt!

Harry Potter Meme

dreadful, dreary drowsy yesterday. I could hardly keep my eyes open before the shower… still not sure as to what tapped me out.

dreamt of insects in amber, and collecting fossils and distributing them to the poor for some reason or another.

I surfed to a random journal or three via friendsfriends, and withheld comment, halfway because it isn’t my place (though they have comments active) and halfway because I think that they’re doing it to troll for attention.

Arizona’s Arnold Palmer “Lite” 1/2 Iced Tea and 1/2 Lemonade is dang tasty. Made with Splenda, and is simply the yum.

Thinking more about the new abode.. with more room, it makes me contemplate use of space and places for my things. (Not to mention Newt’s adaptation to the new surroundings.)

Saw Equilibrium. Interesting movie. Sort of Fahrenheit 451 with Gunkata thrown in. Had potential to be better, but was decent enough for what it was. Interesting visuals, and well acted. I’d give it a 6/10. Too much use of the word tetragrammaton, however.

I’ve always thought the word “cognac” looked wrong, but cool. I can’t think of any other words that begin and end with C that are as nifty. Well… maybe cacophonic.

Two of the places I looked at tonight had potential… I really liked the one in west Hollywood, by the courthouse. Nice enough neighborhood, quiet, lots of room inside, wood and tile floors, bathroom needs a little work.

After looking them over, I picked up a slice of Pizza on Hollywood blvd at a little hole in the wall joint. Next door to it was a place I’d never seen before… the Zombie Night Club.

Julie Schwartz passed away this weekend. Thanks for getting the Silver Age of comics rolling, and all the things you did afterward for the industry as well. You’ll be remembered long after there are words in a voice-balloon on a four-color page.

My Creepy Valentine – Sometimes it’s the expression on a face. Maybe it’s the off-kilter sentiment expressed in the wording. Maybe it’s just a monkey. These are genuine valentines that no one with half a brain would send on February 14. Gallery 2 is even worse (or even better, depending on how you look at it) than Gallery 1.

Organic Machinery, a showcase of computationally generated insects. Cool.

The Official Laurel and Hardy website.

Historical Museum of Southern Florida (I forget if I linked here before.)

Well, rather than a day out and about, I just took a quick jaunt down to Picasso Joe’s, picked up a root beer float and just got a bit of fresh air. I saw a guy that looked like William Schallert.

Newt and I snack from similar containers. He has a silver pouch filled with pounce-treats, and I have one filled with York peppermint bites.

There’s an offer to get unlimited long distance all over the US and Canada for $5 a month. I think I’ll invest in that, even though I currently don’t make $5 worth of long distance calls. I could’ve really made great use of that back when I was using dial-up BBSes, back in the day. There are a couple of people scattered around the map that I’ve been wanting to talk to more often, and this could be a good way of implementing it.

Who are you? layer-meme

Old gang I put together for Z-squad, years ago.

The “Top 5”

Five Teens in the early 60s, at an abandoned radio station during a freak lightening storm… the place is hit, and they’re transported forward in time to the modern world, and acquire metahuman abilities from the process. A gadgeteer gets them to perform crimes in return for the promise of a return trip home. Ultimately, they’re caught during a caper, and are taken to prison.

Members –

• Johnny Angel (Winged Martial artist 50’s style – sunglasses/ leather jacket / DA haircut, Leader)
• Run-Around Sue (Speedster with a lasso, for some reason – could stick to any surface if she kept moving. atop water, up the side of a building, etc) – Poodle Skirt & the point of the background Johnny’s Girl, Heart of the Group “Bones”)
• Wolfman Jack (Multiform- Big hairy guy to bigger hairier guy- DJ /wild man)
• Long, Tall Sally (Stretching, Serious / educated / on the ball “Velma meets reed Richards” #2 in charge, the “Spock” to Johnny’s Kirk)
• Who was #5? I can’t recall now. Another male… oh, I remember. Cathy’s Clown (Sort of an Acrobat / Ralph Mouth guy. Confetti Flash bombs, cream pies, Groucho nose glasses.)

I played Sue, for a change of pace.. I normally don’t play female characters, but it was interesting to try. I forget who she teamed up with… Maybe it was a variation on Katt’s Ghost-character? It was only a one-shot, but I remembered the ease with which the history came together.

I haven’t thought about Z-squad since 8pm of 2001, and even then it was Grenouielle / Weasel / Ice Gal, not these guys.

Downloaded a bunch of old Laurel & Hardy videos, and they’re some of the funniest things that I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve not seen many of these, and the ones I have seen, it’s easily been twenty years or more since the last time. (They’d come on early in the morning before school, but after Robotech.)

No word from big Kahuna. I’ve called twice now. I hope everything is ok… Rhode Island wasn’t home, either. Not Getting together with the Bro, because he found a last minute paying gig.[update- BK is beat after doing all the press up north this week. No Ren-time. just as well…I think I’ll take a little walk in the cool weather, and have a nice calm Sunday. Until Later, dear journal]

Random Money factoids, after looking to see why paper money is oblong –

• In 625 B.C., metal coins were introduced in Greece. They replaced grain – usually barley – as the medium of exchange. Stamped with a likeness of an ear of wheat, the new coins were lighter and easier to transport than grain, and did not get moldy.
• Until 1929 currency measured 7.42 x 3.13 inches. Since then it has remained at its present size of 6.14 x 2.61 inches–an easier size to handle and store. Since that size requires less paper, it is also less expensive to produce.
• Silver certificates were first issued in exchange for silver dollars in 1878. They offered many varieties of design and subject matter including inventors, military heroes, a Sioux Indian, and the famous Educational series of 1896. An 1886 $1 silver certificate is also the only piece of U.S. paper currency to bear the portrait of a woman–Martha Washington.
• More than half of a dollar bill is considered legal tender, and only the front of a dollar bill is valuable. If you could separate the front of a bill from the back, only the front half would be considered “money.”
• The first paper notes printed in the United States were in denominations of 1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents, and 50 cents. The U.S. Department of the Treasury first issued paper U.S. currency in 1862 to make up for the shortage of coins and to finance the U.S. Civil War.
• When using the first pay telephone, a caller did not deposit coins in the machine. He or she gave them to an attendant who stood next to the telephone. Coin telephones did not appear until 1899.

one year ago – playing with palm-modem, dream of hot applesauce vendor & snuggling up at a basketball game.

two years ago – bro hit on his bike by a cop, bibles in hotels, walkies, FMM lost use of the Net during working hours, Talk about Chupa / small hands, tiffany in playboy.

three years ago – 100 monkeys debunked, FMM sold Tampa, fending off the end of a flu (history repeats itself, I guess!), Suzy’s crappy computer

current mood: “And then, a butterfly landed on the gun, and changed the settings from kill to Loooove, baby…” – Barry from Angry Beavers.

current music: Best of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy – The Musicbox – On WinDVD

I’ve got at least two condos to look at on Monday. One is very inexpensive but needs some minor work to move in… paint, new vanity, cabinets. The other has a utility room with a washer and dryer nearby. Could be a mixed blessing. more foot traffic, but I can do my gear close to my HQ. I’ll know more on Monday how suitable they are, neighborhood-wise.

Debating if I should beg off the Ren faire and just sit tight at home today. Going would be a god idea politically, and probably pretty fun, but I’m feeling the laziness. I’ll probably go for just a little bit.

Watched my new Godzilla movie last night… Pretty keen that Big G is fifty years old. A pretty different vibe than most of the movies. (He’s definitely something else, this go ’round. Read the linked review for spoilers.) Odd seeing King Ghidorah as the good guy, too. Mothra is pretty standard, as is Baragon (I’ve always had a weakness for digger-mole monsters) . It’s funny how they just sort of pick and choose what elements from earlier movies to use, and what to ignore….I can respect the revised history for the sake of a story. I’ve never been much of a continuity cop for this or comic books…. just keep some fundamentals so we can tell who is who… As long as Godzilla is a giant lizard with radioactive breath, I’m pretty easy… but I think he’s odd to look at with no pupils. Better Reasoning as to why he keeps heading to Tokyo, and a lot of squishy-humans.

A lot of people in this movie (the women in particular) had really bad teeth.

Overall, I liked it, both despite and because of the differences. It’s nice to be able to toggle Japanese with English subs, to an English dub on movies… That, and having all the other goodies are really what makes DVDs worth having.

Unusual line/belief in the movie – “If spirits are a form of electricity, maybe they can be stored in stone, since stones are basically like CDs.”

It occurs to me that most of my birthday presents were on circles or rectangles. Dinner plates & bowls, Game CDs, Movie DVDs. and Gift cards, folding currency, and a book. I didn’t get many gifts in other shapes… no triangles or hexagons at all.

I wonder about the shape of money. Coins are circular, different sizes. Is it so that corners don’t catch on pockets? Economy of metal?

Why isn’t American paper money square, rather than oblong?

Newt was rather talkative when I was ill on Thursday.

Hm… more spam, via dead journal (I only use it as a placeholder, or a location to store entries when LJ was in its “crashadoodle phase”… something that brought up the old dream picture, and hitting that way. Now they’re doing it to my old posts in Deadjournal, too.(You can see there’s a screened comment by the “o comments link Fortunately, I can screen entries I’ve posted in communities, too. It seems to be bouncing around august of 2001 for whatever reason.

Pretend Comic covers – Batman’s Moon Patrol, and Monkey! (link via progressiveruin)…I’m glad someone else is doing the work of scraping the good stuff off of the John Byrne Forums…I’ve never much liked his style of comics… very little creativity, and all of the faces he drew looked the same to me. It’s hard enough to tell folks apart if you get Cap, Hawkeye and Pym unmasked in the same room together. Scroll down for a nice assortment of covers… if you follow the thread long enough, there’s all sorts of goodies, including theme music.

There are some really great coloring-in pictures here –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/paintingtheweather/colouring/

They are all weather-themed famous paintings. (via coloringbook)

Can you tell a true smile from a fake one?

I scored 15 out of 20… 75%. These folks did have a very “British” look about them…I wonder if I’d have done a better score with other USA-folk?

Purportal – That story that your brother-in-law just sent to you and forty other people sounds true… Put it to the test here. (meta-engine that searches multiple databases, including snopes, upban legends, and symantec)

AllRefer has a dictionary, gazetteer, and other reference links online.

Wow, got a load of comment-spam from 216.79.8.162 (zyrtec.ihc-services.com hosted via bellsouth) overnight… this is why I screen anonymous posts. (I haven’t had to screen all “non-friends” yet.) Subject line was “hi”, body was a collection of about 35 hyperlinks for assorted drugs. This is the downside of being so heavily indexed.

They were reported to abuse@bellsouth.net with IP address, time/date, message header, and attack logs, but I don’t expect much to happen.

I get about 10-15 a day that make it through my filters… my bulk mail folder catches about another 30-50, usually.

My mostly-unused hotmail account (only to register on websites or the like) gets about another 30 a day.

Lots of good luck today… Fox wedding weather. Right as the water began to fall, my ride arrived… 3 minutes early. (2 minutes after I arrived.) I was only mildly misted before the big wet came down.

Observation about being on the bus… it was perfect today. The right temperature, smiling driver, smooth ride, and no stinky-types, either.

Well, sickies have pretty much passed me by. I’m feeling much better today than yesterday, but I’m still tanking up on tasty tea and toast with honey.

When I’m a little under the weather, it seems that my normal tunnel vision is replaced by a wider field of vision, but the focus isn’t as tight. Broader view, with less fine detail. I don’t know if that’s good, or bad… just a self-thought.

Random Factoid – ¹/₃ of Americans have consumed ground beef in the last 24 hours.

Who’s taking up my slack?

Also, I sort of like how the ^super/_subscript looks on the fraction there.

Where do you go–
What do you do–
The night after you saved the universe?

Acquire a sense of scale

Ugh.. I’m full of liquids, but I’m still thirsty. That’s annoying.

Medieval ruins found off Atami? Continue reading 6450 playing with formatting →