Saw RotK last night with Danny… his second time of probably many, many viewings, and my first. I liked it a lot, and figure it’s the benchmark for nerd trilogies, now that Star Wars turned to poop with the sequels this century. After, we went for a little Mexican meal, which was nice, where we gabbed about it a bit. Nerdy observations, all, but nice that things worked well. I’m just happy that I got to catch it on the big screen, but am looknig forward to the dvd director’s cut.

The sharpened computer is looking good… big brain kept tossing his HD, win2k repairs regularly to limp it through. “Really Big Brain” has a 240 gig drive now, a nicer graphic card, and a sharp dvd writer. I’ll be experimenting with burning this week.

We’re up to 51 at work now… I think that some of the new search procedures may be helping find kids.

Had a nice gab with sedef, good thing because I was getting worried about those guys.

Since the other day, there’s now more than a million active Atom 0.3 feeds at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/[username]/data/atom .

Atom is an XML-based file format intended to allow lists of information, known as “feeds”, to be synchronised between publishers and consumers. Feeds are composed of a number of items, each with an extensible set of attached metadata. (For example, items each have a title.) I don’t know what the advantages of Atom are over RSS… they’re very similar, and the changes don’t *appear* to be too significant. I’m sure someone will correct me on that in due time, however. I did see that Google (who owns blogger) is supporting Atom, while Microsoft is plugging with RSS. I’m just happy that LJ supports both… it’s all about compatability and choices now, I imagine.

More at the Wiki – http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/FrontPage

Random Scotto Factoid – I confused Apollo Creed and the prayer “Apostle’s Creed” when I was little.

Interesting that I’m syndicated in Fort Lauderdale News. I suspect it’s more in part to my geourl or local feeds than any actual Ft. Laud News content.

The guy next door has been running what sounds like an concerto for hammer, chainsaw and pickaxes in apt#2 for days now. I have to wonder what the devil they’re doing in there. How long do cabinets take to put in?

Today I Must –

• Get Socks/ boxers/Belt
• CompUSA
• Toys R US

Today I *should, but probably won’t*

• Do Laundry

The cool weather lately has Newt hanging on my neck like an orange mink stole. He likes my body heat, and touring the house at six feet up.

Johnny Cash’s Desperado, But With Monkeys

Five-film Narnia series to be filmed in New Zealand (with effects by Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop)

Thanks latraviata for the spiffy card!!

Monkeys live up in trees! Monkeys have furry knees! Monkeys don’t wear shoes. Monkeys don’t lose….. their wallets, because they don’t have any!

Cool again this morning.. I’d say that “winter” has already lasted longer than memory tells me of last year. Yesterday, I was actually obliged to wear a top with long sleeves after dark.

Tomorrow, I have to do a lot of chores and last minute shopping. (I’m also ogling an upgrade to something comparable to the X09 tower.) I will be getting a lovely Christmas card from D…Her old (yet still far superior to my current) video card. A GeForce4 Ti 4600 to be specific, as she got herself a GeForce 5950 for a holiday treat. Hooray for upgrades! I wonder who I could give my Radeon 7500 to? Maybe Dan would like it as a stocking stuffer for for his poor dinosaur-pooter. I know that it can’t run most games these days, and this way, I could hook him up with Freedom Force and NOLF2 for a good time. I’d like to get back to having direct video inputs on the PC so I can watch TV in a little window as I work, and record VCR stuff to burn DVDs. I think it’d be nice to “diskify” all my random access VCR tape, for better archive survival, and tightness of space. (Plus, I like playing with video editing.)

I won’t be able to get together with the Momster for Christmas, as I’m on call and can’t do a lot of traveling around, and it sounds like Bro’s got plans with a gal he met. (I suspect that he’s just bailing, but you never know.)

I’m in a happy, though quiet mood today. I’m busing myself playing with a little algorithm that walks my vampire through the game, and drinks blood in the most profitable way. I’ve got it to detect if it’s drunk from another player since it was last run, but the auto-movement is a little skewed still. Basically, it will reads a page, looks at the links, and drinks people not drunk before that are in my same “square” so far. I have to add an if-then about humans, who are all named the same way, and fiddle out movement logic to the next most densely-populated (but not full) square, after reading the square to see that there is someone there that is “drinkable”. (Any vampire I haven’t hit since the day prior, and has more than 3 pints of blood in them.) I think it’d be cool to later add a sublist of my “children” and maybe give them a treat as my vampire flies past. 1/3 of my gold on hand, maybe? I’m still thinking of hosting some text-based multi-player game on my toybox page, too, but am not quite sure of what to do, theme-wise, yet.

If you haven’t visited nomi‘s journal, check it out. Great photography and travelogues, plus other nifty goodies regarding an USA-woman living in the UK with her hubby, atlaz.

Charlotte wishes you a Merry Christmas (Vendetta may have something to say later.)

Xombi – Chapter One / Chapter Two

Nigerian herbalist shot dead as anti-bullet charm fails Continue reading 6366 Weather, Tech, monkey song →

I’ve been having some weird trouble with my Y!im Today and yesterday…I wonder if they’re planning an upgrade soon? I hate missing messages. The ‘net seems a little slower, too.. I wonder if it’s some drag from all the kids being on holiday break?

Most excellent news. ACIM just had it’s 50th successful recovery and Full membership in AMECO.

Dreams of insects under the covers with me last night…. not creepy or dirty ones, but lightning bugs and other either bio-lit or otherwise glowy made my bed look like the underside of a tacky neon car cruising the ‘hood at 2am. I like the cool weather lately…the mid-40s is a nice range to dip into. I only wish that I could spend more of it snuggling with my beloved. I hope that weather and health are maintained by as many as possible this season.. it seems that so many folks are getting the flu or strep.

All of the RotK reviews are rolling in… I’m guessing that it’ll be a week or two before I get a chance to see it. I know Danny’s going with his students tomorrow night. Not many poor reviews, except for folks complaining a bit about the flow at the end… I’m looking for ward to seeing it in the “directors cut” version.. it seems like they always leave a lot out, but at least they try to put a goodly does back in afterward.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – “This science fiction adventure set in the 1930s starts as New York City reporter Polly Perkins (Gwynneth Paltrow) starts to investigate why so many famous scientists are starting to be reported missing. Soon, she starts to get clues, as strange flying machines and giant robots threaten the city. Luckily, her old flame, aviator Captain Joseph Sullivan (Jude Law), AKA Sky Captain, is there to battle the bad guys with his friends, the Flying Legion, in his Warhawk P-40. Soon, Polly is flying away with Sky Captain to Nepal to find a crazy scientist, Dr. Totenkopf, who apparently wants to destroy the world…”

Exploring Dystopia

Interactive Hieronymous Bosch Gallery

Antiquarian Supernatural Literature

The Illustrated Complete Summary of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (A tome I was insanely fond of for about 10 years. I still dig it, but the fanaticism is gone. I still harbor a great fondness for the Illuminatus! books, too.)

Amazon Wish-list of stupidly expensive gifts.

Thank you so much for the card and cute snowman, bohemianqueen! It’s an honor to be the first of your LJ friends.

Here’s info on redeeming your invite codes for LJ play money. I now have $25 usable for any LJ-related services like extra icons or time, etc. I’m thinking I may give the menstrualhut a paid membership, if only to fiddle a little with the style there. Come to think of it, I think that I may have a spare early adopter account that was used for a writing project, too.

I dreamt last night that I was babysitting some little child… he was maybe 4 years old, and he was holding his breath, puffing out his cheeks. I pressed on them and his head popped like a balloon. It wasn’t distressing at all… I found a replacement, and told him that if he did it again, I’d find a really ugly head for him to wear. He was good from then on… we played with capsella and build small futuristic cities until I woke up. I recall that they were special ones… you could fill them with sea monkeys, and let them live and play inside.

It’s a little chilly out this morning for Florida. When I woke up, it was about 45 outside, or about 60 inside. Not quite cold enough to lure Newt under the covers, but he certainly was happy to hang out in the steamy-shower room this morning.

I find myself wondering if there will be a gift exchange at ACIM… no mention has been made, but I suppose I could pick up little stocking stuffers for the folks there this weekend, when I pick up some gifties for my physical therapy people and the fur-kids.

Pirated Sites see folks who copy designs and logotypes… pretty interesting to compare and contrast.

Found Art – nifty items located out and about.

From The Archives…

one year ago – How to attain old age, got my epidural.

two years ago – Crime & Punishment, heterodox, evil news, HP question, pooter poop, bagpipe, egoboo, giant bee.

three years ago – met tarpo and isis, LJ sea Chantey, AOK-ing, Christmas Blues

filename: Mid([Database_Location], InStrRev([Database_Location],””) +1)

from another Query ([Server_Names]):
dl (which is the Database location full path)
Server name
Share name

SELECT [Server_Names].[Server Name], [Server_Names].[Share Name],
Mid([dl],InStrRev([dl],””)+1) AS [FN]
FROM [Server_Names]
ORDER BY [Server_Names].[Share Name];

=====

Let’s see if I can post polls via email! I meant to write this up this morning.

Launchcast reworked its interface again. I think I like the 1-10 scale better,
but I can see the 0-4 stars being more popular overall.

Want to listen to my launchcast station?
http://launch.yahoo.com/lc/?rt=0&rp1=0&rp2=1214543053

Last 10 songs-

Soul Coughing: Paint
Chris Isaak: Wicked Game
Sugar Ray: Fly – Featuring Super Cat
The Pixies: Where Is My Mind?
Led Zeppelin: In The Evening
Cake: World Of Two
Talking Heads : Once In A Lifetime
Staind: Epiphany
They Might Be Giants: Someone Keeps Moving My Chair
Natacha Atlas: Something Dangerous – Featuring Princess Julianna

current music: Dead Milkmen – Surfin’ Cow
current mood: Letting the days go by, water flowing underground.

=====

Tree seen yesterday afternoon, accidentally captured with palm cam.
It began to rain heavily about 20 minutes later.

Thank you from Newt and me to sirenity for the lovely card and turtle post-its! They’re great!

Random Question –

Aloft for a century. There are countless online tributes to the Wright Brothers. Here are just a few. Flights of fancy, a small BBC gallery celebrating the 100th anniversary of Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first flight at Kitty Hawk, on 17 December 1903. See also Photography and the Wright Brothers, and the stark abstract beauty of images like these: I, II, III. Related: Microsoft’s A Century of Flight. Even more photos.

I trained Mohna yesterday… fascinating person, 19 year old Muslim girl, spent several years in Palestine, helping to raise her brother’s children. She’s now in BCC, and is a perfect candidate for the nighttime phone gig. I wonder how much time we can dump on her, and not stress her out? She gets another Training session Friday… I’ll throw a few curveballs at her, and see how she adapts to them, but she’s got a good head for deductive reasoning and gathering information.

Strongbad Email #92

Scrollbar racing.. now with music!

How to totally miss the point of Lamont Cranston

I briefly had the urge to get a white linen suit and a red fez, and to use that outfit as “work clothes”.

The difference between cold and flu – via the CDC

China Yung wasn’t bad. the price was right, and the food pretty decent. it turns out that they deliver sushi now too, so everyone can be happily fed.

Seasonal questions of the day… what do you think Santa’s elves look like? Uniforms, or all different outfits? Facial hair? All one Gender, or is it a mixed group? Any colors they *wouldn’t* wear? Are they Related to those Keebler guys? (feel free to answer in comments…I’m interested in hearing multiple perspectives, but am running too late to pollify the question. (this sentence added last.)

Spent some lovely time with my sweetie recently, and getting into Asian folklore, too. Tengu, Kappa, Rokurokubi, Nukekubi, and Hungry ghosts specifically. I should be about warmed up to do that Dragon’s gate review soon. It’s a long standing truism… the more that a person learns, the more they discover that is yet to be learned. It’s a tease, but one I enjoy. I really don’t understand how folks can stand being lumps, never reading, never searching for something to tickle the brain. I wonder if it happens just as a matter of falling out of the habit…. or if it’s just too easy to be entertained by television? Passive entertainment is fairly lost on me… I can’t stay locked on to most non-educational/documentary television for any extended period (though there are some exceptions that can suck me in, and hold me. Well-written drama or humor, especially.) But most books can snatch me up, and suspend time. Stories, research, hunting for information… I enjoy it, so that it doesn’t seem like the work that others seem to make of study.

Saddam Hussein pun/punchline I haven’t heard yet, but expect to: Ace in the Hole.

I’ve begun painting a bit on the miniatures again, for the first time in a little while… I’m out of practice. I get a little cockeyed doing small detail work for extended periods.

The day was mostly quiet for me with no Rhode Island…. CS has been delegated to hardware issues and doing the newsletter with Newbie. I’m doing more software / programming, and documentation. I hope MM takes to her training soon, so call can be distributed over more people, soon.

Wow… Return of the King is 3:20, in the theater… I wonder how long the home-DVD extended will be?

Here’s a pretty neat way to waste time. Nobodyhere.

found on changelog – Journal searching (still in beta?) replace scottobear with any username you like, to search another journal… it uses feedster, an engine I’m not terribly familiar with. There’s a magnifying glass on any given userinfo page that allows searching. I wonder how well indexed the menstrualhut is? The engine doesn’t seem too solid yet.

This page lists comic book characters that physically transform into either animals or the opposite sex. It’s just part of a larger site that catalogs such examples of shapeshifting in books, movies, paintings, etc. Keep in mind the elaborate list of notations as you peruse the entries. (via progressiveruin)

Cool Beans.. The deaf kid was found, as a direct result of those calls placed at 2am. I look forward to seeing what the followup report

Giant Pandas make terrible mounts. While they are about as fast as horses, they have a much livelier gait, lifting and swaying riders more than a horse would. They’d partially make up for this with the ability to swim and climb over trickier barriers, but also have to forage and feed for 12 hours a day.

The annals of Su-Ling Prefecture tell the sad story of Chao-Li, a stern young fishmonger who knowingly took a rokurokubi as a wife. “I order you to serve me!” he said to her on their wedding day. serve him she did, to herself, on a plate with seven mangoes, three dates, and a bed of fresh noodles.

I long to rest on the back of a giant turtle with my beloved, slowly being walked down the beach, as the sun goes down. There’s something about the twilight between wakefulness and sleep.. that calm, seemingly eternal soothing time when your body is both heavy and light at the same time.

I was delighted that two anonymous people (or one, in two places?) replied to the Egyptian twins question in my journal. Thanks Pete and Anonymous!

personality quiz

Ah, finished my chores… the bathroom is clean, my laundry is done. I don’t have much in the cupboard, but I’m not interested in heading out in the thick rain. The local delivery can take care of me for supper tonight. There’s a Cantonese place I haven’t tried yet, so we’ll see how China Yung is. It’s a stone’s throw away, right next to the museum f art. If it’s good, I’ll make a note of it as a place to visit with Danny, though he generally prefers Thai and Japanese food. I think that he’d be happy going out for sushi every time we get together.

I remembered to pick up a fresh tape to feed the VCR for today’s 4-hour “Egypt-a-thon” Starting at 3pm on TLC. They have a spiffy Ancient Egyptians activities page, too. I’m kind of disappointed that it ends at 7pm, but I guess they have to make way for the next prime time show.

Tic Tac quiz

First off, Saddam Hussein has been captured alive in Iraq. He was found in a farmhouse near Tikrit, in a “spider hole” (basically a small cellar). I wonder how long it’ll take before I start to hear conspiracy theorists tell me that he was caught months ago, and that they were waiting to see what Democrat was going to be Bush’s main competition before trotting out a wildcard.

The tree is up, it’s snowing outside and the news is full of reports of a rarely seen man with a beard and a bag full of loot.

Q: What’s the difference between Santa Claus and Saddam Hussein?
A: No one has to check Santa For lice.

Also, Santa never ordered 170 men be tied to posts and shot – body part by body part – after sealing thier mouths shut with glue so that they couldn’t cry out. (via suzette)

Well, I got two calls last night that was a wait to launch at 9am this morning. One was girl that went missing Wednesday night, but was last seen at school on Friday. The parents are giving the Miami police heck about “not doing enough,” even though the parents apparently couldn’t be bothered to know with any useful detail about the girls friends, boyfriend, or favorite hangouts. It’s hard to know where to look for someone if you don’t know very much about them… best we could do is get a description of what she was wearing, and the fact that her house and school are close enough together on the map to make for a little overlap map to seek her out.

Another call last night was looking for a deaf boy in Polk County… another late-nighter. wake-up and look calls at 11pm and again (after the dogs followed the trail north) at 2am over the trail further north. Busy evening… stuff started kicking after 10 pm. I need to remember to try and take a nap midday.. it seems that calls don’t seem to come in until before noon, and after 3pm.

My intuition has been spot on, lately. Gut instinct (or whatever intuition really is) has been very helpful in making decisions in regards to missing kids and dealing with other folks at the org.

Fairly Oddparents Christmas Special was pretty keen, especially the jazzy holiday “Mass Combat” music near the end.

*note to self*- Infinite space restricted to a finite area can be very unstable. Don’t let Newt at the Hypercube.

Chris Kattan as Gollum on SNL was cute, and the pilot for “A hard hobbit to break” sitcom was right on target.

juliabee pointed out Big Fish to me… How’d this sneak past my radar? I wonder if there’s a nearby theater with a pre-January release? Witches and giants are some of my favorite people.

Lists of collective nouns

Feral Children: collects information on socially stunted kids raised by wild animals or extremely cruel parents.

Nicole Kidman & Jude Law as the leads in the Cold Mountain movie? Kind of good looking for the way I envisioned the characters. I wonder if they’ll change the book’s ending in the movie? (I, like most folks, didn’t terribly care for it.)

Hmm… interesting marketing… Sony Pictures is promoting Spider-Man 2 by offering Blogger and Livejournal templates and icons.

First off, Saddam Hussein has been captured alive in Iraq. He was found in a farmhouse near Tikrit, in a “spider hole” (basically a small cellar). I wonder how long it’ll take before I start to hear conspiracy theorists tell me that he was caught months ago, and that they were waiting to see what Democrat was going to be Bush’s main competition before trotting out a wildcard.

The tree is up, it’s snowing outside and the news is full of reports of a rarely seen man with a beard and a bag full of loot.

Q: What’s the difference between Santa Claus and Saddam Hussein?
A: No one has to check Santa For lice.

Also, Santa never ordered 170 men be tied to posts and shot – body part by body part – after sealing thier mouths shut with glue so that they couldn’t cry out. (via suzette)

Well, I got two calls last night that was a wait to launch at 9am this morning. One was girl that went missing Wednesday night, but was last seen at school on Friday. The parents are giving the Miami police heck about “not doing enough,” even though the parents apparently couldn’t be bothered to know with any useful detail about the girls friends, boyfriend, or favorite hangouts. It’s hard to know where to look for someone if you don’t know very much about them… best we could do is get a description of what she was wearing, and the fact that her house and school are close enough together on the map to make for a little overlap map to seek her out.

Another call last night was looking for a deaf boy in Polk County… another late-nighter. wake-up and look calls at 11pm and again (after the dogs followed the trail north) at 2am over the trail further north. Busy evening… stuff started kicking after 10 pm. I need to remember to try and take a nap midday.. it seems that calls don’t seem to come in until before noon, and after 3pm.

My intuition has been spot on, lately. Gut instinct (or whatever intuition really is) has been very helpful in making decisions in regards to missing kids and dealing with other folks at the org.

Fairly Oddparents Christmas Special was pretty keen, especially the jazzy holiday “Mass Combat” music near the end.

*note to self*- Infinite space restricted to a finite area can be very unstable. Don’t let Newt at the Hypercube.

Chris Kattan as Gollum on SNL was cute, and the pilot for “A hard hobbit to break” sitcom was right on target.

juliabee pointed out Big Fish to me… How’d this sneak past my radar? I wonder if there’s a nearby theater with a pre-January release? Witches and giants are some of my favorite people.

Lists of collective nouns

Feral Children: collects information on socially stunted kids raised by wild animals or extremely cruel parents.

Nicole Kidman & Jude Law as the leads in the Cold Mountain movie? Kind of good looking for the way I envisioned the characters. I wonder if they’ll change the book’s ending in the movie? (I, like most folks, didn’t terribly care for it.)

Hmm… interesting marketing… Sony Pictures is promoting Spider-Man 2 by offering Blogger and Livejournal templates and icons.