Spent some quality time with Danny yesterday. Saw the Dungeons & Dragons movie… was expecting a ‘2’ out of 10. Got it. It was bad, but a fun sort of bad… as we had the theatre to ourselves, Danny and I felt free to mock it heartily. Bad Acting. Bad Writing. Bad Directing, bad sound balance, pretty ok special effects. Convoluted storyline, and a wacky ending that made little sense. I played D&D back in the day, (1978-1984) and it was entertaining to see a few bones tossed to the gamer crowd. Nifty arbitrary shot of a beholder, and dimension door spell… things that surprised me were the number of Star Wars thematic rips, and the cheapness of the props and costuming… very cheesy. I can’t in good faith reccomend the film, and it probably won’t get much airplay once it hits cable/network availability.

Picked up some new shoes at the Birk store – fresh sandals, and some long overdue dress shoes. (the better to interview with, my dear…) afterwards, we hit the comic shop, to look for belated presents for Doug. Turns out the guy that owns the store is someone I worked at the bookstore with, back when I was in school! (it’s odd, I seem to keep bumping into him, the last time I saw him was in ’96, with Danny again, when he was working as a manager of a Kenny Rogers’ Roasters.) It’s weird, he’s seen me in a few permutations… sullen working scholar, putting myself through school, goofy mountain-man guy, just starting a gig as a programmer with full beard, looking like grizzley adams, and trimmed down hippie guy, with just a goatee…. styles change, as life goes by… didn’t sleep much last night, tried putting myself to snooze, but it took about 3 hours for me to drift to sleep. Newt was nestled in close, as it got pretty chilly out last night… plenty of warm spots for the baby, though… top of the TV, two monitors, and the cablebox, not to mention a good lap. 🙂

In case I don’t see anyone later today or tomorrow, I want to wish all my LJ brethren a fantastic new year, and express my hopes that peace and comfort come to you all.

Got a date to watch Spongebob Squarepants with Ornj… *whee* 🙂

*sings –

Scotto: Are ya ready kids?
LJ boys & girls: Aye, Aye captain!
Scotto:I can’t heeeaaar yooouuu!
LJ boys & girls:AYE, AYE CAPTAIN!
Scotto:oooooooooooo………
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
LJ boys & girls:Sponge Bob Square Pants!
Scotto:Absorbent and yellow and porous is he.
LJ boys & girls:Sponge Bob Square Pants!
Scotto:If nautical nonsense be somethin’ ya wish.
LJ boys & girls:Sponge Bob Square Pants!
Scotto:Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish.
LJ boys & girls:Sponge Bob Square Pants!
Scotto:Ready?
All:Sponge Bob Square Pants,
Sponge Bob Square Pants,
Sponge Bob Square Pants,
Sponge Booob Square Paaants!

Scotto: Ah Ha Ha, Ha Ha Ha, Ha, hArgh wh..arire..Ha arrrigh.

Back from Hanging with Danny. More on that, later.

thought for today – “Better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness.”

I have a request… Today, tell someone you love that you love them…. Thanks.

twinstar dropped me as a friend….I wonder why? too many wordy postings perhaps? ah well, I still quite enjoy her posts and will continue to read them that be public. Getting together with Danny tomorrow… 9 am to about 6 pm. Shopping, maybe a little drinking, and shooting the breeze. One of the last chances before he goes on summer vacation, really. Going to get new shoes, a hard drive, and about 4 beers, I feel. (plus get Danny something for his Birthday, poor shmoe was born within 2 weeks of Christmas. He should celebrate birthday or Christmas in August, methinks.) Spent some wonderful time with Ornj tonight… 🙂 *sigh of happiness* Maybe I can squeak in some aoK in too, to make the night perfect…

Recently Finished Book –
‘The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery‘, by Amitav Ghosh.

Set in India, the book is about the ‘secret history’ behind the discovery of the malaria vaccine. There’s an Indian cult for whom secrecy is not only a need, is also one of their key beliefs: They are convinced that the act of revealing information means that same information is changed. So certain information can be revealed in a certain way, to generate specific changes. And their big secret is a bizarre form of immortality, a sort of ‘memory transfer’ using a mutated malaria parasite to backup and rewrite neural structures.

The entire novel is written like a puzzle: Pieces of info are revealed in different times to different characters; by the end of the novel, the main characters – and the reader – understand the whole picture, or at least, the part of the picture they were supposed to understand. The book is rather good (though once finished, a second read may be needed (to fully understand the plot) and I recommend it heartily.

All You Need Is Love
By John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game,
It’s easy.

Nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time,
It’s easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be, that isn’t where you’re meant to be,
It’s easy.

from straight dope –

How does my nose produce so much snot so fast when I have a cold?

As is true of all God’s creation, mucus is good for you. No doubt you could stand to have a little less of it at times, but this shouldn’t decrease our esteem for a fluid that is only trying to defend us against germs, dust, and other foreign matter. Evidently, since you got a cold, this defense against germs wasn’t entirely successful. But the mucus is trying. You might show a little appreciation.

Under normal circumstances–that is, when you don’t have a cold–nasal mucus is part of the system by which your body conditions “inspired air.” (Inspired air is the term doctors use for inhaled air. They could just say “inhaled,” but inspired has a much more elegant ring.) The air swirls through your nasal passages and gets warmed up. Meanwhile the dust and whatnot strikes the mucus-lined sides and sticks. Or to put it more technically, it strikes the mucus-lined ciliated epithelium of the posterior nasopharynx and . . . well, I guess “sticks” is not the word you want to use in this context. Adheres, let’s say. The cilia (little hairs) and mucus then transport the debris to the rear of the mouth, whence you can hawk it up. This is called postnasal drip. Another of life’s little annoyances that you ought to be grateful for.

As I say, the above mechanism is not a foolproof antimicrobial defense, and sometimes you get a cold. Your mucus then kicks into overdrive in an attempt to shed the virus or whatever bad thing it is you’ve got. Sometimes the mucus succeeds, at least to the point where you can continue to breathe through your nose. Sometimes it doesn’t and your nose plugs up, and the infection takes root in your sinuses, producing the dreaded green globs and making you sound like your head was whittled from a potato. You think this is better than having a runny nose? I think not. Sorry if I sound like I’m dumping on you, but I’m trying to put matters in perspective. Your problem isn’t the mucus, it’s the germs.

The reason you have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of mucus when suffering from a cold is that the mucus-producing cells lining your nasal cavity extract the stuff mostly from your blood, of which needless to say you have a vast supply. The blood transports the raw materials (largely water) from other parts of the body. Fluid from your blood diffuses through the capillary walls and into the cells and moments later winds up in your handkerchief. (This process isn’t unique to mucus; blood is the highway for most of your bodily fluids.) Incidentally, you produce less mucus than you may think. One experiment showed that on the peak day of a cold the average person produces about 14 grams of drippings, or roughly half an ounce.

Another question I’m asked from time to time is, what’s the chemical formula for snot? (Listen, I’ve heard worse.) I have no definite answer to this. Ninety-five percent of mucus is H2O, while the remainder is protein, carbohydrate, lipids, and miscellaneous, the proportions and nature of which vary. I found some discussion in the medical literature about what makes mucus, um, stringy, but figured this was something you’d just as soon not know.

Finally, I came across an article entitled “Effects of Drinking . . . Chicken Soup on Nasal Mucus Velocity.” About time somebody researched this. The article says the “Jewish penicillin” (authors’ term) is indeed salubrious, although only for half an hour, largely because the healing vapors penetrate the nasal passages and loosen things up. So eat your chicken soup already; mama was right all along.

Be nice. Noodles are nice. If they can do it, so can we.
Be firm. Noodles (cooked properly) are firm. If they can do it, so can we.
Be resilient. Noodles are resilient. If they can do it, so can we.
Be nourishing. Noodles are nourishing…

Today went reasonably well, all told, barring the LJ being wonky still. Had an early lunch with Danny, we exchanged loot. (He got Newtie a Tigger to play with, and for me, a Dexter’s Lab Remote controlled robot. somehow I suspect Newt’ll be messing more with the ‘bot.) We went to Starlight, and I had a yummy black bean burger, and a big honking burger…Danny and I got caught up, he’s been so busy with school and the wife…. Poor guy’s pretty much just been keeping his head above water, socially and financially. He needs to get more R&R time in, but I fear that the wife won’t give him time to decompress much… Ah well, he’ll get it together, and hopefully I’ll be along for the ride sometime this week… his next time off isn’t until easter, then summer. The life of a teacher… Arrived at work barely on time. Work went as usual, and got to talk with Ornj for a too-short while this eve. (I had to work extra hard, and she was busy with other things too.

Good things that happened today –

Visited with Dan.
Made a bootleg copy of Kev’s Boston Blackie/ Philip Marlowe MP3, I’ll be back in Noir-style writing in no time. 🙂
Pickles Returned to work, gave me a ride home. Poor gal has the Froggiest throat… apparently she’s been croaky since Christmas.
Talked a bit with Ornj, and she pointed me to a nifty game on MSN – bejeweled
Tucked my sweetie into bed, and think I’ll be dreaming of her shortly.

Not much bad happened today, save for trouble connecting to the net when I got home tonight.

Oh, the glory that is payday tomorrow. Still have a few ducats left over from Christmas, and will probably pick myself up a present too… A new perf for the big machine, hard drive, or an optical mouse… (maybe both… 🙂 ) Contemplating getting a GPS for my palm… I don’t travel much, but it looks like a fun doodad.

I plan on doing a lot of writing this weekend… something a little hard boiled, and a vibe from the ’40s, I suspect. Going to shoot for 3 short stories by 2001… better boogie. Maybe more of Mitch and Sally. I like them.

My eyeballs are getitng a bit scorched, and I wish I could read the entries of my friends… again, the seizures of the net forbid me from reading the hubbub of my friends… Ah well.. it’s not to be, tonight. I hope eveyone is home, safe and comfy in bed.

Little Known Factoid:
Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.

And a bunch of other stuff about noodles. (Not really, I would have included it if there were.)

Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the use of nuclear weapons in war has
been prevented but there have been consistent outbreaks of crisis in
which their use was a possibility. The following list summarizes past
incidents in which the United States contemplated the possibility of
using nuclear weapons.

• 1946, March – Deployment of Soviet Army to Iran
• 1946, November – Shooting down of US plane by Yugoslavia
• 1948, January – Inauguration of a new Uraguayan President
• 1948, Apr-Jun – Sealing off of West Berlin by Soviet Union
• 1950, June – Break-out of war in Korea
• 1953, August – Deterioration of Korean War
• 1954, Apr-May – Offer to supply French in Vietnam w/ A-bomb
• 1954, May – Guatemala chooses pro-Soviet policy
• 1945, August – China’s liberation of Taiwan
• 1958, July – Iraq military coup and Taiwan Strait crisis
• 1959, May – Berlin issue
• 1961, June – Berlin issue
• 1962, October – Cuban missile crisis
• 1968, January – Seizure of USS Pueblo by North Korea
• 1968, February – Vietnam War (Battle of Quesan)
• 1969, November – Intensification of Vietnam War
• 1970, September – Invasion of Jordan by Syria
• 1973, October – Desire to halt 4th Middle-East War
• 1980, January – Desire to halt Iran Crisis
• 1991, January – Anticipation of chemical weapons use by Iraq in Persian Gulf War

“I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself; I contain multitudes”

—–Walt Whitman

And so does everyone else.

I get out early! So long work! Seeya at home!

Listening to a Bob Dylan song called ‘Desolation Row’.

At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Go out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do.

Inspired to listen by the little icon there… rereading ‘The Watchmen’… it’s a fine bit of stuff, and it’s been about 4 years since I’ve last thumbed through… a lot of interesting currents run through it. The concept of time especially is an interesting one… not one I care to share. (All things have happened, and we’re just viewing it from one perspective… fate is set… digging up a quote now) “Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.” I prefer to keep (even if it’s an illusion) the concept of free will…and that different events have some real causality.

Fate’s a funny thing. I can see some comfort in everything being preordained… but then what’s the purpose? It’d be like living in a novel already written… interesting from the outside, but so impotent for the folks inside.

*ponderponderponder*

I don’t know what Life is. Except that it’s that Thing that happens after you’re born and before you’re dead. And that it is absurd, to borrow a term from Camus. I’m currently mostly digging it. Playing my recorder at the moment, working out a version of ‘Ring of Fire’…So caught up in playing, I didn’t realize the hour! I’ll see you kids in a little while.

Thinking good thoughts of Ornj, a good time to go to bed and dream. 🙂 How I love her so.

something as I go… word for the day – pangram

A sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet.

i.e.: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Other pangrams:
‘Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs’.
‘Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud’.
‘Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz’.
‘Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim’.
“Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D., bags few lynx.” uses only 26 letters.

Or maybe some in other languages:

French: ‘Portez ce vieux bon whiskys au juge blond qui fume’.
German: ‘Zwei boxkämpfer jagen Eva quer durch Sylt’.
Latin: ‘Gaza frequens Libycos duxit Karthagos tripumphos’.

I can’t find any in Spanish.

Happy Boxing Day !

Boxing Day, popular term applied to December 26 in England, Wales, parts of Canada, and in some other countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. Traditionally, on that day the gentry would give presents, generally of money, to servants, tradespeople, and others of humble life. These presents came to be known as Christmas boxes. Boxing Day is a legal bank holiday… I’d love to get another day off….

Hmm… Today went rather well, all told, got together with the Mother, The Brother, and his Girlfriend briefly. (Maybe 2 hours total). Ate, exchanged gifts, and went home.

Newton was lovey and cool all this lovely 4-day weekend… I regret having to go back to work, but a 4 day week, then a 3 day weekend is coming up, so I can groove with it. Saw a few interesting job opportunities this weekend, and will continue to do more research… 🙂

form word galaxies…

found a neat applet on word galaxies … applied my booby talk. 🙂 we’ll see how it comes out.

other thoughts for tonight.

Games in my future –

More AOK2, of course! (wololo!!!)

got Red Alert 2 from Kevin for Xmas…

black & white looks neato…very pretty, and another empire building thing.

as does majestic!

Alice looks mean-spirited… saddens me. I saw a preview for it a few months ago, and it looked neat, now from the website I suspect I won’t be picking it up. mean.

woo. you kids have posted so much holiday hubbub… major scrollover. 🙂

I missed ‘A Christmas Story’ this weekend! TNT only had it running 24 hours straight! ack! I want a Zappelin. I hate Meatloaf!!

about the big lebowski –

more blue language than a “smurf with tourette’s support group”

hee hee…

Noir got me thinking of something I heard read on Doctor Demento, years ago..

(of course I wrote it down, and have since committed it to memory…)

Dual prize packages of rounded richness, twin curved cones of bouncing fun flesh, matched mountains of youthful tanned quivering exciting femininity, titanic orbs of temptation, happy hemispheres of lust, jaunty jiggling rotundities of passion–in a phrase…MY kind of breasts! – Anonymous Adult Pulp Fiction Hack

*giggles*

Oh! and I made it in under the 24 hour mark! 🙂 *happy*