I've been dropping the ball lately. Quite a bit, actually. I'm perpetually behind on e-mail. My LJ reading has been cursory and intermittent the last month or so. I haven't logged into OKCupid in who knows how long, even though I have messages waiting for me (note to self- the single most important component of participating in an online dating site is participating, bonehead!). I'm not working on cleaning the house as much as I really need to if it's going to be presentable by the dates Kim has set for the "come see our house!" parties. I haven't been getting out of work as close to on-time as I'd like (and Kim deserves). My New Year's resolution to do some form of exercise every day has winnowed down to using my little hand exerciser in the car and occasionally doing push-ups in the morning. My other resolution to eat only healthy food has turned into a general tendency to mostly eat healthy food (which, actually, I can kind of live with).

So I'm hereby putting myself on notice. I know that I can't fix everything overnight, but I need to make a concerted effort to move strongly in the direction of improvement. Thanks to the_xtina, I had at least part of the physical exercise solution drop in my lap yesterday- hundredpushups.com. I'm going to talk about that a bit here.

My goal is, of course, to be an uber-sekseh, schwarzeneggerian industrial/cyborg guy- preferably by Dragon*Con. Realistic goals are not my forte. ;-) I like doing push-ups (by which I mean "they suck and I hate them, but I can do them and I like the results"), but even when I'm doing them regularly I seem to hit a wall in how many I can do at once (about 40 at most when using the pushup bars). Then I get discouraged by the lack of progress and stop being a diligent about it, and then I start regressing. Suck. The exercise regimen on the hundredpushups web site states that if followed you can do 100 push-ups in a single set in as little as 6 weeks. Sign me up for some masochism!

Interestingly, the regimen doesn't involve doing push-ups every day. In fact, it's only 3 days each week, preferably Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (leaving me the other days to do sit-ups or play DDR!). You end up doing a lot more push-ups on "workout days", though. I checked the calendar and found that unfortunately Dragon*Con is in 5 1/2 weeks (this was on Wednesday), meaning I should have done the second workout that morning. Rather than wait until next Monday to start I said "screw it", went into the nicely air conditioned comm room (I was at work), and did the Day 2 routine right then and there. Followed by the Day 1 routine. I felt like a hammered turd afterward, and I was all sweaty despite the A/C (yuck!), but at least I'm off to some kind of start.

This morning I played DDR for about 45 minutes. It had been a while, and I'd missed it! Also, my chest is sore today, but in the good way. Tomorrow (Friday) morning I'll do the Day 3 push-ups and should be on track. Going forward I'll use the push-up bars, which are better for your wrists but which make the push-ups harder. Should make things more... interesting. :-/

We'll see how it goes!

Our neighbors- the ones across the street- are throwing away a robot. No, really. It's about 2 1/2' tall, and looks like a cross between Marvin from the H2G2 movie and Peepo from Jason of Star Command.

They're throwing. Away. A robot.

In the spirit of both neighborly relations (and also in the spirit of not-getting-my-ass-kicked-by-femetal), I am not salvaging it.

This is character growth for me. Or at least I'm going to pretend it is. :-)

Doing a Google search for "Amish death metal" generates more hits than you'd expect. I had more to say on the subject, but I've just this moment seen the first teaser trailer for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins so I need to go change my pants now. ;-)

Oh, you can watch it here:
http://hwhills.com/t4-terminator-salvation-official-teaser-trailer-released/#comment-248

No time to build hyperlink. Must go watch again!

Joss Whedon's The Master's latest project is a goofy live-action superhero/supervillain comic musical called "Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". It's silly and it's fun! Act One is out now. Act Two comes out tomorrow, followed by Act Three on Saturday. They're free to watch until Sunday.



If you have doubts about the viability of a comic book musical, just remember that it's by the same guy who created the "Once More With Feeling" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer- probably the best hour of television ever.

Oh, and don't miss the Captain Hammer web comic that gives a funny bit of back story.

Quick Edit: I forgot to mention when I first posted this, but I think that anyone who knows Sterling would agree that he really ought to put together a Dr. Horrible costume for 'con. He'd be perfect!

Yeah, that pretty much says it all. Happy Friday everyone.

Today I jokingly told a co-worker that his name is "an obvious alias" that was clearly chosen to blend in and seem normal.

It turns out I was right. Oops.

Sorry "Anthony"... or whatever your name really is. ;-)

No, it's not Witness Protection or anything cool like that, but out of respect for his privacy I'm not going to get into details.

GAH! Where the frag are my Panther (OS X 10.3) install discs?!?

In other news, OS 9's complete portability really is a nifty feature, even if the OS itself is dated.

YouTube is great because the discussion threads provide a treasure trove of self-knowledge! Yesterday I learned that I'm "a government psy-ops disinformation officer", and today I was informed that I'm "a failed rebel minion drone of satan!" Who knew?

I really owe the YouTube community a debt of gratitude for providing such insight into my character and occupation. How they're able to glean such detailed information from a couple of comments about covalent bonds and logical fallacies is a mystery to me.

*headdesk*

One month ago today I became the happy owner of a Terminator 2: Judgment Day arcade machine. It's now in the front room of our fortress of doom house, and while I'd intended to write a lengthy report about the machine itself, work we've done on it, the game play, and how I'm progressing on my quest to secure the world record in the game, I unfortunately don't have time for a full length geek report tonight so I'll simply give a sappy, gushy reaction after having had a month to grow accustomed to it.

I love it. I love it. I can't help but smile at least a little bit every time I walk by it, even now. I play it in the morning before work, and frequently in the evening as well. I came home from work one evening and the house sounded like a battlefield- Kim was playing the game and unleashing carnage upon endoskeleton and human alike. At that moment any question I had about whether the machine was a worthwhile expense or not vanished. :-)

There's a gorram arcade machine in my house! I still haven't gotten over the fact. Plus, the game is a hell of a lot of fun. MAME does a splendid job of duplicating the game, but it doesn't duplicate the experience of playing it on the actual machine. I've played it every single day except for last Tuesday (see earlier post about Stan Winston) and haven't tired of it. (As a side note, the first game I played after leaving it off for a day I crushed the world record by more than triple, though of course I wasn't taping it so it's not "official".) Sometimes I'll play both guns simultaneously just 'cuz for the hell of it. Not an effective strategy, but much fun! :-)

And because I know what you all really want to see, here's a pic of femetal playing the game completely naked!


Pretty hot, eh? ;-) Okay, I'll stop geeking out now.

Stan Winston has died. :-(

Schwarzenegger may have played The Terminator, but Stan Winston built The Terminator, and after James Cameron is the person most directly responsible for the appearance and motion of the terminator endoskeletons. And the Alien queen. And the Predator. And the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. And Edward Scissorhands. And the Rippers in Tank Girl. Etc., etc., etc...

This severely sucks, and it marks the end of an era. I wish I had a "sad terminator" userpic. I don't know which is the more appropriate tribute- leaving the T2 machine powered off for the day or blowing the hell out of as many endoskeletons as possible?

Thank you for your wonderful art, Sir.

From The Onion:


This is one of those times when I wish The Onion actually reflected reality. :-)

Well guys, it's been one hell of a good time but I'm afraid the world is going to end in a nuclear holocaust very soon.

Did I say soon? I meant today! Yup, it's true! As predicted by Buffalo BillYisrayl Hawkins of the House of Yahweh cult religion, the world will be destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse on September 12, 2006 June 12, 2007 June 12, 2008!

Video (of the prediction, not the apocalypse) available here!

This was revealed to Buffalo BillYisrayl through a coded message in the Bible, so it must be true! ;-) Well, if the world doesn't end today then there's always the December 21, 2012 doomsday prediction, right?

*headdesk* There's a pattern here, folks. All it takes to see through this bullshit is a little critical thinking. So why does that always seem to be in such short supply?

Mostly as a note to myself, but also perhaps to show off just a bit, as of right now Gir's uptime is 83 days, 12 hours, and 2 minutes. Not damn bad for a laptop that gets abusedfunctions as my primary computer! I'm going to reboot him now and then run Software Update.

I <3 my PowerBook!

I have a cabinet unit in my cube at work. It has two drawers on the bottom and a large 2-door section on top with a total of three shelves. I keep a lot of stuff in it, from paperwork to spare tech parts to tools. The top shelf primarily has food- little cups of apple sauce, some candy, various snacks, and a constant supply of the boxed microwave Indian meals that are my standard lunch (Patel's and Tasty Bite), as well as paper bowls and plastic spoons.

This morning I did a little bit of re-stocking, including adding a couple of microwave meals to the back of the inventory. As I put one of the boxed meals in the back it vanished with a sound not unlike that of a boxed meal falling down the back of the cabinet.

I looked on the next shelf down. No boxed meal.

I looked on the bottom shelf. No boxed meal.

I knew that the drawers didn't extend all the way to the back of the cabinet, so I pulled the bottom drawer out as far as it would go, got a flashlight, and peaked into the Hidden World Beneath The Bottom Drawer. I was dazzled by what I saw, and immediately set about the perilous task of recovering my find. 20 minutes and 2 close calls with arm amputation later, I sat back victorious and took stock of my booty:

* A total of 3 boxed meals, only one of which was beyond its expiration date!
* A huge packet of photographs of Paris, France. I'd guess they were taken sometime in 2000.
* A plastic dog

I have no idea who took the photos. They're all of the architecture and scenery, and none have people as the subject. There are a few nice pics of gargoyle statues. :-) There are also a couple of shots of The Company's facility there, which IIRC is no longer in operation.

The food will be dealt with in the customary manner, depending on its condition. The dog now has a new home on top of my 2nd monitor.

And to think they pay me to be here too!!!

Dean Kamen, the guy who invented the Segway, has developed a prosthetic arm that's freaking astounding! I'd read a brief summary of an article about it, but didn't realize just how sophisticated it is until I saw video.



There's an article along with another video here.

The government is a sham, the media is a joke, and we're making breakthroughs in cybernetics. Who says that Cyberpunk wasn't prophetic?

...but any respect I may have had for mainstream news media is gone. Yesterday Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush in the House of Representatives. Today, CNN has a story about Jessica Alba's new baby, MSNBC's headline article is about Hillary Clinton's residual financial woes resulting from her unsuccessful presidential bid, and Fox has a story about some Disney child star pledging to abstain from sex until marriage, a video that "takes you inside the far-left media fiesta", and a story about global climate change under the heading "Junk Science".

Okay, I'm cynical enough to know that the impeachment isn't likely to actually go anywhere, but WTF? I only knew about this because zensidhe read about it on Fark and pointed me to the live C-SPAN coverage.

The Right's favorite buzz term seems to be "the liberal media". The Left claims that the media is in the pocket of conservative corporate interests. I think that the reality is that the news media just sucks. It's bipartisan suckitude.

As a mostly-unrelated aside, every time I see a "news" headline that includes the words "scientists baffled" my trigger finger itches.

Oh well. I guess I'll go read "8 Signs Your Partner Is Addicted To Porn". It's front page news, after all! >:-(

In case you don't recognize the name, Randall Munroe is the artist behind xkcd, the coolest webcomic on the planet. He's also a math and science geek extraordinaire and an all-around very funny guy, as evidenced by both his comic and his public speaking engagements.

It would appear that his math-fu and humor extend to more mundane aspects of his life, like paying his Verizon bill:


I stumbled across the image purely by accident, and only later noticed the name on the check.

Last week a different Randall pointed me to a talk he gave at Google last December. Hilarity ensued:

It's about an hour long but very entertaining, especially if you're familiar with the comic. He talks about the comic, using math to assist in public urination, programming, and of course, how to defend oneself against a surprise velociraptor attack. Enjoy!

(And thanks to OtherRandall for the link!)

"Winning is better than fun, because winning is fun. And you get to win!"
-femetal

(This bit of undeniable wisdom brought to you courtesy of Guitar Hero.)

This is a picture that punzel posted in her LiveJournal.
She calls this art project ThoughtCrimes. She posts them so that they can be seen. Check them out!
You can add her to your 'friends' to see more in the future.

Dear The Humans,

Keep. Your. Damn. Heads. Down! Don't think just because we're fighting on the same side that I necessarily place a high priority on your life. Seriously. Some days the 50,000 point penalty at the end of the round just isn't enough motivation to let up on the trigger when you decide to suddenly put your cranium between my line of fire and the target, especially after I've already "accidentally" shot you twice.

Why do you think it's called a Terminator? If the goal was preserving human life I'd be playing Defender.

Sincerely,
-Player 1