Illuminatea

One of my friends on LiveJournal posted a meme. Now, I'm normally not the kind to participate in various memes, but I like this one: go here and pick out five random quotes that somehow resonate with you (keep going until you find the right five), then post them. Here are mine: If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the ...

Stupid website, but it gives me a chance to taunt my co-worker Kevin. This morning I got a puzzled e-mail from him, asking me why this picture of me in Sydney from February (yes, that's Sydney, Australia; we were there for training for work) was the most-viewed picture in his online galleries (warning, probably not a worksafe gallery). I have no ...

On a break this afternoon with co-workers Jon, Kevin, and Ryan, the idea for a new reality show was born. I hate ''reality'' TV -- but I might watch this one. It all started with Jon suggesting that it would probably be very entertaining to follow Wesley Snipes around prison, as he'd be likely to be jumping over tables and kicking drug dealers in ...

Dear iPod, Over the years that I've had you (as your second owner), we've had our rocky times. You've worked well with both my Windows and Mac workstations -- that's a plus. Your battery life is damn near useless (and I understand that's not really your fault), but with the appropriate adapter therapy we've been able to work around that. I hardly ...

Recently, we decided to do something about a problem we've been noticing with our kids. While they're both avid readers, they both tend to re-read the same books -- tens of times serially if we'd let them. Alaric was not happy when we temporarily banned him from yet another end-to-end re-read of the Harry Potter series (by this point, he's easily ...

If you like the Discworld novels, you'll think this is cool. If you like cake, you'll think this is cool. You might think this is cool anyway. The Discworld as a cake Thanks, Nick! 

It's been a while since I've blogged much. There's been a few reasons for that, but I just finished the lastest one last night. Yes, that's right, our Christmas houseguest and I have been working back through Halo and Halo 2 in Cooperative mode in preparation for Halo 3. Last night, Chris and I finished Halo 3. WOW! Awesome game, great storyline. ...

Thanks to the miracle of Cragslist, I have an Xbox. Not an Xbox 360 -- that's the plan for the family Christmas gift -- but a regular Xbox, which is still more than enough to play all sorts of cool games I haven't played yet. For $65, I got the following: Xbox console, A/V and power cables, two small Xbox controllers,  and nine games:4x4 Evo ...

Earlier tonight while reading my LiveJournal friends' posts, I saw this video: The Mean Kitty Song This video has been cracking me up for hours now. I've watched it, like, a gazillion times, and I still am laughing my ass off. I'm also madly wanting a cat, but that's partly Ryan's fault, since he just got a new cat and we went over to his place ...

Wow. Thank you for sharing Harry's story with us. It was amazing, and I am grateful.

While Steph and I were getting our Battlestar Galactica[1] fix last night, I did something I haven't done since mid-December 1992: have a shoe-shine party. I've got four pairs of nice black shoes that were in various states of repair, but before we figured out which ones were worth keeping and which ones need a new home, they all needed ...

First, I would like it to be known that I am only doing this under protest. I don't usually participate in blog memes, because most of them are damned silly. However, I got tagged on this one by Paul in what looks like a fairly typical spree of spreading the love, so I'll go ahead and do it. So here's the meme, in Paul's words: ...

When I heard that Michael Bay was tapped to be the director of the forthcoming live-action/CGI Transformers movie, I was skeptical. However, earlier today my co-worker Ryan pointed me to Yahoo's exclusive trailer. All I have to say is, I cannot wait for July 4th.

My mother got me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday back in September, and it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago I decided which books I wanted to purchase: Dzur by Steven Brust, and Hood: Book I of the King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead. My wife and have now both devoured these tasty additions to our household, and proper reviews ...

I've heard from a bunch of people that Dark Angel season 2 wasn't worth watching. Well, it had its flaws -- it was no Battlestar Galactica by any means -- but Steph and I both enjoyed it immensely. I think part of the reason people had problems with it is that it drastically shifted gears. Season 1 is all about Max, her life in Seattle, ...

I don't do random lists of weird stuff nearly often enough. So, I thought I'd show you one funny picture and a bunch of videos from YouTube. Enjoy. Steph says that the new Mac Pro looks like a shaver (see the picture next to the Get to know Mac Pro heading). Doesn't that look like a Remington Microscreen? C'mon, you can admit it. If you're ...

I have no words. Just go to this site, pick your jaw off the ground, then hoist a cold one in memory of the once-interesting franchise. They've marketed and promoted all things Star Trek right into the ground -- ridden it there on the flaming remains of Voyager and Enterprise. This, however, made me laugh. A lot.

I'm still chuckling about the words that passed my wife's lips fifteen minutes ago: ''I try not to read books that encourage my homicidal tendencies.'' You see, I've finally gotten around to getting A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) from the library and have just started in on it, after re-reading the first three volumes. ...

You may have noticed that I posted a disclaimer in the comment thread on my previous Firefly review stating that I would delete comments that were personal attacks. Unfortunately, that wasn't a theoretical warning. I'd been given good advice -- which I full intended to heed -- that my comment was sufficient and that I should leave it alone. ...

Introduction For a long time, I've actively avoided watching (or thinking about, or even listening to people talk about) a short-lived SF show by the name of Firefly. I had my reasons; they were good ones and I liked them fine. I had enough people, though, ask me what I thought about the series (and the follow-on feature film) that I finally told ...

I had a pretty nice weekend than has gone a long way toward getting my attitude back close to being fit for human consumption. On Saturday, despite the now-standard insomnia and sleeping in late, we got out of town up into the mountains to a party at a friend's house. They've got a lovely place right out in the middle of nature, with a ...

Shout out to Jon Zeigler, who said it better than I ever could. Exactly, my friend. Exactly. (If this makes no sense to you, don't worry.)

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers. Registration code: 5134341 All the cool kids are doing it. Now, if I could just figure out why the HTML is breaking and causing weird formatting issues with my ...

I've never been a big fan of the whole zombie genre. However, I've finally found a bit of zombie-themed entertainment that makes me giggle. A very talented musician by the name of Jonathan Coulton has taken the basic zombie concept, mixed it in with office meetings and lingo, and set the whole tasty thing to music: Re Your Brains. You can listen ...

How wonderfully frustrating, in a minor way.Last night, I upgraded from Community Server 1.1 to 2.0, which offers tons of new features, better performance, a hugely improved administrative interface, a better skinning model -- in short, lots of crunchy goodness. Had a few minutes of panic trying to figure out why picture galleries weren't ...

Back last year, I got my first Mac. I've been using it for the better part of a year now and am pretty happy with it overall. I'm using Microsoft Entourage for my email/calendar software instead Apple's mail and calendar software, since I need to interact with not one, not two, but three separate Exchange accounts and Entourage (unlike Outlook) ...

Thanks to net.friend larabeaton (from back in my rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan days, back when I still read Robert Jordan) I ran across this tender musical moment from Australian comedy group Tripod. This one was funny because it was a bulls-eye; even though I don't own a gaming console, I all too often find plenty of things to occupy my ...

I have to acquire some Microsoft certifications in a short amount of time. Not a full MCSE, although that's always been in the gameplan, but at least one passed exam (and thus Microsoft Certified Professional status) from a specific list of exams, Real Soon Now. And hey, if I'm going to go into MCSE Study Monkey Mode (MSMM), I might as well do ...

The title of this post is appropriate in at least three different ways: Sometime this afternoon, my servers got knocked offline thanks to a transient power glitch. Normally, this is fixed just by rebooting the servers in the correct order, but this time it was made much more difficult by the fact that I'm currently in Arizona. Mad props to ...

Oh. My. Stars. And. Bars. Thanks to net.friend Mark (who goes by hasturcubed on LJ), I have now been made aware of the eBay auction for this one of a kind 8-foot long Lego Star Wars Rebel Cruiser. drooooool... It's for a good cause, though, and the bidding is quite brisk, so I hope it helps Habitat for Humanity make a good Christmas for folks.