I was up until around 1:00 am working on some stuff, so yes, once again I did not bike to work. But today rather than being ashamed, I'm mostly just tired. The three-day weekend was nice. I'm thinking of making every weekend in June a three-day weekend, but I haven't decided for sure yet. Part of the reason is that I'm going to Origins at the end of the month and I have a big presentation I'm preparing, so I need all the time I can get. Plus there's just something about realizing on Sunday night that in fact you don't have to go to work tomorrow.
I started Seabiscuit over the weekend. Once a year my wife's book club invites the men, and this is the book we're reading. The club meets on the 9th and my wife still has to read it, so I need to be done by Sunday. To choose Seabiscuit they took nominations and then had a vote. I think Seabiscuit was the only thing I really didn't want to read (mostly because it doesn't seem like a book-club kind of book), so of course that's what we ended up with. So far it's not bad, but the first impression was horrible.
One of the central marketing hooks is that Seabiscuit was the top newsmaker of 1938. I'm sure you've probably heard this claim even if you haven't read the book. Right off the bat that statement strikes me as being incorrect, so of course I wander over to Snopes and sure enough, it's untrue, and not in an "untrue, but you really have to dig to find that out" sense, but more of an "any idiot can tell that's not true" sense. It's hard to over-emphasize how much this distortion of the facts annoys me. I'm trying not to let it cloud my reading of the book, but we'll have to see.
Yawning
Ross
To my everlasting shame, I did not bike into work today. I donated platelets yesterday afternoon (movie: Meet the Fockers) and last night I was feeling pretty crappy, woozy, light-headed, etc. I'm not sure if it was the donation or something else. I think overall it probably ended up being a good thing, since I didn't sleep very well.
I was up at 3:00 am dealing with some kind of bathroom emergency (I'm kind of fuzzy on the details), and at 5:00 am I was woken up by some horrible bird that was sitting right outside the window and squawking out something that sounded like a cross between an alarm clock and Satan. This lasted until my feet touched the floor as I prepared to run outside in my skivvies and start throwing rocks, when the bird, sensing it had gone too far, finally decided to fly away. I did manage to fall back asleep after that, but my dreams were filled with horrible images of ravens and toilets.
My new plan is to bike in on Tuesday (Monday being a holiday, of course). I guess I could actually try and warm up a bit by doing some biking during the weekend; stranger things have happened. As far as links go, overall today seems kind of slow on that front, so I guess I'll point you at the Video Vixen Contest over at G4 TV. I know at least some of my readers will appreciate it.
Overcome with shame
Ross
I watched Fight Club last night. I'm ashamed to admit that it's the first time I saw it, and of course, I already knew the big secret of the movie. Still, I quite enjoyed it. My wife, on the other hand, hated it. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but she is going to give it one star on Netflix. I tried to explain to her why I liked it: the idea that civilization is emasculating (emasculation has a strong thematic presence) is not only interesting, but compelling. She retorted that men were responsible for civilization, to which I retorted with the permanent estrus theory of civilization.
PEToC basically states that males are only motivated to do thing for females while they're in heat; that is the only time gifts are given, etc. And that once human females developed permenant estrus, this gift giving became ubiquitious and competitive, voila!... civilization. If you have your doubts, consider which gender would be happier about the idea of abandoning civilization to live in the jungle off bugs? This is, of course, an extremely condensed explanation of PEToC, but hopefully you get the idea.
In other movie news, Time published their list of the 100 All-Time Best Movies. Some have complained about how many of the movies were made outside of the U.S., but not me. For me, that's a huge benefit. It's comparitively easy to discover good movies made in the U.S. It's a lot more difficult to find out about good foreign movies. I'm also gratified to see that the list seems to be evenly distributed across the entire history of film, rather than being overloaded with recent releases.
Nearing the top of my sisyphean mountain
Ross
Every year I convince myself that this will be the year when I'll really get out and ride my bike, rack up a thousand miles, do a couple of centuries, keep up with the 67 year old CEO... But then every year I get too busy, other stuff seems more important and this is all on top of my exceptional amount of sloth. So once again the cycling season is well under way and I have yet to touch ass to saddle. My current goal is to bike to work on Friday. I'm reasonably optimistic that I'll be able to do that -- it's the second and the third and the tenth, etc. rides that I always have a problem with.
There is a part of me which would like to be one of those people who bikes to work every day. The problem is that the additional commute time combined with the costume change probably adds 45 minutes. In exchange, I get an hour of exercise every day, so certainly it's better than driving to work and then doing cardio afterwards, but since I'm not doing any exercise, it's not saving me much time. I think if I was in really good shape and really got the costume change down I could reduce it to 30 extra minutes, and at that point I'd almost be crazy not to bike to work every day. Of course none of this takes the weather into account...
Moving on, all instant messaging programs allow you to set your status. Some only allow you to choose from a menu of options, like 'away' or 'out to lunch,' but most will allow you to put whatever you want. For example, 'buried by work' or '185 lbs of jungle love' or 'cornered by boss.' Recently I've tried to come up with a new clever status each day for IM, and I thought I would use it here as well. By this time I think everyone has my usual Latin sign-off memorized so the time is right for a change.
Inching Towards Exercise
Ross
What a crazy day. Yesterday was the day when we republish most of the website at work, so I'm still trying to finish that off, and today we're switching printer companies from IKON to Xerox, and since I'm in charge of keeping a website updated on the progress of the switch, I have become the primary contact for everything having to do with the transition. As a result, my phone is ringing about every 15 minutes as the crews keep me updated on the progress. As many better men than I have remarked, it's difficult to focus when your phone's rining every fifteen minutes and there's some Xerox tech telling you that the printer is active and the IP is still 10.1.8.52.
Changing subjects, I've long been an fan of Urban Legends; mostly this comes in handy for debunking the latest e-mail that gets sent around, but that's not where the true enjoyment comes. My true enjoyment comes when I uncover an Urban Legend which is actually true. The subject of one of these true urban legends, George Bernard Dantzig, died this month. Of course, this also brings to mind the urban legend that I desperately wished were true.
Turning to yet another topic, I came across a Booth Babe Hall of Shame from E3. I know that at least some of my readership will enjoy that link.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
I got an e-mail from my younger brother today, saying that he was okay... I hadn't realized that there was any question as to his "okay-ness" or lack thereof, but I also hadn't realized that he had been in Europe for a week. I mean, I knew he was going to Europe, I just had no idea he was not only already there, but halfway through his trip. Of course, this paucity of communication made me realize that I'm trying way too hard. I mean, writing something every weekday, what madness is that? If my younger brother can get by with one e-mail a month, then surely I ought to be able to get by with less than what I'm doing right now.
What I guess I'm saying is that despite the accumulation of a weekend's worth of events, I don't have much that's either exciting, or interesting to write about. We did pick up the parts for our new kitchen/dining room floor on Thursday, but that was mostly just hot and tiring. One thing that was very exciting (but unfortunately had nothing to do with me) was the news that they're using a particle accelerator to reveal some long lost writings of Archimedes. It reminds me of the book, "Inherit the Stars" by James P. Hogan. The hero is initally hooked into the story because he has a machine which can read closed books. It's an incredible book, one which I highly recommend. I may have the single most engaging premise ever:
The man on the moon was dead. They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils. His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave. They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him. All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old -- and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed!
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
One of the most popular ways for companies to control what their employees look at on the web is a program called WebSense. DireKobold has long been small enough to avoid categorization by WebSense, but despite our small size if you're around long enough, you'll eventually get noticed (kind of like Lando and Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back). Presumably in this fashion, DireKobold has been noticed and categorized under "games." As you can imagine, most companies block the "games" category, so several of my readers have reported being unable to get to my blog any more. We use WebSense here where I work as well, but fortunately I'm one of the administrators. :)
As a result, my brother-in-law (the one I stole the largest potato wedge in the history of the world from) has graciously agreed to host a mailing list for me (his open source powers exceed my own) at vfb[please_no_more_spam_replace_this_begging_with_the_at_symbol]networkecho.com. I have already added everyone who told me that it was blocked, but if anyone else is interested you can subscribe by mailing: vfb-subscribe[seriously_enough_already_I_can't_take_it_anymore_at]networkecho.com. The upshot is that every day once the blog is posted, I'll e-mail it to that list as well. If you would rather, you can just e-mail your request to me and I'll add you.
My friend sent me this link on an interesting studydone on the effects of wearing red when determining who wins athletic events. I don't think their sample size is large enough yet, and I would like them to cross-reference it with what odds-makers were saying in advance of the contest, but I'm not ready to discount it yet. If it does prove to be true that wearing red gives a discernable advantage, that could have some very interesting effects.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Last night the local Arby's was donating all of the profits it made between 5 and 8 to the elementary our kids attend, so we decided to head down and offer our support. On the way we passed the local cineplex. There were multiple lines of people, most of whom appeared to be dressed up waiting for the midnight showings of Episode III. I would guess there were 60-100 people per line and it was right around 6 pm. That's an enormous amount of dedication just to get a good seat... Certainly there's part of me that wishes I was so devoid of responsibilities, that I could be in that line. But I think that part of me just wishes I had fewer responsibilities, period.
On that same subject, I was listening to the radio on my way into work. One of the local radio stations (107.5 The End) does a radio game show called "Gender Wars" each morning. In the event of a tie they read off one final question. Whichever contestant says his name first gets to answer it. If they get it right they win; if they get it wrong they lose. The question was "What is the actual title of Star Wars: Episode Six?" Well, of course with Episode III on the brain, the guy yelled out his name and immediately followed it with a triumphant declaration of "Revenge of the Sith!" To which the DJ's replied, "No dude, Episode Six is Return of the Jedi."
I came across David Edelstein's review of Episode III the other day. I've always liked him and he gave it a reasonably glowing review. Also, he seemed to echo what Ebert and Roeper said. I guess that's why I like Rotten Tomatoes so much -- it allows you to figure out what the consensus is on a movie, and from there it's pretty easy for me at least to decide if I'm going to like it. Also in Slate was a guide to Star Wars for non-geeks(it's actually pretty funny). That's all for now, these aren't the droids you're looking for, move along...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
On the continuing subject of True Dungeon, I was in the middle of fixing dinner for the kids when I got a call from my friend Wil, who told me that he had just received an e-mail from the TD guys and that all the slots were just about gone. So as soon as I could break away I rushed to my computer, and sure enough, it was grim. The first few pages were all either full or one slot remaining. It quickly occurred to me that everyone was starting with Thursday and going through the first page that came up, so I switched to Saturday and went to the last page. It still looked pretty grim, but eventually I found a slot with all seven spaces open, so I put it in my cart. I was unsure how long it would remain in the cart so I went ahead and checked out. I then attempted to go back and see if there was anything else I wanted, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't let me get back to the nice searchable interface I had been using. The whole thing was very annoying.
Admittedly, that was pretty boring, but (fortunately) my life isn't contantly exciting. And what excitement I do get is generally due to sick kids, and the over-whelming response to blog entries along those lines has been negative. Actually, I guess I did have excitement involving the kids, which didn't involve them being sick. When I got home from work yesterday, the kids were out playing in the yard. The two youngest were digging a hole and they were covered in mud. My wife was walking out the door at about the same time I was walking in, so it fell to me to hose them off. The water was pretty cold, and the novelty of the situation wore off pretty quickly. Soon my son was screaming "It's not fun!" and my daughter was just screaming.
Of course, once they're screaming as loud as they can, then there's no reason not to just push on through and get it over with. It was somewhat annoying to have to let out the hose and chase my son around the yard, but in the end it got the job done. I guess I would be remiss if I didn't mention that at midnight tonight Episode III starts playing. There was a time when I would have been disappointed to not be watching it then, but not anymore. Still, all indications are that this time Lucas got it right. Also, the biggest computer game show in the World E3 also starts today. The big story is the battle between the New Xbox and the Playstation 3, but not being much of a console guy, I can't say I'm that interested, though that may change as my children get older, and are too big to be chased around the backyard with a hose.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
I watched Troy last night (actually, I watched most of it on Sunday). It was good, not great, and too long, but good nonetheless. My wife even liked it (interestingly enough despite, rather than because it had Brad Pitt in it.) The genius of the Greek tragedies is that there are no heroes. That is, of course, also their great weakness. I guess Hector comes off okay, but other than that they're all horribly flawed individuals. Surprisinglym they didn't change nearly as much as I expected which I also appreciated. So there you gom that was my half-hearted review of "Troy."
GenCon registration started yesterday. I'm trying to decide which events and such I want to participate in before everything fills up. Right now the only thing I'm committed to is True Dungeon, a thoroughly geeky event where they create an actual dungeon for you to go through. You play a modifyed version of shuffle board to see if you hit the monsters, disarming traps consists of tracing a pattern bordered with one of the "Operation" shock things, etc. So yeah it's pretty geeky, but at least there's no dressing up involved.
I wanted to say something about the Newsweek story which killed 16. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I think I have to agree that it's an example of media bias. Though I don't know that it's their liberal bias or their bias towards the current administration, but rather their bias towards bad and inflammatory news over positive news. To illustrate what I mean, think of how many stories have been run about the US's efforts to be understanding to their Muslim captives, to provide chaplains for them, etc. and compare that to the number of stories which have been aired and written about how barbaric we have been...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
The weekend was a mixed bag. On the one hand, I was vaguely productive (certainly a rare enough occurance to warrant special mention). On the other hand, in an idiotic move, I shorted out the DVD player we bought for the car. I also did something else incredibly stupid, but I'll leave you to figure out what that was. Another reason why it was mixed is that Friday and Saturday were the first good days we've had in what seems like months, and rather than being outside enjoying it, I was inside being "vaguely productive."
Since I don't (or try not to) work on Sunday, it ended up being a video game day. I know that's not really that much better, but my addiction to World of Warcraft has waned to the point where I finally installed Knights of the Old Republic II, and played it for a little while. It brings back some great memories of the original game, though it does seem to start kind of slowly, (which many people have commented on) but so far it's been fun, though it's already apparent that it won't be as good as the original.
Looking around the web, I see an article from the BBC on trap-building ants and another on how revisionists are butchering the history of World War II. The former is cool; the latter is, of course, alarming. For example, "American textbooks discuss World War II as if a Patton, Le May, or Nimitz did not exist, as if the war was essentially the Japanese internment and Hiroshima." *sigh*
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
I'm not sure where the morning went; it seemed like one little fire after another. I did get a chance to compose this response to one of my bosses' requests (make sure to read it with a southern accent):
My IE install is very sick, she's been coughing up blood for awhile and mamma is worried she's going to die. In any case she's too weak to open up carbon copy, every time I try she just makes a sound like a motorboat chopping through a manatee tail and coughs up an internal organ or two. I tried a re-install, but I think she's too far gone. So I haven't done my list...
Okay, well, I thought it was funny. Speaking of funny, a friend of mine directed me to fairly humorous post over at ENWorld, more humorous if you've ever played one of Blizzard's Diablo games.
That's all for now folks, no rest of the wicked (which is why I opted to be lazy rather than wicked, but I'm not getting anywhere near the rest I was promised either.)
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Time for more View-y goodness. This morning I had a meeting which was suppossed to be chock full of Time Management goodness, but instead seemed to be mostly overflowing with angry badness. Speaking of goodness, my son appears to have progressed from vomity goodness to bounce off the wall, ask a million questions, mildly destructive badness (okay I prefer the latter to the former, but it is funnier this way.) Never fear I'm sure one of the other kids will be overflowing with vomity goodness any day now.
Turning to Slashdot for more internet-y goodness Forbes has an article on the science of Star Wars The consensus seems to be that it's mostly impossible there there are a couple of things which are not only possible but already exist. IMHO while cool light sabers would be almost entirely useless. If you wanted real intersteller goodness you're talking the hyper drive.
You may have noticed that my childish response to sti's comment yesterday was to fill my post to overflowing with "goodness" goodness (sometimes I'm so clever I can't stand myself), but I also did some checking and in the history of the blog I've used the word "goodness" exactly 5 times (not counting today obviously), and the last time (the time sti was referencing) was nearly a year ago. Seems to me if that's what you're harping on you're really scraping bottom.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
In a surprise move I totally didn't see coming, my son, who was sick on Sunday night but appeared completely recovered, relapsed (or is it a completely new sickness) and is now overflowing with even more vomity goodness. I guess he decided that though his timing late Sunday night was quite good, that now that my wife has the mother of all colds that this is an even better window of opportunity. One might think that this level of premeditation would be beyond him, but you would be wrong.
Other than talking about vomit, I don't have a lot to say. Though I did see that Episode III is getting very favorable reviews (had I started talking about episodes I and II, we would still be on the subject of vomit). My impression is that Episode III is the only one Lucas really had a clear vision of; the rest were like butter scraped over too much bread (to borrow a phrase from Tolkien). He was grasping.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Posting pretty early today, I woke up around 5:15 becauser I'd had this really intense dream... I guess you could call it a nightmare. I have a big deadline coming up at Origins (the second biggest hobby gaming convention in the US, for those that are curious) and I dreamed that I was halfway through the convention and I had still had everything left to do on the project as I do right now, nearly two months out. So as you can imagine, the idea of packing two months of work into 24 hours woke me up so dramatically that there was no way I was getting back to sleep.
Fortunately, things are going well on my deadlines, and I've got quite a bit of motivation at the moment. Though my accomplishments and work ethic pale in comparison to that of my younger (and much more intelligent) brother, check out the most recent e-mail he sent from college:
I found out a little more about what I'll be doing over the summer. Basically I am helping to make a 2nd generation CTIS. CTIS stands for computed tomography imaging spectrometer. It is a spectrometer that works using a CGH (computer generated hologram) diffuser to allow a three dimensional reconstruction of an image, (x,y,lambda). Right now they have two systems, one has a better diffuser and the other has a better camera. So basically we're combining the system to hopefully make a better system. I am in charge of working to get the digital camera synced with the computer then aligning all of the optical components and making changes in the software to acaccommodate the new diffuser. The really cool part is that if we can get working by September 1, then we get to go to Hawaii for a test. I guess they want to use it for detecting missile launches and they are doing a test. So it should be a lot of fun, if it works out.
I'm not sure what to say about that except, "Wow!" In other news, it's still too early for most of the people on the internet, though as usual Boortz has already posted, and he has a link to another great Thomas Sowell column. This one is particularly enjoyable, because it reminds me of the elementary kid who wrote Sowell to tell him he didn't understand what it was to be poor. Good stuff.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
I got my hair cut on Saturday. It had been around six inches long all the way around; now it's about a half an inch, so it's a pretty drastic change. I've been getting quite a few laughs all morning at work. See, the thing is I don't like getting my hair cut, so my whole hair style philosophy is to get it cut as infrequently as possible. If I could get a buzz at the beginning of summer (which is what I did) and then let it grow into a shaggy mane for winter (to keep me warm) and only get it cut once a year, I would. I seriously considered shaving my head, but as bad as the ripping was today and yesterday, I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had cut off all my hair...
On Saturday evening (as a reward for getting a bunch of work done), I was playing World of Warcraft with some friends and we were waiting for a blimp to take us to the other continent. Hanging out around the blimp were some players from the opposing faction -- really powerful people from the opposing faction. Fortunately, they couldn't attack us unless we attacked them first, so in the spirit of congeniality one of them waved to me. I thought, that's nice I'll wave back, so I went to select the player so I could wave to him and instead of the left mouse button (select) I hit the right mouse button (attack). I tried to explain my mistake, but we didn't speak the same language so he couldn't understand what I was saying, plus when all four of them unleashed their righteous fury, I wasn't alive for long enough to explain much anyway.
The student who was suspended after taking a call from his mother in Iraq was much in the news recently. After thinking about it, I guess I'm sort of on the side of the school. Apparently they arrange phone calls all the time, but I guess he was too good to do that. And then if the school is to be believed, he acted like a spoiled brat and threw a fit when a teacher approached him. He denies it and as with any he said/she said scenario, no one knows what the truth is, but overall I think the schools could use more discipline. Of course, suspending students for nail files is a whole other subject.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
As I was driving home yesterday, I ended up behind a truck with numerous liberal bumper stickers. Some examples:
Against Abortion? Don't have one!
He's not my president
God told me to hate you
I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned.
The last quote was attributed to Thomas Jefferson, and I guess that's what bothered me the most, because I'm 90+% sure he never said it. I love quotes, I have sat down and read books of quotes cover to cover, and in all that time I had never encountered that quote, so right off that bat I was pretty sure it was spurious. After searching for it on the internet I discovered that it was contained in various forms all over the place, but nowhere definitive. In particular it was no where among the 87,000 quotations referenced at Bartleby's. The people over at WikiQuote.org had this to say:
A variant "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." seems to be spreading even more broadly on the internet, but without ANY citation of sources that I could find, and appears to be merely a somewhat casual and improper paraphrase of the more extensive statement. Until such time as a reliable sources are provided for either of these statements, I am inclined to consider them spurious. I was prompted to investigate these quotes after finding the shorter one on Wikiquote's Religion Theme page, and though long an admirer of Jefferson I could not recall ever encountering it before. I am now going to remove it from there, as probably spurious, until proven otherwise.
So I guess what I'm trying to get at is if you're going to make a statement for all the world to see, go to the expense of printing up stickers, and plaster them on cars all over the country, you think you would make sure that you're not full of crap. Anyway, I just get worked up over people who make up quotes to support their positions. Anyway to further gush about my eldest daughter it appears that she was the only person from her school to make it into the gifted program.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Well, we got great news yesterday: our #1 (birth-order, not importance) daughter was accepted into the gifted magnet school in our school district. They only take the top 1% of all second graders, so the odds were definitely against us. I didn't realize that it was so exclusive when she was invited to take the qualifying test. I figured if she'd been invited to take the test, then her odds were pretty good, but the top 15% are invited to take the test, which means even if someone is invited to take the test, their odds are only ~7% (6 and 2/3 %, if you want to be anal). So as you can imagine, I was pretty worried, but she pulled it off. I've been telling everyone, and the most common response is, "Oh she must get that from her mother's side."
Today is, of course, Cinco de Mayo, which celebrates the Mexican defeat of the invading French Army of Napoleon III. In commemoration, the three people in the IT department of Mexican descent are all going to gang up on my French boss and beat him up. Though if you read the link, if they beat up six Frenchmen it would be more historically accurate.
I also finally took the time this morning to comb the deepest recesses of the internet and found out how many submissions the Wizards of the Coast Novel open call received, and I was way off. I had predicted 1000, but it turned out to be only 400. This is good and bad (and surprising): it's good, because the raw odds are a lot better. It's bad, because it will take them less time to sort through the submissions which means the time I have available to polish my own book is probably less than I thought. Finally, as part of our continuing coverage, a link to a page on how lightsabers work.
Carpe Diem Quam minimum Credula Postero
Ross
I was at lunch yesterday and we somehow got on the subject of LSD (oh, I remember -- it was the Robert Crumb interview on Fresh Air), and I was reminded of my own LSD story, which I don't believe I've ever shared on these pages, so I thought it might be nice to toss it out there.
I was working as a telemarketer at the time at a real fly-by-night organization, a boiler-room operation as they are often known; the sad story of how we lured people to call in for their free vacation to an 801 number which most people mistook for an 800 number will have to wait for another time. Working alongside me was this smoking-hot girl. Unfortunately, her boyfriend also worked there as the evening supervisor (yes, I like to imagine that it was the proximity of her boyfriend which prevented me from starting a relationship...) In any case, to cut to the heart of the story, they decided, along with some other friends, to take a road-trip down to California to see a Grateful Dead concert.
On the way back the boyfriend, unbeknownest to the rest of the group, had taken some LSD and had a bad trip and started to freak out. So they pulled off to the side of the freeway and put him outside of the van so he wouldn't hurt anybody, and hoped that he would calm down. Instead, he ran up over the dividing median and right in front of a tour bus going about 70. It was the next morning before they found his body. I always wonder if I missed an opportunity to take advantage of her grief and make my move...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Continuing the Star Wars theme we seem to have going, I recently stumbled across Darth Vader's blog. It's somewhat uneven, but parts of it are hilarious and there are even a couple of touching parts, which show depth of feeling I predict we are unlikely to see in Episode III. An example:
When the droid left I opened the small compartment on my chest where I keep my token of her. Every time I take it out to hold it, I vow it will be the last time, and that I will crush it in my fist when I have found my peace. But that peace comes only nine tenths of the way and I find myself closing the compartment, the token once again esconsed inside.
For an example of the funny:
I did my famous corpse of Mace Windu imitation, which made Fett snort wine through his nose. "This party's over," I quipped, and Fett howled. Long ago Windu was First Speaker of the Jedi High Council, a fierce warrior who slew Boba's father and tried to kill my master. In vain, of course. These days the Emperor uses Windu's purple light-sabre to trim his hedges.
Having thus stolen the bulk of my content from someone else, I'll close for the day. That, or I could whine about being called back into work yesterday after being home for ten minutes... What's that? You want me to end? Okay.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Well, I watched Star Wars: Clone Wars -- Vol. I, and I think I can say that it was better than either episodes 1 or 2 (though perhaps not better than both put together, as some assert). I guess more are being made, but once they're done I am definitely going to buy all of them. I would recommend that if at all possible, you watch these cartoons before you see Episode III. I realize that there is some danger of creating a situation where Episode II suffers by comparison, but since the previous two have suffered by comparison with just about everything else, I figure that's a condition we should all be accustomed to by now.
I also watched Whale Rider, which was also very good, though very different from Clone Wars. I also recommend it, though you don't have to see it before Episode III. As long as we're on the subject of movies, it looks like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did rather well for itself over the weekend. I had a couple of co-workers go to it, and at least one of them said that it was the funniest movie that they had seen in many, many years. This, of course, increases my desire to go see it. That and Kung Fu Hustle are at the top of my list right now.
To end with, while wandering around the internet I came across the story of a John Titor, supossedly a time-traveller from 2036. I hadn't heard of this particular quack before and it proved to be an interesting read, so I'm passing it on. That'll do pig, that'll do...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross