Still Not King

Thanksgiving

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:29:20 GMT

Spent Thanksgiving Day with the in-laws, who were helping host a huge Thanksgiving dinner for people at their church. So instead of the 8-12 people I'm used to for holiday dinners, it was 24. Hectic, but I discovered that I'm actually good at playing Jenga. (I swear, I haven't played the game since college, and I don't remember being any good at it at the time.)

With the warm weather, I'd been joking that we should have a Thanksgiving barbecue. The first thing I saw when we got there: a barbecue. Okay, it was being used to cook a turkey, but still...

There was also the highest pie-to-person ratio I have seen in a long time. I think there must have been at least 10 pies, if not a dozen. Probably enough for everyone there to eat half a pie!

We stayed in on Friday, avoiding the insanity of Black Friday sales (though I did look through the 15 or so emails from various online stores whose lists I'm on), then drove up to Westwood in the evening to see Equivocation (Shakespeare gets caught up in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot).

SJC Smoke Plume

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:57:22 GMT

Brush Fire Smoke, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Smoke from a brush fire near San Juan Capistrano, seen from the parking structure at the Irvine Spectrum. I wouldn't have caught this if I hadn't checked Twitter when I sat down to lunch and seen an update from @LATimesfires. (As it is, I still had to make do with the camera on my phone.)

The picture was taken around 1:30. It's about 3:30 now, and I don't see a plume anymore (though it could be behind a building) -- just a smear of haze to the south and west.

According to the LA Times, the fire started when a tractor crashed into a power pole this morning.

(reposted from K-Squared Ramblings)

Cleaning Up

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:14:36 GMT

I spent a good chunk of the weekend catching up on things I've been meaning to do for a while. This included:

A run to storage (also to look for alenxa's pumpkin saw) to swap some books I've read recently for some books I've been meaning to reread. And also to pick up some comics that someone had expressed an interest in buying.

Email cleanup. I'm almost down to 150 messages! About 1/3 of what's left are either to-do posts I've sent myself or newsletters that I still want to read.

Going through the leftover bits from my last computer upgrade, and sorting out what to keep, what to sell, and what to hand over to e-waste collection. This also meant opening up my computer so I could wipe the old hard drives. While I had it open, I reconnected my ZIP drive, so we can go through our collections of ZIP disks and see if there's anything worth saving.

I also tried to wipe the old laptop's hard drive, but it froze about halfway through the process.

And then there was the pile of ~4 months' worth of junk mail that I went through looking for Tech Tool Pro 5 so that I could test the extra RAM in that laptop. It turned out the CD was somewhere else (sandwiched between two boxes), but at least I got a head start on that process. By the time I found it, it was too late to get started, so that's something to try tonight.

Also: watched two movies: Liar, Liar, which Katie had seen before but I hadn't, and Conan the Destroyer, which I only barely remembered seeing. Shortly before starting the film, I looked at the envelope and wondered aloud, "How the heck did they manage to squeeze a PG rating out of Conan?" Simple: cut out the sex, and minimize the blood. And amp up the cheese. Biggest surprise, though? Olivia D'Abo as the princess.

Touring Mt. Wilson (17 Years Ago)

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:43:39 GMT

The Station Fire burning through the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles is expected to reach the summit of Mt. Wilson sometime tonight. In all likelihood it will damage or destroy the communications towers and the observatory complex. The Mount Wilson Observatory is an active observatory, and is also of historical importance because of discoveries made there over its 105-year history. In particular: Edwin Hubble's* observations with the 100-inch Hooker telescope (shown at right) indicated that universe is much larger than was previously thought, and that it was expanding -- observations that revolutionized astronomy and led to the current Big Bang theory.

I've been to the observatory once, on a tour my family took on August 8, 1992. We'd just come back from a trip to Florida where we visited Disney World and Cape Canaveral during the summer I was 16. I really wish I could remember more about the trip...but I took pictures and labeled them (though not in much detail). With the observatory threatened, I thought I'd dig them out and scan them**. You can see all eight on my Mt. Wilson Observatory Tour 1992 photoset on Flickr.

The Observatory's website is apparently hosted on the grounds, so the fact that its fire status page is still responding indicates it's still there and has power. The latest update says that they're setting up a backup info page at http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php, but that's showing a 404 error right now.

*As in the Hubble Space Telescope.

**Scanning them was not a problem. Digging them out? That was a problem. I knew exactly which photo album they were in, and thought I knew where the album was. As it turned out, it wasn't there. It was in an unopened box shoved at the very back of the long,narrow hall closet, such that I had to move 3 other boxes, several bags, and an unused CD rack just to see that it was labeled "photo albums" on top. Edit: And, oh yeah, the trail of ants along the wall, going after the long-forgotten bag of Halloween candy. The wall I kept brushing up against. How did I forget that part?

That's the missing piece that makes the classic phrase more than a simple tautology. It's not just that it's in the last place you look. It's that it's in the last place you want to look.

Cross-posted at K-Squared Ramblings and Facebook.

Being Less of a Twit

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:33:03 GMT

Y'know, after a couple months of no Twitter posts getting transferred to LJ, and then rethinking the Twitter/blog tie on the whole, I think I'm just going to turn off LoudTwitter and just make an effort to post directly to LJ once in a while.

It just seems like the short-form Twitter and long-form LiveJournal are a poor fit for each other. Facebook is a much better match. Plus I've already got a set of digests over at K-Squared Ramblings, where I'm tidying them up (titles, tags, etc.) as I have time.

It might be worth decluttering this journal and deleting any old "Line Items..." posts that don't have comments. Definitely the ones that are just "New blog post: (link)," and probably most of the rest, too.

Bringing Back the 80s: Super Powers 25th

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:50:01 GMT

In 1984, Kenner launched a line of DC super-hero action figures under the name Super Powers. The toys were tied to the Super Friends cartoon, and each had an action: If you squeezed Superman's legs, he would throw a punch. If you squeezed the Flash's arms, he would run. Each figure also came with a 16-page minicomic starring the character and others from the toy line.

Today, Crisis on Earth-Blog unites fourteen sites in celebrating this landmark toy line.

Aquaman Shrine dives with the King of the Seas.
Bat-Blog covers Batman and his villains.
Being Carter Hall handles Hawkman.
Speed Force runs along with the Flash.
Crimson Lightning is going all-out with a Flash extravaganza.
Dispatches from the Arrow Cave aims at Green Arrow
Love Dat Joker brings in the laughs with the Clown Prince of Crime
Justice League Detroit follows a set of knock-off figures from the era.
The Idol-Head of Diabolu has only begun to cover Martian Manhunter
...nurgh... reviews the entire series of mini-comics
Doom Patrol Blog takes a spin with Red Tornado
Fortress of Baileytude - Superman
Firestorm Fan follows the Nuclear Man.
Once Upon A Geek covers Dr. Fate and the unproduced Blue Devil & Shockwave figures

Enjoy!

Prepare to be Bombarded

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:15:58 GMT

Loudtwitter is back from ~2 months downtime and, according to the FAQ, is catching up on *all* the tweets from the mean time.

It's not clear whether it'll *post* them all, but just in case, I'll see if I can change settings to automatically put everything behind an LJ-cut. If I can't, or if it doesn't work, I'd like to apologize in advance to anyone who reads their friends' page between the time it posts and the time I manually fix it. Update: Loudtweeter swears it'll only actually *post* today's items, it just receives 200 messages at a time from Twitter. So you should be safe! (I did manage to wrap the template in an LJ-cut, assuming I didn't mess up the formatting. Not sure if I'll leave it or not. Something to deal with later.)

OK, back to reading specs.

Deep-Fried WHAT???

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:39:57 GMT

We went to the Orange County Fair on Saturday afternoon. Most years we end up going to at least one of the Pacific Amphitheater's summer concert series, which includes fair admission, so we just combine it into one trip. This year it was Melissa Etheridge, and we also had another goal: Al's Brain.

We started by grabbing some water and (in my case) a chocolate milkshake (because I wanted some ice cream, dangit! and drinkable made it easier), then wandered through the arts and crafts displays, where they showed prize-winning jewelry, crochet, display models, dresses, origami, etc.

Al's Brain

Then we made our way to the back of the fair, where they had set up a portable theater for Al's Brain (in 3-D!). There was a huge sand sculpture out front of "Weird Al" Yankovic holding out a brain in his hand. An animated question mark and exclamation point would occasionally pop out the top of his head, and smoke would pour from his ears.

"Weird Al" has actually had a long association with the Orange County Fair, often doing free concerts on multiple nights during the run. We've seen him there at least twice, possibly three times. One year there was a "Weird Al" museum of sorts. This year, he got involved in a short 3-D educational film (comedic, of course) about the brain.

There's a waiting room where staff hands out 3-D glasses and handi-wipes, with displays of various brain facts or various famous smart people ("Brains that Changed History.") Once the doors closed, they ran a short film in the style of the fake educational films he sometimes runs at concerts -- designed to look like educational films from the 1950s, but mixing in truisms ("dirt is dirty") and ridiculous non-sequiturs ("so never let a dog eat your hair"). This one advised you to never, ever eat ice cream or else you might fall victim to the dreaded condition of brain freeze, the only cure for which is setting yourself on fire.

Then they ushered everyone into the theater to run the film itself, which was maybe 10 minutes long with a mix of live-action and computer animation. Mostly it featured Weird Al and an animated owl answering questions about the brain. Then there was the musical sequence, set to a song that sounded very much like a They Might Be Giants style parody.

alenxa picked up a T-shirt for the "Totally Awesome Corpus Callosum," and we went looking for dinner.

Totally Fried

I don't know if I just hadn't noticed in previous years, but the deep-fried EVERYTHING trend has gotten completely out of hand. Forget deep-fried Twinkies and Snickers bars. We saw deep-fried Moon Pies, deep-fried Oreos, deep-fried M&Ms...

And then there was the Zucchini Weeni.

It's a hot dog stuffed inside a hollowed-out zucchini, coated with breading and fried like a corn dog. Katie actually bought it for dinner (and for her one hot dog for the year), and was disappointed that there wasn't more zucchini.

So, yeah, one deep-fried Twinkie dog a year isn't going to give you a heart attack. The whole appeal is that it's so horrendously unhealthy -- sort of a rebellion against continuing health food trends. Which also explains the obsession with bacon. And the other item of food that made enough of an impression for me to photograph it (or at least the poster): chocolate-covered bacon. We didn't try this one, but only because the portions were too big. Though they weren't anywhere near as big as the "Mexican Funnel Cakes" -- basically funnel cakes made from churros -- the same booth was selling. They promised that you'd want to eat it all, but wouldn't be able to...and if you could prove them wrong, you'd get it for free. We saw lots of people buying them, some of them getting double and triple sizes!

Then there was this place that seemed to be trying too hard:

I'm impressed that they're all-meat (though I really shouldn't have to be), but I'm not sure I've ever seen the words "hot dog" and "healthy" in the same sentence without the word "not" in between. And then there's the question of what kind of meat is in it. I mean, "meat" is a pretty broad category.

Tower

We wandered by a stage with a very impressive acrobatics show. In one act, they set four wine bottles on a table, then set a chair on top of the bottles. Then a woman climbed up and balanced on the chair. Then they handed her another chair, which she stacked on top of the first, and she climbed onto that one.

Then they kept going.

By the end of the act, she was supported by the table, the wine bottles, and six chairs. She then tilted the top chair a bit, and did a handstand. Then lifted one of her hands so that she was balancing on top of the entire tower with only one hand.

Concert

This is actually the second time we've seen Melissa Etheridge in concert. The last time was right here, during the 2003 OC fair, when Katie came up with a parody of "Bring Me Some Water." Apparently, that was the last time she was here as well.

It was a great performance -- just her and her guitar (or on a couple of songs, a piano). As with a couple of Tori Amos concerts, it ironically reminded me of the scene in one of the Sandman spinoffs starring Death in which Foxglove's manager insists that beyond a certain sized venue, audiences don't want to see "a girl and her guitar" -- they want a full band. Once you get enough of a following, though, it's clear that you can go back to just you and your guitar and have it work.

One of the funny parts was when she talked about the fair. In particular, fair food. And what stuck in her mind for her to mention it between songs? The chocolate covered bacon and the Zucchini Weenies. They actually became a running gag.

Another funny bit occurred when she was tossing out guitar picks between songs. The front rows were filled with almost all women, but there was one man up there trying to get a guitar pick. She joked that "it takes a brave man to be a Melissa Etheridge fan!"

Nighttime Carnival

After the concert, as people were leaving, the theater made an announcement that our concert tickets were also good for a free ride on the Ferris Wheel over in the carnival area of the fair. Katie was all for it. I wasn't so sure. (Let's just say I'm not good with heights.) Usually for things like this we just split up, she'll do the ride and I'll check out the games or something, but the announcement mentioned the nighttime view of the fair...and I really like being able to see scenery. I'd love to have the super-power to jump straight up 50-100 feet, hover in place for a while, and float down. It'd freak me the hell out every time I used it, but I'd love to just be able to see.

So after we went back to almost try the chocolate-covered bacon, we started the long trek to the opposite end of the fair and La Grande Wheel. Or rather "La Grande Whee" as the sign proclaimed.

I think it was around 11:00 that we got onto the wheel, and while I did freak out, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I managed to look at the view, pick out landmarks, and even take some photos until the camera started demanding a new battery and I refused to consider changing it for fear that I'd drop it and it would go skittering across the floor and out the 1 1/2" gap in the door and then land on someone.

Katie, meanwhile, was just fine. Which really helped when we got off and I needed to lie down for a bit, and she went to get me hot chocolate. <3

Cross-posted at K-Squared Ramblings and at Facebook.

Writer's Block: I May Be Crazy

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:57:29 GMT

What does this Rorschach blot look like to you?

View 559 Answers

Two chihuahuas clinging to the sides of a bell and its support beam.

Honestly, I'm not typing this from a Taco Bell.

Catching Up

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:10:21 GMT

Spent the weekend mostly cleaning and following up on things from Comic-Con last week. Photos are all up at Flickr, and alenxa and I are posting write-ups at K-Squared Ramblings.

Some highlights so far:

Lost was *the* panel to attend this year.
Flash Forward looks awesome.
Mad Science: The Science Behind Science-Fiction was fun, with reps from Eureka!, Fringe and Caprica/BSG.

Oh, and there's the matter of the costumes...

Off to Comic-Con

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:01:15 GMT

The annual trip commences...

Boom!

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:14:12 GMT

alenxa and I took our annual trip down to Laguna Beach to watch the fireworks display launched off the bluffs. This time we made reservations for dinner at a restaurant we'd walked by a bunch of times, Ocean Avenue Restaurant and Brewery. Would definitely go there again.

Around 7:30 we staked out a spot on the beach, which was already crowded. At the time we got there, the daytime beach-goers were just leaving, while the fireworks crowd was just arriving. I kicked off my shoes and waded out into the surf a bit, taking pictures of seagulls and scenery. Then it became clear the tide was coming in, and we moved up the beach to an area that didn't have any seaweed. Sure, it was 10 feet from a volleyball court and next to a group with a couple of umbrellas (~~which they never did take down~~ only one of which they took down), but at least we could rely on not getting flooded during the show.

It cooled off pretty quickly, and I went across the street to get us both some coffee at one of the two Starbucks. Yes, two. (One used to be a Diedrich.) The line was about 15 feet out the door when I got there, and it took be about 25 minutes to get through it, by which time I just ordered plain coffee so I could get out of there quickly. It had stretched to at least 40 feet out the door!

The sky grew darker, the moon grew brighter, and stars started peeking out, and finally around 10 minutes to 9, a lone firework went off. I'm fairly certain they do a test fire, because there always seems to be one firework that goes off about 10 minutes before the show gets going. Soon we could hear low booming sounds in the distance, and flashes of light started appearing over the bluffs from the next display up the coast (Corona del Mar, maybe?)

Meanwhile, the volleyball game was still going, even without any light except the moon and streetlights.

A little after 9, the fireworks started, launched out over the ocean from somewhere behind the bluffs at the northwest end of the beach. The volleyball game stopped, people rearranged themselves to be able to see, and we ended up standing and drinking coffee. I experimented with the night and fireworks settings on my camera, and tried out the video on my phone, but mostly just watched. I actually got a few decent shots.

The wind was good, blowing the smoke parallel to the beach and keeping the view of the fireworks clear. (A few years ago, it lingered, so after a few minutes we got to see smoke lit up in pretty colors.) Every once in a while, I'd look behind to see the moon and the fireworks from the next display along the coast the other way (Dana Point?), barely visible in the distance.

After the big finale, just about everyone started leaving the beach, heading for one of the few places where you can cross PCH. We stopped at a gelato place on our way back to the car, tried some flavors, and shared a two-scoop cup with one scoop of ginger and one of pineapple chocolate chip. They went surprisingly well together.

By the time we made it back to the car (parked up near the Laguna Playhouse), the traffic had died down a bit and we had a smooth drive up the canyon. After a while, we started seeing bright flashes of light over the hills, and realized even after 10:00 there must still be another fireworks show going. As near as either of us could tell it was near the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.

Finally got home, avoiding the two raccoons that ran in front of the car, washed the sand off of our shoes and feet, and I started going through the photos looking to see how many actually turned out well.

(Cross-posted to K2R and Facebook. More photos at Flickr.)

Why I'm still Awake

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:30:51 GMT

In order:

Wanted to finish reading a bunch of comics, particularly The Unwriten, The Unknown and Unthinkable.
Wanted to write a quick review of those comics.
Someone was wrong on the Internet.
Wanted to finish that review. (got it)
As I was about to brush my teeth and go the hell to bed I came up with an idea and had to jot down some notes so I wouldn't forget it later.
Decided I had to post this. WTF?

(Yes, it's a real LJ post from me. Crazy, huh?)

Packing the School Board

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:22:38 GMT

There's a Zombie On Your Lawn

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:25:38 GMT

And the game is total crack. alenxa has been playing it all week, and it's that perfect combination of WTF and fascinating.

Breaking 2000

Sat, 23 May 2009 07:55:19 GMT

Crazy... I just made the 2,000^th post on K-Squared Ramblings, which alenxa and I (okay, mostly I) have been maintaining since late 2002. In honor of this milestone, I've posted a look back at the year 2000.

NASA and Aliens

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:03:58 GMT

If NASA really knew about aliens, wouldn't publicizing it be the best way to solve their chronic budget problems?

Good Friday Parking, Vampires

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:03:45 GMT

Parked on 3rd floor at mall for lunch, had to hunt far afield for a table. Do that many people really have today off?

Is the glut of vampire novels a result of more people WRITING them, or more publishers ACCEPTING them?

Google employees ask the all-important question: Will It Lens?

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Wheel of Time Finale: 3-Book Split

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:07:19 GMT

I missed this news from a couple of weeks ago: Tor has announced that A Memory of Light, the final Wheel of Time book, is going to be split into three volumes. A Memory of Light Part 1: The Gathering Storm is due on November 3, 2009. Working titles for the others are AMOL Part 2: Shifting Winds and AMOL Part 3: Tarmon Gai'don.

Author Brandon Sanderson, finishing the book from Robert Jordan's manuscript and notes, explains how the decision was made: basically, it was turning into a 750,000-word novel. Consider that 250,000 is seriously long already, and Nanowrimo considers just 50,000 to be the lower limit. So we're talking the equivalent of 15 Nanowrimo Novels. Not only would it need the proverbial luggage cart, but he wouldn't be able to finish and revise it in time for a 2009 release. They figured 2011 at the earliest.

So they're splitting it into three physical books, the first coming out in 2009 as promised to fans, and the others following -- one hopes -- in 2010 and 2011.

On one hand, I'm annoyed. I thought we were one book away from the finale. I thought we were only going to have one book worth of material polished by another author. And suddenly the single $25-30 purchase for one hardcover is turning into a probable total of $90 (over the course of several years, sure, but still...). Regardless of the actual reasons, it feels like a money-grab by the publisher trying to squeeze two more books out of a dead author's fan base.

On the other hand... I'm not exactly surprised. Given the sheer amount of detail in Robert Jordan's magnum opus, the number of open plot threads, and the scale of building up to full-on Armageddon, I think I'd rather see everything handled properly than get the Cliff Notes version of the series conclusion.

(Cross-posted at K2R)

Noises Off and Time-Shifting TV

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:03:14 GMT

Saw Noises Off at South Coast Repertory. Hilarious. Also brings back memories from high school & college productions. Forgot to tape Lost.

Into the Rainy North

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:49:52 GMT

Final preparations are underway for our first vacation of the year. We'll be heading up to the Bay Area this week, hitting Hearst Castle, Monterey & Carmel, San Jose and San Francisco and visiting my brother brionv and his fiancee, my aunt, and sekl and non_seqvitvr . We'll also be attending WonderCon for the second time. We had fun last year, but figured on making it an occasional trip rather than something annual. Then we decided to go visit people in the area, and found out the best week (i.e. when alenxa was going to be done with her current job) was going to be the week leading up to the convention. If we were going to be in San Francisco anyway, the con was cheap, so we might as well go. (Then the perfect timing became irrelevant, but we had already bought tickets to the con, and I'd already arranged for the time off, so we were at least partly anchored to this weekend in San Francisco.)

It looks like this trip is certainly going to mirror last year's trip in one more aspect: rain. Someday we'll have to schedule a trip up north at a time that it's expected to be sunny. (I'm guessing February isn't it.)

Disappear-ring

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:19:35 GMT

One of the side benefits of going on a restricted diet to try to identify what the heck new allergy I've developed is that after working off the holiday weight gain, I kept going. I've been hovering in the 150-155 range for most of the past year and a half, climbed up to the 155-160 range around Christmas, and have dropped down to the 145-150 range.

There's only one problem: Back when I was fitted for my wedding ring, I weighed somewhere between 170 and 180. And it's been cold lately, so my fingers are even smaller than usual.

This morning while making my lunch, I stopped to washed my hands. As I dried them on the towel hanging from the refrigerator handle, the ring slipped off, landed on the floor, bounced a bit, then rolled right under the refrigerator until it pinged to a stop against something metallic.

Ordinarily I would have used the plumber's claw to retrieve it, except for one detail: I haven't been able to find it since we moved. alenxa suggested using a BBQ skewer, so I took a flashlight, lay down on the kitchen floor, and looked for the ring. Fortunately it hadn't rolled too far back, but I still had to flatten my hand and reach under the refrigerator to get the skewer far enough in. It took a few tries, but I got it back. Katie helpfully finished my sandwich while I went to change into a shirt that didn't have dust all over the cuff.

To top it off, it fell off again at work while I was leaning my chin on my hand. It took a while to figure out where it landed, until I realized it had fallen into my shirt pocket.

New task: get ring resized.

Pride and Predator

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:41:30 GMT

This reminds me of the apocryphal round-robin story written by two people with very different sensibilities as to what makes a good story: Pride and Predator. Starts out as Pride and Prejudice but then an alien lands and starts stalking everyone.

It'll either be awful or it'll be hilarious. Possibly both.

Login Form Fail

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:22:43 GMT

Pet peeve: Login forms that move the cursor to the username field AFTER the page finishes loading. Sometimes I'm already typing by then.

Nightmare Revisited

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:11:38 GMT

Listening to "Nightmare Revisited." All-American Rejects were not the best choice for "Jack's Lament"

Amazingly, "What's This" is worse. A song all about the thrill of discovery with NO ENERGY. Are they thinking about what they're singing?

Korn is knocking "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" out of the park. *whew*

OK, this album is definitely improving.

Amy Lee +"Sally's Song" = win.