Mr B Peach

So, I dreamed about one of my oldest friends three times last night.

Once in a very surreal, sci-fi-esque setting kind of dream in which he was a prince, a misfit, and also responsible for saving civilization - though nobody knew that last bit. That dream went on for hours. I woke up once in the middle of it, fell back to sleep, and the thing kept on going from where it left off.

The second dream was me dreaming about blogging about the first dream, and trying to figure out what name to use so he'd know I meant him, and others would know I didn't mean them. I settled on Mr. B. Peach.

The third dream was very much like a cross between an episode of Heroes and the book Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps, by Gregory Keyes. A bunch of us had "abilities" as they'd say in Heroes, which always seemed to also include telepathy of one level or another. Mr. Peach had been captured and sent to a "boarding school", which was a brainwashing facility, where the "students" were held until they could be rendered effectively "normal". The whole story revolved around getting him out of there, and getting him safe. He had some kind of sensitivity to strong sunlight - not all sunlight, just the really bright stuff. By the end, there had been a certain amount of blowing things up, skulking around in a maze, practicing using the telepathic skills to coordinate our escape, and riding around in a very old pickup truck - not necessarily in that order.

I spotted this on Wil Wheaton's site and couldn't resist cross posting it here from YouTube. Star Trek meets Monty Python. Hilarity ensues. Much goodness if, like me - you both recognize every scene in the video, and you're known to blurt out quotes from Python sketches at seemingly random moments.

daleks for Obama

see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

One of the web comics I follow regularly is Diesel Sweeties. My Mister and I got an extra chuckle out of this particular strip because I've joked about moving to Canada (or Australia for that matter) if the Karl Rove camp stays in power after this election cycle.

But heck, we're in the middle of trying to buy a house. We've made a lot of friends with some really amazing people here in the Twin Cities. We've both got good jobs here, it's a beautiful place to live, and we expect to be in Minnesota for a good long while. So, in all seriousness, we're not going anywhere any time in the foreseeable future.

That said... there are three words that could change my mind. "President Sarah Palin".
*shiver*

Just kidding.

I think.

Zero G fan post

IRON MAN: A WALK IN THE STARK
- "THERE ISN'T MUSHROOM IN THE
SUPERHERO BIZ FOR A FUNGI !!"
Originally uploaded by zero g

I'm crashed on the couch with my lymph nodes in my neck swollen up to obnoxious proportions, watching a dog show and wandering around flickr.

Ya'll probably already know I'm a fan of Zero G's photography, sculpture, radio show (when I can catch it - dude, podcast already! *wink*) and amazingly creative brains.

I couldn't roll a saving throw against being amazed by his work with Sculpey if I had a feat that guaranteed it.

Dalek Mission Complete

Don't look behind you...
Originally uploaded by Pockafwye

I knitted a dalek for my sister for her birthday. It was a few weeks late getting to her since it took me longer than I had expected. I had to learn a couple of new knitting techniques I hadn't practiced before, which always involves some frogging and re-knitting.

I based my design on EXTERMIKNIT! by "Penwiper", with some modifications of my own.

Bunches more photos of it on flickr. Or see it on ravelry.com if you're a member there.

teh mad suxxor

I was scheduled to fly to Boston in two days to attend the Jumpcon convention. I have been looking forward to it for months, especially because I'd paid extra to have a ticket to be seated at Peter Woodward's dinner table (as one of 12 guests). And on my birthday no-less.

I just got an email from Jumpcon announcing they were issuing refunds due to the cancellation of the event. They posted to their website yesterday to notify attendees that it had been canceled (3 days before the event was supposed to take place) and sent out the email notices today.

I'm angry and seriously disappointed. And now I've learned that this isn't the first event they've had to cancel.

I've been told that if I can produce receipts for my airline tickets they will refund what I spent on them. Same goes for my room at the hotel (which I booked directly through Jumpcon so no receipts should be needed.) So now I have some phone calls to make, and some paperwork to come up with in order to get my refunds.

Their messages on the website today read as follows:

Message from Shane Concerning JumpCon Boston
Submitted by admin on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 13:36

* Boston

Announcement to fans coming to JumpCon Boston:

I regret to announce the cancellation of our Boston event. Many factors that needed to come together
to make it happen simply did not. We tried everything humanly possible and
were unable to overcome the insurmountable obstacles. This is not to say
that I don't take the blame myself, I do. I wanted to see this succeed so
badly that I was blinded to some warning signs that should have been
obvious. If I have learned anything through this process it's that running a...
(Read the rest at their site)


A Message from Fernando Martinez
Submitted by admin on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 13:47

* Boston

To all fandom:

Please be advised that despite all my efforts to try to salvage Jumpcon, as of today - I see absolutely no chance of this event happening.

When I was hired by Jumpcon, I was assured that the Boston event would happen and that the funding was all arranged. I spent countless days and hours negotiating new appearance contracts with the stars and their agents to try to save the event, only to find that Jumpcon was unable to fulfill it's financial obligations to the stars after all.

I regret that the stars were financially harmed by not being paid their appearance fees or cancellation fees.
I regret that the stars representatives, who were so nice and gracious, were not paid for their time and ended up looking bad to their clients. And I especially regret that the fans were harmed financially and (although not intentionally) were betrayed when they placed their trust in Jumpcon. I have been promised by Shane at Jumpcon that he would return every penny to the fans, I hope that is one promise he can keep. (Read the rest on their site.)

blah

The cable guy came today to fix our internet tubes. We've had next to zero connectivity for the last several days. I've been flattened by a thundering herd of fatigue, so I'd've been mostly offline anyway. So the timing could've been worse.

The Mister was able to be home early when the cable guy arrived, which was good because my Honey speaks "cable". My own geek streak doesn't run toward hardware. Anyway, it turns out there were bad splitters out on the main hookup, and another indoors. I'm not sure about these "splitter" things, but it sounds to me like we must've had some kind of infestation of horrible cable-chewing mynocks. I guess cable guys carry mynock traps because it's all fixed now.

Spring Weekend

Khan's Mongolian Barbecue

We had lunch at Khan's Mongolian Barbecue in Richfield today, and then I spent some time out on the deck reading in the hammock. There are leaves on some of the trees, the birds are singing, and at 57° F it was wonderful in the sunshine.

Now we're watching some DVDs of the old TV show, Robotech: The Macross Saga. I'd forgotten how much I can't stand Minmay. I find myself rooting for the Zentradi, hoping Commander Breetai will put her out of my misery. Forgive me, fellow micronians.

I've also managed to complete my first successful swatch of single crochet. I experimented until I found a way to hold the yarn and crochet hook that gave me enough control of both to make it work. I wasn't having any luck with the hand positions I saw in the book I'm using or on the web. I don't know if it's because my left hand is just that dumb, or if I'm so used to knitting English style (throwing) that crochet feels backwards, but I just wasn't getting the hang of the proper hand positions. What I came up with is probably slower than normal, just as English knitting is slower than the continental style, but it seems to be working. Maybe once I get the basics of the stitches themselves down I'll focus on trying to hold the needles hook more correctly.

U.S. RDA of Iron Man

Colbert / Iron Man 2008
Presidential Ticket

Just got back from the theater where I met my U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance of Iron Man.

I have too many hobbies. One of the things I've always thought was cool, but never had much room in my free time and/or budget for was comic books. So I'm not hip to the Iron Man scene like a proper comic book geek would be.

That said, even without a proper foundation in Tony Stark History 101, the movie Iron Man was awesome. The special effects, while critical to the movie, didn't overwhelm the rest of the film, which had plenty of substance, humor, tension, plot (!) and good acting to carry itself respectably as more than a special effects flick. The script didn't pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience, either, IMHO, which was a bonus. I got the feeling that the creators of the Iron Man movie gave us more credit for functioning brain cells than most summer films tend to do. Not that it was highbrow. They just didn't dumb things down and drive plot points in with a piledriver when an artificially intelligent sledgehammer sized fist would do.

The humor appealed to both my funny bone, and my Mister's, which isn't a given. And it had the rest of the theater laughing at all the appropriate moments, too, which also isn't always a given.

I agree with some critics I've read who've said that the score was uninspiring. My Mister disagreed on that point. He did take it well, however, when I said I thought Iron Man was a better film than Transformers, which for the record, I also enjoyed. Maybe it's because Iron Man was more of a "grown up" film -- all things being relative. I can't help but make the comparison, though, because of the nature of the special effects.

I did find a few of the product placements in Iron Man a bit on the obvious side, which is just a bit distracting for me. Only because my brain starts involuntarily playing "spot the product placement" as soon as one leaps off the screen at me, and I can't stop noticing them after that. But promotion of consumer goods is a part of the whole entertainment package now, even more than ever. And if they were too subtle, they wouldn't work as product placements. So I don't have any illusions that they're going to go away any time soon.

No spoilers here. Just stay put for the whole rolling of the credits.

Oh, and one more thing. Some folks have noticed this already, I guess, but apparently I wasn't paying attention. Has Robert Downey Jr. always been dead sexy? Or is that the Tony Stark mystique?

Pwned* by time zones

IRON CYBERMAN - DALEK DELETED
BY CYBERSTARK SMACKDOWN!!
Originally uploaded by zero g

Ok, so the first time I tuned in to listen to Zero G on 3RRR FM via the intertubes, it was on at 8:PM my local time, 1:PM Melbourne time.

The second time, a week later, we'd gone to daylight savings time, so 1:PM there had moved to 9:PM here.

Now it's moved out again to 10:PM here, while still on at 1:PM there. Any later and I'm going to have to stop chasing it around the clock and admit defeat.

*Pwned explained here for the leetspeak impaired.

Going Boldly

Going Boldly
Photo posted to flickr by WilWheaton

Seconds before this photo was taken, I typed my fingers across the Okudagram, using the same series of commands that I made up to send the ship to warp speed.

~ Wil Wheaton

One of the blogs I read regularly is Wil Wheaton's WWdN: In Exile. If you've not already discovered this for yourself, he's one of the coolest dudes in the pantheon of Geeks, period. Seriously.

He recently posted this spiffy shot on his flickr page (and his blog) taken of himself at Start Trek The Tour. (Click on the image to see it on his flickr page and read the rest of his comments about it.)

Not only is it a nifty photo, but flickr member tlong commented on it, pointing out:

I just love the concept of pretending to be yourself.
I'm going to try it today in my cubicle at work.

My brain stopped for a second, rewound a bit, and processed that idea a bit more slowly than the rest of the stuff that floats past during the course of a quick browse through flickr.

I absolutely love the idea.

It's obvious how you could pretend to be yourself in the past, by reliving a moment from your youth.

But how would you go about pretending to be your current self, as tlong suggested?

And to add another layer of overthinking this... aren't most of us busy each day pretending to be someone we're not? So what happens if we stop the one, and begin the other? What would we reveal?

Every morning, I put it on
I walk outside, and I am gone
And I don’t seem to mind anymore
I can’t think what it was like before I wore it all the time

In the evening, I take it off
But there’s another one underneath
And I can’t seem to find the bottom of the stack

~Persona, The Blue Man Group

* * *

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

~Albert Einstein

* * *

Among Buddhist schools there is consensus on the point that "self" or "I" must be understood in terms of the aggregation of body and mind. But as to what, exactly, we are referring when we say "I" or "self," there has been divergence of opinion even among Buddhist thinkers. Many Buddhist schools maintain that in the final analysis we must identify the "self" with the consciousness of the person. Through analysis, we can show how our body is a kind of contingent fact and that what continues across time is really a being's consciousness.

~ From verse one of Eight Verses of Training the Mind, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama