Jake’s shape-shifting ability would explain how he fits into the little red and white ball the human carries around.
Another cool Adventure Time mashup from Teefury and thanks Kristin for thinking of me. Now to retire a shirt or two to make room.
The irresponsible neighbors’ cat gave birth again which would explain why Princess greeted me at the door recently for some food. Her offspring from a few months around have been poking around too. Panthra is missing so I fear she might have been the dead gray cat I saw on the street. I took a little movie of them with a borrowed iPod Touch from work to see how well the camera worked.
Editor’s Note: This is the first entry of what I hope will be the only round of a new Category I’ve labelled The Lost Tales in honor J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit hitting theaters today. Word has is that Jackson and Co. padded the rather short story (compared to LoTR) with stuff of the same title and The Silmarillion (sic?). I could’ve kept on writing while the main data was in limbo but I wasn’t confident on how everything was going to be restored and merged. So I made a spreadsheet covering the events plus I also keep a skimpy journal in a great app called Day One. Just how many entries will there be exactly? I estimate 30, maybe less. When the story drops out of the front (or first) page, I’m going to move it to the correct point in time it would’ve occurred.
Now, onward as if the hard drive failure never happened even though my wallet begs to differ to the tune of $1700.
Today I broke the 800-mile barrier in my running. I think these 100-mile landmarks will happen more often with my daily average jumping to 3.1 or higher. I might not run every day but the extra tenths do help. Had my treadmill didn’t break down last year, I can only imagine how much sooner I would’ve achieved this.
Next stop. Nashville which is 824 miles from my house.
Editor’s Note: This did take place on 11/28/12 but I still wanted to plug Nick’s birthday on my site because 14 is a special birthday in my mind.
My Chicago-based nephew hit the big 1-4 today! Sure at 13 he’s a “teenager” based upon the suffix. However, I don’t think kids are officially teenagers until 14 or later. Their 13th year is a transitional period between tweener and teen. Few are in high school by then anyway.
I don’t want to turn this into something all about me but turning 14 was a memorable, special birthday. Despite the move to Houston, a major shift in all our lives, it was a great time. High school would begin in the Fall, we celebrated at Chuck E Cheese (in 1982, the place catered to arcade fans, not small children who hate pizza) and I got some D&D stuff, my passion at the time. Oh yeah, a side trip to Apple Tree Records where I received or bought Paul McCartney’s Tug of War and Rick Springfield’s Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet albums, boosting my album collection to a whooping three!
I hope it’s an awesome point in Nick’s life. We’re 30 years apart so there’s the number thing, I probably live through him vicariously, no, not really. Again, my birthday wish for him is the following year to be a great transition from kid to young adult with numerous, fantastic discoveries. What those may be? I have no idea. They don’t have to be mine (games, music, cartoons, trivia, Sci-Fi and comedy…the whole Nerdcore culture I guess, we just weren’t cool until a few became ultra-rich), just something he has a passion for. Then I can help feed it with birthday, graduation and Christmas gifts.
At the current pace we’re going, we’ll own my side of the bed (30%) within eight years. Actually, it’ll be sooner as the interest part of the mortgage declines and over the upcoming months, it should accelerate a bit. Good thing we own the master bathroom, harder to evict me while in the middle of showering…gotta’ be tidy before a life of lilving under MoPac.
Next up, I should evaluate the house’s appraisal value against the loan to see if we’re finally off the hook for PMI and we can handle our own escrow. Wells Fargo (boo!) said we were approaching this milestone in the near future.
Editor’s Note: About half-way through the Lost Tales section. I just needed to get a quick disclaimer done over this funny encounter since it took place in November, not the date this will be posted. It’ll be moved to its proper time when it drops off the front page.
We haven’t been to D&B (short for Dave & Buster’s) much with Pinballz gaining a bigger presence in my life but we were in the neighborhood to get something from a nearby Bed, Bath & Beyond. The food remains pretty good which was the main draw. Afterwards Somara needed to get something else at World Market and wanted play the games, namely the trivia one. Monday evening isn’t a good night though, few people are around. The trivia game isn’t much fun without multiple players; the amount of tickets it awards increases with competition.
Resigned to the place being nearly dead, I amused myself playing the first-person shooter of Aliens. Then a young woman came up to me, asked if I would play the trivia game with her. I said sure, let me finish this. She replied she’d meet me at it after she went to the bathroom.
As we got started by running our cards through, she said don’t go easy on me, don’t let me win. I said, OK, it’s just a game. I beat her for the first three sessions before finally realizing she had been drinking too much. When she started volunteering information to a complete stranger (me), then I got puzzled. OK, you dig girls as well as guys, whatever floats your boat, more power to you, focus on the game please. After a few more victories I fessed up about being a member of a consistently winning Geeks Who Drink team so she didn’t feel like I was hustling her. She answered, well you looked smart which is why I asked you to play. Ah yes, wearing glasses, my work badge still on and dressed in one of my numerous cartoon/wise-ass/ironic shirts. Maybe the beard helped. I called it a night after a couple more games. Thanked her and some others who joined.
The experience made me chuckle and I couldn’t wait to share this with Somara. My thoughts were, why the hell would someone tell me they dig both sexes? I’m a stranger! Somara’s response was the young lady was hitting on me based upon the things she said. How could Somara be so sure, she wasn’t there. Besides, I have a hard time believing it thanks to my age, I have white/gray patches in my beard. No, Somara said it’s not the first time I’ve been oblivious and that’s why she’s stuck with me all these years.
Well, if I knew being good at Trivial Pursuit could’ve helped me meet the ladies in the Eighties, I would’ve hit the pub quiz circuit sooner! The annual Geek Bowl will be in Austin next year but I doubt I could pick up any groupies.
I’ve been listening to too much Marc Maron as well. My other thought was the young lady having daddy issues, ergo, being involved with a guy almost twice her age is her thing. It can’t be money.
As awful as “Spock’s Brain” is, the image of McCoy getting bombarded with the knowledge is the most appropriate representation of what’s happening with my site right now. The Enterprise had better luck than me since Spock was back to his usual self in a couple days…Picayune has been down since late Tuesday night when the server’s hard drive too a big dump.
It couldn’t have happened at a worse time too.
Then again, is there ever a better time for this crap to happen? Maybe when I win the lottery…remind me.
Ideally we recover the drive’s contents in their entirety, I migrate it over to the old server (good thing I held on to it, the newer one is scrap thanks to my fat fingers and poor anti-DIY design) and I pick up where I left off 11/20/12.
The next-best hope is recovering the var directory. This is where WordPress keeps all the text and layout (aka the SQL database); the pictures, plug-ins and themes are thankfully in the open so I got them intact.
If not, I’m looking at $1500-$1700 from what I’ve read according to others who’ve ponied up the serious coinage to get their data back. I’m confident DriveSavers will succeed. The drive’s mechanical failure(s) aren’t serious yet. On-the-shelf software DiskWarrior got the majority of the drive mounted, the product just couldn’t rewrite the damaged files and during several attempts to copy it never found the invisible guts which made the OS function. There was enough to trick a computer into thinking the volume was a valid choice to restart from.
By now you’re asking, “Didn’t you back it up?” Yes and no, mostly no based upon how this is playing out. I blame myself for not scheduling a better downtime opportunity to execute my favorite, effective method. Definitely going to need a change of strategy, possibly considering a different solution. Odds favor me, thus, I will not be experiencing the schaudenfraude I’m sensing from certain people.
What will I do should every avenue is a bust? I don’t know. I’m not a quitter with Picayune, an ongoing, evolving mental exercise I’ve been doing off and on since 1990 (days like this I miss print!). I did consider saying the hell with this, nobody really bothers (feels like a message in a bottle) and I could take up other neglected hobbies, namely reading, maybe D&D. Neither can scratch the creative itch especially with the latter being plagued with the socially retarded. This leaves the alternative of being glad something caused me to jettison the past, similar to the Doctor Who reboot in 2005. Enjoy the clean break (never mind the 1500-plus stories the backup did have), take a new approach, write about other matters…
Nah! I’ll burn those bridges when I see what Jeremy’s possible cloners turn up.
Before the meltdown, Picayune was on the verge of hitting a couple landmarks I wanted to celebrate:
Fingers crossed I succeed. Fear not, I won’t be hitting up anybody for money. I may have to surrender a chunk of my inheritance. It’s important to me. I think of the site as a clunky, messy novel I’ve been working on for seven years.
Meanwhile, this is the only post I have up. Other stories will just be written in a word-processing application until an outcome is determined. Feel free to write me via old-fashioned e-mail, I find social media to be crappy, impersonal and weak-minded…yeah, I’m guilty of using it too.
It was deja vu circa 2004 thanks to a terrible commissioner and inept, greedy owners. Many owners have changed since those awful days (Lightning, Coyotes, Stars, Blues and Ducks come to mind) but the short-sighted mindset hasn’t.
The day after Thanksgiving is always something I look forward to. Not for the shopping, no way, I avoid the malls and other idiocy (some savings). My tradition was hitting Waterloo Records (a slight sale) and then lunch at Dave & Buster’s to watch the Flyers play against whoever is on the schedule. When I had Center Ice, I rushed home and baked a pizza. One year Mormon missionaries came by to see Somara; she forgot to tell me so those chumps received a rude response on numerous levels. D&B took over when we ditched satellite TV for good.
Tough luck this year. It would’ve been a great time at D&B too. Texas A&M left the Big 12 which meant the annual UT v. A&M game on Black Friday ended in 2011. Thus more room, less noise while I enjoyed my meal.
I made the best of the day anyway, mainly kicking back after I scored some cool stuff at Waterloo Records. I hope next year things return to normal.
My dabbling with podcasts has happened in fits and starts, I readily admit that. A lack of time was the biggest problem followed by my biggest gripe with music CDs…their audio levels are not always consistent, especially if they were manufactured before the mid Nineties. When I made the tapes, the several decks I owned could compensate for this through those little dials which controlled the recording levels. One great lesson I learned in college radio, you barely want to hit the last red level otherwise you get distorted sound. How do you fix this on a computer though? Garage band allows you the means to adjust the volume per track, effective yet tedious. I also tried my functional copy of Amadeus. It proved to be a more difficult task.
Flustered, I decided to test my Google Fu. For once I succeeded. Someone published a free application called MP3 Gain. All I have to do is gather the tunes in the playlist and MP3 Gain examines them, then sets their levels as a unit. No more fussing with the volume buttons, just like what I used to achieve through my tape decks!
So for the anniversary of what was the initial mix tape to give me emotional comfort, I finally remastered WMAG 1. I chose to make two files, one representing each side of the original cassette. The contents and order remain the same. Garage Band did enable me to do the one thing I missed about being on the radio…segues between tracks! Besides the enhancements to the levels, there are chapters for those who remember tunes they want to skip. Hopefully there are fewer than I recall receiving complaints about.
I already blathered on about the origins of the WMAG (eventually KMAG) mix tapes over four years ago with this post. As I read it, I think I said all I really wanted to say. I just need to fix the typos and grammar issues.
If you’re interested in listening or subscribing, click here but ask me for an account and password. I have that little measure to keep out trolls and other Internet nuisances.
They tied the knot in Hawaii while attending a family reunion. I can never remember which side of Jeremy’s large clan it’s with, the dude has so many siblings and cousins.
We knew they were going to make it official on the last day of Austin’s Wizard World, that’s when they told us.
There will be an Austin-based party later, I think early 2013.
Meanwhile I’m scheming for a unique wedding gift.
Update December 20, 2012: I scored it about a week and a half ago. It should be arriving in Austin tomorrow should FedEx hold up on its claims.
Last week was a complete bust in so many ways. Taking Somara to the ER and having her hospitalized for over a day was one thing, then coming down ill on my own.
It is rather irritating to get sick when one spends many days exercising, eating better (fruit as a snack), eating less, drinking more water and avoiding other things leading to a cold. Yet I continue to be knocked out. This bout was somewhat my fault though. I have been shaking off a cough since late July. I could never be rid of it entirely and its severity kept fluctuating. While Somara was being examined/medicated to tackle her pain-management issues (ergo, why it wasn’t serious), I came down with all the fun cold symptoms. I got through this but the coughing persisted.
In the end I saw the doctor and the current theory is bronchitis because I did pretty poorly on a exhaling test. After three attempts, my best result was 490 ccs. The nurse said I did fine, the doctor said no, at my age and size, I should be pushing 600 ccs. Great. I’m currently getting through all the antibiotics (no effect) and a funny inhaler (I don’t feel the powder claimed to be inside). I also had a chest X-ray, I hate those, they’re often inconclusive with a soft-tissue matter like I’m enduring. Oddly the doctor said I can keep exercising as long as it doesn’t induce an incapacitating coughing fit.
Good thing this is a short week.
I’m awaiting Somara’s doctor’s results for tomorrow. Her returning to work will be nice. Her being able to go to the movies with me will be better. The former does help pay for the movies. This year is going to be a tight Christmas too. I want to apologize to y’all ahead of time. The blasphemous/offensive cards were already paid for during the Summer, the gift element will be close to nothing since paying off her medical bills are a priority. We’ll make it up to everybody next year.
This is a post to inform those who don’t follow me via FaceBook (I’m not fond of), I also don’t use Twitter that much due to the lack of “followers;” I’m seriously thinking of removing it from my iPhone because it seems to drain the battery faster.
Anyway, if you don’t recall, Somara had some outpatient surgery last Friday and it was successful. Somara then got to go home the same day but can’t return to work for at least two weeks. The initial days were alright, she had to get the pain medication figured out. By this weekend it wasn’t going too well.
Let me clarify though. The pain issues weren’t going well. What Somara had surgery for has always been a success given its nature.
With Somara I can never tell how serious the situation actually is, she withholds information for various reasons, then it hits critical mass. This in return makes me feel like I’ve turned into Cotton Hill as somehow I’m not seen as very compassionate. I don’t care for pain neither, I just prefer a better answer on what’s the plan.
While this was happening early Saturday evening, I asked about taking her to the hospital since I’m not a nurse. Somara said no, she could get through the pain with all the stuff we bought at HEB.
Due to the cold and congestion I still can’t shake, I slept on the couch but could hear her talking to a nurse in the middle of the night. The nurse finally got Somara to have me take her in to an emergency room.
The doctors on staff assured us the surgery was fine, what she had last week is routine and one of the easiest procedures around. What Somara needed to be checked in for was pain management and swelling. Once this is resolved, she can come home. When? We’re shooting for tomorrow morning. If not, I guess it will be another day.
Stay tuned yet don’t worry, nobody’s life is in jeopardy.
Two years ago I saw what was actually Affleck’s sophomore attempt, The Town, I made the mistake of thinking it was his directing debut. Regardless, I said I would give his next movie a try because the cliche-ridden bank-robbery movie demonstrated his potential at directing. I didn’t expect him to get an A-list assignment such as this pseudo-historical piece involving the Iranian hostage crisis. Affleck destroyed any possible objections when the trailer showed Bryan Cranston having a key role.
I’ll get back to the pseudo-historical dig later.
Other critics have liked Argo but a common thread I kept reading was complaints about Ben Affleck’s acting and/or him being in it. I disagree. He did fine. Besides, numerous well-loved directors star in their own work all the time or use surrogates…see Woody Allen and Tom Hanks. It doesn’t mean I’m joining the Affleck fan club, I just feel there’s a vibe out there wishing for the guy to fail. Pretty similar to the pettiness surrounding all the talk over John Carter‘s budget last Spring.
Since the movie is based upon a real event in 1980, I’m not spoiling anything afterwards. Hell, I remember when those six people were on the news. It was nice to finally hear something uplifting about the Iranian mess. As for the details on how it happened, I was 11 and didn’t care. I figured the Canadians forged some paperwork, said the Americans were fellow Canadians and left Iran, the end. The ambassador took a huge risk. Giving passports to non-citizens is considered as espionage so he and the Americans could be legally shot. We’d do the same to others eventually thanks to the rightward drift in the United States.
The movie begins with a quick history lesson covering the roots of Iran and America’s ongoing grudge match. I already knew this yet it’s for the average American viewer who tends to be a C+ history/civics student at best. Then it fast-forwards to the day the Iranian students storm the US embassy. While the bulk of the staff starts destroying all the overt and covert intelligence stored on the property, the six working in the visa department decide to take their chances by fleeing within a crowd of Iranian applicants. Once outside they try to get asylum from another embassy up the street. I didn’t know they tried the UK and New Zealand before Canada. Thanks a heap Brits and Kiwis. Well, the UK is off the hook because we dragged them into the Iraq quagmire and I guess New Zealand repaid us through The Lord of the Rings movies being fantastic.
Anyway, the State Department is in charge of extracting the six citizens and there’s a rush on this. The Canadians are nervous plus they don’t want to be in the same mess America is undergoing. State asks the CIA for advice as a courtesy even though they’re not particularly interested. The ambivalence wasn’t a surprise to me. People forget how distrusted “the Company” was during the Seventies. The CIA’s dirty tricks abroad and in America had come to light before Carter was elected. State’s possible extraction/rescue ideas aren’t very good: smuggling in bicycles for a 300-mile journey to Turkey; fake memberships with charities or organizations Iran has already expelled; ignorance of Iran’s weather/terrain; etc. The situation appears hopeless.
Extraction expert Mendez (Affleck’s role) has a burst of inspiration during a phone call with his son as they’re both watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Use the premise of a movie to create new identities for the six trapped in Iran. I don’t find this concept too far-fetched. The CIA operates shell companies constantly. Air America is their most famous. How else did that heroin from Vietnam end up here? They had their fingers in the animated version of Animal Farm too, why do you think the ending changed? Mendez’s idea was actually pretty feasible in 1979-80 anyway. After Star Wars took the world by storm in 1977, Sci-Fi films were all the rage in Hollywood and abroad. Look at the terrible body of work then: Message from Space, Starcrash, The Cat From Outer Space…I rest my case. Creating Canadian identities wasn’t implausible neither. Numerous Canuxploitation flicks were made throughout the Seventies by lesser Hollywood studios to provide low-cost crap to show at drive-ins and grindhouses. There’s skepticism yet as the trailer says, “it’s best worst idea they’ve got.”
Mendez goes to Hollywood and the rest is history.
Affleck succeeded with me in getting an early emotional response. When the students violate international treaties by storming our embassy, I felt pretty pissed at the Iranians. It was 33 years ago so I got over it quickly. We’ve gotten our revenge by strangling the Iranian economy with other nations’ assistance. After the initial crisis, I wasn’t worried, I knew how the story ended.
Now for my historical digs or complaints. I know it’s only a movie but Americans can be lazy, they prefer their history to be easy, digestible fictions presented through movies, TV shows and ignorant, Christo-Fascist rampant school boards.
Argo is a movie which makes me miss having cable for about five minutes. Years ago, the History Channel used to have a programed called Hollywood v. History, a great one-hour special debunking when/where/why the movie drifts from the facts. My personal favorite covered 300 by stating what really happened at the Battle of Thermopylae; the Athenians were crucial for the Spartans’ success.
The Alamo outdid itself with the pre-show material. A trailer for Persopolis, a clip of Jimmy Carter on Face the Nation, SNL‘s song ridiculing the current president of Iran (I know how to say it, can’t spell it and I’m lazy), a Brit comedy show poking fun at Khomeni and numerous television news bits from those awful days.
My favorite Phoenix-based couple (there used to be more than one I knew) is celebrating the major milestone in Costa Rica, this was according to an e-mail I received from the Radman. I tried calling over a couple weeks ago only to discover his phone number changed the hard way; I had an awkward conversation with the gentleman who now has what I had on file.
Hmm. Tenth anniversary gift…the usual stuff nobody cares about (semi-common metals) or can reasonably purchase (diamonds). Shopping for Rad is relatively easy, I’ve known him off and on for 20 years now. I can almost remember meeting Rad like it were yesterday. Steve brought him by at GDW. He seemed pretty cool. Our friendship ratcheted up a year later when GDW needed some pointers from DG, where Rad was working. Eventually I got a job there. Kim is a mystery for tastes but I have a hunch, she’s cool with whatever Somara and I pick out.
Their kids are pretty cool from the pictures. Their daughter being named Kylie has always made me wonder if Kim and Rad chose it as a reminder of the reception. The only tune I can remember was Kylie Minouge’s comeback hit, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” Coincidence? I will have to ask them.
Congratulations!
My anxiety always has risen to painfully crippling levels during election years ever since 2000…thank you Florida for not embarrassing us again. And yeah, my guy won so I’ll be flipping some virtual birds at certain people on FaceBook.
Somara’s recovery is coming along as the first week ends. The trick is to balance all the painkillers. A mix between negating the pain without being turned into a zombie, in her case. I’m not super tough but I’ve been spared the good stuff.
