I wasn't gonna do this meme what I grabbed from gothfather ... but then I sorta filled in the stuff and got this and it's absolutely PERFECT so ...

( HERO!!! )

Had to turn off COH DevDigest RSS feed for a bit.

Because they are spoilering movies, specifically Iron Man.

First observation: not nearly as crowded as I'd expected. But I went to the 8pm, and apparently the 9pm was the crowded one.

Second observation: Good lord that girl in the upper rows has a big loud rude mouth, I can hear her easily over the top of the music playing in my headphones. AND... now they've cranked up the theatre music, so they're drowning out my headphones. Time to put away the EEE and just wait for the...

Third observation: OH MAN. Trailericious! They're really front-loading the summer movies this year!

Fourth observation: I was right, the Hulk does look unaccountably artificial when viewed next to all the other real things. Rubber dinosaur artificial, but that MAY just be the strange skin texture they chose.

Fifth observation: M. Kaniggit Shamalamadingdong certainly has become a self-parodic cliche. And this time, he's got a trailer which is creating fake suspense by blasting out painful levels of sound, with the 14 cycle subsonics boosted. I hated that in Jurassic Park and I hate it now.

Sixth observation: movie. Good. Movie VERY good. Movie so good that I will probably go again when I can.

Seventh observation: The freaking movie is NOT over yet, why is big mouth loud rude girl talking on the phone and why omighod I do NOT need to know what you were doing in the shower or why, shut up shut UP.

Eighth observation: Ah, she's shut up. Perhaps someone applied the Giant Mallet of Correction.

Ninth observation: I WANT that kind of Armor for City. Heck, I wouldn't MIND it for real life but in real life we have no special energy source that acts like that thing does.

Tenth observation: IT IS ALWAYS a good idea to stay through the end credits at a Marvel Supers movie.
And this time is no exception.


And note, I stop at ten observations for a cutesy reason having to do with something in the film, thus preventing myself from actually mentioning the clever reference to the Mandarin, the clever Rhodey thing, and of course the last clever thing.
Have to say, though, that parts of the story were pretty much predictable (though not in a bad way at all, tropes can be good,) and also, that is one DAMN deep canister that Pepper is reaching into.

Oh yeah, edit to add: DO NOT take children under the age of ten to this. There's a few scenes that are really too adult, and the four or five year old sitting behind me asking "who is that, why are they doing that" all through the film got really old.
It's not so much that it's a subtle film as that it's a film for people who have the context to know what's going on.

Must provide entry text. LJ, you are so whiny.


Happy birthday scavgraphics

So, I saw the longer trailer.

Gumby, dammit. The Incredible Gumby.

Ugh. Up too late. Still haven't managed to complete my page for the comics jam, and I may just go with what I've drawn already and forget the "reaction shot" part. Yeah. That works. Especially since I have to post-process the image for sfx.

Cleaning kitchen. Ick. Taking out some of the many bags of different recyclables in kitchen.

It's dark and cloudy, which is nice, I guess.

Next weekend, I get to NOT eat anything solid starting sometime Saturday pm, and only clear liquids on Sunday, with bonus extra super-purgatives, because Monday, I get to go have cameras driven through my digestive tract.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfbTO0GlONU


This is not healthy food, but it does look like something one might eat once.

Pointed out by ladyjestyr ... Rob Pavaronian rants on Pachelbel's Canon in D.



Or just go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

HERE is a really unnecessarily high-tech keyboard.



With a price tag that actually merits the phrase "astronomical".

Cats, A Guide for Professional Engineers

Hugo, Cat of 1000 Faces
Hugo, Cat of 1000 Faces II
Hugo, Cat of 1000 Faces III, the Star Wars Special


Yes, once again I am having the Joy of Insomnia.

I was sleepy at 11pm, but just as I was getting ready to go to the bedroom, I started to wake up.

And now it's 3:30AM.

So because I worked for three months of 2007 as a self-employed person, despite the fact that when I became employed I deliberately set up withholding to keep out EXTRA to cover the fact that I did not pay taxes on the self-employment income, I am now having to use the jaws of life on my face so that I can pay through the nose at the obscene self-employed tax rate.


Of course, if I were one of those people whose income is in excess of 200,000 a year without working, I would be receiving a refund, because it would be an 'economic stimulus'.


What would be an economic stimulus for me? NOT having to deplete my savings right now.

see more crazy cat pics

Also I did this one:


moar funny pictures

Mine may not be as good yet.

I really, really need to NOT read the news before trying to sleep at night.

Specifically I need to NOT read about Dick Cheney.


Unless, perchance, I am so fortunate to read that he, Addington, Rove, and the Bush family have all been stricken simultaneously by a horrible infestation of ferocious, quick-growing flesh devouring worms.

Yes, a biblical, judgment from God kind of thing.

I am reminded inescapably of a movie, a moody, pacifistic, really rather dramatic piece that I saw in the early 1970s, which may or may not have been current. It was science fiction, of a sort: apparently some number of people, scattered over the world, had been given these little plastic compacts which contained three buttons; the agency which provided them was never clearly explained but the people were all told, clearly, that they had the choice of pressing the buttons or not. If they did, then every person within a thousand mile radius (?) who was willing to murder other people, directly or indirectly, to attain or hold on to power, wealth, etc. Would die. Instantly, painlessly, and irrevocably.

What would this do, I wonder, to our country, to the other countries of the world.

How much of our government would be populated?


Comments screened; not interested in flame wars.

Oh yeah, this was pointed out by aeire on her punch_an_pie community. Go. Read her comic, if you somehow read my journal and don't already know about it.

Went with Brad and Linda to dinner tonight.

Coyote's Bar and Grill, newly opened "night spot" in Hillsboro.
One hopes they are still coming up to speed.

Price point: high to not-worth-it. Decor: black and dark red, almost City of Villains. Staff wears black.
Seating: Narrow benches ELEVATED off the floor by one foot, with very little space between table and spine, OR, high artistic tables with high artistic barstools.

COMPLETELY useless to anyone in a wheelchair, and I do plan to ask them about how they got around the accessibility laws.

NOISY. The walls and ceilings are stark, flat, unadorned, and un-anchored dry-wall, I thumped the one near me and it boomed. The place is actually an AMPLIFIER for noise. The television was on upstairs, and the people in the upstairs bar were shouting to be heard over it; the hall lined with booths was a perfect wave guide.

They apparently had ONE chef on duty, and the place was full of ... no, not 21-31 drinkysomethings.

It was 5:30 and they were FULL.

Families. Kids. Grandparents. Construction workers. Office workers. Curious people.
The menu was for ... well, TGI Fridays without any particular grace. Good IDEAS, but frankly, an eleven buck burger, even a buffalo burger, should be more than a standard bakery burger-bun, one careful leaf of romaine without any rib to provide crunch, no mayo, a quarter-pound pre-cooked burger with a slice of kraft swiss cheese melted on the griddle by spraying water under a pie-tin over the burger as it thorougly, completely cooks into a chewy hockey puck. The sliced sweet white onion was good, the two slices of wet, hydroponic, red-flavored tomato wasn't, but I didn't put it onto the burger because it would have been nasty.

In contrast, earlier in the day, I went to Burgerville, got a Pepper-Bacon Tillamook Cheeseburger, and for nine bucks I subbed yukon gold fries, and got a drink that wasn't an additional buck; the Burgerville burger was more satisfying, because it wasn't cooked into dryness.

The fries (I saw on someone else's plate) were large, "Country Cut" but appeared to have been factory rather than prepared on-site; they might've been good but I wanted the salad.

The salad was pretty good, actually, although mine was smaller than the side-salads that Brad and Linda got as extras instead of subbed - an artifact of them getting theirs on separate plates rather than as a replacement on a plate with something else. They were fresh romaine, machine cut (yeah, bagged salad) but with a decent sauce, not overwhelming, and with fresh parmesan shaved on top. Not reggiano, as far as I could tell, and I can tell. But not bad.

Brad had a bowl of chili. Another seven dollar item, apparently this was a half can of Code chili.
Linda had a quesadilla. It was warm when it was made sometime in the morning but had been in a steam table or warming oven ... when she got it, it was room temperature. Came with generous avocado, salsa, chopped onion, and sour cream.

It took 30 minutes to get our food, and the server remembered that we were hoping to get out in time for a movie, so he rushed to get our ticket. It wasn't our ticket, of course. So 5 minutes later he came back with the right one.

On the 1-10 scale for food, a solid 4
On the 1-10 scale for ambience, a solid 2
Will I recommend it? Eat at your own risk
Will I go back? Probably, but not on a Friday, and the quality on a real day had better be superior to a cross between P.F. Chang's and Fridays, but with more noise, a weaker menu, and no Mandatory Flair.


Movie was The Other Boleyn Girl ... and we had been warned, so we were willing to entertain a Bad Movie.

Actually, it wasn't SO bad. Well, the cinematography was overblown, turgid, cliche'd, and yet, thoughtless. They had dozens of Famous Historical Paintings And Pageants - there were Madam Tusaud moments all through the thing, some Busby Berkeley quotes, a couple overheads of Henry Tudor's castle that resembled exciting moments in The Spiderwick Chronicles and one particularly lengthy, stupid shot of an archway through which the Boleyn family is proceeding, and half the scene is obscured by an unnecessary flapping blue banner in close foreground. COME ON people, where the hell were the editors?

The story was soap opera, yes, but then, so were the real people. Eric Bana made a rather good Henry VIII, and despite the kvetching, I think Natalie Portman did a good job as Anne. Scarlett Johannson was an excellent Mary Boleyn. The script went in a predictable direction, perhaps - there's not much you can do to the well-known story, and it was NOT "Anne of a Thousand Days" really.

The scenes and pacing where one or two people were together worked a lot better, and were a lot more powerful, than the tableaux scenes with talking heads.

And whatever else, I cared about the characters, even though I was mocking the silly cinematography.
It will make an excellent television movie; in fact, it probably WAS made with that in mind.

Since I mentioned last week's weird illness...

I have had somewhat high-normal blood pressure for quite a while.
The last year or so it's been climbing into dangerous ranges.
I had a doctor's appointment on Monday to follow up on the Januvia (new diabetic drug); the doctor had asked me to check my blood pressure daily along with blood sugars, and get back to him with results.
It was never below 135/82 during that time. At the office, it was 151/95.
Yeah, those are well into the danger zone, so I'm now taking "allopril" ... and the past few days I've felt SO MUCH BETTER it's amazing. And my bp this morning is 126/69, which is well into the 'good' range.

So, is it behind the fatigue? Dunno. My "excessive daytime sleepiness" - EDS, a narcolepsy thing, is still high and not really improving. On the other hand if I don't feel too sick to do stuff, I can start doing stuff.

All week, and actually for the last month, I have had some sort of increasing bleaghy thing which has kept me without energy to leave the house, for longer and longer after I wake up. It doesn't stop me from working if I have the PC at home (which I don't today because I just had a 'refresh' and it wasn't working right).

So today, after yelling at myself for about two hours, I managed to get outside and into the car. The sun is shining very very brightly and it physically hurt. I mean, not vampire-blistering, but after a minute or two the brightness made me nauseous, and quite dizzy.

I called in and apologized that I had to return home, and that I would try to return tonight when the blindingly bright thing was gone.

This is really really weird. When I got in the door, out of the brightness, it was like a cold compress to the forehead.

I just got a voice mail from 442074475661 ... yes, that's a totally invalid number.

If it were an international number it would be from the UK.

They were URGENTLY TRYING TO CONTACT ME because they wanted me to REFINANCE MY HOUSE to A BETTER INTEREST RATE!!! 1 !!!

Wow. Idiots.