The Haiku
Whether war symbol
or Tabernacle display,
They’re placed at his feet.
I find it interesting that palm fronds went from peace and Tabernacle stuff to Maccabean pride to straight up rebellion. Yelling out “Freedom/Deliver us. (Hosanna)” is not quite cool in an Imperial occupied town.
At a wedding last night there was a photobooth company where you took six photos – kept three and put three in a signed scrapbook. Lots of fun. With the goofiness in New York, the girl’s lawyer is questioning the use of revealing MySpace photos by AP and Reuters. Did she sign consent by pressing “Post”? Interesting legal precedents.
The above three photos I hope will be used by whatever remains of the press as I stand as the last librarian in the conflict versus the Walking Plague.
I may seem like I’ve already fought in Z, though. Imagine my reaction when I woke up to find this:
The Haiku
I awake today
and the world has lost its shine.
My cartoon’s gone? Khaaaaaaaaaaan!!!
Mike’s production of Crazy for You (featuring hits by Gershwin and consequently Sinatra) went well, but one of the directors (not Mike) broke a stage rule. There’s only three:
So the fourth wall, separating actual reality from created reality, was broken during intermission. During the second half of the show, a lead actor’s beard fell off. The entire audience laughed. Another character sharing the stage, who was supposed to be dressed like the other actor, lost his beard. The mirrors ended up losing their beards on accident.
When they sit down at the table and are supposed to do the whole “is this my reflection or someone else?” bit when secret identities are revealed, the original noticed his mocker’s beard had also fallen off and said, “I’ve been having same trouble all night.”
Very quick thinking for a high school student.
The Haiku
Would a Scot king die
if he found out that his name
brought total beard loss?
The Haiku
If I had a pet
that had ink for teeth, T-Rex
would be a write fright
The Haiku
Cassini will flex
As it flies by, Saturn spills –
Coffee – “Maverick!”
Also, it is agreed that when buying a car you go to Kelly Blue Book, print that. Figure out your monthly payment. Stick to that. It’s your money. (Not that I’m ready just yet. Still mourning the K car.)
But what about brain-controlled nanobots?
And a camera to see through clothes?
Have we told you about nightvision, pitch black dance floors, and black clothing?
I find it funny that American Idol picked Beatles tunes now that iTunes will be selling the old Beatles songs.
Hey! Have you seen Smash Bros. World, where you can download and save maps? Limitless options, my friends. Thank you, IGN.
This past Saturday was a big day for nerds. I’m just now going through my DVR line-up. Not only was there a Justice League movie on free TV, but Spectacular Spider-Man debuted.
The artwork broke off from the realism style into a sort of Tartakovsky-ish cartoon. The style was weird, but then it’s about a guy who can walk on walls.
I think it’s one to keep, or at least DVR on a Saturday morning. In the first episode we saw Vulture, the Osborns, Gwen Stacy, Eddie Brock, Doc Connors, Flash Thompson, and Aunt May.
But the real reason it will succeed? The guy who voiced Goliath (Keith David was also in Fallout? Weird.) plays Kingpin (I assume it’s Kingpin…he was kinda shadowy).
Penny Arcade had a great thought about Co-Op today:
Army of Two is forward thinking in that your equipment and cash persist, no matter where you are playing or who you are playing with. Where it is less forward thinking is that you can’t join a friend’s game unless you have already beaten the level they have selected. In many games, but especially in co-op, people are going to be traveling through the game at their own pace, and players should be enabled in their efforts to play this cooperative game cooperatively however they like. It’s as though we need to create a kind of Co-op Bill Of Rights, so delineate in clear terms what we consider bedrock in terms of functionality. In essence, we’d like the games to cooperate with us.
Having played THE worst co-op in the first PS2 Ninja Turtles game, I would sign that Bill of Rights.
The Haiku
If I could spin webs
I would make a trampoline
off a skyscraper.
Birthday Surprise
My daughter wanted a tea party for her birthday. A princess tea party. When asked if her cousin could come, she said, “Yes, but he has to be a ninja.”
I am very proud.
My nephew and I were ninjas who also know how to enjoy a good spot of tea. My daughter was a great host and made sure that all of her friends had a good time. My wife deserves a lot of credit for the time, effort, and thoughts that went into the party.
Here’s an example of my wife’s cooking excellence:
Yes, AND she’s hot.
Here’s the recipe (since, yes, the butterflies are homemade):
Here are more realm recipes.
We played pin the crown on the princess. I was pretty proud of the princess picture I drew next to the beautiful original.
She even got a haircut for the party.
The best gift came from her aunts who dressed up like princesses. My daughter, to her credit, kept in character and called them Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.
Aurora’s friend was DYING to use her new spindle, and Cinderella constructed hers from pieces found by Goodwill and mice.
It’s tough being a ninja.
So, what do you do after a party and you’ve got homemade dresses?
Go to the mall (kinda like ‘ball’, right?)! San Tan Village is outdoors and has a truly jovial security staff.
Here’s an experiment where my sisters-in-law test people’s comfort levels by asking where the glass slipper is to passers-by.
My favorite line?
“I don’t know. I just got here.”
Like that guy at the outdoor food court MAY have had the time to see a glass slipper and a carriage, but he was underprepared.
The types of people encountered fall into three categories:
But they all point in a direction.
The princesses did a great job of being constantly in character and Adam, I hope you enjoyed your lunch, because this footage is totally worth the price of your meal. Thank you!
If you want, here is the video:
You definitely have to stay tuned in until the crowd at the Disney store. What will they do, put Cinderella in cuffs in front of all of the little kids?
What went from joke to reality was made possible by family. And sugar.
Jeremy, I would put up the full versions of the videos, but they’re not web friendly in size. Wi-Fi party?
The security guard was truly jovial. (Much cooler than pygmy hippos and albino killer whales.)
The Haiku
Experiments work
when family comes to play
and find their slippers.
The Haiku
a funeral and
a birthday party today -
but too tired to write
The Haiku
Freighter and planet ,
who cares? Give me chain mail shirts
made from soda tabs
I guess collaboration is just as important as observation in the scientific method. Check out Science 2.0.
Lessig’s scheme – Change the world through Internet badges to take money out of campaigning.
My day was actually quite a bit of fun. Here’s the re-telling of it, although the elevator part should be switched with the dismissed part in chronology. Crazy delayed T-Mobile texts. (My phone does this weird thing when I have over 25 texts. SIM full and a rift in space-time.)
Two judges came to talk to our group, one as a massive American Idol-ish lobby and then one after our smaller group got selected. When they handed me the triplicate juror biography form, I seriously thought, “I’m going to Hollywood, babee!”
I almost teared up looking at the posters in the entryway. One was of an Amish guy – “Without freedom of religion he wouldn’t have a prayer.” and MLK – “Without freedom of speech, it would still be just a dream.” One of the judges mentioned that when you vote for president, you’re one of millions. Now you are one in twelve. On that charter bus, looking at my diverse juror group, I seriously wondered if we would be on the next big case.
It’s interesting that I got that gut feeling because the trial that we got selected for was going to be from now until mid-May. I can’t imagine being gone for the rest of the school year. I explained that I was the testing coordinator for my school and how that would impact AIMS on my campus as well as John Flanagan making his first-ever U.S. tour and if I wasn’t there he didn’t stop in Arizona. I tried not to make myself sound important, but “I’m kindof a big deal” (that’s my nod to Bethany).
Today was also my oldest’s birthday. The bike that my wife and I put together from my old BMX was well received.
Hey, so while I was gone Apple released their SDK and now Electronic Arts has Spore for the iPhone and Apple made a game where you can tilt the screen and you steer your ship.
Because engrossed cellphone users don’t look dorky enough already.
(Talk about dorky – I just found out one of my friends was at jury duty and I didn’t notice him, but he noticed me. Oh well, I finished Book of a Thousand Days.)
The Haiku
Jury duty stands
as something that is of worth
even if I wait
I was going to tell you about:
The Haiku
On the night before
I ask myself if I will
be chosen for court
The Haiku
“Can you drive me, dad?”
“No, but I can fly you – though
we’ll wreck the golf course.”
Brian’s been focusing on the dangers of the real world lately, so in the interests of proper ying-yang balance and chi flow of the blog (or something), I will step up to supply some entertainment for you.
Today, I don’t have much to offer, quantity-wise, but I feel the quality makes up for it. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the trailer for Lego Batman. I, personally, am always excited when I see someone’s breaking out of Arkham, and if you toss in my love for Legos? Looks like a winner to me.
In your Calendar of Obscure and Largely Made-up Holidays, you might notice that today is GM’s Day, so be sure to give your game master, dungeon master, or story teller a quick thanks for their hard work, interesting plot lines, and extreme amounts of patience in not killing off your entire party out of frustration. Thanks, guys. Without you, we’d just be weirdos sitting in our living room, tossing around strangely shaped pieces of plastic. With your help, we’re Jedi, or half-elf mages, or dashing bandits, or mech pilots, or…
I’m afraid my post isn’t all good news, though. On GM’s Day, it seems oddly fitting to find out that Gary Gygax, the man at least partially responsible for the entire hobby, has passed away. I can only hope that an overly-elaborate, multi-level mausoleum will be built, and he’ll be buried with several powerful magical items that can only be retrieved by defeating the dozens of monsters that patrol the hallways.
Finally, in more of a middling ground, I enjoyed this article about Grim Fandango, one of those games that was entertaining, but difficult to market, and thus failed commercially. It was a somewhat odd game, but very fun. It was, as I recall, one of the first games I played on CD-ROM, and one of the last “adventure games” I recall coming out before the genre was grievously wounded by FPS, RTS, and console games. Unfortunate.
Have you been following what Venezuela and Ecuador are doing to Colombia? War’s a brewin’, Hugo Chavez style.
Scary news so that I thought another headline said “World Famous Terror Dies” when instead it was “Tenor”.
But there’s some news where no Earthers got hurt: did you catch the avalanche on Mars?
The Haiku
Either the Martians
raise their arms in a “what the…?”
or say, “Let’s surf it!”
Okay, so I’ve been been checking out author blogs, especially with the new reader and the prospect of having an author visit at any time. (Like Frank Beddor, Ally Carter, and now John Flanagan)
Have you seen the westerblog?
Uglies is a phenomenal series, and now the technology is catching up.
Check out the flash tattoos and the eyescreens:
And the tattoo is Bluetooth compatible?
By the way: with the Everybody Votes question, “Do you read books often?”, I said that ‘Yes’ would be popular and my wife said ‘No’ would be (even though she reads more than me).
Yes: 50.1%
No: 49.9%
For the extra nerdy, check out Wired’s tactics on how to take out a 500-ft. monster.
Dmitry Medvedev won. Let’s watch this guy closely. Yes, he promises economic stability, but haven’t we heard that before?
And Putin moves over an office as the new Prime Minister.
Can I vote for myself?
Free speech in action, as demonstrated by Chess great, Kasparov
(He’s the one under all of the police.)
The Haiku
RSS feeds come
from my new reader but now
I see a scared world
Usually this site tends towards the, shall we say, nerdy but I have the interesting position of being a nerd and a husband.
(If you are a fan of the site who plays significant amounts of time with World of Warcraft, you may not have this offline problem and may not need this info. In fact, you may not know what offline is.)
But for those of us who fight evil on all fronts, sometimes we don’t have time to trawl the lawncare forums.
Today I was motivated (by seeing my neighbor working) to tackle the huge weed problem in my yard. A pandemic of pollination had happened with the last rain and I had just used the weed eater/thrasher a week or so ago.
And I had already showered for the day. I mean, did I need to get sweaty again?
So I busted out the weed spray gun, complete with nozzle trigger as if I work in a salon. The plus side to those is that I practice my precision shooting, hitting specific nodes and stems even though I get a -4 on attack rolls.
But I started to notice that I was getting more spray on my hand than on the weeds.
My options were:
Then I remembered that Pharmacist Dan (Doctor Dan when he moonlights as a pro wrestler/disc jockey on his Tuesdays off) had put a weedsprayer in the White Elephant exchange this past Christmas.
A sprayer that had ended up in my car by the end of the night.
A sprayer that I busted out today and loved.
Imagine a mix between a proton pack and a Super Soaker.
I pressurized the thing pretty quickly and sprayed most of the two gallons on one side of my yard. A second pressurization got me the second side of my yard.
Four pressurizations and four gallons of weedkiller later my yard (front and back) was soaked. The really cool part was that it has three separate nozzles: straight line, wedge, and foam. (Who uses foam?)
Instead of a called shot I made area attacks. DC10 to hit the square, baby! And I felt so professional with the constant wedge stream, instituting a Weed Holocaust.
Hopefully the Men of the House find this helpful.
Oh, and I tried to play Ninjabread Man for the Wii with the kids I was babysitting today. It took forever to collect the 8 scroll-type things to unlock the first door (since you lose all progress upon death) but I made it, not using my sword once (since it seemingly was only made to take out training dummies and not actual enemies). I ran through the entire level flipping around while shooting some type of gumdrop projectile.
When I finished collecting the 8 scrolls to unlock the door, I was rewarded with 8 scrolls to collect to unlock another door. I turned off the Wii.
No, I did not buy the game; the kids already had it. They also have High School Musical: Sing It! My wife sang and did well. I wanted to check if it actually picked up on slightly out of tune singers so I tried. Singing as Cookie Monster I earned a grade of C performing with Sharpie (like the pen?) and her brother.
The Haiku
When people wonder
what I really do all day
it’s tough to describe.
I had been using Vienna, an OpenSource RSS reader, but then I got an update about NewsFire being free now. The design is much nicer and I actually like the fact that when I click on the headline it opens a Safari window instead of a crazy tab.
The layout’s great, too, and I like being able to just hit SPACEBAR and scroll through a newspost and then move on to the next one.
And it does a great job of categorizing the new articles, too. I’ll have to describe more of the switch later after my first impressions.
