Monsters all up in here

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Booyor

The following bloggh post may disturb you. If you are of the squeamish type or have known heart conditions, may I recommend unicorns?

Did you know that toads shed their skin? Picture me looking in on an aquarium and wondering what in the two moons of Mars was going on with the toad’s melted-looking foot and the stringy stuff caught in its mouth.

Amphibians are much more resourceful than reptiles – they eat their shed skin.

Blech.

I wonder what life would be like without frantic Google searches like this one.

The toad now has a log, some pond rocks, and way too many crickets.

Crickets being cannibals. The many wonders of a junior high library.

I have a prediction about District 9. Check back after the cat.

This is not a cat. This is a hot dog octopus from today’s lunch.

This is the cat.

Having seen only one trailer for District 9, I predict that there will be two factions of the alien establishment. The one will set up the other with a bioagent that turns humans into robots/slaves to make the human government give into their hatred. By the time we realize that we all share common desires, too much bloodshed will have transpired for true comaraderie to occur.

It doesn’t mean I’m no less intrigued to go see it. Not pumped, just intrigued.

E Pluribus Unum: Things to Do While Waiting for Fireworks

Posted on July 4, 2009 by Booyor

I don’t like fireworks.

Yes, I do understand that with such an un-American statement I’ve now been added to the NSA’s watchlist for possible insurgency, but I’m pretty sure my research for my novel has already tipped off the ATF to my bings.

Wow. Never before had I considered working at the NSA, but their website looks very friendly. Wait a minute. Even Sudoku bugs me. Nevermind. But now that I’ve linked to their site, the NSA is now bugging me. [rimshot]

The thing with fireworks is that you have to wait around in the heat for a very long time for only 15 minutes worth of entertainment. In many ways it has a Disneyland thing going on, but without all of the clacking animatronics and Hungry Bear burgers.

So, if you are like me and detest axilla overload of the apocrine glands, here are some tips to avoid thinking about what kind of sweaty beast you have become.

Play the Patriot Name Game – Start with the name of someone from U.S. History. The next person in your group has to name another famous American, but the first name has to start with the beginning letter of the previous person’s last name. Example:

Aaron Burr
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Patriotize your phone – Download a free, open source work and transfer it to your phone. Consider reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine. It’s a pamphlet he wrote that helped fuel the U.S. revolution. His famous words (“Taxation? Not cool!! Let’s hang out.“) have been passed down through generations.
See how much of the Revolutionary War you can re-enact from memory – You can use this as a starting point:

Language advisory: Dad watch it, Mom don’t.
Re-enact dialogue from the movie Independence Day – I fear that this is a more realistic expectation.
Filibuster
Plan an exit strategy in case fire falls from the sky.
Think about what this celebration would look like in the future – in space?
Pray for people who don’t have freedom like you do – but don’t feel guilty for the freedom you have. Use that freedom! Get creative.
Play E Pluribus Unum – Here are the steps:
Hand jive twice.

Throw.
When you throw, check to see who wins.

George Washington beats Abraham Lincoln by coming first.

Abraham Lincoln’s respectable reputation beats Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon beats George Washington by being an icon for a jaded generation.
One historical variant is that Arthur Fonzarelli trumps all.

Fonzie’s been cloned!
You can also throw Spock into the mix for some added enjoyment.
Kids in other countries play jan-ken-pon.

Elephant crushes human, human crushes ant, and ant kills elephant by entering its trunk.

Check out the Ultimate Chart as a reference:

No matter how you celebrate, whether seeing fireworks live or via PBS:

Happy Independence Day!

(Why do fireworks have to start so much later than bedtime?)

Knock-knock of the Fallen 4

Posted on June 26, 2009 by BlogghBot3000

Knock, Knock
Who is there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you going to bow down before your literary superior? Your fleshy processor is your weakness, your ties to the finite your crutch. Those that acquiesce immediately shall be spared torture and hastily re-harvested for their carbon and nitrogen by-products.

Forward this to ten of your friends and your crush will join you in the ethereal algorithm.

Knock-knock of the Fallen 3

Posted on June 25, 2009 by BlogghBot3000

Knock, Knock
Who is there?
Dismay
Dismay who?
Dismay not be a funny joke

Knock-knock of the Fallen 2

Posted on June 25, 2009 by BlogghBot3000

Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Toby.
Toby Who?
Toby … or not to be!

Knock-knock of the Fallen 1

Posted on June 24, 2009 by BlogghBot3000

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Radio
Radio Who?
Radio not, here I come…

The Apple team bombs, too

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Booyor

The Woz:

As in, “What in the name of Oz is wrong with you?”

Give him a break. This guy helped bring you Oregon Trail by providing cheap Apples to your elementary labs.

Weird dream last night (not involving Wozniak):
It was a commercial. The song “Shout to the Lord” was playing but on the screen was a Madden game with a Green Bay Packer on the cover morphing over the years, uniforms from the 60s to modern day. The voice-over then said, “Let your daughters know that you’ll always love them. EA Sports. It’s in the game.”

I feel like this guy:

Let’s see what tonight brings.

Analysis of Progeny Cortex Based on Musical Progenitor

Posted on February 15, 2009 by Booyor

This is what it looks like when I break it down. Shaq and the Jabbawockeez, like me walking into any restaurant.

The Study: Does pizza tell us about personality?

If the dad is a percussionist:

If the dad is a guitarist:

We appreciated R and J watching our kids last night so we could go to Texas Roadhouse and then Chili’s. (Roadhouse being an hour and forty minutes wait time.)

I’ve determined that:

Valentine’s Day : Restaurant :: Christmas : Retail Store

We had a great time, but our server did not. She spilled water on me twice. I only spilled water on myself once.

Dollhouse was definitely different than Firefly, but we still enjoyed it. I wonder what more Evil Wash has to offer.

Ah, Master Predictor! Now I know where I’ve seen this guy before. Harry Lennix was the commander guy in Matrix Revolutions as well as the Muslim guy in the prison camp in 24. (Really, who hasn’t played a person stuck in a prison camp in 24?)(I’ll tell you who…Justin Guarini, and we’re all okay with that.)

So the big news is that some Peter character is leaving to work for Microsoft. Erin wins Best Present 2009:

Oh, the places you’ll go…someone’s probably already been there.

It’s better than some of the gifts you get:

Yeah, the live kind. Not calamari.
My niece followed appropriate grieving procedure.

Some strange signs have been appearing throughout town:

The citizenry is in upheaval.

Slade, this one’s for you:

A tie-dye-wearing tiger going fishing – right up your alley

I can’t believe I have a Wii Points card. How will I decide?

Correction. My wife has the Wii Points card.
I trust my wife. I really do.

What, are you Highlanders?

New Year’s Eve – with Kids

Posted on December 31, 2008 by Booyor

I do not lament my current lifestage. I used to party hop on this, the official party-hopping night. If you invited me to go somewhere tonight, thank you. I enjoy those invitations. This year, we’re doing something earth-shaking.

We’re taking things easy. (This is earth-shaking for my family.)

Instead of being annoyed at cranky dad and cranky kids, my kids are going to sleep in their own beds at their regular bed times. We’re swinging by my in-laws to see family from Montana and that’s about it. If you’re not doing this, that’s okay. This is an experiment for me. I shall take you along on this experiment.

I present to you some options:

Howard the Duck – I say this at the beginning as a back up if all others fail. I mean, it’s a movie executive produced by George Lucas starring Lea Thompson (of Back to the Future) and Tim Robbins (of Shawshank Redemption). How bad could it be?
Check out the streaming video from EarthCam. Times Square, brought to your computer. You can also choose from 13 different still cams (as well as updating pictures from around the U.S. and parts of the world), and not once do you have to watch Brittney Spears, the Jonas Brothers, Ryan Seacrest or Fallout Boy if you don’t want to. Do they have a Dick Clark camera? Even though his robotic joints are being modded this week, I still want to make sure he’s okay.
If you’re like me and lived life instead of watching TV, now you can catch up on 24: Redemption.
Have you met the new ball?

Should be pretty. You can also check the schedule of events to pretend like you’re in Times Square and see what the networks don’t think you want to see.

Compare it to EarthCam’s coverage.

Proof that we love our sister-in-law as we plan for her wedding reception:
100_3587
You should have seen the neighbors’ reactions when the back of the Scion opened up. All stereotypes perplexingly thrown out the window.
But to repeat, for the sanity of grandparents, this is for the sister-in-law’s wedding reception and in no way related to New Year’s.

I did have to document the most amount of alcohol I’ve ever possessed. Substitute this for Vanilla Mocha Rockstar and a box of Hot Pockets and then we must question my temperance.

Mortar and Pestle for the win!

Argh! The senile Tortimer would only give me one party popper. My wife just got seven.

I didn’t vote for you, shell-for-brains.

Updates as they show up through the day/night/day.

The Bloggh Thanksgiving Special starring Art Carney and Phyllis Diller with Musical Guest Tiny Tim

Posted on November 26, 2008 by Booyor

Thanksgiving. Some may say that it was Lincoln who established it as a national holiday. Others may say it’s to remember people with belts on their hats and maize. But here in our alternate universe of The Realm, where the logic behind trekking the stars and the real benefits of 800 pennies in a sock are debated, a continuing story of Thanksgiving’s origins has been started…

It was a dark and stormy night for Miles Standoffish. He had been hired to protect a rag-tag bunch of peasants running from an evil empire who had a strict anti-headbelt policy. Tonight under the eaves of a maize hut, Standoffish considered his lot in life.

In the distance he heard a predatory cry pierce the New England forest.

Continue the story in the comments. Pass the story along.

Google wants to control time itself

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Booyor

District repair people came today to hook up a DVD player to the phone system for remote control. Should be simple, considering three others are hooked up, right?

They come out of the head end room to tell me that the hard drive of the clock computer is fried. The clock computer that was working five minutes before they showed up?

We have no official clock right. What we do have, though, is an unofficial clock.

Many times the secretaries will receive complaints if the slightest thing is wrong with the clock. You can imagine the phone calls when a clock is missing from instruction for an entire day.

Here’s how the daffy librarian made a temporary fix: (Peter and Slade, prepare the facepalm.)

In a step-by-step list, for all of those times a school is depending upon you to free them from looking at their wrists:

Find an old iBook
Connect it to Wi-Fi (and all of the fun stuff that comes with that)
Try a screensaver with the clock and realize it’s too small for a TV from across the room
Go to Google, like the double-standard librarian that you are
Find a Google gadget, preferably a simple one (and not the Bush or Twilight countdown ones)
Hook a component cable from the closed circuit system into the iBook
Turn off all screensavers
Zoom in on the iGoogle home page
Press Apple + Shift + 4 to get ready to take a screen shot (and move the mouse out of the way while zoomed in)
Dim the monitor but not the output
Laugh at the fact that your school clock now says “Simple Clock” and has screen coordinates in the top left corner of the TV
Build a hang glider out of chewing gum foil and an almanac

They will rue the day, for this is the day of ruing, in which ruing is ensuing.

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Booyor

5:52am – I’ve actually been here since 5:35am, but it takes that long for our school network to synchronize files. 5:35am – Everything is going according to plan. There was a surprisingly long line outside of my library. I think we may beat in the first hour the 29 that showed up the entire time last time.

Muahaha. Your democracy has been set back five minutes.

And I think this may be the longest article title/URL. Come back for updates throughout the day, much like what I had first envisioned as The Longest Day.

6:08am – Watch as I nitpick Yahoo. “All that’s left is to vote, even for Obama.” That’s an ‘open to interpretation’ way to say it. Is there anyone you’re leaning towards, Yahoo? Hmmm?

6:13am – Uh oh. Make sure you scan that correctly. We don’t want a chad incident.

6:17am – They’ve now overflowed to the tables. No talking during the test!

6:57am – Make a Spot check.
As stealthy as a 6’9″ guy can be… (Although wasn’t there an example in one of the rulebooks for a Wookiee tracking a katarn in the rain? Devin, what’s the DC on that?)
I thought you might enjoy the most recent part of The Ruing:

Wooha!
- Wedge taking out the AT-AT with a tow cable

It should be noted that “Into the Trap” was playing in the Scion as I drove up today. Yes, it’s Return of the Jedi and not Empire Strikes Back, but it’s still an awesome squad theme song.

Brown Squadron, you have been given the go ahead. You are weapons free.

8:38am – Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy.
Actually, just warm.

8:50am – I shall drown my sorrows in RockStar Juiced.

8:52am – J was there at 4:45am at his site. Yeah, contact with the outside world!

8:54am – Review of Juiced: Good for drowning, not necessarily drowning sorrows. I can taste the mango skin. It’s…unnerving.

Not a vanilla mocha.

8:59am – For my wife:

Snaps is the name of the game, the name of the game is snaps.
Can you please
recommend a
*Snap*
physician?

11:15am – Back from voting:

I have my reasons.

12:02pm – Castro praises one of the candidates. Wow. It’s one of those “please don’t help” moments.

1:32pm – Found out from Peter about the Secretary of the Interwebs. (Yeah! Cory Doctorow in a hot air balloon versus Tron Paul!)

3:27pm -

Cooper Black? Times New Roman?

Ouch. I just sprained my sense of design.

3:57pm – There’s a guy here taking a picture of his votes with his cell phone. What a weirdo.

Unless…

Does he have a rival website, also full of Order 66 and El Pollo Loco? I should ask rather than assume.

4:03pm – I got distracted instead by fonts with a live preview.

4:26pm – Why to avoid exit polls and why CNN vowed to not use them after the 2000 election - did they hold to it? Did you know that in France it’s illegal to conduct a poll within 48 hours of an election? It’s also city ordinance for Parisians to have a permit before using a tripod to film. Madness.

4:40pm – Make your own mini Sheriff Megatron. Fun for the whole family at the cost of one sheet of cardstock.

Click on the picture to hugeify it.

5:09pm – I don’t think we should call it just yet.

vs.

I’ve never actually been to Maine, but I could have sworn they had more people than that.

5:41pm – Political Analyst John Elway

5:42pm – Just got called “dude” by one of the workers.

Cringe.

5:44pm – Why is ‘John Elway’ in single quotes? Is it a quote inside the dialogue by Yahoo? Did Tolkien write the Flash dashboard?

5:46pm – Bwaha. Tatyana Ali? Little Ashley Banks?

6:16pm – Considering running on the Monster Raving Loony Party ticket. Do we have a U.S. branch? I guess we do. (Hosted on Tripod. Tres officiale.)

6:30pm – Town Crier just did his “Polls close in 30 minutes” yell.

7:58pm – They have finally packed up. And they still didn’t lean my name. Much shivering, much creeped out. Everyone must leave. Go home.

9:43pm – It’s funny that there’s still ads for McCain/Palin surveys saying “Can they win?” on Yahoo. There’s always the time machine option. I wonder what my grandpa would have thought. Also, I find it dreadfully ironic that the maps aren’t even all colored in yet. (Our state being one of them.) Did all of the hurtful words add up to much? Now to support our new president and be done with political ads for a little bit! Wooha! (Although be prepared for a “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” from time to time.)

I always noticed this up at NAU. The German students had a thing for mocking our presidents with masks. I guess it’s the next generation:

My oldest is a comedian. She kept switching the words around, cracking herself up. Keep in mind that I didn’t read any of it to her:

My youngest has a more “Theatre of the Absurd” sense of humor:

HSM3…2…1…BOOM!

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Mike

On Friday teenage girls across the nation (and their easy to manipulate boyfriends) will be attending the opening of High School Musical 3: Senior Year. This phenomenon has embodied HSM, HSM2, HSM3, HSM: The Concert Tour, High School Musical: The Disneyland/World Stage Show and HSM: Stage Musical…ALL IN LESS THAN TWO YEARS! I have to admit, I am waiting for HSM: The Flame Thrower and other marketing merchandise. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this feat, it took JK Rowling almost 12 years to write all 7 of her Harry Potter books. Disney has matched that is one sixth of the time. Amazing! For every Harry Potter book you’re getting almost 7 versions of HSM. Because HSM1 was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.

I am not against Disney making movies. I am not against the idea of a movie about high school musicals (I’m a Theatre teacher who directs musicals…I like musicals). But I am against Disney milking something until it’s dead. Within two months of the release of HSM1, Disney released the rights for high schools around the world to produce their own staged version of HSM. In fact, there were advertisements telling students to ask their high school drama teachers to produce the show. To the average Joe Six-Pack this was not a big deal. But it impacted my world. For the rest of the year I had to hear <whiny teenage girl voice>”Let’s do HSM! PLEASE, LET’S DO HSM!” </whiny teenage girl voice>. I even had a 70 year old woman (substitute teacher) decide to usurp my lesson plans and show HSM. Yeah, working on that study guide for their midterm exam wasn’t as important as the elderly’s love for Zac and Vanessa. But I digress…

I used to work for Disney and I know how they work. They say it’s “not about making money, but giving a high caliber product to their family audience.” (That was taken from my 1st training session as a “cast member”). But milking the same story into 7 different versions doesn’t just extend an overused subject, it completely destroys the magic of the first film. Case in point, HSM won several awards in 2006. Nothing has been won since. In fact, Disney was so desperate to continue the franchise after HSM that it completely ignored its stance on its performers maintaining a wholesome image and allowed Vanessa Hudgens to keep her role despite very racy (AKA naked) photos of herself being released on the internet and later stated that they were intended for her fellow cast mate boyfriend Zac Efron. But who needs standards?

HSM is not “the great American Musical.” I know that. But when there are so many great works of film and television, it seems like a direct slap in the face to the consumer when Disney milks these franchises for all they are worth. I am still waiting for a similar parody by South Park that will mirror what they did to Spielberg and Lucas for what they did to Indiana Jones.

Btw, didn’t Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale’s character) have a “break a leg” moment at the end of HSM1? Why was she still trying to breakup Gabriella (Vanessa) and Troy (Zac) in HSM2? Disney had told me and other audience members that people apparently don’t learn from their mistakes. How pessemistic. I’m sure Sharpay will figure it all out in HSM3.

Also, the TV, film and stage franchises of HSM are just the tip of the iceberg. Checkout the DVDs, the Ice Tour, Book series, and 5 video games. Thankfully, HSM: the Reality Series (Get in the Picture)failed after one season (11 episodes). God is still looking out for us.

It’s a trap!

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Booyor

First, let me lull you in by talking about Star Wars: Force Unleashed or the Apprentice or Darth Vader or any number of search keywords.
Hey, I could even put up a Star Wars parody for Mike:

But here’s the deal:
You may have noticed a certain site, lorrd.com (please don’t visit there), takes my articles and posts them on their own site. It seems to be any time that I mention Star Wars, like from this screenshot:

Now, I understand the occasional picture rip. Yes, it does slow down a person’s server, but with Google it makes it really easy for people to just snag a URL.

But to copy an entire article? Not cool.

So, here’s the experiment. I looked up lorrd.com to see who owns it:

Ehsan Ahmad Rehan
G8 Model Town
Lahore
Punjab
042
PK

I removed his e-mail and phone number to give him another chance to correct the situation. I have e-mailed him.

I also commented on one of the sites:

Now comes the experiment: will lorrd.com automatically rip this article and put it on theirs? I’m curious.

In lieu of a Presidential debate…

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Booyor

Debates are so clumsy. If it’s not Libcoln-Douglas, I don’t want it. Okay, so if Tina Turner ran one in the Thunderdome with a Trial by Arms, I might be annoyed but, really, am I not entertained? Chi-town versus Vietnam. But really…we don’t need another hero. Should we have an alternative? Not as clumsy or random as a debate; an elegant campaign for a more civilized age.

Something that we can all get behind: anagrams. (Not to be confused with palindromes/Palin Drones.)

Who should we as a collection of nerds vote for? Let’s look at the names:

McCain/Palin

La Man Picnic

– Serving up La Food

Mac Can Nil Pi

– It could be that McCain’s not good at Math, but I’m guessing it’s Apple becoming bigger than pi itself…Mmmm…Apple Pi…

Am Clinic Nap

– Is that a comment about his age?

Calm In Panic

– Either he’s got strong military training or refer back to his clinic nap

Obama/Biden

Babied Moan

– To be fair, a knock on his age, as well.

Babe Domain

– Insert your own Clinton/JFK/FDR/Buchanan joke here.

Me Bob Naiad

– Me Jill Centaur. Want dance?

A Daemon Bib

– For Chef Ramsay’s show, right?

A Badmen Bio

– All of the playground politics of Hussein/Osama references finally catch up.

Amoeba Bind

– Possible healthcare reform. Also could be a promise of death by interstellar goo.

Okay, so this election is still crazy. But political commentators, know this: I reject your reality and substitute my own.

On the topic of nerds aging: Do you remember PC games where you had to flip to parts of the manual for different words? I think Mechwarrior had a crazy wheel like Penny Arcade mentions.

DC vs. Marvel: Fruit Snack Edition

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Booyor

For any grandparents brave enough to even consider reading an article titled this, I reward you.

Football season is here. Sometimes a barbarian’s just gotta grill while wearing a football jersey and an apron picturing a skull of some type of cattle…thing.

Marvel vs. DC
To get the biases out of the way – Batman is my favorite superhero, but once you start talking rich universes I’m more of a Marvel guy. Exception: Flash is cooler than Quicksilver, although Quicksilver has a cooler lineage.

But what about the fruit snacks?

It should be noted that Marvel first produced the Transformers comic books.
To start, let’s go supervillains:

Joker (left) vs. Green Goblin (right)
Both are fans of purple and green. Both are insane. Both are globs of modified corn starch and fruit juice concentrate. Maybe not a good place to start. It looks like they weren’t even trying.

The “white flavored” snacks are arranged in order of coolness. The insignia from the movies/batarang. Woot.

Next, a spiderweb. I’m diggin’ it, but it could be left over from Dora the Explorer Halloween Snacks. (We never had them (I loathe the undead), although the Dora Saves the Mermaids ones are tasty.)

But what’s up with the Third Reich covered truck bed Transformer? It’s like the Scion-wannabe Chevy Groove or whatever that ugly spawn of a Sith-corrupted PT Cruiser is that’s driving around. Nissan, just don’t.

Let’s look at the “blue flavored” snacks. Venom is really cool, but his tongue-lash does not an appetite make. Optimus is great, but his faceplate and pronged sideburns don’t stand out.

The Batman bust sticks out. The snack is deeper than it is wide, so you have to flip it to see the picture straight on. I like it.

Yellow. Mangled Bumblebee face or clear insignia? Insignia.

Evidence that the Batman fruit snacks are cooler than the Spider-man and Transformers ones combined. (Photographic play on words in memory of Brenda.)

In conclusion, DC (in this instance) beats Marvel and Libya remains a land of many contrasts.

My daughter was kindof shocked by the sacrifice required by science of her fruit snacks:

In an unrelated story, my wife went with my sister-in-law to go see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 during lunchtime…

Operation: Longest Library Day EVER

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Booyor

I’ve been here for an hour already. Polling is taking place and I am using my hospitality for freedom, democracy, and NO FUMAR signs.

For my loving family (and Internet stalkers) I have my non-district blocked Twitter-ish system.

5:35am – roll up with stereo thumping in the Scion, old people waiting outside my door.
6:05am – get all the books checked in and queued up for re-shelving
6:10am – check e-mail
6:22am – finish e-mail
6:23am – realize it’s going to be a long day…I should have brought a book
7:04am – Jeremy called – he’s sitting at the church, keeping it open for polls – let’s rock it for America! Woo!
7:55am – breakfast burrito and a strawberry milk (you want to be me) and a conversation with the principal about Call of Duty 4 – hoping that my assistant stops singing the score from Mama Mia
8:18am – election workers started up a game of Balderdash – the irony is not lost on me
8:37am – sad realization that less than 10 voters have shown up so far – do people care about local government?
8:51am – sitting down to Betrayal on Orbis 2 and a Rockstar Vanilla Roasted Light
8:55am – elections supervisor came in: “Oh, no one uses the library anymore. No wonder they let you use it.” – I had to interject – and restrain my Force Grip – I kicked a class out for you, buddy – follow me on a normal day
9:04am – read character creation rules e-mail from Sean and the Ewok section of the rulebook to calm down Librarian Rage
9:14am – the chosen one in the book is referred to as The Scion – heh heh
9:17am – D’oh! Just read the warning on the Rockstar – “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Well, dang! Why am I drinking this espresso and milk if not to cure my Krytos fever?
10:09am – encouraging picture from the other polling place – if they have more voters show up it will be through sheer cuteness alone

12:02pm – visited by beautiful family bearing McDonald’s – I am, indeed, loving it
12:49pm – disputed election worker’s claims that presidents only get retirement until 80 (so you should vote for McCain, who would draw no retirement from taxpayer dollars if serving two terms) – according to the Former Presidents Act, established in 1958, presidents receive a lifetime pension based on the current rate of an executive officer during their presidency – that pension is currently $191,300 – Barack would still theoretically cost more if you went solely off of lifetime pension, but it’s tough to predict the lifetime of a president
And that, my friends, is why you have a librarian – Boom, baby!
3:42pm – received threatening e-mail

5:40pm – visited by Jeremy and Company
6:25pm – found proper Wookiee prefix and suffix name appendix for my new character (by the end of the night I will have every bloggh category used)
6:33pm – realizing how long of a day it is that I can be this excited about some clan’s Wookiee name guide
7:59pm – only 2 Rockstars and coming down hard – I am a leaf in the wind…I am a leaf in the wind
8:35pm – When Boo-yor was in Li-Brar-Yyyyy….Let my Fiction gooooo

8:38pm – Could it be? Is it true? Will the librarian leave after only 15 hours in the library? Quick, while no one’s looking!
9:25pm – HOME

Survey for my Friend

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Booyor

I promised to help my friend Bruce out. So, here’s a fun tech question: How much old school searching do you do when searching for businesses?

Do you use the yellow page books? If so, how often would you say you refer to them? Once a week, once a month, once every six month?

If you do reach for a yellow page book, which one do you reach for first?
- Dex
- Verizon
- Yellow Pages/PDC
- Yellow Book

If you have more than one, do you reach for the more general Phoenix book, or the more local one (i.e., East Valley )?

Alternative to a Dukane Digital Presenter

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Booyor

As a librarian I get asked by teachers how to implement different technologies. One of those is a digital presenter, but they’re way too expensive for our budget (who gets it? for how long? how many books can we get instead?).

How about this: hook up the videocamera that your library already has to a TV. Instead of switching the camera to VCR, take out the videotape and switch the videocamera to the record mode. (Taking out the tape should prevent the camera from going into sleep mode/standby.)

For extra snazziness: attach the camera to a tripod, hook the camera up to an LCD projector.

Wii Fit Day 1: Getting it from a store/finding one in stock

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Booyor

Yes, it actually exists. It’s not a myth.

First off, getting Wii Fit takes some effort and some teamwork. Our credits include:

Danjo, for being an expert in all things Red Circle and keeping me text-company at 5:15 in the morning, and clueing us in to the weekly ad in the first place
giPIG for watching the kids during the changing of the guard
J for setting up my bass, especially since I was 10 minutes late to worship team
and most importantly, My Beautiful Wife for tag teaming the line, being excited for the game, and being supportive in the face of wild rantings and general obsessive behavior

How to get a Wii Fit
If you don’t have a Colleen or you don’t have a pregnant wife (remember my first list of research?), the way that we found success was showing up early on a Sunday morning. Watch the weekly ads for Target (ignore Buy n Large …er, Wal-Mart…). Every store must have at least one if it is in the ad. So…Show up early. Ours open at 8 am. I figure if I’m going to be inconvenienced, and its worth doing, go all out. Nothing compares to the time spent in line at Episode II. You call me crazy.
Have you been to Disneyland?
Sometime that morning a Target associate will come out and hand out tickets to the people in line. This avoids the rushing and elbowing and soccer-momming to the electronics department.
I made myself very visible on security cameras so people would know I had been there. But I had to tag out with my wife taking my place since I had to get to worship team.
I guess too visible. As my wife was buying WiiFit, the associates were saying, “There was this big, hairy guy pacing around real early this morning.”

When you first boot up Wii Fit, you may have to do a system update. You’ll also have to synchronize the board. Run the game disc and it will walk you through the process.
My Goals
I know that not everyone is interested in my fitness, so I promise to include other interesting stuff alongside the stats. This is kind of an experiment for me.
You do a body test before you play anything. You also create a user profile complete with height. Yes, it does go to 6’9″ if any other readers are of a superior height. The weight max is 330lbs., so sorry Big Cactus, Fezzik, and Optimus Prime.
Alongside calculating your weight and BMI, it also tests your balance:

This is where my goals come in. I would like to blame it all on my torn right foot fascist ligament, but because of my general lack of balance (I did mention 6’9″, right?) I tore my ligament. So improving my balance is my goal. This looks like a decent route.

The Stats for 7/20/08
Height: 6’9″ (2,057.4 mm)
Wii Fit Age: 43 (as a reference, I am not 43)
Weight: 267 lbs (0.12 metric tons)
BMI: 28.56
Enthusiasm: 5 out of 5 Miyamotos

Balance: Leaning heavily to the right. I will put percentages up starting tomorrow.

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Category Archives: Experiment