Sky

random amusement

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:06:32 GMT

I keep seeing this banner ad on Facebook that says "How I make money with Google"... showing a picture of Bill Gates. ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.....?

I blame the DJ

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:25:35 GMT

Hm. Bowling For Soup's get-over-your-crazy-nostalgia piece "1985" was followed on the radio by "Footloose". That HAS to have been on purpose.

Speed Racer in IMAX

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:27:30 GMT

I'm a little dubious about this film in general but what the heck, I figure if I'm going to see it, might as well see it in IMAX, right? Anyone else feel like making an outing of it? Opens on March 9th, I think.

Terminology meme

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:26:07 GMT

Colloquialisms strike again...

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks: stream
2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called: grocery cart
3. A metal container to carry a meal in: lunchbox
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in: frying pan
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people: couch
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof: gutter
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening: weather doesn't really permit, but I'll say "deck"
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages: soft drink
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup: pancakes
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself: sub
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach: swimsuit
12. Shoes worn for sports: tennis shoes
13. Putting a room in order: clean up
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark: firefly
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball: pillbug
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down: teeter-totter
17. How do you eat your pizza? with my hands
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff? a garage sale
19. What's the evening meal? dinner
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are? basement and/or crawlspace
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places? water fountain

"Is anyone surprised?" Yes, me....

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:38:35 GMT

The headline asks "Is anyone surprised"... well, yeah... I would have bet significantly against Clinton outscoring Obama in Silicon Valley.

Curse you, Youtube!

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:08:47 GMT

I am never going to hear "Solsbury Hill" quite the same way again.

That's me, cult classic!

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:34:02 GMT

Not in the "David Koresh" sense, I hope :)

_________________________________

Your Score: Buckaroo Banzai

157 Heart, 179 Genius, 165 Cool, 106 Excitability

Buckaroo Banzai - (Peter Weller)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

You are Buckaroo Banzai! Hard-rockin' neurosurgeon, brilliant scientist, and all-around cool guy. Maybe you didn't have the cinematic success of some of the other guys here, but it's okay - you're a cult classic!

"Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are."

Other scientific possibilities:

Gary Wallace

Wyatt Donnelly

Peter Venkman

Jordan Cochran

Egon Spengler

Doc Brown

Newton Crosby

Paul Stephens

Ben Crandall

Wayne Szalinkski

Winston Zeddemore

Ben Jabituya

Lazlo Hollyfeld

Ray Stantz

Buckaroo Banzai

Chris Knight

Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test written by xxyl on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Sushi update

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:04:41 GMT

Our favorite local sushi place (Yamashiro Bistro) changed hands recently and is now Warabi Japanese Restaurant.

It's... okay. Which is rather annoying, because I liked Yamashiro a lot better. The roll selection is almost as comprehensive now, but consists of a significantly different variety of sushi - and to Tori's annoyance, much of it is now spicy. And certain of the nigiri were no longer nearly as fresh as we were used to from the old place.

On the upside, they did expand their menu a fair bit - lot of new selections from the kitchen instead of just being all about the sushi bar - and what we've tried from there has been reasonably good. I hope their shabu-shabu turns out to be good. (Can't find that done right in Seattle. If you know a place, drop a comment!)

But in any case, we have actually ventured out to try a new sushi place just to see how it is, instead of going to our "old standby".

So we dropped in at Blue Fin this evening. It's a little like Todai - it's a buffet style selection of Korean and Japanese foods (and some Americanized Chinese food) with heavy sushi emphasis. Like most buffets, it's all-you-can eat; it's pricier than some (circa $28/person) but if you are in a mood to devour lots of sushi it's likely to be much cheaper than doing so at a traditional sushi place.

It's one of the newly remodeled places at Northgate Mall, which isn't exactly inspiring in confidence, but it turned out to be reasonably good. Selection was good - lots of different sushi rolls, nigiri, and even some sashimi. Tempura was good; the BBQ pork was tasty; the bulgogi was kind of mediocre but not bad; the poke tuna was really quite good. Tori's only complaint was the lack of rainbow sprinkles for the ice cream. :)

We figured (accurately enough) that it was a good sign that a considerable proportion of the diners were Asian - quite a number of ethnically Japanese and Korean folks therein, plus a lot of racially-mixed families. I am never certain how authentic many of these places we like to eat are - the one that I'm sure of is Shiro's down in Belltown, which seems to be where the Japanese businessmen come when they are in Seattle - but I certainly would have been less enthused if it'd been just the traditional mall rats eating there.

I doubt it'll be a regular sushi destination for us, but probably an occasional one - it was pretty kid-friendly and well suited to expedient dining... the waiters bring you drinks but otherwise you can immediately rush the sushi bar and load up a plate, and despite it being a fairly busy night we were seated immediately.

We've got a few other sushi places in mind to check out in the next few weeks or months, so further reviews to follow.

Moooooo! (Whistling noise)

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:43:49 GMT

Hit by a falling cow?!!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003998467_fallingcow07m.html

I'd think it was a Monty Python publicity stunt, but apparently not.

quetz will probably appreciate this more than most :)

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:32:38 GMT

In watching "Never Say Never Again" on DVD I was struck by a few things.

A) Sean Connery looks like Ricardo Montalban for a good deal of this movie. Not generally a bad thing, but you can tell that he came out of retirement for this production.

B) This is the worst transfer to DVD I've ever seen from a major studio. Tons of film artifacts that weren't cleaned up, and more than a few MPEG encoding artifacts.

C) The video game scenes are hilarious. There's one room that's an arcade full of nothing but Centipede machines. There's the "Domination" game built into a dining table, with the electroshock handles... it reminds me of the Addams Family video game that was at Gameworks for a while. Though that one JUST gives you electrical shocks and the point of the game is just to hang on and light up old Uncle Fester, heh heh.

D) It's rather jarring to see replacement characters for all the recurring Bond cast. Q in particular annoys me. And having Mr. Bean as Bond's support contact inspires expectations that are a little more slapstick than 007.

E) Though much of the dialog is lacking, especially for the villains, there's some winners. Unfortunately, they're almost all before the film really gets rolling.

Q: "I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence, Mister Bond!"

M: Too many free radicals. That's your problem.
007: "Free radicals," sir?
M: Yes. They're toxins that destroy the body and the brain, caused by eating too much red meat and white bread and too many dry martinis!
007: Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.

Nurse: Mr. Bond, I need a urine sample. If you could fill this beaker for me?
James Bond: From here?

Backmasking

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:22:37 GMT

Just in case you haven't seen this set of examples yet - http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm

(reposted from captain_slinky's journal)

Sweltering!

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:08:45 GMT

Days like this, I could really use central air conditioning at the house.

Camouflage!

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:11:40 GMT

Now here is a REAL use of camouflage ;-)

Spamalot followup

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:25:04 GMT

OK - getting ready to get tix for Spamalot on Sunday the 14th of October.

So far I have:

argh_jim, 1 ticket
deviled_man, 1 ticket
quetz, ?
purplecheerio, 1 ticket
dizzypickle, 2 tickets

Other takers?

Monty Python

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:14:17 GMT

the Spamalot musical is coming to town this October - at the Paramount. Who's interested in going?

Here's looking at you, kid

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:50:50 GMT

Your Score: Humphrey Bogart

You scored 47% Tough, 9% Roguish, 33% Friendly, and 9% Charming!

You're the original man of honor, rough and tough but willing to stick your neck out when you need to, despite what you might say to the contrary. You're a complex character full of spit and vinegar, but with a soft heart and a tender streak that you try to hide. There's usually a complicated dame in the picture, someone who sees the real you behind all the tough talk and can dish it out as well as you can. You're not easy to get next to, but when you find the right partner, you're caring and loyal to a fault. A big fault. But you take it on the chin and move on, nursing your pain inside and maintaining your armor...until the next dame walks in. Or possibly the same dame, and of all the gin joints in all the world, it had to be yours. Co-stars include Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall, hot chicks with problems.

Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the
Classic Dames Test.

Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

"Say hello to my little friend!"

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:01:19 GMT

Overly Excited Bear:

http://texyt.com/3Ms+Sticky+Bear+is+VERY+Pleased+to+See+You

Filed under "Things that make ya go hmmm..."

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 06:50:56 GMT

As predicted, my Thursday post "Oh, I'm feeling better" totally jinxed me :-P

Assorted miscellany

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:07:52 GMT

Have been going through some of my music that I haven't listened to in a while. It's always a joy to hear again some of the music that I haven't consciously been aware that I'm missing. Some songs remind me of particular people - but most of them don't have a face that matches, just some pleasant memories or a great melody - or occasionally just clever lyrics. (I'm looking at you, Voltaire.)

Finally getting over the deluge of colds (he says, probably jinxing himself). This winter has been pretty rough on that front. I am not at all sure that the flu shot helped me this year, but I guess I didn't catch EVERYTHING. Would probably help to get more exercise, though unfortunately getting a cold knocks me off the proverbial treadmill and it's sometimes a downward spiral from there. Hopefully I'll be back at the gym in a couple more days.

Had an odd surge of creativity the other day. Don't know what to attribute it to, but I pulled out a pad to scribble down a few notes this last weekend, and just kept going and going. I suppose it was just ideas that had been percolating somewhere at the back of my consciousness for a while. We'll see what comes of it, sooner or later.

Many interesting things in the works - no idea how I'll find time to do them all, but it's great to feel like things are looking up.

OK, back to fixing everything and updating the presentation.

Following the herd

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:10:07 GMT

I think everyone else already did this, but what the heck, moo ;-)

Freebies!

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 03:14:33 GMT

This looks like quite a deal - free Office 2007 Pro or Windows Vista Business Edition, in exchange for watching some webcasts.

Ganked from Amit - he says it's Vista Ultimate, which I'm not sure about, but even "just" business edition is a deal...

Turkey Day!

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:13:37 GMT

Thanksgiving was pretty quiet - we went down to Portland to visit the folks.

Nasty cold going around, though. Afraid I've managed to catch it. Taking my vitamins and drinking lots of tea in the hopes that it doesn't flatten me.

The neighbors here have wifi, but it's at the very edge of the usable range when the weather is nice (and when it's raining, it's worthless). Ah well, it's free, what am I complaining about. I can always go to Starbucks if I feel up to braving the holiday crowds. (Besides, they have that gingerbread back in stock... one of my favorites.)

I think I'm going to go hide someplace quiet with a scribble pad instead. I'm sure the shopping frenzy will strike everyone soon enough.

Drat!

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 06:09:15 GMT

Pet Shop Boys were in town at the Paramount yesterday. Just found out now. Figures. :-P

LEGO genius

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:56:16 GMT

Among other lego amusements, a difference engine. (Also, a USB drive, an air conditioner, a harpsichord, a pinball machine, etc.)

Building Stonehenge

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 04:58:36 GMT

I found this video fascinating, and I think some of you will too... this man raises a 10-ten Stonehenge style pillar, by himself, without pulleys or hoists.