There are many reasons I could say that, but today I say it because of my phone. It r dead, and has managed to drain itself from full to nothing since last night, during which time I have made TWO (2) phone calls lasting approximately 5 minutes total.

Supposed to get a new phone in November, but I sure as hell can't just ride this out until then...

Dr. Joe and Brynn need to start keeping a list of tokens they'd like to acquire.

1. Neo (The Matrix)
2. The Auryn (The Neverending Story)
3. Honor Harrington and/or Alicia DeVries (David Weber novels)
4. Lain (Serial Experiments: Lain) - this one might be a really good idea, or a really, really bad idea.
5. Aslan (Narnia)
6. Leloo (5th Element)

Must come up with more...

Feel free to make suggestions!

How exactly does a civilian leave his home to shoot two people on his neighbor's property and not even go to trial?

How the fuck is that not an open-and-shut case?!

Disgusting.

On a less soul-crushing note, quiz answers are up. Number 4 still makes me grin.

They made another X-Files movie?

I am...uncertain what to think of this.

I am playing strip poker in my office right now. As I type this.

Had a very full day today, in a good way.

Went to see Wanted this morning with Katie, which was worth the time and money I spent on it (particularly since it was a matinee, which I didn't realize until I went to buy the tickets). I was impressed by James McAvoy's performance, and I will usually watch anything with Morgan Freeman in it.

Plus Angelina Jolie as a sinuously tattooed assassin chick is just always a bonus.

Grabbed lunch at Panera's, watched some anime, took a brief nap (on account of only getting about 4 hours of sleep last night...not good leading into tomorrow morning), and then called the girls up to see if they wanted to come over for dessert and some gaming. We played Mario Kart Wii (very entertaining to see the three of them play it for the first time, more or less ^_^), and then watched Saved!, which Andrea and Katie had never seen before.

Except once the movie started, Andrea realized she had seen it before, a long time ago, and Katie, who had not, fell asleep through the middle of it. D'oh =P

But it was still fun, and we ate a ton of junk food, and I enjoyed myself. And now back to the Monday morning grindstone.

Well hey, this is just becoming a pattern, now isn't it?

Same rules as always: NO Internet, post your submission, and highlight for the answers after I post them later.

1. Name 7 power-ups attainable in Super Mario Bros. 3 that change Mario's form (Starman doesn't count).
2. What show featured the fictitious television program "Pangaea's Funniest Home Videos"?
3. What was the last name of Dorothy in L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz?
4. In the children's short series of books The Stupids, what do Mr. and Mrs. Stupid wear as hats?
5. When discussing LIGHT color, how does one create yellow?

( You can't see the answers, but you know they're hiding right here )

Good luck!

I wish I were a girl so I could wear this.

Oh, ZP. How I do so love thee. Check out the others.

I think I have to get "Pants-on-head Retarded" =D

For the late, great George Carlin.

Your wit, offensive and otherwise, will be missed.

Yesterday I was at the wedding of a high school friend of mine. It was, quite simply, an absolutely perfect day.

Unexpectedly, I did not run into very many high school friends; in fact the only people I knew there other than the bride and her family were the maid of honor, Kristina, and her fiance. This did not stop me from thoroughly enjoying myself in the least. Everything from the ceremony to the reception to the food (OMG CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN) was phenomenal.

It was wonderful to see her again (they live in AZ now), and to see how well they're doing. It was certainly a day of good omens as they start their lives together. I fervently hope my sister's wedding day goes off as well as this one.

Courtesy of Admiral Obvious and General Indecision:

This is the coolest melding of music and technology EVAR.

Caution: You may wish to turn the volume down a bit, it gets loud at some points.

Fun fact: this is the second time I'm including the last quiz's answers in the subsequent quiz!

Same rules as always: NO Internet, post your submission, and highlight for the answers after I post them later.

1. In the classic game Pac-man, there are four ghosts: Blink, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. Each has a definitive movement pattern. One of them always moves directly toward Pac-man, one always moves randomly. What are the movement patterns for the other two ghosts?
2. Name two game shows Alex Trebek has hosted in the United States other than Jeopardy!.
3. You need to send a message, and the fastest way to do it is to "fox it", courtesy of 12th Century Fox. Where are you?
4. How many books are there in Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga, on which the animated movie was based?
5. What is the technical term for a baby kangaroo?


1. The key to making Pac-man a truly fun game was in the ghost behavior. In addition to the two obvious ones, the other ghost paths were defined as 10 "steps" in front of Pac-man's current position" and "wherever Pac-man was a few seconds ago". The success of attempts to replicate Pac-man have pretty much been directly related to the programmer's ability to deduce and replicate these behaviors (they were not revealed by the original creator of Pac-man for many years).
2. Alex Trebek has hosted a number of game shows, but most do not fit this criteria. Two (but not all) that do include Classic Concentration and The Wizard of Odds.
3. In all likelihood, you are in England around the time of the Crusades, and need to send a message to the villagers of Sherwood Forest. In all likelihood, Cary Elwes and Dave Chappelle are standing next to you, too.
4. Akira started life as a six-volume series of manga.
5. Baby kangaroos are called joeys. I have no idea why.

Good luck!

 

Tonight was...a little puzzling, but productive. In a nutshell, Dr. Joe managed to:

- reintegrate Brynne's spirit with her android body (Adrynne has been put to rest, and as a bonus she was also tokenized!)
- track Brynne's spaceship to Mars (!!!) where it is currently being used by another Unreal
- get kicked out of his own home
- be served a subpoena to appear in Unreal court on various charges

I have a week to prepare his "legal defense". I do not believe that incurring Phoenix Wright would necessarily save me, but I haven't ruled it out.

I am also considering demanding trial by combat. We'll call that plan B, but I haven't ruled that out either.

Joe requested Brynne for his co-council. I believe she has (warily) accepted.

(Patrick is off galavanting with Carmen in search of the stolen tokens. Go team!)

Next week should be suspenseful!

Gibson was great. He talks really, really slowly, but he was funny! I thoroughly enjoyed his talk, which is apparently going to available online here in the near future. He read some passages from Spook Country, talked about the birth of the word "cyberspace", the path that led him to science fiction, and some of his views about the literary process, music, and how they relate. I think it will be worth a viewing once they post it.

I got two books signed at the end. He was pretty friendly with everyone, and I could hear a bit of humorous banter between him and a couple of the autograph-hunters when they approached the table.

I was thoroughly unimpressed by the musical guest, Martha Wainwright, who struck me as ditzy and too loud and piercing with a couple of her songs. Maybe she was just nervous about performing at a different sort of venue from what she's accustomed to? I don't know, I don't know the first thing about her or any country singers, really. Regardless, it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the event, except perhaps when she announced that her last song was going to be her "9/11 song". But I could tell that there were plenty of people in the audience who really enjoyed her, so hey, the event seemed like a real success all around.

My day was rather craptastic, but this totally made up for it =)

William Gibson at the Union Square B&N tonight, 7 p.m.

As far as I'm concerned, the Hoboken Film Festival just flushed its reputation down the toilet.

The last thing that jackhole needs is encouragement.

The Incredible Hulk was good. It wasn't Iron Man, despite a cameo by Robert Downey Jr. as Stark himself, but it was definitely worth twelve bucks and two hours of my life.

I have to say, whatever Avengers thing they're building towards down the line had better be the greatest comic book cinematic experience EVAR with the way they're hyping it. I like being excited, but they're going to have some pretty crazy expectations to fulfill when it finally happens.

Edit: ( Cut for...I'm not really sure why =P )

The next great WoW craze is upon us.

I had to hit pause and take a screen shot in the middle of the episode so I could share this.

See, if they taught "survival skills" for situations like this in bible school, I bet kids would be much more interested in going =)

The true genius of this will escape most of you, but there's enough pop culture reference that it may elicit a few chuckles. Mostly I just want the episode on record somewhere =)

( Memorable lines from last night's session )

This is the sort of stuff that makes me truly love this game.