Today: Water running uphill.
Tomorrow: Dry water.

Ransomware. Great. That's the last thing we need - new ways for people to extort money from us.

DJ Devinoch's off the air again, but he was here.

Okay Nintendo, you win the crazy contest. Everyone else can go home now.

I'm up at Incline Village, and we've been locked out of the condo we're staying at.

The calvary is on it's way, but once again I'm reminded that the RA-ness doesn't end with college graduation. And finding someone to let you in in real life is a lot harder outside of the dorms.

Although the cyber cafe in the hotel across the street does help the waiting go faster.

This article may have the biggest joke potential ever.

We now present the trailer... for "Snakes On A Plane."


Get your copy of the player here

"Oh, English, where did we go so wrong?"

"Probably the first time you said 'I've's,' Dom"

"Oh yeah, huh?"

Happy birthday to my little brother Curt who turns 18 today.

I heard they came to TP the house, Squirt, and got the one next door instead. This is why you do research on these things... or at least check a phone book.

OFF AIR

This will either make you laugh or cry. Or maybe both at the same time (I mostly laughed).

I mean, on the one hand, it feels like ol' Optimus Prime sold out.

But on the other hand... wasn't the Transformers TV series just made to sell toys anyway? So, I mean, it's not like this is desecrating my childhood or anything, just making it all the more apparent what I was being spoonfed when I was but a wee lad.

The weirdest thing in the world is when you're sitting with your co-workers (who, it must be noted, are all female) and they're talking about how fabulous-looking your cousin is.

It's even weirder when you have to scrunch up your face and call her by her given name, instead of the nickname Grandma gave her when she was born.

A $50 ticket? That's IT?! Good lord, if I'd have known that, I might have gotten one of these things years ago. Of course, now that people can build them cheap, the price of the ticket will probably go up.... *sigh*

Alright, quick update on the vacation side. I started looking at the vacation homes, and so far I've gotten a price as low as $320 a person for 4 nights/5 days (monday to friday). This is beach front property, probably about 3 bedrooms, claims to sleep 6. This is just an example.

What I really need to know before investigating this further and nailing down options is who is seroiusly interested? Unless people have key reasons why to change the date, I plan to do this within the first two or three weeks of june (depending on house availability, etc). If possible, I would love to spend a whole five days if the price gets low enough, however, again these are weekdays. Everyone needs to make sure they can get that time off. I also figure food will be roughly $70 to $100 a person for the week, and then don't forget gas with whoever you may carpool with.

To my knowledge Mike, Greg and Liz are all broke. People who have mentioned interest are Cliff and Erin. People who may be interested are Sean and Christy. Ofcourse, anyone else is still invited (again, as mentioned, I have a maybe from one friend and am waiting to hear from another couple, though I expect this to be a no).

Right now I need to know how many people are seriously interested, and what weeks they can make it (As in if you can't do the first week of June, but could do the third week, etc). Take a day or two to check your schedule, but if this is going to happen on time I should probably be listing final options by the end of the week. And again, please mention if you are seriously interested as this will definately affect what options/costs we are looking at.

If we do not get enough people, for those that are still interested, this will probably just be a holiday inn express with a few blocks walk to a beach for a few days. Lawn chairs and maybe a grill sort of deal. But I gotta admit this vacation house idea is very attractive to me.

Guess what I preordered today? "The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr." on DVD! HA HA!

A random bit of writing from me. Pay it no mind.

"Look, I don't expect you to understand this, okay? People get into this for the wrong reasons... always the wrong reasons. Some people are in it for money, thinking it'll take them to fame and fortune. ... Yeah, that ain't happenin'. Some people are hoping for longevity, hoping it'll mark their names down in the history books. ... History's overrated, anyway. Why do you want to be remembered anyway? That's not what this game is about. You want to impress one, maybe two or three people, sure, that's not only accepted, but practically expected. I know what you're on about. I don't mind. I'd have done it myself years ago, if I'd thought it have worked. No no, I'm sure you have a different plan and it'll all work out just fine, surely. Sarcasm? Certainly not. What's that? ... Hmph. Look, it's all a big game, okay? You get too worked up about it, and you'll drive yourself into a frenzy. You need to learn to relax and take a few chances in life. ... I said a few chances, not blow all your money on lotto tickets. You rush it, you're gonna make mistakes. There you go. Take your time. Don't hurry, don't think about something going wrong. Everyone tells you there's a reason for what they do, but most of the time they're full of shit. People are just hoping that what they do is the right thing, and then don't ever want to look back and see if it's cheers or corpses they've left in their work. ... Ha ha, that's true, they do say pretty girls make graves. But the truth is that your destiny is up to you. What you do, how you do it, the friendships you cultivate, the enemies you create... your life is your garden. And it's not about the fruit you pick from it. It's about whether or not you like the look of it when you're done for the day. All right, good work, let's get moving again..."

Is it wrong of me that when I read this article, all I can think of is "What if it gets stuck?"

After a long absence, DJ Devinoch is back back on the air.
(Edit: Or, he would be if it were 8-11 PM PST on a Thursday, which it's not.)

Tossing an idea out there.

While I've come to the conclusion that it may be a few more years before I can afford to go sit on the beaches of Cancun and climb pyramids again, I still need a vacation that involves sitting on beaches and staring at the ocean. And since this won't be terribly far away or expensive, I thought I'd see if anyone else wanted to hop along - would make barbecues more fun.

I haven't done much research yet, I still need to find a decent beach (preferably one that at least allows camp fires) and a quaint motel for nightly accomadations and nail down a date. I know the water starts warming up 4 to 6 hours south of Sac, and the beaches get sandier too (which is sort of ideal). I figure 2 or 3 days on a weekend or weekdays (whichever gets best rates vs convenience) would be pretty awesome - say around June or July. I figure space isn't too limited, just add on more cars and book a few more rooms if other people want to go. Have more people to collect from for the hotdogs/whatever food fits in the cooler fund. Just sit and chill on the beach for a few days like that.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll feed you more details as I get them and forumlate a plan. I'm definately going either way.

First poker night is done. Sean made $4, I made $3, loads of fun was had by all, and we'll be doing it again in two weeks. Whee! Now, Cliff sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Here's one problem my family would never have. Facial hair's not exactly our strongest point.

Welcome to modern America, where the lawsuit reigns supreme.

By the same token, by the by, if these groups win their case and earn the right to be non-tolerant for "choice" based things, expect a very large crop of anti-Christian groups to spring up in the wake, as religion falls into that same category.

I read the whole story twice, and it's a mess, and it's going to need to be settled by the Supreme Court sooner or later. Because, here's the thing... intolerant speech is one of those tricky minefields that's hard to walk into. On one hand, yes, differing opinions are protected by the First Amendment. But, by the same token, one has the right not be harassed. And there's this pesky seperation of church and state thing that we have to endure...

In the end, maybe we should just cut all school funding from anyone who has any political ties whatsoever.

... I know it won't fly, but let a man dream, won't you?

And now for the latest in "Spam-Dodging Spam Email Theater":

"When hockey player for hydrogen atom is wily, ruffian from give a pink slip to taxidermist related to.Sometimes fetishist near briar patch rejoices, but parking lot related to abstraction always steal pencils from avocado pit inside!necromancers remain orbiting.bubble from eggplant borrow money from around anomaly, but for judge admonish mirror about wheelbarrow."

Necromancers remain orbiting indeed.... could be the name of a band.

Joey, you ever been in a Swedish prison?

Warren Ellis shows me things to do when I have a spare two minutes. What I'm listening to at the moment:

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

How strange can it get? The story of the man behind Gizmondo included organized crime, a card that read "director of counter terrorism" and a CEO who let a man named "Dietrich" drive a car that wasn't even his... surreal.

Fun Saturday.

So I test drove a bunch of cars (and found out what 'renesis' means), and lost my cell phone in the process. The short story is, the nice salesman at the Toyota dealership found it in the RAV4 I test drove. Thank frickin' God.

The annoying news is I panicked when I realized the phone was lost, and I deactivated it. So if you try to call my cell phone today, it's not going to work. Call Sean or Cliff for my home number, if you don't have it already. I'm going to try and fix it this afternoon, but we'll see. Sprint has this issue with the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, so we'll see if I can con Lefty into scratching my back, without Right knowing the scoop. Right's a nosy, irritating bastard anyway.

And as for the cars: The RAV4 (even though it ate my phone) wasn't bad, but since they made it bigger, it's lost it's appeal. I liked the idea of a small SUV, and it's not that anymore. Scion tC wasn't very good at all, Civic is a Civic (nice dash set up though), and the Mazda 3 stick shift made me want a new pair of pants. Mmm....

Two people in a row have asked me questions about the computers while I was browsing teh intarwebs in a small computer lab. Do I have some sort of nerd aura?

Everything you want to know about how to profile someone is right here in this interview with Keifer Sutherland. Once again, I commend Rolling Stone for doing these kinds of features. This is the stuff we need more of -- if you're going to profile someone, don't just take a skim at their current world, dig a little. Seriously, that's one of the best articles I've read in a long while...

I must be one step away from dead... I voluntarily got chicken noodle soup with my sandwich for lunch...

I found the Dread Pirate Roberts at 99 bottles.

(I think only Sherrie will catch the meaning of that one)

Oh, I got a tattoo. Thought I'd mention that...

when you sleep for 14 hours straight, it's a pretty good sign you're sick.

Early evening, April 4th
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
"Free at last"
They took your life
They could not take your pride

I haven't changed the CD in my alarm clock in about two months, and I think it's time I stopped listening to Shimamiya Eiko/I've's (God, that's like 4 times I've written I've's, I feel like a serial killer) Automaton when I wake up. I am now taking suggestions on what song(s) I should burn to CD and stick in my alarm clock.

The main criteria for a "Wake up the Monkey" song is energy. I've put synthpop, techno and metal in there to get me going in the morning, and I need something that isn't drowsy. So, what do you think?

Plague.... plague bad.

Boy here. Cliff sleep now.

DONT FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR CLOCKS TONIGHT.

Off to pick up the brother, bring him back to the house, then passing out... been up almost 24 hours now and got only 4 hours of sleep last night. Rest needed...

drifted in and out of sleep mostly for flight between indianapolis and houston. waiting for next plane. may try and sleep there too...