I was so excited about the new Wallace & Gromit movie...and this penguin is my favorite character.

And now...

As promised, here is my ever-growing list of cooly-cool band name ideas: 20 Little Things, A Drop-Dead Suit, Agent Tangerine, Agents of Change, Bleed Blue, Bloody Armageddon, BV Icecreamseed, Cacodemomania, Camoflauge Jesus Cape, Carnage Report, Checkerboard Cheese, Cheeky Monkeys, Chevy Sponge, Conundrum, Dark Wonderland, Death Blow, Deep Red Inferno, Definitely Dodgy, Don't Think Twice, Dramatic Reverb, Eccentric Mixture, Empire Burning, Encrypted, Entranced By Knickers, Epic Saturday, Fight Or Flight, Filthy Lucre, Fire Walkers, Fizbin of Misfortune, Flickity Flick, Fliven, Forgotten Garbage, Forty Fakirs, Free Pie, Freshly Potted Plants, Funnels & Dice, Fuschia Basement, Fuzzy Macaroni, Gelatinous Mass, Gingerbread & Meat, Graveyard Date, Greater Social Situation, Greenburst, Here There Be Dragons, Hollow, House of Cards, Improbable Address, Infinite Earths, Irreversible Effects, Jiggery Pokery, Little Green Bag, Madcap Shenanigans, Masses of Moo, Melty Plastic Goo, Micah & The Truck, Miss Granola Suicide, Miss Social Butterfly, Modern-Day Mercenaries, Monkey Monkey Jive, Mouse Underthings, Mutants At Table 9, Neon Bible, Pepito & The Soul Toast, Plan B, Poo Film, Prozac Pie, Rid Of Me, Rotten Sea Weasels, Satsun, Second Effort, Secret Pockets, Shortbus Specials, Sock Drawer of Solitude, Spherical Turkey, Starter Fob, Sticky Wicket, Symphonic Band Adventures, Tabloid Fishbowl, Temple of Meat, Terror Twilight, The Anti-Swarthys, The Bay of Bunnies, The Devil's Entrée, The Fifth Iteration, The Inflatable Buckets, The Joy of the Fern, The Last Hour, The Nerd Herd, The Nutty Presbyterians, The Scrounge of Corsica, The Sharp Bronze, The Shrieking Eels, The SoCo Incident, The Spirit Room, The Wooden Nickels, This Is A Mass Notice, Triple Ripple Vanilla Road Monkey, Tsuba Stash, Twisted Justice, Uniquely Silver Springy, Universal Drunken Yell, Vapor Trails, Vats Of Butter, Wench Whimsy, WildeBEATS, Wingwoman, Wretched Hive, Zero Drama, Zuzu's Petals.

High quality electrical work....

Fun words and melty clothes

Today, o faithful blog readers, is some freakin' hot weather. And, as I went from my car to Home Depot (to acquire small-ish files and wood glue for shimming katanas) it felt as if my very being were melting from the heat. Melty skin, I am used to. Melty hair, melty feet, yes. But when your shoelaces and eyelashes also feel melty, that's hot. That's melt-the-Terminator-down-to-slag hot. That's Ark-of-the-Covenant-melt-you-into-Nazi-goo hot. Hot. You with me?

I have also been researching my family history a bit...just for kicks. My friend and faithful blog reader Behtia has a severed boar's head on her coat of arms, which is kinda gross. Most of mine are plain shields with triangular stripes, although my dad's mom's side has some kind of raven on it, which is pretty sweet. And the Scottish side is, let's face it, cool. Daggers aplenty. Plus I'm in a sept.

And furthermore, I have been doing today's fun words in bold...and I also had the opportunity to use the word festooned earlier, which is amazing.

No KotOR stories today, kids. Yes, I know you're disappointed. Yes, I know you love the KotOR stories and have been telling all your little friends about them...oh what the heck! I'll give you a KotOR story! Yesterday I was playing KotOR II, and finally finally built my lightsaber! There was mad amounts of excitement in the basement. I even created the "Dance of the Lightsaber", an interpretive look at the celebratory celebration when the indigenous people of the basement complete their day's quests and reap the rewards which will see them through the harsh winter world of Hoth. It'll be on Discovery Channel this Wednesday at 8/7 Central.

Goals for this week: get my band name list on the blog, and also put up a picture of my pet turtle, "Dread Pirate Treacle".

Today's fun: http://www.vesselwiththepestle.com/
A site entirely dedicated to The Court Jester, an old Danny Kaye movie that is one of my favorites.

Please attach the invoice to the TOP of the receiving report...!

Forgotten again...

I keep meaning to post my updated band name idea list, but haven't done it yet. Mostly cause I'm a lazy goof.

Yesterday the guy from CAS Iberia came by the office. It was lots of fun with him here because he's like, their sword guy, so I got to talk swords. My boss got embarassed because the first thing I asked him was how well his swords would perform in a zombie infestation scenario. That is, my boss was embarassed until the sword guy took me seriously. We sword guys are a weird bunch. I also learned how to disassemble, assemble, and shim a katana. And this is why I work where I do.

Yesterday evening I realized as I was playing KotOR II that the annoying financial-type lady in the front office reminds me of Chobo Habat, the leader of the Ithorians. Same googly eyes, same deep raspy grunty mumbling, same obsession with plants. Perhaps I am playing too much KotOR....

Last Wednesday's horoscope: Your life will continue unchanged for six of the next seven days. The other one will feature lots of upset bison.

I will give you an update on this on Thursday. :)

Sometimes in life your Barrel O' Fun truck justs bursts into flames; and its never quite as fun after that.

Let's Recap...

Wow. This weekend was interesting. Friday evening approximately five to six bazillion people were on 95 South, presumably going to the ghetto Virginia Beach. I apologize to those who...oh wait, my blog, my rules. No I don't apologize. Cause Va Beach is ghetto. Ocean City Maryland is much better. And OCNJ is probably my favorite.

Friday consisted mostly of sleeping and driving.

Saturday was a lot of fun! Tooled around Williamsburg, bought ridiculously overpriced touristy things, and generally had good times. Figured out that pancake houses are like the Room of Requirement, only in reverse. You freakin' trip over them when you're not hungry or trying to get somewhere else, but come breakfast time...nowhere. Absolutely invisible. Went and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again, still a good movie, and then went to the ghetto beach for awhile. The water was nice, I will grant you that.

Sunday was supposed to be Busch Gardens, but it was a bit much for us...so we took a raincheck on that. Drove home and fought with the computer to get KotOR II loaded up, and then I went home and sat around and slept. Did a lot of sleeping yesterday, in fact...

All in all, it was ok. I've had worse weekends, but things could have gone better, too. Its good to be back on my regular schedule with my regular parents whining at me...regularly... :)

Cool site: http://www.squareamerica.com/
Photos of earlier America. Basically, America's photo album from its teen years or something.

The hat rocks. Of course, I'll have to smoke like, 12 packs a day to get his voice right, so I think I'll skip that. :)

Sweet sweet victory!

Today, my friends, is Friday. But not just any Friday, no! No, today is the Friday that begins my vacation! Oh my yes. A glorious two days of R&R. I am so thrilled, and even though the piles of work on my desk are developing their own climates and agrarian societies, they can not disrupt the pre-vacation zen that I have acheived.

So Ishy sent me an e-mail yesterday inviting me to Dragon*Con, probably the largest nerd convention on the east coast. I'll post the link at the bottom, but there are going to be some fun guests this year! Anne McCaffrey, Weis & Hickman, LeVar Burton, Kevin Sorbo...sounds like a good crowd. But my favorite would be Robert Jordan, who writes a book series that I really like, for those who don't know, and I have some words for the gentleman.

Let me explain.

For you Harry Potter fans, it would be like having 10 books instead of 5 to get involved with the storyline and characters, having to wait two to three years between books, and having him tease you with prequels and companion guides in the meantime. Can you see how this would drive an individual up the wall? Oh it has. I think I will probably leap over the table and grab RJ by the lapels and shake him till his teeth rattle and scream "write the freakin' rest of the story, you jerk!" Or something to that effect. Knowing my luck, he'd probably have a heart attack and die and the rest of the story would never get written. And I'd be in jail with nothing to read.

Also, I have a really great costume idea, but don't know if I can get it ready in time. Perhaps for KatsuCon or something next year it'll be ready. I want a costume of the Ancient from Ronin Warriors. I've got the hair for it...I've got the robes and such...but do I have...the hat...? See the photo above.

http://www.dragoncon.org/

From "Neurotically Yours", a really funny webtoon...my favorite episode is "Amityville Toaster". Make breakfast spooky!

Blog Wars

At two-thirty last night, I was awakened by a strange chiming beeping sound...my groggy consciousness quickly put in the realm of "not the alarm clock". I got up this morning and found that I had inadvertently left my cell phone on AIM all night, and my dear friend DK had messaged me to say happy birthday! I actually really enjoyed it, despite the confusing beeping in the middle of the night, so thanks, DK!

Last night began my quest to save the galaxy from the clutches of the Sith once more. Oh yes, I started Knights of the Old Republic II. Let my enemies beware! I played through the first one last year, and loved it. Except for my droid buddy kept calling me "meatbag" and other such derogatory terms, much like Bender from Futurama.

Only two more days til I am on vacation! Woot!

http://www.originalicons.com/
A site dedicated to bringing you lots and lots of AIM icon options!

Good old Hogwarts...

Harry Potter Spoilers!

So I finished reading the book at 10 pm last night. I really liked it. I want to read the next one now though! A lot of stuff I had suspected (i.e. Harry and Ginny, Dumbledore dying, ) but there were some surprises as well. Harry was finally starting to pull his weight in this one and about 2/3rds of the way through I was like, yeah Harry! But then he had to break up with Ginny and say stuff about not coming back to school. No Harry. BAD Harry. To be honest, I was expecting Dumbledore to have Fawkes as a horcrux or something and come back, but I guess not. And the handwriting on the note in the locket was very like Sirius's so perhaps Regulus Black was responsible for the locket horcrux theivery; being a one-time death eater and all. At least we know how Harry is going to go about beating Voldemort now.

Have never liked Snape...I still think he'll redeem himself somehow in a Darth Vader-esque type situation, but he is a bad man.

McGonagall for Headmistress and Shacklebolt for Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor in year 7! Get on the bandwagon now. :)

That's about all the news I have, too...I didn't do much yesterday except work and read.

This one's for you, Behtia! (Click to enlarge if you can't read it).

Swag & Lucre

Hey, that's a good name for a band...now opening for Creed...Swag....and...Lucrrrrrre! It would totally work.

Today is my birthday! I am 28 years old now. Late 20's. Senility is setting in, etc. Yesterday was my birthday dinner with the family, however, so I got all my loot then. Good haul this year! KotOR II for X-Box, some Wheel of Time books cause mine are disintegrating and I want to keep the set, cartoons and Dukes of Hazzard on DVD, some snazzy new clothes, sandals, Harry Potter (of course!), and my sister gave me a wee pet turtle. Such a good sibling sometimes. I am trying to decide on a name right now...leaning towards "Treacle".

Many thanks to all the birthday well-wishers! I have received several e-cards, each of which was a hoot and was watched several times. You guys have brought light-hearted amusement on what would otherwise be a dreary Monday at work. :)

Tonight's endeavor: to finish Harry Potter. I read about 250 pages yesterday, and still have a bunch to go. It'll get done. Other plans this week include work, work, and possibly work, although I'll have to check my schedule on that last one. Friday, with any luck, will be vacation! Which I really really need.

Today's site: http://coolstuffnola.com/index.htm Ridiculously overpriced bad 60's and 70's furniture. Laugh at anyone who would pay three grand for a checked formica desk.

Finally!

So blogger.com has been having server issues for some reason...thus the lack of posting recently!

Not much going on anyway...Nyx is in the midwest for her grandfather's funeral this week. Its been rough for the last few weeks here because of the stuff going on with that.

Went to dinner with my great aunt on Tuesday, which was nice, even though she drives me insane. She calls our house multiple times per day and asks the following:

"How are you? You the only one home? So your mom's not there? And your dad's not there? And Jean's not there? And neither of the boys? You're there all alone? Is it raining over there? Yeah, its raining here too (she lives about a mile and a half away). Well, I was just calling to see how y'all were doing."

Assuming her hearing aid is turned up and you don't have to scream into the phone, it still gets old pretty fast. And you know you'll have to go through it all again in less than 24 hours.

Also Tuesday I mowed the lawn, which was good times. I felt all productive and stuff. Wednesday I did nothing except work. Yesterday I should have cleaned the house, but instead I watched Men of Honor two times in a row. Yesterday was weird. Then last night I dreamed I got some debilitating cancer, so they shipped me to a gulag in Norway (like you do) and I was about to give up hope when I uncovered a world domination plot, so I became a superhero (still with debilitating cancer) and proceeded to kick butt despite getting heckled for being so weak. Strange day.

Today is more relaxing at work. I still have tons to do, but none of the higher-ups are here, so I can goof off. Also, we got a temp worker in who's really cute. In an office of knife guys and aged secretaries, a nubile feminine presence is nice once in a while.

One of said aged secretaries, one Bitsy by name, is nuts. She's like, 45, has a beer gut, is none too bright, and thinks she's cool or something. Nice person, mind you, but only in moderation. So me and the IT guy were joking about having a party and she said there should be naked Twister. And then proceeded to tell us about the time she played naked Twister. At this point the left side of my brain turned to the right side of my brain and said "Its dark in here; and we may die." Seriously! What makes her think me and the IT guy want to know about her nasty naked twisting goings-on?! Too much information.

That said, I'm glad its the weekend. Furthermore, I am glad its an especially great weekend wherein there is so much cool stuff coming out, and in addition, my birthday! Next weekend I'll be on vacation. I have a paycheck and my bills are already paid this month. Woot!

For your listening pleasure: http://www.vivalavoce.com/ Streaming opera and classical choral (or perhaps choral classical....) music for your enjoyment. Aaahhhh...sooothing....

Blogger's having server problems...blog hiatus not my fault! In the meantime, here's an inspirational image. Go team.

Worst...samurai...EVER. Can you say "Rex Kwon Do"?

The Sea Goat

Yesterday afternoon I got a package in the mail. Inside that package was a wind-n-go Mystery Machine toy from Burger King. Let the fun begin! Making these mini-rc's has become my new hobby. Its cheap, its fun, and I enjoy it. Yesterday was especially cool because to get the MM shell ready to mount on a chassis, I had to take an old pocket knife and some leather gloves and, using a stovetop heated knife, cut the bottom of the car out. It went perfectly. I was thrilled. However, because all my cars are at work, I couldn't see if it was actually the correct scale. Came in to work today and the shell fits the Herbie chassis very well. Some further tweaking will be needed, but it looks good!

Today's excitement, apart from the joys of mini-rc nerdery, has been a different kind of nerdery. The news is out that Brian Froud is in talks to make a sequel to The Dark Crystal. I am a huge fan, and this news almost made me weep with joy.

Here's the link: http://www.worldoffroud.com/www/news/main/index.cfm#dc

Other than that, its been business as usual. Looking forward to the weekend, am going to be mowing the lawn this afternoon, and that's about it. Maybe I'll also take 2 or 3 hours and schedule/reply to all the e-vites that Madchen sent out. ;) A couple do look really fun though.

Welcome to Cold Stone! Here are the GPS coordinates for your ice cream-berg. Come again soon!

Bloggy Goodness

Ah yes. Monday once again. But I don't mind this Monday. Because many exciting fun goody good things are happening this week! Let us list them.

1. Sunday-saw Fantastic Four and it didn't suck.

2. Chocolate Factory comes out on Friday, directed by Tim "everyone appearing in my movies must appear to be paler than I am" Burton, which I will go see with Poppy Girl.

3. Saturday Harry Potter is released, which is always a good time.

4. Next Monday is my birthday! Woot! I'm so old. I feel like, ten thousand years older than sand. But it should be fun. I don't have anything planned, and I forgot to put a monocle on my birthday wish list, but I've never had a bad birthday.

This past weekend wasn't too exciting...I think the highlight was going to Bennigan's and having chicken strips. They're really good. Was considering getting a flagon of mead (which they have!) but their drinks are really expensive. Ridiculously expensive. Also went to Cold Stone and ate approximately five pounds of fudge-swirled caked-mixed-in ice cream. Was on a sugar rush until about 3 a.m. this morning. Let me explain about the sizes at Cold Stone. They have "like it", which is about 2 cups of ice cream, "love it", which (for only a penny more!) is about 4 cups of ice cream, and the size of legend, "want some more of it", which is literally a plastic bucket of ice cream. Now, on this particular visit, there was a young lady of shall we say prodigious girth ahead of us in line. Can you guess what size she got? Oh yes. She waddled out with a bucket of ice cream, hot fudge running down the side. Can we deduce how she reached said rotundity? I believe we can. I am not a mean person usually, but I really wanted to go smack the bucket out of her hand and tell her to exercise or something. And she had the entire thing eaten in about 20 minutes. That's not right. Or am I just being mean and judgemental? Who knows.

Today's site is http://www.englandsmedievalfestival.com/ England's largest medieval festival, which I really really want to go to, as its at an actual castle and not a plywood castle facade (no offense to our festivals) and it looks like a lot of fun.

A freakin' broadsword, what do you THINK?!

Hunting Balverines!

Yesterday was funny...my brother Charles came home from work and I was sitting around playing a bit of Fable. In Fable there is a type of creature that roams around called a balverine. He comes in and our conversation goes thusly:

C: So...what'd you do all day again?

Me: I told you, I spent it playing Fable in the basement hunting balverines!

C: Did you kill any?

Me: Yes, like fifty of them!

C: What kind of weapon did you use?

Me: A freakin' broadsword, what do you think?

It was really funny...we were both laughing for quite some time after that. Of course, then we staged it for when my other siblings came home, and they laughed as well. Merriment was in abundance yesterday evening.

This morning my mom calls me at six in the morning, wanting to talk to me before work. She knows I am getting ready for work at 8, but haven't left yet. So she called at 8...but forgot that Colorado has a two-hour time difference. Just wanted to make sure the house wasn't burnt down or anything. I said it was fine. Actually, I grunted and croaked that it was fine, to be perfectly accurate.

And then Nyx calls at around 8 to let me know that her schedule will permit us to go on our anniversary trip, which is a huge relief, since we might have had to postpone due to her having to be working on the weekends. And it would seriously bum me out if we had to postpone. Cause I've been looking forward to this trip for like, two months.

In other news, I just closed a deal on eBay for a 2-dollar Burger King toy of the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, which will be modified into a mini-RC to add to my collection alongside the General Lee, the Mach 5, Kitt, and Herbie. Still looking for an A-Team van, an Ecto 1, and a Batmobile to add.

Today's exciting link: http://www.lego.com/eng/create/activities/worldbuilder/
A fun little sim-game that lets you build little lego cars and things. Good times, goooood times.

What kind of parent names their kid "Salmon"?! Sec. of Treasury during civil war. Salmon P. Chase. Bizarre.

How independent ARE we...?

Fourth of July weekend! Day off of work! Sounds pretty great doesn't it? Oh my, yes. Little did I know that it would be filled with wacky misadventures.

Friday I took off early to spend the day with Nyx...we went and saw the frustrating and disappointing War of the Worlds, and then wandered around the mall for a while. I bought an Umbrella Corporation patch for my messenger bag, which I thought would make it look totally boss in a nerd-who-plays-Resident-Evil kind of way. More on that later. Nyx bought a cute skirt (Boyfriend Seal of Approval) and a CD that has a totally kick-butt song on it that I want to copy...think of the Lord's Prayer sung in Latin 7 or 8 times to a neo-Goth industrial beat. Good stuff.

Saturday I woke up around 10, and didn't have to go in to work until 2, so in the intervening hours, I decided to put the new patch I bought on my bag. Being the moron that I am at times, I attempted ironing, as I had ironed a similar patch (Irken Elite!) onto my backpack previously. But alas, the synthetic material was too fine or tightly woven, so not only did the patch not stick, I also managed to melt holes in my bag in the process. D'oh! Oh well. They're not big holes, and I have covered them with cleverly placed lapel pins from various of our company's vendors. The patch was then sewed on, which I did with the sewing machine. I know this will reveal my feminine side, but the freakin' bobbin would run out of thread halfway through! Why does it always do that at the worst times? But got it done. And it is cool looking.

Sunday I went to church, and then played Fable for most of the afternoon. That game is awesome. Lots of stuff to do, complete freedom of movement, and if anyone anyone gives you crap, you can beat them senseless or bludgeon them with a mace or zap them with lightning, or decapitate them with an arrow. The shopkeep overcharged me! *bludgeon with mace* That little kid called me "arseface"! *zap with lightning* and so on. Sunday's task was to collect all the Hero Dolls for this guy's collection, which you get by winning a bunch of tavern games. Also, my character wore a dark purple evening gown while I was fighting rock trolls, just to be impertinent.

Monday! Yay day off! So what do I do? Get up at four in the morning, at four in the morning, to go take my parents to the airport. They were entirely too peppy for four in the morning. My mouth is not physically able to smile, and forming coherent words is a real effort anytime before 10 a.m. Its their anniversary trip to Colorado (Motto: "Don't eat the pink snow"). From there I went back to bed. Woke up at 10 to go hiking with Nyx...really nice day for it. We romped around in the the woods for a bit, and then ate a high-quality McMeal.

Last night was big fun! Went with my siblings to see fireworks, and who should tag along but half a dozen Brits and a dozen Aussies! Coworkers of my sibs celebrating Independence Day with us. What a riot! There's something wrong about having British and British-ish people surrounding you on the 4th. Great people, but it just didn't feel as American as usual.

Today's fun thing of interest...http://www.thememoryhole.org/econ/big-bills/ Yo yo, gots to get me a stack of McKinleys, knowuimsayun?