naladahc | tripping along the golden path

Happy Three-Oh to Alex B.

Wow. Some good news today.

In April, for the first time since the story came out, (Marv) Wolfman will revisit the entire Crisis storyline in a 320 page novelization... This version of Crisis won’t be a simple retelling of the comic book series in any way. We spoke with Wolfman for a look between the covers, as well as a look back at the original material.

Revisiting DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths by the original author is a great idea in my opinion.

1985 was a special time in comics for me and this series introduced me to literally hundreds of characters that I'd never heard of stretching back to the late 30s.

I'm so going to love this.

The Alton Brown Good Eats drinking game.

I wonder if Courtney or Nicole play?

Man oh man is the weather shitty here in Cowtown.

Ice and snow all over the place.

Matt and I joined Kristy B. to take Alex B. out for his 30th birthday. (Good Korean food at Kaya by the way!)

But I swear we saw at least 8 cars off the roads in ditches and at least 2 accidents.

Hell, Johnny Law even had Henderson shut down between Reed and Kenny due to an accident or it must have been really icy. We were on it no more than 2 hours earlier and while it was slick, it was manageable.

And I suppose I need to decide if I want to get the usual group of 16 or so misfits together for my b-day at Haiku like we normally do.

*sigh*

Thirty-five.

I've wasted my life.

Ack! Now I'm depressed. I'm going to bed and maybe if I'm lucky I won't wake up with the standard headache, soreness, and nausea that has plagued me for over a week.

I've bemoaned my general loathing of comics over the past 10 years or so and more or less consider the medium a total niche for aging geeks.

When cheap newsprint comics disappeared from the newstand and retail stores and became $4 glossy reads the entire industry began a descent into obscurity, regardless of the big dollar years of the early 90s and the fact that movies are being made from comics.

Go into any comics store and you won't find kids.

Oh sure there may be a few here and there but overall the general readership of comics is now geeks in their late 20s and 30s.

Kids really don't give a shit about comics at all other than the occasional appearance in a movie.

You lose the kids. You lose the comics industry.

And then today I read that "Marvel is making a comeback to 7-11 stores across the country" and I about crapped my pants.

Marvel’s Peter Cuneo said that the publisher will see comics in just under 6000 of the convenience stores, doubling the number of outlets for the comics in the U.S. (presumably both direct market – widely quoted as consisting of 3000 accounts via Diamond, and other outlets). Cuneo predicted that the 7-11 placement would have a large impact on Marvel's business, both financially and in exposing Marvel's comics to a wider audience.

It has taken you how long to figure this out???

Along with moving back into 7-11s, it was also announced that Marvel had reached a deal with Barnes & Noble to sell comics in 300 more stores across the U.S., following the conclusion of a successful 50-store test.

The move back to the convenience stores will be one that both other publishers and convenience store chains will be watching closely. 20 – 25 years ago, convenience store distribution of comics was a major force for moving product to the mass audience, but over the years, comics’ presence in such outlets has dwindled to virtually nothing due to a host of reasons...

And where are you DC?

What's good for Marvel is good for DC and what's good for DC is good for Marvel.

What's good for you both is good for the industry in general.

But you need to go back to some newsprint books that will only cost $1.50 or so.

Putting books in convenience stores is the right step.

Getting the books priced in an affordable manner is the next.

Fuck the "specialty" comics store!!!

Long live the way comics were sold for 40 years!!!

WooHoo!!!

Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit trailer is being hosted at Screenrant.

Yay!

Tony's Law Would Require Marijuana Users To Inform Interested Neighbors

"As a parent, I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to finding weed," Minneapolis resident Kyle Berman said. "All my wife and I wanted to be able to do was get Tina and Tyler to bed, put on a movie, and smoke a joint. It wasn't until the police busted the guy across the street for growing marijuana that we realized how close we'd come to actually finding some pot. A whole set-up with lamps and everything was less than 50 feet from our living room. It sickens me to think about it."

So I broke down today and wiped my old Pismo of OS 9 and OS 10.2 and installed a 10.3.8 on it, Office 2004, Firefox, and Thunderbird.

If the Nalafather needs something to do his sports writing on I can at least give him a fairly base clean system.

So I thought I'd put a few teasers/spoilers out on the net about my current project Knots Landing: More Than Meets The Eye, the soon to be a major hit television show that will make the world look at themselves in a while new light.

Spoilers ahead... beware....

I don't know why but no matter what I do I can never ever get a PVC of Masterforce Minerva.

I've taking a liking to the PCV version of this Headmaster Junior from the Japanese series Masterforce but no matter how many I manage to find in auctions I never ever win.

It is like I am cursed to never own one.

Now Minerva, or often butchered into Engrish as Minelba, is the first female Transformers character ever to have a toy made of her.

None of the G1 fembots, even Arcee with all of her screen time in the movie and Seasons 3 and 4, was ever made into a figure.

Hell... if they would have tried it would have been ugly as all hell so I suppose I should be glad they didn't.

But I just want my little Minerva PVC figure that I am destined never to have. Quite frankly my chances of ever acquiring a Minerva PVC are about as likely as me getting a Micromaster Big Daddy.

And those chances? Yup. Balls!

I just decided to add "defrocked" to my list of all-time favorite English words.

There's just something about the way "defrocked" rolls off the tongue, especially as the whole mouth goes from "f" to "r" to "ock".

Say it very slowly and pay attention to your mouth movements through the middle of this word. There's a certain joy when you hit that hard "k" sound.

You'll enjoy it as much as I do.

And while it doesn't have the serenity of "moist" or the mind-bloggling-ness of Spanish's "desafortunadamente" I definitely think it ranks up there pretty high.

But then again, I'm a fan of the hard "k" sound that I can't help but stand in awe of it when it properly evokes an emotional response.

You all know how I want the Star Trek franchise to die a quick death and fade away for 10-15 years or so.

Berman and Braga have sucked all creativity and life out of the entire franchise and while Paramount has finally wisened up and decided to euthanize it, fans still keep trying to resuscitate it.

On a whim I decided to read the latest "review" of Enterprise on Television Without Pity and man oh man is this series just beating a dead horse.

The creators actually wasted time trying to create an explanation of why the Klingons in the 60s Star Trek look different from the resdesigned Klingons that first appeared in 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture and subsequent series.

Hell, I remember even the Star Trek Role Playing game made a whole explanation of the thing with Human-Fusion Klingons and Imperial Klingons.

It wasn't something to bother with since the reason they changed was because they could with a better budget!!!

Hell, the best explanation was the tongue-in-cheek one done in a Deep Space 9 episode Trials and Tribble-ationsthat found the characters time-travelling back to the Trouble With Tribbles episode of the old show.

When Worf is asked by Chief O'Brien why the Klingons looks so different he basically says "It's a long story. We don't talk about it."

That was quite possibly one of the funniest moments in Star Trek ever and that all that ever really needed to be said about the matter.

They wasted an entire 48 minutes on it when those old-school cheap ass Klingons only appeared like 3-4 times in the 1960s and the other modern Klingons have been around for 26 years!!!

Oh well.

I haven't actually watched the Enterpise epsiode but I don't think I even want to try to suffer through it.

So the doctor called and all of the blood tests for muscle problems and such turned out totally negative.

They weren't even remotely abnormal.

She basically said that she can try to treat the symptoms with more prescriptions while the virus I have runs its course or I can juat take Tylenol for the soreness and see how it goes.

I'm not one to be paranoid and all but I've never felt this physically shitty before and I haven't even remotely taken care of myself these past 10 years.

Perhaps that's the reason I feel like shit. (As always, my own lack of personal responsibility of the management of my health could be at fault.)

I'll stick it out until Monday and see how I feel after the weekend.

I've got work to do so at least I have no where to go this weekend except sitting in a chair on my ass on a computer.

Woah!

George Perez told The Continuum he is working with Phil Jimenez and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez on what he calls "The EZ Project," a soon-to-be-announced project from DC Comics.

"I'm having the time of my life inking the incredible Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez," Perez told The Continuum at last weekend's MegaCon. "Phil is writing and drawing the covers, so I get to ink him, too."

The "EZ" is a reference to the last two letters in each of the creators' names. It has been rumored that the project involves Donna Troy.

Perez said he will be concentrating on his New Teen Titans graphic novel with Marv Wolfman in May.

And to make matters worse, Captain Marvel (the real one, not the lame Marvel one) will be appearing in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

Geekness all around I tell you.

So there was a retirement party today in my department for someone who has been here 35 years.

I wasn't even born when he started.

Creepy.

There was a good outcome to it though.

Pizzas and subs were ordered from Tommy's Pizza and all the soda purchased was Pepsi products.

I managed to snag 8 free iTunes songs from the the various caps.

Fun on the Ten Commandments front.

“If an atheist walks by, they can avert their eyes,” said Justice Kennedy, who also complained of society’s “obsessive concern with any mention of religion.” He added, “I don’t see a balanced dialogue.”

An atheist can avert their eyes to religious content but the same kind of argument doesn't typically work with 'Merican's personal responsibility to viewing/listening to differing viewpoints, pornography, and so forth.

Hell, members of the wasteland that is 'Merican federal politics in 2005 wants to regulate subscriber cable and satellite radio too.

U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push for applying broadcast decency standards to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television and radio affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters.

"There has to be some standard of decency," he said. But he also cautioned that "No one wants censorship."

We can't even feed and house children properly in this country but man oh man can we go after images, thought, and the printed word.

Oh wait. There's no real revenue stream to be made off of those without money.

I was desperate for something to eat tonight and I did something that no human should do: I opened a can of SPAM I bought.

Now I had bought it as a joke.

And do you want to know something?

If you want to drive two cats and a dog utterly crazy all you need to do is open a can of SPAM.

And man oh man this shit is foul.

If this is what the face and hands of a human woman looks like at 125 I can only image what time and gravity have done to her breasts!!!

However, someone should be gathering data and information on her genetics and children (if any) to determine why her genotype and/or the environment she lives in has allowed her to make it to 125.

There, Stewart casually dressed in a gray-and-white poncho, dark jeans and ankle boots smiled and waved to supporters as she walked across the runway and boarded the plane for New York.

For the next five months, Stewart must wear an electronic anklet so authorities can track her every move. But she is allowed to receive her $900,000 salary again and can leave home for up to 48 hours a week to work, shop or run other approved errands.

I mean where do ya have to go?

I could pay off my house in 1.5 months with that montly salary.

Thanks go out to Mr. Evebird for bringing over some Avgolemono for the sick young lad that I co-habitate with.

He's all coldy and stuffy.

I for one never developed any cough and cold... just the Bubonic Plague which I'm now self-treating with aspirin, herbal iced tea, and really poor html coding.

Went with Asa and Matt to see Constantine today and it actually surprised me because it didn't suck as bad as it could have.

Most comic book to film adaptations really suck the proverbial balls nasty but this film wasn't too bad.

Sure... Keanu Reeves isn't even remotely like the print version of John Constantine but he's tolerable even though he lacks the blond hair, dry British wit, and overall age to play the role as intended by the comic creators.

I really liked Tilda Swinton as the utterly androgynous half-breed angel Gabriel.

Lucifer's portrayal kind of sucked for me though. After reading years of Mike Carey's complex and well-written version of the Vertigo Lucifer the standard Christian/Hollywood "evil demon" portrayal just gets so old and boring.

I doubt they'd ever make a film version of Lucifer because you can't water down the character to just the boring old good vs. evil version any more. Well. At least not for me.

Oh well.

If I were a film critic for Hustler magazine I'd say that Constantine is 3/4 erect! And that's not all that bad.

Now I know that there are a small group of people that do stop by here every now and then to check up on me and I appreciate the fact that some of you comment and all.

After having a personal site/journal since 1995 you know I was ready to call it quits and to shut the site down about 6 months ago. I decided to to stick it out because of your emails and of course I ended up becoming even lamer because my stupid toy collection is pretty much the most interesting thing about me.

So. In a sense I'm apologizing to all of you that have to suffer from reading my utterly useless and pointless banter about my stupid hobby.

There's nothing more arrogant than thinking somebody finds my ranting of any interest but quite frankly without the occasional plastic crack excitement my blogging with be even more mundane and pointless than usual. I really am that boring of a person. Hell, sometimes I think I only ever had the illusion that I was even remotely interesting in the real world let alone online in the flotsam and jetsam that is the sludge of the internet.

And for my mindless bantering about totally useless things I apologize.

However, because he's started it I now have to be even more lamer and add a recent additions page.

Indeed.

I am this lame.

Grrrrr!!! There are several areas where the paint is coming off the hood of the Deluxe Luxury New Beetle.

I don't remember seeing these at all last week and I'm thinking that the recent snow/ice and my resultant scraping of the windows and such may have contributed to the scratches somehow.

However, what it really shows is what a shitty paint job Byers did when they did the body work last May to repair the damage when that woman drove up the front of my car.

Grrrrr!!! I need to find the paperwork and see if there's someway I can prove this is a poor paint job.

Online poker/casinos sites must have become pretty mundane because the dreg that spams this site is now all about loans and mortgages.

Not that any of it ever gets posted or anything.

But man oh man, who the hell would ever explore any kind of loan or mortgage options from a link?

I just don't get that.

I'm wondering if I could sue ESPN since some of the previous spam said it was coming from them?

Since the advent of Mac OS X I've been troubled by the lack of real information on supporting this operating system.

I'm not talking about from a general home user/small office perspective here but from integrating OS X into a large computing enterprise where production levels must be maintained and downtime seriously impacts the overall use of a given operating system in the whole process.

So snagged an Energon Jetfire/Ironhide 2 Pack at Wally World for only $9 tonight.

While I hate the figures individually they could almost be tolerable combined (Jetfire being the top) and repainted in a consistent color scheme.

Someone kitbashed one with G1 Overlord as an inspiration and it totally makes a the figure palatable!

And it is really hard for me to like this Energon Ironhide when his frigg'n head just sits on top of this alt mode!!! What the hell was Hastak think??? Robots IN DISGUISE people!

Fodder for a future kitbash if I have my way.

Yeah. I'll get around to that some day.

And that General Devestatar kitbash from Transformers: Zone too.

I am going to once again out myself as a total loser and admit that I am going to see this in the theatre.

I will do my best to overlook the really shitty (and totally fucking pointless) CGI and fact they added more anthropomorphism to him. Totally not needed here kids!!! The charm was in the minor details and not obvious with Herbie!!!!

The Love Bug, Herbie Rides Again, and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo hold a special place for me in my childhood and no doubt contributed to my obsession with Volkswagen Beetles, Fastbacks, and Karman Ghias.

This movie is total fluff but I'm a loser anyway.

They had better have a cameo for Dean Jones and Michelle Lee in this.

They starred in the the original Love Bug and for nostalgia sake they had better have uncredited cameos in this. Jone's Jim Douglas was a race car driver in the late 60s so it is totally appropriate!!!

Ohio law would regulate eBay sellers - Law may require costly, time-consuming auction license for Ohio online sellers; changes vowed. (CNN)

And all I have to say is FUCK THAT SHIT!!!

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the law, signed by Gov. Robert Taft on Feb. 1, was meant to insure that auctioneers were abiding by the established rules and regulations. The law, as written, requires Ohio residents who sell products online to get a state auction license.

Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days.

The primary author of the legislation, State Sen. Larry Mumper, told the paper the legislature never intended it to apply to individuals selling items over eBay. But Mumper, while vowing changes, couldn't say exactly who would or would not be exempt from the license requirement under any changes in the pending law.

"It certainly will not apply to the casual seller on eBay, but might apply to anyone who sells a lot," he said. "If someone buys and sells on eBay on a regular basis as a type of business, then there is a need for regulation."

Have the Republicrats and Democrans fucked our country and state over so bad that they must now try to generate additional revenue streams from the middle class by enforcing inappropriate laws???

I so badly want to see how you will end up defining "casual seller".

It was bad enough that Dick Cheney padded information about the poor US economy by basically saying that US govt numbers don't take into account Ebay transactions.

Now someone wants to continue to restrict simple basic "free trade" on a goddamn garage sale on the net.

Yes. Some people do run entire business off of Ebay but those are few and far between in the collective whole of Ebay. In fact, Powersellers have ruined Ebay to some extent and may eventually lead to people like myself going to other auction sites.

I'm on Ebay every night and in my specific areas of buy and trade there are a few specific online stores.

But I'll be damned if I ever fucking pay the goddamn state of Ohio a fee so that I can sell the same kinds of things that I'd buy or trade at garage or yard sale.

These so called Ohio politicans better change this crap before trying to enforce this. How much more can you people leech of us Ohioans?!?!

Hani Durzy, eBay spokesman, said the company has reviewed Ohio's law and is not concerned.

"We do not believe the law applies to people who sell items on eBay or to eBay itself," he told the paper.

This is a warning to all of you non-Cowlanders out there.

If something like this manages to get enforced in the Cowlands then your state is next. Count on it!

Ok. I think it is time I reduce some of the items in the attic to make room for new things coming out this summer.

Perhaps it is time for my Armada/Energon duplicates, Built-To-Rules, and other miscellaneous bots I don't care too much about to find their way into a large Ebay lot.

And I need to get rid of 8,000 comic books too!!!

In other news, I'm frustrated at work, I feel sick again, and I'm really really really starving!!!

One of the "holy grails" of my obsession. A mint-in-the-box never released in the US Takara Dinoking is up on Ebay and I find myself constantly coming back to this auction.

Grrrrr!!! He's so beautiful. So utterly amazing beautiful.

And he's up for sale too. If ever there was some kind of strange phallus envy in me it is most definitely brought out by God Fire Convoy and his Master Sword!

Anyway. I actually remembered to send out invites today. Sure it took me sending myself 3 emails to do it. But it is done. And thus another year passes.

Back in January I ranted about the Fear Factor law suit.

At least there is still some sense around these here parts.

A judge threw out a lawsuit in which a viewer sued NBC for $2.5 million, contending that he threw up because of a "Fear Factor" episode in which contestants ate rats mixed in a blender.

U.S. District Judge Lesley Wells called Austin Aitken's lawsuit frivolous and warned him against appealing.

Microsoft unveils IM client, outlines Office vision (Infoworld)

"Our ambition for Office is very broad," Gates said at a conference in San Francisco. "[It is] to change the way people communicate, meet, and share information. A key area [in Office development] is a breakthrough in communication."

A major part of the evolution of Office is to inject real-time capabilities into the platform in a deeper way, Gates said. The goal is to break down silos of information and to improve information navigation, business intelligence, online meetings, and collaboration within multiple Office applications, InfoWorld.com reported.

How about actually hiring a group of user interface designers to actually make the existing functionality of Office easy to use?

How about actually making settings 2 or 3 mouse-clicks away instead of buried in menus, then tabs, then buttons, then another tab, then a selection?

How about rewording functionality for the end user so that someone with basic word processing knowledge can actually figure out what it is a button does?

"This is an evolution of Office way beyond when it was about a single worker doing a spreadsheet or word processing," Gates said.

There is nothing that the general business and consumer population can do with Office 2003 that they couldn't do in Office 97.

The majority of IT people I talk to see no reason to even bothering upgrading these packages for any "functionality" because all the functionality ever needed by the majority of computer users is already there in older versions. We are forced to do this by Microsoft manipulating support and licensing.

Relabeling something, adding more pointless bells and whistles, and rebranding the thing with a new visual theme doesn't amount to much and most of the IT world knows it.

Microsoft Word 5.1 for Macintosh, a completely ancient word processor in today's terms, is still the single best version of Word that Microsoft released for any platform. Hell... Word 2.0 for Windows would still be perfectly fine to work with today.

Office 4.2.1, which included version 6 of the programs, is where the real mess began for the Office suite.

This is where Microsoft totally threw out the end-user in the equation for ease of use for the products and I firmly believe that even so many versions later the horror that Word 6 introduced is still there in Word 2003.

I once watched Larry Ellison of Oracle in a keynote speech somewhere joke about the fact that the only thing that can possibly be added to Office is that words that are spelled wrong would appear in huge 3-D to show the error.

He was joking but what he was joking about is the problem here.

Microsoft makes gargantuan amounts of revenue from the continual regurgitations of the Office suite and there's just very little left to throw into that already isn't crap.

I'd wager that the majority of Office users probably use less than 15% of the application and that's all they ever will need. That percentage is probably a bit higher for Excel since the mathematic functionality of that application has more bearing for a lot of people then Word's added features.

What Microsoft needs to do is create "enviroments" for Office that a user can go into that hides all the crap that will never be used, thereby creating a nice clean simple interface so that you can actually get work done without complication.

Oh. And a nice big red button that says "Turn Off Every Single Automatic Formatting Function" would be nice too. Don't bury that simple turn-off among 15 tabs located in 15 different menus.

And Corel... you are just as guilty with WordPerfect Office too.

I am so happy that I managed to snag petrol this morning at $1.85/gallon at Speedway.

As I was coming home today I noticed it is now $2.15/gallon, a whole 30 cent spike.

I've learned a very important lesson: Not matter how much you have in your tank you should top it off if you see cheap petrol.

And I find it funny that so few people have any blame to place on the fact that the administration of this country has been and always will be run by oil whores.

See. The higher the domestic gas prices will go (and I firmly believe they are artificially manipulated since there is no regulation) the easier it will be to sway the general fodder population into saying that drilling is healthy in environments such as the Alaskan refuge and such.

Yeah. This is oh so much a natural occurence.

Not that regulation would matter. If the whores are the ones doing the regulating it wouldn't matter what diseases would be passed on.

So I watched the new episode of the new Dr. Who last night.

As someone who knows only the most basic info on the character and series I kind of enjoyed it.

I've never really been able to get into the few random episodes of the show that I've seen and even though I'm a geek and all, the Doctor, on the whole, has never been on of those things that got me very moist.

The episode was ok for what it was.

I don't think it'll go over well in the States either due to the fact that it is inherently "British" and less generic than I'd hoped.

The overall concept of the Doctor, the multiple lives, and so forth appeals to me but the execution over the past 40 years did nothing for me really.

The only real problem I had with the first episode of the new series was the garishly horrible music. Levels were way too high and the synthetic nature of it was just inappropriate and annoying.

But I'll give the new series a shot.

At least until the trashcans make their reappearance.

It still blows my mind that there has been so much political non-sense about the Daleks and BBC from the estate of their creator.

Get over it.

So Mr. D. has arrived in Nippon on what might be the farthest any of my friends have ever gone on a geek-toy run.

Seriously though. Since he's in Yokahama there's a pretty good chance he'll run into a young futureMiss Macross. It could happen.

And I want pictures of when Gojira and the other monsters attacke Mr. D.

Huh? You mean to tell me that I'm just too messed up by Japanese pop culture to know real from fiction?

Um... yeah. Next thing you'll tell me is that robots can't turn into cars.

This is what I get for paying $40 to join the Transformers Collectors Club?

I knew it was going to be some combiner but I had hopes that maybe it'd be something Hasbro/Takara had gotten the old molds from G1 out for. Something a collector, hence the "collector club", would really want to have. Even a retool of the an old G1 mold of something.

But no. A mediocre repaint of a merely adequate figure that combines into a piece of shit that can barely stand.

Yeah. It is my own fault for wasting the money. The collector magazine is worthless to me, the "original" comic useless, and now I get a figure that I wasn't all too thrilled with to begin with.

Hell... they could have at least painted it so it would look like the original Superion or something.

This sucks as much ballage as Hasbro naming Binaltech Dragstrip a lame name like Decepticharge! God that sucks. You could have just called him "Decepticon Dragstrip" people!

I think I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to really hate American plastic crack!!!

I'm sorry to say that there are only 16 episodes of Snots Landing left for us to watch.

Unfortunately we lost 2 episodes last week (Season 13's finale to boot) and we are all set up to wrap up about 340 episodes of the greatest television series of all time!!!

Hopefully they'll replay the 2 reunion shows.

All of this is no doubt building up the demand for my Knots Landing: More Than Meets The Eye series.

Networks are clamoring to get my new show on the air!

Well... UPN called at least. But my modern version of Snots is quite frankly better than any of the crap they air.

Battlestar Galactica still keeps kicking ass on a weekly basis.

This past week's episode, watched by yours truly last night on the Tivo, kept my moisture levels up.

This series rocks the balls!!!

Now yeah, the 2nd part of the 2-part Starbuck story wasn't all that great but Ron Moore has struck back with gold this past week.

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!

Mr. E. took my advice and tried the takoyaki.

Now if I can only find some.

Should I bid on the Haunted Nintendo Entertainment System - Paranormal NES up for auction?

When I become Leader I just want you to know that doing this will probably be punishable by death.

So. When I become Leader. Don't do this.

And don't name your dog Peanut either.

According to the Real Japanese Name Generator my Japanese name is Takumi Fujiwara which supposedly roughly translates to "open seas wisteria fields".

Um. Ok.

Perhaps I'll use Takumi Fujiwara as a new pseudonym. Much like Abby Ewing creating the company Morikami to confuse and deceive people that it was a Japanese company buying Lotus Point.

Five days until thirty-five.

And I'm bidding on something on ebay that may just be a special treat for myself.

That is unless I get sniped.

Holy Shit!!! What better birthday present could I have managed to snag for myself other than the highly sought after Big Daddy!!!

Yay!!! After so long he's mine!!! All 1.5 inches of his 1950's style transforming badness!!!

This has been a long time in coming.

Yay!!! I'm a happy loser now and Mr. E. can now fully enjoy his trip to Japan knowing that Big Daddy will soon be arriving for an extended stay in the Attic of Love.

You have no idea how long I've been trying to snag a Big Daddy.

And now I gotz one!!!

Three Firms Are Said to Buy Toys 'R' Us for $6 Billion (New York Times)

The prospects for toy retailing are gloomy. Pummeled by competition from Wal-Mart, the few toy stores left have been struggling. In 1993, Wal-Mart had only 11 percent of the nation's toy business, while Toys "R" Us had 21 percent, according to Sean McGowan, a retail analyst who covers toys for Harris Nesbitt. Last year, Wal-Mart's share was 25 percent, and Toys "R" Us had shrunk to 17 percent...

As for toys, "Wal-Mart so dominated the space they didn't have a chance," said William M. Smith, a managing partner at Global Reach Capital, a private equity firm in New York City.

When it came down to the wire, Kohlberg Kravis, Bain and Vornado were competing against Cerberus. "Both teams have real estate arms who put in an enormous amount of work on what the leases are worth," Mr. Smith said.

Toys "R" Us still holds the exclusive rights for a large variety of toys, Mr. Smith said, adding that the industry over all "doesn't have the rosiest long-term picture."

To a certain extent, Wal-Mart beat Toys "R" Us at its own game: negotiating through volume. But it was not just Wal-Mart, Mr. McGowan said.

And Toys "R" Us usually carries a lot of stuff that Whore-Mart won't even touch.

I just have going to Whore-Mart. The stores are filthy and dirty and the toy section is always a total dump.

Even a new Whore-Mart will become a dump within 3-4 months and it pisses me off that they've become the #1 crack dealer.

Balls!!!

So tonight I (and 14 of my close personal friends... well... most anyway... ) make our annual trek to Haiku Restaurant for my birthday.

I don't think I'm in the mood to go overboard with the sake this year but I definitely am in a sushi and sashimi mood.

And I don't know about anyone else but I sure as hell am getting hit with the comment spam these days.

Used to be 5 a day or so but now it is upwards of 5 an hour!

It all gets filtered into the wastelands of cybertrash but man you'd think the dregs would realize that most bloggers these days (I assume) don't let the shit post.

Oh well.

How long and in how many ways can you bleed your core fandom dry?

There's nothing quite like the feeling of being stuffed with raw fish and wasabi. And of course the horribly disgusting burps that follow.

Very fun night.

Thanks to everybody that came and especially those of you who brought me presents. You didn't have to do that.

Mr. and Mrs. B. got me Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with a funny note inside that reads...

This is one of our favorite books. It's about everything we love and hate about comics. It's a perfect read for someone who has outgrown comics but still secretly loves and finds comfort in them.

Vijay and Jen got me a t-shirt and stole one of those magnetic ribbons (that I despise so much) off of a car and customized it as "God Bless The USAutobots".

The other Mr. B., graphic designer that he is, drew me one of his always wonderful birthday cards and the other Mrs. B. got me a little keychain of B-9 on it that says "Danger Will Robinson!" when you click his head.

But the piece de la resistance, and quite possibly the most unexpected gift of all, came from The Pickett and Kelmeister in the form of a "neon" style sign that hangs and lights up with a Decepticon symbol on it.

This is soooo going in the window in the front of The Attic of Love so it can serve as a glowing beacon that tells the entire neighborhood that a major loser geeks out on the 3rd floor!

Thank you all!!!

And we even had a great server this year too!

(And I also found this most excellent haiku today)

Baubles of sake
glisten softly.
Birthday candles glow
for Takumi-chan.

In the distance
a muffled belch.

There's nothing quite like wasabi-flavored burps!

To say that Matt went overboard for my birthday would be an understatement.

Thirty-five presents for thirty-five years.

The smell of cookies baking in the Kitchen of Love is driving me crazy!!! (Did I get the subject/verb agreement on that right?)

I'm hungry now.

Grrr...

It is gonna take me a helluva lot longer to get my content split and so forth so you'll all have to make do with the Shockwave site for now.

Grrrr...

Anyway, I'm back.

And yes, I turned 35 today.

The previous comments about my birthday were just earlier celebrations and so forth.

But today is the day.

Got unexpected emails from my Cio Cia and my Cousin Deej too. As I said, unexpected, but cool.

I feel horrible that I even feel I need to comment on the Terri Schiavo right to die issue.

I know death is not easy.

It is the fear that death brings that causes us to do much evil while we live.

But this poor woman's parents are living in a fantasy world where they think she responds to them.

I find it remarkably ironic that from what I've read, the medical practitioners say that she's been brain dead for 15 years yet a few politicians seem to think she "could" pull through. And the ShrubCo has made it a political "life affirming event".

Only Christians could come up with the insanity of keeping a brain dead woman on a feeding tube and yet support capital punishment and support war death.

Bull-fucking-shit!

Perhaps her parents have been praying to the wrong god. Perhaps all of these screaming and wailing supporter's prayers are going to Audious Minimus, the deaf god.

If some invisible magic entity was going to act on this woman's behalf wouldn't it have happened in the past 15 years???

This disgusts me.

The storm before the chaos is rumbling. The thunder is getting louder.

Can you hear it?

So I've wanted to get these for a long time.

What I thought was going to be a minor nuisance cold is now afull blown head-congesting horror.

Balls. This cold sucks thee.

Surprisingly, even with this cold, I've managed to get a significant amount done at work today.

It doesn't help that Spring has been here for 3 days now and it is still dreary, grey, cold, and damp.

Oh why won't this shit end.

So let's see.

1. My head cold is driving me crazy.

2. At 3am last night, in a state of over-the-counter drug-induced paranoia, I roamed the house trying to stop a ringing in my right ear that I thought was coming from somewhere in the hosue.

3. I ended up shutting off a switch in the basement that ended up shutting off the cable amplifier which fucked up the cable and made the Tivo miss Snots Landing today..

Greg tells Claudia to return her half of the money or he'll make her disappear. Nick gives her the money, but won't tell her how he got it. Nick kisses Anne, but she doesn't want to mess things up with Greg. Gary hires Kate to work on the sports complex. She convinces a couple who are holding up construction to move, but they later change their mind. Kate kisses Gary, but he pushes her away. Out on bail, Mac investigates who killed Mary. Toni decides to help Mac. Gary gets a report that Joe kidnapped Val, so he decides to go back to Florida and asks Kate to watch the twins. Mac wants to go to, but Karen says he would be jumping bail. Mac sneaks out in the middle of the night and leaves Karen a note.

4. I was going to leave work today around 2:30 to come home and sleep but the PCs I installed this morning started throwing up Windows Scripting Host errors so I was stuck there.

5. One of my new fish didn't even make it 24 hours before going belly up. The other one doesn't look very good either. (I'm thinking the shock of the new mini-tank has to have something to do with it. We are just talking cold water goldfish here!)

6. And this cold sucks.

Wow! There's some amazing crack on ebay right now.

So I finally took a few hours off of work to lay in bed and try and sleep. This cold has been killing me for about 4 days now and I have managed to deal with IT problems and put out a few fires but man am I just so worn down.

Oh. And by the way. You obviously see this horribly bright white new site.

Of course I aim for super minimalist and end up with something I already don't like. Perhaps if I'm feeling better I'll spend some time on it and add something to make it minimalist and yet not so frigg'n white.

But seriously. Non-crack addicts won't need to have to deal with my useless hobby now since I've split that blog off... or will... to here. Someday I'll filter the entries and put them in their right place.

Or not.

I mean. Web journals are the bane of our geek existence and those of us that haven't dumped them should really spend more quality time face-to-face with people instead of on computers.

We are a sorry lot.

Indeed. Perhaps I shall just make a really ugly site and force myself to leave it up for the sake of not wanting to waste any more time.

Matt and I ended up at this place called Texas Roadhouse for dinner tonight.

Of course we went there because of this 2 dinners for $14.99 deal and managed to be seated 5 minutes before the special was over.

While I can't say I like the horridly disgusting country and western atmosphere, the steak was actually really good.

Unfortunately the thing I couldn't block out was the awful country music that was playing.

Now I can listen to just about every kind of music without flinching but when I hear country I want to just pull out a revolver and blow my head off.

It just creeps up my spine and makes me want to scream.

I don't understand how people can listen to country music.

Now I'm not talking the older 30s era and Johnny Cash stuff... I'm talking about that vapid whining about losing your girlfriend and drinking yourself stupid. Hell... practically every fucking country song since the 60s is in some shape, way, and form, about drinking. (Or at least I think that's what they are talking about.)

And of course, because of that damn music, I've had "Freedom Isn't Free" from Team America: World Police in my head all night.

Argh!!! Want to blow my brains out!!!

Holy Shit!!! I finally won her!!! All all for $1.25 too!!!

Road Caesar and Fortress were also acquired on the cheap too.

So that leaves me hunting down a Chase Scorponok, Victory Saber, and Lio Kaiser in the PVC world.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

Whores.

They are everywhere.

And I'm not talking about bad mouthing prostitutes here. (I have no problems with prostitutes if that's what they want to do.)

I'm talking about the deceptive whoring that infiltrates most capitalist and day-to-day monetary transactions.

Politicians, by necessity of campaigning, are whores.

And even people selling on Ebay can be whores.

Case in point: this auction for Robot Masters Starscream.

Now he's not entirely rare but there isn't a whole lot of stock out there left in the eastern Pacific and there's barely anything left in the US at all.

At retail he's a $24.99 figure but has been going for up to $34.00 or so since supplies have dwindled to nothing.

Now this auction looks unassuming and a good deal at first glance. The starting bid is only a $1.00 and you'd think you'd have a chance at a deal by the way this seller has it set up.

But using the post office "calculate" I end up with $27.80 for shipping to Ohio. $27.80!!!

This figure is probably about a pound and the packaging is standard and can fit into a standard post office box that is easily sold and typically has shipping around $4.35-$7.00.

Why do I know this? Because I own them all and have gotten them from various places and never have been ripped off like $27.80.

This is what I call whoring.

It is deceptive and there's no way possible to justify $27.80 for this to come to Ohio from California other than to say "I want as much money as possible" from the sale.

Now it wouldn't be whoring if you plainly stated this in auction itself.

What the fuck?

Is this a mistake? I'm tempted to email.

I've just seen this so many times on ebay these days that it just pisses me off.

I wish the "Power Sellers" would all fade away, the sniping software could be permanently broken, and ebay might just become fun again.

I'll let ya know if I hear back on the "Is that really the shipping for this???" email.

So it will be November 17th, 2006.

A date in which I will probably hate my life and decided to become an adult.

Oh well.

The madness had to end sometime.

Oh my friends.

Please bear with me while I try and undo this ugly site I've put together.

It is just that I'm sick, my gene donors are due in town tomorrow, and I am a procrastinating loser.

What exactly is a "supple wrist" and how do I acquire one?

Of course the NalaOjciec was trying to get the NalaMatka up at 6:30am so they could make it to the central Cowlands in a timely fashion. This of course didn't work at all since 9:30 came by and the syn of NalaOjciec hadn't heard anything.

A quick jaunt up the stairs to the Attic of Love™ and the necessary logging on to the Computer of Love™ with requisite Trillian client made it plainly clear that the NalaOjciec was still online.

A quick IM explained that NalaMatka was only just getting out of the shower at 9:30!!!

Now mój matka sometimes stays in bed until 1 or 2 in the afternoon on the weekends. And that is all ok when you don't have plans to travel 180 miles south to the most glorious place on earth.

But she just called and they are finally just outside of Cowtown and should be here shortly.

I'm actually happy they decided not to bring the Akita-bitch and the Olli-annoyance. There was some talk of it earlier in the week and the two meows would definitely have been freaking out. Then again, those two dogs are never around meows so who knows how they would have reacted. Of course, The Hoont was have just sat back in mild amusement at the whole affair.

Ok. I'm done.

Site is cleaned up a bit and not so shitty. My cold is under control for the first time in the past 4 days.

And I'm hungry.

To say that the Nala rodzice blew me away for my birthday would be an understatement. Now you must understand that Matt's going overboard and then what my parent's did for me today has made this 35th birthday the most remarkable birthday ever. Absolutely positively remarkable.

My mother gave me the drawing/picture of my great-grandparents and grandmother from 1914 that I've always been fascinated with. You have no idea what this means to me. I mean, ever since I bought the House of Love I knew exactly where I wanted this portrait to go and now I actually own it. Amazing.

I'm not familiar with the technique in this 91 year old portrait but it looks more "drawn" than photographic, with extremely fine pencil work over the image and small amounts of colored lead or other pigment mixed in.

Wow. If she was still alive my busia would be 91 this year. As old as the portrait that now hangs in my stairwell. She's been gone for 12 years now but I do miss crotchety old Martha. My dziadza Habasinski has been gone for 22 years. And basically this is the only image I have of him in his "young" days and my busia less than a year old. Unfortunately my busia Habasinski died a few years before I was born so I never knew her. But knowing my great-grandfather until I was 13 was a good thing. So few people can have that connection with 3 generations past.

And I was given his 1936 Zenith Radio too. I cannot convey what a beautiful piece of art this radio is. Sure it isn't functional due to tha age of the tubes inside (and the frayed electical wires) but this little baby is pure beauty from a time when design aesthetic mattered in common every day objects. Hell, Matt even found a website about this model and it has enough info so that I could even dare repair the wires and replace the coils and tubes.

All I can say is that I am extremly happy that both the portrait and the radio came into my care.

She also brought down a nice solid wooden rocker that has been in my family for a couple of decades but other than my grandmother having knicked the hell out of it with her cane (of eternal doom) it really has no sentimental value to me.

Thirty-five has started out strong. Hell. Even my cold is going away.

We stopped by the recently-returned-from-Japan Mr. Evebird's abode this evening.

I can't wait to see more pictures and I'm all up for trying this crab some day. Between the thoughts of plastic crack goodness and the cuisine I just know I'd love Japan.

A cousin of mine lives there now but he's somebody I have absolutely zero relationship with so I can't exactly call him up and say "ummm... I'm flying to Japan on a crack run. Mind if I stay with you?" and so forth. Not that the current devalued US dollar allows me to buy much anymore. I can only image how bad it may be for Verena and Dieter who've spent the past 2 weeks back in Germany.

There's something special about actual plastic crack bought in Japan as a present so my new Lio Convoy is extra special.

And... he got me a Kit-Kat made with green tea! That will at least be a new experience.

My other fish died and I am not sure why.

I changed the water last night. I had conditioned the fresh water for over 24 hours. I did everything by the book so to speak.

It doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps these weren't the best bred fish in the world, being that they were destined to feed oscars and so forth. But I never had goldfish die like this. Never. They usually last about 3 years.

So I've managed to redo the site structure for this here "crack" site and my "non-crack" site.

I mean it really is all a pointless endeavor but what blogging isn't?

But so far the comment spam as disappeared due to all the changes. This of course is a good thing.

Now I just need to reimport all the previous months and years of entries.

I should filter all the crack stuff out and just import that back here.

Nah.

Too much work.

There's been quite a bit of crack added to the attic lately.

Some of it as gift given and some from ebay purchases.

A MIB Beast Machines Ultra Jetstorm and Takara Beast Wars Panther arrived. I find it funny that I can never seem to get the Hasbro Tripredicus Agent "Ravage" but I easily (and cheaply) got the Takara version. Doesn't matter though. At least that hole is filled.

Mr. E. bought me some awesome birthday presents while over in Japan.

It hit the shelves while he was there and he got me a Robot Masters #22 Lio Convoy. Man this figure has a beautiful sculpt for the small size. I'm tempted to open him to go with by Beast Convoy but you know me and imports. Plus, this isn't an "import" per se... this is a "purchased in Japan" figure so it is a bit more special.

He found me a Robot Mega PVC Megatron and Robot Mega PVC Starcream too. Really great additions. And the little Laserbeak that comes with Megatron is da bomb!!! Too bad they didn't release more of these posable Mega PVCs. A Shockwave, a Soundwave, and a Blaster would have been nice.

Knowing how much I love Car Robots, he ended up getting me a Car Robots X-Car too. And a Beast Wars Neo Bazooka.

Beautiful stuff. Thanks Mr. E!!!

Went to see the future home of Max Power today. It has a very 50's vibe going on but with a little work and renovation it could be turned into a groovy pad. The finished basement has a lot of potential and it'll be interesting to see what Mr and Mrs. Power do with it.

Chili is cooking too.

Mr. and Mrs. B. should be over soon. Food! Food! Food!

I bet you didn't know that today is Dyngus Day, one of the most important holidays in the world.

Yes. It is. Now go celebrate it.

I most definitely think that Brother Erik has taken what may just be his best photo ever.

I completely and utterly love the composition of this recent image. The horizontal lines (blinds?) serving as a partial mask to the people outside... the girl peering in... the old couple walking away... I just love this one!

Kudos to Brother Erik!

And while I mentioned that today was Dingus Day I failed to mention that the rain gods obviously are Polish too since Cowtown has been hammered for the past few hours with more rain than we've seen in ages. And no doubt it is all going right into my basement.

You know. That's one area where my knowledge is unfortunately lacking: pre-Christian Slavic mythology.

I have no idea of the indigenous religion of what would become the Polish people of modern times. Worship of Cathol is about 1039 years old in Poland and culminated in 1978 with the ascension of Karol Wojtyla to the throne of Cathol. Methinks I need to do some lengthy research for the sake of my own mental yearnings.

DavidK posted a link to PostSecret today.

As I scrolled down the images there's just something eerie about the whole thing.

Of course, it doesn't help that I actually relate to some of these people's secrets.

Well I certainly can't say that I'm thrilled that this year's Botcon is going to be in Frisco, Texas which is apparently north of Dallas.

Why they hell not just have it in the metropolitan area?

Now I don't know much about Dallas (other than Gary Ewing came from there) but perhaps the airport is out north.

At the moment airfare isn't cheap so I don't know if it is going to be worth going to or not.

Doesn't help that the thing has been moved from summer to late September when I'm usually in San Francisco either.

Trixter gave me some info on previous Master Collector conventions so I can't say I'm all that excited. But then again, we are talking something that is 6 months away.

Mr. E. had about as great a reaction ot the Texas news as I did.

Oh well.

Now I find all kinds of sites and images posted all around the web.

Every now and then you come across some image on the net that is just mind-bogglingly disturbing. (Even if you aren't quite sure "mind-bogglingly" is an actual word in English.)

It really is amazing what fear of death and death culture can do to humans. The whole Terri Schiavo case is bringing out the worst of fear and death culture. It is wonderful how self-centered these "culture of life" supporters are when it comes to this and abortion.

We have these christian groups wailing and praying that something has to be done to save this brain dead woman and keep her on life support the rest of her life and these same types of people had no problem with wanting to go in and bomb Iraq, or kill Muslims, or eliminate gays, and so forth.

These are the same people who say they are proud Americans and display their ichthus and magnetic banners but seem to have a problem with the actual law of this country as it applies here. Whining and bemoaning the fact that one of the Shrubs should do something merely proves the point that even in this horridly corrupt corporate culture and nation-state of ours there is still a legal system that remains intact. And this legal system has for 15 years continually done the correct thing in this case. In the last seven years, 19 judges have heard this case and all sided with Michael Schiavo. Accept the rule of law.

But of course, the law isn't that important to these people. These are the same people who have no problems with capital punishment, no problem with guns on the streets, and no problem with hundreds of thousands of non-white people across this planet being killed, enslaved, and every other horror that these wonderful 'Mericans don't have to actually face on a day to day basis.

And that's just it. If Terri Schiavo were a black woman, would all this craziness be happening? Somehow I just don't think so. These people wouldn't give a damn about her. If she were Asian we wouldn't have ever heard of her.

And the U.S. Congress... for shame. Turning a poor brain dead woman into a political issue is just about the lowest all you you dregs have stooped to. You really don't have any decency do you? You've invaded what little sanctity remains in what is a family issue that must be dealt with at the family level.

Having been a staunch Roman Catholic before my enlightenment, I don't understand this woman's parents other than that they fear so much. She isn't committing suicide. She'll get to her Catholic heaven. That is if you don't think of her self-induced bulimia, which caused the electrolyte problem, which caused the heart attack, which caused the brain death as a form of suicide. Cause and effect here.

I've read about this Michael Schiavo and I don't know what to believe or not believe about him. But I can understand after several years of this looking for a relationship elsewhere and also having children. But since the medical community managing Terri Schiavo doesn't seem to have declared her legally dead you really should have sought a legal divorce from her. It isn't like she was going to contest it.

But of course, my views on the bullshit of modern 'Merican marriage and divorce are widely known so none of your actions or the actions of anybody really matter.

The great struggle of our humanity lies in front of us. The storm is still coming. This is just another small wave signalling the coming of the typhoon.

Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation has been building up a Republican Dictionary over the past few months.

While I'm not always a fan of The Nation, I really can't disagree with the the definitions of terms that have been assembled. For example...

BI-PARTISANSHIP, n. When conservative Republicans work together with moderate Republicans to pass legislation Democrats hate.

FAITH, n. The stubborn belief that God approves of Republican moral values despite the preponderance of textual evidence to the contrary.

FAITH COMMUNITY, n. Evangelicals, because they are saved, and hawkish conservative Jews, because they are useful. Israel is the bait-on-the-hook just waiting for God to take that Rapturous bite.

FREEDOM, n. What Arabs want but can't achieve on their own without Western military intervention. It bears a striking resemblance to chaos.

MORAL VALUES, n. Hatred of homosexuals dressed up in Biblical language.

THE MEDIA, n. Immoral elitist liberally-biased traitors who should leave Republicans alone so they can complete God's work on Earth in peace and quiet, behind closed doors.

Hmm...

Methinks somethings afoot over at palochi.com.

Finally!!! Minerva is in the house!!! And so's Road Caesar and Fortress (I can't call him Cerebros anymore) too.

It took a helluva long time but they are mine.

I wish they'd make a Mega PVC of Minerva. She's a great design.

Hell... she should be a Binaltech figure too. I just think the name works perfectly for her.

Have mentioned that I proudly acquired 2 new fish?

Yes. I have. After the unexpected (and way too quick) demise of the other one a couple of days ago I figured I'd try again.

And so far these two guys are doing great.

Completely and utterly different from the previous ones. These guys are active and fishtastic. And they even eat too.

The other ones just never ate or seemed to attempt to eat.

Here's a crappy QuickTime movie of them. I never can find a happy medium for the shitty videos my ancient camera takes.

And I was shocked to find out tonight that Meijers of all places has aquarium stuff much much cheaper than the mega pet stores and even Jack's Aquarium & Pets. They also had this awesome 6 1/2 gallon long and low aquarium. This'd be perfect for the Attic since height is such a problem. Perhaps this'll be in my future. It most definitely is the right size I want to have. And I could even do guppies, swordtails, and many a few other smaller tropicals.

Now for the most part I think most of us hate having our picture taken.

When we do so in candid shots we typically try to act silly or stupid so as to distract from our appearance and make the viewer focus on the "dumb thing" we are doing.

God knows I do it all the time or basically threaten to kill the person taking the photo. But that's just me.

So the Honda S2000 was introduced into the Hasbro Alternator / Takara Binaltech line recently.

Takara's choice of original 80s character was Overdrive (link), a minor non-anime appearing toy-only figure that was a free mail-order figure.

The S2000 was a perfect "modern" vehicle for Overdrive. Hell, I'm happy Takara even though to acknowledge an obscure, non-show character like this.

Just as I thought everything was going well with these fish I come home today to find one of them stuck behind the filter.

Of course, he could barely breathe so I managed to get him out and thought he'd do ok since he seemed to be breathing again.

But no. He's dead.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

I really liked these fish to and thought they were doing fine.

So. That means in 48 hours the other one will be dead.

Great.

So we went to the Pung Mei Spring of China restaurant that was formerly a Ponderosa. They probably snagged the Ponderosa since all the old Taco Bells are now Gyro Shops and there aren't a whole lot of other vacant old restaurants around.

The food was good but I noticed something as we left.

We were given the "American" menu.

Just because we were the only 2 displaced white people of European descent doesn't mean we should be treated differently.

I was kind of dissappointed that the menu was so typical and then I looked at what the various Asians were eating and I can tell you most definitely that none of that food was on the menu we saw.

Abso-postively-fucking-lutely not on our menu.

Their meals looked so much better and diverse than our standard Chinerican food.

*sigh*