naladahc | tripping along the golden path

Yay! Snagged the Slammer piece to Metroplex. Now he's complete!

Holy shit!!!

The holiest of holiest holy grail Transformers for me is up on ebay with a Buy It Now of only $1,559.99.

Feel free to buy it for me as an birthday present.

*sigh*

One day... you will be mine.

So the attic is still not clean but I've made a major dent in it. There's a massive pile of stuff by the stairs to either be thrown out, Goodwill'd, or for the yard sale.

I keep going back through boxes and throwing more and more of this and that out but there's still entirely too much stuff.

And then there's still about 3 more large plastic bins of books that need to be removed and taken to Half Price Books to unload. Perhaps Trixter'd give me good dollars for my quality must-go books. Mr. G. did me good a while back and I got over $150 for all of the other stuff I sold last autumn.

Do I miss the books? Hard to say. So much of my Classical Greek, Meditteranean, Anthropological, and World War II education was in those books I rid myself of. I haven't had the need to go into any of them so I suppose you can't say I've missed them. Perhaps I'll be able to rid myself of even more soon.

And then... the comics must be sorted, documented, and sold or given away as needed.

I want them out of my existence.

I'll probably regret it years from now but they take up valuable volume in the attic.

Oh. And Chetler discovered the fish today for the first time.

Matt and I went over to the new Power Estate today in the westside of Cowtown. Various Power brothers were in town helping out.

Pat Power had cut a 4ft by 2ft hole in the wall and I was shocked to see that the elder Power was going to install a 55 gallon aquarium in the wall!!!

It is like aquarium-mania has totally crept into my life (and obviously his too!) You know you've officially reach middle age when you get hard at the thought of walking into and spending time at a Jack's Aquarium and Pets store. I know... pretty depressing isn't it?

I'd really like to have had the ability to put in a 20 gallon but I just don't think the attic of love could handle one that big. Hell, I'd need a stand too and that can run ya big bucks.

Personally I'm hoping he just plunges in and does a marine tank instead of freshwater. A reef environment would look, how does one say, utterly balls rock'n built into the wall. Hell, I can't wait to see what the whole thing will look like when the wall is all closed up and finished.

Makes me feel all inadequate with my little 7 gallon tank now.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy seems to have pushed into the positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps it isn't as bad as the the Douglas Adams fans want one to believe.

Of course, I'll have to wait for Kelly's review to know for sure.

So Apple released yet another version of the Mac operating system. Microsoft will be doing so next year with yet another Windows OS.

And all I have to say is that my conversion is complete.

Five years ago I would have cared about such things. These days? Meh.

I am now completely computer-apathetic. Yup. I'm officially in IT now.

There is no reason to care about computing platforms anymore.

All it has to do is get the job at hand done.

Bought some Actionmasters and assorted accessories from John at work today.

They make nice little statues but that's about it.

Heck, I think when it comes down to it I like the modern PVCs better than the Action Masters.

I dont' have an exact count but this may just take me to 1300 or pretty close.

Well my Takara chase PVC figures arrived yesterday.

Rodimus Convoy and Grimlock look so much better in their chase exclusive colors and plastics. I'm glad I got 'em but they cost me more than I normally pay.

And John, who I work with, unloaded some G1 Actionsmasters on me that I hadn't really thought about ever buying. Hell, if he hadn't brought them in I probably would never have ever purchased Actionmasters.

But, these have all brought the crack total up to 1291. Just 9 shy of 1300.

Somebody. Please medicate me.

So I didn't really do much of anything after I got home today. I've still got a ton of shit to clean in the attic and a ton of boxes to still sort.

Oh. And Chester decided to try and snag the Zebra Danios today. Of course it was a losing battle because the Danios are far smarter than Chester is. (And the acrylic wall tends to help too.)

In other news, I hit 1291 Transformers today.

Somebody. Please. Help me.

Happy 63rd Birthday Efjay!!!

Your son is blogging about you!

What's the difference between a priest and a zit?

I just had the best tasting Korean food I've ever had in my life and it took my 17 years to actually try the place.

Now the corner of High Street and Lane Avenue used to be one of the worst intersections in Cowtown. You couldn't even make left turns onto the streets it was so bad.

On the corner was a cycle shop and next to the shop, down a long dark and extremely scary walkway was this place called Korean Restaurant.

It was so far back down the dark walkway that nobody I knew would chance going there. It was that intimidating of a location.

But last year the city decided to redo the intersection and demolished the cycle shop and added a turning lane and basically made the long dark walkway the sidewalk now.

And there was Korean Restaurant in the bright light and it didn't look so scary anymore.

And 17 years later after I first peered down that long corridor I went in, accompanied by Mr. E., and ate what may well be the best Korean food I've ever had.

My hot & sour soup wasn't like anything a Chinese restaurant would serve at all. This was Korean all the way and hot hot hot hot!!! It was fantastic.

Unfortunately, the one dish I wanted (a beef, cucumber, and noodle dish) the couldn't make for some reason so I decided to get a udon noodle dish.

This was the best udon dish I've ever had!!! Better than any Japanese-style one I've tried.

And Mr. E's bulgoki? Hell, that was better than the other 6 places I've eat it at. It was tastier and had more stubstance than any other frigg'n bulgoki I've ever tried!!!

And it took me 17 years to go there!!! Argghhhhhhh!!!

This just goes to show you that you must not have any fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. You must face your fear. Permit it to pass over you and through you. And when it has gone past you will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only you will remain.

Warning: Eating kimchee for lunch and then having a bottle of chocolate milk is not advised.

The burps are not something to be experienced.

That is all.

Holy shit there was a lot of crack activity today!

Car Robots God Magnus arrived today.

And John from work, who's become quite the crack dealer to my addict supplied me with major panties wetting goodness today.

I bought his practically complete G1 Scorponok and he had a Micromaster Combiner Patrol I needed.

Woohoo!!!

And... um... I hit 1304 figures. I broke the 1300 mark!

Yeah. 1304 as of today.

Pretty fucking sick isn't it.

Here's a decent article in Fortune about Microsoft trying to play catch up to Google on a lot of fronts.

Hell. I'd probably go see some of these movies if they were ever made.

My aquarium has suffered its first casualty: small ghost shrimp is no more.

What's strange is he was there and alive when I was upstairs earlier and then I came up around 6 and there he was, dead at Starscream's feet.

He had been changing color lately going from translucent to more yellow and opaque.

Perhaps it was because of the ammonia spike I recorded earlier today. My water hardness seems to have gone up too. I'm assuming that it was minerals from the rocks leaching out over the past week or so.

The danios are crazier than ever too.

Hopefully this will all pass soon without any more death. I like these guys and I like large ghost shrimp too.

Yup. The cycle is full on now. Hopefully a stable aquarium will arrive soon.

I had nothing to do with this.

Police say the man was arrested for defacing this stain that some say shows an image of the Virgin Mary.

I mean. It ruins the enjoyment of watching hundreds of people praying to a concrete wall.

Just when I think I'm out...

They...pull me ... back in!

The best things about blog-centric web events such as the May 1st CSS Reboot is that losers like me can see really new and different designs and actually try to learn how these people did it by viewing their code.

That's the biggest problem I've had with complex CSS... figuring out how to do something correctly and gracefully.

So every now and then I putz around Am I Right and today I came across the funniest entry in regards to why a band got its name. In regards to The Backstreet Boys someone posted...

The band was disgusted by the state of society when Brian from the band came across a group in the back streets of New York who performed abortions on women who couldn't affort a professional clinic. They had been nicknamed the "back-street boys" and the band took this name as their own to make a statement that would shock the public and awaken them to the tragedy surrounding them in day to day life.

My health is pretty bad these days.

And Mr. E. sent me the link that read...

Although it is opening ending, OOS with the sufficient state of a main part would like you to offer a bid, after consenting to the point which has some damages in the box which is not.

Ok. Small Ghost Shrimp died yesterday and I came home today to find Large Ghost Shrimp dead.

So my standard copy of Master Collector came the other day.

Can someone tell me why I joined the Transformers Collectors Club again?

This Master Collector serves no purpose for me.

So Matt is off with A & J, Mrs. T., and lord knows who else at some concert.

I've spent the last couple of hours moving stone and rock into the truck for our final construction dump trip tomorrow morning.

Matt even removed the decaying built-in wooden shelf down in the wine cellar too so that can go.

I got a lot of the shit cleaned up. I mean, Matt did most of the work with the previous trips but now all that needs to be done is to detail remove the smaller bits, throw away the sticks and organic debris, rake really good to remove even more stone, and then we can go about prepping the ground with topsoil, manure, and sand for a garden.

But now I have to update Eric's tour info, find dinner, and then go beat off at Jack's and have them test my water to see if there's something I'm missing.

I can either work in the attic in my quest to continue cleaning it or I can go outside and weed and clean the front hosta beds and get fresh air and some sunlight.

You know. I think I may just go outside.

And... I'll take pictures for your Hosta Bed Of Love™ viewing enjoyment.

So I have to admit I was shocked.

Yesterday I pulled what I thought was the corpse of Large Ghost Shrimp from the tank and blamed the Danios for the murder.

Well guess what?

I came upstairs and freaked out because Large Ghost Shrimp is there just scavenging along!!!!

Yup!!! He molted and then hid out while his new shell hardened. I honestly didn't see him anywhere at all... and I even removed and rearranged some rock too!!!

Insane!!!

So Large Ghost Shrimp is alive and kicking and just got bigger. I apparently removed his old shell and thought that since it was cracked open the Danios ate the innards.

I am such a doy.

And in case you want confirmation, here's a blurry image for proof!

To say that my entire body is utterly in pain would be an understatement. Yesterday's crawling around on my knees, digging up old edging, replanting hostas, and all around lack of decent health really contributed to a very bad day today. (before pic)

My wrists are killing me too. I can handle the other pain but the wrists I can't tolerate hurting.

But 46% of the front landscaping is done. I don't think I'd be able to get out of bed tomorrow if I tried to dig up the other side.

Matt has been filling in around the hostas with impatiens. I've pretty much just become the hosta man so the yard is Matt's to do with as he pleases. Well... I do want to plant some vegetables and herbs.

I did manage to clean my car out and take it to one of those self-wash places. And damn, that made my wrists even hurt more.

And Nalamom wasn't home so she got an answering machine message for Mother's Day.

Oh. And A & K B. came over for dinner last night. That was quite enjoyable since I hadn't seen them for some time and small dinners are nice every now and then.

Ok. I'm done.

That was my life this weekend.

Well, except I also went to breakfast yesterday with The Picketts and Max Power.

Ok.

Now I'm done.

The worst thing about flipping through channels at 7:30am on a Sunday is that one occasionally stops of films and ends up wasting hours watching movies.

Case in point: Bulletproof Monk.

I love Chow Yun-Fat. I despise Seann William Scott. The Seann William Scott-factor was enough to keep me away for 2 years. (He and Ashton Kutcher are two of the worst buzz kills in the world.) But anyway. I actually liked this film despite of his having a lead.

Chow Yun-Fat delivers a great performance as the Monk With No Name and Scott actually doesn't want to make me turn off the tv.

Plus the bad guys are Nazis. And not just your typical evil 1943 era Nazi but there's also super hot Victoria Smurfit as an evil grandaughter of original 1943 Nazi. Nazis always make the best villains. (And all I gotta say is there somehow better be Nazis in this film or it'll suck balls like the 2nd one.)

Chow Yun-Fat just simply rocks in everything he's in. Perhaps Hollywood should have released Chow Yun-Fat's Elektra and it'd have done good box office.

The biggest problem was with the film was Jaime King as Jade, an completely implausible character. To throw in the secretive Tibetan-speaking, martial arts knowing, rich with weapons, daughter of a Russian mafia boss just kind of went a bit over the top.

But Mako was in it. And Mako always rocks!

Overall, Bulletproof Monk is pretty much a fun Sunday morning laying in bed movie. It could have really been great but they obviously didn't want it to be since they cast Scott in it.

Charles Schulz should have went in this direction once or twice.

Ya know, I do regret nowing having seen the Retarded Rosie O'Donnell tv movie.

It truly had to be one of the finest moments in television.

I don't know why but C.S. Lewis was just not part of my childhood at all.

I have zero knowledge of the content of these stories. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

Anyway, the trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe film is up.

It looks very much "Ringsish" but that's no doubt due to WETA being the provider of fx.

So. Is this story any good?

I see that C.S. Lewis was really Christian guy and the books are heavily Christian which for me is kind of like kryptonite is to Superman.

Because I have nothing better to do at the moment...

So Nala started at his new gym today. I got around 45 minutes in on cardio equipment which for me is actually a major feat considering my lack of cartilage in my right knee. And the left knee isn't far behind either.

The problem with the right knee started when I was 12 after playing football for a year. I developed Osteochondritis Dissecans and it has been with me for 23 years now. A few years back it started in my left knee too.

While I don't blame it for my more or less sedentary lifestyle it definitely has contributed to the mental problems I have with exercise since I have to deal with the pain directly or through anti-inflammatories. Pain sucks balls. (Unless you are into that kind of thing.)

So the next couple of weeks will be devoted to treadmill walking and stationary biking, trying to build up a range of motion in my knees, stretching the ligaments, and overall trying to get some gut feeling that I can feel comfortable working my legs/knees with weights.

I've had 4 surgeries on my knee over the past 23 years but this problem really never has gone away. About 2 years ago I had x-rays done of my knees again and while it had progressed in my right leg there wasn't enough damage to warrant a "cleaning out" surgery to remove bone and cartilage fragments. At the time my left knee started showing signs but nothing like the right one. No doubt my lack of exercise and maintenance of the problem over the decades has made that worse too.

Oh well. All I can do is try to correct that by changing my life now.

Hopefully I'll have the personal strength to see this through and not slack off like previous attempts to change my life.

Oh. And I'm on day 51 without a cigarette. Now that has been a challenge but I'm surprised how well I'm doing with resisting the urges to smoke.

Got up at 5am.

The Hoont demanded to drop poopies so I let him out only to have him immediately come back in due to the rain.

I decided to let him out front since he will always go out to the places he's normally not allowed.

He finally blessed the world with a bowel movement so I could get going.

Got to the gym around 5:40.

So my tank component to Metroplex's Slammer arrived yesterday. This was the only piece I was missing so now I've got a complete beautiful Metroplex.

Yeah. I know. Exciting isn't it.

And I still don't have the Attic of Love cleaned yet. Total disaster.

Need to get the A/C installed to since the past few days have finally seen the weather change enough to make it a bit hot upstairs. The fish though haven't been affected.

$500 for a Korean Brave Maximus is insane. Totally insane. The Japanese Brave Max comes with accessories and so much more that I might go $300 on that one. But $500??? Hell, I only paid $108 for mine.

This is the ugliest knock-off I've ever seen. It sure as hell isn't Galaxy Shuttle nor is it (lion) Voltron but some horrid Chinese bastardization of the two. Man the Chinese start these knock-offs and they just keep getting uglier.

I am very wet for this Deszarus.

Anybody using Mac OS X 10.4 in a multi-platform Enterprise environment with any success?

Seems like all I've been reading are horror stories of bad connectivity and big time SCSI issues with this OS.

No doubt stand alone users are more or less fine but this thing doesn't seem ready for any form of deployment in a mixed environment.

I think I'm going to complete my great masterpiece, the gay German pr0n movie Hans Hot First.

For those that understand this, you will note what a triumph it will be.

Ok. It is time to admit it.

Here's the real reason I left Toledo, OH all those many years ago for the Central Cowlands.

Yes. It was a premonition that the Toledo Blade would do something like this 17 years in the future.

And even then I couldn't escape geekdom. Look at me now!!! Arghhhhh!!!

Since I'm bored (again)...

Extremely life altering major changes afoot on the Nala-Giga front.

Can't go into it right now.

Will hopefully explain more later.

Ok. The further acquistion of Transformers is now offically on hiatus.

Yup. There are more important real life matters to deal with at the moment.

However, I will no doubt be trying to sell off large parts, if not all, of my Armada and Energon runs with some Beast Wars and Robots In Disguise stuff thrown in too. Maybe some G1 as well.

I'll post to let you know.

So last night, after several months of contemplation, an event happened that more or less cemented in my mind that it was time to say goodbye to the House of Love III.

Next month will be 2 years since I bought the house and as time has gone on I realize that some of my decision-making regarding buying this house was seriously flawed.

The main problem is that I settled for a neighborhood that was less than ideal for what I want or need.

And that has come to bite me in the ass bigtime.

When we moved into the House in June 2003 the person that owned the duplex to the east lived there and a woman, while old, lived to the west.

Within 5 months the guy sold the duplex to a rental agency and we began the fun and excitement of living next to college drunk frat boys. (And I'm not talking about the current drunk frat boys either.) Hell, their trash from Michigan Game day (which was in November) is still next to their front porch! The 2 female vet students that lived there were ok.

Now the old lady to the west has had the emergency squad out once or twice. My suspicions of her decline were confirmed when I noticed that she didn't drive much anymore.

Then a mysterious girl moved in and I've watched her progressing pregnancy and it all started coming together. A grandaughter that got knocked up and she's living there now "help" out. I sorta pieced more of this from conversations I've overheard and so forth.

Well 'lo and behold, what appeared to be the tattoed white trash baby daddy started hanging around and now has moved in.

I started to worry in February since I realized the even though white trash baby daddy lived there now he never bothered to shovel the snow or do anything around the house.

Now that spring is here the other neighbor, who's probably pushing his late 60s, is still cutting her grass, trimming, and weeding.

No sign of white trash baby daddy helping out.

It has slowly been brewing in me that I'm defintely not happy in this neighborhood and I was seduced my the actual house (the 50th I looked at) and just settled on it. This was wrong.

You can remodel to your heart's content and raise a privacy fence 10 feet high but you can't change the fundamental neighborhood. (You can take the crack whore out of the Tenderloin but you can't take the Tenderloin out of the crack whore so to speak.)

A lot of this discontent has been brewing in my head for months and last night, when Giga asked them to quiet down a bit, the prophetic truth of how the future would fold out became apparent.

The obligatory white trash hate slurs were thrown at Giga and a thinly veiled threat of "if you call the cops we'll just make it worse" which when spoken by members of this oh so beautiful class of society holds different meaning than if I or the majority of other people would say it.

It was then, last night, as the story was being related to me that I knew the moment was right to truly stop investing any more money into this property, prep it for sale, and get out of this neighborhood. Nothing will change here. It will only get worse. I've known this since I bought the place but I lacked mindfulness and allowed myself to be clouded to it.

I managed to get a hold of my realtor and she took the time to give the house an overview today and tell me what should be the priority for sale. A lot of things I wanted to do she said aren't worth it at all and that the property is still better than most in the area as-is. (She lived around here until just recently and she also sold the House of Love the previous 3 times.)

So today has been a time for evaluating priorities. I took off work and have more or less spent the day thinking about what has to happen. Hell... I even got an hour at the gym in too and took my frustrations out on the cycle there.

So we have several goals for the next 6-8 weeks. Thankfully we've got a the huge Victorian Village yard sale in a few weeks and Ms. A. is allowing us to use her porch and yard to dispose of stuff. I need to find a contractor/handy man to finish the shitty paint job I did on the back windows and to redo the porch. And Giga and I need to finish the drywall ceiling and wall repairs in the back bed room.

Lotsa cleaning and disposal of our stuff will also have to occur prior to showing but with any luck, this house will sell fast. It has the past 2 times.

The sad part is that if I only had waited and found a place 5 blocks north of here I'd have been totally happy.

Location. It is everything.

This is a lesson I should have but failed to learn from my mother. Thank god I am following it now.

You'd think that this was a spontaneous overnight decision. In fact, it has been really brewing in me for some time now.

There's nothing special about this place. It is just another object.

I envy those of you who have the ability to easily break attachments to places and things.

Kudos go out to Max Power for finally getting a Typekey account to comment with.

I heart him. He's such a sweetie.

Now I must go wash my fingers in bleach for having typed that.

Ok. Now with yesterday done and things slowly on the move and my ass in gear to find a new house I can return to more mundane blogging.

Hell, I'd even say "ultramundane" but well we all know that is taken.

So we went to see The Letter: An American Town and the 'Somali Invasion' 2 nights ago at The Wexner Center. Pretty much your run of the mill documentary about racism.

What I don't get about this whole issue in Maine is that locals are giving time to people's opinions who don't even live in Lewiston, Maine!!! If you do not live in or contribute to the community that is in question your opinions are pretty much irrelevant. Get the fuck out!

Want to know something utterly amazing? I actually have gone to the gym 5 straight days in a row. A sign of the apocalypse anyone?

Oh. And what the fuck is up with Dave Chappelle these days? Damn!

Now I've been pretty bored with the Batman character for years.

Since 1986 he's pretty much devolved into nothing more than an Grade A Asshole character and while mildly fresh in 86, it has gotten old and stale for me 19 years later.

But the new Batman Begins film looks to be the best interpretation on film ever. And I gotta say the trailer (click on the far right one) from the Warner Brothers UK site is probably the most satisfying one so far.

I definitely think they may have nailed this one.

Oh. And I saw most of this yesterday. My god did it suck balls. And it even had Pierce Lawton from Snots Landing in it. You know that Snots is the most perfect television series ever, right? And since we wrapped up Season 14's repeats a couple of months back I barely watch television anymore. Funny. Ain't it?

And then I read...

The premiere also drew "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer, who said he interviewed for the role of Han Solo in the first "Star Wars" film but didn't get it.

The whole fucking world knows he didn't get it!

They fucking destroyed... (spoiler)

And then she said... "Brandon Tartikoff cleaved Ted Danson's forehead with an ax, and Kelsey Grammer sprang forth."

But what is actually more interesting is the fact that the ceiling in the back bedroom will more than likely get mudded and sealed this weekend thanks to a friend of der Giga.

And while they are working up there I will be turning the Dining Room of Love into a staging area of the big yard sale coming up.

The plan is basically to dump as many things as possible at the yard sale, work on the house a bit each day, store the majority of items that we are keeping at one of those Storage Places Of Love, and then have a house that is more or less spartan, clean, free of miscellaneous stuff, and ready to move at a moments notice.

It is kind of funny.

The search for the current House of Love III wasn't all that exciting.

But over the past few days I've completely discovered a new found excitement at the prospect of thinning our lives of crap (which we should have done 2 years ago) and really going out and looking for a place that meets my needs and desires.

You know what sucks more balls than Star Trek: Enterprise?

Knowing that I'm going to watch tonight's season finale because Riker and Troi are in it.

Now that sucks the mega balls nasty!

UPDATE: And then I found this review that said...

We started this season with Alien Nazis and we now finish off the entire series with an episode which could have been better written by Hitler in the Bunker in the closing days of World War II while he was pumped full of psychotropic drugs and dreaming of new super weapons which would turn around the course of the war.... this episode ranks down there amongst the dregs of this series as a whole.

And The Brain is on Al Franken Show right now! How cool is that! Of course, he's talking about John Bolton and his own plans at world domination. But he is The Brain!

Super mega apologies to Skipford! I am so sorry to have put you through Sawmill Road drama.

So Giger's with Jalex at Lowe's getting supplies to finish the drywall. I'm up in the attic on the computer wasting time (but enjoying not having had to get up at 5am today). The fish are doing well. #6 gets a water change today and the tank gets a topping off and a water quality check. I may add 2 corys too later this afternoon.

I putzed around this morning and finally watched 1979's Being There, a strange but excellent film with Peter Sellers. It did move pretty slow though. Too slow for 2005 standards most assuredly. It reminded me though that I need to see I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! again. The video is somewhere around here.

Rain in the Cowlands will prevent yard work, as Mr. E. discovered last night. I was going to mow the lawn when I got home yesterday. I should have mowed the lawn when I got home yesterday. Oh well. My fault. I suck balls.

Last night's final episode of Enterprise reminded me of why I stopped watching this horror several years ago. I swear watching Star Trek is like chewing on broken glass. The franchise is just totally shit and can now rest for 10 years, a new group creators can come at it fresh then, and perhaps they can revive it in a fashion that doesn't smell like Hensley three hours after he's eaten. It was practically unwatchable. (NOTE: Watch Battlestar Galactica!)

Oh. And kudos to The Absorbascon and Dial B for Blog making me remember the fun silliness of DC Comic's Silver Age. The current Rann-Thanagar War series has let these guys totally dig into the depths of the 60s and pull out some artistic gems. Really though. I've been a Hawk fan more than a Rann fan. But it won't matter because the next Secret Crisis on Infinite Wars will reboot everything anyway.

To say that Only Remaining Ghost Shrimp is perturbed now due to the addition of 2 corys and one mystery snail is an understatement.

If this small arthropod could have spoken English he most definitely would have said "What the fuck is up with these 3 on my gravel?!?!?!".

Yes. He is that pissed off.

So I bought 11 new 18 gallon plastic bins to start packing up the Transformers. Not that 11 of them could possibly hold the 1321 of them that currently reside upstairs.

The TFUniverse and Robot Masters are slowly getting packed up and the beauty of Micromasters is they fit oh so nicely into zip lock baggies. They should have used that as a gimmick back in 1990. "Micromasters... More... Much more... than fits in the baggie!"

My goal for tomorrow is to get the RM wall packed up and move yard sale stuff to the dining room. I need to move my yard sale shit in the basement to the living room too.

And the 2 Corys C1 and C2 are doing well. I still think Only Remaining Ghost Shrimp is still pissed.

Nice cool 60 degree Cowtown weather today.

Had an excellent Club Samich at the German Village Kaffe Haus this morning and we also drove through some parts of Clintonville we've never looked at.

There are entire homes deep in the one ravine on Midgard/Walhalla (interesting theme there no?) that I did not believe existed. When you drive down on Midgard you are feel like you are deep in a woods away from the city. It is so trippy. And of course it is $200,000 more than the houses not near the ravine. I wish we'd have won that big old lottery the other week. I'd have found the peace and quiet that I seek in a house a few blocks north. Oh well.

Got the yard mowed. Did a shitty job on it. Don't really care.

I won't be able to make The 2nd Cousin Once Removed's 1st birthday party next week but I have to decide what path for a gift I'm going to make.

I need to get her something that no other person in existence would possibly get her.

I'm thinking Kid Robot can help.

I rewatched The Phantom Menace last night for the first time in years.

I really and honestly forgot how godawfully bad Jar-Jar Binks is.

He really is an abomination.

Would you believe I actually lost 3 pounds?

I wouldn't have thought so but I actually did lose 3 pounds. That's like bizarre as hell because I haven't changed my horrendous diet one bit. All I've done is do 45 minutes or so of cardio a day for 7 days or so. Trippy!

Anyway. Got a bit done around the house but most of that was laundry. I want to get all of my winter sweaters washed and packed away so I can cross that off the Checklist of Love™.

All kinds of visitors last night. The Vee stopped by last night. So did Mr. E. and his double-x E-ling.

Oh. And Brother Erik is making me miss San Francisco fog big time with this pic. *sigh*

I have no idea what kind of money will be around come later this year for either my standard vacation to San Francisco or even the Botcon in Dallas. I really need a dose of Donley-Doran about now. Hell... I need a dose of New York City Patterson too. I still want to plan that roadtrip to Nathan's Famous out at Coney Island. Planning a trip around eating a hot dog from a specific place is kind of bizarre but I sooooo badly want to do this. I also want to make a day trip to the Dirty O in Pittsburgh soon. Giger can shop at Ikea and I can eat hot dogs. What a wonderful event that will be.

Yes. PBS reran The Hot Dog Program the other night and I swear I love watching this every few years. Of course, I never have gotten to any of the places listed. But I can dream can't I? (Scratch that. My favorite mustard is Stadium from up in Cleveburg. Yum.... droool...)

I mean, what better "nightmare" could possibly piss off a vegetarian more than a guy who dreams of travelling around the country trying local variations on hot dogs.

S'funny. I start blogging about losing a few pounds and this lame entry devolves into the thought of consuming hot dogs. Wow. Cool. Droool...

Maybe I can convince Mr. and Mrs. B. to drive down to their home state and take me to The Varsity before I die.

Awesomely cool stop motion TF animations. This guy's great!

This one great!

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on Energon Prime too.

So that's what happened to Dave Chappelle.

Oh. And How Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Galactica killed broadcast TV is a pretty good read.

And NASA will delay two ambitious missions to search for extrasolar planets in order to fund a shuttle mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. This is extremely good news.

From The Motley Fool...

According to a recent article on Globeandmail.com, outplacement consultant Challenger Gray & Christmas estimates that the overwhelming desire to see the last Star Wars episode will cost the U.S. economy $627 million in productivity. If you add in the value of lost work from the previous two outings, then you have a number in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion.

What's the plans for seeing this? Times, meeting places, so forth.

Indeed...

I liked the way Keane explored the Waco, Tx incident with the riveting novel. The book explores how a typical family, the Family Circus family, get involved with cults. We also see how David Koresh uses Daddy as a top officer in his strange dealings with the FBI and ATF. Bizzar sexual situations are also explored here. On the day the Feds storm the compound, we fortunately see our favorite family escape the fire and head back to their normal lives--that of being Amway salespeople on the west coast.

Immediately, the reader is taken aback by Keane's denial of the Holocaust. Truly, Bil's ignorance over the tragedy had no effect on his wit, for this collection is MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME. Bil crafts his characters the way a master craftsman crafts his crafts. I was floored (LITERALLY!!!) when I read the panel with Billy smacking his hot Mom with the caption "I said NOW!" The character 'NOW' is used here quite well, since he was on the dish hot Mom was serving. Seeing Billy eating his imaginary friend was quite disturbing at first, but, as the pages turned, I grew increasingly endeared to the tortured souls. They represented the self-destruction of all of our childhoods, and in the end, that is what this collection is about. Getting over being a stupid little kid. Bil Keane is God.

So the "Lot That I Accidentally Bid On Even Though I Own Every Single Bot Even Multiple Times" arrived today.

And with this, all outstanding ebay transactions are done.

I even sent out my old Scorponok to a new home in New Zealand today.

Spreading the love... one ebay auction at a time.

Hmmm... I installed a bunch of Microsoft Windows update patches last night.

Of course, the only thing that runs horribly and is constantly crashing now is Firefox 1.0.4.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Everybody knows that Powergirl can kick this current mega-lame Supergirl's ass, unlike what is implied on this lame-ass cover.

This Supergirl is so fucking lame!!!

For every interesting thing DC does they retread 100 other lame things.

Supergirl was wiped out of continuity 20 years ago. She was reinvisioned quite differently by Peter David and at least wasn't the lame old derivative character she'd been since the 1950s.

But this Michael Turner drawn Supergirl? Lame!!!

Powergirl has been and always will be a more original derivative. Powergirl... as we say at naladahc.com... rocks the balls!!! I mean look at her done in a "50s pin up" sketch! And Adam Hughes' sketch is pretty good too.

For some horrible reason my renewed interest in Power Girl today had me looking back through time at Supergirl herself.

Now while I can read and enjoy the pulp-influenced simplicity of the comics from the Golden Age (1939-1949) or so I have a real hard time with most Silver Age books from the 50s and 60s.

I came across the the 1st Supergirl appearance on the web today from Action Comics #252 and my god does my head hurt after reading it.

So an entire city miraculously surives the destruction of the planet Krypton *cough* *bullshit* *cough* and this city just happens to have Jor-El's brilliant brother Zor-El in it and the spawn of his loins Kara.

With the final *thank god* and imminent demise of Argo City, Kara is rocked to Earth dressed in Superman's costume.

They quickly meet and he immediately packs her off to an fucking orphanage *what a dick* where she's given the shittiest fucking room possible.

Of course she picks a name with L.L. initials too!!!

My god she sucked horribly from day one!!!

Now Power Girl? Ah... what greatness you had.

Her rocket and Kal-L's rocket both left Krypton in 1917. His of course immediately found its way to Earth and he was raised by the Kents and fought in World War II and kicked Nazi ass and had many other original adventures.

Kara Zor-L's ship took an indirect route to Earth and she didn't end up arriving until 1976.

Whe she did pop out of her ship, she was in her 20s, had been educated in transit by computers, and had a chip on her shoulder of several tons.

She kicked ass first and took names second.

She wasn't bogged down by any of the crap that Linda-frigg'n-Lee was during the 60s and horrible costumes of the 70s.

Hell... Power Girl didn't even take the name Supergirl!!! She took an entirely new and different name.

She kicked so much ass that few writers knew quite what to do with her.

Of course, 1985 came and it all went to hell for her. It has taken 20 years to set things right and hopefully Geoff Johns will do so in the next coming issues of JSA that deal with who she really is.

Power Girl... you rock. Supergirl. You were much better dead.

In the house above the world, the over-people sit.

There is a man with wings like a bird.

There is a man whose eyes can see through the planet, and whose fists can wring diamonds from its anthracite.

There is a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues.

In the house above the world, the over-people sit.

And watch.

- Saga of the Swamp Thing #24 (1984), Alan Moore

Man oh man I've just been on a Silver Age comics bender today.

Want to wash your eyes out with bleach again?

Quickly read the The Super-Dog from Krypton story from 1955's Adventure Comics #210.

Now I'm a huge fan of this silly little white dog with the red cape. There's just something cool about the fact that he's totally invulnerable and as long as he doesn't have any thought balloons I'll always like a Krypto story.

But man oh man there's just too many inconsistencies of logic in that origin story but some favorites are...

• Lana's comment about the ladder. Why would a rural farm girl from Kansas... in 1955 for that matter... know about magnesium ladders?
• Lana's accusation about Clark being Superboy. I mean she didn't even see him throw the girder in the previous page. I think Clark's total lack of concern for where the girder might land (at hundreds of miles an hour) is also of merit.
• What the fuck is up with these robbers trying to shoot a poor stray mutt with bullets??? And what the hell kind of money do they think they are going to get from the damn Kent general store??? Also note Krypto chewing on the gun.
• Because here that idiot Superboy thinks mere bones will entertain the frigg'n dog!!!

*sigh* At least this version of Superboy hasn't been regurgitated by writers with a total lack of creativity and original thought. Sure his erasure from continuity phrocked up the Legion of Super-Heroes to some degree but man... he sucked soooooo badly. Mind you, I was only a fan of the LSH during the 80s until the Zero Hour reboot. They've bordered on balls-suckitude since 1995. (S'funny... I only started reading LSH after that loser Superboy leaves the book and never really returns. I must have hated him that much even back then.)

Man oh man have I been overindulging my old DC Comics fetish these past few days.

I firmly lay the blame on The Absorbascon and Dial B For Blog for making me at least find humor in comic books again. Even for the shallowest reasons.
Seven Hells and Snark Free Happy Joy Comic Blog have helped too.

Then again, there's not a whole lotta wasted time on modern comics on any of these sites.

And that's because modern comics suck incredible amounts of balls.

Of course, you knew this already.

Did you know that all show-appearing Beast Wars characters plus 2 G2 Megatrons can fit into an 18 gallon bin? Yup. With room to spare.

Now Giger was just watching one of those "How To Sell" shows on a Miscellaneous Home Improvement Network and the house they were prepping to sell was owned by a toy collector.

Upon entering the place the woman who's in charge of getting the house ready immediately demanded that he remove his toy collection of DC Direct figures.

Well doy! To the non-collector/fan toys are merely clutter and a waste of space.

That's why Nala's already got most of the Robot Masters/TFU shelves down and binned.

Of course I'm going to need a helluva lot more bins.

Oh my god I don't know if I can live without this!!!

Bwahahaha...

The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

The spice must flow?

So Mr. B. was apparently at the midnight showing of Revenge of The Sith and if my sources are accurate, he's got 3 other showings he's going to today.

I told Giger we should call him 10 minutes before each showing and say "*cough* Loser *cough*" and he'd laugh and we'd laugh and then'd he'd laugh and then we'd laugh.

*cough* Loser *cough*

I came across a link to a short film called How To Do The Asian Squat over on LYD.

Not only is it fantastic short film, I was totally shocked to see that it stars and is narrated by Michael McConnohie, the great voice actor who was Tracks back in the 80s Transformer cartoons. I love the way the many Asian contributions to the world is done. Good stuff.

Alas, I don't have enough cartilidge left in my knees to do the Asian squat.

And another link from LYD was regarding the fact that the word "ginormous" tops non-dictionary word list.

You'll also find it useful to know that the Autobot Jazz used the word ginormous to describe Unicron way back in 1986 in Transformers: The Movie.

And know that you know that, your life is that much closer to being fulfilling.

You see...

New Fantastic Four trailer is up.

Johnny Storm is ok.

The rest?

Meh.

I think this is gonna bomb.

Fuck!!!

Steam Boy is playing at Drexel East and I didn't know it.

Steam Boy is by Katsuhiro Ôtomo of Akira fame.

I have to see it in the theatre!!!

So... ST:RoTS on Friday and I am going to see Steam Boy on Saturday too.

Eww! The new Netscape 8.0, regardless of being built out of Firefox code, is ugly as sin.

There may be some developer benefit to being able to switch between Mozilla and Internet Explorer rendering engines within one application but I can't see any reason to use this.

Hell. Firefox and Mozilla do just fine. Did we need yet another variation?

You'd have thought that $60 would have bought more than 15 plastic storage bins at the Big Lot but nope. It didn't. Sure I probably could have gotten 17 at WMart for that same $60 but I really didn't want to drive all the way out to the boondocks to go to the much despised and hated WMart.

Hopefully these 15 bins will allow me to pack up the remaining plastic crack. I know the loose stuff will fit but the mint-in-box crap takes up so much wasted space. There's a few things I'm even going to open just for the sake of saving space. (Frowny... hopefully I'll know what I can get rid of in a couple of days!)

Gotta perform the water changes on #6's bowl and the aquarium tonight too. I've got about 4 gallons of treated water adjusting to room temperature. My afternoon once I leave the Job Of Love™ will be fishtastic!!!

Speaking of fishtastic, I added a tiny pleco and a small Mangrove Crab. I'd imagine the pleco will get too big within the next 2 years so perhaps I'll have to donate him someday to the Max Power 55 Gallon Love Water Fest™ way over on the West Side. The crab shouldn't get too much bigger. Hell, maybe I'll have a 10-20 gallon tank by then so who knows about the pleco.

I got him because I'm having a slight thread algae bloom. Not on the actual tank mind you but growing on the plants. This is normal of course but it is really unappealing.

Oh well. If fish or invertabrate dies tomorrow I'll know things went well.

Fark Photoshop Contest:Today's Iron Photoshop ingredient: Ewoks.

Damn some of these are great!

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

And in other news, this is the best yearbook story in years. Well... since this one at least.

Ok. Number Six has been moved from his vertical 1.5 gallon tankish thing to Giger's old 2 gallon aquarium. This'll at least give him more horizontal space.

He doesn't really do well with the filter/water changes. I hesitated to do it but his filter's floss was clogged and no doubt the carbon was used up even though the water was pretty clean.

And his cohabitating Snail (#1) has been behaving very strangely, barely out of his shell and not moving. I even had to move him to other parts of the tank just to see if he was in a different position by the following morning. He's not dead. That much is certain. He's just not all snaily like he was. I figured it was attributable to the water needing a cleaning but god knows what it could be.

Perhaps I should get some of the algae wafer food and drop that in. Perhaps Number Six was just eating everything and nothing was getting to him.

Now I also did about a 20% water change in the full aquarium and also removed the plants and scrubbed the thread algae off of them. I added a few more rock cavelettes so hopefully the crab, Remaing Ghost Shrimp, and the pleco won't fight over them. I need to get a replacement carbon/floss cartridge. Of course, since it was a Meijer's kit it doesn't seem like Whispers may fit. I hope they do. God I don't want to buy a new filter. Not a big deal. But I don't want to put more dinero in this tank right now.

Remaining Ghost Shrimp is no longer remaining.

Long live Ghost Shrimp!

I don't know why but I just think this is so funny.

There's all kinds of hullaballoo about a Brit tabloid publishing these but does it matter? Does it really fucking matter?

You've got the destruction of a republic going on here that doesn't involve the Sith and people are more concerned about a 3rd tier minor despot that the U.S. created in the first place in a picture in his skivvies?

Ugh!

It is the same as all this shit about supposed desecration of the Koran by various US troops? I mean the dreg leaders have called for investigations and so forth and that Newsweek should be reprimanded but not a single fucking dreg was reprimanded or fired for the utter complete failure of dregitude in the destruction of the World Trade Center. The entire culture of Homo sapiens sapiens is about avoiding responsibility and getting away with as much rape and destruction as possible.

It doesn't fucking matter.

Nothing does.

Sure several billion dollars of money "spent" for the US Iraqi reconstruction is missing.

It doesn't fucking matter.

US school children have the worst education of the developed world and yet billions of dollars are spent elsewhere.

It doesn't fucking matter.

George Lucas can't write a script for shit and yet Episode III takes in $16 million dollars at the first midnight showing.

It doesn't fucking matter.

The current Christian concept of the rapture didn't exist until the mid-1800s and these people can't fathom that "end times" have been predicted and not come to pass constantly for the past 3000 years.

It doesn't fucking matter.

Nothing fucking matters.

And until people realize that life is really about getting raped and fucked and fucking over other people and finding ways to accumulate shit and try to keep your shit from getting stolen and keep yourself from getting fucked over nothing will change.

And it Saddam Hussein in his underwear gets plastered all over the media then it doesn't matter either.

Ok. So I've come to truly realize that nothing matters anymore.

And this is especially true in the realm of Transformers for me.

The club exclusive figure expected to ship at the end of May. Oh goody. My $40 repainted Energon basic exclusive will be coming. I can barely contain my excitement. I'm pretty sure that joing this "club" was the biggest waste of $40 I've spent in 2005.

---

IDW Publishing obtains the Transformers comic license. Yet another big fucking deal.

Practically every company that licenses stuff from Hasbro ends up failing. And the major reason is not because it is Transformers-related but that it is collector and bad business set-up related.

Dreamwave fucked up the TF license by having horrible business practices and putting out product that collectors really didn't want. I mean a Micromasters series that was practically unreadable about characters no fan knows??? What the fuck?

And not paying your creative talent didn't help.

It also didn't help that there was zero advertising and marketing for the Dreamwave product outside of comic shops. This of course is a comics industry problem more that only hurts everybody in the business.

And did they have to reprint the same issues over and over with different fucking covers??? This is what killed comics in the early 90s. Don't you fucking people learn??? Ever??? History is history. It is what happened! (Of course, a lot of dregs like to try and alter history and/or disregard any lesson that it teaches.)

---

And now that 1/2 of my collection is packed up I realize that I've really wasted a lot of money on an absolutely useless hobby. Totally and utterly useless. Boxes upon boxes of toys that serve no purpose other than for me to say "I have this!" or "I managed to get that!".

What the fuck is wrong with me???

I am not just a retard I should be known as the Retard!

I came across this over at The Cosmic Treadmill today and in light of my recent post on my returning cigarette cravings I had to post it.

Who the hell does she think she is? Paulette Breen is a whore! She's never enjoyed a fine cancer-causing nicotine-filled cigarette with a cup of Kenya AA. This much I do know.

Man. It was a moderately passable action film for about 2 hours.

Yeah the dialogue sucked. And the acting was mediocre at best.

But nothing could have prepared me for the last 15 minutes when it just nose dive-bombed into laughable pablum.

(spoilers ahead maybe)

I putzed around and posted some new pictures of the Aquariums of Love™ over at Flickr.

Hell. If you are bored and so inclined you can visit my Attic of Love™ pack up set where I'll document all of the mess that is having 1300+ Transformers and other miscellaneous shit.

I've been giving a lot of thought to not fucking up the House of Love IV purchase and the risk of settling on somethings that I'm nothing happy with, much like I did with the current House of Love III.

The future house's major required specs should be:

• At least 1 mile from OSU campus, preferably Clintonville, Harrison West, or Beechwold
• No duplexes/doubles within 7 houses on each side
• Built prior to 1930
• At least 1400 square feet "livable" space
• At least a 1 car garage, 2 car preferable
• Adequate yard for Hoont pooping
• 9'+ ceilings
• A kitchen equivalent to the House of Love III's for counter space
• Trees around the place (major)
• Hardwood floors
• Families with school age children around the neighborhood
• Neighbors that take care of their properties and landscape their yards
• Quiet after 9pm

I've noticed that children playing outside with their parents is a major key element of the neighborhoods I want to live in. If the parents feel safe letting their children play outside and are themselves playing outside with their kids, then that shows me a sense of security I'm looking for. The only kids that are in my current neighborhood are kids with a good future in incarcerations or fast food service.

This is going to be a challenge to find in my price range.

Why is the plural of house "houses" but the plural of mouse "mice"? Shouldn't it be "hice". Same with spouse. That should be spice. No?

Found while reading beaucoupkevin today. This may be the best silver age Green Lantern comic cover ever!

It is frigg'n fantastic!!! Poor Hal Jordan. I wish I could read this now.

I find it all incredibly funny too since Hal will probably be more upset that the alien has a huge mole on her/his chin. I mean Hal's a member of the Green Lantern Corps made up of over 2999+ non-humans!

Oh how I long for the fun of comics of the past again.

And the packing continues.

While Naladahc.com really isn't that much of a comic book-centric blog, it is most definitely a geek loser-centric blog of another flavor and therefore I find myself in the comfort zone with many other geek blogs.

But with the recent Rann/Thanagar war causing so many blogs to take sides and the body count to continue rising, The Internet's Most Beloved Polish-American finds himself having to publicly declare his neutrality.

The spill-over of this war into Transformers-centric geekdom could have massive ramifications for the space-time continuum.

Naladahc.com is now officially neutral in the matter.

So take it from Star Saber, Buddy Christ, Tails, and Victory Leo: Please be kind to Rannians and Thanagarians. (Slightly moreso to Thanagarians because they really got fucked post-Crisis on oh so many levels.)

I thawed some fresh Stanley's Market Kielbasa, made some quick cook kapusta that tasted vaquely ok, and mashed potatoes.

It was good, but I ate too much.

And to top it off, I stupidly bought this 1/2 of a cake at the Giant Eagle and Giger and I polished that off.

I truly and utterly feels like balls nasty right now.

*ugh*

Tomorrow I start my restricted diet to go along with my work out program I'm developing.

Why the hell did I need to binge tonight.

I mean binging on real kielbasa is all well and good but now I feel like total shit and no doubt the kraut'll kick in tonight too.

Attaboy Nala. Go out with a bang! In more ways than one.

Bored on the internet?

Play Educating Miss Beazley: First Lady Laura Bush's Scottish Terrier.

I just realized that O.J. Simpson's film career petered out the same year he murdered his wife.

Here's hoping that Michael Jackson's music career will be a thing of the past once he's found guilty of jacking off young boys.

And I just don't think that Robert Blake is ever going to get any roles again either.

Ah. Maybe I'm being to hard on them. I suppose everyone wants a second chance. Or third. Or fourth even.

---

And IMDB is just the greatest, I came across this on a message post while looking up one of my favorite films of all time Pootie Tang...

I would first like to say that I love this film for so many reasons, it would take several pages to fit them all. The point of my post is, whenever I watch Pootie Tang, it reminds me so much or Mary Poppins(another of my favorite films). I haven't really been able to figure out why, but it does. I just wanted to throw that out there to see if anyone else has experienced this.

Wah duh tah! And remember, you better wapatah to the bammies cause the camietowns a biddie on the pannie sty! Sepatown!

*sigh* I'm only 43rd on Google in searching for "polish-american".

I will also not be satisfied until I make this list.

Man the rumor mill has been churning the past few days with talks of Apple going to an Intel chip and chipset in future Macintosh computers.

Does anybody really frigg'n care about this shit anymore???

I mean, if you've read this here blog since 1998 or so you'd know my thoughts on technology have changed dramatically since then and with that my thoughts on Apple and Microsoft.

Sure Apple is probably fucked if they stay with IBM and RISC processors. IBM hasn't been able to deliver any speed improvements in over a year. Not that this is unique to them. Intel and AMD have had exactly the same stall on the CISC processor side of things.

Where's the 4+ GHz Intel chips? Yeah. Exactly.

And don't let the bullshit Intel marketing spin on hyperthreading and dual-core chips get in the way. Same with Apple and "multi-processor" systems and 64-bit capabilities.

It is all marketing and bullshit for the majority of the world.

In your day to day life these things will not make much of a difference.

Now I'm pretty sure that Apple has kept an Intel-compatible version of OS X since the old Rhapsody development stage and I'd bet that every iteration of Mac OS X up to the recent 10.4 actually can run on CISC processors. It only makes sense that they'd have done parallel development over the past years and if they truly were smart this would also be true of their iLife apps and so forth.

I don't mean it in a "consumer" ready-for-sale yet product. It is probably something that is byte-compatible with CISC architecture and Apple's design team already have designs on hardware integration. No doubt this would be superior to the Win side of things but who knows. However I don't know that side of computing all that well so I'm probably talking out of my ass on this.

But if they did go to Intel or even AMD chips wouldn't all Mac OS X software vendors have to rewrite their applications again for the new chip? I mean Apple could put an emulation level in but there would have to be something that translates the calls to the processor properly.

I can't see the major Apple developers wanting to invest the resources in rewriting these apps. They did it once for OS 9 to the current OS X but again? Not likely.

Then again, I may just be talking out of my ass.

There are strange things afoot in the Aquarium of Love™. The crab is AWOL and I think he managed to get out somewhere around the filter.

I looked and looked and looked and it can't possibly be in the tank. He was there at 4:45 this morning. That much I do know.

This of course means that he's signed his own death warrant.

The attic is in totally disarray due to the plastic crack pack-up and there's no possible way I could find him. Hell, I don't know how long he could even possibly survive outside of the tank and water.

No doubt I'll find a dead crab when cleaning and moving.

You want to see something truly fucked up but amazing at the same time?

I was reading my usual animation and anime sites this morning and came across this bit over on Anime News Network.

ANN would like to offer our sincerest sympathies to the family and friends of of Simon Sek Man Ng (19) and his sister, who were murdered in their home on May 12th. Simon wrote regularly in his online blog about studying Japanese, which he became interested in through anime. His final blog entry helped police arrest his assailant.

(full news article)

The eating of sushi and sashimi using the naked bodies of young women as a platter has long been a popular luncheon pastime for a certain type of businessman.

Now the Chinese government has banned the practice, in a move which has prompted speculation that there may be something more than just a sense of decency behind the prohibition.

I mean... I always miss out on the fun. Somebody always has to piss on my parade.

And in this case I wasn't even told about the parade and now it is over!!!

Oh the humanity!!!

I don't know where the hell he was hiding. I really don't know how I possibly could have spent those 5 minutes searching and he wasn't there.

Damn crab.

He's reappeared. He's hanging off the thermometer at present.

For the final fucking time there is NOTHING RARE about this fucking poster!!!

Everyone smokes.

Europe is where all the lost 80s hits went to.

I'm sorry, but really gay bouncy house music is just not appropriate in a gym at 5:30am!!!

Ugh!!!

Now I've always been a fan of electronica. I grew up with it when it was fairly new in the forms of The Beach Boys, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, New Order, Human League, Alphaville, Pet Shop Boys, and so many others. But the last 15 years of this stuff is just awful and empty. A beat that may be workable but empty as all hell.

But "house music", the shit played in most dance clubs and gay bars, is just horrible generic derivations of the works of these older groups filtered through early 90s techno rules.

And I just don't need to hear it at 5:30 in the morning.

It is fine when you are 25, drunk out of your mind, all sweaty and sucking face with someone on a dance floor at 1:30 in the morning. However, there's a reason most bars close by 3:00 and it isn't because of liquor laws. It is because house music really pretty much sucks if you are sober!!!

What music would I want to hear at a gym in the morning?

I'm not sure yet.

I'll get back to you on that.

(On second thought, you can play trance, techno, breakbeat or even drum and bass and I'd be happy as long as it totally didn't make the gym sound like a "super happy fun gay gym". And yes, there's a helluva lot of that music that doesn't necessarily sound like a gay disco to me!)

Oh just miscellaneous shit about comics and geekdom that most people couldn't care less about my comments on...

Johnson & Johnson says drug extends intercourse, reduces premature ejaculation, analyst calls it an 'utter joke.' (CNN)

The drug-making giant announced on Monday that dapoxetine hydrochloride, a treatment for premature ejaculation, showed promising results in late-stage testing... Participants timed their results using stop watches, and those taking dapoxetine reported a three to four-fold increase in their performance time.

Or can I?

However, an analyst who covers the company but did not want to be named said that dapoxetine is an antidepressant with a side effect causing erectile dysfunction. The analyst accused Johnson & Johnson of turning the side effect into a cure for premature ejaculation.

"The fact that they are selling this as a cure for premature ejaculation is an utter joke," said the analyst. "One of the problems it's causing is that some people can't reach orgasm. So they're turning the side effect into a drug."

Bear Stearns analysts project that if dapoxetine enters the market in early 2006, it will total $160 million in sales that year and will hit $500 million in sales in 2007, according to a report released on May 20.

The Plot Device That Ate Comics

A great essay on DC Comics' parallel earths and all the inherent problems and possibilities that continuity in comics brings.

What had gone into making the Golden Age franchise suitable for merger with the main continuum, then, became debris in the process of fusion. And one finds scant satisfaction in that post-Crisis issue of All-Star Squadron where the photo of the team changes, with Superman and Batman's images dissolving into those of Hourman and Wildcat. Fans who had just come to see the possibilities of the products of the Golden Age through Thomas' work - in a narrow window between 1980 and 1985 - might feel that someone had pulled the rug out from under them. We can expect that Thomas himself would have felt that way.

I'm one of those people.

And 20 years later I still feel like somebody pulled the rug out from under me.

Fuckers!

You want to be scared by something?

Watch this?

It is a Windows Media File guaranteed to disturb you and make you realize that there is no such thing as an unchanging reality and that horrors lurk amongst us.

Also safe for work too!!!

And here's something scary too!!! And duh... $760,000 for a 1000 square foot 2 bedroom house is kinda sorta your problem Mayor Newsom. Doy!!!

Fark has been a lifesaver today in relieving my slow time.

I think this is my favorite news item of the day.

The “suspicious package” that caused Interstate 75 and Daniels Parkway to be shut for more than an hour Monday was not an explosive pipe bomb — but rather wrapped-up plastic foot-long penis.

“Someone took construction-grade plastic, molded it into a penis and wrapped it with duct tape,” said Lee County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Charles Ferrante.

Hopefully it'll still be there but this article on leprosy proves how awesome Google Ads are by including this ad for eczema in it. I've saved the ad locally in case it should not be associated. As the girls used to say back in 1983... that is grody to the max.

And sure this formerly 1000 pound man, now down to 530 pounds still smokes a pack a day. Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!

NASA to put laser in orbit around moon, remove ugly "CHA" lettering is a pretty good obscure reference for the geeks out there. And it isn't the same kind of Laser that lives in Florida either. So don't confuse the two.

Oh. And the words "cunning stunt" should never be used together. Ever!

You know something. I never came across a picture of Golden Gate Park quite like this one before. You see tons of pics like this of New York City's Central Park but never have I seen one from this angle with the full length of the park all the way to the panhandle.

Hell. There's enough detail that I can even pinpoint where the Fabulous Christine lives, where Travis probably still lives, and if I use my vast mental imaging powers the Fabulous Deb Doran lives. Alas, poor Casey's way on the other side of the pic.

What's funny is I've spent practically zero time in all my trips to San Francisco in or near the Presidio, Richmond or Sunset. Though I've enjoyed a few bonfires at Ocean Beach before.

I've almost always have been centered in The Tenderloin (in the mid 90s), North Beach, the Upper Haight, the Panhandle, or Noe Valley.

Here's hoping 2005 brings time in Sebastapol finally with the Gogl-Blisses.

So San Francisco... I miss ya! Cowtown's just not the same.

Girls Still Poop Too.

Ya know something. If I'd have known about this earlier I'd have bid on it.

I am that much of a loser.

Now this is a preview!!! Not sure if this was what was shown during Smallville the other week or not.

Batman Begins will rock!!!

Spoilers a plenty should you watch it. Doy! And it has Gordon too!!!

I think Everywhere Girl deserves her own comic by DC.

Well. That and the all expenses paid trip to London too.

And now for a true cranial conjoined twin link of the week.

Oh. And I was conceived, born, raised, spent 18 years in Lucas County (s'where Glass City is kids) and I think I would have probably been aware of this guy. Actually I think he went to Max Power's high school St. Francis De Sales. Damn freaky Frannies.

Come to think of it. People that look like that is one of the reasons I left Glass City all those many solar revolutions ago.

Das ist Klaus. While I don't speak German I can definitely say that Klaus has some issues.

And I'm pretty sure Mr. Woo could join the Legion of Super-Heroes.

No Giger around.

I must eat soon.

Hmmm. Tommy's Pizza? Rotollos? Japanese?

So many options.

Absolutely no motivation.

Father Power is currently undergoing heart surgery and the staff of Naladahc.com are thinking about him.

Father Power, along with Mother Power, most definitely rocks!

Note: The indicator of Father in "Father Power" is not to imply that he has any special magical supernatural powers from the Church of Cathol. It is just that having planted the seed in Mother Power has resulted in the most favoured Max and Bethany Power. And believe me, Father Power's seed is way potent! So in a sense it is supernatural so... Oh. Nevermind.

Yes.

Most definitely.

www.miscellaneouspole.com would be an excellent domain name.

Putz'n around a Something Awful Photoshop Phriday and noticed this submission for Acid Freakouts uses the Transformers Robots In Disguise Spychangers 2-Pack as a source.

See. If it wasn't for me and you happened to be looking at this you'd never have known this vital piece of information.

And the one Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy has a frigg'n Computron in it. Computron for chrissakes!!!

Actually. Many of the ones in this theme are excellent.

There's even one for Giger.

The comic book choas covers are great too (from here). I love this original O.M.A.C. cover and I'd buy The Poison Womb too.

And yeah. I'm bored at the moment.

Hideous Doll Found In Creek Is Tormenting My Family
Look at her pictures.....PURE EVIL!

Ya know. I think Kelmeister needs this.

This doll is sick in the head and anyone that is brave enough to bid on her needs to keep this in mind. There will be NO RETURNS! She’s yours for good to do with what you want. I will not be held responsible for her actions or any injuries that happen after her arrival. Please also note that she is full of dirt and holes so she may be even worse for the wear after her travels to your home. I do not know her make or model and I’m not getting close enough to lift her dress and look. In the event that she escapes your home and makes her way back to us we will do what we deem necessary to destroy her and she will not be returned to you, surely you would understand our desperation.

Thanks to E I learned a new term today: cockknocker.

I shall endeavour to use it as much as possible.

Today saw 3 new Ghost Shrimp enter the Aquaria of Love™. GS#3 and GS#4 have gone to the 7 gallon tank and GS#5 has joined Number Six and Mystery Snail #1.

Number Six was all like "what the fuck?!?!?" when GS#5 freaked out on him.

And also, as an added treat to their varied weekly diet, I've got some frozen blood worms. I was kind of shocked that Jack's didn't have live tubifex so I settled on the frozen ones.

Let's just say the crab really really really really really loved these. Totally cock-blocked the cories on the batch that settled to the bottom.

At least I know the crab has finally eaten. I've never seen him touch anything during daytime hours.

So while I'm more or less on hiatus on the Transformers side of things I've still been keeping an eye out for the missing PVCs to my collection.

Man oh man the recent ones on Ebay have been totally insane!!!

I was pretty much a doy and didn't bid on the Victory Saber PVC. It would have been worth the price.

However, the rare chase pieces went for totally insane prices. Ghost Starscream ended up selling for $58.51. Way too much if you ask me. And hell. It doesn't even look like someone tried to jack the price up with a fake account either.

The chase/bonus color Scorponok ended at $70.00. Now this one definitely seems to be pretty rare to come by but $70.00 rare? I don't know. Once again it all looks legitimate too.

Chase Cornonation Starscream ended at $57.00 which is pretty much as insane as the previous 2 figures.

The customs that people had made were also pretty high. Sludge went for $46.75, Blaster for $52.00, and Scourge for an unheard of $90.56.

Even I wouldn't pay more than $20-$25 for PVCs!!!

I noticed the all pretty much went to the same buyer who also happened to pay $99 for the Shockwave custom I blogged about last week or so.

Why oh why do I feel like a Pre-Crisis Nala in a Post-Crisis world these days.

I just do.

And my coccyx area hurts today. Ugh!

The poop was good.

You know what is really horrible?

I've actually gotten interested in reading that horrible Apartment 3G comic strip because of The Comic Curmudgeon reviews.

That is totally sick.

You know something.

Sean Connery (circa mid to late 1980s) would have made an excellent Slade Wilson (The Terminator) in a live action New Teen Titans film.

He really would have been perfect.

So what little weight I lost over the past 3 weeks went right back on after this past weekend's cookout-gorging and the 2 club sandwiches I ate at German Village Kaffe Haus (with fries of course). And of course I dip them in mayo. Lovely.

I skipped the gym Friday and Monday and only started back this morning. This no doubt played a role in this reversal of fortune of mine.

But I'm starting a somewhat calorie restricted diet today so hopefully I can at least quickly lose the 6 or so pounds I had lost over the past couple of weeks.

I've got a pretty busy week ahead too with the yard sale prep work. Hopefully I can sneak and hour or two in the front yard today so I won't feel like all I did was mow the lawn.

On the house front, I've more or less been packing the attic and throwing things out upstairs. If it didn't end up in the trash it is heading to Neil Avenue this Saturday for the Victorian Village Yard Sale.

I hope to finally dump old faggy Herb Ritz glass-framed prints from the dark ages of my life. What the fuck was I thinking back then? Man oh man. Bad craziness. And this time I really do mean I want them gone. I had thought I'd save them to try and reuse the frames for something else but ugh... no... I just want to be free of this shit once and for all.

And I won't even start on the fuck'n Broadway showtunes cards that used to decorate the Apartment of Love I. Man I was pretty fucked up back then. (But I did have a kick ass stereo system so that sort of counteracts the fuck'dupedness of those years. Not much. But some.)

There's a ton of dachshund stuff I've either bought or been given that needs to be eliminated too. It just has to go. Now. Now. Now.

Now there's a few things there that were probably birthday presents from people and so forth but if I didn't touch them over the past 2 years they have to go!!!

Hell, I'm even getting rid of all of my Volkswagen Beetles and such.

Now some of this crap'll go to Goodwill if it doesn't sell but some of the collectible shit will end up on ebay if I can't get rid of it.

I'm just going to take the extra clothes to Goodwill or Salvation Army. I don't see the point of putting those out for sale really. Too much of a hassle to setup and stuff.

I don't have much on the furniture front to really get rid of. Giger has a chair, the church pew, and some shelf units he's disposing of. I don't see the point in trying to sell much of anything else since furniture-wise we don't have an overabundance of.

With the yard sale's end and miscellaneous stuff off to whatever service we give it to I can focus on the house.

I've decided that I really can't part with the cash to have someone paint the front porch and back windows so I will do what it takes over the next two months or so to do it myself. That'll start on June 8 or so. I'm going to scrape as much of the loose paint off of the porch concrete first and what I can easily reach on the porch/roof. I'm going to rent a power washer on the 12th and spend Saturday trying to clean the siding on the front of the house, the remaining porch, and see what I can do to get paint removed from the porch roof. (I really wanted to completely strip the years of paint off and get down to wood and work from there but that is not worth the effort anymore.) Hell, If I can clean the deck too I'll be more than happy with myself.

Hopefully I can have a coat of primer up on the front of the house by June 25 and maybe have it all painted by the beginning of July.

The back windows were going to be trimmed in a different color and such and I've decided I'm going the quick down-and-dirty route now. The window glazing will be redone as best as my shitty skills allow and I'm just going to sand as much loose stuff off as possible, glue/nail a few pieces of loose wood in, prime the whole thing, and just paint it all with the sharkfin grey. No two-tone. All grey. It'll at least look clean and done. Won't be what I wanted it to be but that just won't happen.

The goal for that is July 9. Hopefully I can take advantage of the July 4th holiday and wrap it all up. Probably take a day or two off that weekend to maximize the time.

Can I do this? Can I really really make myself complete this?

I've been making myself get up at 4:50am every morning. I think I can do this.

God knows it will be money saved that needs to be saved.

I really wanted to figure out a way to not have PMI insurance on my next mortgage. That PMI shit is a total con that rapes those of us truthful and honest homeowners.

With the money that went to PMI over the past 2 years I could have completely remodeled the bathroom.

That sucks the nasty balls indeed.

But of course, the reality of living in America is that bankers, doctors, phamaceutical companies, and just about everybody else will bend you over and fuck you really hard with fees, penalties, and every other conceivable virtual capitalist dildo they can devise. And they won't even give you the common courtesy of a reach around!