naladahc | tripping along the golden path

The Takara Super God Fire Convoy Toys R Us Japanese Exclusive giftset is mine!

The Master-Fucking-God-Sword is in da haus baby!!!

To say that I had a "fall from grace" would be trying to put icing on a turd.

I totally lost control of myself this past week while at Botcon.

I drank a lot of beer. I ate too much salt and fat.

I ended up basically saying "Fuck it! I'm on vacation!" and now I'm paying for it.

I put on 15 lbs since last Wednesday! 15lbs!!!

All that work shedding water and some fat while fasting for the 1st half of the month is totally gone.

And of course, I feel like total shit again.

Great isn't it?

*sigh*

My fault. Totally my fault.

I need to focus back on the diet and exercise starting today.

My next goal is Thanksgiving to get down to 220 on a permanent basis. That's about 2 months away so it is totally reasonable.

I'm debating if doing the gym in the morning is any better than at lunchtime.

It is hard for me to get up so early when I'm working on the basement. That is just a fact that I can't deny.

The basement work, especially the tuckpointing and concrete application, whips the shit out of me after a few hours. Getting up real early and running for 5 miles totally wipes me out.

So today begins everything again.

Tonight I need to do some detail Drylock application and then get things moved back along the Phase IV wall around the toilet. I think I'll leave the toilet off for now until I'm completely done with all of the walls.

I'll try and get the "laundry" section of Phase VI, the final section, cordoned off with dropcloths and a lot of stuff moved back along the walls.

The end of my wall drama is near!

You do all realize that Battlestar Galactica Season 3 starts this Friday?

I totally forgot that Season 2 of Doctor Who has been running too.

Ok. So I got the detail waterproofing done along the top and small additional coats where I felt it was needed.

Tomorrow... the last and final Phase VI begins!

I think I'll open Super God Fire Convoy and assemble him as my mascot. He can sit up on the one shelf with the Mother Fucking Master Sword and be my task master until I'm finished!

Cool!

Elizabeth Daily is on Stern this morning!

Of course, it sounds like she's actually on to talk about a new things she's doing and her ex-husband, Rick Salomon who is the guy that was screwing Paris Hilton on the sex tape from a few years back.

Personally, I'd rather have her talk about being Tommy Pickles, Buttercup, and Babe.

I can't recall any voice actors being on Stern since Billy West was a regular cast member in the early 90s.

Ok. Now I pretty much hate United Way and their parasitical existence.

And now, today, minutes ago, my general hate has become full-blown extreme FUCKING hate!

Last week before I left I got the usual "parasite pack" to guilt me into donating money to support their corporate infrastructure. It immediately went into the trash as it does every year.

I will not be guilted in front of my co-workers and peers into forking over money to parasites.

But just now I walked over to talk to some people I haven't seen since I left and I see this poor goldfish basically choking to death in a tiny cup of water.

Apparently, last week, United Way had some "games" in which living animals were given away as prizes.

Living animals ARE NOT FUCKING PRIZES!!! Fish are high maintenance pets.

You do not give them away even if they are 10 cent feeder fish!

The woman had the fish on her desk and basically was "waiting for it to die"!!!

I don't even know how many more of these poor fish have been living choking in their "cup" of filthy water for the past week.

I managed to find a bottle of room temperature spring water to do a quick water change since I can't take this goldfish home immediately.

But this one I'm going to save. Number Seven will be going to the Attic of Love to be with Number Six.

Grrrrr....

I am so mad about this.

You don't put your dog in a 2 ft by 2 ft space and let it live in piss and shit do you???

Grrrrr....

I hate United Way more than I ever have now. I'll chalk up "Carny Games" to my general disgust of their parasitical existence.

Ok. Number Seven is now home.

I hadn't realized how MASSIVE Number Six has gotten. He's huge compared to Seven.

I suppose I need to cut back on the food even more.

Hopefully he'll get along with Seven.

I just couldn't let the poor fish die a sad death in its own waste.

Grrrr...

I'm still so mad.

I can only imagine the other dying fish in other departments.

I came across this over at hx-'s site.

Shere unadulterated brilliance.

So...

Those God Hates Fags dregs are going to be picketing the funeral of those Amish girls that were executed last week.

You'll recall these dregs are the ones who picket military funerals and the like.

They are high class Christianity all the way.

The Westboro Baptist Church -- described as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League -- has made a name for itself by picketing the funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. The troops are dying as punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality, the group says.

The Westboro group says the Amish school girls were "killed by a madman in punishment for Gov. Ed Rendell's blasphemous sins against Westboro Baptist Church.

"Gov. Ed Rendell -- speaking and acting in his official capacity to bind the State of Pennsylvania -- slandered and mocked and ridiculed and condemned Westboro Baptist Church on national Fox TV," the group says on its website.

"Rendell also revealed a conspiracy to employ the State's police powers to destroy WBC in order to silence WBC's Gospel message. Co-conspirators identified by Rendell included state officials, citizens, lawyers, legislators and media," the website says.

Westboro Baptist Church said it is "continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania."

And in which Gospel does it say "I YHWH hate fags so picket military funerals and Amish funerals"? Is that in one of the other New Testament books? I certainly don't recall it in the Apocrypha books.

Can we please cart them up and move them over to Iraq or Afghanistan where they'll fit in better.

And yes, their children too and all genetically related individuals to them.

There are no innocents anymore. Nope. All family lines need to be removed from the greater gene pool.

(I'd think that this would be more important to picket and such.)

Holy shit!

Dreamhost, where I host this and 8 or so other sites, has just bumped up both my monthly bandwidth and storage.

I currently have 403 GB of storage available and roughly 4500 GB/month of available bandwidth!

You know what that means?

I need to start hosting my own videos and shit instead of using YouTube and such.

I mean, the audience for this shit is people who stop by and not the actual viewers of YouTube and the like.

So. Here's a stupid question:

Would you listen to a weekly podcast? It will have to be about pooping dachshunds, Cowtown, my home repair drama, but it'll also have to include Transformers and Attic of Love shit because that's like a part of my loser existence.

Would it be worth my effort?

Does anybody even care about that kind of shit?

I mean... I do need reasons to blog and all.

It at least gives me deadlines and such.

Let me know by leaving a comment.

If I get a "yay" I may invest in a real microphone and try to actually produce something. Maybe get some Giga, Evebird, Max Power, and other action in there too.

(If I could figure out how TFWiredoes their Skype-type podcasts I may be able to include other on this site too as guests and so forth.)

Ahhh. Loserness.

Seven seems to be doing much better.

Six is a little antagonistic. He chases him around every now and then but Seven is small enough to fit behind some areas that the glutton Six can no longer get behind.

I may need to pull out Six's old 2.5 gallon tank and set that up.

But... I feel good fish karma for this.

Fucking United Way. Bringing death to goldfish in the Cowlands.

So I got the entire area of Phase VI cleaned today with everything else (other than appliances) moved back to the finished areas

I'm trying to finish up the laundry so I can remove the appliances and get the parging off.

Of course it is really pouring rain right now.

That's always awesome for when I'm working on the walls.

Enjoy the insane rain and hail.

Enjoy my really bad typos in the title.

Enjoy because life is short, and basements get wet.

I was one of the chairs of the 1992 Ohio State University homecoming.

That was my final year as an undergrad and I worked on a variety of groups, Homecoming being just one of them.

The theme was "It's Huge!".

Do you realize how awful that is?

Ugh!

I figured I needed to capture a photo of the logo and tshirt before it ends up as a rag.

In fact, I pulled it out of a rag bag earlier today.

I think I've finally thrown away the mugs and other paraphenalia of Parents' Weekend, the Makio Yearbook, and all the other organizations I ran, chaired, or help run from 1988 to 1992.

Honestly. It is all just the baggage of life.

What's funny is there were people attending Botcon that were barely out of diapers when I was doing this kind of shit.

Man am I old.

Apple Mac Pro is crowned the fastest "PC" in the UK (PCpro UK)

The quad-core Apple Mac Pro has set new records in PC Pro's benchmarks, in the UK's first independent speed test of the latest Intel-based Mac.

The Mac Pro is fitted with two of the top-end workstation-orientated Xeon CPUs. This effectively makes it a quad-core machine, and it's fabulously fast for CPU-intensive tasks, as long as the application in question is able to use them all.

Immediately abandoning the pre-installed copy of Mac OS X, we popped a copy of Windows XP Professional on the machine using Apple's Boot Camp beta. The results, in terms of pure performance, speaks volumes for the ability of Intel's new processors - and Apple's ability to build systems around them.

The machine achieved record-breaking speeds in our multiple-applications test, where we run demanding tasks in Microsoft Office, Photoshop and a music decoder simultaneously, so keeping all four cores constantly busy. The result was almost three times faster than the reference Pentium D-based computer that PC Pro's labs test scores are based on.

I shifted to Adobe and Macromedia apps running on Windows XP years ago and really never looked back.

Sure I use my trusty old Powerbook Pismo G3 for wireless basic net stuff but that's about the extent of Macs in my life.

However, I have been following the switch to Intel processors and you know, I could see myself getting an Apple Mac to run Windows on.

No doubt it'll end up running Vista quite well.

Max Power, not to be confused with Pax Mower, sent me this link from the Glass City Blade.

I haven't even had a chance to catch up on my Northwest Armpit news yet.

Prosecutor mulls charges in crash tied to flying bra (Blade)

Any possible charges against the 17-year-old girls who hung a red bra out of a car on I-75 on Sept. 26, causing a single-car accident that hurt two men, would be filed next week, a Wood County Juvenile Court prosecutor said yesterday.

James Campbell, 37, and Jeff Long, 40, both of Toledo, were hurt seriously when Mr. Campbell's car swerved to avoid the bra as it flew away from the girls' car. Mr. Campbell's car flipped several times in the median of the interstate, north of State Rt. 582.

Mr. Adkins said the braless girl could face charges of disorderly conduct and littering.

The driver could be charged with complicity and with fleeing the scene of an accident.

"We have to look at what [the driver's] involvement was," Mr. Adkins said. "Was she encouraging the behavior and aware of what was going on? Did she know an accident occurred? If so, those would be charges directly against her."

Mr. Adkins said the report included indications that the car's three passengers may have flashed Mr. Campbell and Mr. Long, though both men said the girls only made inappropriate gestures with their mouths.

The prosecutor said charges of indecent exposure would be filed only if he could prove the girls exposed significant amounts of flesh in traffic.

Mr. Adkins said he believes if any charges are filed against the girls, they likely would be misdemeanor offenses.

Mr. Campbell, who suffered a broken vertebra in his neck and a fractured thumb, was cited for not wearing a seat belt and for failure to maintain control of his vehicle.

Well I got the washer, dryer, and sink removed and have started on the parge removal.

I'm hoping I can have it all down by Saturday evening.

Well. That's if all goes well.

Weather says no more rain for a couple of days so that gives me some time to at least try to get the parge down and the beginnings of drilling the mortar out started.

I'm sure you watched the hail storm video right?

Well.

I walked out this morning to this massive limb in the yard.

It put a huge dent in the fence and has pretty much crushed some of the now dying day lilies.

This'll no doubt take both Giga and I to move it. Neither of us has any retard strength.

I included the Hoont in the pic for scale.

Then again, the inclusion of a dachshund in a photo of destruction and/or evil is pretty much a normal occurence don't you think.

Of course, I could strap this to Hensley's back and start using him as a 'beast of burden'.

Eleven hours until Battlestar Galactica.

Moistness.

That's all I gotta say.

However, I think Max Power should have an impromptu "Frak Party" tonight.

Oh. And you get moister by watching all of the 10 webisodes prior to 9pm!

I came across the The Nietzsche Family Circus over at The Roar of Comics.

Brilliant.

Totally brilliant hydrocephalic humor!

And then I read...

A Chicago man apologized for spreading his feces around a courtroom during his trial on drug charges.

Horrific death at gay sex orgy (The Sun)

A coroner revealed yesterday how “buckets of sex toys” were found at an aristocrat’s home where a reveller plunged to his death following a gay orgy.

Anthony Casey, 38, fell 60ft from a roof terrace as he partied at Count Gottfried von Bismarck’s London apartment.

An inquest heard “bizarre” items were found in a room which had a large rubber tarpaulin on the floor.

They included towels, lubricants, mirrors, a butane gas canister, syringes, bottles of vodka, and a TV and video set up to show “scenes of a pornographic nature”.

Coroner Dr Paul Knapman said: “There was a gay orgy going on. Nevertheless, this was conducted by consenting males."

A post mortem found Mr Casey had consensual sex that night — and blood tests showed potentially lethal levels of cocaine. But he died from multiple fractures.

Party-goer Paul Dorrian said Mr Casey fell from the terrace after he left him alone to get water. Verdict: Misadventure.

Butane gas canister? WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?!

I think this may redefine my concept of the term "misadventure".

Um. If anybody knows what the fuck a butane gas canister would be used for at an orgy please let me know.

This misadventure is going to bother me for years.

The old stuff, for as bad a shape as it is in, is pretty hard to get off.

The arrows indicate the crap I've worked really hard to remove. I've done some quality sledge hammer whacking and a lot of blunt chiseling to try and create gaps between the hard inner layer and the sotne.

I'm going at it slowly and trying to make progress on a foot by foot basis.

The blisters made me call it a day.

I'll try and really work at it tomorrow. I'd really like to get all the parge down and the whole area swept up tomorrow.

Then maybe rest on Sunday and begin drilling the old mortar out on Monday.

Number Seven seems to have taken a turn for the worse.

He's become pretty lethargic and non-responsive.

He's not dead yet but I don't think there's anything I can do really.

I tried to save him.

I really did.

And he looked like he was adjusting well.

UPDATE: I've set up a secondary 2 gallon tank with a basic filter and have isolated Seven there. Hopefully, without Six around, he'll have time to heal from whatever is bothering him. I'm hoping he does survive.

So it was a very Max Powerish weekend so far.

Last night we spent a few hours with Max, Kelmeister, and Kelmeister's Husband watching Doctor Who and the fantastic 2-hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

Today we helped Max out by loaning him use of the truck to pick up a freezer.

Even new crack was had!

It was all very shocking!

I said he wasn't doing well yesterday.

He apparently died sometime last night.

Yes. The death of a 10 cent feeder goldfish pisses me off.

I really wanted him to thrive after the careless and cruel handling he received prior to my taking him.

Goodbye Number Seven.

We barely knew ye.

And may Nereus, YHWH, Poseidon, Kotoshiro-
nushi-no-kami, Mithras, Osiris, El, or other miscellaneous daemons smite United Way for your senseless death.

So I took a lot of lame ass video at Botcon a couple of days back and I've tried to edit it into something that would be remotely coherent.

Suffice to say, there's no real "story" here.

Part I:

Part II:

I think the only guy we ended up really vocally (amongst ourselves) picking on was Melon-Eating Boy.

And anyway, Melon-Eating Boy, if you see this... what's up with the bad craziness man? Seriously.

UPDATE: Ack!!! I linked some titles in Part II and one referring to getting somebody laid accidentally switched with one about Greg's minicon collection. Do I rerender or just leave it?

Hmmm... I'm leaving it for now!

I made a lot of progress today but I still have some sections of parge to try and get down.

Tomorrow will be the trash removal and hopefully the final chiseling.

My wrists are hurty.

I just discovered a Battlestar Galactica Wiki.

There goes my free time.

Ugh!

Balls awesome!

Chuck posted a link to this fantastic Battlestar Galactica "A New Crew In Town" video and it rocks!

The Peabody Awards clip with Trey Parker and Matt stone is pretty good too.

Ok. I'm getting pissed.

I haven't been able to get spinach for weeks and now lettuce looks to be ecolied.

Grrrrrr....

I consume massive amounts of lettuce per week to keep this girlish figure.

I've been known to use the phrase "Powerpoint Sucks Balls Nasty" over the past 15 years or so and I honestly still believe it.

Anyway, I found the best Powerpoint presentation ever over at beaucoupkevin.com.

No photos today. They pretty much all look the same anyway.

I got all the current batch of rubble up out of the basement and got the drilling out of the old mortar started in the southwest corner.

Hell. I even got the fallen limbs removed and the back yard mowed too.

More drilling tomorrow and I may try to remove the last of the parging.

*sigh*

I hope this rain isn't too bad today.

My walls are a bit exposed at the moment.

The south wall is almost prepped and clean.

It is pouring rain right now.

With the current ripped apart state of the basement walls and the general amount of water already in the soil this could be a really really really bad night.

*sigh*

Courtesy of Max Power via Mama Power via Eldest Sister Power.

It took 2 hours but I finally got the stuff behind the pipes removed.

Even had a visit by Max Power too!

I came home from work and one of the original Zebra Danios that I started the Aquarium of Love with back on April 29, 2005 was dead.

When I gave them their bit of food around 6am I wasn't paying that much attention so I don't know if it died before or after that.

Oh well.

I checked the water and it all seems fine.

I did a 25% change but I'm not sure if it means anything or not.

The other danios and tetras are fine and doing their usual thing.

The betta's being her usual anti-social self.

I plan on moving her to her own 2 1/2 gallon aquarium (Six's old tank) and see how she does on her own.

I may get another tetra to join the small school.

So this week I put Number Seven and a Danio in the ground.

So. Frowny.

Um.

How's that snow today?

I didn't know my life was missing meaning until I watched Turkish Star Trek over at beaucoupkevin.com.

And I especially love the inclusion of instrumental parts of "Echoes" by Pink Floyd from the Meddle album.

It is like love... but with super mega bad sets!

I so want Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda... the "re-imagined" series a la Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica.

Holy crap! That's on tonight again!!!

[crosspost]

The crazy early 80s.

You could be 13-years old and buy bongs and nobody at the head shop asked.

Those wacky 80s.

Bongs and Tootie still on roller skates.

Season 2 would wipe that out.

My nazi-moment-of-the-day brought to me by the UK's Daily Mail article on Crystal Meth classification.

When smoked, crystal meth, also known as methylamphetamine, ice and Nazi crank, gives an intense rush similar to crack, and can be highly addictive.

I prefer the second one because it has girl-on-girl action.

This pseudo panoramic image represents the current state of Phase VI and what remains of the main room of the basement to finish.

Tomorrow I'll do 3-4 more hours of drilling and by mid-afternoon I hope to start cementing the wall/floor seam.

Obviously there will be a Lowe's run tomorrow.

If all goes well, I'll be able to temporarily hook up the plumbing and we can wash and dry a few loads of clothes too. But there's a shitload of quarters available if we have to go to a laundromat. And I can't tell you the last time I did that for normal laundry.

Anyway. At the rate I'm going the full concrete should be done by the middle of next week and hopefully, barring any problems, I'll be able to do full waterproofing sometime right before Halloween and still basically make my date.

I do want to at least get a large section of floor redone by the laundry area. I don't know if I'll do the whole basement or not but for the sake of dirt and dust the laundry area should have a sealed and painted floor under it.

Yay! Quality time spent today and I got all the digging and cleanup done.

Of course, I probably could have kept going but ya gotta eventually say "enough's enough" with the old mortar removal.

I sealed the wall/floor seam with the hydraulic cement. Hopefully I'll get the two coats of drylock on it tomorrow and start rebuilding the wall near the duct work into the addition.

Full tuckpointing and parging can begin Monday!

And then I wanted to giggle like a school girl...

Mr. Konop said it is difficult to quantify the real value of a new arena. He said an arena is a point of pride showing that Lucas County is "not afraid to invest in itself and we're ready for the 21st century."

"Most arenas and convention centers are not individually profit centers, but what I look at also is what kind of economic synergy comes from these places," Mr. Sarantou said.

C'mon Homo sapiens sapiens.

You make such great pets.

I walked into the bedroom this morning to get dressed and came upon massive water damage on the ceiling.

You'll recall I repaired water damage (from the previous owners) back in 2005 when I redid that room so I'm assuming there's roof problems that have crept up again.

Ya know... I did a Windows patch session last night and since then I've noticed internet access and general system performance seems to be slower.

Flickr is a dog today too but I can't tell if it is the PC or what.

Maybe I'll reboot the routers, cable modem, and all the other tech.

So even though we ended up going to breakfast at Tommy's Diner today and then I had to come home and sort through insurance paper work for the possible roof repairs I still managed to get a shitload of work done.

I got 2 coats of water proofing down over the initial hydraulic cement and then after that was fully dried I managed to get 240 lbs of concrete mixed and applied up from the floor.

I have another 240 lbs of the smooth concrete and 7 40# bags of general concrete to work with tomorrow. I think I'm going to work from the southeast corner and work outwards, going back towards the previous Phase V.

That duct work going into the addition is going to be a fun area to build around.

So. Um. What do I have to do to get a Doctor Fate helmet/candy bowl???

My only 1 scheduled hour of television came and went Friday night

So after last week's panties-sopping 2-hour opening to Battlestar Galactica was followed up by a smaller episode this week. No doubt building up to further kickassedness next week in "Exodus, Part II".

There wasn't a "Nala jumping out of his seat" moment like there usually is and those moments are pretty much how I judge the episodes overall.

"Exodus, Part 1" was pretty subdued in my opinion.

*spoliers ahead*

I think this may just be the greatest Halloween costume.

Ever!

So today I managed to get about 240 more lbs of smooth concrete up on the walls and 240 lbs of regular concrete mixed to begin rebuilding the entrance to the crawlspace under the back addition (above).

I removed the stones that were going to be in the way and am now in the process of building up sides and a solid front with other stones embedded in new concrete.

I'm currently out of concrete so I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.

So while I was working in the basement I was also making soup.

I've done this countless times and never have had a problem.

I came up and checked the soup and thought I turned it off.

No.

I turned it to "high" without realizing it and then went back downstairs.

I cannot convey to you all the horror of opening the basement door to walk into the kitchen and to walk into a house filled with awful acrid stinky smoke.

The water had boiled away and the enamel bot was black and sooty with smoke pouring into the open.

Awful. Awful. Awful.

And then... the smoke alarm in the basement stairwell went off!

Grrrr.

So I opened up a ton of windows and put fans in them trying to draw the nastiness out.

Ziggy was hiding under a chair and Hensley was hiding behind the couch totally freaked out.

We ended up leaving to go to eat dinner since obviously I wouldn't be having soup.

The house is going to stink for days.

House stinks!

House stinks!

House stinks!

House stinks!

House stinks!

House stinks!

House stinks!

Arrrrghhhh!

So it has been raining since about 7pm last night which means there won't be any way I can acquire more concrete.

So all you fans of parging will have to wait until I can continue.

I'm going to work on cleaning up the Attic and trying to sort through paperwork and such.

Oh. And I've got some designs for a friend of Mrs. T. I'll probably need to rework too.

So very little time for extracurricular work these days.

Several lifetimes ago, back in the long long ago dark ages of my life, I was the Assistant Manager of a Kinko's.

Recently, I found out that one of the people I've recently met also worked at the K with other people I worked at and today I got this in the mail.

My good friend Kelmeister's Husband is there as well as one or two other people that I'm still in contact with.

This was taken practically in another life for me.

Scary.

What's even more scary is the fact that there are like 2 people in this image that I have ZERO memory of.

I wonder who's taking the photo. I don't remember.

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

House still stinks!

Arrrrghhhh!

I really need to invest in Fantagraphics' The Complete Peanuts which is a 25 book series released over 12 years.

The 1950s stuff is brilliant and ya know, I need to buy these.

Yay!

Today Artie has to make out with Blue Iris, the 70+ year old porn star!!!

He lost a bet with this former WWE gay wrester (whose name I can't remember) regarding who would go further this season.

The Mets went farther than the Yankees!!!

I can't wait to see this on Howard TV!

Dear Crackhead,
Originally uploaded by dM.nyc.

Then again, there have been times in my life where I would have loved to type up a note, print it out, tape it to a sledge hammer, walk outside, and fling it into certain front doors around this lovely neighborhood of mine.

It has actually been pretty good lately around here.

That is the illusion though.

We also don't have anyone living directly next to us yet and I really hope that rental stays vacant. It serves as a good psychological buffer for me against the other rentals to the east.

Oh. And the house on the other side has gone back to normal too.

Frowny passed this on...

Listen up, "Battlestar Galactica" fans. A war is brewing, fiercer than anything involving Cylon robots. The battlefield: the Internet, where fans can get their "Battlestar" fix with three-minute mini-episodes created especially for the Sci Fi Channel's Web site, SciFi.com. NBC Universal, the studio behind "Battlestar," refused to pay residuals or credit the writers of these "Webisodes," claiming they're promotional materials. So "Battlestar" executive producer Ron Moore said he wouldn't deliver any more of them, including the 10 that were already in the can. In response, NBC Universal seized the Webisodes and filed charges of unfair labor practices against the Writers Guild of America, which advised Moore and producers of three other NBC Universal shows not to deliver any new Web content until they had a deal over residuals.

This isn't like some of the general content swipes that occur in blogging and such. This is bigtime compensation involving corporations that make massive amounts of money off of what people create.

he stakes are huge: viewers streamed "Battlestar" Webisodes 5.5 million times last month, doubling traffic to SciFi.com within two days of the premiere. By comparison, 2.2 million people showed up for the show's third-season opener on Oct. 6. Talk of a Hollywood strike is growing louder. Some 900 writers, including "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry, attended a "unity" rally Sept. 20. Says "Galactica's" Moore: "We're all heading toward a collision over digital content. Somebody's going to blink, but I don't think it's going to be the writers."

the first thing we saw, before we even left the parking lot & entered the festival, originally uploaded by Carla216.

I definitely know my dachshund is smarter than some of the neighbors that have moved out from around here.

This much is certain.

And other than the occasional poop on the floor he's a helluva lot cleaner too!

I love this!!!

Found over at hx-'s site.

Dear Ladies, Gentleman, and other Assorted Basement/Concrete Fetishists:

I must inform you that...

So as I type Active Directory is "activating" a script I wrote for many of my users.

The calls about problems should be coming in any moment.

One hour in and the script doesn't seem to be problematic.

However... I'm now having MSI installer issues with some of the new PC builds.

*sigh*

I knew today would be bad crazy.

Project launches never go smoothly. Not even really heavily planned ones.

The most glaring typo I tend to make is "not" for "now" and since "not" is a word spellchecking doesn't pick it up.

Grrrr...

I've done this since 1986 when I learned to type.

I do not think I can reprogram myself on this one.

The look of shock, awe, and probably horror, as the insurance adjuster and the contractors ascended the stairwell to The Attic of The Damned™ was priceless.

I don't think any of them had any concept when I asked them to "please be careful around the toys".

What was cool was 2 of the 3 loved the Masterpiece Convoy (Optimus Prime).

Anyway, remember the recent water damage?

Well they went on the roof and said that the roof installed in 2001 was actually done very very well and that all of the box gutters that were relined in 2002 were also in perfect shape too.

They used this special infrared camera to look "into" the wall and they are actually thinking that it wasn't water coming from outside of the house but is actually a problem with the plumbing stack in the wall of the attic.

Odds are the stack makes a turn and being that it is 80+ years old and cast iron it may have rusted through at the curve/turn and water is somehow coming in there.

The camera picked up water and moisture in the wall and they need to remove parts of the wall to look at it completely.

So...

Since there's no roof damage it isn't covered by insurance per se.

However, I'm going to pay out of pocket to have the contractor cut the wall out Monday and check. We may need to wait until another good rain to see the problem but this will hopefully work out. The contract I signed also will cover returning the wall to normal.

If there are problems with the stacks leaking then insurance will kick in.

With a $500 deductible it did seem best to just work within that for now and the contractor is only going to charge $250 to remove and then restore the wall area.

Hell. That's fine with me. I could cut it out but who knows when I'll get around to putting it back with all the basement and back bedroom work I need to still do.

So it looks getting the basement concrete done and curing last night was the right thing to do. With the rain and overall dampness, working outside would be a mess this weekend so I'm going to focus on cleaning up the attic.

I need to move all of the TF Universe and Robot Masters figures out of the way so I might as well start really cleaning the Attic since it quite possibly will be contractor-messy soon.

And of course, when the contractor is up there working there will be a certain someone going insane saying "Feed me you fool! Feed me!!!".

Oh Glass City...

Will it ever get better?

Ok. This Foley shit spin bastard fuck cycle of 'Merican bullshit politics calls for my immediate wish to have Mr. Foley and all Republicans and Democrats office holds publically flogged to within seconds of death due to their bullshit fucking spin stupidity. YOU ARE ALL GUILTY!

So are you now saying you "got the gay" because you were molested by a Catholic priest?

So your dreg vermin actions are not your personal responsibility?

You sick miserable victim Republican ephebophile faggot!

My god! May all of you vermin dreg Republican and Democrat office holders be consigned to the deepest pits of whatever hells you believe int!

From CNN...

The Republican congressman resigned from Congress last month after his sexually explicit e-mails to young male pages surfaced.

His lawyer said shortly after his resignation that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman." Foley's civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with state prosecutors on Wednesday.

Watch the machine spin this as "His alcholism, boy predation, gayness, and every other problem in his life" was because he was molested as a young boy.

Keep distracting people from the truth you miserable scum bag.

You have no personal integrity at all do you?

I never personally witnessed a flogging of a Republican or Democrat as a child but I sure do want to see you flogged to within inches of your life.

And you still would be a guilty integrity-less vermin after the flogging.

I hate self-made victims more than anything else in the world.

Dregs.

So tonight I went out to dinner with some coworkers who are now ex-coworkers.

Today was the last day for some of the people whose jobs were outsourced back on Black Thursday back in January.

Most of these women are in their 50s and thankfully, most of them were hired by the outsource company and will basically do for them what they've done for my company the past 20-30 years.

However, with that said, I'm not one to normally find the company of 50-year-old women all that exciting.

But there are a few that don't take themselves too seriously and that I'll really miss.

So tonight I met up with E. and J. for dinner and let me just say, there's something special about E. after a few glasses of wine when her filters are off.

I mentioned somebody who quite frankly I don't care is leaving and E. blurts out "Oh my god see's such a cunt!!!".

That had to be the funniest thing to happen to me in a long time.

And then, she explained that this person has been a cunt in her eyes for over 20 years since the day she was first introduced to her!

And yeah. I agree.

There's definitely something special about too older women who totally love Howard and I'm really going to miss that around the now quite dismal office.

It is the finest hour of television on any channel.

Period.

Like I said last night.

This show is one of the finest hours of television ever broadcast.

And last night's "Exodus, Part II" was insane.

*spoiler warning* *spoiler warning* *spoiler warning*

So I spent today moving shit around The Attic to try and free up the space for the contractor.

So much crap!

I guess it is a good thing that I'm letting them open up the wall but damn, I really don't need this mess up here. My basement is still tore up and the dining room is full of stuff from the basement so this is yet another room that'll be way messy.

But hopefully the problem isn't serious.

I got the final wal/floor seam done with drylock.

The rest of the parging needs to cure for a few more days before I can start on the full waterproofing.

So today, Mister R. helped me to get the sink off of the stand so it can be refinished (below).

I'm going to sand the exterior and interior to clean it and seal it and paint it.

Not sure about the interior of the basins yet but I'm going to ask around for advice on what to use.

FYI: 2 free days of Howard Stern via the internet.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio has changed my life.

And not just because I bought it for Stern.

So as of 11am today I have a nice new hole in the Attic of The Damned.

What's sad is that while it looks like the plumbing stack vent (pic above) may have leaked at one time it has been quite a long time since it has done it.

So now I wait 2 weeks and hope that it rains so I can find observable water coming in.

Otherwise, this has been a total fool's quest and I probably didn't notice a gallon or so of water spilled over when cleaning an aquarium.

Balls!

As I sanded down the old basin I began to realize it essentially, from external appearances, is a formed concrete sink that appears to have steel along the top to give it shape and I'm assuming smooth it out.

I don't know if there is some kind of rebar in the concrete to give it strength but the more I look at it, the more I just want to whack it with the sledge hammer.

I mean really whack it to pieces.

So I spent about and hour sanding both the basin and the metal base it sits on.

I also got the remainder of the rubble trash out and hauled to the back by the gate. Of course, my wheelbarrow wheel is now flat but thankfully, it has gone bad right at the end of the project. (But still... who the fuck puts a tube tire on a wheel barrow. It makes more sense to me just to have a solid rubber tire.)

I came back in to sand some more and I realized I need to consider trying to get a lighter new sink. The original plan may still have merit if and only if that sink breaks apart.

The only way that it is coming out of the basement is in pieces. There's no way that damn thing, with 6 grown men attacking it, will come up the steps without destroying them.

So... what to do...

(What's really funny is I was looking up something on the net and found this pic. Geez. That looks familiar.)

So today I went to Lowes to stock up on more waterproofer and get some enamel for the sink base.

Yup! I'm going to just clean it good, repair what I can, and paint it! The base'll be sanded and cleaned and painted black.

However, I wasn't happy with some parts of the wall that were prone to leaks and since I had concrete on hand I went ahead and parged an additional layer on since it'll take me 2 days or so to work on the sink. That should allow this thin layer time to cure.

I also scraped the floor and floor cracks and sealed the major cracks around the washer pedestal.

Tomorrow I'm going to use a wire brush attachment on the drill to really clean the insides of the sink basic of all loose material and dirt. I'll sand the base again to try and remove as much rust.

The goal is to have them washed and cleaned by tomorrow night so they can dry by Friday evening.

Friday will be the first coat of paint on the base and the sink if time permits since I hope to see the T-ling. Of course, I'm getting a cold and a baby so needs to be around that.

Anyway, with any luck, I can start waterproofing soon and then get the floor painted so I can reset the sink. I want to then paint the floor and create a clean "laundry area" in the basement.

Then I need to hire a plumber to fix the one area and redo the faucet over the sink.

Fun!

I think I want to me manorexic.

I could handle that.

The Comics Curmudgeon delivers one of the best commentaries on sickness.

I have to say that the Family Circus children do not strike me as being old enough, under ordinary circumstances, to have racked up the body count on display here. Of course, the circumstances surrounding this freakish clan of big-headed weirdos is never ordinary. What intrigues me most about this meticulously illustrated history of carnage is the fact that the wussily-named Kittycat was preceded by the much, much butcher Beast. Perhaps the name provides a clue to the motivation behind the carnage: all these hapless creatures were sacrifices to the greater Beast, our Dark Lord, who returns the gifts with a channel of raw power straight into the hearts of His little servants. You’re next, PJ!

God I hate the FC.

This is the strangest thing I've read in a long long long time.

A 44-year-old Saginaw man remains jailed today on charges of bestiality after he was seen engaged in sexual acts with a dead dog, Michigan State Police troopers said.

Ronald Kuch was arrested after police searched the area of Midland and Carter roads Friday for a man who ran away from a Bay County Animal Control officer. The entire incident was within view of a nearby day care center...

Troopers said a woman from the day care center called for animal control because there was a dead dog near the property that had been hit by a car several days earlier.

Before officers could arrive, the man showed up and began engaging in sexual acts with the dog, police said. The animal control officer also reported seeing Kuch involved in the sex act and as he approached him, Kuch shoved him away and ran off.

State troopers searched the area and found the man hiding in the attic of a nearby house.

Officers determined that the house belonged to the man's girlfriend and later learned that the dog, a black Labrador retriever, also belonged to the girlfriend. The dog had been dead for four or five days.

The official charge of crimes against nature carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. If the person is a repeat offender, the maximum is life in prison.

Most of today involved cleaning up the Phase IV area of dust and miscellaneous concrete debris.

I got the rest of the sink frame sanding and cleaned and a 1st coat of a special :for-rusted metal" rustoleum enamel on it. It is self-priming and can be applied directly over any surface rust that would not come off. It'll do for the rest of the life of the frame.

I also sanded the iron drain base and sealed that with the enamel too (pic above). I figured it wouldn't hurt. I'll probably have to touch it up once the polyurethane enamel/sealer goes on the entire sink but who's going to see it.

I need to buy all new plumbing hardware too for the drains. I had to cut off this one coupling with a utility knife.

I am a little worried about some of the tuckpointing and parging though. See the yellow arrows on the pic? Those are areas where the curing is clearly not going the same as elsewhere and the moisture just isn't fully coming out of the concrete.

I'm not sure what to think of it but I'm not worrying too much. Perhaps those batches of concrete had a bit more water or something. It happens when you are doing this totally buy hand in a bucket.

I'll give it a few more days.

Well the first coat of glossy slate grey polyurethane enamel is on the sink and it looks a million times better than it did before.

I'll need to do some more touch up work tomorrow around the base/drain and do a full second coat in the morning.

The base frame also got a 2nd coat today.

This paint will be the same paint I'm going to use on the floor in my make-shift new "laundry area" and hopefully, depending on the temperature, I can slowly repair and paint the entire slab for the whole basement over the course of the next few weeks.

I'm not really counting that in my work though. The water-proofing work of the walls is truly what had to happen.

Super mega productive day today. And after I take this break I may have some more time too to work on other stuff.

So I got the 1st coat of waterproofer up on Phase VI today. Almost there... so close I can taste it... literally... cuz I have enough dust in my mouth to know it!

I also got a 2nd coat of enamel on the sink so that should be done and solid in a few days.

Tomorrow will be the 2nd coat of waterproofer and I'm probably going to start hauling some stuff out of the basement. I need to detail Drylock some areas and the areas on the floor that had cracks I repaired.

Monday will be be cleaning the floor and putting down the paint where the sink will go. I'll paint the pedestals for the washer and dryer then too. I'm thinking maybe getting up at 4:30 am and painting so there may be a chance I could do a 2nd coat by late evening and have that done. If not, Tuesday will be a 2nd coat of paint.

And that means Wednesday I need to try and scrounge up about 5-6 strong manly men to come over around 7pm and for 10 minutes help me move this goddamn sink back into place.

Yes. It'll probably take 5-6 guys to do it. We need to sort of push it near to the placed frame and then lift it up, over the frame, and then onto it.

I'm thinking it'll take 10-20 minutes at max.

Volunteers? Please! Help! I want to do laundry again and be able to tackle this mess.

So last night Lori, Ryan, Giga, Katherine, Katherine's bf, someone I don't know, and myself had a meatloaf and miscellaneous casserole dinner over the Lori's before heading over to The Schott to see Jon Stewart and several people from The Daily Show.

The Daily Show is taping from Cowtown at OSU this week and the whatever they call the modern version of SEC (Student Events Committee that I served on) gave out several thousand tickets for a forum-type setting.

It was ok. The Dean of Arts who "moderated" it was just awful there were moments where you could tell she wasn't comfortable with the humor.

Duh!

They should have found someone with a performance background in radio, stage, or broadcasting to host it.

Anyway. It was OK.

I was probably one of the oldest people there along with the cast on stage. If there's one thing to make you feel old is several thousand late teen/early 20somethings to make you realize you realize you are in your 30s with 30something sensibilities now.

Too bad we aren't going to an episode taping. That would be great.

And I wanted more Samantha Bee!

So the 2nd coat of waterproofer is up!

I need to run to Big Lots! and get some more cheap ass brushes.

Since the utility sink is removed I haven't been able to clean up my brushes and such so I've been using the cheap ones and just throwing them away. It is just easier with the fact I'm using a solvent-based polyurethane enamel. I rarely ever use non-latex paint so clean up has never been an issue. With the floor paint it is since I'm not a fan of mineral spirits. And without a sink or proper work area it is easier just to treat all of this as disposable. (I'm totally jealous of Mr. T's basement work room with a separate cellar door! He even has a small version of my sink too!)

Later tonight I'll use some Drylock to touch up the areas and put a 2nd coat on the repaired floor cracks and call the waterproofing done!

Soon... quite soon... I can do laundry again!!!!!!!!!

So I had this awful dream/nightmare last night.

My body had this horrible auto-immune reaction to something and all my teeth started coming out. I was spewing bloody teeth and while it wasn't paintful, it was just awful.

I don't know why I had this dream.

I think it may have been because of this one guy's messed up teeth I saw last night while we were at The Schott.

By the end of the dream I had like 5 teeth left and I kept spewing blood, collecting the teeth in the hopes that they could somehow be put back in.

And all of this was happening at my Cio Cia Pat's house near Glass City.

Nothing makes sense.

Awful dream.

When we got home today it was too late to work in the yard but I did get the first coat of polyurethane enamel down on the floor where the sink will go and the two pedestals where the washer and dryer sit.

Originally I wanted to fix the entire slab, repairing any cracks and waterproofing them and then painting the whole thing.

I'm not sure if I want to do the whole entire basement floor yet but I'm definitely going to paint a nice sized area that is basically the "laundry space".

I'm sick of putting cloths directly on the slab and a painted area will be so much easier to sweep and keep clean.

A happy surprise today. We got an unusual call yesterday, or so Giga "said", from Monica stating she wanted to go to brunch today at Tee Jaye's of all places.

Now Tee Jaye's is never on my list of places to do breakfast and it isn't quite a Monica place either but I didn't think anything of it really.

Well. We get there and as soon as Matt corrected the hostess that there'd be 5 people I knew something was up and it had to be Andrea in town from NYC.

It is hard to believe that she moved away over 6 years ago. It seems just like yesterday that it was Thanksgiving in 2000 and she and I were freezing our asses off at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I miss her and I wish we could have spent more time together.

Perhaps a trip to NYC is in order if she gets her own place. What's a few less TFs to spend quality time with one of my oldest and best friends in the world.

Oh. And Monica agreed to color my hair.

Goodby grey!

I love some of these pumpkins.

This one is just brilliant.

No photos today. I know it upsets you.

I managed to get the sink set up on its bottom and got a coat of enamel on the back.

I also managed to touch up the floor and clean up all the foil I had on the pipes to protect them from the waterproofer

Hell... I also got the front yard magnolia leaves raked up to.

Tomorrow I'm going to clean the basement up and hopefully Wednesday the sink can get put back.

I'm going to get new plumbing couplers and drain pipers tomorrow.

No work on the basement today.

I want the painted floor and sink to have another day to dry completely. Tomorrow I'll being cleaning up the south part of the basement and trying to get a lot of the trash up and out. Doesn't seem much point doing that this evening with it raining and all.

Thursday night, several manly men will be coming over to help me move the sink back onto the pedestal. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes or so with 4 or 5 guys. Hopefully everybody's backs will be ok.

I went out and got all new drain plumbing today so I'm ready to hook everything back up too.

Tonight I'm just gonna avoid trick'r'treaters, crawl into bed early, watch some tv or pron, and go to bed early.