Wombat Rampant

at this rate I'll be posting with a pencil

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:39:37 GMT

Actually I just need to cut back on the Cowzilla use when I get home, considering that I spend most of my day either bashing the keyboard and scribbling with a pencil in ledgers. It's not like I really need to get anything done online in a hurry, or keep up to date on the elections. As usual, it's a lot easier to find out what's going on in the race that affects me the least (The Promised One, Lord Obamessiah {PBUH} v. Some Old Dude Who Was In Vietnam Not Named Kerry) than what's happening in my congressional district or even the race to replace John Warner in the Senate.

Stopped at Harris Teeter to pick up some yogurt and wound up with a pound of sliced roast beast, horseradish sauce for same, grapes, Fig Newtons, (which were BOGO) and some Crystal Light, which was buy one get two free. So now I have something to moderate my Diet Coke intake besides water, ehich gets kind of old after a while.

Got the blood testing and insulin injection schedule squared away today - I need to stick my fingers 4x daily and theoretically could wind up injecting three times a day. Weehu. Feel my (lack of) enthusiasm...maybe I should stop looking when I do the injections. Tomorrow it's off to Annapolis after work so I can get measured for the CircAids like I was supposed to the first time. Should be an interesting drive if we get the thunderstorms the weathermen are promising for tomorrow.

Well, that figures

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:31:33 GMT

The very next day after I get ganked in my Typhoon while ratting - because I wasn't paying attention - I get ganked in my artycane, because I wasn't paying attention. Ironically, the ganker showed up in his Ishtar while I was price-checking Typhoons in S-Mart. :(

Fortunately, there was a Hurricane for sale in 1v; I say fortunately because the market in SP sucks right now unless I want to go over to the Kraftwerk stations and get hosed at front-line prices. Screw that.

Senior controller was busy with the stuff that came from the auditor, so he didn't have me do much for him except fill out some USPS forms and write up ledger entries which I'll probably be entering tomorrow. Which is to say work was kinda slow.

Leg continues to improve; it appears to be drying up since the amount of drainage into the surgical sponges has dropped off a cliff since I started the Omnicef. w00t.

Monday linkagery

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:34:12 GMT

New hope for the Ryugong?

Renegade parents and teachers fight back against "fuzzy math". Good on 'em, I say. (Joanne Jacobs) Also via Joanne, the WSJ says a college degree isn't always a ticket to success. Big surprise there, eh, Loyal Readers?

New York Times caught with its nose up Obama's ass again. Wow, big surprise there. (Ace. along with just about everyone else in the world)

Coyote explains the Democrats' dilemma on drilling, and also has a post about why wind and solar alone aren't up to the job of replacing coal and oil. As if that weren't enough, he points us to (via John Scalzi's blog) a new Scalzi short story in the universe of Old Man's War and a new Charles Stross short that's sort of a sequel to the awesome Atrocity Archives. Both of these are up at the new tor.com site, which looks every bit as nice as Scalzi says it does.

Speaking of the Tor site, did you realize that there's a port of Civ for the Nintendo DS? Apparently it kinda sucks, though. Think I'll stick to Civ III on my desktop and laptop.

life imitates Blazing Saddles

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:21:26 GMT

Time: This afternoon about 5 PM
Place: Kingstowne Sunoco, right down the street from the Wal-mart

This particular Sunoco station tends to play music over the speakers when they're not telling people to pay before they pump, and on this particular day they were playing some Old School R&B. I come out of the station to pump my gas, and there's this dude at one of the pumps who could pass for Matt Hoffman's twin brother. He's just singing along to the music, which is no big deal, but as I finish pumping in my $30 "Shout" comes on - and he goes nuts. Not only is he singing at the top of his lungs, he's doing a full-tilt dance number over there. On the other side of the island from me, there's a young black dude watching this with a disbelieving "WTF?" smile. I lean over and call out the passenger window to him, "I sho' do like to watch them sing and dance." Dude cracks up, and I drive off.
Mission accomplished. :D

Well, that figures.

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:23:54 GMT

Didn't realize that Doctor Horrible was only going to be available for a limited time, and so missed Part III by not watching it yesterday. Meh. I'll be buying the DVD when it comes out anyway, and in the meantime I can cultivate patience.

Sunday #29

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:03:01 GMT

Found enough change in my pants and the quarter cup to do a full laundry run, so I did both baskets and got it over with.
Aside from that, internet spaceships and experimenting with the bread robot (cinnamon-honey oat bread, which for some reason finished with a hole in the middle, wtf?) it was a pretty slow day.

I've been playing in Empire too long. Lost a Ferox and a Typhoon ratting because I ignored the appearance of neutrals in local. Dumbass.

The Frank Miller graphic novels are pretty much what I expected after seeing the movie. I'll have to check the catalog and see if they have more of Sin City in their collection.

on my way to the battle zone

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:49:38 GMT

Futzed around yesterday with my original EVE character, RadioWombat, changing skills and getting blueprint copies done; later on, after finishing the last Turtledove novel I'll probably ever read, I went back to see if I could sneak Berrik Radhok (the character I got from jamestrainor) through the pipe from Delve to the current war zone around AZN. Well, I got as far as an AAA outpost at GE-8JV in Catch before I ran out of energy...yeah, I probably should have crashed earlier, but I wasn't feeling tired. I'm sure I will later today.

Today's gets

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:08:16 GMT

(h/t to onsenmark for the title)
Missed the bank, which is okay because I think I have enough quarters to do the required laundry anyway, and there's always tomorrow.
Hit Borders to take advantage of a 30% coupon, which was used on Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, which I've been faunching after since seeing Greg Gutfeld's interview with Johnny Rotten in Vegas. Features a country version of "Pretty Vacant", which justifies the bandwidth all by itself. (Look for "Viva Las Vegas" in the Video section.) Also picked up a Case Logic CD case that will allow me to carry more mix CDs in the truck, which is good because I've pretty much memorized the ones I have.

Returned books to library, checked out two graphic novels by Frank Miller (The Hard Goodbye and The Big Fat Kill) along with the last Turtledove American Civil Wars novel, In At The Death. I don't expect it to be very good, but I want some closure, dammit. Also picked up Hot Rocks by the Stones, which ought to fill my remaining Stones needs; TMBG's Flood, which became increasingly annoying as it went on; the soundtrack from O Brother Where Art Thou?, which was too scratched to play; and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The opening cut on that one still makes me feel the way I did when I first heard it back in junior high school. Brrr.

Got meds from Kaiser, chikuns from Popeye, and then went home.

another defective character quiz

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:53:55 GMT

This time for Firefly.

Your results:
You are Derrial Book (Shepherd)

Derrial Book (Shepherd)		70%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		60%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		60%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		50%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		40%
Alliance		35%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		25%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		20%
Inara Serra (Companion)		20%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		20%
River (Stowaway)		15%

Even though you are holy
you have a mysterious past.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

Ganked from Snarkybytes, which got Instalanched for this post on Project Orion - the real one, not the not-so-cheap and crappy substitute NASA is trying to palm off these days.

So much to do

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:32:50 GMT

Went out to Fairfax last night and met up with P for dinner at Moby's, which I won't be doing again soon since two hours later my blood sugar was still over three hundred. Holy crap. I blame the rice. Six units of insulin and eleven hours of sleep later, blood sugar is down to tolerable levels (i.e. not requiring a fresh hole in my torso) but still not great.

So: make a deposit at Suntrust, pick up drugs at Kaiser, drop off books at library, throw out more garbage. And watch part III of Dr. Horrible after everything else, because it is SO COOL. Except for Wonder Woman, is there anything Joss Whedon does that isn't awesome?

Is it still TV if it's only on the internets?

because we're Kaiser, LOL

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:35:47 GMT

Test results came back from the wound culture yesterday, and after much e-mailing back and forth about cost, location, timing, and other annoying intrusions into the wonderful world of medicine I turned thumbs down on the IV antibiotics and went with an oral antibiotic yclept Omnicef. I am told it will not make me break out in hives or die of anaphylactic shock, despite being a third-generation penicillin derivative; I'm going to pick up some Benadryl anyway. Just in case. The reason we're switching to the Omnicef is that, having killed off the Staphylococcus aureus from last time, the Cipro isn't making much headway against the remaining Pseudomonas and Streptococcus, and the Sulfameth is complete fail. Could have fooled me; the wound looks like it's getting better and there's a total absence of yellow crap in there. However, IANAD.

On a closely related topic, the therapist who I suffered three hours of hellish driving to reach a couple of weeks ago called to let me know that her choice of compression garment had been vetoed by Kaiser on grounds of cost. That, and it wasn't what they asked for anyway. So, since the measurements for the CircAid are different from what she took, I get to drive up to Annapolis again. Welp.

SDB explains it all

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:25:26 GMT

Well, actually, he doesn't, but he does explain why he doesn't do the USS Clueless thing any more. Post is very much worth reading, along with the comments which mostly revolve around the issue of alternative energy and why (Algore to the contrary) it's not going to have much impact on the US energy supply unless something unforeseen -like, say, a breakthrough in solar that makes it 500% more efficient- happens. I'm not holding my breath.
I stopped reading den Beste's new site Chizumatic some time ago since his taste in anime is different enough from mine that the reviews were becoming annoying.

Worthwhile links for those short on time:
Den Beste's original post on alternative energy and its problems.
Neo-neocon discusses the Pickens Plan, WRT the above post.
Why putting an assload of solar cells on your roof won't get you free from the power company. (Select "Electric Bill Too High" under "Reference Material".)

out into the heat

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:14:19 GMT

Finished my filing, posted & disbursed yesterday's manual checks, did up the daily bank reports and ran tapes on today's Portsmouth deposits. So I'm outta here, all the more so since I don't much care for Sean Hannity and have no other reason to hang around the office.

It's 93 degrees out, 44% humidity, dewpoint of 68. That's nothing.
Windows stay down, a/c in the Sportage stays off. . :)

Okay, I'm off to a good start

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:03:41 GMT

Slept very well last night, had good sugar this morning, and had enough time to pack lunch. Which is good, since the heat is supposed to be on this morning and the humidity with it. Unfortunately, I completely forgot my meds this morning. Well, since there's not much to do around the office today (since the senior controller is out and the boss is on the road to Portsmouth) I may just take off early and have a late lunch at home.

In other news, the spinach egg & cheese thing we used to do a lot in Minnesota also works well with chopped broccoli, although admittedly it's a lot harder to stir the eggs into the broccoli than the spinach. I should probably be eating more stuff like this and fewer sandwiches/hot dogs.

The Heller decision...

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:47:06 GMT

...in Frank J's world.

I can't decide whether I like

More specifically, everyone in D.C. should immediately be given a gun, and anyone who protests should be shot in the groin, shot in the face, and then shot in the groin once more for good measure. Then their houses should be burned down. We'll make a weekend of it. I'll bring beer. See video from last year's Supreme Kegger.

The issue of incorporation was not brought before the Court, but our next step will be to grab our guns, form a posse, and head to Chicago. The citizens are disarmed, so they will be easy pickings and their stereos will become mine. See the barrel of my gun. I shall kill Mayor Daley and place his head upon a pike in the town square as an example to others. Usually the execution of laws falls on the Executive Branch, but I have the summer off and it sounds like fun.

Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. I will find these people and kill them, or my name isn't Anthony "The Bull" Scalia.

the best.
It's all good. RTWT.

shirts and other annoyances of the day

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:44:32 GMT

Busy day at work today; spent a lot of time reformatting spreadsheets to the senior controller's satisfaction, ferreting out a dime error in the checkbook, and hammering out checks for the monthly sales & use tax payments - along with the usual half-dozen bills that needed paying. I was busy enough that I didn't get out to lunch until ~1330, which is a little surprising.

A number of work shirts recently succumbed to their age and my girth, so I stopped by Casual Male on the way home to pick up some new ones. I was a little gunshy about the place, considering the horrible quality of the last things I bought there, but let's face it: in my size, you don't get a lot of shopping options.
I wound up paying roughly $28 per shirt for a couple of 5X casual shirts which won't look out of place, while avoiding cheaper shirts that made gook shirts look plain. I'm not really happy with them, but I can't really wait to get some Dickies shirts off the intertubes.

Getting something off my chest

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:16:43 GMT

I understand that animaltofriends and her ex-sister-in-law have expressed interest in attending my mother's funeral Mass and interment.
Carlos and I have derived some bitter amusement from this, for what may not be obvious reasons. In my case, I can't understand how somebody who had a low opinion of my father and didn't even ask about attending his funeral would think they'd be welcome at my mother's funeral.

Comparative weather

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:57:37 GMT

Looks like chebutykin and the rest of my MN peeps are really sweating today up there in the Great American Desert. Sympathies, m8s.
Oddly, down here it's five degrees cooler, which wouldn't make a lot of difference except that it's also less humid. So all things considered, it's been a lot more comfortable down here.

I'm going to miss this guy.

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:50:51 GMT

Been listening to El Rushbo this week, now that I have a radio of my own in the office, and today he mentioned a particularly interesting exchange between W. and some reporter at today's press conference.

Q Mr. President, understanding what you say about energy supplies being tight and the debate over energy, which has gone on for years and will continue long through the campaign and into the next administration -- one thing nobody debates is that if Americans use less energy the current supply/demand equation would improve. Why have you not sort of called on Americans to drive less and to turn down the thermostat?

THE PRESIDENT: They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done, is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars, they want to conserve. But the consumer is plenty bright, Mark. The marketplace works.
Secondly, we have worked with Congress to change CAFE standards, and had a mandatory alternative fuel requirement.

So no question about what you just said is right. One way to correct the imbalance is to save, is to conserve. And as you notice my statement yesterday, I talked about good conservation. And people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less; they can balance their own checkbooks.

Q But you don't see the need to ask -- you don't see the value of your calling for a campaign --

THE PRESIDENT: I think people ought to conserve and be wise about how they use gasoline and energy. Absolutely. And there's some easy steps people can take. You know, if they're not in their home, they don't keep their air-conditioning running. There's a lot of things people can do.

But my point to you, Mark, is that, you know, it's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate to consumers how they live their lives. The American people are plenty capable and plenty smart people and they'll make adjustments to their own pocketbooks. That's why I was so much in favor of letting them keep more of their own money. It's a philosophical difference: Should the government spend their money, or should they spend their own money? And I've got faith in the American people.

And as much as I regret that the gasoline prices are high -- and they are -- I also understand that people are going to make adjustments to meet their own needs. And I suspect you'll see, in the whole, Americans using less gasoline. I bet that's going to happen. And in the meantime, technologies will be coming on the market that will enable them to drive and save money, compared to the automobiles they're using before. And as you notice, the automobile industry is beginning to adjust here at home as consumer demand changes. And the great thing about our system, it is the consumer that drives our system; it's the individual American and their collection that end up driving the economy.

Emphases mine. Not many people like this in Congress, unfortunately, including the two guys running for the major party nominations.

Related: Larry Kudlow notes that when Bush rescinded the executive order prohibiting offshore drilling, the price of oil on the market went down $9. He also notes that California fields could be producing oil within a year. So much for that "It won't do any good for ten years!" nonsense.

Haven't I seen this meme somewhere before?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:12:51 GMT

Ganked from deathquaker.

- Go to musicoutfitters.com
- Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
- Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorites. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember/care about.

1977 Top 100:
1. Tonight's The Night, Rod Stewart
2. I Just Want To Be Your Everything, Andy Gibb
3. Best Of My Love, Emotions
4. Love Theme From "A Star Is Born", Barbra Streisand
5. Angel In Your Arms, Hot
6. I Like Dreamin', Kenny Nolan
7. Don't Leave Me This Way, Thelma Houston
8. (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher, Rita Coolidge
9. Undercover Angel, Alan O'Day
10. Torn Between Two Lovers, Mary MacGregor
11. I'm Your Boogie Man, K.C. and The Sunshine Band And the Rob Zombie version ain't so bad either.
12. Dancing Queen, Abba
~~13. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, Leo Sayer~~
14. Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffet
15. Telephone Line, Electric Light Orchestra
16. Whatcha Gonna Do?, Pablo Cruise
17. Do You Wanna Make Love, Peter McCann
~~18. Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder~~
19. Hotel California, Eagles
20. Got To Give It Up, Pt. 1, Marvin Gaye
21. Theme From "Rocky" (Gonna Fly Now), Bill Conti
22. Southern Nights, Glen Campbell
23. Rich Girl, Daryl Hall and John Oates I like me some Hall & Oates, but never cared for this one.
~~24. When I Need You, Leo Sayer~~
~~25. Hot Line, Sylvers~~
26. Car Wash, Rose Royce
27. You Don't Have To Be A Star, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.
28. Fly Like An Eagle, Steve Miller Band
29. Don't Give Up On Us, David Soul
30. On And On, Stephen Bishop
31. Feels Like The First Time, Foreigner
32. Couldn't Get It Right, Climax Blues Band
33. Easy, Commodores
34. Right Time Of The Night, Jennifer Warnes I can't believe this is the only hit she ever had. :(
35. I've Got Love On My Mind, Natalie Cole
~~36. Blinded By The Light, Manfred Mann's Earth Band~~
37. Looks Like We Made It, Barry Manilow
~~38. So In To You, Atlanta Rhythm Section~~
39. Dreams, Fleetwood Mac
40. Enjoy Yourself, Jacksons
41. Dazz, Brick
42. I'm In You, Peter Frampton
43. Lucille, Kenny Rogers
44. The Things We Do For Love, 10cc
~~45. Da Doo Ron Ron, Shaun Cassidy~~
46. Handy Man, James Taylor
47. Just A Song Before I Go, Crosby, Stills and Nash I liked this at the time, but I can't listen to CS&N these days.
48. You And Me, Alice Cooper
49. Slow Dancin', Johnny Rivers
~~50. Lonely Boy, Andrew Gold~~ WORST. SONG. EVAR.
51. I Wish, Stevie Wonder
52. Don't Stop, Fleetwood Mac
53. Barracuda, Heart
54. Strawberry Letter 23, Brothers Johnson
55. Night Moves, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
56. You're My World, Helen Reddy
57. Heard It In A Love Song, Marshall Tucker Band
58. Carry On Wayward Son, Kansas
59. New Kid In Town, Eagles
60. My Heart Belongs To Me, Barbra Streisand
61. After The Lovin', Engelbert Humperdinck
62. Jet Airliner, Steve Miller Band
63. Stand Tall, Burton Cummings
64. Way Down, Elvis Presley
65. Weekend In New England, Barry Manilow
66. It Was Almost Like A Song, Ronnie Milsap
67. Smoke From A Distant Fire, Sanford Townsend Band
68. Cold As Ice, Foreigner
~~69. Ariel, Dean Friedman~~
70. Lost Without Your Love, Bread
71. Star Wars Theme-Cantina Band, Meco
72. Float On, Floaters
73. Jeans On, David Dundas
74. Lido Shuffle, Boz Scaggs
75. Keep It Comin' Love, K.C. and The Sunshine Band
76. You Made Me Believe In Magic, Bay City Rollers
77. Livin' Thing, Electric Light Orchestra
78. Give A Little Bit, Supertramp
79. That's Rock 'N' Roll, Shaun Cassidy
~~80. Love So Right, Bee Gees~~
81. The Rubberband Man, Spinners
82. I Never Cry, Alice Cooper
83. Nobody Does It Better, Carly Simon
84. High School Dance, Sylvers
85. Love's Grown Deep, Kenny Nolan
86. Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman), Joe Tex
87. I Wanna Get Next To You, Rose Royce
88. Somebody To Love, Queen
89. Muskrat Love, Captain and Tennille
90. Walk This Way, Aerosmith
91. Whispering-Cherchez La Femme-C'est Si Bon, Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
92. Year Of The Cat, Al Stewart
93. Boogie Nights, Heatwave
94. Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac
95. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, Elton John
96. Don't Worry Baby, B.J. Thomas
97. Knowing Me, Knowing You, Abba For all that everyone slags on them, they actually had a few good songs.
98. How Much Love, Leo Sayer
99. Star Wars (Main Title), London Symphony Orchestra
100. Devil's Gun, C.J. and Co.

52 liked, 19 hated, 29 indifferent/don't know

1988 Top 100:
1. Faith, George Michael
2. Need You Tonight, INXS
3. Got My Mind Set On You, George Harrison
4. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley
5. Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses
6. So Emotional, Whitney Houston
7. Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Belinda Carlisle
8. Could've Been, Tiffany
9. Hands To Heaven, Breathe
10. Roll With It, Steve Winwood
11. One More Try, George Michael
12. Wishing Well, Terence Trent d'Arby
13. Anything For You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
14. The Flame, Cheap Trick
15. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, Billy Ocean
16. Seasons Change, Expose
~~17. Is This Love, Whitesnake~~
18. Wild, Wild West, Escape Club
19. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leppard
20. I'll Always Love You, Taylor Dayne
21. Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson
22. Shake Your Love, Debbie Gibson
23. Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer
24. Hold On To The Nights, Richard Marx
~~25. Hungry Eyes, Eric Carmen~~
26. Shattered Dreams, Johnny Hates Jazz
27. Father Figure, George Michael I thought this was a Prince tune for years...
28. Naught Girls (Need Love Too), Samantha Fox
~~29. A Groovy Kind Of Love, Phil Collins~~
~~30. Love Bites, Def Leppard~~
31. Endless Summer Nights, Richard Marx
32. Foolish Beat, Debbie Gibson
33. Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Whitney Houston
~~34. Angel, Aerosmith~~
35. Hazy Shade Of Winter, Bangles
36. The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael Jackson
~~37. Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin~~ There was no escape from this fucking song ALL YEAR.
38. Make Me Lose Control, Eric Carnen
~~39. Red Red Wine, UB40~~
40. She's Like The Wind, Patric Swayze
41. Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
42. Kokomo, Beach Boys
43. I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That, Elton John
44. Together Forever, Rick Astley
45. Monkey, George Michael
46. Devil Inside, INXS
47. Should've Known Better, Richard Marx
48. I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love, Chicago
49. The Loco-Motion, Kylie Minogue
50. What Have I Done To Deserve This?, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield
51. Make It Real, Jets
52. What's On Your Mind, Information Society
53. Tell It To My Heart, Taylor Dayne
54. Out Of The Blue, Debbie Gibson
55. Don't You Want Me, Jody Watley
56. Desire, U2
57. I Get Weak, Belinda Carlisle
58. Sign Your Name, Terence Trent d'Arby
59. I Want To Be Your Man, Roger
60. Girlfriend, Pebbles
61. Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson
62. 1-2-3, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
63. Mercedes Boy, Pebbles
64. Perfect World, Huey Lewis and the News
65. New Sensation, INXS
66. Catch Me (I'm Falling), Pretty Poison
67. If It Isn't Love, New Edition
68. Rocket 2 U, Jets
69. One Good Woman, Peter Cetera
70. Don't Be Cruel, Cheap Trick
~~71. Candle In The Wind, Elton John~~ Most covers suck, and this was no exception.
72. Everything Your Heart Desires, Daryl Hall and John Oates
73. Say You Will , Foreigner
74. I Want Her, Keith Sweat
75. Pink Cadillac, Natalie Cole
76. Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
77. Electric Blue, Icehouse
78. The Valley Road, Bruce Hornsby and The Range
79. Don't Be Cruel, Bobby Brown
80. Always On My Mind, Pet Shop Boys
81. Piano In The Dark, Brenda Russell Featuring Joe Esposito
~~82. When It's Love, Van Halen~~ Van Hagar at its nadir.
83. Don't Shed A Tear, Paul Carrack
84. We'll Be Together, Sting
85. I Hate Myself For Loving You, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
86. I Don't Want To Live Without You, Foreigner
87. Nite And Day, Al B. Sure
88. Don't You Know What The Night Can Do, Steve Winwood
89. One Moment In Time, Whitney Houston
90. Can't Stay Away From You, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
91. Kissing A Fool, George Michael
~~92. Cherry Bomb, John Cougar Mellancamp~~
93. I Still Believe, Brenda K. Starr
94. I Found Someone, Cher
95. Never Tear Us Apart, INXS
96. Valerie, Steve Windwood
97. Just Like Paradise, David Lee Roth
98. Nothin' But A Good Time, Poison
99. Wait, White Lion
100. Prove Your Love, Taylor Dayne

18 liked, 10 hated, 72 no opinion

It's shojo anime for Notre Dame football fans.

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:29:30 GMT

Well, not really shojo, because Rudy is nobody's idea of a chick flick, but there's some tropes in there that look awfully familiar.

There's a plot summary here if you want one, but boiled down to its essentials this is the story of someone who believed they could do what everyone else said was impossible. Hard work and persistence earn our hero a place at Notre Dame in his senior year after four years in a steel mill and three years' brain sweat at Holy Cross Junior College; the same hard work and persistence earn him a spot on the scout team, a "opposing forces" squad that the varsity uses to sharpen up for the real games. Scout team members are eminently expendable; as the coach says on the opening day of walk-on tryouts, "You're on the scout team because frankly, we don't care if you get hurt." Rudy's all-out style antagonizes some players, but over the course of the year he wins over the majority of the varsity players, and eventually he gets the chance he's always dreamed of - to run out of the tunnel at the stadium and play on the team in a real game.

Sounds like a lot of shojo anime I've watched - all full of believing in yourself and not giving up and working hard. It's inspirational, and it's very good. The movie had a couple of scenes where I fully understood how mundanes think about fans, because Rudy is a total Notre Dame football otaku. He memorizes motivational speeches by legendary coach Ara Parseghian. He knows all manner of obscure trivia about the team, and is more than happy to share it. At great length. Sound familiar? ;)

Anyway, great movie. I'll probably be watching this one again soon.

how'd I do all this on four hours' sleep?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:12:51 GMT

Couldn't get to sleep last night until 0230 due to the pain in my leg. Well, maybe sleeping in until 1000 and being horizontal most of the day had something to do with it too. Anyway, I finally gave up and took another couple of Tylenol and hoped for the best.

Up at 0630, managed not to fall asleep before getting to work, and warned the Senior Controller that I was liable to be a little more retarded than usual and why. So he took it slow and mostly avoided his usual crankiness, thank God. Today was mostly taken up with closing the books, now that we have all the quarterly tax crap taken care of; not all that hard if you step carefully through it, don't rush, and have somewhat of an idea what's going on. I'm happy to say that after doing this for a couple of months, it's slowly becoming more familiar and I see where the parts fit together. Sometimes I have to stop and think about it, but that's okay.

Stopped for yogurt and other dairy products on the way home; need to get shirts done, but aside from that I'm planning on an early bedtime. Blood sugars were uniformly horrible on Sunday, all over 200, but today I didn't feel much like eating (maybe the insulin is having side effects?) and just had a sandwich & V-8 for lunch. Of course, I was hungry when I got home; blood sugar before snacking was 128, which is pretty damn good. Early to bed with a cup of yogurt ought to allow me to dodge the needle in the morning. I hope. Not that it hurts (because the needles are Super Fine) but despite the doctor's briefing it still feels like miserable fail.

shifting cities, flexible fuels, and federalism

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:16:20 GMT

This essay by Andy Grove on moving away from our national dependence on oil, this article about developments in biotechnology WRT biofuel generation, and T. Boone Pickens' proposal to shift the country's oil energy infrastructure to wind and natural gas*, all came together for me this afternoon. What bothers me, though, is the notion that the country has to pick one method and get behind it.

Why should we? The energy demands of the Washington area (well, the whole BAMA/Sprawl zone, really) are very different from those of the Midwest, the Rust Belt, and the Pacific coast states, to say nothing of Texas and the southern plains states. These all have different possibilities for generating energy, and we should encourage all of the various alternative supplies to be tried out where they work best. Wind farms in the Midwest, oil in the coastal states, nukes in the Northeast; five years down the road, we can supplement these with biofuel generated by trash-eating bacteria. We'll have to. The only people who think people are going to give up their cars are hard-core Greens and other deluded fools, but I repeat myself.

By the same token, we should face the facts and admit that flexfuel vehicles aren't going to work well outside the Midwest (and, if the Feds ever repeal the asinine ethanol tariff, Atlantic ports) and electric cars aren't going to work at all outside urban areas. We're going to have to work on this over the long term, and the best thing the Federal government could do is get the hell out of the way and quit trying to pick winners via subsidies and tax breaks. Besides, if those assholes in Congress actually bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they're going to need all that money to pay down the national debt anyway.

*Interesting comments on this by Futurepundit, and the WSJ's Environmental Capital blog. The main objections have to do with wind's unreliability, the general lack of transmission capacity, and the lack of CNG infrastructure, though presumably Pickens is going to address the latter by prodding the oil companies into adding some to their existing stations. Whether he does this directly or through Congress will be interesting to see.

UPDATE: Apparently the Institute for Energy Research is saying Pickens wants to go for option B, and the wind part is a lot of hot air. (Don Surber)

take it and stick it

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:50:55 GMT

So after a couple days laziness where I didn't go to Urgent Care right after work, I finally got there today...by way of Sterling Collision, which replaced the passenger-side tires after I climbed a curb across the street from this place while trying to read the twee little business signs by the side of the road*. Two tires, three hours and $350 later I finally got to Kaiser Urgent Care in Reston (which is located on the wrong side of the road, wtf?) where the doctor agreed that yup, the infection was back, maybe brought some fungal friends with it. So she prescribed three weeks of Cipro and Sulfameth, doubling up on the sulfameth daily dose, and added some oral antifungals for good measure.

And some insulin. I don't have to take it unless my fasting blood sugar is over 200 in the morning/2 hours after the big meal of the day, but it's in the fridge and the needles are in the cabinet. Already stuck myself with 2 units today, since at 4:30 my glucose was 240. The doctor made a point of telling me that insulin isn't just used in end-stage diabetes treatment any more; apparently if I wind up in the hospital for some reason, they'll discontinue the oral meds and just go to insulin shots. The whole point of this particular vial is to get my blood sugar back to normal so it doesn't set off more infections, which can (and apparently has) happen if the blood sugar numbers are too high.

So once this is posted, I'm going to drink an assload of water to go with the antibiotics, take a couple of Tylenol for the occasional shooting pains, and go to bed for at least 10 hours, perchance to sleep; tomorrow will be spent mostly in a horizontal permission as the doctor ordered.

*Fuck Reston and their community sign standards anyway. Dictatorial pricks. (Yes, I realize this makes me a miserable PUD knocker.)

holy flange, this is slick

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:19:47 GMT

Whoa. Took the EVE character jamestrainor gave me out for a spin in a tricked-out Armageddon, blew stuff up with the greatest of ease, and am thinking about how I'm going to be able to afford two characters. I suppose I could sell this one, but laser boats are more fun than I thought.