Ugh. I made a MySpace profile, too. But I had a real excuse to make that one.
Monthly Archives: May 2007
I’ve created a Facebook profile. I feel dirty now. Why would I do such a thing?
I did it for the page hits on my blog. I admit it. I’m a page hit whore. I remember way back when Don’s Rant Page was still in existence, I was getting over a thousand hits a month. I had a taste of the power. I want more. How am I supposed to engage in successful psychodynamic manipulation of a specific subset of people for mysterious purposes when my sphere of influence is so small? Not that I’d ever do such a thing, of course, but, hypothetically, it would be almost impossible.
I suppose it doesn’t matter, really, since, in the near future, we’ve already los– oh, I’ve said to much.
Chernobyl: 20 Years Later
My friend, Kelly, just sent me this link: My Journey to Chernobyl: 20 Years After the Disaster. I haven’t read through it yet, but that’s how much I trust him: I just post the link on my blog. It could be filled with scat porn, for all I know.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I did briefly check out the link first.
You can’t be too careful with Kelly.
Anyway, it sounds like an awesome experience. I’d love to explore any ruins, ancient or otherwise. Maybe some day, after I’ve developed an immunity to radiological contaminants. Well, to be honest, I’d gladly explore Chernobyl, radiation hazards or not.
Hmmm…I just thought of an interesting RPG setting: a post-apocalyptic world where civilization has re-established itself in the typical fantasy-medieval level of technology, but where the monsters are not just mythical creatures, but are, rather, actually mutations or genetic experiments from ancient times. Yes, this idea could use some fleshing out. In fact, it will merge seamlessly with the current RPG setting that has been percolating in the back of my mind for the past year.
Now, if only I could get off my butt and start getting these ideas on paper.
All the Bees are Dying?
You may have heard about the mysterious disappearance of honey bees that has been plaguing the agriculture industry in the past few months. Of course, the media is all “ZOMG! The bees are going extinct! We’ll all starve!”. Well — surprise, surprise — that is probably just media hype. Check out this article by an entomologist from the University of California at Riverside: Why are the bees disappearing?
However, I do wish the Cheerios honey bee would die. I never liked that guy.
Little Fighting Machines
I came across the little comic on the right earlier today. I found it quite humourous. I also found it inspirational. You see, I named my rabbit Marty after Madmartigan, sword-swinging hero of the George Lucas fantasy movie Willow. I joked with my coworkers that this rabbit would live up to his name and be raised as a fighting rabbit. Well, today, that joke became a reality (sort of).
Now, from previous experience, I knew Marty would do well on a WWII battlefield as a cable cutter, having gnawed through a forty dollar recharging cable for my cell phone and a thirty dollar headset cable, but I delt he should have more combat experience. The only such experience he has had is raking my arms with this hindclaws whenever I try to pick him up. He has since calmed down a bit when I pick him up now, but I still have some scars on my left forearm from his struggles. I had bigger plans for Marty now.
With a mad gleam in my eye, I grabbed a cutting knife from the kitchen and a roll of the handyman’s secret weapon — duct tape — and got to work. I fastened the blade to Marty’s back, as per the instructions. He was a little hesitant to become a weapon of destruction at first, but I managed to calm him down enough to get the duct tape around his body. With tufts of winter fur still floating in the air, I placed Marty on the floor, ready to train him up to be the killing machine he was destined to be.
It wasn’t long before I realized the magnitude of my folly. Almost immediately, Marty began running around the room. There I was, sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor with a rapidly mobile death-blade careening haphazardly about me. I imagine this is how many of the lesser mad scientists meet their demise before they can do any real damage to the world.
A short time later, the blade slid sideways, and Marty brandished it as a lance. He seemed most comfortable with the blade in this position. I, however, was not. With the blade along the side of his head, Marty could very easily cut his ear, face, or foot. I had to cut his combat training short.
What I did was very wrong. I am a trained professional. Do not try this at home.
“It’s about bunnies”
I finished reading Richard Adams’ Watership Down last night. It was definitely a great book. It’s about a group of rabbits who leave their warren on a premonition that something terrible is about to happen to it, and the adventures they have while trying to find a new place to live. On a deeper level, it’s a story about how heroes are created and how different people adapt to survive in a dangerous world.
The author did a great job creating a simple mythology and various cultures for the rabbits. At no point did the story every become tedious or boring. After going through the entire book, the epilogue was especially moving.
I would certainly place this book on that short list of books that everyone should read during their time here on earth.
Oh, and as for the title: Watership Down is a place. A “down” is hill, and “Watership” is its name. It can be a strange title for those of us not born in southern England.
Guild Change
Well, my old World of Warfcraft guild The Dreadnaughts has disbanded. Fortunately, however, most of us have joined another guild: Silent Affliction. We had a friend who’s a member and he jimmied us in.
This guild is a lot larger than The Dreadnaughts was, so I’ll be able to experience a lot of the old and new raiding content that I was unable to see before. In fact, just last night a bunch of went to Zul’Gurub (an ancient troll temple site in the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale). I’d never been there before, so it was a neat experience. I was also invited to go to Gruul’s Lair (Gruul is a giant cyclops) last night, but it was a little late for me, plus I was already WoWed out by that time.
So far, my experience with Silent Affliction has been positive. I can’t wait to check out all the old-world raid content like the undead citadel of Naxxramas or The Molten Core. Since the WoW expansion, there’s little reason for anyone to go to these places as the treasure that can be found there has become obsolete.
Time Capsule
I think the earliest TV shows I can ever remember seeing are The New Adventures of Pinocchio and Tales of the Wizard of Oz. I never thought I’d ever see that stop-motion liar or the idiot, the coward, and the heartless bastard ever again, but, lo and behold, YouTube has saved what copyright law has tried to destroy. Yes, someone has uploaded several episodes from each of these shows onto YouTube for all the world to enjoy!
Here’s Pinocchio,
What a happy lad,
Since the day he lost his strings.
He can walk and talk and fly!
(Do anything I try!)
He can dance, sing a tune, play a flute.
(Do anything I try!)
But never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never ever should he ever tell a lie.
They’re three sad souls
Oh, me, oh, my
No brain, no heart, he’s much to shy
But never mind, you three
Here’s the wizard as you can see
He’ll fix that one-two-three
In the funny place called the World of OzOh the World of Oz is a very funny place
Where everyone wears a funny, funny face
All the streets are paved with gold
And no one ever grows old
In that funny land
Lives the Wizard of Oz
Marty Tries To Fly
(click thumbnails for larger images)
Minor Home Improvements
Yesterday one of the two bulbs in the double ceiling light in my bedroom burned out. When I came home this morning I discovered that the second of the two bulbs had burned out as well. Seeing as how I replaced that one only a few weeks ago, and realizing how often I have to change those incandescent bulbs in my dimmer-controlled light, I decided to switch to fluorescent bulbs. I had replaced all my non-dimmer-controlled years ago (it only makes sense), and I finally decided to get rid of the dimmer switch in my bedroom and finally replace the bulbs that get the most use in the house with fluorescents.
So, off I went to Canadian Tire to pick up some materials. While I was there, I picked up some of that thin, beaded chain to fix my toilet (the existing one had rusted into two pieces), and a new toilet paper roll holder (my last one broke a long time ago and I never got around to fixing it).
First on my list was the bedroom lights. I made sure to turn the breaker off so I wouldn’t electrocute myself like I did when I was removing the light switch in the hallway when investigating a water leak from said fixture (yes, it was a stupid thing to do). That went without a hitch. I bought a pack of two 26 watt CFLs with a color temperature of 4100 K (aka “cool white”). Most CFLs have a color temperature of only 2700 K. The higher the color temperature, the closer the light is to natural sunlight (and the more “blue” there is in the light). The 4100 K CFLs are fantastic! It’s almost like sunlight in my bedroom. I have a 2700 K CFL in a desk lamp in my room and it looks yellow when I have that turned on while the 4100 K CFLs are going. When buying compact fluorescent bulbs, I strongly recommended getting the highest color temperature possible. Don’t settle for th 2700 K, or things just won’t look “right”.
Replacing the chain that leads from the toilet handle to the stopper inside the toilet tank was a little trickier. Removing the old chain was easy, but getting the new one on was a little tough since it was ever so slightly larger than the previous chain. The new chain just didn’t want to fit through the hole on the plastic stopper mount. With Red-Green’s Handy Man Motto “Any tool can be the right tool” in my mind, I grabbed a Robertson screwdriver and “drilled” the hole a little bigger. Presto! It worked like a charm.
Lastly, I installed the new toilet paper roll dispenser. It was a nice wooden one that somewhat matched the vanity. Unfortunately it came with phillips-head, brass, woodscrews, the most worthless kind of screws known to man. They might as well ship that crap pre-stripped since they end up that way before you can finish using them for the first time. I had to throw one of the screws away and just use some proper screws I have lying around, and it all worked out in the end.
Now if only I can get around to puttying up the drywall in the kitchen that I had to replace a few years ago when I went on a mad ant-extermination rampage (they’ve never been back!)…
