Gecko Bloggle

Yesterday should have been day 28, but since I was writing it after Midnight… whoops.

Instead of actually producing any content tonight, I’m going to point you to some of the blogs I read ’cause I have nothing to say much about today. Banablog Vodka and Shame XKCD Bad With Titles ClaireLand Dear Universe, Love Robynn Dreampepper MonkeyPants Moxie-Snacks No Pants Island Ramdon Ranblings The Cheeseblog The Life of a Sysadmin Whimsical Badminton Certified Bullshit Technician K8 TheBloggess A Softer World FFFFound Ill Doctrine Garfield-Minus-Garfield PassiveAggressiveNotes

annnnnd that’s it, ’cause I’m exhausted.  So tired I’m *ITCHY* and that’s just not okay.

Lazy Sunday. Hung around. Played with some DJ software with Ripley (couple of nice little mashups, actually.)
Watching Hitchcock’s “The Birds” now, and enjoying it quite a bit. I think thatold guy knew a thing or two about filming, y’know?
You can see birds (crows) like that every day in the evenings. They commute here in Vancouver, heading East as the sun goes down. Seen starlings do their swarming thing when I lived in Chilliwack. Wonder if zombie movies are the new Birds movies. Animal invasion force movies. I also wonder what we’ll think of the zombie pop culture stuff that’s been happening over the last five years when we look back ten years from now.

Had some friends over tonight for Deb’s going away party.  Was nice to see some folks that I hadn’t seen in a long time.  Got to see some excellent bellydancing, complete with TWO swords on her head.  In our living room.  That’s right.  Swords.  Living room.  Zills, too.  Shing-chicka-sheeng.

More sugar that I can safely shake a stick at, too.  Emma made these crazy pirate cupcakes.  I had a grass (island?) one.

Everyone’s gone home now, and we’re sitting on the couch with our laptops, watching Will & Grace.  Karen Wheeler makes me swoon.

Was driving around and listening to some music, and it was reminding me of the a conversation I was having earlier about music, and that someone was feeling they don’t have any music that they’ve found for themselves in a while.  I suggested finding a decent streaming radio station (like RadioParadise,) and working it out from there.  She was saying that she was really into Eastern music due to the belly dancing, and hasn’t found music she listens to just for fun.

I know that feeling, of not having any good new music source.  I think that’s how Jonny Vancouver/Hutong and I got started doing the podcast(s) a few years back.  Just generally talking about music and what stuff we liked, and it the rest is 36 episodes of musical history.

I hope she finds some new music, and I look forward to what it might be.

Three days left of Movember, cant wait to shave this thing off.

Employee Of the Month was not the movie we were thinking of, nor was it a comedy, but it was… uh… entertaining.  We were thinking of the 2006 version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424993/ but what we watched was released in 2004 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362590/)

Much darker.  Oddly and suddenly.  Found ourselves going “pff what?” quite a bit.  Couldn’t tell if some of it was improv of just jammed out.  Good, but wobbly.  Had timing issues, I would say.

Funny thing happened tonight when the phone rang:

Me: Hello?

…

Me: Hello?

…

Phone rang again.

Me: Hello?

She: Oh man, that’s hilarious.  I was calling for the sushi place, but figured I had a wrong number, but right before I hung up, I heard a voice, and it didn’t sound like the sushi guys, so I had to call back.

Me: I uh, hah, yeah, I guess you’d-

She: That’s so funny.  My phone’s all screwed up, and so I have to just guess at this stuff, and thought I had it right.  Funny.  I guess I’m drunk and not even drinking.  Well, I’ll talk to you soon, almost home now, and just wanted to grab some sushi, so I’ll call them now and see you soon.

Me: Wait, wait – who *is* this?

She: It’s {firstname}

Me: {firstname}… {friend of mine, mostly online, see eachother about once a year, maybe}!

She: Yeah, hi.  This is {someone I’ve never heard of}, right?

Me: No, it’s {me}

She: Oh, haha… I guess now you’ll have something to write on your blog about, which I’ve been reading, but can’t comment on, ’cause your blog hates me.

…and so I did.

Our good friend Deb’s going away party is tomorrow.  I keep thinking that we could cancel the party, and then it won’t count, and then she won’t go.  It’s selfish, but I do not have a lot of friends, and Deb’s one of the good ones.  She comes over every two weeks or so, and we drink, and talk about our lives, and riff off each other, and just… BE… y’know?

Nuff ’bout that.  Don’t talk about it – it’s not happening.  Simple as that.

Seems a lot of folks are leaving town.  We did.  I mean, moved from the core of downtown Vancouver to almost Richmond.  Arwen and I lived in the core before we met, and we’ve been together for 15 years (or maybe 16?) and I’d been downtown for a year or two before that, I think.

My fingernail is coming back.  I think the two layers are fused together again, which is good, ’cause this exposed underbelly stuff is getting old fast, lemme just say.

What else?

Oh sweet, the guy who did the awesome “Accigone Accent-Removal Spray” video is doing standup on the John Oliver show.  Glad to see him doing his thing.  Go, that guy.  Pete Holmes.  Here’s his site. Go there.

Had lunch today with my boss from when I first started at EA back in 2003.  He’s a good guy.  Nice to see him again.  Been a while.  Like, more than a year or so.  Appreciates folks who’re fast with the funny.  Was nice to talk to him a little about the whole idea of being and IT manager of some description.  I’m not used to it yet, but I think I’m slowly getting the hang of the IDEA that I’d be in charge of something other than the stuff on my own computer, or a small cluster of machines.

Arwen’s making seal noises at me, and then whispering things like “Are you writing about me in your blog? Yes you’re writing about in your blog.”

She’s threatening to not let me come to Disneyland with her.

I’d better go then.  G’nite y’all.

Once again, got nothing to say, but just bumbling along into Friday.  Been fighting something all week.  Took last Friday off to fend it off, but didn’t work, or at least, it didn’t work completely.

Yep.  Nope.  Got nothing.

When I sneeze really hard, sometimes I smell honey.  Does this mean I have bees in my skull?

Tonight I spent a lot of time on the I Can Has Cheezeburger Network, including a point in which I laughed so hard I actually could not breathe.  Like, to the point of wheezing and unable to inhale.  Like, maybe I was gonna pass out.  The thing in question wasn’t even really that THAT funny.

Felt good though.  Felt like maybe it’d been a long damned time since that happened.

So yeah, go find something that makes you laugh, a LOT, and report back here.

This one’s quick, ’cause I just got home from rebooting everything after a scheduled power outage. Today was weird. I had an old button pushed by something today, and I had to walk it off.
Arwen’s watching weird movies on NetFlix (like, awesome from-the-other-room “what the hell are you watching?” movies).
Supposed to rain tomorrow, but there’s leetle teeny snowflakes outside right now. I want to ride. Need that 1/2-hour each way of cycling/exercise.
Julia Stiles has a big head. This is not news, but it’s big enough that it deserves mentioning whenever she’s on the screen.
Tomorrow’s another day.
Gonna go put my big head on my huge pillow.

Still stupid cold out there.  The back yard is frozen solid.  This is not normal at all for here.  Kinda freaky, actually.  So not used to it.  The grass was shattering as I walked on it to take out the garbage.  I’m pretty sure it’s my fault for buying a bike.  Sorta like washing your car makes it rain?  Yeah, sorry about that.

Our 5yo is sick, which meant he was all logey (loagey?) and crying a lot, which is totally not his thing.  He’s usually pretty chipper, for lack of a better term.  The kids missed movie night because of it, but I think he’ll get to make up for lost NetFlix time tomorrow, assuming he stays home.

Hungry.  Be right back.

(one big handful of crunchy cheezies and big cup of some sorta orange pineapple juice thing later)

Y’know, Futurama is/was  a pretty good show.  Just saying.

Went on a bit of a music tear tonight, and found a couple of tracks that my Uncle Bill introduced me to, and hearing them again?  They hold up.  Most of them stand the test of the last 25 years WAY better than most of the top-40 80s stuff has so far.  Will have to play some of it in the next podcast.

Oh, did I mention?  Figured it out.  Rather, Arwen did.  There as someone who was streaming an MP3 I had on the site EVERY DAY OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  I’m guessing maybe they were using it as their music-on-hold or something.  Seems there’s gotta be an easier way to do it than to download a GIG of music a DAY.

Crazytalk.

Epic Mickey looks pretty good.  Wonder if maybe I need to pick that up for Xmas for the kids (‘ dad). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Mickey

Okay, I’m tired, and it’s like, 1:15  Should be sleeping.

Crap.  Blew right through yesterday.  Forgot all about it until I was drop-dead exhausted.

It’s cold here in Vancouver, which is rare. We’re not used to it.  Okay, *I* am not used to it.  I’m getting over a cold-ish-eque thing I had starting Thursday afternoon.  I’m *mostly* over it, I think.  Never really turned into a cold cold, but was one of those ones that was going to drag me into the abyss for a good week or so.  Still need to be getting more sleep than I have been, but I’m working on it.  Arwen’s got something now, but we suspect it’s just migraine (“just” I said, like it was no big deal).

Some friends came over last night who’re working on having a baby.  It was easy for us, but for them?  It’s work, and money, and time, and heartbreak.  Here’s to hoping they do okay this time around.

Craig Fergusson is currently having a nicely frank (and yet utterly uncomfortable/hilarious) conversation with a Doctor.  He just yelled “You can BREAK your penis?” a few times in a row, which is funny, and I’m really glad CBS lets him push the limits of what you can/can’t say on the air.  I don’t know whether or not CBS actually cares, but I like that for all the sexy flirting and stuff Craig does on the show, he was equally fascinated and alarmed by the conversation.

Oh wow, been listening to the audio book William Gibson’s Zero History and it’s been bending my head.  He writes in a world that I’m equally afraid exists and yet hope is there ’cause it makes walking down the street so much interesting when you’re in a metropolitan space like Vancouver.

Last week, the kids and I were trying to get the PVR going (it’s a hard disc recorder with a DVD burner in it, which comes in handy when you wanna take that tape of the kids singing in the xmas concert and turn it into a DVD for others to watch, AND you wanna be able to record Glee for when your wife’s out…  That’s handy.  Also handy for those “Oh hey, this thing is on TV, and the kids would like to see it, I bet.”

That was the case with some live concert footage of Bobby McFerron from a few months ago.  I’d totally forgotten I’d recorded it, (it’d been on PBS at 1am or something) and when I hit play on it, the kids both went from giggling to literally sitting slackjawed, flabberghasted by what was happening onscreen.  Sure, if you grew up in the 80s and were pummeled by overplay of D0n’t W0rry Bee H@ppy, then hearing McFerron might cause dread.

Watching with the kids gave me new ears, and gave me some new stuff to try next time I’m waiting for the service elevator to arrive at work. Seriously.  Awesome room.  Cement walls, square, 13 foot ceilings.  I get in there and beatbox, and the reverb in the room is RIDONCULOUS.  I’ll have to get a recording of it some time. I can actually get a nice echo loop going along the lines of the Future Sound of London Deseo remixes.

The Future Sound Of London – FSOL Deseo Reconstruction #2 (Radio Edit) – The Deseo Radio Mixes

So, look forward to that.

Also, new picture of me up on the Mo’10 page tonight.  ALSO I need to upgrade some pics from the camera for NON-moustache purposes.

g’nite.  Stay warm.  Hope your lights stay on.

Sorry for the domain bombing out for a bit there last night.  We were getting HAMMERED by someone in China at a rate of about 2GB a day.  Not entirely sure what’s going on there, but we think Arwen’s figured it out after digging through the logs.

Snowed like CRAZAY last night.  Two inches of snow on top of the electrical cables outside.  The kids woke up to a whole new world out there.  Made a snowman while they could, inviting the girl from downstairs to come out and play too, even though is was only a few degrees above zero.  Nice to see these little Vancouverites get to play with the snow while it’s here.

Did a kabillion loads of laundry today while trying to figure out why the network card in my “office” machine died suddenly (it’s “there,” but the link never thinks it’s connected – even under Ubuntu).  Last thing I did before it died was upgrade the VMWare Player installation to the newest version, but I think it’s just that the motherboard is EXACTLY 12 months old since manufacture.

Garg.

Played D&D tonight, which was a fun evening of hack & slash to end the day.  I play the tank (a dragonesque biped) except that I enjoy the comedy of the failed rolls way more than the “booya” moment of a highroll in battle.

The cold I was fighting off last night seems to be mostly gone, which is great.  Wasn’t feeling great yesterday, but am able to get moving and stuff today, which was good.  Hate that draggy feeling of an impending cold.

SNL is on now.

Today’s a better day.  The fog of Tuesday’s event is lifting.  Work’s more focused for me now.  Less hectic.  I figured out something.  I was feeling like I was on shaky ground, and I think it’s that I was on shaky legs.  Trying to do too much at once, and thinking that the people who were taking things off my plate were taking things AWAY from me.

Which would fine, except that I was becoming increasingly freaked out that the things taken away would end up BACK on my plate without warning, with a rapidly-approaching deadline, and with a whole bunch of stress and ugliness attached to it.

This Call of Duty ad just made me laugh, even though it was muted when I saw it.

Just watched the whole thing again, and it’s a minute-long commercial, and I gotta say that it’s simultaneously great and sad that the first thing I thought was “finally, women in a commercial for a first-person-shooter.”  That was the first 20 seconds.  Imagine that – a full 20 seconds of women portrayed in a video game setting who are NOT bursting out of their bikinis or leather S&M gear (wow, I bet my google hits are gonna skyrocket tonight).

The last 20 seconds are epic (and ridiculous.)  I’m not one to glorify war, but that sort of insane collection of Hollysplosionery is just plain fun.

And that’s what FPS should be about.  Like they were saying about SugarRush when Klei was working on that at Nexon: “Even when you’re losing, it should still be fun.”

Of course, the Call of Duty game won’t contain any of that, but I kinda wish it did, y’know?

annnnnd on another channel, Jamie from Naked Chef has a new show, and he’s out drinking light beer and skinning gators.  Whuck?  Wonder if he ever just thinks “Maybe I’ll just have some crackers and peanut butter instead,” and then ends up sitting on the couch eating crackers and forgetting about the rest of it.

Moustache is coming along, but I’m never going to be someone who can grow one of those epic “Magnum P.I.” things under my nose.  I’m just not a very hairy guy (despite having had hair halfway down my back for a dozen years.)

Tomorrow’s Friday, and I’m looking forward to it, I gotta say.