Or, more precisely, "Oscar Contest Winner."

That's me.

My friend Liz has a contest she runs every year where she sends out ballots to a group of folks and we get to vote on who we think is gonna win the Oscars. I must be freaking psychic because I got the most right. Which means I won a gift card to Hollywood Video.

In case you were wondering, yes, I am the man.

Yesterday I downloaded some software called MixMeister that allows you to take music in just about any format (MP3, WAV, etc.) and mix it like a DJ - either just fade one song into the other or actually do beat mixing where you change the tempo at the end of one song and at the beginning of the next and mix them together in a continuous track. It also allows you to do overlay tracks (like little sounds or whatever that you want to mix into a song). Once you've got your mix, you can burn it to a CD or even webcast it. It's pretty cool. Give it a look.

My Tron action figures have shipped from eMerchandise.com so I'm hoping they'll be home when I get there. I think I'm going to set up a Tron display at work on my desk. That'd rock. One thing about the eMerchandise site, though - when I went back just now to check on what Tron stuff they had, I noticed they had doubled their prices on the Tron stuff across the board. I bought the figures for $4.45 each; now they're $8.45. The light cycles were $8.45, now they're $16.95. For the figures, that's a bit of a rip-off; you can get those at SunCoast for like $6. But the light cycles are still $8 cheaper at eMerchandise than they are at SunCoast.

I got forwarded an email today from my friend Mike. The subject line was "Travis is a dad!" His comment at the top of the message was, "Dude! I saw the subject of this email, before I saw the sender, and it scared me!" Me, too, man, since it would have to be, like, the Immaculate Conception or something. According to the email, the "baby's got Travis's head." Scary. I don't think I wanna see a baby with my head on it.

Jenn's parents come back from Disneyland today. They asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted a big Cheshire Cat, like the gigantic animals you see in the Disney Store. I thought that'd be awesome, the Cat being my favorite character. Well, apparently they don't make big Cheshire Cats (figures), so I'm SOL. Which probably also means that they didn't bring me anything else back, either. I guess we'll see, eh? If not, I sure hope they don't think I'm bringing them anything from my vacations, either. Turnabout's fair play, and all that.

Oh, and for the record, Alice is a total hottie. I'd take her any day of the week over any of the so-called "Disney Princesses." Snow White? Bah. Cinderella? I think not. It's all about Alice.

Important things first: I've finished finding all of the hidden packages on the first island in Grand Theft Auto 3 and now I've made it to the second island. I've been doing mostly taxi missions to get to know the place, but I've done a couple of regular missions, too. The place is huge! I had enough trouble getting to know Portland and now Staunton Island is here. My work is cut out for me.

Thank goodness for GameFAQs.

Got a link today to probably the scariest thing in the world - US Attorney General Ashcroft singing a "patriotic hymn" of his own concoction. Give me a frickin' break.

I'm trying to find a decent stuffed Domokun doll. A guy at www.domo-kun.de has some links to online stores, but they're always out of the one I want - if you squeeze the doll, his arms flap. If anyone out there knows where to get one of these in the US, leave a comment. Thanks.

The Blazers sucked hard last night. Really hard. They started the game out with a 25 point lead and then came back to lose the game. How do you lose the game with such a lead? Ah, let me enlighten and amaze you.

See, it's really a strategy for them. They start out strong in the first half of the game and come out with a huge lead. This is, I'm sure, an attempt to demoralize and degrade the opposing team in an effort to make the opposition weak. And, for the most part, it works. The opposing team doesn't come on too strong in the first half of the game.

But then - and here's where the plot really twists - the Blazers notice that they've got a huge lead on the other team and they decide to take the rest of the game off. As in, "send in the clowns, 'cuz we're going home" style. And when the ref calls them on something, by all means, bitch out the ref so you can pull the technical foul.

So, 100-103, the Blazers lost. Not a big surprise.

The food in the box that Jenn and I were in was good, though, and since the Blazers scored 100 points, we all got free Chalupas, which pretty much just made my night.

Then Jenn had to go let out her parents' dogs because her parents are on vacation, so I got a little late night Grand Theft Auto in. Found all but three of the hidden packages on the first island, but I know where they are, so I'm good to go. Buffy is a rerun tonight, so I hear a little package-searching in my future. Or maybe we'll watch an episode from the first season, since Jenn hasn't seen all of those.

More irritation for my Jenn:

I found that on GameFAQs they have quite a robust selection of Grand Theft Auto 3 game guides. The cool thing is, there's a great set of maps showing you where all the hidden packages are. (If you haven't played the game, that may not make sense - there are all these little packages hidden around the city and if you pick up enough of them you get more weapons and stuff.)

I have a decent map to them in a recent issue of PlayStation Magazine (yes, I'm a subscriber - you should be, too), but while the general locations are shown, a description isn't present. Trust me - you need a description. If you're wandering around and can't find the package, it's probably because you have to jump your car off some ramp and land on the roof of a building, then get out and run across a couple of other rooftops and drop down into some totally inaccessible place in order to get it.

Anyway, I've got like 27 of the 33 packages on the first island but before I move on to the second island, I wanna get all the packages. This will make it so much easier.

Oh, and I'll be at the Portland Trailblazers game tonight against the Memphis Grizzlies. Whoever they are. Got box seats courtesy of the ol' employer. Can't complain about that, right? Hey, maybe I'll get a free Chalupa out of the deal.

This weekend was sort of a whirlwind of events - lots of stuff happened, nothing too spectacular in-and-of-itself, but all of it added up to one thing: busy.

Friday night the Winter Hawks kicked ass in game one of the playoffs against Seattle. It was good to see them win, and I had faith they'd waste Seattle in the first four games (it's a best-of-seven series).

Saturday night, not so good. One of our players got suspended because he checked a Seattle guy and the Seattle guy got hurt pretty bad. I don't think it was entirely our guy's fault, but they have to suspend anyone involved in accidents like that. Anyway, that was sort of foreshadowing for the rest of the evening.

The ref was way too sympathetic towards the "poor Seattle players." If we checked someone, we got called for interference. If they checked us, we got called for roughing. The linesmen even called offsides incorrectly. How you can mess that one up, I couldn't tell you. Everything basically just worked in favor of Seattle, and they trounced us, 6 - 2. Granted, they did deserve a couple of the goals they got. But not all of them. I think we got screwed.

During the day on Saturday was chore day - did some laundry, vaccuuming, etc. Played a good share of Grand Theft Auto, which I now have to admit is a full addiction. It's actually sort of nice - it's been so long since a game has sucked me in like that, I feel a sense of relief that people can still design innovative and fun games. I had lost faith there for a second.

I also went shopping on Saturday at the local Tower Records and picked up my copy of Tom Jones's Reload. I'm groovin' to it right now. If you ain't got it, get it. My hunger for Tom is finally sated. At least, for now.

Sunday I fixed my Dual 1215S turntable. Mostly. I had one, but something came disconnected underneath and required a new part. Well, I couldn't find the part anywhere, but I did find someone selling a functional version on a mailing list. So I bought that one for $55 (cheap compared to buying a new turntable) and planned on cannibalizing it to fix the one I already had. Why not just go with the functional version and trash the broken one? Except for the one piece on the broken one, the rest of the turntable is in mint condition, like it's new out of the box. The functional one I just bought is well loved and there are some pieces rusting on it, some pieces not in the best of shape, but, yeah, it's functional.

Anyway, I got the new one in the mail, flipped both turntables over, and started to take the broken piece off the old turntable when I realized that Dual redesigned the stupid part sometime in the manufacturing process and, while I have in my possession two turntables of identical make and model, the one stupid part that I need is not the same. Everything else on it is absolutely identical. That just figures, doesn't it? So I ended up swapping as much as I could without disassembling the whole turntable - The functional turntable now has a nice case on it and a nice stylus, but the rest of it is the well-loved, slightly rusting turntable I just bought; the non-functional one is still non-functional.

Since my dad and I figured that the non-functional one was basically lost anyway, Dad's going to take the part and try to re-solder it back together in a roundabout fashion. If it works, we'll have two working turntables. If not, no harm, no foul.

Sunday night I went to a party for Jenn's aunt-who-isn't-really-an-aunt-but-just-a-long-time-family-friend. If that confuses you, don't worry. I'm in the same boat. You should see Christmas around their place - everyone's a cousin. If you don't know what relation someone is to someone else, they're cousins. I still don't even know all of their names; every time I go over there it's a different 50 cousins.

It was a surprise party for Jenn's aunt's birthday. We got there at 5:00p, when the aunt was supposed to arrive.

At 6:30p the aunt finally showed up. She was happy that everyone was able to make it, but I was pretty much ready to go by that time. If you've ever had to wait an hour and a half to surprise a person you really don't know, you'll know what I mean. There was a lot of television watching going on. I think maybe someone needs to smack the person who was driving the aunt around and was supposed to be there at 5:00p. Or at least buy them a watch.

Oh, well. Chillin' with Jenn's parents isn't as bad as all that. It was more the "hurry up and wait" state of things that got to me than anything. Besides, Jenn's dad lets me wear his fez. Aw, yeah.

"...you don't have to be cool to rule my world..."

If you're looking for the song "Kiss" - check these albums out.

The Very Best of Prince

The Best of Tom Jones

I am a happy camper.

During lunch I went to Turn Around Sound, a local new and used CD store (that is, local to my place of employment) and found me a copy of The Best of Tom Jones. Which, of course, contains his cover of Prince's song, Kiss. Oooooh, yeeeeeah.

I have issued a fair warning to all relevant individuals in my department (i.e., those adjoining my cubicle) that there is about to be some serious Tom Jones action going on here and that they should watch for flying panties lest they be pelted to death.

Tom is now crooning away. I am stoked. Of course, I'll still have to venture forth this weekend to find the Reload album, but for now, I'm good to go.

This thought has crossed my mind several times, but really hit me yesterday while driving home from work: There are two kinds of people in the world - those who believe in the bumper sticker as a statement and those who think the bumper sticker people need to figure out their larger issues.

I'm one of the people who think that bumper sticker folks need to figure out their larger issues.

Maybe it's different in other parts of the country (or the world, for that matter). I can only really use the Portland, Oregon locale as my frame of reference since I've never really spent too much time in other places. Stick with me here - I really don't think I'm wrong on this one...

For example, if you own a Volkswagen bus (already you've dug a hole for yourself, but...), where is it written that you need to cover the entire back end of the bus with bumper stickers? And, yes, I'm counting the Grateful Dead sticker(s). No one is more tired of seeing those stupid bears than I am.

I also noticed that if you do choose the bumper sticker route, all the bumper sticker people in Oregon have made a pact that they all need to have a "Visualize Whirled Peas" sticker, like that's the most original or funny statement ever.

This is actually what set me off and made me think to write about this - I was driving behind this Volvo-driving hippie with his Grateful Dead sticker, his "Clearcutting Kills Salmon" sticker, and his obligatory "Visualize Whirled Peas" sticker, when I felt this overwhelming urge to pull him out of his car and wipe the stickers off his bumper with his forehead. It really makes me wonder - do these bumper sticker people really think that driving around with these statements on their barely-passing-DEQ-Volvo-automobiles is going to make people stop clearcutting or consuming natural resources (or anything else for that matter)?

Maybe I'm just jaded. I mean, the first time I saw a beggar with a sign saying "Why Lie? I Need A Beer," I gave the guy a fiver. I thought it was clever, and if you can provide entertainment of some nature, sure, I'll contribute. (Hey, I gotta get something for my money - there's no free lunch out there.)

But now when I see these dozens - nay, hundreds - of people (some wearing nicer clothes than what I've got on at the time), all of which are carrying "Why Lie? I Need A Beer" signs... it just irritates me.

I think that's what's happened with the "Visualize Whirled Peas" thing. I think I can dredge up a memory of a time when I actually thought that was clever. It's just not anymore. And there's the rub.

You know, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Maybe I'm just frustrated at the lack of originality out there. Maybe I just think bumper sticker people are mindless sheep lacking any proper sense of humor. Maybe I'm just talking to hear the sound of my own voice. Who knows? I guess the long and the short of it is, if you want to make a statement, make the damn statement already and lose the stupid bumper stickers.

Oh, and all who wander are fucking lost, so get some direction and contribute to society already. You know who you are.

Jenn is gonna be so pissed...

I went to this Cheat Code Central site and found all these secrets and cheats for Grand Theft Auto 3. There's a bunch of stuff I didn't know about, like if you get a certain number of these hidden packages that are stuck around the city then you get more weapons that regenerate around your hideout. That's cool, since right now I just get a baseball bat and a gun would be handy. There are also all of these hidden missions around the city...

Looks like I'll be spending some quality PS2 time tonight. I hope. :)

Talked to my mom at the Fred Meyer main office and it looks like I may be SOL as far as the Tom Jones selection at Freddy's. Guess I'll have to hit Tower or something this weekend. Sigh. Not that I'm disappointed to go to Tower, but I was hoping to have my Tom fix sooner rather than later. Oh, well.

I ate some Red Vines this morning and it reminded me how good they are. I hadn't had them for a while. Tasty! Something I don't understand, though: black Red Vines. Shouldn't Red Vines be, well, RED?

Maybe I'll have to get some Red Vines this weekend. A tub of those things lasts forever, regardless of how much you eat. It's like magic.

I've got this set of Rollerscape in my cube. It's pretty sweet. I'm thinking I need more pieces, though, since the size of the marble raceways you can build with the starter set is a little limited. I need to be able to build something that's, like, as tall as I am. It'd be much more impressive that way.

There's something about a Starbucks Frappuccino that just gets me going. Nothing like a Venti* Mocha Frappuccino right before work. I got one this morning with my friend/coworker/boss Greg at the local Barnes & Noble. Really just hit the spot. More [probably] later...

* "Venti" is actually a trademarked word of Starbucks, which I really don't understand because it's Italian for "twenty." How do you trademark a number? What's that all about?

I went to The Wherehouse today to get my fill of Tom Jones, as I mentioned I had a craving for yesterday. Let me state now, for the record, that The Wherehouse has a pathetic fucking selection of Tom Jones albums. The only one (yes, one) they had was an old greatest hits album. And they only had one copy of that! Unbelieveable.

As you can tell, I'm a little irritated over the whole thing. What this basically amounts to is that now I have wait until Friday and head over to Fred Meyer on employee double-discount day and hope that they have a better selection than The Wherehouse did. And pay full price, at that, since The Wherehouse had no used copies of Tom Jones stuff, either.

I suppose having no used Tom Jones albums implies something about Tom Jones fans and their retention of his records. Score another point for ol' Tom.

On a whole different topic, you know how you go to the Microsoft Support website and search their Knowledge Base and the articles are all numbered like "Q123456" and stuff? Well, after working with the developer support team on an issue for, like, months now, I finally have a resolution to a SharePoint Portal Server memory leak I found, and they're going to put a Knowledge Base article in about it! When it's out, it'll be Q319472. I'll put a link in here when I find it, which should be in a week or so. I'm stoked. (No, it won't have my name in it or anything, but I'll know it was me who found the problem!)  [UPDATE: It's out!]

And, in the world of Liberty City... Last night I played chauffeur for a mob boss's girlfriend and gunned down a bunch of Triad guys. The missions are getting a lot harder now. I thought I was doing pretty well on the "drive this person around for a while" missions, but now I'm having to get out and gunfight... I can't wait until I get the sniper rifle. The gun combat in that game is a little difficult.

Oh, and I felt sort of good when Business 2.0 declared the movie Freddy Got Fingered as one of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2001. Call me crazy.

Sitting here in a minor state of hypnosis (taking a short breather between massive server upgrade projects), I decided that I definitely need to get a Tom Jones album. Something about his rendition of Prince's song Kiss not only gets me movin', but cracks me up at the same time. (Yeah, yeah, that was actually "Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones" but still...)

Besides, any guy who can get panties thrown at him everywhere he goes deserves a little respect.

Maybe I'll go do that today.

Bit of a follow-up from yesterday: I found a website that has the Tron figure collection for dirt cheap! I ended up buying all the rest of them. To make up for lost time. Or something. Just a sec, I'll justify it...

Oh, and a while back I tried to listen to some of the vinyl albums in my collection and the turntable didn't start up. I thought it might be a fuse or something (it's like 20 years old if it's a day), but it turns out there's this little pin that's connected to the A/C plug that came unsoldered. Of course, it's too small to solder yourself, so I started looking for spare parts.

Good luck finding spare parts for a 20 year old turntable.

I did, however, find the same model turntable that a guy was selling online for $55 (which is a real bargain if you've ever priced turntables). I decided to buy it since that way I'll have spare parts for the next time this thing goes dead.

And I continue to progress through the world of Grand Theft Auto III. Last night I hijacked an ice cream truck and bombed four gangsters, ran a mission as a limo driver being chased by the Triads, and [barely] won a street race. Admittedly, I'm feeling pretty accomplished. (Those Triad guys in the game, though, are real bitches. I just drive through that section of town and they shoot at me. The next mission I've got is to kill 25 of them in two minutes using a flamethrower. The problem there is that I can't frickin' find 25 of them. They all run like scared little girls.)

I wonder if Tom Jones plays GTA3... Hmmmm....

I went to the local Suncoast store this weekend and picked up one of the coolest movies ever, Split Second. My friend Aarron introduced me to this one. Story of a cop in London, 2008, who lives on anxiety, coffee, and chocolates. Sort of a low-budget Blade Runner deal. "Feeling on edge?" "YEAH." "Good. Here, have a chocolate."

I also picked up, while at Suncoast, a red Tron light cycle. They re-released the Tron toys for the 20th anniversary of the movie. I used to have one of these (same color and everything) but my mom sold it out from under me at a garage sale, as she did with all of my He-Man figures. I'm still a little bitter over that (as she's well aware) so I feel vindicated after getting the Tron light cycle, like I've reclaimed a piece of my lost childhood for $25.

The Winter Hawks lost last night, though I'm sure they'll make it up in the playoffs. It was disappointing to watch, especially after they trounced Seattle so harshly just two nights before. Either way, I came out with an autographed stick because I contribute to the education fund. Can't complain about that!

Another total sidetrack - I've decided that, while Janet Jackson is hot, her hair is definitely a deal-breaker. For example, her look on the cover of her Design of a Decade album is fabulous - cute, sorta next-door-girl. But on the Velvet Rope album, she looks like one of those funky dogs with the dreadlocks. Ick.

Saturday night I went to see a hypnotist show put on by my mom's cousin, Jerry Harris. (Yeah, the link is to an article about a county fair; I saw him in a lounge.) I had seen the show on a home video my grandfather had made, but seeing it in real life was a totally different experience. I wasn't too excited to go at the outset, but after seeing the show, I can hardly wait to go back. It was pretty funny and well executed; if you ever get the chance to check him out, I highly recommend it.

Last, but not least, I've been really getting sucked into Grand Theft Auto 3 lately. I like it because it's sort of like an interactive gangster movie, but light on the "movie" part. So far I've driven a lot of people around, car-bombed a guy, and hijacked a payroll van in it. My stats say I'm only 9% done with it, which is very cool; I haven't even gotten onto the other islands yet. I think it's making me a little paranoid, though - I cruise through the bad part of town now and totally expect to get carjacked or beaten with a baseball bat. Then again, maybe that's just because it's the bad part of town. Hmmm.

Warning: I'm gonna geek out on you now. If you understand what this one says, cool. If not, don't worry about it. It's not a topic for everyone.

So.

I went to a lunchtime training at work today on SQL. I know a meager amount, enough to get by in my daily programming duties. I pick up a little here and there as I go, and I manage to get the job done.

This guy at work taught us 25 different ways to use the SELECT statement in SQL. It was unbelieveable. I understand it so much better now. Little tricks to get query results properly formatted and such... doing calculations on result sets... it totally rocked.

The last example he showed was how he helped his eighth grade daughter solve a calculus problem in SQL. Not the most computationally efficient process (the SQL Server version of the program took 50 seconds to run; the VB version took 8 seconds), but the fact that you can do it is pretty darn cool in my book.

Also, the concept of NULL is a lot more clear in the context of SQL. I guess I never realized that (at least with SQL Server) you have to specifically ask for values that are NULL or they don't get returned in the result set. For example, the statement

SELECT name, city, state FROM address_table WHERE state <> 'CA'

will not return rows where the state is NULL. I guess I figured it would, since NULL obviously doesn't equal 'CA' but apparently you have to specifically ask for those, like this:

SELECT name, city, state FROM address_table WHERE state <> 'CA' OR state IS NULL

Funky. But it was cool to learn that stuff, especially some of the more advanced syntax involving calculations on the result set (totals, etc.).

Well, enough geeking for now.

SQL SELECT - Minute to learn, lifetime to master.

I'm pretty busy today, so I'm going to have to be brief...

I just noticed there's a new volume of the Moulin Rouge soundtrack out. I guess I'll be spending some hard-earned cash on that one soon; it's got "The Pitch (Spectacular! Spectacular!)" on it - how can I pass that up? The first volume has ingrained itself into my brain, I suppose this one can take its rightful place alongside it.

The review on the Amazon.com page for this new volume says that "there are but two kinds of people in the world: Those captivated by Baz Luhrmann's heady, postmodernist musical romp Moulin Rouge--and everybody else." I think I'm going to have to agree with that. It's not for everyone. Though I think many of the folks who didn't like it might be missing the point anyway.

A few quick random thoughts before I go off on my general rant:

• I got my car back on Friday (thank goodness). The stupid key scratches are totally gone, and it looks like brand new. The people at the shop even stayed late to make sure I got it back and didn't have to drive The Babemobile all weekend. If you ever require auto body services in the Portland, Oregon area, I highly recommend Chris and John's Auto Body. These guys rock.
  
• If you happen to be upgrading servers with the latest patches and drivers, make sure you have the latest version of the ROM BIOS installed. I did a few upgrades last thing on Friday night (just before leaving to get my car) and I found out that, due to the lack of a current BIOS install, the machines wouldn't reboot properly. I fixed that first thing today and all is well. Lesson learned.
  
• Windows Update is the bomb.
  
• Fred Meyers has a load of great Playstation 2 games for $20. I picked up Extreme G3 Racing this weekend for $20. That's quite a bargain, considering it's still going for $50 at other stores.

Okay, now for the larger issue at hand.

I finished playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty this weekend. This has been an ongoing struggle for me. I started it last weekend, thinking it was going to be a reasonably short game (having heard that from other folks). I even put it on the "Very Easy" level because, frankly, I'm not the most coordinated video game player (though I can definitely hold my own at SSX: Tricky). I just wanted to see the story and how it all played out.

What a mistake.

The story to this thing is the most convoluted, contrived piece of crap I could possibly have imagined. I'm not sure what pissed me off the most. Maybe it was the fact that the whole time you play for, like, five minutes and then see half an hour of cut scenes... or maybe it was that you don't actually play as Solid Snake for the majority of the game... it could be that the character you do play as has this whiny bitch girlfriend who keeps asking if you "remember what tomorrow is"... it also might be the fact that you got to hear the life story of every stupid peripheral character in the whole game, regardless of how insignificant...

No, I think the thing that pissed me off the most was the simple reality that the game, after all was said and done, was as trite and stupid as a philosophy 101 class.

Yeah, that's right. It's just a big exercise in philosophy.

Basically, it ends up where you're never quite sure if the "adventure" you just went on was real or not. Then they start asking you "what is real?" and "what makes something real?" The last 45 minutes, no exaggeration, is a big long movie that basically throws out that "real is what your brain tells you is real" and people need to discover who they are by interacting with others, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, and your whiny bitch girlfriend turns out to be a spy sent to report on your every move, but somewhere between finding out she's a spy and the end of the game, your character just forgets the whole spy thing and you actually propose marriage. What the hell...?!

If you like soap operas, you'll love MGS2. If you like melodrama, you'll love MGS2. I think Jenn said it best - "I've never seen a video game with so much video." I have to agree. I love a game with a good story, but if I have to watch 15 minutes of video for every five minutes I get to play, there's something drastically wrong there. It's not so much a game as it is an interactive movie.

Anyway, that really chapped my hide. I spent like 10 hours this weekend trying to finish that thing and then got slapped in the face by a beginner's philosophy lesson.

That said, I think the game has a much higher value when you replay it. Because then you can skip all the story crap and focus on the game. I think if you do that, you'll have a better time with it. I don't have the patience to test that, though.

To that end, I started playing Grand Theft Auto 3, which is more my speed. You can just randomly beat the crap out of anyone on the street with a baseball bat if you want. There's a meager story to it, where you do missions and stuff, but you don't sit and wallow in the "inner beauty" of it all. You go out, you kick ass. If your mission is to shoot some guy who's selling drugs to some other guy's prostitutes, you drive up, shoot the guy, and go collect your money. Bam. No philosophy there except maybe figuring out which end of the baseball bat is real (and let me tell you, the business end of that thing is definitely real). That game frickin' rocks.

Minor side note: To all those idiots who decided it was a good idea to burn down their houses because Beavis and Butthead did it, don't buy this game. It's not for people who can't figure out what the phrase "it's just a game" means. Save the world, and yourself, a lot of heartache and go buy a Nintendo GameCube and some Pokemon games.

Comedian Lewis Black has a good bit he does about how certain phrases people say in their conversation stick out, sort of like someone saying your name really loud in a crowded room, so that your mind grabs hold of them and ponders them out of context.

I think the phrase Black overhears (while sitting in the local IHOP) is "If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."

Huh?

Right. So I was thinking about some of the conversations I've had recently, and I realized that a lot of the stuff I (or, more directly, the people I'm talking to) say is extremely context-sensitive. My favorites as of late: "Holy shit, Suze! I was just on fire!" (Which was followed closely thereafter with "And then, after I put myself out...")

Anyway.

I just got a call from the auto body shop. My car is fixed! That's a really good thing, since that means I don't have to drive The Babemobile all weekend.

I took my car in to the shop to get the key scratch fixed today. I'm not sure when it'll be done. I hope it will be soon, because instead of my car (which I love), I'm driving The Babemobile.

The Babemobile earned its name because that is precisely what it is not. It's a 1988(?) Plymouth Voyager. There are several issues with it:

• It's a 4 cylinder engine. In a minivan. Floor it, and it might go 50mph. Downhill, with a tailwind.


• The hood is rusting through, which gives the paint a nice, abused patina.


• It shoots black smoke out of the tailpipe. I tried to convince myself that it was just a camouflaging device, similar to the ink that squids shoot at predators. But then when Scotty called up from the engine room "She can't take much more of this!" I knew it was all just a lie.


• It turns like a wounded tugboat. I've taken to calling out directions in terms of "port" and "starboard."


• Everything on it is loose. As you drive, the whole van chatters and squeaks like a small herd of lab rats.

That's not a comprehensive list by any means, but you get the idea.

Anyway, all that totals up to is that I really just want my car back so we can donate this thing to the Humane Society or something. Maybe that $500 can feed some kitties or something.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. If the van didn't exist, I'd be renting a car right now, which costs money. Free is [negligibly] better than not free.

A quick anecdote to start us off: I've been drinking a lot of water today, but the last time I went to the soda fountain here at work to get some water, I decided to get a little Coke instead, just for a change. Without even thinking about it, I looked at the machine and said, out loud, "Gimme some sugar, baby." I didn't realize what I had even said until a few seconds after I had gotten my beverage. It's sad to think that some movies can have such an influence on your daily life.

Speaking of movies, every time my friend Aarron listens to the album The White Room by The KLF, he always mentions that it says on the back something about this being the soundtrack to the KLF movie of the same name. Then Aarron says that he'd love to see that movie.

Up until the other day, I always thought that was just a marketing gimmick. Apparently, though, it really was a movie. From skimming stuff like the KLF FAQ, it looks like they started making the movie, but it ended up never coming out. Sounds like if you pursue it enough and find the right folks out there, some of them have portions of the movie in fourth- or fifth-generation quality that you can see. I didn't go that far. But it sounds interesting.

Let me get this out in the open right now: People, in general, are damn idiots.

This will probably end up being a recurring theme throughout this blog.

Now, this doesn't necessarily imply that I'm any "better" than anyone else per se; I just see that the population en masse has exceptionally poor problem solving skills. In that respect, yeah, maybe I'm better than some folks.

The conflict here arises in the fact that I'm faced with a certain amount of desktop computer and telephone support in my daily workload. Especially since about half of the CIT department got downsized here at work a few months ago. Since I've taken on additional user support, I am continually astonished at the levels people sink to on the problem-solving and information-retention scales.

First of all, my motto for technical support: "God helps those who help themselves." Which is to say, if you have a problem, try reading the fucking manual before you just throw your arms up in a panic and taking up someone else's time to ask them a stupid question. (Yes, there are such things as stupid questions.) If you've legitimately tried to solve your problem and have reached a stumbling point, then, and only then, you may ask for help.

My favorite request in recent days: A user can't figure out why his phone won't ring. "It worked last week," says the user. Did you do anything to it? "No." Of course not. Let me look into it.

So I look through the phone system configuration. Everything looks fine. I start tracing the line back from the user's desk to the telephone closet to make sure all the lines are connected and all is working in that respect. Yeah, the phone's got power. Yeah, the phone's plugged into the proper outlet in the wall. Everything seems to be in order. Quick check and... oh, geez...

Look. If you turn the 'Do Not Disturb' feature on, you're not going to get any calls. That's what 'Do Not Disturb' means. You won't be disturbed. "I didn't turn that on." Are you sure? "Yeah. I don't even know how to turn that on." That's interesting, because it had to be turned on from your phone, so unless someone ran in here to play a prank on you (not likely), you turned it on.

People. I just don't understand them.

I think Dumbentia has the best solution to the problem.

In the meantime, I'll drink out of my "Fuck Off" mug (that my friend bought for me, just for situations like this) and pretend to listen. Unbelieveable.

Having season hockey tickets for the Winter Hawks, I parked my car at the local MAX stop to ride in to the Rose Garden Arena for the Friday night game. This is not an unusual procedure.

This time it was different, though.

I got back to my car after the game and drove it home. No problem, right? Well, when I went to drive out to a friend's place the next morning, I noticed that some punk bitch decided to key my car.

There is now a big line from the upper passenger-side of the hood diagonal down to the headlight on the driver's side. It's a two-part line; you can see where the asshole's arm wasn't long enough to do it in one swipe, so he/she adjusted position and continued keying. It's probably a good three feet long.

I feel sort of like John Travolta ("Vincent") in Pulp Fiction, where he's talking to Eric Stoltz ("Lance") while buying heroin. He has his car in storage for three years, then it's out five days and someone keys it.

VINCENT: I just wish I caught 'em doin' it, ya know? Oh man, I'd give anything to catch 'em doin' it. It'a been worth his doin' it, if I coulda just caught 'em, you know what I mean?

LANCE: It's chicken shit. You don't fuck with another man's vehicle.

Even more than having the asshole key my car, what bothered me was that I was going to have to go through the insurance company hassle. I've been through this before, where you have to schedule time to take the car to a claims office, have them take pictures, fill out the paperwork, etc., then do the same stupid thing at the auto body shop, then wait for the check to arrive, etc. What a pain.

But it wasn't like that this time. Since the last time I had a claim, I've switched car insurance from Nationwide to Progressive. It was so much easier to deal with things through them! I filed the claim at noon on Sunday. 45 minutes later, I was talking to a claims adjuster. 60 minutes after that, there was a guy at my house taking the pictures, doing the estimate, etc. Had I not just renewed my policy (every six months, right?), he'd have cut me a check on the spot. Too bad for me; I will get a check in the mail in a couple of days. Shucks. And I was looking forward to the annoying hassle of insurance companies. Not. I totally recommend these Progressive folks. Check 'em out. Not only did they save me money, the customer service, so far as I can tell, is the bomb.

So, anyway, that should [hopefully] be fixed by the end of the week. Pending on how soon the check gets here, that is. I'll call the auto body shop and find out when they've got an opening.

I wasn't originally taken with the whole Harry Potter concept. I mean, a children's book about magic and stuff... doesn't sound too appealing. I decided it wasn't worth the time.

But then I saw the movie.

After that, I needed to read the books. I ended up ordering them from Amazon.co.uk because a) they had the fourth book in paperback already and b) I wanted to read the books the original way they were written.

I was not disappointed.

I won't go into the whole "no series has sucked me in like that for a long time" rant. You've heard it all before.

What it did spawn, though, besides that, was a series of Legos that are really cool. Miniature Lego Harry and Hermione? How can I pass that up?

Of course, there was a huge run on them during the Christmas season, so while I got a couple of sets for Christmas, when I went back to the store to complete my collection, they were sold out. I ended up successfully ordering them online, with a few of the sets backordered.

I finally have all the sets now.

I set them up at work in my cube. They look pretty good, and I put them all together to make one giant set just like in the pictures on the box. Yeah! I dug it so much, I decided some photos were in order. Since I only have a crappy little webcam, the pictures aren't too great, but they'll do.







Looks pretty good, huh? I thought so.

On a side note, that sort of spurs a question of what the rest of my workspace looks like. From over by the Legos, if you look at where I sit eight hours a day, it looks like this.

Yeah, that is a lava lamp. And a Luminglas. And a disco ball. And a mirror ball. Here's a closer look.
.

Lots of folks find it distracting. I think it's boring if all that stuff isn't there. Heh.