blog { Young Stranger

Another friend and member of the nerdpod has a blog. Check out Young Stranger.

casual_friday { 'Code Monkey'

'Code Monkey' - music by Jonathan Coulton, movie by Mike Spiff Booth

differences { US vs Europe...bang vs boobies

Today while ingesting my morning bit of OmniNerd where they were discussing Vermont's rumblings about becoming the American version of Quebec (as in a state that wants to cede from the Union). I noticed a sidebar discussion titled 'The Trans-Atlantic Divide Over Gun-n-Boobs', and well I had to click it.

I thought the poster made a valid point. America is obsessed with repressing sex, yet we openly embrace violence, alpha-male mentality, and the assorted 'macho' mannerisms. I know a lot of this must stem from the earliest foundation (and European colonization) was put together by a bunch of Puritans who though Europe was too decadent and the love appendage(s) are for procreation, not recreation.

Make love not war.

news { the Italian Ninja Menace

Brilliant.

Though the immediate danger has subsided, Interpol is worried this ninja may be part of a larger ninja conspiracy. Experts fear ninjas have infiltrated numerous aspects of society and are waiting for the proper time to unleash their reign of terror. When asked about their goals or motivations, Interpol ninja expert Robert Hamburger said "the purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people." In the U.S., Congressional Democrats remain skeptical, and have asked that America open a dialogue with samurai and pirates to help resolve the impending ninja crisis.

(note: I read the 'Real Guide to Ultimate Power' by Robert Hamburger, I recommend it if you want to learn how to 'flip out and kill people'. I think I did a review of it...well ok not a review, I basically say the same thing then I say now...I'm becoming derivative...)

politics { 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques'

Video speaks for itself:




'No on expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

warcraft { a day with my flying mount

On of the main things I looked forward to when turning level 70...the flying mount.


Krieghund and I on our first flight.


I flew mine all around, seeing new things, and some old things, from a new angle.


The attention to detail is well done. In Nagrand where chunks of the earth float, some have skeletons.


I soared with dragons.


In Netherstorm, the zone is almost destroyed. The remains of a sea and a port float in the Twisting Nether.


Nearby a spaceships hovers ominously.


If you search hard enough in Nagrand in the mountains, you can find the Warcraft day care.


I decided to finish my tour with my cat watching the sunset in Nagrand. Perhaps one of my favorite zones, certainly one of the more beautiful.


I have many more and I will share them over time.

lunch_break { musings about things, part ???

While I sit eating lunch, I have my office free to myself, something rare since I share an office. As I sat munching I decided to take the opportunity to catch up on some blogging. These will be kinda of random and will cover a wide range of things.


Dieting
Because of the laws of conservation of energy and matter. You are what you eat. Literally. At our most base we are the things of stars, that is cosmic dust, hydrogen, arranged in interesting ways to form who we are. Eating is the most intimate thing we can do with an organism. Be it flora or fauna. We take bits of it and incorporate it into ourselves. The fat is used to make our fat stores, or broken down to provide chemical energy to allow us to exist. But the atoms that made up that food, make up us. From our mother's milk to the ham and mayo wrap I am eating. This concept is something I've pondered for years. This is also why I try to buy food that is organic, or at least if not organic, I know where it came from and how it was made. This is especially the case while I eat this ham and mayo wrap that comes from Sodex'Ho. I don't know where the pieces that make it up come from, nor do I know who made it. I do know, if the label can be trusted that it is 776calories and 46.5g of fat. I assume the bulk of this fat comes from the good things in it, the cheese, the mayo, and the fatty ham. I'm eating this and water, though I make make some green tea. I'm trying really hard (which is very hard for me) to have a diet of around 1500-1700calories (~25% of normal diet, basing off a 2000calorie daily diet) and I'm exercising more, granted not as much as I did last year. So with breakfast, which I am ashamed to say was a caffeinated, skimm mocha, I'm probably at if not close to my 1500cal limit. I don't plan on doing those hardcore diets where you do less than healthy things like cut out carbs, but rather just be more aware of what I eat and reduce the amount. This will be hard for me on Nerd Night where we prepare feasts of good things for us such as mountains of fruit, meat, cheese, gummis, etc. But I will try.

Politics/Life/Etc.
A lot of things have been happening in the weeks I have been silent on the topic. Some good, most bad. Here's a roundup of a few things:

Immigration - stalled, not defeated. Depending upon where you live and what news sources you consume, this issue has different meanings for you. I myself lean towards the accepting those who are here, making them legal (and charging them taxes, giving them benefits, education, etc.) because a rising tide lifts all boats. Then provide a reasonable guest-worker program. Anything to abolish this neo-feudal indentured servitude that we have now, where employers exploit workers for cheap, workers who work in dangerous conditions (like meat packing) and whose children go to school, but often can't go into higher education. From a global perspective education is fundamental to our continued existence. Also we need to challenge this fallacy that undocumented workers are doing jobs Americans won't do, that's pure BS. They are doing jobs that American companies won't pay a livable wage to do, and the companies are being rewarded, not the workers.

Iraq - still a shitty mess.

World Bank - I can't believe Wolfiwitz got off with a severance package and the ability to say he did nothing wrong. WTF?

Paris Hilton - scratch that, she's already received more attention that she deserves. But this fiasco has illustrated the disconnect in our justice system. We've come a long way, but this shows we have a long ways yet to go.

Well this about ends the time I have to blog, I need to finish eating and get to a team meeting.

wow { So it happened...

DING! 70!!!

Tonight when I logged in, I was 242k/779k experience from level 70 (end game in World of Warcraft). I thought it would take me all weekend at least. My friends on line though felt it could be done and we're encouraging and helpful. At 02:22 6/09/2007, I dinged level 70. (Wow, I just realized what day it is too, 6/9/2002 was the day I went into the hospital with an unknown illness that was diagnosed on 6/11/2002 as AML, but I digress). Much awaits me now as Pernox in the game. Flying mounts, end game instances, attunement quests, helping out lower level guild members, fun.

Many thanks go to:

Nerdwife - for understanding and putting up with my hobby.
Krieghund - my chum and questing buddy. The bulk of tonight was because of him. He helped me quest from 242k XP to 743k.
Mcshammikins and Jm - the two guildmates who were there when it happened and helped quest with me the final quest to gain that last step. It was the 'Wanted: Annihilator Servo!' quest from the B.O.O.M. Mechanic in Area 52, Netherstorm.
Beefyweefy - another guildmate and grouping companion who was there for parts of it.



Ah now to bed.

casual_friday { because I'm in that kind of mood

Loreena McKennit, 'Mummer's Dance'

wow { lvl 69...one more to go

I'm there, 1 level away from 'end game'. I'm 1/3 of the way to 70 (thanks to a successful run of the Mana-Tombs). I'm looking forward to life at 70.

Flying Mount (aka Windrider): Tawny Windrider (its a 'wyvern', but wyverns in Warcraft are not dragon-like, they are more like flying kitties with scorpion tails, more like manticores in my opinion)
Epic Flying Mount (aka Swift Windrider): Purple Swift Windrider (they basically look like the regular windrider with nice looking barding added); I also plan to quest for the Netherdrake. But that will require about a months worth of daily quests.

End Game Instance and phat loot. I have two daggers I have my eye on: The Ashtongue Blade, and Claw of the Netherwing, bot quest rewards in Shadowmoon Valley. This is until I can get the epic blade from the Scryers.

Epic gear. I've never had any gear better than blue (rare) level. My guild doesn't run instance except Karazahn, so I've never had any purple gear. I can attain reputation with factions, mainly the Scryer, that have purple gear I would like.

work { sense in you much fear

New interns start this week at work. They're so cute when they're young. Then somewhere along the line they grow up into bitter cynics.

Time to get the soul-sucking machine ready.

event { Buffy sing-a-long

On Saturday, June 2nd, at midnight the members of the nerdpod went to the 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer' sing-a-long at the Riverview Theater (of all the theaters in all the world I've been to, this is my favorite). It was at midnight, so we went over after a particularly brutal D&D session (1/2 of our party was killed). We were thinking it was going to be maybe 40-60 people. The Riverview can hold around 700 people...and it was almost full. The energy in the room was amazing. The Buffy sing-a-long was put together by a group that does this weekly in New York, but this summer they are touring. Think 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' except much more fun. Props were handed out, and audience participation was required...and FUN! I sang along, the rest of the nerds sang along. It was about a 2 hour event, so I rolled into home back in Rochester around 4am, still jazzed.



It was an amazing collection of people from all walks of life, gender, race, income, age...singing together, in perfect nerd.

investigative reporting { origins of the WoW female Night Elf dance

For those who play WoW did you ever wonder where those dances came from? Well in some cases its easy, MC Hammer's dance is ubiquitous, and it is the male orc's. The male undead dance is a generic rock out. The female Blood Elf is Brittney Spears' 'Toxic' dance. But has anyone wondered where the female Night Elf's dance originated? Well I had that question and we at Team CubeZoo rarely shirk from a challenge, especially ones regarding useless pop culture trivia. I had to 'suffer' through many YouTube videos in french to find the right one from the singer Alizee that would adequately demonstrate the moves. Here it, Alizee 'j'en ai manne', note the actually moves occur towards the end of the video, so you will have to 'suffer' through it.

musings { the labels I've had

Sitting here, downloading a myriad of music from iTunes to scratch my audiophile itch (after having downloading a wide selection of 'Wizard Rock') to acquire more music I miss from the 80s I sat pondering the many names I've been called over the course of my life. Why did I do this? I have no clue.

In no order:

asshole
dick
stupid
nerd
smart
smarty pants
know it all
hick
cliff claven
four eyes
cosmopolitan
refined
crude
stinky
dweeb
geek
dork
dumbass
smartass
nice guy
'friend' (as in I only want to be friends)
son
grandson
lover
husband
best friend
good friend
who?
lead (as in team lead)
co-worker
colleague
obstacle
adjudicator
problem solver
trouble maker
brother
educated
well read (what?)
ignorant
stubborn
short sighted
long sighted
fat
obese
survivor
great-grandson
Senior Systems Administrator/Engineer/Architect
Help Desk Operator
Technical Analyst
Senior Systems Engineer - Engineer (OS)
Senior Systems Programmer
student
graduate
drop out
hey
dude
man
huggy bear
wannabe
has been
Salutatorian
remedial
special ed student
special K
cancer patient
freak
scary
uber-nerd
liberal
lefty
communist
green
hopeless
socialist
marxist
pagan
atheist
agnostic
catholic
scientist
scientician


And many many many many more. I don't know really where I was going with this, I'm sure I will be called more as my life goes on. If anyone is reading, share what you've been called. Every label above has a story, but most of those stories will only be told over a beverage.

casual_friday { 'got a letter from the government the other day...'

'opened it, read it, it said they were suckers...'

Tricky, 'Blacksteel'



(its a cover of a Public Enemy song, and it kicks ass!)

musings { fiddling while Rome burns

I'm sitting finally again at my office away from my office sipping coffee (decaf) and trying to focus my thoughts and day to come, today is Thursday. Thursday is meeting day, 4 hours of meetings.

I sit sipping my extremely hot coffee and in the background CNN is on (here it is usually CNN, thankfully never Fox News). So far the headlines have been different from the norm. One piece that took 10 minutes, which is an eternity on headline news, is about a woman who, according to the headline (the sound is off) 'Woman Had an Abortion Due to Extreme Morning Sickness'. I almost wish the sound had been on because by headline alone (besides the bad grammar) something seemed fishy. I didn't see and couldn't hear if a 'pro-life' rebuttal was there. I strain my mind to decide if that is news worthy or not. The next piece was about a miniature quarter-horse, so it must a slow news day in the world. It reminds me of a 'King of the Hill' I've recently seen where Gribble's wife, who was a news anchor was told by her boss 'We're moving you to features, nobody cares about the news anymore. All they care about is features and interest stories.' CNN used to have news, but it is also just a infotainment station now geared to delivering you the very best in commercials. The Fourth Estate is dead.

I've been reading a piece on why Bush hasn't been impeached yet over at Salon.com. It saddens me further. This guy should have never been elected (or appointed), should never have been re-elected, and sure as hell should have been brought up on binding, impeachment charges. But we seem to have lost our will. Like the whole country is on prozac or whatever the current, trendy happy pill is today.

Speaking of soul sucking, time to check work email.

musings { fiddling while Rome burns

I'm sitting finally again at my office away from my office sipping coffee (decaf) and trying to focus my thoughts and day to come, today is Thursday. Thursday is meeting day, 4 hours of meetings.

I sit sipping my extremely hot coffee and in the background CNN is on (here it is usually CNN, thankfully never Fox News). So far the headlines have been different from the norm. One piece that took 10 minutes, which is an eternity on headline news, is about a woman who, according to the headline (the sound is off) 'Woman Had an Abortion Due to Extreme Morning Sickness'. I almost wish the sound had been on because by headline alone (besides the bad grammar) something seemed fishy. I didn't see and couldn't hear if a 'pro-life' rebuttal was there. I strain my mind to decide if that is news worthy or not. The next piece was about a miniature quarter-horse, so it must a slow news day in the world. It reminds me of a 'King of the Hill' I've recently seen where Gribble's wife, who was a news anchor was told by her boss 'We're moving you to features, nobody cares about the news anymore. All they care about is features and interest stories.' CNN used to have news, but it is also just a infotainment station now geared to delivering you the very best in commercials. The Fifth Estate is dead.

I've been reading a piece on why Bush hasn't been impeached yet over at Salon.com. It saddens me further. This guy should have never been elected (or appointed), should never have been re-elected, and sure as hell should have been brought up on binding, impeachment charges. But we seem to have lost our will. Like the whole country is on prozac or whatever the current, trendy happy pill is today.

review { movie - Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Wits End

Others have more in depth reviews such as:

Dan Carlson

Or my favorite review as always, the Ninja, who just replayed this
pirates 2 trailer.

Ask A Ninja

Now to be fair, I found Pirates 3: At Wits End, quite a bit
more rewarding than P2: Suck, but did find it a little long at 168 minutes. I
thought Depp once again pulled the plane out of a tailspin to make a
crash landing, something he didn't do with Pirates 2: Man This Sucks.
Once again every plot line has a plot line, but this time also an
ending, something like sixty endings. Seriously more endings than Lord
of the Rings but without the closure. The last scene again was a
plot line. I would also like to thank Lucas for giving us the
genre-busting 20 minute long sword fight scenes which appeared again
in P2 and P3. Except unlike Anakin vs Obi, these were yawnfests.

Excellent showings from Bill Nighy, Stellan Skarsgard, Johnny Depp,
the monkey, the parrot, Geoffrey Rush.

Once again poor showings from Orlando 'forever to be known as Legolas'
Bloom, and Keira 'She's a MAN! Baby!' Knightly.

musings { So I've been silent a while

I've been out of touch with the world, partly by choice, partly but circumstance. Avoiding the news, reading my fiction books, catching up with friends, spending time with nerdwife, playing World of Warcraft.

I've started easing myself back into the news, by reading the New York Times. But I had the feeling, at least for the last week that there is no news. Its the same issues, the same woes, the same failed policies as the day before. We're stuck in a suck spiral, globally. We need something, preferably positive, to break out of this and end the cycle. I'm not sure what that solution is, or how to do it. As I've said many times before if I did, I wouldn't be here saying we need something, I'd be out trying to do something. Everyday for the last two weeks the front page of the New York Times, save for when the Queen was here going to the Derby, consisted of pretty much two topics:

1) Israel and Palestine are fighting (again, for the millionth reiteration).
2) More dead in Iraq, officials say we're making progress, but it sure still looks like a shit storm.

There is some business shit as well, capitalism is screwing you here, big businesses caught cheating there, private equity firms are buying up public firms, thus making them private. Trade imbalance, weak dollar, etc. (whatever happened to us raising a stink about China's human rights violations? Oh that's right, that was before we started abducting people, torturing them and spying on our own, we can cast stones while in a glass house I guess).

Pretty much its the same shit, different day. I guess that can be true of all of history. I'm not sure of what I would like to see on the front page of the news, but I'm tired of the Middle East. Lets figure something out and make some progress so that before I die I can read a newspaper without some god awful event being on the front page. Utopian vision I know, highly improbably, but not impossible.


On a side note, last night while questing in the Outlands, in the orc village of Garadar, in the zone of Nagrand I witnessed something amazing. Thrall, the warchief of the orcs returned to his ancestral home, and while there retold a tale of the breaking of the blood curse on the orcs, a seminal event in the history of the lore of Warcraft, in which Grom Hellscream defeated Mannoroth the Pit Lord, who long ago corrupted the orcs for his own purposes. The event was a well done cinematic in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and they replayed it in game in WoW:



I keep finding gems in this game.

His arrival was a major event, he traveled with an honor guard of many Wolf Riders.

team { Welcome

Team CubeZoo has a new member today, well ok, he's an old member who came back. Welcome back aboard Mick!

(aka DJMagicMike)