Trends and patterns blaze globally as the Internet publishes ideas, and the net has housed a million sects born through likeminded folks seeking one another out. People converge to discuss health, sports, arts, gossip, hobbies, ailments, culinary ideas, books, whatever floats our respective boats. And as such, memetic fashions bloom online faster ( Read more... )

Having an excellent summer so far, and this heatwave is kicking my butt, but I love it. The last 3 days have averaged highs of 101° F; I feel like a medicine man in a sweat lodge on a vision quest ( Read more... )

Today is gorgeous, and I need to shave my stubbly mush and get out there pronto, before the sun goes away. But that’s OK - plans are in place, razor is available and I just need to convince my lazy posterior to get off the chair and spring into action. I had a dream last night in which my fingers were bananas, and have been trying unsuccessfully ( Read more... )

So this weekend is great so far - did a lot of reading, still pondering what I might write about if I were to submit to Machine of Death 2, and tonight I’m about to grill some steak and asparagus, both which have been marinating in Teriyaki. I also got baby carrots and sesame seeds; if you throw the carrots in a wok with olive oil, garlic and ( Read more... )

It’s the end of a fun and mellow weekend, and a few interesting things transpired, such as:
Machine of Death has announced they’re putting together a sequel, taking submissions for vol 2 from sometime in May. Big question - do I want to write something new and submit to this one as well? The guidelines explicitly state that “NO PREFERENTIAL ( Read more... )

Geekery makes me calm. Can’t explain it, but my god it does. Coding / writing algorithms / debugging or just thinking about how stuff will work is one of the only things that puts me in a completely Zen place. I’m doomed, but happy to be so. I love it. I just need a pocket protector and a few zits, and then I will be perfect ( Read more... )

So I have tried and tried and tried, but the word is official - I cannot get into Star Trek DS-9. I gave it more time; I tried episodes from after season 1; I even rooted for them in fights and sat through 3 consecutive “To be continued” endings, but when they were all done, it still felt lame & unfulfilling. I wish Voyager went on forever. I ( Read more... )

I liked this last few weeks, even though parts of it made me a bit blue; in the not-so-goods was: 4 of my favorite colleagues had their last days at work, one retiring and three moving onto new opportunities. That involved far more beer than I had intended, but they’re all worth it ( Read more... )

Got home from California yesterday after a grueling, long and awesome trip; it wouldn’t have been quite so tiring but we checked out of the hotel at 11 am and the first flight wasn’t until 9.30 pm. So we drove round and saw a bunch of places up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, from Laguna Beach where we were staying thru Newport Beach, ( Read more... )

This week is / was a doooooooozy, aka a coincidental cluster of circumstances which require me (and my workmates) to run round like blue-arsed flies balancing it. We have a Nadcap audit in progress, someone in my department just left and so I partially (temporarily) inherited Rolls Royce, and my regular backup is out for some different training, ( Read more... )