blather, Scotto! ramble about unconnected things!

too many meetings at work today! bleh bleh bleh!

tomorrow will be more of the same. I do like having a fresh project to work on though… now it’s just a question of finding out *exactly* what people want and expect of the program.

As this will be internal, a “do what I want, not what I say” client won’t be as much of a problem. (gadzooks…I hope, anyhow)

The back is better today, a minor twinge still, but not enough to be any kind of distraction from my work, fortunately. I forsee walkies being reactivated by thursday or so.

brain is in gearhead mode… producing more code than story-stuff. lovely forms, queries, and variables are coming together in a very pleasing way. Also, Tulpa is blooming as a seed in the back of my head, though. I think I have a better idea of the island where the people live, and the mediterranian culture. I have been hearing and reading a bit about the Romany culture, and I suspect a little of that will find its way into there. is a muse, I admit. is also helping out quite a lot. Thanks!

Rowanda beat out South Florida for the lightning strike capital of earth. We’re number 2!

yike! where's my surge protector?

Scientists cross pigs with spinach?

I’m curious…how many of you guys remember 1979? Like Jimmy Carter, The Energy Crisis, All the gas stations with no fuel?

I was 10 years old then…I didn’t live in Florida yet, but we visited friends there in the keys. I remember carrying a 1978 world almanac with me *all the time* places. It was my source for nifty numbers and information, all kinds of trivia. Within a month that summer… July… I knew the whole book front to back, back to front. I still have a lot of that information locked inside my head, taking up space that phone numbers or some other memory use other folks might have. I sort of wish I had a stronger interest in music or language at that age… science and history was much more appealing to me at the time. I was one of those weirdo kids that actually knew all the presidents and vice presidents from Geroge Washington on, and could tell little goofy factoids about at least the more interesting ones, like Grover Cleveland (who was extra cool to me, because he was named for a muppet and a city in Ohio) being president two different terms, with Benjamin Harrison in between. I remember wanting John Anderson to win the 1980 election, because I didn’t like Reagan or Carter…it was the first year that I paid attention to elections and ad campaigns, though I didn’t understand very much of it. I thought the debates were interesting, and remember asking my Dad about Ayatollah Khomeni, and why the hostages were taken in Iran.

Weird, what flashes back, spinning off of the back of my skull… I remember news reports telling what day it was with the hostages… day 59, day 134, day 332. it lasted longer than a year.

Well, I’m going to bed… maybe to dream of my sweetheart and I as kids, running around, and goofing. Sweet dreams, dear journal, and wish me the same.

The Top 11 “Star Wars” Pants Lines

Simple game. Take any line from a “Star Wars” film and replace one word with “pants.” Alter grammar to fit if need be. If you find this amusing, there are sites out there (like this one) with hundreds of them. But here are the best 11…

  • “Jabba’s through with you. He has no time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.” – Greedo
  • “Your pants – you’ll have to leave them outside.” – Cantina Bartender
  • “No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no pants!” – Leia
  • “Don’t seem to remember ever owning pants.” – Obi-Wan
  • “I have no need for pants.” – Uncle Owen
  • “Oh, my. I’d forgotten how much I hate pants.” – C-3PO
  • “Biggs is right. I’m never going to get out of these pants.” – Luke
  • “Your pants, you will not need them.” – Yoda
  • “I’ve got a bad feeling about pants.” – Han Solo
  • “I am altering the pants. Pray I do not alter them any further.” – Darth Vader
  • “You are unwise to lower your pants.” – Darth Vader

The Top 11 "Star Wars" Pants Lines

Simple game. Take any line from a “Star Wars” film and replace one word with “pants.” Alter grammar to fit if need be. If you find this amusing, there are sites out there (like this one) with hundreds of them. But here are the best 11…

  • “Jabba’s through with you. He has no time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.” – Greedo
  • “Your pants – you’ll have to leave them outside.” – Cantina Bartender
  • “No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no pants!” – Leia
  • “Don’t seem to remember ever owning pants.” – Obi-Wan
  • “I have no need for pants.” – Uncle Owen
  • “Oh, my. I’d forgotten how much I hate pants.” – C-3PO
  • “Biggs is right. I’m never going to get out of these pants.” – Luke
  • “Your pants, you will not need them.” – Yoda
  • “I’ve got a bad feeling about pants.” – Han Solo
  • “I am altering the pants. Pray I do not alter them any further.” – Darth Vader
  • “You are unwise to lower your pants.” – Darth Vader

My back is back!

Huzzah!

Yecka… that was awful… I’m not going to slack on my working out that area again. The upside is now I’m feeling physically quite well now.

Redesigning a newtork interface for setup and the laser department. It’s been fun, thus far. I’ve been hiding little “easter eggs” in it…some that won’t appear for years. I won’t say what they are, but maybe I’ll show a piccie later.

I’m glad to be home, though. A little weary from my mental gears turning, but it’s a good weariness.

before I go….

For the font addicts tuning in, here’s a way to make your own “alien alphabet” font in just a few seconds: The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is a new website I wandered into this morning. Crazy! I’ve often thought it would be neat if somebody would develop a fontmaking method where you could draw a few key letters (the R, for example, and the G) and a program would extrapolate basic letterforms based on the curves and weights and so on… This isn’t that, but it’s a pretty fun toy.

Well, off to work with me!

Up and at em, Atom ant!

Just heading into a lovely hot shower, and I’m feeling pretty good. A night of thick sleep, Newt laying along the length of my left shin. It’s pretty cool this mornin’. I’m doing well enough to go to work. I won’t be running all over the laser dept, though… Dale can do it, or they can come to me. I plan on parking my tush into a chair and just coding like a crazed monkey to get caught up. I’m very happy to be near the end of this owie.

Via queso –

If Microsoft were to release an operating system with a built-in mail server that allowed anyone, including spammers, to relay mail through it, we wouldn’t hear the end of it. If someone else — say, Apple — were to do the same, we would barely hear a peep.

I could easily spend hours and hours of amazed bliss staring at Scott Kim’s various visual inversions. Each link in his gallery is another example of an amazing blend of visual design, symmetry, and even trickery to produce damn cool results. No, really — go take a look, it’s worth the time.

Got a few elements working on the tulpa project, but it’s off to a slow start. I think that in time it’ll pan into something nifty, though. Eric, Jane, Constance and Mr. LeThuy are all developed to a degree. Mary’s needs a little fleshing out, though. A variety club with exotic dancers, bare-fist fighters, performance art, and specialized hookers. (I think the sex and violence aspect will win out over the art side… although maybe It’ll be a way to squeeze some poetry into the deal.)

Concepts – raisable chain-link fence around the stage, covered with iron poles, hanging chains, free-standing platforms.

drugs are available… maybe love hidden among the lust, too.

Aries gang work as securty there, at odds with the peace force. (A neutral gang area but if members of a rival gang act up perhaps they can “deal with the situation” with some relish.)

back areas of the place will be heavy with smoke, strange smells, and noises that most folks would rather not identify.

pretty high turnover with both fighters and dancers.

fights there are without gloves, no weapons, no hitting an opponent who’s down (at least one knee on the ground) and the fight goes until someone can’t or won’t get up.

I found out today that Leisa and Brian had the baby last Wednesday. A little boy. I don’t know the statistics yet. Hooray for hippie-babies!

You Do Your Own Dirty Work (via unka stevie)

Semi-inspired by ‘s globexplorer postSite Meter

The only thing more worrisome than a grand worldwide scheme plotted by mystic forces beyond understanding is a lazy bunch of forces that want you to do all the legwork. The Degree Confluence Project wants to find and photograph every intersection of lines of latitude and longitude. Why do they need this seemingly benign information? And why aren’t they willing to deal with the ones in the ocean? Just what are they trying to hide?

Actually, it’s quite cool.

here’s the one closest to me. If you’re reading this, how about showing me where you are? 🙂 (or as close as possible?)

Here I am

medic braceletWent to the ER this morning… Got the obligatory shot in the tushie of cortisone, and I’m mucho better.

woo. It was bad. got ‘scripts for norflex and anaprox.… hooray for medicine!

I’m happy that I went in… if I didn’t, I’d probably been in bad shape, and unsuitable for work on monday. I’m hoping the meds clear up the rest of the trouble by then.

Images from today are here.

An interesting tidbit from the Cruel Site of the DayThe resume of Elizabeth Brady Cabot Winslow.

Maybe I ought to let her introduce herself. This is the opening of her resume:

ELIZABETH (LIZ, LISA) BRADY CABOT WINSLOW, A PRODIGY IN MANY FIELDS Perhaps I rank historically among the 50 or 100 most intelligent and talented peoplein the most fields ever. More high abilities in more different fields than anyone in last 50 years. Fair, beautiful face and figure, blond, brunette, redhead, green eyes, 5’8″, American

100’S OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF SALES OF NEW PRODUCTS BASED DIRECTLY EITHER ON MY ACTIVITIES, WRITINGS, OR TALK OTHERS ILLEGALLY OR COVERTLY OBSERVED OR LISTENED TO OR ON MY WRITINGS OTHERS ILLEGALLY OBTAINED OR READ.

That paragraph starting with “100’S OF MILLIONS” is bolded and in a very large font size. The rest of the resume doesn’t have Inappropriate Capitalization or exclamation points!!!!!, but otherwise it is distinguished from mimeographed street jeremiads only by proper spelling and punctuation.

It is certainly the longest resume I’ve ever seen. Part of this is due to her inclusion of:

“CRIME AND MALICE VS ELIZABETH “LIZ” BRADY CABOT WINSLOW” Pre 10/82″

Followed by pages of detailed descriptions of all the crooked and malignant plots to steal her ideas, withhold credit and pretty much deprive her of her just rewards.

Then:

“Names of Malicious and Criminal Before 1982”

Ah, she names names. About a page of them.

Then:

“The new technology was already creating dangerous crooked meddlers in Washington, DC, area in 1982 when crooked meddlers with PCÂ’s in their homes, university computer staff, and others were doing strange illegal things with the phone networking. ; 1982 in No. Virginia I was set me up deliberately with physical assaults including with deadly weapons, small boulders thrown at my head by someone (probably set up by Knappens or Gary Lynn Jordan). In 1982 when I was living in an apartment in Arlington, VA, a roommate set up a crooked racket on my phone ; I had to go to court as a consequence; I threw him out; I won in court; but I think that someone else I knew had a hand in setting up the phone rackets.”

That’s only the opening paragraph of this section. It goes on for pages.

Then:

“After 10/82 – return to NYC- Names of Criminals”

For a page or so.

and *then*:

“Updates”

In case any of those crooked meddlers and their rackets have come up with new villainy.

Fascinating stuff. Most people wouldn’t think of listing all the crimes against them in a resume.

Here’s the last line of the “Job Search” section:

“In addition, the people who considered me for jobs did not ask important questions and did not do adequate fact checking when considering me for employment. I mean, what is going on? It appears that the public and employers deliberately refuse to hire me because they do not want me to have any money and want to steal all my possessions and to force themselves on me and that they want me to be defenseless and they want to put me through the hoops and through their contrived illegal often situations in order to pick my mind for free.”

Dang, and I thought *I* was the only one. Note that she is typing away so madly that she didn’t spot the typo “contrived illegal often situations.”

And this is the last line of the “Employment” section:

“Crooks illegally tapped my residence and office phones and illegally cut off my mail and had concealed surveillance in my apartment and illegally read my private non-published material in my apartment and stole and plagiarized and assaulted, tailed, poisoned, and plagued me 1982 on in New York City.”

I found myself asking “what if” throughout. What if she really did have an IQ of 180 and was as brilliant and creative as she thinks she is? What if this mania really is the result of a lifetime of having original ideas ripped-off? Think of “A Beautiful Mind” without tenure or a support system.

Of course, my biggest question is: who would look at this resume and think they have found what they are looking for? What if she is presentable in person (she is in the Screen Actors Guild) and only reveals herself when let loose at a keyboard? Wouldn’t she make a great addition to a think tank?

Then again, imagine that she really is as brilliant and creative as she thinks she is and comes from the sort of background her name implies. Doting brilliant upper crust parents and all the finest educational opportunities. Then years of being systematically ripped-off by unseen forces until she is a raving loony. It’s like the making of a Lord of The Fate. Heh. She does want to go back to New York.

“Fair, beautiful face and figure, blond, brunette, redhead, green eyes, 5’8″, American.” Hmmmm. I wonder when to expect her picture and profile on a matchmaking website? Geniuses only, commoners need not apply. I can’t wait to see a blonde brunette redhead with green eyes.

just like the cartoons!

Cuts Like a Knife – Following a fight between two Florida men, we may need to add a few items to our banned weapons list. One guy hit the other one over the head with a beer bottle. Then the other guy responded by stabbing the first guy in the stomach with a swordfish.

I am ever so grateful to for bringing my paycheck, some advil and a nice treat of a bit of fudge by my house on her way home! A real help in a time of need. Thank you!

I’m missing playing Car Wars with my old-old tabletop gaming group from back in the mid-80s… the new, revised rules look like fun… an online version would be a hoot to play with friends.

Six Degrees of Captain America

Ricardo Alberich and co-workers at the University of the Balearic Isles in Spain, are tracing the evolution of the Marvel Universe in detail. They hope to understand which non-random features of real social networks are a consequence of the way people interact, and which follow from more general principles about network growth.

Where can I go to get a job doing that kind of stuff?

Presque Vu

random things I have gleaned recently

A few Huge Being parameters:

Must be larger-than-life.
Must be three-dimensional, rather than flat.
Human figures preferred, although anthropomorphic representations of animals or inanimate objects are okay.
Huge parts (hands, feet, ears, etc.) are good.
The emphasis here is on the whimsical, rather than the serious.

I think I meet those qualifications.

Back is where it was yesterday morning…not totally better, but much improved over last night. I’m going to hop in the shower, and see if there’s more relief. I think I’m going to stay home today, in case of a replay of yesterday’s progression and spend time mending up. Some pain down left leg, with numbness over the top of the left foot. Last night was *awful* Thanks for the healing vibes!

Time to get some steam-heat.

Welcome to my wall scrawls.