I'm sitting in a hotel in Coca Beach catching up on some work and excited to being going to the Space Center tomorrow to see the shuttle launch.

It was just a few weeks ago Dawn and I were here to see the Ares I-X test flight. Also, news came out recently that there is definitely water on the moon. And in a couple weeks the LHC will be back online, expanding our understanding of the universe.

What an exciting time to be alive! And in that spirit, I have to share a site I stumbled across recently called Symphony of Science. The artist, John Boswell, compiled clips of Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and others then auto-tuned them to make them sing about science. And instead of being corny the result is really good.

The first video "We are all Connected" has among other things Feynman playing the drums like some kind of physics mystic (which I guess he was!) and Sagan walking through the desert like a shaman. Of course the message is just great, and I can't get the tune out of my head.





The next video, "A Glorius Dawn", might be my favorite. When I saw it, the very beginning of the video put a huge grin on my face that lasted throughout most of my wide-eyed viewing of the video.

There is an interesting, personal side note to this one too. As a child I used to have nightmares of a giant black hole in the sky. I'd come home from school or go outside and this thing would just be up there in the sky, completing replacing the sun. It was something of a reoccurring dream, so I remember it pretty well. (In fact I have several childhood dreams that I seem to remember well for no apparent reason.) But coming around to my point, while watching this video I've begun to wonder if my black hole wasn't really a giant galaxy from Sagan's "Cosmos" series! I certainly had seen "Cosmos" (several times) when I very young, so it would make a lot of sense.





And of course there is the LHC rap. Five million YouTube views can't be wrong!

They say if you want something right you have to do it yourself. I hate taking the time to research and buy my own computer, but the big name manufactures skimp and the custom builders are too expensive. My attempt at getting a deal on an "open box" system failed miserably. So the only way to get what I wanted was to build my own system. And it should be here midweek.

If you're looking to build your own system right now and have a budget of 3k (which I consider to be solidly average for a good computer), I recommend this setup to you. The link above has all the parts except for the hard drive, which I already have. You can save yourself $400 by going with the 940 version of the i7 processor, and another $150 but using the Asus P6T Deluxe Version 2. Save yourself $80 and just use the stock CPU cooler that comes with the processor if you're not going to overclock. And you could save $100 or so with a smaller power supply.

Upgrade the system by adding one or two more graphics cards (and leaving the current power supply.)



The base of any system is the motherboard. I was going to go with an Asus PT6, which would have been just fine. But I haven't been wild about Asus support in the past, and I kind of hate their website. I know everyone loves them, but I'm ready for a change. I went with wildly overpriced, packed with awesome overclocking features, X58 Classified by EVGA.





The brains of course is the processor. I can't really use a NVIDIA Telsa Personal Super Computer at the moment, so I went with the Intel i7 Extreme Edition. Slightly pricey at $1000, it's a power house that is going to make all my photo editing much faster... I suspect that with 8 blazing fast processors, Deep Rybka will run fairly well too.




I'll be overclocking, so I needed more than the stock cooler that comes with the processor. The Noctura isn't the coolest looking aftermarket cooler on the market. But it's one of the top performers.

Mind you, I was very tempted to go with water cooling for this system. But I have a problem with going a little overboard sometimes, and if you try to add water cooling for more than just your processor (i.e. your memory, video card, and hard drives), things get a little more complex -- and expensive.

Not only that, but companies keep threatening to come out with an affordable, usable phase change cooling system. We might see one in the next year or two, and sub-zero CPU temperatures are really sexy to think about. Anyway, it was easy to talk myself out of the water cooling system for now. I may change my mind later, and with my case, I'll be able to.




I decided to go with 1600MHz memory instead of just 1333. The 1600MHz memory doesn't do much for you that the 1333 Mhz memory doesn't already do, unless you want to overclock...

Oh yes, I will overclock...

I also like the heat dissaption on the Corsair Dominator memory. Twelve GB of fast DDR3 memory can get really hot. They're taller than other memory sticks, but I have a ton of room in my case. I even bought a fan which to go on top of the bunch; hopefully that will keep me cool enough.




I bought a second set of these to bring me up to 12GB. So I'll just add an extra picture here. . .




The motherboard was an upgrade from my orginal design, as was the memory. My last upgrade is the graphics gard. I was going to go with a GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 card, a great value offering blistering speeds. But I decided to spend a little more money on the Radeon 4850 X2 instead.

The X2 performs a little better and has 2GB of memory to help support the big resolutions on my monitor. But maybe more importantly, it has four montior ports allowing me to hook up a third monitor again without having to buy a second card.

(I would have three monitors now, but when I upgraded to 64 bit Vista, Asus didn't offer the bios upgrade I needed for my motherboard, and a second graphics card was causing my system to crash -- hence my move to the EVGA motherboard this round.)

I was going to buy two of the Core 216s to get the third monitor, so buying a card with four ports actually saved me some money.



Note that I do not have three of these. But I could.... Oh but I could!

Only running one graphic card, so 1000W power supply is a little overkill. But, I like being able to upgrade. And even better, while running at just half capacity the power coming out of this thing is super clean.





Assuming you have plenty of memory, the biggest bottleneck in a system is usually the hard drive. Though I'm going to try running this system with no paging file on the hard drive, I opted for a fast drive anyway -- specifically the 300GB Western Digital 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor. It's fast, it has great reviews, and the name is just awesome.

The RAW files coming out of digital SLRs today are pretty huge (especially if you remember to "expose to the right"), and they're only getting bigger. This machine is really a graphics editing (chess analyzing) machine when you get down to it, so I do think the drive upgrade will be worth it.





Though it would be impossible to say that the best part of this machine is NOT using a sound card from Creative Labs, I think it's one of the many high points. The Clario Plus is actually cheaper than my current Creative Labs sound card, which as I write this, is sitting in a corner somewhere collecting dust because of the pops and clicks associated with 64 bit, 4GB systems.

I upraded my current computer to 4GB of RAM last year and a 64bit OS, and basically I lost my overpriced Creative Labs sound card. Lost of people have had this problem with clicks and pops on 64 bit systems with 4GB of ram, that is the Internet is to be trusted. And how Creative Labs hasn't fixed this yet is beyond me.

But it's not my first gripe ever with them, and I've decided it's my last. I'm not alone. Sites like New Egg have tons of reviews where people are proclaiming their joy and freedom from Creative Labs.

Besides, the HT Omega cards are getting outstanding reviews in their own right.





Last but not least, I needed a case to put everything into. I needed something that gave me plenty of room for massive graphics cards, lots of drives, and the extended ATX form factor of the X58 Classified motherboard. It needed to have great airflow and also support a water coooling system in case I want to upgrade in the future.

There are a lot of great cases out there, but I settled on the Thermaltake Armor+ full tower case. I love Thermaltake products and case designs, so decided to stick with them.


That's basically it. Turns out that double sided Blu-Ray burner have become affordable at some point while I was sleeping, even though the discs really aren't. It will be great for off site backups eventually though, so I picked one up.

I'm pretty darned excited. It's not going to "process the unique entity [referred] to as John Henry" from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (A Great show that I really hope isn't canceled in May.) But it'll do for another few years.

RRRRRRRAAAAWR!

Well, I've been just terrible about updating the blog lately. I blame that partly on being extraordinarily busy, though too, there is a healthy dose of "lazy" that just can't be discounted.

Dawn is back from her trip and we wasted no time cleaning off the kayaks and floating down one of the many thousand beautiful rivers in Florida. This time we chose the Weeki Wachee River.



We put in at Weeki Wachee springs, and you just can't imagine how many springs we floated over. Dawn kept calling them out as we passed, but eventually just gave up as the day went on.

The water is stunningly clear and cool when you first put in. And actually, it's cool and clear for the vast majority of the trip, until you get much closer to the Gulf. We didn't even clear the kayaks when we got home. Quite a contrast from rivers that are more like the Everglades, where you feel like you're paddling around in primordial bioluminescent ooze.

We didn't see nearly as much wildlife as we usually do, but what we did see was striking. We weren't in the water for even a minute before we got our first surprise -- a bald eagle. It's hard to shoot 600mm in a moving kayak, but a got a picture for the scrap book anyway.



Same caveat on this next picture. The river moves along fairly fast, enough that even our little anchor wasn't holding in some places. I was hoping for a better picture of this hawk, but you get what you get sometimes.



Last but not least we saw a river otter swimming upstream as we were pulling our kayaks out. I regret not ripping the camera gear out of my pack and running after it, but it was hot and I was pretty exhausted. --We'd been in for about four hours, and did some honest paddling for the last leg of the trip.

It feels good to be back in the water!

Well, I don't have an ulcer or tumor or any blockage. The doctor thinks I might have gastroparesis (also called a lazy stomch) because there was still food in my tummy when he did the endoscopy. After 9-10 hours of not eating, there shouldn't have been anything there.

But you know, I don't think I have gastroparesis. As I read about it online, symptoms such as feeling full right away are definitely, definitely not me. For example there is also usually some weight loss which, for better or worse, is not me.

Why then was there still some food/mucus in my stomach? I don't know.

Bu we're going to find out because he ordered a "gastric emptying study". Basically I'll be fed some food containing a "label", something like radioactive eggs with mayonnaise. You may have already had that at Denny's. If you'd also had some some sensitive film handy with which to document your stomach wrestling with said food, you could have done your own gastric emptying study!

(Egg picture borrowed from here and nuclear power plant picture borrowed from here. Great photography on both sites.)

So in a few weeks my stomach will perform a slow motion, gurgly, slightly radioactive race. Then we'll know for sure. I think it's something else, but who knows what.

All I do know is that I think I've had enough health problems for one lifetime, and as soon as I can trade this body in for a new one, I'm there.



Ghost In The Shell Movie Intro Credits

--One can of no-chicken noodle soup, two slices of bread, and a glass of water, which I finished exactly at midnight. Now I get to descend for nine hours into a hypoglycemic, ulcerous burning wonderland of no food.

I should really go to bed now, but I'm not tired. :-/

I'm more worried about not having food until 11am than I am about the EGD, which should be a walk in the park.

I wonder if it's just me, but every Western Digital "My Book" external drive product has failed on me. As we speak, I'm copying my last remaining My Book onto a new drive, hoping to get all the data before it fails completely.

To be fair, it doesn't seem to be the actual drive that fails -- it's the USB connection. They get to a point where you have to wiggle the usb cable to just the right position for the drive to work. I'm not sure how or why this happens; I don't move these around or travel with them.

The last time this happened, I excavated the physical drive from it's failing plastic cage and popped it into an external drive enclosure. Saving the drive for an extra $40 was a deal, never mind the ability to use the enclosure for other drives if needed. (Right now, the drive I'm actually copying to is the rescued WD in the Thermaltake enclosure.)

So anyway I think this will be the last "My Book" product that I'll buy -- though with drives, it seems to vary over time which manufacturers are putting out the best product

I don't mean to complain all the time. I just had some hummus, and it was quite good. And traffic wasn't bad today while I was doing chores!

So, nowadays I automatically pay the full balance on my credit card because I've vowed never to let myself again get in debt. And I have my bill pay service set up to automatically pay it.

I was keeping an eye on my bill, because I wanted to take any extra money I had this month and buy some more stock. But though the bill was due, my account was reading that no money was due.

I had a funny feeling that maybe they were letting me keep a balance on the account for a month so they could charge me interest the following month -- and so I manually paid it. Well, that wasn't the case apparently, the bill came in, and I ended up paying the bill twice thus resulting in a credit balance on the account. Silly me, but here's where it gets fun.

I just called the credit card company to determine what the easiest way to retrieve my balance would be. The phone representative indicated that I could receive a check and it would take about 7 days. That's fine. I asked if it would be possible for me to get a cash advance on the money at a bank instead, since that would be faster. She responded, "Sure you could do that, but keep in mind that the higher rate would apply." Higher rate for what? She explained again, something nonsensical that I can't even remember. I was silent for several moments as I tried to re-phrase my question. And sensing my confusion she explained again, "The interested rate on a cash advance is 22 percent."

I just told her to send me the check and hung up. Now that I'm off the phone I can finally phrase the question in my head, "How exactly do I payoff the cash advance amount when there is no actual amount due?"

It's all I can do sometimes not to be overwhelmed with a general hatred of people. More and more I go into encounters with others just assuming the worst and feeling lucky if there is any acceptable outcome whatsoever. I mean, the conversation could easily have gone, "Bank of America retains all account credits as per page 459 of your terms of service. If you dispute this, you're welcome to hire a lawyer, which you probably can't afford, to combat our extensive team of well-paid lawyers. Well-paid in part that is with your generous account credit... Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

I don't always feel this way, and to be fair big business is worse that individuals. But geeze, sometimes I look around and think that as a society we should be a little better than this.

I've heard that there are two types of gun people: the ones that like the big slow bullets, and the ones that like little fast bullets.

(On a side note, Dawn says there are two types of people in general: those that divide people into two types, and those that don't.)

I'm a little and fast girl myself (that occasionally divides people into types). That being said, could this be my next gun purchase?

The early days.

I deleted Mirrors and canceled my World of Warcraft account.

Before I go on, this entry has a sound track: Lament of the Highborne. (In Warcraft, the character Mirrors was one of the Forsaken, led by Sylvanas Windrunner who sings this song. The file is about 7MB, so it may take a moment to DL, if you care to listen to it. )

This doesn't mean I won't play other MMOs in the future, but I'm done with World of Warcraft. The Wrath of the Lich King expansion is too fun. And by fun, I mean fracking fun! It's really fracking fun.

I hadn't planned to come back to Warcraft after quitting over a year ago. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online were both on the horizon while Blizzard still hadn't even announced the release date for WotLK, an expansion that in my opinion was a year late.

Tom, myself, and Carl from the old guild first tried the first person shooter MMO Tabula Rasa while waiting for Age of Conan to be released. Once you got used to the controls, it was actually a lot of fun. But it lacked the sexiness of Warcraft and the character development was non-existent; a TR character could no more become an alter ego than a character in Quake.

Tabula Rasa was quickly replaced by Age of Conan, and Mirrors was reborn as a kinder, gentler healer.

Age of Conan had great lighting.

The Priest of Mitra class in Age of Conan was fun enough in an overpowered sort of way, but the gameplay wasn't really there. I was never bored healing in World of Warcraft, especially in PvP -- which I loved. So I went looking for a new class.

Since I'd started an assassin in Warcraft, I decided to follow through with the idea in Age of Conan and Damascus was born.

Age of Conan has breathtaking graphics.

The art in Age of Conan is amazing. And when I realized I could do a sort of virtual rock climbing with my assassin, I was hooked. But the things than made AoC great were the things that caused Tom and I to leave.

First, to play with graphics at their highest settings (as shown in the screen capture here), you had to have a very, very good computer. And while my computer was the best of the best three years ago, now (even with a couple upgrades) is only average. In any populated area the choppiness was terrible. I wasn't ready to upgrade my computer yet, so it was a problem.

Second, the world of Age of Conan does not have dwarves, gnomes, elves, and such. And when I first started playing, that was refreshing. But later, I started to miss it. And while the graphics are amazing the lack of magical lands and magical races were a disappointment.

Third, the real selling point of Age of Conan was that it was an adult themed game filled with gore and nudity -- a no holds bared world. I don't care so much about either (though the fatalities were exciting and awesome), but that was charm of the game and the AoC world in general.

Well, at some point Funcom decided they would also release the game on the X-box and guess what was scaled back?

Fortunately Warhammer Online was right around the corner, a game that focused heavily on PvP (player versus player).

Squishy PvP Goddess

The PvP focus of Warhammer can probably best be described by pointing out that you can start PvP matches immediately at level one. To be sure, you're not really very effective at such a low level because you're lacking in gear and abilities. But you do get promoted up to level 8 in that particular level bracket, and it's enough to compete. I had some nice revenge kills on a few Bright Wizards at a low level when the Black Guards were added to the game.

Like AoC however, Warhammer's strengths were also its weaknesses. I was in some massive RvR battles that made the old world PvP in Warcraft look tiny. But because so many people were fighting in such a small place there were lag issues. And the game is so focused on PvP that it was sorely lacking in other areas. For example, I thought the terrain and towns in general were just plain bleak. I mean, you might as well have been running around in a wire-frame world.

Exploration is very important to me in a MMO. I think one of the very best post-warcraft experiences I had was exploring the mountains above Connall's Valley in AoC with Tom. We didn't care about questing, or killing, or PvP, we were just exploring and having a blast. And the further we went, the more breathtaking the scenary.

A rich world for exploration is key for a MMO.

At any rate, after rapidly losing interest in Warhammer, Wrath of the Lich King was released; and that brings us full circle back to Warcraft. Tom and I eventually decided to give it a try. And we were blown away from the first moment we got to Northrend.

You just don't get a richer world than in Warcraft right now. Surprisingly the in-game graphics are the most cartoonish and simple than any of the major MMOs. But this makes the game available to a wider audience of players with sub-par machines, and more importantly the Blizzard creative team took these graphics and did brilliant things. They realized early on that you don't need cutting edge graphics to make an immersive and rich world.

As an example of their creativity, following is the cinematic trailer for Wrath of the Lich King. After watching the dragon that Arthas summons about halfway through the following trailer, I thought to myself it was the first time anyone truly captured the immensity of what I thought a dragon should be. (I recommend watching all these WoW trailers with the volume very loud.)



Wrath of the Lich King Theatrical Trailer

The first tight shot of the claw conveys the enormity of the dragon. Then the beast is still largely off camera while it rises behind Arthas, the camera blur and falling ice further working to convey size. Next, when the dragon is perched on the edge of the mountain like it could topple the whole thing I gasped. And I just love the way the dragon falls off the mountain and catches air at the last minute. It's these creative touches everywhere that make the wold great, and people love Blizzard for it. (Do I even need to mention the music?)

So Tom and I were hooked. But we're also both very busy and don't have a lot of time to play. We resolved to enjoy the game, not rush through the levels, and use it as a casual past-time, a substitute for television instead of a full-time hobby as it had been for us previously.

Well, I feel about video games about the way Blood Elves feel about magic. If you're not a WoW player, Blood Elves are a race in WoW addicted to magic. And I think Blizzard captured that addiction well in The Burning Crusade trailer. It all starts out innocently enough... (By the way, don't watch the whole trailer because it's not their best, and is written rather poorly; fast forward to the scene with the Blood Elf 1:20 minutes into the video. )



Magic Addiction in TBC


I don't want to say that Warcraft is better than sex. But I'm not always in the mood for sex (Dawn would tell you differently), and I'm always in the mood for Warcraft. I mean, really sometimes I could just lick the screen. The rush of endorphins that I get just logging into the game is hard to describe.

And so it was that casually questing every so often and playing in a no-name guild led to more playing. And then led to more playing, then to some all-nighters. And eventually I joined a guild that had four separate groups raiding in Naxxramas. Even worse, with one of the top 10 US raiding guilds on our new server, and Dawn away for several months, I had a harebrained idea of applying once I was sufficiently geared.

If you don't know what raiding is, here is a video walk-through of the last boss in The Burning Crusade, Kil'jaeden:



Raiding in World of Warcraft


Raiding can be a real challenge. Getting 25 (or 40 as was the norm before TBC) people to flawlessly work together and carry out their respective roles is an exercise in leadership and teamwork that probably rivals or surpass most people's job. And if you got a little bleary-eyed listening to the whole video strategy for this fight, which is just 1 of 10 in this instance, imagine being one of the handful of guilds that figures it all from scratch.

That's raiding. And I considered jumping into it hard while Dawn was away. Tom and I both are outstanding players in general, if I do say so myself. The only thing stopping us from being in a cutting-edge guild is the time commitment to gear up and then raid six nights a week.

Not doing more raiding has always been a bit of regret. I'm very, very competitive. And I like to be in front. The guild I ran a couple years ago was in front I think, in our way, but not raiding. We were an adult "casual" raiding guild that walked the fine line between casual and raiding. We were a close-knit group and took pains to bring everyone along for the ride when it came to raids and PvP. But our raid progress suffered because of it.

Our full 40-man clear of Molen Core.

What is more common is that guilds are either one thing or the other. There are social guilds that quest and run instances with each other, and even can span multiple games. Members often know each other outside the game, and it's a fun place to be. On the other hand, raiding or PvP guilds are often somewhat Machiavellian in nature, focused on getting the job done, and not nearly as friendly. And sometimes guilds do actually mix the two by allowing "casuals" into the raiding guild with the understanding that raiders raid and casual players do not.

We even tried this latter structure in the end, but it was too late. And frankly, I'm not sad about it. The real magic of our guild was that we were all casual raiders, very successful in what we had time to accomplish, and didn't make distinctions when it came to game participation. We were meticulous in our efforts to attract and keep "good people" not just "good players". Talking with people on teamspeak while you played was always a pleasure, and a large portion of the guild were gainfully employed folks who came from companies like IBM, Microsoft, EA, Intel, and Activision.

Some members organized meet-ups, we had role playing events, and what I believe was probably the most extensive bank in the entire game (spanning five characters) before guild banks were released. We had occasional writing contests; and there was great fiction published on our forums.

One of my "adverstistments" for our writing contests.

Sadly though, because the WotLK expansion didn't come out until two years after TBC, raiding was eventually all that was a left for about a year. During that time the guild couldn't maintain its mission or values, and collapsed as players began taking long breaks from the game and raiders left for more aggressive groups.

I miss the hell out of that guild. We had two damn good years, and I learned a ton about leadership.

When I returned to play Wrath of the Lich King, since I'd promised both Tom and Dawn that I wouldn't start another guild, and because I am very competitive, joining a cutting edge raiding guild seemed a great idea -- that is, after I moved past the notion of just casually questing and running instances. But this is where a series of revelations began kicking into place.

First, I can't play Warcraft casually, as I've said. I can run a casual guild -- because that isn't casual from a guild master perspective. But I can't just play Warcraft casually.

Second, the kind of people who aggressively raid and PvP are not the kind of people I want to spend hours upon hours with. You have to try out a few guilds to realize this. And I only fully realized it after joining the last guild. You have to put up with a lot of nastiness for the sake of good raiding. And the amount of bickering, posturing, and smack talk I heard on Ventrilo was almost unbearable.

Third, the defining factor of success in a MMO like Warcraft is time spent. Period. Assuming you're even a moderately competent gamer (and I happen to consider myself solidly above average), the only ingredient you need to succeed is time. The more time you have to spend, the more successful you'll be.

Now, that's true for everything really. But there is real limit on the how much talent and study can contribute to your success in Warcraft, only a bare minimum is required. I might be a lot like trying to get fat while watching TV. ( A weird analogy I know.) All you have to do is sit there (time) and eat (basic skill). The more time you spend doing this basic task over and over, the more fat you'll get. And it's about that rewarding in the end.

More wholesome forms of entertainment like sports, chess, art, and so on require large amounts of effort for rewards which are slow coming. Continuing with the food analogy, these other hobbies might be likened to health food whereas Warcraft is more like ice cream. The ice cream tastes better. And it's much more tasty, more immediately gratifying. The healthy food is more rewarding in the long term, and not nearly as tasty.

Speaking of long term rewards, I read something online recently:

Imagine the day that you first bought the game. If you knew everything you do now, would you still have bought it? Now Imagine yourself in two years, still playing and looking back on today when you are making the decision to quit or keep playing. How do you feel about your decision to continue?

The answer to that would be "Pretty damn stupid."

The only thing of substance you can take away from the game are memories and stories. Does anyone care that I had Benediction? Or the mount from Alterac Valley? That I'd reached Centurion back when PvP titles were hard to get? What about all my achievements from other games like EverQuest? (Now EverQuest was real game with some teeth!)

Go ahead and laugh. I know the name was terrible.

Nobody cares of course. They matter only to me. I have stories about MMOs like I have stories about truck driving -- memories that I love and that wouldn't mean much to anyone else. And to be fair, I've gotten a lot more entertainment and memories from playing than I ever did from sitting around and watching television. But the only way I can get more water from this well is by jumping into it.

Probably for the rest of my life my blood will race when I hear the original Warcraft theme music and when I think about Mirrors kicking ass, taking names in the battlegrounds. (God do I have some great stories from Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch!) These are good memories.



World of Warcraft Original Theatrical Trailer

As I wrote earlier, I'm not giving up MMOs. I love exploring virtual worlds like I love reading fiction or watching movies. But I'm not going to learn anything new from the Warcraft as I did when I ran the guild, and I've explored as much there as care to do. It's time to move on to new adventures.

You know, one of my very favorite anime series and one that I've recently re-watched is Kino's Journey. In the story, Kino is a traveler who never spends more than three days and two nights in any town. She believes it is enough time to learn everything important about a place and is afraid that if she stays any longer that she'll settle down.

I couldn't agree with her more.



Kino's Journey

My toe got pretty black after banging it against the chair on my way to the computer. (Shut up!) Anyway, it made me think of one of the funny scenes in Lost in Translation, a movie I enjoy quite a bit.

I was telling Dawn about the scene a couple days ago, but for some reason I started thinking of it again tonight and did a quick look-up of the script online:

Charlotte: [after Bob tells her of his back pain] I'm in pain, I got my foot banged up. Wanna see it?
Bob: [to Chef, sarcastically] How do you say no?
[sees the foot]
Bob: Oh, my gosh! When did you do this?
Charlotte: I did it the other day, it hurts, y'know?
Bob: Didn't you feel any pain?
Charlotte: Yeah, it really hurt.
Bob: That toe is almost dead.
[Charlotte laughs]
Bob: I think I got to take you to a doctor, you can't just put that back in the shoe. Well, you either go to a doctor or you leave it here.
[regarding Chef]
Bob: He's smiling. You like that idea? See they love black toe in this country.
[Charlotte continues laughing]
Bob: [to Chef] You got a sharp knife?
Bob: [to Charlotte] Gotta be, you know, in this country--somebody's gotta prefer a black toe. Uh, "brack" toe. We should probably hang around until someone orders it.

Lost in Translation is one of those love it or hate it films. I for one think it's fantastic. I don't have the guts to ask our sushi chef if they'd like to have my black toe however. (What if he said yes?) And besides, it's getting better.

I've looked for this previously and it wasn't available. But it seems that you can now get the old D&D animated series on DvD. I'm so pleased. I think this was one of my very favorite cartoons growing up.

I thought the into was pretty darn cool, but the outro song during the end credits brings a smile to my face even today.



The X-men cartoon was another favorite -- the first one, not the second one, mind you! When the first X-men movie came out, I felt it needed to be at least as great as the original cartoon series. Sadly, it didn't come close.

On the topic of the movies the second one was okay, but the third movie? I took Dawn to see the third movie when it came out. I'm sure glad she loves me a lot.





Anyway, I'm going to have to buy this box set. I'm not going to do it tonight, because I'm feeling frugal. But maybe when Dawn heads out again and I need some Chicken Soup for the Geeky soul I'll have it sent. Amazon Prime is a great thing.

[[Edit: Tom is totally the Barbarian character with Uni the unicorn. :-)]]

Dawn borrowed her grandfather's 9mm Beretta for the week so that she can practice shooting for her qualifications next week. (They use the Beretta.) She's already qualified, but wants to get a top rating this time around.

I wanted to try it out as well, and fired off a clip. I'm pretty darn happy with the shots. The center grouping below is from 7 yards. That thing can really chew through some paper! (The top left grouping was the Mark II at 15 yards if I recall correctly.)

For whatever reason, the louder "bang" of the 9mm wasn't quite as intimating as it has been in the past. Even after firing a .45 USP and the even louder .38 Special the 9mm still has quite a bit more bang than the .22s, and it has taken a lot of effort to not flinch or anticipate the shots in the past. But today, it was easier. Maybe I'm just getting more comfortable in general.



We'll be at the range a lot over the next week while Dawn practices. I can't believe we have to wait until Wednesday though to get our new guns!