Sometimes, I'm really funny.

That is all.

Secret ...Agent Man

I'm posting at work, which means I must avoid enemy lines. The walls have ears. And eyes. And possibly other organs as well. It's kinda creepy.

The next few days - or weeks, even- are going to be busy. Tomorrow we've got quite a bit to do before I even go to work. But we'll have money again! Huzzah! Money fixes everything.

Tonight I will probably watch Bruce Almighty, since Mike is going to lend it to me. Free movies rule.

I've got lots of onlineness to finish up in the next few days as well. It's all boring, so I won't go into it. It's just the same old thing of feeling like needing to play catchup after being offline for any extended amount of time. Call it the Online Trap. (Not related to the Agricultural Revolution! Trap. [wink]) But, in related news, Jupe, if you're reading this, I should tell you that it might be a little longer before I respond to your email(s). By the end of February, I promise.
And don't even get me started on finishing reading Heath's manuscript. I am so far behind on doing that. I'm deeply ashamed of myself, and I feel like I should apologize (many times) to Heath for how long it's taking me. Gah. Bad friend. Bad critic.

In RL news, the 11th is some Valentine thing for homeschoolers that we're going to attend for the girls. Yay!
Friday the 13th will be the last day that my stepmom is in the house that my parents bought back in '95. Not sure if I blogged about this before or not, but my father has been living in Arizona for the past two months (after he retired from the Air Force, he got a job in AZ. Yeah. I know. Taker Insanity.), and they've finally sold the house here. So the 13th will be a goodbye dinner. Weird.

Before then, we need to arrange to get a truck so that we can pick up the dining room table and hutch that my parents owned (they're getting rid of all the old furniture). Yay for new/used stuff!

And of course, there's the Stupid Bowl coming up on Sunday. I plan on watching for the commercials, although even that doesn't seem all that appealing.
Although - in related news - yesterday we dubbed a Quizno's spot that is...well, you've just got to see it to believe it. I'm thinking that it's going to be a SuperBowl ad, simply because even though it's a horrible spot, it's memorable. Anywhat, we've shown it to several people here at work, and the reaction 90% of the time is "Is this a joke?"
It's...odd.

But the day after SBSunday is Groundhog Day! Yay!! Oddly, we don't have any plans for GHD. Suppose there's still time...

On that note, I must take my leave. The enemy is closing in.

Jupe will like this post.

We ordered pizza from Pizza Hut today, and it was the "4 For All" meal.

What's that? You ask. (I, too, have not seen the ads for it, but I'm sure they'll be coming. This thing is too good for them to not advertise it)

It's a medium square pizza, cut into four mini-personal pizzas. Each of the mini-pizzas is cut into four smaller pieces. AND! each mini-pizza can have it's own individual toppings, up to 3.
Stephanie had green peppers and onions.
Pat had pepperoni and green peppers.
Saren had cheese.
Haprer had pepperoni.

Yummy!!

Speaking of "4"... go and find some of your writing, or, just grab a pen and write the number four. Chances are that the four you draw does not look like this: --> 4
The four you drew most likely has an "open" top. But the fours that computers use (look at your keyboard, or at any of the 4s in my blog...or anywhere else online) have the "triangle" top.

I've looked around, and practically everyone draws their fours with the open top.
And practically every four drawn by computers has the closed, triangle top.

I'm convinced that in the future the way we'll be able to tell computers and humans apart is by the 4 test.

In other news, the Steph made a mondo-huge blog entry, and then the computer shut down. [cryingmonkey] Why must technology mock us? WHY!!!?????

I'm gonna getchya-getchya-getchya-getchya.

One way or another.

So I didn't brush my hair today. Or yesterday, either. I'm going the au natural route. I look like Jesus. Or Darth Vader....with hair. And a beard. Because I've not shaved in the past four days or so, and I think I'm going to grow my facial hair back out.

Saren and I have spent far too long at addictinggames.com the past two days. I suppose they gave themselves that name for a reason, huh? Saren loves SWRON, which is basically that motorcycle game from the movie Tron. ("Has anyone seen the movie Tron?" "No." "No." "No." "No." "No." "Yes....I mean no.")

I prefer the Blockout/Araknoid type games, for mindless fun, and for the ones that require thought, we spent god-only-knows how long playing Chasm (Joe is cute!!) and MOTAS (Mystery of Time and Space). I must go back to the MOTAS game, because it's highly intriguing. And I believe there are others similar to it at that site...

Yesterday I also introduced Saren to the fun that is RPG. I drew a rather small dungeon, then had her roll her dice to determine her Hit Points, Skill, Intelligence, Speed, Magic, Luck, and Silver and Gold levels. Being the DM was fun, but it reminded me of how much my imagination has atrophied. Sheesh, I used to be creative.

Anywhat, Saren loved it, and when we have some cash we'll venture on down to some of the game shops and see if we can find a true D&D (or something like it) manual/starter kit.

Hard to believe that January is almost over. I still haven't finished February's questions, although I've got the first 6...ish done already. Something tells me I'll be creating a lot of non-month-related queries come January 31st...

One way conversations with dead fictional people.

I finished reading Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! today.

I liked it quite a bit, as I like most of his books. I'd recommend it to anyone that is a fan of his, and to anyone who might not be, it's a pretty quick read.

The book is divided into four segments, each with a character doing first person narratives. The final segment was written by the least sympathetic (or perhaps the most sympathetic, if you want to look at it that way) of anyone in the book, but the ending gave me goosebumps. I'm such a sap. And by "sap", I mean "freak".

The first segment is written by a dead teenage girl, Cheryl, who is a victim of a school shooting in 1988. Coupland's treatment of grisly events - or rather, Cheryl's detatchment to them - was sort of like Slaughterhouse Five, and sort of like one of the stories from Coupland's short story collection, Life After God.

The rest of the book deals with the way the survivors of the High School Massacre that killed Cheryl are dealing with their grief. As in previous works by Coupland, ponderings on religion and belief and the future are sprinkled throughout, and while I may not agree with everything that the characters do, I felt like I could understand where most of them were coming from. And I liked them all. (Except for Reg. But I get the feeling you weren't supposed to)

Heather's section of the book was probably the most depressing. But the weird thing about the book is that even while he's bringing you down (and Coupland can be a downer), he's able to mix in a smattering of hope. It's hard to explain (or at least, it is for me. Lousy inarticulateness.) but I like it.

Douglas Coupland's books make me think, which is a good thing, even if I can't express it clearly.

So, yeah. Hey Nostradamus! gets my vote. But don't take my word for it. *ba-dum-dun!*

Ape10 episode 2 Big Time

Ape10, Zombielyn, and Spark are getting ready to have lunch.
Ape10 has decided to have one of his favorite meals - an apple.
Zombielyn, too, has been looking at her favorite recipes.
Spark, being a robot, doesn't technically require nourishment, but he does enjoy the company. And he secretly likes the taste of Hot Pockets.

Just as our heroes are about to eat, though, the newly installed "Time Disruption" Alarm goes off. "Aw, man." Spark said sourly. "I guess my Hot Pocket will have to wait."

Ape10 looked at the controls and agreed with his robotic pal. "It appears that one of Bluebush's dinowarriors has been spotted in Tokyo. The year 1985."

"To the Time Blender!"

******

As they stepped out of the time-travelling appliance, they wondered where the dinosaur was. "Guhhhuhnih?" Zombielyn asked.

Ape10 looked toward the sky. "I'd say a very large one!"

The extra large creature screeched upon seeing Ape10, and then, to the astonishment of them all, it exhaled a burst of fire directly at them!!
Ape10 and Zombielyn screamed, expecting to be roasted instantly. The flames did not come, though. Spark had stepped in front of the fiery path, taking the brunt of the damage, and saving his friends' lives.

A Japanese scientist who had been hiding in an alley watching this all, called to them. "Robot! Primate! Starlet! Come this way!" Not wanting to die, they followed the person. The man led them to a high-tech underground laboratory and said, "We will be safe here. My name is Dr. Setsumei."

Ape10 shook hands with the Dr. and introduced himself and his companions. "We knew that you had trouble, but we had no idea it was this bad." he concluded.

Zombielyn asked, "Grrrun?"

"Two good questions, Miss Monroe." Dr. Setsumei answered. "I think I know part of the answer. We found a toenail from the animal and I counted the rings. It is apparently 40 years old. Which means that it was here in 1945. The radiation from Hiroshima must have caused the dinosaur to mutate. But my question is - what was a dinosaur doing here in the forties?"

Ape10 explained about Bluebush and his Master Plan.

Dr. Setsumei nodded, then explained, "So the pirate must have placed the dinosaur egg here in 1945. The bomb goes off, and the creature grows as a result. But that doesn't explain why it waited forty years to start attacking."

Zombielyn pointed out the obvious. "Grruhuhuhhhhhh."

"Well," Ape10 asked, "how do we defeat this thing? It's gigantic. I doubt even the three of us could take it in a fight."
"True, Monkeyman. Even the Army has been unable to defeat the fire breathing creature."

While this was going on, Spark had asked Dr. Setsumei if he could heat up his hot pocket in the microwave. Setsumei had said, "Okay" and Spark had walked over to a lot of expensive looking machinery. He placed his Hot Pocket inside a contraption and pushed "Go". There was a whirring noise, followed by a Ding! Spark took his Hot Pocket out of the machine and popped it in his mouth.

Without warning, Spark began to grow larger. In just a few seconds, Spark's head had hit the ceiling. "What's going on??" he asked.

Dr. Setsumei realized instantly what had happened. He yelled to Spark, "You must have eaten my advanced nanotechnology robots! Somehow they combined with your advanced technology insides and instead of producing something very small, they are making you very big!"

By that point, Spark had grown larger than the building they were inside. He now towered at least 500 feet, or some unknown number of meters, tall.

Seizing the opportunity, Spark saw the giant mutated dinosaur. Laughing, he ran toward it. Unfortunately, he destroyed anything in his path.
But, once Spark reached the giant green monster, he simply picked it up, as though it were a toy, and threw it into space.The prehistoric animal disappeared into the vastness of the Milky Way galaxy, never to be seen or heard from again.

The people of Tokyo were relieved (well, except for the guy who lost his car and home) and they considered Spark a hero. "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!" they shouted.

Dr. Setusemi while glad that the T-rex threat had been removed, was still worried about Spark's growth. He explained to Ape10 and Zombielyn, "Your robotic friend is still in danger. As it is, he is already the largest thing on the planet.If Spark continues to grow, he will become the center of the universe! We must find a way to reverse the effects of the nanotechnology/Hot Pocket combination!"

Ape10 said, "I know! We will simply put him on television! Everyone knows that TV is reality. If we show a small Spark on TV, he will become small again."

Zombielyn pointed out, "Gnuh!!."

"True." Ape10 said. "Wait a minute! Adds 10 pounds! Zombielyn, that's it!"

******

"Rrruhr," Zombielyn grunted.

"It will." Ape10 said. "I hope." And with that, he took a bite of the Hot Pocket.

Soon enough, he began to grow.
Upon seeing that Ape10 had grown, Zombielyn consumed her tasty microwave treat, adding, "Gnerrr."

The threesome then proceeded to feed the entire world Nanotechnology-flavored Hot Pockets so that everyone was the same size.

Shortly, Spark was his original size again. He thanked his primate friend. "At least everything is back to normal. We solved our problem in 22 minutes, and even learned a valuable lesson."

"Which is?" Ape10 asked.

"The moral of the story is, 'History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man'."

Alternate ending 1:

"Adds ten pounds! Zombielyn, that's it!" Ape10 dashed off. He made a few phone calls, and arranged to have Giant Spark broadcast worldwide.

"Geeerrrrrrruhhhuh." Zombielyn said.

"It would," Ape10 agreed, "but we're not showing him through a normal tv lens. Instead, we'll be looking at him through a giant telescope....backwards. That way, he'll appear really tiny. Wham! Spark will be back to normal again!"

And it worked.
Millions of people watched their televisions that night, and saw tiny Spark. When critical mass had been reached, the robot shrank back to his original size.

Shortly, Spark was his original size again. He thanked his primate friend. "At least everything is back to normal. We solved our problem in 22 minutes, and even learned a valuable lesson."

"Which is?" Ape10 asked.

"The moral of the story is, 'The size of your body doesn't matter, the size of your microwave does'."


Alternate Ending 2:

"Adds 10 pounds! Zombielyn, that's it!" Ape10 turned to the scientist and asked for the toenail. Dr. Sutesami gave it to the primate, who then ran up to his robot friend, and using the claw, poked a hole in him. Within minutes,
the mechanical man began to deflate.

Shortly, Spark was his original size again. He thanked his primate friend. "At least everything is back to normal. We solved our problem in 22 minutes, and even learned a valuable lesson."

"Which is?" Ape10 asked.

"The moral of the story is, 'Be careful with Hot Pockets'."

[Being spoiler for -How the West Was 011101110110111101101110 highlight to view]Azwood is attacked by a gang of Minotaurs. Ape10 and Zombielyn must ward them off. Meanwhile, Spark visits the Old West [end spoiler]

M is for monkey. That's good enough for me.

Happy Year of the Monkey!

The sad thing is, I'm sure I'll keep signing my checks with roosters for another week or two. [tongue]

Angel was Yayish. Smallville made my inner geek dance with joy.

Um. What else?

Oh. The two things from Alias - Jack Bristow yells whenever he is online. What CIA agent uses all caps all the time? (In real life, I mean)
#2) Steph pointed out that SpyDaddy was reading one of the books from the Series of Unfortunate Events books. Heh.

My hands are cold. I must work on Ape10 tonight. And go to the WD and see what people are saying about last night's Angel. So much for sleep, huh?

OUTLOOK GOOD

If it says so.

I'm kinda hungry. Not hongry, but...

Bah. I don't want to blog. I don't want to not blog. I stayed up far too late last night working on Ape10. And becuase we had a gallon of Pepsi. A GALLON!!!

I only had two things to say about Yaylias, but I'll wait and see if Steph wants to blog about them first.

In the meantime, I'll say that One Tree Hill could very well be the most boring drama the WB has ever aired. EVER. I dread Tuesdays because of it. It is the current bane of my TV existence.

Today's word of the day (not from dictionary.com, but from one that Steph gets mailed to her) is Crapulent. Heee! That's like excellent and crap put together!

Bah. Need to go take care of things. Why does life have to interfere with me being lazy all the time? Lousy ...life.

In good news, though, new Ape10 should be up ...oh, let's give me a week, just to be safe. [up]

That which you fear the most could meet you half way.

It's time for another Hyperthought? entry! Again, I'm exhausted, but my brain is running like Carl Lewis. Or someone fast. Speedy Gonzalez, perhaps. Undale! (heh. I'm sure that's totally misspelled)

So yesterday didn't get better, but my outlook did. Weird, huh?

Turns out that yes, they did leave off the day of overtime (it was the 28th of December) but that it was intentional. Sort of.

Our pay system is completely whacked. We get paid for the days that we worked, except that overtime and holiday pay are held back a period. So this check I just got on the 15th had the extra money for working Xmas day on it. And it should have (imo) had the 28th as well. I went to HR and discovered, though, that the cut-off date was the 27th. So anyone who had overtime for the 28th, 29th, 30th, or 31st of December will get it on the next check.

Also included in our next check will be the raise (although nobody seems to know how much...[eyebrow]) that we are due. I guess this makes sense, seeing how they're not really paying us for the beginning of the new year yet. ...Except that they are...because the new rates for insurance have kicked in. 45 bucks every paycheck. And that's the cheapest family rate. [sigh] But, what are you gonna do? Starve?

So, anyway, besides figuring all that stuff out, yesterday was action packed.
I mean to say, "Yesterday was...ACTION PACKED!!!"

We went grocery shopping, and I made a rather odd observation. Packages of cat food usually have pictures of the cat - and the human owner. Dog food, on the other hand, generally only show the dog. Occasionaly (especially dog biscuits) there will be a human hand on the package, but no face. I haven't done enough investigating to determine if this observation is 100% accurate, but it sems to skew that way. I have no idea what this means (if anything) but there ya have it.

After stocking up on food (so I guess the answer to my favorite question is "No." ...at least for now), it was time for me to go to work. We hadnt' eaten lunch yet, so we left early in order to make a stop at Taco Bell on the way. The universe had other things in mind, though, because there was an accident on the freeway that slowed us down enough that we had to bypass the meal and take me straight to work.

Steph took Harper back to pick up lunch while Saren came inside the station. She was extremely popular. It's so much fun bringing her there. I wish I could keep her there.

After Stephanie arrived with the food and we ate, the girls left and I got to work. It was a super busy day, which was good in that it kept me occupied and made the time pass quicker ("That's good!") but bad in that I am lazy and dislike working. ("That's bad!")

Anywhat, at work Lorne asked me to do him a favor. Being a nice person, I agreed. Being a generous person, he offered me compensation. I tried to refuse it at first, but he insisted. And that is how we wound up with our very first DVD. It's The Order with Heath Ledger. I guess we'll see how it is once we get around to owning a DVD player.
I had some mega lame joke about how most people get the DVD player first, then DVDs, but we didn't do it in "that Order", but, as you can tell by reading it, it's too lame. So...um...just pretend you didn't read that last sentence.

As Stephanie explained, when she was at her dad's house, the seal for the radiator fell off. What she did not explain (because it hadn't happened yet) was that because of the missing seal, when she came to pick me up from work, the car overheated.

She managed to get it to a nearby 7-11 and cool it down enough that she could drive to my work. Once there, we sat in the parking lot for at least half an hour, letting it cool down so we could put more water in. The girls were not happy.

Long story short (too late) we filled the radiator with more H2O, then drove home. It made it, but for the unforeseeable future, I'll be taking the bus to work. And back home again. Fun.

Erm. Wow. I guess I have disengaged Hyperthought?, because as soon as I typed the 'n' in 'Fun', my brain just blanked. I'm pretty sure that I've said everything I wanted to. If not, I know where to find me.

Who invented mornings?

I hate that person. I bet it was...oh, I don't even know who it was. But they're bastards, whoever they are. And I hope they have their testicles (or the testicles of a loved one, maybe) bitten off by a rhino.

I was [i]this[/i] close to quitting today. And I haven't even gone to work yet! (Well, I did to pick up my paycheck, but I didn't have to do any actual work - not that I do actual work when I'm [i]there[/i]...)

But, yeah. Still no raise. Which we're supposed to get every year. And this year we (apparently) did not. Fuck that. Also, I think (but am not sure, because I am stupid and did not keep track) but I [i]think[/i] that they screwed me out of at least a day of overtime.

Plus, Angel was crappy last night. Crappy!!

And my hands are freezing.

In addition, ...damnit. I've forgotten. But I know something else was pissing me off. I'm the grumpy old troll today. I think it's because I had to wake up early. Bgargh! OH! I remember! I still haven't worked on February's questions for that 'boq a month' thing I was gonna do. And January is half over. AND I still haven't done any work on episode 2 of Ape10.

And I used markup instead of HTML at the beginning of this rant.











And I'm hungry.
[/rant]

Here's hopin' the day gets better.

Or, more accurately, here's hopin' that my outlook on the day gets better. Yeah.

Reminderoma

Reminder: Stephanie, record the new episode of Angel tonight.

Reminder: P@, bring a notebook to work, that way when ideas for Ape10 come to you, you cna jot them down.

Reminder: P@, go back and edit the word 'cna' to the word 'can', since 'cna' is not truly a word.

Reminder: Joss, if you're going to bring any old Buffy cast members onto Angel this season, I vote for Xander. Or Dawn. I've always wanted to see Dawn/Angel interaction. (Not in that way, you pervs!)

Reminder: Let Lisa know you got her email, and you're glad she's okay.

Reminder: Steph, don't forget about Angel!!

From the future!!

Mostly I'm testing to see if you set the time and/or date differently, if it will instantly blog when the time arrives.

But while I'm here, may as well state a few thoughts I had last night before going to sleep.

1) I don't know if Valerie watches Alias or not, but if she does, last night's episode must have given her about a kajillion orgasms. That thing was packed with continuity.

b) Thank you everyone for your kind words about the first episode of Ape10. Other episodes will be forthcoming. I realize that MvD wasn't perfect, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. Big Time should be just as good.

Thirdly) Um. What was the third thing? Oh. I was going to issue a challenge to everyone to try to make an entry on their blog that:
[-] was about whatever they wanted
[-] was at least 8 words long
and
[-] contained an 'e' in every word. (Or, put another way - Every single utterance does have 'e'.) I was even thinking that I'd give points, and whoever created the sentences with the most 'e' words would win.

IV) Well, the fourth thing is something I'll post at another time. Just a thought I've been having about stuff.

Now, if this works, it should show up in about five minutes. Let's find out.

Ape10 episode 1: Monkey vs. Dinosaur

Azwood. 65 million years ago.

An ankylosaurus walks by the lush landscape, bored. A loud grating noise, similar to when you attempt to start a car engine that is already running, emits from the air.

An eletric crackle, followed by lightning and smoke and then an ear-splitting "BOOM!" When the dust and smoke cleared, a silver box was left standing. The box opened, and a strange, implike, presidental creature with blue skin stepped out. (It's not him)

The ankylosaurus, upon seeing this, shook it's head slowly and said, in a meloncholy voice, Ruur!!.

Azwood. Present day.

Ape10 was relaxing, chatting with his friends Spark the robot, and Zombielyn Monroe.

"...and that's why they call it the blues." Spark concluded.

Just then, a small figure wearing a hood and cloak entered Ape10's park. Ape10 noticed, sat up and examined what was obviously a child. However, it was unclear whether it was a boy or a girl. Spark and Zombielyn turned to see what had gotten Ape10's attention. They all stared as the child walked toward the primate. It was rare for them to receive visitors at all, let alone someone so small in stature, and donning such unusual clothing.

Ape10 was the first to speak. "May I help you?" he asked. (Many people reacted badly to hearing a nonhuman speak, but it had been Ape10's experience that children were rather accepting of his unique abilities.)

The child stopped, and presented Ape10 with a sheet of paper. Ape10 took the paper, and tried to gaze at the young person's face, but could not get a clear look. The eyes were visible under the hood, but not much else. Ape10's gut told him that there was something off about this child.

He looked down at the paper that had been handed to him, and read what it said. Instantly alarmed, he looked up to ask the child where this information had come from. But the stranger had disappeared.

Ape10 showed the paper to Spark and Zombielyn. "I don't know who that was, but if this information is accurate, we need to go to the Time Blender right away."

Zombielyn growled, ""Grrahuh!"

Spark nodded. "Neither do I. There was something not quite right about that human. Besides, this could very well be a trap."

Ape10 agreed. "True. I, too, felt that the child was not to be trusted. However, this" (he shook the paper) "is too dangerous to ignore. I say we go to the Time Blender and take care of it. And if it is a trap..." Ape10 morphed into a gorilla, then finished, "...we'll be ready for it."

The trio climbed into the Time Blender, and Spark adjusted the controls. Once everything was set, there was a twip!, and the giant machine with a monkey, a robot, and a zombie disappeared into the distant past.

*****

"Are we there?" Ape10 asked once they had arrived.
Spark inspected the controls, then said, "Yes. We are 65 million years ago. 65,341,401 years, to be exact."

Zombielyn smiled and said, "Gnnnnnuuh!!"

The trio emerged from the Time Blender into the strange surroundings of the Paleoithic. The trees were huge. The insects were huge. As they looked around, Zombielyn asked, "Rnuh?"

Spark said, "Yes. My sensors indicate that we are surrounded by prehistoric creatures. And..."
At that moment, several dozen velociraptors emerged from the bushes, followed by the person controlling them, Bluebush the Pirate.

"Bluebush." Ape10 said with a sneer, showing his teeth.

"Yarh." Bluebush said. "Tis 'bout time ye showed up."

Ape10 glared at his enemy, then said, "Well, are you going to explain your Master Plan? That's what you villians do at this stage, isn't it?"

The pirate looked contemplative, then said, "All right, ye stinkin' monkey. My plan is this - I will steal these terrible lizards from the past, train them to be obidient to me, and together we will defeat the Axis of Evil. Arrgh. Imagine it. T-rex versus terrorism. There's no way they stand a chance. Ha ha ha! And nobody can stop me. Not even ye!"

Ape10 shook his head. "You're wrong, Bluebush. We are gonna kick Jurassic."

Bluebush frowned, then said, "You'll have to get through my army first. And even if ye do, I've already sent three of my greatest dinowarriors through to various points on the timeline. You'll never find them all! Arrr!"

The blue man then ordered the dinosaurs to attack. Ape10 grabbed a stick and began to beat the reptiles. Zombielyn kicked, scratched, and punched. Then did what zombies love to do - she ate their brains. Spark was able to defeat the remainder of the dinosaurs using his incredible robot strength!!

Once the threat was nullified, our heroes looked around and discovered that Bluebush had disappeared. The wily politician had managed once again to allude capture.

Sighing, Ape10 and his friends went back to the Time Blender and returned to the present. They needed to plan what to do about Bluebush's plan, and the misplaced dinosaurs.

Back at Ape10's headquarters, Ape10 went over the questions that were bothering him. "Where could Bluebush have put the three dinosaurs? What effect on the timeline will they have? How did Bluebush aqcuire time travel capabilities?"

Zombielyn added, "Gnuh."

Spark nodded at that, and added, "And why was this episode called Monkey vs. Dinosaur when in fact, you are not a monkey, but an ape?"

[Being spoiler for -Big Time highlight to view]An accident involving nanotechnology causes Spark to grow to ginarmous size. [end spoiler]

Nervous.

One day! Less, really. Sometime tomorrow, Ape10 debuts. Eeee!
I'm worried that I've hyped it up too much (me? hype? never.) and that it'll bomb. But as Stephanie told me earlier, "I'll like it, and that's all that matters." Too true. And besides, when it comes down to it, I'm really doing it for myself.

Well, and a little bit for Saren. [grin]

In other news, I'm reading Stargirl right now, and it's quite good. Oddly, I can't seem to get into any books that aren't written for young adults. Huh.

The P@rix Reloaded

Heh. You have no idea how long I've wanted to use that title.

So, yeah. New layout. It's so awesome. Hee. My wife is the best.

And in less than two days, the first episode will premiere. Less than two days!!

Speaking of two days, for the past, I've had a killer headache. I need to drink more water. And perhaps get some aspirin (or whatever it is that doesn't kill me) into my system.

We're waking up early tomorrow. Fun!

Engage Hyperthought™!!

My body is exhausted, but my brain is racing a gabillion miles per second. There are half a dozen things I want to blog about, and the ol' gray matter is trying to make them all come out at once. I even jotted down notes so I wouldn't forget any of them. (YAY DORK!!)

Two days back we embarked on a secret adventure. Stephanie discovered this ...thing...called Letterboxing. Apparently it's a lot like Geocaching, only a little different. People go and hide a box with a stamp and a book in it, and then provide clues. You then follow the clues until you find the box, and then place an image of your own stamp in the book, and stamp their stamp into your own keepsake. (I'm explaining it poorly, but it's fun.)

We had to buy our family stamp (we picked a frog) and a book to start collecting the other stamps in, and then we proceeded to follow the clues to our first letterbox. (The site for the North American Letterboxing people is here. A few other people had already left behind their stamps, which was kinda neat. In fact, two of them were from San Diego! Plus the idea that hundreds (thousands??) of people pass this box daily with no clue that it is there just adds to the intrigue and the specialness of the whole ordeal.

The only downside was when we were putting the box back, Saren hit her head on a stairwell. So now we're going to sue the people who put the box there. [tongue]

We do plan on doing other letterboxing adventures in upcoming days. And eventually, we'll of course hide our own box for other people to find. Yay for free and fun things to do!!

Speaking of Saren - the other day we were playing Risk, and at one point she totally proved she was my daughter. She was attacking me. Ontario into Alberta. When I told her the names of the countries, she giggled and said, "Alberta you can't win this fight!" Yay dork!! [grin]

So yesterday before work I was websurfing, and I stumbled across Bush in 30 seconds, a site that is having a contest wherein people are asked to create ads that sum up the Bush administrations policies in a 30 second commercial. I've only watched a few of them, but they're quite creative and a pretty funny.

Then, at work they did a freakin' story on the site! Like I've said before, never underestimate the power of coincidence.

Anywhat, the story was about how the site had originally had two ads that compared Bush to Hitler. (Something I think I've done (vaguely) here before...) The ads were pulled from the competition, never made it on air of television, and moveon.org (the site that is sponsoring the contest) issued statements saying that they felt that those ads were in poor taste and that the ads were not endorsed by any of them. (Which, duh!. They pulled the ads from the internet. And DUH! the things were created by individuals entering the contest, not the site itself.) But, despite saying all that, my FUCKING NEWS has to go and have a STUPID FUCKING QUESTION OF THE DAY about it. The question of the day was "Did Moveon.org go too far by having ads comparing George Bush to Hitler?"

They didn't!! Jesus Christ people are stupid. I went to the site at work and voted "NO" several times (I'm not sure if it took more than once, but the fact that I could vote multiple times meant I was going to.) I was going to blog about this at work yesterday, and ask everyone here to go to the site and vote 'no', just to try and teach the fuckers a lesson. However, work interferred, and I was unable to blog while there. I suppose there might still be time, if you're so inclined to spend a few seconds of your life. (The last time I checked the results of the poll - last night- "no" had only 35% of the vote. [sigh]) Anywhat the site is here, if you want.

Also work related, apparently THE CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting will be in town next week. Everyone at work seems to think this is some kind of Second Coming or something. I've never met the guy before, but I have a feeling that he's flesh and bone, just like the rest of us. [shrug]

Yesterday, a bunch of monkeys beat the tar out of a giant crocodile type thing. (I beat K.Rool, the final "boss" on Donkey Kong64)

Annika asked what I was trying to do (in response to the other entry, re:HTML) - Two things. One - make a new template. (Stephanie has done a pretty damn good job in that regard, and I'll probably have that implemented later tonight, or tomorrow)
Two - work on ...the project. And that ...well, I've found some stuff out, and while HTML is still sometimes a motherfuck, it's manageable. Speaking of the project - only 3 days until it debuts!
THREE DAYS!!

And of course, today is the birthday of Lisa (imissoz). "Lisa, it's your birthday! Happy Birthday, Lisa!" [/Bart Simpson and Michael Jackson]

I had an Alias dream that I originally wanted to blog about, but it's pretty much faded from memory.

And lastly, I must issue thanks to the Jupe for helping me find the Charcter Map. "Yarh!"[/Skully]

Palpable. The excitement in the air is just palpable. Can you feel it?

2004, or, as I started to write it, @))$, is gonna be a kick-ass year. I just know it.

I mean, year of the monkey? 2004? It's got awesome written all over it.

Also, a year that begins with:

• Buying 4 calendars
  
• Me blogging at work
  
• Papa John's Pizza for lunch
  
• Pepsi
  
• A new template
  
• Getting paid overtime
  
• Steph figuring out our finances and seeing we'll probably have extra money left over at the end of the month
  and
  
• Other stuff
  

Can't be bad at all. Yes, the arbitrary date of twothousandfour is gonna rule. Mark my words.