Robotech_Master

Badfeelm

robotech@eyrie.org — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:13:36 GMT

Wow, that was bad.

I've just subjected myself to Bruce Campbell in the Sci-Fi Channel movie Alien Apocalypse. And even Bruce Campbell was not entirely able to save this turkey. It had the golden trifecta of bad acting, bad writing, and bad FX. Boffo. I can't recommend it unless you want to watch something gut-wrenchingly bad.

But if you do, then hey—this might just be your film.

Sentence meme

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:20:56 GMT

if there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of failed TV pilots?

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:01:25 GMT

Just got done watching an interesting little historical oddity—an hour-long film called The Invisible Avenger. It's about a fellow named Lamont Cranston who goes around fighting crimes with the power to turn himself invisible. It's a failed 1958 TV pilot that got turned into a movie.

It's interesting, the differences it has with the more "canonical" Shadow. Cranston's sole power seems to be the ability to turn himself invisible—and you can forget about the twin-pistol guns-blazing derring-do. What's more, he doesn't even seem to be too careful about keeping his Shadow identity a secret; he seems to think nothing of vanishing before the very eyes of someone who just got the drop on Lamont Cranston. Also, he travels with a mystical teacher who seems to have more telepathic prowess than he does and who talks with a funny accent.

There's not a whole lot of action in the movie—a fistfight or two, a few gunshots, a stabbing. Mainly it's a drama. On the whole, it wasn't too bad, but I'm not likely to watch it again soon.

Tweets for Today

robotech@eyrie.org — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:05:07 GMT

Here are the things I am willing to confess to having done today:

17:21 At the medical study center, almost done with the physical. Thence to Incredible Pizza and cat retrieval. #

Kitty, Horribleness

robotech@eyrie.org — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:21:57 GMT

Well, I got my kitty back, with his poor, sad little denuded crotch. He seems to be doing all right now that he's home, though I can't give him any food until tomorrow.

Today the first episode of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog came out. And the server subsequently went down in a blaze of bandwidth. But if you can manage to find it somewhere (such as on iTunes for $2, or…elsewhere), the 14-minute episode is well worth watching. Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillon in a Joss Whedon musical? Please sir, can I have some more?

The next episode comes out on Thursday.

For, um, those and grins

robotech@eyrie.org — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:43:00 GMT

Found via BoingBoing, a blog looks at a new product, a folding cardboard porta-potty (whose name is not work-safe if your work frowns on four-letter words). It may not be as daft as it sounds. It looks like a reasonably sound execution, and could be quite helpful for those times when you really need to "number two" but are miles from the nearest toilet.

My Baconization to Stargate: SG-1

robotech@eyrie.org — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:10:13 GMT

Just got an email from my parents:

The guy that played General Hammond in the Star Gate SG 1 died last month. It turns out that he went to school at Aurora, was a year ahead of Dad. Daddy remembers him, but was not a close friend. We think it is so odd that this guy has been around and in the shows all these years and we never realized he was Don Davis from Aurora, till they put an article about him last week in the Aurora paper!

Funny how that works, huh? I guess everybody has to be from somewhere.

Cat updates

robotech@eyrie.org — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:13:28 GMT

Well, over Saturday and Sunday the cats calmed down. By Sunday, they were playing a little, and Diva was even tolerating having Benji right next to her, as long as he didn't get too familiar. (I've updated the photosets I linked to a few entries back with Saturday and Sunday pictures.) When I got home from work today, I swear I saw them either groom or nuzzle each other a little. The advice I received about putting them together right away has definitely worked.

Sunday afternoon my Aunt Becky came over to meet the new cats, and today both she and Uncle Denis came over to visit me. They brought with them some cat toys and a pair of self-feeding-reservoir water and dry food feeders, which I have been happy enough to put to immediate use. We dropped Benji off at the vet's to lose his man-parts, then went to a Subway for dinner.

I have to admit to having kind of mixed feelings about neutering Benji. I suppose part of it is a sort of sympathetic cringe at the idea of neutering (or being neutered in general). Also, I thought that pair of little fuzzy orbs under his tail was really cute, and it'll be a shame for him to lose them (though nonetheless, I still think "neuticles" are silly). Another part was that it would have been kind of neat to see what his kittens would be like, if he had them—but there's no way I could afford kittens anyway, and it would be irresponsible to bring more cats into the world when there are so many unwanted ones here already.

Something else I learned about my cats: Diva is a litter-flinger. She digs like a mole, flinging stray litter every which way. (As one of the photos in the photostream shows.) Though, to be fair, she did help me when I went to sweep it up, batting at the broom whenever it got into range of her so it would know who was boss. I went ahead and got a covered, self-filtering litterbox, and have just set it up. Here's hoping it works as well as the packaging claims. (I know that covered litterboxes can trap the smell. But this one does have a vent with an air filter in it, and I plan to take care of it twice daily anyway.)

I'm going to miss Benji until it's time to get him back tomorrow.

Well, I should go ahead and shower and get in bed. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, and tomorrow comes soon.

I'll keep updating the photostreams if and as the cats exhibit more preciousness. (Also, a friend should be sending me a better digital camera this week so I can get some better shots than blurry cellphone images.)

Wishing for an LJ feature…

robotech@eyrie.org — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:59:01 GMT

Wish I had a way to search my friends list.

I know there are posts from friends of mine that I didn't read about Wall-E because I hadn't seen it yet. But I don't remember who.

Now that I have seen it, I'd like to go back and read them, but don't think I have any way to find them beyond paging back some ungodly number of entries. :/

Tweets for Today

robotech@eyrie.org — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:06:27 GMT

Here are the things I am willing to confess to having done today:

17:08 In theatre waiting to see Wall-E. Couldn't put it off any longer or I might fall behind. #
19:14 Wall-E was so entrancing I completely forgot about the drink I snuck into the movie. Way to go, Pixar. #

Diva and the Turbo Scratcher

robotech@eyrie.org — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:51:59 GMT

More ky00ts for YOU!

Feline Progress Report

robotech@eyrie.org — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:02:37 GMT

They've both been in the place for a few hours now, and they're getting to know each other. The shelter operator, who was well acquainted with Benjamin's personality, said that she would advise putting them together right away. She said she wouldn't advise it for every cat, but she knew Benji's personality, that he was all right around other cats and wouldn't fight back against a bossy female. So I went ahead and introduced them together right away (after giving Diva a while alone to calm down from her car trip).

So far there's been a lot of "talking" from Benji, a good bit of hissing from Diva, a lot of circling around and watching each other, and a very little yowling and batting. Neither of them is really doing the full-out ears-back ominous yowling that I associated with my old cat when anything invaded "her" territory—their ears are mostly forward—and whenever there is a shrieking confrontation it's only a second or so long. (There've only been about three or four of them so far.)

Benjamin seems more prone to seek "higher ground" in the disputes—on top of my bed, or on the back of the sofa. Diva likes to go under my bed and peek out from behind the blankets. So far Diva has been the mainly aggressive one, and Benjamin has mainly backed off. When Diva moves in on Benjamin, she moves in low to the ground, and Benjamin stands up on his hind legs.

Oddly, Diva is the only one who seems to be very playful at this point, even on catnip. I can't get Benji to notice a laser pointer for the life of me right now. Maybe he'll loosen up once their relationship settles down.

If I get near either one, the other gets jealous, so I'm just leaving them alone right now. I'm hopeful that soon they'll settle down to a state of detente.

And here are some photos:

Benjamin - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606114396483/

Diva - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606059566624/ (includes the ones you've seen already, plus new ones)

My Room - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606114396529/ (no cats in it, but it shows where they live)

Incidentally, there are three Bengal kittens in Arkansas that are going to need rescue. The shelter lady told me they'd just heard from a vet about them. Apparently a breeder's pregnant Bengal had gotten very sick, and the breeder had taken it to the vet but not been able or willing to pay for its treatment. It died giving birth, but three of the kittens from the litter survived (and are being hand-fed by the vet's people). The shelter is now looking for a way to get the kittens up from Arkansas to Mansfield, Missouri, and will presumably be offering them for adoption when they get old enough.

The rescue organization is Tender Loving Rescue.

Today's update

robotech@eyrie.org — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:48:25 GMT

On Wednesday, my place of work was auctioning off a number of old laptops via its phpBBS. I snuck in at the last minute to snipe an auction to get myself a Toshiba Satellite 2410-S203 with a Pentium 4 1.8 GHz Processor, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, and DVDROM Drive for $150. (I then spent $50 more at Best Buy to get a Linksys wireless card for it.) I took it home, wiped its Windows XP infestation, and put Xubuntu Linux on it. Then I spent some time cleaning my room.

Last night, I finished up cleaning, while using the laptop in my room to listen to my Pandora quickmix stream—at least of the floors. There is still a lot of junk piled up on the tops of bookshelves and other surfaces, but I can get to that over the weekend. I'm really proud of the job I did, and I'm tempted to put up a Flickr photoset of how it all looks. (In fact, I probably will, when I get home.)

I'm taking the second half of today off, because I'm not going to be burning the vacation time I had intended to to hit GenCon this year. My Bengal is going to arrive at about 1:00, then my friend Sandy and I will go pick up Diva from the shelter. Then I'll have all weekend to get them acquainted with me and with each other. I can't wait to see how big Benji actually turns out to be.

This is so exciting!

"The flesh of fallen angels…"

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:18:59 GMT

Found on Ars Technica:

Mark Wahlberg is Max Payne.

Challenging environmental conventional wisdom

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:14:34 GMT

arconius links to an interesting journal post about how a lot of the current conventional wisdom about environmentalism may be either misguided or downright wrong. Although the journal post does not include citations to back up its assertion, it at least provides a starting point for anyone interested in doing the research. Interesting stuff.

Concatenation Conundrum

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:15:06 GMT

Any cat people here? (Looking at you, lil_shepherd, inamac :) I need some advice, and I need it bad.

Over in this discussion thread I have been talking about my plan to introduce two new cats into a currently cat-free apartment at the same time. One of them is that Bengal I mentioned, Benjamin, who the shelter operator has said gets along well with other cats. They're both very young adults—Benji's 1 1/2, and the vet estimates Diva's age at "about 2" from the condition of her teeth.

The thing is, I'm getting some conflicting advice. Some people advise the whole "segregate them into different rooms and introduce them by degrees" thing. But one of the posters, cshenk, points out that this advice is meant for introducing a new cat into a home that another cat or cats consider their territory, and that this separation in the event of two new cats can lead to both cats staking out their own mini-territories rather than getting integrated as a household. He cites (what he claims to be) considerable experience in the matter.

One of the other posters, who disagrees with him, advised me to "consider the sources" of the advice. The problem is, I don't know either of them from Adam so as far as I'm concerned their credibility is about the same. (Well, cshenk's credibility may be slightly higher—but if I'm honest with myself, I'm not sure whether that is because he writes convincingly with well-justified arguments or because I'd rather not have to mess with the whole segregation business.)

I really don't want to make the wrong decision here and ruin my cats' chances of getting along with each other. And this is something that can only be done once.

Evening report, with cat pix and flix

robotech@eyrie.org — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:49:22 GMT

After work today, I headed down to the Animal Care Center on South Campbell to visit with Diva, the orange moggie I will be adopting on Friday. I took some photos; here's the Flickr set. While there I asked the vet about her background. Apparently she used to belong to a family, and they had boarded her with the vet, then for whatever reason not been able to pick her back up again. (The vet suggested they might not have been able to pay their boarding fee, but he didn't sound too certain about that, and I would hate to think that a boarded pet might get "repossessed" for nonpayment. Makes me feel kind of dirty.)

I also took some low-rez cellphone videos, which I have put on YouTube.

After that, I headed over to Wal-Mart to check their pet supplies, and to look at snagging a few things like towels for liners for the cats' beds. I was disheartened to find that even their cheapest towel was $2.75. I did see a decent-looking cat tower for $35; the only problem being you have to assemble it yourself. I'm a bit hesitant to consider something like that for fear of what might happen if it turns out not to be sturdy enough. Benjamin is going to be a pretty heavy cat. After that, I headed on over to PetSmart to take a look at their pet stuff. There were some great pre-made tall "cat condos" there—and I really want to get a tall one, for Benjamin to climb on—but they were all in the $100 plus range and I'm not sure I can afford that.

I was going to go up to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to see what their towels cost, but first I checked out the local Deal$. (Or, as I like to call it, "Deal String") At first I wasn't too sure I'd find anything worthwhile; ever since they stopped being an "everything $1 or less" store and turned into an "everything $5 or less" store it's been a bit hard to be sure you're getting as good a deal as you hope you are. They had some towels for $3—even worse than Wal-Mart's. But then I noticed something in the next aisle over, and discovered some wonderfully soft 30" x 30" baby blankets for $1 each. So I bought four of them: one for each cat bed, and a spare for when I'm laundering the first ones. Two of them say "Giddy-Up" with a little horseshoe or "Ride 'em Cowboy" with a little cowboy hat, the other two of have what is either a dog or a cow standing on a little circus pedestal with one leg in the air and juggling, but I'm sure the cats won't mind. I also picked up some ceramic food/water dishes and a Hamtaro DVD, among other things.

In Deal$'s grocery section, I saw something I could not resist photographing: some cheap Oriental instant noodles with rather…interesting packaging.

I didn't get much shopping done tonight, or any room cleaning either, but I guess that can wait for tomorrow. I don't have too much more to do—just shove everything out of the way, vacuum, and spray.

In some more annoying news, I dropped off about six sets of negatives at Walgreens today for transfer to a photo DVD. They charged me $42 bucks for it—but when I got it back home and put it in my drive, I found it only had about one roll's worth of prints on it. I'm going back tomorrow morning to give them what for. In the meanwhile, I went ahead and uploaded what photos there were to Flickr (along with a bunch of photos I'd been meaning to transfer up from my cellphone for quite a while).

Well, off to have some dinner and then crash in bed.

USENET kookery—it's the cat's meow!

robotech@eyrie.org — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:57:11 GMT

I've been reading rec.pets.cats.health+behav lately, in preparation to my cat adopting—and boy is there some serious anti-love going on for breeders over there. In fact, just about anyone who asks a question about breeding one's cat is apt to get his head bitten off by one of the anti-breeding brigade who feels that nobody has any right to breed new kittens while there are still cats being euthanized in shelters, and anybody who supports any breeding at all in any way, shape, or form is Evil with a capital Eev.

One of them has this big long list of health problems to which purebreds are more susceptible than average, and he likes to wield it like a two-by-four upside the head of anyone who dares suggest that people might have reasons other than snobbery for wanting a purebred. He also seems to believe that if all the purebred breeders closed up shop, suddenly everyone would immediately go to their local shelter and adopt a moggie. (In a way, it reminds me of the whole Napster/BitTorrent thing—the belief that if people couldn't pirate a particular album or movie, they would all march right down to the store and buy it instead.) And they show the classic behavior patterns of USENET kooks, including unwarranted crossposting. Sheesh.

Once again, I reflect on how aptly King Solomon was able to predict the Internet.

Update on my life

robotech@eyrie.org — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:52:44 GMT

Friday, July 4th, I was off from work for Independence Day, so I celebrated my independence from clutter by cleaning my room all day. I found some of the most interesting things, including a couple of rolls of film that I'd shot some time ago and just had developed (because I had no idea what they were). One of them was of a family wedding; the other was shots from GenCon 2006, and I've put that one up on my Flickr page.

It was amazing how much junk I was able to throw out. I rediscovered a few things I had thought lost (though memory of exactly what they are escapes me at the moment) and discovered that yes, Virginia, there is a carpet under there. I boxed up a bunch of stuff to take to the Salvation Army, and even pulled all the stuff out from under my bed. (I vacuum there tonight.)

I spent all of Saturday playing City of Heroes—after Friday, I really needed a break. Then Sunday, my Mom & Dad came up for a visit and dinner, bringing with them a storebought roast chicken. Mom handed a ring to Dad to keep safe for her while she did the dishes. He put it in his pocket. Then I showed him an episode of Get Smart, and we went to watch the movie. However, we discovered that the website I'd checked was wrong, and the movie's showtime was an hour later than I had expected. We also discovered that the ring Mom had given Dad to keep safe was no longer in his pocket.

We came back to my place to look for it, but no matter how and where we searched, we couldn't find it. On the bright side, at least it wasn't her wedding ring.

Mom & Dad didn't want to stay as late as watching the afternoon movie would make them, so I pulled out my DVD of Jackie Chan's Project A and we watched that instead. It was a fun film, and the last time I had seen it was something like ten years ago while I was living in Columbia. The plot was basically a flimsy excuse for stringing together comedy, fights, and stunts, but it's not like you expect anything else from an early Chan film.

I'm still working on cleaning my room, and plan to vacuum and spray it for fleas sometime soon. After that, it should be ready to meet and greet the new cats, whom I will be getting Friday evening. I can't wait.

It turns out that Benjiman, the bengal I was talking about adopting, is an F3 rather than the usual F4—that is, 1/8 wild rather than the usual 1/16. The rescue center lady assures me he is very social and friendly, good with other animals and with kids (including her five-year-old). It's just that he's very big. And I'm happy about that. I've always wanted a big cat; there's more of them to love. :)

Now it's time to go be tutored in the black arts of invoice auditing at work. More later!

Kitties!

robotech@eyrie.org — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:12:13 GMT

Been Youtube trawling.

Found this really cute video of two kittens "talking" to each other…

And then I found…

And this one's not quite as good, since it just uses subtitles…

And also…

Goodbye to Gumdrop

robotech@eyrie.org — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:47:22 GMT

Well, I just returned from the vet, where I settled my bill (the final tally is up to $950 total) and brought the remains home. I was on my scooter, and didn't think that it was worth $10 in cab fare (more like $12-$13 now that they just raised their prices) to truck a dead cat home, so I balanced the bulky pet carrier between my lap and handlebars and rode home that way. They put her in a twisted-shut trash bag inside a purina cat foot box, sealed with tape. I opened the box, undid the bag, and said my goodbyes, then I tied it shut again and made room inside the freezer above my fridge. There she'll stay until Sunday, when the parents come up.

But…it's time to get on with my life. I'm looking into adopting a new cat. There's a year and a half Bengal male in an adoption center nearby, and while I was at the vet I met the sweetest little orange shorthair adult, named Diva. Very affectionate cat. I'll see about adopting one, the other, or both, as soon as I'm sure my apartment is flea-free.

And for that, I need to clean my room.

I've never cleaned my bedroom completely. Not since I've been here. There's just so much junk, I always felt like I was defeated before I started. But there are fleas in there and I need to get rid of them, and my carpet could really do with a good shampooing but I've never felt like I could afford it until I had all my rooms clean.

So I guess I'll just think of this Herculean labor as my own personal monument to Gumdrop, and see about getting it done. I'll go out, get a nice chocolate malt from Braum's as comfort food, and then kick it off.

It's really the end of an era, I guess. Gumdrop has been with me ever since I first moved into this apartment, in April 2003. She'd been living outdoors until I moved, and was clearly a stray of some long standing—one of her ears was scarred and wrinkled up as if it had been torn and healed a time or two—and now that I finally had a bigger apartment I felt save in scooping her up and carrying her away to live with me inside. She had already been spayed, and she had a more or less sweet nature, so I could only suppose she had been someone's abandoned housepet. She's stayed with me all through the end of that job, my time working at Team Media, and my data entry days at Mihlfeld & Associates. Now, as I begin assuming new responsibilities at Mihlfeld, I do them without my beloved pet. But there will be new pets—and new bereavements, but that's the price we pay for caring about things. I'd rather have pets in my life than not, even though I know what they will bring me down the line.

Goodbye, Gumdrop. I'll miss you.

Evening notes

robotech@eyrie.org — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:48:02 GMT

Well, I've cleared the floor of my living room, thoroughly vacuumed, and sprayed the carpet with Precor 2000 professional-exterminator-grade flea spray. Boom. Living room flea problem gone. (Though I'll need to re-spray in a couple of weeks to catch the fleas that haven't hatched out yet.)

The problem is, I now need to do the same thing for my bedroom. My bedroom floor hasn't been clean in literally years. Since I moved in, easily. I have a lot of junk. But I'm going to need to clean up and be ruthless because I have a bunch of fleas in there too, from the cat sneaking in when I wasn't looking.

Guess I'll get on it tomorrow, after I see the vet about retrieving Gumdrop's remains. I'm not looking forward to that. But at least I had already arranged to have my parents come visit me on Sunday. They can take her body with them back to the farm and when they have a backhoe come in to work on their new house, they can have it dig a hole to bury her in. It feels right to bury her there, in the place where I grew up.

Not wanting to spend too much time alone in the apartment, I'm looking into adopting another cat—a year and a half old male Bengal from a rescue agency near here. He looks gorgeous from the photos. I hope they'll let me. If not, I'll adopt a couple of the kittens that a neighbor's cat had. (Perhaps I should adopt one of them anyway, to keep the Bengal company.)

Well, off to bed.

RIP Gumdrop

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:27:31 GMT

The vet just called me to let me know that my cat is dead.

I guess it was just her time.

Goodbye, Gumdrop.

Metropolis reborn!

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:55:38 GMT

Thanks to masonk for calling my attention in chat to this story.

One of cinema's most elusive holy grails, a complete print of the original version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, has been discovered in a museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Up to this point, the only surviving versions of the film have been the recut version that lost about a quarter of the director's original vision.

This is some big news.

Wait…what?

robotech@eyrie.org — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:39:05 GMT

"In order to make an omelet you have to crack some eggs. But a good omelet has cheese, ham, peppers, mushrooms and all sorts of other ingredients which AVG seem to have forgotten about."

—from "AVG disguises fake traffic as IE6", The Register