08/15/08

Book Review: Sandworms of Dune

I purchased Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Sandworms of Dune on impulse while waiting for my delayed flight two weeks ago. I’ve heard of Dune and may have played the video game of the same name when I was young, but at the time I did not connect the two together.

The read was a bit difficult due to my lack of knowledge of the prequels in which there are many. The story was dropping prominent names left and right and I had no idea who they were.
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08/13/08

America needs a new curse word

Having read an article on the airlines nickel-and-diming passengers, I realized Americans need a new curse word that is not an expletive. The British have a perfect example of a curse word that is not a bad word by itself. Their word is “bloody”. You see and hear it all the time in interviews and it never gets censored. Bloody this, bloody that, I am quite jealous.

A friend suggested “fricking” as a possibility since its use is prevalent now. But, “fricking” isn’t even a word itself. The word evolved from “fucking” when posters needed to evade form censors. The closest America has to a word to rival “bloody” is “damn”. But, “damn” does not hold the same impact as “bloody”. The word also does not roll off the tongue as easily.

I am drawing a blank. Maybe we should just steal the British word and modify it slightly for our own use. Booby? Body? Bodey? Booey?

08/5/08

Sports Clichés

There are literally hundreds of sports clichés spoken before, during, and after a game. This site lists hundreds of them grouped in dozens of categories. We’ve all heard them before; enough, so that you can finish the sentence for the player.

The winner ususally say, “We brought our A game.” While the losers would go with, “We gave the game away.” And of course, pretty much every sports figure playing in a team sport has said this at least one point in their career, “We’re not worried about the game against [random rival]. We’re going to take it one game at a time.”

Clichés do not end on the field or in the lockerroom. They span to all walks of life.
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08/4/08

Book Review: Night Train to Rigel

If James Bonds were to find himself out of a job and out of luck with the ladies, Timothy Zahn’s Night Train to Rigel would be his story.

The story follows a former Earth intelligence officer, Frank Compton, as he receives a train ticket from a dying man. Compton was booted from his government position when he criticized the Earth’s colonization of a dirt ball to meet the requirements to become an interstellar race. Utilizing his skill and experience, he becomes a freelancer for anyone with the right credit amount.
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08/4/08

Movie Review: 305

305 305 is another comedy spoof on 300. The story tells of five additional Spartan warriors, in addition to the regular 300 that fought in the great battle. These five Spartans were supposed to be guarding an innocent little goat path. Little did they know, the goat path would cause the death of King Leonidas and his Spartan army.

This is a low budget movie produced in a mockumentary format. The five Spartans are routinely filmed sitting in a chair discussing their thoughts, similar in style to the quiet room or confession room in reality TV shows.

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08/3/08

Hiking up to Avalanche Lake

Saturday having past reminded me of the adventure from last Saturday; I decided to go hiking with a group of people. The guy who invited me along on this trip occasionally writes for this blog, namely lilb612. He is a big buff on these outdoor activities with aspirations to climb the Half Dome in Yosemite, which I think is a crazy goal.

We started the day early around 8am. Yes. 8am. On a weekend. That’s crazy talk!

I rode with another buddy up to the starting point. His AC was on the fritz which was not so bad early in the morning, but something I would suffer through on the way back. Our destination was the southern part of Lake Tahoe off the I50. The difficulty of the hiking trip was supposedly easy to moderate. I had no idea what that meant. I expected to be walking trails that bicycles would have an easy time to travel over.
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07/22/08

Po Chai Pills to the Rescue

Sushi is awesome.

Day-old sushi is still awesome.

Multiple day-old sushi is not so awesome.

Having returned from a weekend trip, I noticed a plate of sushi sitting in the food dispenser. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I gobbled the sushi down lickety-split.

I should have seen the warning signs. The browning avocado on top, the hardened rice, the chewy texture of the shrimp–all signs of spoiled food. Five hours later, I learned to regret my hasty actions.
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07/15/08

Upgrade to WordPress 2.6

Just managed to upgrade from WordPress 2.5.1 to WordPress 2.6 via the 3-step Upgrade Process. The new features are awesome. I especially like the Image Captions which will save me time for having to do it myself through HTML and CSS.

07/15/08

Embarrassing…

I forgot the login info to my own blog after seven days of non-use.

Luckily WordPress has a workaround via the database to remedy this problem. If they had not, I would have been rather red in the face to ask for help on their support forums.

07/12/08

Movie Review: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is a hilarious hour and a half adventure of two marijuana smoking buddies getting into trouble. The story starts a week after the end of the first movie, Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle. The two are flying to Amsterdam so Harold can hook up with Maria. Except that they never land in Amsterdam because Kumar is suspected of being a terrorist on the plane.

The comedy style is inline with the first movie. If you liked the first movie, you’ll like Escape from Guantanamo Bay. If you hated the first movie, you’ll probably hate this one too. The main plot is driven by love, but sex and weed are still key elements in the storyline.