Today, 25 years ago, my life began!

Well, nine or so months prior, according to the good pro-life folks.

I will now celebrate with a couple of drinks and a trip to outer space. 🙂

Another lengthy comment response to one of TAB's posts that became an entry of its own, though this one is significantly shorter:

I disagree with this post -- it's not actual geeks that people regard as being sexy. It's just the look, which arguably has more to do with the rise of emo culture among teens and geekish metrosexual styles among adults than professional success in IT fields (et cetera).

Artists and eccentric actors and offbeat comedians have sex appeal, sure, but these guys aren't true geeks. Note that the truest form of geekery is hardly creative, because the geeks are generally too busy worshipping at the altar of something else to make their own contributions. It's possible to be geek-y without being a geek (and nerd-y without being a nerd, et cetera).

By the way, speaking of geeks and their interest in comic books, I saw something at Best Buy today that I thought was rather neat -- all of the issues of the Ultimate X-Men comic on a single CD-ROM for $10. Given that most of the people who buy comics probably don't even actually read them and that the people most interested in reading them probably wouldn't even want to buy them, the Internet has made it far too easy for folks to simply download titles every month, but releases like this may prove an effective alternative. True, people generally don't want to pay for what they can get for free, but $10 for 70+ issues is a damn good deal -- and one that comic fans could enjoy without feeling like they were cheating an industry that they love. Hell, if I were into the Ultimate X-Men comic (I am totally not), I'd have picked it up without hesitation. Well, there might be some hesitation -- the files are apparently in PDF format, and I generally hate Acrobat. The CDisplay Comic Reader is a much more pleasant program to work with.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

A few random bits from my travels and whatnot today:

1. While in the supermarket, I looked down and could've sworn I saw "DECAPITATE!" scrawled on a cereal box. What the box actually said was "CRUNCH-A-TIZE ME, CAP'N!" Which is to say that it was a box of Cap'n Crunch. Still, I think I've uncovered the Cap'n's evil plan.

2. In Dollar General, I happened upon a 7' giant of a man with an intellectual disability who went out of his way to point out to me that the calendars were 2006 calendars but that 2006 is almost over. I shrugged and said, "I guess that's why they're a dollar!" (He was not amused.) The gentleman then insisted that another store had 2007 calendars for roughly the same price before going on to point that these calendars were largely outdated to a member of the store's staff. When the employee said that the 2007 calendars weren't out yet, the man again pointed out that he had seen 2007 calendars in another store. "Well," clarified the obviously irritated employee, "we haven't gotten them yet."

But lo! Shortly thereafter, I found 2007 calendars bearing images of flowers and puppies elsewhere in the store. (One of the reasons I dislike Dollar General is that it's so fucking disorganized and nobody cares; they just put shit wherever they please and call it a shift. Every Dollar General I have ever visited is like this, so I'm guessing the company encourages disorganization. They occasionally have good prices on certain items -- though much less often than the name of the store would have one believe -- but damned if they don't make you work to find what you're looking for.) I considered hunting the giant down to show him, but thought better of it.

3. In Electronics Boutique, a man approached the front counter and asked about when a game would be released, whereupon the sales associate gave him the date and then suggested that he reserve a copy for only five dollars. "You know," he said, "I've never understood that. Why would I reserve a game when I could just come to the store and get it on the day it comes out?" Now, he didn't say this in a joking way as if he actually did understand the rationale behind reserving pre-release titles, nor did he say this as someone who had never heard of the practice until that very moment. No, he sounded as if he had actually given some thought to the subject and yet remained unable to come up with a single good reason to explain the concept of reserving games!

The employee seemed flabbergasted by the question, but after a moment she went on to explain that reserving a title guarantees one a copy of the game, whereas unreserved titles are sold on a first come, first serve basis and could possibly sell out before the customer arrived on the release date. As I left, he continued: "That's ridiculous! How could you sell out?" How indeed, when the glass case behind the counter magically restocks itself!

4. In a news segment today, I witnessed further proof that politicians are terrible. Consider the controversies surrounding William Donald Schaefer. They played the bit with him commenting on her "outdated hairdo" -- as if one's hair has anything to do with one's effectiveness as a Comptroller! To be fair, she called him "Grandpa" first, but still. Childish, childish, childish.

Turd Sandwich or Giant Douche: WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE?

Seems like there's something else I wanted to mention, but I can't recall exactly what it is! Owell. Later, gators. 😛

These are my dragons! I made the red one first (ah like red, so ah colored it meself ;)) and hypothesized that the attractive glossy photo paper was contributing to the ruin of the illusion (shadows and lighting have a much more pronounced effect on it, making it a lot easier to perceive the depth in the facial cavity), so I went ahead and made another dragon on regular paper to see if that worked better. It didn't, and I've since found that the illusion is facilitated by closing one eye (thereby removing the problem of depth perception), so I'll probably end up making one more glossy dragon (in addition to maybe another creature of my own) to add to the mix. I think I will color it green, yes. (more...)