Okay, so I don't post Scary-Crayon updates here as much as I did before the creation of the SC blog (I figure that interested parties will subscribe to the RSS feed or something), but I definitely recommend checking out the latest article. Well, I don't recommend doing so the way I'd recommend that you brush and floss regularly and not drink nail polish, but... yeah. This one's arguably got more in common with a Wesoteric entry than a standard SC article, as it focuses less on the specific subjects than my thoughts on the selections and reasons for picking them, so insofar as you find my observations and comments and stuff to be remotely interesting you should enjoy it. And then, when you finish reading that, you can also have a look at Molly's and Greg's lists! I like team-up type articles. 🙂

Some other neat stuff came out of the article, too: Molly and I were able to solve a mystery involving disappearing images and missing html code (apparently McAfee was the culprit), and fooling with programs with Greg has resulted in me developing a newfound appreciation of and respect for WinSCP. The piece also gave me a chance to practice some fun new image editing techniques! I'm particularly pleased with the Dalek spread.

And speaking of Daleks, Greg pointed out this picture from the archives, which I took at Shore Leave 26 in 2004. I took it because the Avengers figures made me think of Mickey Glitter, but look what else is in the picture! A DALEK! Actually, there are apparently several boxes of Daleks framing the Avengers. Greg rightly notes that if this were to happen today, I probably wouldn't even notice the Avengers figures as I grabbed at the boxes while spasming uncontrollably and shrieking, "EXTERMINATE!!!!" I wish I had a TARDIS so that I could travel back in time to that day!

All for now, then. Ja! 🙂

Did I really post the previous entry on Thanksgiving? If I'd realized that, I would have wished y'all a happy one in addition to going on about those monitor shutdown programs. I do hope you had a happy holiday, though.

Things have been pretty busy over here -- following the holiday, I spent a great deal of time mucking around with the new router that I bought during the black Friday insanity. Folks who communicate with me in real-time fashion online may have noted that I experienced frequent disconnects with the old router, which apparently sucked as far as routers go, so I picked up a new one in the hopes that it would resolve the difficulty. What I did not know, however, was that despite apparently receiving excellent reviews, the Linksys WRT54G is also sort of crappy because apparently there are eight versions of this thing, which they started downgrading around v5. Mine is a v6 -- a fact that is conveniently not noted anywhere on the packaging and must be determined by an analysis of the serial number. By the time I learned this, naturally, I had already taken the thing out of the packaging and was attempting to set it up.

Despite being a downgraded version, however, the WRT54G v6 -- like its superior brethren -- can be flashed with third party firmware that improves its performance. The process is apparently a bit trickier than it is with the others (or so I have been told; I've never tried flashing the others), but with me being extra impulsive about keeping the thing after staying up all night and standing in 2+ hours' worth of lines to get it, I undertook to do just that. I'll spare you the details regarding the confusion that resulted, but suffice it to say that I finally got the thing up and running with the 3rd party firmware and configured as necessary. The problem with the disconnects has been fixed, and I have probably downloaded like 8+ gigs' worth of stuff since then -- at first just to test whether it was working properly, and then because I happened to find a whole bunch of new stuff that I wanted to watch. Frex, "Jigoku Shoujo" (Hell Girl) and a whole bunch of other anime series. Hurrah.

I'm still oddly dissatisfied, though. Everything is working fine now, but I still have that dissatisfaction that attends having an inferior product -- it's kind of like having your hunger completely satisfied by a tasty seafood enchilada at Chevy's but knowing that you could have gone for a sushi buffet instead. That's a terrible example. It's more like getting a B+ on a final exam when all you needed to do is get a B- to maintain your A grade, but knowing that you could have gotten an A if you'd known that solving the last 10% of the questions on the Calculus test required you to know the names and properties of various flora. Granted, that's some pretty difficult stuff to predict, but you could have found out if you'd done more consulting with people who had taken that instructor's exams before and therefore knew about his unhealthy obsession with flowers. It's more like that, yes.

Also, in case you missed it, I posted a (very late) review and analysis of scary 49¢ Thanksgiving cards over on Scary-Crayon. Feel free to check it out! I suppose that is all for now, then. Ja ne.

I watched New York Minute last night. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. The latest Crayon Haiku says it all, and see the attendant SC blog entry for a mini- review of the film. Oh my god.

In other news, my Dr. Who DVD box set finally arrived yesterday! So far I've watched Dr. Who and the Daleks, which isn't terribly interesting or exciting despite the presence of everyone's favorite salt shaker-shaped cyborgs. Part of the problem stems from the fact that it's adapted from and adheres far too closely to the second "Doctor Who" serial (which itself was fairly boring, the introduction of the Daleks notwithstanding), so there's nothing new here except the draw of seeing Daleks in color. I guess that alone made the movie worth seeing back in the 60s, but considering that one can not only see Daleks in color but see them in color and molesting naked women the thrill is all but gone at this point. I do like Peter Cushing, though, and the lengthy text bio of him in the DVD extras was a rather nifty read.

However, because the film does have Daleks, I now have an excuse to finally add images of them to my random DVD screencap script. Hurrah!

I added a bunch of others as well... click the following link (or just scroll down if you've already done so) to see 'em. See if you can guess what DVDs I snagged them from! Some are pretty easy; some are not. (more...)

Just thought I'd post about it over here too -- I posted three new pieces tonight on Scary-Crayon. There's the fourth segment of my batshit insane 2004 NaNoWriMo novel, The Absolute Strangest Christmas Story Ever Told, Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #86, and (gasp!) a review of the La Tasca Spanish Tapas Bar & Restaurant in Baltimore, MD. I despise the official culinary critiques found in print media -- to say nothing of the dreadfully dull restaurant reviews (or reviews of anything, really) that litter the blogosphere -- so this one is different. Hopefully it's also interesting and/or insightful and/or thought-provoking. It might even be a little creepy. Which I guess would make sense, considering who wrote it.

Later, then.

In case anyone missed it, I posted A Random Lunch #11 on Scary-Crayon on Monday. Looks delicious, doesn't it? Like hot vomit on cooling asphalt.