Must. Stop. Drinking. Lucas. Kool-aid.

WHY DOES LUCAS FEEL THAT HE MUST WHORE OUT MY FAITH IN HIM TO PRODUCE A GOOD MOVIE?!?! *pant* *pant*

I used charter on-demand to watch "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" today.

Flaw #1, no yellow, opening text scroll and the film starts on terra firma. wait. what. Strike one. How could you possibly get into the mood for star wars without reading scrolling text about the current state of the universe followed by red/blue lasers on a black backdrop?!? Fine. Hmm, it takes place between Episodes 2 and 3. I came into this thinking that it was the bridge between 3 and 4. Nope. The Emperor is still in charge of the galactic senate. Count Dooku is still the second Sith Lord. Skywalker is still a good jedi...and in the first 10 minutes he is given a Padawan. wait. what. Ok. Maybe the padawan that we haven't heard mention of in episode 3, 4, 5, and 6 is killed by the end. Nope. They are good friends throughout and the friendship and trust only grows until the credits roll. Fine. So what's their adventure in this flick going to be. Let's see, Jabba the Hutt's baby, Punky Muffin, has been kidnapped and the jedi agree to rescue it. wait. what. How does he let this stuff through? This is a plot a 15 year old role-player could have thought up. I can't go on.

My recommendation. Pirate this movie. Pirate it hard.

I'm going to go rinse with some Peter Jackson.

Consuming Life

Does anyone else find it odd that most life survives by consuming the life of others? Somewhere right now, a falcon rips open the belly of a rabbit. A cheetah digs its claws into a fleeing impala. A dolphin feeds on a bait ball of sardines. Even the deer uproots vegetation to quiet its hunger. Only the plant survives by not ending the existance of another. Can a human survive on by-products alone which don't kill our sustenance (milk, cheese, fruit/vegetables, sunlight)?

Phantom Sensations

Ever feel that phantom cell phone vibration? I wonder what causes that? Is it the anticipation of a call, the longing of contact with another person? I must really need interaction as I'm starting to hear my GPS randomly tell me to "Turn Left" while driving even though I don't have a destination programmed in. Is my GPS leading me to my destiny? Perhaps the next time I hear the phantom instruction I will follow and see where it will lead!

Today, it is finally tomorrow.

I am a level-capped procrastinator. Every task that I need to do now, I put off until tomorrow. You know, the problem with this is that, with very little work, tomorrow never arrives (see what I did there?). Projects and tasks can get pushed back to tomorrow ad-infinitum or until the very last minute where I have to scramble to finish (or worse, abandon the project). I've lied to myself for many years thinking that I work best under-pressure. In actuality, it cripples any natural talent that I have. Imagine all the evil good that I could accomplish if I started projects early and reviewed/modified/grew the task over time! The world would see my genius and dispair rejoice! An illustration of my indispensable greatness! (click the zoom button to read)

WELL, NO MORE! Tomorrow starts TODAY! Well, it really should have started yesterday, but I decided to put it off until today (really...yes, I have a real problem...) Regardless! There will be no more looking forward to 5 pm or towards making it through Wednesday, or with an eye on Friday. Instead, I will turn my focus about and look backwards. What did I accomplish over the last hour? How did that help me reach my life/career/hobby goals and objectives?

Here are my goals and objectives:

Life:

• Maintain a clean and healthy home
• Be good to family and friends
• Stay financially sound and on track for retirement

Career:

• Provide excellent customer, technical and peer support
• Pursue educational and advancement opportunities

Hobbies:

• Enjoy the journey in Lord of the Rings Online (No way I would give up my #1 hobby!)
• Rebuild my Honda del Sol
• Learn to play Saxophone
• Start Flight Training

A life a little more done

I had an epiphany while emailing a friend today. A tough, but rewarding career is really the perfect career. A tough career will keep you from becoming bored and complacent. A rewarding career keeps you looking for new challenges. I currently have a tough and rewarding career. Yay for me!!

I give up

I purchased a fun sized bag of doritos while out during lunch today. I've noted it before, but decided to look at the serving size again. Hmm, fun sized is enough for 4 people. 11 chips per person. No way there were 44 chips in a fun sized bag of doritos. NE-way, my next thought was, you know, let me just eat 11 chips and put the rest away for an afternoon snack. 20 minutes and one bag later I realized fighting the junk food industry is HOPELESS! These dang manufactures intentionally make junk food addictive. There is no way to escape the marketing they spend BILLIONS on per year, but then to load products with seasoning, and salt, and sugar, and crunchy-goodness, and possibly heroin is just criminal. TV and junk food. Corruption of mind and body. I wish I could quit you.

Considering a companion.

I've been wondering over the last 6 months if I needed another living creature in my house. Something besides the spiders that I capture, release, only to capture again. This afternoon I went to the Humane Society with the intention of only getting the application and determining the cost. Let me tell you that Humane Society workers know what they are doing. After I remarked that I'm considering adopting, there was no sales pitch, no here are the costs or an introduction to what the Humane Society does. It was, "Let me show you the puppies." You know, the ones in the small cages with eager but sad puppy dog eyes. "Hold on." I said, "First, let's talk about the application process." So after explaining how adoption worked, I decided to take a quick peek at their dogs.

Miissssssttaaaaaaaaakke. I was greeted by a 10 month old, pure bred chocolate lab that bounded upon the cage door when I walked around the corner. Do I need a dog? It would be nice to have something to motivate me to walk/run everyday.

Do dogs like seaplanes?

I shall call her Seawolf...

http://www.iconaircraft.com

It only costs about $3,000 to get a sport pilots license. The restrictions are speed (<130 mph), altitude (<10,000 feet), weather (only on clear days), time of day (no night flights). There is no restriction on range. I think this would be awesome to fly up river and camp every night over a week.

Reply to all...

Ever accidentally email a company of 40,000? I didn't, but someone else did today. What's remarkable is what happened next... A string of "reply to alls" that 1) notified the user that they "replied to all" and 2) asking the user not to "reply to all", which lead to others "replying to all" asking those users not to "reply to all"...this could go on forever. I'm starting to fear for this organization.

Google Reader

http://reader.google.com

Anyone else use this? It rocks! About a year ago, I found that I was wasting alot of time browsing to my favorite sites sequentially. Google's RSS aggregator allows you to point to the RSS feeds of all your favorite sites (including blogs). You then only browse to Google Reader to see articles. I found today that since Google owns Blogger, any blogs your 'follow' are automatically added to Reader. Here are the sites I keep up with through Reader.

IGN PC - http://scripts.ign.com/rss/ign.PC.2.0.xml
Gamespy PC - http://scripts.gamespy.com/rss/gamespy.PC.2.0.xml
Massively MMO Gaming - http://www.massively.com/rss.xml
MMORPGDOT - http://www.rpgdot.com/team/rss/rss13.xml
Tobold's MMO Blog - http://tobolds.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
MMORPG - http://rss.mmorpg.com/rss/mmorpg_news_rss.xml
Kill Ten Rats - http://www.killtenrats.com/?feed=rss2
Heartless Gamer - http://hgamer.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
AFK Gamer - http://afkgamer.com/feed/rss2/

Life Lessons

• If your lawn mower is sputtering, the gasoline station probably isn't cutting the gas with water. You should check your air filter for obstructions.
• If there is a thick, fishy odor coming from your dishwasher, it probably isn't the dishwasher. You should check your p-trap.

Now if I could only sticky this.

Hmph...who knew

...that this self-motivation stuff is deceptively easy. The tricky part is...well, getting started. (See what I did there?) I patched my roof today! I can cross that off the undone list. I think I am self-motivated enough to watch Cops and America's Most Wanted now.

WHOOPS! Right after I let Jen's dog out.