Yup, either that or I'm a damn liar.

Meh

Still kind of sick, and the old brain isn't up to composing entries.

So, here's a visual representation of my current attitude. Enjoy.

Fun Photo Study

http://jschumacher.typepad.com/photos/abandoned_bikes/index.html

"Abandoned Bikes of New York". Some of these pictures are kind of sad, but I just love photo essays.

Boomer Mortality Cometh

I'm back at work, a little the worse for wear from the nasty bug that ripped through the family last week. Bleah.

I'm also still in a Formula 44D - induced delerium, so I won't try to put together a structured post.

I just want to say how much I'll miss Johnny Carson. Hard to believe he'd been away from show biz for twelve years. What star power. It seemed to me that he'd always been around, and always would be. The fact that he's gone only punches home the fact that I, moi, am also getting older. Soon to crest the hill and such. Scary.

I always wanted some of those double-eraser pencils Johhny would tap on his desk during breaks. Too late now, I guess. Maybe I'll see if somebody has some on Ebay.

Oh yeah. Poker bloggers might want to note that Johnny was a regular in one of the most exclusive Hollywood home games going for many years. That will be a big chair to fill.

RIP, Johnny.

If You Loved Me You'd Bring Me the Gun

We've all been sick around the house the past few days. Real, 'should I just get through this or go on a murderous rampage because I feel so lousy sick'. I've not been quite as bad, so I took care of the young 'un. It was actually pretty cool, having lots of time with the baby.... except for the fact that I'm sick.

You know what I need? I need somebody with a Tivo to rip a frame of the face of the baby in the new Quizno's ads.

I have a theory about how that kid is the secret love child of Patton Oswalt.

But I need a pic to put side by side with his mug, for, like, y'know, proof.

Guess Who's Coming to the Lobby

Since there's not really much to post about this week... that doesn't sound horribly snarky, anyway... I could expound on how, if you've ever seen the town the mudslide hit in California, it's pretty obvious that you're living at the base of a mud cliff and that sucker just might let go some day. I've often wondered, driving by there, why the hell a person would build a house in that spot. But, whatever. No dumber on the part of Californians than their flyover country brethren who insist on living on flood plains, I guess.

Anyway. One of the guys at work rented Guess Who's Coming to Dinner today. It reminded me of a good Sidney Poitier story I'll relate for you.

In the mid - late eighties, I was working in a camera store in an upscale Atlanta mall. Across the street stood a Ritz - Carlton hotel. One day, in rushed a customer who needed a camera immediately.

"I'm staying at the Ritz, and I just saw Sidney Poitier there. My wife is a huge fan. I have to get a picture with him...."

This was before disposable cameras, so we looked at the lower-end point-n-shoots. The customer selected the cheapest piece of crap that we had.

I warned him that we'd seen lots of these come back defective, and he'd be better off spending the extra 30 bucks for a better model, this being a once in a lifetime picture (I made lots more commission on the piece of crap, so I actually was trying to help this guy out). He decided to gamble on the cheapo.

An hour or two later, he comes back. You guessed it, defective camera. No picture with Mr. Tibbs Poitier for his wife. He tells me he'll buy the better one, and see if he can get another picture.

I wished him best of luck with that.

Two hours later, what do you know. Here comes Mr. Customer, proudly bearing a photo of himself standing in the lobby of the Ritz - Carlton Buckhead with Sidney Poitier.

The front desk had called Mr. Poitier's room, explained this poor guy's situation, and asked if Mr. Poitier would be good enough to come down to the lobby to pose for a reshoot.

He was good enough to do just that.

To this day, I've admired Sidney (can I call him that? no, probably not) Mr. Poitier for being so generous with his time. That's got to be a rare phenomenon in the celebrity world.

Have a good weekend. Watch some movies. We will be.

I Am El Niño. That's Spanish for.... the Niño. - Chris Farley

I commute by bicycle. This is the first winter I’ve done it. I’m not going to complain about the weather in California. It ain’t so bad really.

But sheeeeeite! It’s frickin’ raining, man. I don’t mind getting wet, I have the gear for it. But, the bike and chain get full of dirt and sand, and my clothes show up with wet spots sometimes. It’s kind of like Mother Nature said, "Ya wanna ride yer bike to work? How about three inches of rain in a 30 – mph wind, biatch? You like that? ‘Cause I got more."

Classic California. Three months ago it was so dry everything was on fire. Now we’re washing away.

What we need is some of that nice, stable, Midwestern weather.

He Ain't a Fan

The latest cover story for that movie thing Pete writes for is less than complimentary of Star Trek type people. And that's OK. I don't speak Klingon, anyway. It's still pretty funny.

Regarding that bit about homoerotic fan fiction, these are more along the lines of homoerotic synopses of TOS (The Original Series) episodes. Worth reading even if you can't sit through an episode of the show itself.

And, oh yeah, while I'm on the 'stuff on TV' theme, go rent Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle this second. Or top your Netflix list with it. I've only gotten to see the first fifteen minutes so far, but it looks like the second coming of Fast Times at Ridgemont High to me.

A Public Service From Us Here at the Paste

OK, your boss will love this. A Seeeeerious time waster.

Step 1. Open Google.

2. Paste the following string into the box:

inurl:"view/index.shtml"

3. The links that come up go to various live webcams.

As somebody already has asked, "Well, where are the good ones?"

Sigh. It might take a while for you to find a good toilet cam, but in the meantime you can check out Main Street at Devil's Lake, North Dakota, or the view from campus at Michigan Tech.

You won't always know what you're seeing unless you use this little Windows trickery brought to you by the loveable geeks here at Paste Bomb (ok, just me, whatever).

Go to Start, select 'Run'.

In the 'Run' box, type 'cmd'. (You can leave out the quotation marks. I used to be in tech support, so I'm telling you that now, because I know damn well you'll type them. Don't lie.)

Click 'OK'.

A black box will appear, with some lettering like this:

C:\>

This is what, back in Scott's day, they called a 'dos prompt'.

Type (without quotations): 'tracert xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'

press 'Enter'.

in place of the x's and dots, you will put in the numbers and dots that will be in the address field of your browser, or the IP address of the camera, if you're a geek (in which case you already quit reading, because you know what Trace Route is).

The box will then display the name of every 'hop' between you and the camera you are seeing through. Usually these names will give you a pretty good idea where you are.

It doesn't always work, so if you recognize what and where this is, could you drop a comment? Thanks.

Fade In

I work in I.T., but our group is more like a construction crew.

Here’s a little sketch from this morning’s coffee-drinking-before-actual-work session. Three guys, one has a bottle of water on his desk.

"Do you think that water really comes from New Zealand?"
"No, it’s from your mom’s tap."
"It’s just an excuse to charge more."
"That Fiji water is really good, it tastes actually sweet, you know."
"You know where that sweetness comes from."
Laughter
"Yeah, them Fijians eat a lot of coconut."
More Laughter
"And pineapple."
Rolling on the Floor Laughter

Fade Out.

For Mah Baby

We’ve gone on a bit of an Ebay spree at Casa Paste lately.

My wife is a huge fan of the book series featuring ‘Madeline’, a character I’d never heard of before we’d met.

Through the miracle of the above mentioned auction place, we’ve acquired some Madeline items for our daughter to enjoy as she grows. Some of this stuff apparently is rare. My wife would know.

For the past few days, we’d been eyeing an original artwork by the author. It grabbed my wife’s heart, and even passed my jaded critical eye in terms of authenticity.

This morning, things came down to it. The bidding war had started. I checked out the buying history of those we were up against. A couple of our competitors were serious collectors. One of them even struck me as a liiiiiiitle strange. An image of some recluse sitting in the basement surrounded by his ‘little girl’ treasures sprang to mind. I’ll spare you what I saw him doing there.

Anyway. We won the item. With no small amount of soul searching on the part of yours truly. This thing went high. But, should the apple of our eye actually develop something of a love for ‘Madeline’, this might become a prize possession. Not to mention the fact that she can hear the story of how her folks really couldn’t afford this kind of thing, but they loved her so much they were willing to sacrifice to get it for her…. you know the spiel.

Now. On to the sacrifice. The love for my little girl is so powerful, I was willing to make (for me) the ultimate: my poker winnings.

This is huge. In the past, things had gotten so tight that I drained the bankroll at the grocery and so on. Later, I’d put together fifty bucks to send to PokerStars, that through hard grinding I’d run into some hundreds. A quarter, fifty cents per bet. GRINDING, yo. This is now on its way back to me, to be sent to the Ebay seller. Sacrifice, baby. It means so much more when you part with something dear.

‘Cause I was about to move up to a dollar a bet.

That's Why They Named It

Seems kind of cold that tourists are back lounging on the beach in Thailand where the tsunamis killed so many.

I'm just glad they're Swedes. Let the world see there are others that are shallow, callous, and plain don't give a damn about anybody else.

Then again, hey, they did name the place 'Phuket'.