Last night mirth and merriment were to be had in the heart of the Mission. Tasty tapas were eaten, litres of sangria were drained, and then the high-class lowlife a-go-go mecca the 500 club was patronized. So this morning while I was recovering I finished off Silent Hill 2 (PS2). I got the “In Water” ending. I would say that Silent Hills are a pretty good series of game - apparently falling into the genre of survival horror. So, so dark. The new one just came out, but I’m not going to pick it up yet as I need to get the imprint of my butt out of my futon.

Tivo, based on my recording of McLaughlin group and watching Charlie Rose seems to conclude that I would also like The Blow’Reilly Factor.

In efforts to attract people to HD capable televisions, Comcast has provided the “INHD” channels. Visual. Orgasm. You’ve seen nothing until you’ve seen cave diving, in HD, on a wide screen. It’s absolutely astounding. The claustrophobia, the silt, the oxygen deprivation.

I don’t know what it is about the summer that seems to bring on insomnia for me, but it’s been brought-ed. Do you know what was a great toy back in my day? The Etch-a-Sketch Animator. Peep: Here’s the setup. Big plastic (white) box with knobs per the E-a-S design motif. LCD 40x30 screen in which you can either set the pixel to active or inactive 8 big, soft, mushy buttons at the bottom: a pen-up, pen-down, a save, clear screen, recall last screen, reverse black to white / white to black toggle, erase, and the magic button: animate You could save 12 “frames” of animation and then push the ANIMATE button and…viol?

Would this face utter: Is Padme all right?

I love my Apple, pretty much all the time. When I was a sophomore in college I made my first own computer purchase: Apple PowerBook 190cs. It had this rich color screen that was bright and it was only moderately back-breakingly heavy. It kept a charge about a good two hours and ran all the basic MS productivity apps. What wasn’t to like? It was on this system that I dialed into the University of Texas VAXen and Unices. I wrote history papers and fancied writing a novel or two (didn’t really pan out). I took that computer with me overseas and taught it to suckle at the teat of 240volt - it never complained.

If you came across this web site because you’re looking for attractive, nude, naughty pictures, you’re at the wrong site. Go back to google. If, on the other hand, you’re interested in getting a closer and better shave, hang out here for some interesting discussion. I have always had a beard that makes most sandpaper jealous. I don’t remember when it happened exactly. I remember some time in high school feeling these hairy, like real hair, wisps lurking around the edge of my upper lip. It was some warm water, and two quick strokes from a Gilette that would properly have me looking dapper and respectable as per the Code of Conduct.

Yes, folks, I have purchased a Nissan Xterra from the friendly folks at Town North Nissan. It’s an “S” model with 4x4. I’m hoping that we can use it this winter to go snowboarding in Colorado. Now some of you will be noting that it wasn’t all that long ago that I was posting pictures of my recently purchased BMW. You might be thinking that I have a Scrooge McDuck like vault somewhere. No, that’s not the case at all. The bimmer was fun and fine in the Bay. I couldn’t have a house, I didn’t go much of anywhere, I didn’t do much of anything extravagant.

Sunday night after Laur. came back from her day at work we were both a bit anxious to get out of the house. My friend The Social Bobcat had given me a ‘Go’ game as a groomsman gift (schweet) and so we decided to give it a, uh, go, at Austin Java on Barton Springs. Go is one of those ancient games of farthest asia that always seems to attract nerdy computer guys faster than rumours that Jun Kunasagi (if you do any googling for her, it’s probably not going to be safe for work) is washing a car in the parking lot.

I recently got a Cisco Flip camera. It’s awesome, but OSX has a major problem that it launches iPhoto (in addition to the Flip software) when I plug in the device to the USB port. This means that two applications are busily indexing the contents of a USB device every time I want to use it. To inhibit:

Of all the toys of my youth, not many survived its duration in decent-looking shape. In 2000, I found myself in California, alone, with a few extra bucks and an eBay account, and so I bought this Megatron.

While I had loved “Star Wars” toys during my pre-pubescent years, “The Transformers” heralded something bigger, more Shakespearean. If “Star Wars” found its root in The Hero with 1,000 Faces and Excalibur, “The Transformers” were rooted in Hamlet, King Lear, and the Roman Empire.

There was also an element of class consciousness. The Autobots (the Good Guys) were all personal conveyance, freight, and commercial vehicles (capitalist enterprise). The Decepticons were all military hardware (only degenerates fetishize their ownership of military hardware and parade it down their capital’s main avenues). “United in righteousness, the commercial class can overwhelm the aggressor militarists with pluck and wile” was a message that had much resonance in late-Cold War / Reaganite America.

Megatron, evil leader of the Decepticons, pictured above, transforms into a toy that looks like a gun. There’s no orange tip on this bad boy to let you know it’s a replica, this is the kind of toy that would get boys shot.

The toy also embraces danger. When you pull his trigger, it goes “snap” as an eyeball-obliterating powerful spring pops to make the sound. His pieces are not all plastic. There’s some real metal in his parts that, if the toy were lobbed at a sibling might merit a trip to the ER for stitches. In his fully-transformed form as a Walther P38, there’s a rifling attachment and an arm brace. Transformed, Megatron is a scarily good approximation of a firearm.

Lastly, you can see that the designers were struggling from their Asian point of reference to translate the facial styling into something familiar to a Western consumer. The head shape is distinctly samurai-informed and the eyes are vaguely Styx Mr. Roboto styled (wow, that styling, so problematic these-a-days).