Semi Random Auto Post

Happy Memorial Day to all!!!





I have a Capri Sun juice at morning break on workdays. I got this one that had the bonus straws!!!





And a couple of shots of the famous tailpipe that I had fabbed up a few weeks back. Not sure if I ever mentioned, when I got Baby, she always sounded like she had a little exhaust leak. I thought it might be at the manifold area (they told me the engine was rebuilt, but I don't think that ever happened, just didn't look like it's been redone) but when I had her up for an oil change early on I discovered the first muffler was leaking around the ends. It was like a canister with crimped on ends. At the pick your parts, all I found were ones with tapered ends, similar to a glass pack muffler. I hacksawed one off, along with the flange and an extra set of flanges, and welded it in place as best as I was able. Not completely successful, but better than it was. While I had it apart, I tried it with the remains of the rather restrictive pipe to the second muffler disconnected, and it sounded fairly decent, not an insectile buzz but a bit of a throaty growl. Hmmm, a plan hatches...





Truth be told, I'd been thinking that from the time I found the leak, or I wouldn't have gotten the extra flange at the junkyard!!! I envisioned a 45° angle and exiting right in front of the rear wheel. The factory pipe exits the first muffler and does a set of 90° turns, then twists over the back axle before it enters the rather massive second muffler. I found to my dismay that my muffler man had gone out of business. I stopped in to one local guy, and he came up with a price around $175 or something ridiculous. I left. On one of my first Saturdays working I googled for muffler shops by my work, and found a guy. He quoted my more around the price range I'd been thinking, $90. He didn't do it exactly like I'd planned, but in retrospect it probably worked out better as it tucks up better. I had wanted him to add a flange where the old tailpipe goes over the rear axle, but he argued (likely correctly) that there wasn't enough room, but said he'd weld it back together if I wanted to put it back on. Oh, and by paying the last of my cash he reduced my price to $85.





I'm very pleased with the results!!! It's not too terribly loud (unless you really jump on her) and, the main thing I was aiming for, bumped up my MPG by around 2 mile per gallon. It's still in the testing phase for actual averages, of course. In the flange close up photo you may notice that I've stamped it with a "5-12" logo, making it a 5-12 labs piece of speed and economy gear!!! I had the pipe off this Friday to paint it with flat black high temp paint, one of the few things on my to-do list.

One final note on Baby before I move on, she passed her smog check flawlessly, so barring major accidents or other failures, I'm driving her for another 2 years. Of allowable hydrocarbons (66 at 15 MPH, 49 at 25 MPH) she had 30 and 17. Carbon monoxide (allowable .59 & .55) came in at .02 & .01. Oxides of nitrogen (allowable 487 & 774) came 54 and 162. I'd bet that with the factory pipe and mufflers intact it would have come out higher.





I've gotten the medicine cabinet all repainted and tried to get it wired and installed this weekend. I failed miserably in the wiring. In my defense, the schematic is roughly the size of a postage stamp. After it didn't work correctly, I looked up a larger sized one on the interwebs and found the error of my ways.


More of the automotive stuffs, here's some pictures of Janice's old motor mounts. I'm not sure if the balancer was a bit off and it tore the mounts up the rest of the way, or if it was just the motor mounts all along.





Strangely enough, ever since I've gotten the latest starter installed (a week or two back) it hasn't had a bit of trouble, but Sunday her battery was dead. Charged it up, and drove her today with no troubles.


Just a little about work to round out the random. Did I make mention that they'd eliminated the middle shift, then weeks later moved the early to right between when early and middle used to start??? They did, probably at least 6 months ago. Starting tomorrow, they're going back to how it used to be!!! Of course, makes little difference to me, I'm mostly 9:45 for life (one of the guys actually has that imprinted on his tray). Nice thing for me is that they'd moved our last break from 4:00 to 4:30, for a 2 hour 45 minute stretch between lunch and last break. Very few could make that run without dropping at least one cycle to use the restroom!!!

I've been doing the Saturday shift pretty regularly. I seem to get more done around here on Fridays. Either it's the lack of distractions, or just a feeling that I should be getting something done. Either way, it's good. I'd take it for a regular gig if they offered it to me. I don't much like the early start, but being done at 3:30 is nice. Last Saturday I was having a nightmare that I was late for work. Then I woke up, and I was late for work!!! For the first time, I think.

Weekend of Wings

The older boys' birthday celebration was observed this weekend. I like the age he's at now, he just has a few friends over and they play Xbox most of the afternoon!!! His requests for food was a cake similar to the Portal cake and honey BBQ wings. The Pizza Hut wings were a big hit, and didn't last long at all. In retrospect, being barefoot in the kitchen after that wasn't a brilliant move.




I was of the opinion that the Portal cake has probably been about overdone, and thinking of a way to do a variation on it, came up with "The Cake" style cupcakes. Of course, this leads to all kinds of questions on what can be said about them. "The cupcake is a lie"??? Or would that be, "The cupcakes are lies"??? "The cupcakes: Just a bunch of little white lies"??? "Cupcakes = Fibs"??? "The cupcakes: Not really lies, just fudged a little"??? You see the quandary.



Anyway, in addition to Xbox, they did have a bit of a water fight and loquat war.

Sunday we went to lunch at KFC and had more wings there, too, so it was indeed a weekend of wings!!!

A Strange Creature

Here's a little something I've been wanting to do for a while. I'd shot some video on the Road to Hana in Maui when we were on our vacation there. The clips were a bit on the short side, so along with a bit of narration, I've edited them into a somewhat cohesive little movie. Sorry about the crappy audio, but I think you'll get the idea!!!

Weekend of Win

A brief weekend recap, for a change. It all went rather well, I think.

Firstly, I had a bit of an odd weekend. Swapped with one of the Saturday shift guys, cuz he had something going on. That means I had Friday off.

Last week I'd gone on a technology shopping spree again. I had been telling a co worker, two Fridays back now, as he was perusing the Fry's Electronics ad that I had 3 things on my list:
1. LCD TV for the bedroom. Around 20-25 inches, and since I paid $300 for a 32" for the boys in December, I figure a price around $150-175 is all I should realistically have to pay. Woot had a 22" Vizio for $159 that night. SOLD!!!
2. A HD car radio for the Saturn. Right before I'd gotten the install kit for it, I was seeing them under $100. My dad got one for his garage, and he raves about it. I've been watching, but at that point they were all more, or none with HD. The next day, Fry's has an ad for one at $69. SOLD!!!
3. A good, decently priced DSLR camera & lens set up. They were having decent deals around Christmas, but not so much since. Still waiting on this one. I've been in the wait mode on this one for a couple of years, but that's OK.



Got home Thursday night and the antenna adapter I'd ordered to install the radio had come in the mail, and the TV too!!! Set up the TV (actually had an antenna coaxial cable running right by there, nice) in the bedroom. I'm pleased with it.

Friday I wake up to Mark & Brian doing a webcast where they're having chili made. I'd made a doctor's appointment since I had the day off, and got my prescriptions refilled.

I'm in the process of restoring the vintage 50's art deco looking medicine cabinet from our bathroom. Took it all apart & cleaned it off and worked on the rusty spots. Next I installed the radio. I'm very pleased with it. You can really hear the difference when the HD kicks in. Oh yeah, it also has an MP3 player input jack, as well as the ability to play MP3 & WMA encoded discs.



After work on Saturday (from 6:45 to 3:30, a three hour earlier shift than I'm used to, but nice that I'm out before it gets too late in the day) I met up with my wife & boys at my parent's house. I've been chasing down a nasty vibration at idle in Janis for a couple of months now. I had bought new motor mounts a bit ago, and now I finally got a chance to install them. After having changed out the fuel filters and harmonic balancer, I finally got to the actual cause!!! The passenger side mount was... almost like it had a hinge torn in it. The driver's side was collapsed all the way down!!! Probably a new transmission mount would be in order, too.

Took my wife to the movies that night. she wanted to see the new Nightmare on Elm Street. Not bad, but not really that good, either. The first one was better. I didn't buy any of the actors as being high schoolers.

I know there was more, but I can't remember what all.

Amazing Technology

I get a day off of work, and this is how I spend it so far... watching chili cook on Mark & Brain!!!



That's the completely as advertised Lovely Carly, assisting Gary Finneran making his famous filet mignon chili.



Lets see how long it takes to get a cease and desist from KLOS!!!



Now I'm very hungry...

???

"Dude, there's a Q-tip stuck into your ceiling."



"Yea, I know. I stuck it up in there."

"Don't take it out."

"Don't question it, just let the Q-tip be."

"Alright bud."

Race Day

So this was cool. Sammy calls me up at the beginning of the week and invites me to the opening day of the Toyota Gran Prix of Long Beach. It's right down from where he lives, and we haven't hung out in a while. Of course, it's on a work day, so I'd have to use a personal day. However, it worked out they had a Saturday shift opening, so I was able to swap it out!!!



Qualifying day, and it's not too crowded... when we got there!!! It filled up some as the day progressed.



We came upon the red car behind one of the businesses along the shoreline. There was NO ONE around, and there's a little stairway going up to it's platform. They MUST want people to go up and get in it!!! I jumped up in for a photo op, then took a couple of him. As we wrapped up, a group of old guys came along to get their own pictures. I mention to Sammy that in a couple of hours they'll probably have a line and be charging $5 a head to get your picture taken in it!!! A half a minute later, Sammy laughs and says we should set up and start collecting the money!!!



I like the juxtaposition of the picture of the cars doing 100+ right next to the 40 MPH sign.



They were doing LeMans qualifying when we first showed up. The Corvettes sounded the most awesomest.



The celebrity race qualifying was later on. Don't know how he did, but one of my favorites, Patrick Warburton, is involved. Keanu Reeves, Tony Hawk, and Patrick Dempsy will all be involved, too.

Bonus Weekend

Here's something cool Runescape did, to my knowledge for the first time this weekend. Instead of the normal experience earning levels, they were doing a bonus weekend.



It started at 2.7x the normal rate, and diminishes on a curve for the next 10 hours. Of that, I only logged 7:41 hours, but that's OK.



I primarily worked on skills that I usually don't train, or don't train much. I upped my construction skill from my previous 28 all the way to 31. Woop. Summoning I took from probably around 22 or so (I didn't get a baseline before I started in) up to a respectable 33.



The one I really worked on though, was the hunter skill. It was probably around 31 or so to start with, and it's now all the way to 46!!! Nice gain!!! Speaking of gain, when I first started doing screen prints to use on tonight's post, I had 5937xp gained. I'm not sure if that was just for this session, or for the whole weekend, but by the last one (1 hour 11 minutes later) I was all the way up to 13298xp!!! Again, nice gain!!!

I also leveled my fire making and herblore skills a bit. All in all, a great promotion!!!

The Pre Oscar Post

Hey, has it been a while since I've posted here or what??? Always doing something else these days, it seems.

Here's an idea I had for a post around the beginning of the year, and being the day before Oscar, thought it'd be a good time to finally do it!!! I don't see a whole lot of movies in theaters, so I thought I'd do a recap of what I'd seen in the past year. I think I've got them all here.



I put the images in in random order, and The Box came at the top. It actually happened that I was thinking about this movie the other day, and couldn't remember what it was (or even what the MacGuffin was), then happened to look at the top DVD rentals for the last week and there it was!!! One of the top five I saw all year (actually, one of the top three, I really liked all top three about equal), very clever. I also liked that it was set in 1976. I suppose it could work fairly well in just about any modern day, but '76 it was. The premise is that a box is delivered to a couple. If they open it and press the button, they get a million dollars, but somewhere a complete stranger dies. The fact that I completely forgot about that plot device underscores the layers to this film.



Jennifer's Body wouldn't have been my first choice, but my wife and I were going for our anniversary evening, and this was her choice. She enjoys a good horror movie. I don't know that this was a good one, and it comes out at the bottom of my list. I think a lot of the trouble with it is it couldn't make up its mind which way it was going to go. It has a bit of scary, a bit of funny, and it seemed like it was trying a bit too hard to be hip. Too soon after the Great White Station fire??? I think so. I liked the visual effect of Devil's Kettle. I also liked the apropos naming of the co lead actress' character, Needy. Some hot girl on girl action is always nice, and this had a bit but could have used a bit more. From the title, it could have used more of Jennifer's body. It made a great explanation of the success of boy bands, and I did like the ending.



The older boy and I went to Inglorious Basterds. Quentin Taranteno never fails to deliver, and this is no exception. From the trailers, I was expecting a lot more Nazi killin'. That's not to say that there weren't many killed and good action, but I was surprised by how many and how much time of the move was spent in non action sequences. Not to say I was falling asleep during these portions, quite the contrary!!! These scenes were so tension filled that I was figuratively on the edge of my seat for almost the whole movie!!! Well done!!!



Appropriately, the final movie on here was the must see of the year, Avatar. The day after Christmas I took the family to see this at Universal Citywalk's IMAX theater in 3D. We took the train out there, as usual for visiting the Universal area. Just outside the train station was a hot dog vendor with giant dogs at reasonable prices, and we dined sumptuously before heading up the hill. We made it to the theater a very short time before the showing, and thus there was limited seating, and we ended up fairly close to the front.

As has already been widely reported, the effects were amazing, total eye candy. The story line is nothing you haven't seen before, but it was played out quite well, and overall made for a great movie going experience. The 3D gimmickry was pretty good, I'm not sure if the total package of that and IMAX justified the price tag for the whole day, but oh well. I liked the way the subtitles were rendered in 3D. One of my favorite moments came a few weeks after, when I read in the paper that Republicans don't like the movie because it stands for everything they're opposed to.

I don't follow awards shows, but I would be surprised if Avatar takes the top prize, the story just wasn't that original. Inglorious Basterds maybe, but I haven't seen much of the nominees. I did see Up on DVD, and it's another I'd be surprised if it took a top award, also. From what I've heard of a few of the other contenders, probably none of what I've seen.

Justice Takes A Vacation

Jury duty is finished for this year. All week I've been calling in to see if I'll be required to show up, and Thursday night I hit the jackpot!!! This is a departure from the way things went the time before last, instead of everybody showing up for a cattle call on Monday, they just have you call in every night for a week. A MUCH better system, and it made for a much easier time getting through the security on the way in.



The title to this post doesn't specifically refer to anything of my actual experience (well, it was actually something of a vacation for me, one day off work, a shorter, quicker commute, plenty of time to read my paper, lots of photo ops, etc) but rather the first shot here. When I saw it, I immediately thought that would be the title of that shot.



Shot number two is of an old metal lunch box, fully tagged out. It was on the very corner of a vacant lot with a huge hole in it, next to a traffic cone. Behind an eight foot chain link fence with barbed wire. If any panhandlers rolled up on me, I was going to give them the location of this box, and tell them if they retrieved it for me, there would be a five in it (well, not IN it, but in it.... aw, crap, that clarified nothing... here's hoping you're able to figure it out on your own) for them, make that ten if there's something extremely interesting within it!!! I'd have done it, I swear I woulda.



When I got called to be on a case, I started out as juror (alternate) #15. After the preliminary questioning by the judge and both counselors, they started picking who they liked for dismissal. #1 & #6 were removed, and replaced by alt 19 and 20 (because of seating arrangement, I think). Then they got the juror #9. Dismissed, and #13 takes her place. No sooner than he sits down than he's removed and replaced by #14. #14 doesn't even get seated before he's dismissed. I'm called to replace him. I got up, gathered my bag and bottle and waited to see if I was going to be dismissed at this point. Everyone laughs a little as this is going on. I make my way to the #9 seat and sit down. I'd say around 45 seconds later I was dismissed. Everyone laughs even more at this. Seat #9 was a tough fill today!!!



I had to return to the jury assembly room to await more call ups or or the all clear for the day. If you can make it through the day without getting permanently placed on a trial, you are done for the year. Not long after returning, they started calling for more. They announced the room, and it was the one I had come back from. I knew they were going to run out of alternates!!!



The free WiFi at the courthouse was cool, but the filter on it sucked and didn't make much sense. No access to Runescape where I could have entertained myself for hours or Twitter where I could make a little comment in 140 characters or less, but I could access Blogger where I could put ALL kinds of content, and YouTube where I could actually clandestinely shoot and post a video!!! Oh well, I wasn't there that much longer, and I won't be back for a year!!!



Oh, and another sweet deal, jurors get free admission to MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Of course, by the time I made my way there, taking shots all the while, there was less than 15 minutes left that they were open!!! I rather enjoyed some of what I saw, and thought that I could do as well or better than some. I'd love to go back when I have more time. They gave me a little sticker that says "MOCA member". I stuck it on my John's Incredible Pizza card for maximum juxtaposition.

Oh, I finally located where Angel's Flight is!!! They have a notice that it should be open in the first part of this year. I've been hearing that for years.

The Piercing Post

Happy New Year's Eve!!! Already 2010 in some parts of the country, I guess. Here's a post that's been kicking around for a while now that I'm finally getting to posting, after a bit of polishing and embellishing!!!



The story behind my piercing goes something like this. My brother in law and I were at a swap meet one time, and one of the booths had ear rings and were offering free piercing with purchase. I had sometimes considered getting a nipple pierced, and so at this particular booth, I asked the young lady if I bought a hoop if she'd put it through my nipple. She was somewhat taken aback, but finally replied that yes, I suppose I could... I was a bit short on cash, and furthermore not yet fully commited to the hole. My B-I-L was greatly amused by the whole prospect and said he'd pay for it if I were going to do it. I declined at that point, but the idea continued to take hold, sweetened by the fact that I had someone to finance the cause. Years passed, and my brother in law died, but the idea did not. It actually got to a point where I could sense the absence of a ring through my left nipple (at the conception of the idea, I had neither side chosen, but knew that I only wanted one side). I think it was around seven years or so later, while working at the hell hole that had bought my previous employer, near Christmas. We used to get bonuses in the thousands of dollars. That year I got a whopping $50. I decided to buy myself something I'd been wanting for a while with it, and went to a tattoo and piercing studio not terribly far from my home after work and got it, unbeknownst to my wife and family. They were largely shocked and apalled. A word to the wise, do not get a nipple piercing while driving yourself in a larger car with no power steering!!!

A funny postscript to this tale (besides the trauma that it caused one of my work friends): On our last full day in Hawaii, the older boy and I went over to the tower in the ocean that people would jump off into the water. I think for the most part of the time we were there, we were the only mainlanders there, and the rest were locals. One of the girls there was a classic South Pacific islander, quite big with a great extroverted personality to go with it. While waiting our turn to climb up once, she asks me, "Did it hurt???" I reply, "It stung when they did it, and that whole side of my chest was sore for a day or two after... especially cranking the wheel on a car with no power steering!!!" She replies, "No, I mean when somebody yanks on it, did it hurt???" I had to think for a moment before I replied that that's never really been an issue!!!

The Man

As alluded to in the previous post, The Man, he do take his chunk!!! Here's the artwork I did to that effect, and I think I got the proportions just about right!!! I was less than pleased with the way the picture came out, making me once again think about a digital SLR camera.



It's really evident when you get a larger amount than usual, and it's a higher bracket. Seemed like it was nearing an even half that he was taking. I recently did the math. On my typical check, it ends up being just about a 1:5 ratio, or about 17%. A livable amount, even better if we weren't in a fiscally mismanaged state and country. The profit sharing check came out having around a 1:1.27 ratio, or around 44%!!! I'd be really disturbed by this, if I didn't end up getting most of it back!!!

The Yule Blog

Merry Yule to all!!! It's been a while since I've posted. This may get a tad random.



Here's some cup artwork I did some weeks ago. I was trying to get in the spirit.

I do believe that this month has been busier than the October I had!!!



Don't you love the word, "Yule"???

A couple of weekends ago was the Moon Eyes Christmas Party car show. My dad had entered, as it's cheaper to enter a car than to buy admission passes and parking!!! It rained quite a bit that weekend, but the show was "rain or shine", so we headed up anyway. It didn't rain much at all while we were actually there. The cars that showed up were cool.

That same evening was the company Christmas party. Same place as the last two years. They had been going to cancel, but since everyone else was doing the same, they made us a deal. The amazing desert bar wasn't there this year, and the decorations were a bit scaled back, too, but it was still good. We stayed at the same place we'd stayed two years ago, which I contend is as good a place, at half the price!!!



Goodie day at work was last Wednesday. I made my mom's easy to make and delicious corn bread concoction. There was none left, so it was well received. I ate too much!!! Had to start before work, because some of the choice items are usually gone by the time the first shift goes to their morning break. One of the more interesting things were bacon wrapped peaches. I saw the bacon, and knew it would be good. Ate too much that day, wasn't hungry until the next evening!!!

We did a T-shirt exchange that day, too. Whomever had my name hooked me up!!! Two shirts, and both of them are agreed to be some of the funniest seen. The new supervisor, a big ole guy, got a shirt that says, "USC mom".

Happy belated Festivus to all!!!

The cool TV set I'd set up for the boys' room, a vintage wooden case with a modern Toshiba inside,
went on the fritz. Lost it's vertical deflection (probably just the control circuit for it, and probably just a cold solder joint at that) and shoots it's electron beam in a straight line across the middle. Fail. Double fail, because much of the costly Christmas presents are Xbox games, and with no TV to play them on... I ended up buying them a nice 32" LCD HDTV for them. The prices are fairly reasonable anymore. Happy early Christmas!!!



Oh yea, they did the profit sharing checks on Monday. I say "only" in the most perceptible way when I say that this year was only 100%. A lot of the people weren't very pleased with it, but I'll certainly take it quite gladly!!! How many are without jobs, and how many more have taken pay cuts or are working more hours for the same pay??? I actually got a bit of a raise this year, and a 100% profit sharing!!! Sure helps out with having to buy a TV!!!

Oh yeah, the man, once again, do take his chunk. I did a cup to that effect that I'll post at some later date.

Sitting around, drinking the Yule Nog... Life is good!!!

I had asked my wife if she wanted a new flat panel TV for in the front room. She's perfectly happy with the one we've got out here already. I agree. One of my biggest issues with the new TV's is that the aspect ratio is off, and much of what gets transmitted ends up looking distorted wide. Why can't they make them with the 4:3 ratio the way God intended???



I had one personal day left. I took it Tuesday, and took the family to Magic Mountain for what will probably be the last time this year. I was right about it being a good day to go, it was fairly empty. A surprise was the line for Colossus was the longest I've seen it. The Superman ride was about as short a line as I've ever seen, too!!! They have an illuminated "2009" hanging from the sky tower. I assume they'll have a "2010" coming on in a week or so. I told everyone to layer up when we were getting ready. Got there and wished I'd put on one more layer!!! It was chilly. Right before we left, we bought some Cold Stone ice cream. I have no idea why that seemed like it would be a good idea.

The last picture I took at my youngest nephew's birthday celebration. He's now 2. I found a Sesame Street remote control for him that makes all kinda noises and voices. I knew he'd like it. I did when I saw it. If it can captivate me for a while, it'll do for a 2-year old. From their apartment I saw these two kids climbing onto the roof of a business to play and took this shot. Totally ghetto!!!

Skills

Here's something I'd been thinking of doing for a while that I'm finally going to do!!! Here's a shot of my current skill levels in Runescape...



I suppose I'll just go across each row and tell what they are all for. First up is my attack level, 73. This is one of the four five stats that affect your overall combat level, of which mine is currently 95. Next is my hitpoints, another component of the combat level. The next one is mining, my highest stat!!! It's high level is indirectly related to the one below it, which I will get to in three!!!

Row two starts out with my highest combat stat, strength. Next is the first members skill, agility. As it gets to higher levels, you are able to use various short cuts. I don't tend to train this skill as much anymore. Next is the one related to my mining level, smithing. In my opinion, this is one of the best money making skills. However, in order to do it, you need raw materials, which you can either buy or mine. I tend to mine mine.

Row three starts with another combat stat, defense. This is followed by another members skill, herblore. Many useful potions can be made with this skill. I don't train it extensively, but I do dabble a bit, as well as growing and cleaning some of my own herbs with the farming skill. Cleaning the herbs gets some experience in this stat. Next is fishing. As a free player, I worked this skill up to the level required to fish swordfish, one of the highest level free play food items, and the highest healing one-bite foods for non members, at 14 hitpoints. I've leveled it up some since I became a member, in order to fish the karambwan, which heal 18 hitpoints in one bite.

The next row starts out with a skill I didn't use a lot as a non-member, ranging. This involves using a bow and arrows, or crossbow and bolts to attack. It also encompasses throwing knives, spears, and the epic dwarf multi cannon!!! I would not have such a high level if it wasn't for that multi cannon!!! Next is another members skill, thieving. Level 39, another skill I don't train a whole lot. It doesn't seem like a respectable way to make money. I think I needed the level up to a certain point to do a quest. The last for this row is the very useful cooking skill. If you want to heal your damage, eating good food is the way to do it, and the higher level you have in this, the better food you can cook. I spend a lot of my time making tuna potatoes, which heal 22 hitpoints in one bite.

Row five starts off with prayer. This is a handy skill you can use to protect from various attacks, or to temporarily increase stats, or even to heal more quickly or inflict damage on opponents, or to preserve an extra item if you die. The main way to raise this stat is by burying bones of the monsters you (or others) kill. It can take a while to raise, but if you're in the habit of burying the bones of your kills, it comes along. It always amazes me how many people can't be bothered to bury their bones!!! Following this is the crafting skill. Much like the smithing skill, you can make useful items to sell for a decent amount of money. Making and enchanting jewelery items is my primary use, although I will also make pottery items and glassware if I need it. Firemaking ends this row. Pretty self explanatory, and it doesn't seem like you need that much of a high level, but in order to light higher level logs, you need higher level firemaking. Also necessary for some quests.

The next row starts with another very useful skill, magic. This is the skill that requires the rune stones from which the game derives it's name. You can do various attacks (often from a safe distance), teleport to another location (very useful, as the realm of Runescape is rather large), enchanting jewelery made in the crafting skill, and even working alchemy spells on various items. The superheat item is particularly useful in smithing higher metals, as these will require several coals to one ore, and with only 28 available spots in your inventory it would take many more trips to the mines. Next is another members skill, fletching. With this skill, you can make arrows, bows, crossbows, and many other ranged weapons. It seems to be a fairly easy skill to train, too. Next is the wood cutting skill. I recently got this skill to level 60 while training my fletching skill, and from this point it easily rose to 70. At 60, you can chop yew trees, and one inventory of yews will yield 4900 experience, and sell for a pretty penny, too!!! This skill is convenient to train while you're doing something in another window.

The next row starts out with another useful skill, runecrafting. This skill is a good way to manufacture the rune stones necessary to train your magic. Following this is a member skill, slayer. A pretty good concept, where you are assigned a number of a certain type of monster, so not only does it train you slayer skill, but also your other combat skills. The next skill is another member skill, farming. In this skill, you can grow various crops for food and herblore, as well as various trees. A fairly easy skill to train, as you can do the planting then pay a gardener to watch over your crops, usually with another crop you've grown!!! Sweet corn is one of my primary crops to grow, for use in the tuna potato.

The final row is all member skills. It starts off with the fairly interesting skill of construction. You can make your own player owned house with this skill, but it seems to be a skill that is primarily a skill that you buy your way up in. None of the tasks are especially difficult, but most of them cost a good amount of coin. I did some construction, but have gotten a fairly bored with it. Next is an amusing skill, in the way I've attained the level I'm at. Hunter, which involves catching animals. The funny thing about this, I've never actively pursued this skill. In the farming skill, you can teleport to Winkin's farm to participate in Vinesweeper, a variation of Microsoft's minesweeper game. I'm quite good at this, and the rewards are points that can be traded for the necessary seeds for farming. During this game, there are rabbits that can thwart your efforts, but you can counter them by feeding them strange roots that you dig up. This is the ONLY way I've ever gotten any hunter experience!!! The final, and my lowest statistic is the summoning skill. With it you can summon a spirit animal to assist you, in combat or as a beast of burden. While it could be useful, I just haven't trained it much.



Just today I was admonished by a non player character to raise that stat up some!!! Guess I'd better do that!!!

Magnets and Cups

Here's something I haven't done it quite a while, a couple of the magnet letter creations that have been come up with!!!



My younger boy arranged the letters for Halo, and I added in the latest version, ODST as well as the #3.



"Grab yer torches & pitchforks!!!"

And a couple of cups I did in the last weeks. The space ship is powered by a pulse detonation engine with a Tesla turbine. Should be good for around Mach 26 or so.



The last cup has the logo for mystery 512. Do you see it???



Now, what have I been up to this weekend??? Showed a lot of love for Baby. Took her to get her tires rotated first thing Saturday. Had a blood donation appointment after that, and they had some great oatmeal raisin cookies and trail mix there. Took the family for ice cream after that. Got home and installed a set of platinum spark plugs I'd bought quite a while back for Baby, then took some rubbing compound to her headlights, which have had that hazy look that plastic headlights get since I got her. I hadn't tried this yet, because it seemed like it would take a lot of repeated applications before it would have noticeable results. Surprise, they cleared right up with just one pass of rubbing compound!!! I was very pleased by this!!! I also did some fine tuning on the hood popper springs on Janice. I'd trimmed the springs down a bit, because they were too strong & would sometimes spring the hood while driving, but they were too short to keep the bumpers pointed in the right direction. I put some bronze bushings on the bottom ends of the shafts, and it worked out pretty well.

Today I took the family for lunch at Pinks, the world famous hot dog stand. I had attempted this a couple months back, but had the street as La Cienega instead of La Brea *facepalm* Today we found the place, and there's a huge line. The parking lot is fairly tiny, so I drove a couple blocks away and parked on a side street. One hour parking. Turns out one hour is exactly how long it took us to make it through the line!!! Good dogs!!! I had the Millennium Dog, which claimed to be a 12" jalapeno Polish dog. It arrived looking much longer than that, and rather obscene!!! Tasty!!!

Daylight Fading

Here's one from a while back. The song "Daylight Fading" by (surprise!!!) Counting Crows is the inspiration. Always liked this song, and it's apropos at this time of year, no??? Along the bottom are the opening lines:

Waiting for the moon to come & light me up inside,
I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alright

(although I discover by searching the lyrics that it ends with "alive" instead of alright)



Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside
And I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive
Well I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you
It's getting cold in California
I guess I'll be leaving soon

Daylight fading
Come and waste another year
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear
Moonlight creeping around the corners of our lawn
When we see the early signs that daylight's fading
We leave just before it's gone

She said "everybody loves you,"
she says, "everybody cares"
But all the things I keep inside myself
they vanish in the air
If you tell me that you'll wait for me
I'll say I won't be here
I want to say good-bye to you
Good-bye to all my friends
Good-bye to everyone I know

Daylight fading
Come and waste another year
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear
Moonlight creeping around the corners of our lawn
When we see the early signs that daylight's fading
We leave just before it's gone

Anyway, the fun part of this cup comes from co-workers reactions!!! My chum sees & reads it and says, "Sounds like he's talking about drugs!!! Light me up inside... The telephone, that's the connection... and the alright, that's when he's OD'ing!!!" I LOL, and tell him the next line (the hidden sub context to this cup, LOL!!!) and he LOLs and changes his opinion.

Another girl sees is and takes another, completely different take. She asks me, "Is that a song about someone with cancer??? Light them up inside = radiation therapy, and the telephone to tell me I'm alright, the doctor to call him back and tell him if they got all the cancer out!!!" Well, I'd never thought of it that way!!! I tell her I think the song is more about inter personal relationships, then tell her the next line. She LOLs and agrees that this IS more about something else. The more I thought about it, the more that makes sense, though!!! "Well, I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you" = it's prostrate cancer!!! "I guess I'll be leaving soon" & the whole second verse go with it being a terminal cancer. All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear has to do with his fear of dying.

I'd never thought of it that way. I always just really liked this tune. Funny thing, I've heard this song more on stores' PA systems as background music than any other Counting Crows song. Love that they play a song with the line, "Well, I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you" over the speakers at the grocery store!!!

The Lost Crash Video

Because it has been quite a while since I've updated, not for lack of content but from getting my money's worth out of my Runescape subscription, I decided to re-try posting the race video. It seems to have worked!!!



This is the crash that triggered the red flag. I saw somebody getting loose coming out of turn 4, and got the video cam fired up (not pointed up, but fired up...) and caught this!!! I'm sure there's better video of it out there, but cool that I caught this one. Dig that a crash gets a fist-pump from one of the fans!!! Perhaps later I'll edit the post-Halloween videos for here...

A Weekend of Win

It started on Friday. Actually, now that I think about it, you could go all the way back to Thursday. I was asked if I would like to work the early shift on Friday, and I accepted (Incidentally, they asked me for today and next Friday, too, and now have added in tomorrow). I had decided that I'd grab a couple of bar code stickers (the same kind I used to make my Bad Robot cup with... I wonder if anyone picked up on the link I had in that post to the audio of that) and shave my head down on Thursday night. I'd stick one of them to the back of my head and see who all gets it!!!



A lot of people did. A lot of people wanted to scan my head. One of my favorites was one of the older fillers, probably at least in his 50's came down to my floor for the first time in the afternoon and saw my shorn scalp.He asks if I've got a bar code on the back of my head, so I turn around and showed him. He thought that was awesome, then asked, "Didn't they make a movie based on that video game???"



That evening they had a festival at school. It was pretty cool. They had lots of contests to win candy. I dominated the older boy in a bubble gum blowing contest and candy apple eating contest. He didn't want to leave without winning something. The younger boy beat his friends several times at basketball hoop shooting.

Late that night, I looked around to see what was on, and "Hit Man" was playing!!! I tuned in.



The next morning we got up and carved pumpkins. We'd had them for a week, and it was high time to do it. My younger boy wanted Mickey Mouse. The older was going to do the two faces of comedy and drama, but ended up doing four faces around the pumpkin. I did a cat in front of a full moon, made up of a series of holes. Something different.



We went down to my parents' house to do the trick or treating. It's better there, because it's flat, and more densely housed. We got there early, and stopped for Wild Berry yogurt, my favorite latest vice. Following that, we stopped by Taco Bell for Black Jack tacos, they were doing a promo after 6 on Halloween for free ones. We'd been to Taco Bell last weekend, and wanted to try these but ordered plenty before we got to that. This gave us an opportunity to try 'em!!! Really not that impressive, but the price was right, and the color scheme was perfect for Halloween!!!



The younger's costume was a big hit!!! A lot of comments along the lines of "That's a GREAT costume!!!" Validation for all the work I'd put into it!!! Only after a block or two or trick or treating, he was worn out, though, so back to the grandparents' house.

I made up a couple of "Looks Likes" that I've got posted here. If you like, go here and here and vote on 'em!!!



The older boy and I continued for a few more blocks. Without his brother along, he got some comments on his ninja costume, which is actually pretty cool.

I was wearing a bar code the whole time. My wife didn't have any costume in mind, but I had gotten the idea from watching "Hit Man" the night before, and took an eyebrow pencil and drew in the tattoo on her face that the girl in the movie had.



The next day we threw the jack-O-lanterns into the street, as is our custom!!! Perhaps there will be video of that in the future.

I noticed yesterday that there was a pumpkin up the hill from our house on the curb. This morning I saw it was just down from the driveway. Perhaps it's looking to get thrown down, too...