Lichtenstein Revisited

Back almost four years ago I happened on Roy Lichtenstein and his campy Pop Art. I like the look of the "I can see the whole room" artwork, and here have modified it into a size fitting to using as a computer wallpaper.

A bit after that, if you recall, I did up my interpretation as cup art, with work related text, which I've reposted here.

I don't remember how the inspiration for it came about, but I decided that I needed to use it as a wallpaper image again. That's how the modified image here came about.

Also, I was in need of a new artwork for my board at work, which is where I do my expressions these days. I had tried to do a snowflake (to go with the frigid weather we've been having these days) but that quickly spiraled out of control.

So, I thought I'd try my hand at this image again. I wasn't thrilled with how the first one I'd tried had come out. Taking a little more time and care, it came out better, but still not quite there. Primarily, in the original only one eye is visible.

My final attempt came out quite good, I thought, so far!!! I'm going to add some more black around it. Co-workers got a kick out of it last time, and we've got a lot of new ones these days, so this ought to entertain!!!

While looking around for a good version to morph into a wallpaper, it also occurred to me that these days phone wallpaper is more often in demand, and I was also in need of a new lock screen for mine, so I morphed it that way, too.

And how does one go about getting a Roy Lichtenstein image morphed into a wallpaper or lock screen size??? With an Image Duplicator, of course!!!

I'll be over here, waiting for my cease & desist...

A Brush with Fame

Living in Los Angeles on occasion has those moments when you encounter the famous. You may pull up to a traffic light and look over and see a renowned actor in the car next to you, or find yourself dining a few tables away from a popular singer. I remember attending a party and being introduced to a local radio personality. When I was in my early twenties I also remember the guy my parents had hired to paint their house telling me how he met Arnold Schwarzenegger working out at the gym he goes to. "He's a lot shorter than I thought he was", he tells me. My own wife has done a bit of extra work on Unsolved Mysteries and on a Twix commercial that only aired in the UK, and always just a bit less than enough to get into the SAG.

Here's my latest such incident. Came in a roundabout way, but here's how it went. Around a month back I had turned onto a local street, that at the time had the end the way I was heading away from blocked by a fire truck. It is a smaller residential street, on a bit of a rise, on which I was heading downward. I say smaller, but it's wide enough that two cars can pass each other even when there are cars parked on either side... provided each one stays towards their respective sides. Well, since the street was blocked, a giant truck coming the other way had made the obvious choice and stopped in the road. Naturally, they were taking up about 2/3 of the road, leaving not nearly enough room to get past. Whenever I see such a thing, I always think to myself, "If it's too big for you to drive properly, you SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING IT!!!" Anyway, I call out to them and motion for them to make some room, and they SLOWLY begin to creep forward and over, until I've got a little bit of room to get by, and I'm creeping by watching my side mirror, which is clearing the back end of the truck my maybe an inch, and as soon as I'm clear I start getting to going... Since I'd been watching the left side, I somehow forgot to pay attention to the right side, and BAM!!! Clipped a parked car's mirror with mine on that side!!! Dang!!! Knocked mine clean off, if it wasn't for the wire to the power motors, it would have been on the road!!! Pulled up around the corner and headed back to see what kind of damage I'd done to my victim.

It was a newer Honda sedan, in good condition, and it appeared to have those fold-away mirrors, a brilliant device to avoid the fate of my dangling mirror. I folded it back to where it belonged and was checking it for scrapes or other damage, and discovered that either I'd gotten it good enough, or it wasn't designed to go that way, but it had broken off a good portion of the bottom of the outer portion. I got a scrap of paper and left a note with my phone number and said for them to get it repaired and I'd take care of it.

A few days later the owner had left a message, and a week or more later I finally got back in touch with her. I kept forgetting until late in the evening, after what I would consider a decent hour to return her call. She hadn't gotten a quote yet (probably not wanting to waste the time in case I'd left a bogus number) but she took my E-mail address and sent me a copy of the quote a couple days later. I replied for her to give me her an address to mail a check to, and I'd see to it.

When we had talked, I asked her if she lived in the area so I could get a copy of the bill or quote and write out a check, and she said no, she'd been in the area for a shoot. Once I'd written the check and mailed it off, I was curious if she was anyone I might have seen, and it turns out I more than likely have!!! She's done parts in NCIS Los Angeles, New Girl, and How I Met Your Mother, among several others. I don't know what else she does (it would be cliche to say all up and coming actors are also waiters) but best of luck and wishes to Anisha Adusumilli!!!

Oh, and a little postscript, while it looked like my car had fared far worse, I was able to epoxy the posts for the mirror mount back together and it appears as good as new!!!

In Memoriam

Leo the Cat

August 2nd, 2010 ~ December 10, 2015

He was obediant.

Leo wasn’t in the least obedient, of course; he was a cat, for heaven’s sake. That doesn't change how we feel for him, though. We loved that handsome devil. As cats go, he was a good one. We had him fairly well trained where he [mostly] stayed off forbidden areas, and we'd even taught him to stand up on his hind legs and sit down on cue, with varying degrees of success. He could be very affectionate, and was especially fond of giving belly kneads.

While he was living with us, he only used up two, maybe three, of his nine lives. Either he got shortchanged, or he had a very wild and misspent youth. We are grateful for the slightly more than two additional years we were able to add to his life.

He is survived by his human family and his abusive wife from his arranged marriage. He will be mourned and missed.

Random Recap

Random Recap... Have I used that title before??? It seems like I may have. A cursory search doesn't show up that exact title, though, so it stays.

Anyway, as usual, a lot happens, so here I'm cramming it all into one post. Of course, Halloween happened. First up is Wilsons' German cousin, Voit, in his costume.

I did the same pumpkin as last year, but got a bit further on the interior. Made up a Charmander out of modeling clay with a candle holder for his tail. The clay was staying a bit pliable, so I stuck it in the oven to try & set it up. That was a mistake, it caved in on itself. Stole a gargoyle statue decoration from the boys' room & stuck it inside instead. It rotted to mush before I could throw it down.

The costumes for this year. My wife stayed with the feline theme. The only child boy went as a security guard from Five Nights at Freddy's, which other kids understood. His badge says "Freddy Fazbears Entertainment". I finally did a costume I've been saying to do for a while, aggressive panhandler. The boy was greatly entertained by my spiel, I'd roll up on people and go, "Hey, can you help me out??? I'm just trying to get a little money together to get some food..." and usually they'd put some candy into my can. I'd look at it, then tell them, "That's no good to me, I can't exchange it for booze or drugs!!!"

Of course, I worked that day, then we went to my parents' to trick or treat. An interesting side note, I've got an app that counts my steps on my phone. On a typical work day, I'll do anywhere from around 15,000 to 20,000 steps. On this Halloween, I ended up with around 28,500 steps, which comes out to about 19.5 miles. It is the highest amount of steps I've done in a day since I got the app.

The Friday before my wife & I made a run up to Magic Mountain again. Got there, and rode the best two rides in the park, then went home. Giant creepy Jack in the Box.

They had done a good amount of theming for the Halloween time.

And, fittingly, the best ride in the park is declared Satan's Domain.

Ever since our anniversary four years back, the wife & I make a long weekend vacation out of it. This year we headed up to Reno!!! It was a good trip, but it was colder than we're used to!!! Saw our quota of snow for the year, none of it actually in Reno.

The first day we headed over to Virginia City, which dates back to the 1800's silver rush, the Comstock Lode. On the way we headed through the state capital, Carson City, just because for all the times we've been in Nevada we've never been there. Rolled through the hilariously named Mound House, and drove past several whorehouses.

There's the pistol packing preacher of Virginia City.

If you make it though there, get lunch or dinner at the Virginia City Jerky Company. We'd already eaten, but stopped in because, who doesn't like jerky??? It smelled amazing in there!!! They had chili on the menu, and I'm always curious to see how other peoples' chili is, so I got a small side. I think it was about the best chili I've ever had that wasn't made in someone's house!!!

The last day we headed over to see Lake Tahoe. It was amazing, but windy and cold!!!

Slots seem looser in Reno than Tahoe. I came up with a fairly profitable method to usually win at roulette.

Just a week ago we headed to the local Slater's 50/50. I like the boy's pose in the background.

And finally, just last night, the boy had heard of this trick. Balancing a fork and spoon on the edge of a glass by a toothpick.

It's an old Jedi center of gravity trick, my boy!!!

At Long Last, My Search is Over

Back when I was around 11 to 13 years old, my father was working as a field serviceman for an electronics company. Sometimes during summer vacation he would take me along on service calls. This one time we were out on a call in West L.A., and around lunch time my dad asks me what I'd like to eat. Pizza, I reply. Can't go wrong with pizza, right??? One of the guys at the customers' place says, "There's a good pizza place a couple blocks up called Chicago Pizza Works, you should go there." It came recommended, so that's where we went. At my tender young age, I didn't know from Chicago pizza, I though pizza was pizza. Little did I know. I learned that day, and my world was forever changed. Chicago deep dish, thick as a cake, with just a skin of crust, with cheese, sauce and toppings swimming within. Angels wept. Quite simply, it was the best pizza I'd ever had.

Around the time my firstborn was about the age I was at the time of my pizza awakening, it occurred to me that with the advent of the internet, I could find the place and return. I easily found the address, and packed up the family for an amazing lunch. We made it out there, only to discover that it was long since closed. I had built it up to them pretty much like the first paragraph, and I was disappointed. That seemed to set off a pattern of disappointment, with every place claiming to have deep dish pizza actually having fill-up-on-bread thick crust.

So, this was another huge attraction for this year's vacation trip to Chicago!!! We're going to go to a get a genuine Chicago deep dish pizza in Chicago!!! More than one to choose from, but from the Yelp stars and proximity to our lodging, Giordano's won out.

Ended up being the evening of the day we'd gone up to Milwaukee to see The Fonz. I'll give a bit of the back story, since I've not done a lot besides high points and the Six Flags Great America fail. The night we got there, we ended up about two hours later that the time we had planned on, thanks to the crap bag car rental I'd booked, Payless. Do not rent from them. Rat bastards stranded us at the airport for more than an hour, and told baldfaced lies every time we phoned them. It ended up being around 2 in the morning when we finally got checked into our room. The next morning was the pass in review ceremony, fairly bright and early to get there on time and get parked, in the hall and everything. After that, the man-boy had liberty until 1900 hours. We went to lunch with my parents and him, he selected Steak & Shake, which we had enjoyed on our last Florida trip. Following that, we went to see Jurassic World. The wife & I both dozed off a little bit during that, and we ended up bailing out a few minutes before the actual end, because showing up AWOL on his first day would have been a bad thing. One other main thing the fresh faced sailor wanted was his laptop and his MP3 player. It was not allowed in boot camp, and subsequently could not be handed off to him on base, but could be given to him at the airport before his departure to South Carolina... at zero dark 30!!! After the few hours of sleep the night before and the theater nap, I got another couple hours in, then back to O'Hare. Thank you to the USO for having a lounge there were I was able to meet up with him for the hand-off!!! Turns out that military families are allowed to pass airport security to be with the servicemen until they actually depart, so I ended up hanging out with him until around 0600, then Chicago traffic back to our lodging and FINALLY a bit of sleep. Another sleep deprivation experiment!!! Got up around 2:00 in the afternoon, and headed up to Wisconsin. Got turned a bit on the way back, and added probably another hour or so to the drive, and finally made it to the famed Giordano's. It had started raining on the final part of the drive, after being overcast all day.

One thing to know about a true deep dish pizza, it will take a while in the oven. After the side trip short cut detour, everyone was already hungry. In addition to the pizzas, we also got an order of mozzarella sticks and cheese garlic bread. I don't know if I've ever seen this kind of perfection in mozzarella sticks, not in the flavor or construction, but in the serving temperature. Usually they come out flaming hot and, unable to be resisted, burn the taste buds off your tongue and the skin off the roof of your mouth, but these were perfection in edibility!!!

That first pizza pic is now the lock screen on my phone.

My parents got a small Chicago Classic, that has pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers & onions. I could take or leave the 'shrooms, but I don't do green peppers, they have a lingering after effect on me for a day, quite unpleasant, even if I'm fine with them while downing them.

We got a medium Meat & More Meat, that has pepperoni, salami, sausage & bacon, and a small Bacon BBQ Chicken with BBQ-basted chicken, bacon & balsamic onions, with BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce. Oh. Oh yes!!! Truly AMAZING!!! It was SO good, but it's a lot. I may have only had one slice of each, or perhaps I split a second slice of the meat masterpiece with my wife... or maybe I put away a whole second slice by myself!!! It was a pizza lovers' utopia!!!

We had enough leftovers for something like three more meals, and reheating didn't diminish the magic!!! They also will ship out frozen pizzas for a fairly reasonable price (considering they aren't that cheap to begin with, and if you were to factor in airfare to Chicago, it's a relative bargain), something I will likely do at some special occasion in the future.

So what was the verdict of the rest of the family??? After hearing me go on about Chicago deep dish pizza in such glowing prose for so many years, they agree that I did not oversell it!!!

Yoshi and The Tire

Down at my parents house swimming today, and my mom had some pool inflatables she'd picked up on clearance. My nephew declared the blue sea monster float to be Yoshi. When one of us had said Yoshi and the tire, we came to the conclusion that, when paired like that, it sounds like a wacky radio duo. The hijinks ensued. We went on for a couple of hours coming up with all kinds of situations for them. There may or may not be more episodes in the future!!!

Wanna Go Scream Punk???

Don't know that I've made mention here, but starting this year I'm on the weekend crew at work. It was a few years that I'd put my name in when there'd be an opening, and finally they took me on. Not only do you get a weekday swap, but they bump your pay by $1 to sweeten the deal. So, one of the advantages, I get Fridays off now. Yesterday we went to the local Six Flags park, Magic Mountain, to (finally!) take advantage of some of the payback from the epic fail at Six Flags Great America!!! After I'd gone off on the park director there for their screw up and they're lame attempt at a buy off, he asks me what I thought would be appropriate. Well... I honestly wasn't prepared for that!!! Thought we were gonna have to go round and round before we got anywhere, so off the top of my head, I said I thought a full refund of the season passes I'd bought would be right, along with passes back to his scummy park to try and get on the one coaster I'd wanted to ride (which he kicked with, but I never did get the chance to make it back) along with the $25 of park vouchers & complimentary drink voucher.

He was good about it, refunding the season pass price that very day, and sending an Email with the code to redeem for new passes back at the local park. Apparently doing the refund voided the passes we had, so new ones needed issued.

So, last time we'd gone was on Memorial Day to activate our passes. The two I'd wanted to hit while we were there were Full Throttle, new since last time I'd been there, and the just re-opened Twisted Colossus. The former kept breaking down, and the latter had a 3+ hour line by the time we made it in. Didn't get on either. It was truly a terrible day to go.

The area around Twisted Colossus has been re-themed as the "Scream Punk" zone. That's mostly what I've got shots of here, the theming elements. There's a lot of pipe construction with valve wheels and gauges, and a lot of gears.

The second photo you can even see what looks to be a flex fan from a diesel truck.

And the fourth shot features three automotive flexplates, entwined with bicycle style chain. I don't think those go together.

Off to one side they have the hemi powered steam tractor. Every few minutes it does a blast of steam from it's stack.

A closer inspection reveals that it appears to be a genuine hemi engine!!! I was getting the closer shot for the Monster Energy coil cover.

I would have liked to see the show, "Kwerk" that they have in the GearWorks Theatre, but it wasn't going on while we were in the area. They've got that, the old (relatively) Scream coaster, and the flagship Twisted Colossus in the area. Needs MORE, I think.

They do have a new sandwich shop and a gift stand, too, but I still say more...

SO, about that Twisted Colossus... Last year for my birthday they closed down the Colossus coaster. It still held it's own in my opinion, with an awesome drop and great air time whoops, but it was old and a rough ride. I always think all they have to do is put new bearings or wheels on these old coasters, but I'm no expert.

Shortly after, they announced they were going to re-make it. Nice. While they were working on it, it caught on fire!!! From that point, I always thought they should re-title it the Phoenix, but no, they went with Twisted Colossus.

More Steam Punk theming on the line going in, and the coaster cars themselves.

It used to have two tracks, but they changed that... kinda. Now it makes one circuit of the track, and comes back for a second trip through on the other track!!! Two times through for the wait of one!!! Good deal!!!

Seems like it doesn't have quite the drop of the old one, but it now has twisted barrel roll inversions, and several of what they call "High Five" effects, where you're opposite the other train. Oh, and SMOOTH like a dream!!! Probably my #2 favorite coaster now, behind the always epic X2 (which we didn't make it on again... from this point on, don't know if I'll be able to make it again, they're calendar doesn't have many Fridays, my off day).

AND!!! on the way out, I found on the ground my very own Steam Punk Souvenir!!!

Oinkster's Burger Week 2015

I've made mention in a few other mentions about Oinkster in Eagle Rock, including a post chronicling my first visit back in 2007. The place is a little pricey, but totally worth it. This year, they were having (though not for the first time, just the first time on my radar) Burger Week in the first week of June. This year all the creations are inspired by movies and television, a different one each day. Buy all seven, & you get a T-shirt. You know I'm a sucker for a T-shirt!!! Challenge accepted!!! I'd been planning on doing it all solo, but I told my wife about it, and she wanted in on it, too. OK, my free T-shirt price just doubled!!! Coulda been worse, though, if the firstborn wasn't off in boot camp!!!

This meant that after getting off work and going home to get my wife, it's after 8 by the time we get there. Even at that hour, there is still a line going out the door and around the side of the building. Burger week brought 'em out in droves!!! So, it's kind of late by the time I eat, but I'm good and hungry for it. I missed getting a shot of the first day's burger, the Krusty Klogger, from the SImpson's movie. Ironically, that was the catylist for this post. Took one of my random, use 'em up, vacation days today, and FXX had The Simpsons Movie on, and I had to watch it. It's a double cheeseburger (homemade cheese) with bacon, bourbon-bacon jam, bacon dressing and even a side of pork rind dust!!! It was a worthy burger, and for all what's on it, a fairly pretty good deal. Of course, we had to get an order of fries and extra of their incredible garlic aioli sauce!!!

Day two they have the Atomic Hot Pepper burger from Dumb & Dumber. I was a bit worried about this one, sounds SUPER spicy!!! It has a HUGE cheddar-filled jalapeño popper, marinated red peppers, housemade chorizo nacho cheese, chipotle-garlic aioli, shredded lettuce, chopped onion and tomato. The first few bites I managed to avoid the popper, and it wasn't prohibitively spicy, actually VERY tasty. Finally, I bit the bullet & bit into the jalapeño popper... Nope!!! My mouth is on FIRE!!! I had to tap out and remove it to finish that burger, so I fudged a little on eating every burger in it's entirety. My wife, however, is a fiend for spicy, so she ate all of hers... which ended up being her undoing. The next day she had a doctor's appointment, and he advised her to cut out a lot of the bread in her diet to help lower her blood sugar, and the jalapeño had made her sick to her stomach all day. She bowed out after the second day, making it so I could head over directly from work and not be eating quite so late at night.

Day three has Bet it all on Black Garlic from Bob's Burgers. Black garlic cream cheese, black garlic aioli, onion and mixed baby greens on a black garlic butter-toasted black burger bun. You know how I feel about garlic!!! Not only was this possibly the most visually stunning of the week, I think it may have been my favorite. Without my wife along, I ended up taking my younger son, so didn't save any time getting over there. He's not much of an adventurous eater, but he'll have one of their pulled pork sandwiches, albeit without the purple slaw on it. He loves his chili fries, so we got an order of those, a first for me. Why would I deviate from their Belgian fries & garlic aioli???

Day four has the Ulti-Meatum from The Regular Show, one of my favorite shows. This sounded like it was going to be one of my top favorites in burgers, too. On this burger there's pastrami, pulled pork, Swiss cheese, blue cheese cole slaw and Himalayan ketchup. Don't even know what Himalayan ketchup is!!! It was pretty good, but it didn't wow me like I thought it would. DId I over hype it in my mind??? Maybe. This time I picked up some of their Piggy fries, kind of like In-N-Out's animal fries, only better.

Day five was a pair of Red Castle Sliders from Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. OK, like the movie, and it's a decent concept, but in my opinion it was about the most pedestrian burger of the week. Also, it was the best price of Burger Week. This was my day off, and my wife accompanied me on this run again. She opted for their Chinese chicken salad, and declared it great.

Day six was the Big Kahuna burger from Pulp Fiction. It had charred pineapple, kalbi-marinated Spam, kimchi pickles, green curry mayo and teriyaki sauce, and it was delicious!!! I'd thought they would have gone with the Royale with cheese, since that is mentioned in that movie in a few places, but they've already got a Royale on their menu, and I think it would exceed the one described in the movie. Also thought they should have done a promo shake that day, the "I've like to know what a five dollar shake tastes like" shake.

For the final day, they had the Krabby Patty from SpongeBob Squarepants. It has a crab AND shrimp patty and cocktail and tartar sauce, butter lettuce and tomato. My wife also got in on that one, too, against her doctor's advice.

And there's my wrist full of wristbands, reflected in their window (while waiting in line) on the last day.

Also got their Burger Week cupcake on the last day. Pretty visual, and tasty, too. Quite a bit like a twinkie in flavor.

A shot of the Piggy Fries. Tasty, but I think I'll stick with the Belgian fries & garlic aioli!!!

So I ate seven days worth of burger week, spent something like $95, and all I got was this freakin' awesome shirt!!! Well, that's not all, I got a belly full of tasty food every night, and, as I always appreciate, a good story to go with it!!!

The Better Part

Back from this year's vacation, and not only did we have the Six Flags Fail, but there were also other monumental failures. But, instead of going on about those, I'm going to hit some of the high points from the trip in this post!!!

The primary reason we'd gone to the Chicago area, the older boy's pass in review ceremony from boot camp!!! My parents also came out for it, and this is at lunch we all went to afterwards. Good to see him!!!

In the O'hare airport, he had the world in his hands!!! That, and a rather cool light-streak effect!!!

Found out the next day, that just a ways up from there, there's a bronze Fonz statue in Milwaukee!!! Just like in National Lampoon's "Vacation", we had to make the side trip to see it!!!

I realized in retrospect, our trip was quite like that movie, including Six Flags reprising it's role as a huge disappointment!!!

And, finally, Giordano's Pizza, truly worthy of it's own post!!!