412 thoughts on “U70

  1. uuuuuhhhhh. I have this thing at work that has to be signed off on before the end of the month. All of my alternate signers are off until Tuesday. All of their superiors are also off. I finally reached someone, one of the VP’s of the company. You don’t know how polite my e-mail was requesting him to do this. It felt strange going so high up to get a such a low level thing done.

  2. I have a very strange hubby. He decided to get a Facebook account the other day. He has no friends on it and will refuse any friend requests, even from people he knows. He doesn’t want to be bugged, he just wants to access some things that seem to be on facebook only. (like the behind the scenes stuff for the Hobbit, some stuff from one of the Warhammer podcast he listens to, etc.). I know of at least two of our friends who asked to be his FB friend and he said no. When we saw them in person recently he explained, more or less, what I did. They think he’s funny too.

    • I “get” him.

      I had (I guess I still do) an account because it seemed the best way to keep up with a race car driver I like.
      I didn’t do the “friending” thing because I didn’t have time for all the social.
      In the end, apparently my driver didn’t either as there were seldom ever any updates.
      So I haven’t been to facebook in a loooong time. I’m not sure I can even remember my password to sign on anymore.

    • “justa J0e
      December 28, 2011 at 10:45 pm · Reply
      http://tinyurl.com/c9wsn4s
      What an steller douche bag!

      This is the guy from the yesterday’s email tirade link.
      Key quotes from his “I’m sorry” interview –

      “I didn’t know who that guy at Penny Arcade was,” he admitted. “If I had known, I would have treated the situation a little better.”
      – So … unless you can do something for him, expect to be treated like crap.

      “At the end of the day, I’m a human being, and it feels like the entire world was bullying me,”
      – Bullying him? Has he gone back and read what he wrote? This is a case of reaping what he hath sown.

      “They’ve pretty much ruined me in the past 24 hours,” Christoforo said.
      – At the end of it all, it’s still the rest of the world’s fault. “They’ve ruined him”. The only thing he’s sorry for is that it came back to bite him. He takes no real responsibility for creating this mess … and he claims to be a PR guy.

      BTW, some enterprising web denizen has already found (and posted a link to) the police record of the domestic violence charge against him. Not that hard to believe if you read his e-mail responses.”

  3. Van, re: Christmas card shoutout above: You’re welcome!

    Cj, re: Secret Santa present: You’re welcome! I’m glad you like it! It didn’t leak in the shipping box, did it?

    Bunny: Thank you for my Secret Santa present! I’m planning on enjoying my hot cocoa tonight. 🙂

  4. Good morning, :panties:

    I’m 45 minutes away from finishing BSG during my morning workouts. I guess it was a 2011 thing! I really do not remember these last several episodes at all, and I’m really enjoying them.

    For 2012: LOST. At least for the first several months. 42 minutes a day x 5 days a week, carry the # of episodes = I dunno how long it’ll take.

    CW: The Thing before going to Evil, which has been especially evil of late.

    Kissies, all y’all.

  5. And we’re heading out for a quick overnight trip to San Antonio. My son hasn’t seen the lights on the river before and it seems we’re never able to make it. They keeps the lights up until New Year’s, so we’re taking advantage.

    Be Deadpan to each other.

  6. Personal stats for the year:
    Books read: 40
    Graphic novels read: 28
    Movies watched: 45
    TV series watched: 49 (mostly anime)
    Games played: 7
    Songs listened to: 13871

  7. Impressive list, ditto! I’d have to go through my blog to count up books read, and I think I have you beat on TV series, or at least tied.

    Anyone have any BEST OF 2011 picks for music/movies/TV/books?

    • I was curious about that myself.
      I’d love to here what the “best new to you” thing was that all of you found this year. In any and all categories. Maybe it was a best new beer or best new band or song, maybe the best new to you book.

    • The book count covers all genres, since I read tech books, non-fiction, as well as novels. The only reason I split out graphic novels–this is the first year for that–is that it I felt it threw the number out of whack.

  8. Here’s mine:

    Books: (most of the books I read in 2011 weren’t published in 2011, but this is my favorites among 2011 books) Area 51 – Ann ____ LA Times writer, Malcolm X bio – Manning Marable, The Sacred Band – David Anthony Durham, Dance with Dragons – GRRM

    Albums: Wild Flag

    TV Series: Homeland, Treme, Nurse Jackie, The Killing (U.S. and Danish!), The Good Wife

    I’m sure I’m forgetting lots . . .

  9. 2011 is a blur.

    The best album of the year was Devin Townsend Project’s “Deconstruction”. Brilliant, although heavier than most would find tolerable.
    I did a few TV series this year, but The Wire was my favorite.
    Best movie… The Killing Fields.

  10. I have to admit that I’m desperately going to enjoy the next four days of nobody calling me a douchebag.

    Seriously… those are small bags filled with warm water.

    I’m a large bag filled with love.

    how do they not see the difference?

  11. Well back from seeing the US version of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, much better than I was expecting, and the ending explained Lisbeth’s relationship with the Journalist better than the swedish film.

    Haven’t read many book this years, so would have to say ‘Infidel’ by Kameron Hurley, even if it was rather flawed.

    Music, nothing new all old.

  12. I’d say my 3 favorite albums from this year, in no particular order, are:
    Wild Flag’s debut album
    The Joy Formidable’s “The Big Roar”
    Florence + The Machine’s “Ceremonials”

    Special mention has to go to Bio-Digital Jazz’s Tron Legacy remixes, in particular the Bio-Digital Jazz Edition released in March. I haven’t listened to the new one released earlier this month.

    Special mention also has to go to Valve and their Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory for releasing 3 volumes! of the Portal 2 soundtrack for free.

    And my favorite older album added this year is Lykke Li’s “Wounded Rhymes” released last year.

    Finally kudos to Lo Pan for properly introducing me to Tegan & Sara. I still have to properly explore their collection.

  13. I think my favourite book I read this year was Hellhole by Kevin J Anderson and Brien Herbert. Although Reamde by Neal Stephenson came a close second

    Music..hmmm. I don’t think I have a favourite song. Same with movies. I have trouble remembering what I saw earlier in the year and am too lazy to go back, either in my mind or physically, to figure it out

  14. My Favorite book this year was a tie between Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games” trilogy, and Mira Grant’s “Deadline”, the sequel to “Feed”.

    Probably my least favorite book was “How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe” by Charles Yu.

    As for Anime, it was a great year. The best were “Gosick”, “Ano Hana”, “Steins; Gate”, “Usagi Drop”, “Madoka Magica”, “Working!!”, and “Chihayafuru”.

    Avoid “Dragon Crisis” and “Level E”.

  15. Favorite books from the past year

    I also loved Hunger games
    I read Conn Iggulden’s Genghis Khan series which was excellent
    Justin Cronin The Passage
    The latest Harry Dresden – Ghost Story was really good
    I discovered Ken Follett as an author, really loved Jackdaws, Pillars of the Earth
    There was a good historical fiction series about Rome by Steven Saylor i really enjoyed too
    Just finished reading Steve Jobs biography and loved it

    Favorite Albums from the past year:

    Project Pitchfork – Quantum Mechanics
    Ohgr – Undeveloped
    Massive Attack – Heliogoland
    The Kills – Bloodpressure
    PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
    Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps

  16. TV for the year –
    I think “American Horror Story” became my favorite “new” show.
    “30 Rock” continued to make me laugh out loud at least once every episode so maybe it should be my favorite.

  17. Reaper: Thanks for posting the link to the “Do you own too many guitars?” flowchart on the last show. I sent the link to my dad, who is also a guitar enthusiast, and he laughed out loud. 🙂

  18. I hope the “Deadpan Secretary” is collecting all these favorites in a chart.
    What?
    No Deadpan Secretary!?!

    We need to bring this up with the Board immediately.

    What!?!
    No Deadpan Board!!!!

  19. Booze acquired to see in the new year (Bailey’s).

    A very picky friend has bought a single malt to see in the new year.

    ..and and old crate of Stella Artois for a less discerning friend.

    Crap joke alert (spotted by NS on twitter):

    Why did Bilbo resist the power of the one ring for so long?

    Because old hobbits are hard to break.

  20. So let’s see,
    been thinking about new music and the only new ones I can recall are Nikki Yanofsky’s self tittled CD (young Canadian, jazz singer phenom), Jamie Cullum’s “Pointless Nastalgic” (jazz/coffee house singer)and The Vocal Majority’s “12 Days of Christmas” (Barbershop Chorus).
    The two singers were “okay”.
    The Barbershop group is amazing! The tightness of their singing is remarkable.

    In the “not new to me” department,
    I got the new TMBG Album “Join Us”. I was underwhelmed.
    I also picked up The Bare Naked Ladies “Snack Time” which is silly, fun and frequently makes me laugh.

  21. What are you all doing for New Years’ Eve? I know Van’s drinking Bailey’s, but what else?

    We’re watching the UK Prime Suspect – we started Series 1 last night and are enjoying it so far! We love the US version lots.

  22. We’re back from our whirlwind trip. Heading out to my Sister-in-laws for their traditional New Year’s Eve party. You know we’re getting old when it’s all our kids jumping about in the hot tub and us adults are hanging out inside. 🙂 I’ll probably play some Texas Hold’em tonight and lose a few bucks to some kinfolk.

    Best of 2011?
    Well, looking at my music rotation, I’ll have to go with the Tron remixes. The official “Reconfigured” one has grown on me quite a bit, though there are a few tracks that are absolutely unlistenable. The unnofical “Bio-Digital Jazz” and “Perfect System” editions have also been competing heavily with audiobooks for my drive time listening. Sounds like there may even be another that I need to check out.

    Books – Haven’t gotten around to The Hunger Games yet, so that may have to wait for my best of 2012 list. When my left wing and right wings friends agree on a book series, that is to strong a recommendation to ignore.

    As for what I did read/listen to – I have to give high marks to the first two Hyperion books, which were new to me. The two Endymion books didn’t follow through on the promise and I didn’t care much for all the retconning. Despite it bogging down some in the middle, I found “Keynes Hayek” and fascinating read. Considering it was about the life and influence of a pair of economists in the 20th century, it made for a compelling narrative and provided me with a lot of insight into why both left and right oriented economists think the way they do. Looking back on my audible history, I see this was also the year of plowing through all of GRR Martin. I can recommend the first book without qualification. I wasn’t as keen on the latest two where he split the story up to cover the same timeline in both books with the different groups of characters.

    TV and Movies? Not a lot sticks out in my head, though things like “Dark Matters” and “How it’s Made” on the Science Channel have been one’s I’ve enjoyed. Punkin Chunkin was again a hit this year in the from Texas household.

  23. I’ve also got to give the big endorsement for Skyrim. While they are very different types of fantasy games, I do think Skyrim delivered far better than Dragon Age 2 did for 2011.

    Though, I’ve read that Bioware indicates that they are learning some lessons from Skyrim that they will apply for Dragon Age 3. Honesty, with Bioware’s exceptional story telling and character building crossed with Bethesda’s massive world building could result in the kind of perfection in gaming that might signal that we’re ready for the end of the world as there’s just nothing more to be done 🙂

  24. Hello Vanamonde! …. come in Vanamonde!
    Can you hear us? … How is the future? … can you tell us what next year is like? … come in Vanamonde …

    I’m afraid I can’t reach him.
    Perhaps the world DOES end in 2012.

  25. We went to a party and left early because my wife wasn’t feeling well. Now I will watch Akira with my daughter until midnight rolls around. Oh, and I’m drinking champagne tonight.

  26. Well I’m at approximately T minus 30 minutes to midnight here in Oklahoma. As I text the lovely CJ, and help my little sister clean her room.

    To end he year I’m drinking Ommegang’s Adoration their special edition Winter Ale, a delicious beer. The yeast is more understated than normal for belgian beers, allowing the cherries to shine in the front for both the aroma and flavor. Sweet caramel and slightly burnt sugar augments the cherry with a slight bitterness from hops to cleanse the palate.

    As for my new year beer, that you’ll have to wait a bit for. 😀

  27. Hey, Deadpan!

    I’m having a really fun New Year’s Eve. I went to a Saturday evening church service, for which everyone was encouraged to dress up a little because we had our own New Year’s Eve party afterward (even though it was only about 6:00 PM). I drank champagne. After we got all the party food and drinks cleaned up and put away, I came home and had dinner with my parents, then we went out to our city’s New Year’s Eve celebration. It was better than ever! Here in Temecula, we drop a big bunch of grapes during our countdown to the New Year (because we live in wine country). This year, they dropped them from the top of City Hall (instead of just using a freestanding crane), and had a big “2012” on the front of City Hall that lit up at the end of the countdown. We were there for the East Coast countdown – they always do one countdown at midnight East Coast time (9 PM our time) for families with kids and others who don’t want to stay out that late, and a second countdown at midnight our time. The City also pipes party music over the Old-Town-wide sound system, has an ice skating rink set up, and has live music in outdoor areas. We got to listen to a live swing band before the countdown and watch people dance. We had a lot of fun. 🙂

    Going home now – have to work on some recordings-for-hire. I will probably stay up until midnight doing that. Happy New Year, Deadpan! 🙂

  28. Good morning, Pan. Come one, come all to the first last and only 2012! This offer available for a limited time only! Once it’s gone, it’s gone! You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.

  29. So Akira was pretty damn good. We had a hard time understanding the ending, but I think the plot summary on Wikipedia cleared it up for me. Definitely a good way to bring in the year.

  30. Besides working, being the first of the month I’m doing all my computer clean up as will. Doing a backup as we type.

  31. Dexter season 6 finished. I think I agree to an extent with Van with a semi-underwhelmed feeling. Save for the last 20 seconds or so. That made the year for me.

  32. So, the first day of 2012 was half-immersed in packing hell, half-spent with good people and incredible food. In addition to the usuals, Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway (of Balticon fame) plus their ERF were in town.

    Apparently, they refer to the Balticon I attended 4 years ago as “Jack’s Balticon”. I don’t know if I should be proud or perturbed by this news.

    Goodnight :ancient history:

  33. It actually drives hubby nuts when I play music this way. I, obviously, like to take all the music in my i-tunes and hit shuffle. He’d rather pick a genre and play it. He can’t handle the music whiplash. :silly:

  34. I’ve decided my hubby is a typical man. He got a wedding invitation the other day from one of his co-workers for a wedding in early April. This will be a fully traditional Ismaili wedding. So when I saw the invite I asked, a) what kind of wear will be expected of the guests (being a traditional wedding, I wanted to make sure we didn’t wear a colour and garb that would be out of place); and b) are they registered anywhere? my hubby just shrugs his shoulders. I then ask him to ask since he sees her just about every day and I’m lucky if I see her once a month. Still nothing. I may have to go over his head and contact the bride myself since hubby is being way too male about the whole thing.

  35. Saw a lot of movies over the holiday, two at the cinema and the rest on DVD.

    I really enjoyed the new Sherlock Holmes, less so the new Mission Impossible, but it was entertaining. Limitless was a pleasant surprise, watched that one with the folks who also really liked it.

    Rounding out the rest:
    XMEN First Class
    Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    Jaws
    the J.J. Abrams Star Trek
    Harry Potter – Deathly Hollows Part 2

  36. Why is nobody in today? I’ve made three different calls to three different places and haven’t got a person once. What’s even stranger is, on two of them, I didn’t even get a machine. The phone just rang and rang. I wish I could skip work today too.

  37. 🙁
    My new Photoshop-like program (Pixelmator) has quit working. Seems maybe it was never meant to be used with the new Mac OS. Which doesn’t explain why it worked BEAUTIFULLY for a week.

    *sigh*
    I guess I will be the old timer that sits in the back of the coffee shop saying “I remember when Macintoshes used to work… now a days? We’re all goin to hell!!!”

  38. Excellent evening. Walked to Manneken Fritas and got some fries to go, then went next door to the Arvada Brewing Company where they not only have choice delicious brews for the adults, but crafted root beer and a wide selection of board games for the kids. My better better half and I enjoyed 5 of their 8 brews while battling the kids at Candyland, Guess Who, and Hangman.

    We dont often get nice, strife free nites like this, so twas quite a blessing.

    Now listening to “Oh No! Its Devo!.” So good.

    /memememememememmemememememememememe

  39. I have 29 tracks on my iPod containing the word “bone”.
    167 containing “qu”.
    7 containing “battle”.
    95 containing “fun” (80 of those are for tracks with the word “funk”).

  40. “After a poor showing in Tuesday night’s Iowa caucus, Michele Bachmann announced that she will be ending her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
    Following her announceme­nt she unhinged her lower jaw and ate 3 of her volunteer staff members.”

  41. I got my property tax assessment today. The city says my house is worth $30,000 than it was last year. Since I’m not planning to sell in the near future, I guess I can call it a win as my property taxes are now going to be a tiny bit less.

  42. Well, I’ve only been under the stairs a half hour and I already foresee a… discussion hubby and I will be having.

    I found. pretty much, all our VHS tapes. We haven’t had a VHS player in years so have no way of watching these. The issue I foresee is, this collection includes the entire Original Star Trek and Next Gen Star Trek series. Yes we have the enhanced versions in both DVD and Blu Ray (for the original series anyway) but, knowing hubby, that won’t matter. We also have the complete Monkees TV series. How do I tell him we need to get rid of these?

  43. And for those of you who don’t read my Facebook (and why don’t you? I’m very interesting) here’s my lunch report:

    http://www.coalburger.com/ is where we went and I had the BBQ Burger – Chipotle bbq sauce, cole slaw, and cheddar cheese on a 1/3 lb burger cooked very very rare. It was actually rare enough for even me! And! Sweet potato fries!

    It’s important to note that I’m trying to keep my protein intake at or over 60g per day for health reasons. Yesterday I maxed out at 72 (first day) today I’m already at 42 thanks to my delicious and overpriced burger. The boss paid, and I appreciate it 🙂

  44. Took the kids to see Hugo.

    Sarah loved it, I loved it… Fletcher is still 6 years old. It’s really long for a kid that age to sit through. I’d like to play back a conversation had during the movie. (Disclaimer: If I did text during the movie, I kept my phone all the way down inside my blouse so as not to disturb other patrons with the light.)

    Scene: Watching movie.
    Fletcher: Mommy, I have to poo.
    Me: Right now? Can you hold it?
    Fletcher: I don’t know. Is it almost over.
    Me text to LostRalph: How long is this movie?
    LostRalph: That bad huh? 2 hours 6 minutes
    Me: It’s good. Fletcher has to poo.
    LostRalph: Oh, bad timing.
    Me: Fletcher, do you want to go to the bathroom? There is almost an hour left.
    Fletcher: No. I can hold it.

    Fletcher then lies down and goes to sleep.

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