539 thoughts on “Jack Mangan’s Deadpan #128: Wolfpan Jack”

  11. Well I’m off to see the new Terminator flick, the reviews have been less than glowing, but want to see for myself.

  13. Happy Birthday Nomad!

    I too just follow someone else’s lead on these things. I have trouble enough following birthdays in Meatspace.

  18. Well, that’s still better than GM, Toyota, or Honda. We’re probably still going to get stiffed on any kind of bailout/stimulus for Deadpan.

  27. TEB – What happened last June, were we more gregarious then in May or did we become coy and coquettish?

    (sorry, I had some extra words I needed to bring out and dust off)

  34. It’s “Potluck” as in Evil, Inc is too cheap to allow me to take my employees out for occasions, so everyone brings a dish of bleh to share. The evil part is that we’re having it at all!

    Sigh. Well, I must go to work now. Have a great day, panites. (TEB, whenever you write that, I read “panties” and think WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST CALL ME??? and then I read it again and think, “oh.”)

  37. Cj: As a very long into the future heads up. Will you be willing to do DP notes during one week in August? I won’t be able to do them when I’m at WorldCon.

  39. Let’s not capitalize it. I have the same “mistaken word identity” that EssBee does with that word … in my case though, I LIKE IT!!!!
    (“panties!!! er what? Oh panites. hehehehehe good one.)

  40. Listening to Evo@11. I have the same problem with whiskey sours as Shelia has with margaritas. You never really know what you’re actually going to get from place to place.

  46. Lots of responses…

    TEB: Good job on the show notes! And no, I’m not stalking you. 😉

    Happy birthday, NS!!!

    Snow Crash could be fun, but I think we need something low brow after Watchmania.

    I vote for Panties too. The wolf would like that. *pant*

    *cough*

  57. So, what, is it “Lejon goes to bed late after fixing his laptop, and another Deadpan drops” day? (#behind_again – Stupid octothorpe tag)

    Oh, and Happy B-Day NS – many happy returns (assuming your merch is fragged and still under warranty)

    Jack – Backstroke of the West made for the best morning at work ever – well, maybe in the last month – I lose track of these things. I don’t make now my time.

    Vanamonde: RE: My Laptop – I was stupid or EXTREMELY tired, because I formatted C:, instead of the drive I was aiming at.

    TEB: I don’t know who you are on facebook, but I’m always a fan of black cocktail dresses. And you can go without panites if you like.

    ditto: Ditto (I know, it’s been done – Never said I was original, and besides, I’m making up for lost time)

  65. Just passed a billboard saying “Oklahoma the parking meter was invented in this Great State.”…

    I feel like I need to perform some sort of penance now.

  66. Actually Lejon, my knowing your initials was just a coincidence. Simply a lazy shortening of your Deadpan name

    Lejon = LeJon = LJ

  67. Thanks for the link TEB, and I’m always proud of you 😉

    Low brow palooza, I’ll be the stuck record on the deadpan and ask for Flash Gordon, it’s got loads of moments we can have a good laugh over.

  70. Flash Gordon is classic and it’s definitely been a long time since I last saw it.

    Someone also mentioned Princess Bride during some conversation I remember. It would give me an excuse to actually watch the entire movie.

  71. Cj: David Carradine was a weird guy. Bat-Shit crazy (so I’ve heard). He will, however, be missed. Moment of silence for Quai Chang Cane

    —–

    That should do it.

    TEB: I have joined the group. My name should be painfully obvious. It is to me, anyway.
    I never considered that abbreviation for just my first name. It sure beats my other nicknames.

  74. So I ordered a new SSD and 2gig ram module upgrades for my Netbook from two separate companies..sod’s law was inaction and the much easier to fit ram module has arrived first.

    To wait or not to wait that is the question.

  77. LJ, I sent you a friends request.

    Now off to the store. Hubby e-mailed me,he needs 500 Popsicle sticks… Ahh, the life of a teacher’s wife.

  79. Every news report gets weirder.
    First he was just found dead.
    Then he was found dead having hanged himself.
    Then he had rope around other parts of his body as well as his neck.
    And finally – he’s naked.
    Why?

    ugh. Each report is worse than the next.

  80. Actually the title of this weeks episode suggests:

    Das Boot

    The series or the cutdown movie release.

    Subtitled would be the preferred option.

  92. I can’t figure out where the +o goes.

    That always makes me crazy. When you just throw random +letters around and I can’t put them anywhere!

  98. Interesting …
    If you go to google.com and enter “Tiananmen Square” you get an untold number of hits.
    If you go to google.cn (the Chinese google) and enter “Tiananmen Square” you get one hit.

    The voice of freedom is wiley though … students have apparently put all the same info up but under slightly different titles. If you search google.cn for “Tiananmen riot” you find all the information that was carefully removed from the search term “Tiananmen Square”.
    … at least for the time being.

  99. The local radio station use to have a contest. They would have women call in and then would give them words to spell that had O’s in them (like cookie). The idea was, the one that gave the best version of spelling the word out, would win what ever the prize was for that week.

    It was actually quite amusing.

  100. I know the Chinese government has blocked access to Twitter and other networking sites but, in today’s age of global information, I’m still sometimes surprised governments even try. It’s not like people can’t find out with a simple click of a button.

  111. Also, the top of my left foot is now almost 1/3 purple in color. I must have broken something inside there for it to turn that much of my foot purple. Really – I merely dropped a can on it.

  119. My 5-year-old daughter is playing a video game and she just said, “Sometimes you get a little dead, but it’s ok because it’s a fun game.”

  130. You know, I’m not sure that celebrity deaths are quite the thing we need to fire up the comment count

    ….well, maybe if we get to nominate the celebrites

    wth?

  131. Now that ditto mentions it, that’s a good point. It would probably be nice to have something lowbrow to balance out Watchmania. I also like the idea of doing an album, but, as always, I’m up for anything.

  138. I’m tired at 9pm. So weird. I’m going to go read a book. I do not foresee returning to the comment board tonight unless insomnia takes over.

    Let’s root for Cj and not insomnia!

    Night, Pan.

  140. It doesn’t taste as nice as whipped cream.

    Morning Pan, the rain has arrived..woot!

    Big Brother is starting again..time to go into TV avoidance mode.

  142. I am standing up at the
    water’s edge in my dream
    I cannot make a single
    sound as you scream
    it can’t be that cold,
    the ground is still warm
    to touch
    this place is so quiet,
    sensing that storm

  150. Okay, so a quick glance through the comments and I see “Panties” and “DP”. How can you go wrong?

    I cannot go to AZ, due to a multitude of reasons. If ever there’s a get-together in CT I could perhaps do that. (What, doesn’t the world revolve around me?)

    I will +1 the Snow Crash vote. Largely because I am ashamed to say I’ve not yet read it. It would force me to move it up in my queue. I’ll just have to postpone finishing The Best of 2600.

  152. Morning Pan!

    How are we this wet windy morning?

    The good news… they retracted the snow forecast and have turned it to just rain. Woo Hoo.

  154. So as I was walking this morning, the rain was heavy and the joggers many.

    So I wonder what sort of weather would stop them in their tracks.

  155. Joggers are insane, Van. I’ve seen them (and power walkers) here in temperatures as cold as – 20 C. they do seem to be scarce as we get closer to the -40 mark, though.

  158. Woo Hoo! Only at my desk an hour and it looks like I might be done for the day. Maybe I should frolic in the rain as celebration.

  159. I’ve resisted all week but I guess, when I go out shopping today, I might give in to my baser desires and pick up Sims 3.

    Have already pre-ordered Overlord 2, which comes out in a couple of weeks.

  165. Well, quiet here at home so I guess I’m going to go grocery shopping. Then must figure out what kind of cookies to bake.

  167. Good morning.

    Ed, I’ll happily kiss Wil Wheaton for you (or anyone else) anytime! Getting Wil’s permission might be a problem. Suddenly I envision myself being escorted roughly out of the next Phoenix Comicon.

  168. So… I fell asleep rather quickly last night and slept and slept and slept. Eight full hours.

    I’m all caught up for the next few weeks! w00t!

  175. WNDRWolf: Hey, perhaps they could serve some sort of beverage which by imbibing one could be put into a state of relaxation where one wouldn’t care about flying children (or pigs, for that matter). They could charge a modest fee, and the beverage itself could come in a variety of boring, yet overpriced and pleasant-ish flavors.

    I believe that Asimov came up with a term for this product (he created it for space-travel) Spaceline… Somehow, looking back on it, I don’t like that name.

  178. Home from play group.

    Good to see you are home safe, WNDRwolf. We miss you already!

    All morning I’ve thought of nothing more than thinking up sneaky ways to get close enough to Whhhhil Whhheaton to give him wet sloppy kisses.

    *swooon*

  180. Cj Perhaps the “sloppy” bit is about making a statement. Like when you leave a puppy alone and they tear up your house: That’s a statement that they’re lonely. “Sloppy kisses” might equate to some sort of message.

    I guess we’d have to plumb the depths of Ed’s mind to figure out what that message is, though.

  191. Example Lejon?

    So the new SSD has arrived, now I need to clone my current drive to the new on, swap the SSDs and Bob’s your Uncle.

  194. Van: Passenger 57, Catwoman, Roadhouse, Starski & Hutch, Commando, Project X

    All showing in the next 5 days.

    Now, they do have a lot of decent movies in their line up – I just find it hard to call many of them “classic”. I mean seriously “Catwoman” and “Starski & Hutch”? I suppose they’re GOING to be classic pieces of crap, SOMEDAY.

  198. I should probably avoid sharing any of the thoughts I’m having today. My mind is not just wading in, but deep-see-diving into the depths of the gutter. Therefore, in order to create the illusion that I’m actually a “lady” I will restrain myself.

  203. Soooo a conundrum has happened.

    Download Clone software, cloned my original SSD to new SSD.

    Swapped SSDs, rebooted to find the cloned drive has 2 gig less used space than the old one.

    Everything I’ve installed appears to work, so can’t for the life of me figure out what was occupying 2gigs of space on the old SSD.

    I feel like I’ve took a clock apart, put it back together and notice that there are some bits left.

  211. My thoughts run along similar lines, Van. I’d bet your old drive had an extra partition that may not have gotten copied over.

    How many files/folders do you have on the C: drive on the new vs. the old? If those numbers match, you are probably in good shape.

  212. Well, if luck works for me, the wife and I will be picking up Palm Pre’s tomorrow. In researching it’s syncing with Google Gmail and Calendar, we decided to look into the Calendar tool (we already use Gmail).

    I must confess, we’ve become quite enamored with it. We’ve each got our own calenders as well as one for each of the kids (between birthday parties, field trips, and various sports, they have a lot going on).

    With the permissions setup as we have them, both my wife and I can see all of the calendars and can edit any of them. If we end up getting the Pre, that functionality will then extend to the Pre’s as well.

    Yes, I’m geeking over an organization tool…..I’m an engineer, no question about it.

  213. Ed, I currently use 30 Boxes for my calender, but I’m considering moving to Google’s since more people use it. I’m pretty hooked on my 30 Boxes though and I fear change. /cower

  215. Morning Pan, must admit it’s the apps that will probably keep me tied to the iPhone, however tempting the Pre looks.

    Of course once the Pre gets a decent ebook reader and some games..that may change (I don’t use googlemail or calender).

    Ed and LR you maybe right, the number of files on each SSD seem to be the same, so probably a hidden partition.

  216. My wee eee had a hidden partition for recovering if I tossed the system, but I removed that the first time I installed a GNU/Linux variant. If I am remembering correctly, and that is highly unlikely, it was about 700megs?

  221. Q. What did the Scottish scientists name their first successful attempt to create a clone from Elvis’ DNA ?

    A: They called him the “Wee Eee”.

    Sorry. That’s all I got.

  223. On the upside, mom and I had an argument a bit ago (as kids and parents do), but mom realized she was in the wrong so she sent me one of these as an apology

    http://www.ediblearrangements.com/Arrangements/Arrangement_Detail.aspx?ID=112&OrderType=1&CountryID=1&StateID=&City=&Zip=&Date=&Category=&Occasion=29

    It’s pretty big and I had to remove a shelf from my fridge to make room. I guess I’ll have to freeze some of the fruit and use it as smoothies.

  231. As I told Van on FB (in response to a question on whether or not we actually get summer),

    “Last week we did get temperatures in the mid 20s C. June is considered our wet month. That’s when we’ll get most of our rain and the occasional wet snow. July and Aug will be nice, with even a few days pushing 40. (although we have had snow in these months too). Being so close to the mountains, our weather tends to vary a fair bit.”

  234. Snow?

    We are going to the “outside mall” today to spend my Sephora gift card! Wheeee! Crazy thing is that we have to dress appropriately with sunscreen and carry water because it’s hot and the misters will be running to keep us cool.

    And you have snow.

    🙂

  239. The only Mister I saw was the one that made my hair go flat.

    I did buy girlie girlie things at Sephora. I’m going to be extra sparkly!

  245. Thanks, Van.

    Managed to score one for myself and the wife. I stick to my intial call of 95% pure awesome. It’s different, it’s not perfect, but it is cool and useful.

  247. Morning Pan, I’m bloody impressed with this Dell Mini 9 and how easy it is to upgrade for a Netbook. Ram and SSD upgraded very easily and now I find out I can buy a cheap wifi card that will bump the wifi to Draft N…cool.

    cough

  249. NS – the keyboard is small, but I’m having no problems with hitting the keys that I intend. The only thing that bugs me a bit is the placement of the Orange key that invokes the numbers – it’s very close to where the numbers themselves are, making two handed number entry a bit of a chore. However, the number keys are automatically locked on when entering a field (like a phone number) that only accepts digits, so that’s not so bad. Mostly an issue for entering passwords.

    Nice job on the netbook, Van. Have you noticed much better performance with the extra RAM?

  250. Interesting article, Van. Though I would tend to disagree with your friend. It feels like we’ve been inundated with stories in recent decades decrying the lack of female achievement in academics and the work place.

    What we’re not likely to see as a followup to this story are the ones asking what needs to be done to get the boys to catch up again.

    As to why this trend is happening, I hope in part we’re doing a better job of encouraging our daughters that they can pursue these kinds of fields. But, I hope we’re not doing so at the expense of turning our boys into dumb jocks with visions of success that primarily include one of the few hundred positions in the world of professional sports. That’s a gamble I’m not going to take with my son’s life.

    Neither our sons nor our daughters should be sold short of their potential.

  251. Morning Pan.

    A whole 1 degree C. out there with plans to get up to 10.

    Good on Van, Ed and everybody else who purchased/upgraded their tech.

    Cj: I thought you were sparkly already 🙂

    Now… to the shower.

  254. The new SSD has made the big difference Ed, the one that came with Mini 9 had read write speeds of 40/15megabytes a second. The new one has 80/40.

    Of course it’s not as simple as that, since you only really see max read/write speeds when reading and writing large files.

    The RAM upgrade meant I don’t run out of memory (in order to minimize SSD writes it’s best to turn memory paging off in XP).

    Roll on Windows 7 which supports SSDs properly.

  255. Jack, no more snow for now. While it’s chilly, the sun is shining nice and bright. Which is nice as my office faces east. My living room faces west so I’ll also get the sun once the day wears on and I move into that room.

    We are supposed to reach the mid-twenties by the middle of the week. So nice weather all round.

    Now for the sports…

  258. Yes, I had a great time last night! Jack’s sparkles were blinding!

    Picked up the kids early and brought them home. All the other adults in my house are still sleeping!

  264. My rescue attempt failed. I tried to save Jack from karaoke, but I was thwarted. I’m mostly sorry – I may have enjoyed Jack singing at my birthday party just a wee bit. 😉

  269. Now a “Dead Ringer” would be the guy who gets blamed.

    So maybe he could be “Jack the Dead pan Ringer”?

    … or maybe I am just thinking about this waaay to much.

  273. o…………………………………m…………………………….f………………………g…………………….
    I may have just spent 4 hours doing homework for a job prospect……………. and lost everything to a faulty USB drive.Need everything I did during those 4 hours tomorrow. omfg. I might just snap. I will go to bed, and check the shit in the morning.

  275. I fear I have nothing. Is there another computer to try checking it on?

    I’ve used data recovery programs on hard drives before with some success, but not if the drive is physically unreadable.

  276. Morning Pan!

    I’m going to be contrairy and not wish Cj a happy birthday until the 11th 😉

    Sorry you have the Monday blues, Van. Hope you cheer up soon.

    Jack, have my fingers, toes, eyes, ears and nose crossed that things work out ok for your report.

  277. Why am I suddenly getting all this spam mail about people I’ve never even heard of wanting to keep track of me on twitter? I’m not even on twitter. It’s weird and annoying.

  279. Morning, Deadpan! We’re back from the South.

    Jack, so sorry to hear about your computer issues — I sure hope they were resolved!

    Off to Evil, Inc.

  282. No joy from me, tried a number of programs on an USB flash drive that went wonky with no luck recovering files.

    If it’s an USB HD, you could try removing the HD from the enclosure and sticking it in a fridge for a few hours..that been known to work for a while.

  285. Yes, it’s just putting electronics in a fridge that threw me.

    It reminds me of a time when I once worked for a company that built railroads. My boss bought a laptop. He knew nothing about computers. He was having trouble getting the thing to do something and it crashed. Thinking maybe it overheated, he put it in the fridge.

    I’m not sure what the real problem was. He told me refrigerating it didn’t work but when I looked at the computer I couldn’t find anything wrong.

  286. Yes TEB it is from the interview last night. The group of people who were in the chatroom for my interview could not hear it…So I was up late so my “fans” could hear the discussion.

  287. Good morning, Pan.

    Thank you for all the birthday comments and wishes. Yes, TEB, my birthday isn’t until Thursday. I’m not 40 yet!

    Jack? I hope everything is fixed. Let us know!

  288. Wolf, I too have train tracks right behind my house. I find I don’t even notice when the train goes by any more. However, when we have company, they comment on it.

  295. A definite railtrack motif today.

    I live within a 5 minutes walk of a railway embankment. Was a good place to get blackberries in the Summer.

  296. I’m wretched at distance troubleshooting. Anybody local to Jack able to pop by?

    That said… frequently a reboot solves all things. Unplug the drive, boot up, wait until everything has loaded up, then plug the drive in. Try checking for your data using the My Computer interface.

    It is also possible that the data you were working with has been duplicated to the temp files. However, even if it is, it will probably take longer to find it there than to redo the lost work.

    Anyone else have any good ideas?

  300. Jack: Sorry, I don’t have any advice for you, it depends on the type of advice. If it is a thumb drive, then you are probably out of luck. These types of USB drives only have a certain lifetime due to their design and can fail unexpectedly.

    Perhaps one of these links may help:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=recovering+from+usb+thumb+drive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

    I wish you luck. If there is anything else I can do to help, please ask. I’ll do the best I can.

  302. Nomad: The tip about tempfiles might work. If he was using Word, he could look for ~ files that have some part of his filename in the hidden temp directory. He can sort by date, which might help.

  307. Yeah, I was saving directly to the USB drive, assuming that it wouldn’t just die. I tried a few data recovery apps, but – nothing is reading the drive.
    Back to work.

  310. jackmangan: As I understand it, flash-drives are extremely hard to recover data off of. Every time they’re written to, the tables are completely re-written due to the nature of flash memory. Large portions of the filesystem are shuffled around in blocks with every write.

    As a side note, the NSA and others have been quick to try to build tools to recover data from flash-drives lest members of the public, I mean terrorists, use this to their advantage.

  311. Also interestingly enough (at least to me), flash drives had unannounced areas of unused storage space to use when other portions of the drive fail. So if you have a gig thumbdrive, it may actually house 1.1 or something like that to maintain its size as the memory decays.

  314. CJ – Children are cute, especially to their own parents, as a natural defense mechanism. It is an essential evolutionary development. Otherwise, no one would survive childhood.

  315. i1, thanks! 🙂

    Ed, you’ve got that right!

    And off I go to retrieve my daughter from camp. The littler boy has been returned to his parents in tact.

  318. Yea, Jack!

    PS: If there was any personal information on that flash drive and you are going to get rid of it, I would probably destroy it with a hammer just to be safe.

  320. Yay! It really sucks that you had to do all that work over again, but at least it’s done now. 🙂

    Slow afternoon at the English conversation school, but it’s about to get crazy. I’ve got a conversation session to run in two hours.

  326. Went shopping this afternoon. Spent waaaaay too much money. My hubby’s going to kill me when he gets home.

    Was supposed to be purchasing underwear – a dress, skirt, shirt (and underwear) later – you just might be dealing with a dead person.

    (truthfully, hubby won’t be that mad but he will go hmmmm.)

  337. Van, I”m sure you can manage.

    I too live about 1/2 a block from a train track. I don’t even hear the train, or the whistle, anymore. But guests hate it.

  340. Saw the announcement about the new iPhone as well, Van. While it’s not for everyone, I’m definitely glad I went with the Pre.

    It’s funny to me to see the fanbois going on about an 8GB iPhone for $99 vs. the Pre for $199 – ignoring the fact that that iPhone will cost you several hundred dollars more after your two year contract is done.

    Still, I’m sure there will be plenty who get drawn in by that low up front price only to wonder where all their money went two years from now. The iPhone is a good piece of hardware, and the new upgrades are nice, but I stand by by assessment that, at least in the States, Sprint + Pre > AT&T + iPhone.

  342. Somewhat intrigued by smartphones, but cannot handle the $800-1200/yr it costs to have and use one, no matter how cheap they are to buy.

  343. I’m in the same boat as JohnBoze. . . Until I can improve my job situation, I’m stuck with a stupidphone.

    btw Paul – – I watched some of that Planetfall movie. . . Remind me again why I watched this?

  344. RE: Planetfall – no Floyd?

    Morning Pan, off for a blood test..going early..but a lot of people always have that idea..

  348. Nurse Jackie

    Do we need another pill popping and morally dubious medical professional on TV?

    I’m not that convinced after watching the first episode.

  351. I’m in the same boat as JB and Jack on the “smart phone” issue.
    I just can’t justify spending THAT much to add “occasionally access Internet whilst on the road” to my list of personal capabilities.

  352. I agree. When I got my touch last year, I did have the option of getting an i-phone instead. I couldn’t justify the monthly fee which starts at $100 for just the basic package here.

  353. I have a question for the geeky men. My anniversary is coming up in 6 weeks. I know I can’t top last years gift for two reasons

    a) Due to other expenses I’m not willing to spend the same amount as last year

    b) how do you top a Gibson SG?

    So the question is… What should I get him (around the $500 or less)?

  358. Yeah LLAP!
    Wow Bunny would you marry me?

    Let’s see… ummm the perfect gift here…
    Guitar lessons? No..

    What about various accessories for said Gibson? Pedals etc…

  359. Must take a break from LLAP. Off to take a urine sample to the vet. I wish my cat was friendly to other people, then the vet could get her own damn sample.

  361. Aaaaand we’re back. Forgot about the really evil part about visiting the vet’s. They always have boxes of chocolate covered almonds for sale for various charities.

    I loves my chocolate almonds 🙂

  363. I could never get into MMO’s of any kind. I guess I’m the type of gamer your mother always warned you about. Sitting alone in front of my computer in my underwear. (not living in my mom’s basement, though. Thank God)

  366. Where as beach walks on a windy day are underrated.

    Pleasantly bleak.

    For when want a break from the rest of humanity.

  368. Wolf, hubby goes out every other week and plays with a couple of his friends, so he already has those.

    Also, I didn’t say I was in my underwear, I said the computer was 🙂

  369. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I don’t remember much of my 20’s at all.

    I wish I could say with was because of the wine and the women..but it wasn’t.

    Would help TEB is you told us what Mr TEB was into other than guitar playing.

  372. My hubby is your typical geeky person: Music, D & D, electronics. Actually, a conglomeration of a lot of the guys here on the board.

  375. They gave him a notebook at school that he brings home and uses. I sussed him out for a touch, but he didn’t seem too interested. He’s got a nano and his school notebook)

  377. Dropped my iPhone today as I ran for a bus, luckily the extra battery took the brunt of the impact, so the phone now has two little scratches on the chrome surround but the screen is scratch free.

  378. Yes, we both love the original Dr. Who but we are both opposed to getting the DVD’s. They usually run around $100 for a few episodes. We are hoping they will eventually release the DVD’s by season (or even complete sets by Dr.), then we’ll snap them up.

  382. Cj: No. Would he like it? He’s not much into gaming unless it’s chess (and I’m not getting him another bloody chess set, we have enough)

    Van: 7843?

  383. Oh, E3 announcements! Some cool stuff coming out of that (I listen to a number of tech and gaming podcasts)

  390. Van, as a large cat, do you purr with a good rubbing?

    Sorry, I’m bored and my mind is not in safe places right now.

  394. TEB – do y’all have Blu-Ray? If you have a decent TV, a Blu-Ray player would make a nice geeky gift.

    The from Texas household lovers our Blu-Ray.

  395. JE- 8 month old Belgian Waffle with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and maple syrup.

    I hope you all appreciate my contribution to deadpan culinary research.

  396. TEB – I bought my mom a Nintendo DS. She’s not a gamer either. I’m sure there are chess games for it. It’s great because it’s inexpensive and there are oodles of simple games like Uno, Casino Games, Peggle… stuff that non-gamers love and it can just be carried around and used here and there to pass the time. No guarantees… it’s just a suggestion.

    It comes in cool colors too.

    Of course, mine is pink.

    And all I use it for is Animal Crossing and to keep the kids subdued with Nintendogs.

  398. um………………………

    Where are you putting that phone?

    Are they going to make a special phone cleaning solution for when you are done?

    Why am I even thinking about this?

  399. One, oh one day, humanity will evolve and women will no longer like pink.

    You sssssh TEB, I want nobody spoiling a generalisation.

  400. I actually never liked pink until I had a daughter. Her birth somehow changed my physiology forcing me to like the color.

    If they made a green DS, mine DS would be green. I would always choose green over pink in any situation.

    Apparently I felt that was extremely important to share at this moment.

  401. Gosh, it’s like I blinked and four days passed – and I haven’t stopped by on any of them.

    First: Happy Almost Birthday Cj – Sorry I missed the party. I’m bad with dates (just ask them)

    Next: Jack – sorry to hear about the flushed flash drive. Glad you were able to reconstruct the work – Sad you had to. (there was absolutely nothing funny about that statement – Strike One)

    T.E.B.: I don’t know how long you’ve been married, but you could try wrapping yourself up in a bow – No, nevermind – I hear the bunk calling and I’m at work – how’s about getting him a nice hex-board and a bunch of D&D minis.

    Van: I cannot begin to tell you how much your eating online is pissing me off. Of course, that may be because I’m fasting before the doctor’s appointment this afternoon. (T minus 16 hours so far, 7 hours to go)

    WNDRWolf: Man, it’s another tour I’ve missed.

  404. I too don’t get the thrill of MMORPGs. I’m old-school, Ultima IV, Final Fantasy 7, and so on.

    TEB: Pretty much anything from ThinkGeek is the only (mostly-useless) input I can give. Of course, men typically are fond of nookie. So any cross-over betwixt the two worlds is pretty shiny. 😉

  407. Van: Yeah, in order to avoid missing two hours of work in the morning, I had to schedule the Doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Still get to miss an hour of work, and also have to fast through it all…

    Jack Mangan: well, that’s about right.

    Monday’s for meeting, Tuesday’s for talking, Wednesday’s for walking, Thursday’s for touching, Friday’s for some reason have been ripped off the calendar.

  410. I’m kinda mad that my birthday week is the one to get the finger although, I definitely agree with the Jack. This week is pretty much teh suck.

    Dammit.

    Group hug!

  420. 2 cents worth mode/

    I’ve always been one who thought that the idea of “anniversary gifts” was a little odd … it’s like “Wow, so sorry you had to spend another year with me … so here’s a consolation prize!”
    … or, ‘Say, here’s something shiney. Any chance that will make you want to hang around another year?”

    TEB – Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic, but I would think the best way to celebrate an anniversary is to spend an evening/weekend remembering just why you dug each other in the first place.
    Spend that cash on a night/weekend that the two of you will smile slyly about for months to come!
    Go out have a good relaxed meal, then go home and spend the rest of the evening sipping wine while watching your favorite movies or playing games while sitting around in newly purchased, sexy, anniversary underwear … until the mood of this special evening over comes any interest you had in the movie/game you were playing.

    Alternately, … you could spend that money paying someone to repaint that room/redo that flooring/re-landscape that garden – that the two of you have been talking about doing yourselves but have never had the time to do.

    /2 cents worth mode

  423. I’m back. Sorry about everybody’s week. I’ll give hugs, or gropes, to those that need it.

    # I didn’t think of think geek, will look over their site and see if there is anything there that catches my fancy.

    Jack, not sure about accessories. The Gibson wasn’t his first guitar so he had some stuff any way. He has also bought a new amp and pedal since getting the guitar last year

    LJ: This will be our 13th anniversary. As for wrapping myself up for him, I don’t need a special occasion to do that 😉

  425. J0e, I don’t disagree with you. My hubby and I are sickeningly sweet with one another to the point it is often commented on by others who know us. We both look at the gift part as a splurge on something we want but really wouldn’t get on our own. Last year, for example: Hubby has wanted a Gibson for as long as I’ve known him but would never get one on his own. When I did buy it, it wasn’t a total surprise. In fact I “gave it to him” a month before our anniversary. For me, I took him to Future Shop and said “I want that.” (an I-Pod touch). We generally spend the year saving up and buy something big for that, so it’s like a second Christmas as it falls midway to Christmas. We don’t spend a lot on birthdays (his is the week before Christmas and mine is two weeks before our anniversary) and compensate this way instead.

    This year, when I asked what he wanted all I got was, “I don’t know, surprise me” hence my asking for advise.

  434. Jason Alexander in a not-so-shining moment.

    Thank you, Van. I have spent at least 5 minutes giggling while reading that post. Very appreciated.

    mmmm I want a McRib now. You can all say it’s gross, but I am not ashamed to love the pickles and the BBQ sauce. It’s fascinating!

  450. So according to the Scientific American 60 second science podcast, men who eat more fruits and vegetables have a higher sperm count than those who don’t.

    I’m not sure what you’ll get out of that information (depends on whether you want to prcreate or just have fun, I guess) but take from it what you will.

  451. … aaannd since we’ve gone down that path -Ms. Violet Blue of the “Open Source Sex” podcast, recommends the consumption of fruit smoothies if you wish to increase a specific type of appeal for your lover. Seems like she reported it being more affective at inducing a change in men then in women. There were also some fruits that seemed to induce more of this change in chemistry than others. Something about the sugers in them.

    I believe that is all I shall say about that.

  455. Home again, home again, jiggity jog.

    At least for a little while. Will be sneaking out to get the heels on a pair of boots recapped, then trying to decide if I want to be bad and eat out for lunch.

  458. Lejon: Ha! Nice!

    The only sex/fruit knowledge I have is about pineapple, leaving me, once again, on the cutting edge of “well, DUH!”

  461. # I don’t wear heels often because my husband isn’t very tall and anything over a couple of inches makes me taller than him. However I do have a pair of favourite suede boots that I will wear occasionally. They are my most comfy pair of heels.

  465. I’m back!

    And, I’m gone again.

    Interesting to hear nearly completely opposites takes on “Bite” in Las Vegas as reported on Evo@11 and LLAP. I was considering going to that show while on our trip in July.

  466. Pingback: Wander Radio » Blog Archive » The Whirlwind Tour from Arizona

  470. Yes, LJ I am now heeled. Only took them 1/2 an hour to fix my shoes. Enough time to have some curry lamb for lunch at the mall.

    Sorry Van, in our case and 5’2″ and 5’4″, it’s short woman, short man combo.

    Have a drink for me.

  472. So eye spy with my little eye:

    A woman on the train, looks to be in her 30’s, has the prominent set of Danish blues on her legs I’ve ever seen.

  475. TEB writes: “# I don’t wear heels often because my husband isn’t very tall and anything over a couple of inches makes me taller than him.”

    To which I say, what’s the problem? BFP 😉

  476. ditto, I don’t there there really is a problem. He’s never said anything. I think it’s more me, I feel a little self conscious when I have to look down on him.

  483. I was thinking.. Dark Side of the Rainbow would be an interesting Palooza… but perhaps it’s just better to experience that one time. Alone. With little thought. Hmmm….

  491. Did you ever know that you’re my he-ro?
    You’re everything I would like to be!
    I can fly higher than an eagle!

    jOe, care to finish that verse off for us?

  493. I have

    I have a litle dradle
    I made it out of clay
    and when it’s dry and ready
    with dradle I shall play
    O, dradle dradle dradle I made you out of clay
    dradle dradle dradle with dradle I shall play

    stuck in my head. It’s going over and over and over and not matter how loud I turn up the Metallica, it’s NOT going away.

    …….aaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaa…..

  494. This is why I have memorized most of the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby. It’s my palate cleanser. Not because it is good, but because it is so bad it makes everything else go away.

  495. Did you ever know that you’re my he-ro?
    You’re everything I would like to be!
    I can fly higher than an eagle!

    jOe, care to finish that verse off for us?

    “Except right now I have to peeeee !”

  500. CJ for the win with the 80’s one hit wonder reference, Rockwell, featuring Michael Jackson.

    500….um, wait what’s today?

  503. Oh, and before I let it slip again –

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CJ!!!!!

    How’s the view from up there? (Like I have much room to jab 🙂 )

  521. Well I’m off to see a French suspense film at the local arty farty cinema.

    The Girl Cut in Two

    or La fille coupée en deux if you are really cultured..or French.

    cough

  525. Went to Denny’s to enjoy my free Grand Slam Birthday meal.

    Now I’m off to the doctor to enjoy having my broken foot looked at due to the “grand slamming” of a can of disinfectant spray landing on it last week. It should have healed by now and it hasn’t and I’m being told to go to the doctor.

    I.Hate.Going.To.The.Doctor.

    Meh

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