Chogokin Holocaust!!!

Well, it's been an interesting day. The 'Rents were passing through on their way from Florida back home to Connecticut, and they stopped by to take me out to dinner. We dined at The Cheesecake Factory, they'd never been, and I'd only gone for the first time a few months back. If you've never been, it's actually quite a surprise, the name conjures up images of an old style bakery, specializing in Cheesecakes that also serves sandwiches. In actuality, the Cheesecake Factory has a very diverse menu with well in excess of 200 distinct meal options. We really enjoyed ourselves, I had the Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp ( a spicy Thai style dish), my Mother had Chicken Madeira, and my Dad had the Hungarian Goulash. We split 3 different types of cheesecake between the three of us, and enjoyed them all.


I returned to my office and was met by a scene of carnage that nothing could have prepared me for. As I entered my office, Chogokin were scattered everywhere! My priceless collection of robots were strewn throughout my office. The Temple of Grendizer itself was desecrated!!! My Daigokin Grendizer had taken over my seat at my desk, GaiKing was sprawled across my trackball, my Garada K7 was riding my tape dispenser like it was a horse. My Grendizer mini-metal was standing atop the docking cradle for my PDA. Mazinger Z's scrander was balanced (shockingly well) atop my LCD display, some of the smaller Shogun Warriors were perched atop push pins on my bulletin board, somehow the 3” tall Getter Poseidon was standing atop the canister of lens cleaner. I don't know when I last laughed so hard!!!


Tomorrow, I'm bringing my camera in so I can post pictures of the carnage. I'm also pretty sure who did it, and I'm hoping to walk in and act traumatized at what was done to my robots. :P


This business of workplace automation has gone too far!!!



I had to fight my way past GaiKing to use my trackball!

I'm still trying to figure out this balancing act; I can barely get this guy to stand up on my desktop!!

Finally, Someone who can make a Duran Duran song sound good

Well, as someone who survived adolescence in the 80's, I'm amazed that anyone could take one of those monstrosities that Duran Duran passed off as singles and make them sound good, but if anyone could, I guess this is the man.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go put on some Old Spice.

Ahoy!!!

My Next Car

I finally found what might almost be a suitable replacement for my Bronco. I'm a little unsure of the exact retail price, or what first year depreciation might be, but I think this might be a Chrysler I could happily own. Not sure how thrilled I am with a convertible, and I hope they offer other color options. But, it seems like it would be great in Rush Hour traffic. Take a look:

It looks like we're about to find out more about Banks's shadowy past

Don't look now, but Banks; Physics teacher, Olympic Bobsled coach, GQ Editor, bacon-o-holic, anthropomorphic canine, and pilot of Barkeater Lake's only airline; seems about to reveal more about his mysterious past. It seems there is some bad blood between Banks and and a member of the Rolling Corpses. I mean the Rolling Stones...

Seriously, check out Barkeater Lake, it's worth a chuckle or two.

Banks's Past

Barkeater Lake

Any day you can walk away from....

Well, it's certainly been a mixed day. Work started out pretty rough, after beating my head against this one particularly nasty action item for around a week, and feeling as if I was making no progress, I discovered it was totally unnecessary. On a positive note, I found the reason the action item had been so challenging was that it was in a format about 3 revisions past obsolete – no wonder it had looked totally incomprehensible. From that point forward, I managed to blow through 3 other action items, so my day was vastly improved.

So, I'm leaving work and get to my car, and some nitwit has shoehorned his Chevy into the space next to mine, leaving between 6 and 9 inches between my driver's door and his passenger door. Idiots like this make me completely understand vandalizing someone's car (not that I did, but I sure would have loved to have introduced Mr. Chevy Trailblazer to Mr. Tire-Iron). This was followed by an endless litany of idiots on the road – it was like “Night of the Moron Drivers” - I'm driving on a deserted two-lane road, and two cars in front of me someone stops to make a left hand turn in the left hand turn lane, only he's about a foot or so into the left hand travel lane. Rather than swerve a foot and a half around this guy, the guy in front of me stops completely, blocking the entire lane, nearly causing me to rear-end him. This is followed by the idiot who, as I'm about to change lanes has to accelerate so there isn't room for me.

I get home to find an unexpected Fedex package in the hallway, containing a VERY AWESOME Captain America T-shirt (my godmother comes through again)! I almost walked right by it – I have three housemates and I hadn't ordered anything online recently. Thanks, Aunt Pat!

All in all, the roller coaster of my day certainly ended on an upnote.

A good way not to get repeat customers...

So, today, I got a very long overdue haircut (I had threatened my better half with shaving it all off), I got it cut about half again as long as a standard crewcut, and the girl at Supercuts pointed out that I was losing my hair; with anyone else this would not have gone well, but me, I'm looking forward to the day I can pull a Jean-Luc Picard and never have to worry about it again. Still, it is far from the ideal method of inducing repeat clients - I more picture 22-year-old Anna-Nicole-Smith-look-alikes saying to 50 year old guys with 6 strands of hair, "Oh, no, that comb-over is sooooo sexy!!"

Well, I'm prepared for it, someday, I'll be simonizing my head instead of using dep. In fact, I'm looking forward to it - it's sure to be less work.

Good deeds

It's amazing how that little act of random kindness can brighten a person's day. Yesterday, as I was leaving work, I noticed someone behind me in the lobby; and stopped to hold the door open for them. Apparently, this woman had had a very rough day, and this microscopic courtesy acted as a salve to her emotional stress. Her gratitude for this moment's effort was completely out of proportion to the amount of effort involved in performing it. As a matter of fact, seeing how much my minor act had put a bright spot in an otherwise grim day brightened my day far more than it should have.

It's almost silly, person #1 holds the door for person #2. Person #2 responds by saying, "Thanks, I really needed that," and relating that they had had a really rough day. Person #1 and person #2 both walk away feeling much better than they had 30 seconds ago.

The human condition - go figure.

Let's break the journey now on some lonely road.

Sit down as strangers will, let the stress unload.

Talk in confidential terms, share a dark unspoken fear.

Refill the cup and drink it up. Say goodnight and

wish good luck.


Synthetic chiefs with frozen smiles holding unsteady courses.

Grip the reins of history, high on their battle horses.

And meeting as good statesmen do before the T.V.

eyes of millions, hand to hand exchange the lie ---

pretend to make the clasp.

- Jethro Tull - "The Clasp"

Units of Measure

For the Robot geeks out there, I present to you the Chogokin System of Measurement. Now, first off, it was up to me, the basic unit of measure would be the Grendizer, however, I did not create the Chogokin System of Measurement (CSM), I am merely bringing it to the attention of the world at large. The basic unit of measurement is the Mazinger. In terms of size, one Mazinger is the equivalent of approximately 7 inches. However, the CSM is most useful as way to estimate values across different systems of currency

1 Mazinger (1 Maz) is equal to approximately 50 U.S. Dollars.

1 GaiKing (1GK) is equal to approximately 100 U.S. Dollars.

1 Grendizer (1 Gren) is worth 4 Maz, or approximately 200 U.S. Dollars. (Rates of exchange may vary)

This is very handy, for instance if you were car shopping, you could purchase a 2001 Ford Escape 4x4 XLS for around 44 Grendizers, a far more palatable number than 8800 US Dollars.

Imagine the joy of confused looks on everyone around you when you complain about your mortgage payment: “It costs me 32 Mazingers a month!!”

If you're 6 feet tall, you are approximately 10.3 Mazingers tall.

You might want to buy your sweetheart an engagement ring, but is it really worth 180 GaiKings? A very serious question.

Movie Review - Lord of The Rings festival at Arlington Drafthouse

Well, obviously, there can be nothing wrong with spending the entire day watching the finest TEN HOURS of movie ever made (well, except for getting a case of "carpal tunnel butt"). Not only do you get to watch the trilogy that ruined the population of the planet for all other movies (whether they have already been made or have yet to be made), but they bring you beer while you're watching the movie!!!! I'm pretty sure this is exactly how heaven is described!!

OK, let me get the negatives out of the way:

1) I'm spoiled by the Extended editions of these movies, and kept feeling like they skipped a part.
2) I'm no audiophile, but I felt the theater's sound system needed adjusting (more bass, less treble).
3) The beer could have been colder (I tend to prefer mine with little bits of ice floating in it).

With those minor complaints out of the way, it was an absolutely awesome way to spend a Sunday!!! We got to watch the magnificence of the first two movies back to back, followed by about 45 minutes of trivia contests (I won a movie/food pass for four), Gollum impression contests, and a costume contest!! And then, we were treated to the THREE HOURS PLUS of cinematic perfection that is "The Return of the King!" I said it when I first saw it, and I still firmly believe that Hollywood may as well shut down, now that "The Return of the King" has been made - we have achieved the acme of the motion picture experience, it can only be downhill from here.

It was really awesome watching these movies with a bunch of like minded people, the audience cheered along with the soldiers when they were preparing for battle, hissed every time Grima Wormtongue came onscreen, opened their cell phones and held them up to aid the signal fires from Gondor to Rohan, and of course cheered at the first appearance of all our heroes!

I was fairly impressed by the fact that the women most likely outnumbered the men in attendance. If their was any doubt as to why, all you had to do was see (more accurately, hear) the audience reaction to Eowyn's "I am no man" - For a moment I was worried the roof was going to blow off the theater.

In short, this is definitely the way to see the Lord of The Rings, surrounded by people who love the works of Mr. Tolkien as much as, if not more than, you do.

Great way to spend a Sunday!!!

Jeep Compass

My beloved Bronco is in the shop, and the insurance company and Enterprise have provided me with a Jeep Compass. It's a cute little SUV, and I've determined that I could regularly drive a non-Full-size SUV, just not the Jeep Compass. I can't figure out why Jeep decided to put the controls for the headlights on the turn signal control. For that matter, why are the windshield wiper controls on a mirror image of the turn signal control??? Plus, the front section of the cockpit (cabin, if you prefer)is compartmentalized, which keeps you confined to the driver's third of the cockpit - I like a good deal of leg room on longer drives, and this configuration denies the driver that.

Additionally, the vehicle seems a little underpowered (not sure if it's a V-6 or a four-banger, but it has nowhere near the power my '98 Explorer's 4.0L V-6 had), and if I'm entering the highway with my A/C on, I am a little worried about coming up to speed quickly enough - the same issue exists in any situation that I am looking for solid acceleration in.

The other downside is that the Compass is so low to the ground, that I am riding at the same level as the people driving sedans and coupes, and when I look for it in a parking lot, it is easily obscured by just about every other vehicle in the lot.

So all in all, I 've learned that I can deal with a less than full-sized SUV, and the Compass may be OK for some people, but it lacks the size that I require in an SUV.

Movie Review - Vacancy

Saw Vacancy tonight!! Pretty good film - don't expect any academy award-winning performances or anything, but a fun diversion for a little under two hours. First downside - Kate Beckinsale without a corset - I guess "Underworld" and "Van Helsing" really spoiled us. Secondly, the movie got off to a slow start, the couple (portrayed by Beckinsale and Luke Wilson) are at each others throats, and on the verge of a divorce, constantly bickering, and not very likeable.

As the movie progresses, we learn the source of their bickering; they recently lost a child. This revelation completely changes how you view them, they cease to be an unlikeable bundyesque couple and become much more sympathetic. After their car breaks down, they end up checking into an isolated, flea-bag motel until they can get a mechanic in the morning.

The room they rent is certainly far from 4-star accommodations. We are treated to the sight of a cockroach scurrying away from the light switch moments before it is flipped. Unfortunately for them, this is about the high point of their accommodations. They soon discover that the room they are staying in has been the setting for numerous snuff films (for those of you lucky enough not to know what a "snuff film" is, it is a movie focusing on the death of the protagonist, that is filmed with no special effects, i.e. the victim - I mean protagonist - is actually murdered on film, this urban legend supposedly does exist, although I hope it is nothing more than a myth, but if it interests you, check out Nic Cage in "8mm"). The rest of the movie is devoted to the cat and mouse game between the Foxes and their hidden assailants, and I have to admit, I was delightfully sucked right into the story, in spite of the group of prepubescent twits that decided to sit behind me 15 minutes into the movie and were completely incapable of keeping their mouths shut.

All in all, not a bad way to spend $10, and certainly worth catching on DVD.

Of course, tomorrow, I am planning on catching the Lord of The Rings trilogy back to back at the Arlingon Drafthouse and Cinema, which will I am certain, eclipse all knowledge of other cinematic fare. Imagine: hobbits and beer!!!! I am sure that is how heaven is described.