X-Men III pic

I told you we should have taken my van... it has a handicapped sticker.

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Reason not to have a dog

Here. :)

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The guantlet has been thrown

The Religious Right has thrown the abortion guantlet. South Dakota passed a law outlawing all abortions except to save the life of the mother in an effort to get Roe vs. Wade overturned now that there are more Conservative Nazghuls on the Supreme Court.

Frankly, I'm of the opinion reflected on a really great bumper sticker: "If you are against abortion, don't have one."

But the RR has to be in everyone's business. Instead of using the money for education to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and support for women in the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy, they'd rather use the government to legislate religion, keep out things like emergency contraceptives like the morning after pill and drive abortion to back alley clinics.

I don't think this will end up as they hope, though. The law allows no provision for cases of rape or incest victims.

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The difference in writers

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men #13 came out the same week as the latest adjectiveless X-Men by Claremont. Claremont is using Apocalypse, a villian entrenched in the X-Men mythos. Whedon is using Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier's twin sister who is a more powerful telepath than Charles. I would have been happy if Cassandra would have been left in obscurity, because she's an "uber-tech" plot device.

What's an uber-tech plot device? It's where the writer comes up with a concept for the bad guy that is way beyond what the heroes are capable of, and we spend a long time in the movie, book, comic or game watching the heroes chase their tales and get bounced around just because the author is so enamored with his creation. Now, that's not to say heroes shouldn't face opponents more powerful than them... they are heroes after all. It becomes uber-tech when it becomes gratuitous.

Back to Cassandra. She is the most powerful telepath on the planet. It used to be Xavier, and he even tried to maintain his title by strangling his sister with her umbilical cord in the womb (I am not making this shit up). In fact, I think Claremont came up with her. So she's super powerful, no one has a hope, blah blah blah.

The thing is, Whedon's writing is good enough that I can deal with the return of Cassandra. The writing in this issue ranks up there with his best Buffy and Firefly stuff. The best stuff is when the characters are speaking, not getting bounced around. So what's the point?

I dunno. Remember this?

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Skittlebrau

My friend Jeani sent me this link to an article on combining Skittles and beer. For those of you who don't know, I used to have a real bad Skittles habit. I could chow through one of those big bags and used to eat them while drinking beer. But I never poured them into my beer (or if I did, I was so drunk I don't remember).

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Super Inconsistency

Chris Claremont needs to get off the meds or back on the meds or whatever. That and quit trying to write a bunch of comic books at once. Because it seems for every good story/issue, we get two or three turds.

Anyone who has been following the X-titles knows this already, but the latest is of X-Men really got my goat. It is so full of inconsistencies I wonder if his kids are phoning the stories in while Claremont is passed out with an empty bottle of Grey Goose in his hand.

Granted, there are bound to be problems when you have stories going through 4 different titles at different paces. Then again, that's why they are getting paid.

Okay, spoiler warning.

Really.

I mean it.

Ok, you don't care, you've already gotten the book yourself, or you're just planning on reading it on my coffee table.

In X-Men: Deadly Genesis, the Blackbird gets stolen and blown up. In this issue, when Apocalypse and his Horsemen attack, some of the X-Men jump into 2 Blackbirds to give chase. How many bloody jets do they have? And they go an chase 1 Horseman, leaving a couple of disgruntled X-Men to watch over the school and the mutant refugees with Apocalypse standing right there!

Famine, who was a legless Sunfire, uses his hunger-inducing power of the remaining mutants as well as the Sentinel pilots. While everyone is starving, Apocalypse offers them his "blood" as nourishment if they'll join him. Obviously, they are not only hungry, but stupid, lining up for his blood while behind them is a mansion/school. With kitchens. And a cafeteria. Full of blood-free food! But most of them line-up for Epoxy-lip's blood.

Meanwhile, the big A is magically inside his teleporting Sphinx, talking to his minion until Gambit shows up. Nevermind the huge line of mutants waiting for blood, or the fight that Apocalypse is having with the last remaining manned Sentinel (the other pilots bailed in search of food), Apocalypse must have stolen Madrox the Multiple Man's power.

Who wants to bet that the pilot-less Sentinels decide "enough is enough" and start acting on their own to deal with the situation.

The good news is that Claremont is leaving most of the X-Books.

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Lazy Muncie

Respect to the Midwest Coast!

Um, yeah. Check outthis video that my friend Jeani found.

To think, I worked in Muncie a year or so.

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Monday Madness

Ok, here's a few items I stumbled across:



It's a concept car with the interior design inspired by the USS Enterprise.

Ready for your super-suit? Check out this super armor being used by Olympic athletes.

And in the odd but amusing category, this web-comic combines Kill Bill and Harry Potter into Kill Harry.

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Take me out, to the Black...

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Serenity (Firefly). You like to live your own way and donâ??t enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you.

Serenity (Firefly) 88% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 69% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 56% Moya (Farscape) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 31% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks to my friend Jason for finding this. I suspect many (but not all) of our friends will test as the crew of the Serenity.

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CG Yoda vs. Puppet Yoda

As a Star Wars fan with fond memories of the originals and less than total enthusiasm for the prequels... this cartoon made me smile.

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Back to the altar of the Car God

My car had picked up a wobble, so the one thing I promised myself was that I would take it in to get an alignment. I had planned that for today in case the car was down for a length of time, I wouldn't have anything going on, and planned to take it in at 7 am.

I didn't exactly get in early last night, and the weather kept waking me up depsite all of that beer making me groggy. As 7 am approached, I found myself in negotiations.

"Take it in later"
"Do it tomorrow"
etc.

Around 7:30 I drug myself out of bed. I had a bad feeling about putting it off further and took it in. I was the first customer, it should take 45 - 60 minutes, an alignment is $70. I walked to Steak and Shake (about a half-mile), got a newspaper, an orange juice and coffee. After 20 minutes my phone rang. ONly part of the wobble was from the alignment. It had gotten noticeably worse because my rear tires were in the process of falling apart (and my front ones weren't in that good of shape). One literally could have blown at any time.

A couple of hours and and $400+ later I've got 4 new tires. They recommended some shims for rear alignment, but said I should drive the car to see how it feels and decide if I needed them. The car seems to handle ok now, but I haven't had it up to combat speed yet.

And something else I realized as I sat in the lobby waiting for them to finish. I may be a 40 year old single geek... but at least I'm not on Maury.

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40.0027

So yesterday was my birthday, the big 40.

Thank you for the e-cards I received from my friends Sherri and Lisa.

My friends Nicole and Carlton treated me to dinner and copious amounts of beer at MacNivens. Thanks!!!!

Greg and Jason also both stopped by to have a pint.

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Holier than dude!

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Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

I found this Lego Church via my friend Suzanne's blog.

This is the same guy that built the Lego Serenity I posted about many moons ago. Reading this site make me want to build Legohenge, with little Lego druids and everything.

But that sounds like too much work.

[update:]

I followed a link to another Lego project, another church. I'm equally impressed by the creativeness and total excess of spare time this project represents.

And no Ozling, I won't build a Lego Temple to the Plush Devil for you.

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D&D > NBA

The district staff gave me a pair of Pacer tickets as a thank you for going to help out another store. The tickets are really good seats, about 10 rows behind the owner and the team, with passes to the Locker Room restaurant.

I asked some of my friends at last night's RPG session if anyone was interested. The only one that would be interested will be out of town at that time. No one else was at all interested.

So I'll probably take the tickets to work tomorrow and give them to the GM to give to someone that can use them. Yeah, I could sell them, but that doesn't seem right.

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Too lazy to be bitter

You'd think I'd be able to get good and worked up to write a really bitter "I hate Valentine's Day" post. You'd think with being sans girlfriend for around 5 years and the big 40 looming, I'd muster up the bile.

Eh.

Maybe it's because I have so many friends that don't give a damned about it either.

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Another quiz: which superhero are you?

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man		75%
Green Lantern		60%
Superman		55%
The Flash		50%
Robin		47%
Iron Man		40%
Supergirl		30%
Hulk		30%
Batman		25%
Catwoman		25%
Wonder Woman		15%

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.



Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

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Make it so...

Your results:
You are Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard 65% Geordi LaForge 65% Data 62% Will Riker 55% James T. Kirk (Captain) 40% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 40% Deanna Troi 35% Mr. Sulu 30% Chekov 25% Worf 25% Spock 22% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 20% Uhura 20% Mr. Scott 15% Beverly Crusher 15%

A lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test


I didn't expect that... not sure what I expected. Beam me up, Data.

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A few tech links

Thanks to dwt for these.

The first is the website belonging to the bloke that bankrupted himself turning his home's interior into a Star Trek starship interior.

Looking at the pictures is kind of neat, obviously the guy has some talent even if he has no fiscal sense.

Next is a site highlighting an inflatable home theater system with a 20' wide screen.

But the last one is pure genius. Huge tv's rock, Star Trek houses are geeky-tech, but this is brilliant.

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A Classic

I checked my secondary e-mail today to find that I had a personals response to my profile in NUVO's on-line personals. I had originally placed the personal at the request of a friend to help out, so that there would already be profiles available when the site went live.

Figuring the site was too new and too local to already have "Russian women" trolling for suckers, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check it out.

Here's what I found:

joykab2004@aklan.com from: joy Kabila Tel:00225 07 59 8653 Introduction. Dearest, PLEASE REPLY ME WITH THIS PRIVATE EMAIL joykab2004@aklan.com It is my pleasure to contact you for a business venture which I and my Son Mack,intend to establish in your country. Though I have not met with you before but I believe, one has to risk confiding in succeed sometimes in life. There is this huge amount of ($22,000,000.00) which my late Husband kept for us with a finance company Holder in cote d'ivorie before he was assasinated by unknown persons. Now I and my son decided to invest these money in your country or anywhere safe enough outside Africa for security and political reasons.We want you to help us claim and retrieve these fund from the finance company Holders and transfer it into your personal account in your country for investment purposes on these areas: 1). Telecommunication 2). the transport industry 3). Five star hotel If you can be of an assistance to us we will be pleased to offer to you 10% Of the total fund. I await your soonest response. Respectfully yours, Mrs. joy Kabila. PLEASE REPLY ME WITH THIS PRIVATE EMAIL joykab2004@aklan.com Please my dear call my mack with our number for more details 0022507598653

Are you kidding me? Is there anyone that doesn't know about this scam yet?

And NUVO needs a feature to report messages like this.

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Taunting Fate

Last weekend during my tribe's Imbolc ritual's toast & boast, someone brought up the Powerball, which at the time was up to $210 million. I made the comment that I should buy a ticket for our tribe. And today I did, with the jackpot up to $250 million.

While Logical Oz realizes that these three sets of numbers have exactly the same odds as any other three sets of numbers, Whimsical Oz thinks the odds are slightly better just because it would be too damned funny to see a tribe of pagans win a Powerball jackpot.

And no Ozling, I'm not going to do any "magic" or pray to win. Because then if one of these numbers did win, I'd be convinced I was going to get hit by a comet just so that the universe can balance things out.

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To boldly go... into bankruptcy

It's stories like this that make me feel better about myself. Yeah, my house mught be messy and decorated in Semi-affluent Bachelor Geek, but at least I didn't go bankrupt spending thousands and thousands of dollars remodelling my home to look like the USS Enterprise. And then gut it and redo it as the USS Voyager. You think any of the 5 people who watched Voyager has $1 million to spend on a house?

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Gen Con staying in Indy

Yay!

This is from the Indianapolis Star:

Tourism: Gen Con's force to be with us quite awhile

Let the good times roll. They're coming back. Last year, 25,000 folks descended on Downtown from around the country, then went home, but not before spending $35 million. It was Gen Con's "Best Four Days in Gaming,'' a mega-convention dedicated to sci-fi, fantasy and adventure games and the gamers who love them.


The Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association knew the gamers would return Aug. 10 for Gen Con's 2006 convention. But the outlying years were in doubt. Well, stop holding your breath. On Thursday, ICVA announced Gen Con's "recent decision to commit to Indianapolis as an annual part of Indy's convention calendar well beyond 2007 and into the expansion of the convention center was welcome news.''

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Big Bunny

I think this rabbit would bitch slap Elmer Fudd. The thing is almost 3' long!

"Be vewy vewy quiet... I'm hunting-"
Pounce. Thud. Rip.
"Help! Help! The wabbit is ... aaaaah!"

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Best (and wrongest) Star Wars Action Figure.

I'm really glad I wasn't drinking when I first saw this.

That is just so wrong. Hilarious, but wrong. :)

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Chewbacca's Blog

It's amazing how popular Chewbacca's Blog has become. It's all over the place. Through it I found a bunch of Indiana blogs. Not that I'll remember where any of them are. But it's kind of cool.

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I'm a Dragon?

You are Form 5, Dragon: The Weaver.

"And The Dragon seperated the virtuous from

the sinful. He tore his eyes from his

sockets and used them to peer into the souls

of those on trial to make a judgement. He

knew that with endless knowledge came endless

responsibility."

Some examples of the Dragon Form are Athena

(Greek), St. Peter (Christian), and Surya

(Indian).
The Dragon is associated with the concept of

intelligence, the number 5, and the element

of wood.
His sign is the crescent moon.

As a member of Form 5, you are an intelligent and

wise individual. You weigh options by

looking at how logical they are and you know

that while there may not always be a right or

wrong choice, there is always a logical one.

People may say you are too indecisive, but

it's only because you want to do what's

right. Dragons are the best friends to have

because they're willing to learn.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

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