The point of no return…

Given the direction my life has been heading lately, and the relevancy of everything I babble about here on the site, the above headline refers to the fact that I…

  1. ….am about to undergo radical plastic surgery and a sex-change operation in order to compete in the first Bridget Fonda lookalike contest.
  2. …just spent $209.75 on a one-way ticket to Seattle leaving Sat. June 16th at 12:45am and arriving at 5:02am.
  3. …live on a one-way dead-end street and can’t figure out how to go anywhere.
  4. …have just discovered and officially named a previously unknown area of land at the far end of the Homer Spit.
  5. …am desperately attempting to come up with more interesting and amusing options for this survey.

Update: The voting has been disabled for the above poll, as changes in the website have ended up borking up the poll and results. However, if I remember correctly, the majority of the tallied votes were for the Bridget Fonda lookalike contest.

I love my friends.

Microsuck

The day Microsoft makes something that doesn’t suck will be the same day they start making vacuum cleaners.

— Anonymous

Memorial Day weekend

This has been a really nice weekend so far. I actually ended up with a couple days off — worked Saturday at Suncoast, but that was it, so had Sunday and Monday off. Quite nice.

Took Miranda out to see The Mummy Returns on Saturday night, making my second time seeing that one in the theaters. It pretty much stays the same in my opinion — a fun flick that I enjoy, and almost as good as the first one, but a definite roller coaster ride. There are parts that are so much better than the first that I was really impressed — and parts that were so much worse that it was depressing. Ah, well…overall, pretty damn enjoyable. Unfortunately, Miranda wasn’t feeling well, and so she had to go straight home after the movie.

Jones Lake, Anchorage, AKSunday was a great day. Absolutely gorgeous weather, so I decided to go out and enjoy the sun and get some pictures of Alaska before I leave. I just picked up a nice little Kodak DX3500 digital camera earlier in the week (finally — it’s been about 8 years since I’ve had a camera), and wanted to get some shots of my home for the last 26 years before I bailed. I started by heading out to Earthquake ParkEarthquake Park, Anchorage, AK, as it’s just about a minute away from my house. There were a bunch of other families and tourists out enjoying the weekend, too, so I ended up spending a couple minutes there watching some kids play as their parents took in the displays scattered around the area. The view of Mt. Susitna Mt. Susitna, Anchorage, AK was just gorgeous, Sleeping Lady was out in full splendor, with just a scattering of light fluffy clouds up in the sky.

After Earthquake Park, I headed downtown, and discovered somewhat to my dismay that while downtown Anchorage looks gorgeous from afar, it’s still a bit too early in the year to get any really nice shots of it. None of the flowers have started poking up from the various planters, and the grass is still just coming in, so it’s still got a lot of brown mixed in with the green. No huge biggie, though — another couple weeks should take care of that pretty nicely. After a while I ran down to Village Inn to get some grub, then went home to rest for a bit.

That evening I went out to the valley to hit a bonfire party that Danielle was throwing. I met up with Danielle, Christina, and some of their friends from the valley (Sparky, Victor, Carlos, Dorothy, Earl, Dave, and a couple others who’s names I can’t remember right now) at Danielle’s house, then we all caravaned Heading out, Mat-Su Valley, AK out to the Palmer Hay Flats refuge for the bonfire. The evening was just beautiful, and the area was absolutely gorgeous — a valley down at the base of some hills, with the sunset reflecting off the mountains in the distance. I took some shots to try and put together a panorama of the view, if I can get them stitched together decently in Photoshop I’ll see if I can get the final result posted here.

After starting the fire Sparky, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK in the time-honored bonfire tradition of piling up a bunch of wood and dousing it with lighter fluid, we all just spent a nice evening standing around, talking, munching on some grub, and attempting to prevent Earl from blowing anything up. As few of us were much into drinking at all — I brought a few Smirnoff Ice‘s to drink, but only had two over the course of the evening, and few of the others brought anything — Victor, Sparky, Dorothy, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK it was a very nice mellow evening. We even had the troopers stop by a couple times to check on us, and they basically told us just to make sure we got the fire put out when we left — one of them even said that this was the kind of party they like to see. It was pretty cool — for all the harassment the police get just because they’re in a position of authority, it’s been very rare that I’ve had any sour dealings with them at all.

Eventually Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AKit got to be about two in the morning, and we all decided it was time to head out — a couple of us had to make it back into Anchorage before we crashed out, and everyone was starting to get tired. So, after a good few minutes trying to put out the bonfire (quite a chore in itself), we all headed home. The drive back in was wonderful, too — I just set the cruise control for the speed limit, and cruised on in. As most people out for the weekend were going to be coming back into town today at the end of the three day weekend, I didn’t have much traffic to deal with, and only saw a couple cops on the way in. Made it home a little after 3am and crashed out.

So now it’s Monday, the last day of the weekend, and I’m pretty much just spending the day relaxing here at home. I’ve got four more days of work at GCI, then the next two weeks will be the final push to get everything packed up and ready to go before I leave state…that countdown just keeps going….

Mars needs a facelift!

Cydonian faceThis just in — It seems that our nearest neighbor in the Solar System, and most possible target for future colonization, is in dire need of a facelift!

NASA has recently released photographs of the famous Cydonian face on Mars that show that one of the strongest pieces of evidence we have yet of alien intelligence is in danger of being eradicated from our Solar System. While NASA’s scientists have always been quick to deny that the face is actually a face (how foolish — what else could it be?), scientists worldwide not under the thumb of the U.S. Government have spend untold hours debunking the “theory” that NASA and the US Government want us to believe — that the Face does not exist, and is merely a product of poor photography combined with human imagination.

Well, I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t take much imagination at all for me to see that the above picture quite clearly shows a face. And do they really expect that the American public is so stupid as to believe that after sending countless satellites into space, the Voyager probe to the stars, and who knows what else (I would list placing men on the Moon, but that has long since been uncovered as a hoax), that the Viking 1 and 2 landers had such poor equipment on board that they would mangle a random collection of peaks and valleys into looking like we know the Face to look?

Lately, however, some more disturbing news has leaked out of NASA. As can be plainly seen in the images below, the Face is being destroyed!

Three faces

The only question now is how is this happening? The three pictures were taken within the space of less than 30 years — from the Viking missions in 1975 and 1976 to the most recent flyover by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2001 — and show a frightening amount of destruction. While we know that Mars has an atmosphere inhospitable to human life (or, at least, so we’ve been told all these years), it isn’t so horrid as to account for that much degradation in such a short span of time. So what could be responsible for this?

The only answer I can come up with is that the Face is being deliberately destroyed to hide its existence from us! This single image — released by NASA itself — does more to prove that the Government has been hiding information from us (either about its own capabilities, or about its involvement with extraterrestrial intelligence) for years than anything previously found! I don’t know who is destroying the Face — or how (though it could either be through their own means, if you assume that NASA’s claims about the moon landing are true, and we can travel between the planets; or through the assistance of alien intelligences in collaboration with our government) — but the why can be easily guessed.

To keep us ignorant.

The face has been a thorn in the side of those in control ever since the pictures leaked out to the world after the Viking landers took them — incontrovertible proof of alien intelligence — and they must have been working since its discovery to destroy it so that they could ‘debunk’ it as just another jumble of rocks.

I feel that it is imperative that we refuse to let this continue. Contact your representatives, senators, whomever, but let it be known that we will no longer allow ourselves to be led, that we are not the pawns that our so-called ‘leaders’ want us to be!

Let the truth come out!

 

Okay, okay. So I’ve been watching too much X-Files recently. The picture of the three faces actually comes from a fascinating article on NASA’s website about the formation in question, and how the increased resolution of today’s cameras (and not erosion, alien conspiracies, or the like) are giving a clearer picture of the ‘face’ on Mars. Neat stuff, but it triggered my brain, and I had to get this out. Hey, it was fun!

Egypt, martial arts, drugs, sex.

Not much of an update today. Was supposed to go out with Miranda to see The Mummy Returns, unfortunately as she’s not feeling well, that’ll have to wait until later in the week. But, I’ve got a good selection of alternative entertainment available…this being a Tuesday with some good new releases, I came home with some more movies. Here’s this weeks loot….

Big Trouble in Little China: A mid-80’s John Carpenter classic that was probably way ahead of its time. Chinese mythology and fighting in the midst of San Francisco just didn’t fly when it came out…but in today’s age of wire-fighting turning up everywhere (from traditional type films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to The Matrix and Charlie’s Angels), then this one fits right in along with the rest. Besides — it’s just a kick-ass flick!

Requiem for a Dream: The sophomore effort from Darren Aronofsky, the man behind Pi, this was in no way a ‘sophmore slump.’ A masturfully done and incredibly disturbing film, this story of four people descending into the depths of various addictions is not one to expect to walk out of feeling happy with the world, but is a very powerful film. I was lucky enough to see it in the theater while I was in Seattle last November, and was just amazed by this one — Darren Aronofsky is definitely a director I’m going to keep my eye on in the future.

Sex and the City: Season 2: After Adri recommended Season 1 to me and I went through it, I was pleased to discover that this is a wonderfully entertaining show. Didn’t even realize that the Season 2 set came out today until I saw it on the shelves, then figured I might as well pick it up — pretty much just a whim purchase. Not a bad one, though, if it holds up to the quality of the first season. Here’s hoping!

So that’s it. I’m thinking this would be a good evening to watch Kurt Russel kick some butt in Chinatown….

Back to the usual

I’m back!

You’re thrilled, right?

Oh, well.

Okay, so Friday I got off work at 4. Spent a little time running around doing some last minute errands, then hopped online to chat until my ride showed up to take me to the airport. Got to the airport just in time to catch the plane, and headed up to Fairbanks. Kirsten and Jamie picked me up at the Fairbanks airport, and we headed back to Kirsten’s dorm at UAF (as she was kind enough to put me up for the weekend), where the three of us stayed up talking and BS’ing until way too early in the morning. But then — that’s the point of vacations, right?

Saturday was spent mostly with my family. Slept in, then walked down the hill from UAF about noon for breakfast with mom, dad, and Kevin. After breakfast we headed over to Emily’s work to visit her for a bit, then mom, dad, and Kevin headed off to do some shopping while I borrowed Kevin and Emily’s van to run around on my own. I ended up just tooling around Fairbanks for a bit, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather and listening to a great show on the public radio station called Mountain Stage — lots of really nice live acoustic bluegrass and country performances. Emily got off work at 4pm, so I headed back to meet up with everyone. We all went out to check out Kevin and Emily’s cabin (cute little one room cabin out in the middle of nowhere), then came back into town for family pictures at Sears and dinner at a local pizza parlor.

After dinner, Kevin dropped me off at the Backdoor bar, where I met up with fbkscpl2play, beckythesillygirl, meneleaous, b_converse, and ak_ghost_ryder (all chatters in the Alaska Yahoo! Chat room). We hung out there for a while, then fbkscpl2play and beckythesillygirl took me out to see a drag show at the Palace Saloon (a bar/showhall in Alaskaland). This was an absolute blast — the place was incrediby wild (maybe a side effect of having so little to do in Fairbanks?)! At one point, it was a toss-up as to which was going to be more entertaining — watching the drag queen performing on stage, or turning around and watching the people dancing on the tables!

After the show they cleared about half of the floor of tables and chairs and opened the place up for dancing. We made it until about 2:45am, then decided it was time to bail. I got dropped off back at the UAF dorms, talked with Kirsten for a bit longer, then passed out.

Sunday we slept late again and just hung out in Kirsten’s room until it was time for me to head out. She took me to the airport, and I came homeward bound. Miranda and Loren picked me up and ran me home, then they ran off to do some shopping while I kicked back and watched a few more Season 3 X-Files episodes. This show just gets better and better — unfortunately, I’ve now finished off all of Season 3, and have a few months to go until Season 4 comes out. Arrrrrrghhh! I hate cliffhangers!

Eventually I decided to get out of the house for a bit, and headed out to Century 16 to catch Shrek. This movie is just hilarious — it takes all the familiar fairytales we’ve grown up with, gives them a really wonderfully bizarre take, and has an absolute blast poking fun at Disney throughout the flick (especially the classic “princess singing with the birds” routine — I was laughing so hard after this that I almost missed the next few lines of dialogue!). Much as kids are going to enjoy watching it, I think it’s really the adults who are really going to get a kick out of all the jokes in the film — much of the dialogue is aimed squarely at the adults rather than children, and it makes for one of the funniest films I’ve seen in the theater in a very long time.

Then, not long after I got home, who should call but my friend Stacye — she was kinda bored and wanted to head out, so we met up at the Village Inn by my house, then headed out to ‘koots for a couple drinks. We sat there and talked until about 1:30am, when we realized how late it had gotten and each bailed for home to get some sleep before we got too far into Monday.

Today was a pretty normal day, just dead slow at work. Let a lady who works at GCI that’s expressed interest in buying my car take it for a test drive, though, so hopefully I may have found a buyer. Then came home, watched the extras on the X-Files set, and sold off a few more items from my online garage sale — the PowerMac 6500, SoundDesign stereo, and my old DJ equipment is now gone.

So, that was my weekend…now, back to the day to day drudge…fun fun fun!

Off to Fairbanks!

Well, my rides on the way. Don’t know if I’ll be updating at all while I’m in Fairbanks, so this may be my last post for a few days. If so — see y’all (whoever you may be) when I get back!

How Hollywood sees us

…all of you are just simple-minded dumbasses with tiny brains and limited exposure who are so used to ‘checking your brains at the door’ that your gray matter has devolved into a state of gummy disuse. You are no longer even capable of appreciating anything a notch above ‘stupid’.

— Al Brown, on the Home Theater Forum, hypothesizing on how Hollywood sees the American public

I can’t chicken out now…

…I’ve got a serious inquiry on the car, and I just turned in my two-week notice at GCI and CNTS. So, June 1st will be my last day employed with GCI. I’ll probably turn in my notice at Suncoast fairly soon too, so that my last week there is either that first weekend in June or soon thereafter (if I sell my car early in June, getting around is going to be somewhat problematic). More and more it looks like my target date for leaving really is going to be June 15th — I’m (quite intentionally) making sure I’ve got all my loose ends tied up here, and that it’s difficult for me to back out, just in case I get a last minute case of the heebie-jeebies.