- I don't like the new Staind single. Cheese-fest.
- The game "Rockband" is the karaoke of the 2000's.
- I'm an ombudsman.
- See Eeyore as Captain EO! (YouTube, 1:15, work-safe.)
- Just re-discovered an old favorite song by Public Image Ltd.: Covered. (Rhapsody or iTunes.) ("I give, I give!") And such great lyrics, too. Listen to it loud!
- I have a little cold.
- My iPhone 3G got flaky yesterday. When I tried to sync, it kept saying the disk could not be read, or written to. Tried powering-off/on several times to no avail. Had to reset via iTunes. It seemed to be working fine, but now some of my contacts are coming-up as "Unknown." Harrrumph. Intermittently over the last few months, the phone would mysteriously be no longer activated. (It would re-activate a few minutes later.) Still, compared to my previous cell phones, the iPhone has been amazingly stable and reliable overall.
- A disquieting video: Satan in claymation, something to do with Mark Twain. (YouTube, 5:00, work-safe.)
- Beautiful art: The Cerebral Prostitute. (Image, work-safe.)
- I ran across this quote. I don't know where it came from, but it sums-up my beliefs succinctly: "Everything does not happen for a reason. There is no karma. Dreams don't always mean something. Good and bad shit happens to everyone. It's not exactly random, but it sure-as-hell ain't programmed or managed."
- Sometimes bears throw more attitude than so-called twinks.
- A favorite Aimee Mann lyric: "You don't know, so don't say you do."
- Meet the world's longest URL.
- Random stuff
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
sluggobear- December 31st, 2008
Random:
- Photos from Disneyland
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- sluggobear
- October 6th, 2008
Had an awesome time at Disneyland yesterday! Some photos appear below. (18 photos, requires Flash, slideshow runs 1min 30sec, work-safe.)
Once you click the play button, you can also click the expand icon to see the slideshow in full-screen.
You can also mouse-click to advance the photos faster.
If you can't see the slideshow, look at the photos directly on Flickr.
Many thanks to all the guys who made it a fun day!!
- Disneyland - Just so it's totally clear
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- sluggobear
- September 22nd, 2008
I'm already hearing some confusion about the meet-ups for Gay Days at Disneyland. So, to review, the meeting times are:- Saturday, October 4th, Noon at The Hungry Bear restaurant in Disneyland.
- Sunday, October 5th, 11am at Grizzly River Rapids in California Adventure.
I will be there in full-force on Sunday!
- Humphrey the Bear stars in Disney's "In The Bag"
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- sluggobear
- September 18th, 2008
When I was a kid, this was seriously my favorite cartoon ever. (YouTube, 7:30, work-safe.)
- Gay Days at Disneyland - UPDATED meeting spot
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- sluggobear
- September 18th, 2008
Hey guys, it looks like the OCBears had already scheduled a meet-up at 11am on Sunday for Gay Days... their rendezvous point is at the entrance to Grizzly Rapids Run in California Adventure.
Rather than force people to choose between the two meet-ups, I figure we'd just merge with theirs... it's published on the official Gay Days schedule, so I figure it'll be OK for us to join 'em.
I've updated the LJ post and Socializr invite accordingly!
UPDATE... so, to review, the meet-up times are:- Saturday, October 4th, Noon at The Hungry Bear restaurant in Disneyland.
- Sunday, October 5th, 11am at Grizzly River Rapids in California Adventure.
- Gay Days at Disneyland - Oct 4 & 5, 2008
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- sluggobear
- September 17th, 2008
Gay Days at Disneyland... anyone else going?
UPDATED: We'll meet-up on Sunday at Grizzly River Rapids (California Adventure). Be there at 11am sharp. Check-out the details and RSVP here. Bring whomever.
Weekend meet-up times:- Saturday, October 4th, Noon at The Hungry Bear restaurant in Disneyland.
- Sunday, October 5th, 11am at Grizzly River Rapids in California Adventure.
- A favorite article
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- sluggobear
- June 13th, 2008
In honor of the recent landing of Phoenix on Mars, and maybe even in honor of the soon-to-be released film Wall-E, I thought I'd share a very favorite article from The Onion.
Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars
Unmanned Vehicle 'Bored Out Of Its Mind'
October 24, 2006 | Issue 42•43
PASADENA, CA—NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists overseeing the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission said Monday that the Spirit's latest transmissions could indicate a growing resentment of the Red Planet.
"Spirit has been displaying some anomalous behavior," said Project Manager John Callas, who noted the rover's unsuccessful attempts to flip itself over and otherwise damage its scientific instruments. "And the thousand or so daily messages of 'STILL NO WATER' really point to a crisis of purpose."
The "robot geologist," as NASA describes Spirit, has been operating independently for over 990 Martian sols—nearly the equivalent of three Earth years. However, scientists estimate that, in recent weeks, Spirit has been functioning on the level of a rover who has been on Mars for approximately 6,160 sols.
According to Callas, Spirit was operating normally until the onset of the Martian winter, whose shorter days and frigid temperatures typically mean a slower pace for exploratory rovers. "We began getting the occasional transmission along the lines of 'ANOTHER SOIL SAMPLE OF THE EXACT SAME COMPOSITION AS THE LAST ONE,'" Callas said. "Most of the time, she'd power down and not transmit much of anything, which, at the time, didn't particularly concern us."
But as the winter lingered, Spirit began producing thousands of pages of sometimes rambling and dubious data, ranging from complaints that the Martian surface was made up almost entirely of the same basalt, to long-winded rants questioning the exorbitant cost and scientific relevance of the mission.
"Granted, Spirit has been extraordinarily useful to our work," Callas said. "Last week, however, we received three straight days of images of the same rock with the message 'HAPPY NOW?'"
Mission Project Scientist Bruce Banerdt said that Spirit will often roll down Gusev crater and up the opposite side for no apparent reason, missing "countless" potential opportunities for scientific discovery.
"Once, when we radioed her to please leave the lecturing and hypothesis-making to the mission project team, she responded by forming her robotic arm into an obscene gesture," Banerdt said. "That arm contains a state-of-the-art spectrometer meant to provide crucial mineralogy data."
Project organizers said the most distressing instance of erratic behavior occurred last week, when images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed that Spirit had scrawled the message 'FUCK MARS' in the thick, iron oxide dust that gives the planet its characteristic red color.
"The orbiting Mars Odyssey has cut off transmissions from Spirit, which seems to envy the craft's ability to fly freely around in space," Banerdt said. "Similarly, data suggests Spirit is convinced that [sister rover] Opportunity has found water and isn't telling anyone."
Despite these malfunctions, mission leaders remain optimistic that the rover will eventually return to full working order.
"Hopefully these malfunctions will straighten themselves out," Callas said. "In the meantime, we'll simply have to try to glean what usable data we can from 'OVERPRICED SPACE-ROOMBA AWAITING MORE BULLSHIT ORDERS.'"
- Disneyland mini-movie
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- sluggobear
- April 26th, 2007
tired
Almost forgot to post this! (
YouTube, 5 minutes)
- Cars
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- sluggobear
- June 24th, 2006
Go see Cars. I loved it! A great little story. I wasn't expecting much in the way of character development but Pixar did a really amazing job.
We saw it in Digital Projection... the picture was absolutely amazing!
- Day at Disneyland
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- sluggobear
- May 15th, 2006
groggy
(OK so I'm a LJ slacker... trying to play catch-up...)
Spent an absolutely beautiful day at the park, me, Simon (bearlesque), Dave (e_ticket), Jay (Fidget), Sam, Kevin (SimonBear) and Rob.
Hit Haunted Mansion (4 times), Space Mountain, Tower of Terror, Soarin', Monsters Inc, Buzz Lightyear (4 times), Indy, Matterhorn, and had a grand Mexican lunch outside at Downtown Disney.
Had fun chatting about theme park geekery, as we collectively tried to figure-out why Disneyland chose to close the "Bear Country Jamboree" attraction just weeks before its namesake film "Country Bears" was released (supposed to be a venture in "cross-branding." The point was then raised about why they released that movie at all, but I digress...)
Haunted Mansion is more stunning than ever, with some new effects and various improvements. Madame Liotta's crystal ball now levitates in mid-air, cool! And the dead bride's room has some nifty new transforming portraits... how did they do that?!
Space Mountain delivered a memorable experience... just seconds before heading-up the lift hill, our train was diverted backstage and into the service bay. I pressed the attendant, asking three times why we'd been diverted... each time I got the same response: "your rocket was running low on fuel, and we need to make sure it has enough fuel to make it back to earth!" (This is apparently code for "your train was too heavy and wouldn't have made it all the way through the ride!")
Sadly, the fireworks weren't running (it was a weeknight, and school isn't quite out yet...) but we still had a fab time, not having to wait too long for anything.
The only downside of the day was taking Simon to the airport to catch his flight to Sydney. Dammit! Come back, dude...
- Back from DisneyWorld
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- sluggobear
- March 12th, 2006
thirsty
Dad was going to be in Orlando for a business trip. "Why don't you come for the weekend?" he asked. "You can stay in my hotel room."
Southwest owed me a free air ticket, and I had a free weekend car rental coming to me too. What the heck, why not?! So I flew to Orlando on Friday night. Went to Busch Gardens on Saturday, then hit DisneyWorld on Sunday. And on to New Jersey for work on Monday.
Here are the pics:
http://www.kinetwork.com/mikey/photogallery/2006-mar-buschgardens/
http://www.kinetwork.com/mikey/photogallery/2006-mar-disneyworld/
Headline from The Onion: GEICO Saves 15 Percent Or More By Discontinuing Advertising
Word of the day: antithesis
