ThinkingSkull.com

As the midnight hour draws near on the East Coast, I am reminded by the visible clock at LHCountdown that on 12am Tuesday the Eighth of July, 2008, the Large Hadron Collider will be activated.

Now, for all you non-comic book reading, unintellectual sheep who have no idea what’s going on in your world (in which case it’s bloody unlikely you’re reading this anyway), start-up sequences are nearly complete on an underground ring about 17 miles in circumference at a location where France borders Switzerland. Using super-cooled electromagnetic rings, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator will race subatomic particles, protons in this case, and smash them into one another (hence the term “atom smasher”) in the hopes of releasing energy and discovering new or previously undiscovered theoretical particles (that all sound just like those big words they use on “Star Trek”). Detection of such things could provide insight into the origins of the universe… or rip a hole in the space-time continuum that may swallow the known universe right after letting in a bunch of extra-dimensional critters to knock humans down one step on the food chain (have you rented Stephen King’s The Mist yet?)

So, while my own clock on the right is counting down the days to the end of the Mayan calendar, remember this: if you suddenly find yourself living next Monday over and over again or realize that your spirit is no longer contained by a body of flesh, at least now you’ll have some idea what happened.

Wow. From “Witchblade” to “Fathom” to “Tomb Raider” and a host of other stories and artwork, I actually own signed and framed pieces of art by his guy. If this doesn’t inspire would-be creators to do what it is they’ve always wanted to do, take heed: your birth certificate has an expiration date and for a few it isn’t very far off. Gonna miss Turner’s stuff.

A co-worker actually asked me this question today (along with indicating that Halloween was the other one). Nice to see I’m leaving an impression, huh? Very nice.

All chant! “The night time is the right time… the night time is the right time… the night time is the right time… the night time is the right time…” (with full apologies to Adam Sandler).

I believe that the art of embracing divine inspiration is the happy frustration of trying to arrange 26 letters into a cohesive thought onto a clean slice of a processed dead tree.

Too much? Yeah, too much. After a little though, I’m dropping the clean slice of a processed dead tree. And so, the edit:

“The art of embracing divine inspiration is the happy frustration of trying to arrange 26 letters into a cohesive thought.”

Much better. No, wait. “The art of?” What kind of pretentious verbiage is that? Okay, one last revision.

“Embracing divine inspiration is the happy frustration of arranging 26 letters into a cohesive thought.”

Wow… that’s almost an email signature. I’ll work on it again later.

Most people who fly anywhere at all in the United States are pretty used to the new routine (laptops out, shoes off, carry on bags through “the machine,” ID and boarding pass, please). Most of the security people at each of the terminals I recently went through we’re all pretty joyless about their jobs… EXCEPT in Las Vegas!

At the ‘D’ terminal gate, a jealously-enormous television screen shows you what can and cannot taken on the plane. To illustrate the fact, “Star Trek” Federation “Red Shirt” security personal demonstrate what can happen when a Klingon tries to sneak guns and knives through the checkpoint. Hilarious, yes (especially for 1337est geeks like myself), but isn’t this clearly promoting “species profiling?”

You be the judge. Check out someone’s YouTube video of the educational film.

Two things: I was wrong, and boy was I wrong!

Even upon opening the storage container, there was a sense of underestimation. Inside were a washer and dryer, a full-size fridge, pieces to a bed, and over a dozen or so odd boxes, containers, and trunks covered with sheets of plastic (images coming soon!) So I asked innocently, “Which stack is mine?”

My friend laughed at me. “Here’s a hint: it ain’t the appliances or the bed.”

Uh oh. What I’d guessed to be a morning or an afternoon project turned into a morning AND afternoon project. I decided to do this in two phases. First, get rid of the stuff I definitely wasn’t keeping, like a fish tank, old lamps and antiquated electrical stuff, art supplies long dried out or ruined, and other general junk. Sadly, what was left could still fill over three foot lockers, much more than I could afford to ship back.

After a quick stop to eat at a west-coast-staple Carl’s Jr. (which Hardee’s on the east coast is quickly transforming into in every way but name), we sought the shade of the garage for the second sort. Sadly, all the magazines had to go to make room for the actual books and such, and there were many. Starlog, Fangoria, “official” film magazines, gaming rags, you name it, plus various pieces of outdated paperwork in the form of old bills, empty notebooks, and shreadables.

This second sort was hands on; I meant to touch everything to ensure it was seen to be sorted before keeping or tossing. Among the keepers were two college yearbooks, a high school yearbook, class ring, senior key, pictures and advertising for various theatrical work I’d done prior to enlistment, and an unusually sentimental number of pictures from events I didn’t recall documenting. There are enough images that I’m considering doing a mandatory half-life montage, but we shall see. Apparently I’ve reached an age where I don’t look back on old photos in horror but as a chance to think of my younger self as another person from another time (DeLorean and sports almanac not included).

In the end, two foot lockers remained that weighed in at 95 pounds each, so the whole bit on the plane was out and Greyhound Xpress shipping was in. Although their website estimated less than 3 days shipping and about $60 for under 100 pounds, that price of course doubled (two trunks), incurred a gasoline surtax of about 10% each on top of it, and would take a week. Fortunately it’s now all done and everything is on its way; on to the Winchester Mystery House!

I’m flying out to the West Coast to visit a friend this weekend, but part of this trip is also to clean out my portion of a storage unit and have what I’m not throwing away shipped back with me. I’ve asked my buddy out there (repeatedly) to take a few digital snapshots of the stuff to help me pre-sort it, but that hasn’t happened (thanks, Ed… you’re buying the first round). My ulterior motive for the request, however, was that I can’t seem to remember too much of what is actually there.

A lot of teens graduating high school can’t see past their senior year, and up until I joined the Navy, I only had a thought as to what I wanted to do with my life and neither the focus nor ambition to move in that direction. I believe I was 22 when I enlisted, 23 by the time I got there, and after traveling the world, enduring the rise and fall of an infamous ISP, and getting married then divorced, it has been almost half my life since looking through all the things I thought were important to me back then… my “half-life,” if you will.

I know there are books in there I want to keep and hope aren’t damaged. I also remembered my original Worlds of Wonder “Lazer Tag” equipment is there, too, with the old-fashioned toy guns that didn’t have the mandatory orange tips (no taking those on the plane). Everything else is a mystery lying in wait, but at the time it was the cumulative worldly possessions of a college dropout with only a hunch that a stint in the military might do him some good.

To be continued…

This was originally posted at CommandLineIdiot.com.

The United States economy is in a funk. Food prices are up, oil is through the roof, real estate has collapsed, and credit is becoming scarce. Here are 12 signs to look for when the recession hits the Internet:

1. Digg.com moves their server over to Dreamhost
2. Jeff Bezos delivers his TED talk with a GoldenPalace.com tattoo across his naked chest
3. i can affordz cheezburger?
4. Drew Curtis switches to Pabst Blue Ribbon
5. For $20, Rick Astley will show up to do it in person.
6. Woot.com starts accepting payment in Flooz
7. Jeph Jacques sells all remaining ad space to Warner Music Group
8. Nigerian spammer steals your identity, only to return it 3 days later when he finds out your credit score
9. Scoble spruces up resume for sweet new gig as Hugh MacLeod’s intern
10. StuffWhitePeopleLike? Liquidity.
11. Guy Kawasaki trades in his MacBook for a Dell
12. You hire a PHP Developer for $12 an hour through elance.com, and it turns out to be Matt Mullenweg

Not that this would be a problem for anyone, but Jessica Alba wants you to stare at her. In fact, she challenges you to do so! She absolutely DEMANDS that you stare… until one of you blinks, that is. In what may be the dumbest idea ever for an Internet publicity stunt, it doesn’t seem crazy or calculated at all when proposed by Ms. Alba. Check out her challenge at celebrity.myspace.com and remember, if you can’t find a reason to out stare Jessica Alba, you’d better be blind, in a doctor’s care, or seriously playing for the other team. Good luck!

Interestingly, if you’ve ever wondered whether or not a MySpace page was really a celebrity or not, I’d say this is a pretty good way to prove it. Golly, I hope she approves my “friend” request… tee hee!

As I came to realize, I wasn’t doing anything wrong in my evil attempt to bend Blogger to my sinister will and become a puppet-like mouthpiece for my movie website. Turns out their system was having an issue, not what I was doing. See? This why sometimes it’s a good thing to quit and walk away because it may not even be your fault!

Greed, envy, sloth (laziness), wrath (anger), pride, gluttony, lust; these were the seven deadly sins. Now the Vatican has added seven new sins to the list: being obscenely wealthy, causing social ills including polluting the environment, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia, causing social injustice, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments or allowing genetic manipulation.

Having too much money is always a bad thing (especially according to everyone who is actually poor) so not a real stretch there. “Causing social ills” is so ambiguous that it could be applied to anything from housing development to bullying kids on the playground… sheesh! Drug dealing is bad (and all pharmacists are now going to hell), but doesn’t that fall under causing social ills again?

Personally, I’m pro-choice on abortion; ask the unborn kid if he wants to die (I’m SOOOO going to get email for that one, but you have to admit it nicely takes religion out of the equation, doesn’t it?) Pedophilia is out (so now priests will have to play with themselves… ewww), but isn’t this just causing social ills again? “Causing social injustice” is another extension of “ills,” and how is that really any different? And finally, manipulating genetics and morally debatable experimentation are more social ills, right?

That leaves only obscene wealth, causing social ills, and abortion (by the way, I actually think the pro-whatever issue is a personal choice for everyone and every situation, so I harbor no ill feeling toward one view or the other). Instead of fourteen, I count only ten deadly sins, which balances ever so nicely with those Ten Commandments (by the way, “Thou shalt not kill” was mistranslated from “Thou shalt not murder,” which is radically different in context).

“Dungeons & Dragons” co-creator and celebrated d20-wielder Gary Gygax has passed away (for you die-hard tabletop players out there, after rolling a ‘1′ on a critical saving throw, the Big Dungeon Master upstairs opted to retire his character). More over at CNN.com, but I’ll post whatever else I can find here as soon as I get it.

• John Kovalic honors Mr. Gygax.
• Dueling Analogs is thinking kinda what we were.
• Penny Arcade weighs in.
• Order of the Stick makes its tribute.
• Joystiq.com gets it right with Death and Gary.

For some reason, I can’t find this during a regular search, but this should fix that right now. Larry Ranson (aka Al Ranson or Big Al) got his picture snapped for USA Today. Cool, huh? Yeah, he couldn’t wait to tell me and my sibblings about it, either (you would, too).

During the second season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of the characters threw out the phrase “dark & twisty,” which sounds a like a friendly way of saying you enjoy a bit of the dark side. A little gothic without the black fingernail polish, less “emo” than just kind of spooky. Why should mundanes (a term lovingly ripped off from “Babylon 5″) think it odd that some enjoy a good, stormy, lightning-filled day rather than deep blue skies and blinding sunshine?

To this end, I’ve been thinking of descriptive terms for these people whom choose to let in a little nighttime and moonlight, less lurking in darkness and more walking in the twilight or dabbling in shadows. I know a lot of people that fall into the category, and I dare say our numbers are growing.

Not that we’re planning to collectively blot out the sun or anything.

From 10:01pm until 10:51 EST, the moon will be covered in the shadow of the earth, the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010. NASA has the specifics for whatever time zone your in.

If you’re the type to fear for your life due to this localized cosmic event, fear not. There are still 1765 days left until the end of the Mayan Calendar.

Update: Crap. It was last night. Drat.

And then there were three: the two “danger candidates” (as I’ve labeled them) and the guy who’s become a real thorn in Hillary Clinton’s side, Barack Obama. But let’s re-examine that assessment, shall we?

My roommate and I have had serious discussions over this current race back before it even WAS a presidential contest. The fact is, for the first time since I’ve been old enough to vote, I don’t feel like my choices are “crap” and “less crappy.” Part of that comes from Barack Obama not only challenging Ms. Clinton for the Democratic nomination but actually now pulling ahead of her. It’s not experience that’s making Obama attractive to voters or even the fact that he’s black; it’s because he gives people hope.

Both Ms. Clinton and John McCain are both blessed and hindered by their positions. For the Republicans, McCain is the next “old man” in line for the run. Hillary, or the other hand, seems convinced that it’s simply her turn, period. In direct contrast, Obama just seems to be doing his own thing, GOP and Clinton “burn-your-bridges politics” be damned.

My roommate and I agree on the following scenarios. If McCain goes against Hillary, McCain stands a very good chance of winning. If McCain faces Obama, there’s a very good chance Obama will win. And no matter what happens, Huckabee’s amazing performance will serve him well in 2012 when he’s pointing the finger at whichever 2008 president elect screwed up the previous four years.

So here’s a few questions. If you (as a currently single person) ask a friend (who also happens to be single) to join you for a swanky holiday work-related gathering, does it count as a date or not? Does it matter if it’s a first date? If it wasn’t defined as a date before being accepted, can it be counted after it’s successfully over? If I declare it was a date without actually telling anyone beforehand and it rolls into another date, does that make me a “relationship ninja?”

In other news, my roommate flipped me off for bothering him with these same stupid questions.

“Dark & twisty once again saves an otherwise mundane day.”

John McCain or Mitt Romney for Republican candidate? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for Democratic candidate?

While McCain looks like he’s out pacing Romney by sheer will, the Clinton vs. Obama crossfire has the effect of showcasing a distinct lack of a united front for the Democrats in this race. While Rudy Giuliani calmly and professionally threw his support to McCain, I can’t imaging any of the Democratic front runners even pretending to concede anything to another candidate except by saying, “Let the punishment fit the crime.”

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS

Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

OFFICE ARITHMETIC

Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

SHOPPING MATH

A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn’t need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS

To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

LONGEVITY

Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, “You’re next.”
They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

(arrived in an email; sorry I don’t know who to credit)

So Hillary Clinton and John McCain came out on top in New Hampshire, the two people I like to call the “danger” candidates. Here’s why.

If Hillary makes the Democratic nomination, it’s going to feel like putting Bill back in the White House (Bill has probably already reserved “First Man” on MySpace). Isn’t that kind of like rewinding the clock 8 years? Didn’t the last two attempts by Ms. Clinton for universal health care die horrible deaths in Congress? Hillary doesn’t feel like hope or progress as much as she does eerily familiar. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t win, however, depending on who’s she’s up against. With any luck it won’t be…

John McCain has a history, folks. While being a POW (for what, four years?) makes him sound like a promising president, it also screams “Manchurian Candidate.” Assuming he’s not a preprogrammed counter-intelligence agent, the other irrational fear is that he’s going to go post-traumatic stress syndrome the moment he gets the launch codes from the Book of Secrets (it’s real… there’s a movie.)

But what am I worried about? It’s only one primary with more to come. Sleep tight!