Still no internet. Man, I hate Time Warner. They’re actually worse than Adelphia, who used to do the cable stuff here. At least Adelphia carried FOX. BTW, I’ve discovered an interesting way some unscrupulous person could rip off Time Warner for cheaper cable TV service: Sign up for the basic/extended package for one month. Then call up and ask them to switch your account to “seasonal vacation” status — say you’re going to Italy for six months or something (whatever the longest vacation period is that they’ll give you). They’ll put you on what they call a “soft disconnect,” but your television service won’t be interrupted. Now your bills will only be for $10/month instead of $50/month. Of course, this means you’d have to get your internet access somewhere else; Clearwire, DSL, or something.

I watched Shock Treatment last night. Wow, was it bad. For those who don’t know, it’s the sort-of-not-really 1981 sequel to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The only real continuity it shares with RHPS is that it features the same couple: Brad and Janet (though they’re played by different actors). But they never mention any of the events from the previous film and Janet now has a totally unexplained disdain for Brad — she has him committed to a mental hospital about ten minutes in. That’s sort of a recurring thing in the movie: Characters suddenly acquiring or changing motivations for no discernable reason.

At least in RHPS there was a reason why so many of the characters didn’t make sense –they were aliens, from the planet Transylvania. They were supposed to be perplexing. Anyway, Shock Treatment had a couple good songs in it. But most were god-awful. They had a weird quality to them that kind of felt like the British interpretation of American country music. You know, skewed.

Okay… time to find another free wifi hotspot so I can upload this.

Update: Today’s entry is being posted from just outside the Holland and Terrell Libraries on the WSU campus. It’s cold out here; frickin’ library closes at 5:45 PM on Saturdays, apparently. I tried to use the same hotspot from yesterday, but I couldn’t get a good enough signal. Looks like the Time Warner issue won’t be fixed till Monday.

I played a ton of WarioWare: Smooth Moves today after I wrote the above entry. Finally unlocked multiplayer mode. The dance mini-game (the boss stage for Tiny Wario) is so hard.

Alright, I’m off to Moscow to get some Wendy’s.

I’m composing today’s entry offline. See, Brett and I have been getting our internet access through my sister’s wireless router upstairs. She went back to Pasco for the summer last week and we agreed to pay her cable internet bill until she returned so that we wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of setting up service down here. So this week she had Time Warner put her cable TV service on “seasonal deactivation” (I think that’s what they call it). Of course, everyone who works at TW is hideously incompetent, so they disabled her entire account. And apparently “seasonal deactivations” can only be reversed by supervisor’s supervisors or some stupid thing, so it’ll take more than one day to fix.

Anyway, because of all this I’m going to have to drive around and find a hotspot with my laptop so I can upload this post and not get disqualified from the IMBC. Also, I desperately need to check my email.

I watched the Scrubs season finale after I blogged last night. I remember Tim saying it would be the series finale because the network had decided not to pick it up for another season. I hope that’s not the case — the ending they came up with was very frustrating.

I dunno, maybe it’s better that the show just die altogether before it gets any worse. JD’s behavior has become so irritating in the last few seasons; he’s never happy, even when he gets what he wants. And the constant whining about how lonely he is… ugh, if I wanted to listen to that crap I’d read emoteen LiveJournals.

The whole thing with him continually ditching Kim was so stupid. She’s exactly what he’s been pining for the past few years, but he suddenly hates her because she lied to him. How can he not see that he’s treating her the same way Elliot treated him after he dumped her for no reason? Then he just gives in because he wants his kid to have two parents. Yeah, that’s a great reason to stay with someone.

Then to top it all off, they suggest he and Elliot might run off together. Elliot’s a whole ‘nother mess, but neuroticism’s genuinely a part of her archetype, so it’s easier to accept. Her actions aren’t nearly as vexing; the way the show is presented, the audience isn’t asked to sympathize with her decisions. But when the writers force the audience to tacitly endorse JD’s idiocy with their continued viewing it makes the overall experience more unpleasant.

If The Ex sucks, I think I might be done with Zach Braff.

Brett made some really great fried rice for dinner last night. I think what made it better than usual was the use of ends & pieces bacon — there’s more fat in those, so there’s more grease to flavor the rice.

Update: Okay, found an open wifi connection near the apartment building just past the railroad tracks. My web site seems to be going very, very slowly — like 200 bytes/second. Hopefully this is unique to this person’s connection.

Did you know you don’t get credited (or even a thank you note) when you send news items to Slashfood? I submitted something last night and they ended up running it this morning. But they didn’t mention their source or even send a “we used your submission” message. Kinda lame. It’s weird how the Slashfood people act that way while the Boing Boing editors, who are way more famous (frequently showing up on CNN, NPR, and the Colbert Report), still find the time to respond to most emails. You’d think courtesy would be inversely proportional to popularity, right?

Pink Martini’s new album, Hey Eugene!, came out on the 15th. Dosvedanya Mio Bambino is just as awesome as I remembered it from last summer’s concert in Woodinville. (Gotta get the other tracks from Brett — I don’t want to lower my ratio on OiNK if I can avoid it.)

The Office finale was terrific. Best quotes:

Karen: Pam… is kind of a bitch.

Angela: No, Dwight! I don’t care if that’s how they consolidated power in ancient Rome!

The implications of that last one are pretty scary/hilarious — as if Dwight had actually made the suggestion before, probably multiple times. Oh, I also loved the back-and-forth between Stanley and Dwight about the exchange rate of Schrutebucks to Stanley nickels; “Probably about the same as unicorns to leprechauns.” Heh.

I was a little uneasy about the path the writers would take with this whole “corporate position” plot. If you’ve seen the UK version, you know that it turned out pretty unpleasantly. Still, I thought giving it to Ryan was kind of a cop-out because it didn’t force them to deal with the more dramatic consequences of giving the job to one of the first-tier characters. But I guess they already sort of did that when Jim transferred to the Stamford branch, so it’s forgiveable.

You know there are no Google results for “creedthoughts”? I’m surprised. That was one of the great things about Arrested Development — they always made up funny sites for any URL they mentioned in the show. I mean, obviously the .gov thing isn’t really doable, but still, seems odd they didn’t at least pick up a .com for advertising purposes. Really, if HornyManatee.com can get 20 million hits in one week, creedthoughts.net has got to be worth a couple hundred bucks.

/checks creedthoughts.com availability on NameCheap

Yeah, it’s taken. Bah.

I’ve been working on a cross-section of a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) structure in SketchUp. It’s looking pretty keen, if I do say so myself, but OMG it’s hard to design stuff that hugs the wall in that thing. Just doing it for a cylinder (like the mini-O’Neill habitat I modeled) is pretty tough. But when you have to account for curves on two axes it gets to be a little much for SU. The tools for this stuff just aren’t there.

Re: TotD: I don’t know about a dream vacation, but I would like to visit the Mammoth Cave System in Kentucky someday.

Last night I dreamed I was helping JD (the Pasco guy) move into a log cabin with holes in the roof. The pattern on a random comforter (cerulean blue with bright gold crescent moons and compass roses) was unusually vivid.

(Tangent: Cerulean blue is “bleu céleste” in French, which literally translates as “celestial blue.”)

The second Republican candidate debate aired on Fox News last night. This one was more entertaining than the one MSNBC ran on the 3rd; the candidates were actually naming names and, well, debating. Best parts of the broadcast: “Rudy McRomney” (and Giuliani kind of hinting that he wouldn’t mind having McCain as his VP), Giuliani pwning Ron Paul (the serious look Giuliani got when he demanded the retraction really surprised me), and McCain calling out Romney for changing positions based on which office he was running for at the time. McCain seemed way more together for this debate; in the last one, he seemed very nervous, obviously rehearsed… kind of elderly (in a bad way).

There’s a pretty good Twilight Zone episode on right now. It’s the one where a janitor from 1890 borrows a “time helmet” from the lab he works at and uses it to travel to (I’m guessing) 1960, or sometime around then. Oddly comedic. I like how when it started in 1890 everything was in silent-movie style, then cleared up in 1960. And, best of all, it features a Charles Winchester-esque character who says things like, “My dear sir, what manner of contraption is that which you are wearing?” With all that wonderful overly-dramatic flair and pomposity. Good stuff.

I think I’m going to make some “enhanced” macaroni and cheese tonight. It’s either that, or go to the grocery store. And I’m quite lazy. So I think I’ll make up a batch and throw in some chopped-up chicken breast and frozen vegetables.

Kinda hard to think of stuff to talk about tonight. Nothing interesting has really happened since yesterday. I’m looking forward to Lost tonight. It’s actually on the TiVo right now; I just have to finish this blog so I can watch it. I think it’s the last episode before the season finale.

Okay, I think this is enough. BTW, any 4channers out there know how to make /b/ viewable? I’ve been searching for the fix for a while now, but haven’t turned up anything that actually works. I guess I’ll try the IRC channel if I get really desperate.

Renewed my lease today. The company that manages the property has really been on me about it for the past couple weeks. I asked them why they needed it signed so far in advance of the current lease’s expiration and they said that if I didn’t, it would be relisted as available (though I wouldn’t lose my right to renew before June 6th). And that’s total horsepucky because a month ago I had people calling me asking when they could come look at the unit. So someone had already relisted it way before they ever asked me about my plans to renew. Anyway, I went down there at 4:00 PM last Friday to sign the papers and, lo and behold, their office was closed. Even though it’s printed right on the door: Monday-Friday, 9-12, 1-5. Really classy, Heritage Realty.

Finished Rant last night. The big reveal was pretty awesome; when I realized how everything had been set up, I spent a couple minutes just thinking about the ramifications. I’d say it was on par with Egan’s Axiomatic stories as far as brain-twisting goes, though the device Palahniuk employs is slightly hokier than the kind of things Egan dreams up. But it changed my mind about Party Crashing. Remember what I said in #804 about it not being as interesting as his other underground sodalities? Way off base. Once you know the true origins and purpose of the hobby (lifestyle?), any trace of mundanity disappears.

The book left me with questions about a few characters/motivations, but I guess it’s supposed to be kind of patchy like that; that’s why it’s told as an “oral biography.” BTW, if you’re wondering what the thing on the cover is, it’s a shredded cow’s heart. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the novel:

Echo Lawrence: When Shot said “rabies,” I thought he’d said “babies.” The results came back negative, thank God, but I think I asked for the wrong test.

Brett called my attention to a new ad on Bravo: Apparently the premiere date for Top Chef season three has finally been set — June 13th. I’m psyched. We re-watch the old ones all the time. It kind of surprised me how much I like the show; normally, I absolutely can’t stand reality televsion. (Well, excepting the first season of Last Comic Standing. But it was only passable.)

You know, I just figured out I’ve written more than 15,000 words for this year’s IMBC so far. That’s kind of neat.

I just finished a really good Quadradius match. Very close the whole way through, though about 40 turns weren’t spent doing much since we’d both established such evenly matched positions and the game wasn’t dropping many height-changing power-ups. He was slaughtering me with a Jump Proof Scavenger — I must have lost three pieces that way. But I was finally able to set off a Bankrupt Row and evacuate my threatened pieces to the protected squares. (Bankrupted squares sap enemy pieces of all their powers.) Then he came after my pieces in the upper left area (I’m green — see the screencap below). He ran Beneficiary, Invisible, Move Again, and a Destroy Column all in one turn. I was really sure he had the game at this point. So he takes out my Inhibited piece in the middle, and I hop onto a new orb which turns out to be Pilfer Radial. I run the power-up and suck up like five extremely good powers. That’s when he conceded.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I bought a two-month membership. It’s definitely worth the three bucks. Some of those powers I mentioned, like Invisible and Bankrupt, are only available to registered users. (Edit: BTW, I’m “fortunethief” on Quadradius. Just in case anyone wants to play a match sometime. Yes, I took the name from a Magic card.)

Made chili for dinner last night. I didn’t have any ground beef defrosted, so I used bacon ends & pieces and some cubed chicken breast for the meat. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anywhere close to my previous batches. I think I might have over-stirred it; that can really dry out chili because the released bean starches are hygroscopic.

(Tangent*: Did you know hygroscopy is the correct term for what most people call hydroscopy? I can’t believe Alton Brown led me astray… But to be fair, that’s a Greek root you don’t hear very often. “Hygro-” means wet, “hydro-” means water. Hygroscopic, BTW, basically means “soaks up liquid.”)

* Stolen from Peter.

Anyway, here’s the dish. I made up some buttered/toasted bread slices to go with it.

Oh yeah, Brett and I planted some herbs in pots over the storage cellar today. We did dill, parsley, chives, basil, and spearmint. I’ve never been that good with plants and I think this is the first time he’s ever planted anything, so who knows if anything’ll grow. I hope it does though; fresh herbs are stupid expensive if you get them at the grocery store. Fresh rosemary, for example, is $2.19 for two-thirds of an ounce at Safeway. That’s more than fifty dollars per pound. Ridiculous.