Heya all!

Lately I have been playing America's Army again. Just in time for my blood preasure was way too low. It is free, and you might as well download it, because your tax dollars payed for it.

On another not, I was passed this link this morning from someone at work. Here is what was on Fark:

What happens when you play Counterstrike too much? You end up with a potty mouth. And some enemies: So, the story goes that co-worker A got sick of co-worker B's constant profanity whilst playing Counter Strike. Co-worker A then hid a microphone next to co-worker B's desk, and captured this stream of rantings. Then, as co-worker A was a member of an electronic music-making concern, he endeavored to edit it all together. The end result was this:

For you regular readers of this blog, I mentioned in passing that there would be some good news in the next few weeks. Well now I can finally anounce with confidence that my wife (Sonja) is pregnant with our first child.

I am so happy! :)

Here is a picture of the new ladd/lassy at 3 months. . . (link)

Isn't that cool! She/he/it has my wife's good looks, you can tell already.

I must say that ultrasound machines are FUCKING COOL! When they stick it inside (and they do at this early in the pregnancy) you can see all sorts of cool stuff. We have another ultrasound at 1.5 months where you can see the lil' guy's tail. HOW COOL!

As you can see I am very proud of my new kid.

Anyway, back to ultrasounds. I want one of these things. I know I would chase my dog around the house wondeing if he ate my keys or run to the grocery store to see if I won a cool prize in my box of Alpha Bitz or just another Wacky Wall Walker.

Anyway, I am proud of Sonja, she has been handeling pregnancy like a champ. So far it has gone real well.

TTYL!

~n

I was up late last night working on an admin script for a customer of mine. I have it working perfectly on my development server, however when I post it to my customer staging site on this server (arlo-web.com) it is all screwed-up.

So all I have to say is. . .

!&*#$*@$%^#@@!@#$%^!!!!!!!!

There I feeel much better, thanks,

~n

Those of you who know me know I HATE the Oregon Beach. It is cold, full of people, and usually has litter scattered everywhere.

My wife loves the beach. I love her, so. . . I go to the beach. Fortunately we have access to a condo that my family has in the crapy town of Gerheart. I don't blame the town or the people. Lord knows that Gerheart is a nice place, the only fault it has is that it is next to the worst town in Oregon. Namely, Seaside Oregon.

This place is begging to be destroyed by a Tsunami. In fact, if the government wants to whipe-out a town by huge wave for testing. I would be the first to recomend this shit-hole for demolition.

It is loud, ugly, full of USELESS shops and teenagers (both usually go hand-in-hand). The food is crapy the beach is full of kids in diapers who needed to be changed 4 hours ago.

OK, my rant over Seaside is over. The place, sucks, we know. Now why would someone go to the Oregon coast? I still don't know. This weekend's nice weather drug all of Portland to the coast.

I don't know where this is going, so I'm going to go back to work and dream of hiking in Central Oregon. Warm days and clear nights looking at the stars. And, most important, NOBODY AROUND.

~n
AKA: Militant Introvert

Heya all!

I saw two movies on DVD this weekend that I really enjoyed. I wouldn't say they were "great" movies, however they both were all-around fun.

First wasThe Powerpuff Girls Movie. This movie, was a fun cartoon. If you are familiar with the TV Series and you enjoy the show, you'll enjoy this movie. The animation is excellent for the 2-d feel they want to show. The girls look a bit better and interact with their environment a bit cleaner than the TV version.

The story was fun, showing the origins of the girls. I lauged a bunch of times, just because . . . well just because it was fun to see. The game of tag and the monkies were the funniest to me (you'll see when you watch the movie).

B+

Second movie was Undercover Brother. Another fun movie. I think the only one who would laugh at the same jokes I did, would be my friend Dave. He has the same odd sense of humor that can pick up on small details with huge underlining meanings. In other words we're super smart! :P

I won't go into movie details however David Chappelle steels the show, as Conspiracy Brother. I listened to the directors commentary and many of his lines were improv, which made them even more jewels. Eddie Griffin naied Undercover Brother. He had me love the move so much that I was saying "solid" to my wife all weekend.

B

~n

All I can say is FUCK YEA!

• The Hulk(Various, MOV) - This looks good folks!
• Daredevil(2.2Mb, MOV) - My favorate super hero of ALL time!
• The Matrix(23.8Mb, MOV) - Neo looks bad-ass!

looks like another wonderful geek-filled year for movies!

Don't forget The Return of the King in December!

(Nick swoons) ~n

Well as some of you know, I have recently received my new 7-8 wt St. Croix spey rod. Man It is a great rod. I really like the way it loads and man, the line you can shoot is amazing. I'm hooked with steelheading with the big stick.

Friday, I took an extra-long lunch and went down to the Clackamas for some double-spey casting practice. It was fun, so fun that I really didn't want to go back to work. I got down the single-spey (kinda) and was improving my double-spey.

Saturday was interesting. The wife was having breakfast with some of her friends. So I cleaned the house, like a good husband, and ran to Oxbow in the Sandy for some snap-t cast practice.

After an hour at the hole below first picnic area, I decided to try to find a great spot that I fished a week ago on a boat with a buddy of mine. I knew around where it should be from the road, so I went searching.

I think I found it, however the river was high so it may be a diffrent place. I started the snap-t with perfection. Gradually gaining confidence with by letting out more and more line.

At this point, I remembered reading that the snap-t works well with an upstream wind, and that with a downstream wind you should switch hands and try the double-spey. This would require using my left hand on the top of the rod. Let me first tell you that my left hand is fairly useless. I only use it to type out stuff on the left-side of my keyboard.

So, I gave it a shot. However I forgot to bring in some line that I was using for the snap-t. First cast, a disaster, second cast a little better, third cast a train wreck.

Finally my last cast of the day. I bring the line back, swing it around, cast forward and BAM!

My glasses are gone!

Besides a useless left hand I am also fairly blind. I can only see about 4 inches in front of my face clearly, after that it is blurry.

It was raining so I had the hood of my raincoat on, however this did not prevent the line(or hook) somehow grabbing my glasses and throwing them into the river. I didn't even see them leave my face. I didn't even feel them go, just wham and they are gone. They were gone so fast that I firmly believe that they were tossed into the middle of the river.

Now being blind, I couldn't do much but try to get back to the car. This would be hard, because I was at the Oxbow it'self and very far away from the car. To make things worse the path back to the car was weavy and a maze of bushes. I was freaking out.

I did manage to get back to the car and prayed that an old pair of glasses would be in the glove compartment. Luckily there were. You would have laughed. They were a pair from around 1989. The frames were perfect wired-rimmed circles. I looked like a hippy-Harry Potter.

When I drove home my wife saw me and busted a gut laughing at my new look. I had a chuckle and joined her in the warm house. Happy to be home.

So to all of you new spAy rod folks out there. First spell SpAy with a "E" and second, don't cast with your off-hand unless you have a motorcycle helmet on.

~n

I have to say that this is one of the funniest fark photoshop jabs I have seen in quite a while.

Photoshop Slashdot

enjoy!

~n

About Schmidt is . . . nothing does justice. I have never felt like I could see the world through a retired person's eyes before. After seeing this movie, I really appreciate the attitude of an older person. Their motivations and perspectives of the world. Watch the movie and listen to the best-man speech. It is not obvious however you will know what I mean.

Jack Nicholson does a great job of taking a role with very little dialogue that you see and making an amazing character. Most of the time we hear Jack speak, it is in narrative while he is reading a letter describing his inner thoughts. Amazing he can show more emotion in his character without speaking than most actors can do with a huge script. Jack is not playing Jack and with such a strong personality it is amazing to me that you never even feel this is the guy at Lakers games and on talk shows.

Kathy Bates does it again. Not only does she bring out an AMAZING performance, but she also restores my faith in Hollywood in one stroke. Older women in good roles are missing in Hollywood. If you are a woman who is not 20-something (or look it) with big boobs and a small ass, you are missing in most movies. Bates, shows us what a confident woman can do in this industry with a performance that overshadows Jacks. This overshadowing is just what the director wants. She is supposed to be larger than life, with too much reality built in.

Speaking of directors, Alexander Payne comes out of the shadows after his excellent movie Election. Seems like he has taken his time to show his stuff again, and I can't wait to see his next movie. He has a humor that does not take away from the seriousness of his subjects.

See this movie and learn a little bit about what it is like to see the world outside your young mind (if you are young like me). :)

Rating: A

~n

I found this interesting.

As most of you know, I have a degree in History with a focus around the history of the 20th century. I found this online today and it was fun to see the patterns.

Bestseller list 1900-1995

I noticed a few things

• Diet Books become popular about 10 years after the popularity of cook books (cook books in the 50s and diet books after the mid 1960s)
• The rise of books about JFK after 1964
• Many of the fiction books in the 1950s are "racey" even in todays standards (eg: Payton Place, Lolita)
• Lord of the Rings is missing, however The Simirilian" his the #1 book of 1977. Seems to show the gradual popularity of these books.
• Very few of the books show up on the list of the "best" books of the 20th Century

There probably are a few more patterns. You can pass-on some to me in the comments of this story.

TTYL!

~n