Month: April 2005

Joss Whedon. You’ve heard me rave about Angel, Buffy, and Firefly. But here’s an unexpected part four.

OH, and at the bottom, there’s a link to the SERENITY trailer… if youre good.

I’ve been away, and had very little time for fun except my continuing love for comics. And there are two that I would recommend highly.

FIRST: Astonishing X-Men, written by: Joss Whedon.

Yup, the Buffy creator has been writing this new X-Book for a year or so, and let me tell you, it is the best its ever been. This is the best stuff since the Claremont/Byrne days of the early 80’s, complete with really engaging storylines, great art, and true “Whedonisms” (example: WHITE QUEEN to BEAST, regarding how CYCLOPS will never truly love her because of his love for the late JEAN GREY – “Looks, superpowers, the best body money can buy and I still rate below a corpse”, or WOLVIE’S “I really like beer” in the middle of a battle.)

So, yeah. Astonishing X-Men is fantastic, and if you are an X-fan or a Joss fan, you’re missing out if you don’t read it.

SECOND: “FRAY” Been missing the Buffyverse?

Joss has written a Graphic novel about a slayer a couple hundred years in the future – its called “FRAY”, and it is true Buffyverse with a bit of a “Star Wars” twist. There is the typical Whedonism stuff (“You hid me in da mout wid a girder…” “You were supposed to duck”) and the usual betrayal, shock and surprise. It also has a fast paced sci-fi feel and a lot of heart.

So, yeah… pick it up!

Oh, and expect a fifth posting in September after “Serenity” comes out. Meanwhile, check out the SERENITY TRAILER!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/

Enjoy.

EDIT by matthew: Linked, couple tpyos corrected, lots of “almost ellipses” (..) replaced with commas :).

As most of you know, I sell Home Interiors and Gifts. This is a home party plan that keeps me sane, allowing me to associate with adults since I am a “stay at home mom.”

So this past weekend was our Home Interiors seminar in Denver. Talk about a party. They have such a demand for this seminar that they split it by region into two seminars. I attended the second wave of 5000+ women (and a few men).

Have any of you ever been to the Denver convention center? The place is enormous. Huge. It’s a good half a mile wide and much longer.

Besides tons of recognition for the top people in the company, we have spirit day, and we learn about all the upcoming decorating trends as well as see all the new merchandise that will come into our line this year. SO COOL.

Spirit day was a ball. Imagine 5000 women dressed to match their team to signify something. My district was “Bobbi the team builder.” So we wore jeans, bright green shirts, a hard hat, and a tool belt with recruiting tools in it. Everyone screams and shouts trying make their team win the spirit stick. Crazy? You bet ya.

The down side to all this is bathrooms. Due to the elevation increase from many of our hometowns, we were highly encouraged to drink lots of water. This creates large lines in and out the door of the bathrooms. Now the funny part is that they close most of the bathrooms to the men and make them women’s bathrooms. So the men that were there had to hunt for a restroom to visit. Most of the time I left the general area of the current session in search of a restroom that was not overcrowded.

I do have to say that I was truly amazed at how organized the whole event was. 5000 women can certainly create chaos if allowed, but they had hundreds of people available to help and guide us to and from everything.

I’ll definately be going again next year. It’s an undescribable experience. Our key note speaker was Joel Zeff. Anyone heard of him?

Have any of you attended any amazing conventions?

I’m sure you’ve all noticed the new avatar for Matt. Apparently, he left the story to me!

All of our children are hands on learners. My house is never clean no matter how hard I try, due to this lovely learning style.

So most babies like to play in toilets, but Joshua, who just turned 15 months likes to play IN toilets.

The first time this happened, I was out with the ladies for the evening. When I got home Matt was totally frazzled. He had been trying to get computer stuff done and keep up with the little messes left everywhere by each child.

Matt was fuming as he told me that Joshua had climbed into the toilet. I just started laughing and couldn’t stop. I asked him if he’d taken a picture. He hadn’t, but Sara was the one that fished him out of the toilet. Later Matt admitted that it was pretty funny. Then he proceeded to tell me that he was sure Josh wouldn’t mind if I put him back in the toilet to take his picture.

As bad as I wanted the picture to blackmale him later in life, I couldn’t bring myself to putting him in the toilet.

So the next day I was on the phone with a friend and told her about Joshua’s toilet bath and we got a good laugh together. Then I heard Josh sounding frantic and starting to cry. I rushed to check on him and lo and behold, there he was, sitting indian style in the toilet and couldn’t move. I grabbed the camera and as I laughed, he calmed down and started to giggle, too.

Now this may have reinforced a bad behavior, but I have records for all of our posterity to enjoy. He still climbs in, but has learned not to sit down. He’ll stand in there, and dunk something of great importance (my alarm clock, the remote control) and then climb back out. Soon we realize that his ankles and feet as well as several spots on the carpet are soaked.

Elijah has become our potty patrol. He guards the doors and drags Joshua out of the bathroom when needed. What a good helper!

All of our children have done something of tremendous magnitude to frustrate their ever loving parents. Joshua being the fourth has had to be extra create.

This was sent to me by “Peggy” on one of my mailing lists. Hope you enjoy the picture. It’s one of many things convincing me that St. Helens still has a lot of life left in her.

“MT. St. Helens, which sits about 30 miles from our house as the crow flies, continues to spew ash, while it is forming a lava dome in the crater and still having minor tremors. Here, in this sunrise shot, she appears to be blowing smoke rings (and anything so benign is welcomed, given recent history.)

Picture by Brent and Jan LeBaron

What forms the “smoke rings” is the air flowing over the mountain getting pushed up higher as it goes up and over the top. The moisture content and initial temperature are just right so that the moisture condenses from a vapor to small particles at the higher altitude. When the moving air moves past the peak and comes down again, the particles evaporate back to an invisible vapor. The two “pancakes” describe that there are two layers of air for which this is happening, thus making this awesome picture possible.”

I’ve studiously avoided discussion of the new Pope guy. I figure it’s really none of my business, since I’m not a Catholic, but I just hope he doesn’t turn out to be the butthead he appears to be from his pronouncement history because, well, his actions affect about 1/5 of the world’s population.

Anyway, Colin Goodman sent me a link to this fun little forum avatar. It made me grin, maybe it will you, too. Be sure to watch it for a few seconds.

PS: Happy Birthday to me. 32 today. Woot!

That’s not meant to be a funny headline, but reading it again, it sort of reads funny, especially taken out of context. Maybe it’s funny to me since I spend so much time agonizing over my own headlines.

I’d taken to reading Wil Wheaton’s blog in recent months, because I found his sense of humor interesting, and because he’s still working and the insights he gives on Hollywood are interesting. And because, I’ll admit, he was on ST:TNG and that puts him up there in my book. Regardless of how lame his character was, sometimes. I recommend the blog highly.

But, he’s had it tough. He’s lost two pets in as many months, and as in this post, he’s not shy about expressing his feelings. And his readers aren’t holding back in posting notes to him.

Worth a look, especially if you’ve ever lost a pet.

So Hitachi has invented a new technology to get more storage on “microdrives”, or really tiny hard drives. These are usually hard drives that are no larger than a Compact Flash card, or about the size of a quarter. Today’s capacity on them is about 6 GB, but there are some technological problems with making them bigger.

Hitachi solved them, and, well, Got Perpendicular. Man, I love that animation. It reminds me of those cartoons I saw as a kid on ABC. “Elbow Room” and all that.

NOTE: This is a big Shockwave animation. May not be friendly to slow modem users. And, be sure to have the sound nice and loud so your co-workers come over to check it out 🙂

Interesting news. You’re less likely to die sooner if you’re overweight, than if you’re considered “normal weight”.

Check it out on abcnews.com. I was surprised — but not too surprised — by their results. I’ve long thought that the genetic propensity towards a modest gut in middle-age probably has some evolutionary advantage, and isn’t actually the bane of existence the diet industry tries to convince us it is.

But the most interesting finding, for me, was that those who are within the government guidelines for “normal weight” at at a higher risk of health-related death than those who are “overweight”.

As mentioned in the article, though, there is no study on “quality of life”. The key seems to be physical activity: if you’re physically fit, whether you’re “overweight” or “normal weight” doesn’t really matter. Diabetes still runs higher in the “overweight” category, as do other weight-related diseases, but keep running!

But you need to stay out of that “obese” category. For my height and build, the magic number is 223 lbs. Above 223, I’m “obese”. Now where’s that treadmill…

So I heard about a lady seeking a late-term abortion the other day. She showed up at the clinic with her rambunctious son in tow.

Doctor: I understand you want an abortion, Mrs. Smith? Mrs. Smith: Yes. Doctor: And how far along are you? Mrs. Smith [thinking for a moment]: About one-hundred twenty-nine months.

What’s one of your favorite not-quite-in-good taste (remember, though, this is a family site) jokes?

Hey all you computer geeks, I know your here, how do you reset a bios password, meaning turn it off, if you don’t know what the password is.

Thanks Curt