Oh yeah! There’s a live-action TRANSFORMERS movie in production. To be released in theatres less than a year from now, next July 4th. This won’t be a cheesy production either, with Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay involved. At last, something fun to look forward to… Now what ever did I do with my Shockwave action figure?

7 comments July 17th, 2005

If you noticed that Thursday’s post didn’t show up until just now, that’s because I’m using the beast known as MovableType publishing platform. I forgot to rebuild that post so it didn’t show up. Never could get a chron job to work properly with MT, but everything else works pretty decent.

Right now I’m working on a new project and toying around with the idea of switching to WordPress as a result. I’ve been using it to run our corporate intranet news site for over a year. What I really like are the static pages, in addition to having the ability to post in advance.

I’m reserving my final decision though, because MovableType just launched 3.2 beta. As soon as I update my site backup storage I’m gonna give it a try. They claim it’s the easiest update install ever and that it’ll blow every previous version away… We shall see!

4 comments July 15th, 2005

My brother and I have been Dane Cook fans for ages! We see his shows, buy his CDs, and quote him all the time to make eachother laugh. Dane Cook comedy fans are a breed apart, and just to make him even more irresistible, he appreciates each and every one.

Recently I was lamenting over unavoidable Tom Cruise press coverage. “Tomcat” smears his faux enthusiasm nonstop. But just when you can’t take it any more, Dane comes through on Jimmy Kimmel Live to make us laugh with a cathartic parody of Tom’s insane behavior.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DANE COOK VIDEO

1 comment July 14th, 2005

THIS WEEK: TEN PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE ME

CAN YOU NAME THEM ALL? …GIVE IT A TRY!

11 comments July 12th, 2005

My boss walks into my office just now and asks if I’m able to stay late tonight. Why? Because after three years of working here she’s finally committed to providing me with my first performance evaluation.

Well now… How about that?

So now I’m trying to figure out how easy I want to make it on her. Should I go full-bore and regale her with factual testimony about my successes and make her feel like a skinflint, or should I merely accept the 3% increase and then spend the evening updating my resume?

Decisions, decisions… My money says she flakes.

9 comments July 11th, 2005

After working out like a maniac for a month and not seeing the results I was looking for, frustration set in. I’d been hoping to shed a few winter pounds before summer. At my lowest weight a year ago I was a size six and now I’m hovering between six and eight, which (at least in California) is borderline lardville.

From the surface it would seem like I was doing everything necessary: balanced diet under 2000 calories per day, taking my vitamins, working out 10-12 hours a week, an hour of cardio six days, and weight training four days. By the fourth week I know that I gained muscle and during the fifth week I saw the scale creep up… No fat loss.

That’s when I decided to try a little mental experiment. I’ve read here and there about studies where people have used the power of the mind to improve their fitness results. Recognizing that some of my negative self-talk may be hindering my achievement, I decided to give it a try. After all, it can’t hurt, right?

So as I laid down each night I concentrated on my breathing and then began to visualize my fat loss. Picturing fat stores in my body breaking up and being used for fuel. Trying to imagine all the biological processes involved in as much detail as possible based on my limited knowledge.

During the day I tried to do some positive self-talk whenever I could remember to do so. My mantra was “It’s as if the fat is just melting right off my body” - I don’t know why I picked that one, it just seems to work for me. Sometimes I feel like it’s a big lie, but I say it anyway and try to believe, while also imagining myself as a slimmer person.

Well, I don’t know if this contributed or if the timing was just right, but I kid you not, I stepped on the scale yesterday and was three pounds lighter. I could see the difference when I when I got a bikini on to go swimming, too. My definition had improved to the point where I could see the results of my targeted weight training efforts.

Take it for what it’s worth, but I think there might just be some truth to this whole mind-body connection stuff. I’m gonna keep up the positive visualizations and self-talk and see if I drop some more next week.

10 comments July 10th, 2005

If you’d rather not be brought down by my pathetic family problems, please scoot along down to the previous posts: Nothing to see here! But if you want to feel a little more normal, and realize that in comparison your family isn’t so bad… By all means, read on.

Just finished sobbing to detox following a phone call from my brother, which began with the words, “Mom is kicking me out.” For those of you following the Aurora show, you may wonder “Isn’t he living with you?” The answer is yes, but he’s staying two months with my mom because six people sharing one bathroom is ludicrous.

So anyway, this latest catastrophe was precipitated by my brother’s frequent use of “the Lord’s name in vain” during moments of extreme frustration with mother’s psychotic demands. This is becoming a weekly event. Though I was able to help once again, the monster promises he’s out if he says “JFC” one more time… That’ll be any minute now.

The pressure of having to help them overcome this retarded crisis was more burdensome than I let on. Like the good big sister, I successfully executed my rational techniques, but between you and me: Forty-five minutes into the conversation I had heart palpitations from faking like I wouldn’t slit her throat if I were in his shoes.

In the background I could hear her yelling the whole time. Her song hasn’t changed since we were kids (which I was floored to hear.) My brother gets sucked into her game; I calculate and play to win… But that’s only from the neck up. Somewhere deep down I have a rage that responds involuntarily to her lies and insanity.

Today I heard her screaming at my brother, “You may forget about shitting all over God, but Jesus is writing it all down and He won’t forget, and I won’t allow it in my house!” and honestly, I wanted to be there to forcibly stop her from lying about God to further her selfish agendas.

You know what? — She should hope Jesus isn’t writing this shit down.

Otherwise soon she’ll be reminded of how she broke my brother’s leg with a tennis racquet when he was six, or how her fat ass let us starve while threatening us not to beg for food from our grandparents, who lived a block away. And let’s not forget about how she molested one of her Jr. High students for four years.

Pray for me. I hate that bitch, and as much of a moody pain in the ass my brother can be, I can’t wait to get him out of there. Unfortunately, I can’t take him back until my stepkids head back home to New Mexico in August. Four more weeks, poor kid… Pray for both of us.

8 comments July 8th, 2005

Last month I posted a link to the Random Vin Diesel Fact Generator along with a little commentary about the man himself. Thanks to search engine queries leading fans to my post, I’m being pelted with criticism. Take a look at what MissVDiesel@peoplepc.com had to say:

there is no problem with vin diesel your should like him the he is so if making fun of him you look at your self you probably look worser then him so if i was you i would be talking cause you just jealous 4 him he get every girl in the world i love him and if you have a problem then take it on you. Why you can’t judge people the way they look cause that make you feel bad and you r rude i was mean to people and those people didn’t like me causes i teased them to much and then nobody liked me i didn’t have any friends and i change and i was every bodys friends who loves him thats fine cause everbody not post to like him that their love live you can’t get in it to ruin their love life. cause if you making fun of him that makes you making fun of him cause i like the way he is and yes i love he musles and voice and every thing about him so don’t make a fun of him . that make you are jealous causse you can’t get girls like he can so shut it. and thanx if you dune that

19 comments July 6th, 2005

I’m sitting here trying to calculate how nerdy it is that I can hardly wait until the season two premiere of Battlestar Galactica - the only TV show worth watching these days. Oh man, I can hardly wait! July 15th can’t come fast enough… Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Naturally, the first season left off with a cliffhanger. But frankly, I don’t care which way it goes. This is the kind of show where you expect the unexpected and you can’t really guess in which direction the plots are headed… Except that no matter what, you know it’s gonna kick ass.

By the way, if you missed season one (Where were you, under a rock?) you can catch up via a marathon tomorrow on SciFi, airing at 10AM… Because if deadly nymphomaniac cyborgs don’t do it for you, why on the gods green Kobol are you reading my blog?

8 comments July 5th, 2005

7 comments July 4th, 2005