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Not that she’s likely to notice this post, but I’m going to wish my sister a Happy Birthday anyway. She’s… well, let’s say “a handful of years” younger than I am, so I’ll always get to call her my “kid” sister. Ah, the joys of being the big brother!

Her only online presence is, of all things, a MySpace page. Sorry, but I’m not going to dignify that wretched hive of scum and villainy by making a direct link. If you’re familiar with those environs, her username is ‘goddesskiriel’. Feel free to send her birthday wishes and remind her that she should try to stay in touch with her family on occasion…

Things you may find interesting:

• When writing about popular music, album titles should be in italics and song titles should be surrounded by double-quotes. Apparently I’ve been doing it wrong for… oh, let’s not go into how many years. The important thing is that I know this now so I can lend some stylistic validity to the written version of the Summer Music Project commentary.
• The terms “flat” and “sharp,” when referring to musical notes, are apparently known as “accidentals.” I have not yet been able to discern the etymology for this usage; it seems an odd choice of terminology. An “accidental” is something you play deliberately in almost any piece of music, after all.
• If you want a hint about what I might be prepping for the upcoming SMP mix, it may be worth perusing my Last.fm profile. (Of course, as soon as I post this I plan to muddy the waters considerably by listening to a whole bunch of different artists.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have been awake for an awfully long time and I’d like to soothe my brain with notes both natural and accidental before I seek my slumber.

Well, here’s news I didn’t want to wake up to: George Carlin died yesterday.

Let’s be fair and note that this wasn’t entirely unexpected. He suffered from heart problems for quite some time, and it’s not like he was some spring chicken. He made it to 71, which is a fair bit past my own life expectancy given my genetics.

But still, this is sad news for me. Carlin played a significant role in pointing me toward my current fascination with the power of language for good or ill. He changed his style significantly at several points in his career but at every stage he liked to point out the silly and, later on, the sinister aspects of how we use words in America. Analyzing and understanding the why behind someone’s choice of words is a large part of critical thinking as applied to individuals and society.

Lest I forget: He also made me laugh. A lot. I’m a big fan of laughter. Hell, I still have portions of his routines stuck in memory, to be recited at appropriate times. Well, mostly appropriate. Okay, sometimes.

Anyway.

I think it’s time to grab a few more of Carlin’s comedy albums from eMusic…

Some days, happiness is simply a clean set of bedding and clean bathroom fixtures.

Okay, happiness is also a working pair of LEGO seige weapons.

In related non-news, guess who this Sinfest comic reminds me of?

Yesterday was a very good day, as you might expect from one which begins with pancakes (with a hint of vanilla and cinnamon) and bacon. In the afternoon, Kyla and I took Erica out to Washington Square for shopping and dining. For all that Erica pooh-pooh’d the idea of eating at a place called “Cheesecake Factory” (”I don’t like cheesecake!”) she came around at the mention of their chocolate cake selection. While she ordered a pepperoni pizza (ending up with enough leftovers to bring home and share with Alex), she did try a bite of my parmesan-crusted chicken and approved. There’s hope for her yet, I say.

There’s hope for me as well. I managed to eat only a couple small pieces of the bread, less than half of the (delicious!) pasta that came with my chicken, and enough of the cake dessert (which I’d left room for!) to feel I’d gotten my money’s worth… and still left the table without feeling the slightest hint that I’d overeaten. I weigh 240 pounds, and one of my goals is to get a handle on my eating habits. I may not be eating healthier, but I’m at least trying to eat a bit smarter. I feel good about yesterday!

We went slightly nuts at the LEGO store; Erica came away with a set which would allow her to build two different creepy bugs or an articulated snake-shaped creature. I’m certain that her mother will be delighted. I spent a bit more than originally planned, but came away with enough medieval-themed minifigs to populate the proposed 4E gaming sessions with the Sunday Evening Group. Kyla picked up a few sets in the Castle theme herself, and spent part of our Doctor-Who-watching time assembling the most sinister prison coach you’ve ever seen.

She says it’s cute. I question her judgment.

We also came away with new shades for everyone (I’d sat on mine Friday at work, Kyla’s were falling apart and Erica didn’t have any) and a new pair of jeans for myself. Not only that, but thanks to various Tri-Met drivers, Erica and I had transfers that lasted until 6pm… which is just about when we boarded the #56 for downtown. Sweet deal!

I’d say that the only downside to the day at all involved a traumatizing sight when we three were beginning our journey westward. Just as the #9 was pulling up at NE 9th and Broadway, a whole bunch of bicyclists rode by.

Naked. Butt naked.

Let’s just say that most people really are better off clothed. I’m not sure which of the three of us came away from that with the most mental scarring…

As of last night, when my daughter was formally “promoted” out of the 8th grade, I have two teenagers in high school.

I joke about feeling old, but I’ve sort of always felt old, so that’s not really what I’m going through right now. I think it’s a combination of “Hey, cool, it’s about time!” and “Whoah, where does the time go?” The most jarring part of the experience, actually, was seeing my little tomboy transformed into an elegant young lady for last night’s event.

My kids are awesome. I know I mention that often, here, but that’s because I can’t help myself. I’m also prone to pointing out other obvious facts, such as the presence of clouds in the sky or how the grass is green. You’ll just have to deal with it, gentle readers.

I came up with a crazy idea, something that would run on Fridays here every week for an extended (but finite) period. It’s not a meme (the PPF project taught me better), and it may not be everyone’s cuppa. Hell, it may not be anyone’s cuppa. It would, however, get me posting regularly again as well as giving me some practice with advance preparation and scheduling. To pull it off I’ll need to assemble notes, plan things in advance, and maybe even work up a buffer of completed material before launch.

I might even dig up a microphone for this one. Scary, wot?

If I can accomplish this, then I’ll consider something really ambitious. We’ll see.

I spent most of five minutes this morning convincing one of our clients that we do not, in fact, have an engineer on staff named “Karen.”

We can’t all be 100% detail-oriented all of the time. I know this. The process of reading comprehension involves a lot of mental streamlining, the eye pulling in patterns and the brain supplying meaning of some sort as the reader goes along. Thus, when people read my name in print their brains often fill in the meaning for what looks like a familiar pattern. And so, the myth of “Karen” perpetuates.

I shrug this off most of the time, but this particular client isn’t brand new and has dealt with me several times in recent weeks. And yet:

“Yeah, some gal there set up this new account…”

“Actually, that was me.”

“Huh? Sez here it was this Karen person.”

“Check again.”

“Huh?”

“Look at the email again. Are you certain it says ‘Karen’ at the bottom?”

“Uh.”

Eventually he saw the light of day.

I’ve noted before that we moved quite often when I was a youngster. Every few months it was a new set of teachers, new people at the church on Sunday (during Mom’s religious-leaning stretches) and so forth. Every few months I suffered a barrage of “Karen” and “Carol” and “Kara” miscues. Lots of teeth grinding on my part, as you can imagine. Add this to my scrawny physique and unstable home life and it’s a wonder I grew up reasonably sane at all given what a natural bully-magnet I was.

I still have to grit my teeth on occasion. Today was one of them. Normally, though, I can just laugh it off and forget about it, so it’s not like I’m constantly hung up about this.

Even so, I’m probably going to punch my father in the arm the next time I see him. Just on general principle.

Factor The First: Lil’ & Geoffrey’s computer DFO‘d in a bizarre and decidedly terminal fashion. Their budget wasn’t ideal for a full replacement rig, but there was no guarantee that going on a part-by-part replacement binge would solve the problem.

Factor The Second: My “stimulus” check from Uncle Dubya, however misguided a gesture it may be, is still money in my pocket. It’s hard to turn down money in my pocket.

Factor The Third: The so-called “gaming computer” was getting a bit long in the tooth, though with upgrades over the years I’ve kept it nearly up to the desired spec. (Basically: “Can it play City of Heroes and Heroes of Might and Magic?”)

Throw these three factors together with a flash of inspiration on the part of your humble journal writer and you end up with a solution which everybody can more-or-less afford. They get my old gaming rig, and I use the (quite reasonable) money I charged for it and some of the “stimulus” money to buy parts for a whole new gaming rig. Mind you, it’s not as powerful or neat-o-keen as the big HP workstation that I picked up last year… but it’s not meant to be. Its job is to play a couple of games when I have company over. With its Core 2 Duo and the 2 GB of RAM and the modest (but modern) video card, I’m quite certain that it’ll do the job nicely.

Amusing side note: I walked out the door early Sunday afternoon with a black Antec Sonata case in my arms. I walked back in the door Sunday evening with the newer version black Antec Sonata case in my arms. Hopefully I won’t have any annoying problems with this Antec purchase…

Now all I have to do is finish putting the thing together and slap an operating system on it. Well, I have ’til the weekend. Plenty of time.

Hey, it’s a weekend catch-up post! We haven’t done one of these in a while…

Friday: Lil’ shouldn’t be allowed into Best Buy unsupervised. I don’t count, as I’m not a very good supervisor. Then again, I did get the BSG miniseries DVD out of it (since she doesn’t need it anymore). I’m also a couple of books into the Eric Flint “1632″ franchise; it’s not too shabby, all things considered, though I imagine that my interest will wane after another massive volume or so.

Saturday (daytime): Erica and I watched Alex do improv theater games in a park in the rain for an hour or so. Amusing it was, but eventually it got cold and we got bored so off to Burgerville we went. It’s appalling how much BV charges for a “large” cup of orange juice. Oy.

Saturday (night IRON MAN): Kyla and I decided to do the dinner-and-a-movie thing. Oh, what an excellent movie! I’ll spare you the full review (since, let’s see, nearly everyone on the Internet has reviewed the thing already) but suffice to say that it’s a solid, entertaining, surprisingly restrained, well acted, beautifully produced superhero movie which benefits from a touch of gritty realism but without the bloody mayhem or out-of-place sex scenes (the only one in the movie is very short and played entirely for laughs). Even the scenery chewing is kept to reasonable limits. The funny bits were genuinely funny! I know, I’m as amazed as you are. Robert Downey, Jr completely owns the role of Tony Stark. The other actors range from “quite good” to “better than expected,” though it’s not a movie with a large main cast. I think the worst special effect in the movie is Jeff Bridges’ skullcap. (Turns out that it wasn’t a skullcap after all; his head somehow managed to look wrong nonetheless. Oh well, minor quibble.) In short: Unless you hate action movies, you should see Iron Man. (As for the “after-credits” thing… all I can say is, better Sam The Man than David Hasselhoff.)

Saturday (late night): “Doctor Who,” end of the first two-parter in the 4th series of the “new Who.” We love Donna, we love Martha Version 2.0, we don’t necessarily love setting the atmosphere on fire, and the next-episode preview left me wondering what new kinds of drugs the “Who” producers have got their grubby hands on now. The love child of a Timelord and Baby Spice? Really, now.

Sunday: Game day. Well, after we foraged for grub, anyway. In the “City Of” world, my lead villain dinged 40 and opened up her patron powers while my top Defender finally became a “real” Kin by acquiring Fulcrum Shift. Hellooooo, massive buff/debuff! Later, with “the boys,” I snuck in a win at Power Grid followed by a modest but respectable showing at Quiddler. Not bad for competing against five smart blokes, wot?