FMC 3.0

Some fun stuff to update. First off, the drive to work was cake, even the parking lot at the office was pretty clear, and that was the part of the drive I was worried about. Also, with the Eastern Seaboard under a whole lot of snow, it was a quiet night at work. Oh, and then  on the drive home Nighthawk rolled over 15000 miles. It was a clearer drive home than up, too.

The only strange thing at the office this morning were some icicles hanging off the building.

Sure, that looks like a normal icicle, maybe with a little strange outcroppings. Until you see the side view:

It may not be easy to tell there, but its hanging away from the building, not straight down like you’d expect. (I’m sure its not too easy to see with my crappy camera phone pictures.)

And they were like that all along the building:

Of course, this one had another odd feature:

Yup, it curved to the right as it froze. It’s amazing the things that mother nature can pull off when she wants to.

Also, somehow I missed this picture when it was photoshopped years ago, I’m sure:

How cool would that be? Pope Picard the First. Taking Catholicism where no religion has gone before. (Hopefully out of the past and into the future.)

As Always, I try to save the best for last. This may be an old photo, but I just saw it for the first time. Be warned, this one is gonna make you go "WTF?"

Here’s where I’m not so sure to start. First off, what is that guy’s title? Presidential Fly Zipper? Is Shrub to damn dumb to do that himself? I mean, that would surprise me, but wouldn’t you do that before you walked into the eye of the press in the Rose Garden? And he’s got that smug look on his face like "I’m the leader of the free world, look what I can get people to do for me!" Of course, that’s only second to Karl Rove’s expression of "I’m gonna go inside and bufu the president!"

Oh well, back to the Olympics. Curling is a strange and interesting sport. Not to mention there are some cuties on the US Women’s team. There was a shot of two guys in the stands with a cardboard sign that said: "2 Johnson Sisters, 2 of us. Coincidence?" And, of course, the obligatory "Hi Mom and Dad"

Well there went all my free time for the next 2 weeks. Figures, just as my Odyssey schedule lightens up, something else pops up. I’m looking forward to seeing this skeleton thing, even if the people doing it are nuts. And somehow women’s ice hockey slipped under my radar at the last few Olympics. That’s gonna be fun.

I can’t really explain the appeal, but I always love watching the Olympics. It must be the absolute top level competition, as well as the amazing pride that comes out of the entire world as this goes on. It’s one of the few signs that the world isn’t always on the verge of self-destructing.

So far, there’s only three problems I have with the Olympic coverage - all the figure skating, and all of NASCAR crap they keep breaking in on. Why break away from real athletes to show morons going around in circles? At least the scenic shots of Northern Italy are breathtaking. Oh, the third problem? The tape delay. I basically can’t check any news sources for two weeks, cause they’re gonna spoil everything. At least the hockey has been live.

Oh, and we finally got some decent snow here, 5-6 inches or so. But the sun is out, and it’s been a pretty easy clean up. Having a black car has paid off. Nighthawk warmed up nicely under the snow - I just tapped it a few times and everything came sliding off. Sure was easier than the driveway and the walk. Of course, just about everything is plowed, so 4WD hasn’t been necessary yet. It’s been a pretty good ride over the rough patches. Of course, I only took a 5 minute jaunt to Wawa to tank up the car for the weight (and cause the gas light was on.) At least the drive to work tonight should be a breeze.

Not much coming across my desk in the way of eye candy, mostly because of the news blackout. Besides, there’s only so long you all are going to wait for this page to load.

Hoorah! I have joined the ranks of those that have upgraded to version 2.0 of Wordpress. It’s got some nifty new features. My biggest hesitation in upgrading was having to rewrite all of the random theme stuff. However, after I really started looking, I only had to copy and paste about 10 lines of code over, and voila, I was good to go. I also loaded a plugin called editor monkey that really makes writing pretty nifty and easy. I’m really looking forward to the image adder without having to do it on another page. If only there was more eye candy….

Oh yeah, GIS. Duh. Hey, they was easy. Beats the hacks I did to make my custom link code.

Wow. That’s kinda fun. So fun I’m going to make a rare concession to my readers of the fairer sex:

I don’t get the attraction, but hey, I’m more worried about the two above him.

Oh well, enough fun for one day, i’m probably about to break something…

First off, I came across this beauty:

It’s like a rave the moon decided to attend.

Then, there was the cover of Vanity Fair, with the two hottest women in Hollywood nekkid on it:

Apparently the guy is Tom Ford. I have no idea who that is, but at first glance I thought he was Jeremy Piven. The Post had this gem of info:

For the cover photo, Knightley, 20, was photographed sitting sideways, with legs and arms carefully placed. The 21-year-old Johansson, draped over Ford’s leg, is somewhat more exposed - readers who open the fold-out cover will see her bare buttocks.

Ooh, thanks to a good source, here it is:

And, just because I couldn’t really leave her out (though recent events are sending her further down the list) here’s Angelina’s spread:

Nothing we haven’t seen before, I know. Still, just wait another 10-15 years, and we’ll see just how good those tats look.

In other, boring, non-eye candy news, I’m working on upgrading this thing to Wordpress 2.0. There’s some really nifty features in the admin of the new one. At the moment, however, I have to completely redo my theme randomizer. Soon as that is done, 2.0, here we come.

Oh, and I just realized I haven’t mentioned the superbowl. Uh, it was there. I sorta watched it, and ignored most of the commercials. I think its retarded that they have record numbers of people tune in just to watch people try to sell us something. Granted, there are some ads I did laugh at, and I too cheered the MacGuyver one (though Macguyver + 15 years looked old. At least he lost the mullet.) but I’m not gonna run out and get a MasterCard. I can’t believe he gave up Stargate to be with his family and did that. Oh well, musta been a damn nifty paycheck.

Oh, and speaking of Stargate, thanks to SkyOne I’ve already seen the finale for Atlantis, and they have quite the cliffhanger for going into Season 3. I think the two shows are about to get real, real personal. Stargate, while interesting this season with some new blood, needs to come off the saga kick. I’m kinda bummed with the 8 years of one bad guy, and then after they’re toast, a whole new one comes outta nowhere. I would have rather seen more intro for Ben Browder. The other downside to this season is that even with Jack retired, we can’t see his relationship with Carter. It’s only ever background info, and never really brought into the open. There’s only hints of whats to come in the ‘Parallels’ episode (that’s not what they called it, but I’ll do a whole long explanation if that later) but us softies want to see what they’re doing outside Cheyenne mountain. I’m also hoping he’ll make some guest spots next year, since the imdb says he doesn’t this year.

Oh well, more judges stuff, and then maybe some civ 4. The day is still young however, and no clue how it’ll turn out.

Yikes what a week. 5 different Odyssey things in 7 days. On top of that, nothing but judges coordinator stuff in my downtime this week. It’s been a little draining. Of course, now I need to resync to my night owl habits for work this week.

At least at the end of the seven days, there was a party. Nice dinner and company for my dad’s birthday. Well, nice dinner doesn’t cut it. I think the word I used last night was ‘phenomenal’. Top the night off with an always entertaining game of Apples to Apples (The real card kind, not my online knockoff) and it as a nice cap off. Of course, not always cool when your own mom plays the infamous “My Love Life” card for my ‘Exciting’ adjective. Needless to say, it didn’t win.

Actually, I got some multi-player Civ 4 in after that, which is somewhat intriguing. I was a little rusty because I haven’t played in a while, and half-asleep, so I probably wasn’t doing as well as I should have been. Its strange when every Civ takes their turn in the same time frame, and not just one after another. I’m a little curious as to how warfare works like that, but I guess we’ll just have to keep playing.

Oh well, back to the judges grindstone.