FMC 3.0

That’s right, I finished one to clean my room. It allowed me to get the ridiculously large box out of the way, and to clear up the floor by the bookshelf. That was the next phase of about the 600 phase plan to tidy up in here. Next is the shelves with the dvds on it. Some of them will say up there, and some are getting boxed. I gotta clear a bunch out to (you guessed it) make room for Legos. The one I just put together takes up quite a bit of real estate. Since a description saying that one nacelle is as long as my fingertips to my elbow won’t be that helpful for most of you, I took a few pictures. (As always, the linked pics are NSFD)

Well, that’s the front end.

See? Huge. What? No visual context? Here, lemme help:

That is 1 standard 12 ounce can of DDP.
Why’s the set so big? The nacelles:

Wanna know why the box was so big? It’s a pretty detailed set, so there was lots of little stuff to pack:

Oh, I should mention for those that aren’t the geeks that I am, that this particular set is of a Y-Wing, from the Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collectors edition. It’s the third one in the set i’ve got. It was also the least expensive.

So why all the cleaning? Well, I’ve got number 4 in the set on order, and its nearly three times as large as the Y-Wing. So I gotta find a home for it. Which is why I clean. And why a lot of DVDs are getting boxed up. I should consider Ebay’ing a lot of them, seeing as they just take up space, and aren’t as cool to look at as the Legos.

In other random news blips:
NASA announces Saturday when the Discovery mission blasts off. They only have a two week window, so they better get to it.

Both Christian groups and Gay advocacy groups are laying claim to Superman as a great icon for their causes and beliefs. I think that this is most definitely this week’s sign of the apocalypse. I don’t buy either side of it, just cause i’m immune to both, but it does make it all more enticing. The gays will be ticked when he kisses Lois, and the Jesus freaks will be ticked when he doesn’t heal the sick, or turn water into wine, or make bread and fishes materialize out of thin air. At least two things are certain: Lex Luthor will get some modicum of a come-uppance, and Bryan Singer was the perfect choice to make this movie.

But not in that order.

First off, go see "Cars", the new Pixar flick. It was pretty friggin’ spiffy. I know the story was a little tired, and somewhat predictable, but holy crap the sheer beauty of this movie made up for it. Such a ridiculous level of attention to detail that outshines all of the earlier Pixar movies. Trust me, whatever your local theater charges, it’ll be worth it.

Speaking of cars, there’s been a change in the family lineup. The tried and true and severely banged up at times Volvo wagon got traded in Saturday for a 2006 Subaru Forrester. I haven’t driven it yet, so I won’t pass judgement, but my mom is happy, and that’s all that matters. It’s a unique looking little car, but it’s no Element.

Oh, and speaking of Element, it’s over 25000 miles, prolly over 25200 by now.

Let’s see, that takes care of cars.

While I was out and about with my sister and niece last week, we went into Toys-R-Us to kill time before lunch. While I instinctively went to the Lego section, I passed the little wooden train section. Now, I had a Brio trainset when I was a kid, and it was always one of my absolute favorites. If you don’t know what i’m talking about, it’s pretty simple - wooden track, with two grooves for the wheels of the train, and the cars are held together with magnets. It’s really simple, and gives hours and hours of enjoyment. Anyway, I was just tinkering around, as one does when reminiscing, when Sydney came by. I showed her how to put the locomotive on the track, and then pushed it along. The setup wasn’t designed well, and the locomotive jumped the track at the bottom of a hill. She immediately picked up the locomotive, put it back on the track, and went to town. First, I was kind of amazed at how quickly she picked up on it. Then I realized that between that and her Lego enthusiasm I’ve got Christmases and Birthdays set for years.

Since planes involve eye candy, I’m gonna jump a technological generation into the Space Shuttle.

First off is news that the NASA safety review board has cleared the new design of the External Tank for launch in July. Kinda sucks how the one piece that gives them so much trouble is the one piece that can’t do a post-mortem on. It’s what brought down Columbia, and what gave Discovery a scare on the Return to Flight mission. Hopefully this one won’t have the same foam issues, and this time Discovery will go up with no problems. Since Discovery has already rolled out to the launch pad, it’s be hard to disassemble it to make changes now.

The other news outta NASA is that while Congress increased their budget this year, they effectively shrank it by putting $3 billion dollars worth of stupid stuff in it, without increasing it by $3 billion (NASA gets about $16 B a year - 1/18th of the amount of money spent on the war in Iraq.) Most of the items are riders that politicians put in place to help their home districts, and not major projects that benefit NASA. With the shuttle fleet slated to be retired by 2010 - and the next vehicle supposed to go into operation in 2014 (yeah, another 4 year downtime, just like after Challenger) NASA hates the distractions. For the full skinny, see this.

Now then, as promised, the eye candy. Well, this is just about the most spooge-tastic image on the ‘net i’ve seen lately that doesn’t have a woman in it:

That link pops up to the freaking huge version. (Linked image is most definitely NSFD)

Anyway, that’s what they call a Heritage Formation - the picture was taken in Utah at an airshow over the weekend. That’s a P-51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom, F-16, and F-22 (in counterclockwise order, starting at 9 o’clock.) There are a few amazing things about this picture. First, it was taken by an amateur photographer. (You can see all of his air show images on his Flickr account.) Next, the exposure time on the image is so fast that the prop of the Mustang looks to be stopped (but obviously can’t be, as its flying.)

Oh, and I can’t remember if I posted this link, so I’ll do it again. That site, airliners.net, has just about the coolest database of air craft imagery anywhere.

And last, completely off topic, I’m one step closer to being able to reach my Lego case. Now I just need to clear off the pile of stuff on top of it, now that the floor to it is clear. Fear not, it’s still in the works.

Hmm. There seems to be a lot to catch up on. (Double checks when the last post was.) Ah, the 29th. Now for the fill in:

I spent most of last weekend in PA. Saturday I was in Philly for a Comic Book Convention, went and saw X3 again - sticking around after the credits this time, a cookout, and bar hopping. It was a damn long day, but i had a blast.

The convention was pretty nifty - more geeky sci-fi/comic stuff than you can imagine. More comic books than i’ve ever seen in my whole life. The killer part was that the comics and collectibles were only half of it - there was a whole ‘nother section of just artists and other peeps hanging out trying to hawk their stories and comics. It was kinda crazy to see that kind of talent, in that kind of quantity all in one place. While I was pretty good about spending money on Saturday (Only paid 40 at the show, and nearly that much in parking in Philly, or so it seemed) I nearly spent a whole lot more than that. As Kev and I were going down artist’s alley, he spotted some caricatures he really liked, and the artist was sketching custom frames - I spotted another artist sketching actual comic book characters. He happened to be working on a custom job (Harley Quinn tying up Wonder Woman) I noticed a great sketch of just Harley Quinn on the board behind him. Now, I can’t explain it, but Harley has always been one of my favorites. I realize the real comic book geeks are gonna balk at that, seeing as she was invented for the Batman Animated Series back in the 90s, but screw them. It hindsight, it would have been worth the $200 dollars he wanted for it. If I had bought it, I might have spent more than Kev. Nah, he prolly still had me beat. (Oh to have a place to put the stuff I wanted to buy.)

After that was X3 - my second time. I liked it even better that time around. With the story still fresh in my mind, I could watch it for the character details and stuff. Sure, it was still just as depressing, but still a good story. I won’t ruin the surprise after the credits, but I can see why I heard so many ticked off people. I for one laughed, as that is my natural reaction in those situations.

Then onto the mini cookout, which was rather entertaining, but would get lost in translation if I tried to explain why. After a little downtime, bar hopping in Manayunk. It’s a place I’d heard a lot about, since my former favorite radio station (before I gave up commercial radio) was out of Philly. I actually got to go into places I’d heard of and wondered about. Plenty of rum and vodka that night. Then to top it off, a meal at a local diner. Was a pretty good nightcap. Crashed around 2:30, after being up at six.

Which should have meant a good morning’s sleep, except for the fact I had to get up at 9:30. I was headed to Lancaster to me Chrisma to send her off for her months of internships in far away lands, and give her the graduation presents I ordered.  I thought I’d have plenty of time, except for road construction on 76. So I was late to Lancaster, and then had issues finding the restaurant we’d agreed to meet at (even though it was hidden in plain sight.) So after a pretty good lunch, even with the disagreement over the rules of Dots (from my internet lookups, I was right on my interpretation), and a great desert at Cold Stone, it was present time.

Now, those of you out in Ferretland that I told my plans of before Sunday all gave me about the same look of "You’re farking kidding, right?" It was a pretty common reaction. I still stand by my statement that both items are incredibly practical, and had no underhanded motive behind them, no matter how much the combination may want to steer someone’s mind in that direction. The only one that guessed where I’d ordered one of the gifts from without any hint was my Mother, who continually makes me wonder if she is not, indeed, psychic. For those of you dying of anticipation:

First off, there was a carefully written… missive (get your heads out of the gutter, and don’t think I resorted to poetry) at the top of the box. The reaction to that I don’t know about yet, as it got set aside for later, and I’m still not sure if it’s been read. I’d think I’d have heard about it by now. If it has been written, i’ll probably hear about it during tonight’s tech support call.

Part A was a webcam. Now, this wasn’t so easy as just going to Best Buy and picking one up. See, webcams aren’t that prevalent for Macs. I had to hunt high and low for a webcam that worked on a Mac that wasn’t Apple’s $150 price fixed version. After some intensive homework, and a trip to the Apple store (*GASP* FerretMan in the Apple store? Say it ain’t so!) that couldn’t have been short enough, i found an older generation Logitech that fit the bill. One quick trip to Ebay later and it was on the way. I realize the underlying ideal here, but it is handy for staying in touch, and letting people see what you’re up to. If you’re gonna be away for a long long time, video mail is probably quite a handy thing to have.

Part B was the part that raised all sorts of eyebrows. It was probably the singly most uncharacteristic gift I’ve ever bought anyone. At least, out of my character. So with some very welcome help of a female friend, I braved the completely foreign world of Victoria’s Secret. (Heather just fainted, I’m sure.)  I got very good guidance in the ups and downs of different styles and colors. So after doing research (gotta love calling looking at women scantily clad as research) I narrowed down it to three choices. Then, due to process of elimination of stock limitations and size restrictions in some items, I ended up with that I thought was a rather cute and not too skimpy blue with white pattern bikini. (Heather just fainted again.) I should have taken a picture of it before I boxed it, but it came in the same Friday as I had to pack it up before heading to PA.

I walked away from the opening of the gifts without bruises, which was definitely a good sign. It wasn’t all just evil looks and vague threats either, it got some laughs. Whether or not I see either part in action remains to be seen, though not something thats going to worry me terribly. Oh, and for those who might be a tad confused, yes, I’m still single. I bought something from Victoria’s Secret for someone i’m not dating or sleeping with.

So, after Lancaster, I drove back to Dover, past all the morons at the Racetrack, slept for 3 hours, and then got up again to start my work week. The weekend was a lot more interesting than this week has been.

Oh, and all the driving has got NightHawk darn close to 25K miles. It’ll be sometime this week, I’m sure (if I didn’t miss it already.)

Lastly, if your curious about the title, it came from that Chuck Norris Fact site. It’s pretty funny if you need to kill some time. That and bash.org are great time killers, and good to check in on from time to time.