FMC 3.0

Nighthawk is up over 29000 miles, on pace to be over 30k by the time our one year Anniversary rolls around. Still running fine, still a pain to keep clean. I ran it through the car wash the other day, but you’d have no way of knowing considering the amount of bug guts that end up on the thing. I’m hoping the rain I heard yesterday as I was trying to catch some Z’s washed most of it off.

Yesterday I bought tickets to Comic-Con in Baltimore in September. The two day ticket for that was the same price as the one day ticket to Wizard World in Philly. Should be in interesting weekend down at the Inner Harbor. The other thing yesterday was the vacation request I put in for my trip to Florida in October. It was doozy, tallying up to about 56 hours of off time. There’s a trip I’m looking forward to.

Oh, and not that I want to steal any thunder from my sister, but I have my own Sydney Story © to tell. My sister, Sydney, and myself were in Wally World last week, in the fabric section. I realize that seems like an odd part of Walmart to be in, especially at my own request, but that’ll make more sense at Halloween. Not finding what we were looking for, I steered for the Toy section, just to see if there were any nifty new Legos out. (There weren’t.) As we reached the toy section, we passed a center display with a bunch of Superman Returns related toys. Sydney took a look at it and said "Sooo… per… man." I was a tad stunned, as I thought it was big word for a two year old (though I could be wrong, as I’m not child development specialist.) and I had no idea Sydney had any idea who Superman was. I asked Liz about who said that Sydney had said Superman the week before, but she nor James knew where she’d picked it up. They just kind figured it was from me. I’m not sure how I did it, but I’ll definitely take the credit. Once the Batman Begins sequel comes out, I can teach her that, and with Wonder Woman coming out eventually… Man, I’ll have the JLA done by the end of the decade.

Speaking of the Batman Begins as-of-yet unnamed sequel, didja see who they cast to play Joker? According to a few things across the ‘Net, Heath Ledger got the part. According to the director, it’s because he wanted someone that no one would know how he’d play the part ahead of time, unlike other names in the running, like Robin Williams. I can see that, though I’m gonna be skeptical about this one. Of course, I was skeptical about the new Superman, and that worked out ok. Personally though, I say just get Mark Hamill to do it, and do it in a lot of make up. He’s the one actor we know for sure has the perfect laugh down pat. Besides, being the voice of the Joker in the various animated series from the DC universe, its probably been a longer gig than Star Wars ever was. From what little info about the movie has come out, its gonna be almost a two parter. Even gonna have Harvey Dent in there. Guess that means Two-Face will be in movie number 3.

Oh, and on the Wonder Woman project, as much I trust Joss Whedon, I hope he doesn’t discount the comic book version too much. Bryan Singer pulled off a pretty good balance with Superman Returns (actually, it could have almost been an Elseworlds story) as did Nolan in Batman Begins (at least he’s cutting out Bride of Frankenstien’s character for later films.) But the rumors and quotes going around make it sound like he wants to discount it all, and do a Greek Mythology tale. Actually, the only good rumor (and it’s just that, and probably won’t come true) is the one about Morena Baccarin. That’d make for an interesting movie.

Of course, the next movie I see in Theaters will likely be Snakes on a Plane, I have a few friends bugging me to go to that premiere with them. Somehow, I think this is going to be a case of Internet hype and build-up that’ll just lead to disappointment. But I’ve been wrong before.

I know, i’ve been slacking. At least I’m a little more active than some of the friends I link to.

So I don’t know how I forgot to mention it 2 weeks ago, but Discovery was back in orbit. The launch (while delayed a bit because of weather) went perfectly. CNN’s coverage even had a nifty infographic as it went up, showing you how high and how far the shuttle was. Discovery pulled of 3 EVAs while up there, and did some repairs to the ISS. They even practiced orbiter repairs in orbit, but they weren’t needed, as Discovery was completely uninjured on take off. In fact, random seagull droppings survived the trip into space. They completed their tests, dropped off supplies at the ISS, dropped off and astronaut at the ISS, and then came home on Tuesday. The landing went fine, though there was one concern - a leak in an auxiliary power unit. It wasn’t a biggie, and was fine the entire way down. If it had been an issue, they’d have needed to manually lower the landing gear. That’s gotta be a fun job, considering it involves pyrotechnic charges on the orbiter to get the doors open.

The computer model recreation of the C5 crash a while back has hit the net, I’ll try to get a copy uploaded. It’s strange to watch an accident recreated that way. It’s also kinda nuts how much data the flight recorders actually record. You’ll see what I mean if you see it.

I spent part of Saturday in Harrisburg, PA, doing something completely out of my element - I was attending an Irish Dancing competition my Cousin was involved in. While I’m no stranger to competitions in general, I was completely at a loss as to how things worked. That feeling was soon pushed away by how amazed I was at what a bunch of kids could do. I know i’ve never moved like that. Ever.

Israel has completely lost its damn mind. And the american news services just continue to show the same things over and over. What I don’t get is how this can be worth 24/7 news coverage, where things just like this have been happening in other parts of the world (the ones we tend not to remember)  for years, and they don’t get that kind of coverage. I mean, the genocides in Africa, or terrorist attacks in Asia, which have killed more people than the 200 ish in that little, little slice of the world. I don’t get it. On top of that, the area they’re fighting in? Completely barren desert wasteland. I don’t care if God said you could have it, I’d give it back. Or be pissed that I got guaranteed such a shitty little part of this rock. Personally, I don’t want to get involved in this one, though I don’t see that happening, at least, nothing without military involved. I like the fact that the only thing our marines are doing is getting people the fark out dodge.

Oh, at somewhere a while back, Nighthawk cleared 28000 miles. It was a while ago, so I’m prolly getting close to 29K.

Oh, and I know I promised a Superman Returns review/summary. It’s still coming. I promise.

While the criteria for last weekend certainly worked, this weekend, though completely different, had some bonuses:

1. Sawzall
2. Chainsaw
3. Chipper/Shredder

No, we didn’t replay a scene from Fargo, we just cleaned up a bunch of the yard. The downside was the sunburn, cuts and scrapes (some of the jungle had enough thorns to make Christ go "Gee, I had it easy",) soreness, oh, and I think a touch of poison ivy. It seems strange that on a day marked on the calendar as "Video Game Day" (well, at least one calendar I saw) I spent all day outside and not near my computer.

In other news, TV has another case of closing one door and opening another. The 2006 Doctor Who  season just ended, with quite a bang. Luckily, Stargate starts back up on Friday. On that note, I should prolly rewatch last season. That, and Atlantis. Be interesting if they crossed over. It’s been 2 seasons, it’s about time. At this point I’m just looking forward to episode 6 or 7 of the season, where Jack O’Neill makes his return.

I think I hit every possible requirement for a great weekend this time around. Where last weekend none of them were hit, this weekend I’m pretty sure everything was covered (In no particular order of importance, or the order in which they occurred):

1. Drunkenness. (Not necessarily my own)
2. Seeing a great movie with friends.
3. Cute girls in bikinis.
4. Good party.

See, I really am a pretty simple guy. Sure, a Lego convention or comic-con would be cool, but they would be just to satisfy my own geekiness. I think its rarer that I hang out with a large group of friends.

Of course, there were a few added bonuses this weekend. The movie was Superman Returns. I’ll post a full review of it later. I don’t want to do it now, cause it’ll have too many spoilers for those that haven’t seen it, and I want to see it again. Oh, come to think of its, there’s two entires under that requirement. We watched Shaun of the Dead on demand last night, well, it may have been this morning, after we returned home. That was pretty cool too. And damn funny.

Other bonuses: colorful incendiary devices. The fact that the attendees of the aforementioned party were lots of old buds from high school I hadn’t seen in a while. 24 hours or more of total sleep.

Actually, come to think of it, I nearly had the perfect weekend for an Overnighter. Stayed up all day Friday, and crashed Friday night. Slept 12ish hours, and got up mid-morning Saturday. Did the movies, the party, then stayed up here till nearly 6 AM, and got another 12 hours of sleep. So basically off and on Schedule in two days. Still won’t work for football season, but it’ll work in general. Besides, since I was up at 5:30, I’ll prolly be zonked in the morning, and keep on this early up pattern. That way I may be up for festivities on the 4th. I don’t think I’ve seen a fireworks show since I started on Overnights. Well, at least not on the 4th of July.

The only downside to this weekend where all requirements are met? Having to go back to work. No matter how much fun a weekend is, they’re all too short.