I went on my first hike with a local meet-up group this weekend. We went up a nearby pair of peaks called the Twin Sisters. At least that was the plan. Though the day started off rather sunny, by the time we reached the first peak it was rather cloudy and the snow was rolling in. It was fun, though. Snow wasn't quite at snowshoe level, but we did have to trudge through some of it. I'm looking forward to doing more hikes.

The rest of this post is pretty much all sports so feel free to skip it.


I love football season.

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."
-Mitch Hedberg

Also, today is 11/10/09.  At least here in the U.S.  In places such as Europe, this date quirk occurred 30 days ago.  So they already had their fun.  Now we can have ours!  Yay!  Unfortunately not as cool as 04:05:06 on 07/08/09.  Or 12:34:56 on that date either. 

"Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability." - George Bernard Shaw

Apparently Mr. Shaw never met Paris Hilton.  I keed, I keed.  Or do I?

Looks like I'm headed to LA, which until yesterday I hadn't been planning to do.  Money tight and all that.  But looks like it's going to happen.  So City of Angels, here I come!  If you're curious, I'm going for this year's official Farscape convention, something I have never attended before this year.  So here's hoping for glory!  Woot! 

Anybody see the Yankees win the series?  I'm not too thrilled since I'm one of the Yankee haters out there, but it's interesting that by winning this year and having their last title in 2000, they've bookended this first decade of the new century/millennium.  Even if it didn't technically start until 2001, but I think we're all past that.  Yankees, D-Backs, Angels, Marlins, Red Sox, White Sox, Cardinals, Red Sox, Phillies, Yankees.  And having won in 1999, they closed out the 90s, too, but for championships in five years will probably do that.  

And a quick word on Yankees manager Joe Girardi.  I don't know too much about the guy, but I did kind of pulled for him after the 2006 season when he nearly coached my former fanboy Marlins to the playoffs and won Manager of the Year then was promptly fired because he and the owner didn't see eye-to-eye.  But my opinion of him has gone up even more after he helped a crashed motorist in the wee hours after the World Series.  That's awesome, Joe. 

While I'm on sports, the college football schedule this weekend is... a bit odd.  At least for the middle of the season.  Typically, "big" programs will schedule smaller, "pushover" programs to get them ready for the season.  Florida will host Florida Atlantic, Texas will take on North Texas, everyone seems to take on Troy.  Sometimes this will backfire, but usually it serves as a way for the BCS teams to get ready for their season and conference play.  This weekend, though, in the middle of November, we're apparently going to get to see plenty of that, particularly in the SEC.  Check out these gems of games:

Georgia vs. Tennessee Tech
Kentucky vs. Eastern Kentucky
Tennessee vs. Memphis
Auburn vs. Furman
Mississippi vs. Northern Arizona
Texas vs. Central Florida
Michigan St. vs. Western Michigan

Granted, some of these are likely traditional games, but one wonders why they couldn't get those out of the way early like everyone else.  And there are games like this every week, but the fact that five SEC schools are playing games like this this weekend caught my attention.  Ugh.

Experts say recession is over... for now.




Time will tell, I suppose.

Hey another video.  Here we have Hitler's reaction to Tarantino's latest, Inglourious Basterds, which I finally saw over the weekend.

( Warning: Major SPOILERS and profanity )

BTW, if you haven't seen it yet and like Tarantino, highly recommended. 

And probably not as funny if you're fluent in German.  Or possibly if you've seen Downfall.

Interracial couple denied marriage license in Louisiana

Money quote: "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."  -Justice of peace Keith Bardwell

*headdesk*

Apparently, I had more to say than I realized.

( Minnesota sports and the baseball playoffs )

Go Rocktober!!

Well, folks, it seems it's that time of year on the Front Range.  I'll let Darth Vader explain.

Brrr.

BTW, go Rockies!!

Yesterday was the quintessential fall day.  Sunny, cool, breezy, colorful, it was excellent.  My kind of fall.

I went ahead and downloaded Darth Stoney's Knights of the Old Republic II restoration beta.  Playing through the game, but so far I haven't gotten off Peragus, so it's long before I get to any new content.  I'm a DS male this time, which is odd since I usually play light side. 

Rio de Janeiro won the Olympic bid for 2016.  Truthfully, I was kind of pulling for it after Chicago didn't get out of the first round.  It'll be South America's first Olympics which seems kind of weird to me.  Congrats to them. 

We flew out to Oklahoma over the weekend to attend a friend's wedding.  Quite the timing, too, because not only was it the best weather both there and here that it had been in some time but this was also the weekend of Oktoberfest, my buddy's birthday, and the start of PBS's Ken Burns miniseries about the history of the National Parks.  At least we made it back in time to catch part of the last one.  I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting something else, but I can't remember at the moment. 

Anything else of note?  Uh, probably, but my memory sucks.  There be snow on the mountains.

I love my XBox.  Should've bought one years ago.  But is there some grand reason why LJ's advertising it in that prime spot usually reserved for, you know, LJ itself?  I don't even remember an ad being in that banner before.  Then again, I don't usually notice such things. 

Oh, and have you heard?  Star Tours is being replaced!  Well, "updated" I suppose I should say.  It was inevitable, I guess, but I still realized that I need to take one more trip to the west coast for one more ride on that little nostalgia trip.  I already missed out on Star Trek: The Experience (though that one came back), so I'll definitely have to save some dough.  I have 13 months to figure this out.

In tribute to Patrick Swayze after his passing, Scifi.com found this obscure classic. R.I.P. Mr. Swayze.

Yay for three day weekends.  Yay for Tour de Fat and getting to the top of Mt. Evans, even if it is a peak you can simply drive to the top (much like Pikes). 

And yay for catching up on things I've fallen behind on.  Hope I'm not too late!

How one fan believes the movie adaptation of Twilight should have ended.



( Beneath the cut )

Grabbed from this site.

"No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other."
  - Jascha Heifetz

Truer words, etc, etc.

Other than some aesthetic changes, I don't know what.  Nor do I really care.  As long as it still works.

Go progress. 

And isn't talking in a random Irish accent entertaining?

Pick 5 of your icons with esoteric references and explain them to your F-List, then tag five friends to do the same:

Tagged by fighting_dreamr .

Really?  Mine don't strike me as being that esoteric.  Very well...



Remember this quote?  It's the Robot Devil, giving us irony (I think) in the (apparently) irony-filled series finale.  At least until the DVD movies came out.  I like ol' Beelzebot and wanted an icon of him.  They're hard to find, but this one fit the bill. 



Only obscure because he's harder to see.  But that's Mulder, of X-Files fame from the I think sixth season episode where he and Ms. Scully infiltrate a seemingly ideal suburb.  He is clearly breaking the HOA's rules by putting something that tacky on his lawn in his effort to find out who's helping him by keeping his house "in the rules".  It's such a great "bring it on" moment, I had to get it.



Farscape's obscure, right?  Right.  So there's Scorpy, from Farscape, the best villain, and maybe even best character on the show.  Well, half of him anyway.  Half of his face.  And it's Scorpius.  Must say the full name. 



That's the Doctor from the first episode of the return of Doctor Who, way back in 2005.  Eccleston's first episode, Billie Piper's.  Oh, what a time.  A time that got me into Doctor Who.  And we see here, a glimpse of the Doc getting strangled by a living, mannequin hand.  Gotta love slapstick.  Those were some mean mannequins.



Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran of Stargate SG-1 fame, early Season 9.  In this particular instance, they are locked in a room in some ruins with two containers as part of a test.  And the joke is that Vala is always touching (and stealing) things she shouldn't.  Hardy har har har.

And there you have it!  Yay for memes!

Hey, what's up folks?  Stuff happening?  That's cool.  I moved again.  I cut my hair again, much to Carrie's disappointment (as soon as she reads this, that is).  It is summer after all.  And I'm shamelessly promoting a group I haven't technically joined yet, but there ya go.

This one is dorky_hotties .  Pretty wondrous sounding, eh?  So if you're dorky (and I know you probably are, if you're reading the journal of a guy with a Stargate icon) and a hottie (which I'm sure you are, too.  Where's the confidence?)  check it out!  Apply!  See if you can get approved before I do!  And good luck.  

R.I.P. Walter Cronkite, 92.