dooooooooooo -- BEEEEEEEEEP!

So, my phone is a geek detector.  Yesterday, in my second day at the office after 6 months in the field, it rang, and one of my coworkers laughed and said, "That is a cool ringtone."

Being who I am, I have personalized the sounds of the phone, and so each one is a little slice of geekdom.  Jennifer got to enjoying my sounds so much that she asked me to find a way to personalize her phone.  It was a little harder as she has an Droid, but hers are all various sounds from R2-D2 with her ringtone being the award ceremony music from the end of "Star Wars - A New Hope".  My ringtone is the "conversation" between the technician and the alien spaceship from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

It gets lots of good reactions.  Geeky phone techs love it when it rings.  A friend who has an apparently very geeky brother laughs and wants us to meet.

I'll have to test him on the rest of the sounds.

My incoming text sound is the wrist-com sound effect from "Babylon 5".  My missed call/voice-mail is the message waiting sound from "Babylon 5".  The rest are from the game "Portal" where I use button sounds for sending and receiving emails, and the bouncy sound for calendar reminders.

For "Portal" to be such a popular game, I'm surprised I don't get more comments on the sounds.

Still, when people do hear it, and look up with a start, I can look them in the eye and smile.

Gotcha, geek.

BTW, Mom and Dad, your ringtone is the Turret Serenade from "Portal 2".  Just because I like the sound of it.

WTF! - Shirts

I have two pairs of WTF jeans.  I've written about them once before.  Last year I got v2.0.  Below are pictures of the front and back of the two versions.

Today I got an email that WTF is doing shirts.  They're running an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for it.

When i signed up they were at $500 of $4,000, so 1/8 of the way there.  I'm hopeful.

Joy Returns to the Bay Area

I got the news today that except for one task that is dependent on warm weather, we are done in Santa Cruz, and I will be back in the office on Monday.  We're letting one of the junior scientists stay on site for next week, and I will get to be home.

Allowing for the week I took of vacation this will have been 5 1/2 months working in Santa Cruz.

I'll probably be coming down for some other work in a month or so, but it shouldn't take longer than a week to perform.

YAY!  I'm coming home!

Outlet of Creativity

So when I made my decision to not buy any new comics, I was obviously left with a little void in my life.

Over Christmas, Jennifer and I talked a little over what I could do to fill that in.  Over a day's time, the time isn't that much; we though maybe half an hour's time.  So I thought to keep it in a similar vein, I should try to do something creative for that block of time.

Delineating that block of has been the next difficult step.  I've tried to write here more, but that hasn't been happening as much as I'd like.

A decided boost has been the fact that I've taken the reins of the fantasy role-playing game for the near future.  we're presently in one of my countries, and eventually we'll be on a sailing ship where despite everyone's fears, we'll be traveling to yet another of my countries.  Then assuming the world doesn't end (no really, if the heroes fail the world will end for "Evil Shall Be Unleashed."  Oops.), we'll take a quick jaunt to the island of the Sea Elves, and after finally after a short hop to the mainland  John will take over again.

So since the first weekend of January, little slices of my day have been taken up with everything that goes on in-between the adventures.  Exploring the city they are in.  Making plans.  Buying things.  And just playing some of the little motivational sides of the characters that come out so much better in writing than in person.

Some, but not all.

So I'm fielding and returning emails from up to four people.  I could be filling in information for a conversation with the NPCs where all of the player characters are present.  Or perhaps they have... split the party (that's an inside joke for a small group, and not very helpful to people like Mom.  Mom and family: go here and here.).  When they split up, that means, I've got multiple areas of a city, or keep, or an event to describe.

Additional outlets have been map making.  I've tried several times to use computer programs, but I'm never as happy with them as I am with my own pen and paper creations.  I like to use my geology knowledge to shape the coastlines (and yes it's true, fjords are not really equatorial enough.), and lately I'm been mapping cities.  What's been fun is to give each city it's own personality.

Try to imagine the organicness of some cities versus those that maybe were "planned".  Perhaps there are sweeping roads, or perhaps the city grew up around a keep.  Or maybe the city just has that fractal feeling where each block gets cut just a little smaller with an inverted shape of the larger streets.

- a **CHOKE!** Addendum

So I guess the question is, "Why?"

I think it's that we all can relate to the relief when suddenly there are people in our corner.

We know what it's like when something drives a wedge between us and the person we care about most.

We want to think that if we could, we would help someone out who just needs that little boost to achieve something so much greater.

**Choke!**

I will admit right from the start that I am a sucker for things that are meant to tug on my heart-strings.

Beat Superman to a pulp, and have him look up bloodied and beaten to lock eyes with Lois before he gets back to his feet, and I'll choke up.

Do anything to break the relationship between Lilo and Stitch, I'll probably tear up.

Have the common man stand up and take the side of the super-hero, helping him in some way be it big or small to get to his goal, and there will be a lump in my throat.

Even when I see it coming from half an hour into the movie and know the moment won't occur for another hour, it will still overwhelm me.

Of course, this is why I don't watch shows about dogs.  Benji (not my dog from school years, but the movie dog) is the only dog to live through his own movie.  Milo and Otis doesn't count; that's a buddy movie.

Obviously it doesn't matter whether or not it's live action or animation.  Apparently, I'm an easy mark for that sort of thing.

That said, I have to say that I enjoyed watching the new "Amazing Spider-Man".  I don't know if I could have handled the web-slinging and -swinging on the big screen.  The little I know of the Spider-Man mythos informed me beforehand how some things would turn out, but overall it was an entertaining evening to watch.

But who gets chocked up over a bunch of construction workers lining up a series of cranes?

Yeah... this guy.