Sunday: Let's go to the movies!

Guardians of the Galaxy.

It turns out that this movie is still playing everywhere, partially because it's still the biggest movie out right now.  I thought it was good, putting in a bunch of exposition that they need for the other Marvel movies, but still having a story that was fun to watch.  The dance contest was a nice addition as well.

Of course, going to the movies means going to watch movies with other people.  The problems with this:

1. You have to stand in line behind people who don't realize that they're next, because they're staring off blankly.
2. You have stand in different lines behind people who are stumped by every question asked.  "Which size popcorn?"  "Do you want anything else?"  And then, when they get to the end of things, and are asked whether they have the loyalty card thing, they have to dig it out.  You intentionally joined the movie loyalty thing.  Why do you not have that out all the time you're at the movies?
3. 90% of everything is smeared with fake butter grease.
4. The previews don't have any lights on, and motherfucking Christopher Nolan thinks making his trailer just a black screen with occasional three second clips from the movie while Michael Caine says things that clearly aren't as profound as he's trying to make them is a great idea.  I'm just trying to find a seat, you jackass, and this movie looks dumb anyway.  Stop making movies.
5. You too, Johnny Depp.  Just stop it.
6. Who brings like a dozen kids to the movies?  Seriously.  Like a dozen kids, and one dad.  Plus those kids really didn't understand the concept of a post-credits scene, so they were standing and complaining for the entire credits.  And then, afterwards, they were all, "why was there a duck?"  You just watched a movie starring a raccoon and a tree, and now you're unhappy that there's a duck?  Kids are dumb.
7. Crinkly fucking wrappers.

And the answer to my mental question of "wait, I know that guy.  Who is that guy, and why do I know him?" is Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma.

• Well.  I guess we can be glad that it's not a hundred years ago.
• Also, we now have Snorlax cookie cutters.

Saturday: Let's go to Kailua!

It was a rainy day in the mountains.  But only in the mountains.  It was dry on this side, and it was dry on that side.

Then I got chicken tikka masala.  It's a bit too sweet, I've decided.  There's not enough of a spice as well.  They were also out of naan, so I had to get roti, which isn't quite the same.

Then bowling.  This score is a lie.  The pin doodle stole one point on frame 5, and one on frame 7.

I didn't do that great today.  I'm going to blame the fact that it was busy today.

• Corgi.
• Scyther.
• Shiba inu.

Friday: Today was the last day of Murder Team Five

This was the Mission to Kill (Hissatsu Shigotonin) 2009 series, and it's done now.  I've set up the DVR to re-record the Tuesday rerun episodes, so I can archive it.  There's a special double next week, and that's unfortunately the last time Old Murder Cop appears.

So what happens to the Murder Team?

Last week, there was a new gang of assassins, and they were killing a bunch of people, and claiming that they were the real Murder Team.  They had more than five members, so they clearly couldn't be the right ones.  Anyway, they stabbed a bunch of people, and generally caused trouble and caused a lot of people to be looking for assassins.

Plus, Murder Cop had to take part in his friend's seppuku, because he's a good friend, even though he didn't understand what his friend had done.  Nobody did, and I couldn't clearly figure out how it connected to the rest of the story, but I sometimes don't pay attention too closely.

In any case, MT5 goes to murder up some people, but it all goes wrong when Murder Woman has to escape, so Murder Dude is forced to switch from his heart stabby needle to a sword to fight off a bunch of bad guys.  It doesn't work, and he's totally captured, and the episode ended with the rest of the team looking concerned.

This week, the bad guys are obviously torturing MD, because that's what bad guys do.  Although, if we're being honest, the cops totally tortured an innocent dude a half dozen episodes ago, so it's like a really bad hobby that people had.  Anyway, it turns out that a newspaper guy is behind a bunch of stuff, so he could write stories and sell papers.  Except they're more like flyers than real newspapers, and I'm not sure I actually saw his people selling them.

But he's a bad guy, and he does something with newspaper like things.  That's all you need to know.  Also that he's friends with the "Chief Councillor," which is a big fancy job of some sort.

The bad guys have the people they'd abducted for being assassins identify MD, and they use that information to ransack his house and kidnap his girlfriend.  Except:

1. Those abducted people disappear after this scene.  They had so much murder to get through this week, they just off-screen murdered like a dozen people to make room.
2. She's not like a girlfriend-girlfriend, she's just this girl that lives at his house and they're friends.  She calls him "older brother," so maybe she's somebody they rescued before I started watching the show?  This is why I'm DVRing the reruns.  

Back to the story.  They've captured MD, kidnapped his girlfriend, off-screen murdered the extras, so it's obviously going to be kick ass rescue time, right?

First, CC summons the wife of the guy who had to kill himself last week, and offers her a pile of money to never tell anybody what her husband told her.  She's all "whatever, he never told me anything, and I'm insulted that you'd throw money at me like this, and I'm going to go live in a temple, because you made my husband kill himself.  Oh, BTW, any chance you'd be willing to tell me why you woke up one day and decided that you were going to ruin my life?"  Nope.  CC is a jerk.  She leaves, and a guy walks up and stabs her.  She's all "WTF, I didn't even fucking know anything, and I get murdered here?  This is bullshit, but this town has that sacred shrine where you can hire magical murders to avenge the fuck out of things, and I'm going to get in on that action before I die of this really bad stab wound that would have insta-killed pretty much any other character ever, and you know what?  I'm going to make sure I take so long that it goes from fucking noon to fucking night by the time I get to the shrine.  Because fuck your sword and your stab wound, I'm fucking hardcore."

Seriously, it goes from day to night, and the assassin stabbed her good.  She's fucking hardcore.

MW is there, because that's her job, and is about to be all, "we'll murder those fuckers.  We'll murder them good," when MC steps out.  The Widow Hardcore is like, "huh, you were my husband's friend, and he never told me you were one of the revenge assassins."  It's all touching, and he's sad that she's dying, but they still take the time to collect all the coins she scatters around, but that's just business.

Now we can do a kick ass rescue.

The team all prepares, and they do special "this is the last mission because we're all going to die" preparations.  The get to the castle, when it's suddenly attacked by the other assassin team, who are all wearing masks, because when you're not a professional Murder Team, you need to make sure people don't see your faces.  In any case, they seem to be out to murder the newspaper guy too.  For reasons.  The bad guy plots are often confusing.  The MT5 plans are simple:

1. Know somebody.
2. Watch them get killed.
3. Get paid to avenge them.
4. Murder everyone.

Anyway, fight, fight, fight.  One of the assassins taunts MC, who's pretty much just walking through bad guys like he's cutting grass, but new bad guys show up and the assassin get sliced and his mask falls off.  It's MC's patrol buddy!  He's been showing for ages being all "I'm basically like Barney Fife, but in an Edo-period magistrate officer guise," so I assumed he was just there so MC could make suspicious faces behind someone's back.  Nope.  He's been building up to this, where he tells MC that he just wanted to actually help people for once, because the cops never seem to catch bad guys, but MT5 makes sure they end up stabbed, and he really wanted to get in on the stabbing action.

Except he's bad at it, because now he's dead.  "You should have stayed a cop," MC says.

MC strolls through the castle, raining slashy slashy murder on everyone in his way, because it's the final episode, he's the main character, and there's really nothing stopping him.  Literally.  No one can possible stop him.

The rest of the team does the murders they need to:  OMC kills the dude from last week that survived and New Young Murder Dude kills the newspaper guy with a series of great taunts.  Also his impractical thread and needle strangling technique.  He's a tailor.  It's what he does (I don't think I've mentioned this before).

MC walks down to the basement where they've been torturing MD, and decides he's had enough murder for today, so he stabs the torturer through his stomach, pinning him to the wall.  Yep.  He then releases MD, and gives him his murder needle.  MD is kind of messed up, but he stumbles over to the torture dude, and does his thing.  He also gets a great taunt with, "wait for me in hell, so I can kill you there again."  MD is wonderful.

So everything's great and happy, right?

Nope, MC was kidding earlier when he was all out of murder.  He puts on the assassin mask his buddy had, and walks out to greet CC's palanquin. CC tells his guards it's not a big deal, and opens the door to greet who he thinks is one of the assassins, because I guess he'd ordered them to kill the rest of the crew?  Or so they'd get killed by the rest of the crew?  Maybe so both would end up all dead?  I really don't understand the bad guy plot this week.  CC says, "so the job's done?"

Crap.  OMC had a great pun taunt!  The guy he's supposed to kill thinks he's in the way, because he introduces himself as a cop.  "We didn't call the cops! Go away!"  OMC walks up, and is like, "sure, as soon as I do my job."  The bad guy pauses, his eyes go wide, and then OMC stabs him.  Luckily, the subtitles point out that he says "as soon as I do my shigoto," which is 仕事, "work", but also the first two characters of 仕事人, which is what they've been calling the assassins this week and last.  See?  Great pun.

But yeah, CC thinks everything's fine, MC pulls out his sword, murders all the guards, because fuck them for being there, and then kills CC.  My notes claim that MC then says, "Fuck you right in your fat ugly face, you're dead now.  Dick."  I suspect I may have exaggerated.

Now they do the great and happy endings, except MD is leaving with his girlfriend.  Probably for the best since somebody who saw him get captured might have escaped murder.  New-YMD's tailor shop is super busy, and his pet bird comes back, so that's nice.  MW goes to visit old-YMD's grave, so he gets a flashback.  MC brings OMC to his house, and we find out that OMC has a wife.  Who we haven't ever seen, I don't think, because I honestly thought he lived by himself in that police house.

Wink! from MC.

And it's over.

Until the special in a few weeks.

And I found that there's a tumblr tag.  Except that seems to be mostly just "YMD is super cute!"


On not MT5 related news, I found this in the big encyclopedia of mythology that I have.  It's like the "tl;dr myths" in book form.  I've blurred out the unrelated stuff, and the story that the authors thought was most important.  I disagree.  I want to know more about Arjuna and Krishna's Grand Adventure to Help Agni Get His Power Back Through Arson.

It's from the other myth, but: "Toot toot, motherfuckers!  We've got a forest to burn down!"

• Ok, Murder Dude's actor Matsuoka Masahiro is in a band and he plays drums.  That explains where he learned to do the fancy twirl thing he did with his murder needle.
• This made me laugh so hard I had to put my laptop down and remember how breathing worked.  It nearly happened again when I went to get the link.
• This is what I said yesterday.
• Skeleton teaches manners.
• Sure, everyone's heard the joke, and yes, it's been done, but this time it's live action with special effects.
• I saw this comic yesterday, but it didn't have any reference to the author, so I assumed I could just wait and it would appear in a popular internet source with all the information in the next few days.  It did.

This is one of the songs that's always in my travel playlist

Plus, as a bonus, it has the lyrics.

Thursday: I probably need to do something other than work and sleep, otherwise, I won't have any images to put up.

I guess I'll have to dip into my stash of funny bear pictures.  I have about a half dozen left.

"The service here sucks."

• Pandas are sneaky.
• Counter-point, from the same paper.  Pandas are not in fact sneaky.
• Hello Kitty is not a cat.
• Counter-point, summarizing my thoughts on the matter in a format 99 times as long.  Tl;dr: Kitty isn't a cat because she's an anthropomorphic character who formally only exists in some form of media.
• Ad number three.  What the fuck kind of "club" are you joining that you have to make funeral arrangements for someone?  Did you actually join the mob?  Have you checked recently to see that didn't accidentally join the mob?  You maybe need to check again.
• Cartoons and comics.
• Any decent book binder can put comics and magazines into hard bound volumes.  It's a touch expensive, however.
• Batman.
• This is one of my favorite parts of the movie.  If you look closely, you can see that the riding kodoma is smiling, while the one carrying him is frowning.

Wednesday: I wish tomorrow was a vacation day.

I guess at least I don't have to do things like this for a job.

• Yep.
• My internet was down last night, and I had to make due watching downloaded youtube videos I saved for my trip.  It was terrible, as I'd already watched all the best videos.
• This is dumb, and is just going to make DC comic movies suck in the future.
• When they could just make this movie, tell anyone who thinks it's silly to go fuck themselves, and make all that sweet, sweet Batman + BearRobin movie money.
• Blah blah ACA stupidity hurting people because freedom.
• Squirrel

Tuesday: This doesn't seem like it's a hard problem.

Stolen from a webpage that stole it from twitter, but the main theme was "WTF? Homework is hard!"

Except it isn't.  Call the blocks A, B, and C.  The sides of B and C in terms of A are B = A + 8, C = A + 8 - 3 = A + 5.  A + B + C must equal 25, so you end up with A + A + 8 + A + 5 = 25, or 3*A = 12, so A = 4, B = 12, and C = 9.  Done.  The only fact that you really need (other than basic algebra) is that squares have the same length for all sides.  Which really is a fact you probably knew before the basic algebra.

• My only complaint is that a proper exhibition tends to have a theme, so you can learn something about that topic.  I do like the selections in the slideshow.
• Electricity.
• Worth reading all the way to the end.
• Team Rocket.

Monday: Back to work.

Ugh.

On today's Japanese show: "True tempura soba leaves you sad over its transient existence."

Fat pony.

• Animals.
• Bunny.
• Squirrel.
• Red panda.
• Don't be a jerk, dog.
• Hamtaro.
• Cookies.
• The internet.
• Josie and the Pussycats is a good movie, but no one who hasn't seen it will believe that.

Sunday: All the links, plus some standard Sunday stuff.

I tried to figure out what I wanted for lunch, and eventually decided to do the pancakes and calamari thing again.  Like I do.

You'll see the obvious problem here.

Except they no longer do the calamari.  At all.  So I had to come up with something else to have with my pancakes, and ended up with chicken fried steak.  Not awful, but there's way too much gravy and far too little calamari since that's what I really wanted.

Afterwards I went to Nijiya Market, since it's next door and I wanted to get some chocolate.

I never mentioned this?  It's lemon pop from Japan, and it's delicious, and I think I had like 2-3 bottles of it a day when I was there.  It's not impossible to get here, but it's a bit inconvenient, so it's nice to find a new place that stocks it.

They also had Boss coffee, but only Boss Black, and not Rainbow Mountain.  No picture because I haven't opened it yet.

And now for links.  This moves my RSS starred items from 64 to 1.

• I can apparently get free digital cable in my apartment with the new condo/cable agreement.  I should be able to get a cable card, and then one of these would be useful.  Three tuners would allow me to feed the DVR with way more stuff than I could really ever watch.  
• Animals.
• Squirrel.
• Squirrels.
• I think I did pizza cats.  Here it is again.
• Dogs are dumb.
• Boston terriers.
• MSU stuff, I guess?
• Picture 2: those hallways look narrower than I remember from when I lived there.  Maybe it's just the perspective.
• Solar panel windows.
• Cartoon-like stuff.
• Koffing.
• Wonder Woman hates Buddy the T-Rex.
• Adventure Chair!
• "Trees are expensive."
• Penguin navigation.
• "The reason they like block grants is because they know perfectly well that they'll erode over time."

Saturday: Travel day

Which means that I took lots of pictures of things, but never had time to read the RSS stuff.  So no links, but lots of pictures.

I'm not sure if I've posted a picture of the bear I had when I was a kid, but this is him.  He now lives in the chair I had in undergrad and grad school.

I saw this guy at the airport.  He's pretty much Captain Meme.  Zelda hat, grumpy cat and Naruto plushies.  It seems a bit excessive for a plane trip.

 I pretty much just slept on the flight from IND to ORD.  All the seats on the plane seemed to be filled except the one next to me.  In any case, this layover also won the Best Gates Ever prize, as I arrived at B-19, and left from B-17.  People were already in line when I arrived, but we ended up having to wait an extra half hour to board.  The pilot told us once we were on that she'd changed the flight plan to avoid turbulence, and that's what caused the delay.

Since I didn't have any time to get food at ORD, I bought the excessively pricey roast beef sandwich.  Not terrible,  but not $10 worth of sandwich.

And Brazillian Coke?  How does that even happen?

 Vroom vroom jet jet.  A tablet full of old comic books, Doge 2048, and downloaded youtube videos is now my favorite way to travel.

The Big Island.

Summit of Haleakala.  Our telescopes are there somewhere.  I don't think the resolution is sufficient.

There's a wildfire in Makakilo

Pearl Harbor.

Story time:

At some point during this trip, my bag got caught by some sort of baggage monster, and the large external zipper pocket was basically destroyed.  The zipper was ripped away from the bag body, and the fabric at the end of the zipper was ripped as well.  I'd largely resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to buy a new bag, as fixing this one seemed like it wasn't going to be an easy thing.

The damaged bag.

 After picking it up from baggage claim today, I figured I'd go to the United baggage office, and see what I needed to do to fill out a damage claim.  I walked in, and seeing only an old guy fiddling with a pile of papers, I assumed I could just go up to the counter.

"You think you're next?" said the old man in the most stereotypical "Old Southern Jackass" accent you can imagine.

"What?" I said, not expecting a random crazy old dude.

"You show up now, thinking you can just walk up and do whatever you want, but that's not how it is, because I was here first, so you're just going to have to wait until I'm done, do you understand me?"

"Whatever," I replied, adding a muted, "asshole."

Turning his attention to the counter agent, he continued, "You should learn yourself to not mess with paperwork when there are customers to deal with!  That can wait until later!  You should be helping me with my problems!"

"Sir, I need to log in to the computer to access the information I'll need, this will only take a second," said the agent, stunned that somehow she'd entered a story with this asshole in a starring role.

"I don't care about that!  You lost my stroller, and told us to go out and wait for it, but it never showed up, so we came here, and it's still not here, and you better find it for us!"

"Just give me a moment to call the gate and see what the situation is there.  Sir!  Sir, that's not yours, sir, that's been here for three days!" the agent was forced to reply as the old guy wandered behind the counter to investigate the stroller that was clearly not his.  "Now, do you have your claim ticket so I can check on it?"

"No, because it's my son's!"

"I'm going to need that ticket, because I won't be able to find it otherwise."

"Well, that's just great, now I'll have to go talk to him and get it, and then you'll just waste more of my time!"  The crazy old jackass exits, however "foreign young dude" has heard him rambling, and insists that he's next.

"That's like my problem!  My wife is waiting at the gate for our stroller, and it wasn't there, and we need it!"

"Ok, I've already confirmed that there are no strollers there, so if it was on the flight, it will be here."

"Can you have someone find my wife?  She's waiting there, and I can't get back to the gate [since it's, you know, a security issue to have random people wandering back to the gate], so you have to let her know!"

"Can you call her?"

"No!  Her phone is off, and she has like ten bags!"

The baggage agent puts on the face of "you motherfuckers brought a kid, a stroller, and ten other fucking bags, as carry-on luggage, and you split up with no way to communicate?  You're fucking morons," but wisely says none of that, instead opting for "hopefully she'll come here anyway, as the stroller isn't going to show up there."

It is now my turn.  "Can you describe what you're missing?"

"Oh, no, I'm not missing anything, I was wondering how to make a damage claim.  This pocket on my bag is all ripped up, like it got caught on some machine or something."

"Huh, yeah, that looks like it got stuck in a belt.  That's what, like a 21-inch?"

"Sure?"

"Follow me," which was followed by, "wait, no, stop here" when we started going into the backrooms of Luggage-Town.  "How about this?"

What?

Yeah.  Apparently if your bag gets eaten by the luggage trolls, the standard procedure is to trade your ripped up bag for a brand new bag.  The new one is a bit smaller, but has four independent rolly wheels so you can send it skating across the floor.  Not a bad trade, although due to the crazy way I personify inanimate objects, I'm a bit sad to leave behind the bag that's traveled with me for more than a decade to four foreign countries on three continents.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I took the frames as I was flying into IND last week.  I just now stitched it into the gif since I was almost exclusively tablet computing.  The first three frames work well to show the parallax as we fly past, but the last five kind of fall apart.  I used horizon level fixed points, and that might have been part of the problem.

Friday: last vacation day

Well, not totally. Tomorrow is a travel day, but I get back around 2:30, and Sunday is a regular Sunday.  But my last full day on the mainland.

I probably should have a picture here, but I don't.

• Dog.
• Pizza cat is not a palindrome.
• If this is accurate, the cubs are run by morons.
• This paper.

Thursday: wings

Making sauce.

Saucing wings.

Nom nom nom.

• Cake.
• Catbus.
• Have we discussed this before?
• I waited.

Wednesday: I think this is just going to be links

I did see a squirrel today, but again, I was in the car and couldn't get a picture. Maybe I should try to sketch it tomorrow.

• Orange cat.
• Spoopy.
• Dogs.
• Sword fighting with Wonder Woman.
• Second dinner.
• The supreme court ducks.
• Bubbles.

Tuesday: I have to many tablet tabs open

There's a frog in this picture. I saw two different turtles today too, but they were in the road, and that would be hard to get pictures.

• Ice ducks.
• Cost of living.
• Dog cloud.
• Suburban San.
• Pikachu.
• Charmander.
• Pachirisu.
• This pun is here specifically for Julie to look at.

Monday: I didn't take any pictures today

So here's a picture of the top hat guy from Saturday.

• Silent Hill.
• Pachirisu.
• Words not to say in a talk.
• The Underground.
• Harley and Ivy.
• I'm curious about how they did the color on these photos, but I can't leave this tab open forever on the tablet.  I'll look it up later.

Happy Birthday Cake

Purely illuminated happy birthday cake.

Sunday: At this point, I pretty much have no idea what day it is for people not on vacation

The somewhat local Mexican place has this quesadilla. Cheese, chicken, and chorizo. I think it needs a salsa, but it's not bad.

• Mega slowbro.
• Mega slowbro.
• Pikachu stairs.
• Samurai in Egypt.
• Tear gas guy.
• A previous incident.

Saturday: more travel, this time successfully

First up, lunch at what I think was the very first place I went in Austin, Rudy's:

It was many years ago, but I still enjoy the concept of buying meat by weight.  Brisket obviously, with some sausage hiding under the paper.

Then, home for just long enough for a tiny thief to drink all my take home pop, and then off to the airport.  No trouble there, and I even got the upgrade on the flight to Houston. Sure, that's like ten minutes long, bit it's the thought that counts.

The transfer at IAH was between gates B85 and B86. It was perfect except for the lack of snacking and shopping in the Podunk end of the terminal.

Now for another week of vacation, with a lotdifferent little kid to call with. Will this week be full of Daniel Tiger's neighborhood and Dinosaur Train as well?

Friday: Last night in Austin

Pretty much forever, at this point. In a few months, I won't have this place on my list of places to schedule trips to.  It's a bit sad, really.  I also never got a chance to buy that vinegar, either. "I'm sure we'll be back later in the week." Nope.

I knew it wasn't going to be the same kind of trip when Kimchi wasn't here.

Katsu don for lunch.

• Squirrel.
• Squirrel.
• Bear.
• Did you ever read?

Thursday: you're gross, Ramona

(In case the reference isn't clear.)

Little kid music class is weird. Like it's mostly about the kids ignoring the music and stuff to run around or use the instruments as loudly as possible. You know, little kid stuff.

Dinner was from 24Diner.

So obviously chicken and waffles.

• Porygon.
• Mega slowbro.
• Rain.
• Silent Hill.
• I would not be surprised by this quote.
• Owl.
• The police.
• At least this giving mess seems to be getting better today.

Verdict on doing full posts on the tablet: possible, but link copy pasting is about ten times harder than on the laptop.  

Wednesday: wait, what did I do again today?

There was dinner at The Salty Sow. I think that was the name.

The Halloween pumpkin sock monkey had a bit of trouble with the fizzy water.

I have a pile of links that I wanted to put here, but it's far too late to deal with them now.

I also have to do job stuff tomorrow, which sucks since I'm still on vacation.

Tuesday: Some food, and some links

Noble Pig, yesterday.  There's a new location that's larger and closer to the rest of things.

Sandra Lee sells a super thin frying pan just for grilled cheese.  I can't imagine this works well.

Masala Wok.  Mmmmm...chicken tikka masala.

Then some frozen yogurt.  Because healthy.

• Mega Slowbro.
• A.
• B.
• C.
• Comic books.
• Spider-Man.
• A.
• B.
• She-Hulk.
• That guy from last week is not being dumb now.
• Other stuff.
• College Jello.
• Sean Bean.
• Hawaii primary elections.

Monday: Defense Day

So I'll just leave this one link.

Sunday: Practice talk day

And Latin American lunch. Gloria's, if I'm not getting the name wrong.

But yeah, mostly practice talk day, with a side of relearning nuclear astrophysics.  Did you know it's been eleven years since I last did that?

Saturday: Wings and links.

There were sandwiches, but they came later, and they didn't have mac and cheese.

• Food.
• This is why Japan is cool.
• This is another reason why Japan is cool.
• Breakfast food.
• Lobster taco.
• Hawaiian food.  Also, that hurricane was apparently pretty weak.
• Funny things.
• Funny things.
• A funny thing from Sailor Moon.
• Animals.
• Bear.
• No, cat.  Just no.
• Bear vs. Atoms.  It's Russian, obviously.

Vacatiopocalypse 2014: The flights from hell.

Vacatiopocalypse 2014

Definite delay. We're now at a 9:30 "decision". Which sucks, but it sounds like it's not a vital problem, at least. I guess having a three hour layover wasn't a terrible thing.

Mr "I'm maintenance in san francisco" guy thinks they're working on a window, and "that doesn't take that long." So yeah. Windows. At least if he can see it, it's on the opposite side of the plane from where I'm sitting.

Which is the floor, right next to the gate desk, because there is nowhere else to sit in this gate.

And the reason you don't put miso in a square bowl: you can't pick it up to sip, because you'd make a mess. Plus, using the spoon is impossible because it doesn't scoop.

I'm pretty sure "I have two planes to make, I have to be in a wedding on Saturday" is the same lady who had to have her giant bag of sand checked at security in front of me. Wtf, lady? Security is just going to be fine with you and you mystery powders?

Thursday: well...

I got to the airport on time.

I then had some nice, if very rushed airport sushi, leaving just as my flight should have started to board. (Caption: miso doesn't belong in square bowls.)

However, they have maintenence people onboard, and things are delayed, and I'm looking at the gate agent that I'm worried has unhappy information.

Let's see how this goes.

Wednesday: Less than 24 hours before Operation: Vacation: Escape the Hurricane

I'm packed, I'm checked in for the flight, I have pretty much all my electronics charged up.  I just hope that the stupid storm doesn't knock out my power.  It runs underground, so it's far more likely to be fine throughout the storm, but still.  The main computer should just boot back up when the power comes back on, but things could still go wrong.  I do have the webcam/twitter stream up and running again, but unfortunately that runs off that computer as well right now.

Cats are jerks.

• I like cut-away things.  This is a boat.
• Dogs, what are you doing?
• This is a great story.

Tuesday: And then the entire state went batshit crazy.

I left work tonight, and decided to stop off and pick up take out grocery sushi for dinner because I didn't feel like getting groceries last weekend since I'm leaving.  Unfortunately, the first store I went to had no parking, and people had completely blocked all the lanes, so even if people wanted to leave, they couldn't.  Second store?  Same thing, just with more crazy.

The end result is that I drove all the way back to work, because I can park at work and walk to the store.

The problem?  Everyone is treating Iselle like it's the end of the damn world.  Safeway had zero water.  No water.  All the water?  Gone.  There is no more water to buy.  The soup section?  Half empty.  Gross ass canned tuna?  Same thing.  Do people not buy anything until there's a storm coming?  I pretty much always have soup and a case of water.  It's just a regular thing to have around.  When I run lowish, I get more.  That way, I don't have to clog up all the damn stores and attempt to destroy the normal logistics systems that deliver everything.

Plus, it's not getting to Oahu until Friday at the earliest, it's being shredded by the standard trade winds, and the current forecast has it passing over the Big Island before getting here.  The Big Island, where we keep all the giant mountains.  Hilo has some justification in panicking, but by the time it gets here, it's not going to be a super disaster.

My biggest concern at this point is that my flight on Thursday doesn't get fucked up (especially since I think I can get the upgrade for at least the first leg), and that it doesn't kill the power at home.  It might not be a bad idea to grab a mysqldump of my rss reader stuff, so I can install it on my laptop and run it from there if the power goes down for a long time.

Basically, I'm saying it's not this.

• Maybe Capcom should come up with new games.  Will they just keep remaking Resident Evil every three generations?
• Bruce agrees with me.  Hush is a fucking joke.
• It's far harder to be a dick when the people trying to fuck over are standing right there.  Publicly shaming politicians should be a standard tactic.
• I was going to comment about how I could save like $8 if I could get rid of the channels I don't watch, but then I remembered I don't pay directly for my cable.

That led me to go look at things that are powerlaws, and so I plotted up my DVR channel usage ranking:

Doesn't quite match the best fit model, mostly because Cartoon Network is 51% of all recordings ever, and I didn't feel like excluding that point to fit the rest of the channels.  A quick guess suggests it should only have about 800 recordings to match the bulk trend, so it's about 6x higher than a super simple model would account for.  I wonder what this looks like in hours.