Monday: Sorting out powerful prescriptions.

Which they now mostly are, so I should be able to get a three month supply for the move, so that helps.

Hello Kitty knows what's up.

• I wish I could watch this video.  Mostly I just want more stuff from Shinkai.
• This would be the greatest TV show ever.  Clint Barton and Kate Bishop donking around, shooting arrows at bad guys, solving crime and mystery in the most round-about luck-filled disaster-crash manner possible.

Tuesday: I'm about to bitch about Agents of Shield again.

But first:

Sushi chef Kitty-chan.

The moon did a cool thing.

Zoom!

First up, I'm glad AoS isn't new until the 29th.  That means I don't need to try and make other people hate-watch the show with me.  The good thing: making Ghost Rider's uncle be the actual big bad guy, not any of the ghost people.  Still, the ghost people did kill a bunch of people, so I'm glad they've been Ghost Ridered.  The first stupid thing: the new director abducting Science Pal Lady.  Why?  That's dumb.  Why is he so dumb?  Is it because he was friendly with evil senator lady?

The second dumb thing: are Science Pal Guy and Coulson now ghost people?  Can I just go "Ugh" and get across the level of angry annoyance?  Last season you mailed Science Pal Lady across space, and it was all "we have to do everything to get her back!"  This is just the gender-flipped, doubled-down version of the same thing.  "Ghosts aren't outer space."  It's the same stupid break-up-the-team bullshit.

Third dumb thing: why is the new director so dumb?  "Coulson, you're a LOOSE CANNON and OUT OF CONTROL!  You've got to hand over your daughter substitute and this super powered dude so they can face trial!"  Really?  That's the best you can come up with?  I really hope that the speculation that he's not really human, but is really a Life Model Decoy is true, because then that at least there's a reason for him to be so stupid.

Fourth dumb thing:  why did they introduce the first actual LMD at the end of last season, and then use her to do two things: a) jack; b) shit.  I get that even fricking Ghost Rider is more interesting than LMDs, but still.  Can she do something useful at some point?

Fifth thing:  I assume the episode on the 29th is just going to be the team sitting down and eating shwarma for fifty minutes before having Coulson say, "Good thing Dr. Strange (movie now in theaters!) decided to stop by and solve this mystical problem we had, given that THAT'S KIND OF HIS DAMN JOB."

ETA: Second good thing: Having Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider give powers to Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider.  I like tying things together like this. 

• Pokemon.
• Ghost types.
• Pikachu.
• Not Pokemon.
• This is all good to read, but the tldr best point is the Arlie Hochschild quote about halfway through.
• Gender bias from astronomy citations.
• A good dog.
• This works so well.
• A She-Hulk and a Squirrel-Girl.
• Ghost construction.

Monday: Oargle.

I don't have any good pictures for today, so here's the Hello Kitty store from 2009.

Also I learned today that you can dive across the finish line in an Olympic race.  That seems super cheaty, but also like it should be its own event.

• Pokemon.
• Alola Raichu.
• Whoops.
• Pokemon Go and Brexit.
• Not Pokemon.
• A) It's a good thing that's not my regular sushi place.  B) I'm pretty sure I wouldn't go with raw scallops anyway.
• Star Wars.
• I have not heard about this movie before today.  That seems like a mistake.

Friday: Disappointment.

What do you think this means?  If you're like me, you're thinking maybe Hello Kitty themed sushi rolls, maybe things have little bows on them?  Nope.  It means the tea is Kitty themed, and the soy sauce packet is Kitty themed.  Lame.

• Dogs.
• Squirrel.
• Dog + squirrel.
• Josephine Baker.
• I will never not think of Codename: Sailor V when I see this now.
• Even before I got to the caption, my thought was, "That is literally the least you could do, Tuxedo Mask.  Even in cafe food form, you are the laziest person ever."

Saturday: Somewhat disappointing.

I woke up today super early, which was then followed by an unexpected phone call, one of the main detail of which was Julie talking about how good corned beef hash is, and how I had like six hours in which I could totally go to the Pancake House to get it.

I then went back to sleep, because fuck being up at 8am.

When I woke back up again, I did a search pancakes on yelp, and discovered a new pancake place, helpfully named "Pancakes and Waffles".  The important thing that this led me to discover is that they do chicken and waffles.  That pretty clearly settled the point that I was going to be driving to Waimalu, even though that's halfway across the island.

I went with a new face covering technique today, but it turned out a bit creepier than I expected.

Here are the two main problems with the chicken and waffles:  the waffle is too squishy, and the chicken is too hard.  Flavor wise, it's also a bit muted.  It's not bad at all, just not quite perfect.  The waffle probably needed another 15-30 seconds or so to fully set the insides.  The chicken is thighs, but it's a bit overcooked and dry, which kind of kills the flavor.  The other main problem is that tabasco isn't the best hot sauce for C&W.  Cholula was my choice at 24 Diner (as seen here, and here, and here).

There's something else on the menu that makes me think I'll be driving to Waimalu again fairly soon. 

You can almost read it on the menu there.

Or I can copy from the online menu:

That looks like a 100% proper Monte Cristo, complete with jam.

It has been nearly a decade I think since I last had one.  I suspect that's probably about the correct healthy frequency.

• It's like a "how can we fuck up the DC comic universe any more?"
• "There are three Jokers."
• "Doctor Manhattan created the New 52 universe."
• I mean JFC.  That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I read the concepts behind the last shitbrained reboot.
• Here's the right way to do confusing retcons.
• Kitties.
• Birb thief.
• Sam Wilson, The Falcon.
• Steven Universe.

Sunday: "Sidewalk sale"

Which means Hello Kitty vomits her wares out of her store.

And I had sushi, but it was super busy, so I didn't take any pictures.  One thing I noticed is that the okonomiyaki is gone from the menu.  I guess other people had the same impression I did.

• If the actual deal is anything like the leaks, then Angela Merkel is possibly the most evil leader of a modern democracy.
• Pockets.
• I hate reboots.  How is this going to be indexed in the trade paperback?  "Squirrel Girl 2015a" and "Squirrel Girl 2015b"?

Wednesday: I get to sleep in tomorrow.

I have no idea what Kitty is supposed to be dressed as here.  Batman?  Generic Halloween?

• Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
• Cats are jerks.
• Comcast should be nationalized.

Wednesday: Hello Kitty and Superheroes

Today was part two of the never ending chain of doctor's appointments that always starts with a single doctor appointment.  For reference, this was number two of five.  The goal for today: vaccines and test part A.  I'm pretty sure I ended up in the room that's usually used for kids.

For some reason.

I can't quite put my finger on it, though.

• Today I learned that the ESA doesn't have a PR rep on hand when they live stream events.  Honestly, isn't this the kind of thing that is obviously something you'd want to stop ahead of time?
• Just in case you weren't sure how much money is being extracted by the wealthy from corporations, the answer is 91%.
• Which is part of the reason that Walmart is in this position.  Hiring more people and paying them wages to prevent waste would directly cut into that wealth extraction.
• That is a nice clock.
• Yoshitaka Amano's art is a bit reason why I like the Vampire Hunter D books.

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.

Monday: It's clear to me that this thing is just far too complicated for me to keep in entirely in my head.

Woo for developing something crazy confusing.  I'm pretty sure this is why robot rebellions happen.  Somebody has to design the whole thing, but they forget to check that $kill_all_humans is set to 'false'.  I mean, there are just too many variables to remember.

I don't seem to have an image for "robot rebellion."  Have "owl rebellion" instead.

• I was going to say "how crappy of a pop-culture writer do you have to be to screw things up like this?", but I then went to see how hard it actually is to identify this as Bee and Puppycat stuff, assuming you don't know that it is.  It's hard.  I could find no permutation of the set of words [cat kitten sword robot space pink white bumblebee bee helmet] that returned a B&PC result on google images.  Part of the problem is that this fucker has been nailing down merchandising for forty fucking years.  I also suspect that all B&PC stuff uses "puppycat" universally, which is not something someone who knows nothing about it is going to search for.  Still, ask around and see if someone else knows who they are.
• I like this comic.  It presents every day situations that everyone deals with, but does it in a soothing calming manner without all the flash and drama that a lot of other comics pile on.  Just a simple package, and the results of opening it.
• Bill Shuster is a dickbag, and this isn't going to do anything.  No one goes, "man, if only flights were cheaper, I'd fly everywhere!"  People decide they're taking a trip, and then want to buy the cheapest one that fits their criteria.  That's the final price.  The main problem is that everything else splits out the sales tax, so there's this idea that it's something unusual.  No.  You can't buy product X at price Y-T.  That's not an option.  Therefore, you pay Y, which is the only price you should be concerned with.  No other prices should be apparent.  I don't buy things by going to the store, finding the wholesale price printed on the shelf, and then take it to the counter where they add the workers fee, the building fee, the electricity fee, the finance fees, the overhead fees, and then the sales tax.
• This is something that I only vaguely remember the details behind.  Gas company Y was doing well, the government froze the company for reasons, Y largely falls apart due to the freeze, and the parts are sold to company R, which is kind of owned by the government.  Plus they threw a bunch of people into jail, blah blah blah.  Now there's a $51.5e9 judgement that company Y probably didn't deserve to be looted by the government.  So, yay! Justice!  Delayed and probably unenforable Justice!  The most depressing of all Justices!
• Except Aquaman.
• Except BatB Aquaman (this is the same link as the previous point, but you have to get down to the happy-smiley Aquaman).
• Today I learned that shopping carts in the UK and Australia have locks on them, and you have to put a coin in the slot to unlock the cart from the rest of the carts, and then when you're done, relocking the cart to its friends allows you to get your cart back.  I suspect it's less a theft deterrent (because if I could get a shopping cart for a pound, I'd be thinking up things I want to move around at home), and more a way to eliminate the cart-guy going out to salvage used carts and bringing them back to the store.

Saturday: Excitement on the way to sushi

I noticed a security guy walking all purposefully while heading to sushi.  After putting my name on the list, I discovered that there actually was something going on:

I guess those guys tried to steal from the ThinkerToys?

 Yep.  Thinker Toys.  The place that sells a bunch of toys that don't really look like they're much fun, but they also have some board games.  Well, did have some board games.  They seem to have replaced them with goth jigsaw puzzles.  Who tries to shoplift there?

Those guys, I guess.  Looks bad for them, since the real cops showed up.

 Then I had sushi.

Om nom nom.

 On the way out, I noticed the Sanrio store, and thought I'd take a picture of what it's like.

Kitty.  Kitty everywhere.

• Aminals.
• Baby wombat.
• Baby squirrel.
• Squirrel and bird.
• Grown up crap.
• Inequality.
• "one-third of money earmarked for spending on the Sochi Games disappeared because of corruption".  I'm curious as to how much of a fiasco the olympics are going to be this year.
• Vannevar Bush.
• Other stuff.
• Oshawott.
• Philosophy of Jake.
• Tiny bear cult.

Sunday: Last day in Austin

Which means cramming in things that haven't been done yet.  It seems odd that only a few days ago that I was thinking that I still had lots and lots of time left here.  Tomorrow is the standard early morning trip to the airport and then the flights back home.  I get home reasonably early (like 3pm), but I'm still going to be super tired when that happens.

This paper only allows the ink to form colors in certain locations.  You'll notice that Hello Kitty's face is scribbled over oddly.  Someone really wanted to color her face.

 Anyway, up early to head out.

Not homeless person.

Still not homeless.

Poor planners, but not homeless.

 That's the random pictures I took while walking past the line at Franklin Barbecue this morning.  We had a pre-order in place, which seems like the only sane way to get food there.  It's just dumb to wait outside for the store to open when you can plan ahead and pick it up to go.

There are other places here in Austin that seem to have the same insane reputation.  There is no reason to make a giant line outside of a restaurant unless someone has convinced you that that's the stylish trend.

F-BBQ has blueberry pop.  Blueberry.

And a gnome.

And merchandising.

 In any case, meats were obtained and returned to the (slightly-less-frozen-than-outside) warmth of home.

Pulled pork, slab of brisket, two sauces, some cheese for variety.

 I do think that F-BBQ has the best brisket I've had.  I like the thick cut.

Time passed, various things got organized, and everyone got hungry again.  Buca di Beppo ended up being the "we want something warm and filling because it's fucking cold out."

Our table was watched over by this super creepy painting:

Perspective tool was used to try to fix it to a face on shot.  If you're going to fight an ogre, you might as well do it where you can clearly see it.

 Some of the other art was a bit questionable as well.

My original goal was to take a picture of the sketch of the person picking their nose.  That's when I noticed that the statue was mooning me.

Cheesy bread.

And then I forgot to take picture of the entrees. Oh well.  Link time.

• I saw this guy on a Daily Show interview, and wondered if he'd been fired for being a fucking idiot.  Turns out no, and he's still a fucking idiot.  I know I've called other people names like this before, but this is a level of stupidity so vast, that I can only assume that John Tamny has had large portions of his brain removed.  And that he has blackmail info on the Forbes staff, as that's the only reason I can see anyone employing such a moronic jackass.
• I want this as a font.  An unreadable font, but a font non-the-less.
• Chilly dogs.
• Social interaction.
• Because wigs.
• Franklin Barbecue is on this list.
• Josephine Baker.
• Trains.
• Natasha Allegri.
• Although I'll miss Austin and visiting people, there's one thing being back in Hawaii will have.
• I know I've flown Delta DC-9s before.  Not recently though.  Still, the planes I've flown in were first advertised with this.

Thursday: Thanksgiving

I only ended up eating like half of this.

Crap, I still have dessert to eat.

Anyway, thanksgiving food.  Rating things from best to worst

1. Mashed potatoes.  Steaming is always better, as it's faster and doesn't soak them so much.
2. Taro rolls.  I toasted them in the oven a bit too much, and discovered that slightly burned taro rolls taste delicious.
3. Turkey.  It's not very brown, but the strategy I used of just dumping the turkey parts in the cast iron casserole, slapping the lid on it, and roasting it that way seemed to work rather well.  I salted, peppered, and en-sage-enated the turkey as well, to get a bit more flavor in it.  Some of the edge bits are a bit dry, so that's a vote for brining.  Still, impossibly easy to deal with, and lazy is always good.
4. Gravy.  A bit salty, and given the option, don't buy whole wheat flour when you're expecting white.  How was this the only small package of flour?  The other options were five pound and eight pound bags.
5. GBC.  It's GBC.
6. Stuffing.  This ended up bad.  The flavor is just not good.  I think that I need to just toss all my spices and buy new ones.

Links.

• Bunnies.  Watch the bunny paws.
• I discovered this last night.  That is exactly the model that I have, that I used for the turkey.  I guess I should contact them, and see what the plan is.  If they're going to replace mine with a new one of equivalent size, then that's fine.  Otherwise, I may just keep and use this one.  I've had it for like six years now, and have never had any problems like that.
• I'm 99% certain Mr. Mime just stole that plate of spaghetti from Wooper.
• Squirrels.
• Thanksgiving.
• I noticed the same thing while watching the parade.  Way to hide the fact that you're bringing back Sharkleberry Fin, Kool-aid.  It's not Purplesaurus Rex, but still.

Oh, yeah.  I watched the parade.  Here's a cut so you don't have to load like 20MB of images if you don't really want to.  But really, what else are you doing right now?  Go on.  Click it.

Saturday: blah

Japan has fancy trains that have cats as conductors.

• I agree.  The recent Charlie/Chocolate Factory movie was kind of lame, and didn't have the style of the Wilder version.
• Economics.
• "With Sanitary Paddle."  Before this, did people just scoop mustard out with their fingers?

Saturday: Late sushi is a bad idea

I think this means that the prime sushi time is about 4:00.  That usually has no wait, and they're ramping up for the dinner rush, so they have more things on the belt.  Tonight I arrive around 7, and had to wait far longer than I wanted to.

It turns out Christmas Kitty wasn't a one time thing.

Char!

• Oops.
• I didn't realize that either. Now I feel dumb.
• It would be nice if we had enough sane people in Congress that this could get passed.  Then again, people are out of work because they're inherently bad, right? If they weren't, then they'd be rich.

Sunday: Dear Me, go do laundry

So that "don't go to sushi on the weekend for a while" thing didn't work very well:

Kalbi nigiri and garlic ahi.  I need to remember to bring gum when I get garlic ahi.

 I also discovered that in Hawaii, you don't take the kids to get their picture taken with Santa:

Hello Kitty has clearly run the fat guy out of town.

"No, my left. Move to my left, so that's...like...your right maybe?  Just go the other way, you're not in the frame."

Banana guards.

• This was pretty much my reaction to the word that Kerry was likely to get the nomination.
• Those birds are totally about to be murdered by Creepy Sun.
• Cyndaquil.

This would have been more timely on Friday:

Hurricane Irene was such a jerk that it went out of its way to hit Pakistan, then came back to beat up the east coast, and is about to take a jump over to beat up Russia.

Also, here's a gif of Natalie Portman crying, which she apparently does a lot more than I notice:

Yes, there's a cat in there too. I don't know. The internet makes silly things. I guess we can say "hi" when it flashes on screen.

Crap! It's the fuzz!

"No officers, I've never seen those packages before."

This is Hello Kitty's

and she will shoot you in the back of your head if you don't come back with all the money. She didn't bring this from Columbia for you to fuck up.

Hello Kitty

I parked next to this car today. Hello Kitty seat covers and steering wheel cover. I also chose correctly, because I parked in the ramp, and it snowed.

Today was the kind of day where I probably could have slept all day and still accomplished about the same amount of stuff. I tried to get my AAS flight stuff organized, but my boss didn't know which grant number to use for that until the end of the day. I spent an hour tracking down my KITP information so I could figure out how the reimbursement works for that. I paid the registration fee for the conference, so I don't have to worry about the rate increase in December. Just as I was sitting down to start my rewrites, Ken returned from the wilds of Canada. I spent about an hour talking to him about Canada, dynamical friction, and the effects of supermassive black holes on their host galaxies. That was interrupted by Charles stopping by noting that there was a planetarium talk and that it was time to organize dinner. That was basically when I gave up on things for the day.

Dinner was a bit of a fiasco, as we had to wait for Carolyn and New Grad Student Girl Who Probably has a Shorter Name. They were TAing, and unwilling to kick people out 45 minutes after class ended. The talk was by Ed Brown, about the wonders of pulsars (spoiler: neutron stars are dense, and pretty boring when you get down to it) (second spoiler: some people don't spell check their slides).

I then spent two hours when I got home trying to write code to use libfann, which apparently has three versions: 1.0.0 which doesn't do much, 2.0.0 which does more, and X.X.X which the documentation is based on. It's always great when you directly follow code snippets from the documentation and get compiler errors. I wrote my own implementation of the missing utilities, which is retarded. I shouldn't need to write code to make the library work from arrays. There should be more options than "read from a file formatted exactly like this."

Ok, cookie time!