Lord Oz: April 2005

I want one of these...

This would be so cool. I wonder if I could get a rotary paint-ball gun put on it?

Serenity trailer

I think I'm loooking forward to this even more than Revenge of the Sith. That and it confirms my suspicion that my home is bugged.

Serenity Trailer

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Darth Vader's blog

http://darthside.blogspot.com/

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Kuriko is home

Well 1 day and $800 later I was able to bring Kuriko home. She has hyperthyroidism, which is evidently not uncommon in older cats. We're trying medication for now, to see how we handle the pilling. The other alternative is a radioactive iodine treatment ($1200)... I don't consider surgery an option at this point.

I have a crap load of meds to give her (which she is enthused about), but she isn't throwing up. Ryoga and I try not to laugh at her shaved arm. I have to take her back in three weeks for a follow up to see if the meds are working.

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Firefly Cast pictures

Firefly Cast 2

There are actually several in Entertaiment Weekly... I found them at www.last-beautiful-girl.com. I'm sure they are elsewhere also.

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Firefly Cast

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Kuriko sticking her tonue out (via my phone-camera).

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Sick kitty

Kuriko has been throwing up quite a bit over the past few weeks. She and Ryoga snubbed the healthy food I had gotten for them, so I tried some different kinds to see what she would eat the most of. While she had started eating the latest offering, I decided I had better take her to the vet. In the back of my mind, I dreaded this proposition for fear they'd find something seriously wrong with her and say she needed to be put to sleep.

I heard her throw up this afternoon, and went to clean it up. It was just a little bit, mostly spit and not food. I used a wad of toilet paper to clean it up, went to flush it, and noticed she had also thrown up by her litter box. Then I saw the blood and a black mass.

I got on the phone and found an emergency clinic. She wasn't to happy about being put in the carrier and less happy to go on a ride. We waited 40 minutes in an exam room, Kuriko alternating between fidgetting and purring.

Finally the vet came in and examined her (he had a little trouble using the stethoscope over her purring). She didn't have a fever and showed no sign of abdominal pain. The vet said leave her and they'd do some blood work and x-rays, then give me a call.

I was ok until I got in the house. I went to feed Ryoga, put half the cat food in Kuriko's bowl as usual, then lost it for a while. After I ate, I felt better, but then came the long wait for the phone call.

It finally came 2 hours later. The vet said he didn't think it was cancer (my big worry given she's about 16), that she seemed to be a little constipated (not according to the litter box), her white blood cells were a little high and she showed slightly elevated something in her digestive fluid, which led him to think it was pancreatitis (sp?). He gave me a couple of options, one of which was to bring her home and give her some oral medication or leave her there so they could give her an IV and follow up on her in the morning. I was relieved that bringing her home was even an option, but decided to have them treat her. I have to call them back in the morning to find out how things are going.

So now I wait and try to keep my mind off things while 'Ogi keeps me company.

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Star Wars Celebration III

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Star Wars Ce-line-bration

This weekend Star Wars Celebration III, a huge SW convention is going on downtown. Along with that, the MMORPG I play, Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) had a player breakfast where the players could meet each other and talk to the developers and see the new stuff coming out. I figured I'd pop over to Celebrations after the breakfast and check it out and decide if I wanted to plunk down the rather steep entry fee.

Well, that turned out not to be an option... there were so many people that the fire marshall made them stop selling tickets (and I was there around 11:00 am). I decided to wonder around the public areas a bit, check out the folks in costume (I almost walked into a pillar because of a Princess Leia slave girl), and peek through doors. It looked like the biggest thing going on was waiting in line. There were huge lines for everything... lines that lasted hours. I had a friend report a 5 hour line to get into the convention's store!

I have to give credit to the folks that costume for things like this... mmm slave girl... where was I? Oh yeah, lots of people put a lot of effort and cash into these costumes and many are quite impressive. After the PLSG, my favorites were the Mara Jades (which evidently just requires an attractive red-head to wear black leather). ... ... Oh yeah. And of course there were tons of Jedis and stormtroopers. I wish I could have gone to the costume contest.

I wonder if anyone has posted pics of the slave girl on-line?

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Review: Kung Fu Boogie

Kung Fu Boogie is more of a comedy than a martial arts movie, centering around PigSty Alley, a slum building too poor for the gangs to mess with until the central character shows up pretending to be from the baddest gang of them all, the Axe Gang. When the trouble hits the fan, several unlikely kung fu masters crop up and mayhem ensues.

The Axe Gang reminded me of a cross between the Crazy 88s in "Kill Bill" and the Butcher's Gang in "Gangs of New York". I'll have to use them in a game. ;)

This movie isn't for everyone... in fact, it's not for most people. It's sub-titled, the CGI effects are cheesy and there are some things that are probably hilarious in China we won't get in America. But I had a lot of fun... I (and the small audience) laughed a lot.

Overall rating: 3 of 5 flying monkeys.

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Southern Dialect Quiz

I came out barely a Yankee at 45%.

Yankee or Dixie?

Not surprising given that I grew up in Chicago. When I was in college, my girlfriend from southern Indiana thought it was funny that I when I got agitated my "northern" accent became more pronounced.

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Asteroids!

The program calculates the results from an object striking the Earth. You set various variables, click, then get the results of your destruction.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

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Burger Battle

There are two hamburger restaurants that I've gone to recently that I really enjoy. The first is 96th St. Steakburgers, near 96th and... crap, that road that goes north, something like Hazell Dell. Anyways, it's pretty much burgers and fries. Nothing pretentious, in fact the simplicity of the place wins points with me. And I love their french fries. They take a large potato, chop in into fries and fry it up. No bags of frozen preprocessed fries.

The other place is Culvers, near the corner of 96th St. and Masters Rd. Culver's specialty is frozen custard, and their offering along this line look quite tempting, but I can't reconcile spending $4 on a sundae. Their fries are pretty good, but their ButterBurgers are friggin' awesome. They remind of hamburgers we'd have in the summer at my grandparents. Culvers also wins points for being so close, but they are also so damned busy that you can forget getting in there during peak hours.

Damn it. Now I'm hungry.

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Star Wars: 3 new trailers

These appear to be the TV spots we'll be seeing for the next few weeks.

Click here.

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Sin City review

This is my new desktop. :)

I was not disappointed. Robert Rodriguez redeemed himself for Once Upon a Time in Mexico and turned out an excellent movie. I would probably be in rapture if I had read the comics... everything I've read has gushed over how faithful the movie was to Frank Miller's work.

I'll have to go see it again. And buy the DVD when it comes out (which will also have the three story arcs in the movie also available to watch totally independently as they appeared in the graphic novels, complete with extra footage).

And of course the visuals were awesome. It won't be nominated for Best Picture, but I could see Cinematography, Art Direction and Editting nods. And speaking of visuals... well see the above picture. :)

Sin City gets 5 out of 5 flying monkeys.

(I really need to get a flying monkey graphic for this).

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