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November 8th, 2009
alpinemaps
 | 01:40 pm - San Diego Rocket Race
Another year, another San Diego Rocket Race! It gets tougher every year, and this year wasn't an exception. This was the 4th Rocket Race (and the 3rd ran by my team, Xur and the Kodan Armada).
It's a little bit like The Amazing Race. Or Urban Challenge. Or Midnight Madness. You get a clue, you solve a puzzle, and you go onto the next location. There is a theme (this year's was 'robots taking over the Earth'), and the clues are science fiction based (more on that in a moment). You are allowed to use any resource you want - including cell phones, laptops, iPhones, Blackberries, 'Phone-a-friends', etc.
We started at 9am at Coronado Tidelands Park (the end point for last year's race). They dropped the flag and told us to race under the bridge - our first clue was on the fence there. Naturally, we all ran over - and I immediately discovered that I'm old! I can't run nearly as fast as I used to - and the body hurts pretty quickly when I try. Oops!
Clue #1 - Recovering the clue, we were given an overlay (think overhead projector overlay), with some text and cut outs. It told us to find the 4th Hole, and the bike path near it, and use the overlay to get to our next location. It might be faster to drive than walk. Immediately, we hoped into the car, and headed across the street to the Coronado Golf Course. We found the map along the bike path. If you used the overlay correctly, you would find yourself headed toward a park on 3rd street in Coronado.
Clue #2 - We arrived at the park in short order, and got our next clue. It was a picture. We had to find the location of this picture to get our next clue. We could see the Hyatt Hotel, across the bay, and some condos on one side of the picture. We drove down 1st Street until we reached the correct street. We arrived here in 7th place, but only 6 minutes behind 1st place. Not doing bad to start.
Clue #3 - This is where things got difficult for us, and killed us for the game. We were handed a clue, and a bottle of Root Beer, being the label 'Fortran'. We ignored the root beer for a moment, and tried to decipher the clue. There were four parts to this clue. Each one referring to something in Star Wars. From the way we read the clue, we thought we might have to go across the bay on the Ferry. But, that's a bold (and risky) move. After about an hour, we called in for some help. We discovered we needed to DRINK the root beer (oops!). We'd discover there was an additional clue on the label. And it instructed us to look for words between the words. (In other words, the clue for our next location were words where the first few letters would be the last few letters in a word, combined with the first couple of letters in the next immediate word, i.e., house condition would tell us SECOND).
Clue #4 - Was a park in Imperial Beach. We got there, finally, and got our clue. We stlll weren't doing too bad, but we had definitely lost some time. It was a KenKen puzzle. Numbers were missing, and the questions on the back helped us figure out some of the numbers we had to use (i.e., how many of the follow four robots were Asimov robots; or what was the name of the computer in War Games, with a number next to each multiple choice answer). Also, we had to find a statue in Imperial Beach, and count the number of fish in the statue, to get one of our answers. The sum of some specific squares would have corresponding pieces of the final answer - our next location. We had the answer quickly - but we did it by guessing. We should have gone with our gut, because we spent the next 45 minutes fighting with the puzzle to confirm the answer.
Clue #5 - Another park, not far from Plaza Bonita. There, we got an identity key - pictures of robots and humans, and we were told to identify how many in each row and column were robots. Again, the correct answers would give us part of the answer to the next location. If you brute forced it, you might go to Plaza Bonita; or you might go to Horton Plaza. The correct answer was Plaza Bonita.
Lunch Break - This was our lunch break. We only got 35 minutes this year, but we were told we could get out of there 5 minutes early, if we could solve a bonus clue. We worked a little bit on it, but, feeling a little low, we decided to eat, recharge, and have a good second half.
Clue #6 - We were handed an envelop with a puzzle and scotch tape inside. It was made up of a series of triangles and squares. Some pieces just said one word - such as 'Earth' or 'Prime'. Others had multiple words on them. It looked like you could put them together - such as 'Optimus' connected to 'Prime', or 'Doctor' on one 4-word square and 'Who' on another. We thought we might be looking to make a map to put up to the mall directory. We weren't really sure.
Looking this over for awhile, we started to notice something - there were a few words that appeared on triangles, that had the word next to them flipped upside down. We started to put some things together - 'Basilone' 'Piazza' 'India' 'Fur'. Is there a Basilone Piazza in Little Italy, where India and Fur Streets are? We decided to head to the car and go downtown.
Clue #7 - We got our clue - discovered we were nearly 3 hours behind first place now - and headed out. It was a decoder clue - you were told to set the letter 'A' to a certain number (say 24), and then count to a particular number (say 17). You figure out what letter 17 was, and that would be a letter in your clue. We figured out quickly that we needed to head to Amici Park in Little Italy.
We had a list of 14 additional clues. But they were in a random order. If we answered the questions in the clues, we would get a number. Arrange the numbers in the correct numerical order, and we'd get the correct order for figuring out the decoder. There are a series of plaques in the park, and the answers we needed were found on these plaques. Once we figured it out, we discovered we were headed to Kensington Park.
Clue #8 - We got to Kensington Park, and got our clue. It was a postcard or picture, and it had been cut into about 30 different tiny strips. And, another overlay. Just as we started to assemble the clue, we got the phone call - we were being recalled to the finish line, as the race was over.
We got to the finish line, and heard the stories. Had we finished Clue #8, we would have gone to the finish line, which had yet another puzzle to complete before you could check in.
We were one of 5 teams that didn't make it to the finish line (and only two of us found our way to the finish line). We were the 'furthest' head of the recalled teams, so, we were the best of the teams that didn't finish? (Hey, I gotta find something good, right?). We had a blast, though, and we can't wait until next year.
Current Location: Home - Downstairs
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) cheerful
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daytonward
 | 03:38 pm - Pinch me, cuz I'm dreamin'.
BUCS
WIN
!!!!
: Ahem. :
Bucs 38 - Packers 28.
They came from behind. They found out that there just might be something to rookie quarterback Josh Freeman. And they did it all while wearing the Creamsicle Colors of Doom that only die-hard, Day 1 fans can love.
And at halftime, they honored Lee Roy Selmo, aka The. Greatest. Buc. Player. Ever. Still Tampa's only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Selmon became the inaugural member of the Ring of Honor at Raymond James Stadium. That's only about 25 years or so overdue, but better late than never.
Oh, and they won.
Suh-weet.
Current Location: Stately Ward Manor
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/energetic.gif) WOO-HOO!!!!
Current Music: Chargers-Giants game on CBS
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kvaadk
 | 02:12 pm - This happens some days
When I woke up this morning I was at about 5,000 words on "Higher Honor" (a behind-deadline project that will top off at about 10k).
Wrote 3,042 words. Had lunch. Read what I'd written. Realized I'd lost the story completely playing with nice subplots and clever character explorations that were not true to the core and purpose of the story. Deleted the lot. Went back to writing.
I'm now at 5,800 words.
These are better words, but I really had planned on finishing this joker today.
Taking a break to go shop for stuff to cook for dinner.
I'll write some more tonight.
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tiggerallyn
 | 11:39 am - On Allyn’s Crackpot Batman Theory
Bruce Wayne, better known to millions of comics fans as Batman, is dead.
Many months ago, in an effort to drive to defeat Batman, the Devil himself, in the person of Dr. Hurt, attempted to drive Batman insane. However, Batman had the greatest plan ever, because Batman plans for everything — he had created a back-up Batman persona, an ultra-violent Batman amped up to 10. And then Batman kicked the Devil’s ass, but in the process, the world believed that Batman was gone.
(I should note that the fundamental difference between Batman and Spider-Man is this. When confronted with the Devil, Batman kicks his ass. When confronted with the Devil, Spider-Man sells his marriage in exchange for whiny emo-ness.)
However, Batman was not gone. He had gone underground, and then the events of Final Crisis happened. Darkseid conquered Earth and turned it into a literal Hell.
And, because Batman plans for everything, Batman had planned for this.
Batman shot Darkseid and killed him.
But Darkseid unleashed his Omega Beams on Batman before he died and fried his body, leaving a bleached skeleton inside the Bat-costume.
The world believes that Batman is dead, and former Robin and Nightwing Dick Grayson has taken up the mantle of the Bat again, as he did in the aftermath of KnightsEnd fifteen years ago.
However, Tim Drake, another former Robin, does not believe that Batman is dead. And as he travels the world, he is uncovering evidence that Bruce Wayne has been present throughout a long period of human history. Tens of thousands of years of human history.
Because, somehow, the Omega Beams didn’t kill Batman, despite the body that Superman cradled in his arms. Nor did the Omega Beams trap Batman into the world of the Omega Sanction, though Neil Gaiman’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” may indicate that if Batman was trapped in the Omega Sanction, he worked out how to escape it.
Because, let’s be honest. If Batman can outthink the Devil, Batman can outthink Darkseid. Easily. It’s just that simple.
But how can Batman be present in human history, for thousands of years?
I’ve got it.
He’s a disembodied spirit!
The spirit of Batman refuses to die. Refuses to die!
Much like Ra’s al-Ghul’s spirit refused to die, come to think of it…
Where I think the story is going is this. In The Resurrection of Ra’s al-Ghul, the world believed that the Demon’s Head was dead, but evidence began to surface that he wasn’t. The League of Assassins tried to kidnap Damien, the son of Bruce Wayne of Talia al-Ghul. The reason, as we learn, is that Ra’s al-Ghul was alive, sort of. He was a spirit, and he could take over a body, but unless the body was part of his bloodline the body would decay quickly and his spirit would have to move to another body. Damien, because he is Ra’s al-Ghul’s grandson, could provide Ra’s with a stable body.
Batman, Nightwing, and Robin are able to save Damien, and Ra’s al-Ghul takes over a different body, that of a heretofore unknown son, which is probably why when we’ve seen Ra’s since (in the pages of Nightwing and Red Robin) he’s looked almost exactly as he had before.
You may be able to see where I’m going with this.
The disembodied spirit of Bruce Wayne will occupy Damien Wayne’s body.
Tim Drake will, in some fashion, find the spirit of Bruce Wayne. And to make Bruce Wayne live again, Damien, who has been shown will do anything for his father, will sacrifice himself so that Bruce’s spirit can have a vessel.
Thus, Dick Grayson remains as Batman. And now Bruce Wayne will be the sixth Robin. Or maybe still the fifth, since it’s Damien’s body, after all.
Which means that the future Damien Batman we see in Batman #666 isn’t really Damien. It’s actually Bruce.
There it is. My crackpot theory on the search for Bruce Wayne and the return of the original Batman.
Originally posted at allyngibson.net. Cross-posted to LiveJournal.
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bn_booksellers
[zephrin]
 | 10:53 am - A Loss
If everyone could take a moment to keep him in your hearts and thoughts, William Davis, a cafe server from #2992 died suddenly this weekend. I don't have all the details yet (waiting on an email back from my old SM), but he was a great guy and a wonderful coworker.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/sad.gif) sad
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tiggerallyn
 | 09:44 am
I have been reading some Old French texts.
And by reading them, I mean that I am looking at them, recognizing a few words that resemble modern French, and wondering what the hell the rest is.
In addition, Old French doesn't use any sort of modern punctuation, and sentences aren't organized into logical paragraphs.
Yay!
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daytonward
 | 08:28 am - For ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) infinitydog...
...and any other Rush fans on my f-list, MusicRadar.com recently posted an extract from the blog of drummer Neil Peart, discussing what's next for the band:
MusicRadar.com: Neil Peart says Rush are poised for "reinvention"
The complete blog entry, which makes for some damn fine reading on a Sunday morning, can be found here: NeilPeart.net: November 2009 - Autumn Serenade.
Whatever you guys decide, I'll be here.
Current Location: Casa de Wardo
Current Mood: rushin'
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puppetmaker40
 | 08:19 am - Change in Plans
One thing I learned after becoming a parent is that plans can change in an instant with a change in health of your kids. Case in point, today we were planning to get together with Gwen and have breakfast then go into the Natural History Museum and look at the dinosaurs and possibly go to the central part zoo or half a dozen other things we could do while in the city. However when I came downstairs I found Caroline with a very stuffy nose, coughing, sneezing, and looking very glassy eyed. She is a little warm but nothing terrible. She complained that she hurt all over and it was hard to swallow. Caroline is pretty body aware so if she makes these sorts of complaints, then she is feeling it pretty bad. Right now she is bundled up on the couch with her pink blankie under her head just vegging out.
I am feeling much better than I did a couple of days ago so I am on the mend but it is taking forever to get over whatever this was. I don’t feel like my head is full of cotton wool. I just know that I have to be careful so I don’t end up right back at sick again. Sick on top of jet lag just sucks.
So my day is restructuring around my daughter’s needs at this point which is fine. Her health is important.
I am grateful that she is not running a fever.
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November 7th, 2009
daytonward
| 11:55 pm - TwitterLitter.
Annoying friends and strangers alike, 140 bytes at a time.
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
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daytonward
 | 11:10 pm - Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls.
Earlier this week, Book View Cafe held a "Twitter Fiction" contest to celebrate the release of the first title to be released under their Book View Press imprint, Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls, a collection of favorite science fiction stories by writers who are members of BVC, and edited by Phyllis Irene Radford (ramblin_phyl).
The rules of the contest were simple: Create a story using the basic theme "Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls," and compose it for Twitter. In other words, the story could be no more than 140 bytes long. Well, 126, if you count the "@bookviewcafe " which had to precede your tweet.
On a whim, I dashed out the following and fired it through the Twittersphere:
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@bookviewcafe Rocket Boy shouted, "Prepare to be boarded!" The Geek Girls laughed. "Your rocket's too small to penetrate our shields!"
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This just in from the "No shit, Sherlock" Department: Even on Twitter, I'm able to find the gutter.
As luck would have it, somebody at BVC has a sense of humor that approximates mine, as evidenced when they posted the winners list.
I ended up winning a copy of Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls in e-Book form. Not too shabby for 140 bytes worth of work, eh?
Thanks to the kind folks at BVC for hosting the contest, and for selecting my goofy little story. Be sure to check out their site and all the cool stuff they offer, and for those of you looking to get in on the action for a bit of fun, be on the look out for their next TwitterFic contest. They hold them every few weeks or so.
Current Location: Stately Ward Manor
Current Mood: pleased
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omahastar
 | 11:11 pm - Project: Who - The Daleks Masterplan 2
The Daleks Masterplan, episode 2 (Lost in Time)
Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Douglas Camfield
The Doctor walks through a forest and crouches down - he sees the Tardis with two Daleks outside, engaged in conversation.
In a room - a council room, perhaps? - a bearded man writes. He looks up when a Dalek enters, followed by another alien. This alien says he rules the fifth galaxy. They appear to be enemies, quickly engaging in verbal sparring.
Steven and a woman are in the woods. They say they've escaped the Tardis. The woman is called Katarina (so I've finally seen this long-lost companion in an episode. Sweet!).
The Doctor argues with a random military dude, played by Nick Courtney. (the Brig!)
The bearded man has a "time destructor" which he gives to the council of bad guys.
Random military dude steals a spaceship and begins taking off, leaving the Doctor (but not his companions!) behind.
* * *
I don't really know what to talk about here, except for the casting. The random military dude is played by Nick Courtney - better known as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, aka The Brig. He's NOT playing the Brig here. Even so, having the actor alongside Hartnell's Doctor is kind of a thrill. It's the start of a relationship with the series that lasts to this day, nearly half a century later.
The bearded guy is played by the same actor who played Vaughn in the second doctor story The Invasion. I think it was Mel who told me about that, but it took me a few seconds to recognize his voice. The face is all covered in makeup, but his mannerisms and voice are unchanged.
Ok, so this master plan thingy ... I *think* the Daleks are trying to arrange a fight between Earth and some other race. But that doesn't make sense, since there are at least four differing alien races in this little bad guy war council, not even counting the Daleks. I'm just going to hang out and go along for the ride.
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puppetmaker40
 | 08:46 pm - Constrasting Movie Reviews
There might be spoilers in the comments but I am going to try to keep it pretty spoiler free in the reviews.
This weekend I went to see two movies. One with Peter which was The Men who stare at Goats and one with Caroline which was Astro Boy
The reasons we went to see The Men who stare at Goats were twofold. One there were the commercials which had us laughing and two there was the cast which was a whole bunch of actors that we have enjoyed their performances over the years.
The plot is tissue paper so don’t think too hard about it but the acting is just wonderful with strong performances by just about everyone in it. And then there is the odd meta to the entire piece having Ewan McGregor as a reporter interviewing a guy who claims to be a Jedi Knight which plays through the piece rather nicely. George Clooney impressed me again. Jeff Bridges is such an under rated actor. Every time I see him in something he impresses the heck out of me. Kevin Spacey did what he does best which is a lot with just a little material to work with. The only unfortunate scene is in the middle and there was no way that they could have known what was going to happen in the world the day that they opened. It snapped us out of the film for just a minute but we were sucked back in pretty fast.
Overall I enjoyed it a lot. It is not a film for everyone but I would say that if you are a fan of any of the men in the film, see it. If you enjoy seeing really good strong acting see it. I will say that it is one of those films that you don’t have to see on a large screen. Peter said that it had a cable movie feel to it and since the BBC and Starz were the producers, I could see how he would think that.
Astro Boy was something that I saw in my teens but enjoyed because of the kitschy nature and it was early anime. Caroline has enjoyed watching the episodes of the original series in her father’s lap. When she saw the first trailer, she informed us that she was going to see this movie.
Peter had taken Caroline to see it earlier in the week. She kept insisting that she wanted to take me to see it too. So this afternoon we went. And I enjoyed it. I was a little uncertain from the commercials if I would but it is quite a cute film. The animation style was not as off putting as I thought it was going to be. The pace was good and the story was good too. It kept me involved and Caroline involved as well which can be a real trick with a film that is family friendly.
The voice cast is good. Nathan Lane is over the top but when is Mr. Lane not over the top and it goes with his character. There were a number of voices that at the end while reading the credits, I said “Of Course.” The plot was fine. Donald Sutherland was a good villain of the piece. The origin of Astro was slight rejiggered but it made more sense than the original reason for his existence in the cartoon series. We had more of an emotional investment in him. It had the silly jokes for the kids and a number for the adults. This one does need the big screen for the scope of things. Nice movie. Not too scary for the younger folk and everything works out in the end.
I am grateful that I went to the movies with Peter and with Caroline.
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![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/square/y/cranky.gif){kind=small}
irritated