How To Kill Your Cousin

Step 1: Season turkey with secret gypsy herbs and spices

Step 2: Add three gallons of oil to deep fryer

Step 3: 350 degrees, 3 minutes per pound

Step 4: Lift carefully

Step 5: Observe the deadly effects of tryptophan

Reading Stuff You Wrote a Long Time Ago

I was searching my computer archives for something and I happened on a weird document I wrote 8 years ago on November 8, 1997. I know for sure I wrote it because it has a crazed and frenzied style that is characteristically Ben Luc. However it makes no sense to me and I have no recollection why I decided to put this "brain dump" into words. Well here it is... enjoy. If you can find meaning to this please tell me and I will send you $5.

Ben Luc is the coolest person in the world. He is so cool he can watch the return of the Christmas monkeys seven times in a row. Without even stopping to read the current issue of popular science he can tell you what web sites are rated a-ok by the editors of the pop-sci mag. With a flick of the wrist he can shoot a ping pong ball way over the wall of his next door neighbor’s neighbor. There is just nothing this nineteen year old Computer Scientist cannot do. One day while he was weed wacking his lawn he saw a snail the size of North Dakota. He decided to befriend this snail rather than to subjugate this poor underdeveloped mollusk to the cruel tortures a brand new weed wacker can inflict. The snail soon told him the strange tale of a magician who cast an utterly evil curse on the town of Bedrock. This curse foretold the coming of the Three Horseman of the Apocalypse who would trample down the blood and sweat that comprised the beloved city.

Dream Journal: A Strange Series of Toll Roads

I'm running an errand. Once I step out of my house I realize something is off. Every road, intersection, crosswalk, on-ramp, freeway, etc. is color coded and has a label indicating price for a given segment of that infrastructure. The prices are very strange. I walk down the street to the "freeway" and end up going through three different segments of road each with a different price that makes no sense ($9, $500, $17). As soon as I step on a segment, my balance gets deducted. That is when I notice that above my head is digital display of the balance showing how much toll money I have. I start with $50,000. I realize now that this is a game of sorts. I start running like Sonic the Hedgehog through the streets of LA trying to get to my destination. I don't exactly know where I'm going but its fun going through this weird cityscape and I still have plenty of money left in the balance. Then I hit a weird loop-de-loop thing (like in Sonic). As soon as I step on it I realize I made a bad mistake. Each time I go through the loop it costs $4500. Worse yet, I get stuck and go through the same loop three times. I don't think I'm going to be able to end up at my destination.

Dream Journal: Work Lunch and Watching Over LeAnn

I find myself in a large park not knowing why I'm there. I see a number two of my coworkers, Clem and Mike Panossian. They beckon me over to a corner of the park where they have a volleyball net setup. I realize this is a work related morale event. Everyone starts playing volleyball except me because I don't like/know how/want to play. I walk away from the park and discover a mall. I walk inside the mall to find my uncle and his daughter there. He asks if I can watch over her for a bit while he looks for his wife who he has lost sight of. I walk LeAnn around the mall until we near the foodcourt. She wants some ice cream so I take her around the stations to see which one she likes. Apparently every station sells a different kind of ice cream and she does not know which she likes. Finally, I pick one at random but when I take a look at their stock it looks mostly melted.

I skipped out on the work morale event this week and probably felt a little guilty about it. Then today it is Devon's (my uncle's son's) birthday. I probably free associated LeAnn in his place since the last time I went to their house, I gave her some ice cream

Dream Journal: Trip to Cape Cod

Ngoc, Meng, Natalie, and I are on Cape Cod and are headed towards either Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. We stay at a bungalow near the beach overnight. The next morning we get ready and head towards the dock along with a group of about 20 or 30 people. I don't see the boat I expect but rather a huge yellow and blue inflatable raft in the shape of a manta ray. The inflatable is connected to a speed boat that will drag us all the way to our destination. I begin to feel a little concerned but everyone else gets on the "vessel". I grudgingly get on and then we're off.

Remnants of my Boston Trip and the other trip I'll be taking in April for Meng's wedding. The inflatable manta ray thing was something I read in the catalog during my plane trip. See below, although the one in my dream was many times larger.

Dream Journal: ELDP antics in a wetsuit

I'm in the second session of my ELDP training. We are near a large lake and they are going to teach us how to waterski. While the instructor is relaying the directions, I start goofing around and accidentally knock the instructor's wetsuit into the water. I laugh because I don't think it matters since it is a wetsuit. However the instrcutor is really pissed at me and he says that the wetsuit won't work until it is dry because it won't insulate properly. I sheepishly walk away and take his wetsuit to the back and try to dry it out. I finally succeed in getting it pretty dry and when I return to the group, I find all of them have already boarded a large boat and sailed away. I wait a while and they swing by where I am standing. I hand the instructor his wetsuit but he takes one look at it and tells me that it is not dry enough. He then takes the boat away again. Rejected, I walk to a recreation center nearby. There are arcade games and such but I'm not interested. I walk upstairs to find a bunch of ping pong tables. I see Long and we start playing. He can't seem to serve correctly so I get pretty bored waiting for him. He then says he has to go and one of the other ELDP people substitutes. He turns out to be pretty good. What makes it worse is that I can't seem to play correctly. Every ball I hit either hits the net or goes out. After a while, he gets bored and walks away.

I think the lake and boat has to do with those seniors that drowned in the lake in New York. The wetsuit is related to lake and also to a conversation I remember having with an ELDP person. With that connection, I recall a day where I asked a question to one of the ELDP speakers and the speaker told me that my question was bullshit! I think that is who the instructor represented. The ping pong table connection I can only make to something my coworker Clem said about playing ping pong on a cruise ship. Long's presence can be explained by a story Toeung relayed back to me last week about Long and ping pong. The other ELDP person kicking my ass in ping pong is probably because I haven't worked at all on the team project we were assigned and the metaphoric ass kicking I got in my dream is a premonition of the true ass kicking my other team members will give me once they find out how much I have done

Dream Journal: Dropping off Diane and Mike

I'm dropping off Mike and Diane to separate work sites. When I get to the first site (which by the way looks suspicously like my Junior High School), Diane quickly gets out of the car because she's late to a meeting. Mike realizes she has left her fanny pack in the backseat. We turn to call to her but she's out of sight. I wait while Mike goes to look for her. I'm a little nervous because I'm double parked. Just then I see somebody who knows Diane so I call out to her to ask where Diane might be. While we're talking I fail to notice that an El Segundo police cruiser has pulled up beside me and has started writing the ticket. Before I can explain he hand me to the ticket and begins to walk away. I complain that he's just taking advantage of me but he says something like it's only $9 and two thirds of it go to administration costs anyway! I'm relieved that it's not more so I drive away (leaving Mike) and go to a museum along the beach. I meet up with a bunch of kids and some tutors to begin a tour of the museum.

This is a hodge-podge of things that happened. First, Mike and Diane have had some friction due to a work related thing. Secondly, Long told me about how he recently racked up two moving violations totalling a rather large sum of money. Lastly, I'm about to begin tutoring again next week.

Another Flash Game: Hapland

This one's harder than Samorost, Polyphonic Spree, and GrowRPG, I think. The others I could finish the day I saw them. This one was over a period of three days.

Dream Journal: Reporter on the Beat

I'm a reporter for a major newspaper and I have just cracked a hot story wide open. I'm furiously trying to write the article on a laptop in a coffee shop in Chinatown. However, something weird then happens. I get thirsty. Very thirsty. So thirsty in fact that I leave my work for a minute to go look for something to drink. I walk into a liquor store and pull out a bottle of water. I look at the price. It says $15. I am in disbelief. I decide to get a bottle of orange juice instead. It's cheaper: $11.99? I won't spend that much on a stupid drink so I turn to leave. However I am really, really thirsty. I hesitate for a second before I wake up.

The newspaper dream probably has something to do with that recent article about the reporter jailed for witholding her anonymous source. The thirsty part was just me. I woke up incredibly thirsty and had to drink a nice tall glass of water. 30 minutes later, I had to wake up again to use the bathroom.

Dream Journal: Amazing Race over a Waterfall

Wow an actual dream journal entry!!!

Anyways, Ngoc, my sister, my cousin Gale, and I are in the Amazing Race. A group of four Korean girls are racing against us. The first leg goes through a water obstacle course. Of course I can't swim so I'm thinking we lost already. We start in waist deep water. There is a strange upraised tile pattern on the bottom of the river bed. They hurt the bottom of my feet. After going 30 feet into the course, we reach the first challenge. Apparently it is a waterfall of underdeterminate height. Nobody is willing to take the plunge so that gives me hope that everyone will have to be disqualified and we will have to go on an alternate challenge. However one of the other girls gets sucked by the current and goes over the edge. She makes it ok though and yells out to her team partners that it is safe to go. Soon everybody is preparing the make the big drop. As I get to the edge the water suddenly gets deeper, so deeper in fact that it goes above my head. I look over the edge of the waterfall and find it is 50 feet high! I panic but it is too late. I go over the edge head first.

[This is an amalgamation of my watching the Amazing Race last week, kayaking on the Charles River, and the fact that while I was sleeping, my foot was hitting the footboard on my bed (to explain the tiles on the floor)

My Oscar Bid

We went to Ngoc's company open house and found ourselves talking to a pilot of the JSF. Above is a photo of the event. Can you tell if I'm genuinely interested in what the pilot was saying or that I'm just pretending. 500 points to whoever guesses correctly.

Mark Twain's Typesetting Machine - Used Here to Code Up Some Old School Programs (Fortran?) 

Capitol Building in Rhode Island 

Cornelius Vanderbilt's Summer House in Rhode Island 

Paul Revere's Grave 

Boston Common 

Sleepy Hollow Cemetary 

Minuteman Statue in Lexington 

Kayaking on the Charles River 

A Modern Day Witch in Salem 

Bridge in Concord where "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" was fired 

Boston ELDP Training

I'm in Boston right now in a week long training session. This is a really nice state and I'll be able to see more of it when the session is over tomorrow. There seems to be a lake or pond everywhere we turn. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the mosquitoes here are so large (and carry West Nile or EEE with them).

I feel like eating hot dogs at Skooby's... wanna come with? 

Samorost

Ok, another weird flash game here. These quirky games with no narration (or seeming purpose) are growing on me.

Dream Journal: Toe turned into a black mushroom

I'm carrying something heavy in my hand and accidentally drop it on my foot. I look down and see that the nail on my right big toe is starting to turn black. I tentatively lift the nail up to see how bad the damage is and the nail falls right off. I see a black growth where my nail used to be and it begins to get bigger. Eventually a rather large black mushroom grows out of my foot. I touch the mushroom and it falls right over.

I stubbed my foot on the weekend and thought the nail would turn black the next day (it didn't). A couple of weeks ago I was reading about morel mushroom hunting in Alaska. That or my foot is totally infected by fungus which is also a likely possibility.

Grow RPG and The Polyphonic Spree

These are both stupid nonsense flash games that are pointless and do nothing but waste your time. So why did I stay up until 2 in the morning to finish them?

Grow

The Polyphonic Spree

Now I have an inexplicable urge to buy an album from The Polyphonic Spree. Funny how marketing works.

Basic Crepe Recipe

2 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons melted butter

Measure all ingredients in to blender jar; blend for 30 seconds. Scrape down sides. Blend for 15 seconds more. Cover and let sit for 1 hour. (This helps the flour absorb more of the liquids.) Makes 12-14 crepes.

This is the same as the recipe found here, except that I halved the amount of eggs. I found the original to be too omelette-y.

Dream Journal: Volleyball with Coworkers

I'm walking through an indoor gymnasium setup for different sports. In one corner of the gym, I see some of my coworkers playing volleyball. They ask me to join them and we start playing. One thing odd is that the side we are on is underneath a overhang which effectively cuts down our overhead space to about 9 feet. While we're playing I notice that nobody is doing a jump serve so when it is my turn I instruct my teammates on the proper way to jump serve (even though I don't know myself). After a short lecture I proceed to demonstrate the jump serve and the volleyball hits the ceiling due to its arc and it's a sideout. When it is my team's turn again to serve, my team member Diane tries a jump serve and nails it perfectly. Then Don tries a jump serve and he nails it as well. Pretty soon everyone gets the hang of the jump serve except for me. I end up standing there like a real ass.

Not sure why I had a dream about volleyball. I don't even like it or recall thinking about it at all. Don was in my dream because of a meeting I invited him to this week and Diane is the person he works with. I'm sure the ceiling represents my career prospects or something. Who knows, I never got around to finishing that Dream Analysis book by Freud.

Dream Journal: Dorming at USC

I'm back as a college freshman at USC. I'm looking for my dorm room in the hall where I'm assigned. The dormitory look suspicously like a run down apartment complex I'm on the fifth floor so I walk up the stairs. After a good climb, I turn around the first corner and see my room. As I walk in, I'm surprised to learn that this is a huge coed room. Everyone has already settled in except me. I put my stuff down and when I look up, everyone has decided to take a nap even though it is the early afternoon. I lay down in my bed at the end and wonder how I'm going to explain this to my parents.

Dream Journal: Really Nice Work Facilities

Our entire program has moved to a different building in Pasadena. It is a large single story facility that feels more like a really nice ranch style house than an office. There are really large one way windows that allow us to see that we are situated in the middle of a large park. As I explore the rest of the building, I find personal dormitories for all of us. I guess they now expect us to work 24/7. I then go into a performance review with my manager and I figure out how they have paid for all of this. My raise for this year is -8.27%.

There has been talk about moving our program to a different building. Not this really nice one I imagined but then again I guess rest easy knowing in real life, they won't make us pay for the move (or will they...)

My Last Remaining BBQ Thermometer...

...is no more. It died while roasting a pork loin from Costco.



Seriously, it would be better to learn how to judge doneness by feel. If you make close your hand in a fist loosely and poke at the meat between your index finger and thumb, that would be what rare would feel like. Tighten up that fist a little and that is about medium. Close it real tight and that is well done or what I like to call... charcoal.

Dream Journal: Yellow Submarine

I'm inside a yellow submarine whose bottom is made completely of glass. I'm looking at fish swimming around the reef around me. I think this is for pleasure but then a technician behinds me hands me a clipboard and tells me to do some kind of cataloging. Oh, this might be a continuation of my previous submarine dream (although it is a different submarine).

The submarine might be either the fact that I bought tickets to the Catalina Glass Bottom Boat tour for Ngoc's sister or I had watched a video clip of a small shark that got pwned by an Giant Pacific Octopus. If you can find the clip on the Internet you should watch it, it's cool.

Dream Journal: John Jensen's Retirement

I've come back to work on a Saturday afternoon to see one of my former coworkers, John Jensen packing his stuff. He's retiring today so he invites me in to his office to chat a bit about his future plans. He mentions that his son will be taking his place. He introduces me to him at that instant and John asks if I can help his son get familiarized with the system we used to work on. I sit down next to John's son and talk him through some stuff. I then try to enter some example data for a demonstration but the system keeps rejecting it. John looks over my shoulder and says I'm doing it wrong because the system can only take decimals as expressed as perfectly in binary. For example, the data I was trying to enter was 1.177 so I should have entered 1.125 instead (2^0 + 2^(-3)). I try to enter some more data in this scheme but either I can't do binary math or the system keeps on changing the data as I enter it. Eventually John has to step in and enter the data for me.

I heard from Tommy two weeks ago that John was ready to retire and if I was invited to his going away lunch or anything. Also every time I used to ask John a technical question he would always launch on a 30 minute chat about how great his son was doing.

I've also noticed in a lot of my dreams where I'm trying to solve a problem or answering a question on a test I think I get the right answer but either the question or the problem keeps changing. I think that's interesting because I believe that dreaming occurs on a specific side of your brain (right side? the creative side?). When I try to solve a problem that is normally done on the left side of my brain, my right side tries to step in but then gets its ass totally handed to it because it is not used to doing it. Therefore, to cover its miserable failure, it goes and changes my dream to make it look like it wasn't its fault it messed up. Man, why are brains so messed up like that? Right side you got pwned by the left side in problem solving! Left side, you couldn't dream if your logical ass depended on it. Oooo, I think I feel a cerebral fight brewing. Oh yeah I can hear the trash talk starting already, it's on all right...

Dream Journal: Blockbuster Video

I've been told at work that in order for me to better understand how the system works, I would have to work part time in a Blockbuster video and track, using a mathematical model, the frequency that a particular video is rented throughout the course of a month. So, I don the block buster vest and head off to the corner Vons where oddly enough there is a Blockbuster inside. I write an Excel spreadsheet to track the video that I have chosen: a Korean tele-drama! And just to throw the experiment off kilter, I end up renting tabout 20 of the videos myself to take home. Once I get home, I suddenly realize that I hadn't inputted my video renting data into my precious spreadsheet so then I hurry back to do so (as if I didn't screw the data up myself with my Korean fetish).

My sister has been watching some crazy Koren teel-drama in my room that is Soeul's verson of Bridget Jones' Diary. It is actually... not at all that terrible. And this was a 1.75 hour nap I took on Sunday afternoon!

LA Tofu Festival

LA Tofu Festival on San Pedro. Where else can you enjoy such delicacies as:

Tofu Chili Dog (mmmm...)
Smoked Tofu Field Greens Salad (double mmmm...)
Tofu Quesadilla (ok)
Tofu Pad See Ew (mmmm...)
Tofu Strawberry Cheesecake (yuck!)
Black Cherry Tofu Yogurt (mmmm...)

Ken's Webcomic

Yes, he has one here. I like the idea of him doing web comics but am not sure about him having a cat in general.



You don't want to know what happened to his other bird.

Dream Journal: Silver Stingray

I've rented a 1978 Siver Corvette Stingray for the weekend. I've parked it next to where the Camry normally is in my carport. We head out to dinner and get in the car. I can't seem to drive the car straight out of the carport for some reason. I try to manuever the car at an angle to exit but as I'm doing so the car jerks suddenly and I hit the side of my Acura which is parked right next to it. I'm shocked but as nobody else notices it I play it cool and decide to worry about it later. I continue to manuever the stubborn car but in doing so I smash into the same spot on my Acura again. This time it's pretty obvious to everyone what I've done.

[I was speaking to a coworker earlier this week about classic cars. He mentioned his 1969 Jaguar XJE and we both say in passing how we both admire the classic Vette (although not the Stingray specifically). 1978 also happens to be the year I was born. Coincidence or does this hold some other symbolic meaning? Only Bob knows...]

Dream Journal: Mike Pham in My Neighborhood

I walk out to take out the trash and notice a string of lofts/townhomes has been built across the street from me. They are very eye-catching due to their unique shade of lavendar paint. While I'm wondering how in the world they managed to build that many houses near me without my noticing before, I see Mike Pham standing in the front. I approach him and ask him why he's there. He says that his girlfriend's family just bought one of these units and he's here to visit them. I walk in and have tea with them for a bit. I ask Mike's girlfriend's dad why he decided to buy a house that was lavendar. He responds by saying, "How would you know, you're colorblind". Faced with this non-sequitur yet logical statement, I realize this is a dream and wake up.

I went running yesterday after work and passed by a new development of about 20 lofts near the Ralphs by me. As I passed them I thought to myself that maybe Mike would be interested. As for the color thing, everytime I am faced with some weird color related situation while I'm dreaming, I usually wake up due to the logical part of my brain realizing that it is in fact a dream. I read a LONG time ago that we all dream in black and white but we just remember the dream itself in color. That is untrue of course (a good explanation here) but I still have that ingrained in my memory so some automatic flag is raised whenever a strange color situation arises in my dream and interrupts the process.

Dream Journal: Backwards Bus and Mixed Up Elevator

I've taken a day off of work to run some random errands. I get a call from Meng who's in the area and asks if we want to hang out. We set a time for about noon. It's only 8am. For no particular reason, I decide to take the bus this particular day. My first errand is to go to my bank in Chinatown. I get on the bus and find that the bus driver has just arrived directly from the airport from his own vacation. He is an oldish man and every article of clothing on him says to me old man: his glasses, his blazer, his old man's cap, etc. The one item he has that is not old is his damn cellphone into which he is constantly talking. After about ten minutes I notice something. The bus has turned around in the wrong direction and is heading the opposite way that I'm going. It's so subtle that I hardly even noticed the u-turn he made. I call him out on it and then everybody realizes this. He apologizes and says he got confused with the streets and made a wrong turn (all the way around). We turn around and head back in the right direction. After another few moments, I notice again we are heading in the wrong direction again. After yet another course adjustment I decide to watch the old dude's hands on the wheel very closely. Ten minutes of intent observation makes me satisfied that he hasn't made any turns. It is when I look up that I realize that the bus is driving in reverse. I look at my watch and its 5pm already.

Now I'm in an elevator at work. I see Dave Hattrup, a coworker. I hit the 6th floor button where we both work on and start conversing with him. We stop at a few of the floors before 6 to drop people off, pick people up. We then head straight to 7. That's odd, the 6th floor light is no longer pressed. I hit it again. The elevator skips it again and heads down back to 2. No matter what I do the elevator skips the floor I want. I start hitting random buttons. The elevator then stops working.

I have dreams about busses all the time that never go in the direction I want it to. There is a deep seated symbolism behind this that has yet to reveal its entire meaning to me. The elevator is a new one though. I think a few days ago I was in an elevator and forgot to hit the floor I wanted and almost missed it. That was a really minor thing though.

Celebrity or Look-alike Quiz

Only 8 out of 16. I must be still asleep.

Take the quiz

Heli Attack 3

Try it here at Shockwave! Awesome flash game if you like Metal Slug and the like. The last level never ends. It's in survivor mode. I've only gotten up to 28 of the huge helicopters. Someone claimed they were able to kill 349 of them. That pathetic person has no life.

Why then do I admire him and have a burning desire to kill 350 helicopters?

Dream Journal: Das Boots

I'm working in a secret lab near the beach. The lab that I'm employed in builds special deep sea submarines. A prototype submarine hangs from hoists above a shaft that leads into the ocean. Everyone goes out to lunch and I get tapped to be the one who comes back first to prep the hardware. I make the unfortunately bad decision to go to on a "quick jaunt" to Chinatown with Ngoc to grab a bite. While we're waiting for our food, I suddenly realize that I am already late coming back. I rush back to a work to find out something bad has happened.

The other engineers who were working in the lab came back and assumed the hardware was already set to go. However, since I was late coming back that was not the case. An accident occurred and the sub was prematurely released underwater. The engineers who were in the sub were trapped. They attempted to swim back up the water column to the lab but a pair of sharks got to them first! I think it's time to look for a new job.

I think this is a result of reading the news about the trapped Russian sub, going to Chinatown with Ngoc last weekend, and fearing I'm going to screw something up at work. The really interesting part of this dream to me are the sharks. Before I went to sleep, I had come upon the term "sharking" used in a sense I never seen before. Somehow it manifested in my dream as real sharks.

Dream Journal: A Plot to Corner the Peanut Market

My company was bought out by Pacificare and we all now work in the health service industry. Today, one of my coworkers beckons us into a vacant doctor's office to tell us about his amazing and peculiar discovery. That coworker by the way is David Duchovny and the hospital we're working in is the one from Grey's Anatomy (I hate that show). He then explains to us that instead say working, he has been computer modeling options on the commodity market. He has discovered that every few years or so there is an artificial shortage of some mundane but high volume commodity. The prices have been manipulated by an obscure group of powerful international figures who buy up all the near term options and then through their influence prevent that product from being imported/exported out of their place of origin. This drives up that products price globally and then they exercise their contracts and make a bundle.

As David further explains, he has discovered two things, each equally earth shattering. The first is a coerrelation between the price run up period and a particular event: The Annual Miss Universe Contest! This implies that the judges of the Miss Universe Contest are in fact part of this international conspiracy. The second is the product that is currently being manipulated: peanuts! At first we think he's crazy but then we notice things like why it's been so hard lately to get any peanuts. We also notice that on the desk of the very doctor's office we are having this conversation is a rather large pile of shucked peanut shells and then on the wall is a plaque thanking him for being a former judge of the Miss Universe Contest!

We make a quick departure from the office, awed by this stunning revelation. I then hear nature calling and make a detour to the bathroom. When I enter I discover pandemonium. Somehow, every toilet in the entire world has stopped working. In lieu of them, a man standing by the sink is selling chamber pots. These are not simple, utilitarian chamber pots but rather very ornate and come with a crocheted cozy. I really have to go bad so I ask him how much for one. He replies: $22,000. I'm like wtf? He says yeah well he and his business partners have cornered the market on chamber pots so if I don't like it I can pee in my pants. I think I'd rather just pee in my pants.

Easy to analyze this... I watching Zoolander over the weekend, ate a bunch of garlicy peanuts on Saturday, flipped through Grey's Anatomy while channel surfing, and my girlfriend was working on her cross stitching project. Oh yeah, I also had to pee bad when I woke up

Howl's Moving Castle:90 out of 100

Just watched it and decided this one's my second favorite Miyazaki movie, between Princess Mononoke (top honors) and Spirited Away. It had all the familiar Miyazaki touches yet it was presented in a way that was really sweet and made you feel like you were a part of something. It was sort of like how Chihiro got everyone working together in Spirited Away but developed a little better.

I'd give it a 90, with a few points off for being a little on the long side and borrowing a little too much from previous movies.

I can't remember any of my dreams

For the last two weeks, I have not been able to remember or record any of my dreams. I only remember the smallest bits and pieces. For example, I have a vague recollection of having to choose between a grilled chicken breast or deep fried chicken breast sandwich. Ok, I know you are on the edge of your seat wondering which sandwich I picked... but I can't tell you because I can't remember. Oh the suspense!

There are some who claim that dreams are nothing more than images resulting from random electrical activity in the brain as it housecleans itself during the night. Does this mean that my mind is now cluttered with the garbage of my unfullfilled and unconsicous wishes? Will this excess of mental litter eventually trigger a violent eruption such as a non-stop workplace killing spree? Only time can tell.

Who needs to go to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful when I can just look outside my window and marvel at Old Money Pit. $1.3M house and they can't even spend the extra five bucks to buy a higher quality sprinkler head. Priceless... 

Add Another Entry For Ben Luc in the Hall of Shame

HALL OF SHAME
--------------------------

1. SEC Logo Contest - December 2002
- Ben L - Most Artistic Mention
- Mike P - Honorable Mention

2. EA&C Logo Contest - April 2003
- Ben L - Honorable Mention
- Mike P - submitted three entries - Honorable Mention

3. SWTN Logo Contest
- Ben L - Only entry - DENIED

4. G2 Logo Contest - September 4, 2003
- Mike P - Only entry - DENIED (submitted two entries)

5. Annual Security Poster Contest October 2, 2003
- Ben L - *1st place winner
(*one of two total entries submitted)

6 - F22 Slogan Contest - June 11, 2004
- Ben L - submitted 7 entries - ALL DENIED

7. Annual Security Poster Contest - September 23, 2004
- Ben L - submitted two entries - ALL DENIED
- Mike P - DENIED

8. SWEC Year End Morale Event - PR Committee - December 2004
- Ben L - nearly rejected - showed SEC instead of SWEC
- Mike P - DENIED - one day late of submission

9. SWEC Advertising Poster Layout - December 2004
- Ben L and Mike P - DENIED OPPORTUNITY

10.SOAP - Logo Contest - March 22, 2005
- Ben L - Got $30.00 for his submission, but did not win.

11.ComAV Department Logo Contest - April 26th, 2005
- Mike P - One of only two entries - FIRST LOGO WIN!!!
(Took almost 1 month to tally votes from department)

12. Software Infrastructure Department Logo Content - May 26, 2005
-Ben L - Submitted 5 out of the 7 Logos competing. One of the other logos was a lame picture of a clipart computer with no text. Still came in second. The bitterness grows unbounded.

From Sudoku Champ to Sudoku Chump

I tweaked my Sudoku solver today when I found out it couldn't solve "Very Hard" level puzzles. After I found the logical mistake in my code, I was really happy with it although it took about 3 minutes to get the answer. So, I googled "Sudoku Solver Excel" to see just what an exclusive fraternity I have joined. Turns out it's not very exclusive at all. The first hit led to this page. I read up this guy's summary of his program and it seems he uses almost the identical algorithm I "thought up" except that his program can solve even the hardest of Sudoku puzzles in a matter of seconds. And to top it all off, he even uses "Solve It" for his solver button... the rogue! So to make myself feel better, the word I type in the next paragraph will be one that no man has seen before just so that I can feel capable of independent and original thought:

FrimpFrampFrumpFizzleShizzleGrizzleMumpBumpLumpIHateSudoku

I couldn't sleep tonight so I finished my Sudoku Solver! And it only took me five hours (plus the other 3 on Sunday...) 

This is a t-shirt you can buy from YIRMUMAH.NET, one of my favorite web comics. I'm pretty tempted to buy it. And oh, yeah, sorry, spoiler alert for the Harry Potter but if you haven't finished the book by now, it's your own damned fault. 

Brute Forcing Sudoku

The people in the labs that I work with have been playing a puzzle game called Sudoku to while away the time while we run tests. It's a simple number game that reminds me a lot of minesweeper. I had the bright idea to write an Excel spreadsheet with VBA macros to brute force the problem instead of slaving away with a pencil. However, I just realized that the straightforward, simple program I wrote cannot solve even a sample puzzle because it requires some speculation, guessing and backtracking. I can get all the low hanging fruit but the program hits a dead end when all the remaining cells have more than one possibility to branch off to. Then it goes on a one way trip to infinite loop city.

Hm... I'm going to have to rethink this one.

Ponderable of the Day

Which one of the following is smellier?

A) A trucker's 'roid cushion

B) A hot tray full of ass

Please keep all submissions to within 500 words. Reference and citation format must adhere to APA guidelines (I cannot stress this enough). Entries shall be judged by spelling (10%), grammar (15%), effectiveness of argument (25%), graphic imagery (25%), and formal method of mathematical proof (25%). Winner will receive one of the above aforementioned artifacts depending on side for which the entry argues.

Ostrich Land 

Solvang, Land of Windmills and Danishes 

Just about the only kind of house I can afford nowadays (it's made entirely of a living pussy willow tree) 

Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens