Two things.

Firstly – I can’t wait for the downtown branch of MSU FCU to open.

Secondly – I am so far behind on the things that I want to be doing.  Having difficulty finding focus.  Irony.

Yule in July!

I got shinies in the mail today. :)

The pendant on the left is the one that I ordered from Drummer Metal Crafts ( here and here ) and the pin on the right is just plain awesome. I’m thinking that the pin might be too thick for it to be a tie pin, but it’ll make a perfect lapel pin for either a sport jacket or winter coat.

I highly recommend Alex. He took a vague idea of a pendant, verbally described, and turned it into a reality and a work of art.

SETI@Home Graveyard

Server, he has fallen! Please do the needful!

Looks like Snarl has suffered complete hard drive failure. No hard drive should make those noises, I’m just sayin’. Looks like my post-kid-bedtime activities involve swapping hard drives, installing bare-bones Debian, and installing BOINC.

Ironically, this is the first problem I’ve had with these ancient boxen since I went through and re-tested all of the RAM in the most sensitive of boxen – the Mac. I’m going to go through my HDs and find the smallest one that I can use, just because. :) I think I’ve got some 2GB drives in there somewhere…

For reference, Snarl is the second one in from the left.

Carnivale, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Dexter

Carnivale, Season 2

I was warned to watch out for the ending of this one. Warned that I should skip the last fifteen minutes of the last episode, if I wanted to keep liking the series. If the two seasons had been the complete story, I’d totally agree with the warning. But, knowing that each set of 2 seasons was intended to be a book, and that there were supposed to be 6 seasons (three books), the ending made quite a bit of sense. I enjoyed every episode of this season, from beginning to end, as much as I did from season 1. HBO contracted a bit of Fox disease, in that it cancelled an awesome show before its time. Five stars.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Season 1

Wow, you know, I used to love this series. It was insane and hilarious and didn’t shy away from not making any sense whatsoever. The first season, well, it’s like the first season of any Star Trek series. Needed serious work, but had a solid base. Of crazy. Three stars.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Season 2

Definite improvement from the first season. The show started hitting a good pattern, most of which involved Master Shake abusing Meatwad or Carl getting injured. This show pics and chooses what bits of the timeline to carry through, and partially resets after each episode. It’s similar to the method used in the Aeon Flux timeline, but comparing Aeon Flux to ATHF makes my noggin hurt. Looking forward to more. Three stars.

Dexter, Season 1

Dense. That’s the word I’d pick to describe this series. It’s been over a year since I started watching this with the wife and some friends at their Girls’ Night gatherings (don’t ask how I ended up invited). We watched a couple of discs, and then Supernatural reared its beefcake head, and they were hooked. I watched a few more episodes after Cian was born, during the sleepless nights. I’ve been streaming it again, and it’s not like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where you can just sit down and watch and watch and watch. One episode makes my brain feel full. Two in a row makes preoccupied a tame word for my zombie-like state. It’s worth every second, though. Great series, great writing, and great acting. Five stars.

The John King Shopping List

Just in case anyone’s interested…

Ursula K. LeGuin
– Tehanu
– Tales from Earthsea
– The Other Wind
Bushido
Neil Gaiman
– Fragile Things
David Louis Edelman
– Infoquake
Cory Doctorow
– Little Brother
– (anything else by him)
William Gibson
– Count Zero
– Mona Lisa Overdrive

And for the guilty pleasure, and because I failed my saving throw vs. being a collector,

Terry Brooks
– Morgawr