Finally I found an answer way down  in a support forum:

1. Turn iPod Touch OFF completely
2. Plug iPod Touch into PC/MAC while still off
3. Turn iPod Touch on if it wasn’t turned on my plugging it in and IMMEDIATELY do the followign steps
4. Hold the ‘Home’ and ‘Sleep’ buttons down for at least 5 seconds. It will restart and the Apple logo will appear
5. Release the ‘Sleep’ button, keeping the ‘Home’ button pressed
6. The iPod Touch will switch to restore/recovery mode and you can follow the prompts on the computer to erase and restore the iPod Touch

The broken thing was the Blackberry Pearl I had for work. It was still in my jacket when I washed it. I took it apart made sure it was dry, re-assembled it, and it would charge the battery and blink some status LED but that was it. Then I followed the directions I later found that said to put it in a sealed comtainer with rice and put that over something warm like a DVR  for 5 days. That definitely pulled more moisture out and the backlight came on and some bad looking streaks showed on the LCD and then it was back to how it was the first time. I now fully admit it is dead and just when I was getting used to the keyboard and starting to appreciate the e-mail features.

The recently were free preview weekends for HBO and Starz and now I’m making my way through the backlog on the dvr.

The Reaping - This is the best religious horror movie I’ve seen in a long time. No stigmata, too many candles, or arcane church lore necessary. It has a similar kind of satisfaction as I get when watching something like The Omen (haven’t seen the remake).

Dudley Do-Right - I wanted to see this because I like Brendan Fraser and George of the Jungle was great. This wasn’t great, but it still had a lot of fun. Unfortunately most of the fun came from the announcer. I think perhaps they should have borrowed the writers and director from George of the Jungle. The casting was fine.

The Devil Wears Prada - Great movie about a hell job and what it takes to get what you want.

Epic Movie -  There was just enough entertaining to keep watching and a few funny parts. If it didn’t haev the cast that it did (and how did it get that cast?) then it wouldn’t even have that. But hey, Stiffler’s mom.

Les Triplettes de Belleville -  Making a movie with no dialog that keeps you focused and doesn’t put you to sleep is a challenge but this movie is just that. It’s an odd story, and it’s funny, and it totally sucks you in.

Run Fatboy Run -  Despite Simon Pegg, based on the trailer and how long it lasted in theaters I didn’t expect this movie to be nearly as funny as it is. Not only that but it also manages to represent a good portion of what makes Rocky the movie it is in its own way.

Flushed Away - Most of this movie is pretty good except for the parts with the slugs. The slugs are awesome! See this for the slugs!

Babylon A.D. - The action is good but the plot seemed like a jumbled mess in the end. Apparently that’s because 70 minutes was cut out when the completion guarantee forced it to market. At least it comes out better than Highlander II did in that case. The action carries the day.

The Invasion - I think in 20 years there will be more remakes of this movie than any other movie, if it doesn’t already have that status. Surprisingly for a remake, it has a lot of good tension and it’s well done! I’m not so sure about the very end but I don’t think it really detracts from the rest of the movie.

I’m not moving anywhere, it’s just an observation.

Star Wars - Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn - This is the start of the story about how the Sith came to have the rule of two; master and apprentice. One Sith destroying the rest is well done and I look forward to the sequel that establishes the rule of two in Star Wars - Darth Bane: Rule of Two.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact - by Karen Traviss - Karen Traviss has defined more of the Mandalorian culture than any other author and now that is expanded to include the clone soldiers. She covers a lot of issues with cloning scattered throughout the story and gives humanity to the human clones. No longer so you look at them on screen and think of them as disposable droids. This was based off a video game and I think it has surpassed that game.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero- by Karen Traviss - More growth of the clones from Hard Contact as well as introducing new characters that were only alluded to in Hard Contact. This story doesn’t go exactly where you expect it with awkward love interests for some of the clones and how that impacts the troopers in and out of the relationships. Their sergeant vowing to find a cure for their rapid aging to give them a chance at a normal life. Also seeing how one squad raised with fear and punishment act versus one raised to try and please their sergeant also provides an interesting take on nature vs nurture and what that gets you as an end result.

Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Ppoint in Western History by David Klinghoffer - Not necessarily continuing on the antisemitic themes from Why the Jews? this book covers at all the stages in Christian history the reasons why Jesus was rejected by the Jews and the methods employed on both sides to convert/resist. One of the most interesting parts was the look at early Christian history. The conclusion was the in the beginning the Jews couldn’t have rejected Jesus as a whole because almost none of the Jews at he time knew about him. This goes more in depth in places and fills in nicely in some places where Why the Jews? leaves off.

Finally some fiction!

Chosen by Chain Potok - This is a book about people from different backgrounds learning to appreciate one another even if they don’t fully understand one another. In this case, Orthodox Jews and Hassidim. In it there is a basic history of the Hassidic movement and after reading Why the Jews Rejected Jesus I can see why there was such a big split. Jesus basically taught that the rabbis should be ignored and people should judge how best to serve god by interpreting the Torah themselves. The founder of the Hassidic movement had a similar message except you would go to the Tzadik to interpret things for you. Anyway, to some degree I identify with the character of Danny since I sometimes felt I lived in the intellectual and “had no soul”. I feel like I’ve gone in and out of that over the years and I’ve always worked to help myself in that regard; mostly with success.

Shosha by Isaac Bashevis Singer - This book takes place in Poland just before WWII with everyone waiting for the impending invasion from Hitler. There is a lot going on in this book, liek the kind of goings on that a lit class could analyze for days, but at the same time the story is good. Arele married his past and when he had to flee Warsaw, his past died and he could not take it with him.

With God’s Politics - Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis I was hoping would clarify where religion falls in politics and it does that. It discusses how the right has been allowed to define religious issues to the very narrow scope of abortion and gay marriage while the left has tried to steer clear of any mention of god. The book then goes on to define many other things which are religious issues, like poverty and war, and advocates that the people who believe in that need to get involved and take back the religious discussions to turn it to those “liberal” issues. I agree that it needs to be turned away from what the right has defined as religious issues and I think some of that is happening in this current election cycle. I did have some trouble reading the book because it is so heavily focused on getting Christians involved in politics on the left side. It definitely wasn’t written with the non-Christian in mind and as a result it at times feels alienating and occasional references to Jews and Muslims don’t really help.

The Presidents: Every Leader from Washington to Bush edited by Michael Beschloss is a set of short biographies of every president we’ve so far had in this country. It even includes up to aroudn the 9-11 time frame on Bush so that one is more of a wait and see what he does and we know how that turned out. Reading history fro the perspective of the presidents is definitely different in some cases. Instead of covering what did happen it also can cover the issues and conflicts that president faced. I did find it interesting that even including recent elections the mudslinging of presidential elections hasn’t reached the heights it did in the 1800s.

Before reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick I can pretty safely say that all I knew about the pilgrims is that they came over on the Mayflower to avoid religious persecution and the indians helped them survive. In reality the history is full of peril and war and political intrigue! The compromises they had to make with their faith to survive, the changing relationship with the indians over the years, the relationship with other colonies established after Plymouth. Also in reading you start to get in impression of the start of the American character. Many thanks to Cathi for lending it to me for over a year before I got to it.

m&m’s Premiums - These come in five varities: Mint, Chocolate Almond, Triple Chocolate, Raspberry Chocolate, and Mocha. Mint, chocolate almond, and mocha are fairly standard. Raspberry chocolate is white chocolate, raspberry flavor, and an almond. Triple chocolate is a dark chocolate core, white chocolate middle layer, and a milk chocolate outer layer. The flavors on all of these is good and the look of the shell is speckled and almost metallic in the shine. The packaging is nice with a re-sealable bag inside. It all falls apart when you pop one in your mouth and bite down; there’s no crunch. The attractive shell you see is more like a paste that will jam between your teeth when you first bite down. I’m sure the confused expression on someone’s face when they first bite one of these and just have it squish between their teeth is great. I should try that out on some co-workers tomorrow.

Tropic Thunder - The funniest movie I’ve seen in awhile and the best Ben Stiller movie since Zoolander. Everything just plays right in this and Robert Downey Jr. has a role that I think only he could pull off.

The Bunny House - The trailer was funny and the movie held up to what the trailer showed. Shortly after I started thinking that the message in the movie was pretty bad it reversed direction which caused more relief than I anticipated.

Smart People - Like watching geeks flail in their personal relationships but tired of it being the same geeks? Then this movie is for you. There are familiar elements to it and it’s much better than I made it sound in the first sentence.

The Scorpion King - I decided to try out hulu.com with this movie because there was no way I was going to pay for it. It’s actually a fairly fun action adventure flick even if I can’t figure out how it relates in any way to the second Mummy movie. Maybe the straight to video sequel that just came out will clear that up. Seeing as how that doesn’t have the benefit of The Rock being in it I’ll probably skip it though.

THX 1138 - Finally! It’s true, I haven’t seen it until now. The start is fairly disorienting, like it’s tuning your brain into the story. There are a number of great elements in it that I’d like to see explored in other movies like the endless prison room or the micro-accounting during the chase. I don’t think that has been done since then in any form. Also the car chase in it stands up to any car chase scene today. Thumbs up!

Bright Lights, Big City - Michael J Fox as a coke-head? Hey, it works! This movie, dealing with loss, works as well today as I imagine it did in the 80s.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay - This is a pretty disappointing sequel. Maybe it had too mcuh to live up to? There were parts that were great but there were even more parts where I was left wondering where the fun went.

I don’t really like judged events. I guess I mean I don’t really like the judging in judged events. The athleticism in those events tends to be top notch but the scoring is a complete mystery. I’m fine with teh new system of having a difficulty multiplier to go along with the score, but nothing explains how the difficulty number is determined. There must be some table because the difficulty seems to be known in advance in the live as well as the pre-recorded coverage.  In diving this seems to work better than in gymnastics where apparently judges are allows to go frame by frame on an instant replay to determine score. That slowed things WAY down. During this delay I had to listen to the commentators and stare at pacing gymnasts when there were 4 or 5 more events going on that they could be showing. Nope, must stay focused on American athletes all the time. In one of them it was a surprise that France won a medal since the gymnast was only shown once. Boxing was annoying because the judges rarely awarded punches. We could see many clean punches landed by their definition: From the waist to the head on the front of the body, hitting witht eh white part of the glove with your shoulder behind it. The commentators here were actually good and at times would mention punches the judges missed.

Track and field stuff is great! Too bad barely any of it was shown. They showed the entire marathons and the race walking without leaving for other events. Meanwhile things like the decatholon had a 15 second recap followed by the final event. I was surprised the interviewer waiting for athletes leaving the track didn’t get the crap kicked out of him for asking some of the things he did.

A lot of the likes and dislikes devolved into my problems with NBCs coverage. I can skip sports I don’t care about but sometimes you can’t look away. The first weekend we got spoiled; DirecTV had a block of 6 or 7 NBC channels that were all Olympics instead of regular programming. The variety of events to choose from was fantastic! When Monday hit all that went away and it was one channel for boxing all the time and the rest was the prime-time block in the evening. The second weekend rolled around and we figured it would be back to many channels, but instead it was the boxing channel and a few more. If it wasn’t a race you might think there were only an American and one or maybe two others in the competition.

One thing I really liked about the coverage was the cameras in the water and track events. The under-water cameras on tracks, the overhead cameras, the  diving camera that goes down at free-fall speed all the way into the water! In track the camera that follows them around the outside of the track allowed for great views in the sprints.

For once the closing ceremony didn’t feel like an after-thought. I think I liked the closing ceremony than most opening ceremonies I’ve seen. I hope we don’t have to wait too many olympics before we see something that grand again.

The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave -  I loved the Super Dave shorts when I was a kid so when this came on I had to watch it. The original cast is all still there and the stunts are rediculous, but the parts that work keep it flowing enough. I’d just like to add that Super Dave has a herd of mimes.

Kung Fu Panda -  The art style is great, the fu is good. It ends up being similar to Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon and I don’t consider that a bad thing.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria - The description was just that a village tries to hide their wine from the Nazis. It has that but it also brings the small Italian town and it’s residents to life.  I suppose I should mention that it’s mostly comedicthough there are heavy moments.

Darkon -  A documentary on LARPers in Maryland. Darkon is the land that all the LARPing nations inhabit and war in. You get to see alliances and conflict and people trying to come out on top in and out of Darkon. It doesn’t tend to get too uncomfortable with the level of involvement they have. At least they’re being social instead of sitting at home alone.

The Man From Earth - A thought experiment portrayed as a thought experiment in a movie. I don’t always understand the reactions of some of the characters in the movie but the story holds up fairly well I think.

Enchanted - Crossovers between the cartoon and real world are usually to the cartoon world or a small managable space. I guess it’s not so much a crossover as it is a parallel universe story. Anyway, the end result really came out well from the fish out of water moments to the songs!

Kinky Boots - In a depressed town, a few people decide to take a risk that make people think they are crazy or get looked down upon before the town rallies behind them to success. This fits that English film class and like most of the others it does it well and is very entertaining.

Hancock - This definitely didn’t go where I was expecting it to based on trailers or even the first part of the movie. There are hero rehabilitation stories, but not many about super heroes. This manages that well and throws on an interesting and fairly unique back-story.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army -  Nice art style in the opening story. This movie is all about enjoying the characters from the first movie. It works as that though I would have shortened one of the fight scenes.

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D - I wanted to see this fow two reasons, Brendan Fraser, and new 3D technology. Brendan Fraser was fun and the 3D was really good! There were some 3D trailers and if you have a chance to see “Fly Me to the Moon” in 3D, skip it. They were forcing the effect enough to hurt your eyes. This uses a new radial polarization technique so you can rotate your head and not lose the effect as you do with traditional polarized lenses. The 3D at times made you feel like you were in the middle of it and at other times looking at something with wonderful depth. It starts with a few things flying at you that every 3D movie has to do to make you flinch. The worst 3D effect was the last one in the movie. All that stuff you just watched and then you wonder how that scene could have made it into the movie. The movie itself is a fun modern tour through Vernes’ center of the earth.

The Mummy & The Mummy Returns - Nicole hadn’t seen these and since the third one was coming up we deciced to see them. The Mummy holds up well, effects and all. The Mummy Returns doesn;t look as good effects-wise, maybe they were trying too much? Also it’s not consistent with the fist movie. They say he won’t be as powerful and isn’t at full power yet even though he is doing more than he did in the first movie.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - The first third or half of this movie irritated me. I really didn’t see Evelyn’s character ending up where it was or their son’s conflict with them as fitting. Once all the action started it settled into a comfortable groove and hey, there are yetis! I think I have to rank it about even with The Mummy Returns. The high are higher but the lows are lower.

China’s First Emperor -  This was a documentary on tv recently and it was interesting because it it showed me where various stories surrounding that period were based on fact and where liberties were taken for the story. I knew he unified the language. I didn’t know he unified currency and weights and measures but that makes sense. I didn’t know about his early life or how he ended up. Also seeing the scale of his burial city was very impressing. All those terracotta soldiers only come from a small part of the entire site. There was an indication that they are not going to explore that until preservation can be done. Apparently there are rivers and an ocean made of mercury in the scale-model china inside. Since there is evidence that mercury is leaking out slowly, it is thought that the description of the inside is accurate.

Mongol - This is a look at what led Ghengis Kahn to become what he was. The movie feels like it’s missing quite a bit, like it was cut down to be about 2 hours when it really wanted to be 2.5. I hope that extra time is on the DVD version when that comes out, but considering it’s a foreign film there’s probably not much chance of that. I’ll still ok forward to picking it up when it comes out.

Starman -  An alien comes down to play the fish out of water game and offer insights into humanity. I think this probably played better in the 80s though I think with a few minor changes it would work just as well today were it to be remade. That’s not a suggestion that it should be remade. Jeff Bridges plays the star man well, and Karen Allen is good as usual.

Kaw -  Killer ravens are attacking a small town! Since you probably aren’t going to see it I’ll just say that it’s because they ate some cow that died from mad cow disease and now they’re going to take out all the people. Despite being obviously low budget, they actually had a number of trained ravens and decent production value. Worth seeing? Maybe if you’re bored or want a background movie.

We tried buffalo burgers recently and I was surprised at the difference between it and beef. The texture in handling it feels sort of clean and loose but it all holds together well. In cooking it seemed to want to brown faster than beef and in spite of it having less fat there is still plenty and it’s wasn’t dry. Flavor wise it didn’t have a gamey flavor but it was different. Smell wise it wasn’t too strong to me but I think GRover was about ready to climb down my throat to get some.

Chicken rub

Another day as I was trying to figure out how I wanted to make some chicken, I ended up with the following spice rub:

• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1tsp corriander
• 1/4 tsp cayenne

I flattened out the chicken, applied the rub to both sides and cooked for a few minutes on each side. Mmmm! Next time maybe a little lighter on the cayenne though.

Haagen Dazs chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

I had never had this version and decided it was time to try it. The vanilla ice cream part of it is I think the strongest vanilla I’ve ever had and I’d be happy with just that. The cookie dough part tasted to me more like real cookie dough than the Ben & Jerry’s variety. This is now my new favorite version of this flavor.

I finally got some gopher cinch traps to deal with the gopher problem. Right around that time Grover killed one (and ate half of it before I stopped him). Using the cinch traps has been effective and after not seeing any new gopher activity for a few days we decided to clean up and put down a new layer of mulch/bark. The next morning in the areas we worked on there were four fresh gopher mounds. I think as they are being taken care of new ones are moving in from the 1/2 acre lot next door. More trapping took care of that one though. Still there are still a few lurking elsewhere in the yard. I’m trying to get them in the neighbor’s yard too (with permission) to stop the exodus.

Today we were going to excavate the flagstones making up the front patio to put gopher wire between them so the gophers won’t mess that up in the future. Starting on the first one was ok until I saw a bee fly to the ground and disappear down a hole next to the flagstone. I stepped over for a closer look and within a few minutes there were a number of bees looking for the holes in the dirt I had just cleared away. Looking around the rest of the flagstones I now see a lot of these holes. I stopped because I don’t want to be uncovering a nest and pissing off all the bees inside.

The Neanderthal Man - I had seen this before. A scientist believes that the larger brain case in neanderthals would have made the neanderthal more intelligent. The other scientists laugh at him so he continues his work on a serum to revert things back to their older genes. The cat turns into a sabre-tooth tiger (looks just like a regular tiger!) and the scientist and his maid get sent to their neanderthal roots where they look more like the wolfman and attack people in the woods.

Octaman - 70s Environmental horror. In Mexico a scientist discovers a half-man/half-octopus. It gets pretty pissed when they start studying the babies and it attacks the scientist camp, mostly at night. Once nice thing about these movies is that the action parts can be watched on fast forward and it generally increases the quality. This movie has a lot of “action” which often means octaman is staring at people from the reeds in the swamp. My two favorite moments in the movie were octaman stabbing a guy with a suddenly rigid tentacle, and when octaman jumps out of the RV at the scientists because it made me laugh out loud.

Eight on the Lam - Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller. Phyllis Diller is fun whenever she’s on screen but this is pretty uninteresting otherwise. Bob Hope has 8 kids and is that casual? Not buying it.

Alienator - An android bounty hunter is sent to Earth to catch an alien criminal. This movie was made in 1989 but all the effects were from the 70s. Speaking of that, I’d like to see movie effects and editing software offer the ability to apply 70s effects. How hard can rotoscoping with a bright border be? Anyway, female bodybuilder is the android and the body armor she wears is pretty horrible. The dialog is pretty fun though so don’t fast-forward through that.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls - Saw this Thursday night before the crowds got crazy. Liked it quite a bit and thought it fit very well with the previous movies in feel and in style. I was also very glad Karen Allen was back in her role from the first movie.

The Vampire - A doctor takes some addictive pills that wirn him into a vampire at night. The makeup looks more like a werewolf, but that’s easily overlooked. This movie is more about drug addiction turning you into a monster that destroys yourself, your family, and loved ones around you with a thin layer of vampire on top. It’s actually pretty good.

Blood Simple - I finally got a chance to see this and I definitely liked it. All the twists were great and I thought the use of kecak music for Frances McDormand’s character’s pivotal points was well done. If this didn’t have background music it might almost be a David Lynch film.
Vicious Lips - This movie was made in 1987 but it feels like it was written in 1983 and had to wait for what budget it had. A rock band gets signed and has to go play on another planet. This is a USA: Up All Night kind of movie all the way. At some point it switches to weird dream sequence and feels like the Wizard of Oz in a strange way. You probably want a few drinks for this one.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - Having seen the new Indiana Jones movie we decided to watch the previous ones. The DVD is from a nicely cleaned up print and visible effects have been made invisible. Aside from that it’s still the same classic.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - I didn’t remember many details except that it is my least favorite. That’s still true and I think the movie could be much better and very little changed if Kate Capshaw’s character, Winnie, would have been cut from the script.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -  This one builds on what made the first one good and solidifies that which is good because it allowed the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls to come out as well as it did. The interplay between Indy and his father is great throughout and really amke the movie.

Sunday we went to Castroville for the artichoke festival. The number of restored and modified cars on display was much larger this year. The We had some fried artichokes and I had an artichoke and carne asada taco (very good). There was a sign for artichoke cupcakes but unfortunately they were sold out. Oh well, that’s what we get for going two hours before closing. The vegetable sculptures weren’t as impressive or numerous this year except for the snake in a tree that was the first one you ssee when entering the hall. Having done almost all we went to do, it was time to buy a couple cases of artichokes and go. The nice thing about going late on Sunday is that they don’t want to haul all those artichokes away so by the time we were there a case of 18 jumbo artichokes was going for $16.

On the way back to the car I rested the artichokes down on top of a fire hydrant while we watched some dancers inside the festival area. Then I picked up the cases and turned to continue with a jolt of pain as I slammed my shin into the fire hydrant valve. About a block later I stopped and checked my shin and found it was already swollen quite a bit. Nicole got the car and came back for me and the future food. When I got home I rested it andiced it on and off for about 45 minutes which greatly reduced the swelling and today the pain and swelling is very minor, yay!

It’s a bright red bug (6-legs), about 2.5-3mm long and probably about 1mm wide. The head is probably 1/4 of the total length and is more gray-brown in color. When walking the body is fairly high off the surface at about a millimeter. The antennae are about the length of the body with the last 1/3 of that being about twice the thickness of the lower part.

Iron Man - I think this is my new favorite comic book movie, but Hellboy is still close. Everything about it is just right. I’m looking forward to the sequel already.

Sunshine - This movie is heavy but it’s a great story and it draws you in to the family’s story. If there is any movie that it is similar to I think it is To Live, which I also feel similarly about. I got the impression that there is more to the story which usually indicates the kind of details you get in a novel as being the source material, but it’s written by the director; I’m guessing a good bit is based on his own family and experiences to give it that feel.

Flawless - The 60s appear to be a hot time frame for movies and tv right now. This heist movie takes place in the 60s and it’s a pretty good heist. Michael Caine is great and Demi Moore is surprising, mostly because I don’t think of her in this kind of role so I didn’t recognize her at first. Unfortunately the end is a little weak and forgettable but it’s still good overall.

Speed Racer - I didn’t see it and I don’t want to. I just want to express my happiness that it’s doing so horribly at the box office. When I first saw the trailer I thought I didn’t want to see it but I might check it out for the effects. As the number of times I saw trailers and still for it increased so did my dislike for it and the certainty that it would suck. It seems that happened to a lot of other people too, the reviews and the box office are horrible for a film that expensive. Yay!

Scrubs - It’s been confirmed that the 8th ad final season of Scrubs will be 18 episodes long and will be on ABC. More Yay!

2) The half-time show at the roller derby was horrible. The Santa Cruz Trash Orchestra came out and played the same rhythm for a few minutes while the leader was slowly introducing the members through a megaphone that distorted everything to the mostly unintelligible. They had a variety of things scavenged from all over but none of it was put to good use. Having tuned paint cans is a fine idea if you’re going to actually do more than play on a couple of them, ignoring their tonality. Eventually my brain was able to tune them out as white noise effectively enough that I didn’t know they finished until Nicole told me they finished and no one clapped. People noticed they were done and clapped, allowing them to exit and the roller derby to start again.

Saturday evening was another Santa Cruz Roller Girls roller derby match, this time between Fistful of Dollies and Beach Flat Betties. These two of the three local teams that the all-star team draws from to play against teams from other cities.  The Dollies ended up winning by about ten points but it was pretty close all the way though. Robin Yo Life joined the announcers which was nice for clarifying what was going on at various points and amusingly it sometimes turned into comments that were meant more for coaching what was happening at that moment. Next match in Santa Cruz is on June 28.

Sunday we went to Bay Meadows for the final day of live racing and it was really crowded, both from people there for Mother’s Day and people there for the last day. For the first half there was a lot less smoking going on than normal, but then the parties with mothers thinned out some and the smoking kicked it up a notch. The horses ran, we lost money on our small bets, we ate junk food, it was a lot of fun.

Unrelated to that but still odd is that this weekend the garbage disposal started turning itself on randomly. I think the fiber-optic switch on it is somehow triggering incorrectly. The first time we were watching a movie in the other room, the second time was at around 3AM. Both times the cat was sleeping on the bed. For now we’re leaving it unplugged when not in use.

Next we went throught he Disney section which was surprisingly cool. Seeing how they mock up attractions and with a model and a camera, and seeing early stage animatronic models was nice since I didn’t think that stuff really escaped the back room. A few years ago I read that someone had come up with a new hologram process that really made things look 3D. I hadn’t heard anything else about it since then but I’m pretty sure that’s what they were using for the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey. There was no electronics involved, just a hologram in a frame, but the image stood out in front of the frame. Moving from one side to the other I could go from seeing the front of Mickey’s ear to the back. People kept touching the frame because they kept moving closer in an attempt to touch the image.

After that we went to the big hall where we saw the robotics and other things that needed space and more commercial areas. We got to play with what was called “Galaxy Goo” but Crayola calls Modelling Magic. It’s easy to manipulate but then you let it sit for a weeks and it turns hard, no more going back to soft. It feels solid like a plastic but light like a foam when it’s dry. I want the 3D candy printer. We sat in the Tango electric car and then learned that it’s WAY too expensive.

After a lunch break we wandered outside, saw the Burning Man metal sculptures burning, the human beat box, a demonstration on methane from algae as a fuel source, and the QuickCamper. The QuickCamper folds up to act as a shell for a pickup truck but can expand to allow access to a queen size bed, a sink, a stock, a refrierator/freezer, and sitting space (where the bed would be). It’s not in production yet.

We wandered over at the right time to see the Diet Coke and Mentos guys doing their show and selling their nozzle kits, checked out the steam punks, and then wandered the craft hall, picking up cards for later purchase possibilities. I thought the clothing swap/redecorating stations were a good idea, but there wasn’t enough room for the tables selling stuff.

Finally we wandered into the fabrication room and saw several ShopBots in action. Surprisingly they are fairly quiet. There were automated toold for foam, vinyl, plastic, wood, probably other stuff I’m forgetting, There were some trying to start a 500 person co-op where so you wouldn’t have to buy all these things on your own. I started thinking about that and I think it’s a good idea, but I don’t have time for a remote co-op space either.

As we were walking towards the exit we got to see the giraffe bot ambling/rolling along.  Now we look forward to next year.

1408 - I wasn’t expecting much from this and I got a good bit more. John Cusack is very good which is essential since it’s often a solo performance. When things are starting to get going there is some good tension build up but then it transitions to the abstract. If Rod Serling were making long Twilight Zone episodes today, I think this would be among them.

The Apartment - This movie matches a lot of what you see in Mad Men about the 60s. Shirley MacClaine and Jack Lemmon both portray complex characters and make them feel real, especially MacClaine. The whole movie still plays well today and it seems that you could drop the whole thing in a modern setting barely changing a thing. I wonder if that’s why it hasn’t been remade yet.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Such an entertaining backdrop to look at relationship issues. Doug Liman has a skill with showing action that I enjoy greatly. And while the action was great, I thought the re-exploration of their relationship in that context to be probably my favorite part.

DCI 2008 Countdown - Since I’m a band geek I tend to go for these drum & bugle corps shows. This was a theater event showing the best shows of recent years and some things to look forward to from this year’s shows.  Unfortunately it was filmed in standard definition and then blown up so it was fairly blurry. It was still mostly good enough and I am looking forward to the upcoming season (The Blue Devils are putting together marching mini-taiko drums!).

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium -  This movie was fun and afterwards I learned that the writer/director, Zach Helm, also wrote Stranger Than Fiction. Knowing that you start seeing similarities between the two: an accountant that is being troubled by the super-natural, Dustin Hoffman, and a slender woman with short dark hair.

Lars and the Real Girl -  This was good but it wasn’t the comedy that the trailers made it out to be. Sure there are humorous bits, but most of it is a fairly serious journey.

I was glad to see the track was bigger so the skaters got to get up more speed. The half-time show was kids from a local dance studio and of those I think the pop-lockers were the best.

The only negative from the night I think was the officiating. There were a number of penalties that weren’t called against Roller Girls and at one point the Angry Beaver’s jammer called off the jam but referees weren’t paying attention. As a result one or two Beavers ended up in the penalty box for play that was continuing that shouldn’t have and the Roller Girls, I think, got some points out of it that they shouldn’t have.

I look forward tot he next match on May 10.

We can’t just use natural cocoa and expect the same result because dutch-processed cocoa is pH neutral. We could try a work-around by adding baking powder to natural cocoa but that probably won’t come out the same. When did it become so hard to get dutch-processed cocoa? We purchased some without difficulty a few years ago for the first death by chocolate trials. My theory is that since natural cocoa retains the anti-oxidants in chocolate while dutch-processed cocoa destroys them, people are demanding their healthier cocoa and not considering the desserts! I could order it on-line, but it’s not something I thought I would have to order on-line or be able to get on short notice in this area.

A Love Song For Bobby Long -  I could watch these characters in a movie five times this long and I’m pretty sure I’ll be watching this one again several times as soon as I get a copy.

Brigadoon -  I’m converting old video tapes to DVD for my parents and this one was recording while I was doing other stuff so I finally got to see it. I like musicals, but I wasn’t crazy about the songs in Brigadoon. The dancing I liked, the sets and characters I liked. So it’s not my favorite musical, but the story is fun. I really liked how they portrayed triggered memories in the movie.

Janis -  Another conversion for my parents… I liked Janis Joplin, but I haven’t really appreciated her work; this documentary changed that for me. I think the difference is all the live performance footage whereas before I had only heard studio recordings.  It all feels more raw and potent.

The Other Boleyn Girl - This movie is entertaining but somewhat confusing for someone who knows absolutely nothing about the history. The confusing part is that there is almost no notion of time passing in this movie. On the bright side, that got me to go look up the history. The basic story is right, but a large number of details are changed.

M*A*S*H - I’ve probably seen most of the television series but never before had I seen the movie.  Did you know the title theme is called “Suicide is Painless”? I didn’t until I watched it until I flashed back on a memory from high school band playing the M*A*S*H Theme (Suicide is Painless). It’s weird the things that get pulled up. Anyway, there’s more fast-talking and talking over one another in the movie. In the tv show you’re given more time to digest various jokes. The humor is darker in the movie and there is more sex and blood, but not much more. I think it’s worth watching for the suicide alone.

Last Holiday - Queen Latifah version. I haven’t seen the original with Alec Guiness, but I imaging it’s better. This one isn’t bad, in fact it’s a good bit of fun. Not the kind you should run out to rent, but the kind you start watching because it’s on and don’t really mind.

The Wedding Date - At a certain point in this movie you’ll be thinking “This is like a gender reversal of ‘Pretty Woman’”. There’s a lot of I didn’t care too much about and it really just served to get me to more of the best friend and the father characters. If they weren’t in it this would have been a waste of time.

TMNT -  I liked the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The second was horrible and the third was ok. This can be considered the fourth movie except it’s all computer generated. It ranks well with the first one, not as good, but definitely better than 2 or 3. Everything in the movie is cartoony except the turtles which are given by far the most detail in their structure and their animation. Some body language was copied from the actors in the live-action films. If you like the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie you will probably like this.

Zombie Honeymoon -  Every relationship has it’s tests, this one is evident from the title. It’s not as funny as it could have been, but it was fairly decent. I probably would have cut out a little more in some spots to keep the pace going, but then the moviedoesn’t even make it to an hour and a half as it is. If you’re up late and it’s on it an enjoyable watch.

I’m starting this at 195 pounds and body fat at 24%.  I use the Navy body fat calculator because I find it most accurate with the most easiest measuring techniques. I’ve read some studies that show it to be at least as accurate as other commonly available methods so I’m sticking with it.

After the first two days Nicole and I werre both in pain from the workouts, but by the end of the week it had thankfully transitioned to normal muscle soreness and tiredness a after a workout. I think the first two days are a shock to your system if you haven’t exercised in awhile.  By the end of the first week we both noticed body shape changes with clothes fitting differently and muscle definition more present.

At the start of the second week I measured myself again and found that the measurements used for body fat calculation had not changed enough to report a body fat difference. The book says don’t get hung up on measuring too often and that sometimes things might seem to go in the opposite direction as you build muscle, but it’s still a little disappointing. I can see and feel the differences but those changes haven’t started in the shrinking area yet.

At the start of the third week we can add in beans of all sorts and peas and chickpeas. Nicole has learned that she’s sensitive to beans, good to know! Halfway through week three we’ve finally got the supplements correct. I went to tenyearsthinner.com to look for something else and in addition to what I was looking for that we needed to be having larger doses of the EFA and DHA (2400mg preferably in a ration of 2:1) in our omega-3 fatty acids and that we need more calcium and magnesium. We’ll see what kind of impact that has in the coming days. Overall my energy levels are good and I get farther in the workouts which means muscle is being created.

End of week three and I don’t know why but I just realized I was doing the squeeze crunches slightly wrong. My stomach has been getting toned, but the lower abs weren’t getting so much. So today I started pulling my legs in too like I should have been doing all along and that certainly was felt when it came time to do the bench dips. Exercise-wise we’re going to do week three again to try and get our reps up in preparation for week four which adds more stuff!

Starting week 4 I’m noticing the layers of fat are getting thinner. I’ve dropped another body fat percentage point to 20, my thighs, and fore arms have gained in size, and I’m seeing more definition in muscles than I have before during previous periods of fitness. We decided to run through week 3 exercises again to try and get our reps up before the week four routing adds in another set of four exercises. Nicole’s back and neck are being aggravated so she’s going to start going different exercises.

Starting week 5, we can add in grains and grain based foods, but not more than 100 calories per meal. I’m thinking that the extra week on week-3 exercise was not the right thing to do. Yes, I feel that they were good workouts, but I am beginning to believe that it was really designed for you to move to the new exercise set. You might not be able to do all the reps but you need the extra exercises to start pushing you. I was even thinking this before I didn’t have any body fat reduction this week. Tomorrow the workouts do for four-day stretches and have 4 more exercises in them for a total of 16.

On to week 6 and I see definition starting to show in my arms and maybe in my abs? I’ve never had that before so I’m not sure.  When the 6 weeks we’re supposed to be able to have one cheat meal a week, but our first one came durign week six for a birthday dinner. My body doesn’t seem to have noticed despite it being the first grain I’ve had in almost six weeks. Finally the fat around my middle is starting to diminish.

End of week six and on to maintenance. So where do we stand? I’ve lost 2.4 pounds and 5% body fat which means about 10 pounds of fat lost and 8 pounds of muscle gained. My clothes certainly fit differently and I feel good in general. Even when I was hitting the gym a lot and eating well previously I hadn’t had body shape changes this quickly. I’ll be continuing this to see how far it goes.

My scooter lights: I haven’t been riding the scooter because the headlight hasn’t been working and it’s been dark when I leave work. I spent a couple of afternoons two weekends ago looking for what I figured was a burnt out wire from when smoke started pouring out of the front when I was installing new batteries. I looked at the old parts scooter for how things were wired up and found a few burnt wires there as well (yay for cheap Chinese stuff?). I found the burnt wire and put in a new one, still no headlight. I followed more wires and found two more burnt out. More patches and still no headlight, but now I see the battery level go down when the headlight is on which means there’s a short and it’s definitely not good. I look but I can’t find anything else so I pack it up to look for the problem later. Now thanks to daylight savings time it’s light when I leave work and headlight isn’t an obstacle. So I ride to work today but I notice that when the turn signal blinks there is a major draw on the battery gauge so the short is more serious than I thought but should be easier to locate and now I’m down to hand signals.

Another thing I noticed was that most presidents had some legal profession background before becoming president. Of the 42 presidents, 25 have had a background in law while 17 haven’t. Of those, 11 of the non-lawyerly background were in the 20th century. Certainly both groups have their ups and downs, but the ones with the law background tend to have a bigger impact during their presidency (for better or worse).

Presidents without a law background:

• George Washington - He was primarily a planter though he certainly knew how to run things.
• James Madison - Life-long politician
• William Henry Harrison - Soldier
• Zachary Taylor - Soldier and farmer
• Andrew Johnson - Tailor
• Ulysses S Grant - Soldier, farmer, real estate agent, leather store clerk
• James A Garfield - Schoolteacher, college professor, preacher, canal worker, soldier, president of Hiram College
• Theodore Roosevelt - Writer, historian
• Warren G Harding - Newspaper editor
• Herbert Hoover - Miner, engineer
• Harry S Truman - Timekeeper for railroad construction, bank clerk, farmer, haberdasher
• Dwight D Eisenhower - Soldier, president of Colombia University
•  John F Kennedy - Writer
• Lyndon B Johnson - Teacher
• Jimmy Carter - Farmer, businessman
• Ronald Reagan - Broadcaster, film actor
• George Bush - Founder of Zapata Oil and Zapata Off-shore Drilling
• George W Bush - Businessman

• Eat Me
• SKULLFUCK
• STAYOUT
• SonjaCan’tDoComputers

1. More graffiti! I know that sounds counter-intuitive but when you think about most graffiti as being territory markers then you start to see it as someone’s personal calling card. So the idea is when you wake up in the morning to find some fresh graffiti you add something like “eats ass” to it and then have the police wait that night for the tagger to fix the amendment. Cost is fairly low for the extra spray paint, and the wall already needed repainting so no extra cost there. The main cost comes from the stakeout and the social cost of having obscene message in highly visible areas. Chance of success? Probably not very high. I don’t see a lot of back and forth when rivals deface their tags so why should a little insult matter to them?
2. Video cameras. Basically this is the obvious appraoch where businesses would have tog et video cameras, mount them in a hidden or out of reach area, and make sure it’s high enough resolution so the perpetrator can actually be identified. The problem here is that video cameras like that are expensive, they are easily defeated with masks or just taken out directly.
3. RFID tags. I came up with this when I decided video cameras were too expensive but it involves more infrastructure. First you need to get spray paint makers to put RFID tags in the cans, then when you show your driver’s license to buy your spray paint the RFID gets linked to your driver’s license number. Business owners need to buy a series of readers (about $20 each) to monitor the taggable parts of their building and when graffiti happens they can get the RFID that did it and give it to the police. The downsides to this plan are privacy concerns about purchases being tracked. Also the RFID signals can be blocked but then a tagger has to carry around jamming equipment which I don’t think is very likely; tagging seems be somewhat a crime of convenience.
4. Honey pot. I just thought of this one last week after seeing another under-construction building tagged. Incomplete buildings always seem like a good target. An incomplete house will be tagged but a completed house gets avoided, though fences always seem to be fair game. So the idea is to find an empty lot and put up some very cheap non-permanent pre-fab structure. Then use a stakeout or  cameras to catch those that show up to do their tagging.

Any other ideas?

Rambo - Unlike some of the Rambo movies, this one isn’t a glorification of war. It’s a lot more gritty, like opening of Saving Private Ryan style, but more so. Yeah rediculous things happen, but the wounds and deaths from the feel more real. I think it’s a good end to the series.

Jumper - This one is a good idea fairly well thought out with good action scenes, exactly what I expect from Doug Liman. It’s almost more like the pilot of a tv-show though. The conversion to a show should be relatively easy and I expect it within a few years.

Anderson Cooper kept things rolling for the most part and for the first half it was all very polite between the candidates. McCain and Romney were givent he most time to talk and Ron Paul was cut off several times after one sentence.  After awhile Huckabee reminded the moderator and questioners that the other end of the table would like some questions too and then he and Paul did get more chances to speak which is good because McCain was starting to antagonize Romney and that was getting old fast. I think my favorite part was Ron Paul (you prety much always have to put the whole name) questioning why McCain and Romney were quibbling over something said back in April 2007 when the real issue is that we’re there at all based on faulty evidence and cause. I still think if McCain wins the nomination that Huckabee will end up as his vice presidential running mate.

Democrats:

I was thinking/hoping that Edwards was goign to stay in the race at least through super Tuesday. He didn’t just end his campaign though, he suspended it. That means he retains control of all his delegates and if it’s close you’ll still see him come into play at the end. He might have enough to bring his issues to the table at the Democratic National Convention anyway.

The message of the debate was that no matter which one you choose it’ll be better than the republicans. They also both mentioned that they only differ in a few ways and agree in most things on policy. They both presented themselves well with their similarities and differences, and stopped Wolf Blitzer when he tried to stir up trouble. I still feel positive about Obama but now I also feel more positive about Clinton, and I’m thinking that I don’t want to see Wolf Blitzer moderate any more debates.

Anyway, I made it to work and the chocolate pies were devorured along with the cookies. I checked in the last of my code changes, visited with a lot of people, had a goodbye lunch. Things were good. HR person wasn’t made aware until very late that I was leaving today so my exit interview was over the phone. I found the big box of kazoos from our wedding party that was left over and I gave them out throughout the building. I gave away the cube loot people wanted and since cube space was available at the new job so I carted all the stuff I was keeping on cart to the new cube in the new building. I answered some questions at the new job and ran back to the office so I could turn in my badge before the person I needed to turn them in to went home.

I had Dan go with me to Long’s so I could get back into the building after I bought a lot of chocolate to leave on my desk so people wouldn’t have to go cold turkey. Then I said my goodbyes to those still remaining and went home. I’m going to miss working with everyone there and I hope I get a chance to work with them again in the future.

Well a co-worker was nice enough to drop me off at the corner on their way home and I was told that I couldn’t cross to my house because it was all a crime scene. I told them I lived one house away but that didn’t help and said I could go home if I could find a way into my yard without them seeing me. I thought about crossing behind my neighbor’s house but I would still have to cross to my house in view of the street and I didn’t want to have the cops irritated at me. So I called Nicole and told her the details I heard a sheriff tell the camera man from fox-35/kion-46 who was there filming and asking questions. I decided to ask how long they thought it would be.

When I asked another sheriff how long he thought it would be he asked if I was the taxi guy and I said I was. He went to check but he got caught up in helping the CSI. T alked to the camera man for awhile, learned that channels 35 and 46 share a building and that his footage goes to both of their stations. I also learned that kion-46 is owned by Clear Channel but that it is up for sale as Clear Channel is trying to sell off all their tv stations. I learned that they used dogs to track the suspects to Dougmar, a street off the opposite side of the block, that there was a bullet lodged in teh house directly across the street from ours, that the victim was in critical-critical condition which I think means they weren’t expecting him to live and indeed he died at 1AM.

After more chatting and watching the ksbw-8 reporter show up without a camera man and just trying to make due with a digital camera the sheriff returned and I asked again if I could make it to my house. He decided I could cross my neighbor’s yard in front while he paralleled be on the sidewalk. About halfway across the CSI questioned why I was there and he explained for me that it was ok and I had been waiting patiently (for about an hour and a half) as I crossed the dividing picket fence between our yards.

The block was closed off for almost 8 hours, ending at about half past midnight.

Last night on the way to the store sheriffs on foot approached us as we were about to go to the store and they asked Nicole about everything she might know to establish timelines. When we got back from the store they were still canvasing the neighborhood.

Today in the paper I learned that the shooter was 16 and they are working on charging him as an adult.