I saw this ad on CNN.com, and I just started cracking up:

Or is it just me?

My mind. It has been blown. Bended. Twisted. Warped.

It’s one of those moments where you realize how little you’ve known about the world, and all the wonders it contains. It forces you to take a step back, and reconsider your entire life, up to that moment.

At the very least, it makes you scrub your tentative plans to purchase a Nintendo Wii, because you don’t need a Wii to play SimCity.

Nope: it’s available for the motherfuckin’ iPhone!

Apparently, it’s been out for a while. And while I hesitated at first (I was somewhere between “Well, this can’t be any good” and “WOOOHOOO! DANCE OF JOY!”), the mostly positive reviews have warmed my heart’s cold cackles. And, also, I’d rather pay $2.99 for SimCity iPhone than $230 for Wii & Sim City, y’know?

But, yes: I do now whole heartedly accept that whatever it is I am looking for, yes, Virginia, there is indeed “an app for that.”

(I would be playing it right now …. except because of the size of the file, you’ve actually got to download it while your phone is connected to iTunes. Alas!)

I don’t usually participate in memes, but this one seems right up my alley.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel by Thomas Berger:

“Go and have it burned,” commanded King Arthur.

And recognizing that this was the zeal of youth conjoined with a novel sense of power (but the lad was a real king, for only such could have identified at long range a brothel, another ensample of which he could never have seen living in bucolic Wales), Merlin cast a spell upon King Arthur, in which he seemed to see smoke and flames arising from the stews, and therefore he was satisfied. (pg 33)

Sadly, Arthur Rex is long since out of print. But! You can find a copy where I found a copy: Alibris!

HT: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Wanna be scared?

From The Atlantic:

Imagine your computer to be a big spaceship, like the starship Enterprise on Star Trek. The ship is so complex and sophisticated that even an experienced commander like Captain James T. Kirk has only a general sense of how every facet of it works. From his wide swivel chair on the bridge, he can order it to fly, maneuver, and fight, but he cannot fully comprehend all its inner workings. The ship contains many complex, interrelated systems, each with its own function and history—systems for, say, guidance, maneuvers, power, air and water, communications, temperature control, weapons, defensive measures, etc. Each system has its own operator, performing routine maintenance, exchanging information, making fine adjustments, keeping it running or ready. When idling or cruising, the ship essentially runs itself without a word from Captain Kirk. It obeys when he issues a command, and then returns to its latent mode, busily doing its own thing until the next time it is needed.

Now imagine a clever invader, an enemy infiltrator, who does understand the inner workings of the ship. He knows it well enough to find a portal with a broken lock overlooked by the ship’s otherwise vigilant defenses—like, say, a flaw in Microsoft’s operating platform. So no one notices when he slips in. He trips no alarm, and then, to prevent another clever invader from exploiting the same weakness, he repairs the broken lock and seals the portal shut behind him. He improves the ship’s defenses. Ensconced securely inside, he silently sets himself up as the ship’s alternate commander. He enlists the various operating functions of the ship to do his bidding, careful to avoid tripping any alarms. Captain Kirk is still up on the bridge in his swivel chair with the magnificent instrument arrays, unaware that he now has a rival in the depths of his ship. The Enterprise continues to perform as it always has. Meanwhile, the invader begins surreptitiously communicating with his own distant commander, letting him know that he is in position and ready, waiting for instructions.

And now imagine a vast fleet, in which the Enterprise is only one ship among millions, all of them infiltrated in exactly the same way, each ship with its hidden pilot, ever alert to an outside command. In the real world, this infiltrated fleet is called a “botnet,” a network of infected, “robot” computers. The first job of a worm like Conficker is to infect and link together as many computers as possible—the phenomenon witnessed by Porras and other security geeks in their honeypots. Thousands of botnets exist, most of them relatively small—a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of infected computers. More than a billion computers are in use around the world, and by some estimates, a fourth of them have been surreptitiously linked to a botnet. But few botnets approach the size and menace of the one created by Conficker, which has stealthily linked between 6 million and 7 million computers.

Yeah … the only reason I’m posting this is for the copious amounts of Star Trek references (of which the article’s title is one).

I was not — at all — happy when I stepped on the scale this morning. “How can this be right?” I asked, loudly, staring at the number.

I walked to and from work yesterday. To work was two miles, which I walked in an impressive thirty minutes. Walking from work, I took an alternate route: up Massachusetts Avenue, then east to home. It’s an additional mile from my normal route, and it’s almost all uphill. I did not work on Saturday, but I walked to Politics and Prose and back that afternoon: it’s 2.1 miles each way.

Friday, of course, I walked to Friendship Heights: 3.3 miles. I was lazy, and I did take the bus home after work, which I also did Monday and Tuesday.

I did not lose weight this week: I gained two and a half pounds back from last week.

It’s a month until my sister’s wedding. At 243 pounds this morning, I’ve got 14 lbs to drop in the next four weeks.

I can do it. Right?

Well, being bummed because I’ve been passed over for yet another in-office-promotion, yet elated because, hey, perfect time to look for a new job! And OMG it’s gorgeous out! And feeling jazzed from my workout earlier today, I wanted to do something nice for all of you.

So, from the creator of the The Brick Testament (y’know: the Bible, but in Lego*), I present BRAD: The Game:

Yeah, it’s pretty disturbing. And disgusting on multiple levels. But it’s also a heck of a lot of fun. Hey, where are your underpants?

You should check the Van.

*When I have children, this is absolutely how they’re going to learn the Bible, too.

When I tell people what time I leave for work in the morning, they think I’m crazy. I’m not. But since most weeknights I go to the Bookstore, and because I like to have some downtime between the two jobs, and because I like to travel on non-packed buses and trains, the mostly off-peak travel works for me: the trains and buses are less crowded between 5:45 and 6:30am, and the same between 3-3:45pm. Also, Metro usually doesn’t break down or have catastrophic fuck ups during those hours.

Key word: usually.

This morning, for whatever reason, I opted to vary my routine and walk to the Cleveland Park Metro (I usually go to Woodley Park). This would not have changed what happened today in any way: I was a few minutes early out the door, my train doesn’t arrive at Woodley Park until 5:54ish, and I was at Cleveland Park by that time.

I was at Cleveland Park to see a dark train on the Shady Grove side of the track. To hear a fairly ominous announcement. And then to see a train, enroute to Shady Grove, pull up on the Glenmont side of the track and unload all of its passengers.

I don’t know what happened: someone said a track malfunction, but the same person also said that was absolutely no service north of Cleveland Park. As in: none. At all. Zero. Adios. Goodbye.

So my mind started racing: well, shit, how the fuck am I going to get to work?

In retrospect, the answer should’ve been: train out to Silver Spring and hop on one of the J-buses out to Montgomery Mall.

Instead, my brain said: WALK!

So that’s what I did. At six in the morning. To Friendship Heights. Because even if there was no Metro service (and for the love of God, I could not get a straight answer from anyone, admittedly, the Metro employees I saw were running around like crazy, and for sure as shit the customers didn’t know), I know there are buses from Friendship Heights to Bethesda and Medical Center, and from there, I know what buses to take to get to work.

My total walk (starting from my apartment) was 3.2 miles (2.5 from Cleveland Park). While it was cool this morning, most of that walk was uphill. I was a sweaty, sticky mess by the time I got to the Metro station (around 7am). But you know what? That’s 2.5 miles I wouldn’t have walked if the Metro hadn’t had some fuck ups today.

Sure, there are negatives: for one thing, I got to work at 7:30 but still have to leave at 3pm, so I’m taking half an hour of PTO. Also, I exited Cleveland Park through the emergency gate, so while I remembered to tap myself OUT at Friendship Heights when I entered, I neglected to tap myself back IN (no station manager in sight). Thankfully, there was a station manager at Cleveland Park who let me exit through the emergency gate and all was well. I hopped on the bus, got to work, and everyone was like, “Where the hell have you been?”

And I was like, “Bitches, please.”

And then I filled out a form to use half an hour of vacation time. Because I am not — at all — staying past 3pm today.

Okay, first, I really want to see this movie.

Second, did you hear that score? Wasn’t it beautiful?

It’s from Sunshine, composed by John Murphy. Who you might recall I blogged about, as his music was taken for Kick Ass.

And, yes, I’m still waiting on that damnable score to be released!

Yeah so —

– wait, did I mention SPOILERS?

So, basically what I pulled from this week’s episode of LOST (which I watched last night via Hulu because I canceled my at-home cable-TV service to save some bucks), is that C.J. Craig quit the White House, moved to a remote jungle island, murdered a woman, kidnapped the dead woman’s children, never gave the younger one a name, and then he grew up all resentful and shit and committed matricide, at which point his older brother threw him into a magic lake wherein he became the Smoke Monster (or the Smoke Monster absorbed his personality).

In other words: thank you, C.J. Craig, for killing Sayid and Jin and Sun, you bitch.

Well, at least the skeletons in the cave weren’t Rose and Bernard.

**

So I guess what I want to say here is that there are two shows I’ve enjoyed immensely in the last few years: LOST and Battlestar Galactica. And they both seem to be falling into the trap of explaining more than needs to be known. It’s a trap best illustrated by Star Wars: no, I don’t actually want to have three movies showing how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. All it does is make Vader seem especially silly and ridiculous: “Oh, Dark Lord of the Sith? So that’s what hot-shot kid fighter-pilots grow up into these days, eh?”

I don’t want origin stories of the Man in Black and Jacob. I think everything we needed to know about them was illustrated early this season in Ab Aeterno (the Richard origin story). It is not necessary for origin stories for every single mysterious character we’ve ever seen on LOST. Why? Well, for one, because it makes them much less mysterious. Also, especially coming in the last season, so far they’ve pretty much been pre-packaged one-offs, which really doesn’t suit the show very well: look, for example, at how much of Ben Linus’s past we know — they didn’t give it to us in one episode (well, initially they sort of did, but then they went and it was a fairly significant season 5 story arc).

C’mon LOST. Retain your mystery. At least some of it. Be like a woman — far more sexy while still clothed.

Words fail. Because people are stupid.

From TechEye:

US military man Erick Jhonson came home from a stint in Iraq to find that his wife was pregnant. Clearly he assumed she had an affair, but his wife Jennifer claims the “other man” was actually someone a little less physical.

It seems he actually buys her story, however. “I see it as suspicious. The films in 3D are very real. With today’s technology, anything is possible,” he said.

What’s even more interesting is that both Jennifer and Erick are white, but the child is black. Jeniffer claims the kid looks like the black pornstar she had been ogling. She also claims this was one of the first times she’s watched porn and only went with friends for the 3D effect. TechEye did a survey of one person and found 100 percent would say the same thing in a similar situation.

Dude, she had sex with another man. Just accept it, because the only other possibility is that Skynet is real, and your wife’s immaculate conception is an attempt by the computer overlords to re-do Jesus Christ for the technology age!

HT: Tokenito

Boy, if you think KFC’s Double Down is a heart attack on a plate, let me ask you, what would you do if you got a loaf of bread sliced the wrong way?

::DanOnTheRun:: decided to have some fun (and, apparently, a heart attack) and created El Bocadillo Del Diablo:

Delicious? I will never know (because just looking at it is giving me a heart attack!)

You can never have enough LEGO bricks. You’ll always need more. This must be how vampires feel, if they had a thirst for plastic bricks and didn’t eat people.
- Jonathan Bender

…from his blog Brick Bender, and author of LEGO: A Love Story (which I’m currently reading, BTW).

HT: Brothers-Brick, via Jonathan Bender’s (author of LEGO: A Love Story, go check it out!) Twitter page.

Laura Bush recently published her memoir, Spoken From The Heart.

On May 4th, a book party was held for her at the Kuwaiti Embassy. The publisher was on hand to sell books, and as publishers rarely have actual retail infrastructure, the Bookstore provided four sellers to work the event. As part of the security arrangements, the store had to provide those sellers’ names before the event, presumably so background checks could be conducted. You know: in case some Al Qaeda operative got himself a job shilling books on the off-chance he might be asked to work an event some former muckity-mucks were at so he would have the opportunity to, I don’t know, lob hardcover books at them or something.

But there was a problem: one of the booksellers who was slated for the event was actually in California. On vacation. We’ll call her Amy. Thanks to a schedule mishap, her vacation request hadn’t carried over to the current week’s schedule. This left the bookstore group slightly understaffed, so they recruited the supervisor of the store’s gift section to go in her place. We’ll call her Janie.

So they loaded up a taxi with boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of the memoir, jumped in themselves, and drove up to the Embassy. There was a security check, oddly, the guards* weren’t interested in IDs, just asking the staff members to identify themselves. (Kindly note: names have been changed to protect the innocent, the not-there, and the people I work with on a day-to-day basis.)

“Joe?” “Yep!”

“Frank?” “That’s me!”

“Karen?” “Yes!”

“Amy?” “No, I’m Janie.”

At this point, you would think any number of things would happen. I’m picturing gunships buzzing, large SUVs with blue and red flashers, Secret Service agents pouring out of every conceivable structure with weapons in hand.

At the very least, I would expect the guard to demand everyone start coughing up photo IDs. Instead, Frank gestured at Janie, who then identified herself as Amy.

No drawn weapons. No stern security measures. NO REQUESTS FOR IDENTIFICATION.

I mean, I realize she’s not the current First Lady. I’d still think at some point you’d have to show a driver’s license to someone.

*I don’t know how many guards there were. I don’t know if they were Secret Service, Kuwaiti, Metro PD, or from some other alphabet soup federal agency. I don’t even know they were guards, maybe they just stuck some ushers out front to guide people here or there.

***

Full disclosure: I do not know that this actually happened.

I was not present at this event. I was not there when this occurred. The person who initially told me the story has been known to, er, ‘exaggerate’, from time to time. Of the others who were there, when I asked them, there were differences in what did or did not happen (the bones of the story were all there) — that’s not surprising, given as no two people will remember each event the same way. Yet, I feel it’s important to throw out there: this is very much complete and total heresay.

A few months ago, I purchased an Xbox 360, based solely on my experience playing one game – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. And while I certainly enjoyed playing CoD:MW2, my gaming tastes have expanded and I’m currently making my way through the wonderful Borderlands. But with the Xbox still fresh on my shelf, games stacking up to play, I’m contemplating the purchase of a second modern gaming platform: Nintendo Wii

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a big fan of the gym. And I’m attracted to the Wii Fit gaming bundle primarily because it will allow me to avoid the gym, yet continue to work out and lose weight and get myself in shape. And then I came across something that seemed to settle it in my mind as a certainty: yes, I will buy a Wii because I want to play SimCity on it.

SimCity’s an awesome game. I love it, although none ever seemed as amazing as SimCity 2000.

“But, dude, what the heck does this have to do with Big Blue? With IBM?”

This:

IBM said Monday that it plans to offer a SimCity-style online game that urban planners, students, academics, and others can use to learn more about urban sprawl and how to combat its negative effects on the environment.

IBM called its CityOne simulation a “serious game” that can help users “discover how to make their cities and their industries smarter by solving real-world business, environmental, and logistical problems.”

For now, the company is offering only a brief description. “CityOne will be a no charge, ‘sim-style’ game in which the player is tasked with guiding the city through a series of missions that include Energy, Water, Banking, and Retail industries,” IBM said.

It’s likely the game will include ways for players to apply simulated versions of IBM’s smart-grid technologies to optimize the performance of public infrastructure. IBM’s is pushing real-life versions of such tools through its Smarter Planet initiative, under which Big Blue is helping utilities and other organizations go green.

“Serious games allow professionals to inherently comprehend system interactions, and accurately model the potential business outcomes that can result, in a way that no other medium can do,” said Nancy Pearson, IBM’s VP for SOA, BPM, and WebSphere, in a statement.

Wow. It almost makes me want to be an urban planner!