It's all a dream - random ramblings

12/28 - I just returned from my annual trek to the not so, this year, frozen tundra. The temperature mainly stayed around that of a refrigerator. My flight out was almost on time, which shocking by itself, was not nearly as shocking as seeing who was sitting the the aisle opposite me. Wait for it......Kato Kaelin! Yes, that Kato, the failed actor who lived in OJ's guest house. I could hardly contain my laughter. I have no idea what he is doing now a days, I didn't have the desire to actually talk to him. It was mildly amusing to see the flight attendants pay special attention to him. I wanted to tap them on the shoulder and remind them that it's just Kato Kalin. I can't believe his 15 minutes isn't up yet.

12/4 - I just had to make the drive into LA when I saw Nathan Fillion was going to be at the comic book convention held at the Shrine Auditorium. He was there helping to promote the upcoming (cheesy) horror film Slither. He seems to have a quick witted personality and was very entertaining to listen to. I was bummed I didn't get a chance to get his autograph. I was number 182 in line and they only made it to 150...so close. I rallied through my grief and decided to stay for the Underworld 2 presentation. Kate Beckinsale, Len Wiseman (writer/director) and Patrick Tatopoulos (production designer) were all there. They were not nearly as entertaining as Nathan but at least I managed to get a nifty Underworld 2 poster autographed by the trio.

11/29 - Jean Luc and I are back from our short Dublin excursion. We had a couple pints of Guinness and a copy pints of Bulmers. We had to drink all thoes pints just to stay warm. The weather was a little cooler then we are used to, but you do what you must to get a fresh pint of Guinness.

11/19 - Seeing how those UPS bastards will not give me my Nano, I decided to trek doen to the Apple store and buy it in person. It's so small. I have decided to name it Butters after the South Park character.

11/18 - This is the view that I was greeted with as soon as I walked outside my apartment building this morning. The hills of Ventura are burning. I'm just hoping the wind doesn't shift my way.

11/17 - Okay, I'm really starting to believe that I am not supposed to own an iPod Nano. I received another empty Nano box today, this time from the Apple.com order I placed yesterday. What the hell!

...Just got off the phone with Apple and we have agreed that since this has happened to me twice in a row it has to be somebody at UPS stealing my stuff. Upon closer inspection I have found that the bottoms of both the Amazon and Apple shipping boxes have been cut open and carefully resealed. Whoever is swiping my stuff has to know what is inside the packages, this doesn't seem random. So now that the Amazon and Apple investigative teams on the job they will be able to track down the thieving UPS bastard!

11/16 - No go Nano.....

Nano! Nano! Nano! Today was supposed to be new Nano day now it's no Nano day. The UPS man had just delivered the Amazon.com box and I was prepared to take in the beauty that is the iPod Nano. I carefully cut open the Amazon.com box, peaked inside and knew right away something was amiss. The inner box of the Nano packaging lay crushed and completely empty inside my Amazon.com box. No Nano, no headphones, no CD, no instructions, nothing. At this point I am absolutely shocked, some bastard has stole my Nano! I'm pissed and I'm disappointed. Well, at least the no good thief decided to let me have the Apple power adapter I ordered. The Amazon.com box itself did not look tampered with in any way the only odd thing was a spot of what appears like dried blood on the side. So I do have the hope that whoever stole my Nano is a hemophiliac and is now slowly bleeding to death.

I called up Amazon.com to tell them they shipped me an empty box. To their credit they believed me right away (maybe they are already aware of sticky fingered Nano filching packers?) and promised to ship me a replacement as soon as possible. A couple hours later I got an email from Amazon.com telling me that as soon as possible translated to January 13 - February 10, 2006 as an estimated ship date for my replacement Nano. Ack! That won't do, I get back on the phone with Amazon.com and have them cancel the replacement and give me my money back. I ended up ordering another Nano directly from Apple.com and m crossing my fingers that I actually get this one.

11/08 - Since when did Target start treating everybody wanting to buy cold medication like criminals? Apparently somebody in Las Vegas gave me a cold so I stumbled into Target feeling like crap, coughing my head off. I make it to the cold medicine aisle where you can't actually get any cold medicine. They have pegs full of cards with pictures of medicine boxes on them and instructions to pick a card and head to the pharmacy. Fine. I picked up a card with a little picture of an Advil Cold and Sinus box on it and head to the pharmacy. The first thing I notice is it is a good thing that I have become sick between the hours of 9:00am and 6:30pm because that's when the pharmacy is open. Apparently if you become sick after 6:30 you're screwed. I then handed my card to the pharmacy helper. She looks at it then eyes me suspiciously. "Are you over 18?" she asks. "Ummm...yes. Why do only people over 18 catch colds?" I ask. She chooses to ignore this question and says she needs to see my ID. At this point I am torn. Part of me says leave and find a store to buy Advil at that doesn't want to put me on some sort of cold medicine terrorist watch list. Another part of me wonders if a jury would side with me if I started beating the women with my vitamin C drops. The part that ended up winning was the one that said make sure to wipe the snot off your nose with the same hand you use to give the pharmacy helper your drivers license. I handed over my license and watched as she typed something into her computer then finally gave me my Advil cold and Sinus.

11/05 - I just spent the last two day in Las Vegas at the SEMA show. Sometimes it even amazes me, the things I'm able to get into that I'm not really qualified to go to. For those who don't know SEMA is the biggest convention for automotive after market accessories manufacturers. There were hundreds of thousands of buyers from all over the world checking out the new products, then there was me checking out the new product swag.

10/31 - Happy Halloween!!!
In the years past I have carved terrifyingly scary pumpkins that would have caused small children to loss bladder control. Apparently my pumpkins have been too scary because I haven't had trick or treaters the last two years. So, this year I decided to carve a completely non-threatening pumpkin hoping to lure some trick or treater to my door step. Well.....it worked! I had nine little trick or treaters that were brave enough to knock on my door.

10/29 - So many geeks all in one place.

I woke up bright and early this morning to head to Thousand Oaks for the Apple store grand opening. Being the geek that I am I arrived at 9:30am for the 10:00am store opening and was about the 200th person in line. By the time the store opened the line stretched from one end of the mall to the other. It took until 10:30 for me to actually get into the store. I happily grabbed my free Apple t-shirt upon entering, then was not so happy when I discovered that all the t-shirts were X-Large. I know that American's are getting fatter every year, but I wish they realize that we are not all super-sized. Not wanting to wallow in the disappointment of the t-shirt I bought an Airport Express before I left.

10/25 - I took a much needed break last night to play some Medal of Honor. I'm beginning to think that I like using a sniper rifle to shoot people in the head a little too much. It's so fun I can't help myself. I actually feel sick from playing after a while - from the motion, not the shooting people in the head. All that running around and blurry textures make me feel nauseous.

10/24 - A salesman just burst into my office to try to sell me some cheap remote control cars. They looked like the cheesy ones you get at the flea market for 5 bucks. He was very rude and persistent. I asked him if he knew what no soliciting meant, cause it's on the outside of the building. He just gave me a blank look and wanted to know if I wanted to buy something or not. I need to make a sign for the front of my door that says solicitor with a little arrow pointing to a person impaled on a spike. Maybe I'll add a little pile of bloody remote controlled cars at the base of the spike for added affect.

10/7 - I've decided to do my own re-enactment of "Supersize Me" in honor of the McDonald's Monopoly game. I usually only eat McDonald's once or twice a month, but this week I've eaten there 3 times. I've found out that their new "premium" chicken sandwiches aren't too bad at all. I've been eating them because they have a Best Buy and monopoly game piece on them which, of course, means more chances to win....or lose if you're me. They say there is a 1 in 3 chance of winning a $3 Best Buy Buck coupon, I have five $1 Best Buy Buck coupons. I've been gypped. For the McDonald's food prizes I've won 2 small soft drinks and 2 breakfast sandwiches. The small soft drinks are tiny, barely two swallows worth of Diet Coke and I've never cared for any type of fast food breakfast sandwich. I want Big Mac's and McFlurry's!!

9/29 - A dark cloud has descended over Ventura. I think Sauran is preparing to send his Orcs to flatten the people of Ventura... or at least bar-b-que us. I think there are three separate fires burning in Ventura County right now. So far 70,000 to 90,000 lives and 3 building have been lost in the fire. Yeah, I know it's awful...those poor chickens. I heard there were people at the scene of the tragedy with coleslaw and biscuits.

9/13 - The time is right to pay back one of my "friends" who sent Peeps to my doorstep. I, er.....the Peep-nappers sent a ransom note and a proof of life photo to my friend demanding 79 Susan B. Anthony dollars for the continued well being of the Peep. Apparently after a week with no response the Peep-nappers wanted to prove they were serious so they sent my friend a box of severed peep heads on spikes (okay they were toothpicks). Of course, my friend thinks I am responsible for all of this just because the Peep-nappers have chosen to use my return address in their demands. I don't know why she would assume that I would be capable of gleefully severing Peep heads then mounting them on toothpicks and writing "we're serious" in Peep blood. Nope, not me. I just recommended that she pay the Peep-nappers ransom. I would hate for her to get a box full of bloody peep fluff in the mail. That would be just awful.

8/25 - I found a snail on my Tank Girl DVD last night. The great snail nation must have some sort of grudge against Lori Petty. Why else would they have sent this lone envoy into my apartment to seek out then poop on my Tank Girl DVD. They must have been planning this for some time. I don't even know how they managed to get their envy into my apartment. I never leave the door open for any great length of time and snails not being being known for their sprinting abilities, it's a mystery,

8/12 - I was laying awake in bed the other night with weird random thoughts of stuff floating around in my brain when I suddenly realized something. I have never had a really fresh pint of Guinness! Hard to believe I know. Of course I had to remedy this problem right away. So, Jean Luc and I will be heading off to Dublin over the Thanksgiving break for two glorious days of Guinness consumption.

7/17 - Just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. All I'm going to say is Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

7/16 - After a full day at Comic-Con I didn't get back into town until 10:30pm last night. Being totally exhausted and a bit loppy I decided it would be a good idea to stop by Barnes & Nobles to partake in the release festivities and pick up my copy of the new Harry Potter book. When I got there I was handed a pair of Harry Potter glasses, a Chamber of Secret book poster and a little bracelet with the number 427 on it. Arghhh...number 427, at the rate the 3 register people at Barnes and Nobles ring up people I didn't see myself getting the book until 1:30am. At about 11:00 I threw in the towel and stumbled home....so tired.

I ended up picking up a copy of the book this morning at 8m from Target. I must go read now...

7/15 - Comic-Con 2005, Come witness the wonder and awe of Klingons using PowerBooks. I think Comic-Con should use that as their slogan next year. Screw the movie sneak peeks, special guest stars and Stan Lee, next year should be all about Klingons and PowerBooks.

Once I tore myself away from the PowerBook crazed Klingons I did manage to see a few displays and snag some nifty new figures and, of course, lots of swag. After all life wouldn't be complete without a Kubrick Jawa, a whip bearing Catwomen, or a captain Jack Sparrow figure. To top off the day I saw Daniel Roebuck (Lost) randomly walking around and was very tempted to walk up to him and say "Dude, you got some Arnst on you..."

7/7 - So, my co-worker thinks I sit here every day quietly plotting his eventual death. *I made one little comment years ago about my Rice Krispy's telling me to kill my co-worker and he gets all paranoid. Anyway, I actually had my chance today.

I was sitting in my office in the morning working away when I heard my co-worker come in the front door. Then I started hearing him make all these funny noises. I looked through the window and didn't see him in his office so I thought he was just laying on the floor stretching out his back. He has back problems all the time so it's not so unusual to hear funny noises and to see him on the floor. After a couple of minutes, however, the noises got more disturbing so I went over and checked on him. I found him on all fours on the floor gasping for breath. Oh crap!

He's wheezing that he needs to go to urgent care, I want to call an ambulance. We ended up hopping in my Honda and driving at an insane speed to the nearest emergency room. On the short ride to the hospital his breathing becomes more erratic and he is sweating profusely. We got to the emergency room in record time. They quickly ushered him onto a gurney and gave him a shot of morphine, a shot of something else, drew some blood and shoved some smoking hookah pipe looking thing into his mouth.

At this point I grabbed his wallet and headed for the door! The door of the admitting area that is. I, by default, became his authorized agent for the day. I filled in as much of the paper work for admittance as I could and signed any piece of paper they shoved at me. For all I know I signed him up to be a kidney donor.

I stayed at the hospital with him for a couple hours until his mother arrived. Calling his mom up to tell her that her son was in the hospital was a very weird moment. There's just not much you can say after "your son is in the emergency room" to alleviate all fears. Then after you say those words it is just dead silence on the other end while that sentence sinks in.

Luckily, he didn't have a heart attack or something like that. Everything is pointing towards pneumonia and they'll be letting him go home today.

7/2 - Happy Birthday to me....Happy Birthday to me....
Actually, it's not my real birthday, that day was many years ago. Today is more like my birth anniversary.

The day started out by me dropping then stepping on and breaking my glasses - sigh..I must be getting old. I guess it's a good thing I almost always wear contacts. Thinking I might be less destructive outside of the house I went on the great Mustafar aka "Crispy" Anikan action figure hunt. No luck. I did pick up a 500 Darth Vader and an Anikan Mpire figure as consolations.

6/30 - Some weird bug bit me, it had a long black body with a forked tail. Now I'm all itchy. I put some 5 year old neosporan I had in the bathroom on the spot where the bug bit me. It stopped itching but now every couple of minutes I start itching somewhere else. It' not a real itch, just a fantom inch. It feels like there are bugs crawling on me. I hope it stops before I end up in a padded room banging my head against the wall screaming GET THESE BUS OFF OF ME!!!!!

6/28 - I got to go on a private tour of Jay Leno's garage this morning. That's right, it's just one of the perks of being a big, important person. Well okay, maybe it's a perk of being able to tag along with someone who knows important people. The tour was really interesting. There are actually three building that make up Jay's garage and they are all filled with vehicles. Everything from a Dussenburg that transported somebody back and forth to the Linberg baby trail to a new, specially made for Jay, Corvette z6 to a the first Harley Davidson edition Ford truck to roll off the assembly line. The best part about the cars was that 75% of them seem to get driven on a regular basis. Very few garage queens. It's nice to see someone that has that many cool cars and actually enjoys driving them.

6/16 - Revenge of the Dentist

I usually go out of my way to avoid going to the dentist and with good reason. After my crown fiasco a couple years ago, who could blame me. However, after using my handy dental mirror (purchased at a flea market) I discovered that I had a small cavity. Curse you Pixie Stix!! Eventually my intense liking of having my real teeth outweighed my disliking of the dental chair and I made an appointment to get my cavity filled.

I slouched into the dentist office at 1:30 today hoping for the best. I got seated, switched on my iPod for some soothing music and waited. A few minutes later the dentist came in to give me my numbing shot. She put the needle in my mouth. I felt the tip break the skin, then an unbelievable pain raced up the side of my face. It was excruciating for about 10 seconds. I then started shaking, I was also unable to focus and was seeing double. It turns out that the dentist hit a nerve with the shot. My vision started clearing up after 5 minutes. After another 5 minutes I was still shaken but no longer shaking so the dentist started to drill and fill the cavity. At 2:15 I stumbled out to my car with a slight headache, a numb face and $95 poorer.

6/13 - No rest for the wicked. It has been none stop busy since I've returned from my way too short vacation. The day after I got back I started house/cat sitting for two and a half weeks. The house I'm watching is apparently the promised land for spiders. I kill at least two spiders a day. Last Thursday I killed 8 - that's an all time personal best. Some I squash then I leave their mutilated bodies out in the open as a warning for all the other spiders. Several spiders thought building their webs in the shower would be a good idea, I flushed them down the drain. All because of me, one day daddy long legs will become amphibious.

6/2 - Jean Luc and I have returned! We had much fun, and a few beers, during our forays in Berlin and Prague. We stumbled around and visited all the major tourist sites, the Brandenburg Gate, the Riechtag and Checkpoint Charlie (pictured on the left) in Berlin. We then took the metro and ventured to Potsdam and Sachsenhausen (site of concentration camp).

After four days wandering around Berlin and its sorrounding we decided it was time to jump on the train and head to Prague. We were officially in Prague for about one hour before it started hailing down marble sized balls of ice. Luckily it only lasted about 15 minutes then we were on our way to see the castle, the bridge, and severed arms hanging over the entrances to old churches.

5/2 - I saw a Jaguer being chased by an Impala yesterday. That's something you'll never see on the Discover channel. Of course I was on the 101 Freeway and not in Africa so I guess that makes a little difference.

4/21 - Star Wars Celebration III, never will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villany...thankfully the scum and villany was limited to the concessons areas.

Yes, I voyaged once again to the frozen tundra that is Indiana, where only I can go back in late April and have it snow. The Hoosier state citizens better hope I never decide to pay them a visit in July.

Snow and cold weather aside Celebration III was a fun time. It's one of the ony places on Earth you can be at for less then 10 minutes before you are randomly quized by people in line beside you to see if you know what the first spoken line of Star Wars A New Hope is. Do you know???

4/4 - I finally found a preggers Padmé. I think the dark side of the force may still of won though. For one thing the figure really doesn't look like Padmé. Secondly, the figure looks like thirty days pregnant Padmé. She doesn't look hardly pregnant at all, much less with twins. I'm going to call her wardrobe malfunction Padmé from now on. It looks like she is just having a bad hair and clothes day.

4/2 - The dark side has won when you can't find any Padmé's

I didn't go to any midnight openings, but I was at Target bright and early this morning. I managed to snag an exclusive lava reflection Darth Vader and...well, a few other new Revenge of the Sith action figures. Then of course I needed to check out the selection at Walmart and pick up a new Darth Vader head case to give all my new action figures a proper home.

3/25 - Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! They're everywhere!!!!!

I came home today and there was another package waiting for me. I opened the box thinking to myself, surely this can not be a second deadly Peep assassin. How wrong I was.

Sure they try to trick you into inviting them into your house by wishing you a Happy Easter, but I know the truth....

I'm afraid to go home now, they're waiting for me in the shadows. I know it.

3/24 - My friends need to be punished...

I had hoped that one Easter I would be able to avoid the scourge that is known to the world under the innocent guise of "Peep." I had managed to secure a supply of Robin Eggs earlier in the month at a store where thankfully the Peep invasion had not yet started. At my local Target, where I usually get ambushed with aisles of Peeps as soon as I enter, I was spared the agony this year. Apparently, they have been so overwhelmed with the Peep hordes (that multiply just as fast as Tribbles from what I've heard), that have been forced to under go reconstruction to add an extra space to accommodate the Peep plague. My sources tell me that the Peep brigade's are gathering in several aisles at the rear of the store, near the sporting goods, where they are plotting their takeover of the entire Target. It was all going so well I knew my luck couldn't hold out much longer.

I arrived home at my apartment to find a package waiting on my doorstep. The package looked bloated, like something was waiting to escape from it. I should have known just then not to open it. I recklessly ripped open the package anyway, only to behold the horror that waited inside.

3/24 - Mothra Jr. stopped by my apartment yesterday. He was extremely pissed off and wanted to know why I haven't updated the Action Figure Theater or my website in FOREVER!

No, I have not abandoned anything and I swear on my blue snaggletooth with knee high silver disco boots that I will have a brand spanking new Action Figure Theater up on Monday.

I have been working like a house elf for the past few months. Jean Luc decided that we should take another vacation to Europe this year and since one of us doesn't get to ride in the overhead storage for free I've been taking on more freelance work than usual. Also, we all know that Star Wars Revenge of the Sith comes out very soon. On April 2nd the Revenge of the Sith toys start to arrive. I heard that they are planning on releasing around 70 figures just for this one movie! WOW! 70 x $6.99 = $$$$$$$$$$$$ I won't be buying all the figures but I will pick up a few ;-) I will also be going to Indianapolis to attend Celebration III.

2/1 - I'm just getting over being sick. I don't like being sick. Last weekend I was sick but well enough to be bored which is even worse. I decided to stumble over to Loews so I could share my disease with the unwitting public and buy supplies to build my custom A/V furniture. Somehow it made perfect sense to use the half hour intervals where I had the energy to sit up and move around to start my building project. It turned out pretty good. With my diminished strength and hand/eye coordination I somehow managed to build and paint two small shelved units to put my VCR, DVD and cable box in.

1/11 - How come every time I have a coupon for free M&M's Mini's Target has absolutely no M&M's Mini's? I went to Target to stock up on my drug of choice, Diet Coke. Caffeine makes everything okay. I had forgotten to buy aluminum foil the last three times I went to Target so I'm waking through the aisle like rain main.. aluminum foil, yeah aluminum foil. I don't use aluminum foil very much, now I have 200 yards of it. That should last about 5 years unless I decide to wrap my apartment in it so they don't know what I'm thinking.

1/3 - There and back again...A holiday travelers tale

You know it's going to be a long day when you get to the airport to find out that all your flights for that day have been canceled. Yes, that is how I began my annual Christmas trip back home to the frozen tundra that is Indiana in the winter.

I had awaken bright and early at 3:00 am and headed off to the airport, boarding pass in hand, ready to face the hell that is holiday travel at the airport. I make it there in plenty of time and make my way through security painlessly, it's at this point I decide I should probably find a status board to see what gate my flight is out of. I finally find a working board and see that my flight and two other flights to Dallas (my connecting airport) have all been canceled....crap. I head back down to the ticketing agent. She says that she can get me on another flight to Dallas that will get me there in time to make my connecting flight. Cool, I can run the 10 miles from arriving terminal to departing terminal in Dallas if I have to, I've done it before. The agent proceeds to get my ticketing in order. After 10 minutes of key typing and puzzled looks the agent say that it appears that my connecting flight out of Dallas has also been canceled...double crap. After another 20 minutes of typing the agent has managed to get me a confirmed ticket on a flight to Dallas, a standby ticket to Chicago, a standby ticket from Dallas to Indianapolis that would put me in 3 hours late and a confirmed seat from Dallas that would put me in almost 10 hours late. Whew... A little pause to acknowledge the very nice American Airlines ticket agent who spent more than 30 minutes trying to get me on an airplane.

Armed with a hand full of boarding passes I make my way through security again. I had decided that the standby to Chicago is my best option so I head over to the gate and cross my fingers that I hear my name called. Woohoo, mine is the first name they call for standby boarding. Three and a half hours later we land in Chicago. I run to the gate for the Indianapolis flight and get put on the standby list. It turns out the flight has been overbooked so I'm stuck. The next flight that I have a chance of getting on doesn't leave for five more hours. At this point, screw it, the weather is okay and the roads are clear I'm done flying for the day. I called my parents and they came to pick me up at Chicago.

Seven days later I head to Indianapolis to start my return journey. Good news, neither of my flights appears to be canceled or delayed. I head to security feeling confident. I make it to the X-ray machine where the security troll tells me I must remove my shoes. For those who may not know the TSA's policy on shoe removal is that it is NOT mandatory for you to remove your shoes. If your shoes match a certain criteria (really thick soles or leather) they will request that you remove your shoes. I have been through 8 airport security checkpoint with these shoes in the past year and have never had to remove them and have never beeped the metal detector. So, I told the security troll that it was not mandatory to remove my shoes and mine have never set off the beeper. She scowled at me and said "If you don't remove your shoes you have to go threw secondary security" - which is also NOT TSA policy. I said fine, she scowled some more with apparent displeasure that she could not bully me into removing my shoes and pointed me to the secondary screening area. I stayed put and informed her that I was not leaving sight of my luggage which was enjoying it's trip through the X-ray at this point. Much bigger scowl from the security troll. I don't know which pissed her off more, that I wasn't just another sheeple (sheep+people) that she could bully with no problem or that I actually know what the TSA's policy's are. They put my luggage in my sight and proceeded to wand me more thoroughly than usual, no doubt hoping I would beep so she could harass me some more. I didn't beep so she was forced to let me proceed to my gate.

My flight got out and into Dallas on time. I have an excruciatingly long layover at Dallas, three and a half hours. Finally, it was time to board the plane to head back to LA. It turned out that they changed the plane for our flight. We were supposed to be on a 767, but we were now going to be on a 777 (much bigger plane). I didn't think anything of it until I headed toward my 11B seat and noticed that the seats seamed awfully big and spacious. Because of the plane change I was in business class! Big reclining seats with popup leg rests and pop out personal video screens, this is the way to fly. We touched down in LA on time and I headed to the long term parking to get my car and head home.