Fun fun fun. I'm heading out to Austin on Sunday and I'm nowhere near ready. That's the state I've always wanted to be in. No, that's not true. Nothing freaks me out more than not being ready. I suppose I should get ready then.

Hmm, so all that about Jack being shipped to a Chinese prison camp had the validity of Washington DC being the target of that missile. The season finale was pretty good. It didn't piss me off like the first season's finale, but it did leave me with a sort of emptiness that I thought 24 would fill. There weren't any really unpredictable twists that make me wish I had a throbbing vein in my forehead, which is what I came to expect from that show. OK, there were the unpredictable Cisco commercials. And those did anger me. But really, what did a DOS attack add to the story? And why did Michelle need to video conference with Edgar that one time? She used to just call him with, you know, one of those voice telephone thingies. Hmm, unless she wanted to see him. Now there's an interesting twist: Michelle covers all Tony with all this gooey mushiness but, really, she and Edgar are secretly married...and members of a militant Australian terrorist organization who infiltrated CTU Los Angeles.

And what's with all these problems in LA? If I lived in LA in the 24 universe, I'd have a bomb shelter built and stocked by the end of the show. Of course, this safe haven of mine would proceed to become the base of operations for a bunch of Antarctican terrorists because I forgot the combination to the lock on the door and therefore never went in there after I locked it up.

After threatening to buy a new phone for the past 50 years, I finally got myself a new phone. It's a Samsung X427. Small and cheap, just how I like things. Feature-wise, it's a downgrade from my T68i, seeing as it doesn't have Bluetooth or IR and stuff. But I consider it an upgrade because I can use the 0 button. Being able to dial 0 (and use the # key) is a real upgrade.

A grain of truth: Diet Coke and Diet Barq's Root Beer tastes like Diet Barq's Root Beer. I haven't tried regular Coke and Regular Barq's.

I saw Episode III twice on Saturday. It was that good. Actually, it could have used some better dialog and maybe some actors instead of cardboard cutouts, but overall, it was great. I thought the action sequences were awsome. Yoda and a lightsaber together is like cookies and creme or mint and chocolate chips -- delicious. There is something beautiful about a little green guy with big ears kicking an old, ugly guy's ass. He's also a tough little fella, bouncing around on the floating platforms of the galactic senate chambers. Yet even after that beating, he can still talk funny. They weren't kidding when they called him a Master.

I also liked how they tie everything together. Most of the continuity problems can be handwaved away. Why did Obi-Wan not recognize R2D2 and C3P0 in Episode IV? Well, I think, technically, he said he never remebered "owning" any droids, but he didn't actually own the droids. What about when Obi-Wan (Ben) told Luke that "Obi-Wan" was a name that he hadn't heard since...oh...before Luke was born. Well that was BS. Of course, so was that BS about Vadar betraying and killing Luke's father. All this can, however, be explained by the fact that Obi-Wan became kind of a nut case during his time on Tatooine. I mean, Yoda became a bit nutty in his swamp on Dagobah. (Yet he still was able to talk funny.) We can blame it all on permanent insanity.

Actually, I think we can blame George Lucas's making of all his movies on permanent insanity.

I saw Episode III twice on Saturday. It was that good. Actually, it could have used some better dialog and maybe some actors instead of cardboard cutouts, but overall, it was great. I thought the action sequences were awsome. Yoda and a lightsaber together is like cookies and creme or mint and chocolate chips -- delicious. There is something beautiful about a little green guy with big ears kicking an old, ugly guy's ass. He's also a tough little fella, bouncing around on the floating platforms of the galactic senate chambers. Yet even after that beating, he can still talk funny. They weren't kidding when they called him a Master.

I also liked how they tie everything together. Most of the continuity problems can be handwaved away. Why did Obi-Wan not recognize R2D2 and C3P0 in Episode IV? Well, I think, technically, he said he never remebered "owning" any droids, but he didn't actually own the droids. What about when Obi-Wan (Ben) told Luke that "Obi-Wan" was a name that he hadn't heard since...oh...before Luke was born. Well that was BS. Of course, so was that BS about Vadar betraying and killing Luke's father. All this can, however, be explained by the fact that Obi-Wan became kind of a nut case during his time on Tatooine. I mean, Yoda became a bit nutty in his swamp on Dagobah. (Yet he still was able to talk funny.) We can blame it all on permanent insanity.

Actually, I think we can blame George Lucas's making of all his movies on permanent insanity.

Let's see, what about 24? So I kinda predicted the Tony incident. It was a bit predictable. Without having seen the second half of the finale, I'm going to make a prediction for the next season: Jack Bauer is going to be shipped to a Chinese prison camp and uncover a plot by a bunch of prisoners to attack the a major target in the US and blame it on the Chinese to start a war. With tensions between the US and China strained by the embassy incident, the prisoners, Habib Marwan's associates who failed in the nuclear attack of Day 4 (my prediction that it'll fail) decide to get the Chinese to do their dirty work.

So wear a Hawaiian shirt. If you'd like.

A customer service agent from Lame called me this morning and told me to slow down. Apparently there aren't enough levels of Lame for me to go down to so they need to build more, but it'll take 6-8 weeks before they can complete the newest lower levels of Lame. What horrible act of lameness did I commit this time? I'm going to see Star Wars twice on Saturday, maybe three times if I can find someone to see it with me in the afternoon. Oh, and I didn't ride my bike to work even though it is so pretty outside. And I said pretty.

I'm almost done with Gundam SEED. Disc 10 should arrive today and all the mysteries of the SEEDs and PLANTs and Orbs will finally be revealed. This is a very exciting time in my life. Probably more exciting than that time I ate shredded wheat for breakfast. I'm glad I lead such an eventful life. With Gundam SEED finished, I can try to kick the Crackflix habit again. Now if they release Gundam SEED: Destiny on DVD over here, there's no way I can cancel. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), it's still only showing in Japan so it won't be here for a year or so. It's interesting, this is the only Gundam show to have a sequel to it. There are also a bunch of spin-off manga series and I think there might have been a movie too. It's just that badass.

I reached the lowest low of Lame today. And it's not just because I didn't go see Star Wars at midnight. That put me down to a lower level of Lame but not the lowest level. I hit the absolute lowest level this morning. I woke up at about 6:30am to bike to work. It is Bike to Work Day, after all. Or rather, it's Bike to Work in the Rain Day, well, because it is raining. The radio said that it would dry up this afternoon so I figure it wouldn't be so bad. And when I went out there, it was just sprinkling. A little rain never hurt anyone. A lot of rain causes problems. Apparently so does a little rain when I don't have any rain gear. I managed to go just under a mile before I decided that I was wet. Oh, I knew that I was getting wet, but I hadn't crossed the wet threshold that put me over "kinda wet" and into "wet" or "frigging wet" or "dude, I'm wearing a swimming pool". Let's see how everything fared:

Helmet: There's water dripping from it, but nothing bad.
Glasses: I shoulda used Rain-X on my glasses.
Shirt: Cotton long-sleeved shirts are kind of stupid for wet-weather riding. Since I didn't have fenders, the bottom of my shirt is covered with wet dirt. (I could have said mud, but um, I didn't, and then I did.)
Gloves: The tops are soaked, but that's fine. Hopefully the leather palms didn't get too wet and start shrinking. Or maybe that's good because those are embedded with dirt from my last fall.
Bag: This was the first time I got to try out my messenger bag in the rain. It's covered with wet dirt, but it still kept water out of everything in there. So the only waterproof-by-designed gear that had held up.
Pants: I wore the shorts I usually wear on the trails. Today, I found out that they're not terribly waterproof. As in, not waterproof at all. And, well, the back is covered with wet dirt. So it looks like I had a gastronomical accident. No one needed to know that.
Socks: They're wet and dirty. Uh, that's about it.
Shoes: They started getting wet when I decided to turn around, so they're not so wet. But I had I gone on, they would have been soaked.

So a little rain did hurt me. I ended up driving to work. Along the way, I passed at least five bikers (all with at least a waterproof jacket) and a couple of refuel stations or something. Yeah, maybe I should have just ridden in the rain. Bah. And I missed the midnight Star Wars. Bah^2.

Yesterday morning, I decided to get back on my bike and ride to work. This week is supposed to be bike-to-work week at work or something. I wanted to join in. The ride wasn't too eventful except that my chain was rubbing against my front derailleur in the smaller cogs so I couldn't ride that fast. I think I messed something up when I took my back wheel off when I got the flat so now the rear derailleur and the chain rings aren't lining up. To get to work, I need to cross highway 101. Well, not the highway itself but I need to cross an overpass where busy fools are trying to get off of and onto the highway and hit as many bikers as possible.

Riding on a Saturday morning isn't so bad though. The real problem is riding home on weekdays. If I leave any time between about 4:30pm and 7:00pm, I'll probably become a hood ornament for an Escalade and I'll have to pay the owner to clean myself off of his yuppie-ass motor vehicle. That will suck because I am a very messy hood ornament. I can't help it, I just am. I've heard rumors of a dirt path that goes under 101 but I've never tried it until yesterday. Lo and behold, there is a dirt path. Well, it starts out as a dirt path and then turns into a rock path. Then it gets better...loose gravel path. But the path does take me under 101 dumps me out on Scott. Not too bad, but the path is kind of scary. It looks like they're building a paved path but it's not open yet.

So with that, I'm not going to bike to work tomorrow. No, that's not why. The real reason is that it might rain tomorrow and that would make the trail really uber sucky. Fine, fine. That's not the real reason either. I'm not biking to work tomorrow because I can't fit a change of clothes, a towel, and another pair of shoes in my bag. I'm going to bring some of the stuff with me when I go in tomorrow so I can ride on Tuesday.

Hey, I never said it was a good reason.

So what's this about crack? Well when I got back from my ride on Saturday, I discovered, to my horror, that Crackflix had sent me another DVD instead of Gundam Seed Disc 6. Apparently, disc 6 is on "Short Wait". I watched disc 5 yesterday but after watching the music video for the opening theme song in the DVD extras about 15 times, I felt something was lacking. Yes, something was definitely missing. Hmm, what could it be? Oh yeah, maybe the rest of the fracking story! Argh. I really need that Gundam Seed fix so I went to Fries and shop-lifted disc 6. The pink-highlighter-door-guy didn't even notice! Ha ha!

Fine, fine. I lied about shop-lifting from Fries. I actually went to Fry's. All right, I lied about the shop-lifting part too. I paid full price. It's really pretty sad. And I bought some beef jerky.

That show really is badass. I don't like the fact that it's some kid who's reluctantly piloting a giant robot and killing people though. That's something I didn't like about Evangelion also. But it's not so bad for Gundam Seed. In Eva, Shinji was piloting mainly because his father called him a loser. Kira started out piloting because he was the only one who could do it, but really, he was doing it to protect his friends. And that makes all the difference. Kira is fighting for a more noble cause so I feel that he's more justified in what he's doing. Of course, Shinji isn't fighting against people so it's a bit different. Throwing Kira's childhood friend Athrun into the loop as an enemy mobile suit pilot makes the impact of the characters' decisions that much more powerful. Of course, big, flying robots are always super cool. Oh, and the abbreviation for Mobile Suit Gundam is MSG. No wonder it's addictive.

Did I mention that I dropped my pump on my foot while working on my bike yesterday? Now I have a cut and a bruise on my foot to add to my stupid wounds. That's the REAL reason why I'm not riding to work tomorrow. Or maybe it's just because I'm lame. Because I dropped my pump on my foot and it hurts.

A little known fact about me in the past week was that I tried to go on a cool vegetarian diet. Actually, it was more of a mostly-vegetarian diet. I was actually a best-effort vegetarian. I didn't really care if the food I was eating touched meat, I just didn't eat the meat. Not too hard, right? The whole effort ended very disastrously on Saturday when we went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Once my sister put a piece of chicken on my plate, I knew my diet was over. But, really, it was over last Wednesday when I ate a bit of Caesar salad that clearly said "non-vegetarian" on the label. But I chalked that up as a minor infraction and went on. Then, on Friday, I put some of those fake bacon bits on my salad. But those are made of soy right? Right. That's not going to stop me. A whole piece of chicken is too much to hand-wave away, however. It was mostly bone, but that is way beyond my abilities to decipher.

Dude, WTF! There was just a big silly product placement ad for Cisco in 24. That was so incredibly tacky. If only the show wasn't so close to finishing this season I'd stop watching this crap. Yeah, self-defending, my ass.

Speaking of big disasters, 24 is a big disaster. It's a bigger disaster than the first season. Seriously, though. How many things can go wrong? I thought season one was a statistical improbability but season four is a statistical impossibility. This many bad things cannot be happening at one time. Oh, and guess what, all of it takes place in the same geographical area. I'm waiting for the asteroid to land and an alien to reveal that Habib Marwan is from P9Y-4C3 and is actually a cylon sleeper agent before realizing that it's on the wrong show, on the wrong network and wearing the wrong costume and puts on a Chef Tony mask and starts selling Wonder Forks with a bonus Ab-Jiggler-Plus that turns flabby abs into flabbier, but better-looking, abs all for a low, low price of a run-on sentence. Because that's the only thing that hasn't happened on the fracking show.

Tonight's episode is pretty remarkable as far as 24 episodes go because none of the random henchmen got killed. I guess they all had speaking roles.

The big development of this week is that I might be getting shipped to Texas to do some work for one of our partners in Austin. Everyone at work is acting like I'm going there for sure, but, so far, I only know about when I'll be heading over there (in two weeks) and who else is going with me (four other dudes). I have no idea for how long (three to six months, maybe), where I'll be living (it'll be paid for), or what I'll be doing (stuff). One of my old co-workers, who left the company a few weeks ago, will be starting her new job in Austin about a week before I get there. That'll be neat. What'll make this trip really interesting is that this will be the first time I've been further than a few hours drive away from home. The management knows this and I'm waiting for a decision on whether or not it'll be OK for me to be curled up in a fetal position and crying for the first week. I expect that it won't be a problem. I'm pretty excited to be going, but at the same time, I'm a bit worried that I'm not badass enough to do whatever it is they need me to do over there. Hopefully I'll find out more information about what's going on before I leave. One would expect to know this before one leaves on a business trip, but I'm not counting on anything. Keeps life interesting. There is never a dull moment in my dull life.

My badass bike cuts are healing. As of today, my left arm is still attached and mostly functional. Watching wounds heal is fascinating. It's also painful if the wound is your own. Trust me on that one. I can't really move my arm very much because there's a bandage at the elbow so it's always slightly bent. I suppose my left side looks like C3P0, but less shiny and golden.

There's less than two weeks before Episode III comes out. All the previews are looking badass. I've heard reviews saying that it's very dark and bloody but really good. So I'm pretty excited about that too. I wonder if there are still tickets available for opening night/morning. The last time I saw a 12:01 showing of a movie was Lord of the Blings: Return of the King. I'm not sure what happened during the movie, but I do know that as soon as I came home, I got really, really sick. But no one gets sick at Star Wars movies, so this should be great. I'm predicting that Anakin becomes Darth Vader after Obi-Wan throws him into a pit of hot, molten something hot.

Since I'm going to be leaving the area for a while, I'm probably going to cancel my Netflix subscription (again). In the mean time, I moved all the movies that I really need to see up in the queue. So I managed to watch the first four episodes of Gundam Seed. At first I was a bit annoyed at the teenager-forced-to-pilot-giant-robot story line, but after watching some more of it, I can conclusively conclude that it really is badass.

When will I cease to be stupid? I thought when people get older, they get smarter. I seem to be getting stupider and stupider. For example, on Sunday I decided to bike down a hill that was way too hard for me and bit it. My left arm is scratched up. There is a really big scratch down the whole arm. My elbow is also pretty scratched up. At some point, I expected stop doing stupid things, but it's not now.

Fortunately, my legs are still OK so I can still bike. But I'm planning to stay off of that confounded contraption for a week while I heal up. It's raining anyway. For now, I'm going to stick to riding a stationary bike. I've never fallen off of a stationary bike. Ever. Seriously.

The rest of the weekend was fun. I drove up Saturday at noon. Traffic wasn't too bad and I got there in pretty good time. I stopped at Vacaville to grab a bite to eat. I believe the Carl's Jr. on Orange Road at the Vacaville outlets is the friendliest fast food restaurant on the planet. The manager did everything with a smile and even said bye when I left. That was a really strange, but uplifting experience.

The job I went up there for was to help Phill philm an awards banquet for a local real estate company. It was pretty interesting. I used a camera that was really fracking heavy. Most of the weight was supported by my right pinky By the end of the taping, I couldn't move my pinky anymore. The event was very formal, but, in the middle, a bunch people left to change into hip-hop clothes to present the awards. However, before that happened, they showed a music video that Phill made. Picture some older women rapping and dancing. Badass. When the video (which was awesome) finished, the ladies came out and presented the awards...in another rap. Wow. I was supposed to hold a camera steady, but I forgot to turn on a light so everything ended up kind of dark. I can't even do that right.

On Sunday, we did a ride in the morning then we tried to do a ride in the afternoon but I decided to go and kill myself so we cut that ride short. In the evening, we had an awesome barbecue. Y'all gotta try Phill's Homemade Phries. They're good. Really good.

I left on Monday morning (took the day off). Phill had to return a camera in Sacramento so I followed him there and then we went to Davis for some sushi at Fuji's. That place is great. All-you-can-eat sushi for $11. And it's none of that Todai sushi 'n' stuff. This is quality sushi. After that, I headed home, and that was my weekend. w00t.

I'm going to go clean my wounds now.