Special guest announcement, workers comp, terminal hold, movie reviews, jobs suck, guns, song erasing, grandma giving birth, flower-power laptops, iPhone girl, more.

Links:

• Erk Pod Round Table 8
• King Of California (buy the DVD) (download the movie)
• Kingdom Of The Spiders (buy the DVD)
• “Most Unwanted Scrobbles”
• “Asus Intros Scented Laptops”
• “Woman gives birth to her own grandchild”
• “iPhone arrives with factory worker’s photos”

Music heard in this episode: You Am I (buy the CD) (download the CD)

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Show length: 1:35:04
File size: 65.4 MB
File type: 96 kbps stereo mp3

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This book was handed to me by a friend of mine, who remembered when I used to dye my hair blue. I could immediately tell that the book came from the Sci-Fi section, but was somewhat hesitant about reading it. I mean, it just about screamed out “cheesy”.

Once I opened the book, I realized that it had way more potential than I’d first guessed. Here we have a really silly and fun book, that combines classic Sci-Fi concepts with both sarcastic and goofy humor. It had me interested at the first scene, where the main characters are attacked by plants (and the plants look to be winning). As a highly allergic person, I find myself “attacked by plants” all the time! This was the book for me, after all.

I get the feeling that this book might be the third part of a series, but, I had no trouble following along despite never having read the first two books. (I will have to track those down sometime). The main character is Zachary Nixon Johnson, who mostly goes by “Zach”. He’s a private detective, and the last freelance PI working on Earth. And so, he gets some rather strange cases.

This time, Zach is trying to figure out who killed off three of the World Council Members. It seems the suspects are from the Moon. It sounds less odd when you realize that in “the world” inside this book, the Moon has been colonized years ago, and like many colonies, the Moon people feel much animosity towards Earth. The politics here are interesting, without becoming so complex as to become tedious. The Moon is tired of receiving all of the Earth’s garbage. Literally! The Council Members are voted in, and, as a result, are often popular celebrities. (One of these characters reminds me of Brittany Spears). People on both planets are constantly connected to something like the internet on crack by little devices they wear, called PIHI-pods, and news travels at the speed of wireless data. It’s an interesting world to visit as a reader.

Zach heads to the Moon, armed with a sentient gun, GUS, (that just wants to please him), and a holographic assistant, HARV,(who is sarcastic, and often acts like he is Zach’s mom). Both of these wonders of technology are provided to Zach by his friend, Dr. Randy, whose lab and ideas are better than anything seen in a James Bond movie. Zach also brings along his niece, Carol, who is one of the most powerful psychics on earth. But on the Moon, there are tons of women, (all with blue hair), who are even more powerful than Carol is. Most of these Moon women are either related to, or are the wives of, the most powerful diplomat on the planet. I found it interesting that in this Sci-Fi book that reads something like a “pulp” mystery, in a book with the word “Bombshell” in the title, that all the women in the book turn out to be super strong, independent, and powerful characters. There are even appearances by a few deities, all of whom are female. So, anyway, armed to the teeth, off Zach and company go to the Moon, to do some investigating. Trouble and hijinks ensue.

There are plenty of “geek” inside jokes in this book as well. They substitute the swear word “shit” with the word “DOS”. It made me giggle every time I read it. There are gorillas working on the Moon, which brings to mind “Planet of the Apes” in some ways. The list goes on. This is a book to just have fun with. Sci-Fi geeks who enjoy the humor of Douglas Adams will enjoy Zakour’s writing.

We’ve been living with roadwork and construction nearby for what seems like a year. This video documents some of the work that happened one night. Watch for the road-striping truck.

To see what some of this roadwork has looked like during the day, go here, here or here. Some photos of the construction can be seen here.

Music in this video is by 3rd Man.

Inside My Head Vidcast number 9

As many of you know, I play World of Warcraft. I have three different characters now, and my biggest character is only on level 37. In other words, I play, I enjoy it, but I do have a life outside of WoW as well. So far, I have (mostly) resisted the great temptation to simply stay home from work for about a week or so, and just level, level, level! It has not been easy.

This coming weekend is “Labor Day”, which (for many reasons) has always signaled to me “the end of summer vacation”.

Irony: having to work in retail hell on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of a three day weekend, that purportedly exists to recognize those who have to work wage slave type jobs. Way to go, Corporate America!

So, I won’t be going anywhere fun this Labor Day weekend, and therefore, I won’t be taking any interesting vacation photos. The most I can hope for is a few hours to play World of Warcraft.

Which got me thinking…. what would vacation photos look like, from the vantage point of Zoeie, my Draenei Shaman character? I put together this video, just for fun.

If anyone else out there plays WoW, you can find me there. Zoeie is on Lightbringer. I have a human rogue named Grayn on Argent Dawn, and a Night Elf Hunter, (of course), named Thrisper, on Hydraxia. Come say hello sometime. Also, I have been considering making a horde character, but, I haven’t completely decided what race, or what server to do that on. Suggestions?

One of the many additions to our new aquarium is a blue lobster we’ve named Mr. Schneider. (Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference.) Mr. Schneider is a rather industrious lil’ lobster. He has spent days (literally) creating a home for himself (we don’t actually know his gender) under a large rock. In the video, he is seen moving rocks around to help accommodate his new lair. Watch for cameos by a molly fish (R.I.P.) and a neon tetra.

Music in this video is by AjT.