No search fragments?

I'm a little disappointed that, when searching for an itinerary from Allegiant Air, if I type "alleg" in the search bar, nothing comes up. I thought I'd save a little time by not typing in the full word, but doing so caused me to get no results and have to search again. Isn't this a little counter-intuitive?

in reference to: Search - Gmail Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

Things to Do While Bored in a Parking Lot: #542

In Your Face(book)

A relative of mine decided to brighten up everyone's Facebook browsing with the following completely original content gem:

For my Savior, Jesus Christ, A new Facebook challenge...I am out to prove that
my friends will repost, I hope I am right!!! Let's lift up HIS name and make a
statement!! When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of You and Me. If you
are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, copy and repost. I am not ashamed

I stopped myself from replying in kind with this response:

Sorry everyone, but I'm too ashamed to admit to my bromance with Jesus Christ.
If only He had known as He died on that cross that I would be too big a sissy
to cave in to Facebook peer pressure in order to spread His gospel, He would
have died of embarrassment instead of his other grievous mortal wounds! Repost
this if you are a callow, spineless man and can't succeed in guilting other
people into perpetuating your religious chain letter.

As much as I began to imagine, and relish in, the idea of her fuming rage, I decided that for once I would control my angry tongue, and just post this where nobody would see it: my blog. Hooray!

Do I Need a Star Trek Fan Character?

As a Trekkie, I feel a little sad that I don't have a fan-made ship or whatever like a lot of the Trekkies do. I had invented one, years ago, but unsurprisingly it was very self-referential and I was the captain of it. And it was some kind of exploratory special forces so of course I'd be an even better captain than any other captain and they'd see me as their equal and invite me to parties. Forget that noise! I want a fan character base of operations I can be proud of, and I bet the new Star Trek online game doesn't even offer it as an option, instead saddling you with a ship and a crew so you can be a captain among a million captains.

No, if I had it all to do again - and I do, every day! - I'd choose a stationary locale as my base of operations, either a Deep Space station or a planetary research station. I probably wouldn't choose to be Starfleet, either, which speaks more to my own personal development as someone whose style stands on its own. In fact I have trouble seeing myself as anything other than myself - black and yellow accented coat with wild hair and beard. I love who I am nowadays. My wife loves who I am nowadays. I'm beginning to think that fan characters are an escapist habit of people who can't tolerate their own reflections - or are afraid to forge their reflection into what they want it to look like.

FINAL VERDICT: No. I do not need a Star Trek fan character. Long story short, I'm happy enough watching the exploits of the Star Trek universe from a viewer's perspective. I can go to conventions in my regular outfit, which is so unique that people stare at me all the day long. This was a completely pointless blog post; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Which was VERY LITTLE INDEED.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego Buried

Finally, a comic for that subset of people who need to see their fandoms of computer sleuthing games and Coen brothers films combined.

The Self-Sustaining Threeble

If an outside intelligence observed the goings-on at my community college over the course of a day, they would likely determine that, based on average intelligence, most humans would not make it to age thirty before expiring of stupidity-related consequences.

If the parking situation is not enough, mull on this for a bit. I saw a man stumble and fall off of the sidewalk while he was texting.

While I waited a half-hour for a parking place, nearly being rammed several times by people who feel they must get the nose of their car into an available parking place before the preceding car is fully out, I played some Brain Age Express: Sudoku while idling in a faculty parking place. (A girl saw me stopped there and gleefully parked beside me before heading into the school. She will have a parking ticket when she comes back out.) As I played, a logical situation that my brain automatically termed the "self-sustaining threeble" presented itself to me in the game. It works like this:



Because the middle row of possible numbers all sort of rely on each other for their eventual existence, the bottom space is clearly available to the missing number eight. I wonder if the Japanese have their own name for it. I also wonder what "sudoku" means in Japanese. I would have just named the game "puzzuru".

Back to school, back to school.

I start school again on Monday with a mixture of resignation and an adjective a tier lower than "excitement". I can't really say I'm excited about it. All things considered, I'd rather not go. But I do derive a lot of satisfaction from going to classes with Christina, because as long as she's around it's a pretty good time, I have a good chance of learning something, and it's basically guaranteed that my own apathy towards the educational system won't get me dropped out or failed.

This will be our last semester at Northeast State, after which we will have drafting certificates that in theory will open doors for us into the world of AutoCAD engineering. At that point, we can't sign up for a job at the same time, share the same cubicle. Nobody's going to hire us as a package deal if they hire us at all. So not only do I have the weight of the job market sitting on my shoulders, I also get to know that if I get hired, I have to solo it. That'll be me, in a position that somebody else probably deserves more, not really knowing what the hell I'm doing and possibly holding up the entire project's show because of it. Meanwhile, thanks to 21st century values, if Christina does get hired at the same place it will be to shuffle papers around, not to actually work on the computer - despite the fact that she has more natural aptitude for it than I do.

No, right now she's getting paid plenty at her job at Stellar Studios. She'll actually be getting less hours so that she can go to school to get a certificate for a job that won't give her the same opportunities she has at her current job.

What do I want? The only thing I've ever wanted. To draw pictures when it pleases me to do so, and to find entertainment for the rest of the time that it doesn't.