Okay, I admit it! Not only do I periodically peruse the website Animals With Lightsabers, but recently I also submitted one that I photoshopped myself. (Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!) And today, it made it on the site!

I borrowed the picture of Apollo and Higgins from a coworker because of how well it lent itself to the subject. (And because it’s a really cute picture!)

Apollo had to be the Sith (non-geek translation: bad guy), because a true Jedi would never sneak up behind their opponent like that.

And besides, their owner says that Higgins always wins anyway.

The following are all search terms that ultimately led searchers to my blog this month:

“funny comic strips with children”

Might as well start with the best!

“how to use a homesmart samurai shark”

If you don’t know by now, I certainly can’t tell you!

“proper way to butcher ostrich”

I know a lot of things. This is not one of them. (Thank goodness.)

“paul rudd in sunglasses”

Uh, sure! Why not.

How’s that?

“rhetorical questions about bugs bunny”

Which I’m sure have something to do with why he, along with many of his other Looney Tunes pals were always dressing in drag.

“the beatles blow”

Well now that’s just rude. My brother will not be happy with you at all!

“dullness in the church today”

It’s a valid topic. Not one that I’ve ever addressed, but something that may need to be looked at in the future.

“gothic pin up models”

Oh dear. Sorry freaks, but the closest thing I have to that is my Cinnamon Altoids tin that I keep loose change in. For some reason I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for though.

NetLingo’s acronym of the day today was “nth” which stands for “nothing”. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what I’ve had to contribute to the blogosphere lately; nothing!

Now, I’m not one to nitpick, but “nth” isn’t really an acronym at all. It’s just shorthand. It’s the language of texting, chatting, instant messaging, tweeting, sometimes even blogging. But it is quickly becoming entirely too prevalent in other forms of written communication as well.

I have worried about the consequences of the over-use of such shorthand for a while now, and much to my chagrin, it’s finally making the news. University professors in California have reported instances of the term LOL, emoticons, and even the substitution of the number 4 for the word “for” in written assignments. I don’t know about you, but I think that is unacceptable.

I don’t claim to be the best writer in the world, but if I start using text-talk on my blog, please slap me.

srsly   :-)

Regardless of how functional or handy Bluetooth headsets are for those few fleeting seconds a day that you actually need them, to walk around in public wearing one 24/7 is just plain ridiculous. Sure they can help you out if you need to talk while driving or typing, but what good are they doing you in the mall or at a ballgame? You may think that it makes you look tech savvy or like a highly evolved cyborg. But trust me – it does not. It just makes you look like a douchebag.

MSN Careers published an article today that lists the Top 10 Surprisingly Sexy Careers, and believe it or not somehow I made the list!

On the rundown of not-so-obvious sexy jobs, IT Worker landed at number 5. But why? Just because my wife has a weakness for geeks, doesn’t mean all women do. And I am certainly not wearing a garter-belt under my uniform or breathing through my eyelids. According to the author the answer is two-fold. First of all, there’s the power. Whether you’re a CEO or a Mail Clerk, if your email won’t open, you call me. Period. I can find files you deleted and see how long you spent on eBay today. Power is pretty sexy I guess. Then there is the fact that IT typically has the most lax dress code in the office. I’m not sure how that’s sexy. Enviable maybe, but sexy?

My wife has repeated the statement several times in the last few weeks, “I don’t understand and I don’t like this new cell-phone culture“. I have to agree with her, not just because she’s the wife and that’s expected of me, but because she has a point. It seems that no matter where you go or what you’re doing there will inevitably be multiple people talking or texting on their mobile devices.

Over the weekend as we sat in the dining room of a local restaurant, I watched a couple come in and sit down. They appeared to be middle-aged (whatever that means). The man wore a baseball cap and a scraggly beard, the woman was wearing a large, fluffy, southwestern patterned fleece jacket. They sat down, browsed the menu, ordered, ate, paid, waited for their change, and left; all without ever once interacting with each other. The lady was talking on the phone from the minute they walked through the door and was still engaged in the same conversation when they left. Personally I find that rude; 1) to the man she was with, 2) to the other customers seated near her, and 3) to the waitress.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. It happens all the time. Today’s society can’t go more than a minute or two without connecting to someone or something. We must send and receive text messages, talk to someone, check the weather report or sports scores, or update our facebook statuses. We even caught our daughter (God love her) texting at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

You would think, since I am a self-proclaimed geek and gadget nut, that I would be all about the fancy cell phones or so-called “smart phones”, but you would be wrong. I like my phone, but that’s really all I want or need it to be; a phone. I don’t mind leaving home without it. I have no misgivings about leaving it in the car when we enter a movie theater. I leave it off while I am at work or at the very least on vibrate in my bag. I have been out and realized hours later that though I have been carrying it all day, I never actually turned it on. I have an iPod. I have a PC and a notebook. I have a digital camera. I have a TV, a calendar, a calculator, and video games. I don’t need or want my phone to be any of those things. I need it to make and receive calls when necessary. That’s really all.

Don’t get me wrong, mobile phones definitely have their uses. In fact, I don’t know what we did without them. But it’s gone too far and I believe it’s leading to even further deterioration of good old-fashioned manners and respect, which were both on the endangered species list to begin with.

Have you ever been in an unfamiliar city & needed to use the bathroom? SURE! We all have! Don’t you wish there was a website that would list and map all available public toilets in an area and even rate them for cleanliness and availability? Well now there is!

Say hello to MizPee.com

It’s just what the urologist ordered!

The problem is, by the time you’re able to log on, find the needed bathroom & print a map; you might then need a website that lists laundromats or department stores where you can purchase a dry pair of pants.

Being the Star Wars geek that I am, we obviously made time this weekend to see the movie. Many non-geeks are confused about what Clone Wars actually is, so let me try to explain. The Clone War was first hinted at by both Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope. It actually took place between episodes two and three. It was a major conflict between the armies of the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems and named for the clone troopers who fought for the Republic.

Clear as mud, right?

The Clone Wars movie is basically a precursor to an eponymous animated series which will begin airing this fall on Cartoon Network and TNT. Both are based in this timeframe and use the war as a backdrop.

Visually, it’s stunning. No one would expect anything less from Lucas and his band of happy CGI troopers. The animation style is very stylized and angular which I like too. The rest is pretty much typical Star Wars fare. The dialog is what it is, and the story is decent – over the heads of one sector of the target audience, a little simplistic for the other. As a whole I liked it. But I’m a fanboy, so many would say my opinion is slanted. And they may be right. I do own both the Ewoks and Droids cartoons on DVD after all. But here are my two biggest complaints;

1)  No Opening Crawl. Star Wars movie goers are used to seeing the iconic “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” followed by a three paragraph textual description of the happenings immediately prior to the events of the movie; an easy way to set the scene and give a little back-story in a few quick seconds. It’s also an integral moment in all of the movies, an homage to the Flash Gordon serials of the 30’s and 40’s, and a huge reason why Lucas bucked the studios and refused to include opening credits. In the case of Clone Wars, we see the beginning phrase, but then a narrator reads the setup as they flash images and mini-clips that may or may not go along with the narration. It was very un-Star Wars and felt more like a “previously on LA Law” kind of moment. Maybe they’re planning on the majority of their fans to be either illiterate, or more likely too young to read.

2) New Hutt Characters. If Rotta the Huttlet, Jabba’s Muppet Baby-esque son at the heart of the movie’s story-line, wasn’t bad enough, they had to go and introduce us to the single most annoying character in the Star Wars universe, possibly even more annoying than Jar Jar Binks, Ziro the Hutt. Ziro is Jabba’s estranged and evidently flamboyantly gay uncle who lurks in the red-light district of Coruscant. He has purple skin with powder blue tattoos, wears a plume of feathers behind his ear, and talks like Truman Capote in amazingly perfect English. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I audibly groaned every time he had a scene.

But, that being said, I still liked it and will probably watch the series too.

Thanks for hijacking even more of my life George! My wife will be thrilled.

Three of my favorite things; 1) Star Wars, 2) Stop-Action Animation & 3) A healthy dose of complete insanity…

After a few weeks of going to battle with some ugly Persians (some folks calls ‘em Trojans or Viruses, but I calls ‘em Persians). The enemy has finally been defeated and purged from our server with the help of a fellow army (also known as “consultants”) from a Northern territory. We have secured our borders and fortified our troops and are now in the process of rebuilding the resources that we lost to their evil weapons. But the hardest part is over. The rest is expensive and time consuming, but the villagers can finally rest easy and feel secure within our borders for I, King SysAdmin, have arisen victorious!

SPAAAAARTAAAAAA!