Living in the Scoot Utopia

Hello muddah, hello faddah,
I see you found ... Scoot U-top-yah.
Hope that you don't find it boring
While I quickly run through and do some cen-sor-ing.

Yep, while glancing at my logs a few moments ago, I found that one of my parents discovered my site over lunch today while googling me and spent their lunch hour reading my posts.

Now I have to start being good.

Posted by ScooterJ at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last night, thanks to the alert find and quick actions of Brandon, I was able to attend a sneak preview of Friday's season 3 premiere of Battlestar Galactica. It was a nice event, held at the Sprint IMAX theater at the Zoo, and while naturally the nerd contingient was well-represented, there was also a surprising cross section of the general population as well.

I do have a couple of suggestions for the organizers:

• If you are going to give away video games and ipods based upon asking trivia questions to 300+ sci-fi geeks crammed into a room, have a better plan in mind than "whoever shouts out the right answer first wins". :)
• If you're using the IMAX screen but the show itself is not actually in IMAX format, make sure people know that before they go in so that they won't be disappointed.

As for the season premiere itself, I will say absolutely nothing that will spoil it for fans of the show. However if you don't want to even know so much as my reactions, stop reading now.

• Battlestar Galactica has perhaps the best, smartest writing of any show currently on television, and this seaon's premiere is no exception. This is possibly the best season premiere episode I have ever seen of any television show, period. This episode could work equally well as a season finale.

• Certain aspects of this episode are going to make a lot of people very uncomfortable. Political overtones present in the first two seasons are now suddenly and dramatically reversed and it makes for some intense uneasiness that is sure to generate a lot of discussion.

• While most fans are anxiously awaiting this Friday's episode, I am now even more anxiously awaiting next Friday's episode.
  

If you are a fan of the show, you will not be disappointed. If you are not yet a fan, there's still time to grab the DVDs and get caught up. It's worth the effort.

Thanks again, Brandon, for the ticket!

Posted by ScooterJ at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A bag of traditionally-grown spinach has turned up infected with e. coli, so it's no longer just organic spinach that's affected. So much for my theory that the contamination came from manure-based fertilizers.

Posted by ScooterJ at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ken pulled a fast one on me and has hooked me up with some unexpected, exciting, and much-needed pre-birthday goodness. Read all about it on Ken's blog entry about it.

Thank you Ken!!!!!!

Posted by ScooterJ at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well the spinach that's been making so many people sick across 19 states and has killed 1 person so far has been narrowed down to Earthbound Farms organic spinach. (Which also happens to be the brand I usually buy.)

Organic means no artificial pesticides or fertilizers are used.

For fertilizer, manure is used instead.

Gee, I wonder where all that e. coli came from?

When was the last time a spinach salad grown with chemical fertilizers killed anyone?

Just a thought...

Posted by ScooterJ at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I sent the following to Ken at 2:24am on Tuesday, September 11, 2001:

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 02:24:07 -0500 To: ken From: Scott Murdock Subject: A friendly warning Cc: Bcc:

Today (Tuesday) is gonna be an ass day for me, as I am gonna try to cut myself off from all distractions and get a shitload ofwork done so that I can try to get something billable for October.

I'll still be in IM but I will be making myself accessible to you and you alone. My phone will be off. If anyone other than Sharon asks about me, tell them I am sick or something. :)

No matter what happens, I cannot let anything distract me today!

-Scoot-

So much for that, huh?

Posted by ScooterJ at 02:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was out walking my dog this afternoon when I spotted a dead bird:

Just a few feet away I spottted another...

Then another...

And another...

And finally, another...

All of these dead birds were along the sidewalk in front of this DST building at 9th & Washington.

I did not see any more once I stepped away from this building. How and why is DST killing these birds?

Posted by ScooterJ at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I washed my shoes last night and set them out to dry, but they failed to dry by morning so I was forced to put on some sandals and drive to work. (When I walk too far in the sandals, I get blisters.)

As I was heading south on Main Street downtown I got stuck behind some Jo who was coming to a complete stop at every steel plate in the construction zone, then creeping across them very slowly.

This person was driving an Xterra.

Yep, someone who bought a vehicle widely hyped about its off-roading capabilities was afraid of taking it over a 1-inch bump in the road.

That poor car, it's probably being mocked by all the other Xterras.

Posted by ScooterJ at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday evening I went up to my office to clean my saltwater tank that I keep up there.

In the tank I have a large piece of fake coral as one of the directions. I turned it on its side to clean the gravel under it, then put it back upright.

A few hours later I noticed that my spotted hawkfish was missing. After checking the usual hiding places, it hit me that I forgot to make sure no one had swum up inside the coral before I put it upright. I lifted the coral and out dropped the hawkfish -- dead.

Unsure whether I had crushed it or if it had asphyxiated after so long in a confined space, I attempted Fish CPR on it with a gentle but rapid compression of its body as I moved the fish rapidly through the water to get oxygen across its gills. But no luck, I called the code and pronounced the fish dead at 10:22pm last night.

Burial was in commode #2 of the 15th floor men's restroom in Commerce Tower.

I briefly flirted with the idea of not flushing just to create a surprise for someone on Monday, but decided in the end to respect the dignity of the fish and pull the handle.

I'm a lousy fish-dad.

Posted by ScooterJ at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anyone else downtown notice the crazy rain that fell between 6:30 and 7:00 last night?

I was on the patio at Harry's Country Club and it started raining very lightly, Except the rain was falling on exactly one half of the patio. Those on the dry side were wondering why those on the other side were looking skyward and moving under the umbrellas. The odd part? Yes, we could see big storm clouds massing many miles to the south, but above us was a blue sky except for a tiny wisp of a cloud directly overhead.

About 10 minutes later it started raining again -- this time on everyone and a little harder -- enough to make some people move indoors. It rained steadily for about 2 or 3 minutes. Except this time there were no clouds above us at all... the rain was falling from a clear blue sky.

Posted by ScooterJ at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)