Troy Lenze

10:41 am: How To Make TV Better
My hypothesis: Changing the main character of a show you don't like into a dalek will make it better

Examples:
1. Friends: Instead of seeing Ross whine all the time, the Ross-dalek flails his plunger, eyestalk, and gun while yelling, "EX-TERM-I-NATE!!!"

2. ER: When doctor-dalek is told a patient is going into cardiac arrest, he flails and yells, "RE-SUSS-I-TATE!!!" If the patient can't breath, he flails and yells, "IN-TU-BATE!!"

3. The Practice: In her closing remarks, Cameron Manheim-dalek flails and shouts, "EX-ON-ER-ATE!!!"

4. American Idol: Contestant-dalek shoots everyone while shouting, "EX-TERM-I-NATE!!!"

Please comment with further examples or counter-examples.

10:22 pm: Give Me Your Tech Help!
So, one of my desktops died awhile back. It has an ethernet card in it I was thinking of scaveging. I already have an ethernet card in my other desktop, but if I add another one is there a chance I'll have an even faster connection? I'm running Ubuntu Linux on the living desktop if that matters.

12:48 am: Life Is Good
Life is good. I can say that after having lost my grandmother a few months ago and having had my father-in-law in the hospital just days ago.

The 4th season finale of Six Feet Under really resonated with me tonight. Life has pain in it, but pain is nothing next to the infinite possibilities of life. Maybe watching Six Feet Under, Carnivale, and X-Files on my Netflix queue has been coloring my thinking lately. A little comedy, morbidity, tarot and conspiracy is a damn interesting mix to live in.

If there was a major arcana card that I emobdied, it would be The Fool. I stumble through life blissfully unaware of most of the pitfalls. I don't plan ahead. I make snap decisions. I listen to my gut more than my head. I do what I will and let the chips fall where they may. Sure, it's gotten me in trouble before, but I don't regret much of it. I could have made a lot of wiser decisions, but only a few of them would I actually want to go back and change, and they are pretty much small, stupid decisions that had much larger consequences than I could have imagined.

So, if you're feeling a bit down, come dance along the edge of the cliff with a dog nipping at your heels with me. It's fun, I promise. :)

11:46 am: What I want to see
I want to see a spoof of Battlestar Galactica done using tortoises. It will be called Battlestar Galapagos and feature Edward James Slomo and Mary McDawdle.

I want to see a new chai tea put out called Chai'Halud with the tagline: The spice must flow!

I'm sure there are other things I want to see, but that's all my brain could supply me with at 2 in the morning. :)

03:28 pm: My Nanny
April 22nd my grandmother died. Like my dad did to his grandmother, we all called her Nanny. I knew I wanted to say something at her funeral, but I couldn't come up with anything good. Some of it was trite. Some of it was cliche, but none of it was what I was really thinking of feeling.

The night before the funeral, I wake up at 3:30 in the morning and have the basics of what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell people what I had learned from Nanny. She was a pretty amazing woman, and I knew my parents and uncle had never seen her the way I did. So, I sniffled my way up to the podium and said:

I learned a lot from my Nanny.

I learned that my uncle Herm's real name is Thomas.

I learned my Baba's real name was Leonard.

Even though Baba was the one that worked at the cement plant, I learned about cement from her, because when she was set, it would take dynamite to move her.

Finally, I learned about love everytime I saw her.

(And for those of you playing along at home, "Baba" was my grandfather, Nanny's husband.)

06:50 am: Not So Silly Dreams
So, I'm asleep last night, like I often am, and I have a dream. Not a Martin Luther King Jr. type dream either. We're talking more Philip K. Dick meets Hostel here. To boil it down, I and a lot of other people are settling a new planet that has a red tinge to it, like when they add a color filter over the lens in Star Trek. We're all doing our settling thing when it starts to rain sharks.

Yep, that's right, it rained sharks. Sounds silly, doesn't it? It is, until you watch them biting peoples' limbs off as they fall and tearing people apart on the ground. I climb a poplar tree and right out the shark-based thunderstorm because this storm is more than just sharks. There's also a really, really strong wind carrying lots of red-tinged dust. So, by climbing a tall, bendable tree, I'm staying away from sharks and not getting knocked over by the wind.

Anyway, the rest of the dream is kind of unexciting, but now I really want to see a horror movie involving shark rain.

01:37 pm: I'm Turning Into Rygel!!!
So, while I'm washing my hands in the bathroom, I look at my reflection in the mirror.  Why not, after all?  I'm a handsome dude.

Anyway, I see four hairs sticking out of my eyebrows.  They are all dark at the tip and much lighter at the base, but not quite the white of white hairs.  I can see it now, give me twenty years, and I'll have eyebrows that look like toothbrushes, my eyebrow hairs pointing wildly in every direction.

I wonder how much the prop they used for Rygel to comb his eyebrows would cost to buy?  At least I could groom them with style.

12:31 pm: Am I Gonna Have To Choke a Bitch?
So, along with academic classes, I'm taking a self-defense course for 1 credit.  It's part of my wellness requirement.  It's taught at a karate dojo in Woodbridge.  http://www.niagarashobukan.com/ is the website.  The sensei there is fun but takes the class seriously, which is nice.  Last Tuesday we were choking each other.  I mean seriously trying to choke each other.  It was to teach us about panic and how it affects our reactions along with how to defend ourselves from being choked.

Funny thing was, it reminded me of a dream I've had a couple of times.  It goes pretty much like this:

Someone kidnaps sarillorn, and like any red-blooded American male, I decide to track her down myself without any help from the cops or FBI or even the milk man.  It ends up with me questioning a guy by choking him until he agrees to tell me what I want to know.  The only problem is, I always end up choking him until he passes out, then I make some comment like, "Damn, now I have wait for him to wake up!"  I know, I'm ripping off Marcus from B5.  My dreams are not original.

Another good example of my unoriginal dreams is my dream from this morning.  Ritsa and I had to perform a dance, so we decided to perform the number from Dirty Dancing.  Yep, the soundtrack to my dream was "(I Had) The Time Of My Life."  (I hope I never feel that way again.)  Then, while we were dancing, someone figured out we had won the lottery.  I pulled out my ticket, and there they were, all the numbers.  We were millionaires!

Did I mention I watched the first disc of Lost season 2?  You know, the one that shows Hurley winning the lottery?  Yeah, my dream was Dirty Dancing meets Lost.

Speaking of Lost, is it wrong that I want Hurley and Kate to hook up?

12:45 pm: Best Zombie Movie Evar!
I'm talking about Children of Men!  Blood, guts, severed arms!  And non-living people!  Lots of non-living people!

Well, non-living people if you use the definition of a living organism that requires reproduction.  See, since no one in the world of Children of Men could have children, they couldn't reproduce.  And since they couldn't reproduce, they couldn't be alive.  So, since it's a movie with a lot of dead people walking around, it's obviously a zombie movie.

Maybe I should pay more attention in my logic class...

Anyway, the movie is fantastic.  It's grim and gritty, like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down grim and gritty.  I really hesitate to call it sci-fi, since really it's a movie set 20 years in the future and tries to answer the question:  What would happen if we couldn't have children?

It's a really, really good movie.  Go see it.

03:16 pm: So as not to confuse almost everyone on my friends list...
... some school-related posting!

Yesterday we discussed the point of Tangency.  Then, I dealt with the Square of Opposition, which has to be pretty much the best name for a game show ever.

So far every week I've heard someone on their cellphone complaining about some boyfriend or girlfriend.  I'm so glad I don't have to try to date any more.  And for those of you that do, good luck.  You have my best wishes.  :D

02:10 pm: What would be the difference between:
Kubuntu and a Debian install with KDE?

Does KDE come with Adept or is that a Kubuntu package management program? Being able to look at the available packages in my repositories and search them is so much nicer than just having apt.

Would there be any kind of benefit like speed increases to a Debian vs. Kubuntu install?

Would I still be able to/want to connect to the Kubuntu/Ubuntu repositories and use packages from them?

I figure a few of you out there may know the answer(s).

A quick Google tells me Adept is a KDE/Debian program, so that's one question answered. :)

12:55 pm: I Don't Know Why I Do It
So, the other night I couldn't get to sleep, so I got stuck watching one of those MTV-we-try-to-make-it-look-like-it-is-a-reality-show-but-it-is-really-scripted shows. It was Maui somethingorother. Anyway, why do people watch that crap?

There was one guy that walked around the beach like he was carrying a 6 lb. baby sheep in his gut. I mean, how is he supposed to be attractive to the opposite (or same) sex when he looks like he could give birth to next Easter's main dish at any second?

Then there was the extremely red-headed, very fair skinned guy. So, what is the best occupation in the world for the guy that burns when you turn on a fluorescent light near him? That's right, surfer. The only thing better hasn't been invented yet, professional tanner. Whose bright idea was it to cast him?

Oh, and then we get to the drama. Apparently tonight's episode revolves around the fact that lamb-boy hooks up with a tourist and is afraid she'll stay for the rest of her life just to be around him. Yeah... Because that's what tourists do. They prey upon unsuspecting locals, fucking their brains out and then refuse to leave the area!!!! That horror movie totally writes itself.

So, yeah, not being able to get to sleep really sucks.

11:39 am: Real Genius
So, today was the first day of school. Here are some quick highlights:

I was Godwinned, by the very campus itself.

Stereotypes were in full force, including the lanky, pasty white guy with long black hair in a black heavy metal band t-shirt. Rock on, dude. Rock on.

Person of the day:
Mr. Love, my English teacher. Why hasn't this guy gotten his PhD. yet? If anyone's name screams for the "Dr." in front of it, is is Mr. Love. If I was his wife, I'd be forcing him back to school, just so I could say I was married to Dr. Love.

Quote of the day:
Student responding with what he enjoys doing: "I write fiction."
Teacher: "Ah! Like Harry Potter!"
Student: "No, like Lord of the Rings." (Emphasis his.)

Honorable mention:
Heard as I was walking buy a group of people: "I know a website with all the Firefly episodes on it." It's good to hear the Browncoats are still alive. You can't take the sky from me, or them, apparently.

09:33 am: Me? Invictus? No way!!!
So, last night I bought books for this semester of school. I walked out of the building, and I was hit in the face with a blast of crisp air. After instinctively taking a large sniff of the air, I thought to myself, "It smells like LARP."

Well, it smelled like LARP, except there needed to be some smoke from clove cigarettes mixed in. Crisp fall air mixed with smoke from a clove is what LARP smells like to me.

Every fall, I'd arrive on campus, and that Friday the game would start. Usually, it got to the point where my friends and I would have every single conversation work it's way back to the game in some form or another, but now that it's been a good seven years since I've played, I can see that way lead madness.

I can see why vampires gather every other Friday night at a location in order to interact with each other. It never made sense at the time. I wanted to talk about the game pretty much all the time, why wouldn't a vampire want to do the same? Now, though, after having a lot more real life work to do, I can see the attraction.

There is something downright predatory about getting all your friends and enemies in one place and unleashing all the scheming, planning, and influence you can in order to raise your status. Why destroy someone's haven on Tuesday when you can wait until Friday and embarrass them publicly?

I felt hungry for power the instant that breeze hit my face. I could practically feel my fangs growing. I wanted blood, but even more, I wanted status. The vampire mind crystallized within me for one instant, and I touched glory and madness.

Then I stepped out into the drizzle, got into my car, turned on the lights, put on my seatbelt and drove home.

I never thought I had associated school with LARP so much.

10:28 am: Work Keeps On Rolling
Well, in a surprising turn of events, I'm not leaving my job on the 15th. Our big Leukemia Ball is at the end of February, and they can't afford to take the woman that is replacing me away from data entry due to the large volume of raffle tickets that will have to be entered before the event. So, I'll be staying on part-time at 20 hours a week until the first week of March. I can live with a neary $19/hour job while in school. :)

I still need to look into the cost of student insurance, though, because the Society doesn't offer insurance to part-time workers. However, they should still be contributing 10% of whatever I earn to my 403b, which is nice.

And now a little gloating: I earned a 19.03% rate of return on my 403b last year. At that rate, my money would double every 3.78 years. So, getting that extra little bit of money added to it from working part-time will pay off big when I retire. Something on the order of every dollar I put in now will be worth $500 or so when I retire.

Can you tell I want to be a financial planner after getting my degree? :D

12:45 pm: On the Road Again
So, 45 minutes ago, Ritsa left for Jakarta. She'll be getting back the 19th of January. Another 17 days without her after the month without her in August (or was it September?) sucks. Still, when she gets back, some things will have changed.

I tendered my resignation effective the 15th with the Society. I'm going back to school full-time starting the 15th, and they didn't want to let me go part-time. This time I'm not going to quit before I get my finance degree. Then it's on to a much better paying job and probably a kid or two.

The other thing that will have changed is that I'll have the new (cheap) home theater system all wired and hidden. Right now it's setup, to make sure it worked, and the front of our entertainment center looks like an explosion of wires. I'm going to try to make it part of my resolution to clean up a little every day while she is gone. I'd like to have a clean apartment for her to come back to.

On the more random news side, one of my high school classmates is going to be on that Nashville Star show on the USA channel this season. He's going by Josh Stevens, although that's not his real last name. :) It'll be interesting to see how he does. He's a talented musician, but I'm more used to him singing pop songs than country ones.

11:36 am: What the hell kind of music are we buying?
So, this morning I was poking around iTunes for the one and only group of African singers and dancers I know personally: Ndere Dance Troupe. They only have one song up for sale, "Acholi Pot Song." I was surprised that apparently it was really popular.

See, this is a song a girl Bette sings while balancing upwards to 7 or 8 pots stacked on her head while she dances around. "Acholi" is a tribe in Uganda. So, I see the name, and I picture Bette dancing around with pots on her head.

I have a feeling that almost everyone else that bought the song bought it because it had "pot" in the name, and they thought it was a song about marijuana. :)

BTW, it was on the Last King of Scotland soundtrack if you're looking for it. ;)

11:33 am: S-S-S-Stuff.
So, January 15th I start classes again. I'm getting my damned degree, hell or high water. It will be in finance. There will be no changing of major. I'm getting a degree, and I'm getting out.

The only problem with all of this is that I'm not going to be able to keep my current job at part-time status. A nearly $19/hour part-time job would be nice to have. It would keep the ends meeting and then some. However, now I need to dig up something that I can do while going to school. 25 hours a week sounds about right.

My current favorite is Comcast. Not only would it provide revenue, but free cable would reduce our expenses. I haven't really sat down and looked at what jobs they have available, but they do have part-time jobs there.

So, if anyone knows of a decent-paying part-time job I could look into, let me know. I don't want to have to fall back on the standby: World Market.

And I in no way feel like the Asian kid in Fight Club with Tyler Durden holding a gun to his head, telling him to go back to college and get his degree. Really... ;)

09:45 am: Reason #19920 Ritsa Should Be Cannonized
Me: I call this my Christian Sweater.

Her, noting that there is no Christian symbols, colors or anything else that could identify this as being associated with Christ in any way: Um... Why is that?

Me: Because the neck hole is so tight that when I put it on, I feel like I'm being born again. *mental rimshot*

Her: *groan*

09:20 am: Something You Don't See Everyday
Me. Full of bile.

You know, laws against gay marriage don't stick in my craw so much. We can elect new legislators and get those laws repealed easily enough. However, when a state decides to enshrine a monument to ignorance and bigotry in their state constitution, it strikes a deeper nerve with me, especially when it's the state I live in.

The people, and I feel like I'm using that term very generously now, of Virginia have decided to make it a lot harder to fix all this fucking anti-gay marriage insanity that seems to have infected the country. So, now we'll have to have a whole other fucking amendment issue to get it taken off when people realize that gay people should be allowed to marry.

I believe the last group of people that weren't allowed to get married were slaves, although they could get their owner's permission. Gay people in Virginia don't even get that. So, you know, congratulations Virginians, you have actually given a group of people LESS rights than slaves had. It's nice to see all you loving Christians care about your fellow Man and just had to inflict your twisted morals upon him.

I hope this amendment comes to bite everyone that voted for it in the ass. I hope you are dependent on your domestic partner supplying your health insurance and lose it. I hope domestic abuse laws get challenged. I hope your grandmother marries the guy she's shacking up with at the nursing home, when she dies all her money goes to him, and you don't see a dime. I hope you reap exactly what you sew.

So, fuck you, everyone that voted for the amendment. I hope you burn in hell. Have a nice day.

And to all my gay friends, stay out of Virginia. Virginia is for straight lovers.