The Duct Tape Avenger vs. the Jovian Illuminati

I love used books.

2008-04-20T02:10:39Z

There's something about used paperbacks that I really like. There's a personal history to them that always affects me. I wonder if the previous owner liked or disliked the book, if they devoured it in an afternoon or read it over weeks, if they live nearby or thousands of miles away, if it's had a single previous owner or many. I own countless classic Asimovs, Clarkes and Nivens that were printed well before I was born.

In a book I started reading today, I found a restaurant receipt from Lynchburg, Tennessee dated in 1994. Apparently it was used as a bookmark. Now I'm using it for the same purpose. It's such a mundane thing, but I feel like there's some history behind it that you can touch. Sometimes the smallest things have the most interesting stories. Or, at least, I can imagine that they do.

But who's the candidate and who's the running mate?

2008-04-19T20:22:33Z

This morning, an Obama staffer came to the door to talk to me (since I'm the only one registered at this address to vote).

techempage: "Who was that?"

Me: "Someone from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign."

Donna Marie: ~Gasp~ "Rocky and Banno are running for President?!"

Left hand, meet the right hand.

2008-04-08T00:23:55Z

As some of you know, I paid for most of my college tuition through military benefit programs. One of these programs was the FTA¹, which involve federal funds that are approved and paid at each state's National Guard headquarters. Unlike the GI Bill, which is paid directly to the student, the FTA is sent to the college and posted to the student's account. Unfortunately, they are always slow to release the funds, so I paid my tuition out of pocket each semester, and then got a refund when the Guard sent the money.

In my final semester, I paid the money as usual, and when the college received notice that my FTA payment was approved, they sent me my check. There was one problem, though: the money never made it to the college. I got a notice in the mail last October, five months after graduating, that my sponsor had failed to pay and that I now owed a semester's tuition (again).

I knew the guy at NCSU who handles tuition assistance with the Guard and Reserve; I had a similar problem a couple years earlier that he helped me clear up. I stopped by his cube after I got the letter to see what happened: apparently, my payment was one of several that the Guard had managed to mail to the wrong address.

He kept working on the issue, and I stopped by the Guard headquarters a few times myself, but it's pretty tough to break through the bureaucracy. I considered paying the bill while I waited for a resolution, but he told me the balance wouldn't be a problem for me. True to his word, I got a new invoice each month with a different due date, pushed out further so it wouldn't actually come due.

But he's been transferred to another department, and now I'm getting late fees and interest posted to my student account. As if this wasn't enough, I got a notice the other day from the NC Department of Revenue. Since NCSU is a state school, my state tax refund has been seized and applied to my "debt."

Meanwhile, a simple stop payment and re-issue of an outstanding check has taken close to a year.

It's a good thing the VA sent me that $5 bill last week, or I'd be in real trouble!

¹ An amusing choice of acronym; it actually stands for "federal tuition assistance," though the same acronym is commonly used to say "fuck the Army."

Gotta love those government benefits.

2008-04-01T03:42:58Z

The VA sent me a five dollar bill in the mail.

Best thing ever.

2008-03-08T04:07:12Z

Submitted without comment

Trolling the Truck Nutz guys

2008-02-06T03:42:53Z

The following is an e-mail conversation I had with a sales representative at Your Nutz (NSFW, but somehow acceptable on the open road), which sells those fake ball sacks you might have seen affixed to the back of pickup trucks lately.

From:     Brendan
To:       sales@yournutz.com
Subject:  Question about your product

Do your Nutz require a trailer hitch? Could I attach them to my Saturn?

Brendan

From:     David <sales@yournutz.com>
To:       Brendan
Subject:  Re: Question about your product

Hi Brendan,

I've seen our nutz attached to all kinds of things!
I don't know what the back end of a Saturn looks like but
there's no reason you couldn't fabricate some sort of
a hanger for the nutz.  A trailer hitch is not required.
Thanks for your questions

From:     Brendan
To:       David <sales@yournutz.com>
Subject:  Re: Question about your product

David,

Thanks for your quick response. I am hoping that putting a pair of
your Nutz on my Saturn will make a positive statement about me.
Particularly, I want it to say that I don't need a big truck to
compensate for other shortcomings. That's what Truck Nutz say to me,
anyway-- that this truck is the only real cock that the owner has to
his name.

Thanks again,

Brendan

From:     David <sales@yournutz.com>
To:       Brendan
Subject:  Re: Question about your product

Thanks Brendan,

I'll be looking for your order!

Not much bite for the bait, unfortunately. The guys who sell fake testicles for trucks are just too darned professional.

My Alter Alter Ego

2008-01-20T22:29:38Z

techempage's kiddos have determined that I am Alpha Pig.

Album cover meme

2008-01-13T00:28:11Z

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post it in your own journal.

Apparently I'm in some kind of ambient new-age band.

(Band name source)
(Album name source)
(Cover art source)

Mystery solved anticlimatically.

2008-01-12T18:05:21Z

It turns out that the package is something I ordered on eBay. Apparently the company has two branches, one for electronics equipment and one for military surplus.

A mystery!

2008-01-11T03:09:32Z

Today I get an e-mail from Fedex:

This tracking update has been requested by:

Name: 'not provided by requestor'
E-mail: 'not provided by requestor'
________________________________________________________________________________

SHIPPER of AST GLOBAL ELECTRONICS sent Dillion, Brendan of --- 1 FedEx Home Delivery package(s).

This shipment is scheduled to be sent on 01/10/2008.

Followed by a tracking number. I haven't ordered anything from, or even heard of AST Global Electronics before today. Apparently they sell electronics test equipment - oscilloscopes, voltmeters and the like.

I have no idea who would be sending me electronics equipment. There is very little on that site below $100 (though they seem to be having a sale). My name was spelled wrong, so that narrows down who it could be. (Not by much, though; my name is commonly misspelled that way.) It doesn't look like it's a mistake, though, since I'm not a prior customer and they have my name, address and mailing address. (I checked my credit cards and found nothing unusual.) My only clue is that the package is 4.6 pounds.

What sort of equipment am I receiving, who ordered it, and to what end? I suppose I'll find out when it arrives, probably Saturday.

What have I done?!?

2007-12-18T23:07:18Z

The first map is one month before I showed up there.

(Image from Economist)

I dread breakfast.

2007-12-12T13:12:31Z

There was a time when breakfast was my favorite meal of the day -- so long as it was a weekend, and I had time to make a "real" breakfast. Lately, however, the process of assembling and eating a meal so soon after waking up has come to feel like a chore even on the best of days, and my work day breakfasts, which have never been very inspiring, can sometimes feel insurmountable.

For the longest time, I ate a toasted bagel with cream cheese every single morning before school/work. The type of bagel would change, but it was still the same breakfast day after day, because it was quick and easy and I could eat it in the car. Eventually I got sick of bagels to the point where I could not touch them under any circumstances, and this lasted for a couple of months this summer/fall. I filled this gap with breakfast bars, mostly, with the occasional sausage biscuit from McDonald's or the microwave. Fortunately, I got over my bagel revulsion just in time (but just barely) to prevent breakfast bars from falling to the same fate.

Now, I switch out between the two, but it's still an issue. There are days when I'll toast a bagel and find I can't bring myself to do more than nibble on it. Skipping breakfast is not an option, I'll be hating life by 10:00. Nor is getting up earlier to make something more substantial; I have no judgment capacity when my alarm goes off, and the snooze button is too easy to push.

There's got to be other options out there.

Hey look, I have a LiveJournal.

2007-12-08T00:47:57Z

Hello folks! I decided it was about time I updated, so here goes. I suppose the biggest piece of news is that I am now a civilian, as of a couple weeks ago. After a total of nine years of active and reserve service, I decided it was time to leave the Army. It was the hardest decision I've ever made, even harder than the one to join in the first place (which was no small dilemma), and I came this → ← close to re-upping. Heck, I got teary-eyed when I left the armory for the last time; the military's been a part of my life ever since I graduated high school, and it's not an easy thing to walk away from. But I think I made the best decision for myself.

The remainder of this post is of far less significance.

Every time I see this web clip on Gmail:

I think it's one of thetaet's recipes. Though this might be because I've been perusing the KPS/Elf Spat Recipes page a bit recently.
My cat's veterinarian is named Dr. Tran. (NSFW-L)
Speaking of Banno, he's come down with a UTI. It sucks, but now I'm delving into the territory of blogging about my cat's illnesses, so it is time for me to tear away from Livejournal for another month or so.

Organic fuel?

2007-11-14T21:18:56Z

Wake Forest, NC gasoline prices

Check out the last entry, and where it's located.

Sure, they're cheap, but they really give you gas....

Place your bets now!

2007-11-01T13:02:27Z

Gotta love time-traveling journalists.

Things I found while searching for a caffeine hangover

2007-10-16T23:37:27Z

That's me in the bottom left corner, age 6. I vaguely remember the girl in green over my shoulder. She was cute. (Circa 1987)

Brain droppings from a conversation with techempage about special relativity, while writing The Mustang. (Circa 2001)

A painting that my goddaughter, Emily Jane, made me. I think she was two years old at the time. (Water color on canvas panel, 2003)

The program from the memorial service for my best friend, Cronan. (Circa 1999)

My company photo from when we were in Fort Hood, Texas, awaiting deployment. I'm near the top left in a poorly fitting pizza hat. (Circa 2003)

A random comic I made after reading too much American Splendor. I never sold a single T-shirt. (Circa 2004)

And of course, I found what I was looking for.

The first issue of a zine some friends put out in high school. It lasted three issues. (Circa 1997-ish)

Posted using TxtLJ

2007-09-08T17:34:09Z

Greetings from Iowa! I am near Des Moines for two weeks with the National Guard. Anyone who wants to attack our corn fields will have to get through us!

The only musical group truly deserving of the name "Tesla"

2007-09-05T02:01:17Z

I spent the weekend in Atlanta for DragonCon with techempage and vivvianne1, and holy crap, was it awesome! (And expensive.) Of course, the weekend was marred upon our arrival in Atlanta when I tried to squeeze our rented Trailblazer into a too-tight parking spot at the hotel, snapping off the side mirror. That's gonna hurt. Of course, we wrapped some duct tape around it, got over it and went on to have a good time.

Some friends of vivvianne1 also came down, and they had made a bunch of S-Mart employee vests and badges. So half a dozen of us roamed around the con Friday night, yelling the second half of the S-Mart slogan for anyone who started it.

Shop Smart... Shop S-Mart! Okay, so they're not screen-accurate, but they did the trick.

I couldn't believe how many people were crammed into this con. We filled up the three biggest hotels in downtown Atlanta, and you still could barely move on some floors. The Hyatt was actually shut down twice by the fire marshal due to the crowding.

The con had some great panels, costumes, parties and other stuff, but the highlight of the weekend is no contest. The bold scienticians of The Geek Group have developed Tesla coils that play music. Yes, the coils themselves will play music by discharging electricity at various frequencies (or something to that effect). That description doesn't quite do justice to it, so I'll say this: it was wicked fucking awesome. The pair of Tesla coils were shooting bolts of electricity three feet into the air while playing music so loud that it could be heard as soon as you walked into the hotel.

I finally figured out how to post one of them new-fangled YouTube videos so I could share this with all of you. You should play it in full-screen mode (click the icon on the bottom right of the video box) to see it well. It's not a great quality video, but hopefully it will give you an idea of how badass it was like in person. (Soon afterwards, the audience halted the show long enough to clear out some chairs and make a dance floor.)

I've got some more photos from the con (mostly random shots of costumed folk) over on my Flickr page.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

2007-08-09T04:39:13Z

My enlistment with the National Guard ends in November. For a long time, I had planned on reenlisting, but I had a change of heart earlier this year and have been dead-set on getting out since then. Now, though, I'm starting to feel tempted to sign back up. I'm not entirely sure what's inspired this, but I've spent the last few days trying to sort through it. This post is an attempt to get everything down, more for myself than anyone else, so it may come a bit jumbled. Feel free to pipe in, though.

The biggest hanging point, of course, is the prospect of another deployment. If I reenlist, it will probably be for three years. During that time, my unit is pretty much guaranteed to get mobilized. We're an attack aviation battalion, and for a while we've been transitioning to a different model of helicopter. Once that's done, the plan is to spend six months re-training at Fort Hood, then be put on the top of the list for an overseas deployment, probably directly from Hood. As things stand, it would be a twelve month deployment, so I'd face a year and a half away in total. Though that may seem like a deal-breaker at first, there are other factors.

As some of you know, I was originally a mechanic for the Army, and switched to a supply and logistics job a couple years ago, after coming home from Afghanistan. Being a mechanic never really meshed with me; I just never had the knack. I learned enough about it to be adequate, but I knew I could never excel. As a result, I was dissatisfied with my work for a long time. Now, I'm in a job that I'm damn good at, and that I am appreciated for. But I've never done it for more than two weeks at a stretch. On the two deployments I've been on, I've worked hard and pulled my weight, but I often felt like I could be more valuable. Part of me wants to see myself do this job in the "real world."

It's not a good time for me to be leaving from my unit's standpoint. For a long time, I was one of only two people doing this job in the unit. The other guy might be getting out or transferring soon, too. Three new people have joined us throughout the summer; one is a recruit, and the other two, though they have ostensibly held this position before, they've been doing other things. We've trained the new people as much as possible, but it's tough to really teach someone a job in two days a month, and I don't know if they're ready to run things on their own yet. Plus, we've been trying to organize some of the things that have so far defied organization, and I think we might finally have a system that works (I could go into this, but it would be a whole other post). It's going to take time to get the kinks worked out, though, and I'd like to see it through.

Both of my previous deployments, and in fact all of my time in the military, have been enriching experiences and I've grown a lot, and continue to. Now, though my rank doesn't reflect it, I hold a de facto position of leadership. I know that serving actively in that capacity would do me a lot of good.

Combat pay and tax exclusion ain't half bad, either.

Now, the other side of the coin. I probably don't have to tell you that being away from home for an extended time sucks. I've missed my friends, my family, my goddaughters, and the basic comforts of life on my deployments. Furthermore, the boredom can be a killer, the food sucks, and you see the same set of faces every single day. It's a drag.

There is, of course, the danger. Afghanistan has heated back up quite a bit since I left, and Iraq is, well, Iraq. I am fortunate enough to be in ground support for an aviation unit; we generally don't do the fighting, we send our officers to go do it. And wherever I go, I would be in an established base, and not leave it much if at all. I certainly wouldn't be on patrols. Of course, no one can be completely safe in a combat zone, even in a non-combat job (I do the exact same job that Jessica Lynch did, though the situation is a lot different now than it was then).

And finally, there's the career aspect. I'm 27 years old and just finished college and started working. I don't know if I want another year-and-a-half setback. If I'm still working for the same company I am now when I get deployed, there's no guarantee that I'll have a job when I get back, because the laws about that don't apply to very small companies. (I work for a pretty good guy, and I don't doubt he'd hire me back if he had a position, but there's no guarantee he would have one.) Most likely, I wouldn't have much of a problem finding a job and getting by in the meantime, but chances are I'll be thirty by then. Not a huge deal, I suppose, but I always thought I'd be further along by then.

Finally, there's a wild card that could go either way. Politics. Next year, we'll elect a new President. Depending on who it is, there's no telling how this will affect the length and frequency of deployments. I don't think they can get much worse than they already are, though, so I think this factor will either work in my favor or have no effect.

And assuming my unit goes to Iraq, there's the question of whether I want to be involved in it at all. I don't talk much about politics, on LJ or anywhere else, partly because I'm pretty much a centrist and have a hard time finding a common ground, but mostly because I'm no good at arguments and debates and hate getting into them. But here's my feelings in a nutshell, and you can take them or leave them. I supported the war in Iraq for a long time, and I definitely don't feel bad that we've taken down Saddam's government. The war was launched on bad information, but I place more blame for this on corrupt informants like Ahmed Chalabi than on the Bush administration. I do not think Bush is nearly as dumb as he looks (he's just a terrible public speaker), nor is he some caricature of a villain, twirling his mustache like Snidely Whiplash. He and his administration looked at the evidence with a skewed perspective, but they did what they thought was the right thing.

Unfortunately, they did it with no foresight for what would happen after the invasion. As a result, we've made a real mess of things. It's a mess that I feel we are responsible for ("we" as in all Americans, not just Bush, not even just his supporters. That's how democracy works: we're as responsible for our leaders as they are for us, perhaps more so). The problem is, I don't know how much we can really do to fix it anymore. It may be that we're still doing more harm than good by staying and trying to sort it out.

However, this really doesn't affect my decision much either way. Whatever happens will happen whether I am still in the military or not. Whatever decision I make, it will be for myself and for my unit, and not to make a political statement one way or the other.

Pure genius.

2007-07-30T13:10:42Z

Every Breath Elvis Takes (MP3, work safe)

Performed by the Shatner Youth

Scattershot post! Take cover!

2007-07-29T00:37:44Z

I have been a terrible LiveJournaler lately! Not only have I not posted anything of consequence, I haven't been very good at keeping up with the rest of you. I'm getting notifications when a small number of you post, but for the rest, I am hopelessly behind. I'm sorry! (How the heck do you guys keep up with your FLs with jobs?)

Here's a semi-brief rundown of what's been happening to me.

Work work workworkwork.
Geocaching, which I started to occupy myself between graduation and work, has become a semi-serious hobby of mine. It's nice to finally lead an existence that includes the outdoors; I've been needing something like this for a long time. I try to cache every weekend if I can, and every once in a while I'll squeeze some in after work. A couple of weeks ago, I placed my first cache hide, and with it, launched my first travel bug (an object which moves from one geocache to another).
techempage and I went up to the Baltimore area a couple weekends ago for Shore Leave (after finagling out of the conflicting drill day and arranging a make-up). We crashed with allah_sulu, who made punch, and of course we brought a few vodka infusions. The con was very different than the ones Wayland and I have been to before; we've mostly attended literary-based cons, and this one was tilted more towards visual media. The panels were pretty abysmal, but we had a blast hanging out with Arthur, drinking and walking around in various costumes (though we weren't as noticeable for that here, since everyone and their brother was in costume), not to mention seeing Arthur win two masquerade awards after being roped into participating unexpectedly. And of course, before leaving for home, I dragged an unimpressed Wayland along as I grabbed a couple of Maryland geocaches.
I got an awesome package from Deutschland in the mail from nursemae! (Did you get my e-mail?) She sent some yummy German chocolates and Haribo gummy bears, as well as a bottle of artificial woodruff syrup, apparently a popular flavoring there. Neither Wayland nor I could quite pinpoint its flavor; our analyses varied from minty, to berry- or cherry-like. We mixed a little bit with some Sprite and it was quite tasty. We're going to have to think of some cocktails to use it in.
Last night, I went to the last show ever of Eyes to Space, my favorite local band, at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill. ETS deftly combined two of my greatest loves, rock music and mad science; their lead (a former high school classmate of mine, Jay Cartwright) played a mock-up keytar with a wall socket on it, for pete's sake. It's a shame to see them go, but they went out with one hell of a show. I kind of felt bad for Sleepsound, the headlining act; it was their CD release concert, and Eyes to Space was one of several openers. Everyone came out to see Eyes for the last time, and about a quarter of the crowd remained when Sleepsound took the stage. Another of the opening acts, Red Collar, is one I'm going to have to start looking out for; they put on an awesome show, full of energy. (Being local and kind of small time, they probably can't afford to smash their guitars, but you could tell they wanted to.)

So that's what's up. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a fish in the oven.

Dang

2007-07-20T00:26:22Z

Meme

2007-07-18T22:01:16Z

You are Geordi LaForge

Geordi LaForge		65%
Data		52%
Spock		52%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		50%
Beverly Crusher		45%
Uhura		40%
Mr. Scott		40%
Jean-Luc Picard		40%
Will Riker		40%
Chekov		35%
Worf		30%
Mr. Sulu		30%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		30%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		20%
Deanna Troi		10%

You work well with others and often
fix problems quickly. Your romantic
relationships are often bungled.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

Posted using TxtLJ

2007-07-09T17:48:35Z

I demand justice from the criminals who discontinued Arby's Homestyle fries. Who will join my posse?

~rolls eyes~

2007-06-26T16:21:27Z

No, you cannot write off your cigarettes as a business expense.