To paraphrase a bad movie: “No, no, it’s all right, he’s just taunting me with the most desirable fantasy book to come out in years. Man, that’s just MEAN. That’s MEAN, man.”

In response to How I’m Making Fans of Fantasy Insanely Jealous Today by John Scalzi.

Just Plain Mean © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

You might be surprised at what you can figure out about your snowblower if you try. My level of mechanical expertise is a moderately complex Lego set, and yet I was able to diagnose & fix a problem with our snow blower earlier this winter.

The trick is to ignore the fact that you don’t know diddly-squat about what you’re doing and apply standard computer troubleshooting techniques…
1. Smack the device. Smack it HARD.
2. When Step 1 fails, swear loudly while pretending you’ve muted your phone.
3. Apologize for swearing.
4. Sacrifice a goat (or a chicken, but a goat is preferred).
5. If the sacrifice does not appease the angry snowblower gods, then try the other standard computer troubleshooting technique. Send it up to level2 support. :p

In response to I’m Not That Guy by Shawn Powers

Snowblower Tech Support © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I used to love FPS games; but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost most of my taste for them. Probably because my reaction time is down and I’ve had less spare cash for PC upgrades to be able to run modern FPS games.

I’m also a bit cheap so I don’t tend to go for the latest console systems. Though I did end up buying a Wii last year and have been enjoying it greatly. Specially the Lego games (Lego Star Wars, Lego Indian Jones, etc..).

I’ve also played Rock Band/Guitar Hero at friends’ places and enjoyed those as well but haven’t picked up it yet (cheap + pricey controllers = delay in buying).

In response to Do You Game? by Shawn Powers.

Do any of my readers game? If so what do you like to play?

Do You Game? © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Howdy.  Yes, we’re here.  Yes, we’re voting.  Yes, we voted with hope in our hearts and change on our minds.  We’re now looking forward to President Obama taking his office.  Thanks for calling.

In response to Calling Middle America, Are You There?

Howdy © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Speaking as one who has lived in both the North and the South, I can honestly say sweat tea is an unholy abomination. Unfortunately, the further one goes South the more likely it is you’ll get sweetened tea if you do not specifically order unsweetened tea. In some heathen lands of the South, there are actually places that don’t even sell unsweetened tea.

Iced tea is ideally made by placing 5 bags of black tea inside a 1 gallon glass (not plastic!) jar and set out in the sunshine until the jar is dark. It should then be taken inside, tea bags removed and refrigerated. It should be served with no more than 3 one inch cubes of ices per 8oz glass. As Jeri mentions, a slice of lemon in a glass of iced tea is acceptable; however no, I repeat NO sweeteners are acceptable.

Hot tea can have a single spoon of honey added to it, if one is sick with a sore throat. Or the faint of heart can add a small amount of milk, but only if they put the milk in the cup before the tea (reversing the order curdles the milk).

In response to Sweet Tea is an Abomination by Shawn Powers.

Sweet Tea is an Abomination © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

–4 and heavily overcast here in Iowa. I could see a smudge of lighter colored clouds but that was it. *sigh* I guess I’ll be trying again in 2010.

In response to Shaky Eclipse by John Scalzi.

© Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Like others in this thread, I didn’t care for the camera shake. It wasn’t bad enough to make me leave the theater but it definitely made me queasy. As for the storyline to the movie.… meh. While most of the characters had a good line or two; I didn’t them. Any of them. In fact, I would go so far as to say my main complaint with the movie is one of them might have survived. I would have preferred a clean sweep of character deaths.

In response to the Cloverfield thread on the Whateveresque forums.

Cloverfield © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

From the look on the Temp Cat â„¢‘s face, I’d say he should be named for a villain of some sort. My first choice would have been Ming The Merciless, but I want to win a free book and that’s already been suggested (darn you JD Blackwell!). So my suggestions are:

1. Adelei Niska
2. Professor James Moriarty
3. Count Orlok
4. Arnold Zeck
5. Macavity

In response to Temp Cat™ Requires a Name by John Scalzi.

Temp Cat™ Requires a Name © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

First movie had little to no shaky cam. Second movie had enough to annoy me and trigger my wife’s motion sickness. I guess I’ll be renting the third movie some day when the wife’s not around then. Thanks for the warning Les!

In response to SEB 30 Second Movie Reviews: “The Borne Ultimatum.” by Les.

Borne Ultimatum © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Looks more like E.T. reaching out his finger to “phone home” than what you linked to.

In response to A Somewhat Omnious Cloud Shape Today of All Days by John Scalzi.

E.T. in the Sky © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.