"The sunsets were... . . . . ...yellow and red and on fire..."

Douglas Adams was right.
A towel is the most useful thing someone can carry at any time.

Several months ago, I attended a Lego User Group Of Los Angeles (LUGOLA) meeting with coyoteseven.
It was probably the coolest LUGOLA meeting ever, with food, prizes, swanky digs and a stunning ocean view.
I walked away from the meeting with a Lego TIE Droid (which you can only get if you buy the special 4-TIE
set from the Lego stores, which consists of 2 TIE fighters, 1 TIE Executor fighter, and 1 TIE Droid fighter.
But I digress...).
I also walked away with a Lego towel. It's yellow and about 2 feet long by 1 foot wide.
It's been a terribly useful piece of 100% machine-washable cotton.
My primary use for it is for wearing around my neck and wiping away the sweat that accumulates on my brow
when I walk to and from work every day, and when I bike on weekends.
I also use it inside my Lego briefcase to pad the contents and keep them from rattling around.
When I got the bike and starting biking it to Naughty Dog and back, it was also invaluable for sweat removal.
Lately, I've also been using it as a keyboard wrist-rest at work, since it's the perfect size and thickness
once it's folded lengthwise once and widthwise four times.
I was actually carrying this towel when I went to see "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" in the theaters.
I wasn't planning on it, it just kinda happened. It made book-fans at the screening chuckle.
It has had many other uses which I can't recall off-hand.
So there you go.
Towel = mindboggingly useful piece of kit.


Things have been a little wacky at work.
Being in QA, I'm normally on the 5th Floor of our gleaming silver tower out by the 405 freeway.
I was rotated to the Production Tester post for a couple of weeks, so I was up on the 7th floor all last week.
The company is expanding to the 10th floor, and all the work was completed on Friday.
All the people moving to the 10th floor (me included) had their stuff moved over the weekend.
I think I mentioned this in my previous LJ post...
Anyway, I showed up on the 10th floor on Monday to find my computer not there.
I found it in a different cubicle, along with my chair, so I brought them both back to the right place.
I had no 'Net connection and no phone. Heck, I didn't even have power cords for my 'puter and monitor!
And the air conditioning vents in our area were closed. And I wore a long-sleeved shirt that day. Argh!
Since everyone was settling in, I didn't have anything to test, so I wrote up the All-Netflixing LJ post
until my 'Net connection was turned on. I work hard! I work you long time!

Things went better on Tuesday, though the air conditioning vents were still closed.
I actually got some work done, trying to come to grips with a 3D football game on cellphone. Tiny polygons!
I brought the Vikings Lego set (the one I got free from Amazon a while back) in to work to use the big red
dragon as cubicle decoration (and actually build the catapult portion of the set during lunch or breaks).
It's this set.
My cubicle is a double cube and it's got a large window into a small storage/conference room, which itself has
a large window facing West. The sunset was pretty spectacular at about 16:50 (4:50pm), let me tell you!
The break room already has a snack machine and a soda machine in it, but no tables or chairs.
All the soda machines at work are set to 25 cents for a 12oz can, and the new one has Squirt! GLEE!!!
After work, I went home and had dinner prepared by my brother. He made fresh onion soup from scratch.
It was gooooood, and we had Gruyère cheese (the REAL Swiss cheese!) to grate over the soup.
Then we watched part 2 of "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan", the Martin Scorsese-directed documentary.
It's really good, and it's nice to see real musicians with actual skills, including Johnny Cash!

I woke up today to grey skies and steady drizzle. I didn't take the umbrella because drizzle ain't rain (grin).
Arriving at work, I was delighted to discover that the air conditioning vents were finally open. No more sauna!
During lunch, I stopped at Longs Drugs to browse the Hot Wheels. Looks like they had finally cracked open
another case and refilled the racks, though with mostly first quarter cars. I did find one HW I was looking for:
the Dodge Tomahawk, an aluminum monstrosity that answered a question nobody in the right mind would ask:
what would a motorcycle built around a V-10 Dodge Viper engine look like?
This thing has 4 wheels in pairs. The wheels maintain contact with the ground in turns, because they're on
individual mounts, or something. The frame was machined out of one solid massive block of aluminum.
As far as I know, Dodge has only made one. They don't know how fast it goes.
The Hot Wheels toy of it is actually pretty nice.
I'm glad I didn't blow $5 or more buying it from a profiteering low-life scumbag, I mean a scalper.

I just witnessed another spectacular sunset. The clouds to the West thinned out enough to let the Sun set.
It's almost time to go home!