edlib

So this happened. I can't even... My back yard. There's a 5+ foot tall fence under there somewhere... My neighbor's roof. My front steps. The front porch. This is what I have to shovel today.

Me? I'm just buried alive under snow. Thanks for asking!

I'm pretty sure I have a glacier forming in my yard... The back fence, which I can just barely look over, is now almost totally lost under a snow drift. And we still have at least another 9-12 inches yet to go here. More snow coming on Thursday. And Friday. And pretty much all weekend... Bitchin'.

I have another day off from work. And another couple of feet of snow to shovel out from... Sweet... ?

Ditto. Kind of my same attitude towards doctors... except they never seem to know what's wrong, so they prescribe all kinds of stuff I probably don't need, or do nothing at all and charge me tons of money. My car still drives pretty good in the snow, though. Ask me how I know... Good times.

Good luck with that, as ISIS/ISIL is more of an ideology than an organized army, tracking them down will be difficult; trying to eliminate them completely will only prove their point about the west to sympathetic followers, swelling their enrollment ranks; and even if you do get every single last one of them, something new and unexpected will spring up in the void... kinda like how we spent over a decade trying to eliminate the Al Quieda leadership and break up all their networks, and ended up with... well, ISIS.

ZOMG Illuminati!!!! I'm not sure which satanic, mind-control scheme a goofy dancing shark fits in to... but I'm sure it must be sinister somehow!!! Maybe Left Shark represents the New World Order and our eventual submission to mind control by the lizard people... The thing is, I personally know several people involved with that half-time production... and not once have they ever revealed to me that they are reptilians, or asked me to be part of the Illuminati or the New World Order... and I'm actually a bit offended... because I would be great!!!

Commuting has been absolutely brutal the last couple of days. The subway has been closed, or running with major delays; traffic has been unbelievably heavy (all of us subway commuters trying to all drive in at once, no doubt...); there's nowhere to park, either on the street or in the garages; oh... and we had a giant parade today... so every Patriots fan in New England skipped work, drove in, parked, and stood in front of the door where I needed to go in to get to work. And I am really, REALLY looking for the 2 feet of additional snow we are supposed to get in the next couple of days. That will really make everything even more awesome. The upside: Driving down most of the streets around here is like being in a white, lumpy, cold and wet Death Star trench. The plows have made walls on both sides that are generally higher than the roof of my car... Though, there's not much in the way of passing anyone who stops in front of you.

Once I realized that they were just going to be big, loud, dumb action movies with Trek characters and locales and situations, it was easier for me to just sit back and enjoy the ride... though I don't really think either one was a great movie. And if I listed my favorite Trek media, they would be pretty close to the bottom. But I don't hate them. I thought they were entertaining enough in their own way. I don't really consider them official Trek canon in my mind. More like a fan-fiction story that made it to the big screen. I have the feeling that's the way I'm going to need to view all future Star Wars releases...

I haven't watched a single episode... so my memories of the SW universe are currently untainted. But seriously... I got a little upset when I watched the recent Trek reboot movies about how they played fast and loose with established Trek universe physics and rules. Then I asked myself "Wait... these movies are actually a lot of fun... are you really going to waste energy and time worrying about how one version of a fictional story chooses to play out as opposed to a slightly different version?"

The EU as it was doesn't exist anymore... officially. Disney can do whatever they want outside of the movies. And we are comparing one fictional location and history for a different fictional location and history. But I was just thinking "Hey! It's kinda cool that these games I never thought anyone would ever be able play or even see again are now available to buy and run on modern hardware if we want! Without a lot of geeky tweaking to make them work." when I said that. I wasn't thinking about movies or TV or anything else. And who cares that Disney is only re-releasing them all for the money? Lucasarts didn't make these games originally out of love for us... they were meant to make a profit back then too.

Well, there is that in it's favor... I'm just loving the fact that all these classic games are now being re-released. It does make me think that being sold to Disney may actually be one of the best things to ever happen to LucasArts... at least as far as the loyal fans are concerned.

If I hear of one nearby, I'd probably check it out... but I have no intention of trying to search one out. In the meantime, I'll probably play the Remastered Grim Fandango. Or maybe not... I still have the original CD. The improved graphics and sound are probably nice... but I've solved all the puzzles twice. It would just be going through it for nostalgia's sake... I and I still have newer games I haven't finished and so little time to play them.

Looks like a graphically updated Rogue Leader to me. But it might be fun. And if a success, may pave the way to new SW flight sim games. Maybe... Hope springs eternal..

By the way... Has anybody seen one of these yet? (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.) I hope the local Dave and Busters gets one. It would be worth the trip over just to check it out...

Back to work today. A trek back to the office by Snowspeeder, Tauntaun, or Imperial Walker would be the easiest way to commute... but alas, I will just have to slog along the sidewalks and subways like a chump. Muscles aching today. I wonder why?

3 hour dig-out. Snow drifts as tall as me... now piled with snow from the driveway, so 7 or 8 feet high. I'm living behind the walls of an ice fortress.

There's also the question of scale... Boston has a huge population in a very small area... and that population more than doubles on a workday when college is in session. I doubt there's anywhere in Wisconsin that has exactly the population density of an east coast city like the greater Boston or NYC areas. Maybe Milwaukee... Mass area: 10,554 sq miles Mass pop: 6,547,629 Wisconsin area: 65,556 sq miles Wisconsin pop: 5,686,986 Just sayin'...

More or less. In '78 one of the biggest problems was cars getting stuck on the highways, then having to rescue all those stranded people, then not being able to plow any of the major roads because of thousands of abandoned cars. It closed the city down for weeks. They are obviously attempting to avoid another situation like that. Last time I drove home in a major snow, I was being passed like I was standing still by dozens of SUVs and trucks... only to see the wreckage a couple of miles down the road. And downed traffic lights. So... keeping morons off the road so crews can do their work seems to be the overriding priority. New Englanders, and Bostonians especially... aren't known for their amazing driving skills... even in perfect driving conditions. And I'm not sure I'd ever quote an Alex Jones website as an authoritative source on anything... even a NYC kale shortage... although the thought is somewhat amusing.

No flooding. Still have power. Another day off tomorrow. ****load of snow outside. Playing Skyrim. Life isn't too terrible on the whole... but talk to me tomorrow after tackling the cleanup outside. I figure that will take at least 2 hours. Looks to be 2 and a half feet out there, with some pretty epic drifting. And it's still snowing. More on Friday. Whee! Winter!

I don't know if it's panic... or if it's just an effort of officials trying to discourage all the idiot yahoos from getting in their giant 4x4 SUVs and going about their business on unplowed roads at full speed... getting in the way of the cleanup crews, and forgetting that while they can drive faster than everybody else on snow and ice, that they can't actually stop any better... in fact, with all that mass and velocity, they actually stop worse. Whatever. I get a couple of days off I wasn't expecting. Who cares what the official reason is?

It's hard to plan for this much snow at once. But the biggest problem is the wind in this storm. But it's kinda like saying to Buffalo a couple of months ago: "What? I thought you folks were tough?!?? It's only 7 feet of snow... This is what you live there for..."

I just hope I don't lose power this time. It was off for almost 3 days after the last serious blizzard we had in 2013, and my house got down to almost freezing inside. And there was nothing to do after dark but lay in bed and and use my phone until it died. Then go sit in my car with the heater on while it charged up again. I'm going to charge up and load my Kindle with new books... just in case. Get the iPod fully charged too...

Some of us don't live in Siberia. Besides... the college HAS to close when a State of Emergency is declared. Otherwise, I'd go in to set up a concert... why the hell not? Seriously though: 2 to 3 feet of snow in less than 24 hours, with hurricane force winds and coastal flooding (um... and I just happen to live several entire feet away from said coast...) isn't exactly something to sneeze at. Especially in a city like Boston, with it's narrow, winding cow-path-based street network... usually with cars parked curbside on both sides. The next couple of days are going to be a cleanup nightmare.

Work is closed for the next couple of days. Whoo-hoo! Time to hunker down and rest up before the colossal dig-out to come.