SMZb

Thirty.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:07:00 +0000

It has finally happened. I am now OLD.

I actually had my birthday party 2 weeks ago, as a joint affair with Matt Armstead and Tara. Pretty much we just hung out at our place and played games all day. The original idea was to get a game of kickball going, but the weather didn't end up being great for that.

This Saturday (my actual birthday) was interesting. Sarah's grandma got tickets to VeggieTales live at our church, so we took the kids and cousin Alex to see that (after spending an hour at Burger King first.) I enjoy the VeggieTales cartoon, but the live show was, in all honesty, pretty lame. The kids had fun, though. After that we headed down to Red Wing and played at a brand-new playground there. Then Sarah's parents took me to my birthday dinner at Fiest Mexicana, the best mexican restaurant there is. Just before we left, to my embarrassment, they had the waitstaff sing "Happy Birthday" to me, which I got wear a monstrous (and uncomfortable) sombrero through. The good part? Free flan. Tasty.

After that, we went back to Sarah's parents' house, and had cake and I opened my present from my parents: a Nintendo Wii. What? Wow. I was not expecting that at all. There goes all semblance of productivity at my house!

The rest of the birthday haul:

Games:
Go, from Matt & Becca
Alhambra: The Thief's Turn (expansion), from Lane & Sarah
Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, from Matt Armstead
Catan: Traders & Barbarians (expansion), from Sarah & the kids

Books:
From Tara (via giftcard):
She Is the Darkness by Glen Cook
Water Sleeps by Glen Cook
Soldiers Live by Glen Cook
From Grandpa & Grandma Hawks (via cash):
Empire by Orson Scott Card
Star Wars: Allegiance by Timothy Zahn
Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
The Knight by Gene Wolfe

Other:
Transformers t-shirt, from Anita
Jelly Belly jelly beans, from Sam
Dead End, Meister, and Wheeljack Transformers Alternators toys, from Matt & Becca

10 Years!?

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:28:00 +0000

Scamper's Quest celebrates its 10th anniversary today. Wow. I have a hard time just thinking about it.

Swing by and drop a note in the guestbook, would you?

Out of the blue...

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:41:00 +0000

I remembered it!

The importance of writing stuff down.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:18:00 +0000

So I realized the other day that my webcomic Scamper's Quest only has 2-3 more strips before the buffer I've been building up over the past couple years runs out. I'm not entirely worried; I think I can come up with a minimum of one strip a week, hopefully building my buffer up in the process.

No, my problem is that I went to the version of the website that resides on my hard drive, to view the strips that I've made that haven't gone online yet -- in particular, the upcoming story arc that I'm in the middle of writing. Wait, what's this? There's a strip title in the database with no strip associated with it? That's not unusual; often I put the title in as a placeholder until I get the strip actually made. But not this one; I have no idea what this strip is supposed to be about. None! I recognize the title, though; I thought it was clever when I came up with it, but I've completely forgotten what the strip was about. And I usually jot my strip ideas down, really I do, but in this case I figured I'd remember. Ha!

So remember, kids: write stuff down. Otherwise you'll forget and feel stupid.

The Juce is Luce.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:19:00 +0000

We grilled hamburgers last night, and I decided to try making a Jucy Lucy. We've actually done this once before, but I added a twist this time. First I chopped up some onion (with our new Pampered Chef chopper!) and kneaded it into the ground beef, along with a handful of bacon bits (real bacon, not Bacos.) I made two large, flat patties, folded a piece of american cheese in between them, and then pinched the sides together to form one big, cheese-filled patty. A liberal coating of salt and pepper and Worchestershire sauce, followed by a sprinkling of McCormack's Grillmates hamburger seasoning, and then they were on the grill. A piece of melted american cheese on top, served on a grill-toasted bun. Wow.

The first bite was a bit of a mess, with the back side of the burger bursting open, pouring hot, beefy cheese sauce onto my plate. But it was soooooo tasty. I'm totally doing it again, but maybe next time I'll had some more toppings (lettuce, tomato, and the like.)

Just two thoughts.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:29:00 +0000

Ah, summer. When the ladies start jogging down the street in shorts and tanktops. I wonder if there's a correlating spike in traffic accidents?

Also, should I feel guilty when reading a library book on the toilet?

Moving right along...

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:12:00 +0000

I should let you know: I'm in the process of switching webhosts. I've moved my blogs over, but there may still be some broken/inaccurate links cropping up from time to time. My new domain is www.saltmanz.com, so use that when you can. Most of my stuff is also still at chawks.brinkster.net, but won't necessarily be there for very long. (And for sure it will be gone by next spring.) Update your bookmarks as necessary.

Having a piano is grand. Having a grand piano is...

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Oh, hi! Are you still there?

I should share: about 3 weeks ago, Sarah and I went maybe a little crazy and bought a baby grand piano. Schmitt was having an unadvertised old-models-go-away sale, and we had wanted a Cristofori for a little while, so we decided to check them out. We ended up not getting a 5'8" Cristofori like we had planned, but wound up purchasing a 6'2" George Steck piano, that we randomly liked even better (though the price was the same.) We bought it Friday, rearranged our living room furniture (with my mohter's assistance) on Sunday, and had it delivered Monday.

We love it. It's a little big for our little living room, but we only lost one chair and table; mostly it's just a bit taller than you'd expect. But it sounds great, and it's pretty:

One down, one to go.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Elizabeth is finally, 100% potty-trained! She's worn underwear to bed (instead of a pull-up) all week, and there've been no accidents. So, good for her!

Mongolian chicken = YUM x 100.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Just a little public service announcement:

Leeann Chin has a couple of new items on their menu. One is the "Mongolian Chicken" and I highly recommend it. It's very sweet, has a bit of a kick to it, and is very very tasty. Especially on fried rice. Ask for a sample next time you go in.

(This concludes today's public service announcement.)

Finally some news!

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:12:00 +0000

I've got a lot of news to report, actually, but first:

NEW JOB!

Yes, I've got a new position now. Same company, (mostly) same department -- I've moved from LDI Transport (our inhouse trucking company) back to the Traffic dept., still under the "transportation services" umbrella. At the time of my last post, I had been approached by my boss and basically told that they were creating this position called "Traffic Analyst" and it was mine if I wanted it. Nothing could be made official at the time (hence the mystery and intrigue of my post) because they had to offer my old position to the guy who applied for what is now my new position.

I'll be working with a lot of data, crunching numbers and doing cost comparisons and goofing around Excel -- my favorite part of my old job. I'll also be keeping the system up to date with current rates and whatnot. No more dealing with trailer maintenance or driver safety or any of that stuff that never really interested me much. The nice 12% (or thereabouts) raise, and move to salaried pay are, naturally, also quite nice.

I officially started last week, but as my new supervisor (who I replaced at my last position) has been away on his honeymoon for a week and a half, I've mostly been doing the same old stuff, and training the new guy. I've also been slowly moving over a couple cubes, and hopefully I'll be done and moved in the next day or two.

Other news:

A toilet update! Our porcelain nemesis got plugged up again, shortly after my earlier toilet post, so we sucked it up and bought a new one. A nice, high-performance toilet -- not the one that claims to flush 5 LBS of golf balls, but the next-best one. (This one came in an all-in-one kit, whereas the other one would have required buying everything seperately.) It works great, except for one minor issue. It's a "chair height" toilet that's 2-2" taller than our old one. We knew that when we bought it, we just didn't realize how much of a difference that makes! How they can call 16" "Comfort Height" when even I don't particularly like it is beyond me.

And still...

We did our taxes in early February, so we were able to get our return back a week ago. We spent half of it on a new washer and dryer. The old dryer had to be run twice to dry anything, and it also made a habit of eating snaps, zippers, and, generally, clothes. We got a nice new set from Sears that was delivered last Wednesday, but when they went to install the dryer, it was discovered that we needed to replace the dryer outlet. Sarah's dad helped us with that Sunday night, so now I guess we're all ready to do some laundry!

A new job?

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:15:00 +0000

Stay tuned!

(I'm such a tease!)

My bowl runneth over.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:33:00 +0000

Yesterday ended with what was, quite literally, a crap-filled night.

Our toilet's been clogging up pretty regularly for a while, now -- to the point where we were looking at new toilets at Home Depot over the weekend. Until yesterday, it had mostly been an annoyance: break out the plunger, and clean it out; though the flushes would always continue to sound a bit 'shallow', making it seem fairly reasonable that there was something wrong with the toilet.

Last night looked it would be an early night; everyone headed upstairs to Mommy and Daddy's bed at 10:30... and then the toilet was plugged. No problem. Plunger-time. Hm, the water doesn't seem to be going down any. In fact, the toilet's still running and the water level's slowly rising. Plunge, plunge. Okay, now it's definitely blocked; the plunger's not pushing anything through. Water's still rising. HELP! (This last part I yelled to Sarah as a leapt off the floor onto Elizabeth's potty stool, one hand holding the plunger, the other in the tank grasping futilely at the floating bell to stop the flow of water -- shortly thereafter I would remember to turn the water off at the wall.)

Short story: toilet completely clogged, (crap) water all over the bathroom floor. Took the plunger to it once again, which only managed to (somehow!) force the nasty water back up into the tank.

We ended up taking the toilet completely apart, draining it, and flushing it out in the bathtub with hot water and (at one point) 1/3 of a bottle of Liquid Plumbr. There was a lot of crap stuck in that thing, let me tell you.

Once we got it cleaned out and reassembled, it came time for the test flush. The water went down (yay!) and then...kept...going... The tank kept slowly filling and draining into the bowl as the bowl slowly emptied down the drain. By chance, I caught a glimpse of some material stuck in the little hole in the bottom of the bowl -- not the big hole that drains into the floor, but the one where the water from the tank comes rushing out. I couldn't get it out, but Sarah was able (after a few attempts) to reach in and pull out the obstruction. It turned out to be one of Elizabeth's "big girl wipes": supposedly-toilet-safe wet wipes for potty-training kids. No idea how long it had been there (the going theory is that it somehow got 'plunged' into there) but on the next flush, the water went down and then stopped as it should, and had the 'full' flush sound that had been missing for so long.

Actually, it's still a little funny; now it flushes twice: the tank drains and the bowl empties, and then while the tank refills, the bowl fills slightly and drains again. Odd, but it seems to work.

The whole adventure took 2.5 hours, and we didn't get to bed until after 1:00 AM. On the plus side, I know a lot about toilets now...

I'm not moving...

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:18:00 +0000

...but I have started up a new blog over at LiveJournal. It's called SMZcomics and it's just what it sounds like. It will showcase comic books and strips I've made over the years, as well as concepts and designs that were never fully realized. Also: new stuff! I've started off running through some of my old, old comics in chronological order, so go check it out!

(I should have a link to SMZcomics on the sidebar before this post falls off the front page.)

Books read: 2008.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:34:00 +0000

This post is mainly for archiving purposes. Of course, feel free to comment on it if you wish. The most recent book read is listed first, with the current book in bold. Projected future reads are listed in italics.

The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Soldiers Live by Glen Cook

» Water Sleeps by Glen Cook

Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
She Is the Darkness by Glen Cook
Bleak Seasons by Glen Cook
Dreams of Steel by Glen Cook
Shadow Games by Glen Cook
The Silver Spike by Glen Cook
The White Rose by Glen Cook
Shadows Linger by Glen Cook
The Black Company by Glen Cook
Star Wars: Invincible by Troy Denning
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Star Wars: Revelation by Karen Traviss
Star Wars: Fury by Aaron Allston
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror by H. P. Lovecraft
The Dunwich Horror and Others by H. P. Lovecraft
Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card
The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson
Night of Knives by Ian Esslemont
Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
House of Chains by Steven Erikson
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
Enchanter's End Game by David Eddings
Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings
Magician's Gambit by David Eddings
Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

Books read: 2007

Where does this plug in?

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:33:00 +0000

I apologize for letting this thing (the blog, that is) slide for over a month, now.

In a brief recap of November: Alex turned 2 on the 10th. Seeing as how his favorite thing to do (after playing with blocks, playing with trucks, destroying things, and infuriating Elizabeth) is eat, we decided to take him out to Old Country Buffet. The line to get in was surprisingly long for Saturday night, but at least it moved fairly quickly. Alex loved it, and easily ate his dollar's worth. :) We had his birthday party a week later (when people were actually around) and it was a lot of fun, with a lot of friends and family and a last-minute (aren't they all? ours, anyway) racetrack-inspired birthday cake.

For Thanksgiving, we went down to Red Wing to Sarah's parents'. We ate a lot. We were responsible for pies, so I made my cherry-cheesecake pie, and Sarah found a recipe online for a pumpkin cream pie that turned out very well. (A layer of cream cheese, a layer of pumpkin pie, and a whipped topping.)

Now that it's Christmastime (which Elizabeth is very excited about) Sarah spent the past couple nights decorating up the house. We did, however, run into one snag last night. Sarah bought a bunch of new Christmas lights to string around the roof of our house, when we realized: our 40-year-old house doesn't have any exterior outlets! I believe we actually came to this realization earlier this summer, but who needs an exterior outlet in the summertime? Anyway, we settled for running an extension cord from inside the garage to some of those lighted nets that throw over the bushes. It doesn't look too bad, and I didn't have to climb a ladder!

Musical Monday: Lost to the Wind.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:28:00 +0000

Another of my more poetic pieces. I remember writing parts of this while waiting for piano lessons to start.

» Lost to the Wind

duration: 3:41
file size: 3.38 MB
written: 1995
recorded: 1995
instrument: Casio keyboard
recording medium: cassette tape
album art: Brain Food
lyrics:

Watch the wind a-blow outside
Branches waving helplessly
Arms open wide
Leaves torn from their roots
In a spectral shadow dance
Reaching out
Grasping for just one more chance

CHORUS:
Can't you feel the winds of change
And the questions that they bring?
In the unseen future
Is the past worth anything?
Patience, my friend
Her time is all but spent
And when it all blows over
Will she ever be the same again?
(When it) all blows over
Will she ever be the same again?

Feel the tears well up inside
Never should have felt this way
She cried and she cried
Two lives break apart
And are both lost to the wind
Float away
Never more to touch again

CHORUS

Turn away and leave my side
Leave me standing helplessly
Arms open wide
Turn away forever
In a spectral shadow dance
Leave me here
Grasping for just one more chance

CHORUS

Turn away and leave my side
Leave me standing helplessly
Arms open wide

Musical Monday Archive

A new "Buggy"! Kind of.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:46:00 +0000

My comic, Buggy, gets an update today! It's not a new strip (sorry) but it's still really cute! I promise.

Birthday haul: the breakdown.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:15:00 +0000

So here's the list of my birthday gifts for this year, and who gave what:

Anita: Ninja Burger (game)

Grandpa & Grandma Hawks: money spent on books: Star Wars: Jedi Shadow by Kevin J. Anderson, Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, King's Dragon and The Burning Stone by Kate Elliott

Lane & Sarah: Taluva (game), The X-Files theme on vinyl record

Matt Armstead: Lucca Città (game), Transformers 2-disc DVD with Best Buy exclusive Robot Heroes figures

Matt & Becca: card table

Sam: Cheesecake Factory giftcard

Sarah & kids: The Else (CD) by They Might Be Giants, The Tick 2nd season DVD set

Tara: Scrubs 6th season DVD set (forthcoming)

Musical Monday: Just What.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:32:00 +0000

A very old song, from the very beginning of high school. This is from back when I would sit down at night with my keyboard and headphones and crank out a completed song...or two. It takes me around 6 months to finish a song now, but the difference in quality is noticeable. I still miss those days, though.

» Just What

duration: 1:30
file size: 1.37 MB
written: 1993
recorded: 1995
instrument: keyboard
recording medium: cassette tape
album art: The Second Coming
lyrics:

We seem to tread on shaky ground
You say you don't want me around
But what am I supposed to do
When I fell so in love with you?

Is your condition so absurd
That you don't want to hear my words?
What am I supposed to say?
My love for you won't go away

Wait a minute, this ain't right
You say you want me from your sight
What else would you want to see?
I thought the one you loved was me

Something's wrong, this can't be true
You tell me not to talk to you
What else would you want to hear
Than words from him who holds you dear?

We seem to tread on shaky ground
Now you don't want me hanging 'round
What am I supposed to do
When I fell so in love with you?

And what exactly would I do
If you loved me like I love you?

Musical Monday Archive

29.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:05:00 +0000

Happy birthday to me!

Thanks to Elizabeth, I already know what I'm getting as presents. (Having a 3-year-old is fun.) The party'll be Saturday, a joint celebration with Matt Armstead. Presents and friends and Fuddrucker's and games. Y'know, the usual.

Sarah's making me a steak dinner tonight. (Yum!) Grandpa and Grandma Hawks sent me some birthday money, some of which is already earmarked for the 4th and 5th Malazan Empire paperbacks. (Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma!)

I'm sure I'll have more to report later.

Some fun games.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:12:00 +0000

A while ago, I added Militant Platypus games to my links section, but now I'm taking it one step further: I'm collecting links to all of my favorite MP games right here. This is mostly so that I can find my favorite games easily, but also so other people can discover (what I think are) some of the best games from that site. And here they are:

Musical Monday: Someday You'll Know What I Mean

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:59:00 +0000

To make up for missing last week's update, here's one of my longest recorded songs. (I would've said longest, but I actually checked, and apparently Seem beats it out by half a minute.)

» Someday You'll Know What I Mean

duration: 5:45
file size: 5.26 MB
written: 1996
recorded: 2003
instrument: piano
recording medium: computer
lyrics:

I thought we could be
Forever and ever, you see
But fate has the final say
And time can't delay destiny

CHORUS:
When you give your heart away
There's always a price to pay
Love ain't all it seems
Someday you'll know what I mean

I thought we could stay
Together, no matter what they'd say
But I didn't anticipate
Yesterday, until it was too late

CHORUS

I thought from the start
The two of us were never meant to part
And now I can only start
Gathering up what's left of my broken heart

CHORUS (x2)

Someday you'll know what I mean

Musical Monday Archive

The final product better be THIS good.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:10:00 +0000

So they're working on the script for the 2nd Transformers movie, right? Apparently, a rejected draft was leaked earlier this month.

Read it here!

I loved it. I mean, I got goosebumps at more than one point, and it's just a rough draft!

But I do see why it may have been rejected:

Too many robots. The battling armies of Autobots and Decepticons envisioned would look amazing. No question. But I think it's probably just way too many to realistically handle, as far as constructing and rendering the CGI models. With computer animation, characters that show up in the background for just a scene or two still take an awful lot of work, and...well, when you read the script, you'll know what I mean.
What a downer. This script does not end happily. It's quite obviously geared to lead into the 3rd film -- which is fine. But it's very Empire Strikes Back because of it. The whole "all hope is lost, whatever will they do -- stay tuned for part 3!" angle really makes this film somewhat of a downer. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think (and probably every hardcore TF fan out there thinks) this movie would be absolutely amazing. However, the bleakness of this film might be too much, too soon -- especially after how comedic the first movie turned out to be.

Whatever happens, I just hope the real TF2 turns out to be half as good as this draft appeared to be.

Musical Monday: Say the Word.

noreply@blogger.com (Salt-Man Z) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:49:00 +0000

I recorded about half of my third album at a friend's house my sophomore year of high school (The rest went unrecorded.) Everything was done in pretty much a single take, and as I don't consider myself to be much of a performer, a lot of the recordings, though quite clean and 'crisp', were fairly subpar, performance-wise, with a number of missed chords and flat vocals. Still, there are a lot of good songs from that session that I'd have a hard time reproducing now (due to a lack of notating my early music.)

Here's a song about loving someone who's not returing the feeling. Like a lot of my music, the emotions are exaggerated for dramatic effect -- the real-life basis for this song is a crush I had. I'm not sure who the "she" referred to in the chorus is, but I always thought it sounded good.

» Say the Word

duration: 3:39
file size: 3.35 MB
written: 1994
recorded: 1995
instrument: piano
recording medium: cassette tape
album: Kiss That Baby Goodbye!!!
lyrics:

I love you too much
To let you slip through my hands
To slip through my fingers
Like just so much sand
And why you persist on leaving
I just don't understand

CHORUS:
She thought we could do it
Do you think we can?
You're just a woman
And I'm just a man
And is love a game?
I'm not sure that I quite understand

I love you too much
To let you just walk away
To turn your back on me
For even a day
I don't know why I do
I just know I feel this way

CHORUS

Do I mean as much to you
As you mean to me?
My heart cries out to you
Can't you see?
If you'd just say the word
Then lovers we'd be
You could be the best thing
That's ever happened to me

CHORUS

Musical Monday Archive