Wednesday, February 15, 2006

More Work & More Play

A one-day belated Happy Valentine's Day! Personally, I have yet to actually have a Valentine's Day on which I have a S.O. (significant other). No big deal. It just generally means that it's an empty holiday for me. One thing this year, the morning radio show I listen to, Z100's Z Morning Zoo with Elvis Duran, was talking about a musical CD Victoria's Secret is selling called Strip. The CD has a number of songs for one to strip to for your S.O. I mention this because some of the songs were just really good songs, regardless of the underlying strip theory. Next time I hit the mall I'm going to swing by Victoria's Secret and see if I can snag a CD (costs $15-20 though, ugh).

At work today I finally finished a nonprovisional draft I'd been working on for over a week. Granted last week's half-days didn't help but this thing was a beast! I was tying together 10 different embodiments of a tool. I had a provisional to use as the basis for the Description but I ended up adding 3 figures and redoing the numbering for 5 figures. I came out with 35 claims, 9 independents, 4 of which were narrower repeats of previous ones. I thought that was pretty good, to only use 5 independents as the basis for 10 different embodiments. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy. I've now got 4 nonprovisionals (no provisional basis) to draft and one Response to a Final Office Action. In short, plenty of work to keep me busy for a while.

I really do love drafting these nonprovisionals. It's like one big logic puzzle. You're given X pieces of information to start and your goal is to arrive at a final work product that accurately covers the invention as best you can. It really does keep me going, keep me busy, even entertained at times. Not bad if this is my career, to wind up doing something I'm not only pretty good at (if I may say so myself!) but also doing something I actually enjoy at times. Pretty rare I think.

More play.

The whole Cheney hunting incident ceased to be funny when the victim, Harry Whittington, had a small heart attack. On the other hand, if you can get past that, the incident is pretty amusing and has led to some damn funny jokes, one-liners, and such about Cheney and lawyers. Here are some links to some of my favs:

TV joke writers take shots at Cheney [CNN]

Ten ways Dick Cheney can kill you (apols to Chuck Norris) [Boing Boing]

Cheney shoots 78-year old lawyer with shotgun, story held 24h [Boing Boing]

CHENEY SHOOTS ... by all the top cartoonists! [MSNBC-Daryl Cagle]

Of course, some of the jokes are just hilarious:
*Are* lawyers in season right now?

Will Disney adapt this into a cartoon about a baby lawyer having to adjust to living in the wild without his parent?

Is this the administration's new plan for tort reform, No Lawyer Left Behind?

(Boing Boing)
And:
"I think Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy he screamed, 'Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?'" (Jay Leno)

"Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird." (Jon Stewart)

"Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. ... But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. ... Moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted -- it's just not worth it." (Jon Stewart)

"The big scandal apparently is that they didn't release the news for 18 hours. I don't think that's a scandal at all. I'm quite pleased about that. Finally there's a secret the vice president's office can keep." (Craig Ferguson)

"Apparently the reason they didn't release the information right away is they said we had to get the facts right. That's never stopped them in the past." (Craig Ferguson)

(CNN)
Okay, enough on that. I really just wanted to post the links and the snippets. They were too amusing to pass up. (And I am happy that Whittington is now recovering nicely.)

Next up, and probably the last item for this post - Chuck Norris! I'd heard of Chuck Norris Facts before but I hadn't actually surfed over to the site until early this week. (Or was it last week? Whatever.) The site is friggin' hilarious!!!
"The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain."

"Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill."

"The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably."

"Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear."

"What was going through the minds of all of Chuck Norris' victims before they died? His shoe."
I would go on quoting 'facts' but there are so many good ones!!! I was reading this site and barely containing myself from laughing out loud! And the best part? It's gone commercial so you can get some of these sayings on a t-shirt with a graphic of Chuck Norris!!! I so have to get at least one t-shirt! I haven't chosen which one yet but I will get one. I just love it. If you like, check out Norris' response to the website.

Enough for now. I've been working at God of War. I'm about a third of the way through the game I think. Still going strong, still fun, still lovin' it. Grandia III came out today. Reviews have it as a mediocre RPG with an excellent combat system. Only 25-30 hours of play time. I know I'm going to snag it at some point. I think I'll finish God of War first though. It'll be tough not to buy Grandia III sooner but I hate having so many games going at once, especially since I really don't have all that much time to spend on them. The weekends are when I get the most play time in and even then I have to be a little careful not to upset the careful balance of not pissing off the mother. Ah, such is the price of living at home with no overhead.

Cheers!