I Have Installed My King on Zion, My Holy Hill (Psalm 2:6)

"Synthetic" or "sympathetic," which one?

Tuesday! You just KNOW it's an awesome Tuesday when you get your oil changed! I mean, wow! It just doesn't get any more exciting than that!

No, literally... it doesn't get any more exciting than that. O_O Yes, getting my oil changed was my lead story of the day. That... is sad. I paid extra for a synthetic blend. What would the liberals say to that, eh!

Other wonderful highlights include: getting the Piranha newsletters finished, 5 days past due. Retrieving my address book from my rescued computer and adding the contacts to Outlook on Crown Stealer. Getting a video clip of wifey saying that she loved me. I had to get video proof, so it's in the official record, in case there's a dispute in the future. I'd post it up here, but she asked me not to... and I am nothing if not strictly obedient...

On the plus side, I won't be posting any pictures of myself with odd things in my nose anymore. So you can relax.

I will, however, post pics of my two primary characters in Torchlight! Yes, my extreme nerdiness knows no bounds! That's why I like Big Bang Theory as well...

Here's Avatard, my level 47 marks(wo)man. She's kinda squishy.

Aw, isn't she pretty? That's her dog Grundle. Don't get too close; he bites.

I bet you're wondering, "What kind of damage can this lady warrior deal?" Well, she packs quite a punch...

By all means, click to enlarge! That way you can study the stats in depth! She's a painbringer all right, but if baddies get through her ranged attacks and her several layers of pets/minions/traps, she can be killed in 1 or 2 blows, which is a source of endless frustration. Luckily, she has a couple good 'group attack' skills she can fall back on in emergencies...

Now Spillbert, on the other hand, doesn't need to worry about death. Baddies can beat on him all day and he absorbs it like a pro...

Spillbert is my level 39 tank. That's his cat, Growler. Don't worry, he's house trained...

Spillbert is impervious for several reasons. 1) I've got him decked out in crazy-strong gear, which I've farmed and stored for him, with Avatard. 2) I inadvertently started him on "Normal" difficulty level instead of "advanced", so he has an easy go of it. And 3) his strength is jacked way up. Check out his stats...

In some games, you can adjust the game difficulty at will, but not Torchlight, sadly. Otherwise I'd have jacked the difficulty up long ago to make it more challenging. Don't get me wrong, it's fun feeling invincible. Still, it kind of takes the "fear" out of it.

What? O, yes, I realize this is probably the lamest, most boring thing I could possibly be blogging about, I get it. Why am I doing it, then, you ask?

Because I can! MUAHAHAHA!!!!!

OK, fine, I'll change the topic... sheesh!

I'm sure many of you saw that the Burj Khalifa (previously Burj Dubai) tower opened on Jan 4 in Dubai - one of jillions of places I'll likely never get to visit. Being a fan of great big things built by people, I was naturally drawn to the project from the get-go.

Kinda hard to appreciate the scale of the thing, even in a pic like that. It reaches more than a half-mile into the sky, standing at a final height of 200 stories - 2,717 feet tall. For perspective, the World Trade Center towers were about 1,400 feet tall - about half the height of the Burj in the pic there. It was designed to be a self-contained city in and of itself, really... in theory, a resident would never need to leave the building to go about his/her life.

It is so big, it has already sunk more than 2 inches into the ground - the implications of that will have to be explained to us in the comments by our resident engineer, Logan. Perhaps it's nothing, who knows.

Anyway, I'm pretty much blown away by the accomplishment. HERE is a cool article with more info, pics and stats.

Guess I should post a cool video to round out today's post...

If it loads an advertisement first, I apologize. I can't disable that feature. But it'll be worth it to see that kid dance. How old do you think that kid is?

Picked up Gold of Kings again, and I'm currently tearing through it. It certainly is a tight, compelling read. Like a good action flick - a fast-paced romp, a little light on depth, but fun as heck to read. I'll post a review in a day or three, when I've finished it.

OK, back to the grind. Hope your year is still progressing well.

Dave