Okay, so I never saw the movie 300, in which Gerard Butler screams “THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!” But I’ve witnessed that particular scene about a billion times since it became an Internet meme, so now of course it’s gone where all other Internet memes go to die: this blog. Seriously, any such jokes are guaranteed to be played out by the time I use them.

But in all seriousness, this is Thailand. We’ve been here a little over a week now, although it feels like it’s been at least twice that long. I would have posted something earlier, but this trip…well, how should I put it, exactly? Hasn’t quite gone to plan.

As part of our ongoing (and so far unsuccessful) attempts to have children, we decided to get ourselves checked out by a fertility specialist here. Having not had any further luck with conception, it made sense to make sure there wasn’t some major medical problem in the way. And of course, getting such examinations in Thailand is always a good idea because 1) it’s far, far cheaper, and 2) the standard of medical care here, on a personal level, is actually higher than in the U.S. in some ways.

We went for our checkup pretty much immediately, and as a result, our latest crisis started pretty much straight away.

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I was going to title this post “I’m Doing Science and I’m Still Alive,” after a line from the end credits song for Portal. But I didn’t, because a cursory Google search revealed that a ton of other like-minded nerds did the same thing — months ago, in fact — so it’s already passé. I know better than to beat a dead pop culture horse.

But hey, welcome to Oddball. I’m still here, and in a functioning mental capacity to boot, lest you think otherwise. No, I haven’t been busy, though that’s usually my excuse when I don’t post for a while. In fact, quite the opposite: I’ve been enjoying my job, learning lots of new stuff that used to vex me. In the off hours, I’m spending lots of time playing video games, hanging out with Apple, going to some new places and watching my favorite movies. It’s great, it’s reduced my stress level significantly, and no — I’m not a bit sorry.

In a couple of weeks we’ll be flying out to Thailand again. This time will be a bit different from last year’s trip, in particular because we’ll be staying at the new home Apple’s parents built. It’s in a very nice, quiet area not too far from their old house; we visited the place a few times last year before it was completed, basically just to check the property, water the plants and soforth. Their old house is in a very busy (read: noisy) industrial part of town, so this will be pretty cool.

We’re actually not sure how long we’ll be staying. A lot of that is going to depend on some of the stuff we’re planning to do there, which I won’t get into. Our tickets have us coming home in a month, but it might wind up being longer — we’re sorta flying by wire here, actually. So I’m planning to make sure we have everything we need to be comfortable for a longer period of time, like cellular phones and our own DSL connection at the house. These sorts of services are affordable and require no contracts in Thailand, so there’s no great barrier to entry.

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A big thunderstorm hit just after Apple got home from work. A few minutes later our power went out, and it’s still out. Sustained outages are actually pretty unusual around here, but we broke out the candles, took cold showers and are headed to bed. I’m able to post this thanks to my iPhone, and the AT&T EDGE network, which is still working just fine.

We haven’t had a real power failure since the ‘04 hurricanes. It’s kind of cool, being surrounded by darkness — there are no lights visible anywhere outside our windows. I always did get geeked over blackouts when I was a kid, just so long as they ended by the time it stopped being fun!

Hopefully everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

Edit @ 11:30pm: It’s back on now.

NBC yesterday announced their fall TV lineup, and as many of us suspected, it includes a new Knight Rider TV series. The reinvented show will air in the 8 p.m. Wednesday timeslot, with encore episodes to air each Saturday night in the off-season (summer 2009).

In addition, the show is getting a new executive producer: Gary Scott Thompson, creator of TV’s recently-cancelled Las Vegas, and writer of The Fast and the Furious.

Judging from that, I guess we know what kind of a vibe the new Knight Rider will have — but I said I would tune in just the same, and I will. Could be an interesting ride.

As you might be aware, the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica starts on the Sci-Fi channel this Friday night at 10:00 p.m. ET. Interestingly, it will also be aired early — at noon ET — on SciFi.com!

So I was watching TV earlier, when I noticed that my TiVo was showing “Battlestar Galactica Special” as the sponsored link on my home screen. I clicked selected it and discovered a pretty cool recap video, which sums up the entire first three seasons of the show in a smash-cut, slightly tongue-in-cheek manner. Great stuff. And it was just enough of a memory jog to get me exactly where I need to be for Friday night.

Need a memory jog for yourself? Here’s the clip. (Just ignore the pointless countdown at the beginning.)

I don’t often praise “Komcast,” our cable company, but I have to give thanks to them for ponying up the Sci-Fi HD channel. This is one season of BSG that I’ll be watching in glorious high-def.

At least until we go to Thailand. Then, it’ll be torrents to the rescue.

What was I just saying the other day about design — about how there’s no way I can see it becoming a lost art, despite what the disillusioned Philippe Starck may think?

Today, my pro-design argument received more support in the form of Peter DeLorenzo’s latest rant at AutoExtremist.com. Peter talks about how, despite all the boring focus groups where people regurgitate “safety, fuel economy and quality” as their top deciding factors in purchasing an automobile, the actual reality is that those factors have become the basic ingredients of almost every car out there — and that an actual purchase design hinges more on the vehicle design, and the emotional connection it creates, than anything else.

“As I’ve said before, we should never forget the essence of the machine, and what makes it a living, breathing mechanical conduit of our hopes and dreams,” says Peter. “Some out there may insist that the old saying, ‘you are what you drive’ has become obsolete in this touchy-feely, green-tinged world — but I’m not buying it for a second.”

Read the whole rant at AutoExtremist.com.

Welcome back to another edition of “Search for $A, Find $B” at Oddball Update! This is where I get bored, look at my server logs and show you some of the dumb stuff people have been searching for when they run across my site.

In this, the first quarter report for 2008, we have Keebler’s discontinued Fudge Shoppe cookies continuing to dominate the field, with long-forgotten Bill Knapps recipes, TiVo CableCARD problems, red soda from the ’80s and Elexis Sinclair’s…um…”assets” rounding out the remainder of the top queries. Ignoring all of those usual standbys, here’s what I found:

• mass effect sarin (No, that’s Saren. Sarin is nerve gas!)
• escape naples (Sometimes I’d like to.)
• why does comcast require a technican to get a cable card? (Because they don’t want you to get a cable card.)
• computers internet blog (Wow, how many results did you get for that query — 600 million?)
• remember slice soda (Yeah, I do! The Apple flavor was kickass.)
• swap tuner tivo hd (Push the Live TV button.)
• latest update about operating room in 2008 (Sorry. I tried, but I just don’t get it.)
• voracity (Did you want a definition? I’m not a dictionary.)
• free match maker (Nor am I a dating service.)
• how do you get back to your buggy in orange box chapter title highway 17 (Wow. I hope you have an earlier savegame handy.)
• tivo slot 2 never works right (Then return it?)
• .com car muscle (Like Yoda you speak. Find nothing on Internet you will.)
• sin episodes beat duke nukem forever (Yeah, but it also got cancelled after one episode, so…it’s a wash.)
• lexus december to remember voiceover (Wahahaha! I remember trying to figure out who that v/o guy is, because he sounds like the Cigarette Smoking Man. Guess someone else is curious too.)
• perfectionistic (That’s me.)
• sister’s hot friend (Didn’t I say I’m not a dating service?)
• komcast (Hee, I like that! Damn commies!)
• hello my name is stickers (Hey stickers.)
• acrimonious (That is also me.)
• buy car in germany (Can’t help you, but have fun driving on the Autobahn.)
• i want to fuck t’pol (Wow, buddy. Just wow.)
• bullet witch fanservice pictures (Between this and the last guy…damn.)
• catatonic (No. That’s not me.)
• photos of catatonic stupor (I said no! Try your local mental hospital.)
• how to design forza (Ask Turn 10…)
• sequences of doing things (Seriously. What do you expect to see with a query like that?)
• motorcycle crash bodyparts (Dude, that’s morose!)
• mass effect vehicle stupid and annoying (Hahahahaha)
• nayt smith (That kid who bragged so emphatically about his Wolfenstein 3-D modifications that id Software actually issued a Cease and Desist?)
• vegas games update (Well, Kirk still won’t let Spock play them if that’s what you…uh…nevermind.)

And my favorite…

• how fast is 24 horsepower (About twice as fast as your 11hp 1970 Snapper Hi-Vac.)

Rock and roll just used to be for kicks
And nowadays it’s politics
And after 1986 what else could be new?

So sang Billy Joel in his 1986 single “Modern Woman,” a song meant to light-heartedly illustrate how the stereotypical man’s antiquated behavior toward women was no longer effective. In recent times, though, I’ve started adopting the above verse as a banner representative of my own relationship with pop culture. After 1986, there may as well not have been anything new — because a good portion of my favorite songs, TV shows, cars and media in general come from before that time.

I was reminded of this a short time ago, when my sister-in-law Cherry called and wanted to know if there was a song I’d like to request on her radio show. In case you weren’t aware, Cherry has been a DJ at a university radio station in Thailand for a good many years. It’s a job she loves, and I can see why — as a bit of an audiophile myself, spinning popular Top 40 tracks from the western world for an hour every morning sounds like a great time. Particularly so in Thailand, where the regulatory pressures of radio probably don’t begin to compare to those of America’s own FCC.

The problem was, I was a bit stymied by her question. After all, her radio show specializes in playing the hits that are currently making waves in countries like England and the United States, treating young Thai audiences to a taste of the western media that fascinates them. But to me, a citizen of that western culture, popular music stopped being interesting somewhere around my eighth birthday. I have never been a fan of hip-hop, and with hip-hop and R&B sounds inexorably woven into the fabric of all pop music today, there’s not a lot for me to listen to.

So I go back to my old standbys instead — Billy Joel, Genesis, Phil Collins, The Beatles, Black Sabbath…all artists I enjoyed both as a child and during my teenage years. Coupled with them, ironically, is a smattering of pop hits from Asia — because like those Thais who love western music, I’m a westerner who craves the diversiform tones of Thai and Japanese pop. Go figure. (What’s that they say about the grass always being greener…?) And while I admit that there are a few songs I hear on Top 40 radio that are pretty good, I couldn’t begin to tell you the name of the artist or the song — rendering my ability to request them useless!

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Another weekend come and gone. Felt like one day instead of two. That’s what can happen when you sleep till noon on your days off.

I’m rather pissed off at Comcast. I played a three-player game of Forza with Pooch and Reaper today over Xbox Live and kept getting disconnected. Then this evening, Apple was trying to talk to her sister via Skype, and she kept getting disconnected too. I have a hard time believing that this is a coincidence.

Today I actually felt like doing some writing, and actually DID some writing. This doesn’t happen much anymore, so that was cool. In fact I would like to still be writing (my story) right now, but it’s nearly 1 a.m. and I have a morning meeting tomorrow, so I guess I’ll be good and go to sleep instead.

My sister in law is helping us get a DSL connection set up at the house we’ll be staying in when we go to Thailand next. I am really getting excited for this trip. Going to be a good time, and so many wonderful people.

Incidentally, I just posted this from my iPhone. Not a bad little virtual keyboard!

Well, good night.

I’ve just finished updating the underpinnings of Oddball Update, WordPress, to version 2.5, a milestone release with a lot of new features. Among the biggest changes are a totally redesigned admin area, which most of you don’t get to see. Too bad for you.

The part of the site that you do get to see is largely unchanged. There are three notable exceptions:

• The Archives page has a new (admittedly blander) look. I was previously using a plugin to generate some spiffy-looking archives, but the plugin is borked under WP 2.5, so for now it’s back to this basic layout.
• WP 2.5 has a cool new feature by which you can automagically install new versions of your plugins from right within the admin interface — no more FTP! To test it, I upgraded the AJAX Edit Comments plugin, and only then did I realize that I was deliberately not upgrading that plugin because of some problems it introduced last time. So, if you have any problems editing your comments after you submit them, let me know.
• I now display your Gravatar next to your name each time you leave a comment. For the uninitiated, Gravatars are “global avatar” images that you associate with your email address, and which will appear universally across every blog you comment on. Sign up to get your own Gravatar if you want one.

Other than that, it should be business as usual. If you see anything weird, just holler.