Heather, do you work on Mount Doom?!

That does looks scary realistic.

The meeting room is named after him. I should have taken a picture of the storm trooper that greeted me at the entrance to that floor.

I was in the room with Gollum alone for a good 10 minutes before anyone else showed up. I just tried not to look.

When marketing goes horribly wrong: Promotions prank ends in armed police callout

A marketing stunt to promote a video game sparked an armed police callout after an actor pointed a fake gun at terrified pubgoers in Auckland's Viaduct Basin.

About 20 revellers drinking outside Degree bar dived for cover after the promotions worker threatened them with a black imitation pistol about 8pm on Friday.

Witnesses said they heard someone shout "he's got a gun" and outdoor drinkers dived behind their tables.

Degree manager Steph Kurtovich said: "This guy with bandages on his hands pointed a gun at customers sitting outside. They were pretty terrified."

The stunt, to promote the release of Xbox title Splinter Cell Evolution, was condemned by police.

Senior Sergeant Ben Offner said officers could not tell the gun was made of plastic until they had taken it from the actor.

"We consider these types of stunts to be very ill-advised and have real concerns a similar one may one day end in tragedy."

Game promoters Monaco Corporation said they hired another marketing company to organise the event and had no idea that a gun would be used.

I would have been talking to Gollum. Or for him. "My colleague Gollum here thinks your proposal is crap, but he's too polite to say so."

Heh.

You could also have hired someone to deliver raw fish to him during the meeting.

Snowflake by Tokujin Yoshioka for Kartell

pretty, indeed. But all I could think about when I looked at that furniture was...fingerprints! Oh the tyranny of fingerprints.

And then, 'Huh. If I ever get the Fortress of Solitude ready for decorating..."

Oh, bizarre!

I just finished my group work evaluation for our group project for class, which we are presenting tonight. I had to allocate 100 points between the four of us, and dinged myself for being the last one to complete my portion of the paper (I was days behind the scheduled turn-in date), but I did give myself back a few points for having the initiative to interview the library director (something I don't think anyone else in the group would have thought of doing) and also for editing the final paper down from 11 pages to 9 (still a page too long, but at least it's now closer to the limit). I did say that the group deserves an A, but I deserve a B for my delay.

Sometimes, I really hate group projects--I'd much rather have the onus of my grade be on me alone.

Or for him. "My colleague Gollum here thinks your proposal is crap, but he's too polite to say so."

Bwahaha!

We hates your PowerPoint presentation, precious, we hates it!!

ION, an evening with Aasif Mandvi.

Mandvi began the monologue describing his father’s motive for wanting to move from India to England to America. According to Mandvi, his father thought of America not as the home of freedom, democracy or the Statue of Liberty, but as the inventor of the world’s greatest concept.

“Some came to America because of a word, like my father. A word that woke him up in the middle of the night … an American word, a fat word, a word that could only be spoken with decadent pride. And that word was brunch,” Mandvi said, describing his father as a man in love with the very fabric of American culture.

Heh.