Usually we write about networking hardware and the technology world, but sometimes we let ourselves indulge in the things we love because we can’t always be about work!

With that in mind, we wish you a happy belated Tolkien Reading Day. This year, especially, we urge you to extend your celebration out for a few months. There is some exciting Tolkien original work coming very soon.

The Fall of Arthur

On May 23, Tolkien’s epic poem The Fall of Arthur will be released. Anticipation is high, as is speculation. The work will be a long narrative poem with alliteration but no rhyming. What will Tolkien’s take on Arthurian lore be? We all have our guesses, but check out this extensive dissertation on the subject: http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1083-Fall-of-Arthur-Pre-Publication-Speculation.php

One thing is for sure; we’re all looking forward to it. Christopher Tolkien, JRR Tolkien’s son, edited the poem based on his father’s text and manuscript notes.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on Blu-ray

The first of the three Hobbit films just came out on Blu-ray on March 19. In our opinion, the ten Production Videos that follow the filmmaking progress are a great addition to the package, but that’s really all there is to be excited about the special features. A few more sweet features would have been nice to get us excited. Especially since this release only has the theatrical version of the movie.

Word has it that an extended version of the film will be released later in 2013, hopefully before Christmas. Does it make sense to wait for the extended edition or are you anxious to watch it again now?

Film and Book Differences

We’re a bit hesitant to weigh in too much with our opinion on the differences between the book and the movie version of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. That kind of debate could lead to some heated discussions, as it has amongst friends and on the internet. Here are a couple of examples:

• http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-8-Big-Differences-Between-Book-Movie-34549.html
• http://creativityredesigned.wordpress.com/?s=hobbit&submit=Search

How you feel about Azog showing up as the film’s main antagonist, or Radagast the Brown riding around on a rabbit sleigh with bird poop in his hair is entirely up to you. Check out this extensive list and decide for yourself which changes added to the story and which were maybe unnecessary:

• http://www.theonering.com/complete-list-of-film-changes/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey

Normally we would rank some of our favorite cartoons from the 80s, but we’re afraid of the fallout that could have! We discussed ranking some of our favorites among ourselves, and it nearly started a brawl. So we decided that instead of ranking them, we’d just provide you some fun memories in no particular order.

Here’s our list of randomly-ordered fun cartoon favorites from the 80s:

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

No list of 80s cartoons is complete without this staple of the decade. It had everything. Lots of fun characters, action figures you could collect to re-enact adventures from the show, and of course a talking tiger. Growing up in the 80s made you the perfect age to root for a hero in a furry loincloth, and not find it weird how Skeletor could pronounce his B-, F-, M- and P- words without having lips.

Seriously, in this 93 second clip alone he says “fools” like 50 times, “prince,” “bunglers,” and more… how does he do it? HOW?!?

G.I. Joe

Nothing made a child of the 80s prouder to be American than watching G.I. Joe. This elite fighting team kept the world safe from the evil alliance known as Cobra and their quest for world domination. To this day we’re still ssssuspicious of people who say the letter S like a snake the way Cobra Commander does. And how would we know to put reflectors on our bikes if Dusty hadn’t told us? After all, knowing is half the battle.

Much better to take advice from the Joes. Destro advised us all to talk to strangers.

Transformers

No jokes about the Michael Bay films here. Regardless of how anyone feels about those movies, we fondly remember a time when we would have gladly voted for Optimus Prime for president because his leadership of the Autobots was just top-notch. The battle with the Decepticons was raging strong and there was only one man, strike that, one truck we trusted to lead us to victory.

Really, Starscream? Kicking a robot when he’s down? Pretty low.

Thundercats

What’s not to love about this? Take all of the attributes that make big cats cool, put them into fun characters, then have said characters beat up on a magical mummy and a bunch of creepy mutants. That’s a winning recipe in our book.

Aerial acrobatics, thy name is Lion-O!

Voltron

Ok, let’s get this debate out of the way right off the bat: Lion Voltron is vastly superior to Car Voltron. It’s out there, now let’s move on. Come on, he has robotic flying lions as arms and legs. It just doesn’t get any cooler than that. And forming Voltron seems so easy. If we could just figure out how to activate the inter-lock, connect the dyna-therms, put up the infra-cells, and turn on the mega-thrusters we could totally pilot our own Defender of the Universe!

Ok, who has some extra dyna-therms? Billy, check in your parents’ basement – pretty sure I saw some the other day when we were playing Battleship.

Ahhh, the nostalgia…

Admittedly, this list is incomplete, but something tells us we’ll be doing another one of these Retro Flashbacks soon so we’ll add some more then. And yes, this list was mostly about the boys’ favorites. Next time maybe we’ll throw in some Care Bears, you know, for the ladies…

In a previous post, we shared some Cisco haiku.   They were fun, so we decided to share a few more.

So let’s get right to it.

Cisco Haiku

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Okay, IT pros.  We know you love bacon.  We love bacon too.

So… for our friends in the IT community we will be celebrating our love and  appreciation for bacon every single month.

(drumroll please)

Introducing…

The Bacon Recipe of the Month

Here is our first ever bacon recipe of the month.

Bacon Wrapped Smokies w/ Brown Sugar & Butter Sauce

Here is a killer recipe from tastykitchen.com.    It’s simple, delicious, economical and combines two classics.

The prep time is about 15 minutes. The cooking time is about 30 minutes.   So, sure you will have to wait a whole 45 minutes to experience the delicious, but this recipe will provide you with a ton of goodness. This recipe serves 6, so make up a batch and share with your IT team.  Then send us a tweet to @cxtec to tell us how much you liked it.

Here are the ingredients:

Recently we had some fun with our friends at Spiceworks.  We did a Cisco haiku contest.  Yes, you read that right.

It was pretty simple.  People wrote a haiku about Cisco.  We read them.  If their haiku was chosen, they got a cool t-shirt. We had a bunch of winners.

We thought it might be fun to share some of the Cisco haiku with you.

Cisco Haiku

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Move to new building,
fire up the new Cisco switch,
see dancing lights, smile.

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