Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Window Shopping Sucks...

=After a less than wonderful Monday, the last thing I wanted to do on Tuesday was to get up unreasonably early and go to the hospital. But that's exactly what I did. Damn alarm rang at 0630, and by 0730 we had stumbled our way through the early morning chill to find ourselves seated glumly in the day surgery waiting room with the MIL. I am not a morning person. Never have been and never really wanted to be. Force me to get up early, couple that with asking me to do something I really don't want to do, and I become a fairly unpleasant person to be around. I managed to keep a lid on the unpleasantness today, mostly because I was too tired to be snippy. I also had the good sense to realize that no good could come of being difficult when the FIL is looking at getting a stent. In the end, he wound up with two in the same artery, and I was back home and in bed by 1030. He's doing well (if you don't count the pieces of metal near his heart) and should be discharged tomorrow. I'm still somewhat groggy and looking down the barrel of another less than pleasant evening at work.

=We took some time Monday after lunch to go look at a house M1 had thought we might be interested in. Mostly because we're both thinking that the new high school complex that's going in will be most detrimental to the overall quality of the neighborhood. Since we have a couple of years, it doesn't hurt to look. Anyway, after we had seen the property, were headed back to DeKalb on 23 when off of a side road this truck comes flying across both lanes of traffic. This was maybe 100 yards in front of us and we were moving at highway speed. This guy shot across the road, bounced through the ditch, and came to rest at the edge of a cornfield. It took us all a couple of seconds to comprehend what had just occurred, and a couple of more to realize that if we had been moving just a tad faster, he would have smashed right through us. The driver of the truck (which was piled high with forms for concrete) managed to miss the safety rail, the utility pole, and the road sign, only clipped 1 of four guide lines, stayed upright and came to rest on all four wheels. For as fast as he was going, he was one lucky fucker. He had lost his brakes and couldn't stop. So he was heading west, probably around 50-60 mph, and the two lanes of N-S traffic he crossed were moving at the same speed, if not faster. That would have been one hell of an impact. And probably fatal.

=The next game night is in the planning stages. Since Cromag is heading up this weekend, I was going to see if he wanted to have me get an Ameritrash scramble together for Saturday or Sunday night. Otherwise, I think I'm going to target the 16th of October. I'm thinking of bringing RoboRally to the table as the main event for that evening, and then having a couple of filler games as warm-ups. Not sure whether it would be better to start earlier or not.

=I would think that it would be logical to assume that if you have a primary instrument that generates a large amount of numerical data, and that primary instrument is teetering on the verge of death, you should have a secondary instrument, and said secondary instrument should have a computer interface to keep you from having to manually enter every single damn bit of data that said secondary instrument would generate. Now, should said secondary instrument be a brand new arrival, I could maybe understand how that interface was not immediately established. When said secondary instrument has been in place for over a month, I have no real idea how it never got done. Just sayin...

=After nights like I had at work yesterday, I understand why there are no windows in the lab. To keep me from jumping.

=

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Now That's REALLY Secret....

Tonight, after seeing the local paper, I had one of those moments where I'm pretty sure a fuse blew somewhere in my brain. It was just one of those moments of a bizzare juxtaposition that you never could have come up with on your own. The local Mason lodge is having an open house. Now, for those of you who didn't quite get that, I'll repeat it a little slower. The Masons. Are having. An open house. WH-WH-WH-WH-WHAT!?!?! One of the most secretive and influential groups on the face of this planet (and several others) is having an open house?? Is that the grand master plan for making everyone in the world one of them-punch and cookies?? 'No, forget global domination of the currency supply, Most Exaulted Grand Poo-Bah, I think we should really be working the Oreo and Hi-C angle.' These are the folks who sit at the second to left tentacle of god, and now they're having an open house? Something isn't right here....

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Anti-Social Chickens

**7PM and it's almost dark out. Every day the light creeps further and further into the house as the sun sinks closer to the southern horizon. I don't like it. It makes me feel uneasy on some base level that I don't quite understand. Summer was almost non-existent, but the planets continue to move through space as they have done for who knows how long regardless of my opinion concerning the inadequacy of the past season.

**Finished the Adventure mode of Plants Vs. Zombies. The music video in with the credits was hilarious! 'I got butter on my head'. When I heard that I laughed so hard I racked my knee on the bottom of the desk! ....Well......I guess you had to be there......

**So, the statement has already put forward that someone who lives in my house and is not me will not be putting up with me being mopey during my vacation at the end of October. The solution that was suggested for this was a return trip to Las Vegas. I'm not quite sure how those two things relate to each other in an oppositional manner. Mostly it revolves around me never being satisfied with how a party goes, no matter how much people say they enjoy it. I think I would like to do another full-blown Halloween party, but I doubt my ability to attract party goers. Then there's the large shadow being cast across the holiday by the intrusive presence of Christmas stuff, and the lack of people who really enjoy this particular holiday. On the flip side of all this is the idea that I'm not too enthused about the thought of going to Vegas, odd as that may seem. Yet another thing to consider is that a big reason to get the basement done was to be able to have people over. Still, it seems silly to have a party if you know people aren't going to show up. So, if history is any judge of the situation, I'll just flip back and forth on what I want to do until it's just too late to do either, at which point I will feel that my mood funk is justified. Not a very fair or fun way to approach a vacation, but if I don't get my head in order by whatever means are needed, it is likely to be the outcome. And the thought of that just sucks...

**OK, if it's gonna cost $1500 bucks and result in a hole being put in my roof, I think I am perfectly justified in thinking that the other member of the household should be just a tad more enthusiastic than they seem to be regarding the entire project. Ergo: that project is now on indefinite hold.

**What in the heck made Morgan such a prominent part of Dreamville last night? And Why were we in Vegas??

**Another question put to me recently was if it was possible that Hawaii could be considered as a destination for the celebration of my 40th birthday. I have no idea what to think about that.

**Pink leopard print. Hmmmmmm....

**The first of what will hopefully be many game night gatherings happened Friday night. Attendance was in the low single digits, but we manged to get 3 different games onto the table in the space of 4-5 hours. Gemlok was the warmup game, and was well received by everyone. Instead of being a mindless dice fest, there proved to be a decent degree of strategic thinking involved, especially when the center of the board started to get clogged with pieces. The first house rule to be thought up for this game: endless pawn bumping. That we may just try out next time around. The running score after 3 complete games (30 rounds) had Neil out in front with me second and Forrest within spitting distance of me. Since Gemlok had been my choice, I opened the table for suggestions, and Neil opted for Galaxy Trucker. Since I hadn't done anything more with this game than pawed through the box and looked at all the bits, I set to busily punching out parts while Neil perused the rules and tried to educate us all as to what exactly all the bits were for. We jumped right into constructing our first ships (because the rulebook said we were supposed to), and our stint as outer space deliverymen was off and running. We stumbled our way through the introductory game with near constant references to the rulebook, and endless amazement at how badly we had constructed our first ships. Forrest had plenty of engines, but only 2 batteries to power them. Neil had no space for cargo, and I had nearly half of my ship connected to the rest by only one component. But we forged ahead, encountering smugglers and abandoned ships along the way. after we had played the 8 adventure cards in the introductory game, it struck us as odd that every single one of us finished the game well behind where we had started. Our obvious conclusion was that we had done something wrong, but even with three of us flipping back and forth through the rules, we were unable to figure out exactly what we were doing wrong. After deciding that it would be best to confer with BGG before attempting this game again, we moved on. Forrest bowed out at this point, having already worked a long day before arriving and looking down the barrel of having to work again in the morning. Once again, I had Neil choose what our next game would be, and he opted to try HeroScape. So while he scanned the minimal basic game rules, I dug through my boxes of terrains looking for what I needed to build the Table of the Giants map. I was still in the midst of locking tiles together when Neil finished glancing through the rules. He had reached the same conclusion that I had: the basic rules weren't so much basic as they were remedial. But since neither one of us had any actual game experience with HeroScape, we decided to give the basic rules a go. Neil commanded the red team, and I ran the blue. After far too much dice bouncing and far to little strategizing, I managed to eke out a win, leaving only one of my Tarn Viking warriors standing. Since we were both less than impressed with the basic rules, we decide to play a game with the master rules on the same map. To make things somewhat fair, we did a blind draw of the units I had up to a 400 point cap. I wound up drafting Jotun, the Airborne Elite, and the Marro Warriors. Neil got Agent Carr, the Krav Maga Agents, Ne-Gok-Sa, the Zeitan Guards, and the Ashigaru Spearmen. Needless to say, his starting zone looked like a waiting line at ComiCon. In the end, I somehow managed to wade through the hordes of opposing figures, which included 1 Krav Maga Agent who simply refused to die, and gain the victory. Thanks to the Water Clone ability of the Marro Warriors, I ended the game with that squad intact. Half of the Airborne Elite squad managed to hold one of the high ground areas for about the entire game and pick off numerous enemies from a distance. Neil and I both agreed that the basic rules just weren't for us, and that HeroScape was a game we would definitely be playing again. And thus ended the evening.

**I still can't figure out why my car smelled like cookies the other day.

**

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Another Spoonful of Gritty Kibble Pudding

**So far, everything I have put up on the freecycling bulletin board has been taken. It's proving to be a really good way to clear out the garage and get things to people who will actually use them. Except for yesterday, where I missed a connection with someone who was supposed to be picking some stuff up.
**Sheri had a birthday this past week. Exactly which one, I am not allowed to specify. As a means of recognizing this non-specific event, we decided to head down to the 3rd Sunday Market in Bloomington. This is a antique/flea market that we had been meaning to check out for a while. But since it's down in Bloomington, and since we don't care for the idea of getting up at 5AM to get there, we had been putting off going. But this weekend provided us with the chance to go down the night before, stay in a hotel, get up and go to the show, and then drive home. Two hours on the road each day is far more manageable as far as we are concerned. So we wandered down on Saturday afternoon, stopping at the antique mall in El Paso along the way. After we got our room and found where the show was going to be, we meandered into Bloomington in search of dinner. By sheer random chance, we ended up at a nice Japanese steak house. Neither one of us were on the mood for the table show, so we sat by the sushi bar and enjoyed a quiet dinner. after feeding ourselves, we went over to Eastland mall to walk around a bit and let dinner settle. I was quite surprised at how few empty stores there were. Many of the malls in out area are teetering on the verge of becoming extinct, but Eastland only had a few empty stores and seemed pretty busy for a Saturday night. While we were there, I chatted on the phone with Cromag while Sheri took the opportunity to look for shoes. Once we had exhausted the potential of the mall (not a single toy or game store!!), we decided to see a movie, since there was a theater a couple of blocks from our hotel. After that, we tumbled into bed, wondering what the next day would bring.
We got up to a cool grey morning, checked out of the hotel, and headed over to the show. Since it was colder than we had expected it to be, we started with the inside booths, hoping that the temp would go up a bit while we were doing that. The only thing of interest I found inside was the same grossly overpriced tiki I had seen at the last Kane County show. $400, my ass. I'm betting I'll get to see that same piece again at the next Kane County show. By the time we had seen what there was to see inside, it had warmed up a bit outside, and we moved on to the outside part of the show. Saw some neat things, but only ended up walking away with a couple of board games and a vary nice chisel. Doesn't seem like much to show for 4+ hours of tromping around, but it was a nice show. After we left there, we went over to a antique mall that we had spotted the day before. We had been inside for maybe 15 minutes when the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. I have to admit to a certain degree of amusement when I thought about all the people who were no doubt scrambling to get under cover while we were nice and dry. After we were done there, it was off to lunch, and then we hid the road to head back home. And even after going to 2 different antique malls and a show that we had never been to before, I got skunked on tiki items. I mean, I did see 2 Treasure Craft ashtrays, but they're not tiki specific items, and there was that really overpriced one, but I hadn't intended on buying it the first time I saw it. So, I got skunked. Not that we had a bad time, but I was really hoping for more. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
**I have no idea why M2 would have given us a listing for a house that's for sale.
**The basement is really starting to come together. I managed to hide the unused heater behind an old shower curtain I had that looks like a grass skirt. Took me quite a while to get it to lay right, but it looks most excellent now that it's up. I have also moved some of the pictures around. I just picked up the stuff I need to turn the candle lanterns into swag lamps, and may get all that assembled tomorrow. I managed to get the hula girl lamp rewired, although I had to cut a hole in the bottom 'felt' to accomplish that. Of course, not that I've got the whole thing all back together, the pull-chain switch is acting up, so I may have to replace it with a push-through switch. Roger got a fresh coat of lemon oil, and so did his little brother. I have managed to find something to mostly remove the various carpet stains that have occurred over the years, and the tapestry is at the cleaners. I still have some holes in the wall to patch from the old shelves, and then there are a few other spots that need to be touched up with paint. I have completed two of the four lanterns and just need to figure out where to hang them. It's a work in progress.
**I experienced one of the first true scents of fall today: wet leaves. I really like that smell.
**I have had zero luck in getting a game group going thus far. Through two offered game nights I have had exactly 0 attendees. I am just a tiny bit irked and disappointed by that. I may need to step beyond the bounds of BGG in order to get things moving more quickly. Or not. But then I really can't justify all the money I've spent for cabinets if I don't start playing some games. We'll see what happens with this Friday night. Hopefully I can get more people than just me to come out. So far, the total confirmed number of attendees is 2. Counting me. Crap.
**Many, many thanks to Cromag for the most excellently fantastic dice rolling board. And I also must concede that for the first time in a very long time, he has managed to get one ahead of me in the gift giving department.
**"Extract" Was the movie we saw while we were down in Bloomington. Mostly, we were interested because we both like the work Jason Bateman has done of late. The whole thing proved to be very funny, while mirroring life just a tad to accurately in some respects. As far as I'm concerned, it's probably a good thing for me that Cromag isn't like Ben Affleck's character.
**"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has found it's way into the DVD player while I walk on the treadmill. I'd forgotten how much I like that movie. The whole notion of the plasticity of memory and the usage of imagery to convey the loss of memory is both fascinating and somewhat spooky. I also wonder what the ethical arguments for being able to 'erase' memories would be. Anyway, it's a neat film. Check it out if you haven't already.
**Haven't been feeling right lately. Energy level has been way off, and there are thoughts running through my head that really shouldn't be. I can only conclude that since I haven't been eating right and I haven't been exercising and I haven't been leaving the house except when I need to that the seasonal change is catching up with me early this year. So I'm making sure I take my meds as directed, watching what I eat, and have been spending time back on the treadmill. Hopefully I can avoid a full blown collapse this winter if I keep this pattern going.
**Another freckled Canadian?? No freakin way!
**Added a copy of Tri-Ominoes to my collection, along with another copy of Waterworks that I intend to use for parts.
**My current video game addiction: Plants Vs. Zombies. Yes, you read that right. Head on over to popcapgames.com and download a free 1 hour trial of this game. It's a hoot! BRRRAAAAAAIIIIINNNSSSS!!!
**Along similar lines, I think my next video game addiction will be Zuma's Revenge. Even though I haven't finished the original Zuma, I have a very strong urge to add this to my collection. Again, you can head over to popcapgames.com to download a 1 hour trial of this game. And while you're there, check out Peggle and Peggle Nights.
**Katherine is coming down for a few days for no apparent reason.
**It is a sad statement when Halloween and Christmas items are out for sale in the same freakin aisle at the store. War on Christmas, my ass. More like a war on Halloween. Jackass retailers....
**As much as I like it, I am now pretty sure that the opals in the ring I recently bought are created stones. I guess that's good, since I really like them and the created ones are far cheaper and of a higher clarity than the natural ones. That doesn't mean that I don't want to go out to the Peacock Mines, though.
**
**

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Endless Entry....

**What's the DRG Code For A Rant?
This is a near rant that has been building for some time. Then I stop and think about it, and the rant element of it starts to fade. I can't quite figure out how to approach this topic. Is healthcare (HC) a right? That's my first question. I don't tend to think so. On the survival list above HC would be food, clothing, and shelter, and none of those are a right. I think it's a nice thought that everyone should have HC, but unrealistic as far as expense goes. Should people have access to HC they can afford? Sure! That's where if the govt were to butt out, there would actually be market competition in the area of HC. What that would mean is that people who can afford McDonald's level HC, or those who only want to pay McDonald's HC prices would have that option. I don't think that people should be able to pay McDonald's HC prices and get Ferrari level HC. Market competition means varying levels of service at varying levels of skill and quality. The people choose with their money who stays in business and who gets forced out of the market. The govt (including the legal system) takes several steps back, and the market will become more diverse and competitive. Insurance runs along the same lines. You want to buy their product, they get to set the price. That's the way the market works. If govt steps in and says, you have to do X, Y, and Z, which results in these companies loosing money. Eventually they go broke, or stop offering that service because it's a money pit. Either way, that leaves the govt holding the bag. Insurance is another thing that isn't a right. It's a service with a market driven price. If you can't afford the price, you don't get the service, right? As far as I see it, yes. If they want to make health insurance mandatory, maybe they should do it like they do with car insurance. You get caught without, you can get a ticket, go to jail, etc, etc. That way people could get the state/national mandatory minimum HC insurance required by law. If nothing else that would open the doors to all kinds of new HC insurance providers, and provide a new market that they could compete for. And what about churches? They're tax free entities, so why not make them start shouldering the burden of HC for their parishioners? After all, god will provide, right? So, the far right and the far left are at war in my brain. The Rep side of my brain says that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. Case closed. And no more govt handouts or bailouts. And they need to relax all the rules and regulations on HC so that the market can be more open for competition, thus driving prices down and giving the people more options. The Dem side of my brain says that people/kids/babies shouldn't have to needlessly suffer for lack of adequate HC. The only entity large enough and well financed enough to be able to provide such a degree of services would be the govt. After all, the govt needs to keep the welfare of it's people in mind....or so I've been told.
So who's right? Beats me.

**Wait....That Was 3 Days Off?
Three days off, and not much at all to say for it. Labor day weekend came and went, almost without notice around my house. I should have seen if Cromag wanted to come up for a day or so. The only thing of note that happened was Kane Co Flea Market. Scott had his usual selection of tiki items, with a few new additions, but nothing really caught my eye or got me to open my wallet. I did find a couple of nice old boardgames, a most awesome looking opal ring, and what could end up being Cromag's belated B-Day present (after I do some work on it).

**Rabid bats seem to be all the rage in Dekalb county this year.

**A Big Dry Spot
No more aquariums for me. A hobby I had been involved with for almost two decades came to an end over the Labor Day weekend when I handed off all my aquariums and related stuff to Kittyluv and her family. I was a bit bummed about the whole thing, but it really was for the better. It's one less thing for me to have on my plate, and it seems that everyone involved was really happy to receive all the stuff. That makes it a win-win situation. I still enjoy the whole visual effect of a nicely maintained tank, but it had become pretty obvious that I had no interest in actually doing the work involved in keeping my tank looking that way any more. So, I can put that on the list with chain mail, guitar, candlemaking, and darts as something that I was interested in, learned, tried in various forms, and then moved on from. Who knows, maybe I'll go back to it after a while.

**OK, feeding my addiction myself is one thing. Someone else feeding my addiction with Krull is another.

**Rip It Up
Regular sheets and sheets of newspaper have been reduced to smaller bits as I continue to build up a supply of raw materials for my upcoming attempt at papier-mâché. Got some masking tape in a couple of sizes, a huge thing of glue, and a sack of flour. And wire. The book I read recommended using wire coat hangers, but I got so much wire in the garage that I think I'll start with that first. I just need to go over to Michael's and get some Sculpey, or something like that, in a couple of different colors, and I should be all set to start.

**The Dog Abhors A Vacuum
Reka took it upon herself to see just how durable the new vacuum cleaner was the other day. I guess she was trying to make herself comfortable on the floor next to the vacuum cleaner when she either stepped or laid on the handle release lever. This allowed the handle to go crashing onto the floor from it's full height, both grazing and startling Reka in the process. No harm was done to the dog, but the same couldn't be said for the vacuum. The handle, which was meant to go almost all the way to the floor, now went all the way and stayed there. There was no way to get it back into it's upright and locked position. Good thing we had just bought it, so back to the store it went, with the guy at the counter saying we may even get it back the same day since it was most likely just a minor adjustment that was needed. That day came and went. The next day came and went. Then Sheri got on the horn to the store to find out what was going on. Turns out this one little mishap had broken something that the guy at the shop had never seen break before. He ended up having to call the place in Chicago to get the right part to fix it, and if he couldn't do it, then it would have to go to Rockford for repairs. Luckily, the part came in, the fix got done, I didn't have to kill the dog, and once more the dust bunnies are quaking in fear.

**Don't Say It!
The personnel situation here at work is waaaay too unsettled. You can never tell from one day to the next what the mix of people is going to be. Since I have been told more than once that people don't 'get' me, I have found it best to remain as silent as possible. Since very ,very, very few of the conversations around here actually involve anything of interest, I find I'm not missing much.

**You Get A Bowl Of Soup With That?
This was the topic where 2 out of 3 was not good enough for the woman. I got the canned tomatoes I forgot at the grocery store (although I still think she wrote the quantity down wrong) and I managed to pick up the bedspread from the dry cleaners. I did not get my hair cut, however. Didn't want to. Still don't really want to. Well, I guess it would be better said that I don't want to have to pay someone to cut my hair. So, she is not real happy about that. The word 'moppy' keeps getting tossed around. The whole thing is leading me to weigh my disgust at having to pay to get my hair cut against the potential fury that the li'l pink one can generate. I'm guessing I'll just have to cough up the money...

**It Sorta Speaks To Me...
I think I have the furniture all arranged in the side area of the basement. I'm not sure what types or sizes of display cabinets or shelves I want to use there, but all the big furniture pieces are in place. At least for now. I'm starting to think that I have a few too many end tables, though. I may end up moving a bunch of them to over where the bar area is going to be. Maybe that will help me figure out the arrangement of the chairs over there. Of course, I should figure out if the bar assembly that I have my eye on will even fit in that space before I go making too many permanent plans. Weird thing is, if I were to put some reasonable effort into it, I think I actually could have the space done by H'ween. But that whole issue is slowly becoming a moot point.

**How Many Geeks Does It Take....
How many people are required to comprise the core membership of a game group? This is my current befuddlement. While I have gotten a few responses from others on BGG, I find myself disappointed. That, I understand, is fairly stupid, since I haven't even met any of these folks yet. But more importantly, I have an idea for the group/club logo. I mean really, you can run thin on members if you've got a kick ass logo, right? The whole naming of the group element is also still in the formative stages. So, in essence, I think I may be about half a step ahead of where I was, and a few steps to the side. Ah, progress....

**Ow. Ow. Damn wrist. Ow.

**Back to the TV. Already on the second disc of season 2 of Rescue Me.

**I think my honeymoon with Facebook may almost be over. I still enjoy being able on know what's going on with everyone, but the whole experience overall seems to be getting a tad dull.

**

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Frosted Gallstones

**After a substantial amount of tinkering, the new track light is up and functional over the game table! And even though I had reservations over the original idea, it looks sooooooooo SWEEEET! And, I managed to do it without electrocuting myself or burning the house down. Now, the table is well lit without being overly bright. Each of the five individual light pendants is adjustable, which gives me even more flexibility in putting the light where I need it. And, since the whole array is centered over the table, the chances of someone bumping their head on it are pretty slim. Not to mention the fact that the whole thing only drops about 5" from the ceiling. So, that corner of the room looks pretty darn spiffy, except for some minor touch ups to the wall and ceiling. Now I just have to get the rest of the space worked out.

**I still don't get the rabid entusiasm that some people express towards sports teams.

**I'm a few hex tiles short of being able to pull off my next great game conversion idea. If I wanted to go to all the time and effort to sand down a couple of grasslands and then repaint them to look like the sand tiles, I'd have what I needed. Then I'd just need a spare copy of the game that I could cannibalize for parts. And a computer controlled router. Then I'd be golden.

**Got newspaper, got flour, got some old sheets, got no coathangers, but I do have plenty of other wire I can use. I just need a mega sized container of white glue and a couple small blocks of Sculpey in a couple different colors. Then I can start papier-mache-ing my heart out.

**The near-full moon seems to be having an odd effect on me.

**And now, a rather lame poem about ninjas!!

If you meet a ninja, don't try to shake his hand
He may think that you're a killer from a rival ninja band.
He may take his ninja sword and chop your head in two
Before you even have a chance to wonder what to do.
He may take his ninja stars and perforate your spleen
It's really just part of his job-it's not that he's real mean.
He may take his ninja spikes and pin you to the wall
It doesn't matter much to him if you're short or tall.
He may use his ninja touch to make your colon swell
I don't know how he does it, and I know that he won't tell.
He may use his ninja kick to explode your brain
Then it will run out of your ears and trickle down the drain.
So if you meet a ninja, don't try to shake his hand.
Just nod, say 'How are you?' and all will go as planned.

**

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Cotton Candy, Frogs, and Razor Blades

* There are a lot of times that I get a pretty strong sense that I never should have left the 80's.
* Monday was the day of DIY furniture. The trip to the IKEA in Bolingbrook ended up taking a couple of hours longer than anticipated, mostly due to protracted discussions revolving around space usage and preferred finishes. I still ended up nixing the thought of a corner unit and anything gloss white, while the walnut finish ended up being a good choice of colors. Sheri is really not fond of the open front shelves with my HeroScape units displayed on it, but I like it, so we have agreed to disagree. So, basically after an entire day of shopping, transporting, and assembling I have room for all but 3 of my currently owned games to be stored behind closed doors in the game corner. The only reason those 3 don't fit is that they're deeper than the shelves, so the cabinet doors won't close. I have no idea what to do with them at the moment. I also picked up a new halogen track light for over the game table so hopefully people can actually see what they're doing. As of now I have the whole thing up, but I'm going to need to get some kind of cover or patch to fix the spot in the ceiling where the other light was, since this new one is quite a bit smaller. I also pulled the dimmer switch out of the circuit downstairs, so now all the lights in the main room come on when you flip one switch at the bottom of the stairs. Extra bonus for this part of the project was me not electrocuting myself!
* An upcoming rarity for me: a 3 day weekend. While Labor Day does mark the traditional end of summer, I tend to have an issue with ending something that never really started. The thing that was called summer this year sucked bigger squid dick than I ever could have thought possible. All it ends up leaving me with is a really bad feeling about the winter this year.
* The movie was "Sunshine Cleaning". I laughed, I got my heartstrings tugged, I laughed some more, I had a puke burp, and then I laughed some more. The maggots were a nice touch, too.
* Here's hoping that Kittyluv gets some good news on the hepatic front in the near future.
* Seems like the only place I can catch up with Dhawk is down on the farm.
* Things have been oddly slow at work lately, even with the return of the NIU students. No real complaint there, just more of an observation. The main thing looming on the health care horizon seems to be trying to get ready for the mass paranoia of swine flu. *sigh* why this one is hanging around I don't know. I guess the mass populace is no longer afraid of monkeypox, Ebola, avian flu, SARS, and anthrax (along with other fad diseases I have no doubt forgotten). I have heard that the swine flu virus is already mutating due to over and improper use of anti-viral drugs. So, even though it wasn't much of a threat before, we're trying to push it into being one as fast as we can. Y'know....I sense a government conspiracy here. Somehow, the Dems are using the whole swine flu thing to push America into becoming a communist state! I mean, this whole "swine flu" thing wasn't even out there till Bush left office, right? And just that word, "swine". Don't the terrorists have a thing about "swine"?? I knew Bin Laden was in on this whole thing!! If you get the sniffles, the terrorists win!!
* Apparently Bruce Willis is still out there making movies. I had no idea. I've seen a couple of ads for a sci-fi flick called 'Surrogates' that he is starring in. Who knew?
* The idea of having skylights installed in the living room has pretty much been dropped. In it's place is the idea of getting tube lights put in. For those of you who either don't know, or don't give a crap, a tube light is basically a flexible conduit lined with reflective material that has a housing on the roof to let in light, and a lens on the other end to let light into the room. That way, the opening in the roof ends up being a 10-12" circle, which is much less invasive. Another neat trick is that you can put one dome on the roof, and split the tube so that it illuminates 2-4 lenses inside the house. We are currently in the process of getting estimates for one of these neat little assemblies.
* If I ever find out who it was who rented and then didn't bother to return the first disc of season 2 of Rescue Me, I will be kicking someone's ass.
* Disney is buying Marvel?!?!? WTF?!?!? Is NOTHING sacred?? That's almost as bad as when Wizards of the Coast bought TSR.... But the sure sign of the end of the world will be when Disney buys Wal-Mart, or vice-versa. Soon, all will be Wal-Mart. Or all will be Disney. Wait a sec....One ruling body that says what can and can't be....One entity with a lock on the market and the media....Oh crap!! It's another socialist conspiracy!! Disney and Wal-Mart both get a lot of stuff from China, and China is fulla them there Communists! Its a plot! Run away!! Run away!!
* Speaking as someone who often plays the part of an absolute literalist on TV, there are times when the spirit of something should override what is written (or not written, as the case may be). Dolphins can't carry your swimmers onto land. End of discussion.
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