Thursday, February 27, 2014

What Reeks in Here?!

*Every episode of Game of Thrones should henceforth come with a highly detailed and meticulously annotated flowchart of how all the characters are related. Or, given the rate at which they seem to get killed, were related.

*Perfume is one of the few things that really, really irritates me. It can actually give me a ragingly savage headache in a matter of minutes. Nothing like walking into a drifting cloud of some old lady's rank miasma 15 minutes after she's gone by. Or some teenage idiot who has bathed in whatever noxious aroma is being shilled by the celebrity of the moment. Of course, I must freely admit to my own mistakes in this arena. My stench of choice when I was a teen was English Leather. Let me repeat that: English Leather. That alone should prove that I know whereof I speak, since that stuff is now classified as a hazardous material by the federal Clean Air Act. There was one time when I applied so much of it in anticipation of going out that I just about suffocated everyone riding in the car with me that night. And just as a side note, E.L. is really tenacious. One trip through the shower just really won't take care of it. Anyway, I don't care if you're male or female, regardless of what the label calls it, it's still perfume. It's not going to make you smell like some Eurotrash fashion model or the pop singer du jour. And who the hell knows what those things really smell like anyways? It's sure not gonna make me think you smell like a field of flowers in an alpine meadow after a gentle spring rain. I've never stood under the Eiffel Tower at midnight either, so I have no idea how that smells, or much less why anyone would want to smell that way. And another thing, if you do choose to wear perfume, don't keep applying the stuff until YOU can smell it. Rest assured that your nasal receptors have been burned out and your crista galli has been eroded by that shit to the point where what's left of your brain will just dribble out of your nose at some random point in time. Meanwhile, your daily perfume dosage is causing birds three blocks away to fall out of the sky stone dead. And on fire. And I don't give a damn how much it costs per spritz, or pint, or cubic kiloliter: 99.990234235% of any of it reeks to the point where pig shit would run away from it if it had legs. Or a nose. How much money you spent on it is a sign of your stupidity, not my inability to conceive of how wonderful it smells. I don't use scented deodorant, bodywash, shampoo, hairspray, detergent, or fabric softener when I can avoid it. Now, on the very, very slight chance that I feel like altering my scent profile, my choice is bay rum. It's something that in this one very highly isolated case, was good enough for grandpa, and is good enough for me.

*For those of you who haven't heard, celery is the cornerstone of a worldwide evil plot for global domination that needs to be stopped.

*Not the best day at work today. The studio is still a mess after the installation of the drafting cabinet, and it's not easy to get from one side of the room to the other. The closet doors are only half sanded and still need another coat of paint and random piles of Hawaiian shirts seem to be sprouting up here and there. Plus, I know there used to be a couch in there somewhere. The add-ons for the carving table still haven't been installed yet, and there are at least 4 projects in various stages of completion laying around. Be nice to be able to just lock myself in there until I get everything squared away. But, since I know that isn't going to happen, I'll try and make peace with the mess to the degree that I need to so I can actually get some work done.

*I figured out that I can play video games as much as I want, as long as I am walking on the treadmill while I do it. I think that's a pretty good system. Half an hour of game time gets me just over a mile of distance walked.

*Vegas? Maybe. Milwaukee? Maybe. Chicago? Maybe. Florida? Also on the maybe list. Beyond those, nothing really leaping out at me as far as good places to go in April. That is to say, as far as good places to go that I can afford without having to sell any of my internal organs to pay for the trip.

*****

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Pancho Rigatoni Sings the Greatest Hits of Boxcar Willie

*Today's lucky numbers are 8, 3, 9, 0, 4, 1, 5, 2, 7, and 6, as well as any possible combination or permutation thereof.

*Today's Horoscope: You will waste your time reading a horoscope today.

*It really didn't seem that cold today. At least, from inside the house in the sunny spot next to the heating vent with the dog on my lap, it seemed like it could be somewhat tolerable outside. But then, being the idiot that I am, I actually went outside for reasons that now seem deep in the realms of the ridiculous. And then the wind hit me. Well, it wasn't so much that it hit me as it was that it forcibly stabbed it's way into each and every orifice and pore in, on, and in the immediate vicinity of my body. Then I realized how freaking cold that wind actually was, since I am indeed a genius when it comes to the blatantly obvious, and since it was somehow managing to bypass each and every single article of clothing I had on in a moderately successful attempt to flash freeze my pancreas. I must say that my pancreas was not amused by this in the least. It was that kinda wind that when it hits your face you get an instant headache, as if all that cold air, and even winter itself, was trying to force it's way into your skull just so it would have a place it could warm up for a while. Yup. Just loving that.

*Nope. Never really been a fan of radishes.

*Tinkering with the idea of getting a small wind turbine. Got a good place to put it, but the real question is how long it would take to recoup the cost of the unit and the installation in electricity costs. Guess the fact that a lot of southern DeKalb county is covered with windmills would be a favorable indicator for this type of thing being a good idea in this geographic area. Beyond that, haven't done a whole lot of research on it yet.

*Interesting. Leprosy in and of itself doesn't make any of your body parts fall off. Good to know.

*Fuck whatever tiny handed, pencil necked, sadist engineer that designed the headlight assembly of my otherwise awesome car! Fuck that whole knuckle shredding, razor and barbed wire lined, flesh eating, gateway to the 87th level of hell's south forty that holds the bulb in it's bloodthirsty, dirt and grease caked grasp! I have no idea what micro-fingered fantasy creature the whole thing was designed to be serviced by, but they sure as hell don't exist on this or any other conveniently accessed parallel dimension! What am I supposed to do, use my super secret shrink ray to make my hand small enough to fit in there? Maybe I should genetically design and train a bunch of special magic headlight bulb replacing commando weasels to do the job and then sell their services to people all around the world with normal sized hands?? Wait....it says what in the owner's manual? The end of the air intake just pops right off right behind the headlight? Seriously?? Well, shit. That's tons easier with that off......now why don't you just shut up and pass the damn Band-Aids...

****

Despair...

*We know what is best for you. Follow the plan as have the thousands and thousands of generations before you. You will be given acceptable things to enjoy. Believe all you are told by everyone without question. Fear any criticism. Fear all ridicule. Fear the unfamiliar. Understand your place.



After that, you may lie down quietly and die so that you may be forgotten.
--

Monday, February 24, 2014

Traumatic Peaches

*Well, the cleaning of the dust covers in the drafting cabinet seems to have succeeded. Now, instead of mold, they smell of Lysol. Neither one is an odor that I really care for. We'll just have to see if the mold smell comes back at all. And of course, I had to make my blood sacrifice to the project gods while putting it all back together. As far as the storage volume goes, it seems to be pretty comparable to the other cabinet that it replaced. The top of this new cabinet is much better for putting stuff on though, and the near perfect leg height makes for perfect LP storage underneath.

*There was a breadfruit the size of my head that was part of a display at the grocery store today. And little tiny pineapples about the size of my fist.

*It doesn't seem that I tend to remember the dreams I have in the deep of the night. The ones that really stick with me are the ones that I have in the mornings. Those tend to occur after the dogs or something wakes me up and I wind up falling back to sleep for a couple of hours. For some reason, the dreams had under those conditions tend to be long, involved, vivid, and just plain weird. I have no idea how the main character in last night's episode made their way up from my subconscious after all these years. And how the hell did I come up with Princeton, of all places?

*Aortic stenosis is going to be the thing that does Grandma S in, and the doctors seem to think it will be sooner rather than later. First Bailey, and now this. Not a good month for the folks.

*Game #3 is still not playing the way I would like it to on the base level. There's just that sticking point when everyone is looking for that last card to go out. I guess that's not uncommon in a lot of games, but I was hoping to keep it to a minimum. Made a couple of tweaks, now I have to do the testing to see if they fixed, or magnified, the problem. And I'm still going around with how I should do the rollout. Should the various levels of rules be put out as one complete set, or should they be done separately so people can get the ones they want? But, unless each new level functions independently, purchasing them separately won't really work. Hmmmm... I'd like to think I could put this aside for the moment, but if I want to run this out to the production level, I do need to get that figured out.

*Here, in this place, it is always night.

*Got all the pieces cut for my attempt at making modular height adjusters for my carving bench. Just need to put it all together. If this ends up working, I'll be able to do adjustments in increments of 1.5". Hopefully this will take care of the lower back pain I get from extended carving sessions. If not, I'll have to try something else.

*Game of Thrones season 3 arrived on our doorstep Friday. Time for some binge episode watching!

*Looks like the Peoria area is going to be on my itinerary for March 13-16. Could be interesting, as always. Just might be time to go hunt me an elephant or two.

*****

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Shoo Be Don't

*Completely blocked? Really?

*I thought it made sense. If it's full and it isn't supposed to be, empty it. Conversely, if it's empty and it isn't supposed to be, fill it. Don't know of any way to make that concept any simpler than it already is.

*Thought about having a poker night on Friday, but doubt that I could find enough players.

*I need to dig into my piles of junk and see if I still have all my Cars tapes. And then I need to see if they'll even play. And then I need to record then onto the computer. And then I need to cut the recorded waveforms into the appropriate song length bits. Then I need to convert the waveforms into MP3's. That way I won't have to spend any more money at the iTunes store.

*****

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Tainted Litmus

*"God Bless America"- Steve had recommended this movie to me ages ago, and it has languished in my Netflix queue ever since. Finally got around to watching it, and I can see why he recommended it to me. Well, actually, I think he recommended it to me because it was written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Still, I enjoyed it. Didn't make me feel any better about the state of our country at the moment, though. The sentiment of the movie was one that I agreed with on several levels. Except for the whole random shooting part. That, not so much.

*There is really no good reason for me to continue re-exploring Black Mesa. It was pretty much a waste of time the first time I did it.

*Why should I not go antiquing? Simple. I always find cool, and expensive, stuff. Like last year, when I found a decent drafting cabinet at Kane county. Would have been nice, but I hedged on it, and who knows where it ended up. Fast forward to this past weekend and antiquing in Rockton, IL. While tiki stuff was in critically short supply (and ridiculously overpriced), and the games I found were unremarkable, I did run across another drafting cabinet. Five drawers, solid steel construction, with a stand, and heavy as fuck. Needless to say, it came home with me. Now, I'm just working on getting it cleaned up and finding a place for it in the studio. The latter wasn't much of a problem, except for the size of the darn thing. The former may prove to be a bit more difficult, as the sling dividers in each drawer have bit of a musty funk to them. Definitely don't want to be storing anything in there until I can eliminate that odor. I'm hoping that between Lysol and Febreeze I can get the job done. Maybe I should have bought that 1950's CPR dummy instead.

*Almost starting to think that 3/4" is too long.

*"Stitches"- A movie that had great promise from the trailer I saw (but then again, when has a trailer ever looked bad?). How can you go wrong with the idea that a somewhat sleazy clown who dies at a kid's birthday party comes back from the dead years later to exact his revenge on those same kids? Well, from that awesome launching pad came a rather lackluster execution (pardon the pun). Not to say that it was a bad movie, some of the jokes and the over the top gore were hilarious and a foul mouthed clown with an Irish accent is always amusing, but the overall tone of the movie just didn't hit the right note for me. Could have been soooo much more creepy than it was. Still, it might be able to give someone with a clown phobia a decent nightmare or two.

*To the rather fat mouse living under the snowbank outside my front door, I have only this to say: Die, die, die, you fuzzy gray turd.

*ZZ Top has added a ton of dates to their tour, which is great....but I don't live in Canada....or Europe.

*"Super 8"- Rewatched this the other night since I didn't really remember it, and came to rather disappointing conclusion that it was just a remake of "E.T." with a more pissed off alien.

*OK, here's a thought I had the other day: Does a low knowledge of current pop music limit your ability to enjoy the music of "Wierd Al" Yankovic? I'm not entirely sure. I would almost say that if you didn't know a song was a parody of a specific other song, well, it would just seem like a comedy song. I don't think that would decrease your ability to enjoy it. Since I'm not familiar with the song "All About the Benjamins", for example, I didn't know that that was what "All About the Pentiums" was based on. Didn't make me like the latter song any less, though. Also really gave me zero motivation to look up the former song and do a comparison of the two. I have found that a lack of knowledge about pop music can kill your ability to enjoy any of Al's polka mixes. Not knowing any of the songs that have been polka-ized renders that particular type of translation ineffective. And here's something that I thought was kinda odd: whilst browsing Al's discography, I discovered that there has never been a compilation album of his material released that was solely comprised of his original works.

*Who is my personal Sexy Evil Genius? The movie of the same name has made me wonder. And be slightly afraid.

*"Ted"- This movie finally got around to Netflix, so I finally got around to watching it. Aside from the letdown of an ending, and the fact that I really don't care for Mila Kunis, I was highly amused. I would think that most people would be able to pick out my favorite scene without a lot of difficulty.

*Another place I shouldn't go is the game store. Made the mistake of going and somehow wound up walking out with a copy of the Fantasy Flight reprint of Fortress America. But that process led me to this question: Can the local incarnation of a chain store be considered a "local business"? Since I don't have a knowledge of how franchising works, I don't have a good answer for this. It would seem that the local owner of the Gaming Goat would have certain things dictated to him by whoever it is that owns the whole thing, so as such, it's not really an independent business. The flip side is that it is part of the local economy. Still, my thinking is that I should be doing more of my game shopping at New Game in Town instead of the Gaming Goat.

* While it may be fashionable, and is probably quite warm, Wearing a coat that covers you from the top of your head to your knees and is completely black may not be the best choice for walking around a poorly lit parking lot at night.

* Seriously? A zit?? Inside my nose??? What the hell???

****

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Not While the Weasel is Watching...

*Need to pick recipes out when I get home, since it's my week to do the cooking. Curry of some sort sounds good. So does hot and sour soup. Maybe I should go out for Chinese before I hit the grocery store.



* Woke up today to find out that the furnace wasn't working. Yippee. Luckily, even though it was below zero all night, it had only dropped to 58 in the house. The good news? DeKalb Mechanical came right out. The bad news? The problem seemed to repair itself, and the technician couldn't find anything obviously wrong with the furnace. He did go out of his way to point out the various safety features present in the furnace, thereby implying that it was at best unlikely that my house would convert itself to a smoking crater in the ground should anything...unusual... happen.



*It's always great to be looking down the barrel of a day off and see just how much of it will be consumed with mindless errands and chores. Perhaps a trip to the game store would help to lighten my mood. If that doesn't work, the liquor store just might.



* What the hell did I get on my hands that would have given me chemical burns??



*Tried to feed the computer a nice yummy RAM stick today, and it didn't seem to like it. Last time I try and do anything for that ungrateful bastard...



* Yup. Greasy Gearbox would be an awesome band name.



*****

Monday, February 10, 2014

Snazzy Pasta Codpiece

*Yes, just in case you were wondering, removing cabinet doors can lead to an argument about building a bar. Which means, of course, that the cabinet doors are going back up.



*Seems like Valentine's Day weekend is determined to force me to make some difficult decisions as to just who I am going to end up pissing off the most.



*I could buy Yen Ching and turn it into a Polynesian restaurant/bar. It's got a good location and a liquor license. Kinda weird interior layout, though. But, parking is decent, it's right next door to the new police station, and it's on the main drag at the edge of campus. Still, it's a niche theme that might not fly in the boondocks that comprise DeKalb. Makes me want to see some numbers from Cabana Charley's and see how they're doing. Alternately, I could buy into a World of Beer franchise. Not really sure as to where the best place in town would be for something like that. And then I'd have to fight with the city council to get a liquor license. Plus, I still have my doubts as to whether or not the local population could/would support it. The House is still sitting empty, so there's an opportunity there, but no one has been able to squeeze a profit out of that place for as long as it's been around. Not a lot of money to be made from selling coffee to hipsters, I guess. I really think location has killed that place more than once.



*What? A new album from The Presidents of the United States of America is coming out soon?? About damn time!!



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Not Ever Even Remotely Close To Being As Advertised


**Went and checked out the new game store in town today. It's not bad, aside from being somewhat hallwayish, and part of a chain. And, as usual, "game store" in the modern parlance means "MtG store". And that makes me wonder why Mtg players are such a surly lot when every game store out there caters to their whims. Not that this place wasn't decently stocked with other games, mind you. Would have been real easy for me to drop $2-300 and not get everything I was interested in. Probably still keep doing my business with New Game, despite the fact they never filled my X-Wing back order.



**The last two shows of American Horror Story: Asylum? Horribly, horribly, disappointing. Should have quit watching where I had left off in the series in the first place.



**"That" discussion came up again today over lunch: Which one of us should be making the move into a new career? The reasons were as usual. The finger pointing was as usual. The end result of the discussion was as usual also. Fortunately, I had a good lunch and a pleasant view to distract me, which was not at all usual.



**CATT 2014 or 2015? Interesting thought, but who's gonna pull it off?



**Yet more snow today. Rather annoying. I can't recall the last time snow was ever actually any fun. I would have to guess it was about the same time that I stopped getting to have snow days.



**Olympics? Oh, yeah, I intend to start watching. Right after I get gone threading this red hot barbed wire into my urethra.



**The wireless controller seemed like a good idea, except for the fact that I tend to rest my index finger right along the edge where the infrared emitter is. Beyond that, now I can play Sega Genesis games whilst I take my walks.



**It should not, in my modest opinion, take two days to clean out a drain trap and reseal all the pipe joints, but my sink was of a different mindset than I was. And, as a side note, there was nothing I ever put down that drain that even remotely resembled the toxic black sludge in that trap.



**Ratchet and pawl adjustable workbench legs. Why has no one thought of this before??



**Game#3 is stuck in limbo for lack of playtesting. While I have people who are willing to help, trying to get them in the same place at the same time is proving to be damn near impossible. There are a lot of things I need to get worked out in the Tourist phase before I can move on to the later incarnations of the game. Split wilds vs the Busboy, for example.



**On day #4 of this current down cycle. Hoping for a break soon.



**Think I'm probably going to take the doors off the game cabinets in the main room downstairs. Be easier to see and access the games that way. And then I'll have six Ikea cabinet doors that I won't be able to use for anything. Unless I somehow figure out how to incorporate them into the new bar. Of course, that would mean I would actually have to build a new bar. It is about time to rearrange the furniture, I think. Not sure how yet. Roger might find a new place to stay, though.



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