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newer entries...
11-29-99 grinding the scapegoat
11-28-99 seven stars and one white tree
11-27-99 cold turkey
11-22-99 I'm melllting...
11-17-99 lock and load
11-16-99 just to clear up a few things
11-15-99 downtime
11-12-99 George Jetson, eat your heart out
11-09-99 Mononoke Hime
11-07-99 eye in the sky
11-05-99 armed and relatively harmless
11-04-99 two front teeth
11-03-99 ship first, ask questions later
11-01-99 sam who?
older entries...
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grinding the scapegoat
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| 11-29-99 |
Yesterday provided a little bit of, shall we say, challenge. DR Prime and Plat crashed together, hard, in a brand new way I've never seen before and hope not to again, right went I went home for a quick leftover turkey dinner. Then GS crashed, in a normal way but without any determinable cause. Then the server that runs H&X and CS2 had to be physically rebooted and some lost files restored. Not the worst day I've had, but there's something nerve-wracking about watching a Linux machine rebooting and checking its filesystems and not telling you anything for 10 minutes...
Today was a meeting day, nothing really major going on but just making sure our waterfowl are in parade formation... at 11:30 AM. 5 and a half hours before I'm usually in, and that's about how much sleep I got too. I'm fine, except my eyes look like Planetary Nebula NGC 6543. But ask me again in a couple of hours.
· · ·
Interesting bit on Slashdot today: the FBI's "Geek Profile", to be used by US and Canadian schools to find potential dangerous killers, because as we all know, they're lurking behind every water fountain. This is the subject I wasn't going to touch earlier, but here I am writing about it again so I guess I should let it out.
I only got 48% in a Geek Purity Test (meaning I'm 52% geeky) so let's see how I stack up on this one:
| Usually boys of average or above-average intelligence. |
| I had that one... but that's not hard. If you define "average or above-average" as within the upper 51%, we're talking a quarter of the student population. |
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| Often loners, or have small circles of friends who are outsiders. |
| Yup, still true. I'm not outgoing, not cliquishly social or one of those everybody's-best-friend types, and large numbers of people drive me nuts if I can't get away from them. I'm not one to make up statistics out of the blue but I'd guess that a good third of society would describe themselves that way. Particularly in high school, where it's just plain easier not to go through the whole In thing. |
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| Experience unstable self-esteem. |
| Okay, either this is a joke, or whoever slapped this thing together has no recollection of their own childhood and has been locked in a basement since then. I would seriously worry about any individual in high school who has "stable self-esteem"... maybe they don't believe other people actually exist. For that matter, the same goes for many adults. |
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| Often fascinated by cults, Satanism, weapons, themes of violence and death. |
| Define "fascinated." There's a difference between thinking a subject is interesting, and getting destructively obsessed about it. Is there anybody who is not even remotely interested in death or violence? It's part of the human condition, part of the natural world, and an inevitable issue everybody has to deal with at some point in time. It's not abnormal to think, worry, or wonder about them. |
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| Experience a decline in schoolwork and marks. |
| These happen to everybody... I used to have lower grades in the 3rd quarter of every year and rally again in the 4th. But a sudden sharp decline is worth checking out, it could be for any number of reasons. |
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| Come from dysfunctional homes. |
| I didn't. My family was and is the greatest. But "dysfunctional" is different from the next. The real issue is whether the person is seriously affected by family troubles or abuse, not whether they have a single mother for instance. |
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| Have experience with chronic bullying and drug use. |
| This is a nicely vague question, isn't it? Let's be blunt here, I was a smart fat kid with glasses who played in the school orchestra and wasn't good at football. I got my daily dose of verbal abuse. I never truly got beat up (because I never provoked anybody directly) though I did have a pair of scissors thrown at my face once. But just being told daily how inadequate and unliked and worthless you are takes its toll. This, folks, is the reason I didn't like school or most of the people in it. Of course it didn't mean I laid plans to end it all in a hail of lead either. |
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| Engage in attention-seeking behavior, and don't accept criticism. |
| Here's some examples of attention-seeking behavior: cheerleading, football, fashion, the game of "be a nonconformist just like everybody else", all the stuff society expects females to do to live up to unrealistic standards of attractiveness (or just plain flirting for that matter), cracking jokes, running for class president, answering questions in class... |
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Six out of seven... so I'm 85% psycho killer. Wow, I never knew I had it in me.
Maybe I'm getting a little too cynical here. High school was not hell for me, but wasn't what it should have been. The "real world" that it was supposed to prepare me for isn't nearly as hostile and unforgiving, if you ask me.
Juvenile crime is on the decline, big-time. The thing that happened in Littleton was terrible, yes. Seems to me that the best way to make it happen again is to further alienate already unbalanced people (which is, as this test shows anyway, a very large part of the student body) by labeling them as dangerous freaks.
And I can't help but go off on the Gun Rant now: the harder it is for someone to get a gun, the less this sort of thing is going to happen. Which is more likely to reduce school shootings: banning black trenchcoats, or making it so you can't buy deadly weapons at Wal-Mart?
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seven stars and one white tree
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| 11-28-99 |
I've been rereading Lord of the Rings. I'm about a third of the way through the third book -- Eowyn is in drag, Aragorn has collected his dead army, Minas Tirith is under siege, Denethor has flipped his wig, Frodo's recovering from his date with Shelob and Sam is a ninnyhammer.
I have a love-hate relationship with this story. My boxed set, the "official" Ballantine Books one, is not in good shape -- The Fellowship of the Ring is about to disintegrate. It's older than I am, and has been read many times.
Tolkien has built one heck of a world. He'd have made an incredible GM. There are a number of things I can pick out as being really incredibly cool -- Elbereth, the White Tree, Galadriel, the Rohirrim, the Sword that was Reforged, Moria, the Nazgul, the Eye... I get caught up in the wonder of it, creeped out by the evil, and wishing all the amazingly beautiful things of the Third Age of Middle-Earth were around in the real world. (One of the things that counters that longing is the notion that most of the magic of the Elves was worked through their Three Rings, made by Sauron, and you can't have the good without the bad.)
But those moments shine out from a less mature, less grand story. Sort of reminds me of what I know of Rudyard Kipling, which is probably less than I should since I've never really read his stories. It betrays its origins as a bedtime story for kids. There's goofy characters like Tom Bombadil and the Ents (not to mention the danged Hobbits), and everyone short of Sauron himself breaks into song at the drop of a hat. And it moves so slowly at times... it takes the four Hobbits half a book to reach Rivendell! Sure, there were the creepy stalking Black Riders that hadn't yet fully been revealed as the ancient horrors they really are, and the disqueting way the Old Forest herded them to Old Man Willow, and the great scene with the barrow-wights, and Frodo getting poisoned. But if it weren't for the birthday party and all the songs about beer and mushrooms and hot baths, it could have been told in a few chapters.
Tolkien does a great job of describing how thoroughly nasty a place Mordor is, but he spends 3/4 of a book detailing Frodo and Sam's journey when most of the interesting action is going on in Gondor. I almost want to skip the "woe is me, it really sucks to be the Ringbearer" parts and get back to the part with the action, drama, magic, and romance.
I can't help but wonder if it would have been a better story if Boromir succeeded in taking the Ring from Frodo and bringing it back to Gondor and royally screwing things up... such as actively opposing Aragorn when he returned to claim the throne. That way, the bit with Galadriel daydreaming about what she could do with the Ring would have been foreshadowing. Whee.
One thing that bothers some people is the plethora of names for people and places. Aragorn = Strider = Longshanks = Elessar = the Dunadan. Gandalf the Grey = Gandalf the White = Mithrandir = Greyhame = Stormcrow = (a whole list of other names he's known by elsewhere). The Lord of the Nazgul = the Witch-King of Angmar = Lieutenant of Barad-Dur = the Morgul-King. And so on. Personally, I think it's kinda neat... but then I've read the books countless times and don't have much trouble remembering who's who.
LOTR is by no means a perfect story but it does spark my imagination. I'm going to want to read The Silmarillion when I'm done, and I don't have it anymore. Wah. I'd put it on my list, but I won't have the patience...!
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cold turkey
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| 11-27-99 |
Thanksgiving's over, my birthday is over, my parents have gone back home. I enjoyed their visit, but it's good to have my place back to myself again. As I've learned on road trips and vacations over the years, I need a sanctuary where I can get away from other people or I start to go a little crazy.
They left me with a kitchen full of food. Not just Thanksgiving leftovers, but a supply of groceries that should get me through the rest of the millenium (unless you want to get picky and point out that the millenium really doesn't start until 2001, like I usually do) and enough paper towels to last me until the next appearance of Halley's Comet.
I wrote up a short guide to Lloyd's Weapon Mods for Rogue Spear. I'll see if Pie4Foo of Pie's Tactics is interested.
That's about it... I don't have much to write about, just thought I'd mention I'm still here. And that Steph has updated The World Tree, which is always news. :)
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I'm melllting...
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| 11-22-99 |
It's raining. It's actually been a while since there was major precipitation in Mooville, and apparently most of the residents have forgotten how to drive in it.
Coming down Next-To-The-Highway Road, traffic was a little bit backed up. Fire rescue truck on the left. As I got closer I saw a couple of cars off on the right that had been in a minor fender bender, and a female fireman... er, firefighter (or else an EMT in serious rain gear) shouting at one of the drivers. On the other side of the street was another, who looked so much like her they could have been twins. I thought that was pretty cool.
The car behind me seemed unable to slow down enough to avoid hitting me (it's not like I suddenly slammed on the brakes myself or anything, he just wasn't paying attention I guess) and slid over onto the shoulder -- and the car behind him swerved way over into the ditch (good thing it's shallow) to avoid him. That was a little bit more excitement than one usually wants in a 5 minute drive.
A little farther on there were four more cars pulled over to the side, with appropriately smashed front and/or rear ends. I figure the driver being dressed down by the firefighter rear-ended somebody who had stopped for the 4-car crash. I'm glad the guy behind me didn't continue that chain.
Couple of intersections later a Taurus almost lost control after slamming on the brakes to avoid some bozo who made a right turn on a red light right in front of him.
I made it to the office unscathed, but thinking: I just can't wait until it snows.
· · ·
My parents are here for their visit. It's good seeing them, even if I have to sleep on the couch and wake up early. :) So I've been and will continue to be a little slow about updates for the next week or so. In the meantime you might want to try out a couple of new Windows shells that have been released lately: DarkStep and IceSphere. I'm running DarkStep on my home machine (along with Mandrake Linux again, though I haven't yet configured it for my cable modem) and am happy with it, though it has a couple of quirks that will hopefully be ironed out in the next release.
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lock and load
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| 11-17-99 |
We're not obsessed. Oh no. Just a little... enthusiastic.
Steph has discovered the wonders of online coupons (and dragged me in too) and ordered essential oils from all over the place. There's two boxes sitting on her chair here at the office now, and more coming from at least two other companies. Me, I got a copy of Pong
for the Playstation. Yeah, I know, I should have gone for Driver or Einhander... I need to put those on my ever-growing list, don't I?
My obs... er, subject of enthusiasm, has been Rogue Spear. I haven't played the single player campaign, just a lot of multiplayer terrorist hunts. That's why the S.W.A.T. action figure's on the list now. The "Missed Me?" t-shirt would be on my list too if it came in XXL (XL is borderline for me, and I'd hate it if somebody spent $20 on a t-shirt I can't wear). The poster's okay but I already have way too much stuff for my walls, and the standee is kinda cool but way too expensive.
Last night I started playing with Lloyd's Weapon Mods. It adds an amazing number of weapons to the game, including some truly exotic stuff such as a grenade launcher sidearm, several light machine guns (impressive but not really that useful for most maps), a full-auto sniper rifle (just the thing for disgruntled postal workers on rooftops), and a sniper rifle that fires grenades... oops, that was a bug fixed in the last patch. (It was hilarious though!) Also lots of junky AK-47 copies and cheap machine pistols and the like, which would be fun if you actually had to buy your gear as you do in the Counter Strike mod for Half-Life.
I spent hours in Rogue Spear's shooting range messing with various weapons that looked cool, though I haven't tried them all. Many of the more powerful weapons are disallowed in multiplayer because they're too powerful, such as the grenade launcher or the Galil Sniper variant. Tonight I'm going to go through the list of available multiplayer weapons and evaluate them. Maybe I'll write up an article for one of the RS tactics sites or something.
At the moment I like the Finnish Jatimatic SD (even though it's a fairly weak 9mm weapon, it's accurate and fast and has a decent zoom) and the VSK-94 Sniper (it looks like something a 6 year old made from an erector set, but it's a very effective cross between a submachine gun and a sniper rifle... its main problem is it only holds 20 rounds and has a high enough rate of fire to get you in trouble fast).
I'm not a gun guy. I never owned one, unless you count a CO2 pellet gun and a classic Red Ryder BB gun, and I had more fun with throwing knives and stars anyway. :) I'd rather rejoin the SCA and learn target archery. But this stuff is kinda cool in an abstract way. Actually it's fun in the same way that mech games are fun -- using just the right configuration for your tactics and vice versa.
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just to clear up a few things
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| 11-16-99 |
Stayed up too late playing Rogue Spear, didn't sleep well, got up too early for the cable modem installation. I never imagined it'd take three guys and almost two hours to accomplish. Though my apartment is cable-ready they had to wire me up outside -- I guess the
previous occupants never had cable either. My machine boots into Linux by default if you don't enter anything at the prompt, and
they blew it a couple of times. The first network card they tried insisted on taking IRQ 4 (which belongs to COM 1) and kept screaming some Netware error message (which I thought was really weird since I haven't even seen Novell software in action in almost 10 years, much less installed it on my own machine). They gave up on it and dropped in another, and it was fine. But they also had my password wrong (thanks to the goofy process whereby you have to tell the people at AT&T HQ what your password is instead of letting you choose it yourself) and that wasted further time, which was pointless because I'm not using that email address anyway, but they insisted. They also installed all kinds of useless stuff like QuickTime 3 (I doubt I'd even use 4 on that machine) and some kind of 3D character animation thing that I deleted right away.
Eventually they finished up and got out of there and I gave it a spin. Whoooosh. My computer may take a while just to fire up a browser, but download time is no longer an issue. Thanks to our great connection at work (a T3 backed up by 7 T1's) I'm
used to high web browsing speeds, but I obviously don't get even remotely close to 100% of it. :) Effective download speed is actually much faster via cable than it is at work.
I found a great parody site worth checking out if you have some time to kill: San Dilego Online. A guide to shopping, dining, entertainment and services in a city built from Legos, as well as "The L-Files". It's cute without being obnoxious.
The other site I found really hurts my head (though not as much as it hurt some other people...). Lemme 'splain. In the late 80's when those mysterious "Read Dianetics" commercials appeared on TV, I did. It started by postulating the idea that a lot of our fears and doubts and hatreds come from things we overhear while in the womb or unconscious. No evidence was presented, yet Hubbard wasn't a third of the way into the book before he was passing it off as hard, proven science. There's nothing else really in there. There was no direct tie-in to Scientology in the book itself, but a mail-in card to get more information (and I use that term loosely).
That was pretty much the extent of it, other than somebody mentioning my aunt had looked into it briefly and (like Nicole Kidman) had the sense to quit. I lived not that far from what they call "Flag" -- Clearwater, FL -- and saw frequent articles about their latest antics in the St. Petersburg Times, on subjects ranging from tax evasion to a possible murder, but I really never paid them much attention.
Couple of years ago I was browsing around and accidentally ran into a completely kooky page that threw together personages from Egyptian and Biblical mythology (it was clear that the author knew or cared little about either) with evil alien invaders in a whole sort of apocolyptic mess, and it turned out to be Scientology related. I elevated their status from "vaguely creepy" to
"dangerous lunatics" but left it at that.
Today I was looking for info on Shadow Watch, an upcoming game from Red Storm Entertainment. Instead I landed on an anti-Scientology site. The site itself was just enough to grab my attention, but it pointed to the much more complete Operation Clambake page. (Note: as I write this, I notice that their site is currently down. It wasn't an hour ago. Doesn't that just make you shudder?) It explains all kinds of things about Scientology, such as the "personality test" designed to make you feel like you need mental help, to terminology and practices and the grading system of members and of "Suppressive Persons" (people who publicly speak out against their organization), to the rather convoluted mythology.
Now I have a lot of respect for most of the world's religions (recognizing that it is quite possible to respect something without subscribing to it or agreeing with it in all ways). But I have a hard time seeing as this story was made up by a science fiction writer who couldn't even sell the story to publishers -- a man who claimed to be a nuclear physicist (he failed the one course he took on the subject) and a naval war hero (he captained a vessel that never saw combat, ordered a depth charge attack on Japanese submarines that weren't actually there, fired illegally on Mexico, and was relieved of command several times).
You can read the story elsewhere, but in brief, it involves an evil alien overlord who banished humanity to volcanoes billions of years ago and blew them up with H-bombs. Their immortal souls survived, but were contaminated by lesser entities, tortured souls who bear the burden of their hard lives as clams or other lesser beasts (apparently clams suffer a lot because they can't decide whether they want to be closed or open... this, folks, is the great insight that Hubbard brings to human psychology).
No point in me writing a whole tirade about this secondhand, when it's been done by others. Just thought I'd point at it. As always, check multiple sources and make your own conclusions.
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downtime
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| 11-15-99 |
My site was down for a couple of days, but is back now. It works out to roughly 5% downtime since joining this new host, but that's
a small sample size. Since they've been great at all other times in all respects, so I'm not gonna worry.
I gave Poco some shredded carrots. He ignored them in favor of his pellets. He only seems to have a color preference on some days;
usually he'll just chow down on the nearest one to his face. He's a noisy eater too -- it amazes me that you can hear such a small
animal chewing on moist squishy food.
Speaking of moist squishy food, the Coca-Cola Chocolate Cake from Cracker Barrel is amazing. It's not a regular menu item I don't think, but get it if you can. Other favorites are the Banana Heath Crepes from Magpie's in historic downtown Mootown and the Chocolate Souffle Cake with vanilla bean sauce from California Pizza Kitchen. In fact the dessert is the best reason to go to Magpie's.
I cleared up some space on a Playstation memory card and have been trying to work my way through Wipeout3. I'm stuck on Stanza Inter though. I spend a lot of time slamming into walls while my
computer-controlled opponents zoom on ahead. There's a big jump in difficulty between those 3rd and 4th tracks, and what's truly
maddening is it's not going to let me try any of the others until I can beat this one. Oddly enough it may be easier in the second
class than the slowest, supposedly least aggressive class. I'll have to give it a try that way.
If you read Steph's site you already know this, but Donna is now journalling. Her writing is very different -- it's mercilessly poetic. She doesn't tell stories so much as make images and emotions and sensations out of words. I wish I had her talent.
Take her 0:0:1 entry for example. I've been to New York. I was suitably impressed. I want to go back sometime. No way in hell would I want to live there. The people are strange, like they're not quite human or like they belong to a completely different culture than everywhere else I've visited. There's fewer boundaries between them, in many ways -- their close proximity to so many other people so much of the time makes them both less afraid of each other and less respectful of each other. I'd never make it there. I like my personal space and freedom, and I need a place to retreat from everybody else for at least a few hours or I go crazy within a matter of days. But it was an amazing place and nowhere else I've been is like it.
See, Donna made the same point with a lot more panache. You'd almost never guess that she collects Jigglypuffs.
We're getting to be half decent at Rogue Spear terrorist hunts. Steph says she's not, but I disagree. She does tend to hang back and
tag along with people and is a lot more cautious than us guys, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since she also outlives us. She
also got me into using grenades intelligently (hint: throw the grenade, not the pin). And now I have to wrap this up 'cause we're gonna play.
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George Jetson, eat your heart out
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| 11-12-99 |
My machine at the office won't boot -- it's acting like it's a physical hard drive problem, but I'll leave that for Jeff, God of Biscuits to determine for sure. He's probably set up more computers in his time than I've ever used. So this entry's being written on the Inferiority-O-Matic at home.
I'm jumping into the new millenium with both feet (or maybe it's headfirst?). I'm getting an AT&T@Home cable modem installed Monday afternoon. I don't have any problem with Southwestern Bell Internet and I almost feel like I'm betraying them -- this will be the second time
I've canceled their service even though it was the best ISP I've ever used -- but we're talking cable vs. 56K here, and no installation fee. Not a hard decision.
Regular ISPs have always cost me extra on my phone bill anyway, because in Mooville you need the Metro Area Calling Plan to reach St. Louis numbers. Guess where all the ISPs are. Right. It just so happens that Sprint PCS has
a pretty decent plan at the same price I was paying for a normal phone.
Considering long distance call habits, I'm not paying any more on average here. And I'm getting 100 times faster internet connection, the ability to take my phone with me, voice mail, paging, and caller ID. Nice little upgrade there.
I did have to buy the phone, but it was $69 after rebate from Best Buy, and it's the coolest phone I've seen. Less than a finger's width thick, the width and length of a dollar bill, and very lightweight. So much for the idea that smaller phones are more expensive.
Now if I could just figure out how to upgrade this pig of a computer for cheap, I'd be in a state of geek euphoria.
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Mononoke Hime
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| 11-09-99 |
Stop what you're doing and check to see if Princess Mononoke is playing anywhere near
you. Make plans to go see it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
It's a great movie. Overall it's probably the best anime I've ever seen, and one of the best fantasy movies. The story makes
complete sense and is never hard to follow -- but it's not a simplistic good-vs-evil tale either. The art and animation are
well done. The dialogue and voice acting are a million times better than your average Japanese-to-English dub.
For those who are worried that a limited-release film with the word "Princess" in it is going to be a 4-hour epic chick
flick, have no fear. There are no slow moments. This isn't "The Last Emperor" or that sort of thing.
I'd have to say that Lady Eboshi is my favorite. Very strong-willed, almost stoic, with a nasty obsessive grudge offset by a kind
heart and concern for her own people. A quirky and multi-dimensional character for sure. Plus she has Minnie Driver's voice. Ooooh.
Last night I dreamed about Rogue Spear, then woke up with the theme from "The Hunt for
Red October" stuck in my head. Coincidence? Probably.
(Images courtesy of the official site, http://princess-mononoke.com.)
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eye in the sky
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| 11-07-99 |
Geeknews had a link today to
Terraserver, a site that has most of the US and tiny
bits of elsewhere mapped out in aerial photos. I tracked down a few places of personal interest...
| The
Simutronics Building |
Actually this photo is from 1992, and apparently neither our office nor
the banquet place next door had been built yet. But you can clearly see where it would be if it
was there.
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| The
OSGM Barracks |
The apartment complex near the office that all of the OSGMs -- sorry,
Product Developers -- call home. One small nuke is all you'd need...
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| My
old place |
Where I moved out of for the privelege of living in the place pictured
above and working at the place almost pictured above that.
By now you're wondering what a spirit ditch is and why everybody doesn't have one. Unless you happen
to have heard Sparklehorse's album
Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, in which case you're wondering whether it's a good place
to sleep with metal hands.
There's nothing particularly special about that ditch. It's not even a proper ditch, more of a lowish
grassy place beside the road, with a sewer drain at each end. It's not haunted or anything, I only
called it that because of the song. But even before hearing the song, I used to dream about the
place. Not sure why, because I never spent any real waking time there. I bet Freud would get a real
kick out of that.
In one of the dreams, we had an old garbage bag full of old fireworks in the garage that my Dad
wanted me to dump down one of those sewer drains. After some arguing about it, I grabbed it and
trudged over to the ditch. There was a guy with a fishing pole standing in the bed of his pickup
truck, fishing in a puddle no bigger than a plate. He started yelling at me about littering and
pollution and all kinds of stuff like that.
I don't really remember whether the dream had any kind of conclusion or just drifted off to something
else, the way some people do when they're talking about something that may be...
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armed and relatively harmless
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| 11-05-99 |
When I got up this afternoon, Poco had eaten the red and brown food pellets, but ignored the green
ones. I've heard before that individuals have their own favorite colors even though they're all
the same flavor (a mix of wheat, corn, apple, and chicken byproducts), but it was funny to see it
in action. Yet once I moved him into his Reptarium and gave him some fresh food, the first
color he went for was green. Go figure.
Poco's move was kind of fun actually. He was sitting on his basking rock, so I just picked it up
with him going along for the ride. Halfway into the cage, he climbed up onto my arm and started
licking it. I gave him the opportunity to get off, he didn't seem to want to, so I went for the
camera.
Not a great photo (I'm really not that pale no matter what Aryl says), but you should have
seen the other ones. Some of them were blurry enough to send to the Enquirer and claim it was
Bigfoot.
We've been playing a lot of Rogue Spear after hours at work. Great game. It reminds me a lot of
Thief. Maybe it's one step less immersive, but the map design is better, there are a lot more
tactical considerations, and Thief had no multiplayer. I miss the mumbling guards and the fact that
they actually take notice if they find one of their buddies dead, which the Rogue Spear guys don't
seem to -- do your terrorist hunting with an HK MP5SD5, and they'll never know you're there unless
they happen to see you. A game that combined the best elements of both would just be incredible.
I have a couple of things written on a sugar packet from Gingham's. Either
Steph, Jeff and I are easily
amused or our most humorous moments are when we go to dinner. Possibly both. But we usually don't
remember later what we said that was so danged funny. Case in point: a couple nights ago we were
talking about something, we all cracked up, then Steph said "We need a tape recorder. Five
minutes from now nobody is going to remember this conversation."
And she was right. None of us remember. We still don't remember.
So now when she says that, I make a note. I remember the "something stuck in your
teeth?" comment. I remember Cappachili. And I remember I was going to talk about ignoring
Muzak.
Not just Muzak, but Richard Marx and bad 70's songs and all the other not-quite-subliminal junk that
permeates American public places. Usually it's easy to ignore. Sometimes it's impossible.
Depends on the song, the volume, what else is going on, and the individual.
Steph seems to be less resistant to Muzak and Muzak-like products than I am, but she doesn't
hesitate to make me aware of it. Mumble.
I wondered once if anyone has ever done a study. The whole point of Muzak is to get people
into a relaxed and positive mood, so you'd think the less obtrusive it is, the more effective it
is. If you consciously notice it, you'll probably hate it.
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two front teeth
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| 11-04-99 |
I found a great new way to annoy Steph. It bothers her
when I say "beardie." I didn't even notice myself doing it, because it's so common
on reptile forums and web pages. Beardies, igs, gex, leos... most of the popular species have
their own pet names, so to speak.
After some thought I realized that this is a lot like the DR/GS baby-talk that has evolved in
the player culture that drives many of us insane. I don't say "smoochies" or
"warmies" or "massies" or "steelies." But I do say
"beardies." Call it a personality quirk.
I put together the Reptarium today. It took longer that expected and I lost a considerable
amount of skin in the process, making me painfully aware of how often the side of one's thumb
brushes against things. Ow ow ow. At first I thought the plastic tubes weren't going to fit
onto their connectors at all, but it's a very, very tight fit. A definite case of overkill -- a
gorrila would have a rough time taking this thing apart, much less a lizard or snake. Once you
get the thing together though, it feels very secure.
Poco is doing just fine, by the way. He came out of his apparently catatonic state and was
practicing for the Beardie (ha, I used that word again!) Olympic
tryouts. Running around, climbing, jumping, and generally going crazy and having a ball. Maybe
he's manic-depressive or something. I didn't have the chance to finish setting up the Reptarium
and move him in yet, because after a trip to Target to look for furniture to put the danged thing
on and a phone call home, it was dinnertime.
Allaire Homesite rocks. It found a bunch of minor HTML
goofs that snuck in and got replicated via cut-and-paste. I'm sort of amazed this page worked
at all. Eep.
My parents are taking off on their vacation this Saturday and they'll be coming up here for
Thanksgiving (the 25th) and my birthday (the 26th). Should be fun.
True to the exhibitionist nature of web journals, I'm posting my christmas
list online. Maybe it'll entertain somebody. :)
Speaking of entertainment, you should write Steph
and ask her what she has stuck between her teeth.
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ship first, ask questions later
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| 11-03-99 |
After a long night of Rogue Spear, I get
a wake-up call from Jeff at 10 AM. There's a box from Reptile Depot with screen sides
sitting on my desk. Odd, they didn't email or call or anything to confirm the order and
warn me in advance. But, okay, I can deal with this. Splash some water on my face, throw
on some clothes and head in.
Open box... carefully, so the little critter doesn't escape. It's stuffed with newspapers
and... what's this? A paper bag. A thick paper grocery bag, stapled very securely closed,
nestled in among the newspapers. A little odd, but okay, I can deal with this too.
Remove staples, peer inside bag. Oooh and ahhh over cute little baby beardie.
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| Bearded Human | | Bearded Dragon |
No Reptarium though. It shipped separately. Okay, he's tiny enough, he can stay in the
spare aquarium for a couple days, Clean it out, get it set up, transfer new family member
inside (this one's so endearing he gets family status right away). Watch in amazement as
new family member heads straight for the food pellets and chows down. Answer ringing phone.
It's GM Solomon. He says my new lizard is sitting in a box on his desk and I need to come
pick it up.
Uhhhh?
After Twenty Questions (really more like five) we figure out that it's the Reptarium.
Having just gotten the little guy set up, I decide he can stay in his reptilian version of
Motel 6 for one night before moving in to the Waldorf Astoria.
At first I thought I wasn't going to suffer from the paranoia and worry that I've gone
through twice before with new lizards, because he went right for the food, then spent some
time exploring and watching me. He's full of curiosity, and has a really cute quizzical
look he turns on everything. Eyesight is a beardie's primary sense, so he really does
watch pretty closely and track movement a lot more attentively than other lizards I've
seen.
I say "he," but it's too early to really tell. He (or she) is, at least
according to the order form, six weeks old. I'm just guessing male because the base of
the tail is pretty wide, and because males seem to be more available than females who
are more often kept as breeding animals. I've tagged him with the name Poco Pogona, and
it seems to be sticking.
Anyway, he was very active and playful and curious, and I was falling over with fatigue. I
went back to bed. When I got up and came in to the office at about 5:30 it was already
dark outside, but I have the timer on the lights set to an 8-to-8 schedule so they were
still on. Poco was kind of sitting there in a daze. I watched him close to see if he
was shaking, as beardies do when they eat food items that are too big for them and it
puts pressure on their spines, but he isn't. I'm thinking maybe he's jet lagged -- he
flew in from California in a paper bag, that would freak anybody out -- and my lighting
schedule is later than the one he's used to. Of course this has me worried (pets are
supposed to reduce your stress, right?) but I'll keep a close watch.
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sam who?
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| 11-01-99 |
Jeff says I've become a lizard fanatic. Hmmmph.
What he doesn't know is I've ordered a beardie from
Reptile Depot (even though I think their web
design is a little overblown). It's being shipped to the office, which could potentially
be amusing.
At that point I'll have satisfied my lizard cravings... though I do have that other
10-gallon aquarium that would make a nice home for another leopard gecko sometime...
anyway, nah, I'm not a fanatic.
So here we are. November 1. Halloween at this longditude was technically over 20
minutes ago. Steph stayed home and gave out candy to all the kids who came
trick-or-treating -- a grand total of zero. Yup, a big zip. So there's bags of
Snicker's and Reese's and gummy bears that... ack, get these off my desk before I
wipe them out. All of them.
All conversations go back to Star Wars.
For months after we saw Episode I, and at least a few weeks before we saw it,
this was true. It's still pretty common now. We'll be sitting in the Mootown
All-Nite Diner, aka Gingham's, talking shop or movies or music or books or weird ideas,
and one of us will quote a relevant Star Wars line without even thinking about it.
GM Urion (you may remember him if you played DR a couple years ago)
had the brilliant idea once of doing an entire shift where he'd answer ASSIST and REPORT
with lines from Star Wars. It'd work. There's a line for every occasion. Of course as
a GM, my favorite is "Don't make me destroy you." :)
It works on other GMs too. Approving items or code? "I see you have constructed
a new lightsaber" or "don't be too proud of this technological terror you have
constructed." Don't think we can make the deadline? "I find your lack of
faith disturbing." Miss a shift? "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
Problem with the Janitor? "Shut down all trash compactors on the detention
level!"
An old acquaintance of mine, Susan Fox-Davis, was on
Win Ben Stein's Money last night. Or rather,
sometime in 1998, but it was aired last night. She wore a jester outfit and punned a
lot. I am not at all surprised. She got to the final round, but answered 2 of 10
questions while Ben got 7 of them. Still went home with $1000 (of which I'm sure the
IRS is going to get a generous portion). I guess that makes up for her previous game
show experience -- right about the time Weird Al released "I Lost on Jeopardy,"
she did.
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regulars:
moo
third
chat
kimbered
logic
shades
on a whim:
orisinal
bilbanan
smurf
bang
lobster
yugop
skin
wood
rhythm
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diarist.net
