Something that I genuinely believe, but might think to be delusional behavior if other people told me of similar (if not identical) thoughts is that Newton is a creature of intelligence and genuine affection for me, and understands when I’m feeling playful, sad, happy or angry, and knows just what to do in all of those situations.

It will require a supreme strength of will to resist girl scout thin mints this year. I wonder how long it’ll take me to break?

Sammy Showed me this… DoD is recommissioning there to make a sim-earth?

current music: Magnatune-World Music – Djini dance – Falik

current mood: flashlight in the dark

Caught him in numerous lies, and called him on every single one. I finally told him how tired I was of him lying and of his situation, not to mention his lack of interest in changing. I figure that he’s a lost cause. He’s my brother, and I love him dearly, but I know in my heart that there’s nothing I can do to help him. All I can do is to not contribute to the problem. It saddens me, but I can maintain however faint a spark of hope until the day he either turns his life around or it comes to an end.

[update: well, obviously it didn’t take… see tomorrow’s entry]

Morning meeting first thing today… I hope it’s brief, and there’s a minimum of nonsense. I like to catch up with the business at hand, but I don’t want to spend any more time than is absolutely needed.

Brother has his own morning meeting to deal with….court case is at 8:30 am. Hopefully, he’ll get there in a timely manner, and I’ll get my bond investment back. ($1000 of $1100… brother still owes me $75 of that remaining c-note. Maybe I’ll see it, maybe I won’t. It’s funny to m how him bringing the money right over mutated into him bringing $50, and then $25 over the course of a pair of hours. This financial source is dry until he replenishes old debts in full.) Apparently he’s going to plead not guilty to all charges. I’ll be interested in hearing how it turns out. I look forward to seeing that get filed in the past.

played a little gunbound this weekend. cute variant on the elevation/angle castle-explode games.

Basic Hip Digital Oddio always has great weirdo stuff… I like to check back at least once a week. Don’t forget about the archive, if you’ve missed something… get ’em while you can, who knows how his bandwidth will hold out.

Rant Morgan deals with Spam – pretty keen, you get to see how deep the Nigerian scam goes. He deals with 4 different mailers.

Meta Acknowledgment of the public – Does anyone want 2 free iTunes song codes? I got them under the lid of two consecutive diet pepsis, and I don’t have any use for ’em. First come, first serve.

leave a message in my comments, and I’ll email ’em to you.

Cookbook meme

Late Sunday Morning. Quiet, so far, and I’m in for the day, due to being on call.

Random fragment – I remember in the old days of gaming D&D that you could learn “Alignment Languages”. Everyone that was Chaotic Evil, for example, knew a common tongue…I’m not sure if it’s worse, but other folks could learn other alignment languages, too. (So, a Paladin, who was Lawful Good, could interrogate that Chaotic Evil orc) I don’t know it was inspired by Sauron’s Kiddies’ Black speech or not, but I thought it was interesting in theory, but dopey in practice.

Actually, alignments as a whole were a good springboard for how to play your characters… It narrowed life into nine handy slots on a 3×3 grid of good/neutral/evil on the X axis, and lawful / neutral/chaotic on the Y axis.

Alignment descriptions

Went to lunch at Einstein’s bagel with Danny and his wife. After, we went to see In America, which was nice, but maybe a bit too sad for me right now. Too many people dying, even with the positive messages. After the movie, we went to the galleria to get her a purse, and to wander-chat.

Dan’s wife is pretty much the same… her world view and mine don’t really match up, and she doesn’t really listen to other points of view. I can amuse myself by answering some of her statements with silly smartass replies and watching as she continues with the conversation, obviously never hearing (or choosing to ignore) what I had to say. She seems to prefer monologues *disguised* as a dialogue.

Today’s Example – She was talking about how many more opportunities women have for jobs today, than when she was younger. My reply was an admittedly over-snarky “well, there are a lot of jobs from when you were a kid that aren’t available to folks these days, too… like buggy-whip manufacture, butter churner and quill inker… those opportunities are lost to today’s youth by automation.” She just went on talking without batting an eye, not a laugh, not a sneer. It got Danny to giggle a wee bit, though. Sometimes I wonder if Danny and she have whole conversations with one another, never hearing what the other is saying… synchronized, but no data transfer.

I’m already hungry again. I should’ve gotten them to drop me at the grocer, and gone home from there.

Also, got a nice email from Katt today… Among other things she’s told me to let Danny know that she telecommutes about 99.9999999999999999% of her work time now, followed by maniacal laughter.

TerraFly another fun satellite imaging site (overlays street names and other info, too)…nice since mapquest stopped providing them- a public service of Florida International University. The USGS has provided some really good shots.

The Potted Meat Museum – The world’s largest & most diverse canned meat collection. Yum.. possum in a can!

The Yankee or Dixie Quiz gave me – 49% (Yankee). Barely into the Yankee category.

I would like a giant super villain (Dr. Feng Shui?) to rearrange all the buildings in Fort Lauderdale.

What happened to all that futuristic stuff which was supposed to change our lives by the year 2000? Retro Future

I am glad that food pills never really caught on…though I did like freeze-dried “astronaut” ice cream as a kid.

I unsubscribed from FFXI today. I can recover my character up until the last day of 5/2004, but I doubt that I will… I like playing online games for a sense of community, or at least hanging out with friends. Since I couldn’t keep up with D & Sammy’s leveling with being on call and all, I was quickly left in the dust, and don’t much like playing online games solo. We tried, but I just couldn’t keep up with folks that can spend so many waking hours playing it. Heck, I can’t even surf the net for 13 hours straight, as much as I’d like to.

Bored just poking around the house… I’m going out to lunch and maybe a movie. Until later, dear journal.

We used the decorative red rubber lobsters as monsters to fight the star wars figures.

The lobsters won as often as not. The claws were just the right size to hold Greedo and Han.

The Player: You see, we’re strictly of the Blood, Love and Rhetoric school. We can do you Blood and Rhetoric without the Love, or Blood and Love, without the Rhetoric, or all three concurrent or consecutive; but we can’t do you Love and Rhetoric without the Blood. Blood is compulsory. They’re all blood, see?

Guildenstern: Is that what people want?

The Player: It’s what we do.

What’s the first thing you remember? The first thing, after all the things you’ve forgotten?

For me? My earliest memory? I’ve talked about it in my journal before, I have no doubt… but probably not in any detail. If I’m not mistaken (and who could correct me if I’m wrong?) It’s of a visit to the Boston Zoo (Franklin Park, I believe) as a young boy (I was perhaps 3 or 4, prior to my brother’s birth, in any event) with my Mother, her pal Vera, Vera’s infant daughter, Michelle (maybe a year old at the time). We got to see monkeys, bears, and visited the reptile house. The warm-blooded creatures seemed happy and playful…. the cold blooded ones didn’t strike me as having any personality in particular, save for being alive. I wanted to swing from one of the snakes like Tarzan on a vine… I imagine I saw that in a cartoon somewhere.

There was also a petting zoo, but Michelle was too frightened of the goat to stay for long. My first memory of petting an animal is a brown rabbit… unless petting Lila (a black/white/brown Lhasa Apso she-dog we had earlier) is an earlier memory that I’ve misfiled along the way. I don’t know if the rabbit was a male or a female, the black nose was wiggly, and the creature was warm and easily loved by a child despite smelling a bit like a barnyard. I don’t remember the lions, or any big cats.

Michelle is dead now. My Mother thinks that she saw Shelly’s ghost when she went up for the funeral. Shelly never married, but was a sweetheart. I still have a small memento of her life in me because she’s a part of that first memory. Vera divorced her husband last year.. or was it the year before? I don’t know if it was because the kids were out of the house, and they had nothing in common, or if it was something else. Joe had a hot temper, and Vera was a bit of a stoic. Kevin, Michelle’s younger brother, perhaps 30 himself now, has married and divorced, too. When I think of Kevin, I still think of him at five years old, great at skating on ice, and playing kiddie-hockey, like any good Northern kid… when I moved away, to Virginia.

Was that really so long ago? Back when Star Wars figures were new… a favored land speeder with my name written on it in black magic marker, so I’d be able to tell it from the toys of the neighbor kids. Chewbacca always got to drive, because he matched the color of the car, along with Jawas, Sand people and C3PO. (I always favored the Villains and non-human figures. More interesting costumes.) Plus, Browns, golds and rusts have always been a nice set of colors for plastic toys. Do I like Chewbacca because of that rabbit, long ago?

More difficult is trying to think when my second-oldest memory is. What comes next? My room? Pale blue, with many different colored pennants made of felt. A blue one With Linus. A mustard Yellow with Charlie Brown Happiness is a warm puppy, a green one with Snoopy on his doghouse, Cursing the Red Baron. (Wow, it’s amazing what can be found on the Internet.) A basement playroom with a franklin stove, fishing net motif, with dried starfish and red rubber lobsters…. a toybox my dad made, with a whale inlaid on the top along with the names of both of his sons in now-inexplicably gothic lettering. I wonder where that toybox went to? It followed us all the way to Florida, and was still in the garage when I moved out on my own. Its sort of sad to think that it may be broken up in a landfill now. I hope that it’s something that is still loved, somewhere. I played my first vampire in a coffin in that box. It held Tonka Trucks, hot wheels and track, Big buckets of Lego bricks, Star wars figures, super hero dolls (not action figures yet… we could call ’em dolls and still be dead butch) including the Hulk with his bolted limbs. Lincoln logs, tinkertoys, and real wooden blocks that my dad made from scrap… he sanded and shellacked those things to the point where not only would there never be a splinter, and they were just about frictionless on the carpet. He also stained them all sorts of colors…. I don’t think any two blocks were the same shade, all went from Pine-blond to Mahogany dark. [update 8:22….I called my brother, and found out through his beer-slurred speech that he had the toybox until he moved to Hawaii. He couldn’t find anyone to take it in, so he left it by the side of the road for anyone to pick up. Last seen ten years in the past.]

These memories make me feel sort of bittersweet. My Dad must’ve been about my age now when I was 12. He made so many things for my family. Provided a home, clothing, food… built toys, bought even more. Taught me all sorts of things that I use regularly. I’m glad that I can apply things about him in my daily life… it’s nice to let the good parts of the past help to build the future by way of the present. It’s a damn shame he had to die so early on, but I’m honored to be a part of his bloodline and to be allowed to pass his knowledge on to others, by example if in no other way. My dad wasn’t perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but he made pretty good use of the tools at hand. I like to think that I do the same.

What was my first book? I know this one, but I can’t seem to recall… my mind has other thoughts rattling around in the forefront right now, blocking the light of that particular memory like moths in front of a candle. I’ll move on for now… I’ll rethink more memories later, dear journal.

book quiz

Waiting for my ride… I kept getting the feeling that someone was watching me…I don’t know why I chose a confused hammerhead. I suspect a shark would just want to ask me for directions to the beach.

The bus was nice this morning… mostly awake people, you could almost see thoughts forming over their heads as they read a paper, or took in the surroundings. Sometimes, you can just see the gears moving when you look at certain folks. Outside the window, the sky was beautiful… nary a cloud, just a sharp, bright blue, only broken up by aircraft with a long, white vapor trail behind… a dividing line across the top of the inverted bowl of the stratosphere above.

Mongo, my inner caveman is trying to tell me something. He seems pretty set on getting information to me, but there’s a communications barrier. I wish he wouldn’t try to talk… he’s better at getting his ideas across with pictures… or is he? Maybe he drew the shark and jet.

Hmm.. sharks, jets. West Side Story? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Mongo? I doubt it… he never was much for dancing hoodlums, or Rita Moreno… though everybody likes Leonard Bernstein, right?

He could do look that would make me go “nung-nung-nung” like one of the three stooges, and beat a wicked fast retreat.

Feeling a bit better this morning. The weekend is ahead of me… I hope it brings good stuff to me and those I care for. I need to make a point of having at least one fun-day, spend some time with mi amor if possible. I want to dry the mist of melancholy that’s seeped into the corners around here. Shuffle along, now, Winter vibe. It’s time for Spring.

Danny’s taking the students in his Sci-Fi club to the Renfest this Sunday… I’m sure they’ll have a grand time (as long as he doesn’t have to go on stage).

Long day ahead of me today, end of week wrap up, Schedule Newt’s next trip to the doc, make the on-call schedule for March (and maybe April), Get grant submissions launched and finish training ADP.

Until Later, dear journal. I’ll be back midday to procrastinate, I’m sure.

A five-year-old boy married a puppy to ward off the evil eye on himself and family in India. The groom’s father told newsmen that tribals believed that such marriages would keep the boy, his family as well as the society at large away from the evil eye. Continue reading 6473 morning, morning, who's got the morning? →

sort of a wacky cross-section of what’s in my history

Slice of Scotto life via google image search

-http://images.google.com/images?q=scottobear&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&output=search&filter=0

(we’ll see how well that lands via email)

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PT went well last night… I’ll be getting a TENS unit for home use, and I think that’ll make things extra comfy for me. I’ll use it for Russian stim as well as a massage unit… I think it’ll get some of the harder to work areas up to snuff pretty quickly.

Contemplating a pre-order for City of Heroes I like the prestige power “Rush”.. but it’s another pay-per-month game… I don’t know how long I can dig those.

The World of Stuff mentioned my name to a City Link (A local indy-style paper) reporter yesterday, regarding local South Florida blogs, and she’d already heard of me… Kind of wacky hearing about myself in the third person like that. I wonder if I’ll hear from them…or if I picked the wrong week to post a TMI, or if my mail filters accidentally chopped an email off, for that matter. Stuff is getting interviewed by CL and the Sentinel. Good for you, Jordan!

Crunchtime – Fight Zombies in the comfort of your own office with a stapler.

Making Fiends #7! Apparently, Vendetta is miniMAX’s daughter, after all. Oh, why can’t Weird Emma update as often? That reminds me. I must brush!

India-pop sampling the guitar riff from Magnum PI with Farsi singing in the bachground is just wrong, somehow. (see music)

Missing for 14 years, teen finds himself on internet Continue reading 6471 Let's pretend we're postage stamps! →