At the yearly overview at work, I was praised pretty highly, and referred to as the “sergeant at arms“. (due to my keeping my brain screwed on tight, while other tensions rose)

Mel and I should have the whole day together today, barring badness. I’m not sure what’s planned, but I think an indoor NYE is the way to go, come nightfall.

Interesting that I end the year on a fairly round numbered entry. 7100, since I first started this thing. unreal.

Good Morning Newt!

So long to Deuce-double-aught-four.

Some stuff that happened, I may or may not search the journal to linkify ’em.

• Bro’s Shenanigans come to a head… Twice!
• D goes *poof*!
• CJ goes *poof*!
• I stay buddies with Whims and Sammy, despite There.com fadeout and they stopped dating.
• Mel goes *foop*! (or whatever the opposite of *poof* is)
• Some other neat new LJ and meat space pals go *foop*!
• Newt’s a healthy boy, but I discover he’s a bit jealous.
• No serious health issues.
• I maintain a nice email relationship with Gray Pumpkin, and The Wu’s seen to have vaporised.
• A lot of weight lost, some of it regained.
• Lots of turnover at work. I’m tied with VS as the 4th longest currently-lived employee, after BK, RI, and LD.
• Stayed with Danny through hurricanes.
• I had a gun put to my head due to a vehicle registration
• Lots of photo–walkabout, including a nice day at vizcaya (pictures spread out over a week)
• Many pictures of Newt, got cam software that lets me do weird blue screens and capture cuteness
• I got a sammich made by a guy with a black eye
• I got radical sandals from my buddies in the East-east.
• I made a scary-scotto icon
• I put bids down on condos, but fate conspired against me every time

Plenty of other stuff too, but that’s the first stuff that bubbles to my forebrain.

number test

I believe there is a big picture that is refracted in every small picture. I believe there is a small picture that is reflected in every big picture.

I imagine folks will be seeing a lot of these in the near future.

Darkness can never last too long — When you laugh in his face.

At 6.8 billion pounds per year, the US leads the world in cheese production.

At 43.6 pounds per person per year, France leads the world in cheese consumption.

Random Scotto factoid – I like my grilled cheese sammiches with mustard.

1 year ago – Dang Dick, Kindly Kahuna, and Scotto Stuff. Alliteration!

2 years ago – RFL pictures, PT Barnum, Malawi vampires, Morse code

3 years ago – Treebeard and Entwife, Met Denise & Sara @ Danny’s Party, Mai Kai, eclipse

4 years ago – Calcutta Chromosome, Got shoo as a pal, Amitav Ghosh, Saw D&D movie with Danny, and Andy running the yellow Pompano comic shack.

Why is it every time I’m feeling a bit ill or kind of our of it, people tell me that I look like “the Big Show” from WWF (WWE?)

http://www.wwe.com/superstars/smackdown/big_show/profile.jsp or more likely, this one –

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/bigshowmug1.html

I don’t really see it, except that I’m a giant guy with a goatee, too.

The guy’s got about 6 inches of height and about 170 lbs on me.

I pity his tailor.

Stayed home yesterday with an earache… got some drops and dicloxacillin to take care of things.. my first visit to the ER with my current insurance. $100 for the ER (as opposed to the $45 on my old plan… ah well, I don’t intend to visit the ER often) and $10 each for the ‘scrips.

Newt!

I’ve had a fairly varied girlfriend history. Some I can’t believe I ever dated, others, I can’t believe how the relationship ended.

Almost all of my recent girlfriends (this past decade), have had a tattoo or “unusual” (non-ear) piercing. Come to think of the last ten years, I’ve been the most successful with relationships, too. I wonder if it’s because I wasn’t gaming every weekend with GP, Katt, PM, Dan and the Wu-folk? When I was gaming, the only mate potential were the single females in the crew: PM and briefly Kelly, neither of which really amounted to anything romance-wise… Kelly clearly just wasn’t interested, and PM is a whole other entry. I suppose there was also Elaine, but *GAH-NO*. A few other outside interludes, but nothing that spun up.

Let’s see…

• RG had a cute heart-design on her ankle – Taught me hope, that anything I want, I can have – Met Danny, the hippies
• CJ pierced her nose briefly, and got a band around her arm while we were together – taught me mercy, “all sunshine makes a desert” Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
• FL was free of supplemental designs and jewelry… Taught me that sometimes ignoring a problem *is* enough to make it go away.
• AT had pierced nipples – Taught me about tough love, and letting go – Notable: We first kissed in front of an episode of “Jonny Quest”. (Shadow of the Condor, if you must know, dear journal) – Met Danny
• Mel is ink and piercing free… she doesn’t even generally wear earrings. – Not sure what she’s teaching me yet. All things in time. – Met my Mother, Danny Pending

What does this mean? Heck if I know.

Wiki Entry on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Sat-map images of before and after

First person blog coverage

Something this big.. there are going to be repercussions for a long time to come.

A bright, warm future is sometimes hidden within dark coals.

I wonder if that mean British woman from the weakest link will end up on a “where are they now?” spot on VH1 sometime soon?

And the sign said “long-haired freaky people need not apply”

Another Monkey With a Gun

Thank you for the COH game card, Sammy!

Bah. Mel got a flat tire, and wasn’t able to visit last night. We talked for a long time on the phone, though.

Random Archie Factoid: Jughead’s real name is Forsythe P. Jones.

Threes

“Next time some eight foot tall, wild-eyed maniac taps the back of your favorite head up against the bar room wall and asks you if you’ve paid your dues, well, you just do what ol’ Jack Burton always does at a time like that. You stare that sucker right back in the eye. ‘Have you paid your dues, Jack?’ ‘Yes sir, the check is in the mail.'”

Miami Beach Rescue reported rip currents ongoing at the beaches this morning. Two to four foot north swells, north to northeast winds at 20 knots, and a mid afternoon low tide will produce a high risk of rip currents to swimmers at the beaches of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties today.

A high risk of rip currents means that strong rip currents are likely. Stay out of the surf. The surf is dangerous for all levels of swimmers. Even those using boogie boards are urged to use extreme caution.

A rip current is a 10 to 30 yard wide channel of water that can pull even a strong swimmer from near or inside The Sand Bar into deeper water. If caught in the seaward pull of a rip current do not attempt to move directly toward shore. Instead, move sideways across the rip current until the pull eases. If you insist on entering the water, only do so at guarded beaches.

Free form, typed as I woke –

Dreamt that I was in an office building with my mother and brother… it might’ve been a courthouse. There were some demo computers there that looked sort of like a cross between architectural tubes and lunch boxes… when I tried one, it took my picture, and printed it out on cheesy heat-transfer paper, the width of a cash register receipt. I put it back down, kept the printout, and noticed it was running Unix, but only had 201k of memory. The card next to it stated that “201k is more than sufficient for all utilities except for more demanding games.” I called shenanigans on it, and walked away, my family having vanished. I got a sense of being pursued, so I began to run for the escalators. It turned out that they were “kids toy escalators” or something, because they were brightly colored, and narrower than my foot. I slid down a ramp-like jut next to it, and leapt to my feet ( noticed that I was wearing my long lost, much worn steel-toed combat boots), knowing somehow that my pursuers were close behind. There were some glass doors in my way, and for whatever reason instead of just opening them up, I smashed through them with a suddenly handy aluminum baseball bat. I went running down the empty street (far more freely than I would in waking time, I’m forced to admit) turning cartwheels and yelling to the tops of buildings for them to “come and get me!”

And then I got shot in the shoulder. Painless, thankfully in dream time, but I was knocked to the ground and had a large wet spot on the right side, just below the collarbone. I picked out the bullet, and it was shiny and covered with red paisley pattens engraved on the side.

And then I woke up and typed it here. My shoulder is whole, and not sore.

I wake, wondering which side of a Cyclops’s eye he cries out of… is the tear duct on the left or the right? both?

Old news for most, but LJ doubled our photo hosting quota from 50 to 100 meg! Ho ho ho!

Laurie Hogin’s Scary Fuzzy Critters They’ll give a person nightmares.

Nifty Explanation of the 12 days of Christmas

1 Corinthians 13:13

There was an insane amount of wind out yesterday… for some reason, that makes me very happy. I hope for more of the same today.

I’ve been wandering random sections of LJ here and there… man, there are *redundant* communities for everyone. I sniff around art nouveau communities, and linked to them are three different “nazi fetish” groups. Eek. Careful of wandering off of the path, some dragons out there. But I did also find this Neato LJViz thingum – It randomly places your friend’s names around the screen placing those that have more interests in common closer to the middle of the screen and using a larger font.

Also does the reverse of placing your interests randomly around the screen with those that are shared with more friends closer to the middle of the screen and using a larger font.

Mexican City Bans Indoor Nudity Continue reading 7091 – Third Day of Christmas (Mm.. I want French toast) →

Mel totally hooked me up with apartment gear. 2 lamps (one sort of an Eiffel tower looking one, and a glittery-lava lamp, a bed set, sheets, blankets, fluffy pillows.. some excellent scented candles and insence.. a few little stocking stuffer Newt-toys, and a few little goo dies for me, as well. excellent haul.

Treasure planet was interesting, but after Mel left, I installed Scrapland. visually very pleasing, but I can’t fly the gunship to save my life.

On call today… sort of sucks, as it’s the last “day off” I have before returning to work, but at least I got the majority of the weekend off. Upside, Mel’ll be here to take the edge off.

Ween’s version of chrismahanukwanzakah. (flash)

speed up firefox with broadband Continue reading 7090 – Boxing Day →

Mistletoe thoughts for everyone today!

Merry Christmas – (Wesley Willis style!)

I gave him some mage knight figs, holly berry incense, and a gift certificate. We went out to brunch at mangoes, where we had baked brie and soup, (served by another Erica, really on top of things. Earned a good tip, and was a total sweetheart), shot the breeze and walked around a bit.

	Dan at Mangos, (Erica in back) 122404 From now on, wherever we go out, we’re going to ask if Erica’s working.. we’ve had 2 excellent Ericas serve us at Mangos and Ugly tuna. Today, Danny Remarked – “Pink is the Christmas Black.” Women everywhere were wearing pink outfits. I don’t know what’s up with the goofy face.
	Landmark bldg 122404 First skyscraper in Ft. Lauderdale, looking up!

Danny got me Scrapland, Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon, and episodes of Mouse volume 3

After lunch, we went to play Pirates of the Spanish Main at Twistyland. We enjoyed it so much that we picked up another two booster packs.. mostly Spanish and English ships, but there’s a solo pirate in there, too. We played until about 4, and Danny headed out to go to church with his MIL and Mrs..

Since the day started with pirates, I opted to load the Disney Pirates game on first, and fiddle with it a bit. Not a bad little system, very simple, but neat.

Fun gallery of old science fiction pulp covers featuring babes organized by category: Babes with Blasters, Babes in Bondage, Babes of Myth, Alien Babes, Babes with a Grip, Robobabes, Babes in Charge, Experimental Babes, Babes under Glass.

Mel’s coming over for only a brief time this morning.. she has been recruited against her will to ferry family back and forth from Miami to WPB. She’s going to stay up there, and we’ll have a more lengthy time together tomorrow. I’ve got call, otherwise I’d trundle along with her.

1 year ago – Katt thinks a smiley looks like Doug, merry merry, testing streaming, green bean casserole

2 years ago – Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas, edbook is awesome, nation states

3 years ago – mistletoe, silly games, apartment dream, Reading The Anubis Gates

4 years ago – Booby talk, coming games

Not a bad haul so far… I got 2 shirts from the mom, a shirt from RI, and a shirt from big kahuna.. all are lovely, and a welcome addition to my wardrobe. Meeting with Danny sometime today, too.

Talked to the hippies briefly… nice to hear from them. Dave’s ready for the next step i the kiddies growth, where they’re in school a few hours a day, so he can breathe a little bit more.

Ah… Dr. Who. Sarah Jane Smith was quite a cutie. Also, A fez-wearing villain playing a pipe organ to open a time-space gateway in a mummy sarcophagus just rocks the party.

The Parking Lot Note Anti-Prank

I dig the idea of victimless pranks.

pocky meme

Saving Social Security: Where do your Legislators stand?

http://savesocialsecurity.blogspot.com/

The Save Social Security Blog is compiling a state-by-state list of where U.S. senators and representatives stand on privatization of Social Security. Here’s the link to the Florida list. – http://savesocialsecurity.blogspot.com/2004/12/florida.html

Other States are listed on the right side of the blog. Not many confirmations yet, but that will change. Send in a comment if you know where your rep stands.

Also, something amazing and unrelated to report later. Maybe big changes in the world ahead.

Zamboni explodes in Duluth ice rink, starts raging fire Continue reading 7087 – Social Security Privatization. →

No Mel on Christmas Eve, but I get her for Christmas.

Jonna came by yesterday with her littlest. Amazing what seven months will do!

Still no word from GP & Katt… I think that they’re up in Port St Lucie right now.

LD at work went to see Cher in concert this weekend, and complained about the B-52’s… she referred to them as a rap group. In all honesty, I’d rather hear “Rock Lobster” than “If I could Turn back time”

After the poll yesterday, the feedback I got back was quite diverse. A sampling of the first five