This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• sex (5x)
• death (3x)
• corpse (2x)
• semen (1x)

But… it was Turtle Semen/sex! It was the Corpse-plant that smelled of death! C’mon! Kids can handle it!

I counter with a pink tongue from a
Simpson’s movie doughnut, nabbed at 7-11
/ Kwik-e-mart about a week ago.

I think that picture makes me look like I have a giant head and a tiny little tyrannosaurus arm. Perspective.

I’ve never seen so much spoiler-fear as I have for the latest Harry Potter book. People refusing to go online, switching off emails, refusing to watch TV. I imagine some folks have abandoned the phone, too. A side effect of living in the information age, I guess.

Last night’s dinner at Mexico was good, but the slowest it’s ever been. Alberto (the manager) say with us and was very apologetic… we like him, and kidded back and forth about his brother out chasing skirts and drinking margaritas on the beach at the moment. Mother in law wouldn’t let us pay all the way, but finally settled on using the money to take care of Tigger while MIL and FIL are in Salem this weekend. (Our weekend’s going to be pretty busy, give that we’re also watching Tina’s kitties, having a Birthday party of Adam, Going to Sushi with Cyn and preparing for Amy’s visit on Monday.)

In-laws are in Salem as of tonight, so they can get the house one last bit of spit and polish before the renters move in on the 27th. I fear they’ll be more trouble than they’re worth, but you never know… sometimes it can be handy to have someone on-site to keep track of things.

“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.” – Andy Rooney

I’m pretty dang happy. Every day, some wonderful stuff happens. Added bonus, BHK gave me a lollipop for my info page today!Aw… that’s very sweet! (no pun intended). I love her very much… each day I wonder more and more how I lived with Newt and nobody else all those years. Pye and BHK make the perfect additions to our family-team.

Last night I dreamt that BHK and I were hunting mosquitoes for the blood they consumed. Somehow, that blood was purified of known toxins, and if injected back into the original human hosts, they’d be immunized against all blood-borne diseases. I don’t know why we were grabbing them and putting the bugs in brown paper bags, rather than some safer environment. I did know that you could just eat the bug and be cured, but we didn’t know how many of these particular mosquitoes existed, and if the effects could be reproduced.

I’m wondering if I’ll ever go to Walt Disney World again? I don’t live in Florida, and the concept of “manufactured/processed joy” seems very different than “pure joy” pulled directly from the environment. I can have a lot of fun in the Westworld-type controlled experiment sore of scene, but there’s a different vibe in simply walking around, taking in history, art and nature as it is. Considering that I’m not really up for roller coasters these days, I don’t know if a journey to the more calm rides make it worthwhile. Pirates of The Caribbean and Haunted Mansion will always hold a special place for me… even if it’s just because they’re dark rides and are wonderfully air-conditioned after walking in the Florida sun for a few hours. I suspect EPCOT Center or Busch Gardens is more my speed for theme parks now, rather than the Magic Kingdom… or perhaps I’d feel differently if we just went and had fun. For a long while now, I’ve preferred exploration of the world around me… both on walkabout by myself, and now on journeys with BHK. I’m not sure if it’s wrong that I’m more entertained by urban decay or aquariums than by singing puppets… just that my tastes have changed a bit. I like the irony of Disney’s The Prisoner /Truman Show “friendly fascism”-style of better living in a plastic world… thanks in no small part due to hidden underground tunnels and secret police… but I’m also more than a little creeped out by it, too. I take it back. I find it *more* interesting as a result my irrational paranoia. I’d still rather wander a natural forest than a theme park, but Disney’s weird overlord aspect could be pretty groovy. The Mouse is a not-so-shadowy figure pulling the puppet strings across the Florida landscape and beyond.

After work, we took a little trip to Aardvark’s and let ‘em know about the Strategist. He was cool – mentioned that he may have some out of print ice towers stuff that he’d be happy to hook us up with. We’ll still need to get the treehouse die and pyramids book, but that’s a good launching point. Meanwhile, we picked up Chez Goth to fool with while Amy’s over.

Too full of ice cream to go to Fred’s place for 50’s diner stuff, we hit the grocery for tomorrow’s party supplies and then the in-laws to babysit with Tigger for a few hours and watched 13th Warrior… by the middle of the movie we were read for eats – pizza worked for us. Tigger was a little sweetie.

1 year ago – world jump day, world party, mom heading north, netflix wakes up, availabot, electric bill, stress and sleep

2 years ago – pics, singing fountain, atarax, google moon, charity paypal link, digg, hurricane emily, operation predators, fishstories, ID badge, random wifi

3 years ago – I Robot, working with wimmin, Operation Valkyrie, moon landing.

4 years ago – bro, monkey mummy, teen titans, moon landing hoaxes, animal sounds asring tones, hunting for bambi, newtcam, consumer reports condoms,awesome earth image, pancakes

5 years ago – bike name poll, palm doodles, planning to visit Danny with his busted leg

6 years ago – rough night, slake, ambisinister, voice activated tech, how far would you go poll

7 years ago – counting days, finished first Harry Potter, books I repeat read, abortive attempt to track intake (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

Scottobear: Complaining about a company online works! http://scottobear.livejournal.com/2302983.html (via Twitter / Scottobear)

For no good reason, a picture of Alan’s rug.

Netforum 2006/01 or /02? Upgrade is looking pretty essential. That’s been part of my work lately, reviewing the next build and how well it’ll get into place. I just want it to be as seamless as possible… minimise any growing pains.

Being a giant guy has the side effect of being used as a mobile landmark. I’ve had folks tell their kids that if the get lost, look for me in a crowd. Not for me to babysit ‘em, just that my head and shoulders tend to bob above other folks nearby. Also, it appears that I’m one of those “hey, I know you” types. I look both kind and trustworthy as well as looming and scary. I guess it depends on if I’ve shaved around the goatee and am more awake than walking dead. (In that case, folks cross the street to get away from me.) I’ve been in Maryland for about eight months now, and my newest gig just one. I’ve already been invited to a lot of picnics, parties, etc…. I don’t think it’ll be too long before the combination of North Beach’s small-townishness and other friendlies at work spirals it back up to a broader friends base. Right now I’m still a bit of “BHK’s Hubby” or “Larry’s Son-in-law”.

Back in the old days (when I was in high school and thereabouts) I was Mr. connected. Everyone knew me, or knew of me through someone else. I’m not sure how that happened, but I suspect it’s a side effect of the landmark issue above. I seldom bothered anyone, and folks rarely gave me any guff. I’m not as connected anymore – living in a new state, new job, etc. This came up during a little message exchange with Sirenity… regarding people who get talked to or “hey do I know you"ed a lot.

Dreamt of a white panel van with the word destruction on it. – BHK and I were hunting down somebody who sold us a faulty bed. We were pretty mad…. I wonder what we were going to do once we got the guy? That has no relation to the sailboat dream where all we had to eat was trader joes snacks that had gone stale. We were trapped on a catamaran with a big bag of stale crisps and candy-coated sunflower seeds… and no clean water.

Picked up a pair of new shirts, and two new ties. I never thought I’d ever own a purple shirt I could wear to work. I *really* never thought I’d ever wear a tie to work. Who knew? I actually enjoy putting on a corporate noose every here and again, even though it’s not required wear in the office. It makes me feel a bit more professional and has the sense of a "uniform” to keep me a bit more focused on my tasks.

Sting from the Macaroni Grill wasp has completely faded.. .it really didn’t feel like a sting so much as a very brief electrical shock followed by swelling.

Chore Wars lets you claim experience points for household chores. By getting a few people in your house or workplace to sign up, you can assign experience point rewards to individual chores, and see how quickly each of you levels up. Experience points are tracked both as weekly high-score charts, and as ongoing character sheets – every time you rack up 200XP of chores, your character gains a “level”, and their class changes to match the type of chores that they’ve been doing. (here’s my character, if you want to invite me to your party )

Random notes on my lj, and communites maintained

scottobear– 239 lj readers – Journal entries:8,920 / Comments Posted: 57,182 – Received: 57,141
menstrualhut– 2362 members – Journal entries:8,104 / Comments:Posted: 0 – Received: 42,699
fishstories– 3 members -Journal entries:36 / Posted: 0 – Received: 181
haikuarena– 106 members – Journal entries:484 Posted: 0 – Received: 1,114
coloringbook– 174 members – Journal entries:154 Posted: 251 – Received: 688 (How does the community comment, or was that pre-conversion?)
live_journalia – 10 members – Journal entries:72 Comments:Posted: 0 – Received: 168
tulpa, jackhammer, minimax, owenng accounts are all long dormant. Maybe it’s time to start up the fish stories account again?

1 year ago – day moving fast, stop motion video, minimum wage variances, pumpernickel, 2-word meme, a-z meme, dvd decrypter, World Party – Ship Of Fools,

2 years ago – danny, bro, top40, riverwalk autostitched, farcry, sneak peak at Pirates of the Carib2: Davy Jones

3 years ago – Pictures, Newtcam, flipper, Miami population, picasa, alligator as weapon, flash, TMBG, Franco-Prussian war, TU, amber alert/web, php rant, meat hooking, ADP uppity

4 years ago – freeflow, dream, Superman, heart in hand, bear attacks sub

5 years ago – caving dreams, piracy, anagram server, no-longer newt-time icon, irrational deodorant mixing fear, fun hidden camera show, monopoly variants, true porn clerk stories, phobias, paperback cover gallery, 100 years of jell-o ads, missing scary link pic

6 years ago – carom, evil news, fave monopoly token poll, rude awakening, OTR, impressed with flash, and feelin’ romantic

7 years ago – zoe’s bday and loverlips adds (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

This entry brought to you by:
A freaky rusted gizmoI saw in the marshes of Washington DC.

Dan should be getting his river rocks in the mail by the end of the week. (We’ll ship the webcam and LoTR Risk by then, too.)

Enjoyed watching The Soup recap of 2007 with BHK over a late supper last night.. we were both pretty stuffed, and retired shortly after our meal. I’m impressed that they had so much fun, dopey stuff. Tonight’s dinner at the Macaroni Grill was nice, save for the hornet sting I got on my finger, brushing it off of BHK.

Check out this link, which takes a specified address and gives you the walking score for that address. The score assess the number of and distance to common destinations (restaurants, theaters, etc.). Pretty nifty stuff! (my current house gets a rating of 38 out of 100, or “not very walkable”… I disagree! I can carry groceries , go get food and whatnot within a mile of home. My old place got a rating of 83 out of 100… much more available within hoofing-it distance.)

Received this in the mail Tuesday night, not too long after posting the day’s entry. It’s in regards to Sunday’s entry, here.

My name is Josh S. Talley and I manage The Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, Va. Your journal entry was brought to my attention by my boss (one of the owners) after being brought to his attention by a Looney Labs representative. First off I would like to apologize to you and your friends for the lack of customer service you received (or didn’t as the case may be). I would also like you to revisit us sometime soon if possible. Second please let me assure you that my employee’s behavior is and always will be unacceptable to me. Third we can always try to order something if you don’t see it on the shelf and are happy to do so. We have many days that are activity days, but I have always stressed that the customer is to take priority and that product knowledge is a good thing to all my employees. I am working on rectifying the situation you experienced with the one employee and am truly sorry about your visit. I think you will find that we are a nice little store if you visit again. Granted we are not as nice as some stores, but considering the lack of “gaming” space and floor space in general, I feel we’ve done well. Please come visit again and as an apology for your first impression of the new Strategist, I’d like to extend a discount on any purchases when we next meet. I work any day but Wednesdays and Sunday, but will most likely be working those days soon in addition, heh.

Sorry again and looking forward to another visit, hopefully,

-Josh S. Talley
Manager of The Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, Va.

My reply-

Thank you for your speedy response. I appreciate your concern and desire to make things right. (I hope you don’t fire the sales guy on my account… hopefully he can be salvaged with a little customer service training.) We were pretty frustrated by the lack of salesmanship and pro-activity, given that we were actively curious and asked multiple questions about items on hand.

He wasn’t obnoxiously rude, he just didn’t attend to us and it felt like we were more an annoyance than a customer. I understand that a lot of your business likely comes from your events, but hopefully it wouldn’t preclude sales to new arrivals.

I really liked the size of your stock, and would be happy to try again in the near future… we’re still looking to pick up ice towers and treehouse (we’re pretty big fans of the looney labs catalog and love to support local businesses) , as well as a few other games. A discount would be greatly appreciated!

May I reprint your letter in my livejournal? I think it would please a lot of the folks that read it to know that you are interested in running a quality establishment.

Again, many thanks for your courteous reply. I have many fond memories of the Strategist in Florida, and would really like to have another one so close by to get my gaming loot from.

His last answer –

Hello again Scott, please feel free to insert my letter into your livejournal entries. I read through the comments and would love to see more people come check us out and get a good experience from their visit. You are correct though, customers come first, no matter what. I have stressed this numerous times and some get it, some don’t, but what can I do? I can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it swim…heh. j/k Oh and I am pretty sure that we can order the Classic Deluxe Illuminati box set from SJ Games, just let us know. As for Brawl and any Cheapass Games we have to special order those, Cosmic Encounter was supposed to be reprinted, but I haven’t seen it yet. Playing with Pyramids I would have to check on but would be happy to do so. Anyways, please come see us again anytime.

1 year ago – morning breaks doodle, sleepy, heat of the moment, training a tech, sailboat doodle, stop motion space invaders, voice pdf files, deaths

2 years ago – bro court, autostitch of an alley no longer there, graffiti pics, harry potter, zombie game, bards tale ends, mimiced, Reverse Polish Notation, top40

3 years ago – manatee trip pictures, Miami travel shots

4 years ago – Aol gives up on netscape, random poster form the past, I get fan mail from desert butterfly, reading list retreat

5 years ago – princess sultanas circle, hug meme, joy machine, angry corn ghosts burn police cars, hydrogen fuel cars, got tested for diabetes (none here!),baseball bat poll, Bush & Women’s rights, spooky patent office logo

6 years ago – evil news, arriviste, clochard & myopic, gilligan’s lessons,contraception myths, Leisa’s 2 months pregnant, zeppelins, tuck in thoughts

7 years ago – xanadu, sleep study prep, name meaning (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)