9183 – Tuesday, we march forth!

Recently bumped (virtually, via facebook) into Ellen from my days at the library – She and Teresa are the only remaining members of the old guard that I remember. I know what happened to Brent, but I wonder where Bill, Charlotte, Joy, Joyce, Jane and the gang are now… heck, I’d even be curious to know what Farace was up to these days.


Gary Gygax, R.I.P. – thanks for getting the ball rolling on the hobby.

My first thought is of him on Futurama…. “Greetings! It’s a (rolls 20-sided die… pause) pleasure to meet you!” and signing his EGG initials into one of the crashed vegepygmy spaceship levels from Expedition to the Barrier peaks.

Oddly enough, the Library above is where I first met most of my fellow D&D players as a community – before that, Kevin Cummins and I sort of played the blue paperback version at Unity School… (7th grade)


To counter the bad news with awesomeness, Mountain Wingsuit! Wile E. Coyote meets a Flying Squirrel outfit that seems to work. Holy Moley.


I blame BHK for the Avril Levine song going through my head. “Hey Hey, You You, I don’t like your girlfriend”. AIEEGHaba! I fear I may have to consult the big book of earworms to counter this. I forgot that she wanted to buy Pye a bunny-head hat for easter. Ol’ Pye dodged a bullet on that one, but can BHK resist the allure of kitty wigs ?


50 things I’ve done, continued from yesterday. 11-20.

11.’worked as a roofer in South Florida, in August – probably the most physically demanding job I’ve ever done, or ever will. Tar, mops, gravel, sun, drunken coworkers = some sort of Zenny Hell. I liked it for a while, and then pretty much burned out on it. Fortunately, I got an indoor, air-conditioned gig surrounded by books shortly after.

12.’Used to play in the band in jr. high and high school. Baritone / Sousaphone / Tuba were the primaries, though Alto Sax was there for a short period. I’m very slowly but surely picking up the electric bass, and look forward to getting into the stand-up bass, and going from there to a 6-string. I can read music, and should brush up on my recorder skills, too… a lot more portable than the guitar. Maybe the Ukulele will be a happy medium.

13.’Once scarred my leg as a result of swinging a trash bag in a circle while singing the theme song to the Godzilla cartoon. There was a glass bottle in the trash, and it smacked the ground, shattering as I swing it… it swooped back around and gouged a healthy gash in my shin.

14.’was wrestling with my younger brother after shooting at squirrels with bb guns, and rolled with him off of the roof our house in Boynton. I’m more ashamed of shooting at the squirrels than I am of flinging myself and him bodily into the void, only to come crashing down.

15.’has written and submitted (without an agent) 15 stories of varying lengths to assorted magazines and book companies. I fear that many are doomed to the slush pile forever…. despite this, I have been published in a few different paper-based publications thanks to my livejournal (popular science) and unknown armies 2nd edition,(for flavor text). I keep saying that I want to sit down and get back into actually writing some more, but finding that hour a day just isn’t there…. it’s much simpler to babble in a journal entry while on the bus than it is to write solid text, even if it’s just foolish fluff stuff.

16.’was once so soundly asleep that my charges couldn’t wake me up once the parents got home….I was out cold until daylight the next day. I still don’t know why they didn’t call my parents, but instead chose to have me just sleep over. If you couldn’t wake me up, I’d say call a doctor. I never sat for Abra and Tracy again. I was 13 or so.

17.’has seen a UFO, in the truest sense of the word… Just some unknown item flying overhead. I doubt seriously that it was anything extra-terrestrial. A red, slow-moving, cigar shaped cloud, sundog or balloon, maybe.

18.’lived on dry cap’n crunch and water for 3-4 days after Hurricane Wilma… Newton had more palatable food than me! No power for A/c, fridge or light for more than a few days.

19.’called the cops on a guy who was getting beaten up by two other fellows – turned out he was a drug dealer who burned them on a transaction. None of them were arrested. See Frankie the Mooch for a timeline of my encounters with him.

20.’was evacuated by a SWAT team with Newton from apartment, because landlord was despondent over the loss of his nose… was threatening gunfire to himself and others.

I’m beginning to wonder if I can make it to 50 items.


1 year ago – more photos of my new environs. boardwalk, barns, bay, decapitated gnomes and sundry other stuff, dog day at the fire dept, assassination vacation

2 years ago – rs drops to part time, spoofcard, condo issues, newtcam time lapse, spore,

3 years ago – pomade, numbers, lumbee talk going strong, rat flies a f-22, ifbot, secutiry, scotto pic, zombie quiz, miami bridge, New York Public Library Digital Gallery , hurley episode of lost, mile markers

4 years ago – stress, bro, god wishes, font music, audio books, tofu “chicken parm”, he-man, owie-back

5 years ago – stupidity genetic?, pulp-it, sick folks, history of eating utensils, tree like, riblets are great

6 years ago – fiddled with tulpa, dream, oxycontin, naproxen, oxycodone, Domesday

7 years ago – CJ & Herman story 2, dangers of reading in bed, AOK2Geotarget

9079 – monday

Monday monday – back to work! Not much to post about… general purpose day, but BHK picked me up afterward. We met Chris and Larry at Lemongrass – Larry wasn’t gaga over it, but the rest of us enjoyed the feed. We parted company soon after – BHK and I hit the store and got the boys a new water fountain and a toy or two. I barely fended off BHK’s request for goldfish and crabs and hammies and gerbils and kitties.

ATW man has varied a little from his valentines outfit.. now he has a red wig on, no heart shaped box of candy, and the rose still clenched betwixt his teeth.

If anything, he looks a bit like a grateful dead album cover at the moment. hard to get good detail with the camera phone and a back light, but bigger gets a bit more.

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Taking a hint from edbook, six years ago (friends only link) –

50 things I’ve done in my life: (I’ll do it 10 at a time each weekday, I think, due to time constraints.)

1. ‘was run over by a car while riding a motor scooter – snapped my collarbone. If the front wheel had been 6 inches to the left, I’d be dead.. 2 feet and I’d have been fine. The car never stopped to check on me, it just kept going. I didn’t know it was broken at first, until I called GP on the phone and he advised that I flex my arm. After I unblacked out a moment later on the floor, I went to the hospital. Only bone of mine that broke… unless you count teeth.

2. ‘have been every male part of a wedding ceremony, short of the priest. (ring bearer, usher, best man, groom). In that order. Will I be ordained enough to do the last one someday?

3. ‘saw at the very least five different kinds of consensual crime performed in under an hour… my last night as a bouncer. The pay was good, but not worth going to jail for… even if nobody there was complaining.

4. ‘met my wife thanks to the internet,  livejournal, and an ex-girlfriend.

5. ‘got a scholarship to clown college, but opted for computer science… more lucrative, and I don’t do well with sawdust-based environments.

6. ‘is allergic to cats, but happily fostered and then adopted Newton-kitty when he was 3 weeks old – bottle and rag fed him every 4 hours when he was still in the nursing stage. I now live with 2 cats and don’t show allergies much around them, but other animals will give me red eyes and sneezles, until I adapt to ’em.

7. ‘worked for an organization that helped to search for missing children. I think that my heart was in the right place, but I’m glad to have moved on. It can be heartbreaking to hear about a kid that didn’t make it, or to see petty behavior on the part of an org or the police result in stupidity that could potentially cost a kids life. Plus, I don’t like being rattled every time the cell phone rings… now when the phone vibrates, the worst thing is a downed server or a weather issue. It’s taken me about a year to get out of fireman-alert / stress mode every time the phone rings. I do feel that the national center is the best place to turn to when a child is missing.

8.’worked in a library through most of college and high school – during hurricane Andrew. Got to reshelve and relocate books while wearing a miners lamp on my head under rows of black plastic tarps… no power, no lights or AC. Until discovering them underfoot in the stacks, I had no idea scorpions lived in South Florida. Also, people bring porno to “read” in the rear stacks… ick.

9.’was also in the civil air patrol during Andrew, and got to see how destroyed homestead got… I had a huge amount of pity for the folks in NOLA that I might not have if I didn’t see areas of just rubble and water where homes used to be. We got to round up food and water for people out there… it’s what I imagine it to be like in an area struck by war.

10.’has offered spiritual advice to people, even though I have no idea what, if anything, is beyond the veil of what we can see. I’ve helped people through crises of faith and to find a common ground where elements can be conflicted even though I haven’t the foggiest about my own faith… and I’m ok with that. I don’t know if that makes me a hypocrite or what.


So, Tron 2, the movie in 2011? I’ve got to wonder about that one. Will I see it? Yes, if it’s going to be in 3-D. 3-D makes everything at least a little bit awesome. I’m sure that BHK will want to fo see national Treasure 3… and I’ll be fore it, if it’s in 3-D, too… but no word on that.


The son’s tooth helps to save dad’s sight

Rob McNichol’s son — also called Rob — didn’t think twice when the chance arose to help his dad to see again by giving him a canine tooth.

Father-of-eight Mr McNichol snr (57) was blinded in a work-place accident, when liquid aluminium exploded in his face in November 2005.

But he can now see again after doctors, using groundbreaking surgery, inserted his son’s tooth in his eye.

The surgery, Osteo Odonto Kerato Prosthesis (OOKP), involved fitting a living canine tooth with an optical cylinder and transplanting it into the eye cavity

The surgery, which costs an estimated €40,000, is believed to be the first of its kind to be carried out on an Irish resident.

Pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, Osteo Odonto Kerato Prosthesis (OOKP) surgery is carried out on patients for whom conventional corneal transplants will not work. It entails replacing a damaged cornea with a live tooth root and attached optical cylinder


John McCain apologized for a supporter’s use of Barack Obama’s middle name. And rightly so. Only his mother should use his middle name, and then only when he’s done something really naughty.


1 year ago – Sunny day sends our snowman away, pictures, star fleet battles revamp (I never did buy it), I touch witch’s rock in leonardtown- pic, also witch’s other stuff (trash can, tree, flagpole, picnic table, and ash tray), veteran memorial, google traffic, dating persona

2 years ago – router dies, kids tp, tree-hugging, get human database, my blue heaven,

3 years ago – power out, mark lenard, color wwi pics, free stock photos, 20 ways to say no, knife, razors and laws, vonnegut on writing, newt pictures and doodles, cravings, costume changes, handy freeware

4 years ago – pondering public entries, nice gab with the Cs, ADP sucks again, Zombie Recipe, Cat w/hands, gov overrides names

5 years ago – 03/03/03, MRE, rudimentary lj search engine

6 years ago – fake trading floor, Olive Garden screed, Hsien-Yu Pi-Jen

7 years ago – Owls in Myth & Culture, 3-d fax printing, DogenGeotarget