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)

24 generations =16,777,216 ancestors. I guess I won’t be taking my family tree that far!

I’m drinking way too much soda pop and coffee type stuff. Maybe it’s time to go on a Soda Sabbatical.

Crazy early morning wake up today… I had trouble getting out of bed again… it’s too comfy cozy under the covers with the kitties and BHK.

Dear Fox news. You’ve confirmed my thoughts about you again and again, but this is totally ridiculous. (via ecto – warning, justifiably foul language in the text) – Fox news making a claim that Fred Rogers was evil. Not as a joke, or ironically. Fox news should recognise evil… it sees it in the mirror every day. Reporting like that is beyond just evil.. they live in a world of lies and madness.

From the link –

It’s a disgusting, vile little piece and it’s very likely that you won’t be able to get through all of it. To summarize. Fox News’ argument for Mr. Rogers being “evil” goes like this: he told two entire generations of children that they were “special just the way they are.” Then, in what can only be described as a despicable lie, the Fox News anchors claim that that’s precisely where Mr. Rogers left off. He never taught children anything except to merely exist in a static state of selfish self-entitlement. And that’s why my entire generation is comprised entirely of rapists, murderers, welfare recipients and drug addicts.

There are a lot of reasons to be offended by this, but the biggest reason is that Fred Rogers was the kindest, most inspiring and most loving man to have lived in the last 100 years. His love for children and his passion for their education and well-being were absolute and unhypocritical. Watch this clip from Mr. Rogers’ testimony to the US Senate in 1969 to increase funding for PBS. If you disagree with Mr. Rogers politically, that’s okay, but there is no mistaking the sincerity of his passion for child development.

In other news, millions of years ago there were human-sized penguins.

Giant penguins. Is there anything not awesome about the phrase “giant penguins”?

1 year ago – defective materials, algo march 2, control freak, McCain on Lieberman, Michigan fairy doors, random flickr

2 years ago – Kev day, pictures of train station/toys/etc, mr moonlight

3 years ago – mind flayer doodle, travel plans, blue ink, Warriors…., phone posts

4 years ago – odd dreams, Gary hart, pizza box solar oven, hunting for Bambi hoax, walnut walks with a belly dancer

5 years ago – CHiPs, Spreading rumors

6 years ago – Music Mystery Solved, exegesis, evil news, Earhart’s wreck perhaps found, I discover Google image search, sea creature poll, why poop is brown

7 years ago – Scheduled Departure time set in stone, something at Archie McPhee no longer there, sitcom nudity-logic (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

0717071949.jpg, originally uploaded by scottobear. harvest time again (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

BHK took a what seems like a metric ton of our cucumbers and made an absolutely delicious pickle salad for dinner tonight. I grilled some veggie burgers and zucchini on the grill in some teriyaki sauce, and I’d say it was one of the tastiest meals we’ve had in a little while. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoy eating food we grew right out back. Come winter, I guess all we’ll be able to munch on is preserves and pickles – our own sort of dandelion wine, as BHK so charmingly puts it.

Harvest on Sunday night, pre-pickling

Newt and Pye were extra-bonus cuddly and sweet this morning… making even more difficult to get out of bed. Fortunately, they can be distracted by one another when I have to start getting dressed.

Newt and Pye play king of the hill

My body isn’t nearly so creaky this morning, nor is my eye puffy at all. Still not sure what set those off yesterday… just summer heat and pollen, I’m guessing.

I finished Runaways – not bad, and I’ll keep reading, but I have my doubts about the next story arc. I’m going to reserve judgement though… I’ve enjoyed it thus far (Also not a big fan of Joss Whedon.)

Last night I dreamt about playing some sort of game with monochrome plastic big rigs. Perhaps a combination of The Transformers movie and Treehouse?

via LooneyLabs – Cheese contains casein, a dairy protein which contains tiny opiate molecules called casomorphins, which are “remarkably like morphine” and pack about a tenth of morphine’s opiate strength! (I also found it fascinating that cheese proved harder to give up, for people in this article , than ice cream, hamburgers, chicken, and even cigarettes.)

1 year ago – / 2 years ago – / 3 years ago – / 4 years ago – / 5 years ago – / 6 years ago – 7 years ago –

(via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

Woke up creaking like the tin man, and my eye was aggravated by some sort of dust particle… between the swollen eye and bent over stance, I should’ve been ringing bells and screaming for sanctuary all morning.

Yesterday’s smoothies were so terrible that we went to the grocer, got some yogurt and fruit, and BHK made some jim-dandy, extra tasty smoothies for our breakfast supplemented by hard-boiled eggs and biscuits today.

Today we went to a place that held a lot of fond memories for me as a young gamer-geek. The Compleat Strategist… There was one in Hollywood, Florida way back in the 80s… a source of many fond memories. It was a sad day about 18 years ago when it burned down… even when some supposedly smoke-damaged merchandise appeared at the new Dragon’s Lair a few months later. I sometimes wonder if the “Dragon” reference was an inside joke about the fire. Rumors abounded at the time, though I don’t know of any actual validity to the same.

We landed at the Strategist in Falls Church, Virginia… and… well, I’ve been spoiled by Aardvark, I think. I was fairly underwhelmed, even though they have a huge amount of stock… probably four or five times that of Little Aardvark’s.

Nice thing about the Virginia place was that it was mostly clean – no dust on any of the good in the front, and the books were well-organized by game and title. If I’d been there looking for RPG stuff or Wargaming stuff, I’d have been set.

Unfortunately, I was looking for parlor games. The little corner in the back reminded me of the “pervy” section of old video stores. The light bulb overhead was dim, the packages heavily manhandled with cellophane and cardboard torn. The games were in semi-alpha order…. but not quite. Some stuff was on pegs, some on shelves, some boxes lay half open. I might’ve wept openly for the poor pente tube in the corner without a visible lid or board inside.

I can’t find a thing that I want. BHK spots Treehouse and Ice Towers on the wall… I get excited, and ask about some other games, almost sure that he’ll know something about one or more of these… almost all are major award winners, and have a pretty large following.

Do you have

• Classic Illuminati? Nuh, don’t think so.
• Brawl any two decks? What’s that?
• Cosmic Encounter?
• Playing with Pyramids?
• any Cheapass Games ?

Nope, nope and nope. We had money for a game or three more burning a hole in our pocket, and finally asked…

“OK, then… based on what we mentioned… what do you recommend? We like fun, fast-paced games with a mix of strategy and random chance. What do you have that’s cute with a deck of cards and a die in it?”

The proprietor was too busy playing mechwarrior with another regular at the store to give us any more answer than “if it’s not on the shelf, we don’t have it…”

Not a very talkative fellow, unless he was reciting how many bonuses he had to hit the other toy robot on the board. So much for me pumping him for info regarding the old florida store or reminiscing… I suspect that the Florida CS burned down when he was maybe three years old.

That sort of disappointed us… BHK asked him about a high school clique game, and he said he’d never played it, but a guy friend did, and didn’t much like it. That was the most extensive review we got from him… heck, those were the most words spoken to us at one time.

Still no other advice, so we browsed for about a half hour or so, found a few games, and noted to purchase them elsewhere. Chez Goth, Treehouse with Martian Coasters, Puerto Rico. That’s like $100 or so worth of games, I’d guess. He lost the only sale it looked like he might make that day.

The best aspect of going was that we got some freebie Star Wars constructable ship-combat game as throwaway swag. We got a spare for Amy, too, for when she comes up to visit next week.

On our way to another game store in the Virginia area, Alan rang us up, and we all went out the the Lebanese butcher for some tasty falafel, hummus with pine nutes, and baba ghanoush.

Instead of dorking around, we trundled over to his place in the city… *very* nice. Alan has a real flair for design, and his home is like a showcase… TM, BHK, and I gabbed with him for a bit about Pollack’s strengths and weaknesses, including the Guggenheim dirt, and he played piano for us for a bit. He’s a very talented guy, and a kind host… I’m glad to have him as part of the family.

See video of him playing here

We returned home, tired but feeling good about the day – it ended a lot better than it had begun.

1 year ago – furniture, kevin smith & superman, pocket windows (note- add to new flash drive), coral square mall pictures, fin fang foom, algorithm march w/ninjas, girls on walls

2 years ago – broward and fed autostitch, visited kev, walkabout pictures with rastas and shirtless, tell-tale heart in street signs, overheard

3 years ago – spidey, weather, let them sing it for you, freddy vs gb

4 years ago – remembering the keys, overtime psa, comic books, workman’s comp, prostate cancer

5 years ago – newt in sink, bro gets viper fins sponsor, pesky security, badly drawn images on a bumpy road, punquin finds my 125 item list

6 years ago – Evil News, bad joke, crux, random journals, nice thing poll, designer’s lament, laptop space bar weird, hatt-baby, email plain text

7 years ago – Enjoyed the X-men movie, 1974 memory visiting Florida, reprint of Scooby & the occult, insomnia (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)