All posts by scottobear

Off the top of my head…

Assume both are *real*.

In RA Wilson’s Schrodinger’s Cat the first line is “The majority of Terrans were six-legged.” When I first read that a number of years ago, I had to stop and think about it for a moment. “Bugs”. What an all encompassing term for a myriad variety of critters. As Giger has shown us with the “Aliens”, extend insect/arachnids to human-sze, and the buggars are pretty damn indestructable. Not just because of their touchness factor, but their speed, adaptability, and sheer numbers.

Yes, I know spiders aren’t insects, but I think they have a higher ‘oogy’ element for most folks.

words, evil news and stuff.

Just downloaded 2 years in the forbidden city to my palmtop… it’ll be easier to tate than the printed out version.

words of the day – (I seek to be neither)

timorous TIM-ur-us, adjective:
1. Full of apprehensiveness; timid; fearful.
2. Indicating, or caused by, fear.

The source of timorous is Latin timor, “fear.”

choleric (KOHL-uhr-ik) adjective

Easily irritated or angered: hot-tempered.

[Middle English colerik, from Latin cholericus, from Greek cholerikos.]

And now, the evil news.

The Most Jaded Man In America
=================================
A New Jersey man may be a million dollars richer — but he doesn’t believe it, and apparently doesn’t want to be bothered.
Officials at H&R Block, the company that prepares people’s income tax returns, says the man has until Friday to claim his prize or they will give it to
somebody else.
“It is certainly an odd occurrence, but we are hoping that, by making every attempt to contact him, as well as going to the media and pleading with him to
claim this prize, is that we will indeed have a happy ending to this promotion,” said Janine Smiley, a company spokeswoman.

Life for Addict Who Buried Father Alive
=================================
A heroin addict who bludgeoned his father with a hammer and then buried him alive has been jailed for life.
Kenny Wilkins, 22, attacked his 47-year-old father Kenneth Wilkins and dumped his body in a rubbish tip where they both worked.
Wilkins, of Shard End, Birmingham, used cash taken from his father’s body to buy drugs and pay off a £200 debt.
Birmingham Crown Court was packed with members of Mr Wilkins family who sat in silence as the prosecution detailed the brutal attack by his son.
The court heard Mr Wilkins had received seven hammer blows to his body and had fractures on his hands and arms where he had tried to fend off the blows.
When the prosecutor gave details of the bruises on Mr Wilkins’ body, which showed he had been alive when he was buried, members of his family broke down in tears and some left the court.

Kids Curse On Old Lady Works!
=================================
An elderley woman has died following a confrontation with a group of children at her home in Lancashire.
Sheila Bridge, 62, collapsed within minutes of contacting the police about youngsters causing a disturbance near her sheltered accommodation in Nelson.

Kill and Cull
=================================
China has denied allegations of harvesting and selling the body parts of executed prisoners, sometimes before the donors were clinically dead.
The allegations were made by a Chinese doctor, Wang Guoqi, during testimony to U.S. lawmakers Wednesday, where he described coordinated procedures between surgeons and Chinese government officials to extract convicts’ organs immediately after executions.

New Japanese Fetish
=================================
“My undies? It’s a pain changing them sometimes. You know, like after you’ve stayed at a friend’s place, you don’t change ’em much,” 16-year-old Yumi says.
“But … I do make sure I use a protective sheet for secretions so my panties don’t get dirty.”
Kyoko, a 17-year-old Tokyo teen, tells a similar story.
“It costs a lot to buy underwear if you’re away from home for two or three days, right? That’s why I always used the protective sheets,” Kyoko says. “But I’ve stopped using them now. I used to leak a real lot of fluids. My panties would get all crunchy and the hairs would stick to them. It really hurt when I changed my undies.”

Mom Of Ugly Kid Goes On Rampage
=================================
A lingering argument about the attractiveness of a baby ended Thursday night with a New Orleans woman being booked with attempted murder in connection with dousing 10 people — including two infants and a pregnant woman — with gasoline and then attempting to set them afire.
Cynthia Brown Brady, 32, of 8616 Colapissa St. was booked with 10 counts of attempted first-degree murder, 10 counts of attempted aggravated arson, criminal damage in the amount of $70 and trespassing, said Lt. Marlon Defillo, a New Orleans Police Department spokesman.

Pete Sampras Makes Move On Young Boy
=================================
In front of a suddenly uneasy audience inside Court One, Pete Sampras revealed questionable judgment and taste Friday during his interaction with a ball boy during his third-round victory. Serving in the second set, Sampras began to charge toward the net when he slipped a few feet inside the baseline. As he fell down, the service return by Sargis Sargsian bounced and darted up into the left leg of Sampras’ shorts. Lying on the grass court laughing for several seconds, Sampras sat up with the ball lodged between his legs inside his shorts and looked over toward a ball boy. He smiled, crooked his finger and motioned for the school-aged boy to come toward him. The boy, visibly nervous, approached Sampras, who then touched the ball inside his shorts and asked the boy if he wanted to retrieve it.
“He can pick up the ball if he wants. He declined. I guess he didn’t want to go up my shorts.”

Fatties Are Funny and Its Okay To Point It Out.
=================================
Clearly, studios have concluded that grossly overweight people make audiences laugh. They howl when Fat Bastard grunts, “Get in my belly,” or when a lean Eddie Murphy morphs into a plump Klump.
Yet some people aren’t laughing.
“Unfortunately, it’s funny to people,” said Dr. Lisa Berzins, director of women’s behavior medicine and the eating-disorder program at Manchester Memorial Hospital in Hartford, Conn. “For people who struggle with their weight, it’s not funny at all. The sad thing is people will pay more attention to a person dressed up in a fat suit than a fat person.”
Berzins says that fat suits send the message to society that it’s OK to make fun of overweight people.

Sunset today was lovely, a soft orange and pink deal, with very vivid clouds. If I’d had a digital cam, I’d have snapped a few dozen images.

I’m back… I walked to the beach, and spent some time contemplating life, the universe and everything.

My conclusions? Think in smaller bits.

Wrote another note to my sweetpea today… Now I’m debating mailing them off one at a time, or as one bundle. I’m leaning to two bundles, one mailed Thursday, so she is sure to get some, and the others to be mailed on Saturday, so she’ll get ’em as a treat when back. I’m thinking of firing off some chocolates, too. *note to self – only send mail via the post office… far more reliable. I love her… she’s not really far away… I have her with me… but I yearn for her to laugh with me anew, and to come home soon.

The beach was beautiful, solitary. I could hear my love’s laughter in the waves, and it made me smile. The music in my mind was and is a curious mix of B-52s, DMB, and Rusted Root.

I’m getting a bit off on my AOK script design. 999 wild horses running around isn’t funny, just chaotic. Can’t seem to make furious george aggressive enough… I’ll work on it more…but there are some neat ‘moat’ river ideas…

Off to catch up and see if I have any evil news for you all.

No call about the apartment. Ack, I’m a little disappointed, but not too unhappy about it yet.

GRRR.

Mumble, Grumble…. If I was a cartoon character, I’d have a big, black, tornado-shaped scribble and non-alpha ASCII over my head right now.

Classic Monday…. lots of work, and lots of interruptions.

Time for a perspective switch. Would I –

Rather work in roofing? Nah.
Be Jobless – MMMM, Nah. (sounded good at first, but I’d go crazy.)
Rather be a mule? 🙂 Noperooney. I’m going to put some moonbeams in a jar tonight.

Okie, I’m feeling better. Sundown is in another few hours, and I can focus on my sweetie telling her nieces stories of the golf ball-kneed varmint, and bigfoot sightings. I bet she’s having quite a nice time at this point., and envisioning her smile brings me right out of any funk. I still haven’t heard back from Ray, and his apartment… I hope that no news is good news. If I don’t hear from him by noon tomorrow, I’ll ring him up, and find out what the deal is. I have the 4th off… I’d love to get moved in there by this weekend.

It seems “they” are turning Adolph Coors — I mean Hitler’s lair into a ski resort.

My favorite part:

“The Eagle’s Nest tea room < ..snip..> was built by the Nazi party as a present to Hitler on his 50th birthday in 1939. It was one of the few buildings to survive the Allied bombing and has long been a state-run cafe.”

Management for the cafe surely has been recruited from the ever-growing force of Starbucks managers. They are the only ones already in on the secrets, and by combining forces that way Starbucks puts itself in a much more powerful position when they finally decide to strike.

How not to have Scotto kill you with repeated blows to the head by a blunt object –

Do not call, letting it ring until voice mail picks up, then hang up, and call again (repeat until Scotto is in a deep lather, from trying to think, and ignoring the phone) and then give pointless information that could’ve been left of voicemail in the first place.

To save lives, I have programmed a macro into my phone. The same line has to wait at least 10 seconds before reconnecting, else they get dropped straight to voice mail. Also, I now have a workable ‘do not disturb’ button that drops folks straight into voicemail.

For work, feel free to ignore.

http://www.princeton.edu/~hannahk/web2.gif

http://people.ne.mediaone.net/lmhansen/index.html

other snippets on how to connect access to the web.

http://www.mvps.org/access/modules/mdl0052.htm

http://www.mvps.org/access/modules/mdl0037.htm

note –

‘*********** Code Start *************
Sub TestHTTP()
On Error GoTo ErrHandler
Dim objHTTP As InetTransferLib.HTTP
Const conTARGET = “http://www.mvps.org/access/acknowledge.htm”

Set objHTTP = New InetTransferLib.HTTP
With objHTTP
.About
.HttpURL = conTARGET
‘.DestinationFile = “j:temptest.htm”
.PromptWithCommonDialog = True
If .FileExists Then .OverwriteTarget = True
If Not .IsConnected Then .DialDefaultNumber
.ConnectToHTTPHost
.WriteHTTPDataToFile
End With
ExitHere:
On Error Resume Next
Set objHTTP = Nothing
Call SysCmd(acSysCmdRemoveMeter)
Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
MsgBox Err.Number & vbCrLf & Err.Description, vbCritical + vbOKOnly, Err.Source
Resume ExitHere
End Sub
‘*********** Code End *************

as an example.

from – http://www.princeton.edu/~hannahk/WebPubl.htm

How do I create a procedure to add data to my database?
This is much more difficult and requires creating an idc (Internet Database Connector) file.

Design an Access 97 database or use an existing database
Use the Save as HTML option under the File menu. This starts the Publish to the Web wizard.
Select a table, query, or form to use as the basis of your report.
Choose the Dynamic HTX/IDC option
Provide the Data Source Name. This is the name that the Web server uses to identify your database.
Save your database htm/idc/htx files to a directory on your hard disk. Modify the htm/idc/htx files that are created with a text editor such as WordPad or a Web authoring tool such as Claris HomePage.
Move your database file (.mdb) and the htm/idc/htx files to a Novell directory. You will need to create a special subdirectory and register it with the Web server administrator.
Demo of adding data to the Student Jobs database. The URL is

http://winweb.princeton.edu/dbwtest/hpajb.htm

Happy Canada Day to all you beaver-lovin’ folks North of the USA!

You guys rate way up there on my list of fave LJ’s to read.

California, Maryland and Canada seems to have the bulk of sweeties. (although there are several scattered to the four corners of the globe, too)

Day one of My sweetie being away.

It hasn’t sunk in completely yet. (I’m going to feel it especially hard tomorrow morning, though… our wake up chats, and gabbing through work is what gets me through the day. I miss her being online, but I’m thinking about her being on the road… I’m writing her a letter tonight after I finish my break.

Hooked up my brother’s machine with the Internet, and a few games, although he hasn’t got a sound card, so the fun factor is a lot lower than it might be. I’m going to see if I can find him a nice little sound blaster from the stockpile at work. He needed a few little other bits of hardware, a mouse, long phone cable, etc… Next time I head over there, I’ll get him an AIM account, and such… (he’s a slow typist, but the voice chat’ll be nice).

I left about 3ish, and got home… and promptly took a nice nap. (I only slept 4 hours last night.) I was rudely awakened by my landlord at 5pm… (I can’t blame him for that, who’s asleep at 5, usually?) Where he gave me nonsense about the front of my apartment. (I forgot to set out my trash last night, and his gf griped to him that my full can will be in front for another 3 days, before the following pickup. Oh, the humanity..[sarcasm].. Hey, I wasn’t the one baker acted for wielding a firearm in a homicidal/suicidal fun, and had to be baker acted for 3 days at the local pokey. I’ll welcome blowing this Pepsi stand.)

Since I was awake, I went to do my long overdue laundry… and dined alfresco at the next door Italian restaurant. They have a wickedly good eggplant parm sub, and they deliver. Somebody new to add to the menu! 🙂 (They also have a buffet table set up, I might hit that next laundry day…lots of tasty pizza, pasta, salad and desserts. The key lime pie looked really good, but I abstained (This time…) Anyhoo, I watched the sun go down, and I imagined holding hands with my sweetheart…that brought me a great peace. I returned to the ‘mat, just in time to move the clothes to the dryer. I had my palmtop with me, so I read my copy of leaves of grass. Dang, Ol’ Walt knew his stuff.

Good Morning.

Hope all you kids are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning too!

Saw My darling off for her week-long sabbatical. Man… this is going to be rough. I have a full-ish schedule today, to take my mind off of separation anxiety. We didn’t say goodbye, just “until Sunday!”. 🙂

10- be at brothers, and show him how to use his new computer. (hook him up with net zero, and such, make sure all his poop hardware is in order.)

Not sure how long that’ll take… bringing him old software (it’s an old computer he’s got) Quake, Doom, rise of the Triad, Hellcab, drowned god, civ, age of empires, simcity classic, and a few other oldies but goodies.

I’m hoping that by the time I get back home, I’ll have heard back from the apartment regarding my acceptance, and moving in schedules. I have to transfer my phone over there, and get power set up… plus arrange for a uhaul truck to take all my stuff… not to mention pack all my gear. I really hope that everything comes together smoothly.

Other things to do in the works – Laundry!!!

Time for Bed, I’m getting up bright and early tomorrow to see my sweetheart off. She’s going offline for about a week…. I think I’ll get a lot of Handwriting in these next seven days….

I love her.

Any similarities to any living or dead is purely chthonic.

It was too late, he thought as the waves twisted and warped, falling downwards even in the middle of the sea. Three centuries and more we had battled the forces of darkness, sometimes winning, sometimes not. But in the end, even when they lost it hadn’t mattered.

People died and nations fell, but humanity had gone on.

But not this time. As he picked himself off the deck, he could see John Kirkman laughing his head off as he stood on the water as if it were land. It wasn’t a pretty laugh, it was the laugh of the villains on the holos. Or rather, what the programmers strived for. A laugh that chilled the bone, that ate the soul. The situation was made even worse by the fact that the setting was beautiful. A warm August day in the middle of the ocean, even though too polluted to swim in the sea reflected the white sun’s rays, unblocked by ozone, magnificently.

The hole in the ocean widened, and from it tentacles rose, in numbers beyond counting.. No, not tentacles. Cilia. Now a real tentacle came out, and it was horrible beyond words. And through it all, the same silence, with only Kirkman breaking it.

“I have done as you asked!” he screamed. “I have freed you, Great Cthulhu. Now, grant me my wish. Make me immortal, make me live forever.”

I WILL GRANT YOUR WISH, YOUR TRUE WISH. YOU WISH TO ESCAPE FEAR OF DEATH, AND SUCH WILL I DO.

A tentacle came down, and crushed the sorcerer where he stood.

There was only one thing left to do. The agent fingered the item in his pocket. It was an unornamented bar made of some material he couldn’t identify, and was his only hope. One of a kind, we had discovered it in 2035 and put it into a stasis field, waiting for the final battle. He threw it into the pit, in the way a dying man on Mars might struggle to suck on a bit of oxygen.

Now there was a scream, one on a million frequencies, one within the mind itself.

NO!! THIS CANNOT BE. THIS ISN’T THE WAY ITS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!! The rate of closure began to slow, as Cthulhu fought the power of the item. But it did not stop. Any Mythos creature hated the Elder Sign, and the item he had thrown in was the ultimate Elder Sign. A manufacturing error had created it, produced a material which by pure chance had a unique molecule which repeated the Elder Sign over and over, tens of millions of times. And every one of them was affecting Cthulhu.

The scream did not die away, but was cut off as if with a switch. But the agent knew he would remember that scream for the rest of his life.

Slowly he picked himself up, walked past the bodies of the rest of his unit, went to the quantaphone. He punched a number, and a face came up.

“Since we’re not all dead, I presume you were successful.”

“Yeah. But can I ask a question?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“That item, what were they manufacturing, when they produced it by accident?”

“There’s no harm in telling you. They were trying to produce cheese.”

BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE