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)

Scottobear: I’m a test rabbit for looney labs now. http://tinyurl.com/yruv2v (via Twitter / Scottobear)

Nice restful day out and about. We took a little trip to College Park and actually drove past the heart of Looney Labs, in fact. (Saw the address in the phone book, and did a quick scan while in the area) Had we realised that the place wasn’t just a house, and was actually a office up above a home, I think we might have stuck our noses inside to say hello. They’re not too far off, so maybe another road trip is in the cards?

We went to two comic book stores… the “Collector’s Crypt” and a Liberty Books and Games – “We’re a libertarian bookstore and sell comics from disorganised piles” – The stores were pretty messy… Liberty’s, fortunately had a few games right by the front door, including a trusty, if dusty deck of Chrononauts – just fine, as it’s wrapped in plastic (and was the primary reason we went there in the first place). Funny thing about that store was that all the libertarian stuff was neatly organized… though I suspect that was in part due to a lack of interest by the patrons. The comic books, vintage paperbacks and whatnot else were stacked more than a little haphazardly throughout the place. Standard stereotypical comic shop, not bad, but far from good – Plus was that the proprietor was more than happy to help us locate what we were looking for.

Upon leaving, we chanced upon a local Smoothie King. In comic book guy’s voice – Worst Smoothies Ever. I don’t know what was going on, but bleagh. The iced and blended tush-sweat from a llama… with a hint of blueberry. Something very wrong with those drinks… like picking a scab, I had to keep tasting it to figure out the worst aspect of the drink. Is it the metallic aftertaste? The vaguely compost-like banana? The brownish-color of our sludgy slurry? Oh, for a glass of water or kerosene to wash away the filth! Perhaps I exaggerate… but not by much.

At the Crypt, there was a lot of interesting stuff in a space smaller than my closet at home… however the hat-trick of:

• no air conditioning
• poor lighting / too dark to read covers
• sort of creepy-skeevy proprietor

caused us to toddle out fairly swiftly. All other fears aside, no A/C in a tiny room filled with dusty books is just a recipe for a moldy sneeze fit. Crypt is indeed a good moniker for the place. Though it was disturbing that foodstuff (twist-tied bags of trail mix and malted milk balls) was stored in places that would give him some heath code violations, the proprietor (looking akin to the unshaven Spaulding Clown of House of 1000 corpses fate) was watching “Beyond Westworld” on a bootleg DVD, (it seems that the bulk of his business is out of print or third-generation gray-market copies of Japanese / Mexican Wrestler / TV pilots). BHK picked up some Andy Griffith Show trading cards to calm herself after tasting the horrid smoothies. Additionally, they carried no Treehouse /

We hit the grocer on the way home in the hopes that we can make some decent smoothies sometime tomorrow to finish counterbalancing the effects. Yogurt ahoy!

Well, enough of those parenthetical statements… perhaps I’ll take a page from Ldy’s writing, and incorporate footnotes. Nah.

1 year ago – rip webmonkey, skipping dragon*con, personal growth post recap, newt on porch pic

2 years ago – mp, kev, $, Rs, the love god mp3, update info about me, tag cloud, allergy

3 years ago – construction webbing, fonts, celebs, web cam fights crime

4 years ago – braced, zombie pumpkin fights, insanity script, insurance stupidity

5 years ago – dream about graypumpkin at the paint store, little people, domed 3d displays,great ape project, 28 things quiz, sue the teacher trend, mental comfort

6 years ago – cool mini or not, vatic, cool things about moving, smoothies, misc news, age poll, counter testing, chocolate bees, Victorian Sex Cry Generator, what’s for supper, coloring book concept germ

7 years ago – Newtcam’s own page posted (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

It was beautiful, foggy morning on the way to the train station. (not my image, but cool, nonetheless). Lots of mist hanging, especially over the water.

Saw Fantastic Four – Silver Surfer after work with BHK, and it was a fun little bit of entertainment.

Cool! The DC Train maps are now on google!(via dcist)

We’re not going to Salem this weekend. Instead, I think we’re just going to cool our collective jets, and regroup a bit.

I’ve been watching season 6 of The Shield on my commute to and from work lately… and the writing is still quite good. I think the child molester subplot was a bit transparent, but aside from that, it has been interesting seeing what’s going on with Vic’s crew. It sounds like they’re already wrapping up season seven, now, even though the sixth was supposed to be the final one.

After I whittle that one down my travel show is going to be The Riches, I think. Never did catch up with that on the Tivo upstairs, and BHK seems to have lost interest.

Positive thing about summer. Local corn. The best I’ve ever had, anywhere. Seriously, it’s amazing.

I’m really loving the local corn crop.

By the way, to my anonymous commenter: Not everyone in the world is racist. Not everyone in the world is sexist. “All [insert skin color / gender / geographic point of origin / religious belief / sexual preference / whatever here] stick together” is untrue. Sure, there are a lot of ‘em, but humans lack cooperation on that level. Not to say that *a lot* might. Special interest groups, Armies, and the like. If you could get *any* group of people of that size to really work together, the world would be a different place – and probably a scary one, since I don’t tend to agree with any one group’s agenda.

Atheists can cuss by taking someone else’s lord’s name in vain. It’s not like snarling “Random Chance!” or “Darwin!” is nearly as good as Jesus Christ come to think of it… blurting “Vishnu”, “Zeus” or “Zoroaster” is sort of dorky sounding too. David and Abraham are in too much usage to be any good, either. Solomon?

Maybe I’ll just stick to Comic Book / Cartoon Exclamations… Merciful Rao! Sufferin’ Sappho/Succotash! Leapin’ Lizards! Sweet Christmas! Good Grief! Great Hera! By Crom!

I am guilty of saying “My Stars” – not due to Henry McCoy, but Samantha Stevens.

By the Vishanti is too cumbersome. Imperious Rex is just dopey. Dumber than saying Spoooon! in fact.

I do like to say Zoroaster, though. It’s a fun name. Zoroaster. Say it with me, dear journal. Zoroaster. Zarathustra, in the native.

If we were to ever get a gray kitten, I’d like to name him Zoroaster. (That is not to say that we’re getting a gray kitten any time soon.)

Regarding this article about faith and democratic candidates … I can’t get the phrase “Pillory Hillary” out of my head.

1 year ago

– pirate quiz, pirates w/Dan, 61 questions, walkabout pics, bus stop self portrait, newtcam silly pic

2 years ago – bro visit, good exp games, Karl Rove a rat, mood settings, big ol’ Locust

3 years ago – perspective via work, kitty-bot, rain, diseases

4 years ago – Movies w/ danny, LED-suit, Lupin quiz, dinosaur haiku, new tv, LXG, html tests, ghoulishness

5 years ago – Ian McCracken, zork 404, branleur, got my bike

6 years ago – evil news, longueur, spoliation, space fungus, superstition poll, fri-13 reasoning, I’m Neutral Good

7 years ago – Traditional trolls, Catholics handy in a pinch (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)