Tag Archives: bhk

8961 – Mon

H.P. Lovecraft’s Birthday again, is it? 117, at this point.

Have a fistful o’ links sngged from an eldritch hobbit –

* For those of you who use iTunes, Lit2Go from the University of Southern Florida offers a number of free, unabridged audiobooks from the likes of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and H.G. Wells, among others.

* The Guardian reports on which books 2,000 readers have chosen as the Greatest Love Story of All Time, based on a poll sponsored by the UKTV Drama Channel.

The Top Ten list looks like this:

  1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, 1847
  2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813
  3. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, 1597
  4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 1847
  5. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1936
  6. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, 1992
  7. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, 1938
  8. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, 1957
  9. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence, 1928
  10. Far from The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, 1874

Marin Kettle responds in The Guardian with “If Wuthering Heights is a love story, Hamlet is a sitcom.”


Wonderfully cool today – sort of surreal for August. 66° F outside – Hard to believe it was feeling like 110 just a few days ago.

Think of it as Autumn Training Day. I’m looking quite forward to more weather like this.


BHK’s birthday is this weekend, same day as the Ren-Fest starting. I suspect that we won’t go the first weekend…. a little party with family on Saturday, and dinner at Tina’s on Sunday. I hope that Chris can get Louise to come and bring some good wishes to at least one of those events.


Farming for Bees: Guidelines for providing native bee habitats on farms. –

The paper version is $10, but you can download a PDF version FREE at that page!

Don’t have a farm? There’s still lots of great information there, including bee forage plant lists, how to build homes for native bees, and pesticides to avoid. And–beautiful photos of native bees and their nests.


1 year ago – mr jones, fort lauderdale happenings / movies, walkabout basics, the shield, nose buttering in comments.

2 years ago – dinner out, hee haw, chitty chatting, Kong SE, gun-related homicide in the workplace, monkey and duck picture, weatherbonk

3 years ago – ADP hammers another nail in her on-call casket, supes & robot doubles, past Halloween costumes, drunkie-bear, Todd Fatta, RIP

4 years ago – virus PSA, Zombie Sim rework, the current gig, candy poll, monty python toys, 2-headed baby, magic egg, witches, sentinel cam, work observations (turned out correct), Pam pings me, good/evil evaluation

5 years ago – megaliths, interviewing, super manatee, giant grasshoppers, weathercams, miss cleo in trouble, landlord- no fans, Finn issue

6 years ago – writing – invisible, words of the day, tattoo & misocainea, MS kills NS plugins, griegstein

7 years ago – empty Geotarget

8958 – archival

Slow, comfy day at the grotto. Left the house just long enough to get the mail (Car Wars Card game came in!), some Chinese food for dinner, and pineapple-orange juice for BHKs sore throat. Not sure if my trip to the ER brought back another bug, or if perhaps seeing Jimmy with his cold was transferred to her via me. I know that I’ve been coughing heavily after my varied journey through doctors this weekend.

We played a few games of Polarity, Early American Chrononauts – I did well in the former, while BHK performed better in the latter. We also did a little playing of War of The Roses, Hey – That’s My Fish!, Mancala, Captain Kidd, China Gold, and a score of other diversions thanks to Yucata.de.

We also got to watch The Illusionist – not bad… best viewed while playing

1 year ago – gateway theater pic, steam shovels, zap guns, dr octagon

2 years ago – bro out, pay links, looking back meme, friday 5, monkeys in gov’t

3 years ago – Scotto as the prisoner, TV/Game idea, nazi weddings, adsense poof, steven tyler is a salt vampire, lj permanence, sick at work, poo humor, skin dry

4 years agomenstrualhut cloned, vampire game, pam visits, eagles vs giant gerbils, under nyc

5 years ago – A/C issues, Everyone Guilty of Enron, cake, Hurricane Andrew, bus stop photos, keywords

6 years ago – I photoshop my dream, coloringbook, fecund

7 years ago – time of darkness Geotarget

8955 – sat

Things of note – when getting an ekg or a stress test, I was stuck on a stretcher for about 8 hours straight. Do it again? thank you, no.

Off on a date to see Stardust – Double dated: Bhk and Me / Kendall & Adam. We all enjoyed it – a nice combination of humor, mild violence, and general purpose fairy tale.

Played 4 games of polarity with BHK – won 3 – Also won 1 game of martian coasters.


Center of hardware store’s quirky display is stolen
ATW Hardware and Supply owner Ted Kramer wipes a tear away from one of the ladies on his rooftop display. The figure known as The Man was recently stolen from the Edgewater store.

Continue reading 8955 – sat

8954 – fri

Got looked over by the doc, following yesterday’s health issue – Nothing so severe as strep or a heart attack, but a really bad allergy fit. Swollen throat, trouble breathing, tightness in the chest…I was told that my heart is more than fine… it’s strong as can be.

Blood pressure – 121 / 71, pulse 74

Got a ‘scrip for zyrtec for the allergies, and a topical for the ongoing eczema on my neck. Thank goodness for insurance!

Thank you to everyone who gave well-wishes… they were greatly appreciated!

Bad news – my camera died.. the motor that spits out and retrieves the lens is out of whack, and I fear it’s probably kaput. I’ll get another eventually, but I fear that any photos will be taken with the cell phone for the immediate future – kills the resolution and spontaneity of image-taking.

Tonight we celebrated Larry’s b’day by gifting him with, and then watching Wild Hogs. It was a lot better than I’d expected, though it petered out with typical Deux Ex Machina at the end. He also got the new Vine gill 4-cd set, and banana puddin’, as is his fondness. Tina and Chris stuck around through our tasty veggie-dogs/veggie chili cookout – I was still feeling pretty woozy throughout, but I think I’m getting better now.


1 year ago – hacking xp, gaming due to love of school supplies, airplay map, weird Maryland,

2 years ago – New Orleans Lisas, moon base mars, flash earth, ed wood directs, devo,blue beetle & lithium, bush 5 years and no “nos”, spidey-enema,SCOAI, word colors

3 years ago – missed oneeyed, bro scams mom, no donkey basketball, t-mobile good gesture, scale model of city, lenny kravitz warning, cemetery stroll urge, Bermuda Triangle, Saturn’s 33 moons, flash game tutorial

4 years ago – Newt vs measuring cup, astronaut jones, free router stuff

5 years ago – Saturday mornings, heroclix, band names, toad turmoil, recorder, fun gab

6 years ago – page pondering

7 years ago – bakery-dog, factoids-lieoidsGeotargetVisitor Map

8952 – Wed

Not much to report today, dear journal… green line broke down on the way to work, but fortunately, I wasn’t late, due to my habit of being one ahead (learned via broward county – same rule applies – better early than late!) Payday today! just in time considering some untimely bills snuck up on us.

Pomonkey and Ripley are at their new foster parents place today – BHK and I are sad to see ’em go, but I think our allergies really started to get kicking… pretty timely send off for ’em.

BHK made a spectacular supper of stuffed shells, garlic bread, and salad for us – the in-laws went out for their 32nd (I think) wedding anniversary, so she and I had a nice private night at home to watch cheesy movie The Covenant. Not bad in a goofy flick sort of way. Sort of a cheap hybrid of the Matrix meets the Craft.


1 year ago – raccoons, giant ants, moldy bread and freemasons make me smile, movies, geocaching, lj on venture brothers, gentle morning off, quotes meme

2 years ago – greasemap, foreign ducktales, apricot scarves… Tony Randall and vanity, Jean Charles de Menezes, bckev’s keeno covers, kayla/susie drama, hugs, top 20 pics, elvis the robo-cat, newton nibble pic, tubby newt pic

3 years ago – AvP movie. bus schedules switch, walkabout pics, Punta Gorda – Yikes

4 years ago – last skeletor and gang, insect macro photos, apartments made from text,hello kitty warhammer, human/rabbit chimera, scotto is a fuzzy monkey,frankie knocks, wondering about crusaders planting vinyards, drunkensailor quiz, complete sherlock holmes, some detective work, pursecontents, fun with google calc

5 years ago – both machines upgraded and cleaned up, fun linkies, MRE talks about writing his junk, signage systems

6 years ago – eye dialect, latitudinarian, weird dream poll, set up alternates to LJ, Newt comes to work, cool news, freaky dream

7 years ago – loony, first hints suzy using, foodiesGeotargetVisitor Map

8951 – tues

BHK is taking Pomonkey and Ripley off to their new foster home tomorrow. I’ll miss ’em, though I’ve gotten used to the idea that they’re just visiting, not permanent family members. It’s hard not to get emotionally attached to little baby animals.

Newton and Pye both weigh a ton next to those little critters… I’d say Pye weighs four to five times as much, at least. No fat, either, all kitty muscles.


Marty put me onto a nifty tool alternate to Filezilla called WinSCP (WinSCP is a SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol.)


TM let it be known that she’s dating a new guy – I’m guessing that it’s been a few weeks now? I’m trying to mentally do the math, but I’m not sure I can think of how fast she got back on the horse after the breakup with DR. I hope she finds what she’s looking for with the new fellow.


Tech Issues recently solved:

http://wiki.avectra.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Correspondence template specifics:
http://wiki.avectra.com/index.php?title=Correspondence_Template
Resize Options:
http://wiki.avectra.com/index.php?title=Internet_Explorer_Settings

How to Open Excel Files in Excel (rather than browser)

These instructions do NOT work in Vista but should work in XP but must be done on each client computer.

1. Go to Windows Explorer.

2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click on the File Types tab.

3. From the Registered file types list box, select the XLS extension, and then click Advanced.

4. In the Edit File Type dialog box, set the Confirm open after download to selected.

5. Make sure the Browse in same window option is not selected, and then click OK.


1,700 vintage game manuals as watermark-free PDFsThis is over three gigabytes of manuals, schematics, and general information about arcade machines, scanned in by an anonymous army of dedicated people, and going back up to 30 years.


1 year ago – vacation day, graffiti pics, skateboarders, fountain geocache, sugar sand park,

2 years ago – goth girl, walken ’08, dane cook re: superman shirts, silly tiger, scotto is, strikeout meme, newt pic at my old apt,

3 years ago – palm doodle, storm disastrous, necco wafers, hurricane journal-guy

4 years ago – wwcalc, Mexican casserole, newt sniffing, sewer travels, blackouts

5 years ago – cool comics, broken links, memories from 1981, hump-day

6 years ago – good feelings, abusive employee/employer relations, wonder tomato condiment poll, evil news, taught chmod

7 years ago – sleep study follow-up, peace Geotarget

8950 – mon

So… Amazon does groceries, now? Nice idea, especially if they don’t charge shipping on bills more than $25. That’s good to know, in the event of some rare items going missing… I wonder if there’s a way to order stuff that’s very local?

I totally agree with MightyGodKingIf more history books were like Warren Ellis’ and Raulo Caceres’ Crêcy, this would not be a problem. At all.
(Warning, language.. as if I have to tell you, dear journal.)

Yesterday was a beautiful day, even though we spent the majority of it indoors. I think the weather is just about perfect for kayaking now… not too hot, but nice, clear and sunny. 88 degrees is doable – 112… not so much.

BHK and TM pulled potatoes today!

From our garden – that’s a big ol’ spud!
0813071232a - that's a spud!

After such a long, hot week, that was some beautiful weekend, wasn’t it? And apparently, the beauty of the weekend is spilling out on to Monday morning: Karl Rove, President Bush’s controversial deputy chief of staff and senior political adviser, will resign at the end of August. After he packs up his Palisades home and heads back to the Texas Hill Country, Rove will reportedly leave politics and plans to write a book about the Bush years — do you still get to claim executive privilege when your job involves working in your slippers?

1 year ago – pics from britta’s birthday and walkabout, ocean movies

2 years ago – strawberry shortcake, silas stingy, bus ride video, video watching, about me meme, errors at work

3 years ago – np tech fizzed out, disney rides, bro gets 2 years probation, CoH, hurricane Charley, RvsB-internet, Horny Toad

4 years ago – Gelatinous Cube, Chimera / Mosaics, Schwarzenegger, I work with fools blog, David Carlson, wonder woman, cockroaches/dominoes, AAA vs speed traps, director, google calc, teen titans theme cracked

5 years ago – cheaters, fartlek, Gamera, Nation of Victims, Nimoy sings about Bilbo

6 years ago – random journal reading, suasion, hobson, pancake bunny, misc news, super powers/poll

7 years ago – went for sleep study Geotarget

8949 – Sunday

Sunday morning started with more reading, and a repeat of BHK napping a little bit while I played Pyramids and Dominoes with EM. Once we were all cleaned up and ready, we toddled off to Chris and Larry’s for a tasty breakfast of Belgian waffles w/ ice cream and fresh made strawberry syrup – Em ate 6 or 7 pieces of bacon, and a whole waffle! That little critter can *eat*!

DSCN5926 DSCN5930 - monkey
Post breakfast gluttony, (see photos), we headed down to the Bay to take a moment to search for fossils – – Emily got a lovely little bag of shark’s teeth and shells to take back with her.

DSCN5936 DSCN5933

At about 1, it was time to head out for our rendezvous with Misti at the Arby’s – a reasonable halfway point between our homes (approximately an hour drive for each). during the drive, we saw quite a bit of Amish country, down to several Horse-drawn carriages – apparently you can pass them on a double-lined highway, unlike normal cars. A pretty broad assortment of them were out and about, covered and uncovered, families and older couples.
DSCN5941 DSCN5938

After lunch and switching Em’s car seat to Misti’s truck, we encountered two stray cats lurking around the parking lot.

DSCN5942 DSCN5948

After a little deliberation, we decided to take them someplace safer, either a no-kill shelter, home with us, or at least to a region without as much high-speed car traffic nearby. They’re Brother and sister, I think, and about four months old.
DSCN5947 DSCN5944

We did have to name ’em, rather than just boy or girl –

Ripley – White and tan little guy (Named for a place that has a bit of meaning for ussee also ) The little lover… all about snuggles and purrs.

Pomonkey – Longhair Tabby female, looks like a “what if Pye and Newt had a daughter” Hair length and ear-wispies of pye, with Newt’s markings. (Name based on a city’s name I learned a while back and haven’t stopped enjoying yet) Super curious, purrs easily, too.

After taking them to the vet to be tested for Feline Leukemia (and anything else that might hurt Pye and/or Newt), they came home with us to stay in the guest bathroom. We located a good foster home for them both, and I don’t think either one will have any trouble being adopted.

While we’d love to keep them, we just don’t have the ability to do so in a good way. I really wish that we could… makes me want to own a barn a mile away from anywhere, just so we can have a homestead with a bunch running around.

Since we waited at the vets for about 5 hours (emergency room for animals – triage… the kitties were pretty dang healthy except for ear mites, so other, more urgent cases had priority.)

We watched the Meteor shower for about 3 minutes until we both got super sleepy, and had to head to bed. Caught a few shooting stars, though!

1 year ago – giraffe graffiti, giganta, danny talks to doug, I talk to GP, green wifi, Bob Ross feeds a Squirrel, starshine

2 years ago – Lesbian movie scenes, student aid, the goon & pie, lisas go to TX, Harry Potter, everything can change, wirehog

3 years ago – Bro’s sentencing, EN makes a good impression (other guy fizzed out), Daredevil question, Koko wants a dentist, Tropical Storm

4 years ago – muttonhead, rain, flash, dan at school, voodoo 4, lychee yum, walking stick self defense, ati multi monitor life, noisy neighbors

5 years ago – spiders on drugs, Uzumaki, me and newt’s custom HC dials, goodies for Kev’s sis, bear teeth, a moment of Zen

6 years ago – utility kilt, uncle bill, intrepid

7 years ago – first online radio(broken), food out with Danny, made the “decaf espresso=kissing your sister” joke, Hollow man Geotarget

8948 – Saturday

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that I received Martian coasters, filler colors of icehouse stashes, and other ordered loot. I’m looking forward to playing them with BHK at our earliest convenience.

Awoke early – about 6:45 on a Saturday. EM was up at about 6:30, I think.

Read in bed:

  • Oliviaclassic. Olivia would be Eloise, if Eloise were a pig. She is good at singing 40 very loud songs and is very good at wearing people out. And scaring the living daylights out of her little brother, Ian, particularly when he copies her every move. She is also quite skilled at reproducing Jackson Pollock’s “Autumn Rhythm #30” on the walls at home. When her mother tucks her in at night and says, “You know, you really wear me out. But I love you anyway,” Olivia precociously pronounces, “I love you anyway too.”
  • Ain’t gonna Paint No more – pretty spiffy, good rhythm, color and song.
  • 93 in my family Now *that*’s a fun kids book. Reads well, stuff to look at on every page, terribly cute, and gives a message that’s neat, too. Plus, a carsick hamster named Ed. We need more like this one.
  • Where Have The Unicorns Gone? – Lovely Art, poorly written – it just doesn’t flow.

BHK was tuckered out, and fell back asleep about midway through Olivia, so Em and I got up after reading and made necklaces with wooden beads and string from Em’s kit – very pretty stuff.

Played some simple stacking and lining up games with dominoes and red & blue icehouse pyramids with Em while BHK slept – may have developed the seed of a new game! Stacking Pyramids on top of a domino board to collect points. Needs a little work, but if I can teach the basics to a 4-year-old and it’s challenging to me, there could be a fun concept waiting to burst out.

Once BHK woke up, we all got cleaned up and headed out to take care of TM’s kitties (see picture in yesterday’s post ).

After many kitty snuggles, we all went to the marine museum to see the otters and the stingrays – it was also a Cradle of the Invasion day – folks dressed in garb of 1812, WWII, and modern style, showing how Marines in wartime lived and worked in the area. pretty neat. Apparently, in the 30s-40s, Tropical chocolate was mixed with paraffin wax so it wouldn’t melt… the K rations had basically a chocolate candle to eat along with government supplied cigarettes. Lots of items about amphibious warfare that didn’t interest Em too much, but I’d like to go back next time and spend a little while talking to the folks and getting some perspectives on things. My Grandfather on my mom’s side was a Marine during WWII, and he never really talked too much about it, short of taking me to the VFW and hanging out with other vets. (That’s where I got my first Shirley Temple.)

[edit – I forgot that we went to the amish market, and saw ducks and geese and chickens and goats and puppies and horses, and amish folks, and bought gingerbread and blueberry jam, and lemon meringue pie for Larry, and shoo-fly pie for us, and peppers to stuff with yum! – Sakes, we were busy]

Getting close to Lunch, so we headed off to Burt’s [Edit – dang, why do I always call it Fred’s?] for veggie burgers (em got popcorn shrimp) – good stuff, but I suspect the kids meal had more food than our veggie burger platter! We got puzzle place mats and crayons so we could color while we waited for our food.

Went to Aardvarks to pick up Early American Chrononauts (and ice cream – Play-doh is still my favorite… vanilla ice cream dyed bright yellow with red and blue chunks of sugar cookie dough mixed in. ) I suspect that I like Early American more than standard Chrononauts.

Chris and Larry’s for Dinner – Hot Dogs on the Grill, beans, slaw, and all sorts of yum. BHK had to duck out and tend to Tina’s Kitties again while Chris, Larry, Em and I hung out and chitty-chatted. Emily was very well behaved, and barely persnickety or bossy at all. She played very nicely with Tigger for hours.

Quote of the night was by Em – “I would never hurt beautiful Uncle Scott!”

Full and happy we all came home and crashed out.


Before I bail: a meme from Tarpo –

THE RULES:

1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random.
Whatever you like.

2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.

3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.

4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.

5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

Mine were –

1) Where did you meet your girl? Livejournal, actually – Sixish years ago, at least, when I was dating someone else. I think that I traded up nicely.

2) Is Newt still a vicious man-eater? He can be pretty aggressive to some folks, and a love to others. He hasn’t seen any Newfs lately, but he still attacks most smokers with great vigor.

3) Recommend 3 fairly cheap 2 player, easy to learn, fun games that are outside the normal Milton Bradley/Hasbro line. Well, you already know about Fluxx and Carcassone, so I’ll toss out Treehouse at about $10, you can’t go too far wrong (see links above) (which is a gateway drug to other fun games, too) and Chrononauts, also linked above, a little bit more pricey at $20, (with both games the more the merrier, but two can play handily.)

4) Without sounding offensive and I hope you don’t take this in the wrong way at all.. Has anyone ever mentioned that there is more than a slight resemblance between my Ex Wife and your Current Wife? Short of this question, nobody has… From what I can recall of her face, I don’t really see the resemblance! Eyes, nose, facial shape, hair and skin all seem pretty different to me!

5) Suggest something for a future DoWhatIDo
How about a picture of a favorite item, like a toy or book?


1 year ago – thread tracking, mallah/brain, sistine ceiling full view, 330 mpg car under $20k, hardest geometry problem in the world,

2 years ago – Delirium box, laundry good deed, matches, chain reaction game, Friday 5, autostitch pic, 200 e Broward pic

3 years ago – hr tag abandonment,Doug / tony memory trick, factoids about me, elevator breaks

4 years ago – Neverwhere, childhood memories circa ’74-75ish – lunch and Tonka toys,linked to hulk’s blog, bro stuff, Elvis & his prosthetic limb factory

5 years ago – Spanish TV, broken links, new he-man cartoon, mark quits FMM before he’s caught stealing, puppy pictures and palm doodles.

6 years ago – Soylent Green Tea Ice Cream at the Frieze in Miami, after seeing Kiss of the Dragon with my bro, cavort, first exp w/ Samurai Jack, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

7 years ago – saw the hollow man, and played Everway, day before sleep study Geotarget

8947 – Friday

Work is getting solid now – doing a lot of testing and validation of some programs going live. It’s fun – I’m getting a chance to flex some SQL muscle on queries that can range from simple to fairly complex.

After work, Chuck E Cheese with Em and BHK – We were there for a bit… had some pizza (not too bad, really!) played some skee-ball and other ticket-type redemption games. Scored 420 tickets, and made the obligatory reference to the prize-guy behind the counter… he laughed and happily doled out her loot… A Hello Kitty coin purse, some stickers, a little pink bracelet and a cinderella magnet. Not a bad haul for doing something that was fun anyway. BHK is pretty dang good at the ol’ Skee-Ball, while I’m a bit better at shooting hoops.

Hm, “Redemption Games” sounds like some sort of Tom Clancy book about a Chaplain in the Green Berets. File that for later tongue-in-cheekiness.

On our way home, we checked in with Tina’s Kitties – Keiki was happy to be a little love-muffin all over Em. Chai was affectionate, too, but not all up in her business (which is how Em likes her kitties.)

keiki keezes

1 year ago – nifty clock, internal words, writing slowdown, eyes, mediocre bad guys, tv, milk pocky

2 years ago – Magda’s Bday, allergy shots, dreamt of killing my sister, PM memory, brown bag, meteor shower, bad breath detection, google homepage

3 years ago – construction, fay wray RIP, dan’s school blocks lj,alcohol, SPcharacter, aerial photos, UK Prozac pee taints water supply, LC’s scrapbook, CoH tempting battle cries, flower meme

4 years ago – Puzzle Pirates (with a cutie mermaid), Arabia-cam with Mom and Daughter(I met oneeyed and sedef as a result of sweet’s poochie’s booty-ticks.), vamp-game, Kings of Africa, lovely chat

5 years ago – man killed for playing the banjo, Trek happening a dud, but we discover heroclix, (already thinking customs), rorschach poll

6 years ago – 3 things poll, deracinate, cormorant, broken newt pic, 25 things to keep in mind, ja da, rate your risk (links now broken)

7 years ago – spent out, color quiz, looking forward to going to breakfast, Rowlf sings, Beaker sings Geotarget

8943 – Thursday

Emily arrived safe and sound about an hour ago… she’s all tucked in – BHK and I will be turning in for the night shortly, too. Until tomorrow, dear journal, here’s some stuff.


METEORS THIS SUNDAY! Can’t Forget!


The Red Line has resumed normal service after a suspicious package closed the Dupont Circle, Woodley Park, and Cleveland Park stations for several hours.

Metro Transit Police bomb technicians X-rayed the box, then safely disrupted it with a water cannon. The box contained paper and cardboard. The train was taken to a nearby rail yard for further investigation.


Sad to hear that Dresden Files was canned – I was digging it. It didn’t look like it was too expensive to produce, but who knows what was going on under the hood.

Ah, well… The nice thing about one less good tv show is that it’s one less tv show, period. More time for me to focus on other things.


Found this on the Icehouse list –

A new video of SLorpedo: The Mixed Reality Game Of
Naval Warfare is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWw0_X7b79Y

SLorpedo is a mixed reality version of the icehouse
game torpedo played in both real life and Second Life.

The new video shows real life footage of the
installation, a video of SLorpedo footage captured in
Second Life is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-MoN9d_Nw

Mixing Icehouse and Second Life? I’m lucky that I’ve got BHK and the lads to intervene or I’d be wasting hours fiddling with that. (If it were 2 years or so ago, I’d probably be in there right now, working on the code and looking at what was what.) I haven’t tried Regular ol’ Torpedo yet, but it looks like fun.


Speaking of Doodles (last entry) and Pyramids, here are some more random doodles drawn on the bus. I’m fiddling wit hthe idea of a multi-tiered gameboard – some standard chase-game variant like monopoly or sorry, with different abilities or events on each level. also thinking about a Rock/Paper/Scissors element to the nests/trees, as far as landing and capture are concerned – big beats middle, middle beats little, little beats big. I’d like to finish it in time for this year’s Ice Game Design Competition, but I doubt I’ll make it. Maybe next year!

pyra doodle

Heck, have a recent Newtcam pic, too, dear journal!

Allez-oop! He was playing while BHK and Pye napped.

newtcamallezoop


1 year ago – looking forward to Autumn, man who knew too much, pumpkins, que sera sera, florida health inspection resource,

2 years ago – teacher memories, bro, shogun warriors (including great mazinga), 1970s Spanish Adult Movie Posters, Pic of Danny and I as heroclix fight an oncoming zombie and lobster-man menace.

3 years ago – Alabama, chatty-newt, spiky moods, war ellies, world audit, hijabs, olympic torrents, fake beheading.

4 years ago – vampire monkey dream, programming, puzzle pirates, nicotini, quizzes and kama sutra safe sex, blunt truth, mehndi designs

5 years ago – istockphoto, emergency day at work early-arrive (I wonder what’d happen if Sappho and Kev were out at the same time, now?), escape from alcatraz w/bro, misc meter quizzes, looking for cave/sea piccies

6 years ago – scud, agon, evil news, Wally out of the loop (he’s still awaiting trial for some of his crimes), Thai din din, colon contents, just finding out about bubba-Ho tep

7 years ago – geophagyGeotarget Geotarget

8941 – Wednesday

One year until 08/08/08!


I found out today that the family across the street from us has lived in that house for the last 23 or so years. Adam, the youngest son at age 18 has lived in the same home his whole life. I wonder how often that happens anymore? I don’t think I’ve put more than five years of life in the same building – I didn’t even spend more than 2 years in the same school until I hit 9th grade as my folks moved around quite a bit.

I’m not sure I can even imagine how intimately familiar a person comes to be with that sort of environment… that kid must know every stone and fence within a 10-mile area. He must’ve seen some very significant changes over the last two decades.. North Beach was a bit of a biker town before it got an influx of bay front property money. There is quite a cultural microcosm these days, but the upper-middle class seems to be taking the lead.


Today’s weather is *evil* – Current Temperature is 100°F, “feels like” 109. And that’s at “partly cloudy”. How much hotter would it be with full-bore sun?


Totally random thought formed on the train – do the words cowherd (someone who herds cows) and coward (someone who shows fear in the face of danger) have a connection? I need to research that.

[edit – Well, I guess not. Word History: A coward is one who “turns tail.” The word comes from Old French couart, coart, “coward,” and is related to Italian codardo, “coward.” Couart is formed from coe, a northern French dialectal variant of cue, “tail” (from Latin cda), to which the derogatory suffix -ard was added. This suffix appears in bastard, laggard, and sluggard, to name a few. A coward may also be one with his tail between his legs. In heraldry a lion couard, “cowardly lion,” was depicted with his tail between his legs. So a coward may be one with his tail hidden between his legs or one who turns tail and runs like a rabbit, with his tail showing.]


BHK picks up Em tomorrow!
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She’ll be visiting from Thursday through Sunday. I expect a *lot* of fun and a probably a couple of interesting challenges. (She’s little, and will likely miss her folks on one or two nights.)


After thinking about it, I feel that a variant of Oshi might work well with the Icehouse pyramids. (Other possibilities at the World of Abstract Games )


1 year ago – priceline beats expedia, register to vote, Chinese Ghost Festival, exfoliate/defoliate, hangin’ round the ceiling, walkabout/geocache plans

2 years ago – meetings, school restarts, club shuffle, thank you – sim-sim-salabim, danny the street, vidcam hacks, google total, unf. kids books, How bona to vada your eek!, teacher, miami storm pic

3 years ago – Bro health care, lj post issues, losing some gentleness, scotto-flaws& nice things, vintage newspaper strips, no jack black as GL, funw/google searches, older archives, deep sea images, phone safe,keylogger, slowed chipmunks, JL cartoon, character makeups, europreart

4 years ago – Teen Titans, Antidepressants, narghile, steve burns, ebonics, red kryptonite poll, bro health

5 years ago – ZIM!, fun fact, fumbuckery, added newt pic to bio, after he shocked me, site reboot that didn’t come to fruition

6 years ago – some thoughts about gamers/negative side, including a dragon-con flashback (that caused some upset in the role-players community), who in a crowd?, Upside-down, RPG poll, caterwaul, Name Generator, dinos in your region, Wally Caught stealing, begins the end of the WDB era at IMT.

7 years ago – grumpy, in general and regarding TV Geotarget

8940 – Tuesday

Hm… some more good reviews on the DC to NYC bus – I wonder how much cheaper it is than the speedy-train?


BHK talked to PG county’s Sheriff’s Internal Affairs about the car chase a little while back. I’ll be interested to see what comes of it – I only wish I would’ve been home with her at the time.


Treat from BHK! Yum. Tastes great,
looks far too brown for human consumption.

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Found out yesterday that someone I used to know very well is very deep in debt. I wonder what happened? I probably really don’t want to know.


We haven’t seen Louise for a month… I wonder where she’s been?


Flying_blind has a better entry about the ljopoly board and a lot of the recent drama – than I would make, so here’s a link.

I’m backing up my LJ pretty much once a week, just so I have a copy for when either inclination or necessity require me to put my stuff either on my own website, or transfer it to a different one. I suspect that neither will happen too soon, but it’s probably going to take place eventually.


Cruel 2 B Kind is a game of benevolent assassination.

At the beginning of the game, you and a partner-in-crime are assigned a secret weapon. To onlookers, it will seem like a random act of kindness. But to a select group of other players, the seemingly benevolent gesture is a deadly maneuver that will bring them to their knees.

Some players will be slain by a serenade. Others will be killed by a compliment. You and your partner might be taken down by an innocent group cheer.

You will be given no information about your targets. No name, no photo, nothing but the guarantee that they will remain within the outdoor game boundaries during the designated playing time. Anyone you encounter could be your target. The only way to find out is to attack them with your secret weapon.

Watch out: The hunter is also the hunted. At the beginning of the game, you and your partner will also be assigned your own secret weakness. Other pairs of players have been given your secret weakness as their secret weapon, and they’re coming to get you. Anything out of the ordinary you do to assassinate YOUR targets may reveal your own secret identity to the other players who want you dead.


1 year ago – finished pride & pred / monkey politics, Newt pic, kid rolling ajoint on the bus, solar powered sun bricks, firkin, 8500, flying model plane in miami, flight plans to maryland

2 years ago – deepest sender, jumping pictures, walkabout autostitch, mangrove tunnels

3 years ago – tmbg thoughts, sugar water vid, space issues, Rick James dead, Burpin’ at Newt, Magical Trevor, cocktail demons, nifty charts, Newt Videos, CoH Pix

4 years ago – Zombies, Army Men, mean cannibal pudding, time travel spam, vampire game, celeb phone calls, cej chat, bro request

5 years ago – Earth and Beyond Playtest, Kev & Bailey, fat parrots, french fry girl palm doodle

6 years ago – harried, inculpate, plane lands just down the road on andrews as a makeshift runway and kits my regular bus, wondering about lj’s image server (still not ready!), happy thoughts, magic can of soda

7 years ago – grumping, Space cowboys shows old man butts Geotarget

8939 – Monday

A small sampling of our 30 jars of pickles
pickles! we've got 30 jars of 'em!


Raquel Welch gets some more use out of that costume she wore on Mork and Mindy. Sing it, Rocky!
(don’t watch it for too long… it starts to hurt the brain)


via ze – The Tilted Room :: a really well done update to ernie kovacs “tilted table” routine.


Our sunflowers are at about 7 feet tall… but the heat and lack of water is giving them the wilties. Hopefully last night’s rain woke ’em up a bit.

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Playing with the myriad of games with pyramids in the Icehouse (handy wiki link) set make me feel a little bit like Enik from land of the lost. I wouldn’t mind making a light table board to look like the matrix table he used on the show. Played BHK 4 games of Treehouse last night, and I won 3 of the four.

to
Sorry, Marshall, Will, Holly, Enik… that’s my set.

Hm. Now I want a big bowl of honeycomb cereal, and to watch bad saturday morning 70’s tv.

Regarding Zendo – found a random Koan generator – might do the trick.

Some sample output –

A koan has the Buddha nature if it contains no more than 3 flat, small pieces.

A koan has the Buddha nature if it contains exactly 2 green pieces.

A koan has the Buddha nature if it consists entirely of upright pieces.

A koan has the Buddha nature if the number of its ungrounded, flat pieces is even.

A koan has the Buddha nature if the pip-count of its upright pieces is not equal to the number of its large pieces.

A koan has the Buddha nature if it contains at least 2 weird, small pieces.

A koan has the Buddha nature if the number of its flat, purple pieces is odd.

A koan has the Buddha nature if the number of its large pieces is even.

A koan has the Buddha nature if it contains at least 3 upright pieces pointing at a weird, red piece pointing at a medium piece.


Hello Kitty
Police must wear this shameful, shameful mark

BANGKOK, Thailand – Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring “Hello Kitty,” the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.

Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won’t wear the armband in public.

The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.

“Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.

“(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It’s not something macho police officers want covering their biceps,” Pongpat said.

He said police caught breaking the law will be subject the same fines and penalties as any other members of the public.

“We want to make sure that we do not condone small offenses,” Pongpat said, adding that the CSD believed that getting tough on petty misdemeanors would lead to fewer cases of more serious offenses including abuse of power and mistreatment of the public by police officers.


1 year ago – Monks in a circle, ken nordine, contact lens thought, 9-volt batteries, dragonball live action in spanish, shades vary electric bill,

2 years ago – Mona moves on from work, Lisa is a good name on lj, NASA pics, walkies phone post

3 years ago – Thinking Wolfsonian, CEJ, Skeletor, bro, bandwidth crooks, awesome search phrase, cat poop coffee, silly ad, Where do they make balloons… (hey, synchronicity)

4 years ago – miniature oranges, orisinal games, tv in my head, first/last meme, newt on a windowsill, daler mehndi

5 years ago – Newt Wakies, Croc bite brings beer, scotto-man, overtired, funions

6 years ago – vcr tape, gaming, militate, warren, scientific independence for researchers, Frontier Psychiatrist, evil SUV

7 years ago – many folks join my Friendy-list (probably due to addition of interests) , grover, graves museum Geotarget

8938 – Sunday

Crashed hard last night once we got back – comfy weekend, sort of like this found shot of Newt from Friday.

newtcamroller

This morning BHK and I lazed in bed for a good chunk, spending a little time reading or fooling on the laptop, before getting up and heading off to points non-bedlike. We played a bit here and there in yucata, superdupergames, tribal wars, and bella sara – I’ve discovered that I do better sitting cross-legged over laying back with the lappie.

Post-laziness, we headed out for a random road trip, and ended up going to Dream Wizards which was exactly like what we were hoping for (but didn’t get) when we hit the Strategist a couple of weekends back. A large gaming area, very well-stocked collection of games of every stripe, and attentive personnel. Of course there was the standard “teen-boy scent” – BHK noticed the was one half of the female population (the male population was maybe 25 or so) – the other a young kid, probably 12-13, playing Pokemon happily amongst the sea of boys. BHK also got to see a low-grade temper tantrum from one of the other players in a tournament… complaining that his purchased booster pack was useless… stomped and slapped the pack down amongst the poor counter-folk. I suspect that he was maybe about a half-hour to an hour to being ejected from the premesis.

I couldn’t resist picking up a copy of Polarity (thanks again for the hint, Keethrax!) and Cosmic Wimpout … a Yahtzee-like dice game I used to enjoy back in high school. I think the last time I played it was about 20 years ago in Mr. Eck’s Marine biology class, fourth period. Not sure of the exact day, but it was near the end of the school year in 1987.

Still no leads on the Pirates “Glittery” boosters, like Amy’s. BHK must have a giant crab covered in glitter to destroy ships with!

After that, we hit the Home goods store, shopped the Halloween goodies and got a few little household treats.. Some green cups, sugar free blueberry syrup, and Halloween sprinkles for cupcakes later in the season.

We consulted our good friend Zagat, and found an entry marked Lighthouse Tofu – a total wildcard as there weren’t enough reviews to give it any scores for service, menu or whatnot. (The link goes to the yelp page, which would’ve been more helpful, had we thought to look it up first). I think we stumbled upon a local Korean fave… The place was packed and we were the only non-asian couple in sight.

We ordered more than we thought, as everything was served home-style – even though we didn’t ask for it, we got an appetiser of Miso soup, followed by a broad assortment of dishes with a little sampling of this and that – Bok Choy in some Oyster sauce that was tasty but quite spicy, some minced garlic in clam sauce, some manner of peppers in a cool/spicy soup, cucumbers (my fave of that lot… sweet and spicy), and some sprouts in sesame oil. – all came before what we had ordered. BHK had the tofu vegetable soup that came to the table still at a rolling boil and served with a raw egg on the side – to be added to the soup manually. I got an assortment of sushi, of which I think the Tofu sushi was the winner. The “prima vera” one of mixed veggies was tasty, but the weakest of the lot – Tofu, tempura lobster, and cucumber all were just amazing.

They serve water with a little green tea added, which is disconcerting at first, because it has an off-yellow/green color that I have seen come out of the pipes in some well water communities – suffice to say that it was clean and delicious. No worries there.

As a palate cleanser, they also serve a little rice cooked in green tea at the end of the meal – I liked it!

Our host was friendly, and I think that he assumed we had never been out to eat at a place like theirs. He was kind enough to move us to another table when we realised our little 2-up location wasn’t going to hold all the food we had coming. – and then explained the difference between light and regular soy sauce.. also warned us against wasabe (he seemed pleased when I was enjoying a healthy dollop dipped from same mixed with the soy on my cucumber roll)

Oddly, he didn’t give any food consumption tips regarding the egg in the soup, which I think was the most culturally mysterious of the lot.

On the way out, he took me aside, and passed me a pair of strange little bottles covered in text that I couldn’t read, and a small oval with larger text inside (picture to follow – maybe I can get talonvaki or pilarcruz to translate it for me)…. said it was dessert, and to enjoy.

It looked like milk, and smelled faintly of vanilla, so I shrugged and took a swig. I was not expecting the lemon flavor at all, but it was pretty dang tasty. I don’t think BHK was as impressed, but she liked it fine.

Also on the way up and back, we got to see the Mormon Temple which is amazing to watch rise up over the horizon as you approach. The place is huge and beautiful – while lovely, the pictures don’t do it justice at all.

We had one last stop before heading home… the in-laws. Chris and Larry did a great job of pickling our cucumbers – about 30 mason jars worth. We won’t be needing any store-bought pickle-type product anytime soon. BHK is planning on using the remaining 3 or 4 jars to do some pickled peppers ala Peter Piper, although we don’t quite have a peck.

I’m just wondering where we’re going to store 30-odd jars of preserved veggie. I guess the garage is a reasonably cool, dry, dark place for ’em. They have to steep in the brine for a brief period before eating. I wonder how long they’ll stay good? If you don’t break the vacuum seal, I imagine we can store them fairly indefinitely – not sure how long they stay good once that seal is broken, though. I imagine that won’t be an issue, as this family loves ’em.


1 year ago
– bow beats atlatl, newt trip out, 11:11, California pizza kitchen, interview meme, cpap ick, electroe pic

2 years ago – bro picked up, last Danny day, blue-ringed octopus, konfabulator, tags, high speed cat photos, bus-sleeper, taser vs rennies

3 years ago – malam bails, lyric, BttF / Mr Fusion, busy, dream, neti pot, bro’s court visit, avocado memories

4 years ago – isketch, dan’s last summer day, ebay phishing, earth as art, kitty swf games, vampire game, dirty bathroom poll

5 years ago – pleasant dreams, headache passes, Bailey the puppy, puppet play!

6 years ago – code, up late, F/X porn, coloring book, jack-in-the-box

7 years ago – house to myself, foodies Geotarget