blogBuddy [woot]
Something that I've missed from livejournal, has been found for blogger. Take a look.

voyager of the seas [bridge]
Western Caribbean
7 days roundtrip Miami, Florida
Click for Route Map

Sunday - Miami, Florida [panorama]
Monday - at Sea
Tuesday - Labadee, Haiti [beaches]
Wednesday - Ocho Rios, Jamaica [discover]
Thursday - Georgetown, Grand Cayman [turtle farm]
Friday - Cozumel, Mexico [calling station]
Saturday - at Sea
Sunday - Miami, Florida [port of miami]

I tried to put together a sample of web cams (with no promises that I'll appear on any of them), but apparently the Caribbean does not have the best internet infrastructure. Not a whole lot of cams available. Oh well.

I'll consider checking in from the ship occassionally. Unlike in Milwaukee, this time I know where the internet cafes will be.

See y'all in November.

it's one o'clock in the afternoon
Do you know where your friends are?

bwa-hahahahaha
Now that we've all switched over to BlogBack, he's having script access woes, too. Oh well, you get what you pay for, right?

tag, you're it [strip]

just peachy [read]
Ok.. i don't know what's going on with Reblogger today but that have motivated me to get off my lazy ass and switch to BlogBack... so for those of you whose comments have been lost.. well so verry sorry! Comment again!! I'd love to hear all your witty/sarcastic comments!! I like this format much better! Enjoy!

Yeah, yeah, yeah... after two days running of not being able to respond to some of Nick's posts, I'm following down the trail that has been blazed by Dayna & Jin. Time to code some BlogBack parameters. I, too, would apologize about sacrificing some of your prime choice comments... but there haven't been any for days. I'll give you all the benefit of the doubt and blame that on the same Internal Server Error I've been seeing elsewhere...

happy birthday mr. yankovic [happy birthday]
Well it's time to celebrate your birthday, It happens every year.
We'll eat a lot of broccoli, and drink a lot of beer.
You should be good and happy that there's somethin' you can eat.
A million people every day are starvin' in the street.
Your daddy's in the gutter with the wretched and the poor.
Your mama's in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four.
There's garbage in the water,
There's poison in the sky.
I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die!

your horoscope for today [scorpio]
Get ready for an unexpected trip when you fall
screaming from an open window
Work a little bit harder on improving your
low self esteem, you stupid freak

[clip] "it's a legalized version of stalking,"
said one NYU graduate student at the bar on its opening night. "It is funny that (the camera shots) are in black and white or grainy color. It makes people look a lot better than they do in person, masking their flaws and making them look more attractive."

Hrm. I don't know which is worse. The pitiful losers I am looking at (cam snapshots are archived and viewable at the lounge's web site), or the pitiful loser sitting at my pc doing the looking...

...it's worse than I thought. I am a full-on geek with perverse voyeuristic tendencies. With the help of a little javascript, I've turned the archive into a webcam sim. By sampling the URLs of 900+ images from October 18th, we can watch the evening's entertainment over and over again. Perhaps on Wednesday morning, I will sample tomorrow night's images. Then we can see how the lonely geeks in New York celebrate my birthday, eh?

this is not my twisted mother, either [clip]
Monique is just one of many acquaintances I’ve made while talking across the counter. It’s business talk, mostly, but in this business, butt plugs, dildos, penis pumps, bondage, cock rings and strap-ons have become a big part of my vernacular. That doesn’t please my mother. After paying me a visit at work one day, she repeatedly cried, "I feel so unclean!"

I don't know what's up with me today. My apologies if I doth offend. I came across this one while surfing over metafilter. I contemplated putting it on my other site, given it's Orange County locality, but I decided it wasn't really appropriate there. Oh well. Most of you perverts will enjoy it as an innocent read. Except you, RMF. I hear you're out of this business now... ;-)

my mother is a twisted bitch, too. where's my call?
So there I am, heading outside for a cigarette before a meeting and my phone starts to ring. The number on the display looks familiar, but I can't place it. So I answer.

My mother is a twisted bitch. God I love her. :)

breathe a little more life into jes'ikah [pic]
'Ara and the Bloodstone' by Paul C. Butler

(by the way, I added an elfwood link on the left... it's their random picture URL)

once again, propensity for humor in the face of adversity is heartening
Original Letter:
~~~~~~~~~~
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11

I Have More.......
State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union
New York City - 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon - 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted or orchestrating the attack at the WTC in 1993)
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
~~~~~~~~~~

Dave's response:
~~~~~~~~~~
Oh my God! How worried should I be? There are 11 letters in the name "David Pawson"! I'm going into hiding NOW. See you in a few weeks.

PS. "IT'S BULLSHIT" has 11 letters also.
~~~~~~~~~~

hot damn, elfwood is back! [go here now]

"about as likely as superman snorting kryptonite" [preface]
...I received several pieces of email recently, the combined gist of which is that there are rumors abounding on the Net and the Web about a last episode of the show, either scripted and never produced, or produced and never aired, in which we learn that the kids actually died on the rollercoaster that supposedly took them into the Realm, and that they are, in fact, imprisoned in Hell and being tormented with a complex fantasy (as if just being in Hell wouldn't be torment enough) by the Devil masquerading as Dungeon Master, and do I have any words to share with the masses about this issue?

Yes: Bushwah, poppycock and balderdash.

This is a fun find. Thank you, RMF.

mutiny on the edge [ote]
It's been exactly a week now since my club volleyball team split down the middle. Let me give a quick recap for Dusty, since she wasn't privy to my chat room rantings last week: two of the players we picked up last season decided that they wanted to play in a higher division this time around. Not content with forming their own team, they went behind the backs of our veterans and recruited away 2 or 3 of our more advanced players... leaving the rest of us without a team. There are a couple of things that bothered me about this:

• We as a team last season had talked about the prospect of registering in our current division, but "playing up" this year. That way we could have a competitive regional season, and still be able to go to Nationals as a "B" team (where the competition is higher by nature). They didn't need to split off in order to play "BB".
• They did it by going behind our backs. Subterfuge is not ethical. Had it been me, I would've showed up at the the first practice and said, "Look, I really want to play BB this year and I'm going to put together a team... anybody who wants to play up is welcome to join me."
• Of the three they took on, two of them are back ups to me. If they're goal was to build a better team, why the fuck didn't they approach me?

welcome to washington, mr. anthrax [cnn]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office has received a letter containing the deadly anthrax bacteria, U.S. President Bush said Monday. "His office received a letter, and it had anthrax in it," Bush said during a White House news conference. "The letter was field-tested, and the staffers that have been exposed are being treated." Bush said the contents of the letter have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further testing. Bush said a staffer in Daschle's office who opened the mail was being examined and would be treated.

Just last night, upon hearing about additional test-positives in New York, I asked my wife: "Are we scared [of anthrax] yet?" Last night, the answer was, "no".

Today? Still "no".

But remind me not to ask my wife about any more panic scenarios, and in the meantime I'll be knocking on wood.

[link]
This is a test. This is a test of the bloggerbot emergency update system. This blog entry was made by sending an IM to bloggerbot after making the appropriate registrations. Let's see what happens next...

anthrax outbreak spawns reports of megadeth, pantera
Palm Beach, FL - The recent alarm over the possible outbreak of the Anthrax virus has Florida residents frantic. Over the past few days, communities such as Palm Beach and Sarasota county have reported several cases of MegaDeth, and one Miami Beach resident may even have contracted a case of Pantera.

"We were able to stabilize Larry, but I don't thing we've seen the end of this disturbing trend. I think this is only the beginning. I just pray to God that the Center for Disease Control is developing a Stryper vaccine, or we all could be at risk."

In these times of crisis and tragedy, I am pleased to see that some people are able to maintain their cynicism and a perverse sense of absurdity. Even a half-hearted attempt at levity such as this is refreshing.

strange little girls [listen]
Listen to Tori Amos' new album Strange Little Girls. Then come back on October 12th to see her perform in concert.

I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to work. The WB site gives a date (today) but no times. I'm guessing that it's going to be a simulcast of tonight's concert, wherever the heck she's scheduled for tonight? [Update: she's between gigs tonight, from NY to Philly. I'm guessing this live thing will be at 8pm eastern.]

In the mean time, the link above heads on over to a Listening Party. WB is streaming the new album in a variety of formats. Enjoy it, RMF. By the way, this one is a high speed windows media stream, without the flashy WB advertising.

to the moon, alice, to the moon
From: Karen, 10/10/01
Subject: FW: fwd: fw: Don't know if this is true...
yadda yadda yadda... shopping malls... 10/31/01...

From: Brian, 10/11/01
Subject: RE: your chain mail
Thanks for your concern, Karen, but this is urban legend.
Please don't forward this kind of stuff without verification.

From: Karen, 10/11/01
Subject: RE: RE: your chain mail
Thanks for letting me know. I'll pass it on.

apathy
I've had an absence of things to rant about for the last couple of days. I'm sorry. One of the reasons is because I've been flooded with the standard "pass it on" junk mails lately, and it's taking a little while to dig through them. Another reason is because I've been fortunate enough to have live socialites available in the chat rooms when I've had cause to vent.

I promised myself that this would not be a forum to regurgitate internet fads or chain e-mails. That is why I put the blogdex/daypop/metafilter links below. If you're interested in "Why the fuck does Bert appear on a pro-bin Laden protest poster?" or "Is Britney Spears Really Truly Dead This Time?", then you'll have to go look elsewhere. There are much better sites which are specifically built for the dissemination of truth, justice, and The American Way.

So, where am I going with all this? I don't know. I forgot my point. And, frankly, I'm too disinterested at the moment to try and remember it. You're on your own.

newsgroups: rec.travel.cruises
Subject: Voyager 10/28/01
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2001 21:39:43 GMT

We will be aboard the Royal Caribean Cruise Line Voyager of the Seas, sailing from Miami, FL on Sun Oct 28th... We are interested in meeting other attractive open-minded couples for discreet intimate get togethers and private shore excursions, since time is of the essence here, please email us for more details...

Heh. Classified advertising for swingers on a global, high-traffic newsgroup. So much for "discrete", eh?

green limousine for the red haired dancing girl [her]
10/6/2001 - Washington DC - DAR Constitution Hall **SOLD OUT
10/7/2001 - Washington DC - DAR Constitution Hall **SOLD OUT

I saw Tori this weekend. I'm not going to harp on it too much, because frankly I'm tired of Dusty giving me grief about it. Tori live can be described really in just one way: unabashed sexual energy and raw passion.

Granted, I know where Dusty gets the opinion that guys listening to Tori makes them weak. At your typical Tori show, the audience is 90% angst-ridden 15-year old girls identifying with the characters Tori sings about. The other 10% are boyfriends who get dragged along.

In Washington, it's different. Tori's a hometown girl. More than half of the crowd is literally friends & family. She grew up here, she went to high school here, and even though she's not local anymore her family still is. Granted, the rest is still skewed in that 9:1 ratio, but overall it's a completely different audience, a different atmosphere, and a different kind of show. It's intimate, it's personal, it's a homecoming.

Even still, I swear they load the fog machines with pheromone.

leeest of the weeek
10 easy points for guessing what it's a list of:
Saticoy [peek]
Vanowen [peek]
Laurie Ann [peek]
Kraemer [peek]
Sunset Crossing [peek]
Marshall [peek]
Evanston [peek]
Drumm [peek]
Rickover [peek]
McCullough [peek]

[pic]
What was that about uber-geeks?

majestic turnpike [link]
Have you ever seen college children try and run through a crowded parking lot? You ever break the balls really forcefully while shooting 9-Ball? Its a lot like that.

Very funny, Nick. You have a flair for visuals.

what's up, penguinboi [link]
I've always had a fondness for women who are comfortable in Chucks. I dig geek girls and brainy types. I'm reasonably sure that it all began with her.

So I don't have any particular 'her' in mind here, but I so get what he's talking about.

there are rules for flying the flag [link]
Not that anyone is really following them. In our patriotic fervor, it seems to me that we as a nation are become very apathetic to handling the banner in ways that at other times gets people crying desecration. For those who find the formal flag too dry, the American Legion also provides this handy FAQ. How many of you out there showing your patriotism are doing Ol' Glory justice?
posted by shagoth at 4:39 AM PST

Metafilter is a little late on this one. Dayna and I already discussed this, what, weeks ago? But I forgive shagoth because he's got better URLs.

absurd notions [comic]
Please oh please oh please oh please
tell me we're not playing Traps & Treasures...
[begin]

attention deficit disorder
"If I don't get enough attention, I get disorderly..."
( ...there was an humorous email forward here, but I decided it was too long... )

5 reasons your kids should play dungeons and dragons [pvp]
Encouraging your children to imagine.
Old, but timeless.

openrpg 0.9.6a [link]
Nevermind. Fixed.

[link]
It appears that OpenRPG is down. Well, no, not down. Just... not. I guess it will be a bit longer before I can tinker with it.

fifth anniversary, second honeymoon
We're finally going on our cruise. I promised my wife a cruise for our honeymoon, but like the dweeb that I am I waited too long to book and we ended up at Ceasars' Poconos instead. Not that Ceasars' wasn't fantastic, in fact we've been back there three times since, but it wasn't what I promised. Then the promise was amended to "sometime before our 5th anniversary," which gave me plenty of time... but everytime I wanted to go, she shot it down because we were either too broke or it was in the middle of hurricane season.

Now the anniversary is upon us, and I've squeaked it in just under the gun. We'll be onboard the Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas when the marriage turns five. We're still too broke, and thanks to Train to End Stroke we'll be even more broke ("Happy anniversary! You suck at fundraising and we're charging your credit card for the minimum you committed to! Enjoy the rest of your cruise!"), but we're going.

So, when I disappear at the end of this month... don't fret. We'll be in the warm sun of the Western Caribbean, trying to relax. And when we get back, maybe it'll even be with pictures and stuff.

jes'ikah [link]
(Please bear in mind if/when you're reading that piece linked above: I had nothing whatsoever to do with the Immortal, the Demon, or the Angel of Death...)

I decided that I had not the time to put together yet another persona, so I've opted to revive someone I had a brief writing fling with previously. About two years ago, I was involved with the usenet community of alt.dragons-inn [news] [web] which is essentially a newsgroup devoted to in-character collaborative fictions in a sword & sorcerey, medieval fantasy genre.

When I moved into Montfort (the central town location of the group) I brought with me a group of old D&D characters that I had never gotten the chance to fully develop. The group consisted of three orphaned half-elf siblings, and their respective counterparts. Their entrance can still be found here. Immediately, half of the group was whisked away on an adventure. The others remained behind, hoping to be drawn into other story threads... but alas, it was not to be.

While lurking in the Red Dragon Inn (the central set piece of the group), perusing other stories as likely outlets for my characters, I'd often stumble across the opportunity for a walk-on; a one-shot joke or punchline delivered by a spur of the moment casting extra. Sometimes that would get out of hand. In one particular case, there was a pair of writers who were having a hard time getting off the ground. They'd spent almost two months sitting at their table, conversing in character about past exploits, waiting for someone to bite the hook. Finally, they had gathered a small group of characters around them and the lead began to explain her quest and how she had stolen a book from the libray which held legends and maps and... well, she was going on and on and it was... well... like when you're watching a movie you just want to scream, "Get on with it already!" The beauty is that in this environment, you can. So, I did. Look for Scrub about halfway through the first chapter. I expected that they'd shoo me off and get on with their quest... funny how things never seem to work out the way you plan.

In a simillar situation, these two gentlemen were wandering about the wilderness tossing exchanges back and forth. They were apparently on a side quest related to some other major thread that was going on, but with just the two of them they were having difficulty advancing thier storyline. This is where Jes'ikah was born. She makes her entrance about midway through Continuing Onwards under "Group A". The thread died out shortly thereafter, and we left it with the idea that if it should continue then Jes'ikah had appropriated one of the horses and ridden off during the night.