Douglas E. Berry

Yup. But a combination of a stomach bug and a strained back made me decide that whimpering and hiding under the covers was the better part of discretion today.

So, in between staggering back and forth to the porcelain reading room and the computer, like me bring you up to date.

That entire mess over my encounter on light rail has blown up into was has to be one of the funniest things I've seen in years. I'm amazed that people don't understand sarcasm anymore. Oh, and offhand comments made during a minute-long encounter can be used as the basis for determining the entire life story of a person. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm the only person on the community who is over the age of 25.

Tuesday was my first anniversary at Lord & Sons, and to celebrate I was given a choice of gifts from Adam's bowl of paper clips. I took the Black Paper Clip of Achievement! Later, Amazing Dave tried to get me to wear the Paper Neckpiece of Accomplishment, but seeing him with one around his neck had me laughing so hard I couldn't speak. Yesterday was a fiasco. I was already ill, it was raining, and I couldn't get my head in the game.

( Meet Slow and Dumb )

Finished The Bourne Identity. Great book. Next up, Roving Mars a first person account of the creation of the Mars Rover program. I have a pile of books to read, but I'm in a weird headspace when it comes to books right now. A lot of them are failing to grab me and I'm putting them aside. Also finished 1776, loaned from baka49er. Amazing read. You really have to wonder how we ever survived long enough to become independent.

Let's see.. Kiri won us tickets to KFOG's Ka-BOOM!. We've decided that is going to be our anniversary event for this year. Here's hoping the fog stays away! The Giants are freaking killing me. What else is new? Kylie the Wonder Niece has published her Unified Field Theory. Alas, it is in crayon, so the journals won't touch it. Niece To Be Named Later has a name now: Regan. I'm not saying a damn word. At least not where anyone can hear me. Expected debut is late July. My sister, being freaking weird, actually wants Regan to be born on Kylie's birthday. Because that worked out so well for the two of us.

(Twenty minute break) Thank Ghu for Uncle John's Bathroom Readers.

Oh, my back. Yeah, I hurt it. Again. The other day, we had to move the giant fricking anchor bolts that have made my life hell before. These things are close to three feet long, and weigh about 200lbs each. Also awkward as hell to carry, since most of the weight as at one end. Harry and I had to transfer six of these monsters from one pallet to another. There was no way to get a good lifting stance, so I had to bend over a little and lift with my arms. Yeah, it hurts. But I don't think i actually did any damage. But combine a strained lower back with GI distress? I'm not having fun today.

Assuming I'm capable of more than typing and staring at the walls, I'd like to get started on an article for a magazine that has expressed an interest in hearing from me. Polymancer is good, slick professional gaming magazine. I'm thinking about an article on treasure.. the problems associated with it. for example, put aside the sheer weight of the gold; what happens when you show up with a few thousand coins showing the despised and deposed King Therion? The current authorities are going to think you are an agent provocateur, and clamp you in irons. Never mind the radical inflation when the locals see the money the players have.. "300 Gold for a beer? Last week it was a copper penny!" "Last week you weren't throwing gold around like it was going out of style sir. Pay up or leave." I'm thinking about discussing letters of credit, debased coinage, and non-monetary treasure.

But odds are I'm going to spend the day dead for tax purposes.

As many of you know, I collect kook websites. I consider the internet to be like a zoo, I can observe the dangerous and creepy beasties with a safe barrier between me and them. Over the years, I've become a bit jaded. Hell, Ann Coulter's website barely gets a reaction from me anymore.

Then I found Sam Gipp. Sam runs "A Friend To Church Ministries" He is so far out there that we in alt.atheism thought this was a parody site. Then some intrepid members did some searching and found out this is all for real. This guy is insane. Here are some of the more amusing rants from his articles section.

Americans Are Ready - Racism, isolationism, and all those other "Christian values" that you can't find in the Bible.

It's Time For A "Holy War!" - More racism, and declarations that America is only for white Christians.

Our Marvelous Interstate Highways - Wonderfully incoherent rant on how liberals hate the interstate highway system, and how if you find the highway boring, you're a traitor or something, married to a 7th-grade essay on the features of the system. I'd love to see the "four lane highway beginning at its front gate connecting it to the interstate highway system" at Schofield Barracks, HI.

How I Know That "Global Warming" Is A Lie - Oh, my. Ignorance personified, and a dig at San Francisco as a bonus! This moron thinks that more UV getting to us is a good thing!

That's just a sampling of this man's paranoia, hatred, and ignorance. Feel free to play around on his site and be sure not to be drinking anything!

A few weeks ago, baka49er and I went to a 49ers' game. In my post on our day, I mentioned that we had enjoyed seeing The Niner Noise, a drum group. We first encountered them in the parking lot. So did a video-blogger, who uploaded his video to YouTube.

You can see mom and me in the last few seconds. I'm easy to spot, since I'm wearing a teal Sharks jacket (hey, I just don't happen to own a Niners jacket anymore, alright?) and mom is the blond woman I'm walking with.

We're one step closer to battledress. I'm impressed that guy drove for several hours wearing it, and is willing to stand in it and take live fire to demonstrate its ability to protect the wearer.

I'm still a bit sick, and today's 10-hour marathon did not help things. But, I am happy. Nay, I am actually giddy with glee! Because, sitting with arm's reach is The West Wing. Not Season 1, Not third-generation VHS copies recorded off a broadcast station in American Samoa, but the complete series on DVD. Thanks, jarlsberg71!

Now if I was only awake enough to watch them. Ah, well. Since kshandra will be at FurCon this weekend (and I've often maintained that I will only attend a furry event dressed as a Voyageur) I suspect I will spend large portions of the weekend in political-porn bliss. I'm still thinking about going to the Giants' fan-fest, but if the weather and I both remain crappy, I'll call it off.

I am this close to unsubscribing from the Traveller Mailing List and sending my Traveller books to starving gamers in China.

Let's be clear: I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Traveller; especially about the Third Imperium setting. There is a mass of information written by dozens of writers at numerous companies over the past three decades. Some of it is contradictory, some has been overwritten by later products. We refer to this mass as canon. There are some things that have defined Traveller from the beginning: interstellar jumps take 168 hours +/-10%, The longest possible controlled jump is 6 parsecs. Those have been in every rule set (all six of them.) Also important is that the speed of information is the speed of travel.

Playing with the setting is a long-established tradition. We even have an acronym for it: IMTU "In My Traveller Universe." If your version of the setting differs from the official one, using this tag warns people that things are different. But changing the basic assumptions of the game will bring comment.

In response, folks like me have been called "strutting peacocks" and compared to screaming chimps.

Screw them.

I haven't been able to get o Usenet all weekend. news.west.earthlink.com reports no new articles in any of the groups I follow. Hearse, the utility I use to trade bone files from Nethack, hasn't responded to my attempts to upload for the last several hours. Things have just been generally slow and unresponsive. It's not on our end, things on the puter are working fine.

Just bloody annoying.

Popular Mechanics ran an article in 1950 telling everyone of the miracles to come in 2000. Mostly amusing, but some of the predictions are close (the "shop by picture phone" on the splash page could be seen as predicting shopping on the web. Many sites have live chat with sales associates.)

Enter the Way Back Machine to look Way Forward.

http://www.astropitch.com/giants/

The quote on the back reads:

Every time a Dodger scores a run, an angel has its wings ripped off by a demon, and is forced to tearfully beg the demon to cauterize the wounds.The demon will refuse, and the sobbing angel will lie in a puddle of angel blood and feathers for eternity, wondering why the Dodgers are allowed to score runs.

That’s not me talking:

that’s science.

McCoveyChronicles.com.

I saw a guy wearing this on light rail the other day, and he toled me about the site. Good one for Giants fans.

List of films that most frequently use the word fuck.

Not that I would ever need to know that Born on the Fourth of July has a FPM (fucks per minute) of 1.35 (196 "fucks" in 145 minutes) but its nice to know that the information is there waiting for me.

In other news, I'm watching The Blair Witch Project (FPM: 1.79). This film should be required viewing by anyone planning to make a horror movie. We never see the monster, never see anything "supernatural", but just the effects of the witch's actions. And the film goes from interesting to creepy to terrifying. The first time I saw it, I was afraid to turn out the lights and go to bed.