...to chocl8fiend!

Went out to retrieve sunglasses, enjoyed bonus sports argumentation, then went down to College Park and wound up at the Silver Diner in Laurel with therevdrnye discussing our vile, treacherous friends among many other subjects.

Along the way I came to the conclusion that I should probably resign myself to the fact that I no longer have the desire to sketch out and run a full-fledged RPG campaign under any set of rules, for the simple reason that it's a hell of a lot of work if you want to do it right. Which I would; there's not much point to running a campaign half-ass, and if you're not running a campaign, then there's really not going to be a good story at the end of it all, and the kind of players who are into that kind of gearhead gaming (which is closer to the old-style board wargaming anyway) are going to be off playing WoW or some other MMORPG that's going to give them immediate gratification.

Anyhow, good conversation went on until 0430 (augh) but I got home ahead of the rush hour traffic and crashed hard until noon. Still not sure whether I need to go out for anything this evening or whether I should just go back to bed in a few hours. Lord, I am so tired...

And speaking of wargaming:

Making OGRE counters with Shrinky Dinks. (Boing Boing)

And so, after a less than optimum start to the day, I wound up heading for Rockville and a backyard BBQ/unbirthday party/Independence Day celebration. It was a potluck, and I had been dithering between bringing a veggie tray, chips & salsa, and pie; in the end I wound up popping for all three and wound up going home with the chips and salsa. It was a good party; met Brenda's parents for the first time, renewed acquaintance with some folks I hadn't seen in 20-30 years who were part of the Dunhams' D&D circle, and ate probably more than I should have. Did manage to stay away from the cake, cookies and pie, though. Lots of good conversation, and I wound up leaving a little before midnight.

Took the long way home around the beltway, since Google Maps was showing southbound 395 as a mess; got home, did my shot and fell asleep. Sugar is okay this morning and am now debating what to do about brunch before I decide whether to go back for my sunglasses this afternoon or wait until tonight. It's supposed to rain sometime today, and is partly cloudy now, but I'm not sure it's cloudy enough for my poor abused rods & cones.

No post yesterday since I was pretty much caught up in events, so I guess I'll play catch up now.

Neighbors in the apartment next to the laundry room moved out; maintenance people were in there stripping out the carpet and doing other stuff yesterday.
Speaking of which, I did my laundry, which took most of the morning as I was periodically distracted by Civicrack. Poncho liner now looks strangely fluffy.
Finished Amy Chua's World on Fire, which is basically a polemic regarding economically dominant minorities and why democracy in Second/Third World nations that don't have a strong legal tradition is a Bad Idea.
( Good, but... )
Spent the late afternoon and evening getting caught up with Mr. Taylor, who was not down in the valley with his dad the Master of Llamas after all. This of course precluded the drive up to Hagerstown for baseball and fireworks, but I'm willing to argue that I had a better time in Reston.

So I missed the Big Announcement from Governor Palin. Initial reaction: it's her life, and if she wants to quit being governor for the benefit of her family, that's up to her.

P apparently went and talked to animaltofriends last night, and if jamestrainor's reaction is any indication, it went about as well as I thought it would.

Went up to Frederick last night to consult with brian_edminster about the Failbox, which is still not ready for prime time, and to pull some files from it that I need to complete applications to various Federal agencies. Dinner and conversation were had, after which the usual long drive home via Sheetz.

Am about a third of the way through Day of Empire, which is a pretty good read.

On the agenda for today: interview at 1030, exchange of moldy pitas for (hopefully) good pitas at Shoppers, and continued online pursuit of employment.

First of all, since we don't get the National Post down here, you should go read beatonna's Canada History Debate comic.

Yesterday I got a fair amount done despite sitting on my butt for most of the day. Got my doctor's appointment scheduled for next month, got out and finished grocery shopping, and did some cleaning. Also got the date, time, and location of next month's DC Goonmeet nailed down. (How the hell did I wind up as social secretary for the DC goons?)

Also realized I'm missing a lot of the background stuff I had bashed out for Blood Red Skies, which I apparently left in my other pantscomputer along with the PDF files of my transcripts. Which latter makes applying for Federal jobs a pain in the ass since half the Civil Service jobs out there want a copy of one's transcripts along with the resume. brian_edminster thinks he may have the problem with the Failbox nailed down, which would be good; even if he hasn't, I'll be on the road to Frederick today since I need to have those files and would prefer to just pull them off onto the new thumb drive instead of having him burn them to CD, put CD in the mail, etc. Besides, it's a nice day for a drive and I need to get out of the apartment more often anyway.

Last night I learned Rail Baron at the hands of the Dunhams and therevdrnye. If you haven't played Rail Baron, it's sort of like Monopoly except instead of plodding around the board in a circle one does runs across the nation (for which one is paid, and has to pay track fees to the bank or to other players) to generate money. This money is spent on the aforementioned track fees and for buying railroads large & small; the railroads allow you to collect track fees much as one collects rents in Monopoly. As usual in Monopoly-style games, I got my head handed to me and finished fourth, but that was mainly due to bad luck in destinations: I was forever getting sent to Philadelphia and Sacramento, which couldn't be reached without going over other peoples' railroads. So it goes.

I also got patiently schooled in the ills of Metro, where Dutch is working as a consultant. The problem with Metro, dating back 40 years to when WMATA was formed out of what used to be DC Transit and the proposed Metrorail system, is that it relies for funding on DC, Maryland and Virginia; it has no revenue source to call its own except for the farebox, which never covers operating expenses (much less capital investments). From this all the other problems arise, and lord God, are there a lot of problems. :(

Lester Spence talks about Father's Day. I don't buy into the "white privilege" thing, but there's no question that black dads have a tougher row to hoe, with a lot more bad examples around. Here's to the good examples. You rock, Lester.

So, party yesterday/last night for brian_edminster, complete with black balloons, Vader masks, a pinata, kegs of beer and a lot of Scotch in the pile o'presents. I carpooled up with Paul Hammer, which was rough on him since he lives about 45 minutes southeast of me in Charles County, but next time we get together I'll be going down there, so the karmic balance will be restored. Or something. Saw Brian's parents, who are both v. cool people; all his kids were there, and I'm afraid digex and I couldn't resist the temptation to mess with Amber's head a little about that unfortunate incident with Brian in Mexico, to say nothing of what happened in Bogota, which digex and I agreed was not okay to talk about. Yet. Maybe in another fifty years. ;) Shot a lot of photos with the Centro, digex shot hundreds with his autoloading long-barrel Soul Stealer of Doom, and edminster shot some too. So there'll be plenty of evidence. :)

Also saw Michelle Arias for the first time in 30 years; she and her husband are out here in the DC area on account of work. It was kind of weird seeing her again after all this time, for a number of reasons, but it went well. Some people don't change a whole lot, not on the inside.

Paul and I finally shoved off around 2300, stopped at the Waffle House on 144 for coffee and eggs to find a couple of guys singing and playing guitar. Live music at the Waffle House? WTF? They weren't horrible, and left soon enough anyway. As did we, after a sizable snack, and headed on back to Alexandria via the Beltway.

It was a good Saturday; probably would have been better if I'd just gone to bed instead of doing a random walk through the internet at 0300.
Any roads, I got up at noon, and am going to hit the shower and head out to Ashburn since P is buying me ribs for Father's Day. :)

Less sloth and indolence today; bagged up a bunch of garbage and am running the dishwasher. Soon I shall emerge from my burrow and chuck the garbage in the dumpster! Woo! Now if I could just beat this scale into submission, or at least figure out how to be 10% smarter than the tricky power cord/tube combination that's getting in the way of using it...anyway, I also got a bunch of books shelved last night and did some writing.

It's a little disturbing to me that the sun coming out earlier did so much to get me in a better mood. I normally prefer overcast or partly cloudy days (double order of cumulus, side order of Iowa road trip, kthxbye) but after a couple of days of drippy rain I am happy to see the sun come out. Maybe it's an emotional shift coming from the anniversary of Mom's death on Monday combined with finding out that banzchan's little sister had died, and then today realizing that a couple of my oldest friends are having birthdays this weekend. Whatever it is, I feel better now. :)

Finished Cyteen last night, and it helped to have read Regenesis since I noticed a few things going on in the first novel that I'd missed when I'd read it before. Things tied together better this time around, and there wasn't nearly as much psychological horror visited on a couple of the main characters as I remembered.

You would think some of the stores around here would have back scratchers, but evidently enough people have S.O.s with quality nails that there's no market for them. So I ordered one off the internet.

Going to try and get into those Amy Chua books tonight; I notice that I've been putting them off in favor of SF and baseball books.

Crossposted from Facebook, where I ganked it from bam2: Someone needs your help.

To refresh your memories, Bob & Emily were guests of ours at the 2006 Detour and are really great people besides. I don't often post stuff like this, but damn it, we take care of our own. I'm unemployed, but I'm kicking in some cash because I know what it's like to lose family.

The Ohayocon link Greg referred to is here.

One of the problems with unemployment is maintaining a proper sleep/wake cycle, and I've been fighting this problem for the last few weeks. Today was a good example; slept in until noon after being unable to get to sleep until about 0300 due to leg pain. Which ought to teach me not to drink Diet Coke in the evening, but then I've been a slow learner lately. :(

Had lunch yesterday with digex, who came by to loan me his ginormous digital scale. Once I figure out how to assemble it, it should do wonders to help with the weight control. Anyway, it was a good lunch at Los Toltecos with a lot of good conversation.

Today, not so much fun and excitement. Reading Cyteen again since I just finished Regenesis. If Stephen King is right about writers needing to spend four hours a day reading & writing, I'm doing okay on that part of it; I just need to get more consistent about the part where I fire up Word and make, you know, words.

Megan McArdle agrees: lack of sleep makes you stupid.
This is in the context of an argument over whether it's smarter to let interns get more sleep, as opposed to the current training regimen which has them getting screwed out of sleep as badly as MASH surgeons during a big push. It's times like this that I wish I knew when Sue Page-Phillips disappeared to; as the only doctor I knew personally, she'd have some insights on this that nobody in my current tribe of friends has. Oh well.

Hermes is breeding its own crocodiles, because the natural supply can't keep up with demand. I wonder whether there is now a subsidiary market in Aussie croc meat. (Marginal Revolution)

Jules Crittenden reminds us that today is the Army's 234th birthday; also, a link roundup on the mess in Iran.

So I'm chilling here after consuming half a cantaloupe and a leftover 6" roast beef sub from Sheetz, when therevdrnye calls up and says he'll be in my neck of the woods ~1500, do I want to get together for lunch? Possibly with the reclusive Mr. Groark? Of course I said yes!

Unfortunately le grand Charles was under the weather, so we headed for Shooter McGee's without him and enjoyed a pretty good...well, I dunno, it was kind of late for lunch and early for dinner. Call it what you want, but it was good, and the conversation before/after/during was likewise.

Going to do unemployment forms, watch Apocalypse Now Redux, maybe eat some broccoli, and call it a night.

Musical note: current music is not a remake of the Carpenters tune, although that would be pretty laffo.

Well, that was a good day, and no mistake. Lunch with Dutch followed by quality conversation about the local collegiate wooden bat league, MLB, and related topics; plus more of the same with Brenda when she got home from her afternoon work.

Then off to Frederick for more of the same with brian_edminster and Brenda (the secret to racking up the big score in Bejeweled turns out to be the same as the secret to most things, i.e. practice) plus grilling. Refueled (and bought coffee) at Sheetz and was home by 0200. Coffee was most excellent, drive seemed shorter than usual. Brian will be spending some time this week beating the Failbox into submission with his 1337 skillz; hopefully I'll see it again before he and his head off to Niagara Falls next weekend, but if not, welp.

For some reason I woke up ~0800 and could not get back to sleep. Very weird. Time now for coffee and for thinking about breakfast; BG was decent but not really good.

Feeling a little better this morning, and about to log off so I can get rolling on the day's activities...

...which include heading up to Rockville for some face time with Mr. Dunham, dinner with brian_edminster and his fiancee, and waving small dead animals over the Failbox.

I've already scored a hat tip from Kate on Google's current insult to veterans*, so I'm in a pretty good mood.

*It's D-Day. I think that's a little more important than Tetris, but I'm not some rich Silicon Valley asshat, so what do I know?

Related: Ike's D-Day message to the troops.

Got the Failbox home last night but decided not to set it up since I'm only going to be unhooking it and hauling it off to brian_edminster's joint in a few days (or a week, depends on his schedule) so he can walk me through the BIOS flush and whatever else we need to do with it. Frustrating.

Long exchange of letters with digex and others about weight loss, DIABEETUS, diet and exercise, since we're in pretty much the same boat. digex has been more aggressive and program-oriented than I've been, to say nothing of more strict about the starches & sugars,so he's made a lot more progress, but it's an example I could stand to follow.

Fired off some more resumes, went to the bank to get more quarters (which it turns out I didn't need) did laundry, found my pistol (which I had absent-mindedly stuck in the closet after the last range outing) and am going to call it a night. Going to rise tomorrow, call in to the agencies, and do some major cleaning around here; maybe rearrange things a bit and get the remaining bookshelf assembled. God willing, I can dispose of 3-4 boxes tomorrow.

Woke fairly early and hit the breakfast buffet with P before going over to the Hunt Valley to get her registered. Unfortunately registration didn't open until 1000, so we stood around for about half an hour talking with various people in the line and admiring the netbooks Balticon has for their registration staff. (Very spiffy.) After that we headed up to the dealers' room where P was waylaid by corset vendors and I barely escaped from the place with only a copy of the Guest of Honor's new Merchant Princes novel, The Revolution Business, about which more anon. Conversation with Kyle (not gohanvox) ensued, and then I hied myself to the Gaming & Literature panel where I figured to meet deathquaker; I was correct, and we went off to lunch at Damon's after the panel. Conversation ensued, which was good; we then went back to the Hunt Valley where I introduced DQ to P and therevdrnye and more conversation ensued until P insisted on lunch and therevdrnye's presence was required at the LARP. P and I and Mr. Taylor then decamped to the bar for lunch or noshing and met Rob (not RS) there.

So I pretty much spent the day in conversation with various folks (good) and eating (not so good) and then just plain ran out of energy around 2000; I was uninterested in the Masquerade and not motivated enough to hang around for Darker Than Black or any of the room parties. There's some panels I'm interested in tomorrow, and we'll see if I manage to make it to any of them. Like, say, the mustard gas panel. Since I missed the nerve gas panel today, and all.

( New Stross, yay! )

So I went up to hang out with brian_edminster last night, burned steaks, and talked a lot about this that & the other thing, which was all good. Coming back, I did major grocery shopping at the Walmart Supercenter, which has a selection only slightly less impressive than the local Harris Teeter and very comparable prices - especially without the sales tax that the Commonwealth imposes on food. For once, gas prices in Frederick weren't that much better than they are here in Alexandria, but they weren't any worse either. Got home around 0300, unloaded the perishables, and went to bed.

Today I am off to confirm that Mr. Taylor has not been stuffed into a brain box by the Fungi from Yuggoth. Afterward, I shall buy coffee & filters, and pick up some paper at Staples, maybe. I'm hoping for a semi-normal bedtime tonight.

Well, at least my blood sugar's been cooperating today. Was going to head out, do laundry and hang out with P, but these plans were derailed when I discovered the Optima had been towed. Phone calls to relatives and friends ensued, and eventually brian_edminster came down and bailed out the Optima, for which I owe him not only $$ but eternal gratitude. Vehicle is now correctly parked on Jordan and not in one of the complex lots.

Aside from that, did some baking and some cooking and some slicing of finger, which was no big deal since I have enough tape and bandages on the premises to choke a goat. Having forwarded a list of decent electronic bands to Brian, am now going to call it a night and crash so I can call in bright and early to snarf any jobs that might come up Monday.

So, Balticon starts in a little over two weeks. Despite the recent tsuris of truck repairs, I still plan on making it there, because among other things, I promised a bunch of folks that I'd be there. I do know this - I'm not going to be staying at the Hunt Valley. The Ramada around the corner has king rooms for ~$51 a night, and I don't mind commuting a mile or so to the convention venue. (I may have to commute from Alexandria depending on how the cash flows or doesn't.) Anyway, we should talk about when and where we want to get together; whether or not we want to do a Dead Dog Party on Monday, and if so, where; also, whether people want to carpool or...something I've forgotten but is no doubt important. Giev comments with information!

(Crossposted to Facebook.)

...you run into people that you know are intelligent, and yet they spew insane political drivel you thought no sensible person could believe. The kind of thing even the New York Times would be embarrassed to run with, because it bears no relation whatsoever to the actual facts of life as most of us know it. And you talk to these people, and after a few back and forth exchanges you realize they're not joking. They really believe this DU-grade fever-swamp bullshit, and can't believe you don't agree that it's the real truth. I'm too old and tired to argue with people like that any more. If they think this Reverse Black Irish Southern Catholic Redneck Jewboy is some kind of unreconstructed Nazi, well, there's not much I can do for them. Or want to do for them. Hopefully I can still enjoy this guy's art without thinking about his politics, because as far as I can tell he manages to keep the art free of politics. Maybe I just haven't seen enough of his art.

In the meantime, blood sugar is down in the normal range, and as my personal protest against the swine flu hype, I'm going to Shooter McGee's for some ribs.

Also, I now have the newest pair of pants back from the tailor's, and can relegate the work pants I have (and their problematic zipper) to the emergency reserve. Saturday I'll have another pair of repaired pants available, and next week yet another pair. If this keeps up, I may actually be able to change work pants several times a week. :)