Evil Wayne: 09/01/2005

Friday, September 30, 2005

Registration

What a fucking pain it's been.

Last week I realized my car needed an inspection sticker by the end of the month, but I figured no big deal because today I was taking a half at work so we can head to Maine earlier than normal. But the deadline for the project I'm on is suddenly written in stone, and it's a bitch of project; 600+ pages, almost 300 figs and like 300 equations. Mutehrfucker.

So there's a chance I'll have to work all day today. Which means I can't get a sticker until tomorrow and then it's not so worth it go head up to Maine. I go to the garage this morning instead. I figure I might get the sticker first and see if I can hit my deadline. Because we can head up to Maine late tonight if necessary (it's Apple Pickin' season).

Nothing ever goes smoothly. Waiting for the mechanic, I can't find the car's registration. I tear the glove apart and nothing. Under the seats, I find no less than 8 bottles of half drunk water, a full Coke. A bajillion receipts. A plastic bag with some trash, including a big Chunky candy bar still in it's wrapper (which later turned out to be not only misshapen by the heat, but white and fuzzy to some degree).

But no registration.

I'm almost to panic mode, because just what the fuck happened to it?

Continuing my Blame Everyone But Me (BEBM) -- modeled after the Bush Administration -- I blame Sears. They were the last one's to have my car and I figure they must have checked the registration (and pawed thru the car as a whole) while putting tires on it. And then, either for fun or by accident, failed to replace it.

So now I'm out the registration. I do catch a break in that the garage will still do the inspection; they can run it through some system they have to verify the car (after all, it's not like I stole the car and now want an inspection sticker). I hit the deadline at work and swing my my insurance company for a form to replace the registration card on my way home.

Technically, I should be okay until Monday when I can get to the RMV to get it replaced. I haven't been pulled over since I was 19, I think. But with my luck I'll not only hit a speed trap, I crash right into the cruiser.

Oh, and I almost forgot, today I realized that Tine's car's sticker doesn't expire in October like I thought.

It's expired in August.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Slammed

I really shouldn't be posting at all. I've got a massive project that just come down to the wire and no time to actually be working on it. This blows because nobody wants to hear the warnings that things are going to tank. It's like the freakin' Titanic over here, sometimes. I think I'm gonna put a dress on and abandon ship.

Or maybe I'll put a dress on anyway.

Or at least the underwear.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Serial Wednesday: 4S

Episodes 31-35 are up.

Man, I've having the worst time readjusting to work. I feel like I've been gone for a week and not three-and-a-half days (two of which were weekend days). It just feels all wrong being here.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Cape Cod: 3

We got to see 40 Year Old Virgin last night and it was freaking hilarious. Not the kind of movie we needed to see in a theater, but it was well worth it. And by worth it, I mean: Night Out. Not the $10 per person ticket, because that was insane.

The biggest downside (besides being robbed by the cinema) was that my grandmother sat down next to me. Well, not my grandmother, but surly someone's. And, she did enjoy the movie. All the jokes about ass-sex and blowjobs had gam-gam doubling over in laughter, literally.

So I guess it's a great movie to take your grandma too.

Today we just went for a drive. We were going to go back to Chatham, but we figured it was a going to be a lot like Ptown in that not much would be different.

Tine looks at something wicked cool. But I can't be bothered to look.

Chatham beach. That house is worth twenfthy bajillion clams.

Do Not Feed the Wildlife. It might eat you.

We headed up to the lighthouse and took 2 billion pics of the seaside and the lighthouse that we didn't take on Friday. We got there just in time. The limited parking was backed up when we finally left.

The Lighthouse with Fence. #321 in Series.

Lighthouse without Fence. Don't jump the fence. Homeland Security really takes issue.

Back to Chatham for lunch at The Squire. The same place that made me dog-sick last time.

Lunch at the Squire. Hopefully, this time it won't kill me.

Then we just headed up Route 6A looking for some more seaside. Too many places down here are Resident Only and Private Ways. It's almost scary how little of the beach you can actually get to. There's so many motels, inns and other tourist attractions that contrast to the that it couldn't be clearer how much of a double-edged sword the entire Cape's economy of tourism is for the people that actually live here.

By sheer accident, we followed a road to Rock Harbor, a public landing that had a large beach we could walk up and down.

Tine, trying to look like we belong. We don't.

Another house on the shore at Rock Harbor that would cost more than could be earned in one lifetime.

Rock Harbor. Yes, those appear to be trees. If we had read the plaque it would have probably told us why. We suck.

The weather all weekend has been fantastic. Cool and breezy, like our honeymoon 5 years ago. I think today was the warmest, toping out at about 70. It's the first signs of an actual autumn; all last week was in the mid-80s.

Tomorrow we head home.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Cape Cod: 2

Went to ptown today. I think Tine summed it up when she said it seemed like we were just here; not 5 years ago, but last week. Not a lot changes and all shops up the wazoo.

The Lobster Pot. Did you really need this pop-up for that?

Fun with Public Signage: #34 in a Series!

Provincetown Shops. Exactly the same as five years ago.

Although I failed to get a good shot of Spank the Monkey this time. I did get a few shots of the artwork on the building, but completely forgot the front.

Beautiful dunes on the way down. I sometimes wish Tine thought more like I do and would snap a few pic when things like this appear. Or she could drive easier on the highway, then I could take the shots. Some of the outer Cape is stunningly beautiful.

In a little bit, we're going out to a movie. The first movie we've been able to attend together in 5 years. So it double sucks that there's nothing really out. But at this point, I'll watch trailers for 2 hours and call it a win (no, not really).

Friday, September 23, 2005

Cape Cod: 1

We got down here around 6:00, after deciding to wait for the kids to get home from school. Well, that and my mother was later than we expected. Our first childless vacation in 4+ years and we're only about 70 miles from home. This is our rescheduled 5th year anniversary trip (freakin' Patty) and we've gone back to the same place we went on our honeymoon.

After checking in we drove around a bit looking for some place to eat. Every place has a sign with a fish. Turns out not one of them is a restaurant. Galleries, pottery, window treatments, they all have fish signs. Restaurants use things like cats. It's the darnest thing.

We drove out to Chatham and the Coast Guard has a light house overlooking the beach. Perfect in the setting sun for perhaps a photograph. But, at the advice of Tine, I've left the camera in the room.

I gotta stop listening to her.

Hopefully, I'll get some pics to post for tomorrow.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

August 2043: Probably Cause: Heart Attack

Another When-You-Die quizzes. It says Heart Attack, yet, the graphic shows me being stabbed in the heart in an apparent lover's quarrel at a Roman bathhouse. Look at the remorse on the killer's face as he catches my limp body falling to the floor.

  "Good God! What have I done?!? And over what?!?
  Window treatments!"
  Noooooooooooooooooo!"

Yeah, it's a good way to go, still gettin' some at 75.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Son of a Bitch

I'm an episode behind, but catching up on my Geekson. The 09.16.05 episode just read my last email to them. Matt read most of it -comments about getting excited about the show length; the sideways about bodies being picked up in China to be used in anatomy classes and Chaka! - BUT they failed to mention who it was from.

Damnit, that would have made two in one week (technically, both in last week as I was a show behind on Croncast as well).

Okay, so now I have to figure out how to get a shout out on each show in the same week.

Serial Wednesday: 4S

Almost forgot today was Wednesday until I noticed that Alfred checking the site every 30 mins.

So here's today's update: Episodes 25-30.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

BrikWars: P.A.R.V.

Saturday we finally got to the PARV game. This one was a long time coming. I came up with the initial scenario around the same time as the original !Zombie! game (2002? 2003?). But when I finally posted it to the forums DaveE just about fell in love with it from the word go. Here's my original write up of the PARV rules.

He took and ran with it and produced a kick-ass game and The Brikington Manor of Lego Sci-Fi vehicles.

This game was, like most NELUG games, a rockin' good time. The post-apocalypse/Mad-Max setting was just fantastic, and led to all kinds of swanky creations for it.

DaveE's PARV itself is just mind-boggling. I've never seen so much tan in one place. Just about all my tan went into the Liberty Head, which was one of many obsticles we created for the game.

My Ode to Planet of the Apes on the table.

Sullivan's Monestary. These guys are looking after an ancient, non-functioning relay station, until something appears on the horizon.

As in the rules, the Blood Warriors started out behind the PARV. We were a motley bunch including mutant dinosaurs and an bus that fired Flying Indian Bombs (FIBs) at the Omic Villagers. Jonathan's FIBs were a freakin' howl. They were fired and took a turn or two to land. So they would be in an arc for a the duration, exploding when they finally made contact (which was usually a miss). I have to say, when he was describing what he was building beforehand, I rolled my eyes. But it gets my vote for funnest units.

FIBS. An Exploding Indian; Jonathan's kamakazi units were fired from a mass-driver and spent just enough time in the air to probably regret their occupational choices.

A FIB crashing into the ground, right before exploding.

The Omics, who started with control of the PARV actually did more damage to the PARV itself than the Blood Warriors. In an attempt to get up, the shot remote cannons and missiles that blew apart the treads and other mayhem. Overall, they were more destructive than the apparently peace-loving Blood Warriors.

My own troops were bunched up in a single truck. Which of course, took a bad hit. Luckily, only the engine was taken out, so the vehicle was slowly falling back.

With gas prices sky-high, all my units decide to carpool. What's the worst that can happen?

Although, one unit got a good shot with the grappling gun and sand-surfed her way onto the PARV.

Yaaaahhhhoooooo! It's a Sand-Surfin' Safari!

She makes it on-deck just a the Omics bomb their own vehicle with missiles. Luckily, she's unscathed and battlehardened and only wets herself a little.

As my truck fell behind, I managed to get all my guys onto Jonathan's passing bus, which he drove right up to the PARV. From there, I got all my guys onto the monster in a turn or two.

Not a scheduled stop. Despite offering his seat, nobody wanted to plunk down on an armed mass driver.

Even the driver, whom I left in the truck to guide it safely away (less we have some kind of chain reaction crash), was able to abandon the vehicle and catch a suped-up rider mower that Jonathan was able to drop.

John Deer prepares to make his final assault!

I think, by then, I was the only one with a complete crew left. Everyone else had taken some damage.

But that was about to change, as my guys started dropping. In the end, the Omics controlled too much of the PARV. They had remote sentry bots gunning for us and our attempts to take out the engine room were not successful.

The bots corner most of the remaing Blood Warriors. Hovering LandscapingBot is about to turn one of my units into fertilizer.

Making a last ditch effort, Jonathan drives his bike over the security bots.

This was probably one of the more cinematic games to me. Every action I saw as a movie. From the PARV tearing across the desert, the obsticle appearing on the horizon and zipping backwards¹, to Jamie's raptor leaping onto the back and tearing up the landing until being pushed off and killed. It had the feel of an action movie.

In fact, I hope that we get a rematch someday. There's probably a dozen other ways this scenario can go too.

Another thing, besides using the new camera to take over 400 pics of the event (which chewed me through 4 sets of batteries over 11 hours) we set up a pair of microphones and recorded just about the entire event.

I've got 10 hours of BrikWar audio that I'm currently trying to cut into ~1 chunks. It's a mind-numbing, ear-bleeding amount of chat that's sometimes very chaotic. But, hopefully, I'll have something either later this week or early next for anyone interested to download.

For now, there's tons of pics.

My Pics
Alfred's Pics
Shaun's Pics

1. The Monastery was my favorite for this. I saw the scene shifting from the running battle quickly to a monk near the top dusting off the antennas. He looks out and sees a black dot with a giant dust plume behind it. He turns to his brother and points. They both look and within seconds, the PARV and it's pursuers come roaring bay as the camera swings around the top of the monastery to watch it go.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Shout Out

I got a mention on today's Croncast. That was the last one; I've now managed to get mentioned on all three of my fav podcasts to date.

Go me.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Serial Wednesday: 4S Bonus

Alfred, the only one really reading this stuff anyway, has begged me, BEGGED me to put up another 4S block to make up for the lost time. So, to keep from hearing Alfred actually cry on the phone (something that sends chills down my back, to be honest), I churned it out ASAP.

So here you go Al!

Episodes 21-25.

Serial Wednesday: 4S

Episodes 16-20 are posted.

Sorry about last week, things just sort of got away from me. If I can, I'll try to post 21-25 this week as well to make up for it.

Or maybe not.

Whatever.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Title Trouble

The section of the book I'm currently working on is:

2.4 The Example of Electrowetting

You can make of that what you will.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Update Brikington Manor

Here's a bonus for when you childless wonders actually get around to breeding: When you're kid vomits on the car on the way to daycare, you get the day off! Of course, it's not as fun as say, getting the day off to run around naked and wrestle with the likewise naked wife, but at this point, a day off is a day off. :P

So, while TheBoy watched some TV, I spent some time updating the pages from last year's Halloween game, The Brikington Manor Horrors. I've been getting my Halloween groove on extra early this year. Sullivan and I have been planning a new game for the season and I wanted to get the old one set and done as much as I can before we actually get to this year's game.

The only think I had hoped to have had by now is a new video detailing the events of TBMH game. I still hope to get around to that at some point, but for now getting a huge chunk of it down will suffice.

Of course, it's not all good. There's a few images missing and the write up itself will be about 21 pages when I'm done (not all equal length). But I want to add images to the pages as I go, so it's not all there right now. If you see a page with nothing but text, supplementary pics are coming. Although, to be honest, I'm drawing them from the Brickshelf pool of pics from the game, so there won't be anything new.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Squirrel

I was cleaning out the shed today and thought I might get to the barn as well. We need to start making a dent into the storage out there, so I figured I open up the main doors and air it out a bit while I worked on the shed and this startled me:

I believe this is a squirrel. Although, I have no idea where the middle part is. :P

Damnit if it wasn't gross (but apparently not gross enough for me not to photograph. At first I was sure it was a mouse. Then I thought it was a rat, but it's clearly a squirrel missing it's mid-section.

Here's another pic.
And a closer one that's a bit more graphic.

On the plus side, that's one less squirrel in the barn.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Board Game Nite: Risk

Finally got the family into a game of Risk.

Normally, when I introduce something new, I try not to play to win. I don't exactly roll over, but I don't exert myself and try to dominate. Part of it has to do with not taking advantage of newbies. The other is that spanking the new guy doesn't exactly make people want to play with you again. And I want to keep playing games like this, eventually moving up to more complex games (Axis & Allies would be groovy).

Near the beginning. You see my forces in Asia. Africa already belongs to Mike, but not for long.

But Risk just brought something out from me last night. I think it was more of getting a great starting position. I had most of Australia and only had to vacate 1 army for total control. From there, I moved up into Asia only so far as to keep getting a card each turn. Keeping most of my forces in the territories at the front lines. Eventually, everyone would fight themselves thin and when someone would finally capture a continent, I would have to go in and bust them up.

It was a total blast. And luckily everyone seemed okay with it. Only Kelly, our youngest had some trouble near the end when she was tired and started to take losing personally (thankfully not to me). But the funniest was Michael. He was the black army and constantly tried to hold Africa. In fact, Mike managed to control all of Africa at the end of his each and every turn near the end of the game. But I kept my assault each time, making sure he couldn't get the armies for the continent at the start. Near the last turns, I managed to all but eliminate everyone from the game, completely erasing him from Africa and pushing into South America. Wherein he turned in a set for 45 armies and promptly came stomping back.

My World Tour: Knocking the black army into South America. Mike's armies mass in Argentina for the push back.

Close up of Mike's forces about to cross into the dark continent.

This was out last turn and I let him make a fatal mistake of his African campaign. Instead of making the tour through the continent end so he could push into Asia, he ended in East Africa, effectively cutting off his main forces from any further assault. Which was good for me, because I had nothing left at that point. Although I was set to turn in another set of cards and field another 50+ units for a real soul-crushing campaign.

But it was about 11:30 and, because both Tine and Kelly had left, we decided to call it a draw.

The final board. Asia, Australia and parts of Europe belong to me. South America and Africa blong to Mike. You can see his last stop in East Africa, locking his armies down.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Tuesday? Wednesday?

I'm all screwed up today. For some reason, I think it's Tuesday, yet I know school starts on Wednesday and I was out there waiting for the kids to get on the bus this morning. The point is, I'm not ready with this week's 4S episode. I'll try to have it posted by tomorrow--I know you're all just dying to see it.

School started today, which meant waiting for the bus. Only instead of the bus coming at it's normal 8:20 AM, it comes at 9:00. I'm not sure why the damn bus has to be so late on the first day. It's not like the route is different (okay, I don't know that for sure, but it's always late the first day, so what gives?)

There's a whole herd of kids at the bus stop this year as our middle child moves up to middle school with her older brother (he's overjoyed to have her on the bus and in the school). And bored teens are so much fun. From what I could see, at least two kids were picking up small rocks and chucking them down the street; then they chased a squirrel with a stick that ran across the power lines. I keep trying to remember if I did such stupid things and how natural selection never really caught up with me. But I can't seem to recall my early teen years so well, so I can't rule it out, I guess.

I know later, in my early 20s I did stuff that really should have outright killed me, but my teens? Who the hell can remember that?

In other news, I'm working board games into everyone's lives around here. I pulled a few games out of storage, Risk, Cathedral, Car Wars... We played a couple of games of Scrabble which was more fun than I remembered it to be. I'm working my way to up to strategy war gaming, which I sorely miss.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Katrina and the Waves

I've been kind of avoiding the whole disaster in Louisiana because I got really burned out over 9/11 and I don't need that to happen again. But you can't completely avoid it, there's so bloody much coverage I think they've taking to beaming it directly into peoples government tracking implants.

I think the biggest revelation of the whole thing should be the fact the federal government completely failed to react and it exposes the fallacy that we are in any way safe from any kind of catastrophe, be it nature or man-made. The fact that FEMA didn't seem to have a plan for when cell-phones failed shows the ineptitude of the administrations mandate for preparedness.

It should open your eyes to the idea that since 9/11 they've done nothing but raid the coffers and plan out invading Iraq. Homeland Security is a joke. They gave us lots official new positions and a nifty color chart so that Joe six-pack feels safe and doesn't notice what they've really been doing.

A newscaster (sorry, can't remember which one) said something to the effect: A terrorist attack isn't something you can plan for; It's sudden and they claim they have a plan to help affect areas in case of such an event. Yet they had 2 days to prepare for the hurricane and they still can't pull it off.

Something is seriously wrong.

Here's an interesting blog from a guy still in New Orleans keeping the internet running. He's got tons of pics and a live webcam of a city street. http://mgno.com/

Thursday, September 01, 2005

It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

Gas prices have gone from nuts to insane. Tuesday it was $2.55 at the cheap place and this morning it was $2.99. Just about a 45-cent increase in 48 hours. What the hell is that? Because even if they come down, it won't be by a lot and it'll just edge up from there.

When I started driving, gas was .70-cents a gallon; $3.00 a gallon is here to stay.

The thing about gasoline is that we have no real choices. It's not like I can choose not to drive to work today. I can't not go to the supermarket for food. I can't not have a car. Hell, the corner store is still a car ride away.

It's not like I can rush over to the dealership and pick up a hybrid or something. Not the the industry has ever been gun-ho about producing alternative technologies that lessen our dependence on oil. God forbid, we suddenly have the freedom from paying tribute to the industry.

So when my tank cost me $50 to fill, I have to cut back in other ways. We've already cut our monthly free spending amounts. Which means less Lego for me. Which, immediately, means less wheat for Shaun.

(Man, I just break all my bad news here, don't I?)

Evil Wayne