Let's see if I can possibly make some sense of things here...

Had a fun time yesterday with a big houseful of folks. Joe brought his Wii so there was much bowling, golfing and baseball-playing. The food was all very good, though Tim forgot and left a gigantic dish of baked beans in the oven (it was turned off, so they didn't burn, but nobody got beans). Didn't remember the maple cake until late, and by then people were full and/or ready to go.

I had an entire Mike's Hard Pomegranate Lemonade and had also been up since 5:30, so by the time we went to bed at almost midnight, I was wiped ... but then I had bad foot and leg cramps so had to stay up walking around until the muscle relaxer kicked in. Then I slept, waking briefly around eight when Tim got up. I drowsed off again and think I spent the next three hours having one of those dreams where I was walking around lost in a strange city, with no phone and no money, wrapped in a blanket. Ack. Was glad to wake up.

Glad, and surprised that it was damn near 11:30. Brain-deadness for me. Tim was good and went out for a walk but Becca and I pretty much stayed in front of the computers all day playing CoX. We have loads of leftovers for the next few days. Including a lot of my jello goo, oh rats I will have to eat the rest myself!

A neighbor just drove over to let me know that he saw a bear go from his yard into ours. "A big one, too." Poor, lost bear. I don't see it, but there's plenty of room for even a big bear to hide among the trees and underbrush at the edge of the property. Still, perhaps it's made its way back up the hill toward wilderness. I hope so, for its sake. It will be Teh Enemy, down here among the furless.

via making light

I just threw up again, more than before. This is the worst since Hell Week started.

Call it freedom bag water!


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Happy birthday, America!

New pain meds. Working well. Am feeling a little better. Fingers and arm very swollen. Also, am having a weird fight with a friend that has me a bit bummed.

This is an excellent day to remember that unjust laws should not be obeyed. Blow up something in the name of liberty!

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." —Thomas Paine

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny” —Thomas Jefferson

“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” —Howard Zinn

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." —The Declaration of Independence

My ancient (G3) iBook needs more work than it's probably worth, so I don't want to take it in for service or put it on eBay, but I hate to send it straight to recycling. I think it has motherboard problems, and I know the lid is a bit askew, but it might be useful to someone. Suggestions?

LENIN'S TOMB: The going rate of exploitation:

this little beauty from the Irish Times ... tells us that the average Irish worker
produces 48,500 euros of profit per year for the owners. These figures
were produced by the Unite union to disprove the idea that profits for
Irish capitalists are somehow 'too low' or being squeezed by
unjustifiably higher wages. Actually, it suggests an extraordinary rate
of exploitation. According to the Industrial Development Agency [pdf], the average wage in Ireland was 627.24 euros per week in 2007, which is just over 32,000 euros per year.

I'm trying. I really am. But I just threw up again.

http://www.xorph.com/anacrusis/2008/07/04/layla/

The all-expenses-paid trip to Detroit is more fun than Layla expected. (Well, still.) There’s actually a great theater scene; she sees an all-female Othello and doesn’t even hate it.

Afterwards she finds the cast at a bar where the waiters wear corseted jackets and set your coffee on fire. Whiskey and caffeine stretch her judgment like Silly Putty, and she ends up making out with Iago in her hotel jacuzzi. Iago’s leftover stage mascara runs in the steam.

Layla goes to the bar again, but it’s too early, and the jackets are shiny with wear at the edges.

I may have found my next campaign.

* Hancock is great. Yes, the third act fails to really live up to the promise of the first two, but the first two are entirely worth the price of admission to me. It's a Legends Walk/Mage movie, and it showed me that, like Watchmen, sometimes the best way to tell a story about a character is to tell it about someone else.

* Looking at the Artificer lead to me looking at the Cleric again, and I now totally want to play a laser cleric (Lance of Faith + Sacred Flame = Every time I do something I'm awesome and I make someone else awesome).

* Artificer is short two at will abilities. I think I will fix that.

* Carl Cravens had something to say about 4e that nicely summarized a lot of things that are cool about it, and which also speaks to why games like Exalted and D&D are fun for me as much as I like aspects and stuff in Fate. The short form is this: Aspects are great, but the mechanical payout is that you do what you normally do better. That's fine, but explicit ability systems (like 4e powers, some 3e feats, charms, stunts and all that jazz) give you things that change or add to what you do, and that's just a lot of fun.

* The DMG gets cooler every time I open it up.

* Extra bonus cool: I just pulled down the entirety of Dragon #364 and man it looks nice to have all that stuff in one place.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, Nation!

Remember, party at our place. Starting three-ish, going until whenever-ish.

Games and goodies galore!

This weekday was the hardest - the only day I've physically, actually thrown up. I think I can blame my mother for her "you've got to eat" attitude once we got home for as much of that, though. Hopefully I can sleep okay tonight, we'll see. Which I didn't, despite the help of a hypnotic CD I just picked up - another attack by the killer hiccups. And I threw up this morning, too, after waking up.

So, I wanted to know what the fuss was about a meme. It's just like a freaking survey you do as bulletins on Myspace! haha!