Blinkensopps the Bold

States I have visited

Sat, 30 May 2009 00:53:12 GMT

visited 42 states (84%)
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Tue, 19 May 2009 20:38:08 GMT

Happy birthday to dimithubbub and katnboots!

Happy birthday

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:39:54 GMT

Happy birthday to barondiego!

I can't wait to see this movie

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 01:18:54 GMT

Discovered via seankreynolds

Loss

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:33:12 GMT

A friend of mine passed away today. Most of my LJ friends don't know him, but they would have liked him the moment they met him. He was very much the epitome of Sharc.

Happy Birthday

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:58:39 GMT

Happy birthday ianraven!!!1!eleven!

Dear Nikon

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:46:24 GMT

Dear Nikon: Your new S60 touch screen point and shoot camera sucks. The menu is hard to navigate, the touch screen doesn't work that well, the flash is hot (ie, overly bright), and the picture quality is embarrassing.

I'm glad we got our money back, so we could give it to Canon instead.

Cool Picture

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:23:10 GMT

From National Geographic

It looks like a fantasy painting - a portal into another dimension. It's now my wallpaper on my pc

Memo to self

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:54:45 GMT

Playing too much LEGO Batman, followed by too much Left 4 Dead will induce very weird dreams.

Amazing picture of the inauguration

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:00:42 GMT

It clocks in at 1.4Gigapixels.

You can zoom in amazingly well, and look clearly at just about any face in the crowd.

See if you can find Clarence Thomas sleeping through Obama's speech. =)

Gigapan.org

Close call

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:22:48 GMT

dimityhubbub's brother and his wife woke up at 3am this morning to find that they had been paid a visit by the Coatesville arsonist.

For those not in the Philadelphia area, the Coatesville arsonist has been setting fires in the town of Coatesville (northwest of Philly by 20 miles or so) for the past 12 months. 2 people were arrested in December, but the fires continue.

They heard noise, and found their trashcan moved onto their side porch, and set on fire (this is the M.O. of the arsonist). They sustained minor damage to the side of the house, and to the porch door, and maybe a little bit of damage in the laundry room, but they were lucky.

The article in the link is from this morning. Apparently, the arsonist hit 4 houses overnight, one sustaining a lot of damage.

We're glad that they're ok, and no one got hurt.

Must. Have. This. Book.

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:47:53 GMT

Chronicle Books Review: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

Edited to add two quick things:

1) Name one book that can't be improved by the addition of zombies. I can't think of one.

2) I was quite surprised and amused to discover I already had a 'zombie' tag.

Jan now has a LiveJournal

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:40:57 GMT

Her LJ name is dimityhubbub

The weekend

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:04:39 GMT

We had a fun weekend.

Jan and some friends rented a house in the Poconos for the weekend, and all went up to do artsy/craftsy type things. The house was set up with that specific niche in mind, with a well lit work area, lots of table space, tv/stereo setup for entertainment, and so on. The owner does scrap booking, and even had scrap book supplies available for purchase. Apparently, this was the first time non-scrapbook arts & crafters rented the house, and the owner is now looking for more general business as a result. Still, it sounds like the owner is doing pretty well, since she's booked up for the next few months.

That left Dane and me to fend for ourselves, and we had a pretty good time doing it, too.

We played a lot of LEGO Batman, which is now Dane's most favoritest game EVAR. Last weekend, we took all of our old game systems (original XBox, Gamecube, PSP), controllers, and games we don't use anymore, and traded them in at the local GameStop. Total credit received? A whopping $187.00! I'm still a bit stunned. It could have been another $30 or $50 more, but the battery on the PSP wouldn't retain the charge, so we got dinged on that one. We were at the GameStop for over an hour while the guy tried out all of the systems and controllers, and checked every game and so on. We wound up playing NBA 2009, very badly. I committed fouls that I didn't know even existed. In any case, Dane was so good that I allowed him to get LEGO Batman with some of the money.

In the past week we're roughly halfway done with the game - having completed 15 out of 30 missions. His favorite character is Nightwing (Robin as a grown-up superhero). I'm sorry...his all time favoritest superhero EVAR.

On Saturday, we went and saw the movie Inkheart. It was good, but not great, but it was a lot of fun, and a good way to spend 2 hours on a cold January afternoon. It had a lot of names: Brendan Fraser, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Paul Bettany, and my favorite, Andy Serkis as the bad guy. There was one point which I was afraid might be too scary for Dane, but he seemed good with it. Would I want to own it on dvd? No. Would I watch it if it was on cable? Sure.

On Sunday, we went to the open swim at the YMCA, which is something we'd been talking about doing for ages. Finally, we did it, and had a blast. At it's most crowded, there were maybe 10 other families in the pool at the same time, without any boisterous behavior from obnoxious kids. We will definitely go back several times between now and Memorial Day, when the neighborhood swim club opens up.

Book meme

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:00:46 GMT

In following with others who have done the recent book meme, here are the books I've read from the list. Looks like I've read 36/100.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austin
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

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Flyboys

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:51:27 GMT

We accidentally stumbled across the movie Flyboys a mostly true depiction of Lafayette Escadrille, a squadron of volunteer American flyers in World War 1, before the U.S. entered the war.

The five minute review: horrible movie, but great aerial combat sequences. In some cases, you could tell it was CGI, but it was still a lot of fun. If you stumble across it, endure a non-combat scene until you can get to one of the combat ones, enjoy that, and then flip the channel.

Oh, and for wizardru, Tyler Labine, who plays Sock on Reaper was in the film. It was hard to recognize him with a clean-shaven face, and wearing a pressed uniform. =)

Happy Repeal Day

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:56:47 GMT

Today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

Drink up!

Scientists make diamonds from tequila

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:53:15 GMT

How cool is this?

Guardian (UK)

Farmers in Mexico have been given another reason to grow agave, the cactus-like plant used to produce the country's most potent export. In the bar room equivalent of alchemy, scientists have turned shots of tequila into diamonds.

The surprise use for the national tipple emerged when researchers at the National Autonomous University experimented with making ultra-thin films of diamond from organic solutions, such as acetone and ethanol. The mix that worked best, 40% alcohol and 60% water, was similar to the proportions used in tequila.

Diamond films are extremely durable and heat resistant and can be used to coat cutting tools. By carefully adding impurities to the films, it is also possible to make diamond semiconductors for use in electronic circuits.

Luis Miguel Apátiga, a member of the team, brought a bottle of cheap tequila into the lab to see if it could be turned into diamond. When he heated a shot to 800C it vaporised and broke down into its atomic constituents, producing a fine layer of carbon on nearby metal trays.

Close examination of the films at high magnification revealed that the carbon had formed into crystal structures identical to diamond. Each was around one thousandth of a millimetre across.

"It's true that the fact it's tequila has a certain charm. It's a Mexican product and Mexican researchers developed the project, but a businessman can say to me: 'Great, how pretty! But how can I use it?'," Apátiga said. "It would be very difficult to obtain diamonds for a ring."

The researchers plan to make tequila-based diamonds on an industrial scale from 2011, a move that could see agave growing expand beyond the tequila market.

We voted

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:05:35 GMT

We voted this morning, arriving at the polls 15 minutes before they opened. When they did open, 70 people were in line. Typically there are 10-15 at that time in a presidential election.

Voting this time felt great. It should feel this way everytime.

D&D

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:13:52 GMT

I have to say that the Necklace of Fireballs has to be the stupidest magic item ever.

"Hey! I have a great idea...let's take 8 hand grenades and make a necklace out of it. What could possibly go wrong?"

Not sure what to say

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:13:43 GMT

Most people have already said something about the passing of Morguhn. At the time I didn't have enough emotional energy to say anything. That hasn't improved, but I need to talk about my friend and if I don't do it now the opportunity will slip away.

Morguhn was crown prince when I joined the SCA, and the first king that I met, and his friendliness made a huge difference to me as I was still trying to figure out what was going on.

That was my first SCA fencing tournament. I took 2nd place...to Morguhn. =) The event was in Iron Bog, and it was freezing cold out, but the tournament was outside. Basically two combatants would be called, they'd go out in the 10 degree weather with a marshal, fence and come back in. It was miserable, and lots of fun.

There are lots of things I could say, but mostly I liked him, and respected him, and looked up to him, and now I miss him greatly.

For the most part, I'm at peace with my accidental slippage from the SCA, but hearing about Morguhn's passing caused deep regret that I hadn't seen him in ages, and now I won't have that opportunity again.

Tonight I'm drinking scotch, wishing I could share it with him. I hope he's in a good place.

Farewell my friend.

Fencing at the Olympics

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:17:15 GMT

Today we were able to watch over 90 minutes of women's individual sabre, and the coverage was decent. It only covered the US competitors, but what they did show was very good.

Team USA swept the medals, which was amazing, and Mariel Zagunis was successful in defending her gold medal from the Athens Olympics.

Our first foray into 4E

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:58:14 GMT

How's that for unintended alliteration? =)

We did our first 4E test session last night. We're running thru the new module that was released a couple of months ago. We're doing the module as a one-off, and not planning on continuing the characters, just using it to learn the system.

Net result: we all had a good time. We had 3 combat encounters, all of them were reasonably complex and ran several rounds. Everyone had something to do, usually something interesting.

It also appealed to the tactical side, and I enjoyed figuring out how to best leverage my powers for the group's benefit.

The downsides that I noted:

1) Healing. The lack of true healing was bothersome. Allowing all players to use a healing surge was very cool, but when the surge only heals 1/4 of your HP, it strikes me as not enough. As a cleric, I only had one true healing power, usable once per encounter to allow someone to use an extra healing surge. Want a healing potion? For 50gp, you get a potion that allows...a healing surge.

2) I miss scrolls. The new system doesn't really need them, but still, I miss them.

3) I'm not fond of ritual magic, yet. It costs me 10gp to cast Comprehend Languages, and I only get to pick one language when I cast the spell.

4) I like spell effects that last more than one round, and that's gone (for the most part).

A lot of that is just reaction to change, and with a couple of more sessions, I'll get into it.

Hulk smash

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:19:41 GMT

Saw Hulk on the way home today.

Very good - not quite as good as Iron Man, but still good. Special effects were good, but even hulk can't escape the 'uncanny valley'

World of World Of Warcraft

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:13:43 GMT

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'