Barking at shovels

New blog!

I got firsties!

This is a big pile of testing text. Just ignore it.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.

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I'm baaaack

So, my last entry in my old web journal was from August 2000 -- more than two full years ago. What the hell happens to time?

Web journal technology has certainly moved along since then. This is now a movable type blog, where blog is a word that didn't even exist last time I wrote a journal entry.

(It's a barbarous contraction of "web log", if you must know.)

I will get my old stuff back up here soon, I say. You'll see. I just have to convert it all to the new format.

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Attack of the Clowns

So, in the two years since I wrote my last webcomic recommendations, a few new ones have thrust themselves onto my reading lists. Notably:

• Schlock Mercenary
• Partially Clips
• Cat and Girl

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Hacking fool

So, I'm busy reworking the layout and style of these pages from the default that came with movable type. I'm testing with Mozilla and IE6, but if you use something different and it makes the site look screwed-up, I want to know.

Unless you haven't updated your browser since 1995. Then you're just going to have to deal.

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Thought for the Day

So a woman I met recently asked me if she was asking too many questions, and my first reaction was, hell, the whole point of dating is to find someone who wants to pry into your affairs.

That's an exaggeration, perhaps. Necessary but not sufficient. But aren't those first rounds of questions flattering? This person I've just met, who doesn't really know anything about me, thinks I'm interesting, and wants to know more!

Maybe it's just me.

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LotR Brain Damage

Just in time for The Two Towers.

This is merely demented:

Lord of the Rhymes
("Elf booty got soul -- elf girls like to rock'n'roll!")

But this is just wrong:

Leonard Nimoy sings "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"

It's even more horrifying than it sounds.

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So

So, four of my last five entries begin with "So, ..."

Maybe I should learn to write.

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Counterscript

Research yields a new solution to the scourge of telemarketing.

From Martijn Englebrecht, found by Steve Orso.

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Southeast Asia trip is up

I've just done some serious archive mining and reformatting, and now my travelogue posts from Southeast Asia last winter are up here and here.

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Game Setting: The Silver Mines of Nevada

Adventures underground are a staple of fantasy role-playing, but geez, most of them suck. The caves are nothing like real caves, and the mines are nothing like real mines. Thus, in the interest of contributing verisimilitude and interesting detail to the genre (not to mention zippy descriptions for GMs to crib), I hereby quote Mark Twain's description of the mighty delvings of the Comstock Lode, in Nevada's Silver Rush, 1863. This was before dynamite was invented, so aside from the single mention of the telegraph, there is no obvious reason it couldn't be dropped into most any fantasy setting -- is not the public domain a wonderful thing? Steal in good health, and throw back a shot of whiskey in thanks to Mr Twain.

Twain himself was an active participant in the silver fever. The following is from Roughing It, 1871.

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Merry Christmas

It is a fine winter day in Nova Scotia, just below zero, clear and sunny. The turkey is in the oven, and my family is rushing around in tightening circles pulling preparations together for the big meal tonight. But at this moment, I have a lull, and I would like to use it to send greetings to all of you -- it is a good day to remember that it would be a sad life without friends in it.

To all who celebrate it: Merry Christmas!

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Mojave Phone Booth

After you hang around the net long enough, eventually you hear about the Mojave Phone Booth. If you haven't yet, this is your time.

http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/mojave1.htm

A stunning demonstration of the potential constructive use of too much time on one's hands. One day, I too shall do something this cool.

But if you have heard of it, the sad news is that the Booth has been removed.

Admittedly, that was two years ago. If you're way ahead of me on that, too, then I'll just thank you not to mock too loudly.

The other day, Keri was asking me why I put this site back up. One part of the answer is this: I seriously do want to do something as cool as the Phone Booth Project someday. It seems to me that, as much as anything, getting there requires some self-indoctrination in habits of thought, starting with: publish, dammit. There's nifty ideas out there all the time, if you just pay attention and do something about them.

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