What's New
Ok, WTF? I was checking my web (metrics) logs today, and found that "Art Nouveau" took up 53 percent of the search strings used on this site for this month.
YouTube playlists are cool. Here's two playlists that encompass all the fighting videos I shot at June crown 2009, and my local fighter practice for June 28, 2009.
Bailey has always been dedicated to helping others. Her need to help is matched only by her want to not be brought up in court for it. because of this, a very cunning and devious plan had to be hatched...
Updated again: Added a 3rd dragon.
What will be a set of drawings that are symbolic of dragons. These are digital art pieces based on sketches I created while designing my new dragon head for my SCA Device (medieval logo).
Sketch from a photo of Muriel during her reign with Leon.
Sketch from an illustration seen on History Channel's Quest for King Arthur.
A whole lot has happened since my last update of this site. Some of it good, lots not so good, but we're soldiering on.
We used to have an issue with our cats pee-ing in inappropriate locations. We don't seem to have that problem anymore. and No, we did not get rid of them.
The problem appears to be that once Google-Earth updates its pref files, it does not want to run on subsequent loads. Here's a fix.
There are so many layers to what Harriet Christian is saying in this video, that anybody with a hot button will go into complete mental lockdown before they can truly absorb her whole statement.
A little Photoshop Magic, and voila, I make my lovely assistant, myself, and a pavillion disappear!
Advertisers hate it, network execs are worried about their bottom lines. Figure out how to ride the paradigm shift, or get crunched in the gears.
If you've read my story about my first sword, you've learned how to NOT make a good sword. Here's an example of how to make a better sword
As a present to you, I submit one of my novice moments in the SCA. It's also a whimsical look back into the murky past from whence we came.
Dec 5, 2006: New Section and Leftovers
What better way to start a new section than to use Leftovers? Tonight's dinner was leftovers. Sounds ho-hum, hey? Not so fast there bucko, My leftovers are probably way better than yours. Don't believe me? Well, let me ask you, when was the last time you barbecued this year?
May 17,2006: Illegal Back Taxes?
The Senate bill to legalize Illegal Aliens (that's what they are) or Undocumented Workers, as both sides of Congress would prefer to call them, has a provision that part of the amnesty (err, guest worker status leading to potential citizenship) would require that these workers pay their back taxes. Exactly HOW do you track the taxes of a person who was either paid under the table in cash, or has been using somebody ELSE'S social security number for the past five years? This smells like balogna (baloney for you spelling impaired folks) to me, and I do NOT like the taste.
I was minding my own business, when this mother and daughter came into the restaurant and starting talking about animation ... I nearly spewed my shrimp and pork roll when the daurghter said the Japanese stuff was so "meaningless"
The stone was such a sore thumb, that I had to wonder if everybody was completely oblivous, or if I had missed the memo from the Illuminati that blinded us all to what looked like a spray-foam stone with a big hole in it.
The twentyfirst century has been here for five years, and yet we're still not wearing jet packs and the closest things we have to instant feasts is Microwave food and MRE's. We're not living in the future epitomized by the Jetsons. In fact, I don't think we're living in ANYBODY's vision of the future. We were promised a lot of fantastic advances in technology. There are some obvious reasons why we don't have them.
As anybody who graduated from highschool should know, our government has three branches. They're the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. At least, those are the offical branches. However, there is another group of people who have a huge influence on government. I am speaking, of course, of the Lobbyists.
March 17, 2006: Another Minor Gripe: Oval-what?
One of the chocolate milk vendors has been pushing its product heavily on AM radio. They keep saying "It's creamy because it's made with milk." To which, I say, if you want something CREAMY, make it with FRESH CREAM, or at least with Half and Half.
Here are the ingredients: Barley, malt extract, dried skimmed milk, sugar, whey powder, glucose syrup, vegetable fat, full cream milk powder, fat reduced cocoa, caseinates, egg powder, emulsifier, stabilisers, flavouring and vitamins.
There IS milk, in the drink, so their claim of 'creamy due to milk' could be argued as true, though dried skimmed milk, whey powder, and full cream powder are not nearly as creamy as fresh cream or half and half. In fact you could add milk to ANY hot chocolate product.
Low carb dieters may want to get unsweetend cocoa, CREAM, and Splenda to make their own low carb version of hot chocolate.
Annette and I were honored to be Lady of Love and Beauty and Lord Protector at the Court of Love in the canton of Borderwinds last Saturday. Both the tourney and feast went well. Gaius Wilhelm of Caid won the tourney, beating out Viscout Richard of Aldertree at the end of the melee, and The food at the feast was excellent thanks to Rosario de la Torres and her expert staff.
The tourney was done as a Tarnmist Ragnarok, which is a round robin format leading to a melee in which fighters get a number of lives based on how many times they died during the round robin. With 14 fighters in the list, each of us got 26 fights, with a run of 13 fights in a row.
The Festivities at Court included various contests, including limmericks based on a rule of courtly love drawn from a hat, and best 14th century heraldic garb.
So many good things happend, I'm going to have to write up a full story.
I found that the crown and liner needed a more secure connection between them. Previously, I had been using gaffer's tape to bind the two edges together, and found that over time, the adhesive wore out, and the tape started to slide off the foam, causing all sorts of problems with vision and odd sticky spots on my brow. In my original article, I used a couple of stitch points to hold the two peices together. Since then, I've determined that a cross stitch, or two whip stitches going in opposite directions along the edge of butted foam sheets holds them together quite well.
March 14, 2006: Today's minor gripe
What is America's fascination with Milk Chocolate? I consider it to be an inferior product that is made by diluting the pure tasty goodness of dark chocolate. Why is it that I can't buy dark chocolate at my local quickie mart? I know, it's because so many people are enamoured of milk chocolate. I think that candy companies want to push cheap candy for the most profit. Pure chocolate costs more than stuff that has been diluted with milk, coconut, sugar, nuts (another hated filler product) and the dreaded whipped nougat.
Some of you may think I'm a complete softy about my restaurant reviews. Well, here's the proof that I'm not. Read on, and you will understand the true horror of what it means to starve at a restaurant.
Annette and I ate at VIP a few times last year, and never went away unsatisfied. Today's lunch was par for the course.
The Cell Phone has only been in use for the last 33 years. Our cell phone manners are still abysmal. You'd think we would have built on our regular phone manners. perhaps we did.
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