Booyor’s BLOGgh!

Today our eldest daughter and I were in the grocery store checking out.  She was sitting in the cart and pointed to a magazine on the shelf.  “Look, Mom, it’s Obama and his lady.”

I looked at the magazine and sure enough, the president-elect and his “lady” were on the front cover.  She was very excited about it.  Then she found another magazine:  “Oh, Mom, it’s Obama and his girls.”  Yep, another one with the future first family on the cover.

She continued to talk about Obama and all his ladies until we were headed out the door.  I finally asked, “Do you know who Obama is?”  She replied, “He’s that man… that man that won the American game.”

Less Papageno, more eating quail. I walk the dangerous border of breaking Man Law by posting photos from a bachelor party. This is the risk I take for you, reader. (Grandparents, stay tuned. Cute photos to follow.)(Peter, Laurel, and The Master Predictor: check for the picture of the country club version of the greengrocer’s apostrophe.)

Have you ever been to Bill Johnson’s Big Apple?

It stands out as being garish on Van Buren, which is saying quite a bit. But the serving staff is great. Our waitress was Ronda. I had to do my best to not bust out as Brian Williams.

On the topic of busting out: I’m glad to see Bill dressed up for the bachelor party.

They decorate in sawdust, so you know the meat is good. The quality of the establishment is proportional to the surface area of sawdust multiplied by the number of animals on the roof.

Endless Ribs, Endless Ribs…who ordered the jalapeno poppers? Jeremy, the bachelor party tradition lives on. (And yes, that was darn good salmon. I stick to my principles.)

I was a little wary when I saw that they import cattle from Crete:

I love the look on the guy’s face in the bottom-left corner.

As anyone who survived World War Z or is a fan of Simon Pegg knows, in any restaraunt/pub you must locate a defense against the undead:

Thanks, Mike. If zombies attack, I know I can trust you. Unless you become Zombie Mike.

Next was LazerQuest. It should be noted that in a world of “Phyborg” and “Grand Moff Crotch” (as Andrew told the embarrassed girl who had to call out score cards at the end, “It’s my last name. Please don’t laugh.”), class was immediately added to the fray.

A. Hamilton and A. Burr. Guess who was the Federalist and who was the assassin?

Those high school kids didn’t know what hit them while the Father of Banking sniped them from his perch across the arena. Other names worth mentioning: you know it’s a group of brothers when you get names like “Tax Collector” and “The Preacher”. The irony? The Preacher officiated the wedding. (Devin, I was tempted to enter “Shepherd Book” as my name.)

At the wedding they had a Point and Shoot camera set up next to the guestbook. A fun addition was props:

My grandma’s cousin’s neighbor’s niece from The Motherland was in attendance:

Lovely crowd reaction

No matter how fancy the place, proper punctuation is prime.


Posted five feet from each other
I don’t know which will hurt The Futile Ohm more, a punctuation error or a lack of uniform typography. And that photo outside of the Women’s Locker Room (not the Locker’s Room)? Imagine what I would have to say to explain why a big, hairy man is taking photos outside of the door. Thankfully I rolled a 20 on my Stealth vs. Non-bathrooms check.

And now the random photo stream:

New category!

I remember clicking and refreshing multiple times to see if different stores had Wii Fit in stock.

This time, my daughter is signed up for preschool.

So you know, registration opens at 10am. Last time the class was full at 10:06am. We are in, thankfully. I can’t imagine if you tried using the touchtone phone option.

“Press 1 for….aaah!! Hurry up! Hurry!!”

5:52am - I’ve actually been here since 5:35am, but it takes that long for our school network to synchronize files. 5:35am - Everything is going according to plan. There was a surprisingly long line outside of my library. I think we may beat in the first hour the 29 that showed up the entire time last time.

Muahaha. Your democracy has been set back five minutes.

And I think this may be the longest article title/URL. Come back for updates throughout the day, much like what I had first envisioned as The Longest Day.

6:08am - Watch as I nitpick Yahoo. “All that’s left is to vote, even for Obama.” That’s an ‘open to interpretation’ way to say it. Is there anyone you’re leaning towards, Yahoo? Hmmm?

6:13am - Uh oh. Make sure you scan that correctly. We don’t want a chad incident.

6:17am - They’ve now overflowed to the tables. No talking during the test!

6:57am - Make a Spot check.
As stealthy as a 6′9″ guy can be… (Although wasn’t there an example in one of the rulebooks for a Wookiee tracking a katarn in the rain? Devin, what’s the DC on that?)
I thought you might enjoy the most recent part of The Ruing:

Wooha!
- Wedge taking out the AT-AT with a tow cable

It should be noted that “Into the Trap” was playing in the Scion as I drove up today. Yes, it’s Return of the Jedi and not Empire Strikes Back, but it’s still an awesome squad theme song.

Brown Squadron, you have been given the go ahead. You are weapons free.

8:38am - Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy.
Actually, just warm.

8:50am - I shall drown my sorrows in RockStar Juiced.

8:52am - J was there at 4:45am at his site. Yeah, contact with the outside world!

8:54am - Review of Juiced: Good for drowning, not necessarily drowning sorrows. I can taste the mango skin. It’s…unnerving.

Not a vanilla mocha.

8:59am - For my wife:

Snaps is the name of the game, the name of the game is snaps.
Can you please
recommend a
*Snap*
physician?

11:15am - Back from voting:

I have my reasons.

12:02pm - Castro praises one of the candidates. Wow. It’s one of those “please don’t help” moments.

1:32pm - Found out from Peter about the Secretary of the Interwebs. (Yeah! Cory Doctorow in a hot air balloon versus Tron Paul!)

3:27pm -

Cooper Black? Times New Roman?

Ouch. I just sprained my sense of design.

3:57pm - There’s a guy here taking a picture of his votes with his cell phone. What a weirdo.

Unless…

Does he have a rival website, also full of Order 66 and El Pollo Loco? I should ask rather than assume.

4:03pm - I got distracted instead by fonts with a live preview.

4:26pm - Why to avoid exit polls and why CNN vowed to not use them after the 2000 election - did they hold to it? Did you know that in France it’s illegal to conduct a poll within 48 hours of an election? It’s also city ordinance for Parisians to have a permit before using a tripod to film. Madness.

4:40pm - Make your own mini Sheriff Megatron. Fun for the whole family at the cost of one sheet of cardstock.

Click on the picture to hugeify it.

5:09pm - I don’t think we should call it just yet.

vs.

I’ve never actually been to Maine, but I could have sworn they had more people than that.

5:41pm - Political Analyst John Elway

5:42pm - Just got called “dude” by one of the workers.

Cringe.

5:44pm - Why is ‘John Elway’ in single quotes? Is it a quote inside the dialogue by Yahoo? Did Tolkien write the Flash dashboard?

5:46pm - Bwaha. Tatyana Ali? Little Ashley Banks?

6:16pm - Considering running on the Monster Raving Loony Party ticket. Do we have a U.S. branch? I guess we do. (Hosted on Tripod. Tres officiale.)

6:30pm - Town Crier just did his “Polls close in 30 minutes” yell.

7:58pm - They have finally packed up. And they still didn’t lean my name. Much shivering, much creeped out. Everyone must leave. Go home.

9:43pm - It’s funny that there’s still ads for McCain/Palin surveys saying “Can they win?” on Yahoo. There’s always the time machine option. I wonder what my grandpa would have thought. Also, I find it dreadfully ironic that the maps aren’t even all colored in yet. (Our state being one of them.) Did all of the hurtful words add up to much? Now to support our new president and be done with political ads for a little bit! Wooha! (Although be prepared for a “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” from time to time.)

I always noticed this up at NAU. The German students had a thing for mocking our presidents with masks. I guess it’s the next generation:

My oldest is a comedian. She kept switching the words around, cracking herself up. Keep in mind that I didn’t read any of it to her:


My youngest has a more “Theatre of the Absurd” sense of humor:

That time when my wife makes a really cool costume for the kids:

and my facial hair is sacrificed to the needs of a junior high project:

Meh. It will return tomorrow.

For all of you politicos: I truly have figured out why politicians do that goofy hand-thumb thing. It helps you to accentuate a point without a condescending finger point or an aggressive fist. I employed it in my speech today.

The fashion show went really well. Three journalists from the outside world attended , as well as a whole bunch of students that had a lot of fun. (Check this weekend’s editions of multiple papers for signs of giant, bearded librarians.)

We raised a lot of money (although not nearing last year’s amount…I think because the teacher wasn’t there to donate to) and I continue my conflicted existence: I think Halloween is one of the dumbest holidays (give me a flipping day off if it’s a holiday) and the fact that I want to be a leader on campus in reaching past ourselves. Mission accomplished. Many teachers also want copies of their intros, just like they asked last year, but I had to admit that some I change on the fly, while I’m emceeing. Like the teachers that dressed as the Spice girls. I had originally written on the index card:

They’ll tell you what they want, what they really, really want
a tasty croissant and a trip to Vermont

I looked down at the card and my brain said, “This is stupid!” Thankfully I was able to gain some guidance from Five Iron Frenzy’s So Far So Bad:

I thought I’d write an epiphany, how something good is changing me, but I guess we dodged some passing fad, it looks like it’s so far, so bad. This song is rad. You could ask your dad. He won’t be mad. This song is stupid.

Love those guys. We of the Flesh Eating Monkeys persuasion opened for them back in ‘97, back when ska walked the land and everyone was rocksteady with each other.

And, by the way, the wizard needs food badly.

Slade - I didn’t know that there was a separate campaign mode for co-op in Resistance 2, complete with class-based interactions that morph the objectives based on your different training. Yeah, Thanksgiving intrigues me. (Which, if you are taking notes, is such a holiday that you get two days off.)

Click here for awesome Resistance 2 videos, Slade.

A lot was riding on this. And it all came down to two toilets.

Starclimber comes out in February of next year. It’s a lot of fun, in a “Canadian Victorian space exploration” sort of thing.

Definitely met expectations, unlike:


Check out the full story on Cake Wrecks, my wife’s and my answer to LOLcats in time-burning.
Updates:

1. Youngest does in fact have croup. A visit to the urgent care late last night resulted in a shot of MGH like her father before her (and nothing like Mohinder). She’s doing better today. Warm showers, cold breathing treatments. Tons of fun.
2. She’s going even crazier on the tottering/standing thing.
3. And I now have digital proof about the cuteness: all me
   

   MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter

4. I had forgotten about Apple’s original logo until I was looking through a company bio book I have on my shelves:
   
   Rockin’ the Apple portable in 1989:
   
   Yeah, I like my Macbook better.
5. The district site is coming along swimmingly. I spent yesterday afternoon staring at CSS pages. Here’s one of the resources that I used. Feel the power of CSS!
6. “Just get me back to 1972. I’ll walk from there.” I love pirates who don’t do anything.

While on Skype with my parents tonight

My oldest daughter drew this for my dot com to share with you all. She’s doing well despite the croup/strep combo.

Scroll until you find your appropriate portion.
The Star Wars Portion
First, every single time I watch A New Hope, I tear up at The Force theme, the song that plays right when Luke screams, “No!” and starts firing randomly after the Kenobi/Vader duel. Every time.

I finished Force Unleashed today. There are some moments with the Apprentice theme that the same feelings occur. It does capture the Star Wars mood. And a battle damaged Vader versus the Apprentice, with Apprentice screaming, “You should have killed me when you had the chance!” as you are locking Wii Remotes quickly and savagely to push Vader back - yeah, fanboy moments galore (ever want to throw a squad of stormtroopers into a test-firing Death Star chamber?). Nice job on fanboy moments, LucasArts…now to make a classic game. We’ll see about replay value. It’s pretty much paced like a movie.

Today was the funeral for an old student from our junior high and on Sunday I have the funeral for my friend Chuck. If you see me in person and wonder if my heart is worn out, it is. Today was a good day for Star Wars. (On that topic - when are we meeting, paper and pencil friends? (Non-gamers have now assumed that I make origami companions.))

The “Happy Tech Could Help” Portion
Hey, the message from Renaissance Bible Church is up. We put it up earlier this week, but I got distracted by a Legend of Zelda theme that burned my brain. Check out their podcast for the message. Some context: the local church body that isn’t connected to Wachovia is connected to Lehman Brothers, so Matthew 6 is kinda gutsy and needed. He’ll mention how a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” mentality is like telling someone to not think of something: they automatically think of that unwanted thing. To demonstrate, he mentions some “meal” involving bacon, syrup, and I’m assuming a defibrillator. For my non-Southern readers, substitute a steak (or, in my case, a toss up between sashimi and a Hot Pocket (although the Pillsbury Toaster Strudels bring back good memories)(Did I mention that I lost 10 pounds unintentionally using Wii Fit?)).

The Baked Goods Portion
Really, you should check out that Toaster Strudel website. Flaky crust Flash player hotspots. Peter laughs then cries.

The Proud Father Portion
My oldest got complimented in pre-school today. The teacher sat my wife down to tell her that my oldest is very artistically advanced. Woo! My daughter also has made up a word. To remember which feet her shoes go on, she calls them a backwards butterfly. Her word for that?

doval (n) - DOH-val a backwards butterfly; usage - “To remember which shoes go on which feet, ask yourself: Does this look like a doval?”

The first time she said it I thought she said dovin basal. (Refer back to The Star Wars Portion.)

The “Okay, So I’m Not Quite So Jaded, Just Cautious” Section
I went back to read my reviews of Obama’s Audacity of Hope (Review 1, 2, and 3) Even then I was jaded about this election, it was just in haiku form.

I remember enjoying the book, for the most part, but finding some key parts that bugged me. Check out the 1, 2, and 3 links for more detail. His peer evaluations for teachers has some flaws and he does clump in National Right to Life with the NRA, which makes me kinda cringe. I do (non-sarcastically) like Obama’s megalomania quote.

Innocent blood and a distaste for extremes: I wish we could take an average of the two parties. My big issue is abortion, plain and simple. It’s like a William Wilberforce abolitionist issue with me. Where were the slaveholder’s rights? Sometimes we have to infringe when it’s life-death issues. This is not a Republican/Democrat thing, because you can bet if Giuliani (or, my goodness, Bob Packwood) was the Republican option, I would not stick with party ties. Being a father of a daughter born a month early and the brother-in-law to a guy born two months early, we must be very cautious as to when we determine a person is a person. Yes, I agree with Obama that we need to increase the Family and Medical Leave Act to help with the financial burden of having a child. (Although I have more than one co-worker who is spending way too much money to adopt a child…there’s a disconnect.) Something that I think is forgotten is that rich women have abortions, too.

Check out my good friend from college (Mike, you’ll want to click) who just got accepted to be an adoptive parent.

I’m also a big proponent of feeding the poor (taking care of widows and orphans and all that). The government and big business do not have a good track record with this, both Democrat and Republican. This is why two of my mentors, Randy Alcorn and Don Miller, are sometimes at odds. (Although now seeing Donald Miller’s “Mentoring For President ‘08″, I dig Don even more.)(To add info that Don Miller doesn’t have is that McCain goes to North Phoenix Baptist. I can’t see into either candidate’s heart, though.)

Check the voting records for Obama and McCain for more details.

Check out Alcorn’s and Miller’s blogs for great insights from great writers.

And continue to be annoyed by Internet rumors that smear and/or relate to how Bill Gates will pay me a million dollars for forwarding that e-mail.

Editor’s note: Can anyone do a word count? I may have rambled more than Slade rambling about Shaq. (Messing with you, fool. CAN YOU DIG IT?!)

You are the reason we are coming home, because frankly we like it here.
It is especially easier to live here now that the ruling Lord of Catan’s citadel crumbled during our third try this trip.

My settlers leave a message in the sand

His leave theirs

If you play against me, know that I play very single-mindedly. This go around it was to build until I hit the wheat port since I was working on a Wheat Empire.

The Strong Arm of the Wheat Empire, the Crimson Pants (Jeremy, there’s that ‘Pants/Star Wars joke’)
I continued to send the thief into the other wheat regions to find Crutchy selling papes and wheat on a corner and to beat him. Mercilessly. “Open the gates a seize my foot on your throat.”

Lots of fun with the cousins:

We took the Charlotte light rail to Imaginon, the combination of a community theater and a library. Since both were struggling, they fed each other and now it’s amazing.

Woo, Mega Libraries! The only downfall? Even though they did have a Smash Bros. tournament going on, they didn’t have Ally Carter for the family to check out. Same with the first couple books of every series (Among the Hidden, Princess Diaries) Still a tres cool library, though.

This last part is for Gavin: Things associated with rails from today