Uh... a Wizard did it.

Enhanced my beard with Magic today and I have unlocked my full beardly potential. At the current growth rate I predict my facial forest will overtake the planet by December 21st 2012. Hopefully in the mean time I can use it to save some lives.

Mixed emotions

Through sheer coincidence, I think, Jeffrey and I both got our hairs cut today. My head, however, was considerably less coiffed by the time I got around to taking today's picture.

On a more serious and somber note, I learned this evening that a friend lost her mother today to cancer. This has to stop. This vile disease must be eradicated before it can claim another victim. Stand against it. Please donate, either here or directly to the anti-cancer charity of your choice.

Holding my breath!

This is my trying-to-push-beard-out-of-skin/slightly-diabolical face combo.

Or it could be a very constipated look, that works too.

I know trying to forcefully push a beard out doesn't work, but wasn't there an old remedy that claimed beardgrow was stimulated by putting mustard on your chin/upper lip?

Seems kinda weird to me, but so do most of those folk remedies.

Ah well, onward with the beard, tomorrow with a less creepy face.

Oh, and as I suspected, the spicy hard candy I made is only gaining in strength. It's almost as if the capsaicin reacts with the sugar, and the more it sits, the hotter it gets. Win-win if you ask me :-)

How do you spell QWERTY?

The thing about being at the bottom is that you've nowhere to go but up. The implication being that one's only option is to rise, which is patently untrue. One could just go nowhere, as I have been demonstrating for some time now. From a certain point of view, I'm the foundation upon which the entire structure is built. If I move now, will the whole thing come tumbling down around my ears? I'm willing to chance it if you are. For the boobs. Always for the boobs.

Wow, I haven't worn this one in quite awhile. It was.... well, I guess it was the last time that I wore it.

I had a thought. Then I realized what a silly thing that was to do so I stopped.

My camera seems to take clearer pictures when I'm listening to podcasts.

I recently purchased a Bluetooth headset, to go along with my switch¹ to an audio player that had Bluetooth capability: My phone.

My phone is also my camera, so I am pictured here using my phone to listen to a podcast and take a photograph. Weird world we live in.

The headset is kinda junky, else I would tell you what it is and give a nice link to find it on Amazon. Instead, I will ask if anybody else uses a Bluetooth headset and ask for recommendations.

1: The switch was forced on my by a dead iPod. I could buy a new iPod, or finally use my phone to its potential. I opted for the latter.

Word Count: 20164, 0 today

Today, my muse came bursting in from the right side of my brain with her arms full of papers and diagrams, looking very excited.

"What have you got for me?" I asked, cracking my knuckles and sitting down to write.

"I've finally cracked it!" she called to me happily, in her haste nearly tripping over a rolled up blueprint that had slipped from her grasp. "The user interface for that MP3 player you wanted to write!"

Sometimes I hate my muse.

"Gimli: It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for dwarf men.

Aragorn: [whispering] It's the beards.

Gimli: And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no dwarf women, and that dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground!

[Eowyn laughs]

Gimli: Which is, of course, ridiculous."

"Gandalf: I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. Go back to the shadow. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun! You shall not pass!"

- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002

As we move further into the second fortnight of HoNoToGroABeMo, one cannot help but notice the radiance pouring forth, ever brighter, from all the jaws involved.

Hotter than 1000 solar filaments.

More brilliant than a chain of coronal mass ejections.

Beyond the radiance of all the supernovae of history.

These mandibles of ours, they sport ever more lush crackling virility hedges... for GLORY... for SCIENCE... for BOOBS.

Y'all had better break out the shades, because it's going to get even brighter before all is said and done.

Descriptor of the day: wind shield, acheived

That's me, podcasting at my best...worst...well, the audience will decide...

So tonight was podcasting night. And it was the first raw, minimal editing, no plan or script episode ever. Joining me was my co-host, Tracy Hurley (who you may recognize from my last post of last year), and her husband, Fred, who posted his HoNoToGroABeMo pic DURING the episode...big cheater. :-P

We also broadcast the episode live and had a lively conversation happening with some awesome people...one of which even swung by here and donated to me as we went along (thanks OnlineDM, currently the leading contender to win in my little contest).

Speaking of that contest, we were also joined by Matt Goetz, professional game designer. And don't forget the contest. If you sponsor me and I get to $250 or more than one lucky sponsor (currently OnlineDM, as the only entrant) will get a custom made monster (probably a group of monsters if Matt is to be believed) just for you. You talk to him, tell him what you want, and he'll design it for you.

If I get to $500, he'll do a whole night's worth of an adventure for your group designed by him.

And regardless of which prize we get to his wife will do some kick butt illustrations for it all.

He's so eager to get into all this he's even talking about doing more prizes. Tonight we discussed maybe offering a dinner with me, my co-host, Matt, and the largest donor at GenCon next year paid for by us. Maybe something more as well...who knows, but you won't win it if you don't enter.

So big prizes for donors big and small. You should totally sponsor my beard!

Now, the Manly Points:

Chris - 70

Beard A Non - 96

Drew - 136

Wesley - 184

Bob - 181

Duane - 120

Brian - 185

Cmaaarr - 188

Fred - 89 (+5 for coming on my podcast tonight)

Me - 110

Jeffrey - 191

Kris - 176

Michael - 41

Pete - 180 (+3 for thinking to do beard 3.0 before I did...good on ya!)

Brian E - 104 (+5 for community bearding...with labels)

A Dam - 144

Jim - 192 (+2 for speaking on the lineage of my favorite game and dressing like a bad larper)

Wannes - 138

Chooch - 168

Jason - 116 (-1 because you're not even trying with your subliminal messages anymore)

Note to self: My evil deed for tomorrow, fire the maid.

Behind me, and the beard, you will see my mountain fortress within the Flatirons of Boulder. I know I called it a lair before but I have upgraded. My beard made a call to Hydra and they hooked me up. The laser is coming together nicely. Now to focus on my launch vehicle.

Using Hermione's wand does not make me less of a man

The beard is coming in so nicely, that I decided to submit my application to the Unseen University. Unfortunately, I seem to have irritated the faculty and so am now forced to fight for my life. Let's hope I can still remember the contents of My First Spell Book, read back when I was a mere tyke.

Yesterday's game, as you may have guessed, was born from the previous three games. Remember the guy who helped revise Chainmail? Well, his name was Gary Gygax. And the friends who took over running the Braunsteins? One of those was Dave Arneson. The origins of the game they created are a little fuzzy (due to how long ago it was, plus some legal action), but the way I understand it is like this:

Dave Arneson took over running Braunstein events from David Wesley around 1970, and one idea that captured him was using a fantasy setting. He borrowed some ideas from a naval warfare game he had designed, and briefly used the Chainmail fantasy rules for combat before coming up with his own. Rather than a town, Arneson started planning out underground areas with monsters and treasure. Arneson also used the Outdoor Survival map and wildlife encounter rules to represent the area outside of the dungeon. It made for a convenient map because it had no distinctive features. Thus was created Blackmoor. While more of a setting than an actual game with strictly codified rules (Arneson was more interested in collaborative storytelling than tying players down), the seeds of a full-scale fantasy RPG were there, including armor class and hit points.

Arneson had met Gygax at GenCon II a year or so before designing Blackmoor, and they had worked together on another naval warfare game that was published by Guidon Games. In 1972, Arneson introduced Gygax to his Blackmoor campaign. Gygax was immediately taken with it and created his own campaign, Greyhawk, based on the basic Blackmoor rules. With their twin campaigns, both men began collaborating on what they called The Fantasy Game. Gygax recognized that in order to publish the game a significant amount of work would be required, and so he started revising and tightening the rules. Unfortunately Guidon Games and Avalon Hill passed on the game, so it became clear it would have to be self-published. Arneson didn't have the money to fund such a thing, but in 1974, Gygax and two other backers created Tactical Studies Rules, and thus Dungeons and Dragons was published.

Hey Jeff Greiner, check THIS beard out!

How YOU doin'?

In preparation for the upcoming holiday season, I spent some time getting the non-beard hairs on my head trimmed up and lookin' purdy. I don't typically like how they style it for when I leave, but I really like how they cut it, so I can't really complain too much. This pic is me, post trimmage.

I'm going to take the night off from DM chatting tonight to give folks a break from the monotony. I will however, take time to thank an anonymous donor I have yet to thank for a $20.00 donation. Many thank yous to you for your generosity and support of boobs everywhere.

$ $ $ $ $ $

My inability to think of anything to write about seems inversely proportional to the the amount of hours I've worked in the preceding days, leading me to believe the old proverb was really on to something. So:

Beard growing. Give money. More tomorrow. Good night.

17 November 2011

It occurs to me that this yearly ritual is not unlike the storied hockey tradition of growing a "playoff beard."

For those who don't know, it is a fairly common practice in the National Hockey League for players to stop shaving once their team begins competing in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They retain their growth until their team is either eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. After originating with the New York Islanders dynasty of the 1980's, the tradition has spread to other sports.

We might not be pro athletes, but we're growing for a great cause, men!

Why the long face?

So today I decided to update my beard growing to version 3.0 and going completely digital. This has definitely done wonders for the sharpness, contrast, and processing power of my beard. Unfortunately, my battery life has never been worse... oh well, can't win them all.

Starting to look respectable.

Yesterday someone told me my beard looked sexy. This was flattering. Unfortunately the someone was a guy... a guy several years older than me and not at all my type, penis notwithstanding. Well, it's nice to be complimented regardless.

Here I am at work, with my co-workers. We are displaying our beards; I have labeled them for easy identification.

I am highly tolerant of the cold. I'm not sure if it's due to my extra girth or the years I spent in Oregon, but I can wear shorts most of the year and don't normally don a jacket until the dead of winter.

Today, I wore a coat - and not just the thatch of man-coat on my chin! The weather has been very indecisive this year. A few days it's like summer, then it snows, then it rains, then it's summer again.

I do prefer the cold, so hopefully this is the turning point and Mother Nature has made up her mind. Though I'll probably be in shorts again this weekend.

Pleasantly buzzed

You know, I was probably going to do some more facts^* or something clever or something. But after volleyball tonight, I haad two Stone IPAs. In hindsight, maybe one was enough? But it was so tasty. So I had two. And now I'm thinking mainly of sleep.

This is actually a hat for wintery weather. It's a good thing that it is wintery so that I can wear it.

That's right winter is my favorite time of year. And one of my other favorite things is BOOBS. So thank you to the mysterious donator(s).

My Brother Kris noted that I wear hats well, so I will wear some.