How do you make a shirt out of this again?

So after Mur hit the deer, I thought it would be best if I started looking into armor technology. Plate mail being a bit on the pricey side, maybe another kind of mail would work. Then again, given the amount of chain I have, it'd be more suitable for a miniature car.

There were some obscure clues to yesterday's game in the text. The Isle of Apples is Avalon. And a mountain, not a Hill. And of course, the Outdoors. The game itself is Outdoor Survival, published in 1972 by Avalon Hill. As you might expect, it's a game about surviving in the wilderness, from finding food and water, fighting off animals, and dealing exposure and disease. Not having played it myself, I can't really comment on the quality of the game, but it's not rated very well on Board Game Geek. That said, according to the Avalon Hill company history it sold quite well, particularly at National Parks.

So why mention it? Well, it happens to be tied to a far more famous and well-respected game. As does today's game.

My beard demanded this homebrew tonight. We must feed the beard. It is called Rassilon's Emphatic Spittle, and it is so bitter that it needed to be timelocked lest the powerful hops release the Timelords.

14 November 2011

We're halfway through the month. Still less than halfway to our fundraising goal.

What're you standing around for? Don't you like boobs? DONATE! If you don't like my luxurious whiskers, you're bound to love those of at least one of my bearded brothers.

P.S. - Happy Frakkin' Birthday to our brother-in-beards, WannesV!

Not really getting much fuller, is it?

Once more I've stayed up far too late playing Uncharted 3. I've re-started the campaign mode to beat the game on 'Crushing' difficulty and to pick up a variety of achievement trophies that I missed on the first play though. I'm also hunting for the remaining 20 or so 'treasures' that I failed to find the first time, although according to the menu I seem to have missed several of them again on the second play also, so I'll likely be doing some chapters again to give more scrutiny. Strategy guides are for pussies.

As for the beard, I've started putting conditioner in it, which has helped with the itching a bit. I'm still looking forward to getting rid of this thing though.

Mr. Potatohead's power level is over nine-thousaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!

I've decided to go a more "Abstract" route today with my photo. I'm hoping to expand into the artsy demographic and this seemed less painful than Cubism. I'll see you all at the art museum!

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. ~Carl Sagan

Tube is a totally mechanical device, inside a tube is just some metal plate arrangements, the effective operation area is much much larger than a semiconductor (typically 100,000 - 1,000,000 times larger). When music signal pass through a very small area, it will implies certain squeeze feeling to the signal itself and it is very noticeable by our ear, so when a signal just pass through a circuit compose of transistors, you will immediate sense the compressed , flattened and hardened feeling from the music. Most of the cases, the more the transistors in the circuit, the lesser the easiness , and more flatness and hardness to the music. On the other hands, if your music need hardness and brightness, such as hard rock and dance music, transistor definite have their advantages of tigher and punchier bass. So if you want something bridge the full music spectrum, then hybrid is one of the very good solution. - Space-Tech Hi-End Audio Website

Purists of sound often rely on vacuum tube amplifiers for the reasons listed above, among others. The tube I hold in my hand is an RCA Electron Tube circa 1947. The beard is telling me that I am not yet evil enough so I am hoping it will cleanly amplify my evil.

Do all of my shirts sit lopsided on me?

Well, whatever was going on yesterday seems to have been pretty well confined to yesterday. Today was entirely bearable on the itch front, although my wife described the beard this morning as "prickly".

I find myself tonight with a lack of inspiration. No words will come forth to entertain or inspire, regardless of how hard I try to coax them. So I will simply bid you good evening and thanks for now, and try to do better anon.

Flossing also helps the gums, if you do it right.

Strong teeth will last a lifetime. Strong, manly teeth like those of a beard grower will last at least twice that.

Word Count: 18050, 0 today.

You may be noticing a trend. That trend may be my not writing. No worries, I'll be picking it back up tomorrow.

I hope.

Recovering from TuacaCon today.. slow moving.. watched Suckerpunch for the first time.. Overall a good day. Sad that we have to return home tomorrow.

"Dr. Beardface! Let's see if he wants to play 'macaroni'!"

- J.D. to Elliot, Scrubs, "My Turf War" (season 6 episode 18)

Today is a momentous day in the annals of Cmar household food supplies.

Over ten years ago, Laura and I moved to Columbia, MD, from Greenbelt, MD, and Cincinnati, OH, respectively. This was to initiate cohabitation after being married for a year and a half but living apart as NASA contracting and medical schooling demanded. As one might expect, there was a great amount of consolidation of personal belongings, including everything from books to clothing to kitchen supplies. Living the bachelor lifestyle in med school meant that my contribution to the latter was various supplies of easy to prepare bulk food items of the type that someone consistently up at strange times while running on little sleep would have about:

• food-service sized jars of peanut butter

• monstrous cans of instant soup mix

• lots, and I mean lots, of cereal

• a case of boxes of macaroni and cheese

After settling in to our new home, the peanut butter and cereal were vanquished in short order. The soup mix was devoured less quickly, saved for cold, winter days, but it too disappeared after a few months. But the macaroni... those damn, numerous boxes of macaroni... were banished to the dark recesses of the pantry. Slowly, over time, we ate a box here, or made a bowl there, but I was always suspicious that against my better knowledge of reality, some dry noodley procreation was taking place on the pasta shelf that was keeping the macaroni box supply up.

Until tonight.

There was one box left. I stared it down. It gave me a tired, dusty gaze in return. Then, without mercy, I boiled it, sauced it, and Laura and I feasted.

Take that, Ohio macaroni! You thought you'd make it well into the next decade, but NO! You have been defeated. So, THERE.

Take note, breast cancer, because you're next. This beard continues to grow, and it is for boobs. You, too, will fall.

Descriptor of the day: lengthening below

That's funny, I don't recall adding a rose colored filter to my camera, which by the way, does not have the ability to add lens filters.

Since the hour was late last night, and I really had a great time playing D&D again, and we seem to have some Gamers here, I figured to touch on the subject again in some detail. Today I will discuss some of the nuiances of the role of the DM, which I enjoy playing. Now here's the thing..since it's not the ONLY thing I enjoy about D&D, I also play as a PC in a group containing almost my entire group from the campaign I run. We alternate months. I highly recommend this plan. It gives me time to plan out the next adventure with some good detail and thought put into it, without missing the enjoyment of the game. The other DM gets the same benefit, so it make everybody happy.

The planning for everything vs letting the situation be organic as a DM: First of all, you CAN't plan for everything, and forcing your party to do things your way when they really don't want to can lower the enjoyment and role-playing within the group. But then again, if you don't know what the heck they're doing how can you advance your well thought out plot? Well, that's the line you have to carefully walk. I try to mix in a bit of "Here's the obvious next step for you" with the "okay you know you want to accomplish "X" but there's a near unlimited number of ways to do so in your current position." The obvious stuff is for the plot advancement, but the ambiguous stuff is the main enjoyment of the the game: The journey.

To illustrate: If your group knows that Hitler is in your world and they know that have a chance to stop world war II during the course of the evening's events you have done your part to advance the plot to the point where the player's get what they need to do. How they choose to do it and watching them develop the ideas as a group is half the fun of being the DM. Now that comes at the price of some decent prep work to set the stage for the environment, Which, perhaps I'll discuss in another post. But if you've done your job well enough, you will enjoy the PC's playing as much as they do Why? Because they are forced to either think things through as a group, or suffer the consequences of an overzealous ally, or end up blowing the whole thing and actually making WWII worse, and if you're like me, you just can't wait to see how they manage to pull it off...or not.

Why, hello there.

I did many things today. One of which I did twice, first thing this am, and then again in the evening.

I had firemens training this afternoon(which I had totally forgotten about until my pa reminded me) and we did tanker and pumper continued learning.

I feel that I need to expunge some useless information in my head to make some room for the more useful stuff that I feel I should be able to more readily be able to remember.

I thought of getting a picture of the firemens doings today. But that was after the fact when I was pulling into the yard. So here's a pic w/an authentic Australian hat and a similarily authentic Caribbean shirt.

This is actually scarier than her Halloween costume: She's wearing eye shadow.

First off, many thanks to those donated to me in the past day. A little financial encouragement goes a long long way towards keeping the beard growth full, and the vintage games coming. I'll try to get a day in with two games at some point, just to make up for yesterday.

The fall leaves are just at about an end here, so we decided have some adventures outside. Unfortunately, the sun was setting, so we didn't get to climb Occoneechee Mountain (more like a hill, really) so we went to the lake at Umstead State Park instead. No Isle of Apples there, though.

Day Eleven's game is another multiple choice one, with the Champions RPG being one possibility, or maybe Superworld, but I was thinking of the original superhero game: Villains and Vigilantes, designed by Jeff Dee and Jack Herman and published in 1979 by Fantasy Games Unlimited. FGU was a significant force in the role-playing games industry in the early 1980s, with a large catalog of games. There was Bunnies and Burrows (think Watership Down), Chivalry and Sorcery (I think you know what this was responding to), Bushido! (feudal Japan) and Space Opera (obvious).

FGU eventually ran into hard times and was declared defunct by New York State in 1991. Dee and Herman decided to try to revive Villains and Vigilantes and are publishing it and its sequel Living Legends at Monkey House Games. In 2010, they were involved in a trademark dispute with FGU's founder, Scott Bizar -- I'm not sure if it was resolved or not.

Villains and Vigilantes had an interesting wrinkle in that you were encouraged to treat your life as the secret identity of your hero. Also, while you could advance in levels, your powers didn't really change, so Car Man will remain Car Man forever.

$ick...

My head is sooo heavy, but not from my beard. I'm all stuffy, and dizzy, and head coldy. But I'm still here posting, because as horrible as I feel, this isn't about me, or my beard, it's about raising money for breast cancer research. Maybe some additional sponsorship will make me feel better. Let's try it, ok?

I had a few hours to myself to do whatever I wanted to do today, so I went to bed. I'd like to go back soon. Maybe now.

Red face, Sweaty Beard

Huh, so that's how I look after jogging 3 miles, eh? It was a nice day for a run though, not too warm or sunny, a little breeze.

Ah well, time to take a shower now.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, the end.

I've had some manner of sinus and/or throat malady since late September. There was a brief respite after an initial round of antibiotics early in October, and a second round in late October got rid of something that may or may not have been strep (or, more likely, bronchitis) but left a low-grade crud that continues to linger. I'm told this is largely due to having a five-year-old boy bringing home all sorts of fun and exciting new germs from kindergarten on a daily basis.

Anyway, if I look excited to be here, that's why.

I'm more than happy to test the curative properties of beard donations. Right now I have a strong feeling I'm in the control group.

I hate the control group.

See, I'm not zany ALL the time!

Today was the day to get a little bit fancy and visit the only Alma Mater for my sister's choir concert. It was really quite nice. No hilarious backstory for today, just happy bro/sis photos.

He's so happy to be here!

Today is a day of doing the things that make one a real man...fathering. My youngest is either asleep or screaming lately. This makes for some real productive time-usage. But if anything deserves some beard sponsorship it should be that.

Anyway, I'm off to try and accomplish something while the wife has opted to gamble by taking the young one to get groceries with her. Not a choice I'd have made, but hey, it will give me a chance to do something useful (to someone, anyway, I don't know who exactly.

Well, that's what I have for you today...oh, and I opted to start reading Y: The Last Man, it's a quick read (which also means expensive) but quite good. What happens when every man on the planet dies simultaneously? Well, the government ends up being run by democrats and the republican's wives try to take seats in congress by threat of violence to make things a bit more "balanced". Also, many women will engage in self-mutilation in order to accomplish...convincing everyone they don't need men, not that it's relevant since so far as anyone knows they're all dead.

It's quite a poignant story about the genders and what happens when they don't exist in balance. Especially given the theme of manliness around here.

Speaking of which, the Manly Points...

Wesley - 143 (+2 for making it D&D)

Bob - 138 (+1 for group bearding)

Duane - 89

Brian - 144 (+3 for LOVEMUFFIN, -1 for the Leprechaun-ing)

Cmaaarr - 145 (+1 for sharing my game night)

Fred - 64

Me - 110

Jeffrey - 138 (+2 because Wesley seems to be licking in his ear)

Kris - 124

Michael - 41

Pete - 122

Brian E - 89 (+1 for space opera goodness)

A Dam - 103

Jim - 135

Wannes - 96

Chooch - 126

Jason - 66 (+1 for grilling)

Wi not trei a holiday in Sweden this yer?

As you can see by the city scape behind me, I have traversed the world and gone to Stockholm, Sweden. I am here for a meeting of the League Of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United For Frightening Investment in Naughtiness, or LOVEMUFFIN. My evil beard has granted me access to their nefarious ranks. No really, I am in Sweden. That is not just a picture at Ikea.

My wife has noticed that the beard is developing a red tinge. I will be the biggest, baddest, leprechaun since the movie Leprechaun.

OK, so I have two things to talk about in this post.

First off, I'm going to be running a game of Bulldogs! (which I co-wrote) at my FLGS. For those not in the know, Bulldogs! is a space opera RPG with a pulpy/humorous feel, sometimes referred to as "Han Solo, the RPG". If that sounds awesome to you, than you'd probably like it. Also, psychotic teddy bears with giant chainswords are playable. Just saying. Bulldogs! uses FATE (which also powers such illustrious titles as Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files RPG), so if you like FATE, that's another reason to check it out.

Second, I've been playing a hell of a lot of Skyrim this weekend. Again, for those not in the know, Skyrim is the fifth Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda Softworks; it's a huge, sprawling, open-world fantasy RPG with a decidedly Scandinavian feel. Now, when I say "open world", don't imagine something like GTA or Assassin's Creed; those, by comparison, are pretty limited. In Skyrim (as in just about all Bethesda games), you can go anywhere and do anything pretty much from the outset. There are storylines to follow, but you're entirely free to ignore them for as long as you want to. Unlike a lot of open-world games, the main storyline of an Elder Scrolls game makes up maybe--maybe--5% of the content in the game. Think about that for a second. That's how much other stuff there is to do, without even touching the main storyline. That's how much freedom you have in this game. Also, to give you an idea of the amount of content in these games, the last Elder Scrolls game (Oblivion) had me playing for 120 hours before I finally got around to finishing the main quest, and I'd estimate that I saw maybe--maybe--60%-70% of the content in that game. They're huge, that's all I'm saying.

Anyway, beards.