This picture must suffice for both Saturday and Sunday because it was taken after midnight on Saturday!

Today's lesson: If you send a wizard to set a fire, make sure you tell him to use magic. You may think it an obvious thing, but he may, in fact, try to use non-magical methods as his first line of attack.

Where'd those guys come from?

In four years of doing this, never has the itch been as bad as tonight. It may have been the two showers I took today, or the extreme swings of hot and cold facial exposure. It may just have been a particularly itchy day. I don't know, but it made it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.

The task at hand, today, was killing goblins and hobgoblins. And stealing stuff. 'Cause that's how Audra Broadleaf rolls.

Beardstravaganza!

A long evening of getting my full fledged geek on as a DM for our regular group was had. It appeared a good time was had by all, as nobody was whining when it was 2:30 AM and we were just wrapping up.

At the end of the evening I tried to take this nice picture of myself, but I got photo bombed by a bunch of real "characters." I'll get them back though. If they try to take a picture I'll totally mess it up for them. That'll teach them. That...and I'll kill all their PCs.

I think that the fact that 3.14, backwards, is PIE says something about the Universe. I don't know what, but it does.

4 of us Bearders got together with some non-bearders and played some D&D. Ironically, my character is an uncharacteristically clean-shaven dwarf. His name is Shively Ortis and his nicknames include Shorty, Short Stack, Shavenly, and Spanky.

Afterward, I posed for my picture. Someone may have gotten into the frame but I can't tell.

Word Count: 18050, 0 today.

Totally expected, though it does make me behind again. I worked until 7am, though, then slept from 8 until 3, and then went to D&D. So, there was literally no time to write.

"Catholic girls are scary."

"The last time you saw me I was bald, beard with no mustache, and I had a different nose. So if you don't recognize me, I won't be offended."

- Hudson Hawk, 1991

Tonight we ventured out to the Family Game Store and had a brilliant time there, as always. Among the evening's adventures included a round of Eaten By Zombies, a freshly acquired zombie apocalypse deck building card game. Quickie review: it's good, and things start to get desperate rather quickly, which adds a lovely sense of urgency after the first few turns. One of the "best" aspects of the game's art are several disturbing zombie girls depicted throughout, which got really creepy the more I looked at them. And I couldn't not look. Because they were staring at me from the table. And wouldn't stop. *shudder*

It's clear that while my face mane continues it's slow progression outward, it hasn't yet reached the shotgun-length necessary to defend me against the necrotic cuteness of zombiefied little girls. Please, shower my jaw with cashy money, since if you do, it will save the boobs... and just might prevent the zombie apocalypse!

Descriptor of the day: reasserted pruritis

No vintage game today, still dealing with deer aftermath. Perhaps more tomorrow.

Se on mitä on. It is what it is.

I've found, or rather my physical therapist has concentrated my last session on, muscles in my leg that I had somewhat of an idea were there but didn't know could burn with such vigor after such a short time using.

The itchyness has evolved into a mind distracting did you hear about the storm in Alaska? My sister lives up in Anchorage and she's been out cross country skiing and snow shoeing this past week. They just had a bull moose eating the pumkin off their stoop.

Tonight I am in Charlotte, North Carolina for TuacaCon. It's a virtual convention broadcast on UStream that everybody can tune in to. Videos of my band are playing between author readings and interviews, and I just did a segment pimping HoNoToGroBeardMo and Scott's generous pledge to share revenue with the site.

Party on!

Parental Advisory: Implicit Lyrics

I'm seeing a lot of beard-related quotes this month, so I thought I'd provide one of my own:

"If you don't [CENSORED] my [CENSORED] beard, I'm going to [CENSORED]."

I don't remember who said that; I think it might have been George Carlin.

Ready to go grill our $upper, in the dark. It would be less cold with more beard.

I see I'm moving up in the rankings. Thank you, sponsors!

After talking about my kids, my wife felt left out, so I'll fix that now. Last night, for some reason, we got to talking about The Name Game. She said some names just didn't work, and I said they did. So she started challenging me to sing it with whatever word she could think of. You know, like:

Beard, Beard, bo-beard
Banana-fana fo-feared
Fee-fi-mo-meared
Beard!

This continued until about 1 a.m.

Our favorite was Luxemburg.

I gotta talk to you again, punk, an' I'm gonna be wearin' my angry hat.

After waking up this morning and rubbing my increasingly scraggly chin I considered a trim, dare I say maybe even a shave. However, upon glancing over at my shelf of plush toys I met eyes with this little fellow and fear swept over me. Life has no reset button, and neither do beards. It's go Boobs or go Home. I think my choice is clear.

That there? That's Andy...AWMyhr on Twitter. Check him!

Today I'm at my buddy Andy's place and it's game night. We played Legend of Drizzt the board game, it was decent enough, I think it's my favorite of the Adventure system games from WotC.

Now it's time for Dark Sun and maybe later some Conquest of Nerath. Yes, I'm a D&D/WotC shill...but you should have guessed that looking at my websites: The Tome Show podcast (D&D News, Reviews, and Interviews), Temporary Hit Points (advice for D&D players, no DMs allowed), and D&D&Dads.

Anyway, game on, time to do the Manly Points and get back to killin monsters!

Chris - 60

Beard A Non - 96

Drew - 107

Wesley - 131

Bob - 127 (+1 history)

Duane - 89

Brian - 132

Cmaaarr - 134 (+1 funny)

Fred - 64

Me - 110

Jeffrey - 126 (+1 upside down)

Kris - 114 (+2 for for Kilroy)

Michael - 41

Pete - 112

Brian E - 76

A Dam - 93 (+1 sweatshirt)

Jim - 125 (+5 for Car Man)

Wannes - 96 (+3 cool hat)

Chooch - 116

Jason - 55

There's nothing worse than an aging hipster.

My wife thinks I have gone from hippie thinking to evil thinking while my appearance has gone from preppy to hippie. Today, for the first time, I felt my beard provide extra warmth for my face. I have pleased the beard and it is taking care of me. Must have been that vagrant I killed in Reno just to watch him die. Either that or the exfoliation.

"When choosing between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before." - Mae West

Hey, that's some facial hair, sort of, kinda! Nice! BRING IT!!!

People seem to like the sweatshirt

Thanks to all the veterans and active military personel.

Also thanks to the donators.

A winner is me. 40 laps at Tsukuba, pole to pole. Woot!

93 years ago today, the war to end war had, finally, ended.

Unfortunately the whole "end war" part didn't really pan out, though.

While I often take issue with how our politicians make use of our military forces, I certainly have nothing but respect for those who serve or served with honor and sacrifice.

Thank you.

"It is remarkable that throughout the world the races which are almost completely destitute of a beard dislike hairs on the face and body, and take pains to eradicate them. The Kalmucks are beardless, and they are well known, like the Americans, to pluck out all straggling hairs; and so it is with the Polynesians, some of the Malays, and the Siamese. Mr. Veitch states that the Japanese ladies "all objected to our whiskers, considering them very ugly, and told us to cut them off, and be like Japanese men." The New Zealanders are beardless; they carefully pluck out the hairs on the face, and have a saying that "There is no woman for a hairy man."

- Charles Robert Darwin, from The Descent Of Man, And Selection In Relation To Sex, 1871

With all due respect to the New Zealanders of Darwin's time, I must note that hairy men do associate with women... especially when said hair is grown from the mandible on behalf of boobs. Additionally, Siamese cats are far more hairy than their human counterparts, and so can only add to the cause.

As such, I have united these additive forces today, for WIN; by the hair of my CHINNY CHIN CHIN.

Descriptor of the day: shortbeard assertion

11/11/11, the day that's one better than everybody else's days.

My thoughts, or at least the camera taking a picture of me having the thoughts, are (is?) fuzzy.

Maybe it's all the words I wrote.

Word Count: 18050, 2464 today.

W00T! Back on track and going strong again. If you're ever in doubt on if you're going to make your word count, I have one suggestion: Zombie space pirates.

Elementary my dear Watson!

A gentleman's beard. All I'm lacking now is a monocle and a stylish walking cane. Preferably one of those with a sword hidden inside.

Can you imagine how cool that would be?

Oh, and a long black cloak. That's part of the deal as well I guess. Then again, to truly pull off the image, I guess I should go for just sideburns or muttonchops.

And I'm not even sure I can pull that off. Has anyone any experience with those? I'm just curious to see if it would work.

Ah well, food for thought, and maybe a good idea for a next beardy adventure. Onward we go!

Thank you, Car Man!

Tonight my wife Mur hit a deer with her car. As you can see, she is fine. The car and the deer are not. It's not often that I get to play the role of hero, but bravely did Car Man set out on his quest to pick her up and drive her home.

The game for Day Ten, as I mentioned, could be any number of games, but the one I was thinking of was Arkham Horror. Arkham Horror itself is based on another vintage game, the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu, designed by Sandy Peterson and published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1981. Call of Cthulhu's most notable feature is that many, if not all, of the player characters in a role-playing session will end up either killed in horrible ways, or driven insane. No going "unconscious" in this game. But I digress.

Arkham Horror was originally designed by Richard Launius and presented to Chaosium as Call of Cthulhu: The Board Game. The 1987 version was much simpler than the one we see today, with fixed stats on the characters (other than Sanity and Strength, now Stamina), a simpler board, and a more direct path to closing gates. Kevin Wilson of Fantasy Flight Games did a top-to-bottom revision of the game and it was re-released in 2005. In typical Fantasy Flight style, countless expansions followed.

As someone who has played the 2005 Arkham Horror a fair amount and quite frankly has tired of its drawn-out play and complex set-up, the relative simplicity of the 1987 version sounds rather attractive. I really must try it some time.