A towel. Indeed, a towel.

I have no idea or excuse. The vote was 93 to 7. Sadly both my Senators voted for.

One of my goals over the last several months has been to be more vocal with my elected representatives. OWS, PIPA, SOPA, and the Defense Act (with it's awful, awful detainment clause) have been on my list and I have pounded my representatives with questions and pleas to do the right thing. For the most part I have received patronizing responses. But I will acknowledge that I have received at least one response that said they were doing everything in their power to stop these horrible pieces of legislation. 188 out of 200 Senators passed the defense act. 188 out of 200 Senators see no problem with indefinite detainment because "it is only meant to be used against members of Al Quaeda". Yeah, so call me a member, assume I'm a terrorist, lock me up essentially forever. {middle finger} Responses to PIPA and SOPA have been drooling with purchased rhetoric about how they are necessary for protecting businesses. Let's ignore the fact that most of the things that are pirated are inherently messed up. For example, The Matrix DVD. It's my favorite example. There is a great comic out there showing all the crap one must, and I do mean must, go through on the DVD just to watch a movie you purchased. But pirate it, and you can just watch the movie. The Terminator 2 Blue-ray is very similar. I timed it to 7 minutes from the moment the disc actually load until I am actually watching the movie. Businesses don't want to reform and be useful or competitive, they want to be lazy, complacent, and pay off the government to protect their laziness. {my other middle finger} Responses to OWS were so ridiculous, I should have posted them. They may as well have said "we don't care, it doesn't affect our daily business of screwing the country". {I'm out of middle fingers... dammit!} But I won't stop writing them. Perhaps if they are told enough times that something is categorically wrong they'll actually consider that to be a possibility rather than the buzzing of a gnat who elected their sorry butt into office. At least I know who I'm voting against come the next election. Sad to say that, but there are people I definitely cannot vote for now.

I'm'a jus go over here and gibber in the corner. Nicely written. I'm quite glad I'm reading this during the daytime. I liked the touch of the nightlight with the pony. It actually gave me a bit of a flashback to senses from childhood. Remember that feel and smell of plastic from the '70s? It flooded my brain when I read that.

As I said to her: "This was my bedtime story. Great way to end the day. Awesome." I went to sleep with a smile of amusement on my face. I think the way she defended herself was priceless. Jose should be ashamed of himself ... and drummed out of the business to another more suited to his unique talents.

You could also apply a can of spray paint and rename the Monday panel: "Dr. Parrish - Condescending To Converse With Plebs". Then shake their hand, with a glove on yours, and tell them you are "insurance"*. But, seriously, it can be a springboard for forcing in "... and here are the many cool things I've done since then (for you people apparently living under rocks)." * Twelve Monkeys reference...

{Mr. Burns} Ehhhxcellent {/Mr. Burns}

I appreciate your perseverance. I've particularly enjoyed your entries on the writing process. Of course, I can't help but like the gaming and beer ones too. Perhaps evidence that stubborn dulling of spears with one's own body pays off somehow. WFTW!

On getting sick: I hear ya. After several years of work-from-home I started working in an office building and was sick for months with a series of colds. My defense now is liberal application of hand sanitizer (the kind with shea-beads to prevent the drying effect), Golden Seal / Echinacea, and Zinc. Doesn't -always- work, but it made a difference! On dice: Tell us a dice story! What dice are in your travel bag? Are they your original set or an accumulation? All dice have stories. (Or am I asking for something you've already written?) Have Dice Will Travel! <<< Now there's a show slogan just asking for Geek-makeover (geekover?).

Four Asterisk. That was one of my favorite digs. And I notice your post has 4 asterisks...

I enjoyed the entire episode. I thought Parrish's appearance was a good mix into the story with the right amount of tension. I did notice the "wait, the world's going to end?" moment where he got serious, not competitive. Unless I'm mistaken, I also noticed a hint of respect for Fargo after Fargo stated he would go down with GD if that's how it had to be. A good hate/respect relationship is one of the better formulas for enemies IMO. And, +1 for your "***" footnote.

*wince* Yeaaaah... Other way around, kiddo. The footage of the cartoon rocked. I loved that cartoon.

This image illustrates some of my experience. I -despise- lengthy garbage before a legally purchased copy of a movie. The pirated version, oh, actually freaking plays! http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/why-people-pirate-movies-steps-to-watching-video.jpg I don't need to see warnings in two languages. I don't need to be told Interpol will waterboard me. I don't really care if the movie is in THX {twitch} WHEN I ALREADY OWN IT! I think I figured that part out when I was shopping for it (as if there's a choice between a THX version and a DTS version?). Anyway... yeah. The legal version of things needs to figure out how to be as friendly, easy, simple, obvious, and otherwise usable as the pirated version.

Naw. He'll invent a day-of-month die that changes the number of sides based on the value rolled on the month die (clearly, a 1d12).

This is extremely cool. Eureka is one of my favorite shows. I look forward to the episode!

CAR WARS! Rock. On. FWIW, there is already competition for the iPad: http://www.wepad.mobi/en. I believe it will run on the Android OS, or a modified version of it.

+ 100 XP for using 2.0.1 - 10 XP on principle of using 2.0 instead of 2.0.0 I second (third? fourth?) the cheers for an East Coast w00tstock!

I think at best I can call myself an Aspiring Amateur Writer... I'll be happy to become an amateur and then I can work on being better than that. That being said, I find that I am having to learn how to think differently about where I go, what I do, what I watch other people do, and so on, so I can then write about characters as if they were truly different people and not just a projection of another facet of me. Similarly, I need to learn how to view the same thing through different people's eyes so I can write believable characters. I'm not there yet, but I can see the usefulness in writing in being able to look at the world around me in many different ways.

The other night I had a moment where I realized I was writing complete garbage -- and I kept writing. I stopped at one point trying to figure out if it was worth writing if I felt so strongly that it was junk. But the thoughts were spilling out. They would either be a place to start, or something to mark as a path to avoid. It was something. It isn't pretty when that happens, but it can be part of the process -- just like staring at that wall. I keep being reminded that "there is nothing new under the sun" (which really irritates me when I'm in a mood to try and be unique), but the encouragement I try to take from that is that we need the outside inputs in order to get our own thoughts going. Watching a person walk their dog in the park could jar a random thought that ultimately leads to a writing binge at 2am. So I think the dry spells means we haven't found the necessary inputs to get our brains going again.

I just remembered this web comic. Don't know if you've seen it before. I always get a laugh at times when their humor is more true than funny. http://www.weregeek.com/

"THEY BELONG IN A MUSEUM" -- and there was no retort about how they called the DOG "Indiana"? I am in my mid-30s and have been trying to recapture the games I would run in my teens and early 20s. It just isn't the same. Perhaps we don't give into the free imagination that Madeleine L'Engle claims that children have and we unravel it as we learn too much. Or it could be as mundane of a reason as I don't have the hours-upon-end that I did after school (or in Study Halls) to invest in dreaming up new and creative ways to turn my PCs into pâté.