Tag Archives: Personal Blather

I’m lurking about in Minnesota for the rest of the week. No great reason, apart from the webcast of the Transplant games. I’m part of the crew that takes all the photos and stories from the small army of photographers and writers and gets them chopped, channeled and formatted for the web. First night was the quick briefing and dinner for the webcasters at a place called “Sophia.” Replace the initial ‘S’ with a treble clef and you’ve got their logo. The menu we had at the hotel advertised things like “Goat Cheese Pizza” and such, but alas, it was an old menu and pizza was no longer available…

Tired of those anti-theft devices that run down your car’s batteries while making loud howling sounds? Try this new system! When the car thief tries to open the car door, the wasp stings him on the hand and he runs around making howling sounds, leaving your battery untouched!

Our cats have been exhibiting strange behavior.

No, really! More than usual!

Every so often, the cats will go absolutely nuts and practically attack my Wife’s shoes. After Art Fair on Friday, I came up with a theory as to why: Next to the driveway are some very fragrant mint-like plants, which are growing so wildly that they overflow onto the pavement. When my Wife gets out of the car, she sometimes steps on the plants, picking up the scent on her shoes. To test the theory, she went out and deliberately stomped on some of the plants, then came back in and left her shoes as bait for the cats while she camped on the futon with the camera.

Here’s the result:

Click on the image for a movie.

Raarghhh! Me Orc of Weldart tribe! Make by Bill Secunda, great metalsmith of Pennsylvania.

Me name Francis.

Francis take you tour of Ann Arbor Art Fair!

But first eat! Traditional Orcish Art Fair meal. Honey Glazed Lorq!

PhotoMatt say this just very bad font choice, but all know that Orc come running for great taste of Honey Glazed Lorq!

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Ok, so one of the folks in the office made the old “EverQuest = EverCrack” joke, talking about how addictive online games are. Well, that may be, but it beats the current popular activity torn from today’s headlines: “Meat hook dangling craze mystifies police.”

Now I know there are parents who don’t want their kids playing computer games all summer, but given this as an alternative? I’d bet they’d open their wallets in a heartbeat for a decent PC, Lost Dungeons of Norrath, and a subscription. It certainly seems like a healthier pastime than hanging around on the beach all day.

Ah, the eternal fun and games of the Secy of State’s office… I headed over there this afternoon to do the yearly Ritual of Plate Renewal. And yes, I know about renewing by mail or via the web – I needed to be there in person for a new drivers license anyway, so I figured I’d take care of the plate at the same time.

Anyway, it seems that they’re having a system-wide computer glitch that had slowed everything to a crawl. At 3:30 I was the 120th person in line, and by 4:15 they’d taken care of less than 50 of the people in front of me.
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Back from Alaska for less than a week, and I’m sick with a heck of a cold. I’m never fun to be around when I’m ill, and right now I’m producing mucus in industrial quantity. It’s like I’m a Kappa, carrying around an over-full bowl on my head and it pours out whenever I move too fast or look up or down. And since I can’t tilt my head without leaking, it’s sort of put the kibosh on the plans I had to spend the end of the vacation doing yardwork or finishing up some house projects.