Another question

"Was your head with you all day today?"
[Bill Cosby]

I'm sitting here in the Operations Center (which someone had dubbed "the octagon" but that sounds silly to me) listening to half of a conversation Zach is having with a customer. I wanted to ask him but that might be considered rude.

Last weekend I finally saw Sling Blade. What an odd film. But a very good one. I kept seeing quotes from it on Wil Wheaton's blog and so I put it on my Netflix list. Do anyone else think it might be indicative of something that Billy Bob Thorton played a (creepy) crazy man so convincingly? You reckon? Ah-hm.

I finally broke down and bought (again) Neverwinter Nights Diamond Pack for the second time. I ordered the first one online but when it got here the CD keys were missing. So I had to send it back to get replaced. Not wanting to wait for it to get there I went to Best Buy to see if they had it. Nope. Then Circuit City. Nope. Then EB Games. Yup, and I had them open the box and make sure the CD keys were there.

So I get home and start installing it and get everything going and even download the three new premium modules I bought two weeks ago. Then, not wanting to start over at first level I started poking around my hard drive looking for saved games or characters. I find a folder called "old-stuff" and lo and behold it's got my installed copy of NwN. Including the file where the CD keys were listed. So I didn't need any of that. D'oh. Now I have (or will when I get the bad copy replaced) three sets of CD keys. D'oh!

I watched one of the new shows on Sci-Fi on Tuesday, Eureka. It looks like it's gonna be pretty good. The only downside was that during the two hour premier it seemed like they played twice the normal number of commercials. One more stick in the pile to convince me to dump Mediacom and get satellite, a DVR and some other broadband connection. If the price would come down just a bit to make it more of an economic advantage then I could overcome the inertia I often have for these kinds of things.

America, I have just one question for you

What is YOUR MALFUNCTION ?

First, if you don't pay attention to what's going on around you, how do you not get run over by a bus (a self correcting problem really)? Or as Chandler asked Joey all those years ago

How do you not fall down more?

And, if you ask a question of me, I think it's implicit in the asking itself, that you would like to have an answer to YOUR FREAKING QUESTION that you're interested in the answer, that it's something you desire to know. If only because it's required for your job and it will enable us, your customer, to get the fsck out of your face so you can go back to goofing off.

There. Well, it doesn't seem to be nearly as satisfying as I thought (or perhaps hoped) it was going to be. And I suspect that even if America gave me an answer it wouldn't be satisfying. Ah well.

Our seven day test of Dungeons & Dragons Online is over. Marlin and Yvonne decided they couldn't afford to play WoW anymore and they left. One of the option she and I discussed was playing Neverwinter Nights. I finished the first game two or three times and bought the two expansions. I played the first all the way through one and a half times but never quite finished the second. Now they have three professionally produced downloadable modules and I bought all three (they were only about $8 each). However in order to get them downloaded you have to provide their site with your CD keys for all three games. Upon investigation I discovered that I had registered the main game and the first expansion. I even found the CD key for the later. It showed up on my account on Bioware's site even. However I apparently registered the game on their site before they had the display option for the CD keys.

Rather than try to tear the house apart looking for my manuals for those games, I decided, since the "diamond edition" was only $20, to buy them all again. After all I really liked them and I try to support game designers whose games I enjoy. So I found it online and ordered it from J&R Music and Computer (jr.com). It got here today (about three days not counting the weekend). So I tried to install it on the laptop and it got to the point where it asked for the CD keys and I looked where that screen said they should be, on the inside cover of the manual. It was blank. I looked at the DVD to see if there was a file there, poked around in everything there, I went to Bioware's site and searched their forums, I went to Atari's site (the publisher) and looked there. Nada. The only thing I could find was something saying I should return it to the place I got it from if parts were missing. So I called J&R and got a return authorization.

But none of this gets me any closer to playing the freaking game. I haven't even been able to download the modules I bought last week. ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

And I need to finish writing the adventure for my setting for the retreat.

My leg doesn't hurt since I've been in physical therapy but this morning my knee felt like I was twisting it sideways every time I stood up. Maybe I should just go back to bed for awhile ...

Lethargy Incorporated

Well it's hot out there. And true to Missouri form, while it's not hot in terms of how hot it gets in some other places, the humidity nearly matches the temperature. A really annoying tendency, if you ask me.

I saw the doctor about my leg a week ago Wednesday. He recommended physical therapy and last Monday was my first appointment. I'm going every Monday and Thursday mornings at 08 for three or four weeks. I see him again this Friday to see how it is. So far the tingly feelings are getting less fequent and it doesn't hurt as much. It hasn't kept me awake at night for a bit now. I have exercises to do every morning and evening and I've been trying my best to do them.

Saturday the car mysteriously died when I tried to go to karate. I put it on the battery charger (it made that whirring sort of clicking it does when the battery is dead) all night but that didn't help. When it came time to drop the Boy off for his friend's birthday party Sunday we managed to push start it and then I drove it around town for awhile. That seems to have charged up the battery enough that I haven't had any more starting problems. But perhaps it's time to get a new battery.

Marlin and Yvonne have had to quit WoW so I don't know who I'll run around in there with now. I'll probably just log in to check on auctions and make stuff to sell, and then move on to another game. I reordered Neverwinter Nights after I had bought three new modules (about $8 each) and they needed the CD key to activate (or even download). But it was only $20 for the game and both expansions. NwN 2 is scheduled to be released some time this year, I may have to get that. Plus I never finished Half Life 2 so there's that and a bunch of demos.

I got a new widget for the stand mixer, an ice cream maker. So not only did I make rye bread Saturday, but I made vanilla ice cream Saturday and chocolate Sunday. All three things turned out pretty well but we don't have the Wednesday game this week so I can't show it off to the gang. Ah well.

An lastly, this is apparently what my name's letters mean.

J	Judicial
I	Intense
M	Mysterious

or

J	Jealous
A	Appreciative
M	Misunderstood
E	Easy
S	Skillful

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com

Post your favorite quotes

I found one today in the comments on Wil Wheaton's blog.

"Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely."

So here are a few of my other favorite ones.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
George S. Patton (1885 - 1945)

Okay I had one more but I can't find it. Ah well. Add yours and we'll have a party.

They're not all ...

Good Ole Boys.

Tom danced over the line

My favorite line ...

"Sparks relies on the Constitution. DeLay and Benkiser (his lawyer) lean on clever lawyers.

Voters who feel victimized have that crew to blame, not the judge.

DeLay has for years danced at the edge of the law – whether taking trips from lobbyists, pushing bills for contributors or raising corporate money to influence local races.

This time his lawyers failed him."

Hehe

Usual Business?

Or perhaps it sounds better as "Business as usual".

Judge Rules DeLay Stays on Ballot

When I first read the headline I thought it was stupid on the part of the judge. However now it seems to make much more sense. DeLay ran in the primary, handily beating his rivals, likely on the strength of his name alone ("plus favors done and bribes paid" the cynical part of me says) since he was under indictment at the time. Then he decides "Naw, I was just joshin' with y'all" and resigns from Congress. Then he "moves out of state" (despite still owning a house in Texas) and the GOP tries to put another Republican name onto the ballot instead of DeLay.

What state is he moving to and how long before he enters politics there?
Why don't the people of that district get to vote on the Republican they want on the ballot?
How long before all these shady deals and back-room politics get exposed to the Light of Day?
Will Texas remain a bastion of "Good Ole Boys" forever?

So I'm NOT going to die?

I saw the doctor today (and I really like Doctor Kinderknect). My blood pressure was a bit high so I'm having some blood taken tomorrow after I drop the Boy off at his appointment. Then we'll see what my blood pressure is and my cholesterol. I might have to start taking the Lipitor again.

But he seemed to think the pain in my left leg is a pinched nerve in my back. So he gave me some Prednisone for the inflammation and I start some physical therapy on Monday. He'll see me again in just over two weeks (the Friday before the Retreat) to see how things are going.

On the plus side he didn't tell me to give up karate altogether but I will have to tone things down until after we get this fixed. I can still work out but much beyond that is iffy I think.

When they weighed me I was only at 265 and I was expecting around 290 or so. So that's a plus (not that I don't need to trim some more off but it was a nice surprise).

In a totally different direction, today is the anniversary of SPAM. It's 69 today. Apparently a version of it made from turkey (instead of pork shoulder and ham) is quite popular in Muslim countries since it's halaal (sometimes spelled "halal"). It's original name was "Hormel Spiced Ham" which I guess got shortened. But it didn't fair well in the market so they held a naming contest and SPAM won. It's supposed to be an acronym for "Spiced Pork And haM". There seems to be plenty of other speculation about the origin of that name including;

• SPoiled hAM
  
• Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat
  
• Some Parts Are Meat
  
• meat left over from the SPanish AMerican war
  
• Scientifically Produced Animal Matter
  

There was apparently a musical produced.
An archive of haiku involving SPAM.
And they apparently have a SPAMobile.

Ken Lay died today. I won't say mean things since he was apparently a family man and that would only hurt them.

I think I've found a new name to add to my list of character names, "Nimrod Ping". He died on the 3rd and was apparently a city councillor for Brighton. Condolences to his family. He was only 46.

In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published his laws of motion.

And on the 4th (1863), Charles Dodgson first told the story which would become "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". As they say, wicked pissah!