Like most of you I'm guardedly optimistic about this, but optimisitic and happy nonetheless.

President-Elect Obama signifies new hope for our country, and I pray, hope and wish that he will live up to the promises he has made. Make no mistake, he's set quite a list of things for him to do and people on both sides of the fence will be watching expectingly.

It feels good to be hopeful about the direction our country is moving and the world's reaction is also quite telling.

I respected McCain's graceful concession speech and found myself thinking "If only he'd acted that way during the election he might have had a better chance". Not that I wanted him to win, mind you, but where was that poise and grace when he was scoffing, rolling his eyes and otherwise showing is condescending attitude during the debates?

Obama's speech was absolutely moving, and it felt good to have my state mentioned in a positive light - gods know we deal with enough stereotypes for being Southerners. A friend of my wife's who lives in CA mentioned how people there there were ranting on and on about Southerners being "Bible-beating rednecks" and such. Which I find hilarious coming from a state that, despite being "Blue" utterly failed to distinguish itself as any different from a "Red" state when it comes to the issue of Gay Marriage.

I'd type more but busy!

Hope everybody enjoys their 4th, for those of you who have to work today, be safe!

No real plans today - might drive out to Fado's to hang out with a buddy of mine from my dojo who is bouncing tonight. I didn't know Fado's even had bouncers. Where were they several St. Pat's ago when I had Halitosis Helga in my face doing the absolute worst Fat Bastard impression mere inches from my face (I was in my kilt and was trying to move away quickly, alas for being in a moon boot due to breaking a bone in my ankle) and damn near knocked my Guinness out of my hand? Thankfully a waitress saw my predicament and inserted herself quite effectively between me and 7th layer of hell-breath.

Picked up Tohuvabohu, KMFDM's most recent album. It absolutely rocks! "Superpower" is funny, the title track is aggressive and driving, "Spit or Swallow" is in your face, "Headcase" is scathing and "Bumaye", "Saft Und Kraft" and "I am what I am" are heavy and intense. There's not one bad song on this album.

I'm happy to hear Lucia Cifarelli on more tracks - I don't quite get what people's beef with her is - she's talented and intense on top of being absolutely gorgeous.

Finally got some decent sleep - I slept for twelve hours this morning and finally feel well-rested. The last two days we've worked our asses off so we wouldn't have to work today. Spoke with my boss about the whole India Initiative and the answers were about what you'd expect - everything reduced down to numbers. I respect and like my boss and understand these decisions were made even over his head. Bah - I'm in too good of a mood to navel gaze about India right now...

Anyway, have a good 4th, everybody!

Just trimmed up my friend's list. If we haven't spoken much recently you were cut. Nothing personal, just trimming things up some.

So last night I finally did the task I had been putting off for a while now - I restored my PC to it's factory settings. I must say, XP is much easier to reformat than WIN2000 was.

Unfortunately, while creating my back-up discs after I burned the two DVD's the CD creation failed, and when I went to put in a new CD+R, it reset and there was no way to skip the burning of the DVD's again, at least, not that I saw. So I said screw it and went on with restoring. Thankfully I've never needed to use system restore discs in the past, but I'm still annoyed the process failed at the last part. I can always redo the process when I can get more DVD+R's.

I'm really starting to miss my flat panel LCD - I fear it may destroyed as one of the cats got into where it used to be stored after it stopped working properly and decided to urinate on the cloth that it was wrapped up in. I'd like to take it in to have it looked at, as I suspect it has a faulty power source internally (plug it in, it flashes the "Check connection" message box for a second than goes black), but I don't feel like being laughed out of wherever I take it to - "It smells like cat piss and you are wondering why it doesn't work? Here's your sign...". The problems with it started long before one of our cats mistook it for a litter box.

We used a cloth dampened with vinegar to clean it up, and it doesn't appear to have reached any of the circuitry, but I don't know how long ago it happened and it's not exactly easy to disassemble and look at the circuitry.

I swear, if it's ruined I know a certain cat that is going to become the world's smallest rug. >=/

I find it hilarious, however, that my clunky Gateway monitor that is Ten Years Old still works just fine.

...it sucked.

You may remember me getting excited about this from a post I made earlier.

It was like watching a Saturday morning cartoon movie. The life of the book was pretty much stripped out of the movie, it was rather clunky and awkward in terms of both animation and plot. Gone is Sturm chasing the White Stag, Riverwind's fate at the hands...err, maw of Onyx, and other important aspects from the book. The characters were mostly lifeless and dull. It ambles on like drunk in the alley late at night; crashing into interesting things here and there but mostly being non-sensical as it moves along. Characters and events that drive the plot are sometimes just haphazardly thrown in, making the mistake of assuming that viewers are already acquainted with the source material.

Oddly I don't regret buying the DVD - maybe enough people bought it so that it will bring in enough money to show there is interest in the project and that will attract the attention of people who could do the series justice.

Got in Sunday afternoon. Had an absolute blast, so much more beautiful than I expected, and I expected a lot.

Didn't see much of the stuff we had planned to - going off season is tricky like that, since a lot of stuff was closed and/or there was no affordable public transportation to get there.

Didn't make it to Tara, due in part to above and to having a nasty head cold that I picked up on the lakes of Killarney while doing the Gap of Dunloe tour. The worst of the cold hit me Friday while we were in Dublin, so we only saw Christ Church Cathedral, the GPO and the Book of Kells. Side note - I really didn't like Dublin - too crowded and too noisy. As touristy as Killarney was, it is a far sight better than Dublin.

Supplies that I have will be sent to the protesters at Tara via mail.

A more lengthy update will follow once I have downtime at work and get all of our pictures on to my PC.

I'm going to strangle the next person that comes by and says "It's getting close! You must be getting excited!"

I'm trying not to think about it! Stop reminding me! >;)~

Selena took her last final yesterday and, predictably, she aced it. That's a 97 in Anatomy and roughly a 100 in her computer class. True to what the professor said, about half the class wound up sticking it out through the class. The average in the class was a low to mid 70's.

I'm so proud of her! She rewarded herself for all her hard work and a quarter of doing nothing but studying by watching Fear.net the rest of the day with her Mom. :)

Warm socks that wick away moisture and flasks for the protesters have been bought. Batteries, butane fuel and other stuff will have to be bought once we get over to Ireland.

E-mail to my Congressman - Written and sent.
E-mail to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern - Written and sent.
E-mail to Minister Dick Roche - Written and sent.
E-mail to Chairman Sean Haughey - Written and sent.

Today I'm working on writing to different news outlets in an attempt to raise awareness. Thank gods there isn't much going on at work right now.

Today for lunch I'm going by my folk's house to borrow Dad's camera so that I can take pictures and video of the protest while letting us use Selena's dad's camera for our vacation pictures.

It's funny - I haven't been allowing myself to get too excited about going to Ireland yet, even though the date of our departure is right around the corner. I guess it's in part a self-protection mechanism so I don't get my hopes up...even though we already have lodging, airfare and an itinerary set.

I have a lot to do this week, and really only four days to do it since Friday is nothing but meetings then a department outing at Dave and Busters. I have to have all of my reviews done for my direct reports as well as clients assigned to the new guy and other miscellany before I leave for the rest of the month, so that's been occupying my mind as well. Selena is studying for her last final tomorrow, after which point I think the excitement towards the trip will really set in for her. Probably for me too since I plan to have everything done by then. Regardless, this week can't pass quickly enough!

A little nervous/excited about flying since I haven't flown since I was a kid.

St. Patrick's Day was fun this year. More low key than usual, which was refreshing. Dad met me at the newly opened Keegan's Public House not too far from either of our houses, giving me a much needed alternative to Johnnie MacCracken's, a place owned by a person I personally find despicable and would rather not give my money to. The last time I went was against my better judgement since family and friends were planning on being there and it meant more to me to be with them than to not be with them in protest of the place.

Keegan's was decent enough - the stew was good and the beer was cold. Service wasn't so great, but it was St. Pat's, so it's to be expected I suppose. Just glad to see an alternative in the general area to tell the truth, so I'm willing to overlook some things.

Met Selena at Mom and Dad's for dinner later and Mom served her corned beef, steamed cabbage and Irish soda bread and we sung our hearts out (Mom and I) to traditional Irish sing-alongs and rebel songs, most of which Mom hadn't heard for ages. I'm going to have to buy Mom a record player so she can listen to her old Clancy Brothers Albums. It'll drive Dad nuts so that's even more incentive! It brought back a lot of memories for Mom, who grew up having very large St. Pat's parties in Chicago and it really made me feel good to see her so happy and nostalgic. A few times I felt like my Aunt Dale and Grandma and Grandpa were right there singing along with us.

I have an important question for you all. Since I'm leaving for Ireland this weekend and we are planning to get out towards Newgrange and Tara, what can I do to help the protesters there? Bring along extra clothes or something? For obvious reasons I don't want to get too close and wind up in hot water, but I was just curious since many of you have contacts there what I could do to show my support? I'm way behind on journal entries, as usual, so please indulge my ignorance.

Hope you all had a good St. Pat's, or as we like to call it All Snake's Day! The observation of ASD was actually how Selena and I started to get to know each other and St. Pat's/ASD was when we both imbided enough courage to state our feelings for each other (very) bluntly. :)

Tickets purchased.
Bed & Breakfast booked.
Itinerary - still planning.

We're flying out on Saturday, March 22nd from ATL to JFK. We have a two hour and forty five minute layover in JFK. I think we'll probably stick around the airport. This will be the first time I've ever been in New York. I don't think our layover will allow us to experience much of New York. Hope there's a bookstore/coffee shop at JFK.

Anyway, from JFK we leave for SNN a little after 7:00. I plan to sleep, but I think I'll be so excited/nervous it will most likely be an endeavor doomed to fail. Heh. It's exciting enough that I'm going to Ireland, but I also haven't flown since I was like...11? Anyway, we are staying through to the next Sunday, March 30th.

It was pointed out to me today that we are arriving in Ireland on Easter Sunday. I guess that means we will have missed out on any Herring Processions that may have happened the previous day!

It's kind of up in the air if we're going to stay overnight in Dublin (it's expensive, and we haven't heard back from any B&B's there yet). Given the stuff we want to see and do there, it would make the most sense to stay overnight, but that really is going to boil down to if we can obtain and afford accomodation. Apparently we can't bring any large luggage on the trains, so we'll keep our room booked at the B&B and keep most of our luggage there. Not thrilled with doing that but what choice do we have?

As far as things we plan to do, here's the hit list so far:
Paps of Anu
The Burrens
Cliffs of Moher
Bunratty Castle (wanted to go here since I saw my grandfather's (now mine) souvenir coffee cup of Bunratty Castle)
Newgrange
Tara (if we can go there - apparently it's closed in March :( )
Paps of the Morrígan
Aran Islands
Trinity College (Dying to see the Book of Kells)
Emain Macha (Navan Fort) in Armagh (where my buddy Deaglan that I met for lunch yesterday is from).
Ring of Kerry
Guinness Brewery and/or Jameson Distillery.

I'm sure there's plenty more we have planned.

On an interesting side note, my childhood friend turned Southern Baptist Evangelical Minister is assisting Franklin Graham in a crusade in Belfast. He is pretty ignorant of the history in that area and knows next to nothing about The Troubles, which I find appalling. For fuck's sake, if you're going to take part in a evangelical crusade in an area like that, at least know SOMETHING about the place. At least they were smart enough not to do it around Orange Walking season.

My buddy Deaglan said that the entire Rebublic will be off of work for the week we're there and we might see a parade that goes to the graves of those who took part in the Easter Uprising. I asked him if, as Americans, we should just stay away from it and mind our own business, but he said "No, I'd go along!". I guess it's better to take part in it than to ignore it. *shrugs*

Well, that's all for now. I guess I should stop putting off the workflow schematics that are due at the end of the month and get those knocked out. Work-wise I have a lot to do before my trip! Reviews are due at the end of March, so I need to have them done before I leave!

Tonight's dinner at the land was both affirming and bitterly disappointing. I was partially prepared for that possibility, but I guess there was no way I could be prepared for the totality of what I saw.

( You can never go home )

So a local charity, The Empty Stocking Fund" here in the ATL was robbed recently by people who can best be described as low-life pieces of slag deserving of jail time.

However, a local radio station, Project 9-6-1 is hosting a 50 hour lock in to help raise the $50k that was stolen and hopefully more. This morning while I was listening (which I rarely do) a CEO of a local company pledged to match dollar for dollar any donations made. We made our donation this morning.

It's good that their raising money for the ESF; my Dad volunteers for a toy drive for underprivileged children through the Sons of Italy and always has heart-warming stories of how appreciative the children and the parents are, so it feels good to help re-build what was stolen. The fact that this event seems to be doing so well helps rebuild the faith in humanity lost after hearing about the robbery of the ESF.

I can't believe anybody would be so brazen as to break into a warehouse located in the same building as the APD. At the same time, I wonder how that is even possible considering its in the same building as the APD. *shrugs*

Anyway, if you guys feel like making a donation, feel free to do so. It's only being matched 100% for the 50 hours The Giant Show is broadcasting. I don't advise actually listening to their show. It has its moments, I guess, but it's mostly banal and yawn-worthy.

My wife and I went with some friends to see Stephen King's "The Mist".

Wow. It is an excellent, excellent movie that really makes shakes you to the core and is surprisingly thought provoking. Dismissing it merely as "horror" would be a mistake, just as dismissing King as a horror writer is a mistake.

Most King books made into a movie haven't been that great...this movie is the exception.

Afterwards we had good conversation with my best friend and his wife about various things. I worry for their financial stability and his safety, especially in light of recent events though. I love Jeff, he's my brother and the only person I grew up with that I'm in contact with regularly, but sometimes his decision making leaves me aghast. He's gotten surprisingly far on charm, bullshit and luck. :)

He's an independent contractor and hires laborers. He hired some guys that turned out to be awful; slow, lazy and unreliable. He told the guy he wasn't going to pay him the full amount because he did 1/4 of the job and Jeff had to bring in other guys to do the rest. The guy blew up, screamed, cursed and stormed off.

Later, he called Jeff and left him a voice mail saying: "Hey man, I hope you'll do the right thing, man. I'm older and laid back, you know, but my guys are young and rambunctious, so I hope you'll do the right thing..."

The guy refuses to give Jeff an address to mail the check to him or accept any other kind of payment arrangement except for face to face. Of course, I'm thinking this is because he wants to intimidate Jeff or possibly get froggy when Jeff gives him less than what he thinks he should get. The guy also said he'll meet Jeff in a public place so he can get paid, but I have no illusions of guaranteed safety for him. This whole situation has my "oh fuck" senses tingling. This guy has tried intimidating Jeff before because he's bigger than he is, which isn't saying much because Jeff is scrawny.

So, Jeff is going to call me the day he is meeting the guy and I'm going to shadow them in my car and park nearby with 911 pre-dialed on my phone so I just have to hit 'send'. After that...well, I just hope there is no after that.

I bought Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition (includes all the expansions) several months ago because after playing NWN2 and enjoying it, I thought I'd give the original one a try, having heard such great things about it.

I sat down and started to play the packaged Original Campaign a few hours and never touched it again. I guess I had too many other distractions, including playing DDO and NWN2 (both which have better graphics).

Mid-September I was really in the mood to play some more gothic, horror inspired fantasy and decided I'd give the player-created Ravenloft persistent world, Prisoners of the Mist. Everything I read was right; player created custom content is where it's at!

So after seeing the amount of customization and building one can do, I've started messing around with the Aurora Toolset that comes with the game and I've downloaded player-created customized content to expand the tilesets, monsters, etc, etc available. It's a lot of fun and very addicting.

The problem is I don't know any programming or scripting languages. I just recently figured out how the conversation editor works, so now I can create some basic conversations, but nothing that changes after certain conditions are met and nothing that involves making skill checks for example:

Player: "[haggle check] I really don't want to pay 100 gold for that, I'll pay 50." [skill check resolves, player rolls 3+0 vs. 18)

Merchant: "It's 100 gold, but for you I give special price; I let you have it for 120 gold. Try haggling me again and see how much it costs you!"

I'm sure if I poke around and engage in some trial and error testing I'll be able to figure out how to do this using the existing scripts (after all, I was able to figure out how to have a neutral NPC attack the player if you choose a certain dialogue branch and I found the script that allows a PC to actually sit on a chair), but I don't know how to construct my own (or even augment existing ones). I downloaded a Script Generator but I haven't done a lot with it yet. From what I've been told by one of the developers over at PotM, it's good for basic stuff, but anything more advanced should be done by somebody who knows the coding language.

I could try to look at existing scripts, see how they're set up and try to learn it that way, but my brain cries when I try to make it look at the code for too long, though that may because I don't know what I'm looking at.

At any rate, it's tons of fun. I'm currently working on creating areas, encounters, back-story and whatnot that's based on the first several chapters of a fantasy story I've been brewing (mostly in my head) for several years. I've got a ton left to learn, but so far I can make mostly functional areas with NPC's that have dialogue. It's a start! Next on the list is figuring out how to set up dialogue to give an item to the player, how to give quests and give rewards (XP and/or gold/items) upon completion and updating the in game journal each time a quest is received/updated/completed.

Hey, thewronghands don't you have some friends that have created stuff using the Aurora toolset? If so, do you know what modules they’ve created?

So the A/C guy came buy today for maintenance and to change our filters. He was a nice good ol' boy and upon seeing our house, decorated as it is with different artwork from various cultures (such as the ukiyo-e print of two geishas walking along a road, the Aztec calendar framed by African masks and, of course "the armory" which is several different types of swords, including my claymore mounted on to the wall) and a few skulls he says to my wife "Wow, y'all have a unique house! So many houses I see are all decorated the same. Are you all into...I don't know how to say it...rock and roll?"

I guffawed when she related the story to me. I don't think I've ever heard it described that way!

Ahhh...I love having the armory; people usually react one of two ways - they think it's cool or they are a little creeped out by it. *grin*

I've never been to a KMFDM show. Neither have I been to an MDFMK show for the brief period of time they were MDFMK.

This video of "Rabble-rouser" makes me lament that:


Hey, sm23 check out Sasha K's steampunk outfit! *grin*

To quote somebody from YouTube about this video: "Christ... I need to go find the pieces of my blown mind. What. fucking. ENERGY!" That pretty much sums it up. Also, Lucia Cifarelli is gorgeous and intense in that vid.

I love most of KMFDM's music. I don't fully agree with all of their politics, but they do make you think, albeit with a rather in-your-face, shake up your complacency approach and I've just gotta respect that...even if I wind up disagreeing.

Politics aside, I respect that the band has put out an album every year since '86 and that they do what they want to do, instead of "selling out" to a major label and having to water down their music.

If you are a KMFDM fan, you can purchase their entire catalogue from their store on their official website KMFDM DØTKØM v4.0.

Yes, I'm bored. Why do you ask?



The guy with the audacity to raise the dummy up higher cracks me up everytime.

Chocolate Christ Sparks Death Threats

Here's what gets me:

But word of the confectionery Christ infuriated Catholics, including Egan, who described it as "a sickening display." Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, said it was "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

Oh really? Where would priests committing child molestation rank on that list, Bill? Cheap shot, I know, but watchdog groups often strike me as ridiculously one-sided.

The hotel and the gallery were overrun Thursday with angry phone calls and e-mails about the exhibit. Semler said the calls included death threats over the work of artist Cosimo Cavallaro, who was described as disappointed by the decision to cancel the display.

It seems to me that a more sickening display is the fact that people are making death threats over something like this. That sounds like certain other zealots of another religion often found in the media these days. Of course, it's entirely possible that the people making death threats either aren't really religious themselves or if they are, are not the best representatives of their faith. Regardless, this still annoys the hell out of me.

I love how quickly people jump to conclusions about things and make demands that their precious sensibilities aren't offended. Here's an example of people's egos running rampant and forcing things to be in keeping with how they think it should be.

I guess I don't see what there is to be offended by, unless these people are the same people that would protest Michaelangelo's David. It's not as if the sculpture is demeaning Christ or Christianity. Even then, it was an exhibition, something one partakes of voluntarily.

On a more positive note, after several years of rumors, false starts and much hoping, they are making an animated film of Dragons of Autumn Twilight! This fills me with joy as the first trilogy in the Dragonlance world is one of my favorite fantasy trilogies of all time.

The movie is for worldwide release and is set to be released in Autumn of 2007 (how appropriate). Lucy Lawless is doing the voice of Goldmoon and Kiefer Sutherland is doing the voice of Raistlin, which, if any of you are familiar with the series is quite fitting. Kiefer has the gravelly, scratchy and sardonic voice for it.

One thing that gave me pause was "The animation will be a 2D/3D hybrid, using an artwork style similar to that of the Dragonlance comics." I don't particularly care for the way the comics were illustrated; its not bad, but the way the characters are illustrated is kind of sloppy at times and the animation style is not very good. The people who illustrated The Dark Elf trilogy did a much better job.

For instance compare this example:
http://www.cnv.co.il/pics/weeklypics/dragonlance1.jpg

To this:
http://www.brokenfrontier.com/ektron-content/drizzt_2_1104.jpg

Still, I'm elated that a movie is being made and of course I'll go see it when it comes out! It looks like 2007 is the year for some of my favorites games and fantasy novels to be made into movies!

Well, Thanksgiving wasn't that great, at least the day of Thanksgiving. This weekend was very nice though. More on that later, as it basically involves my father-in-law's second wife (yes, the same one who took the glass of water from my ancestor's altar some time ago and washed it) and her chastising my wife over nothing.

Pursuant to the work I was doing earlier, I spoke with my father last night after Selena and I had our belated Thanksgiving dinner with my parents. The discussion went pretty well, I'll probably post something more about it later. Dad told us how the other night he thought he was having a heart attack as he had all the symptoms (turns out it was his hiatal hernia) and how mom got upset and started crying. My mother very rarely cries.

This really shook me to the core and I guess I'm still dealing with it. I didn't consciously make the decision to supress my feelings about it, it just sort of happened. This really bothered me for another reason: after pulling H-uath at Samhain I did some quiet meditation and just sort of opened myself to the moment and became receptive. While I sat there I got the impression that my father will pass before my mother and that I should make sure that his estate and will are in order (my mother is terrible with money). As it turns out he's making me the executor of the estate, so I'll be in charge of the finances. Still, dealing with the mortality of one's parents is never easy.

I'll post more later. Presently I have a neck to wring and some vice grips to try to stop from pinching my head.

Haven't really had much going on lately, things seem to be in a state of equilibreum, more or less.

So, instead of meaningful content I bring the obscure brain child of Stan Lee from Marvel Comics and Jack Chick!

http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2006/11/galactus_is_com.html