Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Thanks




It being the week of American Thanksgiving I thought I would give a quick run-down of the things for which I am thankful.



My family – the peeps that know me well enough to fit into this category know that to my mind marital and blood relations do not necessarily make a family. Rather, it’s the inexorable bonds that lay between us, intertwining us, that no measure of miles or words unsaid (or even words to UNsay) can change. Whether you are under my roof, just a few blocks away, all the way over in WA or lost out there in the ether, you are my family and I am thankful for the way you all enrich my life.



My health – recently, my doc and I decided it was time to drop my blood pressure medication altogether, an event that, to my mind, is tantamount to beating back the ravages of age and the crappy infirmities that go along with it. While there are still some things that I would like to change and a few things that I have come to accept (albeit grudgingly) I’d still have to say that I am right now in the best physical (lol) health that I have been in ten years. This has led to, among other things, the rediscovery of and a renewed interest from members of the opposite sex. This would seem to fall squarely into the category of ‘Sweet’ and I am thankful for it.



My faith – the varying features of my personal faith are difficult to categorize except in the most general way. You see, I am a Catholic and, by default, a Christian, however there are some important distinctions here. Personally, I am more concerned with spirituality in general and less concerned with established religious doctrines and morals. To me, it’s of greater worth to be striving for inner balance and a spiritual connection with the people around you (including the divine) than to blindly follow rules. It’s because of this perceived relationship between myself and the divine that I was able to make some fairly important decisions lately and, having set those decisions and their consequences in motion, am now feeling better about life in general.



Happy Thanksgiving all,



C.







oh, and btw, To all the aboriginal Americans out there: Sorry for stealing your country and stuff.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Nerd-Gamers FTW!

Recently my friends and I have run into a glut of RPG books in pdf-format. This, when coupled with the use of a semi-capable laptop, allows me to become a mobile encyclopedia of nerd-gaming knowledge, second only (at least in our little circle) to the bookshelf/cabinet located at Danger and Rabbit’s place. When you toss in the automatic dice roller you get from WoTC website and the initiative tracker I’ve been trying to make work you end up with a geek-gaming machine, indeed, a veritable Dork ex machina, that incorporates all aspects of my nerd-gaming addiction. (right, like I’m the only one… raise your hand if you’ve ever killed a kobold.)

Speaking of Danger and his lovely wife Rabbit, these were the nice folks that introduced me to the Steve Jackson line of games including the beloved Munchkin sets. These games are based on the art and humor of John Kovalic, the creator of the web comic Dork Tower. To my delight (and yet, there was no surprise in this at all) I found that these brilliant folks have released their own supplements to the vast D20/Open Game License empire. With wondrous magic items like “Kneepads of Ill-Repute”, “Spiked Codpiece” and the dreaded “Unnatural Axe” you should have no problem at all finding worthy foes and killing them by surprise. Imagine my utter glee when I discovered one of the bad-guys inspired by the Munchkins Monster Manual: You and your party pause at the foot of the low hill as a distant yipping sound reaches your ears. Louder and louder the cacophony builds until the sharp-eyed among you sees them- anthropomorphic dog shapes running at you, but, rather than dogs covered in fur, these all seem to be arboreal creatures covered in grass. Horrors! You have wandered into the forbidden land of Dal-las and face the evil of… The Grassy Gnolls!



I mean, seriously, how do we NOT play this?

http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/rpg/mastersguide/img/cover_lg.jpg

You just KNOW there’s a-gonna be at least one archer-type master-blastered onto the backs of one of these puppies if, for no other reason than to say that there is a lone sniper on a Grassy Gnoll!

Perhaps if the others will go for it we’ll play this a bit this weekend=)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Ninja!

http://www.spreeblick.com/wp-content/images/AskANinja.png

This site is freakin’ hilarious! I discovered this little jewel whilst cruising and foolin around with my new toy-bot. Thx to my good chum Ryan’s cousin for having some cute bits on her site for me to steal=)





New Toys

This is me, just testing out a new plaything I heard about on Sunday. Apparently, Firefox (read: the awesomeness that IE wants to be) has this great addon that lets you post directly to your blog, spamming away as you surf for porn and haxors toolz news and current events.



...you can also drag and drop pics from other websites directly into yer blog. Sweet.





powered by performancing firefox

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Advice For My Boyos - Shaving

*please don’t pay any attention to the following article nor to any of the others in this ongoing and critically acclaimed series.

At some point, we all have to make peace with the idea that we are, in fact, not sane. With that in mind, allow me to share with you, my hypothetical reader, another bit of crazy that has been rolling around the pachinko-machine that is my psyche: I rehearse conversations. Entire conversations. From beginning to end and with every derivation I can imagine, if it’s a subject that is moderately important to me, then I will work it out in my mind ahead of time. Alright, maybe its not so strange as all that, but, my lovely wife seems to think it is so there you have it. Its in this vein that I decided to write the following series of articles: at some point, my boys are a-gonna start asking strange questions the answers to which, if I am unprepared, will, at best, provide them with less-than-optimal advice and at worst, confuse them to the point where the advice isn’t understood or heeded.

-Chris’ nightmare example: “Sooo, when Poppy was telling us about underground boxing clubs was he trying to tell us to avoid being ‘space-monkeys’ or was he telling us not to pick fights with strangers just to let them win? Bah, who cares? Lets go smoke crack and get some cheerleaders pregnant!”

As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me as the stakes are simply too high to leave those conversations to chance. I should also point out that in my nightmare example-universe, my children both speak with english accents. */shrug*

Shaving-

a... The first thing to think about here is the razor. A good, sharp razor is a godsend.

Razor Rule #1: Never borrow another guy’s razor without asking. Always ask first and even then it’s still a little weird. “Why?” you ask? Well, sons, a man’s razor is a personal thing and you’ll understand that a bit better after you’ve scraped a few layers of dermis from your face with a cold, dull, rusty razor that you thought was as sharp as The Lightbringer himself. The only ways this could have happened is if you either forgot to change the razor yourself after the last time you cut your face off (dumbass) or someone else used it. And btw, if they didn’t tell you they were going to use it, there’s no telling where they used it.

-its at this point we need to pause for a moment and discuss, father to sons, “The Female Exception Rule”. You see, it works like this: Women, for the most part, are exempt from many of the rules which men hold dear. For example, lets take Razor Rule #1, shall we? Women never have to ask permission to use a man’s razor and a man must never, NEVER reveal that he doesn’t want her to use his razor. The reasons are thus:

1… If a woman is in a position to use your razor she must logically be comfortable enough with you to use said toiletries. This says a lot. Don’t screw it up by whining about your stupid razor.

2… If you are friendly with a woman and she goes about using ANYTHING in the house to make herself feel better or be prettier in any way then this can only benefit you. Take my word for it son, you definitely want her to use your razor rather than not shave at all. Remember son, bleaching doesn’t make a mustache go away.

Razor Rule #2: Hot, sharp razor equals good. Cold, dull, hateful razor equals bloody mess in the sink. And while we are here let’s talk about what to do when you inevitably shave some of you chin off. First things first: finish shaving. Someone is paying for the hot water, shaving cream and razors and if it’s me, you damn well better not waste it. If it is you, being wasteful would make you a dumbass. Suck it up and finish shaving. Secondly, if you do cut yourself, do not use little pieces of tissue to stop the bleeding. The only reason guys started doing this in the first place was because there was a cologne commercial at some point which showed a manly-man nicking himself and, rather than get a little blood on his shirt which he stupidly did not remove before starting to shave, (dumbass) he decided to put little pieces of TP on his face just so he could have his commercial-universe daughter pick them off before kissing him. Son, if you finish shaving and finish brushing your teeth and putting on your clothes and you are still concerned about the amount of blood coming out of your face, you may have bigger problems. Hemophilia and leukemia. Google them.

b... Moving the razor.

The only rule here is to be sure and move the razor up and down only, NEVER side to side or laterally across your face and never, EVER against the direction your facial hairs are growing. As a matter of fact, if anyone ever tells you to do any of those three prohibited things, you go ahead and punch them in the eye as this person is not your friend. In fact, he’s probably the same asshat that used your razor without asking in the first place.
He owes you blood.

Well boys, that’s pretty much it as far as shaving goes… stick to these simple guidelines and you’ll be just fine.

And always remember that your Poppy loves you.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

My Kind Of Pie-Chart



...when I ran across this I just had to re-post it=) t'would probably make a decent t-shirt, lol

btw, how unnerving would it be to have Pac-Man look at you and grin salaciously? ug

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Music Memes

Tell me a song that reminds you of the following tastes (one song for each taste):

Sweet
Frente’s cover of “Let The Sunshine In” from The Flintstones. It must be the lead singer’s exaggerated little-girl lisp.

Sour
“Santa Monica” by Everclear.

Salty
“I’m Alright” by Jo Dee Messina. Lately for me ‘salty’ has come to mean an exciting, unusual good time and I cannot help but smile and sing along when I hear this one.

Bitter
“The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice. Soulful and pathetically sad, it tells a story of unrequited love… I think we’ve all been in that place.

Bland
“Don’t Cha” by some corporate band. When I’m in the mood for slutty, anonymous porn from a generic source I can’t help but think of these women. And Ann Coulter.

Spicy
“Oops! Oh My” by Tweet. The unadulterated version of this song is simplistic, provocative and very sexy.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Many Me's

CHRIS TAYLOR

HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere are:
1,031
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

...but theres only ONE thats fast like a wet ninja=)

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Newest T-Shirt Design I Wish I Had


Are We Ready To Start The Bloodless Revolution?

I swear all I want to do is protect myself from Alzheimer’s.

Truly.

Well, good news for all of you who smoke pot... apparently, along with being able to help relieve the debilitating side-effects of chemo therapy, HIV drug cocktails and glaucoma, THC is now thought to help fight off Alzheimer’s disease. Add to that the fact that it’s non-addictive (certainly no more addictive than nicotine), use of which is generally non-violent and that something like 30% of Americans have smoked or regularly DO smoke M-J. BTW, that percentage seems to get quite a bit higher when the people sampled are in the 20-40 year old range. It positively skyrockets when the question is changed to the less self-incriminating, “Would you smoke marijuana if it were perfectly legal to do so?”

"The overall physical effect of THC is far safer than what happens to my liver every weekend."



Would I? You bet. To me, this isn’t one of those moral dilemmas where if you commit a crime, it will adversely effect someone else like mugging someone to feed your family. No, this is the very definition of a victimless crime, or, at least, it would be if there were not already criminal enterprises built up around circumventing the law. Nope, smoking M-J is a crime because someone has declared it so. There are lots of asshat reasons for it but what it all really comes down to is specific injury or the reasonable danger thereof and when taken in that light, the arguments simply don’t hold water. Physicians and studies the world over have declared alcohol and tobacco more dangerous by a wide margin. The overall physical effect of THC is far safer than what happens to my liver every weekend. In fact, from my layman’s point of view, the biggest health hazard associated with smoking pot is getting arrested and having to share a bunk with a 480-pound guy named ‘Shirley the health inspector’.

Anyways, that’s why I don’t smoke pot. But now I’m really wishing that I could without the chance of arrest or failing a physical. Anyone with even a semi-close relationship with an elderly person is gonna be wishing the same thing before long. Alzheimer’s is simply a fact of life with these people, whether the person is afflicted or not. It only takes one instance of obvious memory loss to get the wheels turning in that direction… and once they start, they DO NOT stop.

Oh, and as far as the ‘getting high’ aspect of the whole thing? Pffft, that’s why I have, like, four bottles of flavored vodka running around this place.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Breathing Out So You Can Breath Me In

Occasionally it’s necessary to let out bits of crazy in order to keep from blowing up, much like knocking the press off the boiler (“She creeps…”) keeps the scary old hotel from blowing sky-high.


...today I thought I found one of my old guitar picks but it turned out to be just an old, used band-aid that had been folded up and left to harden...

...after periodically lamenting the fact that I am the primary IT nerd in my ‘lil group of friends, my friends eventually stopped asking for my help… then, last night, my friend asked if I would help him with a minor IT problem this morning to which I readily agreed, being secretly happy to be able to help in my special way. I arrived at his place this morning and found that I had missed him in the shuffle and he was already over at my place… and he had already taken care of his problem himself…

…a while back I offered to tune my friend’s guitar for him using an electronic tuner my good chum Drew had given me. While in the midst of tuning, not one but two strings broke including the high E. Thankfully, it missed blinding me when it streaked upward and outward at the speed of light however it did manage to give me a minor cut on my right hand, drawing a bit of blood. I am now, irrationally, afraid of my friend’s guitar because whenever I look at it now, I get the distinct feeling that having tasted my blood once, it will not be satisfied until it’s able to taste it again…

…having recently lost a bit of weight (and subsequent inches from my waist) I was surprised and dismayed this morning when I saw that it was raining outside and I found I no longer had any jeans that fit…

…during the entire time I was smoking (during my most recent stint as an addict, that is) I was never once sick with a cough or a throat ailment. Now, after having been quit of cigarettes for just over three weeks, I am starting to develop a froggy throat… bleh…

…I am secretly terrified that Bob Woodward may be full of shit…

…whenever I’m in a parking lot and happen to drop my keys on the ground, I’ll always look around before picking them up… this is not a self-preservation habit nor is it one born of vanity, i.e. making sure no one is looking at my bottom in case my pants split open, but rather one of irrational paranoia… you see, whenever this exact situation occurs and I bend over to pick up my keys, I’m absolutely certain a flaming arrow flies through the air directly through the space where my head would be, if I were still standing erect…

…whenever I see a banana peel lying discarded on the ground, I always have to fight back a desire to intentionally slip on it, just to see if a silly noise or a laugh-track will begin playing out of nowhere…


I think that’s enough for a while.
/smile

Two Dollars?


Which John Cusack Are You?

...eh, it's better than I expected... I thought it was gonna tell me I was Jeremy Piven=)

Monday, October 02, 2006

The Things We Choose To Care About

This morning I had decided to get up on here and give substance to my thoughts on the subject of respect, or, “respek” as my good chum Ali G would put it. (silly Ali G, everyone knows that ‘respek’ is something you do when you ding lvl 40, in order to not get pwned in RvR, lol) I was going to try to segue from there into a self-important rant about how sometimes it is painfully clear how little respect we have for some of the people in our lives and how I, as a gentleman, am literally above all that and how when I do f-up its only because I’m human and therefore its okay. Blah blah blah. (just as an aside here, when I come across as an arrogant ass, please just lemme know… don’t get me wrong: I’ll prolly still rationalize my behavior but it may give us both something to think about)


I would then promenade to the political left and into a faux-intellectual screed about injustice and an art teacher in Texas who was fired because she, my hand to God, exposed her students to art. Absurd, you say? Pah, click the link, you know you want to.


After that I would then doe-see-doe back to the centrist view and poke a little fun at a Florida politico who, in his own turn, had expressed a desire to do a lil’ poking of his own with an under-aged volunteer.


But these things suck and talking about them makes me weary.


Worry not, my hypothetical chum, as you have stayed with me this far into my ramble, you are to be rewarded=) In my searching for song covers I have found some beauties. Its wonderful and refreshing how a piece of music can lift you outta your narcissistic self-indulgence while simultaneously lifting your spirits. Sometimes it’s like a slap in the face, but a gentle one and with a friend’s hand.


I ran across this piece last week and everyday since it has been growing on me more and more. (no melanoma jokes, please.) It’s a cover of Steve Winwood’s “Back in the Highlife Again” by Warren Zevon. Now, my only exposure to this person’s original music was “The Werewolves of London” but to be honest I never bothered to find out who sang it. Additionally, I never really cared for Steve Winwood’s music with this song almost being an exception . You see, I always liked it, but at the same time, I didn’t, if you can dig it. To my ear, it was a great message but Winwood’s delivery was all wrong; too pop-ish, too commercialized. I remember wondering then, “When was this guy ever IN the highlife before so he could come BACK again?" I couldn’t put my finger on it back then but in retrospect I’d say the sentiment just didn’t feel genuine.


"...the sentiment just didn’t feel genuine..."


Now, flash forward with me to the now and my discovery of this 2000 cover. Simple, austere and heartfelt, this is precisely how this song should have been performed in the first place. After hearing this song I went looking for more of his music and found that he had died shortly after releasing it. Obviously, I only add this for effect, as it would seem to reinforce the suggestion of genuine sentiment.


In any case, give it a shot… you never know, it may be enough to brighten your day.




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Thursday, September 28, 2006

My Hypocritical Masochistic Side




What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?




You were destined to have a Red Lightsaber.Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, and determination as well as passion and desire. You have seen the Strength and Power of the Dark Side of the Force and have you thirst for more of it. Also, evil will always win over good because good is stupid.
Take this
quiz!











...apparently I'm a minion of the dark side. That sorta figures because everything is proceeding as I have forseen.

Genesis in DOS (an excerpt)

And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 3.
C:>LET THE WATERS UNDER HEAVEN BE GATHERED TOGETHER UNTO ONE PLACE AND LET THE DRY LAND APPEAR
Too many characters in specification string. Try again.
C:>CREATE DRY_LAND
Done.
C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH
C:>LET THE EARTH PRODUCE FRESH GROWTH, LET THERE BE ON THE EARTH PLANTS
Too many characters in specification string. Try again.
C:>CREATE PLANTS
Done.
C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH
So it was; the Earth yielded fresh growth, plants bearing seed. And God saw that there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 3.
The rest of this joke is a bit long but very funny... especially great for us old DOS fans=)
 

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