thebitterguy

Not feeling well today (how is the phrase "feeling poorly" deficient again? Does it just indicate that my ability to feel is impaired somehow?).

Tried to get to sleep last night and had a coughing fit that lasted well into the night. I think I may need to clean out my CPAP with enthusiasm. I'm almost done re-reading The Heart of Valor, and will be able to start Valor's Trial soon. Huzzah! Also gave my copy of Watchmen another flip through.

I realized there are small stains on a couple pages. I was trying to remember how I got them, and had almost convinced myself I'd been eating tacos in my university pad when I remembered what had actually happened.

On my second day of working at A&P in my youth, I'd been assigned to parcel pickup, and was trying to keep up on it. I hadn't been trained on using the phone to call for help, so the cars were starting to pile up. So, this being summer, I was a little worn by the heat, I ended up dropping a couple bottles of diet coke (glass bottles, too, the 750 ml kind). Thankfully no one was hurt by the explosion, but I had to go get replacements.

The parcel pickup was full, and the gate was down, so I climbed over it and, en route, smacked my head into the steel door frame. The impact was quite significant. I kept going, and while en route to the pop aisle, one of the managers called me over and said "excuse me, but do you know your head is bleeding?"

I did not, in fact, know. They called over a couple of the other bag boys who got the line sorted out, and I filled out the Workman's Comp forms and got a ride home.

Anyway, that night, I'm sitting at home reading in bed, and I notice a spot on the book. The bandage on my head is leaking just a bit, and a drop of blood has run down my scalp, and landed plop onto the page. So, yeah, I bled onto the book.

Still enjoying the book. I find myself prefering the earlier interactions between Juspeczyk & Drieberg to the plot centred stuff in the later part of the book. Still not terribly fond of Rorshach.

You know, for some reason, I'm curious about visiting Kentucky, if only to see if the chicken is really that good. Plus, I'm sure they have many interesting attractions.

I've been reading Achtung Schwinehund! over the past few days. It came in the same day as the 4E PH, and I think I had it recommended by muskrat_john a few weeks/months/years back. It is a more interesting read, but that's just because it would be a very bad book if it was a less interesting read than most RPG rulebooks.

Stop crying. You know I'm right.

It's subtitles "A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat" and is the tale of the author's youthful (and grownup) affections for toy soldiers, action figures, and other things that a lot of people reading this will recall with much fondness.

There's one passage on page 100 that, well, might ruffle a few feathers among the readers at home. So I shall post it in full for your enjoyment.

He starts off that section by talking about how much he hates Games Workshop (and, who among us?). He then proceeds to step a little over a certain line, even for a 'humour' writer.

To my mind, three men are responsible more than any others for the creation of this perversion of the hobby: J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Middle Earth, Robert E. Howard, creator of Hyboria (which was kind of Middle Earth with breast) and E. Gary Gygax, the mild-mannered Canadian (sic) inventor of Dungeons and Dragons. 'All three of them should be put up against a wall and shot,' I said to TK while I was feeling particularly aggreived at World of Warcraft's continued encroachment into our territory. he raised an eyebrow. 'I think you're getting a bit carried away there, mate,' he said.

'Are you sure?' I said.

'Oh yes,' TK said. 'I mean, two of them are already dead. It would be a waste of bullets.'

Ouch. Zing, as it were (and now doubly factually incorrect). I was going to do a poll asking what kind of polearm maliszew would use to dispatch them (my money was on the Glaive Guisarme, or possibly Lucerne Hammer), but that was kinda childish too. Later on, he does say

But it is hard to maintain the moral high ground when you have just bought three hundred Garrison 20mm Macedonian phalangites from a man named Alistair in Auckland, New Zealand.

Overall, though, it's a good read. Paul in the Thursday Nighters is gonna borrow it when I'm done.

Good weekend at ACB. Uday & I did some more geocaching, and after two frustrating sessions we finally managed to find one.

The first one was called on account of "where the hell is that thing?", the second on account of gooseshit.

The third one was right in the middle of a parking lot. No, really, right smack dab in the middle of a parking lot. Very cleverly concealed.

Much BBQ was eaten, and I visited the Kingston Gaming Nexus and met up with the Sunday guy. Turns out he's going for a UD Tournament ranking, so maybe he will solve one of my problems.

Bought some Star Wars minis, and they're kinda pricy down in K-Town.

So, Friday Cynra & I went to Picton for Mater Bitter's birthday. It was at the Inn at Lake on the Mountain, and when we were done, the moon over the lake was quite beautiful. Saturday we spent some time at ACB and then headed home.

Sunday was Motor City Comic Con. I pretty much spent all my time (and money) at two booths: Titan Games (who at this point only had some Mongoose stuff and a copy of the Red Dwarf RPG as well as the Cyberpunk CCG cards prevoiusly mentioned) and a comic booth that had 50% off trades. I got Dead Robin from Gotham Central, Rosario Dawson's Occult Crimes Taskforce, and Marvel's District X book.

Also picked up the Shawn of the Dead TPB, Reinventing Comics and possibly something else.

I'd hoped to pick up a few of the comics tumblers I'd seen the past couple years, but the booth was not there this year. At the very least, I couldn't find it.

Dinner was Mongol BBQ at BD's, and I restrained myself and stayed with two bowls, which meant I did not hurt myself. Yay me!

Today, then, was getting some stuff at the garden store, and then dinner was pizza and now Cynra's watching Dancing with the Stars.

Ah, man. John Tory Hoisted on own petard. Apparently, Napanee based rural yahoo Randy Hillier's Ontario Landowners Association managed to squeeze 100 of their borderline psychotic* membership into the PC leadership review. Tory's Tories had chosen Hillier as a candidate because they felt he would have drawn enough Tory voters away if he'd run as an independant to cost them the seat. The gained the seat, and in the process dropped a viper in their laps.

Urbanization just never moves fast enough for me.

*

The association has made news for sending pictures of a dead deer, nicknamed Leona after Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky, to Queen's Park.

And I just talked to a branch from Tilsonburg.



There was a guy I went to school with (Jason? Mike? One of those two particularly rare WAS names) who would do the summer tabacco harvest. I managed to avoid the common rural jobs. I worked delivering Sears catalogues (Ah, spring 1985. Thou art my eternal nemesis).

Thankfully, I got sprung from that job (3.5 cents a catalogue) to the union world of grocery store employeeism. Ahh, the A&P. Although I did suffer a massive head injry my second day on the job, I stuck through it for most of high school, through summer highs and winter lows.

The reason that a grocery store employee would have to suffer through two of Canada's four, individual seasons (at least, back then) was that I was assigned to Parcel Pickup duty. What that meant was that customers would pack their groceries in the store, which would then be put into little numbered plastic bins. The bins would be sent out on rollers (and up a conveyor belt) to the parcel pickup section, which was outside.

So, customer would come in, PP employee (ie YHB) would scurry to find them in the PP room, and get them out to the car. God forbit someone dropped a bag with fragiles in it.

The worst was when a customer got the wrong box of goods. They'd get pooched, and the customer who was supposed to get that box got pooched. Good times!

There was also the benefit of being right next to a cow farm. High summer, there's nothing like the scent of cow dung wafting through the parking lot. Yum! Then there was the amusing time a cow wandered into the parking lot. Is there anyway to page the store manager that there's a cow in the parking lot that won't sound like you're having a drug episode?

Still, better working next to a farm than doing actual farm work. I had friends who'd end up haying and stuff.

One summer in university I got to do landscaping, which is a fascinating way to learn how much dirt you can get into your pockets (answer: A lot) and how many nails you can get into your feel while removing old roof tiles (ditto).

But on the momentary lapses between cars, especially in the summer, it could be nice. We'd get ice from the del and put it in containers, and as they melted that would be delightful ice water.

Then we'd make fun of John, who had sex with a cow once. Ah, well. It was a small town.

Just spoke to a bank teller from Napanee over the phone regarding our payment address. Oh, my, I'm suddenly very, very homesick.

You know what I miss? The old Batman and Green Arrow stories where they'd have these big reunions of their various international counterpats. Like GA would have the GAs of the world together, and there would be the Green Arow of Brazil with his Bolo Arrow, or the Green Arrow of England with his "Tea Arrow and crumpets", and they'd all have a wig wearing useless girlfriend of some kind. Or Batman would meet the Batmen of the World, and they'd all throw their Batarangs making strange foreign quips, and the Jokers of the World would fall down all tangled up.

That was the good shit.

Hauptmann Deutschland was just lame. I don't know what's worse, DC's crappy international heroes (Oh, Christ, don't fucking MENTION the Global Guardians. The Little Mermaid? Tasmanian Devil?) or Marvel's crappy international heroes (Shamrock, anyone?). The funny thing is the only decent non-American hero is from a fake country.

Feh. Tired. Have a good weekend.

Heyo, true believers.

Interesting weekend, all around. Friday's poll pitting The Persuader against The Executioner(which sounds like a good wrestling match, when you think about it) . The Persuader (who is, I will remind you, Master of the Atomic Axe, which sounds like a gimmick for a member of KISS) was leading until a late game rally by Executioner fans, based primarily on this issue and its conclusion and after that, I REALLY need a copy of that issue, or at least a trade of Simonson's Ragnarok.

So. The weekend was exciting and draining, simultaneously. Cynra & I motored down to K-Town to see lickerishwhip and the_solecist for a bit and meet their new bebe (how to tell apart groups of friends: The ones in Kingston all have boy babies, otherwise it's girls). The visit had to be somewhat abbreviated because we had to get to Old Fort Henry (home of the finest cheesemakers in the land) for a concert of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra.

The sky was threatening, and a few drops were falling, but we (and the rest of the people in line) were optimistic. Unfortunately, the KSO was less so and, with much babble about 'doppler radar' and 'impending storms', called off the show. Ah, c'est la vie. That's French for "fuckers! I drove down from Toronto!"

Amusing fact: Kingston is just so fucking white it's not funny.

To salvage the evening, Cynra & I decided to grab some dinner at a local venue (The Toucan/Fitzpatrick's, which unlike most bars is unable to get by with just one name), where I got a nice hamburger with blue cheese, and take in a movie. Contrary to your wishes, we took in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, but only because it gave us enough time to eat while not being too late for the wife's delicate constitution (really, it was 10 minutes in either direction; I would have waited the ten minutes for Clerks II, but that was not to be).

We stopped off at K-Town's local indy bookstore and picked up a few things; Cynra filled a few gaps in her Laurie King collection, and I picked up a copy of The Devil's Dictionary and the new Frank.

The movie? An enjoyable enough Rom-Com (light on the Com), although the eponymous supheroine's near-psychotic behaviour was played for uncomfortable laughs at best. It was a better Superhero movie than X-Men III, in any case. Good jewelery store robbery, creative firefighting, missle kicking, and invulnerable hero with non invulnerable costume.

Sunday was spent taking in Old Fort Henry. Our tour guide was a jovial young man with a bad memory. Verbatim: "Oh, yeah, there was something else I wanted to tell you. Oh, it'll come back to me later." At least twice. I hope we didn't miss anything interesting about the officer's mess. We probably would have enjoyed the tour more if we'd gone with the piper, honestly.

We saw the cannon demonstration, and the inspection (and the goat), and also stopped in on the Victorian Schooling session. I messed up in the spelling bee by mis-spelling Lieutenant. The map was amusing, as England was on both the left side and the right.

There were also museum rooms showing medals, rifles, and other stuff. Other stuff beign rooms we didn't go into, as we wanted good seats for the cannon demonstration. Those suckers are LOUD, btw. It ain't good when they go off when you're not expecting it.

We were walking out when I heard a series of reports behind us and thought "dammit, we should have stayed for the rifle drill".

After that, home to ACB for BBQ and kibitzing with the folks. I had too much tabbouleh, but it tasted SO GOOD. Then, home and some shopping and not enough sleep.

And that was my weekend.

So, Uday, the youngest of YHB's siblings, has decided he wants to head out camping this summer.

Now, remember, YHB was a proud member of the scouting movement until he was almost 19. Admittedly, in the fractious, highly politicised Napanee scouting movement, that can mean surprisingly little.

I recall one scoutmaster attempting to sabotage the others by meeting me in a local cafe and throwing badges at me. "Can you do a front stroke? Silver swimming." I never put any of those badges on my sash. It felt dirty to me, even then.

The scouting community in Nappers was fairly dysfunctional, with various scoutmasters passing through because of illness, crankiness, and scandal (one of our members stole one of the scoutmasters from her husband).

In the interim, I went camping maybe a dozen times. Sure, once was in Australia, but overall I didn't make it into the brush much.

So, when Uday emailed me and umario up to suggest a brotherly camping trip, I was slightly reticent. I thought about it for a couple days, and when he called me up to ask if I was in, I said "yes". His reply was "good, because I've already booked the campsite". Little fuck.

Apparently, we have to canoe into it, which should be LOADS of fun. I don't even own a damn backpack at this point. I barely have a sleeping bag.

At least I got a copy of that Avalon Hill Wilderness Survival board game, so that should help. Maybe I'll slap some flank steak in that mole sauce and wrap it in tinfoil for a meal.

Oh, yeah: biked today! The shorts got comfy as I went along. Really should have brought the gloves

A weekend precis:

Drove to ACB on Friday night for dinner with the parents, after picking up Cynra's anniversary present. I'd gotten her a Razr from the local Rogers store. She figured out that she was getting a new phone on the trip over (it was her third guess after backrub and something facetious) but it was still a surprise. Mostly.

You see, we got to the store behind two people, including a guy who seemed to be getting a schpiel for buying a load of stuff, and a guy who needed help clearing his text messages off his phone (oy).

Anyway, we get up to the desk and I say "I'm here to pick up my order." "Oh, Pink Razr?" Cynra's eyes light up. "She knew right?" "Oh, she knows now".

She enjoyed her gift significantly. Since we didn't bring along a camera, she used the phone to take many pictures.

The first night was a drive down to ACB, where Mater Bitter had a meal ready for us; even though we were three hours later than we wanted to be. This was my fault, as I'd been suffering through horrendous back pains for the past few days. I'd even lost feeling in my right arm, and for a while I contemplated not going to D&D on Thursday. It turned out I had an injured rhomboid (sp?) muscle, and the doctor at the clinic perscribed me an anti-inflamatory. Helped very much. Pater Bitter told me I could have just had some of his. That's love.

On Saturday we headed out to Montreal, where we were crashing with Tony, who's an old friend of mine from Kingston. Getting into town turned out to be a bit more troublesome than anticipated, since Google Maps and The City of Montreal differ on certain details ("were we supposed to exit here?" "It says Atwater Road, not Atwater St. Back on the autoroute!") We took in dinner at Santropol, and on Sunday took in the Biodome, where there were butterflies. Cynra took pictures of beetles humping in the Insectorium.

Dinner was at [Unknown site tag] and bridgefiend's house, and finally got to meet the adorable TAZ.

We left Montreal eventually the next day, and arrived in Ottawa eventually (after having to loop back to a rest-stop for Cynra's purse). In Ottawa we were hosted by Wes, an associate from J-School. His wife was visiting family for the march break week, so we didn't get to see her. Monday night was dinner and relaxation ; Wes and Cynra both enjoy Coronation St, so they gazed in wild wonder on a book she'd turned down the chance to buy a week earlier that went over the history of the series. I read an old TORG book I found at my parents, the last one of that series to leave the old homestead.

On Tuesday, we went out for dinner with Janet, Cindy's maid of honour and comic book person. Lunch at one of the Mexicali Rosa's franchises that dot the Ottawa cityscape (I had the corn thingies. Not as good as I remember). Afterwards, it was off to the War Museum. Man, that place is a two day visit, easy. I jokingly said that we'd take in the War of 1812 and the Boer War, but it was close. We took in the special exhibit of was propoganda, which was interesting; I was thinking I'd like to pick up a few of those posters for home display, particularly The Coloured Man is No Slacker). Then, off to section 1, War in Canada from prehistoric times to the Fenian Invasions. When we finished that, I checked hte time and made a decision. We could either start WW I & The Boer War orrrr... Go see the tanks.

Tanks it was!

If you look at the top picture in there, I think that's mr_weasel's exploding tank. Hee hee.

It was quite fun. Apparently the Leopards are modfied off of Panzers. I did not know.

My favourite bit? Pointing to undersea anti-ship munitions and asking Cynra "are those yours? No? Well of course not! They're mines!"

Wa wa waaaaaaah.

Afterwards, off to see Beowulf & Grendel (Grendel is no gentle-troll! He does not provide a reacharound!) and dinner at the mayflower (five alarm hamburger, which was tasty, although 3 alarms at best). Continues to work on Wes to accept that the Simpsons is still good, but it was difficult. An argument that's been ongoing for a decade now.

Then, home after stopping off at ACB for steak and rice and beans. All in all, a good trip, and gas costs were less than $100.

While tagging my previous posts (I'm somewhere in early '02), I noticed I had said that the only other person to list Napanee as an interest was some Avril sock puppet.

Now, the people with Napanee in their interests includes five communities (three, of course, dedicated to Ms. Lavigne and two others not), and a dozen people, only a quarter of whom are ALSPs.

Huzzah!