Some stuff from Ix

Shakespeare

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:22:29 GMT

Taken while eating my morning Fruity Pebbles

Your Score: Measure for Measure

You scored 31% = Tragic, 46% = Comic, 18% = Romantic, 53% = Historic

You are Measure for Measure. Originally classified as a comedy but now regarded amongst the "Problem Plays", Measure for Measure is a story of truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness, and humility. What your score tells us about you is that you are most likely an outgoing person, who believes in doing what is right. While you may sometimes abuse your power in certain situations, for the most part you are kind-hearted and sincere. Not that abusing your power is necessarily a bad thing. Remember, as the play tells us "some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." We just want to make sure you don't get too greedy for power and end up like that Macbeth guy!

Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test
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Oddly, this is one of his plays I do not know.

Wedding

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:22:42 GMT

The wedding of Duke Bardolph and stargazer_jq was wonderful. The ceremony was very traditional. She looked radiant in her dress. He impressed us all when he ended his vows with Thus swear I. She made us all laugh when she had to ask the preatcher to repeat that line "to be my lawfully wedded husband" when she was saying her vows.

The weather held off to allow for a perfect outside wedding. The reception was lots of fun. I would call it laid back. It was great to see so many wonderful friends. It is always fun to see people dressed up in mundanes. It was an intersting mix. Lots of old Free Militia as was to be expected. So many SCA peers and nobles that you could not swing a cane without hitting one. And Sir Kaydian was swinging the cane. The teenage children were having a great time too. It also seems that I can only see Alaric and Noelle at weddings not events. It was a wonderful day to celebrate a great occasion.

Pictures are uploaded here

Tire

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:24:57 GMT

The tire just needed a plug in it. $10.95 with tax. I have put it back on the van and the van. Yes, all by myself. It is now ready to go out and get sgtgwn's mothers day present tomorrow: A new grill. She knows. She is going to help pick it out. It is better that way. Anyone reading this with suggestions, go right ahead and make them.

Now that I am no longer going to get dirty, it is time to clean up for the wedding.

"Real" D&D Stats

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:20:23 GMT

I like this because it uses classic D&D stats that most of us are familiar with. I have to say that most of mine make sense on this to me.

You scored 11 Strength, 15 Constitution, and 11 Dexterity!

All stats are based on the original D&D system of 3-18. 3 being tragically weak and 18 being olympic level ability. Odds are you will be more towards the middle for most things (the middle being 10-11), as that is where most people should be. If you scored above 18 in any skill, I highly suggest you go back and read the directions closer. Especially if you scored above an 18 strength, you need to take the test over and only answer ONCE on the first page. Taken properly, it is not possible to get above an 18 on any stat.

Link: The D&D stats - Physical Test written by mojograham on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
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You scored 16 Intelligence, 10 Wisdom, and 16 Charisma!

All stats are based on the original D&D system of 3-18. 3 being tragically weak and 18 being olympic level ability. Odds are you will be more towards the middle for most things (the middle being 10-11), as that is where most people should be. If you scored above 18 in any skill, I highly suggest you go back and read the directions closer. Especially if you scored above an 18 intelligence, you need to take the test over and only answer ONCE on the first page. Taken properly, it is not possible to get above an 18 on any stat, unless you' over 70 years old.

I am open to suggestions for improving this test. Please message me if you think I am not taking something into account, or have any questions for how I calculated scores.

Link: The D&D stats - Mental Test written by mojograham on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(mojograham)

Comedy Survey

Fri, 09 May 2008 02:24:01 GMT

If you are bored give you opinion:

The Three Stooges are classic comedy.

I think that they are some of the funniest things ever done.

Niagra Falls anyone?

Democratic Party

Thu, 08 May 2008 04:07:49 GMT

I was orginally a supporter of Hillary Clinton. When it came tim to vote in Illinois, because of the way the primary system works here, I split my vote between delegate for Clinton and Obama. Hillary would make a good president. Barack will make a good and exciting one that can energize the country. I love Hillary. It is not her turn. I think she would make a fine VP, though I doubt she would consider. She sort of was that once. So it is time for her step aside. I have no issue with her waiting until after the last primary on June 3rd. But then she needs to get out of the way and unify to beat McCain.

Barack Obama in 2008.

Fighter Practice

Wed, 07 May 2008 04:54:08 GMT

I was off at practice tonight. Way off, IMO. I wore my jaguar suit because I saw an e-mail asking us to try to look nice as it was the TOH tournament. So I obliged (that should make birchduck happy :) ) and wore the suit. For some reason it is always hotter at night after I have been at work all day. sgtgintaras has come so far, he had me fresh and still did a solid job. I am so proud of that man. Then I fought OK with Nissan, but Sir Guerric had me for lunch and the other Clovenshield fighters held their own against me very well.

I was fighting one of the Clovenshield guys at the end of the night when my pole arm broke over his head. That pole was only about six years old. It had only been to about 15 wars and god knows how many fights. I hate making new weapons. Now I have to decide what to do.

AC

Tue, 06 May 2008 22:43:38 GMT

The AC in the office was at 81 today. It was great. Now for some reason someone is here to fix it. I did not think it was broken

Cardinals

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:04:03 GMT

The Cardinals just finished taking 2 out of 3 from the Cubs to sit 1.5 games in front of them in first place in the NL Central. While it is early in the season, it is very sweet.

More from Baile

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:57:23 GMT

I forgot to note in my previous post that Terrae Finis own ourflagiswhite won the novice tournament. Now he can only play with the big boys.

Pictures are uploaded now as well to the TF website

Lawn

Sun, 04 May 2008 19:31:18 GMT

I fought the lawn and I won. A bit over two hours of lawnmowing and the jungle is tamed. It was over six inches higher in spots where I had mowed vs where I was mowing. Plies of mulch have been created. It is a nice day out for it. Not quite nice enough to take the shirt off, which is the ideal way to mow the lawn, but still nice enough for a T-shirt only.

Where was this weather yesterday?

Baseball

Sat, 03 May 2008 06:10:17 GMT

The Cardinals beat the Cubs in extra innings tonight to move 1.5 games in first at this very early point of the season.

Book Meme

Fri, 02 May 2008 01:58:05 GMT

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. And [bracket] the books you own but haven't read yet.

Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
Moby Dick - Worst book of all time
Madame Bovary
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Brothers Karamazov
Vanity Fair
Emma
Atlas Shrugged
The Canterbury Tales
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
The Once and Future King
1984
Sense and Sensibility
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
Neverwhere
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lolita
Persuasion
The Catcher in the Rye
Watership Down
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
The Scarlet Letter
Don Quixote
Ulysses
The Odyssey
The Iliad
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
The Tale of Two Cities
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Anansi Boys
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Northanger Abbey
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid - part of it in Latin
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit - Best book of the series
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Not very impressive is it?

Early in the Season

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:03:33 GMT

One month into the baseball season and the St Louis Cardinals have the second most wins in the National League and are tied for the lead of the NL Central. All this with our best pitchers on the DL and due to come back this summer.

Conferences

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:48:46 GMT

So tonight I am going to hang out with mairegirlas she is up here for a library conference. Just finished having dinner with her and so_zanie. They are finishing up the prep work. Those two are not my stereotype of librarians. This is another benefit of being up here for a while.

So if anyone else has buiness bringing them to the greater Chicago area in May let me know and we can get together if you are free during any week night.

Fighter Practice

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:08:48 GMT

Another great practice. It will be hard to go back to Lochmorow practices after this. "Only" eight fighters this week to play with. I love practicing with Nissan. While I do not agree with his fighting style or his view of the game. I know where he stand and when the two of us go toe to toe each with two swords for 15 minutes, it is awesome. Gets the blood flowing.

Anton got his blade fixed. Now I have to await Baroness Keilly's quest.

It is fun fighting in Ayerton.

Chocolate

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:42:30 GMT

What Your Taste in Chocolate Says About You

You are sweet, mellow, and easily satisfied.

You don't like anything too intense and dramatic.

Deep down, you're a kid at heart... and you're nostalgic for the past.

You are laid back and fairly easy to please.

All you need in life is your friends.

Sometimes you go along to get along... but you don't mind.

You love new adventures and activities. You enjoy living a full life, even if it is chaotic.

You feel lost when things are quiet. You rather not think... you prefer to just do!

The Chocolate Oracle

Wifi

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:34:19 GMT

This is really neat. I am typing this on the Florida turnpike. We have a 3G Verizon connection card connected to a wifi router. Both of the passengers in the car are on line. The speed is not great, but it is OK.

Technology is fun.

Earthquake

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:13:55 GMT

So there was an earthquake at 4:30 this morning that "that rattled skyscrapers in Chicago's Loop" but I slept through it. At least mostly. I do recall waking up looking at the clock that said nearly 5 and going back to sleep. My clock is set fast, so maybe I detected something.

But I mostly slept.

Martial Arts vs Sport

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:56:52 GMT

Tonight chentzu and I had a long talk about martial arts versus sports. He stated that the SCA was just a sport. I argued that like any form of combat it can be that, but it can be more. Chen called anything with rules on the combat a sport, while agreeing that by having rules the SCA and groups like it let you train reflexes and speed that you could never otherwiese train.

I think the SCA is just as much a martial art as Karate. To that Chen said that Karate is now a sport. We then got into an easter vs western martial art debate where I said that despite the break, WMA is valid. We agreed the WMA had mostly degraded into fencing by the 18th century that was a pure sport

I think that SCA is a valid WMA. It is normally practied as a sport, but I think that some rise it above that.

Short Fighter Practice Post

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:24:16 GMT

OK. I never did find a decent spot, but at the complex across the street from mine I can get a signal. Which worries me that I have been blocked form the signal that I have been borrowing.

But I fought rapier tonight. Anton loaned me a sword. I had a lot of fun. I enjoy rapier a lot because I have a lot to learn in it. But as I was fighting in some melees with ToH, I blocked a shot and my hand twisted funny. I looked down and the sword was at an odd angle. The solid metal bar in the handle broke. Crap. I broke Anton's sword. And he had needed to run to get Kelliey. So I had to tell him when they got back at the end of practice. And the it got worse. Baroness Kelliey said you broke lefty, lefty was my sword. I fell at her feet and begged forgiveness. She did of course, because she is a kind benevolent soul. But being a knight, I told her that she must send me on a quest. Best not to be one involving anything mechanical. So she is musing that now.

Sigh. Maybe I am not meant to fight rapier?

Domestic

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:46:59 GMT

Despite the 1.25 hour trip to get groceries, I got them. I washed and dryed the laundry and plan to put it away next. I did the dishes and I took the garbage out. Not that when living in an apartment any of these are major things compared to home.

Lost

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:52:30 GMT

I know how to get lost. I thought I would check out the nearest Dominicks instead of the Jewle as I was not impressed by the Jewel. The Jewel was 3 miles, Domnicks was 5.5.

23 miles and 1.25 hours later I am home with my groceries. That is all I want to say about the trip.

Sunday

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:54:21 GMT

I spent some more time with aneyah today before she had to leave and then hit the Ayerton Combined Practice. 12+ fighters in armor. A different mixture. Got to fight with Sabah and do some melees. Came home and chatted with sgtgwn about our weekends and video chatted with my boy.

A great end to a fun weekend.

Now it is time for bed.

Friends

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:03:02 GMT

A night spent with a lot of friends is the best way to describe tonight.

I went over to evils_thoughts house and we had dinner. Delightul conversation. ovens_thoughts sort of joined us after he got home. Then mairegirl and [Bad username: youngcynical18'> arrived about 9. They were just settled in when the wedding group of <lj user=], terrilyn and aneyha got home. Much hilarity ensued. I got to meet worldofmin02 and he and I agreed to get together while I am up here. Talked on line to sgtgwn and zix123 until they went to bed. Then had a great night of conversation. The best of which is when youngcynical18 determined that she and I gave off all our body heat and that is why we were cold and more clothes did not help.

The only down sides to the night were the one lane expressway and the fact the my AC unit for my MacBook is still at evils_thoughts's house.

Off to bed and then tomorrow it will be time for the wedding of purplebard and amorsalado. First wedding of four that I know I will attend in 2008.