I normally wouldn't trust you lot to tie your own shoes without pitching over (especially after that whole watermelon fiasco) but since there's no one else about, I need your opinion. There was recently an icon thread in a community where someone filtched a bunch of those Mr Men and Little Miss covers and made icons out of the lot. Now, I'm sure you've noticed that I've had my own Mr Grumpy for quite a while now. I liked some of the others that were posted and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade to the new Mr Grumpy.

The one I have right now is the one I remember from when I was a kid. At some point someone no doubt thought that the illustrations could use a bit of touchup and the more recent printings are different. What I'd like for you lot to do is pick which Mr Grumpy you think I should go with.

As for my own personal take on it....I like the newer, brighter colors of #2, but he looks like he's constipated rather than pissy. #1 is a bit faded and pedestrian in comparrison, but I can just imagine him saying 'And what the fuck do you think you're doing, asshat?' and that's spiffy.


....Grumpy #1...........Grumpy #2

Poll #1187153
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which userpic do you prefer?

Is it wrong that I automatically assume that any non-black person with dreads is a fucking tool?

Poll #1187007
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

So?

By the way, the correct answer to the last question was honeydew, you rejects. Honeydew, damnit. You should have just voted the way I was voting and then you could be sure you'd be right. Just like chocodiablo did.

Watermelons are spiffy, for sure, but they just can't beat a sweet and chilled honeydew. So refreshing. So crisp. Mmmmmmmm.

I stumbled across the following video while watching youtube videos about taping cats. For some reason, just through following the related video suggestions taping cats => goat licking electric fence => dogs barking at invisible fence => humans being shocked by invisible fence => people using cattleprods on themselves => this video. It's got everything. Morons in pain, tasers, half nekkid girls, etc. You really do have to wonder about these women though. It's one thing for guys to get together and electrocute one another. You have to wonder about the sanity of women who agree to strip down to their underwear and also be tasered.

I think I want to borrow someone's cat. I'm not quite sure how you would usually go about something like that. It's not exactly like going next door and asking if you could have a cup of sugar or borrow a ladder. Still, I think it's absolutely vital that I manage to acquire myself a cat and a giant roll of masking tape. I ran across this video last night and I'm really anxious to give it a try.



You've just gotta love the japanese. They come up with some of the most interesting things. I'm curious to find out if you wrap the cat's entire body with tape, does it implode.

So yesterday was sort of Mother's day part II. Since my mom had to watch the restaurant, it was my uncle's turn to take out my grandmother. I hadn't really been thinking much about it since forward planning is not really a part of my life anymore. I really do have this tendency to live moment to moment. That's sort of what happens whenever you have all this uncertainty hanging over your head with the whole medical issues. Anyway, Shelley asked if I wanted to come along with the whole lot of them around 15-20 minutes before they were supposed to leave and I had just rolled out of bed. It usually takes at least a hour before I can hope that my pills kick in and so the first part of the morning was not exactly a pleasant experience.

In the end, I got sort of lucky with the choice of restaurant. Everyone had decided they wanted to go get dim sum at at a place called Wonder Seafood. It's probably the best chinese restaurant hands down in the area. On the off chance you're reading this Lori, I still want to take you there at some point. Just give me a ring one of these days and enough warning ahead of time and we can plan a outing. Anyway, the place has started to really develop a reputation and when I got there, there were people spilling out the doors waiting for a table. There must've been at the minimum 30 people milling around outside waiting to get in and another 20-25 waiting inside. I can't remember the last time I've seen crowd that size waiting for a table anywhere. Because of the vastness of the crowd, I was able to sit in the car and give my meds more time to start working. I didn't exactly time it but it was at least another 30 minutes before we got a table and everyone else had already been waiting for quite some time since I got there late.

The meal itself was spiffy as always. I <3 dim sum. It's impossible not to. It really does live up to its name. (For those of you unaware, dim sum generally translates as a touch/token of the heart) After the meal ended, everyone was planning to head back to my grandmother's for dessert but I noticed that my pills were missing. I'm still not sure exactly what happened to them, though I might have ended up leaving them at the Panera on saturday in my rush to get home. Without pills, there was no way I could stick around. I had been planning to run some other errands but those plans were stymied as well.

I got back from the gameday at the Panera a couple hours ago a complete mess. I'll spare you any descriptions but suffice to say that you'd probably be horrified if I didn't. It shouldn't have been completely unexpected. Even with my drugs, there's just a limited amount of time I can be out and about like a normal person. Going to game days in general is pushing it when I spent 6-7 hours there. Today was simply worse because my day started earlier. Since my mom is going to be working at the restaurant tomorrow, my sisters and I went with her and my grandmother out to eat for mother's day. We went to the Bennigan's out near Middlesex mall and it was pretty spiffy overall. Business can't be very good at these sort of places lately given the state of the economy and it shows. There were some pretty incredible deals including a 7-day a week lunch special consisting of an entree and drink for only $6 or you could get an appetizer, entree, and dessert for $11.99. Even with those promotions going, the place was like a ghost town with only a few tables occupied while we were there. Food prices up, patronage down. It can't be a happy time.

Connie brought Madeline along with her and it's the first time I've seen her in around a month. She looks absolutely huge to me though I'm sure a lot of that is perception rather than reality. Connie did say that she's in the 95th percentile for head size so she's inherited our family's giant melon head. She's also a lot more behaved in general. What I remember most about my previous encounters was that it was almost impossible to see her both awake and not screaming. There was usually only a 10-15 minute window after she woke up or was fed or was changed before she would start to cry and had to sleep, eat, or be changed again. She's actually starting to develop a personality and would break into a huge smile whenever she looked at my mom or grandmother. Her brows would furrow in a puzzled/slightly disturbed expression whenever she glanced my way, though that's better than her reaction to my father which is to immediately break into tears. I'm sure a lot of it is just familiarity.

Madeline was well behaved enough that there weren't any real disturbances with the meal. For the most part, my sisters just passed her back and forth as the other would eat. The meal itself was very good for the price. I ended up having a cheese burger with fried mushrooms as an appetizer. When it's piping hot and done right, I just <3 batter-dipped fried vegetables. I did end up scalding my mouth at one point though.

After the meal, it was still around 45 minutes before the gameday would start and I made the mistake of just going there early and waiting in the car. What I should have done is just gone home and 'reset the clock' on my issues and arrived late. Instead I sat around listening to NPR until everyone else arrived. I spent most of the game day playing Through the Ages again. No doubt that was part of the problem. The game must've run at least 5-6 hours where I just sat there without moving. By the time I was finally forced to get up to make my bladder gladder, everything had just snowballed into a real cockup. Inflammation issues are like that. You can take anti-inflammatories or other drugs but time works against you. All you can do is slow the issues, but there's always a piper to pay at some point. I managed to limp my way back to finish the game because I didn't want to just abandon it so close to the end. As soon as it was over I made my way to the car and came home.

Situations like this always make me worried when it comes to cons and other sorts of situations where I'm stuck out for extended periods. It's no wonder why things like that have become less appealing over the years as things have gotten worse.

So far, 6 of the PPB bags have sold to my surprise. One of the people who purchased one doesn't want to pay for it, but that's pretty much par for the course. She claims she's too stupid to work the checkout feature and just wants to call the whole thing off. I can sort of understand if these were auctions and you popped up a bid early on that ended up winning but these were all buy it now listing. I mean, look at the name. Buy it now. Not say you want it then end up changing your mind.

I offered to help her through the checkout process but I'm sure it's a non-starter. She might be dumb as a brick but even most idiots can figure out how to pay for something online. I figure it's just an excuse and the lack of response since the initial email reinforces that idea. I have her home address and phone # so I might just give her a ring in a day or two and see if I can compel payment.

No love yet for the leftover VB's. Maybe it's just a case of what's hot today is tommorrow's rubbish.

I got a heads up earlier that some person was complaining about one of the games I ran at Ubercon on behalf of his girlfriend or something. I, of course, popped over to his LJ to take a look and it wasn't hard to not feel grumpy about it. In case you want to take a look, the whole entry is here. Here's the relevant portion:

Mandy also got ticked off at some guy running Killer Bunnies who kept leaving the table, Henry Chi or something? Gonna find out if he's a playroom rep or if he's just some douche bag who kept acting like those playing his game were a nuisance or burden.

I swear to God, some people are such whiney sissies. I can only assume that she thought that I was supposed to sit there and hold her hand during the entire game.

The really obnoxious part about this is that I already end up scheduling and running twice the number of games that a GM is required to and actually slotted them in a way to maximize the number of events. That I would then get this person whining about it just gets my goat. It's not even as if I simply walked off after tossing the game on the table and vanished or something. I must've spent 15 minutes or so teaching the rules and then spent the entire time around 15 feet away. It's not even as if I were actually involved in another game or something. Actually, at the time I was having issues and simply didn't want to sit and make things any worse. I went to a nearby table where friends were playing something or other and knelt on a chair there, leaning on the table. June, who was also playing KB, waved me over a few times for rules questions and adjudications so I'm not sure exactly what this girl's problem was. Maybe she just felt she needed to be catered to or something.

The really ironic part is that I had been worried the game would be problematic at first because of the presence of a couple of newbies. I stuck around at the table for a while just to make sure that things were going well but after a time they seemed to have it all well in hand. I'm wondering if I should drop June a line and see if this girl was complaining the entire time or otherwise a problem since as far as I knew, things had run smoothly.

Feh. Sometimes I really wonder if it's worthwhile to run games. It's one thing when people are appreciative of the effort but quite another when you make the effort and still get crap because of it. God knows I didn't have to do as many events as I did, but I figured it was for the good of the con. Maybe it's time to rethink that metric.

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Update:

So the guy responded to my comment on his blog and was actually pretty reasonable and even keeled in his response. That, of course, takes a lot of the wind and bluster out of my irritation. I even went back and edited some of my more colorful language. After all, it's not his fault really, he just ends up being the surrogate since it was his blog entry I was directed to.

Still, I am more than a bit cheesed about her supposed comment that I didn't have the materials for the game. I brought the game with every single expansion in it. What in the world did she want on top of that? The decks even had a smattering of all the omego and psi cards to boot. Feh. I'm definitely going to have to drop June a line and see what in the world was up.

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I dropped June a PM over on BGG. We'll see what she has to say about it.

I think my brain is starting to atrophy. One thing I've noticed about chronic pain is it really serves to unfocus the mind. It's hard to concentrate on anything other than the pain itself, and usually that's the last thing you want to do. Instead, thoughts become disjointed and you seem to spend a lot of time in a sort of by the moment limbo. Once the pills start to kick in and things subside, your brain just feels an immense sort of relief and does the mental equivalent of sinking into a comfy armchair and vegging out.

Sometimes I feel like I should be planning something or doing something or anything. But notta comes to mind. I'm the proverbial boat without a rudder.

It's hard nowadays to open a newspaper or read any sort of political commentary online without running across some story on Gitmo. Considering that most reporters are self-declared hippies, most of them favor having the place shut down and its prisoners released. Think about it. How many exposes have there been now where some magazine or newspaper features some poor misfortunate who supposedly wound up as an enemy combatant 'by mistake'. Of course, the mistake in question is usually being found in a war zone with an AK-47 and shooting at US troops.

This is not to say that there probably haven't been mistakes. There are no doubt people out there who have been swept up who only dabbled instead of fully participated in terrorism. I'm sure there must be at least a couple instances of guilt by association. If your three best friends just happen to have been suicide bombers, your uncle runs the radical mosque you attend, and Al Zawahiri happens to come over once a week for potluck, it's very likely you're going to be viewed with suspicion and picked up whether you yourself have ever actually participated in their actions.

Despite all the press about the supposed innocent and the push to have more prisoners released, what we don't often see is that many of those that have been detained have ended up rejoining Al Qaeda. Think of it this way, of those who have been released, they were deemed the most likely to be innocent and the most likely to not constitute a threat. Of those, a not insignificant number have been later found to have rejoined the fight. There's one just reported in CNN today.

Pentagon: Ex-detainees returning to fight

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Kuwaiti man released from U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2005 blew himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq last month, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi was one of two Kuwaitis who took part in a suicide attack in Mosul on April 26, the officials said. Records show that an attack in Mosul that day targeted an Iraqi police patrol and left six people dead, including two police officers.

An announcement on a jihadist Web site earlier this month declared that al-Ajmi was one of the "heroes" who carried out the Mosul operation. A second man from Kuwait also took part in the suicide attack, the Web site said.

Pentagon officials who had been keeping track of al-Ajmi said they were aware he had left Kuwait for Syria, a launching ground for terrorists into Iraq.

A video posted on various jihadist Web sites shows a number of images of al-Ajmi, followed by text reading, "May God have mercy on you Abdullah al-Ajmi. I send you a warm greeting O you martyr, O you hero, O you, a man in a time where only few men are left."

U.S. military records of Guantanamo detainees indicate that a man with the same name and nationality was held at the Cuban prison.

Those records said al-Ajmi, 29, was picked up in Afghanistan as he tried to enter Pakistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion. He claimed to have fought for the Taliban, the records show, and said he fought in a number of battles against the Northern Alliance.

Though he was never charged with any crime, al-Ajmi was held at Guantanamo through 2005. Military documents show he later claimed that his statements about fighting for the Taliban were made after he was threatened while in U.S. custody. He asserted that he was in Afghanistan to study the Quran.

It's fucking ridiculous. Frankly, someone owes those poor bastards in Mosul an explanation for this sort of thing. Maybe we can get some of the hippies who supported this asshole's release to travel there and tell the family members why their loved ones are dead. Maybe they can tell them how the guy 'pinky swore' he really wasn't a terrorist and that's why they fought to get him released.

There should be a price to be payed when people are wrong about bullshit like this. At the very least the families should be allowed to sue the ACLU or whoever advocated for this asshole's release.