We’re going to drop Corki off at Challe’s and end this madness.

I am currently gorging myself on two-bite chocolate brownies from Private Selection.  I thought it said Pirate Collection when I started and I didn’t realize how much of my interest was linked to that misperception because now I’m bored of them.  Lord knows why my brain was okay with any kind of brownie from a Pirate Collection—except perhaps one soaked in rum—but dagnabit I was committed.

There are cheese curds also which I’m told are supposed to squeak but honestly I’m fine that they don’t.  While I am a fan of red meat, I don’t generally look for food so rare it gives me any kind of impression that its begging for its life as I chew.  I’m sure the squeak in question isn’t quite like that; but it amuses me to think so and I have no proof to the contrary on hand.

NaNoWriMo is looming ever nearer (November) which means breakneck, first-draft writing until my eyes bleed is imminent.  Time to get in shape.  I’ve been conditioning my fingers, brain, and keyboard for a few days now in the hopes that I’ll be fully prepared this year for the 1,667 words required each day to hit the 50,000 word mark in a mere 30 days.  I made it last year after a rockin’ start, a woeful slump, and a desperate last ditch effort and I’m hoping to make a repeat with less drama and more useable content.

National Novel Writing Month is really only an event to writers.  But it’s possible that it may interest others to know of its existence.  As mentioned, the single, simple goal is to write 50,000 words between November 1^st and November 30^th.  There are no real rules, it’s an honor system; though you do upload your word count at your leisure to make use of their handy dandy tracking system.  Maybe that sounds easy and maybe you realize how ridiculous a work load that is for all but the most ambitious of full-time writers.  And possibly for the most brilliant savants who pour prose from their pen like money from the wallet of an Apple enthusiast.

I’ve only participated in it once, but it is not easy.  I promise you.  Show up on November 25thish and ask me to edit a paper for you and see how far the shrapnel flies from my exploding brain.  Maintaining a single story line for that long without any outlining or editing is painful, counter-intuitive, and at times heartbreaking.

Unless your entire month is devoted solely to the project, there just isn’t time to let your brain rest and recharge between sessions.  And whether you write it all in one block or broken up throughout the day, you still find yourself spending every waking minute preparing yourself for the next time you face that keyboard.  I lost an “H” key last year.  Here you can see the peg fashioned from toothpicks that’s been faithfully serving the function and confusing people who borrow my computer ever since:

Hopefully no more bits or pieces will fall off the good Baron this year—Baron Catastrophe is my computer’s name—because I’ve got this blog and probably a real job to keep up with as well.  There’s a difference between ruggedly weathered and downright rickety.  Let’s not cross that line, little buddy.  His battery kicked the bucket a while ago so he’s less of a mobile PC and more of a leashed-but-still-semi-mobile PC.

Which is better than poor Narnia back home, sitting there lifeless with her guts exposed to the harsh environment of my (supposedly) vacant room, mysteriously unable to wake from her videoless sleep.  These problems and more—nearly all of them are authentically significant—can be put on the road to rectification if you will kindly go the travel site and do some ad clicking.  Maybe even buy something.  It’s a great time of year to take a vacation, lots of discounts.

And on to the chores.  Today instead of music I’m posting comedy.  Not people getting hit in the balls or an entire dialogue of fart noises funny, not all humor is quite as advanced as you get today, but still pretty good stuff.  Now these first two are kind of awkward funny because they are audition tapes so there are few to no laughs from the audience.  But it’s fun to see Dana Carvey—definitely not sophisticated either, but we can all get a chuckle out of big humor—when he was just starting out, trying to get a job at Saturday Night Live, and you get to see little glimpses of what would become absurdly famous material in the next decade:

Dana Carvey’s SNL Audition, Part 1 of 2

Dana Carvey’s SNL Audition, Part 2 of 2

These next five are most definitely not high class either.  Kristen Wiig is hilarious, beautiful, and fearless when it comes to comedy.  These sketches flatter nothing but her career and that possibly makes them even funnier.  The tiny hands don’t hurt either.  You can thank Ferret for introducing me to Dooneese:

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Spring

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Spring… more

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Mother’s Day

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Winter

The Lawrence Welk Show Says Good Night

If you don’t laugh at those… well nobody is perfect.

Since it’s Saturday the webcomic pickings are pretty slim.  Least I Could Do was pretty funny today despite being mid-plotline so they get the nod.  I’m sure the good folks at Blind Ferret were on the edge of their collective seat waiting for that one to come down.

Sleep well, world.

Tomorrow: Master Tae Kwon Do in four simple steps!

Have you ever had one of those days when you don’t want to give your brain a chance to catch up with you because you don’t know want to know what it has to say?  Whether or not you know why it’s there, dread is hanging out in the dark alley just off Introspection Way and it might be easier to take the long way through your day.  This was one of those days for me.

It happens frequently.  More frequently than it used to.  I used to trot merrily out the streetlights and into the shadows to see what sort of fascinating damage I might have lurking there.  It made useful material for my writing and still does when I can stand to do it now.  But now I know what sorts of things I can expect to find there.  There’s less wonder and more painful memories playing on loop in a dingy theater that goes Hotel California on your ass when you stumble inside.

So what used to be my most productive days are now my curl-up-in-a-mental-cocoon-of-any-and-all-mind-numbing-distractions-lest-I-go-completely-and-genuinely-berserk days.  It takes longer to say it and nothing gets done so it’s a lose-lose situation.  Luckily it isn’t overwhelming most days so I actually get more done than I did when I was writing on pure I-feel-like-it mojo.

Luckily I was invited to attend a happy hour get-together today and a couple pints of Newcastle—or rather a pint of Newcastle and a pint of some other brown ale that the server mistakenly brought me—and a Jim Beam and Coke helped keep at bay the anxiety that was going to be building all night.  We also had a good laugh at the genuinely horrendous service we got at the Sedona Lounge.  They had great happy hour prices, that’s what attracted the decision makers in the group, but we didn’t get much opportunity to take advantage of that.

Our drink orders were taken right away when we were seated… then again by the server who was apparently taking over our table but didn’t know someone else had already done it.  We’d more or less forgotten what we’d ordered by the time the drinks showed up and the rest of our group had showed up as well.  Since the server was already there delivering things he couldn’t quite manage to ignore the new arrivals and they got to order their drinks as well, but he manage to squirt away before we got a food order in.

Luckily someone at the table was hungry enough to shout into the room that she wanted food.  This was met with stunning indifference by both bartenders, the floor manager, and all four servers despite ours being one of five tables actually occupied in the restaurant.  A server we didn’t know and never saw again accidentally walked close enough for us to snag him and demand food.  He found our real server for us and we got to order.

As mentioned, they were packed to the gills with customers so it was totally understandable when our round of appetizers took roughly 30 minutes.  But the food was good when it eventually arrived.  It was about this time that we managed to secure refills for our long empty drinks.  I’m not sure if everyone else got what they ordered, but I did not.  It was still good so no harm done.

For those of you who aren’t involved in foodservice or happy hours in general, it’s a volume business.  They are barely making money, if at all, on the specials and pretty much all they’re selling to their profit is the experience or the possibility that you order something that isn’t discounted.  We all walked out of there stone sober and convinced to not return so the Sedona failed on both counts.  It is the first time I’ve ever received truly awful service and I hardly expected it to come from a place with $30 to $50 entrees on their dinner menu.

For music today I’m going to suggest some stuff that doesn’t tempt the mind to contemplation so much.  Instead we’re going to groovy stuff that makes me sing along and rock out when (I think) nobody can see me.  You’ve heard both of them on the radio, but that doesn’t make them any less good.  This one has a nifty little story in the video that is reminiscent of all kinds of mythology and mostly just fun to watch:

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring

And this one definitely lays on some philosophy, but it’s big idea style philosophy wrapped up in a cuddly package so it doesn’t threaten to shove you headfirst into any of Sorrow by Bad Religion

Today’s CotD winner is Bug.  They definitely deserve some attention this week, it’s not Bug’s fault that everyone else was bringing the thunder.  Today was somewhat thunderless on most fronts and Bug was solid as ever plus some thanks to giggle-worthy art.

Have a good night, team.  I’m off to keep my thoughts at bay until I pass out.

This title is less clever than what I’d planned.

My life coach has advised me that real blog posts twice a day are better than one and the Facebook reposts totally don’t count.  I agree and now with that motivation I will return to twice daily posts plus whatever else I feel like tossing up here.

Tonight I went to a writing club.  Not just a writing group, a whole club of people who write.  It hadn’t really occurred to me that being somewhere with a population greater than the maximum occupancy of an Arby’s might have enough writers to constitute a gathering.  Who knew?

There was diversity and enthusiasm and varying levels of skill and it was like a little world and it was a delight.  And there was beer.  Newcastle pint drafts for $3.50.  If you argue with that I’ll be fetching the spider-bat.

There was a speaker, Andrew Kiraly, an editor of some accomplishment and a now-published author, who spoke about how to really dig into your own work and eviscerate the parts that truly need it.  He talked about throwing away the affection all writers get for their work and approaching it as a thing that needs to grow and breathe on its own.  Basically he gave us parenting tips for nurturing our little literary progeny to maturity.  Check out his new novel, Crit.

He pointed out many of the flaws that writers make at all levels.  I make most of them, the few I’ve managed to correct on my own or thanks to others are a constant challenge still.  We get too attached to our own ideas even when people we should respect tell us they’re flawed.  The longer we’ve spent cultivating and manicuring those ideas the harder it is to let them go.  Regarding this I have simple advice, observe the Tao.  Some things are meant to pass.  This is true throughout all of life, the only constant is transience—gotta love philosophical paradoxes.  But on the page it should be more true, as the page is meant to reflect life to some degree, and it should be less difficult to do.

Once you start writing a story, it isn’t yours any more.  You’re the one telling it, but that doesn’t give you the right to mess it up because it isn’t turning out the way you planned.  Again it’s like life that way, but there are fewer consequences to changing the words to what they’re supposed to be.

There is no quick and easy way to find the real story.  Another comment made tonight—I can’t remember who said it and I wish I could—was something to the effect of: Successful authors aren’t good writers, they’re good re-writers.  It’s never right the first time.  Never.  Edit, revise, rewrite, start over, give up, set the pages on fire, throw your laptop out the window, get too drunk to remember your characters’ names.  Basically you need to rock the boat and see what shakes loose.  This was Andrew’s message and it’s the message of every writer who’s managed to finish something good and it’s the message of every writing teacher who knows their salt.  This is not an easy profession.  Not just anyone can do it.

I’m not sure I can either.  This won’t be self-congratulating until I’m a successful writer.  Until then I’m just an aspiring, runty hopeful with dreams of accomplishment and delusions of qualification.

Today’s CotD is near and dear to the topic of literature and to my own heart.  Sheldon has spent a few days running with this theme now, but this one in particular tickles me because it makes fun of Twilight.  Which I hate.  More on that some day.  (I did read it.)

And today’s music takes it down a notch.  Like medical marijuana for the ears, it’s clean and soothing and leaves you a little bit sad but strangely optimistic at the same time.  It’s just that good.

Gone Away From Me by Ray Lamontagne

And I really can’t leave you high and dry and gloomy so here’s another one with a special place in my heart.  It’s even appropriate for this time of year.  The video is a little trippy and the song is a lot groovy so be prepared to tap your toe, nod along, maybe clap your hands, and almost definitely hum it until you feel like your head is going to explode because the name of the thing isn’t nearly as catchy as the tune.

Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine

Happy reading, happy listening, and happy night to you all.

Hot dog and a beer for $2? I’m in.

The weather around here is just knocking my socks off lately.  Apparently this is normal for Fall, but I’m hoping it sticks around.  The paper today ran pictures of the lightning strikes last night; unfortunately I couldn’t find those for you because their website doesn’t want me to have them.  They were epic though, in the truest sense.  Great, towering, crackling things splitting the sky as high as you could see.  The thunder is a little different here.  Different acoustics I’m thinking.  Or maybe that’s in my head.  But it was pretty spectacular too when it rolled in close enough.

It has also been much cooler and you know I love that.  I get cold easily as anyone who knows me can attest and you would guess if you could see me and my 5% body-fat.  But it’s fall now and I like a nip in the air and reason to wear long sleeved shirts.  The shorts don’t have to go quite yet.  Maybe never, here.

We went to Fremont Street today.  If you are visiting Vegas, go there.  If you  live in Vegas and somehow haven’t been, go there.  It’s cool.  For those who really don’t know, Fremont Street is a covered street on the “old” strip.  This is where you can see the famous neon cowboy and his recent bride.  It’s also where you can see the “Viva-Vision” ceiling that both protects you—some—from the elements and advertises things in great hundred foot animations that pretty much define panoramic.  They also do large-scale animated sequences set to music at night that are pretty fun to watch.

Both sides of the street are lined with casinos and just because they aren’t the fancy shmancy new casinos doesn’t mean they aren’t worth checking out.  There’s a zipline that runs 750 feet down the middle of the street, more food and drink specials than you could possibly take advantage of even in a full day, and gambling for all skill levels and wallet depths.  It’s a bit like a theme park for adults.  Though most of the attractions aren’t rideable (just the zipline), at least in public.

It’s full of street entertainers too.  There was a contortionist, a couple musicians, several impersonators, among with were Bart Simpson, Batman, Alan from The Hangover, and Pee Wee Herman.  There were also a number of people just dressed up to be interesting.  Among them were these flamingo girls (I don’t know what else to call them, feathery burlesque girls?):

And this pirate:

‘nuff said.

There were also a few places with go-go dancers and a couple stages set up with attractive female dj’s who also danced and seemed to only be there to try to get the crowd to dance along.  It worked.  There’s a lot of booze on Fremont Street.  We got a hot dog and Coors Lite draft for $2 at one of the casinos.  It was a decent deal, definitely discount food, but everything tastes better when it’s for fun and even moreso when you’re starving.

With Fall comes Fall premieres.  Shows both old and new kick off and give Hulu a reason to exist again since the summer is pretty bleak for free streaming video.  Sure, Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef are fun to watch, but Hulu didn’t even carry the end of those seasons for free and, believe it or not, I don’t make enough money at this to buy the fancy version.  If you have a free moment I kindly request you  help with that by checking out our travel site, if you haven’t already, and clicking some of the sponsors.  Come on… you  can’t tell me you don’t want to go to Sandals.

The first show to really come out swinging on my radar is New Girl.  Zooey Deschanel is always a treat, even if you aren’t sure how to pronounce her name, and she’s in fine form here as well.

While I’m waiting for my phone to finish updating so I can get the pictures and video from Fremont I’ll drop another shameless plug, this time for my some-time roommate’s blog, the N Quadrant.  Hop over and give him a read; keep him motivated.

Penny Arcade came through again for today’s CotD.  Bug was one of those rare funny, but not side-splitting days and most of the others are invested in that “plot” thing I’ve heard so much about.  So go here and laugh along with the raw silliness and gamer-related eye-rolling commentary.

Today I’m going to post some more music that I’ve really been enjoying.  This one is pretty much impossible to not rock out to:

Fallen by Volbeat

And this one is an extremely credible cover of one of my favorite songs:

White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons, covered by Kate McGill

I’m not sure how much she’s cheating with the ol’ acoustics and post-production, but it sounds eerie and beautiful and heartfelt to me and that’s all I’m needing to be content here.

So get your groove on, get your ogle on, get your laugh on.  Do it in whatever order you like, and have a good night.

I’m sure somebody loves the Vegas…

You didn’t think I’d leave you high and dry, did you?  I bet you did.  For all of you who doubted, wrist-slaps are in order.  Don’t worry, the orangutans are on their union-mandated breaks.  This is just me.  And the spider-bat.  (That’s not some kind of mutant cave dweller that spins webs and flaps around and generally ruins your peace of mind.)

There are plenty of factors I could blame for the lateness of this post.  But really, I just chose to not write it until now.  Sometimes you get it earlier than midnight, sometimes you’ll get it later.  Since this is a maniacally giggling ferret moment on top of a fairly long day of them, we’re going to move right along.

I had a pretty major disappointment today.  What had seemed like a nigh-unto perfect job opportunity flitted away because of forces sincerely beyond my control  It would have been a great job: tutoring a couple middle school kids in critical reading for several hours a week.  Hopefully something comparable comes along so I don’t have to settle for a busboy or fry cook position that slowly—or not so slowly—eats my soul.

The Las Vegas job market seems uninspired as a whole.  That might not seem… true… to those of you on the outside.  But hospitality service is not nearly as much fun as being a tourist.  Frankly it’s pretty shitty work.  Part of the reason is that it is, by its very definition, shitty work.  Hospitality service means doing all the crap people don’t want to do for themselves so they can enjoy themselves.

But that isn’t so awful either.  Any kind of service has inherent nobility, though it might be hard to see when you’re elbow deep in someone else’s laundry with it’s incomprehensibly wretched odors and unfortunately mysterious stains.  One of my favorite movies, Peaceful Warrior, speaks to this philosophy and if you haven’t seen it or read the book it’s based on I recommend you educate yourself here or here.  It is good to give of yourself to help others.  And being paid for it makes it no less noble; it’s important to be valued for your efforts and to put food on your table.

The problem with hospitality service is that it caters to tourists.  If you know that word as I do you know that it’s pronounced in such a way that would ruin the relatively PG-13 status of this blog.

Here’s how the hierarchy works.  A person is too individual to generalize.  It’s generally wise to consider a person to be intelligent, discerning, and worthy of respect.  This is just a decent way to go about life.  People as a whole are noticeably less intelligent, lacking in free thought, and only interested in what amuses them.  If you don’t agree with that… well that’s nice.  I’m sure you thought Emerson was the bees-knees too.  But if it’s not true how the hell has reality television become the obscenely successful industry that it is?

When people become customers they lose what little humanity they had left after they took up a torch and pitchfork and in return they get an ability to completely ignore any writing, recordings, videos, or pictures that might help them get through the rough patch of need that has brought them to such a woeful condition; they become convinced that the sole purpose of other human beings is to facilitate the acquiring of whatever is needed; and they instantly realize that everyone who has what they need is running some kind of scam and must be argued with at every possible instant to keep them honest.  It’s a mystical and deeply irritating transformation, but thankfully it’s relatively temporary.  Once a customer has what he or she needs he or she becomes a person again, or at worst a people.

Tourists are a yet lower form of life.  They take being a customer and turn it into a lifestyle.  Other tourists become their enemies.  How dare those inconsiderate bastards make me wait fifteen minutes to get on that roller coaster.  I paid to ride it, are you telling me my admission fee isn’t enough to pay for that multi-million dollar feat of engineering?  And why are all these other idiots on the road?  Get that school bus full of crippled orphans out of my way, dammit; I have a hotel to check into.  And groceries sure are expensive here.  Back home all this food would only cost me half as much; I’d like to see your manager so we can haggle over every single item for the next 45 minutes even though you’re already closed and I’ll decide not to get half of this shit anyway.

And Las Vegas is full of tourists.  All the time.  That kind of energy rubs off on a place and after a while it rubs back on to the residents.  Eventually you’re sure everyone is trying to run a con on you so all you can do is run one back and better.  You’ve got to get what’s yours because everyone else is and the only thing that matters is what you can get.

Of course that’s generalizing.  Everyone here isn’t evil; that has never been the point of my rants.  Obviously I exaggerate for funsies, hyperbole for effect and all that.  I am somewhat sincere about the feel of this city and the way it effects those who live here.  Or maybe it’s just the people who choose to live here tend to be a certain way.

Who knows.  I’m prepared to be wrong.  Please prove me wrong.  Show me the warm, welcoming, homey side of this city and I will write about that with twice the vigor I spend ridiculing it.  Please do.

Being Tuesday we had another day full o’ comics and there were some major competitors today again.  Least I Could Do pulled it out this time because they made a joke out of something I have come to experience on a near-daily basis in the last… almost two years.  It’s funny, but it’s not.  But you should go laugh at it.

And like that I am done for the night.  Sleep well; I hope to.

“I aim to misbehave…”

It’s pretty much inevitable that I would eventually mention Firefly in a post.  Studio 60 will come up at some point too, but not right now.  Now we’re talking Browncoat pride.  Joss Whedon has put out quite a bit of material in his career.  In my opinion it hasn’t all been… great.  Firefly may very well be his opus.  So to Fox:  F#@$ YOU!  Idiot network.  (Don’t think for half a second that you’ll be getting off easy either, NBC.  I’m coming for your quality hating ass one day.)

If you don’t know what Firefly or Serenity is then you now need to be slapped around by orangutans for no less than seven minutes.  The court is willing to suspend the orangutan slapping indefinitely if you’ll immediately begin your education by learning about Firefly here or here and the learning about Serenity here or here.  The aforementioned series and movie are to be screened at the earliest possible convenience and subsequently adored or we’ll bring the orange apes back in.  And we’ll do it in the middle of their nap time so they’re extra cranky.

I don’t want to give too much away, but really they’re a delight.  Every episode is this mythical balance of action, drama, and humor that leads me to believe some kind of deal was struck with dark powers.  You  will love every member of the cast and you will miss them when it’s over.  Luckily most of them have made their way elsewhere and some have even risen above the cult glory of the Firefly franchise.  This Ctrl+Alt+Del “silly” demonstrates just how big Nathan Fillion has become since his days as Captain Reynolds.  (I’ll be downright impressed if you can tell me what World War II movie he was in as a much younger lad.)

Another recommendation I’ll make while we’re on this subject.  Way back when the Writer’s Union was on strike and there were all kinds of little side projects going on because the cool people in Hollywood were bored, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was born.  It used to be available for free all over the place and it still can be found, but I’ll save you the trouble by providing the relevant Youtube links, in six parts:

Act 1, Part 1

Act 1, Part 2

Act 2, Part 1

Act 2, Part 2

Act 3, Part 1

Act 3, Part 2

Watch it and love it.  No angry monkey threats this time, just good old fashioned advice.

With the beginning of the week we have webcomics to choose from again and so the Comic of the Day lives again as well.  It was a fierce battle between Bug and Penny Arcade.  Penny Arcade pulled through with this gem thanks, in the end, to my childhood love of The Berenstein Bears.  Apparently that franchise has evolved.  I hope it’s still as much good old-fashioned fun as I remember.  I recommend it to all you parents looking for reading material in the 3 to 8 year old range.  You can find out more about them here.

Good night, loyal readers, and happenstance sojourners.

Takin’ care of business…

The move away from useless dog central to fancytown is drawing ever closer.  This is evidenced by the increasingly packed state of the house.  When I move I usually do pretty much all my packing at the last minute.  The reasons for this are two-fold: I don’t own enough crap to be worth the advance preparation and I never know what I’ll want access to in the days leading up to the move.

Today I went down to make some eggs.  Foolish me, I knew all that stuff was packed away and who knows which of the half dozen “kitchen stuff” boxes the frying pans are in.  Some tuna salad would have worked too, but whoops, no mixing bowls (I don’t mess around when I make tuna salad, the whole damn tuna goes in).  At least I have all the stuff for clam chowder, that’s fun and tasty.  Yeah right, there’s no pot, silly head.  So I had toast and almonds.  It wasn’t a bad thing, complex carbs, unsaturated fats, and protein.  Really a pretty decent breakfast.  And my milk hasn’t even gone bad yet.  For some reason that happens about seventeen seconds after you get it home from the store here.

Today is a two-fold attack on Berserker Labs business. I’m going to continue getting back into the drawing groove for the comic.  I’m not terribly talented with a pencil so it’s a rather embarrassing amount of practicing and Creative Suite editing to turn out the artistic marvel I gave you on Sunday.  More in tune with my natural abilities, however, is game design and last night I had a revelation about my science fiction role-playing game “I Dream of Stars.”  That puppy has been balanced precariously on the edge of the stove behind the backburner for quite a while now, too long really.  Watching Firefly last night sparked new inspiration and now it’s time to get it on paper before I forget it all.

Good luck with your endeavors this day, be they fence building or developing the ability to change the fabric of reality.

Our own day of infamy.

As everyone in any sort of contact with the world knows, today is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.  It’s been written about extensively by far better writers than I so I’m not going to spend too much time on it, but it can’t go unnoticed.  There’s a CNN article about the various memoriasl with a photobook that I recommend visiting:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/11/911.commemoration/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Everyone held their breath today, waiting and wondering and fearing what might happen.  It appears that, if any attacks were planned for today, they failed.  But the war goes on and those fighting it shouldn’t be forgotten, especially on this day.  So I send you here:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/09/11/afghanistan.base.attack/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Suicide bombers drove a vehicle into a Coalition base on Saturday and detonated it at the entry point.  NATO reports that 77 U.S. troops were injured, but none are in critical condition; two Afghan civilians were killed and 25 others were injured.  General John R. Allen, the commander of the Coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan goes on to explain an optimistic interpretation of the attack the course of the war in general.  The article also gives big-picture information about U.S. losses throughout the course of the war and the impending withdrawal.

On to happier things.  I posted the first strip of the Berserker Labs webcomic, so check that out if you haven’t already and like it!  I also put up a contact page on the travel website so you can direct your tourism based questions and comments in a productive direction.

Today was another letdown for webcomics, no Comic of the Day to speak of.  Maybe the BLGDS comic can fill that void in the future.  I’m off to hydrate and work out and hit the hay, all inspired by my sleek new haircut.  Good night, all.

Work in Progress, Episode 001

Not Very Helpful

Here we have the beginning of, hopefully, something great.  This is more or less how things go at the studio.

A marvelously modern adventure.

This evening we went on an adventure to see Hoover Dam at night.  Look how pretty it supposedly is:

 

It’s a spectacular sight any time of day, but all those lights and all that architecture at night seemed like an exceptionally tasty treat.  Of course it’s a fairly secure sight all the time and neither of us considered that this is the day before the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.

I’m not sure if there is always absurdly high security at night or if the infamous date made it more guarded and less fun, but we weren’t allowed to walk out on the bridge or stop anywhere along the road in sight of the dam.  I think we should have been able to arrange some kind of “no rocket weaponry” deal, but why press the issue with armed and paranoid security?  Anyway, this is more or less what I saw:

Majestic, isn’t it?  If you’d like to learn more about the marvel of engineering and art that is Hoover Dam, check out http://travel-jc.com/las-vegas.html#hoover.

It was a nice night for a drive though, the temperature was in the 70’s and there was a bright, nearly full moon in a partly cloudy sky.  I have to admit the desert is beautiful at night.  Las Vegas from a distance is pretty impressive at night too.  There’s a good-sized hill between Hoover Dam and Vegas and it looks like there’s a sickly sun rising from the dam side thanks to the insane amount of light pollution.

Coming back down out of the mountains into the city it’s like a literal ocean of lights spread out in front of you.  The city limits probably don’t go the horizon in the day time, but at night you can’t see past them and for all you know the world ends when the streetlights, houselights, and headlights do.  The night behind you and the city keeping the night at bay in front of you are all that exists.  It’s beautiful a little disturbing, leaving the cool, clean, calm darkness for the bright, frantic, noisy rush.

It all got a lot less poetic when I got my first breath of interstate air.  In case you’ve never experience urban freeways, the “air” smells only slightly better than the nigh-toxic gas you created by following my instructions.

The Suitable Mate Flowchart (henceforth to be known as the SMF) is in the works; but I’m turning it into a series of questions meant to get down to the nitty gritty when it comes to interviewing a potential partner.  It will come, that is your update.

There will be no Comic of the Day today because none updated in such a way that pleased me.  Most didn’t even update, as is normal for Saturday.  Hopefully tomorrow brings us something better.

The weather has gone slightly mad for this area.  There’s an authentic thunderstorm here tonight.  Pathetic fallacy my foot; the weather it loves me.

That’s all for now, sleep well world.