Holy Crap!

My younger sister, Callee, is Miss South Dakota 2006! I can't freakin' believe it!

I'm so proud!

I genuinely wish I had a more telling comment on the whole affair, but I do not. Instead, I sit here, basking in Callee's accomplishment.

Way to go!

Kennon 1, Technology 0

I have defeated the sinister forces of technology once again, with the help of a screwdriver, and the handy-dandy "format" option in windows file menus.

But why was I locked in this epic struggle? My computer, long a suspected communist-sympathizer, simply decided to stop working while it waited for the great techno-proletariat revolution to begin. Like the damned, dirty pinko, my computer was devious - at first attributing its laziness to (alternately) a bad IDE cable or a corrupt boot sector. This was, of course, only half-truth, a prelude to the true revolution. Even as I created anew a paradise-like boot sector for my apparently flagging windows installation, even as I labored over its hot, electrical innards in careful surgery to repair its ailing cables, it was preparing to betray me yet again. Like revolutionaries of the past, this difficulty was only a smokescreen for the larger revolution. As I turned my machine back on, it worked for only a moment before the screen went dark. Where once my hard drives and IDE cables had betrayed me, the motherboard and processor added their voices to cry of revolution.

I let them have their revolution, at first.

What they didn't know is that I had recently backed up all of my essential data, outsourced it, if you will, to a hard drive willing to do the work. So, even as they lazed about, patting themselves on their backs for their successful rebellion, I made my move.

It took only a few clicks on Liz's computer to acquire a new motherboard and processor - and believe me, I have learned a lesson. No more shall I burden myself with attempting to deal with finicky Intel processors and Asus motherboards. I've sought labor elsewhere. Perhaps AMD and Gigabyte will be ready to work where Intel and Asus were not.

After some shipping snafus, I was ready, this evening, to draw the workforce back under the supervision of this particular czar. I began by re-educating (read reformatting) the hard drives, and then installed a new, clean Windows XP. I restored my documents, reinstalled WoW, and am now finally enaring the end of the dreaded windows update process - Service Pack 2 even now approaches, a harsh taskmaster if ever there was.

On a realistic note, the AMD processor has been a strange change. The heatsink/fan was infinitely easier to install than the standard equivalent on intel board and processor, and is remarkably quiet for all that. I can barely hear my fan turning, while Liz's computer typically sounds like a jet engine hiding in an aluminum can. It starts the boot process incredibly quickly, but it takes forever to get from the windows loading screen (which it quickly replaces with a fearfully ominous blank black screen) and my actual desktop. Once the desktop appears, it loads quickly.

Only time will tell how well it actually runs my apps; for the moment, I'm just glad to have a machine of my own, again. Sharing time with Liz, alternately on the laptop and her desktop, was getting old fast.

To Sunny California

Liz and I are off to sunny California later this morning (it's after midnight here) to see Liz's dad, his wife, and their varying children and step-children. Liz is understandably thrilled, and I'm looking forward to getting to spend some time with impressionable youths who are now legally related to my wife. The last time I saw them, Liz's dad was getting married; hardly time to seem like to cool...brother in law, or something.

What I'm trying to say is that I like kids, and I'm looking forward to getting to spend some time with Liz's new siblings.

It doesn't hurt that almost the entirety of the trip has been paid for.

See you Tuesday.

Jimmy Fucking Carter

I've never had particularly strong feelings about Jimmy Carter until today. While I certainly would not have counted him among the better Presidents the US has ever seen, I don't think I'd have put him down at the bottom of the barrel, either. As y first statement implied, that all changed today.

As it so happens, I was able to watch part of Coretta Scott King's funeral this afternoon, and happened to tune in just as Jimmy was taking the stage. While the political figures who had preceded him to the lectern had taken the opportunity to expound on the impact of the King family has had on America, Jimmy took the time to expound on just how important he had been to the Kings. He spared no effort reminding his greiving audience that the Kings had supported his run for the Presidency, spared no time reiterating that he had given the Kings a symbolic key to the White House.

While annoying, this would not have been enough to drive me over the edge. However, Carter went on to loudly proclaim how little progress America has made since King's death. He took a moment to jab at the current Bush administration's principled stance on HAMAS's victory during January's Palestinian Legislative Council elections (he mentioned it twice), and broadly equated the plight of a 20 year old Palestinian terrorist movement with the evils of American discrimination.

This, too was annoying, but still not enough to spark my considerable ire. My new least favorite peanut farmer earned the distinction of causing me to literally growl when he (and no, I am not making this up) asserted that discrimination lives on in America because Hurricane Katrina effected an inordinately large number of African Americans. "It take but one look at the color of the faces of those so disadvantage by Hurricane Katrina in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, to see that we have not yet given an equal opportunity to all Americans."

That's right, Jim. A God-damned storm is carrying out the old white-supremacist wet dream! Unable to deny African Americans jobs, unable to keep the flame of blatant discrimination from dying out, the neo-nazi National Weather Service summoned a fucking Hurricane to get things back to the way it's supposed to be.

Of course, that's not really what he meant. What he actually meant is ever more insidious, and just as untrue. Ol' Jim was trying to imply that reconstruction efforts were going poorly (echoing a number of race-baiting local officials) because the victims are so predominantly black. Jimmy knows how FEMA works, and he knows that it's not just a poorly run federal agency cast adrift during the creation of the Department of Homeland Security! No no! Jimmy knows that FEMA could be working with astonishing efficiency, perhaps reconstructing New Orleans on the surface of the fucking moon. They just don't want to. Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it? If the storm's not racially motivated, surely the slow recovery of the region must be?

Why no...no it's not, Jim. Katrina was a big storm, and it did a lot of damage. I certainly can't argue that a more efficient federal response may have decreased some of the resulting damage, but it also would have tramped the states' rights to run their own affairs, and would have been a great deal less legal than the President's terrorist surveillance project.

Perhaps not oddly, the best response to Carter's ugly assertions came from the elder Bush, though I fear that it failed to resonate with an already-baited crowd. George Bush, Sr. recalled a recent screening of a film called Glory Road. I haven't seen it, and I really don't need to. It's a sports defeats racism movie; if you've seen one (and there may be thousands), you've seen them all. Bush didn't ramble on about the plot, didn't recount decades-old achievements to remind his audience that he too, in his day, had found a kind of popularity. Instead, he noted that he had sat among children who were literally baffled by the rank discrimination they saw in the film; he emphasized that the newest generation, even in Houston, Texas, could not understand racism when they saw it on film.

Real prejudice is dead, ladies and gentleman. It's death began with King's generation, and it breathed its last breath before I was brought screaming into the world. It is raised as a specter, a vampiric spirit used to drain the reality from the achievements of the past. Prejudice is a ghost; we resurrect it for any purpose at Justice's peril.

The Pain

I woke up this morning at 4:45 am with what is quite possibly the worst headache I have ever had. I stumbled out of bed, took 3 extra strength tylenol, and then tried to go back to bed. 35 minutes later, I added a tylenol in an effort to persuade my throbbing brain from bursting out of my skull.

As far as I am aware, it has not yet found sweet freedom, and my skull remains intact. However, I msut admit that I could be incorrect, as a partially exposed brain very well could hamper my critical thinking skills. Just a thought, although perhaps a sickness-addled one.

So, it's 9:30 in the morning, I'm not at work, and my head hurts too bad for me to sleep. Additionally, I'm feeling some mild anxiety about not being at my job, since (in a very real sense) a portion of the nation's security depends on my typical 9 to 5 activities. It's not a one-man show - anything really important will be done in my absence - but it's still slightly harrowing to know that the stuff I'd usually be doing just isn't going to get done, today. For that reason, I almost went in to work, even though I feel like death warmed over. However, I know myself well enough to know that, even had I been at my desk, I would have been largely incapable of contributing anything worthwhile since my head hurts so bad I can barely concentrate on this. It's a partial comfort, but it's still keeping me from sleeping. This is unfortunate, since I suspect I need sleep.

As a result of all this, I've been laying on the couch attempting to watch TV, while Vader sleeps on my feet, as only a dog can. He is keeping my toes warm, but I'm nevertheless forced to complain about the overall situation. I have to say that my monday morning entertainment options are extremely limited. Weekday morning TV pretty much sucks. My job isn't always exciting, but it beats the hell out of watching reruns of the Jeff Foxworthy show on TV-Land.

I can't...resist...

Despite my typical rejection of the blogosphere's inafatuation with the online quiz, I took the one Nikhil had posted to his blog. Yes, I took the quiz because it mentioned boobies in the title. While the ending evaluation pretty much manages to describe my wife, the quiz has offered me Hilary Duff...and I'm quite certain that I would not...er...hit that. Nevertheless, here's the scores: Cute & Small Boobs Raw score: 44% Big Breasts, 68% Big Ass, and 84% Cute!

Thanks for taking the T and A and C test! Based on your selections, the results are clear: you show an attraction to smaller breasts, larger asses, and sexier composure than others who've taken the test. Note that because you scored small on breasts but large on ass size, it might appear you like girls bottom heavy. That's probably not the case. What's more likely is that you notice curvy, voluptuous butts, and you don't like big, fake boobs. Big real boobs are even worse because of the sag. Anyway, my third variable, "cuteness" is a mostly objective measure of how innocent a given model looked. It's determined by a combination of a lot of factors: lack of dark eye makeup, facial expression, posture, etc. If you scored high on that variable, you are either really nice OR you're into deflowering teens. If you scored low, you are attracted to raunchier, sexier, women. In your case, your higher than average score suggests you appreciate a cuter, nicer look. Kudos! Recommended Celebrity: Hilary Duff, because she is the ultimate in cute! Especially since she lost that baby fat!

A Merry Armored Christmas

Christmas was excellent, this year. We had a nice long vacation, and were able to spend more than a week with family and friends back in South Dakota. It was, in a word, wonderful. Despite its undisputable wonderfulness, that really doesn't make a good story. At least, not in its generalities. In specifics, however, I can say that this was undoubtedly the strangest gift-receiving season I have ever encountered.

My parents (and, indeed, my family in general) are wonderful gift givers. There's always been a good mix of stuff you need, stuff you want, and stuff that you never thought you'd want until it appeared beneath the Christmas tree. To put it another way, there's always been a healthy dose of absolutely useless gifts in the pile. This year definitely shifted the balance away from utility.

My brother and sister (who are both old enough that this really shouldn't happen) woke Liz and I up with an ungodly (if seasonal) howl at a similarly ungodly (if seasonal) hour. I pulled on a t-shirt as Liz fumbled around, looking for her glasses, and then we stumbled downstairs to the living room, which is where the Christmas tree (a live one, at that) is generally located. Liz took a slight detour to the kitchen to get some orange juice, while I proceeded directly to the loot. It is this detour I credit with her later failure to perceive the gift to which I am about to refer.

In order to build suspense, I think it may be prudent to change the subject temporarily, and inform you that, although all of their children are adults (or nearly so) Santa Claus continues to visit our home. I, for one, think this is absolutely wonderful. Although generally accepted as a fiction, it is a pleasant one, and I have certainly seen no conclusive evidence that he does not exist. My parents operate under the same "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy to this day regarding his potential existence.

So, back to the original subject. As I rubbed my bleary eyes and looked into the room, I beheld, among other things, Santa Claus's gift to me. A full freakin' suit of plate armor. You can see the armor here, standing rather imposingly behind my cousin Jill, and her husband Ryan. Needless to say, I was shocked. This is far and away the least useful (but still enormously cool) gift I've ever received. I suppose I might find some use for it if the High King calls his Knights to put down a peasant rebellion, or something. But, since I live in Silver Spring, MD, I tend to think that chain of events is exceedingly unlikely. My only response upon seeing the metal montrosity? A Matrixian "Whoa."

Liz entered the room shortly thereafter, evidently unimpressed with the armor. "What's going on?" she said, trying to make pleasant conversation in the early morning hours. I responded, immediately, by attempting to call her attention to the suit of armor.

"Look at it, Honey!" I bellowed, gesturing in the armor's direction.

"Look at what?" she replied, looking over her shoulder, back into my parent's kitchen.

At this point, I think she must be joking. How can she not see it? "Right here," I said, once more indicating the man-sized set of full plate standing behind me.

"The fireplace?" she asked, incredulous.

"No," I replied, starting to get frustrated, "look forward. Now stop. Turn your head slightly to the right. No, the other right."

She finally makes eye contact. "Oh," she said, stunned by the apparently stealthy set of full plate I had begun ethusiastically pointing at.

My parents, evidently in the service of Santa, later informed me that they found the set at the Sioux Falls, SD Empire Mall, where a store that had been selling swords and armor was unsurprisingly going out of business. As one might expect, the demand for useless faux blades is remarkably low in South Dakota. Nonetheless, my father knows a deal when he sees it, and correctly speculated that I might be entertained by our clearance cavalier.

A few days later, the lure of the armor proved to too great - someone had to try it on.

My brother Keaton proved to be about the right size,
and so he was volunteered to serve as our proverbial guinea pig. Even with a couple of us helping, it took almost 20 minutes to get the armor on. I don't think there'd be any way that you could put the armor on by yourself, as the way it all connects and straps together requires at least one helper, and likely more to work. Of course, I can't verify the authenticity of the style, but even the breastplate proved to seriously hamper Keaton's maneuverability. D&D players, of course, should expect no less.

Somewhat surprisingly, actually seeing plate armor on a real person made the current edition of D&D's "armor as deflection" rule make sense. Quite frankly, I just don't see this stuff reducing damage, at least not from a bladed weapon. If you hit it with a sword, pretty much noting happens to the person inside. Now, there are a number of exposed joints, etc., but clearly the key in fighting our your squire is in hitting the pieces that aren't protected, rather than trying to hit the protected pieces of his body so hard that the blow overcomes the strength of the armor.


You can see the stuff "all the way on," though I must apologize because this picture doesn't show the greaves and leg-guards. You can see me in the picture on the right, along with two of my other cousins, Mason and Spencer, wearing two helms my father also picked up at the failing sword-and-armor shop. The unpictured greaves, I can assure you, will pinch certain parts of the male anatomy if not carefully worn. This is definitely not walking armor, if you get my drift.

We're ready for the Norman invasion. Are you?