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| Ok, so I wanna know exactly when the Indians and Pakistanis are gonna start nuking each other back to the stone age? More importantly, I wanna know if there is gonna be a pay per view offering of said festivities. I mean the US military already has a million surveillance planes there and twice as many satellites pointed at the region. They could beam those signals into the homes of every red-blooded american willing to fork up $49.95 for an action packed evening of real entertainment. Think of it as Celebrity Boxing on a global scale. Think of the money they could make by broadcasting the devastation... think of the tax releif... it s a win win situation. |
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Well. What an eventful weekend. The Guild Birthday Bash was a huge success. We had a ton of people. Made a ton of money. Good time for all. Space Hulk Beyond Thunderdome was a great success and everybody seemed to like my Master Blaster converted mini that I was up til 3 am creating and painting. I m not complaining though... quite the contrary. Kinda infected me with the old painting bug. So I picked up some Void to paint for a store army. Maybe after that I ll start in on a Junker Void army... just what I need to pick up two new games... Jyhad and Void. Although the jury is still out on Jyhad. As much as Rob and Evan extol its virtues, the game still seems critically flawed in a number of ways. Anyway, I had fun playing Jyhad Sunday and Monday... I think Kent and I are as much interested in the game as a social outlet as we are about the game itself. That fact that we don t worship the gods of White Wolf may also impinge on our enjoyment. We ll see.
Anyway... I promised a rant for all my loyal readers. I have thrown the gauntlet down in front of my ever-bitter compadre, Digger. Let us see if a can hold a candle to his supreme curmudgeonry. So without further ado...
Today I want to rail against AIDs research. Few things piss me off as much as the disproportionate amount of funding and support AIDs research rakes in. Heart disease, stroke, cancer, lung disease... the worlds top killers don t garner near the attention they should in comparison. Horrible diseases that stricken people of all walks like cerebral pulsy and MS have to struggle for funding! All the while AIDs research enjoys the success of fund raiser after fund raiser. Why is it like this? Because AIDs is the en vogue cause célèbre of everyone s favorite Hollywood starlet. Heaven forbid we should allow a disease to strike hardest among the entertainment industry and gay community. Now don t get me wrong, I m not gonna go off on an AIDs as "wrath of God" rant... it s not that I don t want the disease to be cured, but I want it out of the spotlight. The simple truth of the matter is you will not contract AIDs unless you re sharing needles or living like some Caligula wannabe... unless you re really asking for it. If people are having sex with countless smarmy people and wind up contracting HIV... fuck em! You play with fire you get burnt. Don t be stupid. Then these people are shown as pathetic victims struck down by this horrible disease as they waste away... fuck em! What about the million other diseases that strike completely at random... afflicting innocent people whose only transgression was to have a DNA strand or two stray from the beaten path. It s disgraceful. People don t seem to realize that AIDs has relagated itself to the promiscuous gay and interveneous drug user communities... quite frankly, two demographics that we could do without (well, I guess just about all of Africa is also in that high risk category... but these are mainly the guys who are banging out kids numbers 3 and 4 as they watch 1 and 2 die of malnutrition...these people get no sympathy from me and are readily tossed on the fuck em! pile). Even prostitutes aren t even considered to be a risk group any more. Yet AIDs fund raisers still enjoy unmatched success. Each year new advances are made in curing AIDs as every other disease awaits a champion other that Jerry Lewis. This all stems from the most despicable of American obsessions... celebrity deification. Just because a clueless celebrity endorses a cause, their legion of mindless automaton fans fall in step (and no, I m not just talking about Oprah). The teeming millions living lives of quiet desperation who live vicariously through their favorite movie star or daytime talk show host are more than happy to mindlessly fork over their meager wages to be like their silver screen idol. Sad. And it infuruiates me. When will people start living their own lives and thinking for themselves?
Well, enough ranting for now. Hopefully some one sees my point. And I put the ball back in Digger s court (hopefully he reads the scything comments I made towards him in my comment section last week). Rant away. And look for more rants in the future.
"Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage." -Smashing Pumpkins
-bampf
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OK, I m pretty sure that title isn t a word... but it should be. I was just noting that these updates are becoming less regular (needs more bran). I suspect a little of the BampfBlog novelty has worn off and the frequency of entries will taper a bit. I think that s OK. After all, Doogie... my true inspiration for the Blog only made weekly entries... that is until the show went into daily syndication. I ll just shoot for quality of quantity.
I need to start ranting more. A few tirades concerning some of my innumerable pet peeves could certainly be in order. That s half the reason I created this thing. Well, that s something to look forward to. Maybe this weekend. Just need to decide want to rant about first... so much pisses me off... possibilities are endless...
-bampf |
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Had my home inspection yesterday. The inspector guy was great. Very informative and knowledgable. There were no great surprises, thankfully (no irreparable structural damage). Just a few minor things. He did point out a bunch of little items that need addressing and some maintenance tips. Egad. Do you know what this means? I m gonna have to be handy. Yikes. I ll have to do work that doesn t involve a keyboard... quite frankly I m scared. Well... hyperbole aside, it shouldn t be too bad. I m not a complete imbecile when it comes to real tools (like hammers and saws, rather than the APIs and DLLs I would normally think of when confronted with the term 'tools'). I must admit there s a certain appeal to the idea of doing work around your own home though. Sort of an affirmation of adulthood... like dad used to do (not that my dad was particularly handy... but most TV dads are... and they re the true model of American life after all). Some sort of hallmark of being all grown up -shudder-. Of course I m gonna eschew the whole "now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things" crap... my toys still take precedence... I always be a Toys R Us kid.
Birthday Bash weekend is drawing closer and closer. Should be a great time! I m looking forward to it. Alas, no Squig Eating contest this year. Oh well. We ll still have a ton of cool stuff going on. Probably get some Jyhad games in over the weekend as well. God help me... getting drawn into yet another game. Oh well. It seems like a pretty good system. Will require some more exploration though before I give it a final verdict.
Enough for now. Lunch is almost over. There s a grindstone that requires my hunching over.
-bampf |
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Had a great time at fighter practice Saturday. Had been a while since donning the armour. I broke my sword over Angus s shoulder (which just happenened to be unarmoured). I managed to smack Angus again later in an unarmoured part of his arm and then did the same to Barktooth s ribs... oops. All part of the fun though. I certainly took a few nice ones in return. I ve got a nice lump on my nose where a face thrust drove my helmet grill nicely into my oft-broken nose. Fun fun fun. Also had a chance to do some much needed armour repair and modification. Kristyn made a cool SCA dress with Avalon s help, so we re all ready to start hitting events together. Cool. Hopefully we ll be able to make Pennsic. Epic scale battles rock!
Managed to take in Spider Man over the weekend. Very nice. Pretty much what I expected. Sam Raimi rocks. I especially enjoyed the couple subtle tongue in cheek DC references. Those things that only us true comic geeks apreciate. Bruce Campbell s cameo was brilliant. He s so cool. Good, bad... he s the one with gun. Now I can go see Episode II in good conscience.
Kristyn and her mom continue to buy stuff for the house. They ve decided to go for pure kitsch in the kitchen... the existing 50s style black and white tile checkerboard floor being the major impetus for such. They picked up a giant ceramic lemon cookie jar and other sundry bric-a-brac. Should be a pretty retro-hip kitchen. Nice.
Well, gotta go. Got da peeps comin over for another Jyhad/Adult Swim night shortly. Maybe some one will be kind enough to teach me the game this time... bastards.
-bampf |
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Saw a great website today. 1st Church of Pac-Man. Here s their credo:
O Pac-Man, glutton divine,
Thy roundness is exceeded only by thy yellowness.
Thou takest away the barriers in the maze of life,
Thou makest fruit to appear before me,
Thou turnest my enemies blue.
I humbly offer this quarter unto thee
As a symbol of my sacrifice,
And stuff.
Brilliant. It amazes me how profound an effect arcade games and subsequently the Atari 2600 had on all of us children of the 80s. One of those common denominators that every Gen Xer can relate to fondly and instantly. When you think about it the Atari really set the stage for the PC/internet revolution. Sure, early PCs were already around during the fledgling console years, but the Atari really made the idea of an elctronic personal computing device for entertainment commonplace. Bless you Pac-Man, bless you.
"Plug it in to the back of your TV
Come with me back to 1983
Reliving my happy childhood
With my 2600!" -Atari, Mucka Fergason
As a disheartening aside: none of this applies to my fiance who has no meaningful recollection of the 80s (she was FIVE when Reagan left office!). Feel like such a pedophile...
-bampf |
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No new entries for a couple of days and already my readers are getting surly. I ll try to be more consistent in the future. It s been a hectic week. I ve been busy, ill, or entertaining pretty much non-stop (with quite a bit of overlap). Evan has been hanging around the house quite a bit... we re a lot closer to the Guild than his place in Lancaster, so it s cool to have him around.
I ve been trying to get a good start on my Philly job search but so far am off to a rather inauspicious start. I remain confident that I ll find something decent though. It s a big city. I don t expect instant results.
I have considerably more free time now that I m done teaching labs so I should have ample opportunity to send out resumes and such and attend all the other stuff I ve been putting off for months. I have a website to put together that I ve had to repeatedly push to the back burner with all the other craziness swirling about.
The whole house purchasing thing is moving ahead smoothly. My bank is performing their assessment, and I have to drive down Tuesday for the home inspection. Other than that, we re nearing completion... just about the only thing left for me to do is pay ridiculous closing cost fees and then sign 30 years of my life away. Hmmm... why is the room spinning?
I ll finally be re-united with Kristyn tonight... yeah I make it sound all dramatic but two weeks apart is pretty traumatic for us. It may sound kinda lame but I take it as a good omen for the forthcoming marriage thing.
This weekend is looking exceedingly busy. Friday with Kristyn s parents, Argent Lupe gathering Saturday, and then we re taking April and Mike out for dinner as a belated birthday gift Sunday. Need longer weekends! Probably won t even have a chance to see Star Wars. Doesn t bother me. The more I read the more it sounds like this installment is only a modest improvement over the Ep I fiasco. I still need to see Spiderman first.
Enough ramblings for now... hopefully this long-ass post makes up for my brief absence.
-bampf |
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So far it s been a good weekend. Lots of hanging out at the Guild. Some game playing. I even got a chance to break out my chaos and try to smack up some dark elf bitches. I was decimating Tipping until my (high leadership) Chaos decided they would run at every glimpse of adversity. It was a good see-saw game though... Scott rallied from the brink of destruction twice and ended up eliminating me to the man.
Oddly enough Kent and I went out to the bar for a couple of drinks saturday. We got to muse over how much better our lives are in light of sad sods laying about the bar. So, twice in once week I ve went out for beers at a bar... that s usually like my yearly allotment. Despite my general aversion to bars we had a decent time... not that it s gonna become a regular thing.
All in all a good couple of days despite my raison d etre being confined to Philly. We gotta do it again in a couple weeks for the Guild Birthday Bash. Hopefully we ll make it.
Well, we re entertaining, so I should be going. Gotta tend to my hosting duties.
-bampf |
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Alrighty. I ve diligently converted the BampfBlog(tm) to be database driven. This afforded me the freedom to add the Comments feature (much like Evan s blog service has for those of you familiar with it). So now you can make rebuttals to my comments for all to see. So, for instance, Ben could refute my inference that he will repay me for sharing my lunch via sexual favors. Not that Ben would do that (refute that is, not repay). So have fun with it, but please sign your comments so we know who you are... and of course remember that I have the power to edit and delete everything on my site so be careful not to invoke my ire lest I twist your words against you! Mwah-ha-ha-hah...
Anyway, the weekend has officially begun so I m slowly gonna step away from the computer and pretend like I have a life without it!
-bampf |
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Turned in my physics lab books last evening... end of an era. It was nice teaching again. It s caused me to consider some Philly area private schools as possible employers... if only private schools paid teachers real money! If I really wanted to teach I could get a PA certification but that would take time, money and effort... three things I m very loath to part with. Maybe later down the road once Kristyn and I are comfortably settled into a nice DINK lifestyle.
This weekend should be fun. No drive to Philly for a change and Kristyn s staying out there... we ll end up being apart for two weeks... ouch. But alas we both have obligations in our respective cities. So I ll be ruling the Guild with an iron fist (with Evan as my Adjutant General administering swift justice and harsh absolutism). We ll be drunk with power. Weeeee! Might even get a game of Warhammer in... I haven t played since our last tourney a couple months back. Blood for the Blood God, baby. Blood for the Blood God. It ll be a nice distraction from all the house/moving/job finding stress. Hell... might even do some paiting.
Would be nice to take in a movie some time this weekend... don t know if it ll happen though. I d like to see SpiderMan and Scorpion King before Episode II weekend. I m actually a little excited for Ep II... just a little. Lucas has slowly slipped from my most hated man on the planet status in the weeks and months since that Ep I debacle. I m not expecting too much from his new opus, but it s got to be infinitely better than that last one. Even Lucas himself in numerous interviews basically admitted that Ep I was a steeming pile of shit... so having seen the error of his ways I think he ll make Ep II at least watchable. Here s hoping.
-bampf |
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Damn fine evening. Hangin at the Guild. Going to Angies for a few beers (yes, I had a few beers, although I still strongly contend that I am most certainly not a beer drinker... I m a girlie drink drinker... but I also don t believe in spending money on alcohold so I went with what was cheap), then hit the diner side for a sweet sweet Cristo. Just like old times. Doesn t get much better.
Then I made it home just in time for TMBG on Conan. Nice. Although they did very recondite routine. A die hard fan like myself really enjoyed it, but it s not exactly a way to gain new fans while you have that network TV forum. I mean they segued into Shoehorn... a song that is nearly 15 years old. Even Conan s more bohemian fan base probably didn t apreciate the sublime beauty of the glockenspiel. Fucking savages.
Time for sleep. Damn, it s late.
-bampf |
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Boy, the whole house buying realization is further sinking in. Wow. We re both really really excited. I m also quite glad that the offer for the other house fell through. I m much more keen on this one. Of course, the 30 years of serving the bank is also an ever-present concern, but in reality it wouldn t be that much more than renting in the Philly area (especially if you factor in the tax write-off).
Of course, my mind keeps wandering to thoughts of swimming in a sea of Philly-style hoagies! Mmmm... blessed sammiches. As Kristyn s mom pointed out- we re situated square in the center of The Hoagie Belt. Nice.
The biggest problem will be making sure everything fits. I have large furniture and have accumulated a supisingly large amount of crap over the years. I can see a lot of stuff jammed into the basement and the scary nigh-inaccessible attic.
Of course Kristyn has already gotten the whole place laid out... she conveniently neglected designating a place for my gun cabinet. I think prominently displayed by the fireplace in the LR would be an excellent placement for it. She seems to disagree. Luckily I m bigger than her and am able to crush her skull in a pinch (brute force solves all problems). Heh heh. That ll learn er. That ll learn er raht.
-bampf |
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Well, it looks like we have a house! Kristyn and I are really excited and pleased. We went with the smaller house in the better location. After seeing the houses again, the choice was pretty clear. No contest. It s a two bedroom rancher so it s smaller than any of the ones we ve seen, but it s also a single in great condition. The location is ideal though. It s in Ridley Park, near the junction of 95 and 476. Superb neighborhood. After viewing the place and making the offer we (Kristyn, her parents and I) went driving around Ridley Park to gauge the area and to find a legendary hoagie/sammich shop that some of Kristyn s relatives who live in the area told us about. Scouting the immediate area we found pretty much every manner of store or restaurant we could want. Sweet. Even better, we found the legendary hoagie (I almost said sub... need to work on Philly-speak... need to blend in with the locals) practically in our back yard! How cool is that? We were ecstatic.
We just need to wait for the paperwork to go through and work out the other formalities (especially with the bank). Hopefully things will progress smoothly... this whole process has been stressful enough already.
I really couldn t be more pleased with the area. The proximity of 95 means we can be in downtown Philly, Wilmington, or south Jersey in 10 minutes. Gives me a near limitless range for possible job spots. Which is of course the next step... job seeking. Ug. I m hoping it won t be too hard to find something decent. It s an awfully big city. I can t imagine me not finding something in the coming months. If only I can find a place that will give a signing bonus and offers telecommuting! I dare to dream.
The down side, of course, is financial destitute. With Kristyn working over the summer, though it shouldn t be too bad. Another huge plus for this place is that there ll be almost no fix-up expenses. We plan a couple real minor modifications and we ll be set. Otherwise the place is very move-in-able. So, no Bob Villa duties for me! Excellent.
Hmm.. another long one. Better wrap it up.
-bampf |
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Saw a bunch of houses today. Many houses. The suck part was we kind of liked em all. It s much easier when a bunch of em suck. So we re really torn. Many things to consider. One is an awesome location but kinda small. One is nice and cheap but in a questionable area. One is really nice and big but also sitting right at the absolute top end of our price range. Decisions decisions. Where is my d6 when I need it? We re gonna go back for a second look tomorrow and make some decisions. We re taking our structural consultant (Kristyn s dad) and our decor/asthetics consultant (Kristyn s mom) so that ll help. Still a very daunting process.
In other news, this is my first BampfBlog(tm) entry made on a Mac. I know, scary. I ll always be a PC guy... pretty much everything I do centers around Billy Boy and his evil empire so I m pretty locked into the PC life forever, but with a little practice, hopefully I ll be able to utilize Kristyn s Mac for all the stuff they re good at... our digital photo library certainly comes to mind. I m afraid Kristyn can only be of so much help... I need to find a Mac power user to help me better understand these things.
Kristyn and I are slowly starting to apreciate all that the big city has to offer. Every week that I ve come down we ve discovered something cool. Today we found a nice area with a couple nice Thai restaurants and an Indian one. We tried the Indian... very tasty. Pretty soon we ll be city-savvy... all cultured and stuff.
Lookit me ma! I ain t a country boy no more!!
Ah, who am I kidding, I m just a redneck with a semi-convincing outer facade.
Speaking of redneck, I also stopped by the Police Station today to see about my concealed carry permit. Mr. gun toting Park Ranger, Josh, told me a PA permit is no good within city limits so I went in to inquire about getting a Philly permit only to find mine is good everywhere! Huuzah! I can arm myself against the big scary city! Yee Ha!
-bampf
Boy this was a long one. Sweet. |
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Alright, I ve got a new mug to use here at work. I m quite pleased with it. Its an AEG Games promo mug that Rich gave me... it s friggin huge! We re talking like 1.5 insulated litres huge. Carrying it around is strangley empowering. Makes me happy. Ya gotta revel in life s little pleasures.
Heading down to Philly after work to resume the daunting house hunt. We re looking in a slightly different area- Ridley Park. I m much more keen on this locale compared to some of the areas we have been in. Better schools, better neighborhoods (not that we re planning on having kids and utilizing said schools... it s just better for re-sale value). Plus it s right next to I-95! That s a huge bonus. Quick access to downtown, DE (for 0% sales tax), NJ (towards Chad and his crew), and just a short jaunt to 476 to head home (yeah, I m afraid the mid-state shall always be home... sad, but true).
In a quick experiment last night I discovered quite a few Family Guy episodes on iMesh. Sweet. Kent has a DVD burning laying around... hmmm. I figure, just maybe... we can make our own library of Family Guy episodes. That way we can still satisfy our FG needs in face of the forthcoming cancellation of the show... damn you Fox! Damn you Rupert Murdoch! Damn you all to hell!
Well, enough for now. Expect more in a couple days... maybe we ll have a house by then!!
-bampf |
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Tonight is D&D night. Always something to look forward to. My campaign has run now for almost exactly 2 1/2 years. That s pretty good. My longest contiguous campaign... impressive considering I ve been playing D&D since about 5th grade. It s a great campaign with great characters. The players (especially the few that have been there since day 1) have really wonderful identities. I have been very pleased with the whole Hyborean campaign setting too (Robert E Howard s ficticious age of Conan for the pulp fiction illiterate in the audience). It was something I ve always wanted to do, knowing it would be difficult to pull off... the Hyborean Age lacks a lot of classic D&D mainstays- elves, drawfs, dragons, magical beasts etc. I was discussing this with Josh and we talked about how not having these creatures made it much more exciting when the party did encounter mystic beasts (like demons summoned by a Stygian mage) rather than the normal blase of "yet another fantastical creature out of the Monster Manual menagerie." To keep in line with the books I also included a real dearth of magic items. The characters are all around 15th level and the party possesses maybe two magic weapons. Pretty sweet huh?
I ll really miss running the campaign (and playing in Josh s campaigns) once I head off to Philly. Oh well. Them s the breaks. I should be able to finagle my way into a game or two in Philly. I know Chad used to play. If he doesn t anymore I could probably rekindle some interest. Of course it won t be the same... characters that you ve played or interacted with for so long are very endearing. Starting fresh will kinda suck. Plus there will be no dick wagging monk to handle diplomatic negotiations (Garry really adds that magical something to a campaign). Just won t be the same...
Well enough babbling like a whiny gamer geek. Time to run off and write tonight s adventure!
-bampf |
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Mmmmm... monday s ice packs made for a fine dinner last night and very tasty lunch today. Sweet sweet steer. There are few things in the world better than a freezer full of beef... especially beef raised and killed by the family. Redneckdom certainly has its privileges. Even had enough to share the bountiful repast with Dean and Ben. In return I m hoping to extort some good man-lovin from them at a later date. Poor unsuspecting fools.
Tonight is my last lab at Gburg. End of another era. I ve enjoyed the experience, and it really has piqued my interest in teaching again. Of course, I ll miss the wonderful Gburg scenary also. On the up side, it ll basically free up two evenings a week. That s a very good thing. Now I ll maybe have some time to devote to my webmastering duties and Philly job searching. I ll also be able to play more tennis... sweet... sssuming that is, my knees hold out. I might actually be able to get in some sort of shape this summer. I d like to make a return to the rugby pitch this summer. Summer 7s would be a nice way to ease back in. My wracked shoulder will probably prevent me from ever returning to 15 man rugby... especially considering I play Prop. A damaged shoulder does not lend well to being the focal point of 16 man scrummages.
Hey, this is my first May entry. We ll see how well my cataloging scripts work.
Gotta go, must finish this week s Onion before the lunch hour expires.
-bampf |