Roadside Picnic

Raindrops From the Sun

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:06:35 GMT

Bennie and my dad met at Dyess, in the Air Force. I'd heard stories about him for much of my life, and we finally met around my mom's funeral. We got along well, similar senses of humor, and exchanged phone numbers before he went back to North Carolina.

We talked a couple of times a year. Funny guy, a conservative-leaning boomer but not, you know, one of them.

About two weeks ago, I got a call from him. One of his daughters actually made the call for him. He wanted Dad's phone number, said that his new phone had lost it. We chatted for a few minutes. He sounded very weak, like a ghost, I thought later.

Dad called a few nights ago. Bennie had passed on. He and Dad had gotten to talk for a good long while. Bennie knew his time was coming, I guess, and wanted to say his goodbyes.

My own new phone didn't copy the call history from its predecessor, so I can't easily look and see when I had the last conversation with Mom. But Bennie's call is there. The last time I talked with my dad's best friend. This world we live in - there's a dead man in my phone.

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Calling

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 01:13:46 GMT

Bought a new phone Friday, an iPhone 16. Very nice pocket computer. Didn't mean it to happen that way, but it was a day shy of the 17th anniversary of my first smartphone purchase, an iPhone 3G that was an utterly badass little machine. The 16 is plenty slick, that's for sure, but, well, I liked the SE's size better and the 4S's form even better that that, but everybody else likes the 6"+ screens, so that's where we are.

In other news, old man yells at clouds.

Today was good. Slept in again, decided that I was going to take it easy again, did so. Repeated my Saturday - read, listened to a few episodes of Cold War Conversations, watched some stuff on Netflix.

I hope that, when I review this in years to come, I can sigh and be relieved that things didn't get worse. That stupid orange bastard is making noise about invading a NATO ally's territory. US Army troops have been activated and look to be deploying to Minnesota, where ICE has murdered a woman and is generally behaving like an occupying force. There's so much more, and so little pushback against it. I don't see any kind of resolution with things as they stand right now, and if I'm being honest, I think we're going to see more violence and a lot of economic and political damage. I'm waiting for it to happen, because that's what it'll take, and even with that blessed event, more damage that can be repaired in my lifetime has been done.

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North Pole

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 23:18:44 GMT

The new iPad feels a little bit faster than its predecessor. It lacks a home button, and in the case, the power button is just awkward enough that I grumble a tiny bit when I try to use its touch ID to unlock the device.

I accepted the nomination and election to the board of directors for a 501(c)3 organization today. I'm going to be working on the events committee, planning and organizing a convention towards the end of the year. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out, and at the very least I have a new line on my CV.

Last night was the big LeNoue family holiday party. A good time as always, with so much food. I had just about talked myself out of going, but some form of better angels prevailed and I made the drive to Lexington. It was the usual Transy/HEX extended family with a couple of notable absences that weren't missed all that much. I stayed much later than I had planned to, getting home around 1:30AM, and it was so very much worth it.

Christmas is coming. We're closed on the 24th and 25th; I'm planning to light out for Liberty after work on Monday and spend all the time I can at Dad's. There are a couple of clients I'm going to call while I'm gone, just to check in and hopefully keep them from being completely alone on the holiday.

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Mountain Fever

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 01:29:51 GMT

Busy week. In addition to the normal client visits and office work, our holiday party for the clients was on Thursday and that meant lots of extra work. I'm dangerously close to getting one of my folks intro transitional housing and if I can manage that I'll call the first half of the month a win.

Friday was good. Took a half-day as Clayton was in town and sat in on the evening's CP Red game. John C was unable to play, so that saved me from running out to Crescent Hill before and after the game.

Went to Liberty for a presentation at the library and to see Dad for a bit. My iPad suicided during some app updates and it couldn't be fixed, so I bought a new one this morning. Not cheap, but it's a hell of a good tool and I'm very accustomed to having one.

UofL football is going to the Sun Bowl, a New Year's Eve game. Win or lose, it'll be a good end to the season. Since it's on CBS instead of whatever cable network threw money at the NCAA, I'm going to take a half-day and watch the game from my couch before ...

Holy cow, I have plans for NYE! Almost a date, really. I don't quite know what to do with this. Casual plans, just hanging out and watching movies and quite possibly nodding off before midnight.

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What Makes You Happy

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:47:41 GMT

I'm watching War for the Planet of the Apes this evening, and I'm thinking about how it's one of the last things I'll watch on DVD via my Netflix subscription. They're eliminating the DVD option, and really, that deep library of physical media is the biggest reason to keep the sub. Netflix's streaming fare is hit-and-miss, especially their original stuff, and not matter how good the show is, there's no metric anyone can see to determine if a show will continue beyond a single season, or two if it's lucky. Prime's got a better library of originals, Tubi continues to surprise me with its rotating offerings, and Hulu and Disney aren't the best, but they are much cheaper than anyone else.

The movie itself is pretty good. Matt Reeves is a solid director. The Apes prequels have been worth my time; I'll always have a place in my heart for Planet and Beneath from the first series of movies.

Dad's going on the road tomorrow, a long haul out to the West Coast. I'll have the place to myself for a while. Kinda looking forward to that.

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Mother Road

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 01:54:33 GMT

Got the printer ink, and installed the necessary cartridge. And then got an e-mail notifying me that the cartridges I'd ordered the night before had shipped. Top of my game, y'all, top of my game.

Got the Escape's AC compressor replaced, and that wasn't cheap, but it has sure enough made longer drives more tolerable. Well, more than tolerable.

Like today, for example. It was Dungeon Crawl Classics Day, and that meant a drive to Louisville to run a game for people. And it was a good day. Three Judges (and therefore three games) and twenty players in total. I had a good time, but friends, a two-hour drive, then a five-hour game with seven players, then a two-hour drive home has made for a very tired fella.

So, I'm gonna make sure I can sleep, thanks to my friend diphenhyrdramine, read a little bit of a decent cyberpunk novel, and call it a weekend. Back in a couple of days.

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Love Lies Bleeding

Sat, 27 May 2023 22:48:53 GMT

I've had some decent days lately. Rode around with Dad on a clumsy but ultimately successful attempt to find a boat repair place someone had suggested to him. I'm continuing to burn through the Netflix DVD queue before that service sadly comes to an end in a few months - Tubi has helped with that, too.

Got a lead on a Delta Green game, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that shakes out. I thought that last night was going to be the session, but I misread the store's calendar. Saved myself a drive when I checked again before heading out and saw that last night was D&D night, and, no thanks. So, I ordered a pizza and settled in for some reading ... and that became some writing, and hokie-smokes did that feel good.

Today started pretty well. Dad needed a few things for some baking wanted to do for the reunion today, so off we went to the grocery. After that, I felt the need for some tea and the Escape needed fuel, so stopped at the large convenience store/small truckstop for such. On the way out of the store, my clumsiness reared its head - I smacked my left wrist against a doorframe and popped the screen right off my smartwatch. Its battery had started to swell up (it's six years old, after all) and had pushed the screen up a little bit, so it was probably just going to happen eventually. Anyway, it wasn't reparable by my hands, so I just replaced it this afternoon. It's currently syncing with the phone, and I have a shipping label ready for sending the old one off for recycling.

The reunion was okay. I had pie. That was about it.

It's Memorial Day weekend. Somewhere along the line, it became a thing here in the South(ish) to add flowers and decorations and whatnot to the graves of any and all relatives. I'm not much for that, but since I failed to do so for Mother's Day, I got a nice simple bouquet for Mom's grave. It's pretty, quite colorful, and she would have loved it.

Goshdarn it, Mom, I miss you today.

The Indy 500's tomorrow, and coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix, too, so there's my afternoon soundtrack sorted out. Dad's already promised to not ask me to go to church with him.

Monday's the holiday itself, and the Honor Guard Dad's part of will have a part in the town's observance. That, I will definitely attend. He's proud of this continued service and universe knows it does my heart good to see him enjoying this.

The phone and new watch are still syncing, so I think I'm going to get some reading in (Magician: Master, by Raymond Feist, for the record).

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For the First Time

Mon, 15 May 2023 19:29:43 GMT

Back online! Windstream's tech did the work this morning. Got rid of some very old and poorly-done wiring and ran a nice new fiber optic line. Ran an Ookla test a few minutes ago, and the house is acceptably fast now.

Dad and I took the DirecTV box down and ran coax across the roof from the old digital antenna. A few scans pulled in 35 or so over-the-air channels, and Dad seems happy enough with that. It's like he was watching all that much on the satellite feed anyway.

The Noble Knight order arrived. Heart of Darkness is a very good, appropriately disturbing, Alien scenario. The GM guide has ramped up my interest in Symbaroum - there are some elements of the setting I really want to explore. And sometime soon I'm going to break in Thunderbolt Apache Leader.

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Tears Run Dry

Fri, 12 May 2023 15:43:53 GMT

I'm camped out at the Casey County library for a while today. Slow (OMG so fucking slow) Internet became no Internet Wednesday evening, and the earliest service window is this coming Monday - which is when Windstream is supposed to come out and complete the fiber-optic connection to the house, so I'm just dealing with it.

I still have the occasional cough, but I'm mostly better. Dad's taking another hit, unfortunately. He's pretty weak, sore throat, proper bad cold symptoms. I hope that we're not just trading viral ickiness back and forth.

Denny Crum died a couple of days ago. Super-classy guy, and will always be a part of UofL culture.

Goshdarn Noble Knight already got me to spend some store credit. There's a sale going, and some things I wanted were on the list, so I ordered stuff. Should be here Monday afternoon. I still have a lot of credit, and looking at the production schedules of the few companies that still keep my interest, that credit's going to last me quite a while.

The veracity of this prediction has yet to be determined, but, knowing me, I know how I'd bet.

Wow. There's a book by my favorite writing professor on the shelf in front of me. Allegiance, by the great Gurney Norman.

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It's Time for Dodger Baseball

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 01:26:02 GMT

It is Opening Day. Things are still not what they were, or should be, but this is going to be a 162-game season and that's something. We already had our first weather postponement, and the league's COVID protocol forced another postponement. My Dodgers started their World Series defense with a 4-6 loss at Colorado. Nowhere to go but up!

Unfortunately, that applies to the MLB.tv app, at least on the PS4. Can't even log in. The fields for my e-mail and password are active, but the login button isn't. MLB's Twitter says they're aware (can't imagine they aren't) and are working on fixing the problem - one of several that I've seen reported around today. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

House- and dog-sitting this weekend. Looking forward to the (probable) peace down there, and going for walks with Kaiser; maybe a drive down to Lake Cumberland if it looks like we'll have time.

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There is a Tide

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 23:59:37 GMT

A Publisher update hit this morning. Downloaded and installed on the Macbook; will update the iMac's version whenever it's finished with the OS update. I'm about to just roll that machine back to factory spec and do a long day of reinstalling certain apps and the music library. Before that, though, I'm going to uninstall Firefox and scrub what I can from it. Something on the machine and in the browser do not get along, and I'm just done watching them fight.

Serif produces a big workbook for Publisher (and the rest of the Affinity line); I ordered a copy today. The user community generally recommends it for new users, so it seems like a reasonable investment. I've watched a handful of Serif's teaching videos and they're well-done and helpful. If I can keep myself in a state of mind to learn and develop this set of skills, I think I'm going to be pleased with these purchases.

Star Trek: Discovery just continues to deliver. I'm watching the last two episodes of Season 3 tonight, and it is absolutely giving me the storytelling and character and everything else I want. And hey, that's Oded Fehr playing future Starfleet's Admiral.

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Chains of Love

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 01:17:30 GMT

A little more Saberhagen today, finishing the first book in the series. Damned enjoyable, and once I'm through with this, I'm adding the Books of Swords to the reading stack.

Having a to-read stack again is pretty great. I still haven't gotten back to my pre-Masters level of reading for pleasure, and may never see it again, and ... well, whatever. It's good to just be able to read.

One of the grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor case has filed suit against the state Attorney General, essentially saying that the AG didn't do a proper job in presenting the case, that he's using the grand jury proceedings as a shield for his chicanery, and that the juror has the right to talk about the proceedings as long as the juror talks about things that the AG didn't bring up during the presentation and deliberations. This is going to be a heck of a thing.

Learned an inexpensive but important lesson tonight. Spend the slightly-more money and buy real inkjet cartridges instead of cheap-ass remanufactured ones. Had to install three on the little all-in-one this afternoon, and while the color cartridges aren't bad, the black one is just awful. Extremely faint, just barely there.

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Dear Prudence

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 22:11:01 GMT

I bought an iPhone SE Sunday. Sticking with the 6's form factor, avoiding the phablet for as long as I can. It is, compared to the 6, screaming fast, with a remarkably better camera and display. It lacks the 3.5mm headphone jack, so there's one small piece of technology that'll live with the iMac from now on. Just need to get a case for it, and I'll try that when I go out for a small resupply run in a few hours.

No formal word yet on the grand jury decision, but just about everyone's money is on no charges being filed in Breonna Taylor's killing. The city closed a batch of downtown intersections last night and this morning and forbade on-street parking in a roughly 25-block area. Jersey barriers, dump trucks, chain-link fence, all of it. The tower was emptier than whatever is passing for normal today; I think our 11AM head count saw 31 tenants total. People were being a little smart, I guess. Kentucky Trial Court Review predicts the announcement tomorrow afternoon, based on comments from some of the group's attorney members. If so, that'll make for plenty of trouble. Our contingencies are in place, and I don't really expect any violence to come our way - it'll go southwest of our building, based on previous behavior.

Sunday afternoon's DCC game was a hell of a lot of fun. Three players, so a dozen 0-level characters, and we saw, I think, five deaths. It's been years since I gamed with Steve, and never with Josh, and to be honest, it was good to just shoot the breeze with them for a while. We're going to do it again next month, maybe DCC maybe not.

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Sold me Down the River

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 14:17:12 GMT

I shouldn't be at this point, but I'm still regularly surprised at how good getting together with some friends to move little toy spaceships around a table is for my mental health. I went to Heroes with two Armada fleets and four X-Wing squadrons yesterday. Only got in a single match - an Epic X-Wing game. Lost, but managed not to bring shame to my ancestors. Did find that I need one more B-Wing maneuver dial, so an eBay seller is going get a few bucks out of me for that.

I sicced the Bs, flying in a wing, on a wing of TIE/lns early on, and while the B isn't a dogfighter, it does punch hard. The Bs also had the GR-75's point defense lasers providing cover, and that was good for a couple of shots most rounds. In hindsight, I should have used the Bs for their intended purpose and attacked my opponent's Gozanti instead, but I only had five fighters in my squadron, and needed some counter to my opponent's wings. All in all, a good match and good scenario, and we'll do it again in a couple of weeks.

I've gotten the idea to try and write some gaming stuff for publication again. I'm looking at FFG's Android setting for one of the products, and since I'm here for the immersion, I snapped up the five novels FFG published a while back. The first one, so far at least, is plenty enjoyable - we've got a murder mystery going on, going with the setting's theme of "The world changed. Crime (or people) did not." I don't expect that these are going to be life-changers, but so far, I'm having a good time in the world.

With luck, I'm going to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics game this afternoon. Would have done it last weekend, but car trouble and floods and everything else conspired to force the delay. This should be fun.

My trusty, but aging, iPhone is probably getting succeeded this afternoon, too. It's solidly into the obsolescent category, with the latest OS update being a couple years old, a slowly failing battery, and a couple of other issues.

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Next to You

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 02:12:40 GMT

My iMac came with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The mouse is pretty great, except for the horrible design decision to put the charging port ON THE BOTTOM of the thing, so it can't be used while charging. This keyboard, though ... it's small. My Macbook Air is wider. No 10-key pad or related control keys. And it's small. Did I mention that? Small enough that it'll fall between my legs if it's on my lap and I sprawl a little bit. What keys are there feel great, but the thing just isn't something I can happily spend much time working on. I think it's time to replace this one.

Good Delta Green session tonight. Only two players, but damned if they didn't go hard on what they had. I think we are now at the halfway point of the game, and while I hadn't given much thought to a big climax, some of the things the team has dug up have hooked them, and I think we're about to spin out of the operations in A Night at the Opera and into some more personal tales.

There's a model train show and sale up in Franklin, Indiana, tomorrow. I've talked myself into and out of going, and I think not going is going to win out.

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Wanted Man

Thu, 07 May 2020 16:15:16 GMT

One of our semi-local Armada guys makes templates and tokens and such for some of FFG's Star Wars minis games. I won a set of his range rulers a while back, and decided that it was finally time to throw some money his way and ordered a tray for the rulers. It arrived a couple of days ago, and it is just gorgeous. Thick, sturdy plastic, Rebel starbird and stripes engraved into the lid, strong magnets holding things together. And it doesn't hurt that Garrett's one of the nicest people in the group.

Mom&Dad's wonderful beautiful Doberman had to go to the vet. He's had a little cyst on his left rear leg for a while, and according to Dad, the cyst had gotten bigger and started to rupture. So, a visit to the doc, and he's patched up, and will have to take antibiotics for a while - which means he'll get a couple months of cheese snacks wrapped around his pills and he will be very happy with that.

Also, down at the farm, a nasty lightning strike near the house ran into the house. Killed both TVs, the satellite radio deck, a DirecTV receiver, and a couple of other things. Dad decided, heck with it, he's spending too much money on the DirecTV subscription, and bought an outdoor digital antenna to go along with his new smart TV. Forty-plus channels, and he's happy and Mom's happy. While having things checked out, they found out that the landline phone was causing a short somewhere in the house's telephone wiring that was doing some kind of fuckery with the DSL link. So, with the phone removed, they're at reasonable broadband speed, and my Netflix account is active on their TV and things are well.

Technology is just weird sometimes.

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Medicine Man

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 19:02:01 GMT

Well, that was quick. Bought the new iPad this morning at Best Buy, and they must have gotten restocked since the 31st - the Logitech keyboard case I wanted was back in stock. So, it's all set up now and charging, and on initial mucking around, the iPadOS is slick. It's usable as a second monitor for either my laptop or desktop and is capable of real multitasking, among other tricks.

The old Air has been reset to factory spec, and is going to The Niece. It's still got some years of life to it, and better to pass it along than just throw it in a cabinet somewhere. To be honest, if it was able to use physical external storage, I probably wouldn't have been so ready to replace it.

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Outlander

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 19:21:22 GMT

It is 2020. As an old gamer, I have been waiting for this for over half of my life.

I'm past going out and partying for NYE. I can't remember the last time I did; there was 2000, of course, and there had to have been some years since, but darned if I can remember them. I'm more excited for the new wall calendar than about going out and spending too much money and being around too many people.

Still haven't seen The Rise of Skywalker. Maybe this weekend, just going in and enjoying the action and not paying much attention to the story. The Mandalorian was so good that I'm spoiled.

I've been putting money aside for a new iPad. Mine is showing it's age - a late first-generation Air, with only 16GB storage. Saw the new 10.2" with 128GB on sale this week, so I guess the update is going to happen. I'm looking forward to this.

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On and On

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 04:11:23 GMT

Got a painful lesson reminder of why I shouldn't trust Microsoft products a couple of nights ago. I've gotten into the habit of taking my iPad with me when I'm working at PNC in the evenings or on weekends, and using the ample downtime to keep some writing going. So, Sunday evening, I'm feeling pretty good about things and cranking out some good stuff, and figure, what the hell, lets put Word on the iPad and see how it works on that platform. It works pretty darn well ... unless you're using iCloud for online storage. Word refuses to recognize that option, and when I tried to use Google Drive, Word threw a fit and lost a big chunk of what I'd written. Not at all how I wanted things to go.

I'm just fickle as hell about my tools, I guess. I sent the Macbook Air dock back to Amazon last night, and returned the monitor to Walmart yesterday morning. I agonized a little bit about keeping them, with the logic of "Hey, I might have a need for them sometime," and then I thought about the garage and barn at the Farm, and realized whoa, dragon, that's where that line of thinking leads. So, no fuss, it's done. And now I'm looking at newer iPads, either a 6th generation 9.7" model or a 10.5" one. My existing Air is still working as well as the day I bought it, but it only has 16GB of storage, and the OS takes up nearly half of that, if not more.

Okay. I'm going to embrace the workflow and do all of the writing in Pages. It exports to .docx, and LibreOffice will work for any final edits before I dive into Scribus for any self-published gaming products. Admitted, I've made these noises countless times over the years, so there's every likelihood that none of it will come to pass, but I'm remembering how good writing feels when I fucking DO IT, and that mental and emotional energy seems to be flowing again, so I'd best make the most of it. Paring down the number of active (relatively speaking) projects has helped out. I feel like I'm going to really have something together before long.

Started watching Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina tonight. First episode isn't bad. Appropriately spooky, wasn't expecting naked witch-girl stepping out of the tub, and I think I'm going to stick with it.

Some Star Wars stuff - Jon Favreau cited spaghetti Westerns and Kurosawa samurai movies as strong influences on his The Mandalorian for Disney+, the Cassian Andor series is promising me some espionage stories, and I'm more interested in these TV projects than I am in the end of the Skywalker saga.

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Special Collections

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 22:25:10 GMT

Holy cow, I had forgotten how much I prefer working from a real desktop environment (he wrote from his iPad). The bigger screen space is the most prominent bonus - word processor window and browser window both large enough to be usable at the same time, a full-sized keyboard, the desk space itself. It’s good to be back. Next is a new chair - this one is comfortable enough, but my idiot housemate broke the riser during one of his overnight Civ4 sessions when he was waiting on a non-existent job to materialize. So, I’ll look for that next.

Most of the music library survived. I was worried about that, since a huge chunk of it came from CDs and non-iTunes sources. My biggest worry was losing the entire Tangerine Dream catalog, as that is some of my preferred writing (and gaming) music. It’s there, along with the De La Soul and Rush and other collections. There are a couple of little glitches that carried over from the old machine - a couple of deleted apps are asking for permissions to accept external connections, and I’m trying to find out how to get rid of those once and for all.

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All Souled Out

Fri, 19 Apr 2019 14:13:46 GMT

Thunder was a darn good day. Twelve hours on site, easy money. Got to see the B-52 and F-15 flybys, left before fireworks and any street closures that would have interfered with my route, and I was home by 8:20PM. Food and drinks provided by the site - and praise dog, the caterer didn't ruin his tasty sandwiches by slathering them with mayo.

Went to Liberty Wednesday afternoon to help Mom&Dad out with some cleanup around the farm. I thought it would be cleaning up the yard - hopefully clearing Dad's collection of vehicles and tractors and other vehicular junk - but most of it was sorting and emptying the garage. Lots of junk tossed, too much simply repositioned, but there was progress, and I'll take it. Planning to go back next week and do some more work - putting up shelves so you can at least walk around in the building, and moving a chest freezer to another wall so that you can fully open the driver's door of whatever vehicle is parked inside. Hopefully this will keep going - I want to see the fleet of junkers gone by the end of summer.

I finally got sick enough of not having a desktop computer that I decided to stop dicking around waiting until I could buy a new iMac. Ordered a connector cable, bought an inexpensive monitor, and set up my desk again. Looked good enough, worked just fine, and I was feeling pretty good about things. And then, as payment for something that I just wanted to do anyway - the cleanup described above - Mom gave me enough money to buy a new iMac. So, this morning, I took things back down and set up the new computer, and now it's copying over settings and data from my old iMac's last backup. Please, please, please, let the music library be intact.

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More Than This

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 01:42:50 GMT

I've been wrestling with some low-level depression again for the last few days. Nothing like the fatalism and recurring self-destructive thoughts from late last year, but enough to wear on me a little bit. Writing a little bit managed to push the dark back somewhat, and reaching out to some friends helped, too. Still not in my best place, though.

Wendig's second Star Wars novel, Life Debt, is an improvement on the first. There's more action, more character, more Star Wars. I feel like I'm keeping a good mental wall between the two continuities, and at the same time I'm sketching out a rough fusion of them in the event that the Age of Rebellion game continues on long enough.

Since my old iMac died a few months ago, I've had my eyes on another refurbished model to replace it. The first one served me well for a decade, so it makes sense to stick with what I know, right? A deeper look has me thinking instead about a Mac Mini instead. I can get a refurbed higher-end Mini and 22-inch monitor for about $100 less than an iMac with the same hardware inside. The iMac's design is still extremely appealing - and design certainly matters. However, I'll want the full-size keyboard - another $100+ for the wireless version - and I have one of those from my old machine, so that's a point in the Mini's favor.

Related, I've been pushing my iPad more and more, and I'm starting to think that maybe I've bought my last laptop. The iPad really does everything I want my Macbook for, with the exception of some gaming, and once I've replaced the desktop machine, that consideration will be gone. That's a more distant consideration, though - this Macbook is only two years old, and based on my first one, I'll be in my mid-50s when I have to replace it. However this shakes out, I'm springing for an iPad with a whole lot more onboard storage. I deliberately went for a bottom-end model when I bought this one, and the limitation is showing.

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Driven to Tears

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 01:55:14 GMT

Tumblr announced today that effective December 17, all adult/NSFW/porny content will be removed from the service, and you can start making your jokes here. I figure this will be the effective end of the platform, but I hope I'm wrong because there is some super adorable stuff on EverythingFox and don't you begin to judge me for my appreciation of them.

UofL looks to have hired its new football coach - Scott Satterfield, from Appalachian State. If true, I think it's a very good choice - under Satterfield, Appy's developed a real reputation as a giant-killer (they beat Michigan at Michigan a couple of seasons ago), and Satterfield loves high-scoring and fast-moving offenses. Official announcement comes tomorrow afternoon.

SpaceX launched 64 mini-satellites this afternoon. Third launch for the booster, and a perfect landing. Another launch tomorrow, this one an ISS resupply shot. Further from home, OSIRIS-Rex went into orbit around an asteroid; this is a planned sample-return mission.

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Road to Nowhere

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 22:52:44 GMT

It's October, by the calendar if not the thermometer. Halloween is on the horizon, our last best line of defense against the constant encroachment of Christmas.

I miss the weirdest thing about this time of the year - running around Azeroth. I love the virtual decorations and the seasonal quests.

It being October, I'm running my Age of Rebellion players through a conversion of West End's old Otherspace module. They got into it quickly, and are running with the spirit of the thing. It was a great spooky experience twenty years ago, and the adventure has aged pretty well.

Bowman Field hosted its aviation festival over the weekend. Saturday afternoon, on my way to an Armada match, I saw a Ford Trimotor moving out of its parking spot for a flight (and a few minutes later, got passed by a whale-tail 911 on I-64). Saw and heard plenty of flyovers of the neighborhood yesterday, but today was the big winner. Had an errand taking me into the Highlands; on my way out, I saw the C-130 idling at the south end of the taxiway. Came back, and while I was waiting to turn left onto Dutchmans, I got to see and hear it take off! Came tearing down the runway and went right over my car - watched it through my sunroof, even.

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You Spin Me Around

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 04:20:31 GMT

Dead or Alive. The band, I mean. Gender-bending Pete Burns, driving beats, eminently danceable tunes. Sometimes lumped into the array of 1980s one-hit-wonders, definitely part of the era's early alternative groups.

I owe this band my life.

Waking up one morning and turning on the radio and hearing "Brand New Lover" was the final push to get out of the longest relationship of my life, one that had, from the perspective of many years later, choked the life out of me. There were other factors - another woman, first on that list - and years later, a friend pointed out just how toxic and unequal things were. But I stuck with things way too long, until I just couldn't any more. And one fine morning, there's that song, and in that moment it was perfect.

Jesus. I remember Burns dying a few years ago. The Great Sage Wikipedia mentions his numerous and often severe changes in appearance; a Google image search reveals some serious plastic surgery. It's ... it's terrible. The '80s-era Burns was handsome, with the androgynous look that enjoyed early popularity in a time and subculture. Later years, though ... wow. He looked inhuman. Cartoonish, even. I'm all for body autonomy and an individual's right to look and be who they want, but what Burns did to himself flat killed him. Pulmonary embolisms and blood clots resulting from the constant surgeries. He died after a heart attack, probably the end result of being partially reassembled so damned often.

I wonder what Burns was looking for, if there was something he was trying to ultimately become. I've never felt any kind of gender dysphoria, but there have been times I would have readily been rebuilt into another chassis.

There's plenty of science fiction and fantasy out there - and no shortage of scholarly work - that takes a look at wholesale body-changing. Transhumanism. Cyberpunk. In their adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, Netflix is going all-in on the theme of a replaceable body - the lead character was played by a white man, Joel Kinnaman, in the first season, and the second season will see Anthony Mackie take over the role. If I remember correctly, at some point in the novels, the character, Takashi Kovacs, finds himself in a woman's body, and that would be a heck of a thing to put on the screen.

Depending on your take, Kinnaman's played a transhuman character already, taking on the role of Alex Murphy in the 2014 remake of RoboCop. More than being placed into a new human body or having a new one grown or even having consciousness moved or installed into a non-humanoid body, old-school bionics and cybernetics still are my mental go-tos when it comes to large-scale body modifications. A long time ago, I had dreams that sometime in my adult life, I would have my badly-nearsighted eyes replaced with mechanical improvements. Instead, I wear glasses and contacts, and reject getting Lasik surgery because the specs and contacts are such a part of my identity. Humans, man. We are not always anything like rational.

Driving home home from tonight's D&D game, I had a thought about how fucked up magical healing has to be in a conventional D&D-type fantasy world. So, magical healing from clerics and potions and whatnot are commonplace. Say some magic words, down some colorful fluid, and your injuries are gone. But outside of the numbers of hit points, that has to be traumatic as anything to the character and those around him. After a fight, he's got deep wounds, broken bones, burns from chemicals or acid or fire, and who knows what kind of other injuries. His partner says some words or he drinks a few ounces of something, and all of a sudden, he's watching things stitch back together, skin rebuild itself, punctured organs repair themselves ... you get it, right?

The gods of these worlds have to be either utterly monstrous or incredibly good at healing the mind, because that would cause some serious PTSD for starters. Also, at the prices listed for healing spells and potions, for-profit healthcare is utter bullshit, no matter what reality you exist in.

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