D&D Humor, Part 1

(Our party is fending off a vicious group of oversized werewolves, and the dice are flying. The main tank rolled a fucking SIX during the initiative checks, and is standing there admiring the butterflies or some shit while a wolf paws at her neck, not that she is bitter or anything. One werewolf is blinded, while another is unconscious from a blow from a magical staff. A crazed lupine is being nailed by crossbow bolts, and another has the ranger on the ground, enraged at the wad of webbing shot into his wolfish throat. It's chaos. The caster with the blind wolf is temporarily safe, and whips out the banish spell to send the ranger's attacker on to the netherworld. He makes his roll, and the wolf is gone.)

Caster: Somewhere, a demon is very angry with me.

Guy 1: Nah. Somewhere, there was a retarded demon. And he was saying. I'm lonely... ooh! A PUPPY!

Finally Over It

My better half proposed in the fall of '03, and we decided to get married in the fall of '04. I'm not a frou frou female, I have not been planning my wedding since I was six, and I despise wearing makeup, dresses, crap in my hair, formal underwear, and people staring at me.

So my total obsession with all things Wedding took me completely by surprise. It was awful. Guy 2, a tolerant and good natured soul, once said with a sigh, "What on earth are you going to obsess over when you're married?" I shot back, "The honeymoon," but still, he had a point. I tried to rein it in - bought a mug that said "Shut Up About Your Fucking Wedding," even - but I couldn't control myself.

The internet became my friend. The Knot and their message boards for other obsessive compulsive Women in White became my most frequently hit link, but no website was too small, no link too stupid to follow if it related to weddings.

Even though I was sick of my OWN wedding plans and my uncontrollable urge to make clever handicrafts about a month before it actually happened, I was still obsessed with wedding stuff on the internet. I even continued to visit the message boards after the wedding. As I told my mate, it was like I'd spent a year learning all this esoteric information and gaining these highly specialized skills that I would NEVER USE AGAIN. Who wants to feel like it was all a waste of time? Even if you knew it was when you started?

But the obsession slowly faded, and I hardly noticed. I went out to buy scrapbook supplies for our wedding album, and came back with a new letter stamping system. I went to polish my wedding shoes and ended up looking online for blue ones. My new husband (hee, what a fun word) moved all of the wedding paraphenilia to the attic and I didn't miss any of it for days. I occasionally think, hrm, I should go up and go through that box, but then I go back to Law and Order reruns. Man, I love that Richard Belzer.

Then today, I was checking the weather channel, and an ad for "Wedding Weather" appeared before me. I thought, "Jeez, they must think women would click anything if it's related to their stupid wedding."

I'm cured!

Word Up, My Homies

Bloggers and rappers, unite!

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 5

(Discussion of Hearts of Iron and real life puppet nations in progress.)(Edit: In a TOTAL display of geekery, Guy 2 corrected my sequencing.)

Guy 3: What about Central America?

Guy 2: That's a perfect example of a puppet war, puppet versus puppet.

Guy 3: Two puppet nations enter. One puppet nation leave.

Guy 1: FIGHT!

Guy 2: Daniel Ortega WINS!

Guy 3: FATALITY!

The Pet Peeves Of the Frustrated Author, Part 4

Most possessives use an apostrophe. "Its" is the possessive exception that proves the rule.

"It's" is always, and only, a contraction for "it is." Thus, "It's fun to beat people with a morning star."

"Its" is the possessive. Thus, "I prefer the morning star weapon, because its spikes tear human flesh to shreds."

I'd be less violent about my examples if the fucking ENGLISH TEACHER who just emailed me hadn't been the wrongest wrong that ever wronged in print.

Captain Obvious Explains the Internet, Part 2

Freedom’s Just Another Word For LALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU

People who talk about freedom of speech, and how they are BEING DENIED THEIR FREEDOM on various message boards, blog comment forms, and other internet cesspools are pretty funny. You’re still free to talk, you know, just not there.

Captain Obvious always wants to send those people emails with this little test:

1. Go outside.
2. Yell something. Something inflammatory, such as “The president sucks!” or “Evolution is real! Kansas sucks!” or “I voted for Clay Aiken!”
3. Go back inside.
4. Wait for the cops to come.

If the police do not arrive, you may conclude that you still have freedom of speech for the time being. Your neighbors are equally free to think you are a moron, and not invite you over for barbeques, or wife swaps, or cocktails, or whatever is The Thing in your neighborhood. Or they might gasp, and say, “Wow, you like Clay too? Do you have that bootleg from the concert in Illinois? Bring over your iPod, I can totally hook you up!”

That’s the great thing about freedom in real life. It has nothing to do with internet drama.

Reasons I Fear To Breed, Part 1

The beagle has a problem with her anal glands. The little sacs are vestigial remnants of the era when the fierce beagles of the wild needed to spray noxious fluid on everything to ward off competing hounds. However, in their new suburban setting, the means by which they're supposed to empty those sacs has evolved into dust. So the glands become engorged with the foulest fluid known to man (so awful that a spot the size of a dime makes the vet tech change out of not just the lab coat but the undershirt and slacks as well), and defecating becomes itchy and painful for the dog. The sacs have to be emptied by hand. The animals usually let their human slaves know it's time to be "expressed" by this weird scooting around on the floor. There's also a certain amount of chewing their asses, emerging from said chomping with breath that could kill a rhino at fifty paces.

But that's not actually related to my fear of releasing my own little spawn. I mean, I'm not the one sticking my hand up my dog's ass to relieve the pressure, I pay a nice lady with a fancy degree from a veterinary school to do it.

No, what convinced me that this was not my decade to conceive was this episode:

After watching my beagle scoot around for a few days last winter, I called the vet and made an appointment for an expression and a bath. (The bath part after an expression isn't really OPTIONAL, and I figure, hell, they already have her in the sink.) I got up a little earlier than normal on the morning of the appointment so I'd have time to drop her off. I got out a special chewie treat to lure my little sloth of a canine into the car. When I got on the road, I took special care to remember to take the exit for the vet's office instead of my office. I kept the stereo down at about half the normal volume so as to not damage her tender beagle ears. Once off the highway and on the correct side street, I shifted to the left lane a few turns before the vet's office, so as to be prepared for the turn. I even reached back and petted her at each traffic light, to reassure her that I was there and she was going to be fine. (She, like my mate, is not an intrepid explorer and does not care for travel. She likes meals on time, her own bed, and having a familiar place to crap. The man and the dog understand each other very well, and they both look at me like I'm insane when I suggest adventures more than three hours away.) Basically, I did everything to ensure there would be no missed turns, time lost to backtracking, and so forth.

Due to all the careful precautions and skillful planning, I arrived at work without being at all late despite the errand. Pleased with myself, I turned off the car, grabbed the laptop in its sleek leather case, and hopped out of the car. I'd almost made it inside, when I realized I might have left an unopened can of soda in the car. It was a frightfully cold day, and I was a little concerned about it bursting all over the cloth seats, so I went back to my vehicle. I looked through the window to see if there was anything in the cupholder.

Two big brown eyes, framed by floppy ears, stared back at me.

I had forgotten to drop off the dog.

I Want One

http://givemetoys.zoovy.com/product/AC_11418

Strangers In the Hall

There are people who do not work here walking the halls of my office. They have clearly been warned that we are a casual office. What they were not told is that by "casual," we generally mean we wear things described as "this smells cleanish," or that many inmates interpret "dress code" as "please get dressed."

The strangers are wearing jeans and polo shirts because they think they will blend in better, but au contraire! The jeans are of the bluest blue denim, still stiff with the factory starch. These are clearly people who wear khakis to mow the lawn, for heaven's sake.

It's easy to identify men who wear jeans every day. The ass pockets have little worn squares where their wallets go. Their belt loops are stretched exactly where their favorite belt hits the cloth. They have little holsters for their cell phones, because everyone knows you can't fit most cell phone models in the front pocket of jeans. The material is stretched a little, even on baggy jeans, to cling and drape in an individual way that cannot be purchased. If they are techie boys, the knees of their jeans are as velvety as a horse's nose.

If I were an alien from beyond the edge of the universe, transplanted to this office on this day and asked to guess who belonged and who did not, I would point an undulating tentacle and cry, "Imposter!" at these men in their new and stiffly indigo jeans.

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 4

Guy 3: Did you ever check the link about the nuns?

Me: No. I refuse to click anything you send me about nuns.

Guy 3: But it was great, these twelve nuns were on vacation and had sex with lots of people.

(General laugh; followed by moment of silence and chewing.)

Guy 2: But what nationality were the nuns?

Nerdier Than Thou

First, take the test, to understand why I'm writing this.

The makers of this quiz understand their target audience. They list one of the possible motivations as proving that you are a bigger dork than your friends are. So it should come as no surprise that I am deeply disappointed to find that I am only 28% nerd.

28%?!!

That's IMPOSSIBLE. I started wearing glasses at age six. I collect science fiction and fantasy novels. I love Star Trek conventions and Gatecon. After I graduated from college, I moved into a fraternity house that was a cross between Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. (And I joined it, too, my fraternity name is "Woodchuck." Yes, I'm a girl, yes, it's a fraternity and not a sorority, and it's too long and boring of a story to explain.). I work for a video game company. On the Geek Hierarchy Chart, I'm all over the map.

My self image has been devastated by this turn of events. If I don't do something nerdy soon, I'll have to worry about my hair and fingernails, and make entirely different friends.

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 3

Today's lunch conversation involved a lot of references to dog poop and its impact on suburban lawns and small children. I was enjoying the conversation, and participating, until I caught the looks on the faces of the people behind us. Still, I didn't try to stop it until Guy 3 REALLY got going on how he was going to save a week's worth of his own feces, mix it with water to a cement-like consistency, and smear it on the irresponsible dog owner's door. Someplace out of the rain.

The moral here is twofold. One, suburbia really makes you crazy. Two, don't ever let your dog shit on a corner lot in Herndon.

Captain Obvious Explains the Internet, Part 1

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Rude Words

There are millions of ways to humiliate oneself. At least nine hundred thousand of those ways involve the internet and digital photos.

Captain Obvious was once quietly surfing the internet, aimlessly clicking links provided by so-called "friends," when the photograph of a barely clad woman appeared on the screen. This woman was of a type known on the internet as a "BBW." This acronym stands for "big beautiful woman," otherwise known as "plus sized woman," or "queen sized," or "ample," or "Rubenesque."

Or in the case of this lassie, "yikes."

She was dyed. She was pierced. She was tattooed with various tribal insignia in extremely private places.

She was a former coworker of Captain Obvious. (Way former, of no recent vintage. This was a hell of a way to get an update.)

This photograph was in no way protected. The Captain did not need a subscription to view this digital shot. No password was required, nor registration requested. This demure image was on the front page of her blog. Now, identifying features had been carefully cleaned from the blog itself. No names, no cities, and her posts were about looking for love. Potential suitors were identified only by initials. So, it seems a little odd that all two hundred and seventeen pounds of sexual chocolate was on display without any effort made to hide her face. Or her vagina.

Today's obvious tip:

If you're not completely comfortable with your mother, your boss, the quickie mart clerk, and Mail Room Bob seeing that your "special place" has been adorned with metal rings and barbells, do not post the photograph on your website.

Bonus tip:

If you ignored Captain Obvious and posted it anyway, you now know precisely why your boss is refusing to make eye contact with you.

It Can Always Be Worse

I told my boss that I'd given up on this week on Tuesday, and that I was just surfing the catastrophe curve until it ended. Today has thus far had a decided lack of chaos, and instead of relieved, I feel depleted. But in no way am I complaining. Whenever whining comes to mind, I can always think about my life in the post-boom New Economy just four short years ago:

- I was fired from a temp job for correcting the spelling and grammar on a job announcement before it went out onto the internet and into a newspaper. No, really. My boss handed me an announcement, and she'd put "Does this peak your interest?" I changed it to "pique" and asked if she'd approve my changes before it went out. I was let go the same day. For those of you who know me, no, I did not call her a monkey or even roll my eyes at her. I did try to explain that I'd looked it up, it was "pique," but the thought of a lowly temp questioning her skills caused an aneurysm.

- The temp agency I'd worked for ten years, off and on since I was sixteen, with glowing recommendations and references from every supervisor, actually dismissed me over the pique incident. When I asked why I was being dismissed over one incident, in which I had not technically been wrong, against a backdrop of a decade's worth of solid performance, I was informed that my old records had been lost in a merger between my company and another.

- I had a job picking staples out of old Navy memos. After the staples were removed, I photocopied the memos. Then I put the copies in boxes and the originals in binders. At least, that's what the job card at the agency said. Once I arrived I discovered they didn't want me to hurry or anything, so what I actually did was screw around in IRC harassing a friend who later came to be known as Guy 2.

- I was well prepared for my Navy job by my job with a major state university. My task there was to photocopy student transcript cards, from the years 1912 to 1972. The originals went into special storage and the photocopies went onto shelves. Of course, no one had alphabetized the cards in years, so half the job was just putting them into order. That job would have been great if I hadn't been yelled at repeatedly for not wearing makeup or pantyhose. The fact that I spent all day crawling on the floor, alone, in a windowless storage room, in the basement of a building with a hundred years of dust and mutant centipedes was apparently not relevant.

- Of course, all of that was nothing compared to writing porn. Those "letters to the editor" don't write themselves.

I had good jobs, of course. There was the lady at the utility company who deserves much of the credit for my current success, as she helped me to adjust my brain from "college" to "reality." I worked for a guy who could charm the paint of a wall, despite the outward appearance of a marshwiggle, and he taught me tons about marketing and humanity. There were a number of theater jobs, all of which gave me time management skills and great cocktail stories, albeit stories that rely too much on "So then this naked guy said, what do you mean?" And of course, I loved freelance writing as a career, which led directly to my present job.

But overall, I'm sitting in my jeans, brushing crumbs off my sweatshirt, with no makeup and hair in my face, instant messaging my incredibly cool supervisor, about thirty feet from the love of my life, and I know how good I've got it.

Even if this week sucked donkey wang.

At Least the Next Generation Is Better:

Washington Post article

"I try to promote tolerance in a school where there is not enough among teenagers and am in turn flooded with the intolerance of their parents," [the playwright] said, in comments that prompted a standing ovation among supporters.

"People who are negatively commenting on my play are proving my point," she said.

Yes. They are.

A Hot Topic Day

For those of you who are not frustrated adolescent goths, there's a store at many suburban malls called Hot Topic. They specialize in... clothing for frustrated adolescent goths. Well, not ENTIRELY goth, the incurably hip sixteen year old and the tragically cool college student also have a niche in this shop. The employees are all dyed, pierced, and Cool. They employ scrawny boys and fat chicks (do NOT call them Rubenesque or plump or well endowed, they are FAT and usually wear buttons asking if you have a fucking problem with that, and damn if they don't pull off the sexy clothes thing from sheer attitude). Their cars have Darwin fish and stickers for obscure bands that I was never cool enough to listen to. They carry tons of T-shirts and stickers and pins with clever and cynical little sayings meant to appeal to people who are Different, just like all their Different friends.

The ironic thing about Hot Topic is that apparently it is only cool for those of us who were never cool. There's an entire sub-sub culture that buys, wears, and listens to Hot Topicish things, but they are entirely too cool to actually purchase things from Hot Topic. Something about poseurs. See, this is why so many people just follow the mainstream. It's EASIER.

But I am a poseur, I'm okay with that, and I have craploads of cynical T-shirts from Hot Topic. And today was a very Hot Topic T-shirt day:

"Some days it's not worth gnawing through the restraints in the morning."

Not That Kind Of Fan

I went to a "Gatecon" this weekend with some friends. Think Trekkie convention, only, with a lot fewer people gluing vacuum cleaner parts to leotards and trying to talk like Borgs. In fact, no one was wearing a costume except the volunteers who were actually working the show. It was nice. Everyone was normal.

Until Michael Shanks came out.

I am definitely the pot giving the kettle a call to some extent, considering I was the one who said "Hellooooooo, good looking" in that "mmm mmm good" tone of voice during the unfortunate moment of silence that fell right after the room finished screaming their welcome to Mister Shanks. OF COURSE I objectify the guy to some extent. He's a good looking fellow with giant biceps who comes into my living room several times a week pretending to be a nerdy, sensitive dude. I don't know anything about him. For all I know he picks his nose and farts in bed. I don't care, I'm not married to him. I just enjoy the TV show, and go about my day. (A day where I happily find myself married to a good looking and sensitive fellow with giant biceps and an enormous collection of sci-fi books and DVDs and related dolls... er... action figures.)

But it seemed like a number of Gatecon attendees had trouble separating Michael Shanks from Daniel Jackson. They kept asking when he was going to stop dying, when he was going back to such and such a planet, and stuff like that. One freak asked him when he was going to go back to being an archeologist instead of a gung ho member of the military establishment.

Lady, he is neither an archeologist or a member of the Air Force. And stop asking the man questions that only the show's writers or producers could answer.

I wanted to tell him I sympathized. I have one of those jobs that, when I meet customers in person, gets me asked vaguely aggressive questions that I can't possibly answer. I also tend to attract attention from people who think they know me, because they know a carefully constructed public persona - one that comes into their homes every day. I wanted to tell him I admired his grace and charm, as well as the fact that he'd just slapped on a hat and some torn jeans and spent Sunday afternoon with a bunch of sci-fi fans.

But I didn't, for the same reason one of my friends didn't grab the chance to stop Gary Jones in the hallway and tell him how awesome he was. Actually saying it would have made the sentiments feel creepy instead of admiring. It's odd that sincere, G... okay, PG rated admiration would feel skanky in a room shared with slashfic writers.

The Worst Is Over

It is past 5:00 PM EST, and the sun is STILL SHINING. It has neither set, nor been covered with clouds oozing snow and sleet like infected boils of gray.

Thank goodness. I was afraid the burning yule log and evergreen bough thing was going to fail, and I was going to have to sacrifice a virgin. And where the hell was I going to find a virgin around here?

The Pet Peeves of the Frustrated Author, Part 3

When I'm typing with a furious pace, a look of concentration on my face, and a half finished paragraph visible from over my shoulder, it means I'm busy. I'm concentrating. I'm writing. I'M OBVIOUSLY ON A ROLL HERE, PEOPLE. Breaking my train of thought when I finally get going on something makes me want to scream.

And there are no exceptions to this. No one is so special and wonderful that I don't mind being violently derailed by them. No one is so quiet and sneaky that I don't notice them flopped in my guest chair breathing at the top of their lungs.

Do I need a shirt that says "Writing is a job. If anyone could do it, everyone would"? I'd have thought the internet would have made that painfully clear by now.

I'm so pissed off right now that I think I'll go stare at my friend Guy 2 until he takes off his headphones, stops coding, and cheers my ass up. Irony FTW.

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 2

Me: "Show me one example of genuine democracy transplanted at gun point!"

Guy 1: "Little Rock, Arkansas."

Me, Guy 2, Guy 3: "Point."

My Ten Year Old Mazda Needs Performance Upgrades

The title is a play on an old MMOG joke. If you get it, you're like, old and stuff.

("Old." God. Listen to me, talking about 1999 as though it were ancient history. It really is, though - in internet years, I'm DEAD.)

Anyway. My car is a wonderful, sporty looking little thing, with cloth seats and decent speakers and a sunroof. It also has absolutely no voom, no zip, no sense of power. I can go from zero to sixty in five YEARS, eight if I've got the AC on. But she only had 28K miles on her when a generous soul sold my automotive darling to me four years ago. She's got 49K now, and the old girl is nearly eleven years old. She runs just fine, no drips or knocks. I have no reason on this earth to get rid of her. None. It would, in fact, be financially irresponsible to get rid of such a solid, well-running little car, as I wish to purchase a domicile this year. And by "purchase," I mean "put down most of my savings and sign an inch thick contract in blood, and then portion out a little bit of my soul each month for the next thirty years." So wouldn't I be a complete moron if I got rid of a dear little '94 Mazda MX-6, with no faults besides a blown out right front tweeter? Yes. The answer is YES.

Except... THIS.

Or, and my friend is going straight to hell for sending me this link, THIS.