I ate a pickle on a sharpened stick. I still have my eyes.

CROWNSVILLE, Md. (AP) — An Anne Arundel County fire official says a 10-year-old boy seriously injured his eye at the Maryland Renaissance Festival when he accidentally stuck a skewer in his eye.

 

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What made this war unique was the fact that the East lost during the opening ceremonies as HRM Konrad conceded the war.

I highly encourage you to listen to the interview provided by the Pennsic Independent Podcast. In fact, you can listen to it directly from that page.

This will give you his reasons behind the decision; one that I support 110%. Unfortunately, I don’t think the king of the Mid really understood the point and missed the boat.. He was going to fight the war the same way they always have, and put it down as a 37-0 win in their books.

That’s a real shame. Although in Konrad’s interview he discusses at least one point where they attempted to force balance the sides, it wasn’t the standard.

I feel for Lutr. I understand that the Midrealm has been on the receiving end of being outnumbered in the past. But that doesn’t mean it needs to continue every year. Konrad stepped forward and took full responsibility for trying to make the war fun and competitive and not just a bloodbath. But old wounds heal slowly, and this was an opportunity lost by the Midrealm to make things better for the future wars.

So I’m disappointed that he chose not to force balance the sides, and was instead more concerned with the win. Even if force balancing was discussed as a convention, it wasn’t practiced. The response was that since the war was over (the East conceded) there wasn’t any reason to follow the conventions. That’s crap.

Even worse was the presentation to our rapier army that made it seem like it was our side that graciously allowed them to take the field with a greater number. Sure, he gave all of our units an award, but I can’t help but feel that both the speech and the award were just for show, and to make them feel better about the choice they made not to even the sides.

I will say that there was some confusion in our ranks and in my mind when I was at the woods battle that day. We numbered 113 and they numbered 200. So the initial thought was that they had 82 more people than us (or roughly 73% more), and they would have to give up 40 people to even the sides. In fact, during Lutr’s speech to us he mentioned only 20 of his heavy crossovers needing to “sit” in order to even the sides, and I remember thinking (as well as hearing other people saying later), ‘Well you’re still shorting us another 20 people’.

(Aside: They weren’t being asked to sit and not play at all, they were being asked to play for the other side)

Later though, on the car ride home with my wife, we did the math. Since the conventions stated that you couldn’t have more than 25% of your opponent, the actual number of people who would have needed to come over to our side would have been 22 (and closer to Lutr’s quantity). This would make the final sides 135 to 178.

Here’s the algebra for ya (which I made Jean do in her head driving down the PA turnpike)

The final equation is rounded for simplicity, but can be used to bring any two sides within 25% of each other.

So then I’m thinking to myself, especially given the time we were delayed in starting, I wonder if the marshals  had a cheat sheet with just such an equation on it, or if they were sitting around in a group going - Ok, give them 15, what’s that? ok try 30.. too many… 17..18..19..20.. ah 22! That’s it. Though with the recent iPhone geekfests I saw at Pennsic, I wouldn’t put it past someone there to figure it out.

I had gotten into quite a discussion just before the Iron Bog court, which was Sunday night and the day of the opening ceremonies, regarding the King’s decision. A few others were disappointed and thought that he had earned himself some Bobo points. I told them absolutely not. Bobo points are given for doing something stupid, and what Konrad did was smart and honorable. Granted I felt this way before reading the excerpt of his interview in the paper or listening to the podcast - both of which later reinforced my beliefs.

Here’s what it came down to. I asked them, as non-combatants, would their way be any different now? Would they still socialize, go to classes and have a good time. Would they still be able to watch the battles and read the articles and cheer on the possible victors? Absolutely. I felt that it was a very rare person who was a non-combatant and was so gung ho about their Kingdom winning, that their war was ruined because of the loss.

So, then, for those of us who were combatants, the stress reduction have having to win was welcomed. I wanted to walk away from the battles, even the ones we lost, with a feeling of ‘good fight. good time.’ and not be muttering under my breath about being outnumbered or having my good time ruined.

Do you know what that’s like? To walk away from the fight so utterly disgusted with the outcome that you wonder why you even bothered to show up in the first place? Why did you take your vacation and spend the time which should be have been enjoyable instead getting beat to a pulp. You question whether you should even bother coming back again to do it in the future.

That’s what Konrad was trying to avoid and why I applaud him for taking the stand. I only wish more people, and especially the royalty of the Midrealm, understood that - and were willing to take the hand that was extended to them.

Build on the mistakes of the past to provide a better future. If that’s not a politician’s get me elected tagline, I don’t know what is. Corny as it sounds, it’s absolutely true.

Video: Elbow Ouchee

Coming Soon.. behind the scads of other Scadian post-Pennsic entries the last two days…

Thanks to thebruce for the comic reminder.

p.s. trying an updated LJ crossposter, so this may not work properly.. good excuse for a simple entry.

Coming in November… glee…

Me: *Yawn*

Alia: Dad, you yawn like a hippopotamus

Me: *blink*

She’s been able to say the word hippopotamus since very early. Who know why.. is it easy for kids to say? Does she like the hard syllables? I have no idea. She pretends she is one during her bath at night (sometimes she’s a seahorse or a mermaid). But that comment yesterday caught me totally off-guard. Couldn’t believe she made the comparison.

As an aside, you should be able to see the images now on LJ. It was brought to my attention by delbruc that my image links were always broken when it was cross-posted. This wasn’t a problem with the images, so much as the fact that I blocked all hotlinking from sites other than my own, as I was having bandwidth stolen. So I added LJ to my list of exceptions in my .htaccess file and now the images display as they should.

Surprised no one else mentioned it, but then it could be that no one actually reads this crap, figured I was incompetent and couldn’t post a picture correctly, or assumed the network was having trouble (but only, and always, when they read my posts). I’m guessing it was #3.

This image isn’t some special effects from the latest Hollywood movie, but rather a picture of a lightning storm in Boston circa 1967.

Last night, I experienced a lightning storm of that magnitude over the Philadelphia region. We heard on the news that between 7-8pm, there were over 2000 strikes. Between 8-9pm (as I drove to fencing practice), there were over 3000 strikes.

It was a really strange primal experience. I felt my heart racing and my arm hair rising as I drove up 95. The sky was bright enough to drive without headlights with the constant flashes. It kept my peripheral vision working in overtime, and I had to fight to keep turning my head. There was this primal fear that kept creeping up on me. I finally turned off the radio and gave 110% of my attention to driving, waiting at any minute for the car next to me (or me) to explode in a bright white light.

It looked surreal, with low hanging clouds and both horizontal and vertical strikes, plus the cloud lightning.

The storm gods were mad last night, and they showed it.

Saturday was the twins 3rd birthday party. The first present opened was an Imaginext  Pirate Ship by Fisher-Price

It has Pirates.

It has ZOMBIE Pirates.

I mean, come on.. how much geekier can you get than that? I’m sure it was easy for Mike and Sam to actually pick this item out, because, truth be told, Mike is a 3 year old himself. He was as excited about playing with it as they were.

Connor took one look at it, opened one of the accessory packs (a skeletal shark) and decided he didn’t want to open any more presents. He had the one he wanted.

The ship has ‘action points’ on it, allowing for things like raising the anchor, or firing the cannons. You put the pirate in the appropriate place and turn it, and then the magic happens. Very cool indeed.

He played with it all night Saturday, and all day Sunday (except for the time when Alia had the captain and they were fighting over it). I’m sure, even as I write this, he has his ‘Captain Hook’ fighting against the zombie pirates.

Last night, Alia wouldn’t eat her meatballs. But, when the two-headed dragon chariot decided to eat the ‘dragon food’, she was right behind him. Finished the whole plate. That didn’t give the dragon the strength needed to survive the onslaught of the zombie pirates though.. At this point, whatever toy Connor is holding is the one that wins.

I soon got mauled by two children snarling and growling at me, pretending to be the dragon. No sympathy from the wife, who sat there chuckling that I brought it on myself.

I did, of course, and that makes it all the better.

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay?

Joss Whedon? Neil Patrick Harris?  Nathan Fillion? Felicia Day?

Come on.. how can you not be all over this…

Thanks michelf (michelf)…for tweaking my geek

I just brought these guys up at the Brooks’ party on Saturday, so it reminded me to go check out their site for new missions, and lo and behold!!

In honor of my father and uncle, I present the latest Improv Everywhere mission, Human Mirror.