Going Away BBQ

On Saturday, August 27th I organized a BBQ in honor of my imminent departure from the pacific northwest was a modest success. People had a good time and most of the people I was expecting attended. I was a bit disappointed that my parents, my Aunt Stefani and Danielle weren't able to make it, but I'm fairly confident I'll see all those people again.

We had a Lord of the Fries tournament that went fairly well. Robert, Amy's boy-toy, came in first place with a score after three hands in the high 100's. Jason Robertson came in second place with a score in the low 100's. My friend Bruce came in third place with a score in the 80's. I, of course, came in last place with a score of 14. Yes, after three hands of the english menu without the special rule I had a whopping score of 14 points. Apparently I was being punished by the goddess of luck for making sarcastic comments about how much ass I was going to kick.

Here's a link to pictures that Scottland took of the event.

Sex on The Beach

My friend Rod has been bugging me to go to Deception Pass with him for a couple of months now. Since my exit from Seattle is imminent, I figured there was no time like the present. Deception pass is about sixty miles north of Seattle on I-5 and about 18 miles southwest of the intersection between I-5 and highway 20. The drive to Deception Pass is pretty boring for 80% of it. Once you head SW after the refinery at Anacortes, the road quickly becomes very scenic.

Deception pass is the break in the land that makes Whidbey Island into and island. It's a beautiful steep walled cut of rock crossed by a narrow and oddly fragile looking bridge. Because deception pass is at the far northern end of Whidbey island, much of the water to the east of Whidbey island and nearbye Camano island prefers to pass through the Deception Pass channel when the tide changes, rather than heading the long way to the south and then back around to the North. So, when the tide is changing, the surface of the water ripples and roils like water flowing through a shallow river. It's a pretty amazing sight.

Still, my appreciation of the beauty of Deception Pass was eclipsed by something I saw that, while one of the most natural of human experiences, was complete unexpected at the time. The southern side of the channel is lined by very nice beaches made of a mixture of sand and smoothly polished medium sized gravel. Rod and I went for a walk along the beaches heading west. There are a couple of small sized headlands that cut very close to the water, and depending on where the tide is at they may or may not be passable along the lower edge. One of the headlands in question went very nearly to the water's edge, but was passable by a narrow foot wide bit of unsubmerged ground. Rod and I had to get through this part in single file and I went first.

As I came around the headland I took a quick look to my left. She was bent over the large driftwood log wedged in the gravel three quarters of the way up the shore. He was right behind her, his hands on her hips, thrusting madly. Neither were wearing any clothes of any kind. They turn towards me with big shit eating grins on their faces and then quickly disengage. They turn, scoop up their clothes and start heading towards the woods that line the beach. I do an abrupt 180, stopping Rod with a hand to the chest and mumbling "sorry about that" over my shoulder. I think to myself, "Damn, he had a nice ass. I wonder if he plays soccer."

Rod and I go back the way we came and wait for about five minutes before continuing on. When we get around the headland they're no where to be seen. We continue on down the beach. About 100 feet down, we pass a couple heading in the opposite direction. The woman doesn't really make eye contact. The man does. He asks, "How's it going?" I reply, "Pretty good." He gives me another big shit eating grin and a little eye waggle. About ten steps afterwards I stop and turn. Yep, that's him allright.

BSG

I love BSG with all my heart and soul. Some of the stuff in the most recent episode (Season 2 Episode 5) was a bit cheesey. Still, the show is so good it's fairly easy to forgive the minor mis-steps. I'm a bit concerned that the show is going to veer into the realm of "Cylons can't have babies because they don't know love" crazy stupidity. My guess that's just what Sharon-Bot believes because she's obviously the "please kick me because I have so much love to give" model.

Still, I was thinking about the show this afternoon and something "profound" suddenly occured to me.

THE CYLONS ARE THE ZERG.

Sort of. Think about it. They operate as a crude hive mind. They mass produce biologically engineered organisms designed for a single function or set of functions. There is a set of more sentient engineered organisms that do a lot of the thinking for the hive mind that cannot be killed through conventional means as they just grow new bodies into which their minds are transferred.

It all sort of makes sense in my head. And, if that's the case, where is the The Overmind? And more importantly, who is Kerrigan? Baltar?

Stromboli's Blog

I was googling the other day and decided to look up "Stromboli," which is my cat's name. You can imagine my shock and surprise when I found, nestled amongst the typical links to pages about a certain italian volcano, a Blog apparently being maintained in secret by my cat. While I have always known that she was intelligent for a feline, I had no idea that she was THAT smart. Perhaps I'll enroll her in undergraduate studies at UC Davis. It would be fun to be study budies. Here's the first entry in her blog.

This is my blog. I am a beautiful princess. I have two pets, HissGrowl and MeowMeow. I like them both, but MeowMeow is better at serving my needs. I have trained him well. MeowMeow has brought me several other pets as tribute over time. There was Rowwrl, who I remember from my youngest days. For a short time I also had PrrrrGack! and LickSniff. Traitorous attention sluts that they were, they all left. HissGrowl is fairly new and not yet as adept at serving me as I should like. I shall strive to train him to attend my needs as well as MeowMeow does. Perhaps he will not slink away like the others.

I think MeowMeow refers to me, and HissGrowl is my old roommate Bob.