Scotto's Wall Scrawls

Newt was shown in yesterdays Zefrank video news post. Sadly, Zefrank says that animals aren't allowed in any known League of Awesomeness. It seems I must submit a power move of my own, and thenget Newton into the league's good graces later.

Maybe I should show my eyestalk yoink power move!

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Got together with Kat and Graypumpkin yesterday at lunch. Nice time was had lunch of bagel sammiches and I got gifties of Issues 4 & 5 of The Thing Comic, 1, 2, and 3 of the grant morrison superman comic, and a cool squishy toy.. an awesome replacement for blinky. It was nice visiting with 'em... It's been over a decade since I've seen 'em. '94, I think. We spoke about the usual.. fmaily, firneds, comics, livejournal, sushi, the appropriateness of naming a flower shop "adam and eve" -quoth kat "I'd like some apple blossoms, please!", the danger of shrimp trucks.

Squishy octopus is pretty awesome, and he looks more durable than Blinky - hidden inside his swirling, glittery maw, are the two ultimate yin yang of good/evil of the deep... a great white shark and bottle nose dolphin, eternally battling inside the octocosm.



I didn't give 'em the Dr. Who dvd, because I didn't know we were doing lunch until mid-morning. If I was a cool guy, I'd drop it in the mail for them to come home to... or I can try and ge tthe first ep of th enew season on Sat, first.

If I wasn't a dolt, I'd have taken pictures but I was too busy enjoying their company to remember my camera. Tomorrow they're off ot tampa, and I doubt I'll ge tot visit again before they head back to the lone star state. I look forward to seeing them again sometime soon.

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Kudos to Mandy on her first day at the Chem lab!

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Kev took a job doing programming as a civilian for the DoD at Gitmo. (The same place Hav used to do his gig.) Sounds like a sweet deal.. they're training him, giving security clearance, paying for his lodging.. (everything but food and phone) great pay too.. only downside is, well.. it's Cuba. He'll get time off and such, but he can't bring the puppies or kitties with him, either. (That'd be a deal breaker for me).. It's about a 2 hour flight from here, so returning won't be much of an issue on holiday. (about a month off every year).

I'm really happy for him.. he's finally doing something worthwhile, well-paying, and for a boss he respects. I suspect he'll really flourish there. He's heading out there ein June, so we've got to have a few "fart parties" before he's off to points south. I really would love for him to tell the pilot "TAKE THIS PLANE TO CUBA!", but that's probably a bad first impression.

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AB was fired yesterday - wasn't cutting it. RP will be out new agent ni Michigan... I think she'll do a good job. RI is off to Texas for a week, and I think we'll all get things done. It'll be nice to have a new tech outside of the state.

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1 year ago - new semagic, video shoot pics, RI calls me mouthy, neon sign, carrot flowers, robot guards

2 years ago - wanting a long weekend, GP mentions a detente, CoH, Butterflies of NA

3 years ago - Power out silence, ut2k3, there.com fun.

4 years ago - angry kid, baha men, freedom force, sniffing around for the girlie, Kidalicious gets a new Baby!

5 years ago - identifying with Sam the Sheepdog, people in your neighborhood poll, livejournal observation, chupacabra sightings up

My answer to this gaming question: What do you think is the best cast size for the games you've played? What are the factors that go into your answer: genre, play group, gaming system, etc.?

The short answer is 4.

The long answer is that I really think it's up to each gaming group, but I prefer smaller crew sizes for most games. More than six players with one GM was a bit much for me. I think three-four is good for most groups, and I had a lot of fun doing the "Brave & the Bold" Greenpeace (Hippie Green Lantern in the '60s, protoge of Alan Scott on DC "Earth 2.1") & Doc Mid-nite (Daughter of The Original) team ups with Katt and GrayPumpkin. (GP ran, K & I were sort of the "buddy Picture" team... there was really solid dynamic there.) It was actually a spin-off of a larger scale silver age JSA, the Next generation campaign.... funny how JSA got popular again in the comics about 3 years after that game came to a close. Supers Games seem to bog down too much after 4 players... but that might just be because we were playing champions. It's a good game, but combat can take a looooong time.

I'll add another qualifier to my preference, I prefer a fairly gender-balanced crew... an all-boys squad tends to be more accepting of inappropriate behavior.. I think it's good to have a balanced crew to keep the less mature a little more on the ball.

So, short story made long, 4 is as large as I really like, though I've been in 7-person groups before, usually the 7th person peters it out, at least in my memory. Now, if some of those players are non-entities, it doesn't count as much... ( Ramble )

What was the point of that? I don't know.. just a random brain dump. Ran out of time this morning, I'll update it later.

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As far as computer games go, Vice City is interesting, but I don't see it having a lot of long-lasting game play for me. I'll probably trot it out if I'm feeling like playing bumper cars or shoot the civilian, but that's about it. Nice graphics, and it's very much stereotypical South Florida of the late 80s. Warcraft 3 & Age of Mythology is a lot more my speed.

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Mars Exploration Rover Moblog

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Chinese Year of the Monkey starts on January 22, 2004. (4701 by Chinese calendar.)

I was born in the year of the Monkey, too... (I'm an Earth Monkey, to be specific... three days later, and I'd have been an Earth Rooster.)

I don't know what it is, but it seems I attract friends that are super-transient. I don't think I'm going to chum up with computer programmers anymore especially as I've had the worst luch with them moving off to Texas, California, and other points west, near places with deserts. Ray & Kathleen, Alex, Jim, and no doubt, shortly (when leases are up?) Robb, Brian, and Heather (If she and Brian can keep it together. I'm pretty surprised it's lasted this long... maybe she needs to marry a guy, before relationships start to fragment? Maybe Brian was what she needed? Who knows? I'm happy if they're happy, and I'll be saddened when it they go through what I feel is the inevitable breakup.) I'm very fortunate to have a few friends that are more securely anchored. Danny, Dave, Cathi are solid... Suzy's good, but more needy on that spectrum.