Scotto's Wall Scrawls

atw man on flamingo

atw man smoking peace pipe with local native.

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Flickr dump of recent pictures -

Llamas, Newt, Pye with little water drops on his face, a neighbor's race car, atw man watches kong devour fay, a seated gangster werewolf, and Baltimore at night.



Contemplating a netflix set-top box for streaming movies over the internet or from the desktop pc.

1 year ago - clown-vacuum voice post, late for metro, polishing up my ability with bash, november style lunch, whizkids closing business

2 years ago - noose dream, stick shifts and safety belts, logical fallacies, autumn remains, DIET GRAPE RETURNS!, perfervid,

3 years ago - punch buggy, meeting, craig james white, typo on sheet, work misc

4 years ago - LED clothes, K&K mime, Clavicus loves his pastry, doom patrol, quizzes, x-ing, newt pic, Red knows the score, cybermen, scotto avie

pictures taken 2 years ago - newt with the palm cam

5 years ago - bro call, sammich heartburn, remote control jargon, Eid, promenade in the park, FF movie looks like poop, comic book torrents, CoH sued by Marvel

6 years ago - Butterflies, Christ, Wind and Dexterity, my journal is in popular science, phonepost, back on call

7 years ago - expensive minis, misc whims, wacky news, bob hope

8 years ago - I live near blimps, medicine poll, Bad Elder Caucasian Dudes, marvel misfits

9 years ago - Des tries to take on the hive, whoville test, aok, Robbo's last week

BHK and I stopped off at the flea market on the way to study at the library - picked up a nice fedora for $5. (see icon) comfy and it fits. Also got a rock heater for my back and/or BHK's feet

ATW is especially freaky today - he's being hunted by some giant clown phantom. Probably a cannibal.

Llamas off the side of the road, and a huge beetle when we got home!

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1 year ago - bush leaving g8, octagon egg roll, the count loves to BLEEP, h2 mod - decadence, creeps on the internet

2 years ago - umbrella scabbard voice post, hot brain, sailboat doodle, yelp, DMAE, mercury poisoning?, Newtie and Pye pics, Sicko, slurpee day, silly spoilers

3 years ago - he's a whore, key west stuff, travel photos (mostly graffiti), barrel of monkeys,

4 years ago - Magda time, ff flick reviews in, supernatural crime, free Slurpee, angels with attitude *shudder*, Wilde on the red rose, insanity, bottles on string, math symbol uses, had to htaccess, pagenation, Melissa Gilbert, 911 google, Florida mafia

5 years ago - Newt says Mao, travel pondering, manatee, Dan alters color scheme, good eats

6 years ago - Zwan, I snuff griefer #5, movies, Elvis tooth, bad baby names, net radio, flipped off by the universe

7 years ago - reflecting on old work, log issues, Newt attack, recalling palm animations

8 years ago - fetial, solecism, pockets poll, purse poll, evil news, pie poll, tuck-ins

9 years ago - words, bro moving to town

memorial day

birthday of Apollo, god of music, poetry, and inspiration

Cable guy came by this morning to evaluate our Internet - he replaced the line from the pole to our house, and the box on the pole - looks better, but they're sending out another truck on Monday to evaluate some more. I'm just glad it's not an "inside the house" issue. I suspect with so many folks using Verizon around here, we may be the only Comcast people using that particular line. (side edit, spellchecker wanted to change "Comcast" to "compost". I feel the same way. )

While waiting for the cable guy, BHK tuned in to Twilight and I watched it with her.  It was about what I expected. The lead characters didn't do much for me - I saw no "sizzle" and they weren't particularly attractive. There was certainly a powerful Mary Sue vibe going on. I'd say I liked the wolf tribe folks most of the lot of 'em, and I think BHK liked the little emo-haircut news-kid.

After the pole-climber was done, we headed out for the day - First got my shots in record time - (BHK and Kendall's Mom chatted, so it seemed more quickly that I thought) - Instead of our usual walk around town, I thought it'd be nice to take BHK to Annapolis and just hoof it there for a bit.

Did a lot of window shopping and people-watching. Rather than getting lunch, we just sort of nibbled at the assorted stops along the way. Split a bagel here, a cookie there, a coffee somewhere else.

Stopped off at third eye comics - picked up vol 1 of Planetary and the Essential Dr. Strange . (BHK grabbed The New York Four - being an NYU grad and all) They guys at Third Eye are always willing to lend a hand, and can recommend stuff that they think I'll like - so far, so good! I'm not a huge Warren Ellis fan, but planetary has a lot of good stuff in it - and I've always dug Dr. Strange.

Passed by an estate sale - lots of nifty antiques - I think it gave BHK the idea to do a distressed dresser in the bedroom.

K-mart of the walking dead - Got some solar-charged tiki lights for the porch walkway. The employees and customers were more than a little frightening - red-eyed and many doing the thorozine shuffle. Contemplated lawn furniture for spring, and decided against it, as it was too rickety for me to be sitting on for any extended period.

Visited the local hardware store to look for a bracket to hang the bell from my dad's boat up - may return there next week.

Paused at a school yard sale (raising money for the band to go to Canada) - we got some baked goods - a crazy-colored cupcake (see below), and a brownie...  BHK also snagged a hot dog, and bought her mom some orange glasses - perfect for a margarita sometime. I obtained another webcam - this one was only $1 after BHK haggled it down from $2. We'll see if it works later this month.  Also seen below are the ATW man playing ping pong, a found travel bug (trailer on the bio lab at the same yard sale) and an advertisement that stopped BHK in her tracks. PUPPIES IN BABY CRIBS.

BHK loved the Puggle , but I was a bigger fan of the Brussels Griffon not as cute, but it had a fantastic and playful personality - a little "tough guy". It's a good thing I'm still very allergic to the critters, or something probably would've come home with us.


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The in-laws met with us later on, and we did supper at Adam's Ribs - a onion loaf was bit greasy, but the veggies were good, and the service excellent.

Finished up Twilight when we got home... a lovely full day.


1 year ago - back better, lj content strike, colorwars, lunch with Adam & Eric, windy, lunchtime rendesvous redux

2 years ago - work review, cakery cookies, steve jobs on music, spore coming

3 years ago - sleepyhead, ren-festige, Chacarron again, comic-book picture, condo commando, network named elements, Sandra Day O'Connor comments on right-wingers, star wars concept pics, don't walk through words, political profile quiz

4 years ago - Fragments, Chatted a cutie, BEAR TRAP/ PUNCH!, homeopathy=placebo, ref desk, giant sea monkeys, walkabout pics, rhemish, Parallel Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy

5 years ago - local search sillies, copyright disclaimer, zombie minis, missed bro

6 years ago - palm pic, whiskerliscious-fuzzy-paw newt-pic, cat eaters, the coffee song, interviewed @ starmark

7 years ago - radiology, reading lensmen books, riker in trouble for DVDing, corpse Tupperware, Elisabeth, and a bunch of dead links.

8 years ago - IMT politics, and so on

atw man and his cigar smoking monkey friend on a tandem bike tonight after saigon palace with bhk and chris

Got my shots - minor reaction, but nothing tragic.

Met up with the in-laws, and headed to selby sub shoppe - pizza for all, I got a black bean burger and fries. Tasty as all get out!

We planned on heading to Annapolis after to go see Wall-E, but instead we stopped at Toys-R-Us, and picked up Marvel Heroscape and Good Ol' Scrabble.

Heroscape is cute.. sort of like heroclix or D&D miniatures. The fun thing is that it's cross-genre, so you can have cowboys shooting at zombies, fighting robots, ninjas, superheroes and cavemen all on the same board. (and if you like, you can make custom cards for units very easily - so you can have spongebob fighting a paperclip, if you want.) Basic rules are quick and easy... advanced rules look more fun, and maybe another moment or two to learn.

BHK and I opted to head back home after getting our loot - there was a storm brewing... even tornado warning, and we wanted to be curled up at home anyhow.

We swung by the ATW man - done up as a prospector - I'll try to get better photos of him later.

Watched some tube, lounged, and the in-laws came over - we half watched Micheal Clayton while we played scrabble - Chris dominated.. and she was half asleep. I'd hate to think of what sort of opponant she's make at full mental charge. Chris scored 258 to my 247 and BHK's 162 - and Chris laid all of her letters down first turn... accounting for 63 of those points! I was feeling a little sour-grapey, but not too much... our dictionary is a bit on the lightweight side... time to get something unabridged. The plus size was that it caused me to rethink words I'd use in a pinch... like "QI", but instead, items that are in more everyday language.

The folks went home, but BHK was still up for a wordgame, so we went with another - BHK dominated me at upwords - beat me by more than 40 points.

My brain is melted a bit.. until later, dear journal!

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Upgrading the computer in the newtcam room at home - ordered 2 GB more ram for my system (Crucial 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-4200 UNBUFFERED NON-ECC 240-PIN DIMM, to be specific) -ups my desktop box to a proper 4 gig for less han $50, and a new video card - (EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB DDR3 Superclocked Edition PCI-Express Graphics Card (512-P3-N802-AR) - got it for less than half what it usally costs - $300 card for $160, less anothera $20 rebate for a total of $140

Super saver shipping means possibly slower send times, but the price was right, and I don't need it super soon.. I can wait a week or two.

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So... the police brought drugs to the house, and then raided him... but then didn't arrest or press any charges? They *did* however kill his two dogs.

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1 year ago - ATW man stolen, Petey Greene / "Talk to me", Vassal, pictures while waiting for the bus, new nuclear reactor in calvert county

2 years ago - paperclips, cross-dressing crooks, reading Pride and Prejudice, I predict a riot, good talking to folks, writely (now google docs)

3 years ago - sick of summer heat, paper robots!, spiffy car, where do they make balloons?, animal crackers, ADP nearly nailed, bugs bunny, heart shaped land, baron von bludd

4 years ago - sleepy, meeting, a year at current gig, 5 senses, scarecrow, codecs, game-dancing, oh danny bot, land of many colors, rain and running newtie-pic

5 years ago - bidet poll, food, vamp game, first gig paid poorly, games on the website

6 years ago - talked to rob (we never got together), baron von bludd, strange black blobs

7 years ago - rainy, Owen Ng, broken drug war link, Thunderstorm, code red, lord humongous

8 years ago - Finished HP2, started hp3, foodies, moved to the 12-8 shift at IMT

Forgot to post this yesterday -


ATW man Crabbing.

First thing we did today was view Swarm of the Snakehead at 1 am, when BHK woke from her Pizza Hut induced torpor "nap".

We weren't disappointed. Swarm of the Snakehead was exactly what we were looking for (and didn't get) when we went to see Grindhouse. A fun, cheesy, "bad in a good way" sort of horror flick. It's most certainly more a comedy film than horror, despite the periodic moments of gore. I'd love to see this on a large screen somewhere, or better yet as a movie shown outside, on the beach... maybe projected on the side of a large white building.

Head and shoulders above any other made for Sci-fi channel stuff, ten pound would likely do quite well to shop the film to them, or a similar venue.

I may be a bit biased, because it was filmed right nearby, primarily in Easton and Oxford - a hoot picking out local spots.

I can't believe that Gunnar Hansen was both Leatherface and the "Quint from Jaws"-style Fisherman! There's range for you!

I think I'll write up a much longer and nicer review of the movie soon - I want to get some input from BHK about her perspective on the film, too. I'd say it was the highlight of our weekend, though.

After the delightful midnight movie with BHK, we tucked back into bed, and snoozed... I'd say we got up and out of the house by 11ish.

Polished off the last of the croissants from the farmer's market (I had chocolate, she had almond), BHK decided to venture forth to Aardvark and grab our waiting games. Mike and Tara were out, but the employees were swell to us.

The day was gorgeous and since we wer euntethered by any other family responsibilities (in-laws took tigger to Salem for a long weekend), we meandered around Southern Maryland, looking for a nice new spot to grab some lunch and just enjoy each other's company.

After much tooling around of St. Mary's, we eventually ended up at the Reluctant Navigator. After eating there, I understand his reluctance. The food was somewhere between meh and ok. Service, not bad - environment when we first walked in the door was "we've made a terrible mistake" but after getting past the foyer filled with old boat motors, chainsaws, and crab traps covered in dust, the clean dining area changed our tune to "oh, this is probably all right." I'd put the food at medium-low quality. somewhere in the 3-5 out of 10 range. I seriously doubt that we'll be back, unless something amazing causes us to return.

We continued on our journey, with food in our bellies - after putting some petrol in the tank, we wandered into Cecil's Old Mill, a general store and post office - pictures to follow sometime after I upload 'em. Meanwhile, check out what somd online has to offer. When I saw the logs in place, I had two thoughts. first - that's perfect for an old movie villian to strap a maiden to, and let the hero try to save her while he gets away. The second was the gravity gun usage in last night's HL2.

The old post office was my favorite, though. Lots of memorabilia everywhere.

We bought a pair of homemade brownies and a diet pepsi, and toddled on home, to water our plants right before a huge, thunder-filled rainstorm.

We had tasty sammiches for dinner, and watched our last tivo'ed Monk - where he reunites with his pop. Not a bad character dev show, but a lousy mystery solution. "We found the tie!"

Now, bedtime. Gnitght, dear journal. Have some lovely linkies.

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Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds Barbie Doll

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Just so you know that your family isn't so bad, dear journal -

'Cannibal relatives ate boy alive'

A seven-year-old boy was kept chained in a closet as relatives hacked off pieces of his flesh to eat, a court has heard.

In a case with echoes of the Fritzl family horror in Austria, Ondrej Mauerova was partially skinned in the closet in a cellar at his home in Kurim near Brno, in the Czech Republic, according to reports.

The abuse – involving members of a religious cult – was uncovered by chance last May when a neighbour's television baby monitor picked up graphic pictures of what was happening next door.

Ondrej and his nine-year-old brother Jakub were locked and chained in the cellar for months by their mother Klara, 31 – a member of a group called the Grail Movement.

He was caged, beaten and gagged to stop him screaming, according to reports.

Mauerova had the monitor installed so that she could watch the abuse from her kitchen but the images were picked up by a neighbour who used an identical system to monitor a newborn baby, the regional court in Brno has heard.

Police were called and the two boys as well as what appeared to be a 13-year-old girl were freed.

But the girl later turned out to have been one of the alleged abusers, 34-year-old Barbora Skrlova.

She subsequently fled to Norway before being brought back to the Czech Republic earlier this year.

Mauerova has admitted abusing her children but she said she had been manipulated by Skrlova and her own sister Katerina.

The accused are Klara Mauerova, her sister Katerina, 34; Barbora Skrlova, 33; her brother Jan Skrla and a friend Jan Turek.

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1 year ago - testing twitter embedding

2 years ago - cereal mix, no bro, planning excursions, house of fun, puppy assault, question meme, poo coffee

3 years ago - playing with highlighting, Cruise vs Oprah, Jedi Squirrels, JLU, Bibleman (vs ElectraWoman and DynaGirl!), portable rotary phone, Homeless shelter stops serving bear meat, skeeters, America's most unwired cities, call, gamer has been given a suspended death sentence for killing a fellow gamer, I predict a riot, power outage, bro's trespassing

4 years ago - spidey in a dhoti, rain-sleep, bad arizona tea, cheater dream, amber cancellation, hollywood screws up, new 404 page

5 years ago - bro, ren & stimpy, dan's palm doodles

6 years ago - scooby doo, packing, checklist

7 years ago - plica, smarterchild, bloviate, orange cheese, how are you poll, pirate name, wildlife stickers!

8 years ago - unmarked, turmoil

BHK made delicious pea soup! The perfect thing after a long day at work. Nomnommy. We supped over Ugly betty and the new TV Show King trivia game for the wii. I beat Abraham Lincoln, BHK and Bughah's Kitty Puddy (random computer players plucked from our Mii farm). I like it, but the wheel is a bit too random for me.

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WorldWide Telescope, developed by Microsoft's research arm, knits together images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and others. Windows users (only) can browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics. The application allows viewing from different wavelengths such as X-ray, visible light, and hydrogen-alpha radiation. Business Week has a review and some background on the project, which has been in development for years. Google Sky beat them to the punch but Business Week opines that WWT's interface is superior.

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Albert Einstein's True Religious Beliefs Revealed

(he rejects it as "childish superstition," but also disliked the hubris of atheism)

In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

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Pictures of our town flooding from yesterday and before.

highlights from the slideshow provided by North Beach - reproduced here, but not taken by me.

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I'm really digging the combination of Pyecam and Newtcam. I just have to update my internal pages with Pye-links now. The cams are really mis-named, since either of the boys can land on either cam... the Newtcam is more permanently affixed in the sunny office, while Pyecam is on the more mobile, but less frequently live laptop
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Newt seems to be the most interested in playing in front of the cams... Pye prefers the living room, I suspect.

I've upped the resolution on both... I'm also considering making one or both live streaming video.

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Who said polar bears are carnivores? That must be some tasty watermelon, is all I'm saying. Some great photos.

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Forgot to mention the ATW man -He and his monkey-faced pal were pregnant with baby bumps for mother's day. Clicks embiggen, as always.

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"Burn Notice" returns on July 10 - so is it a summer filler?

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1 year ago - mother's day w/ family, gaia hypothesis, gavagan's, jd's party

2 years ago - fp with kev, rain, Pelosi kma, goofy armor, stairway to heaven backwards

3 years ago - work related, friday 13th, mood poll, zombie hunting, phone-sleeping, book meme, mp3, scientology vs fictionology

4 years ago - fam stuff, toe socks

5 years ago - recycling into fuel oil, kitty quiz, PT, Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator, potty poll, perfect toast

6 years ago - answer to oil dependency, iespell, memory of being a little kid w/ vampires, goofing around, dani postcard, 334, rain week

7 years ago - nonpareil, "hamburger helper, antibacterial", family hangout, old coversheet, daydream, dead guy in living room, watermelons, a basic truth, lj-smell poll, cleaning up oil using human hair (and you don't even need Superman to do it!)