18 hours of snow - amazing... an now it looks like more 6-12 inches on Tuesday! 


<tr valign="top"><td>

   

</td></tr>Icicles and Pye wants to play in the snow some more.

Nice Doctor Blasphemy reference in the riddler opening of Brave & the bold. "a bat divided" - Firestorm and a Triplicate Batman made for a fun twist, too.

---

Ugh - no wonder my journal page at scottobear.com isn't working -

Styles & Customization

• Embedding a journal in an external website using the customview.cgi script, which uses a URL of the form "http://exampleusername.livejournal.com/data/customview/..." is currently not working. LiveJournal developers are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it.

I hope they fix it soon - I really don't want to embed iframes.

---

1 year ago - BHK and I silly video, nutshelling, dinner with in-laws
2 years ago - Year of the Rat, ravioli nummy, politics, david visiting, google terrain, "Absolute power" boring, steam, polar bear protest suit
3 years ago - SNZ / Firecracker Jazz, critters in our yard
4 years ago - compusa sucks, Sun Ra and The Blues Project Do Batman and Robin (MP3s), 
5 years ago - piccies, superbowl, flying daggers, robert did it, cemetery pics, immersive gaming, newt smooch, mel and I break up
6 years ago - spam poll, Gabby newt while I'm sick (I seem to frequently catch colds the week after my birthday.), screening journal spam, Batman's Moon Patrol(most links dead now), true & fake smiles
7 years ago - Wooden ships and iron men (online!), tiny things made large, snapple factoids, LXG movie, craving falafel, b-day note from bro, palm-campics monkey cam!
8 years ago - she has a crush on me, when furries go bad, total net lock down at work
9 years ago - Pirates!, create your own cereal mix (now gone), pondering my future lj, old school yahoo, kruss goes poof, boot to the head

Hard to believe it's only been 3 years since I was first planning to visit BHK on her birthday. Funny to me how little I can think of life prior to being married to her, and having our crew of four under the roof.

I'm in the office now, taknig a brief break from gig-searching to catch myself up on LJ. Larry is setting up BHK's Best Birthday Present Ever (tm)- a widening of the closet door in our bedroom. For the record, I also proposed to BHK on her birthday, 3 years ago in two weeks. Heck, she'd have wanted closet spasce, even if single.

33333333333333333333333333333333  - Newton's left foot on the number pad says hello. Pye is sleeping on the purple chair to my left, and Netwon has leapt to the couch on my right (newtcam couch) and will be in sleepytown soon.

---

Here's a breakdown of my music via Media Go -



According to my SenseMe playlist - the fastest/happiest song is a three way tie -

• Get a Job - The English Beat


• The Famous Polka - They Might Be Giants


• B-52s Cosmic Thing.

Slowest Saddest songs are also a 3-way tie -

• Matt Lauer can suck it - Michael Gaicchino (Land of the Lost Soundtrack)


• Running to the Rain - Peter Gabriel


• Ballero - War

I seem to have mostly happy, mid-speed songs in my library.

---

I am really interested in a few new looney labs releases - Aquarius 2.0 and Chrononauts: The Gore Years expansion

(Chrononauts 1.4 The Gore Years: Like Aquarius, Chrononauts is also about to get upgraded to the new uniform box. But although it will feature a couple of new cards and a new rulesheet, the new edition of Chrononauts won't be very different from the original. For this reason, and since it's the fourth printing, they've decided to call it version 1.4. However, since a lot has happened since 1999 and Chrononauts is really showing its age, theyere also creating an expansion product that brings the TimeLine into the 21st Century. This packet of 11 cards will feature 5 new Timeline cards (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2008) along with 3 new Patches and 3 new characters who need to change recent events in order to get home. (Of course, it's called the Gore Years because that's what the last 8 years are known as to certain time travelers.). Release date: October 23th.

(Martian Fluxx, too, but not as much as the other two)

Additionally - I'd like to try Apophis sometime as a game. Looks neat, and I have all the pieces already to play!

---

from the lj status page, earlier -

LiveJournal may be inaccessible at the current time due to network issues. Our Operations staff is working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Don't panic.

6:06 pm GMT (Friday, August 7)

LiveJournal is up and working, although due to particularly heavy site traffic you may occasionally see a network timeout or slow loading times. Our Operations staff will continue to work to ensure the site remains available for you.

8:06 pm GMT (Friday, August 7)

---

1 year ago - temp filling, need crown, knife wilding robot doodle, pedegg, german boardgames usually lack dice, Bengies, Mayor's Drug raid - he's innocent, cops shot his dogs, bro at 44 points, faces of evil project

2 years ago - dc to nyc bus, pg county car chase update, chocolate gum, ex debt, louise fadeout, ljopoly, cruel 2 b kind assassination game

3 years ago - finished pride & pred / monkey politics, Newt pic, kid rolling ajoint on the bus, solar powered sun bricks, firkin, 8500, flying model plane in miami, flight plans to maryland

4 years ago - deepest sender, jumping pictures, walkabout autostitch, mangrove tunnels

5 years ago - tmbg thoughts, sugar water vid, space issues, Rick James dead, Burpin' at Newt, Magical Trevor, cocktail demons, nifty charts, Newt Videos, CoH Pix

6 years ago - Zombies, Army Men, mean cannibal pudding, time travel spam, vampire game, celeb phone calls, cej chat, bro request

7 years ago - Earth and Beyond Playtest, Kev & Bailey, fat parrots, french fry girl palm doodle

8 years ago - harried, inculpate, plane lands just down the road on andrews as a makeshift runway and kits my regular bus, wondering about lj's image server (still not ready!), happy thoughts, magic can of soda

9 years ago - grumping, Space cowboys shows old man butts

Tooth is still giving me minor fits. Antibiotic seems to be taking it down, though. It was a little hard to chew supper, but it was quite tasty.

BHK went thrifting yesterday with Tina - got some good loot - a few chick-lit books for herself, a kepler and his mom on witch trial book for me, along with a white dress shirt, also for me - some brand new kitchen knives. (as opposed to what... bathroom knives? office knives?)

Additionally, when she got my antibiotics at the drugstore, she picked me up yellow and red canisters of drying model clay. could be handy to make some game pieces, or just silly fun sculptures and items. It'll be good practice for future sculpey stuff.

Seeing BQ.. erm, SaH reminded me that BHK and I are long overdue for a meal at the vegetable garden. Rockville isn't all that far away and despite what R.E.M. says, I could hit the Micro Center up there, too. I'd also like to visit Yuan Fu, which was our alternate plan if VG was closed.

I guess that since I do crab and shrimp that I'm more of a pescetarian than a true veggie.

---

One of the most nifty game ideas in a long time - levelhead - it uses a hand-held solid-plastic cube as its only interface. On-screen it appears each face of the cube contains a little room, each of which are logically connected by doors. In one of these rooms is a character. By tilting the cube the player directs this character from room to room in an effort to find the exit.

check out the video demo to get a good idea how it works.

Also - it looks like the Ghostbusters game is in a bit of trouble... may not get released - at least for a while. It looks good, and the chance for another year of development might even make it worth the wait.


Looks like LJ usership is drooping - Stats as of the moment -

How many users, and how many of those are active?

• Total accounts: 16234592
• ... active in some way: 1801088
• ... that have ever updated: 9622881
• ... updating in last 30 days: 973782
• ... updating in last 7 days: 550314
• ... updating in past 24 hours: 194650

---

1 year ago - friendship amnesty day (fizzle-pop), tasty food, pictures of said foods, artomat, scribd, project gutenberg, gaming thoughts, nomnom kitty in comments

2 years ago - good thoughts, Danny gets me Wonder Woman on DVD, Saw Monster House with TW, walkabout pix of constrution/graffiti/etc, punk rock girl

3 years ago - what's in my fridge, cosmic treadmill, 37 inches of rain, falling people, sky high powers

4 years ago - went out w/Dan to ole ole, riverwalk pics, SAD Dave, Daimajin added towish list (and it was gifted to me before the hurricanes came!), star wars kid gets an ipod

5 years ago - Web design, poo, web stat, psa, orange newt-head!

6 years ago - broken links, spamdemic map, floppy poll, dinner sick, new semagic client

7 years ago - hinterland, kickshaw, I like cooking, planet of ??? poll, Champions Spectre, my gal wants to leave me for the Asian prince, shaking hands,treat pack

8 years ago - idiot, the good and bad of the day, Good Chinese food, bad April

Midweek. Time is grinding slowly, but exceedingly fine. Only one month to July 4 and fireworks everywhere!

BHK made some amazingly good quiche last night... fake bacon "fakon!", broccoli and cheddar, and the other was a ricotta, broccoli cheddar - sides were tortellinis stuffed with brie, green beans, and zucchini - Larry came over and added corn on the cob for all, as well as grilled burgers for himself and Chris.

it was a short night - after supper, we pretty much went right to bedski... it was raining, and highly conducive to slumber.

---

Glad to see mootpoint back! I'm looking forward to seeing him post more frequently.

---

Wizkids was very good about getting my info to send me a replacement piece for Oshi - I suspect they were happy not to have folks begging for free heroclix or 4e stuff. I like the name for support - WhereIsMyFigure@wizkidsgames.com (My helper's name was Rose - very kind and fast to respond)

---

James Earl Jones recites the alphabet, circa 1972 Wow... he looks pretty young, but his voice is still distinct.

See also - James Earl Jones counts to ten. Not nearly as good - I like the monochrome alphabet more.

---

"On average, your blog posts are around 1378 words in length. This is 262 percent longer than other bloggers who took this test."

Most posts are probably longer than that, given that I sometimes toss a pic post up with minimal text.

---

1 year ago - gave notice at the county, grilling out, started Fluke (still unfinished), baltimore vs dc, yabba pot

2 years ago - on call, giza pyramid, bunny hop pic, finger people, cosmos animations, fallentoad song, fantastic

3 years ago - full vs goatee, bro & PO, vs & rr try to hook me up

4 years ago - Local con, ADP fix it, free wifi, bro issues, Crew north, Cartoon stuff, rain, bad case

5 years ago - bro goes to ER, Tony & Caroline bad news, pt issues, brothel free to troops, pirate doodle, kraft offer, FIA hoverboats

6 years ago - fumigation drama, pelican preference, cricket magazine, Google labs

7 years ago - life roles, evil news, Paranormal investigation teams that I'd join, Allen Walton, hobo names, $10 webcam, classic Scotto lunch, nice dreams, mammoth riding.

8 years ago - figured out how to hack the info kiosk as the mall of the dead

Forgot to mention yesterday - fresh kittens in the neighborhood. I think Tuxedo-kitty is the father, and one of the "cimnim" kitties is the mama.

No matter how stony-hearted I can get... baby kittens melt it pretty quickly. (Kittens are good for discipline and mind control, as anyone who's watched Hyperdrive can tell you.)

See also, Obama with a Kitty as running mate. (Personally, I'd like to see Kcarab Amabo, AKA The Evil Mirror Universe Barack Obama join in the festivities. )

---

My livejournal account is 8 years old today.

I didn't really get to posting daily until 8/2000, but 9284 posts in 8 years is pretty surprising to me. Something like 3 posts a day, give or take.

Some had a lot more content than others, of course.

In 8 years... a lot has happened. If you'd have told me then that I would still be doing this now, I'd probably have doubted it. The LJ community as a whole has changed hands a few times. The service has been a great boon to me.

I met my wonderful wife on livejournal.... and more than a couple of other new and delightful people from around the world in person as a result, too.

I reconnected with friends that I thought were long lost - both from gaming groups and high school.

I've pretty thoroughly documented my 30s here. Walkabouts, musings, dating, work - there's not much about me that you can't find here... some things are privatized or friends-only security, but the vast majority is open to the world. I sometimes wonder if that's a good idea, but it's worked well for me so far.

I tend to keep my really rough rants or personal lists (shopping for presents and reminders, mostly) to myself. I also used to archive chats here, before google talk; which automatically does it now. I'm guessing there weren't many - maybe 20 or 30, tops.

I'm not really online much for chatties these days, but here and there you might catch me, dear journal. (Gmail checks, generally) my profile page has a list of assorted locations to look me up.

---

Adam's in Haiti, doing more missionary work - he sounds all right, there were a lot of concerns for his safety. Funny that nobody raised safety issues when he went to Guatemala last year.

a bulk email he sent out -


glad to hear he's aok! I suspected as much.

---

1 year ago - 7th year entry, milk and cheese figures, bhk takes care of tm's kitties, lunch with in-laws, David and Gill move to Charlotte

2 years ago - 6th anniversary, clothes shopping, busy recovery week, Don't ask for directions in Baltimore

3 years ago - Star Wars, Dead Riddler, PETA kills animals, Newt @ kittenwar, neobrara, hong kong bun-snatching, sex offender sweep

4 years ago - wet week, duckling videos, lots of wander-pics, you're so vain (odd couple sing), using wifi for plausible deniability, Feast Day of St. Dunstan, Florida Black Bear

5 years ago - bro fishing, Eh.net, asteroid probe, bookhenge in There, Drunk Man Hurt After Running Into Elephant, PT, severe weather, #21 in top 40, ljer ages, compat quiz

6 years ago - no cpap, broken pic links for me to fix later, grocery,waste to energy, Mayan symbols, ginger orange tofu, hot mail copying yahoo jerkiness

7 years ago - Iron Chef, Family Guy, Lj troublesome, feeling coarse, gals system down, astley hoses me over.

8 years ago - Scottobear's LJ is Born - just a marker, really.

BHK made a fantastic and healthy supper of bean/spinach salad and spicy stir-fry tofu "beef" and broccoli. Delicious and nicely filling.

Chris and Larry are heading out of town this weekend... and they're taking Tigger with 'em. No real Mother's Day things happening this weekend after all - maybe a nice day of painting some pottery, instead?

---

The latest and greatest version of VZ Navigator (4.0), which tosses in traffic avoidance for 75 cities, along with 3D view plus some other nifty stuff is live right now. (Includes Baltimore and Washington dc!)

I'm looking forward to seeing how solid it is!

---

I'm still on the phrase "STEAMED CATFISH IN BANANA LEAVES!"

Sorry.

More info on ITALIAN SPIDER-MAN.

Not Sorry.

---

I'm alternately happy and sad that LJ has finally disabled this stalker feature - Users will only view the number of entries they are allowed to read in calendar views. (Source)

---

Volcanoes spewing lightning? Wizard war, more like.

Speaking of same... I forget if I've mentioned it or not, but save for a little too much fanboy junk, I pretty much dig the Dresden files books... but I can't seem to get into Jim Butcher's Codex Alera "Horse and Swords" fantasy stuff.

---

1 year ago - saltine bandit, rockin' sleestaks

2 years ago - mongolia head, sleep, black hat, hurricane info, battle of the beasts

3 years ago - Mother's Day, Bro, heath, hugs, a sticker, walkies pics - graffiti, mission field, vehicles, bernie dexter, hitler's ghost

4 years ago - Laser belt, mental health supporter, quiz of Doooooom, busy bee, nice night out, Disney tour, naked mole rap, duality issues, Newt pic

5 years ago - PT gig jkg, mr rogers asteroid, x2 good reviews, mh about half what it is today (997 vs 2196)

6 years ago - Neuro appt, my magnetic head theory, original thoughts, MRI

7 years ago - weird news, slow wake, old paranoia, bad food from my childhood, ljer herd poll

18 month anniversary today. After work, BHK and I headed out to Silver Spring to meet up with Sirenity, Leagle_beagle555 and Chrishaas. Friendly folks and meeting was long overdue.

I forgot my camera, so I'm depending on Sirenity for picture documentation later on. We had a nice time and conversation over supper - more to follow as I think of it.

---

Ultraportable / subnotebook comparisons

---

New back drugs are - Lyrica, Cyclobenzaprine and Nabumetone. I want to do a bit more research on 'em before I take them. Nabumetone in particular had a lot of nasty, scary warnings in the information text.

I am glad that they're not habit-forming, and have a lot of pretty decent write-ups so far.

---

Dell will be offering Windows XP pre-installed on their computers past the June 30 cut-off date. Computers purchased with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate past June 30 will come with a copy of XP Pro. Dell plans to simply install that copy upon request to save users a step. Perhaps this will help Microsoft officials make up their minds about another extension.


According to F-Secure, over 500,000 webservers across the world, including some from the United Nations and UK government, have been victims of a SQL injection. The attack uses an SQL injection to reroute clients to a malicious javascript at nmidahena.com, aspder.com or nihaorr1.com, which use another set of exploits to install a Trojan on the client's computer. As per usual, Firefox users with NoScript should be safe from the client exploit, but server admins should be alert for the server-side injection. Brian Krebs has a decent writeup on his Washington Post Security Blog, Dynamoo has a list of some of the high-profile sites that has been hacked, and for fun you can watch some of the IIS admins run around in circles at one of the many IIS forums on the 'net.

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I need to remember that free comic book day is coming May 3... next weekend! Will I forget? Probably. But it's exciting to not write it down anywhere else and then rediscover. I wonder what loot Aardvark will have for us? I hope issues of Gumby and Hellboy (and maybe an Iron Man heroclix figure?) will be left.

I should scope out umbrella academy - probably my fave freebie book from last time - I could go for a trade paperback, if available.

---

Just so you know - I have never, ever pistol-whipped anyone, dear journal. Please don't make me change that situation.

---

more question memealeemadingdongs
( Read more... )

---

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur. ( Read more... )

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

---

1 year ago - concert recap, license plate seen, wendy's, lj-spam, highland fest promo / tree pics

2 years ago - camo man, free cone, gorillaz, dictator octopus

3 years ago - Commercial, Dr Who poot episode, hair-neck-man, good weather, pope palpatine, Tomi voice, Newt sleepies, Dave at Poorhouse, Condoms to saris, ashcroft not scared of calicos, King Tut Coming (it ends this week), kind words from mootpoint

4 years ago - RHL, dumb laws, Rubezahl

5 years ago - doctor and drugs, grasshoppers and micropet, letter to bro, distractions (anagrams, phone spellings, etc)

6 years ago - SOP, copyright, scarecrows in the herb garden, Tunguska, kisses, wind dreams

7 years ago - BJ's Bday, hobbledehoy, ages of sexual consent around the world, sleep-station pictures, hungry, more rights gone, character / gaming memories,xfl=pos, teeny tiny farm animals and milk ring from Kellie

Yesterday, we went to DC to check out the cherry blossom festival - post rain they were at about 70% bloom, still lovely - it was overcast, made for mediocre photography, but I did get to visit the Jefferson monument, and the FDR memorial (which is probably my new favorite .... giant, tells the story well, and beautiful. I'd never been to it before - didn't really know much about it.)

Best of the pictures to follow in a later post - but here's a link to what was taken yesterday.

A ton of spam journals have added me recently... had to go through the console and ban_set them.

The Following are recent offenders that I've reported, and banned from posting in my journal (and removes them from my friend od list in my profile, so they don't get any stray links from my site)

henrydwalters45
fakevisacard
gabrielahewitt
nancybconner58
abbyarleytown
karmavancity
nancybconner64
erinrharding
indyank
naked_panter
ralphrbanks
andrewg1953
randalllbeck27
nancybconner19
cutejennifer
nancybconner55
jenifferd

Those have all appeared in the last week, most of them within the same hour.

[sneakily added by bhk, all of it untrue!:
Also I want to publicly apologize to BHK for assuming that there was pumpkin ice cream in the fridge. There wasn't! Also in a recent doodle I depicted her as a cover hog--she isn't by any means!]

---

1 year ago - 3-d movies, snow, jd, county work review, petals falling, karaoke, What in Sam Hill?, psptv

2 years ago - zombie horde counterstrike, pyramid house, bugs bunny, tmbg, devo, tom delay, top40,

3 years ago - Badge shape pref poll, flickery power, Jasmine, stupid comic deaths, Dr Who episode 2, KANG KANG KANG KANG!, Monkey awe, hukilau, driver 8 pic, 23/5 bibliomancy

4 years ago - Itchies, chocolate dodge, Miami fires, sweetalyssm.com goes down due toa hack. (sadly, never to return), palm-doodle entry, Denny's lunch

5 years ago - hung out with ldy & grrwoo, JKG wants me, prep for TAG

6 years ago - Freedom Force, Poem tag, new tech, THE poll.

7 years ago - morning walk, goals, online people, people that didn't want my help, kindness triage, cartoon stereotypes, Hey, The Dusty Miller, hair color poll

End of the week, at last, at last. Back is feeling a bit better... must've slept on it right on Thursday night, for a change! Maybe, if all goes well, we can hit the Carl Barks exhibit in Baltimore. We have midday plans for Saturday (see below), and who knows what Easter Sunday will bring - but if not this weekend, perhaps sometime before the end of the month... I don't have a strong need to visit - the review is not the most complimentary (mainly due to the fact that most of his early stuff that I like is long gone, trashed back in the day)... but if we're in the neighborhood visiting the Art Museum, or the Aquarium, why not? (more on Carl Barks )

---

I don't think the the lj content strike is going to make a difference, and I'm more interested in seeing how much of my reading list changes, if at all this weekend. If lj poops out, there are plenty of other sites that offer similar functionality... and my RSS reader will allow me to collect feeds from whoever wants me to read 'em.

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Regarding teamorange - the first colorwar2008 scrimmages will begin in a few days. I'm interested to see what sort of project Ze has in mind. So far, I've found teams blue, verygreen, puce, chartreuse, purple, gold, plaid, red, pink, white, clear and brown in addition to orange. If any other players are reading this, let me know, so I can follow you on twitter! #FF6600, baby! [update: See also - colorwars - there's a team octarine!]

It seems ol' Ze has quite a following - but I knew that. I just hope he uses his mighty net-powers for good, rather than evil.

---

Lunch tomorrow with Adam and his twin bro Eric. It's always interesting to see them together, because they were raised in different households. Adam, at his mom's (and more to the point, mostly at Larry & Chris's), Eric at his pop's. Adam seems to be the more together kid, athletic, better in school, less shifty. Eric is the party guy, partying hard, skipping class and spending more time looking to mate than to study; I.e. typical 18-year-old male.

Nature vs Nurture, live and in front. Both are basically good guys, and similar as brothers can be - but hardly duplicates.

---

I sneakily added a video to the lunchtime rendezvous entry about a week or so back. Filmed with the palm-cam, the image is warmed, grainy, and silly, not to mention in quicktime format. For some reason, google video doesn't transfer sound properly form the palm video during the conversion, so I'm hosting it in my old lj archive location on my website. Speaking of which, I have a palm doodle there that reflects that there's still a lot of rain happening at the ol' bus stop, but I don't mind.


windy, too, though I don't have that much length anymore, hair-wise.

---

Best worth1000 competition in a while. Superhero ModRen some are better than others. I'm partial to this one.

---

1 year ago - work review, cakery cookies, steve jobs on music, spore coming

2 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

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

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

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

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

7 years ago - IMT politics, and so on

some days are easier than others.

today was not one of them.


[Error: unknown template qotd]

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole;
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced, nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade;
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll:
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.