Equinoxin'

At long last, spring is here and my favorite season is underway. It isn't dark when I get off work anymore (largely thanks to DST, but whatever) and it's almost light when I get up (well, when my alarm goes off anyway). It's getting warmer but isn't ridiculously hot yet and things are getting green.

The weather being as nice as it is (and it's been freaking gorgeous in Sheridan), I've restarted running (I was too cheap to join a gym over the winter and didn't much like the idea of pulling a The Bridge-era Billy Joel):



I also finally got me a kettlebell (and inspired my boss to order one of his own). While I haven't been going to Linus-level extremes with it, I have been thoroughly enjoying the ass-kicking it dishes out as I get aquainted with it - I'm focusing on swings and get-ups to start with.

Work is currently giving me a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, my boss brought the break machine up from Rock Springs, so now we have the ability to break concrete cylinders. If you know me, you know that I love breaking stuff, so this is pretty sweet. I suggested we cast some cylinders to break... you know, for practice. On the other hand, I'm ready to inflict massive amounts of violence on my work computer. Long story short, Regis isn't liking LIDAR and AUTOCad right now.

But it's spring, I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt in total comfort, listening to X, and getting some overtime out of this, so I can't complain too much.

Happy spring (unless you happen to live south of the equator, but I don't know anyone that does so whatever),
Regis

What a Twist!

So they finally announced the winner of that silly 3-Day Novel competition I participated in over Labor Day weekend last year. And guess what, boys and girls?

I didn't win.

Yeah, pretty much what I expected, what with 570 registrants (428 of which submitted novels) and all. But whatever, I'm still a winner (and I have the Everybody Gets A Trophy Day trophy to prove it).

Speaking of Bataan Death March-style forcing of creativity, FAWM 2009 is just around the corner. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do it again, even if I'm in a play that month. Oh yeah, it's on.

It could make a million for you overnight,
Regis

Knock, Knock!

Looks like December finally showed up in Sheridan (I understand it made an early appearance south of here). Let's see if he sticks around any longer than November did.


I'm just glad I seized the opportunity to go for a run yesterday afternoon after getting back from testing - there was the better part of an hour of daylight left, it was in the high 50's, and I wasn't dog tired. Instead of listening to one of the C25K podcasts (knowing that I probably wouldn't make it a solid 20 minutes and thus subjecting myself to the disappointment that comes with walking before the "you're half way there!" interjection), I instead played one of the more uptempo playlists on my iPod. It didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped, as I have a tendency to become a human metronome (just ask the piano player in the praise team I play guitar for at church) and most of the songs were just a bit too fast for me to keep up with. That being said, "Okay" by Shitdisco is the little bear's porridge to my Goldilocks - just right.

I have a number these days,
Regis

Round Two Reaction

Once again, no knockouts but we did see some action tonight. Obama wasn't exactly dazzling, but then he never has been in a debate. He still came across as cool and levelheaded, particularly when viewed next to McCain. At least the senator from Arizona looked at his opponent tonight with something other than a look of utter disdain and disgust, but he largely came across as smug and, for lack of a better way to put it, a prick. Cracks about hair transplants, "did we hear the size of the fine?" and a smartass "thank you" didn't give him an air of respectability. Some more observations:

• McCain seems utterly incapable of subtlety. Obama's repeated comparison of taking a hatchet to the budget instead of a scalpel, McCain's reuse of the already debunked misleading claim that Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times (by the same standard, how many times have you, Senator McCain?), equating military strikes against Bin Laden inside Pakistan - an area that hasn't if the Pakistanis can't or won't act with all-out invasion of the nation as a whole... the last thing we need is another four years of a black-and-white view of the world in the White House.
• The format sucked. Either there wasn't enough time, or there needed to be better enforcing of the time limits. Mics can be cut, you know.
• The way McCain rants about earmark spending all the time, it was kind of odd to hear him admit that there are some earmark projects he considers worthwhile.
• "Nailing Jell-O to the wall?" Seriously? If you're going to make an analogy like that, follow through and don't mush it together with the claim of new proposals that keep popping up. 
• McCain also seems incapable of balance - $18 billion in earmarks versus cutting $300 billion in taxes, the US having 3% of the world's oil supply when we consume 25%.
• How many heros does John McCain have? When you say that Ronald Reagan is "my hero," it's kind of lazy to call Teddy Roosevelt "my hero" as well. 
• Speaking of TR, in addition to "speak softly and carry a big stick," he also said "it always pays for a nation to be a gentleman." Continuation of not talking to "enemy" nations a la Bush is not being a gentleman.
• For crying out loud, McCain needs to stop using Senator Lieberman as an example of bipartisanship. He isn't a Democrat any more, and won't be caucusing with Democrats in the Senate come January.
• Apparently, just knowing there's an increased supply of oil (by, say, drilling offshore) will cause the price of gasoline to come down, regardless of how long it will actually take to get that extra oil flowing. Maybe this is just a mental recession after all.
• It's pretty damn ballsy of McCain to talk about how great his judgement on when we should send our troops in and when we can win without even mentioning his support for and claims of easy victory in Iraq.
• Excellent riposte by Obama.
• I like how Obama sat and focused on McCain while he talked. I was less than impressed with McCain getting up and moving around while Obama was speaking.
• Yes, history shows that countries that are strong militarily need a strong economy. It also shows that you can't win an occupation.
• Contrast this with a consistent emphasis on diplomacy and working with our allies around the world by Obama. Who offers the "steady hand on the tiller?"

There wasn't really a clear winner; I'll give the edge to Obama again, since he was the grownup to McCain's brat. The real loser was the debate format - we need a forum where they have more than sixty seconds to reply, and the ability to actually go back and forth.

Only one more to go (thank God),

Regis

Death Star Drive-By

Last night, I played my first real game of Star Wars CCG in almost a year. It's an admittedly nerdy pastime I've had since junior high (right after the Hoth expansion set came out), and while I haven't really played all that much since Decipher lost the license at the end of '01, I've generally tried to keep up with new developments in the game and have stepped up to run the first Wyoming State Championship in the better part of a decade later this month (in collaboration with Colorado States the same weekend).

But first, I need to get back into playing the game. Jon Cates, an old buddy and all-around interesting character, came over yesterday for some practice and playtesting. We're both a little rusty, but we managed to get through two games in about two and a half hours - a little slow, but not too bad. Playing Jon is always an experience, as he builds pretty off-the-wall decks that may or may not blow up in his face (like the time he built a deck in my car on the way to a tournament in Billings, using the random cards he happened to bring along). The two decks I played were a reactive mains deck using It Is The Future You See (v) for light and a flipping Set Your Course For Alderaan (that is to say, blow shit up with the Death Star FTW) deck for dark. I managed to pull out wins with both games, largely courtesy of an early Yoda/late Jedi beatdown and a devastating Lateral Damage on Luke in Artoo in Red 5. I've still got a few more decks to try out, including the latest incarnation of my beloved "Ewok You Like A Hurricane" deck.

So if any of this made sense to you and you're in the area, please come down to Colorado States on August 16 in Fort Collins and Wyoming States on the 17 at Slackers in Laramie.

Commence Primary Ignition,
Regis

Sex Ed

I came across a webcomic called Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (it's pretty awesome thus far) and felt compelled to post this argument for Bush-style abstinence-only sex education.




In other news, I rocked the twenty-minute run that concluded C25K week five like it was Falco and I was Amadeus. Excelsior!

Er war ein Punker,
Regis