I’m pressed for time. I’m tired, and I need to go to bed. There’s also a giant marble-track machine in the lobby that I want to play with. Pardon me if this entry lacks my usual prose.

The high point of Friday at Linucon was the Celebrity Munchkin event. I drew four cards for the event, and we stuck them in the top 30 of the door cards stack, which meant that as long as the game ran for five or six rounds, they’d all end up in play.

The cards:
1) Level 20 Secret Service (Steve Jackson always wins against the Secret Service)
2) Level 14 Even Worse Hands (Eric Flint is at +12 to beat them)
3) Level 13 Daryl McBride (Eric Raymond always wins against Daryl McBride)
4) Level 10 William Effing Shatner (Wil Wheaton MUST help you fight, and he gets all the treasure.)

Steve Jackson drew the William Effing Shatner card. Wil had to help him fight, and between the two of them, they had him beat. Then Eric Raymond threw “… and its CLONE!” into the fray, and suddenly Wil and Steve were in danger of being beaten. But Steve had a one-shot up his sleeve. “Semi-Final Strike” tripled the value of his cyborg deely-boppers, at the cost of destroying them. BOOOM! William Effing Shatner AND his clone fell before the combined forces of Steve Jackson and Wil Wheaton, before a crowd of exuberant, jubilant spectators. We all cheered.

Wil ended up winning the game, via some very masterful playing of one-shots and character abilities in the last round. And he talked me into preventing Steve from winning by playing a card that could ALSO have been used against him. You know what? I don’t care. I had a BLAST watching the players react to the cards I’d drawn, and William Effing Shatner was the hit I hoped he’d be.

Thursday was mostly travel. Chalain and I flew out of SLC at 7:07am, and arrived in Austin at ten ’till one. It was a fun pair of flights — especially playing the “Mystery Science Theater” commentary game with the Skymall catalog. There was this dog in a rolling suitcase-for-dogs, and I suggested that for non-dog-lovers the case was nice because you could just zip it up.

“We call him ‘Barky'”
“He does tricks, too. Do you want to see ‘Poops-in-the-bag?'”

I’m still giggling. Maybe you had to be there.

I spent the afternoon with Steve Jackson and Michelle Barrett (I may have misspelled her name) discussing merchandising and stuff. This was a great discussion — expect to see some cool new shirts soon, and other projects will follow.

There were a lot of things going on last night. The best one was the 10 hours of sleep I got after soaking in the hot-tub. This morning I feel rejuvenated. No, wait. I got almost no sleep Wednesday night…. I don’t just feel rejuvenated. I feel RESURRECTED.

I LIVE!!!

–Howard

Rodney Dangerfield died today of complications following surgery in August.

The article is a nice one, full of stuff I never knew. *sigh*.

Goodbye, Rodney. Hopefully you’re getting a little more respect there on the other side. 🙂

–Howard

Listening to the radio on my way home from Provo Art and Frame, I heard a commercial for a popular jewelry store. There seem to be three key messages in jewelry store ads:

1) we have the best price
2) we have the best selection
3) you need to buy jewelry in order to have a happy relationship.

Ultimately, unless you’re convinced of point #3, points #1 and #2 have little effect on you. I, for one, am CONVINCED that the best prices are to be found at The Shane Company, and that’s without having done the first bit of comparison shopping. That’s just based on their commercials, which annoy the tri-color gold bejeesus out of me, but which have convinced me nonetheless. I’m immune to their wiles, though, because I know that #3 is a load of four-color horse-pucky.

Back to the commercial I was listening to. It was for the “Jarah” jewelry stores, which I’ve put in quotes because I’ve never seen the name in print, Google turns up nothing on the various spellings I’ve tried, and I’m not about to spend more than two minutes getting the name right for a store I have no intention to set foot in.

The commercial: it was aimed at #3. They wanted to convince me that buying jewelry would be good for my relationship with my wife or girlfriend. Yes, this ad was targeted at MEN. I could tell because they had a man in the “testimonial” slot, and he was doing a good job of sounding like the sort of everyman who-is-really-special-but-don’t-tell-the-guys man. And he told me that he told her he loved her, but that actions speak louder than words.

What he really wanted me to believe was that for the elements PURCHASES, ACTIONS, and WORDS, PURCHASES = ACTIONS > WORDS. Or, for the less geeky (what ARE you doing sniffing around a Live Journal on the internet, anyway?) “Money can buy you love.”

*sigh*. Yes, actions speak louder than words. You want her to know you love her? Don’t SAY something nice. DO something nice, and then don’t go out of your way calling attention to it. I had an ecclesiastical leader once who shocked his congregation of 1st-year college students by saying “I love my family far more than I love any of you.” The kids were horrified — we thought this guy was our best friend. Well, he followed up by saying “This is because I have served them much longer than I have served you. We learn to love as we learn to serve.”

The pathetic thing is that I think the folks writing that Jarah ad may actually BELIEVE that money can be substituted for genuine service. At least I HOPE so. That way I can console myself in the thought that they’re ignorant, rather than evil.

–Howard