Dragon’s Keep is owned by my friend Shaggy. Yes, that’s what he goes by. The red hair and goatee make it obvious, and he’s gone by Shaggy for as long as anybody in the store can remember — decades, even.

Shaggy and I went to see Bloodrayne together back in January.

Yesterday at the Keep, he gave me a gift. My very own DVD copy of Bloodrayne, purchased somewhere from a used DVD bin for $5.99.

Monday he and I may take the time to look at the special features, including “deleted scenes.” Honestly, anything that didn’t make the first cut for this film probably should be stuck in a lead-lined box and fired into the sun, rather than unleashed on the public, but we’re going to have a look just to be sure. It’s like rubbernecking on your way past a high-speed rollover. You don’t want to know what’s in there, but you can’t just not look.

But after the obligatory rubbernecking… well, I’m not going to let this DVD into my home. I’ll need to get rid of it. But how?

Yes, I’ve considered printing my film review on glossy, DVD-box-sized cardstock and creating a one-of-a-kind “Reviewer’s Edition,” but I’m not sure I can do that in good conscience. Just because I didn’t create the filth in question doesn’t mean that it would be any less immoral for me to accept money in exchange for filth. So I need suggestions: what should we do to dispose of this DVD?

Fie on you, Shaggy Patterson, for putting the “gag” back in “gag gift.”

The 8lb flat we bought at the store says “Strawberries * Fraises”.

I love strawberries, but I hate the green bits on top. Can I get the strawberries without those? You’d think there’d be a market.

–Howard

ps. Yes, I read French. But that doesn’t mean I have to eat those green frezzy bits on top of my strawberries.

As an experiment, I bought a package of peanut-butter-creme Double-Stuf Oreos. I had one bite of one, and decreed them “fit only for children.”

The children are eating them now. Patches, in particular, is eating them. He peeled the Stuf out of two cookies (the PB creme is firmer and less sticky than real Oreo creme) and used them to sandwich one Oreo cookie “cookie.” And then he looked up and me and said “Look! A sammich!” And then proceeded to eat it.

Obviously two times “double” stuff is “quadruple” stuff. But if you then HALVE the amount of cookie, what do you call it? Does the original ratio of Stuf to Cookie matter, or can the cookie and creme amounts be treated as variables, and the equation somehow reduced through Oreo Algebra?

Consider: If the original oreo cookie is represented by O(oreo cookie)=C(the two chocolate cookie parts)+S(stuff on the inside), then a double-stuf would be O=C+2S. Patches’ Sandwich becomes O=C/2 + 4S. Multiplying both sides by two, you get 2O=C+8S… which isn’t the same as “Octuple-Stuf” because you’ve got that “2O” hanging around on the left side of the equation. Solving for “Stuf” you get 2O-C=8S, and then S=(2O-C)/8, neither of which is especially helpful.

I guess the real question is “Do Oreo Cookie engineers get hung up on Double-Stuf algebra, or is it just me?”

Paraphrased for clarity…

Sorceror: “Why is the deck-hand glowing.”
GM: “Anybody with spellcraft knows that she either cast light on herself, or had it cast on her by somebody else. If she cast it herself, then she could dispel it.”
Sorceror: “So she’s a spellcaster?”
Me: “Maybe. Or a victim.”
Rogue: “I bet she’s a spellcaster, and she’s crazy.”
Deck-Hand: “You may be right. I may be crazy.”
Rogue: singing badly “But it just may be a LOOOON-a-tic you’re lookin’ for.”
All: laughter.
GM: Okay, back on topic…
Me: glaring at the deck-hand, whose apparently self-imposed illumination is spoiling our stealth “Turn out the light.”
Deck-Hand: glares back, begins to speak
Me: interrupting, and turning to the rogue “Don’t try to save me.”
All: more laughter
Me: Sorry… That had to be done. You can dock experience points if you want to.