Tony Ruggiero

( Sad to be right..... )

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Hidey-ho, my good fans!  I'm offering you the latest of my writing. I'm hoping you'll check out these articles, because quite honestly, your clicks mean money to me.  So, if you feel like supporting me and my writing, but don't feel like actually paying for anything ;-), click on the articles below and the click count eventually puts some pennies in my pocket.  And who knows?  Maybe you'll like reading some of it :-)

Check out my recently published content on AC:

The Legacy of World War II

And if you haven't checked out the other articles:

Where to Find Plans for Making a Dog Harness
Worms You Can Get From Dogs
Use of Spices Throughout the Ages
How to Clean Dog Urine Off of a Treadmill

Yeah, I'm hoing.  So what?  It's good to ho, because golly, it's the holiday season and Santa hos all the time. So have fun and enjoy.  Retweet them to your hearts content.  Post everywhere.  Make me a millionaire, dammit!  Ok, maybe not a millionaire.  Maybe more along the lines of a few pennies.  Still, it's free and fun.  And who knows?  Someday it might pay for my tea at a con.  Maybe. ;-)

The sunset tonight was magnificent, but the amazing thing is the sun didn't set until five o'clock. Five! It's practically spring already! I'm ready to get out my bikini! Actually, I haven't worn a bikini since I was sixteen and my top came off in the surf. Serious teen trauma.

While trying to back out from a tiny corner where the clients stashed their cat box, having knelt to clean the box, I stood up too soon and banged my head hard on the weird angled ceiling. Now I have a lump on my head. Dear god in heaven, why did they have to put the damn cat box there? Why not the bathroom like everyone else? Ow.

Did you know rabbits eat hay and oats? They do. I had no idea. The cats who lived with them did not eat the hay, but they batted it around happily. That was about it for exotic pets, though. I still wish the woman with dogs, cats, bunnies, geckos and chickens had hired me.

I will not be playing The Sims 3 until my brains leak out my ears next week because avocadovpx is coming to town! I will crack open the Sims this week instead. Ha. I need to set up my new Sims game with Sim-ified friends from real life and lots of celebrities. I'm thinking Lady Gaga for sure.

This is what we ate for dinner while I worked and John cooked this week: hot dogs, spaghetti, pizza, steak, sandwiches. For real. Oh, he did make scalloped potatoes to go with the steak, that counts as cooking. But otherwise it was total bachelor chow. I enjoyed all of it.

So, apparently there's this topics-to-write-about-for-30-days meme, and I am shamelessly stealing it from purplesquirrel. Ideally, this will encourage me to write about something other than Doctor Who.

Day 01: Your Favourite Song
The Doctor Who theme. KIDDING. Although I do like it quite a lot and may devote an entire other post to it someday (I bet you can't wait).

Seriously, there's a whole playlist worth of songs I think are really excellent, and I have trouble picking a single favorite. "Happy New Life" by Mark Burgess and the Sons of God is up there, as are "Hayfever" by the Trashcan Sinatras and the acoustic version of "Can't Shape Up" by the Wonder Stuff.

( the rest of the topics )

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=155657657361&ref=mf

These are the thoughts that flitted through my mind today.

• 18:02 Had a dream in which I had to teach sauropods to speak English. It turns out they are capable of human speech, but only fluent in Danish. #

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http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/archive.php?today=849&comic=848
This is me at parties. Possibly NSFW if you squint.

Jeanne and Spider Robinson need your help.

Earlier his year a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Andresz Busczowski, helped Jeanne Robinson beat back a rare and virulent form of biliary cancer. But it’s so rare even he can’t say how much time he‘s bought her, how soon it might recur—and her latest blood tests have been so discouraging they’ve now decided she needs to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. Besides the prescription drugs to counteract the chemotherapy, she needs special therapies and supplements, counseling, and extensive diet and lifestyle changes, to reduce her stress level and the strain on her liver to as close to zero as possible. All those things are expensive…and like many artists today the Robinsons were already running on fumes financially.

The Robinsons are good people. I met them, briefly, at the Heinlein Centennial a few years ago. Like me, they are big proponents of paying it forward. Now, in their time of need, it’s their turn to be on the receiving end of good will. Friends held a benefit auction and concert, We Dream of Jeanne, but it’s not too late to contribute via check or Paypal. Also, by way of Mathew Sanborn Smith, all proceeds from the sale of Lord Dickens’s Declaration, an eBook by Larry Santoro, will go to Jeanne and Spider. Hurry, though. The last day for this is December 30th.

[Crossposted from Adam Israel. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

My Mom's side of the family, the Beans, have a bit of a rocky history lately with Xmas celebrations. A lot of us were able to get together this year at the Bay Valley Inn, which I hadn't been to since I was Hunter's age. Check out some photos that my brother took here.

One more video is up, entitled Aidan's 3rd Birthday Party.

Pretty sure that I've got my gift card (from Mom & Dad) spent in my head.

Originally published at David M. Crampton.

• 11:08 Stupid cold! Why did you make me sniffle all through Sherlock Holmes? #

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I have mentioned in the past that I'm a member of the Gallup Panel, although I've been slacking lately on filling out their questionnaires. I'm taking an "Attitudes and Experiences" survey right now. Some of it is painful.

There's a whole section on what I think of the job that Obama is doing. "Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please indicate whether you think it describes, or does not describe, Barack Obama." Item number one is "Works well with both parties in Washington to get things done."

There is so much wrapped up in that one little phrase that makes me want to break out in bleak yet maniacal laughter, followed potentially by stabbing something, that I cannot even parse it.

I hate some of the answers I'm giving to this survey, because I don't want to get lumped in with the wingnuts. And yet... No. No, I do not approve.

Should have put more coffee in. Even if I had put in the amount at the high end of the listed range, and even if all of it had dissolved rather than hiding in globules at the bottom of the bowl, I think I might have needed more coffee. So it's not as strongly flavored as I would like, but it's still good.

Logistical issues to work out in future attempts: mixing container that is broad and shallow enough to be easily whisked but which still pours well enough that I don't dribble all over the counter when I pour it into the ice cream maker. Getting a better sense of when the texture is thick enough to be ice cream but not so thick that the outer layer is stuck hard to the sides of the bowl. Figuring out how to clean the freezer bowl when it ices up so quickly and towels (and my fingers) stick to it.

None of these are serious issues.

Something that is more serious - I told some people that I'd be bringing ice cream in to work sometime this week. I no longer want to bring it in. I want it to be MINE MINE MINE ALL MINE. My original motivation still stands - this is a cup of whole milk, two cups of heavy cream, and three-quarters of a cup of sugar, and I don't need to be ingesting that in as few sittings as I know it will take me to finish all this off. But it's delicious, and I'm greedy, and there's really not enough to share with everyone at work, and it would be mean to share it only with the people that I particularly like.

Also, as I realized only after making my first batch - 10 servings is enough to bring to work, at least this week when so many people are on vacation. But that only holds if I don't have any more than anyone else does. If I have a serving as soon as it's ready, and I want to have a serving the next day, and maybe have enough for a snack the day after that... 1.5 quarts is too much for me to eat on my own, but it's really not enough for me to indulge sensibly and still have enough to share fairly. I have to be a glutton, or ascetic, or be one of those mean kids who doesn't bring enough to share with the whole class.

Or I could just split it with non-work friends, like keep half for myself and give half to Mouse and George (or terriblelynne, or ossuarian, or...) Mom tells me that this stuff keeps ok for a few days. That may be the way to go with future attempts.

Yeah, I was pretty wiped out when we got in last night. I wasn't even up to the task of digging out my cell phone to make a voice post. I was suffering from a sinus headache, probably brought on by dehydration - in order to make it as far as possible without taking breaks, I didn't drink anything all day except for a bit of Sprite with lunch. I think I actually slept... that's how tired I was. So that's why I missed my first daily entry in years and didn't even go back to fill one in this morning.

As for this morning, we went out for a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which was nice and empty on a Monday morning, then stopped at the bank and Sam's Club before journeying to the far side of town to stop at Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. We had perfect timing, arriving at the bank as a familiar person was leaving it. Steve, who those few of you who actually read my Bridge entries back when he was playing with us might remember, is back from his deployment and enjoying his mandatory leave before returning to work sometime in February. Boy, will he be surprised if he returns to the Bridge table. I think we were still playing 21-23 HCP 2NT when he left. Those were the days, eh...?

So, as promised, the manga list from the trip: Geijutsuka Art Design Class 2, O-Parts Hunter 18 and 19, Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigations 13 and 14, Hayate the Combat Butler 13, and from this morning, Maid-Sama 3. At least I got a couple of half-price calendars. And I tried putting my change in that change-counting jar, but discovered that it doesn't work quite right, and kept counting pennies as dimes and not always counting the dimes at all, so I just dumped all the coins in and resolved to ignore the counter. Well, that was a waste of money. Nice one, Belk. You really do sound like the kind of store I'd burp up after drinking too much soda.

1) Just posted an update on the Do blog about where that's at. In short: It's 126,000 words and still not finished, but what's unfinished isn't essential, so I'm sending what I have to Ryan pretty soon. Then he'll work his editing magic on it for the next couple months.

2) With that of my plate, my long-term sights are focused on getting ready for the wedding in June. We wanted to wait until January to plan out the nitty-gritties aside from reserving a space and so forth. You'll probably see invitation designs popping up here closer to the date.

3) While Ryan edits Do, I'll return to the visual side of the development process. I'll be doing layout, coloring Liz's pencils, and posting video process as I work on the cover.

4) The other big news that I've not said much about 'til now: Over the next couple months, I'll be working on a layout for a new book by Mur Lafferty and JR Blackwell. Her Side is being published as a printed book and the creators requested that I lay it out!

5) At some point in all this, I want to get Happy Birthday, Robot! published in some form other than a Google Doc. Followed by Big Pet, which introduces some additional storytelling techniques to the basic Robot framework, and Master & Apprentice, which adds long-term tactics and stats in a Jedi-ish setting.

A few minutes after wishing Galina a happy 33rd wedding anniversary, I caught myself looking out the window and wondering "Who would have imagined?" and when I turned to Galina to mention it, I saw that she was turning toward me, with what turned out to be pretty much the same thought. We had a good laugh.

It was otherwise an unremarkable day. I went out to deposit checks, then returned home to write and send outstanding invoices. While the accounting program was open, I impulsively took a look at the "year-to-date" total of words translated and found the number to be 710,780, with the number not likely to change by much (if at all) between now and Thursday.

It was a good time to think about resolutions, more about which later... um... this year.

Cheers...

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Surely someone somewhere has made an Anime Music Video matching "The Secret Garden" with "Will You Remember Me When I'm Gone".