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We’ve been going through a bit of a slimming down at work material-wise getting rid of a large quantity of excess materials, mostly by just shit canning them.  One material we use, comfort panel, is an oleophilic (absorbs oil) material and I thought it’d work great at the Camporee for an idea I’ll simply call “Paintball Art”.  I found a roll of the stuff that was marked “SCRAP” but it was a bit big.  Probably near a few thousand feet long, 5 feet tall and I’d say near 100 pounds, so not something I was going to slip into my pocket, brief case or under my lab coat.  My boss helped me orchestrate Operation:Take Something We Were Throwing Out Anyway and at the end of the day, we rolled out the stuff and dumped it in my car.  As I was returning the cart I used I was stopped by security.

Security Guard: Sir, what did you just do?
Me: I put a roll of scrap destined for trash into the back of my car.
Security Guard: But you used the tank cart, the Security Captain thinks it could have been propane.
Me: That’s ridiculous…
Security Guard: How can we tell if we don’t look?
Me: Well, the roll I took was 5 foot tall, white, had no cap, was hollow and was non-chalantly dumped into my car.  Propane tanks are four foot tall, blue and kinda explosive.

She didn’t buy it and checked anyway.  She poked the roll with her flashlight a bit, as if somehow I’d found a way to hollow out a propane tank or tried to determine how snuggably soft it was.

Security Guard: Hm…  So, how do you like the Toyota Matrix?

Next Friday: Stealing a propane tank.

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I’ve been hammering away at a BA 4196 paper for the last 6 hours and I’ve found good proof that I should stop:  I recently noticed in my paper on the Russian ice cream maker Ice-Fili that I’ve been using as the unit of currency “rupee” a la the Link games and to a lesser extent India instead of  rubles, the currency of Russia.

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For the last decade that I’ve spent as a denizen of the interwebs I’ve used the same name for just about everything: Arcanus.  As most dork screen names begin, this was a character from a defunct RPG campaign in a defunct RPG system and I’ve started running into a problem.  There are already other Arcanuses running around out there.  So, when I try to register for Digg, a well-known blog or something I either have to put a gaiye number after the name or use something else.  I have no something else until recently.  I’ve gone through the following names in the last two weeks and none have stuck.

factuary
interrobanger
i<3Interrobang
what!?
curiousactuary
l2actuary
manscout
ducksquonk

And none of them…. fit.  I’m looking for suggestions for somewhat unique names that I can use for the next decade.  My current winner is “actuaryoftriumph”

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The filigree of the R3 West Trenton line was incised into the flesh of Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia County in the 1960s and the growing burbs have turned their back to it. Buildings have fewer windows on its side, houses have higher fences along its lines and the bodies of stray cats create jolly and morbid sprinkles to the aerial or otherwise aloof observer. There are exceptions, and today a moment of light: While being drug along this line in the big dumb iron and steel horse I’ve called Transit Mistress for three years I saw two kids of about 8 to 10 jumping on a trampoline giggling with no reason to do so. My heart was lifted for a moment at a spectacle of childish wonderment but knew this couldn’t be the end of this piece of Americana. Just then, one of the kids picked up, what I believe was a water ski, and swung wildly hitting the other kid in the head/neck.

But there was something about that hydropod blow, normally when you hit someone, the recipient object absorbs the blow nearly stopping the bludgeoning and causing the victim to lose balance and fall. In this case, the water ski held such momentum that not only did the ski not stop when hitting the child, but the victim didn’t fall so much as rotate about the axis of his belly button. I started laughing in humor and horror.  God bless America.

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The filigree of the R3 West Trenton line was incised into the flesh of Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia County in the 1960s and the growing burbs have turned their back to it. Buildings have fewer windows on its side, houses have higher fences along its lines and the bodies of stray cats create jolly and morbid sprinkles to the aerial or otherwise aloof observer. There are exceptions, and today a moment of light: While being drug along this line in the big dumb iron and steel horse I’ve called Transit Mistress for three years I saw two kids of about 8 to 10 jumping on a trampoline giggling with no reason to do so. My heart was lifted for a moment at a spectacle of childish wonderment but knew this couldn’t be the end of this piece of Americana. Just then, one of the kids picked up, what I believe was a water ski, and swung wildly hitting the other kid in the head/neck.

But there was something about that hydropod blow, normally when you hit someone, the recipient object absorbs the blow nearly stopping the bludgeoning and causing the victim to lose balance and fall. In this case, the water ski held such momentum that not only did the ski not stop when hitting the child, but the victim didn’t fall so much as rotate about the axis of his belly button. I started laughing in humor and horror.  God bless America.

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The 5-Color event went quite well to the point that Mr. Folsom had both fun and victory of someone whose last name didn’t rhyme with “olsom”.  At Cheeburger Cheeburger afterwards our check took an inordinate period of time to arrive so Mykie decided to leave feedback.  Lacking a pen he started going in with horseradish sauce and did quite a nice job.  But it was damn hard to read.  Until I attacked it with Cheeburger Cheeburger’s shitty spice mix, and voila!

Feedback with salt and pepper

It was really quite impressive at the time.  This was followed up with the “I crushed a pounder” picture for the three at our table who’d consumed heartily.  But, by the time the photo was actually taken, only two other customers were left in the store.

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I don’t know why, but I really wanted to know how much the cat weighs.  Really wanted to know.  So, I asked  around:

Dad’s guess: 13 lbs
My guess: 15 lbs
Ryan’s guess: 11 lbs
Amanda’s guess: 1 dollar

So, I first tried dropping the cat on the bathroom scale and pushing down on it, depending on  the cat’s natural tendency to just lie down when you push down on it.  Fail.

I handed the cat to my dad.  To make a long story short, my dad bled a lot and we still didn’t know how much the cat weighed.

Amanda stepped up to the plate, weighed herself and then failed to get the cat to cooperate and after taking a claw to the boob, the cat was put down.  The golden opportunity occurred when the cat, hungry from fighting with us, wanted onto the countertop, Amanda grabbed him and soon the truth was illuminated: 15.4 lbs.

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I don’t know why, but I really wanted to know how much the cat weighs.  Really wanted to know.  So, I asked  around:

Dad’s guess: 13 lbs
My guess: 15 lbs
Ryan’s guess: 11 lbs
Amanda’s guess: 1 dollar

So, I first tried dropping the cat on the bathroom scale and pushing down on it, depending on  the cat’s natural tendency to just lie down when you push down on it.  Fail.

I handed the cat to my dad.  To make a long story short, my dad bled a lot and we still didn’t know how much the cat weighed.

Amanda stepped up to the plate, weighed herself and then failed to get the cat to cooperate and after taking a claw to the boob, the cat was put down.  The golden opportunity occurred when the cat, hungry from fighting with us, wanted onto the countertop, Amanda grabbed him and soon the truth was illuminated: 15.4 lbs.