Celica: Make a post about rap music please. Maybe thesis about rap music vs warrior bards.
No. But I feel guilty about not posting or reading so I’ll give you the Christmas letter. Thank God, All animals and plants are doing well, except my apples all turned brown. I harvested a few quarts of blueberries, and a pint of blackberries. I picked like 100 quarts from Karena’s friend’s bushes though. The cat and dogs have been good and achieved little besides catching a few moles. One of the new chickens is becoming a rooster. I named him Gregory. He seems to get along with Eric, who supervised/watched him have sex with one of the new hens. Eric has like 12 gfs, of a variety of colors and sleeps on the roosting bar. . Gregory has six, all brown. They sleep in the windowsill. The other half dozen hens, including the all black one and the super fat one, are uggos I guess and sleep on the ground. The fat one weighs like 20 lbs and can’t get up the ramp so I have to pick her up and shove her through the hatch into the coop every night. People are good. Quincy finished Algebra 2 and is starting precalc. Burn Jr dropped out of 3rd grade and started home schooling. Rex started college at the same school I go to and the same major (EE, which is what my degree from long ago is in, but i consider myself CE). I’m taking one class in parallel and distributed computing. I got a 96 on the midterm. I’m TA for an upper level microcontroller class. (I just run the labs). I got a job at a startup run by my advisor’s friend. I’m the Head of Mobile Development though that just means “Burn, can you make an app?” Me: “Ok.” I still lift but sometimes miss days bc busy/tired/pussy. Been trying to finish the civ game due sep 30. Been doing a lot of writing with AI enhancement sometimes 5-10000 words a day. All porn. Got wordle in 2 today, my average still like 3.5 or smthn.
(wordpress delete my post again, need new blog no joking around now)
Karena purchased 20 chicks from Tractor Supply. They were supposed to be two different kinds, Easter Eggers and Americaunas, which Quincy helped decide on since she wanted chickens that laid blue or green eggs that taste the same as the other eggs she does not eat. However, to my untrained eye, there appear to be four different varieties (which is entirely possible as the Tractor Supply QC department was previously responsible for sending us Eric, and likely consists of “a robot that yeets chicks into cardboard boxes”).
In order from least aggressive/dominant to most, we have:
traditional yellows (8)
solid black ones (2)
brown ones that look like little hawks (7)
grayish blue and white speckled one that’s hyper (1)
In case you added the numbers, and detected a discrepancy, unfortunately three died. A yellow chick was ailing and Karena stayed up most of the night feeding it vitamin water from an eyedropper to no avail, which was kinda sad. Another bird died overnight. I don’t know what color it was because Karena found it and got rid of it. A third learned to fly out of the brooder box before its peers and was swallowed whole by Q.
If you still detect a discrepancy, you are doing better than Karena, because when I counted them a week later after several had squeezed out of the now-screen-covered box, there were 18. In her defense, chicks are like quantum phenomena in that any time a human observes them, they travel in random directions at extremely high velocities (while squeaking, flapping, and pooping wildly, but quarks don’t do that). Diplomatically, I theorized that it was possible that Q felt guilty and regurgitated the chick back to its flock.
One of the yellow ones is enormously larger than all of its peers both in height and weight. It sits by the feeder all day, and sleeps with its head on it, like a morbidly obese child, though much easier to pick up, especially since it’s too lazy to run away. Quincy named it “Superchick”. Sadly, it’s likely TSC accidentally gave us a meat bird which need to be culled a young age or they develop crippling health issues.
Try to find Superfat, as I call her (Quincy: “MEAN”)
We moved them out into the run/coop complex about a week ago, and luckily there was no real fighting with the existing hens, or Eric, who mostly ignored them.
Eric and his flock eating the chick food, so I shut them out of this area…so this elderly brown hen could eat it.The chicks got their revenge though, as they now sleep on the windowsill and that brown one sleeps in the dirt belowThe rest of them sleep right by the door, so every night Eric has to charge in there and bowl them out of the way so his harem can get inside. Here he is looming over them ominouslyRare dual digging, usually they take turns at the same hole. BTW Dog caught 4 moles last week.
Also got 1 grape vine, 5 blackberry canes, 12 new blueberry bushes (now have 20), and a pecan tree (need another one so they can marry and have baby pecans).
Here is a program I have been working on. Press play on the left to use a genetic algorithm to turn random gibberish into gibberish likely from The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Made some pretty funny pictures, so even if you’re not a Civ fan, check it out. (I get better at it as I go along, so there’s more pics at the bottom and on page 2.)
Q found a mole
What do you have there?Thank you.Panorama of brush clearing operation progress
Quincy had surgery on both her Achilles tendons and we got to stay at the Ronald McDonald house.
She is fine.
The tail light burned out on Karena’s Sonata, so I bought a new bulb, but when I tried to replace it, I broke the base of it off in the socket.
This was the worst, and I had to go at it with needlenose pliers and dental picks, chipping, pulling and prying at the metal and glass that was stuck. I would work on it for an hour or so and then I’ll be honest, I’d get discouraged, but finally:
And even more miraculously:
(I disconnected the fuse before digging around in the socket)U has movie?Oh, it’s Lake Placid 2She was okay.
In neighborly news, stuff is good. I am going to dig a trench that Perry recommended. He wants to buy some more eggs. And today I pet his dog Cocoa (who looks and is about the same size as a fox)
So the next day Perry called me. He was unconcerned about the dent but he wanted to talk about “brush in the ditch”. There’s some ditch that extends the length of the field and borders his yard and 4-5 other neighbors backyards. I haven’t been purposely putting brush into it, but it’s possible that I threw/cut some brush that landed in this ditch, particularly when Rex and I hurriedly dismantled the tree that fell on his shed. Keep in mind that before I did any cleanup work on the boundary, this ditch was full of trash and weeds. But I wanted to be a good neighbor. He said he would be home in a couple hours, so I went to work.
Before. The flooded area mentioned below is behind that tree on the leftAfter. You can see the ditch is not in real good repair even after I moved the brushBeforeAfter. Not exactly the same view but now you’re able to see the neighbor’s trash much betterAfter. He said it was okay if I picked up the rolls of wire that were in the ditch and stacked them next to his shed
When he came outside I was mostly done, and he revealed his real reasons for concern about the ditch.
His yard is flooded in areas.
Status: True, much of Mississippi is flooded at this time of year.
The quarter of my field closest to him is flooded
Status: True, it’s like a pond.
He thinks this is from our septic sprinklers
Status: False, our sprinklers are in the front yard and shoot the water in the opposite direction. Then there’s our whole backyard, then the flooded field. I generally agreed with everything he said, but I had to dispel this nonsense. It would be like if my front yard were flooded and you lived across the street and claimed that my water was somehow getting into your back yard.
He thinks there should not be brush in the ditch.
Status: True, though the brush is mostly lying on top of the ditch and not blocking the non-existant water from flowing through it. I said I would clear out the ditch where it bordered my property and already did this where it was adjacent to his. One problem is that a very large tree fell on the ditch and it’s going to take a while to dismember that, but hey, it’s a good idea and I kind of owe him, because:
He is not going to make me pay for denting the shed roof unless it leaks.
Status: It’s his wife’s shed. She wants to put up a (real) fence in their back yard. I’m all for that, and he’s going to pay for surveyors. Be my guest.
He thinks that I should dig a canal from the flooded area to the ditch. There’s kind of an entrance area where this was done 20 years ago.
Status: I said it was a good idea, but I’d have to dig like a 50 foot trench by hand through rooty ground so this is going to take a while. He asked if I knew anyone with a backhoe. I did not.
I gave him a dozen eggs
Status: He was thankful and hopefully we are still friendly.
Only have 6 trees left to cut down. Got Rex to film me cutting the biggest one.
Recommend fast forwarding to 0:40, especially after watching a dozen times.
However this triumph was shortly thereafter marred by the shame and safety violation of felling a tree onto my neighbor’s shed.
Shame!SHAME!
It was a combination of errors:
The chainsaw cuts way faster than my old one, so maybe previously taking a long time to make the notch cut let it settle in the right direction.
The chainsaw cuts way faster than my old one, so I previously had more time to consider how the felling cut was going to turn out
Now that I can’t think of more ways to blame the chainsaw, once I saw that things weren’t leaning right I should have stopped and done something drastically different.
Which, I did, I also made a new hinge and felling cut 5′ high, but this didn’t turn out any better, so now the tree was in double danger of falling the wrong way.
Then I *really* should have done something different, which again, I did, but literally anything was better than what I chose, which was to insert felling wedges in the direction of my neighbor’s shed and hit them with a sledgehammer. Yes, I know this sounds really stupid, but:
The tree would not have been long enough to hit the shed, or if it did, it would only hit it with the feathery branches on the very top.
The tree would miss the shed and fall harmlessly in his yard.
The tree would hit other trees and either get stuck in them or bounce off them and fall the other direction
Because of the two cuts, the tree would break neatly in the middle and fall in another direction, exhibiting my lumberjack skills
However none of those things happened, and the tree hit the roof with a booming thud.
Another possibility I thought of after seeing this picture is that maybe the shed was not even there. (it was)
I texted and called my neighbor (in my phone as Perry Neighbor), admitting my fault and apologizing and told him I would pay for the damages. He didn’t respond, which was concerning. What if he was in the shed and a branch had punctured the roof and killed him? I decided:
Not to tell Karena about this
To tell Rex not to tell Karena about this
To try to chop up the tree and get it off Perry Neighbor’s shed.
After I had chopped it up some, it didn’t look as bad:
But now I faced a dilemma. Without having heard from Perry, should I go (more) on his property and get the top of the tree off the shed? I needed to ask Karena’s advice. That would mean telling her, so I sent her this picture which really makes it look not so bad:
She said to get it, so I got the ladder and Rex and I removed the offending treetop.
While we were doing this, Perry called, and I sent him this picture of the damage which fortunately wasn’t that bad:
I should have sent him this one which really does not look bad:
Or if I was really dishonorable, in retrospect, just not said anything at all, but one of the neighbor kids playing basketball witnessed the whole thing. Speaking of dishonorable, I later learned that Rex dimed me out to Karena the *instant* he walked inside.
Rex: Did you hear that big thump? That was dad, cutting down a tree onto the neighbor’s shed.
Has a big hole in it and is almost totally hollow:
Took picture inside I haven’t looked in case there’s a rotting dead animal (LMK):
The bookcase:
Karena wanted a new bookcase. One of our ~5-6 yr old ones was collapsing because the kids crammed books recklessly inside. One of my Rules is to agree to buy anything she says no matter how much it costs or how dumb it is. And she was like I want to get an expensive bookcase. I hate these walmart ones mostly bc of having to nail the piece of cardboard on the back that is essential to hold the whole thing together. The rest of it is decent for the price and easy to construct, that last step just wrecks everything (especially when you accidentally hammer through the cardboard shh). So I said fine, and she spent some time at our weekly meetings (Rule #221) talking about and showing me bookcases. Told her to check the thrift store, but I said all of them were fine, even the one that cost $350. Anyway she somehow decided to buy the same bookshelf the kids broke (but in ugly white) while she looks for a new one, and also the kids won’t break this one because they’re older and less reckless. I just said it was fine.
Made the older kids clean up some brush today. Rex was gonna help me anyway. He’s actually finally decently hard-working and useful. Quincy was being punished for not doing her schoolwork. She is neither hard-working nor useful.
The hard drive failed on my Thinkpad T570, so I bought a new NVME for $90 and plunked it in. BIOS recognized it, but Windows refused to install on it. I had a plan to install linux or at least use the live USB to wipe it, but Linux wouldn’t even find the darn thing. I am going to return it, I think, and I already purchased a T560 for $220 on ebay. Then today I installed Civ 3 on Quincy’s laptop, and now I’m rethinking buying one at all. No it’s still a good idea.
What is this thing the dogs unearthed?? I thought it was a grub but it revealed 4x feet, so clearly it’s some kind of salamander?
Quincy and I made audiobooks of each other’s Roys Bedoys stories. It was great fun, will probably post them tomorrow.
Listless, surly cat. Has COVID???
Installed a new whiteboard for Karena while she laid ill. Today I assembled a bookcase for her (pics tomorrow)
LMAO/SMH at my sprinklers on when the yard looks like this
It’s bad to shirk blog posting after you report an illness, thus leaving well-wishers on tenterhooks. I will reserve this tactic for the future when I genuinely am desperate for attention.
I am better. Rex and Quincy got COVID. Yesterday I did Rex’s chores and cleaned up 3 trashbags of dog poop from our back yard. Today I declared him well enough to do his chores. Quincy was supposed to have surgery today to lengthen her Achilles tendons because she chronically walks on her toes. But this had to be postponed. She is also feeling better. Karena is now feeling under the weather so I will make a note of the following items for our next argument discussion:
she was very thoughtful and dutiful during my illness
kept the kids from pestering me
made me food
drove me to doctors appointment
bought me “Emperor” heated blanket
The last time I was sick was last time I had COVID which is a good streak of 1 year. The other times I said I was sick was because I needed a nap, making this talking point a wash. Though this probably prevented me from getting sick, but who can say just like nobody gives politicians credit for preventing terrorism
My illness was contracted after attending a funeral on Friday that I was not supposed to attend because I had class and a meeting, but Karena does not like funerals, so I said yes in my rule (yes I still adhere to these and have probably 500 by now, but no I know they don’t count if I don’t blog them so I’ll make a comprehensive list for Huikat) to be more agreeable, and look, I came home with a tickle in my throat then stayed up late fulfilling my marital obligations (feeding the chickens) and look what became of me
I was under the weather on saturday but still performed Chainsawing for 90 minutes after which I reported feeling “overextended” and took a nap. But I probably would have gotten overextended even if I had not chainsawed.
Most of the kids were gone on Saturday and Karena had her Dungeons and Dragons and I continued to sleep and be sick officially starting at 4 PM until Tuesday afternoon when I Felt Better. So official sickness ~48 hours.
Do not go to the military base doctor as the doctor has changed. The previous doctor was a captain who was very collegial and respectful of my combat role and all the women hated him because he made their vaginas feel disrespected (or something I didn’t listen) and the new doctor is a woman who has a nametag with her pronouns on it and made me wear a mask (the tech who was blond and 21 and smoking hot did not), and only prescribed me Mucinex and saline solution and the crap pharmacy still has not filled them, and called me while I was delirious to tell me that I had tested positive and my quarantine was march 5-9 but I must wear a mask until april 10 and receive a vaccination and I should use a separate bathroom and eating quarters.
Karena is the only vaccinated one, so we’ll secretly contrast the duration and severity of her illness to mine.
The dogs were super sad that we missed 2 days of walks. One was partly bc it was raining all day, so it was a good day to be sick, but when I am late for the walk they howl and woof at the stairs all day long. Feels bad that they do not speak English. When I came downstairs to loll on the couch with them though, they were super friendly and conducive to healing.
I HOPE YOU STAY SICK FOREVER BECAUSE I LOVE YOUI AM CONCERNED THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE TO FAIL TO MEET MY EXPECTATIONS.I AM AVAILABLE TO COMFORT YOU IF MY SUPERIORS DO AN INADEQUATE JOB
Have COVID for the 3rd (officially 2nd) time. my lower back hurts like a mofo which is a sign of the omicron variant. Also have a sore throat and severe lethargy, which is why it has taken me until 6:23 PM to post this. I feel hot and by 7 PM, I hope to be able to finish unbuttoning the rest of the buttons on my shirt.
I am considering getting my laptop, but it’s in another room, so perhaps tomorrow or Wednesday.
The major brought the mayor into the general’s office.
“Can you make your secretary go away?” asked the mayor.
“That’s not a secretary. He’s called an executive officer. And he’s a man.”
“Yes, but this is secret business.”
“Fine,” said the general. He was a little disappointed that the mayor wasn’t here to entertain the troops, but not a lot, because he already had superheroes.
After the major had left, the mayor sat down.
“You’ll find that we do a lot of stuff differently in the military, Mr. Mayor. In fact, we don’t even have mayors. I’m the one in charge around here.”
“Very well,” said the mayor.
“Also, we take pride in our appearance,” said the general. “See how I’m wearing a crisp uniform and you’re wearing a rumply suit?”
“I had to walk all the way here,” explained the mayor.
“From Capital City? No wonder why you look so sweaty and dirty. But I would think you could afford a plane or at least a helicopter. Still, that shows physical fitness. So maybe I can help you after all. What do you want?”
The general only read the news when it was about wars and strategies, so the mayor had to tell him the story.
“Ace Masterson, you say? Well I’d like to help, but I’m afraid all of our jets are loaned to other countries right now.”
“But I saw a whole lot of planes while I was dri – walking in here!”
“Yes, but those aren’t jets, so they wouldn’t do you any good.”
“Oh,” the mayor said. The chauffeur had called them jets when he’d pointed them out, but he didn’t know anything. “Well, what about the Bravo Alpha Zero?”
“How did you know about that? It’s classified top secret. And it hasn’t even been tested yet!”
“This is a serious emergency.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to think about it,” said the general. He thought for a moment but then the major knocked on the door.
“Sir, it’s time to go to the theater,” he called before the general could yell at him for making an interruption.
“Ah, yes,” said the general. “I almost forgot. I arranged for some important superheroes to entertain the troops. I’ll be able to think better while I watch them. Do you want to go? You can be an honored guest.”
“Only if we can drive there,” said the mayor.
“Of course. I have my own car, but I make the secretary drive me around in it. You should try something like that. It’s way better than walking.”
***
When they got close to the hangar, Rex Powerman said, “It looks like the roof is reinforced, so I’ll go up real high and then crash through with rocket power.”
“I might get hurt if you do that,” Bookman pointed out.
“Well, that’s because instead of Power Armor you are wearing girl’s clothes. How about this then – I’ll throw you up in the air, and then dive down with mach speed, and then break a hole through the roof, and then knock out the guards really fast, and then catch you. Or do you want to help fight them?”
“I thought of a better plan,” Bookman said. “Land on that loading dock over there. Softly.”
“Okay,” said Rex Powerman. “Now what?”
“Now don’t do anything. Don’t even move. And especially don’t talk.”
“This plan sounds like the rules of the library,” grumbled Rex Powerman, but he was just joking. He wasn’t allowed inside the library any more, either in his superhero costume or his regular clothes. He was the only person to be banned from the library twice, but that was because they thought he was two different people.
Rex Powerman stood very still and Bookman rang the bell. Two guards came out to the loading dock. Bookman pretended to push on Rex Powerman.
They saw that Bookman was a colonel and saluted.
“Don’t just stand there and do that,” he told them. “Help me bring this suit of power armor inside.”
“Whew, it’s really heavy,” said one of the guards.
“I carried it over here all by myself, and I’m a lady. Maybe I should find some men who are strong.”
“No, we are strong men,” said the other guard.
“The suit made a laughing sound,” reported the first guard.
“No it didn’t,” said Bookman. “That was the sound of you accidentally bonking the head of it against the door frame. Like this.”
He bonked Rex Powerman’s head against the door frame.
“See, this is the sound it makes when you are clumsy and weak.”
“Okay,” said the first guard, “We won’t do that anymore, ma’am.”
“Good,” said Bookman. “Bring it to the hangar and set it next to the Bravo Alpha Zero.”
When they were done, Bookman said, “Wow, you are actually quite strong. I would go on a date with you but I’m an officer, so that would be disgusting. How about instead you take the day off and go see the superhero show at the base theater? I hear it’s going to be awesome!”
“Yay!” cheered the guards, and abandoned their posts.
“Hurry up, it’s about to start,” Bookman called after them.
“Can I talk now?” asked Rex Powerman.
“Yes, but don’t. Just get in the plane.”
Bookman got in the front seat and Rex Powerman got in the back.
“Now what?” Powerman asked. “Do you even know how to fly a jet with stealth?”
“Not yet,” said Bookman, “but I think you’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“My superpower.”
He opened the glove compartment of the plane. Just like in a car there was an instruction manual, but unlike in a car there were seven of them and none of them were just foreign language translations or the warranty, so they all had to be read carefully yet at high speed.
“There’s controls back here too,” Rex Powerman reported. “So I can help you!”
“No,” said Bookman. “The ones in the back aren’t connected. So don’t touch them. Now shh, I’m trying to read, so pretend you’re in a library. But without making rude noises or smashing the wall.”
The mayor of Capital City had also driven all the way out to the air force base that morning. He was not having a very good day. First, there was a big traffic jam at the entrance. He told his chauffeur to beep the horn, but when be did, a guard shot out their tires.
“I’m sorry, sir, he didn’t know any better” said the sergeant. “In the military, we don’t have mayors.”
“Well then, who’s in charge of everyone?”asked the mayor.
“The general, but he’s quite a busy man. Would you like a free tour instead?”
“No, this is a serious emergency.”
“Okay,” said the sergeant, “I will take you to see him.”
“How?!” said the mayor. “You popped our tires.”
“We will walk. I know the way there. Also, I will have our mechanics fix your tires. They are used to working on planes, so a car should be a piece of cake, even a limousine.”
So they started to walk there. The mayor hated to walk. Even in parades, he rode in a covertible or a fire engine. He would have had the chauffeur carry him, but he’d made him guard the limo so the mechanics wouldn’t put plane tires on it by mistake.
“This makes no sense,” said the mayor. “This is the air force. How come we can’t fly there?”
“Because I’m not a pilot,” said the sergeant. “If I do a good job at guarding, I hope to be promoted, but that would take even longer than walking.”
The mayor admitted that was true and they kept walking.
“So is the emergency about Ace Masterson bombing your banks?” guessed the sergeant.
“Yes,” admitted the mayor. “How did you know?”
“Because you said it was serious, and on the news, they also said it was serious. Are you going to ask the general to let you borrow some jets?”
“Yes,” puffed the mayor. “Is it much farther?”
“That will never work,” advised the sergeant. “Ace Masterson is better than our pilots. He would just shoot them down. There’s only one plane that can stop him and that’s the Bravo Alpha Zero. But he won’t let you borrow it because it’s top secret.”
The mayor made wheezy sounds. He was just out of breath, but he was sweating so much the sergeant thought he was crying and felt bad for him.
“Hey, I know,” said the sergeant. “There are some superheroes visiting today to entertain the troops. Maybe they can help!”
Now the mayor did cry for real, because he had his own superheroes, but he didn’t know about the secret plan and thought they just didn’t want to help. And if they didn’t, how would he get reelected?? But he only cried a little because they were at the headquarters building and he didn’t want the sergeant to know.
“Miss Secretary, get me another general on the phone right away,” said the general.
“I’m called Executive Officer, not secretary. Also I’m a man.”
“You’re only a major, so I can call you whatever I want because I outrank you.”
“That’s true,” said the secretary. “What general would you like me to call, sir?”
“It doesn’t matter, just pick one. But after you dial, get out of my office because it’s secret.”
“Hello, general,” said the general.
“Hello, general,” said the general on the phone. They didn’t have to call each other sir, because they were the same rank.
“Who is the best person you ever had entertain your troops?”
“Punch Drunkman.”
“The bank robber?”
“No, this was last year before he lost the boxing title and became a villain.”
“Ha! Guess who I got? Superheroes!”
“Wow,” the general on the phone said jealously, but then the secretary came back in.
“Can’t you see that I’m on the phone?” the general roared.
“Yes, but someone is here to speak with you sir.”
“I’m not to be disturbed! This is important matters.”
“But it’s the mayor of Capital City.”
“Did you hear that?” said the general into the phone. “If he wants to entertain the troops too, I’ll send him to your base because I feel sorry for you. Okay, I’ve got to go.”
Somebody like the Ace Masterson posts. That is, if you do like them and want me to write up more of that silly story. If not, I will understand and just go back to chicken pictures.
In the meantime:
Safety Monitor:
I stand in front You stay behind Of the magic… Safety line!
Students:
“We’re behind And not in front So we give… The safety grunt!”
The next day, the time was up. Since the National Guard was not working, the chief borrowed twenty anti-aircraft guns from them and set them up on the rooftops around the 1st National Bank. For gunners, he used policemen who were secretly in the National Guard, and other crack shots. They waited patiently for Ace Masterson’s jet to fly overhead so they could shoot it. Also, just to make sure, the police chief ordered all the money taken out of the 1st National Bank and spread around to the other banks in Capital City: the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th National Banks and Banks A, B, C, D, and E.
However, in a surprising move, Ace Masterson attacked the 2nd National Bank. This was a total lie, but he was evil, so he didn’t feel bad about it at all! Another sneaky thing he did was drop his bomb in front of the doors of the bank instead of totally blowing it up. Suddenly two carloads full of his goons pulled up and got out. They ran inside the bank easily because the doors had been blown off and the guards were knocked out from the blast.
“Open the vault!” the goons said to the bank manager.
He was so afraid that he wet his pants, but then he opened the vault. The goons laughed at him and stole all the money – $11,111,111.12, since the 1st National Bank’s money had been spread around evenly, but the 2nd National Bank had received the extra cent.
“Where are the superheroes Rex Powerman and Bookman?” wondered the bank’s customers, who also got robbed and/or knocked out by the bomb.
“BANK ROBBED – WHERE ARE SUPERHEROES?????” said the newspaper headlines the next day.
“Release the Bookworm or tomorrow I will bomb the 3rd National Bank!” declared the leaflets Ace Masterson littered the streets with, though it was difficult to believe them, since he’d already lied once.
“In a shocking turn of events, Capital City’s two superheroes did absolutely nothing to stop a bank robbery today,” said the TV news. “In fact, they were not even there. Where were they? Nobody even knows!”
However, the two heroes were not there because they were following Bookman’s secret plan. That morning they drove in the Bookmobile to the closest Air Force base.
“We’re two superheroes, Bookman and Rex Powerman,” they told the gate guard. “We’re here to entertain the troops.”
The gate guard called his sergeant, who called his captain, who called his colonel, who ran into the general’s office.
“General,” said the colonel. “I have a brilliant idea! We should get some superheroes to entertain the troops.”
“That’s preposterous,” said the general. “Where would we find superheroes?”
“Leave it to me,” said the colonel, rushing down to the front gate. She shoved the captain, sergeant and private out of the way and took charge.
“Your attention please,” she said into the base Public Address System. “All personnel are required to attend a mandatory entertainment at the base theater at noon today. There will be superheroes, provided by myself, Colonel Jones.”
The personnel cheered, except those waiting in the traffic jam behind the Bookmobile, who couldn’t hear the announcement because they were honking their horns impatiently.
“Noon!” protested Rex Powerman. “It’s only eight-thirty. What the heck are we supposed to do until then? Be bored?!”
“Well,” the colonel whimpered, “I thought you’d need time to change into your costumes and um…”
“Could we have a free tour of the base, please?” Bookman requested politely, “We are really interested in planes, especially your most advanced secret prototypes.”
“Of course!” said the colonel. “Captain, give these men the most honorable free tour you can. And sergeant, the next person who honks at us, have the private shoot out their tires.”
“Our most advanced plane is called Bravo Alpha Zero. It’s kept in this hangar here.”
“Can we look at it?” asked Bookman. “Or maybe sit in the cockpit?”
“Authorized Personnel Only,” said the captain.
“That’s totally lame,” complained Rex Powerman. “We’re American Superheroes!”
“Okay, fine,” the captain relented, but just then his watch beeped.
“It’s 11:30,” he reminded them. “I have to take you to the base theater to entertain the troops, or Colonel Jones will be angry.”
When they arrived at the base theater, personnel were already filing inside. Colonel Jones was waiting for them, wearing her fancy dress blue uniform with all the ribbons and medals she’d won for entertaining the troops.
“You superheroes go into the dressing room and change into your costumes,” she commanded.
They went into the dressing room, and Rex Powerman put on his Power Armor. Bookman didn’t really have a costume, but he put on his bow tie and cleaned his glasses. This gave him an idea.
“We need to disguise ourselves as Authorized Personnel,” he said, pointing to a big chest labeled “Costumes.”
The chest was locked, but Rex Powerman used his super strength to snap the lock with ease.
Inside the chest, they found a clown suit, a horse costume, and a pirate hat.
“None of these are for Authorized Personnel,” grumbled Rex Powerman. “They would never let a clown or a horse near that plane. Probably not even a pirate.”
But Bookman had another idea, which was a garment bag labeled COL JONES. He opened it up. Inside was the uniform Colonel Jones had worn to work. But Colonel Jones was a woman, so her uniform was a woman’s uniform – with a skirt.
“Haha,” chortled Rex Powerman. “You are dressed like a girl.”
“Shut up,” said Bookman. “Maybe you should try it.”
“I can’t,” Rex Powerman. “I have a beard. That would look suspicious. Also I’m wearing Power Armor, so it wouldn’t even fit.”
“Fine, then make yourself useful and use your jetpack to fly us to the hangar. It’s really hard to walk in these shoes.”
He jumped onto Rex Powerman’s back.
“Uhh, you can’t do that,” Rex Powerman pointed out. “That’s where the flames and smoke comes out of. I have to carry you in the front like I’m rescuing you.”
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
“Don’t come in!” yelled Bookman. “We’re naked!”
“Colonel Jones says it’s time to start the show. Are you almost done changing?” asked the captain’s voice.
“Yes,” said Rex Powerman. “I just have to test my jetpack.”
“Naked?” asked the captain, but they couldn’t hear him, because with a tremendous whoosh, Rex Powerman scooped up Bookman and blasted out through the back of the theater.
“I’m glad everyone is in the theater,” said Bookman, looking down at the base below them. “Because this is really embarassing.”
“Don’t worry,” said Rex Powerman, “From down there nobody will be able to see how ugly you are.”
Ace Masterson was an ace pilot in the air force. And he could drive anything. He operated all of the Bookworm’s vehicles. Someone had to be in charge of the military business of taking over the world, since the Bookworm was mostly about eating books and being a mastermind.
Ace was a big man, and dressed like one too: a loud jacket, tight pants, and high-heeled boots. His hair was short and neat, and his face had been well scrubbed until it shone like new plastic.
Bookman and Rex Powerman defeated The Bookworm, but the final battle was at the First National Library, so Bookworm’s island and all of it’s military might was still intact. And Ace Masterson swore revenge!
The Police Chief of Capital City was in a good mood. With the Bookworm firmly in jail and no supervillains currently committing crimes, there was finally time and money in the city budget to complete some badly needed renovations.
“Hello, Ceiling Repair Department? My office is on the 47th floor of the capital building. There’s some holes in my ceiling because Rex Powerman crashed through it.”
“Is that the top floor, sir?”
“Yes, of course it is. I’m the chief of police.”
“Well then you will need to contact the Roof Repair Department.”
“Very well.”
While he was waiting for the roof repairmen to arrive, the police chief went down to the 46th floor to get some coffee.
He smiled as his secretary poured him a cup. She was a female secretary, so his wife made her work on a different floor because she was jealous. His wife, who was also female,never made him coffee.
“I’m having some roof repairs done,” the police chief boasted to his secretary.
“That’s goo -” she said, and threw the coffee onto the police chief’s shiny new blue uniform.
“Why did you do that?!” he demanded
“Because there was an explosion!”
It was true! There was a giant explosion above them.
The police chief rushed upstairs to his office and found something horrible had happened. An airplane had dropped a bomb through the hole in his ceiling and now his entire office was destroyed. In fact the whole 47th floor was destroyed, so now his office was on the roof! His chair, which he had specially ordered because he had back pain was also destroyed and now he would have to sit on rubble. The only thing that was left was the phone.
The Police Chief picked up the phone and called the Army.
“United States Army!”
“Yes, this is the police chief of Capital City. Scramble all your jets. This is an air emergency!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to call the Air Force. The Army does not have jets. We have helicopters but they are not good enough to fight jets.*
The Police Chief called the Air Force, but they were busy fighting wars and could not spare any of their jets.
He also called the Navy (“Sir, Navy is boats.”), the Coast Guard (“We’re sorry, but you are a policeman, not a coast.”), the Marines (“Gung Ho! You have the total wrong number. We are guys who attack beaches.”) and the National Guard (“Sorry, we only work one weekend a month.”)
Finally, he had no choice, and had to call the local superheroes.
Rex Powerman turned off his jetpack to save energy and began his dive through the air through the chief’s skylight. The chief didn’t use to have a skylight, but Rex Powerman had made one during his last adventure, which was more energy efficient.
However there was not even a ceiling or a roof anymore, so Rex Powerman crashed through the floor and into the female secretary.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked him in her most admiring voice.
“No,” Rex Powerman said. “I am married.”
“There’s no time for refreshments,” said the police chief. “We are under air attack!”
“Here I am,” said Bookman. “I drove the Bookmobile here at fast – but legal – speeds while obeying all traffic regulations, and then I climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator for reasons of fitness and energy efficiency.”
“Well, you can go home,” said the chief. “This guy has a jetpack so he can fight the enemy by himself.”
“Actually…” said Rex Powerman.
“What is it?” said the chief.
“I forget. But I think I would like some coffee,” said Rex Powerman.
“He means to say that jetpacks are no match for a real jet,” said Bookman, after he caught his breath from running up all the stairs.
“Well then what good are you? You don’t fly at all, and he flies poorly. I would rather have Superman. Or Batman.”
“Batman doesn’t fly,” Rex Powerman reminded him. “even though bats can. It’s his greatest weakness.”
“Look at this!” said Bookman, waving around a piece of paper with writing on it.
“His greatest strength is reading,” said Rex Powerman proudly. “Where did you find that secret piece of paper?”
“It’s not secret,” admitted Bookman. “Ace Masterson bombed the city streets with them.”
“Littering!” said the chief, and the superheroes nodded gravely.
The papers said that if the Bookworm was not released within 24 hours, Ace Masterson would bomb the 1st National Bank!
“Why would he do that?” the Chief asked. “It would blow up all the money!”
“Because it’s totally evil,” said Rex Powerman. “Money is valuable!”
“Also it will cause inflation,” explained Bookman. “That will make all the money that Ace Masterson has worth more!”
“What are we going to do?” worried the chief.
“Don’t worry,” said Rex Powerman. “I have a Plan. Whisper whisper psst whisper.”
“What did you say?” puzzled the chief.
“He doesn’t really have a plan,” sighed Bookman. “He’s just making hissing noises.”
“Fine,” scowled Rex Powerman. “I suppose you have a real one.”
“Yes I do,” said Bookman. “Whisper, psst, whisper whisper,” he continued, except his whispers were actual real words. The others listened carefully, except for the chief’s secretary, who admired him. She brought him a cup of coffee.
“No thank you,” said Bookman. “I am not old enough to drink that.”
For srs, have you ever thought of digging a fish pond and fish farming? Or making a big swimming pool full of catfish to eat? Are there good fishing places nearby not on your land?
Having a pond too would be cool as then you could grow lotuses and other aquatic plants to eat.
Also have you considered mushroom farming, not just psychoactive ones but higher end edible ones like chicken of the woods, etc?
I did one farmy thing and got my frozen cherries and elderberries and finally put them in jars to make schnapps out of them and need to wait another month for fruity alcohol goodness.
– CelICA
Good comment, although I do not have the like button available on desktop to reward it, so I will make my whole post around it today.
Fish farming – no, I am not at all aquatic in nature so I did not think of it. Tentatively it does not sound terrible and I could float it hahah with Karena
Fishing places – there are good fishing places nearby and Karena and her dad sometimes go. He has a boat. But I’m a Frank/Visigoth, not a Viking.
Fish ponding – Okay, so I was planning to make a raised garden bed. I started digging out a 12x24x2′ patch of my front lawn and then was going to pile in wood and then compost and soil. I think Karena’s uncle dumped gravel there because I encountered a shitload of rocks, which the kids were useless at removing even when I pretended it was a fun game. And then my pickaxe broke. Honestly this just the excuse I tell Karena and my next-door neighbor of why for the last 3 months there has been a large, vaguely triangular ditch filled with water in the front yard, but calling it a fish pond works too. Really I am more interested in chainsawing, and as the saying goes: “Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Mastery, lumberjack, raised garden – you can only choose two.” BTW I bought a new chainsaw with my Christmas money, a Greenworks Pro 18″ and I have a (discounted) subscription to Datacamp, but you can put a fish in there if you want.
Mushroom farming – Yes, I did actually consider this, when I googled “Best Cash Crops,” but again, honestly, I am intensely fascinated by making pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood, and Karena has decided we shall get Pigs next.
Cherry Schnapps – That’s good, man. I approve.
My laptop hard drive failed on the same day I started classes. I think I can buy a replacement for $90.
Here are some pictures of Dog. I love all the dogs and Q is cuter and Bob is (aggressively) more affectionate, but I just like her a lot, okay?
The neighbors have a mastodon (actually it’s a moose, no I’m just kidding it’s two horses but one is not in the picture). Anyway, I started cutting down trees along the border and the horses were able to get through a hole in the woodline & over the foot-high barbed wire fence remnant, and gallop around in my field and take massive horse dumps which the dogs loved, but I did not. So I started building a “fence” out of tree trunks and branches in this area as you can see (the end result is slightly more formidable and professional looking but not much). A major – and secret – component of the fence is actually all the smaller branches and treetops that I throw onto the neighbors side, creating a thicket of dead brush that the horses won’t cross (and if they do, I can tell by the horse-sized hole in it and subsequently reinforce)
Here is another portion of the “fence”. A giant tree fell down during a storm, but luckily it fell parallel to the existing fence, so I don’t have as much work to do as I otherwise would.
Everyone is very interested in Eric, and by everyone I mean almost every other living creature who has ever met him hates him, and by interested I mean Celica wants to read about squatting, but listen, we do not all have interesting volleyball sex camp, Swiss expatriate breeding, ice Olympian lives. Some of us are humble chicken farmers who go to bed at 9:30 PM so be grateful for my content and mash that like and subscribe button.
Every morning, Eric crows and flings himself against the coop hatch until we open it and then hit him with the broom. I had to build a divider in the run out of scrap wood and an old door, because he attacked the brown hens and tore one of their combs off. Quincy cannot collect eggs anymore because Eric frightens her. Karena wants to cook him. Two of the smarter, larger, whiter colored of the black hens like Eric and will follow him around during the day and cuddle with him to stay warm. (The other four are really stupid and cannot figure out how to go around a fence they can see through.)
The dogs like to taunt Eric through the fence. Well, mostly Dog. Q and Bob are upset by his crowing and don’t like getting their noses pecked so leave him alone. Dog’s favorite toy is a pink rubber dumbbell (for some reason this makes me think of Huikat) and she likes to rush out and drop the dumbbell in front Eric, who obviously can’t do anything about it through the fence.
This morning Eric didn’t attack me until I tried to take a picture of him for the blog.
You looking at me motherfucker? I told you NO PICTURESOh fuck, oh shit.Magnificently escorting his flock into the coop while Dog disapproves.Looking at his cock. Sorry couldn’t resist
The brown hens sleep on the windowsill. If one of them decides to sleep on the roosting bar, I move them to the windowsill before I let Eric inside.
Quincy made a vast Minecraft city. For reference, the cross in the middle is a street, and the little speck in the intersection is the size of a person. So that creeper is like Statue of Liberty scale.
Lately she’s been building the school. This is one of the classrooms.
This is the chemistry textbook.
AI art of EricBurn Lawson, high school history teacher/wrestling coachBeth Lawson, physical education teacher/JV soccer coach
I went back through the blog today and spent 30 minutes trying to find my face dox to remove it. Dog and I looked pretty good IMO but we are going to take the blog pubic again and publish a bunch of my writing so I don’t want to be attacked by SJWs or Ukranians or my mom.
I realized how bad I have been doing at publishing my blog, responding to comments, and reading other peoples blogs and commenting on them so I can assure you that this will change in 2023 unless it does not.
One example of not keeping people informed is that I mentioned “Eric the Rooster” and I have a lot of funny stories about him that I will tell later, but notably the picture I posted of him was juvenile & not very wonderful. He is now approximately 10 pounds (which is very large for a chicken FYI and also looks much larger bc they are all feathers) and a giant pain in the ass.
This isn’t a real good pic either to sense how magnificent Eric is, but I will strive to do better. Every morning I let him out and he attacks me and I hit him with a broom. (Karena lets him out 3x a week and he also attacks her and she also hits him with the broom). Then one of his girlfriends comes out and he forgets about me and does a funny stomping little dance around her but doesn’t seem to know what to do afterwards. Sometimes he gets mad and pecks them. (He is technically not even a rooster being ~9 months old he is only a “cockerel” and is still growing + has not developed spurs – looking forward to him becoming even more aggressive and dangerous Karena is thrilled)
Anyway today he may have actually successfully consummated, as he mounted one of the hens for approximately 1.2 seconds, and when he got off I saw her – well, I don’t want to say “Chicken pussy” on a family website, so we will call it an “egg hole”.
Welcome to 2023. Many of you may have noticed that I’ve mostly been posting AI-generated art images lately. What is up with Burn Lawson, you are asking. Well…it’s a bit difficult for me to talk about the project in this post since it was meant to be something secret at first, but here goes. It turns out many of you were wondering who had created all those amazing 3D prints and paintings we showed off during our Kickstarter campaign. So let’s just say, that while working on the game, we ran into an opportunity where I got to create some awesome new pieces as well. They won’t be included in the final game or anything like that (except maybe through mods), but they might show up in other projects down the road! And hey, if you’re interested in getting your hands on these things yourself, there will probably be a way to do so later too. As for now, I’ll just give you the rundown on what the whole thing is about:
The basic idea was simple; to combine two of my passions together: painting and technology. Specifically, 3D printing, which has become increasingly accessible to everyone over the years thanks to companies such as Makerbot and Shapeways opening their services to hobbyists around the world. My friend Jason Brashill (who runs his own shop called Vaper’s Lounge) told me he’d recently gotten one, so when we finally decided on our Kickstarter reward tiers, I wanted to make sure we made something special for him – something really cool. With the help from both myself and the guys at Spilt Milk Studio, we designed a 3D printed prototype that could sit in any room of his house without drawing much attention to itself. The overall design had several purposes. One was to be able to showcase how awesome our engine looked inside the real environment it would eventually take place in. Another goal was to provide an interesting way for us to demonstrate the process of designing and modeling within a virtual setting using Unreal Engine 4. A third purpose was to be something fun for Jason to play with in general, whether that meant hanging it on the wall or perhaps even sticking it into one of his many blenders.
As mentioned above, this project began as something kept under wraps. My ex-wife, Karena, found out about it through some very curious messages she was sent by me while we were still married. In order to keep her off the trail, I went ahead and did all of the art for the print before giving it to her (and no, I’m not telling what those mysterious messages said). Since then, however, we’ve since split up, so my secrets are safe once again…for now, anyway! For those who aren’t aware of what happened between us, let’s just say we ran into some issues during development which made it so I couldn’t work on the game full time anymore. That didn’t mean I completely stopped working on it though; far from it. The whole reason why Burn Lawson was originally going to be a mobile game is because I actually ended up getting hired by Epic Games (which owns Unreal Engine) to port a number of their games over to consoles and other platforms after that. After helping them with a few ports and also a new tech demo for their engine called “The Third Floor”, they eventually offered me a job where I’d help maintain their editor, tools and documentation.
Kind of hard to make my Mary Sue OC without getting too Mary Sue-ish or too villainous.
Once I added his iconic trademarks of “mask”, “jetpack”, and “punching”, I was able to better capture his energy:
Though it’s important not to go overboard with the jetpack.
Adding chickens worked well. Though in the canon, he is married to the Henpecker and he hates having to clean up after them when he needs to be walking his dogs/saving the world.
Very hard to get multiple people. Not that I would use an AI art generator for unsavory purposes, but, for example, if you were trying to make an image of a white man having relations with a black woman, you would be equally likely to get:
black man having sex with white woman
black man dressed in women’s clothing having sex with a black woman
two identical-looking black women, except one has a penis
a woman with two heads, one black and one white
the exact image you’re looking for, but the man has a purple dildo for a left foot
Anyway, Jakington is supposed to be idk a 12 year old chav and Booby is like a 9 year old girl. Poopington is supposed to be a small humanoid bear, not a furry, a teddy bear, or a small dog.
Burn Lawson 