February 28, 2006
For reasons IÂ’m not sure even I can comprehend, I signed up for the interviews at BasilÂ’s Blog. He has decided that my time is rapidly approaching, and he is going to be in need of questions. If you have any, you can send them to Basil at basil dot interviews AT gmail.com Subject: Questions for Contagion of Miasmatic review. Or you could just click the link. The deadline is 04/02/2006, that gives you plenty of time to think of something to ask. Ask me what ever you'd like, I'll be more then happy to lie to you.
Or if you want to see how few questions I get, donÂ’t send anything. Then you can see what kind of loser I really am!
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February 27, 2006
Two of the local politicians running in the primary for governor had booths there trying to make a push. After reading their literature, I donÂ’t know which one is going to be less incompetent. A couple of booths where selling crappy knives and swords. It was hard for me to not openly laugh at those merchants. When I say crappy knives and swords, I mean really cheap blades that probably wonÂ’t hold an edge and would break if ever actually used. Not too long ago I was a sword dealer, I know what these items are made out of and what the dealer prices are. There was also the occasional booth that was selling parts, accessories, cleaning supplies and tools.
I ended up spending less then $20.00 bucks there. $5.00 to get in, $5.00 worth of raffle tickets with one of the prizes being an AR-15 (of course). $4.00 for cleaning brushes and $3.50 for an ammo can. My blogless buddy Jay purchased a little .38 special Derringer. He had been talking about getting one for years. One of the booths had two brand new ones for $120.00. Of course he was kind of hesitant to purchase it. Thankfully Grau and I where there to help convince him that it was the right thing to do.
As Grau stated, “It’s like have the angel and devil on each shoulder, except it’s the devil and a demon. One is telling you to buy it, the other is telling you to buy it AND get an AR-15.” After much hemming and hawing, Jay finally bit the bullet and bought the little gun. Since we are in Illinois he can pick it up sometime later this week. We have a 72 hour waiting period to purchase a handgun and 24 hours for a rifle. That kind of makes the point of gun shows in Illinois pointless. If you do see a gun you want to purchase you have to go pick it up from the dealer. Some of these dealers traveled some distance to come to this show.
The show was so small; we walked through the entire place 5 times in an hour and half. Grau had to take off, and ditched Jay and I. After Jay was finished filling out the paperwork for the derringer we left and decided to get something to eat. Hooters was the destination of choice. Jay doesnÂ’t drink, but I do. Hot wings and Guinness on tap sounded good. Of course once we sat down and I started pulling on those 25oz mugs, life got a lot more fun. Although drinking two on an empty stomach may not have been a good idea. Because IÂ’m a prick, I called up Grau to rub in that we were drinking Guinness at Hooters. He ended up ditching the spawn once his wife came home to join me in depleting the supply of Guinness in Rockford.
Jay had to take off, so Grau and I headed to a little bar that is three blocks from my house. I had never been in there before, and decided it was time. Nice atmosphere, decently priced drafts and it was filled with like minded individuals. IÂ’m probably going to be hitting that bar more often now, especially since I can walk there and back.
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February 26, 2006
I wasn't going to respond to a certain individuals whiney complaining that you all like me more then him. (We all know that's not true, I just don't call you drunks!) But he did accuse me of exiling poor Tammi off the African coast. Just for the record I would never exile anyone anywhere*. TammiÂ’s self imposed trip off the coast of Africa was due to her desperate need to get away from the cold weather here in Northern Illinois.
Now you all know the truth, Not only is Mr. Whiney rude but the only time you can get an honest word out of him is when he's sober. Considering he's only sober between 7 AM and 9 AM there's not a lot of truth to be had there! Now don't get me wrong, I like T1G. He's a good drinking buddy and tells great stories (mostly BS). But seriously, who believes I have the power to exile anyone?
Thus please: more...
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February 21, 2006
The best thing about Age of Empires 3 is that it revolves around the exploration and colonization of the Americas. A lot of the units appear to be ones from the French and Indian war era. In case you donÂ’t remember, that is the time period I re-enact. Of course there is little to no historical accuracy in the game, but itÂ’s still interesting. I love the sound of musket lines firing into enemies and artillery barrages hitting the houses. They did a good job with the sound effects. The musket fire actually sounds like musket fire, albeit at a distance. ItÂ’s nowhere near as loud as actual musket fire.
Monday I loaded up the game and was just going to play with it a little to see what it was like. Ktreva asked to use the computer later so she could make a post and I told her as soon as my skirmish game was over she could. The next thing I know she is saying goodnight. She decided to go to bed early and wasnÂ’t going to wait the 10 minutes for the game to be over (I was pummeling the heck out of the Portuguese, the game was almost finished.) Since it was only a little after 8:00 I decided I could get another quick skirmish game in. When I looked at the clock next it was almost 11:00 PM! Damn, I have to work in the morning!
When I finally fell asleep I spent the night dreaming of raising armies and crushing other Empires. There where dreams of tactics, battle plans, troop movements and ratios. Do I want to go as heavy on the Dragoons or get more musketeers? Is it worth it to have as many falconets as I did? Would six mortars be that much more useful than five? (They are expensive and take up a lot of resources) Oh, that gives me an idea!
YouÂ’ll have to excuse me; I need to go destroy some Spaniards.
.
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February 20, 2006
Machelle, Oddy, Ktreva and I went to a restaurant next to the hotel to eat, drink and talk. Laughing Wolf showed up to join in the fun. Having never met Machelle or Oddy before, it was nice. Oddy made us jealous describing the palatial house on 476,857 acres of land. While Machelle kept trying to convince Ktreva that one should not buy a foreign car, to which Ktreva stubbornly refused to listen. LW kept teasing me about the fine Scotch Collection of his. Meanwhile, I sat back and just listened to everyone else talk. Machelle and Oddy were just too intimidating for me to break out of my shell.
After dinner we headed to LWÂ’s. Tammi, T1G, Bloodspite and Bloodspouse where supposed to arrive around 9:00PM. LW wanted to make sure he was there for them when they arrived. He invited all of us back to his house. He gave us a crudely drawn map with directions on how to get there. Everyone decided to go, and Machelle offered to drive. We all piled into her vehicle, I had the directions and off we went. Okay, at this point let me warn all of you about a couple of things. MachelleÂ’s maiden name had to be Duke. I swear she is the love child of Bo Duke and Danica Patrick.
We were able to follow the crudely drawn map relatively easily enough until we got to the end. There we were, looking around and none of us had an address. CRAP! Well fortunately I had programmed LW’s phone number into my cell phone. I call him up and say, “Yep, we’re lost!” He asks were we are, and I tell him that we are at the intersection of Oak and Harvard. He tells us that he doesn’t know where that is and to go back to the main highway. The highway is about a block behind us. Machelle’s trying to get us turned around when LW says, “I’m going to go stand on my front porch”. I’m looking out the window of the vehicle and I see a front porch light come on and LW walk out. The intersection we were at was right in front of his house! No joking people, I have three witnesses that will testify to this. The man doesn’t know where he lives!
We received a tour of the lair while waiting for the others. LW has a very nice house, and a very impressive collection of alcohol, which for some reason everyone kept running interference between it and I. Now remember, the others were to arrive around 9. They finally decided to show up around 11:30 local time. Part of it was they also forgot about that stupid time zone thing, the other part was that apparently T1G and Bloodspite had to stop every hour to work out the details of a new photoshop project they are working on.
Saturday it was a balmy 5 degrees when we left the hotel, and the high was around 17 degrees. There was a good wind too; IÂ’d say the wind chill was probably around 2 degrees. The average high for Lafayette for this time of year is 19 degrees. It was cold!
We were all supposed to meet at the Tippecanoe battlefield at 11:00 AM. When Ktreva and I arrived, Machelle and Oddy were waiting. Shortly after Wes and his wife showed up. We started to worry that we were at the wrong place, so I called LW. Nope, they are running late. Apparently the boys got into a heated discussion on their next photoshop project and couldnÂ’t proceed until it was done and Tammi was having trouble getting on her winter survival gear. The rest of us got to stand around for 45 minutes in the cold waiting for them.
The Battleground was neat; Ktreva and I even went through the museum. The museum had some interesting items in it. Even though it was about 55 years after the period we portray, a lot of the items they had where ones we use in our re-enacting. Fashion and technology didnÂ’t change as fast back then. Harvey and TNT caught up with us there as well. TNT apologized for running late, they forgot about the time change as well. Harvey also spent extra time grooming his beard this morning. He wanted to make sure it was just perfect!
After that we headed to the Wolf Park. LW gave us a guided tour of all the wolves and the park. It was interesting to learn about them and to see how they interacted. The wolves didnÂ’t seem to mind the cold unlike the majority of the bloggers. The bloggers, especially those of the farer gender, seemed to be rather painfully cold. IÂ’ll give Tammi credit, she didnÂ’t complain. Then again she looked like an over stuffed tick with all the layers she had on.
Some of the wolves where very curious about us and would come right up to the fence. They wanted to see what kind of hairless idiots would come out on that cold of a day just to look at them. Either that or they where wondering what kind of tasty treat we were. It was really neat to see how they interacted with each other and to hear stories about each wolf. Part of me wished I had the boys with so they could see all of the wolves. IÂ’ll have to head back that way with the boys when it is warmer. Trust me, if youÂ’re in the area itÂ’s worth stopping by to see. At night we saw the Howl Night program. Most of the information that was presented sounded familiar. It was the same information that LW told us while we took the tour earlier. Just for the record, this is not a bad thing. It just impressed me a lot more about LWÂ’s knowledge of the wolves and his work at the park.
After Howl Night we went to the Lafayette Brewing Company. I consumed many of their different beers. Quick review. Oatmeal Stout: Decent, IÂ’ve had much better. Scottish Ale/Pipers Pride: One of the better Scottish Ales IÂ’ve had. ProphetÂ’s Rock Pale Ale: Horrible taste that sticks with you for hours. Doppelbock: Excellent beer, too bad they only sell it in the half-pint.
A lot of time was spent getting to know the various bloggers. I would have liked to talk to Bloodspite more, but heÂ’s even shier then I am. Through out the evening he would just sit there and not say a word. Thankfully T1G and Machelle kept the conversations going. At one point Tammi and Bloodspite got into an argument. I donÂ’t know what started it, but it was so heated that no sounds came out of their mouths. It looked like two beavers fighting trying to gnaw on each other.
Now for the part youÂ’ve all been waiting for, my view of the bloggers: (In the order I encountered them)
Ktreva: IÂ’m married to her. Been there, done that.
Machelle: Intelligent woman that likes to dominate a conversation. She still holds a grudge that I bought a Chevy instead of a Ford. She does heart my meat stick.
Oddybobo: What can I say about a woman that canÂ’t keep her hands off of me? Every time I turned around she was touching me. DonÂ’t get me wrong, thatÂ’s not a bad thing! She even brought me some crack strips. However, she did forget to bring a bottle of Scotch for me. My favorite Scotch too!
Laughing Wolf: If this man gives you directions anywhere, get a second opinion. CÂ’mon he didnÂ’t even know the intersection in front of his house! He also has good taste in Scotch.
T1G: HeÂ’s fun to talk to, if you can get a word in edgeways. Saturday night he kept trying to hug me, which really creeped me out. He really needs to learn to hold is alcohol. That and he has some Jebus complex. He has the manners of a 2 year old if you feed him something he doesnÂ’t like.
Tammi: This girl will hug you for any reason. She meets you; she needs a hug. You talk to her; she needs a hug. She successfully put on a coat; she needs a hug. ItÂ’s cold out; she needs a hug.
Bloodspite: This boy is just too damn shy for his own good. I thought I was shy; I have nothing on him. I think he said two sentences all weekend. One of them was, “No thank you, I don’t like beer.” The other was, “That’s it, I’m photoshopping your head onto the body of a geriatric pr0n star.”
Bloodspouse: Very nice and sweet. She needs to keep better control over Bloodspite. She also needs to stop letting him get away with stuff and not expecting him to buy her jewelry. SheÂ’s going to get his butt kicked by other married men.
Wes: IÂ’ve known him for years. Hell he lives two houses away from me. Every time I turned around he kept trying to pick up round objects and play it like a drum. The boy has issues.
Spouse oÂ’ Wes: IÂ’ve known her for years as well, obviously. SheÂ’s way too well behaved for this group.
TNT: Discovered she wants to go camping, unfortunately her husband has a fear of nature. She made a deal with me that sheÂ’d let him go out drinking with us one night if I drag him along camping with her one weekend. Forcible kidnapping, consuming alcohol, hearing Harvey scream like a girlÂ… Yea, itÂ’s a deal.
Harvey: Good guy, will take a lot of abuse, but if you question his blogging authority he gets damn huffy. IÂ’ve never seen a grown man cross his arms and pout before this weekend.
I think thatÂ’s everyone, if I missed someone IÂ’m sorry, you just werenÂ’t memorable! Kidding, I just have a bad memory. If you missed it, you suck! Next time try getting a life and being a bit more sociable. Everyone seemed to have a great time, I just wish it would have lasted longer, oh and maybe that the temps where a little warmer for those that donÂ’t like the cold.
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February 17, 2006
Some of you have signed up already, others of you haven't. I'm sure it's just because you, like me, are procrastinating. Well, get off your but, go over and sign it! It doesn't take long, hell even I can do it!
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February 10, 2006
Yesterday he wanted to watch on his own, so I came in here to do some blogging. In the background I hear Jimmy Neutron on the TV. Okay, this is a fairly decent cartoon for kids, not as good as the stuff I had growing up, but better then a lot of the crap they have on TV today. As I was reading away on a blog, part of the episode catches my ear. Apparently Jimmy has invented some kind of candy that everyone loves and is instantly addicted to. Jimmy made crack candy, people.
Then I hear Jimmy say something along the lines of, “With their over whelming desire for my candy, I can bend peoples wills to fulfill my every need.” People, Jimmy Neutron, boy genius, is a crack dealer! Well, maybe crystal meth, but still he’s a drug-dealing bastard! They showed kids, and some adults, doing his every command so they could get a fix. Instantly, I had a lot of respect for Jimmy. The kid really is a boy genius! He created a candy that is addictive and only side effect is that it tastes good, thus it’s not truly a drug. Then Jimmy, boy dumb arse, grows a conscience and decides to not may anymore because people were getting out of control. If Jimmy truly were a genius he would have started charging money for the crackandy and hired bodyguards to protect him.
Then this morning I made a startling observation. Now, I donÂ’t watch a lot of cartoons, I pretty much hate the damn things. Clone loves them, so they are on all the time. In fact right now he is watching Dora, international drug smuggler. Hey, maybe she works for Jimmy? His favorite cartoon is Spongebob Squarepants. This has to be one of the most idiotic cartoons IÂ’ve seen. Ever since he first started watching Spongebob, one of the voices always sounded familiar and struck a cord of fear in me.
Now everybody and their mother knows that Patrick is voiced by Dauber from Coach. The voice I’m talking about is for Mr. Krabs. This morning, I’m sitting here typing up my eye post when I hear Mr. Krabs speak. Like a thousand bolts of lightening striking me at the same time, I instantly recognized the voice. Krabs says, “There’s only one.” The phrase was close enough, because what I heard was the Kurgan from Highlander say, “There can be only one!” Some of you may know the Kurgan better as Drill Sgt. Zim. Either way, this is the guy we have talking to our kids daily. Suddenly I have more respect for Spongebob Squarepants. I wouldn't want to work for Drill Sgt. Kurgan.
Mr. Krabs is the Kurgan! Great, we have an immortal crab running around selling crabby patties on the bottom of the ocean to all the animals down there. Hey, wait. All the sea creatures love crabby patties, they have to have them and plankton is trying to steal the formulaÂ… Mr. Kurgan is a drug dealer like Jimmy!
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February 07, 2006
As I continued to drive home I saw yet another Tracker, this time pink. I havenÂ’t seen two Trackers on the road on the same day in ages, or at least not that IÂ’ve noticed. It was strange, but I figured they got my attention because I had been thinking of my friends Tracker.
After picking up the boys I continued my journey home and thought nothing of it. That is until I came to a stoplight. Right in front of me was a black Geo Tracker, Then a white one pulled up along side me, and a red one stopped right behind me. All of them where the convertible models 2-door model, not the even more rare 4-door hard top variety. Okay, IÂ’ll admit I was a little weirded out by the whole thing. I mean, here I am being swarmed by Geo Trackers!
Then a thought crossed my mind. Something so off the wall I couldnÂ’t help but laugh out loud, which made Boopie look at me like I was insane. In fact just thinking of it now makes me laugh.
Imagine if you will a group of guys all going out and buying trackers. Painting each of them in a different color or putting different logos on them. Then they add those exhaust systems that you see idiots put on 4 banger cars like Neons, Civics, Accords, etc that make them sound like sewing machines on crystal meth. After customizing their Geo Trackers, these guys hit the road like a pack of bikers.
Imagine them swarming around cars as they go down the road. Pulling into gas stations in a pack, parking in a line at the local bar or even pulling into one of the few remaining drive-in restaurants to get something to eat. ThatÂ’s kind of funny, but now imagine people like say Me, T1G, Graumagus, Eric, Blackfive, Johnny-Oh and Dr. Phat Tony doing that. CÂ’mon, admit it; the mental picture of that made you smile! I'd bet T1G wants the pink Tracker!
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February 04, 2006

Check out this fine collection of SVU (Special Valentines Unit) Valentines Day cards.
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February 02, 2006
The other is Shadoglare of Refractional Darkness. WeÂ’ve decided that we are forcibly adopting him into the Clan since he has the balls openly to state he doesnÂ’t want to be.
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