I always thought it was Renfield who ate Beatles..

Shenanigans are planned, consequences ensue.

Tear-gassed myself tonight making pickles. I accidentally spilled the vinegar/garlic/hot pepper brine on a hot stove burner while cleaning up and inhaled some concentrated acid and capsaicin steam.

Managed to mace myself making fridge pickles. A few drops of the vinegar/salt/sugar&spice mix hit the stove burner after I poured these.

If the OJ in the fridge is still good we will be having orange chicken with fried rice and vegetables. If not, we will be having sadness and regret.

My wife got me an engraving tool for Christmas with the hidden agenda that she would benefit from anything I produced. She wasn’t wrong. We have a set of wooden coasters that stick. annoyingly, to the bottom of any glass put on them because they are too smooth. Here’s my most recent modification.

Kitties are getting along well tonight. #catsofbluesky #voidcats

Good morning from near cat and far cat. #catsofbluesky

Got my receipts for the Istanbul trip in to the financial center for reimbursement with four days to spare, so yay me? If I’d missed the deadline I’d still be reimbursed but it’d count as taxable income. I think. I really need to figure this out if I’m going to be traveling for work more often.

So we can increment the “idiot drivers passing on Geddes” counter again. Total is 3 so far for me, two in the last month. If you aren’t from the area, it’s a twisty, hilly two lane road with a 25mph speed limit and a double yellow no passing line. I won’t go over 30, no matter how close you get.

Slightly modified an ice cream cake from Coldstone Creamery for this evening’s party.

The two movies for the night were Jurassic Shark and Exorcist Shark and while neither was great, they each failed in different ways. Jurassic was low budget and had production issues, but it had a coherent story and a followable plot. Exorcist had the same issues, but without coherence or plot.

Saw the excellent “Send Help” last night! Tonight we’re taking things down a couple of notches and we’re going to watch “Shark Exorcist”

Watched the Muppets and then my wife and I went down the rabbit hole of TV we watched when we were kids. So anyway, Jim Rockford…

I’m trying to do some work but my hands are kind of occupied.

Found a couple interesting bottles to work on with the engraving tool. We’re going to have to drink the cranberry wine in the triangular bottle on the right, but sometimes sacrifices are necessary for art.

Ok. Last cute cat pic for today:

Wee cat is curled up on my chest.

Fun work news: new travel & video project coming up in April! Not international this time, but still exciting.

How it started : How it’s going

WIP: slowly removing parts of the outer layer of this sake bottle with a diamond grinder tool to make it into a light. Found a chain of LED lights that terminates in a cork with a USB rechargeable battery in it.

Huh. Having an enforced break from doing a frosted glass engraving project: gotta recharge the battery on the engraving tool. It’s a work in progress but I’m liking how it looks so far.

So it used to be that your auto insurance company would give you a little reward if you hadn’t made a claim for a certain period of time. This is my grandfather’s “Safe Driver” pin from the 1930’s. I have it on my hat. It could be for 6, 3, or 8 years- the production quality is not the best.

Just watched a mid-80’s action movie called “Killpoint” - it was very… deliberately paced. Many of the police in the movie were played by actual cops instead of actors. They also used a phonetic alphabet that I wasn’t familiar with called the APCO alphabet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APCO_ra...

“Oh! Finger food!”

Change a letter, ruin a film: Fish of the Northstar.

Signs we have thought more about the movie than it deserves: Did the person who survived the movie eat or drink anything on the haunted ship? No!? Woo! Wait, did anyone else who didn’t eat or drink anything die? Yes. Damn.

So how is Long Drink different from Popeye? It’s not strong, to the Finnish.

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. “Or, rather, he had a kind of paternal muscular spasm about the mouth, which is the nearest he ever gets to smiling.”

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

Working on a new urban fantasy RPG campaign and one of my players just triggered an idea about how the characters would contribute towards them being a party. 1/4

I was thinking about that 1980s James Bond movie where everybody's trying to get their hands on a Fabergé egg for some reason And then I realized: It's an Egg McGuffin.

I have some freeze dried sprigs of dill in a tupper and I told my wife that they were perfect for meals around Hanukkah, then I showed her the label on the lid: Her: Dried dill? Me: Dried dill, Dried dill, Dried dill! I made you out of… Her (interrupting): Leave my house.

Baaaagh. Stupid “Per diem reimbursement” BS. I spent a week making cool videos of smart people talking about really nifty old stuff! While I was there I ate breakfast and dinner! I took TWO taxis! Can I please get paid back for doing my job?

It’s a “Good With Tools” Christmas! Installed new faucets in the bathroom and kitchen sinks at a friend’s house.

Power is on! Cat is not impressed.

Good morning from my personal power outage!

We have power and the DTE guys have cookies!

In the moment it was 50/50 between “Wow, she’s beautiful!” and “Wow those cable guides are actually a safety hazard!”

Good morning from my personal power outage!

At the Origins game convention in Ohio a woman got her heel stuck in a cable cover on the dealer room floor. I caught her as she tripped and asked if she was okay. She just kind of gave me a goofy grin. It was Julie Caitlin Brown. Na’toth from Babylon 5.

DTE says the power is fixed.

Just a fun power outage pic.

Getting in to the power outage spirit.

Merry DTE’mas.

Slow cooker Sunday! Very basic and easy. A couple sliced potatoes and half an onion in the bottom. A couple cloves of garlic, salt and black pepper sprinkled in there too, then a big ol’ buy-one-get-one bone-in pork butt wedged in place with potato, carrot and onion. 8 hours on low and then dinner!

Tram arrived at a concourse in the Paris airport and I had someone ask me, “Is this ‘L’?” I managed to not answer that ‘L’ is “other people.”

Camped out at my departure gate. My flight to Detroit doesn’t board for another six-ish hours. Gonna do some in-phone photo editing while I wait. The next group out of this gate is heading to Cancun.

Oh hey! There’s a tiny museum inside the airport!

Pics from the last day in Istanbul!