Wow, I love my fashion sense now. Winter has finally come to Nebraska. Here in Omaha, it's still practically nothing, but my family in the rest of the state had a very rough time of it this weekend. Here it's just a little snow and the biting wind. For those of you who aren't Nebraskans, our wind works like this: 10 MPH is "calm", 20 MPH is "breezy." It's not "windy" until the gusts are hitting nearly 50 MPH. Wind-chill is more dangerous than the temperatures in the winter. But I'm dressed from the neck down in leather tonight, once I put my coat on. Those cows that gave their skins did me a big favor -- wind doesn't go through leather the way it tears through denim and other lesser cloth. Apart from my face and head (stocking cap just can't stop the wind either), the only way I could tell that the wind was blowing was that my pants were colder on that side of my body. This drives home more than ever that I need another pair of these things. They're simply awesome.

Okay, first off, ten Deviant Paradigm points to whoever can correctly identify the character and show that the title is a mangled quote from. Redeemable at any Deviant Paradigm store....Wait, I don't have any of those. Okay, useful only for meager bragging rights then. But still useful.

That's really a reference to the new Harry Potter movie, which I was dragged to on the midnight opening showing. Not being a Harry Potter fan (I've never read any of the books and the only reason I've seen the first two movies is because my father likes them), I was supposed to be compelled by the power of blue. Turns out that I was more compelled by the power of teal.


Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. A note of explanation: I had a bottle of electric blue hair gel that I gave to Sapph on the condition that I had photo rights. Since I'd managed to turn my hair vaguely blue with it, I figured he'd be set, being blond and all. Guess I was wrong. Bugger all, I hate being wrong.

The movie was actually pretty good though. Since I'd never read the book, I didn't know the parts I was missing. And besides, I could care less about Harry. Whoop-de-doo, Harry and Ron are having a fight, Harry and Ron are losers who can't manage to ask girls to the dance, Hermione's got a crush on Krum, the bad guy's coming back(surprise, surprise), evil magic threaten's Harry's life and the world (as usual)...blah blah blah. I remember my days of high school ineptitude and loser-dom far too well to find their hormone influenced antics the slightest bit entertaining or gripping. Honestly, I could have happily lived without that reminder of my past. Actually though, I was quite excited, having mistaken Krum for Crom, and I thought I'd actually get to meet the guy that Conan worships. Because Conan is awesome. Sadly, it was not to be. Disappointment abounds.

But then, there was Moody. Ah, Moody. "Technically, it's a ferret." Best line of the whole movie, right there. He's great! I think more films and books could benefit from a cantakerous, one-legged guy with a mechanical eye that spins all the way around. If they'd drop that loser Potter and make Moody the main character (or at least have him featured prominently), I would be an unstoppable fan. But no. It's not to be. Probably better for the world that way. Just imagine the horror in a world that has the sort of flicks I can conceptualize too easily. "Mad Eye" Moody and a batch of SPANC's, out to save the universe. I'm not sure whether I should laugh uproarously or weep at the terrifying mental images.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Sorry I haven't been on. I've spent the past couple days trying to get my laptop up and going on its new hard drive. It would be going great...Except for the not booting part. I'll get that tracked down soon enough though I'm sure. I don't think I like the new Gentoo guide. They pulled out the stage1 and stage2 instructions (which were the ones I preferred to use), so you do a stage3 and adapt it down. Only the guide seems to be missing a few things...Like syncing your downloads so that it's not looking for files that don't exist anymore.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I managed to spend mine with my family, though I won't get to spend as much of it as I'd like, since school seems intent on intruding in all my free time. Also, though I had a good Thanksgiving, it must not have been as good as Sapph's, judging by the email he sent me. His Thanksgiving appears to involve taking shots. I haven't even managed drinking (I don't drink the same beers as the rest of the family). Also, I've learned that my parents have evidently been lying to me. I'm not 3/4 German and 1/4 Polish. Now I'm told that it's half and half. Odd that the Polish side has the French last name. But I didn't talk to the grandparents to be sure.

Now I'm stuck at home, doing homework. My maternal grandfather is staying with us. This means that we've got his chickens, which aren't so bad -- I never have to deal with them. But we've also got his STUPID BIRD. It's one of these cockateel or cockatoo things, you know, the ones with the yellow faces and the red cheecks. I hate this stupid bird. It would take government scientists working around the clock for thirty years to come up with something more annoying. It seems to despise all humanity. This hatred it expresses with a virtually never ending series of high pitched shrieks. If you're lucky, it just whistles without ceasing. But mostly it shrieks. It's been quiet the past couple minutes, but I think that's just because I hit the cage and shouted at it. It also doesn't help that I've got a mild allergy to feathers, so I'm not inclined to like the thing in the first place. But I guess I am thankful for it. After all, it's taught me that I never, ever, ever want one of these horrible things in my house and I will prevent my children from ever possessing one with all the power I have.

Sick of the "Bush Lied" meme? So am I. Check this post on Dean's World considering the subject. He's a bit nasty about bits of it, not that I can really disagree much. The other ridiculously valuable thing that Dean provides is the link to the Authorization For Use of Force that Congress put together. Complete with the 21 reasons we went to war. Look, we haven't substantiated one of them. And, as Dean points out, we've found at least one more reason since we've been in. In addition, as many bloggers have said, without going to war, we never would have had any certainty regarding Saddam's WMD. You have no idea how long I've wanted that document. When I run into the "Bush Lied" people, there's nothing I like better than having the full set of reasons, developed by both sides of the partisan divide, to wave in front of their faces. Now I've just got to stop myself before I turn into Saint Dogbert, waving the document at them and shouting, "Out! Out! You demons of stupidity!"

Last night was Spycraft. Fast mission this time. We even managed to hit the bars before last call. And Jason finally got to use his Profession: Demolition Driver skill. They were trying to do a pickup at a biotech facility, but it got hit by thieves first. The thieves were just leaving when the team got there. So they chased them out of the building and to their car. Which Jason rammed with the team's van. They shot the thieves' car the rest of the way apart and then just called for their surrender. Faced by overwhelming, well-armed odds, the thieves surrendered, the team got their McGuffin, and that was that. The whole thing only lasted a couple hours, a new speed play record. Not quite as involved as I would have liked, but eh, it gave me the chance to still go drinking. I think I'm developing an unhealty taste for Jaegerbombs.

After the game had a warning for me too. I've got to watch myself. I take too much personal amusement from certain things. I look to be putting myself in danger of becoming something I hate. Before any of you jump to conclusions as to what this is, you might want to consider my opinions and history. For those of you who don't know me personally, it doesn't matter. I think I need a girlfriend rather desperately. Then I won't have to feel badly about things anymore, and I won't have to sit there feeling like a bitstuffed zero in a USB transfer. Though part of my problem is that I'd rather wait until I'm out of these stupid dorms again. At least then I'd be able to demonstrate why I'd have a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps despite my dislike of peppermint. There is a very good reason why that booze is a good addition to any romantically inclined bachelor's pantry. *grin*

Well, as promised, here's a picture of me with my hair highlighted. It actually blends in with my natural hair color really well and is really just a highlight. Much better than some of the highlighting I've seen, but it's not super noticable, be that good or bad.


And in case you can't tell from the above photo, here's one just of my hair. You can see the highlighting a little better.

I know everybody with the slightest technology bent has noticed and talked about Sony's lovely rootkit DRM software. You know, the stuff that appears to have been written by slightly computer literate monkeys. It's been called "ineptware," by Graham Cluley at Sophos, which seems a fair description. I really love the way that the uninstaller lets anyone use a web page with ActiveX to do anything they want with your computer. But I noticed the Yahoo News Story on it and just had to comment on this:

Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's Global Digital Business President, attempted to do just that [ignore the issue or apply a PR spin] by dismissing the online protests. "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" he said in a November 4 interview on National Public Radio's Morning Edition.

This is about the most moronic thing he could have said. He might as well have just declared, "Well, I'm a jackass! Fire me now!" I mean, goddamn, if you'll pardon the language, that's just plain stupid. The average person doesn't really know what a worm, or a virus, or spyware is. They've only got a vague idea. But they're pretty darned concerned about such things. All they have to do is hear that a rootkit is a hacking tool designed to let someone else have full control of your computer without you having the least inkling and Sony BMG will never sell CD's again. It's like they got tired of taking people's money. I understand they want to protect what they see as their investment in music, but jackassery like this is only bound to hurt them. People already see the music industry as evil, corrupt, money-grubbing maggots who go to court with elderly grandparents. Honestly, the RIAA has a worse image than the (so-called) Evil Empire itself, Microsoft. So they think putting ridiculously poorly written hacker-ware on their CD's is going to endear them to the public, especially after the president of the Digital Business department effectively goes on NPR to say that the public is a batch of boobs and ignoramouses?

And what do they consider "authorized" ripping? Excuse me, I don't rip music expressly to share with people. The reason I rip music is that I much prefer to listen to music on my computer, and if I don't have to switch out eleventy billion CDs, I'm much happier. This also allows me to burn copies and mixes to listen to in my car, so my real CDs won't get stolen and I can cram some 170 songs on a CD (my car's CD player does MP3s), instead of the music industry's 12, or 14 if you're lucky. Plus, I, like many, many people, have an MP3 player and I like to listen to the songs I just bought on it. Obviously the industry has to catch up with the times. They're complaining that their sales are decreasing, so rather than adding value to encourage purchases, they do ridiculously stupid things like this to punish those who anger them. This is only going to cost them more sales. Maybe the RIAA will learn this. Or maybe they'll go bankrupt with their foolishness and all those artists who depend on the industry will be turned out on the streets. At least then they could potentially reform into something that consumers won't be driven away from in droves. I guess time will tell. Now pardon me, I've got to rip some of my music CDs. Consider it protest.

Bloody hell! Okay, here's the story, my laptop's been prone to overheating recently, so I took it apart and blew the parts out. Now that it's back together, my hard drive is gone. I'm pulling a drive controller error. Effectively, I've lost all my data and my laptop is boned. Damnation!

Well, I managed to survive through this ordeal. On to the next I guess. Thanks to my friends who posted notes of concern...Okay, more like snide comments, but that's the best I'm going to get. The lab was infuriating, as expected, the paper wasn't my best ever, but it was passable, and I think I did okay on the test. I wish I'd done better, but isn't that how it always works? Now I'm going to go eat lunch, get drunk, and sleep the whole rest of the afternoon.

So very tired. Last night, Sapph ran into a problem on one of his finals (he's got a slightly different school shedule from mine, and his finals are this week). He had put some 13 hours of work into it at school and was going to finish it up at home, before class the next day. Then it is revealed that the DVD he had to burn his files on was DVD-R, the only supported discs for the computers there, and he could only read DVD+R. This would be roughly 2:30 in the morning. So I had him come here, where my DVD+-RW would be able to handle the disc and I could send the files to him over the network. He gets here around 3:00 AM. That would be fine, except then he had trouble reading the file (I could read it, so we figured he was missing some codec or something). So we massaged it for another hour-and-a-half. Finally, at 4:30, we got everything going, and I finally got to go to sleep. But I don't get to nap today, no. First there are classes. Then I have a paper to write, a lab to create for my students (I'm the teacher's assistant in a lab this semester), and a test to study for. Looks like it's going to another late night. I think I'll just set myself on fire now.

At long last I managed to get my hair highlighted, right in the midst of the first snowstorm of the year. Pictures to come.

If you'll cast your attention far far down and to the left, at the bottom of my left bar you'll see my latestest doohickey. It's a randomly generated link to a webcomic that I read. I'm still stocking the database that this relies on, so the list here is a bit shorter than my actual reading list, but it's coming along. And no, I can't predict which link you'll see, so check it each time you visit. You might find a new webcomic that you'll love, or you might see a quick link to an old favorite.

-- EDIT 2:15 PM Nov 15, 2005 --
Also, I would like to request that the comic artists that appear there don't shoot me if I am not using a proper link image. If I can't find one, I tend to gank something that I think is representative just so that you don't have a text-only link. I'm also resizing them if necessary to fit in my side bar. If any of this overly offends any of you out there, just email me (use the link of the left or send to brian at deviantparadigm dot com) and I'll pull you from my database. I can't imagine that it would, but just to cover my bases... Also with the base covering: unless I say so specifically, none of those link images are mine, they belong to the cool people who made the image and, in most/all cases, the comic.

I just got my leather pants back from the dry cleaners. They're so nice. I feel whole again. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. They not only cleaned them, they redyed the black, applied a stain protector, and replaced my zipper. Worth every penny. Now the only thing that's going to get me out of these pants tonight is a pretty girl getting out of hers. *grin* I love my leather.

I feel so silly now... I've been racking the ol' brain since I got this blog as to how to include inlined files from off site (I want to include some content which uses my databases on my website, which means PHP, which is unsupported by Blogger). And the way to do it just wouldn't come to me until just now. IFrames. Of course, it all seems so simple now. Geez.

This last week's Spycraft goes to show you how our group tends to do things. This week's episode, Colosseum, put them up against another Directorate team, 27, in an elaborate wargame, sort of like an Assault match in Unreal Tournament. My team decided to be on the attack. And they just went frontal. Smashed through the fence in a truck, dumped so much smoke that nobody could see anything and busted through the door. Where they ran into a sniper, Andre, and Maggie. Maggie would really have been more dangerous in hand to hand combat, but she was plenty scary with her Thompson submachine gun. At this point, my players are fighting with each other over tactical errors (that was a rather nasty shouting match for a bit), or despairing that there is no possible way for them to win. Then Alan remembered that he bought a jetpack and the core that they were supposed to plant a fake bomb on was in an open air shaft. Alan had bought this jetpack for the heck of it. He picked it simply because he didn't know what else to spend GP on, for no other useful reason. So they take Maggie down, Alan shoots down the hallway on a jet of flame, Steve positions himself nearby (and invisible, stupid Chameleon suit), and they pretty much just soak a lot of bullets from the sniper, while a 27's pointman/wheelman, Derry, comes from behind with a shotgun. Alan hovers down the shaft and starts firing at the armored glass roof of the chamber their target is in. Nigel, 27's fixer, and Iain, 27's two-fisted soldier (who will go Triggerman once he has the requisite character levels -- he's already got the skills and feats), get ready to open up on Alan. Which is when Steve pops Nigel with a Flashbang quarrel from his crossbow. Iain gets a pair of shots off, then Steve throws a flashbang grenade at his feet. Alan plants the fake bomb, and just flies out. They take out 27's snoop, Angus, who decided he should at least put in an appearance, in one single shot, then leave under the cover of more smoke. It was masterful. Plan B ("shoot things, then blow them up") all the way.

Of course, I realized later that there should have been one more enemy for them to face...But they did pretty well regardless. I was quite surprised. I thought that taking a rope down the shaft would be a good idea. I didn't even consider jetpacks. And then they all had gas masks, making a lot of the boobytraps totally ineffective. But 27 also did well, so I'm looking forward to bringing them in again later. What was even more impressive is that my players managed all this when my 20-sider was the hottest I've ever seen it in my life. It rolled 20's for two of the three players that borrowed it for a couple rolls, and rolled me about six 20's, and no 1's for me. It was insane. If it would do that when I was playing, it would be legendary.

I'm considering running a Colosseum: Redux in a couple weeks just to see how they'd work up against Team 13. Personally, I'd prefer to run Hoax with 27 complementing my team, but that's because I like 27 better than 13. Hoax, BTW, is a planned episode that will have my players either putting on a hoax or 'covering it up', their choice. It's really a feint move by the Conspiracy. Generating conspiracy theories to make the ones that are true seem more fanciful. Or something like that.

I just heard on the radio. Someone remade Baby Got Back by Sir Mixalot. Why would you do that? I mean, I'm about as fond of the song as anyone could be, since it was the first song played at my high school homecoming every single year. But why in Heaven's name would you want to remake the song? It wasn't that good to begin with. It's like reshooting Star Wars: The Phantom Menace without rewriting the script.

Gah! I just spent the a third of my commute from work driving 20 freaking miles an hour! On the Interstate! Half of the rest was between 10 and 30 MPH below the speed limit. Only 1/6 of the trip did I actually get to drive the speed limit. And it was all for NO DISCERNABLE REASON. I mean, I'd understand if there'd been an accident, or the police had pulled someone over, or something, but no, none of that. We were just driving 20 MPH because someone forgot how to drive. Might I add that this was all in the passing (i.e. fast) lane. ARGH.

Then I get back to discover that my stuff has been pushed all around my room and my chair has been cleared off for someone to sit in. And then there's the sign, "Thanks for not locking your door -- Steve and Patrick." Those guys have been joking about using my room for...private purposes for the past week. Of course, I was agitated enough that Steve decided not to continue with the joke and told me that they didn't actually do anything, which I'd pretty much figured out for myself. Well, I guess I'll know for sure when I check my camera next.

I'll put up a report on last night's Spycraft (it was an amazing stroke by my players) after I've calmed down. Until then, I'll be in the bar, drinking. I'd drink to forget, only I can't do that. Alcohol doesn't make my brain stop working. So I'll just drink myself into an apathetic stupor to the point where I stop caring if Sapph and Patrick feel me up, that way at least somebody gets to have some fun tonight.

Sometimes I feel like I'm turning into a Shakespearean actors guild all by myself. I mean, I've had "mad king" covered for some time now. But this past week I've played confidant, a muse (don't ask me, I don't have the slightest idea what makes a body a muse), the actors of the play within the play (you know, the guys who are really terrible at it), and I've got the warring families going on just in my own head. I haven't gotten to do the lovers yet, but considering that bad things almost always happen to lovers in Shakespeare's plays, and they often die, I might be ahead of the game there.

I got all my classes signed up for yesterday. This next semester should be reasonably relaxing, assuming anything of 15 credit hours that includes honors senior thesis for engineering can be considered relaxing in any way shape or form. But as it stands, I have a whole one class on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then no classes at all on Friday. Of course, I get to spend the entire day on Tuesday and most of Thursday in class, starting at a rather obscene time in the morning, but I think I'll survive. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do for my thesis project. And I ought to figure that out before next semester starts.

Today is Veterans' Day here in the United States. It's a time to remember the brave men and women who have served our country in times of war. We all owe an incredible debt of gratitude to these soldiers. I find it very frustrating how many people don't seem to realize this. Everything we have, everything we are, we owe to our veterans. But then again, I'm speaking as a student of a discipline that wouldn't exist were it not for the U.S. military. And you're reading this blog on something that wouldn't exist without the U.S. military. And many of you reading this might not be free to read it were it not for the U.S. military.

Every freedom that I enjoy every day was purchased for me at the cost of American blood, whether shed at home or abroad. I have an immense amount of respect for our soldiers, those who have the strength of character to serve our country, those who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for us at home, even if we mock them and their cause. For those of you who "support the troops but not the war," consider the hypocrisy of that statement. If I support environmentalists but then go and burn down the rainforest (i.e., I don't support their cause), what is my support worth? What reflection would this have on me?

I cannot imagine everything that I owe to the soldiers of the United States of America. Thank you for everything. All of you out there reading this, if you are military THANK YOU, more than I can express, if you are not, find a military man or woman and thank them for their sacrifice. Honor our fallen. Send our soldiers a message of support. Never forget, always look forward. It is the Marines who say "No better friend, no worse enemy," but this is true of all our courageous soldiers. And they have proven it time and time again; and will continue to prove it until they cease to draw breath.

So I'm planning to make the next version of my chinese food. And I'm going to make it today for all my friends before I run Spycraft. And I just realized that, with the number of people who will be there, I will probably need to make it twice in order to feed everyone. This is going to be complicated and messy, since I'll have to partition everything. I already cooked as much as the pans could handle the last time. This is going to be interesting...

I have to fear for myself now. Earlier today I had to give my first Persuasive speech. It could have gone better, but it was a Dyad (two person thing), and I don't think my partner is as comfortable with my rather...aggressive speech and writing style. And I even used the "slippery slope" argument. I feel so dirty, intellectually speaking. At least I managed to prevent myself from looking up Supreme Court decisions and tying a local smoking ban to the entire civil rights movement. I thought about it though. Oh well. Such is life, and now I can get get ready for my own Persuasive speech. I want to do something totally ethical but will make people hate me. So I think I'll do "slashing funding for AIDS research to focus on heart disease and cancer." *grin*

Also, I've started listening to "Master and Servant" by Depeche Mode. And I can't help but imagine a music video (as I usually do) at the club in the comic... Only this time with Sapph singing the vocals. It appeals to my rather disturbing sense of humor. Like I said, I might be well on the road to being a bad person.

Wow, a lot of good Internet things for me today. First, I fix a problem with IE's default tab behavior. That is, I finally figured out, with the help of the MSDN, how to turn it off. The software I'm writing for work is in Flash, and uses the tab key for its own dark purposes. Sadly, IE, Alpha browser that it is, overrode my every keypress, and no matter what I tried, I could not prevail. Until today. So now the tab key works properly and there is much rejoicing in the land of software development.

Also, it looks like Firefox's new releases fixed their gross problems with table cell sizes and it was just my janky release that was causing my blog to look like it had been hit repeatedly with the retard hammer. There are still some text flow issues around the images, but I'm going to try to see what I can do to fix those.

Well, it took weeks, but I finally got my ThouShaltNot CD! They're awesome. Great stuff. If you like synth pop, check them out.

I didn't get Spycraft going as I would have liked the other night. It just took too long to stat out another agent team to face my players. It should prove to be interesting. They're up against Directorate Team 27, or what I call "the UK team." 27 seems to be highly competent, though they're not the "freak squad" that my players have developed. I would guess that my players (team 23) are lucky they didn't get to face team 13 (I rolled randomly to see who'd they face). Team 13 features a mystic, a fringe-walker, a chemical monster (code-named Garou, so you can guess what sort of 'monster' he's like), and probably an avatar, a psion, and who knows what else. Team 13 makes my players look like normal human beings. *grin* I can't wait until they get to run into each other.

Also, you'll note that, as I promised, my photo is up for my profile. Sapph thinks I should have used this one, but I thought I'd rather look like a normal human being.


In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to let Sapph take the pictures. Now I've got a batch of pictures and even a short video featuring my "below the belt" region. You'd think the presence of his boyfriend while he's taking these pictures might induce some hesitation, wouldn't you? Only there seems to be some agreement between them that Sapph is allowed to flirt with me and his boyfriend "like[s] to share." *sigh* And then I lack the intestinal fortitude to ask girls out. Why I only seem to have the amazing powers of "gaybait" is beyond me. It's like God's up there punishing me. Or pointing and laughing.

I got my glasses last night. I didn't post anything because I pretty much got them and then went out drinking with Jason and Sapph. But I've got them now. My eyes are still getting used to them. They fit pretty good at least, so I don't think I will be worrying about getting them fitted for a while. But this means that a photo will be coming of me for my profile. The glasses were what I was waiting on.

I'm back to running Spycraft tonight. I've got a lot of work to do to stat up this particular mod, so I'm going to get started on it, but I thought I'd give the heads up on my current situation.

Since Halloween got so busy, I didn't get to post this up then. So here it is now. This one is actually more of a song, but since I don't want to record me singing it for you, you'll just have to imagine the melody. Sorry it's short. I haven't gotten much chance to pour creative juices into this sort of thing.

Livin' for midnight,
Feelin' the full moon tugging at your soul.
Almost human but not quite,
It just takes a moment and the beast's in control.

So stay out of the moonlight,
Though the rest of the night's as dark as coal.
You never know you just might,
Become a killer when the moon is full.

-- BR, October 2004

See. I told you "affinity for werewolves" was a very weak description of it.

Well, my mom got my new glasses. The problem is that the optometrist isn't going to be open on a weekend for quite a while. Like next month quite a while. So how it's going to work is that Mom is going to mail me the things in the morning. So I should get them by the end of the week. If I'm lucky (assuming my luck doesn't hold, since it's generally pretty bad), the glasses will fit and Bob will be my Uncle, as the Brits probably wouldn't say. If, however, I prove to be as lucky in eyesight as I am in love, which all evidence points to, I will have to find some eyeglasses place around here that's willing to fit them to me without charging me most of my next paycheck. I guess we'll see.

Okay, I don't actually know how to do this, since he's got no way to contact him on his blog, Enea Volare Mezzo, but it's the thought that counts. And since I know he ought to be reading this now, maybe he'll see this. But if I had the power, I would summon spam upon him until he added my blog to his blogroll. After all, it's his fault I have this thing. The least he could do is link to me. Then again, I didn't have a blog roll until now. So he could have used the "turnabout is fair play" excuse. But no longer!

So step up to the plate, Sapphy. I know you're busy, but you can spare the five minutes it takes to link me.

Well, I'm somewhat sad today. I sent my leather pants out to be laundered, and I won't get them back for a couple weeks. I need to get another pair really bad.

Anyhow, as promised, here's some of the better images from the party the other night:



This is me, up close and personal. I was going to do Gordon Freeman, but I didn't have time, so I brought my vamp fangs back out of storage.



Sapph, doing poi without poi. I've told him that we need to get him a suit and have him do a Grammiton Cleric next year.



Luke, as a character from CSI. The jacket says "LVPD CSI" on the back. He's trying for Grissom. Not bad if it weren't for his red hair, eh?



Jason, the pirate. Jason turned 21 at midnight that night. Yay for drunken debauchery! We were required then to hit up the bars, which was cool. We all ended up a bit more inebriated than originally intended. But what happened at the Halloween party stays at the Halloween party. *grin* There aren't any incriminating photos anyway.


I've actually got some really awesome pictures concerning contact juggling with fire (which is sweet to watch), but I'm waiting on permission to post those online. It's really just a formality, I don't think my friends would mind, but I feel I should ask anyway.


Well, I've got to get to work on homework. I promised my lab students that they'd get their labs graded and back to them tomorrow, so I guess I should follow through on that.