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[M]

I probably graduated from high school the same year Alex’s grandfather did. Believe or not, I used wear Hawaiian shirts. They were expensive, and I didn’t own very many of them.

I should try playing chess with myself. I’m very poor at chess. If I played myself, though, I might stand a chance of winning.

[Edward]

I've been itching to teach someone, since teaching is probably the best way for me to learn more. And to have a new opponent, since I win four out of five time against my papa and my best friend has refused to play since I beat him three times in a row.

[Kymela]

Sorry, but I can't focus enough to actually learn how to play, although I am more willing now that I beat that one kid and Jacob in your advanced class. Shannon wasn't much help...XD

[Edward]

It turned into a bloodbath. Only seven pieces were left on the board at the time of checkmate.

[M]

Alex (Al) wrote: “Bloodbaths are nice. Take it from an old witch.”

That should be the group’s identifying quotation!

[Edward]

There's nothing like steak cooked in bacon grease. Mmmm...

Try dramatically standing up and quoting Odd Thomas from the beginning for the whole room to hear. It always works for me.

[Stephanie]

M wrote: "Alex (Al) wrote: “Bloodbaths are nice. Take it from an old witch.”

That should be the group’s identifying quotation!"

That just might scare people off.

[M]

Have you ever tried grilled shrimp that’s wrapped in bacon? You dip it in melted butter. With a Cuervo Gold margarita, it’s food fit for the gods!

[Edward]

I passed out for a moment, imagining how that would taste. My stomach's compacity for shrimp is limited, but I'm thinking that I must try that someday.

Steak cooked in bacon grease is a great poor-man's delecacy though; bacon grease can replace butter in everything that's not baking (and even then, sometimes) and it keeps in the fridge for just about ever. It can keep outside the fridge for days or even weeks.

So, if you're stuck in a post-apocolyptic tale, be sure to save the bacon grease to add to you next meal. More calories, more flavor.

[Stephanie]

I've never been able to get past how shrimp looks. But bacon is definitely yummy!

[Edward]

I just fried a couple of eggs in the juicy remains of the bacon grease and steak. This is so good and so filling.

[Edward]

Proof that video games are valuable:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19431_...

[Edward]

Okay it's a comedy article, but still.

[M]

I love fried eggs, and eggs fried in bacon grease are the best! Throw in a few chunks of grilled steak . . . that’s making me hungry just thinking about it.

Stephanie, if you haven’t tried grilled shrimp, you’re in for a treat! That’s got to be one of the most delicious things on the planet.

[M]

Have you been in the doctor’s office all this time?

[Stephanie]

Hmmm. I don't know. I'm picky when it comes to sea food.

[Hanzleberry]

PF Changs was soo good. Mmmm. :) The doctor's... not so much. I guess I will have to live through the MRI. :/

[Edward]

Good luck with the MRI Hanzle... I can't bring myself to type that.

I had an interesting morning. In fact, when I woke up the first two times I went back to sleep because I assumed it was still a dream. Apparently, my aunt's babysitter failed to pick up her son and daughter, so the first thing I experience this morning is a five month old screaming his head off for ... something, a twenty month old girl throwing a couple hundred toys everywhere, the dog nowhere to be seen, and my thirteen month old brother standing in the middle of it all, looking utterly bemused.

Oh, and the original Transformers cartoon was on the television for some reason.

[M]

And I thought my life was complicated.

[Edward]

I think it's wonderful how something prearranged can fall through and yet we can pull a solution together at the last moment. Of course, I'm saying that now, when all those under-two-year-olds are out of the house ... somewhere.

I should go clean up those toys.

The part I can't figure out is the Transformers. Not that it was on (I think Papa, a real geek, put it on) but that it exists. That was some awful storytelling, even for a children's cartoon.

[Edward]

I made it all the way to my parents' bedroom to dump some of their clothes and found that Raegen had drug a baseball bat and tennis ball down there. I then promptly began to play with them in the house.

The joys of no witnesses.

[M]

It must be nice to have a talent for interacting children! A feeling for children is something I seem to have been born entirely without.

[Edward]

One of my favorite lines from the endless ream of painful chick flicks that my mum watches:

"I hate kids!"

"What was all that you said about your children being the best thing that's ever happened to you?"

"Those are my own kids; I hate other people's kids."


I'm usually uncomfortable around kids unless I'm related to them.

[Edward]

This is an adult comedy website, but he makes some interesting points about writing science fiction (and fantasy, for that matter):

http://www.cracked.com/article_19325_...

[Stephanie]

Sounds kind of like a fun morning. Minus the screaming of course.

[Edward]

Yeah, but it wouldn't have made any sense without the screaming. Real life has continuity.

[Stephanie]

Haha. I used to take care of four kids five days a week in the afternoon. It was so much fun.

[Kymela]

That was a lot of fun...XD

[Edward]

So, I've been doing something odd for the past half hour.

[Stephanie]

Okay. And do we want to know what this something is?

[Edward]

Not sure. Who likes both chess and online games?

[Stephanie]

I don't mind either.

[Edward]

Well I just constructed a concept model using cardboard, paper, tape, sissors, and marker for a video game. It's a chess MMO: You start of with your full compliment of pieces, you move from board to board, each of which is randomly generated in some unique fashion, and you battle whomever you come across.

Boards can be anywhere from 49 squares to 256 squares total. They can be flat and square, like a normal chess board, or they can be three dimensional, or made of narrow corridors. All pieces can move down from a higher level to a lower one, but to go up they have to use ramps - except the knight, which can jump up one or two levels.

A third player can walk in in the middle of the battle (depending on the compacity of the board, which may be limited to two armies) and simply slip in the turn order. A checkmate removes your pieces from the board and the battle only ends when one player is left standing.

After winning you continue wandering until you find the next fight, but only with whatever pieces you have left. (You can save and quit inbetween battles, but not during sincey you're playing with actual people.)

You keep on doing this until you are finally in checkmate or only have your king remaining (which counts as a checkmate). You are then shown your campaign stats, which shows how well you did with that army, and updates your career stats, which shows how well you've done overall. You can then start over with a new army and a new campagin.

That's the gist of it. There are details to work out.

[Stephanie]

Sounds interesting, complicated, but potentially fun!

[Edward]

Hopefully Jacob thinks so, because I'm lousy at programming. It would likely be another quirky indie game.

Hm ... we're probably going to need testers in a confined version of the game. Can I put you on the list? (Don't expect for me to get back to you any time soon, but just in case this actually goes somewhere ...)

[Guy]

Edward. Once, a long long time ago, I began to programme a similarily 3d-ish game for checkers. So, as a chess hack-player and past quasi-programmer, count me in. (And when I say long ago, almost 35. Monitors were still monochrome, and when I first started, it was with punch cards.)

[M]

Guy, do you remember the IBM Displaywriters? I typed up my first collection of short stories on one. They had no hard drive and used eight-inch floppy disks that were in black sleeves. I thought that was a great system! All it did was word processing, and the engineers who had designed the program had used common sense--one of the many ways it was different from the Microsoft Word I now use.

[Edward]

Cool. We have much better technology, especially for a large-scale game like I'm envisioning.

I'm surprised that the core of the game doesn't take more than eight pages, plus an extra page for idle additions.

It'll be a long while before it's finished, but I think we can actually do this one (unlike the half-dozen other games we've discussed together).

[Stephanie]

Edward wrote: "Hopefully Jacob thinks so, because I'm lousy at programming. It would likely be another quirky indie game.

Hm ... we're probably going to need testers in a confined version of the game. Can I pu..."

I actually don't play online games and I'm rotten at chess so.... you're gonna want someone else, like Guy or M. Who's Jacob?

[Edward]

A friend of mine who's obsessed with programming. I think if I give him something to do he'll calm down a tad. He'll be busy programming, I'll be busy writing, and we'll be both be happier (probably).

Now, if I can just get a part-time job.

[Stephanie]

Sounds like everyone wins there.

Ah hah! Yes, a part-time job. I actually need to follow up on a few job applications this week...

[Edward]

I have to make sure to follow up on the McDonald's application ... and Target. Eh, all this effort to get an awful job so that I can justify taking time to write.

... Worth it.

[Stephanie]

Lol. I'm hoping for B&N. I really don't want to work at a restaraunt.

[Edward]

Everyone always has a problem with the restaraunt jobs. They seem on par with every other menial jobs to me.

Barnes & Noble, however, does sound comparatively decent. I'll shall try there; I can take a bus and a train there.

[Stephanie]

How long would it take you to get there?

[Edward]

... An hour? Maybe.

[Stephanie]

Wow. That's a long ways.

[Edward]

Not really, I just have to wait for a bus that's sometimes early (often necessitating a superfluous fifteen minute wait at the station), then wait for it to stop for ten minutes just down the street at a transfer station, then wait for it to cross a nearby highway just to get to the train station. The train can take another ten minute, and then the train ride itself is about twenty minutes. I don't think downtown is any further than fifteen miles away, actually. Maybe twenty; the terrain here makes it hard to be certain.

[Stephanie]

So what really makes the trip long is all the stops?

[Edward]

That and the way it winds through the suburbs.