Band Names

 Everybody has a list of favorite potential band names.  Just in case, ya know, someday, they start a band.

 Here's mine: 

 

The Former Kings of Gondor

Lighting Strikes the Dingo

Hot Wind from the South 

Pickin' Goobers 

Bailey Brothers Building and Loan

Slap-chop the Nazgul 

Fancy Rats 

Origin of Limes 

That Awful Burning Smell

Hot Slaw

Acid Reflux

The Machines Tell Elegant Lies

Aunt Bessie's Oldsmobile 

Wednesday's Chalupa

Kids and their deep learning A.I.s

Half rotted bone fetish

Solid Milk

Memories of Pie

Renegade Strawberries

Humanoid Life Signs

Yesterday's Coffee

Gravity Shift

There is little more disorienting than discovering that long held beliefs aren't true. 

 To Whit: The Banana Fish, a toy our various cats have enjoyed for years, to me always seemed to have brown ears, and a fin on its tummy. My daughter recently pointed out that the "ears" are actually front fins, and the other is a "dorsal" fin running down its back. I've had the banana fish upside down all this time. 

How about this: Boromir and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings movies? The actors are not actually brothers. <sad trombone>

I've always heard I was supposed to "brush and floss" my teeth, but it turns out you're supposed to floss before you brush, so the fluoride can get between your teeth better. "Floss and Brush" people.  

Recently, I driving down the highway with my wife one night when she starts singing the opening lines of Hotel California, "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair". I join in and all is golden until we get to "What a nice surprise, When you're out of ice". Nope, it's "Bring your alibis". I'm a bigger Eagles fan than she is, and I've been botching their most iconic songs for half a century.

 It gets worse. I'm the parrot headyist parrot head in Margaritaville, but I always thought a cheeseburger "with mustard be nice", but Jimmy actually said one "with meunster'd be nice". 

That one almost broke me. 

My life is a lie.

Garbage Day

Tomorrow is Garbage Day.  That's the day when everyone puts their garbage can by the street and the Garbage Man visits every house in his big truck, bringing garbage to all the good boys and girls.

Time Travel

In a half hour, I'll be a year older.

 

Think about that.

 

 

What is it about Nostalgia?

 

Lately I've been drawn to things from my youth.  Board games I didn't have, couldn't afford, or didn't know about. Old Science Fiction, music, movies I've seen a bunch of times, though this last one isn't a recent development by any means.

Is it just that enough time has passed that they're no longer stale; familiar - but newish?

I'm playing Starweb, a Play By Mail (PBM) game that's been around since the mid 1970s.  I remember seeing ads for it over the years, but didn't have the money (maybe $2.00 per turn) and later the time (one turn every two weeks) to play.  I bought a book on the history of PBM recently (nostalgia again) and saw that Starweb was still being offered, so I signed up.  It's been a blast so far to play a slow paced game with time for diplomacy, even with the modern concession of email instead of the USPS.  I've so far resisted the urge to write a program to track the game for me.  I'm totally old school, using a hand drawn map and highlighters to track the worlds of the Starweb as I explore them.  Not even a spreadsheet.

Maybe it's dopamine fatigue. Maybe its just carving out something that's more or less unique in my sphere of association, but I'm thinking there's more to it.  What I think really appeals is the sense of possibility that came with things that were then new and not completely understood.  Now it seems as if we can see the limits of what was once wondrous, or at least we think we can project them.  Now we see the algorithms twisting around to increasingly extract more attention and money while returning as little as possible.  And they keep finding ways to lower the floor.  Before I get sidetracked any further, I'll just refer you to "Enshittification" by Cory Doctorow.

Not that I miss being young. I didn't know squat, thought I did, and missed what I now see as some opportunities.  Of course, some of those opportunities could have had consequences I'm glad to have avoided, but that's gotta be true for most everyone.  If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't change much. Except I wouldn't take everything so freaking seriously.  And I'd work on my empathy.  And keep my mouth shut some of the time.

Now, TV has definitely gotten better.  Firefly, Sherlock, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, all head and shoulders above anything from before 2000.  Movies on the whole are better, but my classics (The Godfather, Singing in the Rain, The Blues Brothers) are classics for a reason.

Perhaps I'm just disillusioned and returning to the things that shaped me.  Maybe I'm just seeing the old with new eyes.  Sixty year old Tom can cringe at the original Star Trek, but I so miss the way it felt to watch it as a kid.  When Star Wars came out, it was just a movie.  Not a franchise, not a lifestyle, and you didn't have to pick a side.  

Maybe things are too connected for me now, and some things are better enjoyed in isolation, rather than seeing social and political implications in *everything*.  Maybe young and ignorant is the way to be.  

I'm halfway there. 

Kittens!

The Management Deems the Blog is Trending Towards Negativity

 

Here are the new kittens, Jake and Elwood.  Elwood is the stripey one and he recognizes no boundaries. Jake is gray with very faint stripes and is pretty chill.  

Sep 19, 2025

July 11, 2025

 

 

Kittens make everything better. Now I've restored balance to the force.  Whatever that means.

Treading Water

 If I could just be young for a few days I could catch up on all this crap I've been treading water in the last few months.  Cut the head off the hydra and it grows two more.  

 Has anyone else noticed how cranky this incarnation of the blog has become.  I blame the world around me.  It's certainly not my fault. 

A new (not-new) gripe!

 Hello Everyone in the World!

Please do me a favor.  Please (please please please) stop using old email threads for new subjects.  Take a moment to click "New Message" when you want to start a new email subject, rather than recycling an old one just so you don't have to specify who you're emailing.

What's worse, bugging Tom by continuing an old email thread entitled "EMERGENCY!!! Help needed ASAP!" when all you want is my pork chop recipe, or wondering why I seem to be ghosting you during your crisis when you appended your urgent plea for help in a thread entitled "Gourmet Pork Chop Recipes for the Common Man"?

Like the Thursday Night Joliet Pepper Steak and that Oatmeal at the Cook County Joint, they're both pretty bad.

So do your part to make my world a better place for me.  Use a new subject line when you have a new subject.  It's the right thing to do.   

 

 So while I was on vacation some entity (and I use the term loosely) created a fake facebook account with my name and photo.  Some friends reported it, and facebook emailed me:

"We reviewed the profile your friend reported and found that it isn't pretending to be you and doesn't go against our Community Standards."

Now, it was my photo with a frame around it.  And there isn't more than one Thomas Cornwell who looks exactly like me, in my car, wearing my glasses and the UNC themed cloth mask my wife made for me.  In short, a drunk, one-eyed, chimpanzee could tell it was a fake account. 

I'm not going to jump through hoops so I can continue to generate content for an organization that's either incompetent or just doesn't give a damn.  

So when I feel the need to share/vent with the internet people of the world, I'll do it from here.  Fewer folks will see it, but that's probably a good thing.

Here's the beach:

Hey Cool!

I remembered I have a blog.

I want The Wave

I try to be a nice guy.  Really I do.  Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you that yes, I am a nice guy.  I hold open doors for people.  I tip well.  I don't litter.  I'm dumb to kind animals.  I even go so far as to let people in ahead of me if traffic is heavy and they're obviously in the wrong lane.

I realize that often people take advantage of my consideration, especially jackwagons that zoom ahead and merge at the last second instead of getting in line like civilized folks.  Still, for every ten or twelve jerks who do that, there is one poor soul who is genuinely lost, or timid, or who just made a mistake and could use a little courtesy.

For these lost lambs I'll toot my horn, flash my lights, or otherwise wave them in ahead of me.  Maybe I've made someone's day a little better.  Maybe I've done unto others as I'd have them do unto me.  I don't know. 

What I do know is this:  I want The Wave. The Wave can take many forms.  A hand out the window.  A smile.  A nod. A glance in the rear view mirror and a hand raised briefly in recognition that someone has done something nice for you.  It's not that hard to do.

Since I started paying attention who Waves and who doesn't, I've been Waved by young and old, men and women, teenagers, older folks, cops, thugs, pizza guys, people driving SUVs, hybrids, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, buses, tractor trailer trucks, hoopties, jacked up El Caminos, Mercedes, a Bently once, pretty much the whole automotive spectrum across this great land of ours.

Except The BMW 300 series.

BMW 500 and up?  No problem.  They rank way above average on the Wave scale.  2002's?  Beautiful people all.  Even Z3 and Z4 roadsters.  But there's something about a BMW 300 series driver that refuses to realize there are other people on the road.  I swear, you have to fail a personality test before they'll sell you one those cars.  A few weeks ago I was cut off by three different BMW 300's in a span of ten minutes on my way to work.  You'd think if someone was going to shell out a few grand more for the leather package and moon roof they'd toss in an extra twenty bucks for a pair of turn signals.  Maybe there's a recall I haven't heard about, but I've never seen a turn signal in action on a BMW 300.

So, if you find yourself unexpectedly in the Left Turn Only lane, and you glance desperately over your shoulder, hoping against hope that someone will bail you out of the mess you find yourself in, take heart.  I'm not the only one who's willing to take a little longer to get where I'm going if it means helping a stranger in need.  As long as you're not driving a 300 Beemer.

Ogreboro, NC

Huge autonomous cyber-tanks have been reported rolling east out of Carrboro.  Chapel Hill has surrendered, and Durham is understandably anxious.

It would be neat if SJG added a suburban terrain type to Ogre.  Though in the context of BCP armor and tac-nukes, most small towns and neighborhoods would be considered clear terrain anyway, but it would make the maps look cooler.  Like if an Ogrethulhu claimed Ipswitch, for instance:

Thanks to the guy on the SJG forums who did the original map of Ipswitch, I just recolored it here.  But there will be an Ogrethulhu tile set for OgreMap2.0, which is very much a work in progress and the source of the top image. 

Nobody Younger than Me Knows Squat

When one reaches a certain "temporal seniority", one comes to realize some fundamental truths. That is to say, nobody younger than me knows squat.

Some of the teachers in my daughter's school were born after I graduated high school. How can I entrust my child's education to people who are barely old enough to cross the street alone?

Kids today have no appreciation of history. To whit: A few days ago I purchased a terabyte external hard drive for just over a hundred bucks. 20-plus years ago I installed a 20 megabyte hard drive that cost just over four hundred bucks. Today's drive is roughly two hundred thousand times the capacity per dollar. It's way faster too.

My first modem was 300 baud. It stunk.  So I took it back to Radio Shack and shelled out an extra hundred bucks for the 1200 baud version. And it was fast. Now I've got 0.43Mb/s upstream and 6.42Mb/s downstream, but it doesn't feel as fast.

I was the youngest kid in my family, which meant I had the honor/duty of being the remote control for the TV.  I was the one who got up and changed the channel. Yes, that clicky dial on the side of the 19" (if you were lucky) TV screen. I also knew how to point the rabbit ears so we could watch Wally Gator on Channel 7 out of Roanoke.  That's why cartoons were only 4 or 5 minutes back then.  So kids wouldn't pass out trying to balance on one foot while holding the antenna out one way and sticking one leg out the other.

And keep your internets off my grass.

Sweet Ink

I now sport a Zombie on my arm.  Not only a Zombie, but a Pirate-Zombie.  With a skull.  And an eyeball in the skull so he can see your face melt into helpless terror before he does all sorts of mean Pirate-Zombie things to you.  He's even got a red bandanna because if he had any sweat glands or hair, it would keep them out of his eye. Those might even be ninja swords nailed to the ship's wheel.

"How cool is that", you ask?

"So cool Jungle Beasts howl my name at the rising moon" I reply.

It doesn't photograph very well, though.  I think the awesomeness interferes will the camera's CCD element.

If it was a traditional sub-dermal tattoo it wouldn't be so shiny.  Instead I got a super-dermal tattoo.  Everybody knows super is better than sub.

Plus it'll come off with a little lava soap before my wife comes back to town.  The importance of this cannot be over stressed.

If I Ran the Fair

When I was a little tyke, one of my favorite books was Dr. Seuss' "If I Ran the Circus". I always liked the great big lemonade tank and the huge stack of cups. Mr. Sneelock seemed like a really cool guy. Kinda laid back, and a jack of all trades. He's semi-retired, running his store and smoking his pipe, secure in the knowledge that he can still wrestle a Grizzly-Ghastly if called upon.

Flash forward to 2011. One of my favorite things about the state fair is the way the vendor's signs reach out and grab you by the optic nerve. And they won't let go until they've extracted the designated bit of cash. There's something magical about the promise of the most delicious, decadent, deep-fried, and (usually) downright disgusting snacks ever conceived by Western Man.

I've never had deep-fried snickers bars, deep fried Coca-Cola, or a double cheese burger with extra bacon and two Krispy Kreme donuts in place of the bun, but I do enjoy thinking about them.

Toast! The Noble Breakfast

Is it not wonderful to live in a time and place where toast is available 24/7, without regard to color, creed, or regional football affiliation?

You see, back in the middle ages toast was not the fare of the common man (those peasants sure had it crumby), but reserved for the landed gentry, the upper crust if you will*.

Tremendous resources were expended in the production of Toast for themsuch what could afford it. It took a lot of bread to make Toast. Massive Leyden Jars, Lightning Catchers, and the ancient Egyptian Lens of Ra, are but a few of the artifacts of the Master Toaster's craft without which no breakfast museum would be complete.

Toast provides interesting nutrients. In addition to Thrombic Acid and Polysulfamenahydrozine, Toast has been shown to augment one's Powers of Command. This revelation goes a long way toward explaining why Toast was always found among the preserves of the aristocracy.




* If you won't? Fine. I'm moving on.

SPUD 0.1

I 'umbly present my new Sensor Platform Universal Device, better known by the tortured acronym of SPUD. This little guy has an Arduino Mini for a brain, uses an L297D motor controller chip from Solarbotics to power the motors, and has a detachable USB interface for programming. It can go forward, backward, turn right and left, and spin in place right and left, using only four digital outputs from the Arduino to the motor controller. This leaves eight digital and eight analog lines open for sensor input and/or other gadgets.


Glee!

You can put your arms down when you get back to NC

Another Christmas in New England. Another reminder that my once hardy mountain blood has thinned to water. It was all the way up to 14F, and I couldn't go outside to play without bundling up in the equivalent of two sheep and a yak.

When I started college, transplanting myself from West Virginia to Chapel Hill, NC, fifty five degrees was T Shirt weather. I openly scoffed at the pathetic weaklings who wore hats, jackets, and (giggle) gloves in an environment wherein water remained liquid. I never put on a jacket before going out to play, no matter how many times Mom told me to. (This was back when colds and flu were thought to be caused by low body temperature, before germs were discovered.) Now I'm the one telling my daughter to wear her heavy coat and not blame me if her fingers freeze to the swings. Truly, my hypocrisy knows no bounds*.

The answer, of course, is that kids are exothermic. They generate so much heat with their scurrying, fidgeting, and metabolizing that they light up the infrared frequencies like the Fourth of July. As we mature, our bodies settle down and focus on nourishing and nurturing our brains, magnifying our wisdom. With deep thoughts come certain endothermic tendencies. Yes. I'm sure that's it. My Giant Brain (tm) requires more energy than my body can provide on it's own so I must draw molecular kinetic energy from my environment. I'm not getting colder. I'm getting smarter.



*First Tombstone quote of the year!

2010

A few years ago I found myself with enough time on my hands to start painting Warhammer 40K miniatures. I bought a bunch of these cool little plastic guys and started painting. Now, I didn't have the time or ambition to outfit a whole army. I just wanted a half dozen futuristic pieces for a game of 3D Frag.

They looked pretty cool, but what really inspired me were their hyperbolic names. Instead of being called "Infantry" they had names like "Blood Angel Angst Vindicator Squadron". Seriously. Would you rather be shot by an "Armored Soldier w/Jet Pack and Laser Blaster" or have your quarks blown to kingdom come by a "Chaos Space Marine Khorne Berzerker Skull Champion"? I know which I'd rather have on my tombstone.

I hold this up as a shining example of Trying Harder, and I resolve to also Try Harder in 2010 and beyond. I no longer drive a "Car". I now drive a "Quad Wheel Combustotron Interstate Vindicator". I don't pet the "Cat". I feed the "Feline Hellion Rodent Retribution Reaver". Here's hoping we don't run out of Science Diet...

Places where I'd rather not live

In New York, this serves as hospitality...