Guard Dog

I'm getting old. It's just starting to sink in. Yesterday I spent the whole day cutting and hauling firewood. One of the guys at the VFW owns three lots that are being cleared, He told me I could have as much of the cut trees as I wanted to haul. So the dogs and I spent the day cutting and hauling six truck loads of oak, ash, & sweet gum and a half dozen good knots of slash pine for kindling. I've got a drying shed but it's not near big enough to hold all that so I was going to build another one today. A bigger one. The only problem is I'm so sore I can't move. I'm pretty physically fit but it's becoming clear to me I'm not what I used to be.

@Orogun I second what my esteemed board colleague Nonek advised: find some small simple thing that gives you pleasure and for the duration of the time you are enjoying it focus on that activity entirely. Put everything else out of your mind for that time. It solves nothing but any respite from the stress you are under is priceless.

Right now I'm leaning towards "none of the above". But I already know next year I'll be voting "not Democrat". So whoever wins the nomination can probably count on my vote. But I'm certain I'll be holding my nose when I do it.

Just don't f--k it up please.

I got ISTP (The Virtuoso) Variant: Assertive Role: Explorer Strategy: Confident Individualism I'm reading about it now. Sounds about right.

Wait there is more:

Well I know what I'm getting ManifestedISO for Christmas now: https://teechip.com/wookieewin?utm_source=hyb54 I like this one better:

Narcissism? Nah, I'd call it therapy. I come hear and read about everyone else's shenanigans (especially Nep's last one) and I realize that I have no problems!

Cats are going out west to face the Ducks tomorrow. Anaheim has been miserable so far this year. Hopefully they won't snap out of it tomorrow.

So with the new movie coming I decided to watch the old ones again. So I started with Phantom Menace. You know I finally put my finger on what I didn't like about that movie. It was the Trade Federation guys. Really? They are supposed to be the villains? They are bumbling, silly, they look like the little frogs I see down by the river bank. How could they possible be a threat. And they have a robot army with cute expressions like "Rodger Rodger" and "Uh-Oh". They were a joke. And who do we have to face them? And army led by Jar Jar Binks? As the say on ESPN c'mon man! If the Naboo got taken over by that crew they were way too incompetent to be running a planet in the first place.

That was just ugly. Just plain ugly. Especially the third period. I changed the channel after that.

It doesn't help that the sport isn't really followed here. In the US pantheon of team sports Rugby ranks after volleyball and ahead of badminton. Not one match was on TV other than PPV (that's how I saw it). Of course there really are no teams or leagues to watch. The NCAA doesn't play it. The only Rugby leagues are amateur club teams. That's how I got into it. I played on an amateur team in Plantation Florida back in '96. But the Olympics is a big deal here and if Rugby Sevens is getting into the games it will help.

I think I would almost rather die from whatever they didn't find because I didn't go in ... instead of going in and dying right away from being laughed at. There would be some dignity in that.

Except for team USA. They just embarrassed themselves except for the first half against Scotland.

I know that's not funny, but it was...

Yeesh, I'm cringing in sympathy. Feel better Nep.

In case anyone other than Bruce, Zorpator or myself were wondering, the All Blacks won it all. Which only makes sense because they were the best team and second wasn't close.

Great world series, great season. It's a shame it's over. Now it's time to concentrate on the Tampa Bay Bucs, Memphis Tigers, Florida Panthers and of course the Grizz. But have no fear... Spring Training is only 109 days away!

The 'Rare Earth Hypothesis' pretty much builds on that thesis, as in Earth is simply in the right time, right place, right orbit, right galaxy, with the right laws of physics to allow life.. And most likely pretty alone because of it. The reason why it's often disregarded is that it's a fairly human centric reasoning - and it's generally not a great idea to conclude that what you're observing is unique, without a sufficient sample size. Well it might be true if you limit the scope to life that resembles humans closely. But there is just no guessing what form intelligent alien life might take, if any. The might be Silicoids. (Congrats if you get that reference! ) Also only 200 or so extrasolar planets have been identified and most of those are gas giants but as you pointed out it's still way too early to hypothesize there isn't another earth like planet out there.

Oerwinde I'd give you my copy if I could. I'm done with it unless a toolset pops out at some point.

You never know Hurlshot. The universe is huge and by our standards old. But maybe by the standards of other life maybe not so old. It stands to reason there is other life on other worlds orbiting other stars. Maybe even our own star. But it's curious no one ever considers the possibility that we may be the most advanced life form in the universe. Perhaps we are closer to reaching them than they are to reaching us. I have to admit, if it turned out we are the king of the universal hill is would be a bit of a letdown.

To quote my favorite American philosopher Will Rogers "If there are no dogs in heaven then when I die I want to go wherever they went"

Probably. The story isn't awful. It's just unremarkable. It's a C+, two stars out of five, a ham sandwich. I hate it for the rules implementation, game (particularly combat) mechanics, level scaling, and cool downs. Don't even bother playing a magic user type. My party took literally 7 minutes to dispatch a pack of level scaled wolves. It was just terrible to have to watch the damage numbers roll by and the damned things weren't dead yet. But if you can tolerate the flaws and just want a romp through the FR, it's good for that.

Wow, what a game. This has to be especially bitter for the Mets because but for key errors and leads lost they should have won both games 4 & 5. You have to hand it to Hosmer for clutch performance though. Plus I'm happy to Ben Zobrist & Wade Davis, two Rays alumni, get a championship.

Woldan's get up is pretty f----d up actually. If I saw that walking down the side of the road I'd be highly motivated to stay away. Or put him down.