Anyone failing to display the mandatory black velvet Methodist style painting of President Quayle on their living room wall... WILL BE SHOT.

For the longest time I have kept the same signature. Perhaps it has been for too long. But I have never been motivated to change my signature even when I have come across interesting quotes. It must be the result of pure laziness, I guess. Or a hole in my psyche.

The earliest recorded example of my quote is here on Tue Oct 28 12:28:16 PST 1997 where I fell into a trap of an internet spammer.

I remembered a song with those words in it. Back in the times of Bill, Sean, & Sean. But I could not remember which song it was. I tried searching of course. But I was never successful. You would think that it would be easy to find. There are only 9 hits on web pages that have the words "Anyone failing to display" in them. Plus, who uses the words Quayle, Velvet and Methodist at the same time?

Recently, I came across this Twitter post. Which is my signature. Those bastards! This spurred me into renewed searching for the source of my quote.

I found this posting:

We interrupt this program with a special bulletin.

AMERICA IS NOW UNDER MARTIAL LAW.

All constitutional rights have been suspended. Stay in your homes. Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents, or attorneys.

SHUT UP.

Do not attempt to think, or depression may occur. Stay in your homes. Curfew is at 7pm sharp, after work.

Anyone caught outside the gates of their subdivision sectors after curfew will be shot.

REMAIN CALM. DO NOT PANIC.

Your neighborhood watch officer will be by to collect urine samples in the morning. Anyone caught interfering with the collection of urine samples - WILL. BE. SHOT.

Houses will be inspected for trace elements at noon.

Anyone failing to display the required embossed Mexican velvet painting of Alexander Haig on their living room wall - WILL. BE. SHOT.

Cameras and surveillance equipment will be posted on all lampposts and streetlights. Anyone failing to attend required worship services on Sunday will be promptly arrested and dispatched to a re-education resort.

Stay in your homes. REMAIN CALM.

The number one enemy of progress is questions. National security is more important than individual will.

All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal. No more than two people may gather anywhere without permission. Use only the drugs prescribed by your boss or supervisor.

SHUT UP! BE HAPPY!

Obey all orders without question. The comfort you've demanded is now mandatory. BE HAPY! At last -- everything is done for you.

It was very close. Obviously that person was inspired by the same source.

Finally, I found this posting:

This kind of thing always reminds me of a song off the "Terminal City Ricochet" soundtrack by Jello Biafra... "Message from our Sponsor". It's a pretty funny yet chilling song.

"ANNYONE WHO INTERFERES WITH THE COLLECTION OF MANDATORY URINE SAMPLES WILL... BE... SHOT..."

"ANYONE FAILING TO DISPLAY THE REQUISITE MEXICAN VELVET PORTRAIT OF PRESIDENT QUAYLE WILL... BE... SHOT..."

"RELAX. EVERYTHING IS DONE FOR YOU. THE CONVENIENCE YOU HAVE REQUESTED FOR SO LONG IS NOW MANDATORY..."

-- LC

JACKPOT! It listed a soundtrack CD and artist. The movie was Terminal City Ricochet. And the music artist was Jello Biafra

I went out and purchased the sound-track right away. Track number 12 was "Message from Our Sponsor/Object-Subject." The lyrics are the following:

We interrupt this program with a special bulletin. This territory is now under martial law. All constitutional rights have been suspended. Stay in your homes. Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents or attorneys.

Shut up! Do not attempt to think, or depression may occur. Stay in your homes. Curfew is at 7pm sharp after work.

Anyone caught outside the gates of their subdivision zones after curfew WILL BE SHOT. Remain calm, do not panic. Your neighborhood watch officer will by to collect urine samples in the morning. Anyone interfering with the collection of urine samples WILL BE SHOT.

Houses will be inspected for trace elements at noon. Anyone failing to display the mandatory black velvet Mexican style painting of President Quayle on their living room wall WILL BE SHOT. Under provisions of zero tolerance and the child protection and obscenity enforcement act, all property and life savings of suspected drug users and distributors of pornography will be seized and sold prior to trial. Cameras and surveillance equipment will be placed on all lamp posts and street lights. Anyone who fails to attend prescribed worship services on Sunday will be promptly arrested and dispatched to a reeducation resort.

Stay in your homes. Remain calm. The number one enemy of progress is questions.

National security is more important than individual rights.

Sports broadcasts will proceed as scheduled.

No more than two people may gather anywhere without permission.

Use only the drugs prescribed by your boss or your supervisor.

Shut up! Be happy! Obey all orders without question.

Shut up! Consume! The comfort you've demanded is now mandatory. At last everything is done for you.

I was surprised how close I was. Mexicans and Methodists are interchangeable, right?

-----

Anyone failing to display the mandatory black velvet Methodist style painting of President Quayle on their living room wall... WILL BE SHOT.

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Micro panorama link via

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VW 1L released in 2010 link via

The engineer's guide to cats link via

Music video performed on public CCTVs and requested footage via Britain's Data Protection Act link via

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Polymer clay color scales link via

While I was messing around with my camera, I came across an interesting problem in photography. What happens if you take a picture of a white cat in the middle of a snowfield or, for that matter, a black cat in the middle of a coal mine? Well, if you use an automatic camera, you are going to get a rather gray picture. You see, the camera figures that an average exposure of a scene is 18%. This is the middle of a geometric scale between black and white. And who says that your camera's 18% is really 18%?

The first picture is a white sheet in bright daylight. Or, it is at least what the camera took of it. Adobe Photoshop tells me that the average values for this picture are around 140,140,140.

This time, I stick an 18% gray card in front of the scene and tell to camera to lock onto that value with its meter by using the "AE Lock Feature" (with the FEL button (Flash Exposure Lock)). It got closer, with average values of 230,230,230, but still not in the ballpark.

I finally switched the metering to "spot metering", metered the scene, and then changed the exposure compensation until the bar was at the top of the graph. It got much closer this time with values around 247,247,247. 8 off. Which is close enough for today's exercise. Who says the paper was perfectly white anyways?

The meetup group met out at Wilco park today. I drove past a marathon out on Chandler Boulevard.

We had seven to start out with (two teams of two and one of three). There were two new people that came. One was supposed to be only taking pictures. But when his friend hurt his elbow, he played. I paired with Gravitt today. We birdied hole two. Later on (around hole four), two more people showed up (well, one guy and his son).

I came across a rather colorful orange mushroom. I'm guessing that it is poisonous. William tells me it is a Amanitaceae mushroom.

With nine people playing we played rather slow. And we finished at one pm.

Apparently the big group was getting on John's nerves. He kept listening to long and mellow music during the day.

Just a quick round around the hill on Old Settler's Park. I got a birdie on hole 9. Man it's starting to get hot outside...

That is what the camera sensor sees after cropping. With a 72mm front side and a 13mm rear side, you get some extreme distortion. Too bad I can't find a fish-eye to rectilinear converter that actually works correctly.

Only Jon RSVPed for games tonight. So we decided to play disc golf at Wilco instead. It was a surprise to me to find John Gravitt already out there and just finishing up. Apparently, this was the second time that he played disc golf today.

I had a birdie on hole 5.

It must be mating season for snakes because we ran into a couple of them. And just after I had taken this picture, Jon stomped this baby snake. He hates snakes.

An interesting mistake. The phone doesn't include aperture and shutter EXIF information with the picture. But I am guessing that it was a slow one (1/30th of a second or less).

We stopped by Chuy's afterwards for dinner. I like this sign in the men's restroom. I didn't know that alcohol affected the sperm and that would hurt my baby's brain, heart, kidneys and other organs.

Just messing around with taking pictures. I wonder what my neighbor thinks? I'm sure a camera pointed towards her house might cause a little bit of a concern?

Today was the second annual Cinco de Fly-o at Twin Parks Country Club. We arrived there early. Early enough to practice some holes. Unfortunately, we practiced the red tees but we actually played the blue tees at the tournament. One good note was that it did not rain today! This is the first tournament that I have been in where I was actually dry.

Our group had five people in it. We played relatively quickly and were not forced to wait on a group ahead of us. Which was nice. It was a little too windy out today though.

I did all right today. I had some good throws. And Jon and I remained competitive. In the end, he only beat me by one stroke (congratulations!). I think that John mentioned that I had beaten him last year and that his goal was to do better this year. Unfortunately, the tournament got to him and he did much worse this year.

We skipped going to Papasitos and went down to Manor to try out their new disc golf course. I had previously driven down there only to not find the course. This time we drove around a bit (and even encountered another group of disc golfers doing the same) before spotting a basket and parking. A park ranger drove up and admonished the other group behind us to slow down. After that he told us where the real start location was.

Man, this course is crazy long and crazy tough! There is a stream running around the course that has a number of branches in it. Sometimes it is on both sides of the hole. And it is quite deep. Fortunately, the water is not that deep in it and it was easy to locate our discs.

I found some wild raspberries while searching for my disc. Mmm, tasty!

Oddly, it looks like they are installing some sprinkler lines on part of the course. Thats a first.

I had one great throw for a birdie.

We finally finished the course and drove home. By that time I was famished and we stopped by Papasitos for dinner. When I got home, I was covered in dust. You could definitely notice it on your glasses and ankles. Time for a shower and then sleep.

I stopped by Monument Cafe for food before First Friday games. I wanted to try their quiche or perhaps their yard-egg breakfast, but their choice of vegetables cinched it for me. I ordered: roasted beets, onion rings, fried eggplant marinara, and a black-eye bean salad with tomatoes and green peppers (that was more soupy than salady).

Toledo

Ed brought a new Wallace game. But this game is quite a departure from Age of Steam or Struggles of Empires. It is a lightweight family game about making swords. You can attempt to hose others by landing on their spot and challenging them. But the fights are decided randomly by flipping over cards (best two out of three). You can train to get advantages but the trade off is that you loose victory points at the end of the game.

Blue Moon City

And after the Wallace lightness, I played some Knizia lightness. Sigh. So sad.

Wow, I guess I can't call this game gathering First Friday Fluff anymore. Someone brought and played Agricola. They even went to the effort of creating animeeples out of sculpey clay.

Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean

Chapel brought out a new game that he bought a while ago but has not played yet. It is a civilization type game that is played with a bunch of cards. After working through the rules, we started to play. The problem with this game is that there are an awful lot of bad events in this game. Each year has four seasons and, during each season, an event was played. Every event that year had negative consequences and caused our building efforts to slow down. You can ship your goods to near and far markets to trade for other goods. But the problem with shipping is that event cards are drawn for the voyage (either one or two). Well, the chances for negative events are high!

All of these events got to me and, after skipping building for a couple of turns, I finally gave up playing the game. There was no way I would ever get out of last place. I don't think I will play this game again either...

Big Three

We finished off the night playing Big Three...

The group finally went to Monument Cafe. Unfortunately, they ordered sandwiches and burgers. To me, the daily and varied vegetable and dessert selections make this place special. Also, our waiter was rather disappointing. He ignored refilling our drinks. And, while he offered to split up the bill, he wouldn't actually split the bill up. I had to write down everyone's name on the bill to mark what items were ordered by what person. He then took our credit cards and cash and came back with the change and the credit card bills. You had to trust that he entered everything in correctly for each person.

While I think that Traci understands the mechanics of Tichu well enough. It seems like she doesn't understand the subtleties in playing with a partner. Whenever Nick would play and John would pass, Traci would go over Nick. This happened whether she called Tichu or not. The most egregious example was her playing the Dragon on top of Nick's Ace. You need to keep in mind that your partner should have your best interests in their decision making process.

Perhaps we should play more games of Suicide Tichu. My one game of Suicide Tichu distilled and exemplified the "teamwork is essential" experience quite nicely.

The group checked out the new disc golf course near the Benbrook subdivision in Leander. The course is brand new. And it shows. They are still working on clearing out trees. A crew had come by earlier, cut some tree branches down, and left them laying in the course.

There is a creek running through the course. Of course, we lost discs in it! You had to cross the creek at different points. Each time, the only way to get across was one thin board. The only problem with that was that one end was usually in the water.

The greens are pretty narrow. And the rough is very rough. It is quite easy to loose discs in the tall grass. If that wasn't enough discouragement, right next to the rough is an impenetrable wall of brush and trees.

I had a couple of good throws. But I tried to generally play it safe. Can you see that body of water in the distance? Well the basket is on that small hill behind it. There is about twenty feet of green around it.

Jon threw his disc in the water. And if I wasn't spotting his throw for him, he would have never found it. It disappeared into the muck without any trace.

Apparently Jon stirred up more than just muck in that pond. An aggressive water moccasin started swimming around in it after he left. It went back and forth towards people. Can you spot it just past the green pond scum?

That wasn't the only time you had to throw across the water either. The tee for seventeen is on the other side of another pond.

It been a while since I have made pizza. So sad. I was distracted by high-tech gadgets. Don't worry though, Mr. Pizza. I would never put you in a vacuum bag and submerse you in water!

I had an interesting experience at the pump today. With gas at all-time highs, I finally hit a limit. The pump stopped at exactly $75.00. But the tank was not full yet. When I inquired within, I was told that my credit card must have a limit on it. So I swiped the card again and put the last couple of dollars in to top it off.

Sigh. What a stupid security measure! The company does not want me to spend more than 75 dollars on gas at one time. But they do not mind if it do it immediately again.

I should figure out what car I want to drive next. I would love to get a 2008 Corvette ZR1. 638 horse power! Mmmm. But I can't really justify spending 65 thousand dollars (assuming that I can find one at that price). A Volkswagen Jetta Blue TDI diesel would be interesting. At least in theory (making your own bio-diesel ). But diesel, which was once cheap, is now more expensive than super-unleaded. Plus, I would want to cut down on weight and get a two seater version. And it would be nice if it was a plug in hybrid as well.