Disaster threatens, again

A large leak developed in our basement yesterday, in the bathroom area around the toilet. Fortunately the water didn't spread, and my books are on the opposite side of the cellar, but we were pretty concerned.

This morning Teri called a plumber, and he's at the house right now. Apparently once again there's a block in the main drain line, somewhere between the house and the street.

It could be a root has grown into the line, which would cost a few hundred dollars to deal with. We could deal with that.

Or, it could be that the line has for some reason collapsed, in which case we could be looking at anywhere from $2,000.00 to $20,000.00 or more to repair it - which could mean bankruptcy for us. I'm trying to think positively, but it's hard waiting for the phone call from Teri.

Disaster threatens, again

A large leak developed in our basement yesterday, in the bathroom area around the toilet. Fortunately the water didn't spread, and my books are on the opposite side of the cellar, but we were pretty concerned.

This morning Teri called a plumber, and he's at the house right now. Apparently once again there's a block in the main drain line, somewhere between the house and the street.

It could be a root has grown into the line, which would cost a few hundred dollars to deal with. We could deal with that.

Or, it could be that the line has for some reason collapsed, in which case we could be looking at anywhere from $2,000.00 to $20,000.00 or more to repair it - which could mean bankruptcy for us. I'm trying to think positively, but it's hard waiting for the phone call from Teri.

A Long, Long Night (and morning)

Sebastian hasn't been good about going to bed at night, lately. Last night was worse than usual:

"I need a cuppy." "No, I want MILK!" "I need to go to the potty." "I NEED to go to the potty!" "I'm hungry." "I want macaroni and ch- no, I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." "I WANT A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH!"

I took him to the potty, got him a cup of water, and finally we thought we'd gotten him quieted down. He lay on the bed with Teri while I went into the den to check my email.

Half an hour later the door opened. It was Sebastian, in a cheerful mood. Mamma was asleep. Full of smiles, Sebastian decided to try on my tricorn hat - he called it a pirate hat. It looked incredibly cute on him, and almost fit him (it's a little too tight for me). By the time I managed to get him to sleep it was 10:30.

I had other things to worry about (see the previous post about the flood in the basement, which I just found out is okay). I took care of the trash, fed the cats, cleaned up a bit, and made it to bed by 11:30pm.

I didn't sleep well at all. And at 3:30am, our old cat Sam came upstairs and started howling for food. I threw a pillow at him, and he went back downstairs.

I hadn't managed to get back to sleep by 4:17am, when Sam came back upstairs and started howling again. Then he went into Sebastian's room and started howling, knowing that if he woke up Sebastian Teri and I would get up and (presumably) dish out the cat food. I got up and went downstairs, Sam followed eagerly, anticipating food. But instead I picked him up, put him in our mud room (an antechamber to the back porch, about five foot square), closed the door, and went back upstairs to bed.

I woke up late (no surprise), went downstairs, let Sam out, fed him and Baby (our other cat), and got myself ready for work. Drove to the Franklin/Dean College commuter rail stop, only to find that there wasn't a single goddamned space free, and that there were several cars parked illegally. I was going to be pretty &@#@ing late. So I drove over to Franklin/Forge Park (I'd missed my train), parked, and sat down for a long, long wait. I was really pissed off. It was a really bad beginning to the day.

Five minutes later, at about 7:15am, a guy backed into a parking space three cars down from me. As he backed in there was a loud crash and colored glass went flying. The guy stopped, got out, looked at his car, and cursed. He was an older man, perhaps in his 50's, with dark graying hair. He pulled forward, moved to the space on the other side of the car he'd hit, and went to the train. I watched carefully, and he didn't leave a note.

Here's the info:

The car that was hit was a black Volkswagen, not a Beetle, MA license plate 877 WRL. It was parked in space #245. The car that hit it was a white four-door Honda, MA plate 3797 VJ. I walked by and took a casual look, but didn't see any damage - it was very confusing. Perhaps the black car wasn't hit at all, but something was definitely hit - maybe a lamp post? I wonder if I should call the police.

Anyway, I still had a long wait ahead of me. And I'd rushed out of the house in such a hurry that I hadn't picked up a book (which almost never happens). So I strolled over to the station. I picked up the Metro, a free paper, but I can normally read that cover-to-cover in about eight minutes. Fortunately there was a lot of religious literature in that station, including - halleluiah! - a stand of Jack Chick comics! Like many freethinkers, I find Chick hysterically funny. I was a little worried that one of the old guys sitting in the station might be a proselytizer, so I casually grabbed one each of the four comics that were there and headed back to the car to read them.

I'd grabbed them so quickly that I hadn't even read the titles. You can imagine my amazement when one of them turned out to be none other than "Dark Dungeons!"

Yep, the classic Jack Chick comic about the evils of D&D. As I read it a million possibilities for parody came to my mind, but of course it has already been parodied a few times, which have been collected here.

And that turned my day around. So all's well that ends well!

A Long, Long Night (and morning)

Sebastian hasn't been good about going to bed at night, lately. Last night was worse than usual:

"I need a cuppy." "No, I want MILK!" "I need to go to the potty." "I NEED to go to the potty!" "I'm hungry." "I want macaroni and ch- no, I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." "I WANT A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH!"

I took him to the potty, got him a cup of water, and finally we thought we'd gotten him quieted down. He lay on the bed with Teri while I went into the den to check my email.

Half an hour later the door opened. It was Sebastian, in a cheerful mood. Mamma was asleep. Full of smiles, Sebastian decided to try on my tricorn hat - he called it a pirate hat. It looked incredibly cute on him, and almost fit him (it's a little too tight for me). By the time I managed to get him to sleep it was 10:30.

I had other things to worry about (see the previous post about the flood in the basement, which I just found out is okay). I took care of the trash, fed the cats, cleaned up a bit, and made it to bed by 11:30pm.

I didn't sleep well at all. And at 3:30am, our old cat Sam came upstairs and started howling for food. I threw a pillow at him, and he went back downstairs.

I hadn't managed to get back to sleep by 4:17am, when Sam came back upstairs and started howling again. Then he went into Sebastian's room and started howling, knowing that if he woke up Sebastian Teri and I would get up and (presumably) dish out the cat food. I got up and went downstairs, Sam followed eagerly, anticipating food. But instead I picked him up, put him in our mud room (an antechamber to the back porch, about five foot square), closed the door, and went back upstairs to bed.

I woke up late (no surprise), went downstairs, let Sam out, fed him and Baby (our other cat), and got myself ready for work. Drove to the Franklin/Dean College commuter rail stop, only to find that there wasn't a single goddamned space free, and that there were several cars parked illegally. I was going to be pretty &@#@ing late. So I drove over to Franklin/Forge Park (I'd missed my train), parked, and sat down for a long, long wait. I was really pissed off. It was a really bad beginning to the day.

Five minutes later, at about 7:15am, a guy backed into a parking space three cars down from me. As he backed in there was a loud crash and colored glass went flying. The guy stopped, got out, looked at his car, and cursed. He was an older man, perhaps in his 50's, with dark graying hair. He pulled forward, moved to the space on the other side of the car he'd hit, and went to the train. I watched carefully, and he didn't leave a note.

Here's the info:

The car that was hit was a black Volkswagen, not a Beetle, MA license plate 877 WRL. It was parked in space #245. The car that hit it was a white four-door Honda, MA plate 3797 VJ. I walked by and took a casual look, but didn't see any damage - it was very confusing. Perhaps the black car wasn't hit at all, but something was definitely hit - maybe a lamp post? I wonder if I should call the police.

Anyway, I still had a long wait ahead of me. And I'd rushed out of the house in such a hurry that I hadn't picked up a book (which almost never happens). So I strolled over to the station. I picked up the Metro, a free paper, but I can normally read that cover-to-cover in about eight minutes. Fortunately there was a lot of religious literature in that station, including - halleluiah! - a stand of Jack Chick comics! Like many freethinkers, I find Chick hysterically funny. I was a little worried that one of the old guys sitting in the station might be a proselytizer, so I casually grabbed one each of the four comics that were there and headed back to the car to read them.

I'd grabbed them so quickly that I hadn't even read the titles. You can imagine my amazement when one of them turned out to be none other than "Dark Dungeons!"

Yep, the classic Jack Chick comic about the evils of D&D. As I read it a million possibilities for parody came to my mind, but of course it has already been parodied a few times, which have been collected here.

And that turned my day around. So all's well that ends well!

Jack Chick trapped in Dark Dungeons

This was originally a comment follow-up to my last post, but it should really have been a post.

The Dark Dungeons parodies linkpage I posted has mostly broken links. Here are some good ones:

• http://www.fecundity.com/darkdung/ - an unauthorized MSTing of "Dark Dungeons"
  
• http://www.humpin.org/mst3kdd/ - same as above, slightly different format
  
• http://rpglibrary.blackgate.net/inspiration/darkdungeons/intro.html - a much fancier version of the same thing. Warning, it plays music.
  
• http://www.falconmoor.com/humor/darkdungeons1.html - Dark Dungeons of Falconmoor. Different, and pretty strange. Lots of in-jokes, I think.
  
• http://webpages.charter.net/gos_jim/darkdungeons/index.htm - Funny, and more gamer humor, if you know what I mean. It plays a quick mp3 of some weird voice when you first click on it, but it's quiet after that.
  
• http://www.epsilonminus.com/darquedungeon/ - Goth and LiveJournal (!) are featured (okay, skewered) in this one.
  
• http://www.geocities.com/xiansamongus/dd_index.html - Vorpal Justice. A bit odd, but funny. Those Yahoo/GeoCities ads are really annoying, but it's still worth reading (the site, not the ads). Another Chick parody on the same site, Endless Summer, made me laugh hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Some might find it pretty tasteless, but then, the same might be said for a lot of these.
  
• http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/cthulhutract.html - Okay, this one isn't Dark Dungeons - it's a Chick Cthulhu tract. And I think I posted this link before. But it's funny.
  
• http://delusion.smart.net/chyx/dorkdark.html - unfortunately this link is broken, because Chick successfully intimidated the author. "Dork Dungeons" was pretty funny, though, so here's a tip: put the URL into the Wayback machine and it's all still there. And when you find something funny that might disappear, what do you do? Save a copy, of course!
  
• http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp - The original.
  

I wonder how long it will be before all these links are broken?

Jack Chick trapped in Dark Dungeons

This was originally a comment follow-up to my last post, but it should really have been a post.

The Dark Dungeons parodies linkpage I posted has mostly broken links. Here are some good ones:

• http://www.fecundity.com/darkdung/ - an unauthorized MSTing of "Dark Dungeons"
  
• http://www.humpin.org/mst3kdd/ - same as above, slightly different format
  
• http://rpglibrary.blackgate.net/inspiration/darkdungeons/intro.html - a much fancier version of the same thing. Warning, it plays music.
  
• http://www.falconmoor.com/humor/darkdungeons1.html - Dark Dungeons of Falconmoor. Different, and pretty strange. Lots of in-jokes, I think.
  
• http://webpages.charter.net/gos_jim/darkdungeons/index.htm - Funny, and more gamer humor, if you know what I mean. It plays a quick mp3 of some weird voice when you first click on it, but it's quiet after that.
  
• http://www.epsilonminus.com/darquedungeon/ - Goth and LiveJournal (!) are featured (okay, skewered) in this one.
  
• http://www.geocities.com/xiansamongus/dd_index.html - Vorpal Justice. A bit odd, but funny. Those Yahoo/GeoCities ads are really annoying, but it's still worth reading (the site, not the ads). Another Chick parody on the same site, Endless Summer, made me laugh hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Some might find it pretty tasteless, but then, the same might be said for a lot of these.
  
• http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/cthulhutract.html - Okay, this one isn't Dark Dungeons - it's a Chick Cthulhu tract. And I think I posted this link before. But it's funny.
  
• http://delusion.smart.net/chyx/dorkdark.html - unfortunately this link is broken, because Chick successfully intimidated the author. "Dork Dungeons" was pretty funny, though, so here's a tip: put the URL into the Wayback machine and it's all still there. And when you find something funny that might disappear, what do you do? Save a copy, of course!
  
• http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp - The original.
  

I wonder how long it will be before all these links are broken?