Leisure Wear

The BCPs have a long and illustrious history of service to the Black Vatican. Over the years, their uniform has ranged from

the sexy...


...to the silly...


...to the, um, more sexy...


...but until now, they have never had a sanctioned garment for leisure wear. Thanks to Raksha, we are now ready to unveil the Bisexual Cyber-Priestess Tee shirt!

This Pope Tested, Ministry Approved garment is suitable for all the recreational pursuits that the active BCP enjoys - wet tee shirt contests...beach volleyball... wet tee shirt beach volleyball...

Currently available from Glarkware - the perfect gift for the BCPs on your Hollowdaze shopping list!

King of the Forest

In response to G-Log's bet on the Easter Bunny, I've got to put my money on Father Christmas. This is probably the best 7 minutes of video you'll watch this weekend...

By the way - no sermon this Sunday. I have too much to do in order to prepare for the arrival of Nerdygirl the Unbeliever, Inquisitor of the Black Vatican, Scribe to the Black Pope, and minor Curling Deity. She will touch down Tuesday morning; get your applications for audiences in soon to beat the rush.

Polarity

As many of the Flock know, I suffer from a severe case of gaming. In addition to my RPG addiction, I have a pretty good collection of "board" games. Of these games, my absolute favorites are the type loosely categorized as "abstract" strategy games - games with simple rules, unlimited play possibilities, and open-ended victory conditions. Things like Zendo and Space Traders (those little pyramid games that everyone but me hates) are excellent examples of this sort of game, but it is often difficult to involve my less game-crazed friends (i.e. those who lack the gaming gene).

Rarely do I get really excited about a new game. Even more rarely do I carry a new game around with me to work and all social gatherings in the hope of getting someone, ANYone to play it with me. Polarity is such a game. I have had it with me almost nonstop since I got it two weekends ago. It is probably the most clever game concept I've come across in a long time.

The basic idea of the game is to place the highly magnetic playing pieces on a canvas mat, balancing them on the magnetic forces of other pieces. Players attempt to lay traps for their opponent, setting up fields of magnetism across the board in ways that make it impossible for their opponent to play a piece without causing a magnetic chain reaction that rearranges the board. It sounds complex, but the rules are really quite simple - most new players pick them up in about 5 minutes.



A board in mid-game looks like some sort of abstract sculpture. You begin to feel the forces at work as you place your pieces, and regular players can "see" the magnetic fields created by various structures. Every game is unique - you can never play the same game twice. It's all very Jedi...



So far, everyone I've shown it to enjoys it, and some are developing little addictions of their very own. The really good news is that at about $22 a set it is around half the price of other adult strategy games. A perfect stocking stuffer for all the good little boys and girls who read my blog (all three of them).



For more information and pictures, click here. A nifty animated tutorial (that I tried ever-so-hard to steal and post on on this page...) is located here.

Worst PBF Ever

Rachelangela is back among the Redeemed (check the list on the right). In fact, she has been for some time now. The fact that I just realized that she switched to a new blog around Shalloween and has been posting regularly since qualifies me for the title of "Worst Platonic Boyfriend Ever".

So yeah, Rachel has a new blog and you should all go read it and stuff...

Sunday Sermon

I rose this morning to go and feed Big Gay Jim's dogs. I didn't shower - I was planning on coming right back home after the puppies had their breakfast so I figured I'd just cram a hat on my bedhead and go. Unfortunately, my mouth tasted like the military had conducted tests in it during the night, so I decided that something had to be done before I could leave. I took a shot of cinnamon Scope.



I am not one of those people who actually gargle - you know, put your head back and make that irritating bubbling noise. I just do the puffed out cheeks, swishing thing. On this particular morning for some reason, I decided to actually try to gargle. I leaned back, looked at the ceiling, and tried it out.

Apparently, this is one of those life skills you don't just jump into without some practice. Lacking said practice, I immediately began to gag. (Insert obligatory blow job joke here.) In my coughing and hacking a small fountain of Scope shot upward from my mouth and landed squarely in my eyes.

If you've never had mouthwash in your eyes, you are fortunate, as it burns quite intensely. I clamped my eyes shut, wich probably made it much worse. I was surprised by its sting, and this caused me to snork (Snork, v. "to expell liquids, ordinarily fizzy soft drinks, through the sinuses") some of the remaining Scope through my nose, with similarly painful results.

To rid myself of this mouthful of cinnamon-flavored death, I leaned forward to spit. Apparently I had stepped back from the sink somewhat, as my expulsion missed the basin almost completely. I don't have a vanity in my bathroom - the sink just sticks out of the wall - so the space below the sink is open. I keep my somewhat expensive electronic scale on the floor in that space. Once I managed to clear my eyes with a hand towel, I looked down to find the floor and the scale spattered with frothy Scope. Through the pink foam I could just make out the LED screen on the scale flashing "error".

Cursing incessantly, I cleaned up the mess and headed to Jim's. Once there, things went more smoothly - or so I thought. Little did I know that while I was playing with the puppies, the right front tire on my car was going flat in the driveway. Once the spare was in place I decided to spend the rest of the day in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, lest I be struck by lightning or become a victim of spontaneous human combustion...

We have come, once again, to the part of the sermon where I tie all of this together into some coherent lesson on life.





Yeah - I got nothing.

Go in Peace.

Election Happy Dance

Democrats now control both houses!



That is, unless one of the close races is lost in a recount - but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'd like to thank all of the Flock who voted Democrat, and excommunicate those who voted for those other people.

If you didn't vote... what good are you? PuhLEEZE vote next time. We have to get an actual human being in the White House in 2008, goddamn it...

Sunday Sermon

Creeping Hollowdaze
(set phasers on "sarcastic")

Last Monday, I saw my first Christmas decorations. It was at Ace Hardware - a row of artificial trees in the front windows. I'm sure these were not the earliest decorations up, but they were the first of which I really took notice. It reminded me of my childhood, when the stop-action Norelco Santa riding a floating-head razor through the snow was the first sign of impending Yule (if you don't get that reference, you were probably born too late to experience the weirdness that was Seventies television...). I recall watching for that commercial, and for the arrival of the Sears catalog, "The Wishbook".

I fondly remember my sister and I going through the toy pages of that venerable tome, circling the items we wanted Santa to bring. It was always Barbie corvettes or dreamhouses for her, G.I. Joe's and skateboards for me. Those were magical times for us... much more magical, in fact, then the opening of the socks and underwear we actually received on Christmas morning.

My point in all this awkward reminiscing is that those harbingers generally arrived right around Thanksgiving, or maybe the week before. Now, Christmas ads begin just before Halloween, and retailers literally shove the ghosts and skeletons off the shelves and into clearance bins to make way for wreaths and candy canes; Thanksgiving has been almost completely run over. The reason for this is obvious - Christmas and Halloween are the number one and two holidays for retailers. As with just about every damn thing in our lives, it's all about the money.

I understand that many retailers make the bulk of their money in the last quarter of the year, and I am certainly aware that my ranting will make no difference, but am I the only one who wants Christmas to be confined to December?

The calendar is actually set up pretty well. There's about a month between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; I need that time! I have to rest up, to prepare myself for the traditional rites of guilt, innuendo, and public drunkeness for which Irish Catholics are so famous. There's even a special training regimen that I have to adhere to in order to stave off the arterioschlerosis and diabetes that come as side dishes with our family recipes (to be honest, that "training regimen" involves increasing my daily alcohol intake about three-fold, but I digress).

So let's keep the hollowdaze where they belong, and remember what each of the last three months of the year are about; October is for tooth decay and binge drkining, November is about gluttony and an ethnocentric reconstruction of history, and December focuses on the birth of the Patron Saint of Capitalism, Santa Clause.

Go in Peace.