Pictures!

At long last here are pictures from the Bag End Bash 2006. If you have picture or video, please burn them to CD and mail them to me (Or just email the best ones) As usual I was just too damn busy running around to take many pics. I want to thank Don Nottage for some amazing pics this year. Enjoy.

Just another Salem

I urge you to go and read this important (if lengthy) testamony of an athiest and his struggles against the 'decent' god-fearing folk of a small Oklahoma town. It literally makes me feel ill.

I remember working the Oklahoma Ren fair 2 years ago. To kill time during the weeks and to make some extra money I contacted sign shops to see if they had any work. I made signs for 5 years and I figured its like riding a bike. It comes back to you. When I showed up to the sign shop I noticed the large collection of religious tracts on the front counter. They weren't the worst I had seen, but there were a lot of them. And here I was, driving my wifes car with the pentagram in the front window and some pagan stickers on the back along with the Scottish flag.

The man was polite, but I could tell he wanted to do his 'duty' and start the Jesus speech. The great thing was that I didn't NEED this job. So I didn't need to keep my opinions to myself for the sake of the job. The boss could only hold out about 3 days. Then he asked about me and my beliefs. I was honest and said that I was at best, a Diest. He asked what that meant and I explained that like Thomas Jefferson and many of our founding fathers, I believed that the universe may have been created by some supernatural force, but that his position is more of the master clockmaker than some big white-guy daddy-substitute. I told him that diests believe that reason and logic are more important than revelation or dogma. And I told him that my wife was wiccan and what that meant.

I don't think he was quite prepared for what I was saying (I was my usual long-winded self but I didn't want there to be any room for misunderstanding or confusion on his part) When he was done he tried to get back on script. I told him that I had no problems with the ideas of peace and love in Jesus' teaching, it was all the threats, the killing and violence that I couldn't get behind. He was kind enough (or confused enough) to leave it at that. When I left the shop my final day he shook my hand and said "Remember, Jesus loves you" and I gave him a "Blessed Be".

LOL - Rennie Personal Ads

Rennies are their own unique sub-culture and as such, have their own unique sense of humor. This is for any of my "homies" of there doing the circuit and to those who work so hard to make peoples weekend visits a magical experience:


Circuit Rennie into tattoos, piercing and drumming seeks same. Wolf
breeds a bonus! Hygiene negotiable.
No Jousters.

Campground Rennie looking for laundry partner, vehicle required. Will
not share white load until
second or third trip. No, I am not happy to see you, I DO have a roll of
quarters in my pocket!

Road Rennie seeks local w/plumbing for friendship and much more! No
costumes outside of faire please.

Fortune teller seeking someone who will surprise me! Tell me something I
DON'T know! Tall, Dark and Strange a plus!
No jousters.

Weekend entertainer seeking forbidden campground love. I have plumbing,
you must leave before my mom gets up.

Rennie bum looking for hard working RenGirl. Must have
home/vehicle/beer. Enable me. You: cook/clean
Me: not a jouster!

Morris dancer seeks partners for heathen fertility rite. Bell lovers a
plus, BYOB.

Townie party girl seeks place to shack up, travels light (just costume!)
Will be 18 soon.
Jousters a plus!

Local boy seeks fantasy dream circuit job, only willing to manage. Must
provide benefits, lodging
etc.

Local boy looking to get on circuit, looking for work. I am willing to
help you take all of the
buildings apart when the show is done.

Veggie Justice boy seeks saucy wench for sticky times. I will love you
Picante style! Kiss the
tomato! We will make beautiful catsup together!

Ditzy chick looking for established father figure with trailer. "Almost
21!"
Musicians a plus.

Neo-pagan, new age, golden dawn, sub-genius, left handed black dye job
boy (8 piercings-connect the
dots!) seeks neo-cabalist Gemini with Virgo rising, Goth, ambidextrous,
anti-pokemon (except for
butterfree) red head Grrl for tantric research. Satanist, Black Hats
need not apply.

Jouster with Big Lance seeks Philly to favor. I have a metal codpiece!
Wanna ride my pony? Included: Beer
and trailer! Not Included: breakfast.

Bored, overworked RenGirl seeks Local entertainer to spice up life.
Alcoholic ok, local connections
required.

Worried Mom seeks kid stolen by circuit. Jesus can forgive you so I will
at least try. You can still be
dull!

RenBoy with hard house and power seeks female with electric blanket.
Send picture of blanket.
Weekenders welcome: blanket stays.


Rennie with bus seeks Rennie with gas money. Dogs, wolves, mastiffs,
cats, ferrets, tarantula, hedgehogs,
snakes, rabbits, cooties and rats ok. No jousters.


Bodacious thespian seeks fodder for Wenching. Tights a plus, dance belts
a minus! Kilts bump you to the
top of the list. Tortugas welcome.


Verily and well met, good gentles. A lord of the SCA be I, in sooth, and
a kin to Elves on thine mothers
side, anon. Hear ye, unto the Fare do I Goeth, seeking mine Lady Fair,
be she thee? Huzzah! Unto
the house of Denny's go we in all our Garb, to sup as Lady and Lord!!

Pirates Peanut! Pirates!

Went to POTC: Dead Mans Chest last night. I enjoyed it tremendously and if there is any joy in your soul, so should you. There were a few small pacing and dialogue issues, but nothing that was a deal killer. Davey Jones now surpasses Gollum as King Shit of the digital characters. I mean absolutely amazing.

The showing of this movie was marred only slightly by the close proximity of my minion Lindsey, who was literelly vibrating in anticipation of the film. And when I say vibrating I mean it in the most literal sense of the word. She was, in fact, a blur, barely perceivable in the visible spectrum. Her excitement caused my fillings to loosen.

She was outright dismissive of the trailers, and while they were not amazing there is one golden rule of movie watching, you can talk, giggle, kvetch whatever...until the trailers start. That's it. When trailers are go, pie hole remains in shut mode. I will forgive her this transgression. She is young and excitable, and it was a pretty freaking cool movie.

Pirate are in again for another year! Horay!

Suck with a side order of suck

I had arrived at the Silver Leaf Ren Fair thoroughly prepared. You dont do the circuit for 15 years without perfecting the art of prep and packing. I came to SELL. I brought my A game.

What I did not bring were the corner pieces for my sales tent. I realized this the second I finished the 3 and 1/2 hour drive from Ohio. I had stock, mannequins, racks,tables,camping gear,mirrors, stools, cooler and snacks. But I had no way to put up my tent.

Luckily this isn't the first time I've been smited by the gods. The back up plan swings into effect. Its off to WalMart where I bought the last $100 sunshade they had. Once it was up things went pretty smooth until I turned in for bed and realized I had forgotten a blanket.

The decent crowds made up for these small setbacks. Several friends came by and helped me out which put me in much better spirits all around. The show has potential and they have a very enthusiastic staff. If you live in Michigan or Ohio you might consider coming for a visit.

Yay! Noahs ark found!

Thank goodness that's cleared up and we can get on with groveling before mighty YahWeh. According to a fundy Christian site, Noahs ark has been found at last. They even have pictures, go see for yourself.

It seems that several very qualified people were on the expedition, including:

explorer, adventurer, and featured Worldview Weekend speaker Dr. Bob Cornuke, ...Bob's team consisted of a "Who's Who" of business, law, and ministry leaders including Barry Rand (former CEO of Avis), the author and Christian apologist Josh McDowell, Frank Turek (co-author with Norm Geisler of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist), Boone Powell (former CEO of Baylor Medical Systems), and Arch Bonnema (president of Joshua Financial).

These aren't some hacks, or Indiana Jones wanna be's. These people have scientific skills. I mean, some of them run businesses. I run a business, so I guess I'm qualified to perform open heart surgery and declare positively that Moses wore pro-keds (size 10 wide).

Apparently finding rocks now counts as conclusive evidence that 8 people managed to feed and house 2 of every kind of animal on the planet. There's no need to use logic, science or reason. All you need is blind faith and it is so.

"These are not the facts you are looking for, move along"

Why is this even in the news? People find evidence every day for UFO's and pixies. Why aren't these Earth Shattering discoveries on ABC news? Why? Because these things aren't real. (Hell, I'm still holding out hope for UFO's, but Noah Ark?)

We as a people have reached a pinnacle undreamt of in our ancient past. We have stood on the surface of the moon, we can fly and have cured diseases thought incurable. And yet we continue to feel the need to grovel before a Daddy-god, begging his approval and fearing his wrath instead of using our brains. I guess it makes things easier that way.

I swear it takes all my considerable will not to make up a super-religion and use my willing, if moronic, followers to mold this miserable little mud ball of a planet into my plaything. It wouldn't matter how whacko or nonsensical my made up religion is. There are people out there who will believe ANYTHING and with the right packaging, marketing and pretty graphics I could be running the whole show.

No rest for the wicked

No sooner was the Bag End Bash over than we had to get back to work. It was off to Origins in Columbus. This is a huge gaming industry event. It covers EVERYTHING. From Parchizi to D20 to LARPS. If you don't know what any of tyhose things are, you haven't played a game in the last 20 years. It's a good thing I got out of gaming a while back. Even so there were so many cool games and gaming accessories.


Must ...resist..shiny...objects...

This was a four day event and sales were good for us. But again we cannot rest on our laurels. Unpack, repack and go set up for the Great Lakes fair and the Silver Leaf fair, both opening this weekend. I am worried that we don't have enough stock. The credit card machine also started acting wonky this weekend and might need to be replaced.

This is the pace of things from now on until the end of October or so. Ah well, I enjoyed the Spring. Thanks again to evenyone who came out for the party. Send me your pics! I have some good ones and will be posting them soon.

Restoring memories

I am glad that I had the chance to volunteer down in Biloxi and in New Orleans last November. I was able to do this thanks to the donations from readers of the cool report. But once I returned I felt sort of...restless. I wanted to do more. But work and life and finances just don't allow it. So I started looking at other ways to help. I found a great site called Operation Photo Rescue.

The idea is simple. Insurance can replace your house or car, but not your memories. Countless photos were destroyed in the hurricanes. I remember throwing stacks of them to the curb as trash in the Nonth Ward. It was so sad. Each one was a glimpse into someones life. A graduation, a wedding, baby pictures. All gone.

So some volunteers decided to try and save what they could. They have made several trips to the Gulf Cost, collected thousands of photos, scanned them and have set up a system where graphic artists can download the damaged images, fix them in Photoshop, and upload them again for prints to be made. It's a great idea and if you know anyone with Photoshop skills, I encourage you to send them a link to the site.

It would be funney if it weren't insane and sad...

Some of you may have heard me give the 30 second version of "What Scientology?". Upon hearing this, many of you say "What the....are you kidding me??"

No. I'm not kidding you. If you'd like a nice animated version click the image below.





This is not a joke. This 'church' is very popular among the Hollywood set and they rake in BILLIONS of dollars from their followers. The also have a long and ugly history that involves murder, terrorism, attack lawyers and more. Go check out Xenu.net for more info. But I warn you, you won't like what you see.

Earth Sandwich

We live in a time of wonder my friends. Once it was thought that if you dug straight down through the earth you would end up in China, where (it is assumed) you would be able to get some really good Chinese food. Of course we know this to be a myth. The Morlocks would get us long before we reached the Earths inner core of cottage cheese.

But thanks to GPS and advances in baking technology, we can now create The Earth Sandwich!

Thus prooving scientifically that some of our speciese has waaaaaay too much time on their hands.

Oh my...

I think its fair to say that I have a certain fondness for the DeLorean. It is a fondness shared by about 97.3% of all males. So when I saw this I was indeed impressed Thanks to the design of the delorean it can provide its own screen for the viewing of visual entertainment. One could easily watch films about time travel, which would no doubt feel like being on some kind of thrill ride.

Updates

Rossana is much better. She's taking it easy and doing the therapy. Thanks for the emails, she really appreciated them.

The reunion was great. When I visited Goodman in Austin, there was lots to do and see, but here in scenic Wellington, well, there isn't. But all parties seemed quite content to just kick back and chill at Bag End. We ate dinner out on the lawn and had talks late into the evening around the brazier on our porch.

Very little in the way of work got done so I'm going to have to kick into high gear to get ready for our upcomming housewarming event. This means a trip to the fireworks store. Oh yes. And I will be unsupervised.

The good and the bad.

The good news, my father is visiting from Boston and tomorrow my brother and step brother are also coming over. We haven’t had this group together since my wedding at Pennsic. Its tough, with everyone spread out all over the country.

The bad news? Rossana injured herself yesterday while doing yardwork. Something in her knee popped out and did not pop in. It was bad enough that I took her to the emergency room. If anyone doubts my Jedi powers try getting away with taking a left turn through a red light in the middle of Oberlin at 35 mph with a cop RIGHT BEHIND YOU. I can't explain it, but he followed me through the light and then just turned off onto a side street.

Lucky for me.

The emergency room doctors were useless. X-rays showed nothing broken, which we knew. They put her leg in a leg brace thing, prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and vicodin. They referred her to to an orthopedic doctor she could see on MONDAY. 'It's first come, first serve so get there plenty early' and pray.

Fuck that! There is a great chiropractor in Wellington named Pfeiffer. He also handles all the high school sports team injuries. We got to see him first thing TODAY. He iced the kneee and managed to get it popped back into place. That was a big improvement. She's seeing him again on Monday and will likely need to do some excercises to strengthen her ligaments. Otherwise she is resting well. I got her some crutches to make sure she doesn't try to move boulders or something.

If you have a moment, send her some love at Rossana@readingsbyrossana.com

In vivid color

If you'd like to see how Bush is tanking for yourself, I direct your Interon browsing device to the following animated image.

Pretty brutal George.

Adventures in Lawn Care

So here it is at last. The lawnmower. With it I shall tame the wilderness that is my back yard. I shall fear no weed. My chainsaw and my roundup shall comfort me.

This thing has made my life much easier. It does 80 mph. It can, in fact pop wheelies. I will be speaking with Grimm about chrome exhaust pipes and a turbo charger. Its 0-60 speed is a little sluggish. And yes, I am wearing a John Deere hat. It came with the mower and it gives me mad farmer cred down at Cecils trackside diner. Word.