Happy Halloween!

I'm not a fan of Halloween. Call me a party pooper (most do). But just because I'm not the biggest fan doesn't mean that I don't appreciate others' love of it. I'm also not so anti-Halloween that I can't admit it has its upsides: candy, clever costumes*, and The Simpsons Tree House of Horrors. This year I got invited to a costume party. The costume I came up with hardly rivaled any of the others there. Hannah had the best costume of the night IMHO with a dead perfect Ugly Betty. (By saying it was dead perfect, I'm not implying that she was looking ugly. Anyone who knows the show and saw her would get it.) Other great costumes were Willy Wonka, Neo (from the Matrix), and a big fat tourist guy. Seeing the costumes, esp. the ones that were homemade, made me appreciate the holiday a little bit more. So what was I? Well, have a look and try to guess. (If you already knew, pre-post, please keep to yourself. Or if you are the one person that correctly guessd (Joe), sit quietly and marvel at how clever you are.) What you can't see is that I am wearing knee high rubber boots, which may or may not help. Need a hint? Hover for a clue or two: hint 1, hint 2, hint 3, and (big) hint 4.

Wednesday October 31 2007

File under: holidays

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on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 03:23 pm PDT amanda said: dick cheney? ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 03:38 pm PDT Nesbitt said: blind guess: Joe Dirt ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 03:39 pm PDT Nesbitt said: second guess: sasqatch ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 06:45 pm PDT Chris said: So to be fair, I assume Jule went as you for Halloween? ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 08:51 pm PDT Andrew said: Harry Whittington ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 09:15 pm PDT Jule said: No, I went as king of the cosmos from katamari damaci. wait, I don't even know who that is. I tried to make my neighborhood slightly less creepy by giving out candy and looking as normal as I could. ************************ on Wed 31st Oct, 2007 09:44 pm PDT whuppin stick said: you are the guy WITH dick cheney? you should have raided my closet for some accurate hunting gear. ************************ on Thu 01st Nov, 2007 08:43 am PDT Wren said: Andrew gets first prize, with a close second to whuppin stick. Amanda gains an honorable mention for pointing everyone in the right direction. I'm amused by "Joe Dirt" (maybe next year) and slightly offended at "sasquath" and "Jule". (Zing!) ************************ on Thu 01st Nov, 2007 11:25 am PDT Saxtor said: Wait...Jule, this was your costume?! In the one Katamari Damacy game I've played, his lines were quite, shall we say, esoteric. ************************ on Thu 01st Nov, 2007 05:14 pm PDT Sean said: My guess was you were college-era Wren. ************************ on Thu 01st Nov, 2007 10:40 pm PDT cardboard said: you went as a pile of hogfuel?? wait i didnt know them hogs even liked wood debris...well maybe LWD's....woooob woob wooob wooob woooob wooob ************************ on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 11:31 pm PST Siri said: Aside from the black marks on your face, it just looks like Wren circa 1997, since you wore most, if not all of those clothes in High School. P.S. Nice shirt. ************************

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Friday Comic 4

For the final Friday of the month, we've called back in the first stringer. Not only did Deanna draw this week's comic, but she also gets co-writing credit for figuring out how to turn my super vague idea into something workable. I hope you enjoy! (In this place where I usually link to the previous comics in the series, I will instead point out the new searching feature that will allow you to list all the comics on just one page. Click the "File under: comic" below.)

Thursday October 25 2007

File under: comic

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on Sat 27th Oct, 2007 07:14 pm PDT Sean said: Not too shabby! I likes ************************ on Sun 28th Oct, 2007 05:45 pm PDT Jule said: As usual a wonderfully drawn comic! By the way, was this comic based on something i did? ************************

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The Red Note runs the NYC Marathon

Looking for a good time? Call 867-5309. Even better, come out this Friday night for a for some fine music courtesy of The Red Note (and special guest!). The show is at the History House in Fremont* at 7:00. To accompany the entertainment, there will be season appropriate beverages for sale. All the information can be found at The Red Note's website (*) The show is a benefit to help Chapman raise money to fight lung cancer. The money serves as his entry fee to the NYC marathon, which is in turn donated to lung cancer research as I understand it. Running 26.4 miles is a feat in itself and doing it for the betterment of humanity is all the more commendable. If you would like to support Chapman but can't make it to this Friday's show, click here.

Wednesday October 24 2007

File under: events, misc

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on Thu 25th Oct, 2007 08:24 am PDT cardboard said: Actually I guess the 2500 goes directly to the lung cancer dudes (anything not raised comes outta chapmas credit card). This gets chapman a guarenteed spot in the race but he still has to pay his own entry fee and airfare. My friggin dad knocked me off the top contributer page...baaah ************************ on Fri 26th Oct, 2007 04:12 pm PDT trista said: red note! red NOTE! ************************ on Mon 29th Oct, 2007 03:08 am PDT whuppin stick said: a marathon is 26.2 miles, also a feat in itself. if it were two tenths longer i perhaps would have collapsed yesterday. ************************ on Sun 04th Nov, 2007 05:20 pm PST Wren said: By Jove, he did it! Shane finished the NYC marathon in 4:45:10, coming in in a respectable 25668th place (18789th out of male competitors). To see splits, click here. Good job Chapman! ************************ on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 08:28 am PST trista said: Sweet ass, Chapman! See you at smokers mile, punk! ************************

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New Host

As some of you may have noticed, over the past 2 months or so, BdW has not been exceptionally reliable. Sometimes it was super slow in loading. Other times, it wouldn't load at all. It has been a source of frusteration for me that I've constantly been trying to deal with by alerting my web host. While he was always quick to respond (as soon as I could track him down), it still meant lots of downtime which isn't good for anybody. Now, though, I am pleased to announce that I have moved to a new host*. From preliminary tests, it is a big step up. Pages compile uber-fast and the ftp access is also quite snappy. I have yet to figure out how to set up other domains (so troothpicks will continue to stay over at Cheapstream for the time being). Anyway, I guess the point is that things should work better now. If you notice a problem, please tell me. And if you know someone that quit reading because of these previous technical issues, please encourage them to give me another try. With the move to a new host, I figure it would be a good time to launch some minor upgrades which I will just quickly mention. First and foremost, I've introduced searching by tag. That way, if you want to find all posts about, say, food, you can just click "food" under "filled under:". I also tweaked the way the pagination buttons work to account for space. It is a temporary fix, but I think it is kind of neat. (Scroll down to the bottom and hover over the page numbers.) Lastly, I changed the RSS to be a little more standards compliant. If you've got upgrades that you would like to see*, please let me know.

Tuesday October 23 2007

File under: coding, blog

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on Tue 23rd Oct, 2007 05:02 pm PDT Go! Turtle said: It "frusterated" me as well ************************ on Wed 24th Oct, 2007 08:57 am PDT Wren said: Well, I'm pretty frusterated that firefox 2.0 dropped the ball on that one. Or maybe I just didn't see the little red "this word is spelled wrong" underline. But, G!T, I'm glad you share my frusteration. ************************ on Wed 24th Oct, 2007 03:19 pm PDT Andrew said: i would appreciate 22% more bikini babes. Thanks! ************************ on Wed 24th Oct, 2007 06:27 pm PDT Jule said: I always thought that I couldn't access your blog because you finally had enough of my "witty" comments and blocked my computer. Good to know that I am just wrongly uber-paranoid and not a jerk. well, maybe i am still a jerk. ************************

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A Night at the Drive-In

As much hot air as I spout against driving (vs. public transporation, biking, etc.), there is one situation where a replacement for a car is practically out of the question. While I've heard of people biking or walking in, carrying their own lawn chairs, blankets, and battery powered radios, the drive-in movies just aren't the same unless you drive in. After keeping an eye on my schedule and the schedule of the theatre all summer long, I finally found a match this weekend: two movies that didn't look terrible with a weekend where I was free and had access to a car. The experience was well worth it. The movies may not have been awesome, and we had a little bit of a car door issue*, but the experience was almost exactly as it should be completely with giggling teenagers running around willy nilly and a foot-long chili dog from the concession stand. For those of you in the northwest washington "viewing" area, check out Blue Fox Drive-In (open weekends until at least early December). For those of you outside of said viewing area, check for drive-ins in your area here Oh, and if I can't convince you with the ambience and chili dogs, maybe this will do the trick: two movies for only $6, at 65%* savings over your nearest cineplex.

Sunday October 21 2007

File under: movies, Anacortes

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on Mon 22nd Oct, 2007 07:04 am PDT gretchen said: well, what about the movies? what did you see? ************************ on Mon 22nd Oct, 2007 06:17 pm PDT Jule said: Did you say chili dogs? Say no more! You can even sit in the back of my truck! ************************ on Mon 22nd Oct, 2007 09:41 pm PDT Wren said: Gretchen, the movies were The Comebacks (B if you are in the mood for ridiculousness) and Super Bad (a solid A, if you ask me)*.Jule, Bela and I would scarf chili dogs like they were going out of style then dutch oven the crap out of the back of your truck. ************************

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Friday Comic 3

Send in the B-team! With our first-string artist on a well deserved break, we had to reach down in the depths to find an artist for this week's comic: me. And while the artistry doesn't hold a candle to the work of Deanna, I like to think that it gets the point across just fine. But don't worry, folks; next week I'll be back on the bench drawing-wise and we'll have a comic worthy of a Friday. (I would link to all the previous comics in the series here, but 1) they are all within a few posts of this one and 2) to compare them to this one would be an insult to them)

Friday October 19 2007

File under: comic

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on Fri 19th Oct, 2007 09:58 am PDT Saxtor said: ...okay, I like that one. ************************ on Fri 19th Oct, 2007 04:13 pm PDT Andrew said: dude. get a server that doesn't suck. hollah. ************************ on Fri 19th Oct, 2007 04:14 pm PDT Andrew said: dude. get a server that doesn't suck. hollah. ************************ on Fri 19th Oct, 2007 08:39 pm PDT andrew said: dude. get a server that doesn't suck. hollah. ************************ on Mon 22nd Oct, 2007 04:29 am PDT whuppin stick said: the link to the invisibility prank is great, but the best part is that a dude came into the bathroom to wash his hands and that was apparently fine? ************************

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Beat the Heat

This past Monday was blog action day!, a day where bloggers around the world unite to give coverage to a certain topic. The idea of a group call to action for bloggers doesn't sit extremely well with me (like so many memes), but this year's topic was the environment, so I thought I'd give it a try. Because environment and environmentalism are such huge topics, I abandoned my original idea of listing all the environmental blogs I read, lists of tips and tricks to lessen your environmental footprint, and maybe even post my reflective essay It's About More Than Carbon, Silly. Instead, I decided to cover just one thing, which happens to fit in with what I've been doing recently. Beat the Heat is a community group here in Skagit County (which meets in Anacortes) dedicated to working to "slow global warming through public awareness, personal action, and political advocacy." I've attended a few of their meetings to see what they are all about. It was great to see people self-organizing to work towards a goal they believe in. Many of the projects are closely in line with interests/goals of my own*. Their website has some great resources including a calendar of upcoming environment-related events including sponsored movies and lectures.

Wednesday October 17 2007

File under: environment, Anacortes

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on Wed 17th Oct, 2007 08:35 am PDT gretchen said: this reminds me of a blog that many of the bdw readers might enjoy called u.s. food policy. it is written by one of my professors who is an ag economist turned nutrition crusader. the link to this site is www.usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com he also has a list of many food and environment related blogs linked to his site. ************************ on Wed 17th Oct, 2007 08:36 am PDT gretchen said: sorry, there is no www in the web address. ************************

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Return of Quiz Night

After a longer than normal hiatus, the Backporch Cafe's Quiz Night returned this past Friday evening. A lively crowd* battled it out for the fame and prizes. With my regular team absent, I recruited a crack team of first timers to help with the pursuit. Through round one, we held our own. It turns out our knowledge of indigenous plants, world rivers, classic literature, and Antonio Banderas is above average. Round two was a bit of a suck fest for the Imperfect Ladies*. Out knowledge, or lack thereof, of current events, (post?)modern literature, the Clash, and starlets took us from second place to second-to-last. In a quiz tournament so heavily topicized*, you live and die by the topics. Anyway, as always, it was a good time made even better by the other folks who played. Keep an eye out for the next go round. After all, the more, the merrier. And for all of you who enjoy playing along, I'll share the two identification rounds. Above (click for larger image) are starlets. How many can you name? Or try your knowledge of indigenous plants. I'll post the answers in special hover code in the comments. The Backporch Cafe's Quiz night has been covered before here and here.

Sunday October 14 2007

File under: Anacortes, games

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on Sun 14th Oct, 2007 10:13 am PDT Wren said: Starlets: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Plants: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ************************ on Mon 15th Oct, 2007 09:07 pm PDT Emily said: Yeah-I'm glad I wasn't on your team. I know absolutely NONE of those starlets. What's with the major topicization? (Now there's a word.) ************************ on Wed 17th Oct, 2007 10:57 am PDT blank said: What!?! You need to 'rock the casbah' more my friend. ************************ on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 11:36 pm PST Siri said: 1.Bette Davis 2. Rita Hayworth 3. ??? 4. Lauren Bacall 5. Marlene Dietrich 6. ??? 7. Katherine Hepburn 8. Mae West 9. Greta Garbo How'd I do? ************************ on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 11:37 pm PST Siri said: Oh, I just caught on to the whole hover thang. . . I'm a quick one. ************************ on Tue 06th Nov, 2007 08:27 am PST Wren said: Not bad at all! We might have to bring you in as a ringer. There is a quiz night this Friday if you happen to be in town. ************************

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Friday Comic 2

Here is the second in the October Friday series of comics. I personally think this one is more interesting in the art (again, courtesy of Deanna) than in the comic part, but I'll leave it up to you. Maybe for those of you who do sit at a desk all day, it will ring true. (Previous comics: Organic vs. Inorganic and Dating a Jeopardy Writer) Speaking of which, I somehow got dragged back into the grind this week. I'm doing some contract work for PhotoWorks, the company I used to work for down in Seattle. I conceived of this comic well before I rejoined the rat race*. It is rather fitting, though.

Thursday October 11 2007

File under: comic

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on Fri 12th Oct, 2007 12:37 am PDT whuppin stick said: i suppose this means you'll be paying taxes again this year? unless, of course, you managed an under-the-table deal? ************************ on Sat 13th Oct, 2007 08:19 pm PDT Joe said: Eve is just Jay Leno with golden locks haha...who knew? ************************ on Wed 17th Oct, 2007 11:04 am PDT blank said: maybe it's just the growing up in washington, but seriously, the forbidden fruit is an apple? So boring. It should be a pomegranate, or a kiwi or a sex fruit. Stupid genesis, altered beast sucked. ************************ on Wed 17th Oct, 2007 04:12 pm PDT Saxtor said: I don't see any apples in that scene. They look like oranges to me. And since there are plenty of those, but only one frog, I would say the frog is the forbidden fruit, specifically the infamous bufo alvarius. ************************ on Fri 19th Oct, 2007 08:06 pm PDT Emily said: Surprisingly enough, there is actually no mention of the forbidden fruit being apples, just a fruit. That idea came into lore long after the Bible was written. I thought of that before too actually, when first viewing the comic. And thought it was a nod to this fact--- but then I thought maybe it was just an easier tree to draw and left it at that. :) ************************

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Whale Watching

If I told you that I have lived in the San Juan Islands for 18 years and have only seen Orca whales twice in the wild, would you believe me? Well, it's true, and I consider myself lucky to have seen them that much. Once was at WaPa where 60+* cruised by no more than a stone's throw from the beach. The other time was off the head at Rosario. Both were pretty spectacular. This past weekend, I increased my orca sightings by 50%! Emily, who used to work at Island Adventures, managed to score us tickets to go out whale watching. Although it is on the top of some people's list when they come to Anacortes, I have yet to be out on a whale watching boat. I knew that I was in for a real treat. The weather was quintessential for fall in the northwest. There was a chill to the air, wind gusts here and there, and non-rain moisture coming out of the air somehow, as it so mysteryously wont to do. I was afraid the weather would curtail the adventure, but, at least in my eyes, it only added to it. (Plus, it gave me the excuse to drink a whole thermos of hot chocolate!) To read more (and see pictures!), click here.The boat, filled with 100 eager [potential]* whale watchers, headed out in seach of the pod. Cruising out through the islands, the guides pointed out which islands we were passing and interesting tidbits about the local wildlife. Getting outside of the ferry route is a rarity for me, so I was glad to see some of the further out islands, or at least the far side of them. We ended up crusing around for about 3 hours before honing in on the whales. The whales put on a great show for us. They played, splashed their tales, frolicked, and belly-rolled. We were close enough to get an impression for their size, but not close enough to see the whites of their eyes, per se*. If you just happened upon the pod* and weren't out on a mission to find and photograph them, it would have been heaven. As it was, I will classify it as a solid "neat". Speaking of photographs, here's what we got: Clara was a trooper throughout the whole [6-hour] trip, but kid needs a nap; getting good pictures of the whales was tough, but this one turned out; yours truly all bundled up for the weather, trying to look suave; the classic San Juan Islands shot.

Tuesday October 9 2007

File under: Anacortes, pics

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on Tue 09th Oct, 2007 05:29 pm PDT Sweet Julie said: Way cool! Way cool! I dream of seeing the PacNW O.o.'s! In all of my 13 yrs of marine biology, I have only seen Orcas once in the wild! You are some lucky folks! ************************ on Wed 10th Oct, 2007 08:55 am PDT amanda said: i remember that day at wapa.what a gift. that image of the whale pod so close to the shore during sunset will stay with me forever. ************************ on Thu 11th Oct, 2007 03:32 pm PDT jenelle said: oh those cute little orcas... and their cute little PCB riddled blubbers, ************************ on Fri 12th Oct, 2007 12:33 am PDT whuppin stick said: mmm... whale. ************************

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