Game me

Well I broke down this past ..  recently and started playing a game on Facebook.. The game is called Scrabble.. What a stretch, I KNOW .. But I saw that someone else was playing it and so I thought I'd give it a try.. Started the game the other day and my thinking was I'd start playing and it would be like playing the game that is loaded on the computer.. i decided not to play in speed mode and the "guy" I'm playing started by playing a huge scoring word  "AT"... That has been my largest deficit, four points.. I have lead by as many as seventy points.. I know that even that lead can disappear quickly but this game is like the chess by mail (email) version that I used to play on another site.. I would have several chess matches going at the same time and should be doing that here with the Scrabble game I have.. Right now being ahead isn't the hard part, being patient is.. Going from playing a turn every twenty seconds or fewer to taking a day per move..BOREDOM  hits..


My nephew is a video game nut now.. He likes playing games on his moms facebook account so it might look like she has started playing those "highly addictive" games.. She hasn't..

The past few days my Scrabble games have seen me win by two, lose by seven and also have a demoralizing loss by a hundred points. Most people would quit after going down by a large number but I have both had big deficit comebacks and also large leads turn to fairly substantial losses.. It just goes to show that even when you start very well that when the letters stop dropping your way you can lose.. I'm good at Scrabble but anyone can beat me on any given day..

Mom wants to see if her grandson can play other games and I do to.. Games like Sorry and Monopoly were common place for me and my older brother and friends to be playing by the time we were his age.. Monopoly wasn't played as successfully as Sorry was.. Then there's Jenga.. I love that game, so simple and yet complex.. and then there is those Avalon Hill games.. A lot of train games with the Monopoly idea behind them, and thinking it might be junior high before he could play those games, some are complex while others are time consuming which seems to be fine when he likes to take the time to play.. Most of the time he gets a game set up, and by the time it is set up he's ready to play another game.. That's the best part of Jenga, it takes no time to set up at all..  I am a gamer from way back and it's the thing we used to do on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.. And Easter and 4th of July although less board and more yard games variety.. During the summer holidays.. I got my little brother one of those rod controlled hockey games.. That was a lot of fun.. I was gonna get it for my older brother but I wanted to play it regularly so I got it for my little brother, and we played it a lot.. Electric football only sounds fun, but after a few minutes of aggravation it gets old fast.. Getting the settings to be perfect for the game to play right is hard to do and we were maybe just a bit too young to figure it out.. I never got into darts, although a friend of mine did have a art board he was more dangerous than anyone with anything like darts.. Get outta the way.. But ever since getting on the computer I like playing Scrabble.. Pretty much my favorite game to play...

Badge Henry

Not much

Something happened yesterday that got me thinking.. Mom had a test run at the doctors office and it was a test that took some four hours to complete.. We had to be there for the first half hour (It was supposed to be an hour but you know how they do things at that hospital.. Different, that's right) anyway she gets the first test (hearing test) after drinking the solution, at about ten and we get ready to leave and see that my little brother was there and so instead of leaving mom wants to stay and talk with him instead and that was fine.. After that it was close to eleven when the second test was done.. After the second test was done we went to the other part of the doctors office to contact moms doctors dipshit nurse to get her to get the prescription thing set.. As I walk over to a chair to sit down I sit and it feels like the cushion was giving way.. It stopped and I looked at mom and said "there's a dip in this chair..."  she just nodded ...  And I instantly thought of dad, he would have jumped all over that one.. Dad might not have seemed like he was a witty person, but in fact he was.. He would have jumped all over that opening.. "Yep, there is a dip in that chair, there sure is..."  He would make me laugh, because he could do such a thing like that, take an opening like that and drive it over the fence in center field.. HOME RUN...  I really miss him..

Screw you guys I'm going home

The fun with Netflix continues.. From the past few movies being.. not working right, to todays retrieval of the replacement disc for the movie from last week that was cracked.. Todays disc was worse.. Check this out..

I have never had a disc from Netflix in the bad of shape..  four linear cracks, one that goes through the length of the disc..  The other three are partial, all of these in their varying sizes is enough to keep the disc from playing.. The only crack in a disc that might still play is if the crack only goes within a millimeter from the outer edge.. Any longer and forget about it.. And only it will play if it is a very short program such as ten to thirty minutes.. Get your story told quickly..  Anyway I can't believe two discs in a row have had this happen.. The next three are probationary discs.. If there's even the slightest shitbegone that doesn't allow the disc to play .. I'm outta here a month early..

Badge Henry

(P.S.  It's hard to believe how fast things with Netflix have gone south so quickly.. Three discs in two weeks, two delivery sessions.. And the first being  a disc that would not play  no matter what I did to the disc.. I have a disc repair kit and usually that will do the trick, but after trying that stuff it just wasn't working.. Usually I can see the issue with the disc in plain light but even with a magnifying glass I couldn't spot the reason the disc wouldn't play.. So it's my player then??  I tried one of my discs and it played perfectly.. So we are down to this week only.. They are on probation, if they don't get the discs when they normally do, if delivery now takes a week then I will close it down.. If they get the discs on time and I get them back and there is a problem with playback.. Netflix disc delivery will end.. I already have deleted from my queue over a hundred titles and will take it down to fifty by the end of this week if there is an issue with playback, if the discs aren't crappy.. Like I said I doubt that it is on the netflix side but rather the mail service which is now going downhill quick since our post office is half a day now.. Can't make the post office workers very happy and accidentally breaking  a disc.. Hey that shit happens.. Well maybe it's time to eliminate our post office all together.. )

(P.P.S.  This is exactly the reason why I almost got out of Netflix:

Original Shipment (Reported damaged on 11/13/14) 11/10/14 11/17/14 Replacement Shipment (Reported damaged on 11/17/14) 11/14/14 11/19/14  I've stopped rating the discs, this probationary period is just that, it will end either this weekend or the end of the year, and why i didn't get out after this past round of aggravation is beyond me.. I can only explain it this way, I think i want to see if I can get  a triple set (a single weekends delivery) without a problem but make no mistake that if they don't get here unscathed the plug will be pulled, and I am ready for it and was as early as this past September.. It was nice while it lasted but I'm ready for it to be done..)

cats cats and more cats

This is for all the people who think that people like me that like colder  weather think that when the temperature dips below zero that I am in my element.. I'm NOT.. I don't mind when the temperature dips below zero as long as there is absolutely NO wind.. Zero and colder feels the same with no wind and I am able to be without a coat, and have no problem.. But when it is that cold and there is a wind my tolerance is zero just like any normal person.. My idea of cooler weather is around forty.. My range of perfect colder weather is between 30 and around fifty.. My ultimate living range is 40 to 75, with 90 degrees tolerated for harvest.. But to me anything above 95 to anything over the triple digit is as untolerable as the zero range in winter.. In the summer you can't take off enough clothes to cool off and in the winter you can't wear enough to warm up..  Especially if the wind is blowing...


On another subject... :  I've never had a problem with how Netflix does their dvd rental division of the overall company.. Until now.. The past month of rentals have been snoozefest movies and hey, that's my problem, if the material is boring to watch that is on me.. But the most recent movies (three at a time plan) I got a movie that simply wouldn't play no matter what player I tried it on.. So what was wrong??  It was cracked??  Nope, no  crack.. No scratch, virtually no issue with the playing surface that I could see.. When I get the discs I open them and turn them over and see what shape they are in.. Scratches, yes they all have scratches in them, there hasn't been a single disc that didn't have a few thousand scratches in  them.. A few thousand??  Maybe that is a bit high of a number but in all honesty they all seem to have those minute scratches as most discs will get when sent in the mail.. I then went on the Netflix site and reported the disc wouldn't play, so that following Monday the three discs were sent back at the same time including the disc that wouldn't play, all get sent in the outside box.. Usually I would put them in the inside box but because we now have morning only mail service, the outside box guarantees the mail goes out in the evening pickup.. So they take until Wednesday normally to get there (by there I mean one of three sites either Omaha, Kansas City or Des moines all three get there at about the same time) but on this week it would be longer.. I figure no big deal with the mail service being what it is becoming.. So I get the replacement disc and play it that night (Wednesday night last week) and it stutters and sticks and I check it and it looks as good as the copy that didn't play.. Is my player going bad??  I try one of my discs and it plays fine.. The disc is the problem.. What is the issues.. You don't need a microscope to see what the problem is with the discs.. Actually if you were to look at a dvd with a microscope you would wonder how they play at all with all those nasty ass scratches in it.. I have a repair kit for when the discs have problems playing with nasty scratches in them.. This wasn't one and the disc  sticks then plays and sticks and plays and the hour and a half disc gets done playing in two hours.. I get the gist of the story, very predictable and seems like I've seen it before.. Kind of a chick flick thing.. Sorry, but it looked good in the previews. I get the disc sent in on Thursday and by Friday morning the discs I sent on Monday STILL weren't there.. Where are they??  Lost in Kearney???  So I get on my high horse and get on the 'flix site and report all three as missing.. They get them on Monday, and send out three movies and I get the Wednesday although they say they will get in on Thursday (yesterday) and, I open the discs and the first two are fine and the third I thought I could see a crack before turning the disc around and sure enough, there's a crack from the center to the outer ring.. This won't play on mine or anyone else dvd plaayer, it is shit.. So I get on the computer to report the disc has a bit of a flaw and their reporting of problems won't accept a complaint because they show I still haven't gotten it yet.. Truth is I guess they are trying to keep this type of thing from happening.. They should get the damaged disc back before sending a replacement but in the mean time you have nothing to watch.. I have been thinking about ditching Netflix discs service for a while now but this last runaround has just about ended it for me.. I think the end of the year will be the end of the disc service.. They want to end it anyway and throttling my deliveries just about will end it for me..

Badge Henry

Not what I thought

It's nice.. Fun... And how many people looked at this blog over the past three days.. If you continue to look at this site like you have here's a BIG  THANK YOU  for the stat boost.. I've never had that many views here on this or ANY blog I have ever had..  Not in a short span like that.. Hard to believe that that many can change the way I think of writing a blog..  How many looked at this blog??  In a short few hours I had over 166 views.. Which might sound small but when you figure I had five to seven in a weeks period, 166 in a few hours time is huge.. Which begs the question is it real??  Are those numbers real or a figment of the blogger numbers counter.. And where were all these views from??  Well the answer to that question is Europe..  Where in Europe?? France to be exact.. Strange how that can be the case and also it wasn't a latest entry, but rather a single entry..:

De pagina die je in dit blog zoekt, bestaat helaas niet.    Which when translated simply means the entry you are trying to look at is no longer available or something to that nature..  Simply put, I would do an entry and then either decide after having it go live to either schedule it at a different time or to revert to draft for a possible reschedule or to revert to draft with the idea or writing it by adding/subtracting or it gets full on deleted which rarely happens but has.. I have several drafts I am working on now that will either be completed or deleted before too long.. 

The barn is back.. Baby the barn is back and it is better than ever.. After it was made to be dropped by Blogger, they moved to Zetaboards and are more of a forum than  a blog which suits them better I think.. They were told that some of the music they had on site was not bootleg but instead quite NOT bootleg.. And so they got the old cease and desist letter (who hasn't gotten one of those??)  Even I have gotten one of those..  And so rather than chance it the shut down.. This was back in .. May I think.. And I thought there wouldn't be another site that was as good as that site.. Then I was looking at one of the other sites that has this kind of music and there was a link to the barn.. Known better as Hear Rock City.. Some of the best bootlegs to ever be gotten are there.. 

Speaking of bootleg material, when a group releases a new recording it tends to get the bootlegs to be released again.. In this case  the new Pink Floyd record The Endless River being released yesterday should get the bootlegs flowing again.. I want to see what there is, because I got the bootlegs Have You Got It Yet and Games For May each are fan compilations with Games for may being a four disc set and Have you got it yet being a seven disc set..  Yeah they are big but Pink Floyd has a huge fan following..  Of all things I still don't have the endless river yet..  I was gonna preorder it from Barnes and Noble but didn't yet.. Might get it ordered by the weekend.. I think it will be a great album but you have to remember it is the album they were supposed to put out after Division Bell.. I kept waiting for them to get it out by the first part of 2000 but it was not to be.. And I think when they were getting ready to reissue the Division Bell that they came across those recordings and finally decided to do something with them.. I knew they had them, because I was (am) a huge Floyd fan and read about everything there was to read about them over the years.. I knew they had all this and they still have material that may never see the light of day in the original recordings for the Meddle album that was originally the household objects recordings..  Using glasses of water, rubber bands stretched to make music.. All sorts of interesting things but it was abandonded to start the album Meddle instead.. Also the original Momentary Lapse of Reason album would be interesting to hear.. Remember the original album was submitted to the record company and they refused it because it didn't sound like Pink Floyd enough... Go figure... So when you hear them saying there isn't anything else in the vaults, trust me.. THERE IS.. It just might not be up to their standard.. I say box it and call it Not Up To Our Standard.. People will buy it.. 

Badge Henry

(P.S. An apology to those who read this bit about the bootleg material released about the Floyd.. I was trying to go from memory about what I have and everything.. Yesterday I checked the Crazy Diamond box set that was released with the Syd Barrett music, that's where I keep the bootleg releases of Pink Floyd and here is the actual names of the sets and number of discs.. Have You Got It Yet is a four disc set, four DVD disc set so in actual compact disc that would come out to sixteen  or there about, and included in this set are rare videos, music and picture and programs from a good number of tours.. Dolls Dark House single compact disc with music from before the floyd lineup with Syd and Bob Klose... An un-named disc with early Syd performances with the never before released Scream Thy Last Scream included..  And of course the Games For May set is only a four compact disc set..  The Have You Got It Yet set I added a few little nuggets to, including the Darkside remix released back in 2001..  Dark side of the dark side.. A remix that really puts it to you, and hour long mix of clips of songs which includes a Australian PF version of Comfortably Numb... )

There once was a time

Let me tell you about someone.. Someone extremely special..  This guy was a great guy, and back when I was a little boy, I called him dad... And he was as great as dads go.. He seemed very intimidating as I was growing up. How was he intimidating??  Well for one thing he was HUGE.. He was taller than me by a good four to ten feet... And was just  a giant.. As I got older he got shorter of course but he just was this big, larger than life guy..  

(In this picture is me  in between my older brother and my dad, the scoutmaster.)
My dad was a teacher at the school I went to as well as my older brother and little brother... and for me, I was in a class that found out by way of their parents that my dad was a teacher, and so I was the outcast because of this fact.. But in the early days I didn't notice all the BS that I was having to deal with on  a daily basis of being in that class.. I had said if I would have been in the class ahead or behind me I wonder how things would have turned out..  My dad was the constant in the family. 

In the picture above we have my dad giving me a talking to, more than likely  because, well you see those little boxes there on the table?? Those are matchbox cars boxes.. And they each would have a truck or car that my older brother got for his birthday and I really liked them as well and more than likely thought they should be mine instead.. And so I'm sure my dad was giving me the talk about sharing.  Ah that dirty word no kid wants to hear, SHARING...  Dad was one person at school and quite another at home.. The intimidating posture he had made me be a little afraid of him, which isn't a bad thing.. He never spanked us, or hit us in any way..  My parents both supported my efforts probably beyond what was in reality real.. I would start to play the drums at an early age, I remember getting a drum for Christmas when I was maybe in school, but possibly I was younger than that.. And I would continue to play the drum, and drums through until I burned out in nineteen ninety... Sadly I haven't felt like playing since.. But they supported me by buying me my first drumset and then through the days of me being in a band.. My dad was quite the different person from school where he might raise his voice on a regular basis in his class.. Then be home and be quiet, a quieter man..

Dad liked being around the kids at school, in the fall the promise of a new school year energized him.. He was the principal of the grade school before I was in junior high and then a few years before he retired he was the principal of the entire school taking on the high school as well.. Hanging up his teaching completely... He taught business and typing, and really I hate to say that typing was mandatory when I was in school and I could not type to save my life.. I remember him coming over to my desk one day and say why can't you type, you can play the drums like no one else can?? My explanation:  I..  um..  I don't know.. I mean moving four body parts is way  ...  WAY easier than getting ten to move where you want them to, and typing has no rhythm at all, playing the drums is like so much easier.. I was a charity case.. I think he passed me because he felt sorry for me.. His only true loser of a son, I think he sensed I would amount to very little unless I had a lot of help..

My dad with his first and as it turns out only wife...  How many do that these days, get married and stay that way.. I think most people think of marriage as one of those I'll give it a try and if it doesn't work out we'll split, no harm no foul..   They might not have been perfect, but they got along extremely well...

Yep, dad put shaving cream on our faces.. and shortly after this picture was taken, my brother decided I needed a shave and did exactly that.. Kinda nicked me a bit..

Dad in grandpa mode with Tabitha snoozing.. I think dad liked this time the most.. He could put her to sleep and she returned the favor by getting him to snooze too..  They were the perfect partners in sleep..

When it came time to get the headstone for my dads grave site I had so many ideas go through my mind as to what the design should be.. But I had really no one true idea.. When a guy approached us to get one done, I didn't have a clue then either.. I didn't know when one needed to be done.. Should it be done and placed before the one  year anniversary when he passed.. The train from his hometown  design was decided upon eventually and it took several design attempts before we agreed upon what was done.. Still it wasn't the exact design we were hoping for but for whatever the reason and maybe I felt like we needed to get it done relatively quickly.. Maybe it was rushed, but also the guy in charge seemed like he was pushing to sign off on it and get it done.. I liked the design, the layout.. The thing is dad never talked about anything like this and really I don't know how many people like to talk about it..  So hopefully we did alright by him..

BUSTED (sort of)

I was checking my Gmail account earlier and.. WOW I have a lot of videos blocked.. Blocked and deleted.. Shows like Cracked were deleted.. But you know if they would have told me to stop two years ago I wouldn't have uploaded all those videos.. Busted yes but they didn't shut that channel down completely which they could have done.. That's ok, I didn't gain monetarily from those videos, and I didn't want to get any money, it wasn't my shows.. So from having a half a million views to a measly hundred... I was nearly cocky about the fact that I had so many views.. Oh well.. The thinking is all the family videos will be uploaded back there instead of the second site then delete the second site..   The main site will remain to be the stutch13 site.. The other will be shut down.. Unless they shut this site down then it will have to be the alternate site..


Badge Henry

(P.S. When I think of all the time it took to upload all those videos, yeah, I'm a bit pissed off but at the same time like I said, they could have pulled my channel down and said tough shit.. I'm ok with it still being on at least for the videos that I still have (mostly family videos) and most of those videos were uploaded before I learned how to edit with windows movie editing program.. Had I been able to edit the videos from before I might only have around a hundred videos rather than all these that I have.. Maybe someday I'll try to get all the videos together and edit them and make one video.. The relative videos.. That would be like the trip to Moab be a single video rather than however the shit many there are.. )

Q TO THE J TO THE V TO THE C

Well I've started playing my favorite game again recently, Scrabble.. Or more to the point computer scrabble and have been playing in the veteran level which isn't a really high level, but is enough of a challenge at the same time.. Letters are very important as with scrabble being a crossword game if you don't like letters, you're playing the wrong game.. But what I mean by the letters being important is that if they come at the wrong time you can be screwed.. Say for  instance..

You get a tray with almost all I or you get the vowel full tray.. That's always fun.. I got I's up the yang and you not only can you not make any words to start the game, if you have either vowels only of consonants you are in the same boat either way.. Getting the Q early on is good for a good start, but the best time to get the Q is around the twenty tiles left mark, mostly because you can score better by then, but if you are the mindset that you can only use the Q if you have the U then you are stuck.. That isn't the only was to use the Q and after you learn this fact the better you will be.. I used to take chances with using the U just anytime, then if I got the Q later on I figured that would be ten points taken away from my final score.. NOT ANYMORE.. My least favorite tile to have towards the end of the game is the dreaded V.. In fact the V and C are my least favorite letters to have almost ever in the game.. Give me  a J or K before a C or V... ANYDAY..  

So I was playing a game the other night.. On the computer version I set the game to be fifteen minutes in full length, and 45 seconds per turn.. 45 seconds might seem like a way too short of a time, but when you get used to it, it seems like an eternity.. unless you are used to trying words out because you don't know what will give the bigger score.. I did that in the early going in non timed games.. After I learned the board I started to play timed games, and I learned the board really fast and extremely well.. Like the other night I was playing and had the lead early when the computer scored fairly large point totals and I was down by 70 points.. I felt like this was it.. I would lose yet again.. I have this goal of scoring 20 points per turn to have any chance at winning against the computer.. And this night wasn't happening.. I was getting six and nine and really feeling like this game was out of my hands.. And then the miracle happened.. I got the Q... There is a god.. Ok by the time I got the Q there was nowhere to place it as the Q U combo.. There are games out there that have the QU as a single set letter thing (Boggle comes to mind) and that would screw me out of the ability to play the word that would get me from being down by 70, to getting back in the game.. A two letter word placing the Q on a triple letter score.. In this case the word was QI  Placing the Q on the triple letter (three times ten, and three times ten again, it was the perfect storm.. adding up to 62 points.. Suddenly I'm back in this one.. And everything kept going good for me, the bigger letters were in the right place on the board and after being down by 70, it came down to the last play, I literally had to place the tiles down, my final three.. I was down by ten, and I had all vowels and the way it came out I got my seven points, and I got the points from the letters left in the computers tray.. From down by ten to winning by three.. What an amazing game that one was... I had to play my remaining tiles because the computer might have been able to clear it's tray and won the way I did.. That has happened on more than one occasion.. Very rarely I clean my tray to win the game like that.. And I have only had a single game play that way to an exact tie...

Badge Henry