Disappointment in Drachenwald

We recently traveled to the Kingdom University event for Drachenwald. We were full of hopeful excitement since many of our old Shiremates of previous years would be attending and we were really looking forward to seeing them again, as well as taking some classes. This was the first Kingdom level event we have attempted with our son. I knew from previous events that the Kingdom had Youth Minister to assist in ensuring that children also have a place to participate and have fun. I of course figured this would be the case here. The event had approximately 140 people registered and about 10% were children under 12. You kind of figure that someone would have thought of this, but sadly no. There was really nothing for small children to do at this event, and sitting through 1 to 2 hour classes for small children is just not feasible. The only place where our son could play and stay warm (it was pretty cold outside) was in the sleeping room which we shared with seven other people. Now, you would think that this would be ok because these people “SHOULD” be going to classes. However, several of these people wished either to sleep in or to take a long nap before court and feast. So this left us with pretty much no where we could take our son. Now, we weren’t looking for someone to watch our child for us, just a place where he could be a child. Our question: Where the hell was the Youth Minister, or a deputy, or someone to say “Hey we should do something for the children!” Sadly like most in the SCA (at least as I’ve seen it) everyone only thought of things for the adults. I had one mother say to me on her arrival, “I hope my children stay asleep so I can be an adult for a while.”, and this coming from a Royal Peer.

Now if the family-unfriendliness were the only problem we felt then I probably wouldn’t be commenting about this here, sadly that was not the only problem at the event. This one was much more personal. There was a Royal Peer at the event who I’ve known since I’ve moved to the Munich area. He was a member of our shire and he and his lady were friends with me and mine. So much so that  he stood as my Best Man at our wedding. They ended moving away to the Barony of Knights Crossing just before our wedding. We hadn’t seen them in a couple of years and we were really excited about seeing them again. During the time we hadn’t seen them, he was Knighted, and then they won Crown. Although there was a greeting (even with a hug) there was no real warmth in the greeting. More distant and forced as though they were only going through the motions. I had hoped to talk to him about a previous conversation we had had about Chivarly some years before. I didn’t even get a chance to bring it up. I asked my wife later how she felt about seeing our old friends again, thinking maybe it was just me. She also felt that our old friends treated us as though we weren’t worth their time. In my mind and heart at least if you are friends with someone it doesn’t matter if they were Knighted or not, or if they had won Crown or not. They are friends to be treated with warmth and respect. If they are friends that I have not seen for sometime of course I would find a way to sit down and talk with them about what is new in their lives or what they are currently doing, and most especially what has happened since we last saw each other.

My wife and I have pretty much decided that if this is what the SCA is about then maybe we don’t want to be a part of the SCA, at least not here in Germany. Here, the SCA is not the only game in town.

Top 10 … err ok only 4 Ugliest People of 2007

I asked and you have spoken here is the list of the Top 10 Ugliest People of 2007:

1. Blackwater: They’re nothing but Mercenaries. The United States has enough soldiers we don’t need to use Mercenaries.
2. 12 member all white jury in the Martin Lee Anderson trial: Although there was overwhelming evidence they still found the guards not guilty.
3. Anne Coulter: Uber-conservative who’s mind is as closed as a book that has been glued together.
4. Michael Moore: The complete opposite of Anne Coulter except for the closed mind part in which case they could be twins.

Well folks that is really all that I got that really fit the bill, there were nominations for Nancy Pelosi, Cindy Sheehan, and Hillary Clinton. However, the person apparently only nominated them because he was a far right-winger. Some of you might wonder where the illustrious leaders of our country are? Well, that would be too easy wouldn’t it. Maybe next year I’ll nominate them for the life time achievement award.

I figure the problem with this years was because I just didn’t give you enough time to give me entries. So for next year I’ll start taking nominations starting today!

Last Week to Get Your Votes In!

Ok everyone this is your last week to get your votes/nominations in for the Top 10 Ugliest People.

If I don’t get enough votes/nominations for this year’s vote I’m going to create the list as I see it. If you want to have a say in the list then YOU need to get posting. Otherwise, well we’ll just have to go with MY opinions.

Tagegory? Man I Wish I Had Thought of That!

Hey I would like to point people to That Girl Again’s blog Wank She’s got a great post about this whole grey area of Categories and Tags or as she calls them Tagegories.

It looks to me that she’s waging a little war against the administrators of WordPress.com which honestly I can agree with in part. In particular the comments, lack of support, and firewalling of the particular admin Matt (not sure what he does other than act as a human firewall but he apparently is staff here He’s the software Author? No wonder he is so sensitive. Maybe we should be nicer … nah!). So I’m going to start a new Tagegory (damn I love that word) called “Bad Matt” and I hope everyone who has a complaint about him joins in with this.

Are You Ugly Enough?

Maybe people aren’t understanding what this list is about. I’m not making fun of peoples’ physical appearance. I’m making fun of peoples’ personality (or lack there of). Beauty is only skin deep, however ugliness goes to the core. I am looking for a list of A-List or B-List celebrities (hell I’ll even take C and D-Lists as well) that have such horrible personalities that no matter what they look like they are ugly.If you name them I’ll post them and the more nominations a person gets the higher on the list they’ll go. I’ll post the top 10 ugliest people on October 31st (if I get that many, otherwise I might just have one or two names).So come on people send those entries in to jrsofty@hotmail.com with the subject “WARNING UGLY PERSON”. I’m not joking I’m going to post this stuff even if you all don’t help me get a list. I don’t care if you are Right Wing, Left Wing, No Wing, Green, Blue, Red, Purple or what ever your political/religious/what ever feelings are. You have a right to speak your mind as to who are the top 10 ugliest people.

Medical Drinking Binge Equivalent Saves Poisoned Man!

Talk about tabloid sounding huh? But believe it or not it comes from the BBC.Here’s the summary, a 24 year-old Italian man drinks ethylene glycol and was taken to hospital. He is first given medical alcohol as an antidote however, the hospital ran out. So they used Vodka instead. The man was drip fed the equivalent to three drinks per hour for three days straight. The man has made a full recovery after spending a total of twenty days in hospital.

According to the report his hangover was finished before he came out of coma. Talk about being on a Binge.

Sutherland goes to Jail … At Least he was Honest.

From the CNN website I bring you this post about a celebrity that actually faced up to his mistakes and took the punishment like an adult. Kiefer Sutherland pleaded “No Contest” to charges of drinking and driving. When sentenced he will spend 48 days in jail, and will also face unspecified fines and a driving suspension. What gets me is this comment:

“While early releases have been granted to others, including celebrities, because of jail crowding and other concerns, Sutherland must serve all of his time, according to the plea agreement. The sheriff also was specifically ordered to not release Sutherland to electronic monitoring.”

 His first 18 days will begin on 21 December, he will have until 1 July 2008 to complete the remaining 30 days.

So he was honest and said he was wrong and is actually willing to accept the full sentence. I’m pretty surprised to see this coming from a Hollywood type. Thank you Kiefer Sutherland for your honesty and willingness to accept your mistakes and to take the punishment that comes from it. Now if only Hilton would actually learn from your fine example.

Have a Smell of Panda Droppings.

I recently came across a website that is dedicated to the failings of Asians (and probably other non-native speakers) use of English. The site called Engrish.com has lots of pictures of attempts at writing English notices/signs/t-shirts and doing a really poor poor job. My favorite mostly is this picture of a schedule book. I’m not entirely sure that these images aren’t faked but they are funny none the less.

So if you want to waste a little time today and get a chuckle as well drop by.

SOCHI 2014, Cthulu, and the Russian Language.

So some months ago I posted this image:

to my MySpace blog. I did not create the image, I found it on LJ Images (where you can find all kinds of interesting stuff if you look). If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you that I’m a pretty big fan of the Cthulu Mythos as written by H. P. Lovecraft. So naturally I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this to make a little Cthulu joke. I got a couple of comments in Russian that I deleted with the explanation that I won’t accept comments in a language I can’t read (German and English are ok). So the person wrote back with a link to his site that lists some more ideas for the Olympic mascot for 2014.

So today I was googling my web name (yep I’m narcissistic like that), and came across my name at a Russian blog for Sochi. I have absolutely no idea why my name is listed there or what it is that they are saying about me. If anyone has any ideas I would love to know.

Where are All the Ugly People?

Wow we’re only a couple of weeks from Halloween and I have very very few nominations for the Top Ten Ugliest people. I’m really surprised actually seeing that I’m getting most of my hits on the pages about this contest. So why haven’t you people written in? There are a couple of ways to nominate people for the Top Ten Ugliest. You can post it as a comment to one of the Top-10 ugliest people posts (there are three now I think), or even better you can send them in by Email at jrsofty@hotmail.com with a subject WARNING UGLY PERSON!!!.

Seriously people I really would like to know who you think have the all time worst personalities. Just remember when you nominate someone you have to give some reasoning. One set of nominations gave me a list of Democratic Party members or those who have been against the current US Administration, however there was no reasoning for it. I’m guessing that the only reason they were nominated is because the person who did the nominating is a Republican. Oh, well that is what happens I guess. Anyway I’m still looking for nominations. If you think of someone and have a good reason then post them to me and we’ll get them on the score board.