<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/atom10full.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" xml:lang="en"><title type="text">To Try a New Sword on a Chance Wayfarer</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer" /><subtitle type="html">This blog, a crossroads. My words, a sword. You, a chance wayfarer.</subtitle><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-05-20T03:58:39+00:00</updated><generator uri="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">1528</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><feedburner:info uri="totryanewswordonachancewayfarer" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110</id><feedburner:emailServiceId>ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://feedburner.google.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><entry><title type="text">Thursday haiku: short</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/z7x6X-2tLzU/thursday-haiku-short.html" /><category term="Thursday haiku" /><category term="poetry" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-05-02T05:00:02-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-6710888730260575046</id><content type="html">Haiku are too short &lt;br /&gt;
for all my new feels; maybe &lt;br /&gt;
I should try sonnets. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z7x6X-2tLzU:bdr87iV_uS4:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/z7x6X-2tLzU" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-05-02T05:00:02.651-07:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/05/thursday-haiku-short.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy 420!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/6d0_TElHHnE/happy-420.html" /><category term="humor" /><category term="drugs" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-20T05:00:02-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-1177258926627929317</id><content type="html">I don''t favor recreational drug use, but this is genius: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
"The Smoke-Off" by &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shel_Silverstein"&gt;Shel Silverstein&lt;/a&gt; (yes, the same guy who wrote &lt;i&gt;The Giving Tree&lt;/i&gt;) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GVfE_-ZJAxc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=6d0_TElHHnE:3lRAwO9A5jY:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/6d0_TElHHnE" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-20T05:00:02.249-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/GVfE_-ZJAxc/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/happy-420.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (4/17/2013)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/bd0QPGd4xy0/good-readsrandom-cool-sites.html" /><category term="good reads random cool sites" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-17T22:11:48-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-639836572334940889</id><content type="html">Haven't done one of these for awhile.... &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.timwise.org/2013/04/terrorism-and-privilege-understanding-the-power-of-whiteness/"&gt;Terrorism and Privilege&lt;/a&gt;: Understanding the Power of Whiteness. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
A Yemeni man &lt;a target="new" href="https://twitter.com/almuslimi"&gt;live-tweeted a US drone attack&lt;/a&gt; on his village. Highlights include: "#USA taught me English 1 day &amp; took my life frm super miserable 2 very promising. 2day, it droned my village. The most divided feeling ever". &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/the-elusive-good-war/275017/"&gt;elusive "good war"&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
"Neurotics are conscientious team members and should be appreciated and used more effectively in organizations." &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/hire-the-undervalued-neurotic-youll-be-happy-you-did.html"&gt;People should hire them&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://imgur.com/a/pvN7S"&gt;Amazing self-portraits&lt;/a&gt; by a photographer with depression. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Bouncing from link to link in the usual fashion, I ended up on the Tumblr of a magnificent woman who calls herself &lt;a target="new" href="http://thegoddamazon.tumblr.com"&gt;the Goddamazon&lt;/a&gt;. I read some of her "&lt;a target="new" href="http://thegoddamazon.tumblr.com/tagged/sexcapades"&gt;sexcapades&lt;/a&gt;" posts (NSFW, of course), and now I kind of feel that my life has been a waste. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Much of my youth was spent listening to songs by people who hated Margaret Thatcher. Here are &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/angelameiquan/21-incredibly-angry-songs-about-margaret-thatcher"&gt;21 of them&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hundreds of Thousands of Rat-Sized, House-Eating Snails &lt;a target="new" href="http://gawker.com/5994634/hundreds-of-thousands-of-rat+sized-house+eating-snails-invade-florida"&gt;Invade Florida&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Ever wonder what you'd get if you crossed a duck with a horse? Or a lion with a guinea pig? Or a killer whale with a penguin? &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/gyyp-weird-animals"&gt;Now you can find out&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
"Can someone please Photoshop the Sun between my fingers?" There are a lot of &lt;a target="new" href="http://loljam.com/post/4157/"&gt;smartasses with Photoshop&lt;/a&gt; on the interwebs. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=bd0QPGd4xy0:JSDWmYELGrs:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/bd0QPGd4xy0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-17T22:11:48.452-07:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/good-readsrandom-cool-sites.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">In which I have a stroke (Part 3: Beautiful Nurse B-- is beautiful)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/K6PjqaDNuzQ/in-which-i-have-stroke-part-3-beautiful.html" /><category term="women" /><category term="video" /><category term="humor" /><category term="music" /><category term="health" /><category term="genitalia" /><category term="love" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-17T14:48:36-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-9222181021104851922</id><content type="html">&lt;table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--SP1_D2xonk/UVaA2bqtMuI/AAAAAAAAA_k/6NVk-KmwNnI/s1600/7216729_s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--SP1_D2xonk/UVaA2bqtMuI/AAAAAAAAA_k/6NVk-KmwNnI/s320/7216729_s.jpg" width="212" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"&gt;Not Beautiful Nurse B--, but in the same ballpark&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;My first morning in the ICU after my stroke, I awoke to find in my room perhaps the most beautiful woman I've ever met. "Good morning," she said with a beautiful sunny smile, "I'm your nurse this morning. My name is B--." &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, I couldn't answer with what I really wanted to say, which was (since the "drafty" hospital gowns left me waking up cold every morning I was in the hospital), "Good morning Nurse B--. I'm cold. Would you please snuggle under the covers with me until I feel warm?" Instead, I just said, "Good morning Nurse B--." Then I thought I should express some personal interest in her, so I asked her if "B--" was short for something, like the name it's usually short for. She said it wasn't short for that name, it was short for something else, a name I'd never actually heard before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In my mind, I had already christened her "Beautiful Nurse B--." And this song kept running through my head: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;object height="360" width="480"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GT_2K4ddG7g?hl=en_US&amp;start=18;version=3&amp;amp;rel=0"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GT_2K4ddG7g?hl=en_US&amp;start=18;version=3&amp;amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I don't wanna be a pinhead no more. I just met a nurse that I could go for.&lt;br /&gt;
I don't wanna be a pinhead no more. I just met a nurse that I could go for.&lt;br /&gt;
I don't wanna be a pinhead no more. I just met a nurse that I could go for.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I guess if you're a straight guy and when you meet a beautiful woman, mainly you think about the Ramones, you may be overly immersed in popular culture. Or, I guess it means I really am a pinhead. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, next Beautiful Nurse B-- took my vital signs and went though the standard stroke patient tests to check for hemiplegia and weakness, which are "Squeeze my fingers" and then (with me still holding her hands) "Now pull me closer" and "Now push me away." &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When she got to the "Push me away" part, I managed to come up with, "I don't want to push &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; away," for which effort I was rewarded with a patient smile, rather than what I deserved, which probably would have been something more like, "Stop trying to flirt with me from your hospital bed, you elderly&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/span&gt; ass-clown!" Of course, that actually wasn't very cool of me to do, because I'm sure she gets that kind of stuff all the time, and she's probably pretty tired of it. So I was kind of sorry afterwards, although she was so nice about it. And I left the nurses and other female personnel alone after that. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But they didn't leave me alone. Because, the next day, one of them (not Beautiful Nurse B--) came into my room to give me a sponge bath. Which can be a little embarrassing. Or a lot embarrassing, in some cases. Obviously, if you're a heterosexual male, when a kind woman gently ministers to your body with a warm sponge, there is a certain natural reaction that threatens to take place. Which, if it did, would be quite embarrassing to everyone involved. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In order to avoid that natural reaction, one therefore attempts to distract one's mind from physical sensations by deliberately thinking about things that are repulsive and horrifying, for example, "Rotting, dismembered corpses!" or "Drowning in a pit of raw sewage!" or "Ann Coulter!" Those thoughts turned out to be quite successful, and in the end I was left clean and without serious embarrassment (and admiring my own self-control a little bit). Of course, that was probably only because it wasn't Beautiful Nurse B-- who was doing the washing. If it had been, the effort would likely have been futile. I doubt even "Ann Coulter!" could have saved me then. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Anyway, for me it was kind of a positive sign that in the ICU the morning after I had a major stroke, I could still try to flirt a little with a woman half my age (although it was a little hard on her, and I'm sorry). It was proof that I wasn't &lt;i&gt;that &lt;/i&gt;far gone. On the other hand, I think I must have actually been pretty far gone after all. Because my speech therapist&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/span&gt; said we met while I was in the hospital, but I didn't really remember her when we started outpatient therapy. Which is weird, because she's really great, and I would have expected to remember her quite well. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
She's super positive and helpful, and gives me lots of useful mental exercises and stuff to do. Plus, she seems very insightful. I really feel like she &lt;i&gt;gets &lt;/i&gt;me, which a lot of people don't. She does a great job of keeping the mood light (and even kind of laughs at me sometimes), which is exactly what I need, because I can be such a gloomy fuck sometimes. I deeply admire competence in a woman; I love a woman who's good at her job, and she sure is. Not only that, she's insanely cute too; absolutely adorable, with the most amazing infectious smile (complete with dimples) and beautiful brown eyes. And -- Oops! I better stop there, 'cause there's actually a pretty good chance that she's going to read this sometime, and I guess I've already embarrassed myself enough for one post. Sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Technically, I'm not elderly yet, but since I'm about 25 years older than Beautiful Nurse B-- is (and she's beautiful, of course), she'd be entitled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/span&gt;It's called "speech" therapy, but it's not actually that much to do with speaking per se, since I don't have any big problems in that area. It's actually more like cognition therapy, because it's all about getting my mind working right again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;Image credit: &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.123rf.com/photo_7216729_i-wnat-to-use-my-stetoscope-on-you.html"&gt;redav / 123RF Stock Photo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=K6PjqaDNuzQ:1XdS3RTtf6o:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/K6PjqaDNuzQ" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-17T14:48:36.670-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--SP1_D2xonk/UVaA2bqtMuI/AAAAAAAAA_k/6NVk-KmwNnI/s72-c/7216729_s.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">11</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/in-which-i-have-stroke-part-3-beautiful.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">In which I have a stroke (Part 2: I am hospitalized)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/tn-SlcFoJsA/in-which-i-have-stroke-part-2-i-am.html" /><category term="health" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-14T23:05:41-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-2652795671226410755</id><content type="html">After my wife called 911 and we went through the stroke questions over the phone, the paramedics came and examined me. They asked me the same questions again. The answers were still bad. They seemed to spend a long time on asking what happened and stuff like that. My nine-year-old daughter was able to fill them in pretty well. I thought I was doing OK with the narrative, but they seemed to prefer her version. They referred to her a couple of times as "our best historian." I was kind of proud of her, but kind of annoyed at the paramedics at the same time, because I thought I was doing fine telling the story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then it was finally time to get me into the ambulance. I worried for a second if they would have trouble getting me down our front steps (at 270 pounds/122 kilos; I've lost 25 pounds/11 kg since then, although I can't really recommend stroke as a weight-loss method), but it was no problem. I tried to raise my head to look at my wife and daughter before I left, but I couldn't. I thought for a second something else was wrong, but I'd seen enough football players on TV get carted off the field with head injuries to know that they always strap your head down when there's any kind of head or neck problem, and I could feel a strap across my forehead, so I quickly figured out what was going on. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bdn6PbGD43c/UWuX0kMmE-I/AAAAAAAABAE/iD5STIQaQqc/s1600/800px-Sacred_Heart_Medical_Center_at_Riverbend_(Springfield,_Oregon).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bdn6PbGD43c/UWuX0kMmE-I/AAAAAAAABAE/iD5STIQaQqc/s320/800px-Sacred_Heart_Medical_Center_at_Riverbend_(Springfield,_Oregon).jpg" width="320" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I have no memory at all of the ambulance ride itself. I don't know if I was unconscious, or maybe I even fell asleep. It was pretty late. We got to the hospital, and I remember going inside and all because it was kind of a bumpy ride. After a few minutes in the Emergency Room, somebody took me to the scanning room to get a CT scan of my head. The technician there introduced herself by saying, "Hello, my name is Destiny." I thought that was a little weird. I knew there are people named Destiny, but I'd never had anyone say, "My name is Destiny" to me before. So, of course, I thought (but didn't say, because I wasn't that into her), "I suppose this scan must have been inevitable, then." &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well the CT scan found my right internal carotid artery was blocked.  A neurosurgeon inserted a catheter through my thigh and pulled a blood clot out of the artery. Then he gave me &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_plasminogen_activator" target="new"&gt;a clot-busting drug&lt;/a&gt;. When he was done, I could move my arm again. I was left, though, with possible damage to the right basal ganglia, right temporal lobe, and right frontal lobe. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So, I was hospitalized, for the first time since my birth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a target="new" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sacred_Heart_Medical_Center_at_Riverbend_%28Springfield,_Oregon%29.jpg"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Photo credit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=tn-SlcFoJsA:gEDdnoH4wbU:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/tn-SlcFoJsA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-14T23:05:41.307-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bdn6PbGD43c/UWuX0kMmE-I/AAAAAAAABAE/iD5STIQaQqc/s72-c/800px-Sacred_Heart_Medical_Center_at_Riverbend_(Springfield,_Oregon).jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/in-which-i-have-stroke-part-2-i-am.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Thursday haiku: Are you not flattered?</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/D0ZRHW2Zjks/thursday-haiku-are-you-not-flattered.html" /><category term="Thursday haiku" /><category term="poetry" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-11T00:01:01-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-4653584862439015251</id><content type="html">I think I love you &lt;br /&gt;
It's 'cause I have brain damage &lt;br /&gt;
Are you not flattered? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=D0ZRHW2Zjks:iqf_J4D9AzU:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/D0ZRHW2Zjks" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-11T00:01:01.160-07:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/thursday-haiku-are-you-not-flattered.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">In which I have a stroke and thus come closer to dying than I ever have... (Part 1)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/yjAXSR61RuY/in-which-i-come-closer-to-dying-than-i.html" /><category term="health" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-04-09T22:18:46-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-7222396612703305119</id><content type="html">&lt;table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WWD1ZkL8c9E/UWEl4rIk9AI/AAAAAAAAA_4/SObThJ397SM/s1600/INFARCT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WWD1ZkL8c9E/UWEl4rIk9AI/AAAAAAAAA_4/SObThJ397SM/s320/INFARCT.jpg" width="255" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"&gt;Not my head&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;b&gt;Update: title change. &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I had a stroke in late January, only a few days before my 51st birthday. I'm kind of young for a stroke, but I couldn't just have a heart attack like everyone else, no I had to go and be different again. FML. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It all started in the early afternoon. I was jumping rope, when I felt this weird, painful popping sensation high in my neck on the right side. At first, I actually thought it was my ear popping, but the pain wasn't in my ear (though it was pretty close). Then I thought maybe it's some kind of &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorder" target="new"&gt;TMJ&lt;/a&gt; pain, because I have some serious TMJ clicking on both sides anyway. But I figured out that the popping had nothing to do with my jaw. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That was followed by the worst headache I've ever felt. I had no idea what was going on, but I decided to persevere and finish my workout (only had a couple of minutes left anyway). And I did, still noticing no symptoms except the headache. So I ate something, swallowed a bunch of ibuprofen, and laid down for a nap. Those three things -- food, ibuprofen, and sleep -- had always cured any headache I've ever gotten, so I was pretty sure the combination would work on my super-headache. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, this time they didn't. I got up about four hours later, took some more ibuprofen, and decided I'd try going in the hot tub for awhile and seeing if that would relax me and get rid of the headache. That didn't work either. Through that point, I still hadn't noticed any symptoms except for the really bad headache. I'd been able to finish jumping rope, which requires considerable bilateral coordination, I'd walked around the house just fine, I'd changed into my bathing suit, had no trouble getting the big, heavy cover off the hot tub, got in and out just fine, put the cover back on, and got dressed again. Still no problems except the headache.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then the weirdness started. I was in my kitchen getting ready to do the dishes, when I felt an arm bumping my back. "Whose arm is that?" and "Who's pushing me?" was what I thought. It seemed to me that the kitchen was suddenly very crowded, even though in reality my nine-year-old daughter and I were the only ones in the room. And the arm that was bumping me was actually my own. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
My torso felt an arm bump it, but my arm didn't feel a torso. I didn't know where my own left arm was. I didn't realize it yet, but I had no feeling and no &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception" target="new"&gt;proprioception&lt;/a&gt; in my left arm. But I still needed to wash the dishes, so I kept at it. Since I was wearing long sleeves, my first task was to push my sleeves up to my elbows. I pushed up my left sleeve with no problem. Then it was time to push up the right. For that, of course, I needed my left hand. I could still bend my arm at the elbow, so after a couple of tries, I managed to get my left hand onto my right wrist. But I could only do it by looking. I couldn't tell where my left hand was unless I looked at it. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That was my first realization that something was wrong. I thought, "My proprioception is out of whack!" Then I watched in growing confusion and fear as I moved my hand to my wrist, and, unable to grasp the sleeve and push it up, watched my hand slip off again. I don't know how many times I did that, but it seemed like dozens. It's hard to describe what it's like when part of your body suddenly completely stops functioning. Even after I lost hope that my hand would work, I just kept trying to do the same thing over and over again. I was scared. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was very wrong. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then I collapsed. I still don't really know why. I felt a little dizzy. Did I lose consciousness? I don't think so, actually. Because I didn't topple over, I sank straight down with a big "Thump!" I heard the sounds very clearly: "THUMP!" I hit the floor. "Thump-rrrrrrroooolllll!" I knocked over a two-liter bottle of soda that we were keeping on the floor by the fridge, and it rolled across the floor. I think probably my left leg went numb and stopped being able to hold me up, but I don't know. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
After that, I just stayed on the floor while my wife called 911. I don't think I even tried to get up. The operator started giving her questions to ask me. At that point, I realized that they were asking me stroke questions and that most of the answers were bad. That's when I knew I was having a stroke. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It actually was kind of like this (although less ridiculous, since I didn't shout, shouting not really being in my nature): &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;object height="315" width="560"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IiOKNggPh4Q?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;rel=0"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IiOKNggPh4Q?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It's been two over months, but that's actually still pretty uncomfortable to watch. Kind of gives me flashbacks. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I'll talk about what happened in the hospital in Part 2 (and beyond). And I'll address my current condition later as well. I'm pretty OK, actually, pretty much intact. People keep telling me how lucky I am. Whenever they do, all I can think is "Lucky people don't have strokes." But among people who &lt;i&gt;did &lt;/i&gt;have a stroke, I'm one of the luckier ones. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=yjAXSR61RuY:eB0MY5vTl2U:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/yjAXSR61RuY" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-04-09T22:18:46.244-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WWD1ZkL8c9E/UWEl4rIk9AI/AAAAAAAAA_4/SObThJ397SM/s72-c/INFARCT.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/04/in-which-i-come-closer-to-dying-than-i.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy Easter!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/1b1dGXySiKk/happy-easter.html" /><category term="music" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-03-31T05:00:11-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-4225143570824894268</id><content type="html">Happy Easter, Western-type Christians and anyone else who enjoys Easter! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Happy first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon that falls on or after March 21, everyone else! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here's some Christian music (no video, just audio, and the sound is very faint at first). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/E1lnSi7QWY8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=1b1dGXySiKk:BdKJDVB6U9w:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/1b1dGXySiKk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-03-31T05:00:11.043-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/E1lnSi7QWY8/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/03/happy-easter.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">First I look at the tubercle of the upper lip</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/G2TUZvjqbaU/first-i-look-at-tubercle-of-upper-lip.html" /><category term="women" /><category term="sex" /><category term="humor" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-03-30T17:32:46-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-3789208967966083001</id><content type="html">Two Scottish researchers have &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21676178"&gt;published research that found&lt;/a&gt; that "vaginal orgasm is more prevalent among women with a prominent &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubercle_of_the_upper_lip"&gt;tubercle of the upper lip&lt;/a&gt;." the results of thir study were: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;A prominent and sharply raised lip tubercle was associated with greater odds (odds ratio = 12.3) of ever having a vaginal orgasm, and also with greater past month vaginal orgasm consistency (an effect driven by the women who never had a vaginal orgasm), than less prominent lip tubercle categories. Lip tubercle was not associated with social desirability responding, or with orgasm triggered by masturbation during PVI, solitary or partner clitoral or vaginal masturbation, vibrator, or cunnilingus.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, there are some problems with the study. First, the number of subjects was small (n=258) and rather limited ethnically ("predominantly Scottish"). Second, tubercle size was self-reported rather than measured objectively. Finally, of course, the significance of the difference (if any) between "vaginal orgasms" and "clitoral orgasms" is not scientifically well established. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Anyway, as eager as I always am to contribute to scientific knowledge, I suppose I'll just have to take the researchers' word on the validity of their findings. Unfortunately, I'm in no position to carry out any further research of my own in the field. (Except my ongoing research where n=1, which unfortunately is not scientifically valid. Oh well.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
On a more personal note, maybe because I've got really big lips for a white guy, I've always paid a lot of attention to women's lips, and, strangely enough, I've always found a well-defined &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philtrum"&gt;philtrum&lt;/a&gt; (yes, there is &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.hahastop.com/pictures/Philtrum.jpg"&gt;a word for those two lines under people's noses&lt;/a&gt;) and a prominent upper-lip tubercle to be very attractive in a woman. Give me a &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid%27s_bow"&gt;Cupid's bow&lt;/a&gt; every time. I guess I just have good instincts when it comes to women. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And, like I said, I've always paid a lot of attention to women's lips, but lately I find I'm &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; paying attention. With apologies to the J. Geils Band, I also often find myself singing this song: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas look at the eyes&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas look at the nose&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas look at the size&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas look at the clothes&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if her eyes are red&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if her nose is long&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if she's underfed&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if her clothes are worn&lt;br /&gt;
First I look at the tubercle of the upper lip! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas like the smiles they wear&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas like the legs that's all&lt;br /&gt;
Some fellas like the styles of their hair&lt;br /&gt;
Want their waist to be small. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if their legs are big&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if their teeth are big&lt;br /&gt;
I don't care if their hair's a wig&lt;br /&gt;
Why waste time lookin' at the waistline?&lt;br /&gt;
First I look at the tubercle of the upper lip!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=G2TUZvjqbaU:CVQUckbfOiw:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/G2TUZvjqbaU" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-03-30T17:32:46.156-07:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/03/first-i-look-at-tubercle-of-upper-lip.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy New Year, fellow Tolkiendili!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/z9dd0MLuDnk/happy-new-year-tolkiendili.html" /><category term="Tolkien" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-03-25T15:16:41-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-7408948103532101807</id><content type="html">For... &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;...in Gondor the New Year will always now begin upon the twenty-fifth of March when Sauron fell....&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=z9dd0MLuDnk:gpCBOKbW88E:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/z9dd0MLuDnk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-03-25T15:16:41.805-07:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/03/happy-new-year-tolkiendili.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Best of kuri 2012</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/_plmrvbWkg4/best-of-kuri-2012.html" /><category term="sex" /><category term="LDS" /><category term="humor" /><category term="Best of kuri" /><category term="health" /><category term="books" /><category term="zomg teh gay" /><category term="religion" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-01-18T09:04:01-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-548958546482466921</id><content type="html">I didn't blog much last year, but when I did, I:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Analyzed how &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/01/return-of-attack-of-killer-porns.html"&gt;the LDS (Mormon) church creates "porn addicts"&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Boxed up &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/01/boxful-of-failure.html"&gt;the remnants of my failed academic career&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Warned not to be overconfident on marriage equality, because of the &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/02/prop-8-and-to-kill-mockingbird-effect.html"&gt;To Kill a Mockingbird effect&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Explained &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/03/trinity-explained.html"&gt;the origin of the Trinity&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Discussed a (not so) great work of art, &lt;i&gt;&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/04/kuri-analyzes-not-so-great-art-vampire.html"&gt;Vampire Jesus Strikes Again!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Had an attractive woman &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/09/in-which-attractive-woman-sticks-her.html"&gt;stick her finger up my butt&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Retitled &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/11/breaking-paula-broadwells-petraeus-book.html"&gt;Paula Broadwell's book about General David Petraeus&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Realized that the LDS (Mormon) church thinks &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/10/drink-coffee-unworthy-to-enter-mormon.html"&gt;drinking coffee is worse than torturing people&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
How was your year?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_plmrvbWkg4:8vbhN8icYao:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/_plmrvbWkg4" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-01-18T09:04:01.204-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/01/best-of-kuri-2012.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Repost: It's the Tour de France, not the Tour de Happy Pretty Candyland</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/_ML590K-fAg/repost-its-tour-de-france-not-tour-de.html" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-01-15T20:27:42-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-5449288239671069203</id><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gQ-s9Yj3P0w/TGJSSnBb1iI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/vfGSMkiRPbE/s1600/EPO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="160" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gQ-s9Yj3P0w/TGJSSnBb1iI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/vfGSMkiRPbE/s200/EPO.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;i&gt;I've been sure for a long time that &lt;a target="new" href="http://espn.go.com/sports/endurance/story/_/id/8845599/oprah-winfrey-confirms-lance-armstrong-admitted-doping"&gt;Lance Armstrong was a doper&lt;/a&gt;. Here's an "I told you so" repost from over two years ago (August 2010). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The one thing I'd want to clarify now is that my admiration for Armstrong extends only to his athletic accomplishments. His vehement and ruthless responses to his critics and accusers over the years were appalling. [Update: &lt;a target="new" href="http://sports.yahoo.com/news/questions-oprah-should-ask-lance-armstrong-230849439.html"&gt;Here's a story&lt;/a&gt; about some of the people he ruined to cover his lies.]&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here's what I believe about doping in sports: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The most important thing to remember about doping is that &lt;i&gt;it works&lt;/i&gt;. It works like hell. It can make mediocre athletes good, good athletes elite, and elite athletes great. It's almost impossible to win without doping in a sport where there is widespread doping. In fact, if the doping is widespread enough, it's almost impossible even to compete at a high level without doping.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here's what I believe about cycling and the Tour de France: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In terms of doping, cycling is just about the &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling"&gt;dirtiest sport in the world&lt;/a&gt;, and the Tour de France, a grueling, superhuman test of endurance, is the dirtiest event. It has a culture of doping that dates back more than a century. It's rife with banned athletes and trainers. Entire teams have been banned en masse for doping. Winners of the most prestigious events have been caught and banned. Former competitors confess and accuse left and right. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here's what I believe about Lance Armstrong: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Armstrong has been accused of doping by journalists and by former competitors, teammates, and employees. Some of his teammates have been caught doping. Retrospective testing of his urine samples was positive for EPO (but the results were correctly thrown out for violating numerous protocols). For years, he employed a doctor strongly associated with doping as part of his training team. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I believe that all of the above makes it far more likely than not that Lance Armstrong doped while he was dominating the Tour de France. It is almost impossible for a non-doper to not only win but dominate for &lt;i&gt;seven years&lt;/i&gt; against a field loaded with dopers. Even if we were talking about someone who had remained squeaky clean with never a shadow of doubt touching him, it would scarcely be credible. But that's not who we're talking about. We're talking about a man who's had dirt swirl all around him but never quite stick. The most reasonable conclusion -- not the only possible conclusion, but the most reasonable one -- is obvious. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But you know what? I don't care. I admire what Armstrong did, not what I want him to have done. He came back after almost dying from cancer and dominated arguably the toughest sporting event in the world. He did it for seven straight years. And he did it coming from a country with little cycling tradition. It was like a Japanese guy becoming the NFL's greatest running back or something. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So I don't care if he did dope. He beat a bunch of dopers. If he doped too, all he was doing was leveling the playing field. He didn't win because he doped, he won because he was the best.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Apparently, though, &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.kulturblog.com/2010/08/lance-armstrong-a-bright-shining-lie/#comment-561574"&gt;I am a "cynic"&lt;/a&gt; because I believe those things. In other words, I'm a "cynic" because I believe that that Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France, the dirtiest event in the dirtiest sport in the world, and not the Tour de Happy Pretty Candyland, which seems to be the event some people wish he had won. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=_ML590K-fAg:Nh4cWn0dYhE:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/_ML590K-fAg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-01-15T20:27:42.270-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gQ-s9Yj3P0w/TGJSSnBb1iI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/vfGSMkiRPbE/s72-c/EPO.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/01/repost-its-tour-de-france-not-tour-de.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy New Year!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/nrARQ_q8ISM/happy-new-year.html" /><category term="video" /><category term="music" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2013-01-01T00:01:02-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-5222020794489449280</id><content type="html">Happy New Year, users of the Gregorian calendar! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
May your 2013 be as epic as this: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UIVe-rZBcm4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=nrARQ_q8ISM:BVqT83MuPzU:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/nrARQ_q8ISM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2013-01-01T00:01:02.010-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/UIVe-rZBcm4/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2013/01/happy-new-year.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Thursday haiku: Not Mr. Tambourine Man</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/iNd8M0MGiK8/thursday-haiku-not-mr-tambourine-man.html" /><category term="Thursday haiku" /><category term="poetry" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-27T05:00:05-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-8873120311348437697</id><content type="html">I want to write words &lt;br /&gt;
like magic swirling ships, but &lt;br /&gt;
only write like me. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=iNd8M0MGiK8:Y1kpRtjjWA8:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/iNd8M0MGiK8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-27T05:00:05.132-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/thursday-haiku-not-mr-tambourine-man.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy Boxing Day!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/xPFzkFcvGKk/happy-boxing-day.html" /><category term="humor" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-26T11:30:35-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-5197749859915281956</id><content type="html">Happy Boxing Day, boxers and boxing fans! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Happy December 26, all other users of the Gregorian calendar on the same side of the International Dateline as me! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=xPFzkFcvGKk:2BHnBEF2wMo:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/xPFzkFcvGKk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-26T11:30:35.469-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/happy-boxing-day.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">The end of the world</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/ImJatTL-oXg/the-end-of-world.html" /><category term="humor" /><category term="music" /><category term="stupidity" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-21T00:01:01-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-6603238831890267861</id><content type="html">Are we still here? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WaJuR8QaBrQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=ImJatTL-oXg:YlPjZfSr6gM:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/ImJatTL-oXg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-21T00:01:01.771-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/WaJuR8QaBrQ/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/the-end-of-world.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (12/13/2012)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/NexNjHpWCrA/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-12132009.html" /><category term="good reads random cool sites" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-13T23:20:13-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-7105886863194695247</id><content type="html">From "too big to fail" to "&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/12/hsbc-prosecution-fine-money-laundering"&gt;too big to jail&lt;/a&gt;": two-tiered justice in America. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Fuck you, &lt;a target="new" href="http://jezebel.com/5967923/fuck-you-mras"&gt;Men's Rights Activists&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Rep. Virginia Foxx is a &lt;a target="new" href="http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/272723-more-staffers-recount-confrontational-elevator-rides-with-rep-foxx"&gt;serial member's-only elevator-rider intimidator&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/seeing-god-in-the-third-millennium/266134/"&gt;neural bases of spiritual experiences&lt;/a&gt;, discussed by Oliver Sacks. (Learning about this kind of thing is basically why I stopped believing in God.) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
How to &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.wikihow.com/Email-a-Professor"&gt;email a professor&lt;/a&gt;. Pretty common sense, but you'd be surprised how many students seem to need this advice. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Young Earth creationist quote-mines biologists, blogger/professor asks said biologists to respond, &lt;a target="new" href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/a-marshall-mcluhan-moment-with-creationist-paul-nelson/"&gt;pwnage ensues&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Looking for a job with a pathologically shit-headed, psychologically abusive tinpot office dictator with delusions of relevance? &lt;a target="new" href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/12/a-new-life-awaits-you-in-the-off-world-colonieswww-dalkey-archive-press/"&gt;This could be your chance&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Those &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ditto-woman-creative-holiday-sign-point-article-1.1218346"&gt;"Ditto" Christmas lights&lt;/a&gt; are real. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Kickstarter project for &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/783115992/medium-rare-and-back-again-a-tolkien-cookbook"&gt;a Tolkien cookbook&lt;/a&gt;. (No doubt it will include lots of taters). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And J. R. R. Tolkien himself recites "Namárië." If you already know what that is, you're probably my soul mate. But in case you don't/you're not, it's the words to Galadriel's lament in Quenya (an Elvish language) as the Fellowship leaves Lorien in &lt;i&gt;The Fellowship of the Ring&lt;/i&gt;. (And if you don't have at least a vague idea of what &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; means, why are you reading my blog?) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6de_SbVUVfA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=NexNjHpWCrA:UOCMOsvvO3Q:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/NexNjHpWCrA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-13T23:20:13.360-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/6de_SbVUVfA/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-12132009.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (12/9/2012)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/DoGE5AeUUzc/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-1292012.html" /><category term="good reads random cool sites" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-10T00:02:20-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-1879688369324076799</id><content type="html">The Obama Administration is &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/12/07/not-so-fast-tokers-jokers-and-midnight-smokers/"&gt;considering how to undermine marijuana legalization&lt;/a&gt; in Colorado and Washington. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Singing about killing Americans years ago is &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/08/psy-lyrics-anti-us-anger"&gt;far more outrageous&lt;/a&gt; than actually killing non-Americans on an ongoing basis. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The life and death of &lt;a target="new" href="http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/11/dennis_avner_stalking_cat.php"&gt;Stalking Cat&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And maybe the &lt;a target="new" href="http://now.msn.com/say-hi-to-what-could-soon-be-the-biggest-domestic-cat-ever"&gt;world's biggest domestic cat&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I never knew that &lt;a target="new" href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/progressive-videogame-saturday.html"&gt;"Assassin's Creed" was so... deep&lt;/a&gt;. (No really. And subversive too. Now I want it.) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.kahitsukan.or.jp/kimrua11/index_e.html"&gt;Some great black-and-white photography from Japan&lt;/a&gt; during the 1950s. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/09/russia-s-anti-mormon-campaign.html"&gt;Russia's Anti-Mormon Campaign&lt;/a&gt;: An influential young pro-Kremlin politician is trying to get the Latter-day Saints banned from the country. (I know how to resolve this, though. Since Mormons seem to think that holding a vote is a good way to decide who should have what rights, the Russians should hold a vote to see if Mormons there should have freedom of religion. Fair is fair, after all.) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Apropos of which: &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.mormonsandgays.org/"&gt;Mormons and gays&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And, of course: &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.mormonsandnegroes.org/"&gt;Mormons and Negroes&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hey, a good publicist &lt;a target="new" href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/06/the-albee-agency-using-testimonials-from-authors-the-authors-did-not-give/"&gt;has to lie sometimes&lt;/a&gt;, amirite? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=DoGE5AeUUzc:LnGoB5WeaDg:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/DoGE5AeUUzc" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-10T00:02:20.524-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-1292012.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (12/6/2012)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/uc8vK8WM39E/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-1262012.html" /><category term="good reads random cool sites" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-06T23:26:46-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-4895681626804047798</id><content type="html">Republicans! Tremble in fear before Team Commie! Our organizations are so terrifyingly efficient that they can steal elections years after disbanding! (At least that's &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/12/republicans-not-handling-election-results-well.html"&gt;apparently what 49 percent of Republicans think ACORN did&lt;/a&gt;.) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Today I learned: &lt;a target="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Insurrection_of_1898"&gt;America's only coup d'etat&lt;/a&gt; took place in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Things are so different today, yet still.... The terror of &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2012/12/06/the-terror-of-black-american-motherhood/"&gt;black American motherhood&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
About half of all traffic accidents in L.A. &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.laweekly.com/2012-12-06/news/los-angeles-hit-and-run-epidemic-4000-dead-injured/"&gt;are hit-and-runs&lt;/a&gt; (and nobody's doing much about it). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Special issue of the &lt;i&gt;Journal of Experimental Biology&lt;/i&gt;: Neural parasitology - &lt;a target="new" href="http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/1?etoc"&gt;how parasites manipulate host behaviour&lt;/a&gt;. (Squee. I don't actually ever squee, but if I did, I might over this. Perhaps I'm a little unclear on the concept of squeeing?) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
A grammar &lt;a target="new" href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/12/07/a-rule-which-will-live-in-infamy/"&gt;rule which will live in infamy&lt;/a&gt;. (Take that, peevologists!) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hazmat team sent to high school. Because of mercury. In a thermometer. &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.freerangekids.com/hazmat-crew-dispatched-to-school-because/"&gt;An &lt;i&gt;intact&lt;/i&gt; thermometer&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
A &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.viruscomix.com/page573.html"&gt;new Subnormality comic&lt;/a&gt;. (I wish I had more readers, because then more people would read Subnormality, because I like it so much.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Know how sometimes you go on the internet late at night and randomly surf from link to link and end up somewhere really esoteric but somehow fascinating and cool in its esotericness (What is the noun form of &lt;i&gt;esoteric&lt;/i&gt;? Is there one?)? Anyway, &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.polisharms.com/articles/124-warhammers"&gt;Polish war hammers&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.gizoogle.net/index.php?search=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lds.org%2Fliahona%2F2012%2F12%2Frediscovering-the-christmas-spirit%3Flang%3Deng&amp;se=Gizoogle+Dis+Shiznit"&gt;Rediscoverin tha Christmas Spirit&lt;/a&gt;, by Prezzy Thomas S. Monston. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I have felt like this so much in my life: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eq4OqGDGr0k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=uc8vK8WM39E:va6cSQhHNv4:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/uc8vK8WM39E" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-06T23:26:46.316-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/eq4OqGDGr0k/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-1262012.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Thursday haiku: Meta dream baby</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/2XNp3hrnhCM/thursday-haiku-meta-dream-baby.html" /><category term="Thursday haiku" /><category term="poetry" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-12-06T05:00:07-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-5819930776408403802</id><content type="html">If you were real, would &lt;br /&gt;
you be creeped out because I &lt;br /&gt;
wrote this about you? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2XNp3hrnhCM:jtW7OYpKW9g:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/2XNp3hrnhCM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-12-06T05:00:07.392-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/12/thursday-haiku-meta-dream-baby.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy Thanksgiving!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/lPJhQrSxd3w/happy-thanksgiving.html" /><category term="Obligatory Holiday Greeting" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-11-22T07:38:14-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-3206651495717291465</id><content type="html">Happy Thanksgiving, Americans and resident aliens! Happy Thursday, the rest of you on this side of the International Dateline! Happy Friday, everyone else! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=lPJhQrSxd3w:Lx2rhkDJlfc:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/lPJhQrSxd3w" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-11-22T07:38:14.428-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/11/happy-thanksgiving.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (11/16/2012)</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/PIm09ZTYYGA/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-11162012.html" /><category term="good reads random cool sites" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-11-16T23:40:09-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-4721018052748537497</id><content type="html">A &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/a-mormon-reporter-on-the-romney-bus"&gt;Mormon reporter on the Romney bus&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Is David Petraeus a &lt;a target="new" href="http://gawker.com/5960675/general-petraeus-worlds-greatest-dad-or-honey+hungry-dickzilla-in-heat"&gt;honey-hungry Dickzilla in heat&lt;/a&gt;? (Worth clicking just for the picture. BTW, Firefox's spell-checker wants to correct "Petraeus" to "perpetrates." Hmm.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Election reactions &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.experttextperts.com/2012/11/election-reactions-explained-by-gifs.html"&gt;explained with GIFs&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Top 10 amazing &lt;a target="new" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/11/13/top-ten-amazing-higgs-boson-facts/"&gt;Higgs boson facts&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
"What happens if you &lt;a target="new" href="http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php"&gt;give a thousand Motorola Zoom tablet PCs to Ethiopian kids&lt;/a&gt; who have never even seen a printed word? Within five months, they'll start teaching themselves English while circumventing the security on your OS to customize settings and activate disabled hardware." &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Another &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/11/wretched-woman.html"&gt;great letter from a former slave to his old "owner."&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things"&gt;Making things&lt;/a&gt; for the Web. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Apparently, there is a comic book artist named Tony Harris, &lt;a target="new" href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/16/somebody-needs-to-have-a-little-talk-with-the-nerd-council/"&gt;and he's a jerk&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
How to &lt;a target="new" href="http://wich-crafts.blogspot.com/2011/03/dont-blink.html"&gt;make a Weeping Angel from a Barbie doll&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a target="new" href="http://www.instantcosby.com/"&gt;Instant Cosby&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=PIm09ZTYYGA:PQ5PCyhT_Dk:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/PIm09ZTYYGA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-11-16T23:40:09.054-08:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/11/good-readsrandom-cool-sites-11162012.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">I take back every not-bad thing I ever said about Romney</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/2O-_7wrfsnw/i-take-back-every-not-bad-thing-i-ever.html" /><category term="Romney" /><category term="jerks" /><category term="politics" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-11-15T00:11:31-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-3706171067383218912</id><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHdEr9qXRTs/UKSYfgekBWI/AAAAAAAAA98/20nY-XDeO0I/s1600/GuySmiley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="188" width="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHdEr9qXRTs/UKSYfgekBWI/AAAAAAAAA98/20nY-XDeO0I/s200/GuySmiley.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Guess why Mitt Romney thinks he lost? Is it because he failed in some way? Is it his stiff, corny, robotic, &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.totryanewsword.com/2009/10/mitt-romney-and-uncanny-valley.html"&gt;"uncanny"&lt;/a&gt; public persona? Is it because he ran such a lousy campaign that he couldn't beat a barely semi-popular incumbent in a barely mediocre economy? Is it because he's only won once out the four times he's run for office, and maybe he's just not good at it? Is it his fault in any way? Of course not. He thinks he lost the election because Obama &lt;a target="new" href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/romney-blames-loss-on-obamas-gifts-to-minorities-and-young-voters/"&gt;essentially bribed various minority groups to vote Democratic&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You know, just a few days ago, I actually defended Romney when a friend said he doesn't have a shred of decency. I said I think he does. Well, I take that back. I take back every not-bad thing I've ever said about him. I was wrong. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I just wasn't sure who he was. (There are so many versions, after all.) I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But he's convinced me now. &lt;a target="new" href="http://www.esquire.com/archives/blogs/politics/by_author/68/15;1"&gt;Charles P. Pierce&lt;/a&gt; likes to say that to the Romneys there are two types of people in the world: the Romneys, and the Help. I thought that was going too far. I was wrong, though, and Pierce was right. Romney really is the clueless, uncaring plutocratic dick of the "47 percent" speech. That's the real Mitt Romney. (To the extent that there is such a creature.) &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Usually, a presidential candidate is almost an abstraction to me -- I like to say that I vote for policies, not people, and I would have voted against any current Republican and been glad he lost -- but Mitt Romney makes me truly glad that he, personally, the man himself, is the one who suffered this particular defeat. He deserves every last little bit of it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Romney once said that he likes to be able to fire people who work for him. Well, this time it was the We the Help that fired Romney. And ain't that a bitch?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=2O-_7wrfsnw:Xk3lDpdYU50:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/2O-_7wrfsnw" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-11-15T00:11:31.082-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHdEr9qXRTs/UKSYfgekBWI/AAAAAAAAA98/20nY-XDeO0I/s72-c/GuySmiley.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/11/i-take-back-every-not-bad-thing-i-ever.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Breaking: Paula Broadwell's Petraeus book to get new subtitle</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/rP8swTkjgnM/breaking-paula-broadwells-petraeus-book.html" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-11-12T11:43:30-08:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-7543770896620359615</id><content type="html">Sources inform me that &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/us/fbi-said-to-have-stumbled-into-news-of-david-petraeus-affair.html?pagewanted=all&amp;amp;_r=0" target="new"&gt;Paula Broadwell's&lt;/a&gt; biography of General David Petraeus will get a new subtitle. Here's an exclusive look at the new cover: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K5DPPQx8I-w/UKFPZEKo0xI/AAAAAAAAA9M/y9BGb6Egulc/s1600/allincrossout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K5DPPQx8I-w/UKFPZEKo0xI/AAAAAAAAA9M/y9BGb6Egulc/s640/allincrossout.jpg" width="464" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=rP8swTkjgnM:ZrOxGkp6YPA:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/rP8swTkjgnM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-11-12T11:43:30.319-08:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K5DPPQx8I-w/UKFPZEKo0xI/AAAAAAAAA9M/y9BGb6Egulc/s72-c/allincrossout.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/11/breaking-paula-broadwells-petraeus-book.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Happy Halloween!</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~3/wbSpPRgdtwI/happy-halloween.html" /><author><name>kuri</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05945400924271622826</uri></author><updated>2012-10-31T09:36:45-07:00</updated><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19933110.post-8481080819333910602</id><content type="html">Here's the scariest music I've ever heard: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;iframe width="560" height="420" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uzOb3UhPmig" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Play it when kids come Trick or Treating, and they'll run away in terror and you can keep all the candy for yourself. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/AKA_kuri" target="new"&gt;Follow me on Twitter &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?i=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?a=wbSpPRgdtwI:peVvfhudZqE:7Q72WNTAKBA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ToTryANewSwordOnAChanceWayfarer/~4/wbSpPRgdtwI" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-10-31T09:36:45.081-07:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/uzOb3UhPmig/default.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.totryanewsword.com/2012/10/happy-halloween.html</feedburner:origLink></entry></feed>
