Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I'm pretty sure at least a week in November has gone missing. Not all at once, mind you. Most likely just a day here and two days there, but it adds up to at least a week.
I had plans for this month. There were things to do and more things to do and still other things that I wanted to do.
It has not come to pass.
Grah, I say. Grah.
You keep using that word...
One of my co-workers commented that my beard was "comin' in full", which is another way of saying "I'd really like a dictionary for Christmas, as I have no real understanding of the word 'full'". Or maybe it was Opposite Day at work and nobody bothered to tell me.
Today is Sunday, a day of rest. So much rest that it's after 2:00 and I haven't bothered to get out of my pajamas yet. My beard is resting, too, I think. Or perhaps it just decided to take the weekend off and go somewhere nice. It's sure not on my face.
Sponsors of the Day: Terri, Mica and Ray, all of whom were very generous and gave me cash donations that aren't reflected in my PayPal total. As of right now, it looks as though our grand total is just shy of $1,700, but we're actually around $1,740 thanks to these folks.
If you squint your eyes, it almost looks like a real beard.
I need a do-over for November. A mulligan. Beards4Boobs is doing remarkably well, and there is pumpkin pie on the horizon, but can I please have another shot at the last two weeks? I don't think I did I right the first time.
My Sponsor of the Day is Ozelle Vasquez, who should have been yesterday's SotD, but I didn't post anything yesterday. Because I suck at November.
Welcome to the third installment of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard.
Gaston "The Bearded Goose" Gosselin is an Ohio-based web developer who has, over the years, acquired a rather extensive collection of board, card and role-playing games. To ensure that he will always have someone nearby with which to play these games, The Usually-Bearded Goose has also, over the years, acquired a rather extensive collection of offspring,1 which he refers to has his gaggle of goslings.2
In those rare moments when he is not actively expanding one collection or another, Gaston blogs at The Bearded Goose, which features game, book, movie and television reviews.
1"Acquired" is, perhaps, not the appropriate verb.
2None of the gaggle is, as yet, bearded.
We are long overdue for the second part of my eleven twelve part series, Better Know a Beard, wherein I attempt to better acquaint you with the people behind the beards featured here at HoNoToGroABeMo and Beards4Boobs.1
Dr. John Cmar practices medicine2 at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, where he does not work in the International Center for Limb Lengthening. Dr. Cmar is also an instructor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, so one would expect his average workday to resemble an episode of Scrubs.3
When not healing or teaching, Dr. Cmar enjoys syphilis. Actually, he enjoys syphilis even when he is healing or teaching; it's his most favorite disease ever.4 Dr. Cmar also maintains a number of blogs,5 including Saint Nickanuck of the Tundra Online Memorial Hospital and Gustatory Libation Front.
Dr. Cmar can also be heard on The Takeover and makes regular appearances as the Chief Medical Officer at The Secret Lair.
1Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to acquaint beards with one another. Beards, like dogs, have a long-established means by which they become acquainted with one another upon first meeting. Unlike dogs, there is very little sniffing involved.
2Non-beard-related.
3He's like Dr. Perry Cox, but with a ponytail.
4I'm not making that up. He is a sick, sick man. But he doesn't have syphilis.
5Between 1 and 100.
Not to be confused with the "Sparkly Eyes" Technique, which is something else entirely.
Laura and I went to the cinema last night for the express purpose of watching the motion picture show The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney (whose beard has appeared in Syriana), Ewan McGregor (who sported a fine beard in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith), Jeff Bridges (whose beard in Iron Man was nothing short of stunning) and Kevin Spacey.1
It was a fine film, though not anywhere near as good as I would have expected a film featuring actors of such high caliber.2 I don't blame the acting; they were all quite good,3 but the film as a whole seemed somewhat disjointed. It was laugh-out-loud funny in parts, and there's an entire level of meta-humor in the "Jedi Warrior" references, but I was expecting more Still, I give it three and a half out of five stars, just for the sheer absurdity of it all.
Oh, and Laura isn't too keen on an "accentless" Ewan McGregor.
1Who has never, to my knowledge, appeared bearded in any film, which makes me seriously question the range of his acting ability.
2And the aforementioned Keven Spacey, who seems to have no trouble at all with moustaches, by the way.
3Spacey's character was underdeveloped, but now I wonder whether that's due to the writing or the fact that the guy portraying the part is apparently deathly afraid of beards.
Into the Mouth of Madness...Almost.
Our cable Internet service was extremely dodgy for about two hours this evening. I'm talking about sub-300-baud-modem speeds, when I could get anything to work at all. It wasn't pretty, and a lesser man might have succumbed to madness and perhaps resorted to cannibalism. It's not a natural reaction, to be sure, and I wasn't even the slightest bit hungry, but that's always the first thing I think of when human beings are pushed to the point of insanity.
That my family survived this near-catastrophe is a testament to my strength of will, if not my willingness to exaggerate a temporary, minor inconvenience to such ridiculous proportions. While on hold with my Internet Service Provider, I installed Sins of a Solar Empire and played several games of Spider Solitaire, neither of which is as drastic an action as cannibalism, at least not in the circles I frequent.
Now that service has been restored to normal, I wonder if maybe I should have taken just a tiny bite of the little fellow that is often seen running around our house. I'll bet he tastes nothing like chicken.
I can stare, too!
If this thing was called "How Not to Grow Nose Hair Month", I'd be losing. Big time. I swear, it's like trying to trim a hydra up in my nostrils. Did you need to know that? You did not. At all. Are you wishing you could erase that knowledge? You may well be, but I know from painful experience that it's awfully hard to un-know something.
You know what might help, though? Donations. The warm fuzzies you get after making that donation—and you will get warm fuzzies—will go a long way toward wiping that little bit of unpleasantness from your mind. Probably.
It's worth a shot.
I would like to address the detractors who have called into question the masculinity of those contestants with the good sense and decency to shave their neck hair early.
Gentlemen, you are meddling with forces you cannot possibly comprehend.
Though you may scoff, there is more at stake in the taming of the neckbeard than mere comfort or comeliness. Unchecked, the neckbeard elicits feelings of dread and horror. Women are gripped with paroxyms of primal terror, children flee screaming and even the most stalwart of men may be shaken to the point that he seeks comfort and guidance from sources without himself.
I offer Exhibit A, a photo of my unshaven neck taken late in the month last year; a photo so horrifying that one of our own contestants—a contestant who has less than a year later called me to task for trimming this area early in the contest—invoked a deity in response.
Don't look at it!— Henry Walton Jones, Jr., noted Man of Science.
[P]ut that thing away or you'll get us all killed!— Excerpt from a decree issued by a member of the Alderaanian Royal Family.
It is a simple matter to look upon us with scorn, for the unchecked neckbeard instills an inflated sense of self-worth in the man whose folly is to wear it. But I beseech you to look past your own ego and have some consideration for those around you. It is right and decent and merciful to shave the neckbeard; I would go so far as to say that it is your solemn duty as men to do so.
The neckbeard is not to be trifled with, gentlemen; it is a thing to be squelched at all costs. At stake is not mere masculinity, but humanity.
I know what you're thinking: where have you been for the past three days, Johnson?
Well, it's a bit difficult to take photos of your beard when you've had your face shot off. I blame the Olde Fartz, my group of beechwood-aged PC gaming buddies, who spent several hours Thursday evening blasting my dashing avatar to bits.
I got better.
The photo here shows that I've already undergone a vital neck shave, necessary to ensure that the few scattered hairs that sprouted in the region didn't drive me stark raving bonkers with The Itch.
The photo also shows, in shocking detail, precisely the problem I have with growing a beard, even given thirty days to complete it: sparseness. My chin and cheeks are not covered with a dense mat of hair; rather, there are several minor follicolonies—each ultimately as doomed as Roanoke—spread out over the vast, pink plain that is my face. I fear they will not survive the harsh winter ahead...
In other news, I found one mutant, albino mega-hair lurking just beneath my chin before I shaved. It was unnerving, to say the least.