M’ris reminds me why we need engagement
rings. “Silly Evan,” she says, it’s because “paying off med school loans doesn’t
give a physical mark saying, ‘Hands off! This woman is property!'”
Sheesh, I can’t believe I forgot about that.

We then discussed alternative solutions for the problem:

Mris:  >> Maybe a tattoo would work....

Me:    > Now *that's* using the ol' noggin!  The only problem is, 
       > the tattoo idea needs to hit "critical mass" in the public 
       > consciousness, otherwise it won't act as a deterrent to all 
       > those unscrupulous predators out there.  Kind of a 
       > chicken-and-egg problem there.

M'ris: Ahh, but the tattoo just needs to be on the forehead and 
       read "taken."  Subtlety is quite overrated.  Then as the custom 
       evolves, it can become simply a t or something like that.

When I brought up this issue with Mike, he immediately
launched into a discussion of property law. In the 19th century, some whalers
would hunt whales by firing harpoons from shore. However, there were
many whalers, and when you’d shoot a whale, it would dive, swim off for a while,
and then beach itself and die. There was no way to tell who owned
the carcass. So each whaler had to decorate his harpoons in a distinctive manner.
(The decorated harpoons were called, “waifs”.)

I’m not quite sure what this has to do with marriage, and I’m not sure I
want to know.

In Other News: On Poker Night this week, we only had three people (two of our
regulars were out of town). So there weren’t enough for poker. However, our host,
Page, has been trying to get us to play
Mordheim
for a long time now. I admit, I had been cool to the idea of playing Mordheim — I’m not
really into miniature-strategy games. But Page finally wore me down — “You can play
a squad of human mercenaries, undead, rat-men, battle nuns…”

Battle Nuns?! Why didn’t you say so in the first place!

So it turns out that basic rules in Mordheim are easy to learn, set-up is fast,
and the game has a cool 3-D aspect to it. And the best part is that a match takes
less than two hours (even if you choose to fight until one side is
completely wiped out — or as we call it, “To the Pain!”^TM).

Anyway, I am proud to report that my crack warband of Battle Nuns carried the day
against Page’s foul undead legions. Once again the Pants of Evil have been yanked
down by the Mocking Hands of Justice! Page, good sport that he is,
commemorated the battle in a news report.

Finally, last night I saw Monster’s Ball
with Mike, Nancy, and Sam in downtown
San Jose. It was a decent
flick (I loved the nearly wordless ending scene — Halle Berry can act.)
Unfortunately there was a jackass right behind us who had an inappropriate laugh or
comment every minute-and-a-half. Yes, these jerks are in the artsier theaters, too.

Nancy then took us to Picasso’s, where we ordered tapas and a bottle of wine.
M’ris! Wake up, pay attention — they had tapas! I found tapas! And this reminds
me, it’s time for another winelog entry:

Campillo, Spain, 1996 Crianza: ¡Bueno!