June 5th thru the 11th, 2005

The Picnic That Did Not Happen
Some people tried to have a picnic and my contribution was going to be a big-assed volleyball game and a big-assed frisbee, but the rain made us not have said picnic, so, dagsnabbit, 'twas back to my place for to spread the picnic blanket on the floor and eat sandwiches. Then people left. But one staid. And napped as I played DDR. DDR is good for the soul, mo**er fu**er, so learn it. Then people came over or b ack as the case was and watched The Aviator and are some kinda pine-nut vegetarian lasagna which was so damned good, I may have to utter "molfer furger" again. The movie itself was too long, but good. I read on the IMDB all the time people arguing whether a film was good or not. Of course that's a completely subjective opinion. Here's how I see it: "good" means you're allowed to forget that you are experiencing artifice. Call it immersion. Call it suspension of disbelief. And if one goes into a film with a preconceived notion, it will not be so easy to suspend that disbeleif. Casting Agents know this, which is why we don't see Schwarzenegger doing Shakespeare. BUT, this can also mean that when someone gives an opinion of a movie, he is also giving an opinion of himself. Which is WHY, I think, people will give an opinion on a movie in the first place; to appear cool or hip or smart or whatever. Well to heck with that. The end.

Monday June 6th, 2005

Cheeseburger, Home, CoH, Terry Pratchett, Bed.

Tuesday June 7th, 2005

Paid the Bills
Man, I get so much done when I don't play CoH. I paid some bills-- attention thieves. My Big-ass TV is now paid- off, some come and steal it. Hooray. Next month the Apple will be paid off. Then it'll be double-time payments on the car. I'll own it free and clear by December. Next year, the student loan goes away. Then I'll buy a house. Then I'll get married. Then I'll have an affair with an 18 year old. Then she'll get knocked up and my wife will leave me for a jazz musician. I'll never be able to listen to a saxophone without thinking about the day my wife found Stacy's underwear in my back pocket and accused me of cross-dressing before she accused me of having an affair, a bittersweet memory that will make me turgid despite myself, full of self loathing. I'll turn to weird comfort foods, like what pregnant women eat, pickles and ice-cream. Well fudge that. I don't want to be eating no pickles and no ice-cream! I'm going back into debt. It's easier than real life.

A State of Mild Panic
I thought I lost my earpiece for my phone! I thought I might have washed it. Thankfully, I found it. Whew! Also in the news, Finally, In the Groove is going to launch this month, on the 17th. For those that don't rememember, that's the DDR-esque dance game, made by actual video-game dance enthusiasts. I have pre-ordered it, so, I expect, it will arrive via the usual shipping routes sometime in July. Meh. Also newsworthy, plans are in the works for a new video game called In the Grove, wherein players use an actual "tree-pad" to pretend they are running blindfolded through a forest with their hands tied behind their back. This will be first game in the history of video games that comes with comprehensive health insurance.

Gosh, Alot of Updates Today!
Yep! I just updated the archive, too, so if you were looking at this blog before noon, now you'll see seven of the days are gone. Well, they're in the archive where they belong. And no link for you. Find it yourself! Here's a picture of... I don't know what. Let's see what happens... Oh, it's a drawing.

That's What SHE Said.
I managed to not play City of Heroes until about 5 o'clock, when I found out there's badge for killing skulls, and since Dakota (Jones) doesn't have that one, It was a simple matter of heading into Perez park and layinf waste to thousands. Well, hundreds. And no badge! I guess it DOES take thousands. I'll finish tomorrow.

Went to coffee for the chatting and the whatnot. Cute barrista was glamorous looking today in her ruffled vest and... what's that hat, not a beanie, not a porkpie, but the one newsboys wear. That one. And she wore shiny lipgloss... I REALLY like shiny lipgloss. Also, she had to tell a customer to stop clipping his fingernails inside the coffee shop. And when he left, later, she felt bad. So we made her feel better. We didn't make her feel GREAT, cause we hardly know her. Also, that's naughty

Went to Shorty's with a pal for the chilidogs , the rootbeer, and the pinball. Addam's Family Pinball was out of service!!!! That's not right! So we played Simpsons, Lord of the Rings, and the all-time most popular Medeivel Madness. Then I remembered there was a Addam's Family Pinball at the Little Red Hen, where we had left one of our cars-- so we went there, and nope. No Addam's Family. I gently wept. Then home, sleep, weird dreams, etc.

Wednesday June 8th, 2005

Continued... so now it's on, off, on, off... this is almost worse than being alway off. Dagnabbit! Why couldn't this happen yesterday, during my "motivated to do non-computer-things" phase?

So... you know what I ended up doing? I played DDR when the cable was down, and the I would rest by checking it, and then when it was out, more DDR. Ain't life the silly? Eventually it came back enough that I was able to run Dakota Jones through some high-end missions with a friend. Run and Gun, my peeps. Learn it.

Clearwater Casino
Later in the day it was time to go to an island and eat BBQ. So I did. The end. No not the end! Ha ha ha ha! Ahem. Anyway. I met a friend at the Bainbridge ferry (200 awesomeness points to her for finding TWO excellent parking spots, and for saving me one of them) and we floated over to the island and a shuttle ride to the Clearwater Casino, where I signed up for and got some kinda membership card thing. So, strike one, casino food. Strike two, buffet. But then, homerun on the BBQ! And the price! Plus my membership discount! No, seriously, these people knocked it outta the park. Brisket was delicious. Prok ribs were good. The Beef ribs were amazing! And the sauce! And the casino buffet desserts? Are you kidding me? I ate like a pig, and was quite happy.

The reason for being there, though, was the free stand-up comedy. That's maybe a bit sad, working a freee show at a casino on a Wednesday night. But these guys were really good. I mean, if they had had a real crowd (its always easier to laugh when there's a crowd) they would have killed.

So add it up, Chris. Awesome parking, excellent food, great comedy... minus a few points for the cable, but, extra credit for the run n' gun with Dakota, so... I'm giving this day an A+.

Thursday June 9th, 2005

CoH. A straight rip-off of The Crow. (for giggles, Google Corvus Corax and see whatcha get). He was originally going to be a scrapper (duh) but I needed room for my Kheldian Warshade, so, voila. He did die a few times, mostly due to my own hubris. But he made 10, so now he sits back and waits a bit. Next up: April Showers. She's only at level 5 so she gets to go next.

Can You Believe It?
After CC hit 10, I actually stopped playing (gasp!) and ordered dinner. BBQ Wings. Holy Moly they were good. And I started watching Millenium on DVD. I'm not sure about that show. It's dark and eerie, set in Seattle (filmed in Vancouver, though-- Dead Like Me is set in Seattle but filmed in Vancouver too) but I don't know if I like the hocusy-pocusy supernatural stuff. I think, on reflection, the only "supernatural" nonsense I can tolerate (outside of full-blown fantasy movies) is when it's "evil." Otherwise, I want everything explained. Millenium is done by Chris Carter, the X-Files wunderkind, and I gotta tell you, it was bittersweet when, on that show, they finally revealed the aliens. I mean it was cool and huge and all, but it also felt too much of deus ex machina. Like on Star Trek, the Next Generation, when EVERY plot was resolved by some sort of technological last-minute save. Yawn. When writers bring in the supernatural, or anything outside present reality, it's like a write-your-own get-out-of-jail free card.

Two Down, One to Go
Shipped another friend off. That's two people moving away, never to return, and one more to go. Oh, sure, they SAY they're going to come back, someday. Yeah, right. I'll beleive it when I see it. When I SMELL it! Seeing's not believing, smelling is. Someone should make that into a T-Shirt. Damn, do I have a LOT of T-shirt slgan ideas, or who? So, yeah, we humped her big (enormous) suitcases, and drove her there, and dropped her offer, and now I must go visit her in Long Island someday. On Long Island? At Long Island? Prepositions are what make the difference between fools who don't know they're fools and and thoughs that do.

When I got home I played with April Showers.

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Friday June 10th, 2005

Mostly City of Heroes
Work was thick and rich, like an expensive barbecue sauce. Other duties abounded as well. But work is like breathing, isn't it? Even when you have to do it at the sacrifice of more interesting things, it's hardly worth mentioning. Even though I do. "Blog" might as well be "Mentioner." Maybe that would be a good name for a newspaper? In some sort of blasé movie. "The Townish Weekly Mentioner." Hmmm... I wonder what life in Townish is like? Lazy days spent fanning oneself on the porch, drinking glasses of almost but not quite cold enough lemonade that taste of that slight tang of well water, hints of sodium. At night you listen to the dirt roads cooling off and wait for stars to shine through the wearily-built up day's dusting dying off. And on Tuesdays you take a gander at the Townish Weekly Mentioner, because even if nothing more interesting happens than Hanrihan's cow falling over in the mud, splattering his truck which is why he drove out to Lido where they have a car wash, at least those fiery editorials by Alan J. Spunge make for an amusingly derisive snort now and again.

On CoH, AoH was scheduled for a TF. Synapse needed our help, and I was hoping this would push Dakota Jonas over the 20 mark. But a server outtage meant Mort couldn't level his chaarcter enough in time, so we PL'd him instead, me with Dakota Jones. Good times! It was a Freakshow instanced mission... I actually died, twice, and got all the debt paid back-- that's over 200k in xp! Larks! Let me run the numbers... I could have taken a charcter from level nothing to level 21 with that kinda xp. Sheesh! After the PL'ing, Instead of doing the Synapse TF, we started on one of the Rularuu TF's, which was cool and groovy, but I have to leave half-way through. Duty calls!

Glossary of Terms: CoH-- City of Heroes. AoH-- Alliance of Heroes, my supergroup (online friends). TF-- Task Force. A special set of missions designed specifically for groups of players (as opposed to solo missions). Synapse-- one of the NPCs on the game who hands out TF missions. Server-- the host computer where clients play the game together. PL-- Power Level. To bring along a lower level character on a higher-level mission, giving them larger XP rewards than they would earn on their own. Freakshow-- one of the family of villains in CoH, characterized by punkish attitudes and industrial enhancements to their bodies. XP-- Experience Points. the reward earned and measure used to raise one's skills. Rularuu-- another family of villains, aliens from another dimension. NPC-- Non Player Character. Characters run by computer scripts.

The night's duties then gave me a deep feeling of satisfaction and not a little soreness. Such, my friends, is the essence of life-- to be satisfied and sore.

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Saturday June 11th, 2005

Rode My Tuckus Off-- Now What AM I Going to Use for a Tuckus?
As my neighbor and I will be participating in the STP, it was time for a training ride. I hopped over to Larry's to buy beaucoup Cliff bars, a Red Bull, and an Essential Sandwhich (something with curry in, I think). The we hopped to. The ride went around the entirety of Lake Washington, some 56 miles. There was some head wind, there were some hills, there was some rain. But most of it was pretty smooth. I have not ridden my bike in nearly a year-- the bikometer still have the mileage from last year's STP on it! Can you believe dat, sucka? Me needa. I DID stuff my face with food the entire ride around, to prevent the dreaded BONK, and staved it off until the last half mile. Ugh. But I am happy, overall, with the ride's success. Here we come, Portland! Woot!

Then I played CoH. Larks. I don't recall who or what. Then a friend of mine flew in from out of town and I was off like a shot to the airport to fetch her. Parking there was INSANE. It was closed off from the entrance side, and there was no way to get to it from the arrivals lanes. I acciddentally ended up in the Taxi stands! So lapped the parking garage a few times, and finally took the departures lanes to the parking entrance, and ALL the way up to the roof to park. Never parked up there before. Cool in that "dark indie action film" kinda way. I grabbed my friend, we went to larry's to buy fruit (and she had one of those Essential sanwiches, with curry in) and that were that.

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