July 10th thru the 16th, 2005Previous Week | Archive Index | Current Blog | Next Week Seattle to Portland, Day Two Got up, packed up, Awesome Gem took us to the starting line, we ate pancakes, and off we went. Hoo boy. Cold and wet, and then there was the hill that about killed us the year before. Of course, last year, we hads that hill at the end of day one, since our lodgings where furthur up the course. and it had been in the hot sun. Well, today, it was tougher, and although there was a 10 mile downhill section, I am afraid I could not recover. I bonked. I have bonked before, but never this bad. Usually you can feel it coming, and stuffing Cliff bars down your throat can stave it off for a bit. But this one was bad, with the cold empty washed-out feeling starting in your hands and working up your arms... when it hits your chest, you're done. And it's not even an emotional thing. All will is gone. There is no rationalizing, or motivating onceself. It would be like trying to make a dog play a piano. It's just not happening. So I called AG and she came and fetched me... we met up with Lance SteveStrong at the lunch stop, to make sure all was good, then on down to Portland to wait for him. I napped. AG and I had lunch at the Macaroni Grill-- draw on the table with crayons! Finally LSS arrived, lookin' pretty good, and we headed back to Seattle, stopping at Burgerville for cheeseburgers and Sweet Walla Walla Onion rings. At home, I was greeted by some folks, and then they left. The end. Am I ashamed of myself? For failing, no. I DID make it 100 miles without training, which is sort of cool. But like I always tell people, training is not about performance, it's about recovery, and its about time I take my own advice. So I AM ashamed about my arrogance. However, I have a chance to redeem myself: the RSVP (the ride to Vancouver) is in a month, and so I my neighbor shall attack that one. And I will train for it. Oh, Me So Bloggy Hi. Blogging it up today. But reportage is dull, so here's, for no good reason, the lyrics to "Figured You Out," by Nickleback, formatted to look less like lyrics and more like something else. I've had the song in my head for a few days now. Such larks.
Okay so what else. I went to the train station to pick up a friend, let's call her Mexiplastocine, who had bussed back from Vancouver. Then I went to dinner at the Asian Pearl, which used to have a different name and used to have Vietnamese food. Well so what I say, I said I say. We, cause I was with a friend, let's call Califrigilistic, had the mushio pork with plum sauce and a bowl of some kinda seafood noodle soup. I love noodles. LOVE 'em. But I didn't realize it was going to be a soup. Damn it it all to hell and sideways. Such is life. After dat, off to bowling to bowl. We bowled with the cute girls. One of them kept calling me 'doll' all night, which one could interpret as flirting, but one knows better and one suspects that's just the way she talks to people. Cultures, my friend, subs and otherwise, identified not only by their memes but by the boundaries of their participants, which is to say, one recognizes this girl, her teamates, and their friends occupy a particular cutlure all their own, which is not unlike that of other groups I have observed, but necessarilly seperated from those other because they don't KNOW each other. Here's your social experiment of the millenium, Dr. Knowsitall: endeavor to become an observational maven, use your charms to connect discrete groups of like minded individuals, and make it 5 degrees of seperation in this world of ours, not six. Or four. I bet critical information mass can be achieved at three, where 'news' travels faster through oral communication that of the traditional media formats of television and the internet, and that would be GREAT, if people weren't so damned stupid that they BELIEVE the crap people make up. Urban Legends anyone? I am babbling. After bowling I had a Mountain Dew LIve Wire and went to bed. April Showers Hit Level 19 Today So, word on the street is massive nerfs are coming for City of Heroes when Issue 5 hits the street; it's on the test server now. Defenders especially, I have heard, are going to get the big squishy smack down. Oh, sorry, for those of you who don't know, April Shower is a defender. She has been kicking WAY more ass then I thought she would, and so it would seem these nerfs will only serve to bring her in line with my original expectations. Oh. sorry, for those of you who don't know, a "nerf" is what the call it when the devs reduce the power and usefulness of a character type or power. A "dev" is a game developer, the dude or lady who decides on and implements game code. A "damn" is what most of you don't give reading this. Anyway, April made 19, hallelujah and pass the pajamas. I don't know what that means.
There's More to Life Than City fo Heroes Music Makes the World Smile, Unless It's Just Gas Hi there. Work, CoH, etc. Then I started watching 13 Ghosts. Then I friend, by the name of Terpsichore, came over and did some voice recordings on a 4 track recorder. She has a wonderful voice. When she got done we ordered some Romio's and watched the end of 13 Ghosts. Not an excellent film. Not bad or anything, I mean not horrible. But there's not much of a plot, and no real acting necessary. The point is the make-up and the animotronics of the house, whch were a lot of fun. The making-of on the DVD was actually more interesting than the film itself. When Terpsi left, I got to playing around with the 4-track, and did some recording of my own. I wrote some new words to "Just a Gigolo," and sang over a karaoke track about how I'm juust Dakota Jones, and every hwere I go, people see the claws I'm splayin. Here's something interesting. In the David Lee Roth version, I noticed at one brief a-capella moment, he sings "Life goes on without me, cooze." The word is "'cause," but that's actually kind of nasally for singin, and really stands out when the instruments are off. So, I did the same thing, and it sounds WAY better. So, that was me until 2 in the morning. Yeah. I'm a singer. I Don't Remember What I Did Today April made it to level 20, I think; I think this was the day I gave a friend a ride from the ferry to her car; I met up with someone for Azteca and photographs; also there was Chez Geek at some point, and work work work work work. You have no idea. None. I was like a chicken with it's head cut-off, and then re-attached, so it can sqwuak around even more. Dirk Damage Dirk Damage raced ahead and accomplished an unprecedented five levels today, going from 15 to 20. He started out in a group, which is rare for me, I know. But it was a lot of fun. Cracking jokes on Teamspeak, punching dudes, takin a beatin like I owed 'em money. And then a teammate, Dark Chancellor, wanted to run the Synapse Task Force, so though it requires 4 people to start, it only requires one person to finish-- and we were two. A tank and a defender. It took about 4 hours, but we did it. We DID n eed some help when we got ambushed by Babbage, the 20 foot robot, but we managed the Clockwork King ourselves-- nice! And so Dirk dinged 20, all in one day. Dude. Whatta stud muffin!
Thaw the Seattle Freeze Positron Needs Our Help! Task Force White Sands, comprised mostly of the Teen Alliance, including Mercury Ryzing. It took about 8 hours, but we did, killing Clockwork, Vahzilok, and Circle of Thorns along the way. Now, this task force is slated for levels 10-16, and Mercury was 15 when he started. He dinged 16 along the way, which you expect-- picked up Frozen Rain, which is a power I simply love-- April uses it to remarkable effect. But now that they have the auro-exemplar system, Mercury stopped gaining XP for the remainder of the TF! To "exemplar" is to lower one's level, such that a higher-level character can play low-level content with his or her lower-levelled friends. And it used to be the case that one had to have someone to exemplar with, but on the Task Forces they made it so one is auto-exemplared down the right level. But when one is exemplared, one does not gain any experience. It USED to be the case that so long as you STARTED the TF at the right level, it didn't matter how high you got during it. But not you get auto-auto exemplared at 16! No fair! I coulda made 17, easy! Oh well. At least Mercury got the Positron badge.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith After the film me n Hadi went to Red Mill in Magnolia, but they were closed, so over to Phinny Ridge, but they were closed, so, screw it, Red Robin. I had the chicken tenders salad, and an orange cream smoothie. I waxed philisophical on the nature of beauty, in that true beauty terrifies, and is discovered, not presented. Hollyuwood present beauty, does not let you dsicover it. But that's okay, because $9.50 for 2 hours of terror is not worth the cost. You decide which part is not worth the other. P.S. I missed Oonu all day. Previous Week | Archive Index | Current Blog | Next Week |