Categories
Update

3 weeks w/o

Lauren’s been gone for several hours and so far I’m surviving okay. I went to the store and bought cookies. πŸ™‚

Categories
Update

Public Service

Sidney came down for a day last weekend. With her mother. We watched one of the brothers play baseball. On the way home from the game the car in front of us got cut off by an old lady running a red light. There was a minor impact. It happened right outside a fire station, so the fire men came jogging over pretty quick. It wasn’t a real wreck, but it still counts as excitement.

And in the same vein Lauren and I saw a women being escorted from Costco by the police. She appeared to be Asian, early middle aged, and alone. Of course, we caught barely more than a glimpse of her and know nothing of the situation really, but we suspect shop lifting. If I were a shop lifter I don’t think I’d target Costco. Their tendency to strap everything together into 12 packs seems like good theft deterrent to me.

Pretty much every time I leave the house it seems the authorities have to intervene in situations around me. I will do my part to help society by staying indoors, maybe even in bed, as much as possible. You’re welcome.

Categories
Things I enjoy

A-Team review

I took Lauren to see A-Team today. I’m a true romantic, I know. I’ve never seen the original show, and know very little about it, so from the standpoint of a fan of an existing property, I cannot judge. However, from outside that standpoint I would give it high marks. It was surprisingly funny. Like, funnier than a lot of comedies. The action was good as well, and the plot and story wasn’t totally stupid. I mean, it’s all ridiculous, but what isn’t these days? The biggest gripe would be the shoddy CG in the finale action sequence, but looks aren’t terribly important to me. I was expecting to think it was alright, but I liked it more than that. If they kept the same crew together I would definitely check out a sequel.

Categories
Things I enjoy Things I think Update

I don’t do anything, but I’m not doing nothing

I really like Milk Duds. I dunno why, exactly. They are mysteriously attractive.

I have over 100 stars in Mario Galaxy 2.

I had a thought. A bit of a callback to that Dark Tower post. A few months before I read the Dark Tower series, I read Ringworld. It is a good book. It is good sci fi. It explores several interesting ideas, as sci fi should, and is entertaining. I think Ringworld is an example of a case where deus ex machina could have been a problem, but decidedly wasn’t, a contrast to The Dark Tower Series. It is a bit unfair to compare a single book to a whole series (I haven’t read any of the Ringworld sequels) but Dark Tower makes me appreciate the achievement of Ringworld more, so I thought I’d share.

I just started reading American Gods. I like it so far, mostly, but I’m not very far. Don’t think I’ve read Neil Gaiman before, so we’ll see. I’ll let you know when I finish, if I have any strong feelings. Progress might be slow, however, as Lauren arrives for the summer tomorrow.

Om nom nom, Milk Duds.

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Uncategorized

Mario

I bought the New Super Mario Bros. Wii last week. I was planning to get it eventually. I was sorta waiting for summer so I’d have Lauren to play with, but I found a deal and got it a bit early.

We played some last weekend. Mother played with us, as well, and I played a bit solo after Lauren left. I haven’t played enough to give a detailed analysis, but I enjoyed all the play experiences very much.

I get a great deal of nostalgia joy out of the game, since Mario for the NES and SNES were ever favorites of my youth. Plus, the game is just well made. It has enough new stuff to not feel dated, at least to me, but it has so much good oldie feeling to it.

I think the multiplayer along with features they implemented will give the game a long life and good replay value. It is a bit tough, I think, for the people I generally associate with, which is a bit of bummer. I hope other people like it enough to want to play it with me some. Even if they don’t, though, I’ll have enough fun playing it by myself to make the purchase worth it.

I’m trying very hard not to over play it when nobody is around to join me. I have only played maybe 1.5 hours alone, and most of that was trying crazy things on the first few levels trying to find secrets and such. So… I’m not practicing a lot. When you come over and see me, I’m just that good naturally. Don’t feel bad, I’m sure you have a talent, too.

I think I have a copy of Mario Galaxy 2 headed my way soon (thanks Pat), so I’ll use that to distract me if necessary. I hope to have fun with that Mario game as well.

I know I’m a bit late to the party, but just in case anyone was waiting for my stamp of approval for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you have it.

Categories
Things I enjoy Update

1 down


Today is the agreed upon anniversary of the start of mine and Lauren’s relationship. Go us.

Categories
Update

status report

I have a bit of time here so I guess I’ll to throw out a general status update for anyone who doesn’t get news about me from elsewhere. Or for anyone that wants a recap.

Big news I guess is my internship is disappearing. My last day is the 11th. I didn’t download porn or anything, so stop thinking that. The project just didn’t get enough money for me, so there you go.

“What are you gonna do?” you inevitably ask because everyone seems to. I’m going to chill out for a bit, then I will look around for things to apply to. Then I will apply to things and see if anyone wants me. Repeat until someone cool wants me. For you CS people out there you can keep and eye out for me, ya know, send me info on jobs and put in words for me, and stuff, if you want.

What else? Yusuke came for Thanksgiving. We hung out, ate some food, he bought a hard drive that he tried to leave at my house, good times. Mostly we hung out at the parents house and ate and played a few games, or we laid around my house and played Modern Warfare 2. I’ve been playing that a lot. I’m not really an FPS guy but this game is sucking me in so I’m going to try and become and FPS guy with this game. Get caught up on 7 years of not playing any FPS’s. FPS. If you have a PS3 and want to be my friend and play with me that would be good. I suck right now but someday I’ll be awesome and you’ll want me on your team. erosebe is my name.

My computer is still broken. I got the new motherboard but apparently it was not the problem. So I guess it must be the processor or the PSU. I was hoping someone would be cool and let me borrow a PSU to plug in and see if that fixes the problem, but nobody helpful seems to be around. So I don’t know what I’ll do. I might have to take the PSU somewhere and get it tested and if it’s fine then I’ll try and get Intel to give me a new chip. Warranty says 3 years, but I bet there’s some hoops. Might have to scrap the whole thing and start over. Hopefully not, though.

Lauren gets back at the end of the month. Yay for that. She’s going to come visit me for a bit before going back to college. I think that’s still the plan anyway. πŸ˜› Haven’t talked to her in a few days cause she went to Scotland and saw Fiona and Fiona stole her internet powers or something.

That seems to be about it. I look forward to my free time. I’m hoping to do some coding on my own projects which I’ve never actually started. Maybe learn a new language or two. That’s probably the loftiest of my hopes. I also want to play a lot of video games, read a lot of books, start working out more than never, and start donating platelets regularly. First appointment is the 14th. (I have to donate more blood since I won’t have any money to give away)

That seems to be all for now. Come visit me while I’m unemployed. I’ll probably be bored and more willing to do that stupid thing you’ve been trying to get me to do.

Categories
Update

PAX and stuff

I recently completed the first day back from a 4 day weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were pretty much exclusively taken up going to, attending, and returning from, PAX. The nerd conference/expo of choice for the Pacific Northwest it seems. I went w/ Pat, and we stayed at my uncle’s, so thanks uncle. Keston was also there, so I spent some time hanging out with him and his companions from Intel. The experience was much as years prior, only bigger, so fun and entertaining and expensive parking.

PAX is one of those things that is difficult to explain to people. People always ask what you do there, and when you answer the question literally, you say something like, “walk around and look at video games that are going to come out, and go to panels about video games and stuff, and sometimes play video games that haven’t come out yet.” But that’s not really what PAX is about or what’s cool about it. Part of what is cool is taking what is generally a isolated minority, nerds, and making them an overwhelming majority. Putting 50,000 nerds into one building has a strange effect. Everything kinda goes backwards. Like, you get peer pressured into playing Magic or D&D, and if someone finds out you don’t know what keyboard cat is they laugh at you. It’s a good change of pace from real life. So I’m going to say that this upside down social world is the real reason to go to PAX, and there are panels and video games as bonus. So PAX was a success. I mean, Pat had never seen another gphone in the wild, and I musta seen 20 @ PAX w/o even looking.

Pat was pretty sick on Sunday, so that sorta sucked, mostly for him. I’m told he feels mostly better at this point, and I still feel fine so I think I’ve resisted infection, so those are good things. News is out about a confirmed case of swine flu at PAX and a whole website has sprung up to report confirmed cases and what flights you were on and stuff, so if you went to PAX and you get sick, go to the doctor.

Monday, day of labor, I pretty much just watched Mythbusters. It’s a pretty amazing show. For me it’s a show I watch w/o really knowing why I like it. Although I have identified one aspect, and that is the actual building. I have very little experience, and, I think, probably, very little skill in the area of mechanically building stuff. The mythbusters are really good at it, and the show presents rapid fire problems and solutions in an interesting way, so I like that aspect a lot. Plus, I think I like guessing the outcomes of stuff and almost always being right, but not always always.

I also downloaded and watched the pilot of Leverage, which I didn’t really know anything about except all my celebrity nerd friends on twitter are talking about it, and Wil Wheaton is somehow involved. Anyway, it looks kinda cool. I have to watch more before I can really comment.

Yeah, so life is good I think. My newest pay check indicates that the amount I’m losing to taxes and other automatic subtractions is 3% greater than previously estimated, but that’s not very much. πŸ˜› Closer to what I expected anyway. Lauren is starting school in Spain in about 6 hours. Everythings pretty standard and genial. ttfn

Categories
Update

Brevity is the soul of wit, so what’s infrequency the soul of?

Let’s hit the highlights you’ve missed.

The weekend after the Kaitlin’s wedding Mom and I went back over the mountains to go to Steve’s birthday party (get Lauren). We did some family visiting and whatnot before we stole Lauren back to the Tri-Cities.

So Lauren was here for a week. I had to work so we didn’t do anything truly awesome, but we did the whole happy couple thing. On Sunday we went to Morgan Fuquay’s (friend since preschool) engagement party. Hung out a bit and fed the wasps. Went to Costco and bought a 40” 1080p LCD and an ice cream bar (I love those Costco ice cream bars). We went on some walks, saw a Princess Bride in the park, I got Lauren to ride a bike, and of course we did a lot of watching podcasts, TV shows, and movies.

0814090907The only other interesting thing that happened during the week that I can think of is that someone egged our house on Wednesday. Well, threw an egg at the front window. Aaron rushed out and got all excited, whereas I was inclined to just ignore it. Kim convinced me to go out and make sure Aaron didn’t get beaten up, though, which was easy cause we didn’t find anyone. The next night someone wrote “Bitch” on the drivers side window of my parents car, which Lauren was borrowing. They did it with soap or something, so it came off easily enough, but Lauren kinda got freaked out. She thought she knew who it was and that they were after her or something. There’s been no events since then, though. I postulate that come the weekend they had better things to do, and if we make it this whole week without event I’ll assume they got bored, or they really did dislike Lauren and her absence is saving my house from further attack.

Donny is back in town for a little break, so he visited a few times, and Elisabeth, recently returned from the orient, came down on Saturday. We all went and saw District 9. I had no idea what it was when we went, so I was pleasantly surprised. It was definitely a good movie. I don’t think it’s actually as amazing as the hype would suggest, perhaps, but it’s good. If you factor in the low budget it’s quite incredible. I admit I can’t really comment on the hype much, being totally insulated from it, but I hear there is hype. Also, just a side note, I don’t think it counts as a sci-fi movie. I think to be a sci-fi movie that science has to play an important part in the plot, it kinda has to be a character. Maybe you can make a case that District 9 fulfills that, but it’s pretty thin.

So, Elisabeth stayed for a night, and then stole Lauren away. πŸ™ It was nice of her to drive her home, I guess, since she needed to get back and my parents are gallivanting around on some road trip.

So, with no parents and no girlfriend for the last 3 days I’ve been living the bachelor lifestyle. Pretty much work, and then go home and watch podcasts and such. I’ve also been wrangling w/ my computer trying to make it suck less. And chatting w/ Lauren. Really it’s just the bachelor life in that I have almost no food. I’ll go shopping some day. I want someone with a car to take me to Albertsons, or anywhere that sells the new thick shelled Klondike bars. I wanna try them, but the stores close enough for me to buy ice cream at don’t seem to carry them.Β  However, I could buy milk and bread and such on my own if it comes to that.

So, I have had some free time and I haven’t been blogging. Part of that is because I started watching Peep Show. It’s a British comedy that Keston suggested when the Central gang went down and stayed at his place. It’s about these two losers. It’s really funny. One of the actors’ voice sounds really familiar to me, but I don’t think I recognize him. I wonder if he voice acted something, or if all Brits sound the same after a while.

I’ve watched 2 seasons (series) which to the BBC is 12 episodes. It’s got some of that awkward humor that I don’t like much, where someone is just in a horrible situation and it’s supposed to be funny, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it’s British so it’s better, and that’s only like half the humor. The characters are just so retarded and do the most ridiculous things. I LOL every episode. And Wikipedia says it’s not cancelled yet, so hooray for that.

I’ve been riding my sister’s bike to work for the last couple weeks. It’s red, so it goes faster. Actually, if it does go faster, it’s cause it’s a hybrid bike. I’m leaning towards the idea that it does go a bit faster, although it’s difficult to judge w/o the speedometer. I think I’m getting to work in about the same time w/ less effort. Kinda makes me wonder how much a difference a full road bike would make.

I worry a little bit about going much faster. People are clueless and deaf and always walking on the bike path. Today there was a woman walking her dog, and she stopped at this point where the path goes up a curb, turns 90 degrees and then goes down a steep hill. I was riding slowly at her, while she stopped, turned towards me, and let her dog off the leash, so I thought that was a little strange but at least that she’d seen me. But, as I got closer I figured out she hadn’t and saw she had in ear buds. Anyway, it was too late and I was passing between her and her dog and as I was she turned to reach for her dog or something and almost hit me and recoiled in utter surprise. It was kinda funny, but only because we didn’t collide and die.

Also, today on the ride home I almost rode over a snake that was lying in the middle of the path. It was dead in the middle. I’m meaning directly in the center in the previous sentence, although it maybe been literally dead as well. I zigged around it but when I looked back it hadn’t moved, and I can’t have missed it by much. It might have gotten run over earlier.

David Mitchell is the name of the Peep Show actor I was saying had the familiar voice. Wikipedia says he did the narration for Beauty and the Geek, which I did see like 5 – 10 minutes of. I hope my auditory memory is that good. I can’t find anything else on his filmography that I’ve seen. /shrug

I have a bunch of spider bites on my legs. I think I got them all in one night, but I’m not sure. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, my bike is part of a spider’s new web creation, even though I parked it only 12 hours before, so, that’s pretty cool. I wonder if we manage to get the yard taken care of a bit through the winter if next spring the insect population will be more limited.

So Lauren’s leaving in 11 days for Spain. When she left I was thinking it was further off, so I thought there was a better chance of us seeing each other again b4 she left. Now it seems somewhat unlikely. /sigh It’s ok though, I hate those big goodbyes anyway. Plus internet, I mean, what’s the big deal with being 9 hours ahead. πŸ˜›

So, it looks like I’ll just be chilling out at home this weekend. Haven’t really done that in a month or so. My parents are getting back from their trip, so they might crash the party and make me do housework, but they might be busy with their own stuff. /shrug Pat’ll be around, I think, but he has 40 gigs of Hercules to watch, so he’ll be distracted.

I think I will end this post. I just want to quickly mention one thing. There was recently (sorta, I’m a bit behind on my podcasts) a TEDTalk about the aqueous ape hypothesis of human evolution. I strongly recommend people watch TEDTalks, and in general you can trust them, but this particular one, I’m pretty sure is crap. I haven’t had time to do the research yet, but I feel confident that it’s a fringe hypothesis for a reason. I’ll let you know if I find time. Anyway, I wanted to warn against this particular talk because the speaker is not un-compelling, and the audience seemed really taken, and I’ve also seen signs that more and more people I know are actually watching the TEDTalks, so the impact could be great if not countered.

Categories
Update

things that have happened

KM&KM
This is what I'm talking about
Last Friday mother and I went over the mountains to the Seattle area largely to attend the wedding of Kaitlin Carr (defunct name) and Kevin McNamara. Lauren’s sister got married and we went. We also snagged Yusuke from Ellensburg and took him to the airport. His flight was at 4 AM so we ended up just dropping him at like 11:30 cause we didn’t wanna wake up. Sorry about that Yusuke. πŸ˜› He txt’d saying he was leaving, eventually, so I guess he made it.

We didn’t end up taking the truck and stealing the Carr chairs, as previously reported, because the information that said I could have those chairs was incorrect. I mean, partially. I can have them, eventually, maybe. Whatever.

The big story of the trip was the big fight that occurred around us soon after we arrived on the scene and I met all of Lauren’s family. You sorta had to be there, but the gist is that Kaitlin cried, some assumptions were made, Lauren’s aunt got booted from the house and wedding with lots of yelling and goading to violence, and then there was lots more crying, and then in like 10 minutes there were apologies and everything was pretty much back to the way it was before. I was only tangentially involved, and so it wasn’t my fault. At least not the way some of you are thinking.

That was all the day before the wedding. The actual wedding day seemed to be pretty uneventful, in that regard. There was the wedding, which is quite the event to those involved. I just watched from the balcony. It was like 20 minutes long, so that was good, and they, meaning the bride and groom, actually managed to pull off the first kiss in front 130 people thing really well, I thought.

The reception afterwards was neato, I guess. I mean, I’m not much for parties and whatnot, but this one didn’t have booze, so that’s up my alley, and I got to sit at the head table, which is also up my alley, and I got to sit next to Lauren and hang out with her the whole time, which is really the reason I went over the mountains in the first place. There was all the usual reception stuff, dancing, bad dancing, toasts… yeah.

The rest of the weekend I basically follow Lauren around like a puppy and hung out with her family. We ate and bowled and stuff. I think I was very witty and charming, and nobody tried to exorcise me, so I had a pretty good time.

Ok, enough about that. Ask Lauren if you wanna know more about her sister’s wedding. πŸ˜› We came home Sunday and I did laundry (yeah, I know, lame huh) and set up my Drobo I bought and got ready for work.

My cousin, Steve, is having a party on Thursday, so we’re going back over the mountains (yay! More Lauren!) for that. Consequently, I’m trying to work long hours so I won’t fall too far behind taking off two Fridays in a row, and half a day on Thursday. So, I’ve basically been working all the time since I got back.

I installed this plugin, SunCult, that tells me when the sun will set and what not. Yesterday I managed to ride home entirely during twilight. The weather addon says the apparent temperature was 94 due to the wind. It was actually 98. Nice eh? Twilight riding is definitely as cool, temperature-wise, as I can do w/o biking in the dark, but it also has the greatest number of bugs to contend with. I’ve been careful to bike w/ my mouth closed, and I managed not to swallow any, but I know if I keep biking at twilight they’ll get in my eye or nose or something.

So that’s what’s been happening. I have a busy few days ahead of me, so posts might not be coming.I was just wondering, though, can anyone tell me if poppy seeds actually add anything to the taste of poppy seed muffins?