Check this ouuuut. I have recently, thanks to three female friends of mine, obtained an entirely new look.
Here's the scenario. I'm in my room on my computer doing whatever middling little nonsense I usually get up to on the Internet, and Walter (my roommate) and Catherine (one of the aforementioned friends) are talking about going to a club. I mention, without looking around, that I've never been to a club, at least, not in the classic sense of "clubbing" and suchlike.
Dead silence. You could hear a pin drop. I might as well have just casually admitted to molesting pit bulls. It was immediately decided by Catherine and Walter that I needed to go with them to a club. But, in Walter's words, "You can't go looking like...that." I was annoyed, but swiftly informed that my current look (T-shirt, cargo pants or slacks, uncombed hair, no belt, etc) wouldn't do in a club environment. I needed new clothes. And Catherine volunteered to take me shopping so that I might purchase the new outfit I needed.
Fast forward to today. Catherine shows up at my door around seven and says "Let's go. Oh, and Dani [female friend number two] and Brie [female friend number three] are coming too."
"Why?" I asked. I was told that there were two main reasons:
1. They wanted to buy some new things, but this was clearly subordinate to
2. They wanted to help me pick out my new look.
Apparently, the prospect of a guy they could totally dress up however they wanted was an enchanting one. So we piled into Catherine's car and off to the mall we went. We milled around aimlessly from store to store before deciding on American Eagle, a store I had never previously set foot into but which was apparently "the" store to go to for this sort of thing.
There was a good deal of confusion over my pants size. This is about how it went:
Me: I'm a 34 waist with a 32 long.
Brie: So, this? *holds up a 32/32*
Me: No, that's 32 waist. I need a 34 waist.
Dani: Oh, like this one? *holds up a 34/34*
Me: Er...no. A 34 waist and a 32 long.
Catherine: I've got it. *holds up a 32/34*
Me: Sigh.
But we got things sorted out, and I had five or six different pairs of jeans to try on. Jeans were the capstone of the look I was vainly searching for. I don't own a single pair and never have, so there was some difficulty. As I am given to understand it, the "hip new thing" is for people to wear jeans very low on their hips. So low, in fact, that I zipped up too fast and caught the skin on my kneecap. But things were worked out, the parts of me that would threaten the sanity of onlookers if exposed were duly covered, and I obtained a pair of jeans that was suitable.
I must note here that I do not understand the fads behind jeans. Apparently, the big thing a few years ago was to put deliberate threadbare patches and holes in jeans. Why this is, I really don't know. I guess the image they wish to evoke is that you just wrestled a grizzly bear or something before you walked into the room. Also, these jeans came pre-faded in the front, which sends the message that...I don't know...you're really bad at washing your clothes. So wearing these jeans, I felt like a suicidal nature freak who always mixed his colors and his whites. But I digress.
I thought I was finished. But no...but no. Now I had to try on various shirts. I was brought a striped shirt which I liked for a minute, and then this fatal exchange occurred:
Girl1: [We met in the changing-room area. After Dani and Brie and I assured her that her thighs did not, in fact, look enormous in the pants she was trying on, she hung around and commented on my various looks.] I like your shirt.
Me: Thanks.
Dani: Yeah, I like the colors.
Me: I guess so.
Girl2: [We also met in the changing-room area, but with no amusing story. She was just there.] Yeah, that light pink is a good color on you.
Me: ...
Brie: What?
Me: ...
Girl1: You don't like it?
Me: ...
Dani: Uh...what?
Me: This is pink?
They didn't know I was colorblind. Well, light or not, I'm not wearing pink. I refuse. It's just...it would violate my Guy Charter. If I were to wear that shirt into public, a troupe of burly men would troop up to me and demand all my Y chromosomes. Yes, it's a pointless stereotype, but I'm sticking to it because I just don't like the color pink on me and this is a fine excuse not to wear it.
This started a new wave of "You've got to try this on!", only with shirts instead of jeans. And of course, with every new shirt, they needed to see some of the other jeans with it, and so on and so forth. I was prancing back and forth between my room and the full-length mirror at the end of the hall like some kind of demented wind-up toy.
After the shirts, I needed to pick out a belt. And then I was told that it was an unforgivable sin to wear a brown belt with black shoes, so of course I needed new shoes, and...well, you get the idea. Eventually, though, I got just the one pair of jeans, a green polo shirt, and a belt - all of which were on sale. Mom kindly consented to pay half of it, seeing as they weren't strictly necessary, but my parents usually do pay for my clothes, so she nicely agreed to meet me halfway. Did I mention how generous a gesture this was?
In addition to my new wardrobe, I was told that I needed a better posture. This is almost certainly true. I slouch terribly, anyone can tell you this. In fact, after I post this, I'll probably be able to hear my mother screaming "YES! YOUR POSTURE IS TERRIBLE! YOU LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHACKED YOU IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD WITH A YIELD SIGN!" I was told that with better posture, both men and women would find me more pleasing to the eye, and would surely offer me handfuls of money or perhaps offer to be my indentured servants. Well, I exaggerate, but it'll prevent me from having terrible back problems when I'm older.
I'm trying to keep this up nearly constantly for the next week or so, so it'll become second nature. As of right now, I look like some kind of evil chiropractor worked his demented skills upon me and twisted me into a human signpost, but it'll become more natural, hopefully. I also have an embarassing tendency to tilt my head forward and stick out my pelvis, but this too will be corrected. Perhaps the hordes of people screaming with hysterical laughter wherever I go will serve as an adequate sign for me that I'm doing it wrong.
I'd take a picture of me with my new outfit, but uploading pictures makes the text go all screwy on this darn blog, so I'll just show y'all in person when next I visit home. Or, to anyone who's up here...talk to me next Thursday.
That's about it. Today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is this gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tc3Uz64uuE I literally just found it and watched it. I couldn't not post it. It's "Hulk vs. Spider-Man & X-Men," a composite trailer made up of clips from all the comic movies. Well-done, I think.
REPLIES.
Vic: You read other blogs? I guess...I just remembered that I need to tell Jake that my blog is back online. And yes, all that made up for the extra expense. I'd say I hope you don't have to drop Sanskrit, but really, do what you have to do. Better a drop than a poor grade, a really poor grade, that is. And yes, we're on for Saturday, but not for Friday.
Vic: I don't want to hear it.
Steve: Don't give me that about dozens of degrees. I was right and you know it. I'm not installing a cracked copy of Windows, that'll just give me all kinds of problems down the road. I'll take your 2fort advice with a grain of bloody sea salt, thank you very much. I used your "enemies = icons" trick, it works, but not to the point where I can no-scope people from across the bleedin' map.
Vegetables are not tasteless to me. They mostly just taste bitter. Realize that my taste buds are all kinds of screwed up, man. All I get is bitter, bitter, bitter from most vegetables. Carrots are an exception, because they're fairly sweet, and I suppose I like red peppers after trying the one at home...but I hate most of 'em. I guess with enough salt, anything becomes not-bitter. And yes, Brawl is going to pwn noobs worldwide, just by existing.
Mom: Yes, Dad is great. Yes, so am I. *preen preen* I think it might have been the Syndey Opera House, but it might have been just Generic Avant-Garde Building. Besides, what's one wacky-architectural building compared to a false Godzilla that would have leveled the city? As for why no details...because it's a bit of a private matter. I just wanted to bring to light that we made up some important differences we were experiencing.
Dad: Well, given my track record with keeping track of important things, I could hardly be poking fun. It would be like the pot calling the slightly smudged ivory teacup black. And no bet, because I'm too depressed at the near-certainty that it's there somewhere.
Well, unhealthy food and wacky attractions are what the fair is all about, you know? And don't you start about the FSU/UF thing, not after Steve messed up my comments page with his blatant misunderstandings. As for Vic? We corrected some problems we'd been having and now have a better friendship for it, basically.
Bye.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Well. Er. It Has Been A While.
My computer was actually up a couple of days ago, but I wanted to wait until I could get back to my proper schedule before posting. This is by way of being a terrible excuse, if you hadn't noticed.
So, my hard drive was fried. My father bought me a new one, but it was blank. Thus began "The Saga of the Disks." I needed certain recovery disks so as to reconstruct my computer basically from scratch. My father impressed upon me the importance and scarcity of said disks, being that I only had one copy and in fact could only legally own one copy of them. He had been sure to pack them with my stuff when I went up to Gainesville, he said, so they were certainly there. If they were not there, he insisted, I would have to order a new set from HP, and they would take over a week to arrive. So I absolutely, absolutely had to find them. I couldn't let my natural cluttered absent-mindedness screw this up for me, this much was clear.
So I arrived in my room and started tearing through my stuff. I mean, I absolutely pulled my room to pieces looking. I went through every drawer, every big plastic tub, everything I own. No disks. They were simply not to be found. Cringing at the thought, I called my father and reported that the disks were AWOL. I had to endure another haranguing, before he said, in an off-hand manner, that he would search at home for them, just in case - perish the thought! - that he had erred and left them behind. This was clearly a horribly distant situation, however, and the impression was gotten across that there aren't numbers small enough to calculate the probability of this occurrance. The only reason that it wasn't actually impossible is that given the nature of probability and the fullness of the universe, nothing is technically impossible. An infinite number of monkeys writing Shakespeare, etc.
So imagine my surprise when I called back a few minutes later, only to hear my father sheepishly tell me "Well...those disks? I have them right here." To my credit, I did not gloat, but instead expressed satisfaction at this, and we discussed plans. I would come home that weekend, and we would rebuild my computer then.
So began the really boring week that contained no computer. I swear, I don't know how I filled u my spare time. Once, I actually caught myself studying! I don't know what came over me, honest. But I persisted, and when I went down to Wellington last Friday with Victoria, I brought my computer and backup hard drive with me. As soon as we arrived, I gave my father all the necessary cables and components, and he set about running the disks for installation.
Or not. As it happened, the disks he had were in fact for my old desktop computer, not my new laptop computer. So I was still boned, with the added bonus of having to wait another week for the disks to arrive by mail. At least, so I thought. My father, being the extremely technical person that he is, apparently decided "**** it, enough is enough," and began fixing the computer himself, disks or no disks.
Let me dedicate this portion of the blog to singing my father's praises. I mean, seriously. As he later described to me, he has had the month from hell. He's had two aggravatingly difficult and fiddly projects to work on, and not to mention a four-hour presentation that he originally wanted to attend but was told he would have to write instead. Through all this, he managed to find the time and the know-how to rebuild my computer to full functionality, diskless even. I confess myself taken aback by this, as was demonstrated during one of our exchanges:
Him: "I've got most of it up, but you'll still need the disks for some things."
Me: "Like what?"
Him: "Your network connections aren't set up right."
Me: "So? I don't usually go on a network."
Him: "What about the Internet, hmm? That counts."
Me: "...er..."
Him: "Yeah."
Me: "****."
Him: "Watch your language."
A few minutes later...
Him: "I'm downloading all of the service pack updates for Windows XP onto your computer."
Me: "Wait. How? I thought you said my Internet wouldn't work..."
Him: (testily) "I fixed it."
Me: "Oh. Awesome."
Him: "It should be done in a while." *walks away*
Me: "I guess I should have expected that."
So yes, mad props to my father for pulling out all the stops and getting my computer up and running so I can do things like waste time posting in blogs (or not, as the case may be) and fervently reinstalling all the programs that I use on an everyday basis.
Besides that, we went to the fair, "we" being Victoria, Kate, Travis, and I. It was fun. I spent a pile of money this weekend, though. Doesn't much matter, as I found an extra $140 in one of my accounts, and my expenses for the weekend pretty much totaled that exactly. So, woot. I was seized by crippling stomach pains the morning of the fair and Kate had been having stomach problems already, so I didn't ride that many rides. It wasn't helped that about half of the adult rides at the fair had been removed for this year, replaced by a bunch of kiddy rides and various farm-animal-related frippery. I did manage to ride the Gravitron, though, so that's always a ray of nausea-inducing sunshine.
We were grifted by one of the booth workers, in one of the booths wherein you throw darts at colorful balloons to win fabulous prizes. I went in intending to spend two dollars to throw a single dart and get some kind of small plush animal, which I do every year. Instead, I spent seven dollars, and Kate and Victoria were both drawn in to spending money themselves. We walked away with a few more stuffed animals (I got a penguin, which I gave to my father, as he likes Linux penguins) and minus moneys. It's a good grift, though, when you know you're being grifted and it's still fun. This guy was good.
Victoria and I came to several important conclusions on our drive over and back. I built an annoying mono-black destruction deck that has yet to be defeated. (I've tweaked it some in MWS, I plan to bring the revised version back home when next I go there, I don't know when that will be.) Other stuff happened, including the playing of a new RPG called Risus, pronounced "Rees-us." As I am given to understand this, that name was the result of the open-ended nature of the game and an extremely bad "There's no wrong way to play a Risus" pun made sometime in development. It involves making up your own characters with your own skills and suchlike, and defeating whatever the GM wants to throw at you. I threw at them:
Bob Ross (Mr. Happy Trees)
Culex
Wario
And finally, Edwin Van Cleef
An esoteric assortment, but whatever. It was fun. Not Toon "I-Use-As-My-Gizmo-A-Can-Of-Powerthirst" fun, but quite fun nonetheless. I plan to try it again more in-depth, when I'm not being chivvied out the door by a quite-understandably-in-a-hurry Victoria.
What's gone on in the last few days? Not much, truly. I got a good grade for my first lab in MMC2100, an 88/100. Apparently, for that class, even for the first lab paper, that's not inconsiderable. And I turned in a paper worth 10 extra credit points, so there is that. We had a good guest speaker today, a Ms. Anne Hull, who told us all about how she became a journalist despite having no formal experience, no writing classes, and only a year and a half of college total. At FSU even, which I suppose amounts to a slow week here at UF. I thought I took copious notes, but my full page paled in comparison to Victoria's four full pages. Sigh. I either need to learn how to write much faster or learn shorthand.
Er, that's about all I can think of at the moment. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOISbaA2G18 It's from a movie I never heard of called Godzilla: Final Wars. It's the American-made synthetic Godzilla vs. the real nuclear Godzilla. I like this fight because of its abruptness, and also because the real Godzilla absolutely trounces the interloper. Hehe.
REPLIES.
Steve: If you're really going to sit here and tell me that between bases on 2fort isn't a long distance and I should be able to noscope-headshot from across the dang bridge, then I have one thing to say: You do it. Not even the pros regularly do that sort of thing, especially since noscope headshotting won't kill soldiers or heavies, the biggest threats.
You're a better cook than I am, and I have a marked distaste for a lot of vegetables. I do eat vegetables, corn and carrots are both vegetables I semi-regularly eat raw, but not to the degree you do. And I'm working on running. First, I want to become good at DDR again, so I can build up endurance. Maybe running at the same time, for double endurance-boosting? Whatever.
Jake: You did. Wasn't it neat? And Matt is, and always will be, a bum.
Vic: Yes, that's why I linked it. Kelli did not come, btw.
Michelle: Good to see you. And I'm glad they've finally shut the heck up as well. It was getting annoying, having to go back and delete their posts over and over again.
Mom: Those are neat. And as for where the energy comes from...? They're superpowers, they don't have to make sense. Say that it's cosmic rays or you get it from the sun or some such nonsense. Maybe all of your particles exist a fraction of a picosecond ahead of the rest of the universe, like the explanation for the Sentry's total brokenness. I don't know.
And to all who posted on my half-hearted breaking update: I'm baaaaaack.
Bye. For now.
So, my hard drive was fried. My father bought me a new one, but it was blank. Thus began "The Saga of the Disks." I needed certain recovery disks so as to reconstruct my computer basically from scratch. My father impressed upon me the importance and scarcity of said disks, being that I only had one copy and in fact could only legally own one copy of them. He had been sure to pack them with my stuff when I went up to Gainesville, he said, so they were certainly there. If they were not there, he insisted, I would have to order a new set from HP, and they would take over a week to arrive. So I absolutely, absolutely had to find them. I couldn't let my natural cluttered absent-mindedness screw this up for me, this much was clear.
So I arrived in my room and started tearing through my stuff. I mean, I absolutely pulled my room to pieces looking. I went through every drawer, every big plastic tub, everything I own. No disks. They were simply not to be found. Cringing at the thought, I called my father and reported that the disks were AWOL. I had to endure another haranguing, before he said, in an off-hand manner, that he would search at home for them, just in case - perish the thought! - that he had erred and left them behind. This was clearly a horribly distant situation, however, and the impression was gotten across that there aren't numbers small enough to calculate the probability of this occurrance. The only reason that it wasn't actually impossible is that given the nature of probability and the fullness of the universe, nothing is technically impossible. An infinite number of monkeys writing Shakespeare, etc.
So imagine my surprise when I called back a few minutes later, only to hear my father sheepishly tell me "Well...those disks? I have them right here." To my credit, I did not gloat, but instead expressed satisfaction at this, and we discussed plans. I would come home that weekend, and we would rebuild my computer then.
So began the really boring week that contained no computer. I swear, I don't know how I filled u my spare time. Once, I actually caught myself studying! I don't know what came over me, honest. But I persisted, and when I went down to Wellington last Friday with Victoria, I brought my computer and backup hard drive with me. As soon as we arrived, I gave my father all the necessary cables and components, and he set about running the disks for installation.
Or not. As it happened, the disks he had were in fact for my old desktop computer, not my new laptop computer. So I was still boned, with the added bonus of having to wait another week for the disks to arrive by mail. At least, so I thought. My father, being the extremely technical person that he is, apparently decided "**** it, enough is enough," and began fixing the computer himself, disks or no disks.
Let me dedicate this portion of the blog to singing my father's praises. I mean, seriously. As he later described to me, he has had the month from hell. He's had two aggravatingly difficult and fiddly projects to work on, and not to mention a four-hour presentation that he originally wanted to attend but was told he would have to write instead. Through all this, he managed to find the time and the know-how to rebuild my computer to full functionality, diskless even. I confess myself taken aback by this, as was demonstrated during one of our exchanges:
Him: "I've got most of it up, but you'll still need the disks for some things."
Me: "Like what?"
Him: "Your network connections aren't set up right."
Me: "So? I don't usually go on a network."
Him: "What about the Internet, hmm? That counts."
Me: "...er..."
Him: "Yeah."
Me: "****."
Him: "Watch your language."
A few minutes later...
Him: "I'm downloading all of the service pack updates for Windows XP onto your computer."
Me: "Wait. How? I thought you said my Internet wouldn't work..."
Him: (testily) "I fixed it."
Me: "Oh. Awesome."
Him: "It should be done in a while." *walks away*
Me: "I guess I should have expected that."
So yes, mad props to my father for pulling out all the stops and getting my computer up and running so I can do things like waste time posting in blogs (or not, as the case may be) and fervently reinstalling all the programs that I use on an everyday basis.
Besides that, we went to the fair, "we" being Victoria, Kate, Travis, and I. It was fun. I spent a pile of money this weekend, though. Doesn't much matter, as I found an extra $140 in one of my accounts, and my expenses for the weekend pretty much totaled that exactly. So, woot. I was seized by crippling stomach pains the morning of the fair and Kate had been having stomach problems already, so I didn't ride that many rides. It wasn't helped that about half of the adult rides at the fair had been removed for this year, replaced by a bunch of kiddy rides and various farm-animal-related frippery. I did manage to ride the Gravitron, though, so that's always a ray of nausea-inducing sunshine.
We were grifted by one of the booth workers, in one of the booths wherein you throw darts at colorful balloons to win fabulous prizes. I went in intending to spend two dollars to throw a single dart and get some kind of small plush animal, which I do every year. Instead, I spent seven dollars, and Kate and Victoria were both drawn in to spending money themselves. We walked away with a few more stuffed animals (I got a penguin, which I gave to my father, as he likes Linux penguins) and minus moneys. It's a good grift, though, when you know you're being grifted and it's still fun. This guy was good.
Victoria and I came to several important conclusions on our drive over and back. I built an annoying mono-black destruction deck that has yet to be defeated. (I've tweaked it some in MWS, I plan to bring the revised version back home when next I go there, I don't know when that will be.) Other stuff happened, including the playing of a new RPG called Risus, pronounced "Rees-us." As I am given to understand this, that name was the result of the open-ended nature of the game and an extremely bad "There's no wrong way to play a Risus" pun made sometime in development. It involves making up your own characters with your own skills and suchlike, and defeating whatever the GM wants to throw at you. I threw at them:
Bob Ross (Mr. Happy Trees)
Culex
Wario
And finally, Edwin Van Cleef
An esoteric assortment, but whatever. It was fun. Not Toon "I-Use-As-My-Gizmo-A-Can-Of-Powerthirst" fun, but quite fun nonetheless. I plan to try it again more in-depth, when I'm not being chivvied out the door by a quite-understandably-in-a-hurry Victoria.
What's gone on in the last few days? Not much, truly. I got a good grade for my first lab in MMC2100, an 88/100. Apparently, for that class, even for the first lab paper, that's not inconsiderable. And I turned in a paper worth 10 extra credit points, so there is that. We had a good guest speaker today, a Ms. Anne Hull, who told us all about how she became a journalist despite having no formal experience, no writing classes, and only a year and a half of college total. At FSU even, which I suppose amounts to a slow week here at UF. I thought I took copious notes, but my full page paled in comparison to Victoria's four full pages. Sigh. I either need to learn how to write much faster or learn shorthand.
Er, that's about all I can think of at the moment. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOISbaA2G18 It's from a movie I never heard of called Godzilla: Final Wars. It's the American-made synthetic Godzilla vs. the real nuclear Godzilla. I like this fight because of its abruptness, and also because the real Godzilla absolutely trounces the interloper. Hehe.
REPLIES.
Steve: If you're really going to sit here and tell me that between bases on 2fort isn't a long distance and I should be able to noscope-headshot from across the dang bridge, then I have one thing to say: You do it. Not even the pros regularly do that sort of thing, especially since noscope headshotting won't kill soldiers or heavies, the biggest threats.
You're a better cook than I am, and I have a marked distaste for a lot of vegetables. I do eat vegetables, corn and carrots are both vegetables I semi-regularly eat raw, but not to the degree you do. And I'm working on running. First, I want to become good at DDR again, so I can build up endurance. Maybe running at the same time, for double endurance-boosting? Whatever.
Jake: You did. Wasn't it neat? And Matt is, and always will be, a bum.
Vic: Yes, that's why I linked it. Kelli did not come, btw.
Michelle: Good to see you. And I'm glad they've finally shut the heck up as well. It was getting annoying, having to go back and delete their posts over and over again.
Mom: Those are neat. And as for where the energy comes from...? They're superpowers, they don't have to make sense. Say that it's cosmic rays or you get it from the sun or some such nonsense. Maybe all of your particles exist a fraction of a picosecond ahead of the rest of the universe, like the explanation for the Sentry's total brokenness. I don't know.
And to all who posted on my half-hearted breaking update: I'm baaaaaack.
Bye. For now.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
My Computer Broke. Updates Will Be Scarce.
If at all. Sorry. Hard drive blew up, or something, and now I have to wait and get it fixed, buy a new one, reinstall everything, etc etc etc. So it may be a little while afore I update again.
Bye.
Bye.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
A Truly Ludicrous Amount Of Magic Cards
What have I been up to...Oh, yeah! I bust my hump writing out that completely awesome list of abilities and only three people bother to make a choice. Come on, you louts. Jake, Steve, those of you who actually read this blog, tell Travis and Matt and Dan and all those bums to hop on and comment just this once. I'm sure they'd all be willing to bite for this. I mean, I understand that they really don't much care one way or another what I get up to when I'm up in Gainesville, but this speaks directly to them as the nerds that they unquestionably are. Come on.
So what else? I performed the play fragment in class without a hitch. I added one word where a word shouldn't have been added, but I seriously doubt that the teacher noticed, or cared if he did notice. I did make the newbie mistake in blocking - when I sat down to face my fellow actress, I was facing away from about half the people in the room. Yeargh. Well, I'll fix it next time. I haven't read the new play (I should, since I have to practice it tomorrow morning with Mallory), but if it's anything near as ridiculous as this one was, I should have fun doing it.
I went on a grocery run, picking up all kinds of cold cuts and cheese and sandwich materials. It was about ten minutes after I got back that I realized: I'm going home this weekend. I have all these spoilable materials in my fridge. Here is one of those situations where this emoticon is perfectly applicable:
>_<
I don't usually go for emoticons beyond ;_; and XD, maybe an occasional o_O if I'm puzzled by something, but I like that one. Being that I type so incredibly fast anyway, I can spell out my emotions with words faster than most people can create an emoticon to describe the same concept.
I have had it about up to here with Team Fortress 2 elitists. I fancy myself a good sniper in that game; I can usually outfight any opposing snipers, and my accuracy is about 60% on moving targets, nearly 100% on slowly moving targets. But to hear these people talk, I wouldn't be good as a sniper unless I could single-handedly defeat the opposing team by pulling off snap-headshots from the hip in melee situations. Someone informed me that I was a bad sniper...because I used the scope. Gosh, I'm sorry that I use the weapon to its fullest potential. I suppose I'm to hit the enemies 100 yards away unscoped, is that right? If I were to do this, they would no doubt yell at me for missing. These people need to go back to the unfathomably competitive Counter-Strike game and let us normal players enjoy a peaceful game of TF2.
Oh, yes, I alluded to this earlier, and I feel I must now expand upon it. I'm coming home this weekend. I'll arrive tomorrow evening around 6:30, ish, and I'll need someone to pick me up at the bus stop. I'll call Travis or Dan or someone with a car, as my parents won't be getting in until around 8:30 - they've been in New Hampshire all week and are flying in about half an hour after I'm driving in. So, er, I'd better make some phone calls.
On Saturday, I'm going to the Morningtide Magic pre-release tournament in Fort Lauderdale, about an hour south of us. I was going to go to the Orlando one, but that's pointlessly far away for all the Wellingtonians to go to, and the bus doesn't take me there anyway. It would cost more for a round-trip Greyhound ticket to Orlando than my current round-trip bus ticket to Wellington costs. Which is pathetic. But we'll be getting lots of really nifty cards, and if anyone wants to come with us (the current group is myself, Travis, and Dan), say the word. We won't be spending the night, so no hotel bills, which frees up my money to spend on a truly ludicrous amount of Magic cards.
I'm applying to be a RA, Residential Advisor, for next year. I have to write a one-page essay and fill out these forms indicating how I would be good as an RA, yadda yadda yadda, and if I make it, I'll get a single room for the price of a double and get paid all semester. It won't be much, but it'll be more then what I'm getting now, which is nothing. But on the downside, I think this might actually involve interacting with the students in my hall. I can't be having with that. I'm not taking this job so I can actually, y'know, do the job. Or not. I guess I'll figure that out later.
Today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3erlxuXqGI It's Kermit the Frog singing the alphabet song with a little girl named Joey. I include this because it is cute to the point of being sickening. Also, the faces Kermit pulls are hilarious.
REPLIES.
Steve: "Superior ingestion patterns"? Is that really what you think of all that granola you snork down? And I don't see how making myself look like a fool in front of girls is actually a selected trait, it seems like something you'd breed out of existence. Interesting choices, but you must consider how the individuals you controlled will feel when they snap out of it and remember what they've been doing...
Jake: That's the spirit. I was asked online by someone if he could copy it and show it to his friends. I gave him full permission, if he attributed it. Nothing boils my bollocks like people taking writing without attributing it to its author. And yes, you could sacrifice two slots to Overcharge two powers. I was thinking of adding some "Synthesis" special powers that would come into existence if you chose two particular Overcharged abilities. I don't know what the Scout says, it sounds like a foreign language.
Mom: I hate 1, don't much like 2, can't stand 3, like 4, dislike 5, only like peanuts out of 6, only like carrots out of 7, and won't hold for 8. So I suppose I'm boned. And your powers are given to you without any conditions; if you use them foolishly, you'll probably get found out. Taking less conspicuous powers might be advantageous.
Karen: Good to see you commenting. Super Strength also gives you toughness, and you don't have to concentrate like you would with using Telekinesis. You know what, I give you nine perfectly fine powers, and you have to go and invent a new one. What am I going to all this work for, I ask you.
I don't drink much soda in the first place, so there's that. Push-ups are an excellent idea. I'll check out that link later - dinner's in the oven as I write this. Cool quotes.
Steve: I'll work on that. I can't run straight for half an hour...I can manage maybe 15 minutes, if I take a 1-minute walking break halfway through. Yeah, I'm out of shape. But I'm working on that. As for the other stuff, that's why I'm going to a personal trainer, so I can actually work out a regimen that works for me, so I'm not just pointlessly throwing weights around and possibly injuring myself.
Bye.
So what else? I performed the play fragment in class without a hitch. I added one word where a word shouldn't have been added, but I seriously doubt that the teacher noticed, or cared if he did notice. I did make the newbie mistake in blocking - when I sat down to face my fellow actress, I was facing away from about half the people in the room. Yeargh. Well, I'll fix it next time. I haven't read the new play (I should, since I have to practice it tomorrow morning with Mallory), but if it's anything near as ridiculous as this one was, I should have fun doing it.
I went on a grocery run, picking up all kinds of cold cuts and cheese and sandwich materials. It was about ten minutes after I got back that I realized: I'm going home this weekend. I have all these spoilable materials in my fridge. Here is one of those situations where this emoticon is perfectly applicable:
>_<
I don't usually go for emoticons beyond ;_; and XD, maybe an occasional o_O if I'm puzzled by something, but I like that one. Being that I type so incredibly fast anyway, I can spell out my emotions with words faster than most people can create an emoticon to describe the same concept.
I have had it about up to here with Team Fortress 2 elitists. I fancy myself a good sniper in that game; I can usually outfight any opposing snipers, and my accuracy is about 60% on moving targets, nearly 100% on slowly moving targets. But to hear these people talk, I wouldn't be good as a sniper unless I could single-handedly defeat the opposing team by pulling off snap-headshots from the hip in melee situations. Someone informed me that I was a bad sniper...because I used the scope. Gosh, I'm sorry that I use the weapon to its fullest potential. I suppose I'm to hit the enemies 100 yards away unscoped, is that right? If I were to do this, they would no doubt yell at me for missing. These people need to go back to the unfathomably competitive Counter-Strike game and let us normal players enjoy a peaceful game of TF2.
Oh, yes, I alluded to this earlier, and I feel I must now expand upon it. I'm coming home this weekend. I'll arrive tomorrow evening around 6:30, ish, and I'll need someone to pick me up at the bus stop. I'll call Travis or Dan or someone with a car, as my parents won't be getting in until around 8:30 - they've been in New Hampshire all week and are flying in about half an hour after I'm driving in. So, er, I'd better make some phone calls.
On Saturday, I'm going to the Morningtide Magic pre-release tournament in Fort Lauderdale, about an hour south of us. I was going to go to the Orlando one, but that's pointlessly far away for all the Wellingtonians to go to, and the bus doesn't take me there anyway. It would cost more for a round-trip Greyhound ticket to Orlando than my current round-trip bus ticket to Wellington costs. Which is pathetic. But we'll be getting lots of really nifty cards, and if anyone wants to come with us (the current group is myself, Travis, and Dan), say the word. We won't be spending the night, so no hotel bills, which frees up my money to spend on a truly ludicrous amount of Magic cards.
I'm applying to be a RA, Residential Advisor, for next year. I have to write a one-page essay and fill out these forms indicating how I would be good as an RA, yadda yadda yadda, and if I make it, I'll get a single room for the price of a double and get paid all semester. It won't be much, but it'll be more then what I'm getting now, which is nothing. But on the downside, I think this might actually involve interacting with the students in my hall. I can't be having with that. I'm not taking this job so I can actually, y'know, do the job. Or not. I guess I'll figure that out later.
Today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3erlxuXqGI It's Kermit the Frog singing the alphabet song with a little girl named Joey. I include this because it is cute to the point of being sickening. Also, the faces Kermit pulls are hilarious.
REPLIES.
Steve: "Superior ingestion patterns"? Is that really what you think of all that granola you snork down? And I don't see how making myself look like a fool in front of girls is actually a selected trait, it seems like something you'd breed out of existence. Interesting choices, but you must consider how the individuals you controlled will feel when they snap out of it and remember what they've been doing...
Jake: That's the spirit. I was asked online by someone if he could copy it and show it to his friends. I gave him full permission, if he attributed it. Nothing boils my bollocks like people taking writing without attributing it to its author. And yes, you could sacrifice two slots to Overcharge two powers. I was thinking of adding some "Synthesis" special powers that would come into existence if you chose two particular Overcharged abilities. I don't know what the Scout says, it sounds like a foreign language.
Mom: I hate 1, don't much like 2, can't stand 3, like 4, dislike 5, only like peanuts out of 6, only like carrots out of 7, and won't hold for 8. So I suppose I'm boned. And your powers are given to you without any conditions; if you use them foolishly, you'll probably get found out. Taking less conspicuous powers might be advantageous.
Karen: Good to see you commenting. Super Strength also gives you toughness, and you don't have to concentrate like you would with using Telekinesis. You know what, I give you nine perfectly fine powers, and you have to go and invent a new one. What am I going to all this work for, I ask you.
I don't drink much soda in the first place, so there's that. Push-ups are an excellent idea. I'll check out that link later - dinner's in the oven as I write this. Cool quotes.
Steve: I'll work on that. I can't run straight for half an hour...I can manage maybe 15 minutes, if I take a 1-minute walking break halfway through. Yeah, I'm out of shape. But I'm working on that. As for the other stuff, that's why I'm going to a personal trainer, so I can actually work out a regimen that works for me, so I'm not just pointlessly throwing weights around and possibly injuring myself.
Bye.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
You Stupid Me-Hating Faux-Pas-Committing Brain Segment
You may be wondering about the title. I'm borrowing a practice from my sister's blog, where she starts writing with no title and after she's written her material, she scours it for a good phrase and makes that the title. I like it, and I like this title. I plan to continue this.
Last few days have been sort of eventful. Lots of fun, though. I told y'all about the band banquet, and then...er...I was practicing for a play that I have to perform tomorrow, a snippet anyway (speaking of which, I should really go over that). It's weird. My character spends a full paragraph blithering about beds:
Deeley: We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It's the castors that make all this possible.
He spends most of the snippet I'm reading from blithering about all sorts of things. It's probably because he's talking to a girl who he's had a crush on for years. When a guy is in the presence of a girl he's attracted to, the mouth has a habit of running away and doing its own thing while the mind tries vainly to compensate. A hypothetical situation with me and a girl:
Me: Thanks for the peaches. They're really good.
Girl: Thanks. I picked them myself.
Me: I mean, these peaches are amazing. Seriously, I just want to sell all my possessions and take my savings and just buy all of these peaches that I can afford. I would sell my body for a jar of these peaches. They're that good.
Girl: *stare* Me: ...
My brain: You idiot. Me: What I mean is -
Girl: *runs*
All guys have this problem. The most self-assured, self-confident guy can be turned into a babbling loon in the presence of the right girl. I don't really know why this is, it isn't as if it's some kind of evolved survival characteristic. My theory is that there's a small part in my brain that hates me terribly and lives to see me commit blunders. While the rest of my brain is paralyzed, it feeds me lines, and cackles madly at the results. I'll conquer you yet, you stupid me-hating faux-pas-committing brain segment, if I have to scoop you out with a melon baller.
So that aside, things have been going peachy. Here's an interesting tidbit: I've decided to start eating healthier. I'm cutting most of the fast food out of my diet, and am replacing it with sandwiches and fruit and vegetables and actual food, as opposed to the grease-laden garbage I usually consume. I mean, I'll still enjoy the occasional mound of grease-laden garbage, but not with anywhere near the frequency I did before. Also, when I can get an appointment, I am going to have a session with a personal trainer and get a gym regimen going, which I will follow scrupulously. I will be in shape by the end of this semester, dadburnit, not have a developing gut that's poking out like some kind of pink fleshy tortoise head. No Alien beings bursting from my stomach, I'll be trim come May.
Oh, and I wrote this up, and I wanted to share it with everyone: I am giving you here a list of nine superpowers. Choose four and write which ones in the comment box, and if you please, tell me why you chose them. Why did I do this? I was bored, and it was fun.
Super Strength. You can lift up to 50 tons, and use other strength-related skills at a proportionate level. You have a certain low-grade toughness to go along with this, because it's no use lifting a tank if the weight squashes you, or smashing down a steel door if your hand is liquified on impact. You're tough, but not indestructible.
Super Speed. You can run at up to Mach 10. You have the reflexes necessary to avoid objects, people, etc. You can run up walls. Again, you have a certain toughness about you to prevent air shear from ripping your skin off or your tendons from disintegrating from friction, or if you punch something at super-speed, your hand doesn't explode into shards of bone and muscle.
Flight. You can fly at up to 400 mph, and you ignore wind shear and/or small objects in your path. Birds, etc. You don't get tired, and you fly Superman-style.
Invulnerability. You cannot take damage. At all. Ever. No attack can pierce your skin, no harm can befall you at any point. You retain touch sensitivity, but you no longer feel pain - why would you? (Pain from older injuries, diseases, etc, still plagues you, though. You can't acquire new diseases - that counts as damage - but if you broke your leg ten years ago and it twinges on rainy days, that stays.)
Invisibility. When you wish it, you can become completely transparent. You can turn this on and off at will. Your clothes and any small objects in your possession (small objects being defined as anything you can carry around reasonably unobtrusively) fade with you. No form of light-based detection can pick you up (invisible to radar as well), but sound-based or smell-based can still detect you.
Energy Projection. You can fire beams of energy from your hands, eyes, and mouth. Think Dragonball Z, except not quite to that scale. Let's say that your best blast can destroy a medium-size building or harm a large one to the point of structural collapse.
Telepathy. You can read the surface thoughts of others as easily as you might hear them speaking, except from any distance at which you can see them. You can hear the surface thoughts of as many people at once as you like, but you must be able to see them and it may get a bit confusing with that many voicess. If you concentrate on a single person, you can pick up their inner thoughts, memories, knowledge, etc. You cannot control people, but you can influence them slightly, a la a Jedi Mind Trick. (This doesn't work on the particularly strong-willed.)
Telekinesis. You can pick up and manipulate objects with your mind. You can lift anything up to, say, 5 tons, at any distance you can see. With exceptional concentration, you can manipulate several objects at once, but doing so requires your full attention, and this may leave you vulnerable. You can form a wall, a spike, a line, a cage, or any shape you desire out of your telekinetic force. You can choose for it to be invisible or a faint glowing color of your choice.
Time Stop. You can freeze time for everyone but you, at will, and restart it again. You can move freely during the stopped time, but you can manipulate stopped objects only to a limited extent - you can't do anything drastic. You can effect slight changes, but it gets exponentially harder the more you try to affect something, to the point where it becomes impossible after a little bit. The same rules for Invisibility apply in terms of what you can bring with you. You do not age in stopped time.
ALSO!
You may consume one of your four power-slots in order to apply an Overcharge effect to a power you already selected. So instead of this:
Super Strength
Telepathy
Telekinesis
Flight
You may choose:
Super Strength
Telepathy - Overcharged
Telekinesis
-
- Overcharge Summary
Overcharges are brief bursts of time in which you can increase the level of your power tremendously. Each of them has the following rules: You may invoke an Overcharge power in complete safety for up to five minutes. Every minute after this that you keep the Overcharge power going, you invoke a 20% cumulative chance per minute of burning out your power and losing it permanently. (So first minute 20%, second 40%, and so on.) When you invoke an Overcharge power, a mental timer appears in your head, giving you perfectly accurate time and warnings as you approach your limit of safety. After you complete your invocation of the Overcharge power, you become physically and mentally exhausted and cannot take any action for several hours as you rest.
- Overcharge Abilities, Per Power:
Super Strength: Strength of the World There is no known limit to your strength. You become temporarily invulnerable, and no object or force can check your momentum. You can produce massive shockwaves by clapping your hands together or smashing your fists onto the ground.
Super Speed: Warp Factor Five You can accelerate to incredible, unimaginable speeds. You can asymptotically approach the speed of light on the ground, and relativistic effects will apply - time will slow down and your mass will increase the closer you get to lightspeed. ***
Flight: All The World This does not work like a standard Overcharge, rather, it is a permanent upgrade to your existing abilities. Your top speed increases to 1,000 mph. If you have Super Speed, your top speed is increased to Mach 10. You can now move and see through water as easily as through air. You can breathe underwater and in the vacuum of space. You are unaffected by extreme pressure or temperature in your location, be it at the bottom of the ocean, in the stratosphere, or in orbit. You can move through space, but obviously, even at your new increased speed, you’re not going far from Earth.
Invulnerability: The Ultimate Shield You can erect a spherical, faintly glowing barrier with a 20-foot radius centered on you. This barrier is as invulnerable as you are; no attack can pierce it. If it is interrupted by the ground or some other object, it stops flush with that object, but if the object is removed, the barrier forms where there was once a hole. In addition, anyone inside the barrier with you whom you designate gains a temporary form of your invulnerability. This can last up to one month. You may only have ten people shielded in this way at any given time, and you may cancel someone's invulnerability at any time.
Invisibility: Without A Trace You become absolutely, utterly undetectable. There is no way to find you, no form of detection can track you. You lose your physical form and become temporarily intangible, able to pass through walls and float at your normal running speed. Since you cannot be observed, you are not obviously anywhere, and are thus potentially everywhere - you may re-corporate at any point in existence you so choose, as long as you have a clear mental picture of your destination. If you try to do this without a clear mental picture, the effect ends and you reappear where you started.
Energy Projection: Explosion of Power Your power ceiling is raised. Your maximum now are massive blasts that can destroy an entire city. Alternately, you can expend your entire Overcharge to fire a single colossal blast that could put a distinctly visible crater on the Moon, seen from Earth.
Telepathy: Know Your Enemy, and Know Yourself You gain full mind-control powers, and can apply them to as many people as you can see. You can reach into a person's mind and add, edit, or delete any information or personality characteristics you see. You can also do this to yourself, although you cannot add information that you do not possess (though you may take information from someone's mind and add it to yours). Any effects of this, though, fade over time - a period of weeks or months, depending on the person - and you cannot use this power on someone twice. You cannot even use your influence on a person you have previously controlled. (Any changes you make to yourself are permanent, but you can alter yourself as often as you like.)
Telekinesis: Mind Over Matter Your power is amplified tremendously. You could uproot a skyscraper or empty a lake into space. You can control multiple objects with no extra concentration required. You may finesse your power to a very fine point; you could split an atom with your mind if you so deemed it.
Time Stop: Rifts In Time You can travel backwards in time. This power works differently than the others: since traveling in time does not take any time, you may only travel backwards to a maximum of five minutes. Traveling back further invokes the standard penalty of a 20% cumulative chance per additional minute of your power being lost forever. You are not exhausted upon the conclusion of this invocation. (No point in redoing your last action if you’re too tired to redo it.) ***
ALSO...
Save Point You may choose, at any moment, to designate the time you are in as a recall destination. Any time you choose, you may yank yourself backwards in time to the spot you designated...but you have a 95% chance of losing all your powers when you do this. (Always gotta have some chance to land on your feet. One chance to roll a natural 20.) If you recall yourself and keep your power, you may not use your Save Point again. You get one do-over, and that's it.
*** = This Overcharge is extremely taxing on your body. You lose use of this power for a week, no matter what. Complete bed rest can return usage of it to you sooner.
My choices were:
Flight (always, always, always wanted to fly)
Super Speed (running real fast, and reflexes that allow me to dodge bullets? Heck yes.)
Time Stop (I can sleep while time is stopped. That alone was enough reason for me to take this, and all the other uses are icing on the cake.)
Telepathy (If I knew what some people were thinking, my life would be so much easier.)
An Overcharge was tempting, but I decided against it. If I had to Overcharge one of those, it would either by Time Stop or Flight.
What would you choose?
I knew, as soon as I saw this video, that it would be my Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day. It's a work of art. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s3rhaLVk8U It's called "The Day of a Pyro," an in-game movie starring the Pyro of Team Fortress 2. With no intelligible dialogue and barely any facial expressions, it manages to tell an amazing story. The only thing anyone not acquainted with this game should know is this: The area he's in is a Capture-the-Flag map, where the objective is to capture the enemy briefcase full of intelligence and bring it to your briefcase full of intelligence.
REPLIES.
All those who commented on my not finishing: I fell asleep. So sue me. My Internet went down, as well.
Jake: I like the way you think. Why can't you all be more like Jake? Come on, interpret my gibberish as genius. Do it. Do iiiiiit.
Mike: Ah, the trade agreements. As I mentioned, I had no meaningful trade agreements with anyone, so I could war with anyone I darn well pleased. Yes, asteroid fields ruin anyone's run to the capital planet, Mecatol Rex.
Mom: No doubt he had that in mind when he told us about the tazering. Have fun in NH.
Steve: I didn't say I didn't like it, I said the War Sun was ripping it off. Hancock will probably be enormously hilarious, depending on if they try to throw in a sappy he-learns-the-right-way storyline or not. I hope not. A whole movie of a loser Superman screwing things up would be perfect. And yes, Brawl was delayed, but only for a week in Japan. We in the States are betting that it's a production problem. We'll get it soon enough.
Finito.
Last few days have been sort of eventful. Lots of fun, though. I told y'all about the band banquet, and then...er...I was practicing for a play that I have to perform tomorrow, a snippet anyway (speaking of which, I should really go over that). It's weird. My character spends a full paragraph blithering about beds:
Deeley: We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It's the castors that make all this possible.
He spends most of the snippet I'm reading from blithering about all sorts of things. It's probably because he's talking to a girl who he's had a crush on for years. When a guy is in the presence of a girl he's attracted to, the mouth has a habit of running away and doing its own thing while the mind tries vainly to compensate. A hypothetical situation with me and a girl:
Me: Thanks for the peaches. They're really good.
Girl: Thanks. I picked them myself.
Me: I mean, these peaches are amazing. Seriously, I just want to sell all my possessions and take my savings and just buy all of these peaches that I can afford. I would sell my body for a jar of these peaches. They're that good.
Girl: *stare* Me: ...
My brain: You idiot. Me: What I mean is -
Girl: *runs*
All guys have this problem. The most self-assured, self-confident guy can be turned into a babbling loon in the presence of the right girl. I don't really know why this is, it isn't as if it's some kind of evolved survival characteristic. My theory is that there's a small part in my brain that hates me terribly and lives to see me commit blunders. While the rest of my brain is paralyzed, it feeds me lines, and cackles madly at the results. I'll conquer you yet, you stupid me-hating faux-pas-committing brain segment, if I have to scoop you out with a melon baller.
So that aside, things have been going peachy. Here's an interesting tidbit: I've decided to start eating healthier. I'm cutting most of the fast food out of my diet, and am replacing it with sandwiches and fruit and vegetables and actual food, as opposed to the grease-laden garbage I usually consume. I mean, I'll still enjoy the occasional mound of grease-laden garbage, but not with anywhere near the frequency I did before. Also, when I can get an appointment, I am going to have a session with a personal trainer and get a gym regimen going, which I will follow scrupulously. I will be in shape by the end of this semester, dadburnit, not have a developing gut that's poking out like some kind of pink fleshy tortoise head. No Alien beings bursting from my stomach, I'll be trim come May.
Oh, and I wrote this up, and I wanted to share it with everyone: I am giving you here a list of nine superpowers. Choose four and write which ones in the comment box, and if you please, tell me why you chose them. Why did I do this? I was bored, and it was fun.
Super Strength. You can lift up to 50 tons, and use other strength-related skills at a proportionate level. You have a certain low-grade toughness to go along with this, because it's no use lifting a tank if the weight squashes you, or smashing down a steel door if your hand is liquified on impact. You're tough, but not indestructible.
Super Speed. You can run at up to Mach 10. You have the reflexes necessary to avoid objects, people, etc. You can run up walls. Again, you have a certain toughness about you to prevent air shear from ripping your skin off or your tendons from disintegrating from friction, or if you punch something at super-speed, your hand doesn't explode into shards of bone and muscle.
Flight. You can fly at up to 400 mph, and you ignore wind shear and/or small objects in your path. Birds, etc. You don't get tired, and you fly Superman-style.
Invulnerability. You cannot take damage. At all. Ever. No attack can pierce your skin, no harm can befall you at any point. You retain touch sensitivity, but you no longer feel pain - why would you? (Pain from older injuries, diseases, etc, still plagues you, though. You can't acquire new diseases - that counts as damage - but if you broke your leg ten years ago and it twinges on rainy days, that stays.)
Invisibility. When you wish it, you can become completely transparent. You can turn this on and off at will. Your clothes and any small objects in your possession (small objects being defined as anything you can carry around reasonably unobtrusively) fade with you. No form of light-based detection can pick you up (invisible to radar as well), but sound-based or smell-based can still detect you.
Energy Projection. You can fire beams of energy from your hands, eyes, and mouth. Think Dragonball Z, except not quite to that scale. Let's say that your best blast can destroy a medium-size building or harm a large one to the point of structural collapse.
Telepathy. You can read the surface thoughts of others as easily as you might hear them speaking, except from any distance at which you can see them. You can hear the surface thoughts of as many people at once as you like, but you must be able to see them and it may get a bit confusing with that many voicess. If you concentrate on a single person, you can pick up their inner thoughts, memories, knowledge, etc. You cannot control people, but you can influence them slightly, a la a Jedi Mind Trick. (This doesn't work on the particularly strong-willed.)
Telekinesis. You can pick up and manipulate objects with your mind. You can lift anything up to, say, 5 tons, at any distance you can see. With exceptional concentration, you can manipulate several objects at once, but doing so requires your full attention, and this may leave you vulnerable. You can form a wall, a spike, a line, a cage, or any shape you desire out of your telekinetic force. You can choose for it to be invisible or a faint glowing color of your choice.
Time Stop. You can freeze time for everyone but you, at will, and restart it again. You can move freely during the stopped time, but you can manipulate stopped objects only to a limited extent - you can't do anything drastic. You can effect slight changes, but it gets exponentially harder the more you try to affect something, to the point where it becomes impossible after a little bit. The same rules for Invisibility apply in terms of what you can bring with you. You do not age in stopped time.
ALSO!
You may consume one of your four power-slots in order to apply an Overcharge effect to a power you already selected. So instead of this:
Super Strength
Telepathy
Telekinesis
Flight
You may choose:
Super Strength
Telepathy - Overcharged
Telekinesis
-
- Overcharge Summary
Overcharges are brief bursts of time in which you can increase the level of your power tremendously. Each of them has the following rules: You may invoke an Overcharge power in complete safety for up to five minutes. Every minute after this that you keep the Overcharge power going, you invoke a 20% cumulative chance per minute of burning out your power and losing it permanently. (So first minute 20%, second 40%, and so on.) When you invoke an Overcharge power, a mental timer appears in your head, giving you perfectly accurate time and warnings as you approach your limit of safety. After you complete your invocation of the Overcharge power, you become physically and mentally exhausted and cannot take any action for several hours as you rest.
- Overcharge Abilities, Per Power:
Super Strength: Strength of the World There is no known limit to your strength. You become temporarily invulnerable, and no object or force can check your momentum. You can produce massive shockwaves by clapping your hands together or smashing your fists onto the ground.
Super Speed: Warp Factor Five You can accelerate to incredible, unimaginable speeds. You can asymptotically approach the speed of light on the ground, and relativistic effects will apply - time will slow down and your mass will increase the closer you get to lightspeed. ***
Flight: All The World This does not work like a standard Overcharge, rather, it is a permanent upgrade to your existing abilities. Your top speed increases to 1,000 mph. If you have Super Speed, your top speed is increased to Mach 10. You can now move and see through water as easily as through air. You can breathe underwater and in the vacuum of space. You are unaffected by extreme pressure or temperature in your location, be it at the bottom of the ocean, in the stratosphere, or in orbit. You can move through space, but obviously, even at your new increased speed, you’re not going far from Earth.
Invulnerability: The Ultimate Shield You can erect a spherical, faintly glowing barrier with a 20-foot radius centered on you. This barrier is as invulnerable as you are; no attack can pierce it. If it is interrupted by the ground or some other object, it stops flush with that object, but if the object is removed, the barrier forms where there was once a hole. In addition, anyone inside the barrier with you whom you designate gains a temporary form of your invulnerability. This can last up to one month. You may only have ten people shielded in this way at any given time, and you may cancel someone's invulnerability at any time.
Invisibility: Without A Trace You become absolutely, utterly undetectable. There is no way to find you, no form of detection can track you. You lose your physical form and become temporarily intangible, able to pass through walls and float at your normal running speed. Since you cannot be observed, you are not obviously anywhere, and are thus potentially everywhere - you may re-corporate at any point in existence you so choose, as long as you have a clear mental picture of your destination. If you try to do this without a clear mental picture, the effect ends and you reappear where you started.
Energy Projection: Explosion of Power Your power ceiling is raised. Your maximum now are massive blasts that can destroy an entire city. Alternately, you can expend your entire Overcharge to fire a single colossal blast that could put a distinctly visible crater on the Moon, seen from Earth.
Telepathy: Know Your Enemy, and Know Yourself You gain full mind-control powers, and can apply them to as many people as you can see. You can reach into a person's mind and add, edit, or delete any information or personality characteristics you see. You can also do this to yourself, although you cannot add information that you do not possess (though you may take information from someone's mind and add it to yours). Any effects of this, though, fade over time - a period of weeks or months, depending on the person - and you cannot use this power on someone twice. You cannot even use your influence on a person you have previously controlled. (Any changes you make to yourself are permanent, but you can alter yourself as often as you like.)
Telekinesis: Mind Over Matter Your power is amplified tremendously. You could uproot a skyscraper or empty a lake into space. You can control multiple objects with no extra concentration required. You may finesse your power to a very fine point; you could split an atom with your mind if you so deemed it.
Time Stop: Rifts In Time You can travel backwards in time. This power works differently than the others: since traveling in time does not take any time, you may only travel backwards to a maximum of five minutes. Traveling back further invokes the standard penalty of a 20% cumulative chance per additional minute of your power being lost forever. You are not exhausted upon the conclusion of this invocation. (No point in redoing your last action if you’re too tired to redo it.) ***
ALSO...
Save Point You may choose, at any moment, to designate the time you are in as a recall destination. Any time you choose, you may yank yourself backwards in time to the spot you designated...but you have a 95% chance of losing all your powers when you do this. (Always gotta have some chance to land on your feet. One chance to roll a natural 20.) If you recall yourself and keep your power, you may not use your Save Point again. You get one do-over, and that's it.
*** = This Overcharge is extremely taxing on your body. You lose use of this power for a week, no matter what. Complete bed rest can return usage of it to you sooner.
My choices were:
Flight (always, always, always wanted to fly)
Super Speed (running real fast, and reflexes that allow me to dodge bullets? Heck yes.)
Time Stop (I can sleep while time is stopped. That alone was enough reason for me to take this, and all the other uses are icing on the cake.)
Telepathy (If I knew what some people were thinking, my life would be so much easier.)
An Overcharge was tempting, but I decided against it. If I had to Overcharge one of those, it would either by Time Stop or Flight.
What would you choose?
I knew, as soon as I saw this video, that it would be my Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day. It's a work of art. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s3rhaLVk8U It's called "The Day of a Pyro," an in-game movie starring the Pyro of Team Fortress 2. With no intelligible dialogue and barely any facial expressions, it manages to tell an amazing story. The only thing anyone not acquainted with this game should know is this: The area he's in is a Capture-the-Flag map, where the objective is to capture the enemy briefcase full of intelligence and bring it to your briefcase full of intelligence.
REPLIES.
All those who commented on my not finishing: I fell asleep. So sue me. My Internet went down, as well.
Jake: I like the way you think. Why can't you all be more like Jake? Come on, interpret my gibberish as genius. Do it. Do iiiiiit.
Mike: Ah, the trade agreements. As I mentioned, I had no meaningful trade agreements with anyone, so I could war with anyone I darn well pleased. Yes, asteroid fields ruin anyone's run to the capital planet, Mecatol Rex.
Mom: No doubt he had that in mind when he told us about the tazering. Have fun in NH.
Steve: I didn't say I didn't like it, I said the War Sun was ripping it off. Hancock will probably be enormously hilarious, depending on if they try to throw in a sappy he-learns-the-right-way storyline or not. I hope not. A whole movie of a loser Superman screwing things up would be perfect. And yes, Brawl was delayed, but only for a week in Japan. We in the States are betting that it's a production problem. We'll get it soon enough.
Finito.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Twilight Imperium, Or, How I Blew All Saturday
*EDIT*: I'm sorry about this. I fully intended to finish this last night, but I fell asleep in my chair before I had a chance to. (Of course, that means I also lost about a page and a half of what I had written, since I have my computer restart every morning.) All this morning and up until a few hours ago, the Internet was out in my room. So, slightly late, is the account of yesterday.
Twilight Imperium is a board game wherein multiple factions clash repeatedly in attempts to take over the galaxy and become Emperor of all inhabitants of the area. It is also, really, really, really long. A game between six of us:
Myself, playing a race that was basically the Borg
Victoria, playing a race that I don't quite recall the characteristics of
Mike, playing a race that similarly escapes me
Louis, playing a race that was a bunch of universities and politicians
Steven, playing a race that was big on ground combat and fighters
Matt, playing a race that was a bunch of religious terrorists
Took about seven hours. And it ended earlier than it usually does. This game is long, long, long. It's not as long as some games I've played - one glorious long weekend, I played a game of Homeworld II for 71 straight hours, I took half-hour catnaps while my teammates covered for me - but it's pretty darn long. It's a lot of fun, too. There are politics and intrigue and alliances and trade partnerships and all that sort of thing, and when that fails, there are destroyers and cruisers and carriers and even the mighty totally-not-ripping-off-the-Death-Star behemoths known as War Suns. They are extraordinarily powerful. So of course, Victoria's race started with one. This made the rest of us void ourselves in terror if she considered attacking us.
My race had bonuses to Dreadnoughts, the totally awesome Star Destroyer-style ships. So I built myself up a nice fleet of those. By the end of the game, we all had vast and imposing fleets, except for Matt, who never had anything bigger than a cruiser (one step below a Dreadnought). But he could send his cruisers and destroyers on suicide runs to ram opposing ships, so there was that. Alliances were set up quickly. Victoria and Mike joined together almost instantly. I don't know all of what motivated this, but perhaps the fact that Mike was next to her and that Victoria had the aforementioned horrifyingly powerful battle station caused him to wave the white flag. Steven and Louis had an on-again off-again alliance that persisted as long as either of them cared about it. I teamed up with Matt, eventually. Of course, the weakest and most suicidal player would be my natural choice for a teammate. I need to learn how to sit next to the right people.
My trading stunk, because I was the Borg and nobody liked me, but I managed to get enough money to start building a mighty fleet. Unfortunately, before Matt and I were allied, we were sort of sniping at each other. Each of our defenses was too tough for the other to penetrate, but he took from me two awesome planets that I really wanted to control. So I mostly seethed and boiled and sobbed quietly on the inside as Victoria started hinting about attacking me with her mighty battle station. It took me a good long while before I got a handle on the intricacies of the game, but get a handle on them I did. Of course, by that point, Louis had pulled ahead so far that there was no catching him up, and he ended up winning. Of course. (I can't remember the last time I actually won one of the game-night games. Go figure.)
Eventually, Mike wandered into my territory and attacked me while I wasn't fully prepared. I had only two Dreadnoughts to his four, but in this game, the attacker has to craft his offense carefully or suffer several disadvantages. The mines I had laid in space accounted for some of his craft, and my planetary defense cannons accounted for some others. My destroyers blew up his fighters (fighters in this game are little more than targets and cannon fodder. They exist to take hits so that the capital ships won't have to, and maybe at some point to successfully attack, but unmodified, they only have a 20% chance to hit. Which stinks.) in one volley. Then the battle began.
Most ships in the game die in one hit, which is odd, but Dreadnoughts can take two hits before exploding. When a successful attack is rolled by the attacker, the defender chooses which of his ships takes the hit. Slightly unrealistic, but otherwise the capital ships would always be the first to fall and every battle would degenerate into fighter skirmishes. Which gets boring, seeing as they nearly always miss. I took a hit on each of my Dreadnoughts, then played a special card to repair them to full. Then I took another hit on each of my Dreadnoughts. Then I played another special card to repair them to full. As I had pretty near erased four direct hits, Mike was at this point gnashing his teeth and seething. I managed to win the battle without losing any major ships, which was a feat in and of itself. Unfortunately, the whole thing was rendered moot by the fact that Louis had won while we were off giggling and rolling dice. So it goes, I suppose.
Friday night was Dungeons and Dragons. I made a new character, a psion. Never before had I realized just how broken psionics were in D&D. I wish I had known this years ago. Psions, instead of having spells per day like wizards or sorcerers, have "power points" that they can spend on "manifestations" which are basically spells. Sort of like the mana system in many video-game RPGs. I like things better this way, it allows for much more flexibility.
My character was also a "warforged," a living construct that exists only in the setting of Eberron, a D&D world, wherein we were playing. Since he was psionic, he was a "psiforged." Partly living, partly constructed, I decided he would speak like HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and preface all of his sentences with the type of sentence it was:
"Query: Now what are we supposed to do?"
"Aside: These meatbags really piss me off."
"Statement: I'm pretty sure we're boned."
"Forceful Imperative: Get out or I'll throw you out."
That sort of thing. Well, you had to be there, I guess. Some quotable quotes from the game, Matt was DM:
Matt: Would you like to be the Chosen One?
Me: Sweet, how?
Matt: Take these feats.
Me: ...What? Are they "Chosen One," "Greater Chosen One," "Advanced Chosen One"?
Matt: Not exactly.
Matt: The halfling girl starts humping your leg.
Me: I cast Psionic Grease.
Matt: She falls off and slides away, and hits the wall. She says "Whee!"
Me: "Imperative: Cut that out."
(don't remember who exactly said what)
Player1: I say we throw her off the airship.
Player2: We can't!
Player1: She brought with her on board a number of suspicious looking crates. I had a look inside. We all did. They're full of skeletons with body armor on!
Player3: That's not good enough.
Player1: But...skeletons! They'll kill us all! Throw her and them off!
Player2: It's against the law to just go and do that.
Me: Statement: We should not act until a threat is proven.
Player1: This is a threat! They're ****ing skeletons!
Me: Snide Rhetorical Query: Ah, but have they done anything yet?
Player1: *brain hemorrhage*
Matt: The captain tells you "Messing with her stuff is punishable by being thrown off the airship. If you open any of the boxes, that's punishable by being tazered, and then thrown off the airship."
Me: Does the tazering really matter?
Matt: You'd be surprised.
I'll finish this tonight - I have to go to the band banquet. Heck, I'll write about that. But it's mostly done.
So, it's tonight. And the banquet was a blast. I got to see lots of people I've been missing...Stanley was taken aback by the fact that I came in a suit and tie. He took my arm and walked me to the table, saying "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Moreau." Apparently, I clean up good. Now if only I had remembered to shave. Bugger it, I'm shaving tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning. No, tonight, I have to get up relatively early in the morning to practice with my partner for the line memorizations for Artists in Several Media. (Tuesday, I have to go buy the remaining textbooks for that and my other classes. I can't find many of them.)
The actual meal was decent enough. It was a choice between chicken cordon bleu or seared sirloin, so you can imagine which one I took. (Hint: It wasn't the ham 'n' cheese chicken loaf. Though apparently that was pretty good.) We all shared a laugh over days gone by, and all sorts of humor went on that you really would have had to have been in band for a few years to get at all. For instance, Curtis started tapping on his water glass with his spoon. I noticed it had a rhythm to it, so I started a pattern of my own that complemented his. Pretty soon, we were all doing it. Oh, the reckless hedonism of band students.
Stanley announced his "Black People Movies Thursdays," as he calls them. Every Thursday night at his apartment, he's going to have public showings of movies starring black people. He'll serve us homemade fried chicken and sweet tea, and the rest is potluck depending on what people bring. This is seriously what he's going to do...I'm not exaggerating at all. Truth is stranger than fiction and all that sort of thing. I'm going to bring a box of Krispy Kreme. Everyone likes Krispy Kreme.
So that's pretty much it. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of...er...Yesterday has got to be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZQQgvhn4jg It's the trailer to the upcoming Will Smith movie Hancock. Smith stars as a man with Superman-level powers, but he's a raging screw-up and does things like smash into freeway signs while chasing fleeing villains. The trailer is hilarious. The movie should prove to be the same.
REPLIES.
Mom: Thanks for the help with the Spanish practicing. I have a feeling I may need it.
Mike: Yes, it seems to be the most awesome class yet. Except maybe Artists in Several Media, I'm not sure which. Time will tell. All I know is that Wednesdays will be kickin'. And I always reread books, sometimes as many as twenty times over, until I feel that all the enjoyment that there is to be had in them has been had. So, no Wheel of Time...I'll head for Song of Ice and Fire, then.
Dad: Educational? Pfft, as if that's why I'm here. I know why news writers have to write the way they do - newspapers would be two hundred pages long if the writers got to go all out, and nobody would ever read them. But it's the prospect of actually writing in that style myself that gives me a horrible sinking feeling.
We were actually discussing fantasy vs. SF in the first meeting. The topic the professor brought up was dragons. Can you have dragons in SF, or are they automatically fantasy-related? Here's the transcript of the notes I took on that discussion:
Science fiction can be seen as kind of a rationalized fantasy. In fantasy, you don’t need to explain the presence of dragons, they just are. They’re a part of the world. But in sci fi, you need to have some kind of explanation for how you can have enormous flying fire-breathing lizards flitting about.
I read Dragonsbane years ago. Then I read the second one, and it was pretty bad. I didn't even try the third one. And hopefully the Dolphins will rise again.
Vic: Er, all right. I'll keep that in mind. And my father does generally have a good way of putting things. In his job, it's essential that he can explain things so that people can understand him.
Steve: Truth be told, I'm no great shakes at Spanish, but everyone says it's a must-have, so I guess I must have it. I don't know how the heck I'm going to fit it into my schedule in the next few years, though...it's going to be packed to the brim. The power creep has really become ridiculous in Magic, although that's okay, because Extended is still far more broken than Standard ever could be.
Bye.
Twilight Imperium is a board game wherein multiple factions clash repeatedly in attempts to take over the galaxy and become Emperor of all inhabitants of the area. It is also, really, really, really long. A game between six of us:
Myself, playing a race that was basically the Borg
Victoria, playing a race that I don't quite recall the characteristics of
Mike, playing a race that similarly escapes me
Louis, playing a race that was a bunch of universities and politicians
Steven, playing a race that was big on ground combat and fighters
Matt, playing a race that was a bunch of religious terrorists
Took about seven hours. And it ended earlier than it usually does. This game is long, long, long. It's not as long as some games I've played - one glorious long weekend, I played a game of Homeworld II for 71 straight hours, I took half-hour catnaps while my teammates covered for me - but it's pretty darn long. It's a lot of fun, too. There are politics and intrigue and alliances and trade partnerships and all that sort of thing, and when that fails, there are destroyers and cruisers and carriers and even the mighty totally-not-ripping-off-the-Death-Star behemoths known as War Suns. They are extraordinarily powerful. So of course, Victoria's race started with one. This made the rest of us void ourselves in terror if she considered attacking us.
My race had bonuses to Dreadnoughts, the totally awesome Star Destroyer-style ships. So I built myself up a nice fleet of those. By the end of the game, we all had vast and imposing fleets, except for Matt, who never had anything bigger than a cruiser (one step below a Dreadnought). But he could send his cruisers and destroyers on suicide runs to ram opposing ships, so there was that. Alliances were set up quickly. Victoria and Mike joined together almost instantly. I don't know all of what motivated this, but perhaps the fact that Mike was next to her and that Victoria had the aforementioned horrifyingly powerful battle station caused him to wave the white flag. Steven and Louis had an on-again off-again alliance that persisted as long as either of them cared about it. I teamed up with Matt, eventually. Of course, the weakest and most suicidal player would be my natural choice for a teammate. I need to learn how to sit next to the right people.
My trading stunk, because I was the Borg and nobody liked me, but I managed to get enough money to start building a mighty fleet. Unfortunately, before Matt and I were allied, we were sort of sniping at each other. Each of our defenses was too tough for the other to penetrate, but he took from me two awesome planets that I really wanted to control. So I mostly seethed and boiled and sobbed quietly on the inside as Victoria started hinting about attacking me with her mighty battle station. It took me a good long while before I got a handle on the intricacies of the game, but get a handle on them I did. Of course, by that point, Louis had pulled ahead so far that there was no catching him up, and he ended up winning. Of course. (I can't remember the last time I actually won one of the game-night games. Go figure.)
Eventually, Mike wandered into my territory and attacked me while I wasn't fully prepared. I had only two Dreadnoughts to his four, but in this game, the attacker has to craft his offense carefully or suffer several disadvantages. The mines I had laid in space accounted for some of his craft, and my planetary defense cannons accounted for some others. My destroyers blew up his fighters (fighters in this game are little more than targets and cannon fodder. They exist to take hits so that the capital ships won't have to, and maybe at some point to successfully attack, but unmodified, they only have a 20% chance to hit. Which stinks.) in one volley. Then the battle began.
Most ships in the game die in one hit, which is odd, but Dreadnoughts can take two hits before exploding. When a successful attack is rolled by the attacker, the defender chooses which of his ships takes the hit. Slightly unrealistic, but otherwise the capital ships would always be the first to fall and every battle would degenerate into fighter skirmishes. Which gets boring, seeing as they nearly always miss. I took a hit on each of my Dreadnoughts, then played a special card to repair them to full. Then I took another hit on each of my Dreadnoughts. Then I played another special card to repair them to full. As I had pretty near erased four direct hits, Mike was at this point gnashing his teeth and seething. I managed to win the battle without losing any major ships, which was a feat in and of itself. Unfortunately, the whole thing was rendered moot by the fact that Louis had won while we were off giggling and rolling dice. So it goes, I suppose.
Friday night was Dungeons and Dragons. I made a new character, a psion. Never before had I realized just how broken psionics were in D&D. I wish I had known this years ago. Psions, instead of having spells per day like wizards or sorcerers, have "power points" that they can spend on "manifestations" which are basically spells. Sort of like the mana system in many video-game RPGs. I like things better this way, it allows for much more flexibility.
My character was also a "warforged," a living construct that exists only in the setting of Eberron, a D&D world, wherein we were playing. Since he was psionic, he was a "psiforged." Partly living, partly constructed, I decided he would speak like HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and preface all of his sentences with the type of sentence it was:
"Query: Now what are we supposed to do?"
"Aside: These meatbags really piss me off."
"Statement: I'm pretty sure we're boned."
"Forceful Imperative: Get out or I'll throw you out."
That sort of thing. Well, you had to be there, I guess. Some quotable quotes from the game, Matt was DM:
Matt: Would you like to be the Chosen One?
Me: Sweet, how?
Matt: Take these feats.
Me: ...What? Are they "Chosen One," "Greater Chosen One," "Advanced Chosen One"?
Matt: Not exactly.
Matt: The halfling girl starts humping your leg.
Me: I cast Psionic Grease.
Matt: She falls off and slides away, and hits the wall. She says "Whee!"
Me: "Imperative: Cut that out."
(don't remember who exactly said what)
Player1: I say we throw her off the airship.
Player2: We can't!
Player1: She brought with her on board a number of suspicious looking crates. I had a look inside. We all did. They're full of skeletons with body armor on!
Player3: That's not good enough.
Player1: But...skeletons! They'll kill us all! Throw her and them off!
Player2: It's against the law to just go and do that.
Me: Statement: We should not act until a threat is proven.
Player1: This is a threat! They're ****ing skeletons!
Me: Snide Rhetorical Query: Ah, but have they done anything yet?
Player1: *brain hemorrhage*
Matt: The captain tells you "Messing with her stuff is punishable by being thrown off the airship. If you open any of the boxes, that's punishable by being tazered, and then thrown off the airship."
Me: Does the tazering really matter?
Matt: You'd be surprised.
I'll finish this tonight - I have to go to the band banquet. Heck, I'll write about that. But it's mostly done.
So, it's tonight. And the banquet was a blast. I got to see lots of people I've been missing...Stanley was taken aback by the fact that I came in a suit and tie. He took my arm and walked me to the table, saying "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Moreau." Apparently, I clean up good. Now if only I had remembered to shave. Bugger it, I'm shaving tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning. No, tonight, I have to get up relatively early in the morning to practice with my partner for the line memorizations for Artists in Several Media. (Tuesday, I have to go buy the remaining textbooks for that and my other classes. I can't find many of them.)
The actual meal was decent enough. It was a choice between chicken cordon bleu or seared sirloin, so you can imagine which one I took. (Hint: It wasn't the ham 'n' cheese chicken loaf. Though apparently that was pretty good.) We all shared a laugh over days gone by, and all sorts of humor went on that you really would have had to have been in band for a few years to get at all. For instance, Curtis started tapping on his water glass with his spoon. I noticed it had a rhythm to it, so I started a pattern of my own that complemented his. Pretty soon, we were all doing it. Oh, the reckless hedonism of band students.
Stanley announced his "Black People Movies Thursdays," as he calls them. Every Thursday night at his apartment, he's going to have public showings of movies starring black people. He'll serve us homemade fried chicken and sweet tea, and the rest is potluck depending on what people bring. This is seriously what he's going to do...I'm not exaggerating at all. Truth is stranger than fiction and all that sort of thing. I'm going to bring a box of Krispy Kreme. Everyone likes Krispy Kreme.
So that's pretty much it. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of...er...Yesterday has got to be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZQQgvhn4jg It's the trailer to the upcoming Will Smith movie Hancock. Smith stars as a man with Superman-level powers, but he's a raging screw-up and does things like smash into freeway signs while chasing fleeing villains. The trailer is hilarious. The movie should prove to be the same.
REPLIES.
Mom: Thanks for the help with the Spanish practicing. I have a feeling I may need it.
Mike: Yes, it seems to be the most awesome class yet. Except maybe Artists in Several Media, I'm not sure which. Time will tell. All I know is that Wednesdays will be kickin'. And I always reread books, sometimes as many as twenty times over, until I feel that all the enjoyment that there is to be had in them has been had. So, no Wheel of Time...I'll head for Song of Ice and Fire, then.
Dad: Educational? Pfft, as if that's why I'm here. I know why news writers have to write the way they do - newspapers would be two hundred pages long if the writers got to go all out, and nobody would ever read them. But it's the prospect of actually writing in that style myself that gives me a horrible sinking feeling.
We were actually discussing fantasy vs. SF in the first meeting. The topic the professor brought up was dragons. Can you have dragons in SF, or are they automatically fantasy-related? Here's the transcript of the notes I took on that discussion:
Science fiction can be seen as kind of a rationalized fantasy. In fantasy, you don’t need to explain the presence of dragons, they just are. They’re a part of the world. But in sci fi, you need to have some kind of explanation for how you can have enormous flying fire-breathing lizards flitting about.
I read Dragonsbane years ago. Then I read the second one, and it was pretty bad. I didn't even try the third one. And hopefully the Dolphins will rise again.
Vic: Er, all right. I'll keep that in mind. And my father does generally have a good way of putting things. In his job, it's essential that he can explain things so that people can understand him.
Steve: Truth be told, I'm no great shakes at Spanish, but everyone says it's a must-have, so I guess I must have it. I don't know how the heck I'm going to fit it into my schedule in the next few years, though...it's going to be packed to the brim. The power creep has really become ridiculous in Magic, although that's okay, because Extended is still far more broken than Standard ever could be.
Bye.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Regularity Has Outed. New Schedule.
I can't post on Wednesdays. I simply can't. I leave my room at 9:15 AM and I don't get back until midnight. They're my busiest days, and as such, I'm going to slightly adjust my schedule. Instead of Mon-Wed-Fri, it'll be Tue-Thur-Sat. I like this way better anyway, it lets me tell you all of my Saturday-related hijinks that very day instead of making you wait until Monday.
So. Wednesday is a horribly busy day, with a 3-hour class in the morning, then a 1-hour class, then another 3-hour class. Nearly half my entire schedule is concentrated on Wednesdays. And yet, I have no problem with that. Why? Because both of those 3-hour classes are completely awesome. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to give a rundown of my five classes, and how much I think I'm going to enjoy each of them.
SPN2200, Intermediate Spanish I: This is the toughest Spanish course I've yet taken. It's complicated by the fact that the teacher, except under rare circumstances, speaks only Spanish in class. I find I have to devote my full attention, all of it, to listening, or else I miss too much and don't understand a word. This doesn't even allow for things like note-taking. We'll be giving oral presentations, that should be...well, not flawless, but quite good. I'm either going to finally grasp Spanish this semester, or fail and abandon it completely. No middle ground. I am delighted, though, that except for some minor vocabulary-related decay, I haven't lost any of my proficiency with the language during the two semesters that I didn't take it.
MMC2100, Writing for Mass Communication: My most important class this semester, as it's the ur-prerequisite for nearly all of the advanced journalism courses. This class, as I have previously reported, is going to make or break things. The grading system is draconian. For a "fact error" in the stories we write during lab, that is to say, if we misspell a name or get a date wrong, it's 50 points off. 50 points. Out of 100. For one error. This...this is going to take some serious proofreading. But I'm ready to accept the challenge, tough as it may be, and I'm quite confident of being able to write in the soulless, no-flair style that efficient news writing demands. Then I'll go into features and I'll be able to write as creatively as I desire. Here's hoping for a game-reviewer or Dave-Barry-esque job in the future.
POS4931, Honors Media and War: Hoo boy. I should have realized this was a 4000-level course before I signed up for it. It's going to be intense. For one thing, the professor's definition of a "short" paper is a mere 10 pages. A long paper, such as the one we have due at the end of the semester, is anywhere between 20 and 30 pages! But we have the option of doing something besides a paper, something like an oral presentation, a video, a series of photos, etc. This class is going to be very high-intensity, and it doesn't help that what I've read of the assigned texts has bored me to tears. I'm just hoping that I might be able to get journalism-degree credit for this class. That'd be nice. Then this difficult course will not have been taken in vain. It seems to be a lot more "war" and a lot less "media" than I would have judged based on the course description. Oh well. So it goes, I suppose.
Now we get to the fun two, the two I'm really excited about.
ENG2935, Artists in Several Media: I didn't know what to expect from this course. I feared that it might be a traditional English-major "understand the underlying motifs and the irreconcilable metaphorical sub-structure and super-structure, contrast with the overlying themes and qualify your statement. Be concise" style. I was terrified of this. Luckily, it was not this way. The professor, Sid Homan, is a real ball of fire. He's one of those theater teachers who's constantly sparking off with stories and directions. He could be 70, but he moves like he's 20; one of those old men that just gets harder with age, like oak. He's a joy to work with. There are only eight people in this class, which is perfect, because it means that we can all get a chance to do some acting. That's our entire grade, acting out the scenes he's set for us to memorize with our parters. (We all partnered up in the first class. A freshman girl named Mallory is my partner. She seems nice.) There were three reaction papers that were to be 25% of our grade, but he told us to scrap those, as he hated grading papers. So the whole grade is acting. It's gonna be great.
ENG2935 (again), American Sci Fi: This was the course I was born to take. For one thing, the professor looks more or less identical to my father, except that he's a bit thinner and has gray hair instead of red hair. He seems like the sort of professor that's more suited to writing papers and studying quietly in his office...he doesn't seem the sort that takes that well to teaching. But he does a good job, with what he has. The assigned reading list:
Science Fiction: The SFRA Anthology ed. Warrick, Waugh, and Greenberg
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Screening Space by Vivian Sobchack
Science Fiction After 1900 by Brooks Landon
And a packet containing many, many short stories, including The Last Question by Isaac Asimov and I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. (Yes, he's depressing as heck, but he's a superb writer and no sci fi course would really be complete without him.) We must do ten short "reaction papers," but these will be graded on completeness, rather than accuracy. Still, though, I'm going to go all-out.
We're also watching movies in class. We saw most of The Day The Earth Stood Still last class, and we're going to go on to watch The Thing, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and Blade Runner. So, y'know, I find it hard to imagine a course I'd rather be in than this one. Even the much-vaunted Honors course "Age of the Blockbuster," wherein one basically just watches movies and writes short papers on them, has the class watching movies that are much less interesting than these are. Couple that with the fact that I'm going to use my $45 in Barnes & Noble gift cards to brush up on my fantasy, starting on maybe the Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire series, I'll finally have read all those books I've been meaning to read. This will, in turn, make me that much better a writer when I go on to start publishing my own books, which I no doubt will in the future.
So that's my course rundown. Quite nice, eh? Yes, I thought so. Some tough classes, but some really fun classes. The long Wednesday I mentioned? First class is Artists in Several Media, second is Spanish (whatever), third is American Sci Fi. So, long, but incredibly awesome.
My Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is something I've shown people before, but never here, so nyah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjUz8IT0CYg It's the Angry Nintendo Nerd, a guy who reviews old and terrible Nintendo games. Recently, he branched out (read: sold out) and became the Angry Video Game Nerd, but I liked him better as the Nintendo Nerd. This is one of his first videos, in which he rips into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. WARNING! He uses lots and lots of profanity, so, kind of NWS (Not Work Safe). But he's hilarious enough to compensate for this.
REPLIES.
Mom: Well, I consider it minor, in that we took the freaking Heisman Trophy with a sophomore star quarterback, so the year wasn't a total write-off. Besides, 9-4 is nothing to sneeze at. Better than the poor lamented Dolphins. Fisticuffs are part of the fun. I'm working out the financial troubles.
Vic: I think it's all square. I'll check for sure in the morning. I'll probably get used to the class, but I doubt very much I'll like it as much as some of the others I'm taking. What was this thing of which you speak? Yes, LEGO is awesome, as is everything that refers to it. Oh, and, er, we went to the gym. I overexerted myself and both my arms are still hurting.
Steve: I'll work something out. Why would you get a razor designed to scar your face? And playing in person is nice, if possible, and it currently isn't. Which reminds me, are you coming to the Morningtide prerelease? Almost the entire spoiler is up on mtgsalvation, and let me tell you, it's even crazier than Lorwyn was. I can't find a single bad card, no matter how hard I try. And the plot is one of the best parts in SPM.
Anonymous: My luck is too terrible at gambling to allow for that. And no shame in being unoriginal, if it results in money. You should understand that.
TJ: I thought it seemed...somehow...fatter in here.
So. Wednesday is a horribly busy day, with a 3-hour class in the morning, then a 1-hour class, then another 3-hour class. Nearly half my entire schedule is concentrated on Wednesdays. And yet, I have no problem with that. Why? Because both of those 3-hour classes are completely awesome. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to give a rundown of my five classes, and how much I think I'm going to enjoy each of them.
SPN2200, Intermediate Spanish I: This is the toughest Spanish course I've yet taken. It's complicated by the fact that the teacher, except under rare circumstances, speaks only Spanish in class. I find I have to devote my full attention, all of it, to listening, or else I miss too much and don't understand a word. This doesn't even allow for things like note-taking. We'll be giving oral presentations, that should be...well, not flawless, but quite good. I'm either going to finally grasp Spanish this semester, or fail and abandon it completely. No middle ground. I am delighted, though, that except for some minor vocabulary-related decay, I haven't lost any of my proficiency with the language during the two semesters that I didn't take it.
MMC2100, Writing for Mass Communication: My most important class this semester, as it's the ur-prerequisite for nearly all of the advanced journalism courses. This class, as I have previously reported, is going to make or break things. The grading system is draconian. For a "fact error" in the stories we write during lab, that is to say, if we misspell a name or get a date wrong, it's 50 points off. 50 points. Out of 100. For one error. This...this is going to take some serious proofreading. But I'm ready to accept the challenge, tough as it may be, and I'm quite confident of being able to write in the soulless, no-flair style that efficient news writing demands. Then I'll go into features and I'll be able to write as creatively as I desire. Here's hoping for a game-reviewer or Dave-Barry-esque job in the future.
POS4931, Honors Media and War: Hoo boy. I should have realized this was a 4000-level course before I signed up for it. It's going to be intense. For one thing, the professor's definition of a "short" paper is a mere 10 pages. A long paper, such as the one we have due at the end of the semester, is anywhere between 20 and 30 pages! But we have the option of doing something besides a paper, something like an oral presentation, a video, a series of photos, etc. This class is going to be very high-intensity, and it doesn't help that what I've read of the assigned texts has bored me to tears. I'm just hoping that I might be able to get journalism-degree credit for this class. That'd be nice. Then this difficult course will not have been taken in vain. It seems to be a lot more "war" and a lot less "media" than I would have judged based on the course description. Oh well. So it goes, I suppose.
Now we get to the fun two, the two I'm really excited about.
ENG2935, Artists in Several Media: I didn't know what to expect from this course. I feared that it might be a traditional English-major "understand the underlying motifs and the irreconcilable metaphorical sub-structure and super-structure, contrast with the overlying themes and qualify your statement. Be concise" style. I was terrified of this. Luckily, it was not this way. The professor, Sid Homan, is a real ball of fire. He's one of those theater teachers who's constantly sparking off with stories and directions. He could be 70, but he moves like he's 20; one of those old men that just gets harder with age, like oak. He's a joy to work with. There are only eight people in this class, which is perfect, because it means that we can all get a chance to do some acting. That's our entire grade, acting out the scenes he's set for us to memorize with our parters. (We all partnered up in the first class. A freshman girl named Mallory is my partner. She seems nice.) There were three reaction papers that were to be 25% of our grade, but he told us to scrap those, as he hated grading papers. So the whole grade is acting. It's gonna be great.
ENG2935 (again), American Sci Fi: This was the course I was born to take. For one thing, the professor looks more or less identical to my father, except that he's a bit thinner and has gray hair instead of red hair. He seems like the sort of professor that's more suited to writing papers and studying quietly in his office...he doesn't seem the sort that takes that well to teaching. But he does a good job, with what he has. The assigned reading list:
Science Fiction: The SFRA Anthology ed. Warrick, Waugh, and Greenberg
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Screening Space by Vivian Sobchack
Science Fiction After 1900 by Brooks Landon
And a packet containing many, many short stories, including The Last Question by Isaac Asimov and I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. (Yes, he's depressing as heck, but he's a superb writer and no sci fi course would really be complete without him.) We must do ten short "reaction papers," but these will be graded on completeness, rather than accuracy. Still, though, I'm going to go all-out.
We're also watching movies in class. We saw most of The Day The Earth Stood Still last class, and we're going to go on to watch The Thing, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and Blade Runner. So, y'know, I find it hard to imagine a course I'd rather be in than this one. Even the much-vaunted Honors course "Age of the Blockbuster," wherein one basically just watches movies and writes short papers on them, has the class watching movies that are much less interesting than these are. Couple that with the fact that I'm going to use my $45 in Barnes & Noble gift cards to brush up on my fantasy, starting on maybe the Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire series, I'll finally have read all those books I've been meaning to read. This will, in turn, make me that much better a writer when I go on to start publishing my own books, which I no doubt will in the future.
So that's my course rundown. Quite nice, eh? Yes, I thought so. Some tough classes, but some really fun classes. The long Wednesday I mentioned? First class is Artists in Several Media, second is Spanish (whatever), third is American Sci Fi. So, long, but incredibly awesome.
My Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is something I've shown people before, but never here, so nyah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjUz8IT0CYg It's the Angry Nintendo Nerd, a guy who reviews old and terrible Nintendo games. Recently, he branched out (read: sold out) and became the Angry Video Game Nerd, but I liked him better as the Nintendo Nerd. This is one of his first videos, in which he rips into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. WARNING! He uses lots and lots of profanity, so, kind of NWS (Not Work Safe). But he's hilarious enough to compensate for this.
REPLIES.
Mom: Well, I consider it minor, in that we took the freaking Heisman Trophy with a sophomore star quarterback, so the year wasn't a total write-off. Besides, 9-4 is nothing to sneeze at. Better than the poor lamented Dolphins. Fisticuffs are part of the fun. I'm working out the financial troubles.
Vic: I think it's all square. I'll check for sure in the morning. I'll probably get used to the class, but I doubt very much I'll like it as much as some of the others I'm taking. What was this thing of which you speak? Yes, LEGO is awesome, as is everything that refers to it. Oh, and, er, we went to the gym. I overexerted myself and both my arms are still hurting.
Steve: I'll work something out. Why would you get a razor designed to scar your face? And playing in person is nice, if possible, and it currently isn't. Which reminds me, are you coming to the Morningtide prerelease? Almost the entire spoiler is up on mtgsalvation, and let me tell you, it's even crazier than Lorwyn was. I can't find a single bad card, no matter how hard I try. And the plot is one of the best parts in SPM.
Anonymous: My luck is too terrible at gambling to allow for that. And no shame in being unoriginal, if it results in money. You should understand that.
TJ: I thought it seemed...somehow...fatter in here.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Regularity WILL Out, I Swear It
It will. Trust me. My schedule screws up all to hell and back when I'm at home. But being at the university again will surely make things better.
So. Troubles and tribulations today with trying to put danged money into my Declining Balance account, a sort of thing where I pay into it and I can use my student ID to purchase meals around campus. I originally wanted to put $1,500 in it, so I went to the website and I selected everything and I hit "Accept."
Only, I did it wrong. As it happened, I hit "Use Financial Aid" instead of "Use Credit Card." (In retrospect, I should have wondered why they didn't ask me for, y'know, the number. Seems like somewhat useful information.) So the end result was that it was going to be deferred. For a few weeks. I had one dollar left in my account, and even I can't stretch that. That's like, seven-eights of one box of noodles, and no money even to buy cheese for them. Or four thousand packets of ramen. But I hate that stuff.
So I give the Gator1 people a ringy-ding-ding. (That is to say, I called them. Not whatever else you may have assumed.) They transferred me over to Financial Services, who after a weighty and long conversation, decided that the thing to do would be to transfer me over to Gator1. They clearly had the answers, they asserted. So I hung up with the Financial people and called back Gator1. The girl who answered the phone had not the slighest glimmer of recollection that we had spoken four minutes previously. I once again explained my problem.
"Oh," she said. "I'd better transfer you to Financial Services. They'll be able to help."
"No, wait, I -" It was too late. The ignominy of the 'holding' music was upon me. I had to wait until the people at Financial Services ceased their other no-doubt essential duties (what were they DOING?!? Building a scale replica of the Empire State Building out of LEGO blocks??) When I got connected to them, I had to re-explain my situation and wait to get re-re-connected to Gator1, and presumably after that fend off any attempts to send me hurtling back into the Financial Services void.
I finally got connected to Gerald, a helpful young man who seemed actually able to solve my problem. That is, it seemed so, until we got disconnected halfway through our conversation and repeated calls back bore no fruit. "Bugger this," I said. "I have to eat somehow." So I called my parents and asked them to advance me $200 so I could eat until my scholarship money came in, resolving to just wait for the scholarship to come in and not have to go through the hassle of cancelling my order.
So, of course, when I tried to do this, just as I was in the middle of inputting my credit-card information for the $200, I get a call back from Gerald. So I quit the process and walked through his process. He said that he would put a cancellation order on the previous transaction, and it would clear up "in a day or two." Very well. He did this, and then I went back to the website, to re-order the $1,500 on a credit card, secure in the knowledge that the previous transaction was blasted forever from the information superhighway.
Only, this didn't work. I should have guessed, I supposed. Turns out, I left the credit-card information input screen in the improper manner, which caused the system to panic and lock me out from any future transactions until someone gave the go-ahead. So I called Gerald back. This, as it happened, was somewhat beyond his control, as it took place in a separate bank of computers than the ones he usually dealt with. "I'll see what I can do," he said. "Give it five minutes. If it still doesn't work, call me back."
I should have realized, right then and there. It was 4:57. When I called back at 5:02 promptly, my problem still not having resolved, there was no response. Bugger everything, I swore. But the fact was that I still needed to eat, and that one dollar was not looking very useful to me.
Oh, but the story gets more interesting. I put the $1,500 in two separate orders...$1,450 into the actual Declining Balance account and $50 into my Gator1 Vending Machine account. That is strictly necessary for things like laundry and bottles of water on hot days. One would think that with the order cancelled, the whole order would be cancelled, right? Wrong. I looked at my balances, and found the $50 from the original, deferred-until-scholarship-comes-in transaction safe in my Gator1 Vending account, but the $1,450 was a no-show.
Eventually, the system did let me back in, and I placed the whole thing - $1,450 on the Declining Balance and $50 on the Vending - on the credit card. Within ten minutes, as promised, the changes materialized. But I was troubled: I was now $100 up on the Vending account, and I still completely fail to realize how one part of the transaction could have gone through while the other part, I don't know, exploded in the harbor or something. It just doesn't make any sense. I'll have to sort this out with the Financial Services people tomorrow, or maybe the Gator1 people. All I know is that if I find Gerald, I'm whomping him on the head with an axe handle.
More later tonight.
So, this is later tonight. And I got out of my first class, Writing for Mass Communication. We started by writing a simple 1 1/2 page paper on what our favorite television show or movie was. I had it dashed off in fifteen minutes, though it took me nearly as long to proof it, especially since the teacher had disabled spell-check on our computers. Oddly, this wasn't much of a problem...I can usually catch spelling errors quite well. These blog entries aren't spell-checked. The difficulty came when she had a look at our papers and proclaimed "You're not going to be writing like this any more." Essentially, our unique writing styles were to hit the toilet and we were to learn to churn out the soulless prose that makes up effective newspaper articles. I figure this will have one of two effects on me:
1. I'll become so disillusioned with writing in general that I'll stop entirely, and change my major, or
2. I'll hate this restricted style of writing, and throw myself into my other work more than ever, so as to rage against the establishment trying to clamp down on me.
Here's hoping for the second, you know?
The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day list has been a bit light lately. I'm slowly but surely burning through all of the good YouTube links that I know. So this one's going to be a bit different...It's not YouTube, but it's a video file nonetheless. http://www.dailymotion.com/raocow/video/x3z5es_vip-3-nothing-i-say-will-do-this-vi_videogames It's an odd hack of Super Mario World, but the commentary is really the best part. It's so random, it's awesome. Go on and watch it.
And I swear I'll fill in the two blank posts soon.
REPLIES.
Michelle: Roller coasters? Jawesome. Oh, wait, no, not jawesome in the least. I can't deal with roller coasters and you know it. Disney sounds great, but when are the two of us ever going to get a chance? If we can somehow miraculously find a time, Dan's parents own a time-share in Orlando that we can rent from them for cheaper than a standard hotel room. If they'll allow it.
Steve: Honest, I didn't drink a drop. And I'll bring down DDR myself, I have the game and the system, and the pads. Though I forgot to bring my Guitar Hero up, that annoys me. I won't be around for spring break...We might try it over Magic WorkStation one of these days, it'll take less time than it would to proxy everything. Besides, my deck is already built. See you.
So. Troubles and tribulations today with trying to put danged money into my Declining Balance account, a sort of thing where I pay into it and I can use my student ID to purchase meals around campus. I originally wanted to put $1,500 in it, so I went to the website and I selected everything and I hit "Accept."
Only, I did it wrong. As it happened, I hit "Use Financial Aid" instead of "Use Credit Card." (In retrospect, I should have wondered why they didn't ask me for, y'know, the number. Seems like somewhat useful information.) So the end result was that it was going to be deferred. For a few weeks. I had one dollar left in my account, and even I can't stretch that. That's like, seven-eights of one box of noodles, and no money even to buy cheese for them. Or four thousand packets of ramen. But I hate that stuff.
So I give the Gator1 people a ringy-ding-ding. (That is to say, I called them. Not whatever else you may have assumed.) They transferred me over to Financial Services, who after a weighty and long conversation, decided that the thing to do would be to transfer me over to Gator1. They clearly had the answers, they asserted. So I hung up with the Financial people and called back Gator1. The girl who answered the phone had not the slighest glimmer of recollection that we had spoken four minutes previously. I once again explained my problem.
"Oh," she said. "I'd better transfer you to Financial Services. They'll be able to help."
"No, wait, I -" It was too late. The ignominy of the 'holding' music was upon me. I had to wait until the people at Financial Services ceased their other no-doubt essential duties (what were they DOING?!? Building a scale replica of the Empire State Building out of LEGO blocks??) When I got connected to them, I had to re-explain my situation and wait to get re-re-connected to Gator1, and presumably after that fend off any attempts to send me hurtling back into the Financial Services void.
I finally got connected to Gerald, a helpful young man who seemed actually able to solve my problem. That is, it seemed so, until we got disconnected halfway through our conversation and repeated calls back bore no fruit. "Bugger this," I said. "I have to eat somehow." So I called my parents and asked them to advance me $200 so I could eat until my scholarship money came in, resolving to just wait for the scholarship to come in and not have to go through the hassle of cancelling my order.
So, of course, when I tried to do this, just as I was in the middle of inputting my credit-card information for the $200, I get a call back from Gerald. So I quit the process and walked through his process. He said that he would put a cancellation order on the previous transaction, and it would clear up "in a day or two." Very well. He did this, and then I went back to the website, to re-order the $1,500 on a credit card, secure in the knowledge that the previous transaction was blasted forever from the information superhighway.
Only, this didn't work. I should have guessed, I supposed. Turns out, I left the credit-card information input screen in the improper manner, which caused the system to panic and lock me out from any future transactions until someone gave the go-ahead. So I called Gerald back. This, as it happened, was somewhat beyond his control, as it took place in a separate bank of computers than the ones he usually dealt with. "I'll see what I can do," he said. "Give it five minutes. If it still doesn't work, call me back."
I should have realized, right then and there. It was 4:57. When I called back at 5:02 promptly, my problem still not having resolved, there was no response. Bugger everything, I swore. But the fact was that I still needed to eat, and that one dollar was not looking very useful to me.
Oh, but the story gets more interesting. I put the $1,500 in two separate orders...$1,450 into the actual Declining Balance account and $50 into my Gator1 Vending Machine account. That is strictly necessary for things like laundry and bottles of water on hot days. One would think that with the order cancelled, the whole order would be cancelled, right? Wrong. I looked at my balances, and found the $50 from the original, deferred-until-scholarship-comes-in transaction safe in my Gator1 Vending account, but the $1,450 was a no-show.
Eventually, the system did let me back in, and I placed the whole thing - $1,450 on the Declining Balance and $50 on the Vending - on the credit card. Within ten minutes, as promised, the changes materialized. But I was troubled: I was now $100 up on the Vending account, and I still completely fail to realize how one part of the transaction could have gone through while the other part, I don't know, exploded in the harbor or something. It just doesn't make any sense. I'll have to sort this out with the Financial Services people tomorrow, or maybe the Gator1 people. All I know is that if I find Gerald, I'm whomping him on the head with an axe handle.
More later tonight.
So, this is later tonight. And I got out of my first class, Writing for Mass Communication. We started by writing a simple 1 1/2 page paper on what our favorite television show or movie was. I had it dashed off in fifteen minutes, though it took me nearly as long to proof it, especially since the teacher had disabled spell-check on our computers. Oddly, this wasn't much of a problem...I can usually catch spelling errors quite well. These blog entries aren't spell-checked. The difficulty came when she had a look at our papers and proclaimed "You're not going to be writing like this any more." Essentially, our unique writing styles were to hit the toilet and we were to learn to churn out the soulless prose that makes up effective newspaper articles. I figure this will have one of two effects on me:
1. I'll become so disillusioned with writing in general that I'll stop entirely, and change my major, or
2. I'll hate this restricted style of writing, and throw myself into my other work more than ever, so as to rage against the establishment trying to clamp down on me.
Here's hoping for the second, you know?
The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day list has been a bit light lately. I'm slowly but surely burning through all of the good YouTube links that I know. So this one's going to be a bit different...It's not YouTube, but it's a video file nonetheless. http://www.dailymotion.com/raocow/video/x3z5es_vip-3-nothing-i-say-will-do-this-vi_videogames It's an odd hack of Super Mario World, but the commentary is really the best part. It's so random, it's awesome. Go on and watch it.
And I swear I'll fill in the two blank posts soon.
REPLIES.
Michelle: Roller coasters? Jawesome. Oh, wait, no, not jawesome in the least. I can't deal with roller coasters and you know it. Disney sounds great, but when are the two of us ever going to get a chance? If we can somehow miraculously find a time, Dan's parents own a time-share in Orlando that we can rent from them for cheaper than a standard hotel room. If they'll allow it.
Steve: Honest, I didn't drink a drop. And I'll bring down DDR myself, I have the game and the system, and the pads. Though I forgot to bring my Guitar Hero up, that annoys me. I won't be around for spring break...We might try it over Magic WorkStation one of these days, it'll take less time than it would to proxy everything. Besides, my deck is already built. See you.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
I Know, I Know, It's Been A While.
Happy New Year. Heh. I figure now's the best time.
Yeah, yeah, but I've been busy. I had no Internet on Friday or Monday (though I did have it on Saturday and Sunday, but I was busy then as well). So here I am. Posting. Isn't this marvelous. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I. Well, I guess I deserve it.
The trip was awesome, though. It was more fun than coating myself in a barrel of honey and running through a pillow factory. Why that would be fun, I'm not entirely sure, but it was the first thing that leapt to mind, and dadburn it, now I want to try it. I figure I could at least get some kind of amateurish tar-and-feather style effect ongoing while I do. Yes, we had a minor setback in that we did not, technically, win the game, but I'm actually not nearly as upset about that as I thought I would be.
I spent New Year's Eve at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. So that was a blast. Well, the beginning part of the day was a blast, as I was riding on new rides I had never before seen, like The Mummy Returns (neatly straddling the line between a fun time and naked terror) and Twister (completely and totally awesome in all aspects). That evening was not quite as great, as the group I was with went on a couple of roller coasters and I didn't have much to do during that period. Well, I did get to go to the arcade nearby when they went on The Hulk, and I did manage to stomp some arrogant jerk at DDR (he was gloating about beating nearby people while on Standard, I leapt to Heavy and brought that chorus in), so that was piles of fun. I also advanced further in House of the Dead III than I have previously. That game, instead of the traditional light-gun pistol, instead employs a pump-action shotgun, that you cock to reload. I love it. Blasting zombies has never been so rewarding.
The actual celebrating the incoming year part took place in a hotel room with about fifty other people. There was a lot of alcohol floating around, but in deference to my and a few other peoples' delicate sensibilities, someone had brought a couple of bottles of non-alcoholic grape cider, so I had a glass of that. I had an amusing conversation with the former tuba section leader, now staff member, Stanley:
Me: What happens if Mr. Watkins [director] walks in?
Stanley: Mm?
Me: What happens if Watkins bangs on the door and demands to be let in? The door opens, he sees all this...
Stanley: I'd offer him some White Zinfandel or some of that red wine someone brought.
Me: ...?
Stanley: Not much else I could do at that point. I mean, we'd be caught red-handed. Offering him a glass would only be civil.
Me: Well, what if Mr. Birkner [associate director] walks in?
Stanley: I'm betting that Birkner is already drunk. He's away from his wife and kid, he doesn't give a damn at the moment.
Me: Knowing him? Probably.
Lots of other stuff happened. I can't remember all of it now. Going to the Magic Kingdom, that was fun. A line appeared at the Tomorrowland tram like magic the instant we approached it, which is odd, because I never see a line appear for that. It was fairly busy, though, it being the Saturday after Christmas. Aaron, a fellow tuba player, bested me horribly in the Buzz Lightyear shooting-gallery game, but that's because he never took his hand off the spin-the-cart lever and messed up all my decent shots. After this, I christened him "Sir Spin-A-Lot." He deserved every second of it. This was the same guy who got our waitress at Pizza Hut to take down his phone number so she could come to a party he was throwing - after she already revealed that she had a boyfriend. I think he was doing it just to prove that he could. Or maybe he had a more nefarious purpose in mind. I don't know, because he got incredibly drunk that night, got sick, and passed out. He was staggering all the next day, which was just too bad because it was the day we had two parades.
On Sunday, we had pep rallies and practice in the morning, with the option to go to Downtown Disney in the evening. We would have done, except Stanley convinced us that there was nothing to do there except drink or go to Disneyquest, which is a video-game parlor that is tremendous fun, but you really need to spend more than just an evening there. So we went out to Sizzler instead. They make a darn fine mahi-mahi sandwich, and their buffet is quite magnificent. We all ate ourselves sick.
We have an odd custom on the tuba bus. When two people have a dispute, or one seriously insults another, even as a joke, the rest of us take up the chant "TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES!" We chant and sing until the two of them begin to brawl, at which point we immediately switch to cheering on whoever is winning at the moment. I do not generally take part in these, as many of the tuba players are either girls (I'm not wrestling a girl, especially one who has a jealous boyfriend sitting next to her) or guys who are much brawnier than I, but I got set up in a fight against Joel, who is taller and skinnier than me and who also happens to be a real jerk-face. So I fought with vigor. I managed to get him in a headlock and administer many noogies in the beginning part of the fight, but he broke my hold and attempted to lock me. We grappled for a time, and it ended with me powerbombing him into his seat. The fight was declared a draw, which we all considered fair. I gained a new respect in the eyes of many of the onlookers, but being I'm not going to see several of them ever again, it came a bit late.
What else, what else...Two of my roommates failed to appear. One of them was asked not to come by the director, as he had missed too many practices, and the other "forgot," in his words. We later found out that he was on his StarCraft II forums pretty much the entire time. So each myself and my only remaining roommate had a bed to ourselves, and he spent several nights at his girlfriend's house in Orlando, so I had the room to myself for a good long time. Except one night, when Curtis, another tuba player, stumbled in at 1:30 AM and announced he was taking the empty bed. "Why?" I asked him. His response:
"Because that fat [expletive] Aaron passed out spread-eagle on the bed we were supposed to be sharing, and I'm not moving him because he might puke again."
Succinct. He took the other bed. I felt it was only fair.
Even during the practices, I managed to have fun. It was a generally fun trip. I spent pretty much all of the money they gave us without managing to save any as I had originally hoped, but as it turned out, that was kind of the idea in the first place. Oh well. I can get money from other places. It would have been better if we had won, but I guess you can't have everything. Our star quarterback Tim Tebow did managed to win the Heisman Trophy, the first sophomore ever to earn such an honor, so the season wasn't a total wash. And there's always next year. I think we'll do better next year.
Oh, one last thing: I'll update the Wednesday post and edit it to actually have content probably tomorrow. I can do that. I have the powah. And I'll also answer the Monday responses there, so I'll just handle Wednesday's here. This will result in comments displaced, but frankly, it's not that big of a deal.
As for my Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGCT4AQIR0 which is the song Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. It has gotten so completely stuck in my head, I decided to offer everyone a chance to experience it. Enjoy.
REPLIES.
Steve: Quiet, you.
Vic: Pretty much. After all, it's not tomorrow until tomorrow, and then tomorrow is today, eh? Eh?
Mom: I never really had a chance. Sorry. And I did have lots of fun.
Steve: Tuesday night.
Anon: Yep.
I won't take forever to update again. I promise. Regular schedule after this.
Promise.
Bye.
Yeah, yeah, but I've been busy. I had no Internet on Friday or Monday (though I did have it on Saturday and Sunday, but I was busy then as well). So here I am. Posting. Isn't this marvelous. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I. Well, I guess I deserve it.
The trip was awesome, though. It was more fun than coating myself in a barrel of honey and running through a pillow factory. Why that would be fun, I'm not entirely sure, but it was the first thing that leapt to mind, and dadburn it, now I want to try it. I figure I could at least get some kind of amateurish tar-and-feather style effect ongoing while I do. Yes, we had a minor setback in that we did not, technically, win the game, but I'm actually not nearly as upset about that as I thought I would be.
I spent New Year's Eve at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. So that was a blast. Well, the beginning part of the day was a blast, as I was riding on new rides I had never before seen, like The Mummy Returns (neatly straddling the line between a fun time and naked terror) and Twister (completely and totally awesome in all aspects). That evening was not quite as great, as the group I was with went on a couple of roller coasters and I didn't have much to do during that period. Well, I did get to go to the arcade nearby when they went on The Hulk, and I did manage to stomp some arrogant jerk at DDR (he was gloating about beating nearby people while on Standard, I leapt to Heavy and brought that chorus in), so that was piles of fun. I also advanced further in House of the Dead III than I have previously. That game, instead of the traditional light-gun pistol, instead employs a pump-action shotgun, that you cock to reload. I love it. Blasting zombies has never been so rewarding.
The actual celebrating the incoming year part took place in a hotel room with about fifty other people. There was a lot of alcohol floating around, but in deference to my and a few other peoples' delicate sensibilities, someone had brought a couple of bottles of non-alcoholic grape cider, so I had a glass of that. I had an amusing conversation with the former tuba section leader, now staff member, Stanley:
Me: What happens if Mr. Watkins [director] walks in?
Stanley: Mm?
Me: What happens if Watkins bangs on the door and demands to be let in? The door opens, he sees all this...
Stanley: I'd offer him some White Zinfandel or some of that red wine someone brought.
Me: ...?
Stanley: Not much else I could do at that point. I mean, we'd be caught red-handed. Offering him a glass would only be civil.
Me: Well, what if Mr. Birkner [associate director] walks in?
Stanley: I'm betting that Birkner is already drunk. He's away from his wife and kid, he doesn't give a damn at the moment.
Me: Knowing him? Probably.
Lots of other stuff happened. I can't remember all of it now. Going to the Magic Kingdom, that was fun. A line appeared at the Tomorrowland tram like magic the instant we approached it, which is odd, because I never see a line appear for that. It was fairly busy, though, it being the Saturday after Christmas. Aaron, a fellow tuba player, bested me horribly in the Buzz Lightyear shooting-gallery game, but that's because he never took his hand off the spin-the-cart lever and messed up all my decent shots. After this, I christened him "Sir Spin-A-Lot." He deserved every second of it. This was the same guy who got our waitress at Pizza Hut to take down his phone number so she could come to a party he was throwing - after she already revealed that she had a boyfriend. I think he was doing it just to prove that he could. Or maybe he had a more nefarious purpose in mind. I don't know, because he got incredibly drunk that night, got sick, and passed out. He was staggering all the next day, which was just too bad because it was the day we had two parades.
On Sunday, we had pep rallies and practice in the morning, with the option to go to Downtown Disney in the evening. We would have done, except Stanley convinced us that there was nothing to do there except drink or go to Disneyquest, which is a video-game parlor that is tremendous fun, but you really need to spend more than just an evening there. So we went out to Sizzler instead. They make a darn fine mahi-mahi sandwich, and their buffet is quite magnificent. We all ate ourselves sick.
We have an odd custom on the tuba bus. When two people have a dispute, or one seriously insults another, even as a joke, the rest of us take up the chant "TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES!" We chant and sing until the two of them begin to brawl, at which point we immediately switch to cheering on whoever is winning at the moment. I do not generally take part in these, as many of the tuba players are either girls (I'm not wrestling a girl, especially one who has a jealous boyfriend sitting next to her) or guys who are much brawnier than I, but I got set up in a fight against Joel, who is taller and skinnier than me and who also happens to be a real jerk-face. So I fought with vigor. I managed to get him in a headlock and administer many noogies in the beginning part of the fight, but he broke my hold and attempted to lock me. We grappled for a time, and it ended with me powerbombing him into his seat. The fight was declared a draw, which we all considered fair. I gained a new respect in the eyes of many of the onlookers, but being I'm not going to see several of them ever again, it came a bit late.
What else, what else...Two of my roommates failed to appear. One of them was asked not to come by the director, as he had missed too many practices, and the other "forgot," in his words. We later found out that he was on his StarCraft II forums pretty much the entire time. So each myself and my only remaining roommate had a bed to ourselves, and he spent several nights at his girlfriend's house in Orlando, so I had the room to myself for a good long time. Except one night, when Curtis, another tuba player, stumbled in at 1:30 AM and announced he was taking the empty bed. "Why?" I asked him. His response:
"Because that fat [expletive] Aaron passed out spread-eagle on the bed we were supposed to be sharing, and I'm not moving him because he might puke again."
Succinct. He took the other bed. I felt it was only fair.
Even during the practices, I managed to have fun. It was a generally fun trip. I spent pretty much all of the money they gave us without managing to save any as I had originally hoped, but as it turned out, that was kind of the idea in the first place. Oh well. I can get money from other places. It would have been better if we had won, but I guess you can't have everything. Our star quarterback Tim Tebow did managed to win the Heisman Trophy, the first sophomore ever to earn such an honor, so the season wasn't a total wash. And there's always next year. I think we'll do better next year.
Oh, one last thing: I'll update the Wednesday post and edit it to actually have content probably tomorrow. I can do that. I have the powah. And I'll also answer the Monday responses there, so I'll just handle Wednesday's here. This will result in comments displaced, but frankly, it's not that big of a deal.
As for my Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGCT4AQIR0 which is the song Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. It has gotten so completely stuck in my head, I decided to offer everyone a chance to experience it. Enjoy.
REPLIES.
Steve: Quiet, you.
Vic: Pretty much. After all, it's not tomorrow until tomorrow, and then tomorrow is today, eh? Eh?
Mom: I never really had a chance. Sorry. And I did have lots of fun.
Steve: Tuesday night.
Anon: Yep.
I won't take forever to update again. I promise. Regular schedule after this.
Promise.
Bye.
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