You may have noticed that I abandoned the creative titling scheme I ripped off from my sister's blog. The official reason? I was getting bored with it. The unofficial reason? I was getting bored with it. I don't know why I even bothered to distinguish between the two, come to think of it.
So, we went to the medieval fair today. Lots of stuff to see and do, lots of entertainment all around. I went with Victoria, Mike, and Danny, the latter two being two of my friends from Wednesday night game club. (Well, Danny really knows Vic better than he knows me, I think, but whatever.) We saw lots of stuff and heard lots of interesting things, but one fragment of conversation stands out in my mind:
Me: I'm going to the ATM. I have no cash.
Vic: While you're out, can you get me a drink?
Me: ...
Vic: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?
Me: Number one - no. Number two - what kind?
This struck them as amusing, so I committed it to memory.
I bought a lot of stuff. Some stuff I bought as souvenirs for my friends back home. I already told Dan what I got him, but I got some other things for some other people that I haven't yet revealed, nyah. And to my friends at home: Please understand that the fact that I didn't buy you something doesn't mean that I like you less than those I bought stuff for, it just means that
1. I couldn't find anything suitable,
2. The memory of your existence was temporarily blanked from my mind, or
3. I ran out of money. Which I did. But I got smaller things for other people.
For myself, I got a super sweet katana, that's fairly well-balanced if a bit heavy. Not extremely sharp, but I think it's awesome. Also X-treme, and l33t. I managed to get it for only $30, which was a steal when you consider some of the other prices I saw. I managed to smuggle it into my dorm room (my RA Ricky said that I could have it in the room as long as I didn't bring it out into the common area or expose it too much) concealed in my sweater. As I was walking out of Vic's car to sneak it in, Vic calls after me that it didn't look like a sword - it looked like I was concealing a long rifle in my sweater. Vic, sweetheart, I appreciate the warning, but did you have to yell that out so darn loud?? I could have inconspicuously sidled into my room alone without incident, but the booming roar of "YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE CARRYING A GUN!!" might have attracted unwanted attention. Don't sweat it, though.
Also, I got this totally awesome miniature catapult that's built historically accurately, according to the guy that built it. He was telling me about the history of siege weapons; his booth was called "Siege the Day." He mentioned that people today think that trebuchets are superior to catapults, that they carry a heavier payload or have a greater range or some nonsense. His explanation? (paraphrased)
"The Romans built their catapults like this [indicating model], see, and that was the dominant model for hundreds of years. After the Roman Empire fell, the dominant siege weapon became the trebuchet, after a good bit in the Dark Ages where siege weapons weren't used all that much. The reason they went to the extra trouble of making trebuchets - they load slower than catapults, see - was that they had lost the technology to make rope as strong as the Romans had made it. The rope they had couldn't withstand being part of a Roman catapult, so they had to come up with something else until they re-invented better rope."
Which is neat. This catapult fits in the palm of my hand, but it can fling a mini marshmallow over thirty feet. Hand-made and only $15. I was going to buy either the "cata-pistol" (the pistol-like version of his miniature catapults) or the do-it-yourself build-a-catapult kit, but I decided that I preferred workmanship over do-it-yourselfing and I wanted a catapult I could set up normally, not fire out of my hand.
Lots of fun at the fair. We saw, among other things, a living chess game, wherein all the pieces were either Robin Hood and his Merry Men or the Sheriff of Nottingham and his crowd of soldiers. Whenever one piece took another, the two "pieces" battled for supremacy, and the loser was taken. Pretty neat, all around, and Robin Hood forced Nottingham into checkmate near the end. At the end, as a matter of fact. Then they fought, and Robin won, of course.
The cool part about all that is we were in the "Gray" section. People sitting in the "White" section were cheering on Robin and his crowd, whereas people in the "Black" section cheered for Nottingham and his soldiers. (They had a sign that said "Evil will win because good is stupid!") We were in Gray, which meant we cheered for whoever was winning at the moment. Our rallying cry was "We don't care! We don't care!"
Also, we saw a pair of jugglers putting on a juggling show. They juggled and made jokes, and it was all-over very amusing. Highly skilled, too. In the same pavilion, a couple of elderly gentlemen were playing six or seven games of chess at once against whoever happened to have wandered up, and winning nearly all of them, which takes incredible skill, in my opinion. Very neat.
There were horses everywhere. I managed to avoid getting seriously damaged, but there were a few close shaves.
Me: *eating*
Mike: Uh, Luke?
Me: Yeah?
Mike: There's a, uh...
Me: What?
Vic: There's a horse.
Me: ...Where is it?
Vic: It's-
Me: It's right behind me, isn't it.
Vic: Yep.
Mike: Right there.
Me: Sigh.
I walked away. The horses left a few seconds later. It was only then that I breathed in, for the first time in that whole exchange. Thank you, tuba-playing lungs, I am awesome. I still sneezed all over the place, because it was dusty, but whatever. I can't win all the time.
What else, eh? What else...As far as the fair goes, that's about it. I'll probably be headed down to Wellington either next weekend or the weekend after, depending on how things go up here. I really couldn't say.
And, er, I'm out of things to talk about. Kind of short, I guess, but I encapsulated the fair nicely, and not that much else publicly important happened over the last few days. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day I have chosen is very neat. I originally had one planned to show, but at the last second, I found another that might be more mass-appropriate. As in, people who aren't my immediate friends will care. So I'll post them both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa2MfWnx2UM - The general-appeal one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-5CIZYzL9s - The for-my-friends one. Video-game related.
REPLIES. (good lord)
Mike: Temporarily, my good man, temporarily. I can act like a clever ruse, er, like one who performs a clever ruse, except I actually am performing a ruse, and...well...what's wrong with new clothes, hmm?
Steve: You and your jeans fascination. Sigh. Why would I need to trust your computer skills when I have my infinitely-more-skilled (and more accessible) father to help me out? The icon trick is working, but any Steam games I'm playing recently, as in after the reset, are stuttering terribly and I don't know why. I can't play like this.
I really, really think you're just making that up about the taste buds. I mean, seriously. You showed me how well you can BS. This seems like more of that. And yeah, I saw the roster. Very awesome.
Karen: I suppose...It seems an affront to all that is male within me to wear a pink shirt to go out, though. I'll find something to eat, but I'm still convinced that Steve is making stuff up off the top of his head. And I'm still working on that new posture. It's a slog.
Jake: Might. But my haircut really isn't that dramatic, it's just a trimmed version of what my previous haircut was. Oh...don't I? And why didn't you comment? Gnargh.
Dad: You too, with the adapting taste buds? Madness! I don't believe a word of it. That doesn't make any sense. I can eat one food every day for a month and it tastes just the same as it did the first time I ate it. I did this once, last year. Enjoying Texas, are yer? And there are really that few native Texans larking about? How odd...
Mom: I guess. It just annoys me, though. Real Texas dirt, eh? Let's see how well real Texas dirt stands up to real Florida detergent. I can't just wear a dirty shirt all day long, even if it is Texas dirty. (Each individual dirt particle is the size of a hamster, or something?) I'll work on the veggies, as well as the posture. I'm glad you're enjoying Texas, and keep an eye out for those elusive creatures, the natives.
Farewell.
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8 comments:
You still have not sent a picture to my phone. It would much easier for me to contrast your new look to your old one if both variables are defined.
I wonder what you could've possibly gotten from the fair. It didn't involve glass-tubed repulsive smells, dissappearing ink, and paddle balls, did it? Katana's are cool. You should sharpen it yourself and lubricate it with non-acidic oil (plant oil) before you sheathe it in preparation for the day you finally wield it to carve out your own brand of justice...or just to show off to your friends. You can find catapults for less than five cents, it's called a plastic spoon. ;)
Both YouTube's are great. The first one proves once again that the best humor can only come at the expense of some poor bastard. The second one just makes the wait for release all the more difficult, so I hate you. I'll just make a mental note to steal all those awesome final smashes from you when we brawl, haha.
I'm not trying to replace your father, he surely knows more about computers than I do. I was just offering my help for when he's unaccessable because of work or something, as I can certainly install your Windows for you. Also, since the key is more than likely underneath your laptop, I wouldn't even need to do anything illegal in your case. With any luck, your laptop's hard drive won't fry again anyway so it doesn't really matter, haha. For a long time I thought I would major in something computer-related, as I've loved computers since DOS. Remember, the most important thing to learn about computers is how to learn about computers. A combination of curiosity and computer problems should do the rest.
For your Steam games, you might try updating your graphics driver, preferably from the manufacturer's website (likely Nvidia or Ati if it isn't onboard). Check the device manager to find out what you have if you don't know and go from there. Whenever there's a graphical problem in a game, it's almost always the graphics drivers or the chipset drivers, but most likely graphics. It could also be a setting in your driver, so if your drivers are up to date, make sure the more intensive things like antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are set to be application-controlled as sometimes a global setting can screw with the game engine. I don't know how much I can do without actually being at your computer. Ask your dad to do it when you go to Wellington next weekend, he can definitely fix it.
That taste buds adapt is actually real and recognized, although that thing about toxins in the wild is just a theory of mine (which is a fancy way of saying bs, haha). Good job sensing my creativity at work, I'll make it more difficult next time.
Thirty-five days!
-Steve
O_O
That video was the most insanity I've ever seen. It was thoroughly awesome, but DAMN it! That was spoiler central! Lucario, ROB, Wolf are characters? Marth and Gay-Man-Watch are back?!?!
-Jake
The character list was bound to catch up to you eventually. The real spoiler is how awesome those final smashes are.
-Steve
Luke, I'm going to defend Stephen. I don't know about adapting taste buds, but I do know, for example, that if you start drinking whole milk, then go to 2% for a week or so, then 1%, then finally skim, you get used to the skim and can drink it happily, and after a month (21 days to set a new habit) now whole milk tastes too greasy and thick. If you go from whole to skim overnight, however, no good. Also, you can decrease the amount of salt and sugar, etc., and get used to that as well.
Te puedes acostumbrar a lo que sea.
Entiendes el espanol?
besos, abrazos y ternuras,
Mama
You know I actually went from whole to skim in one go with no problem. Then I did some research and abandoned cow milk altogether. Milk is baby food, meant for babies. Human milk is thin, low in protein and fat, high is essential fatty acids, vitaminD, and whatever water-soluble vitamins (B and C) are in the woman's system at the time. This is a recipe that caters for brain development, which is important for humans. Cow's young need to grow large fast and only smart enough to follow a pack, and their milk shows it. Cow's milk is thick, high in protein, low in vitaminD (we fortify to make it appear otherwise), mostly saturated fat and very little essential fatty acids, some B vitamins, no C vitamins, lots of iron and zinc, some calcium. Kids today are fat and stupid like cows because they drink too much cow's milk, and not enough human milk. Unlike cows, we can't absorb all that extra protein, so the excess binds to our calcium before the kidneys flush it out, actually decreasing our overall bone density. This compounds with the fact that calcium cannot be easily absorbed without natural vitamin D (the synthetic stuff isn't nearly as effective as the real thing, as it is an isomer that doesn't bind well to our vitaminD receptors) and too will just pass through us. The only thing that cow's milk is good for as far as human consumption, is its beneficial probiotic ecosystem, and the milk bought in stores kills that giving only bad bacteria a chance to thrive (that's why milk rots like nothing else). If you're going to drink milk, it should be alive and as close to human milk as possible (goat is pretty close). If it's dead, there is no point, and that is all you can find in grocery stores. Also, it has become common practice in the US to give the cows bolvine growth hormone and antibiotics, both of which pass on into the milk, along with the pesticides from their feed which is not regulated in practice. In summary, if you truly care about your health, you will stay away from dead milk, cow milk, and especially dead cow milk.
-Steve
I made an typo, the iron and zinc is in abundance in human milk. It is still present in smaller amounts in cow milk, but not to the same degree.
-Steve
Somebody at the RenFair watched "Spaceballs", because that line ("Evil will win because good is stupid") was said by Dark Helmet in that movie. No biggy, just noticing.
I am amazed that you were that close to horses and didn't have more of a problem. Years ago just being near someone who had ridden a horse would cause you to stop breathing! I am thrilled that you are getting better. But keep the Epi-Pen around anyway.
FYI, the RenFair is down here for February, so if you want to go when you are down here, let me know.
Sorry I haven't been writing as much as before. Things are getting a little better, but I have been out of the state for 3 of the past 4 weeks (New Hampshire for a major snowstorm, and then 2 weeks in Houston), and it is literally every night I am up past midnight writing something due the next day, and then getting up at 6AM (or 3:30AM if I have to catch a plane) to get the next task which will keep me up past midnight. This doesn't leave a lot of time for reading and responding to your blogs. But it is getting better.
-- Your tired Dad
Ahhh... that was a fun day. Just reading about it makes my fun gland ... produce more fun? ... It sounded better in my head..
~Vic
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