Bringing Back Blogger

Damnit, I am tired of Livejournal.
Blogger is better.
The good features are free.
It's nicer to look at.
I'm packing up my crap and moving back here.

I'm going to migrate all my old posts over here again.

Updation

That Thanksgiving break was not NEARLY long enough.

I left for P.A. on Wednesday night, spent a relaxing turkey day with the family and played a lot of chess with my Grandpa. Gone are the days when he could beat me easily. The last game, I even had to let him tie me. Playing to a tie in chess is one of the harder things you can do. It was the first time I'd ever seen only the two kings left on a chess board. We went for a walk out on the hook (it was really windy) and spent part of Friday morning flying my little RC plane for the first time. It's maiden voyage went alright, but on the second flight something had happened to the tail and it would only turn right. So, I sort of crash landed it that time. I put a new tailwing on it and it should be ready to go for next time.


Friday night we had dinner at Heather's mom's house. That made a total of three turkeys I got to sample (My Dad had two, because he wanted to try barbequeing one). The best of the three was his oven turkey. Saturday was the toy drive, which went really well. We raised 3600 bucks for Child's Play in 6 hours. We'll try to beat that for Treehouse in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping people will be even more charitable by then. Someone donated an Xbox though, so I can't complain.


I spent all day yesterday lounging, recovering from a very busy weekend. Played (and lost) lots of Halo 2. Over the Thanksgiving break, our clan went from level 7 in Minor Clan Matches down to level 6, and right now, we're teetering in the middle of that level. We need to get our act together.

Is it too early to start counting the days until Christmas break?

Viva Las Vegas!

Headed to Vegas for my birthday....WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I'm only a little excited, can you tell?

BTW, I wanted to send a quick and public thank you out to punkjr who helped out with my demo for the radio contest until 1:30 in the morning last night. I've had some really good ideas swirling around for the past 4 weeks....and last night they became a reality thanks to a couple of friends that came over (or called the house) to help. If they hadn't been around to bounce things off of (and be my callers), I'd still have no demo to speak of. As it stands, it's in the mail....and I'm pretty proud of it.

Looking back, I'm glad I didn't enter the contest in the first week, because what we produced last night was much better than the original concept. If I win the show, it will be due in no small part to the help of some friends. Cross your fingers for me if I make it on the air Friday!
Oh, and how I'm going to live without Halo 2 for the weekend is beyond me. You folks on Live are lucky...you get a short break from Death.

Viva Las Vegas!

Halo 2 Holiday

So, I'm off work today. Kinda. The last two days have been all about Halo 2. First, I left early to go down to the EMP and partake in the fanfest. The line was not exactly small and I got there an hour early.

When we finally made it in, although we missed the free t-shirts by about 16 people ahead of us, they had food, drink, Halo on the Sky Church's giant screen and prizes. People got to take turns playing in 16 player matches. It was definitely something to see.

About halfway into my time there (after waiting for about 30 minutes) an announcement came on and said that they had a lot more people than they were expecting and if people would kindly file out after they had played, everyone would get a chance. I felt guilty at that point, so I took off without playing, in hopes that one of the kids outside would get my spot. Besides, it was just cool to see.

On the way out I noticed that Bungie brought one of their pimp mobiles to the event.

Then I went back to work, where I found that someone had been kind enough to get me an early copy of the Collector's Edition of the game. So, I took it home and played with Craig and John until about 11pm when we decided it was time to hit the line at EBX. I had already stopped by during the day and picked up my placeholder (they were handing out papers with numbers on them) so we got to be number 107, 108 and 109 when we got there). There were about 400 or 500 people.

I know it was kind of nuts that I went and lined up for a game I already had, but it's sort of the fun of the launch....being around all those people and plus, they were giving away all kinds of free junk. They were throwing bags, pens, games, clothes, books, stickers....all that stuff. I only got a pen and a sticker. Oh, and free pizza.

Finally, about an hour and a half after we lined up, I picked up my copy (which I had pre-ordered for John) and Andrew, Justin and Craig all got their copies. Andrew and Justin were tired so they took off, but Craig, Bhaskar, John and I went to work for what was supposed to be a huge party at one of the newer buildings. We lined up in three conference rooms down a hallway from each other and played for about an hour networked. Here's a picture of me in the dark, because the flash killed the cool image of the projector.

About 2am we were getting tired of playing alone at what was supposed to be this big networked party, so I went upstairs to search out the guys who had invited me. Turns out they were all playing single player and didn't want to link up because that was too exciting and new. SO, we packed up and moved the party to my house, where we could get onto Xbox live and play with the whole world. Soon we were in 16 player matches and it was all great. That's the best thing about this game is there's always going to be people to play with. Even at 5am when we finally started winding down.

I slept until about 10:30, then got up and had to get ready to go. I have a Halo 2 tourney today at 230pm. Hopefully I can do better than last place. :-)

The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers

That's the only organization I want to belong to today.

Wherever I go on the web, on the television, on the radio.....all I'm hearing about is this election.
The Dubya supporters are just a little too smug today, and the Kerry supporters are a little too whiny. The one thing I'm thankful for is that Kerry conceded this morning rather than dragging us through another recount just because he could. That was a classy move, because even though it was close, it sure wasn't THAT kinda close.

Most of all though, I'm glad this election is freakin over. Now people can get back to normal and stop having these dark little political clouds floating above their heads. Hopefully now life will go back to normal.....because the last few months have really sucked in that way.

In other news....only 6 more days until Halo 2, which will undoubtedly be the best Xbox game to date. I absolutely can not wait for it.

Pop Quiz Hot Shot

I stole this from Badger and I'm filling it out while waiting for a meeting to start.

1. Where did you grow up? Primarily, Vallejo and Fairfield California, but I was born in San Francisco. I did my last year of high school in Washington and have been here ever since.

2. What were your favorite things to do when you were a kid? Video games, books, and oddly enough....recording fake radio shows with my friends. Looks like I never grew up.

3. Did you ever think your family was "weird"? Oh yes, I knew we were.

4. Do you have any phobias? Not especially. That's not to say I'm not afraid of anything, but there's nothing in particular that I am terrified of. It's more of a situational thing. Like, snakes don't scare me, but finding a snake in my bath tub in the morning would.

5. What are your guilty pleasures? I don't feel guilty about my pleasures, but I probably should when I spend time partaking in something fun when I should be working or doing something more productive.

6. List three things you think are overrated: Shows that were or are on the WB (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, etc ), popular fashion, pop stars.

7. List three things you think are underrated: Time with your family, lounging around as a stress reliever and Weird Al Yankovic.

8. Have you ever passed out? In public? No. I've fallen down a few times from intoxication, but never actually passed out....unless "Passing out" means going to sleep in an unexpected place (like a big bean bag chair or something). I wouldn't count that, because I think if you lie down and fall asleep, you're not really "Passing out".

9. Do you consider yourself patriotic? Indeed, as evidenced by the fact that I'm not tearing down America because my candidate didn't win the presidency.

10. Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous? No, because I don't.

11. Do you hold grudges? Only against impersonal things like restaurants, bands, movies, tv shows, etc. People...I forgive, but if I have a bad experience at a nightclub, I might never go back. :-)

12. Is there anything you want but can't afford right now? The only thing I REALLY want that I absolutely can't afford is a Dodge Viper. A more tangible thing that I don't have the spare cash lying around for, but could buy if I REALLY wanted it is a Cobalt Flux (still haven't ordered it yet). I'm waiting for the Christmas sale. Oh, and I'd love some projectors for my downstairs for Halo parties, but those are out of reach right now too. And a hot tub! Wow, I do want a lot of stuff.

13. Have you ever gone to the movies alone? Nope, although my sisters did ditch me during Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once.

14. Are you more a morning person or a night person? Night of course.

15. What is the most disturbing book you ever read? It was probably a Dean Koontz book. He writes very disturbing books.

16. Have you ever had a horrible roommate? Oh yes. More than a few in fact.

17. Do you have a favorite season? It's a toss-up between summer for the weater and winter for the Holidays.

18. Have you ever been part of a love triangle? I suppose..

19. Have you ever cut anyone's hair? I shaved my own head, does that count?

20. Name one thing that made you happy today: I found some Star Wars toys I needed on the way to work this morning.

Decisions

I slogged through the rain this morning to go vote.
It was a tough choice between the candidates seeing as how neither one of them represents me or my views, but after not much deliberation:

I chose the Giant Douche over the Turd Sandwich.

I'm glad that I've finally cast my ballot and now it's out of my hands.
Not that it was ever in MY hands to begin with, but at least now I can bitch if my guy loses because I actually participated.

Go Giant Douche!

When Bush wins the Election tomorrow

Things won't change much.

I'll still have a job.
I'll still have health care.
A terrorist won't blow up the space needle on Wednesday morning.
I'm not going to get drafted.
My taxes might go up or down...but not enough for me to notice it in my paycheck every two weeks.
No one is going to start drilling for oil or clear cutting the trees down the street from my house.
I don't have any kids, but the education of my nieces and nephews won't get any worse. They'll graduate high school before any changes put into place in the next 4 years take effect anyway.
I'll still be fortunate enough to be able to get married while drunk in Las Vegas to a girl I met 3 minutes earlier because I'm straight and the government will always recognize the sanctity of that holy institution.
My right to choose an abortion won't change because men HAVE no rights where abortions are concerned anyway.
Social Security still won't matter to me for at least another 35 years.

And guess what? It's the exact same thing that's going to happen if Kerry wins.
Yup. Life is going to be pretty much the same for me and most everyone just like me.