Team Pikachu
Feb. 25th, 2002 11:24 amI rediscovered last night at Matt's house that, yea verily, it is a fine thing to have video games. He and I agreed that among the best things about adulthood is never again having to gnash one's teeth at the phrase "Christmas is coming, you know." You want a cool toy? It's yours!
Well, unless you don't have a steady income. Hrrn. The thought of a fat advance check loses its luster when you realize that you used to make that much in two weeks of salary. But: I wait. Interesting things are afoot, always always.
My best characters at Super Smash Brothers are Mario and Jigglypuff.
Meanwhile, in the other game I played yesterday, Bahboteph has decided that he must save the world by learning the lost occult Nazi filmmaking techniques, so that he can make a music video. Or something. The sleeper awakens the world.
Well, unless you don't have a steady income. Hrrn. The thought of a fat advance check loses its luster when you realize that you used to make that much in two weeks of salary. But: I wait. Interesting things are afoot, always always.
My best characters at Super Smash Brothers are Mario and Jigglypuff.
Meanwhile, in the other game I played yesterday, Bahboteph has decided that he must save the world by learning the lost occult Nazi filmmaking techniques, so that he can make a music video. Or something. The sleeper awakens the world.
Rocket Man
Dec. 18th, 2001 12:11 amThe Diesel gambit paid off; I wrote for two hours, and the chapter has enough momentum to roll itself home. There's just the matter of time. I have decided that I can't write well when I'm sleepy... I can't start things at 10 p.m. I found myself doing this after I got home and settled in to continue, but then Carla's GURPS group started to drag itself in, and then they started taking turns coming upstairs and begging me to play. Oops: I forgot I was one of them. I relented on beggar #3, bringing the iBook with me, but of course that was no environment for doing technical writing. I bailed on them politely as I could, after 90 minutes or so. But by then, feh. I email Linda, asking her when the drop-dead date is. I am still silly enough to think I can have this wrapped up by tomorrow. I hope that, certainly.
Meanwhile, life is just barreling along. Beyond the ever-growing queue of when-the-book-is-done activities (which by now probably has "pick up a musical instrument" in it, rendering everything after it irrelevently unattainable -- this is my own personal Godwin's Law of activity queues), the world around me and the people in it continue to change, maybe accelerated by holiday fervor, I dunno, cuz I can't touch any of it while I'm locked into this mode, totally stationary in regard to planetary rotation, and hence SHOOTING OFF INTO DARKEST SPACE from your point of view. I owe people some juicy choice nummy-num letters, letters I start to write many many times, with which I'll try to reconnect myself to stuff. They're not easy letters to write in the first place, and the fact that I can't keep my mind on them right now doesn't help. I know they'll get out eventually, and my beautiful friends will joyfully reel me back in, but only when the you-know-what is you-know-what, and until then brrr it's cold out here between the stars.
On the more practical side, I am worried about my nonmotion with regards to getting an Arisia room (last I heard this was sorta being done by committee -- bad idea), and any number of bills I keep suddenly remembering I haven't paid since I moved. And a parking ticket I got a long, long time ago in Waterville. Crap. But who has time to think about that stuff?!
I have mentioned I feel like I'm right back with the UMaine newspaper again, right? I'm locked into this absurd, hallucinatorily untouchable meta-state, where I pretend to be not a member of your MERE HOO-MAN SOCIETY while I sit on my perch and look down at you wee people as I chronicle your wee-people lives. And your XML. Foo.
I do not think I will risk the LotR showing. Poop. Even if the chapter's done, it would give me zero time to prepare for the meeting, and this I do not wish to do. However, I'll be seeing Maine Crowd #2 (which has crossover with the first one) this weekend, and maybe we can see the movie then. Shrug? It's also likely I'll get a chance to watch it with some locals, maybe even before then. We'll see what happens.
Joining Carla's group was a mistake, a decision made on my first full day in this house, right at the start of the honeymoon. I am having zero fun roleplaying, and Carla... is no Josh. This is not to say that she is a bad GM, but I have grown to like the style of the other GM in my life (heh), who is, simply put, a master storyteller, able to handle player action and player inaction with equal finesse. Josh does not say "I will stick dice up your nose unless you roleplay" at me. (For that matter, no player in the Josh-group has ever complained to the other players about themselves being the only one bothering to roleplay.) Carla's games are also very linear, or at least this one is. We started out in point A, and one of our PCs was told that he got the idea that there's a guy we could talk to at point B. OK. At point B we talked to a guy, who told us to perform action C, which taught us about location D. La la la. The Josh-led campaign, on the other hand, is a sprawling epic, and nobody knows what the hell's going on, though we each (both as players and characters) have individual ideas, and we know when we're following a right trail.
It's funny I write like that about Josh's game, because during the campaign's former half, I was constantly debating whether or not to drop out... I liked Josh's style then too, but I didn't like my character so much. It's grown a lot on me since then, though my character is still the same.
Tonight I was telling a remote friend (who is about three times more introverted and nonconfrontational than I am(!)) to break the bad news to a woman (with whom I am also acquainted, though she is remote to both of us -- all hail the Internet) who has been more-or-less stalking him for years (as in inviting herself over to his house every few months, a process that involves flying from North Carolina to San Diego) that he was not interested in further romantic relationship with her. He does not want to do this because it would shatter her (she breaks easily), but I advised that not telling her would just let her stew in drawn-out, unrequited longing, while he'd continue to feel guilty: far worse for both of them.
And here I have trouble giving myself the same advice when it's just a bloody RPG group that I've been with for a month?
Meanwhile, life is just barreling along. Beyond the ever-growing queue of when-the-book-is-done activities (which by now probably has "pick up a musical instrument" in it, rendering everything after it irrelevently unattainable -- this is my own personal Godwin's Law of activity queues), the world around me and the people in it continue to change, maybe accelerated by holiday fervor, I dunno, cuz I can't touch any of it while I'm locked into this mode, totally stationary in regard to planetary rotation, and hence SHOOTING OFF INTO DARKEST SPACE from your point of view. I owe people some juicy choice nummy-num letters, letters I start to write many many times, with which I'll try to reconnect myself to stuff. They're not easy letters to write in the first place, and the fact that I can't keep my mind on them right now doesn't help. I know they'll get out eventually, and my beautiful friends will joyfully reel me back in, but only when the you-know-what is you-know-what, and until then brrr it's cold out here between the stars.
On the more practical side, I am worried about my nonmotion with regards to getting an Arisia room (last I heard this was sorta being done by committee -- bad idea), and any number of bills I keep suddenly remembering I haven't paid since I moved. And a parking ticket I got a long, long time ago in Waterville. Crap. But who has time to think about that stuff?!
I have mentioned I feel like I'm right back with the UMaine newspaper again, right? I'm locked into this absurd, hallucinatorily untouchable meta-state, where I pretend to be not a member of your MERE HOO-MAN SOCIETY while I sit on my perch and look down at you wee people as I chronicle your wee-people lives. And your XML. Foo.
I do not think I will risk the LotR showing. Poop. Even if the chapter's done, it would give me zero time to prepare for the meeting, and this I do not wish to do. However, I'll be seeing Maine Crowd #2 (which has crossover with the first one) this weekend, and maybe we can see the movie then. Shrug? It's also likely I'll get a chance to watch it with some locals, maybe even before then. We'll see what happens.
Joining Carla's group was a mistake, a decision made on my first full day in this house, right at the start of the honeymoon. I am having zero fun roleplaying, and Carla... is no Josh. This is not to say that she is a bad GM, but I have grown to like the style of the other GM in my life (heh), who is, simply put, a master storyteller, able to handle player action and player inaction with equal finesse. Josh does not say "I will stick dice up your nose unless you roleplay" at me. (For that matter, no player in the Josh-group has ever complained to the other players about themselves being the only one bothering to roleplay.) Carla's games are also very linear, or at least this one is. We started out in point A, and one of our PCs was told that he got the idea that there's a guy we could talk to at point B. OK. At point B we talked to a guy, who told us to perform action C, which taught us about location D. La la la. The Josh-led campaign, on the other hand, is a sprawling epic, and nobody knows what the hell's going on, though we each (both as players and characters) have individual ideas, and we know when we're following a right trail.
It's funny I write like that about Josh's game, because during the campaign's former half, I was constantly debating whether or not to drop out... I liked Josh's style then too, but I didn't like my character so much. It's grown a lot on me since then, though my character is still the same.
Tonight I was telling a remote friend (who is about three times more introverted and nonconfrontational than I am(!)) to break the bad news to a woman (with whom I am also acquainted, though she is remote to both of us -- all hail the Internet) who has been more-or-less stalking him for years (as in inviting herself over to his house every few months, a process that involves flying from North Carolina to San Diego) that he was not interested in further romantic relationship with her. He does not want to do this because it would shatter her (she breaks easily), but I advised that not telling her would just let her stew in drawn-out, unrequited longing, while he'd continue to feel guilty: far worse for both of them.
And here I have trouble giving myself the same advice when it's just a bloody RPG group that I've been with for a month?
(no subject)
Nov. 17th, 2001 12:39 pmThis house officially Wins. I did good by coming here, and have said as much to the preinstalled peeps, with whom I seem to be swimming swimmingly. Charles acknowledges my skill at memetic boxing, and Carla invited me into her GURPS Discworld campaign. We've all played the official house game of Lost Cities many times, and we chat and share food and coffee and do this and that with respective other friends as much as you might expect, and yes indeedy my Social bar is perhaps greener than it's ever been. Even the cat seems to think I'm OK.
So yeah. Props to cthulhia for encouraging my move here, both in advising me and in speaking in my favor to the residents. I am a heppy heppy ket.
Neighborhoodishly, I didn't realize how quiet the surroundings are until my first or second night here, when I heard a very distant emergency vehicle siren and realized that it was all the traffic I could hear at the time. How different from the Medford/Highland intersection of my last apartment! This despite the fact that there's so much good stuff in walking distance; Trader Joe's 5 minutes thisaway, Bread & Circus 7 minutes thataway, and Central Square with its T station and coffee shops is but 10 minutes up yonder. Compare with my east Somerville place, where I had an array of convenience stores to pick from, and that was that.
Driving seems a puzzle. Cambridgeport is more or less griddish, but every day a random selection of roads are blocked off by construction equipment, making the neighborhood streets an ever-changing labyrinth. As for Mass Ave, it's just as confusing during the day as it is at night, but it rewards those with cool heads with as many chances to loop back and try again as they need, until they finally bang into their heads the pattern of which lanes to occupy when, so as not to get prematurely flung off at any of several flinging-off points. I have come to the conclusion that Massachusetts Avenue is not a single road, but a collective organism made of lots of smaller roads, each with their own personalities, who have nonetheless decided to band together under a single name. Learning and accepting this makes navigating it a bit easier, for me.
There is a dishwasher, a concept so alien that even after being introduced to it I refused to accept its existence and washed the dishes once by hand anyway before thinking: hm. Charles has since educated me on dishwasher protocol, which I appreciate.
Apparently I am alone among the three in using the house phone line, so all phone bills will go to me until I finally get around to nabbing a cell phone, at which point, Charles figures, we may as well cancel the thing.
Despite all this talk of assimilation, I still haven't actually moved in yet. The landlords return this weekend, allegedly... I'll go research this now. Wish me luck.
So yeah. Props to cthulhia for encouraging my move here, both in advising me and in speaking in my favor to the residents. I am a heppy heppy ket.
Neighborhoodishly, I didn't realize how quiet the surroundings are until my first or second night here, when I heard a very distant emergency vehicle siren and realized that it was all the traffic I could hear at the time. How different from the Medford/Highland intersection of my last apartment! This despite the fact that there's so much good stuff in walking distance; Trader Joe's 5 minutes thisaway, Bread & Circus 7 minutes thataway, and Central Square with its T station and coffee shops is but 10 minutes up yonder. Compare with my east Somerville place, where I had an array of convenience stores to pick from, and that was that.
Driving seems a puzzle. Cambridgeport is more or less griddish, but every day a random selection of roads are blocked off by construction equipment, making the neighborhood streets an ever-changing labyrinth. As for Mass Ave, it's just as confusing during the day as it is at night, but it rewards those with cool heads with as many chances to loop back and try again as they need, until they finally bang into their heads the pattern of which lanes to occupy when, so as not to get prematurely flung off at any of several flinging-off points. I have come to the conclusion that Massachusetts Avenue is not a single road, but a collective organism made of lots of smaller roads, each with their own personalities, who have nonetheless decided to band together under a single name. Learning and accepting this makes navigating it a bit easier, for me.
There is a dishwasher, a concept so alien that even after being introduced to it I refused to accept its existence and washed the dishes once by hand anyway before thinking: hm. Charles has since educated me on dishwasher protocol, which I appreciate.
Apparently I am alone among the three in using the house phone line, so all phone bills will go to me until I finally get around to nabbing a cell phone, at which point, Charles figures, we may as well cancel the thing.
Despite all this talk of assimilation, I still haven't actually moved in yet. The landlords return this weekend, allegedly... I'll go research this now. Wish me luck.
(no subject)
Nov. 9th, 2001 09:32 pmLogged two hours of work today for Arcus, my first two ever as an independent contractor. Picked up plenty of useful advice from veteran contractor (and Arcus bossman) Jim, on when and when not to bill. Figuring out how to navigate the customer's whacked-out labyrinth of existing databases and APIs: bill. Thinking to self about how to solve the problem at hand: bill. Having chosen a particular attack path, figuring out how that is supposed to work, prior to actually applying it to the problem: do not bill.
I've been using a little OS X dock app called AtWork as my clocky tool, though Adam thinks I should learn how to use the time-tracking Emacs mode he heard about. GEEK
Charles says that he has successfully phoned my employment references, and presented this information, at long last, to the super-busy landlord and her husband. (Said employers corroborate this, though I do trust Charles, who, I remind myself, hangs directly off the small but succulent trust network I've built in Boston -- and views me in exactly the same way, with the same network.)
This news came in the nick of time, as, after speaking with my parents about the situation, I had resolved to leap at the other opportunity if the first was still stalled by day's end. And so, the waiting game continues, now through a second weekend.
The mail from friends, gaming groups, and social circles in Boston really makes me pine to be there again, despite the fact that I don't get out much, no matter where I am. :)
Gaming... there is RPG madness due to happen, a critical point in our Nephilim campaign, possibly a Big Fight, when I really should be there. Should I say "foo" and drive down and maybe hope for crash space? Dunno. OTOH, there is no lack of stuff to get done here. Like, oh, I dunno, the book? Mumble
I had better set about fixing my homesite, which is still littered with debris and broken internal links from the move. Between laziness and general disconnection from the rest of the world (something that definitely fuels the former), I haven't so far been bothered with it. Bad, bad. This is not the time to be ambivalent about my face to the world, friend.
I've been using a little OS X dock app called AtWork as my clocky tool, though Adam thinks I should learn how to use the time-tracking Emacs mode he heard about. GEEK
Charles says that he has successfully phoned my employment references, and presented this information, at long last, to the super-busy landlord and her husband. (Said employers corroborate this, though I do trust Charles, who, I remind myself, hangs directly off the small but succulent trust network I've built in Boston -- and views me in exactly the same way, with the same network.)
This news came in the nick of time, as, after speaking with my parents about the situation, I had resolved to leap at the other opportunity if the first was still stalled by day's end. And so, the waiting game continues, now through a second weekend.
The mail from friends, gaming groups, and social circles in Boston really makes me pine to be there again, despite the fact that I don't get out much, no matter where I am. :)
Gaming... there is RPG madness due to happen, a critical point in our Nephilim campaign, possibly a Big Fight, when I really should be there. Should I say "foo" and drive down and maybe hope for crash space? Dunno. OTOH, there is no lack of stuff to get done here. Like, oh, I dunno, the book? Mumble
I had better set about fixing my homesite, which is still littered with debris and broken internal links from the move. Between laziness and general disconnection from the rest of the world (something that definitely fuels the former), I haven't so far been bothered with it. Bad, bad. This is not the time to be ambivalent about my face to the world, friend.