Wii Waiting

I was number 14.

Though I had only been planning on spending 6 hours waiting in line to get a Nintendo Wii, it turned into twelve. Neowolf, Dr Jones and I had decided to wait at the Walmart Supercenter near their house since it is open 24 hours and would therefore begin selling their Wiis at midnight. This sounded like a good plan, but a lot of other people had the same idea and the line began filling up very quickly--meaning I had to rush down there at noon. On top of this surprise, we found out that we were going to have to wait outside in the cold all day. The Playstation 3 campers got to wait in the warmth of the Walmart, but they made all of us Nintendo fans face the cold in a shady alcove outside the building. They were kind enough to bring us some free hot chocolate at one point though, and at least the wind was mostly blocked by the bushes.

The day was long, but the wait was worth it. My parents stopped by in the afternoon to deliver an extra layer of clothes for me and Big Bold D dropped by in the evening with dinner--soup from Panera's. We also made some friends in the line, discussed video games and Trogdor and debated whether an enemy in Zelda should be called "Iron Knuckles" or "Dark Nuts." In the end we settled for "Iron Nuts."

All was going well. We knew we were going to get a Wii.

Until 11:00. At that point, the night manager showed up and did a quick count of the waiters, only to find that there were more than 20. And the store only had 20 Wiis in stock. The day manager had counted us up three times before he left and there had been exactly 20 each time. Someone had snuck into line. Thus the drama began. Around 11:30 they finally moved us inside in groups of five (we decided to give our group a team name--Iron Nuts, of course). Along the way, one of the imposters must have ducked out because we were one less when we were counted inside.

We spent the next thirty minutes or so wishing that whoever had jumped in line would just give up and go home because the night manager had woken the day manager up and made him drive in (and he lives on the other side of town) and he was not a happy man. He made threats and said that if the person who had jumped in line did not fess up none of us were going to get a Wii. It was childish and ridiculous. And, in the end, we were starting to doubt the man's counting skills because he made a mistake counting us and the night manager had to correct him. I think that the extra person in the end was nothing more than a counting error from the beginning, but the manager wasn't going to admit his own mistake. And the fact remained that we only had 20 Wiis for 21 people.

Thankfully, one very nice, generous man who was actually an employee at that Walmart but had waited outside with us all day long offered to take a rain check so we could all get our Wiis. I guess he was going to be getting a discount too, so good for him. Whatever the case, we were majorly relieved to know that our 12 hours of waiting were not in vain.

Now it's time to play!

Busy Weekend

It seems like I have been going non-stop since I got back from Japan, and this weekend was no different.

I played flute on Saturday at a parish that was having its 100 year anniversary celebration as well as its Oktoberfest celebration on the same day. It was a big deal, and the archbishop was there as well as a bunch of different priests and guys from the Knights of Columbus all dressed up in their outfits. It was a big deal. And I felt only somewhat prepared. I played something or sang something on every single song, and also played some solos mixed in. I haven't played that much flute in probably a year and it was a bit stressful as well with all the pomp and circumstance. But it went off without a hitch and I was really satisfied in the end. Not to mention relieved. Whew.

I spent most of the rest of the weekend finishing going through my pictures from Japan. I'm finally almost ready to get them printed! It's really time consuming to go through that many pictures, let me tell you. I'm probably going to only print about 200 of them, but that's still a LOT! When you start out with over a thousand though...

Now it's the work week again and I'm already tired. Not a good way to start the week.

Home Again

I've actually been home over a week now, but between jet lag and emergency last-minute projects at work, I've barely had the time or energy to put away my suitcases, let alone post a blog entry.

I have finally managed to go through some of my pictures though and get a few teaser pics up on Flickr. (By the way, if you haven't noticed already, you can get to my Flickr page by clicking on the "LOOK" link above or the Flickr badge on the sidebar.) I have seven CDs worth of photos, so I'm going to have to be selective and upload a few at a time. I believe I managed to outdo any Japanese tourist with my 1,350 photos. Of course, I'm sure I'll end up deleting probably a third of them since many are repeats or different angles of the same thing. I plan on eventually making a slide show like I did for the last trip, but that took a long time when I had far fewer photos and fewer days in Japan, so I'm just putting some of my favorites up on Flickr for now.

Japan was awesome. It was hard to leave, but not as depressing as it was last time, partially, I think, because I felt so fulfilled on this trip. I saw everything I planned on seeing, I had a great time with my friends and experienced far more than I did the first time around. Overall, this trip was even better than the last by a substantial amount. Don't get me wrong. I loved the last trip. But this one was practically perfect. So many things could have gone wrong--such as the typhoon that only happened to veer away from Japan at the last minute--but everything seemed to go our way. Even the few rainy days we had turned out not to be so bad.

I'm not sure if it was because I was more familiar with Japan and the areas of Tokyo where we spent most of our time, or if it was because of my friend, Shivaindis, was always at hand to translate things for me, but I feel like I absorbed so much more this time. We went to some of the same places on this tour as I did before, but I never felt bored with the locations, perhaps because I didn't get the chance to fully explore them on the first trip. Everyone on the Pop Japan Travel staff was excellent as well, and I really enjoyed getting to know them all.

I can't wait to share more details of the trip, but it is getting late and I'm tired and I have the rest of the work week to get through yet... I hope you enjoy the morsels I put up on Flickr.

PS If you're here because you're a fan of my story, I apologize for not getting a new chapter posted yet. I promise that I'm working on it and hope to have it up soon!

One More Day

By this time tomorrow I will be in the air on my way to LA, and from there I will be heading for Japan. I am so excited that I literally feel sick to my stomach. But its worth it. As I was telling the girls last night, by the time I finally get off work today I'm going to be certifiably crazy excited. I can't wait!

But 4:30 is going to come awful early tomorrow morning... groan...

Hopefully I will be able to make a blog entry while in Japan. If not, you'll be hearing from me when I get back with all kinds of news and pictures!

One Week and Counting

Exactly one week from today, I will be in the air on my way to Japan. And I will be grinning like an idiot. Oh, wait. I'm already doing that just thinking about it.

Blue Angels

The Downtown Air Show is this weekend, and when I went on a walk with my coworker over lunch we got to watch the Blue Angels practicing over the city. It was pretty awesome. In fact, we can even see them from the window of our office every so often. This is the way to watch an airshow. No heat of the tarmac, no long lines for parking, no uncomfortable lawn chairs. And it's a pleasant diversion from work.

User Name Karaoke

I keep forgetting to post this, though I've had it figured out for awhile. Lizalou had this posted in her blog (and actually did it twice, the silly girl--one for general music and one for V6 alone).

Here's how it works: Open your playlist, pick songs that start with each letter of your username, but, the songs have to mean something to you. Don't just pick a song because it starts with a letter in your username.

Y Yoru wo Kakeru - Spitz

This is one of my favorites. Don't know why. Something about the angsty sound of it, Kusano Masamune's voice and the way it was used in Honey & Clover--which is where I first discovered it, of course.

E Endless Rain - X Japan

This song brings back some memories from Life Drawing class. Lizalou and I would sit through the long, four-hour class twice a week drawing naked people with charcoal and listening to music. At the time, I had only recently discovered X Japan, and I recall that this was one of the songs in particular that I enjoyed listening to and turning to look at lizalou with weepy eyes. X Japan always makes me weepy. Unless I'm listening to Desperate Angel.

L Libera Me - Fauré

Well, this is the namesake of my fanfiction... We sang Fauré's Requiem Mass at St. Lawrence when I was in college and I fell in love with it. This is one of my favorite movements. MPOD sang the solo, though I think we did this requiem the year before he was our director. Either way, I have good memories of it. I love the contrast of flowing haunting melodies against powerful themes in this piece in particular.

L Look Up! - Michael Bradley

Ah, good old Michael Bradley. His rendition of We Will Win almost made it into the "W" category. This one has to do with my screen name itself--how many of you can find a song really associated with your screen name, huh? That's right. I don't believe that this is a song Yellow Dancer actually sings (though it's been too long since I've seen Robotech all the way through if I can't remember) but I remember it was somehow associated with him. It's a great, overtly environmentally friendly song.

O Outpost 3J - Unreal Tournament & Overworld Jerky - Chrono Trigger

I was torn between two nice video game songs on this one. I decided to label them by game rather than composer for some reason. Anyway, Outpost 3J was one of my favorite levels in Unreal because of the music alone. It's a lot of fun. I have fond memories of decapitating aliens in this game while trying to ignore my crappy roommates, so this song is significant for me. The other song is not actually titled "Overworld Jerky," but I occasionally like to title the songs on my playlist that are unknown or in Japanese so that I can recognize them. This is the theme that plays in the 600 A.D. overworld in Chrono Trigger. I really love it. It's got a little bit of that happy angst I love so much. If you must know, I titled it after the jerky that fed a whole army.

W Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon

This song was my first encounter with Warren Zevon. That man writes some crazy lyrics, but I love them. They're so conversational and bizarre. I believe I discovered this song with Brandi, didn't I? I think my favorite line is, "I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's... and his hair was perfect." Or maybe it's actually, "A little old lady got mutilated late last night," which despite the gore is a lot of fun to say.

D Do I Have to do Another Eulogy? - Alias Soundtrack - Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino is an awesome composer, but I especially love the titles of the tracks on the Alias soundtrack. This one is right up there among my favorites for some unexplainable reason. I think it's mostly because of the first thirty seconds. I can never listen to it just once. There's something about the notes repeated in octaves through the orchestra with the beat behind it that I absolutely love. Plus, the title cracks me up and brings me back to when I was watching this series the first time with thecallowqueen and her roommate. Poor Emily. Like a number of people in that show, she had to die twice.

A Amazing - Poe

The House of Leaves is one awesomely scary book, and Poe's Haunted album is equally awesome and haunting. This is one of my favorite tracks because the lyrics really captured me. It's hard for me to pick a favorite from this CD though because I love them all! The subtlety of Poe's lyrics blows my mind.

N Nonstop to Tokyo - Rip Slyme (Pizzicato Five cover)

This song is so much fun! And soon (less than two weeks!) I will be on my way to Tokyo myself!!! I discovered Pizzicato Five on my last trip to Japan, and though I hadn't heard this song, I really enjoy Rip Slyme's remake. I picked up P5's CD at random, mostly because I've always liked the term pizzicato and because the packaging was a lot of fun. And the Rip Slyme boys are just so much fun.

C Curse of the Bloody Puppets - Devil May Cry - Masami Ueda

This one's just to pay homage to my Devil May Cry obsession. This track is from early in the first game and I love it's eerie ambience. The track is mostly echoey repititions of bass chords and howling sorts of noises over top, but at certain spots snatches of what sound like ghostly organ music break through. It has a perfect creepy feel for the castle on Mallet island where the game takes place.

E Eternal - Evanescence

This is an instrumental track I came across when I was looking up Evanescence music a long time ago. As is often the way with music found online, I can't be certain that it is attributed to the correct person, but it certainly sounds like Evanescene's stuff. It's pretty cool and dark, but my favorite part is the thunderstorm in the middle. I love thunderstorms! And the way it changes tones completely in the middle is pretty cool too.

R Red Hair is Better - Michael Giacchino

I wasn't going to put another track from the Alias soundtrack on here but I couldn't not use this one. I totally agree here; red hair isbetter. This is from the pilot episode and has a fun wildcat sounding thing in the middle (that's when she's stealing the car). She has the most fun awful red wig in this episode and it reminds me so much of Leeloo from Fifth Element.

2 25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago

These numbers were a bugger. I've always liked this song, even if it is all about doing drugs. We used to play it in pep band in high school and I remember I was always so impressed that the guy who played guitar could play the solo from this song exactly. It's a pretty fun solo, by the way, and my favorite part of the song.

1 1812 Overture

This number was super hard. But this is a great piece of music and it's significant to me because we would always play it during the week of the Midwestern Music Camp that fell on the 4th of July. I remember that they had bass drums (instead of cannons) and huge bells (instead of church bells) up in the balconies of the Lied Center during the part at the end.

Curse of Sephiroth

I was kind of in a hurry to finish Kingdom Hearts II when I did it the first time, but I wasn't too worried about missing anything because I knew I was going to go back and replay most of it to import videos for lizalou. But it bugged me that there wasn't much resolution to Cloud's story and he didn't make an appearance in the closing credits. I figured I had just overlooked something, and a quick check online confirmed my theory. You have to fight Sephiroth in order to get more Cloud goodies. Well, I never did beat Sephiroth in the first game. Never really even gave it a good try. But I thought I would make my best effort this time.

So, I started leveling up and gathering materials to synthesize all the ultimate weapons. I spent several hours on this, figuring that beating the game again to import the ending videos would be a breeze because of it (which it was, in fact). Then I headed down through the Great Maw (don't know why that name cracks me up) toward Sephiroth. I didn't know if I could beat him, but I figured I had a fighting chance at least at this point. I didn't look up any strategy because I wanted to see how well I could do on my own. I really had leveled up quite a bit, so surely I could last through a few lifebars (though Sephiroth has fifteen!).

I step up to him. He says something snotty. I get ready. There's an immediate reaction command. I thought I hit it in time. I didn't. Wham, bam, slash! I'm dead. Dirty bastard!!!!! I tried it again. I lasted half a minute and barely dented his lifebars. My best effort sucks. But so does Sephiroth. Asshole...

Air Dream Reset

It seems like I occasionally have periods of dreamless sleep, and then other times when I dream all night long and wake up remembering half of them. I am currently in the dreamhappy phase and I had loads of crazy dreams last night. I'll recount the one here that I remember the best.

I was at work, but we weren't actually in the place I work. The building was much taller and the walls were all windows so we had nearly a 180 degree view of downtown. Our office was on the top floor of the building and we were all busy at work when this bi-plane flies by doing aerial tricks within yards of our building. I think this part of the dream came from the stories my coworker, T, told us about the air show at their old office. Her company does the PR for the air show at the downtown airport and she said that sometime before the show the Blue Angels practice during the day and they used to be on the top floor of their office. She said it was pretty spooky because the planes would fly low and she'd always feel as if they were going to hit her when they flew over.

Anyway, in the dream, all of the planes in the air show were flying over and really close to the building. I got out my camera and was taking pictures, but then I saw one of the planes heading straight for us. I just knew it was going to hit. It was a small plane luckily, and we were already running by the time it hit, so we managed to make it to the stairs. I remember the entire trip out of the building fairly clearly, including pulling the fire alarm on the way down to alert everyone to evacuate.

Then, we were all standing outside watching the destruction and I remembered that I had left my laptop in our office. It had the only copy of probably two hundred pages of writing I had done and a whole bunch of other stuff that was irreplaceable. I couldn't believe I had left it up there. I was about ready to go back in when my coworker D dragged me back, reminding me that the place was probably an inferno by that point and unstable to walk through. (In real life, I do have most of my files from my laptop backed up, though this dream encouraged me to make sure.)

This is where the dream got cool. I was standing outside watching the building burn and kicking myself for not grabbing my laptop. I wasn't really upset about the expense of it, but I was devastated by all the hard work that I had put into the files on it. Then, suddenly, I was back in the office. The first biplane had just flown by. I had the chance to do it all over again. This time, when the plane that was going to crash was on its way I grabbed my laptop. I ran down the stairs and outside. Then, my parents showed up and I told them that I had used my special powers.

I mean, I've had dreams where you're half awake and you change the outcome because your conscious mind is influencing the dream, but this wasn't like that. And I even acknoledged the whole thing within the dream. It was awesome. Almost as cool as the dream I had where I was a telekinetic.

Design Misadventures #1

Since I have been posting a lot of these little design snippets lately, I've decided to make them into a series in order to more fully record the frustrations and creative new forms of torture I and my design cohorts often experience due to clients and vendors.

This is how the people fighting for our country make art:

Step One: Design ad in Powerpoint at the wrong dimensions.
Note: Artwork in Powerpoint is inherently RGB and 72 dpi (intended for screen art only, like slideshows.

Step Two: Print ad out in color.
Note: We have no idea what kind of printer this was printed on, but 72 dpi is not acceptable for printed artwork regardless.

Step Three: Scan printed ad so you can make it into a "digital pdf." (As opposed to an analog pdf?)

Step Four: Send "artwork" to graphic designer who will place your incorrectly sized, low resolution artwork complete with printer artifacting and a line through the middle into their layout.

Step Five: Load up on ammo and get ready to fend off an attack by several disgruntled graphic designers.

That's No Moon...That's a Kingdom Hearts

I finally picked up Kingdom Hearts II again and finished it. I'm going to keep this fairly vague so that lizalou doesn't get spoiled or anything, but I wanted to record my reactions.

I have to say that Xehanort is on my shit list for having far more forms and life bars than even a final boss should have. Plus, that dude has some scary lips. But, at the very least, I was grateful that he didn't go around saying, "Come into the darkness," every five seconds like Ansem did at the end of the first Kingdom Hearts. Boy was he a bitch though. That final form really pissed me off--especially with the Triangle/X alternating action at the end. Let's just say my carpal tunnel ain't doin' so hot today.

Christopher Lee is an amazing actor, but I believe the word he performs best is the word "fool." Apparently, the KH crew felt the same way since he managed to squeeze in the words "fool," "foolish," and "foolishness" before the end of the game more times than Ash did in Galerians. It was truly impressive. I don't claim to understand everything there is to know about Ansem, but I am pretty sure that he's a fool, whatever the case. In fact, he just might be a foolish fool.

Boy that Organization XIII is one clandestine organization. (I threw that in just for BBD in case he's reading.) They're so secretive I still don't entirely understand what they were after. I get the basics, but really what was the point of it all anyway? They made a heart shaped moon. And I'm going to make an educated guess it was made out of cheese as well considering the cheesiness of the dialogue--oh, and (here's another one for BBD) the pretentiousness as well. All of the Organization guys love their big words. It's almost painfully dense in the rare and antiquated vocabulary category. Come on guys, this is a kid's game! Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that most of the XIII guys are pretty hot. And we can't forget about Axel. Not all XIII members are given the same rigorous vocab training, it seems. Or maybe they are all given that training, but it just sticks better for some than others. This could shed some light on Axel's favorite catch phrase. Perhaps it is a byproduct of the trauma involved in remembering words. "Got it memorized?"

Poor Roxas. I've been saying that from the beginning, and though he didn't have an unhappy ending it left me feeling wistful. But I won't say more here in this mostly spoiler-free post. I'm sad to say that I really do like him better than Sora. But now I feel guilty for saying that. Sorry, Sora.

The Little Mermaid shall not be spoken of here, other than to mention I never want to hear about Ursula's poopsies again. I've also had just about enough of Seifer saying "Isn't this romantic?" because I went back and did the Struggle thing again thinking I'd get something good out of it but was sadly disappointed. I should have looked up the walkthrough before I wasted my time. I just had such hopes that there would be an extra Setzer something... I was also surprised that Rinoa never showed up after all--surprised, but relieved. Our luck her voice would probably be played by someone like Reba West (or whatever name she's going by now--why, oh why do English voice actors have SO MANY different names?!), although Minmei just might have been better than the chick who played Aeris. Ouch.

Overall I was very satisfied with the game--although some parts of Aladdin and Lion King had me ready to lose my lunch with the camera angle craziness (they got me almost as bad as Katamari Damacy). I have to say, though, that some points in the plot still left me a little confused. Maybe I'm missing something, but why are the creatures created from a person's missing heart called "Heartless" and the empty bodies left behind when a heartless is created is called a "Nobody." The nobodys have bodies and the heartless have hearts. Isn't that rather back asswards? And I thought the heartless were called that because they were what was left behind when a person lost their heart and there for had no heart. But now it seems that they do have hearts because half the point of this game was that while Sora was killing heartless he was releasing hearts and inadvertantly aiding the Organization's nefarious plan--whatever that was. I mean I know what they were trying to do, but I just don't get why exactly.

But in the end, the plot isn't so important to me. They certainly wrapped it up far better than I thought they would. In the end, it was about pretty people, adorable characters, fun gameplay and lots and lots of button mashing. I'll have to go back and play it again. Really. Because I should have known better than to choose "standard" mode. Maybe I'll just borrow neowolf's save point so I can see the extra secret ending in hi res...

Say What?

I'm trying to read some handwritten notes that were faxed over by a client. Ironically, one of the few things I can make out from the unintelligibly scrawled mess is this phrase: "increasingly difficult to decipher."

The irony hurts.

Poor Lonely Pluto

Pluto holds a special place in my heart--mostly because of Robotech and this line: "Life was returning to normal for the citizens of Macross City--if you can call normal living in a giant space ship near the orbit of Pluto." So, it is especially ironic, considering my most recent post, that Pluto was stripped of its planetary status today. (Incidentally, I am also a fan of Pluto because of Sephiroth's "supernova" attack in Final Fantasy VII. I don't know why that is "incidental" at all, but I couldn't help mentioning it.)

Frankly, it strikes me as a little silly that there are people out there debating whether or not Pluto is a planet while there are so many serious, catastrophic things going on the world. Obviously, I spend much of my time thinking about silly things too, so I don't have much room to talk, but my point is that I don't spend my research money thinking about them, and even if I did, my thoughts probably wouldn't make national news. And poor Pluto, anyway. I bet it's crying right now as it loops slowly around the sun on its lonely, distant orbit. Boo hoo. At least it has Charon to keep it company, eh?

If you are feeling Pluto's pain, maybe you should buy one of these bumper stickers. I can't believe someone's already created this when the news just hit today...

Read more about how Pluto got demoted here.

Robotech Sequel

Ah, I do love my Robotech. It's some good cheesy fun times. And though that last sentence didn't make any sense, it's okay because I'm talking about Robotech. Well, neowolf and I were reliving some of the Robotech joy last night and decided to research the wonderfully cheesy voice actors.

Robotech and Lupin III are among the small, very small, nearly microscopic collection of Anime that I can actually stand to watch in English. Of course, there is little choice with Robotech unless you want to watch one of the orginal Japanese series Harmony Gold reconstituted in order to create it. And, really, what would the story be without Minmei's horrid singing voice, Captain Gloval's Russian accent and the Narrator's constant melodramatic interruptions? Nowhere I'd want to be, at least. At any rate, I think it is no coincidence that most of the voice actors from Robotech also play roles in Lupin. This just might have something to do with why I like both of these English dubs.

After the reminder of how much we love these actors, we decided to look them up online and see what they looked like. We did a Google image search for Tony Oliver, the voice actor for Rick Hunter in Robotech. Obviously, "Tony Oliver" is not a highly unusual name, so we expected a few red herrings in the results. And yet, we both immediately chose the man who was in the second row from the top on the far left. And that was the correct Tony Oliver! It was like we already knew him somehow...

Here is a screencap of the results page:



In all of our researching, we noticed a similar thread. Many of the Robotech voice actors had "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles" listed in their credits, but we had never heard of it before. (Of course I thought first of the Shadows in Babylon 5.) As we soon learned though, this is a new movie scheduled to come out in November 2006--created 20 years after the orginal Robotech was made. We were ecstatic! It's new Robotech with all the same voice actors we know and love--though it looks like Cam Clark isn't on the roster which means no Max and no Yellow Dancer...sigh. But Scott looks hot. And I can't wait to hear him say "MARLEEEENE!"

Oh yeah! You kick ass, Harmony Gold. I can forgive you for the hideous text effects in Robotech's opening credits. You were true to the fans and managed to get the rights to the characters to make this. Thank you.

Check out the trailer

George and Mary

Salton is not a holy company. They produce cheap kitchen appliances, half of which have a tendancy to explode or fall apart quickly after their first use. I use the term "produce" loosely since they don't make anything themselves anymore; they buy all their products from a factory in China and the cartons, instruction manuals, etc are all produced there as well. This isn't unusual, and if we're listing corporate, Salton is certainly not the only sinner.

Regardless, some poor schmuck in St. Louis has found a claim to fame through the grease spot left behind by his hamburger on his George Foreman grill.



Here's the article from MSN:

Virgin Mary Spotted In Foreman Grill Tray

A St. Louis man claims to have seen an image of the Virgin Mary, but you're not going to believe where he says her face appears.

John Milanos was cooking a hamburger on his George Foreman Grill last week in Missouri.

After he was done he says the holy mother's face appeared in the leftover grease.
The grease was in a small plastic drip pan that catches the grease and other fluids that run off the grill.

Milanos saved the grease in his refrigerator so he could show his friends and the makers of the George Foreman Grill.

So far, the company has not responded to Milanos.

Click here for a full slideshow if you dare.

I really think this could be a new marketing tactic for Salton if they're up for it. The front of the Grill packaging already has an image of George holding up a sign that reads "Lean Mean Grilling Machine" or some variation of that phrase. Why not add the Virgin Mary as well, praying for your health?

Why not? I hope I really don't have to answer that question.

Birthday Shock

David Hasselhoff is a bit of a joke around our office. Ever since I shared his "Hooked on a Feeling" video with my coworkers, we have been obsessive Hoff-haters. We scrounge around for any bit of gossip on him and have endless fun at his expense. We came up with numerous outrageous explanations for his recent surgery on his wrist that were actually more believable than the official explanation. The official explanation goes like this, "He was shaving at a gym in the Sanderson Hotel when he hit his head on a chandelier, showering his arm with broken glass." Uh huh. Right.

Some of our other, more memorable exploits include making paper airplanes with his face on the wings from a template on a website and enjoying this game when we're frustrated at work: Wax Hoff

Still, my coworkers took this pastime to new heights today when they conspired to get me out of the room so they could place a picture in a frame on my desk. I walked back in and froze in horror when I saw the photoshopped image of the Hoff and I sitting innocently next to my computer. Wait, innocently? Not hardly. I screamed, and now so will you.



This all came about apparently because the Hoff and I share the same birthday. To paraphrase Quentin Tarantino from his appearance on Alias, "Have you ever regretted being born?" And now I can say that yes, I have--at least being born on that particular day.

Happy Quarter Century

Cue the confetti and streamers. That's right, it's my birthday and I'm at home enjoying my birthday present to myself of a vacation day. It's the perfect ending to a wonderful birthday weekend!

Saturday I celebrated Big Bold D's birthday as well as my own at a picnic he organized. It was HOT. But the food was excellent and the company was great, so the heat was bearable. And the water gun fights were entertaining. Nevertheless, I did take a shower when I got home.

I also got to spend some time with my cousin Brandi this weekend which was great since it's been awhile since I saw her last. We used to spend a week together every summer so it was nostalgic to hang out on my birthday weekend and stay up until 3:30 am talking. What perfect timing. She came into town to go on the Lenexa Midnight Bike Ride with my dad and it was a happy coincidence that it was also my birthday weekend. I'm really looking forward to that Chicago trip, btw, Brandi. :)

Sunday afternoon I had an informal gathering at my place. We made friends playing the Fruits Basket card game where everyone is a winner because they're all friends. It was cheesy goodness. We watched some season 5 episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation while playing, which only multiplied the cheesiness to a point somewhere off the cheesy scale. We watched "Disaster" and laughed at Worf trying to help Keiko deliver her baby and Captain Picard trying to relate to little children. Oh, and Geordi singing "I am the very model of a modern major general." But I don't think he can match Marcus' musical talent. ;)

Then, since we were already playing a game, we decided to watch the episode "The Game" and enjoy some Wesley cheesiness. That was the episode in which, according to Wil Wheaton, "Uncle Willy went to Booty Town" with Ashley Judd. Uh huh. Right. But the scene in which Troi makes a show of eating her triple chocolate sundae makes it all worth it (and became even funnier later when neowolf mimicked the scene while eating out of her bread bowl at Panera). But my favorite scene of that episode has to be when Wesley gets on the elevator with the nurse from sickbay and she's like, "I'm on level 47." Although the end when Data cures everyone with a strobing flashlight is pretty good too.

We ended the day with an episode of Samurai Champloo and a few episodes of Babylon 5.
All in all, I couldn't ask for a better birthday! I even got an email from lizalou today and that's always a treat! (I'm so happy you have the internet now, lizalou!) And Borders gave me a birthday coupon. How thoughtful of them. ;) I'm wearing my Hatsuharu hat right now (white side out) and my pendant made from an antique Chinese vase. And now I would like to leave you with a quote from the magnificent ST:TNG/X Men novel I got from neowolf and drjones.

"Now that I'm here, howzabout you show me that game you were tellin' me about--the one we didn't have time to play the last time?"
"Game?" said the Klingon.
"Yeah, what'd you call it... some kind o' holowhoozis?"
Worf suppressed a grin. "Ah, yes. My calisthenics program on the holodeck."
Wolverine pointed to him. "Yeah. That's the one."
He hooked Troi by the arm.
"Hey, Counselor--wanna join us fer some calisthenics?"

First of July

I helped out at neowolf's dad's fireworks show again this year, and this time we didn't get rained out. Last year it was so depressing because we put so much work into everything only to have a storm roll in right before the show and drench the place. We were running around like crazy people trying to salvage what we could and get to shelter before one of us got hit by lightning or something.

This year though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was hot and did I mention that it was hot? But it was still fun. We worked hard and got to take a break and drive back into town to let Toula out and play with her a bit before we picked up lunch for everyone. It was a welcome break and saved me from a probably very major headache.

The scariest part of the day was not when we were loading the 8" and 10" shells, though you might have thought it would be. No, it the scariest part was when we were putting foil over the mortars to keep sparks from setting off other fireworks. I was standing on the opposite side of a trailer from another guy who was helping out when neowolf stepped on the back end. The entire thing tipped suddenly and I literally thought I was going to die for a split second. It was disorienting more than anything, but when you're standing on a trailer full of explosives anything unexpected is enough to send your adrenaline through the roof. I felt a little sick to my stomach at the time, but we all laughed about it afterward--when we were away from the fireworks. ;)

The show went off with only a few hitches. Some of the fireworks were rescued from last year and acted a little strangely when they went off, including the one I was responsible for firing. The pond cake was on a little raft in the middle of the pond and it was on fire for most of the show. We didn't realize why until afterward. Apparently it set the raft on fire and by the end there was absolutely nothing left. But it looked pretty awesome during the show. I was also responsible for running the disco lights during the Chicago medley and that was a lot of fun. I honestly did very little, but they looked really cool.

It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. And boy did that shower feel good afterward. I swear I had an inch of grime, sweat and suntan lotion on my skin by the end of the day. Ewww...

Belated Father's Day

I know you're all probably wondering if I'm capable of writing, thinking or doing anything unrelated to my geeky obsessions. The answer is no... I mean YES. Yes, I can. Don't forget that personality test way back when labeled me as a "Modern, Cool Nerd."

Anyway, I had a very pleasant weekend and got to have a good time with the family. Our plans for Father's Day the weekend before were thwarted in many ways, but we were able to fully make up for them this weekend. Dad got his GPS back from Garmin--or should I say he got a new GPS? Apparently they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Anyway, I got up early and went to the 8:00 mass with my parents. The Wiz (that's our nickname for one of the priests at our church) had an awesome sermon, the music selection was good and I got to see some of my friends from choir and catch up on gossip before we left. It was uplifting and the weather was invigorating--sunshiny but not too hot with a nice, cool breeze.

We wanted to go geocaching around the downtown area, so we went to Napoleon's Bakery in Westport for breakfast and we beat the rush and had some awesome croissants. Then we caught a couple caches in Westport before heading toward downtown. We managed to find five caches in all (and I found the first one myself!). It was a lot of fun, especially the last one we did in the Union Hill cemetery. Now, I know you're thinking "Why was the cemetery the most fun?" I'm not that morbid...not really. It was fun because this was a really old cemetery and some of those gravestones are really elaborate and awesome. The coolest part about it was this one grave though that a tree had grown around. The headstone was partially embedded in the tree and there was a knot in the tree higher up that looked like the profile of someone's face. The irony of the whole thing was that the name of person buried there was "Wood." Creepy, huh?

A Novel Beginning

My Devil May Cry obsession continues... And the fact that I just picked up the first Devil May Cry novel on Tuesday doesn't help this addiction any. I just finished reading the book last night, and I have to say that they managed to turn Dante into one angsty devil. Damn. It's sort of a prequel to the prequel game (DMC3) and it explains a lot of things about the games that were always a bit vague. Such as why Dante's guns have the inscription "for Tony Redgrave" on them. The answers weren't at all what I would have expected either.

When I first bought the book I was thinking that I might have to rethink some things in my story depending on what the novel revealed about the DMC-verse, but after finishing it I've decided that I'll keep my own AU version pretty much the same. I may reference a few things, but I like the way I imagine the relationship between Vergil and Dante better than the way it is in the book. Let me rephrase: I like both ways, but I'd rather write it my way. My way or the highway and all...

I almost didn't buy the book at all because when I did my cursory scan/flip through, I couldn't find Dante's name anywhere. I thought, "Oh sure, they just wrote a novel about some new character that we've never seen before in the DMC-verse. How boring is that?" But then I decided to give it a try anyway. I'm glad I did because it turns out the character named "Tony" is Dante after all. He doesn't remember who he really is for most of the book because his father's sword told him to forget his name after his mother died. That's not weird at all. Nope. Not at all. ;) It's really not all that weird if you've played the games. There are quite a few possessed weapons.

All in all, the story was really interesting and it showed some of Dante's vulnerabilities, as well as his unusual code of honor. And boy was it angsty... Dante's got a little bit of the typical superhero "everyone I love gets hurt" syndrome going on. And what's with Vergil? What a freaktard... And a dork. Like no one's going to think Gilver has anything to do with Vergil. "I'll just cut my name in half and switch the halves around. No one will ever know...BWHAHAHAHA..."

Though I think the translation might have had a few issues and I found multiple typos and grammar issues, I really enjoyed the novel and can't wait to read the next one. I wonder where it will take place in the series? I would like to see one that includes Trish...