Bren and Pina made it back safely from the shore. Bren continues his experiments with wind and light materials. Pina is not sure she likes this new "smug, confident Matt" (as seen last post, see below).
Chuck won a Nerd Award. All the nerds get together and have little nerd arguments over what the best nerd stuff is, and as a group they decided Chuck wrote one of the best electronic gaming books this year. Good job and congratulations to him. Nerd.
Mikey blew through town again, long enough to make me go see Star Wars: Clone Wars with him. I apparently need people to tell me "we should go see X movie" because I missed the Indiana Jones movie, the Hulk movie, and conceivably could have missed The Dark Knight had Barry not intervened. Clone Wars is totally not as bad as you've been hearing. It's a fun, fairly light-hearted cartoon about Star Wars. There's a lot of fun futuristic violence, and Jedi Knight fighting you can't do outside of animation or CGI. I'm not saying it was amazing, or even finely crafted or anything. It was just a fun flick. Haters need to calm down and accept. Waiting for DVD? That's cool. I had very low expectations going in, and left pretty happy.
I'm hungry. What's for lunch?
--12:32 PM, EDT, Holland, PA, what do we do when a sprog acts a fool?
Last night there was this party.
See, Jeff used to be a partner here at my office. He interviewed me on my first visit to the office. But, sometime between then and my offer, Jeff decided to set off on his own and open a new firm. I think we were co-workers for one week before he moved to Newtown as a founding partner of Cevallos and Wong.
Cevallos is a guy who also used to work here at the office, and has been on his own for a while. He does guest spots on CN8, sometimes opines in the Metro op/ed roundtables, and apparently teaches classes sometimes at Drexel.
So, they had this party to announce their new firm, down in the city. At one of those crazy hip expensive joints with $14 cocktails, terribly attractive staff, and a VIP lounge. We were in the lounge. I did not think this made me a VIP.
I congratulated Jeff and Danny, apologized for the rest of my office's failure to show up (excuse: past their bedtime), gave Danny an office-warming gift, and helped myself to some free booze. Well, after paying for a $14 screwdriver, I felt I had a few free ones coming to me.
The above is just prologue. So, I'm hanging out, wondering how young these people are, if they're lawyers or just related to the practice of law somehow, when this young lady asks me about court reporters. It's a random question that I just happen to be able to answer. We discuss things for a while. It's excellent party small talk. She's lovely. Her friend is considering law school, so we talk with her a while.
I mention I should be going (I took the train, just in case I drank a lot of free vodka) and she says okay. She then -- and I just want to emphasize this, for the folks in the cheap seats -- she then reaches into my shirt pocket for my business card, which she takes, and writes her name and info upon. She then slides it back into my shirt pocket and tells me to look her up sometime.
I love Philadelphia.
--5:02 PM, EDT, Holland, PA, let's hope I remember where the close tag for italics goes this time
This amused me. There is harsh language in the link, heads up.
--11:46 AM, EDT, Holland, PA, that's how I roll
Google Ads suggests the following, based on the content of my e-mails:
"Free 14 pack of Pringles - www.healthierlifestyleoptions.com"
First off, I'm not writing about Pringles, or chips, or junk food, or snacks or anything even vaguely related to Pringles. Secondly, I don't think a boatload of Pringles should be available from a website called "healthierlifestyleoptions.com."
But that's just me. And I'm probably not your go-to guy for anything "healthy."
--9:13 AM, EDT, Holland, PA, we have blue eyes, we have green eyes, we have grey eyes
Omnia moderatio
written 2008-08-08 10:16:25
Or some dead language to that effect.
So, Barry tells me he catches up with people on Facebook. And Chuck says there's networking to be done on there. And my colleagues at work say it's a good tool for keeping your name out there. So I signed up for it.
Holy crap, there's a lot of stuff going on there. First off, at my age, there are a lot of people you've known and lost track of. Classically, you meet these people again at weddings, in airports, or in wholly unlikely situations lending themselves to sitcom or rom-com plot devices. Today, you add them as a friend on Facebook and then receive constant updates as to what kind of bagel they are getting today. Secondly, there's a bunch of little games and features and doo-dads for you to screw around with -- but forget that, look at all those people. I've been on for about three days or so, and I have close to 100 "friends."
I'm not comfortable with it, but then again I wasn't really comfortable with WoW, and see where that got me. It's not a replacement for real contact and real friendship. It's a tool for organizing relationships and contacts, and that's probably important to remember.
Must get some housework done this weekend. The apartment wasn't nearly as clean as I hoped for company. Though, I had a look around and I realized that my apartment only has cabinets in the kitchen. No hutches, nowhere to put cleaning supplies, no closets (other than the dwarf-sized one and the cat-box one), no shelves. And I brought in very little in the way of organizing furniture. As a result, even with perfect organization and consolidation of space, my apartment probably looks like a crazy person lives there. I'll get Barry's opinion on that when I can reach him -- he's a busy dude. Somewhere, I'm sure he's wearing two layers of clothes in 106 degree heat and complaining about how mild it is.
I'm sure of it.
--10:10 AM, EDT, Holland, PA, this is grace in gravity
First off, Happy Chuck Wendig Day. No, it's not a birthday, or an anniversary, he's just so awesome that they declare holidays in his name now.
Secondly, congratulations to Kristy on her enormous crowd of park-goers, who came out to see As You Like It. She was excellent, as those of you who have seen her in action can attest. Her co-star was adorable, but Kristy fell down on the job and did not get me a date with her. Seriously, is it too much for a guy to ask for his friend to trick her colleague into breaking up with her boyfriend just prior to a cast party and just happen to meet an attractive and single lawyer who just happens to be available later that week?
Is it?
Barry left. He said something about this area "not being as cool as" when he lived here. He's right, of course. You may have noticed the area was considerably more hip for about four days. That was Barry. He does that. It was excellent having him about, and having him suggest things like "let's go see The Dark Knight instead of doing laundry" which is an obvious genius move. He tried to indicate that I should visit him in Dallas by mentioning how many times his buddy DJ had been to Dallas. I naturally countered with, "%#&* that. I moved there for a year." But he's right, a visit would be good.
Mikey stopped in briefly, then flew to Germany.
And we're roleplaying again. Just restarted the Changeling game. As always, Chuck goes from zero to sixty in nothing flat. I fear he will next turn it up to 11.
--9:38 AM, EDT, Holland, PA, he promised her the sun and the moon, now all she has is this six by eight room
I have to change my header and slug. They've been the same since fa-eva.
Work is work.
Spent most of this weekend at 1437 providing comic books and rides around the greater Philadelphia area. I've got to install WoW on my laptop if I go spend another weekend over there, since I think Jen would kill me after Chris started spending even more time playing video games once I installed it on their machine.
There is a new Heroclix set. Since I don't yet have a storage system for the last set, I should really address that situation. Particularly since I think I'm going to make Barry sleep in the game room. "Don't move these, they're all in order and can't be adjusted. I have nowhere to put these stacks of card boxes, so, just try to curl up somewhere over there. Ooh, don't touch that."
I hope Mikey comes to visit soon. I have some RAM sitting around, not making my computer run faster, and I bet he could help with that. (Obviously, I would just like to see Mikey, but I can accomplish stuff too at the same time. Without feeling guilty. Or manipulative. You shut up.)
A quote from Alice Thomas Ellis: There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.
I don't know if I've used "header" and "slug" correctly above.
--12:37 PM, EDT, Holland, PA, It's stupid how we always seem to do it again
Barry will be visiting the area in about a week, staying a week or so.
He'd love to see people who are conveniently situated. Mark your calendars. We'll hang out.
--10:06 AM, EDT, Holland, PA
Happy birthday, Mom!
--12:21 PM, EDT, Holland, PA
And the only prescription is more cowbell. Okay, not really. Nor do I have a high temperature or anything.
First, this: Chess-boxing. No, really.
Attention infrequent internet users! When reading the above sentence, the part in blue (or other non-standard color) is a link, and you may click on it to read something on another page that I found interesting or otherwise relevant in some way. This has been a public service message.
Heard a set by Dar Williams from the XPN XPonential Music Festival live on the radio. It was like being reassured that there was meaning and hope in the world.
Reading Quixote by Bryan Glass, which I picked up at Wizard World and still haven't polished off. Reading Freddy and Fredericka which I have only been reading on breaks at work - it must mean I'm working too hard if I haven't finished it yet.
Playing a tremendous, obscene amount of World of Warcraft. I justify this lifestyle choice by submitting that I have already paid for an entire month of the game, and by annihilating chunks of my life playing online games I'm saving money by not going out and spending money I don't have on things I don't need. Sometime in the next few months I'll post my "I quit" message and, if I'm not too ashamed, I'll post the "amount of time played, total" that the game will tell you if you ask for it. No one ever asks for it, because of the shame.
I almost became Batman this week. While sitting in my study, pondering how criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, a bat flew in my window. Now, as most of the hardcore know, Bruce Wayne has this experience and decides to become a terrifying symbol to intimidate evil men. However, if Bruce had not been wearing a shirt and the bat had landed on his bare back and he shrieked like a little girl, he may have become a very different hero. Possibly the "Throw Something Living On Criminals' Bare Sensitive Flesh Man" or something similar.
Suffice to say, I will not be fighting crime anytime soon.
--7:45 PM, EDT, Newtown, PA, the play was called the Unicorn, and she was the Unicorn, which means the star of the play was my babysitter
[ archives | front page ]
