Author: gala5931

One year left on the lease. I drive this. ($19K) I’ve been considering this, (low $20K’s) but we’ll see how it looks in real life come October. The other day, Her Worshipfulness saw a commercial which offered a low price, and thought we should get this ($17 K). My boss seems to think he pays me enough to suggest I look at this ($30K), but he clearly hasn’t looked at a budget report recently. So, anyone got any recommendations?

I got to play with the robot today. They had an open house for the thing and they let employees give it a go — not bad for the new bazillion dollar surgical tool. I gave it a whirl, sticking my face in the camera hole, reaching tentatively towards the controls. They had what I assume were custom training materials set up for demo purposes, and I spent a few minutes moving tiny rubber bands around through a series of colorful rubber polyps the surgeon affectionately referred to as “Whoville”. I was well-prepared for the inevitable, that my vast experience in the world of videogaming would give me apparently preternatural skills with the thing and the doctors would all crowd around in awe of the rookie’s mad robot skills. Fortunately for their egos, they were occupied with something else and did not see my magnificent display.

Watched a whole football game yesterday. Went to a friend’s house with the intent of watching a football game, watched said football game, enjoyed the aforementioned football game.

My friend became embarrassed several times after screaming at the television quite loudly. I told him not to worry about it, that he had no reason to be embarrassed, that it’s his place after all, etc.

Still he felt shame, until this commercial for the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 came on, at which I point I began screaming at the television. A look of surprise and barely-concealed bemusement came over his face as he politely asked about the upcoming title.

After that, the TV began to whimper in anticipation of the no-holds-barred tongue-lashing it was going to receive for the next three quarters. The TV was last seen rocking itself to sleep in a corner, telling itself everything would be alright.

Watched a whole football game yesterday. Went to a friend’s house with the intent of watching a football game, watched said football game, enjoyed the aforementioned football game.

My friend became embarrassed several times after screaming at the television quite loudly. I told him not to worry about it, that he had no reason to be embarrassed, that it’s his place after all, etc.

Still he felt shame, until this commercial for the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 came on, at which I point I began screaming at the television. A look of surprise and barely-concealed bemusement came over his face as he politely asked about the upcoming title.

After that, the TV began to whimper in anticipation of the no-holds-barred tongue-lashing it was going to receive for the next three quarters. The TV was last seen rocking itself to sleep in a corner, telling itself everything would be alright.

A clutch of my amigos (all of whom write for webshite, I believe) have

been sucked into a black vortex known as World of Warcraft. I do not

play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games for a variety of

reasons, nor do I have any interest in high fantasy games, or mayhaps

I might have joined them. Fortunately for my sanity and carpal

tunnel, I did not.

I tried to explain MMORPG’s to Her Worship the other day. It went

along these lines:

A: So, it’s a videogame, but it’s not linear or plot-driven. You walk

around and do whatever.

HW: And you can do whatever you want?

A: Just about. If you do anything too nuts, an admin shows up as a

god and smacks you around a bit.

HW: Yeah, yeah. But you can just wander around in the world?

A: If you want. Usually there’s some kind of over-arching plot, but you can…

HW: Like Pern?

At this point, our hero starts to get grandiose ideas of getting Her

Worshipfullness into MMORPGs, of needing to buy a gaming rig to handle

the games, one of those hot Alienware PCs, and we’d spend nights

together in the gameroom, me on the Xbox, her on the ALX. And it

would be joyous.

A: Sure. So you would be a merchant or a dragonrider or whatever you

want. Just existing in the Pern universe.

HW: Can you imagine the time it must have taken to program all that?

Every person in every town?

A: Well, the people are other players.

HW: What?

A: Yeah, you know. People from all over, just like you, playing the game.

HW: Well, fuck that.

A clutch of my amigos (all of whom write for webshite, I believe) have

been sucked into a black vortex known as World of Warcraft. I do not

play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games for a variety of

reasons, nor do I have any interest in high fantasy games, or mayhaps

I might have joined them. Fortunately for my sanity and carpal

tunnel, I did not.

I tried to explain MMORPG’s to Her Worship the other day. It went

along these lines:

A: So, it’s a videogame, but it’s not linear or plot-driven. You walk

around and do whatever.

HW: And you can do whatever you want?

A: Just about. If you do anything too nuts, an admin shows up as a

god and smacks you around a bit.

HW: Yeah, yeah. But you can just wander around in the world?

A: If you want. Usually there’s some kind of over-arching plot, but you can…

HW: Like Pern?

At this point, our hero starts to get grandiose ideas of getting Her

Worshipfullness into MMORPGs, of needing to buy a gaming rig to handle

the games, one of those hot Alienware PCs, and we’d spend nights

together in the gameroom, me on the Xbox, her on the ALX. And it

would be joyous.

A: Sure. So you would be a merchant or a dragonrider or whatever you

want. Just existing in the Pern universe.

HW: Can you imagine the time it must have taken to program all that?

Every person in every town?

A: Well, the people are other players.

HW: What?

A: Yeah, you know. People from all over, just like you, playing the game.

HW: Well, fuck that.

The tag came off the back of my tie today, but I really can’t bitch too much. You see, I went back to my home town of Merrimack, NH for a wedding several months ago. My mom no longer lives in Merrimack, but my brothers do, so I crashed with one of them. Had the suit, the shoes, the handkerchief, but forgot the tie. By some miracle, my brother had a few ties. I picked the most conservative. I packed the most conservative. Unintentionally.

Now, one might think I would remember to bring the tie to Thanksgiving to return it to him. One would be wrong. One would be correct, though, if one thought that I would accidentally abscond with the same brother’s snow-scraper.

Chew on this. I’m a classics nerd, and therefore will ofttimes cite Homer as my favorite author. My favorite artist? Winslow Homer. Nickname of close friend? Homer*. Unfortunately, my favorite Simpson’s character is Moe and my best sports moment was making a save in gym class floor hockey, so it’s not enough to be a full obsession. More of a streak, I guess. Still — weird. I like stuff called Homer.

*Why not “favorite”? Grown men don’t have favorite friends.

You know what sucks? Aspiring to write and watching Carnevale. I’ve got some catching up to do.

A co-worker asked what I did this weekend. When I told her I watched Carnevale last night, she asked what kind of show it is. Being far too pavloved to say “well, I guess it would be classfied as urban fantasy, even though it’s not in a city, but that seems to be the term used for anything fantasy that isn’t high fantasy with like elves and stuff, and it’s definitely not sci-fi, so I guess I’d say urban fantasy / alternate history” to a normal person, I found myself at a loss. I ended up saying “almost like spiritual, I guess” then trying to back-pedal forthwith. Just what I need: the “jesus-freak” moniker in the workplace. Spiritual… what was I thinking?

Went to work for a bit today. The office is weird on the weekends. An hour feels like half a shift. This means that you get all kinds of work done, but also that you look at the clock every two minutes. I’ve got a deadline on Friday and lots to do before then, so I figured I’d give the old Xbox a well-deserved break this afternoon.

Does anyone know the Seven Habits of Highly Effective people? Is one of them “plays a lot of videogames”? If it weren’t so cold, maybe I’d be doing something in real life (like sitting on the porch), but until then the digital realm will likely be by residence.