| Halloween! |
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| 01:40pm 27/10/2009 |
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I am filled with the urge to give candy to small children in adorable costumes.
Given the caveat that I am not going to give out full-size candy bars, what was your favorite candy as a kid? I used to hoard Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, so maybe I'll give those out.
(Man, sometimes I would still have candy left in *March*, although by March all that was left was candy I didn't really want... I was willing to trick-or-treat for hours and hours and hours, which is odd given my general unwillingness to do anything.) |
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Read 14 - Post |
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| In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only vacation. |
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| 02:33pm 19/03/2009 |
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I get six weeks off this fall and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it.
So far I have:
* Actually go to Iceland
* Go to Argentina
* Take a train across the country (or some portion of it)
* Randomly drive around the country, going to small towns and goofy things like the World's Largest Ball of Twine
* Have seen Montana
* Drive to Alaska or Yellowknife
* Take a cruise
* Go to the Mall of America or the West Edmonton Mall
I feel like that's more than I can do in three weeks. (I also kind of want to spend a week in Boston so that I can actually see people, and two weeks in NJ doing nothing.)
I'm also not sure if I should be taking this August-September or September-October. The weather will be nicer if I take it later, but if I take it earlier, I won't have to listen to my parents complaining about how I never go down the shore with them. Also it would be easier to watch baseball games in random places. But do I really want to be driving around Tennessee in 100 degree heat? |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| My life, at least this past week. |
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| 11:29pm 05/02/2009 |
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Hey, I never update. Hi, livejournal.
This past weekend, I spent something like 12 hours working from home. Fortunately, part of why I spent so much time was that I was working with ginormous files, so it proceeded something like, "Click button. Play Disgaea for twenty minutes. Check status. Play Disgaea. Click another button." Unfortunately, I did not go to the Super Bowl party, which was sad. However, I was pretty stressed out from this work thing, so I think it was better that I chilled at home.
I also went to bed at roughly 10pm. This was, to a first approximation, the best thing ever. Unfortunately for my lifestyle, I think my body really wants to sleep from 10pm-7am. This is completely incompatible with my life, which *drives me insane*. But every once in a while I manage to get a day free when I can do this (or more accurately, every once in a while I'll cancel something I've already committed to), and I feel so great the next morning.
Monday I stayed at work until 11:45pm, thereby ruining any efforts to get sleep for the rest of the week. (Uh, work is kind of busy...)
Tuesday and Wednesday I had gaming runs. I have never seen a plot won with makeouts before, but whatever; we lived. (And this was *not* the run with the pimp.)
Just now, I got back from my C2 square dance class. I am very happy to be taking this class. Because it is new material, I will actually go every week. This is good, because a.) I like square dancing, and b.) it is at least slightly more exercise than sitting down and reading for two hours. Tuesday squares would be much more like exercise, but I very rarely end up both a.) free, and b.) having any energy on Tuesdays. Or Wednesdays. Or any other day.
I will say, though, that the Funny concept is terrible. I hate Funny. Possibly it will grow on me. |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| 10:32pm 15/01/2009 |
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Today I did not get laid off. I enjoy not being laid off. Well, um, that may not be the correct way to word that. I do not like layoffs, but if we have to have them, I like continuing to be employed.
Tomorrow is Mystery Hunt! It will be insane. |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Mall mall mall mall mall |
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| 07:15pm 30/12/2008 |
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I just spent what felt like 12 hours but was probably only six at the mall with my just-turned-16-year-old cousin. This caused me to go into a lot of stores I don't usually go into.
Minus the fact that the Willowbrook Mall doesn't have a gothic Lolita shop, it's actually pretty much like The World Ends With You. There's the skater shop. (It may actually have been a snowboarder shop.) There's the super expensive shop. There's the mundane place with no bright colors.
And being in the mall made me realize that The World Ends With You is a terrible model of clothes shopping. Does anybody actually ever wear all Brand X head to toe? I can never find shirts that fit me and pants that fit me in the same store. (Note: This was true before I was fat, although being spherical doesn't help.) And I don't care how thin Shiki is, she still spends six hours trying to find that shirt in the correct size.
Actually, thank God that The World Ends With You is a terrible model of clothes shopping.
Weirdly, going to the mall is healthy for me. Nothing ever fits me, so I don't come out having spent $500 on clothing, and I spend N hours walking. And actually, the EB didn't even have the video game I wanted, so I didn't spend money on anything except lunch.
(I did have a good time. I'm just quite tired.) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Tick Tock |
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| 02:42pm 28/12/2008 |
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I saw two of my high school friends last night. {{Random non-English removed.}} Some part of me is happy I only see them every six months, since we have such a good time catching up. We completely missed the movie we were planning to see, and we ended up in the Tick Tock Diner till 4:15 am.
The Tick Tock is where we used to go to hang out in high school. I'm glad it's still there. It's good to have someplace that will let you sit and talk all night and bring you more french fries when you get hungry again. Also, it's fun to people-watch after the clubs close. |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| 11:30pm 25/12/2008 |
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Wow. I got so many things off of my Amazon wishlist. It was crazy. I have so many books!
I may go buy myself a Nintendo DS game, though. :) I didn't get any of those.
I did get five hats. (Which is actually good. I lose hats at an incredible rate.) |
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| Christmas Eve |
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| 01:40pm 24/12/2008 |
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I was so cold last night I couldn't sleep. I'm giving my electric blanket a hug when I get back.
The usual ridiculous pile of presents is everywhere. The adults having decided to do a secret santa doesn't appear to have helped any. (And why do I not count as an adult?! You know how I am. This just made me feel guilty worrying that people were going to buy me presents! You'd think, "I have a job and have been buying everyone my own presents for two years" would push me up into the "adult" bucket.)
For some bizarre reason, I ended up doing like half of my father's shopping for my mother. I've never seen him so "Augh what do I buy?!" before. He ended up getting her an iPod, which I hope she likes. But she *should* like it as long as she's willing to use it. She does a lot of knitting and similar stuff, so music should be good. (Uh, so, what my mother actually wanted was for my dad to hire someone to fix the front steps. This is a ritual in my family. Every time there's a present-giving occasion, All My Mother Wants is for my dad to pay someone to take care of some chore that needs to get done, and my father refuses to do it. I don't understand it at all. I don't understand why my father won't do it, and I don't understand why my *mother* won't do it, since she's the one who actually cares. So instead my mother's getting an iPod.)
Tonight's dinner comes courtesy of the Internet - lobster pot pies. We've had them before. They're tasty. |
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| Home for Christmas |
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| 11:19pm 22/12/2008 |
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Today, I logged into Athena after a long day of doing stuff, and I was so overwhelmed by the backlog of zephyrs and e-mails that I logged back out. I think I need to unplug for a while. So if you don't see me online, I'm not dead or anything.
I never post to LJ anymore. This drives me nuts, but I don't manage to change this. I have a lot of people who I have as lj friends but don't actually see regularly, and I like reading about *their* lives. But I never really say what's going on in mine.
So, um. I'm alive. I still work at Autodesk. I bought a car back in May but I think I posted about that. It looks like I'll be starting next year in four different tabletops. I'm also starting a C2 square dance class, which will hopefully teach me C1.
I managed to get home to NJ before the snow crushed everything, by virtue of getting up at 6am and driving at 80mph whenever feasible. If I hadn't second-guessed myself and turned around when I should have kept going, I'd have made it home by 9:45, which would have been before any snow started falling. As it was, I got in just as it was starting to stick. Win for me. Also this meant I only had to shovel like 4 inches of NJ snow instead of a foot of MA snow.
Despite my plans, I have *not* played any Evil Genius so far this vacation. This is mostly because the eee boots up in five seconds and I can use it on the couch without having to plug it in or anything, while my real laptop takes several minutes to boot, needs to be plugged in at all times, and shuts off if I sneeze, apparently. (The real laptop will be 6 this Christmas! It's named 77-pieces. It was supposed to be 77-pieces-of-MAGI but that was too long. By extension, the eee should either be named Heart-MAGI, or Dad-what-are-you-doing-here. I'm sure none of you get that, but trust me, *I'm* laughing.) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Today's driving lesson |
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| 03:21pm 18/11/2008 |
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Don't bother getting into the right turn lane when driving in Central Square. You will just confuse the people making right turns from the left lane. |
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| Driving in Virginia |
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| 10:51am 02/07/2008 |
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Fireworks are apparently legal in VA. There were big stands at the side of the road. I wanted to buy a pile just because _I could_, but buying them in VA does not actually make them legal in MA. (Unless they're secretly legal here too, but that seems unlikely.)
The part of Virginia my aunt lives in was clearly planned for cars. The roads are always at least two lanes wide*. There are dedicated left-turn-only lanes with their own light. There are even right-turn-only lanes. Of course, the speed limit is only 45 miles per hour, so I can't actually *do* the 85mph the road is *clearly* calling for.
I've concluded that when I complain that a place is "too flat", what I mean is "I can see too much of the sky / where are all the buildings?" I'm not used to places where the developers felt like they had space and didn't have to crunch up everything close together. Reston has a little shopping district where the buildings are deliberately tall, and the streets are deliberately one lane in each direction, and that was the only place which felt "normal" to me**.
(Oh. I was visiting my dad's side of the family, who I hadn't seen in a couple of years. My aunt has Maine Coons. They were kind of awesome. I would probably not actually ever get a purebred cat, but if I ever get a cat at all, I will probably hope I can get a part-coon one.)
* This is awesome except when you go, "Oh god I need to make a left here not a right" and you have to make four lane changes to accomplish this.
** I know I say I want a lot of alone-time, but maybe I mean I want anonymous-time. I do not think I would be happy in a rural area***. What would I *do*? (Or perhaps, "Where would I order dinner from?")
*** Reston is not "rural" by any stretch of the imagination. But even in Reston I was going, "Ack you have to drive to get anywhere!" (Actually, as they develop more, I think that's becoming untrue. They're apparently putting in some kind of shopping a block from my aunt's house. I'm also not convinced the Shaw's equivalent was any farther away down there than it is up here.) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Home! Uh, sort of. |
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| 08:24am 30/05/2008 |
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I am at my parents' house. (Which I guess is still sort of my house since they haven't moved in the last twenty years.) I'm going to try to visit my high school today. I hear they've done a lot of renovations and whatnot, and I haven't been there since, uh, 2001.
So a question for the floor: Do you consider your parents' house to be "your" house? Why or why not? |
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Read 15 - Post |
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| 02:32pm 19/03/2008 |
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Now that I'm 25, am I allowed to start saying, "Ugh. I'm too old for this"? :) |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| Intercon! |
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| 11:14am 04/03/2008 |
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So I went to Intercon Friday night and Saturday morning, so that I could help run Muppet Purgatory.
It was *madness*. Imagine for a second that you have written a three or four hour game, but you have only allotted two hours for it. Now imagine that all of the characters are Muppets (with the exception of the guest star.) Also imagine that half of the players are playing three to ten characters each. And there is one giant costume pile for everyone to use. You are probably only vaguely imagining the sort of chaos that occurred backstage. Or onstage.
I have *never* had so much fun watching a game. I spent a fair amount of the game clutching my hat in horror, but it was still *awesome*.
This game was much more high-energy than I realized. (We had one allergy-attack, one crap-I-did-not-get-a-full-breakfast blood-sugar crash, and one too-many-decibels-must-lie-down headache.) I think the number of casualties in games I write now exceeds the number of games I have written.
The players were fantastically enthusiastic and I was floored at how much energy they put into playing the various characters. (Even the horde characters with three-line character descriptions were played with a sort of frenetic exuberance! It was great!)
The skits they put on got much better as the show went on (We did not give them enough prep time at the beginning.) A lot of them seemed to suffer from Help Where Is My Ending, as in they would put on a great 45 second skit but then it would keep going for another five minutes. But still. Enthusiasm!
I hope that the players actually enjoyed themselves. (Especially after they got a chance to sleep and think about it later.)
For one final thought, picture the Muppets doing a production of Springtime for Hitler.
(Note: Game is not dead, although it's not like there's a lot to spoil.) |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| 01:29pm 15/02/2008 |
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Happy Discount Candy Day, world! |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Sci-fi marathon! |
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| 10:16am 29/01/2007 |
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I went to the science fiction marathon, although we left after _The Dark Crystal_. I still have not seen _The Wrath of Khan_, but I hear these things called DVDs exist. I had seriously expected _Fantastic Planet_ to give me nightmares, but it didn't. (It's not a horror movie, but everything was strange and alien and the artwork was creeping me out.)
Also, I am sorry to announce this, but Lego Star Wars II is not as good as Lego Star Wars I. The levels are longer, which I would have thought would be _good_, but it mostly just makes me say, "Are we _there_ yet?" Also, the original trilogy just ... doesn't translate into "videogame" as well. (Of course, this means they're good _movies_ ...) There are two levels where Player 2 spends 95% of the time stuck as R2, who _can't do anything useful_. |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| Generic update. |
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| 05:55pm 15/01/2007 |
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So ... this week I went to work. Work is work.
I finally went to Squares after ~3 weeks of not going. Man, I break down squares _so often_. But in a month, there will be class starting up again, and then there will be some squares I will not break down.
There was Mystery Hunt. I was on Mayhem. For great ridiculousness, I went to bed 'early' on Friday (10:30pm) and then woke up at 3am to go puzzle overnight. (Where by "woke up", I mean, "Karl woke me up and poured coffee into me until I was conscious.") I was more calm about Hunt this year than I was last year. Also, I got to work usefully on three or four puzzles, and uselessly on a bunch more. Hunt seemed to end way early, but hey, I got Sunday free that way.
(Do I know anybody on the team that won?)
And, I finally saw some more episodes of Monty Python, thus continuing my quest to the collective level of media awareness.
Aaaaaand, I think I've started playing FF12 again. "Oops." But maybe now I'll win it. |
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