Monthly Archives: June 2007

Note to self

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Having the majority disgree with you does not automatically mean that you are crazy.

Having your beliefs, ethics, reactions or personal ideology questioned does not automatically mean you are crazy.

Being the only person who vocally objects to something does not automatically mean you are crazy.

Please work on adjusting that reaction, it is built on a false premise. This is not a form of attack. You are not crazy, and sane, normal adults are not questioning that. Fight-or-flight reflexes are an improper response.

However, people who follow up any of the above actions by repeatedly insisting you are crazy to justify themselves still get punched in the mouth.

On MMO’s and social networks.

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As most of you know at this point, I play Worlds Of Warcraft. A “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game”.

Now this is the part that a lot of folks dont understand. I take it seriously.

Not “OMG I must be online and in game 24/7 365 days!” kind of seriously, although there are some who do. If I have a better offer, hell yeah I’ll walk away and go. But I am a member of a good Guild (a player team for those who dont know this sort of game), and Im an officer within that guild, and take that responsibility to heart. I’ve spent enough time chatting with my fellow members, via text and voice server, to consider 99.9% of my guildmates friends. Some very very good friends.

I like spending time with friends. I like being a member of this HUGE community of players (Blizzard Games is reporting 8 Million subscribers at this point). MMOs have done something unthinkable since the release of the at-home game console. They have given gamers a social world all their own, full of like minded folks.

Some folks think sitting in front of a computer playing a video game all day is antisocial behavior. My ex-roommates certainly did. But in MMOs, that is completely untrue. The chatter never ends to be honest, in some cases reach the point of it being unwelcome. These are real people out there, with real lives and real issues. So what if the communication isn’t face to face? It’s still there, on a global level. It’s extremely social. People give each other gifts, help each other meet their goals, squabble over objects and fight to the death. Thanks to the MMO’s I’ve played over the years, I’ve made friends in Australia, Sweden, Norway, France and Japan. I also have friends in the game who live in the next building and just across town. Some I’ve lost track of, some I still chat with daily.

Yesterday was the 40th birthday of a good in-game friend. As a mark of the affection so many of us hold for him, we pooled our resources and bought him a gift. His epic flying mount. For ungamers, to buy this requires weeks of rather tedious money-making work. S could have had it by now probably, but he is so generous in giving people the help they need, in both time and resources, he doesn’t save for himself. He cried when we gave it to him, each of us sitting at a desk, far far away, with the same stupid grin plastered across our faces.

My Sister-in-Law will probably never understand. Yes, it’s just a game. But it is serious. Serious in that you can and do make real, heartfelt connections. It’s a world where no one is a geek, a weirdo… because we all are.

You can make the best friends you’ve ever had while Over The Rainbow.

See you in Oz.

Cool air and hot shows

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Today we picked up and installed an air conditioner in Limbo.

The hot is already coming on strong here, and mine just didnt fit in these teeny windows. So for three times the price we bought a “vertical” model. It does however keep the place cool, which is very much better for the over $5000.00 worth of computer equipment in this place. We cant afford fried hardware due to 90 degree temps with 80% humidity, we WORK on these boxes.

I’ve also spent the last hour or so researching burlesque.

Yes, you read that right.

Lee is Best Man to a friend, and put forward the idea of going to see a local troupe perform for the Bachelor night. Unfortunately, apparently lots of people hear that word and assume one is discussing sleazy pole dancers with truck drivers trying to get their fingers as far under that g-string as possible while depositing that bill. And the idle speculation on how they keep from suctioning themselves to the floor. Not that all strippers are trashy, but I’ve yet to see a classy “gentleman’s club” in the vicinity.

So Lee wrote another email reassuring folks, and this being I believe the third on the subject, I decided to poke my nose in and assure the crowd that this is different. So a-googling and youtubing I go.

Here’s one of the more amusing performances I found. Linked but not embedded because (to overstate the obvious) this is a BURLESQUE performance and not safe for work or younguns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YCrl4i7idE

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL.

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However, typing in reverse caps just makes you look like an idiot. So after sending a nightmare into my Warcraft guild chat a few nights ago (and accepting with a rueful laugh the mockery of my guildmates), I followed Lee’s example and pried the damn key off.

In the normal course of typing, it’s not a problem. But in WoW, when a fight gets chaotic or it’s difficult to see targets eyeball, one uses “tab targeting”… cycling through all targets within range by repeatedly hitting the tab key. Yeah, the one right above Caps Lock. Which I invariably miss at least once, being a combat trained typist instead of a real one.

This however leaves me with a big honkin hole in my keyboard. I get enough dust and keyboard chow in there without leaving a great big opening. So I decided to get clever and pry the contact cylinder off the key, then put it back in.

However, the contact cylinder took a portion if the keytop with it, just the size of the cylinder itself. Better than a key-sized hole I guess. So I have covered it with duct tape and jammed it back on. Im going to have to keep an eye out for trashed keyboards to see if I can get another key that I can modify into a proper dummy key. But this works.

No more cool for me. But Im a geek, so I dont care.

Chicken Fried Steak

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I’ve been told that as a born and bred Yankee, Im not qualified to make Chicken Fried Steak. However I’ve visited Texas often enough to occasionally crave this most Southern of Southern dishes. After much internet research and comparison, this is my take on it, compiled from some of the THOUSANDS of recipes out there.

Be warned however. This one is not for the calorie or cholesterol conscious. Continue reading →

In Which We Explore North American Wedding Traditions.

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So. That’s a Stag And Doe.

See, Lee is best man in his friend’s wedding, so he has to be at all of the Gratuitous Wedding Thingies. So by extension, so do I. (Although I admit I will be more relieved than not if I dont get a wedding shower invitation.)

Now Wedding thingies are the most fun to those who are:

A) actively involved (immediate family, Bridal party)
B) Under the age of 20, or
C) Terminally Brain Dead.

They’re a fair amount of fun to those who are:

A) close friends or family of those involved
B) planning their own wedding
C) attending the round of Gratuitous Wedding Thingies for the first time.

Gratuitous Wedding Thingies become slowly less and less fun as one attends them more and more often, somehow ending up with one being held for You-Remember-Cousin-Ted-you-met-him-when-you-were-eight that you absolutely MUST go to or half the family will bring it up at every single holiday from now untill the end of days.

Now to my US people, who may or (like me) may not have heard of this tradition, a Stag And Doe is a partyish thing held by the Bride and Groom before the wedding. There are raffles and games and a ticket-based bar, all intended to help the happy couple offset the costs of the wedding/honeymoon. In areas where cash gifts at a wedding are not considered tasteful, it’s probably a godsend to the couple covering their own costs. To people in either of the above mentioned groups, it seems to work fine on the fun level as well.

When one knows not a single soul there except the Best Man (who must circulate) and one buddy (whom one now owes dinner) it is less than fun. It is even less fun than that when thunderstorm season leaves one sitting quietly for most of the evening clutching one’s cane and reminding herself to smile the Receptionist Smile.

However, aside from all of this, it does seem like a good thing. With one slight problem. How many Gratuitous Wedding Thingies are we going to have now? I mean, ok, this one involves people outside of the Bridal Party unlike the Rehearsal Dinner. Bachelor/bachelorette nights may or may not involve others. But there’s also the bridal shower, which one needs to bring a gift to, and then the Big Day itself, which also requires a gift (monetary or not, depending on one’s local bylaws).

Personally, I think I prefer how we did it back in NY. You do gifts for the bridal shower. You ensure three (Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.) of the most gossipy prospective attendees knows how much the Happy Couple is paying “per plate” for the reception. Each guest then has simply to approach their designated Gossipy Relative. We then apply the following formula.

X=cost per plate
Y=level of Relationship on a -10 to 10 scale
Z=guest’s monthly income
O=Bride&Groom’s monthly income

X + Y + (.3.6% of Z if Z >O) – (taxi costs) -(babysitting costs) -(the exact monetary worth of having to wear those shoes you absolutely hate but match your dress so perfectly you MUST wear them) -(estimated drycleaning costs incured by attending a Formal Event where Uncle Ronald will have access to alcholic beverages) = amount of monetary gift to Bride and Groom at reception, to be placed inside a card of many shades of white and collected in a pretty bag made of scraps from the Bride’s Dress Fittings..

Simple no?

Err… it seems simple. Till I write it all out like that.

Maybe the Stag and Doe thing IS actually a better idea…

Along came a… holy fuck!

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Reposted from LJ archives: Original date September 1st, 2003

So I’m curled up in bed earlier, finally having settled down to watch a movie.

Huh? Oh. A Knight’s Tale. Yes, I know. The soundtrack makes the movie. Anyway.

So I hear Ex Roomate squeal and shriek and scream for me to come “and bring a shoe with ya!”

Oh. Insect sighting.

So I grab one of my sneaker-slip ons and head into the living-room to rescue my roomate from the perils of bughood.

I’m not alone. Like all worthy heroes, I have a sidekick. In this case, Boy, the feline huntmaster. Who alerted his mistress to the existance of prey in the first place and is generally glad of her run-away-screaming reaction because she gets out of his way.

So I’m eyeing the carpet and sifting through Ex Roomate’s's babbling (who is standing offsides, sneaker in hand, in what suspiciously resembles a catcher’s stance) for what the hell I’m after this time. Ah. Arachnid. “Monster” Arachnid. Whoopee.

Now I dont give a damn about spiders being around in general as long as they arent the biting sort. Spiders are our freinds. they EAT the little nasties that get into the house, which means in my eyes, they’re earning their keep and should go unmolested. But E.R. has a rather common thing and will freak until any insect invader is found and smooshed into the summerlands, so on the hunt I go. Unless said spider can come up with half the rent, its about to become an obituary.

Apparently it ran under the sofa. The heavy as fuck two-piece sectional sofa. Fuck. Cat is still watching it, so Boy hasn’t spotted our little guest making a break for it. Fuck. Start shoving sofa. No spider. Find LOTS AND LOTS of Boy’s little toy mice. No spider. Finally with a heave and a thud I flip the damn thing over. No spider. *sigh* I’m figgering it’s gotta be IN the sofa. So I spray some RAID into the underside of the sofa and Cal goes off to squick in in her room. She aint comming out for a while. So I do the vacuming since I got the damn furnature all over the place anyway, watching the cat, figuring he’ll let me know if he spots the fucker. No spider.

Get the place put back together. decide on cleaning up my room since Im vacuming anyway. Get that done. Grab a shower. E.R.’s still cleaning in her room. Settle back down with a fresh cup of coffee and start the movie back up.

DAAAAAWN!!!

*SIGH* No peace for me till this damn thing is dead.

Grab sneaker again. I may have given up but Boy didn’t. He’s got the fucker cornered, but it’s in the baseboard heating unit. E.R still screaming it’s a “fucking monster”. I can’t see it from my angle, im kneeling in such a way I’m blocking my own light. Cal is still squicking and squealing tho, so I know she can see it. Go grab my trusty can of RAID. while she goes for a flashlight. Come in at a better angle.

Holy Fuck, that is indeed a bigass spider.

Spray the fuck out of baseboard.

Fucker is fast too. Damn. Got away.

DAAAAAWN!!! Boy’s got it in another corner now. By the terrace door. I must have clipped it with the RAID tho, cus the little bastard aint moving so fast now. This is an unfamiliar breed of spider too, fucker is about the size of a half dollar if you count the circumfrence of it’s legs. Now even *I* am squicked. It’s not the little white ones or little brown ones, so I dont wanna use my hand. No spider bites thanks. E.R is still squicking loudly. Distract.

“Get the CAT off it before he bites it, its got RAID on it.”

The thought of her darling Boy eating RAID brings her courage to the fore. She grabs the cat.

Hrmm. Not gonna get the sneaker into that corner. So I arm myself with the traditional weapon of mankind against insectoid household invaders. The Piece Of Junk Mail. I also open the terrace door, hoping perhaps I can shoo it out. Make traditional poke-behind-the-fucker opening gambit. Fucker runs into the track of the door. Damn, I cant get it in there either. Poke again and it books straight at me. It knows it’s end is near, it feels the poison at work it’s seeking mercy, a quick dea…

*SMOOSH*

Carefully grind remains of said critter into the carpet, as E.R. is now imagining that it’s crawling out from under my sneaker. After I dropped my full weight on it. Yeah. Right. *eyeroll* Hell, Peter Parker couldn’t survive that.

Boy looks at me reproachfully for stealing his kill. I could attempt to explain the concept of RAID to him, but I dont think he’d understand. So I just give him a little bowl of milk while I grab the windex and papertowels and wipe down the heater so he doesn’t get RAID on him. I’m forgiven.

Although if E.R. wakes up screaming about spiders, Boy’s gonna handle that one himself.

On The First Day…

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Reposted from LJ archives: Original date September 22nd, 2003

…and Lo the Dawn looked at G_D and said: “On this, the First Day of the Do-Nothing-Vacation-Week, O Lord, what shall we do?”
And G_D said in return: “Thou shalt do Housework.”
And the Dawn said “Awwwwwwwwwwww, cmooooooon.”
And G_d just looked at her.
And G_d tapped his foot.
And G_d said unto her “Well?”
And thus the Dawn did gather her sponges and spray bottles. And the Dawn set window fans to exhaust the sacred fumes of Clorox. And there was indeed much sweeping and scrubbing and spraying. Behold, there was even Swiffering of floors. And behold, there was clean.

Then did the Dawn did look to the carpeting, strewn with the Sacred Grains Of Kitty Litter. And the Dawn looked once again at G_d and said unto Him: “…”
And G_d did make His Do Not Make Me Smite You face.

Thus the Dawn did Drag out the vacuum cleaner.
And she did vacuum, but behold, for there is no suck.
So she cried unto the Heavens, “O Lord! Have you forsaken this vacuum? For there is no Suck!”

Then G_d did look upon the vacuum . And verily, He did see into it’s very heart. So he spake again unto the Dawn and said: “Change the bag you putz.” The Dawn then sought to do as G_d commanded, but there were no bags to be found in the correct shape and size. So she called again upon G_d “There are no bags Lord! So I cannot do thy bidding!”

G_d then looked and saw that it was so. But G_d knew there would be no bags, for there was no green folding paper. So G_d said: “Then let there be Ghetto Fabulousness.”

And the Dawn said “…”
And G_d said “Just do it okay? What did people do before vacuums?”
And the Dawn did mutter under her breath that before vacuums there were not vacuum bags full of Kitty Litter and Carpet Fresh either.
And G_d said: “Is there a problem?”

And Lo, the Dawn did empty the old vacuum bag. And replace it. And became much grimy. But behold, for now there was Suck. The vacuuming was then completed and there was much Done-ness.

And the Dawn looked at G_d and asked: “Why the hell do I listen to you?”