2008: A Hampton Roads Odyssey
BIG weekend.
rhaps and shrewlet came down, partially to socialize, and partially to pick up some unused floor tile from Starr’s mom.
I won’t list all the places to which I drove on Saturday and Sunday, it would be tedious for both writer and readers. But my destinations involved finances, prescriptions, breakfasts, lunch, dinner, additional socializing with Dwight, Bert, and Meche, HD channels for the TV, tile collection, and flowers.
The irises were interesting. Turns out that they were free because I had to dig them out of the lady’s downtown Norfolk garden myself. In the rain. And I hadn’t brought tools. And there were two hens and a rooster looking over my shoulder and providing constructive criticism.
On the other hand, the additional HD channels were all free, and consisted of content such as Discovery, Science, Food Network, Bravo, and TLC: the only sort of channels our TV tends to be tuned to anyway. We did watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on Universal HD, learning that yes, a pretty movie gets prettier at 1080i.
Good weekend, but I’m pooped.
Must – Control – Jaws – of Death…
The cat wishes everyone to know that he was highly paid for this television appearance. The hamster… would like some more carrot bits please.
Game blogger Tobold suggests that WoW players would reach endgame with far better raiding skills if there were quests where you had to practice raiding with sets of NPCs. Aside from the time pressures, one reason I don’t do instances is that I’m not very good at them, and I think this is a fine idea. When I do have to hit an instance dungeon for a quest, I usually end up in the company of several far-higher-levelled guild mates, and my presence becomes a bit unnecessary. This idea would mitigate the problem a bit.
rhaps and shrewlet are coming down this weekend, which is a good thing because my Technicon experience was extremely rushed. I envy Rhaps’ new iMac, which is the same model as my Mom’s. But I’ll have my Mac Pro soon enough.
Paying bills, finishing paperwork, getting all sorts of ducks in a row this week. (They were sitting out front again this morning, enjoying the humid weather.) It all feels good. Also: new blender yay 🙂
Brief updates
- 10:33 @tangowildheart The Metro needs a line built of steampunk and giant crystals, with an underwater stretch including visible plesiosaur FTW. #
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Baaaaaa.
My WoW mage can (briefly) turn people into sheep.
This amuses me, so when I was reminded by a website that she can quest for an alternate spell that turns people into pigs, I rushed to the griffin taxi for the land of Azshara, home of a titanic magical apocalypse once upon a time. Finished the two quests, NPC quest giver says, “Let me teach you this spell” … and nothing happens.
Looked several times in my spellbook and bags, and tried talking to the NPC repeatedly – nothing. So I filed a bug report with the GMs, explaining the situation carefully. This morning I woke to an e-mail that politely says, “We may possibly be able to restore your lost item, though we can’t do this often because you should be more careful. File another ticket if you want us to go ahead.”
So when I get home, I have to explain that a restore will do nothing, as I never got the spell, and it wasn’t my daggone fault, because it’s a bug, one also seen by other players according to the big WoW info sites.
*sigh*
I know from experience that it’s not an easy job at all being a GM, but please actually read my ticket.
The Last Days of Technicon 25
My Sunday Technicon experience was brief and poignant. Reluctantly awake by 10:00, and out of the Microtel by 11:00, I headed back to McBryde for a final time.
My plan was to leave Blacksburg by 1:00, thereby getting home around 6:30-7:00 and having time for dinner and decompression, so my time was brief and rushed. I got to catch up briefly with nanoreid, had my picture taken with ranchonmars‘ Skull plush, and won an awesome Thunderchild print from rattrap. (It’s based on a plastic model I designed and we built many years ago.)
I finally had a few seconds to stop into Spiel, where I talked to jsciv for the only time during actual con hours. Touched base with rubinpdf, too; I hear ashoemaker was there, but I didn’t see him, though I did see markush on the way out. Since auction pickup hadn’t yet started, shrewlet offered to collect the print for me so that I could get on the road, and as I left the auditorium where the auctions were held, it seemed like half the con called out goodbyes. Just a little tiny bit verklempt, I was.
I drove home on 460 rather than battle the interstates; I got a far more peaceful drive for my trouble. Faint rain misted my windshield most of the way back, but posed no driving hazard, though I more than once encountered the damned “I refuse to be passed by a Hyundai, even if I was 15 miles under the speed limit!” attitude. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was so bushed that I sat a couple inches lower in the car seat, making the hood seem to disappear behind the dash.
Finally, I made it home. Starr and Midori were most pleased to see me. I presented Starr with the custom art I commissioned from rainbowsaber, and heard happy squees for the rest of the evening.
Sleep came upon me with no trouble at all, that night; and thus endeth the story of a happy Technicon. I’m already looking forward to next year’s: Jerry’s a good man who knows a thing or two about making a con happen, and I’m already tagged to do my shtick again. And this time, I’m bringing Starr!
(Say, who’s FanGOH for 26? And who’s got pics online?)
Brief updates
- 08:06 @yubbie Gratz! Ironically enough, the groom at the wedding I missed was named Dylan. Coincidence? Maybe not! #
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Molten Muppet Pollen Prediction
See, this is how you “rickroll” someone. Rather than just posting random stupid misdirected link, post YouTube video claiming to be Muppet bloopers which even a savvy person will want to click just in case; then, play skillfully re-edited video of Beaker and the Electric Mayhem singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
The funny thing about Blizzard’s “Molten Core” joke is that you can still find people writing games for the Atari 2600, though they’re almost always played on emulators. It’s quite the programming challenge to get a fun game tucked into less storage space than my LJ user icon requires.
Two days of warm weather have produced an explosion of plant sex here. My car’s turned an unhealthy yellow-green, the streets have pale stains, and there are drifts of powdered lemonade in the gutters. We’ll see if I can breathe by the end of the day!
This weekend, I found out what the “Age of Aquarius” actually means. The Earth’s axis wobbles a tiny bit (but does not fall down). Some astrologers define a “Great Year” as the time it takes the axis to perform a complete wobble, approximately 26,000 years. A Great Year is divided into 12 Ages. Astrology being the exact science that it is, the Age of Aquarius is to begin sometime between 2062 and 2680. Or maybe it began in 2000, though any way it’s supposed to take a while to get up to speed. But now I know! (Yeah, I like that song. It’s happy.)
Gonna try to finish Technicon posts today.
