The Hammer Fell – On Me

Okay, I give. I suck so much at Starcraft that I can’t beat the last Terran mission even by using the resources, supplies, map, and quick build cheats. The only thing left would be to hit the automatic “I WIN” cheat, which sort of defeats any residual point. (One of the “Monty Python” CD games included an “I WIN” button at the very beginning, which if pressed, declared the player the winner, presented a fanfare, and ended the game.)

I’m wondering if I ought to bother with Starcraft II after all. Besides, there’s always Diablo III.

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Very short vacations

Just to show you what a iron grip WoW holds on my life:

Thursday night, Starr and I signed on together, for the first time in what seems like a couple of months, to attend shrewlet‘s in-game wedding to another player. We didn’t stay long, but another player did us the favor of teleporting us to Dalaran, a city that we’d normally have trouble reaching until we’d gained several more experience levels. We signed right off afterwards, as it was late.

Last night, we signed on again to make the death run from that high-level area to (heh) Star’s Rest, from where we could catch a flying griffon to our regular questing zone. We knocked out a quest chain involving crashed pilots and the recovery of some microfilm from a very unpleasant place, and signed off again for sleep.

So, yeah, counting the couple of hours I spent chasing Nobelgarden eggs, we’re talking maybe six hours of play in the last six-to-eight weeks. Call the deprogrammers. Kinda frustrating, really, ’cause I enjoy the game and wish I could play more. But real life comes first (if you can call my life real), and there’s just been an abundance of reality lately. I’m not exactly complaining, but I kinda miss the old days when I could slack for days on end and get away with it.

Reconfiguring the Final Frontier

Trek Movie Away Team

The AMC Theater at Lynnhaven Mall in Va. Beach has a new IMAX theater, so last night I loaned some of my Starfleet uniform collection to Starr and our friend Becca, and we went to see the new Star Trek movie there. I have to say, I came out of that film extremely pleased. Oh, I have a dozen tiny nitpicks, and the film wasn’t exactly as deep as some of the previous outings in the series, but when the closing credits rolled, I didn’t care about that at all.

The 10:15 showing we attended sold out of the $15 tickets, and we barely got decent seats showing up twenty minutes early. (I’d bought our tickets online the night before.) I only saw one other person in costume, a local TCC Astronomy professor in a TOS Sciences t-shirt; but we hit the mall and a restaurant before the movie, and got plenty of Vulcan salutes, shouted compliments, and picture requests. I can easily remember when wearing the uniform in public meant taking crap from random passersby. Times have changed! We didn’t get home until 1am, and Starr had a 5:30 wakeup call for work, but she insisted that didn’t matter: we had a movie to watch!

Commentary with spoilers behind the cut

Your pain does not concern the Daleks

Well, now. I was awoken by a representative from the US Census confirming this house’s address and habitation. Unfortunately, on one of the top stairs, my feet went out from under me, and I fell halfway down on my butt. Nothing seems seriously damaged, but I am always twitchy about messing up that prosthetic. The warnings from my doctors were dire. So, I’ll be a little later than I’d planned starting the afternoon’s chores.

Speaking of doctors, before I talk about the Trek movie last night, here’s an unrelated costume picture geckoman linked (click for the wearer’s LJ entry):

Dalek women costumes

Now that’s thinking outside the costuming box! Awesome outfits, and dang creative. I have a soft spot for folks who don’t attempt to recreate characters perfectly, but go for something unexpected. Besides, they’re cute!

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Bytes

Actual conversation from work yesterday:

Coworker: Hey, the vendor put the wrong video card in this box.
Me: Could be worse, they could have just put a ham sandwich in there.
CW: Yeah, could lead to hardware incompatibilities.
Me: Well, maybe if it had a PCI-X interface…
CW: The good news is that Mac OS X and Windows 7 already have the right drivers.
Me: Yeah, but the Mac drivers really only work best with the iSandwich.
CW: The iSandwich tastes awesome, but it’s a bit pricey, and a few breads don’t work well.
Me: I hear iSandwich 2.0 will be able to handle double-deckers and tortilla wraps.
CW: Either way you’ll have to get permission from the Condiment Industry Association of America to send sandwich description files to your friends.

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Look who blew into town

Our Shadowrun Game Night rolled around last night. We’d missed the last few due to various logistical issues, but finally we had everyone except Lewis and Amy. So what did we do? Spent the evening catching up with each other.

Heh. Can’t say I minded too much. It’s good to hang with one’s friends for whatever reason.

Of course, the tornado warning last night added a little drama – apparently the center of the ‘red zone’ passed right by Jesse’s house. no damage done, though, and she was able to relax a bit after the worst passed.

Well, we’ll just have to get together again in two weeks!