The Matrix was built near Radford
I had no idea that William Gibson was originally from western Virginia.
I’ve not been too impressed with anything he’s written since Mona Lisa Overdrive, but Neuromancer still holds up well. If you’ve ever played the Shadowrun RPG, you should certainly read it.
Best-laid plans gang aft agley
I’m quite pleased! My work is giving me an extra hour to vote tomorrow; I think I’ll take either a long lunch or a late morning. I’m loving getting up an hour later by my body’s clock, but I know all too well that I’ll adjust soon. And I’m gonna hate driving home at night for the next few months.
This morning, I gave all the buttons on my radio the chance to hold my attention by playing some music. Sadly, they all insisted on taking phone calls instead, so they lost to the mp3 player.
I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to VTSFFC Halloween – especially since I’d been looking forward to it for months 🙁 But 2 tanks of gas hit my check card a lot harder than they used to, and I just couldn’t swing it. Those VTSFFCers I don’t see at MarsCon, I hope to see at Technicon.
Since my original Saturday plans didn’t work out, I ended up going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Naro theater down here. It was a pretty fun show, with some good cast members and excellent costumes. It suffered from “line creep” – so much shouting of lengthy response lines that 75% of the movie’s drowned out – but hell, it’s not like I don’t know all the dialogue already. Yes, I dressed up 🙂 They run their show about once a month, and I’m tempted to make it a repeating thing for me.
Sunday was a very good day. In a seeming non-sequitur, I want to mention that I love raininva very very much. She’s always reminding me why I’m so happy to be with her.
I am a Hero
The moon demons showed up last night and tried to turn the moon into caramel candy. But I played loud techno music at them and it disrupted their spells and chased them off.
For the first time, Rising Star was an out-of-town con for me! Thanks shrewlet for crash space. I have to say that the con seemed to go swimmingly from my perspective – every attendee seemed to have a good time, and no staff member melted down in my presence. Nicely done, rattrap! Next year I’ll bring more and cooler Decipher stuff.
I had fun in nius‘ skit, though watching the video yesterday, I was struck with a sense of “Did I really do that?” Hey – it got a laugh. Wonderful thing, stage buzz.
Packet-sized Hail
All Hail The vileone!
Celebrate another year of his cursed existence!
And All Hail madwriter also because I’m a bit behind on birthdays!
Uncomfortably numb
I was right to be worried yesterday. I had a slightly rough day at work – nothing that wasn’t handled by the end of the day, but it was a little draining. As I headed home, I felt worse and worse despite efforts to center and clear my head, and by the end of dinner, I needed to lie down for a bit. The bit lasted the rest of the night, as it turned out I had a fever, sore throat, and nausea.
Feeling a little better this morning; I think I kicked it. Didn’t help that it was a chilly morn in Norfolk today: the car heater has been turned on for the first time this fall. We have separate thermostats for hot and cold air, so I think we’ll be planning to re-balance them soon.
I did miss the Enterprise premiere Friday, we had other things to do and I’m not going to let TV programming run my life. I suppose the people at UPN assume that their target audience all have TiVos. 🙂
Zoomy Monday
A weekend of fighting entropy – we washed the car, replaced the battery in the car, washed clothes, unpacked more stuff, mowed the lawn, built more RTA furniture in which to store stuff. It was a productive couple of days.
This is an odd morning. Despite the fact that I slept poorly and the volume on the clock radio alarm had gotten turned down, I woke up on time and as clear-headed as I ever do. Got out of the house on time without forgetting anything (thanks to some timely help, traffic was even light, and the MP3 CD chose a nice Jean-Michel Jarre / Apollo 440 tune for my drive to work. I’m feeling good this morning. That worries me 🙂
You have to try out this link. It’s work safe, you don’t need to turn up the volume and wait for anything to scream at you, none of the weird Internet jokes here. This is just a funky / cool effect.
Photo ops
My hometown newspaper made someone’s blog! I’m so proud.
Decipher officially launched the WARS game yesterday – I even showed up in the staff pic on the web site. (Green shirt, right side, partially obscured.) The sense of optimism and excitement was very high… unlike all the licensed properties from our past, this is our baby and practically everyone in the building had a hand in it.
I’m really glad I’ve taken this job.
Edit: There seems to be a problem with the link to the staff pic. Going to “http://warstcg.fanhq.com“, clicking on “Articles” in the right-hand sidebar, and clicking on “Happy WARS TCG Release Day From the Gang at Decipher!” should show the pic.
Rutan’s servers feeling the Monday
I guess I won’t be watching SpaceShipOne’s attempt at the X-Prize. Looks like they’ve been slashdotted. 🙁
The good news of the morning is: my lady is once again living under the same roof as I am. It’s amazing how good it felt to wake up this morning knowing that!
Edit: based on the 5 seconds of video I managed to grab before the badnwidth again freaked out, it looks like they made it. Yay 🙂
Geekery, sappy and comedic
I was lucky enough to be near a broadband connection yesterday when SpaceShipOne went up again. The live feed from the small rear-mounted camera was breath-taking: no movie effects, no footage released by NASA months later; the viewers were all stowaways, participating in this ride.
No thunder, flames, pieces designed to fall off; yesterday some guy just got in a plane and went up to space for a bit, just like all the science fiction said would happen. It doesn’t hurt that his launch system looks like Hayao Miyazaki and Gerry Anderson went out drinking together one night.
You know why I like this setup – both launches have suffered control problems, and both times, it didn’t matter. It was a minor inconvenience, not even as major as a flat tire in a car. That’s the sort of ride I’d feel good about, over a system “guaranteed” to have no issues at all. Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet learned a truth about systems that “can’t fail”.
In unrelated news, mollyringwraith has posted “Lord of the Rings told in lines from Star Wars“. You should check it out.
GANDALF: Lord Saruman. I should have known. Only you could be so bold. The Wizard Senate will not sit for this, when they hear you’ve attacked a poor little–
SARUMAN: Don’t play games with me, Gandalf. You weren’t on any pipeweed mission this time. You passed directly through a magic-infested area. Several transmissions were beamed to this tower by palantir. I want to know what happened to the Ring you found.
GANDALF: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a friendly old wizard on a diplomatic mission to Hobbiton…
SARUMAN: You’re part of the western Alliance, and a traitor. Take him away!
Yub Nub!
Y’know, the fan commentary on the release of DVD Star Wars is just further proof to me that I’m abnormal: I have never found the Ewoks annoying. I always thought their victory was a metaphor for the fact that the Empire’s arrogance and brutality were in fact its biggest weakness. Or, in the Princess’ words, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
Jar-Jar, on the other hand, I’ll give you.
