Funny enough, each of those three things (MBP, MobileMe, iPod Touch) are all being shipped separately, but all should be arriving within this coming week. Which is good, considering I have a lot I need to do this next week, too. A week from today is when my brother and I are going to be signing for our new apartment in Atlanta at the Post Renaissance. We’re getting a 2 bedroom/2 bath place, and we have a bit of work to do in making sure everything is squared away. No cable TV for us, to begin with – I don’t feel like paying for the Comcastic rape that is their TV charges. Yuck. But we need to set up utilities and the like before moving in, including connection dates and everything. Then the actual “moving” portion, which will suck. But, nevertheless, I’m looking very forward to it.
Tricia bought a plane ticket, too, for September 6th. One way, and then she’s stuck here. ;) Looking forward to receiving her at the airport for hopefully the final time.
Well… I need to be going. Will be writing sometime soon again.
I’ll leave you with my favorite MJ performance. Sucks that he’s dead.
Moving. It seems like the strangest thing in the world to me, although I’ve done it plenty of times before. Four times for college, each to a different place (once to Bend, OR, then three different rooms on the University of Oregon campus).
Those times, I brought minimal things (increasingly so each time as I decided that I really didn’t need much, and even if I had before…I certainly hadn’t the time for extracurricular reading material and the such now) with the expectation that I could always go back home to the rest. Now I’m trying to move for good, but not to bring everything I’ve ever had with me. Trust me, I’m a pack rat. I only recently threw away a ton of my school papers and reports from when I was in elementary school. I hardly plan on bringing my dolls from back when, or most of my books (my poor, poor books) to save on room and general expenses from shipping all that across the nation.
But still. When you find yourself starting your new life by wrapping up your good dishes in your baby blanket (some things I can’t get rid of), you just..think.
Sorry, Fish, but the big ‘ol rice cooker has GOT to come with. Me without perfectly steamed rice would be a sad thing indeed.
I’m heading into eight days straight of working at 4:30 in the morning at the deli, a shift I’m hardly used to and therefore terribly slow at, overall. Especially when greeted first thing by customers who order specialized sandwiches only to be told at the checkstand the obvious that they have known for years (and trust me, judging from these women they had been pulling from the government for a good long time) — you can’t buy hot food with food stamps. I was cranky enough before the very items that put me behind in my opening schedule were brought back to me to be thrown out. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the food stamp program like other forms of government assistance are great for people who just need an extra boost. But I also work at the only real grocery store in this little town, so I can see on a regular basis which people don’t have the will to help themselves and get full enjoyment out of handouts. Makes life harder for the people who are genuinely trying and get less assistance because money’s spread so thin. I’m grateful every day that I have a full-time job, even if it’s minimum wage and hard work. I have plenty of college loans to pay off, not to mention the cost of moving and getting settled into a new city. Scary as that is.
Alright, for anyone who’s not heard of it: Eureka. All of the first season and some of the third (they’re working on trying to get the rest) are available on Hulu, so give it a look see if you want some nerdy comedy. About an ordinary, good-hearted, fight-first-ask-questions-later U.S. Marshal who goes off a back road somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (hints indicate it’s actually supposed to be Oregon-ish) and finds himself in a podunk town where everyone knows each other, there’s only one diner, the town sheriff makes house calls to just about everyone on a first name basis, and the local mechanic also doubles as a coroner, priest, forensic analyst, radio show host (etc. etc. etc.) and inventor of memory manipulation devices and hovercraft. Oh, wait– I didn’t mention that little Eureka is home to the most brilliant thinkers and inventors in the world, all of whom work in a secret government testing center developed at the beginning of the Cold War? Or that this poor unfortunate man regularly finds himself battling (often after the populace themselves accidentally created them) atomic weapons, ghosts, alien menaces, superhumans, and the frustration of being a single parent to a delinquent teenager in a town where fitting in usually means opening your eyes to the impossible, each and every day? I mostly get a kick out of the little things, like the “Cafe Diem” where their chef can fix literally any meal you’d want on the planet, even if that means cheeseburgers with wild mushrooms and blowfish in ten minutes or less.
So, Sims 3 looks awfully fun, at least as far as the clothing designer and interior decorator in me is concerned. Don’t have the game myself, but that’s what stealing usage of your friends’ computers is for. Loving that you can change the colors and patterns of anything you wear or buy in the game, and choosing your Sim’s likes and dislikes has never been more precise. What their favorite food is, whether they’re a good kisser or afraid of water…hehe. Unfortunately, that makes killing them off through drowning in the backyard pool a little unavailable. Oh well, I’m sure they’ve created bigger and better ways of letting us be morbid cyber-gods.
One of my favorite pastimes when visiting restaurants or shops is slowly becoming photography– not of the food or goods themselves, but as a setting for my always-hungry and endlessly-curious toy naked mole rat to express his views of the world. I got the toy years ago when visiting the Oregon Zoo, mostly spiteful at the time that they did NOT have a toy lemming instead. This was long before Kim Possible aired with their mole rat Rufus, so don’t get the idea that I have some Disney cartoon pet fetish going on. I also tend to find it troublesome to bring a digital camera around in my already burdensome purse, plus turning it on, focusing it, making sure the picture’s perfect…blech. I’ll save that for more serious pictures, but my handy dandy iPhone does the trick for the mole rat adventures.
That, and I just have an impromptu thirst for showing the truth of the world through beady little eyes.
For instance:
Whether he’s eating Swedish meatballs…
Or Thai curry…
Or just good old crab cakes, Mole Rat has a diverse palate and a love to try new foods.
…Just so long as they don’t look too much like someone put his relatives in the blender.
Mole Rat is always trying to stand out in the rat race…
And moonlights as a crusader, saving his kin from being tied to railroad tracks and other evil hijinks.
In short, he’s a well-rounded, hip young rodent who plans to go places in life. But only if they’re a warm climate or he’s got a sweater on, cause being furless can only take you so far.
So. I’ve returned the camcorder. I know, I know, very unusual for someone like me, right? I just couldn’t afford to have that right now. It’s not something I need, nor particularly want. My camera does video just fine, after all. Got my money back sans the 15% restocking fee, and back in the bank it goes.
WWDC’s Keynote Presentation was Monday, and boy was that exciting! Announcements about new Macbook revisions, new iPhone 3GS, and details, sweet details on Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard and iPhone OS 3.0 WITH release dates. :3 A week from tomorrow and I get a new iPhone OS… and I’m now saving to, somehow, amidst all the other hubbub, getting the (now branded) 13″ Macbook Pro! It comes with a free iPod Touch, which I’m selling to a friend, Emily, who picked me up a copy of Sims 3 Collector’s Edition dirt cheap as she’s interning at EA… And Cam wants to buy this current Macbook off me for $500 or so. I’m excited as HELL. :D
Other than that, I have no real news at the moment. My main intent in writing this, however, was to show off what I did today. I had a lot of fun doing it:
So, here’s a video that was posted on Fark.com, and it’s nothing special – fun, but nothing special:
So being the avid The Legend of Zelda fan that I am… I only thought of one thing: Cuccos. And I had to make a video based on that. Here’s the finished result – please comment and tell me what you think!
I assume I wrote a bit tooo much last time to be commented on, indicated by the lack of comments. :P Still, it was a pretty amazing vacation and I had to do it justice.
I feel lazy for not writing between now and the 3rd, but I’ve been a bit tired and busy lately. During the week I picked up a sweet little portable harddrive to back up with Time Machine on my MacBook – 320GB and a vivid blue color. It’s maybe 5″ x 2.5″ x .5″, and was only $120.
I’ve been doing a lot to prepare for today, which was the release of the iPhone 3G. I updated to iTunes 7.7 which introduced the App Store to the iTunes Store, and picked up a few of the free applications for the iPhone: Facebook, AIM, Light (which simply puts the screen to full brightness and turns it white to substitute as a flashlight… c’mon, we’ve all used our phones as flashlights before), PhoneSaber (wave it around and it makes lightsaber noises – too much fun), Pandora, and Remote (an application by Apple that hooks into iTunes to remotely control iTunes from anywhere on the network). Very fun.
Yesterday afternoon was illuminated by rapid lightning and thunder when I left work, and it poooured all afternoon. I decided upon periodically checking with the AT&T store for a line, beginning when I left Stan’s after hanging out for about an hour with Dally and Kao and Tesh. Dally’s still ticklish; therefore I ABUSE. XD We had fun – Cocoa wanted in as well, though, silly puppy.
Well, nothing at 5PM at the store, so I went home and played around both online and in GTA4, getting some dinner while I was at it. 9PM was my next excursion, and this time the ropes were being set out for line formation, yet no one in line yet. I talked to a “Customer Coordinator” and the security guard hired for the night very shortly before leaving for home. This was it, I was going to do it. I got really anxious and decided to grab the folding chair I visited Stan’s for, some water bottles, and an umbrella in case it rained, and headed back around 10PM. I was first. So, I sat in the car for a bit and waited for someone else to arrive so I had a reason to leave my car’s comfort.
This is where the night got… interesting.
A silver Scion xB pulled up next to my car (which is right next to the line formation), and 4 teenage kids got out. Virtually at the same moment, a heavily tattooed man in a t-shirt and gym shorts walking a small… hmm. It was either a small French bulldog or French pug, I forget which he said it was. Anyway, he and his dog joined the teens in line behind me. Turns out only one of the teens was purchasing a phone, the others were there just to hang out. So, essentially, only 3 people were in line at this point.
The kids were the first for the iPhone last year, too. There’s a video of them on Youtube somewhere of that particular launch. I didn’t catch all their names, but I think the one who was getting a phone was named Tanner. The tattooed fellow’s name was Jimmy, and he was a trucker for a company called Bekins. I found Jimmy to be fascinating, honestly. He showed us (us being teenagers and me) his truck (we had an understanding of which places we had in line, so “line standing” was rather casual). The truck was his personally owned tractor trailer, the cab ringing in at about $150K, and the trailer was an additional $70K – he seemed to be doing pretty well for himself, with nice vacations and real estate speculation. I had no idea trucker cabs had beds in the back, either! Coulda fooled me… Told us stories about trucking and how expensive it is to fuel his truck… jeez, 300 gallon tank – $1300 per fillup. @_@
Meanwhile, the only thing the security guard did was sit in her gigantic SUV and watch DVDs and sleep all night. At one point she took off and disappeared for an hour, during which the kids broke out their pot and makeshift bong and puffed away. @_@ I’d never smelled the stuff before. Kinda… just… odd smoke, that’s all really. *shrugs* They didn’t bother me with it, and it wasn’t like it was dangerous or hindersome.
I think the next crew showed up around 3ish? Turns out he stood in line last year with the kids as well! Everyone knew each other, it felt like – Jimmy and I just laughed. Another guy showed up a bit later and throughout the night exclaimed how much better it was this wait than the “Chik-Fil-A” wait he did… The story behind that is that the Chik-Fil-A in front of the new Target here celebrated its grand opening by giving the first 100 customers free Chik-Fil-A for a year. Naturally, he and his girlfriend wanted in line… well, Hurricane Rita hit just then, and he didn’t say too much more about details other than wind, rain, lightning, and misery. Personally I’m not so sure it’s worth it. XD
I tried to sleep a bit throughout the night, but it was humid and as the temperature dropped and the wind blew, everything got surprisingly cold (and damp, naturally, from condensation). I didn’t get much rest, but people were trickling in very sporadically until about 6-7AM, where people started really amassing. I couldn’t help but laugh at the smug elite attitudes of those strolling up supremely to the back of the line at ten til 8AM, assuming they’d get a phone when I full well knew they didn’t have phones for anyone past like…. the 25th person. It just made sense to me that there wouldn’t be many, yknow?
Well, employees came along and after some confusion about whether or not I could do the transaction on my own or get Mom, my account holder, to come down… they began letting us in, me first, at 8AM. And I got my iPhone 3G, 16GB and black and shiny. :3 Turns out I was lucky to be in the front – they only got in 30 (as I had guessed), and it was something like ten 8GB, ten white 16GB, and ten black 16GB. So I got my personal pick without any struggles. After they activated it on the spot (later I heard the Apple iTunes servers for activation failed hardcore, so I was again lucky to be in front), I went home, synced all my goodies back to the phone (iTunes had a backup of my last phone, so no playing with settings again :D), took a shower, and crashed for 9 hours. XD
I had fun! Anyone ever been a complete nerd like me and camp out for a sale or a release of something (movie, game, etc)?
I feel rotten for not having posted here in a while. I feel like I’m failing whoever might still read this.
Ugh. I feel rotten overall, too. I had Waffle House tonight – we (Stan, JJ, Cody, and I) went there and got a midnight snack. I guess it didn’t agree with me… Overall today was pretty long, but rather cool – Cody graduated and all.
……Fast Forward.
I wrote that last night. Got tired of trying to write and instead spent the night online with Tricia. :)
Whenever I sleep at Stan’s I get very, very strange dreams. Unfortunately I can never remember them. Sometimes I do for some time of the morning… but never long enough to write them down. As was the case this morning, too – I was in a daze as Cody drove home, I went upstairs and flopped onto my bed and I was out for the next several hours of dreamless sleep.
I also sat around and rearranged my iTunes songs for my iPhone and ended up downloading some trailers via iTunes: Tropic Thunder, which looks terribly entertaining, and the new The Incredible Hulk trailer:
The Motherfucking Hulk SMASH. I think they nailed this one. Looking forward to it. :P Let it buffer for a while – someone managed to get an HD video on youtube, but it takes a bit. Speaking of movies, my brother and I just finished watching Fight Club. :D
Anyway, back to what I’d written last night. As we were watching the graduation ceremony for my brother, I found myself in conversation with his girlfriend about the… exaggerated appeal of it all. It’s just high school, we remarked. Yet the excitement and the seriousness, the “sanctity” of the event – all laughable. No air horns, no beach balls, yet people still yelled and cheered for their kids like lunatics – as if that diploma was the sole culminating achievement of their children’s lives. Speeches by students saying “We did it!” Well… yeah, so did about 95% of everyone else sitting out in the audience did too – let’s face it, the district we live in has a ton of money and wealthy families. Given the resources and help, anything less than graduation would be pathetic. If this were the county next door, or inner city kids, then that’s a different story. And the little Valedictorian girl was pretty pompous; full of hot air and an overwhelming sense of self-pride. Go on and tell everyone at college you were Valedictorian of your class and see how long it takes and how many “so whats” you’ll get before you realize it’s a one-time title, and after that it’s essentially useless. Get over yourself.
*coughs* That being said, I beat GTA 4. Probably the best story for a video game I’ve ever seen, period. Especially the ending. SPOILERS AHOY!
To sum things up:
11:47:54 PM Chik and Lemming: so? GTA?
11:49:14 PM Fish: so the game begins with Niko stepping off the boat, ready to start his life anew in Liberty City. He is met by his cousin Roman, and Niko soon discovers that the “American Dream” Roman told Niko about is a lie – Roman is a struggling owner of a small cab business
11:49:46 PM Fish: Niko is frustrated, but also learns that Roman has a bit of a gambling problem and owes money to the Russian mob.
11:50:43 PM Fish: Niko begins taking oddjobs from them to pay it off, eventually earning some clout with them. Finally, one of the bosses goes kinda nuts, so his best friend and right hand man, Dimitri, has Niko kill the boss.
11:51:29 PM Fish: Turns out Dimitri was using Niko, and wanted Niko and Roman dead, but you and your cousin eventually escape. Dimitri torches both the cab business HQ AND their apartment in the slums.
11:51:52 PM Chik and Lemming: o.o hmmmmmm
11:52:17 PM Fish: Roman’s girlfriend takes them in for a while, and you do oddjobs for other mobs around town. You also find out why Niko came to the states aside from a new beginning… he fought in the Bosnian War.
11:53:11 PM Fish: his squad was betrayed for money, and they and their entire village was slaughtered… he and only 2 others of the squad survived, so one of the other two must’ve betrayed them, and they both live in Liberty City.
11:53:24 PM Fish: Niko wants to know why – they were practically brothers.
11:54:06 PM Fish: that’s why he’s taking these jobs… so the mob can find these men for him.
11:55:40 PM Fish: so… the plot continues… Roman eventually gets engaged to his girlfriend…
11:56:11 PM Fish: Niko takes more jobs, meets more new interesting people… the McReary’s are an Irish bunch of mobsters, but they have a sister, Kate, who Niko begins to care for.
11:56:31 PM Fish: Niko finds one of his old squad guys, Florian.
11:56:52 PM Fish: Florian changed his name to Bernie and is now a gay aerobics instructor – not the betrayer.
11:57:17 PM Fish: Florian’s obviously moved on.
11:57:28 PM Fish: which brings me to me finishing the game tonight.
11:57:43 PM Fish: They got the other guy, Darko.
11:58:13 PM Fish: you’re given a choice – execute him for his deeds or leave him.
11:58:17 PM Chik and Lemming: mhmm?
11:58:42 PM Fish: I left him. he was obviously ill in the head – tortured himself with drug addictions…
11:59:12 PM Fish: it was powerful, but just after that was the final mission.
12:00:22 AM Fish: Jimmy Pegorino, an Italian mobster you’ve been working for, has finally got buyers for a HUGE shipment of heroin you’ve been helping to hide and stash for a while: The Russian Mob. Their contact and business parter? Dimitri.
12:01:27 AM Fish: Niko refuses, but Pegorino threatens him and Roman and says once this is done, they get a huge payload, he’s no longer indebted to any mafias, and he can start his new life having settled his troubles from the Bosnian War past.
12:02:28 AM Fish: Well, after the “assignment”, Niko calls Roman for advice, and Roman slips that he found out where Dimitri is.
12:02:45 AM Fish: Niko now has the choice of killing Dimitri or doing the deal.
12:03:19 AM Fish: Roman begs him to do the deal. Niko calls Kate for advice, she begs him not to trust Dimitri, he’s betrayed him before and will again.
12:03:35 AM Fish: I was given the choice.
12:03:51 AM Fish: I chose to do the deal for the betterment of Niko and Roman’s new lives.
12:04:14 AM Fish: of COURSE the deal goes sour, but you get the money and Niko is still alive.
12:04:34 AM Fish: this sealed the fate for the final mission – Roman’s wedding.
12:04:49 AM Chik and Lemming: mhmm?
12:05:15 AM Fish: you go to the church, watch the wedding…. when one of Dimitri’s hitmen shows up to silence Niko.
12:05:29 AM Fish: they scuffle over the gun, and it goes off, killing Roman in the arms of his new wife.
12:05:46 AM Chik and Lemming: o.o
12:06:33 AM Fish: Niko looses it – unloads the gun into the corpse of the assassin, and vows revenge on Dimitri (who you witness murdering Pegorino so he can keep all the heroin money)
12:07:26 AM Fish: after a lengthy chase involving cars, speedboats, helicopters.. you finally kill him at the base of the Statue of Happiness (Statue of Liberty, basically)
12:07:39 AM Fish: just…. incredible cinematography.
12:07:42 AM Fish: and the dialogue.
12:07:43 AM Chik and Lemming: yeah? o.o
12:08:07 AM Fish: I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it could be the best game ever.
12:08:24 AM Fish: I was choked up by the end of it. Niko is a powerful character.
12:09:16 AM Fish: after the credits, the game saves and Niko calls Roman’s widow to say he’s avenged his cousin… you find out she was pregnant, and they were planning to announce it at the reception.
The other ending, less powerful, was that you chose to kill Dimitri, then at the wedding Pegorino and his men perform a driveby, killing Kate by accident. Then the chase is after Pegorino. An FAQ summed up my feelings on the ending perfectly:
“In my personal opinion, however, after having played through the entire game twice, I believe that the “Deal” option is actually the better ending, for several reasons. First, the loss of Roman is quite a bit more substantial of a blow to Niko than Kate. Roman is literally the first character we as the players meet in the game, and the tendentious bond between the cousins is substantial and even poignant at times. Kate is merely a single love interest in a series of potential love interests in the game, and the player can quite easily progress through the game while ignoring Kate almost entirely, save for her appearances in a few pre-mission cutscenes.
The “Mr. and Mrs. Bellic” cutscene respective to the different endings underscore this distinction quite nicely, in my opinion. The cutscene with Kate’s death seemed rather abrupt and poorly acted by comparison to the one in which Roman was killed. Niko, who rarely loses composure, firing the gun repeatedly into the lifeless corpse of the assailant was an extremely powerful scene and one that brought to life the powerful drive for revenge that would culminate in the final showdown with Dimitri. The event also solidified the folly of trusting Dimitri, both with respect to honestly carrying out the drug transaction and the likelihood of him leaving Roman and Niko alone.
The finale sequence is laden with irony in this respect. Those who had grown to have an affinity for Roman, and were thus inclined to accede to his wishes for Niko to forget his thirst for vengeance and do the deal with Dimitri, were punished with Roman’s death. By listening to Roman, you seal his fate, which is actually quite appropriate given Roman’s tendency to get himself into bad situations. By listening to Kate, you end up losing her. It is an appropriate twist for the rather grim and dark tale told in Grand Theft Auto IV.”
I can’t think of much more to say, other than you should play this game. You need to, if you love a good story. Even my telling of it all cannot do the real thing justice.
So after toying with software, I've come up with some win. Chatroulette + "The Brave Little Toaster" = epic nostalgia reactions. Hell yes.03:54:31 AM March 11, 2010from web
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