Friday, December 28, 2007
Relativity
Forty-three degrees (6c) and wet feels a
lot colder after
a week of 65 degree (18c) sunshine. Last night and today I've had the heat turned up much higher than usual, I've been wearing more clothing than usual, and I've still been cold.
For the corollary, I was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt all week in San Diego while natives were in boots and jackets, since 65 and sunny felt like summer to me, after weeks of 40s and 50s up here. And, next week, when my still-nicknameless imaginary girlfriend returns from two weeks visiting relatives in eastern Canadialand, she'll probably break out the flipflops and belly shirts, reveling in the Bay Area 50s after trudging through two weeks of snow and sub zeros in the frozen north.
Still, knowing that doesn't enable mind over matter, and I was cold all day Friday, wearing boots, jeans, 2 shirts, and a long leather jacket to run errands I'd usually have taken on in sneakers, cargo pants, t-shirt, and sporty long sleeved top. Oddly, Jinxie seems to be affected by my discomfort, since she's been sleeping in front of the heat vent for the first time ever, and took to burrowing under the comforter last night. And she spent the last week at Malaya's condo in the East Bay, which it's usually a few degrees colder than it is up here in the North Bay.
I wanted to go for a long mountain bike ride Friday, to burn off some of the pecan pie, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, dessert wine, and assorted high-calorie entrees I shoveled down while visiting the parents over Xmas, but um... no. Hell no. I walked outside, looked at my breath pluming, eyed the lowering gray skies, and concluded that I didn't own enough layers to go pedaling into that abyss. Tomorrow, perhaps; warmer temperatures and drier days are forecast over the weekend.
Labels: vacation, weather
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Vacation Time
I'm off to San Diego to visit the parents for a week. As usual when I'm not home, my computer time will be fairly limited, and you'd be wise not to expect a great deal of updates in these parts. In lieu of a big, clever, going away post, wherein I elaborate on the various notes and ideas I've had for blog posts but haven't gotten around to writing yet, I'm going to type very few words, hit post, and go write some Xmas cards and pack a suitcase. Just the sort of quality entertainment you've come to expect from the internet!
Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays, to whatever extent your inner atheist can tolerate such vapid well-wishing.
Labels: vacation, xmas
Friday, July 27, 2007
Parental Visits and Alcohol
My dad was in town for the past few days, and it was nice to see him and just hang out some. Recap time!
Dad worked at a convention in The City (AKA SF) on Monday and Tuesday, (the primary reason for his visit to the Bay Area) but we got together for dinner late Tuesday night. It was a bit too late, unfortunately, since I didn't want to miss Kali class entirely, and Tuesday night is the only night of the week for that. So I drove to Oakland for class like usual, and had some fun/hard work there, including a rare opportunity to go double broadsword against another student using a staff. I got most of the hits in, but only because he was "throwing" for me and doing long, high swings to give me openings to get in and practice my cutting technique.
Staff, when used properly, i.e.
not held in the middle like Daffy Duck doing Robin Hood, is generally the king of weapons since it's so fast and has so much range, and if it's got a point (would would make it a spear), and the person wielding it has a clue, the fight's all but over. Going against an un-pointed staff you've got a bit of hope, since you can maybe take a hit to the back or arm and get inside where your weapon, especially if it's bladed, will triumph. With two broadswords, real ones; not the unbladed ones we use to practice, you could just try to cut the damn stick in half, if your opponent were foolish enough to swing it in big sweeping motions to give you the opportunity.
Class activities were fun, but I had to leave a bit early to have time to drive back home and meet Dad for dinner. Unfortunately, it was well past 9 by the time I showered and got to his hotel, so we had to settle for Chili's. I used to
eat there, with Dad, fairly often back when I lived in San Diego, and I ate there occasionally with Malaya until we realized that 1) it wasn't really any good, and 2) even if it was good, Claim Jumper was essentially the same thing and, 3)
much better. (This is why you shouldn't drink and blog. It's late and I'm going through crappy microwave popcorn and a good portion of the half bottle of syrah Dad willed me when he headed back to SD yesterday. As a result I lost count while counting to three in that last sentence. Well, I started to count to 2, and then option 3 added itself on, and was initially numbered "4" because um... wine. More on excessive fermented grape issues in a bit.
I hadn't eaten a meal at Chili's in months, perhaps years, but it was okay. I got some kind of spicy Cajun chicken sandwich which was, like all non-Mexican restaurant food, nowhere near spicy. It wasn't bad though, and had to be better than the grilled salmon on faux rice'a'roni Dad got. (My half-drunken inclination is to say that going to Chili's for salmon is like going to a whorehouse for cunnilingus. Does that make any sense? I'm not sure, but I don't believe so. This is why you shouldn't drink and joke. Or blog.)
The next day I got up early (well, earlier than usual, despite not going to bed much earlier than usual) and we were off to Sonoma for some wine tasting. Mmm... wine. I am so fucked up right now. Anyway, um... wine. We toured a few vineyards and tasted their fermented product. I'd say which ones, but I never remember. It's funny too, since my dad's always saying, "And that time we went to ________ vineyard, and tasted all the zinfindels. You remember, they had the raven on the label and their tasting room had the big taxidermied hawk in one corner." I usually nod and smile, but I have no idea which one it was. Any of them was. Were.
So we went to 3 or possibly 4 places, and had a fair number of samples at each. Dad's been working at wine competitions in San Diego for decades, and he has undergone the certification process to become a wine judge, and he tastes and writes for a wine tasting magazine, so yeah, he pretty well knows from grape orchards. He was informing the wine servers at the places we went to, and explaining what malolactic fermentation is, and how bricks measurements work, and why barrel samples are different than the finished product, and why yeast sometimes stops fermenting if the residual sugar content is too excessive, etc. And yes, these are all real things that I sort of know about, thanks to talking to dad about it enough times. I find the science of wine making interesting, and I've developed somewhat of a palate, but I'm not really working at it, due to a lack of money or strong enough interest. But I get an immersive course every time I visit Dad or he visits me and we drive around to wine tasting places.
Best of all, Dad's good at schmoozing and he obviously knows his stuff, so they believe he's in the wine industry (which he is) and we get comp'ed at every tasting room. Most of the places in Sonoma and Napa now charge for tastings, usually around $5 for any 4 wines out of the 6 or 8 they're serving that day. Some places have higher prices for the reserve wines, usually $10 for 4 or 5 of those, but with dad there we get all we want for free. Last time he visited I got wrecked at Ravenswood on zins, since they had oh... 15 different types of zin, and they poured every single one for us. Dad's long since learned to spit, the way wine judges do when they have to try 50 wines in 3 hours. I'm no prom queen so I don't spit, but I seldom drink more then a couple/three sips of each 1oz sample poured for us. Since I seldom drink at all though, that's plenty to get me tipsy, and that's where the trouble began.
At the second place we
drank tasted, which I'm sure my dad could name, (needless to say, I can not) we got another 6 or 8 samples, including some reserve (Cabernet Sauvignon, IIRC) that was not being poured for other people, and that cost something like $130 a bottle. Pouring them for us was a woman of about 25-30, who was of average attractiveness. Not ugly, not a model, and just kind of average all around. She was capable of making and maintaining eye contact though, and had a sense of humor, and while she poured for us and talked to us and we both listened to dad explain things, she leaned on the bar from the server side, I leaned from the customer side, and by about the sixth sample, I was envisioning making out with her. Right over the bar, right in front of her boss and about 20 customers and my dad, etc.
Now keep in mind that she was not very hot (unlike my perfect self, of course), was not flirting or chatting with me in any suggestive way, and was not drinking. She was working, doing her job, speaking with some slightly more entertaining than usual customers, etc. I knew, even in my slightly-pixeled brain, that there was absolutely no reason to think she was even vaguely entertaining the concept of kissing me, that she might well be married, that I wasn't looking to date her even if she'd been single, etc, etc. And yet with my wine goggles on, and our faces maybe two feet apart, and the revelatory nature of her being at work and me being a customer, I was pretty much sure that she'd happily welcome some lip lockage with me.
This, I realize, is why people go to singles bars. Not only do you meet people who are available (assuming you are yourself), but you're all half-tipsy, and in that state pretty much anyone of your desired gender looks good. Or if not good, good enough.
The really sad part is that I was so not drunk. I'd had about half of about a dozen wine samples by that point, over the course of an hour. So maybe 6oz of wine, which is maybe one drink, and at my body weight I should require about 2.5 drinks on an empty stomach, to be legally drunk in California. Legally drunk here, as all Lindsey Lohan fans know by now, is 0.08 blood alcohol content. I might have been at .03 or .04, absolute max. And even that much was plenty to strap on the wine goggles and completely destroy my usual inhibitions.
Now granted, I did not act on my wandering imagination. I knew I was being stupid, I knew it would be wrong, I didn't try to kiss her, etc. I was certainly in control of my libido, and if some porno movie scenario had suddenly unfolded I would have had no trouble resisting the opportunity. But the fact that I was even thinking in that way, without any provocation, was kind of troubling. In a trouble-free, idlely-amusing fashion.
There was more wine tasting later on Wednesday, and after a nice lunch we drove north through the valley and over to Santa Rosa, with a quick stop at the store where I got my computer earlier this year. I got another gig stick of RAM there, since a certain unnamed alpha test game has been loading new levels very, very slowly. I guess saying if the RAM helped would be NDA-violating, so I'll just say that I don't feel a need to get my $67 back. I do wish we'd gotten their earlier, since the traffic from Santa Rosa back to the Bay Area was horrible, and I was hardly able to get, on time, to the final exam of a summer school night class I've been taking. Yes, final exams while half in the bag and with no study time all day. The true road to academic success!
I think I did pretty okay anyway, and I finished in time to get dinner with Dad (mediocre pasta for me) and followed that up with some late evening reading and a bit of alpha-testing, before an early(ish) bedtime since Dad wanted to get brunch and tour around a bit more on Thursday before his flight home in the afternoon.
So that was that. A quick visit, but a fun one, and isn't that better than two weeks of family togetherness that reduces to seeing bad movies by the fifth day, after exhausting all other possible activities? Yes, yes it is. Was.
Labels: drinking, vacation, wine
Friday, June 01, 2007
Vacation, Return, and HGL Pain
So yes, as evidenced by the previous post, I have returned from my vacation with the folks down in San Diego. It went pretty good, lots of relaxation involving fine dining, wine tasting, tennis, swimming, and the best part of visiting the parents... not paying for any of it. The only real surprise on the vacation was how quickly it went. I got there the 25th and returned the evening of the 30th, and it felt like I'd been there for about a day and a half, come dinner on Wednesday night.
Sadly, that's about it for my summertime fun. I'm scheduling about 12 hours a day of work for myself with the fantasy novel to finish editing, agents to query and woo, the HGL site to ramp up towards the impending Beta test, and a couple of RL work/projects I need to spend at least a couple of hours a day on, but can't talk about on the blog just yet. I'm busy enough that I'm trying to block out my time, like a real person. X hours for this, X+2 hours for that, etc. I didn't get off to a very good start yesterday, my first day back, but today (Friday) was more productive. Unfortunately it was productivity in just one area, as I caught up on a bunch of Hellgate: London stuff -- I posted
like 10 news items, lots of new screenshots, Alpha test news someone mailed in out of the blue, and worked on updating the wiki with all the new info that's come out lately. I've barely scratched the surface of the necessary wiki updates, but it's got to be done as I try to position the site to be
the news & info resource come beta time and the 100x increase in HGL interest that'll bring.
Thankfully, I'll be awake for another 8 or 10 hours today and can spend a few more of those on hellgatewiki.com, before transitioning to novel work. The work on the HGL site (and the approaching Beta/release date) is starting to pay off in increased traffic, but with increasing popularity comes a drawback -- decreased visitor intelligence.
To this point most of the readers/posters on my HGL site have been pretty smart and savvy about things, but as the site gets more popular more random people show up, and some of them are, inevitably, dumb as a box of rocks. I don't blame anyone for not knowing about the game; everyone has to learn at some point and I want them to learn on my site. That's why I spent hours on the content, after all. The people who pain me are the (usually) young ones, who are AOLese-fluent dolts. For example, here's a PM (private message) I received to my forum account from a new user just a few days ago.
hey flux were are all the HG:L conventions and little places were they show up if u know message me back k thnx :)
I didn't reply since well...what do you say? "Yes, I know about lots of upcoming conventions and "little places" where HGL developers will show up, but I post absolutely everything about HGL
but this because I'm insane. I will happily take the time to personally tell you all about it, however, since you never know -- Bill Roper might magically appear close enough to your home town that you can pester your mom into driving you there."
As always, it's the combination of ignorance, AOLese, and undeserved entitlement that annoys me. And while this is the first bad enough to motivate a blog entry and a new tag, it most definitely won't be the last. Years and years of
Painful D2 Emails (only a very small fraction of which I blogged about here) taught me that much. I'll try to console myself with the thought that even the worst emailers generate ad loads as they blunder their way cluelessly through the site, but since I've been working on the HGL site since early 2006 and my efforts have thus far yielded several no-expense paid trips to E3 in LA and downtown SF, and a few free t-shirts and comic books I'm saving for prizes in future site contests that will cost me postage to send out, that's not exactly the most powerful motivation imaginable.
Labels: Hellgate: London, painful HGL email, vacation
Friday, May 25, 2007
Vacation
I'm off to San Diego to visit the parents for the better part of a week. I won't be spending much time on the computer while I'm there and have no idea if I'll have a chance to update this blog. In other words... business as usual. Enjoy your holiday weekend.
Labels: vacation
Monday, May 08, 2006
Vacation thoughts...
Since I can never sleep late on vacation (beds aren't right, rooms get bright at dawn, etc) and there's nothing really to do on the HGL site this morning since Flagship didn't do shit over the weekend, I might as well make a blog post this fine 7am cloudy morning.
San Diego's fine, the parents are fine, and I'm sunburned already. Went for a hike with mom yesterday morning at a place called Daley Ranch (google it if you're curious), and while it was cloudy the cool when we began, the mists soon parted and sunshine came raining down. If I'd been alone on that walk it wouldn't have mattered, since we only went about 4 miles, and I'd have jogged it in short order. Mom walks slower though, and stops to look at flowers, and like all women can not pass a bathroom without having to pee, so we spent longer out there than expected, and it was sunnier than expected, and today I'm pretty crispy. Which is kind of inconvenient, since mom's set me up with a massage later today, and I was hoping they'd spend some time on the neck and shoulders, since I'm always sore there. I'm not so red that it hurts to touch, at least, so with some oil it should be okay.
Even if it weren't I'd probably grimace and bear it, since my neck's been aching for a week. All those 14+ hour days working on the HGL site to get it ready added up, and I started getting weird pains, despite my ergonomic desk set up. My left wrist and hand kept having shooting pains that were only alleviated by dangling my arm from the shoulder and sort of shaking the fingers, and I'd never felt that before in all my years of spending far too much time on the computer. Both of my forearms are really sore and tight too, but I think most of that's coming down from my shoulders, and some nice kneading massage should help.
Other than those bitches, things are going pretty well. The drive down from the Bay wasn't bad; I left around 12:15 and got to LA by 5:30, and that was even after the last 8 miles on the 405 were stop and go. I don't know if it was due to the day being a weekend or what, but damn there were a lot of CHP prowlers in the central valley and down into the LA basin. I must have seen 8 or 10, and ducked over and slowed down to dodge half a dozen I saw coming up in the distance behind me.
It's weird ducking cops on that stretch of I5, since the speedlimits usually 70, but the flow of traffic is 80+. Especially once you get into the grapevine and up the hills to the Tejon pass, and the road widens to 4 lanes. Uphill people are kind of slow, but there's about 15 miles of plateau on top, and then 10 miles of downhill, and no one in anything smaller than an 18-wheeler is doing less than 75 on the way down. The speed limit there is 65, and 80 is about the average, with speedy people doing 90+ in the left lane. At least until they *cough* see the cops coming up at 95, at which point everyone jumps over a lane or two and slows down to the flow of traffic... which is still 15 miles over the speed limit.
Theoretically, the cops could give every single car on that road a ticket, since we're all speeding. In practice they look for reckless drivers, or someone who's really busting along and doesn't see the cop coming in time to slow down, etc. Those are the good cops, at least. The bad ones drive along in the left lane at like 67 in the 65 zone, creating massive bottlenecks behind them as they ruin the flow of traffic. Everyone creeps along behind them, wishing they'd fricking exit or something, and feeling like a herd of wildebeasts watching a lion. "Just single out someone and eat them, so the rest of us can get on with our day, damnit." we think, happily eager to sell each other out if it means we can return to normal crusing speed.
Anyway, I'm in SD for today and then tomorrow, until I leave to drive up to LA Tuesday night. My stepsister is out of town but she's letting me stay at her apartment in LA, and since I need to get at the LACC by like 8am wednesday morning, to get my press pass and be ready to go in when the doors open for a press only viewing from 9-11am, I'm staying overnight in LA. I might have done the same even if I hadn't had a place to stay; that 4:30 wake up to leave by 5 to get to LA by 8 isn't exactly the best way to open a convention. Especially not one when you hope to hang out with people afterwards.
As for the vacation so far... eh. Last night was pretty fun. Met dad's new girlfriend and liked her, and we had a great dinner here with roasted veggies and chicken dad made, and too much wine beforehand. I was feeling pretty mellow after that, and I hear wine is good for sunburns. Or something. I even got to read some; the first reading other than at the computer, or a few minutes of EW in the bathroom I'd done in like two months.
The book isn't very good, but it's just a library book, and it's part of my ongoing, "Read something by every famous fantasy author just to see what they're doing." project. Very young girl chick lit fantasy, with the archetypal Anne Macaffrey, "talented youth with undiscovered gifts runs away from horrible parents and ends up saving the world while making loving friendships" plot, but there's a reason Macaffrey's used that plot in like 10 novels, JK Rowling based her series on it, other authors use it reliably, etc... because it works. Every kid wants to feel special, every kid (sometimes) hates their parents and life and wants to run away to something wonderful and different, and every kid enjoys reading about someone else doing that, since they know it's never going to happen to them.
Lackey's writing is as ham-fisted as an Easter dinner, with bludgeonous character archetypes and constant, unrelenting "telling instead of showing," but even with that the book's not unenjoyable, and it's a very quick read. True, I hit a stretch every 10 or 15 pages where I'm forced to put the book down and look off into the distance while taking a few deep breaths, but those pass and then I can continue reading, while mostly enjoying it. Also, like all mediocre but popular fiction, it's kind of encouraging to me. After all, if this pablum got published and found fans, how can my writing fail to enjoy at some something resembling success?
Speaking of, I can't see me having time to work on my novel any for at least another week, until after I get home and spend a few fevered days writing up all of my E3 HGL experiences, but I'm really itching to get back into it. It's finished, in rough form, but I need to hack at the last chapter a bit since it got unwieldy. That shouldn't take too long though, and then after I give chapter one another going over, Malaya's going to help me start looking to get published. Writer's Market, query letters, etc. I'll be editing the middle of the book while that's going on, but with a first and last chapter I'm pretty okay with, I think we might have some luck. I certainly hope so, at least. And if anyone's uncle knows a guy who works for Random House or Del Rey or something like that, feel free to let me know.
Labels: driving, san diego, vacation, writing
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