anagram of brat

Yeah yeah I should probably post about the Vineyard Week, but eh. It was a week on an island in a big house with both my families - by that I mean the Brownes and Team Tatro. I'll probably do a picture post a bit later.

BUT! We got back yesterday and we went out to see Guardians of the Galaxy with verbena76 and aersi, which, for a movie that seemed incredibly stupid when announced, turned out to be really really fun and squeeworthy and quite worth the ticket price. I'll cut some of the spoilery things.

( don't ever call me a thesaurus )

I can't talk about Newton, CT, really - I have a jumble of layered feelings in relation to it, but I will say that I find it a little... disturbing...? that I found myself trying very hard to hide my sniffles and leaking eyeballs at Paperman/Wreck-it Ralph tonight, while earlier when htl_1126 informed me of the death toll as of then (up to 27 dead, most of them children) I felt almost nothing other than "...again?"

I may well have turned the corner into complete sociopathy, y'all. Not okay about this level of numbness.

But positive things. Not just because I'm selfish, but because good news on a dark day is a good thing right? cell23 took me out for a date tonight, which did all sorts of squirrely blushy things to my face and bad things to my head and other bits, seeing as he'd had to dress up for work today and left the suit on purely because he knew I'd like it. We did indeed see Wreck-It Ralph tonight and much as I expected, I loved the shit out of it. Yeah, about a month late but it meant that we sat in an empty theater while everyone else went to The Hobbit. I wouldn't know where to begin squeeing about everything I loved in that movie, all the little details and nods and winks that Disney snuck in that you'd miss if you blinked, because there were many of them, but the main thing I actually take my hat off to Disney for is that other than the gender stereotyping inherent in the licensed characters appearing in the movie, the movies was pretty refreshingly light on the gender bias. (Hell, now that I think about it, it even passes the Bechdel test.) Mainly the thing I appreciated regarding this was that the audiences' window into the player experience of the movie's world was a girl - She never gets a name, but you see her roaming the arcade trying to play everything regardless of genre, and her game of Hero's Duty leads to some... amusing commentary of game violence. But the thing that really got me was when she tried to go on to play Sugar Rush, which I swear, all the scenes set in the that game gave me diabeetus of the eyeballs, wow, she was barred by two older boys monopolizing the entire cabinet.

Seriously, in a world where I get annoyed by having to remind my MIL that her granddaughter likes LEGOs just as much as her grandsons, that consideration makes me happy.

The main consequence of this is a burning desire to shotgun all four seasons of ReBoot! the last year and a half I've actually never seen even, which is crazy to me because there was a time when that show and its awesomeness (well for 1994 - that animation, while groundbreaking at the time, didn't age well... would not say no to Mainframe Entertainment redoing the first few seasons to look more like the last one) was My Major Fannish Thing. Case in point:



BTW, greasepaint is balls.

I think one of the things that annoyed me in all the conversations, blogs and reddit posts about Wreck it Ralph is the mistaken assumption that it's the first example of something attempting to portray the video game experience "from the inside." I'm not saying ReBoot! did it better - some aspects of that show were made of laughable fail (cough, Enzo, cough). But it did present some interesting concepts that worked within its internal continuity, like games being contained in cubes that would drop on the city randomly and if the citizens trapped within couldn't defeat The User (or Player One, if you will) that section of the city contained within the game would be destroyed.

Hilariously, Disney was the cause of ReBoot! pretty much ending its run in the US, seeing as they bought ABC while it was airing and wiped out their preexisting Saturday Morning Cartoons block to make room for its own programming. Seasons 3 and 4 eventually aired on Cartoon Network, but it never got the same amount of exposure its early episodes did, which is a pity, as once they were no longer so rigidly constrained by Standards and Practices, the show went from being okay/reasonably good to OMGWTFAWESOME. Alas, no one saw it. :/

Wellp, I have a working DVD player now, and the box set at last check, was only $47. Maybe it's finally time to drop some cash on getting it. I'll save some space for Wreck It Ralph on the shelf next to it, as it deserves.

First off, had my physical this morning. Other than, you know, digestive disorder, all systems seem to be normal, and Kathleen was excited to see me after I pretty much disappeared for a year due to lack of insurance. Tomorrow I have bloodwork and a pelvic, so it's going to be the Day of Insert Uncomfortable Things Into Andees. *waits for obligatory snark from cell23*

Speaking of uncomfortable insertion, I've been poking obsessively at this bead project. This is to be expected, since I have both time and Other Things To Procrastinate From, and since I can't really do jack all with it until my test vials arrive tomorrow, I think about it a lot. This has led me to do a bit of game playing (Always nice to prove to yourself that you can still get to the Space Shuttle in Tetris and also that your Skate or Die play-through is still embedded in your muscle memory after all these years) but also some reading on the Game Boy's release and its game library, only a very small corner of which I'd ever really explored. There are a lot of games people remember fondly that I never got into as a kid - even now I kinda O_o when people wax nostagic about Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. Not my kink, I guess - I was always more of a side-scroller girl, and the more I shed my initial disdain for it, the more I grudgingly admit that had Pokemon come out a decade earlier I would have been all over that shit. (I'm afraid to start now - I may never come back. Bad enough I've discovered the Not!Pokemanz in World of Warcraft. Plus there is still waaaay too much ex-boyfriend taint all over the entire concept to ever really be comfortable playing. Pun intended.)

The reading has also dredged up some fun apcrypha, like the Game Boy Camera. I remember thinking it was kinda dumb when it came out, but now that I'm reading about both it and the software that came with it? It was actually pretty groundbreaking for its time. It was the first camera meant to be used with a portable device, and the forerunner to cellphone and modern game device cameras. Sure, at the time it never really got past a niche/novelty interest, but for what it was it was an impressive little thing. Hell if you google "Game Boy Camera" on image search, well. Some of the pictures people managed to get out of it were actually pretty decent for postage stamp sized four color black and white images. (Alas, Neil Young was not one of them - the image he used for the cover of Silver & Gold is about as craptastic as you'd expect.)

I poked ebay, of course, like you do. They're actually still available for as low as $8. I may pick one up later on down the line. But in lieu of that, and without having to figure out how to get pictures from point A (ancient hardware) to point B (EPEEN) I decided I'd throw a few pictures of myself into photoshop for shits and giggles. The results were surprisingly nice:



Right? Depending on how fast I can crank out one of these things, I might do some based on photographs. I mean screen shots are fun and nostalgic and all, but they are kinda riding the line between fan art and copyright infringement. (*cough* like most things you find on Etsy *cough*) Of course, once I'd been playing with those and then with all the thinking about video games in general I've been doing, something awesome/horrible happened in my brainmeat and subsequently my Photoshop. Can you spot what's wrong with these screenshots?





Again - depending on how this project goes I might do some of these too. Goodness knows between actual screenshots, ported screenshots and photos, I've got enough material to keep me seeing in chartreuse for years.

New glasses are new! And shiny! And dyeeeerrrrrgh! I'm still adjusting to them three days later. It was crazy, I put them on for the first time and WHOA NELLIE THE CLARITY IT BURNS US PRECIOUS! Which is all well and good, it was just a major adjustment. My old lenses were so scratched up and the coating was so dead that the having the new shinies on was... yeah. Whee.

The nice bit is that for the first time I have a workable sunglass type thing. The new hotnesses had a little clip on shade option so I ordered it. Sunglasses, man. I AM IMPERVIOUS TO THE EVIL DEATH RAYS OF THE DAY STAR WHILE DRIVING! Or something.

The last interesting thing about new glasses is that now that I have the new ones, all the dysfunctional patterns of behavior I'd unconsciously developed to accommodate the old busted ones are actually noticable now that I don't have to continue them. I used to hold my head at a weird angle when bending over or looking down to keep the old ones from falling off. Don't have to do that anymore, but noticed I still was last night when I was gathering up the laundry. Blerg. The other is that I hadn't noticed how close I was sitting to various computer screens or holding books and devices. Too close. It's kinda nice to be able to sit back and still see what I'm doing. Probably better for me too from an ergonomic standpoint. Plus they're cute. I'd camerawhore, but between allergies and having the Cold that Doesn't end, my nose has erupted into this special tantrum of cold sore mayhem. It's gross, and I hope it gets at least marginally presentable by Pax. But anyway. New glasses are awesome.

The weekend in general was a good one, mostly hanging with the short people doing quiet things. Lil'Beast was having a super hug and cuddle sort of weekend, which was a nice change. And Kidzilla continues to be her amusing self. I've been especially tickled by the fact that she's already developed a fantastic flounce - she now leaves the room in a hilariously indignant huff if either we tease her past a certain point or fail to behave like her interpretation of rational serious grown-ups. I always thought that was more of a teenager skill, but at seven, she's got it down and it is funny as hell.

One of the things I've been enjoying about their visits indirectly is that Kidzilla actually really likes Doctor Who and has been watching the newer series with her father on Netflix. Being the giant fanboy that he is, cell23 is over the moon that she's enjoying it. Yesterday we all watched "A Good Man Goes to War" and it was really fun watching Kidzilla react to the various bits of the episodes, even if a lot of the humor went over her head. (The Sontoran's line about "superior lactic fluid" still cracks me the fuck up.) But that first moment when the Doctor makes his surprise appearance on Demon's Run? She bounced in her chair and clapped her hands; it was adorable. Makes me sort of wonder if the Sarah Jane adventures are on Netflix, though awww, Elizabeth Sladen... *still sad*

In addition to the glasses I also acquired a working printer/scanner thing on Friday, and seeing as I had things to print yesterday afternoon (more on that in a bit) I got it set up. This wouldn't warrant mentioning other than it's Fisher Price My First Wireless Printer (what the hell is this wifi witchcraft? THE FUTURE) and watching the cat warily trying to ascertain what sort of intruder this thing was was unexpectedly hilarious. She'd walk up and sniff it, then it would suddenly start printing and she'd be all AAAAGH IT MOVED HOLY SHIT RUN AWAY!

Why is cat trauma so fucking funny?

Anyway, the reason to print stuff is that thedavin made an attempt to resurrect Drinktank, which from what I understand was a short-lived Squirekids writing workshop involving a nonzero amount of alcohol, and I decided what the hell, I'd go both to spite my socially anxious hermit tendencies and to jumpstart my writing some. Also get over that whole crippling fear of people reading my shit. It turned out to just be me, thedavin and bloodandsmoke in attendance, and none of us drank, but that said, we did join thedavin's family dinner (which was quite with the tasty) and had an enjoyable evening critiquing each other's work. I got some good feedback on the story intro I'd brought with me, as well as some suggestions for where the story could go afterwards. Reminds me, I need to type up the notes I'd made on both of their contributions and send them out. But anyway afterward I went home and spent some time implementing the suggestions received and starting to scribble down ideas for the next step in the story. Clearly the exercise was good for me, as cell23 did comment that it was nice to see me on a roll again. Anyway, we will definitely be doing it again next month. If anything, it will give me Things To Work On during my PAX downtime this weekend.

Holy shit, PAX is this weekend, eeeeeeeeeee. I don't really anticipate having all that much spending cash - when do I ever? - but the excitement of the rest of the Squirekids going is infectious and I am excited about the panels I want to attend and the list of exhibitors. I will probably spend some part of this week assembling my convention survival gear (ha). But yeah, I'm getting excited and looking forward to Friday.

Contrary to the icon used this post has nothing to do with porn, except tangentially by way of making it easier to obtain it. Theoretically, anyway.

I have this tendency to order shit online for myself and then clean forget I did so. This is only bad if I fail to budget for said purchase, but if all's well on the money front (in this case the purchase in question only cost me $5 in shipping) having the UPS guy knock on the door is a total shock followed by the "ooh, what did I order again?" excitement. Which sometimes is compounded by the box contents being orders of magnitude smaller than the box.

Anyway, Squee's new 2GB RAM chip showed up today (size of box: 11"x8"x4.5". size of item shipped: 3"x1.75"x0.25". *facepalm*), and after probably the fastest chip swap I have ever done in my life (seriously, that was it? it took all of a minute and a half!) Squee seems to be doing much better with double the RAM. Not ludicrous speed by any means, but at least he can now play youtube vids without hiccuping (testing this by drooling at the men in red heels again - that vid never gets old).

So. Epeen's happy, Squee is happy, The Preciousssss's retirement is in sight so its happy, and provided the cat doesn't kill my iPad trying to dig virtual mice out of it (yes, we found an app or three designed for cats last night and ridiculous cute and hilarity ensued), I would say that barring major disaster I'm pretty all set on the tech front for a while.

ETA: oh yeah - have a dumb cat video. I have a feeling with the iPad my youtube channel is going to very quickly fill up with Lily being a doof and Lil'beast arguing with people.

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

--Steve Jobs, 2005

I'm not a big one for celebrity death, but considering Fisher Price® My First Computer™ was an Apple IIGS, and I am alamngly dependent on an iPod Touch to keep me organized, on task, in touch and entertained, not to mention I've been watching Pixar shorts long before anyone had heard of Woody and Buzz (and i totally mean that in an "I'm old" sense, not in a "I'm a disgusting hipster" sense)... This one's hitting kinda hard.

I'm sure personally he may have been more than kind of a dick, and Apple's "walled-garden" approach to controlling their brand makes me shake my head (this is the company i affectionately refer to as iCult, after all) but you can't deny Steve Jobs has left a huge and impressive legacy behind, and for his contributions to personal computing, portable media and film, nothing but respect and gratitude here.

Also yeesh. Internally they had to know the end was near - cancer, in addition to all its other fuckery, is by no means a quick death. I have to give the higher ups at Apple mad props for going on with the iPhone event yesterday like nothing major was wrong. That takes panache.

Anyway. Shit. As i posted elsewhere earlier, in my minds eye i see multitudes of iPods, iPhones and iPads, all jacked to full brightness, all running a variety of virtual lighter apps, all raised in tribute. May they light his journey into whatever afterlife there may be.

Thank you, Steve.

Posted, appropriately enough, via ljapp, from my iPod Touch.

okay, I have to bitch about something weird now.

I worked in a graphics lab at Smith at the turn of the last decade. Not quite the prehistoric era as far as current computing is concerned but back there. Antiquity, maybe. Anyway, back before USB made everything plug and play-licious we had these things called SCSI chains to attach external devices, and in the lab I worked in at the time, the main things at the ends of said Scuzzies were scanners (hey, at least they were one pass scanners by that point - they were 3 pass still five years before that) and more importantly Zip drives, because long before this bright halcyon time when $120 spent wisely could buy you a terabyte of storage, not to mention $7 can get you a 4GB drive you can fit on a keychain, we had 100MB chunky disks that if you were into any kind of graphics or video you carried around and thought you were all hot shit because you could fit about 99 3.5 floppies onto them. (Jesus. Remember 3.5" floppies? How about 5.25"? lol). Graphics nerds with Zip disks were such hipsters, man, and I say that fully knowing that includes me... hell if I dug in my Box of Random Computer Junk I probably could still find the pile of Zip 100s and Zip 250s containing all my 3D modelling and old graphic crap. But I digress. I was going somewhere with this, I promise.

Anyway, in the aforementioned lab, all of the computers had Zip drives. Regardless of whether they were external (usually) or internal (only on the lone PC, oddly enough), Zip drives made a distinctive, high-pitched "vreeeee" noise when reading data off of Zip disks. It got to be one of those ubiquitous background noises particular to this lab and for the most part I learned to tune it out, but on occasion during a bad day for whatever reason that "vreeeee" sounding over and over would set my teeth on edge.

Now the point of this little bit of nostalgia: There's a fucking colony of bugs outside, crickets or something, that make the exact same "vreeeeee" noise at the exact same frequency, over and over and over and over AND OVER again, all night long. Given the story I just told, you understand why I currently have a low grade headache and a rising need to repeatedly stab the next person that pisses me off. The odds are very much against my darling Manbeast right now, so if it hits the news that he was murdered by a rampaging Negress tomorrow morning, y'all will know to blame the bugs... and by extension, the iomega corporation, if they even still exist at this point.

*sigh* Summer cannot end soon enough. Strongly considering earplugs until it does.

( 2 more )

While I understand why they're doing it, I'm kinda sad D&D's making the transition to tokens rather than figures. Less opportunity for silly game board tableaux.

We're home. I'm exhausted and feeling every second of my going on 33 years. Ow.

Good time was had by all. Here, have some pictures.

( Oh hay a slideshow )

No witty captions I added some, but y'all can see avalon616 and cell23 being nerds in action, and there was some really good cosplay happening all over that I tried to get pictures of. In return I a LOT of compliments on my hair, so the ego boost was definitely a plus. Did not really buy anything other than overpriced and occasionally terrible con food (some of which violently disagreed with me later), and most of the free swag I got I gave to others in the Squire gang that were in attendance.

I was gonna write some reviews on the two panels I attended but I think I covered my opinion on both via Twitter. Sorry about the #pax flood, y'all know how I get when I'm excited about something. Anyway, the parenting one was kinda ehhh, but I got a few board game ideas to play with the kids and met some fun people on the line and after the panel, so it wasn't a wash. The second one was much better and made me wish I'd attended the Females on Female Characters earlier in the morning.

Crashed and burned HARD at the end of the night, 14 hours straight of noise, crowds, blinking high def screens and just walking around and around the con eventually took its toll. Not sure how I would have survived a 3 day pass this time around, but since I plan on attending next year I can use this experience to better allow for burnout and overstimulation. Thankfully there were some quiet pockets of the convention center that I remembered from SIGGRAPH that had outlets, so I was able to periodically withdraw from the craziness and recharge, literally and figuratively.

Much as cell23 has gotten the GM disease in him now after his day of running delves, I came away from the con with my brain going into overdrive not for GMing specifically, but for terrain design. Yeah I know WTF? May poke around with that later on this weekend/week, see if anything fun comes of it. Also NOTE TO SELF stop being shy about actually joining games. I had no plans to actually play any of the offerings for tabletop, but got sucked into playing cell23's last delve of the night with most of the gang and ended up really enjoying it. Really need to let go of this "I'll make an idiot of myself OH GOD" fear and just play. I mean, it's not like the monsters we're killing are judging you. Especially not if you get to stab them until they die. :)

And now I'm going to fix myself a monster sandwich and crash for a while. :)

Boy oh boy. I totally see why Drew came staggering home from this wrung out and voiceless last year. Pax is an experience.

I'm actually kinda doing the equivelent of finding a "quiet" corner and recharging. I spent much of this morning on the INCREDIBLY FUCKING LARGE exhibition floor and attended one panel and I'm taking a minute to regroup a little. But I'm having fun. Just the Cosplay and Utilikilt watching alone (cute girls and men in skirts? yes please) has been awesome. Really just people watching in general - it's kinda fun watching nerds nerding nerdlike in a big old safe space to do that. Also I have a whole lot of pictures already and the day ain't nowhere near like as done.

I'll probably post something more comprehensive as well as one of those cute Picasa slideshows of pictures later. Right now, psyching myself up for another foray onto the floor. Think I may actually get in that line to play some 3DS this time round.