LifeBox

Man, I’ve been busy and stuff.

As you may or may not know, I’m working on a project for my erstwhile patron from the Good Old Days, Organic. Our compatriot jbelew has recently spawned a mini-geek, and is taking a month or two off to bond with the critter. Fortunately, I was available to take over the Flash project he was working on, and it’s working out, uh, just fine, thanks. I put in about sixty hours last week, but it looks like it’s going to be a bit lighter this week, and hopefully it’ll just trickle off as launch approaches in December.
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Man, they got me working like a dog. Good thing I like money so much. Well, not so much the money as the eating and not getting thrown out of my apartment. The work is sort of interesting and frustrating, but it should keep me happy for a while after I’m done.

Speaking of interesting, Bernie, Dave, and I hit the local Perl Mongers. Hm. Presentation on Perl and XML. Could have gone better. I feel like I should get more involved with the group, maybe give some talks, help organize stuff. Then again, that’s yet another thing to do. We’ll see how it goes. On the plus side, I’m realizing that I know a lot of stuff that other people don’t know at all, or are just starting to learn. (On the other side of that, there’s still tons of stuff to learn, and tons of things that I’m totally ignorant in.) I still feel like I’ve got it in me to do the conference presentation and book writing thing that, say, Phil does, but I just can’t seem to find the focus. Ah, well, if it comes around, it comes around.

In the meantime, I gots stuff to do.

Slept ’till 1PM, recovery complete. Breakfast at Magnolia’s - gingerbread pancakes and sausage, mmmm. Played a bunch of DDR, did some work, slogged through the swill to get a clean build. Checked yesterday’s mail, and saw that my Sims Online beta test disc had arrived.

Uh-oh.

So, it’s 5AM, and I have my first personal trainer session at the new gym tomorrow, in about seven hours. Add to my big list of things to do - sleep more.

So, last sunday, a bunch of freaks, lead by Kyra, began serious planning for the Strange Leisure scavenger hunt. The hunt was held today. Man, that was a lot of fun.

First off, there was the usual scavenger hunt stuff - getting photographic evidence of various acts, like getting frisked by a cop, or performing certain acts on certain famous statues in the city, or bringing us clues that we’d hidden in various places - under a table on top of Mount Bonnell, in a stream in the Botanical Gardens, and so on. Also, your standard strange items, and some not so strange - like a warm dozen Krispy Kremes, or some homebrew beer. The judges like donuts and beer. Let me tell you, we wound up with a lot of donuts and beer.

The real fun comes in with the three mandatory “pit stops” each team had to make. I manned the first one, with Fing and Tenorune, which required us to sit in the food court of the mall for two hours, while the teams searched us out, and when they found us, sang to us. With feeling. That was pretty entertaining - some teams got applause from other food court goers, and only three or four got thrown out of the mall by security. Bernie helped out at the second station, the “clothes line”. This was where teams got scored on how long a rope they could make with their own clothes, in a fairly public parking lot. I didn’t see it, but I was regaled with stories that probably shouldn’t be repeated in a public forum.

Last, but certainly not least, was the lap dance pit stop. One of the judges offered up her living room for a performance space, and all of the judges received some pretty darn good performances over the course of the evening. After the lap dancing, the teams were directed to the final check-in destination, where we tallied the scores and accepted final bribes. Winners were announced, prizes were distributed, and a good party was had by all. There were some great teams - The Wonka Rejects, If We Had Half A Clue, Sparkle Motion… I had the unique opportunity to get lap dances from both Veruca Salt, and Miss Scarlet. Fun night. We got to see a lot of old friends who wound up in Austin over the last while or so, and got to meet a bunch of new people, too. Can’t wait till next time - we’re thinking of setting this up every six months, or maybe quarterly, if we can think of enough stuff to do.

Other than that, the week has been pretty low-key. I’ve been working pretty steadily - close to full-time. We get out and see Dave and Mel every now and then - we missed a really fun-sounding Alamo Drafthouse show tonight to do the scavenger hunt. Death Race 2000, and Rock And Roll High School. Not that we’ve been slacking on the movie front or anything - I’ve been to four or so Mr. Sinus shows, and we caught Bowling for Columbine. Which was, by the way, really good - and that’s me saying that, an NRA member and gun nut at large. I also finished up playing Kingdom Hearts, and I’m going to start on my second time through GTA:Vice City when I get some game-playing cycles open.

Now, more work. Plus, I’ve still got a hefty list of things to do on my To Do list. I don’t feel like I’m getting a lot done, but I’m feeling like I’m really busy all the time. We also joined a gym last week, but haven’t had time to go yet - I’ve got a (free!) personal trainer thingy set up for Monday, so I guess I have to go then… DDRMax is filling in for the mean time, though. Whew.

Okay, I officially hate this apartment.

We noticed that it was getting a little warm lately, after a week or so of pretty low temperatures and constant rain. I was pretty surprised to find the air conditioning blowing warm air. So, we brought this to the attention of the apartment manager, and she said yeah, we turn the air conditioning off in the winter months, and turn on the heat. AC will be back in… March. Never mind that it’s been 80-85 for the last couple of days. Plus, three plus computers in the office make it about ten degrees hotter in there. Plus, the apartment is a bit of a cave - too much even for me - so almost not windows, so almost zero air flow. If they can’t do something about this, it’s a pretty big dealbreaker for us, lease or not. That, added to the shower alternating between freezing and scalding on a regular basis, and the general creeping shodiness of the place, is making us hate hate hate this place. Moving is a huge pain, and some expense, but we might be trying to find a new place and get out of this one in the coming month if things don’t change drastically.

Last night we went over to Dave and Mel’s to hang out and play games. Their neighbors, who turned out to be pretty cool, showed up, as did my cousins Nick and Alex, who I’ve never really met before. Also pretty cool - Nick is 19, and bought himself a house down here last year. Maybe we should just do that. Anyway, we played some Pit, which was crazy with eight people, and had some drinks and snacks, general hanging out. Good time.

So, I think I’ve pretty much given up any hope of getting on a normal daytime schedule anytime soon.

After some dicking around - usual webernets stuff, new playstation magazine and perl journal - and a nap this afternoon, Bernie and I went out to dinner with our friends Kyra, Willow, and Cesar. Finally tracked down a pretty decent indian restaurant, Sarovar. Well, the chicken was a little bit suspect, but that’s always a risk. I should just teach myself how to cook this stuff myself. Anyway, after that, we had a drink or two at this dive bar called La-La’s Little Nugget, then took Kyra for some Mrs. Johnson’s donuts. Mmmm, donuts. We also go to hear why Kyra isn’t allowed in a certain bar around here - something to do with a bunch of drunk santas, a christmas tree costume, and projectile vomiting. We’re also getting together on Sunday to do some planning for this scavenger hunt thing around town. Should be fun.

Now, I’m just trying to keep myself occupied until I get tired enough to go to bed. Tried out the OPM demo disc, which was pretty disappointing all around. Popped in the DDRMax, but I’m really having a hard time getting into anything that’s not the classic DDR that I’m used to. Plus, the workout mode is all jacked up - no continuous play, you have to choose each song manually, big misfeature - so, I’ll probably only use that for play, and stick with the one I’m used to to jump around for an hour a so every day, try to work some of these donuts out.

Ah, crap, I forgot to email the tai chi guy back. So much for getting out of the house on a regular basis. Speaking of which, game night at Dave’s tomorrow night. Well, today, really, but when you go to sleep, that counts as a new day, right? Bah.

Hm. Busy week or so.

Let’s see - Sunday before last was the big roller derby bout. Big season finale, and the Hellcats won the championship! It was my first actual derby experience, and it was a hoot and a half. Plus, it was near halloween, so there were a lot of people in costume. (Pictures available soon in xhibition.) Plus, I think that every lesbian in Texas showed up there that night. So, yay roller derby.

Spent a lot of time in the last ten days or so either unpacking, being sick with a slow cold, and/or playing GTA:Vice City. Haven’t been getting out much, but we did manage to make it to the Mister Sinus halloween show. Again, lots of costumes, lots of fun. I totally flaked on the costume thing this year - a combination of having no time to prepare, and not wanting to do something half-assed.

Did I mention that Vice City kicks some serious ass? Because it does. I’m about 50 hours into it, at 82% complete, and I still see it being a formidable source of time suckage over the next couple of months. Damn video games. Between that, and finishing up Kingdom Hearts, I think I’m going to be busy for a while.

I’ve also been doing a bit of Flash work for Organic, although I’m just really getting started now. Getting into someone else’s code is always *cough* fun, but this little job should keep me sheltered and fed for a bit.

Being really lame about getting in touch with people. Been here for a couple of weeks, and haven’t really hung out with anyone aside from Dave and Mel. I’ve been slowly contacting some of the Leri folks down here, but it’s been a chore to drag myself out of the house. Between the cold, and it being 55 degrees and raining for the last week, inside seems like the place to be. Getting better now, both sick- and weather-wise, so that’s good. Also time to ping the family in Austin - my cousin Nick lives down here, and a lot of my dad’s side of the family. Still haven’t gotten in touch with any of them, yet. Holidays, though. Hoo boy.

I also got a line on a good guy for Chen Style Tai Chi in Austin from my pal Brian, in Philadelphia. I wrote him, and he sent me back a ton of good information. Hopefully, I’ll be getting off my ass and getting back into that soon enough. Plus, I just picked up DDRMax, so my fat slobbiness should be waning in the near future.

Lots more, but I’m tired. Later, baby.