Author: grid

Here it is, moving day. I’m flipping the switch, pulling the lever, pushing the button.

My other two site moves were amazingly transparent, but I’m a little worried about the movable type application itself. So things may look great, but underneath may take a while to sort out. Hopefully you’ll never even notice.

BUT, the point is, don’t bother commenting anymore. Anything you post from here on out will just revert to the way things were/are immediately after I make this announcement. So if you comment, it’ll get lost. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when it’s safe to comment again.

See you on the flipside.

OK, so roofing went like this: We got up there about noon on Thursday. The sky was gray, but in a way that only hinted at rain, didn’t shout it or anything, so we decided not to do the whole quarter-roof as we’d planned. Instead, we just tore off the shingles from the part of the roof that was obviously water damaged, (sagging in about three or four inches from the rest of the roof). Once we were under the three layers of shingles (plus a layer of shingle-like ice dam near the edge of the roof, so four layers for most of it, and one of the layers were those old wooden cedar shingles) we hit wood that was so wet and rotting that much of it felt and broke away like wet paper in you hands.

We cut out the offending paper-wood, and put in about three layers of plywood in its stead (to put it up to the same level as the rest of the roof). Then we put on some new shingles, using copious tar as we went, and that was it. I missed the TCUC parade I was suppose to be in that night, but we had everything cleaned up and had even eaten dinner by sundown (which was about nine oÂ’clock). I felt a hefty sense of accomplishment, and rewarded myself with some Baileys on the rocks and episode VIII of Cosmos, (which I almost stayed awake for).

That night it rained, but I’m not sure how much. There was no sign of drippage in the laundry room, but I’ll reserve judgment till after the next big rainstorm.

It was a good day. The next day, Friday, we were done with my roof, so my dad convinced me to go help him with his. There was no cloud cover, and the sun was scorching. He was lucky to have my brother and I up there (on this huge garage he put in at one of his rental properties) for about an hour and a half before we bailed. I took him to take his driver’s test, but we didn’t have a reservation, and only showed up about 2 minutes before they closed, so it was no dice.

Saturday, I have no idea where the day went, but KR and I were scheduled to perform at balls. She asked me to write this piece for her to dance to, and I think it turned out better than I thought it had immediately after writing it. We got lots of compliments, but she did invite her whole family, and a bunch of her friendsÂ… it was fun anyway. I’m excited to see the video that a friend of hers took with his professional setup.

Finally, we’re to today. I slept until 2:30 (balls goes ridiculously late, and I didnÂ’t get in bed till 4am). I played some Zelda: Wind Waker, and then we went to Fujiya for dinner. I still have a hint of wasabi in the back of my mouth somewhere, but maybe its just stuck in those stupid wisdom tooth holes.

So I fire up the ‘ol web browser to write a blog entry, and end up on memepool. Memepool is one of my favorite websites, but I hardly ever visit it because there is really no point. No point at all. OK, the real reason is that I just don’t often find myself thinking “What website should I visit now?”

Well, from memepool, I found myself at HowStuffWorks.com. And that, my friends, is where I spent the last hour. I learned a ton of stuff! My two favorites so far were How Power Grids Work, which taught me a bunch of stuff about electricity that I didn’t know, including what fuses are, and then How Hypnosis Works, which was mostly stuff I’d known or read various places, but seems very comprehensive and authoritative. The next time I have the “is hypnosis real” debate with someone, I’ll know where to point them!

One question I didn’t find the answer to (yet) is What is electricity? I’ve always wondered this. They talk about it in terms of volts and amps and waves, but what is a volt? What is an amp? And is electricity basically the same as sound, just smaller? My inquiring mind wants to know! (Of course, if I really wanted to know, google is less than a click away.)

Tomorrow I get to find out how to replace my roof! (This time my enthusiasm is faked.) It will be nice, however, not to have to put down pots and pans in our laundry room every time it rains. My dad is coming over to help me, and with any luck there’ll be a couple of other guys here as well. (If my loser brother doesn’t show up I’m going to have to kill him.) I’ve taken thursday and friday off, so this roofing gig will be full time for the next two or three days at least. Wish me luck!

Bitstream has finally decided they’re dumping all of their free services for those of us who used to work there. That means the old mailing list has had a flurry of “my new email address is…” messages.

When I called to straighten things out, I mentioned that one of my domains hasn’t worked for awhile, and they fixed that all up for me. They still had my old DSL in their system (although the tech confirmed I hadn’t logged into it for about 10 months). I may pay $5/month to keep the old email address, but I’m still debating that one.

As for where this site will live, I have a friend who has said he’ll “hook me up”. More details on that as/when it happens. With any luck, I’ll change the nameserver settings at godaddy, and then transfer over the files at the same time, and if everything works correctly, the move will be transparent. On the other hand, how often does everything work correctly the first time?

In response to Dr.Bombay’s post I’ll list all the hugo award winning novels I’ve read. Now, keep in mind, I actually had a goal to read them all at some point, (still do) so my average is no doubt a bit high.

I was surprised, actually, that I only had to look up one of them to see if I remembered it or not. I didn’t, but it was the 1980 winner, so I should have read it… maybe I just missed that one. (In case you can’t tell, I was trying to read them in order.)
Continue reading “he calls it geek homework”

My emotional/mental/physical status has been in roller coaster mode for what feels like weeks now. Fortunately, the sexual relationship turmoil issue has been completely taken care of. Laura and I are doing better than ever. She was extremely good to me after I had my wisdom teeth removed. (Hello Nurse!)

Mentally, mostly due (I think) to the drugs from my oral surgery, IÂ’ve been feeling not so fresh. My brain is like a pop-tart, hot and gooey inside, but all the sugar coating on the outside. I donÂ’t even know what thatÂ’s supposed to mean!

Physically, IÂ’m a wreck. One minute IÂ’m fine, then the next IÂ’m near tears until the ibuprofen kicks in. (I even resorted to the prescribed vicodin last night, which I hadnÂ’t thought I was going to do. I blame the donuts I really should NOT have thought I was well enough to chewÂ… but damnit, they were krispy kremes!)

The aforementioned vixen and I hung out last wednesday. She will probably be reading this soon. (Hello Vixen!) Things were great, the event was quite stimulating, but not in a physical way. The jury is still out on that one. We have been writing longish emails professing our love for one another. (Without ever actually using the word love, or any of its synonyms. Or even professing anything, really.)

[note of clarification: This is not to say I am in love with the vixen, or that the vixin is in love with me. Love is a sticky subject and was only used in this context for comedic impact.]

The last thing I remember was the doctor/dentist/surgeon telling me that I was going to be outnumbered in the room three-to-one, and that in a minute, I would know that they were winning. This was as he stuck the needle in my arm. I remember counting the syringes… there were at least three.

After that, I woke up in a room I hadn’t ever been in before. Except that I was far too gone to realize this until Laura described the room to me much later. The experience was probably akin to being abducted by aliens, except that they were all twenty-something female hotties, with the exception of the male doctor, who looked more like Ron Jeremy.

Speaking of porn, the first words out of my mouth to laura were “I want to have an orgy with all the nurses.” Actually this was after I apparently said “orgy” a couple of times until she could make it out. That’s actually the first thing I remember, but everything from then until about 12:30 or 1 this afternoon is like a movie in fast motion. I have a couple of snapshot moments before we got home, like telling Laura I should do more drugs, because I liked the way I felt, and then in the car wanting to go to funcoland. Then one more in the car saying I was glad we didn’t got to funcoland because I was staring to feel nauseous.

I have no memory of getting inside and getting into bed. I also don’t remember the first couple of times Laura put the ice packs on my cheeks.

For some reason, my lowwer right “hole” hurts more than all the other holes combined. (That’s also the tooth that hurt last weekend so badly that it prompted this whole endeavor.) So far I haven’t resorted to the perscription painkillers. A couple of ibuprofin has been enough. (Oh, and having sex with ice packs strapped to my head helped with some of the pain too.)

Next on the agenda, I’m going to tackle this fruit smoothie laura picked up at the wedge for me, and then maybe I’ll stumble downstairs to see about playing some mindless tetris. It’s already 4:30 in the afternoon, but it feels like maybe noon. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.

[ps, I was going to title this entry “viva wisdomlessness”, but then I thought maybe I’d see how to translate wisdom into spanish, but sabiduria just doesn’t have the same ring to it. (and it’d have to be non sabiduria anyway.) But then on a whim I translated las vegas, and I was astounded how well that fit the subject at hand.]

Basically, the list is completely subjective and very rough draft. (I had about 60 at my initial posting.) The ratings are all based on my opinion, and some of them are not even all that informed, (as I frequently never finished playing the game in question). I know I am missing plenty, so help me out.

In some cases, mostly toward the top of the list, I’ve tried to rate games better based on plot and sci-fi content, but gameplay was always the foremost consideration. If a game isn’t fun to play, it shouldn’t really have appeared on this list at all.

There are so many games with sequels that in many cases I’ve combined the games into one listing. In some cases, a later version of the game is substantially better, and if that was the case I did try to split the games into two listings for the sake of their ratings.

Some games made the list that are probably only implied science fiction. The Myth series, for example. Usually this is because they are just too cool to leave out.

[Click “MORE…” to see the whole list.]
Continue reading “top 100 sci-fi video games”