Author: grid

I wanna know who thought of http://songfight.com/. It’s such an awesome idea.

I broke down over the weekend, and bought a gamecube. Dropped $400 I don’t have on three (additional) controllers, a (required but not included) memory card, three games, and the system itself.

Super Smash Bros is AWESOME.

now I’m working at home because the network is screwed up at work, and DAMN if I don’t just want to be playing it.

Today I’m starting on yet another project for Microsoft. I feel a bit like the son of Satan. I wish I could at least get x-box games for cheap. I have a friend whose brother apparently works for a company making ports of microsoft games, and he gets x-box games for $10. I might actually buy one if I had the hookup like that.

I have been very tempted by the modded panasonic gamecube that can be found at http://www.lik-sang.com/. They have all kinds of awesome products, actually. $500 is a bit pricey, but it’d be worth it if I were collecting DVDs or something.

Today I’ve got swat-team brain stem-cells.

Read a bit of the new Discover mag today. Did you know they think turtles may not age at all… ever? They die of accidents, viruses, and predators, but seemingly do not age. This explains why we still have teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles, as opposed to disgruntled 20-something-ninja-turtles working salaried day jobs and hating every minute of it.

I think it may be time for me to take a vacation. I need to talk with SOMEONE who knows how much vacation time I have, and when I get more… It used to be contingent on my anniversary with the company, which is actually coming up fairly soon here, and I’ve got a week to burn. On the other hand, maybe it’s not anymore, and I’ve got to figure that out.

Today is one of those days that just rolls off you. I’ve already forgotten everything I’ve done today, and I feel very busy while having accomplished very little.

The impending house-purchase is going steadily. I’m excited about the prospect of living with Laura now. It’ll be fun to sleep in her bed all the time instead of mine… and yet the video games and computers that make me feel secure will still be there, just waiting for me to wake up, comforting me with their presence.

well, Laura’s car has a flat, so I gave her a ride, and I’m into work at the unbelievably-early hour of 8AM. How do people fucking do this? There were three of us here when I first arrived, and now the population of the office has doubled. I feel like some kind of lab rat. Plus, I should be wearing a sweater, my office is FUCKING COLD.

Oh yeah, everyone wish Yami a happy birthday. w00t!

Friday I’m in love has to be one of the best songs known to man. It may even be my favorite cure song, although it’s got stiff competition, especially in that remix of close to me on the “mixed up” album.

I got up early for work today, so I can leave early and drive down to chicago for the Stevenson’s Toss Up juggling festival. I’m pretty excited, because I hear they have a great space, and there will be lots of people. Plus, I have this new weirdo haircut that I want to show off.

I have had many comments on the new haircut this morning… I’ve had two people say it looks like I’m wearing some kind of helmet, (including a very blurry-eyed Laura this morning), but my favorite was from Alex, (a designer here at work) who said it looks “evil”.

Greg Bear’s latest novel, Vitals, was a very well written pile of steaming shit.

I was extremely disappointed in this novel. X-files syndrome galore. No plot tie-ups, no ending really to speak of, this thing sucked ass. It was far too possible and plausible and yet stupidly, inanely, without conclusion, without coherence. Maybe I should explain a bit. I hate half-cocked science fiction. It’s a fine line really, but one that I think bares flushing-out (pardon my pun).

I love certain kinds of surrealist writing. And I (obviously) love science fiction. But there is an area where they should never meet. If you’re writing what is obviously intended to be swallowed as a “hard science” science fiction novel, damnit, you better fucking have it all make sense at the end!

Don’t get me wrong. This novel was written well. It’s internally consistent. I’m not going to be looking for holes in the logic any time soon. What bugs me is that, at the end of the novel, we still don’t know who dun it. In fact, we’re scratching our heads as to who are the “who” candidates.

The first half, and yes, admittedly, toward the end, the narrative was compelling as hell. I kept turning the pages–completely unsuspecting–and after the climax, I raised my eyebrows… a timeline. A mother-fucking time line right there at the end of the book. I kept reading, waiting for a punch line. It never dropped, the other shoe is still out there floating in space.

One of two things is at fault here: pretentious writing, or lazy writing. Greg Bear could have really nailed it with this novel if you ask me, but he fucked it up good.

Mondays are a bitch. Especially mondays that follow fairly satisfying vacations where you visit your girlfriend’s sister, and find out how much cheaper housing is in the middle of nowhere, and finish your book, and start another really excelent book by Greg Bear, and watch that new cohen brothers movie, and go see a nice museum, and dance on the heads of needles wearing winged sandals and halos and togas all the while singing about lolipops and choochoo trains…

Yeah, so I guess that last didn’t happen. But mondays are still a bitch.