Saw Blue Man Group on Sunday, and I have to say I quite approve. High amount of cereal-based humor, poking righteous fun at pop, great percussion, crepe paper, and absurdity of text. Very special text. Representation of representation of fish!

My housemate Paul loves himself the Food Network. It has a lot of competitions, which makes me think about why and when I cook. I cook as a meditative experience somehow. It's nice to get away from computers and measure curry into things and stir and sniff to done, watching meat cook and water boil and bubble. Mixing things for proportion for taste. Spices and vegetables and birdstock reacting to each other as the chickpeas heat up. Then I don't have to buy lunch for several days.

Around Park Street/Downtown Crossing, there are many places to eat. I usually attempt to eat leftovers because they are more economical, and when I made them they are decently nutritious. Sometimes I will eat at the cafeteria, sometimes Pizzeria Rico, and sometimes the Black Seed. However, I have discovered the wonder that is Boloco. I lurve it. Customizable, online order, fresh ingredients, 5-6.5 dollars.

I am investigating the purchase of an LCD HDTV. I am looking for something from 40-46". I am wondering if 60Hz versus 120Hz refresh makes a difference to people. What are your HDTV experiences, online community? Any brands you can vouch for or wish to stay away from? Other considerations? All of this is extremely helpful to me. Thanks so much!

Order is restored in the baseball work, says Mike Bauman.

I am grinning ear to ear.

I'm pretty stoked about the pennant.  Pay no attention to the icon.

Ordered a new hard drive, since my OS one is upset.  Have Windows 7 through Academia.  The issue I have is, what if XP Mode doesn't actually work for Pro Tools?  The second issue is putting my OS on the bigger hard drive sounds kinda scary, but at least it's the newer one by 2.5ish years, yes?  Some ultimately recoverable but pain-in-the-neck to recover things were on the old hard drive, but that's the way the muffin rumbles.

Sick!  Probably drank out of incorrect Gatorade bottle at RLS or something.  Guh.  Upper respiratory system displeased.  Good thing game got semi-postponed.  Aie.  Work for that, always more!

My computer lives again!  Between the power supply and the CPU failing at around the same time there was some serious confusion.  Now to rehook all the peripherals that I have back up.

Went to King Richard's Faire on Sunday, fun and games!  I got a tambourine.  Now today is laziness plus some canned pumpkin shenanigans.

Oh, are there Halloween plans in the world that I could go to?  Or shall I plan something myself?

My M key on my laptop is stuck.

Last weekend was fun!  Johnny came up!  He met Alex again, and had some friends from Wooster over, and I made chili and a great time was had with talking and LittleBigPlanet.

LBP, you see, is my newest PS3 game (by which I mean third.  I bought the PS3 over a year ago, and would be more like grr why do I use PS3 games so rarely and it's cheaper now except it was the last backwards-compatible model.  Hah!).  Is is recess.  It is adorable.  It is not even Japanese.  It is full of AWESOME FUN TIMES physics and calaveras and meerkats and spaghetti westerns and stickers and poisonous miasma and crack.  The music is great, the gameplay is just fun, and there are so many random things to do with friends.  Sure it's just a platformer with level-design capabilities, but it's so happymaking!

The playoffs have been going my way so far.  Yankees lead Twins, Angels lead Red Sox, Dodgers lead Cardinals by two (hah!), and the Phillies and Rockies are tied.  This will lead to a fun but slightly conflicted ALCS for me.  I have this wacky idea that the Yankees *should* win this year but have no guarantees.  Their odds are good, but odds were also low that the Dodgers would take two from the Cards.

LARP planning!  Got a good amount done!  More lists!  More gadgets!  I'm getting excited to set up things and clarify the plots we have ready for Season One.

Oh yes, the Mars Volta on Wednesday was awesome, the singer had some amazing antics ("this song is more or less a response to the new world order"), there was a Spinal Tap moment with the backdrop, the musicians were total freaks of nature, and there was a dude playing the maracas and congas and bongos and keyboard and tambourine who from a distance was a dead ringer for Jamey P on one of his more disheveled days.  Made me do a double-take.  It's his Mexican percussionist evil cousin or something.  Named Marcellus.

Tonight, meanwhile, is Dragonforce and Sonata Arctica.  It will be AWEXOME by which I mean I will be unable to stop the giggles.

September has been a tea-drinking month. Here are the reports:
Equal Exchange Earl Grey- Decent. Feels a bit blah somehow. Maybe it's from using Indian Darjeeling instead of the Chinese black tea. Or it could be the hot water not being boiling. When I had it with boiling water I liked it but not quite as much as Twinings.
A lot of Atlantic Spice peppermint. Okay, but I think it's suffered a bit from not being kept in airtight storage for over a year.
Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread. A holiday herbal tea. NOM NOM NOM. Nom. NOOOOM.
Celestial Seasonings Honey Lemon Ginseng. A gift from goldfishsara Soothing and a bit..juicy?  It's from the eleuthero, which is tastymaking, and the lemon verbena.  This sencha also has orange blossoms, ginger, honey, and ginseng.  Great for the throat, as green teas go.
Choice Teas Moroccan Mint.  Not especially exciting or full-bodied.  I prefer the Stash version (if I can ever find it!).
Trader Joe's Herbal Relax.  Sweet and pleasant, but not enough so that I'd want to buy it again.
Celestial Seasonings English Toffee caffeine free dessert tea.  Yummy dessert tea.  Yeah, it's made of carob and barley, but I sure can't tell.  Barely needs sweetening.

I'm pretty much out of herbals, so I bought some Raspberry Zinger.  Will report on that.

Overdramatic Sonata Arctica lyrics aside, a cataloging of physical scars-( Read more... )

I've been a sick mareep the past two days, catching some kind of head cold from Paul from Scott.  It means I have been unable to exercise recently, and thus fear turning into a useless mass.  Oh well.  Have been working and playing board games, including one whose name I can never remember but I call Ubuntu, it involves pretty whatsits, colorful tetris pieces, and player pieces that look like marital aids.

Alex gave me Princes of Florence!  This puts my game tally at that, Ticket to Europe, and Alhambra.  Someday I may acquire soup as well.  There are things better than Mike singing the mushroom song and yelling at us to eat our mushrooms, but they are few.  I met a bunch of freshmen at the first FGS meeting, they seemed very nice.  And I felt a bit old.  Bought the two most recent OOMPH! CDs, and I'm wondering how to convert PAL.  Maybe once I am unsick enough to install a different heatsink on my PC, as it is on hiatus while I wrestle with its cooling system.
 
Also, I now own Robokitty Rachael.  She's a pretty cute Norwegian Forest Cat and a welcome companion in the house.

Aralis was fun, despite many people being sick and getting sick and my head exploding from too many logistics at once Friday night.  I was not sick before, during, or after the event, in case anyone is curious as to my vector status.  However, I have been sleeping forever, and want to sleep forever more.  Z.  Z!

Wednesday night I'll try going to Boston Postmortem, and Thursday my plans are still unknown because of FGS meeting scheduling issues.  Okay.  Now back to work.

Once I finish this song I'm working on, how do I start a new one?  Should I approach it as I always do, namely with whittling down stylings and improvisations into something remotely listenable?  Should I actually try to use a time signature this time, horror of horrors?  Should I just do a cover? 

If I were a cover artist, I'd love to do the following songs:

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (I like all existing versions and covers of this, this is the 12" mix which is pretty wacky
Within Temptation - What Have You Done (Somewhere between the drama of this version and the acoustic one)
Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again
Oomph! - Labyrinth (probably make some English lyrics)
Sonata Arctica - They Follow

My computer has been overheating and thus needs even more tinkering.  Sigh.  Hopefully I can recover some files off it.  Since my studio monitors are in repair for a while my composition efforts will be very rough.  Aie.

Also, congratulations, Rep. Joe Wilson of SC.  You are hilarious business.  Congratulations on reinforcing my notion that universal health-care naysayers are really shrill and not actually interested in something that works.  Oh no, the illegal immigrants!  THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!  ...I don't even have a good sarcastic line to end this with.

It turns out the Pro Tools problems I was having were caused by IE8.  What.  Downgraded, everything works fine now, working on mastering a short (2:20) track.  Once I finish the next one, She Has No Mouth(still may be retitled) can be completed.  The I'll need an artist website or something, and actually do something about that myface account I have for that.  I got a comment, "You know that electricsheep screen saver you have?  It's like that was put through an audio feed instead of a visual."  Okay, it's a paraphrase, but I like it.

Danny has just been named, and he's headed for us.  Currently looks like he'll cause plenty of trouble but it's too soon to tell.

Tracking Hurricane Bill because that's what I do.  So far it seems no big effect on New England, but if it goes west much the doors of doom will open Sunday morning and bye-bye Cape Cod!

eclecticgypsy has opened my eyes to the Utter Importance that is Oomph!  If you like Happy Music for Happy People, or German industrial-style stuff, or songs with ultra-creepy videos, I highly recommend them.  It is a good thing that I know of them now.  How did I not earlier?  Truly, she is to be thanked for such a good thing.  My favorite albums are the two most recent, Monster and Wahrheir Oder Pflicht.

Okay, so the happiest coincidence in all of this was finally meeting longpig and her Mr.!  They are so easy to talk to and get along with, and despite my friends not having met them before or knowing them, we were all able to easily connect and play Citadels!  Win!  Yay for awesome Hazel and Ian, and their bee tattoos and memeshirts!

The drive back went rather well, and so did checkout.  If you ever want a B&B in Montreal and are staying at least three nights, go to Castel Durocher.  Seriously.  People so nice, apartments lovely and themed, excellent location.  It's two blocks from Lola Rosa, this amazing vegetarian restaurant, and near McGill, so lots of people will speak excellent English, and be nice to you, especially if you are nice to them and grateful.

I want to return.  I really like the city, it's fun and a change without being stressfull, and only a six hour drive plus the border crossing!  Score.  Next time, perhaps, the Jazz Festival?

But now, I am back, and well, and need to get those speakers fixed and stuff.  More about the museum and the Mount Royal Park and my misadventures there later, perhaps.  See also Old Montreal and a badass Basilica.

Lots of mucking about at the Botanical Gardens yesterday, and seeing more of the underground mall as a result.  Many photos were taken.  Will post the ones that turned out okay- I think the lens got smudged at some point because the last 20 shots have this weird glow in the center.  Beautiful roses, trees everywhere, lovely Japanese and Chinese gardens.  I bought some mint honey at the Insectarium, because I am curious!

Today was the Biodome, in which there were penguins, lemurs, many friendly birds, other charismatic megafauna, fossils, etc.  Then, dinner at Chinatown.  We have been told that BIXI is coming to Boston, and I've noticed that there is no delay between one light turning red and its opposite light turning green- so yellow emphatically does Not mean hit the nitro! 

Thank you, everyone, for your birthday wishes (this publishes to Facie-Spacies as well, so a shout-out to my readers there).  Vacation is wonderful so far, although not all events were anticipated!

Today was Grand Adventures over the phone with CAA, a towing company, and a garage.  Then the tow truck came, I had to back the car out of the alley, and the tower helpfully removed the spike from the tire and noted that there was no air escaping.  We weren't sure if it would be okay for a drive back to Boston, though, and thus he recommended we go to Canadian Tire.  Thus, we went to the nearest Canadian Tire.  In a shopping mall.  For you see, Canadian Tire is apparently Canadian for Wal-Mart.  Okay, not really, but enough random products were at the place to really confuse all of us.  Then we found out that it was the one Canadian Tire in the area without a garage and thus unable to fulfill our requests.

Hence there was a journey to another Canadian Tire south a ways (south?  who can be sure?!  I was just driving in traffic and a later sudden downpour!) at Verdun and Wellington St., and I put the car to get its tire inspected and then we ventured out for lunch.  A tasty lunch at a fine price was had at Ristorante Linda.  Apparently the "sausage sandwich" is an acceptable thing here?

Got the car back!  Tire is fine!  No towing or replacement tire necessary, at least for a while.  Not sure when to replace all tires.  Yay for that!  Then we went to the McGill Station to buy CAM hebdo passes and found the underground city.  Malls malls malls.  Under Montreal, there are many many malls.  There was a map of them that sort of blew my mind.

Afterwards, I pretty much turned into goo for the second day in a row.  More board games, another Yankees game on TV (thanks Toronto for playing NY! Next up is Tampa Bay!)  I have decided that I like what I've seen of Canada and would like to visit it again, be it here, Toronto, Vancouver, or somewhere else.  Other places I may feel less like an American doofus who doesn't speak the Important Language well.  People have all been rather sweet when helping me, though, as soon as I say Pardon, followed by a question in English.

Tomorrow, Mareep will attempt not to munch on the flowers and grass at the Botanical Gardens.  Maybe we will go to the Biodome if we have time.  Maybe there will be Timbits instead of foliage.  Finally, Inuit tea is tasty.

Trip to Montreal was not especially eventful- Catherine and I switched off and all was well.  I had a bit of a tire issue, but I have plenty of time to deal with that and the car is securely parked till Sunday.

Our place, Castel Durocher, is seriously incredibly awesome!  The landlords are so nice, there are penguins *everywhere*, there's art, it smells so clean, la!  Facilities are excellent.  People are playing games now.  Tomorrow will probably rain, thus museums.  Will take tons of photos.

I really love alcohol hand sanitizers because they make me less afraid of all the wonderful microbes that have come from me to my keyboard and mouse and mutated.  I mean, it's great for laziness- I wash my hands when I get up to use the bathroom, but when I don't need to use the restroom, ethyl alcohol!  Avon had a sale with some nice scents- cucumber melon, vanilla, and peach.  Bath and Body Works makes them too but they have triclosan which only breeds super-germs so I won't buy them.  Ladies and gents, please don't use antibacterial soap unless you love staph infections for everyone!

Last day of work before Montreal, so I'm rocking out!  Getting stuff squared away...I love life right now.  Should make some custom mixes for road trip?

I had an awesome session of Logos last night!  Everyone got to feel useful during the combat while feeling it was dangerous, and they disrupted a blasphemous ritual with a stun grenade.  Then the summoned Aspect of Force (complete with lack of face!) went out of control and started going all Air Blade until it got shot by the darkness enough.  There is a cipher in progress, and plenty of metaphysical questions about cults and how to stop matchmaking mothers. 

If for some reason you wish to obtain me something material, you can go to my wishlist, even though my birthday's in less than a week.  Or you could donate to the Red Cross, UNICEF, Oxfam, or send someone bees and let me know and we can feel all fluffy.  Or you can just think of me and smile.  

I've finished the Om Nom Nom game.  Maybe I should make myself an Argilla icon, zam?  Sometimes God is a five-headed spaceship in the 7th layer of the sun.  Next, more card games, and possibly also Metafalica or whatever.  Or I could play Super Paper Mario

Getting radical excited for Montreal.  Have some places planned to visit, but I have no idea what I'm going to eat there!  If we don't come up with something I will eat only pastry and we all know that's the fast track to diabetes.

I should come down to PVD more.  Was going to Monday, but intestinal distress plus allergic aftermath made for it being a bad idea.

Oh my goodness the concert was radical amazing.  It was just fine without the backup singers and DM as usual make some great modifications to their live performances.  The background visuals were as usual bizarre.  But they played almost all great songs (only one song which made me go eh? why does Martin want to sing this, okay, whatever), and I was rocking out rather hard.  Even Alex was tempted to get silly, he says.  Driving down from Kendall Square to Mansfield was comedy.  Also, I couldn't find anything at the Garment District, sadly.  Oh well.

I have been to the aquarium, and bobbydrake007 had some wonderful reactions to the jellyfish exhibit.  Apparently global warming is good for jellyfish, which really freaks people out.  Now I have Pengu too.  You cannot stop it.

I have been off antihistamines for several days and am thus miserable bodily.  Joints ache, everything itches, the sneezing is dealt with but sometimes I get a sinus headache, and everything itches, and sometimes my gut just feels yucky.

Finished Eternal Poison.  Now to itch some more and play the Nom Nom game at some point.  And work on my own.  And get stupid excited about Montreal.

1) The PawSox vs. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees game this Monday.  Anyone else interested?  This is nowhere near set in stone.

2) Blue Man Group, someday, now that I know what it is.  I like percussion.  Anyone who's seen it want to offer comments?

I am interested in buying a camcorder for my LARP and other such things.  I would prefer good quality video, do not need the ability to take stills.  Does anyone have any recommendations about brand, etc?  I'm operating on a 500 or less budget.

Yesterday was a pretty peppy day, followed by tons of shopping.  And feeding my Eternal Poison addiction.  It's not that the game is especially good gameplaywise, it's just got an amazingly together aesthetic and great music.  Congratulations, you are now my mind-slave.  So many games, not quite enough time to play them and compose, which I've been terrible about the past six months.

Speaking of games, I have an informal poll to take: when creating a character, do you prefer to build it from the rules and system and influence first as inspiration, or the world and culture?  Why?  I find myself preferring the latter, because, well, hilarious little things about culture are amazingly inspiring for me.  See somehedgehog 's story about luchadores, donuts, and bears in Ontario, which I think is a sheer stroke of genius.  This is why I've elected to provide cultural details and some political information for my LARP before a whole bunch of stuff about system, which is still being worked out.  Your thoughts?

Happiness is something one has to work at.
Even lamas say so.