Occulus Migraine #2

Sunday, the day after Christmas, my sister, bro-in-law, and I went to Arundel Mills mall.
While waiting on line at Best Buy and talking to Frederic, I noticed that his shirt seemed to be "moving" in my vision. I dismissed it as my eyes playing tricks on me: the fluorescent lights were harsh, there was a lot of movement in the store, and I figured maybe I caught the "sunspots" after effect of looking at the bright lights directly. Fine.
We walked out of Best Buy into the mall proper and a couple walked by me and their shirts at chest level seemed blurred/not clear to me. Hmmmm... :-/

We popped into the Levi's store and while Frederic was looking around I noticed a bit more of my vision was getting fuzzy: a full crescent along the right side of my vision. I asked my sister if she had any pills, and she did: ibuprofen. I swallowed a pill without any liquid (ew, I hate that feeling) and explained why I asked. A little bit of pressure was developing around my right eye, behind my skull, but no pain.
When we walked out that store it happened: the fuzziness of my vision on the right side turned into sparkles and I couldn't see in that area at all. Just sparkles. Think silver tinsel all over the right side of your vision, that's a good way to describe it.
If I closed my eyes, I got dizzy and could tell I'd get nauseous after a moment, so I couldn't get relief that way.

We went to another store (Five Below, the reason I wanted to come to the mall) and I bought a Wiimote attachment: the Magnum gun shell. I had to read the packaging with basically one eye disabled, but I was okay.
By the time we left Five Below my brain directly behind my forehead felt like it was trying to push out of my skull (it didn't hurt per se, but there was a lot of pressure). I bought a vending machine 20oz Cherry Coke and downed it. By the time we walked back to Best Buy my vision was back to normal, I just had the headache pressure in my frontal lobe.

I'm pretty sure this migraine was caused by tiredness and eye strain, due to not getting much sleep for 4 days in a row and being off my normal sleep schedule.

Most of the day today I had a weak headache or moderate pressure in my frontal lobe. Been wearing my glasses since yesterday afternoon.

No flourishes today

I was looking at playing card flourishes on sites like Decknique and thought "Man I'm old" because they all look like kids (well, kids & teenagers) just showing off and being hyper. I started to realize that flourishes like those extreme crazy ones shouldn't mesh with magic in a magic trick performance.
They I realized I'm just taking the mature, theatrical stance. In my mind I hate doing 95% of the magic tricks I'm exposed to or even know. I don't ever want to say that cards have personalities, or that you can spell the name of a card to locate it after a deck is shuffled, or that red & black cards are like oil & water and will automatically separate, or that a coin might go up my sleeve - across my chest - and down the other sleeve to get from one hand to another 'secretly'... no no no: I hate that superfluous trite!
Entertaining? Sure.
Looks good? Maybe.
Closest as theatrically possible to real magic? No.

That's why the past couple of years I've been leaning toward straight-forward effects. Effects, not tricks. The presentations I've been developing have been more about perception, imagination becoming reality, and illusion. The fewer "props" that need to be used, the better.
And so whenever I start thinking this way, all of my paths start leading toward Mentalism.
I like the slower-paced style; taking time to build an effect and engage someone's mind. Then make it explode.


BTW, I can do a lot of fancy card flourishes and multi-packet cuts that you see on those flourish sites. That's just a side-interest, something to do with a deck of cards in my hands. Not something I incorporate into a performance.

Dec, 2 weeks before Christmas

My sister & bro-in-law have settled on a house and have all of that in progress!
Saturday I hung out at their apartment for the last time. We found a very good Thai restaurant not far from Columbia and had a tasty dinner. Then back at their place we watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice [2010, Nicholas Cage] and Despicable Me. LOVE both. Wish I had gotten to see them in the theater, but nobody loves me. ;-P

Sunday Steve invited me over, and so for the first time I headed over there. Fun! The buildings he's already built for next BrickFair knocked my socks off. =) I plan to build a few buildings by then to add to his display.


And you know last week the new expansion for World of Warcraft came out: Cataclysm. It. Is. Awesome.
This is my first expansion from release day. Fun times. I picked up my pre-ordered copy from Gamestop at lunchtime and installed it as soon as I got home from work. I was 1400th in queue to log into the server I play on, which is a high-population server. Took an hour to get in. You have to figure, 12 million players (however many bought the xpac on release day) spread across 100-some servers... The next day I only had to wait 5 min, and since then I haven't had to wait (and that's good & normal).

I'm taking my time leveling my main, Ixmucane, the warlock. He's almost level 83 (from 80, pre-expansion) and the level cap was only increased to 85. Steve hit 85 in, what? two days? He's already running heroics (heroic dungeons, the harder difficulty versions). See, he likes the raiding content. I enjoy leveling and being part of lore. The revamped Cataclysm quests are much more story-driven and motivated, so they are more fun to get into. More enjoyable. I like dungeons with a good group, but I have to be in the mood for it and have no time-constraints. Later on Fri/Sat nights are good. It's always fun to be raiding at 3-4am, bleary-eyed and half-asleep just pushing buttons to attack... all just until you finish the last boss, for the team!

So instead of leveling my main, I've been leveling a worgen. A rogue in fact, which is pretty much the opposite in terms of gameplay to a warlock. I'm enjoying it. Being able to transform from human to werewolf at will is fun. They have British accents. Named mine Valintyne. ^_^

Magic Vid - Twisting The Aces

I want to start putting up short vids of myself doing magic.
The idea is to allow my magic friends (like Steve, Jason, etc) to critique and brainstorm over the internet via Comments.
Aaaaaaand everyone else who reads my blog (all 3 of you?) can maybe be entertained.
Vimeo lets you password-protect vids, so my ideas and presentations can stay within my world and not be subjected to the randomy filth & exposure on YouTube. The password is at the end of this post.


This is my presentation for the late Dai Vernon's Twisting The Aces. The "astronaut" line/display is from my good friend Jason Geist; it's much more fun than 'neck-tying' the deck at that point.
[It's very quiet cause I filmed it on my Droid X phone, so turn up the volume! Also, go full screen cause I filmed it at 720p.]



Password: vernon

The Godson -- drink

As a former bartender (master of mixology, naturally), I have a few custom drink concoctions. Once you get a feel for how liquors & flavors blend, it's not too difficult to create new mixes for a patron who wants you to surprise them because they don't know what to order (usually women).
I've been told I make the best chocolate martinis. And that's true! Several years and much experimentation has lead to the perfect blend of flavor, that goes down smoothly. A delicious dessert martini.
This is not that recipe.


THE GODSON
A "Godfather" is scotch & amaretto. This is a sweeter version, almost like a jocular, kiddie version of the original. And so I named it after the movie The Godson, a Rodney Dangerfield parody of The Godfather. This is for people who like a bit of whiskey/bourbon, but also want something very sweet. I've had waitresses tell me it smells like gasoline; it doesn't, but I've since thought of calling it such.

Ingredients:

1 oz Southern Comfort
1 oz Amaretto

Preparation:

1. Build ingredients over ice in an old-fashioned (rocks) glass.
2. Stir well
3. Serve with a swizzle stick, so the consumer can stir frequently to keep the mix even and cold.
Can be garnished with a cherry.

Adventures In Manhattan, Magic Edition

Saturday Steve and I took the Megabus to NYC.
It was a very good day.

We arrived at the Whitemarsh Park & Ride at 7:30am for the 8am bus. There was NO parking. And the lots are assigned, so there's no leeway. I was forced to park at the Ikea parking lot across the street and pray it would be okay there until we got back at 2:20am... It was, but I didn't like it.

The Megabus is a double-decker, and has free wifi. But the Bolt Bus has more comfortable seats, with more leg room, amd friendly bus drivers. The only thing that's "better" with Megabus is that they have buses like every hour around the clock, whereas Bolt Bus' last departure is 8pm.

We got in Manhattan a couple of blocks from Times Square, predictable. Got our requisite corner cart hot dogs and started walking south. Then we jumped on the subway and went to Battery Park. Very windy, with a nice view of Lady Liberty, since the park is at the southern tip of the island. Steve bought a "Movado" watch for $20, talked a Nigerian down from $40. =D I took a great b&w photo of the metal sphere sculpture that is now there, having been damaged and recovered from in front of the Twin Towers. Very cool, very steampunk. 8:-) Also right there is the American Indian Art Museum, which was used as the art museum in Ghostbusters 2.

We then walked north, popped into Trinity Church to see the architecture, woodwork, and the cemetery. Continued to walk north, passing Wall Street on our way to Ground Zero. They've already got the frames & floors for 2 very tall buildings going up, many many stories tall. I love tall buildings. They make me feel small, and give me a sense a wonder at their grandiose scale.

Then we continued north to Canal Street, passing thru Chinatown. Got McDonald's there, the jumped on the subway to Herald Square. Macy's Christmas window displays were all set up and in motion, and the area was being set up and decorated for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Steve had talked to a magician friend of his the day before and arranged to meet at Tannen's magic shop on 34th there (a regular stopping point for us). I got to meet Tony Chang, underground NY magician who has a few effects/sleights published on Theory 11's webpage. Nice guy! =)

We hung out at Tannen's until they closed at 4pm. Then Tony took us to a pizzeria around the corner for a laugh: it's where the "old school" magicians in NY hang out. By old school I mean the non-progressive, lame, old guys... well, I won't rant (that's another blog post). Anyway, we met a few of these guys and later laughed about 'em.
Left there and the 3 of us walked north the Rockefeller Center -- Steve wanted to check out the Lego store. The big tree was up, with scaffolding all around since they were still putting all the Christmas lights on it. We hung out on a bench there, telling magic stories for a while.

Then Tony made a suggestion that aligned with the reason I wanted to stay in Manhattan late: go to a bar. We went to a small bar downtown in Tribeca where he knew the barmaids. The 3 of us got a booth and a few drinks, and had playing cards all over the table. That's pretty normal for a group of magicians. ;-P We spent all that time drinking, telling jokes, a showing off card tricks. Perfect.

Steve and I caught the 11pm Megabus back to Whitemarsh and got home at my apt around 3am. I actually slept on the bus! In fact, I slept for about 3/4ths of the trip. I wasn't too comfortable, but at lease we had gotten the back seats so we could recline them a fair bit.

Chatting and jamming with Tony was great -- I miss doing that frequently like Jason, Josh, and I did back in college 2+ days a week. I spent most of Sunday watching magic DVDs, reading magic books, and playing with cards.

A Needed Day Alone

Today was a good day alone. No plans; for once a good thing.

I got up at a reasonable time, 10:30am. Toasted some chocolate chip Eggo waffles for breakfast, then checked the various blogs and jazz on the net which I follow; took my time. That's always nice, because during the week I rush around in the morning doing my morning routine before work, with very little spare time built in to dilly-dally.

Then I took a shower and put on clothes. Following that, I updated my laptop's version of Ubuntu Linux to the latest, 10.10, released 2 weeks ago.

Researched some ideas for an articulated arm & wall mount for my iPad. I want to put it on the wall just above my computer monitors so that it would be easily accessible. That could be great for Skype (iPads have built-in speakers & a mic), and using the iPad as a jukebox, especially with Pandora radio.
So I headed out & about for a while, driving to various stores looking for at least *something* that might be viable. I checked out Target, Staples, Best Buy... no dice. Closest thing I came across was a small TV wall mount with a swinging arm... but it cost $90! That's about 1/5th the price of my iPad. No.
But it was 69 degrees so a good day to drive around with the top down. Might be the last warm day for that until Spring...

Came back to my apartment, looked thru the Ikea catalog to see what else I want to put on my walls (floating shelves? art? giant clock?) and killed some more time reading online.

Then I popped out to Caribou Coffee and got a dark chocolate mocha with almond flavor. Yum! I then went next door and ordered 2 rolls of salmon & cucumber sushi. The drink and the sushi go very well together; I suggest you try it.

Took the food home and watched the last 2 episodes of Warehouse 13 which I hadn't gotten to since the season ended. Good stuff!
Following that I logged onto WoW and played for an hour or so. I did the quests relating to phase 3 of the cult & elemental invasion, ran a random dungeon, and did a few daily quests while testing out my secondary spec: Affliction.

After that, started researching apartments in DC. Spent the rest of the night doing that while drinking Scotch.

In the past month I've been working on my resume, researching jobs and apartments in NYC. If the stars align and my coz Joe and I could each get jobs and start about the same time and get an apartment together, it could work. It would work...
However, by myself, it would be a huge stretch, even if I was making more money to compensate for the higher cost of living. A little disheartening.
So I've moved that goal back a bit in my head. For now.
My current job eventually might require that I work from home, that is, remotely. This would at least give me more freedom in where I live... I could move to DC and still get the city life that I want. DC is a bit smaller than NYC, but still a fun city. I know, I spent a couple of years hanging around DC 4-6 days/nights a week. ;-)

Stuff

Yeah, stuff. A memory dump [from RAM? heh]. This won't be eloquent.

Lately I've been pretty discontent. I'm comfortable in my life and where it is. But I'm not satisfied. I endeavor to change that...


I need to create art. It's been a couple of months. I've got images in my head that need to get out, and my creative impulses need to run free for a bit.


Bought grey jeans, which I've been searching for for over a year. They are perfect. I can never find jeans that are comfortable & look good, so I always just buy darkish blue jeans in the loose/baggy style. Not very fashionable, but comfortable. These grey ones are I think "relaxed" fit, boot cut. I like baggy in the legs, but they look damn good on me, IMHO. ;-P

Also, when going out last Wed, I was hit on by a college girl (age I assumed 18-19 cause she looked young) and she invited me to a concert at the Power Plant Live in Bmore the next night. The whole time I'm thinking "Aw, you're acting so cute, you have no idea." A little condescending in my head, but I did love the attention. I know where to find her for future interactions. >:-]
It must've been the jeans; that was my first night wearing them.

So that Wed night, Steve & I headed to Denny & Lee's magic shop to see Aldo Columbini lecture. Italian magician -- hilarious! His wife, Rachel [she's English] also does some magic and lectures. I was in on one of those tricks, and afterwards she gave me the "props" of that trick (a 1-way force deck and a gimmicked jumbo card), said I seemed really nice or something like that. ;-)
Rock on, my Grey Jeans of Attractive Power, with +13 to Luck!


A couple of weekends ago was my sister's birthday. She, my bro-in-law, and I went up to Lancaster PA for the outlet shopping and then the Amazing Maize Maze, which we did at night with flash lights. Going up there is an annual Fall tradition. =) It started with us and 2 of our cousins before they moved to LA a couple of years ago. =( I didn't buy anything this year, no real need, but it's always a fun day.


Halloween at my parents' -- I discovered a technique to keep Cali (their female yellow lab) quiet when the doorbell rings! Standing behind her and straddling her while holding her collar (she's big & powerful) is the normal way to restrain her. But she's a loud barker. She doesn't want to attack, no not at all. She wants to jump up on you and lick you in the face and show affection and have you pet her until your hands go numb. ;-P
What I discovered is if I leaned forward and placed my free hand on her neck, just below the collar, she released her tension and didn't bark at all! It was as if this was a signal to be quiet/calm.


Went to Illusions Saturday night. Spencer had fallen from a strait-jacket escape Friday night during the show and busted open his forehead. Thought it was finally time to pay him a visit. Sadly, it had been a year since I was last there, and last saw him. =( We've tried to get together in the past year to hang out, but we're on opposite schedules entirely. I used to be on that bartender's schedule of waking up at 1-2pm, going to bed at sunrise.
They've rearranged the layout of the place. Moved the leather couches downstairs and the formal tables upstairs. Built a new stage on the far back wall, it's nice. Should've been designed that way on Day 1... [ahem]
Jerry did the show that night, it was also good to see him. We reminisced about the 3 of us on the road trip doing magic at that trade show in Binghamton, NY two (3?) Februarys ago. Good times. Ahhh, the stories of my life could fill a book. =)


Been playing a bit a WoW lately. Almost daily, at least for a little bit. Catacylsm, the big expansion, comes Dec 7th, and there are pre-expansion events going on in the world, more each week. A cult has moved into the major cities, and Elementals are invading. The in-game earthquakes have gone from tremors to larger quakes... all in preparation for Deathwing to burst out of the ground and sunder all of Azeroth. Here's the intro cinematic for the expansion that'll kick it all off. Awesome! Makes me want to log in and kick some ass every time I watch it.
I was leveling a Draenei Shaman with heirloom gear for a bonus 20% to XP for a while. Really fast leveling, I liked it. Last week I started an Undead Rogue on a new server entirely, cause I like the Undead lore and Undercity, and I want to get familiar with Rogues. Rogues are the anti-Warlock (my main is a Warlock you know), and I've decided that come Cataclysm, I want to level a Worgen Rogue. >:-]


Why does spell-check flag "grey" expecting it to be "gray"? Checking the dictionary, "grey" appears to be the British/Canadian version of "gray"? Somehow in my mind, G-R-E-Y is the proper way to spell it.
/shrug


I always use the Oxford comma. It bugs me that almost no one else does. Then again, I've observed that American grammar has gone down the tubes in the past ~5 years, so I'm not surprised. People need to remember their "forms of Be" and match the plural subjects with plural verbs!
It should be "they ARE" and never "they is"!
...and such.
I can't blame this on the youth growing up with IM and email and txt msging shortcuts, cause adults, even non-technology-inclined ones, are speaking worse and worse.

First Migraine

Friday night I had a new personal experience: an occulus migraine.

I had spent most of the evening playing World of Warcraft, but not intensely because I had Ghostbusters playing on my TV. Mostly in-game I was hanging around one of the main cities and chatting with guild members. Around 1am I was getting noticeably tired, so I got up to adjust my thermostat, put on PJs, and get ready for bed. When I sat down at my desk again and started to read the latest lines of the chat, I noticed I couldn't see the very next word after the one I was actually reading, until I looked at it. Kind of like if you look at the sun and see sunspots. Except I hadn't...
Anyway, over the course of the next 5 or so minutes, I lost about 60% of my vision, mostly in my right eye. I wasn't seeing black nor colored lines, just a kind of blind spot, a waverly distortion. Best I can describe is like a turbulent puddle of water or mercury even. A pressure headache was developing across my entire brain. I popped 2 Advil (only meds I have) and climbed into bed, lights out.

I txt'd my sister and we txt'd back and forth a couple of times, but after a short while I was unable to see the keys on my cell phone to txt! Fortunately my Droid's features saved me: the speech-to-text function works remarkably well. After about 30 minutes since I first noticed it starting, my vision quickly faded back to normal. Tension headache was still there, but I fell asleep knowing my vision was fine.

My Mom has been getting full-on migraines since she was a kid, and my sister for many years as well. I also dated a girl for a couple of years who got them intensely, so between all of them, I know what to expect and how to deal with it. I'm 29 and this was my first. It wasn't scary, in fact I was fascinated by this new experience, but it wasn't desirable.
We ran the gamut of questions as to what might have triggered it... But nothing has been out of the ordinary for me; my diet is normal, my stress level is normal, etc, etc.

However since I've been thinking about it, I have noticed an element of my synesthesia has been more pronounced the past few months. When I read black text on a white background, particularly serifs text (like Times New Roman, and not so much Arial), on either a computer monitor or even on paper, I see green and purple auras to most of the letters. Prior to a few months ago, these were very faint and only on about half of all letters (almost exclusively lowercase, and letters with tails up or down; examples: d, b, q, p, h, t, y; and also rounded hump letters: n, u, and m). Now it's almost all letters and more vibrant.
I previously blogged about my synesthesia, when I discovered it was an actual pathology and not just my overactive imagination, here:
http://coolestintentions.blogspot.com/2009/09/synesthesia.html
This is all for my own record keeping/journaling, but if you want to read some personal info about me, go read that blog entry... However, don't expect me to bring it up in casual conversation.

6 Bucks

I don't eat out all the time since I enjoy cooking, but I do eat out frequently. It seems that where ever I go I'll end up spending 6 bucks and change.

Subway: the subs I'd get are 6 bucks and change.
Chic-Fil-A: two 8 piece nuggets, 6 bucks.
Chipotle/Qdoba: burrito, 6 bucks and change.
Tacobell (rare): two chicken quesadillas, 6 bucks.
McDonald's: 10 piece nugget meal, almost 6 bucks.
Panera Bread: sandwich for almost 7 bucks.
Etc, etc.

Sushi will run me 9 bucks, as will Chinese food like orange chicken or sweet and sour chicken.

Economically it's of course cheaper to cook. I can get like 8 large chicken breasts for about $10, and one is big enough to fill me.
Or a tasty personal sized DiGorno 4-cheese pizza for just $3 and that will nearly fill me.

Droid!

After contemplating it for a couple of months, I finally upgraded my Rogue to a Droid X.

I played with one at a Verizon store in Manhattan and now that they run Android 2.2 and I was able to get it online from Verizon for a good price (I had a few upgrades and deals stacked), it was a good decision.

This phone is awesome. It's comparable to the iphone; a mini computer in your pocket. Not to sound like a Linux snob but I like it more than iphones: it's more customizable.

Naturally I've downloaded a bunch of great apps (all free of course) and rearranged the layout of things. I do like to customize my things.
Synching my email and contacts is great; I've never owned a smart phone or Blackberry before.

And I LOVE the Swype keyboard!!
Aside from the standard touch-screen keyboard to tap on like every other device that doesn't have a physical keyboard, the Swype keyboard let's you slide your finger across the on-screen keys without lifting your finger off the screen. It uses some A.I. with word predictability and I guess pattern recognition to determine what word you want.
I wrote this entire entry on my Droid using the Swype keyboard! It makes "typing" really fun, like a game. =)


TL,DR version: I got a Droid X and it's awesome.

Manhattan

Last Sunday Steve & I took a day trip to Manhattan.
We took the Bolt Bus from Baltimore and it was perfect. Features: plenty of leg space, power outlets, and free wifi, $20 each way. If you buy a ticket in advance, you're guaranteed a seat. Good deal.

So we did a lot of walking all around the city. Hit Chinatown, walked up Bowery, subway from Lafayette&Houston to Times Sq, walked north up 5th/6th Ave (there was a Polish Parade on 5th), went to the NY Public Library's upstairs (to the room that Ghostbusters was filmed in), misc stores along the way, Rockefeller Center (Lego store!), then walked thru about 2/3rds (!!) of Central Park and came on out the west side, walked down to Columbus Circle and took a subway back to Times Sq-area, got dinner and caught the 8:15 Bolt Bus back to Bmore. Somewhere in all that we hit Tannen's and also Fantasmo magic shops (David Roth was demo'ing at Fantasmo!).
Steve & I were also on fire, we met 3 separate chicks around our age; each I felt I would ask to hang with me/us later that night even after very brief conversations... except it was Sunday and we were going back to Bmore: a different world.
Got home around 12:30am, which was kind of late for a Sunday, but totally worth it.


While eating dinner & relaxing before heading for the bus home, I came upon a revelation: I need to live in NYC.
Need to.
Now, certainly I've felt that I don't belong in MD for a long time. That's pretty standard when you grow up somewhere with noticeably different culture traits than where you're forced to have moved to. I didn't chose to live in MD; and I'm only here now due to circumstance & convenience.
But this came as more than a thought -- it was a feeling. I'm feeling it with every fiber of my being. I want to make this happen.

After texting that night and then tonight talking with my cousin Joe, he's on board. We're each going to start looking for jobs in/around Manhattan; as well as apartments.
Joe said something that activated the rebellious nature in me. He said that it feels like our respective parents have kept us from moving/living/working/going to school in NYC. That's kind of true, and it's probably because they did grow up in the city (in Ozone Park, Queens).
I want to chose where I live. I choose NYC.


Also, the fortune in my fortune cookie this week read:
" Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. :-) "

My Infinite Improbability

I've been living alone in my apartment for close to 9 months.
My biggest -- and really only -- fear of living alone was that my Inner Voice, coupled with the freedom of loneliness (yes that makes sense) would release me from restraints and I'd go off the deep end/do something crazy/get into trouble...

But the professional responsibilities of my job ground me to normalcy -- I can't, for example, dye my hair blue like I've always wanted.
Going over to my parents' house about once a week also grounds me. I consider it one of my highest priorities to live up to the high standards with which they raised me, and never cause them shame from me. That is a son's responsibility.
And talking and hanging out with my sis & bro-in-law frequently also gives me a normalcy perspective. So does talking frequently with Steve, be it via Skype while playing Starcraft II or in WoW.

However, in my next life, I'm going to be a digital artist. Stay up all night creating art. Slaving over the need to create. Blue hair (prob streaks at first), micro magnet in a fingertip, crazy awesome ideas. Freedom of expression and all that jazz. I've had a taste of all this separately in the past, but not combined into one life.
I know that if I had never moved to MD from NY when I was a teen, that this is the path I would have been on... straight to Greenwich Village man. For better or for worst... who knows?

Power Outage - Adventures in Apartment Living

When I drove home after work (all 5 min of it) and got on to Reisterstown Road I noticed a streetlight was out and there were cops cars at the intersection. That is odd, but then I saw more cop cars along the road and BGE trucks... Uh oh.

I pulled up to my parking lot and at the end of it there are two service trucks connecting a generator-looking device to the huge switch box over there. (10pm now and it's still there).
I noticed fewer than normal cars parked for 6:15pm on a Wednesday...

I walked up to my building's front door and there was a pink piece of 8.5x11 paper taped to the glass door, circa 5pm. It stated that the power is out and BGE roughly estimates that it will be fixed by 6pm. I groaned audibly because... it was already about 6:15.

I was planning on cooking chicken for dinner, something spicy with cheese on a bed of nachos, and watching last night's episode of Warehouse 13. There goes those plans! Instead I grabbed my iPad and blasted to Panera. I really enjoy 1 sandwich there, which is filling, a full meal; it had been a while since I'd eaten Panera; and they have free Wi-fi. So I spent a little while there. Found BGE's website and the page showing where power is out and how many affected customers. For Owings Mills it was 1600 people. Ugh. That page auto-updates every 10 min and I saw 2 page refreshes. Left there and went to Office Depot further down the road. Didn't find much.

Drove home, power still out. I have an LED lantern that's a crank-to-charge, but 30 seconds of cranking yields maybe 3-4 min of bright light before it quickly dims out. Yes that's a good conversion factor, but still annoying. So I headed to Target (2 min up the road) and called Mom. Good ol' Mom always knows best. She recommended candle types and to get an actual flashlight.
I bought two 8-packs of 1.4" votive candles, an LED flashlight that also has a lantern mode (100+ hours on 1 set of 4 AAs), and a neat LED "glowstick"/flashlight (200 hrs on its watch size batteries).

Got home, 9:15-ish, power still out. Even fewer cars in the lot now. Saw a mom-dad-kid family get into their car and leave. Wonder if they're planning on spending the night at someone else's? Adam is just up the road from me and he has power. Honestly it's a little creepy at how dark and how quiet it is, except for the night bugs like crickets chirping. And that no one's around...

Got in and grabbed my flat metal baking sheet and wrapped it with aluminum foil, set it on my coffee table then lit one 8-pack of votive candles, along with the one largish vanilla-smelling candle I already had. This provided good light in my living room. But after 30 min I noticed the temperature getting warmer near my couch area. My thermostat reads 76, and to me that's noticeably warm as I like it to be 70 or so, 68 even sometimes.
The flashlight-lantern is quite bright so I blew out the candles and just have that on my coffee table. There's not much breeze but it's going down to 60 degrees tonight so that should keep me cool.

It's 10:30pm now and still no power.
Obviously I'm writing this on my iPad in Notes so I can upload it to my blog later.
66% battery left on it. I guess I'll listen to mp3s on my Sony Walkman with my new Skullcandy blue Smokin' earbuds before going to sleep early.
Haven't decided if I want to sleep in my bed, warm (not so great air circulation in there), or on my comfy leather couch (comfy yes, but not nearly as much space of course) with the 2 big windows open to stay cool...

Addendum -- power came back on at 1:20am.

Beach!

Spent a week at the beach (LBI, NJ) with my family. A tradition that has gone on for 21 years now. =) A much needed escape from Reality.

The first couple of days were rainy & cool, so we didn't get to actually hang out on the beach itself. =(
But then it warmed up and got sunny the last few days so we thoroughly enjoyed it. As usual I did a ton of body surfing (who needs boogie boards? wimps!) which is the closest thing to superhero flying. =D


Didn't have wifi up there (and I knew that), so I could only check my email & Facebook via my phone (ick), so I didn't do that too often.
I did bring my iPad, which is my portable entertainment center. ;P I had a lot of free time, particularly later at night, so I was able to just chill out and draw, digitally, on my iPad in Sketchbook Pro. Very therapeutic, I don't seem to ever have enough time to just sit & draw.
Three of the better, more polished, pieces are on my deviantArt gallery now:
The Queen of Bubbles
Franco Whimsik
Out of My Way NOW

I have plenty of Salt Water Taffy if anyone wants to come over & partake of it's sugary goodness.

Starcraft II

After, wait, 12 years?! Blizzard finally made the sequel to Starcraft. I was on the fence about buying it (in my mind most RTS games just boil down to having a larger army than your opponent) but on launch day I got swept up in the hype and got it.
Adam & I went straight from work to Gamestop and each bought a copy. Once we got back to our respective homes we started installing it and txt'ing back & forth about the loading screens, recap movie, intro movie, etc...
Exciting!

Steve also got it, and my coz Joe bought the Collector's Edition (which I wanted). I've started the Skype group, and we've all had fun playing playing co-op teams against the computer in skirmishes. Maybe someday we'll get decent enough to take on human opponents.

What makes SC2's multiplayer better than other RTS games' is the variety in each of the 3 races. Truly none are similar in any way. And there's much variety in the units that can be created for each race, so many many strategies abound.

I'm quite good at Protoss. I have a decent early game and a killer mid-late game.
However, I really prefer Zerg because they're so wildly different from anything in an RTS game ever. It's just that they are more challenging to play. So I'm working on 'em.
Terran to me is basic, and boring. ;P Steve's got a good Terran mid-late game.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." --Dr. Seuss

That's about as 'inspirational' as I get with quotes. But I like this one.
=)

Today, a stream of consciousness poem

Today
Today is a day.

Of "to".

Or is that too?
Or two?

Tooday. Also a day.
Twoday. A day so long it feels like two.
Twosday. A day for couples. Or twins?
Tuesday!

But it's Saturday.

Guild-ed

I was considering creating a guild for my leveling priest. My idea was to invite pretty much anyone I came across (that didn't have an immature name, I do have standards ya know, even in my zanier schemes) and have a massive guild of players of all levels. Deep down I just wanted to make an active chartroom (guild chat) and make some easier options for grouping.

Well, tonight as I was again talking to Steve about it and tossing around guild name ideas and playing with the create a tabard interface, I was invited to a guild.
I immediately looked up the guild in the WoW Armory online and saw +230 characters in it; many lvl80s and many leveling characters as well. The GM was friendly with her invite, so I accepted.
Perfect.
She then ran me & another new recruit thru the Stockades just to get us more XP and for fun, with plenty of jokes in the party chat. Later she had her brother craft us some upgraded gear. Very nice!
Then the brother joined a couple of us for a dungeon, all the while we were chatting.

Talk about fulfilling my needs...!

(That's what she said!)

[There Steve, I updated my blog!]

The world is more mysterious and your attitude is more sinister if you put your hood up.

Just a black hoodie, hood up.

Muhahahahaaaa! >:-]

WoW, just wow...

Steve has been hangin' at my place on Friday nights, crashing there as we've been staying up very late.
Fun stuff: movies, YouTube vids, magic, WoW, plenty of booze & silliness. The past 2x we've gone at 1:30am to the new 24-hour diner up the road from me. Fun times. =)

Well, when talking about the bill last night, I was going to pay with my card and Steve only had 20s (the bill wasn't split). One of us mentioned paying me back via gold in World of Warcraft. Hehe. Or me buying gold off of Steve.
Then we were joking about it as we walked up to the register and the guy behind the counter said "Gold? Like World of Warcraft?"
Naturally our eyes lit up. '8-)

After talking with him, not only does he play WoW and is a cool guy from Albania, but he levels characters and sells 'em. He had WoW up & going in the backroom. Neat.
He gave us 10% off the bill and said anytime we come in he'll give that to us! =D
/geekout


Also, the Chinese food place up the street from me that I always get take out from has a guy there that plays WoW.
How do I know?
Once when Steve & I were there for a pickup, we noticed behind the counter was the Stormrage novel. Nerdnip, not something you'd just pick up at the library. ;P
Then today I was wearing my Alliance logo T-shirt (which I got on clearance Friday at Hot Topic for $5 down from $20!) and one of the guys smiled when he saw it. It was a knowing smile; even though he didn't say anything about it to me. ^_^

Say goodbye to Hollywood...

Sara & I are no longer friends. Quiet permanently.

Over the past 4 or so months I've noticed her changing. Kind of becoming more immature and selfish. And spending a lot less time with me, or talking to me, and just seeming to not care about me at all. And any promise she's made since my birthday hasn't been kept. Very odd behavior. The few times going out were all about her & what she wanted to do.
When trying to call her out this change a couple of times, each time she'd get extremely mad and then try to shift the focus as if I was the one who has been changing. Irrational behavior.
This culminated in her not talking to me for several weeks in a row (her immature way to not dealing with a situation; whereas I, being mature, want to talk it out) despite my attempts to contact her with friendly words.

Then I find out last week from a mutual friend (and coworker, Adam, whom I'm becoming good friends with) what's up: she's been dating an old friend of hers: an alcoholic, ex-druggie! WTF?! She's gone off the deep-end.
As Adam put it: she's off her rocker, and she's delusional. Heh.

Fortunately for my sanity, Adam was seeing what I was seeing: her changes, her irrational behavior/attitude, etc, etc.

Then Monday after not talking to me for weeks on end, she said she wanted to come over to pick up her Wii. The days she suggested to do this were ones I already had plans (like swing lessons, etc). I remember how she acted with Spencer and taking her gifts to him back, and at this point I plain didn't want her near my pad, so I went out of my way to bring it to her after work.
After I got out of my car and handed her the bag with the Wii in it, she turned to walk away up the driveway. As she did, I politely asked her to delete my family & friends' contact info from her phone & email and then she blew up.
Yelling at me on the lawn, she couldn't even finish a sentence without jumping to something else -- things she said were completely irrational & untrue. Basically she was acting like a 5 year old throwing a temper tantrum. Complete with "I hate your guts!" Really? Yes. Reason? No idea. I hadn't done a thing.
I lifted up my sunglasses so she could look me in the eyes, and I smiled all the way through it, turning the other cheek & holding my tongue. I was in control and slung no mud back at her. She was out of control.
A good comparison would be Star Wars Episode 3 when Padme came to visit Anakin towards the end, and the continuing banter between delusional-Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sara was acting like Anakin, and I was the clear-headed Obi-Wan.

It's such a disappointment that what seemed to be a great friendship was destroyed by her attitude.
Oh well, a small blip on the time line of my life. I was just disappointed & annoyed. Otherwise I don't really care: if that's who she has become, then she has no place in my life. I'm mature enough to move on.


It does remind me how thankful I am to have good friends, ones I can always rely on being friends. Even if I don't see some of them very often (Jason, Megan, Spencer...) I'm still glad for them!

"So many faces in and out of my life / Some will last / Some will just be now and then / Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes / I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."
--Billy Joel, Say Goodbye To Hollywood

Moving On

Dear Rezzed, Blueshifts, Sweetxhearth, and Rancherowrap, and Zanasha:
I've moved away. Went to Mannoroth. Followed Mentalist & the guild. It's actually a lot better here: 4x as many players and more Alliance than Horde. We actually win Wintergrasp in the daytime here.
When patch 3.3.5 drops we'll be able to chat cross-server.
Until then,
--Vordacjinx.


And following that I've gotten 5 achievements in an afternoon (cleaning up the unfinished ones).
Finally, finally, finally dropped my lvl440 Tailoring and lvl 320 Enchanting, neither of which were doing anything for me. Picked up Alchemy & Herbalism: profitable and easy & quick to level up.

"Name change and I'm a new man now." ;P

Virtual/Digital Kindness

Somebody... gave me something? Online?

I don't know how to react; truly selfless acts of kindness.

On my DeviantArt gallery, someone I have had no interactions with gave me a llama badge. This is basically a neat little gift within DeviantArt that's displayed on the profile.

When I was leveling my Undead Priestess in WoW a few weeks ago, and she was only ~level 10 so very new, I grouped with another player with a character of a similar level so we could finish a quest we had in common. That only took 5 min. Afterward s/he used his/her tailoring skill to make my character some upgraded cloth armor pieces... for free. S/he was just being nice.

Maybe,

Just maybe,

There is hope for humanity.

Nah.

Horde For Life, ay ay ay

Horde For Life music video parody of T.I & Rihanna's Live Your Life.

Friday night Steve came over & spent the night for a little WoW LAN party. We created Horde characters on Smolderthorn. My goal is to level a Horde character before the next expansion, Cataclysm, is released which will sunder the world and change almost everything. I want to experience the Horde's "old world" content.
Picked Smolderthorn cause we know people IRL on it, so we may run into them. Also there's a 1:7.2 Alliance:Horde ratio. Heh heh.

I don't know what it is but I think the Horde side is cooler. Instead of ships to go between capital cities, Horde has Zeppelins. You actually ride them if they are taking you to a place that's on the same continent.
The NPC's greetings talk about honor and duty, instead of just "see you next time." Kinda Klingon-like. "Ka'pla"? ;P
I like the gothic-yet-neon look of Undercity. Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride's underworld gothic.

Stevo & my characters are lvl12 (him a troll Shaman, me an orc Warlock). He's already bored with leveling! He likes raiding, I like leveling (except it is sometimes too slow).
The goal was to play together only with these 2. But I wanna play more! So last night with nothing better to do I created a Death Knight. Leveled him from 55 to 58 and out of the DK starting zone in just 3 hours flat. Ended with 35 gold too! So that is a little bankroll for my Hordies since I don't really care about the DK.

I said Hordies, plural. Today (3 day weekend cause I work Sat) I started a new character: an undead Priestess. She's fun to fight with. Already level 9 in ~3 hours /played. She's got a fireball-type spell, healing spells, and a shield I can put up every 15 secs (lasts for 30 or until it absorbs max damage).
She's going to be my DPS shadow priestess. >8:-]

May the Fourth be with you.

Installed new tail lights on my car tonight. Need to find a nice place and a sunny day so I can take some pro photos of my car, now that most every exterior mod I wanted is done. Just gotta debadge the sides (that means take off the chrome letters "PT Cruiser") and then attach the chrome script "Streetrod" emblem on the back hatch.
There's one more major customization I want to do. A bit pricey and totally worth it: black flames on the hood. But that can wait a while.

Showed off the iPad to my parents. Had a lot of fun zipping around the Google Maps app to our vacation spots, our house in NY, my parents' houses that they grew up in. Then my Mom noticed that you can drop a pin and accidentally initiated the street view. Awesome! Panning around on the iPad was great. So I jumped to a few neat places after we scoped out our old house in NY... I showed her The Strip in Vegas. Then after seeing the Eiffel Tower in Vegas on the street view, I jumped to the real one in Paris. Awesome. Then Stonehenge.
Then the town of Voltaggio in Italy. Then Catalafima in Sicily, where the Voltaggios emigrated from to America about a hundred years ago. Very neat.

Evolution... like the dinosaur

I bought an iPad.
Yep. Me.
As you know I'm not a fan of Apple -- it's just a trendy version of Microsoft. Yet people think MS is evil but Apple is "cool". Sure. And I'm also a big fan of Linux for the indie computing.

The iPad is a worthwhile toy. And a step into the future.

I got to play with Jason's Sat night and it is fun. So after some research later that night, I went out Sunday to the Apple store in Columbia mall (good day for a topless drive and I actually got sunburned a bit) and was in and out in 5 min. Seriously!

Aside from games and Internet & email, I also am using it as a digital and portable sketch book. I downloaded Adobe Ideas, vector-based drawing, as well as Sketchbook Pro for a few bucks. SBP has many different brushes, options, and layers. =) Plus the file can be saved as a Photoshop psd project file...

I also set up a few things like I'm used to at work so I can remote into my home PC using the iPad. That could be useful when I'm out & about... ;P

The keyboard is nice. No more typos than I get with a normal keyboard.
Yeah, I typed this entry on the iPad.

More impressions of it to come...

Just dance...!

I feel so empowered right now. Tonight was the last of the 8-week Lindy Hop lessons. Sara didn't come because she got great seats to the Yanks-vs-O's game from work (she's taking me tomorrow). That didn't stop me from going.
Yeah traveling 35-40 min alone kind of sucks. But it was so worth it.
The last class was a review of things we learned. In the style of "remember this, this and this? Do just those moves to music for a few minutes" ...then "remember this & this? Add those to it, freestyle". And on and on. Very empowering because we could do it.

Then, and this was great, they taught us how to Lindy Hop to fast music. She put on music a little faster than what we learned to for a minute, then switch partners and a slightly faster song... etc, etc... until we got to "Shout and Feel It" from the Swing Kids soundtrack (you KNOW how much I love that song baby!).
At that point I was dancing with a gal who gets it like I do, and we busted out a couple of high speed, high-energy swingouts that felt perfect. Unfortunately the instructor stopped the music just a bit after it started because apparently no one else could keep up with the speed. Slow pokes! ;P
[Well, that song is around 200bpm (beats per minute)...!]
I think I'm going to take the next class, with or without Sara...


Full moon, beautiful cool night. Happy Diavo. =)
For the first time in a few years I'm as close as I've been to getting back into swing dancing. This time around I'm aiming for the social scene, and not "putting all of my eggs in one basket" so to speak by only training/dancing with my girlfriend-at-the-time.

A couple of girls in my class have told me I should come to the Monday night swing dances. I plan to now. It just sucks that it's on the other side of Baltimore and inward, so any way I go it'll take 40-45 min to get to. And on a Monday, not a weekend. >:-P

I miss Glen Echo. ::sigh::

Also, I find swivels very attractive. ^_^

Waltzes just don't have feeling / Nor does ballet my friends / You know in the end / That you and your gal / Need to swing, and swing, and swing / Cause you love that sting that's SWINGS!
--Big Tubba Mista, The Sting That's Swing

Wii

I was planning on buying a Wii this weekend. Something better happened: Sara lent me hers indefinitely. ^_^

Steve's is set up at the house, so she hasn't used hers since she moved in over the summer. Last night after work (last Sat working for a while) I popped into Best Buy... then Toys R Us... then Target, looking for the Ghostbusters game. No dice. Fortunately all 3 stores are within a mile strip on the same road as my apartment; I didn't travel far. So instead I bought my second choice: Star Wars The Force Unleashed.

I played a little of it at Jason's on the Xbox360 so I knew it was fun. But man-oh-man, the Wii controls make it awesome.
The right hand's nunchuck controls your character's right hand as it uses force powers. Z-button activated Force Grip (telekinesis) and moving the nunchuck in physical space, as well as the joystick on it maneuvers what- or whomever you're levitating. Without the Z-button pressed, the control stick moves the your character. And just thrusting the nunchuck forward instantly throws out a Force Push. >:-]
Left hand, the Wii-mote, controls the slashes of your lightsaber: left, right, up, down, stab forward.

Tax Season Complete.

Well, I got my tax returns back this week. Deposited 'em today at lunchtime. My Dad did my taxes without me asking -- I intended to do them with him double-checking me, but he asked me to give him my forms and he went ahead and did them & mailed 'em in.
I must have misheard him when he told me how much I was getting back, I thought he said $500 and $100.
Instead I got close to $1200 total!
W00t!

Time to order those chrome smootie hub caps... and new tail lights for my car...
Also, I'm probably going to buy a Wii this weekend. On Tuesday a new game comes out, Monster Hunter Tri, and a few of us at work want to play it together co-op. ^_^


And today was the last day of tax season. We actually weren't crazy busy at work like I expected for this week. Thank goodness!
After I left work, popped into my apartment to change, then over to Sara & Steve's. They were chillin' in the 2 hammocks so I joined 'em for a bit. Steve was going to make his yummy mac & cheese but then realized he's out of cheese. Sara heard that today for tax day PF Chang's was giving 15% off meals. So we went to the one in Towson. "Herro prease." Yum!
Then, food coma.
*happy*

Car & magic... and magic

Love my new car. =)
The weather was great last week for having the top down. We actually had 2 record highs Tues & Wed: it got into the upper 80s!
I love the feeling of leaving work, putting the top down, then crusin' on the beltway without traffic to Sara's [especially if it's Wed and we then head into the city (Canton-area) for Lindy lessons]. "Freedom!"
I bought & received the black outline gauge flames. And from the same company, I bought custom vinyls for the ugly air bag warning stickers on the sun visors. It's PT Cruiser car color-matched metallic blue with silver text: "BLUE BOMBER" which is what I named her. B-)
I have blue fuzzy dice, curb feelers, and the metal script "Streetrod" emblem which should arrive tomorrow.
Next: the chrome smoothie hub caps. (Smartly after another paycheck or I get my tax returns back)
Then: 3-D tail lights.
Then: black flames on the hood.
Still on the fence about the chrome front grille. Leaning toward no. Especially if I do black flames on the hood. >8:-]


Haven't played much WoW since I got the car... getting excited about the third expansion pack (Catacylsm) that comes out in [probably] a few months. Some major, major changes will comes along. Whoa.
Popped on tonight to check my mail. Want to do some "light" raiding with the awesome guild I'm in. Also really want to level my Druid -- it just... takes... so... long sometimes.


This morning Stevo called me to say that in an hour Daniel Garcia was lecturing at The Magic Warehouse, a magic shop 5 min from my apartment and 30 seconds from where I work here in Owings Mills. I leapt at chance. We were thinking of seeing his lecture at Denny & Lee's on Fri night, but I've got to work Sat 9-5 so I wouldn't be able to stay out late and would be anxious to leave to get to bed as soon as it was over. Bleh.
This was perfect: Sunday afternoon, extremely close location, air conditioned, without most of the usual bleh magicians that would be at Denny's. Also, we got the last 2 seats because we didn't have reservations. Those were 2 front row seats, on the side!
The Magic Warehouse is a nice magic shop: clean, air conditioned, with rooms of stuff. It's all on shelves in display boxes so you can pick up items and look at them; not behind glass or behind the counter.
After the lecture Steve & I impromtu-ly got Chinese & ate it back at my place, and jammed with cards for another 2 hours or so.


My coz Joe spent the night Friday -- came up from NC, met me at Sara's during her own hosted birthday party. Fun times that night. He's coming back tomorrow and just spending the night. Sara's supposed to come over after work too. Gotta give her the bday present I made (I'll prob put up a pic afterwards).


Bleh: this week is going to suck at work. It's the last week of tax season. I predict a lot of desperate people trying to log on to check the tax forms for their various financial accounts and thus needing password resets, and trying to download those forms into Turbo Tax at the last minute. Fools.
Or suckers.
Not sure which applies better.
It's like in college and you write a paper the night before it's due and go to print it out at like midnight and the printer is out of ink. Don't do important stuff at the last minute!

I bought a PT Cruiser!

Last Friday night (3/26) I bought a 2005 PT Cruiser convertible!
It's electric blue, with dark gray interior, and a black ragtop. B-)

I put a down payment in, and the dealer took my Saturn for a decent price (more than it might've been worth in my opinion) and financed the rest.

Here are some initial photos I took at my parents' last weekend: coolness.
It came with aftermarket chrome gas door, side spears on the lower doors, and chrome tail light covers.

So far I've already put a K&N air filter in and modified the stock airbox for a little more power. And I added a chrome tailpipe. Naturally my blue dice shift knob is on.
This afternoon Frederick & I installed a black Sony Xplod stereo (with aux input of course) that has blue lighting. I took off the antenna (I don't listen to the radio) and put a silver screw in it's place.
The only issue with the car is that the 2 cigarette lighters don't work. Gotta check the fuses for 'em when I get a chance.


Of course I've already made a build sheet for what I want to do to my new baby. Just a few additions/alterations.

EXTERIOR
Full Moon Hollywood hubcaps (chrome smooties like I had on my old Cruiser)
3-D retro tail lights (maybe these)
Chrome front grille (maybe)
Remove the PT Cruiser logos on the sides
Affix chrome "Streetrod" script lettering on the rear hatch
Curb feelers
Black flames on the hood and maybe behind the head lights (eventually...)

INTERIOR
Blue fuzzy dice
Gauge flames (neat)
Blue neon lights under front footwells

Dance Muscles Powered Up

So, an hour of dancing 2x a week for a couple of weeks and I think I've managed to revitalized my "atrophied" muscles to nearly-full restore. The only real way to test it would be to dance full on with my ex-partner/ex-girlfriend, and that certainly isn't going to happen.

Now dancing for an hour barely makes me tired, and my upper body strength (for lifting, throwing) is strong again. I'm barely out of breath and I am mostly only because I'm trying to sing and/or whistle the song while dancing.
This is definitely a good thing to counteract all the sitting around I do at work 8 hours a day. >:-P

Poor Sara, she can't keep up with me... she wimped out after only half an hour tonight. ;P
I need to find me a girlfriend with stamina baby, yeah. >8:-]

Razer Naga

Yesterday I had lunch with Stevo and we hit Best Buy. He wanted a new headset for WoW... I wanted new electronics with an eye toward mice. While Steve was looking at headsets, I was reading reviews on a couple of mice via my cell phone's internet browser -- smart.

I bought the Razer Naga. 17 buttons, a grid of 3x4 on the left side. Fully customizable of course.

It glows blue with LEDs along the mouse wheel, and each number in the grid (1-12) lights up, and there's a slow pulsing Razer logo that gets covered by your palm. If I want to I can turn the logo or the other lights off.

The mouse feels good in the hand. All of those buttons don't get in the way, and they aren't super-sensitive so they don't get accidentally pushed; the thumb can rest comfortably on them. The main buttons (classic left and right) have a resistance-free "bounce" to them; light to the push. The wheel isn't flimsy and has a good springy resistance.

The mouse is lightweight which is comfortable, and has an incredibly high DPI sensitivity range -- I have it set to 2,000 DPI and it can go all the way up to 5,600 DPI!


After playing WoW yesterday afternoon and this evening with it, customizing most of the buttons to special spells & jazz, I can definitively say this mouse rocks my world. ^_^

I also want to customize my Freelancer Discovery keys to map onto the mouse... ooh baby. Actually, I could probably map all the buttons I actually use onto the mouse in Freelancer...
Then maybe map my most used tools and jazz in Photoshop for max efficiency. That way I'd only really need the Wacom pen in my left hand and my mouse in my right -- talk about max control! >8-]


Photo of it on my desk, taken with my cell phone in a rush:

Unfulfilled

I felt so unsatisfied tonight:
After an hour she was exhausted & couldn't take it anymore.
I barely broke a sweat: I could've gone for several hours more.
We didn't even do anything complicated.
I've got such stamina. ^_^

Of course I'm talking about dancing. ;P

II. Blizzard 2010

We got another 20-something inches from Tuesday afternoon thru Wednesday night.
The untouched snow, like on the grass areas, is nearly up to my hips.

I added more pics of this snowpocalypse to my Blizzard 2010 gallery.

Oy.

Synthetic Alcohol

Alcohol substitute that avoids drunkenness and hangovers in development (via Telegraph.co.uk)

Whaaaa--? This just can't be as good. ;P

I. Blizzard 2010

Friday Feb 5th through Saturday Feb 6th we got between 2 and 3 FEET of snow.
It started around 11am on Friday, but didn't start sticking until the temperature dropped that 1 degree around 2:30pm.
We were let out of work early, at 4pm once the market closed.
By the time I went to bed ~11:30pm we had about 4 inches of snow; not bad.
By the time I woke up Sat morning (~7:30am since I had a conference call at 8am for work) there were at least 2 feet of snow, and it continued to snow until about 3pm.
I haven't measured it exactly, but I hear it's ~28".

The apartment maintenance team impressed me -- twice Friday night, twice, they had a snow blower and cleared the walkways, then again Saturday afternoon. And the parking lot was plowed.
Unfortunately, the back of the lot where I park is like 3 inches of ice, and our cars are plowed in.

I wasn't able to acquire a shovel in the days prior to Friday, so all I have to work with is a dust pan. The snow is a little icy, so that little plastic dust pan literally isn't going to cut it.

Reisterstown Road had 2 lanes plowed clear. But the road out of my neighborhood is bad; compacted snow. A taxi was stuck and some people were pushing it but couldn't get it free. Other cars that tried to move from their parking spots were also getting stuck just trying to maneuver.

As you can infer, I took a walk around the apt complex. I had the notion to take a walk up to a store and maybe see if I could buy a shovel, but there aren't any walkways carved for pedestrians on Reisterstown Road, plus those steeps hills, and the lack of open stores... not worth the hike.


Here is my little Blizzard 2010 photo album -- a few pics I snapped during my stroll. I particularly like the snowballs that rolled down the hill.

zOMG -- Birthday Surprise Party!

January 30th, 2009. I turned 29. Best birthday weekend ever!
It was a snowy day, and all afternoon long I held out the hopes that my birthday night plans of going swing dancing at Glen Echo with Sara & Stevo would not get dashed. However, the snow continued to the early evening, and the roads were terrible.

[Note: one of the saddest situations I could ever be in would be to be all alone on major holidays: my birthday, Christmas, Halloween, NYE, etc...]

I jumped at the chance when Sara offered to have me come over anyway ~6pm, just to hang out; which meant I would at least have Sara & Steve (the other Steve) to be with and we would drink & have a grand old time.
The trip to Sara's in normal traffic takes me ~20 minutes, almost all highway so it feels faster. It takes closer to 15 min without traffic. 795 > 695 > 83. That night it took about an hour. Crawling at 20mph on 695 -- the roads were BAD. The only reason I drove was because I couldn't stand being alone on my birthday.

I got to Sara's safe & sound. When walking up the driveway I saw a mostly snow-covered black station wagon with NC plates. I had the brief thought of "Huh, my coz Joe has a black station wagon with NC plates," but that thought passed because Steve has many random friends from many places, so it was likely to be one of them I haven't met yet.
Besides, I talked to Joe just a couple of hours prior, he was in NC: he was telling me about the snow in NC.
I came in and Sara gave me a big hug (typical) and I said hi to Steve who was on the couch playing Dr. Mario on the Wii (typical).
Then around the corner walks my cousin Joe!!!!
I was nearly knocked off my feet. My jaw hung open for 30 seconds easily as time seemed to hold still with my disbelief, then I gave him a huge hug (pretty typical actually, heh). Best birthday surprise ever. [Well, until Sunday.]
Joe had come up to MD Friday night, staying at my parents' house Fri night.

Sara had decorated the house with various swing/jazz pictures I had in my old bedroom which I hadn't yet retrieved from home. She had been planning a surprise party for that night for 2-3 weeks, and the previous Sunday was at my house planning with my Mom. Of course the terrible snow canceled the party, but I was 100% fine with that -- the surprise of Joe being there was certainly enough.
We hung out all evening, played some Rock Band (Joe's first time), drank a bit, watched the latest Star Trek movie. Joe was so tired there was no way he could drive back to my apt, so we both crashed at Sara's.

Sunday late morning we get up and Joe & I drove to my apartment. I thought the plan was to head there, chill for a bit, take showers, then go to my parent's and then meet my sis & bro-in-law at Applebee's in Columbia.
Heh.
Wrong.
So I had offered to have Sara either come back with us, or we'd come back to pick her up if she wanted to come along with my family birthday dinner. It was the least I could do to offer; and also a fairly big deal in my world. She accepted. So Joe & I headed back to "pick up" Sara ~2:30pm.
We walked in the door and a deafening "SURPRISE!" nearly knocked me off my feet -- again.
Most of my friends, and all of my MD family were there! I was absolutely shocked, a second time.

I don't even need to type any more details: it was awesome. Best birthday ever.
I would never had made such a big deal of my own birthday, I don't need copious presents; I just simply don't want to be alone on it.
But wow. Just wow.
Sara wins.


Also:
Stevo's txts both Saturday and again Sunday were so perfect and natural that it helped contribute greatly to the surprises. Good job!

Also also:
Pictures can be found at my sister's Facebook album of the event.

Digital Painting

I've always been so precise when drawing... that's why it would take me several hours to do each comic back when I was actively drawing my old webcomic.

It wasn't until I started studying the loose line style of Jhonen Vasquez's comic Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and assimilating it into my own style that I began to get loose with my line work. Less precise. Less perfect. For better art.

The casual, imprecise digital painting style has always eluded me. Tonight I did some researching online and read a few tutorials, and examined some digital painting works. Then I tried my hand (and my Wacom tablet of course) at the loose style of digital painting.

Basically it's all about low opacity & low flow brushes. The tablet takes care of the flow by pen pressure, so boiled down it's all about using low opacity brushes and overlaying strokes.

Here's a marble I made ;P

Rockin' & Rollin'

She wants to go out for drinks & night life afterward.

Heh.

I don't think she realizes how exhausted we might be.

Well, we always were. I guess the physical exertion Saturday night won't be quite at the level the few of us got used to a couple of years ago. Then again, we aren't nearly in as good a shape as back then. Heh, or as young. ;P


On a related note, I shared the 3 swing dance jams videos of me & my ex with some of my co-workers and my supervisor (she dances). That was uncharacteristic of me, and I wouldn't have shown off except the topic came up about me dancing & Glen Echo & such, and they were intrigued that there were videos of me dancing online. Compliments came my way, and I'm glad they enjoyed the vids.
I watch those vids with a heavy critiquing eye nowadays -- certain things never had the form they should have had (the start of the pretzel makes me cringe every time!) -- but we had the spirit. I endeavor to get better this time.
I want to do it with Lindy Hop.

Dancing to me is a celebration... of music, of life, of happiness.

Heard about sex but not enough / Found you can dance and still look tough, anyway, / Oh yes I did.
[Billy Joel, Keeping The Faith]

Life is good. =)

(It just had to be stated.)

Reflection on 2009

19 days later than I intended (took a while to remember everything/most of it), here's my reflection on 2009 list.

Instead of trite New Years Resolutions I make a list of all the good & positive experiences & events & jazz from the previous year. This way I can see all the wonderful things that comprised my life, and be thankful for.
This isn't everything (not all of it goes public, hehe)...

*Got a full-time career!
*Got myself my own apartment!
*Got a new desktop computer, quad-core.
*Installed a car stereo into my Saturn, with lots of help from my bro-in-law
*Went to new clubs/bars in Baltimore
*Stayed in bars/clubs till nearly-dawn, after hours parties (Russian and otherwise)
*Had a crush on a girl and felt like a schoolboy again.
*Went to Manhattan, for the first time in many years, with Stevo
*Did sound for Cirque du Soleil at Illusions
*Saw No Doubt in concert with my sister
*Had Sara over on 4th of July, with my Aunt & Uncle and sis & bro-in-law... then she & I spontaneously went to DC and just missed the fireworks
*Went to the beach with Stevo, stayed at his friend Corey's place
*Moved my website from the now-defunct Geocities to Angelfire
*Learned about my synesthesia
*New cell phone: Samsung Rogue
*An Autumn afternoon in Georgetown
*Tried new (foreign) foods -- yes, me, really
*Did a show with Spencer & Jerry in Binghamton, NY -- magic road trip!
*Saw my Uncle Dan whom I haven't seen in 6-7 years at a big Fam party (Mom's side)
*Freed myself of a "ball & chain" ;P
*I blushed, in public
*Made new friends
*Made new drinks
*Got lots of hugs
*And a few kisses from strangers :-*

Cooking!

Everyone knows I love creating things: art, stories, music, Lego models.

After 2 nights of actually cooking in my apartment for myself I've discovered I get the same satisfaction from cooking as I do when creating art, or music & such.


I have a big wok, and that's perfect for cooking chopped up chicken breasts with other "stuff".
Last night I mixed in dried chili peppers with some sweet-&-sour sauce, then canned pineapple chunks at the last minute (so they didn't cook much). Yum.

Tonight I added stir fry sauce, soy sauce, chili powder, a bit of lime juice, and a little sweet-&-sour sauce -- yum! It was just missing a bed of rice. I soaked up the extra sauciness on my plate with raw baby carrots. ^_^

Next I need to work on making more than 1 dish at a time. ;P

Rockin' & Rollin'

I'm now rockin' dual monitors on my desk!
I bought the DVI cable this morning so I could use that for my fancy 20" wide-screen flat-panel LCD, and the standard VGA monitor cable for the standard 15" flat-panel LCD that used to be my sister's.
Then I downloaded a program called DisplayFusion to have different wallpapers for each monitor.
I can finally have an entire (and wide) screen for Photoshop's canvas space, and all of the toolbars/palettes/layers & history lists on the other monitor. And of course I can play games (WoW) and have other programs (Firefox!) up on the other monitor. ;P


Had a mostly successful trip to Ikea today with my sis & bro-in-law. I got a 2 drawer "nightstand" for next to my desk, to hold office supplies. I also got the big square-with-swirl metal edges mirror for over my dresser, and 3 tall skinny wavy mirrors for my "hallway" (the wall just inside the door).
I intended to buy a largish bookshelf, but they were out of stock.

I'm decorating and converting my bathroom as a Steampunk style. For a birthday present Sara's making me a Steampunk-y shower curtain (we picked out fabrics Fri night). I have some ideas for decorating with gears in there... >8:-]

Also, I made the perfect Kraft mac & cheese tonight. I love having a gas stove & range. ^_^


And yes, I am a bit of a bookworm. I've been reading a whole lot more since I got into my apartment -- having the solitude [when I'm not out with friends] and a comfortable place to lay & read [my cushy leather couch] is a good set up for reading books instead of the monitor [monitors now!].
By the time I own a house, I want one whole room to be lined with bookshelves, all full of books I've read.
A trip to The Book Thing of Baltimore, a free book "store" (more like small warehouse actually), is in store for my near future. Perhaps this weekend.

My Apartment

Yes I'm "here ...at my apartment."
It's stocked: dishes & glasses, pots & pans, utensils & all the necessary kitchen stuff -- a new large bed with the perfect mattress for me & new dresser & nightstand all from Ikea -- a big comfy leather couch for a perfect price -- other necessary furniture including a 1950's diner style kitchen table with stools.
I really only need bookshelves now... and I have lots of books.

On Jan 1st I fully moved into my apartment, sleeping there & all.
The next day my cousin Joe came down from NJ on his route back to NC (Sunday) and spent the night. Stevo also came over as I hosted a "World of Warcraft" party. The intent was to geek out and play WoW all night... and we did play plenty of WoW. I also had several movies playing: Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, Hook, Something-something Darkside, etc...
As party favors, I was planning on making WoW Hearthstones from clay and painting a swirl in 'em but I just did not get the time beforehand, so the idea is still in my head, waiting for some free time.


My commute has gone from 35-55 [variable, the worst part] minutes down to ~10 minutes, and that has done my psyche lots of good. Baltimore's beltway traffic is just as stressful and annoying as any major city's -- even despite that fact that I can keep it cool. The only thing I miss about the time is having that time to sing & be isolated, although going to and from work isn't any enjoyable time for that.
I do very much enjoy the long (4.5 hours, now 5) trips to/from NC when I visit Joe. That kind of traveling on the open road with the music playing and nothing to do but enjoy the easy drive, sing, and get lost in my thoughts is very enjoyable.


I started my annual list of good things that happened to me/I experienced from the previous year, but getting a full-time career job and my own apartment overshadows just about all of everything else that happened in 2009... stay tuned for the list.