Adventures of Mini Goddess

Like I Need Another MMO

2009-08-19T02:54:19Z

The guy who convinced me to try City of Villains has just sold me on Champions Online. He posted a lot of good information from the beta here (you have to scroll down to where he talks about Champs) but the critical part was just two words: Canadian Separatists!

Edited to Add: Also, FOXBAT!!!

Diet and Nutrition

2009-08-18T01:12:48Z

I did great with my first try at Weight Watchers, but wasn't able to keep the weight off. For the past two weeks, I've tried something different. Instead of eating two big meals (I don't typically have breakfast) I'm having a bunch of small ones. This is something Weight Watchers advised too, but I never gave it much thought. I've noticed that having about half what I normally eat, then waiting about two hours before I eat anything more, has been working out. I don't go hungry and I seem to be losing weight, though it's still too soon to really tell.

Today, though, I had to go to the dentist, so anticipating not being able to eat for a while, I had a large Lean Cuisine meal. It's not meant for more than one person, it's just bigger than most. Cooking at home, I've been preparing meals of about 200 grams (thanks to Woot for the kitchen scale). This meal, however, weighs 435 grams, and it left me feeling uncomfortably stuffed... like, post-Thanksgiving stuffed. I used to easily eat one of these in the past, but now I can't handle one. This is promising, though it does make me worry about Thanksgiving. ^^; It also makes it harder to eat out, since I am often in no position to bring home leftovers and I hate to waste food I have paid a lot of money for. Luckily I am in no position to pay a lot of money for food right now, so I'm mainly eating at home courtesy of Trader Joe's.

I also learned about High Fructose Corn Syrup today and was pretty appalled. I knew it was bad for you because it has more calories than cane sugar, but courtesy of How Stuff Works I've also found out that it can only be metabolized by the liver, which means more of it gets turned into fat, and more insidiously, it does not trigger the chemical process in your body that signals to you that you're full. Artificial sweeteners also supposedly encourage the body to keep on eating, but I'm not sure about that one. Still, it would explain why it's so hard to stop eating Oreos. Trader Joe's is helping me out here as well, as they seem to be pro-organic, and the stuff I regularly get from them is free of the HFCS. For that matter, so are the frozen meals I usually buy. The tasty new Strawberry Hostess Cupcakes, though, are trouble. Still, everything in moderation, even moderation.

City of People in Underwear!

2009-08-04T03:58:40Z

Okay, I have posts to make regarding my road trip, and Comic Con... but I'm going to talk about something else. City of Heroes and/or Villains! Last weekend was Double-XP weekend, so I reactivated my account and ran some characters around. My brute, Jemmy the Belligerent, got pulled into a task force so she quickly earned six levels, which caused most of her enhancements to expire. I found my Mastermind to be unplayable, as I couldn't figure out how to control her minions. Even after I got the hang of it, I found myself stuck for five minutes because my minion-control window vanished and I could find no way to get it back.

Aside from that, I had a lot of fun. Mostly with my archer, who has a very satisfying combo of knocking someone away with a punch, then pulling out his bow and putting a flaming arrow into them. There had been a lot of changes in the year and a half since my account had expired, though, and I would have done well to read about them first. I thought my characters had huge amounts of XP debt to work through (I died a lot; one of the reasons I quit) only to find out later that they had implemented a Resting State like WoW, and that was actually 18 months of double XP I was burning through. I had heard about the looting and crafting system that had been added, but sold most of my loot before I learned that there were also banks to put it in. And on my own, I still die a lot. I later stumbled across the way you can reduce the difficulty of the instanced missions, only to shamefully realize that I already had. Frankly, it seemed that the best way to progress in the game was to find unprotected Lieutenant and Boss foes out in the cities and take them out. It also felt a lot more satisfying than the dungeon crawls most of the missions end up as.

I only bought a month of game time, but I'll definitely play more in that time. Now that the Double XP time is over, I can take time to improve my costumes and buy equipment (Jemmy will probably spend everything she has on that chore.) I doubt I will stick with it... I expect it'll get old again, and the next World of Warcraft patch will pull me back... but it's fifteen bucks well spent.

Also it was nice to read my character bios again. Hardly anyone bothers to do them, but I found mine to all be perfectly satisfactory.

Updated States Map

2009-06-14T06:17:04Z

visited 28 states (56%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: Chinese Radicals

This is an updated map showing the states I've visited now that I'm back from the big road trip. I'm not 100% sure about Wyoming, since we never saw any signs saying that we'd entered that state. I'm thinking they've all been removed to make it harder to find Dick Cheney.

A Dozen Elk

2009-06-14T06:11:39Z

May 24: Pesto-crusted broiled elk loin in a boysenberry pinot noir sauce; Nephele's, South Lake Tahoe, California
May 27: Elk sausage lasagna; Capers, Kalispell, Montana
May 28: Game platter (elk and venison sausage); Cedar Dining Room, Lake McDonald Lodge, Glacier National Park, Montana
May 29: Halibut with elk chorizo; Pescado Blanco, Whitefish, Montana
May 30: Elk summer sausage; Mammoth Springs General Store, Wyoming
May 31: Smoked elk sticks; Old Faithful General Store, Wyoming
June 1: Elk and bison bolognese; Old Faithful Inn Dining Room, Wyoming
June 2: Grilled elk tenderloin with port and mushroom sauce; The Blue Lion, Jackson, Wyoming
June 3: Roast elk loin with juniperberry gin sauce; Mural Room, Lake Jackson Lodge, Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming
June 4: Trapper-style Elk jerky; Jackson Buffalo Meat Company, Jackson, Wyoming
June 5: Gourmet game meatloaf (elk, venison, beef and bacon); Spotted Dog Cafe, Springdale, Utah
And a cute little miniature elk picked up on the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway that hasn't been eaten... yet. I named him Umai, which is Japanese for delicious.

My trip through the West was not meant to be a four-state elk-eating tour, but it did turn into that as we found more and more places offering tasty elk recipes. The best was the lasagna at Capers, which really was astonishingly good.

A Grand Day in Yellowstone

2009-06-02T23:44:04Z

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. God sent you a radio report, a rowboat, and a helicopter.” – Saint Peter

I’ve been rather pleased by how well Twitter is working out as far as recording my trip goes. Plans to journal it upon return never seem to work out, and dropping little messages as I go along seems much more in my capabilities. But yesterday…yesterday requires a lot more than 140 characters. Luckily, the hotel in Grand Teton provides free wifi in the main building, so I’ll be able to write something up in my comfy little cabin and then go there to post it. And so I go.

The favorite hike of rohantm from his last trip to Yellowstone was up to the petrified forest atop Specimen Ridge. At least, it seemed to make the greatest impression on him, and not just because he nearly got killed. It was always part of our plans for this trip to do it again, only without the ‘nearly getting killed’ part. We failed on multiple levels.

We didn’t get as early a start as we liked, but that worked out in our favor because while we were at the trailhead getting ready, a couple pulled up for a chat and happened to mentioned that they’d seen two bears in the area the day before. It is very, very unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a bear while visiting Yellowstone, but hiking in an area where bears have been sighted increases that chance to very unlikely. Had we been able to talk to a park ranger beforehand (we did try!) and heard that, we would certainly have backed off, but we were there, we were ready, and grizzly bears are known to move very fast so they’d be miles away by now.

The first part of the hike was across an open meadow populated by saucy prairie dogs, and was pleasant, if a bit steep. Our worries began to fade and our spirits rise, but then we found… a can of bear mace. This stuff is like mace for peoples, only designed to stop bears. Nasty stuff, and not cheap. Yet somehow it had been discarded here, unused, as if someone had fumbled and dropped it while fleeing a charging grizzly. Or so one might imagine had one been told there were bears in the area. Still, it looked like it had been there for at least a day, and now we had two cans of bear mace. We were even safer! No reason not to go forward.

We reached the treeline and began the difficult part of the hike. The trail was very steep, often more than a 45-degree incline, and hardly any switchbacks. It was worse than I’d imagined, and even with two knee braces, an ankle brace, hiking boots and two climbing poles, I struggled. But after an hour of hiking, we’d finally reached the summit. Well, not the real summit. This was the false summit, the highest point you can see while climbing so that you think you’re almost there, only to find once you reach it that you still have a long way to go. Still, it was the point where the hike would get a lot easier, and it had an actual petrified tree stump.

Most importantly, it was above the treeline, allowing Rohan to spot the grizzly bear off to the side. It was not charging us, it was not even anywhere near us, but nonetheless, it was easy to see how the bear might be able to get to us if it were so inclined. If we were going to encounter the bear, we decided we’d rather be closer to the road than way up on a ridge, and thus the hike turned around at that point. We never saw the bear again during our nervous return hike, but it had done enough damage. We had been thwarted.

Though disappointment was heavy, one bright consequence was that it left us more time to hike to the base of nearby Tower Falls. This was highly recommended by our guidebook and the scene was famously captured by painters and photographers for years. We drove through the northeast part of the park for a bit first. We saw many bison, and on our way back, many people stopped by the road watching our bear (we saw it first so that made it ours). Then up the road to Tower Falls… only to find that the trail to the falls had been washed out. We had been thwarted… again.

Eventually, we made our way back to the Upper Geyser Basin and the Old Faithful Inn. Though thunderstorms had never manifested, it had become a cold, wet, and windy day. Despite this, we ventured out again, partially so I could test out my wet weather gear, and partially so we could check on a pair of major geysers in the basin that we had not seen erupt. Castle Geyser is usually predictable, but was in an irregular phase, but Grand Geyser had a clearly-predicted window of 4:20 to 8:20 pm. As it was around 6:30, we were in that window and thought we’d wait for the show.

The way Grand works is that every 20 minutes, the geyser next to it, Turban, erupts. It shoots water about six feet for a couple of minutes and is nice, but most importantly its eruption also triggers Grand… eventually. So every twenty minutes, the gathered crowd hopes that this… this will be the one, only to be disappointed. There are signs that are supposed to indicate how close Grand is to going, but it’s too easy to distort them with hopeful eyes. Also, one sign that Grand won’t go is the nearby Rift Geyser erupting, and we believed that the night before only to have Grand erupt five minutes after we walked away.

So we sat there, waiting, as it got darker, and colder. The clothes I’d chosen had been warm enough when I’d gotten out there, but it was becoming too much. I was barely able to operate my iPhone with trembling fingers. Finally came the last Turban possible before the 8:20 deadline… and Grand did nothing. We resolved to wait one more cycle and we did… only to be disappointed once more. I could not wait any longer. I really was fearing for my health due to cold and had to head back to the hotel. We had been thwarted… AGAIN.

Nuts to that. I put on a fleece, a knit cap, and gloves, and went back out. There was no real need to hurry, as it was impossible to avoid missing a cycle of Turban while I was at the hotel, but I still couldn’t help but rush a bit on my way back to find that Grand… had not erupted. The pool was still full, and there was one German photographer who had remained when everyone else had quit. So we waited again, and after only a few minutes, the photographer pointed out that Castle was erupting across the field. Even at that distance, it was quite a show, but we only could watch for a minute before we heard Turban start to play. That recaptured our attention, and it’s a good thing it did, because before long Grand’s pool began to bubble and then the show really began. We both had to back off as Grand shot water a hundred feet in the air, drenching the seats downwind. Before long, another geyser in Grand’s basin joined in and for about ten minutes we watched Turban, Vent, and Grand put on an amazing show in the fading light.

Grand finally subsided and though it can have multiple eruptions, it had remained docile after a few minutes so we finally left, even though Vent and Turban were still going. It was approaching 9:30, when the inn’s restaurant closed, and though I didn’t need to go there for dinner I had a strong desire for a celebratory dessert (not to mention something hot, sweet, and alcoholic.) Heading back, I first noticed that Old Faithful was going off in the distance and more impressively, Castle was still erupting. It had stopped spraying water, but had entered its steam phase which is almost as impressive, shooting a huge plume of steam while roaring like a dragon. I watched this for a bit but had to keep going, and made it just in time for my Huckleberry Sundae and some hot chocolate spiked with Irish Crème. It had been a long day, but in the end, I was victorious.

To be fair, I’m being a bit dramatic. There were lots of cool moments during the day: watching Tower Creek surge into the Yellowstone River, seeing Mammoth Springs, visiting a much more accessible petrified tree, having traffic halted by both a coyote and a bison in the road, seeing some extraordinary geological features near Tower Falls, and spying a bald eagle. But for me, the day came down to watching Grand. After that, I was completely satisfied with my Yellowstone experience. What happened today didn’t really matter.

Road Trip!

2009-05-24T05:38:07Z

RohanTM invited me to join him on a two-week vacation through the American West, visiting Lake Tahoe, Glacier National Park, Grand Tetons and other places. I agreed, and we started at one this morning. Already I'm suffering from a lack of wi-fi, which means I can't post here from my notebook and it's a huge pain. Instead, I am trying to post stuff via Twitter, which works much better in my phone than LiveJournal. I believe my adress is http://www.twitter.com/sdskuld. Hope you enjoy. Must pass out now.

States I have visited

2009-05-13T22:47:22Z

I'm really just doing this now so I can come back and post an improved version after my Yellowstone trip later this month.

visited 24 states (48%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: Cambrium

No. No you did NOT travel through time.

2009-05-07T14:40:46Z

Of course I did. I'm a genius!

Free Comic Book Day...

2009-05-05T01:30:05Z

... was Saturday. Let's see what I got.

Walt Disney's Gyro Gearloose: One of the main reasons I go every year is because I can count on some classic Carl Barks work from Gemstone Publishing.

FCHS: Some high-school drama. I don't even remember what the acronym stands for (though I can probably guess the HS part.)

The World of Cars - The Rookie: This is the first part of a prequel story for the Pixar film. It made me want to see the movie again. It did not make me want to see another issue of this comic. Not bad, just not good.

Blackest Night - Issue Zero: Geoff Johns thinks there should be a Lantern Corps for every color in the visible spectrum as defined by the classic role-playing game 'Paranoia', with each one representing a different emotion, if you accept that 'willpower' is an emotion. Plus Black, which means they can turn every dead DC character into a power ring-wielding zombie, conveniently just after they killed off Batman. And you know, I don't really have any problem with this. Apparently Johns has been doing really good work since he brought Hal Jordan back. But what makes me cross is that the first half of the book is Hal Jordan visiting Batman's grave with Barry Allen, who apparently is no longer dead. Barry was the one guy who showed that DC had a smidgen of respect for death in their comic book universe, but that's no longer the case. For the most part, superhero comics have become like pro wrestling for me, in that they were fine in the short term, but as time passes the continuity falls apart and now instead of reading/watching the actual material, I mainly just follow them with summaries from the internet.

The Avengers: From the other big player in the superhero side of things, we have this book, which actually was an interesting story. A while back, rohantm got into the book when Bendis restarted the team, and I followed it for as long as I could borrow his issues. It was good stuff. Since then, there's been the Civil War and the Skrull invasion, but the team Bendis started with is still largely together and in this book. There's also another team of Avengers who are sponsored by the government who are mainly disguised villains, some of whom are disguising themselves as other Avengers. Spider-Man is really Venom, Hawkeye is really Bullseye, Wolverine is really his son... wait, what? Also there's a Captain Marvel, but at least the original one is STILL DEAD. I think it was a great little product for Free Comic Book Day, as it really intrigued me to check Wikipedia and find out what's been going on. But not to buy any books. I still hold a grudge from One More Day.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Though I think it's meant to promote a new TMNT series, this is actually a 25th anniversary re-issue of the original comic, with forewords from Eastman & Laird. This one, I am keeping.

Red 5 Comics: This has previews of 'Drone' and 'We Kill Monsters', neither of which interested me. But the first eight pages are a dinosaur fighting a robot and it's so wonderfully written this was my favorite book of the day. I hope the creator publishes it online like he did a previous FCD story, and if he does I will be sure to link it.

Back in the Lone Star State

2009-04-06T03:39:24Z

This year, Wrestlemania is in Houston. The announcement of this made me very excited. Not because I had much interest in seeing Wrestlemania, but because I wanted to see Ring of Honor. ROH is an independent wrestling organization based largely on the east coast. I was going to say they’re small, but they have pay-per-views and just started a TV show. So they’re easily the #3 wrestling organization in the US, but they still have the ‘independent’ feel which means that, unlike WWE and TNA, the wrestling is good.

I started watching ROH DVDs in 2006 and have been following the PPVs (I don’t get HD-Net, so I can’t watch the TV show) but I’ve always wanted to see them live. They’ve only made one trip out to the west coast so it’s not been possible, but with Wrestlemania in Houston, there was finally a good opportunity. Wrestlemania weekend draws tens of thousands of wrestling fans to whatever city it’s in, and ROH has seen this as a great opportunity. They don’t try to compete with Wrestlemania on Sunday, but on Friday and Saturday they traditionally put on two of their best shows of the year.

So that was a big reason to go to Houston, but there were two other important ones. First of all, my brother lives in Houston with his family. I will not deny that this offered a chance to avoid needing a hotel, but also I am really happy to visit them again. My brother is entertaining, his wife is very nice, and their kids really like me for some reason. I actually could go to Wrestlemania, and for the Shawn Michaels-Undertaker match I’m tempted, but I’d really rather spend the time with my relatives.

The third reason is because Houston is the home of the Antone’s Import Company, which makes the best sandwiches I have ever had in my life. The secret is top quality imported meats, and the chow-chow, which not a dog, but a relish. And not a relish made from dogs. They used to be all over Houston when I lived here, but apparently there’s been a corporate takeover and most of the locations have been turned into franchises where the quality isn’t as good. As far as the Internet could tell me, there’s only three locations left run by the original family, and they’re all around Rice University which is not exactly convenient. But that won’t exactly stop me. It’s been more than six years since I last had one; I am not going to be scared off at this point by bad traffic.

BSG at the UN

2009-03-17T04:58:08Z

According to news reports, the creators of the new Battlestar Galactica and its top two stars are addressing the United Nations tomorrow. The Chicago Tribune claims that it's a panel on human rights and armed conflict, but I see through their little ruse. Obviously the current U.N. session ends this week and the members want a special screening of the finale so they don't miss it when they fly home. ^^

Greatest Discoveries of 2008

2009-03-16T06:59:58Z

All right, I’ll grant that this post is a wee bit late, but I’ve been determined to not give up on it entirely. It’s partially been delayed by my inability to choose a #3, but mainly by my inability to just sit down and write, dash it all. But that is what I am attempting to finally do.

Note that this is not about the great discoveries that others have made in 2008, like water on Mars or that we really will elect a black president. This is about things that I personally discovered for myself.

#3: D&D Fourth Edition

I didn’t expect to like it, but I really did. Not only did it get me playing D&D again, it got me playing D&D with strangers.

#2: Fontina Cheese

For almost my entire life, the mild cheese of choice has been Monterey jack. It’s what I pair with chicken most times I cook it, and what I use when I want cheese to accent a recipe without being a major presence. Unfortunately, in the past few years, it’s become harder and harder to find it made properly. The major cheese manufacturers seem to be letting it age too much, which adds a bitter tang to the flavor I do not like at all. Getting it from delis hasn’t done me any good either, and the specialty cheese shops don’t carry it. But Trader Joe’s sells a fontina that I tried as an experiment, and was delighted with. It isn’t quite as good as a really good Monterey jack, but it’s been completely reliable in terms of quality. I use it now in my favorite recipe, melted over broiled chicken thighs marinated in white wine Worcestershire sauce and pretty much always have a wedge in the fridge. It’s a little bit less uncertainty and disappointment in my life, and that’s not nothing.

And the Greatest Discovery of 2008 is… TOP GEAR!

I had heard of Top Gear a few times before I ever watched it, I know that. I mainly knew that it was a car show, which is something that would not interest me in the least. My car is a necessary tool to help me function in the modern world, and I am even more indifferent to cars that are not mine. Not in the sense that I don’t care what they are doing on the road, because that could get me killed, but in the sense that that car is a 2007 Mustang with a 12-cylinder V8 and disc brakes that goes from 0 to 60 .8 seconds faster than the 2006 model. Cars are not something I derive entertainment or enjoyment from.

So I can’t explain just why I finally watched an episode of Top Gear on BBC America one day, but I can explain why I’ve watched just about all the others since then. Well, I sort of can. The main reason is that it’s incredibly entertaining. The three presenters are so very clearly into cars, the petrol-headiest of petrol-heads, but while I think they take cars seriously, they know that they’re doing an entertainment program and present information accordingly. It’s kind of like when The Daily Show does election coverage.

What sold me on that first episode I saw (Series 10, Episode 7) was a segment where they’d all bought cars made by an old British car company for not very much money (and all at least 20 years old), and competed to see who’d gotten the best one. They see which one does a lap fastest, which is basic enough, but they also tested handbrakes by parking on a very steep hill and trying to get out without dying, tested suspension by driving over a very rough road with colanders of eggs over their heads, and build quality by (and this is what really sold me on the show) filling the cars with water and seeing how far they could get before it all drained out.

But it wasn’t just the wacky antics I enjoyed. They talked about the company that had made all those cars and why it was important, introduced a new model of Aston Martin, and interviewed Jennifer Saunders before having her drive fast in a cheap car, and it was all interesting. I told my DVR to record every episode BBC America showed during the week, as I’d get two or three different ones from various series. When they stopped showing ones I hadn’t seen before, I turned to the internet, and discovered that the shows broadcast in Britain and a full hour, while BBC America cuts them down for commercials (and possibly content.)

This show really has brought me a lot of pleasure. I look forward now to long plane rides because I typically have a few episodes on my iPhone and can watch them. When I go out to eat alone, that’s usually what I do as well (though if you are eating and Jeremy Clarkson asks, “How hard can it be?” stop watching immediately). I was riveted when they raced a Nissan GT-R against a bullet train across Japan (a closer contest than you’d think), I was thrilled when the world’s most powerful car finally did a lap of the Top Gear track, and I cheered when someone finally beat Simon Cowell’s time in the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car segment. I’ve seen almost all of Series 4 through 12 (the latest) and hope to get my hands on Series 3 (Stephen Fry appears!) soon. After that I’ll be done, which is a bit saddening, but Series 13 supposedly starts in June.

What makes Top Gear such a great discovery, though, isn’t just that it entertains me, but that it makes me interested in cars! I actually seek out information on my own about the production of the Bugatti Veyron and the racing history of the Mini Cooper. More than that, it’s made me want to fly to Europe, rent a car with some actual performance (I drive a Saturn, so I don’t really know what that’s like) and take it around a lap of the Nurburgring before driving down through the Stelvio Pass. I’m tempted to get the next Gran Turismo game so I can simulate driving some of these cars around the Top Gear Test Track.

I have to mention one last thing, and that’s the production values. It’s not something that normally concerns me, but Top Gear is extraordinary. As it’s a BBC production, they have access to probably the best documentary filmmakers in the world, and it shows. When they review a car, they typically take it someplace beautiful to drive it around, and the cameras make sure to catch the scenery as well as the cars. Also, as a BBC production, Top Gear is technically a part of the British government, which allows them to do things like drive a Ford Fiesta during an amphibious landing by the Royal Marines.

I could go on at length… er, lengthier, but I will simply say that Top Gear makes me happy. If you want a taste of what the show is like, you can watch how they review the Lotus Exige.

D&D 4E Thoughts

2009-02-25T02:38:13Z

I was writing up some advice for a friend starting a game of Fourth Edition D&D, and I thought this part was worth sharing:

4E requires more metagame thinking than previous editions of D&D. There was always some, because of the hit point mechanic, but with the addition of powers to the non-magical classes, a lot more needs to be explained away. If the ranger has a power that lets him shoot two arrows at once so hard that it knocks the enemy back, why does he only use it once a day? The ranger is not channeling his martial power, yelling "Thundertusk Boar Strike!" and letting fly. He's just shooting arrows as best he can, and about once per day he happens to get an extra-telling couple of shots that sends his foe staggering. The player, on the other hand, knows this is a limited resource and must think about when the best time is to use it (though he can yell "Thundertusk Boar Strike!" if he likes). If the paladin is critically hit by an ogre and is only one death save away from shuffling off this mortal coil, how does the warlord bring her back into the fight just by yelling at her? (Inspiring Word) Umm… the dying was her going into shock, and the warlord's encouragement… brought her to her senses? That's a tough case. I find 4E to be a mixed blessing in this regard. On the one hand, it lends itself to cinematic fights, which I like, but it makes immersion a lot harder.

Life Doesn't Suck. I'm a Terrible Emo.

2009-02-21T05:12:11Z

Employment continues. I'm going to make up a little of the time missed last week, and should have enough vacation to take care of any future plans.

The tooth no longer hurts. Or if it does, it's doing it someplace well away from me. Tuesday night wasn't completely sleepless, mind... occasionally the pain would fade enough for me to pass out on the couch for two to five minutes before the agony resurfaced. I spent the entire night like that until my dentist's office finally opened. I called, explained my problem and made a lunchtime appointment to go in. At that point, the pain vanished again and I was out like a light. Luckily I got called at 10:30 asking if I could come in sooner, and as the pain was quick to return I was only too glad to comply.

I went in at eleven and less than half an hour later, the tooth was out. The pain had stopped earlier, of course, after the four shots of novacaine, but I was quite happy to have a long-term solution to the problem. My tooth was not impacted (none of them are which is why I've gotten to keep them this long) so it was just a matter of yanking. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. A number of times it sounded like the tooth was cracking or crumbling beneath the forceps, but it came out completely whole. Kind of neat to see it, kind of icky too. My dentist, I feel obliged to point out here, is awesome.

Now I just had to deal with the dire consequences I'd been warned of. The anesthetic took quite a while to wear off, but even when it did there wasn't much pain. I never had to use The Good Stuff and even now I'm not even bothering with motrin anymore. The whole in my jaw gushing blood was another matter. I tried to keep it stuffed with gauze, but it took rather longer than expected to clot. The required liquid diet was annoying, but I had Jamba Juice and carrot ginger soup. The main difficulty was that I had to keep my head elevated, so I got to follow a night where I got effectively no sleep with one where I had to sleep sitting up. Fortunately, I think the former made the latter go smoothly and I even made it into work the next day. This surprised the coworkers who knew why I hadn't been there Wednesday, but I explained, as Bubbles would say, "I'm hardcore."

Only issue left is to get back on a normal sleep schedule, but I have the whole weekend to not bother with that and instead turn up at work Monday very bleary-eyed.

Less Suck from Column A, More Suck from Column B

2009-02-18T12:07:20Z

What a difference a day makes. I am no longer unemployed, as our contract has come through... at least enough to be back to working full-time. This is good, even if I got a late start on account of not being able to get out of bed (tooth wasn't hurting and bed was soooo comfy.) But it looks like one day's work is all I'm going to get. Four hours ago, I went to sleep. Three and a half hours ago, I woke up in the worst agony yet and it hasn't let up since. There's no way I can go to work in the morning... even if they pain subsided, I don't think I could possibly be awake enough to drive, especially since I've taken every pain medication I have and that's bound to have an effect on my thinking clearly (though none whatsoever on the pain.) I just hope I can get the tooth extracted in the morning, even if it does wipe out the rest of the week for me, productivity-wise. I can't take this anymore.

Life Happens to Suck

2009-02-17T08:31:27Z

I don’t use this blog much to complain about how much my life sucks, because life is actually pretty good. But today, I’m going to make an exception, for two reasons.

First of all, I am out of work, though not actually unemployed. I work for a contracting firm, but the government contracts I work on ran out, and thanks to problems at their end, they have not yet been renewed. So I am still getting salary and benefits, but I am on enforced vacation. I don’t want to think about what will happen if it runs out, which will happen next week if nothing changes. As it is, I’m in danger of having to bail on a trip to Yellowstone Park this summer due to having to use too much of my vacation time on this hiatus. My boss is doing his best to find work for me, one or two days at a time, and sometimes he is successful. It seems that tomorrow will be such a day, as I’ve been asked to come in to work. And maybe tomorrow the contract situation will get settled and I’ll be back to full time. Then I have to see how much overtime I can get in through the rest of the week, because every extra hour I work will be an hour of vacation time I didn’t have to spend last week. This leads to the situation where every waking hour not spent working is really costing me vacation time, but that’ll be preferential to how things are now. But even so, life will still suck because…

I have a toothache. A really bad toothache, so bad that it’s making my whole jaw ache. I went to the dentist today (having scheduled the appointment three months ago using psychic powers, apparently) and it looks like one of my wisdom teeth has finally turned against me. I could have gotten it pulled today, but I’ve heard enough horror stories about the aftermath of such extractions to get me to put it off. I’m in a lot of pain, but I can function, and I don’t know if that would be the case if I get that tooth pulled. Supposedly the drugs you get are really good, at least do-not-even-think-about-getting-behind-the-wheel good. And with the employment situation, I can’t afford to be in a state where I can’t work, if work comes up (as it did, apparently.) So I scheduled it for Friday. I’ll miss some work hours getting it done, but after that is a new time period, and spending the weekend in a drugged-out haze won’t cost me any vacation time. Until then, I have to do my best to endure both the pain, and not being allowed any sweets (which will aggravate the cavity.) I’m not sure which one is worse.

In conclusion, Life is Pain. Does this make me emo?

Two Movies

2009-02-11T06:37:20Z

On Sunday I saw Coraline in 3D and enjoyed it greatly. If Neil Gaiman is associated with a movie, I will try and watch it. He’s one of those creators who has built up enough trust with me that I have confidence my money will be well-spent. And I spent a lot of money; I’ve never paid thirteen dollars for a movie before that wasn’t IMAX. Still, the trust has not been broken. The film is a grand spectacle built atop an excellent story. The original book was fairly simple, so Henry Selick added a lot, but pretty much everything that was in the book, is in the movie. There was one change I noticed that I thought does weaken the story in a small way, but strengthens the movie as a whole, and I can see why it was done. If you enjoyed the original book, or The Nightmare Before Christmas, you’ll really ought to see this film. And if you want to see it in 3D, do it soon. The next 3D movie that comes out will knock this version of the film from those screens that support it.

I suppose I ought to talk about the 3D thing, come to think of it. I think it was marvelously done, with only a few moments that seemed to be done just to show off. For the most part, it looks completely natural, and I think is the best way to see it. I had wondered beforehand if the trailer for the new Ice Age would also be in 3D, since the film will be, and not only was that the case, but every trailer was in 3D, including Land of the Lost. The most intriguing one was for the Little Big Planet movie.

Today I was finally able to catch Frost/Nixon, and given that it’s down to a single showing per day, I think I caught it just in time. It’s one of those movies that I’ve wanted to see, but only if I could get a nice walk in the process, and today the rain finally let up enough to make it possible. Although somewhat different from Coraline, I enjoyed this one too. I could see the original play just below the surface of the film, but that doesn’t bother me. I never got to see the play, but Ron Howard did and thoughtfully turned it into a form that would get a much wider audience. There wasn’t much of a crowd, which isn’t surprising given that it’s at the end of its run (only holding on because of the Oscar nominations, I suspect, though it will hopefully hang around longer if it wins), and of the people I saw, I think I was the only one not old enough to remember Richard Nixon.

I know who he was, of course, but even though all these events took place in my lifetime, I don’t have any memory of them. When Nixon resigned, my family was living in Indonesia, and I don’t think we had a television. I was in the second grade when the Frost/Nixon interviews were actually broadcast, but I don’t recall my teacher using the opportunity for an important civics lesson. That said, I remember Bush 42 all too well, and the parallels are neither subtle nor coincidental. This film reminded me a lot of Good Night, And Good Luck, which I also enjoyed. It was also educational… I think. This is not meant to be a documentary, and there’s a lot in it that I assume was invented for dramatic reasons, but I do believe they’d play it straight with the actual interview portions, since that’s pretty solidly on the record. If that is true, then Nixon admitted to more than I ever realized, even beyond that one telling clip they’ve been playing for months.

Sentiment For Today

2009-01-21T04:32:08Z

I think the Obamas picked the perfect song for their Inauguration Balls.

AT LAST

Easy Meme

2009-01-17T03:42:37Z

From ebony14

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

And, remembering this lesson, Khaavren matched the motion of the broadsword and, following the inward motion of a screw, ended, after three orbits, by passing the greater part of his blade through the body of the Dragonlord, who cried out, fell against the serving-counter, and collapsed in a heap next to it.

From Stephen Brust's The Phoenix Guards. Since the whole book is a riff on Dumas, I lucked out in getting a page that used more than four sentences.

2008 Holiday Letter, or lack thereof

2009-01-03T05:01:15Z

I actually did a Holiday Letter for 2007, for the first time in ages. You know, it's one of those things where you summarize your entire year in a single page. 2007 was the first year it felt like I'd done enough to write about, and it was even a challenge to get it all in one page. I posted it here, mainly so I can find it again. At the end, I said "I'm okay with 2008 being less interesting."

Well, I got my wish! 2008 just didn't seem worth writing about on a personal level. The fact that I didn't keep LiveJournal updated is part of the problem, mind, because I didn't have anything to refer to to see what I did with my year. I visited Colorado for the first time, which was nice, and had another two work trips to Virginia. Something did happen on one of them that's worth writing about, though, if I can find the references I need online.

I do intend for 2009 to be more interesting, in any case. Already I'm planning to go back to Houston in April for wrestling and sandwiches and maybe a family reunion. And in May, I get to see Yellowstone for the first time.

And finally, I'd like to close this entry with a link.The Meek is a comic I've seen in development for a couple of years now in sketch form, and now it's finally being posted in finished form as a webcomic. I already knew it was a long an interesting take, but I never realized how gorgeous it would be. Give it a look.

Writer's Block: Starting Out Fresh

2009-01-03T02:48:06Z

Many people believe that what you do on New Year's Day sets the tone for your entire year. How did you spend the first day of 2009? Do you think it will influence the rest of the year?

View 500 Answers

On New Year's Day I played video games. I think it's very likely that I'll play video games for the rest of the year, but I doubt my specific actions on January 1 are really to blame for that. I spent most of 2008 playing video games instead of doing a lot of other things, like posting on LiveJournal. On the other hand, here I am posting on LiveJournal instead of playing video games (I have dailies to do! Aieee!) so perhaps this year will be different.

Vocabulary Fails Me

2008-11-12T02:44:37Z

My mother has asked for my opinion on the financial troubles, and I can't find a word that properly expresses things while still being one I can say to my mother. ^^;

Mixed Blessings

2008-11-05T05:45:50Z

Thanks to hundreds-of-millions of out of state dollars, it looks like Proposition 8 will pass, amending the California Constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Even if it doesn't, similar measures around the country will. Prejudice is still alive and well.

Everything else that happened tonight, though? Awesome.

I Voted

2008-11-04T17:38:47Z

It took an hour to vote this morning, not counting travel time to and from the polling place. I'm actually surprised I got done that quickly, given that there's a proposition to ban gay marriage on the ballot and I live in San Diego's most fabulous neighborhood. I was looking at the decorations in my polling place (The Fraternal Order of the Eagles) wondering why I'd never noticed them before and I realized it's because I never had to wait in line before. I had a group of friendly line-neighbors so it was time spent pleasantly. I hope your experiences go/went as well.