I'll be darned if it wasn't the little planet that could all over again...
Glad tidings all and a happy New Year! What did I do for the beginning of a new year, you ask? I...finally beat Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within! I got a nice little console hangover the next day, too.
I did get a nice little surprise for the New Year. I recently discovered that my favorite author, A.A. Attanasio, just started a MySpace. I wrote him and asked to be friended, and on the 1st I got this response...
Heartfelt thanks, Rebecca, for finding merit in my creative writing. I am uplifted! And I look forward to walking around inside your head with the Twice Dead Things! Meanwhile, as this is the ultimate day of 2006 ... some verbal fireworks: In the Zion of the new year, it's the birthday of the whole world! A multitude of loves unriddles all our questions and uplifts us. Sing to your charms this new year, Rebecca! Slide across the fields of praise in the windfall light, happy as the grass! Happy as the grass! For us sapiens, as the old Psalm says (105), our days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so we flourish! You who are who! In the turn of time, the miracles throw back their hair! And the shining moment sings!
Wishing you a warm, in every sense of the word, new year!
-- Al
Coincidentally, Amazon also shipped the short story collection of his that I had pre-ordered months ago. I got it less than a week later (I love Amazon!). It's #49 out of a limited 200 signed copies. *squee* I need to buy gloves to read it now...heh.
January 2nd was my birthday, and being the dork that I am, my brother and I went down to Balboa Park to go some of the museums that were free that Tuesday. We went to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center...affectionately called "The Fleet" by residents. We toyed around with the interactive exhibits and stuff and behaved generally immature. Good times. We spent a lot of time in particular doing random stuff in front of a large projector screen that recorded your actions then alternately rewound and replayed those actions. I admit, it's really silly, but it did give us both a bit of a workout. LOL. We also got tickets for their simulator ride, which made us both kind of naseous...
We sat at the fountain outside and drank fruit juice to gain our composure, then headed over to the Natural History Museum. Not much to tell there. Natural history = dead stuffed animals and dinosaur bones, mostly. Also, being California, there are exhibits on earthquakes and wildfires (specifically the wildfire outbreak that occured down here in '03, which was super). Then we waited a few minutes for a swinging pendulum to knock down a little wooden tree that signaled the top of the hour. We cheered, and then went to see the Model Railroad Museum. ..
We got distracted on the way over by the appearance of a news van set up in front of the lake by the botanical garden. Interested in camera-work as I am, I waited around to see why they were there. We ended up waiting for what seemed like forever for the anchor to do something, but in the end gave up and headed towards the museum (I also thought abot asking the camera guy some questions, but finally realized I wasn't going to grow the necessary balls to do that anytime soon). We missed the closing time by about an hour. Oh well.
We then headed down to my favorite seafood place down by the bay. I got a shrimp burrito and their super yummy New England clam chowder. *drool*
Also, apparently January 2 is....Run Up the Flagpole and See if Anybody Salutes It Day. Well, according to this link, anyway. Thanks
i_have_a_spork for the link. :D
Other minor news:
Went shopping with my accumulated gift cards from Christmas and my birthday. Hot Topic had nothing good. Wasted time there. Exchanged some stuff and got cool pair of pin-striped black pants like I've wanted for years. At B&N I got two more Discworld novels, another manga, and I gave in and got Eragon. I wanted to pick up the third Prince of Persia game for my GC, but the two GameStop's I went to didn't have it. In fact, they had almost no games for the system at all. Christmas, plus the premiere of the Wii, is going to make things difficult for me now. Anyway, I ended up picking up Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus, and Meteos, an absurdly difficult Tetris-like game for my DS. Now, where is my charger?
I'm thinking about getting tickets for Monster Jam which is scheduled for the 20th, although Ticketmaster says that they might move it to the Feb. 3rd if the Chargers host a playoff game that weekend. Which I'm guessing is good for them, but not so good for my event-planning. I should ask Kyle if he wants to go. After all, in the words of House, "Gravedigger never disappoints!" ;D