Today I learned how to use the LJ-Cut feature
(added later) As usual, I'm finding I tend to get a little wordy while writing down my adventures... so I'm going to add in some LJ-Cuts to shorten up the entry. If you'd like to know all the little details, click the link. Of course, if you click one, they all expand... so remember where you were.
Well folks, the roller derby was exceptional. I ran downtown to sign a form at the temp agency, and the official "pre-party" bar was just a few blocks away. I stalled in Wells Fargo Place for a little over an hour, taking advantage of the free internet Wells Fargo provided. There was a bench in front of McDonald's with a fiberglass Ronald McDonald on it, similar to this one, minus the cute clown girl.
(found at http://timmyray.typepad.com/timmy_ray/weird/, hopefully he won't mind me using it)
So, I sat next to the clown and hopped on the TeamSpeak server that I host from my basement. I tried to get on Guild Wars, but I had a whole lot of files to download.... and while the connection was fast, my laptop doesn't do decompression very well - and it can take quite a while to unpack the files once they're downloaded. It amazes me the number of people that will start talking to you when you're doing something strange in a public place (like playing with a laptop). I had one little girl that came over and peeked around the screen to see what I was doing, but I was just starting up, and had the Windows XP screen. She told me her dad has a laptop for work, and then her mom called her along. An older, dark-skinned guy sat down on the other side of Ronald just as I was preparing to leave, puzzling over a bus route sheet. We chatted briefly, and I offered to let him look up the bus route online if the sheet wasn't making any sense, but he seemed to have it figured out.
I planned to head to my car, but once I reached the elevators I realized it wasn't time for the pre-party yet, and I didn't really have anywhere to go. There's a great big fountain in the middle of Wells Fargo Place, so I sat in front of that and tried to get a signal. Having no luck, I went back to the Ronald McDonald bench. This time almost immediately after I sat down, a guy came over to ask how big the hard drive was, and if I knew anything about backing up and restoring Quicken files. He talked at length about his computer at home and the virus is had, which someone went in pursuit of and deleted a whole bunch of files along the way. He eventually wandered off, and immediately afterward, the little girl from before came by with her mother - coming back from wherever they had gone. After a brief chat, they were on their way again. I'd guess the details of my hanging around are largely uninteresting, but I was quite surprised that doing something as anti-social as sitting in front of a laptop in a public place - would cause so much interaction.
I was trying gauge how much time had passed since I arrived downtown - the temp agency would pay for me to stay in the ramp up to 2 hours, after that it was gonna cost me. I hadn't checked the time when I walked in, though... so I was only guessing. Eventually it seemed like close to 2 hours had passed, and although I hadn't heard from Bill, I figured I could kill time at the bar until he managed to get downtown.
The Station 4 bar was less than a mile from where I was, and I found it with minimal trouble. Parking was a little scary, though... the attendant guy gave me the impression any decent-looking vehicles would be broken into after he left for the evening. It didn't seem that bad to me, but I took a few extra minutes to hide all my electronics before I left. I buried the laptop in junk that was sitting in the back seat, the palm pilot got stuck in the glove compartment (which was then locked) and my mp3/CD player I stashed under the passenger's seat. I kept thinking if anyone broke in it would be like an electronics easter egg hunt. CD's went between the driver's door and seat, and my bright yellow container of rechargeable batteries went under the front part of the driver's seat. Power inverter went in the glove compartment... and the relatively empty laptop bag got wedged into the passenger floor space, then covered with a blanket. That's when I remembered I had my digital camera...
I'm just thankful I've never gotten around to buying the other toys and gizmos I have on my shopping list.
I wandered into the bar, and made my way down to an open end of it. The PBR "Tallboys" were $2, and that seemed to be the way to go. I realized later that the only PBR I've ever had was at the Apple River... where it was usually warm, flat, or both. It didn't taste nearly as bad as I remembered, at any rate. Bill and I later figured out that since the Tallboys are 16 oz, and a normal beer is 12 oz, really you were getting a beer for $1.50, and another third of a beer for $0.50 extra. This "beer and a third" number rolled around in my head for the rest of the night, and messed up my calculations after that. I remember having at least three (yes, I know you're thinking "ugh") of those before we tried to catch the shuttle to the game, which I adjusted in my head to be four "real" beers. I'm not sure if I actually had a fourth, then... but it seems possible.
In any case, I ordered a beer. As I stood at the end of the bar by myself, an amazing thing happened. The girl who was standing nearest actually started a conversation! It turned out she was the shuttle driver, and really likes the little touch-screen bar games. I tried to help out with a game sort of like boggle, but my aim on the touchscreen was terrible, and my mind wasn't used to the processes it takes to play the game. In other words, I didn't help much. We still did pretty well, but it was mostly her doing. After 20 minutes or so she got called to drive the shuttle, and I was left standing on my own again. I called Bill and he arrived shortly after... where we had more drinks. At $2 a can, the stuff was cheap enough for 2 and a $1 tip.
The crowd was quite a sight... I was quite concerned when we were planning to head down there that we wouldn't fit in, and the regulars would beat us up, or something. As it turns out, the roller derby crowd is made up of quite a variety of people. The majority of them seemed to be the outcast mid-twenties folks... there were a whole bunch of faces there that were almost exactly like people I knew... but not quite. Everyone I met, I asked if they had been Rocky Horror Picture Show regulars in the past. Almost all of the people I talked to had seen RHPS in the past, but there weren't many regulars. In the end, I decided this is where the Rocky kids went when they got older.
The game itself was interesting, but being new to the world of Roller Derby, I had a hard time telling what was going on. The only reference I had was a TV show I had seen about it one time, but I thought it was sort of a "real world" spoof, and didn't realize it was an actual sport. Kind of like Reno 911, but with roller derby girls instead of cops. I ended up asking people around me how the rules went, and they were happy to explain, but it still didn't make any sense. It took me a bit of watching and figuring to finally find out how it works. It's almost too simple to make sense as a game.
Just as my information indicated, Deejay Neko was putting down records during the event, and I got a number of really-far zoomed pictures of him at work. Our seats were up in the balcony, and pretty far away from the action. Next time we resolved to get trackside seats.
Drat, got to go.... Dad is in a fish competition, and Mom & I are going to go check it out, see how he's doing, and bring some food. WWML
Well folks, the roller derby was exceptional. I ran downtown to sign a form at the temp agency, and the official "pre-party" bar was just a few blocks away. I stalled in Wells Fargo Place for a little over an hour, taking advantage of the free internet Wells Fargo provided. There was a bench in front of McDonald's with a fiberglass Ronald McDonald on it, similar to this one, minus the cute clown girl.
(found at http://timmyray.typepad.com/timmy_ray/weird/, hopefully he won't mind me using it)
So, I sat next to the clown and hopped on the TeamSpeak server that I host from my basement. I tried to get on Guild Wars, but I had a whole lot of files to download.... and while the connection was fast, my laptop doesn't do decompression very well - and it can take quite a while to unpack the files once they're downloaded. It amazes me the number of people that will start talking to you when you're doing something strange in a public place (like playing with a laptop). I had one little girl that came over and peeked around the screen to see what I was doing, but I was just starting up, and had the Windows XP screen. She told me her dad has a laptop for work, and then her mom called her along. An older, dark-skinned guy sat down on the other side of Ronald just as I was preparing to leave, puzzling over a bus route sheet. We chatted briefly, and I offered to let him look up the bus route online if the sheet wasn't making any sense, but he seemed to have it figured out.
I planned to head to my car, but once I reached the elevators I realized it wasn't time for the pre-party yet, and I didn't really have anywhere to go. There's a great big fountain in the middle of Wells Fargo Place, so I sat in front of that and tried to get a signal. Having no luck, I went back to the Ronald McDonald bench. This time almost immediately after I sat down, a guy came over to ask how big the hard drive was, and if I knew anything about backing up and restoring Quicken files. He talked at length about his computer at home and the virus is had, which someone went in pursuit of and deleted a whole bunch of files along the way. He eventually wandered off, and immediately afterward, the little girl from before came by with her mother - coming back from wherever they had gone. After a brief chat, they were on their way again. I'd guess the details of my hanging around are largely uninteresting, but I was quite surprised that doing something as anti-social as sitting in front of a laptop in a public place - would cause so much interaction.
I was trying gauge how much time had passed since I arrived downtown - the temp agency would pay for me to stay in the ramp up to 2 hours, after that it was gonna cost me. I hadn't checked the time when I walked in, though... so I was only guessing. Eventually it seemed like close to 2 hours had passed, and although I hadn't heard from Bill, I figured I could kill time at the bar until he managed to get downtown.
The Station 4 bar was less than a mile from where I was, and I found it with minimal trouble. Parking was a little scary, though... the attendant guy gave me the impression any decent-looking vehicles would be broken into after he left for the evening. It didn't seem that bad to me, but I took a few extra minutes to hide all my electronics before I left. I buried the laptop in junk that was sitting in the back seat, the palm pilot got stuck in the glove compartment (which was then locked) and my mp3/CD player I stashed under the passenger's seat. I kept thinking if anyone broke in it would be like an electronics easter egg hunt. CD's went between the driver's door and seat, and my bright yellow container of rechargeable batteries went under the front part of the driver's seat. Power inverter went in the glove compartment... and the relatively empty laptop bag got wedged into the passenger floor space, then covered with a blanket. That's when I remembered I had my digital camera...
I'm just thankful I've never gotten around to buying the other toys and gizmos I have on my shopping list.
I wandered into the bar, and made my way down to an open end of it. The PBR "Tallboys" were $2, and that seemed to be the way to go. I realized later that the only PBR I've ever had was at the Apple River... where it was usually warm, flat, or both. It didn't taste nearly as bad as I remembered, at any rate. Bill and I later figured out that since the Tallboys are 16 oz, and a normal beer is 12 oz, really you were getting a beer for $1.50, and another third of a beer for $0.50 extra. This "beer and a third" number rolled around in my head for the rest of the night, and messed up my calculations after that. I remember having at least three (yes, I know you're thinking "ugh") of those before we tried to catch the shuttle to the game, which I adjusted in my head to be four "real" beers. I'm not sure if I actually had a fourth, then... but it seems possible.
In any case, I ordered a beer. As I stood at the end of the bar by myself, an amazing thing happened. The girl who was standing nearest actually started a conversation! It turned out she was the shuttle driver, and really likes the little touch-screen bar games. I tried to help out with a game sort of like boggle, but my aim on the touchscreen was terrible, and my mind wasn't used to the processes it takes to play the game. In other words, I didn't help much. We still did pretty well, but it was mostly her doing. After 20 minutes or so she got called to drive the shuttle, and I was left standing on my own again. I called Bill and he arrived shortly after... where we had more drinks. At $2 a can, the stuff was cheap enough for 2 and a $1 tip.
The crowd was quite a sight... I was quite concerned when we were planning to head down there that we wouldn't fit in, and the regulars would beat us up, or something. As it turns out, the roller derby crowd is made up of quite a variety of people. The majority of them seemed to be the outcast mid-twenties folks... there were a whole bunch of faces there that were almost exactly like people I knew... but not quite. Everyone I met, I asked if they had been Rocky Horror Picture Show regulars in the past. Almost all of the people I talked to had seen RHPS in the past, but there weren't many regulars. In the end, I decided this is where the Rocky kids went when they got older.
The game itself was interesting, but being new to the world of Roller Derby, I had a hard time telling what was going on. The only reference I had was a TV show I had seen about it one time, but I thought it was sort of a "real world" spoof, and didn't realize it was an actual sport. Kind of like Reno 911, but with roller derby girls instead of cops. I ended up asking people around me how the rules went, and they were happy to explain, but it still didn't make any sense. It took me a bit of watching and figuring to finally find out how it works. It's almost too simple to make sense as a game.
Just as my information indicated, Deejay Neko was putting down records during the event, and I got a number of really-far zoomed pictures of him at work. Our seats were up in the balcony, and pretty far away from the action. Next time we resolved to get trackside seats.
Drat, got to go.... Dad is in a fish competition, and Mom & I are going to go check it out, see how he's doing, and bring some food. WWML