Take a Chance on Thog
Hello again, dear readers! OK, here we go, posting time, before I put it off again! This is mostly about Wednesday and Thursday, my last two days off. In work news, nothing really exciting happened except the arm of the character I was controlling somehow karate-chopped right through the prop tail of the kite caught in the tree in that scene, the other end fluttering to the stage. Beware my Tiger Fist style!
THEY LIVE (I HOPE)
Wednesday, I tried and failed to get up early to do my various errands. After paying my bills, I allowed myself a couple frivolous purchases, one being ATHF Season 6. It's funny, but I kinda miss the days they could be funny without jumping a mile over and past the wall of good taste. The other was the movie "They Live", which I have actually bought for the third time in about as many months. I'll explain: I first tried to buy it around Halloween to watch at work, when it would've been fairly appropriate. I got it all the way out of the Virgin Megastore and didn't notice until I went to open the case at work a day or two later that it had *already* been opened slightly, the security sticker cut cleanly with a box cutter most likely, and the disc taken out. Virgin sold me an empty case, basically. And they weren't going to give me my money back, either. I don't do this "exchange" bullshit. If I wanted something else from your store, I would've *bought* it specifically! Thankfully, the manager had more sense than the store's red-shirted drones and I got a full refund. I tried again to buy the movie a few weeks later from a local MovieStop. This time it was securely sealed, and I could tell by the weight there was a disc in there. Got it to work, opened it up...and the disc was cracked in the middle, where it kinda snaps into the case there. Guess someone at the factory had an "Oops!...Oh, well," moment. Which brings us to try #3. After enlisting some help from the desk of this same MovieStop in finding their one copy of "They Live", I told them my story and told them I wished to examine the disc before I left the store. Here's where things almost turned into attempt #4: Their English-impaired employee at the counter wouldn't let *me* remove the disc, opting to do it himself. Now, you know sometimes that new DVDs don't want to come out of their case. He was pulling it so hard on one end he was bending it. Just when I was about to protest, he got the thing out, so I gave the disc a once over, and *carefully* put it back in. Now, I plan to wait until some fans of the movie are working with me to watch it, and we'll see if this time we finally get to see Roddy Piper kick ass and chew bubble gum. With my luck, the disc will probably be glitched.
YOGA BLAST!
I'd called Napasorn around the holidays, but she hadn't gotten back to me until about a week ago. Unfortunately, she'd been sick, enough that she had to get some kind of vitamin shots or something like that from the doctor. The good news is, her new yoga studio/cafe is up and running, and I happened to visit her on what turned out to be her busiest day yet. She was there, with one of her yoga friends, who had the most straight, linear, almost sci-fi tattoos I'd ever seen, and invited me to try one of her many original wrap and pita creations. I was surprised at how much she had come up with! I ended up trying the "Ta-Da!" pita, which is curry chicken with leafy greens, raisins, and sunflower seeds all in a light pita pocket, with a real fruit smoothie on the side. I think this one was strawberry kiwi, but next time I'm having the bluebery-pomegranate-acai berry one; all my favorites! I told her and "Uncle/Big Chef" (who also worked at Napasorn's other restaurants) that they should make a "Chicken on Fire pita"! I didn't actually do any yoga this time, since I was ill-equipped to sit in a 100-degree room for an hour and a half (it's Bikram Yoga), but Napasorn gave me a quick tour of the facility. Since she's having car issues right now, I gave her a ride to Washington Mutual and we caught up a bit. Shortly after we got back, her roommate brought Napasorn's bulldog, Toadie! Toadie is the unofficial mascot of the Namaste Cafe and Yoga, a larger than life picture of him stretching in what looks like the Dog pose from Yoga on the wall with "Determination" printed underneath. Toadie doesn't bark or growl so much as snort, loves to hurl his considerable bulk at you in an attempt to kiss you, and loves to try to do that even more after he's had a good drink, his jowls all drippy with water and drool. Fortunately, Napasorn was usually there to wipe his mouth after a drink. Usually. She gave me lots of pamphlets to distribute at WDW, offering incentives for WDW employees to join. And folks, if you can't imagine me trying Yoga, well, you'd better change your perceptions. Yes, starting next week, I'm going to try Bikram Yoga classes. This has nothing to do with New Year's resolutions or anything like that, but doing something good for my health and spending time with good food and friends sounds like a win-win to me. And I'm hoping it'll help me break this nasty habit of sleeping in too long on my days off. It's even snuck into my work days; I slap the snooze instead of getting right up, which I never used to do, and I use the time I'd normally spend to perpare a packed lunch to grab 10 *more* winks. This means I spend more money on lunch that probably isn't as good for me. No sense sabotaging the reasonably decent shape I was in in 2008. So we'll see how this works out! It'll either make a new man out of me, or kill me!
After that, I swung by the far side of town to say hey to the Pokemon gaming group I started visiting weekly last year. They mostly do the card thing, but I bring my DS just in case someone else wants to throw down. I stopped going after WotLK dropped. Actually, a *lot* of things got put on the back burner when that happened, so Wednesday was well-spent in trying to get things back to normal. And as I always do after visiting the group at Sci-Fi City, since it's on the way back, I have dinner at Napasorn (the restaurant :P ).
LEVEL UP! x 37
Thursday I mostly did what I didn't get to do on Wednesday, which was to get a haircut and take care of a couple other loose ends. I *still* need to tidy up the place, though. My normally high standards kinda took a slip, again no small thanks to WotLK. Speaking of which, though, samurai_x2 have been tearing it up the past couple nights. Here's where the WoW geekery starts, so the rest of you can skip to the end if you want. As some of you may know, World of Warcraft has a Recruit-A-Friend system. I brought X2 into the game, and because of that, we enjoyed triple experience bonuses, the ability to summon each other anywhere in the world, and last but not least, the recruited friend can grant a level to the original player if he is of lower level than the friend, one level for every two the friend has gained.. Well, yesterday, our three months of RAF bonuses was set to expire, so *Thursday* night, I hatched a master plan. Since our main toons were the same level, but all of X2's toons were still bloated with unspent levels, I decided to roll a new toon that would be the recipient of these levels! X2 cycled through his three toons, feeding the new toon levels, and after all was said and done, my toon had gone from level 1 to 37 in the space of, like, five minutes! Now, there are obvious drawbacks to doing this: no money, no gear, no skills, but thanks to the generous help of our guild and a few extra minutes spent questing, my new toon is much closer to fighting fit! Also, adding to the challenge, this toon is a warrior, which can use most of the weapons in the game. *But*, I am strictly limiting myself to using fist weapons, and *only* fist weapons. It's my way of keeping the experience from being run of the mill, and also sort of wish fulfillment; I miss the Monk/martial arts-type classes that appear in other games. So, currently, this toon is almost as ready as my other to run the Scarlet Monastery! And here's an interesting addendum: even though our RAF bonus was supposed to have ended yesterday, X2 and I logged on and found that we still had all our benefits! Our accounts stated it was to end at 7 PM, but maybe that meant server time. Anyway, I fully expect to see it gone next time I log on...but I hope I'm wrong! I'll miss how easy and fun playing with a friend went with this system!
Today on YouTube's Greatest Hits, the closest we're likely to get to an ABBA reunion.
For those interested, here's a short on the making of the above video. The puppets were built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. It's an interesting glimpse into the craft, and you can tell the directors understand it's more than just wiggling dolls. Don't miss the puppeteers goofing around towards the end.
Well, even though I haven't been eating as well as I should lately, I think I'll still order a pizza. Take that, common sense! Until next time!
THEY LIVE (I HOPE)
Wednesday, I tried and failed to get up early to do my various errands. After paying my bills, I allowed myself a couple frivolous purchases, one being ATHF Season 6. It's funny, but I kinda miss the days they could be funny without jumping a mile over and past the wall of good taste. The other was the movie "They Live", which I have actually bought for the third time in about as many months. I'll explain: I first tried to buy it around Halloween to watch at work, when it would've been fairly appropriate. I got it all the way out of the Virgin Megastore and didn't notice until I went to open the case at work a day or two later that it had *already* been opened slightly, the security sticker cut cleanly with a box cutter most likely, and the disc taken out. Virgin sold me an empty case, basically. And they weren't going to give me my money back, either. I don't do this "exchange" bullshit. If I wanted something else from your store, I would've *bought* it specifically! Thankfully, the manager had more sense than the store's red-shirted drones and I got a full refund. I tried again to buy the movie a few weeks later from a local MovieStop. This time it was securely sealed, and I could tell by the weight there was a disc in there. Got it to work, opened it up...and the disc was cracked in the middle, where it kinda snaps into the case there. Guess someone at the factory had an "Oops!...Oh, well," moment. Which brings us to try #3. After enlisting some help from the desk of this same MovieStop in finding their one copy of "They Live", I told them my story and told them I wished to examine the disc before I left the store. Here's where things almost turned into attempt #4: Their English-impaired employee at the counter wouldn't let *me* remove the disc, opting to do it himself. Now, you know sometimes that new DVDs don't want to come out of their case. He was pulling it so hard on one end he was bending it. Just when I was about to protest, he got the thing out, so I gave the disc a once over, and *carefully* put it back in. Now, I plan to wait until some fans of the movie are working with me to watch it, and we'll see if this time we finally get to see Roddy Piper kick ass and chew bubble gum. With my luck, the disc will probably be glitched.
YOGA BLAST!
I'd called Napasorn around the holidays, but she hadn't gotten back to me until about a week ago. Unfortunately, she'd been sick, enough that she had to get some kind of vitamin shots or something like that from the doctor. The good news is, her new yoga studio/cafe is up and running, and I happened to visit her on what turned out to be her busiest day yet. She was there, with one of her yoga friends, who had the most straight, linear, almost sci-fi tattoos I'd ever seen, and invited me to try one of her many original wrap and pita creations. I was surprised at how much she had come up with! I ended up trying the "Ta-Da!" pita, which is curry chicken with leafy greens, raisins, and sunflower seeds all in a light pita pocket, with a real fruit smoothie on the side. I think this one was strawberry kiwi, but next time I'm having the bluebery-pomegranate-acai berry one; all my favorites! I told her and "Uncle/Big Chef" (who also worked at Napasorn's other restaurants) that they should make a "Chicken on Fire pita"! I didn't actually do any yoga this time, since I was ill-equipped to sit in a 100-degree room for an hour and a half (it's Bikram Yoga), but Napasorn gave me a quick tour of the facility. Since she's having car issues right now, I gave her a ride to Washington Mutual and we caught up a bit. Shortly after we got back, her roommate brought Napasorn's bulldog, Toadie! Toadie is the unofficial mascot of the Namaste Cafe and Yoga, a larger than life picture of him stretching in what looks like the Dog pose from Yoga on the wall with "Determination" printed underneath. Toadie doesn't bark or growl so much as snort, loves to hurl his considerable bulk at you in an attempt to kiss you, and loves to try to do that even more after he's had a good drink, his jowls all drippy with water and drool. Fortunately, Napasorn was usually there to wipe his mouth after a drink. Usually. She gave me lots of pamphlets to distribute at WDW, offering incentives for WDW employees to join. And folks, if you can't imagine me trying Yoga, well, you'd better change your perceptions. Yes, starting next week, I'm going to try Bikram Yoga classes. This has nothing to do with New Year's resolutions or anything like that, but doing something good for my health and spending time with good food and friends sounds like a win-win to me. And I'm hoping it'll help me break this nasty habit of sleeping in too long on my days off. It's even snuck into my work days; I slap the snooze instead of getting right up, which I never used to do, and I use the time I'd normally spend to perpare a packed lunch to grab 10 *more* winks. This means I spend more money on lunch that probably isn't as good for me. No sense sabotaging the reasonably decent shape I was in in 2008. So we'll see how this works out! It'll either make a new man out of me, or kill me!
After that, I swung by the far side of town to say hey to the Pokemon gaming group I started visiting weekly last year. They mostly do the card thing, but I bring my DS just in case someone else wants to throw down. I stopped going after WotLK dropped. Actually, a *lot* of things got put on the back burner when that happened, so Wednesday was well-spent in trying to get things back to normal. And as I always do after visiting the group at Sci-Fi City, since it's on the way back, I have dinner at Napasorn (the restaurant :P ).
LEVEL UP! x 37
Thursday I mostly did what I didn't get to do on Wednesday, which was to get a haircut and take care of a couple other loose ends. I *still* need to tidy up the place, though. My normally high standards kinda took a slip, again no small thanks to WotLK. Speaking of which, though, samurai_x2 have been tearing it up the past couple nights. Here's where the WoW geekery starts, so the rest of you can skip to the end if you want. As some of you may know, World of Warcraft has a Recruit-A-Friend system. I brought X2 into the game, and because of that, we enjoyed triple experience bonuses, the ability to summon each other anywhere in the world, and last but not least, the recruited friend can grant a level to the original player if he is of lower level than the friend, one level for every two the friend has gained.. Well, yesterday, our three months of RAF bonuses was set to expire, so *Thursday* night, I hatched a master plan. Since our main toons were the same level, but all of X2's toons were still bloated with unspent levels, I decided to roll a new toon that would be the recipient of these levels! X2 cycled through his three toons, feeding the new toon levels, and after all was said and done, my toon had gone from level 1 to 37 in the space of, like, five minutes! Now, there are obvious drawbacks to doing this: no money, no gear, no skills, but thanks to the generous help of our guild and a few extra minutes spent questing, my new toon is much closer to fighting fit! Also, adding to the challenge, this toon is a warrior, which can use most of the weapons in the game. *But*, I am strictly limiting myself to using fist weapons, and *only* fist weapons. It's my way of keeping the experience from being run of the mill, and also sort of wish fulfillment; I miss the Monk/martial arts-type classes that appear in other games. So, currently, this toon is almost as ready as my other to run the Scarlet Monastery! And here's an interesting addendum: even though our RAF bonus was supposed to have ended yesterday, X2 and I logged on and found that we still had all our benefits! Our accounts stated it was to end at 7 PM, but maybe that meant server time. Anyway, I fully expect to see it gone next time I log on...but I hope I'm wrong! I'll miss how easy and fun playing with a friend went with this system!
Today on YouTube's Greatest Hits, the closest we're likely to get to an ABBA reunion.
Click to viewFor those interested, here's a short on the making of the above video. The puppets were built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. It's an interesting glimpse into the craft, and you can tell the directors understand it's more than just wiggling dolls. Don't miss the puppeteers goofing around towards the end.
Well, even though I haven't been eating as well as I should lately, I think I'll still order a pizza. Take that, common sense! Until next time!