Tablesaw!

Once again, my gift list remains much the same as the years before:

• Booze. Last year my cousin and his wife got me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black which kept me company throughout the year. In fact, I depleted all of my scotches (Famous Grouse and Yamazaki) this year, and I'm almost out of my good bourbon. I would love some good replacements, along with other interesting liqueurs.
• Wardrobe. My wardrobe still contains the following things:
  • Jeans worn casually
  • Chinos worn casually or at work
  • collared shirts worn at work or over
  • Nice T-shirts
  • and occasionally a casual sport jacket.
  New additions to any of those categories are welcome. For T-shirts, think along the lines of Threadless or sites like Threadless. I'm probably most in need of jeans, actually. Sizes can vary, but pants are usually 38/34, fitted shirts are 17.5x34/35, T shirts are XL.
• Music. I still, still don't get enough of it on my own. Things from my high-school years (early alternative) are what I usually look for when I hit Amoeba. I prefer used CDs as a medium, over downloads.
• Stuff to do. Movie passes, theatre tickets, nice restaurants. Things to go out and do. (I've already got an American Cinematheque subscription, but an extension beyond April might be nice.)
• Techno Stuff
  • My old DVD player gave up the ghost recently, and I'd like to replace it with a BluRay player that can play DVDs, BluRay, and stream video.
  • On the other hand, I could also go with a barebones BluRay/DVD player and a separate Roku unit for Netflix and streaming.
  • My iPod nano is dying. Right now I'm using my new tablet to substitute, but I'd like something else that I can keep music on. I'm abandoning Apple, so any small little MP3 player is fine.
  • Speaking of my new tablet (a Nexus 7), I need a case for it so I can protect the screen and not be so tender with it always and forever.
• Tea. I'm actually running low on tea, so it would be a good time for gifts of that. I usually drink at work, so I don't want anything too fancy. But I do like all types of loose-leaf tea. I usually buy in person from Bird Pick (Cloud and Fog is one of my favorites), but I'd be curious about the fanciful blends from Adagio Teas. I'm also interested in The Boston Tea Campaign.
• Miscellaneous T[hings]
  • My old reliable Ikea floor lamp in the living room snapped in half, and I've been resting it on its side on a chair in the living room. This has been going on for quite a while now, and I haven't done anything about it. I probably should, at some point.
  • I could use a new dice bag. Don't know when I lost me old one, but right now I have them in a bowl at home, and a ziploc when traveling. Not so cool.
  As always, strongly avoid books (graphic novel TPBs are OK), videogames, and DVDs, which I already have too many of and not enough time for.

I said I was going to post on Monday, but I didn't. I did, however, do productive things. Resumes have been tightened up and e-mailed. I also managed to finally drop my Mothers' Day gift at my parents' house. Today, I managed to wake up on time again and continue, doing laundry as well. There've been a few surprise social things that have come up, which is why DW keeps dropping down on the list, and why today's post is less than stellar. But I didn't want to slack off two days in a row.

I'm working on the Monday holiday, so I'm going to take Saturday off, and there are two competing amazingly geeky things to do, and I'm having a hard time deciding, so I'm polling opinions.

Things to consider (ETA: These are all things that people have asked me to help make a decision):

• Links: Planet of the Apes | OrcCon
• Distance: The Egyptian Theatre is in walking distance from my house, while OrcCon is a bit of a drive to the LAX area.
• Cost: Between registration and parking, a day at OrcCon will cost about $40. A ticket to all of the Apes movies is $15.
• Friends: Although the Apes marathon will undoubtedly be packed with Apes enthusiasts, I will probably not be attending with any previously known friends. On the other hand, a number of friends and acquaintances will be attending OrcCon either for boardgaming or role-playing. In fact, several of my friends are organizing a Houses of the Blooded LARP.
• Uniqueness: Strategicon is held three times a year, while Planet of the Apes marathons are . . . somewhat more rare. On the other hand, I have all of the movies on DVD and could organize a showing in my house (with booze, even), while gaming is often ephemeral.
• PKD: In A Scanner Darkly, the characters plan to attend a marthon of all of the Planet of the Apes movies. They do not plan to attend a LARP.

People keep telling me about bars opening up in Hollywood. Some of them are really close to me. These locations are starting to pile up. Because I don't usually like trying them on my own, and I can't always get people to go with me.

So I'm thinking about organizing a bar crawl from my house. To that end, I've created a map of locations. Some I've been to, some I want to go to, some I refuse to go to. But they're just getting put in. I'm trying to avoid anything that's a lounge or club that would have people pissy about a scene or dress code. I just want places that will give alcohol in exchange for money.

Here's the map as it stands now. I'm going to keep adding, but if you have recommendations, let me know.

Which is actually kind of impressive now that I think about it.

All congratulations go to joshroby and meghatron on their wedding, as well as my thanks for inviting me to the ceremony, party, and afterparty.

I got to catch up with, and get to know better, a lot of the folks I've only met briefly, as well as meet a number of very cool people. (I don't use Facebook in the sense that I don't put anything on my Facebook, but I sure do like the real-life Pokemon aspect of adding everyone I meet.) There were a few times when I needed to leave and take a walk outside, but that was mostly because the music was too loud for me to tolerate without earplugs (which I didn't think to bring). Luckily, I was not the only one, so I was able to make conversation outside the main room most of the time.

After the party was #wedcon which was a lot of folks chilling in a fabulous hotel room in our fancy clothes. Eventually ran the mostly unwritten but excellently named and quite awesome Five Furious Fists of Tiamat. I played "Unnamed Peruvian Teenage Girl," and was quoted for Twitter. By the time I left, it was about 2:30, which was much later than I had intended, but I'm very glad I stayed.

Though I should probably get to sleep early tonight.

(Incidentally, I suggest "Sach'a", which seems to mean something like wood, tree, or born wild in the jungle in Quechua, based ona little bit of web searching.)

After planning Christmas at the last minute and New Years at the last minute, and as I'm planning my Hunt trip at the last minute, it's no surprise that I'm also planning my birthday at the last minute. Which is why it is awesome that wjukknibs, who I'd planned to e-mail before bed, texted me to make plans to see Spaceballs at the Arclight on my birthday, with a guest appearance by Bill Pullman.

Rock.

Last week, I went to a masquerade party/wedding reception. I was fairly adamant about not wearing a costume, and I stand by my decision. I felt much more comfortable looking good in my suit with a new shirt and tie than in any sort of costume that I would have spent too much energy worrying about.

To help enforce the theme, the hosts provided half masks for anyone not coming in costume. So I picked one up for myself (despite it being a bit uncomfortable with my glasses). Many of the folks in costume picked them up as well.

Between the masks, the dimmed party lighting, and the fact that many of the people had changed their hair as well (which is something I usually use to identify people when I can't see as well), I was having a hard time pciking out the people I knew; sometimes I was unsure up to the point we started talking.

I thought others might be having difficulty as me, and I introduced myself a few times until someone pointed out that it was very easy to figure out who I was because of my glorious beard.

I suppose it would happen that I lose internet access when I'm having an existential crisis. The internet is something I use to fend them off.

I've been making a fanmix for a Whedonland challenge, and that's meant digging deep into my music collection. And digging deep into my music collection has meant listening to music I haven't heard in a while. And listening to music I haven't heard in a while means feeling things I haven't felt in a while.

I've been flashing back to the feeling of the Tower Records at GW, the place where I browsed magazines and books, where I bought new music (that I still have), where I saw Suzanne Vega talk about meeting Lou Reed. just across the way there was an ice-cream place (was it a Coldstone's?) and an Au Bon Pain and a bar I never went to because I didn't turn 21 until I was at UCSB, and I remember it in flashes of how I felt that day, cold or wet or hot or tired or excited or scared or depressed or infatuated or proud.

Or I'll remember standing in the Albany airport, waiting for isako to give me a ride to meet ojouchan for the second time, or the same airport later, when my mom called to tell me that my grandmother had died while I was away.

And every flash is different. It impresses upon me that I never really know who I am, because I'm always changing. I don't know who I am right now.

In a lot of ways, I'm afraid of the past more than the future. The past can do as much damage as the future, but unlike the future, it can't be changed. And every year, there's just so much more of it: more pain, more joy, more laughter, more momentum, more power.

So I like to move forward, focusing on the short term, and leaving anything that's fallen out of my view deep in the past, because once I let it drop, it might not be something that's mine. It's something that belonged to a past me.

If I had the internet on right now, I'd go back and look at my posts. But I can tell, right now, that this is the kind of thing I'd be willing to post years ago, but haven't posted much recently. I'm only doing it now because I'm scared, and I can't sleep, and the only way I can reach out right now is with the phone and everyone I know is (or is probably) asleep. But then, back then, I was a lot more lonely, too, I guess. I've been feeling so many things, but haven't wanted to say them, or write them, and there's been so much to do with friends and family and work and all.

I don't know what's going to change. I do know that I'm more regularly social right now than I've been since college, with two gaming groups, one regular group TV-watching, a close friend at work, and dating with ojouchan. And I know it's going to be a hard time sleeping tonight.

But even now, I'm feeling the relief this blog used to bring, easing the pressure of loneliness and melancholy.

Also, I'm getting a wisdom tooth pulled tomorrow. That's not really much compared to the memories making me revaluate my concept of identity, but it's also not helping me get to sleep either.

(finished 2:12 a.m.)

---

Internet is back, the result of my modem and router being finicky about the order they got turned on. Off to the dentist now,and I'll look for and add the links I was thinking of when I get back.

One of the most popular after-hours games at con this year was "Exquisite Fruit," a game received by tmcay in a dream, as befits any pastime of the surrealist vein. One person writes down an answer to be guessed, then seven people collaborate to form a clue for that answer in the style of Exquisite Corpse. The first person writes three words, then folds the paper so that the next person can see only the last word and the answer. The second player writes down two words and folds, and so on until the last person adds a single word and asks the question to the person next to them.

There'd been a massive game of Pyramid on Saturday night, and I hadn't thought to collect the categories for posterity. So I decided to grab the clues from a Sunday-night game of Exquisite Fruit when the opportunity arose. Players included Artistry, rubrick, toonhead_npl, jeffurrynpl, Eddy, /Jabberwock, Wraavr, hahathor, cramerica, tmcay and probably someone I'm forgetting. Some higlights:

• What Kubrick film starring Malcolm McDowell singing in the Nadsat slang like "horrorshow" movie?
• What Depression housing Green Acres pig Dahling presidential administration caused homeless in Annie Warbucks?
• What tacky tartan man skirt has many male skirt Scottish Batman was from Scotland?
• What porcine cocktail do goys drink tref and shaken not stirred not fried shaken?
• What jagged building stepped pyramid in middle of Q-Bert’s block pyrmaid but low-resolution Jews?
• What horror face-off between extraterrestrial against queen creature ultimate face-off between two creatures?
• What underwater weapon energy based illogical Captain Skywalker used in Klingon killing weapon explodes?
• What borough in Welcome Back in New York borough Welcome Back from Manhattan neighbor?
• What snackalicious treat like tollhouse recipe is sweet black sweet drops with brown morsels?
• Jerry Lewis’s partner nutty Jerry Lewis often sings "That's Amore" alcoholic not "G-schploing!" smarmy?

More clues with answers here

Always carry an exquisitefruit.

When a friend of mine sent a picture of her cat to me and some other coworkers, extolling the virtues in the cat's taste in literature.

Naturally, this had to happen:

( The cat macro was a bit larger )

My friend's response was:

So, 1 question: Why does [the cat] have a French accent?

Keep in mind that my friend is not unsaavy when it comes to the internets or the fandom. And yet, no knowledge of lolcats.

I . . . I didn't know that could be possible.