I'm really tired

I just worked back-to-back doubles; 11 - 10 and 10 - C. That's 11 hours and 13 1/2 hours, for a combined total of 24 1/2 hours in two days. I'm heading over to Matt and Luke's now, but there'll be more later.

Argh, So Much

There're so many things I want to talk about. Katie. My ex-philosophy prof. My total lack of social skills. Working on the campaign website. Working on my personal website.

But I don't have the energy. I think I'll just lie in bed and wait 'til it's time to go to work.

Pictures from D&D 5/25/04

This is really sweet. The method used to post photos onto your blog is... less than optimal. If you view my blog between the time I post the photos and the time I reformat them, you'll see just a string of posts with nothing but the pictures. It's fairly limited - one picture per post, with one caption below it, nothing else. But I'm developing a java app to read a text file of what I've uploaded, and reformat it into the standard table format I've been using (how do people like that, anyway?)

Brett reviews his character sheet, while Luke looks at some minis.	Major close-up of an orc speaman. I spent about five minutes just moving him back and forth.
Luke toys with another mini. (There was a lot of this as we attempted to get started.)	The PCs stayed in a ruined city; Lorm saw something in a building, and he investigated.
He then jumped to the adjecent building, using a Rage attempt to ensure success.	That night, they were ambushed by bandits (represented by the d10s). Lorm laid them out.
The PCs freaked as a ripple headed through the streets.	Halo break!
The entire party and the rescued prisoners form a large circle around a campfire. That's Davin off to the side.	Luke, considering something.
'Sup, Brett?	Don't ask.
See Matt, you take good pictures.	Why is everyone looking at me?
An epic battle between the forces of Lightstone Keep and an invading Kobold/Orc army, with a Hill Giant.	Zhao Fei took control of the irregulars, sending some up the middle to reinforce the human line, which was weakening in the middle.
Xhao Fei, Katrin, and the Dwarf lead an end-around the collapsing orc line.	And get dangerously close the Hill Giant.
And finally, after being hit by over 20 arrows, caught on fire, and generally just having a bad day, they bring the Giant down. Mopping up the few remaining orcs was almost trivial. However, the aftermath of battle would not be pretty...

Yeah, I'm dropping that class

I'll be posting some choice snippets from the course syllabus later.

My Intro to Philosophy Teacher is Insane. And full of shit.

Just got back from my first day in this class - Intro to Philosophy.

Yeah, it's a bunch of bull.

Pictures from D&D 5/24/04

Clicking a picture will take you to a much larger version.

This is our gaming group, sans Jarrod, preparing to play.	Michael taking a picture of me taking a picture of him with his new camera phone. Ah, the wonders of technology.
Brett (left) and Matt (right)	Michael (left) and Luke (right)
A minotaur prepares to slaughter some kobolds and goblins...	Why are you so happy?
"Bring it on!!"	No idea.
The current party (starting in the bottom left, going counter-clockwise): Zhao Fei, Zhao Xi, Davin, Cedras, Ky'rinn, and Lorm.	Jarrod just found out that on his critical fumble, he has to roll to hit Lorm, who's been protecting his ass this whole campaign...
	<
And sure enough, rolls a natural 20, and confirms the crit. That's, um... (d8 + 3) x3 damage. To his good friend, the melee tank, who's locked in mortal combat with a sadistic, claw weilding orc. Good job, Jarrod!!	Matt finds out how much damage he's just taken. From an ally.
While Cedras is confronting Davin about killing Annoth, an orc war cry is heard from one direction.	Jarrod gives the two women his two potions of Invisibility and tells them to run and hide, while he arms the two elves among the rescued prisoners.
They start to realize that the whole thing is an illusion, done by Brett.

Comings and Goings

Just got home from an awesome game of D&D. Davin killed Annoth in his sleep, then buried the body. Ky'rinn is giving him a proper funeral while the party journeys onward. It was a lot of fun.

Caleb decided not to play anymore. Saves me the trouble of having to ask him.

I got in Google's gMail beta. Go me. I can now be emailed at (what else?) jackalope@gmail.com.

I managed to miss the first day of school, but that will definitely be an isolated incident.

This is going to bug me for a while

So I'm sitting here, watching "The Tech of... (Casinos)". Intersting program, while I'm still calming down from work before I take a shower and move on to other things. I get the following message:

***rattlers2002us has added you to their contact list. You may choose to accept or deny this action.. You may also add this user to your contact list or ignore this user. *** You have been successfully added to rattlers2002us's contact list. *** "rattlers2002us" signed on at Sun May 23 18:12:25 2004. mr_binky_the_jackalope: Who is this? *** "rattlers2002us" has signed off. ***

I checked the profile, and all it says is "female". That narrows it down - a girl from my high school, one year later. Hmm... I don't really have any high school yearbooks; the only ones I have on hands are like from seventh and eighth grade. Both only have my grade, so that's not a big help. I was flipping through one, though, and came across a picture of Chelsea. I'm okay now, though. There was a few minutes of tears, though, so I guess I've regressed, or just was never as far as I thought. But anyway, this'll really bug me (this mysterious IM) until it's resolved.

Ah, well. Se la vie. Summer school starts together, so that's 5 1/2 weeks of fun, with another 5 1/2 after that as well. Intro to Philosophy for 2 hours every day in Austin, followed by 4 (?) hours Monday and Wednesday night. We'll have to re-schedule the D&D game, but that's no big deal. I'm actually going to do some fairly major planning for this game - they're going to attack an orc encampment. Hilarity shall ensue.

Watched the E3 review on X-Play. I'm really excited - FF XII, Star Ocean - 'Til the End of Time, Front Mission 4... all good stuff.

Ah, well. Time to shower.

More Movie Reviews

Just came back from seeing Mean Girls (alone) and Van Helsing (last night with Matt, Luke and Brett).

Mean Girls: It was really funny, although I find myself completely unable to relate to contemporary movies depicting high school. Tim Meadows is still funny, and he did really well opposite Tina Fey. I'm not a big fan of Amy Poehler, though. Lindsay Lohan was great, and her breasts did a stellar job of causing audiences to cower in fear. There was some shockingly frank language and situations (her character drank in this one, oddly enough), so it was definitely aimed at the upper teen demographic. A few cheesy moments, but it avoided a lost of terrible clichès. Interesting plot twists as well.

And annoying girls getting hit by buses. I think there should have been more of that. Ninety minutes of annoying girls getting hit by buses.

8 / 12 Final Fantasies.

Van Helsing: Again, I liked it. I know a lot of people have referred to it as "Van Helstink" and complained about the massive amount of effects, but I disagree with both. The soundtrack had some interesting strings in it that caught me by surpise, but I liked it. It was a really good action movie with pretty good effects. I wasn't dissapointed, and I don't think anyone else I went with was.

8 / 12 Final Fantasies.

I've given up trying to rank them all. Maybe later...

In gaming news, I checked out Rise to Honor and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. Rise to Honor had an innovative control system in which the right analog stick controlled the attacks. It was pretty cool, but it was hard to get into it. I'm liking Bounty Hunter. I feel like a real badass. I still want to check out Samurai Warriors and Transformers. There's a few others I need to check out. I'm going to go play some now, but I'm in the middle of a Chelsea funk. Expact another history post later.

Man, Caleb is really pissing me off

Brett *really* likes to play D&D

Brett: so how about Brett: if we can't play this sunday that you allow me to "play-over-the-phone" next monday so i don't miss out on anything. I can bring a speaker phone and I can be on my cell phone for the entire night or at least a long ass time mrbinkyjackalope: Um, no. Brett: so you guys just play normal with the speakerphone there i just get to hear what happens

Some pictures from work and play

This is Allison. I've mentioned her several times - she's a bit of a tease at times.	This is Katie - it's not a great picture, though. This is when we went skating the first time.
Luke, looking at a D&D book.

Oh, that's sweet.

Testing out this new "picture" capability.

Mr. Sassy Pants, addendum

I forgot something. Luke was really annoying me while I was playing. He kept saying things like "You might wanna run away right now", or "You know you have a healing inspiration, right? You might wanna use it now." I mean, I appreciate the fact that he's willing to offer advice, but I've been playing video games since I was six. I understand the ramifications and purpose of single-use items. I can analyze and understand a RPG's combat system and how to utilize various options therein. It's not like CoH had a particularly bizarre one. I didn't want to say anything, 'cause he was letting me play it on his account, his comp, but it was SO ANNOYING.

Mr. Sassy Pants

So I finally played City of Heroes today, over at Matt and Luke's. It's actually a lot of fun. I created a Mutant Tanker named "Mr Sassy Pants". He was huge, wore a purple suit, and a fedora. He also walked up to people and pounded the shit out of them. It's a fun game, but I won't be getting it for two reasons - first, my comp isn't quite up to spec for it; secondly, tbe fifteen dollar a month fee is annoying. I mean, it wouldn't be that burdensome or anything, just annoying.

Luke and Brett are switching to new characters, so I was over there from like 3 today until 3 just now. They both already created their prestige classes, which are fairly similiar. We went to Zooka's for a late lunch, but Katie wasn't working. Oh well...

I'm really enjoying my week off, before school starts back up Monday. It's gonna be SO ANNOYING having to go to Austin every day. And expensive, with gas as high as it is and getting higher. Speaking of things that are SO <adjective>, I went in to get my check today, and of course Rudy started doing the DUDE OH MY GOD, it was SO AWESOME thing. Beverly joined in this time, which was kind of weird. It's sad, though - Tracy left for the summer. Argh.

Speaking of annoying, Caleb really really got on my nerves last night. He rolled fairly bad for hit points, and he was whining about re-rolling his hit points. So he kept poking me in the side, and asking. I eventually just stripped his character of all his hit points, but re-instated them when he apologized. I mean, I made it quite clear that I wasn't kidding around, and everyone else realized it. I know I kid around a lot, and that it's not always easy to tell. So I was very explicit about telling Caleb, "I am NOT kidding." He seriously just doesn't fit in with this group at all. I'd like to ask him to leave the group, but I don't know if I could do that, at least without greater provocation.

Still thinking about running a second game; poaaibly on something like Saturday night. We'll see how that goes, though. I don't think it'll happen, but I'll see what I can do. While I was over there today, for whatever reason, I made a chart of what can cross-breed with what. It was... interesting, to say the least. I'll bring it back next time I'm over there and post it sometime.

Damn, I'm good

So when I watched Troy, I knew the guy who plays Agamemnon, Brian Cox looked familiar. I thought he was the guy who played the chief from Super Troopers. And I was right. He's also been in:

• The Ringer, which they filmed at Bobcat Stadium
  
• X Men 2, as Stryker (Didn't catch that one)
  
• Braveheart, as Argyle Wallace - Had no clue.
  

Now that's versatile.

And a few other roles. Also interesting to note:

James Cosmo, who plays Campbell, Hamish's father, and Brendan Gleeson, who plays Hamish in Braveheart, both appear in Troy as well. I kept saying that they looked like those roles while watching Troy.

Lesbians

Man, I'm tired. Worked 10 - 5 Saturday. It was both 50's day (99 cent burgers) and SWT Graduation. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad, but David and Sunny were fountaining. Both really suck. Even with both of them making drinks, they just can't keep up. David especially just atrocious. He'll make one drink at a time. Bullshit. And when I'm making drinks, doing fine, he'll come up and start to make a fountain drink. He's just getting in the way. It's really annoying when there's something else he could be doing if he wanted to help - making a sluah, some ice cream, et al. Or like, there was an order on eight that needed some drinks. But he wasn't sure about it, so instead of trying to find out what was going on with it, he just skipped it and kept going. He was wrapped completely around before I realized what was going on and stepped in. It caused a major problem, since the two orders got mixed up - which was due entirely to him leaving the order up and not dealing with it. He did it again today bagging. I called him on it, and he started mouthing off - "Shut up, motherfucker. Why don't you come up here and start talking that shit?" I wanted to reach out and pop him. And I have to fountain again with him Saturday day. Fun stuff. Oh yeah.

But it was okay, because after that, I went skating at The Zone with Caleb and my little sister. We had fun. Caleb hadn't been skating in... oh, 15 years or so. He was flailing around all willy-nilly, and just being crazy. I've gotten a little better with the more free style I practiced while skating with Katie (W). We played one game at one point in which everybody started on one wall and skated towards the other wall. At some point, the guy just dumped this gigantic amount of change all over the floor. Some people tripped over it, some rushed around trying to pick it up. It really just made no sense.

After skating, we went to Sonic to get Caleb some food and give Freddie a ride home. We then picked up Cullen and went to Austin to play DDR at Le Fun. Caleb went as well to hang out at the arcade. I max comboed "Can't Stop Falling in Love" (Speed Mix) on doubles/heavy, but I screwed up the pad a little bit (left pad, up arrow). I feel really bad. Later, I saw a pair of lesbians, but they were the spiky/pierced/tatooed variety. Not a big fan of that. Later, however, there was a pair sitting in the Metro, just petting each other. They were pretty.

So yeah, I'm still fairly sore from a few hours of skating followed by some DDR, with six hours of work before and after. Oddly enough, that then goes into a D&D/work/D&D pattern. It's a lot of fun, though, and I guess that's what counts.

E-Mail from Suzie

Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 08:31:15 -0700 (PDT) From: "Suzie Donaldson" lilsuz84@yahoo.com Subject: Poo To: mr_binky_the_jackalope@yahoo.com

Hi, how're you doing? Hope fine. Anyhow.I wanted to say hi and stuff, I dont know if I'll have a graduation, but if I do, I am inviting you to it, it is on July the 2nd, and its really awesome because it is the start fo the summe break for Gary.. So that means Jona dn Cd can come with me home yay! ASnyhow! I got to run, just wanted to say HII Buh Bye Suzie You just had near-life experience. -Fight Club

How odd.

General Housekeeping

Just got home from playing D&D. Had a TON of fun - the new group (Brett, Matt, Luke, Jarrod, and Michael) is really working well together, and everybody's working out well. Caleb was thinking about rejoining, but I don't think he's going to. Admittedly, I was kind of a bitch to him, but he won't admit that he has a tendency to play characters that don't really get along with the group. And it's just as much him as it is the characters - he roleplays great, it's just that... I don't know. He just really seems to enjoy it when his characters annoy others. Admittedly, I used to do that. But that was, um, five years ago? I've definitely matured since then, in a variety of ways. The character I had in Jarrod's game - I forget his name - was an interesting character. He was a young wizard's apprentice who was also studying clerical magic. Young, untested, but still worked well with the party. Yes, the mysterious loner is a fascinating, great character archetype. But in a party based setting where you're directly working together with three to five other people, it's not quite as feasible. Jarrod and Michael are both dealing with the same issue, and walking that line much better. They've also both presented me with ideas about what prestiege classes they'd like to enter, and I have a few ideas for each. It's gonna be awesome! We're playing again tonight, after I get out of work. Man.

Something Awful; Forum Conversations: AIM Girl, Hentai Lovers, Prison Talk, and others.

It's just so beautiful.

Things That Annoy Me, pt 2

• People that don't understand "right-of-way"
  
  
  Seriously. Right turns ARE NOT PROTECTED, unless you have a green arrow (which I've only seen once, ever). If I have a protected left, that means you have to yield to me if you're trying to take a right turn. Also, in a two-way, two lane (one lane each way) road, if the person at the light is waiting to take a left, the person going the other way has right-of-way if you're going to pass them. Meaning if you have two people waiting to take a left turn, one each way, they should be able to both take their turn without IMPATIENT, IDIOTIC ASSHOLES trying to pass going the other way.
  
  
  
• People who confuse knowledge and intelligence
  
  
  For example, "How do you know all that? You're so smart!!" No, you're not. You know a lot, big fucking deal. Intelligence is the ability to analyze things and think critically. The two are related, yes. Often times, intelligent people are better educated and thus know more, but that doesn't mean they're the same thing.
  
  
  
• The following "actors" and "actresses":
  
  
  
  • Adam Sandler
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Ben Affleck
  • Matt Damon
  • Ben Stiller
  
  
• People who think they have to have comlete silence to take a test
  
  
  Actually, that might be a little unfair. They might actually have problems concentrating with any noise. GET OVER IT.
  
  
  
• People who make a point of saying "The book was better."
  
  
  I mean, I'm all for saying that as well. But *not* like it's some great revelation or something. We all know the book is almost always better. Or that it's not quite a faithful adaptation of the comic book. Or they left something out, or had to change something. If that's gonna be a problem, DON'T GO SEE THE FUCKING MOVIE, YOU FUCKING MORON.
  

This is awesome:

The Onion | Woman At Farscape Convention Has Dangerously Inflated Self-Image

The Punisher

Review: Pretty good overall. Definitely better than the Hulk; I'd place it above Daredevil as well. Yeah, between Daredevil and X-Men. Which puts the list at something like:

X-Men 2 Spider-Man / Hellboy X-Men The Matrix The Punisher Daredevil Underworld The Hulk / Matrix 2 / Matrix 3

Some were hard to decide between, hence the "/".

I give it seven Final Fantasies. It had some script problems at points, some awkward transitions, and a few confusing situations, but overall, pretty good. It did a very good job of illustrating the fact that the Punisher isn't a 'traditional' superhero - he's much more human, like Batman, and isn't very noble or on a grand crusade. At least, not initially. They did leave it open for a sequel, but given its terrible opening, doesn't look like it's coming.

Also, I need to qualify what I meant by "real powering up" in my previous post. I mean, none of this namby-pamby "being able to afford new equipment when you arrive at a town". No sir ree bob. You have to work for your goods. And leveling up? Don't get me started.

Going to see The Punisher at 7:20 at Starplex. Going with Caleb and Sev. Maybe I'll be able to get Caleb to elaborate on why he's not playing anymore. I hope we play again this week. Sunday night would work well, since Cullen would be able to join as well. That would be trying, though - back to back sessions?

Resumed work on Final Fantasy I. This has *real* powering up.

Random picture time.

The girl on the left is Suzy, Laurin (Freddie's girlfriend in Austin)'s roommate.

Man, I hate Joel. He's just so annoying. He does it constantly, on purpose. Then he turns around and criticizes others for language and content. It just really bothers me. It looks like he's going to become a more prominent manager now that Ricky's gone, Rudy might leave soon too... Argh. At least Ray's going to become a manager. I don't know if I'll be there long enough to do so. I really want to apply at the Wal-Mart distribution warehouse. I could definitely do weekends. It'd be good for me to get out of Sonic, too.

Another day off tomorrow. Not sure what I'm going to do...

Man, Tracy's hot. And sarcastic (that's a good thing). But it wouldn't work out - not that I have like a crush on her or anything. Just providing objective analysis (with which Freddie agrees, mind you.)

We might be playing D&D again sometime this week. Cullen might be able to play, as well, which would be great. I'd like to go play DDR with him later this week as well.

Well, we played. I think it went rather well. I just need to work on party cohesion and motivation.

Well, they've forced me to abandon my previous template. I much prefer the old one, but it's not on the list of choices. This one is okay, I guess. It was much worse before I edited it - the text only took up like fifty percent of the screen - wtf? I guess that's okay for really short posts, but I like the text to take up the vast majority of the screen. It supports comments now, so I get another indication of the lack of people reading it. I'm going to see what else I can fix about the template at some point. But I'm going to play D&D with the gusy at five, so I have to prepare the "All Hell breaks loose" type stuff.

Testing comments.

Again, fair enough. I didn't really plan on taking a side either until I saw Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. It was really good. I think Mean Girls will be really good, as well (it did open #1 this weekend, beating out Denzel Washington's new one, and a few other lackluster titles). I haven't seen it yet, but if I can't a hold of Cullen to go play DDR tonight, I will. That, or tomorrow night. I still have to register for the summer, too. I'm glad for the few weeks off, though. That'll be nice. Katie, Rose and I went apartment hunting yesterday. Also fun. Oh, I shaved all of my hair off - I'm completely bald right now. I plan on keeping it for a while; I kinda like it. What else, what else? Oh, I think I kinda like Tracy. She's so awesome!! I never realized it before. Or rather, I did, but didn't really. I don't know. But not really - it's not like a real crush. I don't know how to explain it. It makes sense to me, darn it.

The link's fixed - apparently, unless you explicitly put http, it puts it as a site inside of this one, which makes no sense since you don't get any additional webspace anyway.

Hmm....

But anyway.

I'm not wrong, I'm opinionated

Non sequiter. You can be opinionated and wrong.

Cute? I'm not seeing it. Well, maybe in a little sister kind of way (Hilary is, after all, almost a year younger than my little sister, whereas Lindsay turns eightteen in... almost exactly two months). Of course, Hilary may be cute in a little sister kind of way, but she has another major little sister trait - ANNOYING AS HELL. And eternal damnation is *quite* annoying.

Hmm...

So there's this girl. We'll call her... Ayla. She's a little slutty. I think it's a rebellion thing that became permanent - did she just like sex a whole lot, or what? No idea.

But she's pregnant. That's what happens when you have a lot of unprotected sex. I'm not surprised. She's not entirely sure who the dad is, but she's pretty sure. He's okay with it.

I have no idea what to think. I'm really upset right now. Just at the world, in general. It probably doesn't help that I've gotten a ridiculously small amount of sleep in the last four or five days.

I'm kinda tired, but I'll sorta have a break for a few weeks until summer school starts.

And Plif, you're wrong:

It's come to my attention that there's a large number of things, relatively harmless things, that get on my nerves to no end. I'm going to work on compiling a list of these things, which will eventually be posted on my website.

• "/me gets a blanket."
  
  
  
  • Using "/me" actions in a chat room
  
  
  • Writing "*me goes and *" in a message board
  
  
  
  
  I hate this so much!!! I can't begin to explain why - I don't know. All I know is that I want to smack people whenever they do that. ESPECIALLY in message boards, when they mark it with asterisks. I mean, why? If you're trying to say something, just say it. If you're trying to be cute, you've failed. Nov did it consistently once, I wanted to muzzle him (of course, I couldn't since he's also a ghost, and I wouldn't, since it would have been a blatant abuse of ghost powers.)
  
  But it would have felt SO good.
  
  Update: That bothers me too - *nod*
  
  ARGH!! HE KEEPS DOING IT!!!



• "That's just my two cents."
  
  
  
  • "That's just my two cents."
  
  
  • "Just my $.02."
  
  
  • "Just my two hundredths of the local currency."
  
  
  • "IMHO"
  
  
  • "IMO"
  
  
  • "But that's just my opinion"
  
  
  
  
  Why do people feel the need to point out that they're expressing their opinion? Do they think everyone reading it is incredibly stupid,and won't realize it? Are they afraid people will think they're being arrogant if they don't mention this? Seriously. You're just wasting time, bandwidth, and power. Have some FUCKING CONFIDENCE in yourself. Just say what you want to say, and don't qualify it as your opinion. This also ties into the "I'm sorry" post later.



• O_o
  
  
  
  • ^^
    
  
  
  I can't do a good sub-list of these, since I don't really know many of them. It's mainly the top one that bothers me. I want to reach through my computer and strangle however uses those. Especially Anime_Tencho, or whatever the hell his name was. He would throw that first one out all the time when I was trying to help him code Tanshihana. Every time I'd give him a piece of advice, he'd make that face (across AIM, of course). Heaven forbid he actually use words, which convey ACTUAL MEANING, as opposed to some fucking ridiculous catch-all symbol for {"Help", "I'm confused", "I'm constipated", and "I'm a FUCKING DUMBASS"}. Actually, I'm pretty sure the last one applies to every use.



• "I'm sorry, but..."
  
  
  
  • "I <possess some quality>
    
  • "I <hold some opinion>
    
  
  
  Why? Why are you sorry? Have some FUCKING SELF ESTEEM (and coming from me, who's had self-esteem problems his whole life, that means something). You don't need to apologize for who you are. So you hold an unpopular opinion. So what? That's the whole point of having freedom of expression; hell, of having individual thought in the first place. If people didn't have differing opinions, there'd be no point in having the ability to form opinions, and we'd grow out of it (well, we're damn sure making a good attempt at it as is.)
  
  

That's all for today. More later.

Damn. I pushed Linsday too far down. Let's see that pic again:


Ah, that's better.

Several other things:

We had a carhop/fountain meeting this morning. He was saying that we were going to hire several new people, but he kept saying "Newbies." OMG.

Amplitude is fuckin' awesome.

Jarrod called.

Might have to go work at the New Braunfels Sonic tomorrow.

Well, I have definitely taken a side on the "Lindsay Lohan v Hilary Duff" debate.

That, and SNL was kinda funny for once. Not bad. They've still got Horatio Sanz, Darrol Hammon, and Chris Parnell, so they'll be okay for this season.