A long December, and there’s reason to believe
maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin’
now the days go by so fast
and it’s one more day up in the canyon
and it’s one more night in Hollywood
if you think that I can be forgiven….I wish you would
The smell of hospitals in winter
and the feeling that its all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
all at once you look across a crowded room
to see the way that light attaches to a girl
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
and it’s one more night in Hollywood
if you think you might come to California…I think you should
Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
and talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her
And its been a long December, and there’s reason to believe
maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
to hold on to these moments as they pass
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
and it’s one more night in Hollywood
it’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean..I guess I should.
Because in that greater sense, it HAS been a long December. Happy New Year, y’all, and here’s to 2006 being everything I’m hoping it will be.
With a nod towards that classic bash quote.
650 Verbal, 590 Math, some unknown on Writing. Out of 800 for each one, 10 point intervals. So pretty much like the SAT. Speaking of which, back in the day when I took THAT, I got 640 verbal 580 math. So go figure.
Bliss is a good movie, an SBI, and some popcorn. I’m not sure if Kingdom of Heaven is all that, though. I need to think about it some more.
Shooting Nazis in CoD2 sure is fun.
You may go now.
Many people, I expect, will be blogging about what they got for Christmas and the like, and/or shopping. Being efficient small forest animals, we’ll take care of that in short order:
Christmas Presents Include:
Clothes – lots. Because as fun as going naked in Oregon in winter is, well…
Books – More. Terry Pratchett, Neal Stephenson, and assorted history for the win, if not the bookshelf space.
Games – Call of Duty 2 is freaking awesome, but is 6(!) discs and takes 4 gigs of HD. Also an 8x CD drive, the requirements of which I only exceed by…5 times. Which is up from the 10 times I exceeded previously required 4x drives by. Because, you know, 8x was awesome in like, 1995.
So what did I do today? If you said “Enjoyed presents” you would be wrong. Instead, since I take the GRE Wednesday, and haven’t done enough research yet, I looked up Master’s of Library Science grad schools.
This is anti-fun for one main reason: For as much as these people are apparently all about easy access to information, I could design them a better webpage in like, 10 minutes. I except that people who do a fair amount of web design, like Whir, say, could do this in about 5 minutes. It was bad.
In any case, preliminary schools look like this:
Emporia State University
The Good: Distance education through Portland. If the figures I found were accurate, $4,515 + living expenses is bloody cheap in comparison to everyone else.
The Neutral: I get to stay local, which has up sides (Most everyone I know is here) and down sides (I’ve been here and done that)
The Bad: I’m not particularly sure I want to go distance ed, here. Also not sure I want to part-time it. Also their website is total crap. Not looking like a whole lot of internship action here, but I couldn’t really find out.
Southern Connecticut State University
The Good: Reasonably cheap ($7,545+living expenses). East coast, for close proximity to lots of things I’d like to see. Exceedingly anti-far from Yale (half-mile?), where Regina will be going to school, for the win. Looks like reasonable on-campus housing, quad-style.
The Neutral: Small school. Smaller than OSU, maybe, which is saying something.
The Bad: Godawful website, so I found less information on everything than I wanted. Internshippage an “I have no idea.”
University of Maryland
The Good: On the Regina’s Mom’s Approved List of Good Schools. East coast goodness. Reasonable close to campus housing. Intershippage a probable, in awesome locations (Washington DC for the win). I could actually find things on their website in a reasonable fashion.
The Neutral: A big school, by OSU standards, which may or may not be bad.
The Bad: The $10,298 + housing per semester @ 3 semesters price tag causes hurt to me. Also pretty much far away from anybody I know, which is anti-good.
University of Rhode Island
The Good: It’s something like $18,884/year, which is excellent. The housing looks great, if you can get in. Around 50 miles from Yale, which is reasonable driving distance. East Coast school, for all that implies.
The Neutral: IIRC something like 12-13k students, which is…bloody small.
The Bad: Internshippage – who knows, because I couldn’t find a damn thing on their website.
We’ll be checking on other random east coast schools and Midwestish schools later. Whir unfortunately lives super-far from pretty much all of them. There’s also University of Washington, but I’m not going to pay them $41,000 and live in Seattle.
And that’s where we’re at. GRE Wednesday. Should be fun.
Being the season, and all…Happy Christmas, boys, girls, and squirrel aliens. Hope it was a good one. It’s turning out that way here. Far too many books to read, games to play, and clothes to wear for the first time since the early 90s.
Wrapping Paper: $1
Fluxx: $12
“WTF!?” expression on parental faces while playing Fluxx: Priceless
So, yeah. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards rabbits. But not Mansa. You’re next, after I deal with Izzy.
6 player Civ games are never going to be in my future again, I think.
OTOH, Regina was funny tonight, and didn’t try to deny it this time, so:
[21:15] TontoMarius: Well, do I look like a plucky Japanese schoolgirl to you?
[21:15] starflier06: *falls over laughing*
[21:15] starflier06: cosplay!
[21:16] starflier06: You’d look so cute with the pigtails!
[21:17] starflier06: why is it that these days, i find myself making bizarre statements for your amusement?
[21:17] starflier06: Not that you mind, I’m sure, but.
[21:35] starflier06: I should get food and stuff.
[21:35] TontoMarius: That was a really me comment.
[21:36] starflier06: heh.
[21:36] TontoMarius: “Like, oh yeah. Food.”
[21:36] starflier06: heh
[21:37] starflier06: i had toast for dinner
[21:37] starflier06: and a pear later
[21:37] starflier06: that only goes so far
[21:37] TontoMarius: Wow did that sound off for a moment.
[21:37] starflier06: hahahahahahah
[21:37] TontoMarius: I was all like “Boy, that’s pretty Silence of the Lambs there.”
Having nothing to do with anything, except I felt like using the title. GSG rocks.
On that note, there’s a Haibane Renmei box at the shop I’m desperately trying not to blow a bunch of money on because it’s awesome. I might have a job soon, though, so we’ll see. I should know RSN.
We’re back in RBCiv Epic mode again, and Epic One is up here. Actual site linkage will follow when I get some energy, which may be never, at this rate.
To reprise something I said to Whir this morning, which was true in that time, just as it’s true today: “We’re sorry, the enthusiasm you have dialed is not in service at this time. Please insert caffeine, and try your enthusiasm again.”
I blame winter. I seem to get tired ALL THE TIME during winter these days, whereas I’m pretty sure that in, say, HS, that sort of thing didn’t happen. Then again, I was waking up at 6:30 all the time during HS, which amounts to the same thing, so who knows.
Speaking of winter, I went out to my car just now, and there’s this GIANT patch of ice out on the driveway, because it rained like mad earlier and is freezing now, and I almost went skidding all the way down the hill. Good thing my car door was right there to grab on to, or I might be stuck in the trees cavorting with deer or something.
And speaking of THAT, as I was driving to CV earlier, I caught this deer in mid-leap over a fence, and I swear the thing went into MI2-style slow mo for a moment. I almost expected Tom Cruise to show up, but he didn’t. He may still be caught in slow mo somewhere in Australia.
And speaking of Corvallis, and can you tell we’re in stream of conciousness mode tonight, we finished up our first Iron Kingdoms game in D&D tonight. I think I like IK, if just because I get to play with guns. I was also starting to like my rogue/ranger, Akrath, too, but generally when I start getting attached to my characters, it’s a sign that Rema’s about to change the game on us. At least we all died this time, and in a particularly flashy fashion: We’re in the main evil base, fighting the hordes of evil minions, and getting our asses whipped. So our CO whips out his accumulator (think magical battery here), overloads it, and it goes off, killing almost everyone within 15′ (except him, IIRC, and me because I was bleeding to death OUTSIDE the 15′ radius…).
Yeah, too bad we had a couple of boxes of explosives to blow the place up sitting right there. So the whole temple pretty much went sky high, and that was that. So next week’s a new game of IK (1st level again, sigh), and I’m going to try being a sorc for once. I’m tired of rogues, rangers, and fighters for the moment. So we’ll see how that goes.
Between that and getting CC2 Dioramas and Perspectives, not to mention all the CRPG playing I’ve done lately, I’m almost inspired to start running some D&D again. Only two problems with that. I don’t really feel like sitting down and doing it, and I’m not sure I really want to run Tharavel. Because, now that I’ve finished with it, I’m not satisfied. Lots of things I want to do different. I think it’s mostly that I like making random new stuff, really, because every time I finish something like that, I want something ELSE. Go figure.
I really want to go watch a movie. But nothing new. Fortunately Xmas is in a week, and we’ll get a zillion new ones. Waitastic.
Wherein I qualify a statement I made to Regina earlier, along the lines of “Christmas decorating. Ph34r it. With great ph34r.”
Witness:
Well, your standard tree is pretty tame, I will admit. There’s not even a lot of presents under there this year.
The rest of the living room. You can only sort of see the row of cards along the windows. Note the snowman, which will cackle evilly for about a minute and wish you a happy holiday, without mentioning how it would like to murder you, with an axe.
Random porcelain angels.
Random porcelain Santas. Usually we edge the window in tinsel, too, but we didn’t do tinsel this year, mostly because I didn’t really want to do all that implied, which is that window, the front door, the front windows, and the bannister in two different colors, plus the plush reindeer and the Lego Santa.
Even I have limits to my Christmas cheer.
25, apparently. To quote Regina’s card, “Just think! Soon, you’ll be able to do ‘back in my day’ shpiels!” Little does she know. But she got me a neat book, so that was all good. And I got another neat book from my parents, as well as shoes and a new pair of BDU pants to work in, which A) means I no longer have work pants that are pushing ten years old (or my old BDUs, which were more like Gulf War vintage), and B) is the first time I’ve recieved clothes as a gift in…many years. But I need these things, so.
Too, Cole came over, and we played a bunch of MP Civ with Whir, and then we sat around playing BG for a while (read: until 5am), and my solo thief went from halfway through Cloakwood to the final battle with Sarevok. Let me assure you, dear reader, that that final battle with Sarevok with a solo thief? It’s REALLY FREAKING HARD. But I did it.
Cole: “So can you backstab Sarevok?”
Me: “Sure can.” *backstabs Sarevok for the endgame*
I also got to watch Cole play the beginning of BG2 for the first time, which was particularly neat, because I haven’t seen anybody play it for the first time ever pretty much since I went through it back in 2k. Also I got to watch him get owned by lightning mephits.
Lightning Mephits: *thrash, slaughter, maim*
Me: “You just got totally served, dude.”
Cole: “Yeah, yeah I did.”
Nazis: *Kill me in Call of Duty*
Me: “Dammit.” *respawns, wins with the PPSh*
Cole: “I don’t understand how you can actually use that gun. It’s only good because of the 71 round clip.”
Me: “Dunno. I just like it.” *leans out from cover and snipes two Nazis in the head, then swivels in a totally pro move and takes down a third*
And that was the night, pretty much.
In other news, I guess Tonto is no more. I’m not really sure what to say about that, really. Regina did a fine job of it, to be honest. For me, well, I had a lot of fun with it. I did some awesome gaming, hung with an awesome group of people from all over the world, talked about a lot of awesome stuff, and in the end made some really great friends out of the deal. At the same time, I’m pretty much at peace with the end. Tonto was what it was, and did what it did, and they were good things, but those days are no longer. It may be better to have it die the final death than to have it linger on, half alive as it was. I dunno. But the alien lives on still.
Whir: Get back here and entertain me.
Me: No.
Whir: Wrong answer.
Me: I thought it was a perfectly good answer.
Whir: I’m not arguing the validity of said answer, just that it’s the wrong one.