Voices

In a mind-blowing twist after yesterday's commentary on co-workers working from home, I worked from home today and drank tea with honey with it. However, my reasons for not leaving the house had nothing to do with ice and/or snow.

( Recorded in grotesque detail for my own amusement. You probably don't want to read this. )

Something brought to my attention today that I had forgotten since I've been wearing earplugs when I sleep for the past year and a half: One of my cats snores a little in her sleep. It's frickin' cute.

I can't believe it's already been a week since the 1st non-setup day of PAX. Ack. My feet just stopped hurting this morning. I still need to post the 2nd half of my con report, and I will. I promise. For real.

My apologies to my Thursday night gaming group for missing the game last night, despite having been gone for so long and saying earlier in the week that I would be there. Some sort of vileness hit me yesterday morning and hit me hard, not only giving me a slight fever (99.3) and chills, but also triggering a migraine of epic proportions. I ended up leaving work after only 2 hours, sleeping for 4 hours at home, logging back into work from home for 2 hours, and then going to bed at about 8:30 pm. Fortunately, today I feel fine, which means I'll still be able to attend The Illusionist tonight with the normal group, play Exalted tomorrow morning, and party at jinasphinx's barbecue tomorrow night. Yay!

Also: Three day weekend. Double Yay!!

Unlike all the other people in the world, who were delighted to return to their jobs this week, my weekend was far too short. Somebody should do something about that.

Also, Kamikaze Girls materializes on dvd today. Rock.

It's been quite a while since I posted here, mostly because I can't access LJ from work anymore. However, I finally remembered to check the process for posting via email, and here I am. I'm assuming this whole post is going to be full of typing errors and broken html tags that I won't really notice until I get home and can actually look at how the post came out.

And what better way to mark my return than a boring list of the current media and consumer products that I am enjoying? No better way, says I.

Psychonauts: Available for the PS2, Xbox, and PC, this is one of the best games I have played in years. What is there not to like in a game about a summer camp for child psychics designed by Tim Schafer of Grim Fandango with a lead character voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz (aka Zim)? It is at least partially a platformer, but so far I've experienced none of the frustrations normally inherent in that genre. My co-worker Kurt told me that he already considers it to be his pick for game of the year. I'm having a hard time disagreeing.

Legend of the Five Rings RPG, 3rd Edition: Though I've never actually played a single session of L5R, I've been a fan of the game for a long time. It's basically feudal Japan with a fantasy twist; it is to the samurai era what 7th Sea is to swashbuckling Europe. The 3rd edition is a beautiful book. While many game companies aspire to put out full-color books, most don't have the art or designers necessary to make it look good (Are you listening, EDEN?). L5R 3ed, on the other hand, looks great from cover to cover. While some of the illustrations are better than others (as is inevitable), there is not a single piece of bad art anywhere in the book.

Fantastic Foods soup and noodle bowls: Fantastic Foods makes some of the finest instant vegetarian and vegan food in existence. These soups are incredible, particularly the Hot & Sour and Minestrone. Also of note are their vegetarian taco filling and falafel mix.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Vol. 7: I really couldn't be happier with the ending to this phenomenal series. I nearly cried during the Batou/Tachikoma scene.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke: Jason first made me aware of this weird and delightful novel that apparently took 10 years to write. It's a comedic historical fantasy that falls somewhere in-between the styles of Jane Austen, Neil Gaiman, Charles Dickens, and Terry Pratchet, and the more I read, the better it gets.

Ok, back to work, me hearties.

Moving, moving, and more moving. My place of employment moved from Tukwila to downtown Seattle on Saturday. I am currently typing this from the 21st floor of the Wells Fargo building near a large window looking out on the waterfront. Rock. The move was fairly uneventful overall, except for a delay of a couple of hours in getting started Saturday morning. I love being a bus commuter. In the morning, I walk 20 feet from my front door, get on a bus, read for 20 minutes, and then step off the bus directly in front of where I work. In the evening, I do the exact same thing in reverse. This is doubley good because my car is trying to spontaneously combust, and every time I try to fix something, something new goes wrong. I will be getting rid of it very soon, but I haven't decided if I'm going to acquire another vehicle or become a full-time bus person.

The idea of buying another car is annoying because I just finished paying off my old one in April. I'd been looking forward to no longer having a car payment for some time, and acquiring a new one ranks pretty low on my idea of a good time. Plus, now that I'm using the bus to get to and from work, my need for a car is a lot less. However, there is still something in me that rankles at the idea of always being at the mercy of bus schedules or friends being willing to give me a ride. There are times and places that the buses either don't run or run at very inconvenient times and speeds.

Back to work, more later.