Russell & Kimmy

Well I have been intending to keep to a twice weekly blog posting schedule; one on Wednesday and one on Sunday. But like all intentions the only thing that it was good for was paving the road to hell. So this week you only get one blog posting; don’t blame me, blame

NWN2. I bought NWN2 a while ago and was intending (there is that word again) to give it to my dad as a gift. His video card wasn’t quite up to snuff so he gave it back to me. After letting it stew in it’s box for a while I opened it up and popped it in to the old CD-Rom. Sadly it was on a DVD; there was much wailing and nashing of teeth. Last Saturday, just before Shawna & Drew’s house warming party, Kimmy pointed out that I needed to pull some files of an old computer. And I intended to put it off as long as possible. The thing had a 3rd party network card without the driver so it wasn’t playing nice with the network. I was dreading reassembling the thing, dragging out the old CRT monitor and firing it up; last time to back the piece of crap up I had to burn everything to a CD using its CD/DVD burner. Like a fluorescent bulb that finally lit up, my brain went ah-ha, I smiled and promptly had NWN2 installed. Sadly right after firing it up and testing it out, we had to go to the freaking house warming party…… so I had to wait till Sunday to play it.

So, I no longer have free time and my video card gets a really good work out. So far I have been incredibly pleased with the game. The only thing that throws me off is the camera panning, I haven’t yet figured out what view I like. Character creation is easy (although you might want to plan out your advancement ahead of time), as is leveling and playing the story; combat rounds are true to the D&D six second rounds which is a bit annoying, especially if you have to watch you main man get smacked 4 or 5 times before he gets to go. The quests are fun and the inter-party fighting is amusing, although it gets a bit old after awhile. Strangely enough my character has gone from chaotic-neutral to chaotic-good. I am a bit frightened by this. Normally when I role-play I am a backstabbing, party-killing bastard. Yet to actually role-play, and get more side quests, you end up doing good which forces your alighment to shift. I finally made it to Neverwinter where I am assume more of the story is to take place. The graphics are good and I am trying to convince Kimmy to buy a second PC so we can play together. Sadly she has no time for me; she is re-reading Harry Potter in anticipation for the final book in July.

After I am done wasting my time on NWN2, there is Fallout3 and StarCraft II; both of which I am waiting for eagerly. Fallout3 has been an empty promise for years so I don’t think I can wait till fall 2008 for it to come out. Blizzard is even worse, they don’t have a time frame yet for StarCraft II.

Every night in Abilene the local news would start off with it’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are? and as a running joke every know and then someone would mutter unfortunately they’re right there. And here I am, right here writing this wonderful blog for you as I sit logged in and working on a server for the n^th time because it likes to crap out. That is a technical term, crap out, it means something is going to break at the moment it could possibly piss Russell off the most. You see it a lot in IT. Nothing ever breaks while you watch it, nope it works fine. It’s when you are tired, ready for bed and you log on on for a quick moment to check and then BAM! the power goes out. Muttering curses you reboot the computer, log back in and BAM! the thrice damned server decides it wanted to have issues 5 minutes after you left work.

That server is like a teenage son to me. It never comes home on time, always wanting attention, and is probably going to get an STD some time soon. I would like to discipline it, hell I would like to go to Wal-Mart, buy a 12 gauge, buy bullets, drive to work, go to the server room and shoot it; it really is like a teenage son to me, disappointment, frustration, and homicidal tendencies.

And segwaying from my homicidal urges to homicidal robots; Kimmy and I have been watching the first season of Battle Star Galactica. So far we both have enjoyed it and usually watch a couple episodes each night; it is either that or Fox and well I do have standards. We would much rather watch some Firefly, but since Joss has abandoned us I settle for Battle Star Galactica. In a lot of ways the Cylons remind me of fundamentalist christians. They wipe out most of humanity in the first episode, hound the 50,000 surviving members across the galaxy, and begin preaching about the one true God who loves us all. Nothing says love like nuclear annihilation. The opening credits are particularly creepy, they talk about how man made robot, robot kills man, robot becomes more like man (and enjoys lots of sex), robot screws with man, and robot has a plan. I don’t know about you but I get worried every time I hear someone has a plan for me. Especially if it shows up on a black screen in big white letters …… although that does give me a deliciously evil idea.

There’s a party goin’ on right here /A celebration to last throughout the years /So bring your good times, and your laughter too / We gonna celebrate your party with you ~ Kool and the Gang

Some how Kimmy and I always manage to have an incredibly busy weekend despite our best efforts to be lazy. This weekend we had roleplaying in Georgetown, a wedding in South Austin, work down by Highland Mall, and then Father’s Day in Georgetown; I feel like a freaking Yo-Yo. All of these things are incredibly exhausting; I had to forcibly separate Kimmy from the pillows several times.

Richard and Tara’s Wedding was Saturday night. It was outside at the Cathedral of Junk, it didn’t rain, it was humid, and it was mercifully short. The party afterwards was almost as awesome as me. Seeing Richard and Tara excited and joyous as they beging to spend the rest of their life together is sublime. We had a chance to visit with friends that we hadn’t seen in ages. When we got tired of them Kimmy and I spent our time wandering through the cathedral finding bits and pieces of our childhood wired to 60 tons of miscellaneous junk. We found Ninja Turtles, giant cellphones, Tiffany lamps, famous landmarks … etc. It made for an amusing half hour of playing I spy while eating watermelon, listening to live music, and slurping on free sodas. It always amazes me how the scraps of society can coalesce together to make art. The ugly can become beautiful, just like that old story about the swan.

The other amusing discovery I made this weekend is how many of my friends are becoming a single unit. In the past it use to be individual names but now it seems most of my friends have joined in pairs connected by passion/love/lust and an ampersand. I guess it is a new phase in my life where I know more couples, less single people, and everyone gets pregnant. It is a frightening and scary world, much like the cold war everyone is waiting around to see who is going to drop the next bomb/marriage/baby.

For the record writing this post tonight is going to be incredibly difficult. It is with a heavy stomach I sit before the computer tonight to bring you my words of wisdom; we had Jason’s Deli tonight and I had half of a turkey muffaletta. It has anchored itself in my stomach and is slowly dragging me down to the dark abyss of sleep. Too soon I fear my stomach will demand all of my precious bodily fluids to slay/digest the muffaletta lurking in my stomach.

Uggh … I should stop right there and go to bed, I am tired and horribly distended. I don’t know what delusional madness made me think I could eat even a quarter of that muffaletta and walk away unscathed. It must be the same delusional madness that keeps promising me that I will be hired on full time; not that I mind being a temp, its just that the benefits really suck. At least I am not as delusional as the cat, she is convinced that there is something living in the couch. Despite all evidence to the contrary the cat waits patiently for the couch creature to reveal itself. Patiently she takes her observational position under the desk; absolutely certain that this is the day that the couch creature will reveal itself. The slightest noise from the couch and her ears leap forward and her eyes go wide; she is eager and afraid. What if the couch creature is too big to fight, what if it likes to eat cats?!? Eagerness turns to panic and paranoia … any sudden movement from the couch and she bolts. It wouldn’t be so bad except I play on her delusions, keeping her wound up and nervous. She lets the fear of the unseen couch creature dictate her actions; that truly is a tragic.

We all let fear dictate our actions. I guess as a species it was a primary and important survival mechanism. However, it seems that recently too much are we afraid; afraid of someone who is different, afraid to quite our job and find one that is better, afraid to speak out and be someone who is different. Fear is mind numbing and draining, fear feeds paranoid delusions that something/someone is out to get us. Fear consumes our lives and leaves us as hollow shells that pretend to live while running from the slightest sound. The time is coming when we must pull back the cushions of the couch and banish the delusions of the couch monster; step outside and in a loud voice cry against the unknown that we will not be afraid. Some time soon, but not tonight …. tonight is for difficult business of digesting half of a turkey muffaletta.

So last weekend, we rented a couple of movies to watch for the weekend. Both movies being those movies you usually miss when you go for the latest releases. But sometimes the movie with the least copies end up being the best. Our weekend involved our friend Cade’s 4 year old birthday and playing hooky. Ask Russell about the look that appeared on several mother’s faces when he said he did not wake up until 10:30 that morning.
So back to my main reason for this blog. The movies we rented, the topics are above. Dark and Shakespeare. We rented The Curse of the Golden Flower and Pan’s Labyrinth . Both by the way are foreign films as a head’s up. Can you guess which topic fit which movie? Both films were good, but Curse of the Golden Flower is so similar to a Shakespeare play and Pan’s Labyrinth, whoa, its kind of dark. Curse of the Golden Flower is made by the same producer that did Hero. The colors are amazing and I wouldn’t mind living in a home designed like that. So go check it out.