Maria and I played the All Cup Tour in Mirror Mode (the longest race on the hardest setting) this morning, and even though I did gently toss the controller around a bit, we finally triumphed. We are officially Double Dash royalty now, crowned and robed, holding the Mushroom Scepter and the Turtle Shell Orb. What’s with orbs, anyway? I mean, the crown is a special hat, everybody needs a special hat, and I guess with the scepter you could point to things or hit somebody. But why do you have to have an orb, too? Maybe you could play garbage can basketball with it on boring days in court?
Category: Maria Barnes
Barry Smith has proposed May Day as 24-Hour Webcomic Day, and I really want to participate. I have a physical need to draw comics again, and I can’t seem to make the opportunities happen, so maybe this will help. I could finally wrap up the neverending “Fire” arc in Xorph and maybe even start the next one. Also, it’s the weekend before my birthday, which means I get to punish myself for being old, and Maria’s going to be cramming for exams anyway–it’s nice to have company (Solitary Confinement notwithstanding).
What I’d really like is to do it with a couple of other comics people, but I don’t see that happening, since my comics people friends are scattered far and wee. I wonder if AIM supports multiple-voice chat. Or if you can do a comics jam on a train.
(For the record, no, I couldn’t do the real 24 Hour Comics Day even if there were a host store in Louisville; apparently all my finals are on April 26th.)
Maria took me to the Louisville Science Center. It’s been probably like a decade since I’ve been there, even though I now live within a mile of it, and it was pretty cool to go back. The rumor is true–the magnificent woolly mammoth that used to occupy the entrance is gone, as are the mummies. The two polar bears are still there, though, hidden in the back of the second floor. Rarr! I’m a polar bear!
Lately, with the absence of Captain Rodchester, Tuesday Night Basketball has transitioned to a kind of Weekly Illuminati Night, Where Maria Always Wins. That’s right. Maria has won every single one of our (three) games, including the first one, when she’d never laid hands on it before. I hate Maria.
Expect a spate of posts about Illuminati now, in the fashion of many geeks when just getting into Illuminati. Also, I’ll probably complain about the Society of Assassins, whom I apparently draw 75% of the time, and whom I am growing to hate. Assassins suck. Give me the Bermuda Triangle.
Secret Conspiracy Update: If you google for “steve jackson” illuminati, this ISP in Austin comes up as like the second result, despite the fact that they in no way mention either a) “steve jackson” or b) Illuminati. Dun dun DUNNN!
Okay, I’m not sure what that proves.
As I just wrote to Maria, Zomziepie is becoming a hotbed of activity. A hotbed!
This is the second Spring Break Follow-Up Post, and it’s mostly to say that Spring Break Was GREAT! I wasn’t as good about keeping a personal travelogue this time as I was when I went to California, but fortunately I have a roommate and trip companion with a photographic memory. I’ll try to finish that up and patch the holes today or tomorrow.
Notable events that are true:
- We did get caught in a blizzard, ditch the car, and walk five blocks with only a vague idea of where we were and an increasing chance of hypothermia. We lived, though. As did the car.
- We did have every intention of seeing Kid Koala and other assorted DJs at a Real Club in New York City.
- We did learn to appreciate the beauty of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
- We (this time including Bee and Graham, Maria’s college crew, who are awesome) did stay up until four in the morning for no apparent reason, eventually acting pretty drunk without actually being drunk. This is what grownups do for fun, kids.
- A cool thing about that night, though, was that Graham and I learned to communicate with gamma rays!
- We did share our floor of the Days Inn (in Bodily Region) with the entire high-school Asian population of Pennsylvania.
Notable events that are not true:
- I completely remembered to tell everyone at my job that I was leaving for a week on March 14th–long before, say, March 12th.
- We did way more in Providence than mostly hanging out on the third floor of the mall.
- I in no way embarrassed myself on the Dance Dance Revolution machine in the Brown Post Office. (You can take that as “I did play, but did look ridiculous,” or as “I did not play at all,” really. Your pick.)
- We did actually see Kid Koala, because the show was not sold out.
- We were extremely nice and careful with your car, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and certainly never killed its battery with a cell-phone charger and had to get a recharge from the hotel man. Thank you very kindly for its use. Look! Over there! Behind you! You’re not looking!
- I came home and, on our self-appointed Monday of Rest, did something more useful than get mad at Prince of Persia all day.
It was a great trip. I can’t say the past month and a half was the most traveling I’ve ever done, but man, it was a lot of traveling. Who knows, I might even grow a beard now!
In Providence. Maria is shocked at me for being unhip enough to mention that I don’t like the Strokes in a record store, but dang, man, they’re all 2002.
It was a long drive but not so long as California. I have now visited both ends of the country inside 30 days, so basically I’m the king and I get a special hat.
I’m sending a packet of misdirected mail to my mother, only I don’t have a postal scale nor any way of getting to one. I judged its weight (by holding it in one hand and two sticks of butter in the other, and asking Maria’s friend Jackie to do the same) to be about 9 ozzes, which apparently costs $2.21 and thus consumed my last six stamps (= $2.22). Innovation!
Really hoping that’s enough postage now.