Thursday, April 16, 2009

Frag Me

I've been playing more video games since moving in with the Fella, and especially since he got an Xbox 360 for Christmas. And it turns out that I suck. Hardcore.

Specifically, I'm terrible at First Person Shooter games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty. I've pretty much figured out why I'm so bad, but I'm not sure what to do about it.... My biggest problem is that I have no concept of how various parts of the map relate to each other. When I'm playing, I'm pretty much wandering around the map with no concept of where I'm going or how I got there.

Aaron and I were playing Halo 3 on a newly downloaded map last night, neither of us had played it before. It wasn't long before he had the layout pretty well figured out, and was trying to describe it for me.

Me: Hey! Where did you find that Gravity Hammer??
Aaron: It's in the central tower.
Me: Central tower? Where the hell is the center?
Aaron: Ok it's like this: there are the two smaller towers along the edge of the map, and each one has a couple of catwalks leading from there to the big central tower in the middle.
Me: (non-distinct gurgling sounds, brains start dribbling out of my ear)

The thing is, I could totally take what he was saying and turn it into a top-down view of the map in my head. But for some reason, I just cannot seem to relate my imagined top-down view to what I'm actually seeing on the screen in 3D. I try really hard to pay attention to what I'm seeing and build that map in my head but my brain just doesn't seem to be wired that way.

I am slowly (veeeeery slowly) getting better at it, but not quickly enough to prevent myself from getting the shit kicked out of me 9 times out of 10.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I Am My Own Wardrobe Malfunction, ctd

Conversation in our place tonight:

Me - Hey Aaron, do you know where the ironing board is?
The Fella - I don't think we have one.
Me - Really? I thought we did... I gave mine away when I moved in.
TF - Nope, I think we were going to go get one of those little ones at IKEA but never got around to it.
Me - Huh.

The thing is, I generally don't like ironing at the best of times. I purposely buy clothes that don't need ironing... I am the king of the Mark's Work Warehouse outfit. Consequently, I've probably ironed maybe 10 times in my entire life. I'm not very good at it, and it turns out I'm even less good at it when it has to be done on the kitchen table. It's going to be a crinkly week.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Mysterious Peaches

This jar of peaches showed up at the back door of our apartment building yesterday, sometime in the twenty minutes between the time I went to Safeway and the time I got back. They were still there today.

Who just forgets that they left a jar of peaches on the stairs??





Saturday, April 4, 2009

How Dumb Are People?

I've gotten IMs from at least five of my MSN chat buddies today, with a link to http://img6244.meetyourims.com/. If you're dumb enough give your username and password to any random site on teh intertubes, they you deserve to have your account hijacked.

Tell ya what, anyone who replies to this post with their credit card information will be signed up for a fantastic club! It'll be so much fun, you better join!!

We Are All Fucked

Robot Theorizes, Proves Own Scientific Discoveries

How long before they develop Skynet now? Between this and the dolphins, we are sooo fucked.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

So Much To Blog About, So Little Time

Well actually, it's more like I've been too lazy/unmotivated to actually sit down for a few minutes and hammer out a post. The fella and I have been super busy for the last couple of weeks though, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Recent developments:

  • I have a new job! March 23 was my first day at SSI Solutions. They're an IT provider that acts as complete IT Department for most of their clients. It's not exactly what I was hoping for, as I was leaning more towards a job where I'd work as IT support for internal clients rather than external ones.... Still, it seems like a good company and I really like all the people I'm working with. I think I'll keep going back for a while and see how it grows on me.

  • We went to Calgary last weekend to party with Aaron's old roomate Ryan, his boyfriend Jim, and their crew of Calgary gays. We spent Friday night getting totally sloshed playing Sociables (with better rules than listed in the link!) and a game I've never played before, Celebrities. The way Celebrities works is that everyone throws the names of a bunch of well-known people into a hat, and then everyone picks names out of the hat in turn. On the first round, you can describe your celebrity any way you want as long as you don't use their names. In round two, you only get two words to describe the name you picked; in round three it's charades only. It was a lot of fun and we all got good and drunk. Saturday night we went and partied at Calgary's delightfully sketchy gay bar The Eagle, which was also a blast. The Random Surprise Of The Night was that Neil was there too! Good times were had by all. Sunday, the fella and I went to meet his friend Melissa for some sushi at Wassabi. Surprise, they don't open until 5 PM on Sunday! And not at all on this particular Sunday!! Melissa gets a C- for Planning Skills. So, we went across the street to the shady looking Cat 'n Fiddle pub instead, ready to defend ourselves from knife attacks and choke down greasy food. Well, shame on us for our lack of optimism... it was soooo good! I would certainly go back if I happened to be in the neighborhood. Anyway, after a great visit and a great lunch, it was time to head back home. We got back to the condo around 6 PM and were so completely exhausted; I don't think either one of us moved from our spot on the couch until it was time for bed. I had a ton of fun in Calgary, but next time it's the boys turn to visit here!

  • Last night was full of running around too. Aaron's cousin April had a baby girl on Monday, and so after work we drove down to the Grey Nuns hospital to visit. Little Addison made all the appropriate cute baby faces and noises, and didn't even lose her charm when she dropped a giant turd into her diaper. Such a lady! April was still pretty tired and I think was a little sick of all the visitors, so we tried not to overstay our welcome. After chatting for a bit, we made our way over to IKEA to look for the cool and stylish drinking glasses we had seen at Greg and Brad's place last week. We weren't able to find them, but I did end up with a new snap mesh tea ball, so we didn't walk out empty handed. It does feel a little strange to walk all the way through IKEA and only buy 3 dollars worth of merchandise though! To top the night off, we went to see Coraline in 3D at the South Edmonton Common theatre. It was really good, although I do confess to dozing off a couple times. Hey I was really tired! But the movie was seriously fantastic... a cool story and the stop-motion animation was beautiful. My favorite part was that they didn't do a lot of tacky "look what we can do!" 3D effects; instead of being gimmicky, it just enhanced the movie.
That's it for now. I'll be making a point of blogging waaaay more frequently so I don't have to do these massive posts!