I'm not dead!

Wow, a lot's happened since I wrote in here last.

Work: I'm still at my mental health clerk job, but now I'm working full-time instead of three-fourths time. Which means more money, more vacation time, and more health/dental benefits. My hours are still not remotely regular though; I hope they find a replacement for my old position so I can work in the 9-to-5 range instead of 12-to-8.

Gaming: I beat Super Paper Mario and Paper Mario, unlocking stuff in Mario Party 8 and am at the end of Zelda Twilight Princess. I also just bought a DS Lite with Brain Age 2 to combat the "brain drain" I've been feeling of late. Adam let me watch most of his playthrough of Bioshock, which is an excellent game and definitely deserves Game of the Year over Halo 3. I also bought the three Mega64 DVDs, and they're really funny. My favorite skits are Katamari Damacy, Feel The Magic, and the Fifth Freedom ads.

Toys: Adam gave me my Christmas present early: an Ipod Classic! My first mp3 player. I transferred all my music and even bought my first Itunes album, Juan Luis Guerra's Fogarate.

Bad News: I've been to two wakes over the past few months; I lost my Tio Joaquin and Adam lost his grandmother.

Future Plans: Adam and I have made plans to go to New York, possibly in early December, and Las Vegas in January! I can't wait to wear my little black dress and play blackjack in the City of Sin. I'm not a gambler at all, but I want to play a few games just to say that I did it.

(Audio) Book Report

I bought the audiobooks of BoA and BoT.

BoA: Very well-done. Young Atrus, young Catherine, and old Anna all did a great job. This Gehn was a little more fiery-tempered and can't compare with John Keston's portrayal, but he holds his own well. It was abridged, so they didn't keep the line about Atrus seeing the rain in the Cleft/foreshadowing of the Star Fissure, but I was happy they kept my favorite line from Gehn, "So my grandsons can be lords of a million worlds!" It made me pleased that after all this time, I still found myself waiting with anticipation for the audio to reach certain points in the book.

BoT: A disappointment. While BoA was abridged, this one was super-abridged, to the point that the epic feel of the novel (and D'ni itself) was lost. Also, the acting in this one was quite poor. Young Anna sounded weird (she suffered from what I call the Catherine Curse--not being able to maintain a consistent accent), young Aitrus sounded too young, and Veovis was trying waaay too hard to come across as a villain. You can't buy that anyone would be charmed by this mover-and-shaker with his portrayal. The best actor was A'gaeris--he came across as the most natural, and was appropriately vicious and desperate at the end. It's a shame he didn't have more to say!

If you give a Sorceress a job...

...she'll get her very own checking account and ATM/debit card.

...and then it will dawn on her that she's no longer broke and also can buy things online without having to beg her mother for her credit card.

..and then she'll buy an Atrus action figure on ebay and consider buying the Saavedro one next payday and then she'll open up an Amazon account and yikes what a terrible application of one's hard-earned money.

Not really--the figure was less than $10.

I have never been a big spender (not just because I didn't really have the cash much of the time), and I'm not worried that my newfound financial freedom is going to change that. It's just that the feeling of having my own money that no one else can touch is so rewarding. Besides, it's my birthday on Monday, so Atrus with his raincoat and little Releeshahn linking book is a present to myself. Well, that and the Nintendo Wii I bought last week. :)

I've been working at my new job for a few weeks now. I'm a clerk at a mental health facility. My official title is a long way to say "receptionist", but I also do a lot of filing and data entry. It gets very busy during my shift in the afternoon/evening, and they threw a lot at me the first few days, but everyone has been really nice and they say I'm doing a great job. And it's definitely better than being unemployed!

02/19/07

Last night, I finished Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln's Killer. It's a great book. I'm not very knowledgable about American history before the 20th century (I love learning about the turn of the century and the Roaring Twenties), so almost all of this book was a revelation to me. I had just assumed that Booth was captured in the theater box immediately after he shot Lincoln. I had no idea he escaped and sent the nation on a 12-day manhunt. I also had no idea that he was the leader of a group of conspirators who, if they had succeeded, would have also wiped out the most important members of the cabinet.

There's next to nothing about Lincoln apart from brief glimpses of his final happy days in office and his final evening on earth. You learn far more about Booth and a bit about how his co-conspirators fared. There's a picture of him in the first chapter--what a handsome devil he was. It's so strange, but while I definitely don't like the racist prima-donna little jerk, I now have a morbid fascination of him. Maybe it's just my, umm, predilection for villains. :( I'm not the only one (and this is so bizarre/horrifying)--apparently there's a group of Southerners who to this day celebrate the death of Lincoln and raise a toast to "Our Brutus." I know Lincoln wasn't the perfect president (he suspended habeas corpus during the War and jailed accused Confederate sympathizers without evidence or trial), but come on!!

But what bummed me out after reading the book was the missed opportunity I had. In high school (pre-9/11), the senior trip was to Washington D.C. I had lots of fun, but the program we went through there was more focused on current politics than the historical aspects. And the times we did go to a museum, we were rushed through them (we only had 30 minutes to view the Smithsonian!). What kills me was that I was in Ford's Theater, but I didn't get to see anything! Oh yeah, I saw Bye Bye Birdie, but I didn't get to see the museum downstairs. I didn't get to see the Deringer and bowie knife Booth used to attack Lincoln and Major Rathbone, or his compass (if he knew how to read a compass correctly, he might have succeeded in escaping justice), or see his diary. I didn't even get to see or go near The Box either!

If I get the job I'm applying for (the job interview today went well I think), I'm gonna save up my money and vacation time for a week in D.C., take my sweet time and let all the history just wash over me in a great and constant wave.

"Frailty, thy name is BINGLES"

For the love of Atrus, is it Thursday yet?!? The wait is killing me! I've been playing WoW again to take the edge off. I've given up playing my mage Schalazeal. A few months ago, I rolled a warrior named Nuhdahtahv (D'ni for "disaster") on a whim, and found her to be much more fun. It's great to blow through quests that gave me trouble before because now I can actually take some damage. Mining is also much more fun than picking herbs for alchemy. It's also fun to travel with Adam's Level 70 hunter--we ran through the Barrens for a warrior quest last night, and no Horde dared to touch me.

I also got my haircut today, because I finally landed a job interview! Unfortunately, the interview is scheduled for Thursday afternoon--I wanted to set aside the day just for Uru. Plus we don't know exactly what time MOUL is launching either.

Glad To Move On

It's official: I am now a college graduate! I got my diploma in the mail minutes before the DRC Forums Gathering. Even though I wish the event had gone more civilly, it was hard to feel too down with my degree in my lap. I'm just so glad to get it. I figured I wouldn't receive it until some point this month, but I kept having nightmares of somehow not graduating because I forgot to pay a library fine or something small. Reading horror stories of people not graduating because they didn't fulfill all requirements despite their own advisors reassuring them they were all set definitely didn't help either!

Now that I can stop worrying about getting my Bachelor's, I can devote all my worry to getting a job! I've been home since Christmas and no one's been interested. I REALLY want to avoid retail if I can help it; I've been there once and have no desire to go back.

Despite the job hunt, life's been pretty good. Adam recently got a job at a phone company in Quincy Point that he really likes. We even attended the holiday office party together, and I've seen his office. He looks really cute as a businessman. We've been hanging out with our friends on our typical Thursday Night Out. We've been playing a lot of Wii games, like ricing up cars in Need for Speed Carbon, playing Wii Sports, and wondering at the weirdness of Wario Ware Smooth Moves and Rayman Raving Rabbids. Tonight we admired Phung's awesome new widescreen monitor, and played a lot of Mahjong (real Mahjong, not the "matching pairs" Mahjong that I was addicted to). Gamewise, I finished Sam & Max Episode 3, and am now plodding through Final Fantasy III for the DS so I can borrow Gracie's copy of Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (I LOVE that series).

As for Uru, I like how they've spread out the release of existing content in order to keep people in the game instead of just waiting for launch (6 days!!) Regarding Cate as a possible(?) foil, that's fine, I just can't wait for the real villain (Destruction is Coming, y'know). I said it before in MOUL's official forums, but I want a bad guy who will make me think twice about being somewhere alone. It would be a nice change of pace to play off of someone who's not DRC-related.

This might sound weird, but when Cyan says destruction, I want some destruction all up in this cavern. Cyan doesn't do earth-shattering events often at all, so whatever they decide to do, it will resonate all the stronger. Maybe it will be an earthquake, a villain who can match Yeesha's abilities, a dramatic death, a dramatic return--heck, maybe all of the above is in the cards eventually. But whatever we face in the future, I'm sure we'll be able to find a way and make a home.

I Hate The Flu

Oh man, I've felt terrible today. Adam's father and sister have been sick with the flu since Saturday. Of course, Adam didn't tell me they were feeling bad, but I figured I would escape the illness.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Fever, aches, shakes, and running to the bathroom every half-hour. Sorry to be gross, but I've been literally expelling nothing but water out of my body since 4am. Turns out it's what they call a norovirus or something, similar to the string of cruise ship flus that hit the industry a few years ago. You have to keep drinking water, only to throw it back up a few minutes later. This obviously makes you very dehydrated, but you don't really want to drink, cuz you know what's gonna happen. Although, water has never tasted so good until today!

This is the worst I've felt in like 10 years. And now Adam is sick too. He made it to work okay, only to come right back home an hour later. Apparently this thing had been hitting his office co-workers as well. He played some WoW, only to find later that in his sick haze he accidentally vendored his Giantstalker's Epaulets. Hopefully he can get them back from a GM.

I haven't eaten yet today, and I haven't taken Tylenol for my fever because I'm afraid I won't be able to keep it down. Truth be told, I am feeling a bit better (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this entry). My fever has gone down slightly, and I haven't been sick since 2:30pm. I've been sleeping on and off, and have watched a lot of Reno 911 and Star Trek episodes (you know I'm not feeling well when I actually decide to willingly watch Voyager and Enterprise).

So if you don't see me in Uru the next few days, now you know what's up. I'm also not looking forward to the possibility that my mother and brother are gonna get it as well, and neither are they.