Well I spent most of today playing Champions Online.. really, really fun. Just, fantastically fun.. I want to buy this game, but I know that I don't have the money nor the time to dedicate to it, so I'm just going to enjoy the free halloween weekend play.

MMOs tend to steal my life, too.. I know that I have wasted so much of my time and mental abilities over the years in various MMOs, so despite the fact that I looove Champions Online, I am going to try very hard to not buy it. We'll see how that works out.. I still know way too much about every MMO I've ever played. I know the different weapons, maps, enemies, professions, bosses, strategies, and lore for Ragnarok Online, Starwars Galaxies, Priston Tale, Knight Online, City of Heroes, Lineage II,  and Runes of Magic.. I also know some about Everquest 2 and Ultima Online, but not nearly as much.. I played those two but not for long.. Point is; for whatever reason, these games suck my time and life away, and I retain a very in depth knowledge about their workings, when I cannot normally remember things that happen to me in my real life. 

If I had not kept a somewhat close journal of exactly what I did in Virginia, I've no doubt I'd have forgotten a lot of the fantastic things I've done.. And yet, I still clearly recall my priestess build in Priston Tale, with her amazing Divine Lightning skill.. I mean, Priston tale is a freaking MMO from like, 8 years ago, that I played for maybe 3 months.. Yet I still clearly remember each character I had, the skill builds I had for them, and how to play them.. But the thing is, most likely, all of that knowledge is now completely useless due to patches changing everything, and thats assuming the game still has servers running. Just.. so frustrating to love something like MMOs so much that I have clearer memories of it, than I do of my real life.

So yeah. MMOs.. love 'em with all my heart, but they're totally not good for me.

Okay, well, I skipped a lot of days because I was either busy, in shock, or inappropriate things were happening that I didn't want to talk about! So, here  is me trying to sum up the last 5 days in Virginia.


We went up to Baltimore and got a room at a Holiday inn.. We went to a few strip clubs, which was really fun.. The girls were all very nice to me, and I even got a couple lapdances.. Really, really cool. We went to Scores, Fantasies, Hustler Club, and Goddess.. Goddess was my favorite, and it was also like, the smallest.. the girls there all really liked my hair, and were super nice to me. Friend 2 essentially got raped there, which I found hilarious, because he kind of deserved it. And when I say raped, I mean it.. He did NOT want what happened, to happen, and he showered hardcore for like an hour straight, then took a bath right after trying to get it out of his mind. I won't say WHY he deserved it, but, he did, and it was hilarious. If youre curious about exactly what happened, ask me privately sometime <.<

We spent about 3 days in Baltimore, which is 2 days longer than they told me they'd stay there.. But they REALLY enjoyed it..

We went to DC after Baltimore, and it was really stunning. I went to the Washington monument, the WW2 memorial, the reflecting pool, and the Lincoln memorial.. Also like all the animals there were really tame, which made me happy.. I had a cute little sparrow following me, all hophophopping behind me lovingly 'cause I kept giving it breadcrumbs from a hotdog.. it'd jump up and snatch the crumbs in mid-air when I threw them to him.. then a squirrel was all "hay, i want some too" so they both followed me and would fight over the crumbs.. I think I was upsetting some people by feeding the cute animals, I guess thats bad manners in a city or some such thing, but in Iowa I've never seen animals so tame as that, probably because theres hunting allowed.. I quit after people kept giving me the stink-eye though, and the sparrow seemed sad and stopped hopping behind me.

Went to a few other new restaurants while in/around Baltimore and DC, including a Bob Evans, some cool local place called "Upper Deck" that had tasty sweet tea, and ate at a couple of the strip clubs.. Fantasies had super tasty food, a wonderful angus burger with provolone.. but scores had possibly, the worst chicken strips I have ever tasted, they were horrible.

On the way back to my friends house, it was a craaazy long drive, we didn't get home until 5am.. I had to keep whoever was  driving awake with random conversation and nudges, 'cause they kept almost dozing off at the wheel.. The fact that it was raining hardcore and pitch black didn't help, either.

The next day we ate at some place called Bone Fish, which was way too fancy, but very tasty.. I had sirloin and scampi in a white wine butter sauce.. which was soo freaking good.. Also we had "Bang Bang Shrimp" for an appetizer, which was so freaking good.. shrimp in a spicy/creamy sauce.. wah. I want some right now as I type this, it was the best thing I've ever tasted.

Then this morning, we went to a Cracker Barrel, which I'd never been to before.. I wasn't very hungry, as I'm always nervous before a flight, so I just pointed to something on the menu which I saw said country fried steak, figured I'd eat a part of it.. They brought me out country fried steak, spiced apples, grits, 2 biscuits, an extra bowl of gravy, and something else which I don't recall. It was waaaay too much food. Very tasty stuff, but I obviously couldn't finish it all. And that was my first time tasting "grits"! One taste was MORE than enough. It seemed like corn bread that had not been cooked yet.

Then.. I was taken to the airport, paid $25 for a checked bag, even enough it SHOULD have been $15.  grumble.. and flew to charlotte, which is where I am writing this now.. waiting for my flight to Kansas city, then from there I''ll go back home to burlington.. I'll edit and addmore to this later if anything interesting happens on the other flights home..

so yeah.. I'm dead tired right now. looking forward to going home.

edit/update: landed in kansas city at 5:30 local time, and my flight leaves at 8:30.. 3 hours.. i check in, and the lady says i am the ONLY passenger on the flight and that if i let the girl at the departure place know, they may leave early with me. I hope thats true. I'm just waiting down here by the gate but it is completely and utterly deserted, no one around at all. Arrrgh.. If I have to wait 3 hours despite being the only person on the flight, it'll be slightly annoying.. but if they somehow "forget" about me here, that'll be even more annoying! ^.^;;

Couldn't sleep at all last night, so at around 5am I realized friend 2 was awake and hungry, so we headed out to Denny's.. It was pretty good, I got a country fried steak and some pancakes. We drove around for a bit after before returning home.. Friend 1 then offered me a pill to help me sleep, "Ativan" or some such thing. I guess its a hypnotic/muscle relaxant/anxiety thing that makes you pretty sleepy if you take two instead of one, so I did, and managed to get a few hours of sleep.

Woke up later and friend 2 decided that we should go on a segway tour today!  It was really fun, we all rented a segway then we rode around some trails in the woods for a couple hours.. those things go FAST.. I think its like 13 mph max, but thats really rather quick for when youre standing up.. Also, it took just about 2 minutes to get entirely comfortable with it, if that.. they're really intuitive and responsive.. I waaaant one, but they're too expensive.

Afterward we went to Virginia Beach and ate at a Beatles theme pub called Abbey Road.. I had a roast beef sandwich and fries, and it was quite good.. Then we went to Flipper Mccoy's arcade, which had alllll kinds of wonderful games, including the Simpsons and the TMNT arcade games, which are like two of my favorites ever.. really they had just about every good arcade game that there is to have.. I was very impressed and had a fun time there..

Tomorrow is the big day, I am going to DC and then to Baltimore.. Baltimore is where we are going to go to the strip clubs at. I am nervous and excited. Hoorah! I will get to see cute naked girls!

Today I went to Panera Bread for the first time and got breakfast, it was quite tasty and I really liked the atmosphere. Went to the mall and walked around, then went to Chic-fil-a for lunch. Then came home and watched The IT Crowd, which is a really great british comedy I highly recommend.

Went to Quiznos  for lunch today, it was really good. I'd been to a quiznos in the past, but it was in an airport and the service was horrible, and they were also out of  most ingredients, so I don't really count that..  This time in a "real" quiznos, was  great though. I had the chicken carbonara without mushrooms on wheat, and quite liked it.. Then friend 1 and friend 2 informed me that they were going to a coffee meetup today, which they pretty much explained as going to a random coffee shop to meet random strangers from around the area and have a drink and talk about stuff.. I was very weary but it was really quite fun. Only two people besides the three of us showed up, one was a 49 year old gentleman who ran the computer systems of an entire school district, played world of warcraft, and was quite funny, and the other was  a cool asian guy who was an atheist and was impressed when I showed him my ticket from the Dawkins talk from a few days ago.. So, I talked about computers and WoW with the white tech guy, and about Dawkins and the difference between theists, deists, and atheists with the atheist asian guy.. They also had a snickers latte and an almond joy latte, i had the almond joy and really liked it a lot..

Then came the real surprise, it was open mic night.. Got to see some really cute girls sing songs, one played a guitar, and another alternated between piano/harp while they sang.. I also saw a white kid with a funky wispy beard recite poetry about taoism which made me cringe.. Friend 1 decided he'd get up on stage and do a poem or two, which were really, really horrible, but I respect his courage to do so, I know I could never get up on stage and speak into a microphone in front of a bunch of people I don't know. I think he just did it for a laugh, anyhow.

I typed to Kacey a bunch during my time at the open mic coffee shop and  was happy she was around to distract me. Afterward we headed out, it was about 10pm at this time, and we decided to go to a Hooters.. Wow. My first time ever being in a place even remotely similar to that, the waitresses were so incredibly cute and sexy, and their outfits left very little to the imagination. I got some cheese sticks and curly fries, but did not eat much with all the waitresses constantly coming to our table and leaning foward suggestively and engaging us in conversation.. I guess they know how to get big tips.. Our meal was $30 and we left a $12 tip..

Anyway, today was a real adventure.. I was in a coffee shop meeting and talking with strangers, and I went to hooters which was swarming with pretty girls.. Happy Ami.

Updated restaurants I have had for the first time while in Virginia in order: iHop, Chick-fil-A, TGIFs, Mellow Mushroom pizza, Cheeseburger in Paradise, Bojangles, Costco Food Court, Quiznos (real one outside of an airport), Small locally owned coffee shop, Hooters.

Today I went to Bojangles' for breakfast, had a cajun chicken biscuit, it was really quite good. Afterward we went to Costco..  I have never been to either before. Bojangles was a ddelicious place, the chicken biscuit I had was amazingly tasty.. And as for Costco, it was huge and awesome. I had been to sams club earlier this week, but Costco was so much cooler.

Played some Guitar Hero and Rock Band today, and thats about it, besides the costco and bojangles.. Anyhow, Good and happy day.

Today has been a sleepy/chilly day. Mostly stayed home and napped, talked with friend 1 and 2 a lot, and we went out to Cheeseburger in Paradise which I had never been to before.. I had their daily burger special, which was a buffalo burger, which was  buffalo sauce with blue cheese sauce, it was very good.. Their fries were also seasoned with salt, pepper, and something.. orange'ish? No idea what it was, but it was delicious. I almost want to say it was like, lawry's seasoning or something, but am not sure.. The waiter there flirted with me which was funny, but I think made my friends uncomfortable. Mostly he hoovered at the table a lot and talked about pokemon games with me.

Car wouldn't start in the parking lot of Cheeseburger in paradise and we had to get a jump. Going to replace the battery Monday if it has any other problems. Its not really an issue because it is friend 2's car and he is ridiculously well off.  So much so that its a little weird. There are like, 40 unopened boxes around the house, all from woot.com.. friend 2 has bought well over a hundred things from woot, and other places, and many just remain unopened. Apparently when he's sad he buys stuff he doesn't need, which I've been guilty of in the past too.. Also, there is no food in the house at all, except a rotting cantelope in the fridge. Every meal we go out to a different restaurant, which is delicious but his food expenses must be through the roof.

Anyhow, I'm going to watch hulu now with a blanket over my head and my warm laptop on my tummy.. mwuhaha.. home made heated ami-tent.

Foods I have had for the first time while in Virginia in order: iHop, Chick-fil-A, TGIFs, Mellow Mushroom pizza, Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Went to bed last night at around midnight, woke up two hours later shivering very cold, so I put on some more clothes and went back to sleep at around 3:30am after talking with Kacey some.. Then I got woken up by friend 2 at around 6am, asking if i wanted to go out for breakfast with him.. We went to chick fila and I got a hot cocoa and a chicken biscuit.. He then decided that I should see the ocean, so he took me to virginia beach, where oddly enough, a lot of roads were closed.. we then noticed that there were several thousand people wearing pink and running.

Turns out they were having some sort of breast cancer shindig/race. We walked around for a while, looking at all the super cute girls dressed in crazy pink outfits, we walked all the way down to the hilton and there were tents up everywhere giving away free stuff. Donuts, fuze drinks, panera bread, strawberry/creme icees.. just tons of stuff, and huge speakers playing really decent techno music with girls in sexy outfits dancing everywhere. I got to see the ocean too, it was very nice.. huge waves that day, and it was slightly overcast to the skies were a steel grey,, I loved it.

( big pictures ahead.. )

Warning; This may seem bland to you, if so, I'll put a TL;DR at the bottom, so feel free to skip to that. I am not editing this, because this  trip is special to me, it is an adventure, and I have very few of them, so I am putting down almost everything I remember so that I can reflect on it later.

So yesterday I woke up on my wonderful air mattress which I vastly underestimated the comfort of, at around noon'ish, only to find that no one else was awake.. Friend 1 and friend 2 did not awaken until around 4pm, then quickly got ready and we began our drive of around 200 miles to the town in which Richard Dawkins would be giving his talk, Charlotteville. I'm really quite fond of car rides so I had a very good time.. On the way there I got to try a Chic Fila chicken sandwich, which I'd never had before, not having that restaurant chain in Iowa.. And it was by far the best chicken sandwich I'd ever had, and it came with waffle fries which were super good. We drove the long journey to Charlotteville to a really nice hotel called 2 tree? Or doubletree.. I think doubletree. Anyway, friend 2 managed to get the hotel for only $45 a night, despite it being a super fancy nice place with a pool and a jacuzzi and nice rooms.. It only had 2 beds, but we figured we'd just ask for a roll-away bed before sleeping time, and I could sleep on that.. We dropped our bags off in the room and headed out for dinner..

We went to TGIFs and I grabbed something called a "Cheesy Bacon Cheeseburger". This was my first time at TGIFs and the burger was really cool, the provolone on it was somehow breaded and tried, so it looked like a disc shaped mozzerlla  stick, except obviously it was provolone instead.. all fried with a crispy golden brown coat on it. There were some drunk girls at the bar singing Pink songs, and they were pretty funny. We then headed back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby for a while, playing chess. We then went to the front desk and requested the roll away bed, to have them inform us that it would be a fire code violation to have it in that specific room, so I decided I'd sleep on the floor.. It was really a very hard floor, and I don't remember sleeping at all, just shivering and being uncomfortable. It was  quite evil, going from the best bed I'd slept on in ages, to the cold hard floor of a hotel room the next day.. But I must have slept because I had a crazy dream that I was seeing Richard Dawkins but it was in my highschool english class, and I was sitting in a rickety desk, and Dawkins was just showing out of focus  slides on a school projector. 

So, I woke up shivering at  about 5 or 6am, uncontrollably.. Could not stop ta all. Friend 2 suggested we head to McDonalds for breakfast, and I decided getting a hot  coffee into me would be a really good idea. Friend 1 merely grunted and rolled over, ignoring us until he realized he could get pancakes at mcdonalds then immediately go back to sleep. We headed to the mcdonalds, all the while I shook uncontrollably but after getting there and downing a coffee I felt much better. We dropped friend 1 off at the hotel room, then friend 2 and I saw poolside and watched a new Always Sunny on his laptop, before deciding that since it was so cold outside, and since neither of us brought jackets, that we should go to the sams club across the street and pick some up. Turns out, he didn't have a membership card, so we filled it out and I paid for it. We looked around the store for a while, but they didn't have any jackets we wanted at all. We stared at a really nice samsung TV playing Monsters vs Aliens for 15 minutes, mesmerized by it before picking up a couple coke icees and heading out.. Another first for me, not having had a coke icee before. It was quite good.

We instead went to walmart and got some jackets there and felt a bit stupid for buying a sams club membership that we didn't need.. We returned to the hotel, each of us took turns showering (this shower was not nearly as cool as the one at friend 2s place) and then hurried out to wait in line for Dawkins. On the way out, they kept talking about how weird it was that everyone referred to charlotteville as c-ville, even the local news channels and newspapers.. I then proclaimed that I was the barber of c-ville and there was about 20 seconds of silence before they got the joke, then they laughed for 3 minutes straight.. I was proud, and they decided that if there was not a barbershop by that name in the city, that it was a travesty. Friend 2 checked his iphone and was aghast that there was indeed no barbershop by that name, which seemed odd to me.. Every salon or barber I've ever seen, has had a really crappy pun name, things like "Hair we are!".

We arrived at the university where Dawkins was speaking and got there very early, only to be informed that technically the line did not form until 3pm, and they would not hand out seat tickets until then. So,  essentially we were standing in line to stand in line, with about 8 other people. We stood there for about 2 hours before a line formed and they handed out tickets. my ticket number was 31 I believe, because a lot of people cut in front of us as the line formed, but the place seated 375 and was completely full, with many people not being able to even get in, and as the 30th in, I managed to get a fantastic seat anyhow. Richard Dawkins was eloquent and charismatic, I  loved every moment of it. He even did Q&A at the end, in which I did not ask questions, because although I am an athiest, I am not a biologist. Some wonderful and interesting questions were asked, and a couple of silly/stupid questions were asked. (And yes, there IS such a thing as a stupid question, I have made that discovery today.) Afterward he was doing a book signing, and sadly I did not get my book signed..

Standing in line was not so bad, as the crowd was somewhat spread out, but being one of the first into the place, also meant I was one of the last out. and as I exited those doors, it was as if I hit huge a wave of humanity, so many people were there, the 375 who watched Dawkins speak with me, and many more who did not get in, but still had their books for him to sign.. So, I decided that instead of freaking out over the huge crowd (they make me quite uncomfortable) to just leave well enough alone and be happy I got to see Richard Dawkins speak, and we headed out without getting my book signed.. I did save the ticket I got into see him with, though, and I will treasure that forever..

Heading home now we decided to go to Some place called "The Mellow Mushroom", which is a psychodelic looking pizza place. I'm quite glad I wasn't indeed on shrooms while I was inside the place.. The pizza was quite  good, but the atmosphere was a bit crazy, and it was crazy crazy crowded as well..We then drove allll the way to friend 2s house as he slept in the back seat and friend 1 and I talked to stay awake for the 200 mile journey. Now I'm sitting on my air mattress which I missed so much last night on that cold hotel floor and typing this.. Today was a good day.

TL;DR: I went to C-ville, I saw Richard Dawkins speak, just got back to my friends house.

My plane got delayed in North Carolina, the second worst Carolina, but I arrived safely in Virginia last night. Upon arrival we ate at iHop, which was my first time there, and the pancakes are very tasty..

The two friends I am staying with decided to drop my baggage off at their apartment and then head about the city to do some things.. I went in to find that two men living alone together in an apartment, are not exactly very clean! I mean, I'm messy myself, but this was a whole new level. Also the entire place smelled strongly of gasoline, or kerosene, or something similar. I dropped my bags off then scampered quickly back to the car and away from the horrid gas smell.

Friend 1 was telling friend 2 how there are 100 people camped outside a chic fila (which, is apparently a chicken chain restaurant with strong christian values, so much so that they are not open on sundays, and does not exist in Iowa or anywhere else I've been, as far as I know..).. They were literally camped there for days, there were probably 30 or 40 tents there, with multiple people in each. Why? Well, the first 100 customers get free food for a year, and it was the grand opening of a new one. We walked around this shanty town/refugee camp taking photos of the various tents and the like, and it was pretty cool.. Then we headed to walmart to pick up some new sheets and a pillow for the air mattress i would be sleeping on. Hooray to new sheets! Friend 2 picked up a giant bag of $10 halloween candy including heath bars, kitkats, reeses pieces, reeses cups, milk duds, and other good  things to nom. We returned home and I wandered around the house awkwardly, looking for a place to sit that didn't exist, until friend 1 found me a nice computer chair which I was able to spin around in happily.

I was trying to get onto their network for about an hour, and neither of them could figure out how to get me up onto any of their networks, so they made a new one special for me. They of course named it I-LOVE-ANAL".. wonderful! But I did feel much more at home after having internet connectivity, even if it was on a network trumpeting my love for anal. We watched some movies on their big projector, somehow going from Sweeney Todd to Freddy Got Fingered..

Oh! And that gasoline smell throughout the entire apartment? Apparently, thats not normal. I didn't know, I thought they just used gasoline as colonge or something.. But no, it turns out it wasn't gasoline at all, but WD-40. In their cleaning frenzy before I arrived, they moved one box onto another box. But the bottom box had a can of WD-40 in it, and it began to spray as the top box pressed down on its nozzle. It sprayed until the can was entirely emptied, leaving the apartment smelling gloriously like a mechanic's shop. Luckily that was on the first floor, and my room is on the second floor.

I could not sleep easily without a fan of some sort, which they did not have, but friend 2 found me some hokey "Air Purifier" which ionizes the air, and also uses UV lights to cleanse the air. Does not matter, because it is essentially a fan, and it is nice and noisy when you turn it on high. I must say I have not noticed cleaner or more ionized air, so obviously it is working. I likely would have died from a poisonous cloud of de-ionized air last night, if not for my trusty sharper image magic air machine.

So, am I having a good time? Yes, yes I am. The apartment is a mess, and the friends are a bit crude, but the messy apartment has heart/character, and the friends, although crude, are not malicious.  I'm having a good time and I'm looking forward to seeing Dawkins tomorrow. We're actually going up there today, and getting a hotel room for the night, so that we can get to Dawkins early in the morning.. Also, I am nomming a kitkat right now. Try to NOT have a good time with a kitkat in your mouth, I dare you!

So tomorrow I am flying to see a couple friends.. I've only ever flown once before, to see Kacey and Noriko, so I'm a bit worried. This time around, I am going to attempt to wear pants without a belt, because having to remove my belt every freaking time I go through a security checkpoint was a real pain before.

The friends have decided to take me to a strip club in Baltimore, I guess because their local ones are not as good? And then they decided they would take me to DC and show me some sights.. And then they are going to take me to Atlantic City.. So.. I'm sort of very uncertain about all of it at the moment, but excited at the same time.. Oh, I almost forgot, going to see Richard Dawkins speak as well.

Also, I think I've convinced them to see a musical with me, which I'm excited about. Which musical? 
*drumroll..*



Hooray! I'm really looking forward to it. I loved the movie, and I love anything zombie related, and I love that they took a Les Miserables poster and turned it into that. When looking around for a musical to see, I noticed that I was leaving just a week too early to catch Avenue Q which is really too bad, as I've been wanting to see that forever.. But oh well, I'll catch it some other time I guess.

I should really be trying to get some sleep right now but I just have too much nervous energy.

I try not to talk about stuff like this too much, but I'm going to address something that has been bothering me for a long time, mostly because I get it thrown in my face so much.

It seems to happen more often than not, when someone finds out I'm an atheist, they decide to present me with this wonderful little gem of what they consider to be fantastic knowledge, Pascal's wager. If you're not familiar with it, it says that although you cannot prove god exists, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in god, so you may as well go through the motions. There are a lot of flaws with this which people seem to miss, though.

The first and I think most obvious problem with the wager is, he seems to take it as a sort of binary choice. Believing in god, or not believing in god. Pascal does not take into account the thousands of different gods or religions one has to choose from.

The second is assuming there is a god, most religions define their god(s) as being at least somewhat intelligent, if not downright omnipotent. If there was such a being, wouldn't the fact that you approached faith/belief in such a way be obvious and even offensive to them? Do you really think you would be getting into heaven (or whatever the equivalent is for that god) for just going through the motions? Many of these gods will give you a very harsh punishment for doing something minor as eating the wrong type of food, flipping a light switch on the wrong day of the week, or even thinking the wrong thing. Would a god that would punish you for these things really let you into his special clubhouse just because you figured you had more to gain than you had to lose, and went through the motions without any real belief? 

There are many other problems with the wager, among them is the assumption that there is a 50/50 chance between the existence of god, and the absence of god. Where the hell do those numbers come from? You can't say just because there are two options, of there being a creator, and there not being a creator, that the odds are automatically 50/50. That would be similar to saying that because I am not sure if there is a polar bear in my bathroom right now, and the option is either  there IS a polar bear, or there is NOT a polar bear, the odds are 50/50.. it doesn't work like that.

The most annoying thing with the wager to me, is the assumption that you lose nothing by believing in a god. I could go on about this for a while, but I think I've already wall of texted you to death, so instead I'll put in a comic for a bit of humor and a break from monotony.



So yeah, I've run out of steam on that subject. I could go on and on about it, as it gets thrown in my face so often as someones brilliant reason for NOT being an atheist, but really if your reason for belief in a god is Pascal's wager, I feel really bad for you.

Happy birthday 4chan.. 

I saw this earlier today and thought it was fantastic. I love Carl Sagan so much, Cosmos was a brilliant program.. This is a video of Carl Sagan autotuned, and I think its great..


I've been watching a lot more Korean professional StarCraft games lately, mostly ones narrated by Cholera who is my favorite english announcer.

This post is short, mostly I just wanted to link that video. Rar Sagan.

Woke up from a nightmare about zombies, the only mainstream horror creatures that can truly terrify me.


Horrifying.

I am going to Virginia next month, to see Richard Dawkins give a talk at UVA, I'm really excited about it.. Going to bring a book or two with me, and see if I can't get him to sign them. I'm really excited about this, Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, and one of my favorite authors.. Currently, he is probably the #1 or #2 person whos work I respect most in the world, I am just a huge fan.. The other person who I may or may not be a bigger fan of, is James Randi..

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Arkham Horror, it'll be here in a few days and I can't wait. The plan is to invite my nephew over to play it with me.. It is possible to play the game yourself, as it is players vs the game, but somehow the idea of me sitting at a table with a 700 piece board game, alone, rolling the dice and quietly reading the cards, before moving my piece, just seems really freaking pathetic. But that is most likely what I'll end up doing eventually anyway. I mean, thats what all these single player RPGs essentially amount to, that I am so in love with.. When I look at my "played" time in games, and see hundreds of hours in a single game, I feel as if I've achieved something awesome, but really, its just me sitting alone, rolling some dice.

( Rambling about some MMOs here.. you really don't want to read this. )

Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing Arkham Asylum, and my upcoming pnp-rpg with Noriko and Kacey, as I haven't played with the GURPS system in ages.. Also pretty excited about getting another commission from Kacey, it'll be similar to the first, except I will be wearing pants! Also, rather than being in my nerdy bedroom full of video game consoles, I hope to be in a different room, with some of my favorite comics strewn about, hopefully playing D&D.. I don't know. I haven't really decided yet.. I'm going to ask a few people I respect what they think, and get some more ideas, then refine 'em..

Been looking at board games a lot lately, I'm really interested in them and its one corner of the lands of geekdom that I've neglected. I made a post in /tg/ and got a lot of replies telling me about the different great board games.. The most recommended one was Arkham Horror, which I picked up a couple days ago.. It hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I'm pretty excited about it. Other games that I might pick up include Zombies!!!, Descent, and the Battlestar Galactica game.. Descent has a very D&D flavor to it, but is pretty expensive, at like $100.. and thats just for the core game, there are numerous expansions for it.. The Zombies!!! game seems fun, as the players lay the tiles each game, so the board is always different, and of course, it has zombies which I l ove.. The BSG game is 3-6 players, and the coolest part of it seems to be the fact that in every game, there is at least one player who is a cylon..

Also, going to pick up some more miracle berries to bring with me when I visit Kacey and Noriko next. I've had them in the past, and its pretty fantastic biting into a lemon or a lime, and tasting a fruit that isn't sour at all, but has its own unique, almost alien flavor.. I'm wondering if there are other fruits that would be neat to try with it.. I know that grapefruit might be good too..

And, I leave you with this video, which.. I've watched at least five times in a row. I really like it a lot.. A girl I just met recently showed it to me and its great.

I just got the new They Might Be Giants album, Here Comes the Science.  I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to give an awesome gift to a kid.

I'm feeling decidedly "Meh" today. I've been watching Wolverine and the X-men lately, which I didn't know existed til a couple days ago.. Its  pretty good for the most part. Better than X-men Evolution, which I also liked. I'm hoping that the second season is as good as the first.

Also been talking to Noriko and Kacey about getting another skype based roleplaying game going, which should be great. There are some tools Noriko and I have been looking at, like ScreenMonkey and RPTools, which might be better than what we were using before, OpenRPG.. There are problems with each, and we haven't decided what we'll use, if any of them, just yet..

We also haven't decided what system we'll be using, or what genre we'll be  playing.. We decided that playing a horror based game probably wouldn't be that great, especially over skype.. And Noriko doesn't want to do a pure fantasy based game, as she has had way too much of that in the past, and Kacey doesn't want any super heroes type games.. But that doesn't really narrow it down much, considering the plethora of different games out there.. We discussed maybe trying a murder/mystery type, which would be interesting but.. might be difficult to work with, not sure. Also talked about shadow run and some others.. nothing decided yet. I kind of get the feeling she's leaning toward using gurps for the system, which would be fine with me. I'm looking forward to playing whatever it is we decide on.

I've got a strong urge to play some D&D lately.. problem is I don't really know anybody around here who I can play with. I've done some skype games using OpenRPG in the past with Noriko and Kacey in the past, and that was fantastic.. But theres just something about actually being there with someone that makes it a different and unique experience, which isn't to say I wouldn't like another skype game sometime, it was the most fun I'd had in ages.

Dungeons and Dragons Online is free now, so I figure I'll go ahead and grab it and give it a try.. Apparently, a lot of the content must be purchased, but overall that's probably the best payment scheme for me, as I'm not sure if I'll like the game at all.. so if I find myself playing long enough to have the urge to make some microtransations, then its probably worth it. My theory is that I'll get 1 days play out of it before going "Meh" and turning around to play something else.  But it might hold my attention longer, considering I've a lust for D&D these days..

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