Primarily it comes down to this: holy crap, is this part of my social life. Maybe January just happens to be a social-gatherings-requiring-alcohol-heavy month, but there must have been around seven or eight times where me drinking would have been more appropriate to the situation than me not drinking. That's around one in four nights.
I'm thinking my new rule is going to be only to drink socially, never alone. Which I didn't do a whole lot of anyway, but it has been nice at times to come home, read a book and have a glass or two of wine. Or a fake Margarita where only the alcohol was real.
I also noticed that during my interview to volunteer with the AIDS Health Project they asked us about our using habits. My response went something like, "Well, that's funny, because I am actually taking a month off of alcohol or any other kind of drug. Not that I was using that much before, but it is nice to take a month off to make sure your habits are healthy. I would say that I drink mostly on the weekends, with friends or when I am going out. I mean, I certainly never drank at work..." I sound like a total alcoholic...
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
a coworker
coworker: (to me) hey, you been working out?
me: (not sure whether to feel flattered or just awkward) um... yes?
coworker: see me checking you out?
me: stop that! stop that immediately!
awkward wins :(
me: (not sure whether to feel flattered or just awkward) um... yes?
coworker: see me checking you out?
me: stop that! stop that immediately!
awkward wins :(
Friday, January 23, 2009
i just saw my therapist
walking down the street. I'm 85% sure he was drunk. Stumbling, and the like. I think god has decreed it official awkward run-ins day. And if He/She/Sie hasn't, I do. My therapist didn't see me, and obviously he is a human with a personal life (like I someday hope to be) but it's still weird.
scrubbing my corneas
I was walking down 7th St. yesterday when I saw someone wearing a hoodie walking in front of me and another guy standing on the edge of the corner. The guy standing on the edge of the corner gives the person ahead of me one of the most intensely lustful up-and-down looks I have probably ever seen. This kind of thing doesn't really bother me one way or the other, but the guy tripped my gaydar a little and I got curious so I picked up my pace to get a look at the other person's face. My thought process at that point went something like: "Small-framed guy? Baby-faced street-girl? Or... oh... you're a... 12-year-old boy... eeeewwwwwwwwwwwww...."
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
thoughts on valkyrie profile lenneth
This is a more enjoyable game than I thought it would be, as I am playing it an 10:20 on a work night.
I am realizing that I feel like most magic systems in the games I have played cast magic as a big-gun kind of weapon, and as such they load a lot of limits onto it in order to balance it out. MP, charge times and limited spells per battle, off the top of my head. Usually I find the result is that magic is overburdened to the point of being useless. Final Fantasy 8, Vagrant Story and Xenogears come to mind, although I think the classic example of this is FF Tactics.*
One thing I am liking about Valkyrie Profile is that it isn't nearly as weighed down. There is a kind of rebound charge time after casting that varies depending on the spell, but over-all it balances nicely with the strengths and weaknesses of normal physical attacks. It's powerful too; the basic heal spell heals 80% of every character's HP but has a long rebound time, so your caster is out of commission for the next 3-4 turns. This can mean the end of the battle anyway. The result is a challenge that actually makes me think over my options rather than "more ninjas!"
On a side-note, the premise of the game is that you are a Valkyrie in Norse Mythology who collects noble souls, trains them, and then sends them to the Ragnarok in Valhalla. A pretty cool premise, I think. One of the things that you have to do is improve character traits to make them more heroic. Some bad character traits that you have to eliminate are "romantic" and "non-drinker." I suppose if you are being sent to a version of heaven in which you hack each other to peaces all day and drink mead and have sex all night, "romantic" and "non-drinker" would be bad things. I appreciate the wry humor of that.
*On why I hate magic in Tactics: Tactics has all of these things, plus you risk hitting your own troops, your ability to cast spells proficiently also makes you more vulnerable to them, and caster classes usually have crappy stats and crappy stat growth. Even magic as an ability does not go up when you level as a caster- yeah, I checked the stat growth charts. There just aren't a whole lot of spells worth all of the limitations. The thing that gets me is that this game is so remarkably balanced in so many ways, but not magic. No wonder I had so many damn ninjas.
I am realizing that I feel like most magic systems in the games I have played cast magic as a big-gun kind of weapon, and as such they load a lot of limits onto it in order to balance it out. MP, charge times and limited spells per battle, off the top of my head. Usually I find the result is that magic is overburdened to the point of being useless. Final Fantasy 8, Vagrant Story and Xenogears come to mind, although I think the classic example of this is FF Tactics.*
One thing I am liking about Valkyrie Profile is that it isn't nearly as weighed down. There is a kind of rebound charge time after casting that varies depending on the spell, but over-all it balances nicely with the strengths and weaknesses of normal physical attacks. It's powerful too; the basic heal spell heals 80% of every character's HP but has a long rebound time, so your caster is out of commission for the next 3-4 turns. This can mean the end of the battle anyway. The result is a challenge that actually makes me think over my options rather than "more ninjas!"
On a side-note, the premise of the game is that you are a Valkyrie in Norse Mythology who collects noble souls, trains them, and then sends them to the Ragnarok in Valhalla. A pretty cool premise, I think. One of the things that you have to do is improve character traits to make them more heroic. Some bad character traits that you have to eliminate are "romantic" and "non-drinker." I suppose if you are being sent to a version of heaven in which you hack each other to peaces all day and drink mead and have sex all night, "romantic" and "non-drinker" would be bad things. I appreciate the wry humor of that.
*On why I hate magic in Tactics: Tactics has all of these things, plus you risk hitting your own troops, your ability to cast spells proficiently also makes you more vulnerable to them, and caster classes usually have crappy stats and crappy stat growth. Even magic as an ability does not go up when you level as a caster- yeah, I checked the stat growth charts. There just aren't a whole lot of spells worth all of the limitations. The thing that gets me is that this game is so remarkably balanced in so many ways, but not magic. No wonder I had so many damn ninjas.
do I have a dirty mind, or does the universe?
I was watching TV at the laundromat, and there was a shot of "the world's longest waterslide," the "Black Anaconda," which had three or four African-American gentlemen sitting in it.
My question: how much of this is me seeing this, rolling my eyes and being willing to read something into it? How much is it the creators of the ride who decided to give the world's longest waterslide a provocative name? And perhaps most of all, how much of this is the producers of this stupid news segment who saw the Black Anaconda and decided to wait for the first group of dark-skinned men before saying, "there, Joe. There's our shot."
On a note vaguely related in my own head, I was on the bus yesterday innocently day-dreaming of how changey everything was when I see a poster ad that read "yes you can" with the middle "o" being a Pepsi symbol. Righteous indignation followed, although in retrospect I'm not sure I have a good reason for feeling that way. Is there any reason why a company can't coop a political message? Sure, it's dishonest, but is it any more so than when they show biscuits making a dough-man fake an orgasm or cereal that make your kids do better in school? I don't know that it is.
Mmmm... biscuits...
My question: how much of this is me seeing this, rolling my eyes and being willing to read something into it? How much is it the creators of the ride who decided to give the world's longest waterslide a provocative name? And perhaps most of all, how much of this is the producers of this stupid news segment who saw the Black Anaconda and decided to wait for the first group of dark-skinned men before saying, "there, Joe. There's our shot."
On a note vaguely related in my own head, I was on the bus yesterday innocently day-dreaming of how changey everything was when I see a poster ad that read "yes you can" with the middle "o" being a Pepsi symbol. Righteous indignation followed, although in retrospect I'm not sure I have a good reason for feeling that way. Is there any reason why a company can't coop a political message? Sure, it's dishonest, but is it any more so than when they show biscuits making a dough-man fake an orgasm or cereal that make your kids do better in school? I don't know that it is.
Mmmm... biscuits...
Friday, January 2, 2009
master cleanse
Alright, day one of the master cleanse.
If you aren't familiar, I'll spare you the google search. You drink saltwater in the morning, a homemade lemonade concoction through the day, and a laxative tea at night.
And since I know you are screaming at your computer screen "why!?!?!" let's get the disclaimers out of the way. I know that the master cleanse is a goofy idea. For most people it's a shock weight-loss diet that isn't even particularly effective. The guy who created it was pretty much a nut-job. It's also a little, well, unpleasant as fasts go. It does have a few selling points, though: it cleans out your (ahem) piping, it gets people to think more closely about what they are eating, and I have a few work friends to do it with. There also isn't much to eat around the house, besides the roughly 20 slabs of red meat I got from my grandmother for Christmas. No, really. More than anything, though, not eating for a few days (10 is the goal...we'll see) can't be any worse for me than most of the crap I eat daily anyway. Really, I've been trying to be more food conscious anyway recently, and this is another way of exploring that for myself.
So...not that bad so far, other than that I want food. Not hungry, just really wanting to eat a biscuit. Mmmmm, biscuit.
I don't actually think I have the willpower for this. We'll see.
If you aren't familiar, I'll spare you the google search. You drink saltwater in the morning, a homemade lemonade concoction through the day, and a laxative tea at night.
And since I know you are screaming at your computer screen "why!?!?!" let's get the disclaimers out of the way. I know that the master cleanse is a goofy idea. For most people it's a shock weight-loss diet that isn't even particularly effective. The guy who created it was pretty much a nut-job. It's also a little, well, unpleasant as fasts go. It does have a few selling points, though: it cleans out your (ahem) piping, it gets people to think more closely about what they are eating, and I have a few work friends to do it with. There also isn't much to eat around the house, besides the roughly 20 slabs of red meat I got from my grandmother for Christmas. No, really. More than anything, though, not eating for a few days (10 is the goal...we'll see) can't be any worse for me than most of the crap I eat daily anyway. Really, I've been trying to be more food conscious anyway recently, and this is another way of exploring that for myself.
So...not that bad so far, other than that I want food. Not hungry, just really wanting to eat a biscuit. Mmmmm, biscuit.
I don't actually think I have the willpower for this. We'll see.
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