46 posts tagged “j”

This weekend is shaping up to be an eventful time for me - J hasn't been around the place lately because of projects both at work as well as at the theatre, and I've been a terribly irresponsible dog-owner in that I've been shortening L's usual 45 minute walks down to less than half of that.

But my animal-abusive solitude has not been without personal gain.

A gamer friend of mine recently suggested that I take a gander at a new title that's been released on the XBox Live Marketplace: a pretty little something by the name of 'Braid.'

This wonderful piece of interactive artwork is the rare kind of thing that simultaneously induces in me both rampant admiration and suicidal levels of frustration.  Where I don't usually fall under the spell of your run-of-the-mill platformer, Braid focuses more on puzzle-solving than the usual Mario Brother knock-off.  Not only that, but the look, feel, and sound of the game is a fully immersive experience.  The central source of puzzle-building here is based around your ability to manipulate time, something that I thought would be easy to master early on in my experience with the game.
I was wrong.

Easily floating my way through the first few levels (available in the XBox Marketplace for free), I felt like I'd bested even the Prince of Persia in a 2D, side-scrolling world.  Then I promptly hit a wall.  As it turns out, the people designing the puzzles knew that I was going to be able to manipulate the flow of time.  And, like vengeful gods, the designers appear to have created one of the most torturous (and interesting) pieces of puzzle-based gaming I've ever seen.

I don't know whether or not you own an XBox 360 or if you have any interest in video games - hell, I don't even know if your reading this - but if you do, you really need to take the time to try this game.  And, if you get the chance, please tell me how to get all the puzzle-pieces in the fifth world.  I'm desperate.

The annual Halloween rush is upon us once again, ladies and gentlemen.  Some of you might be running around  stressing yourselves out about how you're going to keep a fog machine running the entire evening of the 31st.  Others are probably busy planning elaborate parties involving peeled grapes and pumpkin ale.  Me?  My biggest Halloween challenge is the costume.
I can never come up with a good idea for a costume in time.

Back in the day, it was so much easier.  My mother would drag my siblings and I to the fabric store where we would peruse the costume sewing plans and pick out the fabric that we wanted.  Voila!  A week or two later, we were the coolest kids on the block with our custom-fit dinosaur/skeleton ensemble.

Nowadays it's much different.  I couldn't sew to save my life and, beyond that, probably couldn't afford the amount of fabric I'd need to properly dress my 5'11" frame anyway.  So, I have to get even more creative.
Sadly, creative is one thing that I most certainly am not when it comes to holidays.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself - I can get pretty creative when it comes to costumes.  I'm just no good at the follow-through.  Some examples of awesome ideas that I've considered or attempted in the past:

• Angus Young
• Godzilla
• the Riddler
• Wolverine
  
• a Ninja
• Larry David
• the Tick
• Bender
• Cobra Commander

The only problem with most of these, though, is that I think that they might require a little too much preparation within the limited amount of time that I have over the next couple weeks.  Also, none of these costumes take into account that I'll likely be mucking around town with J in tow.

Bah, maybe I'll just do what I did last year and wait until the last minute to go to the Dollar Tree and pick out some lame plastic costume they've got on sale for children under the age of 10 and wear that.

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Introducing your girlfriend of two years to your family for the first time can be a pretty daunting thing.  I spent the entire last week of September running around trying to get everything ready for our sojourn into the wooded heartland of Northern Virginia, but no amount of frantic planning and meticulous attention to detail would have been enough to prepare a girl from Orange County for the land of Nod.

When we got there last Wednesday, the plan was to borrow one of the clunkers from the family menagerie, drive it down to visit Scio for his bachelor party and, subsequently, his wedding later in the weekend.  This plan quickly went to pot as J and I found ourself sitting on the side of the road with steam rising from under the hood of our car, having made it no more than ten miles from my family's house.  When the tow truck arrived, we enjoyed a detailed conversation with the driver about the local deer population and their nasty habit of leaping into oncoming traffic.  By the time we got back to the house, making it down to Norfolk in time for the festivities was out of the question.

The next day we rented a nicer car than I'd ever driven before and headed to the Virginia coast as fast as it would take us.  In a whirlwind of old friends, an indoor shooting range, cigar smoking, and a beachfront pub that night, I tried to give J the kind of welcome that she deserved.  It was unfortunate that I couldn't give her a little more exposure to the people that had come to really play a part in my life over the last several years - but these things just cannot be helped when you're pressed for time.

We made it back to my family in time for church on Sunday and then spent the next four days trolling around the local sights.  After landing back in California last night and reassessing our experience in Virginia, I'm glad to say that J was pretty impressed.  This was quite a relief to hear - apparently she doesn't scare off easily.  I guess I'll have to try to make our next vacation even more challenging for her.

In the meantime, I'm back at the helm and you can expect to see the usual pitiful Voxing that you've come to expect around these parts.  I'll try to make my next post about something trifling and uninteresting, something about personal finances, perhaps?

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I don't know that science will ever begin to explain the genetic qualities that cause caucasian males to have a tendency to bite their bottom lip while dancing.  Even more mysterious is the impetus in our ancient history that would require this to become so prominent.
I suppose we'll never really know.

J and I went out with some friends last night for a couple of drinks and, in turn, a bit of dancing.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm the type to be too cynical to actually enjoy an evening on the dancefloor - I never really could grasp whatever it was that people got out of stuff like that.  Well, since I've found James Brown, I've finally found the answer.  The answer is funk.

Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to soul music, I transform from the self-controlled nazi that authors this blog into a lip-biting, thumb-pointing, toe-tapping machine.

Of course, when you dance as poorly as I do, it's probably best to avoid those clubs that have mirrors on the walls.  Sometimes this can't be helped, though, as the only place that J and I have run across that actually spins soul and funk music comes complete with an entire wall of self-reflecting shame.

Luckily, for guys like me, there is some help out there on the internet.  Help from the dance-king himself: James Brown.

I've never really been much of a Pac-Man connoisseur.  For that matter, I've never been much for Ms. Pac-Man, either.  Sure, her bulbous yellow mass and strangely proportioned legs might've given me lustful pause in previous years - but that's all a part of that awkward prepubescent stage, now long since past me.  Besides, back then I never really worked up the nerve to catch Pac-Man fever.  Things are different now, though.

When J and I got the XBox, we justified the purchase by saying that it would serve not only as a gaming console, but also our DVD Player.  And, to that end, it has served us well.  Only in the last couple of months, though, has it become a focal point on one of the strangest addictions I've ever had.

Growing up, my good friend Chris was one of those kids that could play a Pac-Man game for upwards of three hours on a single quarter.  This, of course, proved to be something of an awkward problem when it came to socializing at any one of the fine Pac-Man equipped establishments that we happened to frequent.  Granted, I was always mighty impressed with his boasts of having his initials in the number one spot on every Pac-Man machine within a hundred mile radius - but that awe rarely spread to anyone beyond our ever shrinking circle of friends.

Back then, being much less skilled than Chris left me far too intimidated to foray out into the world of blinking dots and multi-colored ghosts.  Things changed with the release of the Championship Edition on XBox Live.

As I recall, it was mere months ago when I downloaded the game when Chris was in town.  We spent the entire night playing, working out the necessary patterns to maximize our per-minute point gain.  After the first few hours, I'd caught the fever and, ever since, Chris and I have been in contact trying to determine the best strategies through which we might be able to conquer the leaderlist on XBox Live.

With that said, I've been trying to lay low with my addiction - I don't bring up in casual conversation the fact that the orange ghost, Clyde, tends to follow a set path instead of going straight for you.  Instead, I stick to normal topics like the weather and local football.
Ok, maybe not football.

And then there was that party last night.  J's future brother-in-law, Z, invited us over to his place for dinner and board games.  When we showed up, however, I found that the board games were relegated to the ladies who were attending while the gentlemen fragged each other on the 57' screen in the living room.  As the night went on, and the beer bottles emptied, Z broached the subject of Pac-Man CE.  He said that he'd noticed my high score on XBox Live and wanted to know how I got there.  Within minutes I found myself the center of attention as that blessed white controller was handed off to me.  Within mere seconds, everyone present (and still sober enough to keep track) was cheering me on as I wiped Z's former high score off the map.

I went to bed last night knowing what Sparticus must've felt deep in his heart as he saw his first domineering victory in the colliseum.

And now I must return to my couch where I will continue to fight my way toward the leaderboards, toward freedom.  Am I a nerd?  Maybe.  Is this the kind of thing that might suck the life out of me? Almost definitely.
But for one fleeting evening, I was a God amongst insects.  Drunken insects, but insects all the same.

(Woah.  This'll be embarrassing to read to myself later.)

Your first earthquake can be a harrowing experience if you're not used to things like that.

Sitting at my computer desk and slowly picking through my RSS feeds, avoiding the fact that I needed to finish some reading for my astronomy class, I noticed a slight vibration in the floor.  Somewhere in the back of my lizard brain a slow panic began to set in.  The more evolved, human part of my brain, though, refused to accept it.  The vibrations had to be the result of someone in the hallway stomping around - or maybe it was the thumping bass of the neighbors on the floor below me.  Yes!  That had to be it!  It was the bass!

That was about when my desk started to sway and a cold terror gripped my heart.  Subwoofers don't shake furniture, do they?

Now, I don't like to classify myself as the type of guy that freezes up when his adrenaline starts pumping.  However, in this instance, I was glued to my computer chair.  My eyes started to dart around the room as I began combing my mind for the safest places to run for cover.

I looked over at J, who happened to be sitting at her computer playing World of Warcraft - seemingly unaware of the apocalyptic movement of the ground beneath her feet.  The tremors became more intense suddenly as I tried to figure out if the two of us would be safer taking cover under the same doorway instead of splitting up and finding our own individual doorways.

By this point, no more than a mere five seconds into the quake, my heart stopped beating and time seemed to slow down as my instincts began to take over.  I tensed up, prepared to leap out of my chair, grab J and the dog, and bolt out the front door.  That was when J turned her head to me and uttered these three words:
'Oooh!  An earthquake!'

Shocked at her obliviousness to the dire situation at hand, I started to open my mouth but could find no words as she innocently smiled at me and turned back to her computer game.  The quake seemed to stop immediately, as if all it needed was a pretty girl to acknowledge it's presence, and I felt my heart begin to pump again.

As emasculated as I feel in reacting like I did to my first minor quake, this event has reminded me of one thing: Southern Californians might be able to ignore earthquakes, but I'll be damned if they'll ever learn to drive in the rain.  And you can bet that the next time it's raining out and I'm stuck on the freeway because everyone that lives out here panics if it so much as sprinkles while they've got their car on the road, I'll be thanking my lucky stars that, at the very least, the ground isn't moving.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go put on a helmet and cower in the corner of the bedroom with my dog.

My girlfriend is the kind of sexy that shows up after a long week of work and classes with surprise tickets to see Daniel Johnston in concert.  Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to postpone the Personal Finance Friday entry I had intended for today until tomorrow.

But, because I don't want you to end up losing any sleep over the absence of content today, I leave you with yet another Daniel Johnston favorite of mine.  It's a little ditty by the name of 'Big Business Monkey.'  For more, I've also got 'Walking the Cow' still posted here for your listening pleasure.

For those of you not in the know, my girlfriend, J, works in the computer gaming industry.  This aspect of her life places her in what I like to call the 'triple-threat-sexy territory.'  This designation present a three-pronged barrage of bragging rights about how much cooler my girlfriend is than yours.

First, and foremost, she's a gamer.
This means  that I've got someone to split the gaming expenses with - i.e. it's easier to justify spending the money to purchase an XBox 360 when you're only paying for half of it.

Secondly, she's a huge nerd.
I've dated nerds before (haven't we all?), but they were insecure in their nerdiness.  Well, not J.  She's more than happy to strike up a conversation about her DPS and the atunement of her tier 3 armor with complete strangers.
I'm not exaggerating.  I saw her do it yesterday.

Lastly, it means that I get access to cool gaming industry stuff that I'd be completely unable to see or do otherwise.  And that's why I'm spending my weekend at BlizzCon.

There was no entry last night because I was busy celebrating with J over a recent promotion that she received at work.  Over the last six months, she's been working a horrible schedule that left us with very few hours to spend together watching Cops on TV or arguing about whether Gears of War is a better FPS than Halo.

Now we'll be back on the same schedule.  This means more posts to clutter up your Vox neighborhood!  Aren't you happy?

You know you've found a good girl when she can clear out a service elevator full of the undead in a matter of seconds with nothing more than a blood-spattered bookshelf.  But  you know you've found the only girl for you when, stepping over a dozen twitching zombie corpses to get to the elevator control panel, in her best bellhop impression, she says 'going down' with a giggle before hitting the button.

It's video game love!

Today J and I are taking my mother and her friend, C, out to Disneyland.