Why Blogging May be at a Premium for the Rest of the Month

Please note this list does not include the fact that I will be working, preparing my resume (it's getting to be time to apply to keep my job on a permanent basis), cleaning the house, or, you know, sleeping.

August 19 - Eye appointment, buy school books and finish back-to-school clothes shopping with The Child.

August 20 - Hello? Project Runway is back!

August 21 - 50th birthday bash for The Child's god-mother

August 22 - Dinner with Jane Austen & Mr. Darcy

August 23 - Begin pilgrimage to Forks, Washington in search of all things Twilight

August 24 - Forks

August 25 - Forks

August 26 - Take Child to registration then run back to work to prepare for a big ass tour of D.C. mucky mucks without MAB present

August 27 - Bloody Mary Thursday and Hello? Project Runway.

August 28 - Rehearsal for Big Wedding

August 29 - Ree & Jerry's Big Wedding ("big" in importance, not size - but The Child is in the wedding party so you see how it is)

August 30 - Get my bangs trimmed and recover from Big Wedding

August 31 - Baptism seminar with Kiki's parents

On another note, my 4th blogoversary has come and gone. Whoo hoo.

Just for You, Honey

This morning The Spouse woke me up and said, "Time to get up, honey. You need to go blog about your game".

Why he thinks the rest of you would give a mole rat about my game is beyond me but he so rarely asks me to blog about anything specific that I feel I must. So here's the thing: I'm addicted to a new game.

My gaming experience is limited. I'm pretty much either an arcade game sorta gal (Tetris, Bubbleshooter, Pathwords...like that) or I'm into things like "Sims", which for me is just about decorating houses I've built, hooking people up so I can throw them weddings and getting them to have babies while achieving enough cooking points that they can dine on Lobster Thermidor every night if they want. And I haven't even done that in months and months because my laptop doesn't really support the game.

When we got an Xbox at Christmas I regarded it as a present for The Spouse and generally that was true. Then he taught me how to play "Left 4 Dead", a game where you slay zombies. That was satisfying. But the game only has 4 maps and after a while it was pretty much the same game every time. Then he showed me how to play "Fallout 3".

O my yord.

It's all over now.

"Fallout 3" takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. It's a first person shooter game; you create a character and escape "The Vault" only to find a bleak landscape through which you must travel to find safe havens. On the way you accept various quests, which lead you out to discover more of a huge map. There are good guys and bad guys. Your choices influence your karma. Your karma begins to dictate your experience (certain bad guys start to chase you, other characters befriend you (or not) because of your goodness (or badness, I suppose, but I'm going for the good karma). On your travels you pick up weapons and schtuff (that you can use yourself or sell for bottle caps - the coin of the realm, as it were). If you disarm a bomb in one town they reward you with a house which you can then decorate with certain themes (mine is pre-war...very retro). You collect bobbleheads. It is, in short, just about as dense a game as anything I've ever played. There's no set path you have to travel so each gamer's experience is going to be a little different from everyone else's.

It is thoroughly addicting. Hours pass before you realize it. Saturday morning I thought I'd play for an hour before going out to run my errands. 5 hours and still in my jammies later I had to force myself to stop, only to get back on the box as soon as I got home. Conservatively I'd say I've spent 24 hours playing this game and I'm only on level 7. I don't even know how many levels there are.

I have a couple of big challenges (besides just turning off the demmed console). One is that I'm not a very good shot and some creatures are really hard to take down. I prefer to go out into the Wasteland with a flame thrower...that seems to take care of everything from mad Brahmin cows to Mirelurks but I never have enough fuel to just flame through the world. The other challenge is that every structure, cave or tunnel I find is a freaking warren and I get veryvery lost (even though I have a Pipboy which, among myriad other things, contains maps). Inevitably I have to ask The Spouse to come guide me and then am blown away by his memory..."turn left, schooch around that ruined train car, hop up there, turn right"....his memory of that game map is encyclopedic, let me tell you.

Anymutant, it's just about much fun as a person can have with her clothes on and despite the fact that I sometimes have a fleeting thought along the lines of "Geez, if you have this much spare time maybe you could finally crack open that copy of War and Peace and do something useful with yourself" I expect I'll keep playing until I have discovered the whole map, finished every quest and earned a million bottle caps. I also want to collect all the bobbleheads. They're cute.

Out with the Girls

Last Saturday night MAB, The Neighbor, Emmers and I went to Gay Bingo. It's a monthly fundraiser for the Lifelong AIDS Alliance...good organization...and since the theme this month was Paris, it was clear we had to attend.

But we couldn't just go and play bingo. We had to dress for the occasion. More importantly, we felt the need to wear hats. Eiffel Tower hats. Which we had to make. So we did. They were grand. This is mine:

The web site where we found the Eiffel Towers also carried Eiffel Tower sippy cups. Had to have those.

We dressed, donned our chapeaux and swanned into the joint, speaking in French accents. Which we managed to do all night, even when we were just talking to each other. And we were fabulous. People were asking to have their pictures taken with us, ooohing and aaaahing over our hats, admiring our sippy cups (it is not easy, btw, to transfer a Cosmopolitan into an Eiffel Tower sippy cup but it can be done). We were photographed for web sites and even invited to participate in the costume contest.

Admittedly, I have issues with the outcome of the contest. We came in second. Second to a couple of dudes who had rented Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette costumes. Puleeezzeee. Anyone can rent a damn costume. To craft chapeaux from cardboard Eiffel Towers? That takes talent. (It was really only annoying after the fact when people kept coming up to us and saying we were robbed. Hello? Were you cheering loudly for us? Because that's what it took. Hello? If you don't vote you can't complain about the government. Or something like that).

But no matter, we still won prizes. Tickets to a burlesque show AND electric martini makers. In all honesty, this appliance represents everything that is wrong with America. It is an electric device that replaces the need to hold a shaker and go "schinka schinka schinka" a couple of times. Completely useless. And yet.....there is an allure. Note there are two settings:

Can you see them?


That's right. "Stir" and "Shake". Oh my giddy aunt.


Anygin, we had a veryvery fun time. Oh! I bingo'ed in the second game and came away with $50! I ended up donated $30 of it back ($10 right away and later I bought a tee shirt that says "Bingo is the new black") but still. I'm not the sort of person who wins things so it was quite a triumphant night.


And did I mention that we were fabulous?


(l to r: some chick who works for a radio station bogarting a sippy cup, MAB, The Neighbor, Moi)

Two bad ass chicks from the Moulin Rouge.

(Ok, actually, I look more like Elphaba from "Wicked" but you get the point).

Reasons Why Guitar Hero is a Good Thing

1. I have discovered some new songs and bands that I'd never paid attention to before and they are informing my life in meaningful ways.

2. Sustained playing really works the abs and it's way more fun than sit-ups.

3. I can pretend I'm skinny.

4. Practice makes perfect. Always a good lesson to remember.

5. Being forced out of your comfort zone is a good thing. I've discovered that I'm usually better on songs I don't know because I'm not thinking about what I think the song is supposed to do and I am thus able to concentrate on the notes.

6. Hair metal is easier to play than rap.

7. Consequently, I like Metallica better than the Beastie Boys.

8. It still hurts my fingers so I can't play forever which means that it doesn't actually interfere with my life the way other forms of digital crack can. Plus it gets me off my butt.

Man. I am sooooo good at justifing things.

I've Got Blisters on Me Fingers!

As The Spouse announced yesterday, we now own "Guitar Hero". And last night he brought home a second guitar so we can have bands.

Hi. My name is Lorraine and I'm addicted to digital crack.

I used to play guitar for real. I was only ever tolerable. I had a small repertoire of songs and could hold my own in jamming sessions around assorted campfires or what-have-you, provided the songs were your basic C-G-D sorts of tunes. (Which thankfully, most rock and folk songs are). I always had trouble with F and I never, ever figured out bar chords. Also, I pretty much had one strum, which either sped up or slowed down depending on the tune. Finger picking? Are you kidding.

I was a hack.

But I enjoyed it.

The thing about playing the guitar, though, is that it takes some time to build up callouses on your fingertips. Whenever I'd first start out (I gave it up, then took it up again a couple of times) there was a unique pain that accompanied me in the first weeks of playing, a kind of tingling bruised feeling that reminded me constantly that I was playing guitar. Over time it would subside until I could play for hours without discomfort. It was just part of the deal; you have to press your soft, delicate flesh pretty hard against a steel string in order for it to sound right. It was part of the pain and sacrifice of being a musician. (Which is a way loftier word for what I was but you get the point).

Now, again, the tips of my fingers hurt. It's silly, because in "Guitar Hero" you don't have strings. You just push buttons. And you don't have to push them hard to accomplish the task and hit the "notes". But some things are just instinctive. When I've got my axe slung on and am rocking my tentative way through "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" I push down on those buttons like they are steel strings and consequently, my fingertips hurt. (Ouch, she said as she typed. Ouch).

The Spouse is probably expecting today's video to be Foghat's "Slow Ride" (at which I'm pretty good. On the easy level). But no. I'm playing another one of those songs that you totally know because snippets of it have been used to sell stuff. Which could make it over used and annoying but I happen to find it very fresh and fun.

It is, according to the band, a song about just being silly and crazy and letting loose. I felt compelled to mention that. Because I know how some of you think.



Caesars "Jerk It Out"