Aaron Go Bragh

I am in Las Vegas for training on a product we use at work. Neat! Having a good time here, not going crazy or anything. St. Patrick's Day was somewhat eventful. Played some poker and got to bed a bit late. I was considering seeing a show, but I am sure I will be back here soon so it is no rush. I think the coolest thing to happen was noticing these trash cans in the New York, New York casino:

Very Dalek-esque!

I'll be home Thursday night.

-Aaron

We all eventually fail our saving throw

Today Gary Gygax passed away. If you do not know this name, I will hereby educate you.

When I was very young, I remember my mother bought me a role-playing game called Traveler. It was a pen and paper RPG like D&D and it was far too complex for me at that age, but it did flip a switch in my mind that such a game could exist. That game must have come in and out of my closet ten times over the course of a couple years as I tried to grasp what it was, and I was never able to play it. None the less, it was one of the most memorable gifts of my life.

After I grew older, I was finally able to understand the concept of these complex games, and poured over the D&D manuals with wonder and excitement. I remember late nights as a teen sleeping over at my friend's house. We would play under blankets with flashlights when we were told to go to bed. After this ruse was discovered, we would play in whispers in the dark until sleep finally defeated us, only to start again the next day.

How many hours of my life have I spent staring at my character sheet, exploring dungeons, defeating foes untold and achieving riches and power beyond compare? Dungeons & Dragons allowed me to expand my imagination beyond simply reading a fictional novel; It allowed me to create my own stories and participate in them as the hero, the villain, the deity, the plucky comedy relief. Nothing enraptured me like these fantasy worlds until the advent of the RPG video game, and later the MMORPG. With this new medium, the tedium of arbitrating the rules of the game is eliminated and we enjoy instant gratification in the form of a pixelated avatar. Were it not for the minds of those who created and proliferated the concept of the role-playing game, the entire industry of gaming might be very different, if not completely bereft of this great genre. Still, no video game can compare to what the mind can conjure with college ruled paper covered in scores of cryptic pencil markings, some rule books, your lucky dice and a few good friends.

This is my thanks to Mr. Gygax for all of the work he has put into this world of gaming, and all of the memories he has helped people create from pure imagination.

Travel well and Godspeed...

-Aaron

Jerb

It is official, I have a job! This is always a very worrying moment in life, transitioning from one place of employment to another, but unfortunately it happens all too often in the software industry. Even more troubling for me in the fact that I do not have a degree and that often disqualifies me from most of the initial job screenings I am considered for. This time around I was very aggressive, and with a much bolstered set of skills to offer and it showed. Many interviews and calls. My phone bill was $180 this month. In the end though, it all came down to friends. Thank you so much Adam and Jordan for giving me that foot in the door and the kind words of support. Thank you Jeff for the great advice early on in my job search. Friends, as some people will never learn or understand, are the greatest thing in the world to have, and I am thankful to have great friends.

We had a couple victory dinners, living like Romans before the fall. I have experienced my first two days at work and am settling in nicely. I bought the man who sold me my suit a bottle of mead. I am going to join Adam's karate school. I sleep in every day when compared to the long days of commute to Mountain View. I am ready now for this new adventure of learning and labor.

In other news, I have been playing a few of games. Not a lot mind you, I have things to do. I suggest this game if you liked Galactic Civ or Masters of Orion but hated the turn-based aspect. Also, if you have not watched this, you really need to.

-Aaron

Vagrant

I apologize for the long delay. I was not sure what I would be able to say on my blog, but now it is done and I am free, free, free! I was laid off yesterday due to cutbacks in the company. Not to worry, I believe I have everything in hand. They gave very ample warning and I was able to prepare beforehand. Interviews are lined up, resumes are updated and out, I have filed for unemployment and I have some money saved us so I should be right as rain. I am actually somewhat relieved that I was laid off because there is a lot of uncertainty that I no longer have to worry about. In any case, if you know of any available jobs, please let me know.

In other news, Mike's new steampunk game is really fun. I have also started playing Pirates of the Burning Seas. Not much else happening, I will keep you posted as the job hunt progresses.

-Aaron

How to dye hair

Over the years, many people have come to me for advice on dying hair. I am not really sure why, but I hear it involves something about my plush, vibrant mane. I have decided to post instructions.

A nice vibrant color requires that the hair be bleached. If no bleach is used, the gelatin based dye will wash right out in three days and it will look like crap. Ammonia based dye (like black) is the only one that does not require bleach, and even then it works better with than without. What you need to do is go to a beauty supply shop and get a few things:

1) Powder bleach. It can come in packets for about $3. Don't get the kind that claims to dye and bleach in one step. It does neither.
2) Peroxide creme catalyst, 40 strength. $6
3) Dye. Special Effects brand is the best I have tried. $12
4) Latex gloves. Ask and they'll probably give you a pair for free.
5) Vaseline
6) Shower cap

Before starting, pick up the floor towel and anything else near that might be destroyed from bleach or dye. Newspaper might be a good idea for the floor and sink. It is also time to designate a "dye shirt" and "dye towel" and "dye pillow case". These brave soldiers will never make it out alive. It is also best to do this on a Friday night or Saturday morning. Two days time will be enough to push all of the dye out of the scalp in time for school or work Monday morning.

The peroxide and bleach you mix together 1 to 1 and just goop onto the hair with gloves on. Leave about 20 minutes. It is a little tingly/itchy/irritating to the scalp, the same as lemon juice might feel, but should subside after it is rinsed out. The point of this is to cause damage to the hair in addition to removing color. The damage will leave the hair porous so it will take dye. Rinse only, no shampoo or you risk reducing the porousness of the hair. Now rub Vaseline around the edge of the scalp. This will reduce the amount of dye that is visible on the scalp after dying. Be careful not to get it on the hair or that part won't dye. Now with gloves on, goop the dye onto the hair. You can use a brush, comb or just hands to apply. After it's all on, nice and thick so the hair is caked to the head, get a shower cap on and the towel over the shower cap. Reason? You'll get dye EVERYWHERE. I sometimes skip this, but I also mess up and get in on things. Leave it in for over an hour, smoosh it around inside the shower cap or with gloves a couple times during that time.

If dye falls on the linoleum floor, tub or the counter, don't get too worked up about it. It will fade with time even without cleaning/scrubbing. Using some of the leftover bleach/peroxide solution will make quick work of it as well.

There, now go dye with honor my brave friends!

-Aaron

The holiday season

Good food, family and friends, it all happens in the last two months of the year, except for those other times it happens in the other ten months.

I visited my sister and some of the Robinson family at my sister's house in Pasa Robles. That was fun. I made green bean casserole from scratch, which worked out well. Thank you Thea and Jon for the late (my fault) birthday present. My room smells FRESH!

Played a lot of games lately. I have also been embarking on this sort of entrepreneur venture ... thing. It's pretty exciting. I didn't want to talk much about it until now because I was afraid that if I talked too much about it, I wouldn't do it. A sort of new motivating strategy thing I have been doing. I am truly excited about it though and am going to be aggressively shooting for a Tues/Thurs schedule on reviews.

The second holiday is coming soon as well, lots of time off and a lot of plans up north.

In sad news, this weekend is the last weekend for the SkyView Drive-In. We plan on giving it a final hoo-rah.

That's all folks!

-Aaron

Dowdy Dowser

So my friend Mark Dowdy is in a terrible place, in a terrible way. Now I have been in pickles before, but... listen, we just need to get him back home. I took it upon myself to create something that I believe will give him the motivation to rise up and do what needs to be done. Let's all have a listen, shall we?

-Aaron

Frightening month

I have had a birthday, a bachelor party, a wedding, several after parties and Halloween all in one month. I am pretty much wiped out. Just posting now to say my thanks to everyone.

Mom and Doug, thanks for the great bathroom stuff. Be seeing you on Turkey Day!

Mike and Jackie: Thanks for having me at these great events.

Ernie: Thanks for all the help with the Rueben's Tube and for being generally awesome and for the fire wood.

Randall and Vinny: Thanks for all the wonderful food you have put out this month and for having the last refuge for Halloween.

Brian: Thanks for all of the hard work and the long drives to Santa Cruz and for providing all of the beer. Really sorry we weren't able to try the Jubilation. Welcome back into the game.

Steve Shiro: Thanks for providing me an excuse for grievous revenge.

Adam: Thank you for the boob shaped mug.

Ben: Thanks for ponying up on that tablecloth. It means a lot.

And thanks everyone else for making everything run smoothly.

-Aaron

P.S. I am enabling CAPTCHAS on the comments because of spam.

P.P.S. I can't believe nobody bought me the plush dolphin for my birthday.

A Hole Lot of Trouble

So if there is a bad place where bad people go when they die, I will secure my seat there with this post. That's your warning. Mom, you may want to skip this one.

A friend and I one day were talking about interesting things such as furries, plushies, RealDolls and combinations of these themes. You know, the usual topics. As mentioned in a previous post, of my favorite questions is, "If you had to be a furry, what animal would you be?" Try it sometime, it's a great conversation starter. Another one is, "If you had a choice between an animal or a dead person and you had to choose..." That one is a great conversation ender! Well, that night our topics strayed into bestiality, as topics of this sort tend to do. We asked ourselves a new question: "What sex acts could be performed only on a certain animal?" A quick-fire banter of responses ensued ranging from sea anemones, unicorns, octopuses and elephants. The end result, however, had us on the floor. Dolphins! Of course! We found later that this idea was not new:

"Dad, what's the blowhole for?"
"I'll tell you what it's not for, son. And when I do, you'll understand why I can never go back to Sea World."
- Chris and Peter in Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington

But, we assigned a term to the act: Blowholin'

Now you might at this time want to say, "Aaron, that's going too far!" or you are losing your lunch. Either way, it's funny to me. For a long time I resisted posting this on my blog because I ... well, ew, you know? But, when I saw THIS I just could not hold it in any longer. I especially like the description, "This adorable plush orca features a realistic blowhole and a great facial expression." There will never be a better tool for those interested in marine plushie bestiality.

Now all we need are plush zombies and the circle will be complete.

-Aaron

Three-hundred sixty

So there was rumor that the original Xbox 360 skew was dropping to $349 and included a HDMI port on the sly. I confirmed this rumor by purchasing one. It's really an awesome system. I am most impressed with the live service and the ease of interaction between friends and the online community. For instance, I can create a multi player game and while I am in that game, a standardized interface allows me to invite my friends to play with me. If they accept and have the game I have, it pulls them right into the game I had created. Really nice! So far I have played Crackdown, Oblivion, Settlers of Catan, Worms, Carcassone and Halo 3 on it. Reviews coming soon. ;)

I also remembered I am turning 32 on Monday so I am making a little gathering at Britania Arms, Saturday at 7PM if anyone wants to join me. Please don't worry about presents. If you must, I like things that are consumable.

The weekend after is the Bachelor Party. If you are one of the people invited to this bachelor party. That's going to be pretty exciting. Just thinking about playing miniature golf naked really makes me think I nailed the planning on this one, not to mention the Furries vs. Klingons Bowling!

Recently went to Sparge! and that was a lot of fun. The weekend before I went to the Lagunitas Skunk Beer Train with Brian and it was really a blast!

Tomorrow I am going to see 3:10 to Yuma with my Mom and Doug. It looks like the best western since Tombstone!

Four weekends from now is Jackie and Mike's wedding so all in all a super packed couple of months.

-Aaron

First comic

So stressed out right now. Just posted my first comic. I know it's a first try and all but I really want to know what everyone thinks of it, in a brutally honest way. Tell me if you don't get it or if it looks like crap. All that.

Here it is.

-Aaron

PAX: Day 3

Whew! My head hurts! Last night we went to the concert and saw Johnathan Coulton which was awesome. The guy is really funny and I am going to buy his CD. He has some great songs including the infamous Big Butts remake. This morning we looked for him but his booth was cleared. Sad face. His show was followed by MC Frontalot. The sound was possibly a bit off, instruments too high maybe but his songs still filled me with child-like wonder. I especially liked the PA Theme / Katamari Damacy medley.

After the concert I met up with Lee and he claimed to have a party going on at his hotel room and that the bands were coming over to drink. I am shocked to report to you that he TOTALLY pulled through! Members of The Neskimoes and The Minibosses showed up followed by MC Frontalot and his crew. Much drinking and much Guitar hero, got home at 6am. Very cool! I was convinced that I should be an Enforcer next year and Steve has offered to put me up at his place if I wanted to skip the hotel room.

One ting I must bring up: Scott was the coolest person for coming with me to PAX. I was really afraid it would turn into another Vegas trip where I was alone and cold and hitting myself with a shovel to make myself feel alive. Scott made it really a great experience and I'd like to thank him. Thanks Scott! He also said the funniest thing I heard the whole weekend. We were in the hotel room and hearing a "thump, thump, thump" from the room next to us. I made some comment about it and he said, "They're just making horse shoes." Brilliant! I took a shower and the sounds were gone. I asked, "Do you think they're done?" He answered, "No, they just keep turning the horse shoe over." I was rolling.

We missed the Two-Headed Giant game due to a late start (*whistle*) and it looks like our plane leaves earlier than I thought. No biggie. This event was so fun, I am really beside myself. One last word to seal the deal...

Woot!

-Aaron

PAX: Day 2

Day two started with a sealed deck game of Magic: The Gathering. Interesting. You get five booster packs and build your own 40 card deck out of them. I did pretty badly. Lost three matches in a row before giving up and in those matches I only won 2 out of 6 games. Good experience though and got some cards out of it. Scott did better, winning one match. Might play a different game tomorrow where it is 2 vs. 2 teams.

After that I browsed around the exhibit hall. Some neat things: There is a 4th edition D&D rule set being made that is supposed to be simpler than 3rd edition and doesn't have that terrible THAC0 system from 1st/2nd edition. Sounds neat! They are also creating an online service that allows you to create dungeons and play D&D online with your friends in them. I am less entused by this and suggested that the have a method to be able to create the dungeon and be able to print out the dungeon with an extensive legend describing all of the traps, monsters, etc... They also have a character creation utility that appears to be even more extensive than City of Heroes (that MMO that everyone creates characters on but nobody plays). This also was interesting and they allow you to print out a little character on paper with it. I think this would be much more compelling if they could offer 3D printing of the characters. They should just pay me right now for that idea. Thanks!

Still really excited about the Pirates of the Burning Seas, but they were out of Aaron sized shirts today.

I went and said hi to Wil Wheaton who is the best keynote speaker in the universe. Bought his second book which I never got to read. Not much more to say about that. Scott got a picture but I'm too lazy to make him mail it to me right now.

We got a flier from some model chick thing about this game promotion across the street and they said , "Free drinks, open bar". We went there, $7 drinks, lies. Looks like they spent a LOT of money on all the models, WWII equipment, decorations, rented space, ice sculpture and 100" plasmas, it would have been nice to get a drink ticket so they were at least not lying to me. The game they were promo-ing? Oh, WWII. I know we don't have enough games filling THAT gaping genre.

Now we are back at our computers. Concert is in an hour. Lee (Earenhylle) is here and said MC Frontalot is hanging out in his room tonight after the show, so we'll see.

I am determined to stay up late tonight so I am waiting for my second wind.

-Aaron

PAX:Day 1

Well, the first four hours were really adventures in lines. We made the best of it though with various hand-helds, pictochat involving phallic drawings and conversations with far more geek cred than me. We even fit in a full game of Warcraft 3 which was quite thrilling! My opponents were very kind players and it was great to be able to do that in the middle of the doldrum of the waiting.

After finally being able to set up our computers we floated around the exhibit hall which was excellent. I would imagine in an exhibit hall like E3 it is likely more shill and shwag, but here you really felt like they were there to let you play. Things like demoing a TCC and letting you keep a whole deck of the cards. It was neat! I also got a beta key from a developer for Pirates of the Burning Seas which I have wanted to beta forever. Quite excited about that!

After that, we saw the keynote speech by Wil Wheaton. This was one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard. He wove a story of his experience of his childhood with games into all of the troubles and concerns in the modern day concerning video games. Concerns like anti-social behavior and violence which contradict the experiences we have all had with games. He also had some choice words about people who play online games and act like dicks. Throughout the entire speech he made hundreds of well placed references to gaming experiences and our geek culture at large and tied it all together in such a way that it made me feel proud to be a gamer. That guy is fucking GOOD!

There was a Q&A with Jerry and Mike that was really funny. Some good questions and some silly ones. There was a really odd moment when this guy, who must have been really stoned, was accusing them of something and then remembered that he had not asked them a question. Bewildering. Then they had a surprise speaker, Uwe Boll. Lots of boos and everything. It was really embarrassing for me to see half the auditorium get up and leave, half of those left ridiculing him. I really thought it took brass balls to fly from Germany to stand in front of that. Very few people had genuine questions about how he planned to do better movies in the future and he did well to answer them. Also, the clips of his newest movie "Postal" didn't look terrible. Maybe a little editing but I thought some of the jokes were good.

Right now I am hanging with my computer, might play a lil StarCraft and then head down for some dinner before the concert. Till next post!

-Aaron

PAX tomorrow

I leave in 30 minutes to go to PAX. I'm really excited. I think my head is about to esplode. Did you know the convention center is going to be open Friday and Saturday till 3am? That's pretty cool. It's the biggest LAN party on the planet! I am anticipating a lot of StarCraft games going on due to the recent announcement of StarCraft 2. I am also looking forward to some good MTG games and some board games like Puerto Rico.

Also, Wil Freaking Wheaton will be there. Also a bunch of nerd bands making nerd music about nerd thins which should be pretty cool as long as it doesn't get too crowded.

I plan to be blogging throughout the expo so if you are interested in living vicariously through me, or you are stalking me, you should check out my blog every once in a while this weekend.

-Aaron

Update on the drive-in

We went to the drive-in again recently. Here is the word on the street. Next Summer will be the earliest it could be gone, pending some due diligence of paperwork and whatnot. That's pretty good news, I thought we only had three months!

We saw the new Harry Potter movie and The Simpsons Movie I enjoyed them both a lot, and the "extended fig leaf" gag in the Simpsons will live as an immortal would as the absolute height of penis jokes.

I am also reading the new Harry Potter book. I remember I ran out of gas once and this lady picked me up and took me to get the gas. She had just bought probably the third book in the series and it was beside her in the car. She started driving really slow to talk to me about it. I thought she was a crazy cat lady for wanting to tell me about a children's book. I later learned that I was the dumb-ass for not reading it. It is the best fantasy fiction since Lord of the Rings and that is no boast. I'm almost sad to see the series come to a close.

In other news, this is the funniest thing I have seen for a while.

-Aaron

At the drive-in

I thought I would write about my memories of the Sky View Drive-In. It is a place that holds many fond memories for me. Food, laughter, sleepiness and being close to my family.

We used to go there often as kids. I remember the favorite food for us was to go to Erik's Deli and get lasagna. We would all pile up in the van, grab dinner and head off to the drive-in. My dad would be meticulous about van angle as we all had to see the screen from the seats. After settling down there would be a brief run to the snack bar which at the time was inside with some arcade games that I used to yearn to play even though I was never allowed to. Probably just as well as we had a movie to watch. Then the movie would start. To me it was the most fantastic screen I could watch. It was bigger than life!

During the movie there would of course be several routines. First and foremost was the windshield cleaning. We would all helpfully point out all the streaks to our parents until the windshield was sufficiently transparent. Then there was the speaker adjustment. The sound came from these old heavy aluminum speakers that you hung inside your window. They worked maybe half the time which would require a vehicle re-placement on failure. I was always afraid that the window would break from those big heavy things. Then of course if the windows fogged up the defroster and/or window roll-downs would happen.

In the middle of the two movies they had an intermission film they would play with this wonderful song. The whole family would chime in on the tune while anthropomorphic snacks and soft drinks would waltz about on the big screen. When I was older I learned to appreciate one of the most hilarious images from that clip which was a hot dog wiener doing back flips in some sauce for a bun who reluctantly let the wiener into its inviting fold after a sufficient number of slathers. See the whole thing here!



By the end of the second movie my sister and I would usually be conked out in the back of the van. I remember that even being coaxed out of that contented slumber and dragged to our beds was something that was strangely pleasant and comforting.

I would say that the movies themselves were not the memorable parts of the experience as I cannot remember much about actually watching them. Perhaps that is telling in that the memorable things about the drive-in are the things involving who you are with. You are not allowed to have those experiences very much in an indoor theater because of the expectation of library behavior.

Recently we went to the drive-in to watch a couple of movies and we were surprised to find that the people there were actually much more pleasant and polite than in an indoor theater. In these days with cell phones and a general decline in etiquette, I really dislike the indoor theater experience. It was wholly refreshing! Much to our dismay, however, we found out that the Sky View Drive-In is about to go the way of the Dodo. I think this is pretty sad, but I doubt there is anything we could do to save it. My friends and I have instead decided to honor it by not going to any indoor theaters and try to go to the drive-in as much as possible until it is gone.

My thanks go out to the Sky View Drive-In for keeping it alive for so long and to my friends and family for the memories I have garnered there.

-Aaron

Unicorn Chaser

My friend Justin showed me this video. I thought it was a good chance to explain something called a "Unicorn Chaser". When you show someone a picture of something gross or disturbing, dare I say goatse-esque, you should follow it up with a picture of a unicorn to make them feel better. Thus ends our tutorial. Please enjoy our feature presentation.



-Aaron

Two things

First: A while ago I noticed some of the traffic announcement signs saying "Click it or Ticket". Now, I had no freaking idea what they were talking about until I saw a TV commercial indicating that this was their new seatbelt crackdown campaign. Apparently I was not the only one that thought this slogan was difficult to understand. They have since changed it to "OBEY SEAT BELT LAWS". Which sure gets the point across in a really scary way. They have gone from obscure to Orwell.

Second: One of the most coincidental things happened yesterday when we went to lunch and Jackie said, "Birds are weird," which is the title of a comic book I had bought ten minutes prior. Either she saw the title of the book or I'm about to be struck by lightning.

-Aaron

Fur and Loathing

I would like to report that Lush Party 8 was a success! It was unbelievable how much fun we all had.

Right now I am a little stressed. Days are full of work, work, work and I am continuing my tradition of being a hermit. July 4th is coming up, I am sure that means I will have an opportunity to see my mom on her birthday. Yay!

So you might be wondering about the panda. Well here it is, a compelling question that I would like each and everyone who visits this blog to pipe up on. First, read this... Okay good. Now if you were a furry, let's say you were forced to be a furry for a day, which animal would you be? Not just your favorite animal; which animal costume would you feel attractive in? Okay, everyone leave a blog comment!

-Aaron

Let's do some gaming!

Lot of news coming at you in this post.

First off, my boss (recently promoted) Dan Yuen is going away to China to adopt a baby girl. In his absence I'll be all alone in support for a few weeks. To relieve the inevitable stress I might incur from this he bought me Mario Party 8 for the Wii. I have been raving about it for a while so I am ultra stoked to get it. Mike and Jackie have decided to purchase a couple Wiimotes so we can all play together. This is one of the coolest things a boss has ever done for me, thanks Dan! One would say my attraction to this game is not altogether virtuous however. One would go as far as to say it is in fact quite nefarious! You see, anything can be turned into a drinking game, but this game I am quite convinced was designed specifically with that in mind.

Rules:

4 drinks = 1 beer, 1 shot, 1 cocktail or 1 glass of wine.

1) After every mini game, whoever ends without a crown on their head drinks.
2) At the end of the full game, the winner takes 4 drinks.
3) At the end of the full game, the player in last place makes a rule that will carry into all subsequent full games (rule cannot be player specific and is limited to an outcome of 1 drink).

Our first game is this coming Saturday!

Next weekend we are playing D&D: Shinies and Furries. I have the lore for multiple plot lines mapped out and need to draw up some dungeons and such, but overall I am much more confident of the game and the direction. Very happy to be doing it.

PAX is in two months. Plane tickets and hotel rooms have been secured, time has been taken off, we are ready to rock.

In other news, the garden is doing great! Nothing is dead! Woot!

-Aaron

Green Thumb Mark II

My dad came over and helped me with the garden. It seems that my previous failed attempt made him wish he could impart that knowledge on to his progeny. Well, I sure am glad he did! Going over the myriad of reasons why I was only able to produce vibrant weeds, we decided on an encapsulated solution. Cut wine barrels and a wood planter would serve to eliminate the threat of gophers, weeds and bad soil.



The above picture is a little blurry but I am too lazy to upload a new one. Suffice to say the vision is fantastic in person. Advantages of this setup:

- It is mobile. We drilled some holes and added some rope handles so it can be transported anywhere!
- It is attractive. Barrels are rad!
- It is not contaminated by weed filled soil and hungry gophers. This prevents me from going into Bill Murray Caddy Shack mode.

Freakin' awesome! Also, it was really well timed as I had been recently inspired by Justin's vast three-tiered garden he planted in the middle of the Los Angeles desert.



So, you may or may want to know what we planted. Here you go:

- Roma tomatoes
- San Francisco Fog tomatoes
- Habanero peppers
- Red chili peppers
- Fairy tale eggplant
- Sweet orange bell peppers
- Yellow bell peppers
- Chives
- Cilantro
- Italian parsley
- Sweet basil
- Sweet marjoram (my favorite herb!)



I would like to thank my dad for this, his generous contributions to the project made it all possible. He showed me how to plant them, how to water them and I really learned a lot. I have high hopes and I really do hope I can turn my brown thumb green this time around.

In other news, not so far removed, my Dad tried the Wii. We played golf, we played tennis and we bowled. It is really amazing to see someone new to games pick this up and just fall right into it like it is natural. Totally unaware of the amount of technology, software and hardware it takes to make something like this work and just feeling like, "This is a game I can play!" It is the first time I have ever see my dad enjoy playing a video game since him and I played Rad Racer on my 8-bit together. Some people wonder why I am a Nintendo Fan Boi and I can definitively tell you it is for this very reason. I rarely enjoy games that I play for myself as much as I enjoy playing games with others. It was a privilege to be able to do that with my dad.

-Aaron

I'm seriously you guys

If you have a phone and have not given me your number in the last week, please mail me at aaron@aaronrhodes.org or text message me with who you are so I can add you to my phone. Otherwise I get a phone call from some number I don't know and I don't answer. I know, I know, I don't answer anyway, but I'll try harder. Anyway, yeah! Gimme your number!

-Aaron

Gradumacated

A couple of weekends ago I mentioned that I was going to my good friend Justin's graduation party. I was remiss in my duties to neglect to post about it. We had a lot of fun. There was a bit of work involved, getting lots of beverages and setting up and cleaning and making Jell-O shooters but it all paid off in the end when the live band fired up and the cocktails began to flow. There were two distinct types of people there: The youngins and the elders. Now I thought there would be a clear separation of partying methods as well, until I saw the somewhat elderly woman sitting next to me shoot a glass of tequila. Fantastic! The band, who shall forever more be named "Squirrel Eaters", gave out a binder full of songs we could select and they re-created them with flawless elegance. The evening wound down to a poker game that I did apply a modest amount of skill to. Clearly they underestimated the guy playing Puzzle Quest on his DS while tossing cards around with dis-interest. Little did they know it was my only chance to not have a tell.

The following day we went to someplace called "The Laguna" and ate at a wonderful Belgian restaurant. There was an art festival going on at the time so we got to duck into some art shops (this place was littered with more galleries than Carmel) in between stops at the various restaurants and breweries. All in all a wonderful night. Also, nobody there had ever seen dyed hair. I have a particularly colorful 'do' right now so the responses from passer-byes ranged from asking to take a picture to bouncy girls flashing me a smile and a wave. There should be some pictures forthcoming including me giving Justin a ride on my shoulders. Whee! I also introduced Justin to the wonders of a 16-year-old Lagavulin which surely will be a detriment to him financially in the future.

Current games:

Ninja Spirit - Virtual Console
Act Raiser - Virtual Console
Etrian Odessey - Nintendo DS
And of course World of Warcraft, now level 70

-Aaron

Cell Phones are Not Water Resistant

I am well aware that cell phones are not water resistant, I just think that maybe they should be and I am voicing my protest by putting them through the washing machine every year or so. I also know that I should keep my phone numbers in a place other than my water vulnerability protesting mechanism, but then it wouldn't really have that meaningful oomph! So, if you are reading this it probably means I lost your phone number. If you could please email it to me at aaron@aaronrhodes.org that would be super.

-Aaron

Take the Aaron quiz

!

/Sigh...

So after nearly a year of not hearing from StalkerGirl she contacted me on MySpace. I debated writing about it or not but I figured that one of two scenarios are possible: Either I am over-reacting, as she maintains, and there is no stalking going on at all ... or she has my website on her RSS reader subscriptions and checks it daily. Which leads to two possible outcomes: I hear nothing (due to her not reading it or not wanting to confirm that she reads it), or she posts a batshit crazy comment, sends an email, MySpace message or whatnot telling me she's not stalking me and just typed in the URL of my site by accident. I am taking bets right now.

So she asked me if she could put a character named 'Fendi' in her book that she is writing. I guess this is my only chance to be the protagonist in a fanfic novel and who am I to restrict free speech. So whatever. The bad side-effect was that since she has messaged me I have started having nightmares again. I had one where she was wearing Brian's skin to infiltrate a road trip with me. Then I had another one where I tried to run away but she proceeded to suffocate me with a pillow while yelling, "If I can't have you nobody will!"

Last time I heard about her a friend of mine was contacted by her and told she was living in Santa Cruz at which point I called the county office inquiring about a temporary restraining order. The county told me to call the Women's Crisis Center for information. I called the Women's Crisis Center and they hung up on me because I am male. That was a good feeling.

Well at any rate, after declining her friend request I have not heard back so hopefully this will be the last time (I'm not holding my breath).

In other news I am going to Riverside to go to Justin's graduation party. Congrats Justin on getting that degree! I am sure the party will consist of a bunch of people talking about their pets over cups of tea. Pretty tame. Yup.

-Aaron

If I could be a super hero, I would be Out Of Debt Guy

In the past week I have been plagued by financial troubles. A combination of having to replace brakes and a really silly amount of overdraft charges led me to the conclusion that an emergency fund isn't just for kids anymore. Of course I wouldn't take the opportunity for granted! I returned the parts I had left over from the failed silly string hand cannon project and took the $17.96 to Safeway and got a sack of potatoes, some carrots, celery, onions, chicken thighs, and cabbage and lived off it for 2 weeks. That was awfully fun! A good thing I had World of Warcraft to keep me busy along with some other healthy distractions.

I mentioned last post that I decided to go with a Comcast package. Now if you have ever heard "Comcast" and "shit" used in the same sentence, I think you might be in the majority. I thought canceling the TiVo and taking the Comcast DVR service would be a good plan. First off they quoted me $70 a month on the phone for the digital cable + internet + DVR. They come and install it and activate it and the installation guy asks, "Did you ask for the Spanish package?" Danger Will Robinson, danger! So I call Comcast to get it straightened out and they kindly inform me that the English package would cost a cool $95 a month. Mind you, the word "Spanish" was never once spoken on the initial quote. Now, I don't really know what to think of this. Surely the Spanish package includes less channels and would therefore be less money so I guess that could justify the cost difference, but I was told a different number *after* it was installed. That's just not cool. So I haggle them down to $86 a month. Now on to the DVR. I thought TiVo and the Comcast DVR would be at least comparable. It was not. The Comcast DVR service is shit. There, now you have definitely heard those words together in a sentence. Lucky for me, TiVo gave me the option of getting a month free while I decided and if I did come back they'd give me their service for $7 a month. So I took that offer. Dumped the Comcast DVR and took the TiVo, costs me the same (since Comcast only gave me a $7 price drop for losing the DVR service) but the TiVo is back in its rightful place on the throne of selective viewing goodness.

I also switched my Netflix service for the Blockbuster Online service. This for a couple reasons. The first is that I dislike how Netflix throttles your service if you rent too many movies too fast. Second is because I have a Blockbuster one block away and if you turn your mailed DVDs in to the store instead of the mail you get a free rental from the store for each one, and they *still* send you the movies on your online queue. That's working out great!

On a sad note, for the third time I decided to test the water resistance of my cell phone. This one was no more up to the task than the last ones. Poseidon, curse you to Hades! I had to call Verizon to get a new phone for a $50 replacement cost (if you are wondering about how much insurance costs, it's $5 a month plus $50 to replace the phone, so it is in no way worth it). I was also able to downgrade my service to a cheaper one with less minutes because the service representative said I talk for an average of 10 minutes a month. Yeah, you heard me. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah... Okay, moving on.

Currently I am reading Don Quixote, a book that my sister got for me for my birthday a couple years ago. It's an interesting book so far. This senile old Mexican man dresses up in some old armor and runs around trying to do knightly deeds that are quite mis-guided. I am guessing at the finale of the book being either where he actually becomes a hero to the people through his insanity-induced deeds or it ends in self-inflicted pain and tragedy. I am guessing the latter because nobody cites a book as being a famous classic without people winding up in an unpleasant end. Of course I would wish for the former...

As for my debt, I have paid off one credit card and reduced the interest rate on the other by half! Yay! So at least my efforts putting me near bankruptcy are having some impact on my overall negative worth.

So this last weekend was wonderful. My Mom and Doug came over with stuff to make Tacos and we watched Borat. We had a great time! The new used $60 couch worked out great, it makes the place a much more comfortable place to hang out. I'm really happy to finally be comfortable inviting people over. On a side note, if you ever expel 24 cans worth of silly string within the confines of a studio space and you have a linoleum floor, use some hot water to get the silly string up from the linoleum and you will eventually be mostly cleaned up. Mostly... Also, my Mom and Doug did me a wonderful favor while they were visiting, on top of bringing taco stuff and fruit and everything. It was a very touching and unprecedented event that I am very grateful for. Thank you both very much.

The rest of the weekend was spent playing Wii and Alhambra with Mike, Jackie, Randall and Vinny and attempting to create the worst headache ever invented.

In other news, Jeff Fredrick's son Andreas invited me to role-play on his site. It's a novel idea. You create a character based on an anime or manga character and play them as a character. If anyone is inclined, I am playing the honorable Usagi Yojimbo.

-Aaron

Why DRM doesn't work

A hacker named Arnezami one day got angry because a commercial copy of a HD-DVD movie that che legally purchased would not play on chez HD-DVD player due to the AACS DRM. Well che in the process of hacking the DRM found the processing code that would allow access to play every HD-DVD and BluRay disk made. Posting this key on Doom9 was immediately followed by a Cease and Desist letter from AACS. I certainly would have guessed this, it was certainly inevitable from a historic standpoint. These Cease and Desists followed this 16 digit number around the internet, but of course not as fast as it was spreading and the lawyers chasing it only made it hotter news, and eventually a whole meme. So the news is out, the DRM that took years to create was cracked in weeks due to the DRM causing a problem for a paying consumer. Okay, guess what guys, this is why DRM will not work. You will never ever be able to keep people who want to steal your stuff from stealing your stuff, that is your base loss margin and they were people that would have rather not had your product than pay a single penny for it so it really never was a loss. The secret is to make it harder to steal it than not steal. As soon as you make it painful for lawful consumers, you will lose a huge percentage of those consumers who will decide to steal it instead just out of sheer frustration, which increases your loss margin. If you were smart, you'd charge for it, but actually let your consumers own it hassle free at that point. That's how you'll reel those profits into your greedy little hands, you actually ... you know ... play nice and divert all those years spent fruitlessly trying to deter thieves into making your consumers happier. Sounds simple huh?

-Aaron

Sofa so good

So I re-arranged my room and got a great couch on craigslist for $60. Awesome! Now my place is much friendlier for people to come over. I know I had grand plans about building a couch but as it turns out, it's pretty hard. It's like starting out leatherworking by making a saddle. I will instead make a computer chair as my first seating furniture project.

Lately I have had lots of entertaining distractions at my house so I am super stoked to just hang out there like a hermit. Funny how I would have to degrade my entertainment quotient to force me to be sociable. So in no particular order, my latest distractions:

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists
Puzzle Quest
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
Blockbuster Online ( replaced Netflix with this because I can walk the return envelopes to the Blockbuster down the street for free movies)
Penny Arcade Volume 3: The Warsun Prophecies
Paper Mario

In other news, did you know there is World of Warcraft porn? Now you do (NSFW).

-Aaron
260
Level 62