Wednesday, July 30, 2008

And people leave

Both Rav and Liza are leaving for NYC soon. Rav sent out a email of "small talk we would have made" with all his basic information, and Liza sent out a email saying "these are things you don't need to ask me because I'm tired of answering them". Both emails cite questions I've asked. I am such a typical, uncreative friend. Instead of the conversation being: "I'm going to NYC." "Oh, where are you going to live?" I should have said something more interesting. "I'm going to NYC." "Your mom is going to NYC!" No, no, that's too cynical and generic. I think I just don't have anything unique to contribute on a conversation about NYC. Well, once I went with my sister to a feminism art exhibit and saw some hardcore pornographic exhibits. It was interesting. No good advice here though, or good questions either apparently. What do you call someone who is neither knowledgable nor effective at obtaining knowledge? Dull might an appropriate word.

Every few months there's some jackass at work who thinks he's a big shot and wants to conduct a telephone interview with his phone on speakerphone. If Spittle was still around, I'd try to get his cooperation to walk by this guy's office while having a loud, inappropriate argument. Or we could just yell down the hall at each other. Seriously, how much crap are you juggling with your hands that you can't manage to hold onto the phone and save the rest of us a headache.

Tonight is Banjolina Jolie at Solly's! I'm happy that it's so close to my apartment this time.

(we all get a mass-email about this young-ish blond lady, who was brought in to advise management, is leaving the office to be a housemom for her new kid)
co-worker: I saw that lady at the Plaza Gourmet getting lunch one time, and she totally wanted me.
me: Yeah?
co-worker: She pinched my ass in the line. And then told me to get back to work.
me: Sexy.
co-worker: It was pretty hot.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

when it's time to party

I can't really talk much now because I have to work, but I was just sitting here in my office nursing a hangover, drinking coffee, and thinking this this monitor is way too big. It hurts my eyes just looking at it. Then I was wondering if there's ever been a study done comparing screen size to hangover headache intensity, and I found this pretty funny video. I like the quotes in the air when he saids "dual". It looks like he's for real (wikipedia says so anyway), it's not a satire of a geek like I was thinking.

Last night I went to my old officemate's housewarming party. We did some strange shots or fruity vodka dropped into redbull, which worked to wake me up for being social. And I tried to play some videogame where you sing into a mic and try to hit the right notes. I tried to sing "All the Small Things" and got my ass kicked by a girl. Sad because that song is sung by a man. Then there was a going away party for Liza, and I saw Shapanka and Maggie who had flown in, and Sonya who lives around here but I never see her. It was a lot of fun, though I stayed out too late and drank too much. Working today is going to be a challenge.

Captain Dwayne Hernandez: There's a man...he is perhaps Turkish. He is attacking you. In his left hand he holds a switchblade, in his right hand he is holding a plastic comb. You have one bullet in your revolver and you don't want to kill him. Where do you shoot?
Officer Garcia: Right in the nuts.

Friday, July 25, 2008

catching up

After Rachel's reminder, here is a blog update. Has it really been almost a month? Wow. I'm pretty busy this week, but I'll write something brief here.

My sister's wedding was fun. There was some worry that I would walk my grandfather to the front of the church but forget that I had to return to escort my mother to the front also. This would have ground the whole wedding to a halt as people panicked and tried to figure out how my mother could get to the front. But I remembered, and everything went off without a hitch. It was a pleasant reception, I talked to my relatives and a lot of family friends from home that I hadn't seen in a long time. They had this weird cucumber water, that wasn't my favorite. I took some pretty good photos on my phone, maybe I'll post them sometime (I have a few cousins on facebook who might be interested). I went out a couple times with one hs friend and I kicked my hs friend Dan's ass at tekken one night. It was a busy trip, like all wedding trips, but fun.

There was a small party at Eric's basement on my birthday and all sorts of people that I randomly know from different places showed up. All that was missing was someone from high school and the party would have been like a chronological record of my friends. My cousin and his wife showed up, and Chris Toombs and Leslie and a few other people that I don't see very often. They came in waves too, which was good because Eric's place wasn't big enough for everyone at once.

Rachel's birthday was yesterday, but she had a party last saturday for it, and I showed up there instead of to the other Joe Schell's birthday in Pennsylvania. I was really considering going to the other Joe Schell's, and I probably would have if it didn't mean skipping Rachel's party and a whole bunch of driving. But Rachel's was fun. Rocket bar is like 3 times as big as it was last year, which was surprising because it's in a basement. And Kate kicked my ass at skiball. I had proposed a doller per point difference before we played (because she was all cocky), but I'm glad I withdrew that. I would have owed her like $80. And I talked to Katie Tilly and Julie for a little while. And Elspeth was friendly, like she is about half the times I've talked to her. All in all it was a great party and I was feeling uncomfortable about going (like I often do before Rachel's parties) but I'm glad I did.

Last night I stayed up all night working at a computer game, so it's kinda screwing me today. Oh, I watched this old Sylvester Stalone movie called F.I.S.T. which sounds like a movie about brawling, but it's really a movie about the Teamsters Union's rise to power. It was pretty good, surprisingly. Stallone can be a good actor when the writing requires it.

I guess it's back to work for me.

(I'm walking down the street carrying two 18-packs of Miller lite for my birthday party)
street guy: Hey, where's the party?
me: Umm, there is no party. My girlfriend's an alcoholic.
street guy: Oh. I'm sorry.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

found

I just found a couple older versions of the blog on my computer at work here. I have the really old versions (from college) on cd, and most of the post-college, pre-blogspot pages on my laptop, but there are a few not on the laptop that I had thought were lost forever. The record is complete again. No, you don't get to see any of them.

Wednesday I fly to California for my sister Irene's wedding and I'll be back on the following Wednesday. I don't have much vacation time, so I'm going to be working 12 hour days until I leave, and then again when I get back. Probably won't be much blog posting until after next week. My subway and coffee diet is working pretty well. I should be okay in the suit.

Lately I've downloaded LackeyCCG, which is a computer interface for collectable card games, and been thinking about playing a little VTES or MTG again. It's nerdy but it's free! And kinda interesting when you have all these thousands of cards to play with. Yes, this blog just gained several levels of nerdiness. I'll try not to mention it again, don't worry.

(Kate is frustrated over trying to find a birthday present for me)
me: I'm hard to shop for. My cousins usually complain about drawing my name out of the hat.
Kate: What does that mean?
me: The hat for the gift exchange at Christmas.
Kate: Lucky me.
me: Lucky you?
Kate: Lucky that I'm your girlfriend. I get to draw your name every f-ing Christmas.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I was looking through the wii NES console games on wikipedia today because they're all $5. All except the original teenage mutant ninja turtles game, which is $6 for some reason.

I think TMNT was the first NES game I owned, and boy was it difficult. I could pass the swimming level without too much of a problem, and then the giant robot mouser boss was easy, but I think I beat the hideout level only once, and the technodrome was impossible. If you've beaten this game without cheating with codes or game genies, you're a better man than I.

I found a review of the DOS port of the game. The game was entirely re-done for DOS with different graphics and slight updates (you can't hide between the mouser's eyes anymore), and also, this one jump that the reviewer was extremely frustrated to discover (DOS screenshot on the left, NES screenshot on the right). On the NES you have lightly tap the jump button otherwise you get knocked into the water. I'm not sure what you'd do with that jump in DOS.

[Image unfortunately removed because the website got all bitchy about its bandwidth. But you can see the review and images here.]

I think I'm going to buy the new wii Dr Mario. I need to practice because Kate is way better than me.

(I'm thinking about my driving out to PA for the other Joe Schell's birthday)
rachel: whose bday in pa?
joe: the other joe schell
rachel: lol
rachel: you guys chat?
joe: not regularly
joe: eric thinks it's creepy, but it's not!
rachel: um yeah eric is right
joe: no no, it's totally normal
rachel: some girl just messaged me on facebook "hey my sister is rachel safran too"
rachel: i didnt write back
rachel: LET ALONE DRIVE TO PA AND MEET HER

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

lazy.. and fat.

Decided to skip on the tailoring. So long as I don't get any fatter in the next week, I should be okay in this suit. I'm thinking of doing a litlte exercising just to be certain.. And not eating this entire cake that I bought at whole foods. Still fitting into the suit by Kate's brother's wedding at the end of the month is the bigger question. If only there was a Arthur M Rosenburg around here, I could get another nice suit, but it appears they died out sometime in the 60's in New Haven.

Also, Happy Birthday to Dave! Though I don't think he reads this. But if you know him then send him a Happy Birthday message.

(from an article about Ashton Kutcher's history in Hollywood, talking about the show "punk'd")
At the beginning of each episode, he gives a cocky to-camera address, revealing the vile, sniggering man-child behind the vile, sniggering man-child, and proving that success had not just gone to his head, but it was beginning to seep gelatinously from his eyeball cavities.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Busy weekend

Busy weekend. Kate visited, which was fun as always. She was sick so we didn't do any drinking, but we went to some Texas/NASA/Bhutan festival on the mall (where I found and claimed some pretty nifty sunglasses that a 10 year old had forgotten on a bench). Mostly we just wandered around Bhutan stuff for a while. We also walked around Columbia Heights and Southern Georgia Avenue a little, because Kate is getting a house out there. It was a warm weekend, not the best for walking around.

We were going to see Wall-e, but imdb.com messed up the movie times (that's the story anyway) and we missed it. We watched the first disc of Weeds (okay show, but not very funny or very exciting otherwise, and I'm not sure why people really like it), the first disc of the Sopranos (again, not really all that funny, and the drama is very slow) and I probably won't watch more of either.

While walking through Columbia Heights, we stopped at Target for tissues and tupperware and I noticed they had a Wii in stock. So I bought it. The tennis is fun. Kate was upset that it can't tell the difference between a full tennis swing and a wrist swing. I do a little better than her when she does full swings and I move my arm as little as possible. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't ask you for an exact screen size, it just kinda guesses your screen size based on how far back you're standing. So it thinks my tv is smaller than it is because my couch is like 5 feet from the tv.

According to this site, I need to make a sensor bar that is 3.4 feet long. Shouldn't the sensor bar (which is really just a row of IR LEDs) be smaller, so that it thinks I'm further away than I am? I'll have to research this a little more.

Also I need to find a tailor for a suit this week. Somehow I've grown about an inch fatter since I last wore my suit. I need to start exercising.

(about the game Mass Effect)
"They managed to get a fairly diverse cast of actors to work on the game, and the main female character (thankfully) doesn't sound like a dumbshit bimbo like every other game in history. The voice modulation on certain alien species is fairly well done, and makes them sound different but not absurd. Of course, the actors are limited by the writing; no matter how well you say 'I think she's the right person to save the galaxy.' it's going to sound stupid."