Remember when I said Rihanna couldn't fight the monster? Apparently the monster's name was Chris Brown. BAZING

Angel Main Theme - the Sanctuary Extended Remix is finally Ringtone Compatible on iTunes. Booyah.

A lady at work told me to try something called a Neti pot. Basically it's like a wee little watering can you put up your nose and it comes out the other end. Sexy. I don't think I treated the water just properly, but it was fairly effective considering what a congested mess I've been since Friday.

( Approaching the twilight of Twilight )

Speaking of undead and books, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a reality. Tear.

This weekend I took the train to Washington DC to see the Matt, my first time traveling across a significant distance alone. I departed from the station in Trenton New Jersey and arrived in Union Station in Washington DC about two and a half hours later. The most remarkable thing about this was its simplicity, although the prices can vary pretty wildly depending on when you want to go.

One thing that's definitely better in the cities than in the suburbs is the women. I swear that an extremly particular atom bomb must have hit around my house because I don't even see females of a compatible age (roughly 18-24) on a daily basis anymore even when I do go out, just as Matt described it "High schoolers... and old people". Furthermore, I had a weird incidence of culture shock while passing a woman in a black dress with these bizarre squared-off ruffles. It didn't look like it was for a formal event, just the kind of dress one spends way too much on because they want us all to know that they're fashion-minded. The closest they get to accessorizing around these parts is the same damn Tina Fey glasses as everybody else!

Fun Fact: I was going to call these glasses She's All That glasses, but they're apparently a different style altogether. Take that, self!

Matt and I visited a number of fascinating places. Last time, we visited the Lincoln Memorial. This time we visited the monuments of Jefferson, home to the most badass quote on a presidential monument, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which had been updated since I had last visited it in eighth grade. Native American Museum We also went to the Native American Museum, but that was just an excuse to eat yummy buffalo sandwiches.

The most pleasant surprise of the trip was that the Jim Henson Legacy Exhibit was in town. I wish we were allowed to take pictures because among other things we saw numerous original storyboards by Henson, pieces from those two eighties movies with puppets I can't tell apart (Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal), actual muppets used on the shows of Bert and Ernie, Kermit, Rowlf, and the Mahna Mahnas. Yes, we saw the freaking Mahna Mahnas. The one unfortunate thing is that despite the fact that the exhibit was refreshingly Elmo free as he rose to prominence after Henson's passing, the gift store was chock full of the little red bastard. Also an aside for Matt, this is the book that I own. The book they had was called It's Not Easy Being Green.

As for food, Friday night we ate at Five Guys. Five Guys is probably best described as the ultimate guilty pleasure with obscenely delicious burgers and fries all coated with a lethal amount of grease. Needless to say, despite taking the metro to get there, we had to walk back. Saturday night we ate at Meiwah the top rated Chinese restaurant in Washington DC. This place was awesome. They had a wall full of pictures of the owner with various famous customers and these giant doors that look like they belong in some sort of film with about a dozen swordfights in it. Despite all that, the place was surprisingly informal and reasonably priced considering the quality of our meals. I had the crispy beef special, and with the tea and everything I was able to leave a $20. I would definitely go there again.

On the pop culture front, Matt began introducing me to Gurren Lagann. Considering everything I've heard about this show on TVtropes (mostly Kamina fanboying) I've been meaning to watch it for some time now, and so far I've been enjoying it. The animation style is so bizarre it's great. Many of the fights have a surreal Looney Tunes style to them, especially with Simon's stubby little robot Lagann. Walking back on Saturday night, Matt and I were playing the "What Angel characters people are" game and getting shockingly in-depth. I think we found someone for everybody who's been in the opening credits except for Doyle, and even some of the secondary one-off characters.

And that's my weekend.

I was at the shore from Wednesday morning to Friday afternoon. In the past we've stayed from Monday to Friday, but with work and the fact my dad doesn't really enjoy the shore very much, we each stayed only three days to my mom's five. Frankly, I found two-and-a-half to three days to be too short. There really isn't much to report; I went in the water during the day and got bored around the house at night. Unfortunately, we had a health scare with my grandfather the day after which brought us back, but everything is fine now as it turned out to be one of those things that's a "scare" only when you're in your 80s.

Matt and I saw Tropic Thunder on Sunday. It was a good time and I really heart Stiller and company. I mean, how many movies are hilarious before the film actually starts? However, I think the level of comic violence and R-rated dialog will keep it from reaching that Zoolander/Knight's Tale level of "guess what I watched three times this month on cable" viewing ubiquity, if only because it will be so watered down for TV. Also, I've been wondering if someone else would have been better in Ben Stiller's role. Most of the characters fall into one of two distinct camps: flawed and human yet funny characters where the actor mercilessly pokes at himself and his peers (Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. Oh my God, Robert Downey Jr.) or so ludicrously overblown that they have to be seen to be believed (Matthew Mcconaughey or... well, go see it if you want to know). Well, there's Plot Boy too, but he's just there to play straight man and move the plot along. Stiller's character was silly but not over the top ridiculous, but unlike the other leads, he isn't an action star, even though he had some scary muscle definitions in a few shots. IMDB doesn't have any notes like "X was originally considered for the role", but I'm wondering if watching someone like Bruce Willis go through the same wringer would have actually actually been funnier.

I have a new addiction: Rune Factory: a Fantasy Harvest Moon. One part farming, one part dungeon exploring plus relationship building, fishing, and other wacky fun. So far, the game's done a good job of integrating the two major elements, as each aspect of your life basically opens the door in another aspect.

D&D Wiki fun: Dean updated Osric some more. The story is improving, but the final paragraph is more or less code for "I want a spotlight too guys!". Will, wasn't Richtor his overly privileged knight from that awful evil game, and have we heard of this consort before? Wait, no, I just got it. Obvious plot twist is obvious. Also, I can't help but giggle at the fact that apparently he's known as the fallen dictator Osric the Homeless

[To the theme of Joxer the Mighty]

Osric the Homeless
Battles through the abyss
Never seems to act amiss
With Tesa as his sidekick
Making all her allies sick
Riding steeds and righting wrongs
Being stoic all day long
He's Osric—he's Osric the Homeless!
Oohhhhhh—
He's Osric the Homeless
He's never been kissed
Everybody fears him
'Cause he acts really grim
Osric—
Osric the Homeless!

Also, alignment!? I'm the @#$ $%^& Batman!

This is going to sounds dumb, but I really miss Who Wants to be a Superhero. I feel like not having it this year was actually a factor as to why this summer has been somewhat lacking. I'm pretty much over my other summer television obsession, America's Got Talent. Instead, I amuse myself with observations I find at work like this:

“I credit our amazing team for not only working hard to sell ETS products, but for building relationships with our customers to ensure that those products are a good match for their educational needs,” says Internal Sales Manager Frank Miller.

He should know. He is the G@# D$%^ Batman.

I had a 4.0 semester! *confetti* Of course I only had one class. Perhaps someone should defend my case. But who!? To celebrate, I declare a link post. Anti-Shurtugal has explained to me the explicitly how and why to hate the Inheritance Trilogy. However, Arya is very pretty. Also, for my roleplaying crowd, I'm sure you've noticed that the Magic Item Compendium is a pain in the butt to search, but this index may be of some use. Too bad it's only organized by names.

Two references in one header. Bam.

The end of Research Methods is actually extremely close. I'm as good as done on the final paper, and we're reviewing for the final exam Monday. It's kind of sad when you start learning statistics how things in articles just don't add up. Take for instance the article I'm reviewing, Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now. The first statistics don't have a control group or an experiment group except maybe the reader's mental definition of what students should know which is subjective and pretty shaky. When we finally do have two groups, they compare students with educated parents to students that don't have educated parents, which has what to do with teaching to tests? Plus once you calculate it, the literature table isn't even statistically significant, so mathematically speaking there's a noteworthy chance the results are just a fluke, although this might not have been the case had they added more questions. The literature survey practically has half the questions of the history survey.

And on the other brainthinky scale, LJ's featured links led me to a comic journal about video games, mostly Ace Attorney games and this comic! Warning, massive massive Apollo Justice spoilerage.

For my roleplaying friends, I found this wiki that could make searching the Magic Item Compendium easier. I'm building Skeigh's wishlist now that we have actual golds.

( In next week's episode: Grand Papillon-- I mean Skeigh Daetann-- goes shopping! )

[Edit] Will's family has a cake sitting in the basement freezer from Kim's engagement party, and it's shaped like a comma. I was told it was a paisley, but I don't know how that helps the cake's case to be honest. I think it's really a Magatama. Eating the cake will let me see the lies in people's souls.

My subject header comes from episode 30 of Yugioh Abridged. It was just okay by YGO Abridged standards, as Marik's army of Steves has been pretty plain thus far with the exception of Steve the Rare Hunter.

So Matt's back in town, and we were going to have him make a cameo in the 4E game as a Half-Elf Warlock (Half-Elves make for eerily good warlocks actually, take that Tieflings!), but then Zakk got sick. Don't get me wrong, we were all concerned and let him get home to rest in air conditioning. It was later when we found out that this was the second time he got food poisoning from the same meal that it was back to business as usual. I was feeling okay going in, but I didn't have time to see if anything clicked so I'm not out of this "ugh roleplaying" mode just yet. The funny thing is that the statistical/theoretical side doesn't bother me, just the practical application.

This coming week is going to be a bit hectic. In class tonight we're going over a paper due either Friday (said aloud) or this coming Monday (according to the syllabus). Naturally, this is the week people are around to do stuff, the Psych premiere is on, and that little indie picture this summer movie season has practically revolved around is coming out.

My iPhone now has a puzzle game on it called Aurora Feint that's fun albeit a bit simplistic. Like most free puzzle games, this one is about my instinctive hate of small objects of the same color and how I must destroy them whenever three or more get together. I'll show them who's boss! The game touts having RPG elements you unlock, but I don't know how to use any of them so I'm focusing on passive bonuses right now.

Finally some random thoughts and links: the whole Fenrir the wolf story is a cover up, Týr lost his hand because nobody ever taught him how to hold a sword! Who wants to hang Orlando Bloom on their navel!?

I'm in a link sharing kind of mood today. The first is for Will. I thought he'd appreciate this second grade exam.

Matt was showing me links from the next Persona game. It sounds like we're delving into historical and pseudo-historical figures rather than mythological ones to change to shake up the list of Personas this time around. One of the more intriguing ones is female samurai Tomoe Gozen. This in turn lead me to the afternoon burner of a page Japanese Historical People in Popular Culture. Some of the Sengoku Basara 2 artwork is really cool. On the other hand, I have absolutely zero interest in Soul Calibur IV. I think the series has just jerked me around a little too much over the years and this looks like more of the same: more console exclusives, more slutty fanservice characters. I just hope they got the AI issues from SCIII sorted out.

There's this pop star named Katy Perry that really bugs me. She sings that I Kissed a Girl song. The same-sex kissing doesn't bother me so much as her using it as a ploy for attention largely from her boyfriend. Plus, she has another song called Ur So Gay. I'm just glad I'm not the only one who sees the blatant hypocrisy.

In the real world, I went to two parties over the three day weekend. Oddly enough, July 4th was my 'stay in and work' day. Saturday at Laura's was awesome. Heck, even the birthday party half of Dean's birthday party was great. As for the second half, we did that... dice game again. I guess I can BS some opinions about it. What makes this even sadder is that this isn't sarcastically going to lead to a gaming details for once. I really just phoned it in and wanted to go home the whole time.

Also, one random note. I've noticed that more than one person on my Friends List has an icon that makes me skip their posts because it's going to be something iconic to their posting style I tend not to enjoy.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me what sites I frequent on the web. I figure later is better than never so here is what I spent my time viewing in lieu of doing the productive things that normal people do.

First there are the social sites: Livejournal, Facebook, and Myspace. Livejournal, or LJ, is a free blogging site that lets you declare friends, set privacy restrictions, and post to your hearts content. Facebook, or Facebook, is the big social networking site dedicated to letting you build an ever increasing number of layers of defense to hide every detail of yourself from everyone. Hell, now you can even prevent people from seeing what mutual friends you share. I hear next year they're releasing the ultimate line of defense: not getting an account in the first place if you're that worried about privacy! Myspace, or that unintuitive piece of crap, is Facebook for people who have to select "high school degree" from the drop down menu on dating sites.

Yugioh: the Abridged Series is comprised of five-to-seven minute episodes, using video from the original Yugioh and a hilarious (and surprisingly talented) one-man voice track. Each episode is rife with pop culture and Internet fad references as well as references to the many plot holes and cliches of the original Yugioh plot. The sound quality in the first couple episodes is a bit lacking, but it improves. One word of warning: virtually every other abridged series on YouTube is crap... in America.

Zero Punctuation is nearly mainstream at this point, as it debuts on G4TV. It's a weekly video segment where British born, Australian raised Yahtzee mocks video games, often games that are more hype than solid playability. Just a word of warning: Yahtzee has a fondness for cutting profanity so it might not be something you want to play at work, but I put this fact so far down that you've probably already clicked it and now you've been fired.

The Editing Room doesn't update as quickly as some of the other examples, but there's an extensive archive to entertain you if you haven't visited the site before. Unlike the previous recommendations, this is strictly written content and audio-free. It's all your favorite movie scripts, cut down to dialogue that gets right to the point while having fun along the way.

Spamusement is a funny site where they turn silly spam email headlines into funny, poorly drawn pictures. Sadly, the site itself is largely dead, but the Spamusement forum is still largely active.

TV Tropes: Think Wikipedia for all those characters and plots and odd qualities that you see over and over in television shows, movies, video games, etc. and then add those sarcastic little comments you always want to add to a wiki before some ubernerd takes them all down in order to defend his dream of Wikipedia being an authoritative credible source. Careful as they claim, TV Tropes can and will ruin your life.

Finally, watch Psych. I know it's not a web site, but it's that important.

To briefly recap the events of my weekend, my birthday began when I received not one but two birthday cards from Luke. The first was one of those musical cards that played the Star Wars theme that was picked for the music rather than the content. The second was hand-drawn and colored and strangely touching. I was practically welling with tears when I called the little guy, but he couldn't be bothered because he was playing X-Box. I now see why this frustrates the hell out of his great-aunt. I had a half day of work on Friday before my parents and I went to Ruby Tuesdays to spend the free dessert coupon they sent us. I spent the night playing video games with Matt and Will. On Saturday Will threw a party at his house where Matt and I achieved one our life's goals and ordered a Chik Fil A nugget tray. When we went to pick it up the girl working at the register thought she knew someone with my last name and asked if I had a child that went to her high school. I'm not going to go into detail about the party, but I was extremely close to needing to say "Obvious Troll is Obvious" to one of the adults. I'm looking at the June 7th one with a bit of dread now. Finally on Sunday I went to Niki's where I saw her and Angie.

Gift recount:

• CrossworDS from Matt
  
• Branston Pickle and No More Heroes from Will
  
• Rechargeable Wii Batteries from Cricket
  
• Mini Guitar Hero $20, and lunch from Niki and Angie
  
• An Office T-Shirt a book of Carl Jung's Archetypes and Mario Kart Drunk Driving Simulator Wii from my parents

By the way, I got a grand total of 11 Happy Birthday Wall posts (not including Kwon and Nikki's responses to my responses) plus two three belated ones. Matt, I challenge you to find the obvious contradiction in one of them.

This post exists largely to put off studying for Principles of Searching. As such it might be the longest one I've ever written.

I'm on an Angel kick again. I'm going to blame it on events that happened a few weeks ago causing me to listen to Once More with Feeling again leading me back to the series by way of Spike. Either that or the fact the Angel soundtrack Live Fast, Die Never has the song Touched by VAST which seems to be a recurring thing. I gave my craptacular Myspace a shadowy urban feel, and my theme song is the Sanctuary Extended Remix of the Angel theme. I just need a good background. My Facebook status is even based off Joss Whedon and Alex Denisof's made-up lyrics to the Angel theme song. I'm just proud I haven't made a new Wes icon. I've never understood that one. You'd think I'd like Spike, the snarky 'other' vampire with a soul who likes kicking things in the face, over the emotionally messed up nerd who fandomsecrets reminded me is a creepy stalker--or they would if I ever posted something there which I most certainly have not.

I think my biggest flaw as an "Internet person" is my complete inability to write "about me" profiles. My LJ profile is horribly outdated and my Myspace and Facebook "about me" sections are blank. I've been told that's my biggest drawback on those online dating sites because I don't really present myself as a unique or even interesting individual. My other weakness is using actual pictures of myself.

So I noticed something strange the other day. The three women that I probably would have dated if not for the intervention of other boys are now all in relationships with guys named Kevin. After a little bit of Googling, I discovered that while it's a popular name, Kevin ranks twenty-third on the list of most popular first names as per the 1990 U.S. Census, and is possessed by 0.671 percent of the population. I'm trying to figure out what the odds of three unrelated people all being named Kevin are. Know how to do that math people? Also, "Kevin" is apparently an Irish name that means "Gentle Birth". Bitch please, my name comes from a wandering badass eighteen-foot-tall giant who they tried and failed to execute multiple times.

I got the chance to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl at Will's house for hours on end until I got massive headaches. ( I think Kim gave us brain damage with whatever she sprayed, so my snark-o-meter may be off. )

Later that same day, Will and I made some progress on our characters for Super-Fight-A-Thon, but Cricket let us in on an interesting tidbit of information. Apparently, this whole thing is more or less the equivalent of the shooting contest from Robin Hood. That is, it's largely an excuse for Dean to try to find a way to best Will and I in tactical combat. I feel like this is an enormous Blackleaf joke waiting to happen. I mean, if this is all for Dean to show us how awesome he is, why are we going through all this rigmarole!? I mean, he can't keep his mouth shut with regards to details, so why all this crap over the big picture? Why not just say, "Hey let's make dudes and fight"? Will, Sean¹, and I have done it before, and it came off as a good time and not some creepy vendetta. Why must we waste Mrs. Lewis and Tersha and Jimosh's afternoon? So he has backup? All he proves then is that eight Dungeons and Dragons characters can beat up two of the same level. And what the hell was up with Cricket pointing out that Will and I stand out because we're the only white hats? Nothing adds up anymore. While it's strangely flattering that he either respects our intelligence or simply views us as a threat to his alpha dog status, it's days like these that raise a sense of paranoia in me that everyone else is there because they love each other so huggy-muggy much and I'm just the hired mercenary goon who gets to stick around if only for his character optimization skills until he gets replaced by a guy named Kevin. How pathetic does that make my post-college existence? Then again, this is Cricket and foresight; if the fight were any closer to May my Cricket-to-English translator would suggest that it's really just a guise to throw a surprise birthday party for Will and we'll be met with cake.

Since my last post I have officially started dieting. This is now day four. Things are going relatively well. I've been eating Weight Watchers Flakes 'n Pomegranate for breakfast which is actually tastier than the Cheerios I had been eating before. My lunch is about half its previous size, and I've been doing soups rather than a sandwich. Dinnner's a mixed bag, most because my dad is too much a proud fool to stop forcing large heaps of pasta on everyone twice a week. I went to the gym two nights in a row now and battled through the obscene parking lot, although most of the lot is actually full due to the soccer games at the sports center next door. My starting weight was 213, and my first goal is to get under 200. I have no problem saying that aloud. In fact, I'm hoping that keeping the numbers public will help motivate me. I also tried a random trump card that I never would have considered before. I bought a small pack of the pill HydroxyCut at Target under the condition that if I begin experiencing any negative side effects I immediately stop. Personally, I think they're crap because I'm not experiencing any negative effects, but I'm not feeling any benefits either. Cookies still look delicious. I just can't eat them.

It's sad what passes for excitement in my life these days. I was thrilled this morning to log on to the My Heroes Ability application on Facebook and see that Sean hasn't fucked us all up with his stupid debuff powers. I hate that his memory manipulation powers last for four hours, but the counters like Precognition's future painting and Electricity's illumination last for about a half hour.

Speaking of places where I'm tired of Sean ever since he became addicted to being this wannabe Dean Prince of Darkness Dean, there's a D&D game Friday. The good news is that we'd be playing the actual long-term campaign and not yet another pointless one-shot. *confetti drops from ceiling* But the Psych premiere is that night too. *confetti floats back up to ceiling* I'd like to play something with enough continuity that the characters feel like actual characters with distinct names and personalities and not just "Hey it's Kim, and she's trying out the abilities of the sorcerer class today." Unfortunately, Dean already has another idea. So far all I've heard is that he's really limiting the classes. Warning: the following excerpt contains lots of things where you have to highlight the text to get my opinion:

So far I know, no Book of Nine Swords , no rogues, no arcane magic users, just and I quote "martial classes like fighter, paladin, and cleric".

Personally I think it sounds like we should try Iron Heroes instead, but Will and I are the only ones who like trying new things.

Okay, I know I have some crazy fans of The Office on here. Some of my coworkers saw my new Office gear and were talking about how much they like the show. Anyway, apparently a few people have been looking for that creepy poster of babies playing jazz that Angela has. Can anyone find a copy of this? Here's one shot of it, but it's in the background. If worst comes to worst, I might just build it from scratch.

This picture made my day:


This interview with a Tiefling and a Gnome on the other hand just saddened me. Red Dranei Tiefling are a playable race and Gnomes are not. Especially these new gnomes who look like they're going to eat my baby. Also, way too much modern slang like "Sic" and "Hella for my liking here. I guess Wizards hit a major conflict, gnomes are in World of Warcraft but not Exalted so what do they do?

In case you're playing at home, this is where I get my info from.

Probably going to post some random thoughts about fantasy in general in the near future.

There's a game coming out called Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War, set during the Hundred Years War between England and France. With the release of a hack-n-slash game in a setting more closely resembling a typical roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons surrenders and I may be banned from the game for life since about one-third of my role playing personalities start as imitations of Warriors characters.

In further roleplaying news, the Five Room Dungeons are back, baby. For those of you who haven't been keeping up with Roleplayingtips.com:

• Volume 2 (pdf)
• Volume 3 (zip)
• Volume 4 (pdf)

I got a new bad idea last night. Using clips from the first season of Heroes, I want to make a YTMND that basically goes something like this:

Future Hiro: "Peter Petrelli, I have a message for you."
Peter: "?"
Future Hiro: [Insert Wacky YTMND Cliche here!]

Found some videos for base material.

Speaking of television, Psych is back people. There's going to be a holiday episode this Friday called "Gus's dad might have killed an old guy". Holding on to this Sean Spencer icon over the whole break between seasons was so totally worth it. Too bad Matt didn't get a Gus icon.