Umbral Echoes Blog

As some may notice, I tend to post sporadically. I could make excuses, give reasons, whatever. Basically what it comes down to is that I blog when I feel like writing in this format, and it’s mostly for myself anyway (it’s not like I have a readership to speak of). Hence why the vast majority of my posts lately have been Twitter repostings. I’m actually going to turn that off, and possibly delete all of those entries. I haven’t decided for sure yet.

Anyway, today I was actually given hope for the world. I’ll do this in a nutshell as best I can. Got a letter from a trash company saying, “Hey, we’re taking over for your current company in 2009. Here’s a bill that will cover your services for a year.” I probably should have checked, but I didn’t — I just paid the bill. Well, I notice the old trash company is still coming. Curious. Then I get a letter in the mail from the old company saying that they are still around, and that if I paid a bill to this other company, I should call and ask for a refund.

So I call and ask for a refund.

Amazingly, I get it, with absolutely no hassle.

The woman on the phone was like, “Yeah, we were originally awarded the contract with the county in 2009, but some other companies have filed in court for their right to continue with service. So it’s sort of in a state of limbo right now. I can issue you a refund if you’d like.” That’s right, they offered a refund before I even mentioned it. This pretty much floored me. I called expecting to have to squeeze it out of them like wringing water from an old rag in the desert, expecting about as much success.

This actually makes me look forward to working with that company in the future, if things get worked out and they do become the service provider. More so, I’ve been amazed by the friendliness and helpfulness of companies that I’ve dealt with recently. Maybe it’s some alignment of the planets or something. I ordered my new bed just before Christmas from a company that does price-matching. I showed them another website that had the same platform bed for about $600 less, including shipping. They looked it up, confirmed, and matched the price with no hassle. If you ever need a bed, I highly recommend Online Store, Inc.  Delivery and setup was included in the price, and the setup was very appreciated. It took two professionals with powertools about an hour and a half to set up that bed. I can only imagine what a hassle it would have been for me. But it is spectacular, and huge, and I love it.

In other news, I’ve been under the weather lately. Nothing serious, just the typical cough/sore throat/stuffiness/headache bug. It was bad enough to cause me to not be able to break in my bed properly, and also to miss out on a party Friday night and two events Saturday night — one of the latter events being attended by a couple that I haven’t seen in almost 6 months. Quite annoying. I spent the time resting… in front of the computer, and playing World of Warcraft enough to get my deathknight his flying mount. This will cure about 90% of my deaths in that game, which are from falling. I tend to do point-to-point marches, and generally dislike moving in anything other than a straight line.  Hence, cliffs are hazardous to my health.

I haven’t really felt like writing much recently — I suppose I’ve just been preoccupied with too many other things in life.

The big news is that my company has decided to ditch the office, so I am now working remotely full-time.  I’m still doing a weekly face-to-face lunch meeting, because I think face time is important, but other than that I’m chillin’ at home during the workday.  This week has been the first week of that, and it’s definitely taking some mental adjustments, but I’m really happy about this change.

This also means that I will have much more flexibility to visit a lot of my friends.  Aside from those weekly meetings (which I can skip from time to time), it really doesn’t matter whether I’m working from my house or Istanbul, as long as I can keep the same working schedule as the other employees.

In other news, I was invited to a Halloween party at the Playboy mansion.  Sadly, it’s a bit late notice and the person who invited me really didn’t have his ducks in a row, so I’m not going to be able to make it.  Which is a pity, since it looked quite cool — professional set creators had designed a haunted house, actors walking around in zombie makeup, Paul Oakenfold spinning (though I am told by a very reliable source that Oakenfold got pwnt by the DJ Sarah Collins when spinning in a club in Seattle), and of course boobs galore.  I was seriously considering getting a captain’s hat and going as the Motorboat Captain.  Feel free to use that one at your own Halloween parties — so long as it’s not one I’ll be at, in which case I reserve the right to that idea.

On the plus side, this guy pretty much has a standing invite, and the New Years party is looking good.

I’m getting more into World of Warcraft, and will be even more so when Wrath of the Lich King comes out.  When I went to Doug’s wedding in Louisville a few weekends ago, the old gang decided to get back together in an online fashion on the Baelgun server.  I’ll have to roll a Deathknight so I can get a head-start to 55, but I was wanting to do that anyway.  It will be awesome to be in better contact with the guys again.

I hear Fable 2 is the new hotness.  I wish I had more time for gaming.  But when faced with the choice of going out with friends or staying at home and watching a TV screen, I generally take the former.  And in the case of the latter… well, aforementioned Warcrack tends to take up that time.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, and would like me to come visit at some point, toss me an email and I’ll work something out.  Sis, you’re at the top of my list.

Whew. Finally through with convention season. Why is it that we so often need a vacation to recover from our vacations?

This year’s festivities were confounded somewhat by a database issue at work that I’m still dealing with now, to a lesser extent. Suffice to say, it was my fault, and is the biggest screwup I’ve ever made in my professional life, intensified by a perfect storm of other bad things happening. But, we’re mostly recovered from it, and mistakes are the best teachers.

So in this post, I’ll go over some of the fun times at GenCon.

This year involved more dicebagging, of course. Frank even set up a website for it… though he never approved my account and I’ve therefore been unable to load pictures. I also convinced Lydia to eat three hot peppers at Steak n’ Shake, for the low price of paying for her meal. I think you’ll agree that it was worth it. Or perhaps I’m just a sadist.

Along the lines of discussion, the question was asked, “What is the least compensation you would accept for macing yourself in the face?” Talking about the chemical here, not the medieval weapon. Initially the thought was, “Would you mace yourself in the face for X dollars? What about half that?” And so on. But it evolved into questions such as, “Would you mace yourself in the face to temporarily be changed into a member of the opposite sex for a day? What if part of that was that you’d be a poorly-endowed member of the opposite sex?” In this discussion, I learned that Lydia is secretly very blatantly a sexual misogynist.

The White Wolf party was a bit more strict this year, actually requiring invites at the door. But, as always, it was an open bar, and this time it was split into two sweat-drenched levels of fun. There was an impromptu photo shoot. Word to the wise: whenever someone says, out of the blue, “Are you ready?” the answer is, without fail, “Bring it ON!” Except envision that said in Brock Samson‘s voice in your head, then do your best impression of it. Suffice to say, I was made to remove my shirt and bite random goth chick’s neck. Pictures might or might not be forthcoming on the White Wolf website, depending on the laziness of the people involved in the photo shoot.

Note to self 2: stay away from drunken bisexual dudes. Next time, it will end in blood.

The after-party with the White Wolf folks was somewhat low-key, but we brought the DJ along for the hell of it anyway. Afterward I had to deal with a drunken bitch (drunk to the point where she literally couldn’t walk) who insisted that she was all right to drive not only herself, but a couple of other people who came with her, home. Sometimes I hate having to be the good guy. That one ended up being a couple hours of hassle, and me letting her stumble off to try and find her car. I thought about calling the cops to detain her, but honestly I don’t care that much.

I’ll keep the roleplaying stories to a minimum, since that’s only interesting to a select crowd (and also, I was only in two games this year). Dustin ran an Exalted LARP that was a continuation of games from previous years. My character was on trial for killing the person who was likely to become Empress. Part of the game was that each character was given a motivation/goal for each scene, and in the trial scene my character’s goal was to bed one of the members of a certain house/clan. Long story short, there was really only one option: the judge herself. I came a breath away from managing it, too. Note to self: follow instincts always, without question.

Dustin also ran a Seventh Sea game. This system, for those not in the know, is made of pure awesome. It’s a game set in Renaissance times, normally centered on piracy. It is epic to a sometimes-silly level, and has such rules as: your character can never die, and when you do something awesome, you get extra “drama dice” for it. The game itself involved undead sheep invading what was supposed to be a child’s birthday party, in a mansion. I think that just about sums it up.

Met some cool new people over the weekend (Michael, Christine, others whose names I forget), which is always fun. Drank a lot less than I expected. At the White Wolf party I was making a conscious effort not to drink myself into a stupor. Which, in hindsight, was a mistake — drink deeply or taste not, and all that. There was only a brief respite (or it felt brief, anyway) before it was time to go sprinting around in the woods in 95 degree weather while wearing plate mail armor and beating on people with padded weapons. More on that later, though.

Two people dropped out of the DragonCon room last minute.  So, if anyone reading this is needing a room at DCon, we’ve got 2 slots open, 3 if we want to push it (go ahead and giggle).  We’re in the Marriott, so it’s convention central.

Also, I apologize for the lack of real updates recently.  Sometimes there’s not enough going on to write about (without trying to make the mundane into something interesting anyway), and sometimes there’s so much going on that you don’t have a free moment to breathe.  I plan to make a post about GenCon, and running around in the woods at 6am like a maniac.

Helped my friend Blue move into her new apartment yesterday, which was an all-day affair.  It seems that most people think that helping someone move is a huge favor.  For me, it’s just hanging out with friends while you happen to be doing some physical activity.  Then again, I moved seven times in a span of five years, so perhaps I’m just used to it.  I love lifting heavy objects.  I just hate having to navigate around sharp corners and through finger-crushingly narrow entryways.

Also, dealing with objects that aren’t really heavy, but awkwardly shaped, is a pain.  I’ve got a nice bruise and minor laceration from carrying a (full) filing cabinet.  To keep a grip on it, I had to squeeze one of the edges against my bicep.  And the more I squeezed, the more the muscle flexed, and the harder the edge pressed into it.

Blue: Jesus, Mike… are you okay?
Me: What?  Oh, that.  Yeah, I’m fine.
Blue: [smirking] Oh, that’s right.  You like marks.

Hey, a little pain never hurt anybody, right?

Sometimes I miss apartment living.  Much less to worry about, and if the place pisses you off or you decide you don’t like it… you get another one.  But then I remember why houses are awesome.  In my first apartment here in Atlanta, the front door had a gap even when it was closed, and I’m fairly sure the seven-year-old neighbor kids used to watch… certain activities that went on in the living room from time to time.

I remember one time in particular when my partner was getting rather loud, and I heard some muffled gasps and high-pitched voices from the hallway.  The next day, one of the neighbor’s kids asked me if I was hurting that girl that was over.  I opened my mouth, meaning to say, “No, we were just wrestling,” or something to that effect.  Instead, what came out was, “Yeah, but she liked it.”

Do you ever have cases of the filter dropping at inappropriate times like that?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve made an actual post, and I’m way past due.  I just feel compelled to post something more interesting than, “Here’s what I did today,” but I haven’t really had the motivation to write much more than that.  Anyway…

I sent the paperwork for the divorce back to the attorney on Friday.  So, assuming everything is as it should be with that, it should be official in 4-6 weeks.

The weirdest thing about this all is that it’s a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Throughout the process, I kept thinking that it just hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m starting to think that’s not the case.  The inner turmoil part came with the initial decision, which was not made lightly.  After that decision was made, everything else just sort of fell into place.  Sure, I’ve felt some pangs of loneliness — that’s inevitable if you’re with someone for nearly 12 years, sleeping next to them almost every night.  Signing the paperwork, I expected to feel sadness, possibly some regret, maybe even to question the decision.  But I didn’t feel any of that; it was just like signing any other piece of paper.

I’m still not dating, and not really sure when I will be.  At some point I’ll just click with someone and then dating will happen again.  But I’m not going to rush it, and I’ll just keep doing what I have been: hanging out with friends, and meeting new people.

And as a quick update on other things going on:

• I’ve had a cold since last Monday.  Airborne, Emergen-C, and echinacea tea have kept it at bay, but it is a tenacious bastard, and today I still have a cough.  It’s also sort of drained me of energy, so I spent pretty much all of yesterday veging out, with Kirstie being nice enough to hang out and fetch me liquids and such when necessary.
• Friday, White Wolf had a milestone release for their World of Darkness MMO, and had a cookout.  They decided to rent a mechanical bull.  If you’re asking “why?” then you don’t know the White Wolf folks.  White Wolfers + anything that can cause injury = win.  Just add alcohol and the formula is complete.  Videos will be forthcoming, once I re-encode them and upload to YouTube.  I also got to play this milestone release.  Obviously I can’t give details, but regardless of the fact that it’s still early in the process, I was quite impressed with how far things have come already.  I’m really hoping that they’ll be able to successfully break the mold of “kill, loot, level up, kill bigger shit, loot, level up…” with MMOs just as they did with pen and paper RPGs.
• My friends Blue and Relay invited me out to a “goth potluck” on Saturday, which was interesting.  Saw a lot of familiar faces, from various events such as Phobia and DragonCon.  One girl there, Lara, is apparently highly ranked in the international competitive female Brazilian Jiu Jitsu circuit.  I told her that next time, we would have to throw down, and that I look forward to getting my ass handed to me by a girl.  🙂
• On Thursday a friend got me into an industry-only opening of a new AMC theater downtown.  This one has a twist — it’s a dinner theater.  There is a full bar in the front, and in the theater you sit at an actual table, and have an actual menu to order from.  Except, it being a soft opening, they had limit quantities of everything, and were out of most of what I wanted.  But it was all free, as was the booze.  It’s an interesting concept, and it’s placed in Buckhead (which is a high-rollin’ area in Atlanta), so I think it will do well.  Though the dinner/restaurant feel did seem to encourage people to talk more during the movie, and while I didn’t have a problem with it (was all pretty murmured, nothing loud and obnoxious), I can see how some people might.
• Started using Digsby on my work computer instead of Trillian.  It is the awesome, except it makes me almost too connected to my social networks.  I should turn off the notifications so that I’m not constantly pinged with status updates, Facebook alerts, etc.  But I really do love the ability to archive/mark-as-spam/delete email messages without having to open up the web interface.  Very helpful with my Hotmail account, which gets tons of spam.

I know I could have treated you better, and that sometimes I complained about you.  I didn’t mean to be neglectful or abusive.  I missed you so much when we were apart.  I couldn’t do without what you gave to my life, so I ran around town with a hot newer model for a while.  But it just wasn’t the same, and I was thinking of you the whole time.  I love you.  Let’s never be apart again, okay?

Seriously, I’m really glad to have my car back, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they gave it a minor detailing when they did the repairs.  Which I will have done on a semi-regular basis now (detailing, not repairs).  The Charger wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d hoped, though of course it wasn’t the model with the HEMI or anything remotely sporty.  It did have satellite radio, which was cool because they had a techno station… but it also cut out all the time.  Major no-no — rule #1 of music listening is Thou Shalt Not Interrupt The Groove.

In other news, my aunt seems to have found me on Facebook.  After seeing my profile picture…

…she sent this message:  “This is your Aunt Lynn let me know if you will add me to your facebook? P.S. What are you doing in that picture??? Uncle Bruce wants to know.”  I’m not quite sure how I should answer this question.  Though I will toss into consideration any hilarious suggestions that I receive.

One of the gutter spouts was clogged with some plant matter, so today I decided to go ahead and take care of that.  It was so impacted with plant matter that I had to reach my hand up there and pull it out — tried a stick, but it didn’t cut it.  After a minute of this, I felt something slick and slippery and squishy.  I paused, blinked, and thought, “That isn’t a plant.  …  Oh, crap.”  Pulled my hand out, and I saw the tail drop down.  Taking a deep breath to prepare for the noxious death-cloud that was sure to follow, I clenched my jaw and manned up, yanking on the tail like it was the cord for a nightlight, and I a child about to see the horrors that await in the darkness.  With a slimy “schlick” and wet thud, it came out rather easily.

Beneath the cut, I present you with Corroded Zombie Squirrel (or perhaps rat)^TM. Continue reading

Last night, I went out with some friends.  Had some drinks at the Highlander, then the party moved on to some bar which ended up being a gay bar having karaoke night (keep your cock garage shut, sis), and then onto some other place that had a dart board.  Alcohol + sharp pointies, always entertaining times.  However, I was responsible — I spaced out my drinks, making sure I’d be able to drive.  Had a total of 2 drinks over the last 4 hours we were out.  It was time to go home, everything is peachy.  I wasn’t sure exactly where I was at, but I have a GPS.  No problem.

At this point, it’s important to know that the suction cup on the GPS got screwed up some time back and is non-functional.  So I had set it on the dash, and while it was taking its sweet time finding where I was, I went ahead and started going toward the nearest highway.  I took a left turn, the GPS slides off the dash.  Reflexively, I lunge for it.  And I catch it!  Ninja skillz, yo.  Unfortunately, this reflexive action also caused me to hit a curb.  Hard.  Front tire goes flat immediately, I pull off into a parking lot.  Back tire is leaking air, too.

So both the passenger-side tires are flat, and the rims will need repair at the very least, and possibly replacement.  A call to Kirstie got me home all right (it’s good to have friends who will pick your sorry ass up at 3am), and this morning I called Geico, who set me up with a tow truck.  Of course, the VW dealership is closed on Sunday, so they towed me to a storage facility, and will get it to the dealership tomorrow.  But I have places to go, people to see, so I rented a car.

Called around, Budget had the best prices by a big margin.  Also, the man on the phone was, bar none, the fastest talker I have ever heard.  Just as fast as that Micro Machines guy, and I am not exaggerating.  I’m fairly sure he was Mexican, except speaking in English as fast as he would in Spanish.  For those of you who don’t know much about the Latino world, Mexicans speak really fast.  Even Spaniards have trouble understanding them.  They’re like New Yorkers on speed.

So I arrange for the cheapest car they have.  I get there, and they try to make me drive this:

My response was, “Ma’am, I must regretfully inform you that I have testicles, and will therefore be unable to operate that vehicle.  Do you perhaps have something in non-heterosexually-challenged?”  I proceeded to look out on the lot, point, and say, “That one.  I want that one.”

So for the next few days I am driving a Charger.  It’s not nearly as powerful as I’d hoped — my turbo 4-cylinder accelerates noticeably faster — and it’s an automatic, but I likes it regardless.

Hopefully the wheels can be replaced in short order, and maybe Geico will even pay for the rental (possibly not, since I arranged for it on my own, but they’ve been pretty damn helpful so far).  I swear my car’s wheels and tires are cursed.  After this is all said and done, I’ll probably have spent a total of about $3k on wheels and tires over the life of the car.

Today was a good day.  I feel a lot more relaxed, like a weight is off my shoulders.  I also feel like it’s been a productive day, even though I really haven’t accomplished a whole lot.

In the early afternoon, I took the bus downtown to see the hosting facilities of our hosting provider.  I’ll spare the boring tech details.  The really cool part, in my opinion, was getting to see some of downtown Chicago, which I really liked.  I’m coming to realize that I’m a real whore for architecture.  I loved the buildings, the flow of people on the sidewalks, even the rail lines going over Van Buren Street.  It reminded me of Batman Begins — in fact, I think they might have taken some inspiration for various parts of Gotham from a blend of both Chicago and New York City.  I should have taken pictures.

The public transit system was really easy to use.  In fact, Google Maps now includes Chicago public transit information, so you can say, “Tell me how to get from here to here, using the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) system.”  Indeed, the Google method only involved one transfer, whereas the CTA website involved two.

I had a few pleasant conversations with people on the buses.  I forget names, but an attractive girl I struck up a conversation with had apparently just moved here in January, and ironically was asking me about the bus system, since she was more used to using the rails.  It ended up that we were both getting off at the same stop, so we walked together for a while before parting ways.

Then on the way back, a middle-aged black guy with a cane sat down next to me at the bus stop.  I asked why the cane (it was the medical type, not the stylish sort), and he said he had a slipped disc in his back, which apparently screwed up his whole right side.  Having had back problems myself, I could relate.  He lamented over this a bit, then made some thrusting motions and said, “Even gets in the way of that.”  To which I responded, without even thinking, “Just have her get on top.  Reverse cowgirl style.”  I seriously have no filter.  Then I had to explain reverse cowgirl to him (link is NSFW), much to his entertainment.  Just after that, the bus came and I had to leave.  He patted me on the back as I was leaving and stated a couple of times variations of, “You’re cool man, you’re cool.  I like you.”

Had lunch at a nice Italian place called Leona’s which happened to serve a high-grav Belgian beer called Tripel Karmeliet.  Mmm, Belgian beer.  Of course I partook, and the world was even better.  And then, coming back to the co-op house, I talked to one of the guys that lives here, and discovered that he, too, is originally from Louisville.  Never know where you’ll find another Louisvillian.  Hmm, that is very close to Louisvillain.  I feel a mad cackle coming on.

Bet your bottom dollar you lose the blues in Chicago, Chicago.
The town that Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down.