Umbral Echoes Blog

• 09:52 Anyone in the market for a GPS, check out www.woot.com/ today — $90 Navigon 2100, today only. (Refurb, though) #
• 12:50 Chess boxing. Why have I not heard of this before? ping.fm/LOibW #
• 14:46 Going to Dave Matthews concert tonight with Grem. Call me if you want in — we have a couple of tickets. #
• 15:26 Off to the concert! #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 09:52 Anyone in the market for a GPS, check out www.woot.com/ today — $90 Navigon 2100, today only. (Refurb, though) #
• 12:50 Chess boxing. Why have I not heard of this before? ping.fm/LOibW #
• 14:46 Going to Dave Matthews concert tonight with Grem. Call me if you want in — we have a couple of tickets. #
• 15:26 Off to the concert! #

Update via LoudTwitter

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?

• 02:03 Finally experienced Blondie at The Clermont Lounge. #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 03:46 Thursday nights are the best nights ever. #
• 11:30 Scion is being offered for free as a PDF download at DriveThruRPG.com, for anyone that might be interested. #
• 19:47 Update to that free Scion thing: you have to use this link. ping.fm/FmQCQ #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 15:27 Guy at the post office had no clue if a color-laser-printed photo would be accepted as the passport photo. Will find out in a week or so. #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 11:53 @sunflour81 Give my congrats to Jared! Though it was never a question in my mind that he would pass. 🙂 #
• 16:03 Spam email titles amuse me so. "Sperms of Endearment." Also a porno (of course), and a Duckman episode. #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 12:47 Eating a chicken McNugget meal. Yes, I am a big kid. Also, servers are exploding. Worst luck ever. #
• 13:27 @burtlo Was about what I expected. Though I can’t renew my contract until August 4th, so I’ll have to wait at least that long. #

Update via LoudTwitter

• 12:19 @slashclee I cannot even fathom that. Some day, maybe I’ll move past Easy. 🙂 #
• 13:09 I destroyed all comers at ping pong at the White Wolf cookout on Friday. Then had my testicles destroyed by the mechanical bull. #
• 13:16 @nevlow: Yes, that is a good way of putting it. I destroyed all comers, then had my comers destroyed. #
• 15:28 @slashclee Well, single isn’t the same as sexless, so that could be doable. Must find hot girl who’ll stroke my knob as I strum the chords. #

Update via LoudTwitter

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.