Umbral Echoes Blog

First of all, an apology for dropping off the face of the earth.  Explanation forthcoming.

Last weekend there was a White Wolf cookout, which ended up as a party at Mike Tinney’s house.  Well, some of us got there early, and there was a set of boxing gloves… so we decided to punch each other while we waited for Mike to arrive and let us in.  The only issue was that there were 2 boxing gloves, not 4.  So one person got to be a righty, and one person a lefty.  So I fought some with The Swede, being nice and giving him the right glove.  It was fun times… well except when he decided to punch me several times as we were breaking up from a clench and my guard was down.

Cary’s welcoming party was the next day,  and more people showed up to that than I expected.  That’s the thing with my friends down here — instead of saying they’ll come and not showing up, they say they probably can’t make it, and then do come.  We had some drinks, hung out, and watched Borat.  Which, for anyone who still hasn’t seen it, is incredibly awesome.

Then on… Wednesday, I think it was (I’ve lost track of days), at work we did a database merger for which we’ve been preparing for about 7 months.  This involved staying at work until 11:30pm, coming home only to work more until 2:30am, catching a few hours of sleep, then going in to work on it some more the next morning.  And a few days of publishers being like, “OMGWTF?!?!  Things have changed!  Change is BAD!!!”  With a few refreshing instances of, “You guys are doing great — this has gone more smoothly than I expected it would.”

Worksafe, even.

1500 Filipino Inmates Do Michael Jackson’s Thriller (I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried):
http://www.ectomo.com/?p=361

The Slow Jerk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkgMbU-we1o

And from the makers of the Slow Jerk, “We Gon’ Make Love (Until You Wake Up)”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFdBOKeWz5A

Okay, after various delays, the party for Cary has been rescheduled to this Saturday.  All are invited to attend; it is tentatively planned to start in the late afternoon, around 4pm.  I’m getting some feedback from friends as to whether that works for them or not, and if there are changes, I’ll edit this post.

Schlongicorn.  Think about it.

Google recently revamped the interface for their Google Docs tool. For those not in the know, it’s sort of like a lite online version of MS Word and Excel. It also has ultra-keen collaboration features that let you work on things with other people, or just let other people view your stuff. It tracks changes, so if someone screws something up, you can always go undo it, etc. Anyway, the new interface is quite slick — makes it much easier to organize stuff. I’ve been playing with it for the past 10 minutes or so. No, it doesn’t take much to amuse me. Just something involving computers. Or boobs.

Kirstie and I are heading to Louisville a bit ahead of schedule, due to her grandmother’s worse-than-expected health. We’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully arriving in Nashville at a time appropriate to visit Jared and Niquie. I have a 350+ page document that I’m reviewing, which I’m already most of the way through, and hope to finish on the trip up.

And just when I’ve mostly recovered from my dad’s visit and the plague taking me out of commission at work, now I get to go on another hiatus. Then when I’m done catching up with that, it’ll be time for GenCon. Then when I’m done catching up with that, it’ll be time for DragonCon. Whee!

Harry Potter branded E.  What will they think of next?

Do you know any people who are in the goth crowd? Of course you do; everyone does. Have they told you how totally cool they are, because they’ve had real absinthe? Like, not the fake American stuff, but the real stuff from [insert European country here]. What’s the difference? Well the real stuff makes you hallucinate, because it’s got wormwood in it. It’s illegal in America, because it’s that damn cool.

Well, my friends… such poseurs might have had hallucinations when drinking “real” absinthe, but they were probably caused by the same lack of oxygen to the brain that killed enough of their brain cells to make them buy into the absinthe hype in the first place. Real absinthe does not make you hallucinate.

Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating. Real absinthe does not make you hallucinate.

But, but… it’s got wormwood! Fuck wormwood. The chemical in wormwood that supposedly makes you hallucinate is called thujone, and it’s a GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid) inhibitor. There is no evidence that thujone causes hallucinations, even in high doses. It does block the things that inhibit neural activity though, which means that combined with alcohol, it causes you to have a rather alert drunkenness. And the one thing that that real absinthe will do is get you bloody drunk — it’s typically around 110 to 140 proof.

I could go into the history of absinthe, and why it was banned in many countries, and why it had a sudden revival as being the “cool” drink (no goth movement, but an insidious corporate scheme, I assure you). But you can look all that up on your own. Here are a few links of interest:

How Stuff Works’ entry on absinthe
Wikipedia entry on absinthe

Read, be educated, and call some tool on their “real absinthe” story, my people!

Some of these really should be shared.

Bees: Nature’s Tiniest Ass-Kickers
Okay, so there’s these Japanese hornets, right? And they’re all about murdering some honky bees and eating their honey and feeding their larvae to their own kids. They basically fly around in their little samurai armor and use their hornet-katanas to bite the European bees in half. The European bees are all, “AUGH! I’m all bit in half! If only Braveheart was a bee and could end this tyranny!” No such luck for the European bees.

But then, there’s this rival cult of Japanese honey bees who have evolved to the point where they’re sick of those goddamn samurai hornets, and turn the tables by using HONEYBEE BIO-LASERS TO COOK THE HORNET SCOUTS IN THEIR OWN GUTS BEFORE THEIR SECRET BEE FORTRESS IS COMPROMISED.

Nature is so awesome.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n4wRIERp6Vs

Good news!  Today I can actually walk around and sit at the computer for a few hours at a time.  Went to the doctor this morning, and apparently I have not only the flu, but also gastritis (an inflammation of the stomach lining).  The second part of which meant that drinking all that orange juice for the vitamin C wasn’t so great of an idea — citrus is a no-no.

I’m feeling better though, and that’s the important part.  Trying to catch up a bit on work, since there is a hugetastic final database merge coming up soon (like, in a couple of days).  Gastritis can lead to ulcers though, so I’m trying very hard not to stress about that.

Lungs closing in…  light getting dimmer.  Kirstie playing WoW in the other room, and not able to hear my cries for help.  Outlook: bleak.

Seriously though, I think I’ve got bronchitis.  Most of the symptoms went away other than the cough, and I’m fairly sure I got it from my dad.  He is a heavy smoker, and got bronchitis once years ago, and I’m pretty sure he’s had it since then but just calls his cough “smoker’s cough.”  His doctor told him the only way to really get rid of it was to stop smoking for a few weeks, so the cilia in his lungs would grow back and actually bring up the infected gunk.  Needless to say, that wasn’t going to happen.  So after playing tour of Atlanta and chauffeur for dad for 5 days or so, I’m left with this.  I’ll probably go to the doctor on Monday (assuming I don’t feel back to 100% by then), and no doubt get prescribed some antibiotics.

I’ll have something interesting to post once I’m feeling better, I promise.  A rant, even.