The party last weekend went off quite well. Despite extending invitations to include eighteen people total, we ended up with nine, which worked out as a very comfortable number. A mental note for future years, but I should probably make sure to tell people about the party more than a week in advance. As I was telling people, it was a bit of an "Oh, shit, I knew I forgot something" moment.

The trip north on Monday went quite well. While I know (from repeated experience) that I can make the drive in one shot by myself, it's really nice to have a few other people in the car who can take over. This is especially true since I didn't get any sleep beforehand. I took the first leg (SF to I-5), then handed the keys over because I figure that anyone can get to Tacoma from there. Once we got up here Chris, Pete, and I spent evening decompressing with some food from The Ram and watching the Director's Cut of The Gamers... which is pretty much the same as the normal edition with nicer special effects and (I think) some improved lighting and sound. So nothing really new, but it was enjoyable to watch.

I slept most of Tuesday. I think when I finally got out of bed, I'd been there for about 12 hours and it was after 6pm. I found out josienutter was hosting some Karaoke thing up in Seattle which sounded like fun, but I also didn't really feel like moving just yet. Instead I took care of a few things, took a shower, and hung out with Pete and Chris again in the evening.

Wednesday through Friday has been dedicated to family stuff. My dad flew in from Indiana on Wednesday, then on Thursday we drove out to Ellensburg for a birthday party for my Grandmother which was done at a wonderful little wine tasting dinner. Given the propensity of March birthdays in our family, this also served as a party for me and my dad. The food was good (even if two of the courses involved pork, which I'm trying to stop eating, and one had walnuts as an ingredient, so I had to avoid it), and some of the wines were excellent.

This also was the first time I'd gotten to see my mom's new house. It's tiny, but it's incredibly convenient to the university. Of course because it's tiny, it's not really condusive for people visiting overnight. I crashed on a futon in the front room, but I think I only got around five hours of sleep.

The drive back to Tacoma was uneventful and went at a nice clip until I got to I-5 in Federal way, at which point it was slow. I stopped at Trader Joes and Safeway for the ingredients for the chili, came back to my grandparent's place, and then promptly crashed out on the couch for three hours.

Since then I've made the chili for tonight. I think I've got a good flavor balance to it.

Calendar:
3/31 - Game Day at Chris's place. Hence the chili.
4/1 - Possibly a Guest Relations meeting (not sure if I can make it), possibly climbing, possibly crashing up in Seattle at Deanna's place.
4/2 - Mariners Opening Day with Deanna.
4/3-5 - Nothing specific planned.
4/6-8 - Sakura-Con (Which I have only just found out is the same weekend as Norwescon, which is a first)
4/9-11 - Nothing specific planned
4/12 - Heading back to SF

Still need to figure out a good time to meet up with various Seattle peeps. Still open slots on the schedule, though, and some things can be moved about if needed.

In other news, I've been reading a lot of comics. Trying to make sure I get through all of Chris's stuff before I have to go back, but I think I don't have any cause for concern.

I should review a few things while they're still fresh in my mind. Perhaps tomorrow. Sleep now.

Birthday party goes down this weekend, which will hopefully be stress-free, but I've got a few bits of concern. Hopefully it's just nerves and not premonition. In any case, it'll be blast to have theonlymegumegu, uriel_godfire, and wooko down here for it all.

On the 26th, I'm heading back north with them to spend some time in Washington. We may possibly stop over in Portland on the way back, depending on how some things fall for Chris. I'm kinda hoping we get the chance to do so, because it seems like an awesome opportunity for him.

I'll be up in Washington for about two and a half weeks. I've not really defined when I'm coming back south, but it's likely I'll get a flight on the 12th or 13th.

While I'm up there, I want to make sure to get together with all of the cool people I'm pleased to call my friends. A few things are defined in the schedule. April 6-8 (and likely the evening of the 5th) is going to be Sakura-Con, which I'll probably be working all of. On April 1, I've got a meeting with other Guest Relations people so I can learn how to do my job all over again.

April 2nd is Mariners Opening Day, which I'm getting to see courtesy of dr4b. Woo!

Other than that, schedule's wide open. I expect I'll have ample opportunity to meet up with people in the Tacoma area. I also definitely want to hang with capnexposition and josienutter at some point. Both Seattle peeps, so I'll likely need a bit of planning to make sure I get up there. I may want to try to get in on one of those happy hour things that tenshiemi keeps posting. And I'd like to meet up with bizket, because he always makes me laugh.

So, yeah. Comment, e-mail, call, whatever so we can hook up and do all the fun things I've forgotten how to do in my six months in California.

30 doesn't feel any different from 29. For me 28 is more important. So despite turning 30, it's just another birthday. Apparently last year my birthday itself was so lacking of note that I didn't even post about it. I should take a moment to reflect on the past year, though. It's been a big one.

I've moved. Cast away that safety net of being close to my family and gone to another state. I'm forcing myself to try new things by doing this. Granted, I'm doing it in my typically hermitous manner, but new things have been sought and tried. I've made new friends, and built up stronger friendships with aquaintances. I'd never have found out how much I like cooking if I hadn't moved. I've tried out video games. I'd probably never have figured out how much I like playing Guitar Hero if I were still in Washington. Which means I'd never have bought a bass. That experiment in progress is still very early, but I'm liking it so far.

So, a good year, on the whole. It addressed some of the class deficiencies I've had which should serve me well as I now level up, again.

Last week, I took another plunge by volunteering for the Game Developer's Conference. Well, I suppose I really volunteered back in January, but it materialized last week. Outside of the MT booth and Sakura staffing, I've not worked at a con or anything in almost a decade. A cold volunteering position was quite a shock. Truth be told, I wasn't altogether sure it was a good idea. I figured I could skip on it, do a normal work-week instead, and just catch a party or two besides.

However, I'm glad I went through with it. Suffice to say it was one of the most invigorating weeks I've had in quite some time.

Didn't quite start that way. I caught a Saturday shift so I ended up having to switch my schedule around in rather short order. When I arrived at the convention center and saw everyone, I swear my first thought was, "Oh, this wasn't such a good idea." Large crowds of people I don't know tend to remain as such for quite a while. I foresaw a week where I'd mostly stick in Aya's and Rob's shadows, which isn't bad, per se, but I can do that at home and not miss a week of work to do it.

Things warmed up a bit as we got working stuffing the bags. I made a bit of conversation with the people around me, which was cool, and got into a bit of a rhythm working the line. By the end, my feet hurt tremendously, though. I'm not used to standing up for hours and hours on end. Of course, that wasn't the end of the night by a long shot. After that we had to go through volunteer orientation, which was quite impressive. We also got dinner, for which I'm grateful, but since we were commuting from our apartment, which is a good hour by bus and walking from the convention center, we got home quite late. Sunday was the first short night of sleep.

But I fell asleep rather easily.

Monday turned out to be my busy day. I had four shifts scheduled, but I traded one to Aya to make things a bit more balanced. First, I got to work a lecture that was in the GDC Mobile track. I thought this would be interesting, but I'm afraid it was frightfully boring. For one thing, I was expecting something along the lines of mobile gaming in Japan, which is an awesome concept. Instead it turned out to be related to the incredibly dull (and frankly an economic and development dead end) that is mobile gaming in the US.

During lunch I got my first little indication that this might be a bit different from just about anything I'd done before. While sitting around the volunteer lounge I ended up taking part in a conversation about the relative merits of the various game systems. Afterwards, I wandered down to listen to Daniel James (Captain Cleaver) give a brief lecture on making independent games. He was quite fiery, stating in no uncertain terms how difficult it is for a company to make it.

My afternoon was, work-wise, not significantly better than the first. [Edited due to request.] It could have been better, but was a learning experience.

Aya and I spent the evening attempting to go climbing, but failing. The bus we were to take didn't come and we ended up hanging with various other volunteers for a bit until we decided to head home. Monday was the second short night of sleep.

But I fell asleep rather easily.

Tuesday was a light day, work-wise, since I only had to work a single lunch shift, so I got the chance to check out some more bits of the conference and to meet more people. I think the most significant conversation happened after lunch. Aya and I were talking and trying out Jellie Bellies and another volunteer, who'd been telling a story, paused and said something to the effect of "Oh, I'm sorry. I have this urge to tell the most disgusting stories whenever someone starts eating."

I confess that I missed the entire story (and never got it repeated) but this opened up the conversation and I started to get to know more people. Woo-ha. It was fun a long and covered such topics as working at EA (educational), writing limericks for code commits, and other such stuff with working in the games industry. Where on Monday I'd had some good conversation, on Tuesday it seemed like the start of some friendships. (To be fair, the entire program at the GDC seems designed to encourage this. Our whole lime-green shirted brigade was referred to as a family on more than one occasion.)

In the afternoon, I caught another session that Cleaver was on, this a bit of a panel on casual games. Yet again he had a bit of a fire to light, and disagreed rather heavily with some other casual game heavy-hitters from the likes of RealArcade. Despite the strong disagreements, they seemed mostly amicable. But I think that there's a bit of fear in the industry about Three Rings. The company seems to have a very happy middle ground between not being beholden to anyone while they make their design decisions, but having the financial standing to do whatever the hell they want. Newbies to the industry need to get by on innovation. When innovation has money, the establishment gets concerned.

The biggest point he had to make was that in a few years, the downloadable, single-player game will be dead (or very nearly so.) The general public (ideal target for casual games) just doesn't care for them.

In the evening, we considered going for climbing again but instead decided to take up an invitation to eat at a French resturaunt. The food was excellent, the conversation fun (I'm afraid I dominated it, though), and so it ended up capping off a satisfying day that proved to be the least busy of the week. Even so, Tuesday was the third short night of sleep.

But I fell asleep rather easily.

Wednesday saw the conference kick into high gear, as the two day tutorials ended and the regular sessions and such started in earnest. While I only had one thing to work, I found myself engaged in conversations with my newfound friends, treks to the Three Rings HQ, and some wandering around the conference itself.

The big bit of work was covering a panel on "MMOs, Past, Present, and Future". Although it might have been best to call it "MMOs, Past, WoW, and how things may change due to WoW." Despite the rather focused part of half the talk, it was really interesting. Unfortunately, it was also packed, which meant I didn't get to see it all while I dealt with the problems of an overflow crowd.

In the evening, Rob, Aya, and I watched the IGF awards show (and the Game Developer's Choice Awards). OOO took home the technical excellence award for the second year running, but lost out in the grand prize to a game that hasn't even been released, yet. This is a bit annoying, and it's a bit moreso when the winning title didn't take home the prize in any other category. Still, it was a pretty good show and I'd like to check out a few of the other games that were showcased.

The Choice Awards were less impressive. While there were a few standout bits, the fact that Gears of War took home three prizes, despite being heavily derivative compared to the competition, strikes me as disappointing. It may be a great game, but the other options seemed like they should have topped it in some fashion. Afterwards we went out to dinner with a few of the OOO engineers to celebrate the win.

In retrospect there's one thing I'd wish I'd done Wednesday night. Apparently Freezepop was doing a show and that would have been awesome to see, even if it would have made the night short. So I actually had a relatively early night.

But I fell asleep rather easily.

Thursday was the big day. It's like Saturday of a convention. Everything is going strong. My schedule got shifted around a bit, and I ended up working Shigeru Miyamoto's keynote address. For the most part, this had me standing outside as a human barricade to direct the massive line (it more than wrapped completely around a block and then doubled back on itself). I shouted a lot to direct people to the right area. They keynote itself was great. Miyamoto has a wonderfully accessible sense of humor and had some great anecdotes to get across his and Nintendo's goals for design. While there wasn't anything huge announced (unlike the Sony address the previous day), it capped off with an extended series of clips from Super Mario Galaxy, which looks amazing.

I worked the shift that I had gotten in the trade from Aya during the afternoon break. Then it was time for the big reason I wanted to come to the conference: the Three Rings panel where they announced their latest game. For anyone who's interested, there's enough information on the YPP forums and Cleaver's blog. I can only say that the potential is awesome.

The rest of the day had me helping prep for the party. The same as a con Saturday, Thursday is the big party day for the GDC. Given Cleaver's tendencies, this looked to be a big one. We spent part of the time handing out invitations, part of the time putting together Meta-Science costumes, and part of the time doing little getting-prepared-things.

Oh, wow, the party. It rocked extremely hard, with somewhere around 400 people in there at one point. I'm told there was a line extending around the block of people who were waiting to get in. I'm not sure, since I was in there almost the entire time, chatting, dancing, and whatnot. The only downside is that they ran out of beer in ridiculously short order, which is what I really wanted, so I only had one drink all night.

At one point, I turned around and realized that my roommates had disappeared, so I went with my plan of not going home. Unfortunately, that turned into a plan of not sleeping. I chatted in through the wee hours once things had died down with Nemo and some other OOO peeps. Fun conversation, but it made the prospect of the coming day look less and less inviting.

Somewhere in here my brain mostly stopped working. I muscled through my morning shift and my lunch shift and I believe I had a nap somewhere in there, which helped a bit and allowed me to be somewhat responsive during the afternoon and on to dinner, which wasn't the most ideal, but a good and boisterous way to cap off the week. It dawned on me that I'd gone through a week and actually been engaging and responsive enough to make new friends. Not just casual "hey, how are you?" friends, but there was some nice connection there.

To finish off the conference, we had a round-up with all the volunteers and bunches of free goodies were handed out. I got a Mii t-shirt and a one-month trial to Toon Town Online which I'll need to check out at some point.

At this point I'm practically dead on my feet, so we said our goodbyes with promises to contact our new (and renewed) friends soon and made our way home.

Unfortunately I had to work. Except for a few fits and starts of dozing and napping, I ended up staying awake for 48 hours. I slept for nine, but that didn't do enough. On Sunday I slept for at least another seven, but still felt dead. On monday, I finally got myself caught up.

Great week, and a wonderful way to spend my last as a 20-something. I'm really glad I got to do it, because the sessions were interesting, the party was rocking (hell, I actually danced), and the people were awesome. I only wish I'd had the chance to meet them some years ago. If'n any more besides josienutter have LJs, I'll see about adding them.

In comparison, my birthday was a low-key affair. My roommates took me out to dinner and we played tennis on Wii sports. That's cool, though. I'll be having an actual party in a couple weeks when my homies from Washington come down for a visit.

Got a haircut. Which is to say, I bought some electric clippers last week and Aya gave me a buzz cut today after climbing. So now my hair is wonderfully short again and I don't need to worry about it for a few months.


I've had a bit of a reality check on the bass situation. I sat down and did a bit of thinking about the cost of getting one and starting up and realized that while I -can- afford one now, I have a few other large financial things to worry about beforehand. For one, the year's starting to gear up and before I take my first trip (in late March/early April), I need to buy a laptop. I've got enough set aside for it, but I realize that it's going to be a big purchase to get something adequate and good. And secondly, I need to get my taxes done soon. With the trip coming up, I probably need to do it in the next few weeks so I can figure out exactly how much that's going to be so it can be paid before I leave. Combined, that's not really condusive to plunking down a few hundred for a new possible hobby which (realistically) might not stick.

I'm a bit more concerned than I normally would be since I'm going to be missing a week of work in early March since I'm volunteering for the GDC. On the upside, my monthly expenses should drop a bit around then as we'll be (finally) getting our (approved) fourth roommate.

That said, I found a mention for a bass on Craigslist for $100. Used and not in the best shape, but a great price for the model. It's down in Santa Cruz, though, which is difficult to get to for me. I've pinged the guy and told him it might be a problem, but if it's still available in a few days, I may go for it. If it doesn't work out, I'll shrug and wait a few months until I'm more financially sure I can take the hit. Probably after the trip.


The trip will be back to Washington and likely last 2-3 weeks. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to work out. I want to be up there for the con, but I'd like some time to hang out with my friends and enjoy the early spring. How the trip starts will probably depend on when I hold my birthday party.

My current plan is to have the party happen on March 17. The troops from Washington will come down for the weekend and much fun will be had by all. Then they'd leave. However, since I'd be heading up there a couple weeks later anyway, I realized if I held the party on the 24th, I could ride back up with them, hang out for the 2-3 weeks, then fly back down to SF once I wore out my welcome. I suppose just for the coolness of a road trip with friends, I'm leaning towards that, instead.


My leg was better after a weekend of rest, and I've started trying to do at least a bit of working out and stretching each day when I wake up.

1 lb turkey
1 sweet Mayan onion
1 pepper. Not sure what type, but it was a little larger than a jalapeno and it was white in color. Doesn't seem very hot
1 large bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale (not really specific, it was just the cheapest single bottle of non-crap beer I could find)
2 cans black beans
1 can yellow corn
About 2/3rds a jar of Trader Joe's red mole sauce (this largely because i forgot to buy tomato sauce)
Some garlic hot sauce (since I forgot garlic)
Cumin, New Mexico chili powder, salt, and pepper for seasoning

Brow the turkey, slightly grill the onions and pepper in the same pan. Mix in pot with beans, corn, and beer. Stir in mole sauce, season as needed. Cooked in oven on 250 for about 4 hours covered. Cooked uncovered for about 30 minutes. Raised heat to 400 and cooked another 20-30 minutes.

Oh so filling. And I think the mole sauce is what I've been looking for to give the chili the depth of flavor. I also didn't use vinegar this time, which may have helped.

Eaten with cornbread and tortilla chips, this is near perfect.

======

I took advantage of some after Christmas sales on Amazon and Barnes & Noble which gives me a bit of reading material but (more importantly) also takes care of a good number of Christmas gifts.

The day I got back, Jesse treated all of us to one of his Christmas gifts: The Bobs concert. I think I'd heard a track or two of theirs before in Jesse's car, but the concert experience was quite good. Despite my warnings that I might fall unconcious at any moment, I was enraptured and entertained throughout. Good a capella music and some well done humor. As an added bonus, they did a drawing, and I got a CD.

Since then, things have continued apace in trying to make this feel like home. I've bought a new vaccuum, a new computer chair, and done some slight rearrangement in my room. A friend's given me his old 27 inch TV (soon to be moved into my room and hooked up to the computer.) My computer still is lacking in stability, but it's not failing me critically at the moment.

I've been giving a more critical look at laptops with a mind towards buying one in the next couple of months. It will probably happen around the end of February or early in March. I'm strongly leaning towards buying a MacBook. Given the capabilties, cost, and support it's the strongest offering out there. I'm just not sure which one to get. There's about an $800 difference between my two choices, of which the biggest change is screen size. While I normally wouldn't consider screen size as that important, it can make a bit difference comfort-wise.

I've made a major plunge into declaring myself an adult. I opened a mutual fund for investment. It's a small amount, now, but I'd like to see if it can become enough for a down payment on a house in a few years. I'm also looking to get myself health insurance. I'm finding a bit of a stumbling point at the moment, though, because I don't really have any basis for how much regular (as opposed to critical) medical care costs which is pretty important to determine whether or not I'm going to hit the annual deductable. It's also important, because I'd like to get myself evaluated by a psychologist. I've noted over the past few years that I have had more difficulty keeping with a train of thought and focusing on a topic. Given that I'd like to a) write novels and b) attend graduate school, both of these are somewhat worrisome. I'll probably look more at this later.

I need to get back into writing more regularly. Besides the novel-in-progress, I want to start working on an historic mystery (or series of historic mysteries) set in the late 1800s with Lillian Francis Smith as the main character.

======

And I turn a milestone this year. While it's less personally relevant than age 28 (my cyclical birthday), 30 tends to appeal to the masses. As such I'm going to try and hold a big-ish celebration. Plans are still tentative, but I'm going to look at getting an area with a pool table and projection TVs (for video games). Not sure if dinner will be a separate affair or combined, yet. A movie might be part of the package, likely 300.

Date is tentatively set as March 17.


======

I've been writing this entry for about 4 hours... I'm -still- stuffed from the chili.

Just in case you missed it:

3pm, Henry Art Gallery. The gallery is on the west side of UW, at 15th Avenue and 41st. If you walk across the skybridge, it's right there on your left.

5pm, Tutta Bella Pizza. Corner of 44th and Stoneway. It's right off of 45th, so it's a pretty straight shot from UW. From the way things look, there may be a rather large crowd. I should be able to purchase pizza for everyone, but additionals (drinks, salads, dessert) will need to be covered individually.

~8pm - Head to the newly cleaned Casa de El Wooko y Jefe for games, DVDs, and whatnot. We have some snacks, sodas, and beers, but won't object to additional stuffs brought along.

And since I'm not much for that RSVP thing, I really don't know how many people will show up.

Okay, it looks like Saturday the 18th. Pete's got the day off of work, so it'll work out nicely.

Rough itinerary:

~2pm People from Tacoma get together to head up to Seattle. Might take multiple cars.

3pm Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington). Meet up to see a showing of Roy Lichtenstein's art. There's a $8 entry fee.

5pm Tutta Bella for dinner. Genuine Neopolitan pizza. Allegedly very good. Since Pete works there, we'll get a discount, and I think I can cover it for everyone. Depending on how many show up.

~7-8pm or so. People who want to head back south to Tacoma for random gaming.

March is a packed month. The last weekend has the con, which I suppose I'm still going to and working on, but I have to admit i have no idea what's going on, or even if I have a job to do. I've not heard from anyone about it, so far.

Gaming again this weekend. Still trying to find the right hook for my new D&D character. I think I've got a start, but I need to mull it out.

On a bit of a whim, I'm taking a trip the following weekend. This happens to cover my birthday, but I still want to have a party of sorts in town.

Which means I'm looking at the 17th or 18th for my party.

My current plans are
a) Go to Tutta Bella for dinner. With Pete along, it seems we can get a discount. I've never been there and it's supposed to be good.

b) ...?

Okay, they aren't fleshed out plans. Part of me wants to do some birthday DnD, but I think Chris is oppoesed to that. I may just suggest gaming for whoever's interested.

If'n anyone has suggestions, go ahead and post them. I'll try and get firmer plans down. in the next week or so.

Also, post if you can or can't attend. Be nice to get some sort of headcount.