Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for July, 2008
To The Alehouse!
01393 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
This weekend was lots of fun, and I didn't even do anything I was planning on doing Friday. Everything sort of changed mid-stream. My plan was to spend the weekend cleaning up my apartment, doing a major clean type deal because it really needs it, going over to my friends for a little while on saturday. However, all of this changed when i got my replacement drivers license in the mail on Saturday.
I usually go to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, NY every year with my sister, but she ended up not going this year for several reasons. My friends (Jay and Wassy) were going on Sunday, but I didn't really want to spend the money since we were going to be doing the state fair at the end of August, and I wanted to save money for that. However I did really want to go this year since they got a new owner and had a lot of improvements.
I had settled on not going though…until my drivers license arrived in the mail. Which means I could also partake in some of the consuming of spirits, which was all I needed to push me over the edge of going, so we rearranged plans and they swung by Sunday morning to pick me up and off we went.
We arrived promptly on time, no thanks to the GPS continually falling off their windshield (I need to get the weighted mount thingy for it…), got our hands stamped and started wandering around the shops a bit. My friend Jay wanted some coffee so we stopped by one of the vendors to grab one but they had a little problem with their coffee machine. So what started out as a quick coffee pitstop turned into a 10 minute coffee wait. I had to take a picture of the cup of coffee so that it will be preserved for all time. And it is there to the left.
After the coffee we headed to catch the rat show which I saw last year and my friends hadn't seen. It was as good as I remember it being and my friends enjoyed it too, which is also a plus. After the rat show, the pubs had opened, so we took a little break and had some lunch and mead/beer depending on who you were (I went with the mead).
We wandered on over to where one of the new attractions was, some acrobat type people who put on a really neat show. The pictures don't really show how high they were but they were high enough where a fall would hurt a good deal, but not high enough where they could right themselves to land on their feet if they did fall. Thankfully, nobody fell and the show was really quite interesting. I hope they're back next year.
After that things got a little fuzzy as to the order of things. There was some wandering around, I caught another show which my friends weren't terribly interested in, but I thought was good. Another stop at the pubs and I tried some draft cider this time which was good (And if anyone was wondering, yes there was water for me sprinkled in with the drinking to stay hydrated and all that). There was also a stop at the archery booth for the necessary bit of archery. I did ok, but my friend Jay ended up doing better (after nearly whacking himself in the face with an arrow which deducted major points). I stopped taking pictures at this point because I was just relaxing and having too much fun to think about it.
Towards the end of the day we went out wine tasting at the booths outside the show. We eventually ended up spending the most time over at the Thousand Islands Winery booth where we were guided through their selection by a entertaining and nice man who was also wearing no pants. Their wines were awesome though and I ended up buying two bottles, one of a Niagara and one of a dessert wine called Seaway Blues which is a blueberry flavored wine which I was surprised that I liked more than the Strawberry that I tried.
After that we went back in and wandered for a bit more but eventually we grew tired and made the trek home. All in all, I'm very glad I decided to go as the day was just perfect. Good weather, good company and a good time.
Unfortunetly…now I keep thinking it's Sunday because I usually don't do anything major on Sundays and have another day of the weekend to get through before I have to go back to work
QotD: But Dorothy Got to Bring Her Whole House!
01397 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
There is a natural disaster headed your way. You get 4 standard sized
canvas grocery totes to fill with valuables and provisions to bring
with you to a safe place. What would you put into your 4 bags and why?
Submitted by dejablu503.
First thing I'd grab would be the irreplaceable stuff that really means a heck of a lot to me. So I'd grab all of the artwork my friend Wassy has done for me, paying special attention to First Contact Frosts, Flowy Frost and the mini-ink frost because they have sentimental value that to me, is more important to save than pretty much anything else I own. I'd also grab the note that came along with Flowy Frost as well as, as I've mentioned previously on here, the last birthday and graduation cards I got from my grandmother (on my dad's side). That's bag 1.
Bag 2 I'd grab my laptop because so much of my life is on my laptop, along with the assorted laptop accessories such as the power adapter, hard drive with all my music, iPod, pair of headphones, probably my DS and PSP with whatever games would fit. This would be my entertainment bag so I don't drive myself crazy in whatever shelter I'm going to. Cell phone charger/phone so I can keep in touch with family and friends to make sure they're all safe.
Bag 3. This would be clothes. Your standard packing for a couple days/week of being away from home. I'd also try to fit in a 2 person survival blanket, a top hat and a 8oz hip flask…just in case.
Finally, bag 4 would be some food provisions, because you never know what might happen. just some quick snacky type food, granola bars…just anything that's small and would provide some measure of energy if required.
So that's it. Everything else in my life is replacable. I can always get new things, but the contents of bag 1 and to a lesser degree, my laptop are irreplacable and I'd probably run back into a burning building to try to rescue them if I had to. I say probably because I'm a bit of a chicken…so nothing's for sure in these types of situations. I'd like to think that I'd have the guts to do it though because they mean a lot to me.
QotD: What, no horses?
01398 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9
heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.
Seriously? This is the QoTD? A math problem?
5 ducks and 4 cows.
Come on now vox, you can do better than this.
A Change In Appearances
01398 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Last night I went out and got my hair cut. Normally I wouldn't announce this to the world or anything but I've been trying to grow it out a little bit because I got tired of how I've looked pretty much the same since I started getting haircuts. So I let my hair grow for a couple months until it was a decent length and went in last night to get it cut.
It's not a drastic change, really. Right now anyway. It's just longer than it has been in the past. I think I'd like to go for something just a hair longer than it is right now by the end of it. I've been told I look better with hair that's a little bit longer. I wasn't planning on changing over to the final style yet or anything, I just needed it to be a little more under control.
The title also references a change in the appearance of my apartment too. After my haircut I swung by my friend's apartment and picked up the print for my piece of artwork. It came out amazing. All of the little details from the digital piece are in there and it looks like she did the work by hand on that piece of paper as opposed to doing it digitally and having it printed. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I just need to find a good place to put it. I found something I sorta liked but I think I'm going to move things around a little more. My apartment really needs more room for art type things as I've gotten quite the collection over the past few years.
I also picked up Hannibal (because I finished Red Dragon and Silence Of The Lambs since I last posted a book update…working on it!) while I was out which I'm hoping I enjoy. It seems to be a very love it or hate it kind of book, and I hope I'm in the "love it!" camp.
It's Done! It's Done! It's Done!!!
01400 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Remember that piece of artwork that I mentioned I was having done a few posts back? Well, it has been completed and I'm very very happy with the result. Wassy has outdone herself with this one.
Yep, it's another piece of art of my favorite City of Heroes character, Frost Magus. The way I figure it, you can't have enough! But this time it also includes my main City of Villains character, Dark Frost. Boring story time!
Dark Frost and Frost Magus are the same person, sort of. Dark Frost is a version of Frost Magus from an alternate dimension that was thrown down the path of evil when one important change happened in the timeline of her dimension that didn't happen in the hero Frost's. They both got their powers through a magical spell that backfired, however the difference was that Dark Frost's parents were killed in the accident while Frost Magus' survived. The loss of her parents gradually destabilized Dark Frost and she became cynical and selfish, only caring about herself in an uncaring world, so she thought. She turned to a life of crime to get by. Meanwhile, the hero Frost was using her powers for good.
Dark Frost was eventually sucked into the dimension where the hero Frost resided due to a lab equipment malfunction during an experiment. Not wanting to let the public know about what happened (because otherwise they would have to admit their research is pulling random people from other dimensions into their own…not a very popular thing you can imagine) they threw her into jail and tried to coverup what happened. Eventually Dark Frost escaped with help from Arachnos and ended up in the Rogue Islands, increased her power and proved that she was in fact one of the Destined Ones. All of that last bit is part of the City of Villains storyline.
While she was in the Rogue Islands though, she found out about the existance of the hero Frost. The more she learned, the more resentful and angry she got. Here's another her that got all the good breaks…all the breaks that she (Dark Frost) deserved to have. After she achieved the height of her power she decided that she was strong enough to strike out to Paragon City and meet up with the woman who had (in her view) stolen her real life.
And thats where this piece comes in. After getting Dark Frost to level 50 in game, I thought it would be very cool if there would be a Frost/Dark Frost piece…a sorta good vs evil type thing. I talked to Wassy who agreed to take on the project and off we went. Through discussion, this scene emerged. Dark Frost has planned out this meeting so she's confident that it's happening on her terms, so she appears relaxed on the wall. But she's ready to spring into action if things start going all unpredictable. She had just called out to Frost, making her presence known and Frost is whipping around trying to locate the source of that strangely familiar voice. And her shock is total when it ends up being her own face looking back at her.
I can't say enough good things about how this piece turned out. It's exactly what I was looking for when I thought that a combined piece would be cool, and in fact it exceeded my expectations when I got the final colored version last night (late last night or I would have posted this then). It looks so awesome, like it was a full page ripped straight from a comic book and all of the layers of meaning that I wanted in there are there. It tells a very important piece of the story of these two characters that can't happen in the game and it's also suggestive of a large scale battle soon to come.
I don't even know where to start. All the little details of this piece make it awesome. I especially like the subtle details of the shading in Frost's face and the way her hand is posed. And Dark Frost turned out amazing as well. And the background setting. And the lighting. And the little touches of detail. And the…well…everything. I'm in a very gushy mood right now, I just love it! I can't wait until I get the print. I need to figure out where I'm going to put the print first…I'm running out of wall space here.
Weekend Update: The Dark Knight Edition
01401 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
This weekend was good. Real good. The main thing that happened was I drove out to Rochester (about 2.5 hours away) to go see The Dark Knight at an IMAX theater and also head out to Bugaboo Creek for dinner with some friends.
I'm not going to spoil anything about Dark Knight here since not everyone may have seen it. But I'm going to say that it deserves every single bit of hype it's been getting. I'm not a huge batman fan so I was going into this movie just slightly excited and a little annoyed at how everyone was talking about it. It was starting to feel like I would get tired of the movie before I even saw it. But I forgot all of that about 15 minutes into the movie.
Heath Ledger's Joker also deserves every bit of praise that's being placed upon it. He wasn't a guy playing the joker…he was the joker. End of story. His performance stole the show and I'm still kinda speechless after seeing it. I had no idea he could totally transform himself like that.
Go see it. Even if you are very "eh" about batman. It's just…good.
Dinner after was good too, although the service was very slow and I was threatened with the horror of having somebody tell them it was my birthday and then the waiters would come over and make me kiss this moose puppet thing. The friends in question were Jay and Wassy, along with another individual I met in college and his housemate. It was fun hanging out with them since we don't usually hang out in person like that.
Sunday was spent hanging out and playing City of Heroes for a good portion of time due to a crazy long thing I said I would do that ended up taking about 7 hours. Fun!
QotW: My Commute
01403 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
How do you travel to and from work – personal vehicle, bus, subway/train, pedal
power? What does it cost you per week in gas or fares?
Submitted by Jan.
I live relatively close to work. I drive my Nissan Rogue which averages around 25.1mpg and my commute is 7.5 miles.
So, calculating that out, a 1 way trip is roughly .2988 gallons of gas. 2 way trip is .5976 gallons. At a price of about $4.15/gallon, that means I pay $1.24 for a one way trip, $2.48 per day, and for a week I pay about $12.40.
My Wallet Grew Legs
01406 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
If you happened to glance at my twitter box a little further down the page (or right next to…or above depending on when you read this) you may have noticed that I have misplaced my wallet.
I'm fairly certain that it's in my apartment somewhere. Last friday I was sitting at my desk and I took it out of my pocket because it's uncomfortable to sit on sometimes. And I put it…somewhere. Now I can't find it. I checked all the usual spots (and the unusual ones…going through the garbage, not fun) with no luck, so I'm chalking it up as a loss right now.
I called up and reported my cards as lost last night. Everything except two of them which I had out of my wallet for one reason or another, so at least I have access to my bank account and a credit card. Now I need to wait the 4 weeks it'll take the state to send me a new drivers license. Sigh. Hopefully it arrives before the state fair. Or I stumble upon my wallet by then.
I'm also in the market for a thin wallet of some kind. Bah, this is really annoying.
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