you might be a geek if...

...you go onto a familiar website by typing in the URL and then close the window as it's loading because you've realized you have a special key mapped directly to that site and you can't bear the thought of neglecting a single button on your beautiful logitech black elite wireless keyboard...

...and then find yourself blogging the above because you find it so funny that you /have/ to do that...

...and then find yourself laughing harder because you also found it necessary to blog about it!!

What was I doing again? Oh yeah, I was /intending/ to post to that website I was originally signing into...

~nvnohi

lan party (late review)

Yanno, I just realized I never posted about the LAN party I went to in September. How on EARTH did I miss doing a review on THAT?! It was my first one, after all, and it was absolutely awesome. Since I failed to present it to the world before, though, I guess I'll recall all the feelings from it and post now.

For those of you who do not know what a LAN party is, I'll start with a little hint of a conversation I had with the network admin at work, whom despite his refusal to love computers, I love and respect very much. He began, "Okay, what is this LAN party thing all about again?"

"Local Area Network party. You take your computer, bring it to someone's house, hook it up to their network, and a bunch of other people do the same thing. Then you all have the same games loaded on each pc, and frag each other for the next 10 days." (Frag means kill, although in actuality you can also team up and frag the computer's characters instead of each other. This is a gamer's version of "fun.")

At this point the netadmin's eyes glazed over a bit. "Wait. Let me get this straight. You work with computers."
"Yep."
"You get home from work and play with your own computers until you go to sleep."
"Yep, yep!" (I'm getting all excited just thinking about it!)
"Then you go on VACATION..."
"Uh huh..."
"To [insert boonie-town here] of all places..."
"Uh huh, but they have internet connectivity..."
"Right. So you go on vacation to a LAN party where you'll do nothing but play with computers?!"
"Yeah!! Great, huh?"
"AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"
"What?!"
"You need to get OUT and get a LIFE!!"
"But, I did!! You told me to get out of the house and meet people, so I went out and found myself some geeks to hang out with, and now I'm getting OUT of the house more..."
"OUT SIDE!! You know, where you get some SUN?!"
"Sun? Hm... Oh! I think I saw a picture of that on the internet once..."
"GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!!!"
"But--"
"NOW!!!"

I can't help it... but at any rate, I did indeed go to Boonies, USA, and wow, what an experience. Started out as just me and the host (friend). I helped him set up, we installed a couple games, he began playing Doom 3, one of his friends stopped in, and then another, and another. Eventually we had PEOPLES there! Then we had to leave and go to someone else's house because my friend's parents came home early from their vacation. So we went to this very nice lady's house where we normally play Magic and such on Saturday nights, and stayed there for the rest of the party. More people showed up after that, and that next weekend was just a-hopping. Unfortunately, I ended up sick on Saturday morning and by that night (the night the most fun and the most people were there), I was dead tired and went to bed at 10pm. Should have been more careful with my body the earlier part of the week, but nooooo, I was having too much fun staying up til 2 and 3am. Stupid me.

Anyway, it was sooooo much fun. We played Diablo II, Unreal Tournament 2004, Dungeon Siege, Nox, and a few others I didn't get into but they looked good. I got a couple people addicted to Airxonix, the awesome single-player game similar to JezzBall only in 3D and much much cooler. Of course we traded wallpapers and such, too. ;) I have to say that UT 2004 was the GREATEST game we played. My friend beat Doom 3 within 48 hours (wayyyyyyy before we left for the second party location). Met a lot of great new people, I think on that last Saturday we hit at least 15 in attendance, possibly more but I can't recall because I was out like a light most of the time. Oh, and of course some of us played things other than computer games, like Magic and HeroClix.

Soda, junk food, games, fragging, geek-talk, networking, knowledge-sharing, idle chatter, laughter, late nights, monitor radiation lighting up our faces in the eery darkness, network cables everywhere, spinning hard drives, the faint sound of music and game-noise emanating from headphones, the clickety-clack of keyboards, caffeinated cursing and cheering, sleeping anywhere the body decides to crash... this is most definitely my idea of fun!

I've decided to have my own LAN party next year. Can't wait!! I've already begun stocking up on soda, all I really need to find are chairs. Got lots of table space... > : )

~nvnohi

animals

There was a post on the petercetera.com message board about animals we DON'T like. How refreshing. Usually we have favourite this and favourite that, never seen an UNfavourite list before.

My answer was pincing bugs, mosquitoes, and dive-bombing houseflies, followed by fast, loose spiders that I'm not expecting to run on or in front of me. Then I listed some of the animals I think are rather lovable. Rats are smart, mice are soooooo cute and soft, gerbils have those fluffy little tail-tufts, chinchillas are cute considering how mean they look (omg and you can barely feel their fur they're so soft)... rabbits are rabbits, there's just no getting around the fact THEY'RE cute, sweet, and yes, they can be quite smart, too. Ferrets oftentimes smell bad but they're very playful, fun to watch, and their little faces are sooooooo cute. I was never a huge fan of lizards until the past few months since I brought Lancelot home. He's a green anole, similar to a Chameleon as far as size and colour-changing ability goes but actually related to the Iguana (or so says science). He's wicked cute and has turned me on to lizards. I have always loved iguanas... oh, and I used to want a boa constrictor as a child but stopped wanting one when I found out they ate mice - still, I do have a great affection for them, as well as pythons. Someone I know has one of each, a ball python, and a red-tailed boa. The boa is longer than I am tall and VERY powerful, but she just wraps herself around my neck and arms and head and lies there for the most part. Until she decides she wants to slink off into the couch... :: fake glare :: And the ball python scared me at first, but her and I are friends now. She's smaller, darker, and her eyes glisten more. She's slower but has a tendency to slide her way up to my ear where she whispers little tickling terms of sniffings to me. Shudder. Look, babe, wrap around my neck or arm or something and leave my ear out of this. That tickles. Yanno?

Back to the mice, though... I saw the cutest little mouse last night... went over someone's house and they had a dwarf mouse. She had the hugest ears I'd ever seen on a mouse, and she was itty-bitty, about yay big (holds up small space between index/thumb). WICKED fast little bugger. She's got this long twisting ensemble of tubing and other attachments, and she decided to wash herself in the plastic wheel where we could watch her unabashedly. Talk about fast-forwarding a video tape! It was like she'd been taped and then sped up about fifty times. wash-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wash, lick-li-li-li-li-li-lick, comb-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-comb... scratch-scra-scra-scra-scra-scra-scra-scratch... liiiiiiiiiiick, waaaaaash, cooooooooooomb, scratch, scratch, comb, lick, munch, look up, stare, "What, you never seen a mouse groom herself before? Oh well." Wash-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wash...

Mice are worse than the "typical female humans" when it comes to grooming... Me, I groom only enough to make myself presentable to the world. Any more than that and I risk losing valuable computer-time. Sleeping already wastes time as it is. Certainly not going to bother with makeup and hair spray for the computer's sake!!

Okay, I need food. Now. Stomach is soooooooooooooooo not happy with me right now. Food this time of day, though? Yick... :: scolds stomach :: oh well. She wants food, I'd better give it to her before she decides to eat her own lining. That would NOT be good.

And I just realized I left out guinea pigs. They're very cute, too. Especially the one living where the boa and python are. She's very sweet and loveable. (Sorry, sweetie, for leaving you out!)

Happy Harmonies!!

~me