For those just joining us, or those who've known me since before I made this entry... welcome to the unofficial home of Nidoking's brain! This is a place where I dump a lot of information every night that I really don't want to carry around in my head, or maybe I've got a CRAZY notion that it'll entertain someone other than me. *pfft* Like THAT ever happens. Anyway, feel free to take a look around and see what I've been up to recently.

The Audience Participation exercise to end all Audience Participation exercises (except those that come after it):
Respond to this entry with interview questions that you'd like me to answer in my daily posts. Each day, I'll pick a question (if there are any I haven't answered yet) and answer it in my daily post, then respond to the comment here with a link to that entry. So if there are already some comments down there, you should be able to hunt down the answers easily enough and see what I've already said about myself or the random topics these jokers like to post about. (My friends are great, but a little off their rockers at times. I, on the other hand, have never been ON my rocker to begin with, so nobody out-randoms me and gets away with it!)

I may add some links here to favorite entries of my past, but other than the Young Ones/Monty Python crossover I listed in my Memories, I can't think of any right now. Oh well. We'll see what happens as I remember more things.

Today's Bridge: It's possible that we got all the good hands, but it really didn't feel that way. ( We still won big time, so thanks for small favors. And big ones, as you'll see. )

With all that to say about Bridge, the rest of the day was completely dull. I suppose there was a bit of action when I got called in to revisit ADCP briefly... they wanted to update the operating systems on the computers that run our old simulator programs, but couldn't get the programs to run on the new OS. I remember the problems we had every time we tried to port it, and eventually, we got to the point where the program just silently failed to produce any output at all. So, at least for now, they're going to leave the computers alone.

This holiday season is full of great games, and I think I'm going to call an official halt to buying any of them and just put them all on my Christmas list tomorrow. I think my wish list of games alone would fit everyone's price range pretty well, but I intend to stick at least one DVD/Blu-Ray on there, and some TV series that members of the family have recommended or enjoyed. I'll let them encourage me to watch some, if they so choose, by making presents of them. Not that I've watched anywhere near all the ones I have already, but I'm watching more TV on DVD lately, now that I can't eat in front of the laptop easily. I set up my tray in front of the TV and pop in DVDs like Dexter or The Animated Mr. Bean that I need to pay attention to. I'm not worried if some of the gifts are a little late, aside from possibly being out of town when they arrive, and since I have no clue what my schedule will look like yet, I could very well be making the trip before Christmas instead of after. I suppose I'll leave it there and go try to finish my Blitzballing forever. The guys will be beating FF10 this weekend and posting the videos during the week, and I should probably experience the end of the game for myself before watching it their way. Also, I have to do that song. Grrr...

Today's Bridge: We got some of the worst cards I've had as a partnership yet. The closest we had to a biddable hand was a 3C opener from me, off two and thankful for it. We did go up to 4S as a sacrifice on the final hand, facing a pretty bad defensive holding (Dan alone had A-Q-J), but Dan bid 5H, and we set them two. In another hand, Paul got ambitous and doubled, indicating about 12 points to me when he actually had more like 7 or 8. We bid up to 2NT, but Keith bid 3D (a new suit), and Dan left him there. A rather unfortunate hand, although I think we only set them one or two. Granted, the only alternative he would have had was 4C... and sometimes, a better suit isn't quite worth two additional tricks, which is how many it would require to be worth going up a level. Leaving us in 2NT would have devastated us, although I might have bid 3C. Probably not.

Otherwise, I need to learn not express opinions. It seems to cause nothing but problems, especially when people agree with me. Nobody wants to admit that they agree with me, and I'm obviously horrible at explaining my opinions in such a way that anyone can understand them anyway. It seems like, no matter what I think, I manage to say it in a way that offends everyone who reads it. Case in point: this paragraph.

Only two more Blitzball games left. But I have to make an Amazon wish list so my family can get me presents this year. I'll also need to peruse their lists for stuff to get them. When it's by mail-order, I can't really wait until, say, later tonight to take care of it.

Today's Bridge: I managed to get a seat today, as Dan's partner. He likes to make jokes at his own expense these days, but there was only one hand where I know he misbid. He overcalled weak (he meant to bid 2H and bid 1H instead), and I ended up declaring 2NT where my only strength, as such, was his six hearts to the king and my singleton jack. Ken had the singleton ace. I think I was lucky to escape with off two. But the opponents started with two sets (at least one came down to a bad trump split where I had the singleton 2, and I think the other was lost on finesses), and we finally made a game in hearts to pull well ahead. Keith just kept bidding in the next auction, while Dan and I liked hearts, and Ken never got the chance to double with his Q-J-x-x of hearts, so he finally raised Keith to 5C, off two if I remember correctly. So they went into the last hand with no hope of winning, and Ken jumped Keith's 1C opener to 6C. Off four.

I managed to wake up pretty early this morning and made it to work an hour earlier than usual, despite a vehicle inspection. I celebrated by making pizza pasta for dinner and working on the last set of King's Quest 6 bonus videos. There are so many things I never knew you could do in that game. I may also be doing the main videos for KQ7 instead of just bonuses... more on that later.

Last night, as I was about to turn in, my TV receiver started acting up. It showed three white dots on the TV screen, and the power light was blinking on and off. Curt thinks it was getting an update, which makes sense, but that's a long time to be acting weird if it's a normal update. It should at least display a "Updating" on the screen or something. It was working again this morning, and my settings are all intact, so it all worked out in the end.

Just a quick update because some of these stories are too good to pass up:

Prostitution sting catches 13-year-old boy. The undercover officer tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on being arrested. This is proof that our nation's sexual education is deficient... would a real prostitute try to talk a customer out of paying? (Actually, I have no idea. I don't believe I've ever met one, and if I have, it certainly wasn't in a professional capacity.)

New Jersey driver hits woman on bike because he's texting a drug deal. They're probably going to give him some kind of reward for having a better excuse than being a New Jersey driver. Note that they charged him with drug possession, and as an afterthought, figured they might as well charge him with causing the collision too. That's New Jersey for you.

Woman leaves $40,000 in rare coins at a church to have the Virgin Mary watch over them. She very nearly watched over the new annex they were probably going to build with the donation money, until someone convinced the owner to try a bank instead. Why bother? She can probably just grill a cheese sandwich and use that to guard them. (Bet you never thought ANYONE would make THAT joke again!)

Man steals bus, joyrides, posts the video on YouTube. You know, at this point, it seems like the police may as well just knock off the street beat and spend their time monitoring YouTube for signs of crimes.

Man claiming to be a ninja impales himself on fence. The cops found him while searching for a fleeing assault suspect. Even they have to be able to put the clues together here. Then again, I've seen some ninja that were less than graceful. Ninin ga Shinobuden, Tail of the Moon, any Ninja Gaiden game when I'm playing...

Today's Bridge: I got into a 3NT contract where I was expecting to play in 2. So I played to take 8 tricks and got them exactly. Ugh. That wasn't the only mistake, though... Paul underruffed in the last hand when Ken misplayed in a way that could have given us a settable contract, and Ken sluffed a winning diamond so he could ruff the board's winning diamond, when he had a chance to sluff a losing spade instead and make his contract. Otherwise, the bidding was where it was at. I jumped to game twice, pre-emptively, and Paul made the 5C. I also made a 5C, bid 3, because Paul had all of the honors I was missing except the ace of clubs, and I had a singleton diamond, the only suit where we had no power at all.

Today's Work: Still looking at the same damn document, waiting for the task lead to come back and let me know if he even wants me doing that.

Tonight, I'm thinking about playing more Blitzball while catching up on the DVR recordings from Sunday night. Maybe some LP work instead. Tough call.

Happy birthday, giroroxnatsumi. Keep believing in those one-sided relationships.

No Bridge today... predictably, I didn't get to play, so I played Professor Layton instead. That was the most interesting thing that happened all day. I didn't make it out of bed until it was almost too late, and barely got to work in time. Then someone from the hardware group asked me to set him up with a laptop that could run our software, because they lost the one we set up for them last time. I spent about an hour getting the software together, then went over there and had to wait for them to dig up a laptop. It had everything they needed already on it. Not only that, but when they tried running the client on their server just for the heck of it, it worked there too. So there was very little for me to do. And I'm charging them two hours for it. Bookkeeping, guys... it's more than just the only word family in the English language with three pairs of double letters in a row.

My Internet connection is having more problems than usual, including crashing my laptop, so this hopefully isn't a sign of bad things to come.

Happy birthday a few mere hours early to vixent_fox.

I did pretty well at Blitzball today, but that's about all that was of interest. I was up early this morning feeling sick... I blame Taco Bell. I think I'm done with being interested in their taco salads. But I got back to sleep until 8:30 anyway. Dinner was Arby's, and I ordered two things I've never had before. The roast beef melt was really good. Much to Curt's surprise, I'm sure, it had caramelized onions as well as that zesty sauce... perhaps a bit too much sauce. The gyro was good too, but as I'm not that big a fan of tomatoes and onions, I'm not sure I'd order another one. The melt, I'd definitely order again.

On the other hand, Psychedelic Eyeball was recording the final video of Prince of Persia 2 via live stream tonight, and they invited anyone who wanted to to call in. So I did. I had some technical problems at first (forgot to go offline on my laptop before signing on on the desktop, so it dropped my call), but it was a good time, and I got to say a few funny things. It ate up the whole evening, but it's left me right about at bedtime, with enough time to watch one more FF10 video beforehand. So I think that's the way I"m going to do it, and hopefully, all the Sierra Mist I drank today will help me fall asleep and stay asleep until it's time to be awake.

Ha.

Today's Manga: I didn't even bother going. After staying up last night until about 3, I didn't feel like shopping any more than Curt did. So I stayed here and played lots of Blitzball, and also failed to make any progress in Borderlands despite a good bit of time on it. I made plenty of progress in Blitzball, though. I finally learned some elusive Key Techniques and got all of Wakka's Overdrives.

Well, hopefully, I can get to bed at a normal time tonight. Only one more day before I have to get back to a normal schedule of waking up and going to work... for a whole week and a half. The end of the year rules.

At least I knew it was Friday enough to hit Taco Bell as per tradition.

I actually spent most of the day playing Blitzball. It's a sad existence. I also watched a few episodes of The Animated Mr. Bean... it's something short I can watch during meals. And I'm going back through the early episodes of the FF10 Let's Play for no particular reason.

Will I be able to restore a meaningful sleep schedule before I have to go back to work next week? We'll see. The weekend begins as normal tomorrow.

Also, thanks for going down for maintenance while I'm trying to post, LJ. You're the best. At something.

Happy birthday tomorrow to miintikwa. Have a good one. Celebrate in good spirits.

I spent most of the early part of the day, and a good deal of the later part, playing Borderlands. Curt and I returned to our multiplayer session, but his game sound wasn't working, and he quit after I'd turned in a plot quest. For some reason, it didn't give my character credit for that one, so all of the remaining plot quests we did, I had to redo offline. It wasn't hard, because I was overleveled for most of them, but it took quite a while. I got some neat stuff, though. I got a shield with very fast healing somewhere along the way, and I keep using it even though it's got almost no shield power. I also got a revolver with exploding bullets, which is handy despite only holding three rounds. I think my current set of three weapons collectively holds only 18 shots, but they're pretty effective. Better than plinking away at enemies with hundreds of bullets that do single-digit damage each, if they even hit.

Then I spent the evening playing way too much Ratchet & Clank. I didn't know how to access the more advanced tournament events until the end of the session, so I went through most of the game without the rewards from it. I'm not happy about that, but at least I have them now.

I finally recorded what could turn out to be the first video of an LP. The conversation that followed went on until just now. Hence, if I had much to say about today, there really wouldn't be much time for it. Meals at Yogi's and the Chinese buffet, gaming included Borderlands and more Crack in Time, and I finally put all the old receipts in my checkbook and did the balancing from October. More news on all of that when I have news about any of it.

Today's Bridge: I was amazed to get a seat, but I did. This time, our only real failures were failures to double some doomed hands. It would have been tough... I was defending a 4H contract where my partner had opened 1D and was overcalled 3H. I had five spades to the ten, four hearts to the king, and four clubs to the king... tough to double even when they go up to 4H, although my partner was considering a raise to 5D. I'm glad he didn't. I'd started with a 2H I didn't think was makeable, but it was our best suit. We were 4-3 in spades and clubs, and 5-2 in hearts. My five hearts helped me cover my singleton diamond. There weren't any big hands like yesterday's, but I did get to declare a very odd hand right at the end. We were vulnerable and the opponents weren't, but with a hand like S K-J-x-x-x H K-Q-x-x-x D K-x C x, I had to open 1S. Keith overcalled 2C, and Paul responded 3S, which wasn't quite strong enough for game, but promising. When Dan bid 4D, I skipped bidding the hearts and bid 4S. However, Paul's hand was nothing like what I'd expected: S A-x-x H A-J-x-x-x-x D x C Q-x-x. We had more hearts than spades! The opening lead was, predictably, a heart, and thankfully, Dan followed. I took the trick, ran the spade finesse and lost, gave up the club and the ace of diamonds, ruffed a club lead, then pulled the rest of the trump, sluffed the board's last club on the king of diamonds, and claimed the hearts.

The meeting this afternoon went surprisingly well. I made some very good points, and the group accepted them for the most part. The task lead then pointed out that there's not much to do for the rest of the week, so I took more time off. Tomorrow's a holiday, but the other two days will make it a five-day weekend. It just makes sense. I don't know what to do to fill that time, but I suppose anything is okay. Probably some Borderlands, at least.

Today's Bridge: I failed to bid up in the first hand, and we missed a slam that may have been guaranteed. The opponents capitalized with a notrump game, followed by a 3D contract that they had no business bidding, but which they made easily enough. Mike declared a 3NT that I'm pretty sure was makeable, but he missed his chance to set up and cash my long spade suit. Off three. That gave us a big deficit going into another 3NT hand, but he made this one with three overtricks. Dan threw away a few clubs to the queen, setting up Mike's entire hand for plenty of extras. We decided to play one more hand, and I lucked out. Having had a few opening hands (or near-opening hands) earlier, I found myself holding S A-K-10-x-x H A D K-Q-x-x C A-Q-x - a textbook 2C opener. Mike responded 2NT after consulting our bidding convention card, and even I had to consult the card to make sure I remembered what that meant... it's not every day I get to open 2C. (Incidentally, it's an 8-12 point hand with no four-card suit.) Dan doubled the 2NT, and I would have redoubled but for the short heart. Instead, I bid 3S, and Mike responded 4D. From there, it would have been a tough call what to do, but Dan doubled again. That's an easy redouble, and Ken followed with 4H, which Mike doubled, and Dan redoubled, again saving me the trouble of deciding whether to look for a diamond slam. We set them five tricks, predictably, for 2800 points, far more than the value of even a vulnerable slam. But we had to ask... how would we have fared in a slam contract? Mike thought we would make 6S, but I don't think we can. He had S Q-x-x H x-x-x D A-J-x-x C x-x, and the opposition had 3-2 diamonds, Dan had four spades to the jack (to my right, which is vital), and the king of clubs was offside. The problem here is that we need a club ruff, and there's no way to set that up AND take the necessary spade finesse to catch Dan's jack, unless we begin with the assumption that he's got four to the jack and finesse early. Having diamonds as trump, however, makes it possible, because the club ruff can serve as the entry to Mike's hand for the finesse. Mike pulls trump in three rounds, cashes the queen and ace of spades, and learns of the split. Now, he runs clubs to void his hand (losing one in the process), then ruffs my last one to run the spade finesse, ending up with five spades, five diamonds, the ace of hearts, and the ace of clubs. The opponents can't beat us by throwing clubs twice, because that's how many rounds we're going to play anyway, nor can they defeat us with two heart leads, because I've got a long diamond to ruff the second one with.

I think that covers my day pretty well. I didn't pay complete attention to House, as I'm not yet back in the habit of dropping everything and watching TV, but I think I caught the gist of what was going on.

I had a thought this morning that's probably best summed up as a conversation between myself and my subconscious, which I'll call Baxter for no apparent reason.

ME: Hey, you know those commercials they always have on the radio for organizations where single people get together to meet other single people and try to hook up?
BAXTER: Yes, I'm familiar with them.
ME: Why does everyone assume that single people want to hook up? What about the singles who want to stay single? Why don't we have an organization for them?
BAXTER: There is one. It's called the Internet.

Blocks With Letters On

Besides, nothing worth writing about happened today.

Today's Manga, as reported from my receipts because I didn't even bother to count them: We Were There 7, WaqWaq 2, Spiral 9, Shinobi Life 3, Tokyo Pet Shop of Horrors 6, Ouran High School Host Club 1, Legend 6, High School Debut 12, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4, Gin Tama 15, D. Gray-Man 15, Tsubasa: Those With Wings 3, Rosario + Vampire 10 (I think that's the last one, but the blurb says there will be more...), Otomen 4, Negima 24, Inu-Yasha 42, Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden 9, Record of a Fallen Vampire 7, Claymore 15, Black Bird 2, and the second Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle character guide... maybe it will help me figure out what the hell is going on in that series.

I devoted most of today to making the next King's Quest 6 bonus video. It's not done yet, but assuming the game video came out okay, I just need to do the commentary. I also played a fair bit of Ratchet & Clank, and watched another episode of MST3K. A pretty average Saturday, I suppose.

I made another Final Fantasy 10 song, but nobody's commented on it. Oh well. It was fun to make, anyway. Maybe I just need someone who can actually make music to make the song from my lyrics instead of trying to record myself singing.

Gaming-wise, I didn't do much. I decided to finish Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction so I could start on A Crack in Time. Fortunately, I was at the final boss in the former, and had just obtained the RYNO IV, which makes the whole experience as trivial as I'd been told to expect. No sense making things harder for myself when it was just a means to an end. The second game seems to have the familiar tie-in mechanic of offering the weapons at a discount if you have a save from the first game on the same hard drive. I like the new idea of flying around space and finding planets to explore, rather than just choosing them from a list like in previous games in the series. Even when some of those planets are dinky, it's still a nice feature, and gives something to do during load times. I also got to test my new video streaming and recording setup... it took some doing, but I got everything I need for a good video, and the only remaining issue is putting the parts together. Surprisingly harder than I expected, but I didn't devote much time to trying.

I finished the second season of Dexter, even though I wasn't eating for much of that time. That was quite an ending. Now I'm taking a break to watch some MST3K before moving on, partly because the third season is on Blu-Ray, which will require the PS3. Also, it's bedtime and then some.

It wasn't BAD... but I didn't know what to do with myself all day. I played some Banjo-Tooie and some Blitzball, watched a bunch of Dexter, and had some not very good Aver's pizza. They'd lumped all the feta cheese in the center of the pizza, so it was a few bites of gross and then none of that flavor on the rest of the slice.

I did go check my tires before lunch, and what do you know... they WERE really low. Averaged around 25 psi instead of 32. Well, I fixed those. Next time I do any appreciable driving, I'll see if the warning goes away on its own.

Then I spent the evening reading the rest of the third arc of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure online. The in-joke on the very last page cracked me up. I'll still buy them as they come out, but really, one book every four months just doesn't cut it.