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.

The first day of our meeting went pretty well, except that I foud out that we're having a party out near the base on Thursday. I don't want to drive to the base without my cruise control, even if I managed to locate the cup holders hidden in the dashboard at last.

I gave The Lawnmower Man another try, but blew two of my continues just getting to the impossible level. then I forgot which side the second surprise gate was going to pop out of and lost. Oh well. I'll try again eventually.

Happy birthday, sakanagai. We'll do something special to celebrate one of these weeks.

The trip was okay, but I got the worst rental car ever. No cruise control, no power locks or windows... I'm surprised they even gave me a gas pedal. I was expecting a big hole in the floor and I'd have to run. Oh well. At least I only have to drive around town a bit. No more long trips until I go back to the airport. And I got a room without a wireless router for once, so I'm plugged directly into the router. No more dropped connections! (I sound like a diaper commercial. Maybe I need to make a product like that. The Internet Diaper - prevent data leakage and get a snug fit.)

Yesterday, I came up with the best idea ever for one of those upper-class fancy clothing stores that have to be called "boutiques" because anything that sounds French has to be good and worth twice as much as any sane person would pay for it - "ə". It'd be cheap to name... all I need to do is get an "e" and turn it upside down. And it sounds French, so people would definitely pay top dollar for anything I would sell. Sorry... top franc.

Today's Manga: I got the final books of Captive Heart, Fruits Basket, and Kitchen Princess. I'll be sad to see most of those stories end. I also got Tsubasa 22, Fairy Tail 7, and Negima 23.

Today's Games: We stopped by the mall, because I thought the food court might provide a decent meal (I know... duh), but we checked out the EB while we were there, and I decided to get a copy of Ar Tonelico 2... just in case someone else decided to buy it first. Then we stopped at Game World on the way home to look at their used games for older systems. Curt got a new Playstation One and some games, while I picked up the Banjo-Kazooie games for N64, Lemmings for the PSP, and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare for the Dreamcast. I may try to LP it someday, if I can beat it successfully enough and if I get something that lets me record video from the Dreamcast. It might happen.

I didn't do any packing for the trip today. I really should get to that. But I still haven't finished putting away the new manga. I have my priorities.

I didn't even go shopping today. I figure that I'm not going to be reading any manga this week, so why bother? I've got enough to get me through the weekend, and I still haven't come up with a birthday present idea. I'll probably do something tomorrow, at least. So I spent the day watching some Twilight Princess gimmick videos, reading the transcripts of the Enchanter trilogy, and kept up with the new Dream Zone thread. I'm hoping the pace picks up a bit before I have to start spending my days at work again. And I played a bit of inFAMOUS later in the day.

Happy birthday to hicat, assuming my records are accurate.

Today's Bridge: When you get a pair of hands that collectively hold 19 red cards (9 hearts and 10 diamonds), it's always amusing. Naturally, I declared 4H and we made it, without ever mentioning the diamonds. I was afraid I might lose a diamond ruff, and I had two spades and a club to lose, but the diamonds split on the opening lead, and I just claimed my five heart tricks and five diamond tricks. That was probably the most interesting hand... I had a 4C in the final hand, making it exactly, and the opponents managed a 5C that we couldn't stop. But more interestingly, it was the first time when we used our new response conventions, and every time, there was an overcall. So we had to discuss how to deal with that after we were done, because I misinterpreted some of Mike's bids, and Raymond had a few interesting ones of his own.

Today's Work: We had to finalize our document early, because it was the task lead's day off and he only came in for a meeting, so I left early. It was nice having the afternoon at home. But they were doing construction outside the building where I work, so I had to drive through it going to work and coming home. But that's nothing to the commute yesterday. In the morning, it was raining, so I decided to take 45. The construction was nowhere to be seen, but someone had driven into a ditch, and the cops and fire trucks were out there, so I got stopped for a while anyway. It's been raining a lot for a week that was supposed to be dry.

Happy birthday to animedude. Enjoy that free stuff. Coupons rule.

Today's Bridge: I managed to get a seat, and Ken and I more or less dominated the rubber, as much as we got to play of it. The critical hand had Ken raise me to 4S with a slightly weak hand and the opponents bidding hearts. Mike doubled. I had S A-K-8-6-x H J-x D K-x-x C x-x-x and Ken had S Q-10-9 H x-x D J-x-x C A-K-Q-J-8. Something like that. I falsecarded in hearts on the first trick, throwing my jack under Mike's ace, and he took the bait and led a club. I won that, then cashed the queen and led a spade to my ace, leaving Mike with the J-7. So I ran a club up to the board and ran the finesse to my tenace (sluffing the board's heart), then had my last club to get back to the board, sluff my heart and a diamond, and get the diamond king for an overtrick when Mike turned out to have the ace. Given that Mike had the ace of diamonds, as expected, there's no way the opponents can set me - I don't lose a trick after I get in the lead until I've had the chance to run my clubs and sluff two losers. But they can definitely hold me to my contract with three quick tricks. We had a few other contracts make exactly, but they never looked like they would. Mike got a bit upset when Raymond grossly underbid his hand and they ended up in 3S, but he had three heart losers and the missing ace of clubs. I made a 2S with two overtricks thanks to great distribution. I lost the two missing red aces (maybe... I'm pretty sure I got my singleton queen of hearts on the first trick, but I don't know what else I could have lost) and the queen of spades, which was left after I cashed the top two.

Today's Work: A very productive day. I got a form filled out and worked yet more on our requirements. It looks like they're really coming together.

I spent the evening redoing all of my Dream Zone screenshots. Well, they're much better quality and smaller files. Can't argue with that.

I played plenty of My World, My Way over lunch, but still didn't find even one of the item I need. I must be doing something wrong. But Pinky has the Drain Kiss again, and it's just barely too weak to kill most of the enemies we're fighting now. Especially when I'm fighting three of an enemy that keep healing each other every turn. Argh!

The meeting ended successfully... we all stopped talking to each other and went back to doing productive work. Then I came home and uploaded every image for the Dream Zone LP in advance... I can't imagine that I'll need more images than the initial state of every room and all of the death screens. If I do, I can grab them and manipulate them as I need to. No problem. Now... to hope I can get to Tinypic from the hotel, so I can actually post the images. I might need to make a full list of the BBCODE for every one in advance, just to be sure.

Then just to hope it goes over well.

I love the way the news recently has quoted that New York senator about how the news has been talking too much about Michael Jackson, then proceeds to talk more about Michael Jackson. It cracks me up.

Happy birthday to danightman... it's been a long time. Maybe I'll get back into the convention scene again someday.

No Bridge today... the second day of our three-day meeting threw off my schedule. I did play some My World, My Way. I'm at the desert, searching for items. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to get back into the LP scene, most likely by working a bit ahead on a choose-your-own-adventure LP that people in the Something Awful forum can play along with. If I get enough screencaps of the rooms in the game and can upload them all in advance, I should be able to keep the thread going while I'm on travel with minimal effort. Keep an eye out for it. Until then, I have a few long introductory posts to write offline so I can post them all at once and snag the first few posts in the thread for myself.

Today's Bridge: We walloped our opponents... granted, I don't think the bidding was all it could have been in most of the hands, but we had all of the power and I, at least, wasn't afraid to use it. How could I help ending in 3C and making 6 when Dan refused to bid with 8 points opposite my jump? Granted, the opponents gave up a few tricks in that hand and let me get my singleton king, then sluff some losers. I made every contract, the first few with some overtricks (the first one, at least, was probably settable... I'd established two diamonds on the board, but my only entry was the queen of clubs, and I was missing the ace. I had no choice but to cash my king and jack, hoping to draw out the ace, and Ken obliged by taking it at his first opportunity. Paul declared the final hand at 4S to prevent us from getting a very makeable 4H (we were underpowered, but we had 11 hearts between us and strategic singletons), and Dan doubled rather than considering 5H. 5H might be makeable, but the opponents would have to mess up to let me sluff a loser. They were off two in 4S... so a good sacrifice.

Today's Work: I took a page from My World, My Way and pouted my way out of the morning session of our three-day meeting. Seriously. I needed to submit travel plans for next week, and didn't want to wait until Thursday. They've already been accepted. Wow. Also, they were mostly arguing about random stuff of no relevance to anyone. There were a few useful comments in the afternoon... largely "We'll need to come to a decision about this." Wow again... but the other kind of wow.

I finally managed to get a setup that looks like it will work for screenshotting and recording some Apple IIGS games, so I might attempt a Let's Play of one of my old favorites... a game so old, I remember playing it before King's Quest. It'll be interesting to see what people in the forum make of it. If anything... I certainly haven't established myself in that genre yet. But it's something to try. I pulled Elfen Lied for tonight's viewing, but I'm not going to get to it. Some night in the near future is going to be very messed up.

I spent a good portion of the day exploring my options for recording video of things other than DOSBox. Basically, VirtualDub can DO the job... but I can't get it to stop. I have to have the Task Manager up already so I can kill the process. The video seems to work afterward, but VirtualDub has to recreate the index. I got the HuffYUV codec, and the laptop can use it just fine, but the desktop can't. The desktop is where the free space is. I may try recording directly to a USB drive, but short of that, I don't think VirtualDub will do it for me. I might try having the desktop encode on the fly and just accept the quality loss and see how that works for me.

Back in the realm of games I know I can record, I spent the rest of the day trying to get through The Lawnmower Man on the PC. You know the game. It took me three tries just to get to the final plane level... and I lost yet again. Save points or passwords would have been so nice. Well, there's nothing else for it but to keep trying. If I can just get the last three levels done, I'll have everything I need. I just hate having to get through all the levels before them every time I want to have three more chances... minus any stupid mistakes I make along the way. I'll get it if I keep trying. Maybe one run a night or something.

I got a new camping backpack... here's hoping it fits everything I want to bring with me. I think there's a side pouch for a bottle, anyway.

I guess it's not as happy for those of British descent who still wish they had dominion over us... but does anyone actually WANT the United States these days?

I didn't bother to turn in last night until about 4:30, so I stayed in bed for quite a while this morning. Then I spent the day playing more inFAMOUS (I'm well more than halfway through now) and ended with laundry and an episode of Dead Like Me. I think Curt went to Sullivan for the day, and he's still not back... he might have stayed there for the night. Who knows? Maybe he made a journal entry to tell me about it that I haven't seen yet. Oh well. Tomorrow will be... another one of those things with the sun moving and alarms and stuff. That thingy.

It rained all day, so I don't think there will be any fireworks. Oh well. I'm not a big fan anyway.

Today's Manga: High School Debut 10 and the first book of Orange Planet - yet another new series by an author I like. They keep doing that!

Today's Anime: Death Note: Rewrite (or Relight) and UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie... what can I say?

I finally beat inFAMOUS today, using the evil path... so now I'm going to have to go through again using the good path, probably in Hard difficulty, so I can get more trophies and see the rest of the story. I may have to do some evil stuff, though... it seems that some of the Blast Shards require good actions to collect, and some require evil actions. The good news is that the game at least lets you continue after the ending, so you can clean up the last few things, but with no enemies around, I doubt I'll ever get the rest of the stunts. I don't know whether my completed stunts carry over from game to game. It would be nice. I'll never be able to repeat some of those stunts, especially since I still don't know how to do some of them.

Okay, the underwear... I figured I could use a few more pairs, so I bought some at Wall Market last weekend. I didn't know what to expect from their "no ride-up guarantee"... they still ride up a little bit, but it's a vast improvement over what I'm used to. I may have to start replacing all the old pairs that have holes with this brand instead. Possibly even pre-emptively. The drive home could be so much more comfortable in the summer.

And now back to the Freelance Astronauts playing Twilight Princess with a full suite of cheat codes.

I got 59 minutes of administrative leave today... I think. The E-mail seemed pretty clear in that we were all supposed to get it, but Curt says that some branches in his department didn't. Oh well. If my branch wasn't cleared for it, then I guess I used an hour of leave. Meh.

I came home and played inFAMOUS. I suppose it could be said that I got a lot done at work, but a lot of things COULD be said. I just don't really feel like saying any of them. This is my long weekend, and it's going to be interrupted by a bunch of explosions halfway through. Until then, I'm going to get some sleep while I still have the chance.

Today's Bridge: Finally, actual Bridge. Mike returned and was my partner against Ken and Dan. And once again, I had a hand that would have been perfect for our old Sohl double, but we're using the negative double now, so I couldn't do it. Mike started with 1D, Ken overcalled 1S, and I had S A-J-9-x-x-x H K-x D A-Q-x C x-x. So I bid 2S. Mike liked that and jumped to 3NT, making it with one overtrick when I think it was good for two using the Bath Coup in spades. We ended the rubber two hands later with another 3NT, but I can't forget to mention the opponents making a game out of two 2 contracts. Maybe we could have bid something to push them up in one of them. Their last try was a 4C when Mike had opened 1NT. I didn't think they had much of a chance, but they were only off one.

Today's Work: We spent the day working on our requirements (and making a lot of progress, but it doesn't feel like we did much against the huge list), until the people installing the system on the ship called us, the software team, to complain that the hardware team hadn't set up the devices properly. Well, to be fair, they didn't know that until the first time we told them. But why is it that when we install the same, working software on new hardware that people have been messing with, everyone suspects software problems? Well honestly, they knew it was hardware. They just also knew that our hardware people never do anything right and only the software people can get stuff done, even with the hardware. There's been talk about having a software person out there tomorrow for the install. Yeah... good luck with that.

Only one more work day this week. I can get through this.

Don't worry about the title... I'll get there. Meanwhile, temaranight gave me five things she associates with me, and they're different from the ones I've been getting. I didn't realize there were ten things that could be associated with me, but there you go.

( Five Nidoking jokes, and learnèd essays upon them )

So, in conclusion, I've done this before, but I want to put a new twist on it this time. Comment to this entry and ask for it, and I'll give you the LAST five things I would associate with you. Or five completely random things having nothing to do with you. Whatever I can think of, as long as it isn't associated with you in any way. Then you have to write about those, in any way you can. Let's see if anyone bites this time.

Today's Bridge: I got Space Jump and Plasma Beam. I'm finally caught up with the Metroid Fusion LP until the next update.

Today's Work: I submitted my travel voucher and my travel comp form, did a bit of administrative work related to the stuff I did during the trip, and read up a bit more on DDS and how we can leverage it. There were some interesting E-mails this week, including our RFPs to hardware vendors. If anyone reading this is a hardware vendor... PLEASE laugh uproariously at the objective of communicating via DDS and provide us with something sane.

And to make things really weird, Legally Blonde is on Fox tonight, and I'm watching it. It IS a pretty good movie. Some familiar faces too. I saw it in the theater... that should bring back memories, and it does, but I'm going to ignore them and watch the rest of the movie. Then maybe some inFAMOUS at last. Also, more Kamichu. I've been ignoring my anime for far too long.

Today's Bridge: We only had three people, so I went to get my card games, and only two people wanted to play any of those. I probably should have devoted the time to the DS.

Today's Work: Lots of catching up, and lots of preparation for the DAWIA course that isn't even coming up for another month. The branch manager sent me a congratulatory message, but I didn't notice that he'd copied the rest of the branch on it until I found another reply to that message. I'm honestly not sure how to feel about that. It's cool that he thought my work was worth telling everyone about, but I think there are people in the branch who'd rather not know about what I'm doing. Well... I haven't heard from anyone yet, aside from the one reply I got.

I spent the evening trying to do a video capture of the Apple IIGS emulator... I don't think this laptop is up to the task. I may try installing all the relevant software on the desktop and giving that a try later in the week, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort at this point. And as always, that was my day.

Today's Manga: Obviously, after two weeks of nothing, I found a few new ones. Future Diary 2, The Wallflower 20, Hana Yori Dango 36, Mamotte Shugogetten 5, Me & My Brothers 8, Negima Neo 2, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 3, and Zombie Loan 6. But since that was the last of Mamotte Shugogetten and Hana Yori Dango, I also got the first books of a few new series. But I have valid reasons for all of them, not that I really need reasons. I believe it goes like this: Gestalt is by the author of Loveless, Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess is by the author of Venus Versus Virus (which I just finished the sixth book of today), Lucky Star is by the author of Lucky Star, Samurai Harem has samurais and harems, and Sunshine Sketch is four-panel comics about cute girls... I think we're all familiar with examples of why that's always good. (See above where I mentioned Lucky Star.) So there you have it. All absolutely essential must-haves for my collection. An absolute non-essential... what the hell is the deal with the new Family Guy collection? More money for fewer episodes? Hey, I may like the show, but I can also do math. I may get it along with the Death Note special from Ryuk's point of view next week, when I have a 10% off coupon as well as the $5 certificate.

Lunch at Panera... not exactly the greatest, and probably not really worth the cost either. Plus, they seem to have gotten Curt's sandwich wrong, but he's used to that by now.

Other than that, I stayed home most of the day and played inFAMOUS. I'm finally figuring out how to make Arc Lightning useful, and the infinite energy move comes in really handy when fighting some of the new, bigger enemies. Comparing notes with Curt, I've concluded that taking the evil path is DEFINITELY easier, but having reached the peak of Infamy at last, I finally realize what makes things harder on the bad guys... EVERYONE IN THE CITY WANTS TO KILL ME NOW. Women run up to me and start hurling stones, even after they've seen me kick the other women who threw stones at me to the ground and drain their life energy to heal the damage their damn rocks have done. I don't think it would kill me, unless I was a complete moron about it, but it's both distracting and annoying, and can cause me to lose my grip while climbing. When Curt's character runs through town, they take pictures of him. Also, sometimes, doing the evil thing is hard. There was a point when I needed to shoot some explosives to kill a bunch of people, but I missed the shot. I had to redo an annoying mission because I didn't want that heroic slight on my conscience. After having to redo the hardest damn mission ever because I tried to save halfway through, that was unpleasant. And the stunts are getting tricky to perform. Well, it's still fun enough to take up hours of a weekend when I should be doing other things, although I eventually got my receipts taken care of and my stuff all squared away for two whole weeks of work - minus the holiday coming up and probably one other day, due to either me being sick or just plain needing a break between all the freaking travel.

There was a bit of excitement when I heard dripping from the basement on my way out to dinner. I went down and found the furnace dripping. It looks like all that happened was that the drainage pipe slid off the drain and onto a solid part of the floor, preventing the water from draining. So it backed up and dripped out the top of the pipe instead, soaking the filter. It seems to be fine now, but we'll have to keep an eye on it.

I also found the intriguing answer to Garfield Minus Garfield known as The Square Root of Minus Garfield. This strip in particular keeps cracking me up every time I look at it. I laughed until I changed the tab, and laugh again every time I change back to it. It's sort of like xkcd made from Garfield strips, with a high proportion of mathematical jokes. It hurts to laugh. (Muscle weakness from yesterday, and possibly some stiffness from my attempts to sleep.)

There are times when I hate my life. I just thought I'd throw that out there.