Saturday Night Cat Scratch Fever

"Come on already! Bring the mad beats!"

Monday Off! So Nice!

I called off from work today, saying I was feeling tired and crummy. The tired part was certainly true, I worked 7 days in a row. A day off now and then is an important thing!

I took Cindy to the airport this morning - she had to fly to Florida for her Barnes and Noble Manager's Conference. She's staying in a very posh hotel - The Westin Diplomat in Hollywood Florida -

Check out the hotel's web site. It's a very snazzy place, and when she phoned earlier she was praising her ocean view! How cool is that? Because her room-mate's flight was delayed, I think she may have the place to herself tonight.

I relaxed today, did laundry, took some naps, watched some tv, took a walk, and worked on my web site -(FictionInteractive.com) which is not online yet, so don't bother trying the link. I've been working on the cover page for a week or so now, and I think I've found a layout that will do for now. Or at least until Cindy comes home and can give me input.

Oh! Last night we picked up a new dance pad from Best Buy. The pad came bunded with another DDR game, this one is Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. I wanted the package for the pad - it's hard to find the pads in stores, you have order them online. This pad is thicker and more heavy duty. It also feels like it's hardier inside, as if made of sterner stuff. It's working well and I'm getting good scores once again.

I just turned on the DDR game and it's telling me that the save game data is corrupted. Grrrr now all my stored scores are probably all gone. Oh well, no biggie. I can just assume that Beginners Mode has been pretty much mastered (which is largely true I'd say) and it's time to move on to Light Mode.

First Fool Here

It's Saturday morning and I'm the first one at work. Clearly I'm not working at this exact moment, but soon. Not surprised that last minute BS has led us to this point - The programmers have very little stomach for overtime, and so don't want to work late unless they are 5 minutes away from missing a deadline.

Personally, I'd rather work a couple of extra hours every day through the week, making sure my project is on track, rather than "golly gee!" realize at the last minute that my ducks are in fact not in a row. Instead, my ducks are going buck wild all over the farm, and suddenly sodomy aint just a river in Egypt. Bad Ducks! Now, see - if we'd been killing and eating the ducks all along, we wouldn't be in this pickle right now.

I slept in and didn't exercise. I'm a bad duck? Nah. I'll just work out when I get home. I shook the DDR dance pad within an inch of its life, threatening it with exploratory surgery. (I held it at the opposite end of the problem and tried to wriggle the error-causing wire to return to its rightful region.)

The dance pad is now behaving about 60% better. I'm glad, I really didn't want to try and open it up and fix it. Some gizmo's, once you open them up, they never quite shut properly again. See, it's not screwed shut like most electronic items, it's sewn shut - and there are multiple layers inside, and I don't want to go there.

What's Up With That??

Working on the 2 Player Mode on the job. They are debating whether to keep 2P or drop it entirely. I think it should stay in. Even a decent 2P is better than no 2P, you know? It's not like this is a commercial product - thank goodness - I can't imagine worrying about network code for online multiplayer and all that fun.

Cindy is gearing up for her Manager's conference - bummer to be without my Sweetie for over a week. (Insert sad face here)

And then I'll be in Ohio for about a week. Lots of traveling for us this year!! Busy Busy.

Working on my web site in the mornings and evenings, blah blah same news every day.

The DDR dance pad is definitely messed up - it's my fault, and I want a new pad. I'll try to make do with this one and see if maybe I can fix it. If I need a new one, how much can I really mess up the broken one if I open it up?

Not An Ordinary Fellah!

The beginning of another week! Who knows what it holds and will bring? It was a very lazy weekend, I did a lot of sleeping on Saturday, and took some naps to prepare for the strenuousness of still more sleep.

I got off my ass at one point and rode the exercise bike for 30 minutes, thinking that this would get me moving. Not so - I went right back to bed. I guess I had some sleep to catch up on. If sleep could be stored, I'd be set for the week!

Sunday was more fun, Cindy was off and we went to the beach and had funnel cake. It was freshly made an yummy! The wind was blowing and we got peppered in powdered sugar. The wind made lots of pretty waves and sea spray, and we watched surprisingly entertained as a man in his undies salvaged a lost purse from under the pier.

I was getting my Dance Dance Revolution on last night, but was hindered by the fact that the dance pad is acting up. The 'Up' arrow is being triggered while standing calm and still in the center square.

This is really annoying, because when you try to go for an 'up' marker at the correct time, it doesn't register, and you get a 'BOO!' which is really annoying.

I'd folded the pad into thirds to store it, and now it's messed up. Damn. I'm really enjoying the game, and it would suck to not be able to play any more. I've left it unfolded in the hopes that it will magically unkink itself.

By the way: "Not an ordinary fellah" is one of the lines from Dance Dance Revolution. When you're doing well, the line plays.

Tostitos need no dip - they are no mortal chip

So I got a 102 combo on DDR last night. That's right. I kicked Cindy's butt - Hee Hee! I know it's a fleeting record, by the time I get home from work she'll have a 200 combo for me to try to beat.

I've been Dance Dance Revolutioning every morning for my exercise - I just have not been in the mood for the exercise bike. I'll probably start swapping back and forth between them soon, but for now it's all about DDR. I meant to try playing Pac-Man on the dance pad, but keep forgetting.

Not much other news... Work is winding down for now (until the next deadline approaches) and we've been working normal 8 hour days. This gig is supposed to last until November, now. We'll see. I'm gonna treat each day like it might be the last, and so I won't be surprised when it ends early.

Rubber Sex Fetish Garments, and etc

I got to leave work early last night (after only 8 hours!) because my work computer crapped out and the programmers were huddled in a concerned fashion around it.

I don't think anything conclusive was found, the only thing they found was nothing. I keep getting corrupted assets during my installs. I think that's what you get when you install over a network, instead of with a disc, and don't ghost between installs.

Cindy and I went out to eat at the weird A&W Burger/Long John Silvers fusion in Manhattan Beach. Gotta love those frosty mugs, they make your root beer all slushy, as God intended.

We ended up at Target and spent much money. I got some new clothes, mostly, and the Kill Bill 2 DVD. I got this freaky shirt. It seems nice and normal, just a white shirt. Until you put it on, then it turns into a weird rubber sex fetish garment - which was not the intent.

Oh! I also got some of those rubberized anti-slip mats from the household items section. We're using them under the dance pad for DDR. It helps the slippage factor.

Tales of a PF Chang's Virgin

Just got back from lunch. PF Chang's today. It's good - I'd never been before. Doing regressions on the game and writing up what goodies I find. Not too much going on today.

I've been getting some good out of DDR since we got it, I played for 30 minutes last night, and then again this morning. Good workout, and it's fun. Definitely a change from riding the exercise bike.

The first night, I tried playing Doom (for the PS1) using the dance pad. Was bad. I suppose you could learn to use it eventually, but getting the controls right would be more work than fun.

I need to look online for Mad Maestro - it's a music conducting game that came out a while back. It's probably available for like $10 now. It might be a fun one for the dance pad - Cindy especially would dig it I think.

I'm working on getting my refund from SamAsh.com - they sent me a $200 violin that I canceled because it was on backorder. Now I have 2 violins. They will not believe that I requested the back ordered item to be canceled.

So they have to go back to the audio file recording of my phone call and listen to it, and find out exactly what I said. Ugh. This is going to be a pain in the ass.

I'm afraid I'm going to get stuck paying to ship it back to them, and wait forever for my refund. They're supposed to call me back... I'm going to give them a couple of more hours and then call them back.

Big Nasty Bitey Beast

Cindy is at home and I'm working overtime. I've got her new DDR disc here and she's fidgety about it.

I knew she'd want her game right about now. I suggested she stop by my work and get it on her way home, but no.

I'll probably work 12 hours today.

We're installing a new build, which takes about 30 min, and then we'll test it. We'll do a smoke test and then a cheats playthrough.

That's like chumming the ocean to see what big nasty bitey beast - er - bites.
Rinse and repeat.

We went to TGIFridays on like Thursday of last week. I used my debit card, but they still have not charged my account.

Did we skip out before the card was swiped? Do they think we ate-and-skate? Should we call them?

Overtime? Sure boss, I'll take your $18.00 an hour. Laptop Laptop Laptop it's my new mantra.

Heady Woozy Blink Blink

The Jamba Juice I had for lunch (aka sugar high) is wearing off.

Consciousness fading... Fading... Ever had a Jamba? I recommend them. Roebeks Juice is good too. But I digress from my lack of focus. I can feel my blood sugar plummeting and it's taking my consciousness with it. All that's left is pure will. Determination. And the caffeine pills I took about a half an hour ago.

So I'm feeling a little perky despite my low blood sugar, which is a quirky sensation. I want to put my head down on my desk for a little nap-nap, ala first grade. I remember that I had this green towel in Kindergarten - we all had to bring them in for nap time so we could lie on the floor and rest. How weird is that? I had that towel for about 20 years, until I cut it up for a LARP outfit I needed scraps for.

We're waiting for a new build of the game (video game tester dude, am I) and it's overdue, and it takes 30 minutes to install. I'm foreseeing overtime today, since we'll need to at least do a quick run through before we FTP the new build to the testers up north. Lots of hurry up and wait.

Cindy's new game (Dance Dance Revolution Max 2 with Dance Mat) (woo!) came today. Her birthday was last week, so this gift is late. Her other goodies were all on time, and she enjoyed them a lot.

We're hoping that DDR M2 will be a good way to exercise. Right now all I do is the exercise bike and my weights, so it will be neat to have another way to work out. I just really don't enjoy aerobicising to a videotape. I don't know that I have the rhythm for DDR, we'll see.