She's crafty. And she's just my type.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y150Lm4kZ_M

Today I faced the Trial of Seven Beefs. It required all of my wit and ingenuity, but I mastered each beef in turn and overcame the trial. Which is to say, I went with wendolen to a Vietnamese restaurant called Green Leaf and we ate a whole lot of beef.

At one point, wendolen was giving me crap for eating all the noodles. Not seriously, mind you. It was all done in a joking manner with phrases such as "If you loved me, there would be noodles". Well, surprise surprise, a waiter overhead this and was coincidentally walking by with a small bowl of noodles and dropped it off at our table, thus clearly and without a shadow of a doubt proving my love. Take that!

There was a bit of a downer at the end of the meal, however. For some weird reason, we both got fortune cookies with the check. My fortune was "You need not worry about the future." I know it's trying to be reassuring, but it's not doing very well.

It didn't help that wendolen's fortune was "Prosperity is in your future."

I saw that Stardust movie yesterday and totally forgot to pay attention and see if any of the witches said "shit".

You see, Wendy has this definition of a G rated movie. It goes something to the effect of: Someone gets hit in the balls. Last weekend, I was talking with her mother who had a complimentary definition for a PG-13 movie: There is a breast joke and an old lady says "shit".

And, damn it, I forgot to check if she was right.

...

er... Other than that, the movie was entertaining. It contained both goats and a tiny, shivering... well, we were told that it was a mouse. But the important part was that it spent the entire scene going *tremble, tremble* and eating a piece of cheese.

I went to the zoo yesterday, instead of going to work. You see, it was the day of the PopCap annual summer picnic party wherein we traditionally get a complimentary newspaper and 40 of Old E. and get to pass out in the sun in a public park somewhere. Except this time, we went to the zoo instead.

There were some organized activities which I almost entirely avoided. One involved a whole lot of rope. I know nothing else about that particular activity, although I assume it was work-safe. Another was a scavenger hunt like thing where, instead of finding physical objects, we wandered around the zoo looking for answers to questions. Well, some of us did. Others opened up their iphones and googled the answers. And me? I wandered around and watched animals. Got to see hippos being fed. Got to see giraffes being fed. Got to see a bunch of big carnivores sleeping because it was too damn hot for them to move.

Actually, I did more than see giraffes being fed. I actually fed a giraffe. See, they have these thin branches with leaves, and you hold them up to the giraffe who will eagerly strip the leaves from the branch. They are pretty sweet, what with their long eyelashes and all. Also, they have eighteen inch rasping tongues, strong enough to tear a small child from the arms of its mother and send it hurtling into the black abyss of the giraffe's endless stomach.

And the red pandas? Always cute.

So... I think White Wolf may have jumped the shark for real this time. I suspected it back during the days of Hunter, but they more or less redeemed themselves for a while. But now! Ah yes, now it's time for SCION!!!

Yes, a "zOMG" would be appropriate.

Scion reminds me of Fireborn, which is okay because Fireborn reminded me of the other World of Darkness games. The premise is that ancient gods are returning in mortal form. So, for example, some mortal girl might be the reborn spirit of Kali and go around and do Kali-ish stuff. Or, in this case, we have Horus.

I recommend everyone read his background story and description, but the important bits are as follows: His mortal name is Horace Farrow, and he wears a trenchcoat, has a gun and sword, and drives a motorcycle. Not unlike Snake Plisskin if Snake was a reborn god invented by someone who craves bad puns.

This game is going to blow. Hard. And I will love it for that.

So I'm reading outloud some text on the side of the Libbey wine sampler set box. It says,

"Bordeaux Stem
This goblet is a great stemmed glass with a large 14 oz. bowl. It is generally used for Bordeaux..."

At this point, Wendy interrupts me. She says, "Anyone who buys Libbey wine glasses isn't going to be drinking Bordeaux." I keep reading.

"...and all types of wine.
Use for:
Wine, water, Ice Tea, Dessert Parfaits"

Ouch. I'm surprised they didn't add "keeping all your loose pennies in" to the list.

On my way in, I heard shouting. Lots of shouting. Very LOUD shouting. I thought there might have been a fight, or maybe a riot of some sort. It was that loud. Turns out, it was something else entirely.

Italy 1, Ukraine 0.

Later on during lunch, something happened to the crowd. A gasp of despair. I look up to see a mass of yellow uniforms clustered around a goal. One of them has the ball, and kicks it in. Or tries to. Italy's goalie blocks it with the palms of his hands, knocking it back into the crowd. The entire restaurant cheers, but quits instantly when another man in a yellow uniform recovers the ball on the other side of the goal. More gasps of despair. But the goalie recovers amazingly quickly, and knocks it aside once again. The entire restaurant cheers again, hope having been returned to them.

Italy 1, Ukraine 0.

Apparently less than ten minutes later, Italty ran the ball to the other end of the field and scored a goal. I missed that. I don't really follow football, and so wasn't paying too much attention to the TV. But it was hard to miss the fact that something happened. Everyone was shouting. All the waiters were cheering. They were all wearing shirts proclaiming "Italy". One of them tore that shirt from his chest and kissed it.

Seriously.

I keep running into some impressively odd phrases. Today it's been: violator creative and tender validation.

So... I called State Farm a while back to get my insurance reinstated, since I had it suspended after deciding that paying for car insurance was a silly, silly thing for a man with no car to do. I told them that, on the 17th, I expected to have a new car and thus would like some insurance to go with it. As per their instruction, I supplied vehicle information. However, I lacked an important bit of information and could not complete the transaction. Basically, I hadn't gotten around to paying for the car (and wouldn't until the 17th) and needed some of the resultant information to get the insurance reinstated. No problem, though. I was assured that I need only call my State Farm agent on that day and I would instantly have insurance. Instantly. This word was used.

So... fast forward to today. It's the 17th. A sexy green mini is waiting for me, hidden under a sheet. (Amusingly, the sheet had a gigantic zipper print across it, so when I unveiled the car, it was kinda like unzipping... something. I'm not sure what metaphor was intended.) I've just finished working on that financial information, and call my State Farm agent. One ring, then voice mail. They are closed on Saturday.

They could have mentioned that earlier, since it cramps the whole 'instantly' thing. Also, Northwest Mini won't let me drive off in my new car if I don't have insurance. But hey, no trouble. State Farm has this 24 hour helpline I can get in touch with. I give them the info and they tell me that, no problem, I'm all ready to go. They will submit the information to my agent, and I should get a response by Monday.

On the other hand, Brad (the dude I bought the car from) was pretty cool about the whole thing, and got in touch with people and I ended up getting a whole new policy. My insurance is a bit of a mess right now, but that should be resolved in a few days. Anyway, the upshot of this is that, since I did finally have proof of insurance, I could drive home rather than camping out front for three days. Go me. Happy endings kick ass.

(Also, it's a fucking awesome car, and I drove to Olympia and back today and had a great time and all that. But this post is really more about the almost-trouble that I had purchasing it.)

We got a pair of Hop66 balls at work. It's amazing how much fun they are. You bounce around semi-randomly, flying off at weird angles and in weird directions, and are only vaguely capable of controlling which way you go. I can't wait to injure myself on some unsuspecting piece of office equipment.

Today is the first day I've woken up in my new apartment. Sure, I've been here before, but it hasn't felt like my apartment until now. Of course, it's still messy since I haven't unpacked everything yet, and I can't entirely disregard the old place since I still need to clean it, turn in the keys, and get rid of that lumpy mattress. But, damn it, the new place is awesome. And I live there now.

Thank you, everyone that helped with the move.

As of today, I own a Mini Cooper. Which is to say, I own a potential Mini. Assembly begins some time in August, and so, while I won't have an actual car until then (since it won't, in any real sense, exist), I will have the idea of owning that potential car. That potential, and a bus ticket, will get me to work on time.

(Oh, and I saw Narnia today. The CGI animals were very well done.)

(none of which are all that important)

First, I saw a truck with some homemade truck nutz. It's amazing what you can do with two tennis balls, a stocking, and a trailer hitch. Although, honestly, I don't understand the appeal of shoddily made testicles for your vehicle. Or for any other purpose.

Second, I saw a bumper sticker. "Blessed are the Peacemakers. United States Marine Corps." Huh. And here I thought it was UNICEF or something. Maybe it's just some Marine thing I don't understand. Or maybe it's a reference to a Colt.

Third, I heard a radio commercial. It started with a quickly spoken blurb about gravitational attraction, and then went on to describe some BIG-ASS SALE on some BIG-ASS TRUCKS!!! How appropriately x-treme. And educational. Gravity. Proportional to the mass. Inversely proportional to the distance. I never knew that before. In fact, I distinctly remember it being inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

It's a rental. A blue Chevy Cobalt which seems pretty exciting and sporty from the outside, but inside feels like a small plastic box that moves forward when I press a button with my foot. It makes me miss my Accord every time I reach for some control and it isn't there, or every time I touch something and it feels not quite right. It's technically a four seater. I hear that makes insurance cheaper, or something. I sure as hell wouldn't want to sit in the back seat.

On the other hand, I can drive.

[edit]: I just checked Chevy's website. The Cobalt is advertised as being better than the Focus. That says a whole lot right there.

If I used to have your phone number, I probably don't any more. I lost my phone. It was in my car. I'm not sure where that is, either.

http://www.expectnothing.com/pub/posts/attached/0002k1cc.gif

So a while ago, for one reason or another, I was reading this guy's posts to some forum where he was comparing reavers (which are scary in Serenity) to orcs (which aren't scary in Lord of the Rings) and wondering what it was that the orcs were lacking. Someone suggested looking up historical information about the Mongols, and I did a quick web search. I didn't find much about Mongols, but that was because I ran across this interview with Noam Chomsky. For whatever reason, I found the contents of that interview to be depressing.

Anyway, I was listening to someone give a lecture on NPR yesterday. During that lecture I kept thinking to myself, "Wow. This is almost as depressing (in the exact same way) as that one Chomsky interview." Turns out, the guy giving the lecture was Noam Chomsky.

That bastard has it out for me.

"...the ultimate experience in pig."
and
"If it is arrogant in your mouth..."

Earlier today, I was trying to describe this card game called Curses to my mother. Basically, you get a challenge deck and a curse desk. You draw a challenge card, read it out loud, then do the challenge. Then you draw a curse card and give it to another player to gets bound by those rules from then on. The challenges are things like 'Pretend to try and get another player to switch to your long distance carrier' and 'recite a nursery rhyme' and the curses...

...at this point, my mother interupts with, "You didn't do so well at that one, did you?"

No. I really don't know many nursery rhymes past the first line or two. How'd she guess?

I have actual Chuzzles. Eight of them. They squeek.