Philadelphia Film Festival

This weekend, Anthony and I went to see two Philadelphia Film Festival movies with our friend Phineas. On Saturday, we saw a super weird trippy sci fi movie called Beyond the Black Rainbow, which was sort of scattered and strange but worth seeing. Last night's movie was amazing - it was a thriller called Headhunters and, much to my surprise, had Jaime Lannister in it! He was fantastic as the super sinister bad guy, which is unsurprising. There are a handful of other movies I want to see, including one on Thursday and one on Monday, but I'm not sure if we'll make it to all of them.

In other news, I joined a skeeball league! I am a freelancer (or freeballer, if you will) and I ended up on a team full of awesome people called the Alex Mac Daddies. We had two games on Thursday and we won both! My highest roll was a 250, hot damn. It's exciting and fun!

I also finished "Breaking Bad" - did I mention that? And Anthony and I have one more episode of "The IT Crowd," and not much left in "Better Off Ted." We've been playing a ton of Blood Bowl as well - the board game, as well as the PSP and computer games. I also finished the second Dresden Files book, Fool Moon, and I'm trying to decide which book to read next, though I've been carrying around the rulebook for Gamma World in the hopes that we start that campaign soon. I'm excited!

Speaking of excitement, I'm also going to my first ever Dungeons and Dragons convention! I've never done that before. I hope I don't get super burnt out! I'll probably end up using my high level Bladesinger all weekend, but that's ok - I really want to get her levelled up so I can start playing the higher mods anyway, and I'd love to see what she's capable of in the higher levels. She's pretty bad ass right now as it is!

What else has been going on... I did some cleaning and laundry yesterday, though I could really do some more. My two Halloween costumes are almost finished - well, one is completely done, but I still need one small piece for the other! We ended up having to get two because we had one all planned out and started buying stuff for it and then found out our other party was mustache-themed, so now we have two, which has actually been pretty fun to put together :). I'll take plenty of pictures, don't worry :) I'm still slogging through Resistance 3 and I finished up Ico and need to start Shadow of the Colossus. Mostly I'm just chomping at the bit for Uncharted 3!! I've also been taking lots of pictures lately, which has been really fun, and doing as much writing as I can. This week is packed with stuff as well...

• tonight: dinner with Michelle Pagnani


• tomorrow night: new Murakami comes out! plan to read all night :)


• Wednesday night: dinner, D&D Encounters, Electric Six concert!


• Thursday night: either Skeeball or PFF movie


• Friday night: Indyhall/Geekadelphia Mustache party at Tattooed Mom's


• Saturday: D&D all day, Halloween party at Brian's at night


• Sunday: NOTHING all day so far, but PFF movie at night

I don't think I'll be sleeping much...

Oh, and also, I'm on a new medication - it's called Buspar. My anxiety has been flaring up pretty badly, so my psychiatrist added that to what I'm already taking. He forgot to mention I shouldn't drink on it, so Friday night at boardgame night at Kristen's I went from slightly wine tipsy to annihilated in three glasses. I will be sure to 1) eat dinner, 2) not drink so fast, and 3) not take Buspar with wine. Not a good idea.

Ok, off to dinner! Be sure to check out some of these amazing videos by my Skeeball teammate, Kristin:

Dirty Signs with Kristin

They are ridiculously awesome.

Nik out!

yay hard drives!

i got an amazing hard drive reader off of new egg (per the recommendation of my good friend george) which came today. i checked out some old hard drives i had sitting around, and found tons and tons of old pictures, old writing, and ALL of my old music. it was a glorious evening. i sifted through them while watching episodes of "breaking bad" and taking some time to read more of the first dresden files book, storm front. i even did some writing! i've been quite productive.

yesterday, i watched breaking bad until i fell asleep, and took a nap. when i woke up, i headed to redcap's and played a game of blood bowl with gil. we're in the pre-season still, and that was my second game - i played nurgles and he played amazons. we tied, which was way better than my first game, when i lost to aaron (though i did beat his team up!). afterwards, anthony and i headed back to his place, and i watched more breaking bad while he worked on his blood bowl team. i passed out around two, and then when he got into bed at four, he woke me up, and neither of us could fall asleep. minus: didn't get much sleep, bonus: made it to work early because we got up just after six, so i actually started getting ready at a reasonable time. ha!

so now, i'm at episode 10 of season three, and i am going to finish this one up and then, if i'm still not tired (i think it's amazing i'm even coherent right now!) then i'll watch one more episode and go to bed. anthony has seen the first episode of season four, so i just have four more left before i'm caught up to him and we can start watching the latest season together. i just wish i had more time in a day...

tomorrow is work, then d&d encounters, which i'm really looking forward to. i also need to make some time to go to comcast to drop off my little cable box thingy... or maybe i'll just mail it to them. no time for thinking now. time only for walt, jesse, and sleep.

sooo late!

whew, here i go again - staying up too late the day before i have to go back to work! whoops! anyway, yesterday, mike and i played a lot of call of duty: black ops, then got showered and ready and packed up all of our stuff and headed to his grandparents' house for some lunch. his dad, his dad's girlfriend angela, and his brother keith picked us up after that, and we headed out to grab some dinner and a drink with them. after that, they dropped us off at the train station, and we had a nice ride back to philadelphia. i read more of a storm of swords and played more of link's awakening which i am in love with! we got back here and played codblops and read all night.

this morning, i woke up early after having some crazy dreams again. i swear i've been having them a lot lately! it's soooo strange. i finally got out of bed, washed the dishes, made some breakfast, and mike and i took turns playing codblop and reading. we watched more "24" while we were eating, though - it's been a few days since we've seen it. i can't believe we're on the last season! i hope jack doesn't die, but i'm guessing he probably will D:. anyway, after a while, we got showered and dressed and headed to superfresh to get some food, then came back here, had some snacks, took turns playing codblops and reading and writing and stuff, and just had a generally chill afternoon. i finished up my review of dream trigger 3d, worked on my feature about the uncharted 3: drake's deception beta, read more of codependent no more and a storm of swords, and did a little surfing around the internet, which i hadn't done in a few days. i also worked on some editing for warp zoned and oh yeah - i won an awesome t-shirt from one of the awesomest chicks on the internet, girl gone geek! she is totally amazing and i <3 her. i won this awesome mario kart league shirt:



:D! i can't wait to wear it! it's so adorable. mike said this morning that i have a knack for winning shirts online - this is the fourth one i've won. the other three were two behemoth shirts i won on twitter, and a lost planet shirt i won on twitter. and oh yeah, i won an awesome ninjatown contest as well! that one and one of the behemoth ones were both haikus. w00t! keep having contests, people! i'll keep entering them :D

ok, off to bed. i was hoping to have my u3 piece finished tonight, but the whole vacation vibe has been sapping me of motivation, so instead of being responsible, i read more martin and got more double xp. sorry, life. i promise i'll be more responsible tomorrow.

uncharted 3 beta!!

i am so exhausted, but wanted to make a quick post about the uncharted 3 beta. it's here, and it's amazing so far! it's buggy and freezes a lot, but i was ready for that to happen. i like the multiplayer modes so far, the guns feel different but i'm enjoying using them, a lot of it is the same but so much is different. i'm writing up a piece for warp zoned, so i'll link that to here later.

what else...yesterday and today were busy days at work, for sure. last night after work, i met with some friends and local game developers to talk about a project we're working on, which went really well. afterwards i went home, grabbed some stuff, and headed to mike's. we watched "24," i read more clash of kings, and then we passed out. tonight i played tons and tons of uncharted 3 and recorded our podcast with ryan and adam. it was so fun! i hope we start doing a weekly podcast - it's such a blast.

time to get at least some sleep - tomorrow's another long day!! going to read some more of my book and pass out. :D

ps - i had some STRANGE dreams last night. i might write about them later, but wow. they are surely bizarre!

Animals Being Dicks

This is, by far, one of the funniest websites I've ever seen:

http://animalsbeingdicks.com/

Damn. I laughed myself silly last night over the squirrel one!

I'm heading to work soon, but I'm feeling pretty awake and wanted to write in here for a moment. Tonight, after work, Mike and i are meeting his roommate Mark and his fiance and their friends to celebrate their engagement! I'm so excited. Mark and Chelsea are wonderful people. Tomorrow, we're taking both of my kitties to the vet - the Pup is still having seizures, so we're hoping they can run more tests and find out what's going on. Spot... well... Spot is really overweight, so we're going to ask them what we can do about that. Sunday we have our Book Club That Doesn't Suck meeting, to discuss Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, which I'm very excited about! And then Sunday night I'm meeting up with Tristin and Patrick via Skype to discuss a project we're working on that isn't quite public yet... but I think will be soon. In between all of that, I'll be doing homework, trying to wrap up A Game of Thrones and possibly start A Clash of Kings, working on Disgaea and Dream Trigger 3D some more, and watching some more "24." We're in the last season, and it's strange how many "big" actors are in it! Mike also wants to see Lost Boys and Flatliners to compare and contrast young Keifer with older Keifer. Ha! :)

Ok, time to finish getting ready. It's Friday, yay! Random picture spam:

way too late for me to be awake!

i should definitely be in bed already, but i feel like this sunday got away from me. friday we had my cousin erin's wedding, which was BEAUTIFUL! and i had such a great time with my family. it was mike's first time meeting that part of my family - my stepdad's side, who i've known almost my whole life and i love very much. i don't get to see them often, but when i do, i'm reminded as to why they mean so much to me.

saturday we woke up late and i spent most of the day going through stuff in my mom's basement. i've lost 30 pounds since last summer, so i pulled out all my old shorts, cropped pants, and bathing suits. i also grabbed some shirts and a few pairs of flip flops, along with some awesome platform sneakers. i can't wait for summer!

we celebrated mike's birthday early with a good dinner and a cake, and then my mom and fran drove us home. i spent the rest of the night beating bioshock 2, which wasn't as bad as i thought it would be.

today we woke up, ate breakfast, watched some 24, then headed to my friend brian's for the bike race, which we completely missed. whoops! we hung out with his friends and family, and after they left, we re-watched the first two episodes of a game of thrones. mike read the book last weekend, so it would awesome to watch it with his and brian's commentary (brian's "re-reading" the books right now by listening to the audio books). brian was the one who got me into a song of ice and fire, so it's really awesome to watch the episodes with him (we saw the first one at a special screening in a movie theater - it was amazing!).

afterwards, we headed home, and ended up stopping and taking some pictures around the city. we so often forget what an amazing place we live in, and it feels so good sometimes when we stop to appreciate it. when we got home, i wanted to clean up a little, but it was so late by the time we got here that i just started up infamous. i'm actually kind of upset i didn't start it sooner! it's crazy amounts of fun...and why it's after 1 am and i'm still not in bed. whoops...

i have pictures of the t-shirts i've been wearing, but they're not readily accessible, so instead i'll post this one mike took of me on friday in the dress i wore to erin's wedding:



i need to stay on top of pictures more. i just uploaded the ones from mike's brother's graduation dinner, and i've got tons on my hard drive, camera, and phone - and now on mike's phone, too. and i just found a ton more in my mom's basement... i would love to start scanning them in and uploading those to facebook, but people would probably choke me, haha. :)

ok, really, time for bed! which means time to get into bed and read some more of johannes cabal the detective. sunday nights are the worst... i mess my sleep up too bad to be of any use at all monday. also, i can't believe e3 is this week!! it's so hard to believe that this time last year i was sitting at microsoft's kinect even, wearing a white poncho and bracing myself for all of the excitement to come.

more tomorrow. :)

sleepy

Today's t-shirt is Dr. Droidberg from Tee Fury! It was the second daily shirt I got (and the first mashup).

Yesterday, I did some cleaning, ran some errands, then Mike and I went to our friend Chris' place and hung out with him, his brother Ryan, his girlfriend Jess, and his friend Nate. We got a pizza and then went to Rita's for frozen treats! Yum. In between, we talked about books and played a shitload of Pokemon.

We got home late and I played more BioShock 2 and then we read in bed. Mike started A Clash of Kings and I started Johannes Cabal the Detective. We fell asleep late and it was a little rough at work with so little sleep. It's the last week of classes so it's busy!

Tonight we caught up on the latest episode of A Game of Thrones. That show is really well done! But Mike is starting to get why I've been so worried about the show and how they're going to portray certain things. They seem to be pretty good at it, but some of what happens to the characters is so gruesome that I'm kind of afraid to see it! Though I think my imagination might be worse... it was with the golden crown scene.

Other than that, we played some video games and chilled out. Tomorrow is another busy day. At least another three-day weekend is coming up for me - my cousin Erin is getting married Friday! So that should be a blast.

More tomorrow. Oyasumi-nasai!

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relaxing 3-day weekend

thursday night was our first official girl geek dinner happy hour, and it was a smashing success. we met up with some ladies (and one guy - mike g!) at philadelphia bar and restaurant and discussed the scene as it stands in philadelphia for women of the geek persuasion. the food was delicious, the conversation was excellent, and it was just an all-around good time. i'm looking forward to more happy hours as well as our next quarterly event!

friday was a busy day at work, as the week of writing came to a close and everyone was running around for the writing awards. after work, i met up with mike at his place and we headed over to my place and then did A LOT of food shopping, after which he cooked us a feast. we watched some more 24 - we're in season 7 now - and i wrapped up l.a. noire while mike read more of a game of thrones. my final moments with l.a. noire were tearful ones - it's a beautifully crafted game, and has so many outstanding features. my review should be up at warp zoned sometime this week - maybe even today.

saturday and sunday were both spent largely lounging around. mike was completely obsessed with - and finished reading - a game of thrones, and today started a clash of kings. i wrote my l.a. noire review and some other stuff for warp zoned, finished reading the rise of endymion, played tons more disgaea: afternoon of darkness, and started bioshock 2. today i also did some cleaning up, moved some stuff around the apartment and threw away some things, unpacked from PAX East (finally!!), and now we're going to run some errands and then head to our friend chris' place. i really want to bake but it is waaayyyy too hot outside to do that, and i've been fighting turning the air conditioning on...though it looks like i'm going to lose that battle soon. as it is, i'm already wearing shorts (nooooo!).

so...yeah. we didn't quite make it down the shore for a few reasons - we were actually supposed to spend most of the weekend down there, but plans fell through with mike's family and with mine, so we just stayed here. i'm glad, because i had so much to do...and still didn't even do half of it. i'd like to get some laundry done, and do some more writing, and...well...unpack from PAX Prime. yeah, i still haven't unpacked from the trip we took to seattle in september. i got so much free stuff that i still have an entire suitcase full of it. PAX East was just clothes i hadn't unpacked yet...my freebies are in another, much smaller bag, because there weren't many to be had. but i think i got roughly 26 shirts at PAX Prime. oi vey!

anyway, time to get dressed and head out. and don't worry, i haven't forgotten about my "t-shirt a day" idea...i think i might start it on june 1st, considering i spent practically this entire weekend lounging around in a pink robe covered in turtles. probably not something that can be considered a daily t-shirt. :D

conscious effort

it's time i made a conscious effort to start doing things the right way. i'm trying to lately - i've been eating three meals a day, sleeping somewhere between six and eight hours a night, and starting yesterday, i've been trying to catch up on chores and things around the house. i did some cleaning yesterday and grocery shopped and washed a mountain of dishes today. tomorrow i tackle the laundry - something i'm not looking forward to. i think what i need to do is get back into a pattern - eating, sleeping, exercising, and then taking the rest of my time and managing it better - dividing it up between gaming/writing and leisure.

not that gaming and writing aren't leisure activities, but i'm referring to more reading and watching movies and shows. i'm almost done the hyperion series - i'm on the rise of endymion - and i've been watching 24, a game of thrones, highschool of the dead, panty and stocking with garterbelt, and, just recently, i started re-watching dexter from the beginning. they're all really excellent but also time-consuming (not to mention watching a game of thrones is making me really want to re-read the books, which i haven't read since 2005/2006). there's so much other stuff i want to read and watch, and so many games i want to play, too. i made the mistake of starting final fantasy vi and disgaea right before l.a. noire came out, so i've been rotating between the three of those - but mostly i've been playing l.a. noire, which is excellent. too much media...

anyway, i know i said i'd have links and pics, but i'm laying in bed and all i want to do is level a bit in disgaea and then pass out. i am going to try to write in here every day though, so hopefully i'll be able to keep that up. it's been too long, blog. and not that i think anyone's actually reading it, but it's still nice to organize all of my thoughts in one place.

beyond busy

my life has been beyond busy these last few months. i was one of the co-organizers of gameloop philly, an unconference for local video game developers. we had it yesterday, and it was a smashing success! afterwards, everyone got just plain smashed at national mechanics during the after party, and i've been paying for it all day. i've also been cleaning, throwing things out, playing l.a. noire, and writing my recap of the event (which will be up later this week on geekadelphia).

writing-wise, i'm still writing and editing at warp zoned, and i've got a new column up at press 1. i'm also putting a lot of serious thought into writing that book i've been saying i would write since i was in first grade. i think with a little time management, i'll be able to actually do it.

i haven't been in school the last two terms, but i'm registered for one class next term. i haven't been watching many movies - or, really, any at all - but i have been reading (almost done the hyperion series) and playing a lot of video games. i've started dexter again from the beginning as well, and i'm almost done with all of 24. i've also started to get back into anime again, whenever i have some free time. and i want to get pierced again, and get another tattoo.

so much going on...tomorrow i'll put up links to everything, but right now i'm tired and i want to get in one more case before i go to bed.

goal tomorrow:
-links
-photos
-more information

for now, sleuthing and sleep.

I Surrendered to Winter Already

I don't get why winter won't just let up - I already surrendered! I waved a white flag from under a mound of snow. Yet today it was 12 degrees when I woke up. Now it's just being cruel and unusual.

After work today, I had to run some errands, but only ended up running one - dashing off to KMart to get a hand mixer and some cat litter. I'm super psyched about the hand mixer because now I can take on some baking projects that are more ambitious. Mike and I stopped at my place to check on the cats and take out the trash and clean up a little, then came back to his place to eat dinner, watch some "24," and chill out. I had to work on some boring paperwork and write some news for the site (just one, but it's got me drooling). There's so much more I wanted to get done but now I'm utterly exhausted and I think it's time for bed.

I will say one thing briefly - I'm glad that I'm taking the time in 2011 to hang out with the people who matter to me. I had a great lunch today with my friends Dave and Kate at work, and I'm meeting up with my friend Sheila tomorrow after work. I also just made some plans with my best friend Krissy, and I've been trying to solidify a date to see my sister and her family for weeks now with no success. Hopefully that'll get cleared up soon! We're also supposed to go to NYC to spend some time this weekend with some other Warp Zoned writers - which reminds me, I have to buy those tickets as well tonight. No rest for the wicked...

OH! And I started reading The Fall of Hyperion, which is better than I expected. One chapter in and I'm already hooked.

OK, I'm fading fast. Hopefully more tomorrow...



My fortune was right - good books are BFFs.

It's Only Tuesday?

I am sooooo tired, and I have been all day. This winter is so cold and draining! And there's so much more of it left. Sigh...

So last night, I wrote that blog post about cooking and baking, and it felt pretty good to get it all in one place! It's so gratifying to write about the goals I want to achieve and to think about the road I've taken so far. I also uploaded a ton of pictures to Facebook - I take so many with my Droid and then never do anything with them, so I wanted to put them all somewhere. I got the first folder's worth of pictures up, and then we went to bed.

Today, after work, Mike and I went to Gamestop so I could try to order some games, but we failed miserably. The selection at ours is so hit or miss - they either have everything I want and it's A+ #1 awesome, or they don't have anything and nothing is in order and the whole place is a mess and the cashier can't even answer a simple question. We came home and ate some leftovers from this weekend and watched some more "24," which has been our latest show. We've watched seasons 1 and 2 so far, and now we're at the beginning of season 3. It's been terrific. When we were done, Mike went to bed - he wasn't feeling well - so I took the opportunity to finish up my review of Dead Space: Extraction and upload some more pictures to Facebook. I haven't tagged them all yet, but I'll work on that tomorrow. Right now I need to wash my hair and then get my butt to bed!

First, I wanted to comment on what we've been watching and reading and all that jazz:

-over Christmas break, we watched 4 seasons of "Dexter," and we watched the 5th season the week after. We were obsessed.
-we've fallen behind on "30 Rock" and "The Office," but I did catch an episode of "Outsourced" and thought it was hilarious, and we watched the first episode of "Eli Stone," which I also really liked.
-Zombieland was fantastic! And I watched Scott Pilgrim...again.
-I belong to a book club for the first time in my whole life. We read The Graveyard Book. It was excellent. I'm still reading Monster Nation - I have to get back to it. I am deciding on either The Fall of Hyperion or Johannes Cabal: The Detective for my next book.
-I've been listening to The Dismemberment Plan pretty much non-stop the last few weeks, and we saw them on their reunion tour when they stopped in Philadelphia. It was incredible. I'm also listening to the Giant Bombcast and the Warp Zoned podcast, as vain as that sounds.
-I beat four games (and reviewed three!) in January - Lost in Shadow, LittleBigPlanet 2, Picross 3D, and Dead Space 2. I've beaten one in February so far - Dead Space: Extraction.

I'm also reading Kill Screen and trying to find more time for webcomics but it's so hard. I've got so much going on that it's really tough to stay on track of anything! Right now, I'm currently playing:
-Valkyria Chronicles II on the PSP
-Pokemon SoulSilver on the DS
-about to start Dead Space: Ignition on the PS3 and Return All Robots for the PC

There's more going on, but that's all I've got time for today. Random picture:



From when Mike and I got back together. :)

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more time and some inspiration to do another blog post like last night's. For now...shower...then sleep. :)