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I slept very badly due to nasty mean dreams sent by my legion of insecurities. I think I've now been dumped in my nightmares every possible way. Hopefully this will have purged that particular fear.

I'm rather displeased to find I'm at work today. What else is new?

Ok, legion of Anglophiles (or maybe one of you actual Brits): Define slang term "slag" for me. I'm not sure I've got it right.

(no subject)

Penny Arcade's Tycho said (while writing about the Firefly boxed set and the show's cancellation):

They say that when God closes a door he opens a window, which is nice I guess, but if it's all the same to him maybe he could just leave the fucking door open? He's omnipotent, and presumably this state allows him to open a door and a window simultaneously. Or maybe this is some Myst bullshit where when you open one the other closes automatically, in which case he shouldn't get the credit anyhow.

Hee!

(no subject)

After having spent pretty much the entire week with me (barring work), Elizabeth left me yesterday to get her laundry done and meet with an old friend. This in itself was not bad; I'd grown quite burned out on people and wanted some solitude. However, since this old friend of hers also happens to be a past boyfriend, I got a little unneccessarily freaked out (one of those "I know better than to worry, but I can't help it even though I'm 32 and should be beyond this kind of thing now" things I'm going to get over Real Soon Now.).

To distract myself, I thought about putting my shiny new Firefly DVD into play, but then I recalled that I'd promised not to watch them without Elizabeth. So instead, I placed the shiny new Crimson Skies X-Box game in the tray and pressed START. And then I promptly lost three hours.

"Awesome" is a word that has been robbed of much of its power by frequent overuse in the 80s. But to accurately use the word for a moment, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is absolutely awesome. It is a bright light in a landscape of so-so console flying games. It is a new high-water-mark in games. And it almost has me ready to get X-Box Live so I can fly against other aces of the alternate 1930's the game envisions.

I quote the game's website:

High adventure, daring piracy, cold vengeance, art deco style, and the occasional gorgeous dame...what more could you ask from a videogame? (Well, most players would also demand excellent graphics, slightly fiendish level design, and good, solid gameplay—but we've got those too.)

And then there's the Tesla cannon. And the chickens. Oh, and something about multiplayer so good it'll keep you awake until 5AM and send you to work like a mumbling zombie.

I'll let you know about the multiplayer, but I can say that the single player campaign is killer. Flying through canyons and crashed blimps in death-defying maneuvers while firing fully automatic guns at the Ragin' Cajun gang is one thing, but when I shot down a Nazi Zeppelin and the nose-cone became a giant walking mechanical spider-thing intent on destroying my friend's lab, well, I sat up and took notice.

The music, the voice-over work, the dialogue -- all of it is straight out of pulp-era adventures.

Thank the Nine I have no school for the next three weeks, eh?

More Stupid College Tricks

As part of my application to CSUS, I have to send my transcripts. All well and good. Except for one thing. I attended both Cosumnes River College and Sacramento City College. Both are Los Rios CCD. I moved to SCC when I moved to midtown, because it was closer and I didn't have a car at the time.

The Los Rios Community College District schools are linked -- classes can be taken at any of the campuses, the cost is the same, yadda yadda yadda. However, official transcripts must be sent seperately from each school even though they give you results from all campuses on the UNofficial transcripts.

For SCC, I can and have sent a request via email form on the college website.

For CRC, however, I have to go there or mail a request, because they don't HAVE email forms on their site, and they don't accept emailed requests.

Is uniformity too much to ask for from a set of schools that proudly boast how they're all one big linked family of schools?

Fuckers.

Fun with Girlfriend!

A conversation on Sunday, verbatim:

(Babylon 5 Season three finale ends)

Elli: You have Season four on tape, right?
Me: I think so. I might have recorded over it.
Elli: I will kill you.

*sigh* I love her.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!

If you didn't see a trailer for this, you really ought to go download it. It appears it will be retro sci-fi goodness.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow