Dear Zoe,
Between getting sick and everything that happened around Christmas, this was one of your busiest months ever. So much so, that I’m only just now getting around to writing your December newsletter, even though it’s nearly time to start on the January one. Still, I hate it when people posts excuses instead of just posting, so let’s get down to business!
Happy Holidays to everyone!
I hope you’re all having as great a time as Annie and I have had, though hopefully with considerably more sleep. We did our usual weekend with Annie’s family, including Christmas Eve, and then catching an 8am train after a bleary-eyed gift exchange at 6:30am. My parents picked us up at the Portland train station at 11am, and we did the two-hour drove to Eugene to have Christmas with my family. We just got back about a half hour ago, and I thought I should post while it’s still technically Christmas.
The reason I’m exhausted is because when I’m at Annie’s house, her brothers (and their friends) and I all hook together some computers and engage in some inter-active video gaming! We couldn’t resist the urge to get one last night of Quake III in before I left on Christmas morning, so I went to bed at 2:30am. Woo! Four hours of sleep! I’m all jittery from a mixture of lack of sleep, caffeine, cold pills, turkey and apple pie. But we had a fantastic time seeing our families and all our friends (even Urn and Pat!). Now I’m going to end this rambling post and head to bed.
Yarr, that’s right, I’ve returned! Christmas was a blast. Annie and I went to Tacoma, and hung out with her family for awhile, then I went to Portland with my family for awhile, and then back to Tacoma for a week of network gaming fun with Annie’s brothers and cousins! Hooray!
While in Portland, Steve and I hooked up with Miles and went to Chu’s, and discussed our top-secret plans for Studio Fojar. Oh, and Miles got me the coolest geek gift ever, although I’m not sure he got it due to the geek qualities of it. He got me a ninja throwing star! It’s totally cool, so I immediately hung it on the wall over my computer like the guy in Neuromancer did. It’s a totally rad gift, and it made me feel like a complete ass for not getting him anything. But I’m making plans for a birthday gift. Oh ho! I will not be defeated! When did this turn into a contest? I don’t know, but I’m going to win!
Network gaming was awesome as well. I think at one point we had 8 computers hooked together and 6 guys playing Quake 3. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I think we might do it again on the next break that everyone’s home for.
I bought the expansion pack for the Sims, and discovered, to my dismay, that it doesn’t work on Windows 2000, even though the regular game does! Solution: partition my hard drive and create a 98/2K dual boot, which I’ve been meaning to do anyways.
In the process of upgrading my machine’s drivers to prepare for this, I was upgrading Annie’s computer as well. While trying to flash the video card’s BIOS to a new version, the computer crashed and now the video card doesn’t give a signal to the monitor at all. Tech Support says all I have to do is put the card in a friend’s computer (who has a different video card) and flash the bios again. I’m gonna get Urn to help me. “Come on, Urn, I doubt the same thing would happen twice! I’m sure your computer will be fine!”
Tomorrow, I return to work, sort of. We’re starting the process of moving everything to the new location. More nerve-wracking than that, though, is the fact that Urn’s and my first radio show is tomorrow night. I’m really nervous about it, and it doesn’t help that Urn is nowhere to be found, so I don’t know how prepared he is, or if he set up our first interview. :(
Lots of crazy stuff going on lately. The Myst 3 themes contract got approved, and this weekend I was putting the finishing touches on the themes. Just a couple more tiny touches, and they’ll be complete! I’ll post screenshots for people to see when they’re done.
Obviously, (to anyone who visits the site frequently), the server was down for awhile recently. I got a panicked ICQ message from Steve asking if I could pitch in for a new motherboard. To our relief, we found out the next night that the server wasn’t dead at all, just the ISP had switched his IP number without telling him. So a couple days later, things were fine.
As for Studio Fojar, things are going well. The three of us are still excited about the idea, which is more than I can say about most of our ideas. I promise I’ll put up a big post about here soon, and get the site done up properly soon.
Oh, and KT’s christmas gift got here today. Once again, KT has triumphed in the gift department. She consistently finds these amazingly cool gifts that make me feel pathetic for what I got her. Anyways, I opened the package to find a large velvet box, which contained what appears to be a silver-plated mouse with my initials engraved on it. It’s hilarious. I’ll get a photo of it up somehow.
say hello to the only person who was affected by the “Y2K bug.” That’s right. The bank ate my paycheck. I deposited my small check on December 30, and when I went back on January 1 to withdraw some cash, it showed the same balance as before I made a deposit. Needless to say, I was mad. The bank said they would have to investigate and within ten days they would let me know what the “situation” with my money was. In the meantime, the electric company was threatening to cut us off. Arrgh. Luckily, today the money was back, so I’m okay.
New year’s was interesting. Here in Oregon, we’re nearly the last ones to cross the date line. Hawaii and Alaska come after us. So all day long, we got to watch the new year (NOT the new millennium… that’s next year and it got really old hearing EVERY news station report on “the millennium”) advance over other parts of the world. The massive parties in Russia, the huge fireworks in France, the festivities in Britain. Then we saw the party start in Times Square in New York. HUGE parties everywhere! Well, Portland was having a party, too. In Pioneer Square. The city blocked of fifteen blocks surrounding it, and had limited access points guarded (sort of) by cops.
I was just going to have a small party with some friends and get pretty drunk. But everyone else wanted to go to the Square. So we went, and it was REALLY lame. Everyone was bored, there was cheering (on queue), and most of the people were just trying to see themselves on the massive TV screen across the street. The lame radio presenters sucked, and when they put on a documentary about famous historians on the big TV, we decided to leave.
Once we got home, it was cooler, because people kept showing up, and everyone was having fun. The fireworks were going off behind the clouds, so all we could see was the entire sky lighting up red and green.
Christmas was cool, too. We went back to Annie’s home for about a week and hung out with her family. Dave and some of his friends set up a small computer network in the basement, so we got to spend some time playing good multiplayer games.
We spent Christmas eve with her family. They’re self-described pagans, and Annie brought me along to their yearly ritual, which was cool. It was very low-key. They lit some candles, and Annie’s grandmother read out of a book about the origins of the holidays, and then they went around the room and everyone said something. It was really cool.
The next morning, we did a rushed presents-opening with her family, and then ran to the train station to come back to Portland, where my mom and dad picked us up and drove us to Eugene, where my grandparents are, and we did my big family gathering. It was kinda strange, because normally we go around and everyone opens presents one by one, and then we eat, but this year Pop-Pop was eager to get it over with because his football team was doing well for the first time ever.
I felt really happy about the gifts I gave this year. Most years I don’t have enough money to do cool things, but this year I tried to find something really cool for everyone, and I think I succeeded in finding a really good gift for everyone. The only bad thing is that Annie and I made cool homemade cards for everyone, and then I forgot to give them to anyone, and I didn’t wrap half the presents. So even though I got perfect gifts for most people, I felt kinda bad about it anyway. Oh well.
Hmmm… I’ve already written a ton, so I’m going to stop for now, but I’ll try to write more later about some ideas I’ve had recently. :)