Friday Brain Drain
The Sims 2
I've played this for the last 3 evenings. Which, given the number of times it has crashed means that I've gotten a good two hours of gameplay in. Why is it so addictive to watch your computer people eat, sleep, bathe and dress themselves? I mean, I can watch myself do those things any old day of the week, and have ceased to be fascinated by the process. But man, it's addictive to watch the fake people do it. And I have the cutest batches of kids, too. The only problem is that pretty much everyone in Pleasantville is related to either the MacKennas or the Goths. I will soon begin spawning six-fingered sims.
Home Office
Tim has pretty much settled into his office upstairs. He works upstairs, I work downstairs. We are actually contemplating Skype to talk to each other. I'm thrilled because I now have free use of his comb-binding machine. I love comb-binding machines. It's like I'm my own little Kinko's down here. I'm thinking about making myself wear a blue apron.
Netflix
I love it. The movies are incidental. It could be the jelly-of-the-month club, really. I just love to get things in the mail. Fun things--not bills. Or those stupid ShopWi$e circulars. They could stop sending me those. There is no way on this earth I will ever need that many coupons for Dominoes and Mrs. Winners. I don't need return address labels with little kittens on them, and I don't want LaSik, even at $399 per eye. But I do love finding a new Babylon 5 DVD in its bright red envelope.
I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to maximise my per-month rental capacity. When I was going into the vast story-problem with Tim (about how I calculated maximum potential DVDs at various levels of membership, lost days without DVDs, etc.) his eyes glazed over. I think I'm over-thinking it. Too much time playing strategy games, I guess. But I've now got a mission because once all the B5s are watched, I'm slated to get the War & Remembrance DVDs. I own Winds of War, but have never seen W&R priced to own. Well, I suppose if you wanted to buy a set for onboard viewing on your YACHT, then maybe. But me--I'm not giving $200 for them.
The Sounds Stadium
I hate baseball. I dated a pitcher in high school and spent far too much time in the back of pickup trucks in Woodburn, Indiana trying to watch my boyfriend convince himself he could Be A STAR. To me baseball is cemented tightly to the concepts of mediocrity, failure, cruelty and boredom. Last I heard, the boyfriend had a job laying pipe for his father and was out on disability. It's like that Bruce Springsteen song--which was a hit when I dated Mr. Sixty-feet-Six-Inches. Sadly, he thought it was a good thing, and didn't realise that Bruce was making fun of the guys in the bar talking about their Glory Days. I guess they will pass you by in the wink of a young girl's eye if you're completely oblivious.
So I'm blocking all news of the stadium mentally. The only thing I know for certain is that I'm of the personal opinion that the city doesn't need to build another sports stadium. We've already got several, don't we? Why don't we build a lower sales tax or something? Oh well. Erection fever.
The Movie/TV/DVD Blog
It's doing pretty well, but I'd seriously love it if more people would want to be contributers. (Misspelled in honour of poor John Carney who had to put up with it that way on the site. I can not believe I was a spelling bee champ once upon a time. I have the worst problem with vowels. Maybe I should go on Wheel of Fortune where I don't need vowels to spell. Or maybe I should re-take Hebrew. They don't use vowels either. But it does read right to left, which hurts your eye muscles if you aren't used to it. Speaking of Hebrew, Lydia got me a very lovely Chanukah present.
Anyway, please consider contributing to All Along The Watchtower. It really has nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix, Jehovah's Witnesses, or VietNam.
My Book
I've gotten precious little done on it this week--unintentional vacation--but had some really good news yesterday. My father had collected oral histories from distant relations and their friends about one of the central topics and settings of the story. I had no idea, but it's the best resource I could imagine. I've been at a standstill because I'm waiting on oral histories from the Library. But this is even better. I'll be able to supplement the library accounts with actual familial experience. Now comes the fun part--seeing if my father can find the letters and papers in his office. He's the only person on terra firma whose desk is messier than mine.
Fort Wayne
Man. This is a small world. Nashville Knucklehead spent some time in the Summit City. Of course he didn't grow up there, so he has no full comprehension of the thrill of driving really fast from Fort Wayne to Woodburn on SR37 with Meat Loaf blaring. I still think half the reason I dated 60'6" was because he lived far enough away to give me an excuse to drive.
I have always thought that Fort Wayne could be the model for Stephen King's Derry, Maine. There are so many wierd coincidences, and so many odd people who passed through there--myself (and Stephen King) included.
Someday I'll write about Fort Wayne. Then again, I think I always write about it in some way or another. It's my Yoknapatawpha.
posted by Kat Coble @ 1:40 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Dearest,
I know I've heard all of your dating-a-pitcher stories before, but I need you to explain something to me. I get that 60' is how far he could throw a baseball, but what's the 6" part?
;-)
cool stuff. what is your book about?
ah, the good old fort :) drove through it every time I went from school to home and back--part of the way on IN-37, no less. several good friends/family still there.
(incidentally...how is there an IN-37 in Marion, and an IN-37 in Fort Wayne, but they don't connect to each other???)
speaking of 37, people always had a hard time believing that as I drove home on 37 (which becomes OH-2), I passed through Hicksville. no lie--that's the actual name of the town. I'm so glad I'm not from Hicksville (at least that's not my hometown's *official* name).
Hubby,
You're kidding, right? Are you trying to be funny about previous boyfriends' endowments?
Anyway, sixty-feet, 6 inches is the regulation distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate.
Jeffrey,
It's about a lot of things--the "fever of the wind", which were the large number of women who emigrated here from Wales on their own; the Armenian genocide (which is the topic of the oral histories my father took in college); and the growth of faith in the women of twentieth century America. And hopefully it's more interesting than that dry description.
Amy,
Hicksville. Oh yes. 60'6" played ball there on several occasions, and when I was younger it was also where the Teenagers used to go to drink. (You could drink at 18 in Ohio.) I never went over there to drink. Partially because I can't drink (hard on the kidney) and partially because my parents threatened me with death and pain if they ever found out I went to Hicksville. When I was 8 or 9 it was like Las Vegas in my mind. Sin City all the way.
IN37--They must have changed it because when I was in college I sometimes took 37 all the way from the Fort to Indy. Perhaps they broke it up when they built 469. Sounds like something they'd do. I hate that huge, ugly, boring bypass.
very cool. how far along are you in it?
We've been with netflix for a few years now -- used to be on the unlimited a month, then switched to the 4 a month - now we're on the one-at-a-time-unlimited plan. It's the best. In January we ended up getting about 12 or 13 movies. For $9.99 a month - you get unlimited - but you can only have one at a time. However, if you put them in the envelope correctly - with the bar code showing - you'll get a new movie approximately 2 days after you send the old one in. It works great for us. Netflix is awesome.
SIMS. I don't know why its addicting either. My first Sim is now a senior adult and I'm just keeping her alive. She's got white hair, but still wears super hot outfits. She's in a bikini out by the pool now. My other sims are all normal age - but I do have a "real World house" thing in one of my houses. They're all really selfish -- some of them I've kept stupid just to see what stuff they'll get into. Oh - I also cheat at sims. The money cheat. My sims all live in McMansions. Although it does seem to take awhile to get from A to B - I love shopping and building so I've got to have the $$ for them to do it. Have you had WOOHOO in the dressing rooms at the mall yet? It is hilarious.
:) Lacy
Are you from Fort Wayne? My sister lives in a town in Indiana called North Webster. Have you ever heard of it? Lots of lakes.
Hicksville = Las Vegas.
that's priceless.
Jeffrey--
I'm still in the research and outline stage. I've gotten roughs on various chapters and the intro, and several character sketches. About 65,000 words in all--most of it to be discarded for the final draft.
Lacy--
Right now I'm doing the 2-at-a-time unlimited. I was thinking about going to the 3-at-a-time, but wanted to wait and see how this works for me. I'll not go into the complex algorythm, because that's just wierd.
My first sim is artifically young, and it's starting to bug me. She married her college professor, who was much older than she, and had one son. Then the husband died, she remarried and had four more kids--the last one being a late-in-life "accident". Most of her kids have kids of their own, but she's still young and spry. I have to quit giving her Elixir of Life.
I'm a big fan of the money-cheat McMansions, but they drag on my machine and really screw up game play. So now I've got all these tiny houses with people crammed into the nooks and crannies.
My one couple WooHoo in the dressing rooms all the time because one of them is a sex addict. All she wants to do is have sex with everyone in town.
Oh, and Kroger has Cadbury Eggs...
Glen,
Yes, I'm from Ft. Wayne. Born and Raised. Sure, I've heard of North Webster. I've even been to North Webster several times. That's the thing about Indiana. Most people I've met from there have been either by or through most of the towns. It's the kind of place where everyone knows someone from a small town somewhere.
so do you have a deadline by which the book is to be completed or are you working on it as you have time?
forgive me for I have not the slightest idea as to how the logistics of book writing work.
Ah, the Sims. Loved the original, haven't had a decent enough computer until now to actually play it. Maybe now that I've got a good computer and a few bucks, I'll buy it. All that crashing worries me though. How do you like it? Why do you think it crashes so much? Is my 1.5 gigs of RAM enough to run it?
Fort Wayne. We used to drive up there to go to a good mall, when I lived in Muncie and St. Mark didn't feel like driving in Castleton traffic.
It seems to me that most Nashvillians have been Hoosiers at one point or another, how odd.
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