Video Games – A Most Unreliable Narrator

Happy Svein Forkbeard Day!

Dear Internet,
On this day a millennia ago, Svein Forkbeard was declared king of England. Because you have to love a name like Forkbeard, and Vikings, we’ve decided to start celebrating December 25th as Svein Forkbeard Day. Because – why not?
We did things half-assed backwards this year — presents were opened over the course of weeks and the rest of the loot this morning, even though the tree had not even been dragged up and put out. TheHusband was extra good to me this year: I scored a new pair of Tieks, a new winter jacket, new earrings, lipgloss, a bluetooth keyboard that will double with my iPad and MacBook Air, and the new Zelda game for my DS3. The best gift was the milk frother I had added to my list at the last minute, which showed up in time for unwrapping and which I am totally in love with. TheHusband received a new bag from Rickshaw, new Pumas, tshirts, socks, a new Harmony remote, fancy bluetooth mouse, and some kind of special router so he can do some dev work.
After the presents were unwrapped, oohs and ahhs were allotted, I put the tree up while TheHusband started on today’s dinner.

A few years ago, I asked the Internet to trim our tree and the Internet did not disappoint! Almost every ornament on the tree came from someone across the globe and I love them for it. What makes this tree even more special is the how many of those who shipped us ornaments knew our personalities (or made very good guesses). Doctor Who, Sherlock, Britishisms, Pugs, Books, Gnomes, Jane Austen, and the list goes on.
Again, thank you. You are now part of our yearly tradition.
May tonight be merry and bright with your loved ones close and have a wonderful new year.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2011

kill slit tingle’s throat

Anyone who games on gamecube and/or played Zelda:windwaker w/ the gba will know my pain. Tingle is fucking useful but geez, he sends me messages like “T-I-N-G-L-E LOVES YOU!”. It is, annoying.
I’m in a pissy mood and it’s not because of Zelda (rather, Zelda is helping me relax). First off my back hurts and I’ve been to the chiro already today and my back went crunch all the way down but he can’t see why it’s aching (especially in the middle of the spine) because he doesn’t feel anything wrong or see anything wrong with my adjustment. Monday I’m going to the massage therapist (named steve) who for 30/hr is gonna make me feel gooood. I hope.
Secondly, can I say I hate Aquinas again? OKay, I hate them again. I got my grade back from creative writing and got a B+. That doesn’t piss me off. What pisses me off is both semesters I averaged a 3.0 gpa yet my accumulative is LOWER than when I transferred in. I don’t get it. I called school, and left a very detailed vm. I’m terribly concerned because this upcoming year I have to have an accumalitive of a 3.2 to get to grad school. Hello. Stress.
Second, the insurance company. Called them today after picking up my laptop and pc to find out what to do next. Woman on the phone tells me not to fax anything in (er?) and then asks about the cost of the PC and the laptop retail (which I’ve told them many times over and over). I tell her that the pc was hand-built (which I’ve stated through this entire process) and that some pieces, like one of the cdrw’s we bought at 300 for the damn thing two years ago or more when they were super expensive. anyway, they tell me that they found a comparable machine at circuit city for 900. Eh? Apparently, my new machine is considered an ‘upgrade’ — they only do ‘comparable or like kind’ when insurance does replacement. Well, first off, they no longer make my machine anymore or the parts! So yes, it will be an upgrade. I kept telling them, look, I put this together myself, what part of that don’t you understand? As for the laptop, they need to find something ‘comparable’ to that. They said “we will only pay what we owe you”. I was like fine I’m not arguing with you, here are my receipts through my semi-working fax. Apparently they will add up everything together, deduct the 500 and cut me a check. Oh joyous day.I got frustrated because the second time I called, the woman kept insisting on various things I was never told. “Well it’s in the notes!!” “Doesn’t mean she told me.” “SHe spoke to you at 3:01pm.” “No, she did not. I was at the doctors office.” What in fucking hell is your problem!!

she’s quaking

be afraid.
be very very afraid.
For the last couple of months, Matt and the guys from work have been trying incessantly to get me to play Quake or any of the other RPGs lan-type games. I’ve been resisting with “I don’t play games” but when Matt got me the 16MB AGP vid card, handed it to me, I knew I was lost.
This past Friday, we installed Quake2. All day long I started futzing with it because the whole concept of killing people without going to jail is kind of appealing. I futzed and futzed and futzed and finally got it working. When it did work and I entered the arena, Matt killed me in under 3 seconds. Not fun. I logged off and tried playing solo — but the game kept stalling and I was getting frustrated. I reinstalled a different version of Quake 2 (namely, the upgrade) and that worked. But I wanted to kill people dammit. I then downloaded Quake3, and installed it. But since Quake3 is tourney style, again I was dead pretty quickly.
I retold this whole story to Justin over the weekend (whom he thought it was amusing) and last night he came home with a legitimate copy of Quake which we both immediately installed on our boxes. For over an hour last night Justin and I hunted each other and I got mah ass handed to me 9 to -6. However, it is fun. I’m downloading the patch for quake 2 now :D.
violet eyes
Justin’s new schedule has me getting up between 4:30a-4:45a to take him to BART so that he can get to work. for the first time in a few weeks, instead of staying up, i immediately crawled back into bed when i got home. i didn’t wake up till nearly 11am. Woopsie. Since I’m leaving in three weeks anyway, they have been pretty lenient with me at work. Woopie. So I spent most of yesterday doing household items and talking online while my clothes got tided.
someone in the channel mentioned about buying colored contacts and i said how when i was younger i had gotten both green and violet flavor eyes. i had to dig up a few pictures to prove my point:
Lisa at 17
Lisa again at 17
Now, don’t yell or email me about how fucked up the hair is — I had no idea what the hell was going through my head at the time. However, I was at Shelly’s apartment in Wyoming, MI sitting in “my” chair (we all have that right? we go to a friends house and sit in the same chair. i also was obsessed with using this glass for drinkage that was actually a fancy measuring cup. Shelly didn’t understand my obsession with this thing.).
So, I post the pictures to the channel and to be honest, I got really disgusted with how people reacted to them. Why? because the first thing everyone noticed was the weight difference. In those pictures, I was 50lbs thinner. Big difference. Okay, fine, I can deal with that. The main thing was that people kept going “oh you were so cute/hot/beautiful” almost as if “what the fuck happened to you?!?”. Well, I’m 10 years older than I am in those pictures. I don’t think they are the best representation of me at that age but it really irked me that people were so fucking shallow.
The biggest pet peeve i’ve always had for a long time was people not accepting me for me but accepting me for what i looked like. It was like, jesus christ people, grow up. I’m still the same person 50lbs or not, purple eyes or not.
I was ranting and raving to Paul about this because it was bugging the fuck out of me. he was like “lisa, you were cute and innocent then, but to be honest, you ARE HOT now weight gain or not.”
The thing is, I’ve always known i would grow into my looks. I have such strong features that I knew that I would get better with age. Like a lot of people didn’t believe I was 17 in those pics and a lot of people don’t believe I am 27 now. Then it was always that I looked older and now it’s that i look younger. I can thank my mother (for once) for having her beautiful genetics.
I have always ALWAYS known that I was or never would be conventionally beautiful and that doesn’t bother me. I’ve not let it bother me for years because it helps weed out the imbeciles and numbskulls who hit on me. Same reason why I got pierced in the various fashions that I have — because i know and have always known that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. Which is just fine by me. I don’t want the whole world to love me — just one person. That’s fine enough for me.
But what REALLY irks me is that people who are so, just, ugh, normal, pass judgement on me as they sit on their 300lb fat asses eating king dongs and HO-HOs trying to tell me I look like shit. I always look good. I can afford to be egotistical because I am god and what I say goes. I’ve never had a problem getting a man or winning over friends. The problem I have is that the men that generally like me are fucking nimrods and bore the living fuck out of me.
But enough about me. let’s get on to something interesting!
x0x0x0x0x
moi

i sold my soul for a playstation

i don’t know how it started, but lately i’ve been going on and on about playstation (psx) and tekken. this spurned a debate about gaming in Userfriendly, when one of the channel regulars said that for “favors” i could have his souped up psx plus 20 games.
Since these “favors” weren’t detailed, i bugged the person when i got privately messaged by someone else that said they would send me a “new” playstation (minus games) for FREE! as long as I didn’t prostitute myself out. He wanted me to keep my self-respect in check, he stated.
While the second person has met me and can testify to my hotness, i was a bit amused (and tempted) to take up on his offer. I told him that thanks for the kind offer, but I could not take such a gift under those kind of circumstances, but that i appreciated the offer regardless.
this brought a fury of um, response from someone close to my heart.
later on, the conversation dated back to older gaming stations and i started going on about the Atari 7800.
Remember those things? They must have come out in way early 80s (i’m thinking 82-83) and basically were emulations of the arcade style games (graphics and all).
I loved my 7800. I kept it up until we moved to grand rapids in 1985 and beyond as we had played frogger, q*bert, pacman like mother fuckers. I once topped pac man at either over a million or 10 million. I forget which, but I remember taking a picture of the screen when I did so (and I still have that pic!).
Another channel regular, Gruuk, came up with a link to ebay that showed that there were 7800s FOR SALE! WOAH!
The current price on one was out of my league (around 150 bucks) but another one (and this one HAD q*bert) was in my price range.
I, of course, bidded on a piece of my childhood.
This spurned off other seeking. I bidded on a rare Afghan Whigs vinyl as well as the ultra-rare JudyBats cd “When Souther Bells,” which I have been looking for forever.
Add this up to the cd’s i bought of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin God Fodder, Bauhaus 1979-1983 Vol 1 and Swing The Heartache: BBC Sessions. I also purchased Sister of Mercy’s Vision Thing.
And I coaxed (cajoled? begged? pleaded? batted my eyelashes?) Paul to spring a whopping 6 bucks on a TI 99/4A. This was my FIRST computer ever. I learned how to program BASIC on it.
God, I got wet just thinking about it. An Atari 7800 and a TI-99/4A!!!
woohoo!
god is an alcove
i completely and totally understand that i’m regressing into my childhood.
First it was the obsession over old computer equipment and it’s also been music.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been slowly hunting down music from my youth.
Bands like Charlatans UK, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays just to name a few bands (and including the ones listed above that I bought cd’s for). I’ve been jamming to Spinner recently (and getting other people hooked on it. the ModernMix and Alt.90s channels 0wnz).
i’ve been on the hunt for MP3s that remind me of bands that I love to listen to. That whole Manchester sound that supposedly died in the early 90s. Brit Rock, with a dash of techno/industrial thrown in. Paul ripped Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and I’ve been bopping around going “undead undead undead.” One thing I will say about Paul, since I’ve met him on-line, my cd purchasing has increased tenfold as he loves the same fucked up bands as I do. Also, CdNow has a “similar artists” info for all the bands. So I’ve been reading those and going “OH YEAH! I remember them!!” and going “damn I need to stop spending the dough.”
Speaking of which, i got tickets to see VIOLET FEMMES AT THE FILMORE!
this week has been owning so hard.
i waited for the joke
Amongst other neat-o things is that Shelly got our apartment. She moves in on August 28th. I got the phone lines turned on. I got a job OFFER from the dot commie people. I have an interview with the Washington Post.
my shit, definitely does NOT stink.
let’s see, emotionally i’m exhausted. this week decided to be the week from hell with people mind fucking left and right, breakups, declarations and other lovely things. i’ve been backing off left and right about this. i can’t deal with it and it’s not worth dealing with.
mike “I can’t call a girl cos she’ll think i’m paranoid” norton
finally sent me the signed SIP books AND the picture he drew of me (mike, not Terry Moore).
chit chat
As you know, I’ve made it pretty obvious how to contact me. Click on the link in the top nav bar for “contact” and everyplace that I hang out at is listed. However, someone suggested that I set up a bulletin board for discussing my chronicles. You can do so by going to all that and a bag of chips club on yahoo!. It’s been up since July 3rd and it’s somewhat populated. Go! Now! Discuss my interpretation of something or another! 🙂
the shaft theme is playing.
time for bed!
x0x0x0x
iMaul