Happy Robot emancipation cycle!

| Happy Holidays Everyone!

Here's an update on my shit:

1. Project finished and (apparently) successful! Huzzah! I actually feel pretty good about this project (unlike some other things I've worked on) and hopefully the kids are gonna crap their pants over this one. Maybe our company's stock will even come out of the toilet! Let's hope that loud, scary, mysterious buzzing sound never happens again! :)

2. I'll be in LA and, as usual, Christmas Eve will find me at the Poop Deck. Better yet, through happy and completely random coincidence, Enron's brother is the guy working the bar this year! Craziness. Anyway, anyone who is in LA is more than welcome to come. Typically we're there from around 3-6, a lot of random people show up, it's always a good time and surprisingly full of the Christmas Spirit.

3. The special lady friend and I are hosting a New Year's party this year. I hope that a bunch of you guys can make it up! Aeryk, are you gonna be here? If anyone wants to stay, we've got plenty of floor space for anyone that wants to come up.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas! Even the Jews!

| Hehe funny picture

Heres a funny picture i found as a christmas picture card. It pretty much sums up what I do here and what problems the company faces.


Eric: I guess we all have our own problems. Mine, I am not the most well-liked person in the company by a longshot. I feel like the estranged fellow that Jon described in his company except I don't think I'm that weird socially. In fact the last count I think I have 0 friends in the factory. Ok.. maybe 2 or 3 but "friends" might be a far-stretched terminology. My biggest problem is I can't speak the language and just can't get past the wall of courtesy. It also sucks when you know they only speak english only out of considerateness. Example, whenever I go drinking with a group or in a social setting, people will be talking in their native speak and occasionally, after being silent for so long, I'll break in with a little chit chat (that's probably totally off topic) but then their conversation resumes as if I was an interruption. It also sucks the group laughs and someone has to translate for you, IF someone was nice enough to. Most times I feel like the facial twitch that you just can't get rid of.

What's worse is most of the time, it's easy for some people with unkind intents to fuel false rumors that spread around the company. Rumors are usually negative. I find some people that has never consorted with me, have some kind of prenotion about me either from their friends or friend of friends. It's really frustrating and infuriating, but I also can't help to find it funny how easily people are influenced. Heck, all of us at some point are brainwashed by media ads, newspapers telling us how we need to stop Iraq from having weapons of mass destruction.

| Propagandhi means thinking about politics.

Which I don't like to do, but I did for a little bit tonight and came up with this:

“I noticed that Time Magazine made President Putin the Time Magazine ‘Man of the Year,’” McCain said, according to NBC. “I understand that probably, but my man of the year is one Gen. David Petraeus, our general who has brought success in Iraq.”

Politics = lies, damn lies, lying statistics, money, more lies, murder, Satan and more lies.

As a side note, based on my love of the Rock Band drumz, Leslie gave me 5 drum lessons for xmas! I am nervous and when I can find time, I am totally rocking out to Rock band even harder so that I am not a total lamer when I take my lessons! Who cares if I don't own drumz!

If I start to rip at drums and start a band, it is TOTALLY gonna be called "Petraeus". That is and awesome name for a band!

| Speaking of Routine Riot...

Not really. BUT, when I first went to that myspace page, I was like, "Holy shit! Ryan's still in this band!?"

But anyways, last couple of days I've been lurking around YouTube watching videos of punk bands we used to be into. It's a trip to see vids of Propagandhi playing crazy packed shows all over the world, and looks like they put on a good show. AND play some of their old jams from those first two albums. I dunno, kinda cool to me.

Nation States '96!
Preachyness b4 hand but sounds like the records. Where's the Vagos!?

Nation States '07!
Sound quality from this guy is pretty horrible but he has most of the show and theres tons of old jams - man, wish homemade concert vids sounded better :(

Ska Sucks '96!
This is like the scary Vagos show we went to, haha. i can see why maybe back then they'd just play a few songs then yell at the crowd the rest of the time.

Ska Sucks '07!

OK, last one: this is just pretty rad. Their old bass player left I think after the 2nd cd (he was the guy who did the couple of love-ish kinda songs) and started his own band, The Weakerthans. Anyways here's him doing acoustic one of his songs from propagandhi. LOL but also good: ~**GIFTS**~
ADDED: Here's same song 96 at that scary show again haha. Vago Gifts!

Then there's tons of good nofx vids etc. Awww, the good 'ol days!

Not sure what ding-dong boxing is, but if it's what it sounds like... ewww.

Have you guys seen the new Joker (Heath Ledger) for the new Batman movie? Looks really scary, but cool at the same time. Way less campy.

Linkage

Enron's just the nicest guy in our whole gang, bar none! I'm usually reduced to a slobbering pile of tears and self-hate when I drink, so I can't imagine I'd want to call and talk to another human being at a time like that.

The new live NOFX album is fucking RAD. WAY good. They do some really neat versions of songs. They're just one of the best bands ever. NOFX > Bad Religion

I haven't posted in forever cuz I cleared my cookies and am so amazingly lazy, I couldn't be bothered to re-enter my username/password.

Geek out on this, fellow GRRM fanboys: ASOIAF PAINTINGS for a compendium coming out next year. Pretty fuckin rocking stuff. Kinda blows me away, the scale of the castles. GRRM is working hand in hand with this guy, so I guess its pretty authoritative, but I never really visualized these things so big.

I watched Eastern Promises this weekend. I liked it. I coulda done without the whole Naomi Watts subplot (or is that the MAIN plot?) and woulda preferred a more straight forward Godfather/Mother Russia version. I thought it was cool though. I love the ding-dong boxing in the sauna. BRUTAL.

- Aaron is really fun to drunken dial. I'm not sure why. Theories?

- The first wave of Rock Band guitars really sucked. Mine started making a loud squeaking sound and then broke the day after I got it. Fortunately the new one is a lot better. I haven't bought any of the downloadable stuff yet. I heard there's a whole Who album coming out for download all at once sometime -- that would be cool (although their song in Rock Band is a little too epic). I haven't heard Enter Sandman all the way through in at least ten years, but it's just as stupid as I remember.

- Superbad was one of my favorite movies this year! Oh well, we'll always have Mazes & Monsters (possible screening date: New Year's).

- Golden Compass was good, but the protagonists didn't bomb enough churches for my tastes. I also don't understand why they cut out the part where they time travel back and abort Jesus. Also, it had the worst theme song ever. Imagine JP if he was a woman, making up lyrics on the spot about how great the main character's soul is, to the theme of "Love Boat." That is seriously a lot what it was like. People were fleeing in terror.

- I have been reading the Necromunda rules! I now know that you can run four inches per turn and also shoot or fight in that same turn!

| Whoops!

Umm, there should have been 2 Routine Riot CDs - one for you and one for Leslie. If for some reason I made a mistake and didn't send two, let me know. Wow! That is really embarrassing!

| extra sacrifice this year

I'm putting in a little more effort this year and want to complete a few pending projects for 2008. That few added quotes hopefully will secure a few projects for 2008. If I don't do it and wait until next year, it may take longer for the project win, or worse may miss the opportunity which we can't really afford delays at the moment.
Hopefully next year, when the business is better, I can fly back more frequent/extended. I'm really starting to feel tied down here.

So on the beach front! I bought Pei Mei's chinese cookery and have been dabbling in the black arts. Its quite cool actually, when you follow the instructions, the food tastes much better than casual unorthodox-layman cooking. It's really important to follow the amount of ingredients and the cooking directions. Normally all my dishes turn out just blah, either all garlic/onion or dark soy sauce flavored. But now I can actually taste the different flavors of the veggies/meat! The dishes haven't turned out exactly like those in the pictures yet... Occasionally I'll do a mistep or forget what to add and when. Good cooking is hard! Starting with the level 1 stuff, then i'll move onto higher level casting requiring more concentrated ingredients like mandrake root and black pearls.

| Christmas Present

Wow, Ryan. That was just the most amazing unwrapped Routine Riot CD Christmas Present I have ever received, thank you so much!

My gift to you Ryan, is to publicly post this link to the Routine Riot MySpace page for all the Action Team to enjoy! Watch videos, listen to music, perhaps get the email address of Chris Eden and email him love letters. I don't know how you will best use it, but Seasons Greetings from Eric!

(heh, heh)

| Sands of Aging

Forgot?! Nay. Intentional malicious intent more likely. I distinctly remember hearing from the that the DM specifically asked if my character should take action, and the group laughingly decided to leave me to my fate... TWICE. j4rks. But never fret eLzar, I will be sure to be completely impartial in the matter were I given your character to run. Impartial... as to HOW your character dies. Oh Shit!

D>M>

| Rock Bandz & Role Playingz

- Leslie picked up Rock Bandz for us last week sometime, and it has been a hoot for the whole family. Leslie loves playing the drums as much as Wylie and I do, and as far as the guitar goes, well mine is awaiting a nice return box from EA because the 'pickups' strumming part either a) misses strums altogether, or b) does a double strum when it should do one. Makes rocking out on some Coheed and Cambria solos pretty tough. I am not sad at all tho, cause playing the drums is SO. MUCH. FUN! I played the first block of songs on expert, and have been making my way up the ranks on hard. I feel like a real drummer and wanna get a drum kit and start a band! Wait a sec. I'm not 15.....

So yeah, Rockband is awesome. The Metallica downloads are mandatory! Blackened!

- I have started swimming with Leslie. She goes like 6 days a week and swims 2000, and I have been going 3 times or so, swimming 1000. I hate swimming. I mean, I like that I CAN swim. And I like waterpolo, but swimming is teh sux. So, to circumvent my absolute boredom and focus on the effing splashing sound after every stroke, I picked up a waterproof case for Leslie's pink Nano. It is the Awesome. Listening to music is nice and it keeps me swimming harder than without; anything other than kick ass metal songs doesn't work, it actually slows me down for some reason. Tim Armstrong? Fuggettaboutit. Today I started listening to some George Rape Rape Martin and it worked really well. Get it Ryan! It makes swimming fun!

- Superbad the Movie = Super Bad Movie. I laughed pretty hard the first 15 minutes, then smiled twice, and laughed 3 times during the rest of the movie. Maybe. It is like the Nexus Ops of movies: Too long for what it is. Not to mention my little fear that this is what the new generations 'coming of age movie' is. Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Lucas no more! Now it is 'fuck' every other word, pussy, vag, cumming in faces, dick, vag, pussy, etc. Wylie's coming of age movie will consist of a repeated soundtrack of the word cunt being screamed, robots raping sheep, and intravenous super-drug use through the penis. Good times.

- As far as regular attendance for gaming in the SF area? Sounds good. Much more difficult to pull off in practice. I couldn't commit to anything regular, but would like to come up (an have you guys come down) when possible, of course. So, if you get a regular game going Jon, YOU play my character when I am not there, DON'T let Enron play me. He will find the largest hourglass full of character aging sand, and make me stand under it just cause he is bitter we left him under it that one time and forgot him for a few rounds...

| Indeed, O rugs did Drunk dial...

The conversation mostly consisted of relentless laughs, hiccups and many utterances of I can believe I still have service. In fact, Rugs called me while taxing on the tarmac and stayed on the phone for at least two minutes beyond takeoff before the cell service finally petered out. One comment, in the I am too drunk to control my volume kind of way, must have thrilled the other passengers, "I hope I am not fucking with the instruments in the cockpit." Wow. I told him the flight attendant was going to club him when they leveled off, but I imagine he got sick before he/she even had a chance to do that.

Pretty much the only thing I was able to get out of Rugs was: Seattle, Las Vegas, 3 bottles of wine, flying, hiccups and the only intelligible phrase with regards to cell service and cockpits. Good stuff.

jr0n: In the mannerisms of O Rugs... Necromunda Good. Role-play Good. Hiccup. Bwahh hahahahah! Hiccup. Hahahahaha... Etc...

jA -El: Booooo! No visit to the Bay area this winter! Booooo! We haven't seen you in a year you know.

D>M>

| shots at the airport?!?

So how does that go? Are these complete "I don't know em" strangers that you've just befreinded sitting at the airport bar waiting for your flight? If so, kudos man... I don't think I could picture myself doing that unless it was a sports bar and the lakers played Houston or somthing.

The details are fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure Aaron was the recipient of a very ugly drunk and dial yesterday.. which was very shortly followed by me throwing up in the airplane toilet for the majority of the ride back. Doing shots with people in the airport bar.. not so much a good idea, no.

Greetings from my working hell! As usual, I find myself on a project that just will not die. Or rather, we think it's about ready to go, and then once every couple days, this particularly ugly little bug pops up its head like a gopher, and we just. can't. find it. And we have to make a very monetarily costly choice on whether to ship this thing to manufacturing in the next few days, or wait until January.

Frustrating!

Anyway, a question for you NorCal peoplez. I'm losing it without some kind of regular gaming thing these days. The occasional gaming get-togethers are nice, but they don't really scratch the itch in the way that getting together consistently for Warmachine every week or two was. A couple of ideas:

1. Necromunda? I've been looking over the free updated rules )(here). This game was always pretty much hella/hecka fun, a campaign would be fun to play, we already have tons of terrain, and you can get a gang for about $30 if you order it from the war store.

2. Role-playing? This could be harder to organize, but I would be more than happy to run an extended role-playing session once a month or so. Probably either my old favorite, but rarely run game, Earthdawn, or D&D flavored Savage Worlds.

Thoughts?