Chicago LAN

I flew back from Chicago Sunday morning, and boy, are my arms still tired (I know, that joke's way overused). Anyway, the LAN was awesome! It was good fun to finally meet some folks I've gamed with for a while and also to meet some people that I haven't really spoken to before but know their gamertags or read their blog. I truly had a blast. When the LAN details were first announced, I wasn't sure if I would go or if I wanted to go, but now I'm so glad I went. Here's how my weekend went (some of the pics were taken with my camera phone and so the quality's not good):

Thursday, August 9, 2007

I arrived at O'Hare at almost 10 PM and waited in the cab line right outside of the terminal. I'm no fan of cabbies, but fortunately the one I talked to pointed me to the hotel shuttle waiting area that was just across the street. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I was on my way to the Wyndham. I got to the hotel just before 11 pm, checked in, called Soup, and headed down to the bar to join everyone. I didn't know too many people by site and walked right by the group before Drost grabbed me and bought me a beer. We shot the shit for a while - I met LBSutke, SoupNazzi, SpeedBump, Drost, Sys Chaos, OldManRiver, Dark Knight, Beldar, and Smoke (if I'm missing anyone, I apologize...I'm writing this all from memory, which isn't too good these days and it's worse because I spent a lot of the weekend drinking, damn you alcohol!). So we were drinking and talking, and Drost was waiving around this long, black spank-me-daddy-rough-love studded leather thing that had "Suck It" written on it with metal studs. Some middle-aged woman that none of us knew took it upon herself to get the paddle and start spanking us. I ran like a bitch but she got me anyway. Everyone was laughing as she beat our asses but it wasn't funny, it was weird. She even followed us to the pool table and spanked Drost again. That dirty tramp!

Here she is in all her freaky, stalking glory:

I turned in a bit early but apparently the party went on in the bar...something about Drost dancing on the pool table. You'd have to ask him, though.

Friday, August 10, 2007

My morning started off by joining Soup, Sys, and Stridog (my roommate) for an $18 breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We decided that'd be the last time we ate there since, although it was good, it wasn't $18 good. Drost came down and told us that, in about 10 minutes, a shuttle was taking a bunch of us to the Wizard World Con downtown. So I ran up to my room, got ready, and got to the lobby in time to join them.

The Wizard Wizard Con was like a Nerd Mecca. Since I used to collect comics and have seen more than my share of comic collectors and owners, though, this was no surprise. I should point out that I'm not a nerd. Well, not much of one.....okay, maybe I am. Shut up. The cool factor was helped by the presence of a porn star (see Soup's blog for the pic) as well as appearances by Tricia Helfer (BSG, Number Six) and some guy that's written a lot of books or something. There was a long line to talk to him, so he must've been cool. Unfortunately for us, all of the major appearances weren't on the day we visited. Buggar.

Phreak had arranged for the Wyndham shuttle to transport us to the Wizard World Con and back. When our pick up time rolled around, however, the shuttle was no where to be seen. We grumbled for a while, chatted, met Her Highness Princess Leah (hawtness), saw a ninja with tennis shoes, and eventually Waterborn had to lay the smack down on the hotel manager's candy ass. I think they finally picked us up an hour after they said they would.

Once we returned to the hotel, we headed down to the main room and helped set up stations and drink alcohol. People started getting their PCs and 360s out and pretty soon it was time for gaming! I confess that I played H2 almost exclusively. I did try GH2 (until some douche laughed at me for not knowing what I was doing even though it was my first time even touching the guitar, insisted on showing me how, and continued to play without saying anything else to me....yes sir, you're a douche), and I tried to get GoW set up but I didn't have the updates. Even so, at best, I would've been the sole reason my team lost every match. There were some serious GoW matches going!

H2 on LAN is awesome. The game is so much more pleasant, things happen that are supposed to happen (well, more so than on XBL), and you can hit people with BR fire across the map even on the largest ones. Either all that's true, or in my inebriated state I was enjoying it more than I would sober. Take your pick. Besides random games and more drinking, not much happened that night. Laud and LadiesLuvMe tried to set up a 2v2 H2 tournament but it was not to be. For dinner, we headed out for Mexican. I had an absolutely huge burrito and chips. I turned in at about 2 am but didn't go to sleep until about 3 am...too much drinking? I think so.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

For some unholy reason I woke up at 8 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got out of bed about 9 am, got ready, and went down to the lobby looking for coffee. There I ran into UnwashedMass, Waterborn, and OldManRiver and we decided to head across the street to the Pot Belly for some breakfast. I think everyone had plenty to drink the night before. We just chatted a bit, ate our food, and headed back. Someone puked in the grass on the way back. I won't say who it was, but it wasn't me. You know who you are! LOL!

This day consisted pretty much of more H2 all day. The H2 crowd managed to organize a 4v4 MLG ladder, which was fun. There were a few epic battles between, and I forget some of the names, but No Cocks and Taxi's team. Profanity (with Bump in place of Malice) barely beat Vulgarity 50-49 in a Warlock slayer game. I think they led like 48-47 right before the end, and Laud's cries of anguish sounded like Mozart to my ears. We still had to play the winners of the losers bracket but when it got to 12:30 am or so and there were still two matches remaining to determine our opponent, I left for bed. I wasn't drunk but likely dehydrated from, I don't know, like six Gin and Tonics, six beers or so, three cups of coffee to only two bottles of water for the day. My head was pounding, my eyes blood shot from staring at a monitor all day, I had, at best, five hours of sleep the night before, and at that point I was debating if I would rather continue playing or die there on the spot. That's when you gotta turn in.

The night got better, though. Our AC stopped working and I woke up around 1:30 am or something in a sweat and it was so goddamned humid in the room I found it slightly hard to breathe. I called the front desk and they said that one-half of the hotel lost AC completely and they were working to fix it. So I tried to go to sleep and think I managed to before 2 am.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Sunday all I did really was wake up and go to the airport. However, something good did happen. I complained during checkout that our AC went out and it was uncomfortably warm in the room so they took 50% off of mine and Stridog's bill. $139 including taxes and everything for three nights ain't bad at all.

It turned out that Stridog had to leave early also and was flying the same airline as me. So we took the shuttle to the airport together, grabbed some breakfast, and talked about all the douche bags we met at the LAN. Anyway, Stridog's a pretty cool cat.

And now, some pics....

Dark Knight, LB, Soup, Drost, Phreak, Bump, Waterborn, et al leaving for Wizard Con:



In the Wyndham shuttle. Phreak asked Drost how big he was "down there." His response said it all:



Bioshock display:



Me and bloody Bioshock girl...they're always sexier when they're bloody:


Inside the Bioshock booth - there were about six or so stations but I only took this pic because the girl was hot:


Blood on the floor in the Bioshock booth...this actually wasn't for affect. Some guy pissed Phreak off and he got wrecked:


Drost's main reason for going to Chicago last weekend was to attend the Stitches Expos 2007:


Soup shows off his flare at Wizard Con - Laud (right) obviously doesn't have enough flare:


Walking around the Con, I found the Joker and Wonder Woman, of all people. I think the Joker was happy to see me:


Souporine:


Me and Her Highness, Princess Leah. Wow. I had to pretend to go to the bathroom just to get away from her. She was all over me. I'm married you hottie...I mean, lady! Actually, her name was Christine and she was extremely nice to have posed with me and the other guys (below). If I wasn't married, I would have shamelessly begged her to let me chain her up. Man, we'd have some pale white kids, too!


Oh, and these losers had their pic taken with her, too:


Sidewalk artist outside the doors of the Wizard World Con:


Profanity let's you know what you can do with yourself via large banner in the corner of the room:


Someone's frackin' awesome PC (PM me and I'll credit the owner):


Nice display by the WoW dorks:


Drost playing GH2, part deux:


Almost the entire room. That's Waterborn on the bottom right, Absolute Tara in the white shirt between the guys in the red and orange shirts, BC Kinetic standing near the center in the green shirt holding a drink:

Posted by biorod @ 7:40 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Last Day

So today's my last day at my current job. I've worked for the University of North Carolina in one capacity or another since moving to North Carolina in 1998. I've been a temporary employee, a part-time employee, an undergraduate, a medical and dental patient, a volunteer - basically, you name it, I've done it here (except for teach). My wife earned her Ph.D. here and my son was born at the hospital that I can see out of my window. I earned my BS in computer science and spent an unholy amount of time writing code, papers, and doing all sorts of unpleasant mathematics in a building up the street. I confess that it's much harder to leave than I thought it'd be. I've done so much here - everything from freezing in line outside the Smith Center countless Saturday mornings for basketball tickets to picketing for employee benefits in front of South Building. Often times I've felt that being a state employee is a thankless existence, and it usually is, however, the people and the atmosphere are irreplaceable.

That's the mood I'm in. I don't start my new job until the Monday after the Chi-LAN and I'll be at the beach from tomorrow until Wednesday. So I've got a couple of crazy weeks coming with one of the worst moments near the end - when my son starts his new daycare on August 20th. My wife's already sobbing and I'm uneasy at best.

Anyway, good bye Carolina! I'll miss you.

Posted by biorod @ 2:50 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Searching for a New Daycare Center

My wife accepted a job offer this week and so we have to find a new care center for my son. If he were to remain at his current daycare center, it'd take my wife or me over an hour to drop him off and get to work and vice versa. This blows since we absolutely love his current daycare center as well as the people there. So we spent some time last week and today looking at new centers near our future work locations (I'm starting a new job August 13 and my wife will likely start hers on September 5, and, oddly enough, we'll be working within 2 miles of each other...her building is currently across the street from mine.). The place we saw today is not a place I'd put my son. Granted, it's a five-star center, as rated by the State of NC, but what we saw when we visited the toddler room was total chaos. I saw the children running around uncontrolled, some clothed, some not, I saw one boy hit another boy with a plastic container and the second boy retaliated by hitting him in the head with a percussion triangle. One kid was in the corner crying. The teacher barely said anything, took the triangle away, and sent the boy to the other instructor, who was changing another child's diaper. Also, the teachers hardly said anything when we visited, didn't greet us, and seemed to be in emergency management the entire time. We left the room to continue the tour, spoke with the center director for about 20 minutes, and when she asked me if I had any questions, I asked to see the toddler room again thinking that perhaps we just caught them at a bad time. Nope. Same chaos, totally unstructured! I'd sooner leave my son at home alone all day than take him to that place. He'd learn just about as much! (BTW, I wouldn't leave my son at home alone).

Oh, I hate to say this, but it did enter my mind - one of the care givers was obese. I'd guess that she was in her early 50s and about 300 lbs. Some days when I watch my son by myself, he tires me out, and I'm a healthy young guy that only has to watch one boy. I can't imagine that she isn't exhausted by lunch time from their activities, chasing the kids, playing with them, changing them, picking them up, etc. That has to take a toll on a person day after day, which, I would assume, eventually affects their work ethic. Oh yeah, their teacher to child ratio is 9:1. The state mandates a 10:1 ratio, so they're under that. But imagine being 300 lbs and having to watch nine toddlers. Sounds like some special sort of hell.

There were two places we would put him, but they don't currently have any openings. I'm hoping that we find some place soon and don't have to spend two hours everyday traveling to his current daycare center because we don't have any reasonable alternatives. Also, anywhere we're looking is at least $100 more a month than his current location, and the one I really want him in is over $200 more a month than that. I don't mind that so much since our household income is increasing significantly with our new jobs and I want what's best for my boy, but still, that sucks.

Posted by biorod @ 2:00 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Same Color Illusion

Are blocks 'A' and 'B' the same color? Scroll down for the answer.






















Yes, they are the same color. To convince you, I copied and pasted block 'B' and placed it in between 'A' and 'B'. You can see that they are the same. I found this on NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" page. They used this as an example to show that "purely human observations in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate." Pretty neat.







Posted by biorod @ 9:18 am EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Starting New Job Soon

I haven't blogged in a while. As goofy as this sounds, I really only decided to blog when I saw V10L3N7_JAY's blog with the Decepticon image and thought it'd be funny to have my Autobot image next to it.

Anyway, yesterday I got a job offer and I'm very excited about it. I'll be a software engineer working on benefits applications. My office will be about 10 minutes from my house and I'll actually get to park next to the building instead of parking in a satellite lot and taking a bus to campus! My salary will also jump by over 13k, so I'm excited about that, too!

Because they're hiring so many people here so quickly, there are some space concerns. They wanted me to start July 30th, when they begin populating a "new" building, but since I've got the following week planned for the beach and the Chi-LAN, we agreed that I should start August 13th. I guess I can't get too trashed Saturday night at the LAN. Oh well, I'll make up for it on Friday night!

Posted by biorod @ 1:19 pm EDT | Permalink | 7 Comments