Sunday PAX

was too short for me. (I had to leave early.)
All together, Pax was fantastic. I made some new friends, and vise versa. Traded some more Pokemon. I've got 482 Captured/493 Total. I'm so happy now!
Unfortunately, I'll not be showing any photos of myself on my site. Ever since that whole Myspace thing with the 29000 registered sex offenders, I've been pretty into staying quiet about my face and address.

Saturday Pax

I started the day with an hour of SSBB with some complete strangers.
I went to the Mega64 panel and watched some hilarious clips from Version 3, including one with Derek rapping to random strangers about mundane things such as their pants. There was a Q+A where people asked some pretty crazy questions. One of them had the greatest Black Mage costume I've ever seen or ever will see. Then we watched two episodes of Version 3. Marcus remains my favorite character, and he has some great lines.
On my way out of the theatre I encountered a StormTrooper. It was a fantastic costume.
I finished the day by playing pokemon in the underground.

PS There was a giant statue of a beholder in the D&D exhibit. Over twelve feet tall not counting the eyes.

Friday PAX

is so much fun. I've seen some cool cosplayers (including a perfectly executed advent-children Yuffie) and I met the Mega64 guys (my photo is going on their website because I spun their wheel of mystery and it landed on photo) and I got a personal photo of me with Shawn. I also bought a Mega64 T-shirt.
I also made friends with some people who play pokemon, like me, for fun and without obsessive behaviors. One of them was nice enough to give me some legendaries like Lugia and the Dogs. That was on Friday.
I saw some friends from work there, too.

St. John's Bible @ Tacoma Art Museum

Also in Tacoma, I went to the Art museum with my mother and grandmother to see part the St. John's Bible- a bible that was commissioned this millennium. It is hand written in English calligraphy, and illuminated beautifully by several different artists. I am not a religious person, but I can very much respect the effort and beauty of a hand-crafted book, even if I don't believe all of the words.

Visiting Family

Visiting my Grandmother in Tacoma was nice. I got to see my great uncle and aunt, as well as my two aunts from California.

The Latter and I went on a trip to Point Defiance Zee and Aquarium, and I showed them all the fun spots to go. Having spent much of my childhood at said zoo, I know it pretty well. It's always fun to see the sharks swim right up to the glass and nearly scrape along the side.
We also saw the Beluga show, where the beluga keepers communicate to the animals with sign language, and the animals perform certain behaviors that they would perform in the wild, like breaching and making cool sounds. They are always rewarded with fish.
There were meercats that were new additions, and they were cute. Smaller than I had expected, but cute.

Agathon Sees the Sea

This is a historical fiction set in ancient Greece in the 1200s BCE. I almost never write historical fiction (and it's even more rare that I read it) but here it is.

Agathon did not like heights. He had never liked heights, nor would he ever grow to like them. He didn't know how he'd let his friends talk him into going up there in the middle of the night, but the point of the matter is that they were at the plateau that would someday, long after their deaths, become home to the Parthenon.
“I bet the Gods don't have a view like this,” Errikos said from behind.
The young man shuddered and turned to look at his friends. He received reassuring smiles from all four of them, and attempted to smile back- even though his stomach was twisting around and around like an Ouroboros trying to devour its own tail.
“Should we really have come up here?” Agathon asked. His voice sounded like the whisper of a sick old man begging for water.
“Absolutely,” Adrastos said valiantly. He clapped a hand on Agathon's shoulder. “You haven't lived until you've seen the sea.”
“From the Acropolis?!” Errikos cut in. “Adrastos, that's ridiculous. We live in Athens. Gods, your stupidity makes you sound like a Spartan.”
Agathon, Errikos, and Nikias laughed raucously while Adrastos's cheeks turned red. Jokes against the Spartans were better than... well, they were better than pretty much everything. Maybe that was just because they were in their teens. The little children never understood the jokes, and the adults seems steeled to them. Whenever Agathon brought a new one to his father, (“What is a Spartan's favorite book? They don't have one because they can't read!”) the man never found it as funny as Agathon did.
Nikias was the first to finish his giggle fit.“No, seriously, Adrastos, why'd you bring us up here?”
“If you guys would just listen to me, I'll show you! The sea is over there!” Adrastos pointed southwest towards Piraeus. It was true, Agathon knew, that if you were in southwestern Athens and there was a strong wind coming from where Adrastos pointed, you could smell the sea. Or rather, you could smell what the men said was the smell of the sea. Agathon had never had reason to doubt his father and uncles and all their friends.
All of the boys squinted and followed Adrastos's finger. Agathon's stomach slipped and tumbled as he was once again reminded how high up he was.
“That's not the sea,” Errikos said doubtfully. “If you weren't trying to pull our legs, then how come you brought us up here in the dead of night? Morning wont come for hours.”
Agathon answered for Adrastos, “We all have chores and school during the day. Besides, I think I see it.”
The Aegean Sea. The people of Athens had only started calling it that once their king had drowned himself in it. Agathon always thought of it as a terribly unlucky name, but the people in his polis and polises around it didn't seem to care. They were just happy to have something named by them.
Sometimes Agathon thought that his people were too smug, as Spartans always said (although none of the boys had ever met a Spartan) but he always stifled thoughts like that. He'd probably get a beating from his father if he ever voiced them.
The more they looked at it, the more they thought they could make out the rippling waves. The more they thought they could see the waves, the more they thought they could see white moonlight dance at the crests. It was a lovely sight, lovelier than Agathon would normally have thought something could be (Except maybe for Timo, the pretty girl his age who lived nearby his home).
“I can see why people devote their lives to sailing,” he said after a bit.
“That's what I'm going to do when I grow up,” said Errikos.
“You just made that up,” Nikias sighed. “You always say, 'I want to do this' or 'I want to do that' but you know you're going to be a shepherd like your dad and I'm going to be a soldier like mine.”
Errikos shrugged. “Yeah, but living on a boat like the Argo would be cool.”
“Have fun fighting those dragons and harpies,” Agathon said. Being pulled away from the hypnotizing sight of the sea made him queasy again. “And let me know when you find that fleece, would you?”
Again, everyone laughed, even Errikos.
It wasn't until Apollo started to draw the sun into the sky that they climbed down the side of the plateau and split up to go to their homes. Agathon was not apprehended. In fact, his parents never found out about his night-time excursion.

A brief epilogue- The boys thought about that night all their lives. All of them grew up to be sailors against their fathers' wishes. All of them fought in the War of Troy under the coward Menestheus, and none of them had any regrets.

Old Stories

I was with my friends. There were a lot of us, and we were talking about jobs.
Someone said that bodyguards made a lot of money. We got to arguing about whether it would be a good job.
"You might have to die," Says my friend James.
"Naw," I said, "You just let the guy die and skip the final paycheck."
----------
"I bet I could beat up a hobbit," said a kid who was about seven.
My friend retaliates, "You are a hobbit."
----------
I was writing in a library once, and this kid comes up to me and asks, "Why are you writing with your left hand?"
I'm a lefty, would be the obvious answer but I couldn't resist. I said, "So I can be just as good with my left and my right."
"Well, how's your writing with your right?" He asks. I scrawl my name on the paper with my right hand. Needless to say, it's horrible. He says, "It's weird, but you're better with your left than your right!"
I say, "I know, I guess I'm better with my left. Practice makes perfect."
And the kid walked away. In retrospect, I think he may have been mentally retarded.

How I Met Your Mother

My apologies (to myself). I haven't been keeping up with this digital journal of mine.

I've discovered an amazing show called How I Met Your Mother. I first decided to watch it after noticing that Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible, I call him) plays one of the main characters.
I wish I'd discovered this show sooner because it's a riot. The gist is that Ted, the "main" character, is telling his two kids in the year 2029 about how he met their mother. The show chronicles his antics in NYC when he was in his late twenties. His friends Lily, Marshall, Robin, and Barney are also main characters.
In the picture, from left to right, Ted, Marshall, Barney, Lily, Robin.
NPH plays Barney, an incredibly rich ladies' man whose life is a string of cigars, alcohol, and one night stands. He loves his life. He's my favorite character.
The show is better than Friends. Seriously.

My Poor Leika

My golden retriever was so sick today. Being that it's the summer, I woke up today at three o clock and went to let my dogs out.
I only found one dog. Confused, I called for the other.
I found her, trapped in the bathroom. She'd thrown up all over the walls and floor and I think she'd had diarrhea as well. I got both dogs outside and Leika kept throwing up. She's all better now, thank God.
It was the worst thing I've ever smelled. Thank god everything's cleaned up now, and she's okay.

She's curled up on the couch next to me. She's probably very tired.

Is it Wrong to Eat Meat?

Generally? No. If it's a chicken, cow, pig, turkey, fish, or related animal, it's perfectly fine. Humans evolved eating these things, and we need a lot of protein to get around. Animals are almost never killed inhumanely. Furthermore, it's absolutely the most delicious thing I can think of.
It's not okay to eat meat if the animal wasn't killed humanely. There are laws about this in the United States and in pretty much all the developed countries, so when buying at a shopping center, you're good to go. It's wrong because it is preying upon the suffering of another.
It's also not okay to eat the meat of an animal that can't afford to lose a member, such a s a gorilla or a tiger. I have heard that they are being eaten by the rich now. It's simply in bad taste to push a species to extinction because you want to be cool.
It's also not okay to be PETA. I love animals. I think they're swell. But I also think that humans need to eat.

Be On Look Out

B.O.L.O. was my favorite computer game as a child. At school, at the end of the day, nine of us would pile onto the computers and play a networked battle. My friends and I all had our codenames for it, and we even signed our yearbook photos as such. I was Zalo then.

I rarely see those people anymore. That makes me terribly, terribly sad. I miss them, I love them.

The object was to collect pillboxes (turrets) and then place them again so they work for you. It's a war game, but I love it. I, of course, play WinBolo (the version for windows.)

If you see me, say hi. I'll be playing as "Alison".

There is Something Wrong with People

I ran into a person on the internet today. It was an accident, I don't even know the person. I know that I should not listen to the internet, and I do not, but sometimes hearing how someone thinks is just to much.

I was on gaia online (Find me, I'm Trivia_Master). I was in a thread discussing last names. I said,

"I wont tell you what it is, but it requires a wad of phlegm to pronounce. (No, it's not Arabic, it's Irish.)
It means, "The family that brings bad luck" but I'm actually the luckiest person I know. Only good shit happens to me."

Then she chimed in (with no provocation) and said,

"If at all you believe in karma one day every bit of that good luck with reverse upon you. In likelihood either your first child will die or you will die young."

That was shaking. I thought, "Why on earth would anyone think like that, let alone say something so awful?" I responded thinking that she must not understand what Karma was,

"My dear, I don't think you know how Karma works. Good things happen to me because I'm a good person. I donate bits of my salary to Red Cross. I help old ladies across the street. Karma is not about balance between good and evil, it's about "what goes around comes around." I do good things, good things happen to me. My parents were the same way, and they have been happily married longer than you've been alive.
Now, if I were a bad person, if I didn't help people who needed me or if I hurt someone, then of course bad things would happen. But I don't, so they don't.
If you would like to get technical about what Karma is, religiously speaking, I would tell you that I have faithfully preformed my Dharma in life and I will continue to do so until I die, even though I am not of that religious persuasion."

All of which is true of course. I asked her later why she believed the worst of the world (based upon her initial statement). She said,

"Who said that was the worst? I quite find rapture in such things taking place to ones who are not myself. It makes me happy."

How could anybody live like that? How could you go through life with so much anger and vengeance and hate inside you that you want people that you don't know to feel pain? It makes me sad.