Checksum Arcanius

After the TRC meeting today (which included talking about the upcoming 2005 competition and stuffing 450 envelopes), I met up with Dan and took a look at Half-Life 2 on one of the few computers owned by a friend that outclasses mine in every respect (well, almost – except for my RAID 0 4x stripe and debatably my Audigy 2 Platinum).

After eating at Applebees, I even tried my hand at HL2, but with different controls and not being used to the feel, I had trouble staying on small beams that are normally easy for me to traverse. Lets just say, tis not good to fall down into a horde of zombies.

After my grisly death, we watched many more grisly deaths in Tombstone, which neither of us had ever before seen. For its formulaity, I enjoyed it a good amount, even though I saw through it, I still had a good time.

Upon returning home, I ended up buying the Gold HL2 package – I figure if I wasted $60 on Doom3, I should reward a good game with a little more. After all, Half Life 2 is why I bought/put together Kaleidoscope (my desktop) in the first place.

Although we tried to avoid it, I still ended up having to download the entire game, but on a cable modem it seems to be going too bad – ETA was an hour.

There has been some major sparsity over the last week, something I aim to correct here.

There were several contributing factors:

• I was feeling bad
• I was doing things
• Lego League is getting busy
• Work was getting hectic
• I was behind in math

Notably, Half Life 2 is not yet on that list.

Now, I am all caught up in Math, work is going well, TRC is decently on track, I am feeling great, work is moving along nicely, and, well, as soon as I finish my Math test on Monday, you might not hear from me for a while due to HL2.

Oh, there’s also real work going on on a site update, look wise. Don’t get too hopeful too early though.

Thinking about some things in my life can be a bit depressing. Either that, or the fact that I didn’t make it into the Costco pharmacy tonight is starting to present it self. Or maybe its a little bit of both. A lot of things seem to be caused by combinations these days.

Today is – well, yesterday was – my birthday. I think I am officially over the hill – I have reached the age where I only get older, without recieving any additionl benefits from society for the increase in age. Well, I guess there’s the whole car rental and insurance cost thing at 25, but thats not really much of a landmark, in my opinion.

After a short day at work, followed by lego league, robotics administrivia, homework, and class, I ended up with my family, and my good friends Shai and Theo, at P.F. Chang’s for the third time in recent history. We were treated to the same waitress we had the first time – and due mainly to my mother’s persistent questioning, we actually learned quite a bit about her. Life stories aside, however, she is probably the best waitress I have ever had, at any resturant, ever. She is quick, accurate, courteous, fun, talkative… realy quite a delight to interact with. It just too bad that Maneesh and I didn’t have the luck to have her wait our table when we ate there. We seem to have bad luck that way.

But anyway, the food was excellent, and as the fourth meal of the day for me, I ended up, especially after the generous helping of cheesecake, stuffed quite to the gills, an effect I am still trying to come down from.

Seeing Theo again was a good experience, and Shai too since I haven’t seen him in a while either. My Mom took it upon herself to buy me a box of chocolates, which she promptly proceded to eat most of herself while offered the rest to everyone else. I actually managed to eat one before the night was over, as did our waitress. My dad, always finding strange gagets, found me another one – its a smoke torroid launcher.

Yeah. I may fill you in on what that means sometime later, but I have early work tomorrow and all that.

After feeling like crap for most of the day, the 55 minute drive home (the longest its ever taken me from work) actually worked wonders on my spirit. The 3.5 hour TRC meeting with interested adults also helped. Now it is late.

I want to find someone who would otherwise (reluctantly) vote for Kerry to vote for Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President, so that I can vote for Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President as well, instead of Bush, who I would otherwise (reluctantly) vote for.

Why, you probably ask, would I ever vote for Bush? I happened to explain it quite succinctly to a friend a few monents ago. I would vote for him “because his dometstic policy goals are closer (although not much) to my own than the other major candidate (and 3 of the other 4 top candidates), and his Iraq plan needs a chance to work before we sell it short, imho.”

Besides, 9 out of 9 terroists agree – Kerry in 2004.

Ahem, sorry about that. It wasn’t supposed to slip in.

Hopefully you made it outside tonight to see the Total Lunar Eclipse.

Too bad it couldn’t have waited six days. But this does kind of put everything in a bit of perspective. As the conversation went:

Ryan: kinda puts things into perspective, you know
Erik: ppl say that, I never get it :) …
Ryan: like, Bush or Kerry? Who cares? The moon could crush them both in a heartbeat AND it looks better too
Erik: lol