Author Archives: Alan Edwards
Five Mass Effect Things for Monday, March 8th
1. I, along with Lady Aravan, spent the weekend playing Mass Effect. When some people say that, they mean they spent several hours doing something. What I mean is, we got home from work on Friday night and started playing, played until 2 am, got up Saturday and played from noon until 6:30 am, got up Sunday and played from noon til 11:30. I finished my second full run-through, including at one point going back 6 hours to an old saved game since I screwed something trivial up. Lady Aravan finished the game for the first time, threw in Mass Effect 2, and started playing until she realized that there was a bonus for getting level 50 in ME1 in the second game. So she reloaded a saved game and spent a good number of hours finishing nearly every quest in the game (she missed 1 that I am aware of, and couldn’t get it without going even further back) as well as finding pretty much every debris field and resource on every landable planet. When she finished the game, she was 50 and I was in awe, since even though I went back 6 hours and did the same shit another time through, I don’t have the fortitude to do what she did. Although I have to admit it bothers me that I’m 48. Moral: we like games.
5 Things for Friday, March 5th
1. I know I’ve said it before, but Tosh.0 is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV, and it’s remarkably consistent. At least once every episode, I laugh so hard at something that I can barely breathe, and it remians funny through the next morning. Yesterday, both Lady Aravan and I had shit days at work, but after watching the show on the DVR, we were laughing our asses off. This morning, through my surly have, I would murmur “Ole black betty, amburlance” and chuckle out loud. If anyone heard me they’d have thought I was out of my fucking mind.
Five Things for Thursday, March 4th
1. I noticed today how rare it is to make eye contact with a cashier, other than initial approach, and even then both parties are usually distracted. I tried to make an effort to keep eye contact unless it was necessary to break it, since I thought the cashier lady would appreciate being acknowledged as a human being. Instead, she looked back at me with increasingly odd expressions. I don’t think cashiers are used to having their customers look at them much, so when they do, the cashier thinks it odd. I’ll have to try it a few more times.
Three Things for Tuesday, March 2
1. Yesterday was too soul-crushing to write a new post. Nothing noteworthy happened, just the standard work-day stuff on a Monday when you’d give anything for one more day at home with your wife. It was enough to destroy any literary ambitions for the day, even ones as feeble as this.
Five Things for Friday, Feb 26th
1. Lady Aravan and I bought Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age yesterday. We were going to buy our own copy of Mass Effect as well, but they were sold out. With the prospect of a coming snowstorm, fond hopes of a day off filling with gooey Xbox action floated around, right up until 9am when it was determined that I had to come into work. Where less than half the staff actually came in. Curses.
Five Things for Thursday, Feb 25th
1. I hate talking on the phone so much. I used to have a job where I did nothing but, doing software support. I’ll never be able to go back to it. Just hearing stories from Lady Aravan about the people she needs to deal with on a given day is enough to reassure me that, yes, I am incapable of dealing with people over the phone. I don’t even like calling a place for a take-out or delivery order.
Art is Crap
The other day, Lady Aravan asked me if I thought people who came to our house thought our art choices were weird. I responded that I didn’t think so, and essentially that I didn’t care too much if they did think that way, since we liked them. The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more I have come to realize that art, of pretty much every sort, is total crap.
Work Dialogue Trees
Sit Down (press A)
Access Laptop (press A)
Ignore E-mail (press A)
Co-Worker 1: Hi, Aravan, how are you today?
Options:
– Just great, Co-Worker 1, and how are you?
– Not bad, you?
– Fuck off.
Aravan: Fuck off.
Co-Worker 1: Someone’s having a case of the Mondays, I see. [ends]
Monday Morning
Yesterday, I was cruising the galaxy in the fastest, most advanced ship in the Alliance arsenal. Alien women were throwing themselves at my feet, I was being interviewed for the vids, I was interrupting every overheard conversation with an emphatic, “Is there something I can help you with?” I was charging around the corridors of powerful but corrupt corporations, colonies under attack, and research facilities filled with alien beings who wanted me dead, my rippling muscles surging under the heavy armor that shielded me from their attacks while they died under withering fire from my Spectre class assault rifle. Today? Not so much.
Five Things for Friday, February 19th
1. Oh, it’s Friday. Beautiful, awesome Friday. Monday is an eternity away as the weekend beckons. I made it another week!
2. Hands down, the five best Girl Scout cookies, in order from first to fifth: Samoas, Tagalongs (they used to have more peanut butter than they do now, and could have challenged for #1 if they still had the same amount), Thin Mints (especially when frozen), Lemon Cremes, Do-Si-Does (or however it’s spelled). Lady Aravan would actually reverse this list in its entirety, and make Shortbread #1. This, friends, is the key to a happy marriage: finding someone who values the cookies you don’t like more than you do, therefore leaving you more of the cookies that you do like. Oh, and communication.
Winter in Derenemyn 