Bird droppings

This weekend was really bizarre. I basically spent all day Saturday running around my apartment completely reorganizing it. I moved everything from my "hippie" room into the living room and everything from there into that room to turn it into a tiny little office for me. My living room is now very warm and friendly, like it was before. And my office is electric and alive. I'm happy once again.

viesti was hanging out with me for the earlier part of the day, then we got dinner at this Thai place. While we were sitting there, this cute girl walked in and sat at the table next to us to eat. I got a feeling that I might know her from somewhere and kept glancing over to see if I could place her. I didn't have the courage to speak up, so I just spoke loudly about things going on in my life. After a while, she got up to leave, and I turned and smiled at her. She stopped, turned around, and asked if I was Paradox Puree.

*GLEE!*

It's a pouchedfox, another refugee from Ohio to the Bay Area! I knew her very little online, but I definitely knew that she existed... Well, somehow, this random meeting with an almost perfect stranger in a random restaurant turned into a two day get together, sleepover and date. Very nice. She helped me reorg the apartment, I took her out to a nice veggie chinese restaurant, she spent the night, and then we hung out the next day flying model helicopters, snuggling, and riding around on bikes/skateboards. 'Twas quite fun.

I was originally going to take the night for myself, but random happenstance meetings don't happen every day, you know.

Still, it's kinda weird that I got that comfortable with someone in that short period of time. Very odd. *shrugs*

Unfortunately, by Sunday, the pains from moving my furniture around got to me. My back is KILLING me, and I can barely walk. :( It's still hurting today. I dread getting up and walking to things I need to do, like dishes or lunch. Ugh.

Anyways, picture 365 time!( Read more... )

So... who knew that the attraction of Go could be such an amazing party?

Tonight, we had 15 people all at parmonster's place to play games, eat food, and socialize. But more than anything else, we were all there to play go.

It was like a dream come true. There were a ton of my friends playing Go! At the peak of the night, there were four games of Go going at once, with several onlookers! I was playing Go against two people at the same time, both of which were really challenging games. It was incredible!

The full guest list was as follows:
paradox_puree
chirik
parmonster
flakish
gtonizuka
viesti
dv_girl
rachelbythebay
orange56gal
blackberry74
centauress
thespatula
dana_grrl
foxgrrl
Evonna, unknonwn LJ.

Of these, 10 actually played Go at some point during the night.

Wow. Just... wow.

Thank you to all of you. You just gave me one of the most incredible and awesome parties that I have ever had the pleasure of being present at. And frankly, the fact that so many people were into Go, and some of them were on my skill level, was like a dream come true. I was ecstatic throughout most of the night. Wow.

From Go party

This picture was when we had 4 simultaneous games going on on the floor. We later moved to the table to make more room for folks:

From Go party

chirik, dana_grrl, rachelbythebay and Evonna were more or less playing Go for the first time tonight, and I got to give them some teaching games.

centauress, parmonster, and orange56gal had played before, but not really much. They were helping some of the other players and enjoying themelves in their own way.

I began the night playing a game with viesti, finishing up a game that we had started a few days ago. She's been taking incredibly long moves, on the order of 20-30 minutes for some of them. Impressively, it results in some really really good moves on her part, but extremely slow games.

While we were playing, dv_girl arrived, and I decided that I wanted to play against her. But my game with viesti was still going on. So I decided to try to do something new that I've never done before: I played both games simultaneously.

That was HARD! So before this, I was going to help out with some of the hostessing. Running around, making people feel welcome, setting up things for people, etc. Even though it was parmonster's place, having been the one to suggest the party, I wanted to help out. So, in between moves in the Go game, I was helping out by running around and doing stuff. But when the second game started, I reached full mental capacity. I could no longer do anything but play those two games. But boy oh boy was it fun. And it was great for my ADD-like brain to be completely overwhelmed with data like that.

I wound up playing a total of three games. I beat dv_girl in both games with her, but I lost to viesti in our matchup.

I'm really really really appreciative of parmonster running around doing the hostess thing. I feel that I should have been helping more, but she really did a great job of handling the entire crowd herself. She also helped me do my laundry, which should have been a totally awesome thing, but alas, she put some things in the dryer that shouldn't have gone in there, and it ruined some of my clothes. But hey, it's the thought that counts, eh? I really appreciate that she let me use her dryer and helped move things to washer and dryer and such.

Anyways, it was a fantastic party, one of the best parties I've ever been to. It was absolutely amazing. Thanks to everyone, especially parmonster!

Picture 365 time!
November 6, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Did hair dyeing tonight. I also bought a bit more dye. As of right now... this is my dye collection. Every bottle in the front row is a unique color.

November 7, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Games are in full swing! There are 4 games going on here, and I'm actually playing two of them

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October 28, 2009
I got my new Go set today! It's a really nice magnetic one that I can easily take anywhere in its handy carrying case. It can even attach to refrigerators and white boards!

Today's pic-a-day is a picture of my various go sets.

From Pic-A-Day 365

The upper left board was my first board. It cost me about $50, total. It has a warped board, cracked cheap plastic bowls for the stones, and misshapen glass stones. The sizes, colors, and shapes of the stones are really inconsistent. I used this board at Burning Man and at other times when I want to have a normal board but don't want to cart around my nice board. I also use it for teaching games, since it has a 13x13 board on the other side.

The upper right one was my second board. It ran me about $300 piece by piece, but I could have gotten it for $200 if I had waited a bit longer for the sale when they were selling it as a set. It is a 2" thick slab of wood, nice cherry stone bowls, and Yunzi stones that are really consistent in size, shape and color. I pretty much just play with this one at home, unless I'm doing something really special.

The lower left one is my new magnetic set. The stones AND board are magnetic, and it comes with a really nice travel case, making it perfect for going anywhere to play. You can also throw it up on a white board or refrigerator if you want.

The lower right board is a portable board that I have to use the stones from one of the upper two sets to play. It's useful when I want to play at a coffee shop or something but don't want to haul a lot of weight around.

The lower middle board is a 9x9 board used for teaching people some of the fundamentals of how Go works.

Now if I could just get some folks hooked on the game enough to want to play with me more often. :)

October 23, 2009
Ooops! Was too busy to grab a pic again.

October 24, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Playing go, again, with my other girlfriend. :)

Two pics for yesterday and today:

October 19, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Hanging out with my house guests tonight, after getting back home late from work.

October 20, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Working today. I love my Nintendo graphics. :)

October 15, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

I bought a new bike. Check it out!

October 16, 2009
Feh. Was too busy racing from one place to another to remember to grab a photo. Fooey.

October 17, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

viesti and I went geocaching/biking today. This was the location of our last cache.

Collected a few new ones! Enjoy!!!

October 7, 2009

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Went climbing tonight at Planet Granite. Took this photo in the parking lot of the gym.

October 8, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Coding night with viesti again! We did lots of gaming and stuff before this, too.

October 9, 2009
Oops! Got too wrapped up in things and forgot to post!

October 10, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

BBQ out in the park today! Lots of awesome folks here!

October 11, 2009

From Pic-A-Day 365

Went to Burning Man Decompression today! This is my friend Moonlits, standing in one of the pieces of art there.

Speaking of Burning Man Decompression, you can click here to see some pics I took there:

Burning Man Decompression 2009

Missed a day, but I made up for it:

October 1st:

From Pic-A-Day 365

I forgot to take a real picture this day, but I took this picture instead on the 2nd. I *could* have taken it on the first!

October 2nd

From Pic-A-Day 365

This is my cute little new helicopter. :)

Days 3 and 4

From Pic-A-Day 365

Went to the airport to pick up flakish.

From Pic-A-Day 365

Hung out with viesti today.

Gods, she's beautiful.

I'm kinda into the whole notion of doing a 365 pic a day thing. So here's my first post. Let's see if we can get a second going.

From Pic-A-Day 365