Here we go!

Those I'm supposed to meet in SFO tonight, see you soon, hopefully!

Tags: year of the e-friend
Feeling: hopeful

jenniever's wisdom tooth surgery went extremely well.

Assorted random things I've kept in notepad files on different computers and never posted. Set phasers for spam, cap'n!

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George Takei's gay. Maybe Shatner was chuckling a little too knowingly on the Stern show.

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I've been at Drew in some form or another since the fall of 1996, and have never seen academic bombs like the ones I'm in this semester.

One of my classes is taught by a new prof, who means well, but got dumped into a bad situation. The book was picked before they picked him, and it sucks. It's also an old version of the book. And he doesn't have access to the software he wants (though I think he does through the labs and is mistaken). And it's his first time teaching more than one class at a time. Add all this up, and you've got academic excitement that could lead to disastrous and amusing consequences! It's like a liberal arts situational comedy!

( Long academic rantings... )

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So, I've been neglecting you all on LJ. And in KoL. And in RL. But I've got half of my tier 1 epic gear set (Dreadmist), and am one dungeon crawl away from my epic mount! Trust me, it'll make sense in the long run. But right now I can't get my epic mount, because the person who has the items I need has gotten hooked on a video game. The humor of that situation is not lost on me.

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There's a million ideas I want to post about. A million tales to tell. Most of all, I want to recap the Pacific Northwest trip, now that none of you care anymore. It's hard to describe a trip that's been many years in the making. Playing Shadowrun with people in middle school, I'd hear from them how much I would love Seattle, and all about it. In college I'd hear about Vancouver Island from graye and crew. Their descriptions amazed me, and it was one of the places I strongly considered running to while living with Father Joe. It was somewhere after Santa Cruz and Orange County (the latter involved living with a Jordan sugarmommy and working for a undercover Cuban dragon, the former involved working for a university). But Drew took me in, and I've enjoyed the ride ever since, but sometimes I thought of places and what might have been.

( Incredibly personal stories about the Pacific Northwest without involving the place itself cut here... )

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Remember, Californians, it's the Year of the E-Friend. I'll be out there in a couple of weeks. The 5^th of November, I'll be in SF. Sunday afternoon to Wednesday morning, I'll be in Monterey. Wednesday night till Friday morning, I'll be in LA. Friday afternoon until Saturday morning, I'll be in San Diego. Saturday night, I'll be back in New Jersey. Some of you have already offered crash space and forgotten about it. I'll be at your doorstep, with a co-worker or so, looking to take advantage of you. Some of you have already offered to get drinks with me. Give me your cell phone numbers now. This is the Year of the E-Friend, people, and a once in a lifetime chance to take part in the spectacle.

Tags: year of the e-friend
Feeling: mischievous
Listening to: Flying Saucer Attack, Crystal Shade

Many of you are people local to the NYC metro region. Many of you are not. Of the latter, there's a decent subset that I've invited to the region at some point while imposing on you and seeing your area (probably during the Year of the Efriend). When I've gone to places, there was usually a clear agenda. I must see this spy themed bar, I must visit these gardens, I must try this local food, I must meet this person. But when it comes to my area, not to sound like an arrogant prick, it's hard to distill it to a simple list.

Just as I'm fascinated by how others perceive my accent, let alone the accent of Americans in general, I'm curious to learn about what people want to see.

So here's the question to the locals: If you had someone from decently far-off visiting you for a weekend or week, what would you show them? What are the staples of life around here that you really want the world to sample?

And for those distant, what do you think you want to see? I don't care how corny and touristy it sounds. Imagine that you've got a place to crash in Hoboken for a week. What's on your list, in as specific or as broad terms as you see fit?

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Earlier this week I bought my first laptop since 1996. It's a five pound magnesium alloy beauty, which means mobile homework and WoW. Good times.

Tags: year of the e-friend
Feeling: curious
Listening to: RCPM, Mexico

Thanks for being so entertaining today. Between graye's waste having a mascot to robot camel jockeys to falling Russian women.

And thanks for fixing my config. You're the greatest.

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Tonight carpe_dvm and shmivejournal will cook for jenniever, kikibird, runstaverun, and I. Good times.

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So far the Year of the E-Friend has gone fairly well. I think, based on a rough estimate, I've met close to twenty e-friends so far this year.

Tags: year of the e-friend
Feeling: okay
Listening to: Ozzy Osbourne, Suicide Solution

Image sent out. Insurance taken care of. Car inspected. Packed. CDs ripped, jenniever's copying them to a player. Directions and boarding passes printed, books picked out, everything taken care of. Read the wonderful itinerary jenniever's planned for us here. We'll be going to the pride parade in Seattle, going to Chelan, seeing Vancouver, visiting Microsoft, and will spend a week with e-friends. Soon enough we'll be seeing graye, spicyeggplant, malahat, brendle, infraredelf, and all the other crazy victoria_bc residents. We'll have excellent sushi, go camping at Tofino with a pack of drunken Canucks, and see what the town I've heard so much about for years has to offer.

For an idea of what I'm looking forward to, check out these shots or random stranger's shots. Breathtaking, ain't it? Maybe I won't die due to lack of bandwidth.

I'd like to say that you'll see plenty of posts from me, but we both know that isn't true. You still haven't seen my wideathtrip recap, let alone a recap of the Weekend of Roger Clyne. So, if you want to see what's going on, watch kingfox_flickr for a slew of naturey photos with trees and beavers and shit. Or, if you want good photos, watch grayeflickr. You might see our hero in a random shot or two.

Also, before I go, you should take part in this poll. Be good, all of you!

Tags: canada, year of the e-friend
Feeling: excited
Listening to: The Tea Party, The River

Dear graye, spicyeggplant, malahat, and crew,

Like, what should I bring?

Obviously I should grab some toiletries (plenty of contacts this time unlike wideathtrip), camping supplies, and clothing. What's the dress code for the time spent there? I want to hit one of the ``finest sushi in the world'' joints, and otherwise see what the area has to offer. Barring any crazy place like the Safehouse where I should dress in a particular way, what's the norm? Camping, obviously, I can dress down for.

What else should I bring along?

jenniever, what's the dress code for our side of the border? I know you've got relatives and friends and all these random people we're staying with/visiting/whatever. Will they drag us out to black-tie affairs? Should I bring my shiny fancy proper shoes at all? What's the dress code for the Microsoft campus? I think one of my suits needs dry cleaned.

Is there anything from this location, the center of the universe, that people might want exported by hand? Bagels and pork roll won't make it to Vancouver, much less Victoria.

Tags: canada, year of the e-friend
Feeling: working
Listening to: Iron Maiden, Journeyman

2004 was the year of reflection, growth, understanding, and finding peace and mastery with my place in the universe. Things were discovered, ties were broken, growths were nurtured, and a serene power was cultivated.
2005 is year of the e-Friend. This year, I will meet more online buddies than any year before. Beyond MB2K, beyond the BBS meets of old, this year I get physical entities to attach to the fleeting names and nodes on the net. This year I get to stare into the eyes of so many lj user equalses.

This started with wideathtrip. It will continue on with jenniever and I flying to Seattle next month. We'll travel to Victoria for Canada Day, where we'll meet graye and crew. Any other people in the Pacific Northwest should say hi.

Then, in November, I go off to SIGUCCS again. The Publication field of my accomplishments will become Publications, and I'll have a good time with jenniever, windexcowboy, and blackbytes in Monterey. I've already talked to a couple of the San Francisco (where we're flying into) and Santa Cruz people, and have touched base about having a drink with a few people. After the trip from SF to Monterey, we're then going down along the coast. Thursday, November 10^th, we'll hit Los Angeles. Hopefully I can meet some more of you California freaks then. Friday we finish off the trip in San Diego with a jennifriendfoodfriday, and then head back home. Some are talking about flying up to SF and flying back out of SF, I might drive the car back up if it's cheaper. We were talking about going off to Circus Mexicus, making it a crazy ass trip from San Francisco to Mexico, unfortunately it looks like the concert's going to be held October this year. That's hella early, so no repeat of an amazing weekend. Still, it should be an awesome little jaunt down the coast.

So if you live anywhere along the Pacific coast, contact me, we'll do lunch. We might crash with you. Now is the time. Do what you can to help make this grand tour a success.

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Speaking of travel, there's two journals people should read if you've got the itch to travel to foreign lands. The first journal most of you already read, and that's the aforementioned graye's writings. He's currently on an amazing jaunt about Europe and the Middle East, and has been posting some great writings and photos. The other is gotmahmojo, the kid who was part of the group that stalked me my sophomore year at drewuniversity. Based out of Taiwan, his band The Deported recently did a tour visiting Thailand, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and so on. Read the tale of a punk rocker and the punk rock scene in SE Asia. A good read.

Tags: year of the e-friend
Feeling: hungry
Listening to: System of a Down, Lost in Hollywood