media General observations

Posted July 18, 2005 • Comments Off on General observations

I realized on the way home tonight that something I’ve been waiting years for has finally happened. The Decade of Acoustic “Layla” is over. It used to be, you never heard the original version of “Layla”on the radio. You just heard the unplugged version. I was well and truly sick of the unplugged version. On the way home today, bopping along to the electric guitar in the Derek and the Dominos original, and humming along to the piano at the end, I realized that’s not true anymore. Yay.

Part of the promotion for a book called Eldest, by Christopher Paolini, is an online game. I have a card Lisa picked up for me at a bookstore that grants me admission to the game. I’m not sure if she had to preorder me the book to get it. I did say I wanted it, so I’m not going to probe. It’s the sequel to Eragon, which I listened to last year and really enjoyed. It’s a deep and well-imagined world, which is really my number-one priority for a good story. Almost anything can happen if you get your world-building right, I think.

Anyway, if you go to the site and put in this code, you can play this game. It’s www.alagaesia.com/game and my code is A949BD81. What I love about this game is the introductory text:

The Alagaësia Adventure is not like most online games. The adventure is interactive like a video game, but must be illustrated by your own imagination, as with a book.

Sound familiar? It cracked me up. This is actually a revision; when I first looked at this page on Wednesday, it didn’t say “most online games.” It said “online games you have played before.” A wrong assumption for more than just me, then, I assume.

I’m bringing my entire bathroom to Hawaii. Wayne said he’d be a pharmacy and listed some weak-ass number of drugs. I’m in this thing to win it. Entire. Bathroom.

My back was not well at work today, and Chris was all resentful and avoidant and defensive like he gets when he’s mad at me. Fine, so be it. I can’t lift anything heavier than my purse, I walk in tiny, shuffling, uneven steps, and every so often I wince audibly. All this is just to piss you off. Clearly.

Creepy Thomas was creepy as hell today. At lunch the two temps were talking about something*, and he broke in with, “Did you know crows are classified as songbirds?”

*Not birds.

Later, he came and stood behind me, like he does†, until I asked him what he wanted. He asked if I knew what a P.E.R. was, a P-something Expenditure R-something. It’s a World Bank document. I said no, because, like, I don’t. He said, “well, we’re going to be laying one out** soon, and I wanted to ask around.” Now, I have, as I count it, fourteen more days at this job. After the next four, I’m spending ten in Hawaii, then I’m giving notice. I’ll eat my hat if I end up laying out any PER “soon.” Anyway, my answer was, “Well, I don’t care.”

Thomas’s response was to continue standing there for like a year.

† I absolutely fucking hate this. If you want to talk to me, walk to where I can hear you and start talking. That’s all there is to it. Waiting for me to stop playing Kingdom of Loathing (or working, whatever) and face you full-on before you tell me what the hell you want is not going to serve you well. Especially when I can’t turn around in my chair because my back is messed up! Asshole.
** “We” don’t lay things out. I lay things out. Just to be clear.

How was your day?

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