Of All The Things I Miss, I Miss My Mind The Most

I miss gaming. It occurred to me reading Wil Wheaton the past couple of weeks as he geared up to deliver the keynote at PAX East. I'm talking tabletop gaming, with other uber geeks. RPG's, a la D&D (but not limited to, of course) even money sink card games a la Magic and even Pokemon (it's Magic for KIDS! FOR KIDS! Sorry, old joke that probably one or two people would get...if that still).

But then I remember that I'm probably stretched thin as it is. Family of course, the effort it's taking getting The Excelsior Base Ball Club off the ground (and staying up)...well, that's pretty much taking most of my time, and when its not, I want to be writing, or working on photography, heck, I wish I could be playing music with people. Oh yeah, having that full time job cuts in to the usable hours of a day thing as well, of course.

But at least tabletop gaming is something I *theoretically* could be doing at home. Not very realistic, though, but theoretically possible.

Oh well, hadn't written much lately. Thought I'd use this space to lament about my really geeky regret. We return you to your normally scheduled nothingness...

Humpday Haiku

Me, disenchanted

slave to the slave to the grind

fruitless enterprise.

No real secret that I'm fairly disenchanted with the 9-5 (or 7-3, or 2-10, or 12-8, or 10-6...whatever I happen to be working on a given day). What ever happened to that brash kid who said he'd never "be his job"? Now he's a blowhard adult, twisting in the wind.

Encore!

I promised a Muse concert review: They rocked. Biggest compliment I can give in this day and age: they don't record anything they can't recreate live. If you've ever heard a Muse song, then you can appreciate that statement. Combine that with a fun, innovative, visually stunning theatrical stage show*, and you had a whole lotta awesome.

However, it leads me to the Encore. Is there any bigger mutual charade going? It's not as obvious when there isn't such a "spectacle" and integrated show going on, but when a band leaves for 5 minutes, the audience keeps cheering, they come back out for an "encore" that's has full on stage show elements (song specific stuff), that's just a farce. That's not an encore, that's a planned 5 minute break. A REAL encore would happen after you do that, and the audience refuses to leave. But since they're a part of the charade, when the venue turns on the house lights as fast as they can, in a surprisingly efficient showing of groupthink, the audience turns and heads to the exit. But if they didn't, would a band actually DO a "real" encore at that point?

*Here's a shot of the opening of the show, a look they returned to a couple of times. Show started with scrims in front of those pillars, with images projected from them. They dropped to reveal the band up in the middle. Their platforms would come down, and rise back up, and the drum platform rotated. Combine that with your "usual" stage lighting and lasers, and really cool visual effects and video on those pillars, and you got yourself pretty spectacular eye candy to go along with the ear candy.

Don't waste your time or time will waste you.

Had a chance to run around the house, literally, with Erin last night, as she played the "chase me" game. I got tired quick, but it's hard to stop when she's laughing non-stop. One, I'd pretty much do anything to hear that laugh; and two, it's almost as if she was mocking me for being out of shape. It's fun to slowly watch her brain start to associate things, though. When she stops, looks back with that mischievous look in her eye...well, once I simply stopped behind her and didn't move, and she held her ground for a few seconds. She then giggled, ran a few more feet, and repeated the motion. Baby talk for "come ON!"

Muse tonight, for the astute who noticed the title is a Muse lyric. I'll let everyone know how they were.

Don't forget: you're here forever/do it for her.

So after a full day of getting back to the grindstone, I come home yesterday. I'm immediately greeted by the voice of my daughter, who was obviously entirely too used to me being around pretty much 24/7 in close quarters for the previous week. She very exuberantly called out "dada!" when she saw me.

It's the little things.

I'm on a boat.

Here we are, a month later. We're all a little older, a little wiser, and pretty much all of us on the east coast of the USA are tired of the effin' snow, already (welcome to my world every snowfall...).

Jess and I, with Erin in tow of course, got back from a week long cruise yesterday. To the Bahamas. It was okay. I suppose we're not really "cruise people." Overall environment kinda deal, simply not our bag. We loved it down in Nassau, at the "world famous" Atlantis resort, where we got day passes. But the cruise line (which I shall refer to as the "one with the towel animals") does some things in a very interesting way. And of course by interesting I mean "excuse me, but would you kindly stop screwing me royally, thankyouverymuch."

Erin became semi-famous, though, both with the crew and the other passengers. I guess it helps when you have a distinctive hairstyle, are entirely too cute for your own good, and like to engage everybody as you, or they, walk by. I knew we had a real phenomenon on our hands when we were at Atlantis, though, and people said "hey, I know that baby." If I thought like the one with the towel animals, I'd probably charge a fee for interacting with her (assessed at the end of voyage).

So, it's back to the grind. Damn, now I have that Skid Row song "Slave to the Grind" stuck in my head.