You know, it just never occurs to me that there might be any possiblity of there not being constant nearby WiFi access. That said, I'm still a little surprised that the only available internet in the Seattle waterfront Mariott came in the form of $10/day ethernet. Even if we'd had an ethernet card handy, I don't think it's worth $10+ for me to post on here. Anyway we happened to find a nearby coffee shop that had free WiFi access up the road but that was about half an hour before we left town so it was a little late by then. So anyway I just got back in about an hour ago and it's probably about 46F in here, since it was 52 outside and there was an appreciable drop in temperature on entering.

Anyway, I'll try to sum up the trip. So, Friday featured a large amount of driving followed by a very uncomfortable dining experience. See, we got into Seattle and had ourselves checked into the hotel by about 9:30 on Friday night. Instead of finding a nice low key eatery my mom declares that it's 9:30 and nothing will be open (on Friday night. in downtown Seattle. heh.) so we should just go to the hotel resturant, which turned out to be this joint called the Fish Club, which is guess is owned by some jackass looking celebrity chef I've never heard of. Now, I consider myself the modicum of sophistication, but not when I've just stepped off the turnip truck with my football attending family. Good old social anxiety disorder and a bit of $50 a bottle wine got me through it relatively unscathed though.

Saturday. Two words come to mind when I think about Saturday: Underwhelming and Disappointing. I mean here you are in Seattle, you've been a city dweller for seven years up until the past few months and you're all excited to get in some culture and some city vibe, probably hit a few record stores since Seattle is well known for being a musically oriented town and what happens? Your sister and mother drag the whole troop of you off to some yokelburg tourist trap called Bainbridge Island. This is after talking to your cousin who tells you that Bainbridge Island basically sucks and there's not really any reason to go there. By the time you get back all of Saturday is blown and it's time to meet your extended family for dinner. Did you get to see any of the city you have gone to visit? No. Did you enjoy any fine culture? No. Is your record collection in any way enhanced? No. At least dinner involved decent amounts of beer.

Sunday. Not too terrible, despite the game and all that. Lynnea and I split off from the Family Dull in the morning and had a nice breakfast of pirozhsky and coffee in Pike's Market. The game was, uh, well it was football, but not a bad game as such things go. It was a close game, but the Seahawks won. That was kinda cool I guess. Bloody freezing actually. Whatever. Anyway after that we headed back and got the car, then took off for Eugene. Luckily I managed to talk everyone into stopping off at Powell's where I didn't get to look around for even half as long as I would have liked but I came away with some Letham, Jack Finney, and a hopefully rather helpful Go book. Got back to Eugene at around midnight and promptly passed out.

Today I finally got to at least hit one record store, just in Eugene, but at least it's a college town so their shelves were not completely bare. Not that it was any kind of magnificent record bounty by any stretch of the imagination. Picked up the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs box set and some Flaming Lips (Acid and Hit to Death in the Future Head), which is an ok haul but nothing I was seriously looking for. Anyway got back here, took a shower to try to wash off the trip, and here I am. And it's bloody freezing.

I'm gonna go make some tea.

Matt on 11.22.04 @ 04:01 PM PST [link] 

Yep, now begins an exciting four-day ongoing series. Since I haven't really left the house for the last few months I've decided that I should run an ongoing travel blog of this weekend's trip to Seattle. Which should be crushingly dull to all of my readers but hey I haven't left the house in months, so humor me. Anyway, there isn't much to report yet since this is the first post and we haven't left yet. But I'm all packed and ready to go and my parents should be here to pick us up any minute in whatever form of behemoth they rented. I managed to actually get about 6 hours of sleep last night, which while not so much, is siginificantly more than I usually get the night before travelling.

Ah, I guess I haven't mentioned why I'm going to Seattle this weekend. See, the thing is even though I basically loathe football, my family have traditionally been Seahawks fans and this year my dad wanted to take us all to a game. So while the thought of sitting in the freezing wet cold for several hours on Sunday to watch football isn't that appealing, this is a excellent chance to hit some quality record stores and hey I've never actually been to Seattle. So it should be a pretty good time, frozen football watching aside. Anyway, I should be posting at least once a day till monday, and woo man, I hope you can take the excitement.

Matt on 11.19.04 @ 09:31 AM PST [link] 

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, I've really just haven't had anything to say. So, today was the big day. Well, actually yesterday was supposed to be the big day but it somehow got shifted to today. What am I talking about? Probably nothing any of you will care about: Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines, aka the game I've been waiting for for over year solid, got released. Now, you have to understand that I don't easily get excited about games. Oh, I look forward to certain titles coming out, but not to the degree where I soak up every iota of available press before the game is released. Nor do I normally rush with all due celerity down to the local difference engine entertainment shoppe every time a interesting title comes out. But this one...

Well, I've always been a big vampire fan (and for those who may not have noticed I am also quite fond of bats, which fits right in). Which is sort of weird since the vast majority of vampire fiction, um... to avoid puns I will say is no good. Sure, there's exceptions. Dracula is one of the best books ever. Blackula is, well... black (and actually a pretty fun flick believe it or not). But something about vampires draws me in anyway. And the draw of actually getting to be a vampire in an RPG, and RPG by my favorite production studio, Trokia Games was enough to make me excited enough to actually read the entire pen-and-paper VTM 3rd Edition Core Rules. Which doesn't mean you're going to see me poncing around the park in a very shimmery cape any time soon, although it was a seriously fun read.

Anyway, so I will mention that it took me something like an hour to get it up and running, which was slightly annoying, but since getting it working, I haven't been disappointed. I mean, I've read up extensively on the game so I basically knew what to expect (although there are some things I didn't expected to be implemented, like the Protean discipline, which is very cool) and so far it's been fairly delightful. Not perfect, mind you, but delightful nonetheless. I almost wish that I wasn't going out of town this weekend. For anyone who cares, I couldn't resist picking a Malkavian the first time through. Because the only thing better than a vampire is an insane vampire. One fun thing about playing a Malkavian in this game is that my character, having "the Sight", actually knows things I as the player don't. Which makes me very happy. Anyway I'm not setting out to review it or anything, but I thought I ought to post about it, since it's made my evening. That said, I started playing around 7:30 and it's 2:30 now and I've put down most of a bottle of shiraz so it's time to get some sleep. I am not quite the creature of the night that my Malkavian is. I'll leave with some words of inspiration by that one hardcore metal band whose name escapes me at the moment:

I'm a vampire,
I'm a vampire,
I'm afraid the light will set me on fireeeeee!

Matt on 11.18.04 @ 02:27 AM PST [link] 

Bleah. Yep, bleah. You heard it here first. Man, I am beset with the ennui tonight. I was feeling quite proud of myself yesterday after finishing Anachronox as well as both of the books I was reading but it seems to have left me without anything that I really want to do at all. There's no computer games I want to play, I don't feel like reading (even comics), there's not any movies or anything I want to watch, I don't really want to eat, or drink anything, or sleep, I'm sick of surfing the net, and attempting to be a less miserable Go player has given me a minor headache. I don't even really want to be blogging right now but I figured in a world where all options seem equally repellant, I might as well post.

Speaking of posting, I don't really have any reason for not having done any lately, except that I've been mysteriously braindead for the past couple weeks. Nothing I can pinpoint though. Halloween was uneventful but fun, and we picked up some green mugs with bats on them from Target, which made me quite happy. Lynnea's birthday was on the second and I got her a bunch of Hello Kitty swag and a Totoro shirt, which is the kind of stuff that is at least as fun to give as it is to recieve. Anyway, I've started feeling a little more animated the last couple days (not counting tonight) so maybe I'll be back on the blog path again. And in a few weeks there should be an exciting travel segment where I go all the way up to Canada and back, but mostly to Seattle. Can you handle the excitement? Can any of us? It remains to be seen. Anyway, my attention span is incredibly low tonight and I'm pretty amazed I got this far. I think I'm going to go find some sort of alcoholic beverage that can shorten my path to sleepiness. Tonight is killing me.


Matt on 11.08.04 @ 11:27 PM PST [link] 

I hope you're happy with yourself, America.
Yeah, you know you what you did. I hope you can live with the consequences of your actions, young nation. Maybe you did it cause all your friends were doing it, eh? It was the "cool" thing to do, was it? Made you feel real good did it? Sigh. No, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed in you. I think you should probably just go your room and think about what you've done for a little while.

Matt on 11.03.04 @ 06:36 PM PST [link]