I'm back and all is well. Missouri greeted me with wonderful weather; apparently the wind chill at one point last night was -40. Oddly enough I'm more comfortable with this than I was with some of that Florida weather, where it was rainy and muggy and where a certain family that I otherwise love thinks "room temperature" is in the mid to upper 80's. Heh.

This is technically the end of the millenium. Where's the hype? Seems as if after last year's fiasco of not having any major disasters, riots, collapse of civilization, etc. nobody really cares this time around. ;)

One thing that really should get a little more hype is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's a movie with no flaws. Excellent soundtrack by Tan Dun and Yo-Yo Ma, which I'm buying at the first opportunity. The best fight scenes ever, choreographed by Woo-Ping Yuen (Drunken Master, The Matrix, and dozens more). A solid story with no holes, romantic without being mushy, adventurous without being the same old find-the-widget-to-save-the-world plot. Acting that couldn't have been better.

The one, single, minor disappointment I had was that the guy with the steel fan didn't have a chance to show off. I think I can live with that. :) And that's the biggest spoiler I'm going to drop, 'cause everyone should go see it. Especially those working on or interested in Hero's Journey. In fact I'm a little intimidated now, because I know that nothing we do could possibly look as cool as this. But we can be inspired anyway.

I don't want to say it was the best movie I've ever seen — I don't like comparing things from vastly different categories or in different styles. But it's safe to say that it has the best melee combat of anything I've seen, and is among the best in every way I can think of.

I'm having this strange inner backlash against materialism, and I think I know why. My room is a post-going-home-for-the-holidays mess that needs cleaning and organizing. Lots of my stuff is still in the garage packed away and I realize how much I don't need most of it. And at this point in my life, I don't want more, I want better.

My roommates may be thinking along the same lines, since they decided that this is the weekend to clean house. I was a little resentful yesterday that they decided this without me, since I wanted to laze around instead — but a day when you get up at 4 AM and fly halfway across the continent is probably not the best to judge by. I still don't want to do the actual work of cleaning, but it will be good to have some of this mess dealt with.

Nevertheless, I do want to go spend the Best Buy and Sears gift certificates today. I'll probably get some PlayStation accessories, maybe a game or a music CD. Probably a futon cover or bed pillow from Sears.

I'm writing today's entry on Dad's computer and he's paranoid about people installing things... he even wants me to delete any browser cookies that may have been placed. So in lieu of downloading an FTP program I'm editing everything in Cedant's web-based file manager. It actually isn't that bad, but I wouldn't want to build play.net 2.0 in it.

Was going to wait until I got home to do this, but I have a quiet moment and an awful lot of things to write about. I'm afraid I forgot some of them, since most of the thoughts and insights and "don't forget to write about..." things came to mind as I was drifting off to sleep.

The flight down here was not too bad, allowing for bad weather, bad passengers (Why doesn't anyone turn off their cellphone when asked?) and the partial destruction of one of my bags. If getting both 1/4" zipper pulls sheared off is "normal wear and tear," how the heck do those flimsy 6 inch long paper routing tags ever survive? Maybe that's why so much luggage gets lost.

If you've got to have your music half drowned out and obscured by engine noise (or the other way around), Toru Takemitsu is just the thing. I'm not sure what that says about him.

The closer to Tampa, the worse the weather reports got. We came through a thunderstorm on the descent, and landed in winds strong enough to spray Tampa Bay up over the causeway north of Skyway Bridge and onto the car. My parents wanted to wash the salt spray off the car ASAP, which left me thinking of poor SqueakyCar sitting at home caked in road salt... ah well.

When we got home I learned that the Sardine's girlfriend Angie was visiting, and though I felt a little weird at first about sharing my family with anyone, I soon got over it. If Bubbles had pink hair and was a little more punk, she'd be Angie. Heh. :)

But I'm so not a Floridian anymore. Everything seemed a little alien and surreal. Here I've gone from the winter horrorland to the tropics. Where's the snow? Cool, palm trees! What's with all the bugs?

Same room as before, this time with a little space pre-cleared. Same bed as before — which like a scimitar in DragonRealms, is best described as "wickedly curved" — but with some pillows to level it out I slept like a heavily sedated baby. Maybe I should apply the same theory to my futon at home.

That's another thing. On previous visits it felt like I was coming back home. This year, no. I love my family and miss them while I'm not here, but I'm a guest here now.

Which brings me to the whole Christmas spirit thing. Usually I have it, even if it only kicks in about December 22, sitting by the tree looking at the ornaments and getting all emotional. This year, nope. I was glad to be able to spend some time with the family, glad to make people happy with gifts, and pleased to receive some, but the old spark wasn't there.

And you know what? That's fine. I'm still happy and I had fun. I'm glad the Kemetic Orthodox holidays focus on the spiritual and are unburdened by commercialism, insane traffic, overbooked flights, etc. — but there is definitely a place in my world for exactly that kind of spectacular holiday.

The cats are entertaining as always. Jasmine's mellowed a lot in her old age, hissing at me only when I kicked her off my bed and allowing me to pet her a bit — she appears not to hate me anymore. Lilith is one of those cats that does completely evil destructive deeds, but then is so cute afterwards that I want to kidnap her anyway. Though she's not quite as affectionate, her looks remind me of Kyoko, in fact I've caught myself calling her Key many times now.

I miss my cat and wish I could have taken her with me, though I get the feeling neither of these would get along with her... Lily freaks out every time another cat so much as enters the yard.

The cats got presents too, but unlike the rest of us they couldn't wait for Christmas morning. Some of those fuzzy mice were treated with catnip, and they homed right in on that package and opened it early. Think they'll be on the Naughty List next year?

None of the really odd things I put on my list made an appearance, but it was a pretty good haul anyway. :) I should have bought The Great Sardini that tin of sardines after all though, since she bought me some Kamut Krisp. :)

I don't think I'll be doing the "official" list thing next year, though the Amazon wish list works great for coworkers, friends, and myself. The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai Chi & QiGong and Avatars of the Word: from Papyrus to Cyberspace have kept me company on the trip and both are fascinating.

Expect to see me babbling more about Tai Chi in the near future. Or at least QiGong, the part that the book is very clear on. The 64-movement Kuang Ping long form as well as Mulan Quan (women's) short empty-hand, single fan, and sword forms are illustrated and documented, but (as the book itself admits) not to the point where one could really learn them without classes or a video. But Sitting QiGong and a few moving QiGong exercises are well taught and doable... and I was surprised at the results.

When I encounter the word "energy" outside the context of physics or mood, I get real skeptical. None of the newage stuff I tried back in the day ever did a thing for me. Well, guess what QiGong is about? That's right, moving "energy" around. I snorted many times at some of the claims in the book, but went ahead and tried the exercise anyway. And something happened. I don't know what, but I felt it, and as the book said it would be, it was effortless.

I am still skeptical, not wanting to make any claims about what this really did, but that doesn't matter. Maybe I just allowed my muscles to relax better than I have in a long time, and the rest was "all in my head". But there are a lot of other things in this head and some of them are pretty important to me. If it's true that stress can hurt you, it seems reasonable that the opposite of stress can help you. And after reading this book I wonder if this will do something for the depression as well — the QiGong exercise had a definite perceivable effect, which is more than I can say for the St. John's Wort so far.

All this was just an unexpected side trip anyway; the main reason I wanted to do Tai Chi wasn't to get all mystical but because I could use some exercise. It's not a strenuous or boring or painful exercise, I could use the extra flexibility and balance, and it's just kind of cool. But to learn it properly I'll need to join a class and/or find a book or video that demonstrates each movement in detail. Jeff's copy of David Carradine's Tai Chi Workout doesn't really fit the bill; I'm looking for something that teaches a form. And speaking of cool, I'd eventually like to learn some weapon forms.

Heh. The psych my parents took me to when I was a kid recommended that I learn karate, and I was upset about that because "I didn't want to hurt anyone". (Though I suspect I was just plain upset.) I wound up taking judo classes at the Y and not really enjoying it most of the time. Now I want to learn how to move with a sword. ;)

Rather than covering the history of communication, the other book is a sort of rambling essay that raises questions and points out things we take for granted. Is the written word, unchanged and inviolate since it was first set down, truly superior to the spoken word which adapts and grows? Is the concept of the virtual library really all that new? Are we approaching the end of "publication" as we know it and the obsolence of the "author?" Is the word itself a flawed form of communication, to be superceded by a more direct form in the future?

I love questions like this, even if I often think the answer is "no". ;)

One thought that struck me recently was the connection between justice and measurement, between life/death and measurement, and between justice and life/death. Frustrating that I can't remember what brought that on though or what the actual insight was. Doh.

There's that whole thing about Santa Claus making lists of the naughty and the nice, but I'm sure that wasn't it. Heh.

This past couple of weeks has contained one or more of the following: cold, icy, snowy, windy, slushy. The other night it was 5 degrees out, with a wind chill of -25. That goes beyond the point of enjoyable wintriness and past the pain threshhold — and technically it's not even winter until Thursday. Still, the special effects are kind of cool (pun unintended) to see.

I just hope there are no delays at the airport tommorow. I have a one-hour stopover in Indianapolis and if the timing's not right I could run into problems.

Office Christmas party/gift exchange extravaganza was today. Is going on right now actually, I'm just being reclusive. This year my mom shouldn't have to take anything back ;) So far: a fountain, Metal Gear Solid, a Feng Shui kit, a window bird feeder, a very fancy Egyptian figure ornament (a woman holding a lotus, who I don't think is anyone in particular but I could be wrong), a card game with an Old West prospecting theme, a giant gourmet chocolate caramel apple and various other candy, and lots of books from my Amazon list.

The highlights were Tracy being inundated with giraffes (including one that's about 6 and a half feet tall), Melissa zooming around the office on retractable roller skates, and both Andy and Johnny ending up with guitars.

And the food... of all the parties I've been to this year, this one had the best spread. Steph's lasagna does indeed kick major booty, and there was so much good stuff that I had to quit without trying about 14 different things. I kinda feel bad for not having made my mom's sweet potato recipe this year like I usually do... Steph still has not had a chance to try it. Heh.

Probably won't be updating until at least the 29th, so best wishes to everybody. I'm off to some place where the temperature is measured in two digits.

Well, this seems to be the time of year for seeing ex-Simutronics employees. This was a little different though.

I dreamt last night that I was working in a library — one with a marina attached. Someone I didn't see whispered to me that Roger was returning. I dropped what I was doing and hurried out to the dock to meet him. Sure enough, there he was disembarking from a 40 foot yacht. He looked different than when I knew him — younger, with lighter brown hair — but there was no doubt who it was. He was in a hurry to get somewhere, but he stopped to tell me "it's good to be back."

. . .

Kemetic Orthodoxy has more than a few ideas about the afterlife, but no particular dogma for or against reincarnation in this world. I've never been convinced by past-life regression — there are statistically too many people who think they were famous kings and queens and generals, and not nearly enough pig farmers and housewives and bums — and really have no strong opinion on the subject one way or the other.

But this is the second time I've been convinced that someone departed has "come back." I had a similar experience about my grandma Mildred years ago; I woke up with the thought in my head that she had been in some way reborn, and that I didn't need to know the details. Which I suppose is true.

The visual imagery in the dream might not have been Kemetic, but the symbolism was pretty strong. That yacht was no mere Bayliner, but Ra's barque. It had a cooler full of beer, though I didn't count to see if there was a thousand. ;) And I'd be surprised if the whispering librarian wasn't "Mom."

My cat is being particularly social today. She sat in my lap while I played Gran Turismo 2, jumped up on Steph while she was in bed, and has been all over me as I've been writing this. Though she bit my arm and had her lap/shoulder/back of chair privleges revoked, she's still curled up right next to my chair. I don't get it.

I want a new coat. The one I have suffices, but the sleeves have always been short and it's not quite roomy enough, there's no inner pocket, it blew a button a few days ago, and maybe most significantly, it's got my dad's name written on the tag. I always feel a little weird about that, 29 year old guy wearing Dad's hand-me-down coat. I've worn it a lot more than he did though; he bought it for a business trip and as far as I know, hadn't worn it since.

The catch, though, is I don't want to spend $120+ on a new one. Otherwise I'd think about the Morpheus or Deckard trenches. Heh.

The local (really local now that we've moved) army surplus store has decent trenchcoats for $20-$30 in black, navy, khaki, and OD... but not in my size. The 44R was a bit too small and the 46S was shorter than Dad's. They had some field coats I kind of liked, but the price jumped up to $80 since those were brand new.

(BTW, the somewhat creepy guy who runs the place claims this is going to be the worst winter ever, that we'll have a wind chill of -40 before sunrise and a blizzard on Monday. This is not the kind of thing I want to hear. Weather.com is claiming chill of -25 tonight though. Brr.)

And Kohl's... I don't know why I even looked at the place a second time. Something about the store really ticks me off. It's partially the fact that they don't carry men's sizes above 34, but that's not the whole of it. They seem snobbish somehow, though it's really just a glorified Wal-Mart. Hm.

I didn't go today, but located a Burlington Coat Factory if I decide to spend the dough. Probably I'll go through eBay first. It's just a thing to wear to stay warm, so I don't need to shop for it as carefully as I would a computer...

They're saying 6-10 inches of snow today. It's certainly falling heavily right now and is already piled respectably high. We could make it to work -- eventually -- if we tried, but after a quick phone call we found that there aren't many people making that special effort today anyway.

Here's our backyard, a couple of months ago and this morning. Notice the difference? ;)

Snow is a challenge to photograph, at least when you have a cheap digital camera and you're not actually willing to go outside so you're shooting through dirty windowpanes.

We finished watching the Dune miniseries this morning. Good stuff! I haven't read the book yet, but I want to now -- exactly the opposite of my reaction to the David Lynch movie. Hmmm.

Was there anything wrong with it? Sure. Too much left unexplained that relied on either seeing the Lynch movie or reading the book, so I'm left wondering what I missed. Low budget resulting in some cheesy mattes, animation and FX -- though the worms were fantastic. And uh... well, not much else was really wrong. I thought the casting was just fine, and the music was great (where can I find a soundtrack?)

I love the rain
when it's cold outside your steamy windowpane
And I watch you sleep
I know all the naughty little secrets that you keep
For I am the old oak tree

John Ratcliff's Christmas Party 2000

Requirements:        1 gift for the exchange Multiplayer support:        64 players per server Publisher:        Verant, sort of Developer:        Ratcliff ESRB rating:        Mature; mild realistic violence, strong language, suggestive themes, use of alcohol Release date:        Q4 2000

John Ratcliff's Christmas Party 2000

This year's edition of Christmas Party marks a return to the simpler 1998 rule set. Each player enters the arena with a wrapped gift. In LIFO order, players take turns choosing a gift from under The Tree, or can "steal" a gift from another person and force them to return to The Tree and choose another. Usually this results in the first people to arrive getting the choicest picks, and I can only blame my roommates for not having arrived earlier. I used to never be late to anything... (heh)

Graphics were quite realistic, though many players experienced a strange blurring effect as the night progressed (or degenerated). Thanks to 3D sound support, audio was excellent as well, though an option to adjust the levels of individual tracks would have been greatly welcomed. Control and force-feedback support was flawless; I felt like I was actually walking around inside a house.

Gameplay was well-paced, though was detracted somewhat by bandwidth and server load issues. It was difficult for those farthest from The Tree to see or hear the action. Perhaps a third-person perspective would help alleviate this problem.

The gift selection was wide and varied, ranging from a Sony DVD player to an iron stick thing that might be meant for hanging stuff in a garden. We were pleasantly surprised to see no folding scooters and only one Santa-hat-wearing Big Mouth Billy Bass. CP2K also featured a student guitar, a vintage Color Mac, a portable MP3 player, and many other exciting gifts.

Many people managed to use the undocumented BARTER system to trade their gifts for mutual benefit. Though I broke my two-year streak of taking home things that come in pink boxes, having picked out a pretty cool desk fountain from beneath The Tree, I negotiated a trade that resulted in our bringing home a big colorful Egyptian blanket with a scene of Ra^_Heru^_akhety flanked by Aset and Nebt-Het. (Thanks Susan!) Now if I can just convince Steph to hang it up on the wall instead of covering up with it...

[Looking at it again, it's not Aset and Nebt-Het -- it's Aset, a king we can't identify, and Yinepu or another jackal. - ed.]

The CP2K experience was made complete by good food (love those meatballs) and some great stories by Jeff Dobson, Ben Hanson, and others. I'm going to be very wary of pumice from now on.

The EAGWVP staff would like to assure its readers that this review is "completely" "unbiased," not at all influenced by the big ol' bust of Nefertiti that the developer gave the reviewer's household as a gift.

Gah. One or both of us needs to get headphones for home before I die of Tori overdose. Some of her songs are really getting on my nerves; I don't quite know why, but if I have to hear about sugar packets or flying dutchmen or holy whiiine again, I may gnaw my own arm off. But instead of just up and saying it right now while Steph is sitting 10 feet away, it's easier to write about it where she'll read it later. Heh.

For the first time ever, I left a casino with more money than I entered with.

Some auld acquaintances flew up from Origin for tommorow's (well, I guess tonight's, but it's kinda tommorow if I haven't gone to bed yet) Christmas party, so we had a three-game-company lunch. That probably doesn't happen often outside of E3. For some reason I was expecting it to be realy tense and hushed and everyone would carefully avoid talking shop, but it wasn't like that at all. Cool.

After a long day we the trio decided to hit the casino, catching up with Suz, Susan, and Johnny. Suz was on a roll on one of the slot machines, so rather than going off for food immediately we split up for a bit and each of us played $20. Mine quickly turned into $40, then $50, then $18... I figured that once again, I should have quit early and been satisfied with a small win. But then it shot up to over $80. I'd have kept playing and probably lost it again if I wasn't dragged away from the machine at $75. I can live with that.

It's late, I'm tired, and my teeth are grinding together in time with the music, so g'night.

WOTH. "An exceedingly rare and beautiful flower which heals serious nervous system defects when eaten, grows most often in hot, humid, dark climates, such as a rain forest." Looks like an acronym. Bugs the heck out of Steph when I randomly IM the word at her. Muahahaha.

Today is a Sekhmet festival, and the thoughts in the Daily Devotion (for December 5 2000) echo my own right now.

For some time now, something has been out of balance. Fixing that balance is a satisfying act of revenge. This kind of revenge is not wrong, if the actions taken to reach it are not wrong.

As Suz would put it, my edit level is high right now.

Driver 2 arrived yesterday -- birthday gift from my roommates that was backordered and a little late in coming, but worth the wait. It's like a crazier, more difficult, more detailed, more evil version of Crazy Taxi. Lots of mission styles and mini-games: go somewhere, blatantly chase another car, stealthily tail another car, shake off pursuit, hit a series of checkpoints as quickly as possible, follow a path of traffic cones, etc. So far the most fun I've had has been the free-form "take a ride" mode: driving around town at random, being chased by the cops, ditching them, getting out and jacking another car (or truck, or school bus, or police car...) and so on. :) I haven't gotten far in the story mode yet, since the second mission is a difficult chase with little room for error.

Bubba happened to see the CD in my cube yesterday, discovered that he'd missed my birthday, and then surprised me by producing a gift out of thin air. He got me Sandman: the Dream Hunters, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, an amazing artist who did the Vampire Hunter D book I saw once at a friend's place, as well as concept art for Final Fantasy and Kartia, and a lot of other stuff. Coool.

What do you call it when you put people from Simu, Verant and Origin together in one place, fuel them them with food and alcohol and watch them compete for gifts? The Ratcliff Annual Christmas Party. It's coming up Saturday. John caught last year's entry about how I always wind up taking home a gift that comes in a pink box, and says he's determined to get a better review this year. ;)

Christmas. Yeah. Steph already did the thing about enjoying Christmas as a secular tradition. I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that the occasion doesn't matter -- in fact one of the few things I remember from church in my childhood was the preacher making just that point. Christ was not born in that season at all, but why not celebrate anyway? It's good to get together with your family and friends, to exchange gifts and share meals, to hang up decorations and change the pace of life a little bit for a while.

Except the pace thing really doesn't quite work out, does it? Everyone is in a hurry. Stores and parking lots are crammed full and most people are more rude toward strangers, not more courteous and thoughtful. Shoppers and stores both get pushy. Oddly enough, even Amazon has the feel of a crowded, busy store. I really like the holiday season, but I never like crowds and Christmas shopping crowds are the biggest and craziest.

Steph had been looking seriously for a nice-but-not-too-expensive shrine cabinet, and I've been looking halfheartedly for an office chair for months. On the first evening of snow in Mooville this winter, we both found what we were looking for. On the way home from work in SqueakyCar, with three people in it already.

OfficeMax was having a clearance sale on office chairs and I found the exact style I was looking for for $99. Steph and Jeff went next door to Sam's while I waited for the busy folks to pull one from inventory for me. Unfortunately there wasn't one, so they had to sell me the demo. I wheeled it outside, spent a few minutes in the snow trying to figure out how to load it up, and had to bring it back inside to dismantle it.

(In retrospect, I probably could have adjusted the chair to its shortest height and it might have fit... I didn't even think of that at the time though.)

So I get it all loaded up and head over to Sams to pick up the roommates... and discover to my surprise that Steph found a suitable armoire, and to my further surprise the box actually does physically fit inside the vehicle. Barely. We dropped it off at the office instead of driving all the way home with Steph hunched over in the backseat and me wondering if the box is going to slide forward and decapitate me and Jeff on its way through the windshield. I guess it was slightly safer than transporting the futon frame was, but that was in daylight and good weather.

We returned to the office on Saturday anyway, since Steph wanted to make up for a lost day of work and I had no objection to a day of playing games on a PC that doesn't suck. Except that it's running Windows 2000, which apparently is one of the many, many things that makes Rogue Spear unstable. Sigh. Ah well, I got sucked into Diablo II so deep that I never noticed our boss was in the office and waved to us on his way past in the hall. Nor did I notice Steph scarfing half a sub while working on the web site. Guess I was too busy dodging blow darts and smashing orbs.

I was this || close to buying a djembe today. The place had an attractive colorful djembe from Ghana with a very nice sound, white tuning ropes and a goatskin head -- and one with black tuning ropes and a rotten goatskin head with a hole in it. Eep. Doubts gnawed at me as to whether the one in good shape would continue to stay in good shape. Finally Steph and the possibility of checking out that Remo klong yaw at the local drum shop again, convinced me to stay away from it.

Had a dream last night that I was in the pit area during a NASCAR race -- I have no idea why, as round-and-round stock car racing is pretty dull to me compared to F1 or arena off-road racing, and I don't even enjoy watching those enough to actually go to one. I think I was hanging with Dale Ernhardt's crew, but that's probably because that's the only NASCAR driver whose name pops to mind immediately. Anyway, rather than changing his tires, the crew was using bizarre little temporary patches that they'd stick on, listen for a leak (which could be heard over the engines and the crowd?) and remove if it wasn't in the right spot. Once they found the spot, they'd pour tar over a bundle of twigs and stick that to the tire.

Once they were done with this bizarre patch job, they all looked at me in an expectant and impatient manner. Apparently before the driver could take off again, I had to pay $11.24 in exact change, and they didn't appreciate the length of time it took me to find the dimes and pennies in my wallet.

This is the sort of thing that causes amateur dream interpreters to cop out and say "it was probably something you ate."

We saw Charlie's Angels today. I want to say it was surprisingly good, except that the surprise was a couple of weeks ago when people whose movie judgement I trust said it was good. Well anyway, it was good. Lots of explosions and cool fight scenes, goofy comedy, and girls. Whee! Actually I'm not a big Cameron Diaz fan (though she does look good in a sheer white bodysuit), but Drew is cute in a pouty puppy-dog way, and Lucy Liu is not just cute but has the whole black leather Matrix-fu thing down to a science. :) As for Charlie, well... I don't think I'm spoiling the plot by saying we still don't get to see who he is. :)