and now i don’t hear anything else

maura @ 9:54 pm

Why does it seem lately like the less I blag the more Mimi Smartypants does? Which is good in a way, because then when I finally have time to read her blag I have a nice backlog to catch up on. That sounds so negative…really, it’s a good backlog! I think the word “backlog” is onomatopoeiadically* bad-sounding, there’s no way around it.

* which is the second word I’ve made up today! The first was “useways,” which is like foodways except about users + using. In a non-junkie sense, of course. Coffee + research days = wheeee!

But what I really want to talk about is that I realized recently that scooting to work is kind of like a video game. I mean, of course it’s fun and all, but it also engages video gamey parts of my brain. All of that scanning for pedestrians (who are moving erratically while talking/texting), watching for sidewalk irregularities, aiming for curb cuts and keeping an eye out for cars driven by people who don’t remember that pedestrians AND scooteurs have the right of way…all of that reminds me of a good video game, esp. one of the racing (maximum power!) or snowboarding (stiffy!) variety.

I haven’t had much time for video games lately, which makes me a little bit sad because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about them. I might even be germinating a research project, but there’re 2 others ahead of it so I’m trying not to let myself get carried away. At least not til that time extender’s invented.

The small bits of gaming I have been doing have all been on the iphone. I’m still incredibly stingy about it so I’ve only bought one game: Subway Shuffle (I think it cost $2.99). It’s a puzzle game designed by some math whizzes and pushes all of my puzzley and trainy buttons. Plus you can pick it up and put it down anytime without suffering for it (I just can’t make time for games that require lots of level memorization right now).

The other games I have are all free, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that the one I’m gravitating towards now is RemovEm, another puzzley game. The UI is clean + pretty, but the gameplay is along the repetitive, pattern recognition lines of Tetris. Which I don’t consider to really be a game as much as a way to pass the time (oooh, burn!). I’m disappointed in myself, but I keep being lured back in by the way that RemovEm sort of looks like my ur-puzzle game, Tesserae. Oh Tesserae, how I miss you!

And SimCity, too. That would be kickass on an iphone.

toes are sticking out of socks

maura @ 10:23 pm

Did I fall into a black hole? (perhaps created by the Large Hadron Collider?) No! Just busy here, is all. Work has been a whirlwind since the start of the semester. In a good way, definitely, but mental space has been limited. Downside: have not been keeping up with the (online) paper + library news + blags. Upside: am not as stressed out as I could be about the upcoming elections or financial services crisis. So everyone wins!

Should have blagged last weekend, but it ended up being full of soccer + sausage and beans for lunch + the freemarket (where I scored an excellent pea soup-colored skirt that fits perfectly, go me!) + visiting friends (complete with super mario galaxy, painting the outside of the house, and a trombone!) + more soccer + the apple festival at the historic house in the park (mmmm, fresh cider + fritters) + courtyard neighbor dinner.

I did break my election media fast to watch Tina Fey on SNL, and have spent the past few days occasionally saying to myself, “I can see Russia from my house!” and giggling.

Hermph, this post is going nowhere. Jonathan said I had to post something tonight because my last post has so many comments. But I’ve been all tapped out of blaggable topics recently. OH! Except that I could mention that Gus’s soccer team is called the Lightning, because they have pale yellow shirts. But for a few moments it looked like they were going to name themselves the Yellow Flamers (not a typo!), which was very funny.

apropos of nothing

maura @ 10:14 pm

This week was busy. Gus started school, so I spent a couple of hours there on the first day and meeting his teacher later in the week. Also the holiday! I kept thinking I wasn’t getting enough done, but there was less time than usual, duh me.

Today we had dumplings + shave ice for lunch, yum. For shave ice flavors I had plain coconut (because I’m boring like that), Gus had lemon + lime w/condensed milk, and Jonathan had passion fruit + green tea w/vanilla ice cream.

Last night we (=parents) watched “Everything is Illuminated,” which was really good. Tonight we (=family) watched “Pokemon: The First Movie.” It was not really good, and I hope it is Pokemon: my last movie. But I’d been crabby about the netflix subscription for a while because it seemed like we were letting movies hang out forever, so watching is good.

Why do we have so much stuff? Certainly we could have far less. Today was deal-with-Gus’s-room day, and a whole pile of little kid stuff, outgrown stuff, cheapo plastic birthday party favor stuff and random broken stuff was gotten rid of. Plus I finally went through the big pile o’ 1st grade stuff (that I’d been avoiding all summer) AND the big pile o’ kindergarten stuff (that I’d been avoiding for over a year!). It’s incredible how much paper these kids come home with, it’s like 1 linear foot per grade. No one has enough room in their home archives for that!