Saturday, April 23, 2005

While I'm handing out kudos, way to go Lex for being in the forefront of the blogsphere for three years now! If the vampire that turns a person is their sire, I suppose that makes Lex my blogsire. (Now that I say it, that sounds a little disgusting, but if there was any sucking involved it was in my writing.)

Congratulations for not only sticking to this for three years but also for dragging the rest of us along with you. I admire not only your foresight, but also your ability to show other folks why this is a good thing!

Congratulations to PC for finishing the first draft of this first novel (awesome!!) and to the entire Cashwell/Dalton clan for their new canine addition!

Thursday, April 21, 2005

I hope you'll excuse me for flogging this but it's my first real show/sale! The Orange County Artists Guild's second annual spring art show and sale is a week from Saturday (April 30) at East Chapel Hill High School on Weaver Dairy Road from 10am to 5pm - just in time for Mother's Day! I'd love you to come out and not only see my stuff but all the other folks that will be there - around 30 local artists including painters, potters (ceramicists?), jewelry makers and others. If you're going to be in the area, come out and support the local artists!

Took this one in front of Chapel of the Cross on Franklin Street - if you look closely through the branches, you can see the moon. I will state categorically that there is not a prettier place in the world than the middle of North Carolina in mid-April. As we drove around town this weekend you could see daffodils and redbuds and cherries still in bloom at the same time that the dogwoods and azaleas and saucer magnolias and thrift and irises are all blazing away. And jasmine - our jasmine never really stopped blooming over the winter but it is a riot of yellow right now.

Of course this is also the exact same time of the year that every outdoor surface gets covered in a thick coat of pine pollen. I was walking the dog late one night a week or so ago and realized that I couldn't see very far down Sewell School Road because of what looked like a dust storm that was really the stiff breeze kicking up the pollen off the road. I'm told that the particles are too big for people to be allergic to, so instead it's like living on a gravel road only everything takes on this sickly greenish-yellow tinge instead of the Mount St. Helens-ish gray that you get with gravel dust. At least the rains wash most of it into yellow puddles from time to time - except for our screen porch, which is going to require much cleaning before we really start using it for the season. Hell, who cares - it's a small price to pay for enjoying such beauty!

Did something a little unusual for me last week and picked up a Sam Adams mix pack at the Teeter. The 2 bottles of Hefeweizen were pretty good, nice cloudy amber with an almost apple aftertaste. The Boston Ales were fine but not particularly memorable. Then I opened up one of the new Black Lagers and became enamored with a new beer for the first time since my first Rogue Shakespeare a couple of years ago. Pour that baby into a nice clean glass 'cause you're going to want to actually see it. You'll swear it's really a porter or even a stout (this is a LAGER?!?) but it's much lighter tasting than its dark opacity would make you think. Caramel and coffee are the main tones with a nice roasty (but not burnt) flavor and nose. So far I haven't seen Black Lager six packs around here, but I think I may be heading over to Total Wine on Saturday to see if they've got 'em. This is really, really fine beer, kids - go try some!

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Somehow I must have decided that between work, getting ready for the OCAG Spring Art Sale, working in the yard and trying to spend some time with my sweetie, I might not have enough to do to keep me busy. So I did two stupid things.

The first was looking up while walking through Target and seeing an end fixture full of Atari Flashback game consoles - chock full of Atari 2600 and 7800 games - on sale for $30 per. Now there have only been a couple of arcade-style games that I've ever really gotten good at. I was never more than adequate at Space Invaders or Galaga or Pole Position or Centipede, never understood Robotron or Dig Dug and sucked at Tempest and Asteroids (although the Apple port called Maelstrom was one I sorta got the hang of). But I rules at Pac-Man - I could make a quarter last a half an hour at least at Troll's. The other one that I really got good at was Yar's Revenge. After I started my first post-college job at IBM, I'd come home from work with a six-pack, sit down in front of the TV and my roommate's Atari console and that's how he'd find me six hours later when he got home from the computer lab - still in my polyester pants, surrounded by empty Stroh's cans and blasting away.

But buying Yar's Revenge (who really cares about the other 19 games on the console?) was not the stupidest thing I did. Buying and loading Dungeon Siege was.

What I said about arcade games holds true with other video games. I've had Tomb Raider for years and have never made it more than a third of the way through. I've got a history of buying console games like Dino Crisis and Gran Turismo and Ape Escape and PC games like Dark Jedi and Baldur's Gate and just never having the time of patience to play more than a couple of levels. But Dungeon Siege is going to be a problem - oh, yes, I can see that now. It's by far the most immersive game I've ever played, without the plodding pace of Baldur's Gate (who wants to remember that they have to eat and sleep to regain strength?  What the hell fun is that?) and without having to stop every five feet to talk to some yokel. You also don't have to decide whether you want to be a fighter or a magic user or an archer - be ALL of 'em at the same time! Gimme a mace and a longbow and a couple of combat spells and a few thousand Krugs to bash, stab, poke and magically burn and I'm a happy dude! Frankly it's taking every ounce of willpower I have right now to finish this rather than playi