Furry Impetus

So, apparently this week is International Spam Week for my gmail account. I have recieved 29 spam messages in 3 days, and that's 3 on the first and 3 on the last. I've never gotten spam at my gmail account before. So now I'm unhappy. A few of the bastards even got past the spam filter. I haven't opened any of them, so I don't know how they're written, but the subjects are all pretty awsome: "pomp contraction", "cozy pen pal", "snit Milky Way", "commiseration backlash", "duplex insult", "hand-me-down Marxism", "shovel wristwatch", "cameo ant", "life jacket emotive", "viewing pessimist", "preparedness apostle". All these and more sent to me by people whose names aren't really as interesting. Slapping random words together is more humerous than random names, I guess. But, yeah, so I guess that if you fill a spam email with random words to make it look like a real message it'll bypass the filters.

So, this is the part where I break down recent events that everyone who reads this has already participated in. But oh well. Actually, that's not true. Tank might be reading this and I suppose that he has no idea what goes on around these parts. He comments as manx_cat, and he's one of the guys I was going to live with next year. Tank has uber micro. There is no other way to describe his skillz. l337 fails completely to describe it.

Speaking of video games, I had my first real game of Starcraft last night. If you don't know anything about Starcraft, you're not going to understand this. Also, that was a joke link. I didn't buy a boat last night. If you need to follow a link to know what Starcraft is then you should probably work on that whole "head-in-ass" thing first.

Blake came over and we tried to get a LAN game going. At first it was impossible because Starcraft is so damned old it only supports IPX for LAN. Of course, I've known that since Wolfgang first loaned it to me. However, knowing that Starcraft was too popular to be beaten by something like that, I grabbed the latest patch (also the last I think) which has added a TCP/IP LAN feature. So then Blake took me to school. Kind of. First we had to get the game to set up properly. Blake put us on his favourite map, called Hunters, and set the gametype as team melee. I have no idea what that meant, but it didn't work. To make a long story short we went for melee, and had to team up in game. First we were against 4 AI, then 3, then 2. At that point we were able to get a toe-hold in the game. Blake mainly doing the fighting as the Zerg, me laying down photon cannons left, right and, most importantly, centre. As many of you may know, I don't actually have a lot of micro, so going the Carrier route was my only choice when it came to actually fighting with units.

We were against another zerg and a terran. After securing the centre of the map, I rained terror on the terrans from my 9 fully equipped and upgraded carriers. Those carriers sprang from the large collection of starports I'd built in the centre in a co-mingled base with Blake. As I went for the last base expansion the terrans had left, Blake sent down a huge force of hydrlisks to help me out. He'd already wiped out the zerg AI. Just before the last terran building fell, Blake announced that he had a "surprise" for me. By sheer luck and coincidence I'd already been imagining what that surprise might be. I managed to get the drop on him (only by about 2 seconds, but at least I wasn't sitting there wondering why my carriers were being destroyed by my ally).

Blake says that's the way Starcraft works. So then I wiped out his hydrlisks. Unfortunately, that was hardly the end of things. Of course I hadn't been paying attention to him, I'd been busy killing the terrans and defending all the choke point with my photon cannons. Unfortunately, he'd been busy filling his bases with the zerg equivalent to the barracks and mining minerals wherever he could find them. The result was a basically unending wave of hydrlisks. Also Blake began actualy targetting my carriers with the hydrlisks instead of letting them auto-attack the interceptors they were launching. The co-mingled base we built in the centre was quickly turning into a crater. Unfortunately that meant it was taking my starports with it. I had to rebuild my starports across the map, and by that point most of my original fleet had been wiped by the hydralisks.

However, I may have mentioned that I spent most of the game dropping photon cannons "like mad bombs" if you will. So it wasn't like Blake was at my front door. Yet. In any case, he managed to compeltely destroy my base expansions (the ones actually collecting gas and minerals) before turning his attention to my actual base. But by that time I had a few more carriers built and decided to take the fight to him. It was a good choice. As he was tearing down the photon cannons at my base, I was cutting, basically unimpeded, through his. It was a good time. Especially when... I found all of his Overlords sitting in a corner. That is what I considered to be the turning point of the game. Blake will tell you differently. He will say (and, in fact, did say shortly after I mopped up his Overlords and went after the rest of his bases) that he ran out of minerals. Which is a legitimate concern. But let's look at thing logically here: Just before I finish the terrans, Blake asks me "How much minerals do you have saved up?"

I respond with "About 5000."

"Really, man? I've got, like, 15,000."

So he ran out. I was building and maintaining the most expensive unit in the game, he was building hydralisks. He had 3 times as many minerals as me to begin with and the first thing he did was cut off my access to more minerals. He had his production centres up and running by the time we started fighting each other and I had to rebuild my starports before I could start the tortuously slow process of building new Carriers. And he ran out. Of course, then he was a bitch and made me chase him around the map to get the victory. I don't know where he kept getting his workers from, but they move a lot faster than Carriers do. He was really hoping I'd quit and let him have the default win. Not a fucking chance.

So that was the most important thing. Now on to the rest:

I might be geting a job. Elyse told me over the weekend that the Y is looking for a new day-shift lifeguard. I'm pretty sure that that's god telling me I'm awsome. With any luck I'll be adjusting to getting up at 6 every day within a week. If that doesn't happen I'm probably going to be stocking shelves at one of Stratford's man fine grocery stores.

Speaking of Elyse, we had the joint Elyse/Alex birthday bash at Carl's on Saturday. Now, let's all just take a breath and remember the last birthday bash we held at Carl's. However, that night, things were different. And if you don't believe me, you could just consult the sign above Carl's door, which reads:
Chez Leushuis: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
It's a cool sign. We (Me, Ellen, Ben, Carl, and Elyse... and Thomas, kinda) made it before the Leushuis parents gave us dinner and briefed us on the new rules around town:
1) Keep it in the basement. No exceptions. No one loiters on the main floor or the porches for any reason; smoking is to be done quickly and efficiently and ashtrays are to be employed. Ben was put in charge of enforcing that last part.
2) A strict head-count policy is going to be enforced. This means that a guest list, or at least an expected number, is provided for approval beforehand and it gets stuck to. No more random children showing up with their fiances.

So, before we even started the party, we got some wiggle-room in rule #2: Both Blake and Eazy-E were hoping to bring female companions along for the evening. This was OKed, and the more hilarious parts of the evening were set into motion.

So this is how the shit went down: I got drunk. That's the most important part. The Australian exchange student I admired at St Mike's the other day didn't come. It was sad, but my life went on. Drunkenly. Blake and his girlie showed up first. She's really nice, and I hope she comes back to Carl's. However, there was a little hiccup. Now, Blake and this girl aren't going out. Let's get this on the table now. However, let's get real here. He took her to the party. Why does anyone think he took her to the party? So that another guy could make out with her on the porch (in flagrant violation of rule #1)? Probably not. I don't even know the Australian girl's last name, but if she'd shown up and gotten pulled in by the seductive wiles of one of my friends, I wouldn't have been pleased, and frankly, it was a bitch move. Of course, no one could have helped the timing (remember what happened to Blake at the last birthday bash a la Carl?), and that only made it worse.

Of course, Blake's friend wasn't the only one contributing to the goings on that night. Even though debauchery is no longer in the mission statement of Chez Leushuis, Carl, Elyse, Nora, and Jordan were all trying to make up for it. So we didn't see a lot of them all night. And it kind of got me mad when I was trying to go to bed. You need to know the architecture of Carl's basement a bit: There's a central room where all the parting goes on. The carpet has soaked up so much beer that's it's probably home to yeast's Golden Age of civilization. Coming off that room are 1) Carl's bedroom, 2) the "Hockey Room", an unfinished room with a poured concrete floor, and 3) the cold storage room, from whence issues the beer to keep the carpet alive. So, I want to go to bed. It's 3am, Ellen, Ben, and Blake's girlie have left. Carl and Elyse are in his room and Nora and Jordan are in the hockey room. Blake, Alex, and I are in the central room. I want to sleep and they aren't disagreeing. But I'm a bit of a Prima Donna when I want my rest. I just finished group counselling on the porch, my head is full is cigarette smoke, and I just want to sleep. What I don't want to do is get woken up by a) moans of pleasure b) girls going to bed (they have to sleep in the guest room on the 2nd floor) c) people going out to smoke. Thus, I'm kind of concerned about getting everyone else on the way to dreamland. Of course, that's not how it happened. So I had to switch to plan B: put on Nora's bra and parade around like a retard until I've killed the mood for both couples and they'll finish up and go to bed. Of course, that's not exactly what happened either, but at least they went to another floor.

Oh yes, the other amusing sub-plot for that night: If I hadn't been so busy as the self-appointed fire department for the Bilyea's Girl Drama, I would have been busy enjoying myself with Eazy Motherfuckin E and his tag. She's also really nice. I also hope she comes back. But instead of making out with anyone, she got drunk and threw up for the first time. I didn't get to see that. But I did get to watch with amusement as she went through the whole "I hate myself, I'm not like this!" nonsense. Anyway, I tried to reassure her that everything would be fine, and it was nice, because that was probably the only time I've done that to a freshly vomit-covered girl and actually meant it.

Finally, Greenstock was on Friday. There's really nothing else to say except that a) that was where I met the Australian girl, and b) there are no good drummers left at St Mikes. I'm sure there's a really awsome drummer inside Danny somewhere, but his Dad is too big of a douchebag to let it come out.

So that's it. Also, anyone from Thunderdome reading this, welcome to my little piece of the interweb. From here I will discuss my growing micro and other exploits. Feel free to comment prolifically.


Also, a big warm welcome to Jen and as she brings a little more depth to our blogging gene-pool.