Seriously, here are the names of the people I hang out with.

Ronald McFondle
Evil Kimmel
DVS Silvertongue
Goody Goody
El Generico
Hurricane Lilly
Master Blaster
Jimmy Scratchemicock.
The Slamburglar.

It's like I'm in a living comic book.

75% John Edwards
74% Hillary Clinton
73% Barack Obama
69% Bill Richardson
68% Chris Dodd
68% Mike Gravel
62% Joe Biden
59% Dennis Kucinich
49% John McCain
48% Mike Huckabee
46% Rudy Giuliani
45% Tom Tancredo
39% Mitt Romney
33% Fred Thompson
27% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

I got mugged tonight. That was just crazy. I'm fine, and I fought the guy off, but I didn't leave unscathed. This was after wrestling twice in one night, so I was already really really tired. So I'm fine, my face is a bit bruised up, but mainly I'm suffering a mix of adrenaline still coursing through my system, and crashing down off of the adrenaline.

What a way to ring in the New Year.

On the other hand, bet the guy didn't expect me to be Tonka tough.

I am addicted to the show Rollergirls. I can't wait until Rat city season starts again.

The wrestling is going awesome. I'm really part of something that entertains almost 200 people on a monthly basis. I put a lot into it, it makes me feel a lot like being part of a sport.

tomorrow is the show, I ate some popcorn last night and got a piece of kernel shell stuck in my throat. I swear that because my throat now feels scratchy like I'm sick, my body is reacting like I have a cold and busting out all the symptoms - lethargy, runny nose, coughing, etc. But I'm NOT SICK. I just ate a bad piece of popcorn!

I'm not eating popcorn for months.

When giving a shoulderbreaker to a 270 lb man, make sure to step FORWARDS rather than stepping backwards with your other foot. Your left leg will thank you for it.

Or rather, it will hate you for doing the opposite.

Ow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LYWAWAy9CM

And that's why Miss Fortune is awesome.

I wanted to type this up Monday, but I've been busy, so sue me.

So this weekend was pretty crazy, and I've realized that I really haven't posted. So I might as well post about my weekend. Plus, I'm waiting for the stove to finish it's self-cleaning while icing my neck and back, so this gives me something to do.

Friday.

After work, went to kung fu. I haven't been to group class in a while since hurting the foot, but I'm trying to get back into it because I'm almost sure that I will be up for a belt test soon. I forgot how much they work you out at kung fu. wowza. Afterwards, I went to this bar over in Capitol Hill called the Crescent Lounge. It's an old gay bar that's been invaded by Seattle hipsters due to its nightly karaoke. The SSP guys (semi-pro wrestling in case you guys don't know about my current foray into the world of pro wrestling), were throwing a birthday party for one of the wrestlers. It was fun, and I did a lot of talking to new and interesting peopl.

Saturday, did the hotdog job, and then kept trying to call the SSP guys. Nathaniel booked us for a birthday party. SSP was performing for a birthday party for the ex-lead singer of the Accused, and one of the founders of the Rat City Rollergirls. I wasn't on the card, because I'm new, but I volunteered to ferry the mats because I have a truck. However, I couldn't get a hold of anyone, because they were up drinking hella late the night before. Shoot a text message off to Nathaniel, asking him if he needs a ride (he doesn't have a car). He gets back to me, we head over there, but still don't know what the hell is going on with the mats.

So we get there, and the crowd was definitely not what we expected. Especially for the party of an old-school punk band singer and a rollergirl. It was very...suburban. Lots of kids too, and SSP REALLY isn't for kids. I mean, one of the main characters is a molesting clown who finishes his matches by giving his opponents the Shocker. Yes, the Shocker.

Since we didn't really fit well with the crowd, we just kinda hung together, which is cool to me because I'm all for getting to know these guys better. They are a great bunch of dudes. But I want to reiterate, the host and hostess were great. Rayelle (or Rae's Hell) was really great.

Eventually, it's showtime, and while in the back, Nathaniel throws me a referee shirt. Holy shit, I'm gonna be on stage?! Yep, I pulled referee duty for the evening. Man was I nervous, luckily though the crowd wasn't too big (maybe 30 people). It was late so we did a tag team match, it turned out pretty successful, and everyone in the crowd went from going "I don't know about this" to getting really into it and throwing cans and hollering. But we're SSP, that's how we roll. Afterwards though I was so exhausted, I took Nathaniel back to the hill, hit the Rebar to drop off some shit, and then met up with the infamous Jackson Lowe at the Satellite Lounge and participated in GNO (Guys Night Out). But alas, I had to call it early, because I had to be a hotdog in the afternoon.

Sunday

Again, did the hotdog job. Man, was it hell. It was pretty hot that day, and that suits starts stinkin, but I'm a glutton for punishment. Afterwards Dan and I hit the gun range. I've been wanting to go for a while. I've never shot a handgun before, although I cleaned and maintained a vast array of them (Dr. Hazo has like 15 of them). so I started small, .22 revolver. I think it was a smart decision. I'm a big fan of the gun range now. Next time though I'm gonna work my way up and go with a 9mm.

Well, hope that's not too long, I got more to talk about, but I'm ready to pass out.

So, I found this awesome wrestling group here in Seattle called SSP. Valtron of the Rat City Roller girls told me about it.

Oh wait, I didn't tell you about the roller girls?

So for the past 2 months or so, I've been obsessed with roller derby. I saw my first bout at the end of February, and I'm hooked. So I started volunteering, mainly doing bout setup for the past couple bouts, and it's sweet. Free tickets, special seating, access to the green room, plus you get to work with the roller girls, who are all really cool from what I've been able to see.

Anyways, while setting up for the April bout, I was working with Hurricane Lilly and Valtron. I guess Hurricane Lilly is a photographer and was talking about how she was doing wrestler portraits the night before. So there you go, that's how I found out about SSP, which is great because I've been wanting to find an indie wrestling group for the past 6 months.

So guesssssss what. Guess who's always wanted to be a professional wrestler ever since he was little? Yup. So I'm gonna go for it. I mean, I have martial arts training, I've been huge into working out and stuff for the past year. So this is great.

But first, I need your help.

I need some ideas for some characters. I've got a couple. One being El Diablo Blanco, a masked wrestler. If that doesn't work, I can change it to being El Diablo Gringo, which actually sounds funnier.

But what else, come up with the craziest professional wrestler ideas and post hem here!

I think my boss made me sick. But then again, he was back to work the second day, and I'm still laid out.

I'm not sick very often, and when I am, I'm usually good in a day, so being off of work for the second day really irks me. That and the fact that since I started getting sick on Monday, I haven't been to Kung Fu at all this week or have worked out bothers me too.

As much as being sick sucks, it's also a bit nice to have a bit of a reset switch. Being forced to not do anything makes me realize how much I like to do stuff, how I like to stay busy, and how much I actually like my job.

But for now, I'm just watching bad TV and waiting until tomorrow.

I've been fascinated with top chef for the past 8 weeks or so after catching a marathon thanksgiving weekend when I was preparing food for the 9 guests.

I am fascinated with cooking. It is the new love and passion of my life, not replacing game development, of course, but certainly augmenting it. While I have turned programming into a career, cooking and martial arts have now slipped into the place of my hobby. I have made it a point to cook for friends at least once a week, usually on a Sunday, experimenting with new recipes, learning the base and then trying to make it my own.

So obviously, Top Chef is going to be one of my favorite shows.

I loved it, and I cannot wait until season 3. But now I'm going to talk about tonights episode.

( spoilers if you haven't seen the finale )

speaking of which, I should go to bed. Any other Top Chefs out there?

It's been a few months since I've last posted.

That's mainly because I don't mess around on the internet that much anymore while I'm at work, and when I'm home, I spend much more time watching TV than on my computer because I really get sick of the computer and would much rather watch Scrubs and Food Network.

But I wanted to pop on here and wish everyone Happy Holidays.

word.

By the way, if you don't know this, I'm going to the east coast on Saturday. I will be hitting Pittsburgh, then Harrisburg, then NYC and back all in a week. If you want to setup a time to hang out, let me know. I will be renting a car so I'll be able to pretty much go anywhere.

Wow, it's been some time.

The We Are Scientists show was great. Much fun had by all.

Last week, my teeth started really hurting. Turns out the two wisdom teeth I had left (the bottom two) started decaying and got infected. Seriously, some of the worst pain I've ever been in in quite some time. So last week was a mad scramble with trying to get dentists appointments, and then setting up oral surgery.

Last weekend I went to a NERO event, and realized that NERO out here on the west coast just isn't the same, or maybe I've just changed. Either way, I'll help the website, but I don't have barely any interest in LARPing anymore. There are a lot of other things I'd rather do with that time. So I left the event early and came back to Seattle, ended up going to an art show block party over in Ballard, and felt really hip, even though I was dressed in sweats (which I hate being in public in sweats, but I didn't want to wear nice clothes to NERO). Then on Sunday I went and saw the Marine with Joe, which I recommend if you like action movies. Afterwards went to my producers house and a group of us played board games.

However, that night I started getting a cold, which worried me because my oral surgery was scheduled on Tuesday and I didn't want them to push it back. So much to my chagrin, I stayed home on Monday to rest up. Then on Tuesday went in for the surgery. Wow, these guys were pros. So much better than when I got them taken out at Pitt. they hooked me up to the gas, I tripped like crazy and then just sat around and ate ice cream all day. But last night I got the hell scared out of me. I woke up about 6 or 7 in the morning, and I was burning up. I was so dehydrated I had a horrible headache, and I couldn't break a sweat. So I started drinking cold Gatorade and got the uncontrollable chills. I was worried I would have to go to the hospital, but forced myself to go back to sleep.

Luckily, I woke up a few hours later and I was drenched in sweat and my fever was broken and I felt fine.

But like I said, these guys were pros. I haven't had to take any painkillers or anything. I'm still eating a liquidy diet - ie, soups and yogurts, but I'm going to try to go to work tomorrow.

We Are Scientists are playing at Neumo's on the 7th with Art Brut!!!

Oh man, this so awesome. We Are Scientists have rocketed quickly into becoming one of my favorite bands.

So I think I'm going to Vancouver this weekend.

If so, this will be my first time ever out of the United States!

Milestone.

Next up, Tokyo Game Show next year at this time. I already have the passport application filled out and my passport photos taken, and I'm taking next week off (we final Monday), so I should start the process for passport soon.

I'm just glad I found my birth certificate. I probably should apply for a new one as it's falling apart. Then again, it IS over a quarter-century old.

It just hit me what game I'm going to be working on next.

OH. MY. GOD.

I can't wait until I can talk about it, I sooooo want to brag.

Ok, so I wasn't going to go to PAX.

Why? In the short of it - I'm an asshole. No, seriously, the me of 2-3 years ago would call myself an asshole for thinking how I currently do now.

I'm a recovering nerd. Well, then again, I'm not sure I was ever a "nerd". Nerdy, yes. But a nerd to me is someone who revels in it, sees the culture and is like "that's what I am". And well, I've never felt that. I just want to be a guy who likes things that are typically nerdy but can intelligently argue to someone with disimiliar interests how universal they are, to the point of having that person usually give things a try.

But because of this, I'm highly intolerant of the nerd/geek clique. That's why I can barely handle cons of any type, because it's all about the clique. I'll probably never go to a comic-con again, even though I love comics. I've never gone to an anime convention, and, quite frankly, never want to. I almost went to Sakuracon, but that was more to surprise my girlfriend at the time than to actually see the con. E3, well, I didn't like E3 for other reasons, mainly because E3 was a bunch of flash and bang and I would have to shower the sliminess of marketing off of me and then go and enjoy LA. GDC doesn't count, because yes, GDC is a culture, but it's a culture of creativity and productivity. It's a pursuit to understand an artform and make things better. I guess if I would want to be part of any "group" it would be the artist.

But not the nerd. In a few years, I will probably find this attitude superficial, but I want to learn what NOT to wear, ie, pants too tight for me, shirts with some snarky inside joke about Nintendo, a trench-coat with a backpack that has a button that says "Roll for damage", whatever. I want to have style because I already know I have substance. But I look at the group of PAXers, and I both nod and shake my head at the same time, and just try to understand why I feel the way I do.

And well, it's enough to make me NOT want to pay any money to be near that group, even though it's the very group that supports my career. (Although in a perfect world, it wouldn't be because EVERYBODY would enjoy games)

Anyways, it's not enough to make me pass up a free pass.

What's that? Free pass?

Yes, from, get this, the infamous VIDEO GAME PIANIST!! Martin's a really nice guy, too. I hope to see him perform tonight.

So, it looks like I'm going to role up my sleeves, don my badge, and jump waist deep into the nerd culture. Maybe this will be a good thing for two reasons. 1 - It will make me understand more on WHY I feel so averse to this and help me figure out what to improve on myself. 2 - there's the possibility that I'm being extremely overly judgemental about the whole thing and will make me realize this. Or probably both.

Anyways, what I'm going to do when I go is dress up, slacks/dress shirt versus the tight jeans/free con t-shirt, use hygiene including products that make smell nice, as opposed to the "I've been playing videogames all day in a hot room" smell, grab both my digital camera and my videocamera and document the hell out of it. Basically, pretend I'm a journalist. Maybe I'll get into some cool parties that way.

Ok, so while before, moving out of my place was going to be a major hassle, and pain in the ass.

Now, I'm excited.

I saw a couple places today, but the first one I saw was sooooo nice. Seriously. It's a townhome with 2 floors, a giant living room/dining room, a great kitchen with tons of space, skylights, 2.5 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, security system, wall safe, giant walk-in closets, double-walled construction (I couldn't even hear traffic outside).

It's amazing, and at 1725 a month, it's 200 dollars less per month per person than each of us is paying individually.

I WANT this place, I want it NOW. Cross your fingers for me.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/726/726743p1.html

Wow, I'm impressed that the reviewers are impressed.

Which is good, we put a lot of work into the game. It was a HUGE learning experience for all of us, and I really hope to get my hands into a action/adventure game for the DS next time around. I'd really like to work on making a really fun combat system. It's difficult, and there's a balance to strike between button mashing and way too hard.

However, it looks like my next game is going to be as far from a action/adventure sword slasher as you can get. Actually, it looks like it might be one of the biggest hyped games ever, and everyone is going to be surprised that this baby is coming out for the DS.