Week of Weeks

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. This snow crisis as they say in the Pacific Northwest has caused my work life to become incredibly stressful and crazy. Picking up the slack for those that cannot come into work. So I will be taking a little breather until Saturday and finish some thoughts while I finish playing catch up.

Wizards of Winterland

Hey that is also a badass tune that was used in that Christmas Lights video of Last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-779682651375764094

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - The Lost Christmas Eve - Wizards In Winter (Instrumental) You may also pick up the song from iTunes! Easier then Stealing, Almost as Cheap.

So the Wizards of the Winterland decided to make it snow and freeze and we get what the news is over hyping as “The Blizzard of 2006!” or what I will call. The Media’s way of installing fear and causing people to freak out. Now having had some real snow and ice driving experience in the midwest and being a bit hardened to the fact that these Seattle people do not know how to drive in such weather I have a story from the bus experience this morning.

I catch the 4:57am bus to be on the 5:20am ferry so I walk out to my car. I deiced my car last night and I go out this morning no frost on the windows. So I try to open the door and it was frozen shut. A little midwest trick I had under my sleeve was to ram the door slightly and it opened with ease. I back out of the driveway and find myself not sliding thinking “cake” then the further thought had me pondering.

WHY THE FUCK AM I UP AT 3:51am EVERYDAY! I NEED SOME BREAKFAST!

So I begin down the road the snow is like ice. Not really fun snow but pain in the ass ice. So after 3 blocks of this I get onto a “main road”

Are there main roads on this side of the water? Who knows. You know I’ve been at work for an hour so far and my head is still freezing. Perhaps I should put my hat back on. Why are you writing your inner monologue on a blog post? Oh who knows. Just a little break from casual thought process. I wonder what I should have for lunch today. I could walk up the hill to Tully’s Coffee. Andrea works there. Odd I should probably call her I haven’t stopped in there in months. Okay back to the blog.

So no worries just driving between 5-10mph under the speed limit. I get to the park and ride and get out of my car usually I take a swig of mouthwash to finish up the tooth brushing procedure I do every morning but my back doors on my car were not opening as expected so I had to skip that process. Though I have yet to find a woman that comes up to me and say “Hey lets make out” so maybe the listerine isn’t my problem.

There was a point to this story but I had a phone call that just skewed my day. So ending this post now.

The Last Election

Well during the last election if I saw an area where there was only a Republican Running I would write myself in. So I sent off an e-mail to the Kitsap County Elections Manager asking for the results of all the write ins. Well I get this reply.

Dear Tristan Pipo:

According to Washington State law, write-in names cannot be tallied or recorded unless the candidate files a declaration of write-in candidacy and pays the required filing fee for an office on the ballot or the total number of under votes, over votes and write-in votes are enough to make a difference in the outcome of a race.

Kitsap County had one declaration of write-in candidacy for the 35th Legislative District Position 2.  Valid write-in will be tallied for that race and reported as part of the official certification of the election November 28, 2006.

Sincerely,
Dolores Gilmore
Kitsap County Elections Manager
614 Division Street
Port Orchard WA 98366
Phone: 360.337.7128
Fax: 360.337.5769
E-Mail: dgilmore@co.kitsap.wa.us

So the votes that I did for myself and Mickey Mouse are not counted and therefore they are not filed unless I pay money from what I am understanding. Well I guess my idea to take over the internet by voting for myself has failed. Well one can try. My campaign for Commissioner is now over. I guess I won’t be able to use Batman to fight the evil doers of Kitsap County. It is getting close to winter so we are almost dark all the time like Gotham City.

Wii Campout 2006

Well there will only be one Wii Campout so let me tell you about this night of cold and rain and idiots.

So I had been enjoying all the hype of the Nintendo Wii for a year or so now interested that it can play all kinds of games from the past via download. The controller I was a little worried about since it was totally wireless but the whole thing was just an amazing idea to change gaming. The Playstation 3 looked really cool until I saw the price tag of $499 and $599 sorry No Thank You. But I am not really a hardcore gamer and haven’t played many games since the High School Era. I bought a Playstation 2 a year or so after it came out to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I enjoyed that and got to play some old memories of Playstation 1 games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid but got all these awesome new games. But I was more of a PC Gamer with Diablo and Starcraft and the Half Life Series. I was a total nerd and loved LAN parties but I have just phased out gaming and got more into creation and more about how computers did things and I like a game on occasion.

So I am not a fan of preorders because you get locked into something and not my thing. So for the Wii I needed to find a location that actually had them. The only place in the area that had a Midnight Launch was Wal-Mart so I went to go check out the line around 4pm PST and walked to the back and was roaming around the electronics department and find a clerk after about 10 mins of searching. He came up with a punk ass attitude.

“What Did You Want?”
“Yeah how many Wii’s are you getting and where does the line start?”
“We are only getting 20 and there are 23 people in line. Take your business elsewhere”
“Umm, Okay”

So I was going to buy a game to play for my Nintendo DS Lite to find another line if that didn’t work out. But this guy was such a prick I decided to go elsewhere. So I drive down the road about a mile to GameCrazy. I walk in and the manager just hands me the Wii-Mote and was like “Here Try out ExciteTruck” and check it out and it’s rather interesting. Holding the controller and actually steering it like a Wheel. Took a bit of a learning curve but I was excited by this concept. We chat and then Sean and Ben walk in. I hadn’t seen them in a long while and we chatted about how Awesome the Wii is going to be.

The thing about Geeks is that we can gather and we are all passionate about something and can chat for a great deal of time about anything and breaking down the figures and concepts and all this stuff and most people tend to think “What the fuck are you talking about” a mother and her child came in and wanted to try out Brain Age for the DS. Which is an interesting game and Sudoku came up and we got into strategy about that. When you have a 9×9 square and need to have the numbers 1-9 in each box and across each direction. Now I play this game a lot in the morning paper on the ferry or on my DS it calms me down relaxes my brain and any problem I really have Sudoku can solve if not just to take my mind off things. So we had a geek mom in the chat with us after this. So GameCrazy was only getting 9 Wii’s so I picked up Yoshi’s Island DS to have something to play while I am in line.

So I drive out to Target because I heard a rumor from Digg that the local one here was getting 60 Wii’s. So I walk back to electronics and ask the clerk how many they would be getting. He told me “30-40” now I start to think. How the hell can you not know the store inventory. But whatever so I go walk around trying to find a line since they open at 8am and was unable to find any kind of line. So I go outside and think well this is going to be a very long night so I go home and take a nap. I get up about 11pm and take a shower and packup my car with chairs, sleeping bags, umbrella, iPod, Nintendo DS, Games, Red Bull and go out to Target again. There are 13 people in line and I get number 14 and the last one to be under the cover and everyone else has to wait in the rain.

Now being a geek and waiting hours and hours for a device that you interact with most people would think it’s stupid or not want to wait. So while in line a guy drives up. Shows us the box for the Wii and says “$650 it’s yours” We all say no and continue to sit. So the people that tend to wait in this type of line are very dedicated. Very Chill. Very Friendly because we are all there to accomplish the same goal of being the first ones to get a hold of this device. The general line before me was this cool Asian Dude named Ed and a Black Guy and his friend in front of him. Before them was a group of Marines that were not taking any crap from anyone. They were pretty much the line managers.

They were regulating where people were and keeping people from cutting. Now nothing sucks more then some idiot coming and trying to cut in line with his friends. Well the Marines were pretty much preventing this from happening. They were there to get the Wii and didn’t want anyone to have special privileges.

So while in line I bust out my DS and was like anyone down for some Mario Kart. Everyone said yeah so 5 of us started up a wireless game and were racing and talking what games we were going to buy and which we would play first. I was picking up the Nintendo Wii, and Zelda: Twilight Princess. I was saying how I am going to play Wii Sports first to get used to the controller which isn’t really a game just more of a training on how to use the controller like playing Baseball and swinging the controller like a baseball. Really cool concept. So Mario Kart sucked up about 2hrs of time and it was about 1am around then. So we were all talking about who we were and what we did. The guy behind me was a Pizza Delivery Guy. Him and his Buddy were there playing Chess and Checkers and then we got to playing Poker and all that jazz.

I sent out a text message around 1am saying I was in line. Because all my friends said they were going to bring coffee and food and see what was up. I didn’t get any response from anyone until about 11am when I was already home enjoying the Wii. Curse you “friends” lol But other people had girlfriends and so forth bringing them coffee and breakfasts. I got to thinking I don’t know any women that would really support this cause. I didn’t know any that were down for waiting in line for 8hrs to see Star Wars. I remember when I was in Indiana and going to see Episode II at Midnight. She decided to stay home because only idiots would wait to see that movie.

I guess it’s hard to explain the concept of being the first to do something. But I guess it’s more of a bragging right. I was the first. You were not. Ha Ha. Sucks to be You. I guess it’s the urge to be better then everyone inside of you. But most people don’t care about such geek things. But being first and being around people that want the same you get to meet some really interesting people and you all already have something in common. You really want something. You know something about it. So you have something to talk about while you are waiting in the cold.

The temperature was not to bad. When I sent a text message to Google asking for the weather a few times it was holding around 50F and rain. So we were not freezing but not warm and most people in line were wet. So it wasn’t ideal conditions but when WA has broken the 1Foot of Rain mark and growing everyday for the wettest November in many years you are growing rather bitter of the rain. But as the night went on with lack of sleep and bitter about the rain you are getting some rather cranky people outside. Especially the ones in the rain. So as the night went on and more and more people got in line. The conversation switched to the morons coming before the store opened and how we would be pissed if they got one and we had been out here all night when we could have stayed home and slept.

When your in the line and chatting with everyone you are always seeking something new to talk about. The one topic geeks tend to avoid is women. This topic never came up other then some girl trying to cut in line and we found the topic of how the marines were going to give her a bunch of shit. Then I made the joke about a picture I saw about getting punched in the vagina and we all had a good chuckle about it. So then any woman that tried to cut it we were all making comments about her getting punched in the vagina.

Not having a Vagina I am not sure if getting punched in the Vagina would be nearly as painful as getting nailed in penis region on the man. But it was good for a few laughs and letting the boy immaturity come across the line. But when you are in such a line it’s amazing what will amuse you in the Wii (I love the pun) hours of the morning.

So then I tried to sleep so I jammed the ear buds from the iPod in my ear and was sitting there with Dudes on either side of me and we all tried to take a nap around 3am. But it just wasn’t working out. We were Wet and Cold and shivering and sleep was just not possible. The silence was killing us all waiting there.

So it’s getting to be like 4am and the doors open at 7am to pass out tickets so it’s pretty much the same thing. More talking, more chatting and most about how what we are going to do afterwards. We were all thinking about going to the 24hr diner of Hell down the road to get some breakfast. But that didn’t pan out because most of us just wanted to go home.

So pretty much at this point it was a rotation of trying to sleep, playing on the DS, Chatting about gaming and bragging and boasting.

7am rolls around this funkadelic woman comes out “We have 30 Wii’s that is all” and they start passing out tickets. I was #14 and the people I was around were all happy. For waiting in line and being a loyal Target Customer we get Popcorn and Soda. None of us were really into it. We just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. So we finally get into the store. But we have to wait in another line. But it was funny watching all these soccer mom’s come up trying to get the hottest gift of the season and getting denied and then bitching that they were sold out.

I will never understand why people bitch to Retail Stores for being out of something. It’s not the stores fault for being out of something. They should call Nintendo and bitch at them for not making enough. Or calling IBM for not having enough processors to supply the chip to run the units. But I think these tools bitch at Target because well they want to bitch at someone and ruin somebody else’s day because theres was ruined and didn’t want to be the only one.

So I get the unit and Zelda and get escorted up to the check out. Hand them my American Express Credit Gift Card I had received and the total balance I had to pay was $26.11. Paid that and went on my way. I held the bag under my arm and ran to my car. Got in and drove home. It was really raining like hardcore rain. I was hydro planing all the way home. Get home and I hook up the unit. Then I just pass out.

But my phone was ringing. “How awesome is it?” “When Can I play it” But lets say I didn’t sleep much all weekend. Monday I was so drained I didn’t get a whole lot of work done. But it’s Tuesday. I am rested. Heroes last night was awesome. I have been working on this post a little to long.

But anyways Review of the Wii and Zelda coming later. But that is all good and done. Anyways Happy Thanksgiving and Turkey Day will be coming up for a post tomorrow.

Cheers!

Proud Owner of the Nintendo Wii

http://wii.nintendo.com

I waited in the cold and rain for 10hrs to be one of the very few in the county to get one of these wonderful new video game consoles. I picked up The Nintendo Wii and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Happy Holidays to me. Wii Sports will be a ton of fun on Thanksgiving. The Video Game System that is not a video game system.

I will post a review and a write of up of the line waiting and the homage to get one of these hard to find items. I really wasn’t into the Playstation 3. There was no killer app for it. I am a total Zelda addict and haven’t bought a Nintendo Console since the Super Nes when I was 10. Worked for the neighbor to chop wood to get one of these things. For this one I just saved for it.

Anyways I totally recommend one even for the non gamers it has something for everyone. Hope everyone had a dry safe weekend. Back to the Zelda action before I need to go to bed.I am excited that it is only a 3-Day work week.

A special shout out to all the cool die hard gamers I met in line. May the Gelda take over the hairforce and continue to fight barbnim in the tower of mouse and stylists. And some hardcore Mario Kart DS action for 5hrs straight. It really made the time on that cold pavement fly by.

Anyways now that I have admitted even further that I am the Seattle Geek Blogger. I must say that there were 3 women in line and most had wives sleeping in the cars. I think it would take a very special woman to understand me. lol I need to find that link about Why Geeks Make Good Boyfriends, Then the other one on why geeks make good friends. And why Geeks make good Fathers. Those were a brilliant writing from a woman who is married to a man who works at Microsoft.

Tangents galore. And on a note to Raleigh. Figured I would admit this in public sorry for being a dick. I was just a bit frustrated at the time. No worries. Still up for Happy Feet?

Cheers to the IMAX people. And Nintendo of America in lovely Redmond, WA. And yeah umm I have really had no sleep been up since 8am Saturday Morning with maybe a little 45 min cat nap in line where I was shivering and listening to the Daily Source Code #499 and all passed out. No bathrooms prevented me from drinking the case of Red Bull I had in the car. I think I have a case of beer in there also. Must find someone to pawn that off onto.

Ugh to many thoughts. Cheers! Sleep Well! Happy Short Week! Turkeys Galore! I am a maniac for turkey day. Eat myself silly. Pass out on the couch with all the cousins watching the Santa Clause (Claus?) with Tim Allen.

Okay that is it. I promise this is the end of this entry. If you want to read more. That’s what the archive is for. =p

Save The World. Orgasm December 22nd

http://www.globalorgasm.org/

Okay I saw this link on Wired. I thought I had to write a blog about this idea. The basic concept is that if everyone takes the time to have an orgasm on December 22nd it will release enough positive energy that it could have some global impact on the people of the earth. Here is a quote.

The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high-energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.

Now not being religious or spiritual . I tend to think this is kinda bullshit but I like the idea of everyone taking the time to take care of themselves or each other on what could be thought of as a global sex day. I am sure it would work as a pick up line. “Hey Baby we Must have sex today or the world will be a negative place” Well… Umm. Maybe not that line but something like that should work fairly well.

I am sure I can take a few moments out my day to enrich the earth a little. I hope everyone else does the same.

I must say on a side note Wednesdays always seem to have an odd outlook. What message will computers and the internet try to spread next. I wasn’t sure if I should add the funny tag to this post. =p

Pimping some iTunes

Apple iTunes

Well I have had this album on preorder for a while now. The new Tenacious D. The Pick of Destiny. I must say it’s a rather catchy tune. I just want to go around screaming “It’s a Pick of Destiny” I should record myself saying that. You get the CD Covers and a video with the whole deal the Time Fixers. Yes I make some cash if you click on it. More if you download a few songs.

And always if you need to catch up on Heroes you can grab the episodes for $1.99 a pop. Tonights episode was awesome. I always await Monday at 9pm. It’s good to finally have something that isn’t shit on TV.

Apple iTunes

Just trying to pay some bills. Pimp some stuff I like. =) Also if you haven’t picked up the king of all media players. The iPod I also got the hook up for you on that.

Apple Store

Alright I am done paying the bills. I make 5% of your purchases if you click the link and go buy something in iTunes. The hardware has a variable pay scale. So anyways enjoy. Happy clicking. Thanks for reading.

This Monday Is In the Bag

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20748812-29277,00.html

Now that Monday is in the Bag and I am heading home. I must say today has been pure hell. But I found this link to share with the world. 10% of teens with acne have tried to kill themselves. What kinda messed up kids do we have today. I was lucky and never had to deal with acne. But I mean come on when has a zit ever made anyone want to kill themselves. Makes my issues not feel so bad today.

I will write something compelling later. I need to just get out of work. Listen to some Penn Radio on my iPod. Get a Taco from the Del Mar. Some Spinach Mondo Burrito just sounds way to good right now.

Hope everyone had a decent Monday. I need to record a Podcast and soon.  I have been working on a few projects donating my voice here and there. I will say that my next podcast I will have to journey to a land of traffic and screwed up roads. Luckily I am not driving down to Portland to interview a band for the site I donate my voice to. Which I can’t really talk about because it’s not really done yet. Aaron and Craig switch to the big guns and get it launched already. =p

Cheers Everyone. Smile! Lots of Hugs to the Blog-o-Sphere.

Funny Otter

http://gallery.tristanpipo.com (Upload Your Photos)