Ikky black tar. They’re retarring(?!?) a road here and it was still wet when I had to cross it, and tar is STICKY. It sticks to your shoes, and your hands,and anything that you touch later, and leaves icky brown smears. End result, my shoes are tarres, my hands are brown and I have an unfortunate habit of leaning my face in my hand. Plus with all the stuff stuck to the bottom of my shoes my footsteps sound so devastatingly loud as I walk through the deserted university. Now that everything’s winding up for songkran, people are leaving sarakham, the universiity is closing (today actually, in about four hours) and I really understand the calm before the storm now, like some one’s been winding a spring and everything goes silent jsut as they can’t wind any farther, and tommorow, it’s all going to break loose, wind down in one moment of realease of the energy built up since last year.

On another note, my stomach hurts. I think it was what I ate yesterday. SO I’m reading a lot. And I’m really enjoying the peace and quiet (this is actually my one day of peace and quiet, firmly wedged between the chaos as of late and the chaos soon to come.

On the other hand I can’t get the Kingdom of Loathing familiar that I want, and it is going to take a long time to get 1000 drunkeness. But Stinky pete’s day was fun.

I still can’t get over the fact that my sister will be having a baby in just a few days! I have to admit I’m a little bit terrified. Babies freak me out.She tried to show me her stomach the other day and it was MOVING! Visibly! I went and hid in my room while everybody else oohed and aahed over it. God that creeps me out. And it’s coming! It’s like one of those buffy moments when the evil of the day is coming and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.

I’m kinda hungry.

That last bit was typed just a bit ago and I would never have guessed that it would all go INSANE from about twenty minutes after that onwards.

“BLAAAAA BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BLAAAAAAAAAAAAA BLAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS IS SOOOO!!!!! COFUSINGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! YOU GOTTTA READ ALL OF THIS AND THEN YOU REELIZZZZZ YOU WANT TO GO TO BED I HATE LONG STUFF ITS POINTLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OH AND DID I MECHIN THAT I HATE LONG PARAGRAFS!!!!LOL”

This is exactly why,every so often on must take a brake from computers. Particularly chatting an forums. It has been recently been suggested that certain forums actually emit a certain frequency that makes your brain melt out your ears often jamming the caps lock key and reducing the typist to awful spelling, and abreviations.

And I will just take a moment to express the fact that I have an extreme dislike for Jack Thompson. Nurg.

So yeah, this is me churning out one last post in the spare moment I found, now, less than 18 hours from leaving for the south of thailand, not really sure of what to write, nervous, tired and ready to just sleep, but still so excited, and driven forward by the whole southern tour-then Mom and Mim come. And I’m reading NANA right now.

Oh my goodness, this makes me laugh. Anyone who’s read Full metal Alchemist go here NOW!!! http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=168

Thankyou.

But yeah, I guess I should say a few words about song kran. Other than Exhausting. It was insane. If you went out, you had just signed a all bases covered complete and total waiver saying that it was now your fault that you were soaked and covered head to toe in baby powder and anything paper or electronic with you that will get destroyed is only your responsibility. It was crazy. And fun, in a great sort of way. And I’m so glad I spent a good portion of it with Lila, I’m still to introverted to really join in some things, but she certainly isn’t.

The five of us, Maddie and Jamie from Khon Kaen (where we were), and Lila, Alex and I were all in Fairy Plaza, and were kinda planning on going and playing water, but everybody was tired and we just kept stalling. So I (I think it was me, maybe somebody else, but I remember the event) employed the standard ‘let’s go’ technique - going. Usually people follow, but end result was me and Lila ended about fifteen feet from where we had been sitting, just outside fairy, by one of the main song kran roads. Now to get a picture of this you have to picture a crowded thai street, overhinging awnings, every building a little store run on the bottom floor of a house For song kran everybody lives on the streets, rubber hoses winding hee way out of hoses into tubs with smaller buckets inside for throwing the water Some people stock up on huge blocks of ice which they melt throughout the day to keep their water cold. In the meantime, on the streets themsleves are filled out with the turn out of every pickup truck in thailand, the backs packed with families and tubs of water from old women to babies. They throw water at anyhting that moves. Or doesn’t. It doesn’t really seem to mater, so long as the air they’re breathing has I higher H2O content than the atlantic ocean. They stop occcaisionally and refil at one of the said hoses. In the mean time people Run in throughout the crowds and trucks (which barely move) with their bottles of baby powers, smearing it across peoples faces, or if they’re in a real hurry, just dumping it on you and wishing you a happy new year (did I mention Song Kran is Thai new year?) Sawasdee Pee Mai! Some people went so far as to mix it with water before hand, cmaking this ikky warm foam paster thing. So yeah, onw that you’ve sorta got the picture, story. Lila and I are standing there watching all this go bye, as she says “I want to try.”
So we did. She just ran out in the middle of it and got soaked, and I followed, but she then grabbed the bucket from one of the people throwing it and started chucking it back, scooping water out of one of the basisns in a pickup. And so we followed that pickup, riding on it, walking beside it, around it. I got a powder thing and proceded to chase people around, wishing them a happy new year all the while. Eventually we parked, and after a bit I took a more watching position, sitting back and laughing as Lila climbed up on a tall platform and started dancing to thai hiphop that was playing from a speaker store (I think it sold speakers) So for a couple hours I chatted and ate peanuts with a bunch of thai strangers as Lila Did her dancy thing and I tried to figure out exactly how many way you can refuse beer. The answer is a lot. Afeter that everything just went insane, but that’s a story for anther time.

 Did I say I met Lila’s parent’s? I don’t think so. It was cool, they were cool, and it gave me a lot of ideas for Mom and Mim. Oh and if anybody wants stuff from thailand, better start asking now.

The library is closing now, so I’ve gotta go, and the nex time I see a computer I’ll havea  heavy tan and I’ll be hanging with my family.

P.S. The baby’s here. It’s official, I have baby-phobia. *shudder*

Listening to (on my cell phone): Counting Crows-Long December, The Ataris-Radio #2, Buckcherry-Next 2 You, Evanescence-Lies, ABBA-Chiquita, Evanescence-Call me when you’re sober, Beatles-Norwegian Wood, Nirvana-Come as you are, Eurythmics-Track 12 (don’t know the name), Fort Minor-Believe Me, My Chemical Romance-Welcome to the Black Parade, ABBA-Mama Mia, Barrio Del Rio-La Gasolina, The Real Booty Babes-It’s a Fine Day, Soft Cell-Tainted Love, Wet Wet Wet-Love is all around, All American Rejects-Swing Swing, Avril Lavigne-Skater Boi, and a whole bunch of thai music, which only serves to prove three things. 1 - I have no taste in music, 2 - I have way too many guilty pleasure songs, 3 - I am proud of having too many guilty pleasure songs.

But it’s awsome. I just thought I’d tell you that.

I’m back from the trip, tired, but happy. And darn glad to be home. And kinda thirsty. 

I finished working, and after subtracting the huge amount staying in bangkok always amounts to, I actually made a decent amount of money. Plus I stayed up ’till about two one morning and managed to budget a computer in a practical price range with the top of the line video card, and two gigs of ram, with other features to complment them.

I really am at a lack for amazing things to tell y’all, really, I was just going from one place to another, in a haze of sleep derivation and screaming children, sometimes as young as grade one or two, sometimes refreshingly old, meeting and making new friends, talking having fun, and leaving, knowing that I won’t see any of them again. Which was sad, and tiring. It wasn’t all fun and games after all though I had hoped it would be. The kids were generally younger this time, and much worse at english, which just made it harder as a whole. Though I think enough time was spent either swimming or drinking copious amounts of tea and chocolate to make up for it. So yeah, other than the lingering tiredness, an excellent experience.

Now I’m just bumming around, trying to catch up on enough sleep to truly enjoy Song Kran, the big water festival coming up in a couple weeks, which should eb very big and fun, immediately followed by the sleepless (in seatle, except not) southern tour, which is going to be absolutley amazing and my last ditch attempt to get a tan while I’m here.

 Here’s a sign that I might be too tired, the other night I was watching Battle Star when I paused to go get a glass of water. I got my glass, then walked to the TV and bashed my glass into the screen. I had actually been going to the water dispenser thing we have, oe of those ones were you push the glass against the back and water comes down from above, but somewhere along the way, rerouted to the T.V.. It was very funny at the time. No, wait, yep, it’s still funny. Hee hee.

Oooh! Story! Have to tell! And keep breathing! w00txor!!!11 I saw the most amazing awsome concert ever! Sooo cool! I was only there for one night of the 3 day pattaya music festival, but that night Palmy, Potato, Tata YOung, Dan and Beam (or golf an mike?stupid male duets) all played as well as a bunch of others!!! This paragraph deserves every exclamation mark it gets!!!!!!!! It was awsome and I finally get the whole OMG I SAW (insert band here)!!!!! SIGN MY TSHIRT! attitude that I’ve seen so many times. Maybe I’m more into these bands than any others, maybe it’s just I’ve never been to a concert before, or maybe it’s just another part of thiailand that I have to love, but it was there. The giant MTV ball bouncing off my head, people jumping and screaming and singing. Me jumping and screaming and singing. It was soo awsome. Definitely the highlight of my trip. I missed Silly Fools, which normally would have been absolutely crushing except that it was the english tripe anyways so I couldn’t care less. Bah. Stupid english singer.

 I’ve been goign over the numbers agian and again for graphics cards and settled on the GeForce 8800 series (no suprise there) and more specifically the 8800 GTS (the GTX may pwn hardcore but starting, on sale at more than $700 is a little pricey for me. Now the big debate is the one with 320MB of memory of the slightly more expensive one with 640MB. For games now a days, the most top of the line, graphics intesive, rendered on-the-fly games there won’t be any difference on anyhting under 1680×1050, 1764000 pixels, unless it’s Crysis. BUt with DivX 10 on the rise and new Quakes, Dooms, HalfLifes and the like on the way, the 640 card will be able to keep up better at higher resolutions if I ever upgrade my monitor. However that may not be an issue anyways because suppossedly both models pass off data faster that anything but a high end CPU can feed them, so it won’t ake a difference if I can’t get a better CPU. “Look at all my trials and tribulations” Any thoughts Mr. Schwartz?

2.0 weeks till wapner beta

3.5 weeks till wapner

4.0 weeks till wapner v 2.0

11.0 weeks till wapner Special Edition

*Wapner is currently in the alpha testing stage.

Okay, at least 3 of you know what I’m talking about. And I think I’ve given enough info to reason the rest out. And don’t you dare threaten me with logic. Or Kibibytes. Fricken Kibibytes.

OH! Charla! If Lucy has the specs I’ve found a really good 3D Real Time Strategy. I thought I would never accept the painful slowness and ugly, slugish polygons dragin themselves across the screen that represented 3D RTSs, have found one I truly enjoy, and the graphics are astonishing. From zooming out on the (up to) 81km to scale maps, to zooming in on the exhaust ports of your ships, it was beautiful. And that was graphics at their lowest settings, anti ailiasing turned off, so we could get it to run on Faye, Alex’s notebook. It’s much more strategic than most other RTSs and I highly recommend it to any and all who have ventured to the genre. Plus the Cybran Monkeylord is AWSOME!

Please, if you can find anything by Navi Redd, download it, as the most amazing pure vocal covers you will ever hear. From Mony Mony to Brick in the Wall to The final Countown to MLK (a favorite) they are amazing! I could totally see Dad’s choir doing some of this (note to self, send MP3s), And it’s all guys, which is really hard to believe when you hear somebody belting out sandy’s parts from Grease. All A capella! O, and You’re the Voice is good too.