Today we had lunch at the Suchada’s Thai Cuisine. I had the pork Pad Thai; extremely generous portions, pretty spicy, but no egg or lime wedges. We also had a cold summer roll appetizer with peanut sauce. They were good, but not as good as the ones we had at Pho Hoang’s in Federal Way.

After that we went to ShopKo and got Mario Strikers Charged (Wii), a second Nerf Maverick, 30 extra darts, and Jenga (I got hooked playing it at AU — had to get my own set). Of course, when we got home, a massive Nerf battle ensued. It was awesome. Like Hot Fuzz, but with foam and suction cups. I really like the new Maverick colors. The arsenal:

Mario Strikers Charged is kinda like Super Monkey Ball soccer, but with better controls and more features. Jones got it for his Wii a while back but I got the impression from his comments that it was just “okay.” (Maybe that was his well-known tendency for understatement at work.) Personally, I think it’s fantastic. I played through the lessons, won the Fire Cup, did best-of-three against someone named “sparky” via the WiFi connection, and, after running back to ShopKo for a second Nunchuk attachment, played a few games against Brett. (He won them all, but the margins were thin). BTW, if anyone wants to go head-to-head with me in MSC, my friend code is 090306 573436.

(If you’re not into Greg Egan or Transhuman Space, skip this section.) I was flipping through Axiomatic a couple days ago and came across this passage about uploading that I really liked. It’s not germane to anything in this post, but I wanted to share it anyway:

The argument was so familiar that I could run through it all in my head, without even waking her.
LORAINE: I don’t want to be imitated by a computer after I’m dead. What use would that be to me?
DAVID: Don’t knock imitation — life consists of imitation. Every organ in your body is constantly being rebuilt in its own image. Every cell that divides is dying and replacing itself with imposters. Your body doesn’t contain a single atom you were born with — so what gives you your identity? It’s a pattern of information, not a physical thing. And if a computer started imitating your body — instead of your body imitating itself — the only real difference would be that the computer would make fewer mistakes.

It’s funny how the best arguments for uploading are usually also arguments for nihilism… most of them, if you dig down a bit, seem to go: “Nothing has inherent value (or really matters anyway) so why not do what’s easy and comfortable?” I don’t like that. There must be some way to reconcile a (personal) pro-uploading stance with the belief that life has value.

Anyway. Sean, my oldest friend, is going to be in Pullman this weekend — we’ll have to get him to play some MSC.

Worked out 10/1.

Okay, first some food pics that were on my camera from last week:

On the left, vegetarian stroganoff with buffalo wings. Not a natural combination, but it’s what I was in the mood for. On the right, some of the best American trailer park cuisine available — Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper. Good stuff.

Man, I love autumn. It’s nice and chilly outside (53°F) and just a little bit damp. My ideal weather. Finally, I can wear my favorite hoodie and drink hot tea comfortably again (I’m having oolong right now). ‘Course, Pasco’s not really there yet. But Pullman’s nice.

My contract with DreamHost will be up in about a week. I dunno if I’m going to stay with them. My site’s uptime has been lousy for the past four or five months (hovering around 96.7%, according to Pingdom) and despite my frequent complaints to the support staff, nothing’s been done to fix the server I was on. I’d say, “My site’s down again. This is a recurring problem, check my previous support tickets.” And they’d reply, “I restarted the server. We’ll look into it.” But nothing changed. Here’s a quick snapshot of the stats from last week (which was better than usual), omitting the 30th since that downtime actually had a legitimate cause:

Pathetic, right? Anyway, on Sunday I talked to one tech that admitted virgil (my old server) has been “plagued with problems” (his words) and said I’d probably see better performance on another server. So now my six domains have been moved to abbazaba. Hopefully it’s more stable.

Some pics from game night at Adventures Underground:

Lotta fun. We played Jenga, Bang! (which, aside from the crazy Italian picto-algebra, is pretty fun), Scrabble, Carcassonne (two base sets plus the Princess and the Dragon expansion), and Super Munchkin.

Last week’s Family Guy premiere (an hour-long Star Wars Episode IV parody) was awesome with a few exceptions. Like, I have to agree with this /co/mmenter’s sentiment:

It’s nice having TV back. The Office season premiere was awesome. Can’t wait for 30 Rock and South Park this week.

Oh yeah, I have a new rule for my blogroll: If you can’t post at least once every two months, you’re off the list.

I’ve been meaning to blog, but it’s easier to put off when I’m on my laptop. I was in the Tri-Cities for five days. Payroll, Metron patches, print server, yadda yadda. Got back last night. Got a bunch of comics while I was over there — KoDT #119-125, Walking Dead vol. 7, some 100 Bullets TPBs (it gets much better in vol. 2), The Goon vol. 2-4, and some miscellaneous stuff (Wormwood, Albion, various zombie comics).

I’ll make a more detailed post later on, but for now I’ll just note that: (a) Thursday night’s gaming at AU was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, (b) Jonathan Coulton’s Creepy Doll is an awesome song, and (c) LeBron James really stunk up the SNL season premiere.

Edit: Worked out 9/23.