Tycho Talk

My Alliance character, the paladin goat lady, is almost 85th level, which is the highest it gets (until the new expansion comes out). I wanted to get her something nice, so we've spent a lot of time and energy, but it has paid off and now I have a nifty dragon to ride. Whee!

It is fall. What a relief!

You might've heard that JD isn't working at NI any longer. He looked around, and in a very short amount of time found like what sounds like it could be his dream job- working on football video games for EA. My more cynical side is suspicious, but they offered him a good salary, they have tons of benefits, their offices close between Christmas and New Year's, and the campus is close to where he lives and a lot of deer graze there at night, based on our visit there a few evenings ago. He doesn't start for another week, so we've been hanging out a lot, which has been fun.

Playing WoW has been fun too. After deciding I wanted to try it out, I was able to talk JD and Brö and Tom into re-activating their accounts. It took some convincing, but I even got Eric to give it a shot- he'd avoided it, not wanting another time sink. But I figure it's just going to cut into our tv-watching time, which isn't a big loss. It's been fun talking about characters and strategies and whatall.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love singing in the UU choir? We're doing some Jewish pieces this Sunday for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They're in Hebrew, and we're doing one with the kids and another adults only with piano and cello accompaniment. That second one is beautiful, and difficult, and we're doing the kamikaze choir thing we do so well to get it up to speed. The translation of the song sounds so dry and the opposite of the musical tone of the piece, it's funny. It sounds like lawyer-ese boilerplate, but reading up on the holidays, it makes sense. Here is what we'll be singing:

Let all our vows and oaths, all the promises we make and the obligations we incur to You, O God, between this Yom Kippur and the next, be null and void should we, after honest effort, find ourselves unable to fulfill them. Then may we be absolved of them.

Amen. Tonight, Eric is going to attempt pressure-cooker stew, and he, Amanda, JD and I are going to eat it, watch the Thor Riff Trax, and have cupcakes for dessert. I am looking forward to that!

Things seem to have settled down a bit since I got back. The 100° days are in the past for now, I think; the mornings are wonderfully cool. The fires are mostly out- I know a few folks who've suffered directly, and plans are in motion to get them some help. I think we can exhale. And keep hoping for some rain.

JD and I went to the Aggie season opener last week; they beat SMU pretty badly. They're all stirred up because they're trying to leave the conference they belong to, and there's all sorts of drama there.

Our dumb governor seems to be making a pretty strong showing in his run for the presidency. I hope he does get the nomination; Romney is quite reasonable in comparison and I think he would have a good chance of pulling some of the more centrist votes away from Obama, but that wouldn't happen with Perry. It would continue the severe us versus them mentality that's been poisoning everything, though. Basically I think we're a plutocracy, the political system is owned by corporations, and that blows. I don't know what I want to do about it though.

I started playing World of Warcraft, because nerds talk about it, and you can start it for free, so why not. It's very good at making you feel like you're progressing and rewarding you, and I can see why people get sucked into it. I haven't decided if I'm going to start paying for it. I'd probably want at least a few real-life people I know to play with.

Eric is working on the bathroom. He just now decided that he wants to try to de-popcorn the ceiling, which we would like to do to the whole house, but it's a gigantic, messy pain in the ass. At least that's what we've heard; he's going to try this one little room and see how it goes. This, on top of tiling the floor (vinyl stick-on tile in there now), de-wallpapering, patching, priming and painting the walls, installing towel shelves and a new sink counter and sink assembly. There's going to be decorative tiles around the bathroom mirror, and a new light fixture too. This whole thing is a trial run for re-doing the master bathroom, which will involve most all of this plus replacing the tub with something nicer and re-doing the tile on the wall around it. We are also trying to think of something to do with the litter box which is in that bathtub; the internet has neat cabinet ideas but I'm not sure how doable that is for a number of reasons.

Tonight a mess of us are going to see my church choir director play in 2 different bands at an 80's night gig. Then tomorrow I'll be getting up super early so we can rehearse for our 9/11 services. We're doing a song from 'Requiem', which is fitting, but we're also doing a big ol' rendition of '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?' which I think is probably going to make this one of the more fitting 9/11 memorials that's going to happen. Services are at 9am and 10:30am if you want to attend.