Well, how about we take an ol' whack at the blog again, shall we?

I just got back from a Kina Grannis concert with Swood. It's his birthday. She's pretty good. I think I've said before that I don't usually enjoy female singers as much as male ones. I'm not sure why that is, but most of the female singers I do like, are among my favorites. Part of what makes Kina good is that she's adorable. I think if I just bought a disk of hers without seeing her on tour (or online), I wouldn't enjoy her singing as much.

July 7th marked my second year at Microsoft, so kudos to me. The granola kind, preferably. Why does "preferably" not have a double-r? I hear all the full-time employees at Microsoft get a free Windows 7 Phone when they come out, and a slate after that. I'm looking forward to those.

I started playing StarCraft II after I swore I probably wouldn't buy it. I've been playing with a new friend from church, Luke (so named because he's getting his doctorate). I first met him at the PCEC retreat last February, but we didn't really get to know each other until we started meeting on a weekly basis to talk and pray for each other. He and I had been playing a protoss/terran combination, but the added rock-paper-scissory didn't compensate for the his terran-protoss skill gap, so we switched to two protoss. For a while we just played against computers, and got used to how best complement our strengths. When we moved into the 2v2 bracket, we won two out of five and were placed in a bronze bracket, where we seem to be doing fairly well (better than 50% win rate).

Today I finished my last 1v1 placement match, winning three or four of five, placing me incorrectly in a gold bracket. I'm just going to have to wince and take gold ranked beatings for a while until it moves me down into silver, where I think I should be playing.

It's such a complex game. Like, I don't even think at the same level as a lot of people who play. I don't really scout because I wouldn't know what to look for. I pretty much always have a few skirmishes with the beginner ground units and then mass void rays, and then one way or another the game ends. I could look to see if they have detectors in their base (though, you can't tell with a probe if you're playing against a protoss, though I suppose you could look for the robotics facility), but I just don't think to, and I doubt I'd go dark templars if I did. Maybe dark templars and void rays. The key though is always void rays.

I was noticing while playing through the StarCraft campaign how the combination of hair color and style play at my book-cover impressions of girls. Sarah Kerrigan's pre-zerg hairstyle is super attractive to me and always has been, but I'm realizing it has to do with the color of the hair as well. If it's red and ponytailed holding the hair up, I tend to think she's smart and cute; blond is ditzy but fun; light brown is earthy (and perhaps the most attractive to me); deep brunette for some reason I can't picture; and black almost says dominatrix (reminds me of Lady Deathstrike in X-Men 3). I wonder where I came up with these notions. If it's just gathered at the bottom in a ponytail, none of this applies. Weird. Now I kind of want to play the Sims to see what a brunette with this hairstyle would look like.

It seems I'm still the utmost authority on the web of the ISCFP interview experience. Another person, Vicki, found this blog and asked me what it was like. Unfortunately, it's been such a long time since I did it I couldn't help her much. Also, when I did it, they'd given us a group problem to solve. We each came with our own ideas on it, and then sort of combined them. They've since changed it so that they aren't told the question ahead of time. Her interview is on Monday. I'm worried though, because she can't spell and thinks there's a 'p' in 'thanks.' Besides, bad spelling can lead to indecent thoughts. Observe:

I got the interview
Congrats!
spanx

Don't mind if I do.

There's a bunch of other things that have happened lately. It's 2:30 so I'm going to cut this short. In June, Marvel got a job as a vendor at Microsoft, and had planned on commuting from Tacoma each day until he found a place. I said screw that and gave him my spare room while he looked. A week or two in, we just decided it'd be easier for both of us if he stayed. The help with rent is nice, plus I do like having someone else around. He and I went through the West Wing faster than (I know, I know, I caved and watched it again) I've ever watched it before. Now we've moved onto How I Met Your Mother. We'd hoped to catch all the way up before Monday's premier, but seeing as how season 5 doesn't come out on disk until Monday, that seems difficult. We're almost done with season 4 though, which I think is quite an accomplishment if tv watching can be considered a feat.

I volunteered again at Fir Creek in July. It was fun, and a bit different. I'm not sure if that's because Hime wasn't there this year, or that some of the novelty was gone or what. I also don't feel like I got to know the counselors as well this time. It's hard to believe that last year was only a week. I think what I missed most was Sharpeedo and Snorlax. This year was good too though. Monkey ran the woods zone. It was a very, very different experience than it was with Hime. He had the kids build a super stable bridge out of sticks across the creek. There were a couple great new guys I met. One is attending MIT and was a bit of a role model for me, which is cool considering he's a couple years my junior. Another is aspiring to be a stand-up comedian. I offered him the few bits I've written, but he said he thinks only I could pull them off. I know for certain I could not pull them off. I can't even pull off a knock-knock joke. I see the punchline in my head, and dyslexitize it. Since I'm not going to pursue a career in that field (though at times it has appealed to me), I figure I'll give you a taste of what you're not going to miss.

Cash
I don't carry cash on me anymore. Plastic is just way too convenient. You know who does carry cash on them though: murderers. Ever watch Law & Order, and they have the murder weapon and trace it back to where it was bought? They always ask, do you have a credit card number? No! They paid with cash. I was in New York a little while ago for my nephew's birthday party. His sister had bought him a goldfish, so I was going to get him a fish bowl. I went up to the register with the bowl and pulled out a twenty. The guy leaned in and said, "Dude, we've got some heavier bowls in the back. This one will shatter before it does any real damage."

HOV Lane
I'm a fan of the HOV lane. That lane is sacred, isn't it? On some of the older freeways they have it on the right side of the road. I guess they put it as the slow lane because think that the most common carpoolers have kids and will want to go slower? Not the case. Anyway one night I was staying in a hotel that overlooked one of these freeways. I happened to look down and I saw this guy push a dead body out of his car into a ditch. It was dark and he didn't see that there was a policeman behind him, who turned on his lights and pulled him over. The cop gave the guy a ticket for no longer having a carpool and drove off.

The second one needs to be shorter. The hardest part of writing a joke is keeping the backstory short enough, though, it can be longer as long as there are warm up jokes along the way.

Last Saturday I bought a new violin. It's beautiful in both sight and sound. I tried every violin within and slightly above my price range in the store. None of them were close. A few of them sounded good when played by Nikkie, who was helping me look, but I didn't like them as much. This one was about a thousand dollars more than I wanted to spend, but when you're getting something that will probably last you the rest of your life, it's good to get one you love. I'd never realized how passionate I am about playing the violin. I knew a surprising amount about what makes a violin good, and how depending on how it's treated, it'll either get better with age or fall apart completely. It was enough, anyway, to impress my counselor. I wonder if I should get good(ish) again and join an orchestra or something. The only thing is I don't like playing it past around 9:00 because of my neighbors. I also don't much like playing when I have a roommate around, just as a courtesy I guess. I really want to a buy a house. The violin put me back a bit, but I think it was worth it. I also won't be buying a house in the next 11 months, so it hardly matters.

Alright, really going to bed now.