You know you've spent a little too much time on the Internet when you're in Maui, taking pictures of a beautiful Sea Turtle, and the first thing you think is, "Oh man, I can't wait to LOLCat this when I get home!"
This, my friends, is how my damaged brain works.
I'm still on island time, both literally and emotionally, though I'm steadily working my way back into the whole real life thing, knocking down the towering To Do list that built up while I was gone.
It's so hard to get motivated to sit down and work, when what I really want to do is play frisbee with Nolan, swim with Ryan, and snorkel with Anne. Since this was the first long distance family vacation we've taken in several years, I'm willing to grant myself a couple of days to get ease back into real life . . . of course, eating pineapple with breakfast, having a peanut butter and guava jelly sandwich while drinking Pog, and listening to Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Arthur Lyman while I do my Propelling is making the transition a little less jarring.
A couple of quick notes before I head downtown to meet some friends for lunch (talk about a jarring return to real life!):
Some people I used to work for at PokerStars have started a new online poker site called Fleet Street Games. It's got Mac, Windows, and Linux clients (a Linux client! How cool is that?!) and is in a free beta right now. I played in -- and won -- a $150 freeroll tourney last night. SHIP IT!
I called Creation this morning to find out, once and for all, if I was persona non grata or persona we're coola, and if they were intersted in having me come to the Vegas convention or not. It turns out that my e-mails were going to people who are no longer with the company. The girl I spoke with this morning seemed very interested in bringing me out to the show, and though it would unprofessional to talk too much about the contents of our conversation, I felt that it was very positive and there's a pretty good chance that I will end up being at the Big Honkin' Vegas Convention this year after all. More details to come later.
I tried not to follow the news too closely while I was on vacation, but I care deeply about Bush's domestic spying operation, and the efforts of idiots like Steny Hoyer to defy his constituents and give AT&T retroactive amnesty for breaking the law and helping Bush spy on innocent Americans without a warrant. I'm pretty disgusted with the Democratic leadership in the House for caving in to Mister 28%, but I'm positively appalled that Barack Obama has been effectively silent (other than a weak and intelligence-insulting statement) on the entire debate. I commented at DailyKos:
Wouldn't it be awesome if a senator who had expressed non-ambiguous opposition to the Protect AT&T act in the past joined in the filibuster against it?
Wouldn't it be even more awesome if the vast majority of that senator's base -- oh hell, forget the base, let's open it up to the vast majority of all Americans -- opposed amnesty for law-breaking telcos and expanded spying powers for the White House, making this a slam dunk win for that senator, giving him a chance to show some serious leadership?
Oh! Oh! Oh! And wouldn't it be the most awesome EVER if that senator was running for president, and could use this issue to show Americans that he was seriously committed to changing the way things happen in Washington?!
Yeah, that sure sounds like a perfect dream scenario, doesn't it?
Oh well. A guy can dream. Yeah . . . a guy can dream.
I'm really, really tan. I've actively avoided being in the sun for the last several years, but it was pretty much impossible to do that while I was in Hawaii. I don't think I've been this tanned since I was a teenager. Rawr.
People Magazine put out one of those "Where are they now?" issues about kid actors who are all grown up now. I didn't want to participate, because I usually get ratfucked by the media in things like this, but since they were going to include me anyway, I decided that it was worth the risk to talk with them and hope for the best. The issue came out this week, and we saw it at the grocery store yesterday. I was very surprised that it was really positive and -- get ready for the shocker of all shockers -- accurate. They talked about how much I love being a dad, and how important Ryan and Nolan are to me. Anne showed it to Ryan, who was adorably excited to see that he was mentioned in the article.
I'm going to play the hell out of Descent this afternoon and tonight.
Yesterday, I Rickrolled 12000 people. All of them, as far as I can tell, took it in good humor. And no, Internet, Rickrolling will NEVER get old.
Twitter is riding the failwhale to failtown. I love Twitter, and watching it die a slow death is breaking my heart. Now that replies and tracking are down, what's the point?
You know what would be awesome? A real life Rickroll: you go to a concert, expecting to see a particular band, but when the lights come down, holy shit there's Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up on stage FOR REAL. Just the one song, then the band you were there to see comes out.
I have to go to the dentist tomorrow.
I've run out of interesting things to say.