I wouldn’t recommend posting to your blog from your wii when drunk. It’s a total bitch when sober.

ps: first wii post woo.

Where have I been, this time? I’m… uh… addicted to Phoenix Wright.

Totally addicted.

There’s a light at the end of my tunnel, as I’m halfway through the fifth and final case. There’s impending darkness beyond the light, however, in that Phoenix Wright: Justice for All is scheduled to be released early next year. I’m going to have to be careful about that, lest another week of my life disappear.

Today we discovered that there are no smoke detectors in my office. Here’s a protip, courtesy of Billie: do not, under any circumstances, put a Hot Pocket in the microwave, hit the “infinity” time button (99:99 should be a close enough approximation), and then forgot about it. Especially do not do so in a hermetically sealed office.

And never be dumb enough to do something like that when Brent can laugh at you. Because he will. A lot. Your dignity and the microwave will join the carbonized Hot Pocket as casualties of your absentmindedness.

My boss had a more measured response: first priority to vent the smoke; second priority to make sure the perp got a new microwave before lunch tomorrow—on the company dime, mind you. That’s “the cost of doing business.” (I can’t help but grin every time I think about this bizarre event being a cost of doing business. Dang.)

[Everybody suffered. It was quite horrible, actually; you could see the smoke throughout the office, though the bulk of it was obviously centralized in the break room. (Think the extreme end of smokey bar.) More than one person was coughing the rest of the time I was there.]

The last laugh was on me, despite my enjoyment of the absurdity of the situation: I had a meeting to attend, and so couldn’t flee the smoke. Consequently, my clothes and hair stunk to high hell by the time I got home.

That’s a high price for humor.

This sort of break from blogging is exactly why I didn’t join NaBloPoMo. Had I been forced to write something every day during this break, my entries would look something like:

13 November: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH

14 November: GYAAAAAA

15 November: MY EYES!!!

16 November: GUUUUNNNDDAAAMMMNNN

17 November: I’ve been looking things over, and if I hemorrhaged blood like I think I am hemorrhaging money… I’d be dead.

18 November: zzz

19 November: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

…And so on…

I do appreciate the idea of NaBloPoMo—after all, I did start this thing to note things for the benefit of my future self (and I already have enjoyed looking back on what I’ve written in the past)—but I really needed to get my affairs in order. The mess that was my desk was a constant thorn in the side of my psyche, my apartment was once again falling into shambles, and I was horribly short sleep (entirely my fault). But those things are mostly dealt with now, and I feel a lot better about life.

Of course, there was some fun to be had as well; I’ll get to that in a bit.

Overheard while at Amanda’s birthday party (warning: eeew, gross! ahead). Use your imagination for maximum hilarity:

Story One: a girl these gals knew had a cat. The gal had just peed, and (because the TP roll was empty?) had to stand up to scavenge a new roll. Meanwhile, her cat jumped onto the toilet. Apparently the cat expected the lid to be down, because the cat fell in.

Word was that the cat was so disgusted that it allowed the girl to give it a bath without any fuss whatsoever.

…

Story Two: this same girl’s old boyfriend used to work at the First Alternative Co-Op, and one day accidentally mixed instant and regular (?—I didn’t know there was a difference) oatmeal together. They didn’t care to eat it, but figured that it might make decent kitty litter. So, the next time they needed to swap the litter, they tried the New Brand.

When the cat next peed in the litter box, the heat of the urine cooked the oatmeal—which the cat then started eating.

So says Frankie Manning, one of the creators of the Lindy Hop.

Yes: I have finally taken a lindy hop lesson from Frankie Manning. The guy’s ninety-two years old, and is pretty much just awesome incarnate. Every year he stops by OSU, every year the OSU ballroom dance types say “you should come; he’s not going to be around forever!,” every year I found some reason not to attend. (Most related around the fact that I knew jimmy-jack about lindy hop.) Not this time! I did take a lindy course a few years ago, but I’ve forgotten almost all of it—but this year Frankie taught a free beginner’s class, so I finally hopped on board. I should get a dance merit badge or something.

…

Most of the week I spent halfway-ill; not worth talking about. By Friday I was feeling better, and so attended Britta’s monthly Game Night. Attendees: Britta, Daniel, Jean, Janis, Matt, The Boy (as labeled by Jean), and Britta’s boyfriend whose name now eludes me. We played two games: a card game whose name I’ve already forgotten (damn memory), and whose rules were all but incomprehensible, and chinese checkers.

Though C.C. began innocuously enough, it soon became apparent that Daniel and I were the ones in a race to the finish. Sometime in the middle of the game, two of Matt’s friends stopped by—and one of them noticed that I had the single most-awesome move ever available to me. Upon being alerted that I had such a move, I figured it out for myself: I could take one of my pieces that was still in my starting triangle and literally walk it around the edge of the board to a position in my destination triangle. One-move finishing-combo. Wow.

Britta then thought she cut that off by moving one of her pieces back, failing to notice that I could short-circuit her blockade. I got two pieces sent to their destination that way, which clearly put me ahead.

Matt, realizing that he didn’t have a chance, decided to move a piece into Britta’s destination to thwart her attempts to win. This started an ugly cascade, where Britta blocked me, and I blocked someone else. Problem was, nobody could block Daniel.

Janis then singlehandedly pulled the sweetest cheat of the game, by moving her piece, waving her hands, and magically blocking Daniel. Apparently nobody but I noticed this (she was close—she just wasn’t close enough), so we played on for a while longer before Janis gave up the ghost.

Good times.

…

Saturday I joined Kevin and Nate in breaking in two-player mode in Guitar Hero II. I’m not absolutely thrilled with the two-player mechanic: if you play cooperatively, then one person gets saddled with the bass (generally a more boring set of notes, whose really challenge is not falling asleep when your pattern actually does change); if you play competitively, you either trade off sections (and therefore have long quiet periods), or play the same notes at the same time—at the same difficulty level.

That said, having two people playing at once is certainly better than having two people sit out all the time.

…

This morning I took advantage of the paucity of information surrounding the second (!) Toys-R-Us Wii preorder window, and was fifth in line to preorder a Wii. (That’s right—I have a Wii-order.) One week until we see if I really needed to go to that trouble; I still can’t tell if people will be able to walk into any store on launch day and get a Wii, or if they’re going to be sold out all but instantaneously.

Two girls, an indeterminate number of floors below me, are (get this) not wearing any shirts!

…

This just in: these girls have apparently talked one of the guys present with them into taking his shirt off, as well. I predict sexy consequences!