Weird things happen from time to time.  Recently, the blog has had some weirdness in that I lost several posts that I’d done and published and there’s this strange character showing up in old posts - like an ASCII character that’s showing up because it found something strange that it didn’t like.

Not sure what that’s all about or how to fix it.

~P

Day four started just about the same as Day Three - I overslept.

I have an alarm on my iPhone that’s set for daily - I forgot that doesn’t include Saturday - it’s just Monday through Friday, so it never actually went off this day.

D’oh.

I had people calling me early though, so I was able to get up and get going, just not quickly.

I wanted food - people were busy doing stuff, so I went by myself.  Also, I had a mission.  It was at the end of this:

I’m talking about Downtown Disney.  See, Disney now has not only Disneyland and the California Adventure theme parks, they also have their own little downtown area complete with shops and restaurants.  I needed to hit the Disney store in that area to pick up something for my mom.  I’d asked her if there was anything I could bring her from Disney and she originally said ‘no’.  Then, -after- I’d visited the park and was well into the convention, she called and said she wouldn’t mind some ear rings if it wasn’t too much trouble.

Sigh.

So, being a good son, I walked to the Disney store and got her some ear rings.  While there, I also picked up a new hat for myself, which I wore for the rest of the convention.

I forgot to mention it but on the first day of the con, I met the cast of The Guild.  They were awesome people, very kind.  I got a special piece of art that had been done for them, and they each signed it.  Well, the second day, they were having their own panel at the con - I really wanted to see that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to - there was a line like no other line to get into the room.  So I wandered some more, hooked up with Hukari and hit some of the other panels.  Eventually, we met up with the rest of The Monkeys and did a little gaming while the concert was going on.

It was the first time I’d ever played Diablo and I have to admit, I really liked it.  It was Diablo 3, the new game on the horizon in that franchise.  We played through twice - you got fifteen minutes and could be networked with 4 other players - it was really, really fun.

Here’s some photos from the day:

After dinner and a particularly fantastic rant on star wars by Brian (in the photo above, he’s in the back left, no hair), there was more hanging out and partying into the wee hours of the night, then everyone started to trickle out.  I was tired, sore and ready for bed, so I headed back to my hotel room and crashed for the night.

Blizzcon was over.

I was trying to figure out what it was all about, this Blizzcon thing.  I made a joke: “I figured out what Blizzcon is all about.  You spend close to $1,000 to take a trip to stand in line for 5 and 1/2 hours so you can buy a $20 shirt.”  It didn’t go over well.

But that’s not what it’s all about anyway.  I did figure it out.  It’s about people.  Good people, good friends, hanging out and talking about the stuff they all share and enjoy in common with each other.

What this meant for me was that I found myself energized for gaming again.  I was really interested in the panels for the World of Warcraft and the changes they’re making and plans for the future that they discussed.  I really enjoyed playing Diablo 3 and thought about picking up the first two (which I did when I got back - can’t play the first one though, it wants OS 9 and I don’t have that).  To top it off, I was itching to rp in WoW again, something I haven’t been interested in for about a year now.

The Drunken Monkey Brewery is filled with fantastic people.  All guilds should take a page out of their book.  When it comes to people getting along and surving for the long haul, they know what they’re doing.

The next day, I got up and flew back to Denver.

~P

Day Two dawned slowly…

I really didn’t want to wake up early, and yet, I did.  We had plans.  Plans of planned things.  Plans of things to do and be done.  So, I woke up, showered and shaved and headed out for the day.

First up: BREAKFAST WITH MONKEYS!

After breakfast, Disneyland!  I admit, I failed at taking photos on this vacation.  I took a few here and there, but nowhere near as many as I have in, say, Rocky Mountain National Park.  Here’s some good ones:

Candice and Brent (Xynth and Trogbob shown in the first photo), were kind enough to play tour guide for me and take me through the ‘new and improved’ Disneyland.  I say ‘new and improved’ because they’ve changed some stuff: specifically cool is the fast pass.  You can get a fast pass every so often that allows you to cut in line on certain rides.  So, if a ride has a one hour line, you can get a fast pass, come back between a certain time and cut right up to the front.  It’s pretty slick.

In no particular order, we rode: The Submarine ride, Space Mountain, the old railroad roller coaster whose name escapes me, Pirates of the Caribbean, the ‘Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Xmas’ version of the Haunted Mansion, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, Star Tours & The Indiana Jones Ride.  Lunch was had in tomorrow land.  In the California Adventure, we rode one ride: Monster’s Inc.

Then I got a call from Sharra and Andy, who were in town and wanting to meet for dinner.  I made plans to meet them in a couple of hours.

We left the amusement parks and headed to the convention center, which was on our way back to our respective hotels.  We had the thought that we’d pick up our passes and goodie bags.  We were walking along when Brent decided that he was tired of the heat and opened a door to the convention center.  We followed him inside, past a security guard and up to the check in areas which were broken up alphabetically.  I lost Brent and Candice, but got my stuff.  I headed back the way we came in and ran into Shara and Andy, who were excited to see me and asked how long it took to get my stuff.

“About ten minutes,” I replied, then headed to my room for a shower.

Little did I know - we snuck in!  We totally bypassed a line that was wrapped around the OTHER side of the convention center!!

>.<  D’oh!

Anyway, after they were done with the line *cough*, Sharra and Andy met me for dinner:

Following dinner, we met up with the Monkeys once again for some partyness:

There were a few more people behind me, I didn’t get them in the photo - dangit.  People like Pazo.  Ah well.

It was very late when I left that party and made my way back to my trick hotel room door.  I was tired, I was sore, hot, miserable - my feet weren’t doing so well in those shoes, but I realized that I hadn’t even so much as peaked in my goodie bag yet.  SO, I decided to take a look.

Talk about a haul!  My god - there was a ton of stuff in that bag!  Here’s the short list: Warcraft Comic, Inflatable Bubble Hearth, Trading Card Game, Forsaken Mask, Mousepad, Figureprints Horde Necklace, Starcraft mini game & Warcraft Postcard.  There’s more, it’s just too much to list.

After I checked all of that out, I filled the tub with hot water to soak my aching feet, and eventually made it to bed and some sleep.

Tomorrow: Blizzcon.

~P

So, I admit, I’m a little behind on this one.

Taliesin, by Stephen R. Lawhead, was released in 1990, but I only recently picked it up on a visit to Barnes & Noble when I was looking for something to take with me on my trip to California.  I wanted something different to read on the flight despite the fact that I’ve got a few books piled up here at the house.

I’ve got another Lawhead book, “Hood”, that I haven’t cracked open yet but it’s in a larger format and I wanted something easily carried on the plane, so, this one caught my eye.

I’ve always been a sucker for King Arthur, and Lawhead’s take is pretty cool.

This is just the beginning of his version of the saga, and it focuses on two Kingdoms: one of Atlantis, one of the Cymry.  On Atlantis, Charis wants more.  She’s bored.  She wants to travel, to see and do things that her brothers, Princes of the Realm, get to do all the time.  It’s not easy being the only daughter of an Atlantean King.

Across the pond, Elphin is the unluckiest man in his father’s Kingdom.  So unlucky, in fact, that most of their people believe he’s cursed and as such, unfit to rule when his Father steps down.  In a last ditch effort to secure his son’s future, the King sends Elphin to retrieve the salmon haul for the year to prove that he is not cursed to bad luck.  No salmon come due to snow, but Elphin does find a baby and brings him back to his family, naming him Taliesin and calling him ’son’.

From there we see two stories unfolding; we follow Charis on her journey from child to woman as she has to deal with war, death and the destruction of her homeland when Atlantis sinks into the ocean, and we see Elphin transformed from unluckiest man in his homeland to the King who leads his people in their darkest time.

I really liked this book.  Lawhead paints an epic picture of two worlds slowly colliding with each other.  The main characters take very different paths to get through it all.  They’re flawed and damaged by the time Charis and Taliesin meet.

You can see elements of the Arthurian Legend we all know, woven throughout this first tale.  Almost like what we know is the watered down version of the story.  Lawhead is really good at telling the tale in such a way that it feels like this is what really happened, and the stories we know are the ones that have been modified throughout the centuries as they’re passed from generation to generation.

In the end, I think that’s what makes this a thoroughly enjoyable book.  It reminds me a little of the Jack Whyte books (The Skystone: Book One of The Camulod Chronicles), except that Taliesin has quite a bit of magic in it, where The Skystone did not (that I can recall).

If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up and give it a shot.

~P

(this never posted when I was actually riding around in the shuttle, so I’m gonna go ahead and put it up today.  I’ll post much, much more about the Blizzcon trip this week as time permits)

So.  I know there are lots of horror stories about people getting into car accidents because they were texting or talking on their phones, but I’ve never been particularly worried about it til now.

Driving in and around LAX seems difficult enough, but when your driver is leaned over the console with his phone in hand and constantly texting someone, even I start to worry.

From what I can tell, the shuttle busses and the people selling rides on them who stand by baggage claim, stay in touch via text.

Clever, but scary for the passenger, which is me today.

Plus, round and round the airport looking for fares with me sitting in the back of the bus/van isn’t helping.  In fact, it’s made me carsick for the first time in a really long freaking time.

CAN I GET OFF THIS RIDE NOW PLEASE?!

Bleh.

~P