Video Games, Bicycles and Gardens
May. 24th, 2004 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI did not get much sleep this weekend. My fault entirely; I stayed up far too late playing Tron. I'm on the thirteenth of sixteen adventures. I've even been inside the PDA, and yes, it's small. Did you know that the PalmOS is decidedly feminine? Oh, and y'know what's music to my ears? Hearing the Japanese CD say, "This is the end of unit 26." Huzzah! I can now ask for directions to my friend's house and still get lost.
Omaha and I tried to play Warcraft 3 this weekend since I found a cheap copy for ten bucks a couple of months ago and she got one free from her days as a video game reviewer. It was pretty fun; the graphics are neat but the rules are similar enough to Warcraft 2 that once I figured out what characters represented what in the new version I proceeded to kick her butt pretty thoroughly. I just seem to have a natural knack for those sorts of things. We also played with repeatedly clicking on the characters until they become annoyed. "Me not that kind of Orc!" one shouts. But the absolute most hilarious one was the Troll Witch Doctor, which had not just a quote but an entire scene from Troll Iron Chef hidden in it as a cookie. Omaha just about collapsed with laughter when she heard it.
We spent most of the weekend at home, saving our money and doing the household things that needed doing. The garden needed work, mostly, although I did get onto building a storage box for the retaining wall supplies until we can find the guy who owes us our last 23 bricks and demand he turn them over or pay us back. Grr... Omaha weeded and pulled out blackberries along the entire West side of the front lawn. Set and Osiris, but that's a huge job. She also spent hours with the big shears chopping up branches into smaller segments fit for the composting bin.
Satudary, Omaha and I decided, after lunch, to take Kouryou-chan out for a ride on the bicycles, since we had the new trail-a-bike thingy. I hooked it up to the back of mine, since putting up to Omaha's would be a pain in the neck. We all got helmets on and off we rode, Kouryou-chan just riding behind me. The trail-a-bike is basically an extension of the bicycle, with it's own seat, a "bicycle built for two" that can be detached if you're not using it. We rode around the neighborhood while eyeing the sky suspiciously; it looked like it could rain at any moment. We rode out to the fire station and then around the woods behind my house, finally coming in through the back trail. Kouryou-chan thought that was great fun. "Go faster daddy!" she shouted as we came down a hill. Uh, no. Being new to this trailer thing, I decided to take it carefully. She was great, though, holding on to the handle bars and enjoying the ride thoroughly. And, y'know, I'm not in as bad a shape as I think.
We had an ordinary dinner of pizza, played a round of Chutes and Ladders with her (was ever a more annoying game invented? It makes Candyland look like Brawl in its speed and stimuli!), watched some TV and then the family went off to bed. Or rather, they did. I, foolishly, slapped Tron into the CD-ROM drive. "Oh, I'll just play one round." Unknown rounds later, around 3 am, I headed to bed. Just in time to find Kouryou-chan stumbling about the house. Apparently, she'd been roused by the need to use the loo, and then heard me downstairs and was coming to find me. I'm glad she didn't try to navigate the stairs in the dark.
Sunday we did more of the same when a friend of ours from California, Brian D., came up and hung out with us. Domesticity isn't pretty at all, so he got to sit around and enjoy it. It felt like a horror film: Listen as we do the weekly budget adjustments, watch as Omaha weeds the front flowerbeds, smell as I work on the composting bin, feel Kouryou-chan's strength as she runs into you headfirst-- and her height puts said head at groin level for tall people like me! Brian helped me haul the constructed refuse bin back to the old refuse pile (once a wood pile, now just trashed). Stand back, I have power tools!
He was so gracious and kind, and we all went out to dinner at the Claimjumper. That place brought a lot of food. First the appetizer was, by itself, a meal for four, and then I ordered their big burger slathered in avocado. I could barely eat half of it before I felt full, and pushed it aside. Omaha surprised me with a steak, which she didn't finish either. None of us actually cleaned our plates. Kouryou-chan, to our surprise, eight a whole thing of chicken strips and still wanted a brownie, but she skipped the fries. We gave her one. We offered Brian the guest bed but he wanted to sleep in; a house that comes alive at 6:00AM was too early for him, so he wandered off in search of a motel. We all went straight to bed.
Omaha and I tried to play Warcraft 3 this weekend since I found a cheap copy for ten bucks a couple of months ago and she got one free from her days as a video game reviewer. It was pretty fun; the graphics are neat but the rules are similar enough to Warcraft 2 that once I figured out what characters represented what in the new version I proceeded to kick her butt pretty thoroughly. I just seem to have a natural knack for those sorts of things. We also played with repeatedly clicking on the characters until they become annoyed. "Me not that kind of Orc!" one shouts. But the absolute most hilarious one was the Troll Witch Doctor, which had not just a quote but an entire scene from Troll Iron Chef hidden in it as a cookie. Omaha just about collapsed with laughter when she heard it.
We spent most of the weekend at home, saving our money and doing the household things that needed doing. The garden needed work, mostly, although I did get onto building a storage box for the retaining wall supplies until we can find the guy who owes us our last 23 bricks and demand he turn them over or pay us back. Grr... Omaha weeded and pulled out blackberries along the entire West side of the front lawn. Set and Osiris, but that's a huge job. She also spent hours with the big shears chopping up branches into smaller segments fit for the composting bin.
Satudary, Omaha and I decided, after lunch, to take Kouryou-chan out for a ride on the bicycles, since we had the new trail-a-bike thingy. I hooked it up to the back of mine, since putting up to Omaha's would be a pain in the neck. We all got helmets on and off we rode, Kouryou-chan just riding behind me. The trail-a-bike is basically an extension of the bicycle, with it's own seat, a "bicycle built for two" that can be detached if you're not using it. We rode around the neighborhood while eyeing the sky suspiciously; it looked like it could rain at any moment. We rode out to the fire station and then around the woods behind my house, finally coming in through the back trail. Kouryou-chan thought that was great fun. "Go faster daddy!" she shouted as we came down a hill. Uh, no. Being new to this trailer thing, I decided to take it carefully. She was great, though, holding on to the handle bars and enjoying the ride thoroughly. And, y'know, I'm not in as bad a shape as I think.
We had an ordinary dinner of pizza, played a round of Chutes and Ladders with her (was ever a more annoying game invented? It makes Candyland look like Brawl in its speed and stimuli!), watched some TV and then the family went off to bed. Or rather, they did. I, foolishly, slapped Tron into the CD-ROM drive. "Oh, I'll just play one round." Unknown rounds later, around 3 am, I headed to bed. Just in time to find Kouryou-chan stumbling about the house. Apparently, she'd been roused by the need to use the loo, and then heard me downstairs and was coming to find me. I'm glad she didn't try to navigate the stairs in the dark.
Sunday we did more of the same when a friend of ours from California, Brian D., came up and hung out with us. Domesticity isn't pretty at all, so he got to sit around and enjoy it. It felt like a horror film: Listen as we do the weekly budget adjustments, watch as Omaha weeds the front flowerbeds, smell as I work on the composting bin, feel Kouryou-chan's strength as she runs into you headfirst-- and her height puts said head at groin level for tall people like me! Brian helped me haul the constructed refuse bin back to the old refuse pile (once a wood pile, now just trashed). Stand back, I have power tools!
He was so gracious and kind, and we all went out to dinner at the Claimjumper. That place brought a lot of food. First the appetizer was, by itself, a meal for four, and then I ordered their big burger slathered in avocado. I could barely eat half of it before I felt full, and pushed it aside. Omaha surprised me with a steak, which she didn't finish either. None of us actually cleaned our plates. Kouryou-chan, to our surprise, eight a whole thing of chicken strips and still wanted a brownie, but she skipped the fries. We gave her one. We offered Brian the guest bed but he wanted to sleep in; a house that comes alive at 6:00AM was too early for him, so he wandered off in search of a motel. We all went straight to bed.
