I can't remember if I mentioned that I now have two (2) fans. I'm not entirely sure if either fan actually reads these entries, but then I kinda started writing just to have somewhere to collect random thoughts, you know, like a blog except that it's a Slashdot blog. I guess reading Penny Arcade made me jealous. I wish I could write such clever things. Tycho's descriptions of Italy are outright poetic. Of course, you have to be a geek to understand what he's talking about, but that seems to simply add flavor.

So on to updates, let's see, I've been back from Disneyland for a while now. I had a birthday. Woot! Now I'm 26. Strange how birthdays stopped meaning anything sometime while I was a teenager. I guess it was the realization that I could buy my own toys and no longer required gifts to accumulate stuff. I marked the occasion with a small gathering of friends (not organized by me.) Said gathering was used as an excuse to play several matches of Worms Armageddon. Blowing up stuff is fun.

I also took advantage of the occasion to go out and purchase Rise of Nations. Such a superb piece of software! I earned my gamer stripes on Civilization2 and Age of Empires, so a game that combines the two was bound to earn my respect and a hefty amount of my time. So far, I've only managed to play through one and a half random map games. Now that I've finished the book I was reading, I should be able to rectify that as soon as I get home tonight. At some point, I may even have to try my luck online. However, if I meet with an experience similar to Warcraft3, I may have to renounce playing online RTS games entirely.

I am going to the Third Eye Blind concert in two weeks! I have never been to Bricks (a private club for members!) so that will be a new experience for me. Hopefully better than the time I saw They Might Be Giants. That particular choice of venue must have been made by their accountant. I suppose a comment should be made regarding their latest album: Out of the Vein. Somehow, I doubt 3EB will ever equal the success they met with on their debut, but OotV is better than pretty much anything else on the radio. I realize that is not saying much, so let me say something that will possibly be more helpful: I consider it a good album, because I like most of the songs.

Just got back from Disneyland yesterday. If I wasn't so tired from all the driving, I'd say it was a perfect vacation. Three full days of being a kid again, topped off with visiting some close friends that I rarely get to see in person, made for a very enjoyable time (for those of us who are into good clean fun.)

I wonder sometimes what is wrong with my brain. If you remember the "Tragic Kingdom" album by No Doubt, the title track has a voice at the beginning that says something like, "Remain Seated Please...Permanecer Sentado Por Favor." In my warped mind, I always thought they'd either just made it up or taken it from an airplane. I knew that the title was a reference to Disneyland, but it wasn't until standing in line to ride the Matterhorn that I realized its true source. Imagine the amazement on my poor hick face, when I heard that voice saying those very words. Yup, I'm kinda dumb sometimes.

So anyway, I'm now even poorer than usual (in the financial sense.) It's funny how all those memories from when I was 11 popped into my head while I was walking around. Despite all the marketing those Disney execs do to get you in their park, buying their way-too-expensive stuff, I have to say that the feeling of nostalgia was in a sense rather magic, but then I am an emotional person working in a field of logic-minded Vulcans/Jedi; maybe I should keep those kinds of revelations locked deep inside to avoid inviting trolls.

One more thing: Star Tours. It's still there, and for us Star Wars junkies, it's still just as cool (albeit somewhat cheesy -- kinda like the movies.)

P.S. If you're thinking of going to California Adventures, I would instead recommend Knotsberry Farm or Magic Mountain. And, if this weekend was any kind of indicator, avoid trying to cross the border from Tijuana on a Sunday afternoon...

Well, I let my friend post a comment using my login. Lo and behold he gets modded up +4 Funny. I didn't particularly agree with the bone comment, but it did raise my karma from positive to good.

Apparently I've also been demoted to living in my mom's basement, lusting after Sarah Michelle Gellar. I made the mistake of addressing all the trolls who slam Buffy stories that are posted to Slashdot. You'd think I'd mocked their beloved Star Trek. :)

I wish I better understood the whole living-in-your-mom's-basement is an insult thing. I mean, what if it was your dad's? or your grandma's? What if you live in a basement apartment? In other countries, three or four generations continue to live under the same roof. I guess being wasteful (in general) and disrespectful of your ancestry (specifically) is just l33t or something. Maybe when I get older I'll understand...

I finally broke down last night and paid for XBox Live. I'd been hearing so much about it and had enjoyed a couple of my games which were Live-compatible so much, that it was just a matter of time. I'm happy to say that NBA 2K3 and MechAssault are indeed very fun games to play online. I was up much later than I wanted to be despite being forced to recognize that I totally suck when matched up against human opponents.

Of course, Live would not be complete without the usual bumbling video courtesy of Microsoft's Geek Outreach Division (marketing.) For anyone who popped in the demo disc that comes with your starter kit and watched the XBox Live promotional video, you know what I'm talking about. Much like Blockbuster and Nokia, Microsoft seems to think that the way to appeal to us, the social outcasts, is to "come down to our level" or perhaps they just can't help but be condescending to their customers. In any case, upon viewing this with my roommate, hilarity ensued.

Ya, so, I know there are like 3 million people that read my journal everyday, if you want to meet up with me for a little NBA 2K3 or kick my butt on MechAssault, my 'gamertag' is the same as my slashdot ID: dragoncortez. If you're wondering, "Why dragoncortez for a name?" well, you're out of luck 'cos I'm not going to tell you.

Do you ever find yourself wondering "Why do I act like a naive prick around members of the opposite sex?" I do. I guess that's not something I should proudly trumpet to the masses, but it's true all the same. What causes me to act in such an unbefitting manner? I know not. Do I wish I would stop? Absolutely. I guess I'm just a sucker for a pretty face.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to find my eventual domination of Slashdot growing closer. For the first time I was awarded moderation points and metamoderation abilities at the same time. I realize that someday this will all feel 'pase' (I suddenly realized I don't know how to spell that for sure.) For now, though, I'm enjoying my expanded role in the Slashdot community.

I took a typing test today that I'm not sure is entirely accurate. I clocked in at 68 wpm. Yesterday I took an IQ test and scored 111. Whether these tests actually mean anything is beyond me. I took heart in the statistic on the IQ site (bbc) that as your IQ goes down, your earning power goes up. At least, that was the result from their test.

Maybe my Dead or Alive 3 booster disc will get here today. I really need to slow down on collecting Xbox games. But then, if I have to own them, getting them used has certainly saved me some money...

Wow, I got to meta-moderate today. I am moving right on up in the world. In light of this new landmark on my quest to achieve Slashdot domination, I purchased 1000 ad-free pages from Slashdot. For $5, I figured it was worth it. It's even set so that I get at least three months out of it.

Well, off to prepare myself mentally for the great experience I'm hoping to find when I see X-Men 2 tonight.

Ah, James. The band from Australia that is. It's been a while since I bought one of their albums, but my co-worker is quite the fan. Anyway, that's where the title for this entry comes from.

I find that writing in my journal has become rather therapeutic, even if I can't spell or write in proper English. I added a couple new friends to my list yesterday, one of them being *dramatic pause* a girl. Yes, it would seem that girls really do post to slashdot, if this person and her other fans can be believed. In any case, I found her journal entries to be amusing. I think I was won over mostly by her Easter Day entry. I find myself in similar situations from time to time.

Ever notice how quickly you can build up tolerance for sugar and caffeine. I had to laugh at myself yesterday. I was tired, but I figured I'd be fine for the day if I just got busy on my current projects at work. Then, I pulled out some soda. Five minutes after that first glass of Coke, I could barely keep my eyes open. I am a weird person I guess.

I'm so proud of myself. I've posted four comments already this month, which is the total amount I'd posted in the previous six months. And because of my newfound desire to enter the infamous field of karma-whoring, I even scored some points. One of my posts actually was informative, so I guess that kind of evens out the posts that were purely an effort to get points for being so dang funny. Ha.

Megatokyo roxor. That's all I can say about that. Maybe I'm getting too much of a kick out of l33t speak though. I guess it's just one more in a long line of phases. Haha.

I got mod points again. It's kinda funny how cool it still is to see "You are a moderator" printed at the top of the page. Someday my karma might even be good enough to warrant metamoderation. That would be cool. Of course, I might have to actually post once in a while...

Warcraft3 party tonight! W00t!

Wow! I noticed this morning that my Zork story was accepted yesterday. Unfortunately, it was far too late to be posted as an April Fool's story. It was cool that Cmdr. Taco accepted it though. I wonder if all the editors had a chance to look it over...

In other news, it's Friday, and I'm anxious to get out of here (work.) However, I still have many hours to go - not a good sign. The great thing about this journal is that I can type all kinds of stuff, enable comments, and not have to worry about getting flamed, because no one else reads it.

Well, off to do more karma whoring, I mean, work.

Sent an email to Senator Hatch yesterday to complain about the Patriot Act - more particularly, to complain about his role in asking for an extension of its powers. Gotta love those sweet taxes on our freedom to buy security. I hope the ACLU does something about the Patriot Acts before things get out of hand.

On a lighter note, I've noticed that jokes about the former Iraqi Minister of Information are floating around, so I tried to cash in on some karma from them. I guess we'll see what happens.

It's now been very close to a week since I submitted my April Fool's story, but it still says pending. I guess the editors loved it too much to reject it but got it too late for an April 1st posting.

Monday morning is fast becoming a nuisance. My head feels like mush, and it's not like I have a hangover: I don't drink alcoholic beverages. Thank the light (ha ha) for Slashdot. I'm not sure why though...

I submitted my fourth story ever today. It was a story on Gamespot detailing the forthcoming release of the Zork trilogy to the Xbox.

It's really been a landmark week for me, what with April Fool's and everything. I was kind of hoping for a New York Times headline along the lines of "Bush and Hussein Decide to Solve War with Old-Fashioned Duel" but was sadly disappointed. Maybe BBSpot will pick it up or perhaps the Onion. On the subject of BBSpot, they really had me going with today's mailbag. I really, really wanted to believe the email from Peter Jackson about Jar-Jaromir. Unfortunately, like my belief in Santa Clause, this was too good to be true.

Well, I got mod points for the third time ever today. This is really starting to lose that feeling of overwhelming awe. Of course, I was very surprised to get my first mod points - not having posted anything for several months - and that might have had something to do with the initial tingles of joy.

As soon as I burned through my mod points, I started getting this great /. error:

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Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, pater@slashdot.org and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
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Anyway, I guess I should get some work done now. This journal/blog thing is kinda handy, you know, because just reading /. doesn't kill enough time anymore.