Just before I return to my life of no computer and no Internet access, I thought I would mention the current state of Forever North's office building:

A friend walked in to see FN at work the other day, and asked, "What are they mining across the hall?"

That would be a strange question, if you hadn't seen what the hallway looked like.

You walk out of the fresh outdoors, step into the elevator, get out of the elevator, and it looks like you're underground, not several feet above ground.

It turns out what started out as a wee bit of renovating on the floor turned into a demolition project. It turns out that all the offices except for the 2 on FN's side of the hallway have asbestos insulation. You know, the nice stuff that gives you lung cancer?

That's right, so not only is your job fun, but you can die quicker now too.

He should have become a coal miner . . . there are fewer health hazards.

Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to Momo, Happy birthday to you!

Momo will be 1 year old on March 27th. I'd like to wish the Big White Brute a happy birthday!

All your base are belong to us.

Yo.

Oy.

My computer is shop, (Please, dear God, let this be the last time.), and I can't tear myself away from Forever North's computer.

I know I have to stop. I mean, FN has to go home. But it's so wonderful. So fast. Napster runs like a dream.

~sigh~ I don't want to go home, but I have to. Oh well. I guess you'll hear from me when I get my computer back or when I drag FN back to here, whichever comes first. :)

I shouldn't laugh. Or maybe I should. Well, too late, I'm laughing anyway.

Isn't everyone this stupid at least once in their young lives?

Reminds me of when I was 4 and I found a corn cob pipe in my step-brother's room. I thought in my little 4 year-old mind, "Ooh, a pipe! How bad, how naughty. I should try it."

So I picked it up (unlit), stuck it in my mouth and inhaled deeply. A cloud of stinking ash went billowing through the pipe and into my little 4 year-old lungs. I hacked, gagged and gasped my way out of his room, and swore that I'd never smoke anything in my whole life.

Ah, sweet memories of childhood.

In case it wasn't already obvious, my current interest in firearms has nothing to do with:

being in a cult

belonging to a right-wing militia group

finding pleasure in killing living things

wearing long trenchcoats and carrying shotguns to school

guys named Jeb.

I'm the same old Limegirl, except now I have gunpowder on my fingers.

Oooh, scary. Limegirl with a gun. Everybody run! ~snicker snicker~

In writing about my shooting range experience, I was having some trouble finding all those links. I found a site that gave me all the manufacturer links that I was looking for:

here

If you're looking for gun links, that's a good place to start!

[Shiva] Nashorn is moving out of town for a new job, so tonight we had a little get together amongst the founding [Shiva] members.

We went to the Wild West Shooting Range. I've never been there before, and actually, I've never even held a gun before, so this was a very new experience.

Forever North and I decided to share a box of bullets, since you have to buy them in multiples of 50. We chose .45 caliber, and the others had a mixture of .45 caliber, 9mm, and .40 caliber.

We put on our goggles and ear protectors and walked into the shooting range. The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, which, if you're not familiar with that smell, smells a lot like a burning match x 1000. The floor was littered with empty shells (obviously), which seems strange when you come in from the outside world where we don't normally use guns.

If you've never been around a gun before, the first thing that will strike you is how loud they are. I don't mean just loud. Loud, as in, I could feel the shots vibrate in my chest, even though I was standing 15 feet away from the person who was shooting. I've never felt loud like that. Ever. Loud like fireworks that go off 10 feet away instead of 50-100 feet in the air. For a while I wasn't sure if I could handle all the noise. I'm oddly skittish when it comes to loud noises, especially when explosive materials are involved. Before I could even get near our gun, I had to go stand and watch Nashorn firing his, just to get used to the noise. There was a guy firing a Magnum revolver, and that was loudest of all. Those things take huge bullets, and make the most incredible amount of noise. It took me a few minutes to get used to the vibrating sensation in my chest, but eventually it became less and less startling.

The .45 caliber ammo gave us 3 guns to choose from. The first one we tried was the Para handgun.

I'm not sure exactly which Para series it was, but it looked very much like the one in the picture.

Correction: This IS the gun we fired. :)

The man helping us brought the gun case over and set the gun in our lane. He showed us how to pull out the magazine, load it, how to hold the gun, and how to aim and fire. He was very nice and made me feel more at ease about firing a gun. I let Forever North go first, so I could see what it would be like to fire it. FN (who has never fired a gun before, either) hooked up his target sheet and set it half-way back towards the wall. He loaded the gun, aimed, and squeezed off a round.

It doesn't matter how many movies you see, none of them truly prepare you for the actual experience of seeing a real gun being fired. The flame from the end of the barrel, the shockwave of air that vibrates out from the gun, seeing the empty shell flying out of the gun . . . it's really something when you see it in real life.

FN squeezed off about 8 bullets (10 was too hard to load in the magazine), and left an impressive grouping of holes in the middle of his target. Never fired a gun before, eh? Sure. ;)

Next, it was my turn. FN helped me load the magazine, and the supervisor helped me with my stance and holding the gun. With my target sheet up, I got into position. I lined up the sights . . . and fired.

WOW, what a blast! Such a huge kick from such a small object . . . it's hard to imagine until you actually feel it. You can manage the kick by bracing yourself properly, but it's incredibly powerful. I squeezed off the bullets until the magazine was empty, leaving an unremarkable but not altogether bad spread of holes on my target sheet. It was time for the next gun.

The H&K USP45. We were looking for the USP45 Tactical (the gun that the counter-terrorists in Counter-Strike are given at the beginning of each round), but I realize now that the gun they had was its very close cousin, the USP45 Expert.

The Tactical comes with an attachment for a silencer, which the gun we were using did not have.

We were quite excited to try this gun. Although it's a very good gun and it did not disappoint, the firing pin was a bit worn, so the gun miss-fired several times (the trigger was pulled but nothing happened). That was too bad. Hopefully the next time we go there, they'll have a USP45 that's in better condition.

We finished up using our ammo on the USP45, and spent the rest of the time watching the others in their lanes. [Shiva] Dirk Diggler was using 9mm ammo, and was using a 9mm Para handgun and a Glock. Nashorn had some .40 caliber that he had swapped from someone else, and they turned out to have incredible kick to them, even more than the .45 caliber. Apparently the .40 caliber was packed with more powder than the .45 caliber, so it had more boom. :)

All in all a very fun excursion. It made me wonder why all the women that came into the place never bothered to try and fire a gun. They all watched from outside the safety glass. Silly. I felt like telling them that they should get some bullets and get in there. Who'd want to miss out on an experience like that?

Just a little note for you folks out there who are thinking of getting a bunny for Easter:

Or maybe I should start making my own mugs . . .

Forever North keeps using my Blogger mug, so now I hafta buy another one.

~sigh~

These things are expensive. Good thing I love Blogger.

My computer is going in to get fixed today, hopefully for the final time. My advice is don't hold your breath, since that's what I said the last time.

Anyway, it's not even functioning well enough for me to check my email, so I'm packing it in. Don't be surprised if I disappear for a week or two, since it may take the chip-monkeys at least that long to realize that some hardware needs to be replaced.

Ciao, bambinos. Be good! :)

Snazzy new-media company, and it's in Edmonton!

They're the ones responsible for the CKUA website. They do some nice work!

AHA!

I love the Internet.

Soba Song by 3 Mustaphas 3

The song is on their Soup of the Century album.

I heard a song this morning on CKUA that I'm really digging:

The Soba Song

Who is it by? I don't know. And I may have to wait another week to view the playlist on the website.

Does anyone know who did this crazy song? I don't think I've ever laughed so hard before 7:30 in the morning.

Everything went from brown to white in under an hour here.

Snow falling in lumps, and carpeting everything.

Oh well. It is March, after all. Musn't complain.

5 long days of suffering are now over . . .

I have finished taking all of my antibiotics.

The doctor gave me these horrible Sulfa horse pills for my bladder infection. They work great, but they beat the shit out of me.

No more gross dizzy/floaty sensations, no more stomach aches, no more nausea. I am free at last!

There used to be java script here. It's gone now.

The battle rages on:

"i felt the need to waste my time and come tell girls how it really is.!! girls are barely ever better than guys .. if u girls are so good? why don';t u compete with the men? but no u have ur own league otherwise men would dominate.. so face up to the facts.. men are genetically stronger and superior..women were meant by god to clean, cook, get fucked.. i can;t even began to comprehend how woman were given the right to vote.. but cut the bullshit and admit u are inferior!!

The Truth"

And the response:

"Boy are you in for a big fried egg in your face when you cross paths with Krydes-Ghost, female ally of the Nomad Clan (a Philippine Counterstrike clan) who set a few records in Quake3 back in January 2000 at a Counterstrike LAN Tournament - 3 one-on-one matches (each against a guy) and scoring 20+ frags to nothing or less each time, then a 1 vs 4 match (yes she took on 4 guys all by herself) and scored nearly DOUBLE the number of frags the 4 guys put together (16 to 5+3+2+1), and finally an all time high score at an 8-player FFA game (where she was the only girl) - 201 frags after 1 hour, the next highest score was a 120+ (mine :D), 3rd highest just under 95, etc. Trust me I watched the whole thing first hand (and by mentioning my score above I indicate I was part of the 8-player FFA and I can say she rocks - once you're in her sights you have about 5 seconds to make your kill, get the hell out of there, or watch your head hit the floor), and note all the guys she battled were all pro-gamers (though they specialize in CS, they also excel in Quake3).

Phalanx-Omega"

ROTFLMAO

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Did you say a gaming festival will be held here this summer, in my very own Edmonton?

I'm fucking beside myself with excitement.

And FN muttered in his half-asleep state that the guy who built the Fragapalooza website is none other than one of our friends.

Did I mention I'm hooked on Half-Life?

I must be some kind of masochist, since it scares the shit out of me. The sounds gave Forever North nightmares when he dozed off on the couch next to the speakers. But I can't help myself. It's so good.

Forever North was complaining about my screaming. The critters sometimes startle me so bad that I scream outloud, which gives FN a coronary every time. Poor guy.

I guess it's a fix I need these days, since I don't have an ADSL connection yet so I can play Counter-Strike online.

~drool~ Counter-Strike and multiplayer Half-Life. Ohhhh yeessss.

I hope a few assholes don't discourage more women from taking up gaming. I'd especially like to see more women play First Person Shooter (FPS) games like Counter-Strike, mostly because most women I know are most intimidated by FPS games.

Even I was intimidated by them at first. But, after a little while, I discovered the joy of delivering a spray of bullets from your MP5 Navy into the chest of an opponent, and I haven't looked back since.

Are there pricks out there? Yep, most certainly. I've been called some pretty ugly names, believe me. Do people use and create the most vulgar words in the English language during the round? Absolutely. Is there violence? Of course. But is it fun? Oh GOD yes.

Maybe it's not for everyone, but sometimes it's great to pick off your opponent with your AK-47, or riddle him with holes from your FN M429 PARA. Sometimes it's great to try your best and get totally fucked over by a guy with an AWOP, so you can come back the next round and mess up his shit.

Any women/girls want to get in on this game, but don't know where to start? Give me a shout, and I'll help you any way that I can.

Interesting.

Not only am I not the only woman/girl playing Half-Life and Counter-Strike, but I'm also not the only one trying to find the balance between being a gamer and being a girl.

I've found a few interesting articles out there that talk about women/girls who play Half-Life and Counter-Strike:

Planet Half-Life - Female Experimentation


The CS Crossfire - 'Cause I'm just a girl, and I'd rather not be . . .


The CS Crossfire - And now for another view


Halflife.net - Girl Gamers

I wish I could be at SXSW. Not because I have anything particular to contribute, but I'd love to meet all the groovy people behind the websites.

So much for the new guestbook I built. Oh well, I was getting rusty in my HTML anyway.

Okay, I retract what I said before. I think my guestbook is working now.

I don't know whether anyone has signed it recently, but we may never know, since any notes after July of 2000 and before today don't seem to exist.

If you have had problems leaving a note in my guestbook, please let me know so I can try and get it fixed.

Apparently my guestbook is temporarily sidetracked.

I guess people have been leaving some notes in there, but I was completely unaware of this fact, because gbook is "restructuring". Restructuring? For 3 months? Give me a break. This is ridiculous.

I'm not going to scrap it, but I am going to build a new one, so I don't end up having dead-air in my guestbook for 3 months again.

If you have any suggestions for a decent place to get a guestbook, feel free to email me.

Oops, my bad.

The blog I mentioned for Dulcie is the family blog.

Her personal blog is http://deesteeny.blogspot.com. Make note. Please and thank you! :)

On second thought, I'm exhausted. I won't be in the chatroom, but you can still go there if you like.

If you're bored, you can come and shoot the shit with me in my chatroom.

My computer is sucking some major ass today.

I guess it's having an off day. It decided that MSN messenger is too much to stomach, and yakked it up at least 5 times in the last 30 minutes. I can't wait to get this thing fixed. ~sigh~

I added a discuss link at the end of each entry, in case some of you feel the need to comment on something.

If you have a Blogger blog, you can do this too by using BlogVoices.

Oh, and I also managed to find a photo album of someone's trip to Edmonton. Apparently they were going to go to Las Vegas, but ended up in Edmonton instead.

I would have kept going to Las Vegas, but maybe that's just me.

Interesting what you find when you search for Edmonton using Blogfinder.

So far, I've found a few blogs that are maintained by people who live in Edmonton:

Jen


Jerry


Dulcie


Bruce


and of course Jodinand, who (whom?) I've mentioned before

Oh, and congratulate me for giving AOL Canada the boot before they started charging me for service.

I have successfully mooched a dial-up account off a friend with an ADSL connection, so I will have internet access once my computer is finally fixed.

Free is good.

So, it would seem that I'm back, but don't get too excited yet.

My computer is still cranky, and . . . ~hysterical laughing~ . . . the computer techs said it was running smoothly. Riiiiiiight.

Anyway, I'm praying that this will be the last time I have to take this beast in. I know deep in my soul that the CPU and probably the motherboard need to be replaced, and I'm praying that it will finally get fixed. I'm so tired of getting the run-around.

This thing should be bullet-proof, and I won't settle until it is. No more registry errors!!!!! No more Blue-Screen-of-Death!!!!

Now playing on CKUA: The Istanbul Oriental Ensemble

They're playing at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music tonight. I thought about going, but I figure I'd be happier saving my money to go see David Gray in Vancouver in May.

Or someone could buy me a smoothie anyway, just because I deserve it.

Come on, I know there's someone out there who can take me out for a smoothie. Offer to buy me a smoothie, and I'll give you an hour of my time. If you're fun, I'll give you a whole day. You could come over, and we could go get some smoothies, and then head to the mall and act like a pair of 12 year-olds. Or we could have an intellectual conversation in the Second Cup on campus. Maybe you'd rather ride the Triple Loop Roller Coaster until we both puke. Whatever it is, send me an email. You know you want to.

Breaking news! And you thought nothing ever happened in Edmonton . . .

A 20 year-old man was arrested on the University of Alberta campus this afternoon. The man, a former student at the university, had been previously barred from campus for violent behaviour.

The man hijacked a car, and was taken down by police when he arrived on campus. They found a knife and a shotgun in his possession, as well as shotgun shells in his pockets. He had apparently come to campus to settle a score with someone.

Poorly excerpted from what I heard on CKUA. If I'm the first to post this on the 'Net, somebody ought to buy me a smoothie.