neurological dryer lint

the bi-annual sinus infection is back, so i'm at home today. doubt i'll be in good shape at ian's wedding tonight, and hopefully by tomorrow it'll be gone so i can hit up d&b's at night.

so i created a free account in second life last night. i'd heard the creators based the concept of the system a lot on the concepts in neal stephenson's snowcrash, a seminal cyberpunk novel and a favorite of mine. expectation didn't quite match reality, though.

if my real life were anything like second life, i'd be sinking into the floor when i walked, running into invisible walls, and waiting ten minutes for the room around me to render. it's a fascinating little ecosystem they've created, with an economy, land ownership, subcultures, etc. i can see the appeal, although i'm not the type to enjoy spending real money for space in a digital world (even though i pay to host a webserver, figure that out).

the performance of the OSX client was far too choppy to make interaction with the world a tolerable experience, so i gave up after 30 minutes or so. plus, i couldn't figure out how to make my avatar not look like a caveman.

i've been trying a decent amount of tetris ds online... i've been playing this game for fifteen years, and i've considered myself an above average tetris player... once again my illusions were shattered after i got my face handed to me by a dude named サポート with 146 wins compared to my 3. see this is why i don't play anything online - i don't have much desire to become as skilled as anyone i'd play against, but that generally means frustrating defeat in almost every match.

the four-player mode is much more accessable to the non-hardcore, though - it's a free-for-all, there are powerups, etc... makes holding your own a little easier.

wanna hear something scary? for a brief moment today during a commercial i considered picking up nintendogs. i blame the illness.