Fur and Loathing

I would like to report that Lush Party 8 was a success! It was unbelievable how much fun we all had.

Right now I am a little stressed. Days are full of work, work, work and I am continuing my tradition of being a hermit. July 4th is coming up, I am sure that means I will have an opportunity to see my mom on her birthday. Yay!

So you might be wondering about the panda. Well here it is, a compelling question that I would like each and everyone who visits this blog to pipe up on. First, read this... Okay good. Now if you were a furry, let's say you were forced to be a furry for a day, which animal would you be? Not just your favorite animal; which animal costume would you feel attractive in? Okay, everyone leave a blog comment!

-Aaron

Let's do some gaming!

Lot of news coming at you in this post.

First off, my boss (recently promoted) Dan Yuen is going away to China to adopt a baby girl. In his absence I'll be all alone in support for a few weeks. To relieve the inevitable stress I might incur from this he bought me Mario Party 8 for the Wii. I have been raving about it for a while so I am ultra stoked to get it. Mike and Jackie have decided to purchase a couple Wiimotes so we can all play together. This is one of the coolest things a boss has ever done for me, thanks Dan! One would say my attraction to this game is not altogether virtuous however. One would go as far as to say it is in fact quite nefarious! You see, anything can be turned into a drinking game, but this game I am quite convinced was designed specifically with that in mind.

Rules:

4 drinks = 1 beer, 1 shot, 1 cocktail or 1 glass of wine.

1) After every mini game, whoever ends without a crown on their head drinks.
2) At the end of the full game, the winner takes 4 drinks.
3) At the end of the full game, the player in last place makes a rule that will carry into all subsequent full games (rule cannot be player specific and is limited to an outcome of 1 drink).

Our first game is this coming Saturday!

Next weekend we are playing D&D: Shinies and Furries. I have the lore for multiple plot lines mapped out and need to draw up some dungeons and such, but overall I am much more confident of the game and the direction. Very happy to be doing it.

PAX is in two months. Plane tickets and hotel rooms have been secured, time has been taken off, we are ready to rock.

In other news, the garden is doing great! Nothing is dead! Woot!

-Aaron

Green Thumb Mark II

My dad came over and helped me with the garden. It seems that my previous failed attempt made him wish he could impart that knowledge on to his progeny. Well, I sure am glad he did! Going over the myriad of reasons why I was only able to produce vibrant weeds, we decided on an encapsulated solution. Cut wine barrels and a wood planter would serve to eliminate the threat of gophers, weeds and bad soil.



The above picture is a little blurry but I am too lazy to upload a new one. Suffice to say the vision is fantastic in person. Advantages of this setup:

- It is mobile. We drilled some holes and added some rope handles so it can be transported anywhere!
- It is attractive. Barrels are rad!
- It is not contaminated by weed filled soil and hungry gophers. This prevents me from going into Bill Murray Caddy Shack mode.

Freakin' awesome! Also, it was really well timed as I had been recently inspired by Justin's vast three-tiered garden he planted in the middle of the Los Angeles desert.



So, you may or may want to know what we planted. Here you go:

- Roma tomatoes
- San Francisco Fog tomatoes
- Habanero peppers
- Red chili peppers
- Fairy tale eggplant
- Sweet orange bell peppers
- Yellow bell peppers
- Chives
- Cilantro
- Italian parsley
- Sweet basil
- Sweet marjoram (my favorite herb!)



I would like to thank my dad for this, his generous contributions to the project made it all possible. He showed me how to plant them, how to water them and I really learned a lot. I have high hopes and I really do hope I can turn my brown thumb green this time around.

In other news, not so far removed, my Dad tried the Wii. We played golf, we played tennis and we bowled. It is really amazing to see someone new to games pick this up and just fall right into it like it is natural. Totally unaware of the amount of technology, software and hardware it takes to make something like this work and just feeling like, "This is a game I can play!" It is the first time I have ever see my dad enjoy playing a video game since him and I played Rad Racer on my 8-bit together. Some people wonder why I am a Nintendo Fan Boi and I can definitively tell you it is for this very reason. I rarely enjoy games that I play for myself as much as I enjoy playing games with others. It was a privilege to be able to do that with my dad.

-Aaron

I'm seriously you guys

If you have a phone and have not given me your number in the last week, please mail me at aaron@aaronrhodes.org or text message me with who you are so I can add you to my phone. Otherwise I get a phone call from some number I don't know and I don't answer. I know, I know, I don't answer anyway, but I'll try harder. Anyway, yeah! Gimme your number!

-Aaron

Gradumacated

A couple of weekends ago I mentioned that I was going to my good friend Justin's graduation party. I was remiss in my duties to neglect to post about it. We had a lot of fun. There was a bit of work involved, getting lots of beverages and setting up and cleaning and making Jell-O shooters but it all paid off in the end when the live band fired up and the cocktails began to flow. There were two distinct types of people there: The youngins and the elders. Now I thought there would be a clear separation of partying methods as well, until I saw the somewhat elderly woman sitting next to me shoot a glass of tequila. Fantastic! The band, who shall forever more be named "Squirrel Eaters", gave out a binder full of songs we could select and they re-created them with flawless elegance. The evening wound down to a poker game that I did apply a modest amount of skill to. Clearly they underestimated the guy playing Puzzle Quest on his DS while tossing cards around with dis-interest. Little did they know it was my only chance to not have a tell.

The following day we went to someplace called "The Laguna" and ate at a wonderful Belgian restaurant. There was an art festival going on at the time so we got to duck into some art shops (this place was littered with more galleries than Carmel) in between stops at the various restaurants and breweries. All in all a wonderful night. Also, nobody there had ever seen dyed hair. I have a particularly colorful 'do' right now so the responses from passer-byes ranged from asking to take a picture to bouncy girls flashing me a smile and a wave. There should be some pictures forthcoming including me giving Justin a ride on my shoulders. Whee! I also introduced Justin to the wonders of a 16-year-old Lagavulin which surely will be a detriment to him financially in the future.

Current games:

Ninja Spirit - Virtual Console
Act Raiser - Virtual Console
Etrian Odessey - Nintendo DS
And of course World of Warcraft, now level 70

-Aaron