Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category
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Get Married To Cruise?
Alright, now that you’ve seen the title, let me explain.
I love to travel pretty much more than anything. I want to see the world, and one of the best ways to see lots of places is to go on cruises since food, activities, and so forth are included. If you do the math, it ends up being quite a bit cheaper than if you actually stay at hotels (even less expensive ones) and eat at restaurants, which you’d probably want to do. Yeah, hostels are fine, but if you actually put time into finding deals on cruises then you can still get to more places for cheaper. And obviously there’s something different and nice about cruises too, right?
The trouble is that pretty much all the cruise lines require you to have somebody who is at least 21 with you. For a long time, this has put a pretty big damper on my travel fantasies. However, I’ve recently found a loophole for a cruise that I’d very much like to go on near the end of the year. Take a look for yourself at Royal Caribbeans’ exception for married couples:
No child under 21 years of age is allowed in a stateroom unless accompanied by an adult aged 21 years or older. This age restriction will be waived only for underage married couples (proof of marriage is required) or for minor children sailing with their parents or guardians in adjacent staterooms.
Bingo.
So now you see the plan, and hopefully you aren’t freaking out. If you can stay calm long enough to think about it, this is actually very practical. I’ve talked about this with Kendra Owens, who already has enjoyed several cruises with her family. We talked about it quite a bit, actually, and obviously we laughed our asses off (and we’re still laughing), but yeah. It’s happening. Oh God, it’s happening (did I mention the laughing?).
We’re going to get one of those drive-through marriages in the beginning of April so that the paperwork can be done, and then as soon as we get back from the 14 Night Canary Islands & Portugal cruise, we’re going to get legally divorced (can you hear the laughing yet?). We’re totally just taking advantage of a loophole, but hey, I’m just enough of a lawyer dick to be okay with it.
And let’s face it. Marriages these days are hardly serious anyway.
Anyway, since we don’t actually care, we’d like to simultaneously invite you to our marriage and divorce party. We’ll probably just have some sodas in Spreckles or something like that, and basically, we’ll just be celebrating our own douchbaggery. For wedding presents, bring us cookies or something and we’ll love you forever, or at least until our divorce party on December 22 this year (at which time we shall expect more cookies).
I don’t know how many people do this, but we can’t possibly be the first, and it seems like this is what drive-through chapels are designed for. If anybody would like to join Kendra and I as we laugh our way through Spain, the Canary Islands, Portugal, and even Morocco, just grab a “partner” and come and get “married” with us. The round trip plane tickets will be $900 per person, and the cruise itself will be $1,100 for two people, so it’s actually $550 per person. $1,450 (you can add your own shopping money) is a very good deal for seeing all these places, and that’s the point. So if you get a job fairly soon then you still might be able to come with us. And no, I don’t think your “special other” will be terribly offended if you ask for a pre-nup.
This is going to work perfectly. I am a genius. I think I’ll have to get “married” next year too. Aren’t I romantic? Now, how to explain to the parents so that they don’t freak out and get the wrong idea…
If you’ve gotten this far, then see how things turned out in part 2!
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Accepted into AAU!
The Academy of Art University just called to tell me that I’ve been officially accepted into their glorious Graphic Design program for Fall ’08, complete with guaranteed on-campus housing and so forth. They said that the actual letter should be arriving any day now.
This is fantastic news! While AAU actually has open admissions for the college itself, some of the programs (Graphic Design definitely being one of them) are difficult to get into since they’ve only got so many seats as a result of strictly keeping their class sizes relatively small. In other words, I was sure to get into the school, but not necessarily into their much-desired Graphic Design program.
I have not yet decided what college I will be attending, but this is the first official acceptance from the two that I’ve narrowed it down to. The other school I’m waiting to hear from is the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Like I’ve said before, I’d be so happy to be able to go to either of these prestigious schools that basically, I’m not even going to worry anymore about which one I’d rather go to until I get accepted by SVA as well because I’m too busy feeling awesome right now. Obviously I’d love to be accepted by both, and I expect to be too, but the point is that I’ve already got one ticket to heaven here.
So in summary, I just got accepted into one of the two colleges on my “dream school” list. I’ll let you know when SVA gives me their verdict too.
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New York With The Family
This is the second time in the past couple of months that I’m going to New York City, but this time, I’m going with my family. The internet was down all of today, which was infuriating for a lot of reasons, one of which being that I wanted to put up my family’s plans so that my friends in NYC could see when they might be able to hang out with me.
They planned it all out quite a bit, but they know that I want to see my friends, so they might not be expecting me to do everything on their list with them.
So anyway, I asked my mother to write down her plans for us so that I could stick it up here, like I said. Here’s what she gave me:
Saturday, March 01
Arrive in New York City at about 3:30.
Saturday Night Live dress rehearsal at 7:00.Sunday, March 02
St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 11:00 or 12:00.
Theater at 12:00.
Parents wrote down “?” for evening on the paper they gave me.Monday, March 03
Sightseeing at Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty.
Evening is free.Tuesday, March 04
Museums during the day.
Dinner at 6:00.
Theater at 7:30.Wednesday, March 05
Portfolio review and interview at School of Visual Arts at 11:30.
Shopping in afternoon.
Possibly theater.Thursday, March 06
Fly back to San Diego.So I’m going to have to figure out when I can slip away to hang out with all you folk. I’ll have my cell phone with me, so we’ll definitely have to coordinate. I believe that our hotel will have internet as well.
Anyway, hope to see all you New York folk while I’m there!
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The 10 Types of Dungeons & Dragons Players
I’ve been a dungeon master (the person who comes up with a story and runs a game) for several years now, and I’ve noticed that there are a couple common types of players. For my and your amusement, I’ve made a list of ten of those player archetypes.
I know I’ve been guilty of more than one of these roles when I’ve been a player! Read the list with a smile though, and if you see yourself in any of these, then just laugh along with me and be merry about it. Enjoy!
1. The Direction Despot - Whether or not they actually have a map, this person always grabs the steering wheel. You can be sure that they’ll spend a lot of time asserting themselves and trying to turn the other player characters into minions. Heck, some of the time, they’ll even try to play other people’s characters for them. Sometimes, they won’t even try to convince the rest of the party to go along with what they want to do. As the party is deciding whether or not to side with the king, they’ll just declare that their character walks into the palace because that’s what their character would do, “and the party has the option of coming along.”
2. The Uninterested Shell - In contrast to the Direction Despot, this person just sits. Everybody else kind of wonders why they like the game since all they really do during the five hours of playing is roll the dice a few times, but since they’re not disruptive and everybody tends to get along with this person, it’s cool. And sure, every once in a while, they’ll say something whenever somebody else is being particularly annoying. But for the most part, this person is devoid of any interaction or feedback.
3. The Entitled Mime - Similar to the Uninterested Shell, this person doesn’t do things on their own. Sure, they do some things, but the point is that they’re mostly quiet. Instead of thinking up things for their character to pursue, they think that their dungeon master is supposed to hand them significance. Whenever another player does something proactive and thus gets a lead role in a mission, they get outraged that the dungeon master is clearly playing favorites. And because they don’t think they have anything to do, they don’t really do anything other than roll dice, mutter angrily, and occasionally have their character do something random and disruptive just to remind everybody else how capable and important they are.
4. The Gabby Socialite - Little did you know when you started your campaign that you… weren’t starting a campaign. This person talks a lot, which is surprising since they’re often still aware of what’s happening in the game and engage their character in situations. But the trouble is that 99% of the time, they’re either not talking about the game at all or trying to turn whatever is happening in the game into a joke (they usually get carried away with the whole “It’s good to have a sense of humor at the table” thing).
5. The Moral Contortionist - Nobody is a cheater. Absolutely nobody, and certainly not the group that I’d like to call Moral Contortionists. Sure, they might make up their own dice results, fudge a few things on their character sheets, or generously interpret some rules, but since it’s all about having fun, then clearly nothing is wrong with this. And since nothing is wrong, then obviously there is no cheating. It’s not like they do it a lot (who’s counting?), so it’d be overkill to call them a cheater anyway. Not that they’re cheating, since we already talked about how cheating isn’t cheating. You just need to relax. And look the other way, please.
6. The Oversensitive Dignity - Everybody gets attached to their characters, but some people just take everything personally at the table. If you end up allowing this person’s character to get killed by the angry orcs or if you act out a judgmental sage that verbally berates their character, then expect this person to accuse you of being petty enough to petty enough to personally target their character for some unknown reason. Anything that happens at the table is a personal insult, actually. Perhaps they think that you telling them that they need to roll the diplomacy check too is you trying to make them feel inferior, or they think that making a ruling that isn’t to their liking means that you’re letting the authority get to your head. Basically, just expect them to be mad at you all the time.
7. The Ostentatious Attorney - This person has gone out of their way to try to outsmart you when it comes to the books. If they find out that you’ve read a new rulebook, then expect them to read two. If you cite anything that isn’t helpful to the party in a situation, expect them to ask for a moment to double check that. Naturally, they’ll be right once in a while, and they’ll delight in pointing it out in either an irritatingly passive aggressive or openly pretentious way, and use it to try to assert that they’re the foremost authority on the rules. They’re always watching and waiting, so it’s bound to happen. But also naturally, don’t expect them to count all the times they doubt you and dive into the book without resurfacing with anything.
8. The Balance Breaker - These power gamers just don’t have any self-restraint. They spend as much time reading the rulebooks as the Ostentatious Attorney and the dungeon master, but instead of doing it for the purpose of learning about as much of the game as possible, they’re just hunting for whatever can make their character even more awesomely powerful and broken. They take great pride in what they do, and are usually pretty clear about how everybody else should play the game like they do (after all, if everybody else was like this, the party would actually be balanced, they’ll say). Of course, they don’t want to face the fact that the books were actually designed by well-paid people whose whole job is to make the information accessible and the math easy enough for second graders.
9. The Transitive Expert - How long they’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons is irrelevant. The Transitive Expert started role-playing in some other game, and from this has come to view his or herself as an expert on role-playing, period. They come to the table with expectations of how things should be done, and will hold you and your campaign to standards of their creation. Anything they don’t like — and I do mean anything — is either a problem with you as a dungeon master, you as an inferior role-player, or with the Dungeons and Dragons system itself. Sometimes they really do have good ideas or are focusing on an aspect of another game that really does do something better than how Dungeons and Dragons does it, but more often than not, these people are just focusing on being upset with the same things anybody would be upset with instead of spending their time actually trying to play their character.
10. The Philosophy Robot - This is not a game, it’s a life pursuit, and it’s serious business, people! These people will talk about the game the same way that a priest talks about how to live; there is a right way to do it, and a wrong way. If you let them, they’ll preach for as long as you’ll listen about the proper way to get into and make decisions as your character. Or how to build your character to reflect your background story. Or when it is and is not appropriate to question the dungeon master. Or why parts of the book should be dismissed as invalid and illegitimate. Or whatever. Unless you particularly care, it’s probably best to either just nod politely and hope that they realize that they’re droning on, or poke them and very carefully tell them that it doesn’t really matter that much in the end as long as people are having a good time (but be ready for gasps and a long-winded rebuke if you mess this up).
*Obligatory Disclaimer: This list is not aimed at anybody in particular. I’ve seen each of the roles on this list filled by many, many people, and we all giggle about it now. It’s not a sneaky, childish attempt at getting anybody to change, but instead, it’s just like I said at the beginning. This is purely for the entertainment of anybody who has ever played Dungeons and Dragons. Turn that frown upside down and giggle with us!
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Pick A School, James. Dammit.
The other day, I finally finished the heap of work I needed to make up from when I was on home/hospital leave during part of high school. It’s a relief to be done with that, but I still need to pick my college. So it’s either New York’s School of Visual Arts or San (SVA)Francisco’s Academy of Art University (AAU), which both have pretty much the best graphic design programs in North America hands down.
I’ve visited them both. They were both awesome schools in awesome cities, the price tags on both are about the same, I’ve got people I know and love in both cities already, and they both even have the same scores and reviews on all those college comparison sites.
So, damn.
A lot of the time, I’ll be leaning toward New York, because I think I liked that city more, but it’s entirely possible that this is just due to Steve and Collin knowing some pretty awesome spots. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the city like so many people quickly feel, and I spent a fair amount of time on my own, too. Also, my favorite artist happens to go to SVA, although he’s in the animation program (which also has pretty much one of the best reputations around).
Most of my friends are pushing for this school.
But then, I lean toward San Francisco a lot of the time too. Like New York, there was no lack of things to do here either and I’d be doing a lot of walking to get around. While both schools have a few clubs and stuff for students, AAU actually has some sports programs, and I’ve always not-very-secretly wanted to be on a swim team, which would probably also help me meet people.
Most of my family, immediate and biological, is pushing for this school.
I know I can get into either school, and I would be happy and broke at either school. I just need to pick one.
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