No, really, I have great excuses for not posting anything lately. Honest. Two very good ones, even.

Excuse A: Oblivion got here Tuesday. Which should be enough by itself.

Let's just be clear, here. Oblivion looks better than any other game you've ever played, ever. By entire orders of magnitude. That or it makes your computer shoot blue flames, which I assure you was not the case with me.

So I did the tutorial dungeon thing, and then stepped out into the world, whereupon I was like "OMFG! OMFG! OMFG!" a lot. Then I was like "Hey Dad, check this out!" and he was like "OMFG! OMFG! OMFG!" a lot too. And then we spent a lot of time making the game look awesomer than it already did. Enormous view distances to almost photo-quality mountains? Got that. Trees that look awesome, sway in the wind, and have shadows? Got those too. Water that looks great? That too. A facegen with like 30 settings for totally unique-looking NPCs? (And PCs) Ayup.

About the only things I've found that I dislike are the font (eh, whatever), and the inventory/journal system, which is not only a step back from Morrowind's almost perfect system, is something I'd actually go so far as to say is the worst system I've had the displeasure of working with in at least ten years. I seriously can't think of one off top of my head worse than Oblivion's.

But hey, the whole rest of the game is awesome, so I forgive it.

Second excuse: Tuesday night, I got the flu. In a very bad fashion, involving the whole feverish shivering/sweating thing combined with headaches so bad I was almost hallucinating. So what do I do? Yes, like a dumbass, I went to work. Which was a dumb move. Way dumb. Not taking the aches, shaking, and continued ibuprofin-proof headaches as a sign, I then attempted to work overtime at 5am this morning.

Pam/Karen: You look REALLY pale. Are you sure you should be here?

Me: *bends over in coughing fit, shakes a lot* No, not really.

So I went home. And went to the doctor.

Doctor: Well, you sound really bad. Let's take a chest x-ray to make sure it's not pneumonia.

Wherein we discover that those little gown things totally need that new invention, velcro. We also discover that we just have the flu, whereupon the doctor gives us our friend, the Tylenol with codeine. And then we proceed to sleep until 10ish, which we're about to go continue, now that we've heard this awesome live version of Wake Up Dead Man, because sleep is our friend.

The world turns/and we get dizzy/slipping away...

Wherein I'm going to do a whole lot of rambling about U2, but not before I note that Oblivion comes out, well, soon, and so chances of anyone seeing me for a time after that are...slim.

Anyway. Some of you may remember this post from the days of yore, wherein I discuss my far too extensive collection of U2 singles, which is at this point actually larger than my collection of Smashing Pumpkins singles, which I assure you takes some doing.

You will all fear my collection of SP boots and live shows, however, because it is of reasonable size.

At any rate, this is all significant, because, now that I have money, I went ahead and got everything I still needed on that list. The whole thing now looks like this:

All 80s Singles: OOP, with no reasonable way to get. Fortunately, most if not all of them are reprised on the Best of 1980-1990 B-sides CD, which I recommend having.

Achtung Baby:
The Fly (US 5" CD)
Mysterious Ways (US 5" CD) (I could also need the Austrialian 5" CD, but no)
One (US 5" CD)
Even Better Than the Real Thing (US 5" CD)
Even Better Than the Real Thing Remixes (US 5" CD) (YESSSSSSSSSSSS)
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (US 5" CD) (I could also need the second UK 5" CD, but no)

Zooropa:
Need Numb (but on a VHS with very few songs? Not likely)
Need Lemon (Austrialia 5" CD) (Maybe some year. If I actually liked Lemon that much)
Need Stay (Far Away, So Close!) (US 5" CD) (Totally forgot to get this. Oops.)

Passengers:
Miss Sarajevo (UK 5" CD)

Pop:
Discotheque (US 5" CD)
Discotheque Remixes (UK 5" CD) (Not sure why I didn't get the US 5" CD, which has the other version of Holy Joe...)
Need Staring At the Sun (US 5" CD) (Need is technical - I have all the songs elsewhere)
Staring At the Sun Remixes (US 5" CD) (My first U2 CD ever, oddly enough, all they had at the time)
Last Night On Earth (Canada red cover) (Canada 5" CD)
Last Night On Earth (UK green cover) (UK 5" CD)
Please (US 5" CD) (For great live justice)
Please (UK 5" CD)
If God Will Send His Angels (US 5" CD)
MOFO Remixes (UK 5" CD)

Random:
Sweetest Thing '98, Part 1 (white cover) (UK 5" CD)
Ordered Sweetest Thing '98, Part 2 (black cover) (UK or Canada 5" CD)
Electrical Storm (white cover) (Australia 5" CD)
Electrical Storm (blue cover) (Canada 5" CD)

All That You Can't Leave Behind:
Need Beautiful Day (white cover) (UK/Canada 5" CD) (Technical. I have all the songs, almost)
Beautiful Day (blue cover) (Canada 5" CD)
Need Stuck In A Moment (European white cover) (UK 5" CD) (Technical, since the b-sides are on the Canada Walk On single, which I have)
Stuck In A Moment (European blue cover) (UK 5" CD)
Stuck In A Moment (Canada blue cover) (Canada 5" CD) (Yes, these are different. Damn U2 and their ATYCLB singles releases)
Walk On (Canada gold cover) (Canada 5" CD)
Need Walk On (Canada white cover) (Canada 5" CD) (Technical, since all tracks are duplicated on my Euro blue cover Stuck In A Moment single)
Walk On (European Red Cover) (UK 5" CD)
Need Walk On (UK Blue Cover) (UK 5" CD) (but the tracks are...enh.)
Elevation (blue cover) (UK 5" CD)
Elevation (Canada white cover) (Canada 5" CD)

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb:
Need Vertigo (UK/Canada Red Cover) (Canada or UK 5" CD)
Need Vertigo (UK/Canada White Cover) (Canada or UK 5" CD)
Or the Japanese 5" CD, which contains all tracks, but is labeled in Japanese.
Need All Because of You (Canada 5" CD)
Need All Because of You (UK version 1) (UK 5" CD)
Need All Because of You (UK version 2) (UK 5" CD)
Or the Japanese 5" CD, which contains all UK tracks.
Need Sometimes You Can't Make It (Canada/UK red cover) (Canada or UK 5" CD)
Or the Japanese 5" CD, which contains much, including a Trent Reznor remix.
Need City of Blinding Lights (UK yellow cover) (UK 5" CD)
Need City of Blinding Lights (UK white cover) (UK 5" CD)
Or the Japanese 5" CD, which contains everything.

Video:
Need Under A Blood Red Sky (VHS) (Vastly different from the album. Has Seconds, live, for the win)
Rattle and Hum (DVD) (Slightly different from the album, but Running to Stand Still for the win)
Zoo TV: Live From Sydney (VHS)
Need PopMart Live From Mexico City (VHS)
Need Elevation 2001: Live From Boston (DVD)
U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle (DVD) (I cannot begin to tell you how much this thing owns)
Need Vertigo 2005: Live From Chicago (DVD)

Yes, I spent way too much time typing that up. However, _I_ have a live version of Last Night On Earth to listen to, and you pretty much don't, so that's great for me, and not so great for you.

I also have pizza.

I thought hard about getting some anime, too, but you don't really want to know how much Amazon wants for a Cowboy Bebop boxed set. You just don't.

First off, the blog turned 3 yesterday, about which I can only say that Whir overcoming my skepticism and getting me to start this thing was probably one of his better ideas.

On another note, I watched pretty much all of Serial Experiments: Lain over the weekend, because it's about that short and about that good, and I THINK I pretty much know what was going on with it now. It makes a lot more sense the second time around, much like Fight Club, if Fight Club were more like LSD than not.

On the other hand, Lain's trying to say some fairly profound stuff, I think, or maybe it's not, because I still haven't quite figured it out yet. I kinda get it, yet not. Nor do I get the point behind Lain's sister. Not at all.

I haven't so much finished with Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver as put it down for a time when I'm not watching so much anime (Neon Genesis Evangelion next), but let me just note that he's a lot like Guy Gavriel Kay in that if his characters went around talking about the tapeworm kingdoms of yore, it would be awesome. Not to mention that he's probably more prone to actually DO this, and may do so yet. Quicksilver's that kind of book.

Also snagged Gaiman's Anansi Boys last night, because I am a glutton for bizzareness. I've got Gates of Fire from Laurent, too, in case I need normality.

Among others on a long, long list.

There's snow on my car. WTH?

I want a refund on today.

Let's see. So at work, somehow everyone's having this conversation about puberty and balls dropping which somehow evolved from oral sex and nachos, and Tye walks by, and he's like "Careful, or they might corrupt you." "Oh," I say, "I'm already far more corrupt than that."

LPSes to the razor-bladed dildo-shaped courtesy phone please, LPSes.

In other news:

Suzanne: linkage

Me: Rock ON, I say.

Where'd it come from?

Her: The packaging on the exercise wheel I got my rats

Me: Too awesome.

Her: thought you might like that.

Me: It's just so...perfect.

Though no rabbits were, in fact, filmed in the making of this post, I've still got Duran Duran stuck in my head. Thanks, Speed Grapher. Thanks, Whir.

More on those in a minute. First, a word from our Battletech sponors. Remember: In the 31st century, life is cheap. Battlemechs are expensive.

This is why, in Friday night's BT game against Cole, I found myself, in our long-delayed debut of the epic Bridge War map, facing off against, yes, 4 Warhammers and an entire reinforced battalion (15 platoons) of 0 gunnery elite jump rifle infantry riding unarmed VTOL transports, who dropped all over the place in my backfield and annoyed my side a lot. And then, after my guys killed all the infantry, it turned into a replay of that whole 1986 with AC/5s quote, except with AC/2s. Seriously, it was totally FUBAR. My entire lance of C3i-networked, ER PPC-carrying Thugs? Can't hit the broad side of a barn. My random Partisan AA tanks, on the other hand, consistently need 10s to hit with AC/2s, and consistently hit with them, and miss with their big guns. Which is how I ended up with something like 3 double ones torso crits that did massive internal damage. It was beyond bizzare.

Much, I assure you, like Speed Grapher, which is an anime, not to change the subject or anything. And all I want to say about that is it reminds me of Fight Club meets Eyes Wide Shut meets comic books. And if you can reconcile all of that, you're probably doing better than I am. Strange show. Strange.

You should remember to enjoy anime in a normal way. Normally.

...Which is why I'll be rewatching Serial Experiments: Lain next.

On another note, been reading a lot of manga lately, since I saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in the check-in pile at the library the other week, along with Cowboy Bebop. And, well, I dunno. Manga's either hit or miss with me, it seems. Ranma? Cool because of Panda Dad. Ghost in the Shell? Kinda ok. Cowboy Bebop (either manga series)? Enh. But Neon Genesis Evangelion? Awesome. Makes me want to watch the series, which will be...right after Lain, in fact.

This makes me think that, if my theory holds true and any given anime series is 10x better than its manga, NGE is going to be friggin' cool. And I'll probably hate Shinji 10x as much, but who saw that coming?

Application of this theory to a hypothetical MT anime is left as an exercise for the reader.

...yes, I realize this entire post made no sense to anyone. But think on the bright side - I ALMOST talked about that bad old days of area building for MUDs. Maybe I will this weekend. I'm sure you can't wait.

With a nod to John Scalzi for having a good title to steal, I will now entertain you with how we entertain ourselves at work.

But first, since I need to vent, let's describe the end of today.

So, imagine you have 3 sets of doors, A, B, and C. They are all the exact same, except door B is 1/8" wider than door A, and C is 1/8" taller than door A. Given parts to these sets of doors, which turn out not to have been sorted correctly together, make the doors.

Yeah, not so easy. Why it was so hard to make them all the same size is beyond me.

Now, to add to that, we have this machine, and it's my favorite machine in the whole shop, that does the routing work on the panel edges, and can even follow curves and do those, too. However, the person catching panels out the other end of this machine needs to check and make sure that the panels will fit into the slots made for them in the stiles and rails, or else things get no so good.

Well, nobody bothered to do this part so much for our end of the day 70 door unit, so things got not so good. Combined with the whole "Engineers need to be fucking shot" thing, things got even notter so gooder. Or something.

This ended up with parts of doors strewn across 2 tables and a cart, random panels everywhere that look ALL THE SAME, people sanding other panels by hand, and it just wasn't cool for about half an hour. Not cool at all.

So remember. Check your goddamn panels when they exit the machine, and for the love of Christ, engineers, use your 5 year-old child advisor for once, ok?

Now on to the entertaining part.

PA System: mumble static mumble, 8344, mumble.

Karen: Our PA sounds like it's from the 70s.

Me: It probably is.

So, through vast amounts of scientific research, we have determined the following base PA call voices:

1. Perfectly, utterly clear, no issues understanding - By far the most rare. Mostly males with loud voices, for some reason.

2. The "Bob *static* please *static* *static*, thank you" call - Common, and random, given the age of our ass PA system.

3. The "*LOUD SQUEAL* please dial *LOUD SQUEAL*" call - Common, and somewhat random. Also known as the "Fix your phone!" call.

4. The "Bob Smith! please! dial! 8344! (because we're being attacked by Godzilla/squirrel aliens/terrorists/Nazis/Napoleon/small dogs)" call - wherein the caller, usually female for some reason, sounds not unlike the panicked soldier one often hears on the radio in war movies, thus leading the uninvolved listener to wonder what could POSSIBLY be so urgent.

Actually, scratch Napoleon. Even secretaries could fight off Napoleon.

5. The "Mumble mumble, mumble 8344 mumble" call - Affects everyone, and has a lot to do with people needing to learn to SHOUT INTO THE PHONE, BECAUSE WE'RE ALL WEARING EARPLUGS AND WORKING IN A FREAKING SHOP WITH POWER TOOLS.

Sometimes, you get combinations, which can be especially fun when they turn out like "*static* Bob Smith! *static* 8344! *static* (because we're being attacked by VC/mice/vampires/Napoleon/squirrel aliens, we need backup and air support, pronto!).

Well, even secretaries can take Napoleon without air support, but you get the idea.

Yes, you can have HOURS of fun with this sort of thing. HOURS.