Goeiemorgen, friends

I'm writing from gate C6 at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. It's 11:30ish in the morning here, and I'm waiting patiently to board the plane that will whisk me off to Oslo, where it's apparently quite cold and salted meats are the norm. So far, the trip has been uneventful, and in fact, even touched by a bit of good luck: While I was originally slated to spend 11 grueling hours in a middle seat, I managed to get myself moved into an aisle when I checked in at SFO...and then some folks asked me if I'd switch seats so they could travel together, and my generosity was rewarded by the fates quite handsomely, since the seat next to me ended up the only empty one on an otherwise completely full plane. I confess that I was pretty sure the people around me were sending unhappy thoughts my way for a bit, but I can't blame them, I'd have done the very same from my middle seat. So, while I still didn't enjoy the most restful 10 hours--coach seats are coach seats, even when you have two of them, and there's no way to adequately set yourself up for some long-lasting shut-eye--I did manage to get some sleep, so I'm only like a class 2 zombie right now instead of a full-fledged Romero-esque nightmare.

More to come when I arrive in Oslo. I stupidly remembered my camera but not the USB cable to connect it to my PC, so photos might have to wait until I return to the states, but I'll happily provide sparkling descriptions of whatever I see. And eat, of course.

Hey, look--I'm famous

And not even for doing something ridiculous!

Best Reader Email Ever

I received this email from a PC Gamer reader this morning. It is officially my new favorite reader email:

From: xxxxxxx@netzero.net
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:39 PM
To: Kristen Salvatore
Subject: Hellgate london demo is out

Hi woman

I would like to get Pcgamer dvd with Hellgate london

demo next month. It is about 1.4GB.

I only get a dial up internet account with netzero

so I can not download it fast.I hope you can get the file

on dvd for me

use the game site:

www.3dgamers.com

www.filecloud.com

Search for "hellgate london" in google.com

sincerely,

President Yau Ng

Spring Flinging

Despite still suffering through whatever this b.s. sinus issue is (I went to the doctor today, where I was asked,"Have you tried Sudafed?" Uh, thanks for the tip, Doc), I made it out and about just a bit this weekend. Friday night was drinks and karaoke with my girls S and S, also known as the founding members of the Mary Banilows, an all-girl Barry Manilow cover band that the three of us cooked up conceptually one night. This Friday's brainiac-tastic idea was to buy the old Tower Records on Market Street in the Castro and convert it into a karaoke place full of private karaoke rooms (like the one the three of went to on Friday night), but to also have a bar attached, so patrons can order drinks while they're singing (like the one the three of us went to in London last year).

I also managed to drag myself to the Home Depot, accompanied by my friend D. He patiently waited while I picked out $68 worth of herbs, tomato plants, and planter boxes, and then generously offered his services as a backyard digger. I'd forgotten how nice it feels to plant things you one day hope to eat--I've never been one to plant flowers, not because I don't like them, but because I end up feeling less invested than I should in their health and well-being, and then I travel for work and forget to ask someone to take care of them and they die and I feel awful. But for some reason, I get very attached to my tomato plants and my little boxes of thyme and oregano and Italian flat-leaf parsley.

The Day of Eating Dangerously

I'm munching on one of those candy necklaces right now. Usually, I avoid the big bowl of candy ubiquitous to most HR offices (my company's included, obviously), but today, I felt like splashing out. I was too rushed this morning to pack my lunch, so I decided I'd treat myself to an eat-out, and maybe even to something kind of bad for me. The thing is, once you get into that mindset for a day, it's like all bets are off: Let's have a large latte! Let's have two! Let's have candy from HR! Let's have Jack in the Box for lunch! AND DINNER!

I'm kidding, I haven't been that bad at all--the candy necklace and a giant bowl of chicken pho have been my vices today. And some trail mix with M&Ms in it. But Jack in the Box was not only a very real option, it's the road down which some of my co-workers traveled today. And a terrible road it is:

There's actually a pretty long tradition of junky/competitive/disgusting/all-of-the-above eating in this office. Pizzas, burgers, something Logan calls "the sumo no-carb plate," Bucket Week at KFC (which is exactly what you are thinking, and exactly as awful)...it's all been done. Two of the guys here regularly go to the nearby Costco where they each buy themselves a pizza for lunch.

A whole pizza. Each. For lunch.

I find this terrifying, but of course I cannot look away. Which is why I documented some of today's Burger-Eating Contest, the rules of which were:
-Contestants much consume 5 Ultimate Cheeseburgers and one milkshake within 90 minutes, in one sitting. Contestants may not get up and walk around, and vomiting results in immediate disqualification, regardless of the fact that you will probably be glad that you did.

Here is what some of this looked like:

This is Dan after his first burger. I have to admit, I admired his technique: he just keep eating, steadily and calmly, unfazed by the fact that we were all crowded around him making puke jokes.


This is Dan after his second burger. Or maybe his third, I don't know. At this point, I was regularly retreating to another part of the office because the smell of Jack in the Box burgers was making me kind of queasy, to say nothing of the gorge-fest.


This is Norm the Intern after his second burger. I would feel bad for Norm--he's a smaller guy than Dan, and I think he's had less training in this department--except that he'd been walking around all week bragging about how sure he was that he was going to beat the five-burger record, so really, I was just kind of hoping we'd get some good puke shots from him. (No dice.)


This is Dan at his moment of triumph. And by "triumph," I mean, the moment at which he successfully finished consuming 5,000-plus calories in one sitting and lived to tell the tale. Hell, the guy is sitting one desk away from me right now working away, so if he's suffering at all, he's not showing it. I am equal parts disgusted and impressed by this display, but mostly, it makes me feel a little better about the idea of going back for one more dip into the HR candy jar.

The human head weighs 8 pounds

Unless you have your third head cold of the season--then it weighs about 22 pounds. I can hardly believe it myself, but I am sick AGAIN.

Luckily, this is just in time for my appearance this coming Wednesday on X-Play. I'll be talking about the PC Gaming Alliance, and doing my best not to sneeze snot all over the camera lens. Luckily, only about 2 million people will be watching, so I don't have too much to worry about in terms of totally embarrassing myself.

What Happens Next?

Last night was the final meeting of my Improv class--as in "Improvisational Acting I." One of the first things I learned in the class was the important distinction between "improv" and "comedy": while improv often ends up being funny, that isn't necessarily the point. Improv is about being in the moment, making choices in a scene to just do what seems to come next--or, as my instructor explained last night, improv is about making a choice and then justifying it. Which, as one of my astute classmates noted, is essentially the reverse of what we're taught to do in the rest of our lives. It's a very Zen exercise. At least, it's supposed to be. The truth is that it often ends up being very funny. In fact, it's much funnier when someone isn't trying to be funny--the more the actors are trying, the less funny it ends up being. I know this because I have a habit of trying to be funny, and it often just comes out forced.

I Was Just Trying to Help, Act III

Have you seen a 2008 Toyota Solara convertible?

It's a nice car. A sporty car. A car that is made for driving around and looking fabulous and flirting with the hot guy in the car next to you at the stop light. It is definitely not made for trips to the hardware store. Oh, and it has really nice leather seats, so it is also not made for terrible East Coast winter weather.

In fact, Mom, what are you doing with this car?

The wet-dry vac did not fit in the trunk--not even close. I briefly considered taking the thing out of the box and seeing if the vacuum itself would fit in the trunk, but it was raining so hard that all I wanted was to be someplace--anyplace--that it wasn't raining.

So, I opened the passenger-side door of the car and shoved the box in. It wasn't sliding in easily, but I knew there had to be a way, so I shoved. Hard. And eventually, I managed to get it in enough to close the door. I ran around to the driver's side and jumped in. The rain pounded the car, and I was shaking with cold and blinded by water pouring out of my hair. I figured I must look ridiculous, and I turned to the rear view mirror to get a good look. Which is when I discovered that I'd shoved the box against the mirror and actually pulled it out of the windshield, leaving a hole and two cracks where it had once been mounted.

I mentioned that this is a brand-new car, right?

Remember in Act II where, in a moment of panic, I grabbed a live electrical wire while standing in a pool of water? Some part of my brain must be shriveled and cracked, like the edges of a hard cheese that's been in the fridge too long. Because when I saw that I'd smashed up the windshield of my mom's new car, my first thought was:

"I need to move this box!"

Which I tried to do. Which is how I discovered that the broken part of the windshield had scattered into minuscule shards all over the box, a number of which immediately lodged in my hand. Which began bleeding profusely, all over my mother's brand-new leather seats.

Have you ever tried to drive a convertible, with its teeny back window and multiple blind spots? Have you ever tried to drive one in the blinding rain? With a broken rearview mirror swinging around? And a cracked windshield? And a bleeding hand? I imagine that playing the piano while simultaneously performing surgery is easier, if only because you know that when you're done, you won't be faced with telling your flu-addled mom that after you finish vacuuming 6 inches of water out of her basement, you'll need to borrow her car to find a new windshield and a good leather-cleaner that will remove bloodstains.

I Was Just Trying to Help, Act II

Here is what happened next:

I awoke the next morning to find Mom nursing what is now a full-blown case of the flu, which, as you know, basically inverts your ordinary sense of life and death such that instead of fearing death in all its forms, you curse it for not just taking you away immediately.

Torrents of rain the likes of which I have never seen were battering the house. I literally could not see out the front window because a solid sheet of water was pouring past it. M's surprise party began at 1:30, and it was going to take me at least an hour to get into the city, so I headed for the shower and discovered there was no hot water.

I yelled, "Mom there's no hot water."

In response, my mother screamed my name three times. Actually SCREAMED. Still in my pajamas, I careened downstairs to the living room. No Mom. She screamed again and I realized she was in the basement. I bounded down the basement stairs...and splashed into water past my ankles. The entire basement could have comfortably housed a school of koi. My mother was standing in the middle of this lake, wearing her pajamas and a pair of ski boots. She looked like she was about to cry.

The sight of my poor flu-ridden mom about to cry prodded me into immediate, thoughtless action. I looked around crazily for anything I could save from ruin by picking it up off the floor. For reasons no one will ever understand, I chose an electrical cord...that was plugged in. Somehow, the ensuing electrical shock did not transfer to the 6 inches of water in which I was standing and kill me. Which is good, because, y'know, my mom was right there.

I asked, "Mom, do you have a wet-dry vac?" (In case you've never lived someplace with a basement, this is not that weird a request--basements flood a lot.)

She waded over to what was once my grandfather's workbench and re-emerged with a small beige canister to which a limp, scarred hose was attached. I am pretty sure it pre-dated the Harding administration--it would have not surprised me in the least to discovered it ran via hand crank. We'd have been better off with two plastic milk containers.

I begged my mother to get out of the wet basement and told her I would drive to the hardware store to buy her a wet/dry vac designed to handle more water than a birdbath. Though I had not contrived to stupidly bring about my untimely death again, I was still in hyper-frenzied ACTION MODE. I did manage to change out of my pjs, but the only shoes I had with me were some cute leather ballet flats, so I shoved my size 9.5s into a pair of my mom's 7.5s and waded out into the weather.

The weather...was bad. Really, really bad. It was dangerous to be walking outside, let alone driving. I was in the hardware store's parking lot, but I couldn't see the building from the car because it was raining so hard. I was also having trouble walking in those very, very small shoes. But I got into the store and I bought the heaviest-duty wet/dry vac they had. The box noted that it's "contractor-grade," and it has a built-in pump, so you don't need to empty it, you can just keep vacuuming water away from where it shouldn't be and pumping it out the other end of a hose to where you'd rather it was. It cost $130 with a 1-year warranty. Considering the circumstances, I considered this to be a pretty good deal.

Then, I took the box out to the parking lot.

I Was Just Trying to Help, Act I

Last night, I returned from a trip to the Tri-State area. I am from there. My mom lives there. My grandparents and extended family live there. My closest college girlfriends live there. Various ex-lovers live there.

I flew out because my uber-capable friend N pulled together a surprise birthday party for my uber-free spirited friend M, who is also celebrating some good riddance to bad rubbish...but that's her story, not mine, so I'll leave it at that.

I got lucky for the flight out: for some reason, it cost the same amount of air miles to fly first class as it would have to fly coach. I'm here to tell you: Continental Airlines first class is top notch. I ate a crab and shrimp appetizer. I ate a tasty chicken breast stuffed with spinach and cheese. I ate an ice cream sundae with whipped cream and nuts. I drank a lot of free wine. I also kept checking to see if the curtain between first and coach was closed, which it wasn't, and I didn't like that. I kept expecting the plane packed full of angry Friday-night travelers to charge forward and storm my in-flight Versailles.

Let them eat peanuts!

Anyway, I arrived in Newark at midnight. My mom met me at the airport. I knew she wasn't feeling well--she cut a pretty pathetic-looking figure at the curb, trying to stay out of the driving rain. The first thing she asked me was, "How many drinks did you have on the plane?" She was feeling too sick to drive home, and handed me the keys to her brand-new 2008 Toyota Solara convertible. She also told me that I smelled like a brewery*. Then I turned the key in the ignition and tried to turn on the car. Which was already running.

It's a really quiet car. Seriously.

Anyway, she was really feeling awful, so I drove home, and we both crashed out.

*I think this was a function of having just come off an airplane. I don't, nor would I ever, drive after I'd been drinking. Especially not with my mom in the car.

Drama Finds Me

If you're reading this blog, then you probably know me, so you know this is true. In fact, you've probably said something along those lines about me. Maybe something like: "Drama just seems to find that girl!" Or maybe: "Her life is always so dramatic!"

Or possibly: "She's such a drama queen."

And that's cool, because it's true. But like any lifelong personal characteristic--a tendency to stutter when nervous, an awkwardly placed mole--that people no longer notice about themselves unless someone points it out, I usually miss the fact that the things that happen to me/with me/near me are often extraordinarily emotional to the point of being overwrought.

To me, it's just, y'know, Tuesday.

So, I'm going to start writing down what happens, and you can decide for yourselves.