dahanese.com

oh my god, my world's are colliding.

today jed, emilia, and rob come from boston to play. which is awesomely incredible, as i haven't seen them since i left somerville. they arrive in about an hour and a half, and we're going to eat dim sum and then go over to loboca's place and drink and play games.

the hiliarity of this, of course, is that jed, emilia, and rob do drink, but do not play games. i just imagine the idea of them attempting guitar hero, or the ds, and i don't know whether to piss myself laughing, or die. all i can remember is them heckling me over puzzle pirates and WoW.

but the dread's fading, and i'm starting to get really excited. i'm off with mikey to look for more shot glasses and then buy some white russian goodness.

thought about snakes.

as most of you know, at 10 pm on thursday i saw the opening of snakes on a plane. and, i must say, it was FANTASTIC. much scarier, realistic, and gory than i thought (i sat with my legs up on the seat the whole time, as did my sister, and most of the time we were cowering together, holding hands and whimpering) but it was great.

and one of the best things about the experience was the crowd. we cheered. we laughed. we hooted. we wooped. it was like watching the high school football game against your more dire rival. but it was for samuel l. jackson. when the famous line came on, you couldn't eve hear it, we were all shouting so loud.

after a rough week, it was the jolt of happiness and adrenaline and joy that i needed. i feel like i can tap back into that night and still feel the pure wonder of it.

the shackers also made it worthwhile. we had a whole row, right smack dab in the middle of the theater. before the show started, you could peer down and see a dozen faces lit by the glow of nintendo DS lights, talking smack to one another as we played over wifi.

but, really, i want to talk about how people were "disappointed" that SoaP made only $15 million opening week-ish. this is average for a horror movie, and movie execs were hoping for a $20-30 million mark because of all the internet hype.

i am very glad it didn't make that mark. i'm glad it did average, and didn't fail (i know it will make its money up later, and in DVD sales), but if it HAD flown out the window and made $30 mil, we would have been bombarded with viral marketing, shitty B-movies, and "Internet Hype" with a style of some 40-year-old in a suit and a comb over trying to recreate a single strand of pure Jesus Christ awesomeness because he wants to line his pockets.

you don't mess with god.

and my god resides in the miracle that was snakes on a plane.

the super-secret-e-mission, unveiled.

hi guys.

you may have noticed i was trying to draw some mystery around myself. (no? oh. okay. i'm going to tell you anyway.)

about a month ago, a shacker named warcrow messaged me and said that he wanted to start a gamer's podcast. he wanted people with very different backgrounds to participate. he gave me a lot of compliments to butter me up, but in the end, he basically said i was a knowledgable and well-known girl gamer, and he needed some feminine DNA in his podcast, and invited me to join.

his name is mark, and he is our overlord. aside from myself, chris remo, an employee of the shack and gaming journalist, also rants with us. we ran a test two weeks ago, and last monday, recorded our first show. of course, as first shows go, it's rough, and too long, but all-in-all, i've gotten great feedback and some nice ego stroking (thank you endlessly first to eddie, then to greg, and then to marcus.)

we're up live on itunes now (EGAD.) i suppose i can't pretend i'm not some sort of uber-geek anymore, eh?

here's a link to our website. i'm supposing if this keeps on rolling, we'll get ourselves a real web address. subscribe, be kind, but please leave feedback, negative as well as positive. and do know that next time we will go no longer than 45 minutes, probably have more musical interludes, keep our news topics limited and on topic, and generally, have our shit 1 more week together than this one.

http://web.mac.com/heymarkd

dead rising.

i really gotta stop shacking so much. (this, by the way, will never happen.)

there's such a thing called shackhype. it's when enough people rant and rave about the wonders of a game till no one can resist buying it. this happens to me a lot. my nintendo DS (like the best purchase EVER) is complete shack hype. in fact, most of my technology is shackhype. anyway.

right now, there's a game on the horizon called dead rising. basically, you're a journalist and you go to a town for a scoop and find out pretty much everyone's a zombie. you go to the mall to try and find safety, and there are zombies (and some survivors) there. so you have the run of the mall to make weapons and fuck shit up.

i'm terrified of zombies. i suck at first person shooters. and this game is for the xbox 360, which is a several hundred dollar console. the game itself is 60$. i know, if the stars were aligned perfectly and money was no option, eric would play this game while i cowered in fear behind my hands and whimpered like a little girl.

however. i want it. so bad.

so where's the best corner for streetwalkers, because i have to turn tricks and start saving up.

walking dead.

oh god, i need to get more sleep. i want to die. i don't even think i'm actually awake right now. i believe i am dreaming that i am at work.

in other news, last night on the shack someone put up a post asking what you would do if you actually woke up, and the world had been infected and everyone was a zombie. would you kill your significant other (if they were a zombie) and go road warrior?

in this situation, the living shackers were all going to band together and party, but it got me to thinking: do you have it in you to survive?

me? i don't think so. i can't even kill a fucking spider. i have dreams about rabid squirrels and i freeze up. and zombies freak me the fuck out, since only 1 bite and you're basically done for. i think i'd hide in my house like a pussy and end up getting eaten in some horrific fashion.

unless i was rescued by the shack squad. then i could hide behind them and be the Stereotypical Girl. that would be pretty sweet.

vivid dreams.

i've been having really vivid dreams lately. i don't have time for both, so i'll write what i remember of my vampire one.

basically, i was in a nightclub-type place, with people i knew, including shackers. i was wearing like a fancy white bodice/corset/tank top thingie and a nice long black skirt. and a cape. yes, i know. whatever. it was a cool cape. and as i'm walking along this upper deck lounge area with a drink in my hand, something happens and the drink shatters. i believe someone knocked into me. anyway. a shard of glass goes into my left index finger, right above the second knuckle. i remember it very vividly, looking down, and seeing the blood, and realizing with this wave of nausea that i was a vampire, and i had no idea how i'd become one, and the fact that i was bleeding would make me want to feed, and i freaked.

i tore off my cape and i basically ran over, absolutely hysterical out of my mind, to my friends. and there was this hybrid-type person that was askedrelic there who stood up and kind of shook me by the shoulders. (his hybird was with a kid named alex hallowell who i knew in middle school. which is weird. but we're just going to keep going.) and i held out my finger to him and told him i was a vampire, and somehow this made sense.

there was a rush of panic and he was like "we're going to have to get you fixed up" and he went walking over to someone that we knew was an older, head vampire (who was on the bottom floor), and askedrelicalexhybrid said "i need to make her not a vampire" and the guy kind of laughed and told me to step into this circle, then.

so i stepped back and i was lifted up like 20 feet off the ground, and then 4 friends who were standing at the cardinal direction points around me were also lifted. and the head vampire said, "now tell me the four numbers of the vampires who made you."

and askedhybrid was like "what??" and in this tone, more demanding than explain, the head vampire let askedhybrid know that to turn into a vampire, 4 vampires had to do something to you, and they each had a code to unmake you. you didn't need all 4 present to undo it, just the code... and the guy assumed we had the codes, which he really wanted, because 2 of the vampires that made me were missing, and the other 2 in hiding.

i got dropped then, and in a frenzy askedhybrid was trying to get me out of there and i was so weak, and crying, and i said, "it's no use, they own this place. we'll never get out."

and sure enough, we were brought into a back room. i was so tired and worn and scared, but askedhybrid turned more into the personality of the asked i actually know, and started to try and smooth talk his way out of this. the dream ended by him reaching up to fumble through some glass cabinet and someone being like "do you even KNOW what you are touching???"

i woke up to a phone call, and the dream was so real i actually looked down at my finger, because it still felt like it should be bleeding from the glass.

phobias.

so on the shack, someone asked whether people would take a flight on a space shuttle, even with the risks.

i replied VEHEMENTLY NO, as my #1 fear is space.

...i was heckled. (this isn't surprising).

someone then asked what #2 was. i replied, blood, followed by squirrels.

...i was heckled. (i definitely deserved it).

however, it was all worth it. as carazy made me this: http://www.dahanese.com/random_images/vampire_squirrel.jpg

another editing poll.

wow, look at other shackers i didn't know reading my blog. hi kill virus (sorry, your name gets the no-numbers spelling).

okay, here's the deal. i don't know if i should change the font on my blog. i write my word documents in arial narrow -- that's my font -- but here, it looks kind of tiny. so here are the candidates:

make arial narrow bigger, like so.

change it to arial.

change it to verdana.

<<< insert your suggestions here with other fonts >>>

Update:

Comic Sans is eric's suggestion.

Also, Georgia.

Can everyone read Garamond?

And then there's tahoma. that's a good one.

oh, shack.

shake shack ahoy!

so last friday, mikey came and interviewed at my company. i heard his voice in the hallway and thought "OH GOD OH GOD DON'T LAUGH I HOPE I DON'T HAVE TO SEE HIM." it was super mature.

i'm betting 70% odds on him. since no one else is currently in the interviewing lineup, i'd say that's conservative... but you never know. something could happen and a more senior person could come in, be totally affordable, and beat him out. but senior people generally get bored faster. and anyway. he IS the coolest guy on the internet.

regardless. afterward loboca, mikey, sergeon, and eric came to the shake shack and we all got shack attack shakes (concretes but whatever they were supposedly drinkable) and shack burgers. and then portax showed up, because portax has a knack for saying he has to be somewhere else and blowing off my invitations, then showing the fuck up. i suppose that's flattering, eh? anyway.

loboca went back to work, because he's like that, and we went to midtown comics because eric wanted a green lantern ring. which... he actually wears... to work. it's plastic. and green.

i date this boy.

after that, i bought some pots for plants at work, and went home.

i have some great tonsil/work nightmares for you coming up, by the way. STAY TUNED!