dahanese.com

For Precarious.

A friend of mine died today.

Her name was Saoirse Farley, but to me, she will always be Precarious. I met her by that name online, many years ago, when I was running the BioShock 2 ARG. From the beginning, when I only knew her as text on a message board, I could feel her fire – her burning desire to not just live life to the fullest but to devour the world and savor every single moment of it. She was passionate about what she did: in this case, it was the BioShock community. I actually truly believe she is the number one fan of the game in the entire world.

Adventures with drunk drivers

Last night, my friends and I went up to Novato to play board games (we're amazing party animals. I'm glad you know this now.) We left around 11:45 at night and got onto the 101, heading south for our home in San Francisco.

Just past the Nave Drive exit, we saw a large white Audi SUV swerving in its lane (and occasionally out of its lane.) There were four of us in my car, and I was driving, and I felt this surge of ABSOLUTE HATRED for drunk drivers. Having worked in Novato for a better part of five years, I've seen quite a few distracted and likely drunk drivers on the roads, and since I had the luxury of friends in the car with me, I asked someone to call 911 and report this driver.

Conversations from my workplace.

Walking to the bathroom I saw Rocco peeling a piece of citrus in the hallway over a trash can.

"Tobey, is this a blood orange or is it rotten?"

"I don't know, dude, it's got a ton of white pulpy stuff. That's a lot more than I'm used to. Is it red inside? They are really red inside."

"I don't know, I got it from Marin."

"Break it open, let's see."

"Is it rotten?"

"Dude, that looks like a grapefruit." (I smell it.) "Yeah, that's a grapefruit."

"Well can I eat it?"

"If you like grapefruit, yeah."

...And at this point, the gal in the office next to use started laughing so hard she cried.

Come out and Play San Francisco: Jericho - An Urban Spy Game

Last night Greg, Mike, and I traversed into downtown San Francisco one more time to partake in Come Out and Play San Francisco 2011. This time we were in Union Square to play “Jericho – An Urban Spy Game”. We knew this about the game: We would be picking up and carrying “spy documents” or defending and stopping spies carrying said documents, and we should bring a hat and a Nerf gun. As an added bonus, we were told that the person in the best spy outfit would win a “special Nerf gun”.


I’m competitive by nature, and really did want a black trenchcoat. However, walking into a store wearing a fedora whilst wielding two Nerf guns was far more embarrassing than I expected it to be.


We were a bit wary of the event after the previous night’s mall debacle, but the lure of Nerf guns is pretty much a Siren song to anyone who likes to play games (come on, you can’t deny it) so at 6:30 PM we arrived (and I was decked out in a double-breasted black trenchcoat, matching fedora, and red scarf tied to look like an ascot).

From the moment we saw the event’s coordinator, dressed in a full tuxedo, the game went from awesome to completely fucking badass.

Come Out and Play San Francisco: Undercover Capture the Flag

Last night, Greg, Cailin, Mike, and I went to Undercover Capture the Flag at the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco. We had really high hopes for this kind of subversive play: the game entailed you hunting down players on an opposing team and tagging them by saying "do you have the time?" No one in the mall was supposed to know you were playing and you were supposed to blend in - all the while looking for flags posted on walls throughout the mall.

So, that's what was supposed to go on, but let me tell you how it actually went down.

Journey to the End of the Night, 2011

For the past three Halloween weekends, San Francisco has hosted an event called Journey to the End of the Night as part of a larger Come out and Play festival. I learned of Journey from my friend Matt, who told me about it about a year and a half ago after he participated in one of these events in Germany.

If you want to learn more about Journey, go to www.totheendofthenight.com - and to hear about our experiences, keep on reading.

On streaming technologies.

So, if you know me, you probably know I really like video games, the Internet, and hanging out with people on the Internet and that I meet in the Internet whilst doing things that relate to video games (I, know, I know, it's shocking that with these hobbies I run community and social for a video game company. Shocking, I tell you.)

Anyway, a long, long time ago I was terrified of public speaking, so I joined Model UN in high school because I believe the best thing to do when you are terrified of something is to force yourself to do it. My first conference, I was timid, so the cond one I said to myself "the worst you can do is fail utterly and everyone will laugh at you. Then you will leave this place and never see them again." (motivational speaker I am not.) that tactic worked for me and I ended up winning a ton of awards and becoming president of the club - so I apply it in how I work when dealing with the public facing portions of my job, which are numerous.

While I might not like the sound of my voice, I do a lot of interviews and these days, at work, we have a robust streaming setup. So when Greg bought Dark Souls and told me it was soul crushingly difficult, I thought that I would buy it too (because I'm a masochist) and cord myself playing it for the benefit of amusing my friends.

Last night I did one better: using http://twitch.tv/dahanese I streamed myself playing the first hour of the game. Between people on Twitter and Shacknews I think I got something like 200 views (I use ustrwam.tv currently for work so I havent poked around with the twitch metrics - I would love to know how many poor souls were concurrently suffering as I played horrifically poorly.) and while streaming myself doing something personal in my home was slightly terrifying to me (not to mention I was purposefully putting myself in a situation where I would look dumb for the amusement of others) I had a ton of fun with the entire ordeal. From setting up the system (thanks Loiosh!) and learning that MacBook Airs are fucking amazing and can run a high quality stream of two cameras over wireless to having my chat room heckle me and steer me at times towards death and success, everything was awesome.

I understand now why Greg likes streaming his live D&D sessions. While he Likes being in the spotlight far more than I do, I'm not without ego, and so even if this is a situation where I am the fool rather than the rockstar, having a crowd to cheer and laugh and enjoy is really welcoming.

I knew when I bought Dark Souls that it wasn't my kind of game. I like beating on things, but I am terrible at learning to be defensive and subtle when slashing away at enemies in video games. That's one reason I love Borderlands, for example: group play and as Brick I could run in and bash people in the face with my fists while my fiancé (playing the sniper) laughed at me through his rifle scope. I also rally don't ke things that are punishingly difficult - I challenge myself enough in life - I like the option to drop a game to easy and cruise through it after a difficult day. Dark Souls has none of this, but because of that, it makes for an awesome game to watch me play, and it also is an awesome game for my to have a group with me while I play so perhaps I can make it to the end.

Okay, maybe making it to the end is overzealous, but I'm looking forward to being back home next Monday so that I can figure out how to make the image quality better and stream again. And not only that, I'm a lady thinking s out buying direct feed inputs to stream games from my desktop or direct from my consoles. I mean, if people will watch me and through the amazing connectedness of a live stream hang out with me, think of how many video games I minght playnthat I've previously set aside. Who knows, may e someday I'll play one I'm actually good at (although I'm sure the ones I am terrible at are far more fun.)

So I'm taking requests on what you guys want to see me play in the future and inviting you to watch me through the next week or so with Dark Souls. I think live streaming is awesome and have thought so since we started doing it at work over a year ago, but I never realized how much I'd enjoy it for my own personal use.

Thanks, Internet! You win again.

Spago, in July (yes, this is late).

In July, Cailin, Greg, Mike and I had a tasting feast as Spago. Somehow, all my food notes were lost to my iPhone, but I still remember what we ate (and it was delicious). We also had wine with each course, but that, unfortunately, I do not recall.

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Race!

I am playing around with Runkeeper's Race page. I'm making a run for Cailin and myself because that's awesome (and hopefully this will make you laugh Cailin, or at least smirk a bit) and this is the official website of that race.

SUPER OFFICIAL.

[Obligatory logo that I made because I am clearly an awesome graphic artist]

What the hell is Jejuning?

If you've been following my Twitter account for any length of time, likely you have heard me say at least once that I have been Jejuned. If you are confused, this blog post is for you. It probably won't make you any less confused, but it will at the very least explain what the hell I mean when I turn the word jejune into a verb.

First, some backstory.