Things I've said while playing Super Mario Galaxy

At some point (last weekend? two weeks ago?), I started playing Super Mario Galaxy.  It's taken up more of my time than I'd like to admit. That's not why I skipped Blog Out loud last night - I had my last boxing class before summer, and if I'd gone to BOLO instead, my elbow, knee, and ankle wouldn't hurt today, so as you can see, boxing was the obvious choice.

(As an aside, two people in my department at work have required unexpected medical attention so far this week, so when my knee started bothering me last night, I thought "If I have to call in and say I'm going to miss work to go get my knee looked at, my manager is going to have a heart attack."  I fully expect her to bring rolls of bubble wrap in on Monday.)

Wanda laughs at me if she happens to be upstairs while I'm playing.  First of all, I tend to plunge to my death.  A lot. Secondly, some of the things I say are apparently weird if taken out of context.  Things like:

• Stop falling and don't get eaten by bugs. Words to live by.
• There's no "almost" in bees.
• Why can't I ... crap.
• Stupid Mario. I don't know why they call you super.
• No! I hit the button! I HIT THE BUTTON!!!

It's all worth it, of course.  If I get another 16 stars, the space station will start flying again and we can go rescue Princess Peach (who is kind of a dolt - she sends the same letter over and over again, and she really should get off her butt and rescue herself instead of waiting for Mario, who is probably plunging to his death somewhere).

Totally a good use of my summer.

Blog out loud

When I looked at my schedule for this week, there were a lot of things that
needed to happen. I'm camping tonight, so which meant I had to pull all of the
camping equipment out of storage and go through it to make sure there were, for
example, enough plates. I had to pack my personal gear. I had to take the car
in for an oil change so that they could figure out why the brakes sometimes
sound like metal scarping on concrete.

Of course, there was the usual life stuff as well. I had to clean the house.
Since I'm gone for the weekend, I had to buy groceries - there's no way I'll
want to do it when I get back on Sunday. I had to fight the jungle of weeks in
the yard. While I was out there, I noticed the tomatoes needed staking (which
somehow makes them sound like vampires, which they are not).


And, of course, Thursday night was BOLO - Blog Out Loud Ottawa. I wanted to go,
but I wasn't sure it would work amidst everything else that had to happen.

Spoiler alert: I went.

It was a good time. Like last year, I had to duck out early (due to the
aforementioned packing). Also like last year, I wasn't reading, just sitting
around and listening, but somehow I was more relaxed - in part because I
recognized more people. I also recognized more people's name tags.


(No one's delusional enough to think I'm going to link to last year's post,
right?)

I met people I've only know through the internet. I chatted with people I'd
never heard of before. I listened to people who brave enough to read - they did
a great job. I wish I had been able to stay until the end.


Maybe next year.