What does it mean?

So, miko2, your LiveJournal reveals...



You are... 1% unique and 6% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy smashing pumpkins). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.

Your overall weirdness is: 45

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 86% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

(no subject)

( Today's Song: The Left Sock Thievers by The Suesettes )

Blizzard is desperate for me to come back to World of Warcraft

Well okay, according to Wikipedia "On March 7, 2007, Blizzard announced that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft had reached a new milestone, with 8.5 million players worldwide; there are more than 2 million players in North America, 1.5 million players in Europe, and 3.5 million players in China." So desperate isn't the right word. Perhaps the right phrase is, "We've got so much money we don't know how to use it!"

Friday they sent me a copy of their new release "The Burning Crusade" with a 10-day trial. I find it interesting that they're mailing copies of their newest release to me free, just to try and get me to play again. Although probably I'd still have to pay a fee to "buy" the expansion if I wanted to keep using it. But still, that's a pretty clear illustration of the fact that online games make their money from the subscription fees more than from the sale of the initial game. Unless you're doing a game with absolutely no subscription fee, such as Guild Wars.

I want to get a non-online game for my new laptop. I don't know why, I just think that I have a cool laptop that can handle 3D games, and if I'm stuck somewhere without internet access I'd like to have a game that I can play. Not necessarily a new or state-of-the-art game, just something I'd enjoy. I havent' decided what that is, yet.

Miko's Amazing Adventure

I set out today with the goal of hitting 3 to 5 Half Price Bookstores, looking for a few certain cds (Rush, R.E.M., Pure Joy, Death Cab For Cutie, Trouble, Idlewild, I forget what else) and some kind of undefined computer game.

First stop: I intended to head straight to Bellevue Square, but then I decided to stop at Boeing Surplus. Half the fun of hitting used stores and junk stores is that you never know what you might find. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I found it: an unused ink cartridge for my HP Laserjet 4000, for $25.00. Nice! I'd never have thought to look for that at Boeing Surplus, but there it was.

After much consideration I also picked up a $4.00 chair. It's a stationairy chair (no wheels), tubular steel frame, no arms, very comfy. Since I'd done all my printing in the bedroom seated on a folding chair that wasn't really that comfortable, I decided a nice cheap comfortable chair was in order.

Off to Bellevue Square! Here is where I made my biggest music finds of the day! The first is "Experience Music Project Presents: Wild and Wooly, The Northwest Rock Collection". This is a 2 disc set chock full of the best Northwest rock has ever put forth, from the early days (1958, even before the Wailers, Ventures, and Kingsmen, had made their splash) through the whole grunge thing and on upto 2000, when this cd was made. With very few exceptions, the cd gets everything right and picks stellar tracks throughout. What caught my eye was the inclusion of a couple of my favorite obscure early-80's Seattle tracks, "Vaporized" by X-15 and "Take Me To Your Leader" by The Pudz. I love the song Vaporized, and didn't have it on cd. Now I do!

The booklet that comes with the cd is equally well crafted and engrossing. I love reading stuff like that.

My only real quibbles are that there's no Rusty Willoughby band -- either Pure Joy or Flop would do -- and no Mother Love Bone. Of course they have Green River and Pearl Jam, but that leaves out Andy Wood, lead singer of MLB and of Malfunkshun before that. There are other local bands that are favorites of mine, but those two in particular seem like they should get some mention. (Rusty does, in fact, get a small credit in the booklet -- he's the drummer for The Fastbacks on their track Parts).

If the cd had been created just a few years later you'd almost certainly have to include something by Death Cab For Cutie or maybe The Decemberists. Also not represented: the Dharma Bums, Seaweed, Everclear, to say nothing of bands like Hole and Candlebox that I frankly wouldn't have included either. And for me personally, two bands that I'm sure don't deserve any mention, but which I'd like to have songs of theirs on cd: The Visible Targets, and Widow's song Bitch. Not shining examples of the best in Northwest music I suppose, but fun stuff anyway.

My second find was even more fun: Under The Covers vol 1 by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. Hoffs, in case you don't remember, was the front woman for the Bangles. Both Sweet and Hoffs are big proponents of all things power pop, and in this cd they team up to cover a bunch of great songs from the 60's. How could I not pick this up? And for $5.98 no less!

The bad news: boy, do they look old. Well, they are getting older, of course, and I don't buy their cds for how they look, but Sweet in particular is looking old, fat, hairy and ugly. I think he's turning into Neil Young. (They do two Neil Young covers btw.)

Hoffs and Sweet were also members of "Ming Tea", the band featured in the Austin Powers films.

I had lunch at the Greek restaurant there in the mall.

After that I hit Redmond and then the University District and then Southcenter, picked up a few more cds (I found Test for Echo by Rush and Automatic For the People by R.E.M. -- and a lot of other cds by R.E.M. that I don't have, but I only got the one I came fore). I didn't find any computer game that compelled me to buy. Mostly I think the kind of games that wind up in Half Price Books are not the cream of the crop, anyway.

At Southcenter I hit the nearby Thai restaurant for some red curry chicken with brown rice, which I took home and devoured. Yum!