Friday, March 31, 2006

Vince was here; he showed up Thursday night and spent the next 84 hours in my company without either of us going completely schizoid. That’s quite an accomplishment considering half a day will usually drive anyone mad. We met up with a few friends, ate at some nice restaurants, and visited exotic locations, a good ol’ time.

On Friday we snuck up to the Observation Deck of the Columbia Center. On the way out I held the door open for a cute blonde woman and the three of us piled into the elevator. Unknown Person + Rory = Silence and I was tired of that equation and I was tired of being that guy. I didn’t want to ask this girl out, I didn’t want to make out with her before the elevator ride was over, I didn't want to insert any part of my body into hers; I just wanted to talk to her because it was better then not talking to her. So I did:

“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” I say.

“No, I’m from Britain,” she says with a heavy English accent.

If you know me then you know I’ve had four epiphanies in my life: Cantaloupe and Ranch Dressing don't go together, I like Usher, Blanch from Golden Girls is a whore, and Blonde British chicks are hot. Nikki was visiting her friend in Seattle and touring the city alone by day. There was some stimulating conversation while escorting her to the library; she shared some of her weekend plans and I suggested some stellar cheap all you can eat sushi place. “Shit, No!” she says, the catch phrase of the weekend.

Together we toured the city, got our picture taken by the pier, admired some children in the park; we caught a movie and danced the night away, only returning to my place late the next morning to make passionate love on the roof deck overlooking the city... in my imagination. In the not make-believe world, we left Nikki there at the library to tour for herself and were off to do something significantly less heterosexual then my momentary fantasy.

Nikki is an enigma. In reality she could have snorted lines of coke in the library bathroom, had some live babies for dinner and got gang banged by the 1919 Chicago White Sox. In the Rory Historical Record she will be just some skirt in an elevator. But right now, she represents so much more. In Nikki I have a vision of this perfect woman. How many other really cool people have I not met, or haven't met me because I was scared to speak? I could have talked to her more, I didn’t, but I did talk to her, and that’s an accomplishment. I’ll be reminded of that next time I have something I don't want to say to someone.

  Wednesday, March 29, 2006

In an endeavor that will go down in the "You Have Too Much Time On Your Hands" Hall of Fame, I have successfully completed a full season of a modded version of Tecmo Super Bowl w/ 2003 players, using an NES Emulator and making frequent use of the "save state" feature, in which all of my players statistics are near perfect.


Hines Ward had a nice season with 63 touchdown catches, Jerome Bettis rumbled and stumbled for 3000+ rushing yards. Hell, check out the NFL sack leaders. My QB threw for over 5700 yards and according to the Tecmo system had a rating of 412.6, my backup RB rushed for 2094, Randle El amassed 2009 return yards, and my team defense accounted for 40 interceptions and shutout opponents 16 times.


I never did congratulate on here my own real life football team on their Super Bowl victory. This isn't about that, but it seems as good a time as any. Thanks Pittsburgh Steelers for winning the Super Bowl, during a year that I wasn't even able to be home and celebrate with the people I know care about football like I do, and so that I, the man who has coached you through the TV screen for the past fourteen years, couldn't even participate in the victory parade. You still owe me.


What this is about is well... you can take it two ways. It's about A) How ridiculously awesome I am at Tecmo. In fact I'm so good that most of the programming couldn't keep up with the touchdowns I scored or compute the negative yards I allowed, or B) I'm a sad lonely man who needs some friends, some activities, and some freaking adventures, or I'm going to implode upon the shear amount of boredom building up inside me. I'll sit on A for now while I try to get my Madden Franchise to start a player rated 99 at every position.