J. Jason Lazarus Blog

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It’s been a busy last few days - but it’s been an enjoyable change of pace (and temperature) from Fairbanks. I’ve ate far too much, walked far too much, seen and shopped and spent far too much but in excess there is always fun to be had. The only thing that I have been lacking is reliable wifi that I’m not hijacking from some idiot that left their wifi open - so here I am, day 5, sitting in Schroder’s German Restaurant in downtown SF - right after seeing the Macworld Keynote and rummaging through the Expo floor until my feet fell off.

But I digress - I’m sure all of you are wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the past few days..

I got here later on Thursday than I was hoping for - a traffic jam in the air in San Fran kept us on the ground an extra hour in Seattle - always fun to be on a overheated plane for longer than you wanted. Got into town, onto the BART and into my hotel room about two hours after I landed - forcing me to delay a lot of plans that I had for the day. I did, however, get dinner at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant - Massawa. If you haven’t ever tried Ethiopian - you’re missing something - extremely flavorful food that’s fun to eat cause you’re practically eating with your hands and gathering something the consistancy of stew into spongy bread. After partaking in a wonderful dinner and a highly recommended Ethiopian beer (St George), I headed downtown to find a brew at one of the local brewpubs - quickly finding out that - OH YEAH - it’s New Years Day - nobody’s open. Apparently I was attempting to celebrate one day too late.

I started the next day out early, skipping out on a “Peaceful International Breakfast Discussion” at my bed and breakfast (redvic.com). I promptly headed toward Chinatown - no matter how many times you shop in the area, you’ll come back for more and more of their amazing disposable gifts and trinkets. Actually, I shouldn’t bash it too much seeing that a good portion of our current decor choice comes directly from the district itself - and knowing what, before the end of this trip, more of it will come as well. Making my way through the district, I ended up plopping down for lunch at Rogue Ales Public House in the middle of North Beach (aka Little Italy) Had a great brew - and trust me, I plan to review all the brews I tried later on - and a great lunch. I got to hit up quite a few awesome stores that I had found online a few weeks before - between a Japanese Toy/Collectable store to a Vintage Video Game store - even hit up an amazing candy store that we’ve gone before, picking up 4+ lbs of candy to send back!

After that, I headed toward the Fisherman’s Wharf for some limited shopping as well as stopping by the Musee Mechanique - a arcade with old-style coin-oped games (circa 1900s).

I’ve always loved going through the small neighborhood shopping areas of both Union and Chesnutt streets - not only because of the shopping options but mainly for the atmosphere of Main Street America in the middle of a huge city. I hit both of them up - and trust me, my feet were truly complaining afterwards. There’s only so much you can reasonably expect out of a transit system, and, at some point, no matter how much you can get around if you’ll just wait at a bus stop, sometimes walking seems to make more sense. After barely picking up anything shopping-wise in either district (aside from some Williams-Sonoma for Deanna), I took up a personal guilty pleasure and took in a movie - Valkyrie - at a wonderful neighborhood theater - the Presidio. Enjoyed the experience and the movie immensely. After that, I finished the night at a Nepalese Restaurant and also enjoyed a wonderful ethnic brew.

Being that I’m at dinner, attempting to enjoy myself and have far too much left to write, I’ll leave the rest for later.

On my way to San Fran sans Deanna and Aidan - already miss them.

This wonderful little picture of Aidan with Santa doesn’t show what utter turmoil and pain this poor boy went through to get his picture taken with a strange old man in a red suit.  In fact, from the first moment he plopped down on Santa’s lap, he managed to go through a wealth of emotions and expressions in mere seconds - from inquisitiveness, fear, panic, fake happiness, genuine happiness and comfortability - he showed the entire gamut.  One picture doesn’t give this boy justice - that’s why I’ve prepared a Slideshow of all the images for you all!  Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Aidan and Santa Slideshow

Deanna’s interest in starting up the “Santa” stuff with Aidan this early has caught me a bit off-guard.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it - just - coming from a home where Santa didn’t exist (to the point at times of berating the myth) it’s hard to translate to a healthy belief and love for all things Santa.  I am, however, glad that we got these wonderful pictures of him - in a few years I’m sure we’ll all be able to look back at them and laugh - Aidan included - and not think that we were, somehow, torturing him!

Of worth noting, Aidan got his 9 month checkup today and all seems good.  He’s falling from being “above average” with weight and height to being more average - 50th percentile on weight and 65th percentile on length - down from 75% - given, he’s gotten quite mobile lately and didn’t eat before getting weighted.  He’s 20lbs, 10oz and right at 29 inches long - the doctor didn’t say we had anything to worry about, in fact she said she “(doesn’t) want to see a 25lbs baby!” - and I’d have to agree - or should I say, my arms do.  Head is still at 95th percentile - yeah, let the jokes start.  He got his first flu shot, did rather well with that (wimpering for about five seconds).  The doctor also says that it looks like the top two teeth will be breaking out soon - that’ll raise the total to 4!

Not much else going on in the world of Aidan - he crawled up the entire staircase almost by himself last night (granted, with double supervision), he’s been standing and moving along surfaces when holding something…. and he’s become a bit clingy.  We’ve both decided a Full Sized bed isn’t big enough for the three of us partway through the night.  After the holidays, I think we’ll be saving for an upgrade.

As for being clingy, he’s gotten to the point where he panics once or twice a night in his crib because he can’t see us - putting him down afterwards is a bit hard and Deanna usually ends up on the couch because she’s faster to respond than me (only at the 3am calls, anytime else I’m faster) and she’s so tired that she falls asleep with him right on the couch as well.  He seems to be moving through this clingy stage - it just made the trip to Kenai interesting and took a while being back in town to reset him, but he’s doing better now.  Thankfully, due to him being in day care, he does get a healthy dose of other children and other people - so his anxiety is slowly lowering.

Other than that, not much - anyways, enjoy the pictures!

Not more than two weeks ago I became weak and broke what I was hoping was going to be a long drawn-out battle against me and my impending purchase of Fallout 3.  I was hoping it would last much longer and that I would gleefully watch the price tumble as the weeks past by, that Fallout would curse my name as I lusted over other games as it still laid stagnant on the shelves of my local Gamestop store.  But, oh no, it didn’t go down like that.  The persistent discussions that lingered around me for the past month forced my hand - no longer could I listen to dozens of people around me getting sucked into this game.  I did, indeed, felt left out.  Alas, I am a recovering victim - of peer pressure.

Fallout 3, as most of you surely know already, is a action-RPG set in a retro-future Washington DC - after a apocalyptic nuclear war has driven the remains of the sane and non-radiated people into underground vaults.  Fast forward 200 years and you’re looking at a peachy world, full of Super Mutants, rejects from the Thunderdome, a bunch of Emos and a hell of a lot of pissed off moles and cockroaches.  You, the hero(ine), have just stepped out of your Vault, from a utopic underworld filled with nuts to a dystopic hellhole - once again, with pissed off moles and cockroaches.  Things just got worse - this is one case where being stuck in a closterphopicly-small hole is actually the better of the two situations.  Thing is, even taking into account what we all know about post-apocalypitia from all those horrifically bad Mad Max rip-offs in the 80’s, most of the rules of the game seemed to have changed:

1.  Stealing is bad.  Yeah, we all know this.  But is it too much for me to ask for an A.I. in a game to realize that stealing a heavily-rusted can of a generic brand of SPAM should not be met with a shotgun blast to the face?  Seriously - what am I stealing in equalivance?  You’re brandishing weaponry, committing homicide and extracating me from not only your establishment, but also your entire town, all on an account of a measly stick of Hubba Bubba? Pilfering a bar of soap from your restroom?  Seriously, here’s the two damned dollars I just stole from you - maybe you should lock up your pretty shinies somewhere else, you psychopath.  You manage to go into an entire discourse about me breaking into your prized “Metal Box” but you don’t mention that I shouldn’t pick up your SPAM, least my life shall become forfeit?

1a.  Also worth mentioning, said SPAM was stolen while the rednecks in said shit-shanty were faced away from me.  I thought Super Mutants and Ghouls were the only ones that had visible mutations - tell me the next time that you’ve got eyes in the back of your head, Mister A.I.

2.  Radiation has managed to ruin much of the water, food and wildlife as well as turned many humans into mutated creatures resembling most low-budget horror movies of the 60’s (sans visible seams).  I understand this - but I also understand that most stores around the Capitol Wasteland has Rad-X - an easy way to wash away the daily toll radiation has placed on your body.  Because of this miracle stash of radiation eliminating pills that somehow hasn’t been totally used up in the 200 years after the holocaust, a good portion of the human population in the game, albeit stranger than all get-out, aren’t mutated.  That being said, why is every single female I walk up to in the game in severe need of a paper bag?  Even Mad Max, after you strip away the awkwardness of a mohawk on a female (well, to be fair, they look awkward on both sexes), had attractive females - mostly with a heavy dose of blue eyeshadow - but still!  Fallout is completely devoid of attractive members of society.  Don’t believe me?  Moira’s waiting for you, “cutie”.

3.  I’m a bit frustrated by how saturated every dark building is with radiation-mutated cockroaches and I have never, not once, managed to find even a half-eaten twinkie around.  Somebody LIED.

4.  Listen to your fellow tinfoil-hatters.  They, quite literally, are the only ones that manage to survive the Apocalypse.  Every single character in the game is completely unlikable, more annoying than a two year old with a full bladder on a long car trip in the middle of the Outback and totally batshit nuts.  What befuddles me is that they had enough ingenuity to survive a nuclear war but apparently still think that living in a city, called Megaton (because there’s a unexploded nuke in the middle of town) is just caked full of “irony” rather than “batshit craziness”.

5.  It’s a given that an apocalypse would virtually wipe out most traditional religions - some would no doubt survive, crawling back to infantcy and obscurity as most would be disenfranchised by a higher power that would let the world be destroyed and not actually “end” the world.  This could easily cause quite the debate, I’m sure - but Mad Max gives us all we need to know about the end of times - it embodies what all popular thought is about what a world would be reborn - albeit, cheesy, over-the-top and a bit off with the “normal haircut - to - mullet” ratio, but still, pretty accurate especially when we’re talking about HYPOTHETICALS.  That being said, in Fallout, the only visible religion seems to be tied to the worship of the “Atom” and the, quite literal, worship of the bombs that brought the death of the world.  Proof positive, that even after a massive wake-up call like the end of the world as we know it, some humans will still choose to worship some of the most insane, most ridiculous stuff.  Use your own imagination.

6.  Given the current economic downturn, there’s quite a few nuts out there saying that we all should have invested in gold because currencies not based upon a real substance are doomed to falter and fail.  Well here’s one for the nuts out there - in Fallout’s future we’ve taken your insane advice - in fact, there’s not even a paper currency that can be traded in lieu of gold, like the Wild West - oh no - straight product here.  Yup, Bottlecaps.  Coke bottle Bottlecaps.  Think Bottled Coke is hard to find now - it gets harder in the future.  Better trade in some burned books or tin cans - they may be low value, but in bulk, you’ll be showering in Bottlecaps. Unfortunately the game lacks the wheelbarrow you’ll need to carry enough to just buy some rudimentary gear.  Thankfully, through the magic of future-retro science, you’ll be able to carry 200 burned books without being overburdened - but only if you’re naked.   Just think, Scrooge Mcduck, swimming in his money vault, full of freaking Bottlecaps - now that’s classy.

7.  Karma matters - but only if you hurt someone’s feelings, steal from them or hurt “good” people.  It, however, doesn’t apply to eating human flesh when you’re strolling around the Wasteland.  In fact, the developers will hit you up with the hefty moral decision of whether to profit from detonating the bomb in the middle of Megaton or not, potentially killing dozens of people who have befriended you throughout your extended stay in the wasteland - but chowing down human flesh doesn’t raise an eyebrow of moralistic integrity

Sandbox gameplay can only go so far without leaving itself open for complete parody.  That being said, I’m 20 or so hours into the game and I’m apparently not coming up for air anytime soon.

Someone - for the life of me, right now, I cannot recall who, commented on how Aidan apparently has the demeanor, at times, of the E*Trade Baby.  There’s currently no plans to make him into a baby model or for me to start evening classes in video editing to make curiously frightening videos of my own child selling off stocks and bonds.

But I do see it - I see that subtile hint of sarcasm behind those eyes, a certain indifference to the world around him - not to the point of carefreeness but a calculated cool.  I’m certain if he could muster rolling his eyes and understood the ramifications of doing so, he would - at every single nauseating picture that I take of him.  Knowing that, I avoid babying him too much - there’s much thought in that tiny head of his that remains hidden to the rest of us.

Like a great thinker of lore, he calculates each “ga” and “blurrble” with a mathemetician’s precision.

Yes, I do worry if he’s plotting to take over the world.  How could you not with a face like that?