J. Jason Lazarus Blog

Ok, see, I know I’m asking for it when I live in Alaska, but seriously, it’s been like this for days and it’s getting pretty damned old. We haven’t had a daily low above -30 since the 14th and haven’t had a daily high above -10 since then as well. What’s worse is that Dermot Cole, a local columnist, made mention just a few days ago how the recent cold snap “isn’t that bad” compared to what Fairbanks “vets” are used to. Yeah, the fact that, at that point, we hadn’t hit -40 yet this season seemed something to talk about. -40 is the “magic” number that manages to get people 90% naked in front of our temp sign at the university - but saying that we’re lucky we haven’t seen that number yet only forces God’s hand to deliver it to us. So, for the last two days, -38 to -49. Yeah, suckie. Check this out! I’m really tired of this by now. To top it all off, because of the cold (or so I like to blame it) my car has started acting up with the service light showing up and the ABS and Traction Control turning off. Still perfectly safe to drive with but it makes driving a little more nerve-wracking. With Ice Fog and idiots still deciding to not drive around with lights on, it makes life nerve-wracking. *sigh*
Anyways, took off early today cause I think I’m managing to catch what Deanna had for the last week and a half. Been playing my FF4 pretty religiously as my mid-evening playtime - past the 5 hour mark already. Beginning to realize that buying the portable version might’ve been worth the $30 - the translation issues in early japanese ports are… frustrating to say the least. For example:
“We will go to the Tower of Wishes and wish for you all, and wish for all the beings of the Earth”
You…wish for… people? I think “pray” would’ve been the right word. Gotta wonder if this was someone’s poor attempt at translation or someone attempting to erradicate God from a game… either way, queer translation.
Haven’t been doing much more - been working on getting another contract signed up for my website work which’ll bring money into our hands at the exact right time - with San Fran, moving, paying first/last/current month leftover/security while moving, and all the new stuff we’ve bought for the apartment, money is getting tight. But even with it tight it really isn’t that bad - I’m just always the worry wort about such things.
Not much else going on now - more later. Added some pics to the gallery from last year’s Macworld - finally managed to get some old pics off of my old digi cam!

For the last month I’ve been eyeing Final Fantasy 4 for the Gameboy and have been consistantly resisting the urge to buy it. I’ve fallen victim time and time before, buying new copies of games I already own just so that I can see the few special features that they’ve decided to release for this or that game - and, in all honesty, to have the newest thing to brag to my geek friends about.

Well, not with this game. I decided, now that we’ve got a second bedroom, that I’d set up some of my additional games systems in that room - and thus, I’ve started paying attention to my old game systems again. My SNES is happy now, for I have picked up the controller and slammed in a cart (of coarse, after customarily blowing into it) and sat down to play Final Fantasy II… well, Final Fantasy IV, but II in the U.S…. yeah for those that care about this you already know that.
I’m just proud to admit the fact that I’m playing a 15 year old game on a system released when I wasn’t even a teenager yet. And I’m proud of the fact that as much as my wife loves to think that my old game systems just sit around collecting dust (a thought suggested by many of my friends as well) I’m proving her (and them) wrong. Ha!

Work has been extremely hectic with the beginning of the year here. This last weekend Deanna, Mike, Kate and I went out to Chena for some relaxation - soaked for about 4 hours and then stuffed ourselves at Hilltop - was a great evening.

Seeing that everyone else is doing it, I should probably put up my resolutions for the new year (lets see how many stick): Get my stuff into a gallery show - somewhere - within the next few months. Start taking more photography - more serious stuff that is gallery-worthy. Get below 215-225 lbs, hopefully get down below 200 by the end of the year. Get my business license and start adamently persuing new website jobs - break my website work income record of last year. Make at least $5000 more this year between Deanna and I. Travel at least once a month this summer, go somewhere 50 miles out of town at least once a week this summer. Hike, lots. Read more. Watch mind-numbing TV less - watch quality more. Play more of my old games - and actually finish some of them!

I think that’s it.

I’m well rested after a few days of being back from San Fran - the trip back was far from smooth sailing. I had a 8 hour layover in Seattle that almost drove me crazy… nonetheless.. I’m back and glad to be.

The last few days in San Fran were spent doing some various shopping, museum going (Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Asian Art Museum) and going to a Pre-Broadway showing of Lestat. Lestat was amazing - the blending of CG, Video effects as well as acting really made the performance something unique - although I haven’t seen any professional performances before (I don’t count Fairbanks theatre) I’m convinced that this one was an excellent example of what traditional theatre can be in the 21st century. Blending aspects of film with theatre will draw less conventional patrons - and I’d love to see more directors try to do exactly that. Conventional theatre has been hashed, rehashed, mocked and reborn so many times there’s not much you can do to keep it fresh - this definetly helps.

Macworld conference in reflection was actually well worth it - already trying to implement some of the things that I learned for work. Trying to deploy disk images for my labs via the network… tricky stuff to find out by yourself.

I’m also considering upgrading my gallery to Gallery 2.0 - it allows for visitor comments on pictures as well as several other goodies - might be a task for this weekend.

Haven’t really being doing much other than resting and recovering from the trip. I added the rest of the photos, rotated ones that needed to be and even commented on some of them so it’s not so… confusing what the photos are of.

Overall I really enjoyed all the museum-going, even though by the end of the week I couldn’t even convince myself to read half of the informational panels at the museums I was going to - I guess you could call it information overload.

Nonetheless, the trip was good. Not planning on going out of state anytime soon, though. After about day 5 I was really homesick.

Finished the third book of the Narnia series a few days ago - took a hour or two out in Yerba Buena Gardens and got a good portion of it finished - needed some slow time in this big city. I don’t see how you guys who live in big cities do it - I always think that I’m supposed to be going somewhere and doing something as the big city seems to demand constant activity. Or is it only that way because I’m not dirt poor yet and still have money enough to do things?

I’m currently uploading 120 photos from the second day in San Fran onto my gallery - and I’m amanaging to bring my little g3 900mhz iBook to its knees while it attempts to resize and upload on the fly while I’m trying to surf as well. Sounds like I’m a candiate for the newly released MacBook Pro… anyone willing to donate to the fund? heh.

Spent the last few days, of coarse, at the conference, but I’ve still managed to do quite a bit at night. Last night I went to a pre-broadway performance of Lestat and was quite impressed with the visuals, songs and story. I did complain about the end of the performance but other than that it was an excellent experience and my first true stage performance (bigger than the Salisbury)

Went to a bar the other night, The Red Room and had a few drinks - really enjoyed ourselves and loosening up helped with my stress levels - amazing how comforting a little drink can make you in a strange city in the middle of the night. Just enough to take the worrisome paranoia off that a mugger with your name..on..him.. is around the next corner.

Nonetheless, looking forward to getting back for the weekend - I need some rest and miss my new awesome apartment.

Apparently while I was enjoying my meal today at Chevy’s Fresh Mex on Van Ness there was a bomb being defused four blocks away. Kinda explains why Homeland Security was outside the Mcdonalds across the street… four cop cars four blocks away from the bomb makes you wonder how bad it was where the bomb actually was. Granted, didn’t find out about any of this until about 20 minutes ago, from the CNN article.