High7

So I seem to have taken up temporary residence in Silent Hill.

You see, I spend many of my days in a cold, unfeeling concrete building, attending conferences and trying to not fall asleep during them when I'm not doing experiments.
Because of this, I tend to be rather unaware of my surroundings which is why my mother says I'm a horrible driver.

Now as some of you may know, I live in a magical land oop north called Minnesota, doncha know, and it's populated mostly by moose and Scandinavians, you betcha it is.
And as some of you may not know, Minnesota is currently on fire.
It has been for a while now, and let me tell you, that damn wildfire is a trooper.
As far as I know it's survived snow and rain and stuff like that.
However it's not terribly shocking that it's still burning, due to one rather specific reason, which I'll explain to you the same way I explained to my friend whom lives next door to the Mojave desert;
Minnesota is essentially one giant pine forest, with bits of swamp and prairie thrown in for good measure.
And to my understanding, this is more or less what forest fires like to eat, as it contains lots of nutrients to make them grow up to be big and strong and kill everyone.

To put this in perspective; the fire began up in the Boundary Waters, a good ways north of here, and it's nothing the average person would bat an eye at as I swear it seems like spontaneously bursting into flames in the BWCA's weekend hobby.
I live quite a bit south from that, if you haven't picked that up already, in fact I'm a little under an hour away from the capital/Minneapolis, give or take.
Now I really don't like to swear, but I feel like in this case it is necessary for emphasis;
It is as smokey as FUCK outside.</i>
I was off to the store and to get some Frozen yogurt, when I noticed how hazy everything looked and it smelled like a giant bonfire, which wasn't terribly surprising, it had been that way for nearly a week now.

What really caught me off guard was the light-off-grey stuff dancing in the breeze like little sugar puff fairies or dandruff, and my first thought was 'SNOW'...which was kind of odd in hindsight as it was about 60 degrees.
Then I thought 'BUGS', but no insect I was aware of had such an erratic flight pattern.
Then I thought 'I'M CRAZY.' and stepped out of the car..and got beaned on the arm by, of all substances, ash.
There are traces of ash falling from the sky, people.

A tiny part of me is concerned, I am walking distance from a huge state park, i.e yummy acres of forest, in addition to living in a swamp.
Also, my school is positioned atop a bluff in the dead center of acres and acres of unmanaged forest.
On one hand, it's a steep bluff and we're still a good distance away from where the action is, but on the other hand, as the fire seems to have been blessed by Zeus, I wouldn't be surprised if it had the endurance to make it down here and, I dunno, do Parkour to get up the bluff or something.

SO YEP.
Whatever happens this should be rather interesting, since some buddies and I were planning on going camping on Thursday.
Hopefully, my state doesn't turn into Mordor in the meantime.

SO, I played and beat Portal 2 last Saturday.
I started playing around 7 pm, and I didn't finish until 4 am.
Even though it's Monday, I still feel like piss. 8D
Also I spent all of Sunday hallucinating turrets hiding behind corners and whispering 'Is anyone there?' All...creepily.

Also, you all should totally play Portal 2, if only because the game is positively gorgeous. 8D The opening cinematic made me nerdgasm SO HARD.

16 Important life lessons learned from playing Portal 2 for roughly ten hours straight

1. Wheatley is adorable THERE IS NO COMPETITION. HE'S SO *BRITISH*. He even said ''ello guv' at one point and it made me squeak a little. And he's a dork.

2. Chell is a babe. I took a potty break and when I came back, two of my female friends were sitting on the couch deep in a discussion about how hot Chell is. So it became a running gag that one of us had to wolf-whistle whenever the portals were positioned in such a way that we could actually see her.

3. Wheatley is terrifying. There is one bit where he gets all up in your grill, and it made me cower/flinch back a little. 8D Granted, I think the sleep deprival was beginning to kick in at that point.

4. The space core is even more obnoxious in person. I...I don't like Space core. It reminds me of a crazy person rocking back and forth in a straight jacket muttering to itself.

5. Wheatley may be a closet pervert. Most of the evening was spent with my friends and I cracking jokes about he likes to watch Chell jump.

6. Last time I checked, everyone looked pretty much alive.

7. Feet are easy to mistake for headcrabs. When I beat the game, my friends and I all passed out in a pile of snuggles on the couch, and my friend's foot was poking me in the tummy and I kept thinking it was a headcrab. And that I was in Africa.

8. Birds are horrifying, if you're an A.I thing.

9. If you mention how Portal 2 reminds you of a rather bizarre and traumatic childhood incident, everyone is going to go 'Awwww!' and hug you.

10. Cave Johnson was perpetually stoned and/or drunk, judging by the bizarre faces he's making in portraits of him. This may explain a few things.

11. I am a wimp for crying at the ending.

12. I may be working for Aperture Science in the future. A lot of the experiments I'm ordered to do sound like things they'd try and pull off, like mutating already dangerous diseases and handling very dangerous animals.

13. Birds eat potatoes, apparently. Of all of the things in the game that could bother me, that bugged me the worst.

14. Valve can't do anything half-assed. SERIOUSLY THE GAME IS BEAUTIFULLL.

15. Portal makes me have odder dreams than usual. When I finally fell asleep after playing it, I dreamt I bought Wheatley at a pet store.

16. There is now a hole in my heart that is roughly the size and shape of Wheatley.