Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?



Final Fantasy VII

FYI, I would post pictures but I do not have the cable to attach my Canon Powershot SD1000 to The Precious.

Well readers (all one or two of you), mom, dad and I made it to St. Louis. The shitty wiping action of the wiper blades on Sherman {there will be a link to image of Sherman next to the UDS when I get back into town} was fixed after a relatively quick stop by dad at the local Ford dealership just off Interstate 164. With a wiper blade holder assembly thing from the parts department, we were back on I-164 and dad was at the helm of the land yacht extraordinaire, Sherman.

About three hours later we were in St. Louis having lunch at Nicoletti’s. The three of us had small house salads and shared a medium bacon and onion pizza. The house salads at Nocoletti’s are superb. I don’t know what special ingredients they put in, but the lettuce is chopped into small, easily edible pieces. This makes it very easy for the fork to pick it up my scooping or spearing the lettuce. The dressing is sublime. It’s not heavy or overbearing. There is also some cheese which I think is provel. This is not provelone, mind you, but provel which is a cheese that is distinctive to only St. Louis and is why St. Louis pizza can only be had in St. Louis and no where else. In your face Domino’s because regional cuisine is full of win and awesome.

After lunch, mom and dad dropped me off at Uncle Larry’s where Cousin Eric was up and waiting. Cousin Eric is good people. We watched a summer camp movie that had Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde-Pierce in it. I believe it was called “Wet Hot American Summer” which is not a pornographic film though the title may be particularly titular. Between you, me and the fence post, I can do without Janeane Garofalo being nude and in front of me much in the same way she can do with out me nude and in front of her. Afterwards, the topic of World of Warcraft came up. Apparently Eric likes Warcraft III, which I helped him get installed due to knowing where to find a serial number. He had the legit disc, just not the serial number. I might have to gift a membership to him as a congratulations on his new job as an assistant music teacher at a private school.

So get this, I brought along my Microsoft Intellimouse so I can play a little World of Warcraft on my Powerbook G4 1.25 Ghz. My dad brought along his laptop from work so mom and he would have an O/S they are familiar with using (read: Windows XP). It turns out mom has never used a laptop before and it was making her skittish. The trackpad had the annoying feature of “tap to click” turned on. This means you tap the trackpad of a laptop and it is the equivalent action of left clicking once with a standard mouse. Bear in mind that I love both of my parents very dearly and it is precisely because of this reason I will not do technical support for them. I know they are very smart people who use their brains.

Let it be said mom and technology do not often mix well. She learns, and because she learns while retaining information, I’m willing to help and encourage her in the process. This particular morning was the second time she was using the trackpad and it was still making her skittish. The following decision was made for a few reasons:

- It was before 0600 hrs
- I was going to be going to be going to the Apple Store in St. Louis anyway because my current three year old LG 3200 with Verizon Wireless acts as though it were on its last legs until I say I’m going to purchase an Apple iPhone. It works perfectly after doing that. I’m not kidding and I have witnesses.
- We’re on our way to St. Louis because of a death in the family and no one is in a slap-happy, woo-hoo great mood due to the shit weather conditions through the entire state of West Virginia the previous day.
- I wanted to get an Apple Mighty Mouse anyway.

I gave my Microsoft Intellimouse to mom and dad for them to keep. Those of you that know me might be surprised to know I had a Microsoft Intellimouse due to my love for Apple Computer, its Macintosh operating system (OS X) and other bits of their software. Well, I did own an Intellimouse and I still own a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. Microsoft makes some damn fine peripheral input devices. Their mice and keyboards are superb. The same cannot be said for their operating systems. XP Professional is OK, Vista is, however, simply poor. When mom and dad got a new computer, it came with Microsoft Vista Home Edition number 64. They had it for three weeks, couldn’t print to their printer, and it eventually removed a picture of my brother on a rock formation. This was the last no-no in my mom’s opinion. They had XP re-installed on the computer.

Verdict: all parties win.

You remember the movie “The Ice Storm” with Christina Ricci, some creepy kid, other actors and was directed by Ang Lee? Yeah, I don’t either because I haven’t watched it. However there is currently a big ice storm directly in the path of progress to St. Louis. Mother Nature, that fickle bitch, saw fit to ignore this whole froo-for-all about global warming and impede progress like the Senate and House of Representatives.

The drive from Lexington to Louisville was actually pretty good due to our not being in the ice storm yet. The drive from Louisville to Evansville was harried because ice was creeping along the windscreen’s exterior. To keep the ice at bay, it took the defroster on ninety, the sun visors folded down, and quite a bit of de-icing windscreen washing fluid. If you have a convertible, you are not supposed to use it due to the chemicals having an adverse affect on the cloth convertible top. This is not to say that the wipers were bad but one of the metal supports for the wiper blade itself broke at some point and the driver’s portion of the windscreen didn’t get as clean as it ought to be.

Naturally, this made driving for certain portions a bit more nervous-making than they should be and after driving for three hours we stopped in Evansville, Indiana. You don’t know where Evansville, Indiana is? Like most of the state, the area surrounding it is very beautiful and in the middle of nowhere. Luckily there were signs of civilization (read: hotels with wireless internet access). So we get to take three days to get to St. Louis when two perfectly useful and relaxing days would have worked well.

The weather channel just said that the worst travel was on Interstate 64 from St. Louis to Louisville, Kentucky. Evansville, Indiana is about twenty or thirty miles from being exactly between the two. That figure might be a little off. Let’s turn to maps.google.com to find the correct distances, or at least as good as one can expect without an atlas. Maps.google.com says the distance from Louisville, Kentucky to St. Louis, Missouri is 259 miles. The distance from Louisville, Kentucky to Evansville, Indiana is 118 miles. Since half of 259 is 129.5 and 259 minus 118 is 141 miles, I’d say I wasn’t too far off for simply guessing. Evansville, Indiana is 11.5 miles from being precisely half-way between Louisville, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri. Since there happens to be a distinct absence of anything 11.5 miles away from Evansville, Indiana, I would say my parents and I made it farther than expected.

That being said, this damn ice storm is ridiculous.

Mother Nature, you are a vile and evil c***.