Oh, Friday!

You know what the best thing ever is? It is when you start your day on Friday thinking it is Thursday (or any other day than Friday, really) and you get half way through with it and somehow realize that NO. It is better! IT IS FRIDAY.

The weekend is here and there was much rejoicing!

I've noticed a rash of hilarious videos featuring John Mayer lately. What's up with that? Perhaps I was wrong and Hockey Brett's love for him was more well-founded and closer to heterosexual than I'd previously thought. You really do learn something new everyday, huh?

In other news - Fyreball was in the news again today! Sort of! Pete talked with our friend Dean Takahashi over at Venture Beat. Check it out!

We've also got Deacon helping helm something of a mystery around Fyreball. Take a look at this Fyreball to see what I'm talking about.

In the meantime, many thanks go out to all of you for keeping this wee community so friendly and alive even post-Recon-a-geddon. I really enjoy hanging out here everyday. Don't forget to keep inviting friends as you make them and letting us know when things aren't working.
Hopefully soon I'll get to tell you more about our secret new projects, but until then....

Oh! and one last thing! Yesterday was Qbix's birthday! Everyone wish him a happy one!

xxoo
~kath

If I weren't so afraid of clowns, I'd give you a big hug.

Welcome to Wednesday!

My my, how the week does fly! Normally, tonight would be trivia night for FBGCN™, but instead tonight we'll be attending the Kirkland Farmers Market. We're hoping to see some nice lookin' strawberries or perhaps some nice young families! It is a wholesome day for us - rather than the usual Wednesday night filled with beer guzzling and guessing.

It seems that Fyreball has suffered a rash of emo drama lately. Everyone keeps thinking it is hilarious to post "Goodbye, Cruel World" fyreballs where they declare that they are departing fyreball never to return. Then, shortly after bidding a tear filled good-bye amid sincere farewells, they return. It is like some people caught Dawson's Creek and they want to star in their own very special episode. Like so many trends on the internets I don't really get this one. I'm happy to listen to anyone who wants to explain how that is fun.

Actually, on second thought, no don't bother.

In other internets news: For reasons currently under investigation Fyreball stopped properly up scaling the Zero Punctuation embeds. Be assured top men are looking into this (because I always enjoy these and I don't want to be sittin' around waiting on the You Tube link). This is an example of issues that come up that we do love to hear about through that link at the bottom of every page. This way they get properly filed to the powers that be and we can keep them in an orderly manner (and ignore the repeats, of which there are so many).

In gaming news: I'm nearly done with Professor Layton! I'm solving mysteries with the quickness now that I hit the tower. It shouldn't be long now before I've beaten this game tape and done all the math I need to do for 2008. Sorry, Checkbook! No balancing for you until 2009!

xxoo
~kath

Time to do a forty ounce bounce!

Fyreballers, ho!

Things are busy and ever-changing around these parts, don't you know it? We're all still here and cracking skulls and codes and making internets magics as we always have, but we're also trying some new ideas behind the scenes. That is why you might not see so many big changes in the coming week or two. We're still listening and moving forward, we're just checking out a few ideas along the way!

In the meantime, I'll be here updating you as oft as I can! A few things have popped up for me this week I thought I'd share.

First, I still have only watched people play GTA4. I haven't had the time to actually play it myself. It is interesting to me the discussions it is causing all around the internets, though. I hope to have some half-baked thoughts about this whole thing as early as next week - probably just about when no one wants to hear about it anymore.

Second, there are a couple of programs I use in the day that make me happy and bring me joy. One of them is Desktoptopia. It is currently in beta (which means lots of updates all the time! but also a few issues here and there - I can empathize, yo!). It basically lets me gain cool points, because it makes my desktop incite people to say, "Oh, that's frackin' cool!" Way, way more often than it used to. It is free and rad so check it out!

Third, there IS a Fyrefight this weekend! Steam and Team Fortress 2 are hosting a try before you buy free weekend with a new map! Hot DAMN! I'll do my best to be there, but I can promise nothing. See, if the weather is good then I'll be out in it. I think Seattle is finally committing to being Spring. It took its damn time, didn't it?

xxoo
~kath=)

p.s. who's going to see Iron Man tonight?

Did you miss us?

We're back! You may have noticed a total lack of a blog update yesterday. Our train was robbed by vile bandits seeking only to take us home, order 3 lbs of pasta from Pizza Hut, and play Grand Theft Auto 4. I haven't gotten to play enough to give my opinion, yet.

So far, though....well I was discussing it over IM with my good friend Skip (actually, we were discussing the rapidly growing hate for the 'is twittering' Facebook status update). I brought up my initial 'Meh' feeling over GTA4.

Skip: twitter = LAME
Skip: you social networkers
Kathleen: hahaha
Kathleen: you haters. so trendy
Kathleen: you know what I am hatin'
Skip: because we hate everything, it's easy for us to be on the forefront of hating things
Kathleen: nod. we're the tip of the hate spear
Kathleen: I'm hating GTA
Kathleen: well... not hating
Kathleen: but it isn't putting a baby in me the way that everyone promised it would
Skip: why on earth would you hate the Nobel-prize winning cure for cancer?
Kathleen: see above
Skip: GTA4 not only changes the landscape of gaming, it's sending badly-needed aid to Darfur
Kathleen: hahahahahaha
Skip: and is reducing our dependence on foreign oil
Kathleen: it is also running for VP with Obama
Kathleen: and reminding you to spay and neuter your pets
Skip: and it separates your recycling for you
Kathleen: it is crap lookin' - the way all GTA games have been
Skip: yep. I tried to warn people about that
Skip: "still feels and looks like a GTA game"
Kathleen: yep.
Kathleen: "Oscar worthy"
Skip: I would say it's CBS prime-time worthy

So, it should be noted that I've only seen about an hour's worth of the game so far. So, I'm really talking out of my ass. We also got hung up for a short while with the X360 loading screen freeze that Kotaku reported. After a couple of reboots it worked, though.

In other news, well... what other news is there? GTA has taken over the world, really. Last night, 16 of my friends were online and 14 of them were playing that frackin' game. The two that were not were probably watching a movie or at least thinking about it while sitting in their X360 dashboard.

Tonight we're heading out for trivia again! Wish us luck!

xxoo
~kath

An Adventure to Portland!

Hello from the deep South, Fyreballers!

It has happened! Fyreball Global Campus North rode the rails south to Fyreball Global Campus South. Here is a brief photo chronicle of our adventures so far! Enjoy!




<---- Senator McCain got dressed up for the train ride.












<------------ Hockey/Hunter Brett loves Minnie's awesome new camo outfit!






















<----Pete loves to ride trains. The entire time he kept saying, "CHOOO!
CHOOO!"






<------------ Pete betrayed Hockey Brett's trust by waiting for him to fall asleep then carefully placing these hilarious googly eyes on his hat. He slept thinking he was safe and among friends while we were laughing at him.















<----------------- Inexplicably, Canada Michel has begun to behave even more like Farnsworth Bentley.


















<---------------- We all enjoyed lunch at the super hip and trendy Doug Fir. Deliciousness was enjoyed by all!

















<---------------

Senator Mike makes the super classy/trendy Doug Fir even more classy and trendy by MUGGING for the camera! GET IT? /me rolls eyes.













<----- At last! We're there! Fyreball Global Campus South™!












<-------

After that long meeting we went for a walk to get donuts! Delicious! Portland is so much warmer and sunnier than Seattle (although I heard that Seattle had a nice day today, too).









<---------------------

A taco truck! A friend of mine would be so thrilled to see this. I'm not a fan, as I enjoy food that does not have an exponentially higher chance of containing E. coli bacteria. However, this particular festive taco truck in Portland...was closed.






<---

Oh... dear....

At least the petals match Minnie's outfit!












Okay, that's all for today! More updates tomorrow! Some of us are staying overnight and currently enjoying happy hour together. My giant Sapporo beer now needs my attention. To see a few more pics be sure to visit this fyreball!
Also! We got a very awesome review over at Craveonline.com! Check it out!
xxoo
~kath=)

Christmas in April

Oh my goodness, Fyreballers!

How did I get SO lucky? Last night's Lost was a HUMDINGER. Anyone who hasn't watched yet, don't read anything between the photos.


How frackin' bad ass was Ben?! He summoned the smoke monster! WTF?! The latest theory is now that Ben and Charles have some crazy Trading Places-esq rich bored dude bet going on that has gone WAY out of control. Okay, that's enough for now.



In other news -- it is a gamer's delight this weekend and next week! Sunday: I'm a pickin' up a copy of Mario Kart Wii! WEE HAAA! But eff that wheel. I'm not playin' with that thing.

Monday, Team Fyreball North heads South on a train to Portland for another Fyreball Summit. I shall report anything I can from it. I'll scour it for secrets intel...

Tuesday afternoon, I'll be riding the rails back home when GTA4 hits stores. How many of you will also be picking up that trash? I'm only going to play it so I can really know what I'm talking about when I talk about what crap the game is. I'm going to play a friend's copy, because I don't want those achievements showing up on my gamertag, either!

Should be a totally rad weekend!

xxoo
~kath=)

Lost back tonight!

Sorry, Fyreballers --

Not much news on the Fyreball front. I'm so happy with all the good 'balls I've seen thrown around lately (you can always see our favorites in Staff Picks). You know my favorites are always the ones with stuff I haven't seen that people end up adding to and expanding the story. Like this Fyreball Defnop posted with a Cadbury commercial featuring a Phil Collins loving Gorilla. Of course, the downside is that I've had 'In the air tonight' stuck in my head all afternoon.

In other news: I'm trying to give up Coke for Pepsi. I very, very much enjoy Coke more than Pepsi - HOWEVER -- Coke doesn't offer points for DRM free music on Amazon.com. I love DRM free music more than I hate Pepsi and I love (sorta) free stuff more than I prefer Coke. Fact is, I'm going to drink at least a half-gallon of some sort of cola per day. I was collecting Coke points, but after a goodly amount of time the best thing I've ended up with is 1 year free subscription to Wired. That's great, but I drank an ocean of Coke for that... we'll see how quickly I can gain anything by my switch. I'm sure you're already breathless with anticipation!

Finally (and perhaps most importantly), Lost starts up again tonight! I have to admit that I don't really care that much for Ben's whiny daughter, but apparently whomever shot her mom and her boyfriend is about to start blowing stuff up all over the island. Explosions = win. Sadly, I didn't see much of my friend Sayid in the preview, but I'm sure he'll do something dashing.

xxoo
~kath=)