Shit. Reading In Shaw, I just realized that this apartment is the first place I've lived in the DC area that doesn't use natural gas for heating its air and water. Given the progressively-longer blackouts the area has faced the past couple of years (thanks to snow, hurricane remnants, badly-timed storms, and utility repairmen turning into pillars of salt), what the hell is gonna happen? I'll tell you what: the District's frozen-corpse-removal budget is going to need to account for another 400lbs or so.

In a flurry of panic, I just tried to put up the insulating plastic I bought for the windows months ago -- no dice. The windows are about an inch too big.

Sigh. I guess I'd better start on those memoirs.

for my dear roommates. my dear, halo-playing, x-box obsessed roommates. (actually, compared to the holed-up, projectile-vomiting losers in this article, they're practically saints.) via lostremote.

some choice quotes:

>>"I played the first one," she said. "There are weird aliens and they wave their arms above their head when you shoot them and then they run around. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s no story, there’s no plot, there’s no background—it’s just ‘save your troop from alien invaders.’ I don’t understand how someone could sit there for eight straight hours and play a video game."

>>"It’s so dorky," said Ms. Griffin, "the most ridiculous form of male bonding I’ve ever witnessed. They just all sit in their own homes in front of the TV with these headsets on, like they’re operators. They turn the volume up, so you can hear them talking to each other. They have teams, and they find other teams to play—kids who play all day, 14-year-olds. They trash-talk with them …. I’m like, ‘Can we do something? Like walk the dog?’"

>>"He works so much," Ms. Deppe said of her Halo-addicted boyfriend. "I let him have his fun when he can." Ms. Deppe said it’s when he plays with his friends—and she comes along for the day—that she begins to feel like a useless appendage, surrounded by chortling man-boys. "When he’s alone, it doesn’t bother me; he plays video games and I paint," she said. "But when he’s with his friends and they play together, I think, ‘Why am I here?’ They make weird faces; their mouths start to hang open a little bit; their heads sort of go back and forth."

>>Mr. Chattoraj, the attorney, described how he used to gorge on Halo when his fiancée went out of town for business. "I would start playing on a Friday night and play until 8:30 the next morning," he said. "It feels like you were out partying. You think, ‘What have I done? I didn’t sleep—I feel sick.’ I’ve actually thrown up from motion sickness because I get too close to the TV—not uncommon with first-person shooter games, because things are moving around and you’re ducking and jumping, but you’re really just sitting in one place. Kathy had a friend over—they were in the living room, and I was in the bedroom—and the friend was leaving. She poked her head in, and I had total tongue sweat. As soon as she left, I ran into the bathroom and projectile-vomited."

>>Mr. Clute’s girlfriend lives in California, and he said he would never ditch her for Halo. On the other hand, "maybe she’d just play the video games with me," he said. "But then she’d want to have sex or something, and that would get in the way." He laughed at himself. In the background, one could hear piercing cries, something to the effect of "Why won’t you just die?"

UPDATE: in case anyone cares, this is what i'll do. tonight i think kriston and susan are coming over for some wednesday night tv viewing (first two episodes of lost and the finale of america's next top model). meanwhile i will bake batches of both the eggnog thumbprints and the peppermint bark cookies. i'm assuming charles and tommy will be around as well, so the four of them will act as my objective taste-testers. when they come to a consensus on the better cookie, i will bake an extra batch of that particular cookie and bring it into work tomorrow. then i will proceed to win many awards and the admiration and awe of all my coworkers.

of course, i also plan on buying a bottle of wine tonight, so this entire plan could be shot to hell.
----
well, my company is having a holiday bakeoff tomorrow. that's right, we're so poor that we can even afford to have desserts bought for our holiday party. just kidding. actually, i love this idea because a) i like to bake and b) i am as competitive as all get out. i have to win this bakeoff, or else my self-esteem will crumble into a million little pieces, much like a badly constructed cookie.

anyway, i am stressing out about what exactly i should bake. it's got to be good, obviously, but it also has to make people feel like it's really the holidays - creamy, rich, and maybe pepperminty. here are my options thus far. which sounds best? and if you have any super awesome recipes, please let me know. I MUST WIN.

>>Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies (with a holiday twist) (only thing is that i don't have peppermint bark, and don't know if i can get it on such short notice. maybe whole foods has some? i could make some, but it would take a lot of work and perhaps be a spectacular failure.)

>>eggnog thumbprints

>>gingerbread bars with lemon cream cheese icing (i've made these before and they turned out pretty well)

>>double-ginger cookies (subscription only, so here are the ingredients: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking spray)

My fellow nerds are aware that this year, sports videogames took a big price hit. ESPN bought up Sega's brand line -- formerly NFL2Kx, NBA2Kx, etc -- and released them for $20 a pop, $30-$40 less than the industry leader Electronic Arts prices its Madden franchise. EA had to drop its prices. Competition was beginning to offer advantages to the consumer!

Well, rest easy, because the threat is over. EA has bought exclusive rights to produce NFL games for the next 5 years. And all at a bargain price of $300+ million!

The best part: this is just the tip of EA's evil iceberg. We've covered the monopolist tendencies; now have a look here for the sweatshop angle. I hope that $300 million contract left them with some money to expand their PR department.