Boredom relief

9:59am: recompile
Just got back from my trip to Baltimore that I started Thursday. It was rather nice and very relaxing, with plenty of time with Timra to make me happy for a bit. Let's see... Went and saw the Body Works 2 exhibit at the science museum, which was very neat, as was the rest of the museum. Had a nice hike by one of the reservoirs, during which we saw many interesting spiders and good number of deer rather closer than I would have expected. Fixed her computer and bike, so I feel accomplished, too. Traveling was uneventful and I only managed to leave a few things at her apartment unintentionally, so all in all a rather wonderful trip. Of course, now I have to get things organized here so that my apartment isn't quite the pit myself and my current short-term roommate have currently let it get to. Roshirov, at least, is happy to have me back. I do need to remember to bring more books next time, however. Thud! by Terry Pratchett was good, but I finished it while on the plane coming back with nearly 2 hours left in the seat and nothing to do...

1:10pm: Post time
Right. I really should update this more frequently, but a lot of what's been happening lately has been more of minor variations to constant issues. Friend is crashing here more frequently as his personal life works its way out, work is worky and while generally annoying, at least sometimes keeps me distracted from my own musings, and the paychecks are good, and all in all things go on.

The Fourth was entertaining, and much cheaper than normal for me. I bough a dozen artillery shells, some ground clusters, and sparklers, and was given one of those lovely 144 packs of bottle rockets to boot. Set things off out back of my apartment, which was interesting, especially with one of my neighbor's daughter rather entertained by my antics. The bottle rockets proved to be more exciting than anticipated, due to the nearly 50% rate of failing to actually fly decently. They would either barely take off, usually in unexpected directions, or just sit in the bottle and blow up there. Only a few didn't explode, which would be better if it weren't for the whole failing to get off the ground part. We also had some slight issues with the "grass" here being it's usual dry brown crap. Only had to stomp out a couple dozen embers, and only one notable attempt at a fire, which was good. Of course, my friend's failure at setting an artillery shell didn't help any. Those things really aren't supposed to fire off sideways. Again, bad for the grass.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, I mostly just played games, cooked, gave Chris here advice, and attempted to comb the cat for as long as he would allow. Monday morning saw me on base bright and early to attempt my physical fitness test. It went pretty well, until I was 2/3 of the way through the run and had to stop to puke. Repeatedly. Fortunately I am allowed to re-test, as long as I can get it done before the end of the month. Probably try again next week, assuming I can get myself to practice a bit more this weekend, preferably without screwing up the dental surgery I am currently recovering from.

Speaking of which, that was my fun time yesterday morning. I only had two wisdom teeth, and since they didn't do anything (no opposites to grind up food with) and were starting to get cavities, I decided to go ahead and let the dentists here remove'em. Procedure went fine, I can barely remember any it, although I don't know if I was unconscious or the drugs just messed with my memory. Regardless, they set me home two teeth less and with bottles of Vicodin, Ibuprofen, and an anti-bacterial mouthwash to see me through the recovery portion. Took two sets of each of the painkillers yesterday, felt fine, so stopped taking any more after about 4. This actually was just fine, until around 1am this morning when I decided that while it didn't hurt a lot, I was probably better off taking the meds at least to get to sleep. Still trying to ween myself off them, and I think I'll definitely skip out on the Vicodin from here on out, but the stitches in my mouth are still a bit sore. Oh well, I technically can take off tomorrow, too, but probably won't. Starting to get a little bored here.

Looking forward to more D&D Saturday, and then it's just 3 more workdays 'til I'm off on a much looked forward to vacation. Ah, the fun and excitement.

5:43pm: Vacation
So, updates. Yeah. Let's see...

Since my last post, I had another week-long work trip to San Antonio for a symposium. Generally a lot more boring with no real memories on my part of anything worthwhile happening, so moving along. Went home for an extended weekend where I saw friends, family, and in general enjoyed not being here. April...I suppose things happened. My brain is not really working so well at the moment (will get into reasons later) but I do know that I didn't get to travel anywhere, so not much to talk about. I worked, played games, and watched DVDs. Whoopee.

The reason I'm more than a little out of sorts was that I just got back from a nice 4-day weekend spent at Panama City Beach, FL, with Timra. Was a wonderful time, but kinda has me thinking of faerie land ideas, since it really feels like I was away a lot longer than that. Granted, mentally I suppose I've been gone for a good week before hand, so maybe that has something to do with it. Regardless, we had fun, and I believe I have returned with both a notable sleep deficit and quite possibly an ear infection to boot. Stupid ocean being fun to play in but not all that healthy.

Hmmm... I want to talk about movies/games I watched/played, but I really am rather tired, so I'll try to get a nice synopsis.

Lost Odyssey for 360: Good game, with interesting plot and characters. Started out hard, but quickly became rather simplistic. Game system isn't anything special, as proven by the fact that there are still a few things to do and I have no interest in doing them. Beating the game will do for me.
Iron Man: Entertaining, if so very silly.
New Indiana Jones: Cute, but nothing special. Seemed a little overly "cute" to me.
Live Free and Die Hard: Oh so very silly.
The Reaping: Not as bad as I had expected. Not good, note, just not horrible, either.

That'll do. Brain is off elsewhere again, so I shall attempt to play Hounds before going back to sleep.

6:04pm: It hasn't even been a full month!
Yeah, I really should update this more often, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. I just don't have the interest to rant about the crap that is irritating/confusing me in a public forum as a general rule, I suppose. Prefer more one-on-one ranting. *shrug*

Anyways, it's been a fairly interesting couple of weeks. After the car had been misbehaving for a bit, decided another trip to the Auto Hobby shop on base was in order. Managed to get the wrong weight oil, which meant I didn't get that job done, although I probably could have/will eventually use it, but was tired and wanted to leave by the time my tires were balanced. The weekend proceeded to just get a bit better as time went on, with my next mistake dealing with the cat and dryer combination that I have told many of you all about. For posterity's sake (and the fact that I find these entries to be good memory deposits) I was doing laundry, and after putting a freshly washed load in the dryer, turned it on. between the rather loud *thump* sounds the dryer was making and the distinct lack of cat in my apartment (he is rarely more than a few feet from me) I decided it would be wise to stop the dryer and see what was up. Lo and behold, a rather upset cat wanders out, and proceeds to avoid the laundry room for the rest of the day. How he managed to get in there, I haven't a clue, but hopefully he has learned his lesson. Regardless, I now know that a cat in the dryer will not necessarily make distinctly cat-like sounds.

As the week began, I managed to go 0 for 3 when I locked my keys in my car at lunch. A quick trip to the dealership got me a second set in case I manage to be stupid once more. Fortunately, the rest of the week went much better, and I was able to get everything set for a symposium in Reno, NV. I left on Saturday, March 1, flying out of Cheyenne through Denver, leaving the cat by his lonesome in the apartment with Chris stopping by to feed/water him and provide attention if he had time. Arriving in Reno I had the displeasure to not only get nicely confused about which baggage terminal my luggage was supposed to come out of, but having my luggage simply not come out at all. A quick check with the service desk showed that it just never left Denver, and they said the next flight would be in at 7. I headed to the hotel/casino, got my room, told them that I had bags coming in later, and went down to get some supper. Saw a sushi bar in the hotel with all-you-can-eat, and figured I should give that a try once more. I now know that either my taste buds have changed, that was very good sushi, or the previous sushi I had was not so great, because I enjoyed that immensely, going back there again for lunch Friday. around 11:30 that night I got a call in saying my luggage had caught up with me, and thus I was ready for the symposium (which didn't begin until Monday, so I had plenty of time)

I started my first morning in Reno with a late breakfast, then took a walk down to the local Borders to stock up on books having finished one of the two I brought, namely "The Golden Compass" I had hoped to buy the second two books in the series, but all the Borders had on hand was a box set of the three. Figuring that I had gotten the first for free anyways, I went ahead and grabbed that along with a random Godsmack CD. Spent most of the rest of the day reading (and finishing) book 2. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, going to classes during the day, hitting up free food or going out to eat at night. I did get to enjoy a nice jacuzzi that one of my friends manage to get in his hotel room, and proceeded to bullshit the night away with him, suddenly realizing that it was 10:00 and we should really get some supper and sleep. The last night had a nice little wandering the strip, and my group found some live music to enjoy, so that was nice. The plane ride out Friday was a bit less eventful, although we did have an hours delay getting out of Reno (having a couple hour layover in Denver meant I didn't care so much) and I finished off the trilogy while waiting. All in all, the books proved to be pretty good, although the strong anti-religious theme makes me doubt that they'd make all of them into movies. I also was rather bored when it finally got to the end. It felt like the book had already ended, but the author just wasn't done writing, so I pretty much skimmed the last 20 or so pages. I think the fact that the main characters were still just 12 year old kids made me just not care so much about them. Honestly, I think that that was one of the aspects of the books that annoyed me the most. Oh well, they were still pretty good reads.

Getting home was just fine, and I have spent the last couple days doing very little. Roshirov is just fine, if a little attention needy, although he has shown that the kitchen counter is no longer out of reach for him. In not so great news, my desktop computer died rather definitively when I tried to turn it on, emitting a rather definite smell of burning electrodes and now refusing to even blink any lights or whir any fans. I shall have to spend some time working on it eventually, although with the laptop still chugging along nicely, I'm in no rush. Work is once more hectic, and today especially was not fun as I did not get the sleep I would have liked last night. Hopefully things will be a bit less painful as the days go on. At least I ran a fair amount today.

Hmmmm... This is a rather busy month for me, so I may actually update this thing again next week. At the very least, I think updating the week before and the week after trips is wise. For those who aren't aware, I'll be in Indiana this coming weekend, although I shall not have a whole lot of free time. If you want to hang out, though, just give me a poke via some means and we'll see what we can do.

8:42pm: The state of the.... me
So, it's posty time again. Or at least I'm taking the time to post. Whatever. This is mostly just me babbling about the weekend, so feel free to wander off and look at something else, like zombies.

So, let's see. Had a nice long weekend, with friday off for a family day and monday off for president's day, which proved to be a good time for my friend Timra to visit. Picked her up at the airport friday, came back here, had korean, got skiing stuff and groceries, unloaded everything at my apartment, and after giving Roshirov the required attention, we headed back down to Denver for Cirque Dreams: A Jungle Fantasy. Not exactly Cirque Du Soleil, but still quite good and far more affordable. Best act in my opinion was one of the last, in which they had a couple guys balancing on a board which was held up by a polished cylinder on its side. Adding a couple tables just made it all the more interesting, but then they topped it off with several more cylinders beneath, giving a nice 180 degrees of freedom for the balancing to be controlled. I know that this isn't doing it justice, but it's really one of those things you have to see to really understand/feel it.

After the show we realized supper was needed (it being after 10) but attempted to make some headway through Denver before hitting a random restaurant off an exit. Unfortunately for us the Denver DoT had taken it upon themselves to (we would find out much later) drop a section of the road from 4 lanes to 1. The apparent stillness of the traffic and my growling stomach prompted a more random turn off and aimless wandering in a part of Denver that I knew nothing about in an attempt to both get food and, hopefully, allow the traffic clog to sort itself out. We managed to find a random mexican restaurant, which was probably about as authentic as one could hope for this far north of the border. Seemed like a family run joint in a predominantly spanish-speaking area, although I could be wrong there. Regardless, it was tasty and filling, which was all I needed at the time. Heading back onto the highway we were rudely greeted with yet more stuck traffic, which finaly died away once we got past the 1-lane bit. managed to get back to my apartment at 1:30-2:00ish and proceeded to crash most soundly.

Saturday began with me waking up stupidly early after that late of a bed-time, making breakfast, and getting ourselves out the door in some type of timely fashion so as to hit the slopes. The weather proved quite nice for skiing, although the snow on the roads more than likely caused my car to need a trip to auto hobby for a tire balancing. Nothing serious, just a rather more sideways (and unintentional) impact into a snowbank than I would have preferred. Once on the slopes I gave as much advice as I could, then proceeded down slopes that weren't open my first run. A different bunny-slope, this with it's own lift, proved very helpful for us, and after a couple runs down that we decided to try a real slope, this one a green called "warpath". Warpath was far from gentle, and provided quite the spectacular first fall for my friend, with poles going flying. Fortunately, there were no injuries, and proved my lack of experience as well by finding the most convenient was to stop at the bottom of the slope was to no longer be standing. Several hours and only a few falls later, it was starting to get dark and us tired, so we packed it up and headed on back.

Of course, what seemed like a beautiful day going there proved to be a much less pleasant one on the way back. Not only was my car shuddering oddly (I shall blame the balance being knocked out until proven otherwise) but snow started coming down rather heavily, with a bit of Wyoming wind to help add to the pain. After a little while we were traveling behind another vehicle with probably 10-20' visibility. Not 20 minutes from my apartment, though, the sky cleared, the snow stopped, and the Cheyenne weather bubble asserted it's control, allowing for a much more pleasant remaining leg of the trip. Once home, I made supper, we watched some movies, talked a bit, and enjoyed some much needed sleep.

Sunday started off once more with me getting up earlier than I would have liked, and more and more beginning to feel a creeping crud trying to take over my respiratory system. Breakfast of leftovers, throwing music on a CD, and in general trying to get Timra ready for her flight saw us out the door fairly quickly. Made a quick stop at the Coleman's Outlet store on the way, where she found some boots and a mess kit, and I grabbed some cheap glow sticks. A farewell at the airport, and then I make my last trip back along I-25 to try and get some sleep and kick what is becoming a more and more annoying cold as it lingers. The rest of Sunday and most of Monday are spent with me doing as little as possible, getting through the anime DVD stockpile I've been accumulating recently, as well as do a little gaming for simple entertainment.

Work today was unexceptional. I kinda feel like I accomplished nothing, but I suppose that's the way it goes some days. Plus feeling a little cruddy is not helping any. I did, sadly, bow out of running today, marking day #5 in a row so far. Really need to get back into gear, and at least be in decent enough shape to check if I can get an 11:30 1.5 mile run time next month. We shall see, I suppose.

That was more than enough rambling from me. Hope all of ya are doing well!

8:46pm: And this is why me and WoW are bad
Got into the Mythos beta, which has so far proven to be a highly addicting successor to Diablo 2, only a bit less dark and with a Guild Wars-esque MMO towns/instanced dungeons route. I've started 4 characters so far, 2 of which have become favorites and are played more frequently. We'll see how long this lasts, but hopefully I'll at least stop playing it when I should be doing other things this weekend.

In other news... work is busy, the cat is loving when not psychotic, and Resident Evil: Extinction wasn't bad at all, although I obviously need to see the second movie to fill in the huge plot gaps that are hopefully covered there. Oh, and my friend here bought a new monstrous truck. It's fancy, full of gadgets, and I can't believe that he'd pay that much for a vehicle. Ah well, not my finances, and he is far more fond of fancy cars than I.

12:04pm: Weekend report
Right. So, three day weekend, thanks to government holiday. I managed to be fairly unproductive, but not completely. Finished off round 3 of Mass Effect (still a good game, despite the driving nuisance) and managed a 5 mile jog on a 1/10 mile track, which is just as boring as you might be thinking. Otherwise, not too much was accomplished, other than going to another LAN party, which was fun as always, and watching Cloverfield.

Cloverfield was... not made for me. Don't get me wrong, from everything I have read, and from watching it, it's not a bad movie by any means. But I have no real interest in seeing it again, and was fairly glad that I only paid $4 for my ticket. All because, in the end, I don't get emotionally attached to average people doing stupid things with very little logic behind their actions. Makes sense, we're following 4 average schmuks wandering the town they were conceivably born and raised in that is being rather efficiently leveled by a very large and awe-inspiring monster of DOOOOM! That would cause most people to not think very thoroughly, and generally try to let their emotions lead the way. This is, of course, a very bad idea, and I couldn't help but be reminded of it the whole time, especially during the first third of the movie, where I'm getting bored and want the monster to come in and start causing some hell, because, honestly, I just don't care about these people with their problems. The rest of the issues I had (which are mostly "how/why does that work?" movie magics) I could toss out to some degree and still have fun. But when there is no emotional investment, then I just want more monster. Monster was good, for note.

Hmmm.... I think that covers my weekend. Other than the little things, like burning myself on the iron, or being amused at the cat falling in the toilet. But those things just happen sometimes.

10:36pm: A happy New Year to all
Another message from the winter wonderl... windy land would be far more appropriate, actually. For those wondering, yes, there is quite a lot of snow on the ground still. Probably here to stay for quite some time, too. And the wind blowing it around is certainly not helping the roads any.

But, enough about the weather. This post is going to be more of my personal musings and blatherings, so continue reading at your own risk. 2007 has been an odd year. A year of changes, perhaps. I went from knowing little, and having less control at work, to knowing a fair amount more but having a large gain in control, at least in our office. Combined with being away for at least 4 months of the year, 3 of which were all in one shot, finding and taking in a kitten (who is upset that my hands are not being used to pet or play with him currently), taking up the 360 bandwagon and doing my best to pull as many of my gaming friends along with me, trying out many new and interesting things, and the list goes on. All in all, it's been a fairly good year for me. I mean, I'm in better shape and health than I probably ever have been, money is not a problem, I'm still able to keep in touch with friends and family on a fairly regular basis... and yet.

I suppose it's just part of the reason that 2008 will probably be a year of decisions for me. I have more authority at work, which means I will have to make more decisions based purely off of what I know. I will need to decide, by the end of 2008, just what it is that I am going to do in what will then be the very near future. That will probably be the true decision of whether or not I try to go career military, a possibility that is not actually decided upon, as much as I am verbally leaning towards being done with it all. At some point I will need to start putting more restraints upon myself. I am in better shape than I have been, but am I as good as I could be? Or want to be? Do I want to go back into martial arts, or spend more time at the archery range, or just start hitting the gym with more frequency? I really should play less games, especially compared to what I have been doing lately. Granted, it's a series of 4-day weekends when leaving my apartment is not really the best idea due to the aforementioned weather and I don't actually have much reason to get out more than I have, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be doing something else. Hell, I don't even think of practicing my viola, which is a sad state of affairs by itself.

All of these little things, and then there's the future aspects. If I do go with my current leanings, and be done once my commission is up, then what? I have many possibilities, but have never been the type of person that can choose that easily. I am too good at seeing the the options, and enjoy looking at all the various pros and cons of each, to bother just saying "that one" and going for it. Right now, of course, there are so many variables beyond my control to effectively choose. And yet.

Is there a point to all this rambling? Probably not. I felt the need to post something for most of today, had planned on getting on tonight simply to do just this, but I do not know why. I suppose it really doesn't matter, regardless. It is here, and I shall post, then I shall sleep. While staying up and watching the ball drop is fine and all, I have always found specific days in the year as being special rather silly. I'll take a pre-made excuse to gather with friends and family for good time, don't get me wrong. But when the opportunity for company isn't there, then it is simply another day. One that I had off, with a morning after that is likewise work free, so who am I to complain?

May you all find something of value in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. And do not forget that no matter what things look like behind you, what is in front will certainly be different. Take it for what you can, see it as only you will, and know that I look forward to seeing what comes for us all.

3:13pm: We can get them for you wholesale...
So, yeah. Things happening, most good. Finished Mass Effect, Saw Sweeney Todd, and tried skiing again. First, skiing. Went this morning with Chris and his wife, after renting blades, boots, and snow pants from the base last night. Yes, that's blades, not skis, because (a) they were pretty much out of skis, and definitely out of ones that would be best for me, and (b) it was recommended to me that they were easier. Now, for whatever reason, they neglected to give me poles to go with them. This may have been an oversite, or they may have thought that blades didn't require poles, but regardless I decided to just rent those from the place we were skiing. I also managed to forget to get a lift ticket, but that was also easily remedied once we arrived. All in all, I had a good time, but sadly my companions did not. Chris was having issues with the skis, particularly in getting up, and gave up pretty early. I went down some green slopes twice before we left. Managed to fall only a dozen times or so, most of which were during the first green run, and a good deal of which were probably rather spectacular to watch. I was a little too busy falling and trying to not wrench something to be sure. I might have tweaked my knee a bit on the first fall, since it didn't feel great immediately afterwards, was ok while we were there, but is now giving signs of minor protest while I sit at my computer. Hopefully not a big deal.

Sweeney Todd was fun. Again, saw it with Chris and his wife. I feel a little bad, and may have enjoyed it more with out, but apparently I had told them that we were going to be watching I am Legend, but had forgotten that and changed movies when I gave them the time. I wasn't bitched out afterwards for it, so I suppose it ended up being ok, but I still felt bad about screwing that up. On the other hand, I doubt I would enjoy I am Legend nearly as much considering the reviews seem to point out pretty well that none of the book is in there.

Mass Effect is great, of course. Granted, it's the type of thing that I figured I'd enjoy, so I'm not really surprised in any way. Was trying to go through as an evil prick this first run through, but ended up being rather gray. Currently working on run through #2 with a goodie-goodie. Next time it'll be an evil prick. One of the more notable things I noticed with the game is that the Live Achievements that you earn in it actually give you in game bonuses, like increasing your health, or giving access to a skill for later characters even if they wouldn't normally have it. Very cool, helps replayability some, but mostly I just like the idea that you don't simply earn worthless points for doing something, you actually get an in-game bonus. Kinda like unlocking cheats in Goldeneye and such. The bad parts would be the world exploration times. You drive around in an all-terrain tank, which would be great, if it didn't drive like a beached whale. Don't get me wrong, it's not absolutely horrible, I just hate the fact that it's a poorly done "drive where you look" control mechanism, ala Halo, which even when done well does not earn anything like high marks from me.

5:09pm: Because it amuses me
This little poem first amused me, if I recall correctly, while I was backpacking just south of the Rockies with my dad. Would've posted it yesterday, or even before christmas, but I just didn't think of it.

Nicholas Was...
older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.

-"Nicholas Was..." by Neil Gaiman

11:50am: Trip complete
This post is going to be long, rambly, and have lots of pictures, so is hidden behind a cut. You have been warned.
( Read more... )

1:48am: Back
I'm in Cheyenne again. Kitten is fine. Car is stuck in front of the mailboxes, which, while annoying, is not the end of the world. Hopefully I'll be able to recruit people to help me make it unstuck later this morning. Right now, it's dark, windy, and everyone else is asleep, so I should get a nap in, at least. Will post more when I am more coherent.

1:30pm: I have arrived
Roshirov proved to be much better in the car than expected, although that wasn't until after I let him out of the crate. I know, bad idea, but I think he was honestly going to hurt himself in there, while he was being very good outside of it. No tearing about, no biting me, just primarily lieing on my lap and napping. All in all, an uneventful trip, although I will admit that it gets rather cold at night, and I burned a good gallon of gas warming the car back up when it seemed to be getting overly chilly while I tried to sleep.

5:18pm: 2 days and counting
That's right. Two more days (work days, sadly) until the kitten and I begin this year's odyssey. For those of you who aren't aware, or just would like an update on some details, I am driving, with Roshirov, home in two days. Spend some time there, head to the coast to visit another friend, come back for some good times in Indy, take a slight detour to Chicago, and return. Burning 15 days of leave for this little adventure. Should be fun. Or at least an experience. The cat may very well make it an experience I shall never want to repeat, but he did well being driven around/shut in the car for a couple hours yesterday, so hopefully that bodes well for the near future.

Regardless on the state of kittyness, I will obviously be up for gatherings with people if such a thing is possible. I should be back and at least somewhat available Friday, then the following Monday and Tuesday. Weekends are possible, but Saturday night and Sunday afternoon are already taken. Bug me however you see fit if you wish for me to swing by sometime during those days.

In related news, I still don't care much for christmas shopping. Buying things for other people is fine, but when I either can't find what they want, or don't know what they want, or in general am just floundering for ideas (which is normal) I tend to get a little unhappy with the idea. Of course, I also have the slight problem of seeing things I'd like while out, and being unable to resist buying those things, too. One of the reasons I try to avoid shopping unless I'm getting something specific. Just does my pocket book no good at all. Ah well, at least I think I have succeeded this year, and only have the coworker present to get now.

8:43am: Happy turkey day!
I am now mostly better, which is good. Kitten has proven to not be horribly frightened by people, but enjoys taunting runty little annoying dogs (and hissing at them) if left to his own devices. Will be testing his car-riding abilities later on in the weekend.

Sadly, the massive Wii shortage of the season is striking even out here. If any of you that I will see in the next few weeks sees one for sale, I will more than happily pay you back once I see ya if you could nab it. Not a huge thing, just something I'd like to have taken care of if possible.

Not much else going on here. The world just kinda keeps on turning.

3:29pm: Right.
It's only been a while since I updated. Honest. Ignore the fact that I'm only updating 'cause I feel like crap.

Yeah, I have once more come down with some serious bad juju. I swear, my immune system is great, I'm generally just fine most of the year, and only deal with sniffles or some other minor illness problems when I do get sick, but once a year or so, it decides to take a vacation. He,, I'm not even sure what I've got, other than it's making me more than a bit miserable. I am now going to attempt eating actual food for the first time in over 24 hours. Previous attempts last night proved to be a bad idea, as was my idea of drinking some water to try and avoid massive dehydration. Along with a rather rebellious stomache, I'm also dealing with minor diarrhea, surprisingly bad cold chills, and a general feeling of *blargh* throughout my body as a whole. Oh, you just have to love being sick. If I'm lucky, it'll at least waltz into tomorrow for a bit so that I'm not only losing a weekend, but we shall see.

In less uncomfortable news, I bought and watched a new anime series recently, Trinity Blood, which was pretty good. It does have the slight problem of ending with some rather notable strings left dangling, and the whole series really feels like Trigun meets Hellsing. But I enjoyed watching it quite a bit, regardless. I also picked up Meet the Robinsons, Ratatouille, and The Prestige, all of which were pretty good.

Bit the bullet and picked up Halo 3 after being harassed by one of the guys at a LAN party for a while. So far, not bad, I enjoy the ability to co-op. Otherwise, it's Halo. Can't say much more about it.

Hmmm... I'm sure there's more to yammer about, but I think that I'm just about done with this. Oh, Roshirov now is getting used to having a harness on. He hates it, but I think he's becoming used to the idea after a couple days. I'm also now trying to teach him that biting is bad, but we'll just have to wait and see whether or not that works out.

6:56pm: Damnit
Most of you know that I'm rather fond of the Guitar Hero games. Was considering not getting Rock Band at one time due to this. Unfortunately, with the loss of Harmonix, GH3 sucks. Unless you're fond of pain, or will mostly play for fun with friends, it's just not worth it. I say this because after finding it extremely difficult to get to the last song in Hard, I find that I simply cannot beat it. Not just because it's a difficult song, but because the game makes it worse, at random intervals, and then makes it so you can't practice individual parts at all. This makes for an incredibly frustrating experience that has left me rather ticked off at the game in general. Add some more issues, which would normally be just minor nuisances, like the fact that you can't set up playing with a friend online repeatedly, instead having to start up new games with them over and over, and you have a game that took a good thing and managed to destroy it with crappy ideas/programming. Hopefully Rock Band will be better.

That being said, I must also mention that a kitten jumping onto your shoulder while trying to play fake guitar games does not help one do better, regardless of what said kitten may think....

9:29pm: I should post something substantial
But I won't. Just a heads-up that I have more or less set my plans for the great car trip with kitty in Dec. I currently am planning on leaving here on the 5th, being with family th 8th-9th, driving to Baltimore sometime that week, back in Indy the 15th, Chicago the 16th, and being back here and ready to work the 18th. If there are other days/dates/times/etc in which people would like me to set aside, please tell me. Otherwise, I will do my best to hang out with those I can, but can make no promises.

8:20pm: Right. Post to the journal-thing.

Things are going fine over here. Kitten is hyper, generally bored, and likes trying to eat me. Pictures follow my blathering behind a cut. Otherwise life is going on just fine. Work is worky, apartment is kinda getting cleaned up (it needs it, unfortunately) and I'm strongly considering the idea of getting some more furniture this weekend. Or at least ordering it and finding out when the furniture people can bring it to my apartment, since my car is oh so little.

Got my 360 back, bought Bioshock, and proceeded to beat it twice in a row. Damn good game, although sadly a bit short. Fairly similar to the old Deus Ex games, at least in the sense that it's part adventure game, part FPS, and part RPG. Really, though, it's all about the atmosphere and the characters, which is what makes the game so interesting.

Hmmm... Nothing else to yammer on about for now, so here's the pics:
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8:18pm: I have my orders
Not in a military sense, mind you. More from a parental side of things. So, behind cut are yet more kitten pictures. There. Obligation done.
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10:00pm: Huzzah. Done.
There. No more HP. I must admit, it got much better towards the end. Still not great, but meh. I have read it, and now can go on to other books and won't have to worry about the spoilers that... honestly I'm not sure would have mattered to me.

7:26pm: Why not?
tagged by yuffers

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

1. My favorite series I have seen as of yet is Babylon 5. Between the themes, the characters, and the dialogue I just love the series.

2. I have always been a bit of a book worm. Granted, I tend to read in spurts, which usually have me plowing through a book or two a week, then nothing for months. I also have always liked books with a much darker theme than I suppose might be normal.

3. I actually am trying to be a bit more polite in my mannerisms, especially belching. Considering I have apparently been heard over the lawnmower I was riding, but have not obtained any nickname on that at work as of yet, I think I am succeeding.

4. My life practically revolves around the kitten at the moment. I'm not sure that this is a bad thing.

5. While being very easily amused, I am also very easily annoyed. This leads me to either doing one thing for extended periods of time, or constantly attempting something in little spurts to avoid destroying something.

6. I do not consider myself particularly tall. Everyone I know just happens to be short for some reason ;)

7. I am very bad at creating lists of things, especially about myself (this took far too long)

Guess I'll tag... Eh. Don't care, honestly, and considering I tend to not do these things too often, I can't really expect others. That said, I suppose I'll follow the rules... ummm... necklessone, konoha, magsterama, dyrecorn, fallenrose, kendokamel, and curious_kitty. There, although I put you all under no obligation to bother, I merely felt like doing this for absolutely no good reason.

7:34pm: Life is going great. Sure....
Behind this cut is lots of random ranting, general update on my life at the moment, and pictures of my apartment/kitten. Click at your own discretion (lots of writing, lots of pictures. You have been warned!)
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6:47pm: Stuff
I am currently in Colorado Springs, trying to enjoy a paid vacation for training (and enjoying being in Colorado Springs, too which is a rather nice place) Of course, as many of you know, the kitten I found Saturday makes it much more difficult to relax. For those of you I haven't babbled to about it, I found a little kitten while in the parking lot of Sears. When I say little, by the way, I'm talking <1 week. Needs pretty much everything done for it, and even then may not live past a month. We shall see, of course, but for now I worry about him. He's currently in the care of a vet tech, so I can only assume he's fine for now, but I worry anyways. Guess that's what happens when you spend a day or two primarily just trying to keep a little things alive and well.

On to pictures!
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11:10am: Oh yeah...
I probably should have posted this a while ago, but on the 11th I am participating in a Race for the Cure event. If anyone would like to contribute, please do so through the FEW CGOC team I am a part of. If not, no biggie, I think I'm just going to enjoy the run for a good cause.

link: http://race.komenwyoming.org/site/TR/Race/General?team_id=3090&pg=team&fr_id=1040

In other news... I have no real other news. Beat a game, finished a book, running a lot is still painful.