I've been home sick the last few days. I'm still sick. It's just a stupid head cold that I let get the better of me. Looking back, I could feel it coming on Sunday and Monday. Probably getting exhausted and dehydrated doing the Ikea thing didn't help. It's not really a bad cold as much as I just feel miserable. On the bright side, I asked Janna to pick up some sudafed and apparently they still sell the real stuff because she found some and after signing her name in the meth lab book, it really cleared a lot more congestion than the replacement does.

I guess it was wednesday that we sat down and decided to watch something on DVD and were met with massive disappointment. It wouldn't respond to anything. And when I did the pull the plug 30 seconds to reset it, well nothing lit up. Bad motivator I guess. I can't gripe too much, this was a $30 Best Buy special that turned out to have progressive scan and component video output which meant it would outupt at higher resolution when we got our HDTV. We waffled, but we're doing ok, so we sprang for a blu-ray player. A Sony that AVS forum recommended as a best buy. It occurred to me that this is probably only the second Sony electronic item I've ever owned, the first being a Walkman (as in the original Walkman). The difference even on normal DVDs is noticeable, even to Janna. Oddly, what first caught our eye was a DVD of the old Mission Impossible series where we noticed the crispness in the burning fuse on the titles. Very good series btw, if you've never seen it, well worth a watch.

I listened to the debate between Smart and Dumb on Thursday evening and while obviously Smart won by far, I was actually quite alarmed at how well Dumb did. Seeing bits of it on youtube and realizing she was actually and quite obviously reading her answers changed my opinion a great deal. I think tomorrow is when the tracking polls will start to show the debate effect. But we're still hopeful. That's what it's all about hope? Or so says the large magnetic thing on the front of my scooter. Speaking of which, I also ordered a SPAZ sticker for the scoot.

Other than that, playing a lot of Warhammer, watching a lot of tv, drinking a lot of liquids and blowing my nose.

We took a long weekend and spent yesterday at Ikea getting things to redo the office. We're moving from two very generic Staples computer desks from when we first moved and going to a long beech veneer work table with silver framing accents and red drawers and trim. Just getting the stuff was a project, we'll be assembling it during the long weekend for Columbus Day.

Other than that, it was a weekend. I ended up having to go into work Sunday morning to get some servers back online. The power went out for apparently long enough for the UPSes to wear down.

Otherwise, we didn't really get up to much. I played a lot of Warhammer. We watched many fine video productions. We did not go anywhere on a scooter because it was raining.

And I think I'm vaguely coming down with a cold. Just feeling tired and run down.

I drove in to work today because there are supposed to be showers later and I have had to run home with my scooter once during lunch and swap it for the car and really didn't want to do that again. And it left me thinking about the differences.

One of the big ones is that I'm tired and sluggish today. Riding in wakes me up. The cold. The alertness required to ride. The gearing up. The attention to detail.

And that made me think about all the things I notice. The smells are big--every restaurant you pass. The diesel fumes. The ocean.

But one comes to mind from spending a lot of time looking at people's faces trying to figure out if they've seen me or not and that's the vast number of drivers who have a phone welded to their ear. I never really noticed it before and it's just shocking. I don't really like the phone and maybe this has given me a particular view of the notion of "using a cellphone while driving." To me, using a cell while driving is fine. You pick it up, say ok twice to Janna who's telling me that I need to stop for something or something like that. And then hang up. Less effort and attention than changing a CD on the stereo. And of course, not doing any of that while at an intersection, rotary, etc. And making a call after finishing up at the shops means making it before I put the car in gear and drive off.

I think the parking lot thing is what really gets to me the most. It's one thing to pick it up because someone's calling you, but if you're babbling in a parking lot you're making a very conscious choice that you're going to babble while driving. I just can't fathom that. Make your call and then go. So easy. And honestly, navigating parking lots is one of the more two hands and attention intensive places I can think of driving. People get bugged about mobils on the interstate, but seriously, how much driving skill is required to stomp your foot on the floor and drive straight.

One of Janna's true loves in food are Thai "fresh rolls." Not the spring rolls fried, but the uncooked rolls in rice paper. In search of information and such, she found a site the sells the wrappers and a huge variety of other ingredients. The prices are insane, not like an import store at all, more like having a local Asian/Thai grocery for immigrants (= cheap prices) that happens to ship for the insane cost of 6 dollars. Which means if you order two things of curry paste, based on the difference between Stop & Shop and the cheaper authentic Thai stuff, you have already broken even on the shipping.

So tonight Janna is making fresh rolls and we're having a huge Thai dinner. I am so excited!

Last night was absolutely amazing in Warhammer. There was a large siege of a Destruction keep and we reinforced it and counterattacked. It showed some of the real strengths of War, in particular collision detection. One of the keys in defending the keep was that once the door was down, and we were greatly outnumbered, we put two ranks of tanks on the stairs backed up by a general blob of everyone. That was that. We healed our brains out and kept them alive and there was just no way they could get through those tanks. There's no question in my mind that keep would have been down in no time at all in DAOC.

And there is my guild. *sigh* When I came across the battle, there was a group of 4, I joined and made 5. There were around 30 people sieging the keep. I sent out the call as did everyone else. Two other guilds had 10 or so people there. And we finally had -3-. The largest guild on the sever and we had three people. Nor were there any scenario groups. There was a T1 PQ group. We have no alliances. And no apparent plans. In some senses Eternal Odyssey were a bunch of noobs. We put together poorly constructed groups and had to cater to Lisa's moods and such. But we were an organized serious raiding guild and I think it may have ruined me for casual guilds. I also wanted to play Order and I'm considering moving to an Order guild that some message board friends are running. I'm going to start a dwarf tank and we'll see how it goes.

Spreading Taint is now the second largest guild on our server and the largest Destruction guild. That's pretty amazing. I had a chance to group up with a bunch of people in the 2nd public quest last night as well as team with a couple in some scenarios. I'm getting rather good at pvp, mostly it means staying alive and doing as much healing as possible or wasting people's time by running around healing myself while hoping reinforcements show up. Either way. Fun. But its very hectic, it's not a laid back game at all. Well regular questing is because its boring like watching paint dry. But either PQs or RVR are fast as hell.

I can't remember if I mentioned Public Quests, but this is something I think City of Heroes originated with the giant monster fights and alien invasions. If you're in the area of a public quest, you're part of it. You can do whatever you want or not and its like a boss fight in a raid. You get a few waves of minions then a big bad and at the end, the server does a random roll for a loot sack. If you have done a lot to help with the quest, you get a bonus to your roll.