I'm really tired and not feeling very well (headache since about 4:00), so I didn't go to the gym tonight. Nor have I had dinner.

I'm supposed to go to one of the sculptor's houses tonight, but I think I'm going to go rest. Maybe work on the Buffy game I have to run.

I have a doctor's appointment for next Thursday. I don't remember if I mentioned that already, but hopefully he'll be able to give me some information on what's going on with my whole working out/weight-loss thing.

A woman that used to work here called to invite me to an impromptu Halloween party on Friday night. That should be fun, but it means skipping the gym again. I'm not so excited about that.

Tomorrow I'm going to help Mike from work to give out candy for Halloween. His wife's in Hong Kong right now, so he has to take their daughter trick-or-treating.

I'm outta here.

I've been very busy lately, so I haven't had time to post. This weekend I ran around so I could make it to the gym, game Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and go to a party Saturday night. It was a costume party and it was a lot of fun. There was a good mix of people I knew and people I didn't know. I was a little surprised when the English woman I met last winter showed up. I was worried that it would be awkward (like she'd blown me off and had no interest in talking to me again) but we ended up talking for an hour or so. I found out that her parents are coming to town for the same dates as my mom and grandma. Anyway, I asked if she'd like to go out again sometime and she said yes, so I'm going to contact her soon.

My goatee continues to reside on my face and people seem to like it. It's still very difficult for me to get used to, but I'm going to give it until next week sometime at the very least. I'm not sure what mom and gram will think. I'm tempted to keep it at least until they get here.

The gym is very, very frustrating. I was down a bit this weekend, but last night I was right back up. Argh.

A group of us have been playing a fair amount of Magic: The Gathering at work lately. It's been a lot of fun. Speaking of gaming, I have to go home tonight and work on a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer game for this Saturday. We wrapped up the Champions game and are moving onto a couple of shorter sessions as the holidays approach. I'm first on the list and I'll be running the new Buffy roleplaying game for the group. It should be fun. I have a neat idea that revolves around introducing other types of slayers to the world other than just vampire slayers. This allows other characters to be demon slayers, lycanthrope slayers, mage slayers, ghost slayers, etc. I'm going with "re"-introducing the demon slayer to the world.

I have to decide if I want the game to be set in Detroit (with Hell Night and all that fun) or New Orleans (with all it's mystical history (y'think 'mystery' is a combination of those words?). Seattle was also an option, but I think I like that for a mage slayer game. Either way, the location will have a Hellmouth of its very own to supply lots of monsters and problems.

Gotta go get some dinner and get to work. G'night.

I finished the rules for the new game today (a day after the deadline, but I think they're pretty clean, so I'm fine with a day's delay).

I forgot to mention earlier that last Friday I was talking to some of the people at work about how my beard doesn't grow very quickly, which was too bad because I wanted to see what a goatee would look like. I've shaved a goatee in the past after I'd gone more than a few days without shaving, but the hair is never thick enough and it looks a little week. One of the guys said it takes him three weeks to get a decent beard, so I may not have been giving it enough time. Anyway, I didn't shave for the entire week and then this morning shaved a goatee. It's still very short and not very full, but people seem to think it looks okay. I'm still not convinced, but I'll let it go for a while and see how I like it. It's very hard to adjust to such a big change to my face.

I asked a co-worker for the name of her doctor and called to make an appointment today, so I'll be having a check up in the couple of weeks. That's good. Now I can ask some work-out questions and get a physical.

Saturday night is the costume party I was invited to. I don't know what I'm going to do for it, but I have a pretty funny/disturbing idea for a costume. It sort of works out to be a "serial dater." I'll be spattered with blood and say my date decided to stay in the car. It was funny at work, but I'm not sure how it's going to go. The other idea I liked was the king of the faeries. Mostly because I saw some of those wings they make for little kids and thought how funny those would look on me. I think it'd be funny, but I also think it would involve a bit too much ridicule.

Anyway, Heather took me down to a costume place in Seattle tonight to check things out. It was very busy, but it had free parking and a lot of stuff. Cute staff, too. Then we went to dinner at DragonFish. It was very good and we had a good talk.

She said she enjoys arguing...or rather, debating. She said it's more fun to argue than do nothing. I say I don't feel that way at all. Why fight all the time? Why introduce that sort of...needless conflict and chaos into your life? My family certainly isn't like that. We're all pretty laid back and enjoy spending time with each other and despite the fact that we may pole fun sometimes, I can say we enjoy each other's presence whether we're "debating" or not. Anyway, it was just another weird preference some people have that I definitely don't share.

Oh, she also vehemently disagreed with my assessment of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I maintain that Pearl Jam sounded very Nirvana-like after the success of Nevermind and years later, when Stone Temple Pilots became popular, Pearl Jam began to sound like them. Let me know if you agree or disagree.

Now I'm going to read and go to bed.

I've been very good about getting to the gym and having some good workouts, too. I've also been very careful about food. I hope it pays off. I've been stuck at this weight for well over a year and even though I know going to the gym is good for me, it's still very frustrating. I hate frustrating.

I finished watching season 3 of Buffy and instead of buying a new DVD or three I've decided to read as much as I can in the evenings. I have a ton of books to read and I just don't get a chance to read them. This little plan should allow me to save some moolah as well as get some serious book-time in. Right now the only time I read is for about 30 minutes when I'm on the bike at the gym. Let's just say it takes me a while to get through a book that way.

There are a ton of movies in the theatres that I'd like to see, but I have a hard time getting to them. Oh, well, I can always catch them on DVD if I need to. But, really, the theatre is a lot of fun. Dunno why, it just is.

Work has been good. I've gotten a lot done on a new game. Matt and I stayed until 9:00 last night to create an excel spreadsheet for the characters. That'll be very useful. I spent today doing a lot of work in it.

Phil P. called yesterday. We had a good talk. It's good to hear that he's doing some gaming again. I always had the most fun either in his games or when he was playing. I wish I could play with him again. Maybe over Christmas?

Now I'm going to the game store, grab some dinner, then go to the gym.

See you soon.

I had a very fun and relaxing weekend that kicked off with dinner at Cactus. It was good, but we had to sit outside and it was a little cool. I didn't mind so much, but I don't think Heather and Matt were thrilled. The thing that really bummed me was when I crushed my finger between two of the metal chairs. Wow that hurt. I think I bruised the bone. Ouch.

After dinner we went pumpkin carving. Also fun, but we started at 8:00 and the time was quickly filled with pumpkin guts. I brought two pumpkins, one small, one large and made them both into pieces of art. Liz and Madalyn, who hosted the party, took pictures, so if I can figure out how to do it, I'll post pictures here soon. I left the large pumpkin there, but I took the smaller one and it's sitting on my television keeping me in the Halloween spirit.

The rest of the weekend was gym-going, gaming, playing cards with Matt, and picking up comics. I was very happy to see that our compay store has started stocking comics. If they have a good selection, I may be able to stop commuting a half-hour both ways on Sunday's to buy comics. Woohoo!

Amazingly enough I haven't done any work this weekend -- unless you count watching the remainder of the Buffy episodes for season 3.

Good for me.

I've had a very busy week, with very little time to spend on updating. Sorry about that. I'll do a quick recap.

Monday I picked up a PS2 and game for it. Went to the gym. Went home, set up the PS2 and started playing a little SSX Tricky. I'll have to make more time for that.

Tuesday I was supposed to play in a game in the evening, but some of the people crapped out. We ended up talking for a while, then I went home to watch some Buffy tapes and play more Tricky.

Wednesday was more of the gym, Buffy, and Tricky.

Thursday was Will's birthday (he sits next to me at work) so I went to a dinner party for him down at Luigi's Grotto. It's the only restaurant that's still located in underground Seattle. It was very fun and it had a good mix of people from work and from Will's girlfriend's work. Then I went home to watch Buffy and play Tricky.

Today I have a ton of work to get done because some deadlines just became solid things. Tonight I have to skip out on going to the gym in order to grab dinner and then head to some friends' from work house to have a pumpkin-carving party. It should be a good time.

The rest of the weekend will include lots of Buffy, going to the gym and playing in a game tomorrow afternoon. If you're curious, I'm watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer for work. I've watched most of season 3 this week and I should be able to finish it up this weekend. Woohoo! It's a fun show, but I have to admit that I'm really glad I can watch tapes (with no ads) at my leisure as opposed to watching it on T.V.

My mom and grandma are coming out at the beginning of November. I'm very happy about that. Now, I have to find some fun things for us to do over that weekend. I'm sure it'll be easy and it'll be a good excuse to get out and explore more of the city.

Hopefully I'll write more this weekend. I have to update more often than I have been.

The weekend went as planned. I worked out Friday night. I helped some people from work move on Saturday. That was a bear. They have a ton of stuff, but really only needed me and the others to help move furniture. Everything was fine except for this huge, leather couch with built-in recliners on both ends. Ugh. I was the only one who could actually lift the thing unassisted, so I did most of the fanagling and lifting. Obviously it was a group effort, but man, was that a pain. I can't complain, though. The couple we were helping thought I worked so hard that they decided to let me have the T.V. I've been borrowing from them for the last month or so. Very cool. Now I don't have to absorb the cost of a new T.V.

Saturday evening I went out with the woman that contacted after many months of not corresponding. She's lost about 70 lbs after having her stomach cut down to the size of a thumb and looks good. I'm surprised she even had that much to lose. I checked back in my blog and found the entry of when we went out and she seems happier than she was in January, but she still makes things that don't need to be a competition into a competition. It's annoying.

Example, we're driving along, talking, and I say "106th Street leads from Bellevue to Kirkland".

She says, "No, it's Bellevue Way that leads to Kirkland."

"Oh", says I, "isn't that 106th? That's the street I was thinking of."

She says, "Nope, it's Bellevue Way. I'm right, you're wrong."

Riiight. Fine. She did something similar at another point in the evening, but all I can remember is her saying, "I beat you on that one." Seriously, is everything a competition? Should it be? I don't think so. I don't feel like I should have to compete every moment of every day. It's stupid. I'll have to see how this goes. So far she's not impressing me, but she was better than last time I saw her and seemed much happier. The whole 'competition' thing is big downer, though.

Sunday I hit the gym, picked up comics, did some invoicing for Corsair, and now I stopped by work to pick up some vides tapes to watch this evening.

So, that's all! G'night.

All sorts of things happening in the last couple of days.

First; a couple of women from work invited me and a bunch of others over for a pumpkin-carving night next Friday. I think I already mentioned that and the birthday party on the Thursday immediately preceeding it.

Second; a guy at work has invited a number of us over for Scrabble night on Thursday the 24th.

Third; I received an email from a woman that used to work here to got for dinner this weekend sometime with her and her husband.

Fourth; this same woman has a physical trainer as a friend and she's going to hook me up with her to talk about some things and go over a new workout plan. At a pretty reasonable rate, too! That'll happen sometime next week, I think.

Fifth; I received an email out of the blue from a woman I saw a couple of times last Fall/Winter. She'd like to get together this weekend. I figured, what the heck. I may as well see if a year makes a difference in person. She's nice enough, just no spark -- and, if I recall correctly, she was awfully competitive, which I'm not really into. We'll see how that goes.

Sixth; Saturday I have to help some people move.

Lots of stuff going on around here. A couple of fun things before I flee to the game store, grab some dinner, and make up some invoices for Corsair.

I've almost finished watching all of the commentary tracks on The Limey. Someone at work lent me Blood: The Last Vampire, it's anime, but it's supposed to be good. After that I have to buy something new to watch. Hey, it's cheaper than cable!

Yesterday I picked up two computer games for $5 each: Black & White and Warcraft III. Gooooood prices. I also picked up SSX Tricky for the PS2, so I should probably buy one of those soon, too. Oh, and a new T.V. Yikes.

No crying. No hugging. No learning.

Talk to you soon.

A week without an update! I bet you're all atwitter with the exciting happenings of my life. Well, dream on, things have been pretty normal around here. Work is busy, but it going very, very well for me. I've been very good about going to the gym after a couple of weeks of skipping out more than I like to, which, admittedly, is at all. I know I've mentioned it previously, but I've put some weight back on in the last few weeks and it's because I've been eating badly and not working out. Int he last week I've gotten that under control and I've already dropped about 5 lbs. Hopefully this trend will continue, I'm tired of losing this same 10 lbs over and over again. I'd really like to lose another 70 lbs, but that seems less and less likely every day. I'm not sure how much more time I can spend at the gym. Although, really, I'm just paying for all those years of sitting on my ass and enjoying my hedonistic lifestyle (yes, sarcasm is intended there...but not too much).

Yesterday was my little sister's birthday, I talked to her today and she said she's getting old. I told her she only thought that because she had kids. She agreed. I can't imagine what I'll feel like when I have kids running around. So much work -- and I'll be really old. Ah, well, they say it's worth it, right Mom?

Oh, I was interested in the friend of one of the women from work. She tried to warn me off, but didn't really go far enough. Anyway I found out her friend is really only interested in rich Italian men, so I think I'll write that off. Doesn't that seem weird? To be so obsessed with wanting a particular thing? I dunno, I'd like someone I get along with and who entertains me and who doesn't need me, but needs me and vice versa. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic, but I think that's all possible. Though, I must admit, the longer I live and more I learn about people the more it seems like everyone is completely messed up. It's a wonder some of these people can get through a day without collpasing in on themselves.

On a completely different note, I finished watching the Simpsons Season II DVD as well as Ghost Dog, now I get to watch The Limey. I really like that movie. Then I'll have to pick up something new. Thank God for Best Buy! Woohoo!

Time for bed!