I Sat Down to Write

Friday I didn't leave work until late, partially due to lots of work, partially due to playing City of Heroes with some of the guys. Then I ended up going to the mall with Seth, Shane, and Cathy. I think we went just for the heck of it, but I ended up picking up a couple of books at Borders before we went to dinner at Z-Tejas. Yeah, I don't know what that means either.

That night I watched many, many episodes of The Office that I borrowed from Shane and Cathy. In fact, I watched all of Season One and Two this weekend, so if it seems like there a number of unaccounted for hours, that's probably where they went. Regarding The Office, it's very good. There's been lots of talk about how amazing it is and all the normal television crap, but really, it's very good. It's initially and persistently uncomfortable, which can be a bit much at times, but the writing is excellent and the characters are very realistic. Heck, for a sit-com even the situations are fairly realistic. No wacky misunderstandings, no over-the-top jokes, no "I don't beleive that" moments. Just strange but ordinary people going about their days. Over the course of the two seasons it also manages to tell (in snippets) one of the best, most realistic, and most well-realized love stories I've ever seen on television. And the denouement of that story is perfect. If you can't tell, I recommend it -- if you can stand the uncomfortable silences after jokes that fall flat.

Saturday the same crew from Friday night went for comics, did some shopping at Weslake Center downtown, then went home. Laundry, reading, blah, blah, blah, then I went over to Shane and Cathy's to play poker with the two of them and Jen and Hays. I haven't played poker in years -- and never for money -- but I did very well and had a blast. In the beginning I was up quite a bit, but by the end I was down $1.85 out of five dollars, while two of the others had been wiped out. I'd do it again.

Sunday I made myself do a bit of cleaning up since I still have things sitting around from when I was going through boxes of stuff a while ago. One of my biggest acheivements of the day was throwing away an old cardboard filing cabinet that I've had for, hmm, probably 18 years. Since my freshman year in the dorm. I actually had a couple of instances of, "I can't seriously throw this out, can I?", but I did. So now it's sitting down by the cardboard recycling cans waiting to be rained on and picked up by the recycling crew. Hey, 18 years is half my life, sue me if I'm a bit nostalgic about the stupid thing.

Along with the cleaning I also put up some Christmas-y things, so now my place is a bit more "in the spirit". I spent the evening at work updating some things on the budget, talking to one of the playtesters for my game line over instant messenger, and playing City of Hereos.

Honestly, I haven't been very good about my food lately. There's nothing that happened that made me all of a sudden go off my diet, but man am I off it. I know I'll get back to it, but I think I need a break. Even so, I'll need to behave myself. I think after the holidays I'll restart and hit the gym at the same time. That should teach me. And no, that's not a New Year's resolution. I don't like them, haven't ever made one. I don't limit resolutions to one time of year. I hope I'm always trying to improve myself.

Speaking of which, Friday night when I got home I sat down to write (hence the headline). I've been wanting to write for a while now and I never seem to make the time. Anyway, sat down, started to write and found that I don't have a story for what I want to write about. So, I ended up organizing some thoughts on a couple of different ideas and listing some characters, plot ideas, story ideas, and a number of other things. Now I have a handful of ideas rolling around in my head. I'll be working on them soon. I just have to decide what I'm actually attempting to write.

Is there anything any of you would like to see me work on?