Six Days?!

Yeah, it's been nearly a week since I updated (well, except for the post just below). So what's been going on?

Last week was pretty normal. I know I mentioned last week that I started dieting and going to the gym again -- which I've been keeping up with, so I'm pretty happy about that. I've even lost about four pounds already. Woohoo.

I worked on some thing for one of the stories I have in my head, but I haven't really been able to make as much headway as I would have liked. I guess it's just a matter of making the time, but I'll have to figure out where to add that, because it's something I really want to do.

Thursday night Julia and I watched Closer on DVD. The movie wasn't so good, but we had a good time watching it because we made snide comments off and on.

Friday night Julia and I met Seth at the new theatre and watched the new Spike Lee movie Inside Man. It was a very good movie and we all enjoyed the plot, the writing, and the humor of it. This is definitely worth seeing in the theatre. Plus, it stars Clive Owen and he's awesome.

Saturday and Sunday we ran a bunch of errands (like going to Goodwill, looking for some plywood unsuccessfully, doing laundry, going to the gym, getting comics, all that good stuff) and watched Farewell My Concubine and the first half of The Return of the King.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm going to go read some comics.

Random Things

I finally added Chuck to the sidebar. Chuck was contracting with us for a number of months. He was great to work with and is an all around good guy. I hope to work with him again sometime.

I also added Ken to the sidebar. I've never worked with Ken, but I hope we get to at some point. I've been impressed with his Out of the Box and Suppressed Transmissions columns for years.

Seth passed my a list that shows how much people in different professions make. The one that really stood out was:

Andy Warhol
$16,226,741
Deceased artist

The next random bit . . . lessons learned from massively multi-player online rolplaying games (MMORPGs for the uninitiated).

Lastly, Seth and I were both enamored of this article on non-transitive dice. Then, I did a bit of looking around and found Grand Illusions and two sets of dice that use the principles outlined in the aforementioned link -- as well as the very cool Sicherman dice. I really need to get my hands on all of those dice!

Like I said, lots of random stuff. I'll get a realy update done next.

V

I started the diet yesterday and went to the gym. It's started out just fine; the gym wasn't quite as exhausting as I'd feared, I kept my food to the right mix with no difficulties or temptations (I even made myself omelets Monday and Tuesday) and I was pleased to see that I hadn't gained as much weight as I'd feared. So, good news all around.

However, today I felt really, really crappy from about four o'clock onward. I had a horrible headache, felt drained, and I really wanted to nap. I probably should go hit the sack, but instead I'm going to relax and watch The Bourne Supremacy once I'm done here.

I was happy to duck out of work for a while today and go see V for Vendetta. I thought it was a damn enjoyable film and did a good job of pointing out the dangers of a government like ours. I don't necessarily mean that as anti the current administration, but more along the lines of what we as a people have asked for and received -- even if the asking was tacit compliance. Anyway, I enjoyed it and thought it was very well made. In my opinion it's definitely worth seeing in the theatre and probably even picking up on DVD.

Oh, and check out this cool LEGO battleship!

More later.

Forever

Yes, I know, it's been weeks since I last posted, but I was in Vegas at the GAMA Trade Show and my computer wouldn't work correctly, so I wasn't able to keep up with email or posting. Sorry about that.

Julia and I spent last weekend together in Vegas. We had a good time, mostly just hanging around the hotel, although we made a couple of trips to the strip, including one evening at the Bellagio to see O. It was pretty damn good and I'm glad I went to see it. It's amazing that adding something as simple as a new way to enter and exit the stage can have such an amazing effect on a show. If you're headed to Vegas, I definitely recommend it. Plus, it has some clowns, so it's gotta be good, right?

The rest of the week was pretty taxing because a number of people who were there to work ended up getting a nasty cold (from which I was thankfully spared), so there were only a couple of us at the booth at any given time. I was able to have some good meetings, though, and they went very well. I'm hoping everything I talked about comes to pass, it would be very cool. I even came up with an interesting idea that I'll have to talk to my boss about. Oh, and I played in a 55 person poker tournament on Monday and finished in the top five, so I won a pretty good amount of money considering my $37 buy in. I was happy.

Shane gave me a copy of the new Deadlands: Reloaded and it's very good. I'm a fan of Savage Worlds, so this is a great addition to the line. I'm looking forward to running it soon.

I'm usually pretty zombie-like after I return from a show, and this one was no different. I think I was recovered by Sunday, but Friday and Saturday were pretty sore days. That and a basic dislike of my weight has made me decide to get back in shape starting tomorrow. I'll let you know how that goes.

Netflix is working out well. Julia and I watched Pecker and Like Water for Chocolate this weekend as well as a couple of movies before I left. It's nice to be able to see movies I've been interested in for a long time, but I know I'd never buy and would probably never bother renting.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new week of work and I'll have plenty of emails to catch up on. Talk to you soon.

Three

Three, that's how many comics I bought on Saturday. I stuck to my list and managed to spend about $30 less than I normally would have at the comic shop. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Oh, I wanted to mention that I didn't update for the last couple of days because Blogger wouldn't allow me access for some reason. I'm sure it's just a glitch, but I thought I'd explain.

Friday night Julia and I went to a surprise party at Shana's for Dustin. It was a nice, reasonably-sized group of people and we had a good time chatting with others. It was a nice time. Much better than either of us expected to have, actually.

Saturday I met up with Chris Pramas and Rick along with Matt, Seth, and Jason down at the Science Fiction museum to check out the Battlestar Galactica demo tour kickoff. That seemed to be going very well and after some of the others checked out the game we went and played History of the World for the rest of the day. It's definitely one of my favorite world-conquest games and we had a good time -- although playing with six players means lots of time between your turns, which wasn't quite as fun. Anyway, I'd love to try and set up gaming days like this every now and again, so I hope we can all coordinate that every now and again.

Sunday, Julia and I went to a small gem and jewelry show at Seattle Center. It was interesting to see the show. It reminded me of a small gaming convention in a lot of ways, especially with regards to how passionate people are about their hobbies and how fun it is to find good deals. Due to a bag that accidently was left behind, we had to go back downtown after we'd returned home, but happily the bag was found and Julia was able to pick it up after a little running around.

Afterward we hooked up a new TV that we'd picked up from a co-worker's earlier in the day and watched the Academy Awards. . . well, the Awards were on, but I was working on a D&D character and she was putting together some jewelry. It was a fun day and it was fun to see Julia in her element.

Last night I woke up at 3:00am and had a little panic attack regarding money. One of those stray thoughts that happen when you're half asleep coasted through my brain, freaked me out, and I couldn't stop thinking about my finances, so I got up, made out a list of where my money goes every month and discovered that I'm running a deficit every month due to the amount I spend going out to eat. That's no good, so I'm going to try to reign that in quite a bit. Sure, it's not as fun, but it's really a detriment right now, so it has to stop. Plus, I'd like to be able to save up to do some really fun things with my girl. That's not going to happen as it is.

More later.

Membership

Your occult organization is...

Jason (and pretty much every other gamer who reads this), you should get a kick out of this.