2007
Saved for posterity, or maybe for no particular reason at all. Here are some of the previous things that I blathered on about.
[Blahrchive]
December 24, 2007.
The Season.
Happy holidays, everyone, whatever you celebrate.
November 29, 2007.
Ketchup.
I'm no longer waking up every morning at 5:30, which is good. Unfortunately, I seem to have insomnia instead. Blech.
A few weeks back, I mentioned to my friend Kevin that if he saw a Wii, I'd like him to pick one up for me (he haunts the various stores far more often than I do, and periodically picks up other things for me, such as Heroscape expansions). I didn't expect him to find one for ages, since they're supposed to be incredibly hard to find, selling out constantly. However, just a couple days later he let me know that he'd found one. I wasn't prepared for it so soon, so it actually took me a couple weeks to get around to hooking it up. Now it's all hooked up, and I've been playing with it periodically. The simple Sports games that come with it, and with Wii Play (a kind of training disc for using the Wii, which I got separately) are just my speed so far, being fairly simple and easy to play for short little bursts.
November 19, 2007.
Early in the Mornin'.
The past several days I've been waking up at about 5:30 AM, plus or minus a few minutes. This isn't my normal "wake up a dozen times a night and go right back to sleep" waking up, either—it's me being done sleeping, even though I've had not nearly enough sleep yet. It then takes me a couple hours of lying in bed, tired but unaccountably not sleepy, before I eventually fall asleep again. I don't understand where this came from, or why 5:30 AM, which is not only about four hours after I've gone to sleep, but well short of my normal seven point five hours of sleep.
In other news, I've had trouble keeping up a regular exercise schedule for some time now. As a result, my weight has been climbing back up, and my fitness level declining. In an attempt to fix this, I've decided to shift the time slot for my regular exercise from pre-lunch to pre-breakfast. I'm hoping that by getting my exercise in as the very first thing I do each day, I'll not yet have any distractions to prod me away from exercising, and will just get it over and done with each morning. I successfully tested this idea last Saturday and this morning (today is Monday), so I know that I can do it, it's just now up to me to keep doing it. And, hopefully, to move up to exercising on a daily basis.
November 14, 2007.
Blah.
I got nothin'.
GCA: GCA crossed 2400 downloads at e23 back on November 7. Sales continue to slow.
October 15, 2007.
Frogicide.
I mowed the lawn on Saturday, hopefully for the last time this year, but there might be one more. While mowing, I encountered a little tree frog around the stump in the lawn. He hopped up on the stump to escape the mower. Unfortunately, as I got closer to the stump on one side, he hopped into the grass on the other side and tried to hop away. He'd have been safer on the stump. Anyway, I picked him up and carried him to a safe zone, so I wouldn't accidentally mulch him when I started mowing the other side of the stump. Makes me wonder, though, if there are other little frogs who are now in froggie heaven because I didn't notice them trying to escape through the grass. I hope not, as they're big enough to see pretty easily when they're moving.
In other news, our furnace is not working. Again.
September 26, 2007.
Nothin' Else.
I have nothing else really to say today, so I'm just going to make the periodic GCA update for myself.
GCA: GCA crossed 2300 downloads at e23 back on September 21. Things were back to being kinda slow.
September 18, 2007.
Five Ball Day.
I regularly walk up to our local grocery store, and that walk takes me past part of a golf course. While it doesn't happen all that often, it's not unusual for me to find a golf ball along the way. I've also found two golf balls on a couple of occasions. This past Sunday, however, I found five golf balls on my trip: four walking to the store, and one walking back. The first four were all in the strip of grass outside the wall of the course, in two little groups of two, while the fifth was in the median of the road.
I was oddly pleased at finding so many on one trip. I'm not sure why this happened, but my guess is that all the bad golfers were out trying to get a last round in before the rainy season really starts. (Contrary to what you may have heard, the Portland area doesn't actually get all that much rain during the summer. It's just rainy the other nine months.)
(Golf balls do hit cars sometimes--I was once almost hit by a golf ball that bounced off a car. It was travelling quite fast, but I shifted out of its way and attempted to catch it. Yeah, I'm not always real smart. Anyway, I moved enough to not get hit, but was too slow to catch the ball. Which was probably a good thing.)
September 3, 2007.
Crush Your Enemies.
Yesterday, our friend Aly was up, so we got together for a party. And, being as we are, we played a game of Heroscape. With ten players.
In an attempt to keep things, manageable, we played in two teams. I have to tell you, ten is way too many. If we could have had starting positions for all ten, it might have been better to have a free-for-all, instead of teams, so that some of the folks could have gotten into things sooner (although initiative would have been very annoying). So, the teams were Gina, Karen, Aly, Arnie, and Mark against me, Kevin, Jon, Jeff, and Zane. Karen, Aly, and Jeff had never played before, but I think that wasn't really a hinderance compared to just how long things took with so many people.
The board was set up to be rather large, with a couple keeps off-set toward the middle, with various obstacles, and what-not. It took up most of the table, and of course the teams started at opposite corners. It took so long for the non-flyers to get anywhere that some folks spent most of the game just trying to plod along to get to a point where they could do something. In fact, Zane, our youngest player, had a bit of a melt-down because he couldn't fight anyone, and he really wanted to. Arnie spent something like ten actions just getting some of his folks to the top of the keep.
We were also playing with some super-heroes from Kevin's Marvel set. Those guys are strong. Jeff was playing Doctor Doom, and one of his special abilities is that he has a 20% chance to take over a near-by hero and take a turn using them. Fairly powerful, but still only a 20% chance of success--except Jeff managed to pull it off in about 50% of his attempts, which was quite entertaining (for our team, anyway). Gina was the last one standing on her team, and she ended up conceding. From our side, Jeff and Kevin were still in it, and I believe Zane still had one squad member alive. Amusingly, Jon and Mark were the first two eliminated from the game. I think Karen and I were eliminated close on together. After a series of nickel-and-dime hits my dragon had taken over the preceding rounds, I was killed by Aly when her dragon counter-attacked my dragon, snatching away my last life.
Overall, I thought it was fairly entertaining. I now have a scratchy throat from all the interacting at higher than normal volumes, though.
Before the game, we had dinner, and Kevin cooked us up some ribs. We actually ate outside at Jon's patio table, which I don't recall us ever having used before. Arnie arrived about an hour and a half late, but still in time to grab some dinner. Thanks for all the good food, folks, and the excellent company in which to eat it!
August 22, 2007.
Classic Hits.
After the previous entry, let me expand a bit about my dizziness, and why seeing a doctor about waking up that way wasn't an issue.
Many years back, when living in my apartment in Beaverton (which means it was about a decade ago, give or take a year or two), I got dizzy one day. I'd had a few minor "waves" of dizziness before that, where I'd be doing something, get a bit dizzy, and then it would pass. But this time, the dizzy stayed, which was a bit disconcerting. I thought I might be a little sick, but as the day progressed, I got even more dizzy. Eventually, it got bad enough that I couldn't see straight at all, and couldn't walk without holding myself up with the walls, so I got Arnie (my roomie at the time) to take me to the hospital. (Funnily enough, he'd offered earlier in the day and I'd turned him down--just to roust him later, at night, when it would annoy him more. Sorry, Arnie.)
So, off to the hospital we went.
Of course, I hadn't been drinking enough because everything was spinning, and the dehydration made things worse. Once they started me on an IV to hydrate me, I started feeling a little better—less sick, but no less dizzy. They asked me lots of questions, checked my eyes and gave me a CT scan, but basically couldn't find any nasty little cause for the "vertigo" I was feeling. So, they diagnosed it as Benign Positional Vertigo and sent me home to wait it out. (The benign part isn't because it doesn't suck, but because nothing harmful, like a tumor, appears to be causing it. And apparently my eyes were doing an interesting jerking movement as they tried to compensate for the spinning, but I never got to see that.)
I then spent several weeks were all I could do was lie in bed and hope that eventually the spinning would stop. Eventually, it did lessen, and finally go away. But I still have occasional spells of dizziness, which are thankfully very brief.
The worst thing is, after doing some online research a few years later, I learned about the Epley maneuvers, which are supposed to help with cases like mine. Often, this type of vertigo is believed to be caused by little bits of debris that are floating around in the ear canal, and the Epley maneuvers are designed to move the head through various positions that will cause that debris to end up in a lower portion of the canal, where they're out of the way and no longer in a position to bump into the bits responsible for your perception of balance. For some odd reason, this very simple procedure was considered "voodoo" by the medical establishment, and was having trouble propagating. I believe it's having more success these days, though.
August 20, 2007.
Like a record, baby.
I woke up in the middle of the night suffering from a dizzy spell. It sucked. I couldn't even tell what time it was because the clock was moving too fast to read. I closed my eyes, turned onto my less spinny side, and eventually fell back asleep. I wonder if I woke up because I was dizzy, or if I occasionally get dizzy spells while sleeping, and just happened to wake up during this one?
August 9, 2007.
Suckage.
I suck at this blogging thing. I don't post regularly, but I do regularly think of things I could post, which I then forget before I get around to updating. I should take notes or something--that might help.
GCA: GCA crossed 2200 downloads at e23 on August 7. Only a month between milestones--GCA sold strongly in July.
July 12, 2007.
Electricity.
This morning, we had a little power hiccup at the house--not enough to affect anything except my computer, which rebooted (my UPS isn't quite enough for the system and monitor I have). Anyway, I didn't think much of it, since things like that happen. Later, I decided that since it was "only" 80°F (27°C) outside, I would go up to Subway for a sandwich for lunch. I get up there, and all the power is out: stores, traffic lights, everything. They're still serving at Subway, but since the power is out, they don't have a working cash register and are only taking exact change. I've basically got a twenty and I don't want to buy three sandwiches all at once, so I leave, without my lunch. So, here I am, all sweaty for a lunch I didn't even get to eat.
GCA: GCA crossed 2100 downloads at e23 back on July 7.
July 2, 2007.
Shamouse.
From June 17th to the 22nd, I was in Orlando with a portion of the family, visiting Disney World and Sea World (we traveled to, then from, Orlando on the 16th and 23rd). I survived the trip better than I expected, both physically and psychically. The heat, coupled with the humidity, was very oppressive, and I have no desire to ever go back there during a similar time of year. I took a bunch of pictures, and I'll post some of them here in the scrapbook when I feel like going through the effort.
June 9, 2007.
Eh.
I really need to update when I think of something that I want to mention here. Invariably, when I procrastinate, I forget.
It appears that they're putting in a small new housing development across the street from the back of our house. Nearly all day, every day, for the last week or so, they've had heavy equipment working over there, and the rumbling and noise affects the whole house. I'm actually surprised that I haven't had more, and more severe, headaches than I have had. Annoying as hell.
The family vacation is coming up soon. That should be interesting.
GCA: GCA crossed 2000 downloads at e23 back on May 30. Woo!
May 18, 2007.
Dreamicide.
Last night, I dreamed that Stefan had been dead for months, but John thought it would be funny to send out occasional email updates pretending to be Stefan. Is that a messed up dream, or what?
I hurt my right shoulder a couple weeks ago. I don't know how, but my best guess is from getting up out of the chair while watching television. It's gotten better, but it's still not nearly back to normal. I must've torn something in there. Still, what the heck is wrong with me that I break myself while watching TV? A couple weeks before that, I hurt my left wrist. It's almost all better, but I don't know how I did that, either. It's not like I spent my life playing pro sports--I shouldn't be having injuries just pop up out of nowhere. It just isn't right.
The preceding paragraph was written in a tone of slightly annoyed wonderment, not of complaint or whining. What tone did you read into it?
Finished up with Enterprise this week. The penultimate episode serves as a wonderful finale, so I stopped there. Having watched the abomination that they produced as the "official" finale when it was broadcast, I don't want to watch it again. My Enterprise doesn't include that episode.
April 23, 2007.
Blah.
A few days ago, I thought I was almost completely over this cold, yet I am actually a bit worse now than I was then. Damn lingering bits of illness.
Aside from still being slightly ill, it would appear that nothing interesting is happening in my life. I have some things I could rant about, but I don't feel like ranting today. Don't feel like much of anything, really, but a bit restless and having trouble concentrating. I should probably get out of the house for a bit, and get some exercise, which I haven't done a lot of while being sick. Today, my blahg is well named.
GCA: GCA crossed 1900 downloads at e23 back on April 19.
April 13, 2007.
Music.
Here's an interesting article in the Washington Post: Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out. (It's a fairly long article.)
Also, it's Friday the 13th, and I'm sick with a head cold. That sucks. Well, the head cold sucks regardless of the date, really.
April 3, 2007.
Two times.
Yesterday, GCA downloads finally doubled the next highest product, GURPS Mysteries, 1850 to 925. The fact that it actually took as long as it did suggests Mysteries is one heck of a fine book.
March 27, 2007.
Three bullets.
• I finished my first .Net book full of Knowledge. Now I just need to sit down and start coding away, so that it all becomes natural to me. Right now, just trying to deal with the environment is annoying.
• I've moved the gaming calendar info off the bottom of this page to a page of it's own. I'll leave the link at the bottom of this page for a while.
• Saw Shooter with my Dad on Sunday. It's been a while since I saw a movie with him (I think Windtalkers in 2002?), so that was nice.
March 19, 2007.
Catch Up.
It's been a while since my last update, I know. It's not that have had nothing to say (just nothing important), I just haven't gotten around to updating here. I'll try to cover the things that I can remember.
Friends: Last week I had lunch with my friend Bryan. I bumped into him completely by chance a while back, when my Dad and I stopped into the local Elmer's for lunch, instead of our usual haunt. Bryan works down the street, and was in for lunch that same day. Anyway, had lunch at Elmer's with him last week, and it was nice to catch up. I'll have to do that some more, and keep in better touch.
Television DVDs: I am a fan of Star Trek: Enterprise, but I've avoided buying the seasons on DVD because Paramount charges a ridiculous price for them ($130!). I'm not willing to pay that for many shows, and Enterprise is not the exception. However, last year I became a member at Barnes & Noble, and they occasionally send me email coupons for purchases. Often, they're an extra 15% off regular membership prices. Score! The Enterprise seasons with the discount are just under $90, which is just inside what I'll pay.
I watched seasons one and two (with separate purchases a couple weeks apart, using coupons) in succession. I have to tell you, they did a beautiful job on the transfers--they're the sharpest, best looking television DVDs I've ever watched. Just gorgeous. I definitely enjoyed the first season more than the second season; it just seemed to have a larger number of good, interesting stories, although neither season was at all bad. I think the relative weakness in season two was what prompted the big shift toward the big arc they did in season three. (Which I just got using a 25% off coupon, for less than $80. Bigger score!)
Anyway, I was going to mention this back in February, but never got around to it. I'm sure most of you reading this don't much care. And since you probably don't care, let me tell you that I've been watching season 3 of Alias since I finished with season 2 of Enterprise.
What else to say. Ah, yes....
GCA: GCA crossed 1700 downloads at e23 on January 30, and then crossed 1800 downloads on March 7. We're now only a few more days away from GCA having double the downloads of the next most downloaded product there.
I'm currently working away on updating the help files for GCA, so that I can send them in to SJGames for editing. Following that, at some point, will be another printing of the GCA CD for release to retail stores.
Programming: I'm back to reading a lot of programming knowledge from my books, so I can start spewing out projects in VB.Net using Visual Studio 2005, and hopefully also REALBasic 2006. There's a lot of really cool stuff available for my regular projects if I finally get around to upgrading to .NET, and being able to target some of my apps cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and some Linux) using REALBasic would be a big bonus, as well.
That's everything I can think of right now.
January 24, 2007.
Buffyness.
A couple of weeks ago, I finally decided to sit down and watch the final two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. I'd watched them on TV when they aired, and had remembered liking them quite a bit less than the previous seasons.
I'd forgotten how good that show was. Some of the stuff that I'd remembered bothering me hardly seemed present, or was much less of an issue than I'd remembered. In all, I'm very glad that I watched them, and I enjoyed them quite a lot. Even if the last two seasons were weaker than the first five, they were still damn good television. And, on top of that, season 6 had the Buffy musical, which was awesome, and season 7 had an episode with a speech from Xander to Dawn that was one of my favorite Buffy moments.
After finishing the last two seasons, I went back and watched the season 1 premiere and finale episodes, and those were very entertaining. I think Mark was right, that there was a bit more humor in those earlier episodes. There were definitely a lot more miniskirts, heh heh.
Anyway, I'd meant to write about them here shortly after I watched the two seasons, but didn't get around to it, so you get it now.
And then. . . snow. . .
I've also added a new scrapbook page for pictures I took recently of our little snow day. You can find them in the Snow Day book.
January 3, 2007.
Renewal.
It seems that I survived the end and the beginning, and will likely be around for a while longer yet. Otherwise, I don't really have much to say here right now. I hope you had a good holiday season.
[2006 Entries]
This page last updated January 7, 2008. Contents Copyright © 2007 Armin D. Sykes. All rights reserved. Click here to contact Armin.