Free Time? I LOVE Free time!

You know, it's been a while since I posted here.  So, I figured I'd give a run-through of what I've been doing for the past month.

Let's see.  Well, I guess the main thing that I've been doing was playing a bunch of video games.  Big surprise, huh?  Yeah, I know, not really.  Anyway, so far, I've played:

• Final Fantasy XIII
• Heavy Rain
• Mass Effect
• Tales of Symphonia 2
• Final Fantasy 7
• Grandia
• WoW
• Uncharted 2
• Assassin's Creed
• Lots and lots of solitaire on my iPod Touch

However, not all of my time has been spent playing video games.  I've also started running...though I haven't done that the past few days because of the crappy weather.  Probably could've gone today though.  Doh!

Also, I've been watching a lot of TV and movies.  I got caught up on Glee in a weekend (definitely worth watching by the way), moving through Season 6 of Buffy, got the first 2 seasons of Stargate SG-1, and keeping up-to-date with Lost, Chuck and Big Bang Theory.

Movies I've watched lately:

• Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• Pete's Dragon
• Kentucky Fried Movie
• Kick-Ass
• Up
• Princess and the Frog

So, now that the weather is getting warmer and the days are getting longer, I'm finding it harder and harder to stay inside.  Disc Golf is back in season, and that makes me happy.  Actually having a good week for once is very refreshing.  All in all, I'm loving my free time this year!

Musings of Spring

Yesterday was the first day of Spring and boy was it an awesome way to kick the season off.  The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky and it was so wonderfully warm out that I could cry.  ...but I won't because I'm a big boy and big boys don't cry. *sniffle*

Anyway, Spring is one of my favorite times of year, which is funny because it come right after my least favorite season.  The billboards telling parents that bunnies aren't gifts, they're a lift-time commitment start popping up.  The teenagers start causing commotions at the local strip mall, and I come out of my annual depression.  Oh, and I hear that there might be birds, flowers, trees budding and other crap like that too...but I don't believe them.

Anywho, what's my favorite part of Spring?  The fact that it shares the same name as my favorite mechanical part.  Springs are incredibly entertaining things too!  You can use them in pens, printers and robot pandas.  That, plus if you hold them just the right way and then let go, they go flying into the Great Wide Open never to be found again...at least until you're walking around barefoot and suddenly you find yourself in need of a tetanus shot.  

You know what else I like about Spring?  I can wear shorts again.  Actually being able to have extra pockets to hold stuff in is a GREAT thing.  Being able to carry a camera, my iPod, my phones, keys, wallet, mini-lightsaber, phaser, a full set of encyclopedias, or whatever I might need in the course of a day is great.

Let me tell you, Spring is great but it isn't the best.  What is the best you ask?  Well that's a secret.  OW OW OW OW!  Stop pulling my ear!  Ok, I'll tell you!  It's cookies!  =P

Musings of a Good Day

Today was an awesome day. Shortly after I uploaded my last update, I got a call from the Cap'n asking me if I wanted to go to his monthly board game day. At first, I wasn't too sure if I wanted to go, but let's just say that going turned out to be an awesome idea!

My day actually started out with some simple snow shovelling. What I originally thought was going to be 2" of snow ended up only being a light dusting with some slush closer to the house. I had to gloat as I watched our neighbor across the street pull out his snow blower to clear out the substantially larger amount of snow that they received.

After I finished shovelling, Cap'n came and picked me up and we drove to the place where the gaming was being held. This was my first time going and I really enjoyed myself. I ended up playing 3 different games: Dominion, Winner's Circle and Battlestar Galactica. My favorite game of the day was BSG. It really managed to replicate the feeling of the show, even if it were just a board game. The longer you played, the more depressed the players who were the human characters got. We even became highly paranoid about who was and wasn't a cylon because we couldn't tell who was sabatoging our attempts to live. Having played as President Gaius Baltar for most of the game, I happy to let you all know that I am NOT a Cylon. My testing says so. :-P

After the humans were defeated by the Cylons, Cap'n and I hurried back for dinner with some of our other friends. I had suggested the new Indian restaurant in the town where I live on twitter and quickly got a bunch of people who were interested. I'm really glad because we all enjoyed our food. For a new restaurant, things were very good. The only thing that I had an issue with was the lack of attention that we got when we finished eating. However, being able to spend time with my friends was just great!

All in all, I had a great day...even if I didn't do any of the things that I originally had planned! This was far better! Thanks everyone!

Musings of a Weekend Off

As many of you who are acquainted with me know, I've been working constantly since before Christmas. One reason or another has forced me into the office for some kind of task that needed to be done. So, with great celebration, I find myself with my first weekend off in quite a while and I'm incredibly excited!

You see, there have been a bunch of things that I've been wanting to do for a while now. What kind of things you may ask? Well I've been meaning to clean my room for about a month now. It currently looks like a tornado struck! Yikes!

I also need to catch up on some DVDs and Blu-Ray discs that I purchased a while back. *coughblackfridaycough* Not only that, but I have all sorts of video games that are currently in my queue that I haven't completed yet. It's insane!

For some social plans, I'm excited to be going out with some friends to try the new Indian restaurant in town. I've heard some good reviews of the place. I'm actually more excited about actually getting to do stuff with people during the weekend, when I'm usually home by myself.

Finally, I'm going to work on studying to the first of many Microsoft Certification exams. I have about 5000 pages to read between 5 different books and a CD with ebooks as well. However, through reading the first book, a lot of the information that I learned 5 years ago is starting to come back. I'm certain that I'll be able to pass the tests once I'm ready to take them.

..and maybe, just maybe I'll watch a bit of the Olympics too. ;-)

Musings of New Toys

So, as a reward for dealing with the crummy work conditions I've dealt with the past few weeks, I decided that I wanted to upgrade my plain old iPod Nano to a nice new 32GB iPod Touch. I picked it up Friday night and spent the rest of the evening playing with it. Of course, it did take almost 2 hours to sync my music and videos to it, but still had plenty of play time!

The first thing that I did was I started browsing the Apps Store to find anything that I might find interesting. My first download was NBC's Olympics app. Now, I have to say that I'm really enjoying this year's Olympics. We're experiencing some very nice competition among the athletes. The app is very well done and makes it easy to keep track of the events. The main page has direct links to the number of medals each country has won, as well as the spotlight athlete of the day. It also lets you pick your favorites to have shortcuts to.

Another thing about the iPod Touch is that I'm able to have all my music on it. This means that I have a much nicer selection of music to listen to when I'm at work. Even better, it has the nice inclusion of iTunes' Genius functionality. Prior to 2 weeks ago, I had never used the feature. However, with the iPod, I find that it is an excellent way for me to get a nice playlist.

After 4 days of use, I have to say that I'm really happy with my decision. In fact, I can't believe that I took this long to convert. The funny thing is that now that I have this unit, I don't think I really need my Blackberry anymore. This might even be good enough for me to go back to a regular old cellphone and that makes me excited! Good job Apple with the great device!

Musings of Online Dating

As a Lonely Nerd, I often get into moods where I decide to try online dating for a few months. I'll fill out a profile, add a picture...then promptly get bored of the site. I'll talk to a couple of people, but nothing ever pans out. This isn't what this post is about though.

What this post is about is the stupidity that I have encountered in the lastest site that I've tried. I recently joined OKCupid after hearing some great reviews from a couple friends. What I found was not what I expected. Case in point: I recently received a icebreaker email from a woman that pretty much said "So apparently I'm supposed to 'break the ice'". Nothing more, nothing less. As lackluster as that introduction was, she looked cute, so I clicked over to her profile. What I found made my head hurt.

The first thing that I noticed was that she didn't want anyone who's monogamous to email her because she's polyamorous. However, in the next paragraph, she dreams about having a relationship like Edward and Bella. SERIOUSLY? Are you fraking kidding me? Somehow, polyamory doesn't seem to work very well with monogamous abstinance porn featuring vampires.

I guess the lesson of the story today is that I need to stop half-heartedly filling out online profiles and be more specific with what I'm looking for...or something.