Mosey

This is probably going to be my last blog for a while. Really, you should have seen it coming: the posts have been increasingly infrequent and shorter. To be honest I haven't had much to say lately.

Looking through my posts, this whole blog thing has been, for lack of a better term, a way to vent (although still going for the funny) and frankly I don't have much to vent about right now. Life is okay. Not grand but not too bad either. So really, I don't feel the new to spew digital vitriol on a semi-daily basis anymore.

Of course, there's still the day-to-day little nuances that make me red in the face but I can only complain about traffic, the inconsistencies of upper management, the vagaries of dating in my middle age (Dark Age?) so often before even I'm tired of hearing it. You were probably sick of it a long while ago.

Maybe this is a healthy step for me. Or maybe it's just that feeling of contentment and safety that occurs right before the escaped mental patient sticks a knitting needle in your eyeball. Hey, I said I'm content, not an optimist.

So thanks to all who checked in on a semi-regular basis. Here's hoping some of my life's follies made you laugh, maybe made you think (long shot) or at least gave you a two-minute diversion now and again.

I may be back though. Life (and blogging) is like that.

Cheers!
Moby

Song & Dance

Alright, I'll get to what I promised in a sec but first a rant (you knew that was coming).

Steam: ever since Capa sung the praises, the Steam online games store has been insinuating itself into my gaming habits. With the good stuff coming at half-price if you wait long enough and some decent casual games coming in at under twenty bucks, I've found there's no need for me to go to the video game store. It wasn't a great need in recent times as the number of PC titles on the shelves there have dwindled to a mere handful but none the less.

However I recently picked up Puzzle Quest: Galactrix which is of course the sequel to Puzzle Quest. Now, after I got the original title I ranted that it cheated. And it does. But once you get past that (which took me a while) it's not a bad game.

Galactrix on the other hand possesses a new, enhanced version of the cheat engine which makes it such a frustration to play it's aggravated my Turrette's Syndrome to "driving on the Deerfoot in rush hour" levels. So it got uninstalled. Without going into any detail, let's just say that if a game developer has to resort to the kind of bald-face, obvious, cheating-like-a-bitch cop-outs to make a game seem challenging, I hope they all get laid off and have to go dumpster diving for hospital trash for a living.

Ahem.

So, last week. I finally managed to get the weekend scuba boot camp done sans dreaded-disease. It was good. Not great but good. I do want to actually try out the whole schtick underwater because a ten-foot vat of chlorine may not give the same experience as a coral reef. With that in mind, I'm attempting to snag a last minute deal to go somewhere tropical the following week but things look iffy. Not that there aren't places to go, but the phrase "cost based on double occupancy" is damaging my calm. I could get the services of a high-end escort and fly both of us to a five star resort for a week at the same cost of me going by myself. Seriously. I know that a hotel room is the same cost if it's one person or two but the savings of a flight and a bit of the food etc should shave off a bit. The fact that in some cases it was actually less money if I booked for two people rather than just myself really steams me.

Sorry, that was another rant.

On the bright side, David Byrne was amazing. Four encores. An amazing performer without a doubt and always money well spent. I also was dragged out by Kiki to a local band performing at a wonderful little dive. Their repertoire is pretty much classics from the sixties to the eighties but that ain't a bad thing if you're looking for music your familiar with. That's the whole appeal I think: the crowd there was composed of folks who heard it all when it was fresh and new (and I'm starting to trundle int that bracket) but they seemed like they were having a blast, which is what it's all about really.

I was the designated driver (and Kiki owes me for that) but it actually fit my mood quite well and I had a good time. Of course I always wonder at Kiki's motivations: she has all these single girlfriends and tends to make a point of "he's not with me". Which I pretty much translate as "look ladies, fresh meat". Not exactly a bad thing but I still ain't looking, so I hate to get their hopes up. And yes I need to get over myself.

Stay Tuned!

The final resolution! Underwater wackiness! The Former Head of Talking Heads!

But right now I'm too busy to go into any kind of detail. Soon, my precious....

Steamed

Another week and no news. On the thing. You know. The lump. So that's good, but there's still the "discomfort" I'm experiencing. And I think I may have figured that out as well.

I've been working out lately. Well, okay for the past ten years, but the past year I've been running. So follow along Moby's Patented Spurious Logic (Patent Pending):

1. First, the soft fatty tissues on my inner thighs started to be used up, reducing the radius of my upper thighs: therefore I bought new (smaller) pants.
   
2. I started growing muscle beneath the fatty tissues, thereby expanding said radius: therefore things got tight.
   
3. The, er, subject on the side where "my ears hang low" is where I'm feeling the pain.
   
4. Ergo, I've been compressing one of my boys every time I sit down. Thus the swelling.

Let me guess, too much information. Well that's okay because I'm going to consider the matter closed as soon as I go buy some parachute pants.

I had totally forgotten that I had tried the demo for Sins of a Solar Empire a while back. But I tried it again anyways. Still don't like it. But since Steam just put Left 4 Dead on at half price, I'm downloading it now. Zomb-Aid, biatches!

Waiting Game

Okay so I haven't heard anything yet. Call me paranoid (knew I could count on you Capa) but I'll feel much more comfortable next weekend.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I'll be considering what game to buy next. Maybe Sins of a Solar Empire. Heard it's good...

Why Are We Waiting?

Still no news yet. Still waiting. You know if this process hadn't taken about a month to get to this point, I'd say that's a good thing. But with the incredibly laconic response time of the medical profession I've experienced in this province, I'll start to be cautiously optimistic next Monday.

And since I'm re-scheduled to take my scuba course this weekend, I'm catching a cold. Of course.

On the good news side, our new office space is quite amazing. Had a tour of the fitness center today and it doesn't suck. And considering some of the women on the tour, it certainly bodes well for the gym experience days of yore (remember Red Sonja?). Provided I don't get something removed, which means I won't be interested in the gym or the patrons. I know, positive thinking.

But ya gotta admit it would prey on your mind as well.

So I've been distracting myself with gaming. Specifically, Defence Grid: The Awakening. I've never been a huge fan of tower defense games, but the presentation and 3D-ness, not to mention the pure logical thinking, is a lot of fun. I'm starting to see why Capa made such a fuss about Steam. And for $20, it certainly is in the "impulse buy" price-range.

And I gave LOTRO another go (I had three weeks left) but ended up uninstalling again. It really was just a World of Warcraft wanna be and frankly WoW wither bores me (repetitive) or annoys the hell out of me (the other players). All I can really say is that they took a very, very respected and rich milieu and white-washed it with mediocrity. 'Nuff Said.

Except I'm kinda miffed at the way the downloadable content for Fallout 3 was presented. You have to be a member of Live for Windows. You have to purchase "points" for the content (and of course you have to buy more points than the content is worth) and from what I've been reading you need to do some serious computer configuration to get to the point where you can even download it. Seriously: I want to give them money in exchange for a product. They (Live) seemed to forget that a basic exchange of legal tender for the goods and services desired for purchase has been going on for centuries. You name a price, if I agree to said price I give you legal tender and in exchange you give me what I am buying.

Can't quite seem to do that in this situation. They have made it too complicated (well, okay annoying) and the price is significantly higher than stated in real world terms (ie money). Ergo, I give them no cash, they give me no product and I go spend it on something else offered by an entity that understands these simple, well accepted principles of consumerism.

And no, I'm not going to go download it. At some point, they will be releasing a couple more of these expansions (hopefully they will have figured out how to provide them) and eventually wrapping them into a single bundle on a physical medium which I will purchase from a retailer. Maybe.

Scanned

Well, I had the ultrasound on the giblets today. I'm proud to say that I was calm, cool and collected. Well, except when driving to the clinic. I'm never calm cool, nor collected when I'm behind the wheel. Anyways, not a painful experience by any means.

However I have come to the conclusion that I will never, ever date someone in the health care industry for the simple reason that I could not handle that the person I'm with handles ... bits ... all day so nonchalantly. There's gotta be some mystery you know?

Speaking of which, the results go to my doctor in two to three business days. The Doc said they would call me if something shows up, so I'm going to jump out of my skin every time the phone rings. Which means once or twice in the next week. Of course it may be worse that they don't call if it's good news. I'll still be paranoid if I get a call a month from now.

It all kind of sucks though: I have the scuba lessons the weekend after next and I really want to use the training to go swimmin' with bow-legged wimmin somewhere down south. But it's the kind of situation where you can't really make any kind of long term plans. Cuz you never know. I've been reading up (gods bless the Internet) and if they find something, there a whole of laundry list of what that "something" could be. Most involve surgery. Which scares the hell out of me. Not because of the surgery itself, but I've been watching too much Scrubs lately and, well, I worry about mistakes. Like waking up and finding they took out my kidney .Although it wouldn't be as bad as the poor bastard who was supposed to get the kidney operation.

So I'm taking my usual "if it's the worst thing that can happen, it's already happened so there's nothing you can do about it" attitude with the occasional panic attack.

You know, the everyday routine mind-set of Moby.