…That google has a feature that will tell you how much shorter the next day is, and how long the day is today.

As of writing, the day is 15 hours and 11 minutes long, and tomorrow it will be 1 minute and 48 seconds shorter.

This is fascinating and terrifying.

It’s a beautiful thing when I look out the window of my seventh floor apartment and see that.  Apologies for the low-quality picture, but it’s the only camera I had.

I heart snow.

So much stuff to do! Blaaaaaarg.

In the space between now and December 10 I have: 2 presentations, one 12-15 page paper, one 4-6 page paper…  and some other stuff that’s a little more long-term but I should probably be thinking about now.

Oh, and all the books I need for my 12-15 page paper have not come in yet.  AWESOME.

Gears of War 2 is a game worth purchasing, provided that you have

a) a friend to play it with, whether split-screen or co-op

or

b) a girlfriend who is, bizarrely, totally in to playing video games, and is not at all turned off by the thought of an alien monster exploding into a shower of blood, guts, and meaty bits all over the screen, and thinks it is, quote, “totally awesome” when you head-shot a grub and the body continues to stand upright for a couple seconds, before collapsing. She should be good enough to play through the game, ideally, on Hardcore mode – which is, I think, the sweet spot for a game like this, where it actively punishes you for not adhering to the game mechanics but does not do so in a manner so brutal that you feel inclined to throw the controller to the floor, and declare that “this shit is fucking stupid.”

The game is ridiculous. Without spoiling too much, there is a part where you are eaten by a giant worm, and then you fight your way through the worm’s bowels to cut its several hearts out of their resting places with your chainsaw-equipped gun. Later you do somewhat the same thing with a giant fish, only this time you are only in the thing’s mouth. as a rule of thumb, any time your characters have to make reference to the completely fucking ridiculous way you defeated an enemy and do so seriously, as if this is a sensible proposition, my suspension of disbelief is gone.

Ridiculous or not, overly maudlin or not, the game is fun. That’s the most important part, anyways – I have certain other amusements to occupy me if I’m looking for a deep story with real characters. These amusements are called, collectively, Fallout 3, and in them I am a Saint, striding the landscape, alien blaster at my side, plasma rifle on my back, wearing a suit of piston-driven armor stolen liberated from the all-encompassing forces of the Enclave, for the sole purpose of destroying them utterly, to ensure the freedom of all who dare eke out a living in the capitol wasteland.

That shit is ridiculous, but it is ridiculous in a way a game should be.

Oh corned beef, you are so tasty.

Incredibly salty, however.

So I’m at work right now (which makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose; where else am I going to have the presence of mind to actually write blog entires about things like this? and for the past twenty minutes or so there’s been a guy just standing out in the hall, staring at me.  He finally left, but damn was he creepin’ me out.  He had this really weird smirk on his face, too.

Horaay for endorsements, I guess?. I don’t know why this one is getting such a big response on the parts of the interwebs I frequent, though; is it because he was involved in Bush’s cabinet? either way, the more importan thing here is probably his statements about the toleration of Muslims in America.

I do, however, sometimes wonder if Vox Day really believes the things he says, or if he’s just a fantastically consistient troll. Both, maybe? Neither? Who knows. All I know is, he scares me. Deeply.

***

The fun thing about playing Civ IV is when you are playing as the Sumerian empire, and you proceed to conquer over 70% of the world through culture and judicious use of vultures (unique early-game unit that has the strength of a swordsman but also gets a +50% against melee, as opposed to a +10% city attack, by default) early on in the game. Also by colonizing the “new world” early and shutting out the other nations of the world before they have a chance to build their own colonies on the continent.

I finally got a call from Kaiser-Permenente (Note to self: North Lancaster Office.), so I now have an appointment to see a doctor (Dr. Norton, if I recall correctly) at 3:30 PM on november 7th.  This is a long way away, but it’s better than nothing – and hopefully she can fast-track the actual testing once I convince her, yes, it is a necessity, and yes, I am kind of interested in not doing permanent damage to my intestines if that is in fact what I am doing.  In the meantime, I’m going to minimize my exposure to gluten, but i’m not going to cut it out entirely – mostly because there was no gluten-free pasta at Safeway, and my choices for buying lunch are very limited.  Also I want the antibodies to be present for the test if I do have Celiac’s, and there is a chance of them not showing up if I’m not eating wheat rye and barley products.  The test is fantastically easy to mess up, according to my mom.

I’m reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicles instead of doing reading for class lately.  It’s a fantastic book, though I think Kafka on the Shore did a better job of mixing up the wierd with the mundane.  Also it’s a little harder for me to relate to the main character, as he’s dealing with problems that I have no experience with as much as he is dealing with things I find relatable.  Kafka, for all of his oedipal curse rumblings, was at the end of the day a young man dealing with the problems of being a young man who is for the first time in his life becoming interested in women sexually.  Which, you know, is a couple years behind me now, but it’s a lot closer to home than divorce, or having affairs, or any of that.

Anyways.

Fable 2 comes out in three days!  I don’t care how you feel about it, I’m excited.  I’m going to be a fat pirate.

…There’s lots of hisses and pops and crackles even when no one is broadcasting on that particular frequency, after all.

Anyways, I wasn’t planning on writing again for a while, but it turns out the only thing I am actually able to do when it’s before 9:00 in the morning is write blog entries.  Reading results in me dozing off, even if I’m interested in what I’m reading, and surfing my usual blogs and whatnot is kind of a waste of time because none of them have updated yet (except for Scalzi’s blog, which has updated, but hasn’t updated with anything that held my attention for very long).

…

Fencing was, as usual, a lot of fun last night.  Even more exhausting than usual, but a lot of fun.  I’m going to have to do something about the washcloth insert in my mask though – it bunched up around my neck, made me feel like I couldn’t breathe, and also changed the dimensions of my mask so it felt like it didn’t fit any more (and was, in fact, actively causing me discomfort).  That was not cool.

…you know, as it turns out, I’m really probably too tired to write much more than that.

This is probably my favorite Deep Purple song – and I think that’s with good reason. Enjoy!

(if you haven’t heard this before, there’s something wrong with you.)