I have to say, I am wiped out. This last week has been pretty rough for me. The emotional roller coaster that is my family’s medical problems has strapped me in and won’t stop at the gate. I am going to start trying to limit the amount I talk about it simply because it’s depressing and I am sure that not everyone wants to hear details. Needless to say, My Dad is getting better. He should be there for about 1 more week and then head home. My Papa is getting worse. He may be there for about another week. My mom is a basket case bouncing between the two.

On the home front, Half Life Two rocks. (yes I know that I am playing games and talking about games when so much other stuff is going on, but if I don’t then I will end up just as much a basket case as everyone else, besides, at my end there is not much for me to do.) Indeed, it roxors my soxors. The engine is phenomenal. I spent the first 20 minutes of the game just walking around and admiring the graphics. I could pick up damn near anything, and throw it at people. The overall game play is outstanding, I can’t wait to get home and play some more!

This being Friday, that means the weekend is upon us. That means it’s Time for weekend goals. Sat. night is a party for a few of the guys I work with. They apparently have this safe in their house that no one knows the combo for. The last few people that live there don’t know it either. So we are going all Geraldo on it and try and crack it to see what’s inside. Should be tons of fun!

After that, I think will continue the cleaning effort on Sunday and Monday (Monday is a holiday, Thanks MLK! Fight the Power!) This weekend’s goals are the Living room and the Bathroom. If I have time I might attack the kitchen as well. That will bring us back to the den. The dreaded den. Many of you might remember my plights with the den way back when I first moved into the apartment. Well the den has been cleaned, then filled again, then cleaned again. Now it’s filled. It’s not near as bad as it has been, but it’s time for a serious “I don’t need this, I haven’t looked at it in 4 years, why am I keeping it?” cleaning. I might even see if I can head down to IKEA to check out some new Furniture. Things on my wishlist are:

• New Queen Sized Bedframe with head and footboards
• Twin Sized Loft for Andrews Room
• Shelving System for Andrews room
• New Coffee Table
• New Entertainment Unit
• Living room Rug
• Drawer Unit for computer desk

That should bee a good Start. I know I am not going to be able to get all of this right away, but those are the main things I want for the apartment. Well with any luck I will be able to post again this afternoon. I really do feel a good rant coming on, just not sure about what yet.

Ok, I made the mandatory nightly call to the mom to check on the dads status. She says he is doing ok, they have him up and moving and almost ready to be moved to his own room soon. He will still be in the hospital for a while but in a stable condition. That’s good. She will have to leave and go back to work soon. Except she got a call yesterday my Mom got a call about HER dad, (my Papa) and turns out that, while in his old person care giving place (once again proving I am not a Dr.), he has contracted Pneumonia and is in the hospital with that. (He is like 86 years old, so I am thinking this could be bad.)

So she is in Medford because my Dad needs her there. Her dad is in Crescent city. (That’s about 3 hours away.) So back to my Original question, WTF???

In Other, and completely un-related news (and in the hopes of getting my mind off all of this crapyness), I picked up Half Life 2 today at lunch and will be playing around with it tonight. We shall see if it’s as good as everyone on the planet says it is. Ok, so I don’t feel like writing too much more than this, maybe some later. (like we haven’t all heard that before)

So I am convinced that I will never make it to the Gym in the morning. Well ok, maybe not completely convinced. I tried to call Paul again this morning and he couldn’t hear his phone so I thought about going by myself. Problem is, Amy is using my MP3 player for her commute, so I needed another one. I have my trusty PDA that happens to play MP3’s but doesn’t have any on it right now. So here I think “let’s fire that bad boy up and start copying!” I them spent the next hour trying to figure out why it won’t sync when it dons on me to trace the cable back to the PC. Turns out I had mixed up the cables and was plugging in the wrong USB plug. [DOH!]

Yeah, I felt like an idiot. BUT…. I learned something rather interesting. I can get the PDA to Sync up using the Wi-Fi card. (I know this is probably nothing new to some people.) I started thinking then, If I can sync using the wi-fi, then I can use a shared folder that syncs between the PC and Device, and if I can do that, then I can hook it up in my Truck and use the MP3 player there, and if I can do then, then I can continually update the MP3’s dynamically.

So I am thinking that I need to pick up a few accessories for the PDA. I know I will need some sort of Cradle so it’s not just lying around in there, I need a larger compact flash card, something a GIG or more. Also I want to get a Good GPS with software.

Further update on the dad: Another phone call last night from my mom, she said that he woke up and wise cracked a “Wow, I’m still here!” This would probably be the first thing that would lead me to believe that he is, indeed, my father. This would have probably been my first words coming out of such a surgery. He also claimed that he might have to start listening to people when they tell him he shouldn’t be eating certain things. Congrats dad, that would fall into the “DUH” category.

Just got off the Phone with my Mom and she says that the operation was a success, difficult due to the complications, but success none the less.

They are holding him in Critical care to keep an eye on him but he should pull through ok.

Thanks to everyone for their positive support. When I have more updates I will let you know.

I got a Call a few nights ago that my Dad had had another heart attack. (This makes about 5) He was in the Dr.’s office when it happened (what are the odds) and they rushed him down to Crescent city to the hospital there. They then realized that the heart expert was in Medford so they airlifted him there. That was about a week ago. Well I guess after running a few tests they found that his heart was blocked at about 90%. So he went in for a Triple By-Pass this morning at 8am Pacific Time, Theoretically. See, he also has potential Kidney failure, and for the tests they injected him with all this ink type stuff (what do I look like, a Dr.?) So that has to leave his system before the operation, then there is the medication he was on that thinned his blood, that has to be almost out of his system. [Sigh]

So all this is going on over on the West Coast, and here I am on the east coast. My son is staying over at my grandmothers while my parents are gone. I got the call about the surgery last night, which of course elevated my stress level to the point that the Gamers Tourettes came out in full force. I can’t do anything now except sit and wait.

Now I know that there are about 1000 things that my dad and I disagree on, and maybe 5 that we agree on. But he is still my Dad and it bugs me when this happens to him. Half of me wants to say “you know, It’s his fault, I told him not to eat that stuff he wasn’t supposed to.” The other Half wants to say “What sort of cruel creator would cause this much pain on the planet” then there is the other half that says “you dolt, your only supposed to have two half’s” All I can do is think positive thoughts, Send positive energy westward and hope that it comes out ok.

[Sigh]

A simple day, an ordinary night. The warm glow of the PC monitor permeates the dark room. Sounds of ancient Qeynos echo off the eggshell white walls as an average guy sits down to enjoy an escape into the world of Everquest 2. All was fine until the unspeakable happened. A group of Gnolls, while under attack, call for Re-enforcements. Before he knew it, our hapless hero was swamped. Over-run and over Stressed, that’s when it happened…..

Roric: There’s Too Many of them!

Shippero: This is it, Game over Game Over!

Opiee: We can take it, Hold the Line HOLD THE LINE!!!

***Gnoll Battler has killed Shippero***

Roric: they Got Ship, I canna hold it Together, Were breaking apart worse than Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt!

Opiee: Stay on target, Stay on Target!

***Gnoll Tormentor has killed Roric***

Opiee Sprints

***Gnoll Elder has pwned Opiee***

Meanwhile back in real life, the unspeakable happens:

Steve: GAWD D%@&^ YOU ^@(@! (&%(#, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, I SWEAR TO *#(& GAWD I WILL ^%#* KILL YOU!

Gamer’s Tourettes takes over. It can strike when you least expect it. When this happens, the victim becomes lost in a myriad of obscenities that would make even a seasoned sailor blush.

Sadly there is no known cure for gamer’s tourettes. Treatment has included; stepping away from the game, venturing out into the large blue celinged room with poor temperature control, socializing with people without having to use smilies to express oneself.

With Treatment, hopefully, one day, we might be able to control gamer’s tourettes. If you or someone you know suffers from gamer’s tourettes, please, do the right thing.

So I have spent a great deal of time helping to build Kensai’s own webspace. Kensai (or Lee) used to post on this blog for a while but I decided to go with a more personal focus, so I kicked him off (: But no worries, he now has his own site (hosted by me still) at http://kensai.wizzer.org . Took me a while, but once he nailed down what general theme and color scheme he was looking for, I think I built him a halfway decent site. Maybe I should do this for a side job?

Side note, the season premiere of 24 started last night. I am not sure how many of you out there watch this, but I have been hooked since season 1. Of course I think they are starting to stray from the reality line of thought. I mean, I had to suspend my disbelief last season when a chopper ride from Mexico to LA could be done (take off, flying, landing) within 15 min, but now to imagine the Secretary of Defense not running like a madman when shots are fired, not to mention secret service standing with no cover during a fire fight. I know for a fact that these guys would dive for cover and pick off shooters like geese. The show continues tonight, so we will see what happens.

So, I have been playing EQ2 now for a little over a month. It’s a very pretty game. But it wears thin very quickly. When you start a new character, you can do a lot by yourself, quests, fights, etc.. But once you hit around level 18-20 you’re screwed. It’s near impossible to advance yourself because, either the things you’re fighting won’t give you XP because you’re too high of a level or the things are just too freaking hard and you need a group. Sony has come up with the Crappiest “Con” interface. Most games will color code the “Consider” feature. Very simple like green is easy, blue is tougher, white is equal, yellow is tough, orange is tougher, red is instant death. Pretty simple right? Sony’s idea is to promote grouping is an up arrow down arrow system on top of the colors. If a creature has an up arrow above their name it’s like there are 2 of them there. If there is a down arrow it’s like there is ½ of him there. So lets say you see a Gnoll (it’s a dog like creature) and he cons white. You think, “ok, he is white so that should be a good fight.” Well that would be true if he didn’t have 2 up arrows. Now he is like 3 white gnolls, so he is tougher and hits harder. Now, silly me, why wouldn’t they just color him orange or red? Why is there the illusion of simple-ness when in reality this thing is going to whomp on me? So I decided to create an evil character and made him a Cleric.

Meanwhile, in other news, I accomplished what I set out to do this weekend. I cleaned out my bedroom closet and even managed to clean up the bedroom as well. I took about 1 full truckload of crap to the trash. I did the same to my Bookshelf and video shelf. Isn’t it funny how I realize that I don’t need a VHS copy of the The Matrix as well as my DVD one? Maybe I could start putting the VHS tapes on E-bay. Think anyone would by them? Next weekend will be the Bathroom and Living room, Then the Kitchen and Den, then probably the outside storage things. I have to say it’s Refreshing to clean out this much stuff. I mean, I haven’t touched or even looked at most of this stuff in a year. I know deep down that I probably will never use it again, so why keep it?

I think after the cleaning it will be time to re-decorate. I want to actually decorate my house like a normal Person. Ok, well make that a Normal person who happens to like Sci-Fi and makes it well known. I have some great ideas for the front room and it shouldn’t be that pricey to do. Then of course it will be time to re-do the wardrobe. One of the things I noticed while cleaning out the closet was the extraordinary amount of T-shirts I own. While I have some button down shirts, I don’t have enough to make a difference. I want to change that. Last year saw the Transformation from Married Steve to Single Steve. This year will be Single Steve to Stylin Steve. I feel good about myself now, But I think I can feel a little bit better. And if Paul would ever stop being sick, we could hit the Gym again and that will help.

Ok, so the title was a little less harsh then it could have been. You may notice that I copied the paypal button from the front page of http://www.wizzer.org to the blog page. Why would I do this? Well frankly because there is nothing much on the main page and most people tend to come here to the blog and bypass the front page. Now keep in mind. I am not begging. I am not so broke that I am not eating. (well there was that one time a few months ago, but that was strictly on purpose and I looked good afterwards.) But running things like the Website and such does indeed cost me money. So, if you find it in your heart and pocketbook that you want to donate to the cause, feel free to click away. If not, then ah well, enjoy the show and try not to spill popcorn in the new truck.

The weekend is finally here! Time to go out and….. Oh wait, still broke. Ok so maybe it’s time to just stay in and enjoy some time in front of the boob toob. I know one thing that’s planned for this weekend and that’s cleaning out the bedroom closet. Most of the junk in there is going to get trashed. (Unless it’s worth something, then it’s off to e-bay I go!)

I just got word that there is some nasty stomach virus spreading its way around work. Supposedly you get nauseous and vomit a lot and it’s very contagious and very icky, but hey, it only lasts 2-3 days. Thankfully I don’t feel ill and I tend to stay away from most of the people here. (My Job would be great if it weren’t for all the damn customers) Actually I love my job, even with the customers.

I Hope you Guys have a great weekend. I will be sitting at home watching re-runs of Sanford and Son Or poking my eyes out. Whichever is better.