Nathan Who

Worried

2009-12-22T03:49:36Z

Rachel is still sick. She's been sick for two weeks now. Beth and I are still sick but we got sick after Rachel did and we're both about 75% better although that remaining 25% seems to be taking forever to go away. Rachel has definitely gotten worse. I am really really worried about her.

I still plan on talking about the summer movies at some point although it is a tad late...

I will say though that I recently rewatched all 3 Spiderman movies and although I always felt that they were off watching all three of them together really just shows how godawful #3 truly was and also shows just how often Peter takes his mask off for no reason in all of them (actually #3 was a little better on this one point than the other two). On the commentary tracks Raimi claims that this is because we need to see Peter's emotions which is absurd. A decent actor can convey all he needs to with body language and his voice. I am really really worried about #4.

From the Ashes

2009-12-18T06:00:27Z

I'm finally starting to kick this plague that I've been lumbered with since last Thursday.

So, I'm thinking that its Mousketeer roll call time.

Who actually reads this journal anymore? I am starting to suspect that its only 3 people since only three different people have commented in the last few months. Is anyone else left? I'm still on lots of friends lists but I'm not sure how often they're viewed as most of those people have abandoned their own LJ's.

That isn't to say that I'll abandon posting even if its only 3. After all, those three still need their weekly intake of Nathan, so don't worry. I'm just curious more than anything to know how wide of an audience that I'm reaching.

Sick, ugh

2009-12-12T01:45:58Z

So I'm sick...when I had already taken this day off from work because my mom was coming to town. Why does this always happen? I was sick as a dog for the first week of my honeymoon as well. Thank goodness we took a 2 week honeymoon, but still it seems like every time I take a day off or something that's when I'll get sick.

The Cuteness!

2009-12-07T03:28:11Z

Not what I planned on posting today but I finally caught up with my 11 month backlog of personal e-mails, so here's what you get, this is my daughter, Rachel, the cutest thing on Earth:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/tsukinohime3/Rachel%20Elizabeth/IMG_5422.jpg

Annoyed

2009-12-04T01:32:27Z

The people at work really annoy me with how they use the elevator. There are two things that really get to me:

1.) I have to go to the 8th floor so I need to take the elevator but there are loads of able-bodied men and women who summon the elevator to take them up a single story when there are stairs right next door. For older or injured people that is perfectly understandable but there is no reason why all these people need to clog the elevator by only going up a single floor.

2.) Then there's the old cliche. Everyone gets on and feels the need to press a button...EVEN IF THAT BUTTON HAS ALREADY BEEN PRESSED AND IS GLOWING LIKE THE SUN. What do they think that the elevator doors will close on them and keep them and only them from exiting the floor unless they've pressed the button.

That will be all for today's rant.

Not much to report

2009-11-27T01:06:06Z

Not much to report but a lot of times I think of good things to post as I'm going about my day and then forget by the time that I'm home. I wish I were able to post during my lunch break at work but Rockwell categorizes livejournal as a "dating site" so it is inherantly blocked. Rediculously Gamefaqs.com and even romhacking.net are not blocked from work but livejournal is. I'm allowed to send e-mails from my private e-mail during breaks so I don't see why livejournal should be any different.

Anyhow, I digress. Last night Rachel said "I love you" for the first time where it wasn't in response to someone saying it to her and was a completely spontaneous reaction. Needless to say, Beth and I were both very please since this is a big deal for an autistic child.

So this really is when kids develop issues...?

2009-11-15T22:54:37Z

So I was talking to Beth the other day. Apparently when Rachel goes to the psychologist/therapist and is prompted to "pretend play" with the dolls the mommy doll is always going to sleep and the daddy doll is the one that goes everywhere with the baby doll and plays with her.

Now there's a lot of reasons why Beth has to sleep so much, mostly medical but I know that Rachel isn't old enough to really understand all that. The fact that her play seems to center around this fact kind of worries me...

The week in review

2009-11-07T21:26:34Z

I just read an interesting article on Animenation that says that a survey in Japan found that 4 out of 5 girls prefer robot anime to other kinds of anime. Needless to say, this surprised a LOT of people. You can find the article's source here.

So what do you think, ladies? Is this accurate? Emily you're in Japan right now right? Is this the vibe you're getting?

Also, I read a very interesting article the other day that disputes the existance of Dark Matter. For those "not in the know", Dark Matter is something that scientists believe exists because when they look through telescopes, the objects that they see don't appear to be moving in the speed and direction that would make sense based on Newtonian physics. They explain this discrepancy by saying that there's all this invisible matter out there and that in fact it is even more numerous than regular matter. To me that just seems rediculous and also conceited. To believe that our math based on some observations made by a man on Earth and only tested for the last 400 years ought to explain how the entire universe throughout its entire existance operated seems rediculous. If anything, the fact that when we look up in the sky with our telescopes and see that the heavens don't behave the way that we think they should should tell us that there's something wrong with our theories of how the universe behaves rather than that there must be some invisible magical stuff that we can't see out there pulling the strings. I have a feeling that we'll eventually find out that gravitational constants are not constant across all space or at least across all time. Anyhow the article which you can find here basically says that some scientists are coming to the same conclusion.

In other news, I just can't believe how little the doctors here care. Rachel has had diarrhea now for 10 days and they just shrug their shoulders and say "eh, somtimes kids have diarrhea". I have just never in my life experienced a place where doctors cared so little and were so unwilling to be helpful. Diarrhea for 10 days is bad and its serious since she must be retaining little nutrition and runs the risk of being dehydrated. It just annoys me that this is going on.

Finally, I read an interesting quote yesterday that should finally shut up all the people who always tell us how normal Rachel is. This was written by a guy whose son has asperger's syndrome and recently found out that he has it as well. Writing about 1997 when he found out that his son had it:

"Then Asperger's Syndrome was a diagnosis that few had heard of. After describing my son's behaviors, including his social akwardness, my colleague asked, 'But isn't that just normal boy stuff?'

It's hard to explain that normal boy akwardness multiplied by five is no longer normal."

There's the problem folks. A lot of Rachel's issues do seem like normal kid stuff if you're only around her for a few minutes. Its when you realize that she does these things all the time and the degree to which she does them that you realize that something is very wrong. That's not to say that I don't think that Rachel will have options when she grows up, she's really smart and I believe that she can probably overcome any problems that she might have but understanding how her mind works and understanding why some things are difficult for her and others aren't will be helpful for allowing her to work on overcoming those behaviors rather than being a crutch to excuse her faults (which is the only valid reason why I can see why some people might shy away from diagnosing a young child with autism, but its a fallacy as the author of this article brings out).

Well thats all for now. Hopefully this week I'll have a little more time to post and then I'll write a little something about the movies and TV shows that I've been watching lately.

-Nathan

On the subject of Dragonball Z

2009-10-26T01:28:32Z

So once DBZ hits epsidoe 200 everything changes. The story skips 7 years forward. Goku is dead. Gohan is grown up and it becomes the story of Gohan in High School. All of a sudden DBZ is no longer a one-on-one fighting video game-turned anime. Instead its just like a normal schoolage anime. This is a golden age of the series that sadly lasts something like 10 episodes. The really sad thing is that the show really fools you. The opening and ending songs change. They really make you feel like the show is taking off in a new direction with Gohan as the main character. Both of the songs themselves are pretty much about how Goku is dead now so Gohan has to grow up. The ending song even refers to him as becoming a leader. Of course they ruin everything by bringing Goku back and things return to status quo. I wonder now looking at this and especially with looking at the new music if there really was a plan to head off in a new direction but the move was so controversial that they decided to bring Goku back and return to the way people liked it.

Of course with how different this era of DBZ is, watching DBGT, often derided as being to different from DBZ, is actually pretty standard in comparison.

The sad thing in America is that most people had grown bored and given up by the time that Goku beat Freeza and those who hung on had definitely given up by the time that Goku beat Cell. No one was still watching when the series hit this point and its the best part of the show. Even though I hate that they felt the need to bring Goku back, from episode 200 to the end, DBZ is the best it'll ever be and DBGT is just as good as those latter DBZ episodes.

Just felt like sharing...

On the subject of Disney buying Marvel

2009-10-26T01:16:06Z

I meant to post about this ages ago. Most have probably already forgotten reading about this but I wanted to dispel some of the rumors going around about this.

Basically, Marvel and Disney have had a relationship going back years. At least by the 90s and possibly earlier, Marvel was publishing all Disney comic books. Disney, on the other hand, in some sort of faustian deal somehow got the rights to distribute the 1990's era Marvel comic book based animated series. Why Marvel ever thought it was a good idea to give this sort of control to Disney when they have so mishandled the distribution of their own material borders on the insane and is an explanation for why all the DC comic book animated series have had full series DVD releases that Marvel has only had a few scattered episodes of its properties released. X-Men is finally getting a semi-serious release but it seems unlikely that Disney is going to bother releasing the last 13 or so episodes so we still won't have a full-release of any one Marvel animated series.

Will this move effect the comics that Marvel is putting out currently? Probably not. They may publish a few more Disney titles and they may advertise those a bit more strongly, but its likely that most of the Marvel editorial staff will remain the same. After all, Marvel was not in any serious trouble so the deal of the buy-out was probably pretty generous to them.

Will this move effect the movies? Almost certainly. Warner Bros owns DC Comics and if you've ever noticed, no DC comic book character movies come out that aren't owned by Warner. Sure, some companies already have outstanding deals with Marvel and Disney says that those deals are going to be honored but you can bet that when the time comes to renegotiate any of those deals, that Disney is going to say "no". Soon we'll be living in an era where no Marvel movies can be made that aren't a "Disney" production. This probably means that any that are made will be campy and kid-friendly. For certain properties this might be ok. For something like X-Men its unlikely that there will ever be a watachable film again (although there are rumors that Bryan Singer may do an X-Men 4 while Fox still has the rights, meaning that we may see a decent movie in the nearterm, hopefully one where X-Men 3 turns out to have all been a dream).

Since I don't read comics anymore I could care less if Marvel's editorial staff stays the same, but I have enjoyed more than 50% of the Marvel movies that have come out in the last decade so it saddens me to think that this era may be nearing its end. No wonder Sony and Fox want to crank out as many Spiderman and X-Men films as they can in the near term.

Anti-dentism

2009-10-18T20:17:48Z

So yeah, I'm probably the kind of guy that Kramer would describe as an anti-dentite. Why? I just get the feeling, like you do with car mechanics, that my dentist is just telling me that I have cavities to get increased business.

Why do I think this? Because somehow I managed to live 27 years of my life with perfect teeth. Now, it is true that at age 27, I noticed a spot on one of my canine teeth and went to a dentist in Ohio. I had a cavity and he inspected my other teeth and found major problems with one of my 12-year molars in the back which required a root canal. Fair enough. We got those problems sorted out and then I moved here. All of a sudden he found 8 cavities and this is after inspecting me only a scant 3 months after the last time I saw my dentist in Ohio (basically since I left on short notice he was never able to put the permanent cap on my root cannaled tooth which is why I had to seek out a dentist here immediately). Now he's found 4 more a year later. I do not buy this at all. I went 27 years with only 2 problems manifesting and now I have 12 more problems within the span of a year? I doubt that heavily.

The problem is that at least with an auto mechanic you can become knowledgeable enough about cars to be able to figure out if you're being cheated. There is no way to do that with a dentist without having access to your own x-ray technology. You just have to take them on faith.

For something completely irrelevant: Am I the only one who hates this style of wearing a long-sleeve shirt underneath a short sleeve shirt. It just seems...wrong on so many levels and I am starting to see it everywhere now. It was fine when it was just something that you saw grungy teens doing but now I see adults doing it too. What is wrong with wearing your short sleeve shirt under your long sleeve shirt if you want layers?

Autism

2009-10-15T01:55:07Z

So if autism is a spectrum so that there's a range of behavior and its possible to be mildly autistic, is it then also possible to be mildly normal? After all, what about people who score just above the necessary score on the autism tests? I've started wondering if I'm just mildly normal (yeah, yeah I'm sure you're all thinking "I already knew that") Seriously though, Rachel is like me * 10 down to the pickiness and the OCD. Also, when I read about autism it sounds like me but not as extreme. I dunno...

On the subject of genetics

2009-10-13T05:12:49Z

I often think about genetics these days. Why is Rachel the way that she is? Is it environmental, something that happened during the pregnancy or is it some artefact of the combination of Beth's and my genes? There have been genetic problems in my family but I had always assumed that it was the one who married into the family that was at fault since by-and-large we tend to be relatively normal. Yet now I am beginning to wonder if it is something carried in our genes or specifically the Pelletier genes (mom's side) that does not mix well with other factors. It doesn't help that my brothers and I all married people with strong French backgrounds when we are prdominently french as well. I sometimes wonder if we're to close genetically. Mom always put so much stock in being "pure French" but maybe that has its price as well, certainly when for generations you only had a small pool of a French community in Massachusetts in which intermarriage took place, so even if you don't marry a close relative, wouldn't it have a cumulatively deleterious effect if you married distant relatives generation after generation?

Dad's side is basically a mix of pretty much every Northern & western European nation with a small amount of native american thrown in for good measure. I had always thought when I was younger that I would marry someone with completely new genes to add to the family in the hopes that my offspring would have the best of multiple worlds. Obviously this wasn't a big enough deal for me to care when it turns out that I meet the perfect person for me that also happens to be predominently French but it weirds me out that my brothers also ended up with French-descended women. How much of our lives is determined by genetics anyway? Its a little to odd to just chalk up to coincidence.

There's no real point to my ramblings. I just wanted to muse a bit on the stuff floating around in my head.

Transformers: Headmasters

2009-10-12T01:29:25Z

Well I finished the series. About midway through it seems that the writers stopped caring. All of the sudden it didn't feel like this was the logical conclusion to season 3. Instead it become a weird show where the decepticons were all comic relief (except for Sixshot and Scorponok) and we had a bunch of repetitive and boring storylines until an incredibly lame resolution. I was really upset that the whole storyline of Rodimus, Blur, and Cup going off in search of a new homeworld after Cybertron's destruction was never resolved and the ending leaves me wondering how there are two more series when all of the Transformers are gone now (I shan't get to specific for fear of spoilerizing anyone whose interested.)

For those who want to see the Transformers series, you'll have to torrent the various series. The best place that I know to get it is TV Nihon. At this point though I'm not sure that I'd recommend it to someone else. You almost have to be a Transformers fan, an anime fan, and an 80's fan to get it and that combo is more rare then you'd think.

Oh well, I'll get on to Transformers Masterforce. Hopefully I'll like that better.

On the subject of goo

2009-10-12T01:05:06Z

I absolutely hate hand lotion. Yes, there is probably some sort of ingrained dislike to actually use anything that is considered feminine but I tend not to care about the opinions of others and besides using lotion is far more and more common among men these days. I just don't like the slimy feel that you get on your hands after using it, nor do I like my hands to smell. Anytime that I apply lotion I feel like I'm Matt Hagen from the Feat of Clay episode of Batman: The Animated Series. It just looks and seems way to much like the "RenuYou" product that turned Hagen into Clayface. I always imagine my hand turning into an amorphous playdoh like substance. Yet, unfortunately I am cursed with skin that cracks and bleeds in the cold. In the South this only ever happened during the very worst parts of winter, so I could grin a bare it for a small period of time. In Ohio, I found that wearing gloves kept the problem aware. Here, its only October and I'm already having extreme problems and gloves don't help. Bleh!

I'm just going to have to bite the bullet again. I just wish that it didn't feel like everything I touched afterwards would be slimed.

On the subject of conservation

2009-10-12T00:53:16Z

I was originally going to post something else today but that can wait. Instead, I'd like to talk about something more immediate. So we have this special "energy saver" dryer in our apartment. I'm all for conserving energy especially since conserving energy conserves me $$$. The problem with this is that the dryer doesn't actually make anything dry. We have to run it twice and sometimes 3 times to get the clothes to actually dry. Not only is this a huge waste of time but I have a hard time believing that running this dryer three times conserves any power versus running a normal dryer one time. So at best I'm probably just losing time and at worst I'm expending more power as well.

This also reminds me of North Carolina where our apartment had those special "water saver" toilets. Again, its a great idea, but not so much when you have to flush 3 or even yes 4 times. Did we actually save any water? Probably not. There's actually a funny episode of King of the Hill on this subject and makes the point perfectly.

I hate it when people in their quest to conserve actually create bigger waste.

Status Quo

2009-10-09T01:07:39Z

Well, I took the week off from work because I had some time left over but we have no funds to spend on a vacation. Things at work continue to degenerate. More people were laid off this month. I don't think that I was among their number but I won't find out for sure until I report back on Monday. I worry about that possibility but I don't have an unreasoning dread of it. Even in this bad economy I believe strongly that anyone can find a job. The only thing of it is that you have to be willing to move. Somewhere there are people that want to employ the skills that you bring to the table. You just need to find them.

This is why I get upset by people who sit around all day saying that they don't have a job and can't find one. All of the people that I know in that situation are in that circumstance because they're unwilling to move. I'm sorry but at that point you become part of the problem. You are just a drain on resources. There is no guarantee in life that you will be provided with a job that is convenient for you. Go to where you're needed and contribute to society some so those of us who are working don't have to support you. Then when things improve maybe you can go back to where you lived before if you want to.

In other news I now have all the hardware needed to repair and/or create NES games for which there is a thriving hobby community. Should be a fun thing to turn my hand toward.

Additionally, Beth and I are now up through S3 of Heroes and we may be calling it quits here unless someone has a compelling reason to say otherwise. We're also now watching S2 of the Invisible Man and S2 of Terminator. More thoughts on all of these later.

Rachel continues to develop in fits and starts but her obsessive-compulsive behavior and extreme hyperactivity continue to be problems. She's getting big enough (already larger than 3') that she can hurt Beth and I without intending to do so. She just throws her weight into everything that she does and especially with Beth just having knee surgery it can be very bad. Its also problematic in that we normally take her to a nearby playground to run out all of her excess energy. Well recently some hoodlums came through and sprayed grafitti everywhere. Thankfully its just some weird scribbles, but Rachel now declares that each item on the playground is "broken" and refuses to play with it or to slide down the slides so she just spends the entire time wondering from each thing to each thing and not doing anything other than telling us that they're "broken". For everyone who tells us that she's a normal kid, please tell us of any other child that you know of who will refuse to play on things that they enjoy just because of some markings on them even when their parents are reassuring them that there's nothing wrong with it. For us its a mess because now she's hyperactive but with no outlet.

Oh and Beth has been playing Dragon Warrior, the NES game, a lot lately. She's almost through with it. She's making me proud again. She's playing it on my FC mobile 2 which is an NES clone that's hand-held so you can play the games on the go. A lot of it came about because of the knee surgery.

I guess the only other big news is that I've started Body for Life again. I may have mentioned it many years ago on this journal. I think that I was still on it when I first started this. Basically its a program that combines exercise and eating right in an attempt to remake your body. It did wonders for me last time even when I wasn't 100% faithful to it. The theory is that you exercise 6 times a week (3 days of weight training and alternating weight training days between upper and lower body and then 3 days of aerobic exercise) with a particular format that allows you to very efficiently work your body to its limit so that you should never spend more than an hour on any weight training day or more than 20 minutes on any aerobic day (I can get into specifics of how this works if anyone is curious. The main thing is that it is tailorable to anyone's ability so the program uses intensity levels rather than telling you specific weights and the program is evolutionary so that you should constantly be upping the ante on the program as soon as it becomes comfortable). Then the next trick is to go on a high protein, high carb diet. Most people have been misinformed about carbs. There are good carbs and good carbs are necessary to store energy. So they help you to build muscle so that you become even better at burning fat. You also eat 6 small meals per day rather than 3 larger meals per day. This keeps you from overeating by keeping you from becoming hungry and its also less of a shock to your system. Then on the 7th day you rest. You don't work out and you can eat anything you want. The idea there is that you can't do enough bad in 1 day to counteract all the good you've done in 6 days and it keeps you from going so long without having junk foods that you enjoy that you begin to crave them until you completely go off your program. So this thing to me is pretty much the ideal program and I'm already starting to see progress. Hopefully it will continue to go well.

In the next few days hopefully I'll get a chance to post some other musings.

42

2009-08-25T03:23:31Z

I'm sick with some horrible wasting disease but I had to take a trip for training this week since I wouldn't get another chance and because someone else was depending on me to drive them since the company wants us to take the company vehicle and carpool to conserve gas prices (this part is understandable) and I had the key to the company vehicle in question.

Locked for 2 and a half hours with a guy who couldn't shut up and felt nothing about airing his rascist views made me regret the decision...

Its one of the odd things that I've noticed since I moved here. In the South people at least know by and large that they should at least be ashamed for holding rascist views so only really feel free to let loose when around their friends on when they wear masks. Here people just air them in casual conversation. I've even heard them over the radio. What the heck...?

Anyhow, hopefully I'll survive and sooner or later I'd like to return to actually using this forum as a place to post my thoughts about Live, the Universe, and Everything.

I hope that you're all doing well.

Transformers: Headmasters

2009-08-15T21:10:25Z

So I'd like to say that Ultra Magnus died like a hero- like Optimus Prime and Blaster did. Unfortunately I can't say that at all. He went down like a putz and while Sixshot has been one of the coolest things about Headmasters, the fight between the two could have been a lot less one-sided.

In other news, Galvatron's plan, finally revealed, is to turn the Earth into a body for himself, like what Unicron had going for him. This makes a lot of sense. I'm sure that Galvatron has felt humiliated ever since Unicron reformed him as Galvatron and was able to pull his strings like a puppet. This is probably the only plan that would have any hope of stabilizing his less than sane nature since the movie.

The other really cool thing about Headmasters is Scorponok. Finally, a decepticon who wishes to move against Galvatron and control everything himself but who does so in a subtle, plotting way, rather than Starscream's hamfisted attempts.

Ugh

2009-07-06T22:17:41Z

Beth has bad arthritis in one knee from an old volleyball injury. Basically the bones grind together because there's nothing between them to insulate them like there should be but now her other knee has spontaneously bruised with no trauma so she hurts on her good leg whenever she walks. So basically Beth wasn't able to walk for a couple of days. The bruise seems to be going away now though and she can once again hobble on her one bad leg but now my back is screwed up again. Its nowhere near as bad as it was. It isn't constant pain but I cannot stand or get up from a prone position without extreme agonizing pain. Once I'm standing, I'm fine though but getting there is the problem. Then on top of everything else, Rachel was sick with diarrhea and vomiting. This really really sucks and made for an "oh so fun" weekend.

Now I'm just worried about the possibilities of Beth having knee surgery (and thus being effectively incapacitated for weeks) and then what happens if my back goes out again. Who takes care of Rachel. This is bad.

Amusement

2009-06-25T01:32:45Z

So I've been laughing my head off for the last two days as they are giving "heat advisories" here for the high-80 degree weather that we've been having. They're telling people to stay indoors and drink plenty of liquids. I find this hilarious. I know that people here aren't used to these temperatures but its not like anyone is going to melt from this weather. How do they think that people survive in places like Florida or even South America near the equator? Unless its getting up into the 100's there's no need for a "heat advisory".

Oh well at least for the next month or two I'll be able to enjoy the weather for once.

Actually...

2009-06-20T22:01:36Z

Speaking of King's Quest and realizing that most people will look down on it for having outdated graphics, I just found out that King's Quest has been re-released FOR free as '09 on a format that will work on XP/Vista. It's the same great game but with completely modernized graphics and the speech actually has sounds rather than textboxes.

For such a great game being free, I don't think that there's any reason not to give it a try.

Shawn, if you're reading this, the same company that made this later went on to making Gabriel Knight. It's a pretty small world isn't it?

The website for the revised King's Quest can be found here:

http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/kq1/about/about.html

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I love the classics

2009-06-20T16:31:31Z

I just started playing a game called King's Quest which was re-released for modern PC's a few years ago. It's a lot of fun and I'm amazed at how elaborate a game made in 1983 is.

In other news, mom bought us some movies that I've been wanting to get but I haven't purchased because they weren't high priorities. She got us:

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves: The Extended Edition
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Tron
The Black Hole
Ice Pirates
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Original Black & White movie)
Tropic Thunder

Beth and I both have a soft spot for Robin Hood so its nice that there's an extended release for us to watch. I got Tron, The Black Hole, and Ice Pirates since she was born late in the 80's and never saw these classics. The Day the Earth Stood Still should need no explanation. I have thought that this was a fantastic movie since I was a small child. Tropic Thunder, I've never seen but had such high recommendations that I wanted to see it badly and since mom bought it, I don't feel bad about owning it before seeing it.

About the only movie that mom didn't get me that I wanted was the first Beastmaster (again another 80's film that Beth was denied as a child) but I'll pick that up myself sometime.

In other news, I only have a handful of NES games that I'm still looking for to complete the collection of games that I know that I want. At some point I'll post the whole collection and ask if anyone has recomendations of great games that I left off. However, i thought that I'd post the list of games that I'm looking for just in case any of you have places locally that sell NES games and can let me know if you'd be willing to buy a game for me and ship it to me if I sent you the money. Most of these are rare late-NES releases from the brief period of time after the SNES came out but while they were still selling NES games. Adventure Island 2 isn't though so I have no idea why I'm having such a hard time finding it.

The games that I'm looking for are:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighter
Battletoads and Double Dragon
Nobunaga's Ambition 2
Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers 2
Adventure Island 2
Adventures of Lolo 3
Gemfire

In other news, I'm watching Rachel by myself a lot now since Beth is working so even though I want to get back with everyone who has sent me e-mails or posted here it may not happen often. I apologise for that but I am working on it. Hopefully I'll be able to post more updates more often.

Now I just need to figure out some way of finding a babysitter so that Beth and I can see at least one of the summer movies that I'm interested in. I long for the days when we could see them all but it looks like Wolverine isn't even playing anymore so my choices are limited to Star Trek and Terminator. *sigh*

DQC

2009-06-03T05:02:43Z

I wanted to take the time here to extend an invitation to anyone interested to join Dragon Quest Cosmos. This is a message board based RPG that's based on the original Dragon Warrior for the NES that has been a lot of fun to play.

The advantages of a message board based RPG is that even though you have to make a commitment to update your character, you only need to make posts about once every 2 or 3 days. That's how often the GM updates the story based on the actions that you input for your character. You're basically free to involve yourself as much or as little as you want. Some people just post their character's actions. Others like myself tend to write longer posts that add to my character's feeling and impressions about what is going on. The GM is also very cool about making this a shared world so even though he determines the outcomes of battles, he has been very open to letting characters develop the world and incorporate new places, people, and ideas into it to accomodate your character's story.

There have been quite a few posts at this point but don't feel intimidated like you have to read all the posts of the past to understand what is going on. The game is pretty free to have anyone drop in at any time and you should be able to come up to speed (although reading the posts helps). We'd been getting a pretty steady stream of new recruits until a while ago but haven't had any new members in like two months so I thought that I'd put this out there since I figure that just about anyone who reads this journal would make an oustanding addition to the game.

Take care and hopefully I'll see you there!

The Frozen Wasteland

2009-06-03T03:12:48Z

I know that everyone is going to be like "duh" but I can't believe how cold it is here. I thought for sure that by June we'd have temperatures in the 60's and 70's. But so far since February we have had only about a dozen days added together that have broken the 65 degree barrier. Yesterday morning was a glorious mid-70's day with a breeze which was just about perfect. By the time that I left work it had dropped to 50 and today was about the same. I am beginning to wonder if this place will ever warm up. I know that when we moved in last year in July it was a 50 degree day but at least for the first month or so it was mostly warm. I'm just worried now that we only get about one month of warmth (to me warm is 70 or above)here.

Oh well I guess the good news is that it almost never gets hot (hot to me is 90 or above) here or if it does its only like one or two days out of the year.