The Bipolar Otaku

My brother's fiancee's grandfather passed away this morning. I'm sure it's really tough on them, especially since their family was so close. Wish there was more that I could do for them. I actually talked with her for a bit while I was at work. It was tough to listen to her and not cry also.

Well, okay no. But yesterday I had a noon appointment with my psychiatrist, and they called me up at 11 asking if I would not be able to make it in, because of the snow. So I lied because I hardly got any sleep at all last night, and rescheduled the appointment for two weeks from now.

Once again, the weathermen in the area have firmly convinced everyone that there will be a huge, massive, no-one-will-be-able-to-drive-for-days snowstorm that was supposed to have 6 inches built up by midnight. Funny... I only got hit with a quarter inch dusting...

Am I really losing weight, or is it an illusion based upon the last time I used the bathroom? Whatever the case, the scale now says 204 after playing FFX-2 for a bit too long (and taking a couple potty breaks, of course).

I just got back from the gym. It was the first time I've been there in about 2 years. Pretty pathetic, considering I've still been paying for it since I signe up in 98 (I think). At least my fees are only $100/year, since I paid off my original membership.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. I just went on the ellliptical machine for 15 minutes, did ab crunches while I tried to catch my breath, did some stretches to try to undo the crunches (my abs started burning almost immediately), and then did anout 23 minutes on the ellipticals. I was going to go for 30 minutes that last time, but I knew that I really wasn't going to get off the machine until my legs were burning (ie. I think I actually wanted to make myself sore, perhaps a manic intention), so I cut myself off. I'm just hoping that I'm not sore by the end of work today (another 10 hour shift).

It looks like I went about 3.71km so far today. Okay, so that 2.3 miles, but what it really means is that I have to figure out why my pedometer is reading out in kilometers instead of miles.

You gotta hate drivers in the southeast michingan area. The lightest sprinkling of snow, and they almost all of them turn into one of two types of idiots: those who drive no faster than 2 MPH and those who get pissed off by the first group, drive 20MPH over and either crash or spin off the road making everyone else want to drive slower. ARGGG....

I'm at 91% in FFX-2, in chapter 2 on my second time through the game. I just realized the other night that I missed something late last week. I didn't talk to Tobli before doing a Moonflow mission, because I walked into the area instead of teleporting into it. So, I might be stuck with 99.8% completed, necessitating a third time through! ARGGGG....

Oh well, maybe next time I'll be able to pick up Keys to Success, since that would require me letting the Guado die instead. But still, I'm spending way too much time on this game.

After leaving work yesterday, after only 8 hours instead of my normal 10 hour shift (I figured I could stand losing $100), I went to Meijer's. I planned on just buying something to munch on (sunflower seeds) and some more soy milk (sugar free, of course), but I ended up spending about $100 (ironic, isn't it?). But then again, I did buy stuff like a digital scale (I don't trust my mom's scale) padlocks (can't find my old one, and I'll need one if I plan on working out), more lunch meats, more tuna packets, healthier sausages (after realizing how bad the one I bought last time are for my diet), diet soda (cheaper than buying them at the plant), bread (low carb stuff, not as expensive as I thought). Of course I bought so much that it took my more than one trip to my car to bring it in, and I had to choose the coldest night of the season thus far to do it.

But now, at least I don't have as many excuse about not going to the gym. I've got my gym bag already packed, now I just have to remember to sleep earlier so I can wake up with enough time to eat lunch AND work out. Maybe tomorrow. heh heh...

Okay, so I was doing a crossword on my PDA, today at work, while I waited for something, anything, to happen. I brought in my power cord, because if tonight were to be like any other, it would be boring, which would mean that I'd be out of juice by midnight. I went to walk off somewhere but didn't want to leave it sitting there, and so unplugged it, shoved it in my pocket. And evidently, it crashed. I lost all my data. No more games. And my body was immediately overcome with an immense tiredness, and my mind was subjected to a wave of "I shouldn't have woken up this morning" thoughts, my body was sluggish, and a craving for ice cream came upon me. I've felt this before. Acute depression.

Just because my PDA is useless for the rest of the night? And that kind of bothers me. What does my PDA have to do with anything?

Anyway, I restored it once I got home. I've lost some stuff, like my save game in Marble Worlds and some half finished crosswords. Nothing major, but I hope it doesn't happen again.

Okay, now that I've figured that much out...


Well...

oh... yeah... that.

It felt like there was nothing I could do but stand there with the phone to my ear. I heard the words, but I could garner no response. But I can't let something stupid slip out, like "Yeah that sucks." or "I know how it feels." or "I hope it will end well." And something like "I'm sorry to hear that." seems so cold. The only thing I can think to do is reach out and give a hug, but I'm only on a phone. I could say that I'll pray for them... but really... I'm not sure the last time I prayed. Unless, maybe, I'm praying right now.

And I suppose, with that, my prayer will go out to them... I hope that there will be little suffering in the end.

My head seems to be shaking out of control. And on the good side of that, I'm done with Dantooine. Must keep eyes closed... Must keep eyes closed... Must keep eyes closed...

Yeah, I say _still_ awake, even though I'm usually still at work by this time of night. The difference is, that I stayed up all night last night so that I would be sure to be awake to go to work this morning and do my singular first-shift day before I go back to night shift tomorrow. In other words, I sim' still up from yesterday morning. Anyway. I should go to sleep. But will I? Maybe after a little progress in KoTor...

Yesterday was rough. That's the only word I can use to describe it. Neck and back aches, dry contacts and itchy eyes, utter boredom...

But today is worse. A late lunch due to a dentist appointment, a sore hip, an awful tasting soup which might be the worst thing I've ever cooked, stomach pains, bodily proof that a low fiber diets are bad for you... And boredom and exhaustion that far exceeds yesterday's levels. Plus I got to argue and tell them to fix a bit in one particular robot, the same exact bit I've told them to fix for the past four days. Sometimes I hate this job.

But there was a high point of the day. Pigeons. Yep, a couple of them decided to take a tour of my line. I don't know why that made me happy, but it did. I wonder if they are union protected...

There's just something about fortune cookies that I get from Pi's. Mostly they seem pretty irrelevant like most fortune cookies, but once in a while, I get one that say exactly what I was thinking.

The example today being one that said something like "You should call an old friend." Actually, I had just finished an hour long discussion with an old friend, my ex-roommate that I (or most of my friends) haven't heard from since last Memorial Day. Yesterday, he responded to my Happy New Year call, a little late but no less welcome. So it was cool to catch up with him. Hopefully we'll be able to do lunch sometime soon. I'm still wondering why he fell off the face of the earth, but I'm not going to pressure it out of him.

This morning, I got asked by one of the other engineers if I was thinking about getting my masters degree, and if I liked D.C. And here's his reasoning. On his way home from his last trip to the Pentagon, in the airport he met a recruiter for a university out there. The recruiter had a peculiar Einstein theory: he was actively hunting for a student who was left-handed, smart, and asthmatic.

Well, I'm not left-handed.

But really, what does being asthmatic have anything to do with it? I can see the left-handed part; Left-handed typically means right-brained, which means that they focus on creative thoughts rather than logical reasoning. That gets offset with what is typically considered 'smart', which is the patience for logic reasoning. But then asthmatic. Is the lack of air somehow supposed to mean more efficient thinking or something? I can't figure that out.

So, just got through the second day of robotics. I guess I was expecting a bit more intensity, but I always do at the beginning of the season. I took tomorrow off, expecting it to be a day of hardcore design and engineering and last minute brainstorm changes... but it's finals. So, tomorrow's going to be a vacation day... a real day off; probably the last real day off in a while.

But one thing I have gotten some experience doing, is packing and pulling out my laptop. I've just been using it to review rules so far, but I brought along the sketchpad and scanner in case my laptop had been called into use as the main presenting tool. It wasn't, but it did catch a lot of eyes. And it pulled in a lot of questions "Is it fast?", "Does it do well with games?". "How much did that cost?", just as I always expected it too. And I guess it made me a bit happy knowing that people were envious. I can be a show off at times.

And so far, all I've done with my time off is play Knights of the Old Republic. It's pretty cool. I've gotten a few (5?) levels into it now and am enjoying it. But I still don't have a lightsaber, and that's starting to make me pissed.

Okay, tomorrow is the kick off. I'm actually pretty excited. But I realized tonight that I need to pack up my laptop (gonna want that to decrypt their stupid PDFs right away!) and that my batteries might not be charged (gonna need them for my camera, but I fell out of the semi-religous habit of making sure they were charged sometime in June). And while I was packing up my laptop, it occured to me that I've never actually plugged in my scanner into this computer, which meant that I had to install the software, which meant I had to find the disc, which was luckily tucked away with all the other software that's installed on here (ie my game stash). So now, I'm watching batteries charge (much more exciting than watching paint dry!). In other words, I'm a little bit more hyper than I should be at a moment like this. Especially considering I have to wak up in 4 hours. Yippee....

78% If this had been a class, I'd be getting a C. Ouch. Luckily it's just a game. Yeah, I finally finished Final Fantasy X-2, and that was the completion percentage I got on finishing (ie. the amount of tasks that I actually accomplished out of all those in the game). I guess I missed a whole lot of things! But, they have a feature where you can start the game over, still having all of your end of game equipment and stuff and abilities and such, so you don't have to work so hard on all the things you have already done. I saved my data, but I don't think I'm going to start over right away. I'm going to have a robot to build, pretty soon, and I still have a whole bunch of games to play that I bought when I got my laptop. So I think it's time to move on to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Um. So I've just got some quick things to say before I really have to sleep.
- I've been busy at work over the past few days. Kind of refreshing, but at the same time frustrating.
- I tried doing a diagramless crossword for the first time. Did pretty well. My crossword skills seem to have improved significantly.
- Tuna in the vacuum pouches are good. I refuse to eat out of cans ever again.
- Brining bottles of cabonated water to work has ups and downs: it tastes better than normal water when the seal is just broken, but it tastes worse when it is 3/4 done.
- I'm tired of dying in the 91st level of Via Infanato (FFX-2) so I'm going to stop dicking around and just finish the game.
- I haven't woken up to an alarm clock in about 4 weeks. I've got to start using them again.

Okay so I started the Atkins. I feel myself getting fatter with every bite. This had better work.

Okay, I finally realized why I'm still awake. I haven't taken my Seroquel, my sleepy pills. I forgot to get my new prescription (600mg) filled, so now all that I've got is 25mg pills. But, I guess they'll work; I have a lot of them, enough to make a 24 pill dose and then some left over.

Okay, so shortly before Thanksgiving, I ordered a book from Amazon. They told me that it might take 12-16 weeks to get it, but I didn't care. And now, they just sent an email:
Greetings from Amazon.com.

We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the following
item from your order:

Sam Kieth (Illustrator) "Art of Sam Kieth"

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we've
since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this
time. We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize
for the inconvenience we have caused you.

We have cancelled this item from your order.

Your credit card will NOT BE CHARGED for this item because you only
pay for items when we ship them to you.

Your order is now closed.

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this
message.

Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com, and we hope to see you again.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department

Not cool at all.

Fun party. Bunch of fraternity brothers were there. And the oddest thing happened... we started singing songs. Not just any songs, but fraternity songs. And not just a couple... lots of them, about 12 or so. And it was cool. I hadn't heard us sing so well in years. Sure, we had the traditional one song that we sing at every wedding, but we never go into the whole plethora of songs. Sadly, most of us couldn't remember the all words, but someone went online to download some of the song sheets. And on my drive home I finally remembered the first two lines of that one song a couple of us were trying to remember: "When the shades of evening gather down around you".

But it was a good time. First sober new years in a years. Still had a good time. Only two uninteresting single girls there. Still had a good time.

I guess I spent most of the night just catching up with my friends, some whom I last saw Memorial Day, but had serious injuries and miraculous recoveries since them; some whom I last saw at their wedding two years ago. Some whom I saw just a few months ago and still good to talk to. And a friend of friends that I last saw at my friends' wedding last year, and forgot her name AGAIN; all I can say is that she still calls me Tiger (and even in front of her boyfriend/husband?). And she invited me to her Superbowl party. Hmm...

The most unusual thing about the evening? Everyone had a camera... except me!

And as the party winded down (2:30-ish), I moved to leave but got caught in a conversation out on the porch. And when 3am rolled around, I thought, why not call one of our west coast brothers? I last talked to him 5-6 months ago, on a random call to check if the number in my phone book is still active and was surprised to see that it was. I figured that he might not have gotten to talk to some of the guys in a while, so I handed the phone around and left the remains of the party when it finally came back to me. So I talked with him for a another good half hour or so on the way home. Just talked, kind of like in the old days, about where we are in our lives and, more importantly, where we are going. Sang some songs too. It was very cool.

So, it was a good night. But it's now 5am and I'm still awake, so I will be dragging tomorrow...