Thursday, April 29, 2010

I Dream of Sleeping

In all honesty this was a rather pointless doctor appointment in the grand scheme of things. Basically I walked in, waited for him to arrive, and was told the same exact thing I was told before. By the other doctor. Only difference was that this guy could order more sleep studies to be done. So I do that again during the day time, this Tuesday. They're testing to confirm narcolepsy.

The good: I'd have a diagnosis.
The bad: Controlled substances for life.

If it is as they suspect, I've likely been suffering from the effects of it for years now. Since high school at least. Which explains a ton, actually.

Essentially all those super awesome in-depth dreams I have and recall with such great clarity every night are both a boon and a curse. Narcolepsy is scientifically cooler than portrayed by the media and yet amazingly less funny. No cause for concern yet, so I won't concern you!

I report to the hospital at 8am and stay all day, napping on cue. They'll be measuring the time it takes me to fall asleep and the time it takes me from that point to reach REM sleep. Those with narcolepsy get little to no Deep sleep, instead bypassing it straight to REM. This was observed in my overnight sleep study, but to confirm I have to do it every time I sleep -- even during day time naps.

We'll see how this goes. I remain optimistic regardless.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Bokchoy Wonderland

Went and saw Alice In Wonderland this past weekend. It wasn't as dark as I had expected an Alice In Wonderland rendition by Tim Burton to be, but it was entertaining none-the-less. Alice In Wonderland is inherently dark by it's very nature, so I suppose I just suspected Burton would've honed in on that more to his advantage. It was enjoyable though. I liked the Cheshire Cat especially, but then again he's always been my favorite.

I have a strange fascination with quarter machines. You know? Those things you see in super markets and theaters everywhere. Insert a quarter, get a random toy.  Usually I just buy rubber balls, the fun is in trying to guess what color you'll get. If you guess right, you win! But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a Bok Choy Boy from the theater's machines. I mean, who could? Just what is a Bok Choy Boy? Well...







Delicious bok choy!
A boy. Whose? I don't know.
 Somehow combining the two gives you this:



 Yeah, I don't know either. Moving on!

We had the hardest time finding card shops, which was boggling because several years ago there were at least 4 or 5 within a 30 minute drive (30 minutes is considered pretty good, out here).  In fact local listings still list them nearby. However, all of them are gone if you try going to where they are supposed to be. Like all just up and closed simultaneously. I eventually managed to find a few places -- none of which were actual card shops. So at least I know where I can find M:TG cards locally, should I desire anything mundane I don't require the internet for.  For everything else... there's the internet! I imagine that's where I'll be buying the brunt of my stock from anyhow. Since, you know, Ohio and all.

In other geeky news, I finally got Dragon Age working. I'm not sure how many of you have played it or plan on playing it, so I won't spoil anything. Song of Ice And Fire fans may be interested to know there is totally a Ser Jory in it though! Whether or not it's an intentional reference, I have no idea, but I found it amusing. Aside from that it's been Dawn of War II and Skies of Arcadia. I need more hours in a day to play all these games. Dragon Age is absorbing too many of them.

Tomorrow is my doctor appointment. Briiiiight and early, so I probably won't be on until afterward and even then I'll probably try to nap as soon as I get home. At least you know ahead of time that I'll be leaving you hanging a while.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sky Pirate

Computer and internet troubles have plagued me since my return, no biggie, I'll have them sorted out in no time. In the meanwhile I have Skies of Arcadia to keep me busy. I get to be a sky pirate. Yes, you read that right and it's exactly what it sounds like. Only cooler.

Which beats what I was doing before hooking up the Gamecube:

Staring contest with my cat.
I win by default because he always falls asleep.

The game plays a lot like your typical JRPG, but you have an airship. Also, maybe I just haven't played a JRPG in a long while, but this seems like more fun than what I'm used to in a JPRG. Less predictability, if that makes sense. Normally in this sort of game I've figured out the good guys, the bad guys, and how it's all going to end within the first hour of gameplay. Not so here.

That's what she said.
Readjusting to Ohio hasn't been easy. In fact, I don't think it's possible. I'll just have to manage. Somehow. A time machine would be helpful, if any of you have successfully built one yet. In exchange for its use I could offer you... Cadbury Creme Eggs. Or art.

In unrelated news, I think I'm going to the movies this weekend? I need to scout out local card shops as well so I can get my nerd on. We'll see.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Oh, Ohio

As many of you are already aware, I am safe and sound back in Ohio. Though I left my heart in California (along with my sweater, incidentally).

My flights were pretty uneventful this time around. From Sacramento to Denver I sat beside a big big fat who kept complimenting my jewelry. Then from Denver to Akron my seat was all by itself so I didn't have to deal with strangers. It was cold though with no sweater.

Comedy happened when I forgot my watch was set to PST. I felt like I had been on the plane for at least 4 hours, looked at my watch only to see it was 8pm and thought I had only been on the plane for a single damned hour. Then, several moments later the captain tells us to prepare for landing. I was like, "Hrp. Why are we landing 3 hours early?"

Shut up.

Upon arrival I was whisked away to Denny's for midnight breakfast. Pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, and coffee. I hadn't eaten anything since tasty breakfast hotdogs, so I was fairly famished. You read that right. Though saying I just had a hotdog for breakfast is misleading. I had a hotdog slathered in BBQ sauce with piles and piles of bacon on top. Bacon is a breakfast food, right?

While waiting on our food, using sugar packets, I taught my mother how to play Magic, so that if I were so inclined, I'd have someone to play with here in Amish land. I think the only thing dorkier than sitting in Denny's at 2am, if you hadn't just come from a bar/club/party, is sitting in Denny's at 2am teaching your parents to play a card game (that isn't poker).

When I actually got to the house Neelix was eagerly awaiting my return at the door. He immediately planted his giant head in my palm, forcing me to pet him. Not that I wouldn't have otherwise, but he lacks patience of any sort.

Sticking with tradition, I got Swine Flu. Again.

This time totally Aaron's fault.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Four Weeks

Last Friday was fabulous. We met up with Kurt and Arlene in Old Sacramento. For those unfamiliar, Old Sacramento is like 3 blocks of super old buildings full of shops, restaurants, and taverns. Think of old Western movies and you'll have a pretty decent idea of what the place looks like. There are also river boats and horse-drawn carriages. I even saw an Amish family wandering about (must've followed me from Ohio).

We started the day strolling along the streets, stopped for lunch at Fat City (how could you not eat there?) where I had a delicious cheeseburger slathered in BBQ sauce, and then we took over a river boat. Yarr!  Our boat passed by a bridge, which had to open for us to get by, and we held up rush hour traffic which I found satisfying. The best part though, was probably that all the smaller boats on the river waved at us every time we passed. The river tour was an hour of neat, then it was back on land with us. By then it was clearly ice cream cone time, so we went and got ice cream at some tiny little ice cream place.

A few pictures are available of us... on a boat.

Evening was almost upon us, so we called it a day. Mind you, escaping downtown Sacramento is like being lost in an episode of the Twilight Zone. You can't just go back the way you came because of all the one way streets. The way back was like some epic quest, and none of us had put enough points into Navigation. But that was all part of the fun.

Later in the week we went and bought a ton of candy. Of note, an entire box of Cadbury Eggs. The cashier wasn't sure how to ring them up, since they only sell them individually and we had brought up an entire sealed box. So he like, took them all out of the box one by one and started counting them. I couldn't help but start giggling as everyone in line waited for the poor cashier to figure out exactly how much to charge us for an entire box of Cadbury eggs. It was ridiculous (and awesome).

The incredible edible egg!
I figured he would just multiply the price of each egg by the egg count on the outside of the box, but he decided to be super efficient or something and took the long route. At first, I thought he was going to ring up each egg he took out one by one, which would have been even more ridiculous (read: hilarious). I could barely contain my amusement as it was. I felt bad for laughing so hard with all of the people in line behind us. Notably the poor older gentleman who was actually just buying a carton of actual eggs.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Three Weeks

Another week has gone by so here I am with a weekly update! Everything is still awesome, not that that's any shock to anyone. We traveled by train (choo choo) from Sacramento to San Jose for a big party. The journey there was cool in it's own right, since I've never traveled any significant distance by train. Let alone a two story train with electrical outlets and diners inside.

The scenery in California going anyplace is fantastic, but by train it seems especially so. Lots of contrast in the environment: marshes, plains, cities, forests, farms, mountains (or giant hills), etc. Go anyplace at all and you'll probably see at least a combination of 3 of those. Not like most other places I've been where it's virtually all sparse, flat land.

Here is a cloud, also a vineyard.
The party was also great, not that anything less was expected. There was drunken tomfoolery, geekery, drunken geekery... You know, all those things I enjoy the most. Sean's a generous host and all the people out here are just nice to be around. I think over the last year I've met more people I like in California than I have in the past 10 years living in elsewhere.

The journey back by train was even cooler since it was dusk. The sun setting behind a mountain casting shadows over plains dotted with marshes was very pretty to say the least. I was a little worried initially that my motion sickness would rear it's ugly head on a train, but I was actually pretty fine. A little dizzy but no worse than if I had been in a car. Actually, probably a little better than if I had been in a car. Which is interesting to know.

Now we're back in Sacramento. On Friday we've plans to go hang out with my uncle from San Fransisco. I don't get to see him nearly enough considering he's my favorite uncle, so that'll be sweet. Until then it's Soul Calibur IV, Diablo II on Nightmare difficulty, Dawn of War II, Stargate, South Park, The Office, and Lost! And probably tons of other less nerdy things, but if you're reading my status updates online, the geeky things are probably more interesting to you anyway.

tl;dr: fun stuff happened, more fun stuff happened, I'm doing fun stuff.

P.S. Keep an eye on my Deviant. I do have something special to post for having reached 4000 views, I've just been having too much fun to upload it. Or finish drawing it for that matter. Ahem.