Uh, I’m sorry. I’ve been getting totally neglectful in terms of my reading, and frankly I’m upset with my books-read-per-month average, which has been steadily dropping. And I realize now, I didn’t even post one for February, which is now almost over (one week to go before it’s done, and I’ve read almost nothing):

• Night Watch – Terry Pratchett
• Bloody Bones – Laurell K. Hamilton
• Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters – Ben H. Winters
• The Story of a Marriage – Andrew Sean Greer

As you can see, it has been a sad month for books. I haven’t even gotten to start one of the books from the Top 10 Most Disturbing list. American Psycho is next, I suppose, although in rereading the description of the book on Wikipedia, I feel profoundly disturbed already.

Other books I have lined up for the next little while include these:

• Let the Right One In – John Ajvide Lindqvist
• The Killing Dance – Laurell K. Hamilton
• Brisingr – Christopher Paolini
• American Gods – Neil Gaiman
• Stardust – Neil Gaiman
• Saturday – Ian McEwan

This isn’t even to mention whatever book club book we may have to read (this month’s is the last one on my list).

I am almost done with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Hoping to finish today or tomorrow. And then The Story of a Marriage is very short, so I should be able to finish over the weekend or before.

So here we go.

It takes me until late Saturday afternoon to start feeling better, better from all of the stress and frustration of the previous week that I had carried with me after work on Friday and through the night.  Do you ever have nights like that?  They are becoming more frequent for me.  I need to figure out how to leave all my work frustrations at work.

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Today, I’m in a foul mood that arises from the fact that only some of the staff is being forced to stay at work while the county works on the water mains.  I understand that we can’t just cancel all of the back-to-back appointments we scheduled for the psychiatrist just because of the inconvenience of not having running water (read: no toilets for the entire complex), but still. How many children every time they have appointments here ask immediately after entering our office, “Where’s your bathroom?”

It’s one of the most common questions. Not, “How are you?”

And I suppose I am half-flattered that I am deemed necessary enough to stay during this day of torture, but it seems vaguely unfair to excuse the other half of the office while those of us left must suffer in quiet agony. It’s basic psychology; deny me the use of anything and I will just want it more.

Whatever. Hopefully this will lift and something good will happen tdoay.

Interesting things:

• I like driving to work during times like this, when it’s both quiet and cold, because sometimes it flurries and I can see the individual snowflakes as they stick to my windshield, each tiny and perfect, before they melt into small drops of water.
• Saint John of Las Vegas, starring Steve Buscemi, was weird. Too weird to do well, I think, especially considering that there are exciting movies coming out, and that are already out in theaters (Wolfman, anyone?). I’ve seen most of what’s out except the latter film, which maybe I’ll ask to go see this weekend. We’ll see. But yes. Buscemi’s movie was weird. It had its moments, was clever in some parts, awkward in others. But weird, overall. Too little plot to be satisfying. It would have been better as a novella.
• Valentine’s Day… 
• Work has been hectic the last few days, in part because of all the shit that was thrown on my desk last week, all the referrals that weren’t entered, and now this new problem. Tomorrow we won’t have water in the entire complex for the whole day. No tap water. No toilets. Great. Just thinking about it makes me have to go more. Of course we’ll deal with it, whatever happens, but I’m just annoyed (and I’m not alone in this) at the whole situation. Work shouldn’t be like this.

It’ll all be fine.

That’s all for now. No analyzing. I don’t have time for it right now (mostly because LOST is on).

I’m planning a much larger post, but I wanted to say that I am back from jury duty and it was both the most stultifyingly boring yet fascinating experience I’ve had in recent memory.

That seems counter-intuitive, I know, but I can’t think of how else to describe it. Was it fun? Parts of it, yes. Was it painful? Most of it, yes. Was it boring? Definitely, yes. Did I learn a lot from it? For sure. A lot about the process, about our state’s justice system, and about myself, actually.

With that said, I didn’t go back to work after I was finished because a) it started to snow, and b) because apparently there is a shit storm brewing and I have no eager desire to go and be a part of it, although I know I will be.

Monday. It can all wait until Monday. This weekend I plan to do a lot of nothing, watch movies, play games, roll around in bed, play in the snow, and sit in front of my fireplace making s’mores while the snow falls outside.

I don’t think I posted about the movies I’ve seen lately in theaters.

I’ve been going to a lot of premieres and sneak previews lately because the people in my office do it. This was also something that a person and I used to do in college when the school newspaper would give out the same free passes. Down here, it’s something of an underground phenomenon. I’ve started noticing the same faces, the same groups of people.
There’s the wise Asian man (so my friend calls him), who is always in line first and always has a tranquil smile on his face. He helped us out once when we were lost and confused during one preview movie.

There’s the obnoxious woman who can’t stand when people don’t queue correctly. She complains about everything including cutters. Evidently you’re only allowed to cut one person in line. Any more than that is wrong. Great way to justify a slightly immoral act…

There’s a group of old people that always talk about the premieres they attended and why didn’t you attend this movie because I got a pass to it and last night I was at this preview and it was really crowded and they didn’t give out free stuff… I tend to tune them out after a few minutes because they chatter amongst themselves. I always wonder, how do these people get to all these previews so early? Do they not have jobs?

Finally, we met a new one last night. The really annoying guy who told a friend’s fiance that he should move his crutches so that people could get by. Uh, sorry, but we purposely chose an aisle seat for the guy so that he could leave his damaged foot out in the aisle. But we apologized for inconveniencing people like him that so desperately want to get out and socialize on the stairs. Sorry. He also kept up a loud running commentary through the whole movie, gasped inappropriately when one of the characters turned out to be gay (instantly losing any and all respect I might have given him as another human being), and then began tapping my friend on the shoulder to dole out random movie facts during the course of the film. I might have let this last one go, except he also eavesdropped on several of our conversations and got excited when it sounded like we’d said something was free.  We won’t be sitting next to the guy again, if we can help it.

Anyway, most times I’m happy to be one in the group of people I see these movies with. Mostly, I like that they’re free.
So these are the ones I’ve seen with a brief review.

• Edge of Darkness – Okay action, okay premise. Mel Gibson is a decent actor, although he’s been out of the limelight for a while. This movie included two things that I predicted without realizing it, but the ending wrapped up unexpectedly and nicely.
• From Paris With Love - I normally don’t like Travolta or Rhys-Myers (I think he’s got a little of the crazy eye going on and it scares me), but I liked this film. On par with Crank, although Travolta carries it most of the way. Enjoyable.
• Dear John – Like I posted on Twitter, this movie is further proof that Channing Tatum should be seen and not heard. Not only is he only a passable “actor,” he was not helped by a weak script based off a Nicholas Sparks book. As an ultimate insult to this movie, I have no desire to  read this book.
• Valentine’s Day – Just saw this last night. A cute movie. Didn’t think the characters interacting was as natural as in other films. Sometimes a bit cliche and predictable. Liked the twist dealing with Bradley Cooper’s character. Did not like Taylor Swift.

So most of these have been okay, at least. The last one was not my style, but… Valentine’s Day IS coming up. And I got a free shirt out of it. I think people who actually like the holiday might like this one. Not a total waste of an evening.

I’ve started cooking a lot more, and I realized just now that I’m starting to measure my weekends by whether I cooked something successful or not.

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This is partially in effort to update more, but I was really irritated by LOST last night.

Time travel? Alternate universes/time lines? People dying but not really being dead? The smoke monster?

I just don’t get it. Part of me just wishes that I’d waited to watch the show until the very end of the series (only six seasons!) and then I could watch it all the way through. Just saying.

People often call me a nerd for liking video games so much. There’s also frequently that whole argument that my playing games is a waste of time and that I should devote myself to other wholesome activities.

I  disagree. I believe that games are part of the human experience. Just ask one of my English professors, who actually had a course on human beings and the influence/necessity of play, which is really what games are. I think they’re great as a form of escapism, which is what I’m really about.

And there are many that have been not only entertainment, but also as influence on the way my brain thinks and solves puzzles. I’ve been introduced to great music, and have been encouraged to imagine many things beyond what I might have been able to do alone. Or even though a book! Who says video games are a waste of time? Hah.

Anyway, I got the idea for this post from a friend who plays a lot of games and who had to write a paper about all the games he’s ever played, including make-believe games and physical games (four square, anyone?). I’ve left those out, because I was more interested in the video games part of it. So below is a fairly comprehensive list of all the video games I can remember playing along with some brief descriptions/commentary, starting from the earliest ones. I hope you enjoy it!
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