Life

Time sink: where did my Christmas break go?

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One of the things I got for Christmas was Neverwinter Nights, which I’d been eyeing for a while so that I could play online with a buddy of mine up in Moscow. Anyways, I started playing on the day after Christmas and pretty much played all week (fortunately the Lab was closed so my life, while shut down for the week, didn’t get in the way of work).

I created a half-elf monk and played the standard campaign. It was pretty damn fun. I finished the game just last week, having defeated the big evil lizard queen. The story, while not overly deep, was still engaging, especially the betrayal of Aribeth (in the picture). The game play was nice, though it did require a mouse (just playing with the touch pad on my laptop would have been hard).

But, it was several days of just doing that, which is what I feared and the reason I haven’t bought a game machine. I’ve gotten this game out of my system for now, but when I get online with Bob, it might start up again. We’ll see.

Science

Battlestar Galactica

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My wife, Lisa, had heard about Battlestar Galactica from some friends and was intrigued. So, she rented the first season or two from NetFlix and started getting into it. Eventually, she got me to watch too.

Now, normally, I’m not a SciFi fan. I tend to like fantasy better. Science people seem to come in two camps: those that like SciFi because of its basis on science and those that hate it because of the liberties and non-sensical science that are often included. I fall in the second camp. I don’t mind fantasy because the rules are just made up and don’t pretend to be based on anything real. But, SciFi has the pretext of being based on science so I have a problem with Star Trek when everything seems to be solved by a “tachyon field.”

BG is different. It is SciFi and some things are obviously pushing things (the jumping of the ships, the fact that it is so hard to tell Cylons apart from humans when they have to be based on different chemistry, etc). But, it is more of a political drama with the SciFi as a vehicle. And, I have to admit, it is really good. I’m completely captivated as well. We are eagerly awaiting the start of the second half of season three.

I highly recommend the series to anyone who just likes a good story.

Life

Snow, snow, snow!

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We’ve had a lot of snow over the last month. It’s been amazing! We had maybe 8 inches the week before Christmas and then the week after we had pushing 2 feet! The photo is of our house with the farolitos we put on the roof completely buried in snow. The glow from the snow is the farolitos underneath! The roads have been treacherous and a lot of schools and work places have been closed for a few days at various times. We were pretty much snowed in the week of Christmas. But, it’s been cool. The snow was only so bad that they closed the Lab one day.

Even today we got a bit of snow, maybe 1 inch. Time do to some more shoveling!

Sports

Blasphemy finishes in Second Place

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Well, the NFL-Idaho season ended about 2 weeks ago and I ended up in second place. Juggernuts just kept rolling and my team kept underperforming at the end of the year (or were they overperforming earlier?). At least the trading of Brees didn’t make any difference as, down the stretch, Vince Young played as well as Brees did.
I still have a good team going into next year, so I have a good shot at the championship next year. But, it’s again “Wait til next year.”

Now, it’s playoff time. We have a playoff in our league, but it isn’t as exciting, to me, as the regular season. The NFL playoffs, though, are going well for me so far. I like Indy and Seattle, who made it past their first round games and Indy beat the Ravens to get to the championship game. And I like San Diego too. No teams I really hate (except New England and maybe Chicago…)

Sports

My Championship for a 4th Round Pick?

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There are only two weeks left in our Fantasy Football season, counting this week.  Last week was the last chance to trade players.  Each year we get to hold some players for the next year while the rest we put back into the pool for next year’s draft.  I had both Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, the two top-scoring QBs in our league.  What luck!  Brees has been hotter than hell, second to only LT in points.  So, not wanting to just give him to the pool and gaining nothing for him (Peyton, for better or worse, is my keeper), I decided to trade Brees away for a 4th round pick next year.  The following day, he has his best game of the season, lighting up the Dallas D for something like 5 TDs and over 300 yards.  Ugh!  What’s worse is that I had a fairly comfortable lead over the second-place Juggernaut for first place in the league championship.  My lead is now razor thin and if Juggernaut out performs me either of the two weeks coming up, my shot for the championship might be over.

I may have gotten too greedy, thinking I absolutely needed something for Brees (something beyond the league championship).  I may have learned a valuable lesson this year.  I still have a shot at winning, but the way my other “stars” are playing (i.e. Shaun Alexander), I may not get there.

All for want of a 4th Round Pick.

Blah, blah, blah… I've got the blahs.