Po' Purry

I know I haven't posted in a while; a disappointment to 3 people. Been very busy at work and at home. Parenting is challenging, m-kay. If you just have one, well, OK, but having 2 adds that extra special challenge when all is not Camelot.

Got new glasses. Changed my 20/200 distance vision in my *good* eye to 20/60, which is great in that I can see stuff in the distance again and it's beautiful, but there are more and more pieces of vision missing, so it's a mixed bag. It shant be long before this last shred of practical vision is gone, and that is very challenging.

I discovered FaceBook and for the first week I did it, I had to turn it off at work, as it was distracting. I've settled in/down now, but hooking back up with people from childhood, grammar and high school again that I haven't seen in a couple decades is really neat. Many of my old friends look so different, and many are pulling the chrome-dome thing, which is fine, but as my last visual memory is in some cases an 8th grader, it has taken me aback at times to see that sun's reflection off the head.

In geek news, I haven't been blogging game sessions as I have had more important things to do. But here's a wrap-up as best I can remember. In the usual game group, Dave & I tied at Thebes. I won handily the follow-up game of Dominion, then Tim won the 2nd game of the same and I had my worst game of Dominion ever. Next week I won at Taj Mahal, Dave won Dominion, and I think myself or Tim won the 2nd of the same. At my friend Jim's house, I tought them Dominion, and my buddy Phil won the first game, but I won the second. Getting a win at Jim's house is frankly a good challenge, as the players who play there are pretty darn good players, though I do enjoy their company and tolerate the lack of social graces of one of them (not like my own gamiong group doesn't have one lacking in certain managerial skills at times [the Adam Sandler kind], so who am I to fault). Then Ruthie and I played Time's Up and Stone Age with Randy & Holly. Holly and I won Time's Up, a close game, and I won at Stone Age. I try to emphasize when I teach that game how important the cards are, really.

I am still enjoying my job, even though we are pretty busy. I get more enjoyment out of solving puzzles, albeit with data, to help other people do their jobs, then I have in a while. Working sans boss sans any real documentation on procedures I was never really trained on but kept asking for, well, sucked. I feel like we are out of the 'bailing water' mode now, and can begin to work as normal as we can. I have a new boss, and he seems pretty neat. After my old job of control-freak micromanagement and no trust from up top, this job is night/day different. And what do you know, I am far more productive here. Go figure. Still pretty busy, but coming to work has been very good for a while now, and I am thankful, for lack of a better word.

With the help of David, we now have the one TV in the house not DirecTV, digital. I was told the picture is much better. Not my TV. I am somewhat disappointed. Fox doesn't even come in much, and the local PBS rarely has a strong enough signal to not fail. Outside of football season and the goofballs on the American Idol tryouts, I don't watch much Fox, but I really do like various programs on WILL. Truth in Advertising, the spot that that TV is in gets a poor reception anyway, so I'll take some responsibility for the poor reception. However, when you got a poor signal with analog, you got some fuzz. With digital, it's warbled dropout that is unwatchable.

Megan turned 14. Scary, eh? Kids are doing well overall, as is Ruthie. We had fun the other day on a Family Night at Jupiters, a pizza place with a plethora of ticket-dispensing arcade games. I do enjoy Deal or No Deal, and one other silly fun game, but the rest are really for kids. There were a bunch of loud college kids there. Due to my sensitivity to loud noises, it began getting to me, but they did sound like they were having genuine fun being silly, so it made it more palatable. When they decided to leave, they gave David over 1000 tickets, which turned into silly prizes for David, and the rest of us. Thanks, guys!

Lost & Found

I have been eagerly anticipating the premiere of TV's "Lost" for the last day or two. In sum, it was simultaneously disappointing and fascinating, but I'll still give an pverall approval for the season premiere.

The points I did not necessarily enjoy I won't worry about. A couple things here and there, and a couple 'and why is that worth mentioning?' moments that I am fairly confident have little to do with the overall story arc.

I did think it neat that Locke had an early episode encounter with the Dharma guy.

Ben is obviously a weasel, but why do they *all* need to go back, even for nefarious reasons? Haven't figured that one out quite yet.

Faraday mentions Des is 'special'. Was he special before he tripped the failsafe or after?

I recognised the older lady near the end of the episode as the lady from Des's episode where she tells him that triggering the failsafe was the best thing he had ever done. Is that Faraday's mom after Des goes for the visit? And when Des makes up his mind that he must help our islanders, was that a past memory transplant, for lack of a better word, when he comes to the conviction he must help them? It appeared as if it was a dream from Penny's perspective, but Des thought it a memory. Weird and neat.

I did like the end of the episode where the older lady and Ben were conversing. I liked the old Trash-80-ish Dharma computer that had seeming plots on it. I will assume those are pendulum-ish variations on the island's current time position and that it wavers back and forth along the lines (that resemble an older vector graphics video game explosion from the 80s), and when it becomes "central" that is when the island can be accessed in real time sans fear of nose bleeds and dying from the bad side effects from time travel (as Des had to remedy himself from last season).

Overall, pretty good stuff. Cheech was kinda creepy to look at though. I have absolutely no room to talk about someone else's weight, but he was pudgy and older looking, and it bothered me for some reason. Was that a replacement Ana Lucia, or did they hire DUI Rodriguez back?

At least we now see what Lost really refers to, as in lost in time......