Back from the Dead

"Your friend here is only mostly dead..." - Miracle Max, The Princess Bride

That was me and Ysabel all last week. The flu took us down hard. I'm happy to say that we are "mostly" recovered now. I'm back at work and should be ok to get back to my rapier drills and other happy activities at home tonight. One benefit of being sick was getting caught up on my reading. I still have a stack of 4 or 5 paperbacks on the "to read" pile, but it's less than it was. Over the weekend, once we were well enough to be interested in things other than sleeping and staring at the tv, we actually played some Magic the Gathering and I got to resume my game of Neverwinter Nights 2. I'd put it aside several months ago due to being too damn busy to keep up with it. Now, however, my Rogue (3)/Wizard (5)/Arcane Trickster (6) is kicking butt and taking names. He's now a Captain in service to Neverwinter and has been given his very own fortress to maintain. For those unfamiliar with the game, it's a computer game based on the Forgotten Realms setting from Dungeons and Dragons. Geek? Me? Hell, yeah!! Unfortunately, I was only well enough to play it for a couple of days. Prior to that, I was doing good to be a couch slug. Not that reading or staring mindlessly at the tv is all bad, but after a couple days they start to lose their appeal. I hate being sick. Of course, when I came into work this morning I found out that one of my co-workers has the Chicken Pox. I've never had the Pox, so knowing my (bad) luck, that will be the next adventure in store for me. What a joy! <---- sarcasm, in case you missed it.

Down with the Sickness

Ysabel and I both have the flu. It majorly sucks. That's about all I have the energy to type at the moment.

Wrath of... Thor?

Thor, Zeus, Tlaloc, Seth, Haokah, Mother Nature, Jehovah or whoever you blame when the weather runs amok came to visit us Tuesday night. By "visit" I mean "went on a ramage of mindless destruction", of course. We had to drive through the edges of the storm cell that spawned killer tornados in our town and others on our way home from rapier practice. Not fun. Then when we got home, we spent a tense night listening for the tornado siren at the high school a few blocks from us. Everytime it would go off, we wondered if we were next on the hit list. Fortunately, the worst of it missed us by a few miles. Others were not so lucky. Nature's fury is no laughing matter and sometimes all we can do is respect it's destructive power, rebuild and move on. I'm grateful to the above list of Deities that we were spared the horror that was visited on some of our neighbors that night. Our house and, more importantly, our fragile bodies are still intact. My deepest condolences to those who can not say the same and to their families.

Paging George Orwell

Mr. Orwell, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Everything you say will be recorded. Period!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/fbi.biometrics/index.html

http://www.news.com/Federal-buildings-become-Real-ID-zones/2009-1028_3-6229133.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Chronological Complications

Time. It is a precious commodity that we never have enough of. It is a harsh taskmistress. It is unrelenting in its mindless advance. Like sands through an hourglass, etc., etc. Time has been most uncooperative for me lately. Hence the sparse amount of posts that have been appearing here. Hopefully that will change in the near future, but in the meantime, let me leave you with a quote from the late, great Douglas Adams.

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."