Excessive

Well hello there nobody! Yes, I've realized that due to my complete lack of writing over the last… oh, couple years, there isn't really anyone left reading anything I write, however, I'd like to believe it's a mixture of growing up, losing friends and changing interests that have lead me away from writing, but I know deep down I'm a writer, and I'll always be.

I keep myself busy as ever, often, if not always sacrificing sleep to fit in time for games, TV, movies or sometimes I just resist sleep just to be awake and delay the unavoidable. I've been working Monday to Friday, with weekends off, for about the last month, and not only is that creating loving, comfortable, warm, fuzzy routine, I feel because of this, it's creating a stability and predictability that I very much appreciate, not only at home, but the routine and predictability at work is helping me hate my job less and making me feel better about what I do. I'd describe it in detail but I'm sure that wouldn't be the most exciting reading in the world.

Naturally due to my work schedule, I've been enjoying Saturday and Sunday's off. I like the fact that, at least for now, I can plan my days off ahead of time and have something to look forward to. Mainly my weekends consist of junk food, and catching up on games.

Lately I've been attempting to save money - in general - in all areas. Not really because I "need" to but because I feel some of my spending is a bit higher in areas then it needs to be. I've been trying to focus on food costs but it's harder than it seems. To compensate for less spending, I've been trying to use up things from the freezer, and also come up with creative ways to make interesting, cheap meals. It's only been a bit less than a month since I've made an effort to reduce spending, so it's difficult to tell if it's making a difference in the bigger picture.

As always I've been playing games whenever I can. There are two games I pretty much switch between at the moment, but there are a few games I picked up recently that I've been meaning to put some time into but the previously mentioned but unmade games draw me away. Virtua Tennis 2009, Halo Wars, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Guitar Hero World Tour. Those are games I've really meant to sit down and play these but… Beatles Rock Band and World of Warcraft keep me so occupied, I just never find time.

Beatles: Rock Band is so beyond expectation, it's kept being fun day after day. I just keep going back, replaying songs, trying to improve my scores. I've been enjoying the drums the most, but that's not taking anything away from guitar or bass. I'm not much of a singer, but if there were ever songs that would make me sing, it would be Beatles songs. The game really contains an indescribable magical quality; it keeps pulling me in unlike most other games.

Near the end of May, I quit World of Warcraft cold turkey when my guild fell apart, mainly due to raid attendance. I went from spending all available waking hours playing WoW to cancelling my subscription. At the time I stopped playing, my main character was the number one ranked player on the server. During my time away from the game, I got back into console games, watching shows on TV and renting movies to watch and I felt a lot more free not living under the restrictions of a raid schedule. Months later a friend and co-worker expressed interest in trying World of Warcraft, and for some reason I said I'd refer him and show him the ropes. We played together a bit and after work as a way to relax, I'd play a lower level character and it really reminded me how comforting and it is to just sit down and play for a bit. So I've been playing again but only casually, as some would put it. I don't raid or anything and I don't play my 80's, just lower level tons, sometimes with Kyle, and sometimes with Michelle.

Just this passed weekend, I went shopping with my Mom to Futureshop and I picked up a few toys for myself. I grabbed a copy of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard upgrade. Installation was fast and super easy, and the upgrades, at least so far, are enjoyable. The most noticeable are a cleaner, more refined user interface, it's faster, and fixes a few application issues. It was only $30, so I consider it well worth it.

I also picked up a 120gb Xbox 360 hard drive, which came with a transfer cable to transfer all my data from my old HD, so I did just that, and now I've got tons of free space for demos, digital distributed full games, arcade games, DLC, renting movies and more. My original hard drive (a 20gb) was completely full, and I had been forced to delete things whenever I had something new to download, so now I don't have to worry about it, and you'd be surprised how much that means to me.

I also got a new mouse, as my Logitech mouse's right click was malfunctioning and causing me distress, so I grabbed a Microsoft wireless Explorer (after man-handling all the display mice). I decided to go with a new brand because I've had three or four Logitech mice in the last two or three years, and they always break the same way, so I'm pretty unhappy with that. So far I'm very, very pleased with the new mouse, as it feels great in the hand, has a rechargeable battery and is very responsive.

The largest purchase I made while out that day would have to be the Rogers HDPVR I picked up, which lets me record shows and watch them at a later time, so I'm not confined by the TV schedule. For example, House is on at 8pm, and that's way to early for me to sit down and watch a show, so I can record it and watch it at 9pm, or 10pm, or just whenever. I also ordered the movie's package from Rogers, since now that I can record TV, being able to record any movie anytime is awesome, so I can record a few, keep them on there until I'm in the mood for a movie and then delete it afterward. We get TMN HD, MPIX HD, the on demand channels, and HBO Canada now. As an added bonus to buying the PVR, it can be hooked up to the theatre system using HDMI, which compared to the previous HD box, has much improved sound. The surround sound is really nice, even just on regular TV.

Well, I could go on, but I feel like I should bring this to an end. I actually wrote the majority of this out on paper believe it or not, because I wanted to watch a movie and this was the only way I could write and watch it at the same time. I had quite a few things I wanted to touch on when I wrote my outline for what I was going to write, but I'm just not feeling it at the moment. Thanks for reading, maybe more coming soon.

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