Excessive

Today was a good day, I mean, I was pretty busy, and things kind of went by in a blur, it was over before I knew it, like... I literally most forget what it was like to eat dinner because my mind was so wrapped up around the preparation and reception. On top of my Mom's birthday dinner, it was also the release day of Diablo 3, a game that I may not have talked about much up until now, but it's a pretty big deal, and I'll get into why.

I had school today from 8am to 12pm, three hours of ASP and an hour of Java. ASP is a weird mixture of boring and fun, because the first hour of the class is basically free time to work on the last class's assignment, the professor is available at the front of the room if you need help, and you just work for that first hour. The thing is, I get the assignment done the same day it's assigned, so I never have anything to do for that first hour, and I don't really have any games installed on my laptop, so that leads to some really boring time. This morning I just helped my friends with some programming and that was about it. After the first hour, we walked through the new concepts and assignment, and for the last hour, we had time to work on our assignment, which both Mathew and I completed promptly.

Java afterward is always really boring, the professor means well but he takes forever to discuss even the most basic concepts, and just explains every little detail. It tends to drone on and I get sleepy and it's hard to pay attention and/or not claw my eyes out.

At 12pm, Calen drove me home and I immediately started working on dinner. From around 12:30pm until 4:30pm, I pretty much didn't stop. I wouldn't say it was stressful, but it certainly had my mind racing, and I kept worrying that I had forgotten something. My Mom arrived around 4:45pm and my Sister and Christ arrived shortly after, about 5:00pm and we had dinner at 5:30pm.

For dinner I made chicken breasts stuffed with tomato and mozzerrella, served with a white wine cream and basil sauce, topped with diced tomato, shallot and fresh basil. This was accompanied by mashed potatoes with chopped fresh chives and steamed asparagus, green beans and baby carrots, tossed in olive oil. I put some fresh bread, and garlic bread on the table, and a few pickles (mostly for Lindy and I). Everyone enjoyed the main course... I think, I mean, that was the feeling I got. I know Bekki loved it for sure, because it was the same meal I made when she had told me it was the best thing I'd ever cooked. My Mom liked it, or at least didn't complain, and everyone else ate it. What was most important to me was that my Mom liked it, enjoyed it.. I know it's not what she usually eats, but I thought it was something she'd really like because of the tomatoes, since she loves them as much as I do. It was weird because I was done dinner and didn't even remember eating it, what it tasted like or what the texture was like, or if it smelled good. I regret that, but what could I do. I was so worried that I had forgotten something, or that no one would like it, that I couldn't focus on actually enjoying it myself. I just kept thinking... the potatoes could use a pinch more salt, I wonder if anyone would notice, or the vegetables could've used more seasoning and a bit more oil... Yeah, I'm weird. Anyway, everyone said they liked dinner, so that made me happy enough.

Dessert was another story - well, don't get me wrong, the mocha creme caramel I made tasted pretty damn good, both the custard and the ganache tasted good, but the texture was off, and the presentation was beyond terrible. So I guess my weakness when I cook these creme caramels is that I'm always paranoid that they aren't cooked enough - when I check them they seem too.. wobbly, like they aren't set at all, so I put them in longer, and I guess this time I just left them in too long, because the bottom of the custard stuck to the caramel lining of the ramekin and didn't pop out, instead kind of broke in half, leaving this pile of shit that just looked so fucking bad. I tried too before giving up and served the rest in the ramekin, to be scooped out with a spoon. It was really embarrassing, like I wanted to just hide because I just felt so... embarrassed to the core.

I got my Mom a 16gb keychain usb drive for her birthday because she wanted a way to backup her documents and pictures, and intended to buy a $150 external hard drive and that's just overkill, so I figured this was a good gift. I think she liked it, so that's good, and I lent her another book, the Rachel Dratch biography.

Everyone left around 7:00pm or so, and Bekki amazingly did the dishes (in my defense, I did do the dishes probably four times during the four hours I was prepping in the kitchen), and I went and sat down and played Diablo 3 for an hour or so. Yes, Diablo 3 came out today at midnight, and I installed it in the morning before leaving for school, but couldn't really play it until after dinner.

For those of you who may not know the history, Diablo 2 was a game I have probably played more than any other game (except maybe StarCraft or World of Warcraft). For the most part, it was a game I played almost daily with Ben, creating countless characters and knowing everything there is to know about the game. It was a pretty important aspect of my life, teenage years I suppose, as it kept me close to Ben and was just an amazing experience to continually play the game. Anyway, years went on and the game got older, and new games came along, and Blizzard (yes, Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft and StarCraft make Diablo) took their sweet ass time making a new entry in the series, so it kind of got forgotten, kind of regarded as one of those older classics, but not really relevant any more. As I was super into WoW for a long time, when news came out that they were making Diablo 3, I wasn't too exciting, because truth be told, World of Warcraft was basically a spiritual sequel to Diablo, as it uses a lot of the same systems, has the random loot, quests, and all that jazz, so Diablo 3 seemed like a step backward, but.. as I outgrew WoW, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. I didn't really follow the news or anything about the game, but at the same time I didn't have much excitement, only because my laptop at the time would've exploded if I tried to play a game for any long period of time. As I decided to build a gaming desktop, and get a new laptop, my excitement immediately grew, and a couple weeks later (today) the game came out. It had just worked out that I had bought a World of Warcraft annual pass... you basically just pay for a years subscription at once for a discount, and a bonus for buying it, you get Diablo 3 for free, so I've technically owned Diablo 3 for months and months, so I just had to download the installer and I was ready to go this morning.

Anyway... that was a long story, and the point is... Diablo 2 was a very important game, and this has a similar flavor so far, and I'm really excited to play. I can't wait to get home from school tomorrow, finish my homework and chores and just dig into the game some more.

I've got to go to bed very soon, maybe have a snack first, and then wake up at 6am and head to school. Today was a pretty good day, and it was nice to see the family. Happy Birthday Mom.

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