But I like games!

I reckon it was the traumatic childhood, or for that matter the traumatic adulthood. Either way, it seems I have a natural affinity for playing games. Must be human, huh? Nope, can't say that it is a human condition, as I know at least one other human who doesn't have a natural affinity for playing games (name withheld to protect the not so innocent). It really doesn't matter the type of game, although I do have to admit that I tend to avoid the more physical ones, as I am not so much into pain as I used to be. Nope, anymore I like the ones I can play on my computer, or my newest gift, the Xbox. Of course, it helps to know a little bit about the game before you attempt to play it.

See, before I knew I was getting the Xbox, I swapped for a computer game on SwapSimple. To their credit, my children attempted to talk me out of it, not so much because they were worried about the tension it would cause on the homefront, but because they were sure that the only way to play it was online, via a subscription service. No way, I argued.

Way.

So, now I get to attempt to relist it for swap, or sell it via eBay and hope to get my investment in shipping costs back. In the future, I will stick with the Xbox games I have. Ought to last me a good month, the way I figure.

I'm not a librarian

Books. A great many books have I. Various topics, various genres, various ages. Most are on the shelf in something that loosely qualifies as a system, if "whatever I can fit there" is a system. My apologies, Mr. Dewey, but your hard work never really stuck, even though I worked in a Media Center for a bit. Sadly, some of the books are in boxes, in the attic, most likely providing an abundant harvest for the silverfish (or firebrats, to be more accurate). I have a near entire set of some pulp fiction series, a vast assortment of thrillers from the likes of King, Coyne, Saul, Koontz, and others. I have some classics. I have some old books in languages that I never could read, or could read but forgot what the words meant. Yes, a great many books.

Recently, I cluttered things up a bit more by bringing home a box of books from Mom's storage unit. I've listed some on SwapSimple, will put others on half.com, and might give a go at selling the older ones on eBay. One thing I do know is I probably won't do is read any of them. I can't remember the last non-technical book I read. Heck, I can't remember the last magazine I read in full, and there is a stack of newspapers that attest to my lack of reading in that realm. I suppose that one of these days…

Hmm. I think I've said this many times before. Guess I'd better get to reading something or getting rid of something. Maybe I will start with the Owner's guide to the Xbox game I just received.

Shameless self promo

So, I'm driving home this AM, and on the local radio station I nearly always have on the dial (check out www.104star.com), they started discussing packrats. Sound familiar? I jumped out, ran to the phone, sat on hold a bit, and then talked with the morning air personalities about my perspective on the issue. I even promoted the project. It was fun to listen to our conversation when they played it back, but it occurred to me that now I would definitely need to get busy.

So much for my AM nap, eh?

But wait, there's more!

Between house-sitting and sitting in Doctor's offices, I've almost forgotten lately what my house looks like. Oh, that's right, it's cluttered. And today we've someone coming over in an attempt to sell us new windows, at least in their mind. We're in it just for the estimates. Before the sales effort arrives, however, I have been mandated to make things look.... less cluttered?

Furry clutter

Having just cleaned the litter boxes for today, it occurred to me that some of my clutter will never leave, yet I'd better work harder to get it organized. The way I figure it, it was either the new purring addition to the family, or it was the son searching for something, but whatever the cause, I noticed a few things out of place. Out of place in the sense of scattered about. Granted, the fact that my med renewal managed to get delayed, so the order I placed before my visit to Chicago which I expected to be here when I got back home wasn't here, which means I've been out of the "keep an even keel" pills for a few days and have found myself obsessing on the smallest of things, like a piece of paper in a place it wasn't before or a piece of technoclutter on a pile that it wasn't before, or moving the three month's worth of unread newspapers from the couch to the floor to the couch to the floor, or spending an extra long amount of time waiting to get the perfect head shot with my sniper rifle in Halo, or typing excruciatingly long sentences before I get to the end of them. You get the idea.

Where was I? Oh, that's right, the new motivation. Her name is Mickey, she's a tortie, she's loud and loving, and she is really into exploring her new domain. Sadly, there a few places she goes that even the other two cats know to ignore. Thus, I suspect I will keep finding things where they weren't and missing things where they ought to be. I can't wait to see what she does when I open up the guest room to begin the final stages of cleaning it up...

Tilting to one side

For years I've chuckled about the mess the English language can create, given that a single word can take on so many meanings. I'm not the only one either, and some have made a decent living off the phenomenon. My experience with non-English languages is limited, so I don't know that it is all that unique to my native tongue, but I suspect that there is less confusion with languages where one word means one thing and not five other things. What is really fun is to find those instances where one meaning of a word makes the other meaning or meanings near comical, but at the same time very fitting.

For example, when I follow the strong urgings of the Mrs. to take pen to paper and create a series of tasks to be accomplished, and compare it to her series of tasks to be accomplished, the image of knights jousting is not the first thing that comes to mind, but there does seem to be a subtle significance to that image. A joust, after all, was a competition where the terminal objective was to knock someone off their high horse, so to speak. To me, calling the area where the joust occurred a list gives a new feel to creating a series of tasks that need to be completed. Ultimately someone wins and someone loses. Ultimately some task is knocked out and some task is left sitting. Problem is when too few are knocked out and too many are left sitting. Worse, when the group of knights from the next marsh over show up and challenge those left sitting, the place gets a little crowded. You know the feeling. Cross off one task and five others replace it. Yep, 'list' seems to be the right word.

Try this image on for size. Have so many knights around who want to challenge, and then load them up on a boat, and build the battle arena on the port side of the boat, thus giving a new perspective to the meaning of lists, especially when the starboard side of the boat is barely skimming the surface of the water from all the weight on the port side. Too much tilting to one side can cause a serious problem, even sink the boat, a catastrophic event from any perspective. Aye, mate, it be a shame to have the boat list from the lists. Thus we have my view that lists are bad things. Very, very bad. After all, I don't want my boat to sink, or the project for that matter.

Ah, the subtle psychological twists are endless, aren't they?

Home is where the clutter is

OK, so it has been a few days since I last posted anything, but I have a legitimate excuse. The Mrs. and I were exercising the parental option of visiting the adult children. Given that the second born lives far enough away to qualify for the extended visit as opposed to the short visit, it might be more accurate to say that we went to live with her and hubby for a while. Being away from the home means nothing is done on the project, but coming back home is a strong reminder that there is much work to do before it can be called a success. Since we don't have firm traveling plans for the rest of the summer, let alone the year, I reckon I have little barrier to getting most of that work done. I might even see fit to post more frequently.