I have a confession to make.  I am a video game addict.  Stop laughing!  It’s true.  I’m one of these people who has a hard time managing my life when I’ve got a cool game loaded in the computer.  My current “drug” of choice these past few weeks has been City of Heroes, by NCSoft.  You get to make your own superhero or supervillian, and lay the smack down on your enemies in this super-hero MMORPG.  I’ve played this one before, and I decided around my birthday to go ahead and pick up another copy off of ebay.  A few weeks later, here I am. 

Let me explain how serious this is.  I’m not the kind of person who can just put down the controller whenever I want to.  I don’t do console systems (Xbox, Playstation or Wii) because I’ll sit there for hours playing those games if I have the chance.  At work, I have all the solitaire games deleted from the computer, or else I’ll waste hours on those during the day.  It’s like Lays potato chips; I can’t have just one.

If you want to know how serious video game addictions can get, check out this site:  http://wowdetox.com   It’s basically submitted comments from people who are addicted to world of warcraft, and their friends.  I read this site a while back, and it made a grown man like me cry.  I won’t touch that game, but I’ll settle for games that are equally as addicting, just not as popular.  Oh well.  Pray for me…

I’ve been talking with tech support every other day to deal with the bug, and by the end of the conversation, whatever they suggest I do ends up screwing up the computer more.  They would tell me to run a program, which is supposed to fix a lot of problems, and it would make it worse.  Luckily, rebooting the system  couple of times would fix that.  Then they would tell me to uninstall X and install it back.  Now I would have a new problem, and my work wouldn’t show up.

So I checked with my local tech guru.  He gave me a program which should remove X effectively, so I tried it.  Didn’t work.  It removed most of the programs, but not all.  Of course it took me a day or two of uninstalling and reinstalling to figure out what exactly was going wrong. 

So I called the tech support that got me into this problem earlier, and they could have it fixed in an hour.  72 minutes later, they give me a list of things to do to fix my computer, and they asked me to tell them how it turned out.  It’s kinda scary when the first three things you’re told to do to fix a problem is uninstall… uninstall… uninstall.    So, I tried it, and in attempting to load things back on, I ran into new problems.  Now, there’s no way we can go online.

I’m beginning to think that we may need to backup our data, reformat the server, and start over from almost scratch.  That would be easier, though not as satisfying as a chainsaw.

Well, that’s true most of the time.  Sometimes, I cheer people from other countries.  I have a thing for the underdogs.  It’s the same way with pro-football.  If my favorite team isn’t playing, I’ll cheer for the team that everybody says is going to lose.  That’s just how I roll.

I must say, I love NBC’s almost ADHD coverage of the olympics.  You watch an olympic trial… you watch a commercial… and then you get to watch another event.  Not a lot of news stories or focuses on certain olympians are shown outside of the event which they play.  There’s no repeating news stories about Michael Phelps running over and over again.  It’s sports just the way I like it.

I must say, though, that the olympic sport I like to watch the least this year has been water polo.  Since I don’t have one of those fancy high-definition televisions, I can’t see the ball in the water.  It’s yellow and dark blue against a pool-blue background, AND it’s often underground.  The only way I can follow it is by watching what player is waving their hands.  That person probably has the ball.   Why can’t they use that technology that they used to make the puck visible when they would show hockey on TV a few years back?

I’m still waiting to watch my favorite events, the martial arts events.  Of course, they usually show those events during the times I can’t watch them.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The drum performance at the beginning of the opening ceremonies first blew me away.  They had 2008 drummers with drums that lit like an LED panel to show numbers and chinese patterns.  I don’t know if the flashing was electronically programmed or if the drums were merely touch-sensitive.  If programmed, then they were pretty cool, but if the drums were touch-sensitive, then I am totally impressed.

There was a comment made by one of the announcers during drum series that shook me a little.  He said that so many people found the 2008 drummers so intimidating, that the director of the opening ceremonies requested that all the drummers smile.  I will admit, it was a little intimidating, even with the guys smiling.  That got me thinking, one day in the future if China invades the United States with their 1 million+ troops, it won’t feel so oppressive and forboding as long as the soldiers smile while they’re marching across our land.  I feel better already.

The other idea that crossed my mind was how well all the actors worked together to create fluid movement during the opening ceremonies.  In America, we’re so focused on individual achievement, that we sometimes forget how amazing we can be if we work together.  But that’s just how we were brought up, I guess. 

Did anybody else watch the Beijing opening ceremonies of the Olympics?   What did you think?

I’ve been thinking for a few months about starting up a blog.  I would let my mind roll over stuff I would write; all the things I would like to share with the world.  I would brainstorm all these ideas.  I would get terribly excited about the whole prospect.

Then, I would lose track of my thoughs, and go down a familiar rabbit-trail.  I would imagine myself in the future as a powerful speaker, someone everybody clamors to listen to.  Everyone would want to know what I had to say.  I would be invited to college graduations to give speeches.  Then, when I was ready, I would call those kids to rise to their feet.  I would command them to march to Washington, carrying me on a conveniently placed bamboo throne with the long poles in the front and the back for handles.   We would march into Washington, and they would anoint me as their king, and would listen to the decrees that poured from my mouth.

If I let myself bask in this moment for a while, I become content with the fantasy.  Then I can go about my days, satisfied that the imaginary people in my head would let me take over the world, all without trying it out.

So, in order to combat this problem, I decided to go with a free service, wordpress.com .  People will have to look hard to find me here, and I can write about anything without hardly anybody caring.  It keeps me from getting a big head about my writing.  Anyway, if you have managed to find me, good for you.  Keep reading, and I promise you a good time (maybe without having to take over the world).

What’s weird about my birthday is that I’m the 5th person in my family born on August 5th.  My great-great-uncle Butch was the eldest, born August 5th, 1912.  The second was born 13 years later on August 5th, 1925.  The third was born 13 years after that, on August 5th, 1938.  The fourth was born 10 years later on August 5th, 1948.  Then, I was the 5th one, born in 1978.    I don’t remember the other family member’s names, since they lived far away.  But my mother kept those names in a book somewhere.

You would think with all those numbers, I would believe in numerology.  But, no, I don’t.  Granted, I believe in the cyclical nature of things, but nothing like those nut-jobs who sell you a book on how to do “new math” on your birthday date.  I also don’t believe in horoscopes, since 1) they’re so vague and 2) people who study them ask me, “Are you sure you’re a Leo?”

Let me get back to the whole birthday thing.  I’ve had enough ranting for a while.  Thanks for putting up with it.  We’ll consider that your birthday gift to me .  My mother has already set up something for my birthday this evening.  She won’t tell me what it is, but she explicitly told me to dress in a plain t-shirt, blue jean shorts, and sandals.  I’ll just have to find out what’s going on later tonight.  Today, I’ll just bask in being 30 for the first time in my life.

I guess 30 is the year I’m supposed to get serious with my life.  Who knows?  I’ll get around to it later, though.  Happy birthday to me!

1. You are researching sites for the “One-post wonders of weblogs” page,
2. You are trying to collect information about me for my employment purposes,
3. You have fallen madly in love with me and have been savoring every bit of written text I have published,
4. You’re a friend who has been badgered into coming to this site, or
5. You’re just a random visitor.

In those cases, my responses would be:

5. Thank you for visiting,

4. Thanks, I owe you one,

3. If you are female, feel free to send me a message with your e-mail address,

2. Please disregard the post about the llamas, and

1. Please, Ghost of Christmas Future, don’t let this future come to pass!

What do you expect to get out of this site?  Well, I’m a multi-faceted individual.  One day you may get my christian testimony.  The next day you may get a good recipe, or a funny story from my past.  You might even learn something cool.  I’m a tinkerer, a reader, and a madcap individual, among other things. 

One thing you won’t get from me is every day posting.  I’ve got to live the life I blog about, don’t I?  I’ll start out posting every other day, and we’ll see how that works.

Anyway, If you’re new here, I’m glad you’ve arrived.  Just kick back and relax.  Just don’t break the office chair like I would.