It's been a while, hasn't it?

I guess I might as well dust off this old heap of bits and maybe start posting again.

You might have noticed that the other blog on my profile is gone - it was a collaboration between a friend of mine and I, and it really wasn't working out. I wish her luck if she wants to continue with it, but AFAIC it's done.

So, what's next? How about Hamlet at the Guthrie? Or a little bit of kung fu fighting? Or a sniff of melange for your haderachical desires?

Don't f**k with the octopus

This video is worth installing Realplayer (or at least Real Alternative) for.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?

Jennifer Government: NationStates looks like an interesting game that I may just try to get into. It reminds me a little bit of Ender's Game, and the Locke/Demosthenes development with his siblings.

I think my boyfriend must be in on the conspiracy against my chocolate-fast. After a week out of town he arrives bearing gifts (which well he should), however the gifts consists of multiple specimens of two of my favorite chocolate bars which are hard to find in the US (sigh). At least they give me something more to look forward too this week.

Oh yeah - the featured ingredient in the Cook's Illustrated that was waiting for me in my mailbox? You guess it, baking chocolate...

I haven't really had a chance to do much research poker wise yet this week. I'm hoping to get some time to check out PokerStars (and decide what I want to do with my Empire account given the Party issues) sometime this week.

A week without chocolate: Second full day

Well, today actually went pretty well as far as choco-avoidance goes. My only temptation was the cookies during lunch: chocolate chip, double chocolate-macadamia, and (thankfully) oatmeal raisin. So, my cookie-lust was filled, though I really could have gone for one of those double chocolate deals. Nuts are good for me right?

Someone at work must read this blog (which, based on my tracksy stats, is really not very likely) because I got an invitation to this in my inbox today. It seems that my work is partially sponsoring this because haven't you heard, chocolate is good for you now. I'm totally going.

Today I tried out this anti-procrastination method. It seemed to work pretty well except for a couple of gotchas: 1.) It doesn't work well when I get interrupted (which seems to be about 10 timses a day, minimum) 2.) The tool I choose to do the timing isn't quite ideal. Workrave is a neat product for enforcing breaks for people fighting repetitive strain injuries, but it is a little draconian since its definition of "break" means get up and leave the machine (it actually locks your computer when you are supposed to be resting. In the 10+2 plan, I would have liked to spend my 2 minutes surfing....

I also learned a little more about the whole PartyPoker/Skins split which I am now going to start blaming for my lack of being on a winning streak at Empire. I'll try to delve a little deeper and post more tomorrow.

A week without chocolate...

In an attempt to prove to myself that I am stronger than my addictions, I've decided to go for a week without eating (or drinking!) any chocolate. I started yesterday at 8pm, and on this coming Sunday (10/23/2005) at 8pm, I'm going to commence making the chocolate lava thingies featured in this episode of Good Eats.

So far, I think I'm doing ok. The hardest part was that almost immediately after making the pledge yesterday evening, I ended up watching the above linked chocolate themed Good Eats episode - I honestly didn't know what it was about, the title was "Art of Darkness" which seems innocent enough (actually, it does seem a little sinister, but still!). I notice now that there are actually 3 different Art of Darkness episodes - hopefully I don't run into the other two this week...

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I did make a small slip today. One of my co-workers is attempting to divulge himself of his Girl Scout Cookie hoard and walked into my cube and promptly proceeded to push a box of these into my face. I only took one, and then ate it before I remembered my goal (sigh). I don't even LIKE Tagalongs...bah! Obviously, I'm going to need to be more diligent so that slips like that don't happen again.

007

is not blond!

Someway, some how, the Administration must be responsible for this.

As an aside, poker wise I seem to be flattish so far, but making money trivial amounts of money through rakeback and bonuses...not quite the pro-circuit yet, but give me time.

This weekend's project will be to install Poker Tracker and play around with it a little - I'll keep you posted.

Signs of the Impending Apocalypse: Volume 1

Welcome to SOTIA, my periodic foray into the reasons why I'm sure that the end times must be nigh upon us.

Today's entry: You thought that squirrels on crack were just a product of teenagers on crack?

Think again!

Actually, I'm pretty impress with the boys over at threebrain.com, last time I checked them out, all they had was Weeeeee! and Hypothermia, but it seems that they have expanded their repetoire (not that I'm brave enough to watch anything else on there). Hypothermia seems to have been remixed too - why? Because the end of the world is coming....of course!

That's all for tonight - being sick sucks. I wish they sold Neo Citran in this foresaken country...