John Zeitler

I was sort of looking forward to going somewhere over the long weekend, but I found out this afternoon that there may be a need for me to stay close by in case of work heating up. Naturally there’s no way of knowing for certain beforehand, and it’s my luck that if I do decide to entangle myself by going off the grid for a while, the odds of that call coming shoot up to about 90%. So naturally things kind of look grim for the 4th.

At least I’ll make the most productive use of my time possible by trying very hard to finish up the chapter of Frangible Time that’s set to start on the 9th…

I just played a game that featured a final boss named “Tyrannosatan”. As in, the terrible thunder lizard which is also The Prince of Darkness and Father of Lies, Lord of the Pit, Anathema To All Holiness.

Deathsmiles is just that kind of game.

At 9:58p, I defeated Tyrannosatan, final boss of Deathsmiles for the Xbox 360 (Arcade Mode, continues used, default difficulty). This is the thirteenth game cleared in 2010. Thirty-seven games remain for the 50/2010 challenge.

I’m getting back into the whole writing regularly thing, which is important, but it’s also understandably hard on my wrists. I alleviate this somewhat with a wrist brace and ergonomic keyboard whenever possible, but there are limits to this. Anyway, with any luck I’m about 50% of the way through the current chapter, and if I keep this pace going through the week I should be able to wrap it all up and start work on the next one by the end of the long weekend, in between the zillion other projects I’m working on.

What I really need to do now, I guess, is focus.

I’ve had a few days to go over the iPhone 4′s features and such, and I feel reasonably confident in giving a review of the device.

The short version is that I feel this is the best smartphone on the market right now.

( Okay, let me start with the things that I dislike about it…. » )

Waking up at 6a on a Saturday is not a pleasant feeling, especially if you went to bed at 1a.

Waking up three hours later to realize that, in that time, the ceiling tiles in your bathroom have absorbed sufficient water to produce a very large and noticeable puddle is an even less pleasant feeling.

More than all of that, though, once I had everything taken care of, and I’d showered and made it in to do some writing, realizing that I had left my wrist brace at home and therefore couldn’t do as much writing as I’d wanted makes me just want to give up, call this a lost day, and go home to play video games.

Late post, and for that I apologize. However this weekend is going to be full of words deferred as I work to finish up the next chapter of Frangible Time and document the rather humiliating defeats I just suffered tonight at the tables of war. Once the campaign is over I’ll collect the stories and see about putting them up as a coherent tale for you folks.

Ciao, boys and girls.

So I’m off to bed early, in the midst of a rainstorm that is already lulling me to sleep. I saw that Games Workshop released condensed, rules-only versions of two codexes I’d been thinking about picking up– okay, specifically the Witch Hunters codex– but I already play two Imperial armies, and Chaos Space Marines don’t catch my attention all that well. I figure by the time I get around to starting the fourth faction, the Tau will have got their updated book; they already have an all-plastic path available so it’s just a matter of the rules update. We shall see.

So the plan is that, since I stayed up excessively late tonight, I’ve built up a sleep deficit sufficient to get me to go to sleep pretty much as soon as I get home tomorrow, so I can get up early on Thursday and get done what needs to get done.

Yeah, sounds silly, but it might just work, so…