John Zeitler

So tonight was pretty good, aside from the fact that we didn’t get to finish our game of Power Grid. I would have loved to have shocked everyone by coming out ahead.

I’m exhausted, folks… Really, I’m shocked I managed to finish Mighty Switch Force. But with three games done for January I’m on track for the yearly goal, I think, as long as I keep up this pace. For now, I’m just going to go to bed and hope I have an easy trip home after work tomorrow.

Sorry, folks– long day already, and for the foreseeable future my days start at 4a again. I’ll likely be able to do the disaster write-up tomorrow on the bus. Not like I’ll have that much else to do, really…

I managed to get most of the game systems binned up for the trip to Kurokiiro Festival tonight, and also got the metal DDR pad into the car early (as I wasn’t sure if it would fit– fortunately it does). Overall I’m really looking forward to the festival.

Then again, it is 11:30p and I am gibberingly tired, so, yeah.

So I’ve been having some weirdness with my sleep cycle the past few weeks, and I’m almost 100% convinced it has more to do with the posture in which I sleep and not necessarily the surface on which I sleep. Granted, I could certainly stand to repurpose the ol’ futon for a reading couch in the bedroom, and putting in a proper bed is on my list of things to do; but all that will be for naught if, in fact, what’s causing my back pain is either overworking it, overheating myself, or the myriad ways I decide to contort myself at night. I’ve been trying a few things here and there over the past couple of nights, including a full-length body pillow (with a plain blue terrycloth cover– I mean, come on, I know I’m an otaku but there are limits), and I’ll be test-driving a possible bed later on this weekend. All this just so I can satisfy my curiosity and know if I’m right about the nature of my sleep as opposed to what nurtures it.

Tonight’s the last night before the move finally begins. It’s a little strange for me to think that, two months ago, I started the move project with almost nothing ready except for the vaguest hint of a plan. Now I’m less than four days away from having completed the whole shebang. It’s a little scary, yeah, but I’m sure it’ll turn out for the best. Now if I could just convince the butterflies in my stomach of this fact, I’ll be all set.

With that said, I’m going to have to go silent again for at least the duration of the move. I’ll continue to tweet as time passes and events warrant, but blog and forum posts are going to be a rarity until Monday at the very latest. Wish me luck, folks.

Today was simultaneously busy and relaxing. I knocked off two short story-mode clears this morning while waiting for a couple of phone calls, and handled a few minor little housekeeping things. Key among them, or at the very least key among them for our purposes, was finally getting around to modding my SNES to enable import games to be played without trouble. For those of you keeping score, this meant using the diagonal cutters to cut out two itty-bitty tabs on the machine. That’s it. The reason I did this was because I now own a copy of Seiken Densetsu 3 that I wanted to give a quick run through, with the ultimate result being that it works and I still have no idea what’s going on. But at least I’ll be able to snag a translated version somewhere and give that a play through without feeling guilty or violating my personal ethics. (This code of ethics is the same thing preventing me from really going through Mother 3, honestly, until I can grab a physical cartridge.)

On the recommendation of Kat and Andrew during the con, I’ve also started watching through Gakuen Alice. The short description of this series is “What if the Japanese had come up with the idea for X-Men, but decided not to play it in the slightest bit seriously?” Overall I’m really digging it, but I wish it would start coming to some semblance of a plot soon. It’s got some undercurrents that are showing through here and there but the characters aren’t strong enough after five episodes to really hold up that sort of minimalistic storytelling. Though I will admit that Hotaru’s “Idiot Gun” and “Idiot Cannon” are hilarious and I hope they’re not just one-episode gags.

Even though this year I spent the least amount of time at the convention out of any that I’ve attended, I still think it was a) worth the registration and b) a good time. I’m probably going to register next year as well, particularly because the location we’ve staked out makes travel between the con and the room a lot easier, and therefore ducking out for loot drops or quick breaks becomes a much more appealing option. I’ve also always come back from cons feeling exhausted but really, really happy. This year is no exception, on either front.

Catch you folks tomorrow.

Rough weekend, folks– just a ton of stuff going on. Not gonna be verbose or anything tonight, but soon I should be able to have something interesting to show off in terms of one of my side-projects.

It’s a universally known fact that if I decide I want to write up a long post on a current-event topic, the only time that I’ll have to write said post is long after it’s relevant or even timely. So I’m saving the Lost post for an upcoming, to-be-scheduled Essay Week and calling it a night.

I make no promises as to the content of a post for tomorrow, save that there will be one.