Friday and game update.

Well, I didn't have the best day on Friday. I got out the door for work later than I would have liked. I made it to work on time, but I had trouble with my new braces. On Thursday, I had my first adjustment of them, but the end of the wire on top started poking me in my cheek on Friday morning. The pain drove me to call my orthodontist and set up an emergency appointment to get the wire trimmed. I told my team leader about it, then left for lunch early. I got the wires trimmed (they cut the other ends to be safe), but I didn't get back to work until almost 90 minutes after I left. Consequently, I had to eat lunch while I worked at my desk. On the bright side, I didn't end up staying very late to get end of the year stuff done, and the extra time at work balanced out the extra time I had to take at lunch.

Friday night, I played more of "Kingdom Hearts II." Last weekend, I had finished the Land of Dragons (from Mulan). Last night, I cleared the Star Dust (?) Sweep Gummi ship mission in record time. Afterwards, I (as Sora) paid a visit to the Beast's Castle (from Disney's Beauty and the Beast). I fought a lot of Heartless, and some strange evil statues. What was really cool was teaming up with the Beast and fighting using the "Twin Howl" joint attack against some of the tougher Heartless creatures. I'm still getting the hang of using the "Reaction" command, but at least I beat these guys on the first try. Teaming up with Disney characters to take out evil monsters is pretty cool. After that, I found myself on a trip back to Hollow (or Hallow?) Bastion. The Heartless were harassing Merlin, but we drove them off. There was some book there for Winnie the Pooh. Sora could go into the book and talk with Pooh. The Heartless tried to steal the book, but we (Donald, Goofy, and I) thwarted them, only to discover they had stolen pages from the book. Also, Merlin gave me the Summons for Chicken Little. I haven't seen the movie he's from yet, but it will be interesting to use this in the future....

Christmas and updates.

Well, I have made more progress with "Kingdom Hearts 2": I faced down some Nobodies with Leon's help in Hollow Bastion. After that, I got the "Fire" spell. I did the asteroid sweep "Gummi ship" mission. That was challenging, but I survived. I wound up in the Land of Dragons, where I met Mulan before she joined the Chinese army disguised as a man named Ping. We teamed up, fighting Heartless in various places. Our final battle pitted us against the Hun's leader (Shan Yu?), but we triumphed. I went back to Bastion and did some upgrades and modifications with my team's gear.

Another game I played recently was "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance." Harry and I managed to defeat Blackheart, Mephisto (he took a couple of tries to beat), and an evil echo of Jean Gray in Mephisto's Realm. We moved on to Asgard, opening the Bifrost Bridge and defeating the Wrecking Crew. We also got found a few cheat codes and used them to get the "money" we needed to upgrade our characters' powers and health (particularly Thor and Spider-Man).

Christmas was pretty good. We (most of my family and I) went to my grandma's house and spent time with my mom's relatives. I also talked with Clark on the phone a few times. Unlike a few years ago, I didn't get sick and miss the opening of the presents. I ate a fair amount of meat and a lot of M&M's.

Surprises and my new game.

Well, this past weekend was one of surprises for me. On Friday, I got a summons for jury duty in the mail. I have to fill out this form and mail it back in before the end of the first week of January. The trial is supposed to take place in February. I'm hoping that I don't end up on the jury, even though I would get paid for my time. I guess I just don't want to dress up even more than usual and sit in a courtroom for who knows how long. I hate to shake up my daily routine....

A more pleasant pair of surprises came on Saturday. My friend Harry and I had planned to see Eragon (both of us had read the book already), but we weren't sure when we would get to see it. Harry's parents were going to be leaving town on Saturday, and he thought we would end up seeing the movie on Sunday afternoon since he would be taking them to the airport. However, after he and Liz finished that, they found they did have time on Saturday to see the movie. They called me up Saturday evening and offered to take me with them. I accepted (of course), and we saw the movie. We enjoyed the movie, but Harry and I both noticed that they cut a lot of stuff from the book out and a switched some stuff around. They also changed some of the battles (including the climatic final confrontation between Eragon and the Shade) and some of the settings from the book. The other surprise was that Liz wanted Harry and I to play this racing game in the mini-arcade in the theater complex. She got change, and Harry and I sat down. The machines were linked, and we each had our own controls, seat, and screen while we raced. I picked the same muscle-car (not sure what the name of it was, but it was silver/gray and looked really cool to me) in our three races, and Harry tried a few different cars. We didn't complete our first race, but Harry won (not first place overall but he got across the finish line before me) the second race, and I won the third race.

I started playing my new game ("Kingdom Hearts II") last Wednesday. I was impressed by the graphics, as well as the sound quality of the characters. I made it through the first few "days" on Wednesday night, stopping at a door on a mysterious floating platform. On Friday night, I made it through a few more days. On Saturday, I finished playing as Roxas (the character you start the game as) and began playing as Sora with Donald and Goofy as my companions. Tonight, I left Twilight Town and checked out the Tower (where you meet Yen Sid, a wizard), then moved on to Hollow Bastion. I stopped after acquiring the blizzard spell from Merlin (another wizard). So far, it is proving to be an interesting and challenging game.....

Busy weekend.

Thus far, it has been a busy weekend for me. Last night, I did some vacuuming, ironed some shirts, did some reading, and recharged my cell phone. Today, I did the laundry, vacuumed my bedroom, and finished one of my "Star Trek: the Next Generation" books. I also scanned one of the pictures I took during my Arizona vacation:

MUA and funny exchanges.

The other day, I got to play "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" with my friend, Harry. We finished the Atlantis level, taking turns fighting the Kraken (Harry as Thor, me as Spider-Man). After that, I decided to see what costumes were available to me as Spider-Man. The black symbiote was unlocked, so I switched to that one for the Valley of Spirits. I died in a dumb manner (a run-in with a spinning blade) on that level, so I ended up switching to Wolverine. As him, I fought with the Grey Gargoyle. He turned me and Harry's character (Captain America) to stone a few times, but we managed to defeat him. Later, I was able to revive Spider-Man, so I finished the level as him. We got to fight robots called Ultimo, dodge giant bugs, and even throw down with the Mandarin.

Today, I was amused by the interactions between Tony and Debby. Tony will be moving to another department in the company soon, so I will miss his banter with her (and his tips for "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance") . Here's a few exchanges I overheard today:

Debby: "You're evil."
Tony: "You're stupid!"
*****
Debby: "You slow me down."
Tony: "You really slow me down."

Brrrr...cold weekend.

Well, this has been a cold weekend. The temps have been near (and sometimes below) freezing. No snow yet, but it has been pretty windy.

I had a dream this morning about being in a soap-box debry race with only two cars: there were four of us, two in each car. I was complimentary of our opponents, who just barely stayed ahead of us. We wiped out near a lightpost, and the cops showed up. I decided I didn't want to be hassled (or arrested), so I decided to fly. I had some troubles maintaining altitude, barely keeping over a dozen feet above the ground. A tall cop (must have been nearly seven feet tall) chased me through a structure that looked like a house, but had a small forest inside its walls. In spite of my flight difficulties, I managed to elude the tall cop...

In the real world, I've been alone most of today. I did my laundry, visited the bank, and worked on my checkbook. I also watched some TV and updated my planner. I called Harry and left a message on his voice mail, but I haven't heard back from him yet (as of 7:30 CT). I also set up my artificial Christmas tree and added the wooden snowflakes I got from Cosmo and Wanda during my Thanksgiving vacation.