The past two weeks have really been blurring together for me. I am having a really hard time figuring out what day it even is. And even during the day I have a hard time figuring out what time of day it is. I am really looking forward to my “work from home” day tomorrow and not having to start quite so early. Normally I really enjoy starting early but when I get stuck working late anyway it looses some of the charm.
I slept in until five this morning and it would figure that for the first time all week the valet actually had my car on time.
The morning was nice and quiet in the office. Nothing much ever seems to happen when I am on early (knock on proverbial wood) which makes it quite nice. Today I didn’t even get a single phone call which is more quiet than usual.
Dominica got an awesome link today of a man in Australia who was half swallowed by a great white shark, headfirst and was in the shark for two minutes before he managed to jab the shark hard enough in the eye to convince it to loosen its grasp and wriggle free. The shark bit him again in the head but he still got away with just lacerations and a broken nose! This guy really kept his wits about him and thought through what he needed to do. Even worse was that his son was in a small boat just above him (they were in just three feet of water) watching the whole thing take place. After he escape the jaws his son and some friends pulled him into the boat.
I like Wil Wheaton’s Sunrise Blog Post from a few days ago. Everyone should read it.
For the first time this week things actually slowed down towards the end of the day which was awesome. I was actually able to stand up and move around a little bit and visit with some of the people in my office whom I have barely had a chance to talk to for days. Things slowed down enough that I was actually able to pack up and leave the office “on time” at half past three this afternoon. What a great way to lead into my “work from home” day. Now I am much happier. I have a rather long “to do” list to start off my time at home with but I am so much more productive when I am home that I feel pretty good about it.
I was home by four which was great. The world’s first baby rhino from artificial insemination was born today at the Budapest Zoo and she is SO cute! There was also a major breakthrough in genetically altered chickens that can lay “drug” eggs. This is an amazing breakthrough for the pharmaceutical industry (or for its competition) but could, in theory, be used for all sorts of illegal substances as well and could herald an era of very difficult to regulate drugs.
I check in with AGD Interactive for the first time in forever and they finally posted at least a blog entry as to the status of the Quest for Glory II remake that they have been working on for several years now. It is looking as though the game won’t be available until sometime next year (it was originally scheduled for January, 2004!) but as long as they keep us updated on the progress that isn’t so bad. It is the months on end of nothing but silence that is the real killer. I check back with them daily for months to see if progress is being made and then, eventually, I decide that they have been run over by a bus and give up on the site. Then every so often they surprise me with an update.
I did some looking around and discovered a group that is working on a remake of King’s Quest IV. Now this I am really excited about as I have completed the first three games in the series and playing them in remakes is fun just to see how well the games have been remade and to relive past adventures. But King’s Quest IV is the first game of the series that I have never played and I am really excited to get a cool remake into my grubby little hands so that I can play through it. I have played King’s Quest V and VI back on Windows 95 as far as the games would go before they crashed so I at least have an idea of what those games are like. But KQ4 is the one that I have wanted to play the most. I really want to complete them in order but I don’t want to go back and play the original KQ4. It is a lot longer than any of the original three games but the graphics were only marginally better and the sound was the same. So a remake of KQ4 offers the biggest challenge to someone recreating it but it also offers the greatest reward to potential players. KQV and KQ6 were both done in an updated style that is close to what is being done with a lot of these recent remakes so remakes of them make little sense in comparison to the first four of the series. In a way the original games are just being brought into line with the later titles although the remakes are generally outshining them quite considerably with better graphics, audio and voice actors being added in as well in many cases.
We haven’t managed to go far afield for dinner so far this week so we decided to go to IHOP tonight. Normally we try to go up to the Udipi Cafe on Wednesday nights for Dosa and Chat night but neither of us was that hungry nor did either of us want to drive that far and be away from the apartment for so long. So we chose IHOP since it is close and fast. I do still have work that needs to be done tonight but it isn’t that much so it is more or less an easy night for me. While we were at IHOP there was a car fire in the parking lot and the fire department and the police had to respond and at least four television news vans showed up. Big news here in Newark.
After dinner my first order of business was to get the Ralstons’ missionary weblog up and running. You can check out their site at LaborersForTheHarvest.com. They are running on WordPress 2.1 which just released and which is a nice update to 2.0 that I am currently running.
Dominica and I watched the rest of The Gummi Bears while I worked this evening. It is sad that Disney only made forty-seven episodes of this show over a course of three seasons.
We stayed up a little later than we have been tonight. Since I don’t have to be up so early tomorrow I can stay up a little later. I ended up staying up until half past eleven. Dominica went to bed with Oreo around ten.