Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 243, Down ~72lbs

Just a lazy New Year’s Day around the Grice household.  We hung out most of the day not doing too much of anything.  I got my car packed and planned to head out this evening to go back up to Carrollton.  Dominica and the girls are going to drive up tomorrow to join Oreo and I.

We spent the day mostly with Francesca playing Fable II.  She is making good progress on it now and the end of the game is in sight.  Like me, she has spent most of her life playing video games without ever having completed one.  Having never completed one she really doesn’t know how good they can be when you live through tens of hours of a story and get to see it come to fruition – an adventure in which you have played a pivotal role.

The only games that I finished when I was younger along these lines were some of the King Quest games, Black Cauldron, The Faery Tale Adventure, Pool of Radiance, Deja Vu and Uninvited.  Those stick out in my memory as rare games that I played all the way through when I was in my tweens and early teens.  During my college years I played through Earthbound and ChronoTrigger on the Super Nintendo but that was about it.  Out of all of the tons and tons of games that I have played over the years, most of them story-driven adventure and role playing games, only those few have I completed end to end.  There are, most certainly, a few others that I do not remember.  But they were few.

Then a few years ago I played through Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 and got to see what a modern game last nearly one hundred hours can be like when played all of the way through and I’ve been hooked.  Games have really improved over the years.  Now I complete video games pretty regularly and try very hard never to play a game without intended to complete it.

We also played some board games this afternoon with Madeline and Emily.  I actually managed to beat Dominica, the reigning champion, at a game where you basically play twenty questions with a card on your forehead trying to figure out “what you are.”  Headbandz or something like that.  Madeline got it for Christmas.

It was about nine when I left to drive Oreo and I up to Carrollton.  I stopped at Panda Express, just down the street from the Grices’, but it had closed just minutes before – hence why I knew that it was nine o’clock when I had left.  So I went to McDonald’s next door and got myself some fillet o’fish sandwiches.  Not on diet at all but it was the best that I could do under the circumstances – I was quite hungry and had not had a meal all day.  It would be a long drive without any food.

I finished reading “A History of the World in Six Glasses” on the drive up.  Then I moved on to listening to “On the Road: The Original Scroll” by Jack Kerouac, considered to be one of the classics of American literature and the seminal work of the beatnik movement and one of the foundations of the hippy movement.  I have been meaning to listen to this book for a while.  It has been sitting in my library just waiting for me to give it a listen for over a year, most likely.

I listened to a bit of “On the Road” and must say that it is absolute garbage.  The writing of the book is poor, at best, and the story itself is boring beyond belief.  It is just some ineloquent ramblings of an extremely uninteresting person and his impoverished and unimpressive group of “friends.”  Mostly just people too poor and uninteresting to find themselves anyone else to hang out with.

I suppose I can only complain so much, I do have a really boring blog many, many times the length of “On the Road” and I am not hampered by having to write the whole thing on a typewriter as Kerouac did.  But in no way would I just take my blog and bind it as a novel and call it literature.  That anyone published this book is insane and that anyone bought it just blows my mind.  Not the worst thing that I have ever read but it is certainly close to it.

I am reading the original scroll version of the book – in the scroll, which was written as a single paragraph, the original names and edits are left in.  The book that most people read is a slightly modified book with all of the names changed to protect the people too embarrassed to be identified as the losers in the book.  The scroll is slightly longer and is supposed to read slightly better than the edited novel version.  Although I imagine that having paragraphs helps.  How anyone can write a twelve hour long book in a single paragraph is beyond me.  That’s not impressive at all.

Medifast Status: Day 242, Down ~72lbs

This past year has been the year of the new house and the new car and, of course, the new baby.  A pretty big year for us.  Technically we bought the house in 2010 but only barely and we were in New York almost immediately after doing so so it really felt like this year when we finally moved in.  Technically the GMC Acadia was from 2010 as well, but only just barely.

It is really hard, now, to remember that Dominica was pregnant at the start of 2011.  Remembering that we had Luciana is easy, but I don’t really remember Dominica being pregnant leading up to it.  That is very odd.  She was pregnant for a third of the year.  That seems so distant.

What is possibly the most amazing thing is that 2011 was the year of work being done on the house.  The new house was pretty much under constant construction for the entire year.  We’ve had contractors working on the house since January and some of them haven’t been heard from in half a year even though we still have their ladder in our back yard.  Anyone want to buy a ladder?  The work that was started then is still not completed and we have been living with that half finished work all of this time which is pretty ridiculous.  This was also the year of attempting to buy the house next door.  That sucked up several months.

We had a casual evening playing some board games and going to bed early.  We are all pretty tired.

Medifast Status: Day 241, Down ~72lbs

I went in to the office this morning.  Insanely slow today.  Just nothing going on.  For lunch I went up to Brookhaven with Nicki.  It was her first time getting to see our new club.  After lunch we swung in to the house to let Oreo out.

I left work a little early so that I could pack up the car and get on to the road to go down to Houston for the New Year’s weekend.  I got to the house and found that Oreo had had a huge accident in the living room and I had to spend the better part of an hour cleaning it up.  What a mess.  That was no fun.  So I was rushing to get the car packed and to get Oreo and I out the door after dealing with that.

I finished reading “Mass Effect: Revelation” on the drive down and started listening to “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” which is pretty interesting.  The book looks at how beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola have played a role in the development of civilization as we know it.

It was around ten thirty when I arrived in League City.  Apparently my Google Lattitude was working because I was just around the corner from Francesca’s house when my phone rang and Dominica said “I see you on Lattitude down the street, we are at Joe’s so just drive on down here.”  That is handy that they can see where I am all of the time.

Everyone was having a New Year’s Eve Eve party tonight.  They were drinking and playing silly board games.  I spent over an hour taking care of Oreo as he needed to eat and was having a panic attack.  I never really got to hang out with anyone tonight.  Oreo really needed me all evening.

We were not up particularly late.  Maybe one in the morning.  Luciana was long since asleep when I arrived but Liesl, being the party animal and night owl, was still up playing with Garrett for a while and was very excited to see me again.  I got to read her her bedtime stories tonight like I normally do.  Her bedtime routine is primarily me reading her several books each night now.

Medifast Status: Day 240, Down ~72lbs

I worked from home again today.  Work is just so slow that there is no need for me to go in to the office.  I spent most of the day continuing to play Mass Effect alternating with some hard core carpet cleaning.  The carpet cleaning is coming along well and the areas that I cleaned yesterday are very obviously large clean spots on the floor.  It is working well but you cannot do just single spots.  Once you start you really have to be committed to finishing the project.

I got in a lot of time on Mass Effect today taking my total playing time well over twenty hours by the time that I turned it off to go to bed.  Oreo thought that it was great just snuggling away with me on the couch while I played.  As I get deeper in to the game the story continues to improve.  It is very obvious that this is the same team that made Dragon Age.

I ran out to Target today and did a little shopping.  I had some basic supplies that I needed.  I picked up a new pair of jeans while I was out.  I am now down to a 34″ waist.  When I first started my diet I was wearing a 44″ waist!  That is some amazing progress.  Ten inches lost!

For dinner this evening I went out, alone, to Brookhaven.  I attempted to order a Salmon Cobb Salad but there was a mistake hearing what I said and I ended up with a Salmon Club Sandwich instead which turned out to be an awesome mistake.  That was delicious.  I am not supposed to have bread on my diet but since they had made the mistake and I didn’t want to get anyone into any trouble I just ate it and it was so good.  I would never have thought of using salmon like that but it really works perfectly.  This might have been the best club sandwich that I have ever had.  It just worked perfectly.  I put some thousand island dressing on it too which really worked well.

I finished reading “Wicked Plants” and started reading “Mass Effect: Revelation” which is a prequel to the video game.  I was really excited to find that that book was available on Audible.  It turns out that all of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age novels are on Audible.  I would never have even thought to look for them there.  That is awesome.  I rarely, if ever, stop and take the time to read a novel but as I really get into video game stories – as I treat video games like a form of interactive literature – they are an exception to the normal rule and I would like to read them, often.  But normally I only read technical books in print and everything else is through Audible.  Since these are available on Audible I will certainly be reading them all now.  For Mass Effect, for example, there is a book that comes before each of the games.  So I am reading the first one now before I complete the first game.  As soon as I finish the first game I plan to go on and read the next book in the series.

The third Mass Effect video game is due to release on March 6th.  I hope to have all of the books read and the first two games completed prior to the release date.  I doubt that I will buy the game right when it releases, but I want the option and at least want to have the older titles out of the way.

Medifast Status: Day 239, Down ~72lbs

I started reading Amy Stewart’s “Wicked Plants” on Audible.  I am really working my way through my Audible library this holiday season!

I worked from home today so that I could spend the day with Oreo and take him to the vet’s office this afternoon.  His left eye has been really bad for days.  It appears that his eye is bleeding.  He has been having severe eye problems for a long time with that one so we are really concerned.  He is completely blind so that is not the concern.  We are just worried about pain and infections.  We want him happy.  Being blind is very hard for him as it is.

Work remains insanely slow so today I managed to start playing BioWare’s classic Mass Effect for the XBOX 360 which originally released in 2008.  This is one of those video game classics that I have owned for a long time and have just never managed to get around to playing.  I have heard people rave about it but I do not get a lot of time to play video games so it has sat on the shelf waiting for me to have free time.

Oreo’s vet appointment ended up going pretty well.  His vet was very glad that we rushed him in as he is indeed bleeding into his eye but she thinks that she can help him.  So he had a long visit and a substantial change to his medicine regimen.  Overall, though, just being home rather than in Houston appears to have him feeling better.  Dominica was commenting on his odd behaviour while he was down there and thought that he was in a lot of pain but I am pretty confident, and his vet agreed, that the issues came from him being uncomfortable with the situation and not from physical pain.  Now that he is at home with me and all is quiet is appears to be incredible happy and relaxed.

I did a lot of carpet cleaning today.  I’ve started a new process where I put a large pot on the stove and boil the water and oxygenating bleach mixture so that it can really attack the dirt and whatever in the carpets.  I’m not sure how much of a different the boiling makes, outside of dissolving the bleach better and keeping me from leaving dry bits of bleach grit behind, but hitting the carpet with so much water and bleach at once allows me to move from spot cleaning to seriously attacking large swaths of the floor all at once.

I cleaned the carpets at the same time as playing my video game.  The water takes a good ten minutes to prepare and has to soak in the floor for about ten minutes.  So there is a lot of time in between treatments.  So I start the water on the stove, play for a bit, dump the water on the floor, play for a bit, clean up the water and repeat.  Each pot of water fills a minimum of two water tanks on the hand floor cleaner that I am using to suck the water back out.  I am getting tons of dirt out of the carpet and as I am cleaning “clean” carpet and not a spot that has had an accident or specific dirt problem it really highlights just how dirty carpets are.  I am very glad that I am bleaching them.

I had an hour and a half conference call this afternoon but other than that nearly no work all day.  I fed myself at home today, just steam in bag veggies and veggie patties from the freezer.  I’m working hard to use the food that is in the house and to keep eating as healthily as possible.  Today is my diet recovery day to help to get my body back on track.

I managed to play nearly twelve hours of Mass Effect today and am really in to it now.  That game is awesome.  It is no wonder that people are so passionate about it.  The storyline is really excellent and the game in general is a real departure both from most games available as well as from the games that I normally play.  It is a science fiction game, and normally I play fantasy, and it is an action adventure rather than more traditional RPG.  It is often listed as RPG but it really is only minimally that, at best, but the social interactions in the game are very much RPG so it is a bit of a genre buster.

The real strengths in Mass Effect come from its story telling and unique plot.  I have been drawn in and am enjoying the game immensely.  I am quite glad that I saved it until I was in a position to really get into it and enjoy it.  The sequel is actually supposed to be quite a bit better.  It is Mass Effect 2, not Mass Effect, with so many industry accolades.