A WTF kind of day...

The past 16 hours of my life have been completely bizarre. Let me regale you as the rain falls outside in the bright sunshine. (Ahh, summer heat showers...) Around 4 pm yesterday, my friend Daniel made me an energy drink, which I drank. Flash forward to bedtime, around 10 pm. I start to read, as usual, and do so for about 30 minutes before falling asleep. 15 minutes later my eyes pop back open. I toss for a bit, but every time my mind starts to slip off to sleep, something rather like a fail-safe jolts me back awake. I give up, turn the light back on, and continue reading. For 2 hours... Let me tell you that energy drink packed a wallop. I didn't feel sleepy until about 1 am, which is finally when the pages of the book I was reading started to blur. Not to mention that during that time, I had to pee 3 times!

About 4 am I woke up again but this time for a literal jolt...of pain in my neck. From my right shoulder blade to my upper neck, every movement, toss, or turn sent a shock of pain across me. For the rest of my sleep I tried to stay still, but turning happens and I would wake back up from the pain. When it was finally time to get up, I could barely lift my head up the pain in my neck/shoulder muscle (also called the trapezius) hurt so bad. I immediately took ibuprofen and told myself if it didn't get better I was going to the doctor. That's how bad it hurts! I don't go to the doctor. Not because I'm against them, but because I hate my insurance and have to shell out $400 before they even begin to pay anything.

I end up just going to work because sitting at home is doing nothing. No position is comfortable. Tried laying down, but to get back up just made it hurt worse. I call the doctor and get in for an 11 am appointment. In the meantime, the tension is growing in my neck tremendously from having to hold my head up.

I'm at the doctor's office and he's looking over my chart. I've been having neck tension for a while but can usually stretch it out. He said I must have tweaked it in my restless sleep from the energy drink. He suggests a muscle relaxer shot, a prescription, and possibly physical therapy!!!! WHAT?!? OMG, that shot was painful. But wait...there's more. As he skims through my history, he asked why I didn't have a physical last year. Just didn't, I say. He then points out that I have a history of low white blood cell count, also known medically as leukopenia. He asks if he can have it checked again. I'm there...why not. Go in for neck pain; leave with leukopenia. All in a day's work.

So far the shot has given me a little more range of motion. The Flexeril is kicking in...but neither are taking away the throb of holding my head up. So I'm gonna get off here and try to a comfortable position. Not likely....

Movie Trailers

There's nothing like a good movie trailer to get you hyped up for a great story or a visually overwhelming experience on the silver screen. But I've come to realize that trailers are "damned if you do and damned if you don't." (Sorry to those I just made choke with my verbiage.) Seriously. You want to see them to see what the movie is going to be about. Sometimes, that's the only way I even KNOW about the movie.

The problem is trailers also tend to spoil the best parts of the movie, in which the movie ends up being a huge disappointment. You expect more of what you saw in the trailer, but all you get is what you saw in the trailer itself.

Two recent examples that were guilty of this: "Knowing" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". The first movie was about predicting all these disasters that were happening and starred Nicolas Cage. There were like four major things in the trailer that we saw, including an airplane crash and the apparent annihilation of New York City. And guess how many disasters the movie had? Yup...four. As the movie led up to the climactic event--the script told the viewer there was only one left--well we hadn't seen the NYC disaster yet so you immediately knew it was coming. You know they aren't going to stop it. No suspense.

Wolverine was the same way. All those cool mutants we've been dying to see that were never included in the original trilogy? Yah, pretty much what you see of them in the trailer is what you get in the movie. Including the fan-demanded and highly popular character Gambit. That's it. No more. Literally seconds worth of cameo.

That brings me to this simply incredible, spectacular trailer of the upcoming movie "2012". Playing on the myth that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 and thus spells the end of everything, Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow) creates his next big end-of-the-world movie. I hope it doesn't suck like Day After Tomorrow. I also hope these eye-popping shots of this trailer aren't all we get. View at your own risk, I guess.

The Life of a Gamer

E3, the biggest video game conference of the year where all major brands present their newest, best, and most innovative products, is in full swing. Been keeping an eye on it, being a pretty big gaming fan. *Glosses over World of Warcraft addiction mentioned heretofore in this blog.*

So to recap things that interested me:

X-Box: Not an owner of one, but their announcement of "Natal", a motion-sensor device, seems to trump anything the Wii has done for motion controllers. This thing can sense your movements and recognize your face to log in to XBox Live, among other things they showed. You hold nothing. They also announced that their game library will eventually become completely downloadable.

Nintendo: Easily the most boring announcements. Whoopee, a device that monitors your pulse! And then more of the same games...Super Mario Galaxy 2, Wii Fit Plus, etc. Okay, Metroid might be okay. But I don't have a Wii and won't be getting one, so /shrug.

Playstation: One of my personally most beloved games and RPGs (role-playing game, for you noobs) is Final Fantasy VII. It was on the original Playstation and they announced it is now available for download on the PS3! When they said that, I wanted to run home that moment and get it! They showed some footage of the newest Final Fantasy, #13. Can't wait for this. But then the shocker came when they announced Final Fantasy 14, which will be an MMO (massively multiplayer online game...again for the noobs out there. In other words, it's like World of Warcraft.) There is a current FF online game, #11, but it was so-so and I didn't play it. Then they announced their version of a...wait for it...motion controller. It looks like a rectangle with a glowing ball on top. But the tracking motion demonstrated is arguably the best of the three major system. So Sony one-ups Microsoft who one-upped Nintendo. Still, ho-hum. I'm not all about flailing around to play games. The new PSP Go looks pretty cool, but I'm not really into hand-held gaming. All games will become downloadable for this platform, too.

Miscellaneous: There was coverage of the new Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic. It will be the first online game to feature totally fully voiced characters and players. The game trailer they showed is simply un-freaking-believable. Watch it right now. Seriously. How I wish the prequel movies had been more like this trailer! I really will want to try this game...though I'm sure my friends will have something to say about that, given my aforementioned WoW addiction. But then there's Final Fantasy 14...gosh...what to c choose! Will have to keep an eye on HOW the game will be played. Don't want to get bogged down in a same-style game as WoW. Of course, if they aren't on a Mac, well forget it. And I will be needing a better video card, but I plan to upgrade next spring anyway. Those games won't be out by then.

One final thought: With games becoming fully downloadable, I would expect some conversation on these gaming sites to be about price, but I haven't seen any chatter. Seems to me if the middle-man is being cut out (Best Buy, Amazon.com, etc), they can lower the price a bit for a direct download. Yah right, like developers will do that!

Okay, well there. Thank you for letting me nerd out for a bit.