Holy Crap I Have a Blog Still!

I see I haven’t posted since my bi-phasic sleep experiment. That’s crazy. Let’s see, what’s on my mind…

Lyme Disease

I always thought it was Lyme’s [sic] Disease, until I started getting frequent migraines and a still neck. My Boy Scout training popped Lyme into my head as fast as you’d slide its homophone into a Corona but I’m not one for over reacting.

Until the hives.

One random freaky night of hives. I saw them over 80% of my body after a cozy movie and the next day they were gone without a trace. That same day I went to the doctors and I got myself a bottle of pretty pink 875mg amoxicillin pills. About this big (_____) give or take. Well… take… for 2 weeks.

Since then I’ve had people telling me horror stories about Lyme how they’re still recovering 20 years later or couldn’t walk in 6th grade cause of it. I guess I’m just blessed to have caught it so early. Caught = realized I had it. Thank you BSA. Check’s in the mail.

Checks

I got paid and I’m not broke any more! I got me some presents!

Presents

I am declaring this week the Week of Presents! All my gifts from my “I’m now rich” splurge should be arriving (including a rad t-shirt and Burnout 3) and my Heather is coming to visit for a few days (presence, get it?). And my dad’s left-handed sand-wedge I got him for Father’s Day will be arriving. He was talking about how he has been thinking so much about every detail of his swing that it doesn’t even feel natural, but his left-handed swing does. I asked him to call me when he gets it (he doesn’t know what it is) and I’ll say something to the effect of “I’ve always admired his work ethic, you’re a force of nature! But you’ve always admired my play ethic. So for Father’s Day I’m giving you a piece of advice: ‘Try anything once.’ Given your advice of making every try your best try, I know you’ll ‘follow through’ with this present.” All’s left is the waiting.

Limbo

Not one of my better segues but Limbo is finally coming out! This gorgeous black and white platform puzzler has been tantalizing me night and day. They scarcely show any gameplay (which I’ve switched to not wanting to see because it is a puzzle game) and they haven’t released anything accept to the judges of indie game competitions. But the few glimpses PlayDead has released have me begging for more. Finally, they announced a release date (indirectly) after almost 2 years for July! It’s coming out with the Summer of Arcade for 1200 points! So. Stoked. See more at limbogame.ORG

.com!

I bought a Web site. Not much to see yet so stay tuned.

Stay Tuned

for more posts. I’m gonna get back into this. Promise. #madethispromisebefore

Illness

Ruins sleeping patterns…

…will post when back on it.

Day 3: Sleeping In

Yesterday I cut my day session down to one hour to visit my old roommate, but I still felt great. Hit the hay on time, woke up at 6:30… hit snooze… checked my email… CLASS WAS CANCELLED!

Now, any self respecting college student would crawl back in bed and sleep until the end of time, so I did. You see, like normal sleeping patterns, I don’t think this’ll be screwed up by sleeping in occasionally. It’s all about getting proper sleep anyway. So I probably won’t have a day session today, and it’s nice to be flexible like this. For now.

I’m sure as I commit myself more and more to this, I will NEED that day session since that’s my normal bed time (#2). Just like I would collapse at night. Maybe I’m just a freak.

I’m not dropping out, just sleeping in a day,

Chris

Day 2: Cheating already

This morning I slept until 6:45, and then napped from 7:20 – 7:45. I just needed a little more sleep after turning in late (3:20AM) finishing a present for Heather. It sucks to be tired and/or cheating already.

On a positive note, I had alot of energy and focus last night. It was hard to crawl into bed because I wasn’t tired! I’m going to push my Day/Secondary Block back to 2 – 4PM I think, so I get tired at te right times. Still in beta

Day 1

So I slept from 3AM – 6:30AM last night and I’m pleased to report that I haven’t woken up that alertly in a while. The length was just perfect to arouse me when I was in an REM off cycle (that’s what I’m going to call it, shush!). Waking up at 6:30 allowed me to accomplish quite a bit before I had to head to class.

However, I am starting to feel drained…

It is a good motivation to keep going knowing I’ll be hitting the sack in an hour and a half.

That’s all for now!

Poly wanna sleep cycle

So, two nights ago I only got to sleep 3 hours due to stupidity and the addictiveness of some Internet me-mes. Then, last night I got a full 7 hours of sleep and was tired all day. That, along with an article I read about a year ago in Wired Magazine, inspired me to try something new: a Polyphasic sleep cycle.

Over the next few weeks I am not going to sleep one long block at night, I am going to divide my sleep into a 3.5 hour block at night (3AM – 6:30AM) and a 2 hour block during the day (4PM – 6PM, perhaps). This instates a Biphasic cycle:

Now, I’ve been well warned that the first two weeks are miserable, but I think I’ll be fine (famous last words). I have every one in the house’s support (either genuinely or sinisterly), especially that of my roommate, who just requests I don’t wake him at my times.

That leaves one thing to be addressed: why here and now? I know I know. I suck at this blog thing. Until I found Facebook Lite (two days ago) I only checked my FB every 3 days or so, Twitter is the only thing I keep up on. But I hope to make it my more private place, at special request I don’t make this hyper-public. So! Journal of Suffering Day 0, complete!

So I’m not at work right now

And I’m not sure why. I woke up late because I had an awesome time at a party last night (NO I WAS NOT DRINKING). I did however partake in a table-to-mattress slip-and-slide and join in the festivities at the fountain (which apparently also goes by the name “drunk tank”). I also saw the craziest shooting star of my life and engaged a fellow Christian in religious dialog. Is dialog spelled right? Dialogue? *shrug*

So I’ve been working crazy hard and I’m taking a little me time. My stipend finally came through! Yes I do plan on buying a few things. I’m gonna pay my parents back first, $25 deposit to GoMusic.ru, medicine ball, and eventually a graphics card. May need to invest in a solid memory stick too, like an 8GB or something.

That’s all for now! Guess I should go to work. Ciao all!

Gosh I’m bad at this

What’s it been, two months? I don’t even know! I’m so bad at doing things daily. Or weekly… or regularly it seems. However! I have been reading the Bible daily, so there’s hope yet!

Gosh my mind won’t leave the work mindset as I type because I’ve been working with the same text editor they use here on WordPress (tinymce) for IJIMS! So I’m doing an internship kind of thing, working on a publishing Web site in preparation for a summer cmap we’re having in 2 weeks (didn’t realize it was so close!) So I’ve been on campus mostly, with many late night drives to Wing night, the house and of course to see my… Heather… I think I’ll give up because friend and girlfriend both feel weird. Sister it is!

I’m exhausted. I drove from 3:45AM to 5:30AM after staying up late with Heather, “helping” her get ready for Disney (which turned out that everything was done already). Watched a good movie, Stand By Me. I don’t know where the title comes from but I highly recommend it. I’ll refrain from a review on this one.

However! Up is a movie you will not miss. Not “should not miss”, “will not”. As in if you haven’t seen it, you’ve got 7 dollars and a car, you have no reason to be sitting here for the next 2 hours. Well… Go on! I’ll wait…

…

…See now wasn’t that worth it! Yeah, it’s a little sad in the beginning, but that opening sequence is so perfectly executed I could watch it on loop! Up is fantastically artistic and well executed. It is not the typical Disney-Pixar movie, the tone isn’t that of a kids movie. Doesn’t mean don’t take the kids, just that this movie is mature. It’s for the audience that saw Toy Story as a kid and up. The crowd that’s grown-up (externally).

Speaking of Toy Story, THREE?? Really?? Like is 3D tech taking off so much that they’re going to milk out the franchises with some depth of field? I just pray for depth of plot too. The teaser offers no insight.

And yes I will be seeing up again, for the third time, this week.

I’ve started a few game projects with my neighbor, classmate, and colleage Brett. They’re both puzzle games, one his one mine. Both of them share alot in common with Braid, especially mine, but we’re not ashamed. Then again the puzzle-platformer genre is only so wide.

Funny story from this morning: I woke up at 10:30  ( I was supposed to be at work at 10, but I couldn’t move). Here’s how it unfolded, I texted Brett:

I’m coming I didn’t roll in until 5:30 this morning

you really need to kick these clubbing habits, Chris

Yeah I need to stop enjoying a nice [meal] with friends the[m] helping my friends pack for Disney

I did not understand what that message meant. Perhaps proofread or simply rephrase?

Yeah the clubs are wild here

Well I don’t want to dump too much up here at a time. I’ll be here more often promise… If anyone’s out there…

Six Degrees of Seperation

Between Lemonade and Having a Peanut-Butter Fight Over a Matzo Bread House

Why’d I spell peanut-butter with a hyphen?

I walk into the cafeteria only thirsty and join my friend and her brilliant, is-definitely-going-to-go-far prospective student Becca. I take off my coat and ask them if they want anything to drink when I get mine. Becca (who was eating Matzo bread according to her religion’s custom) says peanut butter.

1. I return with a glass of lemonade, a glass of iced tea, a combo class and a generous spoonful of peanut-butter on a plate. Becca starts applying this to her Matzo and enjoys it.
2. Nicole sees this delicious combo and wants some. She offers to get some for me and I accept. She gets up to retrieve some Matzo bread and peanut butter.
3. While she is gone I notice a Little Shop of Horrors poster still hanging on the wall and I rave about how good it was to Becca. I start to sing Now (It’s Just the Gas).
4. Nicole returns as I finish the first two lines and stop. She wants me to sing the rest of it. She picks up my Matzo to jokingly offer it to me as a reward and it breaks in half. I say I will sing the rest if she fixes my now broken Matzo. The Brilliant Becca suggests she stick it together with peanut butter. Which she does and I sing the rest of the song, using the humor of the scene to fuel my dramatic laughter.
5. After my rendition ending in death by asphyxiation (spelled right on my first try), the Bright Becca immediately suggests that we use the peanut butter’s fixative properties to, in her own words: “We’re building a Matzo house. Now.” Nicole snagged a whole box of Matzo we got to work.
6. It didn’t quite work… The Matzo pieces were too big. After our 3/4 house fell apart I held up a small peanut buttered cracker piece and said “Let’s scale this down. Break those into quarters, this can be the roof.” Nicole insisted on an epic house in her own… special… way… and I decided to break the silent stare between us by sticking the piece in my hand to her forehead. As you can guess, a peanut fight over Matzo houses ensued.

*bows*

Bonus

Here’s Scott McCloud’s Six Degrees:

“The Distance From

1. Abraham Lincoln to a
2. Lincoln penny to
3. Penny Marshall to the
4. Marshall Plan to
5. Plan Nine to
6. 9 Lives:

it’s all the same” – TED: Understanding Comics

The Curious(ly Genuine) Case of Ben Button

I forgot a certain category of post to expect here: reviews. I made a resolution to read more, so you’ll find book reviews mostly (hopefully) BUT (like with my FB reviews) I will start with a movie review.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Despite its multiple Academy Award nominations and prevalence amongst the technological literature I consume, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie. I had heard it was long, yeah, but so are most movies now a days. So I settled down with my neighbor Christina and enjoyed the college funded screening.

And was blown away! This movie is incredible, simply because it isn’t fantastic. Let me explain, I use the word “fantastic” here according to its secondary definition of consisting of fantasy and surrealism: Benjamin Button is intensely real. The only thing that was borrowed from fantasy was Ben’s unique condition of aging backwards. He’s not treated special, he doesn’t act special (Brad Pitt’s received lip for not playing this out, but he does it right if you pay attention); he’s treated by the age he looks and he acts the age he is. He doesn’t know the people around him usually long enough for them to catch on, and those who do embrace it. I found myself very connected to the character, even though I can’t relate to his condition. It’s the placement of him in these ordinary situations that make this movie so attaching on an emotional level.

While this sounds like it may lead to an ordinary movie about ordinary situations, I think it’s this genuine quality and performance (especially from Ben’s foster mother) that fill the dramatic book ends of his life. Even the “ordinary” drama is well written. The most drama occurs at the beginning and end of his life where his condition is most apparent and is governing in his life. They do a fantastic job of opening a second door of relation to the main character; not through personality traits, but through the situations he faces. When you can tell exactly what is going through a character’s mind and feel with them, you know you’ve got a good movie. That’s what this movie is all about: feeling with Ben Button.

So what can you expect from Benjamin Button? A well-crafted drama with a rich and mature love story, powerfully genuine character and NO CHESSY ENDINGS! Go see it.