The Mixed-Up world of Cluskevird

Well, the wife has her surgery scheduled for Thursday and from what the surgeon says, the procedure normally takes between 20 minutes and 45 minutes.  He went over the technical aspects of the gallbladder and what to expect for the next few weeks.

 

The waiting, I think, is the worst of the whole thing.  If they would have done the surgery Sunday it would have been done and over with and wouldn't have given my wife time to think about the whole thing.  As it is, she's stressing herself out.

 

I'll give an update when I can.

So the 28th was our wedding anniversary.  We ended up spending the majority of the day at the hospital while my wife suffered her rebellious gall bladder.  It looked as if they were going to go ahead with the surgery and give her an overnight stay.  They even got her admitted and everything in order.  Then the surgeon finally got out of his current surgery to talk with us and said that he would probably get to her the next day depending on how things played out.

 

That's when the wife asked if she could go home instead of spending the night there.  Since she has a pretty healthy gall bladder and the stone is the only thing causing problems, he said that she could go home BUT,  would have to make an appointment to see him Tuesday and that they would probably do the surgery within a couple of days from then.

 

They released her from the hospital with a couple of prescriptions and today she made the appointment for tomorrow.  Once we talk with the surgeon we'll know the timetable and get the troublesome gall bladder out of there and then enter the recovery period.  From what he already told us it will be about a week for the immediate recovery... but about 6 weeks to get a full recovery.  From what I understand this will be outpatient so once she's done with the operation and probably after a little rest they'll send her home.

 

Kinda stressfull, but then again life tends to throw things at you to make sure you're still paying attention.

I couldn't resist Sam & Max, so as soon as I was able to get the points, I bought it and the last couple of days It's been the majority of my limited gaming.

 

I really like the 'point and click' style of gaming, it's got that easy non-rushed feeling to it.  Even the Penny Arcade games are similar (except there are some timing and button mashing going on now and again).  Anyway, yeah I've always liked the hyperkinetic rabbit-thingie character of Max.  The humor is right there along my tastes as well.

 

Anyway, it appears that I've completed 1 episode per day which means I'll finish it up in 4 more days. . . unless the puzzle part of things get harder and then I'd have to spend another day or two in order to make the world safe from those crazy hypnotists.

:p

I have now contained 7,123 songs on my Zune!  I reached this number after a little "shopping" in the marketplace after hearing Weird Al's new song.

 

What's that?  You haven't heard it?!  It's called Craigslist and it sounds a lot like the Doors.  Check it out over on Youtube.

 

Anyway, since the song was out I hopped over to the Zune marketplace to grab it for a few points and then since I logged on I figured I could just kinda check on some songs I keep waiting to show up eventually.  To my utter amazement I found a few I was looking for as well as a few I wasn't.  A game called Full Throttle had a great soundtrack by the Gone Jackals so when someone mentioned that game, it brought this back to mind.  I downloaded a couple of songs from that.  Then I almost squealed with delight when I saw Gary Lee and Showdown finally had the Rodeo Song available (since I can't seem to get the song from cassette to a more updated format).  Flushed with success I went looking for a band called Opus.  It wasn't looking really well so I punched in the song title "Live is Life" - their biggest hit.  And there it was.  There was even a Reaggaton version of the song (which I came OH so close to getting as well).

 

Anyway, I'm down to 3.4 gigs left on my Zune and I'm hoping that one of these days I am able to get the bigger Zune.  That way I can go back through my cd collection and get more songs on there.

With LIVE down today for maintenance, this would be the perfect time to just give the whole gaming thing a break.  Maybe sleep in a little bit, catch up on watching some DVDs, maybe even go outside and enjoy the fresh air.  Then again, maybe playing just a little bit wouldn't hurt.

 

Yeah, I couldn't escape the lure to play a couple of games today before heading off to work so Wolfenstein 3D and Phantasy Star 2 got some attention.  Maybe next time LIVE is down I'll take a break...  :p

After a long time of playing a lot of the same stuff, I've finally started hitting some different games.  Sure they've been around awhile, but for me they are still new.

 

My brother and I were finally able to play after a few weeks of being too busy and we started up Resident Evil 5.  So far it's crazy and we've had to replay a few scenes on several occasions.  But what little time we had, we were able to make it through chapter 1-1.  Yeah, not far into the game but this weekend we should be going back to it.

 

I also fired up Jericho and so far have only been able to play it one day.  I'm still undecided how much I like it, but I'm sure that once I get a few chapters into the game I'll be a little more familiar with the controls and stuff.

 

Wednesday found me longing for some arcade goodness.  Lucky for me that's when new arcade games come out and there were quite a few!  I grabbed Wolfenstein since I never got to play that one (other than the original top down one).  Heh heh heh  I'm slowly making my way through each floor and have managed to get to the 8th floor in the 2nd episode.

 

The last game I grabbed was Phantasy Star II.  An olde tyme RPG that is reminiscent of the early Ultima games.  Kinda tough at first, but now that I've gained a few levels it's starting to calm down a little bit and I'm able to actually start exploring.

I can't believe how long it's bees since I've read a book, but since I had to sit in a waiting room for a couple of hours I figured it would be a good time to start again.

 

I'm reading one of Jim Butcher's Dresden books - Proven Guilty.  I like the Dresden Files (even the one season tv series).  At this point in time only this series and the Discworld series can seem to maintain any kind of interest for me.  For some reason 340 pages just kind of passed me by and I'm right in the middle of some fun stuff. . .  I may have to finish this up tomorrow... or not sleep (for a second night in a row) and finish it tonight.  Oh wait, it would be after midnight so I guess no matter what I'd be finishing it up tomorrow.  :p

 

 

Even though I've been working on Arkanoid, I've also been keeping myself playing other stuff when time allows it.  Fable II, with the newest DLC has got me back in Albion with my second character working on making it through the main story again (with a few side trips).

 

Knothole Island and the Look Into the Future add ons have been started, but evidently I need to get farther into the storyline before I can do more in them.  So I've been trying to buy all the houses and shops I can so I can make that 2.5 million gold goal for that achievement.

 

Yeah, I'm still taking my time with the game - but at least you can save anytime you want.

Sounds like a magician's stage name doesn't it?  Well, I guess it does have a few magic tricks up its sleeve.  But I'm starting to get sidetracked before I even begin!  Let's take a look at what I've been doing with this little arcade game shall we?

 

Ever since Breakout on the Atari console, brickbusters have always been the type of game I really can waste a lot of time on.  Arkanoid was the first time I remember enemies being thrown into the mix and it really takes a bit of getting used to... Especially if you haven't even thought of the game for 20 years.  I got a couple of achievements without even trying such as the mini-vaus achievement.  That 'complete 10 levels without continuing' achievement though was laughing at me.

 

So for 6 days I've been getting familiar with my vaus and even though I started out on the normal difficulty and the enemies on, I have lowered my expectations just a tad bit and still being challenged.  Yes, I moved to easy and turned the enemies off.  I still kept the 3 lives though, because some things are just given.  Well, I did finally manage to get the 10 levels in both the episodes available (3 and 4 will come later).

 

Now I've got my eye on making it through the entire episode!  My last attempt got me to level 27 so I know that I've improved quite a bit.  Those last few levels though are a major pain for me.  I once got up to 5 lives from my 3 but right near the end I just lose that focus. . .  I must be getting old  :p  But I will keep chipping away at the first level until I make it through.

 

On a side note, I finally managed to get the one achievement that had me wondering how in the world I was suppose to get.  Evidently it tied into the laser powerup, but that was about the only hint that they give you.  I did manage to find out how one is suppose to go about getting the achievement, but little good that did me.  I spent some time working on that until I just gave up on that. . .  Only to get the achievement by just playing a normal bout. . .  which coincidently got me to that level 27 I mentioned before.

 

I even saw a powerup I never saw before. . . the magical 'extra life' powerup. . . but my favorite magic act is the disappearing one... errr.. I mean the powerup that gives you a free pass out of the current level  :p

I still get some gaming done everyday, but everything else is catching up with me.  late nights at work, dogs getting me up early, yardwork is now the order of the weekend. . .  Does it ever let up?

 

I desperately need some time off from work, but we're down one position, another co-worker decided to burn his house down so hasn't been in and we may be losing him to retirement next month.  >sigh<  I hate to blog about stuff like this, but I thought I'd give a reason for NOT blogging for quite a while now.

 

Well, wish me some luck of the good variety that I'll be back to posting some good things!  Like Arkanoid LIVE! stuff.   At least that has been keeping me from banging my head against the wall.  :p