The Last Lecture

I've just read 'The Last Lecture' by the late Randy Pausch (26 October 1960 - 25 July 2008), based on his last lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. This is made all the more poignant by the fact that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and shortly before the lecture, was told that the disease was fatally malignant.

The book is pretty insightful and witty, not morbidly so but more light-hearted, detailling several of his childhood dreams and how the achievement, or not, provided several life lessons to the author. 'The Last Lecture' was written, somewhat, as a means for the author to leave a legacy to his children but everyone can benefit from the insights he shared.

Utter Mundaneness

Well. I guess I should update after a month of inactivity.

Nothing much has been going on around me. A life of normalcy.

Day in day out, the same old, same old.

Very boring, or so I've been told.


That's it. No more typing in verse. I'll just be terse.

Until there is hue and cry. Goodbye.

Gen Con™

So last weekend was The Best Four Days In Gaming™ at the South Bank Convention Center.

I attended of course. Didn't find out about it until the day before it started, but luckily I had Thursday off and a late shift on Friday.

So I went... wandered around the booths. They had so much cool stuff there... games, books, DVDs, toy models. They even had a six-foot model of the Battlestar Galactica. Price was AUD180 though.... so tempting... but well... I did get the SOUNDaround box thingy though. It's quite good. Amplifies the sound from DVDs etc. and simulates surround sound from just a couple of speakers. One of the stall-holders even invited me to compete in a Rummikub competition, although I couldn't seeing as I was working Saturday.

Slightly disappointing that Jamie Bamber and James Callis couldn't make it for the convention. The Stargate: Atlantis stars that they brought out to replace them just didn't make the cut. I didn't even bother going to see them as I had no idea who they were.

Wizards of The Coast had a stall there as well... giving demo sessions of games. I tried a demo of Dungeons and Dragons. Was a bit hesitant at first, it took me halfway through the game before I actually got into it and my rogue took a pounding at the hands of some giant scorpions. I'd also tried a Magic: The Gathering demo there. Seeing as I hadn't playing in 4-5 years, I would think that qualifies me to be a newbie... somewhat. Anyway... played a match with the instructor there... and surprise surprise, I won. One of the veteran players there even gave me a free theme deck (rare and foil removed of course). After the demos, WOTC gave out free showbags with stuff in it. I got a Lorowyn theme deck and several D&D miniatures... which I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.

Next day (Friday) I decided on entering one of the tournaments there... play a few rounds of Magic again. So I signed up for the Grand Prix: Auckland trial. Sealed tournament, meaning that they gave a tournament pack and a couple of boosters and you construct your deck there. I made a black/green creature deck. Bad move though. The deck was too slow. In hindsight I should've gone with a red/green deck... cos I had better red cards. Oh well. Anyway, I lost horribly (9 games out of 10). To be expected I guess... seeing as I was really really rusty. Forgot a lot of the rules and so on... so I made so many mistakes that the veteran players had to correct. Still.... all in all it was a fun experience. Nice to play again after so long.

I didn't attend on Saturday and Sunday because I had work going. Very full weekend, cos I swapped half-shifts for full shifts. Had a bit of a disgusting situation on Friday night though. A customer, ran into the shop, up to the first floor (which was where the toilets were). She then headed to the DVD section, proceeded to drop trou and peed on the floor. She was drunk of course... but well... ugghh. And then she raced out the door when one of my colleagues caught her in the act.

And that was it for my Gen Con™ experience. Maybe I'll have a better chance next year... if I keep in practice.

In The Thick Of It

Another semester... another exam period.

Right in the middle of one right now, with one down and two to go. Didn't really feel like exam period though. The pressure didn't seem to be there... and time passed so fast. Before I knew it, I'd completed the Virology paper already.

Now at work for the second paper, Immunology, tomorrow, after which, comes the last paper for the semester Molecular Microbiology. Then I'll be free for a month.

That stupid tic's still there... irritating me like anything. Nothing I do seems to get rid of it, sleeping more, sleeping less, not thinking about it, actively trying to control it, all doesn't work. It seems hell bent on annoying me.

That's all he wrote for now,

Until next time.

Destressing

Have you ever noticed how much destressing sounds like distressing? Interesting that. I just noticed it myself.

Anyhow, so semester's almost over. Assignments and so on are mostly done... thankfully. Unusual side-effect this time round though, I developed a tic in my left eyelid. Really quite irritating when you've got it. Can't stop it from quivering. I can't really imagine what would cause such a thing though. Can't be stress... cause I've been quite laid-back and have been sleeping over my quota the past week.

Silly of me though. To oversleep. I'd got to the point where... couldn't for the life of me go to bed last night. I was tossing and turning until 5.30 am. Worst part was, I had work today. Luckily not a full shift though. Somehow I'd made it through unscathed.

There's still tomorrow though, and this time it is a full-shift. Better turn in early tonight and hopefully I get an extra serving of sand.

Au revoir

Sleepless in Cyberspace

Well... here I am... at 1 am.

Still wide awake. Couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning and tossing and turning and tossing... well... you get the general idea.

Stupid circadian rhythm. Can't it see that I have work at 9.30 tomorrow? And that I'll probably need to keep going until 10pm or later because of my colleague's party-thingy?

No. I guess not. Oh well... probably need to dope up tomorrow.

On Coke and V and so on that is.

Intermittent

Regularity is just not my thing. I can be mundane, but apparently not regular as evidenced by the sporadic-ness of this blog.

Sparse posts about nothing, punctuated by voids of silence.

It's not that it's impossible to write (type), it's the utter unavailability of to form coherent "essays" and the inability to formulate a topic on which to discourse.

To complicate matters, I'm now expected to produce a composition for the Xaverian's Diamond Jubilee. No mean feat, when so far, in the eight months, since I was first informed, I've come up with one word, and that, I thought up just as I went to bed last night.

Makes me wonder, how those writers do it, churning out books and books thousands of words with no apparent effort. Perhaps there's some super-drug that pumps literary inspiration into their minds, or maybe it's a psychic wavelength that all good writers share, in which their disparate thoughts are shared, bouncing around the dimensions of all those interconnected brains.

That's just about the limit of what my befuddled brain can churn out for now.