#1 — So one of the used game I bought for my new used Playstation was “Return to Castle Wolfenstein.” Which would not for any reason work. So I took it back to the Electronic Boutique in Hunt Valley where I learned that the older PS2s (of which mine is one) suffer from a laser-read defect, or something, which can make playing newer games difficult or outright impossible. He told me that no version of “Wolfenstein” would run on my console, then refunded me my money. I hope this won’t hamper my Star Wars Battlefield II prospects. (And if there’s a larger lesson to be learned, it’s thus: I should do my research before buying used game consoles).

#2 — I made an afternoon trip out to IKEA today. I’ve been wanting to go for a few weeks, ever since my 2007 catalog showed up in the mailbox and I cheered and jumped up and down. I’ve got some milk cartons in my living room I’ve been using as overflow bookshelves, but with this year, IKEA rolled out a slimmed down version of their EXPEDIT bookcase: this version featuring eight “cubicles”, each, actually, roughly the size of a milk carton. So, at some point — when I unload the heavy box out of my poor car — I’ll get that all built, assembled, and into place.

When I got to the pickup area of the IKEA warehouse — it was in self-get — I nearly got run over by a very angry housefrau who told me that they were all out of the beech EXPEDIT of the type I wanted, and she’d wanted. She told me angrily she’d driven all the way from Columbia for it, and now had to drive down to College Park (…) Not willing to take her word for it — and certainly not willing to drive to CP — I scanned aisle 6 section 11, and what I saw seemed to confirm her — White, check. Black/Brown, check. Birch, check. No beech. But my brain likes to ponder shit like that, and I realized that there was no section marker for beech EXPEDIT, so I turned around, and sure enough, the beech EXPEDIT was stored on aisle 5, and there were a bunch of ‘em. Score! (If I’d seen housefrau on my way out, I would’ve told her where to find them, but I didn’t, so she probably drove down to College Park).

#3 — I stopped by Beltway Liquors on my way home, in the vague and as usual, futile, hope that I could score a case of my favorite alcoholic beverage ever, Raspberry Cider Jack. I couldn’t, so I settled for a six-pack and, as I walked out, a bottle of beer that caught not only my eye, but the guy behind me at the checkout lane, who asked, “Does that bottle actually say what I think it does?” That would be “Monty Python’s Holy Grail” with a large X through the “Gr”. This is one of those beers you buy more for the label than the contents of the bottle.

#4 — I witnessed an 18-wheeler almost run three cars off the road on I-83 today. I had a very scary perspective: he was about two feet off my rear bumper, and in quite the hurry. As much as I hate dipshits tailgating and driving recklessly in ricers, there’s something very scary about an unhinged maniac behind the wheel of such a large vehicle. If he hasn’t killed anyone by the time I’m sitting down to write this (three hours after the fact) I’ll admit to being very surprised.

Last but not least … #5. Tomorrow is my birthday (more on that, uh, tomorrow). I’m meeting up with Wombat & his lovely wife for half-priced wings at the Rec Room in Towson tonight around 7:30ish (next to the Recher). Consider this an open invitation to stop by and get me drunk. (Actually, since I’m my own designated driver, I won’t be drinking much, but you can buy me wings).

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You’ve got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don’t care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

I don’t know how accurate this is, but it’s very flattering, so I don’t care.

If you’ve ever wondered why the French military has such a poor reputation, take a look at the photo of their aircraft carrier Clemenceau. Silly French. Aircraft go on aircraft carriers, not trucks! (Actually, there’s a whole controversy about that ship, which apparently is a toxic wasteland. Who knew that? Who else knew that France blew up a Greenpeace boat twenty years ago?)

For all the shit France gets for being a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys, it’s important to remember that they haven’t always been. Following Munich, when British Prime Minister Chamberlin returned to England proclaiming, stupidly, “Peace for our time!” (and believing it!), French President Deladier, (From The Last Lion: Alone [pg 356]) also returning to throngs of cheering citizens, did not have the same reaction as the man — that’d be Chamberlin — who deluded himself repeatedly into failing to prevent World War. Instead of believing that he’d averted war, Deladier, “a man completely without vanity … turned to Leger and whispered ‘Les cons!’ (”Fools!”).”

“Churchill later wrote that he had ‘always believed that [Chekoslovakian Leader Benes] was wrong to yield. He should have defended his fortress line. Once fighting had begun, in my opinion at that time, France would have moved to his aid in a surge of national passion, and Britain would have rallied to France almost immediately.’”

Chamberlin. Gotta love him. He had the opportunity to bring Hitler to his knees — when Britain vascillated on treaty obligations following German reoccupation of the Rhineland, France backed down from an invasion which would’ve sent German troops racing out of the Rhineland while a military coup was hatched against Hitler. After Munich, Chamberlin would deliberately snub the Soviets who had offered a mutual defense pact to the French and the British against Hitler, the result of which would be the Soviet/Nazi non-aggression pact. Forget the collapse of the French military against the German blitzkrieg — Neville Chamberlin stabbed Europe in the back. Over. And over. And over again.

What a fuckin’ tool.

So, back in January, overweight and tired of being so, I made a resolution to lose weight. If memory serves, I was about 250 lbs. I didn’t keep the resolution. When you get right down to it, eating and not exercising is a lot more fun than exercising and not eating. I’ve got a sheet of looseleaf taped to the back of my bathroom door tracking my weight loss progress. May 30th, I was down to 222.5 pounds (up from my all-time low of 221), a loss of nearly thirty pounds.

But by then, I’d essentially fallen off the weight-loss wagon.

On July 5th, I resolved to get back on my diet. I weighed 226 then. I didn’t keep that resolution.

I’m back up to two hundred and thirty-four pounds. Yes, I’m still down considerably from January, but I’m way back up since July. The sad fact is that when I started my diet, it took me to the start of the third week to get down to two-hundred and thirty-five pounds, which means that in several weeks of being slack, I’ve undone months of dieting. The size thirty-six shorts I bought a few months ago are super tight. The forty-two size shorts I’d been wearing prior to that no longer fall directly off me unless fastened tight with a belt.

(Grrr. Bad Snay).

I’m picking a bad time to get back on the diet — for reasons that will become apparent, today and tomorrow won’t be days I can avoid eating (well, I could, but why would I want to?), so for all practical purposes, the diet won’t officially resume until Thursday. But the exercising — jumping jacks — resumes today.

Yeah, you effin’ love handles, I’m coming for you, but not with a steak knife. Nope, I’m coming with you with my mouth. Be afraid. (I am!)

Today, I bought a Playstation 2 off one of my coworkers, all cheap like (least, I hope so!). Aside for the Nintendo and the N64 (I rock at Beetle Racing), it’s the only game console I own (and it’s certainly the newest & nicest, plus the Nintendo doesn’t work, grrr). I stopped by Electronic Boutique in Hunt Valley after work today and bought Medal of Honor: European Assault (as well as some used games — Max Payne, Rainbow Six 3, and last and most sadly, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the disc won’t read!). There’s nothing quite like leveling a Garand M1 at a Nazi and pumping him full of lead, and I’ve found that first-person-shooters, in general, tend to be stress reducers.

So I’m playing the first few levels, and the biggest problem I’m having is adjusting to the controller. Most of the games I play are PC, and I’m used to manipulating a keyboard as opposed to the admitedly very comfortable PS2 controller. I need some practice — hard to kill Nazis when you can’t control your movements very well. I’m reminded of Counter-Strike where, yes, I might not have had the best kill/death ratio, but I could turn, jump, and move with precision. Here, it feels like I’m playing a first shooter while drunk —

– I’d also like to take this moment to apologize to all of my computer-generated squadmates, who I have punctured with lead and blown up with my own hand grenades. Whooops.