Randomness

Just posting a few random happenings in the world of Chris.

The lappy got a heart transplant yesterday. My sound card was acting funky (I had to push my headphone jack to get the speakers to work, but headphones worked fine ... so weird), so Dell sent a guy out to replace not only the speakers, but the entire motherboard as well, and I didn't pay a cent. Thanks Dell! And to the tech, thanks for your patience with my laundry list of questions, and congrats! He gets married tomorrow.

We had a visitor at Coldstone yesterday. I found this (not so) little guy chillin' on the front door. When I flicked him off, he flew up, flew back at me, bounced off my shirt, and then landed back on the windows of the store. So I just left him there, where he remained the better part of the day. Who knew. He was pretty cool though.

An amusing sign we saw at the repair shop where our car got its oil changed recently.

Patrick over at Tentpegs has started a fantastic series on pacifism. It's an amazing read.

Life and Death, part 1
Life and Death, part 2
Life and Death, part 3

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've been playing this game, recommended by Rob, and I must say, it's ... well, fantastic. I don't get to play very often, so I'm not very far yet, but what I have played has been excellent. Best seven bucks I ever spent on a computer game. It's called "Psychonauts", and it's about this summer camp for psychic warriors. Relax, it's not really a war game. It's set in the future after an asteroid filled with "psitanium" hits out in the desert. The locals start going crazy, so a guy starts a psych ward to deal with it. Eventually, there are more people in the psych ward than in the town, so the government shuts down the town and pulls everybody out. Then founds a research lab which ends up turning into a summer camp to train kids with newfound psychic powers. But during Raz's time at the camp, everyone (but Raz) mysteriously loses their brains, and it's up to him to retrieve them. It's utterly rediculous, and I love it for that. It very obviously does not take itself seriously, like when Raz (your character) talks to squirrels, or when he tells the seagulls they smell like garbage.

The best part is that, because most of the game is spent inside people's minds, the possibilities are endless. For example, one level is spent running around on a cube inside a James Bond-ish guy's head. Every face is up; so you have to re-orient yourself every time you cross a corner. It's so totally different from other games that follow all the rules that I can't not but enjoy it.

Last, but not least, I finally got my eyes checked. It turns out that my prescription had changed, but this is my favorite part of it: I enjoyed my doctor's visit. Enjoyed! Like, I liked it! Part of it is, I think, that I didn't have to have my eyes dialated. Instead, I used the optos, a retinal scanner that takes a digital picture of the inside of the eyes. Then, Dr. Stratton put the image up on her 20" screen and showed me my eyes, how healthy they were and which parts were which. (click to enlarge)

Oh. And a video. It's horribly irreverent, but it makes me laugh. I guess it's a good thing that God has a sense of humor too. Enjoy.