Words of Advice: When you drop your sharpest kitchen knife while drying it off, do not be a dumb ass and try to catch it before it hits the floor. Just get the hell out of the way. If you are a dumb ass and try to catch it (Hi, there) be thankful when you don't accidentally slice your finger off.

In other news, I almost always get a little depressed around my birthday. This year is no different. Perhaps a little different because of the surrounding circumstances, of course. I get a little down because there's nothing that more obviously marks the passage of time (aside from the new year) than a birthday. And so that's when I sit and reflect on changes in my life. Often things change in ways that I don't want - which is clearly a no brainer this year. Usually its the same pattern of, "Oh, I wish I'd kept in better touch with so and so," and not the extreme case of, "Oh, I wish that my best friend of the past eleven years hadn't died."

Anyway, I will do my best to have a Happy Birthday, though in all honestly I just want it to be like any other day at this point, and that's good enough.

Look, I don't want to be a downer, but its my website, alright?

So, at what point is it supposed to get easier? I can't honestly say that I've had a single day yet where I haven't thought about Derek being gone. Sure, sometimes its just a passing thought (on the good days), but the thought is there, nonetheless. Whether its telling joke that was a favorite of his, or simply passing by a place where he and I had gone (how silly is it that I find Best Buy mildly depressing right now?) the thought is there. Sure, there are good days and bad days. There are times where I'm surprised how ok I am, and times where it feels like I'm being smothered by a ton of bricks. Moving the last of Derek's big stuff from his house in Cheverly, and therefore having to visit that house and his room, was surprisingly not as painful as I thought it would be. Seeing all of Derek's stuff neatly piled in his Dad's garage? A kick in the balls. His parents were talking about having a day where we gathered friends and pretty much gave away Derek's possessions. That will probably be not so fun. Though, I will admit, there is some stuff of his I'd like to have - some for selfish reasons (stuff I could actually use, as gross as that is), some because I'd like to have it just because it was his. The idea bothers me a bit, for the same reason that I always get depressed when I move and see all my stuff boxed up. There's this passing feeling like you're summing a person up by their possessions. I like stuff. I like having stuff. Sometimes, my stuff definitely defines me. That doesn't make it a good thing.

Gaming night has been sort of touch and go for me. In the past couple of months, Derek had missed our gaming nights a lot - he had been really busy at work before he left for Hawaii, and then... well, he left for Hawaii. So his absence wasn't out of the ordinary, and yet now its just painfully obvious that he's not there. Despite the fact that we often joked about how Derek tended to be a pretty passive roleplayer (something I hope I've learned to overcome [at least a bit] in the past two years of playing Nobilis) it was always obvious how much he loved being there with everyone. We just restarted the D&D campaign yesterday, and while we didn't have a moment or silence or anything, I felt him missing (particularly since Kirt kept using the word "taint" - but you probably don't want an explanation for that).

I am totally screwed if my MythTV box stops working. Why the hell did I let Derek convince me that installing Gentoo Linux was a good idea? I have no freaking idea how to even update the system. I guess this is where Derek starts teaching me to be as fearless as he was with this kind of thing. If it breaks, you just fix it, right?

I've never had to be Mr. Fix-It before. Not like this, at least.

Need to make time to get my second tattoo. I'd love to go down to Miami and hit up Miami Ink to do so - it would be a cool trip...but I think that might be a little difficult and expensive.

First off, I've turned comments back on, though I haven't implemented a system for preventing spam comments yet because I haven't had a good idea on solving it yet.

I've debated back and forth on whether I should post something here about Derek. Its probably still too fresh for me to do so, and I don't know how to properly sum Derek's influence on the past 10 years of my life in a post on a website. I would like to note that at the funeral this weekend, someone said that Derek was one of those people that, "lived each day as if it was his last." Something about that made me angry, but I didn't immediately realize why. It settled with me last night, however. I think that statement is a complete misunderstanding of Derek - he lived each day like it was his first in my eyes.

I used to talk
With honest conviction
Of how I predicted my world
I'm gonna leave it to stargazers
Tell me what your telescope sees

Oh, what is in store for me now?
It's coming apart
I know that its true
Cause I'm feeling my way through the dark
-Through The Dark, KT Tunstall

No, proposing to Katie did not cause me to fall off the face of the planet. I apologize for my absence, and shall do my best to make amends. I haven't had anything on my brain to draw, so I haven't. I have, however, wished that I was drawing, so I'm going to through up some stuff I've doodled that is just random stuff.

The goings on:
I've had to turn comments off on the pictures and news because some asshat was spamming the comments with inappropriate advertisements. Here, of all places. A site that gets like 2 page views every month. Asshat. Hopefully I'll be able to turn them back on in a little while.

Katie is currently in Russia studying abroad for a month, so I have been doing much movie watching to keep myself amused. I got a free one month subscription to Blockbuster Online which I'm using to rent movies that I'd be too embarassed to pick up in store (for the love of god, don't ever ever ever see Ultraviolet).

Video games. I've played a lot in the last six months, so I'll cover the highlights.

-Guitar Hero: buy a PS2 to play this game. Seriously.
-Condemned: Good atmosphere, nifty combat mechanics, superb lighting.
-Half-Life 2 Ep. 1: More of the same. Still not so impressed by HL2, but I'll buy the other episodes because they're at least halfway decent.
-Prey Demo: Goddamnit, a game with wonky gravity has been my idea for like 6 years now, and they've gone and stole it. This game should end up being a lot of fun multiplayer, and just might get me back to playing games online.
-City of Villains: I have NINJA HENCHMEN. I mean, how cool is that?
-Nintendo DS Lite: My most recent aquisition, and I'm quite happy with it. I'm totally enjoying New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age is pretty fun too. I'm quite impressed with the intuitive feel of the control of Metroid Prime: Hunters as well.

Hrm...I guess I can actually find stuff to ramble about if I put my mind to it. Maybe I'll come back in a few days and post some comic book rants (and talk about Superman Returns at that point).

So Kamil kept bugging me to update the site. Been busy working and playing games. September/October were some big months for games. I bought a ridiculous number in a short time. When I told Kamil that I had nothing to really talk about on my site, he said to review games, and I said no one would read them, and he said he would. So here goes:

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy: Ambitious and over rated. Story line did not really "bend" as much as it "flexed slightly." I only played through it once, but it was quite clear that nothing significant would really change if I played it again. It pretty much boils down to there being a "good" ending and a "bad" ending. Plot got really really pathetic near the end, as well.

Burnout Revenge: As bad ass as Burnout 3 was. Lots of mindless fun.

Myst V: Started strong, Ended strong, kind of slow in the middle. I was disappointed by the puzzles and the length of each age. I didn't find the puzzles particularly inventive and you could probably play straight through the game in about 8 hours. That's too short for an adventure game. I felt like I was barely starting the game and it was ending. As a fan of the series though, I enjoy how it wrapped the whole thing up. Oh, also from a technology standpoint, the facial animations (done mainly through texture work) and the complete graphics engine are pretty top notch.

We <3 Katamari: Please, King of the Cosmos, grace us with your presence in a third Katamari game. Can't get enough of this one, I'm still collecting cousins.

Quake 4: Still playing this one. Engine is put to shame by F.E.A.R. in my opinion (see below). Pretty straight forward FPS. I'll make it through the single player game eventually, but I'm in no hurry. The multiplayer is Quake 3, but prettier. I've got to get the frame rate up a little higher before diving into it more. Hopefully some sort of Rocket Arena 4 will come out, and some user made maps will make it better.

F.E.A.R.: Best FPS ever. At least in my opinion. The graphics are fantastic - shadows kick ass. Having your avatar cast a shadow is something that puts a level of immersion into the game that I've never seen. The absence of this in Quake 4 is totally noticable once you've played F.E.A.R. The scary moments are well spaced, and the fire fights are the best I have ever experienced. The Slo-Mo effect is fantastic; the sound shift and extra effects are perfect.

So, that's a summary of stuff that I've played recently. I don't think I've missed anything. I recently finished playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and am nearing the end of X-Men: Legends (finally).

So there, Kamil. Fsck off (and I mean that in the nicest way)!