Refund

I had a new experience this week. Last month, after Spain had won the World Cup, I had purchased a Cesc Fabregas Spanish national team jersey off of eBay. It was supposed to arrive within a couple weeks, but it did not. In fact, it never arrived, and I couldn't get the seller to respond to my queries. So, I opened a case with eBay about the auction. The whole process was rather painless. I explained the situation in my submission, and I got a response email saying to wait a week while they tried to contact the seller to see what was up. A week later I got another email from eBay asking if I had heard anything from the seller. I hadn't, so I let them know that. Less than 24 hours later I was issued a full refund for the price of the item plus shipping. So, while I still don't have that Fabregas jersey I wanted, I do have my money back, which is the next best thing. Now to find something else to blow it on...

Game Party

My friend Chris Fawcett turned 51 yesterday. To celebrate, we played games at his house all weekend. I wasn't there for all of it, but I got a good 8+ hours in over a couple different days. I finally got to play Struggle of Empires again (I was in the lead after the first two turns, but after the final turn I had dropped to third place. Drat!), and I got introduced to Silverton, an interesting blend of rail game and economic speculation game. I got destroyed in that one, but I had never played it before, and everyone agreed that I did about as well as could be expected when none of the card draws were favorable to me.

And, as luck would have it, Chris' house was about a mile from where the YMCA book fair was going on, so I was able to pick up some nice hardback sci-fi books for dirt cheap.

Dog-Sitting

Today I begin a week-long odyssey of watching my parents' dog while they are in Florida enjoying the company of their grandchildren. Sam the dog is already trying to cop an attitude with me. Hey, if you don't pee, you don't get any carrots or green beans. You can mope about it all you want but I really don't care about what you think should be happening. Did you pee? No? Then no treats for you.

Game On!

This only really makes sense if you have experience with Bollywood movies and have at least passing familiarity with MMORPGs, but this is pretty well done.

Seeing Old Things As New Again

You may remember a while back when I noted that I had burned my entire CD collection to iTunes and boxed up my CDs, such that when I want to listen to music on my stereo I just plug in my iPod and go to town. One of the interesting things that has arisen from this action is that older CDs, which I had not listened to in years because they were buried in the depths of my CD racks, are now coming back to my attention because iTunes gives all albums equal screen space. So, I have been spending some time recently listening to albums that I have not listened to in years; in some cases, well over five years. It has been an interesting experience. I have also realized that while some of these older albums are quite good and I should not have shunted them to side as I did, some of them were not listened to for a reason, as some of the albums just weren't that good or were purchased during one of my "open minded" periods where I was trying new things only to learn that I just don't like some things. The end result of this is that some of those old albums are going to get deleted from iTunes entirely, as I can't imagine ever listening to them again. On the other hand, there are some albums that have a handful of really great songs on them, with a lot of "meh," so I just need to create some good playlists to include the good stuff and leave the lame stuff behind forever.

Heat

I am done with Dallas for the time being, and am back in St. Louis, where I hope to be for a good six or seven weeks, if all goes according to plan (it almost never does, unfortunately). This is conveniently timed so that I can be in town as we breach the 100 degree mark today, which is lovely. I kind of feel sorry for the guys that mow our lawns, as they get to work outside all day in this heat. Yet another reason to go to university and get a degree, so that you can get an inside job with air conditioning. I don't really have anything new to report, just work and general life stuff. I'm trying to get caught up on some reading during my time in town, and I got a couple books finished off over the weekend. So far, I am surviving my "no new games" ban, which is in place until the end of the year, just fine. Maybe something will break my will power over the next few months, but I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. I've only found one game that I really want to pick up, so as long as the number is small I should be able to manage it.