Birthday Report

Thanks to the efforts of viral marketing (apparently Skype keeps track of birthdays...), my birthday was remembered by many people. arigatou one and all. Especially for the loot. It's so nice to get loot.

Some asked, "How did you spend the day?"

Well my loot from Mari was to be a day's skiing. Horrray!

We got up at 4:45 yesterday to get ready for the 5:33 train we had to take to get to Ueno station for the bullet train. Mari said she felt cold, which wasn't really that unusual as February had become very cold for the last few days. Probably it was trying to make up for lost time with the warm winter we've had so far.

We both slept on the train, but when we got to the ski field Mari still couldn't feel warm. She said she was going to go and lie down at the health center. After about 20 mins of sleep she had her temperature taken, with the result of 38.9C. After aspirin and a taxi ride to the local hospital she said she was really starting to feel much better, and maybe we could just go slow in the morning. Hmmm. The doctor gave her the usual swag of pills they dole out here. Sensibly, we decided to go back to the station area and have lunch while we waited for the next train home.

While we waited, lunch brought shivers and the inability to stand upright. After getting back to Ueno I was already half carrying Mari through the terminal, when she completely collapsed. The very efficient station man radioed for a wheelchair. Travel tip - I've found that should you want a cheap bullet train trip, simply buy the cheapest ticket, go to wherever you want, then collapse when you get to the station. No one checks the tickets of an unconscious person.

We had a taxi ride back to my place, in which she slept all the way. It was nice to see Tokyo from a car window. I so rarely get to do so.

So now its Sunday afternoon. She's slept pretty much since yesterday, but was able to eat some toast and yogurt for breakfast. As these things usually go, she'll no doubt make a complete recovery just in time to get to work Monday morning. Poor Mari.

Like an arrow...

Wow, is it really that long since I've been here? (he asks rhetorically)

I've just finished reading Dave's latest blog, and feel that if he's going to pen to paper, then so will I.

What can I say about the last few months?

It has consisted of work, skiing, and PSP games.

Work is as work does.

Skiing is great. This Saturday will be the 5th for this season. It's been a warm winter, so I hope some more skiing can be done in March. But that will very much depend on how quickly the winter season starts to wane. Much improvement has been made; but there is much more to go. A couple of cartwheeling falls also served to slow me down. Having one's thigh bone rammed into one's pelvis can do that.

The rest of this post is strictly for geeks.

PSP has seen a return to one of the original games I bought: Star Wars: Battlefront II. When first bought about a year ago this game was played for a few days then relegated to the bookshelf by Grand Theft Auto. There was nothing wrong it, but its wanton killing sprees just didn't compare to the thrill of wanton killing sprees with carjacking. There it lay until a couple of weeks ago, when on a whim it got pulled out. After running around killing and being killed for awhile, I discovered that there are actually some points to these missions - awards, medals and promotions can be earned. So now my aim is to get my 8 abilities up to "Legendary" status. "Endurance" is there, with "Frenzy" (what a cool name for going crazy bonkers with a futuristic shotgun) coming in second on "Elite" level. The others are all at "Veteran", except "Marksman" which may forever languish at "Green" as I seem both unskilled at dishing out 6 head-shots in one mission, and unlucky that when I do find a malingering patsy, someone else blows him away first.

Two pretty cool missions spring to my geeky mind. Both involved conflicts with Darth Vader. In the first I was trying for head-shots in the Hoth battle, when I saw Vader's stark, black form walking across the white snow scape. BANG- one head shot. For a regular character this would cause instant death; Vader merely looked around, wondering what hit him. Reload, and BANG - second head shot. He turned and looked at me. While I was reloading he disappeared from the screen as he Force Jumped the distance between us, landing right in front of me. Force Jump requires a moment to recover from, and in that time I panicked and mashed the buttons to shoot him pointblank. Scratch one Vader. Which is pretty cool 'cause if he gets anywhere near you he throws his light saber and you're instant sushi.

The other was on Endor. I was piloting a commandeered AT-ST when I saw Vader. I shot at him, and he blocked the AT-ST's bolt. I shot again, with the same result. A third for the same. I realized that he was in some kind of loop - he could have run away, or attacked, or cut my metal legs out from under me. But instead he just stood there blocking the bolts. With my rebel scum buddies having almost overrun the rest of the map, I spent the last 30 seconds of the game pinning Vader down with my AT-ST. There's a perverse kind of enjoyment in exploiting a stuck game character - but it's especially fun watching Vader take no damage when going toe-to-toe with an AT-ST.