A Recap

After yesterday's unexpected absense from work, I'm back in the saddle this morning. Here's how the whole thing went down yesterday.

At 7:30 a.m. I woke up briefly to call the office and leave a message saying that my car was in the shop and that I would be there as soon as I could, provided my car was ready at some point during the day. Then I went back to bed.

At 10:30 a.m. I got a phone call from the guy who was working on my car. He said the ignition coil needed to be replaced, and he told me how much that would cost. I told him to go ahead with it, and he said it would take maybe a couple of hours. At this point, I figured I might still be able to make it to work for half a day if they got the car back to me fairly quickly. After the phone call, Brandi and I got out of bed and started our day.

Around 1:00 p.m. I got another call from the mechanic. He said he had replaced the ignition coil and that the check engine light had turned off, but he hadn't been able to make it stop stalling. He said he had some other things he needed to check, but he would call back as soon as he had more info.

At 3:00 p.m. Brandi left for work. I knew at this point that I would have to walk over to Midas when my car was ready, but that was fine since it's only a couple of miles away from my apartment. I decided to put my day off to good use, so I turned on my PlayStation and dived into NCAA Football 2005.

At 6:00 p.m. (still playing football) I called Midas to get an update on my car. They close at 7:00, and since I would have to walk I wanted to find out if it would be ready by that time so I could head over there. The mechanic said he still hadn't found the problem, and that he could probably have it diagnosed by 7:00 but it wouldn't be ready. I wasn't totally thrilled about leaving my car there for another night, but I needed to get this stuff taken care of, so I said that would be fine.

At 6:35 p.m. I got another call from Midas. The mechanic said he wasn't sure if he had corrected the problem or not, but somehow he had gotten the stalling problem to cease. I headed out of the apartment as quickly as I could, and literally ran to Midas. I wasn't entirely sure I could make it in time, but I needed to get my car back if I could. I got there at 6:55, out of breath and dripping.

I have to give Midas credit. The price they charged me was exactly what they said it would be on the phone at 10:30 that morning. Whatever they did after replacing the ignition coil was done free of charge. The guys who work there are really cool, too. I have no problem going in there when I have car trouble.

At any rate, I drove home and my car seemed to be fine. I don't know what they did, and it doesn't sound like they do either, but it worked. At least so far.

I got home a little after 7:00 and went right back to playing PlayStation, where I stayed for most of the rest of the evening. My friend McComas came over around 10:00 to check the game out. Brandi got home from work around 11:00, so we ordered food and the three of us hung out around the PlayStation and talked about football. Does life get any better?

This evening will probably be similar once I get home from work. Brandi won't be home from work until around 11:00, so I'll probably fire up the PlayStation within seconds of walking in the door. I'll put the Reds game on the other TV at 7:00 so I can keep one eye on that while I play. I'm hoping to finish up my first season tonight so I can check out the recruiting feature and see how it's changed from last year's version of the game.

Of course, I do have other stuff that I probably should get to tonight. Whether it happens or not remains to be seen.

I should mention that I didn't miss anything by not coming to work yesterday. There was nothing new in my inbox and no voice mails either. Apparently the only thing I missed was a visit from a salesman that I really don't like much anyway, so that's actually a good thing. I'm glad about this, because I felt a little bad about missing the whole day. I shouldn't, since we haven't been busy lately anyway, but I did.

Now that my car saga seems to have ended, I'm going to try really hard to get back to my normal blogging style and not include quite so much boring detail from my own daily life.

Been Nice Knowing You

Anyone wishing to contact me, I suggest you do it in the next forty-five minutes or so. That's about how long it will take me to get to Best Buy to get my copy of NCAA Football 2005, and then drive home and start playing it. Once that point is reached, my social life will be mostly over for the forseeable future. I get lost in these games each year, and if the early reviews are any indication, this version blows its predecessors out of the water by a considerable margin. I'm looking forward to it very much.

I called Best Buy a few minutes ago to confirm that they actually have copies, and it sounded like the clerk may have fielded a few similar calls today. The conversation went something like this:

CLERK: Thank you for calling Best Buy, how may I help you?
ME: Hi, I was wondering if you have any copies of NC-
CLERK: Yes, we have them for all systems. ::click::

On a Mission

Today I'm on a mission to find myself a copy of NCAA Football 2005 for PlayStation 2. There are a couple of shops in the area that may have it, so I'll probably call them or stop by those places on my lunch break. If that fails, there are a couple other places I may check on the way home this evening. I may not die if I don't get it today, but then again I may. You never know about these things.

The purchase of a new video game that I'm certain to be addicted to probably spells the end of the line for Galaxies. I started playing it last Wednesday and it has failed to capture my attention the way I thought it would. That's probably a good thing, actually, given the cumulative cost of a game subscription. Being addicted to football is much cheaper--all I have to pay for is the game itself, and I think that's true even if I decide to play it online. If I need a Star Wars video game fix, I can always pick up Knights of the Old Republic.

I walked into the copy room this morning to see our office manager sweeping up flecks of dried mud, which have been falling off the shoes of one of our engineers all morning. Said engineer was standing in the room, watching her do it. What in the hell is wrong with people here? If I'm that engineer and I'm responsible for the dirt all over the floor, there's no way I'm watching someone sweep it up for me. If I'm the office manager, there's no way I'm sweeping it up when the person responsible for it is right there. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Speaking of going crazy, my downstairs neighbor apparently went a little crazy on Brandi this morning and confronted her in the parking lot for playing music at 8:00 in the morning. She called Brandi some names and said she was going to call the landlords on us. Um, okay. Considering that I've lived in the building for over three years and never had a complaint before, and also considering that I've lived above this particular person for over a year with no prior issues, I doubt our landlord will make much of an issue over it. Especially since this neighbor has never come up and asked us to keep it down or anything, and instead decided to just freak out. We're reasonable people, and pretty nice too (at least usually)--had she asked, I'm sure Brandi would have just turned down the music if it was too loud.

My running commentary on the Home Run Derby was fun, but probably could have been done better. It was overlong, but then again so was the event. I got distracted as it went on, which is why my commentary (particularly on the final round) kind of faded out. Still, it was my first try, and I'm sure I'll do better if I do something like that again.

An Offer I Can't Refuse

Something bad happened this morning. Something that has the potential to be bad, anyway.

I received in my inbox an e-mail from lucasarts.com. George Lucas is the creator of the Star Wars films and franchise, and LucasArts is the company that produces related video games and other items. This e-mail contained an offer to try out Star Wars Galaxies for fourteen days, free of charge.

Galaxies is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and I've been interested in it since I first heard it was in development. I used to play the Star Wars Role Playing Game back when the books were published by West End Games and I had a large enough group of local friends to support it. The thought of a video game based on the same concept, especially one that could be played online, appeals to me a lot. However, having had friends who have gotten into other MMORPGs, and seeing how their lives were totally consumed by them, I managed to talk myself out of buying Galaxies when it came out, and I've managed to hold off until now.

Besides the time-consumption aspect of Galaxies, I've also stayed away from it because of the cost. First off, you have to buy the game. Then there's a subscription fee which is necessary to play the game online. Of course, it can't be played offline, so if you don't pay the subscription fee, then the software itself is useless. I'm not a fan of this particular model of payment. If they're going to charge for the service, then the game itself should be free; or the price of the game should include the subscription. That's not the way it works, and so I stayed away. I didn't want to lay out the money for the game to end up not liking it and then never playing it again.

When I saw the offer in my inbox to try it for free for fourteen days, I didn't think much of it at first. I thought it referred only to the subscription, which didn't make much sense to me as I thought the first thirty days were free anyway. Once I opened it up and looked at it, though, I saw that my first thought was wrong. They're actually offering a trial version of the software which will expire in fourteen days, as well as a free subscription for that time span.

Now it seems like I almost have to try it. Don't I? I mean, why wouldn't I? It's totally free for fourteen days, with no obligations--they don't even take your credit card number during the trial period (now I sound like an infomercial). As much as I've wanted to play this game for so long, I feel like I would be doing myself a disservice if I passed up an opportunity to check it out with absolutely no strings attached.

The danger in that, of course, is if I like it and like it a lot. I feel like I've shown good restraint so far in staying away from the game, but it could all be for naught. If I like it, then I'll have to buy the game and purchase a subscription. At least I'd know going into it that it would be money well spent, though.

You know, I've heard that crack dealers operate like this: they give you a little taste for free, just to get you hooked. Then you're a customer for life.

Dangerous Thoughts

Last night I had a blast from the past. I got together with my friend McComas (I call him by his last name because that's what guys do...also because everyone I know is named "Mike," so it helps to differentiate). We were roommates twice in college and once after I graduated (he's the one who instigated my move back to BG from Troy, actually), so we used to hang out all the time. We haven't been able to get together much for a while, though, with conflicting schedules and the fact that he has a kid now.

We've been getting at least a little bit better about it lately, though. We got together for dinner last night, then went over to his place and had a PlayStation football marathon.

We used to do this all the time back when we lived together. We'd sit there in the dorm, or in my bedroom once we moved off-campus, and play video game football for hours on end. During my senior year, we'd often still be awake and playing when our other roommate got up in the morning. We didn't play nearly that long last night, but we did get a few games in.

The second game we played was an absolute classic. EA Sports NCAA Football 2004 offers several historic teams, so I was playing with '94 Penn State, and McComas took '88 Notre Dame. He beat me 57-55 in three overtimes, and it was an absolute blast. The other two games we played we were just screwing around, playing with really bad teams, or with other historic teams just to check out certain players and old uniforms, but even those games were pretty competitive.

This got me thinking. I love the EA Sports NCAA Football franchise; I've got each year's edition dating back to probably 1996, when the game was on PC only. Most other games I play for a while and then forget about, but never these games. It's rare for the discs to come out of my system at all. I play them constantly. However, about 99.7% of that time, I'm playing against computer-controlled opponents, and as much fun as the game is, eventually there comes a point where I just dominate from start to finish and there are no close games anymore. I keep playing anyway, because in these games the recruiting is as much fun (if not more so) as the actual football.

Playing against human opponents is always more challenging. The games McComas and I play are always close, one way or another, and that makes the games themselves a lot more fun.

That being the case, I'm at least mildly considering the purchase of an online adapter for my PlayStation, so I can play football online against real human opponents when the new version comes out next month.

I've dabbled only a bit in online games before now (I used to play Counterstrike occasionally), and that's probably all for the good. McComas used to play Everquest, and I remember how it totally consumed his life for a while. That could definitely happen to me. I really thought about buying and getting into Star Wars Galaxies, but I'm not yet ready to cease all other activities. I could definitely get into it, especially considering how much I love all things Star Wars anyway. I'm still intrigued by the game, and I really want to play it, but I'm a little scared of losing contact with everything else that's near and dear to me. It's like getting into drugs.

It may be just as bad with football. Sometimes I have a hard time tearing myself away from it even when I'm winning games by thirty points each time, just because I love football and love playing the game so much. Add in the element of actual human competition, and I may actually stop showing up to work.

The advantage that football has over Galaxies, of course, is that it's free, whereas Galaxies requires a monthly fee in order to play.

When the new football game comes out, I'll definitely be spending a lot of time with it. If I decide to get the online adapter, I may withdraw from society altogether. If anyone wants to find me, they'll have to take me on in cyberspace.