Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 34,587 words. It's the home stretch my friends, and of course I'm getting nervous as heck about whether or not I'm going to make it all the way to the finish line in time. I'm still behind in terms of the estimate daily quota by at least another 3,000 words and given the work week is already starting, I know that I'm going to have some challenges with squeezing in enough writing time before the month (and thus he "competition") ultimately ends.

Gaming day was good, as always. It also helped that Adrian and Nabs were okay to stay a bit longer this time around so even if we started yesterday's session rather late, we still covered a lot of ground and got a fair amount of gaming done. Plus Mahar had come from a wedding and brought along some fortune cookies and buko pie to help make the game day a lot more...flavorful. Or something - I'm sure there's a better word for it, but it fails to come to me right now.

Today has been largely light. Tobie and I woke up in the afternoon and that gave us time to check on online stuff, prepare some more for the upcoming Trinity game that we'll be starting soon with other gaming group and eventually a nice dinner of munggo while watching George Lucas' THX 1138. It was a pretty impressive movie that had me thinking about similar films like A Clockwork Orange and even Equilibrium but with an entirely different level of mind-fucking. And here's me thinking that Lucas was just a good conventional storyteller who sticks to movies with more mass market appeal. It now almost seems like a disappointment that he doesn't make more movies similar to THX.

On a bit of a side note, I got into an interesting IM conversation last night with a friend of mine about developments with his ex. It's odd to think that I can now more directly relate to such conversations since I've actually been through the transition from one relationship to another. I'll not go into details in terms of what was discussed, but in summary it was more of the usual observations of how people behave after a break-up, especially in a social-networking environment. It's perfectly understandable for the most part but at times it certainly doesn't make things any easier to deal with but that's life and all that. Funny - I've gotten so used to giving relationship advice over things I may not have had direct experience with but at the very least now the post break-up routine is something that I have better insight about.

So there.

Work looms on the horizon and I still want to experiment with this Sew No More fabric glue to see if it's any good. Wish me luck!

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I love the guy with a hat - as far as recurring xkcd characters go, he's a genius!

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 33,328 words. I've made some fairly tremendous progress in the course of the night (despite my lack of sleep) and perhaps more largely because of my sheer stubbornness and determination to get more done. I'm on the fifth "chapter" of the book and I need to start thinking about wrapping up the whole thing soon enough.

So yes, my hectic, tiring, stressful Saturday ended with a night of writing. Well that and cooking a nice big pot of Mexican Relish to make me feel better and to help me re-energize. Archer was amazingly supportive and he massaged my aching legs and feet (multiple times, I must guiltily admit) in order to help work out all the kinks I developed in my multiple train rides. But despite all the commuting, a little rain and an emotionally heavy day, I think things worked out well enough...for now. I think I mentioned this in yesterday's entry that it will still need a lot of work (albeit, in a highly cryptic manner) and I'm sticking by that assessment. I say this with no sense of regret or anything of that nature - just acknowledging what will be needed in the times to come.

So yes, a night of writing and Archer massages really helped me along and made me feel better and eventually more recharged. Eventually my body wasn't willing to work with me anymore given more than 28 hours of being awake and so I relented in slept.

I got up this morning to write some more and eventually Tobie and I had a fun leftovers lunch instead of cooking anything new. We got around to finally watching Doctor Who: Waters of Mars and it was quite the heavy piece. I was surprised at what direction they seemed to be taking for the Doctor, but then again things resolved themselves well enough in the end. Thus there remains the matter of his eventual death, which had been decided on ages ago and how the fans will ultimately react to the new Doctor just around the corner.

Today is gaming day - perhaps the final thing that I need to fully get out of the heaviness of yesterday. As always, the gaming group is gathered and we've just gorged ourselves on pizza, fortune cookies and buko pie. Ah yes, the night is young and I still have A jabberwocky to kill - or five. Argh.

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A little something for all my diabetic friends, hehe.

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 28,890 words. I'm way under my daily quota which states I should have been past the 35,000 mark today but then given the circumstances of the last 48 hours, I think I can get a bit of a reprieve. Tobie and I have committed to making this night a writing night and we're going to really push ourselves to get as far as we can. The home stretch is just around the corner! We don't have much time but we're both so close to our goal!

I'm pretty drained on so many levels, this is not going to be one of my more coherent entries. Let's begin.

Work was tiring yet fulfilling. Pretty heavy meeting with the Compliance girls. The 2nd ever Best Practices Forum in the morning.

I traveled along the path of the asymptote to see how close to infinity I could get this time around. I got pretty darned close - close enough to scare me and shave off a few years of my life, but then the time dilation effect made up for that, I suppose. I know I'll pay for traveling so close to the speed of light light that, but such journeys are always worth it, not matter how scary. The risks are always worth it.

I realized something today. I paid a heavy price to come to this realization, but it was worth it. I feel a lot better, but the process took a lot out of me. My willpower bar is at zero and the only thing I have to look forward to is that I was able to stick to virtue instead of vice, and that means I'll get a full bar in return. I'm still waiting for that to happen. I couldn't done it without you, but then it again it is about you so that ultimately makes sense. Well duh.

LRT 1 to LRT 2 is a lot easier than MRT to LRT 1. Boo you MRT.

The trap has been set. The key log has been placed. Now what? Who knows. I've hit the timer so my turn is over. It's up to the other person now - although it always has been. I just changed the parameters a bit more, upped the ante and now...here we are.

It's not easy playing bait. Quack. Quack. Moo.

Why does self-sacrifice have to be so painful? Wait - don't even bother answering that. I was a rhetorical question of limited practical importance (but perhaps is a matter of consequence). Damnitdamnitdamnit.



Refrigerator.

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As I kept saying, we all have our roles to play, not matter how we feel about them.

First, a very Happy Birthday to the Julia Child of Gaming - Adrian! A very Happy Birthday, "James"! I look forward to the day that we meet again and I get to dismantle your evil domain! Nyahahaha!

I'm feeling pretty beat - this work week has felt somewhat longer than others. I guess one could say that it's been busy and just leave it at that. But perhaps its more about it being rather "heavy" in many aspects and that's what has really taken its toll on me. Then again, that's the working world for you and you just need to keep rolling with the punches as they say. To cap off my weekend, tomorrow morning we'll be hosting this quarter's Best Practices Forum. It's one of the bigger ticket items that's part of my area of responsibility and as much as I know it'll go well, I still get nervous.

I imagine yesterday's post was a bit confusing (and perhaps even unnerving to a limited degree) and I suppose it all is. It's a lot to handle but it's not something I can't deal with, don't worry. It's just fairly big and longer term readers of this blog will know that I've always used my writing as an output. Rather than go nuts with dealing with the gravity of things in my head, I've always found it to be helpful to try and take it out of my head, place it it on a space where I can allow letters and the dictates of language to help better define it and subject it to further thought and consideration. It's like creating a scale model of something for scientific purposes in order to give you something that can be better used for experimentation.

Okay, this is getting nerdier and geekier by the minute. So sue me.

The bottom line is don't worry, I'm okay. Or at least I will be. Besides, I have Archer in my life and as always he is being the amazingly awesome guy that he is and tells me all the right things that I need to hear. I'm serious when I say ALL of them, even the darker ones that hide in the recesses of my mind. That's just the way our life together is, I suppose. That's how things go when you more so completely in sync with another person in so many ways. Ah life.

Now it's time for a quick dinner before work. I cooked the usual buttered mixed veggies and pork chops while Tobie has prepared a rather hearty salad. Yes, yes, I'll be taking photos. =D

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Now that's truly being smart about the, err, shall we say "Narnia Phenomenon"? =D

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 26,726 words. I would have made more progress had I not gotten obsessed about recreating the Aeon Trinity character sheets in Google Docs for my other gaming group. We're preparing to start a new game using this system and I'm pretty excited - it's time for some science fiction gaming action! But yes, I will keep working on my story, too.

Work continues to be rather interesting and busy in its own way. I still haven't gotten back to the on-going physical exam proceedings - when I took mine, the optometrist wasn't present. I hate the fact that I still need to go back to finish things, but then it's just one more step then I'll be in the clear. The only thing more than undergoing a annual physical exam at the office is to get a memo a month later if I didn't get it done. Bleh.

Today was another FAIL in terms of trying to wake up Tobie after shift. I got home close to 09:00am and ended up falling asleep beside him while trying to read the Trinity source book. We fully woke up hours later at around 02:00pm, which meant (1) I had pretty much met my quota in terms of sleep for the day, (2) but I was doomed to getting sleepy in the middle of my shift later and (3) we scarcely had enough time to get our original errands done for the day. After some consideration, we opted to push through with things and made our way out for the weekly grocery run.

Originally, the first step was to pass by the bank to deposit money for our respective accounts but given how all of this was very outside our normal routine, I stupidly forgot to bring my money with us when we left the Sietch. So scratch the bank ran, at least for today. Then it was off to Shopwise to restock our rather sad-looking larder and we ended up getting a significant amount of meat for the day. Normally we get a lot more veggies, but then they didn't look too amazing plus it wasn't discount produce Tuesday. Given the contents of our cart though, it might have been a wee bit better to have gone on discount meat Thursdays, but too late for that now.

At least we got that major errand finally out of the way.

So now we're back to full operating capacity and I'm already in the process of cooking some pork afritada for our pre-shift dinner. See your cabinets and the fridge full of food again is rather comforting and it definitely ranks up there with the feeling of satisfaction after taking a shower in a bathroom you just cleaned yourself.

Yeah, I guess I get a little weird that way.

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All of us geeks in the working world have probably felt this more than once in our careers by now. Meh.

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 25,354 words - I'm finally past the halfway point! It certainly took me long enough and despite the fact that I have less than half the month to go, I'm still feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to push forward for the goal. Go, go, NaNoWriMo! =D

Work last night was pretty tiring. Of course given it was a Monday, a larger reason for that was me still adjusting to my work week sleep pattern despite having been awake prior to work since around 3 in the afternoon. However beyond that, it was a particularly busy work night, and that would drain anyone regardless of how much sleep they had the day before.

The first thing that strained my system was the fact that we're running the Annual Physical Examinations (APE) this week as part of our HMO requirements. Given my coverage level as a manager, I'm also required to go through 6-8 hours of fasting since they'll be taking a sample of my blood for testing. That means no food or water until the time of the exam. I know it doesn't seem like a long amount of time, but when you're also trying to remain productive at work without water or coffee, you can imagine me getting rather irritable. Then when the time for the APE came along, the nurse or whatever he was who first tried to draw my blood totally failed. I mean seriously, I may not be a medical professional, but even I knew his first insertion of the syringe was at the wrong angle and WAY too shallow! Plus it hurt! Thankfully another representative of the clinic contracted to run the APE for us realized what was going on and took over. She got it on her first try, but this still meant that I puncture holes on both arms near the part where your arm bends. It made doing the rest of the tests a bit awkward.

The doctor totally rushed through my medical history (which can get long, quite frankly) and was rather...impersonal in conducting his physical examination. Otherwise, the rest of par for the course for these things and I managed to get through the whole experience, especially with the testing set up in the cafeteria area. Yeah, total LOL, ROFL and LMAO moment.

There was an on-going concern from last week that was still making things "interesting" until today, a photo shoot for employees who had been with the company for more than 5 years, the usual employee concerns to deal with, a dearth of trainer applicants to screen, reports to finish and a new manager to help orient and get on board to boot! So yeah, it was a pretty full day.

So I guess it shouldn't have been so surprising that when I got home, I fell asleep in the process of trying to wake up Tobie. This was despite our usual Tuesday schedule of hitting the bank to get our financial concerns out of the way and to get the grocery shopping done. Ah well, I suppose we can survive on what limited stocks we have left for one more day.

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God's bi-polar? That would explain so much about life! ROFL

Current NanoWriMo Word Count: 23,338 words! While I'm still under target (and I say this every day), I have to admit that I'm still overwhelmed with how much I've accomplished in just two weeks. It's practically amazing in itself - I never really expected that I would have gotten this far before trying it out and hopefully luck will be with me as I continue to press on to the end of the month and the end of my novel!

Of course I don't mind that I wasn't able to spend more of my Sunday writing given that at the very least we did get to push through with gaming! Despite other commitments on the same day, we opted to push through with Gaming Sunday. Mahar arrived at his usual times with a load of snacks to attack while Adrian and Nabs arrived much later and with Nina in tow! The action yesterday was pretty intense and there were a number of revelations all around. My character, Jack, is currently serving as king of the Seasonal Courts but is now trapped in Wonderland. I was trying to rescue Alice from the Red Monarch with Gil (Jill), Mr. Grin and the Mad Hatter assisting. I had some rather great rolls for the session, for which I am highly thankful for, but the worst is yet to come as I now need to kill around five jabberwockys and I can't figure out how to activate what I believe to be (but am not certain) the Vorpal Blade. Bugger it!

As is the way after the Sunday game, Tobie and I pretty much hibernated the day away although we got a little writing in before that along with an impromptu breakfast of hotdogs, Bicol express tuna and thymed potatoes. It was yummy, nicely filling and just enough to send us to bed rather fulfilled.

Today I made Filipino-style spaghetti, although not necessarily as sweet and definitely with more herbs and spices. In order to complete the desired taste, I did add olives, mushrooms and hotdogs and I'm glad Tobie enjoyed it, hehe. Yay for fun food!

This week is going to be busy for work, I expect. I'm also hoping to make more headway with my writing and to prepare for my new role as associate editor for TV for the New Worlds website. If there are people who want to write about science fiction or fantasy shows, feel free to get in touch with me and we'll see what we can do to include your articles or even links to your blog entries as part of the site!

Now it's time to squeeze in some more writing before I need to get ready for work in earnest.

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OMG, this reminds me so much of how we played computer games together as kids!

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 21,602 words. Still short of goal, but it was a lot more than I expected to finish before heading out for Saturday night.

Last night was wicked awesome! What started out as simple dinner plans with a good friend turned into a really fun night! Naturally, alcohol was involved.

First, Tobie and I met up with Deo as scheduled at Gateway for dinner and conversation. Initial plans were to find a place where we could both eat and drink at Cubao, but given Deo was famished, we ended up at the Chicken Inasal at SM Cubao. We had a LOT of rice and jokes, banter and ridiculous conversation about school stereotypes, old friends and GLEE! Obviously episode 9, "Wheels," was just THAT good that it really impressed all of us so much. We topped off the dinner portion of the night with Blizzards from Dairy Queen and then it was off to Malate for some proper drinking.

We arrived at Malate REALLY early - like just before 12:00am early, and naturally the place was just starting to get busy. Nico was already there and so we he joined us for initial drinks as the rest of the crew eventually arrived. The night just continued on and Deo and I had fun, um, enjoying the performances of the "chorva" dancers (take note: male AND female dancers!), commenting on passers-by and of course the much needed OMG-I-know-that-guy moments. Of course there was even more drinking, dancing, playing iPhone games in the dark, photos and even dirty ice cream (good job, Fritz!)!

It had been AGES since I last went out drinking on a Saturday night outside of major event weekends and so it was quite a change of pace for me to get back into the Saturday night groove. The VIP area at O bar doesn't get as full as the main area and so I think as long as it remains open, Saturday nights at Malate might become a lot more reliable.

Oh, and just as we were going home, it turned out Jayson was at Malate too! We had a little time to catch up, exchange hugs and well wishes and of course the regrets that we didn't get to party together and the promises to make up for that some time in the future.

In other words, last night was just great! Perhaps we need to go out more...but not necessarily every weekend, haha. I might not be ready for that just yet.

Well, Mahar is here now and we're just chilling until Adrian and Nabs arrive for the weekly game. In the meantime, I'm going to try to get some NaNoWriMo writing done as I upload the photos from last night and perhaps a Geeky Guide entry to boot!

Oh, and I don't know why I decided to start using CAPITAL LETTERS in today's entry, haha. I guess this is part of my post-drinking behavior. =P

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Now THAT's rocking it old school! LOL