Just some miscellaneous brain clutter:

• My wife, bless her very tired heart, has been working very hard at cleaning up her sections of our shared office -- which has been in disarray pretty much since we moved into our new house about 18 months ago. Now it looks so good I need to get busy and clean up my area.
  
• Both of my sons seem to be ill. Kazu has been running a fever, and Katsuya has been coughing, which means in all likelihood I'm doomed to catch something from one of them. (sigh)
• I picked up my newly fixed Maui Jim sunglasses, which had been broken (accidentally) by my son. The lenses were already sporting some minor spider cracks anyway, but now that they are fixed ($69 for full lens replacement), they are like brand new. (A good thing, because they are $300 sunglasses)
• Lux Worldwide (the company that deliberately screwed me out of a job a year ago),  has told me that the group I wanted to go back and work for didn't want to interview me based on the fact that I had worked there before. They wanted "new blood" according to him. That group is under new management, so it's believable -- they probably want cheap NOOBs instead of seasoned professionals. This just assumes Lux isn't just jerking my chain again. Regardless, I have one word for both Lux and the 'new management': Fucktards. 

Happy Friday folks.

I finished rolling ('sparring' essentially) with a colleague/friend at my Jiu-Jitsu class. At the end of the roll, I asked him -- he's a purple belt and much more experienced than I am --  if he had any tips.

"Don't pet a burning dog," he said with a smile.

Well, can't argue with that.

I recently decided to download and try a 100% free MMO called Dungeon Runners.

I was pleasantly surprised!

Dungeon Runners is a very simple, fun, fast, and easy MMO game. It's a well-polished, streamlined MMO "lite".  Hardcore MMO players may not find it interesting,  but even though Dungeon Runners is "less filling" I still think it "tastes great".

Dungeon Runners is brought to us by NCSoft -- the same folks responsible for publishing games like City of Heroes (which I also played for quite some time a few years ago) and some others. It's essentially like an ultra-light version of World of Warcraft blended with simple Diablo-style gameplay.

What I find appealing is that it's extremely easy to jump into Dungeon Runners and do the things that are the bread and butter of fantasy MMOS:

• Get quests
• Kill critters and take their stuff
• Level-up
• Get better stuff

You can do all of the above playing by yourself (soloing) or you can group with other players.

There are only three character classes (Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard) and no races. There are no professions or item crafting -- actually, there might be some form of that, but it's greatly simplified compared to the likes of WoW. Regardless, the game seems to be designed for folks like me: people who love games, but don't have as much time for them as we used to. I can quickly jump in, play for maybe half an hour, and still have fun without making a massive investment in time.

Dungeon Runners offers PvP and PvE, and is laced with a very funny, net-savvy sense of humor. Examples:

• The starting town, formerly called "Townston" was renamed in the PVP Servers to "Pwnston".
  
• I found a healing potion in the game that was called something like "the-something of the flaming Noobasaur".
• A recent patch introduced a new skill for Fighters called Awesome Cleavage.
  
• Another new skill introduced for Mages is Blue Screen of Life.
  

The graphics are very good -- certainly as good as they need to be -- and the controls and interface are all streamlined so you can get into the fun quickly and easily.  I've actually enjoyed my limited foray into it enough to consider trying a membership (which is only $4.99/month) for a couple months. Check it out! :)

A quick catch-up entry: Friday was a good day. I spent the day with the kids while my wife was at the hospital with her mom and sister. I didn't have any help, but I still got a lot done (laundry, etc.), the kids were good, and we even managed a fun excursion to a local park, where we got to witness a family of squirrels relocating from one tree to another.

We happened into a bit of drama because an unconscious but live baby squirrel was sitting at the base of a tree. A concerned mommy squirrel looked on while my kids and I looked at it. As soon as I realized what was going on, I backed the kids away to  allow the mommy to get her baby. Moments later, she got the baby and took it to another tree.

Another weird thing happened while this was going on. Two Asian kids, one girl and one boy, both about 2-3 years old, came over and glommed onto me, as if I was their father or uncle or something. The little girl plopped right onto my leg and sat down, and the little boy hung onto my neck periodically. I had no idea who these kids were.

It was odd, but cute and harmless. Some kids are just friendly. I'm glad that children find me that approachable. We eventually returned home, had a good lunch, and the day went quite well. I was particularly proud that not only did the day go well, but I got a fair bit done around the house as Mr. Mom.

Saturday and Sunday went ok, although Saturday ended getting all screwed up because of a scheduling snafu with my mom. I still got a good deal done this weekend, though: big shopping trip for about $300 in groceries and supplies, mowed the lawn and treated it to drive away the massive Mole Invasion I seem to be fighting, and cleaned up some messes here and there...

Quick correction: I guess my upload of nekkid beach pictures (of my kids) failed, so I've re-added those pictures to the 'Summer 2007' album.

I also added some pictures in the 'Martial Arts' album of the home dojo as it appears now. I've still got plenty of cleanup (much of which will occur when we put in the new floor in the family room, because I'm using the 'dojo' to store all the stacks of laminate flooring and supplies). Once the floor is put in and I can get a cheap used (or buy a new) dumbbell rack, I'll be able to get the dojo pretty clean so the space can finally be fully used.

I've added some recent pictures of the kids on an excursion to Clinton Beach on Whidbey Island (in the Summer 2007 Photo Album).

Apparently they got soaked, so the youngest was stripped down buck-naked (or is that butt-nekkid?) to frolic in the waves. Apparently his older brother decided running around in the buff was a good idea, so he joined him.

The innocence of youth. How I'm going to miss it as my little guys grow up. (sigh)