I’m still alive, somewhat

Sorry I’ve been absent from the blawg for a few days. I’ve still been struggling with a combination of antibiotics and decongestants that tend to leave me in a slightly zombie-like state; I’ve written e-mails to people recently who wrote back and simply said “…Huh?” This week’s site update was insanely late, not because of anyone on staff – Dave and Philip got their stuff in right on the button, it was me who was dragging my ass. (They were probably wondering “Okay, I sent my stuff in…where’s the update?”) The frustrating thing is that…well, hold the phone. There are several frustrating things.

1. I may be a zombie, but I can’t sleep the sleep of the dead. You’d think in this state it’d be easy for me to get a lot of rest and get better sooner. No such luck. I’ve wrestled several times with the possibility of taking one of the pain pills prescribed to me just to knock myself out, though I hate that idea – anyone who knows me knows I’ve got a whole medicine cabinet full of pain meds that I’ve been prescribed, but have stubbornly resisted taking.
2. I don’t really feel like I’m getting any better. Still coughing. Still sneezing. Still a mouth-breather at the moment.
3. I can’t take off work. I’m out of sick and vacation days, and it’s November sweeps.
4. Short fuse. I get frustrated with stuff, sure. But this really, really, really isn’t me. I’ve ben snapping people’s heads off. And some critters too, though they seem to recover from it a bit faster, bless their little furry hearts.

At any rate, I was awake today, and took the opportunity to test a couple of recent fun acquisitions to see if that cheered me up a bit.

These here are, according to the eBay auction that I discovered through my fluency in the language of typonese, “Darleks.” Not just that, but they’re remote control “Darleks”! Basically, they operate as a kind of laser-tag-in-miniature game; each person has a Dalek and the RC controller, which has two joysticks and a fire button and basically operates like tank controls (if you can play Battlezone, you can drive a Dalek). I haven’t tried to play the infrared laser tag game with them, but I have chased Olivia around the kitchen with them. (Video coming soon – I’ve just got to add some visual effects to it. 😆 ) Olivia isn’t fazed one bit by the Daleks, and she certainly hasn’t been exterminated. She’s more curious than anything – they’re a little too big for her to turn around and play with, so I think she regards the little noisy wonders with cautious curiosity. (Did I mention they talk?) I’ve heard many, many reports that trying to do the laser tag thing with them is fraught with defects and glitches, which I’ll have to see for myself; but as long as they move around, that’s really the killer app for me. Whatever faults or transgressions anyone perceives with the new series, I’d say it was worth it just to get these babies on the market.
This is the Hallmark Star Trek transporter ornament I mentioned picking up about a week ago, and it’s kinda neat…whenever it plays all the way through its sequence of lights and sounds; for some reason it tends to cut off early. The full sequence is really nifty though – the sounds are just a bit loud, but it’s a neat little display, and easily one of my favorite Hallmark Trek ornaments in ages. It’s also self-contained: it doesn’t have to be hooked up to a light string.
Getting back to the “Darleks” for a moment, this was another lucky eBay find, though my own stoopidity helped to cancel that out. I was about to get the RC Dalek set for a reasonable price when I had a brain fart and started thinking dollars instead of pounds. (The seller was in the UK.) I was thinking “Yes, I’m willing to pay $35 for these” and put that number into the system…only I forgot the currency conversion. What I told eBay was that I was willing to pay £35 for them – i.e. around $70. It was about the time that the bidding ended at £27 (a little over $50) that I realized what I’d done. I’m lucky the wife didn’t exterminate me for that one – kinda of like the karmic payback for the awesome deal on the Avid. Let’s not talk about how much the shipping was…
Oh, speaking of the Avid…ummmm…just keep in mind: I’ve been on a lot of meds lately.