Friday, June 04, 2010

A Lot of Settlin' Going On

And then it was Friday. Friday, Friday, hello Friday. I can't believe it's already nearly 11 pm. It's nearly no longer Friday. How many times am I going to say Friday? Not sure. Maybe that's enough for now.

Watching Firefly. A very interesting concept. I am glad I'm watching it now as a really long miniseries and not in the messed-up out of order method the FOX Network showed the episodes in. It's been fun, it's quite funny. And it's great getting to see more of Colonel John Casey beating people up while Chuck is on reruns.

Today was an interesting day. I got up and exercised and then went up and opened Rachel's door and turned her lights on. Then I went into our bedroom and talked to Lori (she told me tonight she didn't know why I was talking to her when she was sleeping -- but I swear her eyes were open and she responded to the conversation). Then I showered, dressed, went back out and started to hassle Rachel for still not being up and then remembered she was sick and wasn't going to school today.

Grr. Argh. Wouldn't be it cool to watch some stuff that at the end said "Grrr. Argh. Bad Robot!" I bet bringing those guys together would be awesome.

Anyhow, turned Rachel's light back off and then headed off to work. It was a pretty quiet at work. I plowed through what little email I had, canceled a bunch of meetings and worked towards our team-building afternoon.

Went and grabbed lunch and brought it back upstairs. Philip was showing off a game he had brought in. I wanted to just watch people play the game, but I got conned into playing it. It was this thing where you're supposed to try to get from one side of the board to the other (there are four people, so people are all moving in different directions). You can either move your piece or place a wall-type-piece that could block someone else. While I didn't win, but I did what I could to frustrate other people.

After that, it was time for our team-building/games afternoon. They fired up the Wii, someone brought in an NES and a second Wii and they busted out a bunch of Settlers games. Because of our hip and trendy folding tables, we dragged out a bunch, set up games and then a lot of Settlin' took place. That is such a tough game. I'm getting better -- I think I got 6 points in the first game and 8 points in the second game. So much of it really depends on how you start. And there are so many very competitive players in our group. I saw an intern do really well in one game and then get shut down in another game. To the point that they had no moves whatsoever.

I had to leave a couple of times during the game, though, they had my iPhones. First I had to turn in my Blackberry, then I had to go back down and pick it up. Some other people were grousing about where their iPhones were. Someone recently had suggested maybe they could put a call in for me if it was taking too long, but I had laughed it off. When I put in my order, they said "several weeks for the new Blackberries, longer for the iPhones." So it's barely been several weeks, so I wasn't expecting the iPhone for like another two weeks or something. Needless to say, I jogged across the building and down the stairs both times.

I hear there's a Settlers game for the iPhone. Maybe I should download it so that I can improve. It seems like it's interesting enough that I could get better at it. It's accessible but also feels intellectual. And yet I don't feel incredibly stupid when I lose. So not sure what that means.

Of course, when I was doing well, Nathan -- who was just wandering around watching -- kept telling them to stop telling me that, saying my ego was big enough as it was. There is a lot to keep track of in that game, though... trading, banking, cards, goals, what gets you the most points, and on and on. And as if that weren't bad enough, a lot of people also have expansion packs. I'm pretty sure as the months go on, they'll start getting introduced into the lunchtime games and I'll never get outside to exercise anymore.

When I started watching TV while exercising, the first episode of The Simpsons I turned on off the DVR was the one that parodies Apple. That was funny, I though. Also, I made the first email off the iPhone a quick note to Steve Jobs. Every so often they feature one on Mashable or Engadget that he's written back to (or his staff has), but I can't imagine he'll respond to mine.

No comments: