A step at a time

Life, as they say, goes on. My sister was actually away again this weekend, so I had a couple days to myself to just sit around the apartment and not do anything. Predictably, I spent time online and watched DVDs. I basically did nothing productive, though I did finish up the poker book I've been reading. These last few days, I've been feeling really sleepy in the mornings, sort of after breakfast; I'm developing a suspicion that I accidentally bought decaf coffee. I, of course, have no way of verifying this now since I bought beans and ground them in the supermarket, so all I have no is a no-label bag of bean dust. I have no idea what to do in this situation. Should I just buy more coffee? Is there any use for most of a bag of coffee grinds of dubious caffeine content? What a pickle.

Anyhoo. In the interests of full disclosure, I should fess up to having had a few cigarettes this past Friday night. I was knocking back a few beers at the casino and I really felt like lighting up, so I did. I've already thrown away the pack, though, and I've been back on the wagon since then, so I think it was just a momentary lapse. Looks like I might have to watch it with that beer, though. Strangely, I've been hitting the whiskey a bit lately, and that hasn't prompted me to want to smoke, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Guess it's hard liquor for me for a while! The following day also saw me dealing with a lot of intestinal (and, dare I say, rectal) discomfort, though I really can't narrow that down to involving beer, a diet consisting largely of jalapeño peppers, or what. Yeah, my life's a carnival, everybody. Have some cotton candy. :)

In any case, nothing really fun and new to report from my end. (Har har!) For the poker playin' fools back in New York, there's this crazy government-and-gambling-policy-debate-and-poker-tournament going on soon...October 11th. It's being held by Citizen Joe, this nonprofit for, like...I dunno...better government or something. Anyway, info on the shindig is here, but seriously...I'm not sure this is up the alley of my readership. I mean...it's kinda pricey, and it's not, like, poker for poker's sake, so whatever. Take that as you please. :)

You know...it's the 15th anniversary of East and West Germany uniting? 15 years! Crazy. :)

Anyhoo...I talked with my mom on the phone today. She's been a bit...I dunno...put off, I guess, that I've spent so much time in Vegas. Maybe it's that I've spent so much time in Vegas and haven't called very often. :) (Oh, this is getting super funny, by the way. My mom tells me she's played enough poker this month to get invited to the casino's monthly freeroll tournament. I've created a monster!) Anyway, my plans for coming back east are solidifying a bit more now, especially since my mom's got some stuff coming up soon that would be a lot easier if I was back in town. Part of this involves her heading off somewhere, and she needs me to be around to take care of the dog. I basically forgot about the dog. Hell, I basically forgot I had a life in New Jersey. :P Anyway...so I'm looking pretty closely at mid-October to return to Jersey, though I am definitely earmarking some time in New York in between Jersey and Vegas. I'm shooting for the weekend of the 15th/16th, and hopefully that'll mean the preceding Thursday and all that jazz. So that's the intent thus far...no solid plans yet, but that's what's shaping up.

From around the 'Net, if it interests you at all and if you've got some time, I liked this AlterNet article. It's ostensibly about the drug war, but it struck me as much more about the broken prison system, so...you know I always dig that stuff.

In the more fantastical world of make-believe, there's also this RPGNet review up about With Great Power..., a supers RPG I was talking about a while ago. It's a nice review, and the game is still sounding pretty awesome. Between this and Truth & Justice, I feel like some supers action could be just around the corner!

And, finally, to combine the real and the make-believe, I thought I'd just throw out a friendly reminder that NaNoWriMo is coming up. That's when you take the month of November to write your novel. I've been aware of this thing for a few years now, and I always think I'm going to give it a shot, and I never do. Well, aside from being fairly broke, I'm sort of in a position to at least give it a shot this year, so I'm seriously considering devoting some time to this. If anyone else is thinking about it, too, lemme know or so. I think these things tend to work better with a support group. (This may, by the way, also put a big dent in Shortlinks, not that we'll be missing anything. ;) ) The official NaNoWriMo site is here, and their Breaking News section has a syndicated LJ feed at breaking_nano.

The response to "Ask Flatvurm" has been, admittedly, more than I had expected. :) So I guess look for more of that in the near future. So there's that, probably heading back east, and maybe a lot of writing coming up. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was making some plans. I'd better get back to poker soon. :) Hmm...I'd also better start thinking about getting ready to pick my sister up at the airport.

Peace!