A Serious Moment

Last monday night, almost a week ago now, my sister was in Salem, drinking with a number of boys (this being the second time in her life that she has gotten drunk) and she fell out of a second story window. After most of them fled the scene, a paramedic found her, called an ambulance, and she was rushed to the Salem hospital where she was placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Her entire right side of her body was paralyzed, and she was unable to regain conciousness for several hours.

As you can imagine, this was something of a... shock for my mother and I. Seeing my little sister Tanya (barley eighteen years old) hooked up to all the machinery, with a neckbrace, a triple pump IV, it was a bit much. She was discharged from the hospital on thursday, and we took her home, where she is slowly regaining the ability to walk. Fortunately, it looks like Tanya will make an almost full recovery, although it is unknown at this time if she will ever completely recover movement of her right foot and ankle.

It's hard to imagine that my entire family is just my mother, Tanya, and I. All of our relatives are far away and we keep limited contact with them, if something happens to one of us, it'll just be two left, which isn't much of a family in a way. I'm spending more time with Tanya now, and we're trying to keep her spirits up, as she was robbed of her much vaunted independence for some time; I just hope this is a wake up call for her to get her life going in the right direction.

For anyone that reads this and knows my mother and/or my sister, you can contact me or them to arrange a visit if you would so like, I'm sure they would appreciate it.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

A few nights ago I got to see a DVD version of Constatine and I was really impressed. Despite my unremitted hatred for Keanu Reaves' acting, I thought he did an okay job in the film. I typically enjoy movies that capture that "world of darkness" style, and no matter what you may have thought about the plot or the characters, you cannot deny that the editing and camera shots throughout were amazing. The idea of Angels and Devils competing for the souls of the living is an intriquing plot, one that I enjoy, but I think it is often poorly executed in cinema. I would recommend the movie, if for nothing else, but to see the amazing job they did with Satan at the end. Watching Constatine reminded me that Nightwatch is coming out, something I have high hopes for, see for yourself.

I am the Lord of Death

Dr. Binford, one my bosses here in the lab, is taking a trip to South Africa to catch spiders for about two weeks, and since the majority of her research students are gone for the rest of the summer, it leaves it on my shoulders to take care of the entire spider room. She came down on friday and had a chat with me, and I got to ask her some questions about the spiders here and it's really cool the work that's being done, if you're into that sort of the thing. For instance, the sicarius spiders (a relative of the brown recluse that is found in and around Argentina) is so rare and little studied that for a variety of the specimens, myself and a few of the other research students are the only people in the world to observe them hunting and feeding, which I personally think is really cool. But for the next few weeks I'm spending double shifts in that tiny, hot, spider-filled room, which despite my previous post on the subject, I have come to enjoy working in anyway.

Also, Brian- the individual I'm living with- and I have been playing this old, old rpg/rts game called "Warlord: Battlecry II" and despite having very dated gameplay and graphics (we're talking WarCraft II/Age of Empries quality here) it's a really fun game. It's probably the only successful merging of rts and rpg I've played, since WarCraft III deceptively masqueardes itself as one thing, but is really just a strategy game. This is the kind of game that is in your local EB bargain bin for $3 and is worth $30. I have probably spent more time playing this old, overlooked game that won no awards than both Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Halo 2 combined, which is saying something about the quality of both those games and the quality of the product in question.

It's like playing something made by Looking Glass Studios all over again. If you're interested, you should be able to find information about in on the Ubisoft page (yes, the people who made Splinter Cell). Check it out.

Spinward, Corward, Backward, Forward

How about a post that isn't so intimidatingly long? Working in an office is really a different experience than my usual lineup of jobs requiring more physical labor or tending to human larvae. I seem to be exploring the stereotypical office "characters" more every day. One thing I've noticed is the back office is entirely crewed by Vogons. Yes, Vogons, the villians from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There is a collection of older individuals who all have raspy voices and stooped backs working in a darkened collection of cubicles like some kind of Turkish slave galleon. Navigating the complex inter-department network of the college buearcracy is akin to running through a maze to find, not a block of cheese, but the entrance to another maze, typically one that requires me to make copies to three different people. But it's not all that bad, I'm not moving 200 gallon containers of boiling soup in a factory floor in unsafe conditions getting yelled at in some kind of Slavic language I don't recognize (that was earlier in the summer, before I decided I wanted to have a future after all). Plus, the kind of work I do in the office is reserved for the most temporary and unskilled positions, so I imagine it's not quite so bad when you get higher up, not that I'll work at the college for too long anyway.

Moving from the summer housing to my Fall 2005 room on the 16th, it's confirmed and I have one less thing to worry about now, I'm so tantalizingly close to being ready for the 2005-2006 year I can taste it. In the meantime, I have more summer to frivolously enjoy.

Charles