Anticipation, Cinematically Speaking

Here are my most anticipated movies of 2009, in order of my excitement:

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince (7/17) - This was also my #1 looked forward to movie of 2008, but it got pushed back from a November release to July. The trailers look good. I've found each movie in the series to get better, so I have high hopes for this one. I will be rereading the book before going to see the movie.

Star Trek (5/8) - This will only be the second Star Trek movie I've seen in the theater (after First Contact). At that time, that was the only Trek movie I had seen, and I had only seen a few episodes. Now, I've seen quite a few episodes, all the movies, and I play the card game. Suffice it to say I'm now officially a Trek fan.

Terminator Salvation (5/21) - Even though this is an Arnold-less Terminator, I've found the trailers to look good, and the addition of Christian Bale is a big plus. And it comes out on my birthday. Nothing like apocalyptic-type storyline to celebrate my birth.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (5/1) - The trailers look more promising than I originally thought they would. So this movie has potential.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (6/24) - While I've never been much into Transformers myself, I did rather like the first movie. Let's hope this one doesn't go the typical sequel route and be utterly terrible.

Public Enemies (7/1) - How can you go wrong when you pair my two favorite actors (Johnny Depp and Christian Bale)? Plus, of course, the movie looks interesting.

I expect theatrical viewings for at least the first five, and hopefully the sixth. There are some other movies that I have interest in, but these are certainly at the top.

Hacking, Biting, Cleaning, Knowing

(Just like Treebeard said.)

Well, it's been an interesting last twenty four hours. Here's a quick recap, for those of who you love to know what I've been up to.

• Yesterday, my Everquest II character Chromiden (a healer), reached level 80, which is the highest level currently attainable in the game. It was very exciting. :) I have another character, Vython (a necromancer), who is rather close behind him at leve 77, and will reach 80 in the near future. Then a bit of my time will be spent with Athennemarr, my level 52 brigand (a scout), and I'm looking forward to having him level up higher.
• In the last week, our apartment complex has decided that it will start charging us $15 a month for storage units that we previously were allowed to use for free. We've had two of them, and we are currently doing a bit of spring cleaning, getting rid of things we no longer need (I've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff), in order to reduce our storage needs, hopefully so we don't need either of those storage units any more. Not that we couldn't afford the $15 month, but, we just don't want to. :) We stayed up pretty late working on that stuff, which is good we stayed up later than usual, because...
  
• Last night, after midnight, someone hacked into my Facebook account and wrote some rather inappropriate and racist things on my profile and to some of my friends, including profanity, Satanic and homosexual references, and racist slurs. They also changed my profile picture to a pornographic image. Fortunately, we noticed it within ten minutes of it happening, so I quickly removed all such changes and also changed my password. I don't know who this person was, but that was just weird, and rather disturbing that people would do that.
  
• Yesterday, my wife and I went to see the movie Knowing. Overall I did like it, though I don't think it all came together as well as it should have. I'm not going to give anything away, in case any of you see it. But I did like it. Soon I am going to post my list of 2009 movies I'm looking forward to, as there actually are quite a few, the first of which comes out in just about a month.
  
• Over the weekend, my wife and I also went out to Buffalo Wild Wings, which has become one of my favorite places to eat. They have great chicken and sauces. I always get boneless chicken wings. They have around 14 different sauces, on a scale of how hot they are. Yesterday, I tried the Wild sauce, which is the second hottest sauce they have, and it was rather good. One of the next times, I'll try their hottest, which is Blazin'. It will be wonderful, and will possibly cause my tongue to light on fire.
  

The Return of the Poet

Here's something I wrote a couple days ago; it's been a while since I've written anything poetic.
--
This Question Haunts Me Still

The foolish man I see, through my years and history,
All the flaws and errored ways, the regretted yesterdays,
My attempts at turning round, hopes of landing on solid ground,
Longing to forget that past, believing I can change at last.

I leave my former days behind, buried in the depths of mind,
Looking forward, not looking back, grasping what I used to lack,
The blood drips upon my soul, the broken body is here to hold,
My life was once in disarray, but You have made it new today.

Yet this question haunts me still, if I am a city on a hill,
If forgiveness covers me, if I'm dead to sin and forever free,
If my past is gone and my future bright, if I'm walking in the light,
Why do I turn and thus allow, sin to yet control me now?

These evil ways that thrive within, bring shame upon my heart again,
For I was saved and I was clean, my eyes shown with sights unseen,
Drowned in forgiveness and bathed in the light, sin was defeated and gone was the night,
Despite my attempts to live life as I should, I fell into darkness as You knew that I would.

I do what I hate and I hate what I do, my life is a lie that I'm trying to prove,
Though I've given my life to grace, I fall and I stumble every step of the race,
Each time I'm shamed and I look back to You, Your hand is outstretched and the forgiveness is true,
You remind me we've fallen short of the glory, but this side of Heaven's not the end of the story.

Cars, Pounds, Cards, Words, and Brackets

I continue to blog less often than I have in the past. I really should improve that. Anyway, here's some (un-) interesting tidbits from my recent life.

• I have created a lot of images for my Reclamation card game, and will now be able to easily print out cards for playtesting. For those interested, you can view the cards or print for deck making.
• My car has hit 190,000 miles, and is less than 100 miles from 191,000. Not too long until it hits the impressive 200,000 milestone. Assuming it makes it that long.
• I had posted on here at some point about me wanting to lose weight. Well, I am happy to say that I have been eating much better (in general), and so far.... have dropped 18 pounds. I still have a bit more to lose though for my target weight.
• I love the NCAA basketball tournament. It's just good fun. At the time of writing this blog, I had correctly picked 20 of 24 games, and am tied for first place in both bracket groups I am entered in (one with family, one at work). That, obviously, could all change rather quickly.
• I am starting to work more on Lords of Sargoff again. One of my friends just finished reading it, and gave me some good tips. I have done a lot of little edits with wording, and also some bigger changes, including making significant changes to one particular section. That particular section may also end up being moved to a different part of the book, but that is still under consideration. The current version contains 65,500 words and 27 chapters.
  
• In other thoughts on the book, I can see myself writing more books and turning this story into a series, which makes me think about book names. Currently The Lords of Sargoff is the name of the first book, but it is quite possible that I would make that the name of the series instead. I have come up with a short list of possible names for book one, should I do things that way. Such potential book one titles include The Light of Fear and The Light of Magic. Book two (which I already have quite a bit of plot notes for) would quite possibly be titled The Blood of the Queen. Let me know if you have any thoughts on titles for the first book (for those of who who have read it).
  

Slow It Down

I often do things quickly. When working on different tasks, I like to finish them quickly and move onto what's next, or perhaps have some extra time in between. I don't like to take much time on things.

This certainly has its advantages. At work, I am very fast at what I do. I do our day-to-day projects quicker than anyone else. I am often the go-to guy for high priority projects, because I will complete it quickly. This, however, leads to a certain problem, that affects things both at work and in other aspects of my life.

The faster you push yourself to complete a task, the more prone you are to mistakes. I have always understood this, and yet have continued to complete things as fast as possible. I have realized recently, however, that I need to change this habit and attempt to slow things down.

At work, mistakes lead to the redoing of projects, and can cost additional time. Recently, I made a couple mistakes that will cause us headaches for a few weeks, and also cost the company some revenue. I need to slow down my work and do a better job of double checking my work. I need to pay more attention to what I am doing to make sure I am doing it correctly.

Oddly enough, the other aspect of my life that I am seeing this problem is in playing games. I love gaming. I play three different collectible card games, and it is my favorite hobby. However, in those games, I often make my strategic decisions too quickly and don't allow myself to fully think through each situation. This has lead to hasty and poor decisions, and has caused me to lose many more games than I think I should have. (We have been tracking our games recently, and since we started doing so, I have a 19-40 record. Ick.)

I think I'm a pretty smart person. Not that I'm a super genius, but I think I'm fairly intelligent. However, I think I sometimes rush through decisions and strategies and make myself appear less intelligent than I really am, when the problem is really that I simply didn't stop long enough to apply myself cognitively to the problem. In gaming, I lose games due to a poorly executed maneuver or ill conceived strategy, because I didn't fully think out all the different possible results. If I would slow down and allow my mind to fully wrap itself around the situation and consider what else could happen in the game, I think I would make less bad decisions and, ultimately, win more games.

The same is true of work. If I slow myself down and fully think out each project, double checking my work and fully thinking through each step, making sure not to miss anything, I would make less mistakes, which would make me look better as an employee and would ultimately allow me to go farther within the company (and in my career).

So, I am going to try my very best to slow down and think things through more. I don't want to miss things because I was too busy speeding through everything I'm doing. Speed is good, but it is less useful if it causes you to do things twice.