Care for an Update?

I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I last posted. I suppose all the holiday stuff got in the way, but the truth is that I simply haven’t been in the blogging mood lately. There have been a lot of changes and more than a few events so I suppose I owe you an update.

Health

At some point in the last month, Corin and I decided to return to a vegan lifestyle. Before I would have said it was for political and animal rights related reasons. However, now I’d have to say I’m doing it for my health. When I was in LA, I weighed in at about 180 pounds and was losing weight. I was vegan and pretty well adjusted to the routine. Once we moved to Texas, social circumstances and other issues led us off the vegan diet and into a pretty unregulated diet of fast food and junk food. Over the six years I’ve lived here, I’ve put on 100 pounds. There have been times in the last year where I tried to take up exercise and regulate my diet to leaner dinners and less fast food, but I could never get the balance right. This last month I had to finally admit that I have a problem. I cannot control my eating when I give myself free reign. It’s like being an alcoholic and trying to limit your drinking; it doesn’t work. But I can’t quit eating altogether. I have to eat something. Somehow the vegan way simplifies things for me. It makes the supermarket much smaller and forces me to be more creative. At least dinner is more interesting. So far so good, I’ve gone down a few pounds, but the biggest success has been that my digestion problems have all gone away. No more intestinal pain. I’m sure the weight will come off slowly and exercising will be necessary to get fit, but at least this is a healthy start.

Holidays

Christmas and New Years has come and gone. I have to say 2008 was a resounding success. I wish I’d prepared more financially for both the gift buying and the bills that would still have to be paid during December and January, but that should all be easier next year once we are out of credit card debt. Christmas consisted of us opening the presents my parents sent us in the morning and opening presents with Corin’s family at her sister’s house. The hightlight of my parent’s gifts was a custom ghost hunting kit that consisted of a matching pair of low electro-magnetic field detectors, flashlights (mag-light type and head mounted), a non contact digital thermometer (reads the temperature of surfaces and areas at a distance), a digital voice recorder (for electronic voice phenomena), a laser pointer, and a book on basic paranormal research. We are giddy with the possibilities. Later at Erin’s I got a cool Batman glass, a version 5 Tomagotchi (yup they’re back), a gift certificate to Austin Books, a SWEET Guy Gardner figure and some exotic foods from Australia and the UK. Josh sent us Wii games. Corin got the Lego Star Wars Complete Saga and I got No More Heroes. Thanks everyone!

Geek Tech

With some of the Christmas money I got an R4 Nintendo DS cart. It’s basically a homebrew/backup software mod cart that features a Micro SD port. I got a 2GB Mico SD card and since the NDS backups are around 20-40MB, you can fit tons of games on one card. I also tracked down SNES. NES, SMS and Geneis emulators. They don’t play ALL ROMs, but they play enough of the good ones. It’s a lot of fun. Now I can play multiplayer games without having to buy another copy of the game. I have to look into the stuff available for the Wii.

Comics

I’ve been reading all the usual stuff. Everything has been pretty good, but X-Men: Legacy has been a bit slow. I’ve set up a pull-list of DCBService and I get my first shipment at the end of the month. I end up saving $10-20 a month and I also don’t have to drive up north so many times a month. I’ll still go the Austin Books to check out mini series, one shots and comics I’ve never read before. At least now regular series don’t cost so much. I’m really looking forward to the conclusion of Final Crisis and the coming Blackest Night. It’s a great time to be a comic fan.

Films

I’ve watched a ton of movies (most of them the fun trashy kind). My latest favorite is Repo! The Genetic Opera. It’s a musical starring Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy), Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino and several lesser known actors. The plot is that the human race was on the brink of extinction when a company called GeneCo comes out with cutom grown organs to replace the failing organs in sick people. The world rejoyces and humanity is pulled back from the cliff. However salvation comes with a price and those that are unable to keep up with their payments will eventually face the repo man. He’s a legalized assasin that reposseses the unpaid organs, killing the client in the process. Hey, they new the job was dangerous when they took it. The story unfolds around the owner of GeneCo, his heirs, a girl named Shilo and of course the repo man himself. Really good musical, with comic book style story telling and a sense of humor. Bill Mosley (of horror movie fame) plays one of the spoiled heirs and offers most of the comic relief. If you like sci-fi or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, give Repo! a try.