As someone in my office said (as I’m sure was murmured countless times across the country…), happy super fat Tuesday.  Enjoy the pancakes and enjoy the exit polls, I’ll probably be skipping both.

And in good news, 18 and one!

And in more good news, the rumor is that the writers strike will be over very soon (like Friday)!

And from the good, to the bad:

Very sad news today, Myst Online: URU Live has been cancelled.  No more season two, no more Cavern, no more URU.  I sometimes think it could come back again, but after two cancellations, I really don’t see it happening, which is very sad indeed.  So much of URU has been like Firefly/Serenity, and it was wonderful to see both get a second chance, but a third is probably pushing it.

URU really is (for 60 days at least) wonderful, in a day where critics praise Mass Effect for offering something new to video games, mainly a dash of ethical decisions, it’s funny that never once in those articles are URU or the Myst series brought up, when they are packed with ethical and moral choices (pride, slavery, domination of an entire race, power, corruption), but who am I to say what game critics are right about?

URU Obsession will stick around, we never go away.  Although it will be a little strange to say the least (but then again, we’re all strange anyway).  I’m sure we’ll change and adapt, we always do, who knows, maybe we’ll branch out into other games (GRIMM and Sam&Max are up there for me, well, if I could get Sam&Max to run…), although chances are, Cyan will come up with something else for us to obsess over (and the pending release of Myst DS in the US, along with rumors of Myst Wii and Riven DS).  But of course, I’ll miss the people, seeing them in The Cavern, talking with them on my lunch break, working on promotional plans (Grassroots 2.0 is now dead in the water, sorry) and discussing the newest Ages over the Lyst (ok, so I just lurk, but I love reading every bit of it, even if I only post once in a blue moon).

And of course I’ll miss going into The Cavern, if only by myself.  I always loved sitting in the Great Zero, watching it spin.  And the new Ages Cyan gave us this time around, I loved the team-building garden Ages, and the sandbox area of Jalek (and the sandbox of Minkata), and it’s sad to think of how the Guilds will once again fall apart (if they hadn’t already, Messenger meetings made my head hurt).

We’ll still have the original cd-rom URU, but it won’t be the same, and we know that, but it can at least fill the void if we ever need it.  I’m going to try to fill out my URU Live gallery before the end (so weird to think we’re coming up on another end, that wait is always awful).

But in the spirit of Atrus, let us not forget that while this is sad and heart-wrenching (funny how something can get under your skin and bring people together to form a community), new things will come about.  I for one and excited and hopefully that we’ll finally get to see latus (I also still think that it’s some sort of GPS device, like a KI, that puts people in the game in real time, in real space), or maybe something completely different, I’d love to see what Cyan could come up with, maybe something more futuristic.

But for now, we’ll digress, we’ll discuss, we’ll mourn and we’ll stay close.  The next 60 days will be tough, going past the one year anniversary (party still going on as far as I know) and even harder as URU draws to a close.  Maybe we all sleep a little sounder knowing that we were a part of something new and amazing, something that pushed the boundaries over and over again, and ultimately, was a success, due to the content, the choices we faced, and the fans.  Enter The Growers.

Hello everyone, my name is Mike and I have the flu!  Yes, those small people referenced in the title above gave me the flu at Winterfest (I know it sounds crazy, but I spent just about all of my time inside sitting next to the fire drinking hot chocolate).  So here I am, feeling like death warmed over.  Wait, that’s not really true.  Yesterday I felt like death warmed over, I feel so much better today, still a bit under the weather, but better nonetheless.

I went to MedExpress for the first time (up in Penn Center) and they were very, very nice, I would highly recommend them.  I had to get a nose swap to test for the flu, which was a strange sensation to say the least, but hey, it was a first, so that’s a plus at least!

A cool link you should check out if you enjoy photoshop, a series of "tutorials" at youtube called "You suck at Photoshop."  Watch them in order (up to episode four now), a story unfolds, and they are quite humerous.

Alright, I think that’s it for now, I’m heading out to eat some soup and crackers!  Have a great one, and hopefully I’ll be alive next week!

Real quick update for everyone:

Our neighborhood has two crossing guards.  They’ve both been there for years are their respective corners, although to be honest, one is more of a staple of the community than the other (mostly because she smiles and waves to everybody), but the second one is just as nice.  So leaving my neighborhood this morning, the crossing guard at the intersection of my road and Old William Penn stopped traffic so a kid could cross to get to the bus stop.  A passing construction worker did not like this fact and kept trying to run her over.  She held her ground and he finally stopped letting the kid cross, but not without rolling down his window and leaning out and yelling at her.  She kept traffic stopped as she yelled right back, and he eventually sped off in a huff.

So this morning when I got into work, I sneezed for probably ten minutes straight, I just couldn’t stop.  When I did finally stop, I felt so much better though!  I had trouble sleeping last night and just felt a little off during the ride in this morning, but all that sneezing must have knocked stuff back into place!

I’m heading up to Heritage for the weekend, and Sunday when I get back I’ll be crazy busy running around, but I’ll be back next week, look for more updates then!

Crazy case of déjà-vu today involving e-mails.  Strange.  Must be The Matrix fixing itself…

All the professional staff is at their annual planning conference the rest of this week, so the staff in the building did a food day.  Everyone either brought something in or pitched in money for food (I helped to purchase a sandwich ring and a pie).  The food was great, and it was a lot of fun to get everyone (just about) together to eat.

Over the three day weekend, my plant didn’t do so well, but I gave it some water and it bounced right back.  I’m going to need to get a new pot for it, it seems a bit cramped, but otherwise, it’s doing well.  I still don’t have a name for him (I think it’s a him), but for now, that’s ok with me.

I’ve been assigned a big project at work, and I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to go about it.  The project involves updating a lot of documents and making them all available for internal use.  I want to make it sustainable and easily fixable, so right now I’m trying to think a little outside the box and in a Web 2.0 fashion…a wiki.  It needs more thought and I don’t even know if we can do it (we don’t really have an intranet at work, just a national intranet), so I’m not sure if its feasible, but we’ll see…

Joomla finally released version 1.5 (on my brother’s birthday no less, not that he uses it, but happy birthday to him!).  I’ve been waiting for this release since June, and I did some beta testing with it, and overall I like it, although I’m very apprehensive about switching my site over, mostly due to the extensions and plug-ins that I have working (I’m looking at you book review system that took me like forever to get working somewhat right but now I’m too scared to fiddle with because I know you’ll stop working completely).  So sometime in the future, my site will be going down for a bit while I switch it over.  I’ll alert everyone in advance (I know, my millions and millions of readers) and hopefully it will be painless and quick.

Well that’s it for now, catch everyone later!

Quick update for everyone.  I can now officially declare that I am a lottery winner!  Nothing major, just 10 bucks in a scratch off game I got in a Christmas card, so don’t expect me to be buying everyone cars or anything crazy like that!  Still cool to say though!

I’m looking to put together a trip to Phipps for Chiluhy Nights, probably the beginning of February, if you’re interested (and live in Southwestern PA, sorry Tim) let me know.

Things are generally good, I’m doing well with my new years resolution, I’ve read over 100 pages in the last two days (it helps when the book really picks up too).  Soon though I want to read “Everville,” but for now “Lord of Chaos” is keeping me very entertained.

Work is going well, I finally got the program packets out so I have room in my storage closet again (soon to be filled with summer camp things).

And really in other news, I just don’t have much to report.  Sorry, I guess lately I’m all kinds of boring.  Anyway, off to a commissioners meeting tonight and I’ll catch everyone later!  Have a great one!

Quick update for everyone.  I decided to come up with some sort of new years resolution, but not in the normal sense.  I decided that I want to be through the first nine books of the Wheel of Time by the end of the year (so I can be ready for 2009 when A Memory of Light is released).  I think that it is doable, but of course, I left my copy of book six, Lord of Chaos, at work over the weekend.

Besides that, it was a nice weekend, relaxing and enjoyable.  I picked up a friend from the airport, which was a nice drive (didn’t even have to park, her flight got in early).  I was trying to get together with another friend, but our schedules just wouldn’t mesh, so maybe after he gets back from NYC.

More cleaning, and more cleaning, I’ll make it eventually!  And I started working on my project at URU Obsession (so the title almost applies to this post, how very inappropriate thank you), so look for that soon!

That’s it, I’m going to try to update this more regularly, since I missed that whole week, so we’ll see how that works out.  Have a great one everyone!

Things have been exceedingly busy lately, so I do apologize for the delay in an update.  The big project was the Heritage ’08 promotional kick-off.  Which went very, very well, but we had been hoping for a better turn out.  Below is the video which I created to loop as everyone came in.

For whatever reason, it cut off the last song and about 200 photos, I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong, but it’s still really awesome (although not even the best remix I think), so if you have some time and want to see where I work over the summer, check it out!

Otherwise, things have been fairly quiet, I’ve been doing lots of cleaning, and today I helped my brother take down his Christmas lights, and afterwards we had dinner at Primanti Bros!

I’m really making an effort to get organized, especially with my finances, and through Lifehacker, I found a site, Wesabe, which so far has been very helpful.  You have the option of linking it to your bank accounts, so it keeps you up to date, and you have the ability to tag every transaction, so you know where your money is coming from and where it is going.

I’ll be doing some graphic design work tonight, and then I’m picking up a friend from the airport, more work tomorrow, and watching Meet the Robinsons (so I can finally return it!).  Have a great one, catch everyone soon!

Happy new year everybody!

Not a whole lot going on, but I did want to post to wish everyone a safe and happy new year.  Any resolutions?  I haven’t decided yet, chances are I’ll come up with something while I’m halfway through it…

I hung out with some friends for new year’s, and we ended up watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on a very small, black and white screen, but it was nice, I’m glad I got to watch it.  Before that though we watched the Futurama movie, "Bender’s Big Score."  It’s like the Family Guy movie, funny, but I could find three episodes which were funnier and could watch them in the same time, although there are some great special features (including a complete episode of Hypnotoad) and the first part of the movie is just making fun of FOX, which was so funny!

Exciting news though, it looks as though the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl is printing, which means the American version isn’t far behind (Feb. 10, perfect for Valentine’s day!)

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you’ve had a wonderful day and spent the season with family and friends.

It’s not really a present from me, but here’s the promo for Lost Season 4, enjoy:

Ok, I’m back with a few quick items for you, links and observations, as per the usual.

First off, the new HD version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a cool feature which enables web-connected players to interact with each other while the movie is being watched.  Groups can watch the movie and send each other text messages during it, allowing a conversation to happen on screen.  I think it’s pretty cool, although the method of entering text seems a bit slow, still a really cool feature that I hope we see more of in the future.

The other day at work I had a great conversation about Lost.  Not that it was really a conversation, but the two of us were very excited to find someone else who watches the show and we quickly listed off the things we liked and wanted to see more of, in addition to what we need to know answers to.  When that picks up again in January, it will be quite exciting to continue the discussions!

Last week here at work we ordered Chinese, which was nice (today was cheap pizza day), although my fortune was a bit strange, it was more or less a warning to save the environment, stating that we treat this world as though we had a spare in the trunk.  Poignant, but not a fortune.

Scientists have cloned glow in the dark cats.  I find this very strange and disturbing, and I also think that there are probably better ways to spend time and money, but still a cool read (and a freaky picture!) anyway.

I got my first paper cut at work this week, which was followed the next day by me jamming a staple into my finger.  Otherwise I’ve been fine…so I’m glad that that trend has ceased.

And finally, yesterday I was making copies: nine packets total.  I looked down and saw that number seven had just finished up, and I said to myself (aware that I was making a Star Trek pun), “ah, seven of nine.”

Well, that’s all for now, have a great one everybody!