The pain during the day isn’t too bad at all, unless I do something stupid (like sit in front of the computer for too long).

I don’t really recall how I “fixed” this problem when I had it last August. I know I used ice packs on my wrist, and was regularly taking anti-inflammatory medicine. But if I recall correctly, it mostly just sorted itself out once I backed off the computer usage. So, that’s more or less what I’m doing now: less computer time,  ice, Advil. I did find one new trick at this page on RSI treatment: hot / cold baths on my wrist, alternating between the two temperatures every 1 minute for 10 minutes. I’m also trying to correct how I hold my wrists while sleeping (palms against my sides instead of my thumbs), but I’m not entirely sure how to do this successfully. I can be in whatever position I want while still awake, but I tend to move around a bit once I fall asleep.

Oh, and one other thing. Cas, I know you’ll leap into the comments demanding to know why, if I’m having trouble with RSI, I’m writing this blog post. And to that I say: I’m using my little Acer Aspire One, which, due to how sensitive the keyboard is, doesn’t seem to bother my wrists much. It’s the desktop keyboards that tend to make my left hand numb within 20 minutes. So nyah!

So what is my deal? Meh; I don’t know. I’ve been busy doing other things lately, and my blog has been pushed into a dusty corner. I’ve been busy with language learning, where my list of target languages has grown rather large – perhaps unbearably large. As of right now, I’m actively studying German, Russian, French, and Spanish. Oh, and I have materials on the way for Dutch, as it seems like a pretty easy target knowing English and German.

I’ve been gardening a bit (gardening, great gods), and quite enjoying it. Not only is it relaxing, the fruits of it shall be wonderful on homemade club sandwiches (we’re growing tomatoes, among other things). The one thing I’m not so fond of: the bits of dirt that I can’t get out from my hands. Scrub as I might, I can’t get it out.

I’m still chugging along with No-S and shovelglove. I had to climb back onto the No-S wagon after falling off of it during holidays, but I’m back on now and holding on for dear life. Shovelglove never fell off my radar, and I’m actually considering upgrading my sledgehammer to a slightly heavier version. While I still break a sweat, my arms are no longer burning by the time I’m done; I daresay swinging the hammer around has become routine. That’s a Good Thing (TM), but I think I need to kick it up a notch (two T.V. star phrases in one sentence, that must be worth a gold star or something).

While shovelgloving, I generally watch a bit of a Stargate SG-1 episode; sometimes only 15 minutes, but sometimes I go ahead and finish the episode when I’m done exercising. With such a steady rate, I’m now up to episode 4 of Season 6. Just over halfway to the end; when I’m done with it, I’m going to be rather sad. Shovelgloving and SG-1 are like peanut butter and jelly for me at this point…

I guess all of that was a roundabout way of saying: I have plenty to blog about, I’m just not doing it. I’ve been too busy doing the whole, um, life thing to blog about it. But I do miss doing so. I may try a post schedule, say 3 posts a week, or something like that. Cas went for a daily post, Monday through Friday, but I know I wouldn’t stick to such a thing, so I won’t even bother attempting it. Maybe I’ll even take a look at some memes; I used to do Friday’s Feast (which is either dead or just not working right now).

Quick, someone motivate me!

Based on my last check, I’ve fulfilled all of the requirements for my degree in history, except for a number of a few electives. 30 some odd hours of them, more specifically. If I’ve figured things up correctly, I’ve got 2 semesters left. 2 semesters – the end is in sight! Very vague and indistinct, to be sure, but I can at least see it.

Thinking about that, I wonder if I’ll have more free time once I’m done, or whether a full-time job – assuming I can find one – will eat up just as much time. I’m thinking I actually will have more free time. At least with a full-time job, I can be assured that, barring overtime, the job will use up 40 or so hours a week. With college, I’ve no idea how many weekly hours I pour in. Certainly my actual time in class is much lower than a full-time job, but there are plenty of things to do outside of class. Sometimes it feels like my days are nothing but a long spree of reading, studying, and writing. Of course, I bring a lot of this on myself, because I genuinely hate to get anything other than an A, but still – lots of stuff to do.

If you have trouble understanding all of the words, the lyrics are in the More Info box at Youtube.

The repair was to be rather simple. I had a Collins Concise German-English dictionary which had a cracked spine, and I was going to strengthen it by putting a small line of glue down into the crack. So, I got some Elmer’s craft glue and some wax paper to put into the book while the glue was drying, so as to avoid having excess glue bind the pages together.

The wax paper ended up being a rather nasty mistake. I had read a number of “how to repair books” websites, and thought that I’d read that wax paper could be used for this kind of repair. Apparently, I got wax paper and plastic – like an LP sleeve – mixed up. Wax paper is used in some types of book repair, but blocking craft glue from spreading onto the pages of your book isn’t one of them.

The end result was that this morning, when I opened the dictionary to check out my handiwork, I found the wax paper stuck quite securely down into the spine of the book. I thought that I’d be able to still get it out successfully by pulling on it slowly, but I was wrong. When I finally got it out, it ripped out 4 pages of the dictionary with it, tearing 2 of them quite badly. Not quite the repair I’d had in mind… Oops.

I ended up throwing the dictionary away. I can get a new copy for $10, and while I could have repaired the damage I’d done*, I didn’t really want to be reminded of my stupidity everytime I opened the book.

* Then again, I thought I could repair the cracked spine, too, and we see how that turned out.

Update: Apparently, I wasn’t 100% wrong. A number of reputable book repair guides say to use wax paper to excess glue from sticking the pages together. The key mistake I made – combining wax paper and craft glue. All of the book repair guides are talking about using PVA glue or wheat paste.

I decided to back off of it for at least while after attending a guest speaker lecture last week and becoming frustrated with what I saw there. Throughout the talk, I could see a few dozen people in the audience texting constantly. Two people were listening to iPods, one right in front of me. One person took a phone call during the lecture. These people were so addicted to their gadgets that they couldn’t put them away for an hour or an hour and a half to give their attention to a speaker.

What does all of that have to do with Twitter? A lot. Twitter is text messaging, except rather than texting amongst your friends, you can text – both receiving and sending – amongst millions of people. It’s the ultimate distraction. It’s easy to fall into the trap – at least for me – of feeling like you need to post an update every five minutes, whether you’ve just scratched your nose or eaten a hamburger for lunch.

This ends up having the same nasty effect that constant texting on one’s phone has: there’s a continual pull to post an update or read others’ updates. I lost count how many times I caught myself refreshing Twitter to see if anyone had posted anything. I’ve seen many people – myself included – post such things as, “What happened – why’s no one tweeting?” These usually come 10 or so minutes after no one has posted. If you regularly notice that no one has tweeted in the past 10 minutes, how focused are you – really – on what you’re doing?

I’m certainly not trying to be dramatic here, but I’m coming to see Twitter as just another aspect of a major problem that society is facing. If people have got all of these things beeping all of the time, begging for – demanding? – their attention – email, text messages, voice mail, Twitter, Facebook messages, MySpace updates, etc. – how can they ever be expected to focus on anything? If kids are allowed to continue bringing their phones to school, where they text and tweet under their desks, are they really learning like they need to?

I’m certainly no exception to this, and that’s the main reason I’m letting Twitter go. It’s just too much distraction for the amount of good I get out of it. Sure, it’s fun to see what people are doing – but I found it far too easy to want to know what they were doing constantly. I was like a moth drawn to fire. Refresh, refresh – what’s going on now? And now? And now? What about now? Any updates? Twitter was seriously hampering my ability to focus on anything, whether it was using school work or personal stuff, like my language learning endeavors.

Bye, Twitter. I’d say I’m going to miss you, but so far I haven’t.

Bourne Supremacy

After really liking Bourne Identity, I was quite looking forward to this. I ended up not liking Supremacy nearly as much, though, partly because I felt as if I’d been misled. The blurb for Supremacy said that Franka Potente returned more or less as Bourne’s sidekick. However, considering that she was dead within 20 minutes from the start of the movie, her “return” felt more like a way to just slap her name on the movie.

Her being killed so early in the movie also irked me because I’d really liked the interplay being Marie and Bourne. In Identity, she’d kept him in line to some extent, and Marie was someone Bourne could talk to. Marie being killed so early in Supremacy led to Bourne going solo the rest of the movie, which I didn’t find nearly as interesting. There were lots (and lots) of shots of him walking quickly and looking serious, but little dialogue between him and anyone else, besides him consistently asking “Why are you trying to kill me?” and saying “This ends now!” (Didn’t you say that in the first one, Bourne?)

What the movie lacked in dialogue, they tried to make up for with perhaps one of the longest car chase scenes I’ve ever watched. So long, in fact that, despite cars being smashed, guns being fired, and other such things, I became bored. Yes, yes, Bourne has just pulled off some amazing stunts with an old busted up taxi; movie along, please. 5 minutes later: oh, we’re still doing the car chase? Wake me up when it’s over.

My biggest problem with Supremacy is that it just felt like more of the same. I obviously expected Supremacy to be a continuation of Identity – it’s a sequel, after all – but not to such an extent. It felt like they’d taken Identity, swapped out a few characters, and left the plot more or less the same. Bourne’s a badass, someone’s trying to kill him, and he’s pissed. More, please.

Kudos to the makers, however, for continuing the coolness of including multiple languages in the movie; Russian makes the list this time. My Russian was woefully inadequate to understand what they were saying, but the actors’ pronunciation seemed pretty good, at least far better than I’ve heard elsewhere (Stargate SG-1 comes to mind). I didn’t even recognize Karl Urban, who played the Russian killer Kirill, as the same fellow who played Eomer in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

The Kite Runner

I have very little to say about this one other than that it was an excellent movie. I don’t want to say much about it because its greatness lies solely in the story, and if I go blathering about it, I’ll spoil all sorts of things. Suffice to say, even if you’re not crazy about moies which are largely subtitled, you should watch this movie. I’m usually not one to get all emotional over movies, but there were a few bits in this one that made me really sad and really happy. The ending is awesome. If you’ve not seen it, I strongly recommend you do so.

Next to be watched via Netflix: Hotel Rwanda and Changeling.

Apparently, amazon.com is already doing this with some books. A few days ago I bought French Grammar: A Complete Reference Guide; after purchasing it, I was given the option to get the digital version as well, for a mere $1.89. I of course jumped on the option.

I’m not crazy about the implementation, as you have to login amazon.com to read it, and the reading is done in their online reader (the same system which you can preview books in). It makes sense, though; if they allowed PDF downloads they’d be all over the internet in a matter of hours.

The online reader lets you highlight and add annotations, as well as make an unlimited number of bookmarks. You can then search the whole book, just bookmarked pages, highlighted text, or your notes. The only feature which seems to be a bit wonky right now is the copy feature. Standard copy and paste is disabled in the reader, so you have to select the text you’re after and then press a “Copy” button at the top of the controls. However, when I try this, a little “Loading…” window pops up, and stays there indefinitely.

Still, though, it’s cool to see things moving in this direction. I wish I could upgrade my long-ago purhased copy of Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, but it looks like it’s not yet available in digital format.

We never quite made it there. 20 minutes or so before getting there, as we were driving down the road chatting, something peculiar happened: the driver’s window exploded. Weird, I know, but these things happen when a deer rams into the side of your car.

We’re still not entirely sure how it happened. My wife, the driver, says she very vaguely remembers seeing something out of the corner of her eye. I recall seeing a flash of brown before her window shattered, spraying glass into the car, mostly onto her. I got a face full of little chunks, as did those in the back seat; we all found quite a bit in our hair. My wife ended up having to be taken to a hospital to get checked out, as the driver’s sideview mirror had been ripped off and thrown into the car, smacking her in the face. Everyone else, other than being a bit shocked, was alright.

I say we’re not sure how it happened because of the “evidence”: there was deer slobber and hair on the hood of the car, deer hair all along the side of the car (driver’s door and driver’s side passenger door), and deer hair on the trunk. There was also a huge amount of deer hair in the car, mostly on my wife’s clothes. I’ve tried to figure out how it must have ran into our car – along our car? – to hit all of those spots, and I’m still stumped. I’m also baffled as to how we hit a deer and didn’t destroy our little car, or at least have more damage than one missing sideview mirror and one busted window. As far as we can tell, there’s not a single dent.

In comparison to many car accidents, including the hitting of deer, I realize ours was a rather minor affair; but I must say, it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced. I still can’t get over how fast it all happened. I’ve read about the brain being unable to cope with how fast car accidents happen, but to actually experience that mental lag, that bewildered feeling of “what the hell just happened?!” – that’s a bit different than reading about it online. While it only lasted a few seconds, I went through a period of time in which I literally had no idea what had happened. I initially thought that, for whatever reason, the front windshield had shattered, even though I was looking right at it. I suppose I thought this because of the glass hitting me in the face; you don’t expect glass from the driver’s side to whack you in the face when you’re in the passenger seat. Then I panicked and checked my face, then my eyes, afraid that I’d go blind from the glass, even though I was looking around the car. In retrospect my reactions were really quite weird, but they felt right at the time.

Overall, for funniness, I rate our evening of “comedy” with a rating of 1, on a scale from 1 to 10. Oh, and Bambi.. well, Bambi’s on my list right now. You know the list.

Last week was a good week to sign up, as I had plenty of time to watch movies while laying around on hydrocodone. Things we’ve watched so far:

Lawrence of Arabia

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this at first, but I ended up loving it. Lawrence is a really interesting character, and watching the film actually prompted me to throw a biography of his on my “to read” list. I also got a kick seeing Obi Wan, er, Alec Guinness, in the role of Prince Faisal.

I also thought the scenery was amazing. I can’t imagine how difficult it was filming all of that in the desert (I didn’t get around to watching the Making Of stuff on the DVD). It was doubly impressive because I knew none of it was CGI.

Citizen Kane

I again wondered whether I’d like this or not, but I ended up enjoying it. I talked to my friend Joshua about it beforehand, and he commented that it didn’t really feel that old considering it was made in ‘41. I agree; other than the black and white factor and a few give-aways (like the fuzzy lighting on closeups of female characters), it felt very modern. The plot was great, and I thought Welles was excellent. I can certainly see why it’s hailed as one of the greatest movies ever. I’ll probably go back and watch this again to see if I can pick up anymore from it.

The one negative for me: before watching it, I accidentally stumbled onto what “Rosebud” was, so I knew how the movie ended before even getting settled into my chair.

Bourne Identity

Looking this movie up on IMDB really showed me how out of it I am in regards to movies. I thought hat it had come out “a few years ago”, when in reality it came out seven years ago. Okay, so I’m a little behind…

I liked this one as well, even though there were a few silly things. For example – since when do you go to a high security bank and gain access to an account by just giving the account number, with no I.D.? I need to book a flight to Switzerland…

Bonus points to the makers for having people in foreign countries actually speaking foreign languages (French, German, etc.). As I’m into languages, I thought it was a really nice touch.

If you’ve got any favorite movies, drop ‘em in the comments, and I’ll add them to my list of movies to check out. It just might take me a year or two to get to it.