Patrick’s Realm

Darlene, my wife and alost the most amazing person I have ever met,  has just got a Facebook page set up.  If you have Facebook yourself, stop by and add her as a friend!  Being a web developer, I’m very excited that she is enjoying a social web application.  Before you know it, she’ll be maintaining a LiveJournal and Twittering.

Ever since Ron Paul left the scene, I’ve been debating if Barak Obama’s charisma would really be better than McCain’s expirience in office.  Well, one of McCain’s staffers, Michael Goldfarb, made my choice easy when he said:

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

Michael Goldfarb

He appologized later, but this definatly struck a cord for me in two respects:

1. I love Dungeons & Dragons, and I own my own basement, thanks.
2. While I do not fault Mr. Goldfarb for having a derogatory thought in his mind, I do fault him for using it.  Enough of the world hates The United States, and I don’t want some half-baked political nut thinking it’s ok to string false information together with precieved stereotypes and biases.  If McCain finds Goldfarb to be good company, that definatly makes me re-evaluate his worthyness to lead me and my fellow countrymen.

Of course, he had to appologize because lurking around the corner was a real-life contingent of pro-Obama D&D players.  Such a small sub-set of voters, yet such a vocal one.

You can see Hasbro’s resposne to Goldfarb here.

Well, I got put under by another sickness - food poisioning.  Helpful hint: if your shimp looks uncooked, it is…

I spend all day Wednesday in bed sleeping.  Today has been good to me, however.  I’ll be up and ready for life tomorrow.

I read about this crazy story that a group of players in the MMO Final Fantasy XI fought one of the big bosses, Pandemonium Warden, and gave up after 18 hours.

Pandemonium Warden

From other sources, apparently it can be done in 15 hours, but that is still crazy.  The group from the story decided to call it quits when members of their clan started to report that they where feeling physically ill.

Guess feeling sick was the order of the day!

It’s been a while!  I bet you thought I dissapeared.  I was actually put under by a rather nasty head cold.  Found out about a really good nose spray called Sinus Buster.  It’s basically hot pepper you spray up your nose.  You cry and wonder what you did to yourself, then you can breath again.  I highly recommend it!

On another blog, I found out about a ‘nerd-core’ rapper named MC Frontalot.  On Twenty Sided they claimed that anything gets better once you nerd it up.  I think they are right:

So, take a look and tell me if I’m a little sad for listening to his free songs on his website over and over…

PS: Twenty Sided is the home of the DM of the Ring web comic, which has finished, that depicts a group of role-players going through the Lord of the Rings story.  If you have ever played with a bunch of misfits at the gaming table, I’m sure you will relate to the comic!

Last night the baby got up around 3:30am. She was being fussy, so both Darlene and I were tending to her. She eventually fell back to sleep, but this left me wide awake. As it turns out, I went to be 2 hours earlier than I normally do, and my body said “Close enough,” to the amount of sleep I had. My brain starting churning with all of the things I wanted to do this weekend, I felt restless, I was too warm or too cold, I didn’t feel right laying on my side or my back…

I needed to find a way to get back to sleep quickly.  Luckily, I have two very useful tools for such an occasion:

1. Put something in your stomach: This is the easier of the 2 techniques.  If you drink about 8oz of milk or have a handful of potato chips (or something else with salt), your body will divert energy to processing the contents of your stomach now that you are awake, reducing your blood flow slightly to the rest of your body.
2. Center yourself: If you don’t recognize the term, it is usually used in meditation.  I’m not asking you to actually meditate at 3am, but I’m sure it makes sense that if you quite a busy brain and keep your eyes shut you’ll fall to sleep.  All centering yourself refers to is taking several deep breaths (as many as needed) and focus on nothing more than the breaths.  Forget about tomorrows appointment, the song “stuck” in your head, what activities you want to organize, etc., and focus on your breath.  Repeat this as needed when thoughts come rushing back. Eventually, your mind will stop racing and you’ll stop centering yourself naturally - because you will have become centered (for the most part).  Additionally, deep breaths are relaxing and have been shown to ease people into sleep.

Don’t forget about these the next time you want to get back to sleep!