cindy's world

For reasons I can’t yet get into on this blog, I was forced to miss last nite’s jujitsu class. I wasn’t happy about that. But at least I was productive while at home, i.e. I brushed my cat and then vacuumed downstairs wearing just my bra and underwear and a tiara that was given to me on my birthday.

What?! It held my hair up and out of my face, okay?

Videogaming Goes the 12-Step Route

TUESDAY JULY 18 2006 8:00 PM
Submitted by PopMonger. Edited By PopMonger.

What hath you wrought, Super Mario Brothers? The latest scourge threatening today’s youth isn’t marijuana or careless driving (according to those PSAs). No, it’s videogame addiction.

Europe’s first rehab facility for compulsive gamers has opened in the Netherlands… because there’s no better place to treat addiction than in Amsterdam.

Addicted gamers display many symptoms, including obsessive thinking and health problems. Others may use stimulants to keep awake during gaming marathons.

Last year a man in South Korea died after spending 50 hours playing an online game.

The Amsterdam clinic offers an eight-week treatment program, complete with staff psychologists and group therapy. About a dozen such clinics already exist in the U.S. and Canada.

Cindy’s Comment: Oh, there’s so much I can but won’t say. I only want to say that it nearly brings me to tears how sad it is that these gaming addicts feel more guilt causing their online cohorts’ characters to die if they log off, than they feel for neglecting their living breathing hurting significant others and children.

Due to a comment I recently received from a stranger who inadvertently got a hit on this blog while doing a Google search for a different topic, I think I need to state this for people like this woman who apparently turned something I wrote about my experience and my opinion about that experience into a knife, turned the knife on herself and stabbed her heart with it, then decided to write a scathing comment about how I figuratively stabbed her with my post.

1) my opinion’s not WRONG like this woman suggests, it’s how I feel and I explain the logic behind it on the posts
2) I’m not selling anything and no one’s paying me to write so I think I can write whatever I damn well want to, especially if it’s honest
3) it’s a FREE access site so if you don’t like it, don’t read it!

What the hell. If it weren’t for my super spy brain tuning, shit would’ve gone down. I’m so irked. If you can’t handle something, don’t even do it. Doing something half-ass and then screwing it up, thereby screwing other people up, is worse than just sitting on your hands.

I was requested to employ my “Mata Hari wiles” to get some information about something yesterday. I didn’t know the reference then, but now I do:

Mata Hari. Behind the patina of the pseudonym Mata Hari (“Eye of the Dawn”) is a rather prosaic Dutch name. Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (1876-1917) used Mata Hari as both her stage name and nom de guerre when she chose to become a spy for the Germans before World War I. Acclaimed throughout Europe for her interpretations of naked Indonesian dances, she met many men in high places, including German officials in Berlin who recruited her as a spy in 1907. During World War I, her dancing was the rage of Paris and she became intimate with top Allied officers, who confided military secrets to her. Mata Hari, who slept with literally hundreds, thrived on the deceit of espionage, but she was eventually betrayed to the French secret service by another German agent, Captain Walther Wilhelm Canaris, later to become head of the German secret service in World War II. Her trial was the most publicized of the many espionage trials held during the war, and her name became synonymous with a glamorous female spy and femme fatale. She was convicted by a French court-martial ane executed by a firing squad.
– The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Third Edition, Robert Hendrickson

That’s kinda cool for this esoteric belly dancing German-speaking wiley fraulein.

Being in an exhausted, bad mood this evening, I called my childhood friend for a reason to ditch jujitsu again, for the 3rd month in a row. She said she was getting off work at 8:30-ish and wanted to meet up for Korean tofu after that so I can meet her new boyfriend. She said if I don’t feel like going to class, just relax and do whatever it takes to make me happy and she’ll call me after work. I must’ve been too relaxed because I fell asleep in front of the TV and even tho I assumed the house phone ringing would wake me up, it didn’t. I woke up on my own at just before 11:30p and was shocked I didn’t hear my phone ringing, and went upstairs to check my cell phone. I’d missed 3 calls from her. I called her back and she insisted on still meeting up, since the Korean tofu place is open 24 hours, and I finally agreed after lots of persuading from her even tho as I told her it’s late and I need to work the next morning. She said she was gonna finish making out with her new boyfriend and she’ll call me when they leave, saying they wouldn’t be too long. It’s been an HOUR. I’ve changed, put my face back on and I’m sitting here, and I’m thinking I’m gonna call her back and tell her I’m going to bed. She probably fell asleep, considering she was complaining about being drunk while on the phone earlier.

Despite having a lazy workday, I was able to be productive after work. With my judge’s and my bailiff’s Bed, Bath & Beyond gift cards that they got for my birthday, I purchased a new Hoover bagless vacuum cleaner. My Fantom Fury had finally had its last suck before the roller fell apart. Oh, and all 4 rubber bands I’d bought for it last year broke, too. I was saddened to replace the Fury, the best vacuum cleaner I’d ever used, but was happy that the new one was lighter, more compact, and had the same amps of suction. I was finally able to do the stairs easily, because the Hoover has a stair cleaner handle grip that allows for better leaned-back manueverability. Oh, and the suction on the hose attachment was shockingly strong. That’ll suck up ants no problem!

After vacuuming the house, I went to belly dancing, week 2. Vanessa was there, having missed last week’s first class, but she did fine; the choreography wasn’t difficult, and we caught up with each other and had fun. After class, we went to get chicken rice soup to go at one of my favorite Thai restaurants, and upon returning her to her car, Vanessa gave me my birthday present. Yay, more presents! She got me a pretty journal, a white Happy Bunny wifebeater, and a teal and pink Happy Bunny tank and boxer set. Happy Bunny on the pajama set says “You’d be cooler if you were me.” I love Happy Bunny!

When I came to work this morning, there was another present on my desk from a coworker, another Bed, Bath & Beyond giftcard (I love that store, it has EVERYTHING). Birthday months are great! I should drag it out more often. The celebration begins right around the birthday and if I don’t do an event until weeks after the date, then it goes on till then! This Saturday: Disneyland! Yay!

I had Chinese restaurant dinner last nite with my parents for my mom’s bday. Yes, yes, her birthday is days before mine. I consider myself a belated 24th birthday present to her. My mom said that she bought 3 pairs of slippers for me. She’d called me Saturday morning when I was at Diana’s house to ask what shoe size I wore. Basically she saw that I was wearing beach flip flops when Mr. W and I last visited my parents, and did not like the huge height difference between me and Mr. W, so she took it upon herself to get me flip flops with some heel. She says that she got them for my birthday. Interesting. I haven’t seen them yet. And then she offered to do a banquet dinner to celebrate my 30th, have 2 tables in a nice Chinese restaurant. That’s just weird, it’s not like I’m turning 50 or getting married. Then she said she had a big 30th birthday banquet in Taiwan before we emigrated to the U.S.. Both my dad and I didn’t remember that. Of course, I was only 6 at the time so I may have thought it was a goodbye for us dinner. But a banquet just seems way too formal and ceremonial. And it seems too adult. “But I still FEEL like a kid,” I said to my mom. “I know, you are a kid,” she said. “That’s because you’re not married,” my dad said. I didn’t know that that’s another thing I have to sign over if I’m married — my youth.

You know there’s something wrong when I’m driving to work with no time to spare, I have more than half a tank of gas left, and I spontaneously pull into the left turn lane upon seeing a gas station offering $2.99/gal gas. While waiting for the left turn light to turn green so I could go into the station, I realized the gas companies have conditioned me to immediately respond to $2.99 as a deal so good I couldn’t pass up despite not even needing gas, when in fact $2.99 is still preposterous. I was so offended at this thoughtless Pavlov responsiveness in me that I didn’t wait for the light to turn, I pulled back into the flow of traffic and was off. Screw you gas CEOs and your “cheap” gas! You’re not gonna trick me to go over there, I don’t even need gas!

Yeah, I’ll probably stop by there and wait in the long lines on my way home this evening.

I just happened to catch Mr. W online, very briefly. He shortly arrived at their accomodations in Alaska. He IMed that they’re at Madame’s Manor, which apparently used to be a brothel, and the cab lady told them that the place is haunted (which I found very cool and instantly interested me). He said he was confused as to the sleeping arrangements. 5 minutes after the conversation began, he said he had to go and disappeared. Curious, I googled Madame’s Manor and found that it’s actually a bed & breakfast. I’d always wanted to stay in one, but I guess Mr. W is gonna be in one without me, with his male friend. Looking at the website, it looks more like a honeymooner’s quaint paradise than the accomodations of 2 guy pals going fishing and sight-seeing in Alaska. The photos of all the rooms that you can book through their site show what appears to be a queen bed, no twins or separate sleeping areas in one room. No wonder they’re confused as to the sleeping arrangements. Yesterday, Mr. W had cracked a joke to me alluding to their trip as “Brokeback Mountain,” and that I would know something’s wrong if they didn’t bring back any fish and the fish container remains unopened and unused, which is how Ennis’ wife in Brokeback Mountain figured out that the two men’s annual fishing trips weren’t as innocent as they sounded — she’d placed a note in Ennis’s fish container asking him to please bring back fish for her and their children, and the note went undiscovered and unread for years. I’d laughed off Mr. W’s reference to Brokeback and joked back that he needs to remember to bring the lube, but looking at this website now, it really puts a different spin on things. =P