I was talking to Scott yesterday after work a bit and he told me to go look at Blackberries.  So today, when I got a chance, I slipped away from work (or out of the house, if you will) and did some research.  I think I’ll be getting one soon.  I really wish AT&T/Cingular had some decent plans that would fit our needs, because I’d love to get an iPhone instead, mainly because the web browser on it is an actual web browser, but as long as I can check e-mail and talk on the phone, I should be good to go.

I got to the gym today, but I think I overexerted myself in trying to make up for my recent slacking.  I did lots of upper body plus about a hundred crunches, some lower body and a mile on the treadmill.  I’d do more on the treadmill, but I can’t find my iPod and I get so bored.  Plus after about three-quarters of a mile my right knee starts hurting sometimes if I’ve been running a while, and doing a full second mile takes so long when walking.

I got home and took a shower then helped Amanda put up some laundry.  Adam came by a few minutes after 7:00 and we headed over to Michael’s to play Risk.  Matt, Michael’s roommate, was supposed to be there, but his grandfather is extremely sick so he was with his family.  Two of Matt’s friends, Nick and Sharla, were there and we showed them how to play.

Ahh, Risk.  Until a few months ago I ‘d been undefeated for years at the game of world conquest.  Tonight I was the first person out.  Michael was going after Australia so I decided to try to get my South America-Western Africa-Southern North America circle going on, but it didn’t work out.  Actually it started out okay, but I couldn’t roll for squat against Nick, who was in North America.  I just flat out got terrible rolls.  In the turn where he knocked me out I think he had an army of eight versus my army of seven and he didn’t lose one single guy.  In fact, I had  my last two territories behind that one that he ended up taking those without a loss as well.  My guys, it seemed, were demoralized.  That happened in the third round.  It sucked to be wiped out by a total beginner.  A noob.  A Risk virgin.
Sharla was the next to fall.  By that time Michael had Australia, most of Asia and half of Europe.  He’s busted into Adam’s Africa too, and Adam and Nick were battling over South America.  There wasn’t much of a question as to who would win.  Michael started out in Australia and was really annoyed when Sharla put as many of her people in Australia as she could too, mainly because she was only doing it because, as she said, she liked Australia.  Even though they had very even forces, Michael was able to knock her out of the continent in the first round and had a good solid base to move out from.  So yeah, he won.

Bruce was playful again when I got home tonight.  He kept wanting to go outside then come right back in, which was annoying, but after that we played fetch with Brown Sonic for a while again. Brown Sonic ended up on the bed again, but we didn’t play fetch up there.  Amanda had woken up a little last night when we did that.  She told me this evening that she thought she’d dreamed that we were playing Brown Sonic fetch on the bed last night, but when she saw the stuffed squeaky hedgehog on the bed in the morning she figured it was real.

Zach Dotsey