::A Geek in Korea::

After our long month of teaching morning classes, we were given two days off this week. Since my wife isn’t as lucky, I’m home alone and just hanging out until the weekend where we can actually go do something together.  I spent yesterday catching up on sleep, but today I wanted to get some things done.

My wife and I prepared a shopping list for me. I managed to get everything at the grocery store back to the house, even with all the bottled water and liquid goods we wanted for the week. After that, a brief nap. It was my day off, I might as well enjoy it. If that’s all I would have accomplished in the day it would have been a success. My dog and I are professional nappers.

Later, I finally beat the easy campaign of Advanced Wars Dual Strike. I had put the game down, more than a year ago, because of my disgust with a certain missions victory requirements. After consulting a guide, I quickly beat the mission I was stuck on. With a few more peeks at the guide, I eventually beat the entire campaign. Now I’ve got some unlocking, and possibly some leveling to do as I work through the maps available to get more characters.

Truth be told, I had burnt out on the Advanced Wars franchise because of Advanced Wars by Web. While AWbW retains most of the gameplay of Advanced Wars, and can be played by friends all over the world, the web interface isn’t that well done. There is no “undo”, and you have to wait for each move to load, which turns the game into a chore.  After getting my butt kicked online repeatedly with web interface and balance issues, I swore off the series for a while. Now, my turn based strategy lust is returning viciously. I’m still not as obsessed as I was at the height of my AWbW playing days, but that’s a good thing. The game has a ton of replay value, and I haven’t even scratched some of the modes yet despite owning it for years. It’s almost scary.

After I got my game on, my wife sent me a message. How about a DVD for the evening? Nothing was in the new release bin, so we picked up “Memoirs of a Geisha”. This was a movie 145 minutes long, which no one alerted me to when I gave the go ahead for the rental. Women dress! They gossip! They are treated as objects by rich men, and they love it! Ugh. While the story was really freaking long to get to the point, the costumes and scenery was beautiful. My wife said the book was better. Whatever.

I got some stuff done, and I’ve got nothing to worry about for the next two days either while I can relax on my long weekend too.