You know what? Working out kind of works.

I have anxiety. I've always had it. It comes and it goes and I have good days, weeks, months even, but then sometimes I have bad days, weeks, months even. It's been much better since I started working from home instead of an office. And it's better still when I work less than 50 hours a week. Well this week I hit the anxiety jackpot. I'm on prednizone, for an unexplained loss of hearing in one ear, and my body and my anxiety HATE prednizone. It's a horrible drug that I'm taking because I don't want to be deaf in one ear. But believe me, if the alternative had been something less devastating I would have thought twice about taking this crap for 3 weeks. 

Prednizone gives me hot flashes, horrible mood swings, heart palpitations, and it really heightens my anxiety. 

In addition to everything else, this week I've been working on some editing tests for a client. These things are complicated  and require a lot of concentration. So of course this is the week my anxiety has me all geared up. Today, I finally got through most of the edits. At 10:30pm I was totally freaking out, anxiety attack central. My husband suggested playing some video games. I wanted to go for a walk. We ended up going for a walk/run at 10:30pm. It helped! I can't believe it. I mean I should, I've been working out steadily for a year now. But this is the first time I've actually used exercise to relieve an anxiety attack. It was pretty amazing. I feel almost normal, and without having to take any drugs. There may be something to this whole exercise thing.

Accent nail

Yeah that's right, today these chubby little digets were rocking an accent nail, aka the purple nail among the green ones. I've never actually done it before, but a painting mishap lead to some creativity on my part. I actually kind of like it. 

If I can find the time, I'm hoping to get a board game post together tomorrow, but work is kicking my ass this week, so we'll see if I have time to actually get to more writing. But hey, I'm on a roll so we'll see. :)

Oh BTW in case you didn't know I have another blog, here: Boston Sock in a Toaster. It's mostly about food just in case you're into that kind of thing.

A little nail polish comparison

Today we're getting into my newest geekery. Nail polish. For most of my life, I ignored my nails. I bit them and my fingers to the point of injury whenever I was stressed. My first manicure wasn't until age 21 when my stepmother insisted that I, as she likes to say, "get my nails did".  It was fun but I didn't really see the point. It seemed like a waste of time and expense to me. I never had the money, patience, or give a crap for manicures. And honestly between all of the working out and cooking that I do my nails always get messed up by day 2 anyway.

After a bout of particular stress last year that left my fingers bitten down to the quick and wounded, I decided to try painting them myself. Initially, I used light colors, being afraid of getting the dark colors on my skin. Then a friend informed me that if you get the paint on your skin and just take a shower then the paint will come right off. This was liberating, and opened up a whole new selection of colors for me. I discovered that as long as there was polish on my nails I wouldn't bite them or my fingers. Also, I liked the variety of colors. I have always enjoyed bright colors. Though because of self consciousness I tend to wear mostly black, so it's nice to be able to add a splash of color just on your fingers.

I started getting a little obsessive about the polish, changing it whenever it chipped.  It became a thing that I could do while working when I was stuck on a writing or editing problem. A brief interlude away from the work. Concentrating on something simple frees up my mind and opens up new avenues of thought, often giving me a new way to approach a difficult topic.

Then, I realized something awesome. You can do GEEKY NAILS. I mean of course this is obvious and all over the internet but this was a real revelation for me. My first geeky nail foray was for Batman

I know it's a crappy picture but it's hard to take a picture of your own hand with your phone :)

Next, I did the Avengers ( I can't find the photo right now but I know they exist somewhere, I'll upload them when I find them on my hard drive). 

I LOVED doing the Avengers nails, every nail was a different character, I enjoyed the challenge,  the complexity, and the dedication that it took. It gave me another way to wave my geek flag and show how dedicated I was to a thing that I love. 

Now I do my nails every day, I have what my husband and I call "grown up nails" which for someone with tiny nail beds and slow nail growth means that I always have a little bit of nail and I never bite them. I occasionally get my nails done professionally, but only when I need a real cuticle clean up or I've had a stress disaster and I need to get back on track. I also try to do geeky nails whenever there is a movie coming out that I am excited about, or if it's been a while, just for the hell of it. 

Two of this summer's geek nails sets are 

Star trek Into darkness nails.

You can't see very well but there are Starfleet insignias on the thumb and index finger and a hand making the Live long and prosper sign on another finger.


And Iron man 3 nails

Iron man kind of looks like he has a moustache :)

So at this point I figure that this nail thing is probably going to continue and I wanted an outlet to write about it, so expect nail polish comparisons, color reviews, and suggestions for ways to achieve new geeky nail art here in the future. 

Working out

Over the course of the last year I've started working out a bunch (mostly due to a diabetes scare and the resulting need to lose weight). So I've become extremely into working out, I enjoy it like I never thought I would. It has helped not only with weight loss, but also with my anxiety, my concentration ( I have ADD), and it's given me a new hobby to obsess about. Through friends and loved ones I've acquired a bunch of home gym equipment and I'm happy that I can now work out at home as well as at the gym. I'll never be a runner but I'm happy that asthma and a bum hip no longer keep me from enjoying a nice run when the weather permits.

Today I hit a personal best while running, ( a whole 3/4 mile without stopping) and I felt the need to write about it somewhere. Since this is my new outlet for all things me I thought I would write about it here. I promise working out won't creep in here too often but I've gotten so into it that it would be a shame if I didn't include it occasionally. Also, I've promised myself that I have to write on here at least three times a week, and I didn't have anything terribly geeky to write about today. 

Dead Island: Riptide

As a couple who like to play couch co-op or link up our 2 X Boxes and play co-op online together, my husband and I are always on the lookout for new co-op games. I'm not a big fan of the real life army genre of games, just like I'm not a fan of realistic fiction or biographies. In my opinion the world is upsetting enough without reality interfering with my down time. Now don't get me wrong I will shoot aliens and zombies all day long. In fact, I love me some zombies.

When the first Dead Island game came out we were ecstatic. We played the hell out of that game, despite numerous bugs and crashings. The bugs in that game were so severe we had to start over a few times, losing all of our progress and items. But we still played it 4 times with 4 different characters. That's how much we loved that game. So, when Dead Island: Riptide came out we were psyched. New weapons, new zombies to kill, new beautiful island vistas to be terrified in. Now before we got around to playing Dead Island:Riptide I read some not so glowing reviews. There were a lot of complaints about it being just more of the same as Dead Island, with only a few new locales and baddies to distinguish it. However, seeing as we loved the original we had no problem with this. Hell with new missions and Items we would probably have happily replayed on the original island. Also, we assumed that without a great change in gameplay would come a more stable game without all of the problems and crashings that plagued the original. 

 We took our time playing through the first two chapters making sure we got all the mods and all the secrets. Then yesterday when we were just about to reach chapter 3 we started crashing... Hard.  It wasn't a problem when we played solo, only when we tried to play co-op. So you could conceivably continue this very co-op dependent game solo, but where's the fun in that? We went on the forums looking for solutions. After trying all of the fixes suggested online we gave up  for the day. 

Now we're not giving up for good but next weekend when we go to play games together we might reach for Battle Block Theater or Halo Reach or even play Bioshock Infinite at the same time on our two separate consoles. 

Buggy games like this are just unacceptable. If you must release a game that's a mess at least have the decency to patch or update it as soon as possible. I read an email from Deepsilver on one forum wherein Deepsilver blamed Microsoft servers for the crashing which if you've crashed in this game makes no sense. We're going to try system link to solve the problem,  but we're not hopeful. So gamers beware of Dead Island: Riptide when it works it's a great co-op zombie killing time but, if regular and unsolvable crashing makes you angry it might be worth passing on this one. 

Hello All

Hello there

Welcome to all purpose geekery. When I say all purpose I mean I'm planning on covering everything from Tabletop games, video games, books, movies, tv, a variety of crafts cooking, baking and, well anything I feel I want to write about. :) However, I will be keeping within the vein of geekery, things I love and am passionate about and that I hope all of you will enjoy as well. So that's it for now, more to come soon!