If it wasn’t aliens, then it was some secret government warfare experiment during the cold war. Here’s a summary from the intro blurb:

The mysterious circumstances and subsequent investigations of the hikers’ deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigations of the deaths suggest that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow; while the corpses show no signs of struggle, one victim had a fractured skull, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. According to sources, the victims’ clothing contained high levels of radiation – though this was likely added at a later date, since no reference is made to it in contemporary documentation and only in later documents. Soviet investigators determined only that “a compelling unknown force” had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter. The causes of the accident remain unclear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident

So I went under the knife on October 29 at 6:45am. I’ve never had surgery before so I was freaking out a bit. The doc briefed me, I changed unto the patient gown, and the nurses took me to the operating room. They strapped me onto the table and then the anesthesiologist put the IV in me. They started engaging me in idle conversation, probably to calm me down. Then I woke up. Seriously, I don’t remember passing out. The last thing I remember was talking to the nurses. They had told me that the anesthesia causes short term amnesia. I was in a dimly lit room sitting on a chair, my back at a 45 degree angle. Waking up was a bitch. You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning but you’re so tired you want to fall back asleep? Take that feeling and multiply it by 1000. I was floating in an out of consciousness for I don’t know how long. When I finally woke for good, I did a quick mental body check. I felt like shit. I was extremely weak (probably from all the blood I lost), my face was numb, my nose was plugged up, I had cotton mouth, and my lungs were hurting whenever I took a deep breath (probably from the breathing tube). The nurse came in and gave me some ice chips and changed the gauze on my nose.

At that point began the most miserable week of my life. The doctor had told me post-surgery that the inside of my nose was really bad. This type of surgery lasts two hours. It took him four. The inside of my septum was a mix between a bad spider web and a rough zig-zag of cartilage that had hardened over the past 10 years. The doctor had to pretty much rework the entire septum. This was probably why my face had swollen up so bad that I couldn’t even open my eyes. Rocky Balboa looked like a Top Model compared to me. The week was hell. I couldn’t sleep, I could barely eat since I could barely open my mouth. My nose was a faucet of blood. The pills weren’t doing much, except for the steroid which was making me emotional. Every hour I would pray for euthanasia or suicide. That’s how miserable. For a good week I couldn’t open my eyes. After a week I could slowly open them just a bit but everything was blurry.

Now, two weeks later I’m feeling much better. I can walk around, I have my energy and appetite back. Most of the swelling is gone, but there is still a small amount on my nose and around my eyes. My face is about 90% back to normal. Like I said, there’s still some minor swelling, and I have bruises under my eyes as well as yellow-green rings around my eyes (a sign that swelling is going down). I’m not feeling any pain except when I touch my nose. I still can’t blow it. The bleeding only stopped a few days ago, so the insides are still sensitive and raw. I can breathe out of it, and man, I can breathe GREAT! No more morning runny nose. No more sinus headaches. I feel awesome! About 4 days ago the doctor gave me the OK to shower again. For a good week and a half all I could do was wash below my neck. It felt so good to get all the filth off me. My body is still a bit dehydrated so I have some dry skin (shaving was a bitch). But I’m on my way to a full and healthy recovery. Tuesday I’m going to the doc and it’s pretty probable he will take me off of bed-rest. Hopefully he’ll lift the restriction on orgasms too, because I’m so fucking horny it’s not even funny. I’m about ready for a 10 hour fuck fest!

So what’s next? Well, for the next 6 months to a year I have to be extremely careful with my nose. Gotta make sure I don’t hit or bang it. Gotta be extra careful at bars and clubs, and I have to not piss anyone off. I probably also have to be careful when kissing. Can’t get TOO passionate during the moment. It’s a downhill battle from now on. I survived. For the next few weeks the minor physical after-effects will fade (swelling, burst blood vessels in eyes). And for the next few weeks I’m going to regain the 10 pounds I lost.

Thanks to everyone who visited me and thanks to everyone who called with well-wishes!

With the recent announcement of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the newest Star Wars MMORPG based in the Knights of the Old Republic era, much speculation has been made towards the future state of Star Wars Galaxies. In a recent interview with Massively, SOE CEO John Smedley showed that he too was in the dark about this project. The future of SWG according to him is unknown. At least, that is what he wanted the fanbase to believe in that interview. Thanks to my many industry connections I’ve gotten insider info leaked to me about the future of SWG. It’s future is based entirely on an upcoming expansion slated for 2009. Details after the jump…

Continue Reading »

The recent “official” announcement of Star Wars: The Old Republic, formerly speculated to be KOTOR Online, got me all nostalgic about Star Wars Galaxies. So I went ahead and reactivated my long dead account. I was expecting to find all my houses gone and my characters deleted. But everything was still in tact, even though there was a housing packup purge a few months back. I guess they had a feeling I’d be back after so many years so they decided to leave my stuff alone…

I’m back on Wanderhome, and to my surprise a handful of old friends still play. I’m keeping things simple. I’m back in SWG to revisit the past in a way, so it is fitting that I’m choosing my two original professions from back when I first started playing 5 years ago: Commando and Tailor. My main will be my Commando using his trusty Gnosis flamethrower from 2003 (Gnosis was the best Weaponsmith on the server back in the day. His weapons were godly, and this flamethrower was considered to be the second best the server had ever seen. Obviously all weapons were reworked with the CU and NGE, but the sentimental and historical value it carries still makes it my weapon of choice). My alt will take over my tailoring. Aparently Wanderhome was bitching about the lack of tailors for Halloween, so I came back just in time!

Place your bets on how long I’ll last before I quit. Minimum time frame is 1 week!

After one year of trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me and another year of postponing the surgery needed to fix what I found out was wrong with me, I’m finally going under the knife on Wednesday October 29th. It’s nothing serious (although I did have to sign a waiver saying that I was aware that there is a possibility of death with this surgery). If anything this surgery is just Karma paying me back.

When I was 13 I had broken my nose in Greece. Back then in the day, before the internet, when our TV in Greece consisted of 2 over the air channels in black and white (if we were lucky, we might get a third one through the static with no audio), when kids played outside and used their imagination, it was popular for guys to initiate their transgression from child to teenager with an all out rock throwing war. Now don’t get me wrong, we weren’t some fucked up cannibals that whipped rocks at each other for laughs. It was more or less innocent. We would split into two teams, make a fort behind a rickety old wall or broken down house, and throw rocks at each other. We would hide under some wooden planks or any other obstacle we found and get a mini adrenaline rush when a rock would crash on our shelter on top of us. And we’d throw rocks back at the other side. A sure way to make someone proud of their first-grown scrotum-hair was if they got hit in the arm or leg with a rock. We’d suck in the pain and tough it out. We were becoming men. We still were stupid as hell.

Needless to say, I got hit in the nose with a rock during one of these battles. Instead of telling my parents and going to the hospital, I ran home, spent an hour and a half in the bathroom splashing cold water on my face and using 3 rolls of toilet paper, just to stop the bleeding. God knows the shit I put on the wound that I found in the medicine cabinet: disinfectant, iodine, cotton swabs, even band aids. Well, the bleeding finally stopped, thanks to all the cotton and toilet residue plugging it up. I didn’t know my nose was broken. So I never went to the hospital. And good thing I didn’t, cause my mom would have kicked my ass even more the following day if she had to take me to the hospital (Greek moms, you won’t understand them unless you’re a Greek. But it’s normal. Trust me.)

My nose healed and that was that. Until 2 years ago when I started having a runny nose every morning. Every single day I’d wake up congested with a runny nose and sneezing every so often until around noon. At first I thought it was a cold. But colds don’t last 6 months. I figured it might be allergies. I went to the doctor and he gave me the usual Nasonex and some pills. They didn’t work. I ended up getting used to the congestedness so ignored it. Then I had my first run in with sinusitis. After being rushed to the ER, they told me that it was just an infection and it would go away in a few days. It did. But I had a run in with it again during that summer. You don’t get sinusitis in the summer. I went to a different doctor. He took x-rays and saw my crooked nose (it doesn’t look crooked when you look at my face). He told me that the sinusitis was a result of a deviated septum from a broken nose. 1+1=2. I needed to get surgery to fix it.

So here I am 10 years later paying the price for a stupid fucking teenager initiation stunt. They call it “nasal reconstruction surgery” but in layman’s terms it’s a nose job. I’ve been on a pre-surgery diet this past two weeks and I haven’t shaved in a week and a half. I hate having facial hair for more than 3 days. But I had to get the itchy phase out of the way before surgery. Once I the surgery is done, I’ll be KTFO (knocked the fuck out) for a few weeks with a bruised and swollen face, plus a nose cast. For two to four weeks after surgery I won’t be able to do much, and that includes no sexual activity of any sort. Orgasms give your nose a blood rush. A month without sex? I should join a monastery…..

The healing process takes 6 months. For at least month I’m gonna be MIA. I’m not looking forward to it. I will be continuing to post here. I’ll have plenty of newfound time on my hands, so I’ll probably be posting some stories from my crazy life in general (I attract weirdos and am witness to plenty situations filled with hilarity…just the other day I saw a midget mobster, but I’ll save that for another post!).

So wish me luck. Not only on the surgery, but also on the GMAT which I’m taking the day before it!

At least my card was used to buy something productive: subscriptions to DivorceMatch.com, LatinaRomance.com, and BlackWomenRomance.com.

OK, so after two weeks of doing absolutely nothing, I decided to start looking for grad schools to apply to. I wasn’t going to start for at least another month or two, but I figured I’d get it done now in case I want to go somewhere in a month or two. I bought the online subscription to the US News top grad schools of 2009 for $15 and I was going through schools that had good MBA programs that I can get into.

From the top 50 list I narrowed it down to 19 schools. Actually, make that 17 schools since two of those were University of Chicago and Northwestern University, at which both I have no chance of getting into. I printed out all the school profiles and analyzed them from cover to cover. The whole stack had to be at least 3-4 inches thick. So how the hell do I narrow it down? Well, I discovered that of those 19 schools, 6 offered an accelerated MBA program, where you can get your MBA in a year as long as you’re OK becoming a slave to your studies with no breaks or vacations for a year.

Sounds good to me. So I’ll be applying to 6…make that 5 cause one of those schools is Northwestern…grad schools for the accelerated MBA program. One of them has to take me in, right? I mean, I can’t do two more years of school, let alone four. I’ve had enough of school and I’m sure school has had enough of me. I gotta start searching for recommendations and I gotta start studying for the GMAT. At least this is all in the short term. I technically am still on vacation till June!

So Real Soccer 2009 is by far the best game ever released for the iPhone….ever. Who could have ever thought that the power of FIFA ‘08 could be harnessed into a measly little application for a touch screen, non-gaming handheld device? About 200 teams, real players, real stadiums, real everything. And the controls are ridiculously simple. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is grab my iPhone, crawl back into bed, and play two matches of RS09. My team of choice? Atheniakos, which is the unlicensed version of the Greek A-League team Panathinaikos. And of course, my morning is not a good one unless one of those two matches is Atheniakos vs Piraeus (the unlicenesed version of Greek A-League team and Panathinaikos rival, Olympiakos) and I demolish them 4-0 and get at least one red card taking out that bastard midfielder of theirs Djordjevic.

What’s really neat about this game is that you have a variety of Cups to compete in, including the European Cup, the UEFA Cup, the World Cup, the American Cup, the Asian Cup, and the African Cup. And if you don’t want to do those cups, they have league championships such as the English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian leagues. The sound quality is pretty good, considering it’s on an iPhone. You can even hear those screaming loud soccer chants coming from fans in the stadium. Gameplay is very easy however the controls could be a bit more responsive. I found it hard to control when quick reflexes and near-instantaneous changes in player direction were needed. If Gameloft could increase the sensetivity of the D-Pad to allow for more fluid and quicker control of the player, it would be greatly appreciated. Real Soccer 2009 is by far the best $9.99 deal out there right now. If you don’t have an iPhone, it’s available for Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PC, Wii, and N-Gage. Everyone knows that FIFA ‘08 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 sucked major donkey balls. RS09 definitely is better than them. It will definitely keep me good company until FIFA ‘09 comes out, which supposedly has less suck than FIFA 08.