game, swim, headache

So, playing final fantasy xii this weekend - here's how it went down.
1. Found myself at a village by the river, can't cross because the barge is on the other side.
2. Need to cross to complete a quest and take out an evil chicken-thing.
3. Look for alternate route, find one (I think) but blocked by a sandstorm.

A little later on in the game, I go to the entrance to the dessert and meet a dude who is studying sandstorms (!) He suggests that I talk to man sitting at the fountain. Man at fountain says he used to stop sandstorms all the time with a device, but his buddy has half of it. Buddy is in the sewers.

I head to the sewers and find his buddy, who says he hid his half of the device out in the dessert under a giant cactus. He is a little vague as to where. I head out to the dessert and look under dozens of cacti until I find it. Back to the sewers - the buddy is gone. Back to the fountain - that guy is gone too. Find them both at the entrance to the dessert where the fountain dude does "something" to whatever it was I found under the cactus and tells me it will now work - whatever that means. The dude studying sandstorms says he can't go because his funding was cut. He suggests that I go there on my own - if that's what I really want to do.

After all that? Hell yeah I want to go. Dumbass....

So, I make my way back through the dessert to the sandstorm area. The device is working, apparently, since the sands open up and....

There's a big freaking DINOSAUR! waiting for me. He's apparently deeply pissed off and hungry. My characters swing into action and in a few moments, the three main characters are dead. I call up the reserves and they don't last any longer. In less than 2 minutes, everyone is dead and the dinosaur is almost entirely unhurt. Game Over.

I then turned off the playstation and went to read a book.


In other news... went swimming today. I headed for the nearest open lane from the locker room and got in. I was about to put my goggles on when one of the life guards started talking to me. I couldn't hear and got out to talk to them. Apparently, the two entirely unmarked lanes were closed since they were afraid that the ceiling would collapse.

Ummm... what?

So, I switched lanes to the deep end and started my swim. I was going along pretty well until guys got into lanes on either side of me and proceeded to lap the hell out of me. I felt... slow. Still, I comforted myself with the notion that I had already done 16 laps by the time they started, but it was still unpleasant. I nearly gave up at 18 since I was so tired, but struggled on to 27 somehow - putting me at 3/4 of a mile for the day. The ceiling never did collapse while I was there, may be interesting to see when I go back on Wednesday.

Finally, I've had a headache most of the day. And staring at a computer screen for 8 hours really hasn't helped. I'm going home in a few and I think I may actually try to nap - which I'm not very good at.

that's it for now... later....