Well, ouch.

During the worst of the asthma crisis, I was practically sedentary. Literally any physical exertion turned me into a gasping, coughing wreck. That lasted for about six weeks. Six weeks of not moving very much. Even during the better times, all two weeks of them, I avoided physical work simply because it was guaranteed to lead to another bad breathing episode. No that I'm on this cocktail of steroids and inhalers, I'm actually feeling much better, and as I wrote yesterday, felt good enough to go out and do some shopping.

I had forgotten just how atrophied my muscles were going to be after almost two months of inactivity. My knees are screaming at me right now. Frankly, my legs from the hips down are sore, as are my shoulders and lower back. I am way out of shape. Which means there's only one thing to do. Use the energy from the Prednisone and start getting some exercise daily. It will suck, oh yes, it will suck, but I need to do it. I'm going to start with very short walks and getting some stuff done around Offhand Manor. We have a nice set of hand weights and I'm going to start working with them for 15-20 minutes a couple of times a day. I really wish I still had a bike.

But today I'm taking things very slow, as I freaking hurt right now. I think laundry, dishes, and the garbage will be my goals for the day. That and finding the heat rub and applying it liberally to my aching knees.

My wife rocks

Yesterday, while cruising the net, I was participating in a blog's late night music club. They post a video, then ask a question about your musical tastes, and you reply with your own selections. Last night the selection was AC/DC's Jailbreak, and the question was "what do you rock out to?"

I decided to throw out some thrash metal. Pantera, Slayer, Anthrax, Testament, and Megadeth. I asked Kiri what I should do for Megadeth. Without missing a beat, she said "Sweating Bullets" Not my first choice, but I found the video and added it.

Guess what song is stuck in my head this morning?

I also got to watch my swears-she's-not-a-metalhead wife dancing around the kitchen singing along with Dave Mustaine.

I chose wisely.

I used to do these all the time.

Anyone else remember memes? Anyway...

Ganked from kshandra who got it from someone else.

Leave a comment describing your favorite thing so far about 2011, and I will give you five words I associate with you. Then post about what they mean to you, along with this blurb, at your own journal. Step three: Profit!

If pressed, I'll just pull some interesting things off your interest list. If really pressed, I have a dictionary and no scruples at all.

When I told Kiri I was answering her, I told her to "go nuts." She did.

1. Egg-stealing Gay Penguins Penguins, like many birds, establish long-term relationships with their mates. In many species these bonds can last for the lifetime of the birds and endure even long migrations. The penguins that do follow this pattern (face, some penguin species are just sluts) include the usual percentage of homosexual birds. This is where it gets interesting. Gay penguins will build nests, or burrows, just like their heterosexual companions. But obviously, they can't produce eggs. This isn't a problem for lesbian penguins, who will go out entice a male, lie back and think of Queen Maud Land, and then scurry back to the nest leaving behind a very confused male penguin. But the boys have a problem. They they tackle it with typical male directness. They steal eggs. Scientists have watched this happen. Male pairs will force the nesting parent off the nest, grab the egg, and waddle back to their nest while holding off the outraged parent. Best part is they do this very early in the mating season, so the couple that had an egg stolen can try again. The same-sex couple then raises the chick as their own. Nature is better than television.


2. La Marseillaise The best national anthem in the world. Read the lyrics. This thing is a slasher movie! Let impure blood water our furrows? Love it! It helps that the music is rousing and martial. Just what you'd expect for a nation that has spent most of it's history fighting and defeating various neighbors. The anthem even caused controversy at the 1992 Winter Olympics, when 13-year-old Severine Dupelloux sang La Marseillaise acapella. Some complained about the bloodthirsty lyrics at a celebration of international brotherhood, and the appropriateness of a young girl singing it. Screw 'em. Of course, the best rending ever comes from Casablanca. What many people don't know is that many of the extras in the film were actual French refugees, some Jewish. When they sing they anthem, they mean it.


3. NWOBHM The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (frequently abbreviated as NWOBHM) was a heavy metal movement that started in the late 1970s, in Britain, and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. The movement developed as a reaction in part to the decline of early heavy metal bands such as Deep_Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. NWOBHM bands toned down the blues influences of earlier acts, incorporated elements of punk, increased the tempo, and adopted a "tougher" sound, taking a harder approach to its music. It was a scene directed almost exclusively at heavy metal fans. The era is considered to be a major foundation stone for the extreme metal genres; acts such as the American thrash metal band Metallica cite NWOBHM bands like Saxon, Motörhead, Diamond Head, and Iron Maiden as a major influence on their musical style. Reviled or ignored by many mainstream critics in both the UK and the US, the NWOBHM nonetheless came to dominate the heavy metal scene of the early-mid 1980s. NWOBHM was musically characterized by fast upbeat tempo songs, power chords, fast guitar solos and melodic, soaring vocals, with lyrical themes often drawing inspiration from mythology and fantasy fiction. Many of the bands of this era were signed to Neat Records, who has released volumes of NWOBHM compilations in later years.


4. Prog Metal The mixing of the progressive rock and heavy metal styles can be traced back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of England's heaviest progressive rock bands High Tide, fused the elements of "metal progenitors such as Cream, Blue Cheer, and the Jeff Beck Group" into their sound. Other bands such as King Crimson and Rush were also incorporating metal into their music, as well as Uriah Heep, whose "by-the-books progressive heavy metal made the British band one of the most popular hard rock groups of the early '70s". Rush songs such as "Bastille Day", "Anthem", "By-Tor and Snow Dog", "2112", "The Fountain of Lamneth" and "Something for Nothing" have been cited as some of the earliest examples of progressive metal. Another early practitioner of progressive rock and heavy metal were Lucifer's Friend. However, progressive metal did not develop into a genre of its own until the mid-1980s. Bands such as Crimson Glory, Fates Warning, Queensrÿche, and Dream Theater took elements of progressive rock groups (primarily the instrumentation and compositional structure of songs) and merged them with heavy metal styles associated with bands like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath (the former of which had some progressive influences on their early albums). The result could be described as a progressive rock mentality with heavy metal sounds.These three flagship bands for progressive metal at the time each had somewhat different sounds. Queensrÿche had the most melodic sound of the three and achieved, with Operation Mindcrime and Empire the genre's most immediate commercial success, which peaked with the crossover single "Silent Lucidity" reaching number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. Dream Theater drew more heavily upon traditional progressive rock and also built much of their earlier career on the band members' virtuoso instrumental skills, despite also achieving an early - and unexpected - MTV hit with the eight-minute "Pull Me Under" from 1992's Images and Words. Fates Warning were the most aggressive and heavy and arguably had the most in common with the thrash and extreme metal scenes of the time, which led them to be the least accessible of the three bands.


5. Stuffed Animals Blame Kirsten. She got me into stuffed animals. But don't ever come between me and my Roadie Bear.

To name the Gods

OK, here are the current names for the main deities in my Pathfinder setting.

Law, The Building Father
Human: Codifex
Dwarf: Ordun
Elf: Lêgo
Halfling: Vodsa

Chaos, The Growing Mother
Human: Fractasia
Dwarf: Wirwar
Elf: Chäoso
Halfling: Matka

Good, the Bringer of Life
Human: Lavator
Dwarf: Dalicht
Elf: Vivo
Halfling: Záhradnic

Evil, the Destroyer and Corrupter
Human: Phagos
Dwarf: Schändir
Elf: Har-Magedono
Halfling: Zviera

The human names are the official names as used by the True Church. Gnomes use the Dwarf language for religious matters, so use the Dwarf titles for the gods. There are of course countless regional variations and titles.