My dearth of writing here lately is due to a lot of factors, but one big factor has been an upsurge in the amount of time I've been playing games. In particular, CivIII and my MAME installation (MAME is on my Linux laptop).

I play a lot more than I'd like to be, just because it feels like wasted time afterwards. I enjoy it at the time, but it's kind of an empty feeling when the game is shut down.

Still, I did just win the Space Race at Regent level in CivIII, playing the new Ottoman tribe from the CivIII expansion pack. That must surely count for something.

I'm not especially happy with the way I look, particularly my weight. And my schedule and lifestyle have never really lent themselves to a good regimen of exercise, either natural or at a gym. So for the last year or so, I've been trying to make the changes where I could, in my diet.

I'm not a very good diet-person, if the diet is framed in terms of all the things I can't eat. I've proven that to myself on too many occassions to count. So I've taken the approach of trying to improve what I do eat, instead. Rather than thinking about what isn't allowed, I look for really enticing foods that are allowed. And I permit myself to cheat, without guilt. If I only lose 4 pounds in a month rather than 6, hey, I've still lost 4 pounds.

So it was with this in mind that I went grocery shopping this past Monday. I planned a good meal for that night, heavy on the protein and light on the carbs. I also got the ingredients for an interesting salmon/pasta dish from a new cookbook (more on that in a few). But when I got home, I realized that I had left work so late, and taken enough time looking at nutrition labelling and all at the store, that it was nearly 9:30p, and I was just too damn tired to do all the prep as well as the cooking.

So I threw a frozen pizza in the oven.

In other news, I recently picked up a really interesting cookbook, called The Whole Foods Market Cookbook: A Guide to Natural Foods. It's got me looking not just at vegetarian recipes, but vegan ones as well. I've never thought I could find vegan dishes that held the promise of enough flavor to give up my cherished meat. But I'll be giving some of these a try over the next few weeks.