This story over at CNN reminded me of the following passage from C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy:

"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta. "There was only one lion," said the Voice. "What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night, and ..." "There was only one: but he was swift of foot." "How do you know?" "I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

My gaming tastes have been all over the place recently. I recently bought Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS), which represents a fairly drastic departure from my standard gaming fare. As a train enthusiast, I've quite a blast running the BNSF Dash-9 and GP38-2 up the Marias Pass line in Montana. Pulling 40 to 50 mixed freight cars up a 2% grade is a surprisingly difficult endeavor. I've learned a great deal about railroading from this game, so if you enjoy trains and haven't tried this game out, I highly recommend it. The game is not without its problems, but it provides an excellent escape for any rail fan. Also note that the pacing of this game may be too slow for some, so your mileage may vary.

When I get tired of running freight and passengers over the world's rails, I take in a nice game of Assault in Unreal Tournament 2004. It's such a shame that Epic is doing away with this game type in UT 2007. Supposedly the new "Conquest" game type will replace it, but to me it sounds a little too much like the immensely popular Onslaught (which I must admit, is incredibly fun). I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Although UT 2004 and MSTS have been keeping me good company, it's time for something new. I think my next purchase will be the recently released (to the PC) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I have both GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City, the latter of which I enjoyed most. From what I've been reading, the game is nothing but a good time, and nearly 3 times as big as Vice City (which was already huge). Unfortunately, the $49.95 price tag is a little more than I'm willing to pay for a game. Unless I can find a hot deal on it, I may have to make due with what I already have for a few more weeks. Which isn't that big of a deal. I still have several empty grain cars that need to be set out at Essex siding #4. :-)

I'm going to try my hand at blogging. Everyone else is doing it; why shouldn't I? Over the past few days I've been looking at a number of blogging solutions thanks to an excellent blog software breakdown. The software I have settled on for now is the surprisingly robust WordPress. Having never done this before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect in the software interface department, but WordPress has surprised me in a number of ways. Adding and managing posts is very easy, and installation was a snap. Best of all, it's completely free.

As usual, I will be tweaking lots of things here and there over the next few weeks. The default theme, 'Kubrick', isn't quite my taste, so I'll either shop for another one or make my own (I prefer the former, since it involves less work). The sidebar clearly needs to be beefed up, and other jots and tiddles need to be dealt with. Stay tuned - I have lots of interesting things to discuss.