Alright. I'm at home with a bad cold today. Basking in the warmth of the woodburning stove and my computer monitor, box of Kleenex at hand, sipping that ghastly TheraFlu.

We got a new monster computer for Christmas. You can play any game out there in the world on this thing, which was my #1 requirement when building it with Dell, because my outdoorsy husband doesn't do well with these short winter days and needs something interesting to occupy his mind (and this is the same man who spent six years on a nuclear fast attack submarine at the bottom of the Pacific ocean, so cramped and crowded that you hot racked [shared a bunk bed on a rotating basis] with your fellow submariners ...), and our other computer was from the stone age, so he'd been playing some very old games again. And again. He enjoys those big, historic epic games where you build civilizations. Needless to say, he's quite overjoyed with this monster machine.

I've never played computer games in my life, but did some research on the RPG games (Oh, that's role playing games, by the way, for you uninitiated who are not in the know like I am this morning. I'm so cool, I actually understand some of the lingo.)

Came home with Oblivion.

And the deciding factor in making this purchase is that you can ride a horse in the darned thing.

Of course, my kids spent a lot of the blustery day yesterday galloping around, slaying monsters, etc. in the beautiful virtual countryside. And the game is really for them. Frankly, I doubt I'm smart enough to play it through, and the kids just seem to intuitively know how to use this technology. While I may never own a set of full-blown armor for my very impressive and very real percheron horse Toby--who is staring across the fence towards the house as I write this now, mane and tail blowing in the bitter wind, I can see him through the living room window--I can satisfy my medieval armor horse thing in the virtual world apparently.

I used to read the cyberpunk novels, but not so much anymore. I devour science fiction. And in a previous life, when I used to have an interesting career filled with vibrant, intelligent people (it's a long story about being lured into middle management with another of the science companies in my small town and then three CEOs and four years later, being laid off with the rest of my peers, and winding up in the belly of the beast of a bureaucracy for job security reasons where I have been thoroughly assimilated much to my chagrin), I was officed next door to one of the leading AI (artificial intelligence) gurus for years. So this whole thing, virtual worlds, artificial intelligence, has been of interest to me for some time. I doubt I'll become a gamer, or anything like that. I really enjoy this reality way too much, and for me, a good book will always be more interesting. But I suspect I'll dabble.

I'm even customizing Oblivion with the modifications available out there. (How about that flying armored dragon? You should see my ten-year-old boy's eyes light up at that idea.)

Geesh. I'm a geek.

So today, it's Theraflu and some virtual horseback riding.