sibling revelry

Nothing much to report, except to say that my brother turns twenty today. Shocking!

Work was busy today, and I had a conference call tonight, which was unfortunate since all I want to do is crawl into bed. However, I'm such a night-owl/procrastinator/stubborn idiot that I refuse to go to sleep earlier than midnight, even though I clearly need it. So, I played some Civilization and called my mother. I hadn't played Civilization in ages, and it sucked me in just like it always does, so even though I was only supposed to play for an hour, I ended up playing for two. Due to my politically incorrect sense of humor, I decided to play as the imperialistic British, even though (or rather, because) I am in India, and despite the fact that I could have played as Gandhi instead. However, I was good and did not tell the game to put the Indians in it; I always have enough fun trouncing the French or the Germans, without having to go out of my way to be insensitive.

I was first turned on to the Civilization franchise when I was in Ukraine; Vova gave us some pirated games, and the original Civilization was one of them. In many ways, I still think it was the best; the movies that it played when you built a Wonder of the World were truly moving, and the game wasn't so complex and graphics-intensive that you couldn't keep track of everything. Ukraine was quite the trip--and also half a lifetime ago, which seems impossible. Spending an entire year cooped up in a Soviet-style apartment may have created a difficult schism for me and my brother, but I believe things are better now that we've grown up and I no longer torment him quite as mercilessly as I did when torturing him was my only form of entertainment. And, regardless of where our lives take us, we'll always have Kiev, and airport pizza, and Sergei the Wise and Little Sergei and Sergei Chicken and Sergei Pickup (all Sergeis in our lives were differentiated by their key characteristics), and our amazingly inventive Christmas program, and 'The Charm School', and doing homework to the staticky strains of Voice of America Radio.

Happy birthday, Michael! It's already the seventeenth in India, but I hope the last half of your birthday rocks.