Thought Bubbles

Extra Life Fundraiser

2011-08-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have signed up to participate in the Extra Life fundraiser. In a nutshell, I will attempt to play games for 24 hours on October 15th, 2011. The fund raising part of it is that I need to find sponsors, people willing to donate their money. Where does this money go? Glad you asked. The money will go to the local Children's Hospital here in Minnesota. The money will be used to help pay for games, toys, books, and other distractions so that the children in the hospital will get a chance to feel like normal kids for at least part of their stay.
Now, my plan right now is to find a space to host a gaming party where anyone can come and help me play games and maybe donate a few extra bucks as well. I haven't locked down a place just yet, but you can be sure that when I do I'll let you know.
In the meantime, if you would like to donate, you can go here. If you want to sign up and participate, feel free to join the team I've created, Northfield Gamers.

25 Random Songs from my iPod

2010-11-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Once you've been tagged...

(1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.

(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.

(3) Write down the first 15 songs that come up--song title and artist--NO editing/cheating, please.

(4) Choose 25 people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.

Except I did 25 songs. And I'm not tagging people. If you want to do this, then go ahead.

Oh, and doing this just reminded me of how I never feel like the random mix on my iPod is random enough, or at least in a way that I wish it was. Anyways, here's the list:

01. Ludacris - Screwed Up

02. Smashing Pumpkins - Silverfuck

03. Jamiroquai - Emergency on Planet Earth (Long Version)

04. Salt-N-Pepa - Shoop

05. Paul Van Dyk - Forbidden Fruit

06. Metallica - Battery (S&M version)

07. Jackson Five - Rockin' Robin

08. Rage Against the Machine - Fistful of Steel

09. Ludacris - We Got

10. Madonna - Like A Prayer

11. Metallica - No Leaf Clover (S&M version)

12. Paul Van Dyk - Club Attack

13. Rage Against the Machine - New Millennium Homes

14. Jamiroquai - Journey to Arnhemland

15. Howard Shore - The Houses of Healing (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Soundtrack)

16. Reel Big Fish - Say Ten

17. Nelly - Ride Wit Me

18. Marilyn Manson - Dope Show

19. DJ Arabesque - The Vision

20. Lil Wayne - Lollipop

21. 4 Non Blondes - What's Going On

22. The Lonely Island - Jizz in My Pants

23. The Kinks - Lola

24. The Beatles - Because

25. Rammstein - Eifersucht

Baby?

2010-04-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

Emily and I have been talking, and we would both like to have kids. We're just not ready at this point in time. We have figured out what we feel like we need to do to get ready.

1. Finish the bathroom. This isn't really necessary, but we just bought all, or at least most, of the things we need to redo it and we might as well get it done as soon as we can. We're thinking after Denise leaves.

2. Get a new car. We're thinking a hatch-back car, good gas mileage, safe, dependable, and ideally purple. Our Neon is still working, but at this point it's not the most reliable. It's ok for driving around Northfield, but it makes us a little nervous on long distance trips.

3. Install a dishwasher. This one will be a little tricky, seeing as our kitchen isn't dishwasher ready. We'd need to set-up the pot rack to store our pots and pans to make space in our cabinets to fit a dishwasher. Then of course there's the plumbing and electrical that would need to be done. Our thoughts on this is that it'll not only make our lives easier, but it's a great way to sterilize baby bottles, which we'll probably be using a lot since it's pretty likely that Emily will be on anxiety meds and won't be able to breast feed.

4. Get a new stove. Our current stove only has like 2 1/2 burners that work and the oven preheats to your desired temperature and then turns off for a few hours before deciding to heat back up to that temperature. It's just dumb and annoying and a new one would also be safer.

Some things I think we would like to get done, but don't feel like it's quite as necessary:

* Clean out and organize the garage, so we can use it for entertaining, art studio, car storage, get a freezer set-up in there.
* Really, just clean and organize the rest of the house. We already have a lot of stuff that we don't use or even know about and we just need to make more space. Not only to make room for a child, but just to make our lives a little less stressful. I guess it's also safer for a baby if there's not all this random crap around.
*Pay off our debts. To be honest, we've been pretty good about this so far. Depending on how well we handle our finances, we should be able to pay off all of our credit cards by the end of this year, just leaving school loans and our mortgage left. That would free up so much money.

So, uh, yeah. That's where we're at on the baby situation, in case you were wondering.

Cat Conclusion

2010-04-22T16:01:00.001-07:00

Simon came through alright. I won't go into any major details, but he had some liver problems and had to be fed through a tube for a while, but now he's doing well. He's still recuperating and has to take medicine, much to his and Melanie's dismay, but he's showing signs of getting back to his old self. I'm glad he's doing ok and Melanie's happy to have him up and about again. She's still taking donations towards the Simon Relief Fund, if you feel inclined to contribute.

Cat Concerns

2010-04-09T10:04:00.001-07:00

It's not any of our cats, but my sister-in-laws' cat Simon has some medical issues. They're not sure exactly what is wrong, but it seems to be liver related. They're going to conduct some more test and put him through medical test and what not to find out what's going on and how to save him from it. Melanie's not sure how much this going to end up costing. In that vein, they are planning on holding a yard sale at their place (5246 34th St, Minneapolis) this weekend. If you can, stop buy and give your well wishes, and possible buy something as well.

Emily's Birthday Party

2010-01-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

A quick notice, Game Night for this Friday will be at Nancy's house.

OK. Now on to Emily's third birthday celebration. I don't know if you've heard the details, but it will be this Saturday, January 9th. The first movie will be Newsies at it will be starting at noon. You are welcome to come over before then. After Newsies, we will be watching Grease 2, at about 2:15pm. Then we will be watching Xanadu, starting around 4:30pm. That should all be done around 6:15pm or so.

But the party doesn't stop there. Afterwards we can play Rock Band or board games or card games or Karaoke Revolution. I guess we'll keep partying as long as we have to.

As far as food is concerned, that hasn't been nailed down. We have chips and crackers and numerous beverages. We might cook/order pizzas (most likely from Boston's for their gluten-free options). People are welcome to bring food with them, just remember Emily is eating wheat-free now. I can't guarantee anything in particular, but we certainly have things we can make if needed.

You're welcome to show up, well I guess at anytime throughout the day. Don't feel obligated to watch all the movies; feel free to show up for your favorite and join in on the sing-a-long that I can almost guarantee will be going on for all of them. Presents are welcome, but not necessary. We will enjoy your company either way. (If you're looking for gift ideas, gift cards are good, especially from Ikea or Target or even Just Food. They will be used.)

Maybe I'll see you there. Later days!

Holidays

2010-01-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

This past Holiday season went well. Thanksgiving was at Cherish's and we cooked the turkey there. Rock Band was played; dinners were eaten; naps were taken . My mom and sister came up to join us and as far as I could tell, a good time was had by all.

Christmas it snowed, a lot. Emily and I were stuck in the house for a couple of days, which drove Emily nuts by the second day. We didn't really do anything celebratory, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea. We woke up, opened presents, and then Emily took a 4 hour nap and I played video games throughout the day. It was relaxing, but didn't really feel festive and so we felt ho-hum about the whole thing. Luckily, the following Sunday we were able to celebrate at Cherish's with Emily's family and that helped satiate the holiday hunger we were feeling. Next year I think we need to make sure to try to celebrate some what on our own. A few decorations and a planned dinner at the very least.

Emily turned 30 on the 28th of December. Her first birthday celebration was rolled into the Haskell holiday party. Her second celebration was on the 29th, we went out to Fermentations with Alex and Susan and enjoyed a tasty meal. Her third and final celebration is this Saturday (January 9th) at our place. The plans are to watch Emily's favorite movies (Grease 2, Newsies, and Xanadu) in the living room and have board/card games going on in the dining room. There might be Rock Band downstairs for those who want, but no guarantee on that. We're still hammering out details. I'm guessing it will start around noon, and I would guess that it would be potlucky, though we still have chips and snacks from New Year's to serve. I'll let you know more soon. Feel free to stop by and partake of the festivities.

As far as New Year's is concerned, that went well. We hosted some people at our place where we played various games and ate various food and had various laughs. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and only the very youngest Beeby fell asleep before the ball dropped.

So a belated, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all!

Holidays

2009-11-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving went great. We played games (Rock Band and Scene It) and had a lot of delicious food. Cherish and Melanie did a great job decorating and hosting. The two turkeys we bought were tasty. They weren't perfect, but they were fairly close to it. It was damn sure better than what happened to some other turkeys (I'm looking at you Beebys).

I had fun with my mom and sister over the weekend. They came up to join us in the Thanksgiving celebration. I saw Boondock Saints 2 with my sister at the Lakeville Theater (btw, did you know they have a Medieval Madness pinball machine?), which of course was pretty crowded. The movie was very enjoyable. It's pretty much more of the same, but I liked the first one. I just find the fact that it was even made impressive.

Emily has decided that for the month of December she's going to take it easier and do less things. Basically, except for a few events, she plans to be less social. No cow nights, every other game night at our place (at most) and no spur of the moment outings or parties. It's not a bad idea, it seems to work well for Joey. As it is we're already pretty booked with Colin's birthday, Cherish's birthday, Winter Walk, Christmas, Emily's birthday, Donata's Gift, and the Just Food parties that Emily has planned.

What's going on?

2009-11-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

First off, for those that care, we're having Game Night at our place on Friday. We'll be playing Battlestar Galactica starting at 8pm. We'll be having a new guest with us this night, Nolan, son of Lindsay the Front End Manager of the Just Food Coop. Due to this, there will be no alcohol consumed, since he's underage and all. This is fine with me, I think it'll still be fun. Oh, and Lindsay will be joining us later that night after she's done closing. OK, on other topics.

Not sure if you heard, but Facebook can now be accessed through the Xbox 360. One of nice things about this is that you can find the gamertags of your facebook friends more easily. Also nice, through this you can see the real name of your Xbox friends, no more trying to remember who YougartKing really is anymore. Although it does require that you both have added and used the facebook app on your 360, but whatever. I think this is just awesome, finally the Internet is starting to piece together my social networks so that there's more, I don't know, synergy(?), interconnectivity(?). All I know is that it's nice to have one list of something instead of having to copy the list at every website.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and my mom and sister are coming up to spend it with us. Exciting! I don't really have any plans other than the feast that will be enjoyed at Melanie and Cherish's, but that's usually how I roll, or at least how I like believe I do. I do have to work at Just Food for about an hour from 2pm to 3pm on Friday.

With Thanksgiving so close, that means that a bunch of Haskell birthdays and Christmas are right around the corner. This year is Emily's 30th Birthday. I don't know what we're doing for it, but Emily what's to host it somewhere suitable for a group of people to celebrate. She feels that our house is to small for such things, especially in the winter, when you can't really hang out outside. Right now the thoughts are at her sister's. The only issue with that is that it's in the cities, so I'm not sure how many Northfielders would attend (some of them think Dundas is far). But we've still got a while to work that out, it's not until the 28th of December. There's also been talk about doing it in a Logan's Run/Renewal motif. We'll see.

Exasperation

2009-11-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking and I believe that it's probably a good thing that we're not hosting Thanksgiving this year. I've been feeling overwhelmed lately and Emily is feeling constantly in pain and tired and is unable to do much at home because of it. We haven't cleaned the house in weeks and the few times we do eat it ends up being cheese and crackers or possibly fudge and chocolate squares. Yeah, it hasn't really been very productive or healthy in our house as of late.

Not only do I feel like I have try to take care of myself as well as Emily, but there's the ever looming presence of tasks and projects I want to get done. Emily thinks I schedule too much for myself, with the second job, and game nights, and D&D, and socializing with others. That's all on top of household projects like clean out the garage, and setting up coat hangers, and cleaning up the bedroom, and organizing the office, and cleaning out the kitchen. Although, it's hard to relax when your free time is just trying to finish up the things on your “fun” to-do list like finish Borderlands, or Gears of War 2, or Fable 2, or Half-Life, or Wheelman, or Dead Space, or GTA IV, or Fallout 3, or watch the rest of Weeds, or Dexter, or Deadwood, or Mad Men, or Fringe, or Leverage, or Lost, or X-Files, or Tough Love, or all the numerous movies out there to watch and the multitude of podcasts to listen to. There's just not enough time out there to get things done.

BTW Nintendo told us an awesome secret! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Gaming and Games

2009-11-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, my weekend has been fully booked. Tonight we're having Game Night at Nancy's, which is awesome. She makes some really tasty snacks. Saturday I have D&D, depending on how the child watching situation pans out for Todd. After that, at 8pm, I get to help Alex at Just Food move shelves and tables and things around the store to get ready for the floor repainting going on later that night. When that's done I'm heading up to St. Paul to hang out at Pipe's (sorry, I mean Paul's) game night, which could go on until 2am or so. Then on Sunday . . . actually Sunday's free as far as I know, but I'm guessing there'll be some chores and errands to do, possibly I'll get some video gaming in. Or I just might end up sleeping through the whole day.

Speaking of video games, you should go download our newest game Excitebike: World Rally for the Wii. It's a WiiWare title and is basically a remake of the classic Excitebike. We improved the graphics a lot and even tweaked the gameplay a little to make it, in my opinion, more fun. There's also online multiplayer, which I hear is popular now-a-days. It's only $10. OK, that's probably enough shilling.

Concerns and Achievements

2009-11-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

I just found out that we are having Thanksgiving at Melanie and Cherish's this year. For the past few years we've been having it at our place. It's a little small but we were able to make it work. I feel some what conflicted over this change. On the one hand, it will be nice to have someone else worry about all the cleaning and decorating and hosting and have more of the cooking parceled out, plus they do have more space and Cherish does have a knack for party hosting. On the other hand, it was nice to have a tradition of my own and I enjoy cooking but I don't like the cleaning so I don't cook that much and Thanksgiving is an excuse to do some cooking, but I guess we'll still have to cook some of our usual dishes like Broccoli Casserole and Candied Pecans and Herbed Cheese Croissants. I also don't know if we're still going to cook the turkey or if someone else will be. I guess there's really not that much to worry about this year. I would like to know what the full plans are, in particular what we need to bring or prepare, as well as if we need to pick-up anything from Costco for others.

Last weekend I played Chez Geek at Adam's with some of his friends. I had a blast and it was nice to meet new people. Saturday I had to work at the coop (to Nancy's credit I wasn't originally scheduled to but I ended up switching with Monica) and I followed that up with some gaming at Scott's, which went great. Usually when Scott hosts a Game Night at his place we only get in one maybe two games due to all of the food prepping and hosting and teaching of new games. This time that wasn't a problem. It was only Scott, Chris, Janine, and me so there wasn't as much corralling needed. We also played games that the majority of us had played before, cutting down on the game teaching. Of the games we played (Pandemic, Chicago Express, and Kingsburg), I only won one, and that was because Pandemic is a cooperative game so either everyone wins or everyone loses. I still had fun though.

Sunday, since it was so nice out, I got some yard work done. I put away the last of the hoses, mowed up all of the leaves around the house, put up and stored the hammock, and finished getting the mulch where it needed to be. I would still like to get the trees pruned before it snows, but I don't know anything about doing that, so I'm a little hesitant to start cutting. Other then that, I think we're ready for the coming of winter.

Game Night tonight

2009-11-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

Adam has offered to host Game Night at his place, which I think is awesome of him. We figure we'll start at 7:30 or so. I know he has Guillotine and some Settlers of Catan games and Carcassonne as well. I also plan to bring a few games in case a number of people show up. I'm looking forward to it. If you want to go and don't know where he lives, ask me or him. He lives real close to the golf course.

I know, short post, but whatever.

Portland Trip

2009-11-03T10:01:00.001-08:00

Portland was fun. Emily had a good time at her conference, learn a lot of good things and made a few friends while she was at it. She and Paula really hit it off, which is nice. I'm glad she has some HR friends now and doesn't feel so lost. While she was at her conference, I spent the time wandering around Portland and reading the graphic novels I brought along.

Graphic Novels I read: Invincible (1-7), Preacher (1-5), Scott Pilgrim (1-4).

Places I ate at (that I remember): Henry's Tavern (awesome vanilla banana creme brule), Voodoo Donuts (open 24 hours!), Cupcake Jones, Pazzo's, Saucebox (tasty cocktails and appetizers), Kenny and Zuke's Delicatessen, the Flying Elephant deli, Fuller's Diner, Whole Foods, Pizzicato (had a delicious pear and caramelized onion pizza slice), The Macaroni Grill, various food shack vendors.

Places I visited: Portland Art Museum (crazy layout but some interesting pieces), Finnegan's Toy Store, Powell's Bookstore (big bookstore that happened to be re-organizing all my favorite sections), Counter Media (small alternative comic shop), the Chinese Garden (with a small tea house inside), the Japanese Garden (everywhere you look is a great photo opt), the Goodwill on 10th (one of the fanciest goodwill's I've ever been in), West Elm store, Bonnet.

We planned to rent a car the last day to drive out and tour the Tillamook factory as well as see the Pacific ocean, but when we went to pick the car up we were told we needed a credit card and not just a bank card. The only credit card we had on us had been used for the hotel room and so had no available balance on it. Instead, we decided to walk the 10 or 12 blocks to the Japanese Garden, which just happened to be uphill the whole way. It was quite the hike, but it turned out to be a lovely destination. Afterwards, we walked back into downtown, ate some dinner, and passed the time in a bookstore until it was time to get a cab to take us to the airport.

We caught our 9:00 flight to Seattle (where they served a complimentary glass of local beer or wine), waited/slept for 2 hours until we could board our flight to Minneapolis, flew/slept-as-best-as-we-could-with-babies-seated-in-front-of-us-and-a-loud-snorer-a-few-rows-behind-us-in-seats-that-barely-recline our way home in time to drive back to Northfield and start back up at work.

Game Night Peril

2009-10-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Game Night tonight is being held at Nancy's place. She's wanted to host for some time now and today both she and her husband have the evening off and are looking forward to having people over and playing some games, even if it is just Emily and me. The kink in the plans is that one of her sons has just been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus. They've been spending most of the day cleaning up their house, especially the downstairs, and disinfecting everything. They really want to have this happen, so we're going over there tonight. Plus, Emily doesn't want to have to try and clean our place. Double plus, Nancy said that she was going to bake a few gluten-free dishes for Emily to enjoy. If you were thinking of coming to Game Night tonight and choose not to after reading this, well, I understand. We'll see how well Emily and I fare on our trip to Portland after having this adventure.

Honestly, I suspect a few of my coworkers' kids might be carrying it, or any number of the customers I've helped at Just Food. I'm just saying, chances are I've already been exposed to it.

Update: Turns out it was not H1N1 but Strep. A relief?

Additions and Changes

2009-10-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

My Geekscape shirt came in today and Jonathan added a Geekscape pin/button and, as a bonus prize, a tape of the radio program The Shadow. Weird. Unfortunately the shirt's a little on the large side and they don't have any mediums. I guess that's why they're pretty cheap right now. (This reminds me, I still need to order the Hurm shirt from iFanboy).

Shawn was at Barnes and Nobles the other day and grabbed Scott Pilgrim vol 1 for me. Score! Now I can start reading the series, or at least the ones I have. Today Scott grabbed Street Fighter IV from Target for me because it was down to $10 on their clearance. Double score!

Emily has started rearranging the bedroom, but there's only so much space to work in and with. She wants to put the bed in our closet and line the walls with dressers and armoires. She seems to have a vision for it, and maybe we'll actually keep our clothes organized. We got a little closet thing for hanging our clothes in from Target the other night, but when we put our clothes on it, the bar slipped out. That's not going to work. I think Emily wants to go to Ikea now to get a more long term solution.

Honestly, I think we need to get rid of some of our clothes. We'll have a pile of clean clothes on a chair and in drawers, but for some reason Emily needs the clothes in the dryer to get dressed. Didn't she just wear those clothes? Why do we have all these other clothes if we're not going to wear them? Yes, I have quite a few dress clothes that I don't wear now that my job doesn't require it, but I'd rather take them to a consignment shop then donate them, if for no other reason than the fact that most of them are really nice and were kind of on the expensive side. I don't know, but is that wrong of me?

I haven't really played any video games since our trip to Kansas, I'm having trouble finding the time. Next week, we're going on a trip to Portland. Emily has a Human Resource seminar thing going on down there and I'm tagging along to check out the sights and catch-up on sleep. I'll also probably get quite a bit of reading done. We're flying down there Monday and getting back Sunday night, I believe. Hopefully Emily will find this trip more relaxing then the last one.

Speaking of trips, I believe Marty has started his trip back to Northfield. It'll be nice to have him around again. He was a game night regular, so now our numbers are growing. Plus, when he goes to an event, the chances of Isaac showing up increases by like 10% or so. Anyways, Marty's a fun guy who's usually up for anything. I like it much better when people leave California to live here than vice versa.

Cleaning out

2009-10-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Fallcon was fun. I went with my nephew and we had a good time looking around at the vendors and checking out some of the artist's work that was on display. He bought a couple of comics and a few toys, while I massively increased our graphic novel collection. I got the first 7 of Invincible, a couple more volumes of Preacher that I didn't have, Scott Pilgrim 2 thru 4 (still need number 1), the first 3 volumes of Buffy Season 8, and few extras like Walking Dead vol 2, and Death: At Death's Door. We both picked up some of the free comics they had left over from free comic book day. If I had planned better, I would have brought some of my own books to get signed by the creators that were there, but I didn't do any research beforehand and honestly, I wasn't expecting to see anyone that had worked on any of the things I had read. We then stopped at the Source down the road because they were having a 20% off sale for con goers and I was hoping to find Scott Pilgrim vol 1, but to no luck, so I bought Roll Through the Ages and Ultimate Werewolf instead. That'll show'em.

Emily recently got another test for celiac, but we haven't heard the results yet. No matter what, she's going gluten free. She just feels way better off the gluten. We've recently started eating gluten free and to begin with she juiced up a storm this weekend. Now we have all kinds of juice to drink, apple, zucchini, carrot ginger, apple with zucchini.

Unfortunately our place is a bit of a mess right now. I haven't cleared off any space for the new books I bought and the kitchen table has juicing remains scattered across it. I think we should have enough time tonight to get some cleaning done. Hopefully.

Weekends

2009-10-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Our trip to the Lake of the Ozarks went well. We stayed at a lake house some of my family own; for most of the time it was just Emily and me. We did a lot of sleeping and sitting around and reading and we swam in the lake some (the water was like 70 degrees). It was nice and relaxing. My sister came down on Friday and she drove us around the area on Saturday. We didn't talk much, due to the lack of both of our communication skills, but I thought it was nice to spend time with her. My mom came down for the rest of the weekend and brought her boyfriend Alan. I had a good time and I think Emily did was well, for the most part.

I can't believe it's already Thursday. Where does the time go? I'd love to have a game night tomorrow, but our kitchen table is still a mess.

I was thinking of going to Fall-con in St Paul on Sunday (I'm working pretty much all day on Saturday). I haven't been to any cons before, so I thought this would be a nice introduction. I'd love to go to more cons, especially the big ones (Comic-Con, E3, PAX, Origins, Dragon-Con, etc.). Someday.

Who's in charge here? Wait, I am?

2009-09-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

I feel tired. Not surprisingly consider the amount of work I have this week as well as my inability to go to bed at a reasonable time in most cases. Tonight (Wednesday night) is the only night I have free. Ok, technically I have Friday night free, but that's usually Game Night and I canceled last week and feel bad about canceling again. I wish Game Night was at a local gaming store and there was a group of people that regularly attended so I wouldn't feel so bad about not going every once in a while.

Really it seems like lately anytime I want something to happen, it's up to me to take charge and be the person who works out all the details and shoulders most of the responsibility. I understand that someone has to, but it can get a little tiring. There's game night, there's D&D, there's various parties, there's house repairs. These are things I want to do, but I want to be the guest person. The one who gets invited and can show up and have fun. I don't want to have to be the one inviting everyone and working out timing issues and locations and activities and yadda, yadda, yadda. I know, I know, if I want to do these things the only way to make sure it happens is to actually set it up myself.

I mean, I like playing board games. I have games I haven't played yet (though not that many anymore). Unfortunately, there's no local game store/club where people can get together and play games, so I started up game night to play with my friends. But that makes it my responsibility and I know that some of my friends enjoy getting together and playing games as well. The problem is that every once in a while I don't feel up to having a game night (like say I've been working 60 hours all week), but I feel obligated to do it for the sake of others.

I enjoying playing RPG's. Dungeons and Dragons came out with a 4th Edition and I wanted to try it out. The friends I used to roleplay with still lived in the cities and I was inconsiderate of Emily and came home late a few nights, making her less than happy to see me drive up to the cities to play with them. Plus they got addicted to World of Warcraft. If I wanted to play D&D, I would need to get a group together and be the DM. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed DM'ing, but it requires a lot more work beforehand than just being a player. It also requires more during play as well. Maybe I would enjoy it more if I had created the adventure myself instead of going off of a module, but I've only just started DM'ing and I haven't played in a whole lot of games either, so I don't have much faith in my skills to do that, but that's a whole different issue. I would love to just play in a game, immerse myself into a single character instead of 100's of them.

Emily helps out quite a bit, and I love her for it. It's awesome to have a wife who wants to see me happy and helps as much as she can. But it still leaves the stuff up to me and she's not as excited about it as I am, so she has no interest in taking the lead on any this stuff.

I don't know, maybe I'll feel better after this vacation and once I've caught up on sleep.

Thunderspire Labrynth, 2

2009-09-21T11:38:00.001-07:00

Having received the package Bairwin required, they decided to make the trip back to Winterhaven right away. They spent another week traveling the trade routes and arrived in town, much to Bairwin's surprise. He gladly paid them for their troubles and complimented them on their unexpected speed. With a little more coin in their purse, they headed back to Thunderspire.

Upon arriving, they noticed that they were treated a little differently than before. They received wary looks and were given a wider berth. A few people would quickly cross the street to get away from them. Nachi seemed to take some enjoyment of this new treatment and scared a few passerbys. At one point, Sophana caught what looked like Brugg chuckling out of the side of his mouth when seeing this.

Saul wanted to get a magical item he had in mind so they went to shop at House Azaer. He didn't have nearly enough gold to pay for what it, so he performed a ritual to create fool's gold and entered the store with Nachi, and Sophana. They met Noristo, a young tiefling merchant with a sly smile, and were able to pass off the fake gold as real gold and left with their new goods. Soon after Allyria and Tasil entered to look around. Allyria unknowingly caught the eye of Noristo, who offered to personally help moisturize her tail. Allyria turned red (which is quite a feat for a tiefling) and stumbled out the door with Tasil close behind snickering.

The group decided to question the duergar in the Grimmerzhul Trading Post about a letter they found in the Bloodreaver's hideout. Nachi attempted to intimidate his way into some information and while everyone was distracted Tasil stole one of the bracelets on display. Nachi's attempts were met with near-open hostility and they decided to take a different approach. Nachi went up to Brugg and informed him that he had proof that the Grimmerzhul clan is purchasing slaves and that he might want to get the mages involved. Brugg informed him that while he respects the group after hearing some of the rumors about them, unless there's something happen within the Seven Pillared Hall, he and the mages don't care what happens.

Finding no help, they decided to take matters into their own hands. They returned to the Chamber of Eyes (the Bloodreaver hideout) to find it empty and tracked the slaves from there. With the help of some teamwork, Sophana is able to track them through the tunnels until they ended at the Horned Hold, a minotaur fortress that the Grimmerzhul converted into a stronghold. It consists of three parts connected by bridges over a deep chasm.

Upon arriving at the entrance they were greeted by some orcs inside the gated entrance. After dealing with some crossbow shots and spear stabs, Nachi teleported past the gate in the hopes of finding a lever to open the door. Unfortunately all he found were some angry orcs and a duergar guard, who quickly surrounded him. The rest of the party was left outside, fighting as best as they could through the gate while Tasil attempted to unlock it. Nachi got knocked unconscious numerous times before everyone was able to take control of the room. After a short rest and some healing, the party took a look around at their surroundings. They found a hall with a few locked doors and examined the rooms behind said doors. One of the doors opened into a armory, which they proceeded to ransack. The other doors opened into empty barracks with footlockers filed with nothing but clothing and hygiene products, much to the disappointment of Tasil.

The next door held back the sounds of roaring fires and hammers hitting anvils. The party gathered their courage and burst through the door to meet a couple of duergars and orcs working in a blacksmith area being directed by a large duergar covered in soot carrying a huge hammer and barking out orders. Within no time a fight broke out with the smithy flinging spells and slurs in equal measure. It was a hard fought battle, but in the end the heroes won out.

They searched the area and took what finished weapons they could find. They also stumbled upon the smithy's bedroom and were surprised to see an ornamental scepter that resembled the one Gendar talked about. Other than that they found little of value.

Having dealt with two groups of foes, everyone was feeling a little worn out and decided to take their chances and sleep in a small abandoned room off of one of the barracks they discovered. Saul magically locked all the doors they had explored and the group went to sleep with Nachi going into his trance to keep an eye out. Within the first hour, Saul was awakened with the knowledge that one of his locks had been broken. He quietly crept up to Nachi to let him know what was going on. Hour after hour another lock was broken, some leading to their room and some leading away. The rest of the party needed 8 hours to be fully rested and it wasn't until the ninth hour that the duergar search party unlocked the door leading to them. With everyone else well rested, the party sprang to the defense, taking out duergars left and right. Nachi and Tasil were able to take out an invisible scout before he could warn the rest of the hold. Together they decided to head down the hall the scout was head toward and find the slaves.

Got the time?

2009-09-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

This week is going to be busy. I'm working at least 1 job every day this week, starting this past Sunday (Just Food: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; Monster Games: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). Plus we're taking a week long vacation next week, so we need to prepare for that as well. You know the usual packing and cleaning and preparing that goes on before any long trip.

I learned a great tip about Facebook. Did you know that there's a way to hide status updates of people you don't care to hear from? There is. I don't know how long it's been there but I've been wanting this for a while. Just hover your mouse over one of the unwanted updates on your home page. A little box titled “Hide” will appear in the top right corner of the update's box. Click on the “Hide” box and select “Hide ___” where the person's name is in the blank and you're done. Now you'll never have to see the person's updates again, unless you really want to. This is great, now I 'm more likely to see updates from people I want to see. Yea!

Fun times?

2009-09-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the largest single transaction I've ever dealt with come through. It totaled $1825.95. It was a whole butt loads worth of special orders for Farm House. That check was over half of my whole nights total. Crazy huh?

The facebook app for my iPod touch stopped working, because they updated it so that it required the iPhone 3.0 upgrade, which I hadn't purchased yet. But it seems like more and more apps are requiring it to work now, which is annoying since Apple is charging for it. So I broke down and bought the upgrade. Surprisingly, the upgrade only costs about $6 instead of the $11 it used to be. I still think it's crazy that they're charging for it, but whatever, I ended up buying it didn't I? I really hope it makes my iPod run better. The annoying thing is that I started this in the morning and it took a half hour just to download it, then it had to update the iPod and because of the update, now it has to restore it, which means uploading all the apps, videos, and music files I originally had on there. That's close to 30 gigs worth of stuff. I ended up just leaving it at home to finish while I went to work. Hopefully it will be done by lunchtime. It's going to be weird not having it for the day.

I'm not sure if you heard (or if you care), but Connor is sick so the “party” at Kathie Smith's is canceled. I hope Connor starts feeling better and I'm sure Kathie will host another party when the timings right. In the mean time, Susan's offered to have Game Night at her place. I think that'll be nice, I know she enjoys playing games, but can't make it out since someone has to keep an eye on sleeping kids. So for tonight, Game Night will be held at the Beeby's.

Busy?

2009-09-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Things have been going good here, a little hectic but good. It seems like we've been getting all these little windfalls lately. It's nice. Things are moving in a good direction at a noticeable pace. It's like all the work and hardship we've dealt with over the past years is stating to pay off. It's a nice feeling.

I have been working a lot the past few weeks. Way more than I was expecting or hoping. I hear they're hiring a few more cashiers so maybe I'll be working a few less hours. I will say that business has been good at Just Food, at least from my perspective. Maybe it's just the hours I work, but it seems like it's always busy.

I'm still loving Batman: Arkham Asylum. I was telling Isaac that I haven't been this engrossed/obsessed in a game since Bioshock. On the other hand, I still have other games to play as well, but I probably won't get to them until I'm done with Batman. I really need to finish Half Life since the Rebel FM Game Club this month is Half Life 2 and its subsequent episodes. I told myself I would play Half Life before playing its sequel, and I started that a month ago and got maybe halfway through but never finished. Now I have a strong incentive to do so.

I really like their idea of a Video Game club, like in place of a book club. The group plays a particular game either all the way through or to a checkpoint and then gets together and discusses their thoughts on it. I guess that's why I like listening to the Game Club podcasts. I think it'd be more fun to be in a group instead of vicariously listening to one, but right now I can't even keep up with the book club I'm in. I don't really need to add more things to my schedule.

Oh, Game Night is going to be at Kathie Smith's house. Apparently a Mamma Mia night is being held there at the same time. I figure the game night part will entertain the people who have no desire to watch Mamma Mia. I'll have to figure out what games I have that either correspond to some degree with that movie or at least can be played while a crowd in the other room sings songs. Either way it should be fun, right?

NVG Day

2009-09-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

First off, Happy National Video Game Day!

I woke up this morning, after going to bed late from gaming at Scott's, and helped Cherish and Melanie and Emily set-up their craft tent in Central Park. Every time I see their set-up it seems to get nicer and nicer. They have some nice stands to display their cards and paintings. We arranged and priced Emily's larger ceramic pieces. They also have buttons, and cards, and necklaces. I would suggest at least checking it out and saying hi. Emily will probably be there from time to time. They are located at the corner of Winona and 3rd.

I won't be there much because I have to work from 3 to close. I've been told that it's slow at the coop during Jesse James Days, but this year doesn't seem to be the case, at least it wasn't on Thursday. We'll see how today goes. For now, I'm going to try to catch-up on some sleep before I have to go. Hopefully I can get some Batman in today.

Yea!

2009-09-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Defeat of Jesse James Days is upon us. Em's sisters will be selling their crafts here, so stop by their tent and check it out. Emily will probably have some of her pieces there as well, though maybe not as much she would like, since we didn't take the time to go through and price some of her bigger pieces.

Time has gotten a little more valuable as of late, what with my second job and all. I don't think it will be as stressful as the last time I had a second job (which was what, all of 8 months ago?). This time our financial decisions were all made to get us ahead, instead of attempting to maintain. In fact, it's more like to accelerate our getting ahead, because we were on track to make some headway. Now though, I have a second job, Emily's working full time again, we refinanced the house for a lower mortgage payment, and we have a paying roommate again. I think if we keep this up, we might actually be out of debt in the next year or two, including our student loans. We should also have built up some savings by then as well. Yea!

We're (or at least I'm) still trying to get Friday Night Game Nights to be routine. That's step one. Step two is to start having it at other people's places. This Friday night a coworker of mine, Scott, is planning on having it at his place. He has a nice open place and a closet full of games. Then on the 18th, the plans are to have it at Kathie Smith's. She can't come to our place because she's allergic to cats. Double Yea!

Oh, and if you haven't gotten it yet, get Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's awesome. It's a 3D version of Super Metroid (a game I've been told that all games are based off of, but this one more so) starring Batman with a story straight out of a massive batman comic book arc and voiced by the awesome actors from the original animated series. I am loving this game. It speaks to me on so many levels of geekdom. Triple Yea!

My new busyness

2009-09-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

This was a busy weekend. On Friday we had another game night and played Battlestar Galactica again. The key players were Baltar, the Chief, Starbuck, and Tigh. It started off a little rocky and Chief and Baltar jumped up to accuse the other. Galactica was surrounded by cylon ships and another basestar had just arrived. Luckily, Galactica was able to jump away before things got too dangerous. Repairs were ordered and quickly completed, and with no pressing concerns, everyone decided to hunt for the cylon spy. The committee threw the Chief into the brig and then, to be safe, threw Baltar in as well. Both professed their innocence the entire time they were trapped in there. After another jump, Chief showed himself to be a cylon sympathizer and was subsequently rescued and taken to the cylon fleet. Meanwhile, unknown to all, Tigh was awaken as a cylon sleeper agent. As acting Admiral, Tigh declared martial law and named himself as the President. With a cylon in both positions of power, it was only a matter of time before the humans ran out of resources (specifically fuel) and lost, one jump away from reaching Kobol.

Saturday we slept in some before heading to Just Food to enjoy the Harvest Festival. It was a fun little time and we tried many tasty treats for various vendors. Unfortunately we arrived too late to take full advantage of the pressed art station. Afterwards we headed over to the Beeby's to play D&D for the rest of the day. I'll post how that went separately. Then around 10 o'clock we went home to go to bed.

Sunday was spent lying around and getting a few chores down. I spent some time playing more Wheelman as well as Shadow Complex. I was still a little tired, so after a quick shopping trip to Just Food, I took a 30 minute nap, which turned out to be an excellent idea. We volunteered to help with the Just Food reset, and our shift started at 9pm. We helped move things off of shelves, build-up and rearrange shelves, and then put items pack onto shelves.

Monday I went to work at Monster Games at 8am and then went to work at Just Food at 4pm and stayed there until close, which was until about 10pm. It was a long and tiring day. I'm still a little tired.

Wheelman

2009-08-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Wheelman lately. I haven't gotten extremely far, in fact there are a few side mission types that I haven't unlocked yet. So far it's been pretty fun. It's like a simplified GTA 4 but with more emphasis on driving. I've been enjoying the driving combat. You can hit the right stick while you drive to slam the car in that direction, which can push other cars into walls or obstacles.

Here are some things they get right. The car combat action is fun. It's frenetic and you find yourself driving through all kinds of breakable objects, fighting back and forth, and it achieves the cinematic recluse driving scenes that they're going for. The PDA/map page is great in the fact that they let you just start a mission from there; no need to drive all around town to get to the starting point. The dialogue is nothing spectacular, but then again you don't go to an action movie for the words of wisdom. The voice acting is good, for the parts they were given.

Sounds like a fun game right? Well it is, but it's not a great game and it's because of the small things they miss. Little things that add aggravation and detract from the fun. One thing I could not believe is a problem with the y-invert option. Now, I had this problem in the demo, so I wasn't too surprised to still see it in the game. Here's the issue: in the options you can select whether the y-axis is inverted, like most games, but when you do any of the car-shooting special moves (either spin the car and in bullet time shoot at cars that were behind you, or just go into bullet time to shoot a blockade in front of you) the game has decided not to pay attention to your y-axis choice. This is ridiculous. If I want the y-axis inverted, I want it that way ALL the time, not just when I'm running around with a gun (which doesn't happen nearly as much as the driving, it is called Wheelman).

Another thing that's off-putting is you get emails after every story mission. They don't really add anything, it's just a reminder of what you have to do next. The problem is that to read emails you have to pull up your map and hit another button. Of course, while you're looking at your map there's no way of knowing if you've gotten any new mail. Combine this with the fact that after every mission, they take you to the map to show you where you're new mission is located, and you have an annoyance. This means you'll finish a mission, be in the map screen, see where your new mission is located, exit, and then be told "You have new email!" Now you have to go back into the map, and then from there go to the email screen where your email will basically say "You have a new mission!" There's no need for this. The only reason to have it is to try to disguise the map as a "PDA" screen. That's kind of pointless in my mind. Just keep it as a map, it shows where the next mission is, I don't need another reminder.

Another issue I have is the AI for street racing side missions. I enjoy some of the street races but the way it's set-up, it seems like it's me versus the pack and not a street race where everyone is fighting for first. When I'm in the middle of the group I get smacked around like nobody's business. But if I'm in the back, I don't see any of the cars slamming each other. With each other they'll play nice, but for me they try to shoot out my tires and slam me into walls. That is definitely not an example of taking care of the player.

Speaking of side missions, I can say that I approve of the way they have been doling them out. At the early point that I'm at now, they have been giving me a story mission that is basically the form of the new side mission. Once you complete the story mission, the side missions open up, all of them of that type in that area. I think that's just bad pacing. What I would have done is open the first side mission of that type, maybe two. After those have been completed, the player need to race another story mission. After that they have now unlocked a few more side missions of the old type as well as the new type. Just keep repeating this process until all side missions have been unlocked. This way the player switches back and forth between story missions and side missions. I understand that some people may enjoy the side missions more than the story mission, but the point of the game is the story, let's try to keep them down that path.

Bottom line, this game is a fun game and has some interesting takes on the criminal driving game, but it definitely has some missteps along the way.

When It Rains It Pours, But It Also Brings Flowers

2009-08-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, earlier this month things were just going crazy, financial-wise. The car broke down and took weeks to fix. Some unexpected bills popped up and to top it all off, Emily's Paypal was hacked and charged a little over $1500. Now, however, things seem to have turned around. We got the Paypal charge refunded; Wells Fargo reversed all of the overdraft fees they charged; I got a second job at Just Food; and we just recently refinanced our house so that we have a fixed 30 year mortgage with no balloon payments and on top of that it's for roughly $35,000 less than the previous one and is going to save us about $200 a month in mortgage payments. It's been a relief. Now we can start getting ahead instead of just treading water like we have been for a while.

Last weekend I played paintball with a couple of co-workers in this big wooded field. It was a blast and a big difference from running around between plywood boards. We played for quite a while, and being the dumbass that I am, I never thought to put sunscreen on and burnt my face and head. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it certainly wasn't necessary. It's now starting to heal (i.e. peel), another scene of recovery.

Thunderspire Labrynth, 1

2009-08-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I played Dungeons and Dragons with my usual group, only this time we played at Alex's instead of at our place, which was nice. It's not that I mind having people over, I kind of like it, but it is nice to go to someone else's place every once in a while. Besides, it was fun seeing their new puppy running around. Here's what went down:

The adventure started with party in Winterhaven, enjoying the celebration that was going on in their honor. They had a drinking contest, which Nachi failed on the first drink. They also took advantage of Bairwin's good spirits and drunken state to buy a bunch of stuff at a big discount, although they did have to do a favor for him afterwards. After much carousing and quest gathering (stop the slavers and collect history for Valthrun), the party headed off to the Thunderspire Mountains.

They traveled along the main trade road without any ambushes, but tried to take a shortcut which ended up adding another day to the travels to Fallcrest. It was here that Hannibal decided to return to school. Since his school doesn't allow goblins, he left Splug in the capable hands of Saul. Nachi traded Aeris with a follower of the Platinum Dragon who could appreciate the power of the sword for an equally powerful weapon, but with less back story.

After a short rest, the new party headed into the mountains, all the while Nachi discussed with the party the beliefs of a follower of the Raven Queen and why his resurrection was still making him feel uneasy. He was cut short before he could explain to Sophana the intricacies of a particular ritual when a flash of lighting lit up the entrance to Saruun Khel (the ancient underground Minotaur city below Thunderspire Mountain), framed by two 50 foot tall minotaur statues. They cautiously entered and traveled down a massive hall lined with statues of demons holding burning torches. Tasil slipped from shadow to shadow while Splug cowered close to Allyria and Saul.

As they traveled deeper and further into the mountain, Tasil could make out some sounds coming from a small room in a side passage. “We could get 10 gold pieces for this halfling “That's a shame, I'm easily worth 20. I'll pay you myself.” The group ran to the halfling's rescue. They were met by a group of hobgoblins lead by a warcaster, who pulled Nachi into the middle of them. Tasil climbed up on to some empty casks and got behind them while Allyria and Saul picked the soldiers off. Sophana made sure Nachi didn't die. With these Bloodreaver gang members eradicated, they got to know Rendil Halfmoon a little more, a plucky little halfling who lives with his aunt, Erra, the owner of the Halfmoon Inn located in the Seven Pillar Hall, further into the mountain.

To show his graditude, Rendil gives them a quick tour of the Seven Pillar Hall, which is more of an underground village than a hall. They share a few ales and Erra sets them up with some lodging and delicious halfling home-cooking. Afterwards, everyone decides to make the delivery to Gendar, a drow shop owner, that Bairwin requested. They make the trade off and Gendar requests they keep an eye out for a scepter that was stolen from him. Next, they decide to do some snooping at the seedy Rothar's Taproom and get their first encounter of Brugg, the Ogre enforcer, and hear that Dwarf is upset over his lost pet.

They find Dwarf in his office at the Deepgem Mining Company and invite him to share an ale, which he promptly accepts. Over a few ales, he shares the story of missing Boar, named Bubbles, who was traveling with a group of his fellow miners when they were attacked. No one was killed, so Dwarf believes that his pet is still alive, some where in the labrynth.

After some discussion, Nachi and Tasil determine that the best route to take would be to go after the rest of the slavers. Rendil gladly gives them a map to the Bloodreaver's hideout, or at least where they're rumored to be. Sophana shows off her dungeoneering skills and gets them safely to their destination, an old temple dedicated to the evil god Torog.

The front door is locked and guarded from behind by some goblins. Tasil comes up with the plan to set Splug and Nachi up as trap, (the old Chewbacca-prisoner trick). Unfortunately, Splug was so nervous he couldn't pull it off very convincingly and the guards called an alarm. They opened the doors and out charged a Bugbear followed by a couple of goblins on a balcony to shoot arrows at them. With some teamwork, the party cleared their opponents and captured one of the goblins. Nachi tied him up, threw him over the banister, and with the help of Tasil, intimidated him into giving them the lay of the land as well as their numbers. When the goblin had given them all the information he knew, Tasil slit his throat and left him hanging there to bleed out. Allyria whispered a silent prayer for the goblin as Splug fought back the urge to throw up.

With their intimate knowledge of the area now, they made their plan of attack. Instead of coming in head on, they thought it would be smarter to attack from the sides. They sneaked down a side hall and opened the door to discover a couple of duergar's milling around a lit hearth. Everyone jumped into action, with the duergars calling for help and Nachi trying to take them out as fast as possible. Helped did appear, in the form of a warcaster and Krang, the leader of the Blodreaver Gang. Battle ensued and when the dust was all cleared only out heroes were left standing. They looted the bodies and ransacked the rooms, as they have done so many times in the past and discovered Krang's personal treasure chest containing some jewels and gold pieces.

Next it was off to the kitchen, where Sophana could hear some ruckus going on. The party set-up an ambush in an adjoining room and locked the door on their flank. It was up to Tasil to be the bait. He opened the door and viciously flung a dagger at the first creature he saw while shouting insults at them. This got the attention of everyone in the kitchen and they quickly chased after him. Half of the gang members ran directly into the room Tasil led them into, while the remaining members tried to circle around behind and one guy ran off to get reinforcements. As soon as the first hobgoblin entered the ambush, he was hit by Nachi, Splug, Tasil, and finished off by Saul.

The gang member looking for reinforcements stopped short when he entered the previous room our heroes cleaned out and saw the carnage and dead bodies littered on the ground. He quickly turned tail and ran out of the base, screaming to his comrades that Krang was dead. After hearing that, the rest of gang ran as fast as they could to get away, but Nachi and Tasil weren't about to let them get away that easily and chased down and cornered as many as they could, allowing only two to escape to safety.

The only room left was the empty slave holding room. The party split into two with Nachi and Splug covering a side entrance and the rest of the party entering through the main door. Tasil busts through the door and comes face to face to huge sleeping wolf. Instead of single handedly taking on such a beast, he decides to take care of one of the archers. The wolf isn't about to let such a tasty morsel get away and chases after. Nachi kicks in his door and almost knocks down a goblin archer in the process.

Nachi and Splug kept the rest of the Archers busy while Allyria and Sophana threw spells at the wolf and Saul created a fire warrior as well as a massive fireball to try and take down the beast. Once the giant dog was dead, it was long before they had cleared the room out. Again, the captured the last foe remaining and forced him to tell them everything he knew, before viciously ending his life.

With the hideout all cleaned out, the group takes one more look around. They find a few secret halls but no more Bloodreavers and no slaves either. They return to the Seven Pillar Hall and rest up before heading back to Winterhaven to deliver the package Gendar gave them for Bairwin.

This and That

2009-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a post about last weekend, but it's getting kind of long. It's basically a recap of our D&D session. I'll post that when it's done. In the meantime, I've gotten a second job, again. I'm now the new cashier at Just Food. I've only started yesterday, so I can't really say how well it's going yet.

Our car is still working, so yea to that. We got a refund on that whole Paypal issue, though it hasn't transferred from Paypal to our Wells Fargo account yet, so I still have that battle to fight, but at least it's progressing along.

Games I'm interested in right now, of the video variety: Batman Arkham Asylum, Shadow Complex, Wheelman (because it was $20 at Target), Trials HD, Secret of Monkey Island, and Scribblenauts. (So little time, and now even littler)

Oh, game night at our place this Friday night. Say 7pm?

Cuteness!!!!!

2009-08-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a tasty tidbit. And yes I know it was on the Daily Show.

Wounded

2009-08-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was checking our bank accounts and discovered that Emily's Paypal had been hacked and some used it to purchase 8 internet security packages. Now we have a huge charge on our account that's creating all kinds of overdraft fees. We have contacted the internet website and are getting a refund and Emily's changed her Paypal password and questions and all. I called Wells Fargo to tell them of the problem and I was told that they can't do anything until the refund comes through, then they can adjust all the fees that occur from this, which I think is a little ridiculous. I can't really do anything about it though and have to hope that Wells Fargo is willing to help like they said when it comes in.

I also played paintball yesterday. It was a really hot day out and there was a lot of running around. I won a few rounds and lost a few rounds. I have a few momentos, one on my chest, a couple small ones on my arm, a gruesome one my thigh, and one on my neck. I have to say, I feel very sore right now

Visitations

2009-08-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

Our next D&D session is this Saturday and I still have quite a few things to do to get ready for it. Honestly, I don't have to do most of these things, but this is the curse of being the DM. You keep thinking of things that would make the game fun. Plus, we're starting a new module, so there's the whole getting-to-know-it thing. But I'm trying not to stress over it too much and realize that everyone will still have fun even if I don't get all of the prep done that I want.

Oh, I'm searching to see if there's a faster/easier way to track initiative and conditions then the way I have been doing it. I've been printing out monster blocks and attaching them to index cards and writing on them and using those to keep track of initiatives and conditions. It works out pretty well, but there are usually a few conditions that get by me every once in a while. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love hear them.

Emily is recovering very well. She has had some uncomfortableness, but nothing major. She apperciates all the well wishing. Melanie, Cherish (her sisters), and Colin (her our nephew) came down last night. We ate at The Tavern, which we haven't been to in a few years because it used to be fairly bland, especially for the prices they were charging. We learned that they got a new chef, and it shows. It's pretty good now, certainly a viable option now.

We also played Bang!, a cowboy card game. Colin played the sheriff and ended up winning (Emily won as well since she was playing the deputy). He seemed to really enjoy it, probably because you pretend to shoot people and he won. I died because I set-off some dynamite and it blew-up in my face. Once you know how to play, it can go pretty fast.

All's Well, sort of

2009-08-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

Emily had surgery yesterday. She got some work done on her women parts. It was a simple procedure and everything went smoothly. When she coming back out of her drugged stupor, she was saying some funny things, well, it was more like she was saying some things funnily. She resembled that kid on youtube. She kept asking about getting a kitten. It was cute. She's recovering well, she didn't start feeling any uncomfortableness until late last night, so we'll see how she's doing today.

Our car, however, isn't faring as well. I had to take it back in, it was doing the exact same thing, only more so now. I dropped it off again and they're going to have to replace the transmission again. Luckily they told me the last one was covered for 60 days, so there should be no extra cost. It is getting annoying though. It'd be nice to have a car that works.

Car Troubles

2009-08-07T05:19:00.001-07:00

The car should be fixed, for reals, by the end of today. The problem was the transmission, which I was afraid of. The transmission would slip out when it idled and at times wouldn't quite catch when accelerating fast (something they caught). The total's going to be around $800, so not a cheap repair. Luckily I was able to work out a payment plan with them, so we'll be able to pay them for the repair.

I'm fed up with this car and wondering if it might be time to get a new one, but I also feel like with all the repairs and replacement parts we've added to it, maybe it'll run fine for a good long while now. It's hard to tell. Maybe, if we do get a new car, we'll keep this one as a back-up of sorts.

Difficulties

2009-08-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

Damn it! The car wasn't fixed! It runs slightly better than before but the main problem, the reason we brought it in, is still there. Yesterday we thought we would drive to work for the first time in a few weeks, and it started acting up again. Not a happy drive. I took it back to Churchill and had Jeremy (one of the mechanics there, good people) ride with me to see what I was talking about. He thinks it might have to do with the fact that the car was idling a little low the pull of the vacuum that operates the brakes was stalling it. They looked over it all of yesterday, upped the idle RPM's and checked out the vacuum tubes. After that they were never able to get it to do it again. They tried three or four times throughout the day, but no luck. I drove it last night after work, but I couldn't get it to do it either. We decided to leave it there over night and they'll give it a try today and see if acts up again. Maybe they fixed the problem. It'd be odd if that's all it took, but as long as it's working again, I'll be happy.

Last night I finished Halo 3 for the first time with Alex, Dimitri, and Connor. Of course, they had all finished it before, so we skipped through the videos. Now I wonder if there's a way to just watch the videos, or does that not even matter? Is the story not really worth the trouble? Do the videos even explain what the hell was going on? I don't know. I don't understand the draw of Halo and never have. It's enjoyable, but I don't see the draw. Maybe I'm not skilled enough to see the cleverness of the level design, or ai, or gma edesign in general. I've heard that the game really shines once you play on a difficulty harder than normal, but I played that up to a point and then just kept dying. I didn't see how that was awesome. Is it the challenge and the excitment of overcoming such daunting odds?

Oh, we're going to have another game night tonight. I'm not saying we'll play Battlestar Galactica again, but I wouldn't be against it. I haven't told too many people about it, so we'll see who shows up.

Exciting Night

2009-08-05T05:11:00.000-07:00

Last night we watched the most recent episode of True Blood. I can't get over Sookie, she's so aggravating. They seem to promote her as a spunky, strong woman. One of those princesses who rescues herself, but she's worse than a damsel in distress because they at least get into their predicaments unknowingly. Sookie is warned about the possible consequences and decides that nothing bad can happen and she can handle it (or even worse just runs her mouth off with no thought of who she's insulting). Then, of course, she gets into trouble and her response is to scream for help and wait for her rescue. In this last episode she was captive in this stockroom-like-cage, and one of her captures comes in to harass her and her human partner. To stop this obviously strong man she jumps on his back, instead of grabbing one of the many various items locked in there with her and smack him over the head. Unsurprisingly, he overpowers her and she starts screaming for help. If it wasn't for the side stories, we probably would have stopped watching by now. I wonder if her character is any better in the books?

We got our car repaired, with the help of our awesome neighbor Todd (who's trying to sell his house, for those looking to move to Northfield). He offered to go with me to Car Time to have them look at it, because he's been there before and can get a good deal with them. They checked it out (for $20) and discovered that the rotors were warped. The mechanic quoted us about $200 to fix it. We called Churchhill Tires, because I've been going to them lately, and they said that they could fix it for $156. That's a better deal so we figured we'd pay for the brake inspection and take it to Churchill. While we were in the process of paying them, the Car Time manager-type who was handling the payment process said that he hadn't had a chance to look over the mechanic's estimate (there were quite a few people coming in and out of there while we were there) and that the correct price is $165. Todd figured we might as well get it fixed at Car Time since we were already there, which made sense with what we knew at the time. I called Churchhill one more time, because the last time I had talked to them there was some talk about a warranty coverage possibility. After talking to them for a little bit they said they could cover it for free under the warranty. Todd had to hear this for himself, which they confirmed for him, but told us they couldn't cover anything that the Car Time people did. So we jumped up and had the Car Time people take the car down, paid the inspection fee (they said "We can't beat free"), and got it fixed at Churchhill. Since the replacement part and labor was covered, they upsaled us on better parts and it only ended up costing me about $50 ($70 if you count the inspection). Both places were curteous and I have no ill will against Car Time, but I think this just strengthed my loyalty to Churchhill.

Distractions

2009-08-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

For some reason I've had the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in my head for a while now. It's a little odd.

Right now my computer is being very annoying, it keeps going slowly. I did a virus search and it came up clean, though it could be that I awoke the anti-virus programs and that's what's slowing it down now. Either way it's frustrating.

I was able to schedule the next D&D session. It's within the next 2 weeks, so I have a lot of reading to get done for this new module. There are definitely some interesting encounters later on in the module, but right now there a lot of NPCs to try and get right and remember, and a whole lot of side things to think up and take notes on. Plus I was thinking of printing up some maps and various other prop items. That reminds me, I need to get more ink for our printer.

Oh, another Emily gift: salad spinner, and she's into pretty dice as well (Yea!).

iTunes Tirade

2009-08-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, iTunes really annoys me. I hear things like "Apple really takes care of their customers" or hear praise of their design choices, but I end up frustrated with them more often than not.

For instance, why do I have to manually add a new folder when I add more music? Oh, that's right, because iTunes doesn't have a "Search for new music" option because it assumes that you either purchased the music from them or ripped your cd with them. Heaven forbid you download someone's free album off the internet and want to add it to your music library easily.

And another thing, they have a nice display for album art, but shame on you if you got your music files before such things were commonplace. Now you have to hope you have the correct album, title, and artist information. If any of them are the slightest bit wrong, then iTunes can't help you find the art. And if you find something yourself, but later find something better, tough luck. You should have picked the perfect picture the first time. Now you have to do some crazy searching and hunting in the iTunes files to find that picture and remove it.

It's all very aggravating and doesn't make me an apple fan. I guess that makes me a PC.

Sunday Plans

2009-08-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Today looks like a busy day. We're going shopping at Costco and possibly Source Comics and Games with Alex. But first we plan on dropping off some stuff at my sister-in-laws to sell at their yard sale. Really it's just a good excuse to get rid of some of our stuff. Although we could use some extra cash.

I meant to go through our things yesterday, but I ended up getting sucked in to watching a Burn Notice marathon. I did get some laundry done and put away some clothes, so that's good right?

Well, anyways, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed because there always seems like so much that needs to get done. This is a little exacerbated by the fact that any "relaxing" activities usually end up just being another thing on my "things to do" list, so end up not feeling nearly as relaxing as I would like. I don't know when this happened. I used to just goof off and not feel as anxious as I do now. Is this just what it means to be a responsible adult? I didn't think so. Why is there always so much to do?

Battlestar Galactica play recap

2009-07-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here's how it goes down. I was playing Bill Adama. Streetz played Gaius Baltar. Jessica played Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. Nathan played Chief Galen Tyrol. Scott played Saul Tigh. Alex played Lee "Apollo" Adama. So I started out as the Admiral and Gaius was the president.

When we started there was a basestar and some raiders. Starbuck and Apollo were flying out on vipers, protecting cilivian ships and shooting down the toasters. Tigh ordered our guns to attack as well. With the first crisis we discovered that there was a cylon in our midsts, and I knew it was either Gaius, Chief, or Apollo. We cleaned out most of the raiders just in time for another basestar and more raiders to show up. Galactica took two big hits before we were able to jump away (leaving a ship behind) to safety on a barren planet.

While there we repaired the ship, and dealt with food and water shortages. We also attempted a rescue mission as well. We were able to jump once again with too much trouble, but our fuel levels were now in the red.

Once we reached our new destination, empty space, Starbuck was thrown in the brig for being a cylon sympathizer. She learned her lesson, so her release was ordered. She had planned on fingering Chief as a cylon, but he revealed himself as cylon before and threw back in the brig before being sent to the resurrection ship. Soon after a basestar appeared and launched raiders and heavy raiders at us. We were able to protect the civilian ships but galactica was boarded because of it. In the scuffle, Tigh was accused of being a traitor and thrown in the brig. We finally were able to jump early out of the fight, avoiding some incoming nukes but still leaving some ships behind, and ended up in an asteriod field.

We had traveled a total distance of 7, (needing 8 to get to Kobol), but the recent appearance in an asteriod field cost us a fuel refinery ship and fuel levels were dangerously low, as well morale. Food and water were now in the red as well and we were faced with some tough decisions. Peaced was maintained and Tigh put up a protest to being locked in the brig but to no avail. With no support, he left to rot in his cell. Soon after he showed himself to be a cylon traitor and joined his kind on the ressurection ship. Humans were in a bad situation with fuel down to 1 and population down to 4. But a miracle arrived in the form of a legendary discovery, which took 1 step closer to our destination. All we needed was one more jump. Baltar rushed to the FTL control and jumped us early. We lost 2 more population in the rush, but had finally made to Kobol

Battlestar Galactica game

2009-07-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I played the Battlestar Galactica boardgame with a group of friends. There were a total of 7 of us, but only 6 could play (plays 3-6), which was fine because Emily wasn't interested in playing for as long as she knew it would take. This is not to say that it's necessarily a long game, but it was the first time to play for all of us, so of course it would take some time before we got into the groove. I could see it taking around 2-3 hours if people are familair with the game.

The way it works is each player picks a character at the start. Then at the begining of their turn they draw the number of skill cards their character card says they can. They move to anywhere on the board they want, and complete one action (the action can be found on one of their skill cards, their current location, or their character card). After the action has been completed, they flip over a crisis card and everyone deals with the crisis. The interesting part is that someone (or someones) is a cylon (traitor) and they can attempt to sabotage the crisis and prevent everyone else from passing it. After this, Galactica may or may not move one step closer to jumping. When Galactica jumps a distance of 8 and completes one more jump, then the humans win. If they don't, for any reason, the cylons win.

It's not an overly complicated game, it just provides the players with a lot options and most of them aren't that helpful, which makes sense. Life was not fun on Galactica. It ends up being a lot of trying to choose the least awful option.

Most of the fun of this game is from the interaction between the players. All the accusations and double talk and insuations that get thrown around during the course of the game. The fun isn't really from the game mechanics (some is but not nearly as much). There is also some enjoyment from being a fan of the show, because you can make jokes about the characters you're playing and the actions they're taking.

Personally, I had fun playing it. I could see myself getting this game and playing it on various occassions. It has a lot of small pieces so it's hard to take anywhere (liek camping), but I think it's easy enough to set up where it doesn't take up a huge amount of table space to play.

If your a fan of the show and/or a fan of more social games where the fun is in large part from the people you're playing with, I would recomend this game.

Fun Times.

2009-07-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

Paintball was fun. We played a bunch of games and are still trying to equalize the field. I did get shot in the neck, which still stings a little this morning, but it was definitely a fun time.

Speaking of fun, tonight is game night, and I'm not sure how many people are showing up tonight at 7pm. It seems like there could be quite a few. It's possible that there'll be up to 10 people or so, all looking to play Battlestar Galactica, but it only plays up to 6 players. I guess I could set-up Rock Band, or have some other game going on the side. Scott said he could bring over Wii Sports Resort, which would be another fun option. Then again, how often is it that everyone shows up you said they would right?

Oh, I thought of another gift for emily, a sewing machine.

Kung Fu Panda

2009-07-29T04:22:00.000-07:00

We finally watched Kung Fu Panda last night. I had heard good things about it and I must say that I wasn't disappointed. I thought it was a very good kung fu movie as well as a beautiful looking animated movie. It was pretty funny and I really enjoyed the action sequences. I did feel that they didn't really get into the personalities of the Furious Five, which made me wonder why they hired big celebrities to voice them. I guess that's what the extra dvd is for, which I believe I might have seen on television before this.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, the drawn animation was gorgeous as well as the computer. They both convade the appropiate location and time frame. I especially liked the way they had the credits scroll sideways instead of from top-down. It was details like this that really showed how much care went into this movie. I would definitely recommend seeing this if you haven't yet.

Busy-ness

2009-07-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

Boy did my week fill up quick. Tonight is movie night with Emily, tomorrow I have paintball, then it's game night, and then its Friday (which, surprisingly is still open), and Saturday I've been invited to a friend's game night. Oh, and I also still need to read my book club book and go through our stuff to sell at my sister-in-laws yard sale she plans to have in 2 weeks. It's pretty crazy.

I came across an old friend's blog and I've been trying to catch up on old posts. I've finally done it and I'm all caught up. Yea!

Why does Tricksy feel the need to push things with her face? Really it's more like "Why does she feel the need to push things off the table/counter with her face?" because she doesn't seem to have the same face rubbing thing that Oscar has. It's annoying, especially when she breaks dishes we like, like bowls made by friends or family or glasses gifted to us. I wish I knew how to stop her. Although I think it might be due to the fact that David spoiled her with attention while he lived here.

Oh, David sent us some gifts in the mail recently. Totally unexpected! It was pretty awesome. That boy's not that bad of an egg.

Speaking of gifts, I'm going to list some gifts Emily would like so I have future reference: standing fan (preferably with remote), netbook, clothes dryer, new stove/oven, clothes washer, and that's all I have for now. Oh, no, wait, a composter as well.

Comic Con (Haiku)

2009-07-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Now it is over.
I did not go. Wish I had.
Hopefully next year?

Ramble on

2009-07-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was fun, in a way. I vacuumed, washed some dishes, played through another chapter of Half Life (1 not 2), and had some wine and conversation with Chris and Hortensia. It was good. I did notice that I now have trouble relaxing during movies and conversations, not so much with games. I'm not sure why, but the whole time I was doing either, I kept thinking about doing other things, instead of just being in the moment, even though the moment was enjoyable. Hurm.

I have trouble sleeping. Wait, let me rephrase that. I have trouble waking. I feel like it could be that I don't get 8 hours of sleep, but if I want to wake up at 6am, I'd have to go to bed at, what?, 10pm. That means be asleep by then, and that just seems an impossibility. We usually end up getting ready for bed around then, so it's not all bad, but it's not a full 8 hours either. Maybe I should try to reschdeule the day instead. Make plans assuming that I wake up at 6:30 or even 7.

Ok, I'm calling it now: we're playing Battlestar Galactica on Thursday. Even if it is just Emily, Alex and myself. Even if, for some strange reason, 10 people show up (it says it plays from 3-6 players). We are playing it. We'll make it work some how.

Morning Pages

2009-07-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, I have trouble with mornings. In the book The Artist Way, they talk about morning pages to help clear your head each day. Basically you just write down whatever's in your head. It seems easy enough, so why not give it a go right? I'm not saying I'm going to do it everyday, but maybe. And it almost never will be the 2 pages it asks for either, but something's better than nothing.

Last night we played D&D. I'm the GM and we've been going through the Keep on the Shadowfell module. My players finished off the story, defeating Kalarel in the end which helped reseal the rift to the Shadow realm. I noticed I need to work on my storytelling skills. At some point they thought they had to travel to Thunderspire to stop him, but that was a hook to another adventure. Maybe they're not used to hooks popping up that lead to other stories while fighting in the middle of one. Anyways, it was a long battle but our heroes pervailed. Now I have to buy the next module to continue the story. I'll be honest, I think these early modules could have used a little more polish, at least this first one. I haven't checked out any of the more recent ones, but I hope that they're a little more fleshed out.

I know that yesterday would be considered a "fun" day and so that would make today a "work" day, but I want to play some video games. Although, I would also like to get the dishes done and vaccuum the living room. Kids can really make a mess. But then again, so can cats, so it's not like we're not used to it. You know I can probably get all of those done today without much strain.

Excitebots is here!

2009-04-28T18:26:00.001-07:00

So, Excitebots: Trick Racing is finally out. It seems to have been recieved well. It's gotten some fairly good reviews, a couple of so-so reviews, and at least one interesting one (to me at least). This being my first game to have done any work on, I find it all very exciting. I'm glad to see that it has gone over as well as it has. Here's hoping the momentum keeps up (I'll also except it if the momentum picks-up as well).

Monsters vs Aliens

2009-04-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Emily and I went to see Monsters vs Aliens the other night. As an animated children's movie I thought it was ok. It's very silly and makes some off the wall jokes. The story's pretty predictable and easy to follow. It's no Pixar movie but it does provide an enjoyable time.

We didn't see it in 3D, but there were some scenes that were in there solely to take advantage of the 3D technology (a paddle ball coming towards you and things like that). Emily doesn't get any extra enjoyment out of 3D movies and they cost a bit more than their 2D counterparts.

Emily couldn't get over the fact that the main character's head (the 49 foot woman) was proportionally larger than her body and no one else had the same affliction. I chalked it up to the animators trying to make her look "cute." My favorite parts were the parts that included Stephen Colbert playing as the president personally.

All in all, if you're a big 3D fan then go see it for that; but purely for the movie, I'd say it's worth renting if you have kids, but you're not missing much if you skip it.

VGO progress

2009-04-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

So a friend of mine at work hosts a party every year called the Video Game Olympics. A large group of us get together at a lodge for three days and do nothing but drink beer, eat food, and play video games. There are brackets and teams and trophies. TVs and projectors are set-up all over the place. It's pretty fun. Last year (the 2007 VGOs) I came in 10th and won Rookie of the Year, but this year I came in 1st in a two events (Wii Home Run Derby and Legends on Wrestlemania) and I think I have a good chance of coming in 2nd overall. It was a blast.

Prioritize

2009-02-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I have a hard time prioritizing. Doesn't matter whether it's time or money or whatever. But I am taking steps. And one of them is to stop with the facebook games. They have no real use for me. Some are fun and only take a minute or two of my time, but these games that require you to interact with them everyday and penalize you if you don't, I'm done with. That's not a fun amusement, that's work. And I saw "No more!" If I want to play a game, I can play on the Xbox 360 or the Wii or even on my computer. I have way too many games piling up that I want to play. I should put my goofing off time into those.

That's all. Let me know if you have any other helpful tips.

It's almost Thanksgiving?

2008-11-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

Crazy, but there's like only a week or so before Thanksgiving. We're having Em's family over again, like usual, but this year my mom's coming over as well. To be honest, I feel pretty good about it. I think this year will go better than any of the others. We have a menu planned out. Th house is starting from a cleaner condition than ever. Best of all, I only have 1 job and will probably be able to take off a few days before to help cook and clean.

Oh, about that. It seems like Nintendo is pushing us to get this game done by January. I'm not sure how these things usually go, but it seems a little fast. At first I didn't think so, but as the time goes by, there just seems to be more and more that needs to be done. We'll see how it goes.

Yea-ness!

2008-09-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so if you didn't hear, Emily is working full time now at Just Food and got a raise to boot. This means I'm down to working one job now. I have all kinds of free time now, though most of it has lately been devoted to sleeping.

The odd thing is, that even with more time available now, I still have trouble getting ready in the morning and getting projects done. Any suggestions?

Iron Man

2008-05-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

I saw Iron Man the other day. And yes I am a big fan of comics and comic based movies, but I've never been a big fan of Iron Man. I don't hate the guy, I've just never really had any interest in him. The movie, though changed that, somewhat.

First off, it's a well-done fun movie. As is popular now, and for good reason, the movie focuses on the man behind the mask. This was a great way to take the movie, but that's where all the interesting parts are. Yes, I go to see explosions and special effects, but lets face it, most of them are shown on the preview so by the time I see it in the theaters, I've already seen the effect 8 times. Robert Downey Jr is superb in his fleshing out of Tony Stark, Jeff Bridges plays up the villain to almost-over-the-top perfection, and for the most part Gwyneth Paltrow displays Pepper Pots, the love interest, as a strong independent woman (at the end, for some reason, her character deteriorates into a dumb blond). Obviously I would recommend it. And for those comic book fans out there, be sure to stick around after the credits for an amazing surprise.

Bit of trivia for ya': I believe this is the first movie fully funded by Marvel's movie department, which might explain that care that went into it.

Birthday Party

2008-04-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm planning on having a birthday bash on June 28, 2008 at my house. It'll be like a game fest. There'll also be food, booze, cake, music, and games. I've been thinking about getting a few prizes together for the events as well. I haven't finalized all the events yet, but so far I was thinking of having maybe Super Puzzle Fighter, Mario Kart, Smash Brothers, ab roller racing, Munchkin, Chore Wars, Pacman CE, and whatever else I think of. Undoubtedly, there'll be some Rock Band playing as well. Party should start around noon, award ceremony around 10pm or so and end when it's over. Mark your calendars.

Rock Band got Better?

2008-04-02T13:12:00.001-07:00

For those of you completely out of the loop, Rock Band had an update recently that made it even better. It makes the talking sections of singing easier to accomplish and it's now much easier to perform at all of the venues in Band World Tour. But the part that excited me the most is the addition of the Rock Band store. It had been possible to download songs for the game before, but it was fairly annoying. Now you can preview a song before buying it and it's all but eliminated double purchases. Way to go Harmonix!

Overdue Overview

2008-03-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

Let me post a quick update for those few that might actually pay attention to this:

Work - I'm working at Monster Games in my dream job as a video game designer. I'm also working another second job at the James Gang Coffee House to help pay-off some bills, but am no longer going to school. Emily's still working at Just Food, but only as an office assistant, and for very part-time. She's also working at her acupuncturists as a receptionist. They've worked out a deal where she gets acupuncture and Chinese medicine in lieu of money. It actually works in our favor this way, plus she seems to be getting healthier.

Home - We're attempting to rearrange and organize our house, but it's slow going. We're cleaning out what used to be our studio so that David has his own room (our friend David has moved in and is now our roommate). We're attempting to convert the office into more of a gaming/studio space. We hope to finish out the garage and turn that into a more workable space. Emily would like to have a more defined garden this year as well.

Fun - I have an X-Box 360 now and have been playing on it some. Alex started DM'ing a D&D campaign that we meet together for once a week; I'm playing a female half-orc Cleric. So far it's been pretty fun. Emily's started to get back into her art, hence the changes in the house. She'd like to go back to school to learn more along the lines of graphic design, but we haven't worked that out quite yet.

That's a good dose for now. I plan on trying to post once a week, even if it's random thoughts.

I GOT IT!!!

2007-10-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have a new job now! YEA! I will be working at Monster Games starting October 29th. I’m so excited! I’ll be working like 2 miles or so away from my house and working on video games as well. This is so awesome. I’ll have I job I don’t hate in some regard. What a novel idea. I haven’t met everyone there yet, but so far the few people I have met I get along with really well. The pay will be close to what I’m making now; technically it’ll be slightly less, but since they don’t deduct anything from your paycheck for benefits (which I’ll have as well) it’s quite possible that I’ll be bringing in more money than before. Score! It’s like a dream come true.

My position, if I remember correctly, is Assistant Producer. I’ll be helping with the design of game: the sounds, the colors, the game features, the tracks, etc. I’m not sure exactly what my day-to-day activities will be, but I’m sure I’ll pick it up in no time. I bet with my schooling, they’ll let me update their website, because it could use some help. Maybe even their logo. Man, I can’t wait!

New job?!?

2007-09-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

On a lark, and because I’ve started to take as much from my current job as I can, I sent a cover letter and resume to Monster Games. As it turns out, they had a postion open and they asked if I wanted to apply, so I did. I’m very excited about all of this. The position is Assistant Producer/Design Intern. Basically you try to refine all kinds of aspects of the game to make it better (eg. item placement, sound effects, item colors, terrain refinement, etc.) This is like my dream job, ok it’s almost my dream job. My dream job would pay way more and it’d be a higher up position, but the activity is exactly the same. This is too awesome.

Plus, they’re located in Northfield, so I’d get to see Emily every day for lunch at the very least. I could bike to work on nice days. I could run errands before, after, or maybe even during work. They have flexible hours, so they won’t jump down my throat for being 10 minutes late occasionally. Plus I already have a friend working there.

I’ve only had one interview so far, but that went really well. It seemed like their only issue was that the position would be step down on the corporate ladder for me, but I explained to them that was not an issue for me. I’d rather being doing something I enjoy and support but have a lesser position than be management for a company who’s practices clash with my beliefs. Call me crazy.

My only problem is not getting too excited about it all. They’ve haven’t called to schedule a second interview yet, and until they actually offer me the position, I don’t have it. But I can’t help but daydream about working there. Hell, I’ve been daydreaming about working there for at least a year now, and there wasn’t even a position involved then.

Honeymoon Camping Trip

2007-06-22T14:48:00.001-07:00

I’m so excited. Emily and I are about to take off on our Honeymoon camping trip. We’re going to drive from Northfield, MN into Massachusetts. I think we’re spending a week at Myles Standish and then another week at Nickerson State Park. Then we’ll head back to Northfield. I don’t think we have many plans. There are a few places we want to visit, a few places we want to eat at again. If anyone’s in the area, feel free to stop by and say hey. Maybe, with enough notice we can stop along the way.

We’re also a little nervous because we didn’t exactly plan this out or save up it for it the way we wanted. We got hit hard by some unexpected medical bills beforehand. I think we’ll be able to make the most of it though. It won’t be an extravagant outing, but then again most camping trips aren’t.

It doesn’t matter really. It’ll be our first vacation away with just each other. Plus, it’s 2 weeks away from work and house projects and school. A chance to relax, rest, and get an idea for where we’re at and where we want to go. I am so looking forward to this.

OMG It’s Back!

2007-06-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

I had to go in to work this Saturday, which was crappy because 1) it’s work on Saturday and 2) I still need to work on this massive final project for my design class. I went in and brought up Winamp to listen to the mp3’s I have on my computer when I thought, for a lark, I’d try the internet radio stations again. IT WORKED.

EGG RADIO is back on the air. I can’t tell you how excited I was to find out that it was back and that I can still listen to it at work. It’s only up in a beta/test sense, so not all the cool features are back, but that’s fine. I’m just glad to have some nice tunes to listen to while in my cube again.

YEA!

What’s going on with me?

2007-05-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

My first semester at the Art Institutes International in Minneapolis is almost finished. I’ve enjoyed my Design class, as challenging as it is, and my Drawing class has shown me that I can draw, even if it didn’t really teach me all that much. When I get pieces back I’ll try to scan them or photo them and post them up, for you amusement.

Work has been going much, much smoother than it did last year. Maybe it just seems more relaxed because of how hectic it was last year. Maybe the weather has been perfect and provided for an evened out year. Maybe everyone has a better understanding of what to do and how to do it and isn’t running around with their heads cut off. Or maybe it’s a long quiet before a big storm. God, I hope not.

Work on our house has started again. Hopefully we can finish it up before not too long and get the rest of that insurance money. David’s been re-doing the deck, which it sorely needed. After that all that’s left is the gutters, I think.

Emily’s been doing really well with her healing. She’s been able to more things and isn’t in constant pain anymore. She’s even lost some weight. She’s become more frustrated with her job though and we have plans to get her a car. She really wants a Fit, but she’s thinking it might take too long to save up for something like that (can’t really find used Fit’s yet), so she might go another route.

We’re both REALLY excited about our planned road/camping trip to Massachusetts at the end of June. We’ve already reserved camping sites and have some loose plans of what we want to do. We might stop and see some people along the way. It hasn’t really been fleshed out that much. This’ll be our first vacation together.

That’s a quick run through of what’s been going on with us, for those that are interested.

Better than Guitar Hero?

2007-04-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

Have you heard about this? Harmonix is teaming up with MTV and EA to take the concept of Guitar Hero to the next level. The game is called Rock Band and you can team up with up to 4 friends to create a band: drums, bass guitar, lead guitar, and vocals. You all play simultaneously either on one system or online. That’s all I know about the game so far, but I have to say that I’m down right giddy whenever I think about it. Oh, did I happen to mention that the songs will be done by the actual bands, not just covers. On top of that, there are rumors that bands will release new songs through the game. How awesome is that?

You Tube recoginition

2007-03-27T04:37:00.001-07:00

I came across this video one morning and thought nothing of it, until it hit me that this happened at the Gameworks in downtown Minneapolis. I've been there, so I know that the stupid guy must have been hammered.

It's just kinda crazy, you're watching a video and all of sudden it becomes connected to real life. Puts it all in perspective.

Hey, at least we’re moving, right?

2007-02-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like things are moving too fast and, yet, not fast enough as well? Yeah, I’ve been feeling that way. There are all these things I’m doing and all these things I want to do and all these things that need to be done. It can get a little overwhelming.

Emily’s getting better, slowly. We recently started following the Schwarzbein diet(?). I wouldn’t really call it a diet, maybe guidelines for a healthy life. Basically it’s all about 1) eating less carbohydrates and balancing meals with fats, vegetables, protein and carbs, and 2) eating more natural foods, anything you can conceivably pull, pick, milk, or hunt out in nature. Honestly, it’s not that hard to follow, as far as rules and guidelines go, discipline’s another story. We actually did this a few years ago and Emily saw some good results out of it then. It sort of fell by the wayside in the passing years, but now she’s more determined to follow it. I think it’ll be good.

Of course, since we just started following it, Emily’s a little morose. Part of it has to do with the fact that she has more cravings that she needs to control than me (coffee and sugar). I’m not perfect either, but from what I’ve gathered she’s having a more difficult time at it so far than me. She’s still going to see the chiropractor and is making progress there. Oh, she’s also gone off of birth control (NO, we are not trying to have a baby) and painkillers because of Schwarzbein as well. All of this hasn’t helped with depression yet though (it will, after a few months or so). She keeps feeling like she isn’t making any progress or being helpful. I’ll admit, she hasn’t been as helpful as she used to be, and she only feels bad about her progress because I’m running around all over the place. I guess my point is that she’s making progress and that’s what counts. Oh, and if you get a chance, show her some love.

I am currently in a holding pattern, or so it seems. The new boss of Southgate feels that we don’t need 3 managers, but we’re good people so we’re not being fired. Vickie (the general manager) does have to work more, I mean a lot more. She’s now working 5 days or 6 shifts; leaving 3 shifts to split between me and David. Suffice it to say, I’m only working 1 shift now, Sundays 11:30 to 6. This just seemed easiest, plus it’s consistent so that will help with planning and budgeting. My schooling doesn’t start until April and the agricultural business doesn’t pick-up until March. I have this free time now, but I know that it won’t last too long. At least I can get a few more songs done in Guitar Hero, right?

I’ll sleep when I’m retired, maybe.

2007-01-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

As some of you might know, I have a lot on my plate right now and just recently, I’ve had a few more helpings piled on.

In the short term, we’ve decided to throw another Anti-Super Bowl party. I guess that’ll make this our 2nd Annual Anti-Super Bowl Party. Last year’s was a fairly small affair, and there was one attendee who seemed to be unaware that we weren’t going to watch the Super Bowl, but it was fun. This year we seem to have a few more possible guests than last year and so far no one’s confused about whether the game will be on or not. Of course, this means we’ll have to clean the house, which we’ve been doing at a very slow pace. This is partly due to the fact that Emily’s been going to a chiropractor about her back, so she’s in that whole “new pain” stage of recovery. This leaves the cleaning up to me until she can start moving again. Hopefully that’ll be this weekend. I’m sure we’ll pull it off though.

I’ve also begun somewhat of a fitness regimen. At 5:30 in the morning, every day, I get up and go to the gym to workout for a half hour to an hour. It cuts out some of my sleeping time, but it’s the only time I’ve been able to workout. True, this past week I couldn’t get to the gym every day due to my having to start visiting a chiropractor at Emily’s request, but I’m still waking up around 5:30.

In the long term, I recently applied to the Art Institute in Minnesota for a degree in Interactive Media Design. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s all about the design of, well, anything technical, whether it’s websites, or video games, or business software, or even peripherals. The classes all seem interesting and about things I’ve wanted to learn more about. I think this will be a good move in the long run. Plus, IMD majors are in demand right now, ideally allowing me to get a job doing something I like, or at least don’t feel ashamed about.

Of course, this will just eat up the rest of the small amount of free time I have now. I haven’t gone over the numbers yet, but I should be able to quit my job at Southgate (at the very least cut my hours back dramatically). The other problem that needs addressing is transportation. With me taking classes in Minneapolis, it’s not really feasible for us to only have 1 car anymore. I mean, I’m not sure if it’ll actually happen, but I could conceive of a few nights in the future where it would be smarter and just safer for me to crash at Cherish’s instead of driving all the way home, leaving Emily stranded without the use of a car for 2 days. Luckily, we’ve been paying off a lot of our bills, which has freed up some money. I just hope it’s enough. Although, with a fixed back and a car all to herself, Emily at least would have the possibility of getting a job that paid a little better.

Thinking’s an Important Part of Reading

2007-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Everybody gets joke email at work (if you don’t then you must not have any friends). The other day at work I was sent this email:

Weather bulletin; Denver

Hear!...Hear!....Good reading....Are you listening.....NEW ORLEANS.?........Take a lesson from the good citizens of Colorado.

From one of my former comrads who lives in Denver. A great example of the lack of human whining by people who have learned how to handle the weather where they choose to live. WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands, cancelled over 2000 flights which stranded thousands of passengers in the airport.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it

to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many t ravels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

Emails like this just annoy me. Here are some issues I have with this email.

The part where FEMA didn’t help, I don’t think that’s a good thing, especially if you’re going to compare it to Katrina. Shouldn’t the government help when a catastrophe happens?
I’m pretty sure that the news did report on the blizzard. They might not have been as extensive as the Katrina reports, but that’s probably because it was as a big of a catastrophe. Also probably why there wasn’t a big celebrity outcry.
So no one looted. How are they supposed to loot when the snow has effectively barricade everybody?
Great, you melted the snow and drank it, not exactly the same as distilling raw sewage into drinking water though.
Pulling people out of snowbanks and asking for no money, weren’t there people boating around New Orleans, pulling people off their roof for no money?
Stuck in a house surround by snow is no picnic, but I’d prefer that over being surrounded by toxic water with no house or protection from the wind or sun. Must also be nice to have kitchens that don’t require scuba gear to use so that you can provide food for local families in need.
Oh yeah, and people did know that a category 5 hurricane was coming, it was just decided to be too costly to prepare for such a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, the Denver Christmas Blizzard of 2006 was horrible and many people were put through hardships and some even died because of it. It just wasn’t as bad as Katrina. Hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands of people lost their homes, across numerous states. The lasting effects are still being felt. Denver, however, is up and running again, especially when you compare it to the condition New Orleans.

Just don’t compare the two, especially when you’re trying to push your anti-entitlement agenda off on people. Sometimes, through no fault of their own, people need help. They’re not lazy, or greedy, or spoiled, or anything like that. They’re just in need of help. Either give them a helping hand or don’t, but don’t try to act righteous for not helping them.

What happened?

2007-01-10T07:19:00.001-08:00

It’s been a while, so let me get you up to date. Christmas was good. We spent a little more then we should have, but not more than we could afford, which is good for us. We like to get people gifts. For Christmas/Birthday I gave Emily 26 days of presents, a present for each letter of the alphabet.
Apple Wine
BT Macenworth chocolates
Chartreuse liquor
Dryer balls (she wanted them)
Eiffel Tower lamp
Fancy pen (quite the stretch I know)
Godiva 2007 tin
Hangers (of the wooden variety)
Iron skillet (and coincidentally Internet)
Jewelry case
Knife (a quality paring one)
Lane Bryant clothes
Massager (handheld kind)
Northfield Arts Guild ceramic studio card
Origins ginger relaxation kit
Pillow (a full body one)
Queen size quilt
Robe
Silicon Strainer (folds up for storage)
T-shirts (Mossimo from Target, her favorites)
Utne subscription
Vest (fleece)
Wall clock (a really big one at that)
X-Men graphic novels (the 2 by Joss Whedon)
Yellow Jar: A collection of Japanese folk tales
Zen (Creative Zen mp3 player)
I started on Dec.3 and ended on Dec. 28 (her birthday). I think it was big hit.

We rearranged the bedroom and organized our clothes, eliminating another couple of bags worth. Oh Emily got me this sweet flat screen TV that we put in the bedroom, we got cable install there and I can now convince Emily to go to bed around 9 (since she can watch TV down there). We had some friends over (Salwa, Erica, David, and Hannah) during the holidays. I broke a shelf on our book case while rocking out to Guitar Hero 2, superstar style. Oh, and New Years, which we were promptly in bed by 11. We watched the countdown on the new TV. We were a little sad that we didn’t get our Conan O’Brien Midwest Countdown though. Maybe next year.
Happy Holidays and all that jazz.

Chips Ahoy!

2006-12-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

Our first Chip Party was a success last night. We ordered a party pack of Kettle Chips experimental flavors and invited people over to try them. There were little voting cards and every one tried the 5 different flavors and rated from a scale of 1 to 5. People brought over a few things as well. There was a 4-pack of Guinness, a bottle of wine, and some stir-fry, so we weren’t just pigging out on chips all night. Not that the chips weren’t enjoyed.

While everyone enjoyed the chips, there was no big favorite flavor standing out above them all. My favorites were the Royal Indian Curry and the Island Jerk, but I thought that the Twisted Chili Lime was one of the better chili lime chips I’ve had. It just wasn’t unique enough for me to appreciate it as much as the others. The Dragon 5 Spice had some potential, but didn’t quite meet it. It was like the flavors cancelled either out. The Aztec Chocolate scored the lowest out of all of them. I think it’s because it wasn’t really flavorful enough, it wasn’t a spicy mole chocolate but it wasn’t a sweet chocolate either.

If we do this again next year, which I think we might, we’ll have to start the festivities earlier than 9:00 I think. Hopefully this will help start up game night again.

Crunch. Crunch. Mmmmm, that was tasty.

Crazy Coincidence

2006-11-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Last night Emily and I were flipping through channels and came across NOVA. They had a special about a family that had four members that walked around on all fours. They didn’t crawl like babies do, but “walked” bent over, using the bottom of their feet and their palms to get around. The scientific interest in them is that some believe they can help lead to a discovery of the gene that enables us to walk upright, and possibly the gene that increases our intelligence and allows for language. It went on to explain that all animals have the same set of genes. It’s the difference between which ones are active and which ones are dormant that make up all of the differences seen in the animal kingdom.

What’s really interesting is I’m currently reading the Uplift series by David Brin. These books take place in the future when humans have made contact with other alien species, and apparently there’s been a multi-billion year practice of one highly advanced species “uplifting” a much less advanced species to the same level. Of course the newly advanced species will have to repay this honor through a few million years of indentured service. Anyways, humans had uplifted chimpanzees and dolphins by the time contact was made and saved us from being “uplifted” ourselves. The whole point of this, is that right now, we are at the beginning of the process. We’re taking the first tiny steps towards being able to genetically modify a species, enabling them to speak and have higher thought processes. I love it when science and science fiction begin to meet.

Talking animals?! But who will listen?

Oh Happy Days

2006-11-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

Things have been looking up for me recently. On the home front, things are slowly being cleaned and organized. We finally got our settlement check from my grandfather’s inheritance. With it, we’re able to pay off the remaining balances on our credit card debts. That’s huge! You have no idea how relieved and excited we are about this. Well, maybe you do. We can finally start saving up for things and making plans. We’ve even started to loosen our belts a little (in a financially regards). It’s great!

In the country, Democrats take back not only the House of Representatives (229 to 196) but the Senate as well (49 to 48). As if that weren’t enough, we finally get our first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. How ridiculous is that? Other countries have had women Presidents by now, Presidents. All of this couldn’t have been done (or maybe more appropriate, wouldn’t have been done) if it weren’t for Howard Dean’s 50-State Strategy. It consisted of fighting for every election in the US, not just the one’s that looked winnable. It’s reminiscent of Angel’s last season, but with a much happier outcome.

In the world, not sure if you heard about this, but it looks like Donald Rumsfeld (who was finally resigned, yea!) is being charged with war crimes by Germany. That’s right, Germany is charging him with war crimes.

To top it all off, I got my Guitar Hero 2 pre-order in with the red guitar controller and guitar carrying case.

Ah, life sure can be sweet.

Short stories done in six words

2006-10-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

In the new issue of Wired, they did a small article on short stories, six words short. Apparently this was all spawned by something Ernest Hemingway wrote: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. They said he called this one of his best works. I’ll admit, it’s very good. Anyways, Wired then had some other notable creatives from TV, books, and such take a stab at 6 word stories. I thought it’d be to try my hand at it. Here’s a few that I came up with:

Oh God, I’m pregnant! By whom? (I modified the punch line to a joke I got at work).
Red rockets in flight, afternoon delight. (Ok, I didn’t come up with this one, but when it clicked in my head that this was 6 words I was very excited.)
Susan, look out behind you before . . .
Whispering willows wave to the wind.
I hope she hears me out.
Maybe the cannibals are just friendly.
Where’s Chris? Was he left behind?
Ka-boom! Then there was only silence.

Sure, it may not be Hemingway. But it sure can be fun.

Stupid Entropy

2006-10-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

I’m not complaining, not in the least, but we got quite a bit of stuff from our wedding. There were the gifts, obviously, but also clothes for the ceremony and reception, as well as all the decorations and settings and platters and whatever else was bought for the reception. We’ve been spending most of our tie trying to clean and organize the house, with an emphasis on organizing. So far our efforts have been concentrated n the upstairs (the living room/dining room/kitchen space). I think we’re progressing fairly well.

We gave the fridge a much need cleaning out: tossing out old foods and items we’ve never touched and have no plans to ever do so. We even gave it a decent sponge bath. We’ve put away all of our gifts and taken away all the appliances they replaced to make room. Slowly but surely things are starting to come together. Unfortunately that’s the thing that’s driving Emily, my wife (it still seems a little weird saying that), crazy.
She wanted to take a week off right after the weeding so that we could spend some time together and get the house straightened out. I didn’t know all of this at the time and thought that it’d be better for me to safe my vacation time for when we had plans (I didn’t know f her plans at the time). In hindsight, I should’ve taken the week off, but by the time I realized this Emily’s schedule was already finished, which would make her trying to get the week off incredibly hard. I think we both still feel ragged and could really use a chance to just recuperate. We plan to take that week between Christmas and New Year’s off. But with those two holidays and Emily’s Birthday in between them, I don’t know how restful it’ll be. Maybe we’ll some how arrange to take a week off before then.

Wedded Bliss

2006-10-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

The big day came and went. Man was it hectic, especially the day before and that day. That day before, there was so much running around, decorating, purchasing and setting-up. It was crazy. I just want to give a BIG thanks to everyone who helped and contributed to it all, especially Cherish, who planned and organized most of it.

The rehearsal dinner was fabulous. It was so good. Everybody was impressed with how delicious the food was. Coming from a family of foodies, that’s something. Unfortunately, Emily had a toothache earlier that day and had a quick dentist visit beforehand. She was able to join us in the dinner, but I think mixture of all the food, wine and novocaine didn’t agree with her and she got a little sick afterwards.

The ceremony was simple, short, and touching. The day couldn’t have been better. It was cool, sunny and the leaves were starting to change but hadn’t fallen yet. Emily was gorgeous and I’ve been told wasn’t too hard on the eyes as well. Pastor Judy’s ceremony was very in keeping with our values. It was very lovely.

The reception was a blast. We kept it very mellow and inviting. Dim lighting, candles everywhere. There was great food. The Golden Johnny Whiskey-seed seemed to be a big hit. The DJ kept the music playing all night and was tuned in pretty well to the dance floor. Of course it took a little time and a few drinks before people started dancing, but once it got going I think it went very well. It was great seeing so many friends and family.
I know that what you all really want to see are pictures of the whole thing. Well, here’s what I’ve collected so far. (Will be posting them onto flickr when I get a chance).

Crazy, Crazy

2006-09-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, it’s almost time. A lot of what’s need is done (for example we both have clothes that fit). All that’s left are details really (for example we’re still ironing out the jewelry). Although I guess that depends on your concept of details.

We’ve got a photographer arranged now. Our neighbor Yumi is going to do it as a gift for us. She’s a professional and has done this before, so yea! We also worked out the ceremony plans. Pastor Judy is going to do it for us. Her beliefs coincide with ours so the ceremony works well for us. Plus she’s done a few these before, so no problem there. We still need to work-out our vows and write-up and print out programs. Like I said, details.

The food is being taken care of. We finalized the menu and worked out a cooking schedule. Luigi is looking for any volunteers to help with the preparation and cooking Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if anyone’s interested. We’re also going to need some volunteers to help set-up decorations. I think we’re decorating the reception space on Friday and the Ceremony will be done Saturday morning. We do have decorating materials now, yards of fabric, neat little table decorations, candles and candle holders. I think its going to turn out great.
Other than that we’ve been trying to get the house clean. You think that since we’ve hardly been home that much that it would’ve stayed fairly clean. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We’re hoping to get all of that done before people start showing up wanting to look around the house. I think we can do it, it’ll be tough but it think we’ll get it done.

Things Are Starting to Come Together

2006-09-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

As the time draws near, things seem to be falling into place. This past weekend we picked up Emily’s undergarments and another shawl. We also retrieved her new glasses. While we were out, we purchased her shoes as well. These shoes are awesome. We’re both very excited about them. Her family also took her to get alterations done on her dress (which’ll end up costing almost half of what her dress cost them). Then we got some wedding rings. Nothing fancy or expensive, but they’ll do what they need to do and if we lose them (which I hear happens quite often for those first rings), we won’t be so distraught over it. We also returned 2 shawls that didn’t work while we were out. Yes, Emily let go of some shawls, bringing the grand total to 2 with material to make a third.

I’m picking up chairs this week. We’re also meeting with our officiator this week as well. We’re going to go over the ceremony and work out what we’re going to do and how and all. We found out about this a rental place here in Northfield, where we might rent all of the glasses and silverware and such. Though, that’ll be a lot of cleaning afterwards. We’re not sure if that’s how we want to go yet. I dropped off a bag of CDs for our DJ, so he has some music that we like and can get a feel for our tastes (which ranges from Hip Hop to Caribbean to Classic Rock to Hard Rock to Crooner to Alternative). I haven’t actually gotten a chance to talk to him yet, though.

We still need to work on decorations for the 2 events. Plus, I’m still not sure about the cake issue, though I won’t be surprised if Emily’s mom shows up with one. She’s been somewhat obsessed about it. Oh and there’s the photography issue as well. It might be nice to have photos of the event.

Only 10 days left.

My God That Was Good

2006-09-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, we went to Fermentations in Dundas to talk with the chef/owners of the restaurant about having a rehearsal dinner there. They brought out all kinds of samples. I think there were only 3 things from the menu that we didn’t sample. Their menu’s not huge, but it was still a lot of food. Plus, they served us 10 glasses of wine, each glass of wine from a different bottle. This place is fabulous. I don’t know why we waited so long to go. The food was just exquisite. None of the wines we had were bad. Some we preferred over others, but we would have gladly had any of them. We spent quite a bit of tie just talking to chefs about plans and our opinions on the food and wines. It was so fun sitting there discussing food with other foodies. We’re definitely going there again, even if it means we don’t eat anywhere else all month just to save up for it.
We were able to work out a menu for the evening. I should clarify; we were able to come up with some ideas for the menu. We still haven’t figured out the entrée (narrowed it down to 6 options) or the dessert situation. This weekend we plan to hash it all out. Oh, and the best part was that when asked if we owed them anything for all the samples, they told us no.

Wowza!

2006-09-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Been keeping busy as always. Melanie. Emily’s sister took us out to get Emily some new eyeglasses. Which is a big deal since she hasn’t gotten new glasses since she began college, some eight years ago. Then we looked for fabric for her shawl (in case the other 3 we have didn’t work). After that she ended up staying at her sister’s because I was late for a party.

Some (5) friends of mine threw me a Bachelor Party. It was pretty crazy. First off, these friends of mine are all women and not exactly the shyest people. We had some pizza before we headed off to the bar. They dressed me in a dare shirt (shirt had all kinds of dares for people to do) and they themselves wore black “clever” shirts (like Mountain Dew Me). They handed me my date, a tame blow-up doll (she wasn’t naked and had no holes, but was some what articulate) who we named Lola. We went to Bogart’s where we saw Paragon play. They’re a cover band who does 80’s, 90’s, and recent hits. The singer was sporting a Thundercats shirt, so I had a god feeling about them. They were a decent, fun band. They even played a Metallica song (!!!!), and fairly well (from what I could tell). I had had a few drinks by then. I believe that the final total was 5 shots of coconut run, 3 glasses of Honeyweis, 2 Car bombs, 1 Jager bomb, and a 3 wisemen. Oh, wait, I forgot the Screwdriver at the end of the night (with 2 Advils and an orange juice chaser). I didn’t puke once that night, and I felt fairly well that morning. I was a little tired and sore. That was due to most of the dancing I did. I can’t recall how many women I danced with, but it was damn fun. For one song I would be dancing with someone and soon after someone else would cut in and then someone else. It was awesome. One of the most fun nights of my life.

We’ve been getting RSVPs back from people. It’s getting very exciting as we’re finding out who’s going to be attending. Believe it or not, we’re still trying to get invitations out to other people. They all already know about the wedding and have been informally invited. Emily would just like to formally invite them. Problem is we ran out of the materials to make more cards and we don’t really have the time or money to get more, so we’ve resorted to getting decent copies made. Emily’s having issues with it all. She feels bad about handing a sub-par invitation to someone, so we went shopping Wednesday night to get some materials to make them acceptable. We’ll see how that goes.

Speaking of acceptable, Emily tried on her dress, to compare shawls, and found out it was the wrong size. Her dress was supposed to be a size 18 but they gave her a size 20. (Actually they gave her mom and sister the dress, which is why Emily didn’t try it on before it was bought.) They’re getting it altered this weekend. Not knowing much about dresses or sewing, I have no idea how hard or costly that’ll be.

A few things we have finished: We have chairs for the ceremony and reception reserved. We have the violinists set-up to play at the ceremony (provided the weather is nice enough). The rehearsal dinner is basically done, just a few details that need hammering out. A shawl was chosen, even though we bought some fabric online for a shawl. Either way, she’ll have a shawl she can wear.

A few things we’re still working on: Rings (looked at some, but haven’t decided or purchased yet), reception music (a friend is asking her brother if he can DJ or maybe provide speakers, then there’s picking out music), Ceremony and officiant (we’re talking to a friend’s mother about doing it), Photographer (we have someone volunteering, we just haven’t worked out details yet), Decorations (not really my department, Cherish is working on that), and Helpers (we need people to help set-up chairs, take down chairs, set-up decorations, etc.).

Oh, we’re still waiting to hear about the insurance claim on the house.

Yes, Another Update

2006-09-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

My mom came down for Labor Day weekend. That went pretty well. We went to the State Fair, which was fun. Then on Sunday we did some wedding shopping. I now have a suit for the wedding, Emily has the bottom half to her reception outfit and a couple of possible shawls, I’m pretty sure my mom has a dress as well now. At the very least she has an idea for a dress. Oh, she also bought us some household items/wedding presents. That was enjoyable. Monday we spent at home. Mom helped clean the house up some, which drove Emily crazy. We also have a possible rehearsal dinner location. I’m looking into that.

We still need to get rings, I might need shoes (we haven’t checked to see if the ones I have are acceptable), Emily needs shoes, a brooch, and she’s still on the hunt for shawls. She also is looking for new glasses.

Last night we talked to our friend Luigi about food for the reception. We came up with a list/menu of foods and drinks to be served. We like it and have something of a plan for it now. We think that the food will cost about $500 and the drinks around $200. Where the money’ll come from, we’re still working on that.

We got the majority of invitations out now. We’re making the last few to give to local peeps here. There’s a handful that still need mailing, but we need addresses for those. I’d again like to reiterate that if you are able to make it, then please do.

Our original plan for the ceremony fell through, so we’re looking at other options. That’s not nerve wracking. We still are unsure of the Wedding Cake Situation. Emily’s mom really wants to make one for us, but we’re very nervous about it. One of Emily’s co-workers is making a Scandinavian ring cake, which’ll be nice. Emily really wants a fancy wedding cake. It’s like the only thing she cares about for the wedding. Unfortunately the wedding is in 22 days and we haven’t really done any shopping for one, plus, they’re expensive. I feel bad about it, but I don’t really know what do. The wedding’s taxing us financially, what with the eating out more because of all the shopping and running around. It’s very upsetting.

This thing seems to keep growing, especially when you consider that all we were really planning on doing was seeing a Justice of the Peace and maybe having a small dinner with our immediate family. If it wasn’t for the reaction from our friends and family (All of whom seem to be really excited about this. Hell, we’ve got some friends saying they’ll be here who we never expected to make it; we only sent an invitation in the hopes that they’d send a gift.) we’d have cancelled this thing. But, we feel obligated to carry through with this (somehow) now that some many people are involved.

Show must go on, or something like that, eh?

30 Days to Go

2006-09-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

Talk about busy. We cleaned up our yard (mostly) with the help of Emily’s parents. We filled 2 trash bags of broken material (siding, tables, dishes, lights, etc.) and 18 bags of tree branches and leaves. We still have some large piles of leaves and branches to bag up, but the majority of it has been picked up. We still need to take them to the dump though.

Last Thursday our insurance agent came by and looked the house over. From what I’ve heard, he was way better and much more amicable then what my neighbors got. He recommended that all of our siding get replaced, deck get painted, roof on the house replaced, shed get painted and re-roofed, garage door get replaced, lights replaced and included all of our things we had outside. Our neighbors said their agent was suggesting that they only replace the parts of siding that are damaged, which might save on materials but would probably increase labor costs. Part of it might be that a lot of people in Northfield have the same insurance company where as we have USAA, which is more national. He still needs to send it in to the office and they come up with the final numbers, but the process is off to a good start at least.

We’ve also finalized the invitations and gotten the first batch into the mail. We still need to address quite a few of them and mail those off. Oh, we also created a wedding website on The Knot. It’s really not that fancy or amazing, but it’s got our information out there. We’ve started working out the menu for the reception. My grandmother is going to officiate the wedding, and we’re working out the ceremony details with her. The location is reserved and some decorations have been planned and purchased (colors are blue and orange; though I’m sure there are fancier names I should be calling them). Registries are pretty done. Emily still waiting to get her gown purchased, it’s been picked out, just not bought. Then she’ll be better able to pick out jewelry, hair, shawl, and other accessories. We still haven’t picked out a suit for me yet. Oh, we’ve picked out reception music, somewhat. The plans are to hook up an ipod to a decent sound system for the reception. I think that’s it. I know there’s more we need to do, but I can’t remember right now.

My mom’s coming up for the weekend; should be good. The plans are to go to the Great Minnesota Get Together on Saturday; could be fun, if it doesn’t rain too badly. I think we might work on wedding stuff Sunday, or just hang out. Not really sure, we haven’t planned that out yet. Oh well.

Ah, one more thing to add. Last month was year end at Agriliance, so it was a mad house. Everyone was trying to get all of those projects they’ve been putting off done as well as stuff as many sales as they could before the books closed. We’ve been switching over to a new system, so the numbers weren’t as good as they usually were and management was worried about their bonuses (we were too). From what I hear, it went very well. I’ll be excited to find out about this bonus people talk about.

I need a nap.

Gifts!!

2006-08-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

We've got a registry started now. We have 2 actually. One at Target and one at Amazon. So shop away. We don't expect most of this to be purchased, but every little bit helps right?

We've been working on the wedding more. Got the invitations pretty much made. They should getting mailed by the end of the week. At least the one's we have addresses to.

Last Thursday a huge hail storm came by, followed by a thunderstorm (that produced a tornado 30 miles south of us). We're ok but the exterior of the house got torn up. Our patio furniture is destroyed and all of the siding needs replacing. We also had 2 windows busted. An insurance agent is scheduled to look at it this Thursday, so we'll know more then about how to get this all replaced.

It's Getting There

2006-08-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I played a pick-up game of Ultimate. I had no idea I was that out of shape. I mean, I knew I was out of shape, but I thought it was my usual out-of shapedness. The I’m-not-at-my-top-performance-level kind, not the can-barely-breathe-after-one-round kind. I was sore for like 2 days. I’ve really got to start moving around more.

Wedding plans so far are still progressing. Emily went shopping for some apparel. I believe she plans on changing her outfit mid-way through the reception. Invitations are coming along, though not as fast as hoped. Oh, we’ve come to realize how dependent we are upon the internet/email. We don’t (at least we didn’t until now) even have an address book, let alone mailing addresses. Any address provided would be helpful. We’ve been able to collect some we’ve found from slips of paper around the house and with the help of others. If you have an address we could use (yours or someone we know’s) please send it to me. Thanks.

We have reserved our wedding locations and started to formulate plans as far as procession, ceremony, decorations, and such. We’ve decided to provide wine at the reception, so it’s not quite BYOB, but more like BYOBOW (Bottle of Wine). Though I don’t think it will be needed really. Also, in that vein, while we do have some younger cousins and all, we think it might be more appropriate if younglings don’t stick around for the whole time. That’s still being worked out, but just thought I’d throw that out there.

Oh, we learned that the reception space will hold more than we originally calculated, so more people can come. We were originally thinking only 50 people, but now we’ve been told closer to 100. I feel if anyone’s willing to make the trip out here on such short notice, they deserve to be included. I don’t really think there’ll be such a flood of people that we won’t be able to handle it. So there you have it, an open invitation to whoever can come.

Turtle Like

2006-08-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Our plans for last weekend were originally to go up north, camp, and watch the meteor showers. When we discovered the we were too poor, we had to make some adjustments. We decided to stay home and get a few projects done. We were hoping to start and finish the porch, however the farthest we got was buying the paint. The house did get a little cleaner as well as the lawn. Due to the ambush staged by Emily's mom and sister (Michelle), Emily has now picked out a wedding a dress. I haven't seen it, but she did draw me a picture of it, and I think it'll look good (of course it will, Emily has a knack for picking out clothes). The invitations got pushed back another week, but the calls all pretty uch down, so I'm not too worried about those.

We did spend Monday in the cities, that was nice. We went to see Body Worlds, which was intriguing. If not for the exhibits, then for the crowd itself at least. I had no idea that so many people go through their lives oblivious to what goes on inside them. We overheard ne person talk about how she never knew before what her surgery was all about. If I was getting major surgery done, I would want the surgeon to explain what's going to be done and why. At the very least so I know that the doctor knows what's going on. Then there was lunch at Green Mill, which I thought I had a gift card for, but turns out it expired/was empty. We also ran into Sarah at Half-Price Books. The seeds for the return of game night were planted in that meeting, very exciting.

We do plan to have a regisrty for the wedding. We've got a few places in mind (Target, Home Depot, Amazon, etc). We wanted to have one at Ikea, but they don't do that sort of thing there, however Ikea gift cards are always appreciated. At some point we'll figure which store(s) we want and go shopping/selecting there.

It figures

2006-08-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

So progress on the wedding is slow going. We didn't get as much done as we would like last week. We are still working on the official invitations, but in order to give people time to prepare, I have started calling family and friends to let them know ahead of time. I've only just started and can only call those I have numbers to. Plus we know how much I love to talk on the phone.

Emily is going out with Cherish and her Mom to try on wedding dresses Thursday. I guess a family friend of theirs is an excellent seamstress, so they're picking out designs that they like and sending those and Em's measurements. Then when she comes to the wedding, voila!, a fabulous dress.

This weekend we have plans to strip and paint the deck, as well as continue cleaning and seriously working on making those invitations. (We had both originally taken time off of our work to go camping at the North Shore and see the meteor showers, but those plans fell through).

Oh, and one of my "worker bees" (Hannah) at Southgate Cinema is going to St Olaf for a music degree and is an excellent violin player. She has volunteered her services for the occasion. (She has informed me that since the ceremony is planned to be outside there have to be fairly specific weather conditions for her to play outside.)

Oh, while I'm thinking about it. As of now the wedding is BYOB. There will probably be a few bottles of wine/champagne offered, but not enough for the likings of some of our friends. So plan accordingly.

Holy Moly!

2006-07-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in a long while, but it's hard to write up a post when you have no immediate access to the internet. That's going to have to change and soon.

But what I really want to say, to whoever still happens to peruse this site, is that Emily and I are getting married (yeah, yeah heard it before). The wedding date is September 30, 2006 come hell or high water. Right now the plans are for it to be held in Northfield, MN. This week we're working on fixing up the house a little more (no, the wedding will not be held there but I'm sure people will want to see it and we might even be providing a few people places to sleep) as well as making invitations that we will be mailing out the end of this week. (See, it must be serious if we're mailing out invitations). The plan (so far) is that the ceremony will be outside so whoever wants can see it, but the reception will be inside and somewhat small due to the space we're being given. It's looking like maybe 60 people. If you don't get an invite, don't feel bad, we just have limited space right now. Any gifts, donations, and well-wishes are appreciated.

I'll keep this updated per week until we either 1) get married and/or 2) get internet back (in this case I'll probably update more often and Emily probably will too).

Firefly 2?

2006-01-23T13:01:00.000-08:00

Is it even possible? I don't know if it is, but it's nice to dream.

There's a survey asking people if they would contribute to a viewer-funded TV show season. Episodes would be available for download or by mail or by pay-per-view. Honestly, I don't think it would be possible to make a new Firefly season through such means. It requires too many special effects and the actors aren't as small time as they once were. I mean, that's a lot of contributions that would have to be made. Plus, you'd have to collect quite a bit of it beforehand, with really no guarantee of getting a show out of it. Then there's the piracy issue; how much would the average joe be willing to pay to download an episode if they can just get it for free elsewhere?

It certainly does raise questions about the future of television shows. I'm not saying it isn't possible to produce any show in such a way. Get a small comedy or drama that can be filmed on a couple of cameras, with mostly no-names. It'd probably be fiscally feasible then. Of course, you wouldn't have as much up-front support that way. Still, it's interesting to think of television production as a publicly controlled enterprise.

I still signed-up, of course. Just in case. ;)

Shirts for Rollers

2005-12-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

Look! Official T-shirts for Katamari Damacy. They're pretty cool, too. If only I wore t-shirts on more than one day out of the week.

No tree?

2005-12-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

I think this strip from Player vs Player explains why we don't have a Christmas tree. I can just see Tricksy thinking this.

Gifts

2005-11-28T12:52:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving went well for us here in MN. The turkey turned out well, the fixings were enjoyed and the cleaning was as mountainous as one would expect. Hopefully next year, Emily and I will be in better positions to prepare for the festivities sometime before hand, instead of running around the days before trying to keep up with our schedules. Then we'll get to spend a little more time with family and a little less time in the kitchen.

With Thanksgiving over, that can only mean that Christmas is on it's way. I hope none of you are expecting large gifts from Em and me, as much as we would love to give them. But, f you're looking for some ideas, I can make a few suggestions. I'm not sure about Emily, but I have a few wish lists out there, my favorite (and thus most updated) being this one. Honestly, we'd appreciate money (to pay bills) if nothing else. While you're at it, go ahead and pick up a gift for Child's Play as well.

A little out of tune

2005-11-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since Sarah nudged my nectarines, but better late than never right?

Here's the deal: List ten songs you currently are obsessing over -- any genre, any format, etc. If you have a blog, do it there; if you don't, do it here. Then tag five people or so. Here are my songs, in no particular order:

Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc.
Beck: Girl
Foo Fighters: Best of You
Weezer: Hash Pipe
Kaiser Chiefs: Oh My God
The Pietasters: Maggie Mae
XTC: Dear God
Strong Bad: The System is Down
Black Eyed Peas: My Humps
Spiderbait: Black Betty

I'll tag Gen, Blake, Emily (oh, double tag), Clint Page, and Erica Ness. What the heck, I'll tag Chris Clark and Carrie too while I'm at it.

Would you like to play a game?

2005-11-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Looking for a little diversion? You could go play some of Orbitz's advertisement games or you could try the new Grow game. Then there's always the addictive yet slightly theraputic games over at Orisinal. Just thought I'd let you in on a little variety, if you're getting tired of Popcap and Yahoo.

JT vs. PA

2005-10-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but it’s hilarious. After a few modders and small game developers went through on Jack’s proposal, Jack deemed the proposition as satire and being as such he’s not obligated to come up with the $10,000 charity donation. The creators of Penny Arcade thought that this was a pretty shitty thing to do to a charity, and so made the donation themselves on behalf of Jack Thompson. He took this as an attack on his character (which it was, but not an undeserving one) and is now trying (rather unsuccessfully) to get them arrested. He should just stop before he makes it any worse. He’s not helping his cause, at least not from my vantage point. The gamers are being calm-headed and giving. Jack’s acting like a madman on a vendetta. Which do you see as being more aggressive?

See Jack's hypocrisy

2005-10-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

This article is too funny. It appears that Jack Thompson is losing what little support he insinuated he had. This is the guy who’s so upset with the “violent” video game industry that he proposed that he’ll donate $10,000 to charity if someone makes, markets, and sells a game about a father so distraught over the death of his son that he goes on a massive killing spree, taking out anything and anyone related to video games. I guess this is the sort of game Jack thinks should be made, not one that promotes cooperation, understanding, and non-violent means of problem solving, but ironic gore-fests.

So many comics, so little time (and money)

2005-10-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

The list is complete. IGN Comics has been working on The Ultimate Bookshelf [of graphic novels] for the past few weeks. They’ve gone through all the books that are out there (and some that aren’t yet or aren’t anymore) and listed in alphabetical order which books they would love to have sitting on their bookshelf. I was excited to know that not only have I heard of quite a few of them, but I own some of them, too. The list spans all eras of comics as well as all genres. I thought it was great a list and introduced me to some interesting books I never heard of, as well as explained a few I had seen/heard of but knew nothing about. If you like comics, you should definitely peruse what they have. And if you like me, then you’ll send me a book or 2 from the list.

Wooooooo*2

2005-10-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

Wow, what an awesome couple of days it’s been. Sunday we went to the Foo Fighters – Weezer concert and last night we went and saw Serenity. I don’t think it gets any better than that.

The concert was amazing. The opening band was the Kaiser Chiefs, not exactly a sad start to things. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re like a mix of punk/alternative UK bands (Sex Pistols, Bowie, The Who, etc.). Their big single right now is “Oh My God,” you’d probably recognize it if you heard it. They gave a good performance and kicked the night off to a great start. Afterwards Weezer played, who rocked the house like they always do. I have to admit that I wasn’t such a big fan of their new stuff, until I heard it at the concert. They are definitely concert songs that lose a little something when not being sung by a throng of enthusiastic concert-goers. Some of the highlights from the Weezer portion include: the playing of a short portion of Song 2 by Blur, the lit-up Weezer W, the playing of a Foo Fighters song, the selection of a random concert-goer to get up on stage and play guitar with the band (he wasn’t great but at least it looked like he had played the guitar a few times before) after which they let him keep the guitar, the Weezer confetti, and of course Rivers’ mocking of Cherish (she screamed “Wooooo” in a quiet auditorium, to which he replied “wooooo, that was good.” Rumor has it that her life is validated now). After a small break, it was time for the Foo Fighters to take the stage. These guys are the physical manifestation of rock. They just started playing and hardly ever let up. The amount of energy and excitement they create is unbelievable. I was blown away. They are definitely one of the best concerts I’ve been to. Some highlights from their portion: the highflying crowd surfers, Grohl’s run through the crowd and subsequent thanks for not being molested, the switch between Grohl and Hawkins so Hawkins was the lead singer and Grohl the drummer, the color palette choices and lighting effects for most of the songs, and the shout-out to Cannon Falls. Oh, and the thing that made the concert just that much better: it was free. Cherish won tickets for box seating from her work and so gave us the tickets she had bought beforehand. How awesome is that?

Speaking of awesome, go see Serenity. I’m serious. Go now, stop reading and just go to the next showing. This has to be one of my all time favorite movies. I’ll even go so far as to say that it’s my favorite movie. This movie is just incredible. I don’t know if it’s because there’s been a recent lack of decent movies out there or what, but it just stands out in my mind. Let me try to explain how much I like this movie. After we went and saw it last night I was actually reaching for my wallet to buy another ticket before I realized that we had just seen the last showing for that night. I’ll admit that I have on occasion seen a movie more than once at a movie theater, but usually it’s because it’s due more to social causes than anything else (i.e. with friends who haven’t seen it yet). I’ve never understood the people who plan a whole day around seeing a single movie (i.e. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.) over and over again. But this movie, I’m dying to see again. It’s like watching it only increased my desire to see it. Joss is amazing at creating wonderful worlds with believable characters, how can you not help but follow him. I’m not the only one who thinks this movie is great, if you need a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh opinion (the first one by Orson Scott Card basically says everything I want to say in the way I want to say it). If nothing else just go so I’ll stop nagging.

Who's Bad?

2005-09-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

The next villains (yes, that’s plural) to star in Spiderman 3, according to a slip of the tongue by Kirsten Dunce, are Sandman and Venom. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of these villains, but do we really need 2? Didn’t we learn anything from the Batman franchise? Two villains means two origin back stories crammed into one film, which gives less time for exposition, character development, and conflict. Maybe they’ll devise some story that combines the creation of the two, which doesn’t really do justice to either of them. Speaking of which, I know they won’t do the real origin of Venom but most probably some variation on the Ultimate Spiderman explanation. That’s understandable, but Venom himself would make a great movie, I think adding Sandman into the mix will just make it too “busy.” It’s not like they’re running out of time (if the want to keep using Tobey Maguire then I guess they are). There are talks of a deal to do 3 more movies after this one, THREE. Do they really need to pack in the villains?

Oh, and for those of you wondering, she also leaked who would be taking on the roles as well. Thomas Haden Church (of Ned and Stacey) will be playing Sandman. I have no problem with this. I think he will do a good job with the role. He has a knack for playing characters seriously with a light hearted touch. Plus he already has the looks for the part. Venom will be played by none other than Topher Grace. That’s right; Foreman from That 70’s Show will become that strong, slobbering, spleen-eating psychopath we’ve come to love. I just don’t see. It’s going to take some massive costuming and special effects just to make him look Venom, but that’s not going to help with his acting. I like Topher, ok let’s be honest, I don’t mind Topher, but I really don’t think he has it in him to become Venom. I just don’t see him being sinister or maniacal, maybe he’ll prove me wrong. The movies have been good so far, I’ll just have to trust that Raimi knows what he’s doing.

While we’re on the subject of comic book/movie villains, there are rumors that the next Batman villain will be none other than the Clown Prince of Crime. And while I do enjoy Burton’s take on Batman, Nicholson’s Joker just never really satisfied me. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle the Joker. I think they’ll do a good job. Oh, Lachy Hulme, Paul Bettany, and Sean Penn are rumored to be up for the part. Honestly, I think Bettany has the best chance, if they are actually seriously considering any of these people.

You say you want a Revolution . . .

2005-09-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

The news has been broken, and I’m sure most gamers have already read about it from any number of sources. I’m very excited about what I’ve read. I know some might have misgivings about it, but I think it’s just uncertainity about new things. I’m going to agree with Nintendo on this one. I think this will be a revolution (of sorts). At the very least, it will certainly cause people to rethink the way controllers function. Nintendo did it before with the D-pad when they introduced their Game and Watch product line. Before then people had to use joysticks. If you want a more recent example, there’s the Gameboy DS with its touchpad (among many other controller innovations). It took a while, but now you’re starting to see some decent games that take advantage of these. This new controller though, it’s just going to make game playing more intuitive. How many times have you seen someone (especially young kids and noobs) jerk their controller up and over when trying to get their character to jump. Now it’ll actually help. People are already wired to use a controller this way, Nintendo just decided to change the controller instead of forcing the people to change. That’s what good design is all about.

It’s going to open up the gaming market even more. Back in the 80’s, it wasn’t uncommon to see parents playing videogames with their kids, that was due in part to how simple and fairly intuitive games were back then (that and more available free time, but that’s another topic). Now controllers have a D-pad, 2 analog sticks, 4 to 6 face buttons, 2 to 4 shoulder buttons, and up to 2 triggers as well. And each button has some sort of function assigned to it. It’s no wonder the casual gamer gets confused. Hell, it’ll take me a while before I can get the hang of most games. Pick-up and play was almost a thing of the past. I just don’t see how you can’t be excited for the industry with this coming. Way to go Nintendo!

Oh no she didn't

2005-08-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

So, I'm at work and a co-worker of mine comes by and asks me, "Do you think Mary's a dyke?" I respond that it wouldn't surprise me. She has short, doesn't dress overly girly, frequents gentleman clubs and kind of gives off that vibe . Honestly, it doesn't really affect me either way and I could care less. Here's the part that really threw me for a loop though. My co-worker then comments, "I'd just like to know ahead of time, in case there's a blackout." What the hell? What is that supposed to mean? She basically implied that if the lights went out she'd be groped by her co-worker. I responded,
"Why? In case you need her to change the light bulb?"
"No. I'm just concerned."
"You're surrounded by all of these hetereo males and you're not concerned about them?"
"No, the guys don't worry me."
Again, what the hell? Maybe I'm just niave (in many cases I probably am), but most of the stories/cases/anecdotes I've heard involving inappropiate touching involve guys, and of the straight persuasion. But oh no, she's not worried about them. I'm just always so surprised at how ignorant people can be.

Stupid email

2005-08-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

I dont' know if you've read this before or not, but I got this at work (this is actually the 2nd time I've received it so far) and it sparked a rant. Here's the email:

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?

My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of Iraq regime has been completed.

Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete.

This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq. This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now to begin the reckoning.

Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United Kingdom, Spain, Bulgaria, Australia, and Poland are some of the countries listed there.

The other list contains everyone not on the first list. Most of the world's nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening.

Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases immediately and indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war.

The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hell-holes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.

Need help with a famine? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France.

In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home. On that note, a word to
terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth.

Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France, or maybe China.

I am ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France, Germany, and Russia. Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well. Bon chance, mes amis.

I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world!

I love New York.

A special note to our neighbors. Canada is on List 2. Since we are likely to be seeing a lot more of each other, you folks might want to try not pissing us off for a change.

Mexico is also on List 2. President Fox and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple extra tank and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to put em? Yep, border security. So start doing something with your oil.

Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty - starting now.

We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for oil in Alaska - which will take care of this country's oil needs for decades to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there. They care.

It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, "darn tootin."

Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America. It is time to eliminate homelessness in America. It is time to eliminate World Cup Soccer from America. To the nations on List 1, a final thought. Thanks guys. We owe you and we won't forget.

To the nations on List 2, a final thought: You might want to learn to speak Arabic.

God bless America. Thank you and good night.

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.

My answer to this is, No, it would not be great to hear this. In fact, this speech represents all that is wrong with America and to hear this speech come from a President would be a nightmare. Bush isn't even dumb enough to give this speech, or at least his advisors are smart enough to prevent him. Lord knows he probably wants to give this speech. God people, grow some intelligence. Do you really think we could survive if the only countries we dealt with were the UK, Spain, Australia and Poland ("Don't forget Poland"). Where are you going to get your cars, your clothes, your TVs, your computers, hell your energy. Yes there's oil in Alaska, but there's not enough oil in the world to keep us going for decades at the rate we're using it. Oh, and this whole world-hating of the US is a fairly recent thing. After 9/11 we had the most support we've ever experienced; now we barely have any. I wonder why? *cough*Bush*cough* Some days I just can't stand Americans.

Oh, and stop sending this crap to me at work.