A Xmas Story

So the celebration of Christ's birth is over. Gifts have been given and received, memories were formed and I'm sure some forgotten. Hopefully everyone enjoyed theirs as much as I enjoyed mine.

Becky and I xmas-miraculously had the 24th off. I actually had to finagle mine with the bosses at work, and had to use my paid time off to do so, but it was definitely worth it, plus I'm not exactly living slim on vacation time. We did some last minute shopping because we are crazy and had a nice dinner with the parents before heading off to the xmas eve service at my church. I don't think I've been to church in awhile and it was kind of nice. It was a good service, even though I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and my head up during the sermon or homily or whatever they called it.

When we got home we mostly just chilled and watched some kids christmas shows like Charlie Brown and The Year without Santa. Eventually we went to bed and woke up around noon for the gift exchange. Everyone loved their gifts, I got a bunch of dvds, some games, toys, and a deep fryer.

Afterwards Becky and I drove up into md to visit her Aunt Betty. Traffic weren't too shabby and we only got slightly lost when we got off the beltway and didnt see the street sign we needed to, but only cost us a couple minutes and we were early anyway. Had another small gift fest, and a nice ham and mac cheese meal. We hung around there for a couple hours chatting it up, heard some funny stories and had a lot of fun. We headed to westminster to drop off Becky, we tried to stop at Denny's but it was closed. Not unexpected but still a bit of a bummer. We ended up hanging out for a bit at her friend Denise's house until it was time for me to head home.

So that was pretty much the extent of my holiday, it was the best christmas ever and I hope all of you had most excellent adventures on yours.

A slight impetus

A blog??? Jander has a blog?!?!?!? It's been so long since I've visited here my computer didn't even remember my username and password. Well okay it did, but with a little help. Someone else I know resurrected their blog recently, well... reincarnated is more like it, but I figured I might as well take the opportunity to add to mine.

I don't know why I haven't been writing, I don't think its because I've been too busy at work, though for the past 2 or 3 weeks I kinda have been. We've been working on a project to update some forms for a bunch of the courts and though it hasn't been affecting me personally too much lately we are also all in a big crunch working on a contract proposal, so things are hectic and everyone is stressed.

But I don't think that's it because I still manage to have a few minutes to myself towards the end of the day. It's not because I'm in love with an awesome chick who I think about all the time. I am and I do, but I think I could still share a couple spare thoughts from time to time as I tend to be a great multitasker. It's also not that I have nothing to talk about, I've done TONS of things since I last posted and even kinda thought about writing about them but never did. Is it just my old slackerness/apathy rearing its ugly head? Who the fuck knows, and does it really matter?

I do know, however, that some people, for whatever ungodly reason like to read what I write. I wouldn't say I have fans or admirers, maybe its just bored people who desperately need another 10 minutes of time killing text. So I once again say I will try and post more. I'm not making promises, but I will make an effort, I think that's the best I can do.

In the spirit of making an effort, I'm not even going to make this whole post simply about me not posting, I plan to actually talk about something!

Last weekend was my companies holiday party. The company I work for definitely doesn't skimp on these sorts of things, for our summer picnic if you recall we get tickets to kings dominion and a free meal including alcomohol if thats your thing. For the last couple years, perhaps since I've been with the company, they have held the holiday party at the Air&Space Museum near Dulles. Basically it's a huge airport like hangar, they have all sorts of planes and ordinance even a real live space shuttle. Also they have several showings to a free short imax movie and an observation tower you can go up in. Previous year's I've gone stag and just done a quick run through to look at the exhibits, maybe sample a bite of food, look for coworkers and catch the movie then bounce.

This year I had the honor of bringing my lovely girlfriend Becky. She had got herself a gorgeous red dress, and as such I felt obligated to dress up a bit. If you weren't aware, I HATE dressing up. Usually I go in slacks and a work shirt and I'm perfectly happy. I didn't think that would work this time, and since Becky's aunt was requesting a nice photo of us for an xmas gift I said screw it went out to the mall to get a tux. I haven't worn a tux in almost a decade, but fortunately the tux store was in the same place as I remembered it, and was able to come out with something that didn't completely burst my budget.

I HATE TIES! Ties are absolutely retarded and everyone wearing a tie looks like a tool. Sorry to those of you who like wearing ties, or think ties look good, but they don't. They make you look like a damn fool and a dork and a slave to societal standards... deal with it. Originally I wasn't going to wear one, but Becky thought I'd look cute in it and I decided it wouldn't kill me to wear one for the night. It didn't kill me, but I did look and feel like a tool. At least it wasn't a bowtie... I will NEVER wear a bowtie in the future, and I hope to avoid wearing a regular one ever again as well. If someone puts a tie on my corpse for a funeral I will haunt them and murder them from beyond the grave. Just a warning people, DON'T forget it!

Anyway, so the both of us got dressed up, I paid for the lady to get a cute haircut the day of and bought her some delicious smelling perfume. Literally delicious as it smells a bit chocolaty. We tried taking some pics at home but didn't work out so hot. We rolled into the party fashionably late, since thats how cool we are. Managed to meet up with most of the crew from the office, hung out and chatted with Bryan and his date while sampling the drink selection. The bastards didn't have any white z, so I was drinking chardonnay, while Becky tried a couple different things. Supposedly the cranberry champagnes were awesometastic.

We didn't do much of museum wandering, I'd been there plenty enough and I'm sure Becky doesn't find planes all that interesting. The observation tower was pretty cool. Not high up enough for me, but you could still see lights for miles and we managed to pick out my car in the parking lot, not as easy as you might think. We stayed at the party until the bitter end, and then headed on home before eventually heading out to denny's for a nice meal. It was most certainly an enjoyable evening.

Oh I almost forgot, here's the picture we will be giving to her aunt. I'll try and spread more of the Werd of Jander later this week.

Yeah I Seen It : Stardust

I remember seeing a preview for this awhile back and thought it looked like it could be fun and something Becky would enjoy as well. It got generally good reviews with several of them referencing The Princess Bride. Some said a Princess Bride it was not. Others called it a Princess Bride for the current generation, which might be a bit much. I could see why they might speak of it in similar fashion, though Stardust was perhaps a bit more fantastical and dark in nature.

The movie is based on a Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. The basic plot is that a young man wishes to prove his love to some evil snotty bitch by finding a star they saw fall from the sky. This journey takes him into a forbidden magical realm and yeah verily some nasty trouble as well. As it turns out the star is not a hot lump of rock but rather a hot lump of flesh in the form of Claire Danes. After an initial adversarial moment the two of them head off back towards his home. Their progress is impeded by a group of witches who want the star for nefarious purposes. There is also a subplot in which the king of this realm is having a bit of a problem deciding which of his formerly 7 sons will take his throne, and sends them off on a quest to find an amulet, which just so happens to currently be in the possession of the star. The non living sons make frequent screentime in the form of ghosts generally to great amusement.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I've read a two of his other books, American Gods and Anansi Boys, both of which I quite enjoyed. AG I would recommend to almost anyone. I also recently watched a bbc miniseries adaptation of his book Neverwhere. It was interesting, and I might like to read the book at some point. But the acting and of course video production standards were quite poor. Not the case in Stardust of course. They had some fun special effects like a really cool glowing effect for Claire's character on occasion and of course lots of magic being tossed around. The important actors/actresses did a great job conveying emotion and expression. De Niro had a hilarious dance routine. I definitely left the movie satisfied, tho it did seem a bit long mayhaps.

Rating: 4.25

A Week Away From Work

I took a vacation last week. That's sort of a rare thing for me. I'll take the occasional day or two off work for certain events, but usually I don't have enough to do to warrant scheduling off for a whole week. I also don't like making the imposition on my coworkers. We don't have a lot of operation staff so it generally means making someone work a lot, especially since I am the off hours shift man. Fortunately JL wanted the money and the company didn't complain about paying him an assload of overtime for the week.

Originally the plan was to just take Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off to go to the beach. My girlfriends best friend had gotten a free room at the Sirocco Motel in Rehobeth for her birthday, and I got invited along to share in the fun with the two of them and their friend Nick. I eventually ended up saying screw it and taking off Monday and Friday as well. Unfortunately I was unable to relinquish pager duty for the weekends, but oh well. Also I will say upfront that the weather didn't exactly co-operate for a beach trip, it was cold and wet a lot of the week. Overcast and yucky. The sun didn't come out until our last afternoon there, and there were no swimming signs in the ocean near constantly due to very strong waves. The hotel was pretty nice tho, but the no smoking was kinda a bitch to the people we had there. It was right off the boardwalk tho, and had a nice balcony area to sit out on.

Monday: I planned to head up to Westminster in the evening to meet up with Becky after she got off work, and get a room at the Boston Inn. This way I'd have a nice start to my trip and I would be nice and local so I didn't have to wake up at some ungodly hour of the morning to drive up on tuesday. I ended up just going early in the day tho. Hung out in the hotel room, got some food. Smoked and played games. Watched the colts preseason game and eventually Becky got off work and we hung out with her friend a bit.

Tuesday: We get off to a late-ish start for a couple reasons, but no worries. We eventually start off on the long drive to the Beach. The ride wasn't too bad, tho we were taking two cars so there were occasional annoyances with cars screwing up our mini convoy. Traffic wasn't too bad until we get 10 miles out of the beach or so and we basically hit a wall. We get to the hotel only to find that they only allow parking for one vehicle. All the parking on the street is metered, however the lady at the front desk says we can go get a permit that will let us park anywhere. That wasn't exactly the case as the permit parking only applies to streets maybe 4 blocks away. All of the localized parking was metered and only accepting quarters for 15 minute increments.

I drive down to the permit place at which point I am informed of this out of the way parking area where I would need to go to, but am also told that since it is now after 5 pm I wont actually need a permit to park there. I will however need a permit to park there starting at 10 am tomorrow, so they told me to come back the next morning. They gave me directions to where I wanted to park, but wouldn't give me a map, because of "limited supply." I drove off to park and then walked the 10-15 minutes back to the hotel to meet up with the crew. We headed out to take a brief walk on the beach/boardwalk and looked around at some shops before going to get food at Grotto Pizza.

I had heard a good bit about this pizza place, such that they had awesome kick ass pizza and even awesomer yummy gelato. I actually didn't try their gelato that night, tho I did later in the week and it was certainly quite delicious. It's also a bit more filling than one might expect. The cups they show you look pretty small, but even a medium sometimes seems hard to get down. The pizza was pretty yummy, not best ever in my mind or anything, but certainly a good meal. I also tried their cheesesticks, they put a LOT of cheese on them, which was great, but the breadsticks themselves were somewhat boring. A little later Becky and I took a nice nighttime walk on the beach, we got a little wet and sandy so we shared a nice shower when we got back to the room. Then I think we just hung out for a bit until it seemed like a nice time to go to sleep.

Wednesday: I wake up at around 9 am to walk to my car and drive back to the permit place. I walk in and ask for a parking permit for the day. The lady inquires if I want just the one day. Baffled, I ask if I can get permit's for future days. She says of course. Now granted, this was good news, in that it meant I could get a parking pass for Thursday as well, since I was damn sure we weren't leaving before 10 am and I didn't want to have to wake up this early again. Firmly in the BAD news department was the fact that if they had told me this YESTERDAY I would have purchased them both early and never had to come back to the stupid permit place again *shakes fist*.

Anyway I got that taken care of and drove my car back to the parking place. I didn't know if people would be up back at the room yet so I snuck off to buy a present for Becky. It was a very pretty handmade dress that I had seen her scoping the night before. I also picked myself up a nice corduroy hackey sack from the same store. That store among others also had a nice selection of glass pieces, but I have ample smoking devices and didn't see the point in spending on that. Though one store had totally awesome animal bowls, like pipes in the shapes of elephants, fish, lizards, etc. Really cool looking.

I head back to the room and Becky was waiting for me. Gave her her present and then we stepped out on the balcony for a bit so she could have a cigarette. There were some issues with the door and heavy winds so I kinda ended up waking up Rachael and Nick.... sorry! After some recreational activities Becky and I headed out to the boardwalk to wander around. Stopped in a lot more shops, got some candies, chilled back at the hotel for a bit. Went out to play a little in the sand and water. Later on we met up with Rachael for dinner at some place I can't recall. Dinner didn't sit fully well with Becky so I went off to find some Rolaids while they chilled at the room. I had to go back to the car anyway to switch permits. After she started feeling better we went off to the arcade area.

Becky and I played skeeball for about a half hour or so. Their system doesn't go by winning tickets based on score, instead if you score in a certain range you get a certain prize. The machines were rigged if you ask me tho, as the threshold was 250 for a small prize I think and at least twice the machine didn't count my final ball when I was at like 230 or so and scored a 20+. I did win a small prize once, but even then I was robbed because it again didn't count my last ball which woulda put me over the the next prize barrier to get me a medium prize. We found out they had a haunted house ride right near there so I bought us tickets for that, only $3 for the two of us. It was a little cheesy in parts but they did have a really cool room or two and some decent jump moments. It was fun times tho, we woulda rode it again but it was 11 pm and the closed down.

We wandered over to the next arcade type area and I spent some time on some of those claw games to grab stuffed animals. There was one that I really wanted to win that didn't seem practical as it was somewhat just shy of the area where the claws are sposed to go, really close to the glass wall. But it was this cute stuffed lobster and I was determined to get it. After a couple tries I just managed to snag it and although the claw dropped it early it bounced off some other animals and fell down the chute. Victory was mine! There was a simulator booth at the arcade that you get in and I guess it has a video screen and it moves around making you think you are in like a jet plane, going over a waterfall, on a rollercoaster, etc. But I didn't get a chance to try it. They did have a really fun "shooting" game that I got Becky to try with me once. It's basically a air hockey table sized field with a plastic beer can in the middle. The base of the floor is covered in light sensors that when hit from a certain direction cause the floor to pop up, which if the beer can is on that position it pops up into the air. Each end of the table has a goal and a light gun and you try and launch the can into your opponents side. The game lasts for 2 or 3 mins and whoever scores the most wins. It was pretty cool. We then went back to the hotel and passed out after a little while.

Thursday: Checkout was at 11 so there would assuredly be no sleeping in, but at least I didn't have to wake up too early. I drove my car back to the motel to pack up and then headed back out to park. We spent most of the day wandering around again(seems like there's a lot of that in Rehobeth.) The sun eventually came out and it got pretty hot for a bit, I think I got a little dehydrated because I felt a little ill. I also ended up getting a little sunburn. The girls got themselves cute hair wraps. I bought a couple small toys and another present or two for Becky. We grabbed some yummy pretzel bites. Before heading out we smoked on the beach and Becky and I played in the water and sand for a bit. She found two nice seashells but lost one to the evil waves. Eventually we had to head back to the car to get on the road. We rinsed ourselves as best we could with water bottles I had in the car, and stripped on the street to change into other clothes. On the way home we stopped at a Sonic because none of us had actually eaten there before. The burgers were pretty good, I wasn't impressed with their cheese fries. I also think I much prefer fast food places where you can go inside and place your order at a counter. Eventually we got back to Westminster and then I had to commence my lonely drive back to Virginia.

Friday: I pretty much used this day to recover. My feet were terribly sore, had a small blister or two. My achilles were hurting and I was limping around like Bryan on gout. I sat around and did nothing and ate food. Good times.....Good times....

The After Spring Before Fall Movie Review

It's been awhile since I've wrote a movie review, despite the fact that I've seen my fair share of them this summer. I don't know how effective I will be at reviewing them this long after but we will give it a shot. For the purposes of this post I will be using a 1-5 rating scale. A rating of 1 implies a complete crapfest/waste of time and 5 means that if you haven't seen this movie, you probably are a loser and we aren't friends anymore.

Transformers: This movie kicked some serious ass. I had my slight reservations about its quality going in, and even maybe hurt my chances by "accidentally" reading some plot descriptions while looking up pictures of the kickass robots before the movie. Regardless I was enthralled watching the movie. The special effects were great, wonderful pacing, good sporadic humor throughout. Really it was an all around great movie, and I would love to see it again like right this fucking second. Can't wait for the supposedly greenlit sequels.
Rating = 5

Straight Men Marry: AKA I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
I saw this one up in Westminster in a crappy yet packed theater, with crappy popcorn and only a somewhat reasonable sized beverage, sitting almost all the way in the back. There was also a man sitting next to me that practically orgasmed every time Jessica Biel was onscreen even telling his date at one point that he so wanted to bang her. I truly hope that if this man goes to see the movie coming up where she bares all that the rest of the people in the theater bring umbrellas. I don't think, however, that seeing it someplace else would have made anything better. I have mixed feelings on Adam Sandler, he has a good number of movies I have found funny, and then a good number that I felt were not. I'm putting this one into the latter category. There were some good parts, the Asian minister who oversaw the wedding was funny and a couple other good bits. But overall the acting felt forced and there weren't nearly enough laughs to make the movie. I honestly think the hardest I laughed was when Dan Akroyd slid down a fireman's pole (no homo).
Rating = 2

Simpsons Teh Movie: Here's another I went into hoping for the best but worried it could be a letdown. I couldn't have been further from the truth. This movie wasn't just hilarious, it was groin grabbingly hilarious. There wasn't enough interaction with the plethora of side characters from the show as they mostly followed the simpsons trials and tribulations, but that didn't take much away from the film. I laughed throughout this movie and I'm sure there are plenty of hidden jokes that I missed. My only real gripe with the movie was they didn't have Kang in it, and while the credits SAID Kodos was in it, I have no recollection of seeing said character.
Rating = 5

Live Free or Die Hard: While not as good as the original Die Hard or even the Second, I felt this movie lived up to the franchise pretty well. It was an entertaining flick and as plots go it could be worse. Bruce Willis still puts on a believable tough guy performance despite his impending Alzheimer's. Even the gay Mac guy had a good showing, though I wish he had got the crap kicked out of him more. I had some qualms with the believability of some of the action in this film. I try and ignore these things because I know "It's a moooovieeee", but when a man takes out a helicopter with a car and jumps onto or off of a jet I can't help but think No WAY. Odd that I have no trouble believing in cars that turn into robots eh?
Rating = 3.5

Bridge to Terabithia: I don't know if this counts as a summer movie, but I watched it on rental during the summer so you'll sit there and like it! I had never read the book and the only thing I knew about it was that the girl was sposed to die, though someone told me that disney went crazy and changed that for the movie. I was expecting a bit more fantasy to this movie, more like Narnia, but instead the whole fantasy element was just kid's imagination. Still it was a somewhat emotional tale and the girl did indeed die. As far as children actors go these kids weren't horrible and neither was the movie, but thats about all the good I have to say about it.
Rating = 1.5

Knocked Up: This came out in June so I'm including it. I thought this movie was really funny. The general plot is of course quite simple. Girl makes mistake and hooks up with loser, some wackiness ensues preventing the use of a condom and well, I don't have to explain the birds and the bees do I? There's plenty of bickering and fighting and getting to know each other and care for each other between the two expecting parents. But throughout all that there was tons of funny material. I enjoyed myself as did my lady. Wasn't the best comedy of the year, and it wasn't 40 Year Old Virgin either, but it was a good one.
Rating = 3.5

There's still a couple summer movies I didn't see that I wanted to. Ratatouille for one, The new bourne for another. I would like to try and see Stardust and might even try and check out the Lost Legion.

I Try So Hard, So Very Very Hard

Okay that's a damn lie, I'm a complete slacker. So I come back to post again. A certain comment leaver requested a better understanding of the guinea pig playpen in the visual form, so I'd like to take care of that briefly. Here's a picture of the whole thing, and then two slightly closer views of either size. I just cleaned it and did some slight redecorating, so huzzah!





Meanwhile, back at the ranch. My home computers hard drive failed a week and a half ago. I went out and bought a 160gb drive and slowly began the process of getting a fully working fully enjoyable computer back. I was hit with a snag in that my buddy Jason has my copy of XP Professional, so I had to go old-school with Home edition. I hope if I can get the cd from him I might be able to do an upgrade without much hassle. Of course it can be pretty tricky to get cds back from Jason, he's had about 80 of my techno cds on a spindle at his crib for like a year. I have made a lot of progress in my computer fixitude but I've still got a long ways to go, if anyone has any hot torrents you think would help, send em my way.

Another huge inconvenience was that the whole thing kinda nixed my Ipod/itunes connectivity. I tried using a program to offload my Ipod into a new itunes library, and ran into tons of snags ranging from windows updater rebooting my comp during an offload, hanging programs, supposed disk errors. I eventually got everything to the comp and into Itunes, however unfortunately when trying to format the Ipod and sync with Itunes it complains about being unable to locate basically every file that wasn't purchased in Itunes store or audible.com So I have another long task of ripping music to my comp ahead of me, and I'll definitely need to get those cd's from Jason *Shakes Fist*

Fuh-ball!

I never really cared about football when I was a little boy...yes I was little once. My interests laid in other sports I guess. I played baseball and a little basketball, perhaps some badminton or even some cheap street hockey with a broken hood ornament. Not that I give a damn about basketball or hockey. My dad was a football fan and he'd watch the redskins games and superbowls and whatnot. I took notice of it but didn't really get interested.

I went to a game in high school and though my team sucked I still had fun watching. So I started going to a couple more games, and watching the NFL with my Dad on occasion and I quickly came to love the sport even more than I did baseball. We occasionally went to some games. Saw a Navy game once or twice, a couple skins preseason or regular season games. We generally try and go to a Skins game every year.

I don't love the Redskins like my dad does. I like the Redskins tho. I like to see them do well, which unfortunately recently is rare. I root for them generally speaking unless there's a severe conflict of interest involved. During those cases I try avoid my Dad. So since I didn't love the Redskins I had to find a team I would love. A team I could support and cheer for like my life depended on it.

I'm not truly sure if there is an exact reason I jumped on the Colts bandwagon. It was around 97 or so. My grandmother was from Indy, which I used as an excuse for awhile, but not with much conviction. I do kinda like the jerseys, or at least when they aren't just wearing white. I knew some of the history of the team, and I loved that Baltimore hated them. Not that I truly hate Baltimore, but its fun to see them angry. It might have been that I saw them in a playoff run that although they didn't go all the way, they sure showed some heart.

So I don't know precisely why I am a huge Colts fan, but I do know that they are currently the World Champion Indianapolis Colts, and that pretty much kicks ass. I don't know if they can repeat, they've had some pretty tricky hurdles thrown their way in the offseason. I'm not giving up hope though, I've got faith they can overcome those odds and triumph once again.

GO COLTS!

The Cage Of Non Doom!

Really late guinea pig update!!!!

I did indeed get around to creating a little piggy nirvana for the guys, actually quite some time ago. I looked up a site online that had suggestions/directions on how to do this and didn't seem too tricky to manage. Basically you get some organizational grid things, they're the sort that have corner connectors and you snap them together to make cubes or what not. Instead of cubes you just build a rectangular enclosure with those and then have to make a base to hold bedding materials.

That part was slightly more tricky. The material recommended is called corrugated plastic or coroplast. Essentially this is plastic cardboard and is used quite frequently in the sign making business. Unfortunately the first place I tried to acquire this material tried to steal my dollar signs, quoting me a price at least 5 times what I was expecting it would cost. I think it's possible they just misunderstood what I wanted, in that I just need a sheet of the plastic and not a sign made, but I had made that pretty clear I thought some I label them douchebags.

I was able to acquire the sheet from an alternate vendor for a little over 20 bucks. I had to steal my moms minivan to transport it home and that night began the long arduous and painful task of measuring and cutting and scoring and bending and folding until I formed what equates to an upside down plastic cardboard box top. I then slid that down into the rectangular cage and that was basically it.

I didn't exactly stop there tho. I wasn't satisfied with just making a bigger house for the fellas, I wanted to make them an awesomer living space. I made them a small second level sort of L shaped in one corner, they have a food and water spot on both levels. I bought them some hiding places, a small hutch for upstairs and some little tunnels they like to run through and gnaw on. I bought them a hammock which I was worried would lay unused but I've seen them both hop up and just chill in there. I even bought them a lounge chair.

I've also upgraded their diet, while i still give them plenty of hay and food pellets, I quite regularly hook them up with some dill and parsley. They LOVE that stuff, if they hear me with the bag or smell the stuff they start squeaking all excitedly, good times.

Long story short...too late! I spoil the hell out of my guinea pigs. This really shouldn't surprise me, because I always tried to spoil our dogs too. I don't see why my animals shouldn't have as awesome a life as they can.

A Blog Resurrected

So I suck. Seriously it's not news. I'm a slacker and lazy bum with no real ambition. It's cool though because it works for me. I haven't posted in awhile not for lack of substance however, and should my return to the blog world last longer than this posting we might have plenty to talk about.

So the summer started and it's been pretty good to me. There's been an action packed summer movie season, saw a lot of really good movies in the past 2 months. I've been going swimming a lot more recently, which is great. I've always loved swimming, ever since I was a kid and we had a membership to a relatively close pool. I kinda got out of swimming tho for a number of reasons. Lack of a affordable accessible pool was one of them, along with growing up and getting fat and being uncomfortable with my shirt off. Also while swimming is one of the very few forms of exercise I can tolerate, it's only really fun to go to a pool with people, and I guess I didn't have people to go with. So I've been really pleased with being able to do that this year with Becky. Lots of fun in pools can be had for sure.

In other brief summer news I turned 27 a little while ago. It's not so bad I guess, I don't feel old at least. Just another year gone by and another thousand hair follicles lost. My birthday extravaganza comprised of hanging out with my three friends at a pool hall and getting a little tipsy. It was good times and I certainly can't complain about having gotten the night off, but it woulda been nice to spend it with my girl as well.

Thus ends my re-inaugural post, stay tuned for updates.

Fuzzy Bundles Of Joy

I don't really my first pet experiences. I think we probably had some sort of dogs that I don't remember from when I was quite young. I've seen pictures of dogs in my moms scrapbooks, but don't recall names or memories of them. The first one I remember was a little boy cocker spaniel named Copper. I never considered him mine tho, he was the family dog really. But then a couple years down the line we got another cocker spaniel and named her Sugar. I don't think she was specifically meant to be mine, but that seemed to be the way it worked out. I loved her and she back and for a long time she spent practically every night in my room. She even cared enough to never make a mess in there. I make messes in there all the time, but not the way she might.

After they both passed on we went without for awhile until picking up a beautiful Samoyed named Slick from my dad's sister. I may have had other pets throughout the years, a fish or two perhaps, but never anything pet-able that I recall other than the three dogs. Slick eventually passed on and since my parents were planning to start remodeling the house for eventual resale it was decided there were to be no more dogs. This of course left me saddened to some extent. I didn't think about it all the time of course but on occasion I would reminisce about the old days of having a nice pet to come home and say Hi to.

So a couple weeks ago my girlfriend came into some extra cash and we went to a Pet Store to pick out a fish for a friend of hers. We were wandering around and saw an absolutely adorable little guinea pig, and she persuaded me into getting him. She actually bought him for me and a nice little edible house for him, while I picked out a big cage/starter kit. We brought him back to his new home and he seemed to fit in nicely. He's a bit shy at times but once you have him nice and steady on your lap or chest or something he is awful friendly and cuddly. We named him Snuggles.


Since having a guinea pig was a new experience for me, I did a lot of reading on the subject and a common theme throughout was that they are very social. Since we had a somewhat large cage I decided to buy one for Becky to keep at my place. After positively confirming Snuggles' gender and searching a couple local stores we found another guinea pig that could compete in adorability. Becky loved him and we walked out delighted. After some thought she ended up on the name Patches.


They seem to get along great, there was no real fighting when they first met. Sometimes they might try and shoo the other away from hay they are eating, but I've also seen one peacefully grab a piece of hay from the others mouth. They fucking love eating hay, tho they love eating carrots, lettuce, parsley, apples, bananas and who knows what else. They seem very happy, they run around and chirp and wurble and are tremendously entertaining to watch at play. I want to build them a really big cage/playhouse so they can just goof off and exercise whenever they want.

I still miss my dogs, it was nice to have a pet that waited and greeted me when I got home. A pet that didn't shy away from me a lot, and that I didn't have to pick up to let play. But I dare anyone to tell me that these two guinea pigs aren't cute as fucking hell.

What You Play?

Somewhere in blogland a theme was suggested. A theme of I had no problem addressing. What am I playing this week? Two things and nothing new.

I am still plugging along in the World of Warcraft. Slowly and steadily my hoard of gold rises and hopefully soon I can go broke quenching my need for speed. The thrill of flying faster than a speeding bullet pulls at me quite incessantly. I got a lot of time in these past two days for various reasons and have made good progress, but the game still feels quite lonely. I still don't think i'll quit completely, it's only 13 bucks a month or so and it's nice to have it there waiting for me if I want it.

I have also been getting in some good gaming time on my PSP. I know a lot of people knock it, but I've never understood why. It has fun games, you can play it in the bathroom and you can watch porn on it. Whats the beef? At any rate recently I found my copy of Burnout Legends and loaded it up to fool around. I hadn't completely finished the game, I still had one crash event I needed to get a gold on, and a couple road rage and race events. Some of those road rage ones were really tough. It's quite hard to believe that "I" would have a problem with the road rage ones, but when you need to take out 8 cars per minute it's not easy.

I finally got all those done, only to realize this only technically takes me down to 89% complete with the game. Apparently I still need to do a couple signature takedowns, and several trophies. Some of these are easy such as get 2000 total takedowns or get 2 bus takedowns in a race. Both will come with time, right now I'm focusing on get 40 takedowns in a single race. I don't know why I care so much, it isn't as if I get a nice Gamer Score like on Xbox live for all my friends to see. I just like having a goal sometimes I guess.

In other news JaxJaggyWires got a new horse and buggy, and we demand a blog about it.

Living the Viva Local

For those of you who weren't aware, this past Monday was Memorial Day. Honestly I would totally fall into the category of unawaredness but for the simple fact that I get the day off. Days off as I'm SURE you are aware simply rock. It was a long weekend and quite fun and fantastic. I got a lot of things accomplished and had some good times, some of which can be discussed at a later time I suppose.

So to celebrate the holiday I dragged myself and Becky out of bed at the godforsaken hour of 2 or 3 oclock. We got dressed and headed out to Viva Vienna. It's your run of the mill Town Festival. It has some kiddy carnival rides like the twirling rope swings and spinning dragon teacup ride and mini coaster. Theres also carnival games for prizes, we were hoping for skeeball but no dice. Theres Plenty of yummy treats like cotton candy, deep fried oreos, candied apples. There was real food there too, but we weren't really hungry. We did get some smoothies tho.

The rest of the festival is mostly vendor type people. There are a jewelry displays, clothing vendors, purses, woodwork, pewter figurines, wind and suncatchers. There's also people advertising for companies by handing out flyers or having raffles. I got a pen and keychain from Navy Federal Credit Union. I'm already a member but I like free stuff. There was a Golden Retriever Rescue with a tent there, some people trying to drum up support for a Tysons Corner metro stop, maybe some other causes I didn't much pay attention to.

The vendors are probably the big draw, I bought Becky a nice necklace with real flowers in it, and we got her a really beautiful amber ring. There was also some live music and maybe some other things. The Festival actually lasts for three days, though the vendors aren't there on Saturday. It was a hot day tho, so I think my personal favorite attraction was one of those tents that blow a cool mist on you.

Tales of a (recovering?) W.o.W. addict.

I used to play World of Warcraft a lot. It didn't start off so bad, I'd play a couple hours a night, get some levels have some fun. It started to take away from some of my console gaming, which wasn't really a bad thing. I play video games a lot, so it wasn't like WoW was making me waste more time than I normally would, just that I'd be wasting it differently. It was something to keep me entertained through my long nights after work and was certainly enjoyable. It wouldn't be the top MMO on the market if it weren't fun.

My brother got me started on the game. I had only played one MMORPG game previously (Earth and Beyond) and didn't really stick that one out very long. But he had picked it up and it came with a free trial he passed along to me. He stayed long enough for me to get hooked before jumping servers and (I think) eventually quitting completely as did his friend who was the only other person I actually knew who played. I soldiered on, I had met people I enjoyed talking to and playing with so I didn't feel completely alone.

I wandered from guilds falling apart to raiding guilds to playing solo or with a friend. When my xbox360 broke and I was too lazy/annoyed to get it fixed WoW pretty much became my pastime. I would come home, log on, take a food break and log off around 6 or 7 am. I went on some raids, plowed through tons of dungeons made some gold and formed relationships with friends. I knew I would never be the elite of the wow world, but I was comfortable with my progression and always felt there was something left to do that I could accomplish.

I was really excited when the Burning Crusade expansion pack came out, but I started to play less. I had some guild drama that irked me and I lost some friends to play with. Also I met an awesome girl around the same time, which cut down on my playtime(probably not a bad thing.) I still log on sometimes when I get home, but I never seem to have quite the drive I used to. I almost never have the time for a full instance run, I've only been to two of the expansions dungeons once each, and they were the very first/easiest. I did finally manage to hit lvl 70 with my mage, but I'm slowly starting to wonder why I bother.

I'll never have Elite gear again, it's just not going to happen. I don't really care about pvping enough to make an arena team or grind honor. I've accepted the fact that I will never get my precious polymorph turtle spell from ZG. My guild is full of alts and unambitious people which is fine for me I guess, but not all the people in it as they keep slowly leaving for bigger and better things. Right now my only goal is to acquire enough gold to buy my epic flying mount. After that, I don't know what I'll have left to play for.

Going To The Movies, Gonna Eat Me A Lot Of Popcorn

On this weeks episode of People Who Suck, we will discuss those who do their sucking at the movies. I went out to see a movie(The Invisible) over the weekend as I am want to do. I don't have much to say about the film, it was somewhat interesting, the concept was nice, but I hated some of the characters and there was some lameness throughout. Also I thought it was odd that there was a "scene" in all the commercials for the movie that both I and my girlfriend are 99% sure was not in the movie.

Back to the suck. A lot of this boils down to talking during the film. Now I'm not a total dick, I know you want to do more than just sit there with a blank stare gazing up at the movie screen for two hours. Some minor interaction with your friends, compatriots, lovers is perfectly acceptable. But there are limits, I'm sure I crossed a bunch of them when I was in high school and going out to see films with my friends and causing a ruckus. I regret my rambunctiousness to a degree and while it might aggravate me when it happens, I feel a bit hypocritical when I do.

People who have to explain things in the movie suck. I don't know if they are telling their friend because they think he/she is too dumb to figure it out. Maybe they just cant process their thought without their mouths moving and they just naturally force the air out to speak it. It always happens during the simplest most easy to understand scenes too, where the director is just forcing the explanation down your throat to the point where no one over the age of 7.166666 repeating should have trouble understanding it. Just shut up!

Idiots suck all the time, but at the movie theater they suck even more. They also seem to congregate and are possibly contagious. In this movie, one of the characters was wearing a t-shirt that said "Gluten Free" 3 women sitting near me kept tittering about his Glutton Free t-shirt. Another time, I was seeing the movie High Fidelity and I swear whenever a scene came on and both Joan and John Cusack were in the same room, people would break out with whispers of "It's his sister!!!"

Other people who are at the movies full of suckishness is those who horribly violently react to jump scenes. I understand it was totally intended to shock you so jolt a little, shake and tremble, take a quick inhalation of breath or scream slightly if you must. But when you jump 2 feet out of you chair with such speed and voracity that I sitting next to you get more freaked out by you than the movie then I have a problem with you.

In short try not to suck at the movies. Sit back and enjoy the movie, talk to your friends quietly and try and be funny like the guys from MST3K before Joel left. Either that or just make out with your significant other, I can watch that too.

Smithsonian National Zoological Park

One of the best things about the D.C. Zoo is that it's free. You can just stroll through the gates at any time after opening. It has quite reasonable hours even on the weekends, and you can wander around the park for quite some time even after the buildings close. It's also quite simple to get to as long as you aren't the sort of person who gets Metrosick or claustrophobic. There are two stops within 3 blocks of the entrance one of them also being right by the Uptown Theater (Closest thing to IMAX you can get real movies on here)

So its convenient, and if you don't get to see everything in your trip to the zoo, it will only cost you about 5 bucks metro fare to come back. Also the beverage stands throughout the park aren't as ridiculously overpriced as one might think. A nice panda souvenir cup of soda was only $3.25, tho I found it odd I got my 75 cents change back in nickels. They also don't give you straws because it could be some sort of safety hazard for the animals. Of course you can also just bring your own food and drinks in with you.

I spent an afternoon there over the weekend with Becky, and we managed to check out lots but not all of the park. A helpful note, make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes, because you'll be doing a lot of it. As with any public park/zoo there are a lot of other people around some being children. I can usually ignore them, but I think that if your kid needs a stroller they shouldn't be allowed in the zoo to scream in my ear every time they see an animal. I also had another interesting experience with a kid at the zoo, no... not like that.

I was trying to take a picture of some animal in an outdoor exhibit on the Asia trail. All of the sudden I feel this pull against my shirt on the left side, and I knew for a fact it wasn't Becky since she was off too my right. I just ignore it because I'm trying to take my picture still and figure someone just brushed up against me. But then again I feel a tug and this time more insistent and repeatedly. So I turn and look down at my shirt and their is this little Asian girl tugging on the corner. She's not even looking at me, she's looking off at something and trying to pull me towards it. So I kind of just stare at her and say something witty along the lines of "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm excuse me??" Then she finally looks up at me, realizes I'm not her daddy, and runs off. Kids these days.

Speaking of pictures(well I kind of was), I've got a new set of animals to look at. Check em out by clicking The Bear! The Bear! All covered in hair!

The Sweet Scent of Cloves

I know a lot of people don't smoke. Plenty of people just plain hate the stuff and people who do it. I don't smoke cigarettes very often, perhaps like a pack or two a month. I also except for occasions most rare do not smoke regular cigarettes. I smoke cloves. I don't know exactly why I like them, it could be the nice pleasant scent, or the way the flavor sticks on your lips for awhile afterward, reminding you of your pleasing recent inhalation. I pretty much only buy Djarum Blacks, I like them better than other cloves I've had and of course the fact they are black is a good selling point. They also tend to last a bit longer than regular cigarettes, I often can smoke a half and put it out to save for later. I have to get them at specialty stores which is slightly annoying but they are worth it.

The other interesting thing about cloves is people seem to crave them. You can go out to a bar, and light yourself up a clove, and 9 times out of 10 someone will pop over and go "Ohhh Emmm Geee are those cloves? I love cloves!" I have had people beg, barter or buy cloves from me, from places like Bars, Ruby Tuesdays, Denny's, in the middle of the street. Fortunately no one has gone to the effort of stealing them from me. One time at a bowling alley a guy offered me 5 bucks for what was left of a pack, something like 4 cigs. I had new pack with me, and since the things run for something like $7, it was a perfectly sound investment. I think if you played your cards right you could make a fortune selling clove cigarettes to desperate drunk people.

As we all know, smoking makes you look cool. Smoking cloves makes you look like the hippest cat on the planet.

Non Home Theater Experience

Went out last night and saw Disturbia. General plot point is kid gets house arrest and spends his summer people watching in his neighborhood and ends up suspecting someone of some serious evil shenanigans. Overall I did enjoy the movie, I found it a worthwhile endeavor. I didn't get shocked at any of the jump moments but then I don't usually tend to. Whether thats because of my usual IDGAF attitude or mind altering substances I don't know.

There was a pretty cool/scary car wreck near the beginning. I don't recommend driving a SUV over a car, flipping several times, landing on the roof of your car, and then getting slammed into by another car. It did not look fun, the protagonist survived but his Dad did not. At first I thought this was going to be why the kid was forced to stay at home which seemed odd, but no. His spanish teacher said something about his dad on the last day of school and he decked him. So let that be a lesson to you kids out there, don't punch your teachers if you want to be able to enjoy your summer vacation.

Now to my list of things that made me moderately annoyed or made me think duhhh stupid movie making people. For one thing they made it a point to show that the kid wasn't allowed to have fun while he was imprisoned in his house. His mom canceled his "xbox" and "itunes" so that he couldn't use them. Well she canceled his xbox live account, so sure he couldn't play with people but thats what single player games are for. Same with itunes, its not like he didn't already have music to play. It's so sad he cant download new stuff. I know I know "it's a mooooovie," but whatever I think about these things.

Also the female lead, who most assuredly was hot, was forced into some sort of effortless prototypical male fantasy. Athletic lean hot chick, who sunbathes and swims in skimpy little outfits. Who doesn't seem to mind a voyeur and maybe even enjoys it a little, likes homemade video. A girl who makes the first move, goes in for the first kiss, apparently enjoys playing video games. She even ordered pizza and drinks beer. She also seems to have the hots for a guy who is a "criminal" but also kind of a dork, so its good for everyone! It just seemed a little bit unbelievable to me. Not that I mind a hot female actress in a movie, but I like them to seem somewhat real.

There were some okay previews. I am assuredly going to go see The Invisible or whatever. 28 Weeks Later looks kinda cool but I can probably wait for video. I didn't even realize that they made another Resident Evil movie, I don't know what I'll do about that one.

A Taste So Foul

To the best of my knowledge, discounting any possible early encounters at an age so young, my first experience with Iced Tea was in college. No one in my family really drinks the stuff, though I don't believe they share my particular revulsion. So one day freshman year I reached into the fridge to grab a pitcher. A pitcher I believed to be filled with the Kool-Aid I had made the day before. So I poured a quick glass and raised the cool beverage to my lips and took a swig. That proved a costly error. Instantly I gagged and spit the filth from my mouth. I loudly expressed my horror, confusion and shock with a colorful string of less than clean language. One of my roommates came to at least help with the confusion, explaining they had finished off my tasty fruity sugary beverage and refilled the pitched with "nice cool refreshing Iced Tea". Armed with that knowledge and my initial reaction I swore off the stuff.

So at a restaurant the other night, my girlfriend orders herself some unsweetened Iced Tea, squeezes the lemon into it and adds some Equal. I had informed her once before that I did not drink Iced Tea and my virgin Iced Tea encounter. She found it odd because she didn't know anyone who only had Tea once and hated it. She contended that maybe it was just crappy store bought lame Iced Tea, where as what she had in her glass was spectacularly yummy. I foolishly slowly let myself be convinced to take a sip, even arguing with myself that perhaps my distaste originally had been so prominent due to expecting the Kool-Aid. So I reached for her glass and wrapped my lips around the straw. I sucked. A horrible horrible taste entered my mouth. I cringed and started looking around for somewhere to spit it out without making a scene. I found nothing and was forced to swallow. I gagged and nearly heaved twice. I got tears in my eyes and an unforgivable nauseous aftertaste in my mouth that lasted for several minutes, nearly ruining my appetite.

Conclusion: I hate Iced Tea. In my humble opinion it's the worst beverage ever. I hate it even more than Beer, and I cannot stand beer at all. I think I've gotten bong water in my mouth that didn't taste as bad as Iced Tea. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that I shall never drink said product again, and I would expect it also highly unlikely that I ever dare attempt to try tea of a non iced variety.

In Old Colts Country

So I took a trip to Baltimore this week. The primary goal of which was to take my girlfriend to see Lacuna Coil play at Rams Head Live. She's a really big fan and was uber excited when I surprised her awhile back with tickets for the show. Unfortunately it was part of a tour and they only got to play for a half hour or so. The venue was reasonable enough, tho security people were a pain and some areas had very bad viewing angles. But they did at least have a bunch of nice flatscreens around the place so you could watch those when around and about. Also the foodstand place gives refills which I didn't know at first. The lady doing the serving recognized me and gave me shit about ditching my cup. I told her I just assumed there would be price rape-age, but she was nice and gave me another Dr. Pepper free of charge.

We also fit some other things into our day and a half stay in the Inner Harbor area. We stayed at a really nice hotel, the Hampton Inn. It's a Hilton hotel so it was a bit pricey but everything in Baltimore seems to be anyway. The room was great, nice and roomy, bed extremely comfortable and good for the hot secks. The hotel staff was quite helpful and the valet man was kind enough to grab us something from the car that we forgot. We got to check out the indoor pool which was okay, except for the little kids doing cannonballs every 30 seconds and the fact that even in the deep end I could stand without my head submerging.

Places in Baltimore seem to close kind of early, so we were lucky enough to make it to the Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore before they closed at 11. We both had delicious salads and a nice herb chicken dish. Also sample some of the alcoholic beverages and walked away with nice Martini and Hurricane glasses. Our other primary food experience was at some place called like J. Paul's. But it was pretty good, Becky had a seafood platter and I was able to chow down on a simple yummy burger and fries. Also the cool thing about this place was they give you free warm pretzels with mustard as appetizers. We checked out some shops and went out for a half hour or so on a dragon shaped paddleboat.

The other main event of the day was a trip to the aquarium. I had been hoping since we were going on a Tuesday that it wouldn't be so crowded, but it most assuredly was. There were parents and their little brats everywhere. So it was really slow going in some points, at least if you actually wanted to see something, and even more so if you wanted to take some pictures like I did. But we scoped out basically all of the place. We didn't end up making it to the dolphin show, but neither of us really cared. The general aquarium parts were all fun and I got some nice shots, but I think both of us enjoyed the Rain Forest and Australian exhibits most. They really give you a cooler feel of being in the animals environments and you have birds flying around and some open exhibits. Check out my pictures from our trip.

There were some problems on the trip, primarily crappy traffic, crappy Baltimore streets, Crappy Parking Garages and way too much walking, but I still had a really good time and I think Becky did too. There was also the side benefit of me having taken two days off work, so I had that going for me, which was nice.

I Know What is What, but I Don't Know What is What

Well it's Friday, which is quite nice of course, but I am still stuck here for a bunch more hours. After that though it's an action packed long weekend. I've discussed most of my plans already so I wont reiterate. I had thought to take the girlfriend into D.C. on Sunday to see the Cherry Blossoms, but as I understand it they've all been murdered by freezing weather. Also it's supposed to be cold again and apparently Sunday is Easter which could make things tricky.

I doubt I've mentioned it before but I'm not a very devout person. I used to go to church when my parents made me, and I went through confirmation with our Methodist Church at the time. I don't remember much about that process except they made us visit other churches to see how other religions worshiped. There was one we went to where the congregation had to stand up or kneel practically the whole time. I was glad my parents were simple Methodists to be sure. I stayed quasi "churchy" for awhile, played in the church's handbell choir. That at least made me show up to a church service once a month, though I often sat back behind the organ and only came out when it was time to play. Then college rolled around I pretty much gave up on organized religion entirely.

It's not that I don't believe in God, tho I might not. I think he might exist, and it would be somewhat comforting to know that he did. Or at least know if there is a happy happy fun fun afterlife to look forward to. But I've never really been gripped with an intense enough belief in God to be the faithful religious follower. So I don't go to Church anymore. Sometimes I might go for Christmas Eve or something, but I don't think I have the past two years, and I definitely don't tithe. So I don't much plan on showing up for Easter service, and my petty self will probably get annoyed for stuff closing early or people being out at restaurants I want to eat at just for the hell of it.

I know Becky would love it if I made her an Easter Basket, but I'm not sure I have the time or initiative. I do however need to get myself a couple more Cadbury Eggs before this years Easter Bunny dies.

I've Seen Teams Suck Before........

I remember playing baseball back in the day. Little league was mostly good times I guess. I was usually stuck in the outfield and that coupled with my attention deficit disorder led to some embarrassing blunders. But batting was fun, and I always wished I could pitch because throwing stuff really hard is tremendously enjoyable. I had reasonable velocity I suppose, but with control worse than Rick Vaughn, and I was already wearing glasses!

So I do remember the actual sport of baseball as a good times and as such I try to attend a game or two a year. JaxJaggyWires is a Marlins fan, and since they were playing in DC vs the Nats for the season opener he wanted to go. I said "Sho y not?" and we headed off on Monday to RFK Stadium. Tickets for this game were not exactly plentiful and we ended up getting stuck in the upper deck outfield (We plan to go again next month I think and we got seats in the lower level behind the plate somewhere.) This greatly hampered my photography ambitions, as I was forced to use the 10x optical zoom to even attempt to capture something worth a damn. Also my hands (as well as the knee I used to set the camera on) are not as steady as I would like. Still I managed to get some nice shots in. I've upgraded my flickr account so people can see the pics in full or at least my determined resolutions. Click the pic to check them out.

Regarding the title, if you weren't aware: The Nationals Suck. Big time. Now to be fair, I believe this was expected. I don't know who all they lost, but I do know they lost the most important thing. Any talent whatsoever. I don't believe they have any pitching, and they cant hit worth shit either. Basically the Marlins destroyed them 9-2. The Nats just gave up run after run, and I think even walked someone in. It was very pathetic. So I wasn't really expecting much out of them and that's basically what I got. I'm not that bothered by it, at least we got to see some dingers and JJW went home happy for once. He got even happier later in the evening when the Gators won their second straight NCAA tourney title. University of Florida Gators RULE!!!

Also just to post the first Werd Of Jander Video, here's a clip of people doing the Wave, and JaxJaggyWires cheering for the Marlins.

The Storm Clouds aren't Gathering

I hope at least. The weather has been quite nice of late, and it would appear I emerged safe and victorious through another cold desolate winter. So congratulations to all of you who survived as well. This time of year is sure to bring some nice rainy weather but I'm hoping it will stay absolutely perfect out for the next two weeks.

I tried to go to my usual mini-golf place last weekend, but unfortunately it wasn't open yet. I'll have to check their website but I'm thinking it might not spread its legs until this weekend. I'm going to try and get out to the driving range this Saturday, so that should be fun. Also I really want to make it a plan to go out to a 9 hole par 3 course with my friends this summer, just for the hell of it.

I'm taking Monday off to go to the Nationals Home opener vs the Marlins. With any luck JaxJaggyWires will have recovered from his ebola outbreak and will be in attendance as well. Then the next Monday/Tuesday I'm heading up to Baltimore with Becky to go to a concert, scope the aquarium, and have a fantabulous time.

After that let the thunderstorms rain down upon us with furious anger and great vengeance.

The Government Stole My Dollar Signs!

Ahhh yes taxes, my immortal enemy. Just got done doing the annual grueling task, though admittedly I don't really have it all that hard. Also it's somewhat shocking in that I didn't wait until the 2nd week of April to start. I used H&R Blocks e-file for 2005, which wasn't too bad. I had some trouble with finding all my documents and 2004 return, but it all worked out okay. Last year it was also free which was a nice benefit. For whatever reason I couldn't seem to get away with getting something for nothing, but it was a modest fee($15.)

They had all my info from last year already plugged in and it only took me 10 minutes or so. I figured it was worth it. They try and charge you double that to do your state taxes. Perhaps thats good for some people, but if you live in the ole VA you can file on their website for free. I used to complain they ditched the way I could file by phone, but online is way easier.

I ended up making more money last year than I thought I would. This translated into a larger refund, which I certainly will use irresponsibly. I don't know if it was the profit sharing check from the company(which I spent on my 360). Or perhaps it was that I got about an extra paycheck from cashing in 70ish hours of paid time off at the end of the year(which I spent on a camera and stuff.) I think I also started getting 2 hours of overtime each weekend simply for being the pager bitch. I'm certainly not complaining, I was just pleasantly surprised to see my w-2 rolling the 5th digit up a number.

Speaking of things rolling over, my car hit 75k miles this week. Huzzah I guess, but I think I should start putting some cash aside to buy a new one at some point. Not that I have any idea what car I would want. Course I know plenty of cars that I won't get so I guess that helps somewhat.

Wanna Play?

So I beat the next difficulty setting of G.R.A.W.2 Couple minor updates. I don't recall if I said it before but the campaign is pretty short. Jaxjaggywires said Act 2 was really long, and I suppose I somewhat agree, but I think it was compounded by the fact that Act3 takes less than 10 minutes. Also, while I'm fairly sure they weren't directly referencing Penny Arcade, I couldn't help but chuckle and think of a strip every time one of my teammates uttered the phrase Check the flower pot! I thought it was lame that they force you through the training each time you start a new game. Until I started over on uberhard last night. At one point I hit pause and noticed a skip training button. So thanks Tom Clancy!! I still need to try out some co-op goodness, but I should be available most of this weekend if anyone is down.

I also downloaded Castlevania:SOTN from xbox live marketplace last night. I was hoping for a bit more updated graphics, but its playable. I always wonder why I keep coming back to Castlevania games, but I do. I don't play all of them, I'm not some CV freak who must own every new title, and I almost always forget the main characters names. But when one comes easily available to me I tend to dive into it. Maybe it has something to do with the side scrolling platform, tho I actually enjoyed the n64 3d version, and maybe some others. Maybe it's the generic hack and slash with minor rpg elements that appeals to me. It's not the story, as I assure you I was mashing bushing furiously last night wishing I could skip it or scroll through faster. I will say however that the voice acting they put in seemed decent. At any rate I found myself playing this for at least an hour or two last night, and I will definitely plan on beating it and getting my hard earned 200 achievement points.

Thats the extent of my gaming for the week really. I still need to check out Rainbow Six and I might look at blockbuster for something to play because I haven't used my March coupon yet. Also for those who didn't know or may have forgot like me, the final season of Newsradio came out on DVD this week. Not the best season really, but at least it's closure. It was a great series though and if you've never seen it I demand you do so.

Good Eats

Went out to The Melting Pot over the weekend. I hadn't been there in quite some time. I think the last outing was when I was quite young. I don't know if it was simply the prices, or if it was the fact that the woman in my life at that time (A.K.A. Mom) didn't want to go there because she couldn't smoke. Fortunately the woman in my life now(A.K.A. Becky) can content herself to wait.

If you've never been to this restaurant and can afford it you should definitely check it out sometime. I'm serious on the if you can afford it tho. Don't show up with less than a c-note, and you'll probably need more. Also you might want to have a reservation, as when my Becky and I showed up out of the blue around 5 pm we were told they were booked up til 10:15. We promptly left and ended up at Ruby Tuesdays. A fine meal to be sure, but not what I had been hoping for. So when I got home I made a reservation for Sunday.

Basically they offer you several simple choices. Which of these 5 cheese dips do you want? Salad? Pick your meat or meat platter, and what to cook it in. Later you get to choose from a variety of chocolate dipping sauces. Then they bring out each course and you dip and cook and eat at your leisure.

The cheddar cheese fondue was quite tasty, tho I slightly regret not going with the traditional swiss. We ended up choosing their signature selection of meats, but both of us ended up being huge fans of the teriyaki marinated sirloin. For dessert we went with their combination of milk chocolate and Baileys Irish Cream which was quite delicious. At first they served a simple platter of chocolate dipping foods, but at our servers offer we gladly accepted extra strawberries, bananas, and mini brownie cubes. Overall the meal was tremendously fantastic.

Couple things of note.... This is not a short meal. I think we were seated around 5:55 and didn't leave until after 8. Beverage selection is limited. They serve you water, which I like well enough, but it seems kind of lame given the fanciness of the meal to be had. There's a range of mixed drinks(which were quite potently made), and a vast wine selection. Not much else.

Also you might want to change clothes afterward, unless you want to smell of Coq Au Vin for the rest of your evening. Speaking of which while there might be plenty of people all dressed up at the restaurant, there is no dress code, so feel free to show up in a tshirt, jeans, and sandals like I did.

Definately a place to go when you have the cash to blow and want a delicious and/or romantic meal.

What the Cell?

So I FINALLY got around to ditching my old cell phone. Well not literally since I have it in my backpack still. I don't really know what I'll do with it. The last time I got a new cell phone was because I lost its predecessor while suffering from extreme heat exhaustion/dehydration. Prior to that the last phone I used up was broken, and upon being replaced I summarily dismantled the old one because I'm a geek and thought it would be fun.

At any rate, the old cell phone has been turned off, perhaps never to be turned on again. Then again, one of the reasons I needed a new cell phone was because that one kept turning on, despite its not being off to begin with. Perhaps if I opened this one up I'd find gremlins, but since I tend to have a lot of water around me that might be dangerous for all mankind.

I managed to get out to the Sprint store over the weekend, and for once they actually were open AND had the phone I was looking for, the Sanyo M1.
Despite my initial objections to the mp3 controls on the front reminiscent of an ipod, and its lack of an extendable antenna, it looked to have pretty much anything else I might want. It's got bluetooth, nice fancy pants Sprint Power Vision features. I doubt I will really use it much as an mp3 player, but I think I get 4 free songs a month from the sprint music store with the plan I went with and the phone has a full gigabyte of storage space, so I might as well download stuff. It has a 2.0 megapixel camera that actually has a focus feature.

I find the layout and key sensitivity adequate for texting, and the screen is nice and crisp, including the outside LCD. Haven't much tested out its battery since I am pretty much ingrained into my habit of needing to plug my phone in when I get home. Some other nifty features which I have since found include multiple vibrate settings(You know you want it ladies!), handy news, sports and weather updates(including radar!). It also supports sprint TV, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to check that out. I can plug it into my computer via USB, but I don't yet know why I would.

Too make a long story short.... I like my new phone and its a lot nicer than my last one. Now you know.

I Know Exactly Where I Am.

So I used to watch the show Lost. Well I didn't really watch it when it started, mostly because of my work schedule I suppose. I didn't know much about it, but I heard my brother and my dad mentioning how good it was, or see posts on messageboards about how amazing and crazy complex it was. As the season passed by I decided I would have to check it out when it came out on DVD.

When it came out I picked it up and watched the whole season over the course of a weekend. It was great, I loved it and each end of an episode made it hard to not watch the next one. So I eagerly awaited the second season. As much as I love my technology and stuff I have not quite yet jumped to TiVo/DVR so I was stuck with leaving work tremendously early to catch episodes. Or rely heavily on my memory or kind father to set up a tape for me.

This worked pretty well, except for those times when it didn't and I was left to watch the episode on abc's website or eventually I started grabbing episodes off Itunes, cause why not? The nice thing about this season was that I could finally theoretically take an active role in the discussion of the show and come up with my own conspiracy theories or try and find things my "friends" may have missed. The show started to decline a bit in interest for me I think. I still enjoyed watching but I wasn't as in love with it as I had been after watching season 1. Still the end of the season left me just as excited as ever to get on with the story and learn more about whatever the fuck is really going on.

On to season three. This year I somehow missed the second or third episode. Instead of dealing with the whole trying to tape stuff all the time, I decided I would just buy the season pass on Itunes. I figured well I may have to wait until Thursday nights to watch the episode, but at least I know I'll have it and wont have to worry about it. This lack of worry though, has caused me to be completely lackadaisical in actually watching the show. Last night was Lost night, and I happened to have left work early for no particular reason. So I was home and able to watch a brand spanking new episode of Lost, when I realized that no I couldn't, because I never got around to watching the three previous episodes. So now I have four to watch and who knows when I will get around to actually looking at them, and I'm obviously not keeping up with the internet drama, or whats left of it at least.

I don't know if I can blame this on Apple fairly but I will anyway. It's all ITunes fault for letting me not care. Also I don't enjoy watching them off ITunes as much because a)It's on my computer screen and not my somewhat nice tv, and b)I don't get closed captioning on my computer. I'm sure I will watch them, and when I do I will probably watch several in a row. I hope the show keeps on, but I think next season, if I dont have TiVo yet, I'm just going to wait for the dvd's again.

Giant Reptile Actionfigure War 2

I picked up GRAW2 over the weekend. I've been a big fan of Tom Clancy for years and I was happy when the original game came out that it didn't suck ass. In fact I very much think it kicked ass. It kicked so much ass that I bought downloadable content for the game before I even owned my own copy of the game(Dont ask).

So it was with much excitement that I boldly hunkered down on my couch, with my tv shining brightly, my 360 purring not so softly as it spun up GRAW the second. So far it hasn't disappointed. The graphics are of course spectacular and the game plays like anyone who loved the first would hope (i.e. they didn't go crazy and change everything) They even made some improvements I think. Your squad members aren't completely stupid as often as they were in the first game. They also shout out somewhat useful information like "2 bad guys to the North!" They also introduced medikits and a medic class of squad member, but to be honest so far I've just always ditched the medic for more firepower. I don't need some half assed soldier on my team.

They slightly revamped the system for controlling vehicles where you can actually take over control of some of them and move them around in first person mode, you can even do this through the eyes of your squad. I haven't really found this necessary yet, but its a cool little feature I suppose. I'm hoping you can do something like that in co-op mode but I don't want to get my hopes up.

Am I the only person left in the world who sometimes just wants to play video games and doesn't want to waste time on the so called story? I mean let's face it for the most part video game plots aren't anything special, for military games especially. Bad guys have weapons and they want to hurt you and yours stop them! But no, im forced to sit in a jeep, looking around like a dumbass with nothing to do, while person after person and news report after news report pop on my screen. It makes me want to shoot them. So please game designers, let me skip cutscenes. It rips my heart in triplicate when I press start during a videogame movie element and it pauses rather than vanishes.

It's Not the Weekend

However, it just was so we can still talk about it. Spent a lot of time with my girlfriend which was quite nice. The gang and I went out to see 300. For those who might not be familiar with it, it's a movie adaption of the Frank Miller graphic novel depicting a fictional account of the battle of Thermopylae. For those of you not familiar with that either well, basically a long long time ago the Persian empire was spreading and a group of Spartans went forth to stop them. Hopefully thats a good enough plot for you people out there, because that was about the extent of it. Lots of carnage ensued.

That carnage was really well done, the battle scenes were fraught with blood and gore. A plethora of stabbings and beheadings not to mention the occasional freak of nature and bodies so filled with arrows it looked like an acupuncturists orgasmic fantasy. The movie was well paced and kept you going and even tho the subplot really only accounted for 10 minutes of the film, I felt it was well placed and of reasonable interest. It certainly wasn't nearly as comic-booky as the last Frank Miller movie adaption of Sin City, but there were similarities in artistic vision and presentation.

All told I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, well worth seeing. Honestly, I really only had two gripes about the movie, one of which would kind of spoil the movie for some and quite possibly history itself so I wont mention it. The other thing well... it seemed to me that all women of greece in this movie have breasts that are about 95% nipple. It's weird... get some implants or something ladies.

A New Era in Online Jander

Ha! I have a blog. It will probably suck and I might not update it. But I'll pretend like I care when I do. I swear. Here you can read possibly interesting stuff on video games, movies, and idiots. I might post random pictures I take or might bore you all with colts talk. Who knows and who cares but thats what you may or may not get.

I'd say stay tuned, but that might not prove a wise decision. At the very least, don't hold your breath.