Post from Phone (this may not work)

The Lovely Jenny is on vacation all week, so I've been on my own here. Some quick thoughts:

Pro: I can stretch out in the middle of the bed!
Con: I'm the only one in it.

Pro: I can leave my stuff lying around upstairs without worrying about it being moved ('cleaned up').
Con: I have to clean it all up.

Pro: All the string cheese is mine!
Con: I'm almost out of string cheese.

Pro: I know how to take care of the fish now.
Con: I don't think they like me. They don't say much, but I can tell...

Con: I didn't get to sit on the beach with her, watching the ocean all day.
Pro: I visited my grandma on her 90th birthday after work, and she was surprisingly lucid and upbeat.

I won that last one.

*Edited in-browser next day, because I can't leave well enough alone.

Gaming.

So my newly upgraded PC has led me astray from LotRO and into other games that I didn't think I'd realistically be able to run... in my lifetime. My PC budget is basically $zero, so I was lucky to pick up our friend Haley's old PC for $150, which is more than $zero, but still a good buy. This PC killed not one, not two, but three hard drives, so I'm expecting a crash at any time, but I can live with that.

I actually gutted that computer, along with my old one and the lovely Jenny's, and used all the bits to cobble together two new computers. I'm now running an Intel Quad-core at 2.5GHz with, somehow, 3.25GB RAM and my ATI HD 4870. Jenny is now running, in a different case, basically what was my old rig. An AMD 4000+ with a Gig of RAM and the NVIDIA whatever-it-was video card from Haley's comp. I'm no good with NVIDIA. Dunno what it was, but it was a massive step up from the ATI 1350 she had before, as is the RAM and CPU.

So now I can finally run games like Assassin's Creed II and GTA IV, and she can finally play games like Spore and The Sims 3, and can max out LotRO. And let me tell you: Assassin's Creed II alone was worth the upgrade. Seriously, that game is fucking amazing. I'm pretty much done with it now, in that all that's left to 100% completion is finishing all the annoying races, and I'm thinking about starting a new game to play it all over again. I've been playing GTA IV at the same time, but fuck that game. So far, it's not as fun as GTA San Andreas. Massive disappointment. I mean, it's good, but nowhere near as good as I expected. Instead of diving into it after finishing AC2 before returning to LotRO, I'm probably going to go back to LotRO and keep playing GTA on the side. I miss my Champion...

Never pay full price.

Steam is in the midst of a summer sale, and this is what I wait for. I can't remember ever paying full price for a PC game, except for the occasional retail bargain, like a boxed Painkiller trilogy or Half-Life 1 compilation. This week I nabbed the Grand Theft Auto IV complete pack for ten bucks, Assassin's Creed II for less than seven, and Bully for three and change. That's three full AAA games plus two expansions for the price of four Arby's value meals. I win.

I've got something like sixty games on Steam now, all but a handful purchased while on sale for a deep discount. Risen, a game I really, really want, is on sale today at 66% off. That still puts it at a little over ten dollars, so I passed. Discipline is the name of the game with Steam.

In other news, the lovely Jenny got a job with my company today, and she starts tomorrow. This is awesome. We'll be on the same sleep schedule now, and can carpool, saving tons of money on gas I won't spend on my 19-year old Explorer, since we'll take her Accord. And we can eat lunch together every day (double bonus points). Well, every day that I'm not out of town or on a PM, which is most days (minus 50% on double point bonus). Still, it will up our combined income hugely (financial stress level minus 60%). And I won't have to sweat in the heat all day and then drive home in a truck without air conditioning that's been sitting in the sun all day long (endurance level increased 50%).

On the downside, it's critical that we get her Accord serviced ASAP for all the warning lights that have been coming on lately, and I have no idea what repairs they might require. But that should be an affordable expense once she gets settled. Probably.

Another family crisis (getting good at this).

Just when things seemed to be getting back to normal, it's another trip to the hospital. My dad called me from work Friday afternoon with severe abdominal pain. He's still trying to recover from Miller-Fisher syndrome, an incredibly rare neurological disease that almost killed him last October, so I had no idea what to think, I just dropped everything and drove to midtown.

Wheeled him in an office chair to the car, because he couldn't stand, and drove to the ER. Turns out he had an "incarcerated inguinal hernia." Rushed to emergency surgery. Lots of doom-and-gloom, worst case information from the surgeon. Imminent-death sort of talk. Scariest two hours of my life. Then he came out of surgery with a best-possible outcome. The next morning he was cleared to go home. My personal life expectancy dropped one month due to stress.

The Lovely Jenny went above and beyond this weekend. She was there for my dad, and she was there for me. Genuinely my personal hero. In less than a year, I've dealt with my mother having multiple surgeries, including a double-mastectomy and the complications that arose from that, my dad being ambushed by Miller-Fisher and almost dying from it, and now this severe hernia. Jenny has helped me and my parents through it all. And meanwhile, her own aunt died of cancer and both her grandparents have been hospitalized, for a stroke in one case. She is officially the best person who ever lived.

Opposites attract.

Tonight Jenny came home from school all wound up, for some reason, like a Jack Russell on speed. I'm trying to wind down. As she was (rapidly) talking, I leaned back in my chair and started this song:

She paused, and said, "We're like complete opposites right now."

Can't really argue with that, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Your mom's birthday is coming up.

The Lovely has gone berserk with the crafting lately, digging through her boxes and boxes of beads, strings, jewels, and whatnot. Suddenly she has dozens of hand-crafted jewelery... things. I don't know how she does it, I'm just sitting here playing Half-Life, and I look over and boom! Three more pairs of earrings or a necklace or bracelet or something.

The best part is, she's made a new blog where you can see it all and even friggin' buy it! Want a jade colored necklace with a genuine bone Shiva carving? She's got it. Suddenly realizing that you need some silver and black earrings for... baseball practice or whatever? No problem. Jenny's hand-made jewelery is perfect for any occasion: court hearings, Christmas, Civil War reenactments, grocery shopping, Arbor Day, she has you covered.

Check out River Rock Jewelry and buy some kickass custom jewelery today. You'll find something you like, or my name ain't Nathan Arizona!

I still remember my Blogger password. Neat!

It's Father's Day, but I'm broke so I called my dad to tell him I'll take him out for dinner next weekend when I'll have a small amount of disposable income. But he didn't hear the phone ring, so I left a message saying, basically, gimme a shout. He did a few hours later, and I'm going to pick him up after work next Sunday to go get some awesome Italian at Garibaldi's. It's basically a neighborhood joint near the U of M, but it's friggin' sweet. He loves it, I love it, I took The Lovely Jenny there a couple weekends ago and she loves it, it's just all-around a very cool place to get a pizza or a nice plate of ravioli while watching the Tigers on TV. Can't wait for next weekend.

What else. It's been hot here, like Africa hot (Biloxi Blues reference FTW). Well over 90 degrees every damned day for weeks. The only break I've had from it at work has been driving out of town, and those jobs have been scarce. Last Wednesday I drove out to a prison a stone's throw west of Reelfoot Lake with Richard to install a new forklift battery and bring back the old, scrap battery. That was a decent day of air-conditioned truck cab, brief, beautiful views of a soon-to-be-gone lake, and random talk of our addictive MMO's (LotRO in my case, WoW in Richard's).

Tomorrow I may be sent to another prison in something called Able, TN, which is apparently a town a little ways past the Tennessee River, to do the same job. That's going to be an all-day trip, and as easy as that will be for me, I don't want to do it. Driving east on I-40 is like hypnosis for me. It's two lanes, straight as an arrow, for hours. The most boring drive on earth. Nothing to look at but lines of identical trees on both sides of the road, for mile after mile after soul-sucking mile. No curves, no hills, no nothing. Hopefully, I won't have to go alone. I could do the job alone easily. But I tried to convince my boss that another person is necessary, so I don't have to drive all the way out there and back as well. I'd rather ride back, so I can read a book and not fall asleep and plow off the road into a fucking tree.

What was I talking about?

Look, I'm going to pretend it hasn't been four months since my last post. Are we all okay with that? Yes? Good, moving on.

Today we had some hellfire and brimstone-style storms blow through the city, and because of reports of widespread flooding in Raleigh, I drove Jenny to work in my truck for her three hour shift. I decided to spend the time shopping at Poplar Plaza rather than driving back home, and that was not a great idea. Walked into Spin Street and immediately found $20 special editions of Serenity and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I really, really wanted. I didn't need them, but it was close. I settled for a couple of used CD's. First, Live's Throwing Copper, one of those seminal Gen-X albums that I always meant to own but never got around to picking up. Sure, I could download it, but that's not the point.

Second is Lewis Black's classic live CD, The White Album. Ten years ago, when I was living in Germantown with a couple guys I worked with, we Napster'd this record, and spent night after night laughing at it while we Quake III'd the night away. I've tried to find it a number of times recently, both in record stores and with things like Soulseek. Never came close, but today there it was, for $7.99. Money well spent, my friend. I'm going to rip this fucker and put it on my cell phone so I can inappropriately laugh my way though a few days of boring, grinding work on industrial battery chargers.

So after spending a few bucks at Spin Street I spent a few more at McAlister's, where I got to meet Jenny's new manager and get a very good lunch. Then I went to Bookstar and forced myself not to buy at least a dozen books I really wanted. I've become so used to randomly finding cool books for next to nothing at places like Goodwill and Salvation Army and that used bookstore in Millington (latest buys: Band of Brothers, Life on Earth, and Harry Potter 5), that I forgot what it was like to find exactly what I want for full price. I won't list all the stuff I had to make myself put down, but the last one, Hell Hound on his Trail, was a real struggle. I stood there and read the entire first chapter. I'm not kidding.

What else. Oh, I'm loving this Netflix thing. Jenny talked me into it a couple months ago, and damn if it isn't worth the nine bucks a month. Even setting aside the fucking awesome instant, unlimited streaming of all kinds of movies and TV shows whenever we want, I'm just hooked back into renting movies again. I'd slipped into a mode of selectively buying cheap DVD's that I really wanted, which severely limited what I got to see. Now we're throwing whatever seems interesting into the queue, and with a 2 to 3-day turnaround, even getting just one disc at a time is plenty. Right now I'm watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Two days ago we watched Where the Wild Things Are. Next up will be Kindergarten Cop and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It just makes having esoteric tastes for movies so simple to satisfy, and it comes wrapped in the convenience of never having to go out in public to rent something. Okay, that was a joke, since there's nowhere within 20 miles of here you can actually go to rent something in person. Seriously, every Blockbuster, Cinemagic, and Hollywood I was aware of is shuttered now, excluding the Blockbuster outlet store on Summer. That would really suck if I didn't have a Netflix subscription, which is why they're all closed in the first place. Is that good or bad?

Anyway I'm off to my new obsession, The Lord of the Rings Online. Wait. Fuck. It's three in the morning. Okay I'll play all day tomorrow. Wait. I have to go to Aldi, the awesome low-price grocery store for 70% of the stuff you need from a regular grocery store. Right, so I'll spend an hour doing that, then it's LOTRO for the rest of the day. If you need me I'll be on the Meneldor server. Don't look for me. I'll find you (creepy, but true).

Oh the weather outside is... winter.

It's been a strange Christmas season. It never really felt like Christmas for me. There's a certain Christmas feeling, that of anticipation, excitement, a lovely rosy feeling connected to light displays, well-worn songs, and the smell of pine and candles, that I never had this year. I can't explain it, because I know it's deeply connected to my childhood. But it never really clicked in me this year that it's Christmas time. It's happened before, but not for awhile.

Sure, we hung lights on the house, and yes, I had the entire week off work (using nearly all of my vacation time), and hey, it sure is cold outside. But it just felt like another week, only with giving and getting of stuff and lots of unusually heavy traffic at the grocery store. Something is missing here, and I don't know why or how I missed it.

Still, Jenny and I had a much better than average Christmas holiday. Because I took the week off and The Lovely Jenny only had to work two days of my off time and didn't have to go to school, we had ample, rewarding "us" time. I have been reminded many times over why I'm so in love with her, and didn't bother to correct my nephew Nicholas today when he said he was waiting to start a video for when my wife came back to the room. She is my wife, that's how I think of her. Just not legally, not just yet.

Also, we shopped a lot, for our friends, family, and each other, and we received even more than we bought. Tomorrow we're driving out to Tipton county for her family's Christmas deal, but even now here's our swag count:

• A big, bad Black & Decker food processor
• A whole mess of socks (his and hers)
• $650 cash*
• A $150 Walmart gift card**
• Two winter shirts for me
• An autographed Dick Vitale book (sweet!)
• Season 3 of Venture Brothers on DVD (hell yeah!)
• 600 classic cartoons 6-DVD set***
• Wireless home phone w/ answering machine and call-ID***
• Box of chocolate cordial cherries
• Refillable diffusion aromatic scent kit

* Used for new 2.1 speakers for both of our PC's, clothes for Jenny, bills, etc.
** Used for a Griz fitted cap, Star Trek 2-disc DVD, make-up, etc.
*** I bought for Jenny

It more than offsets all the stuff we bought for other people this year. It was really satisfying to be able to go out and shop for gifts without worrying too much about the cost. Easily our most giving Christmas, monetarily, in years. Here's the give list:

• Framed mini-poster for an '88 rock concert
• Tinkerbell earrings
• A home bar/mixed drinks accessory set
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2-disc DVD
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail special edition 2-disc DVD + extras
• Jeremiah Johnson DVD
• Good Night and Good Luck DVD
• Steamboy DVD
• A custom-made bracelet (by The Lovely)
• A big wall-hanging, bronze-looking star thing
  
• A specially selected sew-on patch

After I wrapped our gifts, Jenny hand-made awesome ribbons, bows, and tags. It doesn't mean too much to the people gleefully tearing off the paper, but it means a lot to me to know how we made their gifts look so festive. I even took a picture, and this wasn't all of it:


So, no, it didn't feel like the Christmas season I remember as a kid. But it was a good Christmas nonetheless, and it reminded me over and over of why I fell in love with Jenny. Christmas is supposed to be a special time that reminds you of all the people you care about; it's about family, and it reminded me of the little family that Jenny and I will soon be starting. And I can't wait.

KOTOR makes for a happy Jenny.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was on sale yesterday for $2.49 as a part of Steam's five-day Thanksgiving special. I got up late, but Jenny was sick and wanted to sleep even later. So I came downstairs, let the dog out, started the obligatory Weekend Coffee, and sat down at my PC to check Steam, because I knew they were running specials every day for five days. I figured I'd find something for The Lovely before the sale ended, but KOTOR for $2.49 was beyond anything I expected. So I bought it via my Steam account on Jenny's rig and downloaded it for her. By the time I got her out of bed it was ready to play. Yeah, I'm thoughtful like that.

Anyway, she's diggin' it, as you can see. Having beaten in on XBox years ago, she insists that it's one of the best RPG's ever and that if I'm ever going to see eye-to-eye with her on this whole "RPG's are worth your time" thing that I have to play -- and beat -- this game. It's not a small request. I have a whole post on my experiences with RPG's, and if you've read it, you know how picky I am.

I started KOTOR while Jenny was at work yesterday. I downloaded it to my rig because I wanted to try it, and because I knew I could max it out in every way with my specs. It runs great, and I'm a few hours into it. It looks like the sort of action RPG I like, but it doesn't play like one. It's a story-driven tale with lots of talking and quest-hoarding, punctuated by semi-interactive fighting. So far, it's very JRPG-ish, which is not good. Being set in the Star Wars universe helps, so I'll keep playing. I have to admit that it's addictive.

Going back to that old post, I should point out that now that I have the specs to run it well, I do intend to try to get further into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than I did before. I liked a lot about that game, but the fact that it was so goddamned ugly didn't exactly make me want to stick with it. It looks much better with my 4870, and I do want to try it again. I also have The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion now, which I haven't tried at all. It came bundled with BioShock, which is why I bought it: BioShock for me, Oblivion for Jenny.

She's still playing KOTOR, by the way. I'm looking to my left, and, yes, there's Jenny playing KOTOR. So at least she's enjoying her little gift. Now I just have to upgrade her entire computer so I can get her Spore for Christmas.

The Forum experience.

I've been a die hard Grizzlies fan since they moved here in 2001, but I've never been able to get out to the Pyramid or the Forum to see them live until this season. The lovely Jenny, love of my life, being her usual super awesome self, got me my first ever Griz tickets to their win over their former Canadian sister team, the Toronto Raptors, back on October 30th. She got me some excellent seats: top row of the lower bowl, right behind the Grizzlies bench.

The Griz absolutely schooled the Raps that night. It was perfect for my first game. I went with my dad, who like me has always rooted for the Griz but hadn't seen them in person. He raised me to love basketball. I grew up rooting for the Keith Lee-era Memphis State Tigers. He's worked at the U of M since before I was born. I went to grammar school at Campus School, an excellent "optional program" Memphis City school right on campus (hence the name). Dad put up a basketball hoop in the backyard, and I played every day for ten years. It was a sad day when I outgrew my '85 Tigers Final Four tee shirt.

Anyway, I loved the Forum. It's a beautiful facility inside and out. I've been to the Pyramid for dozens of Tiger basketball games as a member of the U of M band, and the Forum blows it away in every category but one: it's not a giant fucking pyramid sitting right by the bridge from Arkansas. For all its problems, you cannot deny that the Pyramid is striking from the outside, and it makes our skyline, sitting up on the bluff over the river, look damned impressive.

Otherwise, the Forum puts the Pyramid to shame. It fits organically into Beale Street. The concourses are open and airy, with Memphis-centric artwork everywhere you look. Near the escalators to the terrace level, for example, you'll find a gorgeous five-by-fifteen-foot hand-made ceramic tile mosaic mural of Memphis basketball that has to be seen to be believed. Concession stands are creatively named, and the food is uniformly fantastic. It's clean, tasteful, and heavily staffed by competent, helpful, friendly people. Whimsical touches are everywhere, from funny restroom signs to a double row of kiosks where you can play Memphis-themed video games like a FedEx version of Pac Man.

Tonight I attended my second Griz game in as many months, which makes me a very happy boy. My mom was my hook-up this time, having somehow stumbled upon a great promotional deal. Two tickets for the price of one, and that one heavily discounted. I got two seats on the front row of the terrace (top level) just right of center court for twenty bucks. It was very nearly the view you get on TV, only in person, and infinitely more awesome.

Again, I went with my dad. I came prepared this time, gear-wise. I wore my Shane Battier '01 throwback jersey again, but I made Dad wear my current-era Griz hoodie. You gotta represent, right? Interestingly enough, I've now been to two Griz games without seeing a single throwback jersey other than the one I was wearing. Where's the love, Memphis? We went to the playoffs for the first time in the Vancouver colours! Don't tell me you don't remember the '04 campaign, because I'll know you're lying.

Anyway, we lost the game tonight. The Bucks came in wounded, with two of their best players, Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut, out with injuries. I say "two of" and not "two best" because rookie Brandon Jennings is the real damn deal. I posted this to 3 Shades of Blue:

Just home from the Forum. A depressing end to an entertaining game. For whatever reason (iffy coaching, lack of a capable point guard, perhaps) the gameplan was scrapped and the team relied on jump shots for most of the fourth, despite fifty (FIFTY!) paint points.

Aside from that, Brandon Jennings nailed the coffin shut. That kid is terrifying to watch if you're on the opposing side. He's so quick it's just... unnatural. Every time he touches the ball you just cringe. Conley, Mayo, and Williams took turns trying to stop him in the fourth, and they all got torched repeatedly. The Bucks may have won the draft lottery after all.

That's really all I want to get into in terms of tonight's game, other than this: the Griz put on a great show, and I witnessed some truly memorable plays. My favorite was O.J. Mayo's steal and dunk when the game was all but lost in the final moments, but a close second was Marc Gasol's two monster rejections. Here's one of them:

So thanks to Jenny, my mom, the Grizzlies staff, and the Grizzlies players. It was awesome to finally see my favorite team in person after eight years of TV. Dad thanks you, too.

Titans win; I'm right again.

It's a heavy burden, being right so often*. I'm not trying to show anyone up, I'm just constantly vindicated in the long run. I can't help it. At work, for example, whenever we're trying to figure something out down in the shop, Dale's always wrong. He just is. Not just in the shop, but out in the field as well, on a PM or a maintenance call. Whatever he decides is wrong, which is why I usually override him. Because I'm right.

In this case, I was right about the Titans benching Kerry Collins and starting Vince Young. Of course, everyone else in the United States of America was right about this as well. They were oh-fer almost half way through the season, there was just no reason at all not to throw Young in there to see what he could do. Two losses later, they finally did, and what happens? Two straight wins.

Young showed his comeback is legitimate, outplaying fellow first-round draft pick Alex Smith down the stretch. Young has been clutch twice in as many weeks, getting the Titans (2-6) in the end zone when it mattered.

So yeah, I'm right again. You're welcome, head coach Jeff Fisher. I know you read this blog.

Anyway. We cooked out on the grill this afternoon, and I stuffed myself way, way beyond any reasonable level of... um, eatingness. I still feel like I'll never have to eat again. I put eight pork chops, five cheddar-stuffed kielbasas, and a monstrous smoked sausage on the grill and burned them over fire until they tasted good. Haley and Jenny roasted some potatoes in the oven, and cooked some sweet corn in, well, in the microwave. We cheated a bit on that.

But it was all unbelievable. One of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. Jenny tweaked the grilled pork chop recipe we made up last weekend, and she absolutely nailed it. Pork perfection. The potatoes, as well, were fantastic. I love red potatoes to begin with, but they cut, seasoned, and cooked them to a state I'd characterize as perfection had I not just used that word to describe the pork chops. We ate outside on the back porch by the grill as I cooked up some extra meat for leftovers and Richard burned the shit out of some beer brats. Topped it all off with a dessert recipe of Haley's: baked bananas with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter, served with ice cream. Addictive would be a good word for it.

We fed five tonight and still have plenty of leftovers. Best of all, we bought most of the ingredients at the local Aldi for a song. After two trips there, I'm definitely an Aldi convert. Even better, I noticed that they use industrial batteries in their pallet jacks, talked to a couple managers, and I think we can get some work there. So it was a win-win-win weekend. Because I was right. Don't doubt it, just believe it.

*My egotism in this post is generally fictional; Jenny is so smart that she routinely makes me feel like an imbecile, consistently reminding me that whatever I think I'm at expert at, someone else knows more. Except about football. And my job. And Quake.

Big Lots FTW (again).

Tonight I picked up yet another great game at an absurd price at Big Lots. I found Mirror's Edge for $6. You read that right. I never actively looked for this game at retail, which may explain why I've never seen it anywhere. In any case, I couldn't run it when it came out, but now that I have a new video card I've been waiting for an online sale somewhere. Not anymore.

I'll post my thoughts on the game soon. Meanwhile, let's review what Big Lots has delivered:

• Darwinia (very rare at retail)
• Psychonauts (ditto, and obscenely good)
• Driver: Parallel Lines (impulse buy at $4, very fun)
• Just Cause (underrated)
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars ($6 or $40 online? Hmm)
• You Are EMPTY (mindless fun, emphasis on "mindless" and "fun")
• Thief: The Dark Project (very lucky find)
• The Lord of the Rings Online (in case I want to play it someday)
• Prey (already had it on Steam, but now I don't need Steam or a disc)
• Mirror's Edge

Keep in mind, all of these games cost either $4 or $6. That's ten solid titles for less than the price of a single current-gen console game. And I'm a collector; I love having the box art, manual, etc. Digital distribution is definitely a good thing, but given the choice, I'll always take a retail package.

That isn't counting two games I grabbed for Jenny on the off chance that she might like them: Viva Pinata and NeoPets Puzzle Adventure, which I'll surprise her with when she gets home from work in ten minutes. She toyed around with Viva for a while, but didn't really get into it. Which is fine for four bucks. I think she'll like the NeoPets title, and if not, Haley might want to play it. They're into NeoPets, because they're apparently ten years old. But I'm not judging.

By the way, Haley's new blog, For the love of God... and anime, is up now, and shows off her phenomenal wallpapers. Go grab some of them now, you will definitely be impressed.

The Informant! is not as funny as I think it is.

Tonight Jenny and I ventured into Midtown to see The Informant! at the Studio on the Square. I loved it. The best I can do to describe it would be to call it a true-crime-comedy, which isn't a real genre. It might not actually be that good, because several times I found myself the only person in the theater, which was at least half-full, laughing aloud at the subtler comedic moments.

Being a true-crime thing, the mystery of it is lost once you've seen the end, so it doesn't have much re-watch value. I'd see it maybe once more for the comedy, but I wouldn't buy it. So my advice is to go see it now or rent it.

The Studio was strangely slow for a Sunday afternoon, but by the time we left the lot was pretty full. The place hasn't changed at all since the first time I went there. It was the first showing on the day it opened. I saw Gladiator with Garrett and Nikkie. I wasn't intending to be at their first ever screening, it just turned out that we wanted to see Gladiator that weekend, and the Studio was the closest theater. I ordered the first ever plate of sausage, cheese, and crackers, which is still on the menu. This time, we just got a large sweet tea, a large green tea, and a small popcorn (which was large). Since I had a $25 gift card from my aunt Linda from last Xmas, the whole thing cost me $2.50. Even $27.50 isn't too bad for a movie for two, so I might try to get us to do this semi-regularly on Sundays, the only day Jenny and I are both off work.

Don't read this.

Seriously, it's not worth the time. I'm up late for no reason. I'm wide awake and I don't know why. My face hurts. That's probably it. I couldn't get over this cold because I had to work. Three days doing manual labor in the sun is bad for you when you're trying to get rid of a head cold. I just found this out.

My new phone, it turns out, is a great MP3 player, but I can't put music on it yet, and even if I could, I couldn't listen to it. At work, I'm constantly having to decide what to do and take responsibility for everything, even though I've been at it for 11 months and I work with a guy approaching his eighth year. In almost all of my games I've gotten to the most irritating part and have stopped playing. I have this blog, but I never have anything to say. I take care of all the bills in my household, but I'm terrible with money. My fiancée is getting frustrated with me being tired all the time, and I'm too tired to begin to approach how to think about what I should consider doing about it.

This is turning into a world-class rant. I like it. There, I have something to write about on this blog, that's one problem solved. Now I just have to figure out how to replace all the major appliances in this house, and how to collate that decision with the one that will determine whether there's any point in doing so in the first place. I also have to figure out what the fuck I'm going to do about my truck. I have to replace it, but I can't. I can't even trade it in, because it doesn't really belong to me, and only one third of it even belongs to the person it actually belongs to (mostly). Do you see why I have a headache?

No, that's the head cold. And also all of the above. Mostly the head cold though.

Probably.

It's nearly 2:30 in the morning, so I might as well make myself go to bed, even if my insomnia is telling me it's pointless. Jenny is up there, and that will help. The only thing I can rely on with all this bullshit I don't know how to fix is that I love her, and she makes me feel at ease. Even when she's asleep.

I got some new stuff.

Mostly a new phone. It's a Sony Ericsson W760a, which I selected after approximately 10 minutes of research (wandering aimlessly around the AT&T store). It looks like this:

Only mine isn't usually floating in a black void, and there's only one of it. It's much better than my old bargain-basement-four-years-ago phone. I thought about going balls-out and getting something completely crazy that I don't need, like an iPhone, but I thought, meh. I'll probably just break it, job like mine and all. This one feels like it can take a few drops. Unfortunately, I'll have to go out of my way to buy some specific accessories: a USB cable, headphones, and Sony's proprietary M2 memory card.

What else? Oh, a camera. Ian left this little Fuji A360 digicam when he moved out. Turns out it kinda sucks, though it is small and light. The non-adjustable shutter speed is so high that it's virtually impossible to take a picture at any marginally close range without blurring. It uses a lame media card format that I thought was proprietary to Olympus: xD. Even worse, it has no on-board memory, and the xD card it came with is just 16MB. Since it's a 4.1 megapixel camera, and you can't adjust the picture size, that equals roughly four pictures. Awesome. I found exactly two xD cards at Newegg: 1GB for $11 and 2GB for $15.

That's enought random babbling for tonight. I'm jumping off to let Jenny watch TV on my computer.

Picture time.

Here's some catfish we baked a few weeks ago. Fresh garlic and parsley, dried sage and oregano, and other stuff I don't remember. We added the recipe to our cookbook, because it was so good you'd have thought one of those fish had been the reincarnation of Buddha.

This is what my cayenne pepper plant looks like now. It used to cower under the shadow of that tropical whatever-it-is on the left, and now it's practically a tree. There are too many peppers on it to count. Whatever I don't eat I'll dry and crush to make my own fresh cayenne pepper seasoning. I'm like a fucking farmer or something now.

I love this picture. I mean look at it. It was raining, and she's so cute, collecting rainwater for the plants instead of tapwater from the hose. What can you do when faced with such adorability except take a picture of it?

I think I've settled on a desktop.

Completing my Boring Post Trifecta, here's what my desktop will look like for the foreseeable future:

Windowblinds theme is Rapture XP, Rainmeter configs are MKG Plus and Black and Red, and the wallpaper, I found on Deviantart. "Darkness" by Amystikal.

Anyway, Jenny just got home from school. We're watching NCIS. Or at least she is, as I'm headed off to bed. End of post starts.... now.

RPG attempt 4.0

I have a long and brief career with RPG video games. It's never been a genre I've been attracted to, it's just something I've dabbled in. So here's the rundown.


First there was Sword of Vermilion, a Genesis RPG I bought almost two decades ago for reasons I forgot almost one decade ago. I remember that the music was awesome, but at a certain point I hit a wall where I needed to level up way too many times to continue the story quests than I had the patience for. I'd already bought Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and my friend had Sonic & Knuckles, so fuck this RPG shit, it's ring-collectin' time.


I didn't play another RPG for nearly ten years, when Garrett left Panzer Dragoon Saga in my possession for a while. I loved that game, and actually played it through to completion at least three times. I didn't know at the time that it was one of the most rare and coveted US Saturn games in existence, but I understand why. It was a very linear game, but the atmosphere, exploration, and action (real-time combat) hooked me immediately. It helped that I owned (still own, actually) Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2.


Roughly eight years later, I picked up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. via Steam, a first-person RPG/shooter. I played it pretty regularly for a couple weeks, but the slow pace killed it for me. I'd spend half an hour walking around for two minutes of combat, then another hour of walking to buy an upgrade, which would let me walk for another hour to get somewhere I'd spend 20 minutes looking around for a specific item I could bring back to some lazy fuck two hours walk away, and that constitued a quest. I'm sorry, but that's not action/RPG, that's just time-killing, and I do that at work five days a week, nine hours a day already. Call me when you've got something interesting to do, OK, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developers? Also, enough with the fucking acronyms. I played this game for weeks, and I still don't know that the title of the goddamn game even stands for.


Which brings us to today. For Valentine's, Jenny and I went out and shoveled down some Italian food, then went shopping. I bought her a nice blouse, some nice earrings, and The Sims 2: Apartment Life (which was nice). And I got Fable: The Lost Chapters. Which is not only nice, it's one of the most awesome and addictive games I've ever played. It runs great on my PC, has tons of depth and replay, looks fantastic, has an amazing score, and is accessible enough for me (still an RPG n00b) to understand everything and kick ass/take names, while still presenting enough of a challenge to keep me on my toes. If this keeps up, I may end up spending what's left of my tax refund (after bills) not on a PC upgrade, but on an XBox 360, just so I can play Fable 2. Then again, I may blow it all on booze and cheeseburgers. Either way, WIN.

Getting l33ter every day. People still say "l33t," right?

So Jenny's old PC finally died a couple weeks ago. It was a slow, agonizing death, and we're all just glad it isn't suffering anymore. This weekend we bought Haley's old computer, and we're busy setting it up for The Lovely. Anyway, it's a little mini-ATX tower, and there's no longer any room on top of Jen's rig for the little 15" LCD monitor. Therefore:


Behold! My first multi-monitor set-up ever. And I'm already addicted to it. Forget the gaming applications, I just need the extra desktop space, and this is definitely the best way to get around a monitor with a max res of just 1280x1024. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to geek out for a while.

UPDATE: Two screens! For one computer! What is this, the future?!