Friday Night Lite

A side effect of my taking time off to watch the kids tomorrow is that I'll have Friday night free to do whatever it is I want, and am able, to do (after she picks them up in the late afternoon). I haven't had a Friday or Saturday night off from work in more than five months and I'm really looking forward to the relatively inexpensive possibilities.

Which means I have no idea what the heck I'm going to do tomorrow night. All my old U-Club buddies are gone, so doing Car Bombs and Power Hour might be a tad "creepy alcoholic" all by myself. Solo night at the movies means "creepy single guy". And staying home with the PS3/XBox 360 is no different than any other Friday or Saturday night, only earlier. More on this in a future post, but I haven't dated in fourteen years so I have no clue how to go about that or picking someone up.

Now that I think about it, having Friday night free is starting to look like a hysterical nightmare.

Rock Contested

Readers with Facebook accounts: please go to this app and do a search for our band SECRET SCRUBBY and, once you're on our band's page, click the "become a fan" link. We're entered in this contest to play Rock Band at MTV Studios in Times Square and the sheer number of our fans influences our odds of winning significantly. Please help! Much appreciated:
http://apps.facebook.com/rockbandenergizer/index.php?band_id=20

You've Got Mail

My next door neighbour just delivered mail of mine that was delivered to her on accident. Except the mail is 3-4 weeks old (as what she brought me was a cable bill that's now 3 weeks past due) and it's been opened. This particular neighbour has never given any sort of problem before, but I think this is going to have to end up being a call the cops sort of infarction.

The kids are on vacation for a week again, starting today, and have way too much pent-up energy. Personally, I wish this vacation were a week earlier or later. I'm taking four of my five vacation days this week and was looking forward to some peace and quiet interspersed between being available to help some friends out if they need us.

Microsoft decided it would be cheaper for them to send me a new Xbox 360 rather than repair my broken one, and included a one month extension of my Live Gold account. I'm ok with this. The only downside, I had to re-download the 14 or so gigabytes of downloadable content I had in order to assign the license for them to the new console. Everything else is upside.

The past week saw Chris & Chrissy's 15th wedding anniversary and Aeia's 9th birthday. Happy Anniversary to the Taylors and Happy Birthday to my daughter!

So What

I had something to say last night, and lying in bed I decided I'd get to it today. And of course I can not remember what the heck I wanted to say last night. Lame.

Last week my Xbox 360 died, threw on up the dreaded "red rings of death" and so it's now in transit to the good folks at Microsoft's repair center in Texas. I know it's just a video game, which is so nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it's an integral part of my weekly unwind from work and spend time with friends every Saturday night, so its absence is abhorrent in that regard. For me, there aren't other options for Saturday nights at my place: gaming is Sunday (and 2 days a week is draining); if I never ever play Phase 10 again I will die happy. So, for a couple weeks, while I wait on an idea for how long the repair will take, I've rented a console, which is still slightly inconvenient, but better than the alternative for me.

This morning Denise woke me up to tell me my car wouldn't start and to give her a ride to work. Irksome. I need to figure that one out. It ran perfectly fine yesterday.

Yearly oncology appointment is next monday. . .

I'm so over all of the Obama mania. Can we get over it already and get this country working well again? The guy needs to start kicking ass right out of the gate, so get to it already. History's been made. Whoop-de-do. Next?

Home For the Holidays

Randomly mentionable ephemera:

I need to get one last ingredient today for my award-worthy cranberry sauce and the expectation of it waiting for me come Thursday. And though I have to work Thursday morning, I'm not too bothered over it; it means I get to escape the stress of all the other cooking and entertaining until then.

TV is more and more boring, poorly written, not riveting. . .this season. And then there are gems like Pushing Daisies. Canceled gems. I swear the TV Gods have it in for me: "Hey, check it out, Evan just fell in love with this quirky/entertaining/original show. . .let's make sure no one watches it so it'll tank!" a la Veronica Mars, Wonderfalls, Firefly, Angel. . .I've decided I need to convince the TV Voodoo that I really LOVE everything on the CW, House and the Law & Order franchise, while I really hate the shows I really love. . .

My grandma's memorial is Saturday. I have trepidation.

Blatantly changing painful subjects. . .Black Friday is nearly upon us and I haven't amassed enough crazy wealth yet. That said, if you are someone I would typically be sure to include in holiday gift-giving, I'm likely to just send you a well-wishing note this year in order to focus all my energy on the kidlets. Much love to all.

This has been a very enjoyable quarter for me when it comes to video games. For the first time ever, I have too many new games bought or borrowed that rock and demand my time, and not enough time to play them all equally. For those of you who've been wondering, and don't need full-fledged reviews to convince you (other than my golden word), Little Big Planet, Rock Band 2, Fallout 3 and Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe are all worth their price tags. I am a little annoyed that XBox Live is turning into a clone of the Wii, but am happy to be able to Netflix via my XBox--I might even use that feature now.

Kids are all healthy and happy and enjoying their Thanksgiving breaks. Denise has recently been diagnosed with an amazing number of allergies, and I'm leery of how this will effect the home life for all of us, even if I do want her to have more comfort.

Wow, it's 2 am. . .I should go to bed. 'Night!

Freaky Friday

New Halloween pics on facebook.

The kids had a great Halloween. As you'll see, Aeia was a witch, Lash was Boba Fett, Rael was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Tasmia was a jack o'lantern. We, as usual, did our trick-or-treating together with the Taylors and were out for about two hours. The first hour Rael would come running up to me after every house (he was led to and from every house byLash) to let me know he wanted "more house dad!" During the second hour he started getting tired and demanded I carry his candy bag and Chrissy carry him to each house. He also made sure she knew he wanted to go home with her and "protect her from getting hurt." He was very sweet. As the weather was constntly on the verge of torrential downpours, Tasmia and Denise stayed home.

That day I also had the annual parent-teacher conference for Aeia. She's doing exceptionally well, enough that her teacher suggested we might have her tested as a gifted child. She also shared a writing activity the students had done about their lives that week. Aeia had written about her visit to my grandmother's this summer and how much she loved that time with her. This choked me up a little.

I kept Rael home from "school" that day due to an incident at his HeadStart preschool the day before (the other kids were given the day off by their schools) that left me and Denise needing to discuss whether we could continue trusting his school to supervise him and keep him safe. Rael had decided he wanted to see his brother, so he left his preschool and walked to Lash's school (they're on the same block) looking for Lash, without his preschool (6 adults to watch 18 kids. . .) realizing he'd left. The good staff at Lash's school took him in, protected him and got him returned to where he belonged, while Rael's teachers floundered about. Today I received notification that Rael's school has been cited for this incident and could lose their liscence if any other incidents occur. I can't say that I disagree with this. Of all my kids at that age, Rael is definitely the biggest handful, but taking care of and supervising kids, even energetic ones like Rael, is part of their training and job requirement

As for the rest of life: work sucks. My PS3 had a system update that caused my 3rd party controller to stop working with Little Big Planet so now I need a new controller. I don't feel myself conneting well with others right now and I feel pretty alone. Oh, and it's my turn again to do the part time shifts at the Wal-Mart store, which always completely sucks ass, but at least I don't have to do it on December for the holiday rush.

Splash

I'm a little muddled, a little scattered. Haven't felt well at all the last few days, but think I'm way overdue for giving this blog some attention. Seriously, I've been a bad blogger ever since returning to the McWorkforce.

How's my month been so far?

The kids have returned to school and are enjoying it as usual. A couple Saturdays have passed without Rock Banding; this is cause for a little sadness.

I finally have my PS3. Tired of slowly saving up for it and then needing to spend the money on something else, I sold off about a third of my heroclix collection and got the requisite money--only to spend the day discovering that every store in town was out, every online vendor I would usually go to (Amazon, BestBuy...) was out. No way was I getting a used one on eBay or Craigslist, or anywhere. On a whim, despite being told by the clerk at Circuit City that they were even sold out online, I went to their website anyway and, sure enough, they were still available and two days later I had my pretty new toy. Shiney. Now I need to save up slash sell something and upgrade to an HD television set and really enjoy it.

I've finally seen the first half of the Dark Knight and, so far, it is not all that or a bag of chips. Maybe the full film will see it prove otherwise. Of course, I am hard to please cinematically. I finally saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall as well and thought it had funny moments but was still only ok.

I'm a little bummed that I haven't had as much opportunity to enjoy this summer as I have in previous summers; I feel bad the kids didn't get to enjoy it as much either. Damn fires. Damn working weekends. Meh.

As if I didn't have enough time wasters--I usually spend an hour or so a week on sporcle. Can you name all of the planets in Star Wars? Because I can.

It is a sad sad day today in Casa de Peterson. Lash's beloved three year-old goldfish passed away. We're supposed to have the grand tank cleansing ceremony sometime tonight as well, keep it bare for a couple weeks in memorial and then start getting new fish to die and prep the water for the next long-timer. Lash is ok, but it was pretty upsetting to him this morning.

Silent Hill

This past Saturday I got my nipples pierced. It hurt. A lot. Very few other pains in life that I have experienced do I recall hurting more. I'd rather sport an eyebrow piercing but, well, that would make me less employable. Interestingly enough, my piercer turned out to be someone I already knew IRL, my friend Bandito's band-mate Dirty Jim. "I got my nipples pierced by Dirty Jim" doesn't exactly sound the safest, eh?

Saturday I also invited a coworker to join our regular Rock Band get-together, and she brought one of her friends. And J&J both were fairly ogling and gawky. I hadn't the heart to tell them that the ladies were gay (so very many of my Burger Workers are. An unusually large percentage of the population). All had a blast, as usual.

Retrieved Lash & Aeia from my grandmother on Sunday. Both had a fantastic time on their trip & I'm glad they got to have this special family time they normally don't get as much of. Things are quickly back to noisy normal here.

Work still sucks, but they convinced me to stay (ok, Denise did) and I will continue looking in earnest for something better. Sigh. Denise has some tests she needs to take tomorrow for job qualifications of her own. Loots of luck being wished on that one.

The wildfires here in northern California continue to blaze. There has been very little of this summer that's been smoke-free and safe for the kids to play outside, swim, etc. This is frustrating. I've friends with homes in danger, and this worries me (we had some stay with us one night while they were evacuated. I can't imagine how horrible the feeling is for them). I just want the fires to end. There's been so much ash and smoke thick in the air for so long that I'm beginning to feel like I live in Silent Hill. And it's very hard on me and my incomplete set of lungs as well. Sigh.

I have tomorrow off. A little job searching and some decent r&r would be nice.

Next time...

Waiting

I've been boring. I'm going to work on that.

Eldest kids are at my grandmother's this week, camping, fishing, meeting new relatives, having a fantastic time. Lash caught his first fish and apparently really dug it. I only wish I could have been there.

Haven't seen any of the movies I want to see yet, and am more likely not to at this point. Bummer. Ah well.

Oh boy did my birthday suck. Really, really suck. I don't want to elaborate, though as I am now past that. But it s-u-c-k-e-d sucked.

Still waiting for news on my pitch, which will go slower now that it's convention season...working on something new though for another small press.

Saturday nights are becoming a regular Rock Band party here, which has been fun.

I'm Not There

A couple weeks ago Tasmia had her regular baby check-up and they detected a heart murmur, so today was the echocardiogram to test whether the murmur is a problem or not (again, not there due to Burger Emporium not giving me the time off requested). I hadn't mentioned any of it here before because I didn't want to put it out there and give Denise more to fret over. So anyway, they won't have an answer as to what the echo showed until next week, so we still wait wait wait, but with less fretting under the assumption that if there was something overly worrisome, it would have shown in their reactions. Anyway, good vibes and all that jazz please.

Rael is fine, thanks.

Lash's regular baseball season is over,but his team did well enough that they're in the local play-offs (play-off record of 1-1, two losses will eliminate them). He's still enjoying them greatly and work has kept me from viewing as many as I'd have liked.

The kids finished school today. Both did spectacular on their report cards. Next year Lash will be in 6th and Aeia 3rd grade. Lash had a great time at Whiskeytown Environmental Camp too. Groovy.

I'm working on a couple new writing pitches with another company in mind--spreading out my writing search.

Rock Band is still my mistress but some of its idiosyncrasies leave me a little ambivalent. My band with John and Brian is named "The Gay Cabelleros" and Microsoft chimed in when we selected this to let us know that the name was unacceptable for online/community standards and we wouldn't be able to play on XboxLive without changing the band name (we haven't, and I rock it hard with my pink chaps and cowboy hat). Then, when Aeia was singing "This ain't a scene, it's an arms race" by Fall Out Boy, I realized another quirky censorship issue of theirs: in the chorus when he repeatedly sings "god damn arms race" Rock Band has "god" deleted, it's just a silent vocal beat there, but "damn" is still there. Funny, not ha-ha, to me as I would have prefered Aeia not saying "damn" over her saying "god." Funky. All of the songs are radio edits (which is no different from Guitar Hero), so no "so fucking special" in "Creep," etc.

Still, extremely super fun and addicting. Just waiting for EA to send me my replacement for the defective guitar that came with it; thankfully the GH guitar works with Rock Band (but not vice-versa, grr).

Work. . .blows. And we've added more things to the menu that I won't eat.

Old friend Adam is coming up for a visit this weekend, am looking forward to some groovy hang-out time, see the Hulk, go buy another auction car. Good times.

M*A*S*H*

Let's see. . .

Denise was very nice to me and got me my birthday gift from her early--Rock Band for the Xbox 360. I am now so very completely breaking up with Guitar Hero. I'm not even going to return her calls. I'm sure we'll still have make-up music together, though. At least until Rock Band gets some Primus and Modest Mouse up in there to go with all the far superior music selection it has. I spent Friday night with Lash and Aeia rocking it out. Spent most of Saturday with John, Josh and Brian also rocking it out, with some duet action with me and Denise on Saturday and today. Great fun. I got a little 'tude earlier today, apologized for it and thought everything was fine, but apparently not. . . anyhow, super super super fun game. Thanks, Denise.

Tuesday Lash left for Whiskeytown Environmental camp and won't be back 'til Friday. I know that Rael, Aeia and I are all missing him (I imagine Denise does too, but she hasn't mentioned anything to me. . .).

Today (the 28th) was Rael's third birthday--we're waiting 'til Lash gets back so we can celebrate as a unit on Saturday.

Unfortunately, while I was at work Rael started having seizures and a skyrocketing fever. Denise ambulanced him to the hospital, and Chrissy was wonderful enough to come over and care for the other kids. Burger Hades didn't think it was enough of a family emergency to let me have a different manager come in and work a double shift so I could leave and be with my son. I feel a little postal (Dev--don't bring this up at work, please). I seriously need a new direction.

And I continue to wait, wait, wait for a sign on my writing pitch. Keep those good vibes continually flowing. At least no news isn't necessarily bad news.

Back from that intermission--the docs ran tests on Rael and couldn't find any definitive thing wrong with him, so diagnosed him with a "virus" and let him come home. I want to have confidence in the doctors (you know how I really feel). I want the doctors to be right. Fuck that, I just want Rael to be all right.

Ranting is done for now. My throat hurts; my head hurts; my heart hurts; my eyes hurt; my finger hurts; my feet hurt; it's beddy-bye for me.

EDIT: Today Rael is, while a small bit warm, running around, playing, jabber-jawing, digging on old Transformers season one cartoons. . .being his usual self again. Glee.

Mortal Kombat

Clerks

So Juno comes out on dvd tomorrow. That's a good thing. Its soundtrack is already on heavy rotation here on my laptop.

Work pretty much sucks, more so even than usual. I have new categories of annoying customers to share: The Smarmy Bastard and (subcategory to The Unkempt) The Unattractively Hairy. Your typical Smarmy Bastard has the intonation of the asswipe preppy country club jerk from 80s era teen coming-of-age movies and does things like give you exactly $6 on a $6 order and tell you to keep the change. I've had a lot of those this week. As for the Unattractively Hairy, I have but one example, but it's a doozy (one that goes beyond arm-hair sweaters poking out of t-shirts). Imagine a pretty, shapely, twenty something girl. Nice halter top, well-fit hip hugging jeans and a thatch of untrimmed hedge 1" x 5" (or so) stretching out past the expanse of her pants' waistline. Shudder.

I'm getting completely screwed over by the shift scheduler the past two weeks as well. Last week I was scheduled with night shifts that fell such that I didn't get to even see Lash or Aeia from Wednesday through Friday night. This week I have night shifts five nights in a row, and won't be able to see Lash or Aeia from Tuesday more than a half hour or so all the way through Saturday morning. It's absolute bullshit. And the closing shifts leave me too tired in the morning to get up, be on my best and find something new.

I want to strangle pretty much the majority of Burgerland this week, I'm just very very frustrated.

Grew tired enough of the Mustang never working that we finally got rid of it this weekend. Got a whole 85 bucks for it at the junkyard. Which is actually probably more than the piece of crap was worth. But this leaves us in another screwed for transportation situation while I wait for the IRS to decide how much of our return I get this year and how much gets retained for student loan back payments. Ugh.

I got Guitar Hero 3 a couple weeks back. I like it, but prefer #2, which has, in my opinion, a superior song list. I really want to get my hands on Rock Band. Crossing fingers that it's what Denise is planning for me in June.

What else? I've been writing some poetry. Good times. I'm trying to get some other writing ideas worked out. My friend John wans me to help him with a screenplay, but between full time work, tending the kids when Denise is working, and my current writing output in progress alone and in collaboration with Cammie I just can't give him the time a full length screenplay would need. I feel bad telling him no though, so if he does get a first draft out, I'll probably offer to go through it and polish it some.

Gross. I have calluses on my feet from work.

Return of the Jedi

There are, naturally, many bright sides to any amount of drear in my day or week.

I have a beautiful wife, beautiful children, beautiful friends, all of whom I try my best to enjoy daily (even the one lying beside me this instant wailing for her mother's comforting embrace--Tasmia doesn't quite like me yet), and enjoy them I do.

I've had "Message in a Bottle" stuck in my head since Saturday night and I'm still quite happy to have it there. I'm beginning to annoy people with my constant singing of it at work. Silly people.

Netflix graced my mailbox with three of my favourite movies today: Shoot 'Em Up, Romeo is Bleeding and Millions. Seriously, snob that I am, if you've seen this and don't love them, I think there's something wrong with you. Herein we have the absolutely best mindlessly violent funny movie of 2007 with the best mindlessly violent funny movie of 1993 broken up by the absolutely brilliant PG family movie by the guy who brought us Trainspotting and 28 Days Later and of them all, this is the one that is the mostfucking brilliant. That's right, mostfucking.

Guitar Hero II.

An actual full weekend off to do with as I please.

And, of course, there's you, always reliable to make my day.

Danny Boy

So yule has come and gone. The kids had a fantastic holiday, and we dealt with the Santa issue and Lash after-all, inducting him into the Santa Corps with all of the other adults and older siblings who are members. Ironically, despite my worries, he already knew, claiming to have figured it out approximately a week before we broke the news to him. Hmph.

Last night Chris, Brian and I stayed up 'til about 6:30 am this morning playing Guitar Hero II (thanks, grandma); I had to play on a harder difficulty level against them. Much fun was had last night/morning and I'm glad to have gotten the guy-time with Chris before he ships off for eight months again next week.

I called in sick to work Saturday, but started feeling a lot better by about noon. I think I'd been more exhausted than anything and it was keeping me from kicking my cold. Now my head's all mostly clear. Huzzah. I have to work New Year's Eve, which is no huge deal (I'm off early) but also have to work in the morning New Year's Day which is a bit more aggravating, as it means I won't be enjoying the Eve as much as I'm potentially able--me not being the sort of person to go to work with a hang-over or still tipsy, not even Burger Land. We'll see what we'll see, eh?

One

Books 28 and 29 of the 50 book challenge: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter, books 7 & 8: Burnt Offerings and Blue Moon (I'm about 1/3 of the way through book 9 right now, and now have all of 'em through book 14 or 15...) by Laurell K. Hamilton. They continue to not be great, but still be entertaining. Rarely is there a slow, dull stretch (like say half of Harry Potter's finale). Endings still feel a wee bit rushed, and every book has the occasional typographical error that makes me wonder how poorly her copy editors do their jobs. So far, Burnt Offerings has been my favourite of the books, finally bringing a decent amount more detail into the vampiric aspects of her make believe universe.

In other news:

For the past couple weeks Shel has had a photo montage depicting her weight loss on her blog. She looks awesome. Congrats on how well all the hard work's been paying off for you.

Last weekend we enjoyed some tequila shots and I've decided I really need to not enjoy tequila shots again.

Tasmia is growing well and healthy. Though she does seem to poo a good deal more than I remember my other three kids pooing. Against all expectations, Rael is, rather than being extremely jealous of the baby, very friendly toward the baby.

McWork has its good moments and its bad, as does most any job. Today I got verbally reprimanded for the number of t-reds (transaction reductions) that happened under my watch yesterday (on three different occasions of 30-ish dollar orders, the guest'd cards were declined and I had to reduce their orders significantly down. The computer tracks this when it occurs and gets me yelled at.), ah well. Tomorrow we undergo an across-the-board price change and as the vast majority of our morning to midday customers are regulars, who always buy the same things and usually have exact change, I imagine dealing with a lot of pissy elderly folks tomorrow.

I think I have the new Katamari waiting for me (I've yet to open an amazon box, and have been expecting this game since I preordered it some time last summer) and I dread it a little because Brian's spoken a lot of smack about it ahead of time for me. That aside, I hope to enjoy it a bit in the next couple days.

Those who are somewhat in the know and are keeping track, aside from a few hiccups here and there, things are much better with Denise and I.

My McFeet are still killing me.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Finished books 24 and 25 of the 50 Book Challenge: the third and fourth book in the aforementioned Anita Blake series (Dancing Corpse and Lunatic Cafe). More of the same from last post.

Watched all of season 1 of Dexter last week. Enjoyed it more than I expected, and I'm sure Julie Benz being in the cast helped that along a bit. It makes me want to read the Dexter novels.

The job hunt blows. I had to take a competency test (like the SATs all over again) for one job working for the school district, but I passed that (yay, I'm competent!) and have an interview tomorrow. Doing well on the interview doesn't guarantee me a job, however, it just determines my ranking in the list of available job candidates as positions come open in the next six months. Still, wish me well, please. And as this guarantees nothing, and no one else is biting, I have an interview with Burger Land on Tuesday. And still I get no love at home. :(

Playing Gun on xbox360. Graphics--bad; story/dialogue--cheesy; game play fluctuates between hard and too damn simple. Still, it was a birthday gift from Lash and he really digs seeing me play it.

Oh, and how absolutely fucked up was Y the Last Man #58? If I hadn't dropped all my comics already, this would have done Y in for me--even if it does only have two issues left.

That's been the parts of my week I'm willing to share online right now, y'all.

Standard Lines

Tomorrow, the kids return to school. Aeia is much more excited about starting 2nd grade than Lash is about starting 5th. I'm hoping a new teacher will prove more attentive and helpful to his recurring bully problems. Me, I'm looking forward to having a couple weeks of relative calm in the mornings while the kids are in school.

Denise and I have done some significant talking and things are better.

Nerdly updates: last weekend in Brian's Deadlands game, my harrowed Mormon blessed character reached the clearing at the end of the path when I miscalculated the blast radius on some dynamite I used to save the party from some Confederate tanks. Ah well, I did it for the lulz. My new character is going to be a blatant homage to Jake Chambers from Dark Tower. I haven't played a straight-up gunslinger in a while.

Yesterday was the end run on Denise's epic level campaign. We won, systems of government were restructured, oppressive slaving regimes were quashed, etc. and etc.

I've completed all of the main & faction quests in Elder Scrolls IV. Once I get in the video game mood again, I'll probably start exploring Gun and see if I can learn to love the 1st person shooter if it's set in the western genre. Cross them fingers.

Rael is becoming more and more kid and less and less baby. He's fun. Witness and participation in many kids' lightsaber duels now has him going up to people, lightly smacking them and squaking "die." When in the pool, if he can splash you, which he loves, he'll bop his head from side to side and let out a very teasing laugh-song.

I have three more months of DC comics to catch up on before I have to decide if I'm really going to wait until Denise recommences Drawing of the Three before I recommence Order of the Phoenix. Let's all devote a little energy to hoping she'll buckle before I have to consider going back on my resolve.

Is it weird that I'm really looking forward to the release of the straight-to-DVD White Noise 2, starring Nathan Fillion when I hated Keaton's White Noise 1 so very much? The sequel looks a lot better organized, and I greatly prefer Fillion's acting. Not that Keaton's bad, just not my preference. After watching all of Wonderfalls last week, I'm really jonesing for a big influx of writers, directors or actors I most love for their previous association with Joss Whedon projects.

Our dishwasher broke so Lash and I had some shared quality chore time today as I washed and he dried. Chores yippee. And I tackled some of the ever-encroaching clutter in the living room.

Chris returned from the Army last Thursday for the unforseeable future and Chrissy was nice enough to let us hang out with him early, Saturday past instead of Saturday next. I'm glad of it. Thanks Chrissy. It was nice to get to catch up and see him.

I need to decide what I want for my next tattoo in the next week. Probably something not too large or elaborate this time. I need to set myself up with an exercise schedule. I need to redouble job search efforts lest I end up a 33 year old crew member at McDonald's. I need to see about taking another leave of absence and hopefully saving enough moolah to get back to, and finish, my Master's Degree in the spring semester.

Surely I'm forgetting things, but I'm tired and you're forgiving.

This is Where I Came In

Ten days of silence. . .sorry.

The last two weeks have had a lot of me helping out with babysitting for a friend and intensive housecleaning--all keeping my online presence to a minimum. On some levels it is a little refreshing to disconnect though--on some levels.

Yesterday my kids all showered me with my Father's Day slash Birthday gifts and well-wishes. They got me a towel, some flip-flops, blank DVDs, ballpoint pens and an Xbox360 game. My kids are awesome. I spent the day yesterday being lazy, playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion all day on the 360 and letting Denise watch the kids for me. Thanks, dear, and thanks Shel for the clue on that quest I was stuck on--you completely got me through it. Rock on.

Today, my 33rd birthday (sigh), I feel generally fine (a little allergy annoyed) and will be spending the day watching all the kids, reading some comics and probably doing some swimming. I and two of the kids got pretty bad burns last week so I need to be more vigilant with the sunscreen. Ouch.

Thanks to Drew for the DVD (I've wanted and put off getting that disc for ages) and the Communist propaganda. Thanks to Chrissy for the forthcoming night out and to anyone else for the current and future well-wishings.

I'm going to go now before I find myself bitching about the season premiere of Rescue Me.

In Love With the '80s

Spoilers of 28 Weeks Later below.

Yesterday I finally got around to watching 28 Weeks Later (far too long since its premiere). Like it? Yes. Love it? Not so much. I really dug on how the severity of action was kicked up a notch from the last one. It has the best helicopter vs zombies scene in film to date. Up until the final reel it had a good amount of the social commentary I expect from good zombie movies: there were allegories for the fall of man in an "every man for himself" mentality (and the requisite examples of the importance of caring for others), overdone examples of the American way of handling problems by squashing them. And therein lies my first dislike: just how absolutely retarded did the writers have to make the US military in order to pull off the sequence of events in their plot? What idiot lets a civilian in alone with an infected? Why wasn't there automated containment? Although, I think my first uneasy feeling came about when I realized that the soldiers highlighted were pretty much the soldiers that would include Chris in their ranks: the medical squads. I actually had a momentary worry that Chris was going to end up getting attacked by zombies. Social commentary disappears in the final reel though, where the movie veers directly into the territory that Adj hates about zombie movies--it becomes entirely nihilistic as the plague of zombie infection is now spreading beyond England. The score for this film (which is the same as that of its predecessor) is one of my favorites as well. I really dig on that music.

Dig dug.

Remember when we were kids and most of the cool video games were two-player jobs? You'd have your pals over after school and team up to take down aliens in Contra or take turns trying to save Princess Peach? Lately I've been finding myself more and more displeased with the state of the multi-player video game industry. Nowadays it seems that all of the best games are single player (by best I mean most popular or best produced) or multi-player online only; the interaction with your pals aspect of gaming is dying as any human connection is weeded out in favor of ethereal connections with strangers on the internets. Yesterday this hit me hardest when Brian was over and we wanted to Xbox 360 and all we had available for two-player action was Tetris (which was still great, but not for hours of fun). Sure, the occasional rare GOOD multi-player game does still come out now and again--about one per fifty single player jobs and it's disheartening. Why even have 4-player capability built into the machine if most of the games won't even accommodate two?