I'm not artistic enough. Or at all.

I can't draw for shit. I can't play any instruments. I've written a couple stories I liked, but it doesn't excite me that much. I need some sort of creative outlet. That's not quite right... that implies that I have some artistic urges welling up inside me looking for some form of release. It's more that I wish I was artistic, but I don't think that I am.

Drawing and painting is too hard. It seems like it would take years of practice to play a musical instrument well enough to do something actually creative, rather than just spew back notes on a page or what you just heard. I want to be artistic now, and I want to be good, but I don't want to put in the time. There's nothing unfair about that, is there? :)

Any suggestions for EASY, creative outlets? Maybe I should try more comics.

(PS: This post sounds more anguished than is intended. I'm not really broken up about my lack of artistic vision. But it would be nice to be able to create some sort of piece of "art" (whatever that is) that I'm proud of.)

Home again.

Well, we're back from Montana, where we've been for the past couple days, celebrating Christmas with the fam. In attendance were myself, Diana, Mom, Dad, Dave, Elaine, and Jocelyn. It was great to see the all the extended fam, but especially Dave. What a guy.

The house is not only complete but actually pretty liveable. We flew on Christmas night, which was pretty nice, as the airports were all pretty quiet. The next morning, we gathered together and opened pressies and so forth.

One of the first days we were there, it snowed about 6 inches or so. The rest of the trip, there was snow off and on, which made everything very beautiful. It was a lot of fun to play in, and we made a couple snowmen (who jumped off the balcony on their own accord), and attempted to make the Biggest Snowball Ever, but didn't realize how heavy it would be.

Much of the time was spent inside by the fire, playing games, reading, and just generally hanging out. I finished "The Man in the High Castle", which was pretty good. I burned through a book about a card-counting group from MIT who made millions of dollars from casinos. More intriguing was the fact that card-counting (without the aid of counting devices) is legal. However, casinos can kick you out for whatever reason they please, and trespassing IS illegal. But learning some basics of card-counting could hurt anyone, could it? :) I started reading "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, and am enjoying that a lot, too.

We saw The Two Towers again, and I enjoyed it quite a bit my second time around. Now that I knew what to expect in terms of differences from the book, I could just sort of relax and and take it all in and enjoy it.

One day we went snowboarding. Dave and Elaine and Diana were going to take a lesson, but we didn't get there in time. So we decided to rent stuff, and I'd give some pointers as I could. I felt like I was in a little bit of a precarious situation, as the teacher of three very new snowboarders, but everything went really well. Dave picked the broad strokes really well, and was able to put together some turns by the end of the day. Diana was much more comfortable than her first documented attempt at boarding, and was able to make it down the hill without falling, but was still a little shaky of the whole "turning" thing. Elaine did very well for her first time, once she was one her feet, able to go quite a ways without falling and with some basic control over her direction. The fact that everyone was smiling by the end of the day, I think, makes it a success.

The whole trip was a lot of fun. And now we're home. And we move in like 2 weeks. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. :P

Ok, I need to get this off my chest.

Here's what I don't need to hear any more of for like, ever. Radio commercials that consists solely of a Christmas carol, only the words have cleverly been replaced with a song describing whatever product or service is being advertised. I simply can't believe that there are people who get paid to sit around in a room and come up with these ideas. I mean, seriously... at some boss-type person must have said "Yes! That's a great idea! Let's go with it!" Come AWWWWNNnnnnn...

It's Christmas Eve! I have to admit, my Christmas spirit has been a little lacking this year (if you couldn't tell by the above commentary). When I lived with my parents, there were decorations and music and various breads and cookies and whatnot. Diana and I have sort of forgone the effort, especially since we'll be leaving town. Last year we got a cheesy little tree, and I'm really not sure it was worth the effort. Next year will be different, though. :)

So, a half-day at work today, and dinner at the Rawls', followed by a visit from the Schatz's and game playing and whatnot. Then tomorrow morning we'll make some waffles and head back to the Rawls' for pressies and festivus, and then to the airport to head to Montana. It's going to be a long Christmas day, I tell you what. Then, back on the 30th. Huzzah.

Another weekend come and gone.

This weekend was actually pretty quiet. Diana and I watched Y Mama Tu, Tambien on Saturday night. It was acclaimed by critics as a good movie, but I'm not quite sure that I got it. It wasn't bad, but not as good as I was expecting.

Yesterday, I watched the Chargers lose a close one to KC, did some laundrey, and then went to Diana's parents house to make cookies. Rather, I sat on the couch and chatted and watched movies while other people made cookies. It was a nice afternoon.

I've been reading more Lord of the Rings stuff, and am enjoying that a lot. Diana read more Two Towers last night, and it made me at once dissapointed in the movie and excited to see it again at the same time. She's reading about Merry and Pippen and the Ents and the Entmoot right now, and it struck me again how much detail and depth was glossed over in the movie with regards to the Ents. Anyhoo...

Argh.

I finally got to see the doctor about my finger. They did some more X-rays, and saw that nothing was broken or out of place. They gave me a "stack splint", which is a big plastic thing to keep my finger straight. It's pretty blulky, and I personally think my own paperclip-and-tape job did a much better job. I'm tempted to continue with that, but I'll give this a little more time.

Last night, Diana and I went out to dinner to celebrate her last day of teaching. She works so hard, and I'm hoping that she can take some time for herself and do something more enjoyable than work. Iwan and Eryn and Little Buhr and I hung out that night and played some Gamecube game till the wee hours of the night, which was a lot of fun (for a console FPS :).

Today, me and D went to the airport parking area and picked up my parents car which they parked on Thursday. Then I've been bumming around here, and Diana's making cookies at her parents house.

So. The day has finally come. I saw "The Two Towers" last night.

My initial impressions are mixed, but getting better the more and more I think about it. The movie seems to depart quite a bit from the books, which is a little disturbing to me. Furthermore, the book (obviously) has so much more depth in just about everything that it's hard for the movie to do it all justice. I think that was easier in the first movie, which is much more plot driven and much lighter on character development.

There were some definite high points, which mostly correspond to my expectations from the book. Gollum simply rocked, and I loved his arguments with himself (Gollum vs. Smeagol). I liked the battle at Helm's Deep, once I got by the changes from the book.

There's so much to digest. I'm all in a tizzy. I need to see it again.

Letsee...

Work has really slowed down for me, which is a nice change over the past couple months. We had a deadline that we just missed, and therefore the project has been moved back to January. But we're basically finished, and just doing some final testing and whatnot. It's a nice feeling to be pretty much done. I can't wait until it's finally all rolled out and finalized and I can move on with my life.

I've lined up some tickets to see The Two Towers tomorrow night with Diana, Iwan, and M.Kyle. I can't wait to see it. Eryn's seeing it tonight, which is jealousy-inspiring, but even if I were conscious from 12-3am, I probably wouldn't be able to concentrate as much as I'd like to.

The Survivor finale is on Thursday. Diana as both Brian and Clay still left, I have Jan, and Eryn has Helen. So there's a 3/4th chance that the $80 will belong to one Spragg or another. I like those odds! I felt crappy with Jan as my second pick (after my first pick was the first guy voted off... I don't even remember his name), but she's hung in there like a trooper. Go Jan.

Julie's 2.5 year old daughter left this voicemail for me on my birthday. :)

Cuteness reigns.

Whoever invented weekends didn't make them long enough.

Friday evening was spent at a lovely little party at Eryn's house, where
Secret Santa gifts were exchanged. I drew Heather, who I only know
superficially, and got some CDs that Eryn said she might like (thanks Eryn!)
She seemed pleased with them, but I included the receipt in case she wanted
to exchange them for something else (I wouldn't feel hurt!) Eryn drew me,
and gave me Nightfire, a computer game. However, on opening the box, it
appeared complete except no CD. Dumb. So I'll have to go and exchange it
for a working copy. We had a great dinner, and played a really weird
Nintendo game that was dreadfully monotonous and fun at the same time.
Thanks to Eryn for being such a great (as usual) host.

Saturday, Diana and I did a little shopping during the day, accumulating a
couple more gifts for people. The evening was spent quietly in the study,
Diana working and me playing Counterstrike. Playing with headphones is
surprisingly easier than without. With such well-defined stereo sound, it's
pretty easy to pinpoint enemies from their footsteps. My scores have been
improving.

Today we went to visit the house again. One of Diana's student's parents is
a home builder guy, and offered to give us a second opinion as a gift. It
was pretty unecessary, but appreciated. I came home to watch the Charger
game while Diana tutored, and we met at my parents house in the afternoon to
take stock of winter clothes for Montana and to hang out. Afterwards, we
went to dinner with Diana's parents to The Samurai (yum!), and saw the first
half of a one-man play of the story of "A Christmas Carol", but told from
the point of view of Jacob Marley's ghost. Diana was underwhelmed, and
we're both pretty tired, so we've skipped the second half for some reading
in bed. We're a bit into the Two Towers, doing the best we can to read as
much as possible before the movie comes out. (I can't wait!)

That's my weekend in a nutshell.

Argh. Why does this damn thing lose my posts sometimes?

I feel like we're getting away with something. When we put an offer down on the house, we were the only offer so far, and of course we offered lower than the asking price, since we're good hagglers. We eventually agreed on a price that was still lower than the asking price. Since then, we've had the house inspected, and have come up with a list of things that we'd like to have repaired, and this was presented to the seller. They have refused to do all but one of the repairs (some of which were as minor as changing a lightbulb). The apparent situation is that since accepting our offer, the seller has had a number of other offers, undoubtedly for more than ours. I'm guessing that they're going to do all they can in their power (which luckily isn't very much) to make us back out of the deal. In that case, the house would go back on the market, and she instigate a bidding war and make off like a bandit. But we're too smart, and not going to take the bait. :)

Of course, we'll have to do a bunch of repairs ourselves, or hire someone to do them, but I figure it will be a good way to get introduced to the house, and it will be fun anyways.

Dude... this sucks.

We played Trading today in flag football. We did ok... better than last year, I guess. I think we lost 4 or 5 to 2 touchdowns. The worst news, though, is that I jammed my middle finger on my right hand. It didn't hurt bad, but it looked funny in my glove. I took off my glove, and found that I couldn't straighten that finger. I could straighten all of it except for the tip, which still pointed downwards (looking like when someone who is "double jointed" flexes their fingers). I poked around, and it was painless, swelled a little, but just wouldn't straighten. I came home and iced it, but it did show any signs of improving, so I went to my second favorite emergency room, Scripps in Encinitas.

Turns out I have sustained a condition called mallet finger. Looks basically like this. So, my middle finger is splinted straight, which makes typing a real PITA.

I'm so frusterated that I've played sports my whole life, and now I can't walk onto a field without hurting myself. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. :( It could have been worse, but it still sucks ass.

My company's holiday party was on Friday evening. Lots of fun to hang out with people, and the dinner was nice. I didn't win any prizes, and we snuck out pretty early. Saturday was shopping and errands. We went to Ikea to check out furniture options, and saw stuff that we liked and didn't like. I have a feeling our house is going to be pretty empty for a while.

Yesterday, I was joined by Diana, Iwan, Sara, Gabe, Little Buhr, and M.Kyle for a little birthday-and-Chargers celebration. It was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone, even though the Chargers lost. Iwan gave me Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, which is a pretty damn fun little game. We played that for a while after people left. Iwan really needs his own computer. :) Although we'd probably never see him again if he had one, so maybe it's not a bad thing.

Monday morning, and back to work for me!

House pictures are up! Take a look and let me know what you think.

The pictures generally follow a "right hand wall" approach. That is, if I have a choice of where to go next, I went to the room to my right.

My birthday! Huzzah! I was born 28 years ago this very day. Yay for me.

Tonight I'm going to my parents house for dinner and pressies. Tomorrow is my company's Christmas party, where Diana and I will put the patented Rawls family raffle-winning technique to work. Laugh all you want, but it worked last year. I'd post the secret technique here, but then it wouldn't be secret. Now would be a good time to win, though, given the new expenses in our lives.

Otherwise, all is well. Work continues, still playing Civ III and Counterstrike when I get the chance. I played a little Battlefield 1942 with Eryn last night, which was pretty fun, but it's too easy to die without knowing where the bad guy was, which is a really frusterating feeling.

Diana and I have been watching the Lord of the Rings on DVD, which one of her students lent to her. She commented that she's enjoying it much more this second time around, which pleased me immensely. There's quite a bit of information to digest, and I'm guessing that people new to the stories would enjoy it more in subsequent viewings simply because they know a little more about what to expect and can follow the story easier. I'm sort of skimming The Two Towers to get ready for the movie. I can't wait for that.

Nice people make me happy.

I called USAA about homeowner's insurance, and was helped out by a really nice lady, who not only was very helpful in answering all my questions and explaining the big words to me, but also recognized that my birthday is coming up and wished me a happy early birthday, as well as congratulating me on buying a house (and sounded genuinely sincere with both). It really made me happy.

And today I went to the DMV to renew my drivers license, and was helped by a really nice lady as well. The DMV kicks ass, now. The old stereotype is it being really slow and standing in line forever, but with an appointment (yeah, they need to be made a couple weeks in advance, but that's not too hard), I was in and out of there in 10 minutes during a lunch hour. Incredibly awesome.

Diana got me one of these for my birthday, and it's sitting on my desk right now. I love watching the little guys swim around, and the best part is that I can't screw it up by starving or overfeeding 'em.

Craziness.

I had no idea buying a house would involve so many forms to be filled out! We have the inspection on Thursday, and there are a couple of key things that we need the inspectors to look at, and I really hope everything goes well. It would suck to get this far and find out that there was some major problem with the house and that we shouldn't buy it. So, fingers crossed until then.

We had more flag football practice today. I love playing football. I kind of wish that I played football in a more organized way as a kid, but it's probably too dangerous as it is now. I heard from someone that NFL guys don't let their kids play football because it's simply too dangerous at a younger age when people don't know how to tackle properly, etc. But as it is, I love being play football for fun. We're going to scrimmage a team next week, which should be fun.

So it goes.

So, let's recount what I did this weekend, shall we?

Friday is below.
Saturday, I did a little bit of shopping with Diana, and then me, Iwan, and Little Buhr went golfing at National City. I shot perhaps my best round of golf ever, going 4 over in 9 holes (5 bogies, 1 birdie). The best part, though, is that I never got a double-bogey or worse, which I've never done before. So, yay. That night, I hung out with Diana, got mildly drunk, and played computer games. :) Today, I did some chores while Diana was out to breakfast with a friend, then went over to Iwan's to watch the Charger game. Instead of watching the second half, though, we went and played flag football with the Reynoldses and Little Buhr, which was a lot of fun. We got back JUST in time to see San Diego kick the winning field goal in overtime, which was really exciting. Then back home, where we made some dinner, and we watched The Insider, which was pretty good.

Now to bed, and not wanting to go to work tomorrow. :(

My birthday is on Friday. Plans so far include going to my parents house for gifts and dinner with my and Diana's parents. Hopefully I can get together with friends on Saturday, but that hasn't been discussed yet.

Bye

Well, we did it. We signed the deal today, and the house is off the market, and pending inspection and escrow stuff, will be ours. We're truly stoked, and can't wait to have it for our very own.

I worked a half-day today, and came home and had a great sandwich of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and cranberry sauce. Hung around for a bit until we went to sign the offer papers, and then went over to the house that Iwan is house-sitting at and hung out with him and Sara and Eryn and Heather. It was fun to just sit around and chat. I feel like we don't all hang out together as much as we used to, so I really like it when we do. The dog that Iwas was taking care of was very cute and lots of fun to play with. :)

It feels so late into the weekend and it's only Friday night! :)

Thanksgiving! Happy day, everyone who may be reading this.

We just got back from the Schatz's, who are old family friends of Diana's family. It was me and Diana, Alica and the Rawl's, and my parents, and all four Schatz's. Dinner was great, and we hung around for long time afterwards hanging out and playing games and digesting. Everyone seemed to genuinely get along very well, and I think everyone had a great time. It's 8pm and I'm exhausted. :)

Tomorrow is a half-day at work, and we're going to resolve the house issue. We're going to see if the seller has accepted our latest counter offer, and if she hasn't, we're going to accept her latest offer. It's to our advantage to keep that a secret, so I hope she doesn't read this! :)

Again, I ask, does life get any better than this?

Merchnt No, no, no. Come on. Do it properly.
Brian What?
Merchnt Haggle properly. This isn't worth nineteen.
Brian But you just said it was worth twenty.
Merchnt Oh dear, oh dear. Come on. Haggle.
Brian All right, I'll give you ten.
Merchnt That's more like it.
Ten!? Are you trying to insult me? Me? With a poor dying
grandmother...Ten!?!
Brian All right, I'll give you Eleven.
Merchnt Now you're getting it. Eleven!?! Did I hear you right? Eleven?
This cost me twelve. You want to ruin me?
Brian Seventeen.
Merchnt No, no, no, no. Seventeen!
Brian Eighteen?
Merchnt No, no,. You go to fourteen now.
Brian All right, I'll give you fourteen.
Merchnt Fourteen, are you joking?
Brian That's what you told me to say.
Merchnt Oh dear.

So, Diana and I went to see David Copperfield last night at the Civic Theater. We headed down, and hung around in front for a while. Diana went to powder her nose, and I waited in the lobby, hanging out and enjoying my drink, when I noticed a woman wearing all black and with an earpiece come over and talk to a pair of couples standing near me. She said that she was doing a survey, and could she ask them a couple questions. She asked some stuff like "how did you hear about the show", "do you have any friends/family in the press or media", etc. She then looked over and noticed me listening in, and lowered her voice and asked something else. I wandered away, feeling guilty for eavesdropping.

Diana returned and we found our seats, in the second to last row of the floor section. Not bad, but not that great either. Soon, however, the very same woman in black came up, and introduced herself as someone in Copperfield's production crew, and asked us the same survery questions as above. She also asked if either of us were magicians, and I said that I was sort of an amateur magician. She asked if Diana would be interested in being a volunteer for the show, and Diana agreed, as as a result, we got moved up to like the 5th row, which was pretty cool. Diana was pulled up on stage with another girl, and he did a trick that involved their underwear changing places. Pretty silly, but Diana did a good job. The whole show was a lot of fun, and he did some seriously amazing things. I (as a jaded magician) was seriously dumbstruck at some of the stuff he did.

As a thank-you for being a helper, we got to stay around afterward and "meet" Copperfield, who came out and shook about 15 people's hands in under a minute and dissappeared after illegibly signing a headshot for us. Oh well. I was hoping for at least a friendly "hey, thanks for coming to the show... what did you think?" or something.

We made an offer on the house last night, and are supposed to hear back today by 5pm. Fingers crossed!

Diana met with the mortgage guy this afternoon, and we are pre-approved for a loan! How exciting. Then she's meeting with the real-estate guy (whose house she goes to regularly to tutor their child). I'm really thankful that she's able to take care of a lot of this by herself. Hopefully I can make it out of work and be a part of some of these appointments. Patrick (real-estate) was able to go check out the house yesterday, and had some good insight into making it ours, and what we might want to watch out for if indeed we do make it ours. Things are moving along pretty quickly, which is a little frightening. Diana and I had the conversation of "How do we know we're doing the right thing?" If we buy now, how do we know we wouldn't find something better later? And if we didn't buy now, and the house was sold to someone else, and we didn't find something, we'd be upset that we didn't jump at the opportunity.

Anyways, we can't really think of a reason NOT to get it so that's going to have to be good enough for now. Which isn't to say that I'm not excited about it... I totally am. It's just... a big decision made with more money than I've ever dealt with, and a decision made relatively quickly. And it's a little scary. But mostly exciting. :)

Otherwise, things are all going well. Diana comes home soon, and we have some dinner and get prettified and go see David Copperfield! D had some Ticketmaster gift certificates, and since we really don't ever go see "shows" as such, this seemed like the best thing to use 'em on. I'm looking forward to it.

I made another comic. It's sort of an inside joke, so don't worry if you don't get it. The HTML got stripped, so the spacing is all funky in the last cell. I'm new to this. :P

So, we might have found a house! It's a funky thing up off La Costa Ave, almost as far east as you can go before Rancho Santa Fe Road. It's different than anything else we've seen, which might explain why it's been on the market for so long without a buyer. It's U-shaped, centered around a little courtyard with a tree. We really like this, because there are windows facing both towards the courtyard and the outside of the house, making the house really naturally light. It's pretty big, actually, but the space is used well, and I think we'll be able to grow into it. And it had a spa, which the previous owner confided in us is so private that you can actually go in without a bathing suit! *gasp* The only downside is that it's almost directly under some major powerlines. There have been fear-inducing local news stories about radiation and cancer and whatnot, but there isn't any substantial evidence to support it, so we'll roll the dice. Diana's going make some calls tomorrow to see what the next step is. We're both really excited. And Diana (through years of hard work on my part :) has gone from hating pugs to openly wanting me to get one. Hee!

The Chargers game was painful to watch. Hopefully they can regain their composure and get things on the right track again.

Man... I was doing laundry this evening, and my wedding ring slipped off. Apparently my fingers change sizes sometimes, and it just flew right off and went behind a washer. I was able to retrieve it (with a little help from a 5-iron), and I'm now wearing it on my other hand. The point of all this is that it feels completely foreign to type with the weights of my fingers all scewed up. Crap, now I can't get if off the other hand. :P

Short week of work this week! Woo hoo!

I was just browsing through blogs (beer and blogs on a Friday night... I know, I'm wild and crazy!) and read this. I'm pretty sure it's from a young'ish (like, 13) year old girl:

"hey i dint do much this weekend borig boring boring as usual. oh well school is getting so hard i am trying so hard. Trying not to disappoint anyone. Just doing the best i can. Trying to do everything for everyone. Thought about my mom and how much she doesnt care about me any more. I am getting sick of it. Sick of crying at night sick of trying to pretend to be happy when my friends tell me they did this and that with their mom this weekend. When truthfully i am jealous and i want to cry about how unfair it is. The fact that i know no one wants to hear me cry about it. but i am trying i am hangin on....so when i grow up.if my mom hasnt killed herself yet........i can rub it in her face how well i am doing............."

You can't fake that kind of stuff, you know? I'm probably the only one who didn't have an angst filled teenage-hood, I guess.

Ok... so if you're going to be hip to pop culture, you need to know about Ellen Feiss. She's the girl on the Mac "switch"

She's the girl in the Apple "switch" commercials, where real people talk about why they switched from a PC to a Mac. She somehow rose to goddess status, either because people think she a) is cute and/or b) was stoned while filming the commercial. She's been contacted by both Leno and Letterman to be on their shows, and she turned them both down. They had a look-alike contest in Holland. There are mugs and T-shirts with her picture on them. It's really weird.

The Interview
The Ad
The Pumpkin

If anyone can tell me why she's so popular, I'm all ears. Also, if someone can tell me how to predict this kind of media explosion, let me know. It's so weird how things that are marketed to be popular sometimes are, but crazy little fad things can acheive crazy-popular status overnight.

I've just found this site, called StripCreator. Lots of fun...

http://www.stripcreator.com/view.php?author=aspragg&ID=103920

PS: I hate it when this happens... CLICK.

In the news:

Advertising is going to take over the world unless some drastic measures are taken. The fight for our eyeballs and our attention is getting out of control. I've seen stories about people selling ad space on their foreheads for tattoo'd ads. Web ads and spam are out of control. Commercials before movies is totally common. Product placement is going to be the next new wave (seeing your favorite soft drink or food placed randomly in a movie), and is already common on Survivor. I've seen motorcycles and cars with billboards on the back driving through rush hour traffic. It's Getting Worse. (PS: Check this out.)

There is a story where scientists have taken pictures, and detected X-rays from a galaxy over 400 million light years away. This absolutely blows my mind. Take a second as you read this to stop and thing how far 400 million light years away is. Just to make it easier: I think it takes something like 8 seconds for the sun's light to reach earth. Imagine it travelling for a year, how far that must be. Then imagine it travelling 400 years. Then 400 million years. Unbelievable, and simply astounding that we are able to detect something so far away. I guess it could be all BS (what am I going to do.... verify their results?!) but color me impressed.

Diana and I watched "Alien" the other night. What a great movie that is. Of course, that means "Aliens" is up next. I haven't seen the extended directors cut version, so that will be fun.

Happy Birthday to Mick and Norm! :)

Diana and I went to check out houses yesterday, just driving by and taking pictures and seeing what we liked and didn't like. I feel a little sketchy taking pictures of random houses out of a car, but oh well. Today, we're meeting with our realtor's assistant to actually go inside some of the ones we liked. I'm still a little confused by the whole home-buying process, and hope that other people will hold our hands through it, and not screw us over. Diana and I are pretty excited. :) Yesterday, we actually did go into one house that was having an open house. It was a house in Encinitas that was relatively expensive. The real estate lady on hand was very pleasant to us, and asked us if we were really serious about buying a house in Encinitas (which we certainly are). She said that she knew of a great starter home in Vista for a good deal. I was wearing some long shorts and my Convoy T-shirt, and Diana looks about 18, so I don't think she really took us that seriously. Hee!

Last night we went to dinner and saw Harry Potter II with my parents. It was a good time, and the movie was entertaining. I got up at some point to stretch my legs a little bit, and ended up in the back of the theater sitting against the back wall, which I'm finding is preferable to actually sitting in a seat. There aren't any people around whispering or making noise, and I can stretch my legs out and have a perfect view of the entire screen.

I started playing Civ III, which looks like it's a lot of fun, but I haven't had much time to play it, and when I do, I keep starting over, so I haven't actually gotten very far through history. But it's pretty fun. :)

Diana and I went for a walk to celebrate the nice Santa Ana evening, and we saw 4 millipedes! I've only seen millipedes on the east coast at my grandparents cabin, and then we see 4 on the same night?! Craziness. They were just crawling along the sidewalk.

Friday! :)

Work is going well. We're testing a new process that we put into place, and almost miraculously, things are going faster/more accurately than expected, and on the first try. This is really a rarity in programming. Well, my programming, at least. :)

More praise came down from On High about the success of the Investment Challenge. Yay.

Yesterday evening was football practice. It was fun to get out and run around a bit, and it's always fun to design football plays.

Tonight Diana and I are going to talk budgets and houses. Should be fun. We're (apparently) a good candidate for a reasonable loan according to our mortgage guy. I don't really know what that means, but it doesn't sound bad. Tomorrow we're going to look at houses and see what we like and don't like. Should be fun!

I hate fortune coookies. I got one that said that I have "executive qualities in my makeup". First of all, I don't wear makeup. *rimshot* Second of all, I don't think I have "executive qualities", whatever those are. Oh well. My favorite all-time fortune was that "A secret admirer is hiding his affection for you." Hee! I was eyeing my male co-workers with suspicion after that, I-tell-you-what. I remember an ex-gf in college got one that said that she was "articulate". I had to laugh when she asked me what articulate meant. Doh.

Man... in a world where the media loves to blame the entertainment industry for crimes, this is just what we need. For the link imparied (not naming any names... :) it's a story where a couple kids were arrested for a rash of car thefts after playing Grand Theft Auto (3, presumeably). Apparently they enjoyed the thrill and skill of being a thief (which I can certainly respect), but apparently weren't grounded enough in reality to realize that there are laws and so forth against this kind of thing. I remember a quote of a video game maker saying the number 1 thing kids can do for the fight against the media is to not kill anyone. Makes sense to me.

I've always liked the idea of pickpockets. I think it would be fun. That doesn't mean that I'd necessarily actually go out and DO it, but it would be a fun skill to learn.

Pictures from the Investment Challenge!




Bruce and me, looking proud. :)

Oh man... I feel so bad for this poor guy. Oh well... the risks of being on TV and having your mind elsewhere...

Well, I'm back from the conference at the Aviara Four Seasons in La Costa. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and went really well.

I got there Sunday evening, and Diana showed up a little bit after me. We got ready, and headed down to the grand ballroom for cocktails and dinner. We hung out with Bruce and his wife Julie who were both a lot of fun to talk to. Dinner was steak and sea bass, and soup and salad, and was really good. After dinner, we had some guest speakers of Cokie Roberts (ABC news political correspondant) and her husband who's also a radio/tv news guy. They talked about the political climate of Washington, and told stories about senators and whatnot. During the beginning of the talk, there was some pretty bad feedback. After a little bit, Diana tapped me on the shoulder and pointed back to the sound booth, where my boy Bruce was fiddling with things. I went back there and asked what he was doing back there, and he said, half-shocked and half-proudly "I think I fixed it!" Apparently he has background in sound stuff, and the guy working there was a video guy and was clueless. It was pretty cool.

The next morning, I met the other work boys downstairs in a smaller ballroom that was all set up with computers and three big projection screens. The game was up and running on all the machines and on the big screens, but on further testing, some of the machines were no longer talking to the Internet, and therefore, to my work and the game. So we did some frantic, last-minute network switching stuff (which was really the job of the internet providers who were there), and got things up and running, and none too soon. I was pretty nervous when hundreds of people started filing in, but everything went off completely without a hitch. It was a lot of fun, and we got some compliments from the managing partners, which is never a bad thing. That afternoon, me and Bruce and Diana and a couple other people hung out at the jacuzzi and by the pool, feeling proud of a job well done and semi-guilty for not going back to work.

Dinner that night was room service (charged to the room, a'course). We did some quick calculations on how much the company must have spent for room, board, and entertainment for all the guests and employees who were there, and came up with a big number. I'm definitely not used to thinking about business budgets in the millions of dollars vs. personal budgets of a couple thousand dollars. Crazy.

Tuesday morning, back to work!

Yay weekends!

Friday night, I went out to see Convoy with Iwan, Buhrs, et al. Lots of fun. Home at 2:30am?! I'm too old for this stuff. :)

Saturday morning, Diana was up early, and got me up a little later to help make food and prepare for her moms surprise party. It was a lot of work (mostly for Diana), but it seemed worth it, as her mom seemed very happy and very surprised with the party. Lots of fun. That night we went to a nice little dinner party, and went to see "8 Mile", which I really enjoyed. It was a little cheesy, and a little slow at parts, I think, but I'm happy I saw it and wouldn't mind seeing it again. I would have liked a little more of the rise to fame as a rapper, and a little less of the family drama, but whatever. It was really fun to see it.

This morning, the Chargers lost in a close one after leading all the way through the game (mostly). I hate it when that happens.

Diana's due home soon from teaching and shopping. This weekend we're staying at the Aviara in La Costa for a work conference. I'm not sure about the specifics, but a bunch of fat cats are getting together with work folks for some talks and networking and palm-pressing (and golfing and tennis :). My friend Bruce and I wrote a computer game that's going to be featured at the conference. It's a basic stock market simulator, where the players are given some fake money and buy and sell as they see fit, richest guy at the end wins. We were very confident when we finished writing it, and have had basically 0 problems, but it's still nerve-wracking to see something in wide-spread use for the first time. You can bet I'm going to be up early that morning testing and re-testing and whatnot. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck. :)

Not a whole lot new for now, but what the hell.

Work... We're at the end of our project (I've been saying that for almost a year, but I really mean it this time!), and we're doing some final testing before we go live. We went live before, and there were some catastrophic results, so we're hoping those are all fixed up now.

Diana has been in contact with a mortgage broker, which is exciting. He's going to do some verification of credit and income and whatnot, and give us a pre-approval letter, and then we can start looking for houses. That will be exciting! I see that I typed that up yesterday, so I guess it's a repeat. Oh well. :P I got some advice from a work-boy today about mortgage brokers. He said to "treat him like dirt." He said that mortgage brokers are a dime a dozen, and they all do the same thing, so if you find one that doesn't call you back or answer your questions or explain things to you, just find another. I'm not sure I'll actually treat someone like dirt, but the advice seems reasonable, from what I've heard.

Diana and I have a free trip to Vegas, and I want to talk to her about that tonight and see if we can come up with some dates. I think we have to make the plans 60 days in advance, which puts us into 2003 at this point, but it would be fun to have that to look forward to. I'm not sure if we want it to be just the two of us, or invite other people along with us. Each side definitely has it's pros and cons. In either case, we definitely are getting our own room. Having a quiet, safe, dry (hee!) place to sleep is worth the money, since I don't tend to stay out as late as some others.

Time to go home.

In the news... Winona is found guilty! I wonder what kind of sentence she'll have to serve. She is now a convicted felon, though, which is sort of funny. I think being a convicted felon limits your opportunities, but I'm not specifically sure how. They were talking on the news about insurance issues, the right to vote might be revoked, etc. She seems like she's got problems.

Voting day was yesterday. I proudly excercised my right to vote, even though I knew next to nothing about who I was voting for. People like me shouldn't be allowed to vote. I hope I didn't vote for some religious, right-wing schoolboard member. I don't think I did.

Work continues to go well, and keeps me busy. Diana called a mortgage guy about home loan stuff today. The Fed dropped rates another half a point, which brings them to the lowest point since like 1959 or something. We're going to get away with a deal, I think. I'll be really interested to see how much we can scrape together for a down payment, and how much we can afford for a monthly payment, and how much we can get a loan for, and given that amount of money, what kind of place we can get.

Movies on my list to see: Spirited Away, Harry Potter, The Two Towers, 8 Mile, new Bond movie, Jackass

So an aquiantance of mine at work just asked how married life was going. I said it was awesome, and that if he could find the right person, he should give it a shot. Then I realized that I didn't know if he was married or divorced or what, so I asked him if he was, or if he'd ever been married. He laughed, and said that no, he was gay, so getting married was impossible.

*blink... blink*

Um, oh. How do you respond to that? Obviously I could care less if he's gay or not, but I've never been in a situation where someone told me they were gay. There was another co-worker there, and we talked about it still being possible to have a ceremony, and I said that the reason I liked being married had nothing to do with the legality of it, and we bantered about that for a little, and then it was back to business as usual.

He was surprised I didn't know. How the hell am I supposed to know? It's not like he's at all flamboyant or a queen or anything. Just a normal guy. There's a lesson to be learned there, somewhere... something about books and covers.

Anyways, it made me sad to hear him talk about what rights he wouldn't get if he had a partner but wasn't married. Like, if they were in the hospital, his visitation rights are limited because he's not family. That would truly suck. Stuff like that.

I've recently said that I wish I had a gay friend. It would be fun to learn more about the gay subculture from the inside (go ahead, make the jokes :) I'm not really friends with this guy, though, so I guess I'll continue to wait.

We got up early yesterday, and met my parents and Diana's parents, and headed down to Balboa Park / Downtown area for the Race for the Cure. Like last year, there were a huge amount of people there. Lots of people wearing pink shirts (like both our mothers) indicating breast cancer survivors, as well as lots of people wearing "In celebration of..." and "In memory of..." signs. Breast cancer has hit my family pretty hard just in the last couple years, and I hope that the worst is behind us for everyone. It was great to see the amount of support at the Walk... there were absolute throngs of people walking.

After the walk, I went to Iwan and Little Buhr's house to watch the Charger game, which was dreadful. I was hoping for a big win for the Chargers, and the (reportedly) terrible Jets defense, but no such luck. As almost a direct result, I also lost my fantasy football game to Little Buhr. *le sigh*

Hung out with Diana last night. She was playing No One Lives Forever II when I got home, which made me enormously proud for some geeky reason :). Had some dinner, played some Counterstrike (poorly), and went to bed.

PS: Diana indicated this blog was "boring" (and she's certainly right). I wonder what she expected? I wonder what I can do to spice it up? Does this mean my life is boring? Reader suggestions are welcomed... :)

Fun day today!

Did some errands and cleaning this morning with Diana. Then met up with Norm and Teri for a nice afternoon of golf, an early dinner at the Soup Plantation (yum!), and watched the movie Labyrinth (which seems like a movie I should have seen as a kid but never did). Golf was a lot of fun. Apparently Teri had been scared to play with me, 'cause I can be a little competitive, but I assured her that when it comes to golf, it's all about being outside and having fun (unless, of course, it's playing for money :). We all had a great time, and the beginners did pretty well. They didn't throw clubs and get pissed off, and were smiling at the end, so I consider that a success. :) Dinner was fun, and the movie was silly, but what can you expect. Good times were had by all.

Up early tomorrow for the Race for the Cure, then over to Iwans for the Chargers game. Yay.

I don't know if it's the time change or what, but we had dinner at like 5, and the movie ended at a little after 9pm, and I feel like it's midnight. I'm exhausted, and most people are probably just starting to go out for the night. Oh well...

So, it's 11pm and I'm at work on a Friday night. Bummer. But, hopefully this will be it for the weekend, so I won't have to come back.

Diana and I saw "Comedian" tonight. In spite of having a hilariously funny trailer (which had nothing to do with the movie itself), the movie, I found, was really flat and bland. It's supposed to tell the behind-the-scenes story of what it's like to be a standup comedian, and it does. The problem is that it's not very exciting behind the scenes. Here's the nutshell: It takes a long time to come up with good material. It's nerve-wracking trying out new stuff. It's (apparently) torturous to be a stand-up comedian, because there is a lot of pressure to do well and not screw up. Sounds exciting, maybe, but the whole movie is them telling us about how nerve-wracking it is, mostly riding around in cabs or limos or while eating at a restaraunt or bar with other comedians. Not so exciting. The best parts, of course, were when they actually showed some stand-up comedy, which is actually entertaining, but those moments were few and far between. So, not so exciting, and no real insight gained. I wouldn't reccomend the movie.

I played a GREAT arcade game today. It's basically like Dance-Dance-Revolution, but it's a drum machine. So, hit the right drum at the right time. The easiest levels were pretty damn hard, but after two games of playing, it was conceivably possible that I'd be able to do better. So I can't wait to head back and try it out again. :)

Tomorrow I think me and D and Norm and Teri are going to try to golf some... that should be fun. :)

Happy Halloween!

I wore my costume to work today, and felt kind of like a tool since not so many people wore costumes. Oh well. I got a lot of compliments, though, so it could have been worse. Had football practice after work, which was a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've been active, and it felt good to go out and run around a little bit.

At work, we're going to try to do a push to finish up our project, and we're anticipating some long hours and weekends, so that's not really good news. I can't wait to be done with this, though, and we're really close, so hopefully this will do it.

Had dinner and carved pumpkins and watched Survivor over with Diana's parents, which was nice. I carved a smily like this: :-) into my pumpkin. How much of a geek am I? A big one. Oh well.

Tomorrow is Friday, Saturday might be work (or perhaps some golf if I can convince Iwan or Little Buhr or Diana or Norm and Teri). Sunday is the Race for the Cure, and hopefully some time to watch the Charger game. I hope I'm not needed to much at work this weekend, 'cause I feel like going out and having some fun!

Ugh.

I was fooling around with my RAM today, trying to tweak some stuff for performance, and I screwed something up. Windows XP has the nasty habit of getting it's registry files all f'd up the computer crashes, leaving you in a state where you can't even boot the machine. Luckily, I had a printout of how to get around this from the last time this happened. I was able to restore the files that would allow me to roll back to a recent "system restore checkpoint". This is normally a point in the computers life that is saved like everyday. The last one that I had, for some reason, was in May. Ugh. So, basically, I have all my current files, buy my registry thinks it's May. So I've been reinstalling drivers and software as necessary. Big pain in the butt.

Diana made Halloween cookies tonight (I helped a tiny bit with the cutting out parts). Tomorrow I'm going to wear my Ghostbusters costume to work. That costume was a good investment. :)

Diana and I played a fun game last night in bed (stop that!). We were talking, and she said "I'm falling asleep." A couple seconds later, I felt her body jerk a little bit. I asked "What were you dreaming about just then?" She'd tell me, and then fall back asleep. I'd wait honestly about 15 seconds, and ask the same question.

Here are the responses I got:

"I was at school, and there was a big silver bus."
"I was looking at curtains, but they belonged to Andrea."
"Ohno... I was in a big kitchen, like in Jurassic Park with the 'raptors, but it was Billy Joel chasing me."
"There was a cake, but it had a gun on it and it was for Columbine."
"I was at the movies with Eric Cheng, and he was looking for the best deal for food."

Dreams are crazy things... given this little experiment, the claim that we have thousands of dreams a night doesn't surprise me at all. It's incredible to me the variation of the things that popped into her head, seemingly completely randomly. We did just spend a weekend with her friend Andrea, and we did just see a movie loosely about Columbine, so some pieces at least aren't completely foreign.

Another day, another day.

Work as usual, and then home. Diana got home from work to have a conference call with some student and her parents 'cause the student isn't doing her homework. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that sort of crap with my job (especially after I've come home for the night!) Poor girl.

Real World is on tonight. What an absolute mess that show is. I can't wait to watch it! :)

Wow... just saw "Bowling for Columbine", a documentary on the violent attitudes of Americans. Amazing movie. The prime focus is questioning why there are so many gun-related murders in this country, and focuses on issues surrounding gun control. One of the major point in the movie is the role that fear plays in our society, and how fear of everything is fed to us by the media, and how that fear plays into consumer spending. They showed a montage of local news clips, and all of them were things like: "A local woman is bitten by a rattlesnake... what you don't know could save your life", and a story on escalator safety, etc, etc. It was crazy to think about how often this concept that we should be afraid of something is pounded into our heads.

It was something I'd never even considered, but really made a lot of sense to me. I'm going to keep my mind open to non-specific fear as presented to me from the media or any other sources.

Anyways, I totally reccomend the movie. Really, really thought-provoking. Go see it.

Dude! This website rocks. I've never been much of a Rubik's cube fan, but this is pretty damn dope. Make sure to mouse-over the spacement down below... there is a link to randomize the cube (or you can do it yourself), and a link to solve it. It's pretty fun to watch it. It could just be blatent computer cheating, though, and how would we know?

Off to the movies... either to see "Real Women Have Curves" or "Bowling for Columbine". D's choice.

I just read this story about boycotting the movie Jackass. Basically, the reasons sited are that kids are going out and imitating what they see on TV and in the movies, and hurting themselves in the process.

Is it just me, or is this kind of boycotting (or worse yet, censorship, which thankfully hasn't happened yet) totally and completely rediculous? I guess the question, really, is where is the line drawn? We obviously(?) can't outlaw everything with violent content, can we? And if so, would that stop bored kids from going out and finding something else potentially dangerous to do?

I'm not stupid. I was recently a kid myself. I did dumb stuff, and I sometimes got hurt doing dumb stuff. And I probably got lucky a number of times that I or some of my friends didn't get hurt worse than we did. But the responsibility still remains on me, and not where I got the idea from.

The problem isn't Jackass, or any other number of violent things out there. The problem is the lack of teaching that there are consequences for our actions, and that we are accountable for the things that we do. Period.

It's probably impossible to say that parents can control all the content that enters childrens systems, but I do believe that guidelines and general street-smarts can be established at a young age that give kids the ability to filter out what is a good idea and what is a bad idea. At least, most of us were able to do that when we were kids.

Well, back from our trip to San Jose/San Francisco. Diana and I flew up Friday evening, and were picked up by our friends Greg and Andrea. They took us back to their new house in San Jose, and we spent the evening catching up on news and so forth. Saturday we went into San Francisco, and checked out the Flugtag thing. It was crazy. The competition is supposed to be people building some craft that will be launched off into the bay, and it's supposed to fly. Most (all?) of the crafts were exceedingly silly, and simply plummeted (with drivers and pushers) off into the bay. It was frequently hilarious and lots of fun. Today, we drove to Santa Cruz, and walked around the campus a little, where Diana and Andrea and Greg (all SC alumuni) shared memories and pointed out the various sites. We stopped by a little grove where the monarch butterflies come to hang out, which was really neat to see... thousands of the guys flying around and gathered on branches. There definitely was the feeling of some sort of DnD-type druid or nature magic at work. Then out to lunch, and then the flight home.

In San Diego, we went to the top of the parking garage that we had left our car in, which was almost directly under the planes final landing path. We watched a couple of them fly really close by, and had a great view of the runway as they landed. It was a lot of fun, and something that I've always wanted to do but have never gotten around to. Here's to new experiences!

Buh-bye! Off to San Francisco. :)

Diana and I are leaving for San Francisco this evening to visit our friends Andrea and Greg. I've always enjoyed the Bay area, and am looking forward to the trip. More on that when I get back.

I saw this on Slashdot, which always has some really good geek news. I never had an Atari growing up (my parents, in their somewhat surprising technological moxy, bought an Apple ][+ instead), but I played a lot at friends' houses. Anyways, someone made a Flash version of Adventure. I really like the interface, complete with the Atari switches and buttons and so forth. Check it out.

So I guess the snipers are caught. What a horrible, horrible thing that was. I've been totally following the case, and Diana would frequently call me at work asking if there was any news or more victims. I'm really intrigued to see what happens now that the (alleged) guys are caught. Crazy.

Well, I'm giving it another go. I had previously started keeping a blog/journal type thing on my own computer, but it was proving unwieldly. After seeing what some of my friends have done (Baditude and tundrah), I thought that Blogger would be the easiest way to go.

So, what's to expect? Hard to say. Mostly this is just for myself, to keep a journal of what I've done in my life, from the big important stuff (rarely), to the little day to day fun things (mostly). Unfortunately this can't be a complete journal with my innermost thoughts, but we'll see how it goes.

Previous to this post are some older messages from my initial foray into blogging.

Deep ponderings of the moment: I actually listened to the words of the Star Spangled Banner today while driving home and listening to the beginning of the World Series. What a whack song that is. Read the lyrics sometime as a sentence. Translated, it's basically: Hey, the flag was there last night, and we saw it through the night from the light of the bombs... is it still there?

Weird.

Oh, one more thing. I was prompted to put a title in for the blog, and came up with "Does Life Get Any Better Than This?" I wonder what people think when they read that. Is that a postitive- or negative-feeling statement? In other words, is it "my life is so great, could it possible get better?" or "my life is so crappy, doesn't it get better than this?" I think how you read it has a lot to do with your outlook on life. Take a moment to think about it.

9-28-02 @ 10:22 PM PST

This weekend is packed full of goodness!


Last night we went out to celebrate my friend Iwan's birthday. Iwan and I have been friends for such a long time, and it was really fun to go out and share the moment.


This morning, Diana and I joined Iwan and Little Buhr at the mini's course for a little golf. It was a nice morning, and good fun was had by all. We then headed down to Mission Bay to a Brandes sponsered picnic for the Systems department. Not too many people were there, which was too bad, but it was fun to see the ones who were, and Diana was able to put some faces to some names. We then went back to Diana's parents house, and hung out with her mom and sister (I somehow ended up asleep on the couch). Then over to Norm and Teri's house, where we met up with Eryn and Heather for a BBQ and general chatting and fun. It was great to see everyone.


Tomorrow, Norm and Teri are going to pick us up, and then we're going to go pick up Iwan and Sara Martin, and head down to the stadium for the Charger - New England game. Norm has tickets for some awesome seats, and I can't wait to see the game. It's going to be so much fun, and fun to hang out with everyone.


What a great weekend. :)



9-22-02 @ 10:02 PM PST


My weekend of bachelorhood has come to a blessed close. When she's gone I spend way too much time doing useless activities and inside.


That's not entirely true. On Saturday, I played a nice round of golf with Iwan and Little Buhr. On the way home I bought a driver, and hit some balls at the range. There is now a dent in the face of the driver (which I'm still not sure if it's supposed to be there, or if it was caused by me). If I did it, I'm going to be pretty pissed, though. That's what I get for buying a $50 driver, I guess.


We just watched Chasing Amy. Not a bad movie. The interesting thought-provoking parts make up for the screeching of the main, three-named girl. I think Mallrats is next on the list, and I'm sure Clerks will follow soon after that.


Diana's tempting me with an all new episode of the Anna Nicole Show. As mentioned before, I can't stand it, but somehow I can't bring myself to look away.


I need to get some official graphics if I really want to do this webpage right. I'd love to do 'em myself, but I just don't have the skills.


So much to do, so much time eaten up by Counterstrike.




9-19-02 @ 10:30 PM PST


Well, the Chutes and Ladders lost in our first playoff game, taking us out of the running. :( It's frusterating to lose against a team that makes it seem so easy to beat us. One of the other players, though, got ejected from the game for having alcohol on his breath. I wish we had noticed earlier, as he was pretty damn good. Oh well.


Diana's going to Santa Barbara this weekend to visit friends. That should be a lot of fun for her. I miss her when she's gone, but it also leaves me with some free time to work on the website and play golf and so forth... Diana and I have so much fun together all the time, but it's also nice to have our own time. I really like that about our relationship.


I only ask that you be none other than yourself, for with you I will walk my path from this day forward


I bought Battlefield 1942. It's frusterating. The sniper rifle seems really innaccurate. I can be lying on the ground lined up on a guys head, and fire, and miss. Maybe that's WWII realism for you, but it's damn frusterating. I played a little with Baditude tonight, that that was fun. Still playing poker and Counterstrike when I get too frusterated with 1942, though. I still have a saved game from Ultima Underworld waiting, and Diana and I are crusing through Syberia. Yay. :)




9-18-02 @ 09:27 PM PST


Just got back from dinner with our friend Andy and his friend Erika. We went to Pizza Nova, and Curtis was there serving us, and all was well. It was good to hang out with them. Andy's looking for a job in game programming, which sounds like a lot of fun, but I don't envy him. It's a tough field to be in, I think, and it's a pretty demanding job which I don't think I have the stamina for. I do want to see Diana and my friends every so often.


This week on TV is pretty big. The Real World just started, and it's already going to be a mess. Survivor starts tomorrow, which will be fun. I don't watch much TV at all, but those shows are always a good time.


Tomorrow is the first game of the playoffs for the Chutes and Ladders (co-ed soccer). I hope we do ok. I'm thinking of re-joining the Rooks (men's soccer), who I've abandoned since I got hit in the head (I literally don't remember how) and knocked unconscious. That was such a horrible experience... I never want to go through that again. I'll certainly never play goalie again, but out in the field I'm in a much safer position, I think. We'll see. Josh made a good point in that I shouldn't come back if I'm going to play scared.


I just bought Battlefield 1942 today, and I'm playing PokerStars while writing this. I read a book loaned to me from Papa Roston on how to win at Omaha... it's hard to play with fake money, though, 'cause it's so easy to not care and stay in and play anything. I do some




9-15-02 @ 09:28 PM PST


Football rocks. I was up late last night playing poker (check out PokerStars.com... lots of fun), as well as Battlefield 1942 and Counterstrike, so I slept late. I watched the end of the morning games (which I wasn't very interested in), and the Charger game. I'm happy to see them playing well and winning games... hopefully they can stick with it.


Rich Gannon just had a career day for the Raiders, setting personal best in completions and yards, but he threw two picks and only 1 touchdown, so didn't score *that* many fantasy points (which is all I care about in terms of Raiders performance). I'm doing a lot better this year, scoring more points in both these last two weeks than I did in any week last year.


The Anna Nicole Show is about to come on. It's like a train wreck, but I'm not sure if I can look away. This week the new Real World and Survivor start. I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but those and ER are pretty much my staples.



9-14-02 @ 11:00 PM PST


These last 24 hours have been pretty damn nice.


Diana and I somehow accumulate gift certificates, free passes, and store credits. Especially since the wedding, we've returned and exchanged a lot of gifts that don't always give us cash back. So we'll have lots of odds and end credits to various stores. Also, being a private tutor, Diana sometimes gets gifts from her students for her birthday, or for an extra tip, or whatever. And recently at work, because we've all been working pretty hard, we were given free movie passes, and encouraged to take some time off work and slip away to the movies.


So, Friday afternoon, I left work a little early and met Diana. We then headed down to the little golf course nearby (aka "the mini course", (but it's realy golf, not miniature golf)), and played a round. I played my usual ok, and Diana, in spite of feeling like she did worse, actually tallied a better score than last time. Crazy game, that golf.


Afterwards, we went to dinner at Sammy's pizza, where we used the first of many gift certificates and got a couple of pizzas. We saw Nelani working there, and it was nice to say hi to her.


After that, we used the free movie pass and bought one more ticket and saw "One Hour Photo", the new movie starring Robin Williams. It's a creepy movie, but I found it really enjoyable. Lots of neat themes, very good suspense, and Robin Williams yet again proves that he can do more stuff than be his total manic, idiotic self. He was really great.


Today, we lazed around here a bit. Diana went to the gym and I downloaded and played the multiplayer demo of Battlefield: 1942 which looks to be a pretty fun game. We had leftover pizza for lunch, and headed out to find this geocache which was a lot of fun. Geocaching is great... You should learn more about it.


After the cache, we did some a little shopping, and used up our $1.56 credit at Linen's n' Things. They only give you cash back on returns if it's less than $1. Sweet. So we bought some Kettle Corn. :) This evening we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and had dinner, and played more of the game "Syberia", and adventure game that we're working on together. It's a lot of fun... a lot better (or at least, a lot less annoying) than "The Longest Journey".


Nothing thrilling, but just a nice, satisfying day. Tomorrow: football.