Working late.

I hate working late. I hate it when there are problems with other things (like the database), but for some reason it's all us software guys in here figuring things out instead of the DB people. That's not so fair. I was supposed to have a nice evening with Diana tonight. :( Hopefully tomorrow. And hopefully I won't be here that late.

I was able to talk to a guy at the Faucet Factory, and he assured me that it sounds like I did what I was supposed to do, and that things sounded good on the plumbing front. So I think we'll consider this issue closed for the time being.

Ok, well back to work.

Ha!

Well, today was a productive day. I came home at around 11am to meet the plumber. He told us basically what the first one said, which is that he didn't have the part he needed, and the only thing he could do would be to replace the whole connection, which would require cutting through the wall. I asked him a lot of questions, and was basically able to piece together that if I were able to find the right part, then it's a pretty simple job of replacing it. So I told him to hold off for a little, and I'd look for the part.

I found the part.

It took a little hunting, and I was able to talk to some very helpful plumber supply guys who pointed me to a store in Encinitas called the Faucet Factory. The guy there had the part I needed, and gave me lots of good advice on changing it. I was able to come home and make the change with no problem at all.

And now the only thing I can think of is "can it really be that easy?" How can two fully qualified plumbers talk to me about cutting through the wall to replace the whole fixture when they KNEW that the only thing I needed was to replace a simple valve? Did I do something wrong? I don't think that I did. The thing fits right where it's supposed to go. It's tight on there, not leaking. There's a O-ring. The water turns on and off nicely. I feel confident that it's working, but I also feel like I need some validation from someone who knows what they're talking about, and the plumbers I've talked to so far haven't given me the impression at all that they have my best interest in mind. Dad is going to come over this weekend, and maybe I'll have him take a look. He's been so helpful these past days. I'm lucky to have such a clever pop. :)

I'm tired. ER just ended. Good episode. Work is going well. Our new application is so good that it's turning up faults in other systems, which is sort of a mixed blessing. It's sort of brought the integrity of the data up to a new standard, so lots of processes are being changed to accomodate, which is a good thing.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. The first plumber that came over apparently wiggled the handles on our sink, and found they were loose, and warned that that meant they were going to be the next to go. I took an allen wrench to the handles and tightened them up, and they don't wiggle anymore. So either he was referring to something else, or he was BS'ing, and I honestly don't know which to believe. Can you tell I'm bitter? Someone tell me I did a good thing!

Update.

So, our house is basically under warranty for the first year. So if things go wrong with stuff, it's basically covered by insurance that's provided by the seller. Pretty cool, eh?

We learned an important lesson today, I think. Diana called the plumber back and said that we appreciate his help today, and explained about the warranty, so we wouldn't need his services. She asked if he could come by and return the shower handle that he took with him (why, I don't know) and asked how much we owed him. He said $115, and said that was a $45 part that he left in our shower. What he left was a valve that fit the pipe, but that wasn't right for the handle to our shower. The $45 part is TOTALLY bullshit, though, as I've been to Home Depot and looked online and found what look to be the exact same parts for $12.

So I called (yeah, that's right, hard-ass me) and thanked him again and confirmed that we didn't need his services. I asked him how the valve that he left was different than the one that we'd eventually need, and he explained that the one that we need is one that sticks out of the wall basically, and isn't recessed like this one is. That made sense. I said that it was a little silly that we had to pay $45 for a part that was going to be replaced in a day or two, and wasn't there a way that we could sell it back to him or return it or something?

*silence*

He sort of sighed and said "Ok, I'll just charge you service. $75. Make sure you keep that part in case something else breaks and you can use it as a cap again." Woo hoo! I feel like it's a slight victory, and that we've learned some important lessons, about both the service industry in general and plumbing systems. I for one have learned so much in the last few days about house-stuff. It's a lot of fun.

Oh yeah. When Diana opened the door to let the guy in initially, he started with "By law I'm not allowed to enter the home unless you're over 18." Ha!

Holy crap!

I just got called into my bosses office. Year-end bonus time. I won't divulge any specific amounts, but he wrote down the number, and my reaction was "holy shit!" He had prepared us for bad news, given the economy and so forth, so my expectations were really low, I guess, so I very pleasantly surprised. And in as much debt as we're in, every bit helps.

Things have been crazy busy lately. This weekend we cleaned up the house more.
Sunday was the Superbowl, and we had friends come over to watch the game. It was a lot of fun for everyone to get together. Everyone seemed to have fun, and it was a good feeling to have people over for the first time in our new pad.

I emptied the spa and read about spa care, refilled it and added a bunch of chemicals and whatnot. I think I have a handle on how to keep it going. We went in last night and it was heavenly. There are little massage jets that are really nice.

Our new application has been rolled out at work, and things are going pretty well with that. Last time was a nightmare, and we had to take it back and fix things, but now things are going a lot smoother. This morning there was an unrelated emergency which has kept us all hopping. And it would be easy for it to seem like the new app was at fault, but luckily it wasn't. In fact, it caught the errors and caused further bad things to happen, which is good, but it's easy to blame the messenger. But I think all is well now.

Last night we had a little plumbing emergency. The shower was dripping a little, so Diana went to turn off the water firmly, and the hot water handle sort of broke free in it's fitting. There was water coming out of the shower, and the handle just sort of spun freely in its fixture. I, being a wannabe handy kind of guy, decided to unscrew the fixture. Before I knew it, the fixture blasted off the wall, and hot water was spouting freely out of the hole in the wall. It was quite exciting. I'm glad I took the precaution of learning where the water main was. That info came in pretty handy. So I turned off the water and checked stuff out. I'm not quite sure how the whole thing works, but looking into the hole I see a threaded socket that the handle once screwed into. The socket is a little corroded, and actually has a hole in the side of it. The thing that came out of the wall was corroded, and must have broke when Diana twisted it. So we have a plumber coming out this afternoon. What I'm HOPING is the case is that it's an old fixture or valve or something that can be replaced easily, and NOT that there's a fundamental problem with the entire plumbing system. We'll see what he says. It was a pretty funny little adventure, though.

Ugh. Another work problem. Gotta gooooooo...

So... tired...

Thursday night we went to dinner as a goodbye to Little Buhr, who's going up to San Fran to go to school. We'll miss the little guy, but it will certainly be a growing experience (good or bad) for him to move away like this, I think.

Last night a group of us were at work until 9pm putting the finishing touches on our application and setting it loose on the world. Hopefully Monday will be completely uneventful. I got home really tired and stressed to a dinner a headrub from my loving wife. I can't say enough how wonderful she is, and how she gives me the things that I want or need even before I know that I want or need them myself. I'm undeserving of such love. :)

Today was a busy day. I went to watch the Systems flag football team get whooped up on by Research. Too bad that all those weeks of practice kind of fell on it's face. We were looking pretty good in practice, but gametime is when it really mattered. The final score was like 49-7 or something. Afterwards, I came home and read about the spa, and went to Home Depot and picked up a bunch of spa stuff. I'm not sure if a spa really is all that hard to take care of, or if there's 10 different chemicals they say you need to buy, but really don't and they're just trying to screw me. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow is the Superbowl! People are going to come over around noon or 1 and we'll BBQ some burgers and dogs and whatnot, hang out, and watch the game. Should be a good time. I hope everyone has fun.

My ring it too loose. I need to get it smallened. I just made that word up and I think I like it.

I bought a random present for Diana. It's a puzzle that comes with a mini murder mystery story. You read the story, put together the pieces (as they say) and the picture of the puzzle provides more clues to solve the thing. Only in this case, there are two puzzles of the same scene (before and after), the pieces are all mixed together in the same box, and there is no artwork on the box to provide clues. So we've got our work cut out for us.

Holy crap I just saw the time and realize that we've probably been working on that puzzle for 2 hours. I feel sort of lame spending 2 hours working on a puzzle on Saturday night, but it was fun, and quality time with Diana. No complaints here, but it is a little geeky.

Speaking of geeky, I had my first Counterstrike tryouts tonight. I started off really bad (I was nervous!) but got better and did pretty well in the end. Haven't heard any results though. My ping was like 110 since the server was in Dallas, so even if I make it I'm not sure I'd join. Plus I'm not convinced others weren't hacking. So we'll see what happens.

Bedtime

Dude.

So I'm driving to work through semi-rushhour traffic, and see a truck with a sign on it up ahead of me. It doesn't take long to see that the back of the truck is covered with a huge picture of an aborted fetus. The rest of the truck was covered with various slogans about how abortion is wrong, and god hates fags and whatnot. Do I need to see this? Do I need to see a picture of a bloody fetus on my way to work? I submit that I do not. Is this an effective way to sway peoples opinions of abortions. It made me angry. I wanted to flip the guy off or get in front of him and drive really slow or otherwise register my discontent. But I didn't do anything, on further thought, which was probably for the best.

I'm not an activist. With pending war in Iraq, and the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and countless other issues in the world, I don't really do anything about any of them. I'm not sure if I even feel strongly about many of them. I was raised in a pro-choice household, but am I really pro-choice? I think so, by why? I'm cursed, I think, with an open mind, and the desire to really understand both sides of an arguement, and therefore I really don't get to belong on one side or the other. Call it wishy-washy. Maybe I'm afraid to take a stand. But I don't think that's it. I just don't feel strongly enough about those sorts of hot political issues to take a stand either way.

Well, since I'm old and, under advice of lots of people whose opinions I really value, retired from contact sports, I'm looking for new competitive, non-contact activities.

I just signed up in the Cyberathlete Amateur League (http://www.caleague.com). This is an offshoot of the CPL (sub "Professional" for "Amateur"). Basically, it's an organized set of leagues (open, intermediate, invite, and draft) in a number of online games (including CounterStrike). Keep an eye open for "True Life: I'm a Cyberathlete" coming in March to MTV (I'm not kidding. :)

So now I'm just looking for a team to join. Sort of reminds me of my old Quake3 boys... as silly as it sounds, showing up for an official match was just as nerve-wracking and full of anticipation as a real sporting event. So, hopefully I can find a team, as new seasons are about to begin. :)

I'm also thinking about bowling. If I put my mind to it, I think I could be a pretty good bowler. We'll see.

We have trash service!

I had no idea you had to actually call someone and PAY for them to pick up your garbage for you. I mean, it makes sense that you have to play for it, but I figured it was part of taxes or something. Anyways, we now are established, and they're going to give us recycling crates and everything. How exciting!

I went to the dentist this morning, and have 0 cavaties! Yay! I haven't had a cavity in like 2 years. This may be because most of my mouth is already bionic, but whatever. I think the fact that I go 3 times a year helps too. My gums hurt though. :(

People are actually coming to our house for the Superbowl this weekend. That will be fun. Sara is working, which is too bad, and others are in negotiations if they're coming (I'm not quite sure what that means), but I think for the most part peeps will be there and we'll have a good time. In a long tradition of Roston superbowl parties, it might be meager, but it will be fun to have "company" over. :)

I need lunch. I need to stop by the apartment and pick up/throw away the last of our crap. Then we'll be all completely moved out. Yay.

Back to work.

Yesterday was another busy day. Diana and I returned the truck in the morning, and she dropped me off at home and went to work for the day. I puttered around a little, and my parents came over for more help. We met at Home Depot and picked up some essentials (trash cans, hoses, etc). My dad and I were very clever and strung some cable from the garage to the room to be henceforth known as my study. We ran the cable through a pipe, so there is a nice conduit there for future use, which is nice. So now there is a nice little cable outlet in my study. The best part is that it even works! Pretty cool. He also bought a little kit to change the locks, but that looks pretty confusing so it's going to wait for now.

Diana and I are doing a pretty good job unpacking and getting moved in. Some coworkers said that they were going to be impressed if we were all unpacked within a year after we moved in, but I want to be all unpacked as soon as possible. And we're making good progress.

Things To Do:
Clean up and arrange my study.
Clean up and arrange Diana's study.
Drain, clean, and learn about spa.
Figure out what times and for how long the sprinklers should run, and set them accordingly.
Clear vegetation from the side of the house.
Arrange for trash pickup service.
Notify change of address: magazines, Harry and David, etc
Arrange garage.
Continue unpacking as needed.
A lot more stuff that I don't remember or don't want to include yet.

Lot of work. But it's all a lot of fun.

We've invited people over for the Superbowl on Sunday, and a couple people have said they're coming. That should be fun.

We're tremendously excited about the house. We both feel SO lucky that we got it and that it's what we want. We apparently were a day or two away from being seriously outbid for the house, so if we didn't make the offer when we did, and if it wasn't accepted when it was, we simply would not have gotten it. It's already feeling like our own, too, as we get more of our own familiar stuff out and about. I was a little worried about that, but needlessly.

That's about it for now. Tonight I'm going to the Rawls' for a goodbye dinner for Alicia, who's going to New Zealand for her organic farming adventure. I have to respect the idea of just picking up and going solo to a foreign country. I'd never be able to bring myself to do that. I'm sure she'll have a great time and meet all sorts of fabulous people and have lots of adventures. Just hope she decides to come back at some point! :)

Moving.

Wow... what a weekend. On Saturday, Diana and I got up and started getting everything all arranged for moving. We rented the truck at noon from El Camino Equipment Rental, who we'd highly recommend. They were very nice and helpful. Norm and Teri and Iwan showed up at 1pm, and we started moving stuff! Alicia and her friend Angela showed up a little later, so we eventually had quite a crew moving us. I though initially that they'd just be helpful, but I quickly found that they were absolutely essential to the moving process. We simply could not have done it without the help we got, and we're VERY thankful.

Packing up took about 3 or 4 hours. Unpacking the truck took about 45 minutes. We then got cleaned up, and Diana and I took Iwan and Teri and Norm out to dinner for a thank-you. We were pretty bushed by the end of the day! We went back to Norms for a little, and then came home. Sleeping here is VERY quiet compared to our old place. It takes some getting used to, but we were so beat that we both slept really well.

Today, Diana worked for most of the day. I went to my parents house and picked up some other boxes and beds, and we all came back here. Dad was VERY helpful showing me around the house. We cleaned out the water softener and learned how it worked, and experimented with the sprinkers, adjusted a toilet, talked about running cable through the crawlspace, and a million other little things. I'm lucky to have such a helpful and knowlegeable daddy right about now.

Diana got home, and we've been putting away stuff ever since, with short breaks to watch football (Raiders are coming to San Diego... look OUT!), and have dinner.

Google has found me!

This is very exciting. I was checking hits to this site, and it also shows the last page that someone was at that linked them to me. One was from a Google search of "David Copperfield head shot" that landed them to a previous post where Diana and I went to see Copperfield and got an autographed picture. The other was someone on AOL searching for "affection survey results", and for whatever reason my page popped up. I have a lot of verbage on each page, I guess, so I guess it's pretty likely that some weird phrase might match. If someone searched for "Diana Copperfield AOL", they might match this very post!

Very exciting to a n00b like me.

Speaking of n00bs, CS 1.6 is supposed to come out sometime soon. S'posed to be yesterday, but the demand swamped the bandwidth and they had to readjust! Releasing a new CS patch is like directing a DDoS attack on yourself. :)

Big move this weekend! We have a lot of helpers, which is really cool. Adam, Diana, Alica, Angela, Iwan, Norm, and Teri. Big strong boys to carry heavy stuff, and delicate little flowers to carry the danties (and kick my ass for sexism :) Anyways, I'm really glad people were willing to help out. Moving is a lot of work, so to volunteer to help someone ELSE move is a class act. So thank you, if you're reading this.

I have a house!

Dude, this is crazy. The lady actually is gone, the place is clean (with newly cleaned carpets), and we own a house! It's ours. I'm totally boggled by this.

Now to move everything in and get all set up!

Oops. A couple more comments of note.

There's no room for chivalry in an elevator. I have no problem with people opening doors for others and letting people go before you. In fact, when swinging a door open it's almost a more natural flow to let the other person go first. But in my ups and downs here at work, I've noticed a couple people basically insist on being the last ones out of the elevator. They'll (all men) move sideways, away from an open door, to let a woman behind them out first. What's really funny is if two of 'em are in the same elevator at the same time, and watching them fight to see who will be last out. It really shouldn't be that hard, people. Doors open, everyone goes in and turns around as the doors close. Doors open, everyone gets out in the reverse order that they entered. If we can just stick to this rule, and make sure that no ones feeling will be hurt, life will be just a little bit smoother.

Tom Cruise has won another settlement to clear his name from being gay. It's one thing to say you're not gay, but it's another thing to sue those who say you are for millions of dollars. Makes him look positively homophobic, if you ask me (which you did).

I emailed and heard back from my old email buddy Kelly today! Glad to hear she's doing well and remembers who I am. :)

Ok, I'm spent.

Ugh

I don't get pissed off that easily, but when a number of things add up, well, it adds up.

1) Old lady drivers combined with busy parking lots
It's not that hard to pull your car out of the spot. The slower you do it, the more people get backed up, block other people from the place that they want to go, and generally piss people off. I'm not saying you need to be maniacal, but if you've been driving for over 40 years, you should know by now how big your damn car is, and how to back it up faster than a crawl. Not a big deal, but we got into this huge clusterfuck in the already-too-small parking lot because of it.

2) The soda machine wanted to sell me a bottle of Pepsi for $1.25. I put in one dollar, and wanted to put in another dollar bill. Didn't work. I go an order my food (leaving $1 credit on the machine) and come back with a quarter. Didn't take the quarter, either. It did return my dollar back to me, though.

3) I went to Radio Shack and found a couple things I wanted to buy. The two guys at the counter had moved to the stereo section and were talking about and looking for some sort of plug connectors. They looked around for a while (knowing I and someone behind me were waiting to buy our stuff at the counter). They came back, and one asked me how I was doing, the typical phrase to begin barter. But they were just looking stuff up on the computer. The other guy said "We'll just be a sec" and gave me a little cutesy squinched up nose and they walked away, back to the shelves. I waited for another couple seconds before walking out. I hope I proved some sort of point but I probably didn't. Whenever someone tries to prove a point by being passive aggressive, it's usually lost on the dumbass they're trying to prove it to.

4) Dr. Laura is such a snotty bitch. I can't believe the off-the-hip judgements she makes knowing almost nothing of a potentially serious situation, and how ferverently her fans seem to follow (alliteration!) her advice. It's obscene.

Ok... I feel better now. :)


PS: I know that I have parents and who-knows-who-else reading this, which can be uncomfortable knowledge if I want to use such expressive phrases like "clusterfuck". Hopefully that's not a problem for you, dear reader, and if it is, then I apoligize.

Wake up.
Go to work.
Work.
Come home.
Pack.
Go to bed.

That's about the size of it. Our apartment is getting slowly emptier and emptier of stuff and more and more full of boxes. It's sort of a sight to see, actually, 'cause we're packing away almost everthing in 12"x15"x10" storage boxes, which seem to be pretty small and therefore more numerous. I guess we'll be taking lots of small loads to and from the truck, rather than fewer heavier ones. Iwan has agreed to help out, and Eryn if he's around this weekend (pleasepleaseplease), which will be really helpful. I can't wait to get all moved in and settled!

I wonder how long it will take for it to feel like OUR house, rather than the mean old drunk lady who lives there now. Since we've only seen it with her stuff in it, I have to imagine that for a while it's going to seem like we're just borrowing it from her or something. I guess we'll see.

I played some good CS last night. I think I was like 29 and 12. Yay me.

OH! And I had my year-end review on Monday, and it went really well. I'm a little dubious of the whole thing, since it seems like the reviews are based so much on appearance and perception rather than actuality. Maybe that's not really fair, but it kind of seems that way. But I'm not really complaining, as I got a very positive review, and lots of ego-stroking and people saying they appreciated my hard work and were thrilled with how much I was growing and learning and so forth. And I got a 5% raise, which, apparently, given the state of the economy and the company, is very good. I'm happy.

Back again.

Even though I was back to work on Friday, I still was feeling pretty weak this weekend. My poor, poor lovely wife had to work on Saturday and Sunday for most of the day, and I spent most of Saturday in bed (you know I'm really not feeling well if I'm home alone all day and don't even play a single round of Counterstrike!), and much of Sunday packing and doing some errands. I drove by our (soon-to-be) house, and was pleased to see a car there with it's trunk open and boxes in it. I was NOT pleased to not see a big moving van with lots of peeps moving out furniture. But we have received word that she has a moving and cleaning service coming on Wednesday, and that the place will be clean and vacant on Thursday! Huzzah!

I parked down the street from the house, hoping to see some moving going on, but I didn't see anyone. I was totally ready to follow the car to see where it went, but no such luck. I've never "tailed" anyone like that, and have always wanted to. I guess I'll have to wait for another chance. :)

I had dinner with my parents last night, and my dad and I talked a bit about our upcoming project. We're going to do this. I've printed out all the information and schematics and whatnot, and orderd most of the parts needed. My dad is buying a Billy Bass on eBay for $.99! What a deal! I'm looking forward to learning a lot about electronics and whatnot. It looks a little overwhelming, but my dad remains confident that we'll be able to do it. We'll see. Whether it works or not, though, it will be fun and educational.

Trainwreck

Ok. I'm better from a brief sickness, and back to work. It's always a little overwhelming to go from being bed-ridden and watching TV all day long to having to be respnsible for stuff. I can't type so well with the new brace on my finger, so I'll keep this short.

Yesterday we had the walkthrough of our house. Before we went, we read a little bit on the web about "what to expect on your walkthrough". It was saying that we should check that everything was still in working order, no obvious changes (holes in the walls, etc), and check the attic and crawlspaces and enquire about anything that was still there and not packed up. Easy enough. We show up (me, D, and our agent), and there isn't any answer to our knocks. Since we're expected, our agent opens the door and sort of calls out the sellers name. I didn't see her, but she apparently stumbles in from her bedroom or backyard or something. He asked if it was ok to do a walkthrough, and she said that she had a cold, but yes, and then dissappeared. Our agent said that she had two cigarettes (both lit?) and was obviously stumbling drunk. The house was pretty untidy, with dirty food plates stacked in the kitchen and clothes and paper strewn about, stuff spilling out of closets, etc. It wasn't total squalor, but it wasn't a house that was all packed up and ready to go (she hands the keys over on Thursday). The idea of looking through closets and crawlspaces was immediately thrown out, as was having her show us around, and how to work the sprinker system, talk about trash pickup, stuff like that. We sort of eyeballed the place for 10 minutes, and then left. Our agent went back to talk to her, but returned quickly saying that he just wished her a happy new year, and said that she was in no state to talk with anyone.

So, yikes. We're all a little stressed that she's not going to be ready to move out on Thursday, but she definitely still could if she had a moving service come this weekend or something. We have people showing up to clean the carpets and wash the windows on Thursday afternoon, so we're hoping she's out. If not, she's clearly in violation of her contract, and could be sued. I'm not very interested in the idea of suing her, as I'm not sure it would help anything, but we'll have to see if it comes to that. I think we're going to try to sneak by sometime this weekend and look for a moving truck or something. Fun!

I've been a little sick with the flu, so not much to update besides moping around the house. But I'm a lot better, and will be back to work tomorrow.

And if you're really lucky, I'll tell you how the walkthrough of our house went! What a trainwreck that was. But I'll leave you hanging for now.

Weekend fun

On Friday night, I went over to Eryn's with Iwan, and we got some dinner and played Lord of the Rings Risk. It was a fun game, and I liked the additions made to normal Risk that the new version had. Eryn put on the movie near the beginning of the game, and we did pretty well keeping pace with the movie, which was kind of neat. Iwan ended up winning, finally, at like 2am.

Yesterday, Diana and I did some packing, and went to UTC with my mom to shop for washers and dryers for the house. I can't wait to have our own washer and dryer, rather than to have to dig through old change for quarters every so often, and get pissed off when the apartment dryers don't do a good enough job. What a pain. We stopped by her parents house, and picked up some boxes and dropped off some stuff. We also went by Toys R Us to return something, and had about $20 in store credit, so we picked up Goonies on DVD. I'm not a real big fan of owning movies, but I couldn't find anything else worth getting, and Diana likes the movie a lot. We ended up watching it last night, and it was better than I remembered (although I fell asleep half way through :)

Today, we did some more packing this morning, and are at my work doing some copying, and are going to head to the beach to enjoy the weather. Crazy that it's January 5th and it's 75 degrees out.

Two thoughts.

1) My brothers wife commented on how much free time I seem to have (an impression she got from reading this blog). And she's probably right. I'm thankful that I have a job that doesn't require an inordinate amount of my time. I generally work 8'ish hours a day (occasionally more, rarely less), and generally don't have work to take home with me, or have to come in on weekends or anything.

I don't remember my second though. :(

Everyflavor Beans

In my Christmas stocking, I got a pack for "Bertie Botts Everyflavor Beans" as inspired from the Harry Potter books. They are Jelly Belly's, but the back of the pack lists a wide range of flavors, including Banana, Green Apple, Toasted Marshmallow, and others like Dirt, Booger, Vomit, Earwax, Sardine, etc. There is some small text that says that the bags are sorted randomly, and it's not guarenteed that every flavor will be in every bag. Diana and I figured that there weren't really Vomit and Dirt flavored beans, and the packaging covered their butts with the disclaimer.

We were wrong.

There really are all the flavors listed, and they are INCREDIBLE. I tried Vomit (unintentionally, I think) and had to spit it out. Diana did likewise with Sardine (which I just tried). My favorite of the nasty ones was Dirt. I started chewing, and just started laughing in spite of the taste It tastes just like fresh potting soil smells. It's absolutely amazing. Like I licked some fresh soil. I also tried Black Pepper, and in COMPLETELY tastes like I took a teaspoon of pepper from a shaker and put it in my mouth. I haven't tried Earwax, and didn't taste much from Booger (sort of warm and salty). Sardine is nasty. It tastes just like an oily fish. Kudos to the Jelly Belly makers. I don't know how they do it, but they do a good job.

I set out the beans on the "candy counter" at our office. I debated not including the package with the label, but figured I probably should. Still, at least one person has come and picked one up randomly (Sardine) and popped it in his mouth as I was saying "You might want to check the package!" He grimaced: "What is that, onion?!" He checked the package, and said "Ohhh... sardine!" and spat it out and washed his mouth out. What fun!

Counterstrike and Star Wars humor all rolled into one! :)

If computer gamers and gaming ever want to really gain respect as a legit entertainment business, we need less stories like this. *sigh*

You love me... you really, really love me!

Astute readers will notice that I put a webcounter onto the bottom of this page. It was more of a curiousity more than anything. Now I'm finding that I'm getting hits that I wasn't expecting. Like the one from Hammond, Alabama?! This never works, but if you're leaving this right now, go ahead and drop a comment after this post (anonymously if you so desire). I'm new and curious to this whole web-thing.

2003.

New Years Eve is a strange holiday. Iwan and I just emailed a little bit about it. It's so silly and meaningless, but can be so fun at the same time. I've had some of the best and worst times on New Years Eve's. I remember some fun parties and get-togethers where it was all about having a good time, and everyone bonding and so forth. I also distinctly remember a New Years Eve where I was home alone, watching the parties and stuff on TV. I was so lonely and depressed, simply because I felt like I was the only person in the world that wasn't out having fun with friends that night. Even my parents were out at a party! This year, my friends were out of town, and Diana and I were just in from Montana, and didn't have any plans. But for whatever reason, it wasn't a big deal. I guess it's all about expectations.

I don't have any resolutions. I'm sort of against the idea of making excuses or tricking myself in to changing. I figure if I want to change, I'll do it, and if I need to trick myself into changing somehow, then it's probably not worth doing, or not going to work anyways. Can I make a resolution to not make any resolutions? I think I just did. Iwan made a resolution to improve his golf game. I wish I had thought of that first! :)

Things I would like to do (after moving in and getting the house more or less liveable)
1) Get my electronic drum kit completed and set up and working.
2) Upgrade my computer (with a cool, modded case with lights and stuff).
3) Write a new, more fun computer game.
4) Build something with a microcontroller. I was reading about the BX-24 from BasicX, and some sample code to parse GPS data, talk to a remote control, etc. I just need a good idea of what to do.

That's all for now. I'm sure there's much more on that list.