Watching the what now?
My exciting New Year’s: no party, no fancy dinner. I didn’t feel well, so we stayed home to watch the ball drop on one of the excruciating network New Year’s shows. We waited for the countdown to start… and waited… and waited… and looked at the clock to notice that it had somehow become 12:22. Yes, we fell asleep waiting for New Year’s. Such a hardcore life we lead, eh?
I repeat what I said last year: if I’m planning to party or otherwise celebrate late into the evening, I’m at a point in life where an afternoon nap would be a wise preparation – especially if I’d gotten up at 5:30am that day to go to work.
Slept until almost noon on the 1st, because I’m still exhausted from last weekend. (Possibly from all of December.) Starr had to work, so after lunch I headed to Bert and Meche’s, where they got a game of Munchkin Quest going. I’m glad they have it, because I want to play it again, but this time I don’t have to buy a copy. It looks like an average game might well be 4-5 hours, though we had some non-gamer types at the board, which slowed things down a touch.
I’m tempted to say that my New Year’s Resolution is “1280 x 1024, 32-bit color at 60hz”. But in fact, the personal-improvement things I hope to accomplish this year are to keep trying to lose some spare tire, improve my education and my earning power, and do more non-journally writing. I’m especially unhappy with my writing output in 2008; I’ve stared at a lot of empty text files this year. That will be changing.
Happy New Year to all!
We got a real small convoy…
I feel guilty when I let Twitter do most of my LiveJournal updating for several days. It doesn’t help that my DSL, which was working fine for a while, died again over the weekend. They’ll come by on Friday to look at it. Cox Cable, folks, I’m telling you now.
So, what exactly was I up to with all that driving? It’s an epic tale…
We left Chesapeake early on Friday morning, heading to NoVa to see Owen. On the way one of my tires sprang a leak; we pulled into a White Tire to have it fixed. It turned out that the tire was fine; something I’d hit on Xmas eve had bent the rim a bit, and that was letting air out. They hammered the rim back into shape, re-balanced the tire, and refused to charge me. Happy Holidays indeed!
To say that Owen was charged up to see us might have been an understatement. He wore us out just talking to us! He received a glow-in-the-dark NASA Langley shirt from us, which he wore all night; his parents gave us an elegant hanging candelabra and an Elfin Tree Door (which is already installed on a suitable tree in our yard).
When we left for the hotel, Owen’s folks sent us to a French cafe for dinner. I’ve never eaten French food before, and was surprised at how tasty a charred, bloody cut of meat could be. (Look at dish, and mentally sigh. Put forkful of dish in mouth, and mentally jump at the flavor!)
The HoJo’s we stayed at that night was clean and cheap, and the bed mattress might as well have been a solid slab of wood. I kid you not, Starr found the floor more comfortable.
We went back to Owen’s place for breakfast, and he and I bonded over some Lego. Eventually, we had to leave; Starr’s mom took her by a neighborhood yarn store, though, and we ended up losing another hour to their 25%-40% Off Sale. No problem for me, I had Solitaire and MahJongg on the cell phone. The drive from there to Christiansburg turned out to be the least fun of the trip, though; crossing the Appalachians on Lee Highway was tense and a bit nauseating, and our reward for reaching the other side was I-81. Yippee-doo.
Finally, though, we reached C-burg and we saw Mom waiting for us outside the facility where she’s staying. Mom ordered me to stop a yard and a half away, and walked that distance from he wheelchair to my arms as Starr steadied her. Wonderful! She gave me the best Xmas present she possibly could right there; the Red Lobster dinner that followed only added to the celebration!
We spent Saturday night in the Microtel, which did its intended job of being cheap, comfortable, and a provider of wireless Net access. I know that lots of folks in the New River Valley would have put us up, and I would have loved the chance to socialize, but we’d have been rude guests: coming in late, going straight to bed, and waking up early the next morning for a quick e-mail check and a return to Mom’s place.
After a Cracker Barrel breakfast, Mom took Starr to Mosaic, her favorite yarn store, where we met Benny, Cathy, and Jamie Williams; I passed the time proving to Jamie that I am totally old and lame when it comes to anime and Final Fantasy games, and Starr ended up with a couple more bags of crochet yarn. (I had given Starr yarn money for Xmas. Starr asked and received permission to buy herself other gifts with that money, as she’s now stocked up on yarn for a few weeks.) We said a sad goodbye to my mom, and began the six-hour drive home. I have to say, that used me up. We finally arrived around 8:30 Sunday night, and I was done. Kaput. Over.
Still, it was a lovely weekend, and time and gas well spent. I only wish that I could fly to Technicon Last instead of driving. Or perhaps portal there, if all that ‘cake’ stuff’s been worked out by now.
Brief updates
- 09:13 Listening to TSO for, somehow, the first time this Christmas. I will *not* choke up during “Old City Bar”. #
- 11:00 @tangowildheart Yep, it’s great when the total commute = 25% of the actual work hours, isn’t it? #
- 14:00 @tangowildheart That’s right, I am unable to do math today. Possibly because I’m in the same boat of 1hr – 4hrs – 1hr. 🙁 #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Christmas / Time
Since my ‘Net connection is still wonky, I may be reduced to watching this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special on SciFi. The horror.
On the other hand, I received a nice Who fandom Xmas present in the from of this Livejournal artwork post by _tonylee_. The image linked at the bottom cheered me greatly; the likenesses are a bit off, but it’s still my desktop wallpaper for a while. (One of them. The other wallpaper is the Apollo 8 “Earthrise” shot right now.)
As Starr works tonight and tomorrow, we finished the majority of our own gift-giving last night. Among other things, I received two hardcovers: an H.P. Lovecraft collection, and a Hitchhiker’s omnibus of all five novels and the short story. In each case, these will supersede paperbacks already on my shelf, thus retaining the integrity of the Stuff Reduction Plan. Starr, on the other hand, got a gift card for plenty of crochet yarn, and a brand-new toolbelt to aid in her remodeling projects (she’s already done a den and a bathroom). She wore the toolbelt around all evening to ‘break it in’, so I think it was appreciated.
I am messing with my co-workers today, playing Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra with album breaks provided by cuts from the “Sailor Moon SuperS Christmas For You” album.
Basic misunderstanding of the game
EDIT: Short version of the rant that was in this spot:
Many commenters on Slashdot are fools.
Now I will go and try to write something else that’s actually interesting.
The Secret Ingredient is silicon
So Christmas has begun early – as it often does in my house, for some reason. Starr got me the Wii I have been waffling about since its introduction: I wanted one, but couldn’t really justify one (which makes it an awesome gift, if you think about it).
As I mentioned on Twitter, she also picked up the Iron Chef America game, which I found surprisingly entertaining, and potentially Repetitive Stress Injury-inducing. I think it’ll go over well when we have friends over, as it’s fairly easy to pick up and a round plays fast. Plus it’s got the voice acting talents of the Chairman, Alton Brown, and Masaharu Morimoto, so you can’t go wrong.
Now that I have this new console, a quick poll for purposes of future wishlisting: what games on the Wii are the most awesome and should really be in our library?
CQ … CQ …
I technically have Internet now. “Technically” meaning that I keep losing signal temporarily. I think something’s wrong with the wireless router – even the wired machine seems to be having issues.
Anyway, I have a lot of email and online errands to catch up on. I also have many hours of housework I’ve been putting off, so we’ll see how that all goes.
