I gots ink.

IMG00104.JPG, originally uploaded by diegomcnamara.

We had a one hour meeting whereby they were teaching us about a program that we wouldn't be using, and I was falling asleep. So I had to do something to keep awake.

My wife claims she's having a pretty good birthday today, which makes me happy. We didn't do anything too elaborate - we drove to Renton and went to the Southcenter mall, which has a new name that I've forgotten. The facelift they had is pretty impressive, it looks like a mall in a different city. We just walked around and then scooted to Jimmy Mac's for lunch.

The kids got a kick out of being able to drop peanut shells on the floor, which they did every chance they got. There were even a variety of drops, from the elaborate toss to the causal dangle drop, and the sweep off the table for good measure.

We had a full rack each, which is a damn lot of food, ribs bigger than my head, which is quite sizable in its own meat and bones right. We had about half the meal before packing it in, before we headed home. My gamble with the almost empty gas tank was almost lost, I think we were maybe a mile away from a dead stall.

We also stopped at REI to pick up the trailer bike, which ran 200 bucks more than I'd care to spend. But since Alex won't be able to catch up with us for quite some time, he will have to tag along with us. He won't quite fit in the bucket seat anymore, so it was the next step up. And after that was a stop for ice cream cake at DQ, and then home for a while.

This is my life. I'm sitting waiting for Alex in his martial arts class, and listening to my podcasts on my phone. I glanced over to the video playing in the dojo, which shows a certain monk with a sword doing drunken fighting. And the song in my head is a chorus chanting, "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." its an interview with Eric Idle talking about his musical rendition of "Life of Brian". Or something.

Tonight's agenda is ice cream cake, Rock Band, and sleep. I definitely need my 7 to 8 hours every night I think. My sanity depends on it. But I hope its been a good birthday for my wife. Happy birthday, honey.

Taking a half day off so that I can go to an auditory counseling deal about Alex. Because my wife has a new watch, or perhaps even more factually because she doesn't like to be late, we are at the doctors office 25 minutes before we're actually required to be here.

Overslept this morning because I went to bed late last night. I guess playing Rock Band till 11 something at night and then having to wake up in the morning is not a terribly smart thing to do. Nonetheless, I'm happy to report that my wife is smitten with Rock Band. She was settling to be the singer but I think after she saw me banging away on the drums, she wanted in on it. After a half hour she was hooked, and we played for about an hour and a half on a tour before our visions starting glossing. It is a tremendously fun and rewarding game though the price tag is certainly a huge factor. Opening the kits and guitar, one could only imagine how much of the price tag could be attributed to the licensing of the Ludwig drumsticks and Fender guitar. Nonetheless, it is a great game, I think a viable primer for using real instruments. I guess Rock Band 2 is also compatible with our gear, so we only have to upgrade the game itself. Although its a little tough for the kids to get, I figured out how to hook it up to my iBook and through garageband, utilize the drum kit as a basic drum set. Awesomeness!

Listened to the last episode of The Bryant Park Project that was actually aired last Friday and it was quite heartbreaking. They've been on the air for about a year but the staff has essentially become a second family amongst themselves, and it was touching to hear them say goodbye to each other. I'll miss the show as well, and trying to replace that show with stupid gaming podcasts.

Tomorrow is E's birthday so we will likely go down to Jimmy Macs and have us some barbeque ribs or something. And then have some ice cream cake. And play more Rock Band.

Spoiled Rotten

You'd like to think that it wasn't the kids I was talking about, and it isn't. Its about me. After whining about working 58 hours a week for two weeks, I rank pretty high on the sympathy scale. So I started to pine for Rock Band today, out of the blue and now the kids are drumming away at the drum kit. They are doing as well as can be expected, but they seem to be having fun I suppose. I'm loving the drumming a lot, have yet to dive into the guitar or bass. I'm shy of singing but time will change that.

Don't really know why it is. I'm sitting by two computers but for some reason I'm blogging from my sidekick. I think it might have something to do with the speed of the data entry - the delayed input that I have to do on the phone seems to fit me better when I'm tired. Anyhow...

This week I only have to put in five days of work, so I'm psyched about that. Fridays the last day of the quarter, so working Saturday just would not make any sense. Been working almost 60 hours a week for the past 2 weeks, so I've been just horrendous to be around. I told my wife that I don't sleep anymore, I simply black out for extended periods of time.

Enjoying Metal Gear Solid a lot more than I thought I might. The stealth aspect is a small factor of it, it is far more forgiving than I thought it was going to be. There are plenty of firearms to keep me satisfied. The infused humor is also weird but hilarious when it pops up. Am enjoying it quite a bit.

Alex's face looks like he's been in a skuffle. Little scratches all over from him picking at it. We think it might be the heat making his skin itchy, but who knows. Kids.

Watching "Miller's Crossing" and I'm pretty sure that I've seen it before, but for some reason I don't remember much of it. Was trying to suck it in through the PSP, but the bad encoding and dropped audio means i'll have to just watch the DVD. Coen brothers are amazing though, their storytelling skills is unparallel as well as their art direction. Its even evident back in the day.

Decided to try a different route with video games. Got a unlimited rental deal with Hollywood video so I can have one game out at a time for as long as I like. Playing Metal Gear 4 and so far, it is pretty fun. I'm not a big stealth kinda guy, but I'm liking it so far. PS3 got a pretty nice upgrade to the video store too, so online rentals on the PS3 is possible.

There's still something completely gnarly about working 6 days a week at close to 10 hours each shift, leaves me a little destroyed and depressed and fatigued. The other folks at my work tend to have it easier off, since they're just doing some assembly or what have you while we're constantly on our feet, doing lots of lifting and moving. I tend to move like lightning at work, since my new guy is a lot slower but a good worker, and our helper is just plain lazy. Anyhow, it looks to be this schedule for the rest of the month, and there's a sneaky feeling that I could meltdown and kick somebody long before then.

Yesterday we went to the Derby Days fireworks, which is usually the following sunday after Independence Day. The kids got to watch a parade and later in the evening, we walked over to city hall and watched the fireworks from ground zero. It is a lot more intimate than the Bellevue one, whereas one could actually see the shells launching out of the tubes into the air in rapid succession. To smell the smoke and hear the swooshing of the fireworks made it so much cooler, even though by scale its a smaller display. But the kids enjoyed it through their tired, glassy red eyes. But that's the beauty of it all, we simply walked home in 5 minutes after the show.

Not much else going on. My iPod officially died. I'm sure even if I revived the damn thing, it would work for a couple hours, freeze, and fail again. The connector at the bottom of the iPod is also shot, doesn't even recognize the connection half the time. Now, the obvious solution to this would just be to replace it and not blog it to death, but they should be having an iPod refresh in September, and I'd hate to be left out of new features on more hard drive. My traditional thinking was the classic iPod which is 250 bucks and 80 gigs, instead of the 199 bucks with the measley 8 gigs. But after this experience, there is something to be said about a flash drive versus a traditional hard drive with moving parts. So, depending on circumstances, i'll probably lean toward the nano. Or the touch, if money was flowing out of my ears.

So I've been winging my podcast listening by using my phone. There's only a 2 gig card in there, so its a little limited, and since there's no syncing, I have to drag and drop via a slow USB connection, which sucks. But my phone has been game for this, and being able to delete podcasts that I've heard and search by text what I like to listen to, that's been nice.

Well, I am itching to buy something. Time to check out the circulars.

The salsa music here is like a notch too loud, since various parts of my body parts are vibrating involuntarily. It is pretty good music, and there's a certain comfort in being able to fart in public without being noticed.

I finished watched Robert Altman's "A Prarie Home Companion" at work and I don't quite know what to make of it. It seems very much like different segments of a bigger movie, with rather mixed results. The highlight of the movie is probably the singing and the songs, which are done by the stars themselves, including Meryl Streep and John C. Reily and Woody Harrelson. Garrison Kellior plays himself, and there's a certain charm about the guy. Its a interesting watch, though Lindsay Lohan does stick out like a sore thumb.

Alex had a few doctors appointments regarding his hyperactivity and listening shortcomings, and luckily his hearing was quickly ruled out. He had no problems hearing. But the doctor did notice that he had a lack of focus and an inability to really register layered questions. Anyway, the diagnosis is something like auditory discrimination or something, whereby he will hear something but is unable to properly process it in his brain. I guess its fairly common in kids his age, and something that is often misdiagnosed as ADHD. We're just taking it one day at a time and playing it by ear.

Trying not to have a meltdown at work. Both my shippers quit the same week, one with notice and one without, but I think it displaced me a little. And they're also pushing for overtime for the rest of july, so the idea itself is just wearing me out.

Listening to live salsa at RTC. Crowded!

Happy 4th!

It's 20 minutes till 10 pm and we're sitting at the park fountain, waiting for the fireworks to begin. We travelled extremely light this time, not lugging any chairs or coolers or wagon. We planned to watch a movie and then go to the park with just an hour to kill or so. We ended up catching Wall*e about 40 minutes earlier, mostly because we didn't know what to do about dinner. But a couple sandwiches and the dinner problem is solved. Although the tough hoagie sandwich hurt my teeth.

Wall*e is a phenomenal movie, essentially a truly visual movie that isn't cluttered with filler dialogue to move the plot along, just action and visual gags. The characters are wonderfully endearing, with Walle infused with a kind of nurturing Chaplinesque quality who is brave without any traditional heroics. Eve on the other hand, drives the action and the heroics. She's the one using the tradtional male type conventions to get results, saving the populace, rescuing Walle. Of course, it geeks me out big time that when Walle boots up after a solar recharge, it's the same chime as a Mac booting up. Walle's a mac!

We're having a pretty good day today, even though we are spending quite a bit of money on overpriced food. Oh well, what good is it if you can't spend it? I was tempted to get a bluetooth keyboard so that I could pair it up with the ps3 and the laptop, but not for 80 bucks. Too spendy.
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Well, the fireworks are over and although we were the first wave of folks in our cars, we were immediately stalled in traffic. Took about five minute before I just reparked and got out. We are now sitting outside a closed Red Robin, waiting for the traffic.

Rented the Spiderwick Chronicles and Rambo on Blu-Ray, as well as Assassin's Creed. That PS3 on my table is now getting tons of use. Of course I'm still playing GTA IV and repicked up Half Life 2, which is fun but hard as hell. Talk about a total lack of direction, which relies on the player's curiosity and common sense to get from point A to B.

Anyway, the waiting continues.