Waiting here in the doctor's office with the kids while the wife is having an "adult" conversation with the doctor is driving me crazy. Alex was initially getting on my nerves because he was climbing all over the furniture, and making demands like, "I'm thirsty" because he just wanted to try the water cooler. Honestly, the first thing that tempered my bitchiness was when we first stepped into the office. There's no reception, just a waiting area and a bunch of rooms. Its basically like a house that was converted for office use, so the waiting room is also the living room, and the bedrooms are offices. Anyway, stepping in, and the aroma of burnt coffee and a weightlifter's sweaty belt comes to mind. It isn't a pleasant whiff whatsoever. Now I've became horridly accustomed to the smell, but the freezing temp is inching me closer to irrational irritation. We've been waiting for 35 minutes now. I just broke out the handheld games for them are the batteries are also dead for both of them. Nice.
Anyhow, after this freezing debacle, we're going to my first company picnic. There was one last year but I didn't go.
As for the rest of the day, I'm planning to watch "Predator" on Blu Ray later tonight, and continue with Battlefield Bad Company, I was really starting to enjoy myself with that game. Its got a nice sandbox feel to it, minimal loading, and very destructible enviroments. I was grenading a house to obilivion wall by wall yesterday. Next gen games sure are juicy.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Firefox is hot.
Couldn't think of anything witty, so the immortal words of Paris Hilton came to mind. Anyway.
The other day, my wife saw Alex crawling over to another boy in Martial Arts class and spanked the boy on his butt, so she brought that up to him in the car. He denied it, saying that he didn't do it. Since we're his parents, we can usually tell if he's just denying to just get out of trouble or he's denying it because it simply isn't the truth to him. In this case it seemed to be the latter.
"But I didn't hit him," he said.
"Then how come I saw you go over there and spank him?" inquired Mommy.
"Maybe your glasses were dirty," offered the boy.
We thought it was pretty funny. But he sincerely didn't think he did anything wrong, so there might be more to that. I was going to twitter or blog about something else he said, but it fell out of my head.
Which leads me to wonder if Twitter archives all my posts permanently, like Google does? It would be nice, though archiving the Tweets will be a bit more challenging than Blogger. I think all the posts are somewhat disposable reading anyway, really.
My newest toy is something I've been waiting for a while, a laptop lap companion, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. Basically it's a contoured type dealy you place between your laptop and your lap so that your balls don't cook under the building heat from the battery. The iBook does get a little toasty and usually I just put a kids' hardcover book for that. But I was at Costco and for about 20 bucks, there was a Belkin one with a USB fan built it, so despite my horrible luck with the brand (Belkin 2, Me 0), I got it anyway. Figured even if the fan broke, all I really neat is that hunk of plastic and that shouldn't break. Knock knock. But I was feeling around under the thing to get the hinge to pop up and stuck my finger in the fan. All my swearing did was make my wife laugh harder.
I might have made a pretty good call with an upcoming gadget. I was going to purchase a used iPod touch from a co-worker of my good friend Kenneth in Singapore, along with a book explaining how to avoid unnecessarily long run on sentences. It was a fair enough price, but the rumor mill on the web is ablaze with possibly a vast iPod refresh for the Nano as well as a cheaper iPod touch, so I'm holding out for that. Should be in the next few weeks, which is just as well because I'm seeing a lot of overtime for the next few weeks. If everything goes accordingly.
Am using Firefox now and I'm liking it. Although none of my bookmarks are really set up, having the Twitter on the address bar and the Piclens is really handy, and it does RSS feeds as well, which is something Camino doesn't. Oh well, maybe I'll just mosey on over slowly.
Someone at work remarked, "You keep a blog?" and I've been wondering why I do. This overwhelming need to share my personal life on the web, even though I'm really not interesting enough to do so. I'm not sure, really. It's an outlet I suppose. Sometimes I feel as if it spoils what little social life I have, since people generally already know new news before I get to talk to them personally. Good thing my posts aren't that regular then, eh?
The other day, my wife saw Alex crawling over to another boy in Martial Arts class and spanked the boy on his butt, so she brought that up to him in the car. He denied it, saying that he didn't do it. Since we're his parents, we can usually tell if he's just denying to just get out of trouble or he's denying it because it simply isn't the truth to him. In this case it seemed to be the latter.
"But I didn't hit him," he said.
"Then how come I saw you go over there and spank him?" inquired Mommy.
"Maybe your glasses were dirty," offered the boy.
We thought it was pretty funny. But he sincerely didn't think he did anything wrong, so there might be more to that. I was going to twitter or blog about something else he said, but it fell out of my head.
Which leads me to wonder if Twitter archives all my posts permanently, like Google does? It would be nice, though archiving the Tweets will be a bit more challenging than Blogger. I think all the posts are somewhat disposable reading anyway, really.
My newest toy is something I've been waiting for a while, a laptop lap companion, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. Basically it's a contoured type dealy you place between your laptop and your lap so that your balls don't cook under the building heat from the battery. The iBook does get a little toasty and usually I just put a kids' hardcover book for that. But I was at Costco and for about 20 bucks, there was a Belkin one with a USB fan built it, so despite my horrible luck with the brand (Belkin 2, Me 0), I got it anyway. Figured even if the fan broke, all I really neat is that hunk of plastic and that shouldn't break. Knock knock. But I was feeling around under the thing to get the hinge to pop up and stuck my finger in the fan. All my swearing did was make my wife laugh harder.
I might have made a pretty good call with an upcoming gadget. I was going to purchase a used iPod touch from a co-worker of my good friend Kenneth in Singapore, along with a book explaining how to avoid unnecessarily long run on sentences. It was a fair enough price, but the rumor mill on the web is ablaze with possibly a vast iPod refresh for the Nano as well as a cheaper iPod touch, so I'm holding out for that. Should be in the next few weeks, which is just as well because I'm seeing a lot of overtime for the next few weeks. If everything goes accordingly.
Am using Firefox now and I'm liking it. Although none of my bookmarks are really set up, having the Twitter on the address bar and the Piclens is really handy, and it does RSS feeds as well, which is something Camino doesn't. Oh well, maybe I'll just mosey on over slowly.
Someone at work remarked, "You keep a blog?" and I've been wondering why I do. This overwhelming need to share my personal life on the web, even though I'm really not interesting enough to do so. I'm not sure, really. It's an outlet I suppose. Sometimes I feel as if it spoils what little social life I have, since people generally already know new news before I get to talk to them personally. Good thing my posts aren't that regular then, eh?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Happy 4th Birthday, Zoe!
I had wanted to blog about things before Zoe's birthday, but I'll just mash it all together and make a super post. Anyway, today was a day of purples, pinks, and princesses when Zoe's presents and cakes just overtook everything in the house. Abby Cadabby, who was previously unknown in this household, became a minor theme, along with Disney princesses, Barbie, and a whole lot of artsy tools. We had a family type gathering, with my brother and his family and my mother in law here to wish the Z a Happy Birthday. Zoe was pretty happy, seeing all these toys but the excitement value was carried mostly by Alex, who seemed more happy about the presents than Zoe did. Nonetheless, I think she had a ball. Now we just gotta figure out where to put all the new toys.
It's a little odd to think that it's been four years since Zoe was born. For some reason Alex always seems like he should be younger and Zoe should be older. Somewhere between their births they must've been some type of time distortion rip of some sort. The little girl sure does have some sass on her, she's always telling her brother what and what not to do, but she's also got some heart on her as well. Last night after I tucked her in, she told me she "was going to give me something special" and it was a hug and kiss. Somehow presenting that in that package made it something more than ordinary.
Zoe is something special for me, as well as my family. It's odd, since my mom's never had daughters, and my brother's never had a sister, so nobody knows how to shop for a girl. Luckily, though we were heavy on the artsy gifts and some princess stuff, there wasn't really anything to steer her into gender specific crap. Girls toys can be so oppressive sometimes, forcing little girls to concentrate on nothing but improving their looks and vanity-related tomfoolery. While boys are busy making war, girls are busy doing make up.
I'll get some photos up soon. Man, feel like this weekend I've done nothing much, and I think after this weekend I'll be okay to do some OT again. We've done a bit of overspending and I need to make up for it bad.
I lured yet another person into Rock Band, although I was expecting my brother to be into the drumming portion of the game. My sister in law ended up really digging the game, starting with the drums and then really digging the guitar. My brother tried it but didn't get much out of it. That, including Jay who was inquiring about purchasing a PS3 after I got him hooked on the drums, and my wife and it looks like we might have a band. Now I just have to figure out how to make Harmonix pay me for my efforts.
Watched "Hot Fuzz" yesterday and it was hilarious. I can see how it might've flown over the American audience, especially if they didn't quite gather that it was a dry spoof of sorts. It was a homage of buddy movies, and it was just a lot of fun to watch.
In other news, I did get my glasses fixed after a rather uninteresting snap early morning while I was cleaning my glasses. At first I thought my lens had just popped out, but then the sickening discovery that the frame had actually snapped. Lousy monkeys. Thankfully, the stupid Lenscrafters guy was too dismissive to sell my wife a replacement duplicate frame, and instead gave her a card for eyeglass repair shop in Bellevue. So instead of spending a couple C's on new frames, I got a weld job for about 50 bucks. However, due to some sketchy park job in some sketchy lot, they issued me a 25 dollar parking ticket which I intend to shove it up their lot. Those tossers issuing tickets to an empty lot. That's just annoying. Spoilt my day a little.
Well, that's about all that's about the Diego. I think Zoe's Princess Stories are about to end soon. Then I gotta get my hair cut and maybe a costume change, since I saw the worst photo ever taken of me by my wife. The WORST.
What the hell is wrong with my body? I had the budding chest of a 13 year old girl, the heightened gut of a fat guy falling from space, and it looks like the features of my face are trying to centralize themselves where my nose is. Damnit.
But here's prove that I'm not that hideous all the time. Different photo, same day.
Coyote
The kids were having breakfast and I was talking to Alex while my wife was telling Zoe that something she said was rude, when she looked outside the patio window and said, "Whoa."
There it was, a coyote just strolling past at 10 in the morning. I grabbed my camera and walked after it, and managed to snap 2 bursts before it took off and ran.
So, this was significant because we suspected that our cat, Franklin, was taken by coyotes, and seeing how these nocturnal creatures are out in the daylight is something else, especially in a urban city.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Belated BBQ post
It was like three days ago, but it was such an action packed day, it would be injustice for me not to notate it in some way.
I came home from work and from the street I could hear a kid crying. Turns out that Zoe was stung by possibly a hornet, and had been crying for the past 30 minutes. So my wife opted to take her to the ER, and I stayed home with Alex and later took him to his martial arts class. But while at the ER, Zoe ran into a male nurse who told her that there was no crying at the hospital, and she quit. She was sent home with just a prescription for OTC ibuprofen.
While Alex was at class, we went to Tully's to experiment with overpriced laxatives. My wife and I had a milkshake each, while Zoe had a 2 dollar fifty ice cream cone. It wasn't even a normal sized portion. This milkshake would not only ruin our appetite for BBQ, it would also cleanse our internals later on. After we picked up Alex with a smoothie, we went to the annual neighborhood BBQ.
There really isn't anything great about the BBQ, except my taste for ribs subsided a bit. The fact that it was still a little bleedy and might've mooed a bit when I bit down into it didn't help. The interesting thing was that there was quite a bit of public service employees there. There was a fire engine, a couple police cars and an ambulance there, and I'm sure it wasn't just because of the BBQ. They partaked (partook?) in the free food and then decided to turn their vehicles into impromptu things for the kids, just letting them look around in the vehicles and even spray the fire hose. But that was fun for the kids.
I came home from work and from the street I could hear a kid crying. Turns out that Zoe was stung by possibly a hornet, and had been crying for the past 30 minutes. So my wife opted to take her to the ER, and I stayed home with Alex and later took him to his martial arts class. But while at the ER, Zoe ran into a male nurse who told her that there was no crying at the hospital, and she quit. She was sent home with just a prescription for OTC ibuprofen.
While Alex was at class, we went to Tully's to experiment with overpriced laxatives. My wife and I had a milkshake each, while Zoe had a 2 dollar fifty ice cream cone. It wasn't even a normal sized portion. This milkshake would not only ruin our appetite for BBQ, it would also cleanse our internals later on. After we picked up Alex with a smoothie, we went to the annual neighborhood BBQ.
There really isn't anything great about the BBQ, except my taste for ribs subsided a bit. The fact that it was still a little bleedy and might've mooed a bit when I bit down into it didn't help. The interesting thing was that there was quite a bit of public service employees there. There was a fire engine, a couple police cars and an ambulance there, and I'm sure it wasn't just because of the BBQ. They partaked (partook?) in the free food and then decided to turn their vehicles into impromptu things for the kids, just letting them look around in the vehicles and even spray the fire hose. But that was fun for the kids.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Weekend Update
It is nice after having 2 long work weeks to have a 3 day weekend, and since we didn't pack our schedules full of activities, its been a uber relaxing weekend. We celebrated my nephew's second birthday on Saturday, and he's like one Lightning McQueen short of a toy museum. He seemed to have lots of fun as my kids did, so its all good.
I also spent some time getting the bikes all rigged up and changed over, but i'll have to revisit them because the tandem rig was getting wonky. My bike is now the length of two, and it doesn't work out so well in my stuffed garage, especially since I purchased that freezer for all the bodies.
Rock Band continues to rock my world, and even though I finished the easy mode, medium is still a little too challenging for me. I can do the drumming fair enough, but the foot pedal gets me all special needs because my foot is incapable of too many ranges of motion. I do okay, from 3 to 4 stars, but I'm certainly struggling on medium more than I expected. Baby steps. My guitar skills are still a little behind, and my vocal career is a closeted affair. That only happens when no one else is around, and the room lit only by dim candlelight, with a bottle of lotion nearby.
Zoe's being cute with her new hair obsession - she asked me for a ponytail yesterday and since I couldn't form one out of her short hair in the back, I made one of the side of her hair. She then located another matching rubber band and request symmetry to her tuft of hair. Then this morning, after my wife commented about how nice her ponytails looked, I could hear her practically skip all the way upstairs to the bathroom, and then skip back downstairs. Technically I couldn't even call them ponytails. Pony wings?
Just had a very late lunch with our new BBQ. We had burgers and I realized how much I missed doing the grilling. Something primally satisfying about cooking over gas fueled fire, and having a lot of smoke pouring out of your cooking. It was a good lunch, even if my grilling skills slipped a little.
Well, back at work tomorrow with my newbie boobie crew. I'm down to one and he's gifted in skills I have yet to uncover. Perhaps I'm being a little impatient with my expectations and I hope to be proven wrong in short order. Otherwise i'll just ship him somewhere.
I was going to do a podcast about this, but I doubt anyone watches them at Pizza Bento so i'll just harp about it here. My brother showed me Piclens which is a handy little free app that works within one's browser, like Firefox and Safari and Explorer, if you're into that sort of thing. The app allows you to sift through tons of Flickr, youtube, and Google sites amongst others in a snazzy surfy interface, looking only at videos and photos without any clutter. Its really good and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for faster browsing of said media.
Well, my alertness is fading and I gotta do some homework for Pizza Bento, so I don't look like Dansen who's often unprepared and horny when we do the podcast. The unprepared I don't mind but I'm often glad we can't webcam and record the show at the same time. Too much sexual tension for the both of us.
Hah hah.
I also spent some time getting the bikes all rigged up and changed over, but i'll have to revisit them because the tandem rig was getting wonky. My bike is now the length of two, and it doesn't work out so well in my stuffed garage, especially since I purchased that freezer for all the bodies.
Rock Band continues to rock my world, and even though I finished the easy mode, medium is still a little too challenging for me. I can do the drumming fair enough, but the foot pedal gets me all special needs because my foot is incapable of too many ranges of motion. I do okay, from 3 to 4 stars, but I'm certainly struggling on medium more than I expected. Baby steps. My guitar skills are still a little behind, and my vocal career is a closeted affair. That only happens when no one else is around, and the room lit only by dim candlelight, with a bottle of lotion nearby.
Zoe's being cute with her new hair obsession - she asked me for a ponytail yesterday and since I couldn't form one out of her short hair in the back, I made one of the side of her hair. She then located another matching rubber band and request symmetry to her tuft of hair. Then this morning, after my wife commented about how nice her ponytails looked, I could hear her practically skip all the way upstairs to the bathroom, and then skip back downstairs. Technically I couldn't even call them ponytails. Pony wings?
Just had a very late lunch with our new BBQ. We had burgers and I realized how much I missed doing the grilling. Something primally satisfying about cooking over gas fueled fire, and having a lot of smoke pouring out of your cooking. It was a good lunch, even if my grilling skills slipped a little.
Well, back at work tomorrow with my newbie boobie crew. I'm down to one and he's gifted in skills I have yet to uncover. Perhaps I'm being a little impatient with my expectations and I hope to be proven wrong in short order. Otherwise i'll just ship him somewhere.
I was going to do a podcast about this, but I doubt anyone watches them at Pizza Bento so i'll just harp about it here. My brother showed me Piclens which is a handy little free app that works within one's browser, like Firefox and Safari and Explorer, if you're into that sort of thing. The app allows you to sift through tons of Flickr, youtube, and Google sites amongst others in a snazzy surfy interface, looking only at videos and photos without any clutter. Its really good and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for faster browsing of said media.
Well, my alertness is fading and I gotta do some homework for Pizza Bento, so I don't look like Dansen who's often unprepared and horny when we do the podcast. The unprepared I don't mind but I'm often glad we can't webcam and record the show at the same time. Too much sexual tension for the both of us.
Hah hah.
Friday, August 1, 2008
I gots ink.
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.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, July 28, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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.
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