Two Days to Reality

I can't say completely that I'm loathing the idea of going back to work, really. Maybe it's the fear that I'll go back and there'll be nothing to do but sit around, lay floor tape, and do stupid busywork to give the illusion of productivity. That I hate. But actually going back to work is all right with me. Ah, yeah, there's the waking up at 4:30am part. Not too hot about that.

So during my vacation, I didn't really get all those grand plans realized, no short movie made, no song composed, no laptop per child in the world. Kinda ran out of money there. But I did manage to do a whole lot of goofing off and some work, like beginning (and probably stopping prematurely scanning all of Mom's old photos), playing a good chunk of video games, and just generally enjoy being a complete lazy butt. Part of the vacation was taken up by the holidays and the snow, but otherwise I've had fun finding out how to make a massive stockpile of fuel tanks in the map editor in Far Cry 2, and then blowing it up just to see stuff explode. Also encoding concerts and putting them on the PS3 for easy accessibility.

Anyway, couple more days. Might want to put some thought into taking the tree down and also cut my nails, shave, etc.

Feeling a little dulled after going to sleep late last night, I believe at around 3:30am. Might consider staying up again on a gaming binge because I think a little mature gaming is in store for me. Half the games I have are okay for general viewing, and half of them would give the kids nightmares or bad ideas if they were too exposed to them.

Last night Alex rang in the New Year by exclaiming, "Happy New Year to Everybody, except Bad Guys!"

"And monsters... because they're bad!"

Last post before the New Year

The kids managed to stay up, waiting to watch the fireworks on the TV. Of course, having chocolate fondue at 10 at night sure does help keep one awake. We had some pretzel rods, some bananas, and some pound cake and we didn't chip more than a couple of inches of chocolate off the ceramic. There's about 4 more inches of chocolate that we'll save for tomorrow...

Anyway, Happy New Year to all.

I stole a PS3.

This blows my mind.

In a paragraph, "Sony's second-generation PS3 features a 35 percent total cost reduction from the first-generation model. In dollars and cents, today's PS3 costs Sony about $448.73 to produce, compared to the old model's $690.23 price tag. That said, the lower cost doesn't include software, box contents, and royalty expenses."

And it retails for $399. So it's actually a steal, really.

6 hours to the New Year

We don't have much planned, we're not really "Ring in the New Year" type of people or just folks looking for a reason, any reason, to booze up and act like retards. We act like retards without the aid of spirits, thank you very much. We will likely break into the fondue set that Elaine got for Christmas, melt us a couple bags of chocolate chips, and go into a dipping stupor until midnight, and then drown ourselves in sparkling apple cider. Because that's how we roll.

I'm glad that Christmas and all its shenanigans are over though, because unlike my good friend Kenneth who celebrates Christmas for its true meaning, I'm one of those bastards who use the holiday as a reason to buy people stuff. And myself. Which I'm glad I did, by the way, I came out of Christmas a little lackluster, so I'm glad I took care of myself and got crap I wanted. I got some fairly generous offerings here and there, but I dunno, I think I made a couple people pretty happy. Like we gave the gift of Rock Band to one of Elaine's daughter and her family of four. The kids came out like bandits for sure, ironically, their cool gifts came from other people and not us, and Zoe went from one hand me down Barbie to practically an army of bimbos with a wide array of clothing. Like a vet with a skirt that will always guarantee repeat business from men and their never sick dog, and a few princesses with undoubtedly high self esteem. Alex got a cool cyclops magnifying toy that I'm wanting to play with, along with some other rather envious toys that I'm sure if I had as a kid, I'd be a more fully developed adult.

Well, time for dinner. My hand was shaking just now and I showed it to my wife, and instead of, "Are you tired?", or "Are you hungry?", or the fail-safe, "Are you ok?", she asked, "Do you have Parkinsons?"

Well, after this crazy week of wild arctic weather followed immediately by massive raining, which no one minds because it melts the dreaded snow, I'm happy that everything going back to normal. In between there, I did manage to catch some kind of cootie, possibly from Alex, and go into a sick, cloggy, headachy brain sit that resulted in me looking glassy eyed and having a "stinky tougue", as my wife so sensitively put it. I was so messed up that pretty much all I could do was rest or just sit in some sort of fetal position and vegetate.

Oh the bright side though, I had a rather cool dose of awesomeness when I hooked up with Kenneth on my PS3, and we did a bit of driving and Little Big Planet together, 18 hours and some oceans apart. I bought a Playstation Eye so he could see me but even though I couldn't see him, he relayed to me that I was in his bedroom on a 42 inch hdtv, looking directly at him and his wife in bed. Classic. Anyway, although we do keep in contact, I haven't really gamed much with him, and I think it really bought out the kids in us because all we were doing were crashing into each other with no real objective and then smacking each other with our sackfists and saucepans. It was an awesome time to be had.

When I walked out this afternoon, all I could hear were sounds of melting snow, dripping down buildings, rooftops, into drains and such. It was sorta weird becuase it felt like everything was deconstructing before me, one drop at a time. Glad to finally see the snow go though. Don't want to spend another day trapped inside the house.

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Just talked to Kenneth online just now, he got a Playstation Eye too. I think we're both in trouble because now we'll both be gaming together and matching our games. Uh oh.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!, originally uploaded by diegomcnamara.

Watched "Waitress" yesterday because I heard it was a fesitval fav about a year back, but it was one of those movies that I put on the back burner because it was which I perceived to be a chick flick, which it pretty much was. But all and all, it was a cute little movie except it had a sad undertone since the director and costar Adrienne Shelly was murdered shortly after the film was finished. So it was partially curiousity and tribute for us to watch her last film, I suppose.

This morning the snow was falling again, and the novelty of having snow around is wearing thin. The roads in Redmond are stil bumpy and generally undriveable, but once we got to the freeway it was a pretty smooth trip.

So now just sitting at my mother-in-laws trying not to fall asleep. Its warm in here and not much going on, so the tendency to just shut my eyes and pass out are fairly strong. I could just keep eating and drinking but I doubt that would have any positive outcome stemming from that gluttony.

I'm having a bit of a bum streak because I'm either hurting myself with sneezing myself into stomach cramping, scratching my hand and drawing blood with my own belt buckle, and just failing at Rock Band because the guitar - both guitars, have inexplicably stopped working well.

Weel, too bad there no cell reception around these neck of the woods, I could use a bit of mobile surfing otherwise.

Even though I'm a complete whore when it comes to having time to myself, the snow is actually extending my vacation by almost five days because with the day off today and possibly tomorrow, it would be a like 2 and a half weeks of doing absolutely nothing.

On top of that, either the weather or just some cooties have made their way to poor Alex, who I saw just tucking himself into Zoe's bed, with teary eyes and a quiet exclamation that he was sick. With a temp of 102, I'm feeling rather bad for the boy. Just read him a couple stories and now I'm just cuddling with him and keeping him company. In a little while we will probably put on something for him to watch.

Anyway, judging from the days that my wife has off and the time frame I have to possibly do a movie, I'm not sure if its feasible to put a movie together. With all the visiting we have to do, the snow, and the holidayness of this season, I doubt I could do anything super productive.

Well, that's about what the dealy-o is. Going to do a bit of grocery shopping when I drive the wife to work but not taking the kids anywhere. If I took Zoe and not Alex that wouldn't be nice. Watched Hancock and Chaos Theory. Both aint bad.

You know, for a writer I can be drastically short of descriptive prose. It snowed and drastically changed the landscape and I didn't really go too much into detail about it.

Anyhow, the snow out there is no longer the serene blanket of purity it was, compared to even last night. Now its just dirty, lumpy, suspension breaking snow that makes me carsick faster than a drunk person driving on a dime. Drove the wife to her work and the usual 1o min drive took over half an hour staring at people's bumpers and waiting for lights. At least it was better than last night, when the weight sensor for the lights didn't work, and I had to go through a couple red lights.

Well, turns out I'm working tomorrow which is good I suppose. I can't afford to take so much time off. Might turn into a bum.

Trapped in a Snowglobe

Well, not really trapped. Fact is, it's far too crazy out there for me to venture to. Last night's windstorm drove snow everywhere, including the front door and the inside of the back porch. The white stuff is everywhere, and the novelty of snow is outwearing its welcome for a lot of people. As for me, I guess it doesn't bother me much. I'm driving the wife to work still and I'm more of a homebody anyway, so it's not like it's impeding my life much. I do have two more days of work before my "vacation", but I'm not sure if the factory is even open. Last Thursday it was open, but being how I work on a production line, when other people don't show up for work, it affects how much work you have. So we just killed a bunch of time on Thursday, went home early, and then that was it. There was work to be done but nobody there to do it.

It's supposed to snow more today, but you know, whatever. The snow last night eliminated a lot of terrain, evened it out so that it looks as if there was no curb anymore, just a flat surface between the road and the sidewalk. It's kinda cool, until you realize there's a couple inches below the stuff that fell last night, and you start to wonder if all Christmas activities are off.

Was watching a Steve Miller clip and the kids asked, "How can babies rock?" since Miller kept repeating, "Keep on Rockin' me, baby."

Hmm, would love to watch a movie, like Hancock or just play video games all day, but the kids are glued to the screen whenever I do it, so I have to do something else. Like productive. Maybe since I claim to be a writer, I should get some of that out. Ahhh.