I'm a slacker. I admit it. Paypal donations might speed up my posts (*hint*). ;)

So my family was here last weekend. They arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday morning. When I say "family," of course, I refer neither to the core roster that makes up my immediate family nor the mass populace that collectively composes my extended family, but rather some odd hybrid in between, sort of a Lewis-and-Clark-esque expedition of people who were conveniently around when the canoes left. My mother, my baby sister (who is 16 but still lets me get away with calling her my "baby sister"), my grandmother and my cousin Chelsee arrived on Friday afternoon (and I was even awake; fancy that). The majority of the weekend was spent in one of three activities: shopping, eating and sleeping. We made daring raids upon Gordman's, Shop-Ko, Kohl's, Oakview Mall, Linens'n'things, Village Pointe Mall, Sam's Club, Super Wal-Mart, Super Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. I'm not sure what everyone else bought (I wasn't really paying attention). I confined my damage to three shirts at The Gap and a safe (yes, a safe; go ahead, make fun of me) at Sam's Club.

On Saturday night I taught Haley how to play racquetball at the Firm (something I hadn't played in nearly three years). She picked it up quickly, with two minor exceptions: she has the "volleyball syndrome" of hitting the ball overhand every time, completely ignoring the concepts of "sidehand" and "underhand," and she seems to have forgotten that walls are solid. I won the first game 15-2 and the sixth game 15-13, so next time she'll probably win some.

I spent around 7 hours doing tech support on my parents' computer while they were sleeping (*cough* new computer, mom *cough*), including spyware removal, registry fixes and a defragmentation that caused the computer to heave and shudder in an attempt merely to tell me how fragmented it was (I'm almost positive it had never been defragmented in 4 years; I set some automatic maintenance schedules this time). I told them to bring just the tower, unaware until I attempted to hook it up to my hardware that frelling Gateway decided to make a system that used *only* USB connections ("Hey, I have an idea, let's not add standard keyboard and mouse connectors to this one; it'll be fun!). Luckily my optical mouse is USB, but I did all the tech support without a keyboard. :P Also, to clarify, that "7-hour" figure is slightly misleading; it was more like 3 hours interspersed with 4 hours of reading my book while I waited for a scan to run or the system to reboot. I've since learned that apparently I missed an infection (easy to do when you can't hook the computer up to the Internet to test it), so I've been trying to walk Haley through it over the phone (and I've discovered the frustration that tech support people must feel). I think I've got them talked into getting a new one by Thanksgiving (again, *hint*, mom).

They packed up and departed on Sunday morning around 10 a.m., at which time I returned to my bed for another 6 hours of sleep . . . (I start getting cranky when I've only had 4-1/2 hours of sleep over two days.) All in all it was a good visit. My mom, er, the Easter Bunny left some goodies on my table (including a flag pole for my garage) and I'm still enjoying finding the notes that my mom delights in hiding in odd nooks and crannies around my place of residence.

The rest of the week has been busy. Amidst other distractions, I received my official assignment for the first election next Tuesday. Ironically, I've been assigned as the Inspector at my old polling place (where I voted before I moved). And I have no hesitation in saying that at the moment I'm stressing about it (I'm sure I'll be fine after the election is in progress, but right now I'm wondering what I was thinking). :)

I hope everyone is having a good week. ;)

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Wednesday, March 30

I Know, I Know . . .

I've been bad about posting. I've been busy (which is my fault) and Blogger has been down (which is not my fault). I'll get back to it in the near future.

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Sunday, March 27

Happy Easter!

From me, to you, one chocolate bunny rabbit. Enjoy. ;)


P.S. - Heard on the overcom at Wal-Mart yesterday: "Will the Easter Bunny please return to the portrait studio? Thank you." I dunno why, but that just cracked me up.

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Thursday, March 24

T-Minus 1 Day and Counting . . .

So I actually had a busy Wednesday for a change. Up an hour-and-a-half early to bound down to Great Clips for a hair cut, then back to my house to begin cleaning in preparation for the arrival of guests (I got some vacuuming done and opened my windows for an hour to air things out, anyway). Work was slow (posing a stark dichotomy with yesterday), which gave me some time to work on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (movie coming up and all that, you know). Then off to Wal-Mart to shop for the aforementioned guests ('cause they drink that "icky blue," otherwise known as 2%, milk and scoff at most of my organic stuff), pausing only momentarily to help a young man with excellent English but a strong accent, possibly eastern European, jump start his car in the parking lot, then back to my domicile (dare I say "castle"?) to make a batch of cupcakes that did not turn out nearly as well as I'd hoped (such admission being, of course, akin to a salesman admitting his wares are sub-par; serious faux pas, I know), but as they appear to be at least edible I imagine none of my co-workers will complain.

Amidst cooking and dishes I decided to hang the posters in my dining room, even though I know they'll have to be removed before I can paint it (I'm treating it as a trial run; good thing, too, 'cause I measured once from the side of the picture and once from the center, so the spacing is off; my dad would frown). You get the general idea, though. I'm open to criticism now. (For those curious, here's a close-up of the Lois Greenfield prints I'm using.) I also framed and hung the promotional Sarah McLachlan poster I ordered when her last album was released (that's the miniature greenhouse that Scott, Lisa and Lane bought me for my birthday two years ago beneath it). Rounding out the pictures is a shot of my living room with the posters I hung last week.

And now I'm off to bed. :)

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Jedi-in-Training

Finally recovered from my camera: the videos from my last babysitting gig, including one exuberant young Jedi-in-training, and another who, well, just likes the sound of a lightsaber falling down the stairs . . .

Posted at 5:03:00 AM.  |     |   Permalink to this post.

 

Wednesday, March 23

You'll Just Have To Guess . . .

From Taco Bell's Nutrition Summary:

"Nutritional values not applicable to Taco Bell® products in Hawaii."

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Tuesday, March 22

*sob* I just want to wash my car, man . . .

From a real local car wash . . .

Posted at 3:03:00 PM.  |     |   Permalink to this post.

 

Weekend Update

I momentarily considered naming this post something different just for variety, due partly to an uncertainty as to whether any of the readers catch the reference/homage/blatant rip-off to SNL and due partly to a desire to shake up the routine, but then I realized I don't really like my routine shaken up and, in the grand scheme of things, I'm pretty lazy, so here we are. Now, where were we?

Saturday I met Jill for an early supper (no, mom, you don't know who Jill is; don't worry about it), then watched a curiously unbalanced movie at Laura's (we had high hopes that it would be a prominent equal, or at least a contender, in the great pantheon of workplace comedy, but alas, we were both lost about 3 minutes into the movie and spent the rest of it making fun of the characters). She seemed unimpressed when I figured out her remote well enough to start playing the movie again . . . in Spanish. We also got into a little "Mac vs. PC" tiff, but I eventually yielded to her superior arguments . . . and the fact that she was sitting closer to the kitchen knives. We spent another 15 minutes pouring over her collection of prints of antique maps, and let me tell you, nothing says "exciting Saturday night" like two geeks discussing latitude lines and 16th century navigation. ;)

Sunday dawned bright and early at 3 p.m., followed by whole-wheat pancakes (be glad I'm not including my shower routine in the minutiae). Jennifer redeemed her previous movie-picking disaster by bringing over "The Incredibles" (which was good, and as a bonus featured Jason Lee; if you don't know who he is, well, you just suck) and "Super Size Me" (which was at once revolting and riveting, and probably a couple of other "r" adjectives, too). The latter was obviously slanted, but it did make good points; I took the stairs at work today . . .

Sunday night I was a veritable whirlwind of activity. Why? 'Cause my mom is coming to visit this weekend. Two months to finish a list of projects and I put it off until the weekend before (and then only because I found out on Saturday that Easter is this weekend; whoops). I laid down five more rolls of insulation (still not done; frelling nickel-and-dime projects), carried all of my holiday decorations from the basement to the attic (7 trips), emptied and put away my fish aquarium and reframed and rehung one of my art prints (yes, this one has nudity, but I'm not giving a big warning or asking for opinions on it because (a) it's an actual museum art piece painted in 1882 and (b) I've had it for three years and I really like it, so there). Unfortunately, that "whirlwind" resulted in me pulling a muscle in my shoulder and being completely sore today (damn crawling around on rafters on your knees), so I think that's going to be the extent of my big projects for the week.

Let's see, what else? I hear that Lane talked her dad into buying her a Dungeons & Dragons board game. Her path toward the Dark Side is progressing nicely. This Friday is the season finales of SG-1 and Atlantis. I need to buy a lawnmower. I'm ready for Spring.

That is all.

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Monday, March 21

Anyone Have a Snorkel I Can Borrow?

So I've discovered that if you're doing a load of laundry in the washing machine at the same time you're doing dishes in the dishwasher, it's a bad idea to dump the contents of a 10-gallon fish aquarium into the sink. Want to know what happens? Of course you do. The next time you go down to the basement to check on your laundry you find a puddle about the size of a coffee table on the basement floor around the floor drain. Whoops. At least my basement doesn't have carpet. When I was in high school we returned from a trip somewhere to find the entire basement of my parents' house (including the bedrooms for all of the kids) under about 8 inches of water. That was so much fun. This just needed some paper towels.

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Sunday, March 20

It's "Sloot" :P

My favorite figure skater, Irina Slutskya, picked up a gold medal at the World Championships this weekend. :) She rocks.

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Thursday, March 17

It's Not Easy Being Green

So, um, Happy St. Patty's day, or, um, something.

This one snuck up on me. No cookies, I'm afraid. :( And my favorite green turtleneck had a stain that didn't come out (which is a wonderful thing to discover when you're already dressed). On the up side, I captured another leprechaun (which completes my set of twelve). I should get my Easter Bunny traps ready . . .

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Wednesday, March 16

Bring Out the Linking Books!

Mull pointed out tonight that Ubisoft has officially announced the beginning of the design phase for Myst V: End of Ages. Yay! I'm just a happy little ball of Myst geekiness!

(For those of you who have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, the "Myst" games are a series of videogames based around an ancient culture of human-like aliens who made their home in a cave deep beneath New Mexico thousands of years ago and created fantastic worlds by describing them in books. Right up my alley. I so want to be able to write Age books. That's probably one of the reasons I spent 3 years writing areas for a MUD.)

:D

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Tuesday, March 15

From the World-Herald

Fun articles at which to poke today:

1) A rebuttal ("Witchers can help") to a criticism ("Witching is bogus") of an Associated Press article ("All's well when he finds water") about a guy who "witches" for water. So, just to get it all straight, we have an amateur criticizing a geologist who is explaining how groundwater works in response to an amateur supporting a paranormal claim that has failed dozens of scientific tests (including one where multiple pipes were buried in a field and water was run through them in random sequences; the diviners "found" the pipes at rates no better than random chance (22%) and far short of the 86% success rate they agreed beforehand would be "proof"). The AP article shouldn't have been run in the first place.

2) An editorial on hunting. My position on hunting is rather complex (thanks to Ishmael), but essentially boils down to "kill only what you'll eat," so I've never understood (even when exposed to it as a child) the concept of "recreational hunting." I'm not passionate enough about it to be a rabid anti-hunter, but I look upon "defenses" of hunting (like today's editorial) with a degree of skepticism unusual in someone from the midwest. From the editorial today: hunting is "beneficial" because it can help control animal populations (micromanaging something that would manage itself if we left it alone; nature finds its own equilibrium when we don't keep changing the rules); it "promotes love of and concern for the land" (I've been exposed to a lot of hunters and this is true in a very small fraction of them - I've seen *far* too many "hunters" chase down animals in 4x4 vehicles and shoot them 5 or 6 times); and "there is nothing quite like an early-morning tramp through scrub woods . . . or a long, motionless wait in a tree blind, listening for a wandering deer" and some babble about senses coming alive and discipline, all of which I can agree with, but I think you can have all that with a camera in your hand instead of a gun, still have a memento and not have to kill anything. "Society would be the poorer if it lost the love of nature that hunting has so long sustained." I honestly have never understood how "the love of nature" is compatible with killing it. I'll stick with my camera, thanks.

3) It's Fabio's birthday. He's 44. (Also, his last name is Lanzoni, if you're curious.)

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Monday, March 14

If You Ever Really Wanted a Movie Poster . . .

. . . here's your chance. Allposters.com is having a 98 cent poster sale. Help yourself. (I'd select to see 48 posters per page instead of the default 12 'cause there are a lot; there are also more than 10 pages - you have to click the little arrow to get to the next set of 10). I'm full up on posters, but I did buy some cute refrigerator magnets.

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Weekend Update

Two days come and go
Before returning us to
The five days we dread

Actually, I don't dread the week. "Carpe momentum" and all that metaphysical stuff, you know. If I hated my job I'd probably dread the week, but then again if I hated my job I'd probably find a different job. I'm not sure why people don't. Trapped mentality, I guess.

I furthered my corrupting influence on Lane this weekend, further bringing her over to the Dark Side of geekdom by subjecting her to Episode II and a rousing lightsaber duel around her house that broke not one but two toy lightsabers (whoops). I also showed her how to use the lasso tool to draw shapes and how to save projects in Photoshop, so she was pretty tickled.

I finally got around to hanging the posters in my living room (I bought some nicer frames, too; "nicer" meaning $17 instead of $5, which is a far cry from $100 for a professional frame but much better than the crappy ones I was holding together with electrical tape). I also put a clock up above the fireplace; it's not the clock I *want* to put there, but that clock is a couple hundred bucks at NFM, so this one will have to do for now. I framed the pictures for the dining room (the three Lois Greenfield prints and the infamous "bare butt" poster about which I posted earlier), but I have to paint the dining room first (I know, I'm a slacker) and I've had two people now express doubts about that picture, so I may have to re-evaluate (or else say "bite me, I like it" and do it anyway). I tried to weatherize some of my doors and windows with greater and lesser results; I don't know how much difference it's going to make on the windows because they're just so old. I need new ones, but there's a fun multi-thousand dollar renovation. I was going to reseal around the windows from the outside, but oh, guess what, it was below 32 degrees all weekend. :P

Jennifer and I rented "I Heart Huckabees" tonight. *So* not the comedy I assumed it was from the box cover. Not bad, mind you, but it's a "deep thinking" movie and I didn't feel like "deep thinking" tonight. Existential angst and railing against a mechanistic Universe and the significance of coincidence, oh my! I'll probably think about it more later.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. :)

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Democracy Is in Trouble

The local elections are coming up (primary in April, general in May; this despite the fact that it's a non-partisan election - apparently Nebraska law mandates a primary and a general even though the ballots will be the same; don't look at me), which means training for the election volunteers. This time around I didn't go to the poll worker training, though. Why, you might ask? I know you really want to know. 'Cause they promoted me and sent me to the Election Inspector class. Apparently the inspector at the last election recommended me for promotion (which either means I did a good job or they're *really* desperate for people, take your pick), which means the scenario in April will play out like this: At some unsuspecting polling place somewhere in the bustling City of Omaha, four poll workers (who may or may not be drafted and grumpy) will be supervised by a person who has worked *one* election, a person who will likely be completely stressed and panicked from dealing with unhappy voters (a task for which he is not particularly suited). The guy from the election office with whom I spoke *did* say that they may be looking for tech-savvy volunteers in the future (I don't know if he meant for this election or just "in the future"), so maybe I'll get lucky and they'll let me talk to a computer all day instead of people who moved and didn't update their addresses and now are grumpy because I won't let them vote. That I could do with no problem. Guess we'll see. If they assign me a polling place and you're supposed to vote there, I apologize in advance. Wish me luck.

On a more depressing note, I was, literally, the *only* person in the room under 50 (one guy in his thirties came in before the class started and sat down, but he got up and left five minutes later and didn't come back, so either he said "screw it" or he was *really* lost). It doesn't bode well for the future (as the generation that's doing 90% of the volunteering retires). Douglas County already drafts half of its poll workers, and that number is only going to go up. I suppose they can *always* draft poll workers, but it's a poor reflection on the amount of interest the average U.S. citizen invests in our democratic process.

I feel compelled to point out here that any of you who do not vote forfeit your complaining rights around me. I'm spending 16 hours counting ballots and trying to mollify irate voters; you can spare 45 minutes to go vote. :P

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Friday, March 11

TGIF!

Here, anyway. I think it's Wednesday in Australia or something.

Let's see, what baubles of sage wisdom can I toss to the crowd like peanuts or cheap stuffed animals? I saw the new Episode III trailer tonight. As reticent as I am to even consider the possibility of a good Star Wars film after the disasters wrapped in shiny paper we've been given the last two times, the trailer was frelling awesome. Granted Hayden still can't sound menacing without that "it's not fair!" whiny twinge, but the overall dark tone of the trailer really had a solid impact (no happy endings here, folks). I'd say more but I don't want to spoil it for the people who haven't seen it. *making lightsaber noises*

Since I had so many people (well, three) ask about the "mysterious" purchase I mentioned earlier, I suppose I'll spill. It's a home security system. The "bitter irony" I was avoiding was being robbed while the security system was in a box on my table, but since I actually installed part of it tonight I'm not so worried any more. (No, I'm not going to say anything about its specs on a public blog. For those of you who are thinking about breaking in to test it, though, I will say that it involves 750,000 volts and a pissed off wolverine. Your choice.)

I also got my newest heating bill today. Gah! I thought last month's was bad. And I've had the heat turned down to 60 all month. Hopefully the new insulation will help. I also need to go around the outside of the house and seal up around the windows with some caulking. And then I need my dad and my brother to come back and help me with a list of projects (a digital thermostat, etc.). :) I'd do it, but electricity and I are traditionally not friendly. One of us tends to end up on the ground twitching (guess which one). No, that's not a joke (and you wondered why I'm so odd).

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Thursday, March 10

It's Like Christmas . . .

. . . except I paid for everything.

Fresh from eBay to my doorstep (or rather, to the service center at work, 'cause that way I don't have to wake up when the UPS guy shows up), the posters I ordered last week, another package that I'm not going to explain yet (just to avoid bitter irony) and the newest addition to my living room family, a decent-looking DVD hutch that actually matches the wood on the mantle of my fireplace (it holds a pretty fair number of DVDs). I'm going on a budget now, so that pretty much kills any "fun toys" in the near future. Oh well.

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Tuesday, March 8

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Mike and Jen on the arrival of Gabriel Donovan (8 lbs. 11 ozs.). :) I think Mike is already custom-ordering some tiny Gamecube controllers . . .

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Snacks for Everyone

I bought a box of "Blue Ginger Salt and Vinegar Rice Crackers" at Target over the weekend. I recommend everyone go buy some.

That is all.

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Monday, March 7

Weekend Update

Gather round the warm, comforting glow of the monitor, boys and girls, and brace yourselves, 'cause I actually did things this weekend (*gasp*)!

On Saturday, Jennifer and I spent an hour and a half at the zoo (which was really busy; I suppose the fact that it was 60 degrees may have contributed to that . . .). I took some pictures at the zoo, but they're pretty much like all of the other pictures I've taken of the zoo, with the exception of this little fellow. He was very well hidden, but he was the bloody car alarm of the rainforest; we tracked him down by the noise he was making and we could hear him almost all the way to the exit. I'm sure the monkeys wanted to bludgeon him. After that we went out for supper and then watched the first bad John Cusack movie I've seen (and that's saying a lot from a big John Cusack fan). Jennifer actually lost interest enough to start reading my Discover magazine . . .

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. I opened the French doors and the front door at the same time for the first time and enjoyed the breeze that blew threw the house. Then I spent $180 ($100 on yet more insulation, $80 on groceries) and then spent several hours continuing the oh-so-fun project that seems to hang over my head all the time (mostly 'cause it's literally over my head). Plus three loads of laundry. Plus sealing up around the front porch light. Not as productive as some of the people I know, but really not bad for me.

I also read an article about employers firing employees for things they post in their blogs. I've actually thought about that before when I've posted little snippets of things I've found funny in documents at work, although I've been very careful not to include any party names or other "useful" information. Hopefully my employer won't mind small snippets of mostly meaningless-out-of-context text. My blog is kind of self-censored regarding my job anyway because a couple of my coworkers read it.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. :)

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Sunday, March 6

Out and About

Seen at Target today:

A woman in her mid-sixties wearing black high-heeled boots, a black miniskirt, dangly earrings, too much makeup and a black sleeveless t-shirt that read "J.B.'s Fat Boy Butt Rub." Which I have since discovered is a kind of barbecue sauce.

A blue-and-white-stripped SUV with a license plate that read "888888." No idea.

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Thursday, March 3

Whoa, It's Thursday

The week is, like, almost gone, dude. Unless it's actually, like, Tuesday and the little gnomes that play poker in my basement keep resetting my watch. Dude.

I'm kind of dull today. I saw a possum in my driveway when I got home last night. I guess that's interesting (in a kind of "look how rural the 'big city of Omaha' is" sort of way). I discovered yesterday that there's a generic brand of antihistamine I just shouldn't take (the package failed to mention that one of the side effects was "complete and total emotional breakdown").

Linde is doing well. She says "thanks" to everyone. :)

I splurged yesterday and ordered $180 of accessories for my house. I bought a DVD cabinet for my living room off eBay and a couple of new posters for my walls from allposters.com (one of Leonardo's Vitruvian Man that should match the color scheme of my living room fairly well and another that I'm sure will scandalize my family (warning: probably not work safe, but if you're curious and don't mind artistic nudity, you can see it here). That one will probably go up on a wall with my Lois Greenfield prints (warning: again with the "not work safe" addendum, but her work is just gorgeous).

I've discovered the concept of "expiration dates" on over-the-counter medications. I threw away a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, a bottle of Nyquil, two packages of cold medicine and a package of Aleve yesterday because they'd all expired (some in 2003, whoops). I'll have to keep an eye on that in the future.

Dude.

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Wednesday, March 2

All This for a Pizza

Irate Man: So are you going to put me in the computer now so I don't have to do this again?
Woman at the counter: Okay, so it's 155-
Man: No, that's my old address! I've moved!
Woman: Okay, so-
Man: [some address], Apartment 7.
Woman: Is that an apartment?
Man: [silence] Yes, it's an apartment. Apartment 7.
Woman: Okay, we have you in the computer. You're all set.
Man: I desperately hope so.
-------------------------------
Interaction between a man unhappy that he had to come pick up the pizza he ordered delivered and the confused woman at the counter at Domino's last night.

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Tuesday, March 1

Weekend Update

Okay, okay, I'll take a break from my MacGyver DVDs to make a post. Sheesh, the nerve of some people. ;)

I saw "Hitch" on Sunday with Jennifer (her choice for her birthday), which was amusing. The cadre of teenage girls sitting behind us providing running commentary was almost as funny (inadvertently) as the film itself. :)

Laura sent me a fun interactive map game. I scored an 88, which isn't too bad. All those little New England states are hard. :P

Linde had some minor surgery on Monday that went well (everyone wish her well).

Work was absolutely swamped. That doesn't really have anything to do with the weekend, but I'm stubborn so I'm going to put it in here anyway.

It's bloody cold. Gah!

That's all. We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.

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