what the hell just happened to me - facebook

While I have been "on" Facebook for a while now, it seems that I've rarely spent much time on it.

However, something has happened in that today I've spent over an hour on it and the time has flown by.

I don't think I'm aware yet what has transpired internally.

best beatles tribute led zeppelin ever

One of the better youtube clips I've seen in a while...

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making good on my resolutions...well, we'll see

Posted an ad on craigslist to find musicians to start a band. Have got a few responses, will give some meetups a shot later. The lack of a proper practice space (or accoustic guitar) on my part should result in something interesting happening.

Also will be taking a Korean class again, starting next week. That is, assuming that there is a critical mass of necessary students to go to the course. Not sure if that's really going to work out or not yet. We'll see what happens...there has to be at least 5 people signed up.

back to life as usual

Mixed feelings as the holiday vacation-ish run draws to a close.

On one hand, no more long public holidays for me until Memorial day. I do not think that my current employer chooses to recognize president's day. That's kind of a long stretch.

On the other hand, return to a "normal" routine will be welcome. It's been hard to get really into the flow of work and also the flow of vacation when the schedule keeps flip-flopping from free day to work day as it has been doing the past week or so.

Time off is a good opportunity to reflect on how I'm living and how I'd like to do things differently in the future in order to improve things.

For some reason, patience has been wearing thin. I guess that if something super exciting is to happen in my life, it's up to me to make that happen...have been waiting long enough for something to spontaneously come up; I guess that's kind of played out.

new year's video?

2 very different games

My brother was kind enough to send me "Cooking Mama" for Wii. Got to play through it a bit. Had tried the Nintendo DS version of the game before so I knew what to expect. But certainly more fun on the Wii with the Wii-mote. Gimicky; novelty will probably wear off.

But Marsha thinks it's cute and I'm ostensibly learning something about cooking.

I also picked up a game for myself. Steam is still offering Left 4 Dead for 25% off, which seems a reasonable deal as the game is still fairly new. The deal only lasts until January 2, 2009.

Played through the first level of the single-player game. Pretty fun...I'm looking forward to trying the online play. We'll see if it holds my attention as long as Team Fortress 2 has (and still does, on the few times that I can really give to online gaming).

Not that I intend on spending that much time playing video games this year...but resolutions and whatnot will be a different blog post.

Dad's Birfday

Went well; I think he was happy.

Another lazy-ish morning; left-overs for lunch, trip to the art museum during the afternoon.

Picked up Pizza ingredients at Cosetta's; then went and had Italian food in Wisconsin for dinner. Spotted Cow beer is awesome.

Dad was happy; we came home & then looked through quite a few of the old slide carousels he had - interesting seeing the shots of my parents college days in the 70s & their wedding...I don't think I had seen all of them before.

Stayed up later than I thought we would doing this, but mostly pleasant.

plesantish holiday thusfar

Survived church.

The priest, although apparently quite academic, sounded like a robot every time he read something out loud...each syllable was very distinct, if not natural.

Dinner and drinks with the family. Traditional Ukrainian Borscht and Perogies.

More drinks and a round of spinner. Fun game.

It's late and I'm ripping cds onto a portable hard drive...had a lot of cds from my high school days and I guess I'd like more of them on MP3. Too heavy and awkward to bring all that plastic over to Washington.

I'm excited for Christmas morning, but this is the first time (ever?) where I'm more excited about how my parents will like the gifts I got for them rather than the stuff I'm hoping to receive. I know I should have had this epiphany at an earlier age, but the past MANY christmases post-college for me have all been abroad and away from family...so this is different.

going to church for christmas

I suppose it might look bad if I'm playing with a Nintendo DS throughout the proceedings?

(I think I already know the answer here, but I'm hoping someone can come up with an amazing rationalization that somehow has escaped me...I've been trying though...)

more travel infoz

So our Monday morning flight (already rescheduled) got canceled; luckily Northwest airlines ended up getting two spare 747s over to help clean up the mess of stranded Seattle travelers from this weekend...so; we got on a flight that was supposed to leave at 2pm.

2 hours of delays later, we finally took off...

Then, once touching down in -2 degree weather in MN, the gate we landed at did not have an operator so we were stuck in the plane for an extra 20 minutes until that got resolved.

Happy to be out of the plane & at home with the family now.

Big thanks to the NW airlines flight crew that opted to do a little extra work and help people rather than start their vacations early.

snowed in....again

Was supposed to fly out to Minnesota today.

However, the weather was not cooperative. Flight cancelled. :(

So, our parking lot looks like a christmas card - would rather be hanging out with friends and family, but I guess if I have to settle, then a picturesque, if not driver-friendly, outdoors at home in our warm-ish apartment with our cats isn't too bad.

chinese truck driver obstructing police

Nice work here:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_14996928.html

No big complaints yet

Work went well today. Later had happy hour  & pizza with some co-workers.

Can't complain too much about that.

Had sangria & watched yesterday's heroes with the wife.

Pretty solid evening as far as a weeknight post-work goes...can't be staying out & up late *every* day.

 

I miss Macau.

teh alkoholik cat

 

Still my baby...she's very smart, knows how to play us off one another - as soon as she hears us pull a bottle out of the refrigerator, she's there, and after she confirms that it is, in fact, a bottle that she'd be interested in, then she bounds over to the couch.

As I pour wine into glasses for both the wife and I, the cat will first be in one of our laps, imploring us to give her a taste of alchohol. After one of us says "no more", then the cat jumps over to the other one to get her fill.

Repeat until everyone is happy. Smart, smart cat... :)

Post dinner

Yeah, it's the cat and I. And that's how things usually go.

Okay, the above sentence is not really true - that cat rarely sits in that position during dinner - and we don't live in that apartment anymore.

But I'm glad I was digging through pictures.

This still cracks me up

I know that this isn't an entirely new song, but the live version is so kick-ass - I'd love to have a chance to play guitar for DVDA.
The back story about the whole thing is awesome too - seems that Brian appreciates the love. 

Google Reader is slow as hell?

I'm not sure how many of you (anyone?) who reads this fine blog and also uses Google Reader - but I for one sure do.

I really like the fact that it's browser based and conveniently tied to my google account, so it keeps current no matter which computer or browser I happen to be logged in from.

However, there's recently been an update to the google reader page. Visually, it's good - seems to be a little more refined and some nice features are there. But their servers seem to be getting pounded or something - service is SLOW. Where it had once been very snappy & responsive, it now takes ages to refresh & reload. 

I hope they get the bugs worked out...will I soon have to keep up on news by checking the main sites which I follow directly? (gasp) 

Yeah, this is probably one of those posts that goes up and no one cares...it's not the biggest problem in my life at present (by any means), but it does go to show how ingrained google stuff has become in my life.

disgusted

Compare the article summary here

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hBmrz7TnFWwf8qLht-vkvowu9DTQ

with this one here:

http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=2439

...amazing that the AP article cherry-picks the not so bad sounding stuff and puts up the puff-piece rhetoric that makes the president sound presentable. The quotes called out from the interview transcript are damning.

Lest you think that I am looking at stuff out of context, look at the BBC coverage of the issue - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7759908.stm - at least they keep it short.

productive-ish weekend

Ate turkey, hit the gym, got a few shopping deals, did some studying, and finished some games that I've been sitting on for quite a while.

Not too bad.