Surfergeeks

It’s been a while since we’ve given you any sort of update regarding the house. So here’s a wrap-up/catch-up/bring-y’all-up-to-date update.

A few weeks back we had the BBQ hooked up. I made a post about that. Last weekend I got Mike to pick me up and we headed over to Home Depot. Our mission was simple: buy a lawnmower, weed whacker, and a door (for the kid’s room). We got the lawnmower and weed whacker but the door proved to be somewhat elusive. Got the stuff home, fired up the mower and went to town on the jungle that our backyard had become. Two passes later and you could almost putt on it. I then tackled a couple trees/weeds/bushes in the backyard with the cordless sawzall. After making fairly short work of those (had to wait for a battery to recharge to finish the job) I called it a weekend.

Yesterday I wandered back outside to the backyard to dig a hole. Not just any hole mind you, but a specific hole. This hole would be home to the firepit. And yeah, that was about it for yesterday.

Today, however, whole (hole?) different story! I sent Nikki out to Mudge’s appliances to pick up an old laundry tub to use as a firepit. While she was out buying that I…are you ready for this???…FINISHED PAINTING THE KID’S ROOM!!!!!!!! Yes, it is true. Almost six months to the day that we got the keys to the house, the kid’s room is finished! How sweet it is. We also put the firepit in the hole and filled in the excess hole around the firepit. So now we can have fires! Yay! The firepit area isn’t quite finished yet as I want to lay white rock around the firepit. I’m thinking that may be a next weekend project. Depends on the weather.

So that’s the house update. Still no door on the kid’s room but it’s not a simple matter of just going out and buying a door. The opening has odd measurements that makes a stock door practically non-existant. Going to have to put some thought into this…

Four friends, who hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, were reunited at a party.

After several drinks, one of the men had to use the rest room. Those who remained talked about their kids.

The first guy said, “My son is my pride and joy. He started working at a successful company at the bottom of the barrel. He studied Economics and Business Administration and soon began to climb the corporate ladder and now he’s the president of the company. He became so rich that he gave his best friend a top of the line Mercedes for his birthday.”

The second guy said, “Darn, that’s terrific! My son is also my pride and joy. He started working for a big airline, then went to flight school to become a pilot . Eventually he became a partner in the company, where he owns the majority of its assets. He’s so rich that he gave his best friend a brand new jet for his birthday.”

The third man said: “Well, that’s terrific! My son studied in the best universities and became an engineer. Then he started his own construction company and is now a multimillionaire. He also gave away something very nice and expensive to his best friend square foot mansion.”

The three friends congratulated each other just as the fourth returned from the restroom and asked: “What are all the congratulations for?”

One of the three said: “We were talking about the pride we feel for the successes of our sons. …What about your son?”

The fourth man replied: “My son is gay and makes a living dancing as a stripper at nightclub.”

The three friends said: “What a shame…what a disappointment.”

The fourth man replied: “No, I’m not ashamed. He’s my son and I love him. And he hasn’t done too bad either. He is very well liked. Just two weeks ago it was his birthday, and he received a beautiful 30,000 square foot mansion, a brand new jet and a top of the line Mercedes from three different guys.”

Okay, I didn’t get to go to E3 this year. This isn’t different than any past year. Neither will it be different than any future year. That knowledge still does nothing to diminish my desire to go to E3. For those that don’t game, E3 is THE video-game expo of the year. It is the place where all the developers roll-out their plans for the next year (or two) and where all us geeks drool over the games.

So, since I’m not part of the elite industry (oh, did I mention that E3 is for industry/media types only) and have no prospects of becoming part of said industry, I must get all my information from the media/industry. Grrr.

So, what was big this year? Only one thing as far as I’m concerned: Blizzard Software did NOT announce Starcraft 2! This is HUGE! It really, really concerns me for a couple reasons: 1) No Starcraft 2. 2) This makes the distinct possibility that SC2 will NEVER be released very real. Here is my thinking behind this: All Blizzard announced/talked about was World of Warcraft and Starcraft: Ghost. Ghost isn’t even planned for release until the second half of 2006, which means that there are no new sources of income for Blizzard except for the continued growth of WoW. This sucks. If they run into any more delays there’s a very real chance that Ghost will get cancelled and Blizzard will effectively shut down, except for a skeleton staff maintaining the WoW servers. Again, this sucks.

Oh yeah, there was also a couple other little things such as the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3. Both look incredible. I love the look of both of them (except for the PS3 controller reminds of the Bat-a-rang from the 1960′s Batman). We haven’t seen any true playability from the PS3 only some video “built to spec”. The playable stuff on the 360 apparently wasn’t actually running on the 360 but instead was running on development boxes – Apple G5 computers – and was only running at 30% speed. Still, with a November launch for the 360 I think that Microsoft is going to get a HUGE jump on Sony (who, even if they do a simultaneous launch in North America and Japan, still won’t be releasing it here until April of ’06 – something unlikely to happen – look for more of a September launch in NA), which could be enough of a head start to give this round of the console wars to the Beast from Redmond!

But still, the most important thing to take away from E3 – NO STARCRAFT 2!!!!!! GAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Okay, from the better late than never category: I call Shenanigans on the finale of The Amazing Race on Tuesday night. If CBS didn’t actually intervene in that American Airlines flight that it is probably the absolute FIRST time in history that a jetway has been reconnected to the plane for a non-medical/emergency situation. Romber shoulda won. (and if I just spoiled it for you, tough. You had almost a week to watch it)

Survivor party at our place tomorrow night. Have a projector hooked up so we’ll be watching it big! Show starts at 8pm. be there by then.

One other thing I meant to post about this weekend, yet hadn’t got around to, was my thoughts on MacHomer. Nic & I went to The Grand Theatre Saturday night to see Rick Miller’s one-man performance of MacHomer. If you hadn’t guessed already, it is The Bard’s Scottish play done entirely (almost) using the voices of The Simpsons characters.

It was INCREDIBLE! We had a terrific time. Rick Miller deserves major accolades for having the balls to get up in front of a theatre full of people for over 80 minutes and do this one-man show. There’s no one else – just him. He’s got no one to play off of. Sure, there are plenty of people that get up and one-man shows – a ton of musicians are a great example. However, these musicians only have to remember lyrics and/or music. Miller has to memorize an entire script AND be able to switch voices on the fly to make sure that the correct part is being “performed” by the correct Simpsons character. Simply incredible. His encore was just as entertaining – he performed Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody as sang by some of the most annoying voices in music. Lemme tell you – he does a great Dennis DeYoung (although I dispute the annoying classification) and Leonard Cohen.

If you ever have the chance to see him perform MacHomer, I would highly recommend it.

The picture you see to the right [click it to see a larger view] is a cerimonal pic of our first BBQ in our first house. The gas piper was out eariler today and $378 later we have our BBQ hooked up! HOORAY! We rushed right out to the grocery store to pick up a couple not-too-pricy-yet-still-good-quality steaks to grill up (okay, we also needed other groceries too) and fired ‘em up on the barbie.

My timing was a little bit off with regards to our side – french fries – so the steaks were a little overcooked – we were aiming for medium-to-medium-well and ended up with medium-well-to-well. Our next grilling effort will be Thursday at the latest when some friends (well, at least one) are coming over for supper and to watch the introduction of the Microsoft XBox360 on MTV. Yes, I know – we’re geeks. Still – this is one sexy console…

And thanks for all the fish
If you’ve already seen the movie then you know just how damn catchy the opening song is. If you haven’t seen the movie then by clicking above you’ll be exposed to just how damn catchy the opening song is.

Okay, it’s been a while. For the record, I’m starting to adjust to this whole Tom & Katie thing (or TomKat as the press has so eloquaintly dubbed them – damn press). It’s still wrong. Gotta give Cruise props though – he knows how to pick ‘em.

So, one thing I’ve been meaning to write about since last Friday is the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. As all of you should know, I’ve been eagerly anticipating this movie for…oh…the past 20 years or so since it was initially announced. Then Mr. Adams passed away and it sorta floated about in limbo for a turn. Then it was resurrected. Then came the trailers. Then came my aprehension. Zaphod’s second head is NOT below the first!

So, movie time rolls around. I’m still a little nervous. I didn’t remember my towel to hide my eyes in the event that the film is so non-hoopy. Anyway, to make a short story that much shorter – the movie was actually rather well done. My aprehension was for naught. This will definitely be on my DVD shelf when it’s released.

Still undecided if they should do a sequel or not.

Whilst on the topic of new movies: Lightsabers
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