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September August July June May April March February January 2001 December November October Pre-blog Archives * * * * *
** -- reread
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Wednesday, January 31, 2001
I was polite on our Delphi forum, but since this is my blog... Wah-WAAAAAAH! Sega, drowning in red ink, cuts production of Dreamcast. Too bad, fanboys. Monday, January 29, 2001
Contrary to popular belief, the Super Bowl was actually a decent game to watch last night. Unfortunately terrific defense is just not sexy enough for non-purists. I'm sure the ratings will be the worst ever, or some such. The commericals were pretty stale however, and we turned to watch the History Channel during the halftime show. Jules and I took care of a couple of wedding related tasks this weekend -- I had the formalwear picked out at Dobby's in Livonia and got a pretty good deal for all of the groomsmen and my dad. Irv and Moe are two of the unintentionally funniest people I've met. "They come HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!" as Moe said. Later we registered at Bed Bath and Beyond for all sorts of things, needed or otherwise. I'm still torn as to if we should include the Ronco Rotisserie Oven -- we could then Set it and Forget it! -- but then they would require a large investment in giant chunks o' meat. I still don't feel that great. Since Friday, any time I've eaten my stomach has been profoundly unhappy, gurgling and writhing, but I haven't been physically sick yet, and I don't feel so crappy that I need to lie in bed or not work or whatever. I guess it's not so bad, since I need to watch myself for the next few months to make sure I fit into my tuxedo. Friday, January 26, 2001
Sad news today -- legendary NCAA head coach and announcer Al McGuire died today at the age of 72. Some of my earlier memories of watching college basketball involve Coach McGuire, one of the funnier personalities in sports broadcasting -- this was before you *had* to be a personality in order to be in sports broadcasting. I'll never be able to hear the phrases "pink elephant!" or "cupcake" without thinking of he who coined those phrases.
Last night, as I finally decided to go to bed, I thought, "Hmm, I feel odd." This morning, starting at about 6am up until Julie left for work, my stomach felt like a writhing bag of snakes, and I couldn't stop belching. This, for me, is usually a signal of impending stomach flu. But nothing's happened (so far) and when I woke up, I was drenched in sweat and had a blinding headache. Sounds like a hangover... except I hadn't drank anything other than water. In any case, this strange affliction produced one of the crazier dreams I've had in a while. Jules and I were in Las Vegas on our honeymoon, and we made our way to the Luxor, where we'll stay. (I think this part was prompted by the fact that I was going over my rental car paperwork before going to bed.) When we got to the lobby, who should be there having a conversation but my parents and both of my brothers. One of my brothers was doing High School Algebra homework even though he's been out of high school for more than 4 years. My Mom and Dad started going through all of their paperwork, handing us free vouchers for the buffet, then pushed ahead of us in line at the registration desk. That's when I noticed that our bags were missing; my Dad and brothers took off outside the casino (which now looked like track housing on a military base) busting into everyone's doors to see if they had it. My theory was that someone would pick all the good stuff out, then dump the bags in the dumpster, so I went to look there, and there the bags were. I pulled them out and yelled for the others; my Dad came over and yelled at me to "put my hands up" because I was "messing up the crime scene." At this point I snapped, yelling, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? THIS IS JULES AND I'S HONEYMOON, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" Appparently I'd yelled this in my dream with such intensity that it woke me up. I don't usually remember all the details of my dreams like this -- last week I had one that I thought was vivid but all I can remember is that it involved a beret somehow -- but this one takes the cake. I wonder if I really *am* sick... Sunday, January 21, 2001
Jules and I went with our friends Chris and Fischer to Yost Ice Arena on Friday night to watch the University of Michigan Wolverines pummel the Western Michigan Broncos 5-1. The seats that Chris has are right below the UM Hockey Pep band and thus we were audibly pummeled most of the night, but not so bad as to keep from enjoying the game. Yesterday was the "4 months and counting" mark until the wedding, so we went out to the mall and started looking at wedding rings. It seemed like there were two options -- the "$19.99 thin gold band" option or the "Over 300 bucks each" option -- and not much middle ground. Of course, the way these places mark up the goods is outrageous; in talking to Darcy about it today, she says that she'll state how much she's willing to pay, and unless they come down to it, she won't buy, so that's a tactic we may have to employ. There was a very unique design that had what looked to be three different color/variations of gold braided along the center of the band; they're a bit pricey, but the women's version is clunky on Julie's hand, so we'll keep looking. Monday, January 15, 2001
Jules was away for the weekend with her bridesmaids, so Dann and I went to Casino Windsor with Barry and Amy for Barry's birthday. I then proceeded to eschew the slots in favor of video poker, where I made the machine my bitch, rolling off a wild-assisted royal straight flush and 5 of a kind. All in all, I ended the day up a hundred bucks. Then, totally by accident, as I went looking for a restroom I found my folks wandering around. It was good to see the New York football Giants lay a rapacious beating on the Vikings yesterday. They got whipped like a red-headed stepchild. However, I think that was the last episode of NFL Primetime for this season until September, which blows. Now that the line noise at home seems to have gone away, I can comment on Everquest: Mixed feelings. The game is relatively fun, but the investment required is so great in regards to time and patience. Levelling is difficult in that it takes so long, and that there seems to be levels (like, say 4-7) where the creatures that are around are either easy to beat (and thus give scant XP) or are too strong to beat. There are quests in the game, but the two quests my character has been given requires attacking an Orc Base that is *constantly* camped at by the thousand-other players. Often these players will camp at this base, waiting for the Orcs to respawn and yelling at anyone who approaches that "we have this camp right now." This is bogus, yet people just seem to accept it and Verant, the makers, seem to think it is not a problem. Items such as armor and weapons have skyrocketing costs, and the creatures don't seem to drop items that make it easy to accumulate treasure. Performance is not great on a 56k modem connection. I'm still waiting for the DSL upgrades to take place so I can get work to pay for one out to the house. That could change things. I'll keep playing, but I don't suspect it would take much more stupid shit as described above to make me cancel my account. No progress on Celebrity Meeting although I expected as much. Saturday, January 06, 2001
The fight with the Evil Empire continues. However, this will help me in troubleshooting at work, since I'll have no problem in getting a user to call Ameritech at the faintest notion of line noise. I'd gotten an oil change this afternoon, and as I left the dealership I noticed that upon acceleration and braking I'd hear and feel a large THUMP. I was all set to drive back there and raise a stink until it dawned upon me that the full load of snow in the bed of my truck had thawed with our balmy 32 degree weather to the point where it was a huge flow of slush on a thin plate of ice that was smacking back and forth as I drove along. I read today that someone finally achieved a perfect game of Pitfall for the Atari 2600. You know, Pitfall was and still is awesome, but that people kept their Atari decks in working order for nearly twenty years trying to get a perfect on this game amazes me. I'm sure Julie would chime in at this point that my quest to defeat the Expert level on Mr. Driller for the Gameboy she bought me for Christmas is just as sad, but she's biased. Predictions:
Erik "Smitty" Olsen admitted to me today that the first celebrity that he'd ever met was Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine from the Gong Show. Tenuous. However, I can't think of anyone I've met that can be said to be a celebrity. I mean, Julie's got pictures with cool people like Bruce Campbell. I once got an autograph from former wrestling champion Goldberg, but never actually touch, talked or interacted with him. That doesn't count in my book. By the way, how is it that Smitty's still plugging away here while the Sklar brothers have had multiple shows on cable? Unfair. I hope he gets that position on the Game Show network so I can get him to run a "Hot Potato" marathon. ANYWAYS, getting back on track, since I feel that everyone should have met and have documented proof or witnesses of having met a celebrity, I'm starting a drive to Get Me To Meet A Celebrity! |
