Sigh. Lon.

So, I went ahead and added Battlestar Galactica to our Netflix Queueueueue. (Starting at position 149. [sigh]) I added Season 1, Season 2.0 and Season 2.5. I noticed there is also a miniseries. AND there is the 1 hour special "The Story So Far" (which I've already seen). My question to all the BSGers is do I need this miniseries thing? And if so, where does it fall in? Before Season 1 or after? Or not at all? Or if you watch the miniseries, do you need to see season one? Why'd they make a season AND a miniseries? And what are BSG fans called?

Okay, that's more than one question, but I usually like to ask a bunch of them. ;)

In other news, today is Day One of Nano. And it. just. ain't. happening.

Try as I might, I could NOT get into my writing today. Steph suggests I try writing a different scene, and I might do that, but really, my heart is just not into (fiction) writing today. Or right now, at least. [sigh] Where is that inspiration I had during all (or most) of October?? I guess the lesson to be learned from this is to write when you want to write, huh?
Maybe I'd be better off joining Annika in her blogging adventure that is NaBloPoMo.
We'll see.

October mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
August - car = 0.0; minivan = 944.6
September - car = 0.1; minivan = 1725.3 - total for Sept. is 1725.4
October - car - 0.0; minivan - 1283.9


Year to date - 12,021.8

Some treats from BooTube

Here are some Halloween-ish videos from YouTube for your viewing enjoyment. Some of them may not be suitable for all ages.


Thriller^
"Souls don't exist. That's just something they made up to scare kids, like Michael Jackson and the Boogeyman."



Maximum Overdrive Trailer^
This movie actually scared me as a kid. To this day, whenever I walk around parking lots, I have a slight fear that the cars will come to life and back over me.


Montage- graphic! ^
This one is definetly NOT for kids. It's a bunch of clips from different horror movies, and made me squirm a little. Click at your own risk.


The full transformation scene from An American Werewolf in London. A) because it's awesome b) because it helps you (and me) get prepared for Wolf. Watch the above, and imagine it happening to a BUNCH of people at once. Bloodbath!!
It is pretty graphic, though, so, again, viewer discretion is advised. (heh)

I was going to include a bunch of others, but ran out of time. (Plus, finding good stuff on UTube lately has been difficult. Lousy copyright laws.)

Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Fire bad, tree pretty.

Brain guh.

Camping cold. Fun, though. Bad headache. Not much sleep. Cold. Pretty. Nights were cold, though.

Halloween tomorrow. !!!!!!

Now, starving. And tired. Time change messed with my head. Again. Need food. More later.

noise-quiet-noise

Hi.

I want to take this moment to just say thank you.

There's a lot of noise on the internet, so it means a lot that you are taking the time to decide to listen to some of my chatterings.
I feel the need to apologize for the poor quality of posts lately.
We are going out of town tomorrow for a few days - a chance for us to get away from the noise of Las Vegas - and I suspect (hope) that doing so will help me recharge my mental batteries and when I get back, I'll be more inspired. (Which will coincide nicely with the start of Nano)

I had more to say, but I can't seem to articulate it properly (too much mental noise going on right now) and I've really said it all already anyway. So, in conclusion, let me just say again, thanks for reading.

Church Sign Wisdom 8

About time. They've not changed it since August!

SIMON SAYS TO PETER:
WHEN THE ROOSTER CROWS
YOUR GOOSE IS COOKED

And then Homer says: Mmmmm. Cooked Goose.
And the cheerleaders say: How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose?
And Alice in Chains says: They come to snuff the rooster.


Other side:
MANY FERTALIZE GRAPE
VINES WITH THE RUNOFF
OF UNTAMED TONGUES

My first reaction was "WHAT??", then I realized that it was a commercial for New Wild Tongues Fertalizer(TM) and was okay with it.
"Wild Tongues Fertalizer will make your grape vine grow like nothing else! And that's not BS." [/announcer voice]

belly empty, brain full

lots of stuff happened today. but can't you all just be telepathic and read my mind instead of me having to type it all out? It would save all of us a bunch of trouble.

Bah.

I'm too hungry to blog. Not too tired (although I am that). Not too bored (although I am that, too). I'm too hungry. That might be a first.

Oh, okay. I'll be brief:

Rememember that movie I blogged about a few weeks back with David Carradine (Future Force) [imagine I linked to that entry in the previous sentence]? Well, there was a sequel made. Future Zone. And we have it in our library. I watched it today. It's just as bad, although I got to give it points for having a marginally better plot.

We made the best Deal (or no deal (ha!)) EVER today. Somethign that was normally 150 dollars was purchased by us for 38. WOO!

I'm starving. STARVING!!!! (Yes, it's funny. But it's funnier when it happens to other people.)

Um. Other stuff must've happened too, but the lack of nutritents in my body is causing my mmory to fade. I'm going to go get something to eat.

Stop and smell the smoke

Didn't blog yesterday. Blogger was down for a good portion of the day, so it's not (completely) my fault. (They were also having problems on Friday, which explains the slowness I complained about. I guess they're systematically changing people over to the beta version (YAY!) but they haven't yet gotten to mine (BOO!).)

Anyway.

I'm now through May 2003 of my archives in the delete-o-rama. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to 2005. That was, you may recall, the year that I attempted to blog 200,005 words within the year. There are many many really long (and really boring) posts in that year. Should I delete any of them? Because if I do, it will alter the word count. But, on the other hand, it will free up space on my blog (or, um, on Blogger's servers, I guess), plus, it's not like anyone really reads any of the archives anyway. But, I mean, do I really need to keep the list of 1,001 movies? Probably not.

I guess I'll decide when I start reading the 2005 entries and go from there.

yawn

too tired to blog, really.

even if i weren't, i have nothing to say right now.

tomorrow, the sun will come out. and hopefully i'll be in a more blogging mind-set.

My brain is working faster than the internet

And that's saying something.

The internet is being s-l-o-o-o-o-w right now especially blogger, but all sites have been sluggish.

It's taken nearly half an hour to get to the point where I could blog. But I did not give up! Go team persistence!

Anyway. Not a lot to say, but I did want to blog so as to continue my participation in Blogtober.

Miranda's youngest had her birthday party today, and so we all went down to the Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix, and had a pretty good time. There was something in the air, apparently, because first Steph got a big whoppin' case of deja vu, and then, once hers was over, about one minute later, I did. It was completely bizarre. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we went there for Saren's 8th birthday party.

Or maybe we're time travellers.
Or maybe the Matrix was being altered heavily.
Or maybe we think alike and were on the same wavelength.

N-E-Way.

The party was fun - despite the fact that Steph's camera batteries were dead and Saren is now officially too big to drive the kiddie-sized go-carts (they let her go anyway, but this was the last time she'll ever get to) and the woman at the top of the jumbo slide tried to give us grief about me going down the slide with Harper. Despite all that, a good time was had by all.

PLUS!! Miranda's husband has his pilot's license and (I believe) his own private plane. I spent a good 45 minutes or so picking his brain and finding out a lot of really interesting information that will help my NaNovel have a more authentic feel to it. That was totally awesome. Hell, even if I don't use any of the stuff he told me, it was still neat to find out about. Sure, I could probably have just looked the stuff up online, but there's something just... better about learning things from a real live human being. (No offense, internet.)

Today was apparently my info gathering day, because in addition to the pilot-talk, I conversed with Jupe about a good many things, such as blood type and food and terroristic attacks. (Hi, government!!)

Now, hopefully, I'll actually move beyond the 'research' stage and actually do some writing.

devilstuff

There are certain things that, for whatever reason, just rub me the wrong way, and I will stubbornly refuse to have anything to do with them. Just because. They are generally quite popular, and I find that if I ever do cave in and actually try them, I enjoy them. (But then get upset at myself for caving.) But my dislike of these things results in me calling the item a "tool of the devil". Because it is. And people should just realize that, and agree with me and stop being dumb and life would be better.

Examples:

American Idol. Never seen an episode. Never want to. I could not identify anyone who has ever won this show, nor any of the winners "songs" or even tell you when it is on. (Other than the Bimpsons, I don't watch Fox at all anymore. Weird.) American Idol is a TV show of the devil.

Cell phones. Ugh. UGH!!! Cell phones are the freaking tool of the devil. They are so damn annoying. The people who use them are so damn annoying. The commercials are so damn annoying. I don't know how many times I've been in public and heard someone say, "Hey.", think they were talking to me, and turn to realize, "Oh, they're just on their goddamn cell phone."
And, of course, the idiots who use them while driving. It doesn't help matters that they're idiots before they begin talking on the phones. (Most people seriously don't know how to drive very well. I fall in this camp too.) Adding a cell phone into the mix, and my blood is just starting to boil already.

What makes them worse is that I have one now. I don't know when we bought it (I could check my archives and find out, I guess) but somewhere along the way we became one of the herd. And now I never go anywhere without it. I've become what I hated.
But cell phones are still the tool of the devil.

MySpace.com. Never been there. I'm sure that it's a great site and all (I mean, can 40392603468 gabillion people be wrong?) but even without having visited the thing, I just know that it's the fracking tool of the devil. Goddamn MySpace.

DVDs. Heh. Remember when I felt this way about DVDs and DVD players? Okay, I am a big enough person that I can admit when I am wrong. I may have been wrong about DVDs, and partly wrong on cell phones, but I'm not wrong on the other stuff. MySpace and American Idol can go to hell where they belong.

And many more!

Today is my blog's birthday. 4 years old. It started out at a different address (pshift2.blogspot.com) and with a different name (Patent Ambiguity) and with a different look (honestly, I don't remember, but for a long time it had blue lines...you can still check out pshift2 if you are really curious. I don't know why blogger hasn't deleted it off the internet.) but it's always had the same old writer.

If blogger ever gets around to making the beta version available to everyone, I'll be doing a major overhaul to my blog. As it is, I'm (slowly) going back and deleting old entries that are just boring nonsense. (I've deleted two so far. Woo!)

In other news, but still related to the title - today, supposedly, was the birthday of the 300 millionth United Statesian.
I say "supposedly" because I don't trust the accuracy of census...es. (Censi?) What about people who have gone missing? How long must a person be missing before they're considered dead? What about fake IDs? What about people who don't have Social Security numbers at all? What about people who were born at home and/or not in a hospital and have not gone "on the record"? (Granted, that's probably a very small number, but I know of at least one.)
What about people who lie to the census takers?
What about the people who drop off the grid altogether (by choice)? And what about undiscovered indigenous tribes (okay, there are probably NONE left in the US, and very very few anywhere in the world, but they do exist)?
All of those people who aren't being counted (or are being miscounted, maybe) means that we really don't know how many humans there are in the US or in the world, and we never will.

That being said, 300 million is a lot of people.

Oh, and courtesy of Anthropik's article on this matter, here's The Daily Show's take:

I'm afraid I did Nazi that movie.

I amuse myself greatly.

Anyway. Today's movie answered the question, "How do you make a boring movie about Nazis, secret Hitler plans, and conspiracies to infilitrate the White House?"
The answer is, you get Alan Thicke and um.. that one guy... oh, right, his name is Kyle MacLachlan to star in The Windsor Protocol.

The movie is, like I said, about a document that Hitler supposedly drew up in his last days, placing a bunch of money in secret bank accounts. Given the name the Windsor Protocol. It was lost, then, 50 years later, rediscovered. And some Nazis (now old men) who have been waiting for it to show up, I guess, put their plan into motion. (Their plan has something to do with getting Alan Thicke - a senator - to move up the ranks of the US Administration.)
Agent Cooper (heh) is there to stop them.

It could have been interesting, but it wasn't. Just kind of... there. Oh well. At least Alan Thicke was getting work again. Or, you know, back in 1996 he was.

ANYWAY. This made me think of all the movies that have involved everyone's favorite villains, the Nazis. And, so, just like we did with nukes a few weeks back, now's the time when you list all the tv shows and movies that have had Nazis in them.
I'll get us started with the most obvious:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Apt Pupil
The Rocketeer (The rock-a-who?)

dreamy

Yeah, I know, dream entries are boring. The rule of thumb is, "Dreams are boring unless I'm in them."
But. I just woke up, and so the memories of this one are pretty fresh (although they're fading as I type, of course) and it's been ages since I've blogged about a dream I've had. Hell, it's been ages since I can remember having a dream. Also, this dream was just intensely detailed.

The Tribe of Anthropik invited me, Steph, and the girls over to their house for dinner. !!!!
As we were walking to their incredibly nice home, we passed a lot of open desert where there was construction going on. A crew was sitting in a half-completed building that would eventually become a Wendy's. They watched us as we passed and said some stuff to us in Spanish that I did not understand. (Although my brain at the time knew that it was really Spanish and not just garbled language. Which makes me wonder if my brain really does on some unconcious level understand Spanish. Hmm.)

Anyway. We got to the place where Jason Godesky and Giulianna Lamanna were staying, and it's a beautiful, huge house that was semi-built into the surrounding trees, and even had a small stream running through the entrance way. I wish I could explain it better, but I don't really remember the details other than having an overwhelming sense of awe at the whole structure.

When we get in, we're told that they are "playing Buffy" and we are welcome to join if we want. I was pretty excited, so I said, "Sure." and was handed a samurai sword just as an overweight black woman stepped into the clearing. She had on a 'vamp' face just like the vampires from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I think she may have had a weapon in her hand as well (some kind of short dagger).
She rushed me and I unsheathed the sword and began swinging it wildly in an attempt to defend myself.
Everyone else seemed to have vanished from the room, or were off on the sidelines watching.
At some point during the fight, I managed to slice the woman's arm, causing a large amount of blood to spray out and for her to scream in pain. As she was clutching her arm, I tackled her. When she was down on the ground, I jabbed the sword through her midsection, effectively pinning her to the floor. The entire time she was screaming at me, telling me how she was going to kill me when she got up and how I was in for a world of hurt.
Disturbing!

Even more disturbing, was that I just left her there. Jason called me (and everyone else) over so he could show off this... I don't know WHAT it was (although, again, I did at the time of the dream). It was some sort of folding sword weapon that when completely opened, looked like a Klingon weapon of some sort, but when you contracted the blades, fit nicely into the palm of your hand, and resembled a Swiss Army Knife.

There was a big long section of the dream where Steph and I talkd with Giulianna, but I don't remember any of hte details of that, sadly. We were talking about rewilding and unschooling and civilization in general, and I'm sure in real life it would've been very interesting (it was in the dream) but I just wish I could remember what was said.

As our discussion was finishing up, Miranda was there in the kitchen, offering to serve up ice cream. There was something about me speaking like Yoda and how the vanilla ice cream would help cure that. (Dreams are weird) and the girls were really excited to have dessert.

After that, we all walked outside and talked about the approaching construction. As we were walking, a bat flew overhead. It glided down toward us and landed on Saren's outstretched arm. Jason and Giulianna announced that Saren was [some term they used that I don't remember] and said that that meant that she was a very special person. Saren asked if we could keep the bat. We told her that it should live outside, and we'd come back so she coudl see it often, and as she let it go, I woke up.

I know that overall, the dream was just an amalgamation of events from the past few days, but it was still pretty cool. It's always odd to dream about Internet Weirdos that you've never really met in person. I mean, where is my brain getting information on how the Anthropik Tribe actually speak or live? (I'm sure that the house they really live in is nowhere near as elaborate as the one I dreamt about, but I can totally imagine them speaking in the way that they did in the dream.) And why? Does it have any deeper meaning, or was it just a bunch of thoughts that my brain strung together in an attempt to make a story? Who knows?

Water, water everywhere

I can not hear that phrase and NOT hear Homer's "So let's all take a drink" right after. Just another instance where the writers of the Simpsons have occupied some more memory from my brain.

Last night, into this morning, the rain storm from yesterday continued. Hard core. We lost power around 8am this morning, for about half an hour. There were at least two instances where the thunder was hard enough to cause the house to shake. The street we live on was essentially a river this morning, and when we went to drive out this afternoon after the storms had cleared away and the sun was shining, the streets were all covered with dirt and debris and looked semi-apocalyptic.

It's sprinkling outside now, but I think the majority of the storm has passed. It was pretty impressive while it lasted, though.

In other news... I don't think I have other news. Sorry folks. I guess to make it more interactive, I'll open up the floor to the P@riots out there to tell me about the weather where you are.

Sex chicken

Man, it has been a long freaking day.

Went to the ren faire. I wonder, sometimes, why we do that each year. It's interesting, but there are many many problems with it. Like 80 dollar cheeseburgers. Without fries! And bees. And everything costs more money than anyone who actually lived during the Renaissance ever saw.
But, anyway. Fun.

We didn't stick around for the entire time, though, because around 7 pm, it started raining. Sprinkling lightly at first, and then, in a matter of minutes, it began pouring. It's 9 now, and I think it just now let up. Crazy.

I had a more gimmicky type of entry planned for today, what with it being Friday the 13th and having gone back in time and all, but I'm too tired, so I'll save said gimmick for another day.

In conclusion, Have Fun Storming the Castle! HA HA HA HA.

unorganized

No real central topic, just a bunch of random thoughts.

I really do need a haircut.

Tomorrow is the Ren Faire. Huzzah! We're going for free! Huzzah!! My work is one of the sponsors and provided free tickets, which is pretty cool. Incidentally, my work is asking for volunteers to help man the booth that we will have set up there. I feel sorta bad about not signing up to help out, but, come on. I spend too many freaking hours there as it is. And I get paid for those. They want me to fritter away my precious few weekend hours doing work for them as well? And NOT get money in return? HA HA HA!!

I was going to post that Futurama episode, but I'm not really in the mindset to do that yet. Maybe I never will be.

Apparently, it's Bring A Weapon to School season here in the states. Seems like the past week or three, there's been a shooting and/or a person with a gun at a school somewhere in the country everyday. A few days back on the bus, some boys got on - they were probably jr. high students, maybe freshman in high school. Anyway, one of them mentioned that he heard (on the news?) that now teachers are thinking of bringing weapons to protect themselves.
Just another brick in the wall.

At work, we have somewhere around 300 movies in our library. For the past two and a half months (or so) I have been working on a complete overhaul of it. Each movie will eventually be put onto one 120 minute tape instead of being on two 60 minute tapes. And, each movie will be re-timed by yours truly. It's a truly daunting task, but I've done about 118 so far. Plus, I get to watch some really horrible movies in the process. yay!
Today's movie was another David A. Prior masterpiece, Raw Nerve. Traci Lords was in it, and sadly, was probably the best actress in the movie. However, I have to say that the "twist" ending wasn't what I expected. (I figured it would be the police chief doing the killings, which would've made more sense.)
Yesterday's movie was Little Kidnappers, a hokey TV movie with Charlton Heston and Bruce Greenwood (Nowhere Man) and people with Scottish accents. ("Ack. Don't ye know anything aboot beebies?", "I'm afeard!!") Not a bad movie, overall, but nothing really memorable, either.

I forget what else I was going to say.

Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?

Man, Bender was smooth. That's the greatest pick-up line ever.

Speaking of Futurama, I need to get my thoughts together for a post that I've been meaning to make ever since the Conference in regard to a particular episode. I just need to find it online, and then determine exactly what I want to say.... (Probably tomorrow.)

In TV news, I watched (most) of my very first episode of Veronica Mars last night.
I... um.... fell asleep.

But in the show's defense, I was pretty tired. And, VM seems like the type of program that you need to watch from the beginning to enjoy fully. But the whole sociology class experiment, where the one guy went all control-freak in a matter of minutes? Didn't really buy it.
And Veronica's undercoverness getting into the sorority seemed... I don't know. Predictable?
Plus, the guy from Just Shoot Me kept bugging me because all I could think was, "Hey, it's that guy from Just Shoot Me!" everytime he was on.
Eh. Like I said, I was pretty tired. I should give it another chance. Although next week's previews don't look all that promising.

Um. I had a rant/anecdote (rantecdote?) about work, but it wasn't all that interesting, so nevermind.

10 10 day

Woo! Four years from now, it'll be 10/10/10. Oooh. Binaryesque.

Currently - 630pm - I am home alone. Woo! I'm gonna cause physical harm to would-be burglars Joe Pesci and that narrator from The Wonder Years, and then put aftershave on my face and scream comically. AND I'm gonna spawn 3 horrible sequels.

Oh. Um. SPOILER!! (Pretend I said that first.)

Okay then.

Oh, right. As I was saying, right now the rest of the family is out, having dinner with Miranda's family. So, I've got the house to myself. What do I do? Blog. I should totally be having a kegger right now, man. Alas, it is not to be. Maybe next time.
Instead, I think I'll just do some chores and straighten the place up a bit. That'll be a nice surprise for Steph to come home to. (The not so nice surprise she gets to come home to is the pile of freaking bills we got in the mail today. Jesus Christ, bill people - do you all have to demand money at the same time??)

You know what's weird? Three weeks from now it will be Halloween. Three! Er. I mean, weeks!! No, I mean, Halloween!!!
Dear Time,
stop going so damn quickly.
Thanks,
P@.

A few weeks back, I was thinkign to myself, "I wonder how different Harry Potter would be if Stephen King was the author."
The first major change I thought of was that there would be a lot higher death count.
Also, a lot more swearing.
And I bet Hogwarts would be in Maine somewhere.

Well, I should get to doing the cleaning if that's gonna happen. Before I go, I wanted to mention the movie I watched today (except for yesterday, I've watched at least one movie at work every [work]day in October so far. Yay!) - Future Force, which is by the same director of White Fury. (David A. Prior) Future Force was bad - nearly as bad as WF - but it was at least semi-enjoyable in that 'bad movie' type of way. It had David Carradine as a cop with a robotic arm in the future. (The future being 1993) The movie started with "In the year 1991, violence was out of control in America." Hee.
Anyway. The two awesomest parts
SPOILER!! (see, I'm learning)

were when David Carradine is bringing in a reporter who is under arrest for "treason" (she is being set up because she has an incriminating video [on a huge ass, ancient three quarter inch tape - lol] of the police chief) and she says, "I bet you think this is funny."
Carradine says, "So far, I haven't laughed once." and gives this look at the camera that totally lets you know he's in on how bad this movie is, but that he's at least having a good time.

The other great part was near the end with the robotic arm and a remote control. Carradine was fighting a thug and getting his butt kicked, when he pulled out the remote control for the robotic arm. Thug says, "What are you going to do with that? Change the channel on me?" (see, it's really bad dialouge)
He pushes a button, and the trunk of the car that has the box with the arm in it opens up.
He pushes the same button and the box holding the arm opens.
He pushes the SAME BUTTON and the arm levitates into the air.
He pushes the SAME BUTTON AGAIN and the arm rotates in mid-air.
Yet again, pushing the same button, and the arm begins to fly toward the thug.

The flying robotic arm begins to beat up the bad guy. (I'm assuming that David Carradine kept pushing that one magic button) When it was done, the hand formed the OK sign and then flew back into the box.
Hilarious shit.

Oh, and the end was great too. David Carradine and the woman get into his car and drive off. The camera sits in one location and just waits and watches as the car drives down the road, to a stop sign. The blinker comes on. The camera still sits there. Several other cars pass in front of it. Nearly 50 seconds pass, with Carradine's car just sitting at the intersection and nothing else going on. As he begins to turn, the credits finally roll.

Seeing really bad movies like that give me hope. Because if someone can get nonsense like THAT made, then I have a chance at getting something I create out there, too.

Okay. Now I really do need to get to cleaning.

Nothing much happened today.

When I was younger (12? 13? 14? somewhere around that age, I guess. Maybe even younger.) I kept a diary that I wrote in everyday.

I remember looking back at that diary several years later and being dismayed by how many entries were simply "Nothing much happened today." Day after day after day, that would be all I would write as a record of another passing of the precious few hours I have on earth. "Nothing much happened today." Gah. Something always happens. It's only how it's filtered through our perceptions as to whether or not it is of interest.

I kinda wish I still had that diary. It would be interesting to see how many of the days of my youth "nothing much happened" on, and also, what things I did report.

Anyway. I was reminded of this little factoid about my life when I sat down to blog today, because, really, nothing much happened today.

Except, of course, stuff DID happen. I just have to stop being boring so that I'll stop seeing things through a bored-filter perspective. Ya know?

The point I guess I'm trying to make is that I want to be able to rememeber more of my life, and to LIVE more of my life and ...um. Something. You'll have to forgive, me, I'm really very tired and not thinking clearly. So. Yeah.

It occurs to me that this entry doesn't really detail anything that DID happen, and it is kinda just a big long way of saying, "Nothing much happened today", but at least it is minimally LESS boring than that. Hopefully.

In conclusion, today I:
- rode a double-decker bus for the second time in my life
- conversed with a friend I haven't seen in about 3 months
- did NOT have any Pepsi, despite REALLY wanting to
- worried about the future of humanity
- thought about Wolf
- thought about a possible spin-off of Wolf (or maybe just a separate chapter or 5)
- washed a sinkload of dishes
- spent 9 hours of my life at a building I really didn't want to be at
- continued working on my pet project at work (the movie library overhaul)
- woke up way too early
- remembered that life is short, precious, and incredible, even when it can also drag, be annoying, and overabundant.

random thoughts

if i ever had a suitcase full of money, say a million dollars or more, and it was supposed to be given over to the mob, I'd steal 30 dollars out of there. Just to see if they'd count it all and notice.
Plus, with 30 dollars, I could totally go out to dinner.

I miss Ragu. He was a lizard that lived in my Geo Metro way back then. He was plastic, so technically he didn't live there, but I miss him nonetheless.

I need a haircut.

We are going to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang now now.

Where the devil is.

I've decided to rework Wolf, and have it be my NaNovel this year.

The idea of a werewolf epidemic came to me yesterday and it's been spinning in my brain ever since. This thing could be big, if I do it right. (So, um, maybe NaNo isn't the right format for it, but who knows.) I haven't been this excited about a story idea since my (nonfinshed) Perth story of years gone by.

But.

[own worst critic] I've noticed that 1) I do not give enough details. It's a huge flaw in my writing. Of course, the (start of the) story below is just a first draft, but last night (and this morning) all I could think was of ways to rework the paragraphs and sentences and make them...better. More detailed. More... alive. Or at least more detailed.
2) All my story ideas seem to be similar: Some supernatural crisis happens. People react and survive. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but ...I don't know. Can't really pinpoint exactly what I'm trying to say. Maybe I'm just upset(ish) that I don't have the whole plot laid out. (I didn't with the Perth tale, either. It was more of a "Oooh. What would people do if this freaky thing happened?") Maybe I don't need to have the whole thing planned, but... I don't know.
3) Um. I forget. I think I need to stop worrying about if things will be good [on a side note, I obviously succeeded even with the rough draft, judging by Annika's comment. Wolf is going to be a very dark story, and hopefully will cause a few shivers along the way.] and just worry about it getting it out. I've found that when I was writing my Perth story, that when I told myself - "Don't worry about what others think, just write it." that I was pretty happy with the results. Just hard to keep that advice constatnly in mind, ya know?[/own worst critic]

In other news... er. I don't remember. There was something else I really wanted to blog about, and now it's completely gone. I just keep thinking about Wolf. [sigh]

Wolf

Wolf I am, Everything
in darkness Will be good
In light because Maheo
Wherever I search Protects us
Wherever I run Ea ea ea ho.
-- Song of a Cheyenne scout.


The thing was fast - they all were - but it was not fast enough to get out of the way of the Greyhound bus travelling to Las Vegas Nevada down I-15. The driver of the bus saw the animal mere seconds before his 45 foot bullet collided with it, producing a sickening squishing noise, and sending a jolt of adrenaline through Jason's veins. Many things happened at once, although to Jason's mind, time seemed to slow enough for them to take place sequentially.
1. Jason said, "Shit."
2. He stepped on the brakes.
3. He announced to the passengers, "Brace yourselves, everyone!"
4. He swerved in a last minute attempt to avoid the animal that had appeared out of nowhere in front of his path.
5. He glanced in the mirror to look back at his 28 men, women and children that he was responsible for.
6. He noticed that several (six, to be exact, some part of his brain realized and stored away) of the passengers seemed...ill.
7. He wondered if they had witnessed the animal he was just about to send to meet it's maker.
8. Squish. Thud. Crunch.

The bus was decelerating, and Jason was pumping the brakes and attempting to regain control of the bus and his rapidly beating heart. He was sweating and his mouth was very dry. Jason had been a driver for the past three years, and he had, until just now, had a spotless record. "Damn." he thought. As he pulled over to the shoulder, put on the emergency hazard lights and slowed the bus to a complete standstill, he was mentally going over the training he had gone through for just such an event. Rule #1 was to make sure that the passengers were safe. As he was turning around to get out of his coach-seat and ask how everyone was holding up, he heard screams.

What he saw would pale in comparison to the eventual nightmares he would witness, but at the time, it was the most horrific thing Jason Wolf had seen in his 33 years on earth.

The six passengers who had seemed sick while the bus slowed had all been replaced by beasts of some kind. Hairy, huge, snarling animals who were wearing the clothing that the humans who had been there just five minutes before. The people who had been seated near the transformed had been the ones who had screamed. Jason couldn't blame them. He felt like screaming himself, but found he was unable to do so. All he could do was stare in disbelief.

The creatures began to attack their surroundings. The animals seemed indiscriminate on what, exactly, they were battling. Human flesh, bus seats, empty air; it was all the same to them. They bit and scratched and snarled. The seat belts were - temporarily - restraining the beasts. Most of the remaining humans had removed themselves from their seats, and headed toward the front of the bus. Jason opened the door and began ushering people off quickly.

So Happy It's Thursday

It rained today. Resulting in a double rainbow visible on the way home from work. Neat. Steph took pictures, but she says her camera didn't really pick them up very well.

A good percentage of our Halloween costumes are all bought now, as well. It's been a while since I've really dressed up, so I'm pretty excited about this year. It'll be a good one. Saren looks great in her costume, too.

White Fury is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Good thing we're running it at 2:00am, because if it were on at an hour when more people could actually be watching, they might tear down the station in angry protest.

Lost is back!

It looks like it's going to be a good season, too. I can get behind a season long arc of "There are four lights!"

At work, watched two semi-crap movies. Lying In Wait, with Rutger Hauer and Virgina Madsen, which was actually not bad. And Layover, which starred David Hasselhoff, which started off very intriguing, then ended incredibly stupidly.

Um. I was much more into blogging earlier, and I didn't, and now I'm all tired and nonthinkable. I know I keep promising that the next entry will be better, and then they keep...not being that way. But, hey, if I say it often enough, EVENTUALLY it will be true, no?

Take Take

The mediocre movie of the day was Double Take.
Not that Double Take.
This one.

It stared (starred? Gah. I hate when words look weird, and both spellings look odd to me.) Craig Sheffer, who has been in several of the movies we have in our library. Plus, he was on One Tree Hill (he may be still, I'm not paid to watch that drivel anymore, so I don't.) But I've always thought that he resembled David Boreanaz. (Heh. Apparently I'm not alone in thinking that.)
Anyway. In Double Take, his character's name is Connor. Hee! He even has the same hair as Angel's son. (er, sorta) And, at one point he hops onto a bus to escape. Never underestimate the power of coincidence.

In other news, ...I forget. There was something else I wanted to mention, but I really can't remember what. Eh. Maybe it'll come back to me so I'll have something to talk about tomorrow.

I'll add the title later

I just spent nearly twenty minutes trying to think of a title for this entry, rather than typing.
I was looking for an "anti-LOL" type of word. Like maybe MOL (Melancholic Out Loud) or something to describe this feeling I've had all day.
Oh. I know the word now. "Monday."

I started off the day eating a donut. Mmmm. Forbidden donut.
It was yummy, but donuts really should be shipped off to another planet or something. Because while they taste incredible, there is always a price to pay afterward.
Today, it seems, the price was to my mental well-being. All day long I've been feeling this ...glumness. This... Eeyoreosity.

Um. Blah.

I was going to blog about how I learned about Capital Gains Tax for the first time today, and how irritating it is. But, blah. Not worth it.

In other news today, there was possibly a shooting at a school in North Las Vegas and there definitey was a shooting at a school in Pennsylvania. Originally the reports on the tv were talking about the North Las Vegas shooting. That was then trumped by the Pennsylvania one. Later, the reports seemed to state that there wasn't a shooting here in Vegas, just a gun brought to school grounds, so I don't know what to believe, and I'm too lazy (and don't care enough) to google up the facts. The point is, during my darkest moments earlier today my thoughts on the matter were, "LOL, Columbine." (said in the same vein as "LOL, internets.", which is to say, extremely sarcastic.)
Um. I had some kind of point to make there, and I lost it. Actually, I don't think I did have a point about the shootings. Just that they are kind of a crap icing on a shit cake day.

Switching gears, I watched Grey Owl at work today. Not a bad movie. Not a great one, either, but I guess it's enjoyable enough that I'd recommend it. You know, if it's like, on tv or something.

The movie is based on actual events. The life of Archie Belany (played by Pierce Brosnan) is portrayed. He was an English-born guy who got adopted by the Ojibwa tribe(s?) in Canada and given the Native American name of Grey Owl. He began writing articles for a local magazine and eventually got noticed by a publisher who convinced him to write a book aboot life in the wild. All of this was taking place in the 1930s, btw.
Belany passed himself off as a half-breed to the world, including his wife. His book became super-popular and he went on a tour in England to promote it, and also to talk about conservation. Long before it was popular, he was pretty much one of the first environmentalists.
Meanwhile, in the movie, a reporter is investigating his life and eventually discovers that he is not what he is claiming to be. According to the movie, he holds off reporting the truth until after his death. Also according to the movie, the truth was printed the day after he died.
Sadly, once Grey Owl died, some of his books were no longer published and/or printed and his name became tarnished.

I'd never heard of him before, so it was cool to learn something new. But the movie also made me sad - or rather, I was still sad while watching it - because I knew that despite his best efforts and intentions, well...

Anyway. In conclusion, the day was meh but it's over now. Tomorrow will be better because it will be Tuesday, and because I won't have donuts for breakfast.

September Mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
August - car = 0.0; minivan = 944.6
September - car = 0.1; minivan = 1725.3 - total for Sept. is 1725.4

Year to date - 10,737.9

And with that, I'm clear for today! Woohoo! Granted, it's not a very interesting entry, but when I agreed to blog everyday this month, I made no such promises. :)

,.,.,.,,,.

so tired, shouldn't even be blogging, ut;s not like i'v nethibg to say. but my brain was saying, "if yo don't blog, I'm gonna make you all antsy." and so i'm blogging. with nothing much to say. but the words are coming faster now. like streamish of conciousnessish.
ish.

And, ta da. Just like that, thery're turned off. And on again. It's like it's opposite world or something. As soon as I say one thing, the other takes place. Universe has a sense of humore.

I had soem psuedo-insight about the nature of the universe and god and ...god earlier, but it's slipped away. So, that was a pretty pointless sentence. Maybe it'll come back to me soonly. If it does, I'll be sure to sahre.

October is fast approaching. And I've signed up for ABally's blog challenge of blogging everyday that month. Hope I have more to say when that rolls around.
In the meantime, I rEALLY wish that blogger would get the new version released. Steph's blog ahs laready switched over, and it looks awesome, and everytime she blogs it makes me alll envious. Plus, there's another blog I'd like to get started and the new features will definitely hlep in that regard.
And now, I am going to publish post and eventually stumble into slumbo land.

Kablooie!! Nucleiod war!!

The TV Show "Jericho" premiered on Wednesday.
Premise: Smalltown in Kansas witnesses mushroom clouds off in the distance. Communication is cut off. Townsfolk deal with the possibility that the rest of the world might just be dead.
Yay! I [heart] post-apocalyptic stuff, so it's pretty compelling to see a series devoted to it.

The show itself was... well, there's potential. I'm still on the fence about it, and have decided to give it a few more episodes to determine whether it's a keeper or not.

But! Onto the fun, interactive part.

I've been thinking about all the movies and tv shows that have shown nuclear explosions.

Here's what I can think of, please add more!

Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
"Battlestar Galactica" (new series. Not sure if the original 70s show dealt with nukes or not. I'm thinking no.)
Miracle Mile (late 80s movie with Anthony Edwards discovering there's one hour until LA gets nuked.)
Chain of Commmand - we have really crappy movies at my work. But, this movie DOES have a major city get nuked.
Independance Day (Um. I'm about 93% certain we see mushroom clouds in this. When the human resistance uses the nukes to fight back, right?)
The Day After
Beneath the Planet of the Apes - I believe, though, we don't really see a mushroom cloud as more of just a flash to white, but I'm including it anyway.
The season one ending of "Sledge Hammer!" ended with a nuclear explosion. (Season Two began retitling the show "Sledge Hammer!: The Early Years". Ha!!)
Certain episodes of "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" and "The Twilight Zone" have had mushroom clouds.


And this isn't even getting into novels that are all apocalyptic. Man, there's a lot of nukes in pop culture.
It's almost as though we've got a pre-occupation with the complete destruction of civilization or something...

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's meal for me.

In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th), the Life Learners are having a get-together at Miranda's house where there will be much frolicking and feasting and fun.

Steph's been getting pirate garb together here and there for the girls (and herself) the past few days. They're gonna look really cool.

Today we went grocery shopping, and I started wondering what type of foods real pirates ate.
Here are some of the possibilities I came up with:

Fish.

Rum.

Pigs. (I don't know where they'd get 'em from, but when I think of pirates and food together, I imagine a roasted pig with an apple in it's mouth.)

Cap'n Crunch. (The official cereal of sea-faring folk)

Pop-Tarrrrts.

Read My Lips...

Watch the video



And now, discuss. What DOES he say?

Live and Learn Conference: Priceless

Hotels slept at: 2 - Holiday Inn Express in Flagstaff, and Hotel Albuquerque in Albuquerque.

Besides the conference, other places visited: Slide Rock near Sedona, Grand Canyon Caverns, Old Town Albuquerque.

Price I paid for a 32 ounce Pepsi in Sedona: $2.19

Temperature inside Grand Canyon Caverns: 56 degrees F

Number of feet underground GCC is: 220

Number of things able to live within the caverns: 0 (bacteria dies within 72 hours. The air is simply too dry for anything to live down there.)

Number of elevators within the Hotel Albuquerque: 2

Number of unschoolers attending the conference: 520. (not quite 20,000, but, during the first year there were only 135 people, so, you know, someday.)

Cool nicknames that the girls came up with for Albuquerque: Alba-turkey, Alba-quirky, Alba-cookie.

Number of rain sticks made: 2

Items made out of duct tape while there: Two purses, one ...um...sheet.

Times thunderstorms forced us out of the pool: 2. And they came out of freakin' nowhere, too! They were awesome, lightning, pouring rain, super strong winds, but, kinda scary too. Although... on the way home, right through Flagstaff was this storm that made it impossible to see, despite having the wipers on full blast. The raindrops were coming down so hard and so powerfully that I was afraid they'd break through the windshield. As soon as we cleared the city limits, the rain stopped too. Spooky.

Minutes that Saren danced at the after-dinner dance on Saturday night: Approx. 18.5.

Minutes that I danced at the after-dinner dance on Saturday night: 0.


Song that Saren, Harper, and Miranda's youngest daughter hula-hooped to for the talent show on Friday night: "I Like to Move It"

Number of people playing Duck Duck Goose in the hotel lobby on Thursday night when it got to it's largest: Near 60. That was a lot of fun. The circle was HUGE, and it was just so cool to have teenagers, adults and kids as young as 6 all playing together.

Number of pennies placed on the railroad tracks in Flagstaff by us: 5

Number of pennies found after the train passed: 2 - plus a quarter that was done by someone else. As we were looking, an "official" told us that what we had just done was illegal ([eyebrow]) and highly dangerous.

Day I realized what my NaNoWriMo story would be about this year: Tuesday

Day I began doubting that story: Today.

Number of vehicles seen stranded on the side of the road during the entire trip: 43 - Compared to the trip we took to San Diego in July, which was 108.

Number of times we ate at Lotaburger: 3. And Lotaburger totally has the best catchphrase ever. "If you are what you eat, you are awesome." It's great because it's true.

Time left Hotel Alb: 10:10AM (Las Vegas time)
Time arrived home: 7:02PM (Las Vegas time)
Amount of money spent: Probably best not to think about that.
Where to read a more detailed account of the trip, plus see photos: Steph's blog. (Tomorrow, after she's had some time to rest.)

Pause

Sadly, I don't have one of those remote controls that allows me to manipulate time. It would be super nice to have, because we have so much that needs to be done before we leave (TOMORROW!!) to go to the conference, and not much time to do it all.

I was going to make a copy of the Live and Learn Schedule [<-- is a pdf file] in my blog, but that involved figuring out the html for tables and a lot of typing, and so, eh. I just linked to it.
(Saren had a similar idea, but instead just copied and pasted the funshop descriptions on her blog - funny how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree)

Anyway. The point is that the conference is just days (or can we start keeping track in hours now?) away, and I am really excited about it. We all are.
At the conference, so many things are going to be going on at the same time... I don't know how I'll manage to get it all in. I remember when I was younger I would often have that feeling that I was missing out on something better, and would often wish that I could be in two (or more) places at once. I haven't felt that way in a long time, but I certainly do now.


Right now I need to stop blogging and go finish cleaning up/getting prepared for the trip. Of course, if I could be in two places at once, I'd be blogging AND doing that. Blast my inability to alter quantum mechanics!!

Anyway, this is most likely the last blog entry I'll make before we leave, so, enjoy the week everyone, and I'll see you all on the 11th!

S to the ress

Jez. Us. Kah. Rist.

Today was ... this whole week... month.

*deep breath*

It's September.

The conference is just days away. I am actually starting to really feel it. I'm very excited. It should be a lot of fun. We'll be sure to take pictures.

I'm on vacation as of now. Which is great. I really REALLY need it. Today being the last day before vay-kay, it was pretty hectic. On top of that, it was the last day before a 3 day weekend for everyone, and the last workday before a) the WB moves over to 33 and b) the new Network launches (on Tuesday).
So, yeah. A little bit busy of a day.
Additionally, we had news of an entire movie package being pulled. Yoink! Five movie titles for 4th quarter are now gone gone gone. And some of them were pretty decent flicks, too. (The Truman Show and White Christmas, for example. Why's it always the good ones that get pulled? I mean, why can't the Tori Spelling vehicles get wrecked? [sigh])
Anyway. Not only that, but another movie package was added to our lineup. Which, cool, will help in filling the holes from the absence of the other one, but ugh. Why the extra work NOW? Ya know?

Eh. It's out of sight out of mind time. The stress and crap and nonsense and work will all still be there when I get back on the 11th.
In the meantime, it's time to just chill and relax (er, as much as it might be possible to do stuff like that while surrounded by 20,000* unschoolers.


*Number may be slightly exaggerated.

Mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
August - car = 0.0; minivan = 944.6

Year to date - 9012.5

And September's gonna be a big month, what with the upcoming drive to New Mexico and back.

10/31

Smith's wins. We saw Halloween candy in the aisles yesterday. Which, of course, means next time we go to the grocery store, there will be Xmas decorations up.

In related news, Saren and Steph are trying to determine what everyone is going to be for Halloween this year. No concensus yet, but, you know, it's still over a month away.

taste

We went out to eat for dinner today, and I had Subway. While I was eating it, I realized that I was just...there. Eating. My heart wasn't in it, so to speak. I asked Steph if her burrito (she had a burrito from Rufio's instead) was good, and she said that it was, but I started thinking -
It's weird that humans expect all meals to taste good. We eat a variety of stuff (although it's not really all that (and a bag of chips) varied) because we want our meals to have different flavors and to enjoy them all.
Cats - as an example - don't do this. They eat the same thing day in and day out. Or at least, our cats do. I'm sure many of the domestic cats in the world are the same. Does cat food taste good to them? Or is eating for most animals just like my Subway was - just another task, with no real joy in it? I mean, other than not being hungry afterward. Do nonhumans taste things? Do they have preferences of what they'd like to eat? I know that our cats (all cats??) REALLY like tuna, so I guess they do have some ...um...taster's choice. (heh.)

Church Sign Wisdom 7

Finally! Sheesh. Those people seem to never update their blog!

Although, um, these are confusing and depressing. We'll go with the downer first:

DEATH
TAKES ALL WE ARE AND
LEAVES ALL WE HAVE

Cheery!!

And now, the one that, even though I've read it several times, still doesn't make sense.
TO BE CHOSEN TO LEAD IS
AN HONOR TO BE ACCEPTED
NOT A POSTITION TO OCCUPY

Oh!! Got it. See, I was (mistakenly) putting a period after "honor". I think it's still worded oddly, but, hey, so is half the stuff I write.

July mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
Year to date is now 8067.9

Ewe no sum thymes words halve too meanings

(Been wanting to do this for a while. The post below just re-reminded me, and spurred me into action. Yay for homonyms! Aisle try to do as many as possible. The ideal goal was to have EVERY word be one, but that might not be possible. We'll see. I might make this a boq...and maybe post it on that buffyboard if I do.)

Hay!
Watt due ewe chews two sea win yew bee inn eh gnu plaice?

Too, for, oar ate?

Due ewe no watt thee bare eight? Knot thee Karat pi ewe maid four gym!! Owe know!!

Sew, wear wood thee guise bye there read oar blew close - thee maul?

Due yew here watt eye here?

Aisle holed ate coax. Watt wheel ewe Carrie?

Hour thyme seams two halve flu buy! Watt dew wee due?

Eye halve maid sum grate pros, write?

That doesn't sound right.

There is this commercial for Special K (some sort of diet type of cereal, for those who don't know) that obviously did not have a proof-readerlistener before it was finished.
The sentence that was wrong was:

"Research shows that women who eat breakfast, like Special K, weigh less."

But the way it was said made it sound like:

"Research shows that women who eat breakfast, like Special K way less."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds

As a fan of the television show it was based upon, I had been wanting to play the video game for a while. Well, now it's done, and I'm here to share a little about it. I'll be putting stuff in spoiler tags, just in case. However, the tags themselves will be somewhat spoilery since I'm planning on going by levels. So if you don't want to know ANYTHING about the game,you should just click on that "Next Blog" button up on the top right now.

Okay.

First, let me say that overall I did find the game enjoyable (obviously, I mean, I went and beat it. That's a pretty rare accomplishment for me. I think in my life, I've completely beaten maybe a dozen video games. Heck, Banjo Kazooie is still waiting for me to totally complete.). However... there were some minor irritations. Some involving game design, some because of being a Buffy geek. Let's get those out of the way:
The biggest and most frustrating aspect of the game is a lack of saving. The only point that the game saves your progress is AFTER each level has been beaten. There are Continue Points along the way in the level, but those are only good for if you die. If you die, and decide to continue, you'll be revived at the last Continue Point you passed. However, if you turn off the game, or quit after dying, when you restart, you will be at the beginning of the level, no matter where the Continue Point was.
Some of the levels are VERY big, which requires being able to sit down for forty, fifty, 90 minutes at a time in order to complete it. Of course, after having done a level, even if you don't finish it, knowing where to go should make it simplier, so that could cut down on the amount of time it takes to complete each course. Still irritating, though, that you can't save along the way.

Another game design flaw is the camera. It follows your player around, usually staying a few feet behind whoever you are playing as. Like all 3d games, the camera is rotatable. However, aparently it can't go through walls, so if you are trying to get a better view of the area around you and it runs into a building, you'll have to rotate it the other direction. Plus, sometimes enemies would come at you from the opposite direction and you would not be able to see them until they had attacked you due to the camera swinging around. That, though, could usually be prevented by the audio cues given anytime a vamp would appear on screen.

The inventory access was another mild inconveience. Anything that was picked up along the way would go into the inventory, which would be accessed by pressing the grey crosspad on your controller either left of right to scroll what you were holding. To select what you want to use, you would press up on the pad when the item was shown on the screen. Running from vampires while trying to scroll through the inventory to get to the correct weapon was sometimes annoying.

Less about the game play, and more in regard to being a fan of Buffy, here were things that bugged:
Willow's voice-over actress. Holy. Crap.
Dude. I sound more like Willow then this person did.
I think she was just trying to hard to get the Willow mannerisms of speech down, and it comes across as such.

Um. Well, the next thing is sorta spoilery, so I'll tag it:
[Begin spoiler for General Chaos Bleeds - Highlight to view]
When Spike dies, he doesn't dust! First of all, he shouldn't be able to "die" unless he is staked or set on fire (or decapitated), so the fact that the enemies can punch or kick him to death is wrong. But when his health runs out, he should go 'poof'! It would've been cooler.
(Of course, then the problem might be that players who had a problem with Spike would spend all the time just letting him die and not finishing the game. Heh.)[end spoiler]

Oh, another thing that was ...unusual, at least, was the fact that Dawn was nowhere to be found. And they didn't even mention her! The game was supposed to have taken place during Season 5, as is evidenced by (Spoilers for Buffy S5 and Chaos Bleeds)Joyce's grave, Tara & Willow being a couple, the lack of Riley., so that seemed a little strange. Especially considering what the story arc for S5 was.

Okay. I'm taking forever to do this, and I haven't even gotten to the storyline of the game. Onward!

We'll go level by level.

[Begin spoilers for Chaos Bleeds, Level 1 - Magic Box]
The game begins in the Magic Box. A bunch of vamps come in, and you, as Buffy, get to defeat them. Punching and kicking do the job pretty well, but to actually 'dust' a vamp, you do have to use a stake (or some other weapon). Stakes are the easiest and most abundant weapon around, so that's what I used most of the time when playing as Buffy. Most weapons have a 'health' meter, and as it is being used, the meter goes down. Once it expires, the weapon will no longer be in your inventory and you'll need to use something else.
Other weapons include - shovels (very cool), pitchfork (ditto), wooden spikes (after the health meter on shovels and pitchforks gets down to zero, they "break" and become wooden spikes), bottles of holy water (rarely used) and hell-fire (also rarely used), the crossbow (difficult to master) and a few others.
Anyway. Vamps come in, Buffy makes short work of them. Before one of them leaves, he says something about Kakistos being in town. Hrm. Kakistos was a vamp in S3 who was killed in that episode, so Buffy is a little puzzled by this information.
The Scooby Gang splits up to check that there are no other vamps inside the Magic Box, and you get to play as Spike, Xander, and Willow during this level.
The level ends with them meeting back at the main floor of the Magic Box (who knew it had a basement??) and discussing what to do about the news that Kakistos is back.
Buffy decides to patrol the cemetery. Willow, Tara, and Xander all decide to go cast a spell in the location that Kakistos originally died in order to determine if he is alive again or not. Giles and Anya stick to the Magic Box to do research. Spike... I can't remember if he decides to help or not. Eh. He comes back later.
End of level.
Oh, and since the game gives this info... here is my rating for the Magic Box level:
Copmleted in 19 min 54 sec
Monsters Killed - 34
Secrets Found - 0/3
Continues Used - 3
Level Rating - Expert
[end spoiler]

[begin spoilers for Cemetery]
You play as Buffy, strolling around one of the many cemeteries in Sunnydale, killing vamps, solving puzzles, blah blah blah. Oh. Another thing I thought of that bugged - many times the only thing preventing you from going on to another place was a locked door.
Hello?? SLAYER!?? Buffy would just freaking kick the door open. This was especially irritating since in later levels some of the locks would be broken by Buffy in order to get past there. It's like, "Okay, she can break SOME locks..."
Anyway. In this level you need to find 3 pieces of a broken sundial. You put it together, and it lets you in some other area. Kakistos is in there, and he's all magical now. (??) He casts a spell in the cemetery that will start raising all the dead in there. Including, we are shown, Joyce Summers. You then have to attack his spell-orb thing in time before Joyce can 'wize fwom hew gwave'. (heh. That never gets old).
Oh, also, Buffy sees Sid - the puppet from the Season 1 episode "The Puppet Show". He gives her some cryptic message that I can't remember now. She's even more confused that he's alive. It's like all these people who once were dead are back in Sunnydale. Hmm.
Stats:
Completed in 78 min 39sec
Monsters Killed - 122
Secrets Found - 3/5
Continues Used - 3
Level Rating - Professional (note - I have no idea what the rating levels are. I am pretty sure that Slayer is the highest, but aside from that, no clue. Professional sounds good, though, yes?)

[begin spoilers for Blood Factory]
Meanwhile, Willow and Tara are trying to do the "is Kakistos dead" spell while Xander keeps watch for any vamps. The spell is pretty much a dud, not giving them any info. Suddenly, Ethan Rayne shows up, along with some tiny cute, hilarious demons... who then kidnap Tara.
A spell happens, and the area they are in suddenly ...changes, and looks like the Blood Factory that the Master was setting up in the season 3 episode The Wish. Xander and Willow are mightily confused, as they should be. However, there are people who need saving - both Tara, and folks inside the Blood Factory.
Willow goes off to search for Tara while Xander gets to play hero and rescue the hostages.
You play as Xander first. (This was the point when Saren said that Xander was funny and cute. Hee.)
This level was hard because if any of the hostages die while you are playing as the Xan-man, you lose. So you have to keep yourself safe as well as these others.
And the hostages are DUMB. I mean, they don't fight back or anything. And, then, once you free them, they just stand there. Seriously! I think I'd be running for the freaking door, myself, but I guess tramatic events effect people differently.
Xander had the best quips, too: "Stake. A vampire's last meal." and (after dusting a vamp) "It's more satisfiying when I pretend that they're all Spike."
Once you save all the victims, you swap over to Willow.
Willow (or, as she prefers to call her, "Will") is Saren's favorite character. And playing as her in the game, I can see why. She is able to cast spells, learning more as the game progresses. By the time you get to her last level (Sunnydale Mall), she really is pretty damn near invincible.
Once you track down Tara, you fight Ethan Rayne. You have to keep both Willow and Tara alive, which is rather difficult when Ethan is shooting magic fireballs in your direction. But, I did manage to do it.
Stats-
Copmleted in 92 min 23 sec
Monsters Killed - 79
Secrets Found - 0/3
Continues Used - 5
Level Rating - Proficient
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for Magic Box Revisited]
The Scoobies get back to the Magic Box to discuss the reappearance of Kakistos, Sid, and the Blood Factory, along with the fact that Ethan Rayne was there. Giles and Anya suspect that there is a bleeding of alternate dimensions going on, so Kakistos is actually from another reality. Also, Wesley called, and told them that Faith has broken out of prison. Like they don't have enough to worry about.
Will and Tara head to the hospital - Tara was injured at the Blood Factory. Buffy sends everyone home to get some rest. Giles goes downstairs to get ..something, and Kakistos warps in. He makes a threat to Buffy that Giles is alone, and he wants to get rid of her watcher.
You play as Buffy, making your way down to the basement, fighting vamps along the way.
Once there, you find a slightly injured Giles and two gargoyles locked up in the cages down there. You have to use gargoyle juice (or something like that) on them in order to destroy them. Since Giles can't walk, Buffy goes back upstairs, and has to locate the correct potion. Once done, you have to dip your stakes in it, then come back downstairs and kill the gargoyles.
Then, both you and Giles go up stairs again. But Giles walks all zombielike since he's hurt, and you have to protect him from harm.
Once back upstairs, you are going to take Giles to the hospital, when lo and behold, Faith is at the door of the Magic Box, along with Spike and Ethan Rayne as their prisoner. Yay!
Stats-
Completed in 27 min 15 sec
Monsters Killed - 34
Secrets Found - 0/2
Continues Used - 2
Level Rating - Expert
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for Downtown Sunnydale]
While Giles is in the hospital, Buffy, Faith, Xander, Spike, and Willow are beginning to interrogate Ethan.
He explains that he no longer worships the chaos demons, but instead is a follower of The First Evil.
The First promised to give Ethan a bunch of power if 5 warriors of his choosing fought (and won) against 5 of the First's warriors. Ethan chose the Slayer(s), and her friends. Now that they were all together in the same room, he cast a spell transporting them into an alternate Sunnydale. Faith, Xander, Willow, and Spike all warp out of the room. Giles tells Buffy before she disappears that to beat the First, she needs somethnig called Hope's Dagger.
Right before Buffy warps out, she grabs Ethan, so he goes with her.
Buffy and Ethan appear in the alt. Sunnydale, but her friends are missing. Ethan explains that they're hidden around the town somewhere. He gives her a potion to pour on them when she finds them to transport them back to where they are now.
You then run around a run-down Sunnydale until you find your friends and one at a time, pour the potion on them. Once you get all of them, you begin to return to where they are, and you run into Sid. He says he knows about Hope's Dagger and can help find it. End of level. (Trust me, I made it sound a lot easier than it was.)
Stats:
Completed in - 98 min 6 sec
Monsters killed -85
Secrets Found - 1/3
Continues Used - 1
Level Rating - Professional
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for Sunnydale Hospital]
Exposition time!
Apparently, Hope's Dagger is the only weapon that can hurt the First. Centuries ago, a woman named Cassandra Rayne wielded Hope's Dagger and fought the First. She didn't kill it, however.
But the First could not kill her, either. Instead, he managed to cut her into pieces and separeted her in the dimension they are in now. So, if they can find all of Cassandra and put her together, she could lead them to Hope's Dagger so they could take on the First.
Yes, Cassandra Rayne is Ethan's ancestor.
Sid knows this because the First ...actually, I don't know how he knows this. But, anyway, he knows that Cassandra's eyes are kept in the Sunnydale morgue, so that's where he and Buffy begin searching.
You get to be Buffy for a while, and you also get to play as Sid. It's really cool to run around as a 3 ft tall puppet, punching vampires in the crotch.
You then collect Cassandra's eyes. One piece down...
Stats-
Completed in 51 min 52 sec
Monsters killed - 90
Secrets Found - 2/3
Cont. Used - 1
Level Rating - Professional
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for High School]
Ahh, Sunnydale High.
In this, you are Xander. You run around, tyring to find five different pentagrams. On each one, you place a rabbit. (The rabbit disrupts Anyanka's powers. Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!!)
Once that's done, you fight Anyanka, which might have been one of the toughest bosses ever. Because in that fight, which takes place in the gym, there are three (or four? I can't remember) pentagrams that you have to put rabbits in in order to disrupt her shields. While that is being done, she is summoning those cute demons that kidnapped Tara - only this time they eat the rabbits. All 3 (or 4) pentagrams must have the rabbits in them, and THEN you can attack her.
The problem is that the rabbits come from the magic hat, which is in your inventory list. See above, re: Inventory Access problem.
But, I finally learned that the trick to beating her was to use Hell-fire. Good stuff, that. After Anya is gone, Xander collects Cassandra's leg.
Stats!
Completed in 110 minutes 59 sec
Monsters killed - 129
Secrets found - 1/2
Continues used - 3 (I used a LOT more than that actually GETTING there, but since I knew how to do the level stuff before, I guess I only used 3 the time I actually beat her)
Level rating - Professional
[end spoiler]

[spoiler for Old Quarry]
Faith!
This level I kicked ass in.
Saren said that Faith has a "screechy voice". Heh.
At one point in this, the sun is coming up, and sunlight is coming through a window of this old house. If you throw a vamp into the sunlight, they catch on fire. Cool.
Kakistos was a bit of a bitch to beat, at first, but when I figured out that killing his zombies gave HIM power instead of me, I focused on his magical orbs, and took him out, which allowed Faith to get another leg.
Stats
COmpleted in 73 min 1 sec
Monsters killed - 112
Secrets found - 3/3 (woo hoo!)
Continues used - 10
Rating - Slayer (WOO HOO!)
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for The Initative]
Spike.
Running around, fighting zombie soldiers and killer cyborgs. The cyborgs are a bitch, by the way.
The machine gun part was fun. Even if bullets shouldn't technically kill vampires.
The boss was Adam. There's a trick to killing him. You have to throw an EMP grenade at him - as he is holding a barrel full of explosives. Once I got that figured out, he was pretty easy. Spike then gets an arm of Cassandra's.
Completed in 42 minutes 44 seconds.
81 monsters killed.
3/4 secrets.
10 continues
Slayer rating.
[end spoiler]

[beging spoiler for Sunnydale Mall]
Willow again.
The worst parts were the voice, and how freaking BIG and complicated this level was.
The whole setting off the metal detector aspect was maddeningly difficult for me to figure out. And VampTara was pretty difficult to get rid of until I figured out the trick of using the possession spell to use her lackies against her. Once Willow's psuedo-girlfriend is killed (shouldn't all these people be in therapy for life from all the f'ed up things they've seen??), she collects the other arm of Cassandra.
Stat time -
Completed in 149 min 37 sec
173 monsters killed
1/3 secrets found
7 continues used
Level Rating - Expert
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for Sunnydale Zoo]
Buffy again. This level was HARD. And, actually kinda fun. The vamps, I noticed, were getting smarter - they would evade my attacks a lot better, and gang up on me more. Plus, they were meaner. All the vamps in the earlier levels would let you be if they knocked you down, and not attack until you got back up again. But in the Zoo level, they would kick you while you were down. Not cool.
Also in this level were vampire gorillas.
VAMPIRE GORILLAS!!!
One of the weapons you pick up in this level is a tranquilizer gun, which you use on one of the vamprillas. Aww. Poor thing.
At the end, the boss turns out to be Giles. Or, rather, since it's Giles from an alternate reality, this Giles never grew out of his "Dark Age", and grew up to be Ripper.
So, Buffy is forced to fight her Watcher. He turns out to be a really difficult boss, too. He makes five clones of himself, and you have to try to attack the real one in order to hurt him.
A trick I found was to use the tranquilizer gun on him because it slows him down, plus the tranq gun never runs out of ammo. However, one time I had been playing, and I don't know if it was because the GameCube had been on for so long, or if it just happened to be a glitch in the game, but I froze Giles in the air. He had like seven or eight tranq darts sticking in his body, and he was levitating, but he wouldn't move. And I couldn't hurt him. It was as though his body became an inanimate object. Which meant that in the end I had to quit the level, because there was nothing else I could do.
When I tried the next time, Saren was watching me. I kept getting killed, despite slowing Rupert down with the tranq gun, and using the shovel on him (the shovel was a great weapon to use on him. Also cool during this level. I was being attacked by two vamps at once. I used the shovel to beat one down to zero health, then turned on the other one. When you are holding a fancy weapon and you press the "use" button, generally, you will do a move with it (ie, swing it around, twirl it like a baton, whatever). I pressed the use button with the shovel at the same time that the two vampires were around me. Buffy staked the one behind her, and the one in front of her simulateounsly. It was totally something that they would've (did??) used in the show.)
Anyway. Evil Giles kept killing me, so Saren and I decided to start taking turns.
Long story short, Saren totally killed Ripper - without even using the tranq gun! Girl's got skillz.
Stats -
Completed in 60 min 51 sec.
104 kills
0/3 secrets found
7 continues used
Skill level - Proficient
[end spoiler]

[begin spoiler for The First's Lair]

Finally! After killing Ripper, Buffy gets Casandra's torso (and head). She ends up back with the rest of the gang, and Cassandra Rayne gets put back together. She takes them to the First's Lair, which is a big honkin' castle that I never noticed before. (heh) Inside is Hope's Dagger, which can not be yielded by Cassandra anymore (because she's a lost soul [??]). Fortunately, there is a Slayer there (two, actually, but Faith's slayerness isn't even mentioned to Cassandra) and a Slayer can take Hope's Dagger.
During this movie part of the game, Ethan and Cassandra are sniping at each other, because he's her descendant and he's turned to the dark side. Cassandra says how disgusted she is with him, but that her morals prevent her from doing anything to him. Spike says, "Allow me," and punches Ethan out - and the chip doesn't get activated!!
GAH!!!
Ethan's unconcious body then warps away - apparently the First has plans for him yet.
Buffy goes into the castle, and you make the way through the final level.
Once you find Hope's Dagger - a pretty cool sword that glows - you get to face the final boss: Ethan Rayne, or maybe The First Evil in Ethan's body. It's not really clear. But there are 3 Bringers there, each in a pentagram on the floor. As long as there is any one Bringer alive in a pentagram, Ethan will have a force field around him. The Bringers simply kneel in the pentagrams and pray (hee!) until you attack them, then they fight back, but Ethan shoots magic at you. So, the trick to beating him is to take out hte Bringers one at a time until his field is removed, then attack him - but you can only hurt him with Hope's Dagger. Also, you can only hit him with it once each time. Because when you hit him, he knocks the Dagger out of your hands, and his field starts to regenerate due to more Bringers coming back.
It took a little time to get used to the pattern, but overall, he was a pretty easy boss.
Once he dies, the gang shows up in the castle. Buffy says to Cassandra that she is sorry about Ethan. Even though he was a jerk and all, she didn't want to leave him to die. Cassandra says she has some power left in her, and since they're family, perhaps she can heal him. She starts to glow, and kneels down and touches him. He is revived, and ...I don't really want to give that part away. It was pretty cool, though.
Oh, and before Cassandra disappears, she explains that even though The First can never be killed, Buffy has succeeded in spreading it's power out so that it is not concentrated in one dimension, and that it will be centuries before it can regather it's strength again.
Um. Or, you know, a couple of seasons.
She then proceeds to go to a higher dimension, or whatever. So, too, does Sid. As for the others, Willow can feel that the dimension they are in is "starting to unravel", and they warp back to their home dimension, around Giles, who is still in the hospital.
The last shot is of Ethan, also back in our dimension, vowing revenge on the Slayer.
Stats for the last level:
Completed in 120 min 49 sec
111 kills
2/3 secrets found
13 continues used
Professional rating.
[end spoiler]

It feels all weird not to have a game to go play now. But, on the bright side, we have Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1: Disc 1 arriving from Netflix in a day or two, so my Buffy fix can continue.

Man, that was long. And most likely pretty boring to read, but, I did warn you.

In your face, First Evil!!

Yep. Beat the game today. Longer, fuller entry tomorrow. Right now, we're heading off to The Island to spend time with Ewan McGregor!

Never eat in Mesquite.

Words to live by.

I had stuff to say, but we have a Netflix movie (Matchstick Men) to watch, so I'll be ultra-brief:

1) Saren is on the phone with one of her friends, and she's helping her to learn her right and left. It's pretty cool. She's devised some sort of color circle system that I can't fully comprehend since I'm not listening all the way, but it's still neat that she's teaching her. I think they want to do that in order to do some kind of dancing instructions over the phone.

2) Apparently, I look like "that guy from Passion of the Christ." Or Jamie Kennedy. Heh. They should combine those. Jamie Kennedy as Jesus. "You've been Xed!" HEE!

3)Dim Sum = Death. Stupid food.

4) I have about four days to beat my Buffy game. (I want to beat it by the time the Season 1 DVDs arrive from Netflix...)

5) Time to watch the movie!

blahg

You ever feel kinda restless, and sorta not? Where you want to hit "restart" on your whole life, but at the same time, not? Where you feel like you want to have your body explode, but, you know, that might make a huge gory mess that you'd rather not leave behind?

It's HOT. I know I say that every summer, and I know everyone knows that it's hot in Las Vegas, but, really, unless you have been here the past weekend or so, you have. no. idea.
The city of Las Vegas had Excessive Heat Warnings for the Saturday and Sunday which just passed. I stepped outside long enough to drive to the corner market on Saturday, and it was, literally unbearable. Like, inside of an oven hot. People are not meant to live in this type of environment. And by "people" I mean "Spish".

But, anyway. The heat has helped contribute to the overall blah-ness. And irritability. Because, oh, god, things piss me off so easily lately. And it's all little things, too. Like the DVD player suddenly deciding that it doesn't want to display video. Audio, fine. But no video. Hrm.
And the DSL deciding to stop working. (Fixed now.)
Or Saren's light in her room burning out - but the lightbulb that I replaced it with didn't work either, because it's the wiring that needs replacing.
Or the kitchen sink clogging and needing to be unclogged with a do-it-yourself bladder attachment thing that was, of course, the wrong size, until we bought a new one.
And the fact that at work I can't send emails to anyone at tvguide anymore - just starting today. Still not clear on the reason behind that.

So all these little things are just extra incentive to us to get the hell out of hell. There's other stuff, too, but, blah.

In semirelated news, I might change my blog. But, maybe not. I like to keep ya'll on your toys. Or, um, toes.

On the bright side, I have reached the final level on Chaos Bleeds. Full report coming whenever I actually beat it.

I knew I should have blogged earlier.

We got back into town on Sunday, and now, a lot of the vacation is fogging up in my memory. Of course, that might also be partly due to the fact that it is 5:30 in the morning now, and i have to go back into work.

Anyway. (Really) quick update on how it all went down:

Left on the 5th - later than we probably should have. Got to our KOA campground at near sunset, set up the (complicated) tent in the dark, dealt with a horde of bugs, nearly called off the camping aspect then. (We didn't, but the happiness level at the time was pretty low)
On the 6th - went to the zoo. Neat fact that I did not know before - Apparently "San Diego Zoo" translates into "My feet are killing me". Who knew?
The zoo was neat, but also kinda sad. We spent about 8 or 9 hours there, I think. And by the end of the day we were exhausted. Too much walking. Too much sun. Steph's got good monkey pictures, though, so there's that.
Dinner that night was at the next-door Denny's. Where we were served coupons for "Kids get in free to the SD Zoo" along with the girls' meals. Too little too late. Oh well. We ended up giving them to "the children" (long story, I'll cover it later. Or Steph will.).

7th - went down to Seaport Village near downtown San Diego (don't take my word for that, since I am directionless). Had lunch with Cindy (starshine from the WD) and her son, Patrick. I must say that Patrick is a really cool guy. (Heh.) And it was nice to be able to see Cindy again. They're still on vacation (in fact, today, they are going to Legoland (I'm jealous) and it sounds like they've got a full plate ahead of them. I'm glad that we were both able to make our schedules fit so that we could meet up again. Cindy is good people.
After we parted ways, we did some more shopping at the Seaport Village, and we were going to go look at Old(e?) Town(e?) or Balboa Park, but instead decided to drive up to our hotel near Legoland, since that was the next day's destination. (Oh, yeah, we unpacked the tent and camping stuff that morning.)
The drive up to Carlsbad took FOREVER because apparently everyone decided to drive on the freeway at the same time. California driving is crazy.
Got to the hotel and was quite happy to sleep in a real bed again.

8th - woke up, had breakfast, met the Happiest McDonald's Employee on the Planet, drove down to Legoland... and it was open! Hooray!! We got there around 10:45 or 11. Had a GREAT time, for the most part. At the end of the day, the girls (and Steph and I) were saying that it was too bad that it closed so early (they closed at 8pm), but we did manage to squeeze in quite a few rides before leaving. The Dragon was probably the one the girls enjoyed the most. Even Harper! Splash Battle near the end of the day was a great ride that I took Saren and Harper on while Steph stayed behind with Irina. Having the Bean with us meant that we had to trade off a lot of the time, but it was still a good time. Legoland is no Disneyland, but it is still vastly enjoyable.

9th - Left the hotel, had breakfast, went to the beach, so that Irina could experience the Ocean for the first time. She liked it when she was being held, but othersiwe, not so much.
Saren and Harper and I all took turns burying each other in the sand.
I ended up getting burned on all the parts of my body that the sunblock did NOT cover, so i've got oddly shaped burns on my back. Bah.
Quite fun, though.
Headed back around 330pm, and got back home around 10 (there was major traffic right at the Nevada border due to lane closures).
When we got home we saw that Lickorish was skinnier, but we couldn't find any kittens. We ended the night kinda sourly, believing that she had had them, but that one of the males had ended up killing them, or perhaps they had died of natural causes, and then the bodies had been eaten. [frown]

10th - Steph woke up around midnight because she heard mewing coming from Harper's room. Turns out, the kittens had NOT been consumed. yay! Lickorish had, at some point while we were gone, given birth to two kittens. One pure white, one all grey with black stripes. Both were underneath Harper's bed. Sadly, the grey one was no longer alive. (Not sure why it died, exactly. It doesn't appear to have been killed on purpose, we think it was just too weak to survive somehow.) After we went back to bed, we woke up in the morning, and just kinda lounged around all day. The girls were thrilled to have a newborn kitten to examine/play with, and my repeated sayings to everyone that we are NOT keeping this kitten go pretty much unheeded. [sigh]
The other kitten was given a funeral around 7pm. The girls deocrated the "coffin" (shoebox) with pictures and post it notes. Saren even made a cardboard headstone.

11th - I woke up at 4am (partly due to the sunburns, partly due to knowing I had to wake up early to go back to work). Waking up that early made me think that I should never blog again, and that I should quit my job, and that we are never going to get out of this house, and a multitude of other negative things. But. I have blogged. And I'm not going to quit my job (yet). And we ARE going to get out of this house. And on top of all that, today, you can go in to any 7-11 and get a free (small) slurpee.
Life is good.

Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat.

Again?

Randomness -

While out at Target today, I said, "It's fitting that we're shopping today."
Steph said, "Why?"
I replied, "Because it's the 4th, and what could be more American than shopping?"
I then added, "Well, killing."

Irina laughed.

Irina also laughs everytime the First Evil shows up during the Buffy game.

still no kittens! I think Lickorish is giving Claire a run for her money on longest gestation ever.

Today we bought(among other items) lanterns for camping. We are now much less likely to be eaten by a grue! Yay!

We're also a two-cell-phone phamily now. Grumble. I thought the idea was to become less connected to the mainstream way of life. Oh well. We've now doubled our chances of becoming phone-crazies. Yay!

Man, aside from the driving all over the place, and going to other states, it feels like I've been dusting vamps left and right for hours. Once I beat Chaos Bleeds (probably in a day or three after we get back from San Diego), I'll make a big ol' post about it. Which will most likely be pretty boring to anyone who either a)isn't a Buffy fan
or
b) doesn't own the game
but, um, well, at least you all know it's coming now.

The TV show Medium... man, that makes my brain hurt. Not in a good way.

When I get back to work (ugh. I didn't want to mention work. Doh.) ANyway, when I get back to work, I have to re-request my time off for September for the Unschooling Conference. I requested (and was approved) the 6th, 7th, and 8th off, but those are the days of the conference. Which is in New Mexico. Which means I need to ask off the 5th as well (I should have the 4th off already, seeing how it's Labor Day) so that we have time to drive down there. If I can't get that off... well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, no?

The next four days are going to be busy as all get out. Expect a whole lotta updating when we return.

June Mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
Year to date is now 6271.6