hellziggy

Well, looks like hellbob & I aren't going to go to Florida. It was just too short of notice for anyone to come with us to help with sharing the costs. We do plan on going at some point though. Just not at the end of January.

This also means that I won't get to meet spankspike & girlpire and drive hellbob crazy with three women all babbling about how much we love Spike.

My cousin wants to take her little girl back to Disney, but she wants to go for a full week rather than just a weekend so we're going to consider that. Also, there was much interest in a large group going to Vegas in the fall. I dunno.

I think for the long weekend hellbob and I will be going to spend the weekend in the Wisconsin Dells because it's close enough to drive, but it will still get us out of town. If we decide on that for sure, then we will have to either go to Madison or you Madison people will have to come to us. OK, bloodlossgirl, bleaknimue, uglyzebras, etc?? Cuz from looking at the map, Madison is pretty close to the Dells.

Not a lot else new in life...

I'm working on making Jayne hats for Mike & Beth.

I got to hang out with genevra and the monkeys today. Yup, still have the cutest niece & nephew ever!

Went to the KalHouse last night to play Killer Bunnies with kaldeth, kalfoley, YoungestGirlChild, and hellbob. Now that I have ALL the boosters available that is a ridiculous amount of cards! :)

I didn't work on the Christmas letters at all this weekend, but I did put together two jigsaw puzzles.

On Thursday night when I was in class the teacher, (he's the same one I had for Photoshop last semester) after asking how my break was, asked if Moose had gotten to go anywhere interesting over break. He agreed that Iowa isn't that interesting.

I've watched all the Doctor Whos now. Now I need Season 2!

Through the Coverville christmas shows I discovered a new band that I just love: Save Ferris. I'm told that their style of music is ska, which I had heard of but had no idea what is was. All I know is that I used the Tower Records certificate Brian had sent me to get their two albums and I really like 'em!

I've also been enjoying the heck out of the ADDCast. Paul has a lot of the same geek interests as me and when he wanders off on tangents my ADD brain has no problem following his. *grin* Although when he suggested I send an audio comment I declined. Like most people, I hate the way my voice sounds on recordings. I'll stick to email, thank you very much.

I'm thinking that i need to make a 'covers' playlist in iTunes because I've been collecting so darn many of the things lately.

There's a guy I work with who is in a band. They have an album that will be coming out in early February. The band is called Vicious Aloysius. The album will be called Cavell. They have a myspace page where you can hear samples of the music:
clicky for the myspace page

Alright kids. I'm gonna stop babbling now and head to bed. I have to work tomorrow, unlike some other people in this house. :(

Long day... Work always seems to last longer when you're not feeling well. At least my voice sounds like pure shit so if I were to call in tomorrow no one could suspect me of faking it. And if I get to work and decide I can't deal with it I can always try to bail out after my doctor appointment. So I'll be in to work at about 7:00 and then have to leave at 8:00 to go to the doctor. I would just sleep in, but I don't want to deal with making up any more time than I have to. Dr. R better give me some of that lovely codeine cough syrup!

Tomorrow night is The Gear Daddies!!! Barry Manilow!!! with mle292, 7thstranger, and Jeanine! And Jeanine won two tickets from Drive 105, so we ALL get to go for free! Yay! No matter how crappy I'm feeling I can't miss a free Gear Daddies show! And since the clubs are non-smoking now I don't need to worry about the smoke making my throat worse.

I am hellbobless tonight. He's up north with his sister to visit his grandma and to go to Mrs. Marko's wake and/or funeral. Poor HB. *sigh* But on a happier note, there is no way that even 10 years ago he could have gone up north with his sister because they wouldn't have been able to stand spending that much time together. In the last few years, they've managed to actually become *gasp* friends!

Things to do before the new year:
1. submit flex spending reimbursement forms Yay for getting tax-free money back! Boo for the price of meds!
2. get holiday cards ready to mail
2.5. mail holiday cards
3. submit entries for NAPP's Digital Canvas awards
4. grow new lungs to replace the ones horked up

I feel like I had important things to say last night, but I never did an entry.
I got home & heated up a bowl of lucky13charm's delicious homemade soup that she delivered to me at work and right after promptly fell asleep in the recliner. Hey lucky, did you drug the soup??
So I woke up at about 9 pm and stumbled into the bedroom. I'm relatively sure that hellbob came home at some point since he was there in the morning but I couldn't tell you when.

Zoo news: from bombalurina's LJ (passaddhi & lucky13charm you should friend her. She volunteers at the zoo & posts the zoo news she gets)
"Four Slender-tailed meerkats were born 29 November" Baby meerkats!! *squee!!*

Hey chebutykin, octopii!!!!!
"Work on the octopus exhibit continues. The exhibit could possibly be ready by Christmas but due to culturing issues, may not open until the first of the year"

Moose went a-visiting today. Yesterday I was packing up a box of checks here to send down to lucky13charm and a certain little moose found his way into the box. I knew he arrived safely when I got an email that just said "MOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in big letters. *grin*

Busy weekend coming up: Dinner at Forepaugh's tonight with Jeanine (and yes, I will have her take a picture of me in my new outfit), midnight show of Narnia tomorrow, Mason Jennings concert on Saturday night, and pretty gay cowboys on Sunday with lucky13charm and nicepersonality

I woke up feeling vaguely snuffly. I sense an impending doom cold. Urgh.
Oh well, it happens at least once every winter.


It snowing today. As in great big-ass fluffy SNOW. So pretty! From the windows, at least... probably not so much from the roads.


Erik managed to procure us two of these. Yup, sitting on my kitchen counter right now I have bottles of sodapop in the flavors: Turkey & Gravy, Corn on the Cob, Broccoli Casserole, Smoked Salmon Pate, and Pecan Pie.

Jones Soda came out with the Turkey & Gravy flavor for Thanksgiving in 2003 and because of the overwhelming popularity they did a five flavor Thanksgiving pack last year. I didn't hear about it until it was impossible to find.

This year I thought there was no hope because I didn't hear about them until after they'd been out a few weeks but Erik had just seen the regional packs at his local SA so we asked him to get us two. One for me & hellbob to open up and taste, and one for us to either hang onto as a weird novelty or to sell on ebay if the going price is higher than retail.


I got MonkeyCuddles yesterday!
Yay!
After work I went right to genevra's house and was climbed on by the GiggleMonkey and the TechnoMonkey.

lucky13charm also joined us and we played with the twins and laughed at Serenity done by hand puppets. Since it is the plot of the Serenity movie, there are obviously spoilers in there!

We also listened to the sex music CDs because when genevra looked at the list of songs on the one mle292 made she was like "Weird Al? There's a Weird Al song on a sex mix?" So of course I said she had to listen to it, which led to us playing all three discs (although she had control of the remote so if she didn't care for a song she would skip to the next...)

And when talking about podcasts and also how much we all love dakegra's voice & accent we discovered that lucky13charm hadn't heard his reading of The Gruffalo, or the time he did a BeanCast. Yup, that little Eddie Bean has the cutest little voice, all British sounding and such. :)

And then I came home and slept and woke up all snuffley.

I don't have a husband this weekend because it is Geek Boy Gaming Weekend. hellbob, akdar, mhuot, and many others are all huddled in front of their computers in mhuot's basement eating junk food and shooting at each other.

Bleah. I feel like a nap.

Geekgiving was good. The food was good. genevra didn't disguise the gravy or poison anyone. I love her mother-in-law who brought over three desserts because she "was making one of each anyway and it's just as easy to make two."
*edit* You will note that in the comments, genevra says that she hasn't poisoned anyone in years, not that she's never poisoned anyone...

My daddy & hellbob are trying to figure out the best way to wire our new garbage disposal. So far it seems relatively calm and hasn't degenerated into The Rick & Jim Show.

I haven't left the house today and have no ambition to do so. This means that today's picture will be somewhere in the house and most likely very boring.

We're ordering pizza for dinner because my lack of ambition extends to cooking.

It does not, however, extend to the Christmas letter which is actually done. First draft at least. I just have to have hellbob read it and tell me what I forgot, and do a few minor tweaks of things like margins. Then I need to get all the addresses together for sending them out...

Most of the pretty snow is mostly gone because it was warm today. And foggy.

I want chocolate.

We went to The Ice Harvest yesterday. Not quite the dark comedy the ads portrayed it as. More dark, not so much comedy. But it was good, because, duh, John Cusak. A John Cusak movie has a 95% chance of not sucking. Although I did notice that the older he gets, the more he looks like Alan Rickman.

Home from another fabulous OmegaCon. It was lucky13charm's first one and she didn't seem too terrified of the geeks.
Some random phrases & stuff from the weekend:

Me, after smelling a glass of bourbon - "Oh my god! It smells like my mother!"

Slutty Pippi Longstocking

"It's like leprosy, only fun."

About a picture of a man in a loincloth - "When you move, his nipples follow you..."

"He killed a lot of whores." - this was the Salad Bowl clue given for Jack the Ripper.

There was a picture of Godzilla on our hotel room wall, until you turned on the lights, then it was a Ruffed Grouse.

This year's video game obsession? Crack Ball, aka Katamari Domacy. I did not play, therefore I did not get trapped in one room all weekend.

Dippy the retarded deer.

Prime Rib is finger food.

Number of sets of pajama I went to OmegaCon with? 3
Number of sets that I came home with? 4

"What happens at OmegaCon stays at OmegaCon."

Comic book coloring as performance art.

Just for 7thstranger - "Oh, oh Geoffrey, right there. You've got it." Hee hee hee! mhuot has the FTP for the site up, so I shall have to get that mp3 out there for everyone to enjoy. *insert evil laugh*

There will be pictures and stuff tomorrow.

It's 4:20 am.
The last folks left at about 3:30 am and my very tired hellbob went to bed while I took care of some of the cleaning up.
Hopefully a good time was had by all. For less than a week's notice we actually had a fairly large turnout.
It's late and I'm tired so I'll forget some people, but some of the folks who made it were (in alphabetical order, not order of appearance) akdar, davidkingsley, dragonsden, frozendragon, genevra (with TechnoMonkey and GiggleMonkey), gingerpookgunthar, irish_dragon, jmanna, kaldeth, kalfoley, two of the kalChildren, mhuot, michaellee, moneygod, montechristobo, nicepersonality, passaddhi, petsnakereggie, shrique (With non-LJ wife and child), windelina, our neighbors Steve & Tammy, and their friends Glen, Carol, Kelly and Daniel, some of Rick's past & present co-workers, Jeanine, Mark, Art & Marnie (and child) and a guy that Rick invited when he was at the liquor store. (Actually, he ran into his friend Jeff at the liquor store and invited him. It wasn't just a random buying alcohol guy...)
I know there were other people here too, but it's now 4:30 am. I don't remember who. :) Heck, if it wasn't for the LJ client making it so easy to put user names in I would have missed half those people in the list too!
When it was just a few of us left, we settled in to watch the Family Guy Stewie Uncensored DVD which hellbob and I hadn't watched yet. Wicked funny! Comic genius, I tell ya!
And now it's time to sleep!
Thank you to you all who showed up, and I hope you had a good time!
Nighty-night!

Hey everyone! Isn't it just a beautiful Monday morning?


Ok. That's enough of faking that cheerful crap! My weekend was fair to mediocre. Friday was Serenity with hellbob, passaddhi, Passaddhi Roomate, lucky13charm and a buncha people we ran into there like 7thstranger, mle292, squeaky, michaellee, frozendragon... (yes, I got tired of coding the funky lj name links! I'm at work, no LJ client, deal with it!)
The movie was Shiny & every bit as good as I remembered. Again, I do have a Serenity filter for any and all post/comments with spoilers. Anyone spoiling the movie in an unlocked thread on my LJ will be flogged. Unless they enjoy being flogged. Then the punishment will be to not be flogged. Anyway, if you've seen it and not seen a flocked spoiler post comment to be added to the filter. After the movie hellbob took his tired old but home and I joined mle, 7th, and crew at TGIFridays for post movie munchies & chatter wherein we discussed the furry's dream job, porn, and other wonderful things.
Saturday I felt like crap. Nothin' specific. No headache, nausea, etc. Just felt off. Slept most of the day. Apparently while I was sleeping hellbob talked to me on three separate occasions and I have absolutely NO recollection of it. We're talking beer/Yukon Jack/Tequila/other stuff all in one night levels of no recollection. (Without the drinking, or hangover)
Bleah.
Sunday I was feeling a bit better but still no energy. I did fold & put away laundry. Hellbob will tell you that this is an amazing feat in and of itself.
And now it's Monday. And I'm at work. And I don't want to be.
But I think I am going to join the photo_speakeasy crew for some shooting tonight maybe. And tomorrow is school, and Wednesday I'm going to a free preview of W & G Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Thursday I'm going to a free preview of Waiting... and then it is Friday.
I have to get my butt going on my next photoshop assignment. The assignment is "movement." I've got some ideas I'm working on... I also have to finish my Toronto recaps. All I have left is the last day in Toronto & the drive home, so just the one post. Then I will likely go backdate the entries so they are grouped together.
Now, lunch is over, back to work!

First, the family: J & D are doing pretty well. They're currently in a hotel, and the insurance company will be getting them an apartment in the near future. Right now they really don't need much because any stuff they get wil have to be hauled around to wherever they go next. Yesterday hellbob & I took the kids. The original plan had been to go down to the MN Zoo, but the weather said "No. You can't! I am evil and cold and rainy!" So we took the kids to the Mall of America and Camp Snoopy instead.

As for me, I've not been up to much. My class this semester is Advanced Photoshop, but it hasn't really been anything too tough for me yet. Heck, there's been stuff he's teaching us that I've been doing for a while now. But there's also new stuff.

Theoretically I'm still working on finishing the Toronto Con report. Which really shouldn't be too tough. I think all I have left is the CN tower and the drive home. I've also been gradually going back through old journal entries and adding tags. It's quite the pain in the butt, since I've got 3 years worth of random babblings. At least it will also give me a chance to find any broken photo links from back in the day before I had dreamflyte.com.

Less than a week to Serenity! Woo hoo! Can't wait to see the Big Damn Movie again!

I feel like I should have more in my life to talk about, but I really don't. Just been working, trying to watch all the new shows Tivo's recording for us, etc. I'm still completely addicted to podcasts. The ones I never miss are: The Signal, This Week in Tech (TWiT), the MacCast, and Coverville.

Speaking of Coverville, show #129 has to be one of my alltime favorites! It was all covers of rap songs done in different styles. Gin and Juice by Snoop Dogg done in a lounge style! And I totally loved Nina Gordon singing Straight Outa Compton Even if you don't want to listen to all the episodes of Coverville you should make sure you catch that one!

K, since I really don't have much to say & it's almost 1 am, I think I need to go to bed.

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
I just saw Lorelei from Gilmore Girls referred to as Lorelei Gilmore-Danes.
*pout*
I've only ever watched it on DVD, which means I've only seen seasons 1-3. And they're on what? Season 5? 6?
So there are things that have happened that I didn't know about yet. I've actually been able to avoid finding things out that would spoil unwatched seasons for me... Until now. Dammit!
I know, the whole Lorelei/Luke thing is pretty damn obvious. But still, I didn't need to know!

*edit* K, so it was pointed out to me that as of the end of last season she was still Lorelei Gilmore. I saw the name Lorelei Gilmore-Danes on fandomhigh, but it must be wishful thinking on the part of that particular RPGer. *whew*
She can marry Luke Danes (or even Claire Danes), I just don't want to know before it happens! :)