Adraxis's Blog - 2old2play

XBox Live Support

I’ve been trying to set up an Xbox account for my mom, but haven’t had any luck. Below is the latest e-mail I’ve sent to support in my mom’s behalf. If anybody has any suggestions as how to fix this problem, please let me know. Obviously, Microsoft’s “finest” lacks the expertise to fix it.

This is my fifth attempt to get this problem resolved. I have been having trouble setting up a new account on XBox Live.

1. I tried to set up an account through the XBox, but I couldn't connect to live. I ran the system test and passed all tests except for the "XBox Live" test.

2. I contacted a support rep who kept asking me for my account information. Since I didn't have an account (because I couldn't connect), I didn't have any information to give him. However, he continued to ask repeatedly, so I hung up.

3. I called again. This rep was more of the same, but eventually I was able to get a little further. In the end, she said she was transferring me to "people who knew more then she did." After 15 minutes of waiting on hold, I hung up.

4. I called a third time. This time the rep told me to set up the account through XBox.com and that the Live service in my area was having some issues. I found this hard to believe since other people I knew in the same area weren't having issues at all. Anyway, the rep told me to set up the account and do a gamertag recovery. I set up the account, but since I can't connect to Live I can't recover the gamertag.

5. I contacted XBox yet again, this time through e-mail. This was on Monday, but I haven't heard anything back yet.

6. I am now paying for a service that I can't use and am highly pissed off. I've been trying to get on Live for over two months now and either the XBox reps aren't willing to help or just don't know how to help. I'm beginning to wonder if any of you people even own your own XBox. The Playstation3 is looking better and better.

7. This is my fifth time contacting your reps. If this situation isn't resolved soon, I'm really going to raise some hell.

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Random Thursday Thoughts

Is anyone else having a “Britney Spears Suicide Office Pool?” I have January 31 of this year. Most people don’t think she’ll off herself by then, but really what else is there left for her to do???

I’ve learned that job satisfaction doesn’t take the place of ambition.

A dog got attacked at the zoo. Since when did zoos become the most dangerous places in the world? And who brings their dog to the zoo anyway? Were the animals there just not good enough? And what was the dog thinking when it jumped into the tiger’s cage? Sounds like a case of natural selection to me.

If you don’t want me to buy more then $50 in gas at a time, then lower your gas prices!

If T.O. doesn’t play, we’re going to see how mediocre Romo really is. Not that I would mind. I despise the Cowboys and it makes me angry that they have to take up valuable TV time.

Miley Cyrus and that Jonas Brother guy broke up. I’m not sure which is sadder: The fact that this makes the news or that I’m aware of it.

How come if I tell you “It’s not my job” I’m not being a team player, but if I ask YOU for YOUR help I need to “take care of my own responsibilities?”

Iowa and New Hampshire are both screwed in the head.

The Patriots are a great team, but as of right now they are the second best team in the playoffs.

Why do people working in an emergency room move like there is anything but an emergency going on?

I still haven’t cleaned my garage. It seems I’m only motivated to clean it while I’m at work. When I get home that motivation switches to activities that make better use of my time (WoW, Halo, Mass Effect, etc.)

My sister got engaged. My future brother-in-law must have the patience of a saint.

“Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.”

--John Russell

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Random Thursday Thoughts

Okay, the title is completely misleading. I don’t really have any random thoughts today other then, “I love hot sauce.”

We were playing some custom games last night on Halo and a couple of funny things happened. The game type we were playing was shotguns, but you can only shoot from the back of a mongoose. You can also throw grenades while on the mongoose and you can use any of the equipment. Twice, Rendara had grav lift mishaps. The teams were Malephar and me against Rendara and Skorza. We were on Rat’s Nest and were racing toward Rendara. Rendara was on foot and pretty much defenseless. As we got closer she tossed a grav lift toward us and jumped backward. We hit the grav lift at full throttle and smacked into Rendara. It didn’t kill her, but it took her shields completely down and I was able to finish her off with one shot as she tried to run away. Later on in the same game, Rendara was hiding behind a cement barricade. We were driving around looking for her and she decided to throw a grav lift as we went past. Not only did she throw it way to early, she basically threw it right at her feet. The result was the barricade lifted into the air revealing a crouching Rendara. What made it even funnier is that she tried to crouch walk to get away.

After we watched that clip several times, we re-watched an old clip from back when Halo 3 first came out. Rendara was standing at the main lift on Construct and decided to try and throw a sticky grenade down the shaft. The sticky did a loopty-loo inside the lift, came back, and stuck her in the shoulder.

Weird story of the day:

It was New Year's Eve, after all, and people may be in altered states where they see lots of strange things. But three groups of San Diegans swear they were sober enough to report seeing strange orange-yellow lights in the sky about 30 minutes after midnight. And the National UFO Reporting Center said Tuesday it got enough "similar reports from across the country" to warrant a follow-up investigation. Ryan Keegan and his wife, Rachael, were leaving a friend's party at their apartment complex in Bay Park about 12:30 a.m. when they saw the unidentified objects. They went in and got their friends and took pictures with a cell-phone camera. "We saw four orange lights in a square and right behind there were three orange lights in a triangle," said Keegan, who is in the home-financing business and whose wife is a kindergarten teacher. "There was no sound, no flashing lights, no vapor trail, just solid lights." They continued to watch the sky and Keegan said the group saw four more lights appear about 12:45 a.m. The lights traveled east to west, then disappeared in the sky over La Jolla. Keegan said he and his friends had been drinking, "but we weren't drunk being that it was Near Year's." About the time same in Pacific Beach, Dustin Gannon, an amateur astronomer, said he and about a dozen friends saw the lights from the backyard of his home.

Gannon described them as nine red dots that traveled across the sky for about seven minutes. About a half-hour later, the group saw four red dots. They captured the images on video. "We're still a little freaked out," he said. "It was really crazy. It wasn't fireworks."

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=115490

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Mars Under Attack

The chance of a football field-sized asteroid plowing into Mars next month has been increased to 4 percent, scientists said Friday after analyzing archival data. Though still a long shot, some researchers are hoping for a cosmic smash. "I think it'll be cool," said Don Yeomans, who heads the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Usually when an asteroid is headed toward Earth, I'm not rooting for an impact." The space rock, known as the nondescript 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Based on the latest information available, scientists said last week there was a 1-in-75 chance the asteroid could hit Mars on Jan. 30. The odds were increased to 1-in-25 this week after a Ph.D. student pored through the archives and plotted the asteroid's motions before its official discovery. The new information allowed scientists to improve their calculations of the asteroid's orbit and flight path. Scientists will continue to monitor the asteroid to better predict the possibility of a Martian impact. Yeomans said he expects the odds to decrease with new observations gathered early next year. The likelihood of an asteroid hit usually "peaks before plummeting to zero with additional data," he said.

The asteroid poses no threat to Earth and is closing in on the Red Planet at 27,900 mph. Should a collision occur, it would likely blast a half-mile-wide crater north of where the rover Opportunity has been exploring since 2004. The impact could release energy similar to the 1908 Tunguska object that exploded over remote central Siberia and wiped out 60 million trees.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=115184

Went to the art museum in Indianapolis over the weekend. They had a Roman Sculpture exhibit on loan from the Louvre. It was pretty cool, but it was really crowded. We spent about four hours there. I would have liked to stay longer, but my sister and her boyfriend came with us and I could tell they were ready to go. The last time I went to the museum was about a year ago. They’ve opened up a lot of stuff since then.

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Happy New Year

Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year! It was a pretty good Christmas this year. I got my wife a curio cabinet for her knick-knacks she had stored in the garage. She got me a new rug for my man cave and a mini-fridge. My mom got me a laptop. Pretty cool gift considering my desktop computer is seven years old. Just over two years ago I tried playing Warcraft and Guild Wars on my old computer. The lag was just so bad I had to give up playing them both after a couple of months. The last couple of days I’ve loaded both games onto my laptop and they run great, so it looks like I’ll give them both another shot. If I get bored with either one I’ll probably start playing Star Wars galaxies again. I used to play Ultima Online (for about three years), but quit after our guild disbanded. However, I sold the account for a couple of hundred dollars due to the fact I had a cabin on some ocean front property. I had a lot of fun with Ultima, but I think it was mostly because of the group of people I was gaming with. I’m hoping to rediscover that with WoW or Guild Wars. I doubt if I’ll pull any all night gaming sessions like I did with Ultima, but you never know. That’ll depend on if I can get the wife interested in playing. She doesn’t think it looks like any fun, but she used to say the same thing about Halo.

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Random Thursday Thoughts

Damn, it’s been awhile seen I’ve had an entry and I really don’t have much to talk about. My life is even more boring then I thought. I’ll just ramble on about some random shit until I either get bored typing or my boss tells me to get back to work. Like she would do that. She’s not doing anything either.

Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.

Got the home theater finished, but I haven’t gotten around to taking any pictures. I usually think about it when I get home but then I get sidetracked and end up playing Mass Effect.

Tell someone there are 400 billions stars in the sky and they’ll believe you. Tell them the paint is wet and they just have to touch it.

Whose idea was it to put an “s” in the word “lisp”?

The holiday season…how stressful is that shit??? I don’t even do the Christmas shopping and I get stressed. Probably because the wife is stressed out constantly. Her family is coming to visit this weekend. They’ll probably spend the night. It has the potential to be really fun, but it also has the potential to be an utter disaster. My brother-in-law’s daughter always throws up at our house. Lookin’ forward to that.

Why do they sterilize needles for lethal injections?

I like the holidays, but I hate winter. I’m already counting down the days until spring. I tried hanging out outside in shorts and a t-shirt, but with the 30-degree weather it just wasn’t the same.

I just ate some pineapple for lunch, but I think it might have been bad. Tasted kind of sour. Guess I’ll find out for sure in a couple of hours.

If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Had a dream the other night I was an astronaut and a rock star. The rock star part was kind of surprising since I’ve never had a conscious desire to be one. Mostly, in the dream, I was just flying a space shuttle around space. I think I’ve been playing to much Mass Effect.

If swimming is good for your health, then why are whales so fat?

If I could have three superpowers they would be flight, underwater breathing, and the ability to stop and start time. I would kick major ass. And probably rob some banks. Hey, I’m saving lives. Ya’all owe me something!

It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

My garage is a mess. I’ve been meaning to clean it, but keep putting it off. There’s barley enough room to walk. There’s an extension to the garage off to the side that’s supposed to be the storage area. I was curious what was back there and decided to take a look. I ended up in Narnia. The white witch followed me back, took one look at the garage, and hightailed it out of there. She probably didn’t want to help clean it. I moved some boxes around and found a pool table. Thought about moving the pool table into the house, but decided it was too much trouble. Instead, I stacked some boxes in front of it.

Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?

I took all the junk out of the silverware drawer and put it in the junk drawer. My wife couldn’t find the tape. When I told her it was in the junk drawer she got mad and said it belongs in the silverware drawer. I told her that didn’t make any sense. We got in an argument about it. In the end, I made her a tape drawer. We keep our silverware in it.

If I were George Washington, I wouldn’t carry ID. I’d just whip out a dollar. That would be cool.

Does killing time damage eternity?

My mom has sent me three e-mails the last couple of days. That may not sound like a big deal, but that brings the grand total of e-mails she’s ever sent me up to…wait for it…THREE! She wants me to make a cheese ball and wanted to know what I wanted for dinner Christmas Eve. I told her tacos and nachos. We could have red and green tortilla chips to make it festive. I love tacos.

If I won the lottery I wouldn’t be like most people and quit my job. I’d stick around for a couple of weeks and make my boss’s life miserable. Then after I got fired I’d collect unemployment.

No one says, “It’s only a game” when their team is winning.

My house is clean, but my truck is a mess. It’s almost as bad as my garage. Not sure why I don’t keep my vehicles clean. I just have a bunch of junk I need to get rid of. Maybe I’ll put some of it in the silverware drawer.

Did Roman paramedics refer to IV’s as 4’s?

I’ve thought about taking up deer hunting. I like the idea of shooting the deer and I really like eating the deer, but everything in between just seems like work. I have some frozen deer meat in the freezer. I think I’ll just pull some of it out, shoot it, and then cook it.

Why isn’t 11 pronounced onety one?

I just ate a crapload of fudge. Later, I’ll probably be sick with a major headache. I regret nothing.

Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?

I have to go. The workday is over in about an hour. That’s just enough time to research any new gossip on Britney and check out the Mitchell report. Later.

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Movies and othe crap

Watched a couple of movies last night. One was “I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.” Based on the previews, my expectations were kind of low for this movie, but it turned out to be pretty good. It was a typical Sandler movie: over-the-top laughs with a good-hearted storyline backed by an awesome soundtrack. A couple of the jokes got stretched a little too long and/or often, but overall it was pretty funny. I’d give it a 7 out of 10. The other movie I watched was “The Invisible.” Its basic plot is the main character is hovering between life and death. Essentially, he is having a prolonged out-of-body experience where he’s trying to lead people to his body in order to save his life. While the “I’m dead (or almost dead), but able to interact with people around me” isn’t an original concept, it’s still a good one. Unfortunately, “The Invisible” really drops the ball and doesn’t deliver. There are no twists or unexpected occurrences and the movie ends up being as boring, as it is predictable. I give it a 4 out of 10.

And now, a short rant. Why do people feel the need to bring other people down? Today was the first real cold dead we’ve had this fall. I bought a new coat about a month ago and decided to wear it. A girl at the office asked if it was a new coat and I told her it was. She then proceeded to tell me how she has a coat made of similar material and that it will pick up lint and dirt, warning me how hard it will be to keep clean. I was thinking she was going to complement my coat, but instead she basically criticized my purchasing decision. Why do some people have to be that way?

Cool article from National Geographic:

We could have alien origins, say scientists who sent fossilized microscopic life forms into space and back inside an artificial meteorite. The researchers attached the baseball-size rock to the outside of the European Space Agency's Foton M3 spacecraft to test whether biological material could survive the round-trip journey. Sculpted from stone from the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland, the rock contained fossilized microbes and the molecular signatures of microbes. The unmanned spacecraft was launched by rocket from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying 43 experiments. The craft landed in Kazakhstan on September 26 after orbiting the planet for 12 days. "In the bit of rock we got back, some biological compounds have survived," said project leader John Parnell from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Preliminary findings suggest that its possible simple organisms could arrive via meteorites, he said.

The research also suggests that living microbes would likely have survived in a slightly bigger rock, he added. "This study of organic material is completely new," he said. Previous artificial meteorite experiments have examined only the degree to which rocks melt upon entering the atmosphere.

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Good to be home

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. All last week I was on a business trip at Lake Lanier, Georgia. When I got back to the office the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated on my desk made me want to run and hide.

As far as business trips go, this one wasn’t to bad. The flight down was pretty smooth, but flying out of Atlanta was a pain in the ass. I’ve flown out of Atlanta before and it’s always a madhouse, but I’ve never seen it this bad. It took me longer to get to my gate then it did to fly home. Anyway, back to the trip. Three meals a day were provided, which is pretty standard, but each meal was a fairly big buffet in the hotel restaurant. If we didn’t feel like having the buffet, we could order off the menu. It was nice not having to leave the hotel to find a place to eat. During the day, another buffet was set up right outside the conference room with muffins, donuts, cakes, fruit, coffee, tea, and sodas. At night, a hospitality room was set up with an open bar. I usually don’t drink in the middle of the week, but since they were giving it away I figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity. They also provided cards, poker chips, darts, a putting green, and a big screen TV. The room was pretty sweet and had one of the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a hotel. It would have been nice to have some free time during the day because I would have liked to have gotten in a round of golf or maybe do some fishing. I could have gone in the evening, but I was so wiped by the end of the day I just didn’t feel like going anywhere. However, I did have the foresight to bring the Xbox 180 with me on the trip. I’d intended on playing some Halo 2 over live while I was down there, but the room only had a wireless connection and my Xbox isn’t set up for wireless. Each night, I’d retire to my room and play Knights of the Old Republic for a couple of hours.

Speaking of KOTOR, wasn’t that just a great game? Sometimes I forget how good some of the games on the 180 were. When I first played Oblivion on the 360 I thought, “This is the best RPG I’ve ever played.” After playing KOTOR again, I have to change my opinion on that. Even though I like Oblivion and the wide-open game play, it just didn’t hold my attention like Knights did. I once played Knights for 34 hours straight, but I have yet to complete Oblivion. Not once playing Knights did I ever grow bored with the game. There have been plenty of times I’ve been playing Oblivion and eventually get tired of it after awhile. Oblivion is a great game, but honestly, I think KOTOR is better (admittedly, I’m a Star Wars fanatic so I may be a bit biased). Speaking of great RPG’s, I’m really hyped about Mass Effect. I didn’t start getting excited about Halo 3 until the day before it’s released, but I’ve been excited about Mass Effect for a few weeks now. I’ve always liked RPG’s better then any other type of game and from everything I’ve read, Mass Effect is going to rewrite the book. The storylines in RPG’s are usually what I like bets and Mass Effect sounds like it has a pretty good one. Game Informer gave the game a 9.75 with the only flaws being a couple of minor combat and AI issues. I can live with that. The RPG that I feel was the most fun (not the best; the one that gave me the most pure enjoyment) would have to be Dragon Warrior (or, if you prefer, Dragon Quest) on the Nintendo. Then again, I haven’t played it since I was in high school (i.e. a very long time ago). I wonder if I’d enjoy it as much now as I did then, but since it doesn’t seem to be showing up on Wii I guess I won’t know anytime soon.

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Leaky Roof

This weekend, we invited my sister and her boyfriend over for our first movie night in our home theater room. I wanted to do some drinking, but I didn’t want beer so I decided to try something different. I’d never tried Scotch before so I figured I’d give it a go and see how I liked it. I was pleasantly surprised and now have a new favorite drink! It’s definitely not something you drink quickly, but it had a smooth flavor and it didn’t take a whole lot to get me feeling pretty good.

It’s been raining quite a bit here lately. My wife called me this morning at work and told me the roof is leaking. For some reason, this really stresses me out. Our insurance will cover any repairs that need to be made, but it’s just a pain in the ass to deal with. Plus, I wonder if there’s much water damage in the attic and how long the roof has been leaking. The leak is in my wife’s makeup room, which is a room I almost never go into it. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in that room. My wife is in there every morning, but she’s usually getting ready for work so a leak could go unnoticed for quite awhile. Now, I’m going to have to take off work in order to meet the roofers. This wouldn’t be a big deal if I didn’t like my job. I’d much rather be at work then dealing with the roof people. I’m guessing the roof may have been damaged during some hailstorms we had earlier this year. During the summer, it didn’t rain much so even if it were leaking it wouldn’t have been enough to be noticeable.

I watched the “Hills have Eyes II” last night. What a big piece of crap that movie was. To me, it was kind of like “Wrong Turn” without the entertaining little mutant that runs around going, “Looo loo looo looo loo” with his arms above his head. It started off really gory and disturbing, but then turned into a huge snooze fest. On a scale from 1 to 10, I’d give it a 2.

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Another Year Older

Another birthday has come and gone. I’ll have to wait another year before everything can be about me! Had a pretty good time this year, though I wish it would have been a bit cooler. I went fishing on Saturday, but it got so hot and humid I ended up just sitting in the cabin for most of the day, eating tacos. We went swimming late in the afternoon and played five or six games of volleyball. Sunday I drank some King Cobra and watched most of the Star Wars trilogy. I think it was the first time where I just couldn’t make it through all the movies without going to bed. About of a quarter of the way through “The Return of the Jedi” I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Yesterday I did some birthday shopping. Picked up a couple of wireless headsets, some new flatware, and dishes for the kitchen. We also went to my favorite restaurant for lunch. Overall, it definitely wasn’t a bad weekend.

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Killin' Time on a Friday

Well, I didn’t stay up late as planned last night. I wanted to get into work early so I was in bed once again before ten. It kind of worked out, because the Geezer clan night with Profanity was rescheduled. Besides, I only got one invite and when I accepted, the party had already moved into matchmaking. I’m kind of surprised I even got one invite since I’ve become something of a Halo hermit over the past year. I need to get better about sending out and accepting invites. I’m not real sure what the hesitation is, because I used to be all about gaming with people from the site. Somewhere along the line, I moved away from it. There are a couple of people I just don’t like gaming with (covered more below), but for the most part it’s not like I’ve had a bad experience with a group or anything like that. Part of it may be the times I play. When I first got into Halo I worked second shift and would often play late at night. Now, I work a regular shift and I tend to be done playing when most people are just getting warmed up. Oh well, I’ll work it out. Besides, I’m sure my fellow Geezers would hit me up with an invite if I asked for one. They’re a great group of people.*

Speaking of people, I think I’ve been lucky when it comes to the people I’ve gamed with the past couple of years. I’m definitely not the most active gamer on the site (not even close), but I’ve gamed with quite a few people the last 2+ years. There’s only two people that I just don’t like gaming with.** I haven’t had any kind of incident with either one of these people; I just don’t like their personalities and the way they act. One of them is conceited, obnoxious, and a whiner. Sometimes I can stomach gaming with him/her for a little bit. I’ve known people like this in real life and can tolerate them in small doses. However, I try to avoid the second person as much as I can. He/she just seems to look for conflict, which by itself isn’t a bad thing. I surf the message boards once in awhile looking for a flame war just because it’s entertaining. The difference is, I don’t jump into the middle of it. This person jumps into the middle of the conflict and tries to make it about them. It’s like they need to have as much attention as they can get. In many of the conflicts I’ve seen on the message boards, this person thrusts themselves into the thick of things. I try not to read the message posts he/she puts on the site, but it’s like trying to avoid looking at an accident. Your eyes are just kind of drawn to the carnage. Being in a game lobby with this person is even worse. They have a tendency to try and take control of the party, boss people around, and not follow the rules of custom games. The best thing about this person is that if they are ignored long enough, they leave to go and get attention elsewhere. Admittedly (and oddly enough) this person seems to be fairly popular on the site, so maybe its just me.***

Okay, I was going to complain about a few other things, but in the middle of it my coworkers sprung a surprise birthday party on me. We just had cheesecake, chocolate cake, and ice cream. I even got presents! Pretty cool. Now I’m in to good of a mood to keep complaining. I hope everybody has a great weekend!****

*Rat bastards

**I only bring it up because controversy makes for a good read

***Yeah, right. The rest of you are just deluded

****Except for the people I was talking about earlier. And mean people. And Rock.

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Things to do at the Mall

10. At the bottom of an escalator, scream "MY SHOELACES! AAAGH!"

9. At the stylist, ask to have the hair on your back permed.

8. Ask a saleswoman whether a particular shade of panties matches the color of your beard.

7. Sneak up on saleswomen at the perfume counter and spray them with your own bottle of Eau de Swanke.

6. Collect stacks of paint brochures and hand them out as religious tracts.

5. At the pet store, ask if they have bulk discounts on gerbils, and whether there's much meat on them.

4. Hand a stack of pants back to the changing room attendant and scornfully announce that none of them are "leak proof".

3. Ask appliance personnel if they have any TVs that play only in Spanish.

2. Try pants on backwards at the Gap. Ask the salesperson if they make your butt look big.

1. Show people your driver's license and demand to know "whether they've seen this man."

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Less Sleep, More H3

This Thursday, the Geezers are having some friendly games against Profanity. I always sign up for these things then drop out because the start time ends up being the oh-so-late hour of 9:30pm. I’m usually in bed before ten because I want to make sure I get plenty of sleep so I can be alert for work the next day. I was about to drop out of this one as well when suddenly I asked myself, “When did I become such a wuss?” For the life of me, I can’t pinpoint when getting a full nights sleep became such a high priority. What happened to the days of going out on a Thursday until 4am, sleeping two hours, and heading into work bleary eyed, “slightly hung-over”, and smelling faintly of beer and some skank’s cheap perfume?*

Every time I back out on a clan activity, the next day I read about all the fun I missed. And for what? Seven hours of sleep instead of five? I sit at a desk all day and do paperwork. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to function without a full nights sleep every once in awhile.

*Disclaimer: I don’t really miss those days and prefer the stability I have now with my wife (love ya Rendara). Also, I’d like to apologize to any skanks I may have offended. I’m sure some of you have very nice perfume.

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Birthday

I gotta admit H3 is growing on me. It’s nice to be able to go into matchmaking with some friends without having to worry about the cussing and racial slurs that come from “Timmy.” Over the weekend, Rendara managed to attain a higher ranking then me even though we pretty much played the same number of games. I think what did it is when we got separated due to lag and she was put into a team slayer match by herself against four other people. She managed to win by getting the lead and then hiding out, using guerilla tactics.

Our movie poster came in this weekend for the home theater room. We bought the frames and the art lights and started mounting them on the wall. I also managed to get most of the floor lighting installed over the weekend. As soon as the last chair arrives I'll post some pictures. There were some reservations about how it would look, but it turned out great! This week, Rendara and I are going to watch our first movie in the new room. I think we’re going to watch “Freddy vs. Jason” since that was the first movie we ever saw together.

This next weekend I’ll be celebrating my 36th birthday. October 8th is my actual birthday, but Rendara and I have a deal where we get either the whole weekend before or the whole weekend after our birthdays to celebrate. Basically, the birthday person gets to do whatever they want the whole weekend. It’s a chance to be completely selfish with no feelings of guilt! Friday after work, I’ll probably be playing H3 all evening and maybe some Oblivion. Saturday I’m getting up relatively early and going fishing out at my parent’s house all day. For lunch, were making beef, chicken, and fish tacos and of course there will probably be cake. I’m hoping for a cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. Sunday, I’m going to watch the Star Wars trilogy and get drunk (King Cobra malt liquor), which has been a birthday ritual of mine for fifteen years. Monday, I have the day off work and Rendara is going to take me to a Japanese restaurant I really like for lunch. After that, I’ll probably be gaming it up the rest of the day or maybe rent a movie or two. Oddly enough, since Rendara and I have been together, it has rained on my birthday. This has led to me smoking one cigarette, with Rendara, in the rain (even though I’m not a smoker). I figure if it doesn’t rain this time I’ll get the garden hose and make some artificial rain. As for gifts, I haven’t really asked for much other then the LE H3 headset. Rendara is going to get me a belated gift and buy me Mass Effect when it comes out. Well, time to get back to work and count down the days until my birthday weekend.

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Home Theater

Thankfully, the home theater room is almost done. Last week I went and picked up the carpet. A couple days later I went back for the movie risers. Funny story about the movie risers. When I built them, I made sure to take careful measurements so they would fit the width of the room exactly when they were side by side. After I got them carpeted, I was proud to see that they looked like a professional had built them. However, when I got them home, it became apparent they wouldn’t fit down the stairs! I felt like such a bonehead. We ended up peeling some of the carpet back, partially disassembling the risers, moving them downstairs, putting them back together, and tacking the carpet back down.

Over the weekend Rendara worked on the curtains and got them all done. Almost all our furniture we ordered came in yesterday. We have two rows of seating. The first row is made up of three chase lounges that sit side by side and the second row is home theater seating. One of the pieces didn’t come in for the home theater seating and it will be at least another week before it comes in. All in all, the room looks pretty sweet. We ordered most of our movie posters over the weekend, but we still need to do the floor lighting. Probably take care of that this weekend.

Also last night, like most of the known world, I played some Halo 3. Rendara and I just played some of the campaign. Haven’t tried the multiplayer yet. I’m reserving any strong opinions about the game until I’ve played it more. So far, I don’t think it’s any better or worse then Halo 2 was when it came out, which isn’t a bad thing. The graphics are certainly better.

The “diet” is still going pretty well. I’ve been on it for three weeks and have lost 22lbs, which brings me down to 278. I still have a long way to go before I see 225, but I’m getting there.

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