A good day, finally.

Yesterday was a good day, finally.

I spent about 5 hours out of the house, something which is rare for me. A local friend of mine and I headed out to shop, he needed to do some grocery shopping and also wanted to stop by the mall and pick up some used games. We severely lost track of time at the mall and didn't get to grocery shopping until late, so we didn't get home until 11:30pm.

While we were at the mall, my friend decided to pick up a 360. The sad part about that is that he's trading in his Wii to do so. He hasn't played the console in months and is disillusioned with it. Yet every time he's been over here, he gets sucked into the 360 for hours at a time. I'd buy the Wii off of him if I had the money, but unfortunately, I do not. I'm hoping to be in as good of a mood today as I was yesterday because I'd like to go with him as he trades it in for two reasons: 1) I want to see the clerk's jaw hit the floor and 2) he knows very little about the 360 and has asked me to go along to help him decide what to get.

Posted by Captiosus @ 1:07 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Really nervous.

Got a call from my dentist today.

After examining all my x-rays and the impressions he took, he feels the best thing I could do, at this point, is get Implant-Supported dentures.

I admit, I've long neglected my teeth. The neglect is a byproduct, if you will, of nearly 15 years of orthodontics work which ultimately failed at straightening my teeth. I was tired of fiddling with them and having them fiddled with, so now I'm paying the price. On the plus side, I'll finally have straight teeth (which I've never had in my life), I'll be able to smile (which, honestly, I haven't done in nearly 15 years due to being self-conscious), and I should feel better.

However, I'm really nervous facing down the fact that I'm 30 years old and am going to have to have all my existing teeth yanked out of my skull.
We have to do what we have to do, I suppose.

Posted by Captiosus @ 2:41 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Obligatory Pet Post

It's time for my obligatory pet picture post!

I'd like for everyone to meet my "kids".


Trigger (top) and Winks (bottom).


A close up of Trigger.


A close up of Winks.


Cali, my burrowing 5 year old female feline.


Winks and Trigger are male Rattus norvegicus. They're the same species of rat as the typical "vermin" type, except these have been bred for domestication and carry practically no zoonosis because they are removed from the environments which cause most of the diseases rats carry. And to answer the inevitable question, no, my cat doesn't try to eat them. In fact, she's paranoid of them and goes out of her way to avoid them.

Yep, I have pet rats, and I love them to death. These two aren't the first, actually.
In November of 2001, my wife, who was a bit upset that I had a pet cat and she didn't have a pet to call her own, decided she wanted a rat. So off to the store she went. She ended up getting a rat from a, uh, less then reputable pet shop who only kept rats to sell as snake food. To our surprise, the new rat took to us immediately. To my wife's dismay, the new rat took to me more than her.

Here is our first rat, the one who started it all: Boots.

Remember how I said the pet shop was "less than reputable"? Well, "feeder" rats aren't separated by sex. This is a fact my wife did not know when she went to get a pet. Two weeks after getting Boots, we were given seven other little gifts in the form of small, pink baby rat blobs. Boots, surprisingly, was not only comfortable with giving birth to these kittens (yes, rat babies are called kittens), but also literally demanded we help her. She would give birth, break the sac, make sure the kitten was alive, and then literally pick them up and bring them to me to clean. She had 3 female kittens and 4 males (they can easily be sexed at birth by looking for areas of discoloration on the underside which will become female's nipples - by the time they're "of age" and have to be separated, you can easily distinguish the males for obvious reasons).

This sealed the deal for us. Pet rats were now the greatest pets ever. Sadly, rats have a very short life span, 2-4 years, depending on stock, environment and maintenance. The last of our original colony passed away in mid-2005, 3 years after being born. As you can imagine, their deaths were hard to bear because, having raised them from birth, they treated us as though we were one of them (or they were one of us), so watching them get old and sick was VERY depressing.

Without further adieu, some links to my original "colony", from birth to adulthood.

Warning: Cuteness lies behind some links!
001: Boots the night we got her.
002: Boots immediately after birth/the kitten's first feeding.
003: The kittens on day 3.
004: One of the kittens on day 6, getting initial fur fuzz.
005: One of the kittens on day 14, full fur, opening eyes.
006: Day 20. The two PEW (Pink Eyed White) kittens. One male, one female.
007: The entire colony at day 21.
008: Two of the kittens hamming it up for the camera.
009: All grown up. These are the same two in picture 008: Cliffy and Dio (males).
010: Close up of Cliffy.
011: Dio exploring an off-limits area.
012: Gimli (male) drinking from the faucet.
013: Pink Eyed White male, Legolas, appearing to be scheming.
014: Pink Eyed White female, Ghirri, attempting to get to the camera.
015: Lazy and shy Kahlua (female) lounging in a homemade hammock.
016: Nibbles, female, staring me down as she always did.

Posted by Captiosus @ 6:13 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Diet Pepsi Max is...

Diet Pepsi Max is godly.

I've had to stop drinking Mountain Dew because of the sugar and acid content of it (dentist's orders!) and I was forced to go to a sugar-free, low acid, drink. Diet Pepsi is about the only one I can tolerate. I've discovered Diet Pepsi Max - the Mountain Dew for folks like me. I'm totally loving this stuff. I don't drink it all the time but as my first drink in the morning? Hell yeah. (Sorry, coffee lovers, I can't stomach coffee at all and tea just isn't a "morning" drink for me.)

Posted by Captiosus @ 12:26 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Spoiled by 2o2p!

I'd like to say I've been somewhat spoiled by the quality of the games offered by being a part of the 2o2p community.
Not that this is a bad thing, mind you.

I tried playing some public Shadowrun today and I just couldn't tolerate it. Screaming Timmies, achievement whoring teamkillers killing me for using Vista (so they can res me), no teamwork, no communication. I just completely shut down the game until later when I know I can find some 2o2p folks online.

I didn't realize how disenfranchised I was with Xbox Live until, well, now.
2o2p has probably completely saved my XBL experience from being limited to just my local friends.

Posted by Captiosus @ 4:35 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments