Bye Bye Bri

Well, this survivor is leaning more toward the law of nature. The weak and injured are dropping like flies. I don't know if the players this time are just wusses, or if this is really the hardest survivor ever. It seems that everyone is getting hurt or tired. I was thinking at first that they were all weak, but when Jeff gave the temp update of 115 degrees, I can see how it might be a little rough out there. I would have picked Brian to be voted out. He so annoyning, shut up already. I do feel sorry for Steph though. She gets a second chance to play and once again she is on the loosing team. What the hell is a pick anyway? I'm not sure yet, if Gary is making a good decision or not about keeping his football history a secrect. I don't think he would get voted out right way and it may hurt him once they find out. I thought they would suspect something when he was barking out orders in the first challenge. He sounded like a quarterback to me. So here is a question for you all; How long before Nakum eats that noisy monkey?

Diablo 3

I can easily say after well over 1000 hours of gameplay that Diablo 2 is my alltime favorite game. It is really starting to get dated as the game came out when you only needed a pentium 1 to play it. Anyway, since they refuse to make a 3rd Diablo, I will just have to live with it, until now. I just got a new game call Dungeon Siege II. I haven't gotten too far into the game yet, but it seem like a direct spinoff from Diablo 2. It resembles the game so closely that I am surprised there isn't a lawsuit pending. Not that I am complaining. So far it has been a really cool game. I get to play Diablo now with graphics 10 years newer. The story, characters, spells, and equipment are all different, so it not like a straight remake. However, the equipment is enchanted the same way, you earn skills the same way, and you have a storage chest and town portals. There are sets and rare items, you earn experience the same (fighting creatures near your current level is the best way to gain points), and even game saving works the same. I can understand all this though, why change what is good? Now, if I can just convince my friends to drop $50 each and find some time, we can all play it together.

The Adventures of....

It started off to be a pretty ordinary day, in an ordinary town, with ordinary children. I wanted to get out of the house for a while, so I thought I would take Natalie and run to the store. We decided to go to Shopko, just to look around at the toys and whatever. Amy hadn't been able to get out much yet, so she wondered if I could pick up one thing as long as I was going. I blindly said, "Sure, no problem". So she walked into the bathroom and came back out with a near empty pack of these "female only" products. Oh boy, I thought. Well, it was mid-day during the week, so there shouldn't be too many people around and the pack seemed small enough to conceal pretty good. "Can you get me about 48 or so of them?", she asked. Forget what I said about a small pack. Ok, so we got in the car and drove down to the Shopko and went in. I let Natalie lead me though the store for a while, thought it might get her to take a nap later. It was fun too. Then, after about 30 minutes of noisy toys and telling her not to touch the glass products, I decided it was time to get what we came for and run. I had been watching for the products as we were roaming the store and yes, they were way on the far end of the store. Since Natalie was being pretty good, I thought it might be less embarrassing to just let her carry them though the store to the checkout. Bad, bad idea. I didn't notice at first, but once I handed it to her, I saw just how big the package was. She grabbed it with both hands and then faced me. I'll I could see of her was her head and limbs. It looked like she was wearing a maxi-pad costume and she was handing out free samples or something. I told her maybe I would just carry it, but it was too late. She was starting to get tired, and that means she gets loud. "NO, I WANT TO". Ok, ok I said, you can carry it. So she goes running toward the checkout in her Maxi-Pad superhero gear while making some kind of airplane or motorcycle noise. By this time we have collected enough people to call our journey to the checkout a parade route. Anyway, we finally get to the checkout and paid for Natalie's new outfit. Next time, I'll just let Amy get her own stuff.

Wrong Lane?

I was at one of those wholesale stores where you need a membership to get in. I wasn't in any hurry, so I took my time walking down almost every isle. I wandered around looking to see if I needed a plasma tv, a human size replica of a banana, or 50 gallons of mayonnaise. I thought about the mayonnaise for a while and then decided to just get the dvd I came for. I got to the front of the store and checked out the lanes. There where two lanes open. One had 3 people in it with very full carts and the other had only 2 people. So I took the obvious choice and got in the shorter lane. Had I been in a hurry, this would have been a bad choice, but since I wasn't, I enjoyed the show. The first lady, who was kind of older, started to unload her stuff onto the conveyor belt. It was her turn to check out, so the guy asked her for her card. No response. Ok, so maybe she is hard of hearing. In a bit louder voice, he asked her for her card again. She just continued to put her stuff on the conveyor, not noticing that he wasn't scanning any items in yet. The guy looked at the rest of us in line and just smiled. We all waited until every item was out of her cart and neatly placed on the conveyor. She looked up at the guy and handed him her card as if nothing happened. He proceeded to scan in all her items. Great, finally she was done and the next couple in line walked up. This happened to be another older couple. Now, you would think that after witnessing the drama that just occurred, the next lady would have her card all ready to hand to the guy. But no, she had all her stuff already on the conveyor and just waited for the guy to start scanning. He asked her for her card. "Oh yeah", she said. She opened her purse and pulled out the biggest wallet I have ever seen. I mean, this thing was huge! She started rummaging through it. "Now where did I put that?" I almost burst out laughing right there; as did the checkout guy. She spent a couple minutes looking and then turned to her husband, who had this blank stare on his face. Clearly he was used to this. She told him to just use his card. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his card right away. It wasn't in his wallet, just sitting in his pocket. "There's my card", she said pointing to the card he just pulled out. By this time I had to turn around to stop myself from laughing. They eventually got it all scanned in and paid for. Sometimes the wrong lane can just be the right thing to lighten up a day.

Siafu

I was watching the discovery channel and they had a killer ant special on. They showed a bunch of ants from fire ants to army ants. Then, at the very end of the show, they show the deadliest, largest, strangest ants in the world. They are called Siafu or the Driver ant. Let me tell you, I would not want to be anywhere near these guys. There are four kinds of castes: The Queen, the male, the worker, and the soldier. The workers are about .5 cm long and number about 20 million ants per colony. The soldier ant is about 1.5 cm long and adds another 2 million to the colony. The queen is 5 cm long! She lays about 1-2 million eggs a month. The male is a flying insect and is commonly know as a sausage fly. He flies from colony to colony until he is caught by some soldier ants. Once caught, his wings are chewed off and he is brought back to the queen to be used as a sperm donor. Now, the really scary thing is when these ants get hungry and swarm. Which happens everyday by the way. The worker ants form super highways up to a foot wide while the soldier ants border other sides of these roads. The soldiers will kill anything that tries to cross the path. These ants kill anything in their path. The will dismember about 100,000 prey in a single raid. We are not talking about just other bugs either. They will kill rats, snakes, scorpions, and lizards. They have also been known to kill chickens locked up in a coup and dogs and cats trapped in a house. Most of the other animals in the jungle know of these ants as well. Many animals, including elephants, will flee from the area if they see Siafu on the move. And I've been complaining about mosquitoes.

Too much pink

It's a girl! That's right. At 1:10 am on Thursday morning we had a baby girl. She was 7lb 10 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Everything went well and both baby Gloria and Mom are doing great. We are finally back from the hospital, so I can now get some pictures out there and my blog updated. Natalie, the big sister now, was so excited to see us get home. She loves the new baby and I think she will be a big help. The house is now going to have 3 women living her one of which is a Mary Kay Consulant. The pink is flowing into every room of the house. I think I will have to build a woodshed or a bigger garage. Alright, going to mow the lawn now and then have a brat and some beer while I watch football.

Alien Invasion

It was a little cooler today, so I thought it would be fun to take Natalie on a walk. There is a bike trail not too far from our house and it is a great place to walk. Natalie likes the woods and she loves bridges. The trail has a number of small bridges, but recently we found a really big one on the trail. In fact it is close to a half mile long! We got out of the car and started to walk on the trail. Finally we came up to the bridge, "Woah" she says. "That's a big bridge". She got really excited and did her little gallop/run onto the bridge. We got about three quarters the way down and I thought it would be a good spot for a picture. I told her to get in the middle a the bridge and I squatted down to take the picture. Just as I snapped the picture, I saw here look up at something. I turned around to see what she saw. Was it a giant swarm of mayflies, or a huge alien ship, an elephant swinging from tree to tree, or maybe a hundred beachballs that were falling from a plane that had the cargo door accidentally opened? Nope, it wasn't any of those. What do you think it was?

Stuffed Love

I must say that whoever invented the stuff animal, knew what they were doing. They can always make a child feel better whether they are sick or hurt or scared. They are best friends and perfect pets. They range from life size to palm size. They can be your favorite animal, a cartoon character, a superhero, or even a scary dragon. Natalie's best friend is her bunny. His name is Bunny. He goes everywhere with her. She takes good care of him; even covers him up at bed time. Last night Bunny got into a little trouble though. Natalie woke up around midnight and started calling for Dad. I got up and went in to see what was going on. Apparently bunny was hogging Natalie's pillow and wouldn't move over. So I told him to scooch over and I moved him off the pillow. Natalie smiled and went back to sleep. I tell ya, sometimes that Bunny can really cause some trouble. I found a website a while back that had the cleverest stuffed "animals" I have ever seen. They are little replicas of germs, viruses, microscopic bugs, and other microbes. They are called GIANT microbes and they have everything from Bed Bugs to a stomach ache to the black death. Who wouldn't want to snuggle up to the Ebola Virus at bed time? Check it out: GIANT microbes

Rocky Road

Started driving home from work yesterday and turned onto my street, all of a sudden I hear gravel crunching under my tires and bouncing around the bottom of my car. I slowed down a bit to figure out what was going on. I looked around and the entire street had gravel completely covering it, also I saw a new sign that was put up; "Loose Gravel"; thanks. It seems every year or so a big truck comes motoring down my street spaying this black, sticky, hot tar all over. Then another truck dumps gravel all over it. Then they put up a sign and wait for the road to build itself. I looked this process up and found out that it is called tar and chipping. Every road prior to 1930 was built this way. That is right, I said 1930. Hello, time to update the process people. There are better, more efficient ways to build a road. Alot has happened in the past 70 years! So, to all the county workers who read this blog, here is a website for you: New Technology

Dungeon's and Dragons

Remember that board game a long time ago called Hero Quest. Probably not, but I still think it is a great game. I liked it so much at the time (1991) that I bought it twice along with 4 expansion packs. Although the game itself is fun, I have gutted the game and used the pieces to create my own game. I use a combination of hero quest items and creatures with some D&D rules and spells. I have greatly simplified the rules for D&D to make it easier to play and the hero quest parts provide a visual component to the game. I have created 4 characters for the game. A barbarian (fighter), a cleric, a wizard, and a rouge. Both the cleric and wizard have 16 unique spells to learn (up to 5 of each) and have laminated cards to go with each of these. It is an easy way to keep track of what spells or items have been used during the adventure. I also have level and spell progression tables, 45 quests, color catalog for weapons, armor, and items to purchase, laminated items cards, and even a creature guide that has photos and stats for each of the over 30 unique creatures. It has turned out so nice, I have even gotten my wife and mom to play. Maybe someday I will get to play instead of being the DM, though any D&D I can get, I'll take.

Man or Lizard?

Ok, I heard that some people really don't like John Madden. I will admit he gets a little crazy when Favre comes on the field. In fact I don't think there has ever been a Monday night game where he has not compared something to Brett. Not that Favre doesn't deserve it, but really now, take a break. Anyway, I am just poking fun at John, I really think he is a good sportscaster. Despite his quirks, he really does know what he is talking about and just hearing his voice gets me in the football mood. Plus, I think it is funny when he gets off on a tangent and talks about a helmet or a big divot for 20 minutes. And who doesn't like the 6-legged turkey on Thanksgiving. I still think he looks like a lizard though.

Mouse in the House

Once again, we had a mouse get in the house last night. This morning Natalie was playing with her trains on the floor of the living room. It is one of those battery powered Thomas the train sets. Anyway, let me tell you what happened:

Sir Topham Hatt had given Thomas a new job today. Thomas was very happy. He was just talking with his other friends about how he never gets to try anything new. Thomas has had the same route for years. Sir Topham Hatt called his mechanic friend Natalie to help update Thomas for his new route. She stopped over at the train station and used a giant crane to life Thomas right off the track. Natalie's dad was there to help work on the engine. It was low on power and needed to be refueled. Thomas was so excited to get his new double AAs. Natalie worked the crane and to Thomas' surprise, she placed him directly on the ground. "Wow", thought Thomas, "I will be able to go any way I want". Sir Topham Hatt thanked Natalie for all her hard work and told Thomas about his new job. He was to deliver two train cars full of passengers across the great living room desert. Thomas was a little nervous since he had no track to follow, but he was ready to take on the job. Sir Topham Hatt waved Thomas off as he started up his steam. Thomas was making excellent time and was about half way across the desert, when suddenly, BOOM! Thomas had run into something! The train came to a sudden stop. There was a little girl on the train that started to cry. Her mother came out and took a look at was was in front of the train. A poor little mouse was caught under Thomas' engine. The mother was able to get the mouse free and bury him. Thomas was very sad. He did not mean to hurt the mouse. It was later discovered that it wasn't Thomas who killed the mouse. Sir Topham Hatt called Thomas on the radio and told him that a cat was on the loose and killed the mouse before Thomas even got there. Thomas was relieved, but still felt bad for the mouse. He decided that staying on the track with his old route was a much better idea.

Swipe it

The other day I went to a local department store to buy a couple of items. I got in line and started to wait patiently for my turn to come. The lady in front of me at first appeared to be normal, but I was about to find out differently. The cashier totaled all her items up and asked her for the amount. The lady opened her purse and pulled out "THE CHECKBOOK". Oh great, I thought, there goes another 5 minutes of my life waiting for someone to fill out a check. As she was writing out the check, the line continued to get longer and longer. I thought to myself, "Good thing I am going to use my credit card. I will be up and out of this line in no time". Finally, the lady was done and on her way. I stepped up with my items and the cashier rang up my stuff. I smiled and handed her my credit card. She looked at me and said, "You can swipe it right here", as she directed me to this little box. So I looked at the box, which was so scratched to hell, there was no possible way to read the instructions. Do I swipe it face up or face down? Do I have to hit the credit or debit button before I swipe or is the box smart enough to know? Do I swipe left to right or right to left? Does it matter? Anyway, I took my chances and swiped my card. Nope, didn't work. Ok, I flipped it over, and tried again. Nope, nothing. They cashier looked at me and said no, no, the other way. So I flipped it over again, and swiped. Nope, still didn't work. I looked back up at the cashier for some new instructions and she said, "Oh, he he, sometimes that doesn't work so well". She then took my card and swiped it on her register. It worked right away and she handed my card back. If she would have just taken my card in the beginning when I tried to hand it to her, it would have saved all that time. I didn't even want to swipe my own card! Next time, I am just going to write a check.

Birth of a genre

In 1993 a game called DOOM came out. It was the first of it kind; a first-person shooter. It was a pretty fun game. All you had to do was run around and shoot things. What could be more fun? More recently, DOOM 3 came out and grabbed the world with an awesome experience. This supped up version has stunning graphics, a decent story line, and flawless gameplay. With all the video games turning into movies lately, I have asked for a long time why this one hasn't. Well, my wish has come true. That's right! DOOM will be released in theaters on October 21st, starting the Rock and you. "What do you mean, you?", you ask. Well, some of the movie is filmed in first-person. The storyline is based on DOOM 3, and for some of the battles you are right in the action just like the game. However, this time there are no limitation on special effects and let me tell you they are unbelievable. The creatures, zombies, and weapons are very cool. I can't wait for this movie and plan to be first in line to get tickets. Check out the trailer at their website: DOOM Oh, by the way, there is a chainsaw in the movie too.

Hat's Off

It is always sad to see a large supercenter come into a small town and run a number of mom and pop shops out of business. The town looses it's charm and uniqueness. Is that a word? Anyway, when a national chain opens a store and the other little places go out of business, you are stuck with whatever the chain has. Granted places like Walmart usually have everything you need, but there are times when you want something that 10 million other people don't already have. Also, what is the point of traveling when every store in every town is exactly the same. Despite that fact, I seem to go to Walmart anyway to get most of the stuff I need, so who am I to talk. That being said, I do have to give my hat's off to Walmart though. I have heard on the news and read some articles that shows that Walmart is not just a corporate tyrant trying to take over the world. Two things really caught my attention. First, Walmart has teamed up with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and has committed to preserve one acre of land for every acre of land they develop. Second, as an added effort to help Katrina disaster victims, they have kick-started Bush and Clinton's fundraiser with a $15 million check. Also, they are setting up mini-Walmarts around the hurricane area to give out free supplies. So, as I don't really approve of chain store takeover, I think Walmart does a pretty good job of "doing the right thing".

Lunch Time

Recently I moved to a new location for my job. It is great; nice new building, 20 minutes closer to home, and soon I will be reunited with my friends. Anyway, there is a Quizno's near here. Now for a long, long time, Subway has been my favorite place to get a sandwich, but they have been slipping lately. They tried to toast their subs, which at first seem like a good idea, but they really aren't that good toasted. Then they got rid of the stamps. Bad move, off to Quizno's I go. Since I had never been to Quizno's, I had a whole new menu to choose from. I get a chance to go there 2-3 times a week, so it didn't take me long to get though the menu. No, I didn't try everything, but I have tried alot. YUM! I definitely have a new favorite sub shop. I even get coupons from their website for free stuff. Here are some of my favorite choices in order:

Chicken Carbonara - It comes with this Bacon Alfredo Sauce, outstanding
Spicy Monterey Club - A four pepper chili sauce, BAM!
Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon on Italian Ciabatta Bread - Long name to say when ordering, but worth it.

And that's not all, we took Natalie there and got her a kid's meal. What a great deal! She got a small sub, a bag of goldfish (not just the plain ones either, they were multicolored), a cookie (they will even toast the cookie), a soda, and a toy. The toy is actually worth something too. Once she got a deck of animal cards. So the next time you are thinking of a sub, I would just keep driving past the 24,077 subways, give Jared the universal symbol of disapproval, and head to the nearest Quizno's.

mmmm.....TOASTY!