Archives February 2005

We have been in the middle of a drought for some time now. However this weekend we got close to 2 inches of rain. It’s a bummer that it sort of washed out the weekend but it was very needed so I don’t really mind.

I did a couple puter upgrades over the weekend. I scored a SWEET used 21 inch monitor off Ebay. With shipping it came to 120 bucks. It’s in great shape. Making it fit on my desk required me cutting out a big square from the back of my computer desk to let the back end pop through. It is the size of a tv set. IT ROCKS! I had been having intermittent HDD errors as well. So instead of waiting for it to totally crap on me, I replaced the 2 80 giggers with one 200 gig drive. The swap and data transfer took a few hours but I managed to do it without loss of data.

The crappy weather sort of played right into my push to get to level 40 in WoW. Level 40 is a big number in the game because that is the level you can get a mount (horse). A horse makes a huge difference in the game because it shaves big time off travel in the game. Traveling by foot is very tedious. There are times in the game you spend 10-15 minutes doing nothing but running from one spot to the other. With a mount this time gets cut by 60%. I did some incredible (for me) marathon sessions, staying up into the early morning both Friday and Saturday nights. I finally clicked 40 on Sunday afternoon. I picked out a black horse and named it Nicholas. It’s a sense of accomplishment that would only be understood by someone involved in the madness. If you related this to me 3 months ago my reply would have been “Yay….you pyscho.” 🙂

American Idol has tweaked various aspects of the show this year during the preliminary stages and for the most part the changes have been fine. However last night during the first “vote” show. a another twist really turned me off. The writers of the show evidently thinks the audience enjoys if they play mind games with the contestants. You’re safe, PYSCH! you aren’t! You are outta here!!!! That is basically what they were doing last night and it was stupid. The contestants are stressed out enough without playing with their heads as well. Then the routine of “Ok we just crushed your dream, so how about you sing the song that got you kicked off one more time?” schtick is ridiculous as well. The show is starting to steer towards not being on my core list of shows anymore.

The local paper posted a request for residents of our area to write in about the traffic nightmare during our commute. Ali jumped right in and wrote a good letter describing what the traffic grind is like out here everyday. It was so good that someone from the paper wrote back saying they wanted to hitch a ride with us next week to ride along and document the misery as part of the article they are writing. We want to do it but I first have to make sure that certain toes wouldn’t be stepped on by participating. Since I am a county employee and the road diaster is a county problem, I need to proceed with caution. But boy, could I give the reporter an earful….

Some more traffic tales for today. Last night on the way home our normal route was gridlocked due to a looky lu delay of ‘tards staring at a minor accident off the side of the road. So we took a detour. The detour turned onto a road where the speed limit is 25 with signs posted how it is STRICTLY ENFORCED. Ok great. Well we were flabbergasted with what they installed as speed control devices. In maybe a mile or two stretch there were 14, little mini S turns in the road. These S turns were so tight that a go kart would have a hard time staying within the lines without slowing to walking speed. This was some geniuses idea for speed control. Of course all the traffic simply drove right down the center of the S. I’m sure some idiot consultant was paid huge bucks and even more money was spent installing these ridiculous attempts at vehicle control.

Today on my way to the ortho, I was behind an old, short bald man in a full size car. As I am approaching him I notice his brake lights are on so I slow down. As I watch, I realize this old fart is pulling away from me, with his brake lights on the entire time. He was obviously 2 footing the brake and gas, one of the cardinal sins of driving. There are so many examples of this type of driver on the road right now it is suffocating.

Some people go to the gym to look good and some go to the gym to LOOK good. Todays example bordered on lunacy. There was a black dude there with a tight white tank top with matching black studded leather straps around both biceps and both wrists. When I saw it I shook myself to verify I wasn’t dreaming that I wasn’t sitting at a performace of the village people. Nope I was conscious and yes this guy was actually wearing this. Wow.

Blogging has been slim, I know. I can’t help but be honest and admit that WoW has been the primary culprit of the decline in blogging. I’ve been watching less TV, paying less attention to the rest of the world, ergo my blogging has tailed off. However, believe it or not I do have other things that I still do.

I had a 3 day weekend and enjoyed it. The weather has been close to perfect for maybe a month or so. Lows in the mid 50’s highs in the mid to upper 70’s with no humidity. The only downside has been that for that same month we have literally not had any rain. It’s odd using the word “drought” in SW Florida but that is how winters are here, it almost never rains. To combat the drought, every week I spend and hour to an hour and a half soaking each landscape plant thoroughly with my 250 foot long hose. It’s a pain in the ass, but the plants seem to be doing better with this method instead of the soaker hose network I used in years past. After I did my watering run yesterday, I felt creative and decided to take some pictures of the flowers that are around our property, even in February. Take a look, some turned out real well.

On Saturday, Ali and busted hump and got the fencing up around Nicki’s area. Ali pulled on the fence while I nailed it in place. It was dirty sweaty work. If it was summertime, we surely would have dropped before completion. Nicki’s area is completely enclosed at this point. There are many things we want to do inside of it yet, but at least she can run around in there and play. I have some pictures of the area and pictures of Nicki playing in it (bottom of the page) online.

I have been still watching some TV believe it or not. I try to stick to the normal shows, The Apprentice, Survivor, American Idol and ER are the only shows I keep current with. Is it better to spend what used to be TV time (and then some) playing WoW instead? I think so. It’s much more mentally engaging than TV. On the flip side it is more physically taxing. The late nights catch up to you.

Had an odd dream over the weekend. Ali and I were at a football game, in Pittsburgh I think. Somehow we were in box seats, I think Denver and someone else were playing (not the Steelers). The dream fast forwards, I am sitting in the stands and all of a sudden the football comes up towards the stands after the opposing team scored (again do not know how) I am just sitting there, making no effort to catch it. The ball caroms off some crazed fans hands and lands neatly in my lap. I am thrilled with my good fortune and clasp onto the ball and hold it low out of plain view. Then I remember seeing the ref, looking up into the stands scanning for the ball, motioning for it to be returned. I don’t want to do that. Then the crowd starts chanting “Throw it back, throw it back” (like they do with homerun balls at some baseball games. Still, I act like nothing is going on, keeping the ball low, firmly grasped, while trying to look as unassuming as possible. Then the dream fast forwards again, I have fallen asleep for the duration of the football game. I wake up and the stands are nearly empty. Ali wakes me and the first thing I do is verify that I still have the ball, which I do. I feel relieved. My interpretation: lately I have been having feelings about the uselessness of trying to save the world. (the chanting fans and ref) Bush is still president, the world is going to hell, noone gives a damn about anything that doesn’t directly affect them. I do my part and I can’t worry about the rest of the world, so I kept the ball……

This mornings commute = 1 hour 40 minutes
Distance traveled = 23.8 miles
Frustration level = off the chart

Whew. It’s official I have NEVER been as into a game as much as I am World of Warcraft. I do not want to make an attempt to add up the hours I spent playing the game this weekend, but let’s just say I spent so much time in that chair that the bottom of my thighs are sore at the point they rest on the chair edge.

Friday night was rough. For whatever reason I decided I wanted to get good and drunk and play as long as I could. After 8 Zimas and 1:30 in the morning, ready to pass out, I stumbled to bed. Of course Nicki had no sympathy and still woke me up at 6:45 am. I did manage to work some normal things into the weekend like working on NIcki’s area, watering the landscaping, pressure washing the shed, house chores and fun stuff like that. But the 2 days were all about playing, getting as much into it as I could. I am now up to level 32, more than halfway to the games ceiling of level 60 (currently at least) It really is hard to describe what makes the game so addictive to those on the outside.

Let me give a scenario. I woke up Saturday morning and I was thinking about how I was going to attack my day in the game. Let’s see, I am running low on tasty omelets, so I will first fly out to the Wetlands and kill a bunch of raptors to get the eggs I need. While I am there I am getting some but not as many as I want. SO I send out a request on general chat asking if anyone had extras and my offer to buy them. Soon I get 3 offers. I foolishly overpay for the first 10, giving the guy 20 silver for them. I then make better deals on my final 2 transactions, getting 30 of them from a guy for 25 silver. I cook up all the eggs and wind up with over 60 omelets that can be eaten to give me a 15 minute “well fed” bonus resulting in a HP, stamina and spirit boost. Makes no sense? Of course not, but get into the game and it will. 🙂

Ali flies home tonight so the marathoning will have to be cut back a bit but at level 40 I can get a horse to ride so that carrot will be driving me hard for the next week or two.

The weather here this weekend was spectacular. Yesterday was sunny, 75 and no humidity. Had the windows wide open.

Sometimes I wonder if I like the gym more for exercising or more for observing human behavior. In the past I have mentioned how rude and annoying it is for people to be talking on cell phones at the gym. Well new chapters were written in the anals of dumb gym cell phone behavior this past week.

As I am working out there is a regular gym cell phone user walking around doing what else but talking on his cell phone. As I am doing a set, he disappears around a pole and I see him doing something out of the corner of my eye. As I got up and went to the pole to grab the cleaner and towel I see what he did. He was running low on juice so he plugged his cell phone into the outlet. So he is standing there, on the phone with it plugged into the wall, gabbing away. Get a clue dude.

Case number 2 was a fat haitain woman. She was on a leg machine with weight loaded on that a 5 year old could do. She is talking on her phone while she did about 100 reps (moving maybe 6 inches per rep) I did 2 or 3 different machines and would periodically check on her, yep, still talking, still doing meaningless rep after rep. She was wearing jeans, a normal top and a dress watch. Go away.

Ali wrote a letter to the editor regarding the traffic horror in our area.

Ali is up in PA this weekend so I have the weekend to myself. I plan to attach the fence to Nicki’s area and play a “little” bit of WoW. 🙂 Level 29

Despite our sour experience at the county fair last year, we decided to go again anyway. After paying 5 dollars to park and 16 dollars admission, we walked into the event down 21 bucks already. We soon realized the money could have been much better spent. Each year it seems the entertainment at the fair has gotten more and more sparse, replaced with more and more vendor stands selling junk food, worthless trinkets and other shit. The stuff I enjoyed like the wrestling, the high wire stunt show, the english singing acts are all gone. The only thing we enjoy anymore is seeing the animal and plant displays. To see all of that took all of a half hour. I was still feeling sick in my stomach so I had no interest in rides. Plus, attendance for the fair was very light last night so as you walk down the aisles you were like a piece of fresh meat to coyotes(fair people) that haven’t eaten in days. I hate being solicited. So after Ali and I grabbed a snack, we left. I think the entire experience took less than an hour. Next year there is a good chance we will skip it all together.

On SB sunday I had to run to the local convenience store to pick up some stuff. As I get out, a woman comes up to me and says “Excuse me, what cologne are you wearing?” I didn’t know why she would ask me that so my first reaction was to think she smelled something on me. “Nothing” I said, “Maybe you smell the soap I use” She laughed and said no, she was selling discount cologne. Hahahaha. I politely told her, no thanks. Her and another shady looking dude took off in their car shortly there after.

My commute took 90 minutes AGAIN today. Ali and I discussed the idea of buying a townhouse closer in and keeping our house as an investment. Talking about it is easy, financing such plans would be very daunting.

Jevon Kearse – was his name called all day?
Brian Dawkins – no big plays
Dorsey Levens – 1 carry, 1 yard
Freddie Mitchell – 0 catches, 0 yards

I heard some interesting gossip that the flu was running rampant throughout the Eagles and Donovan had a severe case of it that resulted in his inability to run a hurry up offense down the stretch. He looked like he was out of gas, maybe he actually was. It puts an interesting slant on things, if it’s true.