This just keeps getting better and better. We got there today and they had the tile in throughout the house. The extra money we spent for the spanish-tile-like tile in the kitchen and living areas was TOTALLY worth it. They decided to throw in a patio cover in the back and an extended porch cover in the front. Everything is coming together quite nicely; see the new pictures.
I've decided that I don't like Guinness Stout, I never will, and I don't care. I like other stouts, so it's not that I'm not manly enough to handle dark beers. I like black-and-tan's (Guinness and Bass Ale, respectively). I just think Guinness, on its own, tastes like dirty socks. Remind me not to drink it again.
Unlike other geeks I don't feel that my geek status is threatened by watching sports, so I watched the Super Bowl. The game itself was a little disappointing, as it conjured images of Dallas stomping the Bills, San Francisco embarrassing the Broncos, or Washington blowing out the Broncos... the game was effectively over by halftime.
The halftime show was moderately interesting. Shania Twain lip-synched (snore), No Doubt played (though they played "Just a Girl" from like eight years ago), but the best was Sting doing "Message in a Bottle" with No Doubt playing behind him, including Gwen singing. As one person noted, though, even Sting had trouble harmonizing with Gwen, who is notably bad at singing ON KEY. Still, it was better than last year's show with 'N Sync, Aerosmith, and Brittney Spears.
Better than ALL of that, though, was the menu. We had big ol' hamburgers, hot links, polish sausage, lots of chips and dips (french onion and chili-cheese). Rachel and Tito came up for the weekend as well, and Tito and I played nine holes (in shorts!). (I ended up, uh, bending my nine iron, so I'm just not going to play again until I can get a set of clubs that isn't older than I am.)
Also, we went to a Kings hockey game on Saturday night. It was a really good game that ended with about a minute left in OT when the Kings scored on a slapshot from their blue line. All in all, a lot of fun.
One last thing: I am completely hooked on The Score by Fugees. I've had this album for years, but never listened to it. Now that I've started, I can hardly stop. Good stuff!
Well, we (finally) hit our first snag with the house, but not by any fault of the builder. Sears hasn't been able to get our appliances delivered this week, so the builder has to call the electrician and plumber and tell them to hold off. (Stink.)
For the good news, it sounds like the tile is all in! Hopefully we'll find some time to head up there this week, as the past weekend was too full to go up.
I would just like to mention that I have had a salesman (at CDW) named Shadow Stevens and one (at ViaWest) named Dave Matthews. I think that's neat.
I was just having a stout this evening while watching English League Soccer (GO MANCHESTER U!!!) when I thought of how much I'd like to visit England. That made me think of other places I'd like to visit. So here, without further ado or boring prose, is my list of places that I would like to visit:
Finally, I had a bit of a scare with the cable company for our new place. I had called them about a month ago, and they told me they were doing cable internet in January. When I called today, they said that they weren't doing cable internet. (This is a problem, as I work full-time from home managing servers. I sort of need high-speed internet. Not having high-speed internet would be like trying to get to work without a car.) After I recovered consciousness, the gal told me that they are doing high-speed microwave connections instead. So we should be golden again...
Look, I never said my blog entries would be INTERESTING.
So I've discovered that my blog looks horrible if the blog entries don't extend past the mustard sidebar on the right. In addition to finally figuring out a good reason to stay on top of blogging, I now have to fill this space to make my blog look right again. (Now, I hear some of you snorting and saying that I should just fix the HTML. That's a good idea, but posting is so much easier than trying to figure out XHTML/CSS, especially when you are as design-illiterate as I am.)
So... what to talk about... hrm... oh, more fun about our new little town. I found an old gas station with the pumps that don't even have pay-at-the-pump up there. Turns out it has a better beer selection than any full-on liquor store I've found here in Palmdale/Lancaster. I saw a variety of three Porters (my favorite), a number of non-Guiness stouts (including a Russian stout, which looked incredibly intriguing), and a line of Scottish beers. The selection is not quite as good as Good For What Ales You (ugh, NOW I bet they wish they would have taken me up on the offer to fix their web site) in Muskegon, but certainly better than your run-of-the-mill gas station or grocery store. A happy surprise.
Another point about cooking: get a grill and learn to love it. BBQing is so much fun, and allows you to do interesting things, like grilling asparagus on a pie rack on the grill or cooking whole garlic cloves (great on toast!) to go along with your steak. Or corn on the cob.
If you haven't been able to tell, I love to cook. To quote a friend: "I can't remember back to when I didn't cook all the time." I'd say I'm moderately good at it, but I dream (often) of quitting my job(s) and opening a restaurant. But I'll probably just stick to cooking for my family.
I must get to bed now. Been up and mostly working for 18 hours, almost straight. Hope this fixed my ugly blog.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but there's really not much going on right now. I mean, there's a TON of stuff going on: the house is rolling right along (we moved the delivery date on the appliances and lights UP a week!), work is crazy (to the point where I've had the same Netflix movies for weeks and haven't watched them), etc.
One weird experience: we bought a ceiling fan and light fixture, paying about $250 after tax. I just never thought I'd pay that much for a ceiling fan; we were making $200 per month at one point in Chile...
And finally, confirmed good news about the house: free golf! I get to play as much golf at the country club there for free. The only thing I would pay for would be a cart, but since I walk (and carry my clubs) anyway, it's a non-issue. Yay for free golf!
Haven't had much time to write here, nor have I had much to say. The house is coming along nicely, with the cabinets, doors, and stucco started this past week.
The Dome was cool, though we were a little close to follow the fast action in The Two Towers. I'd recommend sitting near the back of the middle section or the front of the balcony section. I'll definitely go there again, and am already planning on the midnight showing of RotK when it comes out.
Speaking of the movie, I didn't like it as well as FotR. I'm not quite sure what the esteemed IMDb were watching when they ranked it as the #12 film of all time... it's not even the #1 film of this 2-film (so far) set. Jackson takes way too many liberties with the plot, but I'll probably be called a book snob for saying so. Also, maybe I was just more conscious of it, but it seemed like melodramatic music and moments were lurking around every corner. I'm already sick of those verdammt Elves. OTOH, I agree with my contemporaries on a couple of good points: Helm's Deep was cool, and Gollum was absolutely incredible. Overall, it was good, I'll watch it again, I'll buy it, but I wouldn't even say it was "great".
For my part, I predict that Jackson will take the following liberties with the plot of RotK:How do you think he'll neuter RotK?
I am finally going to see The Two Towers but not at any ol' movie theater. No, I'm going to see it at the ArcLight Cinemas, in all of the splendor that is The Dome. I mean c'mon, any movie theater that has a martini bar attached has to be pretty cool... not to mention the "44 computer-placed surround speakers". :-D
This is the first movie we've seen at this theater; I'll be sure to report back so that you displaced Californians know to come to Hollywood the next time you're out here.
Samuel Adams Cream Stout: extremely yummy.
Smirnoff Ice: drinkable (especially after two of the above).
Do not buy a SnapAppliance anything. They saw it fit to put together a piece of garbage network-attached storage device that provides NFS, but that doesn't support link(2) semantics over NFS. Which means that qmail (storing Maildir/s on the shared storage), which is one of the more common uses for shared storage in an ISP environment, is out.
Stupid bastards.
I really like Saturday Night Live reruns. Is it a freak occurrence that both Dieter and Janet Reno had a dance party?
Contrary to popular advice, I didn't get a Gameboy Advance today. I almost got ut2k3 (on sale for $40) or one of the other computer games I've had recommended to me or had my eye on. In the end, I reverted to the old formula of DVDs and CDs.
Originally, I thought I would save myself until all three of the LotR came out in one über-set of DVDs. In the end, the pressure was too great and I bought The Set (on sale for $30). With the remaining $10, I picked up the soundtrack to Trainspotting; good Iggy Pop/Lou Reed 70s underground, New Order/Blur new wave, and Brian Eno/experimental stuff.
No new pics of the house; we didn't make it up this past weekend. :-(
