This is freaking awesome.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Too cloudy :-(
I had a few satellites lined up for viewing (written with a big black sharpy on a while piece of paper which makes it much more visible at night... though, if I were REALLY trying to protect my eyesight, i'd do the opposite - black paper with white letters)... anyhoo...
I had a few satellites lined up for viewing, however I went outside and it was mostly a big blanket of clouds. I could see a couple of stars, but for the most part there were no big openings in the clouds... so nothing was observed last night.
So why post about that?
Well, I was kind excited about one of the candidates that I had:
It was a rocket booster for Cosmos 44. You might say "Well, so? You saw Cosmos 1674 the other day. And?" Well, need I remind you that most rockets and whatnot pretty much number their things numerically. So 1643 was launched before 2043... and so on. And you might say "So?" Well, I'll remind you that Cosmos 1643 was launched in 1985. The one I was excited about was Cosmos 44. FORTY FOUR!
Cosmos 44 was launched on August 28 1964!
And the rocket which launched this satellite is still up there (and so is the satellite itself). Going round and round and round the earth. If I were a complete math geek, I'd go find out how often it orbits the earth per day and then calc out how many times since August 28 1964 (and whatever time it was) it has gone around the earth.
But I'm not that big of a math geek. But I truly understand now all the hub-bub in the space community about space trash / Space debris. It just sits up there. And occasionally things get REALLY close to each other or just plain smack into each other. And possibly more often than people know since we only know about it when active satellites get hit. What about when two expended rocket boosters bump into each other and then possibly split or obliterate each other and create more debris?
Here's a quick 30 second clip which shows the satellites deployed and debris created (much of which is still in orbit) between the years 1957 and 2000. (Note: this is only to 2000, not 2010).
Note: The int'l code for the Cosmos 44 R/B is 1964-053B
I had a few satellites lined up for viewing, however I went outside and it was mostly a big blanket of clouds. I could see a couple of stars, but for the most part there were no big openings in the clouds... so nothing was observed last night.
So why post about that?
Well, I was kind excited about one of the candidates that I had:
It was a rocket booster for Cosmos 44. You might say "Well, so? You saw Cosmos 1674 the other day. And?" Well, need I remind you that most rockets and whatnot pretty much number their things numerically. So 1643 was launched before 2043... and so on. And you might say "So?" Well, I'll remind you that Cosmos 1643 was launched in 1985. The one I was excited about was Cosmos 44. FORTY FOUR!
Cosmos 44 was launched on August 28 1964!
And the rocket which launched this satellite is still up there (and so is the satellite itself). Going round and round and round the earth. If I were a complete math geek, I'd go find out how often it orbits the earth per day and then calc out how many times since August 28 1964 (and whatever time it was) it has gone around the earth.
But I'm not that big of a math geek. But I truly understand now all the hub-bub in the space community about space trash / Space debris. It just sits up there. And occasionally things get REALLY close to each other or just plain smack into each other. And possibly more often than people know since we only know about it when active satellites get hit. What about when two expended rocket boosters bump into each other and then possibly split or obliterate each other and create more debris?
Here's a quick 30 second clip which shows the satellites deployed and debris created (much of which is still in orbit) between the years 1957 and 2000. (Note: this is only to 2000, not 2010).
Note: The int'l code for the Cosmos 44 R/B is 1964-053B
Monday, September 20, 2010
Cartoons and Satellites
Cartoons!
When I got home, the wife informed me a package had come in for me. It was my Giant 600 Cartoon Collection that I got for a steal on eBay. 12 dual-layer DVDs and over 60 hours of cartoons baby!
=-=-=-=-
Satellites!
It was about 8:30pm and I thought I heard the kiddo go to bed, so I went to a couple of my satellite tracking sites and quickly came up with a list of four sats that I was going to try to see.
First up up at 8:45pm was a Zenit-2 rocket body. This rocket was launched on July 10, 1998 from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome. It deployed the RESURS-01 4 which was a satellite for the Russian military which observed and monitored natural Earth resources. Then either the same rocket, or the Resurs 01-4 satellite itself in turn launched the TMSAT-1 (that's Thai-Microsatellite-OSCAR). Both satellites have been decommissioned, but the rocket body still hovers around out there, 12 years later. This is why we have all that space junk out there. By the way, just so you know, Resurs is french for 'resource'. :) This was a 2.9 magnitude object, so it wasn't too hard to spot in the sky. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 1998-043G.
Up next was a selection (PRC 15 Rocket) that I chose merely because at 8:51pm it was going to be in the sky shortly after the Zenit-2 rocket body went past. It was going to be very dim (4.2 magnitude), low (25 degrees) and it was heading SW to SE. If you're in my backyard, that means it's towards Marysville and the Scott's plant, both of which give off lots of light and kills seeing anything in the horizon to the south. It was more of an exercise of how low and how dim I could see with the naked eye, with lots of light pollution. Needless to say, I failed. Some research after the fact showed I was looking for a Chinese CZ-3 or Long March 3 rocket body which had launched on April 8th 1984. It was carrying a domestic communications satellite known as Dongfanghong DFH-2. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 1984-035B.
Quite honestly, the third on the list I picked because of it's long name, Shijian6-3Aptr. It was going to be 87 degrees in the ENE sky at 9:05pm. This was another experiment to see the bounds of what I could see from my backyard looking east (which is towards the road that leads to my house which is lined with like 20 murcury streetlamps. The since I'm in my backyard, however, the house blocks the very bright lights and for the most part, if it's straight up, the sky is still faily black. Anyways, this was another failure, probably due to it's 4.1 magnitude. A little background: This particular item launched on Oct 28 2008. According to the NORAD ID and Int'l Code it's a piece of 'Satellite Debris'. I have no idea what that means, honestly. But whatever it is, it was launched from a Long March 4B Chinese rocket and carried two satellites (SJ-6E and SJ-6F) which were designed to study the harsh environment of space. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 2008-053D.
The fourth on the list was Cosmos 1674 (or Kosmos 1674), which was supposed to be going from N to S heading directly overhead at 87 degrees W at 9:08pm. However, I'm not sure I saw that one, exactly. I saw something head over at around 87 degrees in the E and it was more like 9:05pm. I looked at all the sites I have and that's pretty much the only thing during that time span going N to S and being directly overhead, so I'm chalking that one up. It was a 3.5 magnitude satellite. Kosmos 1674 is a Russian spy satellite for ELINT (electronic intelligence) network called Tselina-D and launched on August 8, 1985 but for some reason was end-of-life'd on November of 1985. The Int'l Designator for this satellite is 1985-069A.
So, two out of four (of which two were probably impossible to see from my area). I can't complain about that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 20-Sep-2010 Monday
8:45 PM - Name: Resurs 1-4 Rocket - Magnitude: 2.1
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
9:08 PM - Name: Cosmos 1674 - Magnitude: 2.8
Int'l Designator: 1985-069-A
When I got home, the wife informed me a package had come in for me. It was my Giant 600 Cartoon Collection that I got for a steal on eBay. 12 dual-layer DVDs and over 60 hours of cartoons baby!
=-=-=-=-
Satellites!
It was about 8:30pm and I thought I heard the kiddo go to bed, so I went to a couple of my satellite tracking sites and quickly came up with a list of four sats that I was going to try to see.
First up up at 8:45pm was a Zenit-2 rocket body. This rocket was launched on July 10, 1998 from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome. It deployed the RESURS-01 4 which was a satellite for the Russian military which observed and monitored natural Earth resources. Then either the same rocket, or the Resurs 01-4 satellite itself in turn launched the TMSAT-1 (that's Thai-Microsatellite-OSCAR). Both satellites have been decommissioned, but the rocket body still hovers around out there, 12 years later. This is why we have all that space junk out there. By the way, just so you know, Resurs is french for 'resource'. :) This was a 2.9 magnitude object, so it wasn't too hard to spot in the sky. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 1998-043G.
Up next was a selection (PRC 15 Rocket) that I chose merely because at 8:51pm it was going to be in the sky shortly after the Zenit-2 rocket body went past. It was going to be very dim (4.2 magnitude), low (25 degrees) and it was heading SW to SE. If you're in my backyard, that means it's towards Marysville and the Scott's plant, both of which give off lots of light and kills seeing anything in the horizon to the south. It was more of an exercise of how low and how dim I could see with the naked eye, with lots of light pollution. Needless to say, I failed. Some research after the fact showed I was looking for a Chinese CZ-3 or Long March 3 rocket body which had launched on April 8th 1984. It was carrying a domestic communications satellite known as Dongfanghong DFH-2. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 1984-035B.
Quite honestly, the third on the list I picked because of it's long name, Shijian6-3Aptr. It was going to be 87 degrees in the ENE sky at 9:05pm. This was another experiment to see the bounds of what I could see from my backyard looking east (which is towards the road that leads to my house which is lined with like 20 murcury streetlamps. The since I'm in my backyard, however, the house blocks the very bright lights and for the most part, if it's straight up, the sky is still faily black. Anyways, this was another failure, probably due to it's 4.1 magnitude. A little background: This particular item launched on Oct 28 2008. According to the NORAD ID and Int'l Code it's a piece of 'Satellite Debris'. I have no idea what that means, honestly. But whatever it is, it was launched from a Long March 4B Chinese rocket and carried two satellites (SJ-6E and SJ-6F) which were designed to study the harsh environment of space. The Int'l Designator for this rocket body is 2008-053D.
The fourth on the list was Cosmos 1674 (or Kosmos 1674), which was supposed to be going from N to S heading directly overhead at 87 degrees W at 9:08pm. However, I'm not sure I saw that one, exactly. I saw something head over at around 87 degrees in the E and it was more like 9:05pm. I looked at all the sites I have and that's pretty much the only thing during that time span going N to S and being directly overhead, so I'm chalking that one up. It was a 3.5 magnitude satellite. Kosmos 1674 is a Russian spy satellite for ELINT (electronic intelligence) network called Tselina-D and launched on August 8, 1985 but for some reason was end-of-life'd on November of 1985. The Int'l Designator for this satellite is 1985-069A.
So, two out of four (of which two were probably impossible to see from my area). I can't complain about that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 20-Sep-2010 Monday
8:45 PM - Name: Resurs 1-4 Rocket - Magnitude: 2.1
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
9:08 PM - Name: Cosmos 1674 - Magnitude: 2.8
Int'l Designator: 1985-069-A
Friday, September 17, 2010
Lacrosse 4 - sighted
I finally nabbed a glimpse of the Lacrosse 4 reconnaissance satellite this evening at 8:51pm. I only caught the last 15 seconds of it since it seemed a little early (but then again, 1) who's to say the clock on our oven is correct -and- 2) the sites have 'projections' of when they will be at their peak magnitude and their position in the sky.
I had a few more on my list, but my neighbors a few houses down who had their backyard lights on (which wasn't a problem really since I could block those with a postit note while blocking the BRIGHT moon with the outdoor umbrella), decided to get out their 1 million watt halogen light, which I heard they got for $5 at a garage sale (acoustics at night are amazing as well). Oh, and they shined it directly in my direction. They possibly even made a comment that they were amazed to be able to see me. I used my post-it briefly to block that madness, but after 3 minutes, I realized it was for naught. My little square postit (and the rest of the backyard) were no match for 1 million candles. I finished my High Life Light and came back inside. Most of the others I had planned were peaking in the east anyways so it would have been difficult to see them from my backyard which faces west. If I went to the front of my house, I would be dealing with no less than 15 orange streetlamps which would ensure that I my eyes would never adjust enough to see jack squat.
Oh well, I saw the L4, and that was the goal of the evening. Check!
Maybe I'll try again later this evening if the neighbors down the street decide to call it (and their 1M candle watt lamp) an evening.
(Note: the International Designation Code for the Lacrosse 4 satellite is 2000-047A)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 17-Sep-2010 Friday
8:51 PM - Name: Lacrosse 4 - Magnitude: 2.0
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A
I had a few more on my list, but my neighbors a few houses down who had their backyard lights on (which wasn't a problem really since I could block those with a postit note while blocking the BRIGHT moon with the outdoor umbrella), decided to get out their 1 million watt halogen light, which I heard they got for $5 at a garage sale (acoustics at night are amazing as well). Oh, and they shined it directly in my direction. They possibly even made a comment that they were amazed to be able to see me. I used my post-it briefly to block that madness, but after 3 minutes, I realized it was for naught. My little square postit (and the rest of the backyard) were no match for 1 million candles. I finished my High Life Light and came back inside. Most of the others I had planned were peaking in the east anyways so it would have been difficult to see them from my backyard which faces west. If I went to the front of my house, I would be dealing with no less than 15 orange streetlamps which would ensure that I my eyes would never adjust enough to see jack squat.
Oh well, I saw the L4, and that was the goal of the evening. Check!
Maybe I'll try again later this evening if the neighbors down the street decide to call it (and their 1M candle watt lamp) an evening.
(Note: the International Designation Code for the Lacrosse 4 satellite is 2000-047A)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 17-Sep-2010 Friday
8:51 PM - Name: Lacrosse 4 - Magnitude: 2.0
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Take that, X-37B
At 8:30pm, I finally managed to nab a glimpse of the X-37B last night. Probably got to watch it for a good 2 minutes. The Int'l Designator for the X-37B is 2010-015A.
Yeah, watched that lil' white dot go straight overhead.
I don't know why I find spotting these little things so much. Probably because it's like a treasure hunt. You have to search the sky for them; looking at all those stars until you finally see something moving.
Up next, maybe I'll try to get a glimpse of one of the Lacrosse satellites. I should have seen Lacrosse4 the other night, but somehow missed it. Maybe the National Reconnaissance Office did something to cloak it!!! It is one of their little children after all. And, if you read up on Lacrosse 4's brother - Lacrosse 5 - this particular satellite actually has a 'disappearing trick'. Hmmmmmmm.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 15-Sep-2010 Wednesday
8:29 PM - Name: X-37B OTV-1 (aka USA 212) - Magnitude: 2.3
Int'l Designator: 2010-015-A
Yeah, watched that lil' white dot go straight overhead.
I don't know why I find spotting these little things so much. Probably because it's like a treasure hunt. You have to search the sky for them; looking at all those stars until you finally see something moving.
Up next, maybe I'll try to get a glimpse of one of the Lacrosse satellites. I should have seen Lacrosse4 the other night, but somehow missed it. Maybe the National Reconnaissance Office did something to cloak it!!! It is one of their little children after all. And, if you read up on Lacrosse 4's brother - Lacrosse 5 - this particular satellite actually has a 'disappearing trick'. Hmmmmmmm.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 15-Sep-2010 Wednesday
8:29 PM - Name: X-37B OTV-1 (aka USA 212) - Magnitude: 2.3
Int'l Designator: 2010-015-A
Monday, September 13, 2010
W00t! Three SATs in one
Just got done seeing three satellites in one sitting. Armed with a list of 6 satellites / objects, I went outside around 8:12pm
I first went out looking for the X37-B Experimental 'Top Secret' Aircraft, but at 8:14pm, it was still rather bright outside and it's a fairly dim object (and my aim is still subject in the backyard, meaning, I'm not exactly sure where N/S/E/W are.
Next up was the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:36pm. I got to see the full 3 minute pass of the ISS and attempted to take a few pics since it was so bright. It was around a -2.9 magnitude... remember lower number = brighter. The moon is something like -11 magnitude. Anyway, I was hoping for some time lapse, but I have no idea how to work my camera (yet) so I only have two stills where you can see the object moving. But that's better than no photos. (I'll attach those later in the post). The Int'l Designator for the IIS is 1998-067A.
Next I saw "Unknown object B" (that's what the database called it) at 8:40. I wasn't sure I would be able to see it with only a magnitude of 3.0, but I saw it. Since my eyes had really adjusted by that point, it seemed as bright as the ISS earlier. I probably saw most of the 8 minute pass for this one. The Int'l Designator for Unknown Obj B is 2004-012C. Based on the n2y0 site, this is a rocket booster for CZ-2C rocket body. On April 18 2004 in China, this rocket launched two satellites: Tansuo 1 (Shiyan 1) which is for stereographic land resource mapping and Naxing 1 which was China's first nano-satellite which did 'high tech experiments' and weighed only 25 kg.
There was supposedly a pass of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) at 8:43, but I missed that because I had no idea how dim it was (5.2 magnitude... REALLY dim). The Int'l Designator for IRAS is 1983-004A.
Next, at 8:56pm, was the launch vehicle (read: rocket body) for the Lacrosse 4 National Reconnaissance Office terrestrial radar imaging reconnaissance satellite. Yeah.. big words. Anyways, that one heading N to S. I probably saw most of the 6 minute pass for that one. Based on Wikipedia, this would be the body of a Titan IV rocket. The Int'l Desginator for this Lacrosse 4 R/B is 2000-047B.
The last one on the list was the actual Lacrosse 4 satellite. I went out and starting looking for it. I called out the wife (who was finally downstairs) and called her out. However, that turned out to be a plane. I should have known that it wasn't it since it was heading the wrong direction. At first it was just a bright light, but by the time the Mrs got outside, it was closer to being overhead and the blinky-blinkies were visible. Never did see that one. The Int'l Desginator for the Lacrosse 4 satellite is 2000-047A.
Oh well, 3 out of 6 on my first real attempt isn't too bad I don't think.
And now, the blurry (and heavily adjusted) photos. I've put a red square around the same part of the picture so you can see the 'motion' of the ISS. Enjoy (or not). You'll have to click on the to make them bigger to have any chance of seeing the red box, btw. Not sure how it'll come out on them fancy-shmancy LCD monitors either. Good luck!
.JPG)
.JPG)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 13-Sep-2010 Monday
8:38 PM - Name: ISS - Magnitude: -3.6
Int'l Designator: 1998-067-A
8:44 PM - Name: Tansuo 1 LM2r - Magnitude: 3.0
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
9:00 PM - Name: Lacrosse 4 Rocket - Magnitude: 1.3
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-B
I first went out looking for the X37-B Experimental 'Top Secret' Aircraft, but at 8:14pm, it was still rather bright outside and it's a fairly dim object (and my aim is still subject in the backyard, meaning, I'm not exactly sure where N/S/E/W are.
Next up was the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:36pm. I got to see the full 3 minute pass of the ISS and attempted to take a few pics since it was so bright. It was around a -2.9 magnitude... remember lower number = brighter. The moon is something like -11 magnitude. Anyway, I was hoping for some time lapse, but I have no idea how to work my camera (yet) so I only have two stills where you can see the object moving. But that's better than no photos. (I'll attach those later in the post). The Int'l Designator for the IIS is 1998-067A.
Next I saw "Unknown object B" (that's what the database called it) at 8:40. I wasn't sure I would be able to see it with only a magnitude of 3.0, but I saw it. Since my eyes had really adjusted by that point, it seemed as bright as the ISS earlier. I probably saw most of the 8 minute pass for this one. The Int'l Designator for Unknown Obj B is 2004-012C. Based on the n2y0 site, this is a rocket booster for CZ-2C rocket body. On April 18 2004 in China, this rocket launched two satellites: Tansuo 1 (Shiyan 1) which is for stereographic land resource mapping and Naxing 1 which was China's first nano-satellite which did 'high tech experiments' and weighed only 25 kg.
There was supposedly a pass of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) at 8:43, but I missed that because I had no idea how dim it was (5.2 magnitude... REALLY dim). The Int'l Designator for IRAS is 1983-004A.
Next, at 8:56pm, was the launch vehicle (read: rocket body) for the Lacrosse 4 National Reconnaissance Office terrestrial radar imaging reconnaissance satellite. Yeah.. big words. Anyways, that one heading N to S. I probably saw most of the 6 minute pass for that one. Based on Wikipedia, this would be the body of a Titan IV rocket. The Int'l Desginator for this Lacrosse 4 R/B is 2000-047B.
The last one on the list was the actual Lacrosse 4 satellite. I went out and starting looking for it. I called out the wife (who was finally downstairs) and called her out. However, that turned out to be a plane. I should have known that it wasn't it since it was heading the wrong direction. At first it was just a bright light, but by the time the Mrs got outside, it was closer to being overhead and the blinky-blinkies were visible. Never did see that one. The Int'l Desginator for the Lacrosse 4 satellite is 2000-047A.
Oh well, 3 out of 6 on my first real attempt isn't too bad I don't think.
And now, the blurry (and heavily adjusted) photos. I've put a red square around the same part of the picture so you can see the 'motion' of the ISS. Enjoy (or not). You'll have to click on the to make them bigger to have any chance of seeing the red box, btw. Not sure how it'll come out on them fancy-shmancy LCD monitors either. Good luck!
.JPG)
.JPG)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 13-Sep-2010 Monday
8:38 PM - Name: ISS - Magnitude: -3.6
Int'l Designator: 1998-067-A
8:44 PM - Name: Tansuo 1 LM2r - Magnitude: 3.0
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
9:00 PM - Name: Lacrosse 4 Rocket - Magnitude: 1.3
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-B
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Can you say TASTY?!!?!?!
This just looks awesome. I'd eat it for sure. Too bad I think they only have it in Japan.
The girl in the video is known as Gal Sone. She's awesome. She is one of the more well known competitive eaters in Japan. She can put away food like crazy. I've seen the video where she eats 6 kg of curry (Japanese curry, not Indian curry) in 23 minutes. BTW, 6 kg is 13.2 lbs. Oh, and she weighs something like 100 lbs. I've also seen her woof down 100 pieces of sushi like it wasn't anything.
Here's an old article from 2007 about her. The youtube video link is toast since several of the Japanese TV channels cleared out nearly all of the videos she was in.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/02/72640
Here's her blog if you want to see posing with people you don't know and pictures of food that you have no idea what it is.
The girl in the video is known as Gal Sone. She's awesome. She is one of the more well known competitive eaters in Japan. She can put away food like crazy. I've seen the video where she eats 6 kg of curry (Japanese curry, not Indian curry) in 23 minutes. BTW, 6 kg is 13.2 lbs. Oh, and she weighs something like 100 lbs. I've also seen her woof down 100 pieces of sushi like it wasn't anything.
Here's an old article from 2007 about her. The youtube video link is toast since several of the Japanese TV channels cleared out nearly all of the videos she was in.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/02/72640
Here's her blog if you want to see posing with people you don't know and pictures of food that you have no idea what it is.
Two words
Not awesome
Mike Portnoy has left Dream Theater.
http://www.mikeportnoy.com/forum/m2585154.aspx
http://www.antimusic.com/news/10/sep/09Mike_Portnoy_Quits_Dream_Theater.shtml
Like most, I am a bit stunned... but quite honestly not surprised either. As Mike stated, after doing shows with Hail, Transatlantic and Avenged Sevenfold, he realized that he was having more fun with those things that he was with Dream Theater. And I have to second that. In recent years I have enjoyed his side-project stuff much more than the DT stuff. They kept it up for 25 years, so it's not like they didn't have the chance to explore the world both physically and musically. It'll be interesting to see what sound Dream Theater will have without Mike (as DT is still planning on recording a new album in Jan 2011).
One disappointment is that there will not likely be a completion of the DT-project Mike was working on which involved writing a song for each step of the AA 12-step program. All of the songs were created so that, someday, the whole 12 song suite would be able to be played seamlessly together. The last album had part 9 and 10 on it, I believe. So the upcoming album would have likely completed this suite.
However, another disappointment was avoided. I'm glad that I got to see Dream Theater live (at one of the best concerts I've been to, too). It could have ended like it did with the Grateful Dead where I had the chance to go to a concert and said 'I'll catch them the next time around' and then Jerry died. So, no regrets on my part for the past few DT concerts I've missed. I saw them once (with Fates Warning and Queensryche, no less) and it was awesome.
Mike Portnoy has left Dream Theater.
http://www.mikeportnoy.com/forum/m2585154.aspx
http://www.antimusic.com/news/10/sep/09Mike_Portnoy_Quits_Dream_Theater.shtml
Like most, I am a bit stunned... but quite honestly not surprised either. As Mike stated, after doing shows with Hail, Transatlantic and Avenged Sevenfold, he realized that he was having more fun with those things that he was with Dream Theater. And I have to second that. In recent years I have enjoyed his side-project stuff much more than the DT stuff. They kept it up for 25 years, so it's not like they didn't have the chance to explore the world both physically and musically. It'll be interesting to see what sound Dream Theater will have without Mike (as DT is still planning on recording a new album in Jan 2011).
One disappointment is that there will not likely be a completion of the DT-project Mike was working on which involved writing a song for each step of the AA 12-step program. All of the songs were created so that, someday, the whole 12 song suite would be able to be played seamlessly together. The last album had part 9 and 10 on it, I believe. So the upcoming album would have likely completed this suite.
However, another disappointment was avoided. I'm glad that I got to see Dream Theater live (at one of the best concerts I've been to, too). It could have ended like it did with the Grateful Dead where I had the chance to go to a concert and said 'I'll catch them the next time around' and then Jerry died. So, no regrets on my part for the past few DT concerts I've missed. I saw them once (with Fates Warning and Queensryche, no less) and it was awesome.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
One word
Awesome
Can't wait for the new Ben Folds album to come out! Sadly, this song will not be among them. It's a iTunes only track. Stupid iTunes.
BTW, the rest of the stuff from Pamplamoose (whose name is a play on the French word for grapefruit) and Nataly Dawn is incredible. Listen to it. Listen to it all (especially Nataly's take on 'Book of Love' by Magnetic Fields)
Can't wait for the new Ben Folds album to come out! Sadly, this song will not be among them. It's a iTunes only track. Stupid iTunes.
BTW, the rest of the stuff from Pamplamoose (whose name is a play on the French word for grapefruit) and Nataly Dawn is incredible. Listen to it. Listen to it all (especially Nataly's take on 'Book of Love' by Magnetic Fields)
Friday, August 27, 2010
(written on 9-25-2010)
For posterity's sake, the first time I saw the International Space Station go overhead was on August 27, 2010. It was 8:30 in the evening and the sun was just starting to set, but it was still plenty light out. It went from the SW overhead to ENE and had a magnitude of a whopping -3.6. I saw pretty much the entire 6 minutes it was visible. It just kept going and going and going. I didn't wait for it to fade was as I did with the next ISS sighting. The international code for the ISS is 1998-067A.
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 27-Aug-2010 Friday
8:36 PM - Name: Internation Space Station aka ISS - Magnitude: -4.2
Int'l Designator: 1998-067-A
For posterity's sake, the first time I saw the International Space Station go overhead was on August 27, 2010. It was 8:30 in the evening and the sun was just starting to set, but it was still plenty light out. It went from the SW overhead to ENE and had a magnitude of a whopping -3.6. I saw pretty much the entire 6 minutes it was visible. It just kept going and going and going. I didn't wait for it to fade was as I did with the next ISS sighting. The international code for the ISS is 1998-067A.
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format
Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 27-Aug-2010 Friday
8:36 PM - Name: Internation Space Station aka ISS - Magnitude: -4.2
Int'l Designator: 1998-067-A
Thursday, July 29, 2010
My day playing hookie
Ok... they be clear about this... I really wasn't playing hookie. Hookie is calling up working and saying " I don't feel so well. *Cough* *Cough* I won't be coming in today. *Cough*". That was not the case. I put in for a day off and it was accepted. However, playing hookie sound WAY cooler, so we'll just leave it that way. :P
Tom picked me up around 8am and we headed off to the National Museum of he US Air Force. The main plan of the day was to see the Hubble movie on the IMAX theater. It was something that I've been wanting to see for a while now but just never had the chance to go see. I knew it was leaving soon, so I just took off a day to go see it.
We got to the museum around 9am. I got tickets to the 11am show and then we went and looked at some airplanes. We first went into the World War Two section. We wandered around there for, well about 2 hours. It was awesome. I like looking at the planes and reading up on their top speed, stories about the specific plane that is on display, other stories that involve certain aircraft. It's also nice to see the progression in the aeronautical technologies. I basically have two favorite aircraft. One of them is in the WWII exhibit. The Flying Tigers was the name of the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Airforce in 1941-1942. Their main aircraft was the Curtis P-40 which had distinct art on the nose of the airplane to resemble a shark. Like this. I've always stopped and stared at this plane every time I've been to the museum. And today was no exception. Except this time I took some photos so I can remember it a little bit better.
After the WWII section, I believe we continued on into the Early Years section (we kinda did that one backwards). Again, lots of planes. The coolest one that I remember at the moment, was the giant biplane bomber which had wings which were hinged so they could bend backwards. This was the Martin MB-2.
Finally at just before 11am, we headed to the giant IMAX theater. I forget quickly how large an IMAX screen is. It is big. The Hubble movie was good. I was slightly disappointed since I was thinking it was going to be the Hubble 3D movie, however this was the 'flat' version. And that was okay honestly. Most of the 3D effects would have been utilized during a section where they were peering into a galaxy n stuff. They did send an IMAX 3D camera up there during STS-125 (the last Hubble mission), so the repair mission parts would be cool to see in 3D for sure. But beggars can't be choosers and I was begging to see this movie, so... I got the 2D version. And it was good. :)
After that, it was noon but we decided that we'd quickly go through the cold war part of the museum. Of course, in order to get there you had to go through another hanger of airplanes from the Southeast Asia and Korean Wars section which was too much for us to pass up. So we went through all of that. And all of the 'Cold War Era'. And since we had seen that much, we topped it off by seeing the Space and Missle section which was in a 140-ft high building. Seeing a full size Titan II rocket is pretty interesting.
By the time we finished the space thing, we both kinda forgot that we didn't eat lunch. So we were rather hungry. We stopped at Subway. And Subway is good.
After that we went to Mendelsons Liquidation Outlet. I discovered this place when I was doing my circuit-bending hobby quite a bit. I was looking for a place which sold switches and capacitors and resistors and stuff. And I found it. And whole lot more. Which Tom can attest to. It was hot as heck in there since they didn't have air conditioning. The best part was when Tom thought he had seen everything in the store only to realize that he had only seen the first FLOOR. There was still a second floor to see. It's a good thing it went down that way since on the way to the elevator, Tom found some little kitchen gadget that he HAD to have.
After sweating to death at MLO, we caught some dinner at BW3s where the service was a bit on the slow side. I had managed to get a migraine while at MLO, so I wasn't much for eating (plus, we had a late lunch as well). Service there was a bit on the slow side. We stared joking about growing the potatoes and having to hatch the chickens. Eventually the food arrived and I ate most of my Asian Zing wings and some of my chips.
After we finished eating, I decided to play one of those crane games. Each credit was 50 cents. So I plunked in a dollar and got 2 credits. On the first grab I got a doll with a music box in it. The lil one isn't so keen on music boxes, so I tried to nab a bear on my second credit. And I was SOOOO close. It actually dragged it but then it dropped right before it got to the drop zone. Since I was so close to getting the bear, I plunked in another dollar for 2 more credits. On the 3rd try I completed getting the other bear. But then I still had one more credit, so I aimed for another bear. Which I got. So, out of 4 tries, I got 3 toys. Not bad at all. Most machines nowadays they cram the animals in there so tight that it is nearly impossible to actually grab anything. But in this machine, they were in there fairly loose and the claw actually had a little bit of grab to it. Another thing that was a bonus was that the claw did not engage until you had dropped it completely. Most machine you press the button and zoom it goes down and zip it goes back up. This one I could momentarily press the buttn and the claw would only go down a little bit. And as long as the claw wasn't all the way down, you could still move it right left forward and back. So that helped me as well get precise claw-grabbing ability.
Then we drove home.
All in all, it was a great day.
Tom picked me up around 8am and we headed off to the National Museum of he US Air Force. The main plan of the day was to see the Hubble movie on the IMAX theater. It was something that I've been wanting to see for a while now but just never had the chance to go see. I knew it was leaving soon, so I just took off a day to go see it.
We got to the museum around 9am. I got tickets to the 11am show and then we went and looked at some airplanes. We first went into the World War Two section. We wandered around there for, well about 2 hours. It was awesome. I like looking at the planes and reading up on their top speed, stories about the specific plane that is on display, other stories that involve certain aircraft. It's also nice to see the progression in the aeronautical technologies. I basically have two favorite aircraft. One of them is in the WWII exhibit. The Flying Tigers was the name of the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Airforce in 1941-1942. Their main aircraft was the Curtis P-40 which had distinct art on the nose of the airplane to resemble a shark. Like this. I've always stopped and stared at this plane every time I've been to the museum. And today was no exception. Except this time I took some photos so I can remember it a little bit better.
After the WWII section, I believe we continued on into the Early Years section (we kinda did that one backwards). Again, lots of planes. The coolest one that I remember at the moment, was the giant biplane bomber which had wings which were hinged so they could bend backwards. This was the Martin MB-2.
Finally at just before 11am, we headed to the giant IMAX theater. I forget quickly how large an IMAX screen is. It is big. The Hubble movie was good. I was slightly disappointed since I was thinking it was going to be the Hubble 3D movie, however this was the 'flat' version. And that was okay honestly. Most of the 3D effects would have been utilized during a section where they were peering into a galaxy n stuff. They did send an IMAX 3D camera up there during STS-125 (the last Hubble mission), so the repair mission parts would be cool to see in 3D for sure. But beggars can't be choosers and I was begging to see this movie, so... I got the 2D version. And it was good. :)
After that, it was noon but we decided that we'd quickly go through the cold war part of the museum. Of course, in order to get there you had to go through another hanger of airplanes from the Southeast Asia and Korean Wars section which was too much for us to pass up. So we went through all of that. And all of the 'Cold War Era'. And since we had seen that much, we topped it off by seeing the Space and Missle section which was in a 140-ft high building. Seeing a full size Titan II rocket is pretty interesting.
By the time we finished the space thing, we both kinda forgot that we didn't eat lunch. So we were rather hungry. We stopped at Subway. And Subway is good.
After that we went to Mendelsons Liquidation Outlet. I discovered this place when I was doing my circuit-bending hobby quite a bit. I was looking for a place which sold switches and capacitors and resistors and stuff. And I found it. And whole lot more. Which Tom can attest to. It was hot as heck in there since they didn't have air conditioning. The best part was when Tom thought he had seen everything in the store only to realize that he had only seen the first FLOOR. There was still a second floor to see. It's a good thing it went down that way since on the way to the elevator, Tom found some little kitchen gadget that he HAD to have.
After sweating to death at MLO, we caught some dinner at BW3s where the service was a bit on the slow side. I had managed to get a migraine while at MLO, so I wasn't much for eating (plus, we had a late lunch as well). Service there was a bit on the slow side. We stared joking about growing the potatoes and having to hatch the chickens. Eventually the food arrived and I ate most of my Asian Zing wings and some of my chips.
After we finished eating, I decided to play one of those crane games. Each credit was 50 cents. So I plunked in a dollar and got 2 credits. On the first grab I got a doll with a music box in it. The lil one isn't so keen on music boxes, so I tried to nab a bear on my second credit. And I was SOOOO close. It actually dragged it but then it dropped right before it got to the drop zone. Since I was so close to getting the bear, I plunked in another dollar for 2 more credits. On the 3rd try I completed getting the other bear. But then I still had one more credit, so I aimed for another bear. Which I got. So, out of 4 tries, I got 3 toys. Not bad at all. Most machines nowadays they cram the animals in there so tight that it is nearly impossible to actually grab anything. But in this machine, they were in there fairly loose and the claw actually had a little bit of grab to it. Another thing that was a bonus was that the claw did not engage until you had dropped it completely. Most machine you press the button and zoom it goes down and zip it goes back up. This one I could momentarily press the buttn and the claw would only go down a little bit. And as long as the claw wasn't all the way down, you could still move it right left forward and back. So that helped me as well get precise claw-grabbing ability.
Then we drove home.
All in all, it was a great day.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Weekend and my latest addiction (and no it's not cheap meth again)
Just thought I'd drop a note here.
-= Part 1: The Weekend =-
-= Saturday =-
Saturday my parents and sister came into town to do family photos. The kiddos behaved about as well as kids can when you're asking them to stand in the same place for 5 minutes. Had to let the lil little one run around a little bit when he started doing the 'I know you want to hold me , but I don't want to be held so I'm going to arch my back and contort my body as much as possible so you don't get the satisfaction of me being held' thing.
After the photo shoot, the parents dropped by the house. The Mrs and I took the opportunity to go out and get lunch and run around. We ate at Crazy Burritos which was pretty tasty. My lunch special shrimp fajitas (for $6.75 no less) was awesome. I'd certainly go there again just for that. After that we hit a consignment place that Mrs wanted to go to. There wasn't much there (other than some used carseats. I guess they didn't get the memo on it being illegal to resale used carseats.) After that we attempted to go to Goodwill, however there literally were no parking spots. It's on a corner and there literally are 4 parking spots for the store... two of which are handicapped. There was also no parking on the street around the store. I'm not sure how they expect anyone to shop there. :-/ After that we got some ice cream at a place called Old Farmhouse I think. It just recently opened. I got Peach and it was fresh and tasty.
After that fun, we came back to the house and attempted to tackle the basement. When we moved, we took a TON of stuff to my sister's house. So, lately, when she's visitd shes broght back a box or ten and it was soon becoming clear that we were going to run out of room. So, we decided that it might be time to unclutter our stuff and make some 'DONATE' and 'GARAGE SALE' piles. We really did get threw quite a bit which was nice. I let go of quite a few things, which for me is hard since I feel like I'm a border-line hoarder at times. I like things. Collections of things. Things that might be useful (and sometimes they are). But does one really need 5 extra keyboards? Does one really need those VHS tapes with three episodes of 'Behind the Music' on each of them? No. Not really. I have hung on to alot of stuff that honestly, I just don't need and that likely will not be of any use any time soon.
-= Sunday =-
Sunday I got to vacuum the whole house.
I also got to hang out with Ian. We went and ate at the Rusty Bucket in Worthington. It was tasty. We both got an order of the deep fried pickles. They were tasty, but the volume was a bit much. I got their coney platter which had two dogs covered in chili, cheese, onions and mustard (I told them to hold the sweet relish since I'm not a huge sweet relish fan... i like dill relish... not sweet relish) and some fries. It was a bit much. Ugh. I could have done without the second dog. The chili dogs were pretty much the cheapest thing on the menu at nearly $8. I'm a cheap-skate, so paying anymore than $6 makes me cringe unless it is REALLY good. This was not really good. Good. But not really good. I think my Pepsi was like $2.75. I should have just had water. Maybe then my bill for just me wouldn't have been $20 (another thing that makes me cringe).
After that we headed up to the OSU campus. After driving over one of the many bottles left in the gutter by one of the many college students (the tire was fine), we went to Used Kids. It feels like one of the few things that I can still recognize since I've been there. The Buckeye Donuts shop had a complete facelife. The Arbys and Stop n Rob have been bulldozed and replaced with a CVS. The Bike Source and Jousters bar have been bulldozed and replaced with a giant BW3s (which means one of the original BW3s places has been... bulldozed or facelifted. South Campus with all of its bars was bulldozed and now houses a whole complex of eateries, a theater and who knows what else. Even Used Kids techincally has changed. It was in the basement, but they had a fire some time after I left and had to relocate next door, to the second floor where there used to be a place called 'World Records' but that happened a while a go. 2000 maybe?
I'm rambling.
Anyways, we rooted around in the $3 CD and $1 record bins. I ended up with a Walter (Wendy) Carlos album where s/he covered various, random things that supposedly people requested... everything from Tchaikovsky to the Beatles. I also ended up with two double albums of music from some older MGM musicals. I'm not exactly sure why I bought them right now. I'm sure they will be among the first things to be put into the 'gone' pile when I finally get all the records in the house and start purging that collection. Maybe it's cause I felt bad about only spending $1. I like Used Kids. They have a crap load of crap there and that place has been an institution on campus since... who knows when (probably either in late 60s or early 70s). With the resurgence in vinyl, I guess I feel like making sure they place stays open for people to rediscover music from way back when vinyl wasn't just a 'retro-cool' thing but one of the main forms of distributing music.
-= Part 2: Addiction =-
So, after I got back from hanging out with Ian, I played with the kids and ate some dinner. Both of them had been up since early that morning, so by 7:30pm, they were both in meltdown mode and we put them to bed. Luckily, both of them went down somewhat nicely. One of them was convinced that we absolutely HAD TO go outside to hunt for treasure and repeatedly told us so for about 20 minutes before she was informed it was ABSOLUTELY time for bed. She whined and cried and hen crashed in a matter of minutes.
So, I went downstairs and rummaged through a couple more boxes.
And then I played my new addiction. A game called "The Movies". It's from 2005. I got it for $5 from Half Priced Books. You basically run a movie studio; hiring actors and directors, building movie sets, maintaining the studio grounds, trying to keep the actors and directors egos in check, trying to make sure that they all dont become alcoholics (seriously, that's part of the game). It was widely anticipated but from what I understand, people were disappointed with the game play or something. Anyways, most people now use it for making these weird movies that you can actually make in the game (something called Machinima. I was thinking about buying it for the wife when it first came out, since she's a big movie buff, but at the time her computer would have pretty much melted down if I would have tried to install this game on it.
Anyhoo... after I bought it, it took a few weeks to finally install it. On my machine first, of course. At first, I had a hard time... but I didn't read the directions either. D'oh. After I figured it out, I was off. After dorking around with it for THREE HOURS the first night. I came upstairs and told the wife how much fun it was and then declared 'that game is a such time sucker'. To me, that means it's a game that you can sit down with every intention of playing for 'just a few minutes' and the next thing you know it's 3 hours later. That's kinda what happened last night. It was 8:30 and I was going to just play a little while also working on another project from the wife. The next thing I know, it's 11:30 and my mouse clicking figure is stuff and my eyes are burning because I've been so intently watching the screen. It didn't help that I just hired a whole mess of actors/actresses and directors, had like 3 movies in production at one, and they were all getting bent out of shape and drinking and complaining that their entourage wasn't big enough or their trailer wasn't nice enough and blah blah blah and red lights going off everywhere and.... you get the picture.
It's a time sucker. And I enjoy it. I had a hard time, even at midnight, getting to sleep because my brain was actively thinking about what strategy I could use on my next game. I haven't even finished the first one yet! Actually, the game is open ended, but I figure when the year 2000 rolls around (It starts in the 20s... I'm currently in the late 70s) I'm sure that I'll probably start anew at that point. Maybe I'll hire fewer people and concentrate on building more sets (a current problem is movies using the same sets and blocking each other). Maybe I'll be 'Actor-land' so that I can keep track of the trailers better (currently they are strewn all about and it's nearly impossible to find a star's trailer when they need to be put into time out). Maybe I need to focus more on their entourages. Maybe I should use the custom scrip writing office earlier in the game and that could help me avoid issues with the same sets being used over and over again.
Anyways... that's all I have to say about that.
-= Part 1: The Weekend =-
-= Saturday =-
Saturday my parents and sister came into town to do family photos. The kiddos behaved about as well as kids can when you're asking them to stand in the same place for 5 minutes. Had to let the lil little one run around a little bit when he started doing the 'I know you want to hold me , but I don't want to be held so I'm going to arch my back and contort my body as much as possible so you don't get the satisfaction of me being held' thing.
After the photo shoot, the parents dropped by the house. The Mrs and I took the opportunity to go out and get lunch and run around. We ate at Crazy Burritos which was pretty tasty. My lunch special shrimp fajitas (for $6.75 no less) was awesome. I'd certainly go there again just for that. After that we hit a consignment place that Mrs wanted to go to. There wasn't much there (other than some used carseats. I guess they didn't get the memo on it being illegal to resale used carseats.) After that we attempted to go to Goodwill, however there literally were no parking spots. It's on a corner and there literally are 4 parking spots for the store... two of which are handicapped. There was also no parking on the street around the store. I'm not sure how they expect anyone to shop there. :-/ After that we got some ice cream at a place called Old Farmhouse I think. It just recently opened. I got Peach and it was fresh and tasty.
After that fun, we came back to the house and attempted to tackle the basement. When we moved, we took a TON of stuff to my sister's house. So, lately, when she's visitd shes broght back a box or ten and it was soon becoming clear that we were going to run out of room. So, we decided that it might be time to unclutter our stuff and make some 'DONATE' and 'GARAGE SALE' piles. We really did get threw quite a bit which was nice. I let go of quite a few things, which for me is hard since I feel like I'm a border-line hoarder at times. I like things. Collections of things. Things that might be useful (and sometimes they are). But does one really need 5 extra keyboards? Does one really need those VHS tapes with three episodes of 'Behind the Music' on each of them? No. Not really. I have hung on to alot of stuff that honestly, I just don't need and that likely will not be of any use any time soon.
-= Sunday =-
Sunday I got to vacuum the whole house.
I also got to hang out with Ian. We went and ate at the Rusty Bucket in Worthington. It was tasty. We both got an order of the deep fried pickles. They were tasty, but the volume was a bit much. I got their coney platter which had two dogs covered in chili, cheese, onions and mustard (I told them to hold the sweet relish since I'm not a huge sweet relish fan... i like dill relish... not sweet relish) and some fries. It was a bit much. Ugh. I could have done without the second dog. The chili dogs were pretty much the cheapest thing on the menu at nearly $8. I'm a cheap-skate, so paying anymore than $6 makes me cringe unless it is REALLY good. This was not really good. Good. But not really good. I think my Pepsi was like $2.75. I should have just had water. Maybe then my bill for just me wouldn't have been $20 (another thing that makes me cringe).
After that we headed up to the OSU campus. After driving over one of the many bottles left in the gutter by one of the many college students (the tire was fine), we went to Used Kids. It feels like one of the few things that I can still recognize since I've been there. The Buckeye Donuts shop had a complete facelife. The Arbys and Stop n Rob have been bulldozed and replaced with a CVS. The Bike Source and Jousters bar have been bulldozed and replaced with a giant BW3s (which means one of the original BW3s places has been... bulldozed or facelifted. South Campus with all of its bars was bulldozed and now houses a whole complex of eateries, a theater and who knows what else. Even Used Kids techincally has changed. It was in the basement, but they had a fire some time after I left and had to relocate next door, to the second floor where there used to be a place called 'World Records' but that happened a while a go. 2000 maybe?
I'm rambling.
Anyways, we rooted around in the $3 CD and $1 record bins. I ended up with a Walter (Wendy) Carlos album where s/he covered various, random things that supposedly people requested... everything from Tchaikovsky to the Beatles. I also ended up with two double albums of music from some older MGM musicals. I'm not exactly sure why I bought them right now. I'm sure they will be among the first things to be put into the 'gone' pile when I finally get all the records in the house and start purging that collection. Maybe it's cause I felt bad about only spending $1. I like Used Kids. They have a crap load of crap there and that place has been an institution on campus since... who knows when (probably either in late 60s or early 70s). With the resurgence in vinyl, I guess I feel like making sure they place stays open for people to rediscover music from way back when vinyl wasn't just a 'retro-cool' thing but one of the main forms of distributing music.
-= Part 2: Addiction =-
So, after I got back from hanging out with Ian, I played with the kids and ate some dinner. Both of them had been up since early that morning, so by 7:30pm, they were both in meltdown mode and we put them to bed. Luckily, both of them went down somewhat nicely. One of them was convinced that we absolutely HAD TO go outside to hunt for treasure and repeatedly told us so for about 20 minutes before she was informed it was ABSOLUTELY time for bed. She whined and cried and hen crashed in a matter of minutes.
So, I went downstairs and rummaged through a couple more boxes.
And then I played my new addiction. A game called "The Movies". It's from 2005. I got it for $5 from Half Priced Books. You basically run a movie studio; hiring actors and directors, building movie sets, maintaining the studio grounds, trying to keep the actors and directors egos in check, trying to make sure that they all dont become alcoholics (seriously, that's part of the game). It was widely anticipated but from what I understand, people were disappointed with the game play or something. Anyways, most people now use it for making these weird movies that you can actually make in the game (something called Machinima. I was thinking about buying it for the wife when it first came out, since she's a big movie buff, but at the time her computer would have pretty much melted down if I would have tried to install this game on it.
Anyhoo... after I bought it, it took a few weeks to finally install it. On my machine first, of course. At first, I had a hard time... but I didn't read the directions either. D'oh. After I figured it out, I was off. After dorking around with it for THREE HOURS the first night. I came upstairs and told the wife how much fun it was and then declared 'that game is a such time sucker'. To me, that means it's a game that you can sit down with every intention of playing for 'just a few minutes' and the next thing you know it's 3 hours later. That's kinda what happened last night. It was 8:30 and I was going to just play a little while also working on another project from the wife. The next thing I know, it's 11:30 and my mouse clicking figure is stuff and my eyes are burning because I've been so intently watching the screen. It didn't help that I just hired a whole mess of actors/actresses and directors, had like 3 movies in production at one, and they were all getting bent out of shape and drinking and complaining that their entourage wasn't big enough or their trailer wasn't nice enough and blah blah blah and red lights going off everywhere and.... you get the picture.
It's a time sucker. And I enjoy it. I had a hard time, even at midnight, getting to sleep because my brain was actively thinking about what strategy I could use on my next game. I haven't even finished the first one yet! Actually, the game is open ended, but I figure when the year 2000 rolls around (It starts in the 20s... I'm currently in the late 70s) I'm sure that I'll probably start anew at that point. Maybe I'll hire fewer people and concentrate on building more sets (a current problem is movies using the same sets and blocking each other). Maybe I'll be 'Actor-land' so that I can keep track of the trailers better (currently they are strewn all about and it's nearly impossible to find a star's trailer when they need to be put into time out). Maybe I need to focus more on their entourages. Maybe I should use the custom scrip writing office earlier in the game and that could help me avoid issues with the same sets being used over and over again.
Anyways... that's all I have to say about that.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Save A Turtle Day
Okay, I don't really think there is a day called that... but today I saved a turtle. I was leaving work to hit Taco Bell. As I was leaving I about hit a rock that was up against the curb... or at least it looked like a rock at first.. but as I looked in my rear-view, it appeared to be a turtle. So, I drove on not really sure of what I was seeing. I went to Taco Bell and on my way back, I said, 'well, if it's a turtle, he/she probably can't get up on the curb, so... I guess I'll have to help it'. As I returned, I was it was indeed a turtle. And not a small turtle. Like, it's shell was the size of a 5 gallon paint bucket lid. So, I parked and walk all the way back to the turtle who obviously wanted to get up on the curb but hadn't quite figure it out. So I went up behind it and picked it up by its shell. At that point, the turtle I guess 'hissed' or something and failed it's legs about rather quickly. (One assumes that they ALWAYS move slow, which is a big no-no). Startled, I kind of let go of the turtle, but since we were right at the curb the turtle landed up over the curb and into some much right next to th ewalkway which goes right past one of the two 'ponds' that are in front of the complex of building I worked at. I walked off since the turtle didn't really appreciate me touching it. But I looked back to see it's long head extend back out and it start moving forward again. If that turtle would have stayed there much longer, it surely would have been hit since the exit is on a slight bend and people get all in a rush and whip through the parking lot to get to the road which was 20 feet away. Had I not moved the turtle, it would have continued to follow the curb until it got to the road.
I saved a turtle!!!
Good deed of the day: Check.
I saved a turtle!!!
Good deed of the day: Check.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Mother's Day
Had an interesting Mother's Day.
Woke up and told the wife 'We're going out for breakfast'. Lil kiddo said she wasn't feeling well, but we atrributed that to her not eating much the day before due to her tonsillectomy. Rolled into Waffle House. Strapped the one kiddo into the high chair. The other one, made her way into the booth, and then, informed us again she was not feeling well... and puked into the diaper bag. So wife takes kiddo back to the car, I unbuckle the other one and walk back out. This all occurred within 30 seconds of finding our booth in the restaurant. So, we drove back home. Daddy (that's me) went and nabbed some McD's breakfast for the Mrs.
A couple of hours later, my parents came into town to watch the kids and let the Mrs and I get a little kid-less time. We went to Graffiti Burger for lunch. It was tasty. We both got the namesake. The Mrs didn't care for the zesty slaw on top but other than that she liked it. I thought it was as awesome as the first time I ate it. Got the milk shake for $3. I wasn't overly impressed with that. We also got 1/2 lb of fries. All told, it was $20, which is a bit expensive for get getting two burgers, some fries a shake and two drinks. But, still good.
We then hopped over to the Dublin AMC and saw 'Hot Tub Time Machine'. The original plan was to see 'Babies' but it wasn't playing until 3pm and we didn't know if lil kiddo was gonna have a meltdown or not as she was less than pleased when we left. Anyways, I have to say that this was an interesting pick for a Mother's Day movie. We both wanted to see it when the previews came out, so it seemed like the next logical choice. It's very hard to descibe how I feel about this movie, so I just won't. Go see it and you'll understand.
The Mrs while she somewhat enjoyed it, it certainly didn't give the 'fulfilling movie' feeling. So, I called the grandparents to determine that the kiddos were just fine. I looked at my watch and figured that if we busted ass, we could haul on down to the Lennox and JUST make the movie. And haul we did. And make the movie we did as well. We literally sat down (it was CROWDED as all heck) and had about 5 minutes of trailers and then the movie start.
'Babies' was what it sounded like if you've seen the previews. It's an un-narrated clip show about the first year of life for four babies. They were from various locations across the globe as to show the child-rearing differences. One was from San Francisco, one was from Africa, one was from Japan and one was from Mongolia. I didn't realize that it wasn't going to be narrated at all, but that didn't bug me really. There was also very very minimal music. Probably a little bit every 15 minutes or so would be my guess. Not alot.
We then trekked home, stopping by to get some Wendy's for all.
It was nice to spend time with the Mrs as I was about at my wits end. Hopefully, for the most part, I hope she enjoyed herself as well.
Woke up and told the wife 'We're going out for breakfast'. Lil kiddo said she wasn't feeling well, but we atrributed that to her not eating much the day before due to her tonsillectomy. Rolled into Waffle House. Strapped the one kiddo into the high chair. The other one, made her way into the booth, and then, informed us again she was not feeling well... and puked into the diaper bag. So wife takes kiddo back to the car, I unbuckle the other one and walk back out. This all occurred within 30 seconds of finding our booth in the restaurant. So, we drove back home. Daddy (that's me) went and nabbed some McD's breakfast for the Mrs.
A couple of hours later, my parents came into town to watch the kids and let the Mrs and I get a little kid-less time. We went to Graffiti Burger for lunch. It was tasty. We both got the namesake. The Mrs didn't care for the zesty slaw on top but other than that she liked it. I thought it was as awesome as the first time I ate it. Got the milk shake for $3. I wasn't overly impressed with that. We also got 1/2 lb of fries. All told, it was $20, which is a bit expensive for get getting two burgers, some fries a shake and two drinks. But, still good.
We then hopped over to the Dublin AMC and saw 'Hot Tub Time Machine'. The original plan was to see 'Babies' but it wasn't playing until 3pm and we didn't know if lil kiddo was gonna have a meltdown or not as she was less than pleased when we left. Anyways, I have to say that this was an interesting pick for a Mother's Day movie. We both wanted to see it when the previews came out, so it seemed like the next logical choice. It's very hard to descibe how I feel about this movie, so I just won't. Go see it and you'll understand.
The Mrs while she somewhat enjoyed it, it certainly didn't give the 'fulfilling movie' feeling. So, I called the grandparents to determine that the kiddos were just fine. I looked at my watch and figured that if we busted ass, we could haul on down to the Lennox and JUST make the movie. And haul we did. And make the movie we did as well. We literally sat down (it was CROWDED as all heck) and had about 5 minutes of trailers and then the movie start.
'Babies' was what it sounded like if you've seen the previews. It's an un-narrated clip show about the first year of life for four babies. They were from various locations across the globe as to show the child-rearing differences. One was from San Francisco, one was from Africa, one was from Japan and one was from Mongolia. I didn't realize that it wasn't going to be narrated at all, but that didn't bug me really. There was also very very minimal music. Probably a little bit every 15 minutes or so would be my guess. Not alot.
We then trekked home, stopping by to get some Wendy's for all.
It was nice to spend time with the Mrs as I was about at my wits end. Hopefully, for the most part, I hope she enjoyed herself as well.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Saturday out and away
I went out on Saturday and did a little bit o wandering around.
First stop was the record show. Got there around noonish. It was packed, which I was actually happy to see. In recent times the crowd hadn't been that good (especially in the later Vets Memorial days), but today the whole Haimerl parking lot was nearly full. Nabbed a few things there. In a six records for $5 bin, I got the following (all in very nice condition): Walter Carlos - Switched On Bach II, Meatloaf - Bat out of Hell (have this on Cd, wasn't sure on LP), Boston - Boston (I think I have a copy of this, but don't recall the shape, this one is fairly nice), Foreigner - Head Games, Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond - Moods and Grooves, and finally... Foghat - Live!. And literally, 2 minutes before I was going to walk out the door, some guy made me a deal on a Tangerine Dream 5 CD box set called 'The Dream Roots Collection - The Tangerine Dream pink - blue box set'. I know nothing about this one, but he sold it to me for $10 so I can't be too mad. I've liked most of the T.D. stuff I've heard. My fave is still Lily on the Beach (which was the first one I heard, as well).
As I left, I went to the kitchen which was supporting some local charity and nabbed a suspect chili dog and a Pepsi. The chili dog was good anyways.
Since that wasn't much to eat, I figured I'd head down the street and go to one of the few remaining Rally's that I know of to get a Double BBQ Bacon Cheeseburge. However, it's now closed and ready to be bulldozed. They are doing alot of renovating over on Morse. So, good for them. But I'll miss that Rally's.
After that, I crossed over on Cleveland and went to Buy Backs. Holy shit! That place is just JAM PACKED full of ... everything. Tons o' DVDs, CDs and even VHS tapes. Their Budget DVD/CD section is crazy mad. Seemingly much bigger than the the CD collection at Used Kids the last time I went. If you have the will power, you could find some kick ass shit there for 1.99 on DVDs and ... I don't even know what the CDs were going for, but I suspect it's the same. I tried to find some super cheap '50 movie DVD packs' to no avail, but did pick up the following: 40 Year Old Virgin Unrated for $4.99, two Dora DVDs for lil N for $1.99 each (a fucking steal since they charge like $9.99 at walmart and each one only has like 4 episode on them)... and the coup de gras... Matinee on VHS for $2.99. For some reason 'Matinee' (a movie starring John Goodman as a Castle-like movie producer who is about gimicks like smell-o-vision, shock seats, etc) has been out of print for freaking ever. And I've never been able to nab a copy, until now. (Actually, I just checked Amazon and it appears that literally, on May 4th, they re-released it on DVD... guess what's going on my wish list????). Anyhoo... I was very stoked to find this copy. For some reason, it seems like there are 100 on Amazon now, but there used to not be. Oh well... maybe it's cause I was looking only for DVD copies which were going for like $40 bucks. Anyways... finding that movie was awesome for me and that's all that matter. But now I want that damn _new_ DVD version of it.
After that, I went to the Ohio Thrift Store next door. Didn't buy anything there except for a big box of Mike and Ikes. They were still (mostly) fresh. I've had worse at a theater, so they were acceptable.
And that was my day out.
First stop was the record show. Got there around noonish. It was packed, which I was actually happy to see. In recent times the crowd hadn't been that good (especially in the later Vets Memorial days), but today the whole Haimerl parking lot was nearly full. Nabbed a few things there. In a six records for $5 bin, I got the following (all in very nice condition): Walter Carlos - Switched On Bach II, Meatloaf - Bat out of Hell (have this on Cd, wasn't sure on LP), Boston - Boston (I think I have a copy of this, but don't recall the shape, this one is fairly nice), Foreigner - Head Games, Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond - Moods and Grooves, and finally... Foghat - Live!. And literally, 2 minutes before I was going to walk out the door, some guy made me a deal on a Tangerine Dream 5 CD box set called 'The Dream Roots Collection - The Tangerine Dream pink - blue box set'. I know nothing about this one, but he sold it to me for $10 so I can't be too mad. I've liked most of the T.D. stuff I've heard. My fave is still Lily on the Beach (which was the first one I heard, as well).
As I left, I went to the kitchen which was supporting some local charity and nabbed a suspect chili dog and a Pepsi. The chili dog was good anyways.
Since that wasn't much to eat, I figured I'd head down the street and go to one of the few remaining Rally's that I know of to get a Double BBQ Bacon Cheeseburge. However, it's now closed and ready to be bulldozed. They are doing alot of renovating over on Morse. So, good for them. But I'll miss that Rally's.
After that, I crossed over on Cleveland and went to Buy Backs. Holy shit! That place is just JAM PACKED full of ... everything. Tons o' DVDs, CDs and even VHS tapes. Their Budget DVD/CD section is crazy mad. Seemingly much bigger than the the CD collection at Used Kids the last time I went. If you have the will power, you could find some kick ass shit there for 1.99 on DVDs and ... I don't even know what the CDs were going for, but I suspect it's the same. I tried to find some super cheap '50 movie DVD packs' to no avail, but did pick up the following: 40 Year Old Virgin Unrated for $4.99, two Dora DVDs for lil N for $1.99 each (a fucking steal since they charge like $9.99 at walmart and each one only has like 4 episode on them)... and the coup de gras... Matinee on VHS for $2.99. For some reason 'Matinee' (a movie starring John Goodman as a Castle-like movie producer who is about gimicks like smell-o-vision, shock seats, etc) has been out of print for freaking ever. And I've never been able to nab a copy, until now. (Actually, I just checked Amazon and it appears that literally, on May 4th, they re-released it on DVD... guess what's going on my wish list????). Anyhoo... I was very stoked to find this copy. For some reason, it seems like there are 100 on Amazon now, but there used to not be. Oh well... maybe it's cause I was looking only for DVD copies which were going for like $40 bucks. Anyways... finding that movie was awesome for me and that's all that matter. But now I want that damn _new_ DVD version of it.
After that, I went to the Ohio Thrift Store next door. Didn't buy anything there except for a big box of Mike and Ikes. They were still (mostly) fresh. I've had worse at a theater, so they were acceptable.
And that was my day out.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Mid April Stuffage = Script Ohio
Before I forget all this stuff which I remembered this morning from the previous weekend (<--- was this even a sentence????)
We to my dad's shin-dig for Eastern Star. Had a beer and a stiff rum n coke to get me through the pleasantries. But the cool part of the evening was the fact that the entertainment that evening was the 'Hyperactive' Ohio State Alumni band. As I learned there are 3 active alumni bands. One is the 'performance' alumni band. They do the BIG alumni shows, ones that are covered on TV n whatnot. Then there is the 'active' alumni band which does the bigger conferences and stuff. Then there is the hyperactive band. They pretty much do everything: birthday parties, funerals (yeah, it actually happens), fund raisers, etc etc etc.
So the cool part was that my dad and his counterpart in the Eastern Star got to 'dot the I' while the band played "Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse" (aka, the song they play during Script Ohio). But even better, the drum major invited people in the crowd to stand up and march along with them. So as any pure OSU alumni would do, I got up and started marching. The sweet part was because the path the drum major took, the marchers actually had to perform the 'cross over' where every one has to weave in order to not run into each other (it's part of the O if you've seen Script Ohio. So, I can officially say I've marched to Script Ohio with TBDBITL.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The next day the family went to the Zoo. It was a wonderful day. It was in the upper 40s when we got there. I only had on a short sleeve T-shirt. It felt really good. The only time I actually got 'cold' was when we ate lunch by the 'lake'. It was a bit breezy and the wind coming off the 'lake' was rather cool. But other than that, it was wonderful.
We finally got to see the lion cubs. One of them started chasing a bird which for some reason refused to leave even when the lion cub was chasing it around. Finally the dad came over and put his paw on his sons head as if to say 'Son, quit chasing that bird and looking like a dork. You're embarassing me'.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife got the kids a sandbox the other day, so I've bee making sand castles with lil N for the past couple of evenings. I make the castles and she crushes them. I guess that's fair.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife got the first part of season 1 of 'Glee' on DVD from the Marysville library. So we've been watching that. It's good fun. I like musicals.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
OK, I'm done for now. I honestly just wanted to remember the Script Ohio and zoo stuff.
We to my dad's shin-dig for Eastern Star. Had a beer and a stiff rum n coke to get me through the pleasantries. But the cool part of the evening was the fact that the entertainment that evening was the 'Hyperactive' Ohio State Alumni band. As I learned there are 3 active alumni bands. One is the 'performance' alumni band. They do the BIG alumni shows, ones that are covered on TV n whatnot. Then there is the 'active' alumni band which does the bigger conferences and stuff. Then there is the hyperactive band. They pretty much do everything: birthday parties, funerals (yeah, it actually happens), fund raisers, etc etc etc.
So the cool part was that my dad and his counterpart in the Eastern Star got to 'dot the I' while the band played "Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse" (aka, the song they play during Script Ohio). But even better, the drum major invited people in the crowd to stand up and march along with them. So as any pure OSU alumni would do, I got up and started marching. The sweet part was because the path the drum major took, the marchers actually had to perform the 'cross over' where every one has to weave in order to not run into each other (it's part of the O if you've seen Script Ohio. So, I can officially say I've marched to Script Ohio with TBDBITL.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The next day the family went to the Zoo. It was a wonderful day. It was in the upper 40s when we got there. I only had on a short sleeve T-shirt. It felt really good. The only time I actually got 'cold' was when we ate lunch by the 'lake'. It was a bit breezy and the wind coming off the 'lake' was rather cool. But other than that, it was wonderful.
We finally got to see the lion cubs. One of them started chasing a bird which for some reason refused to leave even when the lion cub was chasing it around. Finally the dad came over and put his paw on his sons head as if to say 'Son, quit chasing that bird and looking like a dork. You're embarassing me'.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife got the kids a sandbox the other day, so I've bee making sand castles with lil N for the past couple of evenings. I make the castles and she crushes them. I guess that's fair.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife got the first part of season 1 of 'Glee' on DVD from the Marysville library. So we've been watching that. It's good fun. I like musicals.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
OK, I'm done for now. I honestly just wanted to remember the Script Ohio and zoo stuff.
Monday, April 05, 2010
April n March n stuff
Lessee here....
Finally got to see Ian's house which was cool. Can't wait for him to get the rekording studio up n running in the basement. We went to Blue Ginger on Sawmill. It's in the strip mall with BD Mongolian and Buy Backs. It's one of those weird things where on the outside it's just like any other building in a strip mall.. but when you walk in there, it is a very nice Japanese restaurant. I got a combo meal where I could you could get soup and two rolls. I got hot n sour and a crunchy salmon (or was it tuna) roll and come other roll with calamari in it. The rolls i got were of the smaller variety. The one Ian got was this huge monstrosity of a thing with all sorts of sauces drizzled on it. It looked tasty! We then went to buybacks and bought... nothing. Then we headed to 1/2 Price books on Bethel. Ian got a slew of CDs and I bought the Jimmy Buffet autobiography book from the 1990s and some other biography on Brian Wilson (which was new enough to have one of the Brian Wilson comebacks in it... I think it was the late 1990s one... not the release of Smile one). It was cool to hang out with Ian for a little bit.
=-=-=-=-
The Monday after that I met up with my friend Tom and we went to 5 Guys Burgers. The place is very simple and the menu even more simple. The menu basically has single burgers, double burgers, fries, hot dogs and grilled cheese. That's it. It was very tasty indeed. They serve everything in a paper bag. If you go, get the regular fry only. I don't care how hungry you think you are, the reg fry will be plenty. See, then first package a reg cup of fries (kinda like at the fair). Then they put your burger in the bag, and then they they throw a whole bunch of fries in at the end. When Tom told me he couldn't eat all the fries the last time he ate there, I laughed at him and belittled him. Of course, that meant that it was almost guaranteed to be that I would not be able to eat all of mine... which is exactly what happened. (5 Guys Burgers is off of Avery-Muirfield by the BW3s). The double burger I got was good n greasy.
=-=-=-=-
The Tuesday after that, I met up with my friend Kevin at Graffiti Burger (which is up on Sawmill in front of the Kroger Marketplace and next door to Pei Wei). It is a very similar concept to 5 Guys where the menu is minimal. I believe that Graffiti Burger has burers only, but they do have milkshakes as well. I got the namesake burger (which contained a spicy cole slaw served on the burger) and it was f'ing tasty.
Between 5 Guys and Graffiti, I would likely choose Graffiti, but they are both tasty (and can be a bit exspensive... my meal at 5 Guys was $11 and my meal at Graffiti was $10)
=-=-=-=-
In other food news, a few days ago my wife returned from KFC with a surprise. Turns out, that while fried gizzards are not on the menu, some stores actually carry them. My wife was tipped to this when she saw a coupon somewhere mentioning that you could get 50 cents off of a gizzards meal but to ask at the store since not all carry gizzards. Prior to this, the only place I could get fried gizzards was at Lee's Famous Recipe. The closest one that I know of is in Bellefountaine, OH which is about 30 - 40 minutes away (though, it's on my way to heading back where my parents live). But now, I can have gizzards in 5 minutes as the Marysville KFC sells gizzards. TASTY!!!!
=-=-=-=-
I bought this weird documentary about song poems called "Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story". Song poems are just what they sound like. If you've ever been looking at the ads in the back of People magazie or probably comic books or even Rolling Stone as some point and you see the ad that says, 'Send up your poems and we'll see if you might be a songwriter in the making. Maybe you'll even get royalties!' then you understand the concept of the song poem. Anyways... I made the wife watch it. It was actually rather interesting, at least for the first 45 minutes. It was interesting to see the different people who send in their poems to have them recorded, as well as seeing the different people who record these song poems. There are even people who collect the fairly rare record compilations that these song poem companies occasionally put out. If you want to borrow it, lemme know and you can watch it. If you do, you'll at the very see the 'video' for the song "Non-violent TaeKwonDo Troopers" which was the wife's favorite song.
Heh.. just found this website... I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't mentioned in the movie somewhere.
Finally got to see Ian's house which was cool. Can't wait for him to get the rekording studio up n running in the basement. We went to Blue Ginger on Sawmill. It's in the strip mall with BD Mongolian and Buy Backs. It's one of those weird things where on the outside it's just like any other building in a strip mall.. but when you walk in there, it is a very nice Japanese restaurant. I got a combo meal where I could you could get soup and two rolls. I got hot n sour and a crunchy salmon (or was it tuna) roll and come other roll with calamari in it. The rolls i got were of the smaller variety. The one Ian got was this huge monstrosity of a thing with all sorts of sauces drizzled on it. It looked tasty! We then went to buybacks and bought... nothing. Then we headed to 1/2 Price books on Bethel. Ian got a slew of CDs and I bought the Jimmy Buffet autobiography book from the 1990s and some other biography on Brian Wilson (which was new enough to have one of the Brian Wilson comebacks in it... I think it was the late 1990s one... not the release of Smile one). It was cool to hang out with Ian for a little bit.
=-=-=-=-
The Monday after that I met up with my friend Tom and we went to 5 Guys Burgers. The place is very simple and the menu even more simple. The menu basically has single burgers, double burgers, fries, hot dogs and grilled cheese. That's it. It was very tasty indeed. They serve everything in a paper bag. If you go, get the regular fry only. I don't care how hungry you think you are, the reg fry will be plenty. See, then first package a reg cup of fries (kinda like at the fair). Then they put your burger in the bag, and then they they throw a whole bunch of fries in at the end. When Tom told me he couldn't eat all the fries the last time he ate there, I laughed at him and belittled him. Of course, that meant that it was almost guaranteed to be that I would not be able to eat all of mine... which is exactly what happened. (5 Guys Burgers is off of Avery-Muirfield by the BW3s). The double burger I got was good n greasy.
=-=-=-=-
The Tuesday after that, I met up with my friend Kevin at Graffiti Burger (which is up on Sawmill in front of the Kroger Marketplace and next door to Pei Wei). It is a very similar concept to 5 Guys where the menu is minimal. I believe that Graffiti Burger has burers only, but they do have milkshakes as well. I got the namesake burger (which contained a spicy cole slaw served on the burger) and it was f'ing tasty.
Between 5 Guys and Graffiti, I would likely choose Graffiti, but they are both tasty (and can be a bit exspensive... my meal at 5 Guys was $11 and my meal at Graffiti was $10)
=-=-=-=-
In other food news, a few days ago my wife returned from KFC with a surprise. Turns out, that while fried gizzards are not on the menu, some stores actually carry them. My wife was tipped to this when she saw a coupon somewhere mentioning that you could get 50 cents off of a gizzards meal but to ask at the store since not all carry gizzards. Prior to this, the only place I could get fried gizzards was at Lee's Famous Recipe. The closest one that I know of is in Bellefountaine, OH which is about 30 - 40 minutes away (though, it's on my way to heading back where my parents live). But now, I can have gizzards in 5 minutes as the Marysville KFC sells gizzards. TASTY!!!!
=-=-=-=-
I bought this weird documentary about song poems called "Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story". Song poems are just what they sound like. If you've ever been looking at the ads in the back of People magazie or probably comic books or even Rolling Stone as some point and you see the ad that says, 'Send up your poems and we'll see if you might be a songwriter in the making. Maybe you'll even get royalties!' then you understand the concept of the song poem. Anyways... I made the wife watch it. It was actually rather interesting, at least for the first 45 minutes. It was interesting to see the different people who send in their poems to have them recorded, as well as seeing the different people who record these song poems. There are even people who collect the fairly rare record compilations that these song poem companies occasionally put out. If you want to borrow it, lemme know and you can watch it. If you do, you'll at the very see the 'video' for the song "Non-violent TaeKwonDo Troopers" which was the wife's favorite song.
Heh.. just found this website... I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't mentioned in the movie somewhere.
Monday, March 08, 2010
your monthly update... n stuff
Had a good weekend. The parents came up on Friday so the Mrs and I got to tool around town. We first went and got a family membership at the Y. I need to get my butt in shape! Then we ate lunch at the Montgomery Inn in Dublin. It was teh suxorz. As my wife best put it, everything was drowned in sauce. You couldn't taste the meat if you tried. My hoagie sandwich was on a fairly blah bun. The cole slaw sucked. The Mrs is from Cinci so she's a M.I. veteran, but she was disappointed. ... so after the sucky lunch, we went looking for a dining table. The $150 set that I got when I first moved into my townhome back in 1997 is getting a bit bobbly all around. We went to Value City, but they didn't really have what we were looking for. We then went to Dinette Gallery which is where we should have gone in the first place. We know what we want and we now have a good idea how much we need to budget in order to purchase it. Yay! After that, we went to one of the few remaining Friendly's up on the E side of 161.
Then Sunday we headed back to my hometown and sent to my uncle's 90th birthday. Got to see some of the family which was nice. The kiddos only lasted about an hour, which honestly is what we expected.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The previous weekened (or was it the weekend before last... i don't remember anymore) the wife went to Cinci for the Feb birthdays so I got a 'pass'. I stayed home and flipped between a Science Channel marathon on the technologies of the Apollo moon missions and a Anthony Bourdain No Reservations marathon on the Travel Channel. I also put togeter a set of kitchen cabinets that we purchased to help get a little more space in the kitched. (It's techincally a kitchen island on wheels.... but we left off the wheels and pushed it against the wall)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife and I have been catching a few more Redbox movies as of late...
Couples Retreat - It was alright. Lots of bikini shots for me. But the guys in the movie were 'meh' so the wife didn't get much to look at. Glad we didn't pay to see it in the theaters.
The Hangover - I was really expecting this to be a split your side the whole way through kinda movie (like I was expecting for Napolean Dynamite). Alas that was not the case. There were a few times that I laughed heartily, but nowhere near the number of laughs that were expected. The wife laughed more than I did, which I found amusing since it was mostly 'guy humor' which in general she has an 'I don't get it' attitude towards. Again, glad we didn't pay to see it in the theater.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I FINALLY finished listening to all the MP3 CDs. Grand totals:
39294 songs
2474 hours 5 minutes 0 seconds.
I found it amusing that after all that it came out to an even minutes cound (ie, no 'stray' seconds).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Yeah, I'm drawing a blank. The kids are great. Nothing very ha-ha to mention (that I can think of at the moment).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Then Sunday we headed back to my hometown and sent to my uncle's 90th birthday. Got to see some of the family which was nice. The kiddos only lasted about an hour, which honestly is what we expected.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The previous weekened (or was it the weekend before last... i don't remember anymore) the wife went to Cinci for the Feb birthdays so I got a 'pass'. I stayed home and flipped between a Science Channel marathon on the technologies of the Apollo moon missions and a Anthony Bourdain No Reservations marathon on the Travel Channel. I also put togeter a set of kitchen cabinets that we purchased to help get a little more space in the kitched. (It's techincally a kitchen island on wheels.... but we left off the wheels and pushed it against the wall)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The wife and I have been catching a few more Redbox movies as of late...
Couples Retreat - It was alright. Lots of bikini shots for me. But the guys in the movie were 'meh' so the wife didn't get much to look at. Glad we didn't pay to see it in the theaters.
The Hangover - I was really expecting this to be a split your side the whole way through kinda movie (like I was expecting for Napolean Dynamite). Alas that was not the case. There were a few times that I laughed heartily, but nowhere near the number of laughs that were expected. The wife laughed more than I did, which I found amusing since it was mostly 'guy humor' which in general she has an 'I don't get it' attitude towards. Again, glad we didn't pay to see it in the theater.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I FINALLY finished listening to all the MP3 CDs. Grand totals:
39294 songs
2474 hours 5 minutes 0 seconds.
I found it amusing that after all that it came out to an even minutes cound (ie, no 'stray' seconds).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Yeah, I'm drawing a blank. The kids are great. Nothing very ha-ha to mention (that I can think of at the moment).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Not too shabby a weekend
I had Friday off, so the wife ran a few errands. That gave me plenty o time to spend with the kiddos. It was nice.
Saturday, the wife and I cranked out some housework which was nice. And spent time with the kiddos.
Sunday, the grandparents came up and relieved us from our parental duties. We went out to Red Lobster (I had the peach and bourbon bbq chicken and shrimp, it was tasty!) and then saw a movie (Valentine's Day, which was as sugary as it sounds, but I'm a sucker for lovey dovey chick flicks, so it's all good).
Monday (yesterday) spent some more time with the kids. Got out of the house to finally get my hair cut. Went to Wal-mart and bought a new pair of tennis shoes for $12. They're Starters. I like the way they look. They weren't even on clearance. That's just how much they were. Everyone should be thankful that I didn't pick up the velco shoes in the clearance section for $3. ;-) I also got the 'special edition' of Smokey and the Bandit for $5. I already had a copy of this movie, but I bought it when I got my first DVD player back in ... oh geez... i don't remember when... about ten years ago... anyway, it was during that era that half the time DVDs were still full frame and had jack squat for bonus features. So, this new one is in anamorphic widescreen and has a half hours worth of bonus features that the wife and I watched last night. Then, at 9:45pm, I went outside for an hour to shovel out the 5 inches of snow that was in my driveway.
Now it's Tuesday and both Franklin and Union county are under level 2 and more snow is on the way, so I'm staying home, but hoping that my boss gets my email and sends some work my way as I actually want to get some stuff done today, but since I didn't bring my work computer home with me I don't really have much to work on. D'oh.
Saturday, the wife and I cranked out some housework which was nice. And spent time with the kiddos.
Sunday, the grandparents came up and relieved us from our parental duties. We went out to Red Lobster (I had the peach and bourbon bbq chicken and shrimp, it was tasty!) and then saw a movie (Valentine's Day, which was as sugary as it sounds, but I'm a sucker for lovey dovey chick flicks, so it's all good).
Monday (yesterday) spent some more time with the kids. Got out of the house to finally get my hair cut. Went to Wal-mart and bought a new pair of tennis shoes for $12. They're Starters. I like the way they look. They weren't even on clearance. That's just how much they were. Everyone should be thankful that I didn't pick up the velco shoes in the clearance section for $3. ;-) I also got the 'special edition' of Smokey and the Bandit for $5. I already had a copy of this movie, but I bought it when I got my first DVD player back in ... oh geez... i don't remember when... about ten years ago... anyway, it was during that era that half the time DVDs were still full frame and had jack squat for bonus features. So, this new one is in anamorphic widescreen and has a half hours worth of bonus features that the wife and I watched last night. Then, at 9:45pm, I went outside for an hour to shovel out the 5 inches of snow that was in my driveway.
Now it's Tuesday and both Franklin and Union county are under level 2 and more snow is on the way, so I'm staying home, but hoping that my boss gets my email and sends some work my way as I actually want to get some stuff done today, but since I didn't bring my work computer home with me I don't really have much to work on. D'oh.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Natta Much
Not much going on in my world.
Lil N started preschool about 2 or 3 weeks ago. She's been doing quite well, so that cool news. I was worried she was gonna freak out, but on most days she loves getting on the school bus.
Work was nutty forever and finally let up mid-January. I was getting a bit tired from the 2 months of 60 - 80 hr weeks + most weekends. The wife was a really trooper through it all. Glad that shit is done... for now.
Totally missed the record show last weekend since the invite went to the old house and then had to be forwarded. Show was on the 6th, but I got it reminder on ... the 7th. D'oh! The next one comes on May 8th, so mark your calendar. Admission is still $4 or $3 with a card. Whee!
Gonna get the taxes tomorrow. I was glad to hear from my tax dude that I wouldn't have to pay taxes on the money I made from the house since I pretty much stuck the 'profit' right back into the house I bought, which, since it is my second home, I can get the $6500 credit thingy, I think. Not sure exactly how that one works, but I won't get that one right away. This one has been weird from the beginning I believe where you have to file separate paperwork. I just read something where they made it sound like you had to have purchased your second home between Nov 6th 2009 and April 30 2010. Which we purch'd before then. Trying to read the actual IRS doc is a bit difficult. Grrr... and this is why I pay someone to do my taxes. (Reading more from businessweek.com, it looks like we missed out. It appears that you had to close on Nov 6 or after. That's fucking bogus, but whatever... if that's the case then my tax dude'll tell me so.)
I'm tired of shovelling and I hope that lil' 1 to 2 inches we are supposed to get just kinda pass us by... or blow away or something.
Nothing much else to report, really.
Lil N started preschool about 2 or 3 weeks ago. She's been doing quite well, so that cool news. I was worried she was gonna freak out, but on most days she loves getting on the school bus.
Work was nutty forever and finally let up mid-January. I was getting a bit tired from the 2 months of 60 - 80 hr weeks + most weekends. The wife was a really trooper through it all. Glad that shit is done... for now.
Totally missed the record show last weekend since the invite went to the old house and then had to be forwarded. Show was on the 6th, but I got it reminder on ... the 7th. D'oh! The next one comes on May 8th, so mark your calendar. Admission is still $4 or $3 with a card. Whee!
Gonna get the taxes tomorrow. I was glad to hear from my tax dude that I wouldn't have to pay taxes on the money I made from the house since I pretty much stuck the 'profit' right back into the house I bought, which, since it is my second home, I can get the $6500 credit thingy, I think. Not sure exactly how that one works, but I won't get that one right away. This one has been weird from the beginning I believe where you have to file separate paperwork. I just read something where they made it sound like you had to have purchased your second home between Nov 6th 2009 and April 30 2010. Which we purch'd before then. Trying to read the actual IRS doc is a bit difficult. Grrr... and this is why I pay someone to do my taxes. (Reading more from businessweek.com, it looks like we missed out. It appears that you had to close on Nov 6 or after. That's fucking bogus, but whatever... if that's the case then my tax dude'll tell me so.)
I'm tired of shovelling and I hope that lil' 1 to 2 inches we are supposed to get just kinda pass us by... or blow away or something.
Nothing much else to report, really.
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