Still have presents left to open

I have a Christmas Present that was intended to go to my buddy Jason sometime on or around Christmas. I wrapped it, it sat under my tree and waited for a time when either he'd come by or we'd see him in Seattle. Unfortunately, Christmas came and went....and eventually so did the tree. Jason's wasn't the only present that was left sitting there decorating the empty space in my living room. My friend Andrew also has a present waiting, as does my friend Carol.

So last week I'm at a birthday party for Julie (Jason's roommate/ex-girlfriend) to which I did not want to bring Jason's present. I thought it would be weird to bring him a present at her birthday party.

Anyway, John walks in wearing none other than the Penny Arcade T-shirt I got him for Christmas, to which Jason remarks: "I have that shirt too". It was the same shirt I had also picked up for him that has been sitting on top of my television for more than 3 months now. He bought it at a convention in February.

So, I get to open it and keep it I guess. I think the same applies for both Andrew and Carol's presents if I don't see them soon enough. After all.....what's a Christmas present in March if not a sad statement that you shouldn't have bought the dang things in the first place? :-)

The Day after V-day

Last night went well. We enjoyed our little dinner in, and had a nice fire to watch along with the television. I'm really surprised that with all these fires we've had I still have firewood left. I thought I would have run out by now, but there is still enough for at least a few more fires before we have to call the delivery guy again.

I snuck the gym into my lunch break today. Before I did weights I was on the cross training machine and there was a guy next to me with a personal trainer. I'm not talking about the free personal trainers that will show you how to work a machine or spot you if you need it. These are the guys you pay to help you exercise over a period of a few months. I looked it up once because I thought it might be a good motivator until I found out it was over 8000 bucks.

I wasn't wearing my headphones so I got to listen to their entire conversation. The trainer asked him how much exercise he had done since they met last week. The guy had gone walking one day, but that was about it. Sort of puts it all into perspective for me. I complain about going to the gym, and most days I go, I hate it.....but at least I'm not paying someone 8000 dollars (literally) to hold my hand for a couple of months while I'm on the treadmill for 5 minutes.

I'd rather motivate myself to go and spend that money on a nice plasma TV to watch when I'm not at the gym. Of course, the guy that has 8000 dollars to blow on a private trainer like that probably also already has the plasma TV, and he's only driving his Beamer to the gym so he won't have a heart attack when he's sleeping with his 18 year old girlfriend.

Ok, probably not, but stereotypes are so fun.

Anyway, one last note before I go back to work. I got not one, but two boxes of the little necco hearts this Valentines. How cool is THAT?

Valentines Schmalentines....

I hate Valentines day. Whoever manufactured this "day for lovers" needs to be strung up.

First of all, I don't think there's anything special about doing anything romantic tonight, because wherever you go, there are always at least 10 other couples out there who are doing the same thing. If you want to be truly original, you have to create something totally your own....which is even harder than the traditional V-day date.

Second, it's forced. If you don't participate (even in some small way) you're a chump. It's not like you're being romantic because you WANT to...you're doing it because you HAVE to. That in itself is never a good reason.

Third, your level of participation revolves directly around where you are in your relationship. If you're single, you're probably not going to participate at all. Some would argue this is a good thing (like me), but most would say it's lonely. If you're in a new relationship, you have to do something really cool, the extravagance of which will be decided by HOW new you are. If you're in a long term thing, it just needs to be something. Anything. Even if it's only a week since your anniversary (like it is for me) you still better have some plans. :-)


Personally, I wish Valentines traditions were as simple as they were in grade school. Everyone exchanges little cards with cartoon characters on them, and if you're really cool....you'll get some of those little necco hearts in the box, which I love so much.

Luckily my plans tonight were inspired by Heather and are very low key. We are going to stay home and watch movies. That would be a normal Monday for us, except tonight....we're going to dine on some fabulous heart shaped pizza. There are some little card exchanges and what-not, but we're not making a big production of it this year and that's cool. Just goes to show you that if you're with the right person, even Valentines day can be fun.

I suppose the only downfall this year (other than my general disdain for the "holiday" in general) is that I don't think I'm getting any of the candy hearts. If not, that's ok, because tomorrow I can buy them for myself at 50% off.

Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper

So, I saw the commercials for Cherry Dr. Pepper (with the Muppets own Mahna Mahna music) and felt as if I needed to have a can immediately. On top of that, one of my friends had some and thinks that it's basically the greatest thing ever. This shrewd combination of clever marketing and word of mouth made me want to buy some even more. Unfortunately, a trip the next day to AM/PM resulted in no delicious new soda. Apparently Washington is not one of their big "roll out" states.

Undaunted, I visited their website, where they said that the diet flavor was going everywhere, but the regular flavor was going to be "limited". They didn't say where it was limited to, or by how much....but I went to at least 6 or 7 stores looking for it and couldn't find it. I can't remember the last time I was this obsessed with trying a new product.

We went bowling on Saturday and while I was there, Heather bought a bottle of the diet flavor from a Pepsi machine (I didn't even think to look there). I had a sip and decided it tastes like every other diet soda in the world. Crap. I HATE diet soda, so I was still determined to try the regular flavor. Still, I figured we'd not see it in Seattle until long after I got tired of trying to find it.

Little did I know, this was not the case. This weekend, John was in Port Angeles and called me to tell me that they had the regular Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper at the Wal Mart over there. I asked him to pick some up for me (a whole 12 pack in fact). I could hardly wait for him to drive the 3 hours back to Seattle and then over to my house so I could finally have a taste of what could quite possibly be the best invention since Wild Cherry Pepsi (sliced bread was never a real big deal for me, as I have a bread knife).

I had my first sip.

"Wow, this tastes exactly like Dr. Pepper." I said aloud.

I had another sip to make sure the taco bell we were eating for dinner hadn't tainted my distinguished palet.

"Nope, I don't even taste the cherry or the vanilla." I confirmed to myself and the three people in the room who were not-so-interested in my opinion of this new product.

I proceeded to down the rest of the can over the course of my meal and my opinion never changed. I had another one today before lunch and it still tastes like regular Dr. Pepper to me. Maybe they forgot to add the special new flavoring to my batch.

Either way, I was hoping for the cherry of Wild Cherry Pepsi and the Vanilla of vanilla Coke. I suppose that's like hoping to win the lottery....which sadly, I also failed to achieve this week as well.

Such is life.

The facts of life...

This post will not be a summary of how babies are made. Everyone knows that babies come from a cabbage patch anyway. This entry will also not be a retrospective look at Tootie, Blair and the rest of Ms. Garrett's gang. If this disappoints the reader, I suggest they cease and desist from continuing on.

No, this entry will instead be dedicated to something inevitable that seems to happen to anyone that owns an automobile. Every once in awhile your car needs 500 bucks. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sometimes your car just needs 500 dollars. It doesn't matter what kind of car you drive or how gingerly you treat it. At least once a year, your car just decides that it needs 500 dollars of your money.

What broke this time on my car that cost 500 dollars to fix? Does it really even matter? It's some part I can't pronounce that is somehow related to my emissions system. Even though I bought that stupid extended warranty, this is one of the "few" (read: many) repairs that is not covered. Strangely enough, so was the service I needed the time before this, and the time before that....etc. The moral of this story is of course: Never buy the warranty because it's worthless.

I believe that all cars are designed to automatically break about once or twice every year. It's never anything catostrophic (as that might inspire you to buy a new car). Nope, they just break about 500 dollars worth of small parts on their own, so you'll be reminded that though your car is paid off, you're most certainly not done paying for it. The amount is usually just enough to annoy you, but not enough to inspire you to replace the car.

It's probably part of a factory installed component of your vehicle and they just forgot the dashboard light for it. f they put some sort of a gauge next your "Check oil" light that would indicate how many miles you had to go until your car needed 500 dollars, that would be excellent.

Instead, the feature seems designed to need 500 dollars at the most inappropriate time for you. Like when you're saving for a wedding. Or when you ALMOST have your Christmas presents paid off on the credit card. Or any number of other times when you just don't have 500 dollars lying around. The car never decides to break down when you just got your tax return, a bonus at work, or won the Mega Millions lottery jackpot.

So, today I'm tooling around in a brand new Jetta wagon loaner car. Apparently I'm the first one to drive it. While that's no consolation, at least I know that for the next 24 hours, I have a car I don't have to worry about paying 500 dollars into.

A tradition begins....

Another late night of Halo. Played close to 20 games.....started after Lost and pretty much never stopped until a few minutes ago.

There was also a day of work and all that other stuff I could post about, but why ruin a tradition with posting anything other than Halo news at 1am.


I'm about to go to bed.

Best quote of the night from a team we beat: "I'm going to piss on your baby".

Halo again

Maybe I should use this as my Halo Blog. Because this seems to be my favorite time to post. Yes, I just got done playing Halo pretty much all night long. Lost more games than we won, but fun was had by most (not all).

I dread work tomorrow. Dread it with a capital D.

Where's the flu when you need it? Darn, I already had it this year. :-)

99 days to go

It's a very boring day today. I can see the sunshine outside, but I'm trapped in my office at work for at least a few more hours. By the time I leave it will be dark. I have a nearly brown banana sitting here on my desk that is the perfect fruit for this day. If you could find a crayola crayon to match my mood it would be burned pizza crust. That's at least 3 shades darker than my normal work mood of "Gray".

So, I'll mention that Episode 3 releases just 99 days and 8 hours from right now.

That's an interesting tidbit that I felt I should post, because when I look back upon this blog (which I won't) in 3 months, I can laugh at how quickly the time went. Right now, it sure seems to be dragging.

The last sign of the apocalypse

I stayed up a little too late tonight and was flipping channels. On Spike TV, they had an awards show where they give awards to cars. Apparently people voted on this. An SUV just drove up onto the stage, and Carmen Electra gave it it's very own award. Then the people in the audience cheered.

It's time for bed now. I've officially watched enough TV to have seen too much. At least tonight anyway.