On the way home from dinner the boys and I all sang in the car. We sounded like crap but it was funny and fun.

So when I got home I pulled out the flute and the trombone to further amuse and terrify them with my lack of musical prowess.

I am so out of practice it's sad. But it made me really miss the Band-uh. *sigh*

Someday if it doesn't conflict too badly with the Gathering and if we have any money, I want to take Jason to Picnic Day. I don't know he'll fully appreciate it the way I do, not being a band-geek himself, but I want to share all the things that make me who I am with him, and the Band-uh! was definitely a huge influence on my life for several years.

I was telling Sport that when he gets older and has band in school, I could teach him trombone...that would be cool. He seemed more interested in the flute though, which I don't play well enough to teach. Maybe my flautist nephew Tyler could teach him, if he lived closer...

swiped from several people.
( FOOD!!!!! )

Zack and Miri make a porno

A great date movie
If you don't mind lots of boobs
and dangly bits too

Rule of thumb before
Any Kevin Smith movie
Empty bladder FIRST.

A few scenes were quite
gratuitously grody
but overall was sweet

More romantic than
you would guess from the title
but not a kids film.

and while you're list-ning
I didn't think that Jersey
Girl was all that bad.

Cute amoebas reign
In the first stage of the game
like old Atari

Grow Legs In Stage Two
Sing and dance to make allies
Or just kill them all

Stage Three is Tribal
This stage kind of plays itself
Quite disappointing

Next you have the goal
To take over your planet
Haven't done this yet.

--
So far, I have to say though the game is kind of fun, it could have been so much more if there were real choices in the game and more gameplay. It is far, far more simplistic than it was originally touted, supposedly due to conflicting camps within EA. I was hoping for something where you could guide your creature's evolution but not just add & remove parts when it is convenient - which is exactly what the game encourages. When you want to attack another race, take off all your "social" parts and put all the combat parts on, and when you want to make nice, remove all your hefty bits and put on a nice singing beak. Not exactly exciting.

I will be interested to see if choosing nontraditional morphologies affects the motor behavior of the critters but from what I've heard it doesn't. Giving your critter long legs doesn't make him go faster and giving him long arms won't let him reach food in trees. How disappointing.

The first game is cute and arcade like, but the movement controls are non-intuitive. Usually when I see 2-D critter-movement, you use the right & left arrows to rotate the direction, up arrow to speed up, down arrow to slow down. In this game, the arrows are literal directions. Which I am not doing a good job of adjusting to, I must say.

I have heard the later stages are better, I certainly hope so. The first few stages I think would get old very fast. Luckily, they play fast. They give you the ability to start the game at any stage you've reached. But, I think making the wonky looking creatures first would be fun even if you could skip the "play" of the 2nd and 3rd levels.

I rate it a 6.5 based on the first three stages. My rating could go up if the later game is better.

doodlebee is the bestest guy in the whole wide world and I totally and completely love and adore him. Even when he teases me.

That is all.

Not content to create one new blog (the aforementioned anyedotnet.blogspot.com) I have also created a sister for it, anyedotknit.blogspot.com. Three guesses as to what I will be talking about on THAT blog. (Hint: I crossposted the previous Hobby Lobby anecdote).

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday to buy some knitting needles. Walked all over, couldn't find the yarn section.

Saw an employee, went up to her, asked where they keep the yarn.

"The what?"

"The yarn."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what that is."

*amazed stare* Um, the fat thread you knit with?

"Oh, you could try the fabric section."

This person spoke English. This wasn't a language barrier. This was a CRAFT STORE EMPLOYEE WHO HAD NEVER HEARD OF YARN.

If I had a cat, I would send it there to interview for a job. At least a cat knows what yarn is.

...this is not for the faint at heart, it's for the .NET developer geeks in your life (or those who want to learn about it)...

I proudly introduce... http://anyedotnet.blogspot.com

All tech-talk, all the time. No Ike drama, no health drama, no games, just geekdom. I'm doing this because a)I've considered doing it awhile b)I think I actually have a lot to teach and c)I am grateful to all the folks who post their experiences with the brand-new technologies before any extensive, real business applicable documentation exists through more official channels. Especially for WPF, Silverlight, and WCF, there is FAR better teaching material available through the blogosphere than official channels, and to it I am indebted. So I'm trying to give back something.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

Now I'm really confused.

Doc's nurse called, said CT didn't show anything about the colon, but that I have a 4.8cm mass on my liver and I need to get an MRI for further exploration. Soonest appointment is Friday.

*is boggled and really feeling overwhelmed*

So, do I have Crohn's or not? How long would a nearly 5cm mass take to grow that no one noticed it before? Would it explain my symptoms at all? Or is it just yet another thing going on?

I asked the nurse to have the doctor call me. I may have to bug Dr. Dale just to see if any of this makes sense to him (even though he's not a gastro.) or my uncle who IS a gastro.

I know I sound like a freaking drama queen, and I'm sorry. I just keep thinking only soap operas have this many "plots" at once and it is a bit hard to process it all.

ETA: I've decided to do the Denial Twist a la White Stripes. Fuck this shit. I'm just going to keep working on my Silverlight Date Range Slider control.

In an uncharacteristic spurt of vindictiveness, I hope that whoever came up with the draconian procedures that Wells Fargo Mortgage uses to handle dispersal of large insurance payments has their house decimated by the next available natural disaster and that they are forced to follow said procedures in order to get money for their own repairs. J. is livid, and when J. is livid, you know something is bad because he is the most even-keel person I've ever met.

Talk about hurting the people who are already hurting... the only ones who benefit from the way they do it now are the banks, who can hold our insurance money for months and use it for their risky investing practices.

Even if we had the money, we CAN'T pay contractors up front and wait to get the money back because of the paperwork required by the contractors. As it is we have to now wait until ALL construction is completed to be reimbursed for our emergency repairs AND I have to get the receipts reissued in J's name, since it is his name on the policy.

Oh, and I'm playing phone tag with my doctor re. my CT scan results.

I got a voice mail and an email today from my friend Donna out in Sacramento that just said, "We need to get ahold of you." I knew instantly why, but I was hoping I was wrong.

I wasn't. Our friend Sean O'Brien passed away suddenly yesterday morning. It was unexpected, but not particularly shocking, since as I said I knew when she called it wasn't about her husband Brian (who is also my friend and who I actually dated for a very short time in college, but that was just a blip in the radar of our friendship) but about Sean. See, Sean was one of those people who was just plain cursed when it came to health. He had already gone through a couple of kidney transplants, periods of intensive dialysis, and a plethora of other related and unrelated health issues over his life and the 15 or so years I've known him. So, if someone was going to tell me that one of my friends was going to die young, he would be one of the first I'd suspect as the victim.

But, it was unexpected in that he hadn't had any big problems for awhile. According to Donna, he last had an episode back in February, where they noted that he had a blood clot near his stent, but decided it would be more dangerous to do something about it then to leave it. Apparently, the clot is gone now. The hypothesis is that it came loose and caused an aneurism, but they don't know yet. There may or may not be an autopsy - I guess that depends on whether his family or his partner Jason think it will help them to know exactly what happened. It won't bring him back either way.

Sean was a funny guy. I take that back, he was a FUNNY guy. The way he told stories, even about the most normal things, was always sure to make you laugh. I met Sean through Brian, Sean was his roommate when Brian and I were in college together and for a year or so after I moved away to grad school but before Brian met Donna and they moved to NY for awhile for him to go to grad school. I used to hang out at Brian's house a lot and stay there when I'd come back to town for a visit, and I'd hang out with Sean when Brian wasn't around. We always had a blast. He was a good listener too - I remember confiding all sorts of things (though I don't remember WHAT I particularly confided) and partaking in the favorite pasttime of young single women and young single gay guys - talking about GUYS.

We stayed in contact over email for awhile, and visited with Sean and his Jason when I last was back in Sacramento which was several years ago (5 maybe? Brian and Donna's oldest was just a little baby then...) But, we hadn't talked as much over the last few years as we used to. I'm feeling really badly about that now.

My heart is bleeding for his Jason now, I know how lost I would feel if anything happened to my Jason. He must be suffering horribly, feeling lost, alone, hopeless and helpless. And there's not a damn thing he or anyone else can do about it.

Go hug your loved ones, everyone. They are precious gifts, and we need to be thankful for every day we have with them.

Goodbye, Sean. I wish you'd had it easier in your life and I wish you'd had a longer time, but at least the end was quick and hopefully you didn't suffer. I'm sorry I wasn't better about staying in touch. Peace, my friend.

( it's kinda long )

Ok, that took a few minutes. I wonder if my VS2008 SP1 download is done yet..

So I talked to my nephew tonight and asked what he wanted for his birthday. He said a voodoo doll kit. (He's going to be 13.) So I looked online and found this site, which was very informative (and amusing):
http://www.spellmaker.com/doll.htm

I wonder if someone cast a deluxe revenge spell on me and that's why we lost the roof and I got Crohn's disease and the fun gynecological problem that required surgery last year? Hmm....

Well, I had my doctor's appointment today.
( good news and bad news )

10/7/2008 - Washington, DC

Senator John McCain issued a press release today announcing that he had made an error in his Vice Presidential nomination. The nomination of Sarah Palin was, according to McCain, a "tragic case of mistaken identity". The intended nominee was a woman whose qualifications far exceed those of Governor Palin - actress Tracy Scoggins. McCain, who blames the error on his failing eyesight, said "Well, Palin looks just like her. Anyone would have made the mistake."


Ms. Scoggins was the real choice, says McCain, because of her extensive experience running Earth Alliance Station Babylon 5, which is "home to over a quarter of a million humans and aliens", clearly more than Wasilla, home to "about 5,000 humans and farm animals." Ms. Scoggins' diplomatic and foreign affairs experience hardly needs mention, as she skillfully managed conflicts betweens dozens of alien races, including the betentacled Centauri, which according to McCain "will serve us well in dealing with the terrorists."

Additionally, McCain assures us that Ms. Scoggins is adept at bipartisan issues, but "won't take no crap from anyone. Look at how well she worked so closely with her ex-husband. She didn't try to make him lose his job or nothing!" unlike Governor Palin, who allegedly got her sister's ex-husband fired from his government job.

This reporter went out on the street to see the public's reaction. John Q. Public, 49, said this about this sudden switch in VP candidates. "It don't make no never-mind to me, we get a VPILF either way."

Rules: You answer here in my journal. You post blank in yours.
( meme here )

I almost had an accident on the way to work this morning. I was driving down Hwy 6, which is a high-speed road in the section where I was, and had just started decelerating for the Hwy 6-Clay intersection (my lane was clear, the left lane was backed up) when an SUV pulled between the cars in the left lane to go into the Jack in the Box parking lot and cut right in front of me.

I slammed on the brakes and missed t-boning it by about 6 inches.

Now, you can say there would have been joint fault here - but only a moron wouldn't wait for the fast car in the other lane to either slow down or pass...and if she couldn't see into that lane, she should have inched out from between the cars in the left lane, not sped out.

Glad your morning McFood is more important than your life, dumbass.

If I had some money and gave it to someone, and they squandered it gambling, I'd be a complete moron to give them more. I would simply be enabling their gambling problem, and taking the money away from someone with the sense to spend it wisely.

That is all.

From limbomonkey:

Post info on any Supreme Court decision. I picked these two because someone decided to pull the race card on me the other day when we was discussing illegal immigration.

Brown vs. Board of Education: Called B-S on the idea of "separate but equal" as previously permitted by Plessy vs. Ferguson. Basically determined that having separate facilities for different races was inherently unequal, and resulted in reintegration of schools throughout the American south. I call "yay!" on that B. vs. BOE and "boo!" on P vs. F.

And on a related note, this case involved my alma mater's law school: Bakke vs. Regents of UC: Killed racial quotas in universities. Race can legally be considered, but you can't separate applications from people of different races like you used to. They used to have separate piles of applications from each race, so they'd take the X best whites, X best blacks, etc., instead of taking the top X candidates and maybe using race to break ties here and there. I also call "yay!" on that decision.

I did some research and my bizarre sudden change in medical symptoms is not uncommon for Crohn's patients.
( seriously TMI... you have been warned...if you don't want to hear gory details, don't click the link...seriously...not joking around here... )