A Night with the Stupid Box

The guild fish sucked and the prospect of Dynamis didn't really appeal to us, so we were at a loss for things to do. We decided to watch TV together and save the movie for another night. We're not big TV people. We don't watch it because it seems that the quality of programming has plummeted. Even with a 'good' show, the commercials can be enough to make your head hurt. I'm not saying this to be snobbish and elite, I'm just not happy with the lowest common denominator programming that has taken over in recent years, so I just stopped watching for the most part.

We surfed for a while: How Things Are Made, Will and Grace and a ton of brainless commercials. What stands out above most of the commercials is the sad quality of local advertising. Usually involves some prop or gimmick (a big blow up hammer to 'smash' prices and campy music/visual effects/logos) and always looks like it was recorded with a VHS recorder and mixed by a 5th grader. That's to be expected in less populous places, but we're talking 1.5 million-ish people here. Can't they upgrade to maybe a 6th grade at the video mixer?

Nonetheless, it was nice to spend time with D and just relax. We've both been short on sleep the past few nights. She's started snoring hardcore lately, and I can't imagine that's been afording her much sleep, and it's been keeping me awake half the night. Tomorrow night is our static. I'm seriously considering calling a recess to the static so I can take a good solid step away from the game and do other things.

The Slip

More of the same today at work. The same guy that called in sick the day before called in again. And the call volume had not subsided - in fact it seemed almost worse than Monday. We all joked that we're going to all call in sick tomorrow, but it was still a rough day. And the craziness didn't stop when work ended. Some moron decided to park their car on the inside shoulder (fast lane shoulder) of I-35 in rush hour traffic. A whole car full of people were walking up and down the shoulder looking for something. This resulted in a massive backup and an accident on the right-most lane, leaving only the middle lane available for people to pass through.

DeAnn got Clara, but it didn't afford me getting home any sooner. Dinner was ready when I got home, bless her heart, but by the end of it, I just crashed on the couch. The crash was not to last long: the neighbors decided to share their culture through a new stereo system, and Clara would not calm down. When I decided that I'd had enough screaming terror and went to lay her down, I tried to change her and she explosively pooped while I was in mid-maneuver. -.- Had to CFH on that one. I decided that I needed to just kinda decompress for half an hour - I went to Best Buy to get a Bluetooth headset and just kinda bask in the techie goodness and relax for a bit.

Static did not go off tonight. I'm starting to wonder about it: we're all starting to get kinda lackluster about FFXI in general and easily finding new things to do. I know I've lost a lot of interest lately in doing anything in-game. I mean, I only logged on this whole past weekend to fish, campaign and do a whinja burn. That's not a lot. Ame and MC are starting to play WoW, Keri is hardly on at all anymore and even TS is getting a bit burned out. I think I might call a month break for static, let everyone get their heads back about them and decide if it's still something I want to spearhead. Demetrion, a guy that we're friends with IRL and left the game a few months back made a post about how much breaking turned his life around: I can't help but wonder if I could be bettered with a complete break.

Anyway, I did a little fishing while listening to The Slip from DeAnn's machine. I also burned Halo 27 to CD for the drive to work in the morning. The album borrows heavily from a hard garage influence, especially noticeable right from the first tracks. That's not to say it's void of downtempo gems that NIN are renown for since Year Zero (this almost feels like a sequel, the first track "999,999" picks up where Year Zero left off...), as well as a couple really nice, almost ambient tracks that are completely instrumental. Hard and driving, downtempo and chill all on the same album? Yup, it's that much win.

As for the lyrics, I've yet to be disappointed by Trent's ability to wield the English language with finesse and impact. There was a lot going on in this release, but there is an overarching theme of resignation. Sure there's the driven aggressiveness of "Letting You", but overall it's noticeably tempered with a very somber, almost defeatist tone. It's almost like he's acknowledging the thing he's been doing all this time (at times giving a nod to his age) did not give him what he was looking for; something that everyone (including that particular someone) seems to have found. All but gone seems to be the seething animosity from his much earlier albums. Now it's just that old hurt that never seemed to go away and he just learned to live with it instead.

The combination of wall-o-sound tracks and the powerful, albeit quiet, downtempo and ambient tracks round this album out and paint a murky picture of where NIN are taking their music lately. As a former producer and DJ, I can't help but wonder how many producers and DJ's are drooling over the prospect of having vinyls of some of these tracks. I could totally see "Letting You" getting tossed into a hard garage or drum-and-bass set. :D

Not sure what I have going on for tomorrow. I'm just not interested in FFXI much, and that schedule used to be the staple of my free time. All I can say is I hope everyone is in the office...

Home Improvements

Very busy day today at work. One of the people at the office that I'm helping out in called in sick, and they were already short-handed. Unfortunately, I don't have all the accesses to do some of the things that people were calling in for, so I was in a position of having to ask a lot of questions all day on a particularly busy day. Clara's dropoff went fine, and while it was a lot of driving, picking her up went well. She decided, however, as I was getting on the access road to 410 to try to take off her sandals and got them stuck around her ankles. This caused her to scream the entire way home, because I couldn't reach around back in rush hour traffic and get them off her. A full half hour of screaming after a long-ass Monday at work. I love kids. On a side note, after today, I'm seriously considering buying a bluetooth headset. I spend way more time on the roads now than I did before, and it would be much safer (especially with this phone) to have something hands free.

I caught the home improvement bug this weekend when we bought a new coat rail for the front entryway. We needed something a little better than command strip hooks that we've been using for a year now. They were starting to fall off the wall. After a little bit of measuring and leveling, D and I got the rack anchored and screwed into the wall. We also hung up the framed pictures that I gave her for our first aniversary. I would like to get most of the things that have been gathering dust in the garage back up on the walls of our home, so it looks a little more the part.

Nine Inch Nails came out with their newest album today, The Slip. Better yet, its available for free on the Interwebs from NIN. Legally. So I jumped right on that. I've never had any issue putting music on my phone's storage card, but DeAnn wanted it on her brand new 2Gb card in her phone. For some reason, it was a pain in the neck to get those files to be recognized on her phone. Spent the remainder of the evening doing that. I'll probably burn it to CD so I can listen to it in the car on my way to work sometime this week. I'm a longtime fan of NIN, so I'm curious to see what Trent has put down this season. More to come on that later.

Static night tomorrow. That's all I can manage to type today. It's bonkers at work again.

Weekend Intelligence: Durned Kids, Quit Growing Up!

Sorry, but today made it really hard to get the weekend intelligence in. Almost as busy as my weekend. x.X With the windfall from late in the week, payday and Uncle Sam lending a hand, we decided to get some much needed things done and paid off, as well as some long-needed action on our part with our church. To top it all off, our kids have once again proven they are growing up, much to our headaches (mine literally >.<;). So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

In Game:

Not much to talk about in game. I think that's probably why I'm doing this first. Pretty much all Keri and I did all weekend long in game involved campaign battles. She got her Mythril Star and I finaly got my Holyknight Emblem - the highest rank available right now. That was a pain in the butt to get. It just seemed like the counsel was never happy with the progress. I also did a Holyburn merit party with Keri and the gang in King Ranperre's Tomb. That means a whole lot of WHM's with clubs beating up stuff. At one point, late in the party, Eiael decided to pull half the area we were camped at. We barely got out of that one - pretty crazy fight! Also did a little fishing for guild points and profit, but nothing to write home about. About the most exciting thing that came of it was catching a coral fragment, which sold for a cool, quick 7k.

House and Home:

5PM Friday couldn't seem to roll around fast enough. It's like everything decided to get all stupid at 2 and just would not let up until 5, making the time creeeeeeep by. It did finally arrive, and that meant I could finally go home, get a drink and start cooking some steaks. I started them in the marinade the night before, so by the time I got home, I had two 20oz thick cut top sirloins just waiting for the grill. And grill them I did. And there was much grilling. :D

Saturday came and needed to get some basics done. There were about 6-7 loads of laundry in the house, the cans were stacking up to the ceiling, dishes hadn't been done in two days and the trash was overflowing. We had our work cut out for us, so we went to Shipley's for some donuts to start the morning off right, followed by Walmart before we tackled the house. It's about now that I need to discuss a new development with Clara. She is starting to realize that she has a voice, and that her voice can be really, really quiet and it can be REALLY REALLY SHRILL AND LOUD!!! And she thinks the latter is way more fun, especially at random and especially in close quarters. She spent most of the time at Shipley's shrieking at the top of her lungs, and the entire car ride to Walmart shrieking at random intervals. This combined with the already psychotic drivers in this town made for one unhappy pappy. This constant loud shrieking continued the whole time we were at Walmart, when we got back into the car, while driving and did not let up in the least until I unceremoniously laid her down for a LONG nap.

Anyway, we picked up some things we have been wanting to get for a long time. We got a hanging rack for the front entryway (for coats and backpacks and such), more energy saver bulbs and a potty chair for Clara. By the time we got back, D was just in no mood for chores, and rightly so: she had three sac days the week before and still hadn't recovered. So she took a nap while Colin and I divided and conquered. I did up the laundry while he worked on trash collection, then we both hit the cans and I did more laundry while he did the dishes. By the time we were done, the house was noticeably better.

Sunday was really the main event of the weekend. Our daycare provider is taking the next week off. It's part of her contract, and we all need some time off from time to time. So we planned to meet with her backup provider. We made it out the door for the late service, which ran a little later than normal. After that, made a stop out to the backup lady's house. It's not in the greatest part of town, but this gal has cameras all over her house and a really nice security system. And after meeting with her and seeing the kids playing in the neighborhood, I felt much more at ease letting my daughter stay there. We got home just in time to eat a little bit, get baby in for a nap and head back to church. Yes, back to church. We've been regular attenders at BRCC for well over a year now, and we've never attended the new members seminar. Which means techically, we were never members. Well, we changed that, got ourselves registered and signed up to be candidates to host a small group should one grow in our neck of the woods.

That night, while D and I were planning what our week was going to look like, I realized I never made sure that Colin's alarm clock was running. So I went to his room to turn it on. I was met with a closed door. Colin never closes his door... >.>; I knock on it and there is a FLURRY of activity as I gently open the door and catch him with his GameBoy on with no cartridge in it, a pencil and notepad and covering his lower half up. O.O I'm not going into much detail here, I don't think it's appropriate, but let's just say my son is starting to get an interest in girls and a curiosity about the difference in body parts.

I was hesitant to tell DeAnn anything. And with good reason: she absolutely flipped out. I mean lost it - neurotic preaching mom style. She wanted to call a meeting immediately and ask all sorts of questions and go off on sins of the flesh and lust. I calmly tried to reign in my hysterical wife and at the same time let Colin know that he was not in any trouble, and ascertain that he was safe and that he wasn't being shown pictures or talked to by some creepy person he met in the neighborhood or on the Internet. Turns out that he had seen some pictures of partially naked women while looking at a website that one of his friends' older siblings or cousins or whatever had up on their computer. That gets little boys about that age (we're talking 8-12 year olds here) talking about boobs and girls and "gross" stuff, as he put it.

No pedophile, no creep, just kids getting into what they shouldn't and rightly being interested in what they see. Not that it makes it easier for us as parents to deal with what happens to every child that survives to this age, or that it is OK for him to lust after and objectify women that way. After making sure that he was OK and safe, we tried to talk to him just a little about what he's seen and what he thinks of girls and boys. We would have got more response from the front door. Poor kiddo, it was very clear it was incredibly awkward and embarrassing to be caught in that. I let him know that his mother and I have both been there and are there for him if he has any questions. I also made it a point to remember to put NOVA's Miracle of Life on our queue, as it was pretty clear from his notepad that he doesn't really know what is what. I don't want him to learn that from some sleazy older brother of a friend, I want him to learn that from us first.

Monday, Monday, Monday. Monday's are always crazy at service desks, but I've been doing this kind of work long enough to at least try to mentally prepare. I will be going out of my way to drop Clara off and pick her up, so I need to get a head start on my mornings this week.