Miscallany

Look out. I got one more post in this month. Thought I'd drop in and let you all know what's been going on.

DeAnne's doing good. She's pretty much back to normal. She still has some numbness in her leg, but the doctor said it can take a while for that to go away. The important thing is that she doesn't have any pain any more. She also has a new job. She's going to be teaching 2nd grade at the Christian academy in town. It's not a lot of pay and no tangible benefits, but she's only going to have 8 or 10 kids and it's just going to be a better environment over all. She's pretty excited about it and I'm just glad she found somewhere that she feels like she might be able to actually teach instead of just worrying about trying to keep control of the class.

On the games front, I finished Super Paper Mario the other day. I really enjoyed it. If you've got a Wii and you're looking for something to play, it's not a bad choice.

After seeing the new Harry Potter movie, DeAnne could now be said to be "into" Harry Potter. She hasn't read any of the books and neither had I until this past weekend. I bought the first two and read them both over the weekend. They were pretty good but I'm really wanting to get to around 4 and 5. That's where the movies seem to have taken on a more cohesive feel. The first two books seemed really separate from each other in the sense that you could have reversed the timing and made book 2 year 1 and made book 1 year two and I don't think that anyone would really have seen much of a difference. One didn't really carry over into two any, it was just the next year whereas it seemed like the fifth movie was really a continuation of the fourth. Anyway, now that I've beat that dead horse...

I was somewhat wrong about my early feelings in regards to the new Smashing Pumpkins album. The first six songs are great. Track seven I could live without and then out of the last five songs, 3 are probably really good and the other two are decent. Overall, I'm happy with it. If you liked the Pumpkins in the past, say during Mellon Collie, you should be able to find a couple of songs on the new album to make it worth your while. I would suggest buying it from Target or iTunes. The bonus tracks on those versions are better than the Best Buy bonus track.

I'll be glad when summer is over and I don't have to cut grass anymore. The sod is doing well. It actually looks really good. Now if it'll just spread and fight off some of the weeds, I'll be really happy with it.

Later,

--Paul

F.Y.I.

I don't care how much it cost or how bad it needs to be done or what, I will never lay sod again. I helped Bryan with some of his but that was back before it got truly hot. Dad and I put out two pallets Friday around the new driveway...wait, i never told you guys, did I? We got a new driveway put in a couple of weeks ago. Concrete. We put it next to where the old one was in case we ever want to go further out that end of the house. It's great. Looks great, drives great, don't know how we ever lived without it. Anyway. So we got the new driveway put in and they scrapped up the old gravel from the first driveway leaving a big row of nothing. So I got some top soil, got that spread out and now we've done two pallets of sod around the new driveway. Now let's see how big of a water bill I can grow.

DeAnne's doing good. She got her stitches out last Wednesday and the doctor cleared her to drive again so she's off at a baby shower. I'm holding down the fort, keeping the sprinklers company and doing a little laundry. I got to looking for something to do and I broke out a dvd I got a while back. It's Butch Walker "Live from the Budokan". Check it out here. I know everyone's probably sick of my Butch hyping, but seriously. I'm sitting here watching this and I'm as blown away as I was the first 5 times I watched it. It's only $15 bucks at Amazon. Do yourself a favor, get it and check out the acoustic show that's the bonus material. You'll be glad you did.

In other music news, the new Pumpkins album came out last week. I pre-ordered off of Amazon to get the special version with the big booklet and it hasn't come yet. I've heard most of the stuff live though and I have to say, I'm on the fence about it. I don't know if I'm just nostalgic for the Pumpkins of old or what, but I'm a little disappointed with some of the new songs. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that they're playing SP songs again and there are several new songs that I've heard that I really like, but I don't know that the old SP quality is still there.

Since this has turned into a general post instead of the original "gripe about sod" that it was going to be, I'll mention that I'm almost through with Super Paper Mario. It's been a really fun game and has been really cool. I'm not sure what I'm going to play once I finish it. The 80's edition of Guitar Hero's coming out soon (this week maybe?) so that's probably top on the list. I'll let you know where I go when I get there.

I think that's enough for now.

Till next time,

--Paul