Rock N' Roll!!!

I just wanted to point out the latest shared item on the right:

Rock Band 2 has been announced and is coming in September!

EDIT: Engadget has a pic of the new guitar. Looks nice, but I think I'll be keeping the instruments I already have and not drop another ton of money on new kit this time around.

--Paul

You Can't Stop the Balsa

Sorry for the late post, but the power was out this morning. Fortunately, it was going to be a short post anyway. Ladies and Gentlemen, from the mind of Edwin Perry III, I give you the Adventures of Nerd Boy: Episode 1


Adventures of Nerd Boy 1

Someone Loves Me

Or at least they subscribe to my blog. Google Reader has a trend section that allows you to see a few stats on the feeds you're subscribed to. One of those stats is "Most Obscure" which shows you the feeds that you're subscribed to in order of how many total subscribers there are to that feed from least to most. When I saw this, I thought it'd be fun to subscribe to my own blog rss feed to see if anyone else was subscribed to it. Alas, it came up as having only one subscriber, which of course had to be me. I haven't looked at the trend section lately and on a whim last night I looked and noticed that dubnet 2.0 now has 3 total subscribers. So whoever out there that decided that my blog was good enough to grace your Google Reader, I just want to say Thank You.

Now, on to business.

I failed to mention it yesterday, but on Wednesday, we watched "Be Kind Rewind". It stars Jack Black and a couple of other people. Jack's character lives next to a power substation and believes that it's affecting his brain so he decides to sabatoge it. In the process he's electocuted and winds up being magnitized. His friend helps out a video store that still only has VHS tapes. Jack walks in and every tape he touches gets erased. Once they realise this, they begin to film their own low-budget versions of the films. There was a larger, fairly touching over-arching plot about the building that the video store was in and the guy that owned it. All in all, it was a pretty good movie. I would recommend it as a rental.

So the weekend looms large. We don't have much to do. I'm on call, so that cuts out going anywhere. Bryan and Adrienne are gone to the beach. Josh and Lyndsay are moving, so there's no telling if they're going to be around. So I think we're on our own. The grass needs cutting already. We've gotten a fair amount of rain since last Saturday and you can definitely tell when you look at our yard. There's a few other things that need doing around the house, so maybe we'll find something to keep ourselves occupied with. Of course, a down weekend is never a bad thing. We've got a couple of busy ones not too far off, so we probably should enjoy the slow ones while we can. Have a good weekend.

--Paul

At Long Last...

I beat GTA: IV last night. I had to play the final mission several times before all the pieces fell into place, but I finally beat it and I have to say that it was a great game. It's definitely not a game for children or even teenagers and it may not be a game for some people over 18 even. It had one of the most compelling and engaging story lines I've ever seen in a game. Towards the end I realized that I was actually emotionally involved with the characters. I cared about their fate and what happened to them and when someone died, it was a loss that was felt. Anyway, it was a really good game. Don't buy it for your kids, but if you've ever enjoyed a mob movie, you should play GTA: IV.

I'm trying my best not to get sick. I woke up yesterday with my sinuses stopped up and I proceeded to have to breathe out of one nostril all day and constantly sniff. I'm not feeling much better today, but I'm not any worse, so I'll take that as a good sign.

We're still working fast and furious to get things finished up before next Tuesday when all the new regulations go into effect. It's been a whirlwind lately and if you asked me what all we've done in the past two weeks, I probably couldn't name it all. At the same time, I've kind of enjoyed it. We've been moving at a much faster pace than normal and it's kept things interesting. Hopefully next week after Tuesday, we can stop and kind of go back over everything and digest what we've done.

--Paul

Wednesdays Are a Workers Best Friend

Well, we've made it to the half-way point of another week. I'm on call this week, so there's not a whole lot to look forward to for the weekend, but I can be excited for it none the less.

DeAnne beat GTA: IV last night. She was really excited to finally beat it and to do so before I did. She doesn't see very many games through to the end, so when she beats one, she's usually pretty pumped up about it. Today also marks the last day of the summer school class that DeAnne has been teaching. She complains about having to get up in the morning, but I think she's actually enjoyed having something to do the few weeks, even if it was just for a couple of hours, a couple of days a week.

There's not much else going on. I'm going to try and finish out the story for GTA tonight or tomorrow. After that, I want to try and 100% the game but I may move on to something else. I got No More Heroes for the Wii for my birthday and I've never taken the game disc out of the case. I also haven't finished Mario Galaxy, so that may be where I turn my attention next.

--Paul

That Was Close

Today I was planning on talking about how disappointed we were that Butch Walker had to postpone his tour and how until he announced the new dates we wouldn't know if we would still be able to go or not. That, however, is now not a problem. A message was posted on his myspace page last night that he would still be playing a festival date and the two Atlanta shows.

When the message went up Saturday that he was going to have to postpone the tour, we were really disappointed. We got the tickets in the mail during the week last week and we were all pumped up for it and then it was just kind of taken away. But now it back! And we're more excited than ever. Or at least, I'm more excited than ever.

We still haven't beat GTA: IV yet. We both gave it a shot last night and the missions are similar up to a point, but then they diverge at a point and they're different since we took different paths to get there. Even after finishing the main storyline, there's still a lot I want to do but I have other games that are calling my name. We'll just have to wait and see.

--Paul

I Saw This and Almost Passed Out

http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/news_4010

I had to post this. I saw the article this morning and thought my head might explode. A Gish box set! A Gish tour! I just hope they swing by our way while they're on the road.

Why Does Monday Come So Fast?

It seems like the weekends just get shorter and shorter. I just thought we were going to sit around and do nothing this past weekend. We got pulled in to helping with a wedding that DeAnne's Mom was directing for one of her friend's daughters. That took up our Friday and Saturday nights. I cut the grass Saturday morning. We did get to relax a little Saturday afternoon and we didn't do anything other than go to church on Sunday.

During the downtime on Saturday we watched Fool's Gold. It was pretty good. It was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. More of a light-hearted National Treasure that was more worried about the love story.

I also got a chance to play a little GTA: IV. I finally caught up with DeAnne. I think we're both down to the final mission. It's interesting because there are two endings to the game. I heard about the two endings when we were about half-way through, so each time we were faced with a choice, she would go one way and then when I got to that point, I would make the opposite choice. Now that we're down to the last mission, I think we've seen where it's going and that we're are going to each get a different ending. It's nice having both of us get through the game because now neither one of us have to go back and play it through again just to see the other ending.

--Paul

Not Much to Talk About

I don't have much of anything to talk about today. I'm just glad it's Friday. It's been a tough week at work.

We've been really busy lately trying to get ready for some new government requirements that go into effect at the end of the month. We've been moving a lot of stuff around and swapping out some equipment. It's been pretty hectic.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I've actually really enjoyed all the stuff we've been doing, but I'm glad it's Friday. I need a few days to decompress. I had a dream last night about changing out some networking equipment. I think that's probably a bad sign.

Hopefully the rain holds off long enough tomorrow for me to get the grass cut. Having been gone last weekend, the yard is in pretty bad shape right now. If I don't get it cut before it rains again, I'll probably be in real trouble. Other than that, I'm hoping we can just have a nice, slow, lazy weekend. I hope you all have a good one yourselves.

--Paul

Take Tomorrow (One Day At a Time)

I want to do something a little different today and just share something with you. This is one of my favorite Butch Walker songs. It's off his first solo album called "Left of Self-Centered":

You got lost, For a while.
You've been trying to find a smile.
You got stood up, then you fell down,
and when you needed , there was no one 'round.
You loved the previews and hate the movie.
You scream at the screen, "Something move me!"
before you start to fade away.

Give me all your fear, Throw it all away.
and think about the good things, no matter what they say,
we'll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
one day at a time.

You just stare into space,
you found love but it got erased,
you're on the road with all the stoplights,
and you're too afraid to turn the wrong from right.
You ate your soul and it made ya fat,
starve yourself from everything else that makes you completely full.
So give me all your fear, throw it all away.
Think about the good things, no matter what they say.
We'll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
one day at a time.

So you run, so you hide,
and you watched as they die,
they all fell, you could fall too,
or you could sew your wings and try to fly right through.

Give me all your fear, throw it all away.
Think about the good things, no matter what they say.
We'll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
One day at a time.
One day at a time.

Here's a youtube video. It's taken from his first DVD "Live at the Budakon".

Firefox 3

I'm going to talk about something a little more technical than I usually talk about. I wanted to mention that Firefox 3 came out yesterday. For those of you who know, you've probably already downloaded and installed it. For everyone else scratching their heads, let me explain.

Firefox is a web browser that is an alternative to Internet Explorer (IE). It's generally a little faster and a little safer than IE. If you go to http://www.mozilla.com/firefox, you'll see the link to download the installer.

The only thing that I don't like about it is that it tries to make itself the default browser for your computer. This means that anytime you click on something outside of a web browser that takes you to a web page, it will pull of Firefox instead of IE. Windows tends not to like this very much and I've seen it cause problems. To get IE back as the default web browser, go to Tools->Options in Firefox. Then click on the "Main" tab and uncheck the box that says something about "Check to see if Firefox is the default browser." Then pull up IE and it should say that it's not the default browser and ask you if you want to set it to be the default browser. Click the positive response (yes or ok) and you're good to go.

I should note that there may be some websites that are programmed just for IE and may not look right in Firefox. For those, you may still have to use IE, but the number of those that you find will be few and far between.

Give Firefox a shot. If you don't like it, you can uninstall it from the 'Add/Remove Programs' in the Control Panel and you'll never know it was there.

--Paul

Who Needs a Title

It was back to normal yesterday. Work, come home, eat, clean, watch a little tv or play some games, go to bed, get up, rinse and repeat.

We watched the movie "Jumper" last night. It was actually pretty cool. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but for whatever reason, I didn't have very high hopes for it, so it was good enough to be enjoyable. I'm not saying it's the greatest movie ever made, but it was definitely worth renting.

I also got on Wii Fit yesterday for the first time in 9 days. The program scolded me for not working out more often and then told me that I had gained almost 5 pounds in the time since my last session. I guess we're back to the diet.

It's not huge news, but it's nice to be able to say that we've been getting a little rain every other day or so for the past couple of weeks. I thought that the yard was a goner, but now, it needs to be cut pretty badly. I would like to hold out for the weekend, but it may be a jungle by then.

DeAnne put a slide-show on her blog of the pictures from our Daytona trip. Be sure to check it out. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

We're Back!

We had a great time in Daytona. Neither of us wanted to leave yesterday, but all good things, you know. The trip was long, but not as bad as I had feared it would be. DeAnne and I have never really had a hard time keeping a conversation going on trips.

We left early Friday morning, ran over to Kinston to drop off Emma and then headed down. We got to the hotel about 3:00 eastern time. This gave us enough time to run up to our room after we got checked in and change into our suits and head down to the beach for a little while. The Atlantic is a bit different from the Gulf. The water was darker and murkier. If you went under with goggles on, you couldn't see anything. It was also rougher. We bought a boogie board while we were down there and there were some good waves that we were able to catch. They were a lot bigger and a lot more powerful that what you get in the Gulf. Daytona is also one of the few places that lets people take their cars out on the beach. There was always a line of cars up and down the beach. It was kind of like a football tailgate party, just in a single-file line.

Saturday, we had to get up and go listen to a spill about buying into a vacation plan that we probably would have taken them up on if we had had the money. After that, we hit the beach until lunch, went and got something to eat and then hit the beach again. We ate dinner at a Bubba Gump that was on the beach and we found out that they were going to have a fireworks show down the beach later that night. So we took the car back to the hotel and walked down the beach to the pier where the show was going to be. We timed it just about right and man what a fireworks show. It was the best one I think I've ever seen. We have no idea why they were having it or if it's just something that Daytona does from time to time, but it was cool that we were there for it.

Sunday finally came and we packed up and came home. We got in about 5:00 yesterday afternoon and just unpacked and ate some hotdogs and watched a movie. Just decompressing from the ride and wishing we didn't have to go to work today.

Other than the vacation spill, we had a great time. It was well worth the drive and we're glad we got to go someplace we had never been before. It also got us looking forward to our trip to Gulf Shores next month even more. We can't wait.

--Paul

Thursday For You, Friday For Me!

Sorry, but I had to rub it in a little. We leave for Daytona tomorrow! I just hope we have good weather. There's a chance of rain the whole time we're there, but hopefully it'll just be afternoon summer showers. Since vacation starts tomorrow, you won't hear from me again until Monday.

So the last big thing from last weekend was news of another vacation. My Mom and Step-Dad have a timeshare and they usually go somewhere different each year. They've been wanting DeAnne and I to go with them for a long time, but it's hard to stuff in the summer which is about the only time DeAnne can do anything because it's when school is out. They were looking at what to do next year and they found a place in Playa Del Sol, Mexico. It's just outside of Porta Vallarta over on the west cost and they got it for the first week of June. So all we have to do is buy plane tickets and we're going to Mexico next year!

So that was the last big news item from last weekend. I hope you all have a good weekend this week and pray for us that we have a safe trip. It's probably about a 6 or 6 and a half hour drive there and back, so we've got a lot of driving to do. See you Monday.

--Paul

3 Years

The last big news item from the weekend is going to have to wait one more day. Today is special. Today is mine and DeAnne's 3rd Anniversary.

DeAnne,

I know I tell you every day, but I just want to say it right here also.

I love you.

I had thought to sit down this morning and write some great, long post about the last 3 years and our future, but those three words pretty much say it all.

I love you.

--Paul

We're Going to See Butch Walker!!!

Finally, after years of waiting for Butch to be playing somewhere we could go on a date that we could make, he's finally playing Atlanta on a Friday night. It's at the end of July, the week after our trip to Gulf Shores. I know you're probably thinking that this is some guy that Paul likes and he's just dragging DeAnne along with him, but she actually is a huge fan also. After we got married, I filled her iPod full of his stuff and after a couple of weeks she came home one day and said, "Who's this Butch Walker guy? I really like his stuff."

I'm also excited about it because it'll mark the first concert that I've been to (DeAnne also) since we saw Tool in Pensacola almost 6 years ago. It's been a long time and I'm excited to be going to a concert again. While we're in Atlanta, we hope to check in on the family there. We haven't seen my Aunt and Uncle in while and my Grandmother has been wanting us to come up and see her for a long time.

In other news, I finally got my license renewed yesterday. I had to wait 2 hours, but I got it done. I got there first thing in the morning and by the time I was about ready to call it quits, someone came down and said that the usual person called in sick and that their fill-in should be there any minute, so I decided to stick it out. Well, it was about 30 more minutes before the fill-in got there. Turns out, I had to see the examiner because the lady in the Probate office thought that I had a CDL. It appears that there is a "John Paul DuBose" that just happens to be born on the same day I was (not the same year though), that lives in Alabama and has a CDL. Go figure. At least I won't have to deal with it again for awhile.

There's still one more bit of news from the weekend to share. I'll get to it tomorrow.

--Paul

5 Days Left...

...until we're on vacation!

I know you're probably all a little tired of me counting it down, but you just don't understand how excited we are.

We had a good weekend. It was too short, but it was good. I got the yard work done Saturday. It didn't take long. The yard is so dry that I cut it a little higher than I usually do and then most of the grass hasn't grown much since the last time I cut it, so I was able to go a little faster. It was nice not having to be out there for four hours like it seems like it usually takes. We went swimming later that afternoon and then ate dinner and watched a movie over at Bryan and Adrienne's. We watched Semi-Pro. It was funny, but a little on the vulgar side. Of course, it's Will Farrell, so I probably should have been expecting it.

The only bad thing to happen this weekend was that DeAnne woke up Sunday morning with a sinus infection. She stayed home all day and tried to fight it off. Hopefully she's feeling better today. At least she only has to work for a couple of hours if she does feel bad. Then she can come home and get comfortable and keep fighting it.

There's a couple of other bits of news from the weekend, but I think I'm going to save them for tomorrow so that I'll have something to talk about. Have a good Monday.

--Paul

Oh, one last thing. Believe it or not, today marks 5 years that I've been at PowerSouth (formally AEC). It's hard to believe it's been that long already. Just 35 more to go!

New Clutter

Blogger just released a new page element called Blog Roll or something like that. I've put it on my sidebar and moved a few of the links I had in my links section to it. All you other blogging people may want to check it out. It's in the layout section of your dashboard.

I also moved my xbox live gamertag to the bottom of the blog and took out the links for the smashing pumpkins and firefox. I'll probably be talking about firefox some more in the near future. They're coming up on the release of version 3. Should be good stuff.

--Paul

Foggy Friday

Looking outside this morning, there's a fair bit of fog. Trying to think back, it's be awhile since we've had fog. Too bad all that moisture didn't turn into rain instead. I've got to cut the grass tomorrow, but I hate to do it because it's so dry. We won't be here to do it next weekend though, so it's either do it this weekend or cut it during the week and I'd rather not come home from work and then cut grass.

I've got to go back to the courthouse today and take another stab at getting my license renewed. When the lady got all my information typed in and hit submit, it came back and said that I had to see the examiner downstairs. Evidently the system picks random people to go see the examiner and do who knows what. The examiner's office closes at 4:00 and when I got down there, it was 3:50 and there were probably 6 people waiting. I guess I'm going to have to take off early so I can be sure to get in to see them. Seems like nothing's ever easy. Of all the people the computer system has to pull, it picks me. Go figure.

Hopefully going by there this afternoon doesn't spoil my Friday. I hope you all have a good one.

--Paul

Too Awesome For Words...

more cat pictures

Revitalized

Summer break for school also brings with it summer break for AWANA, our children's Wednesday night program at church that DeAnne and I work with. With no AWANA, we were able to go to prayer meeting last night for the first time in ages and boy, was I glad we did. I've always loved prayer meeting, but I didn't realize how much I missed it until last night. Bro. Matt's message was just a gift from God last night and I just have to say thank you.

I've got a fairly busy day ahead of me. I've got to get my blood checked and then head straight for a dentist appointment this morning. I also need to go this afternoon and get my driver's license renewed. It actually expired yesterday, but from what I understand, you have a 30 day grace period. Work has also been pretty busy lately. There are some new security regulations that go into effect at the end of the month and we're working pretty hard to get everything in place and going so that we're compliant.

DeAnne's going to be helping with VBS today and tomorrow. She wanted to help the whole week, but couldn't since she was teaching summer school.

Also we're only 8 days away from our vacation!

Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

More Shared Goodness

Be sure to check out the newest shared item on the right. It's about a Nintendo fan who just got married. DeAnne loves playing games and all, but she would never go for the kind of stuff this couple did. From using video game music like the Zelda theme for the groomsmen to enter to, to the awesome cake, to the custom Mii sculptures, this was one awesome wedding.

By this time tomorrow, I should be an uncle once again. My step-sister is going to be induced today. We're just praying for her and that everything goes well and we're looking forward to seeing the new baby.

And that's about it. Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Words Escape Me

I'm a little stumped this morning. There's not a whole lot going on and it's left me struggling to find something to write about.

One thing I know I've been wanting to mention and keep forgetting is the last item I put in my shared section. As a donation to a charity, J K Rowling has written an 800 word outline for a prequel to the Potter series. This excites me to no end as it is proof positive that she is not able to fully withstand the draw of writing in the Potter realm again. She claims that this is just an outline and that's all it will ever be, but I'm hopeful that in the not too distant future, we'll see a new book set in the Potter world.

Wii Fit is still going strong. DeAnne's unlocked everything in it and has started moving up the advancement ladder on some things. I've also tried to start moving to higher rep counts on the strength exercises and I've been trying some of the longer aerobic stuff. I've not seen any change in my BMI since we got it, in fact, I weigh a few pounds more now than I did when I started, but I feel like getting that 30 minutes in at least every other day is good for me. I don't really need to loose any more weight, I just want to tone up some and get healthier.

Well, I came up with something to write about after all. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

Don't Let the Grind Get Ya'

The weekends just aren't long enough. We had a pretty slow one this past weekend, but it was still too short. We just hung out most of the time. We went swimming with Bryan and Adrienne on Saturday and that was about it. It was really nice actually.

We've got just two more weeks until our vacation in Daytona. We're both starting to count down the days. We haven't been to the beach in...I don't remember the last time we went to the beach. It may have been our honeymoon. We're also going to get to go for a few days at the end of June. I saw an ad at work that someone had posted for a condo that his family owns. It's in Gulf Shores across the street from the beach and the rent was pretty amazingly cheap. Sine we're going to Daytona alone, we called Courtney and Edwin and they're going to go with us to Gulf Shores. So two beach trips in one summer!

DeAnne starts summer school today. It's only for 3 hours a day/3 days a week for the month of June, but she's going to have a pretty big spread as far as ages. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

That's all I've got. Have a good Monday.

--Paul