And So It Begins...Officially

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was really good. We had two really good meals and I over-ate at both of them. I was pretty miserable last night but I'm feeling better this morning.

DeAnne stayed with her Mom last night so they could go shopping this morning. They were still debating between Destin and Dothan, but I think they settled on Destin.

So the Christmas season is officially upon us. It's still hard for me to believe that this year is almost gone. I guess tonight I'll let DeAnne turn all our lights on. Of course, she may not be back yet, so I guess I'll turn them on for her.

I picked up the new Guns N' Roses album the other day. It's been 14 years since their last album came out and the only person still in the band from those days is Axl Rose. Given all that, I really wanted the album to be a failure. I didn't want it to be good simply because I don't consider it a proper Guns album without the rest of the original members (okay, well maybe just Slash). The thing is, it's not half bad. In fact, I'll just go ahead and say it. It's pretty good. You have no idea how bad it hurts me to say that, but it really is pretty good. I don't know if it's 14 years worth of good, but it's definitly not a bad album.

With DeAnne shopping today, we don't have much planned for the weekend. There's always that yard work I keep mentioning. Maybe I'll have the motivation to actually do it this week. Have a good Friday and a good weekend.

--Paul

Giving Thanks

So after all my ranting the other day about people getting Christmas up before Thanksgiving, DeAnne decided to put our Christmas up Monday. I told her that I would help as long as she agreed not to turn the lights on until Friday. Anyway, she's posted a few pictures of the tree over on her blog.

It's amazing to me that we're so quickly approaching the end of another year. As Thanksgiving goes, DeAnne and I both have a lot to be thankful for. The Lord has really done some incredible things in our lives this year. I think one of the highlights was the summer and everything that we were able to do this year. With no surgeries or illness during the summer we were able to take some great trips and have a lot of fun.

I also want to say thanks to all of you who read the blog. Back in March when I first started posting every day (well, most every weekday), I didn't know how long I'd keep it up. I wasn't sure if anyone ever still checked the blog since I was so far out from my surgery. But it seems that word spread and slowly I started having people tell me that they had read this or that on my blog. It's pretty amazing now. I'm not sure how many people check it every day, but I know there are a good many people who read it from time to time. I hope that I've been able to keep your interest and I hope that you'll all keep reading.

So no blog tomorrow. We're heading up to Montgomery for lunch with my Mom and then we're coming back down and going to Kinston to eat dinner with DeAnne's Mom. I'll have a full report for you on Friday.

Have a good Wednesday and have a blessed Thanksgiving.

--Paul

So, Did I Mention...

That posts may be spotty this week. Really, I was just lazy yesterday morning. Let's call it the "Thanksgiving Effect". I had all the intentions in the world of posting all week except Thursday, but I just didn't make it yesterday and I apologize.

Anyway, on to the weekend.

DeAnne went shopping again with her Mom on Saturday. Instead of being productive and doing the yard work I mentioned last week, I instead sat around and played video games and watched movies. I'm still working my way through the stoyrline of Gears 2 with Edwin. We're about half-way now I think. I'm also still playing some online multiplayer. I stunk it up Saturday, but I played one round last night and not only did I do well personally, but my team actually won the match. I don't know if I'm getting better or if I just got lucky, but it was nice to win for a change.

One of the movies I watched was The Incredible Hulk and I have to say, it was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was no Iron Man or The Dark Knight, but it was a thousand times better than the last Hulk movie.

I also watched What Happens In Vegas which was much more of a chick flick than I thought it was going to be. It wasn't bad though. Really, it was one of the better girl movies I've seen in a while.

I'm going to try and post the rest of the week except for Thursday. I'm going to be going to work all week, even Friday. I've taken about as much time off this year as I can stand and DeAnne's going to be going shopping any way, so why take Friday off just to sit at home by myself. Anyway, I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

Can You Feel It?

It's Friday!

I don't know why I'm so excited about it being Friday. It's really been a good week. It hasn't just flown by, but it hasn't dragged on either. It should be a pretty laid back weekend also. DeAnne wants to take some stuff back that she bought last weekend, but I really need to get some yard work done. We've got plenty of pine straw down that needs to be picked up and put in the flower beds. I also need to knock down the weeds that managed to grow a little before the cold hit and killed them.

Not much else to talk about really and I think I'm going to leave it at that. I know it's short, but sometimes short is a good thing, right?

Have a good weekend.

--Paul

I Should Have Known

A big part of Gears of War 2 is the online multiplayer modes. In these modes, you're give an area where two teams of five compete against each other. After playing through the training section that describes all the game types, I thought: "Hey, why not give it a try. It's part of the game I bought. It can't be that bad." Boy, was I wrong. I don't know if I'm just that bad at the multiplayer stuff or if everyone else is just that good, but either way, I've been pretty much schooled the three times I've give it a shot. I think given enough time, I can get better and may be able to at least compete, but who knows.

Well, after all the griping I did yesterday about Christmas coming so early this year, I watched a Christmas special yesterday. There wasn't a whole lot of Christmas in it though. It was the Jeff Dunham Christmas Special on Comedy Central. He's a ventriliquist famous for his dummies like Peanut and Achmed, the dead terrorist. Personally, Achmed is my favorite. Anyway, his Christmas special was really funny. I'm sure they'll run it into the ground before Christmas gets here, so if you see it on, watch it.

It's Thursday. Were getting closer. Have a good one.

--Paul

Going Geek On Ya'

You'll have to forgive me, but today I'm going to have to get a little geek here on the blog.

Today is the release date for the "New Xbox Experience" or, as Microsoft likes to call it, the "NXE". What it is, is an update to the operating system on the Xbox 360. It's really more than an update though, it's more like a complete overhaul. They've completly redesigned the look and feel of the OS. They've also added a fair number of new features.

They're doing avatars now that look like a teenage version of Nintendo's "Mii" avatars.

One feature that I'm excited to try out is that you can now install a game to your harddrive. You still have to have the game in the drive to play it, but when you're playing, the game disc never has to spin. For those of you who don't have a 360, let me say that this is definitly something cool. The 360 is a fairly large machine and the amount of noise it makes while playing games is unreal. Anything to get it quietier is a worthy feature.

Possibly the coolest new feature though is that you're going to be able to do Netflix streaming to the 360. If you have a 360 and Netflix, you can log on to your account and add movies to an "instant queue". You then go to the 360 and you can cycle through your instant queue and watch any of the movies through the Xbox. They're also doing a small amount of HD material. I'm not sure how our internet connection will hold up to HD streaming, but you can bet I'm going to be giving it a try.

So forgive the trip down geed lane. Something like this always gets me excited though. I'm a sucker for new tech and new software. I guess that's why I do the work I do. Anyway. Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Christmas?

Something I've noticed this year: Christmas seems to have come earlier than ever. Wal-Mart had already started putting out Christmas stuff before halloween had even happened. I think it was a day or two after halloween that we were back in Wal-Mart and I noticed that they were playing Christmas music. The songs were kind of redone and a little hard to recognize at first, but once I stopped and listened, I realized that it was indeed Christmas music. I know that it seems like there's a big push every year to get Christmas going and start selling stuff, but it just seems to have come earlier this year. Here's what I'm thinking: the economy. With the economy in the tank like it is I think that the retailers have begun the Christmas push earlier this year trying to drive November sales. We all know that sales are going to be down this year, it's just a race between retailers to see who's sales go down the least. That means working for our money earlier than ever.

There's one aspect to this that really bugs me though. It seems that as people start to realize that retailers have already switched into Christmas gear, they've begun to decorate. There are several homes in Andalusia that have had their decorations up for more than a week now. People! Don't put up Christmas three weeks before Thanksgiving! I might could see doing it the weekend before Thanksgiving at the earliest, but come on! Three weeks? One holiday at a time, please.

Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

Rollin' On

I hope you all had an excellent weekend, we sure did. It wasn't too busy but wasn't boring by any means.

Saturday, DeAnne went shopping with her mom. She managed to get several Christmas presents out of the way and got me a few (much needed) pairs of pants. So while she was off doing that, I did some laundry and proceeded to play as much Rock Band 2 and Gears of War 2 as I could manage in one day. I also watched the new Indiana Jones move. I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed with it. It was better than Temple of Doom, but not by much. It just reached a point where sense kind of went out the window and it got silly. There may have been moments where Indiana Jones was campy, but this was just too much. I just hope they don't ever make a movie based around his son's character. That guy was fine in Transformers, but I was not a fan for Indiana Jones.

Also on Saturday, my mom stopped by for a visit. It's always good to see her and we had a good visit. She brought Emma a new coat for the winter that is just adorable. DeAnne took some pictures that I'm sure she'll post sometime this week when she gets a chance. I'll let you know when she does.

Sunday was good too. After church we went and ate lunch with DeAnne's mom, made our weekly Wal-Mart run and then I found out how terrible I am against strangers online in Gears of War 2. It was pretty brutal. After evening services, we ate at Beef O'Brady's with some friends and then headed home. I got in one more hour of Gears co-op online with Edwin and then that was it.

So like I said, busy, but not too busy and definitly a fun weekend. Here's to hoping the week is just as good. Have a good Monday.

--Paul

C'Mon Friday

Alright, we made it. For whatever reason (maybe because the phone didn't ring at 4:00 this morning), I'm feeling pretty good today. I just wish I could say the same for DeAnne. She's still fighting a cold and it just doesn't seem to be getting any better.

I think I've mention Hulu before, but I'm going to talk about it again. In trying to figure out the best way to catch up on some of the shows we missed, I decided to check and see if Hulu had any of them. Not only did they have them all, but they were commercial free and really good quality. It's pretty amazing acutally. When you start to think about it, in a couple of years, the standard methods of recieving television shows may be completly gone and replaced by web distribution. DVRs have completly changed how people watch tv. They're no longer have to watch a show at the time it comes on, but they do have to set a timer to record it. Web distribution takes that a step futher though in that you don't have to even set a timer, you just go look for the show you want to watch when you want to watch it and it's there. When you consider that cell phones are getting close to having full blown web access (or already do in the case of the iPhone), being able to watch what you want when you want where you want is just a matter of time. The biggest roadblock is can the studios find a way to make money off of it without making it so much of a hassle for the users that the users don't want to bother with it. So far, Hulu is a good start. Let's hope the studios keep an open mind and attitude about pricing and advertisements.

Have a good Friday and a good wekend. Oh, and War Eagle.

--Paul

Moving At The Speed Of Snail...

...Or at least that's how I feel like I'm moving this morning. It's probably got something to do with the crazy night I had though. It started early on. I had gone to bed and I was just about good and asleep when I realized I couldn't remember if DeAnne and put the meat for tonight back in the fridge or not. She had put it out to help it thaw and she had gone to bed before me and was good and asleep, so I couldn't ask her, so up I got, went to the kitchen, and sure enough, she had put it back in the fridge. So, back to bed I went. Things were pretty standard from there until about 4:10. That's when the phone rang. I think most of you know that my job includes being "on call" every couple of weeks. Well, I'm on call this week, so of course, the phone rings and it's still dark, my first assumption is, "it's work calling, something's wrong". So I jump out of bed, rush over to the phone and the caller id says "Besthda, MD" or something like that. Wrong number. There was a screaming kid on the other end. So, back to bed again. I get good and back to sleep and then just before 5:00, the cat starts making a ruckus. The cat has yet to adjust to the time change and thinks that I need to be up at 5:00 and that it's time for him to go outside. So, I get up, let the cat out and return to bed one final time. Now I'm running late.

Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

Let's See...

Not terribly sure what to talk about today. Wait, here's something.

Bryan and Adrienne called yesterday evening and invited us over to watch the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie that was just released. It seems like for the past month or so either we've been busy or they've been busy and we just haven't been able to get together and do anything so it was nice to be able to spend some time with them.

As to the movie, there's been a lot of reviews that haven't been happy with the movie but I thought it was pretty good myself. Maybe I'm not as hard-core of a fan as the fans that weren't happy with it, but I enjoyed it. The movie sets up the show that's been airing on Cartoon Network. We've been watching the show and we like it (I think I've mentioned it here before) and it was nice to see how they set up the show with the movie.

Speaking of TV, we're now less that 2 weeks away from "24: Redemption", the two hour "movie" that sets up the next season that starts in January. I'm pretty excited about 24 this year. They didn't have it at all last year because of the writers strike, so it's been nearly two years without 24. Hopefully with that much time, they've come up with a great story and it'll be a good season.

Well, I came up with a few things to talk about after all. We're halfway there. Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Two Things Today

Today is kind of a strange day for me. There are two musicians that I'm pretty obsessive about. If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you probably know that they are the Smashing Pumpkins (Billy Corgan) and Butch Walker. In a strange twist of fate, they both have new projects coming out today.

Of course, I've mentioned Butch's new album countless times the past couple of weeks. We pre-ordered it so we could get a poster and t-shirt along with the CD. I've listened to the album online at Butch's Imeem site and it's great and I think you should all go and get it.

The reason I haven't mentioned the Pumpkins' new project is that I didn't feel like anyone who's not a fan would really be interested and anyone who is a fan should already know. They've got a new DVD coming out today called "If All Goes Wrong". It has two parts to it. The first is a documentary following the band as they prepare for a two week string of shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The other part is a series of live performances from those shows at the Fillmore. It's been getting good reviews from fans, so I'm sure I'm going to love it, but I just didn't think it would have the mass appeal that the new Butch album has. Hopefully I'll be able to order it in the next week or two.

So, an exciting Tuesday for me. Two of my favorite musical acts have new stuff coming out on the same day. Pretty awesome, I say. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

I've Set A Goal

I'm going to try my best to post a blog every day this week. I'm not sure when the last time that happened was, but I believe it's been a while. I think I can do it this week though. I'm still waking up early due to the time change (and so is DeAnne for that matter), so barring any unforeseen craziness, I should be able to pull this off.

Courtney and Edwin came up Saturday afternoon. We had a great time as usual. While Courtney was hitting the two showers for Jessica (DeAnne went with her on Sunday, but stayed behind on Saturday), Edwin and I were hitting Gears of War 2 as hard as we could. We had a great time with it and I think I've just about convinced him to buy the game so that we can team up online. Other than the showers and Gears, we just cooked and ate and had a good time. We played dominoes Saturday night and had a good time with that. It was just one of those all-around good time weekends.

That's it for today. Tomorrow's the release date for Butch's new album. Be sure to go listen to it at the website I mentioned a couple of days ago and then download the album or buy a CD from his website tomorrow. Butch deserves it. Have a good Monday.

--Paul

Now It's Friday

At long last, Friday has come. Let us now put this crazy week behind us and rest. Maybe a little rest will help get this time change thing straightened out. It's getting better. I didn't wake up at 4:30 this morning thinking it was almost time to get up. Also, it was after 9:00 when we went to bed last night.

When Rock Band 2 was released they promised everyone that bought it 20 free songs. The list of what they were going to be was released a week or so ago and they came out yesterday. I don't recognize a single band on the list so maybe they'll be good. At least they were free.

Speaking of Rock Band 2, our old bandmates, Courtney and Edwin are coming up this weekend. Courtney's sister is getting married and has a couple of showers this weekend so they're going to let us repay them some hospitality and stay with us while they're here. We're really looking forward to it and it should make for a fun weekend.

I hope you all have a great weekend too. See you on Monday.

--Paul

What Day Is It?

It's only Thursday but it feels like it should be Friday for some reason. I think it's the time change still messing with me. I don't know why, but this years change seems to really have taken its toll on DeAnne and I. We went to be last night at 9:00. That's about the latest we've made it all week. I would say that the problem is the way they moved the change back a week, but this is the second year it's been like this and I don't remember it being this bad last year. Who knows. Maybe we're just getting old.

We pre-ordered the new Butch Walker album yesterday. If you pre-order you get the album, a poster and a t-shirt. Check it out here. After listening to the album yesterday I have to say that it's as good as I hoped it would be. It would be really awesome if this is the album that get's Butch out there and get's him some recoginition for something other than his production work on other band's CDs.

That's about all I've got for today. Have a good Thursday (even though it still feels like Friday to me) and I'll see you tomorrow.

--Paul

Butch

You can listen to Butch's new album that I mentioned in today's first post here.

Get Ready

Here comes Obama. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed with how poorly McCain did, but at the same time, I'm not surprised. The congressional elections didn't got that well either. At least the Republicans can still filibuster in the Senate. It should be an interesting, and long four years. Hopefully the Dems will overreach and make enough people mad that it'll only last four years. Who knows what kind of damage they'll do in the meantime, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

So now that the election is over, we can leave that topic. On to bigger and better things. Or at least things that aren't so depressing.

Gears of War 2 comes out this Friday. I preordered it and I am really beginning to look forward to it. The first one was amazing and from what I understand, this one is just bigger and better all around.

Also coming out soon is Butch Walker's new album. DeAnne and I heard a lot of the songs on it at the show we went to in Atlanta. They were great live, so hopefully they'll translate over to the album well. In recent interviews, Butch has seemed like he's really happy with the way it turned out and I think there's a lot more excitement for this album than there was the last one.

It's Wednesday. We're halfway there. Have a good day.

--Paul

Is It Really Election Day?

Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday. I know, I promised to be back to normal last week. The time change has got me really messed up. As bad as it has me messed up, I think DeAnne's in worse shape than I am. She was ready to go to bed last night at 8:00.

Election Day has finally arrived. If I had to bet though, I'd say it's going to be a while longer before we find out who actually wins the Presidential election. If it's as close as some people are saying, there will be plenty of recounts and lawsuits to go around for a couple of weeks. At least the TV ads and the road signs will be gone.

I didn't catch the actual show, but I saw the clip on the internet of John McCain on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. I actually thought he did a better job than Palin. I also thought that the show was a little easier on him than they were on Palin. It was really good though and if you haven't seen it, you can watch it on nbc.com.

So go vote, have a good Tuesday, and I'll see you back tomorrow to talk about the results.

--Paul