Friday, May 30, 2008

I Can't Believe...

...that we have to wait until January for more "Lost". If you don't watch Lost (and why wouldn't you? Go, get the DVDs and get caught up), the season finale was last night. It was an amazing end to what I think has possibly been the best season yet. I know season 3 was rough to start with, but since about 3/4 of the way through season 3, the show has just been getting better and better. I do have to say that last night's finale wasn't quite as good as season 3's, but it was still pretty amazing. They gave a good number of answers but of course, they also brought up new questions. I thought it was nice how it kind of came together with last seasons finale and wrapped up season 4 in a nice little bow and then set the stage for what should be an exciting season 5. I can hardly wait.

Now that the writers strike is in the past, TV seems to be starting to recover. Most of the shows that we watch are coming back. Heroes, Chuck and Pushing Dasies are all coming back in the fall. Then Lost and 24 (finally!!!) will be back in January.

We also watched the movie Juno last night. I didn't really know what to expect. It won an Oscar for something and a lot of times when we watch movies that win awards, we wind up not liking them, but this one was really good. It was funny and touching and had a killer soundtrack that I'm late to the party for. I know people have been talking about the soundtrack since the movie came out, but I never listened to any of it and honestly, I don't know if it would have made any sense outside the context of the movie, so I'm glad I watched the movie before I listened to the music. Now though, I intend on getting the soundtrack.

It's Friday, hip hip, horay! Have a good weekend.

--Paul

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Hmmm...

I'm trying to think what to talk about today.

Ah...here we go.

Our microwave is officially dead. I've ordered a new one from Cooperative Propane through our employee program (PowerSouth owns Cooperative Propane) and it should be here next week. The microwave was the last "old" appliance we had. Over the past three years, we've steadily replace every hand-me-down appliance we've had except the fridge, which was fairly new when Dad let us move in to the house. DeAnne's excited because this means that everything in the kitchen will finally match.

We had our AWANA awards night last night at church. It was great seeing the kids get all their various awards for things they accomplished throughout the year. As stressful as it can be sometimes, I really do love working with AWANA, but it will be nice to have a break this summer. I'm looking forward to getting recharged and ready to go for the fall.

Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Stitches Are Coming Out

I go and get the stitches taken out of my head this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to it mainly because they've started to itch like the devil. After they're out, I'm sure that the wound will start looking better and it's just in time too.

I've got to go get my driver's license renewed. I know there's nothing to it, but I really hate going up to the court house. It seems like every time I have to go up there for something, every single person in Covington County seems to be up there too. I think the only time I haven't had to wait in a line was when I went to pay my property taxes last year. I guess no one wants to do that, so they all wait until the last possible moment.

I failed to mention it yesterday, but you may have figured it out just by reading about what we did on Monday, but we didn't make it to see Indiana Jones. DeAnne really doesn't care anything about seeing it and after reading what I have about the movie, we may just wait and rent it. It's definitely the cheaper route and I'm really tired of watching movies in our crappy movie theater.

--Paul

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Back to the Grind

It sure was nice to have a long weekend. I haven't been off for a full day since the last time we went to Mobile, so it's been a little while. We didn't do much, but that was fine with me.

Saturday was cleaning day. I finally mowed down the jungle of grass that had been growing for way too long. While I was outside, DeAnne got to cleaning the inside. So with the house and yard both looking good, we hit Wal-Mart for our weekly trip, then later we ate dinner over at Dad's house.

Sunday was pretty cool. Church was busy, but it was a good kind of busy. Bryan's sister, Beth, who we've gotten to know from hanging out with Bryan and Adrienne is leaving for Peru today for a 70-some-odd day missionary trip. She minored in Spanish in college and is now going to use that to spread the Gospel of Christ. So Sunday, everyone went down and gathered around her and we prayed together for her trip. We also had baptism service Sunday night, along with a business meeting and a finger-food social. All good stuff.

Yesterday, we just ate lunch with DeAnne's family, then we came back and went swimming with Bryan and Adrienne and then had dinner with Dad. My Grandmother is heading back to Atlanta today. We got to see a bit more of her this time than we did the last time she was down, which was nice. We would like to go to Atlanta and see her and my family up there, but with gas like it is and already having the Daytona trip planned, I don't know if we'll be able to. We'll just have to wait and see.

I fell off the Wii Fit wagon over the weekend, but came back strong yesterday. The program promptly scolded me for not using it more often, which I thought was pretty funny. I'm not nearly as sore today as I was after using it the first time, but I didn't do as much leg exercise either. I'm thinking that after a while, I'll find the right mix of exercises to use and be able to develop a routine. It's just too bad that you can't program a series to go through and just hit that when you get into it.

--Paul

Friday, May 23, 2008

Feel The Burn

Boy, do I ever feel it. At least all up and down my legs, I do. At this point, I'm not sure what Wii Fit is going to do for my upper body, but I should have some strong legs if I keep this up. I even tried not to work my legs yesterday, but I wound up playing some of the games and they all depend on your center of gravity, so they all use a lot of leg muscle. The main exercises I did yesterday were push-ups and jackknives. I also did some of the easier yoga moves and then I did a couple of the aerobic exercises. All totaled, I spent about 25 minutes with it yesterday. So that's a bit of an increase from day 1. I think for right now, I'm going to shoot for 30 minutes a day and see how that goes for a little while. After a week or two, I may increase it, but since I'm completely out of shape, I think that's a good start.

Monday's a holiday, so I won't be blogging. Right now, we're planning on riding over to Greenville to see Indiana Jones. I've heard both good and bad reviews, so I'm a little nervous about how good it's going to be. As long as it's not as bad as Temple of Doom, then it'll be ok. I'll let you know on Tuesday. Have a good (long) weekend.

--Paul

Thursday, May 22, 2008

The "Horn" Is Gone

The doctor went ahead and cut my cyst out yesterday afternoon. The bleeding really wasn't that bad. I think I bleed more when I have blood drawn than I did yesterday when he cut my head open. Go figure. DeAnne had dubbed it the "horn". Bryan had taken to calling me "Uni" (as in unicorn). And just about everyone had made mention how the devil was coming out of me. But no more! Now I just have to endure a week of having stitches in my head. Always fun.

Yesterday also marked the day DeAnne expects me to start exercising each day, namely by using Wii Fit. I have to admit, they've put together a really cool program that could actually be useful. The board that comes with it is a lot sturdier than I assumed it would be, which is nice because I don't feel like I'm going to break it. When you first get started, you register your Mii and you tell it your age and height, then the board weighs you and checks your ability to balance. From all this it tells you your weight, your BMI and your Wii Fit "Age". I can't remember my BMI number, but it said I was a little over-weight. I think I'm fine weight wise, I would just like to tone up some. So I don't know how good of a number that is, but it was interesting to see. The exercises were harder than I thought they would be and this morning I'm actually feeling it a little in my legs from the lunges. I only spent about 17 minutes working out yesterday (it tracks the date and time when you use it) and I was pretty tired. Of course, I'm also completely out of shape. DeAnne, who's been working out since the first of the year, got a good hour in on it but even she admitted that it was pretty tough. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how it goes from time to time. So far, I like it though.

Finally, David Cook won American Idol. I'm honestly a little surprised that he won. I kind of thought that he'd be gone around 3rd or 4th like Chris Daughtry was and then have a really successful career like Daughtry. I still think he'll have a good career, he'll just have to do it from underneath the contract the winner has to sign. I liked David and towards the end, he was about the only one we would watch all the way through when he performed. DeAnne's shows finish up their seasons tonight and then Lost has their last show next week. Maybe after that we can catch up on some of the stuff we have recorded.

--Paul

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Are You Getting Fit?

Wii Fit finally comes out today. It's been nearly a year since Nintendo first showed it to the public and it's been out since December in Japan. I just hope that our Wal-Mart has a copy. I'm feeling pretty good about the prospects. It is Andalusia we're talking about. The Wii has been sold out here just like it has been every where else, but I'm hoping that most people that have one and would be interested in Wii Fit aren't going to realize that it's out until they actually see it on a store shelf. It's been getting pretty good reviews. I think most people agree that if you work with it every day you'll see some improvement but I think most game reviewers are more interested in the possibility of using the balance board in other games.

I also have an appointment to see about the knot my head today. The doctor's going to look at it and see if he thinks it would be alright to cut it out without me coming off my blood thinner. Hopefully he'll be able to and he'll just go ahead and do it then and there and we'll be done with it. I would really like to have the "horn" gone. I just don't want to have to mess up my blood thinner to get rid of it.

Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Two Down, One To Go

We went with Bryan and Adrienne last night to see Prince Caspian. I don't know if I enjoyed it as much as I did Iron Man, but it was a very, very good movie.

For the most part they stayed true to the major plot points and themes of the book. They did add a major sequence and they changed up the timeline of events somewhat, but I thought that the movie was a good representation of the book.

For those of you with children, I would say that this movie is a good bit darker than the first. There's still no fowl language whatsoever and there's no blood, but there is a good bit more death than in the first one. I could see where it could be a bit scary for a small child, say younger than five, but if you're with them, they'll probably be ok. Aslan shows up soon enough and of course, things are brighter and more cheerful when he comes on the scene.

With Prince Caspian, we've seen two of the three big May movies that I wanted to see. Indiana Jones hits this weekend and I'm pretty excited for it. I've read a few early reviews and everyone sounds pretty pleased with it so far.

I finally got my memory card for my PSP yesterday. Over the weekend I found some software to transcode some movies into a format that works on the PSP, so I loaded up a couple of movies, put a few songs on it and bookmarked some websites in the internet browser. The movies look pretty good considering the size of the screen. It should be really cool to have next time I go somewhere. The music player isn't nearly as nice as an ipod, but it's good enough to replace one on a trip considering you also have movies and games in the same device. I haven't checked out the online playstation store yet to see what they've got available. I'm going to see what it's like sometime.

Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

Monday, May 19, 2008

Here We Go Again

And just like that we're back to Monday. It was a whirlwind weekend, but it was good. We didn't get to see Prince Caspian, but that's ok. We'll see it soon enough.

Friday night we went over to Dad's and ate with them and got to see my Grandmother. She's doing good and I was glad to see her. We just ate pizza and watched a little TV and then we came home and went to bed.

Saturday was DeAnne's Grandmother's wedding. The wedding was at 10:30 and it was just a small group of family that went to it. It was really sweet and all the women cried and it was just a nice little wedding. After that, DeAnne's Mom had set up a reception at her house so we headed back there. Sally really went all out and had the house looking really nice. The food was good, which is always a plus at these things and they had my favorite green punch. We hung out there the rest of the day and on into the evening. It was a really good day. Everything went well and was nice and I think everyone involved was really happy.

All in all, it was a good weekend. We spent some more time with my Grandmother yesterday afternoon and the children had their spring performance at church last night. All good stuff. Wednesday marks the release of Wii Fit. DeAnne and I are both getting pretty excited. I just hope Wal-Mart actually has a copy on Wednesday. Anyway, have a good Monday.

--Paul

Friday, May 16, 2008

A Busy Weekend

It's Friday and boy, do we have a busy weekend ahead of us.

My Grandmother on my Dad's side is coming down from Atlanta for a visit. It's been a pretty good while since she was here last so I'm looking forward to seeing her.

The really big event involves DeAnne's Grandmother though. DeAnne's Grandmother is getting married tomorrow. It's really a really sweet story. She and the guy she's marrying dated in high school. After high school for whatever reason, they went their separate ways. They both married and had children and then later in life, lost their spouses. Then a year or two ago, they both registered on the Opp Alumni website and reconnected. They started talking via email and after a while started dating. Now tomorrow, they're getting married. If that's not Lifetime movie material, then I don't know what is.

Other than that, I'd really like to see Prince Caspian, but I don't know if we'll be able to fit it in. I'm also on call and I hate to risk paying to see a movie when I'm on call and might have to leave. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Have a good weekend.

--Paul

Thursday, May 15, 2008

TV!

Back on Monday, DISH added a bunch of new HD channels for us to enjoy then on Tuesday and Wednesday they took down 15. The 15 they took down were called the "VOOM Channels". They were 24 hour all HD channels that were genre based. For instance, there was one called "Monsters" that ran horror movies all day, one called "Kung Fu" that ran old kung fu movies all day and, my favorite, "Rave" that ran live music programming all day. These channels were in DISH's $20 HD package that includes any HD channel that doesn't have an SD equivalent. After they took these channels down, there were only 7 channels left in the $20 HD package that weren't in the $10. I called yesterday and had them drop us to the $10 HD package. It turns out though, that there's a $10 difference between our base package and the next package up, so I had them move our base package up to the top level, so now we're getting more channels than we lost, just not all in HD, and our bill is the same as it was.

I'm really going to miss Rave though. They had some good music from time to time and I always checked to see if there was anything worth recording. Hopefully DISH will replace those 15 channels pretty soon with something.

American Idol went just the way it should. We watched the performance show from Tuesday night and I wasn't really impressed with any of them. David Cook's "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" was pretty good, but I wasn't crazy about his other two songs. I don't like the other David at all. He's what I imagine Michael Bolten was like when he was 17. Syesha, bless her heart, she gave it her best, and she really had gotten better lately, but it was too little, too late. Most of our shows are over next week, with Lost carrying over to the week after that. Maybe we'll finally be able to catch up on some of the stuff we've got recorded.

--Paul

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I Heart Wednesdays

Don't you just love Wednesdays? You're half-way through the week. There's just a little left to go before you get to the weekend. I don't know, but Wednesdays just always seem to be a pretty good day.

We didn't watch American Idol last night. DeAnne and Adrienne were off at a friend's house so Bryan and I hung out for a bit, then I came home and played Guitar Hero for a few minutes and about the time that DeAnne got home, work called. I spent a few minutes trying to fix it from the house and finally gave up and just went it. I spent probably an hour and a half working last night. I'm just always grateful when it's not 2:00 AM that they call. Those are the hard ones. It always stinks getting called out, but 8:00 isn't bad. Getting up out of bed in the dead of night is rough though.

Hopefully my memory card for my PSP will come in today and I'll be able to start messing around with it some.

Other than that, there's not much else going on. DeAnne's kids' last day of school was yesterday. DeAnne has to work through the end of the week, but then she's done. She's going to teach a summer school class at the Academy, but that's not going to start until the first week of June. So after this week, she's done. As you can imagine, she's pretty excited.

--Paul

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The Next 100

I meant to mention it yesterday and forgot, but yesterday's post was the 100th post to this blog. The majority of those 100 posts have come in just the last 3 months or so, but I still felt like it was a bit of an achievement.

Here we are about to get into summer again and the rain seems to have dried up. Yesterday we started watering the bushes around the house and what good grass we have. We watered all last summer and it was not fun. The water bill never got that bad, but it's just a pain to have to deal with it. At least I know I'm not alone. In fact, our friends Bryan and Adrienne have it a lot worse than we do.

I don't know which one did it, but one of our cats got a bird yesterday and brought it to the back door. We have got some vicious cats. You never know what they're going to hunt down and bring home. Rabbits, moles, birds. There's no telling what will be next.

As you can probably tell, I'm struggling a bit for something to write about so I'm going to just call it a day and maybe tomorrow will be better. See you then.

--Paul

Monday, May 12, 2008

I'm Officially Older

Well, birthday #27 has come and gone and all in all, it was a pretty darn good one. In fact, it was almost a weekend of birthday celebration. Or at least that's what I tried to declare it.

Friday night, Dad and Sherry took me and DeAnne out to eat. We had a good time. It's been a while since we've been able to do anything with them and I really enjoyed it.

On Saturday we drove up to Tallassee to see my Mom and all of the family on her side. It was a tri-purpose party at my Grandmother's house. We had my birthday, of course, but we also celebrated Mother's day and then the last part of it was celebrating my Uncle Kenneth graduating with his Doctorate.

Then Sunday was my actual birthday. After church, we headed over to Kinston and had Mother's Day and birthday with DeAnne's family. When we got back, we headed over to Bryan's parents' house and got in their pool for a little while. It was nice.

As for presents...let's just say if I was swimming in games before, I think I'm drowning in them now. Bryan and Adrienne got me a Wii game called No More Heroes. I've been eye-balling it for a while and Bryan knew it. DeAnne got me Guitar Hero II for the 360. I had it for the PS2, but I sold it along with the PS2 a while back. I've been wanting to get GHII for the 360 since I had the guitar for Rock Band already. The setlist are in a different order from the PS2 version and they've added a few different songs and they've also got some songs available for download. I'm pretty excited to have it. I also got a new shirt and some cash from DeAnne's family. Mom busted off with the big present though. She got me a PSP. I was totally blown away. She also got me the Iron Man game to go along with it. I'm going to use the cash I got to get a memory card and then I'll be good to go. It's pretty awesome. It does music, movies and games and to some extent, internet. It should be great the next time I go on a trip for work.

I'm out of time. Have a good Monday.

--Paul

Friday, May 09, 2008

Sweet Friday

We've got a busy weekend ahead of us, but I'm still glad to see Friday come.

I didn't get to read any last night. I was asked to look at a laptop for someone and I spent a good chunk of the night trying to get it running (I did eventually get it going). By the time I had finished with that, DeAnne was almost through watching her shows, so I just waited so we could watch Lost (which was pretty wild last night).

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Happy Birthday Adrienne. Sorry it's a day late.

My birthday is on Sunday. I'll be turning 27. It's hard to believe that I'm just a few years away from 30. In fact, I really hadn't given it much thought until just now. It's really hitting home seeing it typed out on the screen like that. Wild.

I know it's a short post, but I'm about out. I've got to have blood drawn this morning and along with my usual INR they're also doing a fasting lab, so I can't eat breakfast and I think the hunger is messing with my ability to think. I'll see you all on Monday with plenty to talk about. Have a good weekend.

--Paul

Thursday, May 08, 2008

A Title Will Come to Me Later

Let's see...

Jason did indeed say goodbye last night on American Idol. Unless some miracle happens, Syesha better enjoy singing next week, because it should be her last. I don't think the DVR has ever come in more handy than when we're watching the American Idol results show. Out of an hour long program, I think we watch, maybe, 7 minutes. I don't know why Fox insists on making the results show an hour long. I just feel sorry for all the people who sit through the whole show. I don't think I ever will again.

I got to read a little last night. I lack about 2 chapters being done with Prince Caspian. I may have said this already, but it's go me wanting to read the rest of the Narnia books. They're all pretty short, so it shouldn't take long to do.

GTA: IV continues to get better the more I get into it. It just really impressive what they've managed to do. Evidently, I'm not the only one who bought the game either. The company that makes the game announced yesterday that they had sold around 6 million copies of the game which equaled about 500 million dollars in revenue in one week. Development is said to have cost around 100 million, so in the first week of sales they were able to clear 400 million in profit. There must be some very happy people at Take-Two games today. I wonder how many of the devs on are vacation this week.

Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Wednesday Already?

It doesn't seem like it should be, but it's already Wednesday.

I didn't get to finish Prince Caspian last night. I got about 50 pages in, so that leaves me with about 50 more to go. It'll probably have to wait until Thursday night though because of church tonight.

American Idol should just go ahead and send Jason and Syesha (sp?) home and let the two Davids duke it out for two weeks. I really like Jason and David Cook, but I know that Jason doesn't stand a chance against the young David. Also, the judges seem to have turned on Jason. I don't know if they're trying to get rid of him so that Paula can forget what she did last week or what, but they didn't like anything he did last night. I know he forgot the words on the Dylan song, but I though I Shot the Sheriff was pretty good. Who knows, maybe Syesha will go home this week and we'll get to keep Jason around for one more show.

As if there was any doubt that it would happen after this past weekend, Iron Man 2 was announced yesterday. They're shooting for a 2010 release date. They also mentioned that they're working on a Captain America movie, Spider-man 4, and an Avengers movie. I've also heard that Iron Man makes a cameo in the new Hulk movie that comes out in about a month. It looks like Marvel is trying to set up the Avengers by getting everyone their own movie first. I would be willing to be that you'll see Iron Man, the Hulk (maybe not), Captain America, Ant-Man (who also has a movie in the work supposedly), Thor (also has a movie in development) and either Spider-man or Wolverine (I'm thinking Wolverine's more likely) as the members of the Avengers. We'll have to wait and see. The article I saw said most of this is planned for 2010 and 2011.

See you tomorrow.

--Paul

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

I'm Not Really Sure...

I'm not really sure what to talk about today. Not much really happened over the weekend or yesterday.

I'm still loving Iron Man. I rarely buy movies on DVD, but Iron Man's probably a safe bet for one that I'll buy. If you haven't seen it yet, then go and see it. It's worth it.

I'm not really interested in Speed Racer that comes out this week. We'll probably skip it and just rent it when it comes out on DVD. Prince Caspian is the next movie we're really looking forward to. It come out in two weeks. I started re-reading the book last night. It's only about 200 pages so it's not very long at all. I was able to get through almost half of it in about an hour and a half last night. It's kind of strange to be reading it again. I don't know how old I was when I read the Chronicles of Narnia the first time, but I'm sure I was fairly young. I remember bits of the book but I'm missing most of the major plot points in my memory, so it's kind of like reading it for the first time again. After Caspian, I may go ahead and read the rest of the series. I had forgotten how good they were.

--Paul

Monday, May 05, 2008

A Monday Movie Moment

Because I love Lord of the Rings and lolcats.

humorous pictures
more cat pictures

I'm Still Iron Man

Or at least I still wish I was. The movie rocked. If the rest of the big summer movies are as good as that, then we're in for a great summer. It was just awesome. I don't want to spoil any of it for anybody. If you do go see it though, sit through all of the credits (and I mean every last one). There's a bonus scene at the end that will blow your mind if you're a comic book fan.

Friday night we ate dinner with our Sunday School class as a goodbye to Walker and Ashley Williams. They're moving to Enterprise this week and we're really going to miss them. They're just two really great people and you hate to see them move, but we wish them the best as they go.

It's short, but it's Monday, so cut me some slack.

--Paul

Friday, May 02, 2008

This Made Me Smile

And it also made me miss 24 that much more.

funny graphs
see more song memes

I Am Iron Man

Well, not really, but it would be cool to have a metal suit that you could fly around in. At the moment, we're going to try and go see the Iron Man movie tomorrow night. We're hoping that if we go to the late show on the second night that we'll avoid the young kids and the larger crowds. We'll see.

We didn't get to watch Lost last night. Our ABC affiliate, WNCF, and DISH have gotten into a contract dispute and DISH has pulled the channel. DeAnne did get to see Grey's Anatomy. She went with Adrienne over to Bryan's parent's house where they have cable and watched it. I really don't know what we're going to do about Lost though. We can buy the episodes on Xbox Live, but we hate to spend money for them. Hopefully, WNCF and DISH get their act together soon and we can get back to our normal tv viewing.

It's Friday, have a good weekend.

--Paul

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Paula Abdul Has Left the Building

We watched Tuesday night's American Idol yesterday afternoon and all I can say is "Whoa". I know Paula usually says some crazy stuff and is a little spacey sometimes, but man, what was she taking this week? Of course, it could be that she took some notes during the rehearsals and then got a little confused, but then she kept insisting that she thought Jason had sung twice. Wild.

As far as the contestants go, I'm not surprised that Brooke is gone. Her second song wasn't terrible, but the first one was really, really painful. To me, the only one that's still entertaining is David Cook. He's not the best singer, but he's the only one I really enjoy watching perform. I just hope he can write songs as well as he can arrange covers.

I got a little more face time with GTA in yesterday and it's starting to grow on me now. The physics and graphical power are pretty amazing, I'm just not that enthralled with the story or gameplay yet. I think that will change soon enough though.

I also gave Mario Kart a go and it was fun. The Wii wheel works really well. Better than I thought it would, really. I'm anxious to try it out online against Courtney and Edwin. You hear that guys...you better bring it. Man, that was cheesy. I better quit before it gets any worse. Have a good Thursday.

--Paul