Being sick stinks

I don't know how I got it (I suspect from someone at work) but I have a cold and it sucks badly. Of course I'm here at work, I don't believe in taking sick days unless I can't bring myself to get out of bed or something or my doctor tells me to stay at home. There is always a huge pile of crap waiting whenever I get back from vacations so if I can avoid taking sick days I do. I don't enjoy the stuffed up, head pounding feeling I get not to mention the hot and cold flashes while sleeping. The only thing that I am looking forward to tonight is a nice dinner with my wife and some quality time in front of the TV with my wife and cats.

Mmm these Halls aren't a bad consolation prize for right now though..............

More gas craziness

I'm back from my trip to South Florida and I have to tell ya, its kinda strange to see gas being CHEAPER down there than in Tampa. On average I saw prices hovering around $2.99 for regular. Thats still pretty damn expensive but Tampa is about $3.09 on average and a lot of stations are actually out of gas. I'm running on fumes right now so after work I'm going to have to search for a gas station that actually has gas. Sucks.

Where's the gas?

I'm down here in South Florida and I got here last night. I had a full tank of gas when I left but I figured that on the way down, I should really get some gas before I hit Alligator Alley and I knew that the prices of gas were also really high in South Florida so I decided to stop off at Naples Florida and get some gas. There were cars everywhere searching for gas it seemed. I went past 5 different gas stations before finding one that had gas and even then there was a limit of $35.00. I had the better part of half a tank and I knew that $20.00 should be able to fill up my tank. Lo and behold, here I am with more than 3/4 of a tank so I should be able to get back to Tampa on it if I don't travel too far down here with my car. I hope they have gas in Tampa or else I won't be getting to work at all unless I steal my wifes car.

Gas Prices

My friend from work sent this to me, I found it quite amusing! LOL!

Done with the Da Vinci Code

This book was pretty good although I must say I think I like Angels and Demons a bit more. I'll have to re-read both to be sure :)

No new brakes for me

I dropped my car off this morning at Nissan thinking that I needed new brakes because they were squeaking a lot when I hit them in traffic. After they did a test drive they determined that I don't need new brakes and that there's plenty of wear and tear left on my brake pads. Granted they charged me $40 for this but its bettern than the $400 I was expecting to drop today.

Whoohoo Mario Baseball!

I just got Mario Superstar Baseball for my GameCube and its freakin awesome! I thought it might be fairly simple to play but I'm getting my ass kicked by the computer all the time because I don't know how to steal bases or go back to base when I'm caught on a fly out and it normally results in a double play. But I have to say its damn fun and the special moves of some of these players are kick ass. I should probably read the manual so I can begin to play better.

One weird looking kitten

I found this on petfinder. This is one weird coloration for a cat personally. He's like half black and half orange with stripes, oh and white too, truely weird!!

Sweet new shirts

My wife just got me some Crazy Shirts. It's a store in Hawaii that has all these great prints. Check out some of the neat shirts I'm getting this time :) Copy and paste my link to get to the online store -> www.crazyshirts.com




This one is Crater dyed, I like the look of the mask.













This one is a long sleeve that I got on the suggestion from my wife, she has better taste than I do in clothes and I'll use this in the winter time.









This one is SUPER sweet looking. I like that its a black shirt although I think it would have been ultra sweet as a long sleeve too but its too hot in Florida to warrant one.

Burnout Revenge is AWESOME

I went to Best Buy today just for the hell of it since I was already in the area with my wife. I walked in and spied a huge plasma screen TV with an Xbox and it was playing a game that looked a lot like Burnout3 but it was updated....... hmmmmmmm........ that got the cogs in the brain working. I sat down and played it and lo and behold it was a demo of Burnout Revenge!

I gotta say this game is so freakin sweet. I was able to take short cuts, hit cars and do all types of other crazy shit. I am definately getting this game when it comes out without question!! :)

Another Friday

It is Friday once again and the week is winding down. To entertain myself, I'm listening to my Hawaiian internet radio station based in Honolulu. :)

Slowly but surely

I've been playing my game Metal Arms off and on for the past two weeks and yesterday I progressed through three levels that were quite challenging. I have determined that I don't enjoy going in guns blazing all the time in this game because that normally gets me all shot up and killed pretty quick. I've taken to sniping at things a lot in the past few levels since the bad guys are just so freakin hard.

A good example would be yesterday. There was this flying thing thats a bitch to kill since it has 6 laser guns, 4 rocket launchers, and it can FLY! For this section, there were two of them. I messed up when I tried to kill the first one (that appeared from thin air, that really pissed me off) and I wasted my EMP grenade so I couldn't disable it. I had to try and kill the bastard the old fashioned way and lost half my health.

Since I didn't feel like dying and starting all over again, I used my sniper scope and just started looking around for enemies and killing them with a few head shots. After eliminating like 5 bots this way, I scanned the sky just to be on the safe side and I found another one of those blasted flying things floating around. Being the sneaky bastard that I am, I stood behind some cover and just used all my sniper ammo on it until it died, very satisfying and I saved a lot of health. I guess we'll see how the rest of the game goes, I think about half way through even though I've gone through about 20 levels. Only another 20 to go!

Google Desktop Search 2 Beta

I have the new Google desktop search app on my work computer. I was using the MSN one which worked very well I might add but I figured I'd give this thing a try. I like how its a side bar and has all these neat little modules and stuff like weather, stocks, blogs, the sticky pad, and the news. All these things seem to work pretty well so far.

However there is one module that doesn't work and thats the Gmail tool. It's supposed to grab new gmail and show it to you on the sidebar but it does this so slowly, I'm still using my Gmail notifier that I got way back. I prefer to experiment with my work PC than do it at home so as not to corrupt my install. So for the forseeable future, I'm sticking with the MSN search at home.

Mario Baseball is sweet

I went to Walmart last night to see if they had the Da Vinci Code illustrated edition but they didn't. So my wife and I took a stroll to see what new DVD's just came out and lo and behold they had a demo version of Mario Baseball! I watched some demo's of the game on Gamespot so I knew how to power pitch and power hit. The game isn't as simple as one might think but its really fun when you make contact and smack the ball. I didn't get any home runs but I am definately picking this game up when it comes out.

All done with my book

Last night I finished Angels and Demons and I must say that it was a pretty cool book. I especially liked all the pictures in it. I'm paying for it today though since I went to bed last night at around 2am. I ache all over and now I need a new book to read. I guess I'll have to pick up the Da Vinci Code from Barnes and Noble or something sometime this week.

Finally a working DVD

I got Gunparade March Operation 1 on DVD again from Blockbuster and this time they sent over a brand new DVD instead of a cracked one. I waas able to finally watch all 4 episodes instead of only watching the first two. Now that I've seen it, I can now look forward to watching the next DVD's in the series since now I know whats happening.

Mario Baseball

On August 29th, I'll be heading over to Best Buy to get my copy of Mario Baseball. If its anything like Mario tennis, it should be freakin kick ass. September 13 is Burnout Revenge day so I'll have to beat Mario Baseball fairly fast. I'm still working on Metal Arms, this game is a BITCH!! haha

Angels and Demons

For some odd reason I got sucked into watching this show on the History Channel about the Da Vinci Code and now I have this urge to read the book. However, on the suggestion of a Waldenbooks employee, I have started with the book that sets up the Da Vinci Code called Angels and Demon's. Now being me, I just couldn't get the regular edition of the book, I had to go off and get the illustrated edition <- follow the link to Amazon to see it.

I gotta say, its been a long time since I've read a book that wasn't a text book or a kids book that had pictures in it. I like how it breaks up the text and they're really colorful. My only complaint right now about the book is that the chapters are really short sometimes. I had a chapter that lasted I think 2 paragraphs. I think I'm up to page 160 something and I'm already on chapter 47 or something like that. Don't get me wrong, I think the book is really good but I'm kinda bummed that the book was so much cheaper at Amazon. I'll probably get the Da Vinci Code from Amazon but I need to find an item thats about 2-3 bucks so I can qualify for super saver shipping. Yeah I know I'm freakin cheap. :P

The 40 Year Old Virgin

I just saw this movie today in the thearter and it was freakin awesome. I laughed from the minute the movie started till it ended, I highly recommend this movie. I won't give away any details so I don't spoil it for anyone :)

Alone at work

My team isn't here at work with me so its just me holding down the fort on a Friday of all days. I don't blame them though, with gas prices being the way they are I'm gonna wanna telecommute more to save money on gas.

Flickr is the word

I've been experimenting with Flickr lately and it seems pretty cool. I have cat and wedding pics posted but you can't see the wedding pic unless you're my friend or a family member. I'll get around to inviting people to see the pics. Use the little badge on the right hand side to view pics of my cats for now until I find better pics to post.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Pictures on Flickr

I just opened a new account on Flickr (they're owned by Yahoo) so I could start uploading some pics. As a test I just uploaded pictures of my cats for now. I'll get down and dirty with some better pics later on from my wedding.

The worst translation of a chinese menu ever

My friend who lives in Shanghai sent this to me. Her friend took the pics. You'll have to zoom in because the pic quality kinda sucks but enjoy all the same. Try not to get caught at work looking at it lol

The office is complete!

With the help of my wife, we have finished off the office space of our apartment. I just have to clean up some of my junk. Here's the last thing we assembled.
Booyah!

Someone needs to re-pimp this ride

I was driving in Tampa with my wife and we were on our way to pick up one of her friends from CT so we could go to dinner when all of a sudden this weird ass car passes me with its ass in the air and with a loud muffler. I was able to pull up next to it at a traffic light. From the looks of it, its an older Suzuki Samurai but whoever pimped it out seems to need a check up from the neck up. Check out the picture LOL!

Hot n Spicy Chex Mix

This has to be one of my favorite snacks. I actually brought a bag with me to work but now its almost gone. I need to get more so I have something to snack on when I'm at home.

The Happiness Fairy

Desk chair for me!

I just got this cool new chair for my desk. It's really comfy and better than the stool that I was using before. It's in one of the other pics on my blog. Imagine sitting on a stool for a few hours, its not that comfy!

Power tools rule

I have a new drill that I got as a wedding gift (I know its more of a gift for ME but its helpful around the house). Anyway, one of our chairs for our dining table has been broken for I dunno how long. For some reason the support strut for two of the legs broke and I tried all types of glues to hold it together but nothing worked. When my wife's father came over he suggested drilling a hole and using some screws. At the time I didn't have a drill, but now that I do I decided to give it a try. I headed out to Walmart and got some long screws and then I proceeded to drill two holes in the chair. I must say I was surprised I didn't foul up and drill a hole straight through the chair leg. I put on the screw driver attachment and drilled that philips head screw right into the hole I just finished drilling out. I tested the chair for durability and it works like new again!! WHOOHOO!! Oh happy day! Now I can't wait to drill some holes in the wall so we can put up more pictures.

The insanity of gas prices

I know that people have noticed gas prices just going through the stratosphere lately. I think in one week alone, the gas prices in Tampa have gone up about 20 cents. On Friday on my way home from work (I telecommuted ;) ) I went to my local Hess station where it was $2.23 which was pretty damn cheap if you ask me. Then on Saturday, I had to go to Orlando to pick up some stuff with my wife's car and when we went to get some gas it was already at $2.39, thats a little crazy. Now this morning I drive by my local gas stations and its already hitting $2.49! Thats what I call insanity right there. I think I'm going to have to start living at the office because at this rate I won't be able to afford the commute to work.

What the heck is up with gas prices?

Holy smokes is all I gotta say. Gas just went up $0.10 in about a day. Thats freakin insane! At this rate I'm going to have to get a scooter since its more gas efficient.

Another bad DVD from Blockbuster

Looks like I'm striking out with Gunparade March DVD 1. I got a new one today from Blockbuster and it was cracked on the side. I could watch episode 1 and 2 like the other DVD that I sent back but when I got to episode 3 and 4 I couldn't watch it and it kept on skipping or stopping. SUCKS!! Oh well, we'll try this one more time, hopefully this one will work.

I can't watch my DVD

I received Gunparade March on DVD yesterday from Blockbuster Online (its anime so you probably never heard of the title before) and I saw that it had all these scratches and stuff and it was actually cracked a little in the center. I thought, why not, lets give it a try in the DVD player. Amazingly I was able to watch 2 out of 4 episodes on the disc. I have many many DVD players in my home (if I count my computers, I think I have 6 all together) and none of them would play all of episode 3 and it wouldn't even load 4. I sent a request to Blockbuster to send me another disc. I'm hopeful that this one won't be as bad. There are over 72 movies in the que, so I should be able to stay entertained for quite a while over the next few months :)

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

Whoohoo NEW GAME! I just got it yesterday and I've been trying it out and so far this puppy is HARD. There are around 40 levels to it and I think I've completed maybe 3 of them so only 37 to go unless I get bored before then. I still have to finish Ninja Gaiden, Jade Empire, Halo 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and who knows what else in my collection.

But anyway, so far so good. I like playing shooters because you just get to blast the hell out of everything. I've already gotten some pretty cool weapons (even got the rocket launcher already) and blowing up bad guys is quite satisfying. The game itself is kinda hard since its easy to get blown to bits and the AI is smart as hell. For most of the gun fights, I have to take cover so I don't get fried. Just for good measure I'm including the box cover.

New Headset

I just got a sweet new headset for my Treo 650 from my brother-in-law. He got it from one of his friends but he can't use it since his phone doesn't support Bluetooth technology so he gave it to me instead. My wife happened to have a Motorola charger and it fit the headset so I don't even have to buy one now. SAWEET!! Check out the picture. For those of you that are curious, its the HS280 model, but there are newer ones out there already.

What a terrible movie

My wife signed us up for Blockbuster Online so we could rent movies without having to go to the video store all the time and so far we've been pretty good with our choices. The service is pretty decent in that we get 3 movies at a time and we normally finish it in about a day or so of getting it.

I put on our list the movie Alexander, thinking that it might be pretty decent like Troy or Gladiator. Man was I wrong! The movie was long and kinda boring. It put my wife to sleep in minutes. I watched it just because I rented it and I wanted to see how it turned out. I thought they could have done a much better movie than that and I'm not sure about all they geh references about Alexander the Great. If I was one of those movie reviewers I'd give this one a rating of 5 NEGATIVE stars, it was that bad LOL!

Arizona's RULE!

I just came back from Ft. Lauderdale and I brought back not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 cases of Arizona ice tea cans. Arizona is one of my favorite ice teas and I had an opportunity to go to BJ's and get some, ha I took the last 4 cases that were available at the store! Too bad Costco doesn't carry them, they carried the bottle versions up in CT but they don't have squat down here in Tampa. MMM Arizona's for at least 2 months LOL!

Telecommuting is AWESOME!!!

I gotta say that telecommuting for work is bad ass. Well as you know, today is Friday so there isn't really much going on at the work place today and I have to go and get some photo albums too.

I just thought that I would post my little work area. I have not one, but two computers going at the same time. The laptop is my work PC and the Dell with the mis matched parts is my home PC. There's a shell of my old PC next to it. I don't have a proper chair, just a little camp stool that I use to sit on until I move to a house or something. Come on, you know you're jealous of my set up!! ;)

I suck at bowling

Last night was $1.00 game night for league bowlers. I don't bowl in a league anymore but I'm still sanctioned by the American Bowling Association so that entitled me and my wife to a nice discount. Holy crap did I suck badly. I could normally throw at least 130-160 depending on how my day was going but last night was just TERRIBLE! I think I was throwing just above 100. I guess it didn't help that my thumb was sticking in the bowling ball hole and the A/C in the bowling alley was all but non-existant.

Hopefully I'll do better this weekend when I go bowling with my wife's family. Of course she totally kicked my ass, after all, she's a league bowler :) If we can do it, we'll join my company league in the fall. That would be a nice thing to do on Monday nights besides staring at the TV.

Another trip to the photographer

Tomorrow is FRIDAY!! (BOOYAH!!) and I am going to be working from home. I do this every once in a while when there is an errand I have to run thats fairly far from work or home. I not only get to charge my time to work because I am working but it lets me stay home with my cats.

Tomorrows trip will be my FINAL one to the wedding photographer to pickup the wedding albums and to also get my negatives. I have to drive my ass all the way to Pinellas Park to get them (if you want to know how far it is, look it up on Google maps or something :P) Hopefully I can get them scanned onto a CD then I can do some major posting online. I'm probably going to use Flickr to host them since Webshots just doesn't do it for me anymore these days. Look out for them in the coming weeks!

Stupid Fire Alarm Test

My apartment complex is having all the fire alarms tested to make sure that they are working correctly. However, this kinda stinks because I have to put my cats in our main bathroom. It's not that its cramped or anything, its just that its not very good to keep two cats in small quarters by themselves. One really bad thing is that the management office has no set "plan" on checking the complex so they can't give out specific dates. I don't particularly like this arrangement because that means I have to potentially keep them cooped up in there till Friday. WEAK!!

Now thats what I call a dinner!

Last night was Claire's 25th Birthday so of course we had to go out. We decided to go to the Capital Grille in Tampa. That place rocks! They have some of the best calamari I've ever tasted and the lobster dish was also excellent. Last night I tried out what a White Chocolate Moose was and it was mighty tasty, the berries they added helped a lot. Gotta say, we'll go back there again for another special occasion, just have to find one so we have a good excuse :)

DOOM!!

For all your game geeks, Doom is coming out in movie format and it has The Rock in the lead role. How freakin cool is that?? For more info, go to IGN Movies or go to www.doommovie.com. KICK ASS I am so seeing this movie.

Pretty Twisted

My wife's co-worker likes watching these weird cartoon's. Check them out and let me know what you think LOL

Yay Happy Birthday!

Today is my wife's 25th Birthday........... YAY!!! :)

The Weekend

I'm finally 27 and for my birthday, Claire and I went to Disney for the weekend. The weekend itself was quite hot (heat index of 110 according to the local's) and standing in line was no picknick either. However we did visit 3 different parks while we were there.

Friday we started off by going to Epcot and rode the new ride called Soarin which was pretty cool since you're suspended in the air and watch a pretty neat video that gives you the sensation that you're flying. We then walked over to China for some food at the 9 Dragons. The first two dishes were so so, nothing to write home about, but the last one and the red bean ice cream were positivly awesome. We didn't stay at Epcot after that but headed over to our hotel, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, so we could change for dinner at Palio at Disney's Swan resort. Dinner was SOOO good, we had some great Italian food and afterwards we went and picked up one of those all you can drink mugs so we can get free soda's at Wilderness Lodge.

Saturday we hit up two parks, Animal Kingdom and MGM. Animal Kingdom was pretty fun, we did two rides there in the Dinoland area. The first of course being the ride Dinosaur which is always fun. The second was this mini coaster that also twirled around. It was pretty fun although I was dizzy after getting off and a little sick to my stomach. Since it was scorching hot, we went back to Wilderness Lodge for lunch (I had a nice greasy double cheeseburger with fries) and chilled out till later in the afternoon and headed for MGM to watch Lights, Motor's, Action which is the new show they have there. The place was packed! I have to admit thought the show was really really cool and I wouldn't mind having one of those stunt cars so I can tear through the streets of Tampa like a wild man. That night we went to some place where they serve buffet style food and stuff but they DELIVER! AWESOME!! After getting stuffed at dinner we had a sweet banana type dessert and then went BACK to MGM to see Fantasmic which neither of us have seen before since we normally head home long before this show comes on. The show was very impressive and I liked how they used water as projector screens for some of the sequences in the show.

Sunday! Time to head on home but not before going to Pollo Tropical in Orlando for some plantains and chicken! We also decided to walk around the Mall at Millenia which is also fun and relaxing. We decided to go home in the early afternoon to relax at home (I also wanted to play with my new Bose stereo system that I got for my birthday) and to make sure our cats were ok.

Next up, Claire's birthday dinner tomorrow night......... mmmmmm its gonna be good!!

Have you seen this man??

Hmmm, I think I've seen this guy in the Bible before.........

BOSE!!

I just got some SLAMMIN speakers for my computer for my birthday from my lovely wife :) Check out the picture!

My brittle bones!!

Since turning 27, I feel so old!! This is how Claire had to push me around Disney all weekend long.

M&M's and Star Wars??

This is something a really hard core fan might buy for their collection, I think it looks funny as hell!

No Jury Duty for ME!!

I called up the phone number last night to see if I was exempt and I was over joyed to learn that I didn't have to get my ass up early, go to court, and sit in a boring room with people I don't know for the whole day. And this now means............ FREE DAY!! I have Thursday and Friday off too so that means 5 day weekend aww yeah, gotta love it :)

First Place Baby!!

With their 11-10 win over the Texas Rangers last night, the NY Yankees are now half a game ahead of Baltimore and Boston to regain their first place standing in the AL East. BOOYAH!!

More Wedding Pictures

Jen just came down from CT to visit Orlando and she dropped by Tampa to give me and the Mrs. some wedding photo's that she took. There were a ton but I tried to pick the best ones. Click here to get to the slide show.

Enjoy!

Harry Potter x2

On Saturday, the Harry Potter book came out. I saw all the news stories and what not but I was personally waiting for the copy I ordered from Amazon. After wasting the entire morning at home (well to me it wasn't a waste, I was rebuilding a computer from scratch), I went out with the wife, for what I really can't remember at this point. When we came back I decided to check the management office to see if it was delivered. To my surprise it was closed at 4pm because of some pool party they were throwing. I was thinking, CRAP now I have to wait. I head on over to the mail boxes and the mail man is still there (we saw him 2 hours before putting mail away) and when he saw I had a slip of paper for a package, he told me that he had it!! SAWEETNESS! He gives me my Harry Potter book and I hand it over to my wife since I bought it for her. She knew we might start fighting over the book to read it so we headed over to Borders and got a regular version since hers is the limited edition one. Sadly, I haven't even hit chapter 2 yet since I was busy this weekend. Although check out the cool cover for both books.

The one on the right is the limited edition book, the one on the left is my "regular one". I'll see if I can make some progress this week and this weekend.

My cats are too funny

This past Saturday, there were people working on the roof of the apartment. Being that I live on the top floor, I can hear all the banging and what not going on and I didn't really thing much of it. My cats certainly didn't appreciate it one bit. They were stalking around the apartment looking for who was making the sound and getting ready to pounce. If they weren't doing that, they were hiding in their cat carriers or under the stairs. I only regret I didn't get a picture of it because it was damn funny!

OK I know you probably can't visualize it, but you just have to take my word for it :)

The Fantastic Four

This weekend I went out and saw the Fantastic Four. I have to say that the movie was pretty good overall. I can tell that they're setting it up for a sequel just by how the movie ended. Hopefully it'll be like Spider Man 2 and be better than the original. Marvel is coming out with some bad ass movies is all I can say and now they're going to be teaming up with MS to come out with games, its going to be SWEET!

Potter Mania

Tonight at midnight, millions and millions of parents, teens, hell almost everyone is going to hit a local bookstore and try and get the new Harry Potter book. I will not be among them since I pre-ordered mine from Amazon. And I didn't get any old edition, I got the DELUXE edition. My wife has all the other books in hard cover so I thought why not get her the really nice version of the book to add to her collection. Since I'm getting it for her, I'll probably be able to read it in about a week or so from tomorrow which is when its expected to arrive. To all you Potter fans waiting in lines at bookstores tonight, all I have to say is ............... SUCKERS!! :)

Simple Plan = Pansies

I'm listening to my internet radio this morning and I hear yet another wussy song from Simple Plan, how do these guys still manage to get on the radio and even call themselves straight? Come on!!

Thanks Jackass

This will be nice and short. Some asshole hit my car while it was parked in the garage at work. How you manage to hit a parked car that has NO ONE parked next to it astounds me. Thanks for the large scratch on the bumper and the slight dent. I hope you get in a car crash and go straight to hell in a huge ass inferno....... FUCKTARD!

Yet another web browser that I like

Being the 'techie' that I am, I've been experimenting with new web browsers. My wife still likes to use IE (I only do if thats the only thing the page will load on), I've tried out Firefox (not bad but its not wow-ing me yet), Netscape 8 (interface is a little on the cluttered side), Maxthon (my current favorite), and now I have Avant (this one is pretty impressive too). Right now I'm using Avant because blogger seems to work better with it than Maxthon. I can use the spell check featue and the picture feature in Avant and I can't in Maxthon so if anything I'm just going to use this bad boy to blog or to replace Firefox. K I'm bored and its lunch time!

I'm returning my Treo Holster

I have the Seido Treo holster for my Treo 650. At first I thought it was a good investment and I liked the holster for my old phone. The bad thing about it is that it didn't offer it any protection and it was slowly stripping the paint off. So I'm going to see if "someone" will get me a new case for my birthday. I would personally like this one. :)

Come on Emily, Bring it!!

Check it out, another storm is heading towards the Caribbean! This is storm number 5, looks like I better go out and buy my Wave Runner!

Damn Dell

I was trying to see if I could get the Dell Desktop I received to work with the hard drives I had installed on my custom built PC but it just didn't want to work. I think I'm going to have to spend some quality time with the thing just to get it up and running. Just looking at the specs this Dell should beat the living shit out of my current PC but we'll see what happens after I rebuild the thing from scratch. The sad thing is that it only has a 30 Gig hard drive. I have a spare 20 Gig that I can add to it but that still seems a bit smallish and it has no CD burner either. If I can get it to run like a champ I might have to take the plunge and redo EVERYTHING and just start using the Dell (after I clean out the 10 pounds of cat hair thats stuck in it)

Now thats what I call a storm!

I'm down here in Ft. Lauderdale after driving through some of the nastiest weather I've ever encountered. During the entire way down it was raining but there was a particular area that was scary. There was an actual line in the sky! One side of the sky was light gray, the other side was pitch black. It looked like I was going over to the otherside of the train tracks or something. I took a pic with my Treo but it didn't come out so well.

We checked the weather reports while we were on the road and it said that for our entire route down, we'd be in a Tornado watch zone. Now that is just freakin crazy. I believe it too because the rain kept on coming down like someone turned the shower on FULL BLAST and added about 40 mph winds just to keep things interesting. Dennis is now a category 2 hurricane so its not anything to worry about and its not even coming close to Tampa or west floriduh for that matter. I guess we'll see how things go tomorrow on my way home.

How I Love Thee Friday!

It's finally Friday! Bout time it got to this point in the week. I shouldn't really bitch too much since I had a short week and worked 3 days but still, thank God its Friday. I'm taking my trip to Ft Lauderdale after work and I'm going to brave a huge ass category 4 hurricane thats off the coast of Floriduh as well as numerous flood and tornado warned areas. I think I'll be alright though its not expected to come really close until Saturday sometime and by that time I'll be on the east coast of the state. The only concern I have is for the way home because I don't want to get stuck in like 3 feet of water on I-75. I get to use my new SunPass! Whoohoo, lets see if this bad boy works or not as advertised.

The cool color of BLUE

I decided to change the color of my blog to blue since I was kinda getting sick of the green and I'm starting to develop my flash site again so I figured why not make everything match. Anyway, thats it!! On to do more FLASH!

Bring it on Dennis!

It looks like there's a storm brewing in the Caribbean called Dennis. There is a possibility it'll come to Florida but all the tracks say it'll go into the Gulf. Now no matter what people think, even if the thing misses us in Floriduh we're bound to get tons of freakin rain which means I should start looking into buying a jetski since thats the only way I'll probably be able to get around town if it comes close enough.

4th of July is cool

I just got back from Safety Harbor (it's just over the border from Tampa) and I saw some of the best fireworks yet. We were really close to where they were launching them and they had a badass finale as well. I didn't take any pictures because who really wants to take pictures of fireworks anyway? I used to do it but decided not to do it this year. I think I'll go again next year but this time instead of eating at the spa thats in town we'll just get some hot dogs and soda's. Bleh! Work tomorrow!

Typing Test

I just took a typing test at the suggestion of my wife at www.typingtest.com just to see how fast I could actually type something that they presented on the screen. I have to say that I'm not very good when it comes to reproducing something, I'm much faster when it comes to just straight up typing stuff thats coming from my head.

But anyway, here are my results so far: I can type about 72 words a minute with a 97% percent accuracy of what is on the screen. I'm told thats pretty decent considering that I still don't use the home keys and I sorta have my own style when it comes to typing stuff out (I'm not one of those two finger typers though) Try it out and see how well you do!

Router upgrade complete

I just got a new wireless router today, the Linksys Wireless G so that my wireless PC's aren't running so slow on my network. I've had no trouble hooking up my work PC and my dad's PC but my old Sony with the wireless B card seems to be having trouble connecting. Not that I use that PC a lot it just kinda annoys me that its not working right. I'll get it to work though, I haven't met a PC I can't defeat yet! :)

Happy 4th of July!

I need a jetski

Yesterday was CRAZY! There was so much freakin rain it started flooding the roads. I really could have used a jetski yesterday to get home. I went down this street in my apartment complex and it had a slight dip and when I went through it I think I hit about a foot of water. Now this morning the horn for my car sounds a little funny. I think I damaged it going through that much water. It sounds super weak now, it lost its manliness hahaha. Oh well, I'll give it a few days and we'll see if it gets better.

You go girl!

I must say I'm very impressed with my cat Nala's jumping ability. I figure if I ever let her go outside, she would bring back dead animals or something to my door step because she's such a good pouncer. Yesterday I brought her and Thumper home from getting their bath and a stupid bug got into the apartment. It was a BIG one too. I couldn't see it for a few minutes but then Nala spotted it on one of the paintings that we have hanging in our apartment. It was right above the spot she likes to sleep which is slightly elevated. She got up and jumped I would say a good 4-5 feet straight up and took a swipe at the bug. She hit the thing because it started to coast to the floor and she just kept right on trying to swipe at it. I saw it was one of those bugs with a stinger so I had to push her out of the way while I got something to squish it good and dead. Thumper is just sitting there looking at us all regal and aloof and not even caring that there was something to attack. HA! Oh well, at least I know who to go to when I want something hunted down and killed :)

So fresh and so clean!

I finally got my cats back from the vet and they smell nice and clean. The only thing that the vet didn't do was clip thei claws but I can deal with that for now. At least they don't smell lke kitty litter anymore :)

A new link to a blog

I forgot to mention in my previous post that my friend Shirley has a blog now. The thing is that its not on Blogger but on MSN Spaces. Either way, I made sure the link and everything works so feel free to go to her blog and comment, view pics, you know all that other good stuff that bored people do on the internet.

The Longest Yard and other stuff

This weekend I went to see the movie The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler. Now I must say that after watching it, I thought it was pretty damn good. I won't spoil it for anyone reading this since its just a movie that must be seen. There are also quite a large number of pro wrestlers in the movie as well (the ones I could identify are Goldberg and Stone Cold Steve Austin but there were at least one or two more who's names I forget but their performances were just AWESOME!).

Also, I just sent the cats to get cleaned. It's been ages since they've had a decent bath, I sure as hell am not going to give them one, I don't want to get scratched to death or anything because they don't like water. So they should come home smelling fresh and clean and also a touch mad at me for shoving them in cat carriers, going through a car ride and handing them over to complete strangers so they can toss them in a deep sink, hold them down, douse them with water and shampoo, and then letting them dry in a small cage. But hey at least they'll smell good!

This is the best wedding cake picture of all, thanks Wyatt and Kate! 

Dells really suck balls

Most of you who are in the IT support probably already know that my subject heading is pretty much true. I've worked in IT support for a number of years now and there isn't a Dell model I haven't hated or experienced trouble with. The newer Dell business desktops are somewhat cumbersome and the notebooks just outright stink!

Now, on to a short story. Last night out of the kindness of my heart, I went to the wife's office because her co-worker couldn't get their monitor to work. Being the good former technician that I am, I bring along my laptop and my bag of goodies just in case I need it. I go over there and hook up the monitor to the old laptop since I use dual displays and I'm set up for it. Presto it works on my laptop so its not the monitor. Just to be sure I hook up the old CRT. The settings are set up in the most basic configuration (800x600 with 256 colors, who the hell uses that anymore?) because thats what their tech guy told them to do in order to get the monitor working. Well whatever......... So I play around with the display controls, hook up the new LCD and wham, it works! I reboot the PC a couple of times just to be sure it's working alright. All of a sudden it says that some DLL file in Windows is corrupt or missing. Well doesn't that suck ass right there.

I know that he needs the file, I know how I would normally load the file using a floppy and booting with a Win 95 boot disk that I have in my car so I figure, no biggie I can copy it from someone else's PC and load it. I go down to my car and when I return he's gone home already. WTF! Next when I'm looking at the PC I notice that something is missing, why it has no freakin floppy drive! WTF?!?!?! Any tech worth his salt always needs a floppy drive because its the fastest way to do things and sometimes you just need a good ole boot disk to get things going again but for some reason Dell didn't include one on this model. Since I had my bag of goodies and there's no restore disc in sight, I use my old Win XP Pro disc and start to repair the sucker. Now the one problem with this is that it takes about 40 minutes to get this POS running if I do a repair job. I get up to the part to attach the PC to the domain and it just hangs there, now this pisses me off since I have to reboot the PC and try again. I do this about 3 times till I get fed up and just say install as a stand alone since I can make it join a domain later anyway. After I do that, it goes by pretty fast and then it reboots itself and wham! It's ALIVE! Afterwards just to be on the safe side I reboot it a few more times and check to make sure all the drive mappings work out ok (which they do I might add) so I leave with the wife to go relax. At this point we've been there for about 2 hours trying to get this POS Dell to work.

This morning my lovely wife sends me a message that her co-worker thinks I broke his PC because MS Office no longer works. Now how the hell is that my fault? I didn't even touch office and my techie friend up in NY agrees that my repair should not have affected his programs in any way. Besides, it's not like I'm their tech support and I'm not just going to launch programs just for the hell of it or anything. I didn't even get so much as a thank you, he actually had the balls to question if I knew what I was doing last night. If I know how to crack open the case and check the connections of the video card and he doesn't, I think I know what I'm doing since I worked as a tech for 2 years and I still tinker with my own PC. Some of it isn't his fault since the design of the PC is TERRIBLE but since I'm getting shit for "supposedly" corrupting MS Office he is now on my shit list forever (not to mention he's a terrible bowler).

Lets go Yankees! (Again)

Now this is what I call a freakin blowout of a game!! Tampa Bay went down hard in the 8th ;)

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20050621&content_id=1098716&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy

Why can't I finish video games?

Something weird has happened as I've gotten a bit older, I just can't bring myself to finish a video game anymore. I have all these awesome games for my Xbox (Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2, Jade Empire, just to name a few) and I'm RIGHT there at the end basically. I'm normally within 2-3 levels of completing a game and then I just sorta stop and lose interest after going around and blasting or slicing to death thousands of computer generated enemies with glee.

The only games that still seem to catch my interset are games that don't have a definate end. I still keep on coming back to games like SSX 3 (thats for my GameCube), Burnout3, Dead or Alive 3 (talk about old school, thats first generation Xbox right there), and Soul Calibur 2.

For example, last night I threw in Halo 2 to see if I could get back into the game. After about 5 minutes of blasting Flood and Covenant bad guys I got bored and turned off the game and switched it to Dead or Alive 3. I proceeded to play this for about half an hour in Survival mode just to see if my skills were still decent at ass whoopin. I must admit, my skills are still there for certain characters like Ayane and Kasumi but I would have to practice a lot in order to beat my all time high of 47 knock outs (I average about 15 these days depending on the character I'm using).

I'm even wondering whether or not its worth my getting an Xbox 360 (for those of you under a rock, thats the new Xbox game console slated to come out this fall) when it comes out or if I should just wait and try and beat some of my other games first. Oh well, I had such a good time with DOA3 last night, I think I'll play it a little more tonight just to whoop some computer ass. :)

Totally AWESOME

You can make fun of me all you want but my new trash can is freakin awesome!

Ahh clementines!

I'll just come out and say it, clementines are my favorite fruit! Granted it makes me hungry after I eat one but I still eat them by the case. I bought two at Costco this weekend and I'm almost done with the the first one. I'll eat the next one for lunch later this week :)

A day of shopping

Today the wife and I did a little shopping. We picked up a SunPass (for those of you back in CT and NY, its just like an EZPass) and the most awesome trash can on the planet from Bed Bath and Beyond. I registered for this but since no one got it for me, we decided to get it ourselves. Check it out!!

Trash Can Link

New Treo 650 for ME!!!

I finally got my new PalmOne 650 Treo! Whoohoo! Now I can send email, surf the web, and place phone calls from my cell phone without having to crack open a laptop. The keyboard is kinda smallish but I don't really give a shit. This is AWESOME!

Chinese Fortune Cookies

Last night my wife and I got chinese food from a take out place and of course they gave us fortune cookies. This time they gave us four and we decided to crack all four open, two for her and two for me. Now here's the funny part, my two fortune cookies have the exact same foturnes in them. I mean come on, what are the odds that in a whole box full of fortune cookies I'll get two of the same one?? LOL!

Vacation Time

I dont' normally write about work but this is really interesting to me. I got married and took quite a bit of time off I thought. I had about 3 weeks to burn in terms of time and I thought I at least burned up a week and a half. I got my pay stub today and I calculated it out and I have over 3 weeks of vacation time again. Now its not a bad thing but its sick how fast I accrue vacation time. I have 4 weeks a year and that doesn't include holidays and days they give us here and there. Since my wife only gets 1 week a year I have to start finding creative ways to burn it up. WOO!!

Aww crap!

I just got a notice from the County Clerk that I have to report for jury duty on July 20th. I'll be so freakin pissed if I get picked and even more freakin pissed if the case lasts into the weekend since I have a trip plan not to mention my birthday is on July 22. GAH!!! Thats what I get for registering to vote in Tampa!!

An observation about NY

Here's something intersting that I observed when I was recently up in the Northeast, and I think its rather funny.

In Floriduh, almost all the toll booth operators are either exact change only, SunPass, or senior citizens.

In New York, all the toll booths (even exact change and EZPass) are manned or monitored by NYPD.

Says something about each state I think ;)

Now that was a good lunch (burp!)

I just finished up some BBQ meat and rice that my wife brought back from CT and I gotta say it was DAMN good. Ahh, now I need to find an unused storage closet and a cot so I can take a nap this afternoon............zzzzz

I'm back from CT

My trip to CT was pretty good and the party was excellent! I didn't spend a lot of time up there because I have work today (boo!!!) but I did get to see my mom and Mama Chippy. Here are some of the highlights....

Almost misssed the flight from Tampa
I know what you're thinking but this was totally not our fault! We got to the airport and gate ontime and then JetBlue tells us that the flight is going to be delayed because of weather up in NY and to come back at 9:30. So..... Claire and I decided to go to the main airport terminal to shop around for stuff. We go there and decide at around 9pm to go back to the gate. To our surprise there was NO ONE THERE! We were like oh shit and ran towards the gate to see if the plane was still there. On a good note, we weren't the last ones to board, there were 4 other people that were late too ;)

Cool new camera!
Being the cool wife that she is, Claire bought a new digital camera for us. I'm contemplating selling my old one here at work for like $150 or something. I'll have to mull this over in my mind a little longer. We have a new Canon D400 which takes pictures super fast and the pics are even larger now than with my old one. The best part? It's freakin tiny!

Saweeet new radio station!
Of course when I return to CT, I have to listen to all my favorite stations like Z100, KTU, and Power 105.1. But I found a new station that was bad ass. It's 105.9 and they play nothing but Reggaeton which is something we don't get down here in Tampa. Although they do have it in Ft. Lauderdale so I get to listen to that stuff maybe 2-3 times a year on the radio. But at least now I have something new to listen to while I'm in CT.

Driving the Convertable
Claire's mom has a nice 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder and she let me drive it this weekend which was really nice of her. The thing is a V6 and fully loaded to the gills with options. The only bad part was that it was way too hot to keep the top open. Driving on I-95 is like sitting in a parking lot so with no wind, it was just HOT! Buy just being able to drive the car was cool all by itself.

Dim Sum!!!
Being Chinese and from the Northeast, I'm a man that loves his Dim Sum. If there is enough time in the day to go, I'm all about going to Dim Sum on a weekend and this weekend was no exception. Even after eating a healthy breakfast with Claire and her dad, we decided to go to Hartsdale NY and eat some Dim Sum mmmmm........ now why can't Tampa have a good Dim Sum place eh???

OK, well that was the weekend end in a nut shell. I'm glad to be back home with my wife and my cats though. Now if only next weekend would come faster so I can relax at home :)

You know its summer in Tampa..........

when you start seeing hurricane or tropical storm warnings on TV all the time!

A funny movie

Here is a link to one of the funnier Foamy cartoon's I've seen recently. I have a whole archive of his stuff :)

http://mysite.verizon.net/jvwong96/pairs.swf

Too funny!! HA!

I was driving to work this morning when I saw one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed in Tampa. I saw a small Chevy pickup that looked fairly beat up and I thought, man what a piece of junk. Little did I know that this crap box was semi pimped. At the traffic light, the tailgate part of the truck started to lower itself to the ground. Holy crap it has hydraulics! LOL! I was dying in my car when I saw this because as soon as the light turned green, the back of the truck popped back up so the bumper wouldn't be dragging on the ground.

Just to gross you out.....

While I was on my honeymoon I kissed a sting ray in Grand Cayman ;) haha! I don't have a pic of it but you can go ahead and ask my wife, she'll confirm it!!

Why doesn't Tampa have clams?

I was talking to my friend Alison on IM during lunch and she sparked a memory ............ I really miss raw clams with cocktail sauce. When I used to live in CT, I used to have them every once in a while. I'd get them from Stew Leonard's (the best freakin grocery store on the face of the earth btw), out those little buggers in hot water and crackedem open with a knife. Now in Tampa, they have oysters (I don't like them) but why don't they have clam's? Clam's are so much better! Yet another reason why I should move back home ;)

Damn you Walmart!

Today I have one slight pet peeve.......... scanning in pictures............... because Walmart ran out of blank CD's.............. is this even possible??

I had the pictures from my water proof camera developed (the pics came out pretty good except for two that were messed up because I probably forgot to wind the camera enough between shots) and of course I went to Walmart to do it, they're so cheap its almost criminal not to use them. However when I got there and asked them to scan in the negatives they said they couldn't because they had no more CD's to burn. Thats freakin crazy! I'd just snatch some from the shelf or something in the electronics department. So I spent about 45 minutes scanning in pictures (I'll put up a picture or two if I deem them worthy) scanning in the pics. Now I need to transfer them to some back up device so I have a copy of it just in case my PC decides to die.

Anyway, thats my gripe about Walmart......... until tomorrow!

Whew I didn't poison myself

For the first time ever I cooked linguini with clam sauce with a hint of crushed red pepper. Granted everything was kinda from a can (just the clams and clam juice) but at least for the moment I'm alive and I'm not even sick. There was a lot of clams and juice in the can so I cooked a whole box of linguini. Thats tomorrow's lunch and dinner lol.

On another note, I got my proofs from the photographer but I'm waiting until the wife gets home to look at them. I also don't have the negatives yet so it'll be another few weeks till I get the professional pics in digital format. Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Cool new skin for Winamp

After not visiting the Winamp site for a long time (those bastards at Time Warner have stopped development on it :( ), I found a pretty cool skin that I'm going to start using on my work PC when I listen to internet radio. Here's the link

http://www.winamp.com/skins/details.php?id=144223

Ahh nothing like a cool mixed drink :) 

Please don't die!

I got a rude ass shock when I turned on my home PC. It said that it couldn't boot and it had to check the hard disks to make sure everything was ok. I was like OH SHIT!! Totally not good since I have so much stuff on here thats important. Good thing I have two hard drives and multiple external hard drives from broken laptops. I ran a chkdsk /r and everything seems alright on the good ole C:\ drive. Granted it took about 3 hours to do.

Now I have to hope my printer doesn't go bust because my heavy ass cat is at this very moment sitting on top of it and staring at I have no idea what.

Anyway, I'll post another picture or two tomorrow if I have time from the honeymoon.