Gas up $0.20

This weekend was pretty nice, gas was around $2.60 (who thought I would ever think that is a reasonable price for gas??). This morning I was driving in to work and noticed that gas went up to around $2.79!!! How insane is that? It's only Tuesday! I hope it doesn't go up much more or I'm petitioning for myself to work from home exclusively because my salary can't take this kind of hit anymore.

Emailing my blogs isn't working!!

I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before but sending emails to my blog to be published still isn't working. I would say that I blog a good deal on my PC but I do occasionally like to blog using my phone. My Treo lets me send out email and such and the reason that I chose to use Blogger was because I was able to send emails to blogger and they would be published. I've tried to use the email feature a few times from the email addresses I have set up and they still don't work right :(

I'm going on two trips in the next few days and I'm probably not going to be blogging via PC but via email. Since this isn't working, there probably won't be many blog entries in the next two weeks unless they finally fix it. I was going to add pictures too since I was going to bring a camera or use my phone. GAH! Blogger needs to get this damn thing working already! It's been months!

I am the Cat Whisperer

I have finally taught Nala to sit. She's not trained to the high degree of Thumper. I trained him over the course of a couple of months and he was the only cat at the time. He's clicker trained to come to me and to sit. He'll even jump off of counterd when Claire or I tell him. We're still working on him getting to shut up but we can live with it for now.

Nala will now sit when I shake the treat can which is a good thing. She sometimes comes to me or Claire when called, but its funny that she listens to Claire more than me since I'm the one that likes cats and all. Maybe Claire should also be known as the Cat Whisperer................ even though she would be a reluctant one.

Corporate Sales are Awesome

This weekend, I was able to go to a corporate sale at Macy's. All these huge corporations in the Tampa area got a 20% off coupon on any clothing in the store. I was able to get myself some pretty sweet deals on some work clothes since I am always in need of more. Since my wife belongs to the same company, she got 20% off her clothes as well. The only bad part was that I didn't win any of the door prizes that they were giving away. Oh well, maybe next year I'll get something. Needless to say we spent a lot but I think we also saved quite a bit. I'll be sporting some new threads come Monday morning :)

A truely sweet sale

Tomorrow my wife and I are going to a corporate sale event sponsored by our company. We get 20% off stuff thats like over $100 bucks or something like that. There are supposed to be door prizes and such too so maybe I'll win some money or a shopping spree. I need to get more work clothes anyway, I'm starting to run low, especially in the pants department and this is as good a time as any to stock up on my wardrobe. And since I'm going with my wife, I'm sure to get something semi trendy since my taste is pretty bad but hers is pretty good so I should at least come up with something decent if we compromise.

There's nothing to blog about.....

I'm sitting her in my office cube thinking about what to blog about and nothing comes to mind. I never blog about work since thats just dangerous and dumb since companies are looking at blogs to see what employees might be saying. There's nothing interesting going on this weekend except a special sale for employees at my company at Macy's where I probably won't buy anything, although I am getting Apollo 13 on DVD from Blockbuster pretty soon.

Hmm........... Only thing thats worth mentioning is that I'm going to Miami Beach for a conference to evaluate HP software to use. That should be quite enjoyable since I'll be staying right on Miami Beach. I'll be sure to send pics if I'm not encased in a conference room all day long.

For anyone seeing X-3

My wife's co-worker just told me that my wife and I missed out on the ending to X-3 because we didn't stay for the credits. So if you're going to see X-3 in the thearter, stay until the credits are done because there is one more scene. Son of a bitch I can't believe I missed it!

X-3 and The Da Vinci Code

Recently I saw both X-3 and the Da Vinci Code. I thought both movies were pretty good. In the case of the Da Vinci code, I don't see why so many professional reviewers didn't like the movie. I thought that it was pretty faithful to the book. Granted it was missing some things and maybe some suspense but over all it was pretty good. I would definately recommend going off and seeing the movie and if you haven't read the book, you should probably go back and read it to see what was missing. I personally have the illustrated version of the book and I thought it was pretty cool to see all the places and art work that the book talks about.

The movie X-3 was very good in my opinion. I thought that it was going to be a lot longer than it was but it runed out to be the right length. They introduced some new characters and some old ones................ well I should just let people see the movie because I certainly don't want to ruin it for anyone. Needless to say, people have to see this movie, it was freakin awesome! I'll be getting this one on DVD for sure to round out my collection since I have the first two already.

Its getting hot in FL

Right now its Memorial Day weekend and where am I spending the majority of my time? Why in my apartment of course! The reason? It's getting way too hot and humid to go outside for long periods of time without getting totally baked. I was in Las Vegas recently and it was pretty hot there but thats a different kind of heat. In Las Vegas it was a "dry" kind of heat. Here there is plenty of humidity to make things feel even worse than it really is. I think I should get one of those personal coolers from Sharper Image so that I can stand being outside for longer than 5 minutes.

Google Calendar needs Hotsync Support

I admit that I use a whole host of apps but if there's one thing that I wish I could have its HotSync support for Google Calendar. Right now I use MS Outlook and Hotsync it to my Treo 650, what would be really cool is if I could see my calendar online at Google. The concept of Google Calendar is really cool and I like the color coding aspect as well. Right now my calendar is synced up with Plaxo but that only works with Outlook. I'm currently looking for an Outlook replacement but I'm not having any luck. I'm hoping that one day, Mozilla will integrate a calendar into Thunerdbird so I can ditch Outlook all together but I tihnk thats a few years away. :( I guess I'll just struggle on with my MS stuff until something viable comes around.

The 700p is out!

Palm and Verizon has come out with the new Treo 700p which is an upgrade to my current Treo 650. I've been reading up on it for a little while and the only thing that I can say that I really want from it is the added memory and the EVDO highspeed data network. I use my phone for the internet a lot when I'm away from home to read up on stuff, look up stuff, or just to play Dope Wars or Black Jack if I'm bored.

There is supposedly a new update for the 650 coming out that I'm waiting for thats supposed to add tons of enhacements but right now its rumor which kind of stinks. I'm sure there will be another Palm device that I'm going to get that will have a better OS and all that jazz. I'm debating whether or not Palm or Windows Mobile is the way to go, but I have at least another year so I have time to decide.

Got my Sony Laptop working

A really long time ago it seems, I suggested to my father to buy a Sony Laptop PC. At the time it seemed pretty swift. It came pre-loaded with Win98 and had a 450 Mhz P3 processor. My father has since upgraded to a Desktop PC (I also have a Dell he bought two years ago thats so much better than the Sony but the screen is busted so I can't really use that one). I have since upgraded the Sony with a host of mis matched parts that I have lying around. I upgraded the hard drive to a 20 gig (not very big these days but its better than 6 gig), boosted the RAM to 320 which isn't bad, and I also went ahead and loaded Win XP SP2. It's not the best laptop in the world but I'm keeping this PC around just in case something bad happens to my Dell desktop upstairs. I have backups for it on a portable drive so in case theres a hurricane, I can get up and go with my data ;)

I think next year I'm going to invest in a new laptop once Windows Vista comes out if I have the money for it. I have my work laptop but that doesn't count as truely being mine. I want something thats portable with tons of hard drive space so that just in case I gotta go somewhere in a rush, I have everything I need to keep my life going. Anyone have some money I can have to get my new laptop??

The perfect evening........

Tonight I get to go see X-Men 3 and have KFC, what could be more perfect than that???

Wii!!!!

The title of the post is Wii, and it refers to Nintendo's new gaming console. I've read a lot about it recently in the news. It doesn't sound as powerful as my Xbox 360 but man the games look freakin cool! And the price! Forget about it, so cheap I might pick one up!

Ahh the fountains at Bellagio, pretty isn't it?

 

Las Vegas at Night

I took these two pictures from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas. I thought it was pretty cool to see the city all lit up like that.
 

The Valley of Fire!

One of the things that my wife and I did while we were in Las Vegas was to go ATV riding in the Valley of Fire. As the name imply's, this place was steaming hot when we got there. We rode ATV's for about 2 hours in the middle of the desert. We went up and down sand dunes, went over really rocky terrain, and nearly got heat stroke because it had to be at least 100 degrees outside. The bottom picture is of us at one of the stops so we had someone take our picture. The top picture is me with the helmet and goggles on. I also had to wear my sunglasses since they are prescription and without them I wouldn't be able to avoid the very expensive turtles that inhabit the area. It was quite an awesome experience but my ass hates me for doing it :)


 

It's my Anniversary YAY!!!

This past Sunday was my first year wedding anniversary. Pretty bad ass eh? I'm spending it in Las Vegas with my wife and we're at the Luxor (the one that looks like a huge pyramid).

We exchanged gifts and went over to the Pharoh's Pheast buffet at the hotel. We had to load up on food sice we would be spending a good part of the day on ATV's. I booked an excursion called The Valley of Fire ATV tour. The name itself should have given me a clue that it would be really hot there but I underestimated exactly how hot.

The bus ride took about an hour or so and the Valley of Fire is in a Federal preservation area. There are these turtles there that are endangered and for every one that you pick up, startle, or accidentally kill, the feds get you for $25K. When the turtles get startled they release the water in their bladder and this being the Valley of Fire, they can't replace it easily so manyof them die due to dehydration. After getting that little pe talk from the guide we were issued ATV's.

The ATV's were easy enough to operate but the terrain we went on was pretty rough and we were going decently fast most of the time. I have some good pictures that I took while in the Valley of Fire. I was last in line which wasn't so bad. I did get a mouth full of dirt and sand even though I was wearing a helmet qand goggles.

One of the best stops was the mining cave. We stayed in there for a good amount of time because people were getting over heated on the tour. It was basically around 100 degrees outside, your getting your ass kicked by the terrain since its bumpy, your trying to make sure you don't flip your ATV or crash into a rock wall, and there's normally a huge dust cloud you have to drive through. Despite all that, it was really fun. I don't think I would go ATV riding in the desert again, but maybe I'll go in a forest or something.

After coming back to the hotel, my wife and I had to get ready for our dinner at TAO which was located at the Venetian. The food there was great and so was the atmosphere. We shared some awesome shrimp with XO sauce and fried rice. We did a little walking at the Venetian and it was quite impressive. They had exquisite paintings on the ceiling, gondola rides indoors, a huge selection of shops and places to eat, and even an indoor town square where you can watch some free shows.

That night we also walked down part of the Las Vegas Strip. Treasure Island was too crowded to see their free show, so we went to the Mirage to see the Volcano erupt. Since it was a bit hot, we cut through Caesars Palace (which is HUGE) and into the Bellagio. We missed the water show but we'll see that another night.

It's Tuesday morning and I'm still sore from the ATV ride but I'm also sore from thr Grand Canyon trip but that's for another blog post........ need breakfast!!

Worst airport ever!

I have traveled around a lot and I've been to plenty of airports but I have to say that the one in Atlanta is the worst so far.

Right now I just started my vacation with my wife and we're off the Las Vegas. Our flight to Las Vegas involves two stops, one of which is Atlanta. First thing that happens is that we hear that the gate has changed. Not a big deal right? Just check the monitors for the new gate. Slight problem here was that there were no monitors to check at the terminal and we both distinctly heard that our new gate was at another terminal. Atlanta has some LONG terminals and its serviced by a train. There was a bank of monitors that said the only flight for our airline was on the terminal we were headed to.

BIG MISTAKE!! When we got to the gate, it was nearly empty so we had our tickets scanned by the agent. The agent looks at his computer and says that our flight was at the gate that we had just come from in our original terminal!!

He informs us that we have 10 minutes to run over and catch our flight. So my wife and I are practically speed walking through one terminal, caught the train, and speed walked to the very end of our original terminal to catch our flight.

I swear, if I have to take any more flights, I am going to avoid Atlanta like the plague. The airport is just too big, too crowded, and too old techwise. If I can avoid going to Atlanta ever again I will even if it costs me more to fly.

My silly cat

My younger cat Nala did something pretty silly this afternoon. I have a loft in my apartment where I have my computer. I was up there today and my two cats normally follow me up there. There is a rail and a perch where my cats sometimes jump on. Well today, Nala decided to try her luck with the rail and lost her balance. I didn't witness the actual fall. All I know is that one minute I know she is upstairs with me, the next minute I hear a small cry from my cat and a thud. When I looked up she was gone and I saw her run into another room. She seems fine though after dropping about 15 feet or so. Hopefully she learned not to try walking on that rail again.

LOL this is too funny!

This simply has to be one of the best titles for a book I've ever seen

 

Google Sidebar doesn't work anymore

I installed the WinXP SP2 patch on my work PC and all of a sudden my Google Sidebar doesn't work. Thats crap! I use this every day at work for the little scratch pad and for the RSS news feeds that I've set up. Now that it doesn't work, I dunno what I'm going to do now since I've gotten so used to it. I've tried everything I can think of short of reloading my work PC but that in itself is quite a pain. MAN!!!

Trip to the Zoo

My wife and I went to the zoo today since we had nothing really to do. I took the camera and got some pretty funny pics, enjoy! LOL

MI5

My wife got me addicted to watching this British show called MI5. It interests me because its all about spy stuff and people trying to blow up the UK. They're kind of like the NSA and FBI all rolled into one. I'll admit at times its hard to understand them with their thick British accents but whats really cool about the show is that it actually lasts a full hour kinda like the Soprano's. Thats pretty rare in my book since most other shows I watch are basically 45 minutes because of all the commercials that are just thrown in. I'm getting more DVD's in the coming days so at least I'll have something to watch since TV these days is sucking badly!

Is it Friday yet?

The week is dragging badly! Where is Friday???

I'm done getting my summer tan

Today I went to the pool with my wife and she decided to lay out and get a tan and I decided to go swimming in the pool. My skin being the way it is, after about 2-3 hours I have my summer tan all done. Unlike most people, I can tan pretty quickly so theres no need for me to lay out for hours on end. Just a couple of hours and I'm done. If I swim in the sun any longer I'm going to be really really dark and thats what I'm trying to avoid. Good thing I work indoors so I can't get any darker than I already am :)

Easter Dinner was AWESOME!

Tonight Claire made an awesome dinner. Steak, with mashed potato's and corn. I am now soo stuffed that I'm just lying here on the couch writing up this blog entry because I can't move. Thank you for the wonderful dinner Claire!! :)

FEMA: Louisiana Homes Must Be Raised Off Ground

OK now, if you live in Louisiana and you gotta raise your house up 3 feet off the ground I gotta say F that man. Not only do you now have to have a house on stilts, just in case, but now you have to walk up stairs just to get to your house. I'm sure there are stairs for most places but still, I think putting your house on stilts will make it somewhat unstable. What if someone wanted to totally destroy your house? It wouldn't take a lot, just knock out two supports and boom, your house comes crashing down. If they make something like that mandatory, I would move to another state because there's no way I'm putting my house on stilts.

CNN.com - Woman dies a day after Disney World ride - Apr 13, 2006

CNN.com - Woman dies a day after Disney World ride - Apr 13, 2006

I have personally ridden Mission Space at Epcot just once and hell yeah it made me sick as a dog. There are plenty of warning signs everywhere that this is a high velocity ride and if you're in any sort of poor health you shouldn't ride it. It basically takes a NASA centrifuge, adds some nice monitors and other little things and spins you around at around 2G's of force. For the average person thats pretty intense stuff. After riding it once, I know for a fact that I will never ride it again because I don't like having that sick I wanna throw up feeling. But if you're up to it, this ride is perfectly safe and does give you a pretty good thrill!

Taro the Dragon Boy is Great!

I just rented the above movie a few days ago. I first saw this movie WAY back in the early 1980's on Betamax I think. I actually borrowed this from my library in my home town. This definately brought me back. LOL! I can't believe I watched the whole movie again. My wife fell asleep while watching it so she didn't see the whole thing but thats alright, I enjoyed watching it. Maybe I'll let my kids watch it when I have some and when they are old enough. Here's the link for movie on Blockbuster. LINK!!

Man Gets $218 Trillion Phone Bill - Yahoo! News

Man Gets $218 Trillion Phone Bill - Yahoo! News

Now thats just freakin sick right there. If I were in the accounting department, I would look at this more closely. How can a residential phone line accumulate that many charges in a few months? It would litteraly take DECADES unless he was trying to connect to the internet via a US ISP from his home in Malaysia through dial up and never turned it off. LOL still quite funny though.

To be thwarted by soft serve ice cream!

This mornings commute was absolutely wretched. You would think that Fridays would be a good day to drive to the office. Not today! I read the local news online and found out that they had to close down the Veterans Expressway, a highway I pass by on my way to work, because a truck with 7000 pounds of soft serve ice cream crashed and flipped onto its side. This forced people to take the route I normally take to work which totally clogged everything up. I ended up getting here at 9 instead of 8:30 like I normally do. At least there isn't much to clean up, the ice cream can just melt away..............

Everyone took their retard pill this morning

Driving to work was TERRIBLE! Seems like no one could drive this morning at all. There was a crash between a car and a bus on the other side of the road and it was my side of the road that was going slower.......... how does that make sense???? There are also some people that don't understand the meaning of rush hour. It means move your ass I've gotta get to work so stop driving the speed limit already!

I hope the commute home is better than it was this morning because I just can't take it anymore!

I finally got the sample!

It's taken me two weeks but I finally have a sample from my cat Nala that I can take to the vet. Now normally the vet would be able to take the little stool sample from a cat but not my cat. OOHHH NO!! She's a fiesty little one so the vet told me to get one for them. She shares a litter box with Thumper so its hard to see who's crap is who's. Yesterday I caught her in the litter box and I got the little container ready. It didn't help that she effectively buried it at the bottom of the litter box but I have my sample and can take it to the vet :)

My DVD Writer died :(

My DVD Writer for my PC just died the other night as I was trying to burn something. What a bummer! Now I have to spend money to get another one. Just in case there was a fix I emailed tech support at IO Magic and explained what was wrong. The thing doesn't even read the discs anymore, Windows recognizes that there is a drive but it won't read the media. I even cracked the thing open to see if there were any problems with the parts inside but it all looks OK to me (obviously I didn't put that in my email to IO Magic). I have a Best Buy card coming in the mail so I'll end up using all the money I have on it for my new burner, now my dilemma is whether or not to get an external one or an internal one.....................

Internet News is starting to change......

I've been on the internet for a LONG time it seems. I first jumped on in college using a 19.2 TAU modem and I used Netscape 3.0 as my web browser on my 486 PC that ran Windows 95. The first websites that I started reading was of course CNN and the New York Times.

Lets fast forward to 2006 shall we? Right now its April and after almost 10 years, CNN and the New York Times have finally changed the look of their websites. I think its been a long time in coming but I'm liking the new layout. It just kind of astounds me that it took them 10 years to actually update their sites. I'm sure there have been little changes here and there but the over all look really hasn't changed. Now I'm going to have to get used to the new look of these two sites so I can find my news. :)

Day Light Savings Time

I just remembered this morning that everything springs forward an hour. I can't t tell you how much that screws up my internal clock. Now I'm going to be going to bed an hour earlier and waking up an hour earlier too. I hope I don't end up getting to work late tomorrow because I can't get up. Why do we do this anyway????

Expedition Everest is AWESOME!

Today was the last day in 2006 that Claire and I could go to Disney. Our annual passes run out this week so we decided to hit up 2 parks, Animal Kingdom and MGM. We've been to Magic Kingdom and Epcot so much that we felt we should go to the other two.

First we went to MGM to ride on the Aerosmith Ride (someone gave us their fast passes so we went right to the head of the line without waiting) and that was totally bad ass. Then we decided to go to Tower of Terror which is a trip all on its own. The wait wasn't even too bad either. Up and down up and down WEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Animal Kingdom was next (we were only going on the thrill rides today) and the only thrill ride there is Expedition Everest. This ride is soooo COOL! The wait was like 70 minutes but that wasn't that bad. They built a whole new area for Expedition Everst in the Asia section of Animcal Kingdom and its so new that it doesn't even show up on any of the maps. The ride itself is really tall and you can see it almost as clearly as you can see the Tree of Life in the middle of the park. They had this whole thing about the Yeti that guards Mt. Everest while you're walking in the line which was cool and I have some pics of it too. The ride itself was sweet, it raises you up pretty high, some of the ride is within the artificial mountain and part of the ride even goes backwards! There's a HUGE Yeti at the end of the ride but since I don't wear my glasses on roll coasters I didn't get a good look at him. There aren't any loops or things of that sort on this coaster but thats ok. The presentation is awesome and this is one coaster I could ride over and over again because its so fun. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

Wednesday nights are kick ass

There are only 2 reasons why I would say Wednesday nights are kick ass.

Number 1: South Park

Number 2: Mind of Mencia

These two shows alone make Wednesday night TV worth while. I wasn't a big fan of Drawn Together so I'm glad they were moved over so Mind of Mencia could be put in after South Park. Now I have a whole hour of good TV on Wednesdays :)

Test

This is only a test

Haircuts make my head cold

I'm sure this might be something that apply's mostly to guys but whenever I get a haircut my head feels cooler. I go about 4-6 weeks between haricuts so my hair is decently long by the time I actually get it cut. After I do get it cut it feels a bit drafty for a while and it takes some getting used to. On the upside, my hats don't feel so tight anymore when I wear them :)

At home once again

I'm here at home telecommuting. I must say that I like doing this every once in a while. Not only do I get to spend some time at home with my cats who I don't see all that often except at night, but I get to eat some decent food other than soup for lunch. The downside is that the network isn't as fast as it is at work and I'm missing my 18" LCD display too since that helps me do my job so much faster than just using my regular laptop monitor. I can't complain since I'm doing work and enjoying the company of my cats on a Friday :)

Chef is dead!! Or is he???

Last nights South Park was AWESOME! For those of you that missed it stop reading right now! Anyway, I missed last seasons finale so I didn't know that Chef left to become part of the Super Adventure Club. In this episode he comes back and since Isaac Hayes didn't do any of the voice overs, they spliced together his dialogue from all the episodes done in the past. This was kick ass because it added to the effect that he was brain washed. The ending though is the best part. Not only do they somewhat "kill" Chef, they use bits of Star Wars Episode III and bring him back so he looks like a Chef version of Darth Vader! LOL!! Can't wait to see what the rest of this season holds :)

The NY FBI can't afford email?!?!?!

I found this article in CNN rather disturbing. I don't get how a Federal law enforcement organization can't afford email! Email is one of the best tools on the planet for information sharing. I understand that it takes money to set up servers, pay for software, back everything up to tape, and have people monitor the system so it doesn't go down but this is just silly. Google gives you 2 gigs of free email, I'm sure they'd be willing to cut the government a contract or something to host their email in a secure facility if the feds would stop sueing them!

Now this is really cool!

I just read this article in the NY Times about how people here in the US are starting to use their cell phones as credit cards. I've heard about this kind of thing before but right now its really only hot in Japan and parts of Europe. However the prospect of just putting my phone up to a plate on a Coke machine and getting a soda really appeals to me. I'm one of those people that really don't carry cash around anymore because its just easier to charge everything. Having my credit card embedded into my phone would totally kick ass and since I have a Treo I'm sure there will be some software that will let me see everything I've charged and I'll be able to send all that stuff to my PC so I can make sure that what iI've charged on my phone syncs up with the bank. I say BRING IT! If they include it in the next Treo I buy (which will be in a couple years since I just got this one), I'll definately scrap a few credit cards and just use my phone for everything! :)

I'm a Trend Micro PUG!

I'm sure people are scratching their heads about the title. Who is Trend Micro and what the heck is a PUG? First off, Trend Micro is an antivirus software company. Anyone who uses MSN Hotmail uses Trend Micro virus protection. It's pretty well known and I've been a loyal user since I was in college. About a year ago I came across a post on betanews.com for beta testers for PC-Cillin 2005. I was already using PC-Cillin 2004 so I figured why not give it a try. The benefit of completing the test was that I was given a license for 2005 and later invited to complete the 2006 PC-Cillin beta test which is when I got yet another license. Right now I'm testing their new software (I forget its name right now) and its currently installed on my home PC. There are a few things that I can't finish on the test because my current PC-Cillin install is interfering with it but thats ok. Since I've tested 3 products they decded to invite me to be part of the Power User Group or PUG of testers. This will net me antivirus updates 12 hours earlier than everyone else, I get to test all their new products and get free software upgrades! How freakin sweet is that????

Comedy shows rule!

I saw Gabriel Iglesias last night at the Ft. Lauderdale Improv and it was kick ass. He was soo funny. I'll definately go and see him again if I have the chance. Depending on the money situation, I might come back down and see Lisa Lampinelli (I have no idea if I'm spelling her name right). Even though there is a two drink minimum, it was well worth the cost of seeing this show. One of the best parts about it? It's at the Seminole Hard Rock which is a bad ass place to go to gamble, eat, and do all types of other stuff :)

Boo to my apartment complex

Yesterday I received a notice from the property managers that all the apartments in my complex are going to be converted into condo's by next year but they're begining the process already. Right now they're not accepting new renters, the management people have actually moved the office to an apartment to make way for the new management company, and I should be receiving some sort of packet in the mail in a few days. Since I've stayed around for so long, I have the option to buy my place but I'm thinking that the price is going to be hideous since I have the largest apartment type that they offer. I also have the option to extend my lease for an additional 9 months for when I receive my letter so by my calculations I'll have to figure something out before December. GRRRRR............................... Somehow I don't agree with this at all. What if I want to stay in my apartment but not buy it? It gives me mobility and freedom but now I have a ticking clock which gives me little choice in the matter in what to do, move or buy hmmm........... I guess we'll see what happens in the coming months.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

To all my Irish people out there, I have to say you have one of the most bad ass holidays on the planet. What other holiday promotes drinking and good cheer like St. Patricks day and on top of that, you don't even have to buy people presents like other holidays?!?! AWESOME!!

I fixed my cat bowl!

To the left you see the water bowl that I bought for my cats a while ago. It's a huge dome that holds water and then it spits out water and covers the dome and goes into a little pool at the bottom and recycles itself. My cats love the thing and its great because I only have to fill it once a week.

A few days ago it didn't work like it should. I could hear the motor trying to spin but no water would come out. It had been a while since I cleaned it and no matter what I did, water just wouldn't go through the motor and spit up water. I shook it, used an air can, and all that other good stuff. After looking at it closer, I noticed I could crack it open. After cracking it open I found all this gunk inside it. After cleaning it all out, I put it back together and now it runs like NEW! SAWEET! Now all I need are more filters to prevent the gunk from building up in the motor again. I don't want to keep on taking apart the motor because I have a tendancy to break things when I get adventurous after I discover I can actually disassemble something. At least now my cats are happy :)

AOL is ruining Winamp!

I happen to be a pretty big fan of Winamp (for those of you that don't know, it plays music). I used to use it WAY back in the days before it even had a 1.0 release and the software was still owened by Nullsoft. I've been pretty pleased so far with the software even after AOL bought Nullsoft but the latest changes to Winamp 5.2 are just total CRAP! Granted there are some nice little improvements but the Media Library is getting bad. I was just recently using version 5.13 and the media library was nice and fast and pretty straight forward. I primarily use it to listen to music while I'm doing my work at the office. The 5.2 release just totally ruined the online music aspect. I still use it of course because its still the best but they need to change the interface back. There are too many "clicks" involved now just to get to my 3 favorite radio stations. I also still don't trust it to sync up my iPod properly which is why I'm still using MediaMonkey for that part (iTunes sucks royally in my opinion). OK, thats my rant for now I'll probably have another one later this afternoon. ;)

Funny as hell!

Last night my wife and I decided to watch Carlos Mancia on Comedy Central since he had a special on. I gotta tell you this man is funny! I love how he just insults EVERYONE. I highly recommend seeing him on Comedy Central where he has a regular show. I think his one hour special is also playing later this week. If you're not offended by much or love jokes about others, go here! carlosmencia.com

Healthy pasta tastes gross

Tonight my wife prepared some healthy pasta that we decided to try from the store. Little did we know that healthy pasta meant nasty pasta. When we went shopping we thought that the healthy pasta would taste the same, after all pasta is pasta and it takes a lot of talent to fuck up pasta in our view. I don't know the brand name but they sure as hell fucked up pasta! After a few bites we tossed it out along with the rest of the un-cooked healthy pasta in the trash. It's back to good old fashioned fattening pasta for us I can tell you that much, at least it tastes GOOD!

McDonalds Breakfast Trip

I think it was yesterday that my wife and I went to McDonalds for some breakfast sandwiches. Normally I don't go and get breakfast but she suggested it and my stomach was telling me to get some so we went. Now why would I blog about a simple thing like going to Micky D's?? READ ON!!

In order to get to work I go on this huge road called Hillsborough that is basically 3 lanes wide in both directions and separated by concrete islands that sometimes turn into turn lanes. The McDonald's that is on the way to work happens to be on the left side of the road so that requires either a U-turn or using one of the turn lanes. I opted for the turn lane but mis-judged it and I ended up being too far up the road from McDonalds. After looking down the road and deciding I can risk it, I gunned my car and went up the wrong way on Hillsborough to get to McDonalds. Not only that, I went in through the exit of McDonalds since it was closer than the actual entrance. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be doing something like that again anytime soon. But on the upside, the breakfast sandwich and has brown really hit the spot :)

My Sony DVD player still rules

A long time ago (ok not such a very long time ago) my wife gave me a DVD player when we first started going out. I think it was either an anniversary gift or a Christmas gift. To this day I'm still using it here at home. I also have a 6 disc changer that my father gave me when he moved away and needed to unload some stuff but sometimes it doesn't like to play the DVD's that I have. I just recently switched out the changer with my trusty Sony and it still works great. Maybe one day when it becomes cheap enough I'll either get Blue Ray or HD DVD (when it becomes cheaper since its like $1000 just for a player) but I'm sure that I'll still use my trusty Sony since i doubt this thing will ever break.

Ohh just because I love my Sony DVD player doesn't mean I'm getting a lamo PS3. News from the media is that its delayed till almost 2007. SUCKERS!! 360 is gonna own video gaming for the next three years and the best part is that I already have one :)

I luv me some clementines

This weekend I went to Costco for some shopping with my wife of course and she pointed out that they were selling clementines. I only bought one box this time thinking that I can make it last. Sorry no such luck! I think yesterday alone, I ate almost 20 of them which is more than half the box. At least I know that I'm not going to get sick because I have some major vitamin C in my blood now. :) I should have bought another box!!!!!!!!

They call him "Fluffy"

This month will mark the seven years that I have been dating my wife and we are going to go and see a comedian named Gabriel Iglesias. He can be found here at this LINK. I first saw him on Comedy Central in 2005 and he's damn funny. I actually bought tickets to see him in Ft. Lauderdale so I'm set to do a little traveling this month. I'll give a review of his performance after I see him on March 18. Woohoo!!

Monday's are now truly pathetic

I used to read a lot of Garfield comics when I was younger and there was one part that always seemed funny and it was his absolute hate of Monday's. I can say that I too have joined Garfield in hating Monday's totally. Well lets break it down as to why I hate Monday's now.

First, the work component! It's the beginning of the work week which in itself is just not a good thing most of the time. I just had two lovely days off, why would I want my free time to end? I also have 2 standing meetings every Monday so that cuts into productivity but that's not such a big deal. Most people that work just don't look forward to Monday's because they know there is five days worth or work ahead of them.

Second, the traffic component! Sunday drivers are bad Monday drivers in general. I don't know if its just me but when I know its rush hour to get to and from work, I don't really care what the speed limit is, I just want to either get my ass to work or get my ass home as soon as possible so I'm not burning gas just sitting in traffic doing nothing but cursing at the person in the WAY front who's going less than the speed limit and really isn't in a rush to get anywhere in particular.

Third, the TV component! This is relatively recent but right now there is NADA on the tube that's worth watching on Monday nights. I thought that with cable that would be pretty impossible but there are only so many Law and Order re-runs a person can watch on TNT and USA. I'd watch WWE but my wife doesn't like watching it anymore. Las Vegas (on NBC) was the one show I had to look forward to on Monday nights but they moved it to Friday's which is a horrible time slot because who's in on Friday evenings? (Well I am but that's because I'm cheap and don't like spending money to drink booze that's over priced when I can get it at the store and drink it in the comfort of my own home and not having to worry about driving).

Maybe something will happen that will make Monday's better so I don't hate it so much anymore but it would have to be something pretty major (a new TV show maybe???) that will lessen my apathy for this most horrible of days in the week (unless its my birthday, then Monday is a good day).

A totally weird movie

I just saw the movie Proof starring Anthony Hopkins and Gweneth Paltro(?). It was kind of weird and I got a little lost watching it. It was all about whether or not if this chick was crazy and supposedly she was super duper smart. She constructed this mathematical proof or something that could totally change the world. I understood the movie but it just didn't make any real sense as to why they even made it since it was DULL! I hope the next movie that I get from Blockbuster is better than this one.

Slept like a little baby.....

Last night I went to bed early for no really good reason. By early I mean like 8:30ish early. I was attempting to watch what was recorded on my Tivo at home (TV is generally terrible these days even with cable) and I fell asleep on my couch. I was woken up by my wife at 11ish but after I got up and walked to the bedroom I was out like a light. I must say, getting 10 hours of sleep was really nice :)

My Medal!

Here is a fabulous pic of the medal I got when I finished the race this past weekend, isn't it cool???

The pain is finally gone

It's Wednesday night and I'm finally not in pain after all the running I did this past weekend. I can walk up and down the stairs without feeling large stabs of pain in my legs. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to go to the Strawberry Festival with my wife and get some damn good berries from some local vendors. MMMM Strawberries!

Windows or Linux??

I just installed Linux on my home PC. I didn't use my regular Windows hard drive that I have because I didn't want to mess that up. I have a few spare hard drives from various computers hanging around so I took one of my 30 gig hard drives that I have and I installed Ubuntu Lnux which is based on the Debian release of Linux.

I'm probably very biased towards Windows because I know it so well and I can do plenty of functions in it already. Most of the programs that I have are made for Windows and they all run fine. I just decided to use Ubuntu Linux for a little bit to see how it is. I've tried other distributions before but this one doesn't seem too bad. The updates are pretty quick and they're free of course. The only problem I have is with some of the applications but I don't know how long I'll have to play with the thing. Right now I put my Windows hard drive back into my computer since it was just easier to use this right now and I'm playing a DVD. I was having trouble using my DVD player in Linux so I switched it back for now. We'll see how things go. I've also installed the KDE package in Ubuntu which I prefer to Gnome.

I'll report back later when I've had more time to mess around with Ubuntu and figure out how to install all the programs that I need to make it work like Windows XP.

Run run run as fast as you can!

It's Saturday and I finished running the Gasparilla Distance Classic held here in Tampa. This is the first time that I've ever run a real race in my life and the fact that it was 5K is pretty significant. I ran the race with my wife and our friend Jasmin and we made some pretty good time. My wife and I were able to finish it in about 45 minutes. Thats not bad considering that I haven't ran around that much since I was in high school playing soccer for my city league. Only time will tell if I ever try and do something like this again. At least I got a cool medal out of it :)

I'm gonna run a race, I'm not getting first place!

I'm probably nuts but this Saturday I'm going to be running the 5K race for the Gasparilla Distance Classic held here in Tampa. I was roped into doing it by my wife and her maid of honor. I'm probably going to be able to run the first 100 feet then probably will need assistance from an oxygen tank since I've never in my life run a race. I think its been close to a decade since I've had to run for any type of reason at all. I'll blog about it later if I'm not in the emergency room dying from a heart attack.

DOOM!

I recently rented the movie Doom which had The Rock in it. I have to say that the ending was quite surprising. I'm not going to say what happened since I don't want to spoil it for anyone but the movie was pretty cool. It was a bit too dark (the scenery) and it was hard to see a lot of stuff but the gun battles were cool. The gun battle near the end when it switches to a first person shooter perspective was excellent. I think they should have done more of the movie in that style, that would have been the ultimate!

Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee for PSP

I recently got this game for my wife's PSP and even though I'm not a big fan of golf, I have to say that this game is pretty fun. I personally haven't played a lot of it, but from what my wife tells me the game is quite challenging and there are tons of things that you can unlock. Some of the standard things you can unlock are abilities and courses. Some of the fun things that you can get are new pieces of clothing and hair styles. I'll play around with the game some more when my wife isn't looking but it seems really fun over all :)

Man am I dumb sometimes.......

Today was cleaning day at the old homestead. Of course that included lots of vacuuming since I have lots of carpet in my apartment. I figured that since I hadn't looked at some of the moving parts in my Dyson vacuum, now would be a good time to see if any of its parts needed cleaning. The front roller needed cleaning since there was all this hair and other stuff wrapped around the roller. Stupid me, I took off the plate that holds the roller and started trying to PULL the hair off instead of cutting it. This resulted in me pull up one half of the roller from the rest of the vacuum. Since I couldn't fix it right away, I decided to clean it first then attempt to put it back together. After a good 15 minutes of struggle and examining the totally useless instructions, I was able to put the roller back on the vacuum and it worked perfectly again. I will not be taking apart my $500+ vacuum again in the near future unless I have detailed schematics I can tell you that!

Another 360 games DONE!

I've finally finished up Project Gotham Racing 3 for Xbox 360. I haven't unlocked everything but I managed to get a medal in all the races and other events that are in the game. I've bought a lot of awesome cars so far and my personal favorites are Ferrari's and Porches. I'm going to start playing Perfect Dark Zero since that and Kameo are the only games that I haven't beaten yet.

Waiting

I saw this movie tonight that my wife and I rented from Blockbuster. I thought it was going to be funny but disappointingly it wasn't all that funny. I was hoping it was going to be along the lines of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (now that was a funny ass movie). I'll give it this thought, it had its moments and I will probably never ever send food back to the kitchen because its wrong ever again!

I need to start to NOT eat at the cafeteria

Here at work I have a cafeteria and I used to never really go. When my wife started, I went a couple times. The food was OK, nothing to really scream about but this morning my breakfast sandwich was just not up to snuff. So I have resolved, that if I can totally avoid it, I will no longer eat at the cafeteria to save my health and my taste buds! I'll drive all the way home first before eating there because too much of that food will probably shed decades from my life span.

BRRRRR!!

Talk about cold, I don't think Tampa has seen the 30's consistantly in a good long time. And here I thought the days of being in the cold were over. Still nothing can top my sister in laws wedding where it was a whopping 15 degrees!! WOOOOO! OK thats it, gotta find a way to keep warm. At least I have J Alexanders steak for lunch with their signature smashed potato's :)

Now thats what I call some SNOW!

This weekend I was in semi sunny South Floriduh visiting the in-laws again and I ran upon some news clips that showed how much snow everyone in the North East just received. All I can say is DAMN! They totally got pounded with about 2 FEET of snow. In any book thats a ton. I can't say I wish I was up there but I kind of do wish I was there. Why you ask?? SKIING! Just think, there are now mountains of freshly packed powder up in Vermont just waiting for skiiers to use and abuse it. I tell ya, if I wasn't here and still living up north, we'd be prepping my wife's Xterra for a little trip to the mountains to get in some skiing :)

Oh the humanity!!

I'm really bored (as you can tell by the amount of blog posts in one day) and I'm watching womens ice hockey for the '06 winter olympics and right now Canada is totally thrashing Italy 10-0. Thats just a crazy score for hockey. I mean scoring goals in hockey is like scoring goals in soccer. It comes maybe once every full moon or something. I guess thats what happens when you take a european team and put them against one of the gods of ice hockey. muahaha!!

MySpace is starting to suck

I'm not complaining really about the concept or anything of MySpace. I think its pretty cool that I can find people that I lost touch with and all that jazz. What really really sucks is that they don't have the capacity for all the stuff thats on the site. It's slow as peanut butter running down hill and the site is always under maintenance. Get it together MySpace tech support or else you're going to end up like Friendster!!! :P

Sunflower Seeds

I've been driving for a long time and I also drive for very long distances from time to time (Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale is about 280 miles one way) and the only way that I can actually stay awake for drives that are over 2 hours is to eat............... sun flower seeds! I've tried to use gum or other types of snacks but for some reason sun flower seeds always do the trick.

I think I have become a connoisseur when it comes to sun flower seeds because these days I just can't eat just any kind. My seeds of choice are David's Sun Flower seeds. I've tried all types from Planters to run of the mill ones that are at CVS and in terms of taste, David's knows no equal. So far the only place that carries them near me is Walgreens. It's a good thing I live close to one so when I take those long drives, I have a ready supply of my favorite wake me up food :)

Mario Strikers!

I have to say that I'm thoroughly addicted to playing Mario Strikers for GameCube. I'm taking a break from the 360 for now and playing a bad ass soccer game instead. I love killing and beating things up but there's only so much you can do on a given evening. So I've once again gone to the 'Cube to change things up. Right now I'm playing Super Cup battles which are pretty challenging and I'm cleaning up nicely. Once I beat it, I'll crank the difficulty up a few notches and see how badly I get my ass stomped. LOL!

Internet job hunting just got harder

I just read this on CNN about new rules that the Feds just put in place for making it tougher for people online to apply to jobs. I personally think thats total crap. It's hard enough already trying to get a job and a lot of people already do it online, with the new rules in place it'll make getting a job even tougher which is absolute CRAP! I hope this law gets kicked to the curb because I have enough stress in my life as it is.

Red Eye

My wife and I rented the movie Red Eye this weekend to kill some time before the Super Bowl and I have to say that it wasn't one of Wes Craven's best movies. We were looking for the absolute terror that normally occurs during his movies but this one was lacking. Oh well, I'll just take it back to Blockbuster tomorrow and hopefully something good will come in the mail for me to watch.

Now thats what I call a good burger

I went out to Gameworks in Tampa, well Ybor, for lunch with one of my co-workers to check the place out for a meeting that we might hold there. Since we'll be there for lunch and for the afternoon, we tried out some of the food. The food there is pretty good I must say. The place at Gameworks where I ate was called Jax Grill. I had the BBQ and Bacon Burger. This was an excellent burger over all. I had to pick the veggies off of it but thats alright since they were all at the bottom. The best part about it?? I didn't have to add ketchup or anything like that. I did ask them to add a slice of swiss cheese but thats all. Good thing there's a Gameworks in South Florida, now I can go there and get this burger when I visit the in-laws :)

And God opened up the heavens and out poured rain that lastetd for 40 Days.............

The title for this blog seemed appropriate today considering its raining like CRAZY! I went out to lunch with a co-worker and the rain is just thick as hell. I can barely see where I'm going. Now consider that I live in Floriduh, this state is at sea level which means lots and lots of FLOODING! I think I'm going to have to seriously look at investing in a jetski to get around this town when it rains like this, my poor car can't take all the water. Good thing its the weekend after it hits 5pm or else it would have made this day really crappy.

Trying to get smartified!

In my very lazy pursuit of knowledge, I have bought a book about SQL aka Sequel. I'm learning this mainly for my job just because it will be tons easier if I can run my own queries and stuff without having to ask someone to do it for me. Not to mention, if I want to get a new job, knowing how to do SQL will be a definate plus since most large IT organizations like it if you know how to do SQL. ;)

I'm sure some of you are asking, wtf is all this geek speak anyway??? Well I am a techie somewhat and we use this huge relational database (too complicated to explain, if you want to know what it is buy the book!!) at work and the easiest way to get info out of it is to run a query (thats a search for you non technical people) against the database using archaic statements that seem cryptic (stuff like SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, etc.... in really long strings) than using the application that connects to the database. This way I can see everything and narrow down the data to the actual stuff that I need. Pretty nifty eh?

The book I bought is called Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes. That doesn't mean to say that I'm going to be an SQL guru in 10 minutes, it has lessons in it and each one is 10 minutes. I haven't counted all the lessons yet but I do know that I'm only on lesson 4 and I'm learning how to get info out of a table. I downloaded a simple Access database to do the lessons but when I get more experience and confidence, I'm going to try it on the test version of our CMDB and see if I can get some useful info out of the thing. :)

Mountain Dew MDX Commercials

I saw these commercials while watching the Winter X Games which btw was freakin AWESOME! Go view the commercials, they're funny! Go to the site and click on The Ad's. Enjoy!

http://benocturnal.com/

A strange observation

This is something I never thought about before but the roads down here in Florida are so smooth compared to back home in CT. I was up in CT in January and its only now that I actually appreciate how nice and smooth all the roads are down here. There are exceptions of course but at least it doesn't feel like I'm riding a jack hammer while I'm cruising in my car going to work. Tomorrow is another day of work, absolutely dreading it!

Ahh memories!!

I'm down here in South Florida and I had to take my wife to a job interview in Miami. My wife's sisters live in Weston so its a bit of a drive to get there (30 minutes without traffic). After the interview we had to drive back on I-95. Now driving 95 really took me back because no matter where you are, I-95 is always the same. Lots of traffic, multiple accidents, and just people driving badly in general. I had the nostalgic feeling for all of 10 minutes until I started getting pissed because it took an hour and a half to get home................ so much for nostalgia :P

Damn traffic

This morning I was not a happy camper. I was STUCK behind a truck and couldn't get around it. The two other lanes had some weak drivers that were keeping pace with the truck for some odd reason which backed everything up. Regardless, my ass was late to work! BOOOO!!!

More Stewies Pics

I freakin love Stewies!! Here's a pic I took of the sign while I was freezing my ass off in CT. I should contact Stew Jr. and see if he'll let me open a store down here in Florida so I'll never be without Stewies again! Publix sucks in comparison!! :P

It's going to be a good week at work

Most people consider a good week at work being a week full of nothing to do. Mine is going to be full of meetings but thats not whats going to make it a good week. First thing, I'm going to take Friday off to see the in-laws in South Florida which should be fun. I still don't like leaving my cats alone for days at a time but I don't think I'll be leaving them alone for days at time much after this trip until the summer time. Second, and most importantly, its going to be jeans week at work and I'll be able to wear my favorite jersey at work too! That means I get to break out the NY Yankee jersey's that I have in my closet. WHOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Man I love my job sometimes :)

Kameo

I've started playing the only game I ignored when I got my Xbox 360 and thats Kameo: Elements of Power. I'm taking a break from Project Gotham Racing (I hate running my car through cones), and Perfect Dark Zero (you can only stand getting killed in 10 seconds so many times and by the computer no less) for the time being and I'm concentrating on this game. Suprisingly this is one of the more fun games that I've had. The only thing thats kind of a drag is that you have to search around for stuff and the controls are a little off when you're trying to whoop ass.

The graphics are freakin awesome and I love the funny animations that are included. Maybe I'll be lucky and this will turn out to be a long game although I hear that it should take a gamer about 10 hours to complete. I like to take my time with games so normally it takes me twice as long as a normal person since I like sniffing around for goodies in the game. Now I wonder what game to get next...................... I'm thinking maybe a PC game (I haven't done that in a long time) called Star Wars: Empire at War!

A good story for people who like cats :)

A Dog Man Gets a Cat - I never liked cats much. Then Mother moved into my barn. By Jon Katz

Connecticut Wedding Trip

This past weekend I went up to CT for my sister in law's wedding. She lives in South Florida but decided to have it up north so it won't be such a hassle for friends and family to attend. The wedding was great and the food excellent. However, I have to blame her new husband for wishing for snow on the day of the wedding. Not only did it get bone chilling COLD (we're talking teens here people and thats without windchill), but the roads were a total mess!

I had the honor of being able to drive my wife's mothers Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder (that was a lot of fun) to the wedding and the day before I drove Claire's old truck to run errands. The Church and Reception were both in upstate CT and if anyone knows upstate CT, there's practically nothing there but woods and really small roads that twist and turn a lot. There were a couple of downed trees along the route and it didn't help things that I didn't have windshield washer fluid for the car until after I arrived at the church.

The bachelor party that I attended was kick ass and I met some really cool guys that were part of the wedding party. I'll post up some pics later on of the wedding. Not many pics of me though since I'm the photographer :)

I love Stewies

I'm back in the northeast and I just took a trip to my favorite grocery store which is only available up here. Stew Leonards is the largest dairy store in the world and they also have some of the best food anywhere. I used to go there all the time when I used to live up. I think I want to retire back up here because there is nothing like living in your home town :)

Oh happy day!

Yesterday was an excellent day! I found out my company just hired my wife!! Whoohoo!! Time to partay and celebrate! :)

I beat my first Xbox 360 Game!!

Last night I was able to beat Call of Duty 2 for Xbox 360. I have to admit that the game was plenty challenging since I can't remember the number of times I died in the game. The last level was tons of fun! Kill ton's of Germans, and put sticky bombs on 2 tanks while not getting killed..... yeah like thats easy! Now that I've beaten the game, I think I'm either going to move on to Project Gotham Racing (I'm pretty far along in the game so it makes sense to continue it) or I'll start clearing house on Perfect Dark Zero (I'm on Level 4 of this game and so far its been kicking my ass thoroughly).

I think I'm pretty much done with Dead or Alive 4 but I haven't gotten all the costumes yet or the final unlockable character but its only a matter of time. I've beaten the game with everyone else though in Story Mode and the end movies for the characters are pretty freakin sweet if I do say so myself. Tonight I shall be doing some more gaming since this weekend I won't have any time to do so at all.

Cold mornings stink

Normally I don't mind cold mornings. The only time cold mornings stink is when my car refuses to start. My car is relatively new, its a 2002 Nissan Altima but for some reason my particular Altima doesn't like the cold. When its cold and I don't drive my car for a few days it just kinda turns over but the engine never catches so the car won't start. After cranking it for like 15-20 minutes the car will finally start but its still quite frustrating. I think my car just needs a garage or something so its not just sitting out there in the cold. Then I think my problems will be solved! Anyone wanna give me money to buy a house so I can garage my car???

Kickin Virtual Ass

I got in some good game time last night. I was able to play through a level of Call of Duty 2 and get a few more costumes for Dead or Alive 4. I still play Call of Duty 2 more than Perfect Dark Zero right now but only because I'm so far into the game I might as well finish it. I think I have another 2 levels to go and then the game should be finished.

Last night I was able to do something I've never been able to do before. I was able to beat the last boss character in Dead or Alive 4 on the first try using Ryu Hayabusa. Normally he's not even close to being my best character but for some reason I was on fire when I used him. For those of you that know Dead or Alive 4, the AI for the last boss character is really really cheap when it comes to hitting you and disappearing as you're laying the smack down on it. But last night, I kicked her butt but didn't win a new costume since I had them all......... Oh well, maybe tonight I'll finish another level in Call of Duty 2 and hopefully I won't get my ass whipped.

Treo 700W has arrived!

After a little less than a year, the new Palm Treo 700W has arrived. What makes this sucker so special besides being newer than my current Palm Treo 650? Well for one thing, I'm running Palm OS 5 on my current 650 and this sucker runs Windows Mobile 5. Yes thats right, a Palm device is actually running a Windows OS on it. I haven't seen that many reviews on it since it just hit Verizon (its only available from Verizon for now but it will come out to other carriers I think) but from the specs I've seen, this thing is pretty sweet! It has EVDO high speed data connections (that would have been nice to have on the 650) and it has a 1.3 Megapixel camera plus even more memory. Man I'm jealous! I will just have to wait and see how people like the thing and who knows, maybe in 2 years when they come out with the Treo 800 I'll pick that up.

Right now I have my sights on getting an SD card for my PDA as well as the TomTom GPS Navigation 5 software and GPS device so I can use my PDA for GPS in my car. That should be really useful in the coming months. Now if I only had money to actually get it.............

Late night DOA-fest

Last night I stayed up till 1AM playing Dead or Alive 4. I was determined to get at least all the end movies for the characters and I pretty much succeeded. I have even unlocked 3 of the 4 hidden characters. Now I have to work on getting all of the new costumes for the characters which is why I was up so late. I must say that I'm starting to get a better hang of the game, I can semi counter people now but I still don't know even 1/4 of the moves that can be done and the practice section isn't all that great. I tried it last night and the moves are kinda hard to pull off but I'm going to work on it some more later so I can hopefully counter the cheap moves the computer does to me.

I need to dive into some of the other games so I don't lose my skills in playing them. Maybe I'll finish Call of Duty 2 this weekend and then start up on Perfect Dark Zero after that. PGR3 will be afterwards but that depends on my mood. Tonight, more gaming maddness with DOA4! WOOHOO!!

Jason's Xbox 360 Game Reviews

Welcome to my personal views about the new Xbox 360 games I have the absolute pleasure of owning. First I want to thank my wife Claire for getting me the 360 for Christmas and also for not getting too mad when I play hours on end. Now on to my impressions about each game.

First up is Dead or Alive 4. This is my most recent game and 3 in the series that I own. I have Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast and Dead or Alive 3 for Xbox. I have to say that without a doubt this is the toughest one I've played. The AI is cheap as hell with its shots and I have no idea how to do half of the new combo moves. On the other hand it is quite satisfying when I finally am able to beat someone and lord over them like I am the Master of creation. The visuals are just bad ass all around. I wish I understood the story more and if there was an easier difficulty setting so it wouldn't take me about 30 minutes to get past the last guy. The new characters are SWEET. I'll probably end up using them a lot during survival matches but right now I'm concentrating on getting all the new costumes and that means playing tons of story mode. It should keep me occupied for a good long while I hope.



Call of Duty 2 is just awesome. It's pretty hard at first but once you get the hang of it, its just a great first person shooter. Since I have the original Xbox, I approach a lot of the first person shooter games like I do Halo. This is one game you should not play like Halo. It's hard to aim well in the game because the weapons are replica's of what was used back then and the weapons back then weren't all that accurate. If you have a machine gun, you gotta get up fairly close to waste someone. I don't even bother with pistols. I like the smoke grenade though, that has helped me out a ton by putting up a huge smoke screen to hide my ass while I went about flanking someone and pasting their guts on a wall or something. I'm almost done with this one and its one of my favorites thus far. Highly recommend picking this one up.




I am typically a Burnout kind of person where the cars are fast and you can hit things. PGR3 is more like a simulation where everything is pretty realistic except for crashing but thats ok. The physics in the game is pretty dead on in terms of what would happen if you were doing some of the corners in a real car and thats a good thing. The graphics and sounds are awesome and I love the fact I can buy all these super expensive cars like Porches and Bently's and tons of other cars that I've never even heard of. The racing action at first doesn't seem fast but when you get some of the more powerful cars it really ramps up. I prefer doing the races but there are a bunch of challenges that you have to win as well in order to progress in the game. I could live without these since I'm not good at them but I guess it all goes back into making me a better driver.




Kameo I haven't played a lot of but from what I've seen its pretty fun to turn into different monsters and kick their asses. I'll give a better update once I've actually sat down and played it for a good long time.














Wow, thats what I have to say about this game. It's pretty hard and its another first person shooter like Call of Duty 2. The difference here is that stealth is the name of the game. You have to be sneaky a lot and you have tons of weapons with scopes and stuff. One of the best features is the ability to take cover behind objects, pop out and bust a cap in someones ass. The game is pretty rough, I'm only on level 4 (I got Dead or Alive 4 so I stopped playing this game for a little bit). The enemies are pretty intelligent too, they'll run around to make themselves harder to hit and take cover around objects to avoid your fire. I'm going to try and play this a little more this weekend. I'm sure once I get a better handle on the controls I'll be able to kick some butt in this one.





Well thats it in a nutshell. For professional reviews on all this stuff, I recommend Gamespot, IGN, or Teamxbox. If I don't blog a lot over the coming days, its because I'm having too much fun playing my games :)

It's been a while.......

Since I've put anything up on my blog. I've been out of the office for a good long time and I didn't feel like getting online and blogging about whats been going on. So now that I'm back and it's pretty close to my lunch break, I thought I'd give an update.

I recently went on a trip to Hawaii to visit my father, that was fun and I got to eat real Chinese food for once. I have pics from my trip on previous posts so I won't bother reciting what I did. What was significant to me was the trip back. Never in my entire life have I ever wanted to get off a plane so bad. We hit major turbulance from Hawaii all the way to Texas. Thats around 3000 miles of just going up and down, up and down and watching everything on the plane shake. They even suspended food service for most of the flight because the pilot told the flight attendants to stay in their seats. It almost made me swear off of flying for a while but I have another trip to take in January but its only like 2000 miles to NY so that should be fine.

Christmas was pretty good this year. I went to South Florida to see my wife's family and to exchange gifts. I went to midnight mass as well although I didn't stay for the whole thing, just the important parts. I'm still slightly weirded out that people hold hands during the Our Father part of the Mass. I don't know if its because I'm from the Northeast or something but I have this thing about holding hands in Church, just don't do it with me!! Stay away!! LOL My gifts this year were super sweet and I got the best ones from my wife of course. She was kind and generous enough to get me an Xbox 360!! Whoohoo! I also have 4 games to keep me occupied. I'm actually almost done with one, started 2 more and have to finally start the 4th. I have Kameo: Elements of Power, Dead or Alive 4, Call of Duty 2, and Project Gotham Racing 3. I'll probably go into each of them in some other post of mine when I get bored.

After Christmas I headed home with my wife. I had the rest of the week off because my company was awesome and gave us from Dec 23-Jan 2 off from work. So what did I do with my time off? Play video games of course!! My hands hurt from playing so much but its been fun as hell too. I even got a new game for my GameCube that was given to me from my Secret Santa called Mario Power Strikers (its a soccer game) that my wife and I play a lot since we can play against the computer together.

New Years wasn't that eventful, basically stayed up till midnight at home and toasted the new year with some Champaigne.

I saw a couple of movies too during my break. I forget what the first one was but it was a flick that my wife chose since it was her turn. I chose to see King Kong and I have to say that it was pretty good. There were some parts that were just outright nasty but the movie certainly didn't feel like it was 3 hours long.

Now I'm back to the grinder toiling away like always. Here's to another year of fun in Floriduh! Good thing I'm going up north in 2 weeks, I get to have some Garden Catering maybe and if I can swing it, yet more Chinese food :)