Mission Completed

Had our annual Christmas dinner Saturday. It was a lot less crazy than last year: only 14 guests instead of 25 or whatever it was. I actually found the seating to be fairly reasonable. I was in the kitchen a lot cooking for the first part of the evening, but it was a tenderloin roast, so it wasn't too awfully demanding. The roast actually got done roughly around the time the last guests showed up, so it came out of the oven just about perfectly done. It must have been good because most of it got eaten. A nine pound roast is a lot bigger than one might think it would be. Also prepared a couple of pies and some cookies which were also popular. There was much merrymaking and a good time was had by all. Sunday was a _much_ more laid back day than Saturday, after all the excitement that had been building up. Derek stayed over because he is currently sans car, so we took him home Sunday afternoon. We went out last night and saw the animated Christmas Carol in 3D which was quite good despite Jim Carey starring. He was a lot more restrained than he could have been, considering his resume. Now back to work, which hopefully is going to be nice and quite for the next couple of weeks.

Halloween Weekend

Friday: Went to the city to see Kevin Smith talk. He's a funny, if somewhat random guy. I was impressed to see him spend an hour going afield on a question, only to round back and actually answer said question eventually.

Saturday: Sleeping in, errand running, then hung out with Doug and Catherine for a while at their place. Noelle dressed up as Sexy Maid and I pulled out my Space Ghost costume. Then headed up to Redwood estates, where Bev and Spence and Esther and Kevin live. Hung out at their community's Halloween party for a while. Bev and Spence won best couples costume award for their Where the Wild Things Are costumes (Doug was also dressed as Max at their thing, popular costume this year). Noelle has pictures. Then we headed up to Bev and Spence's place, where I had never been before and socialized some more. Split around 2 or 3. I forget which. Daylight savings time ended. Watched Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Slept.

Sunday: Lazy day with limited objectives. Spent a fair amount of time driving around looking for Halloween paraphernalia that was discounted. Had a delicious dinner at Morton's (too much food!) and then went to see Where the Wild Things Are, which I would probably not recommend for children. Kinda sad. Then went home and watched Halloween movies (Donnie Darko and The Nightmare Before Christmas) before turning in.

This morning: Trying to figure out why Safari has developed Alzheimer's. Eventually ended up upgrading to 3.2.3 from 3.2.1 and the lockups so far <knock on wood> seem to have passed.

Weekend Redux

1. Buy tulips and other plants for spring planting projects. Check.


2. Buy tickets to New Zealand on the spur of the moment. Check.


3. Go to Karaoke Birthday Party for Aki and Rachel, sing three songs, drink a few drinks. Check.


4. Go to Doug and Catherine's Get-Rid-of-Our-Booze-Party afterwards, drink a few drinks. Check.


5. Drink enough water to avoid headache in morning. Check.


6. Buy more tulips for spring planting projects. Check.


7. Find out about calling plans in Greece and Turkey. Check.


8. Get some new boots to replace my embarassingly worn Asolos. Check.


9. Get some travel books about New Zealand. Check.


10. Pay bills. Check.


11. Process more photo a day project pictures. Check.

I guess there's a reason why I feel like the weekend was a busy one.

Another weekend, another blog post

Well, I sort of got the recovery I wished for last weekend. Friday night I was sort of planning on getting my tax papers ready for today and maybe some Fallout 3, but I ended up having dinner at Amber and Morgan's with Noelle and then going over to Will's for a tour of his spacious abode, some board games (well, just Carcasonne, really), and a viewing of Hellboy 2 on his ginormous tv.

After that late night adventure (I think we got home around 3), we completely blew off Wondercon this weekend. I have mixed feelings about it, but it was really nice to sleep in. We also got a number of errands run that we would not have otherwise gotten to, I think and I had a pleasant afternoon with Noelle, culminating in dinner at Zao in Palo Alto. After dinner we joined the other nerds at the beautiful Fox Oakland theater for Video Games Live. Noelle had fabulous seats (second row orchestra) and the sound was outstanding. Best of all, I was able to haul my camera gear into the theater and hopefully I have some fantastic pictures. Need to get some image processing done, I think I am about three weeks behind now.

Sunday was another super sleep in day. We got up late, visited a nursery to look at rose bushes, went to a bookstore, got some stuff at OSH and that pretty much completed the day before we met up with Aki, Rachel, and Cindy to see Milk at the movies. I guess Sean Penn's performance might have been a little better than Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, but I think it was a bad luck for Rourke. After getting home, I pretty much spent the rest of the night getting ready for my Monday morning tax appointment.

And this morning was crazy too. Got up early to call a tow truck to take away the Z, which has been suffering from some new electrical malady, hauled some stuff out of the garage to donate, took Noelle to get a breakfast sandwich to placate her for needlessly waking her up early, saw my tax guy, and then rushed in to work to catch the last part of our monthly planning meeting. I am bushed and I have to take Noelle to the hospital tomorrow to have her gall bladder out. Too much stuff too close together.

Weekend

Kind of a weird weekend. Friday night we went to see Mirrors with Rachel. If you're taking the night watchman job because they had replace the last one in a hurry, maybe you should ask why. Or inquire why the old department store you're watching over burned down in the first place. And if you see weird shit in the mirrors, perhaps you should stop working there. This Kiefer Sutherland vehicle was working ok (other than some excruciating dialog that periodically made _me_ want to cut my throat with a shard of broken mirror) as a somewhat cheesy albeit occasionally very violent horror movie until about the last twenty minutes. At that point I threw up my hands and mocked it as an Army of Darkness/Evil Dead wannabe. Don't ask. Let's just say that I think the writers painted themselves into a corner and didn't really know how to resolve the movie.

Saturday we got up really late. And then there was reading. And then some eating. And then some more reading. And some video games. It was a good, good day.

Sunday we got up late again (boy I miss that) and some of Noelle's friends from VA were in town escaping from the fog of San Bruno, so we had a hot dog with them and caught up on what was new up north. Then we nipped home for some yard work before heading over to Palo Alto to have dinner with Zak and Angie at Zao. After that we decided to check out the Clone Wars animated movie. It was ok. Better than at least than Episode I. (Noelle liked it better than two of the prequels.) Plot summary: The Jedi Knights must rescue Jabba the Hutt's kidnapped son in order to move Republican troops around the space blockade established by their enemies.

Busy Weekend

(click to see flickr set)

Noelle's BFF from high school, April came from SoCal to visit us last weekend. April wanted to go see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so we went down to Monterey on Saturday. The aquarium had some traveling exhibits I hadn't seen before, including fresh water otters which were really cool. The jellyfish exhibits were also fascinating to watch as usual. They had an ocean sunfish there, which I haven't seen in a while at the aquarium. New since my last visit was a new entrance with a large exhibit dedicated to the history of fishing at Cannery Row (where the aquarium is located). My only disappointment was not being able to find any cuttlefish, which are probably my favorite fish there.

After extracting all the goodness possible from Monterey, we skidaddled northwards to Santa Cruz, where we were just in time to get some yummy greek food at Vasili's. Man, I love that place. I am also very fond of Cafe Pergolesi, where we went for coffee afterwards. We finally ended up at the boardwalk where Aki was sitting in at a very respectable blues band at a bar there.

The next day we got up late, but in time to go see The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor before taking April to the airport. The movie was ok. The fight scenes were very respectable, the effects were fab, the dialog caused my brain to try and escape from my skull, and the story was... average. Pretty much, there is a mummy with a dark backstory and someone wakes him up and Brendan Fraser and company have to put a stop to it. You know the drill. Oh, and there are yeti in the movie. Kung-fu yeti. I'm not making this up.

Anyway, that a whole lot of Dr Who watching pretty much took up my weekend. Which is now over. Sigh.

Busy Weekend

Friday night we drove a million miles to Concord to see Duran Duran. They're actually still holding up pretty well after all these years. They trotted out all the hits (except "New Moon On Monday").

Saturday was spent cleaning up the house and working outdoors in preparation for the BBQ on Sunday. Both lawns got mowed and the plants generally got cared for.

Sunday we had about 30-35 people over for a BBQ to celebrate all of our friends' birthdays for the month of May. It started out as a small gathering for a couple friends, but it kind of got out of control. People got see our newly painted interior walls and the bookcases we put up in the living room (the spring remodeling project) to house the Video Collection of Doom (fills two Billy™ bookcases). We had a fire in the fireplace outside as it was a bit chilly towards the end of the afternoon. This was a bit unusual as normally when we have people over it's really hot. Anyway, everybody seemed to have a splendid afternoon, so it was well worth the preparation. Then a number of us went out to see Iron Man. Good times!

Happy Rainy Weekend

This was a pretty good weekend, all things being equal. We got a hint of rain Friday night taking George out to the comedy club in Sunnyvale (Comedian: "If I have an erection that lasts more than four hours, I'm not going to call a doctor. I'm calling a fucking newspaper!" Pure gold.) for her birthday. Saturday morning I woke up to the sound and smell of rain outside the bedroom window. And then went right back to sleep. Got up for some bagels and some Bioshock in the afternoon. We eventually got going in time to get to Fus' going away party in Milpitas at 6. Then back to Kingman where there was more merriment until the wee hours of the morning. Sunday Noelle and I got up at a reasonable 12:30 (no rain this time) and went to Stacks in Campbell for some brekkers. We hunted around fruitlessly for an iPod (how punny!, haha!) and then drove up to Crystal Springs for a nice long walk in the trees. The water level is really, really low at the reservoir! We really must be in a drought. After the walk, there was talk of lemon chicken soup, which pretty much necessitated driving over 92 to Half Moon Bay and down the coast to Santa Cruz for a quick dinner. Then back home, so I could catch part of Sasquatch Night Sunday at Kingman. Meh. Let me just say that Abominable pretty much is self descriptive, although Rear Window meets Sasquatch is a close second. Return to Sasquatch Mountain (or whatever it was called) was hardly any better, although Lance Hendriksen had a lot better dialog in that movie. WTF possessed him to make not one, not two, but three Sasquatch movies??? He must have a lot of ex-wives or something. RtSM(owiwc) had the talkiest dialog I've ever seen in such a shitty movie. It was as if the screenwriter really wanted to talk about what led bankrobbers and lawmen to come together in the woods, but the only way they could get that movie made was to make a Sasquatch flick. Oy vey. Anyway, that was the comedown for the weekend.