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Weekend Before Christmas

Jason — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:49:40 +0000

Time to report on my doings over the weekend.

My Christmas shopping is now completed. I took Friday off from work and this ended up being a good decision since I needed to venture out to the stores to finish off my shopping stuff. But it is now completed and ready for our family gathering on Thursday (we do present stuff on Christmas Eve now since my sister is busy pretty much all day christmas)

Friday evening was quite a fun experience in City of Heroes. I joined up with Wassy and some of the folks that inhabit the Fan Art section of the City of Heroes forums for an evening of hanging out and chatting. It was really fun. Great conversation with everybody and I hope I get the chance to do that again at some point in the future. I was a bit apprehensive about fitting in since I’m more an outsider to that particular group of people but it was a really fun experience.

Speaking of art, Wassy has been working on the Christmas themed Frost piece for me over the past couple days. I’ve been trying to be good about not looking because I want to be surprised, but she gave me a peek yesterday and her current progress is extremely promising. I can’t want to see the final version. My levels of anticipation for this gift are high. I’m looking forward to it as much, if not even more than spending time with my family this week. I really, really appreciate it when she takes time out of her (now incredibly busy) schedule to do something for me.

Onwards to my other activities. I actually finished working on a web site design! After floundering around a months after finishing Wassy’s site, I was able to actually put another one through to completion, which was a website to host the City of Heroes Fan Art Forum art competition that she’s hosting next year. I need to have it done by January, so it’s a good thing I got it all set now. Eddy Swan (from the art forum, we’ve been chatting since we played the game together on friday night) helped out a bunch with a logo concept which was a big part of what the design was missing.

So now, to start working through the longest three days of work of the year before my huge vacation begins…

What Can You Buy For 98 Cents?

Jason — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:47:30 +0000

A while back, I purchased a new phone to replace my aging Blackberry. As with many phones, this one came with a $50 rebate…and instead of actually sending a check (because that would make sense), AT&T sends out these pre-loaded credit cards. In my case, $50.

I know why they do it. In addition to trying to get people who are too lazy to send the rebate in, or who make a mistake on the rebate form or who's form gets lost in the mail…now they're trying to get people a different way by putting their rebate on a card that expires in 3 months where it's almost impossible to spend the entire thing because of the little bit of change at the end. So they only have to pay out $48 instead of $50, and all these people not using that little bit adds up.

Well not me! My card has 98 cents left on it and, darn it, I'm going to use it! So I need to find something that costs exactly 98 cents…hmmm…

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This Weekend…Too Short…

Jason — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:31:37 +0000

This was the first regular weekend I've had in a couple weeks due to
Christmas and New Years extending things outward, so needless to
say…it felt REALLY short. Also compounding the shortness was a nice
trip out to Syracuse with my friends for some shopping and dinner.

Wassy needed to go out to Syracuse to pick up some art supplies (the
supply stores in this area are really bad) so we planned a day trip out
to syracuse for our usual weekend hanging out. The art shopping took a
lot less time than anticipated because they didn't have a certain type
of marker that she wanted to browse for. So we ended up getting to
Carousel Center for the window shopping with approximately 4-5 hours to
kill before we had to eat dinner.

Some actual shopping was done (they needed to get some clothes stuff
and pillows at JC Pennys and I was shopping for a measuring spoon for
tea measurement at work) but most of the time was spent wandering
around and browsing items. A couple things of note happened. While we
were sitting in pottery barn in some of the display chairs, a woman
walked up to us, set her bags down on the couch and said that we should
watch them since she couldn't cary them another step. We thought that
was weird…I'm not sure we look very trustworthy either…I'm pretty
certain I'd never just drop my bags off with random strangers sitting
in a store…

We also spent a lot of time in Brookstone playing with the gadgets they
have on display. Especially the massage chairs. Ooooh…I want one of
those. Sooo nice. The feet massage specifically was well appreciated
after wandering around most of the day. I was a little worried they
were going to kick us out of the store since we were spending so much
time in the chairs, but we ended up wandering out eventually.

I also discovered a coffee based beverage I like. At the urging of my
friends I tried out a Mocha Frappuccino from starbucks and I found out
I really liked it. I don't like coffee mostly because I'm fairly
sensitive to bitter tastes and coffee is a little too much for me. But
this was a good ratio of coffee to chocolate taste and was quite good
indeed.

After a quick stop at Barnes and Noble we ended up at Olive Garden a little early (5pm)
which was a good thing as even by that time, it was a 35 minute wait.
We hung out for a while and eventually were seated for a fine meal. We
had a good waitress, good conversation and good food. So it all worked
out quite nicely.

By the time we got done eating, it had started to snow, so our drive time got extended because the roads were becoming very slick. We eventually made it back in one piece though.

Sunday was the standard hanging out and relaxing day. I did a little
bit of cleaning around the apartment but nothing major. I ended up
playing City of Heroes for a little over an hour for the first time in
a while which was fun. I was really missing the game as it turns out.
And later I watched the Golden Globes because I was interested to see
if Heath Ledger won. Which he did, but I totally missed it as I had
stepped out for a few minutes to head over to my parents and didn't
hear that award was coming up. Dah!!
I caught it later on through the magic of the internet and it was
really moving. He totally deserves any award he can possibly win for
that role and I really hope that the fact that he died doesn't cause
him to not be nominated for an Oscar. His performance as the Joker is
probably the best bit of acting I've ever seen.

So, another weekend down, 5 more days until it rolls around again…

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Stupid Power Outages…

Jason — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:07:10 +0000

I had yesterday all planned out. I was going to go out and see if I could located something to prevent my fish from being sucked up into the filter again as well as a few more books and a shower head…It was a very eclectic shopping trip you see. After that I had one activity planned and that was to watch Apollo 13. I haven't seen it in a while and I've never seen it in widescreen with 5.1 sound and it's one of my favorite movies, so I got it from netflix and was going to watch it.

I left here around noon, got back around 2-3 and just as I was getting ready to start the movie a huge storm came through through. Sheets of rain, lots of wind, the works. Just as the storm died down the power flickered and died.

Crap.

Centaur Aisle (Xanth Novels)

I started reading one of the books I bought (Centaur Aisle…part of the Xanth series) and after a half hour I called the power company. Their automated message said that they were going to have the power back by 5:45pm, so I figured I'd tough it out . 5:45 passes and still no power. By this time I've read about 50 pages into my book, played several games of solitaire and installed the new shower head. Therefore I was running out of stuff to do.

I went over to my parents for some food since my stove refuses to work with no power and they have a gas grill over there and to play a game of Monopoly which I lost very quickly. Stupid Railroads…

After that I went over to some friends who had power to escape for a bit because the power company was giving a 6am estimate. And then I got home from there and the power was back on, but the internet was dead. Arrgh! Thankfully it's all working now.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need go watch a movie before the power goes out again.

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Hah! I Feel Safer Already

Jason — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:51:28 +0000

Take That Annoying Kids!

So I was at the mall today, picking up some odds and ends (Cereal, Shampoo and a new belt if you must know) and I saw the sign pictured to the right in the food court. I felt like doing a little dance right there, which I didn’t because I didn’t really want to attract attention to myself.

I HATE those stupid Heelys. If you’re not familiar with the craze, they’re a cross between shoes and roller skates. Kids rolling around, not paying any attention to where they’re going… I’ve almost been run over a couple times by kids wearing those things.

Now, don’t get me wrong…if I was in that age demographic, I’d probably be overjoyed if I owned a pair. But now that I’m (just barely) old enough to start talking about how things were back when I was in middle school with phrases such as “Kids these days…” and “I was never that much of a brat, was I?”, those shoes are incredibly annoying.

And The Strangest Place To Get a Wii Goest To…

Jason — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:55:47 +0000

The Home Depot! (EDIT: Bah, the link is bad…home depot’s site is weird)

I just came across this on the amazon forums. I can’t believe they’re even thinking about selling them there. Of course, they don’t have any in stock, but…if they do…I’m ready to pounce.

I wonder who the heck first found that one out. You’ve gotta be pretty desperate to randomly search for Wii on the home depot website.