Well, as far as i can tell, the Bunguin is on the mend. I've been ok - seems i've managed to hold whatever it was off thus far.

Turkey day was good - even with just the three of us. Since Justin (Xerxes) was kinda on his own this year, he brought over some mashed potatos and came over and hung out with us. I think i may have addicted him to AOE2.

Sheri made a great turkey - especially since it was her first time doing it by herself. We had/have a lot of it left over too - i think she had turkey at least once every day last weekend. She also made some great cranberry sauce jello stuff.

Friday we did NOT go shopping. Well, not really anyway. Most of the day we just sort of hung out. We did go over to Turtles Nest Toys for a while - not to buy anything, but because Sam (Shasam - not that he's signed on in forever) was working there and he told us to come by and check out a game they had called Dread Pirate. It looks pretty cool. We also put up some christmas decorations - namely the little tree we have. It's cool. I like christmas lights.

The coffeehouse that night was pretty fun. I got to play some songs with Sam for his show and later he and his friend Ben and I messed around playing everything from Decemberists to Cream.

On saturday Sheri and I went christmas shopping. It actually wasn't nearly as crowded as i might have thought. I discovered the advantages of having a cell phone yet again by calling my mom a couple of times from various places to ask questions about what to get for a couple of my family members. We got most of the rest of our shopping done that day, though some of the quests i believe were epic.

I think my favorite part of saturday's exploits was the sheer number of penguins encountered. This time of year is always pretty good for that, but, either i'm getting better at seeing them, or there are more and more of them every year. The giant Playmobile pirate standing outside Bear & Friends was pretty cool too.

We stopped at Dice for a few minutes to check the price on something and talk to Charlotte for a bit (she's fun to talk to). We showed her the penguinification pictures on here. It was only fair, seeing as she was one of the ones who helped buy it for me.

Yesterday was sunday which means we stayed in Erwin all day. This amounted to church, pizza hut, a nap on the choir room floor and a game of ticket to ride before choir practice that evening. Sundays always seem long.

~PS

As of sometime this last weekend, sheri and i have become somewhat sick - though sheri moreso than me. According to her doctor visit yesterday, she has some sort of viral resperatory thing that just needs to do its thing and get out. It is contagious, and i probably have it too - though, as yet, i haven't been nearly so affected as she has. Yearly allergy and sinus problems we tend to have are probably adding to this mish-mash. Lovely.

Sheri has all but lost her voice. It's really kinda funny to hear her talk. When she gets sick, her vocal range picks itself up and moves down a minor 3rd.

Anyway, doc said she could go back to work on thursday if she was feeling better. Hopefully this will be so and we will go ahead with our thanksgiving "plans" - which pretty much involve hanging out here with another friend stuck away from other friends and family this holiday, eating the usual turkey & stuff and most likely playing lan games.

As for me, i'm hoping my body does as good a job fighting it off as it has so far. The only consistent symptoms i've had can just as easily be attributed to allergies - allergies that seemed to kick off the year on saturday when i tried to play Paper Mario 2 at the Lair around ginger's cat for a couple of hours. That didn't work out so well.

(speaking of the furball, i need to go check on him this evening...)

~PS

Well, it seems i/we have got sheri addicted to another video game. That in itself is not all that remarkable - i remember when she always used to want to play Paper Mario, the Secret of Mana and Yoshi's Island - but this, this is serious.

Considering what i had to go through to talk her into trying Age of Empires 2, I never would have thought she would have latched onto it like she has. She's gone to playing at least 1 game per day (often finishing one she had started the previous day, and then starting another) and frequently asks if i'll reboot into windows and play with her.

Now, i like the game quite a bit, and we play a bit with the EP as well. Also, I've often become entranced by video games myself (my current addiction is Mechwarrior 4 - which i am trying to talk someone into playing multiplayer with me), but there's something disconcerting about hearing her randomly say "mur-der holes. he he he" from across the room and that she tells me when she dreams, little red arrows appear where everyone is walking to and the surrounding landscape goes from dark to light as it comes within view. When asked about it, she says 'I can quit any time i want to'.

All this combined with this article I found through slashdot may be cause for concern.

;)

~PS

Ok, something seriously strange happened to lain last night.

I had come out to get some juice at about 4am this morning, because it sounded good. I had gone to bed rather early so i decided to see if anyone had posted here or sent me an im or something. (curiously, i was less tired at 4am than i was at 8:40 when i got up this morning)

Well, that's when it started. I went to turn on monitor 2 of 3, and it went 'Clack clack clack' as the power button flashed. I unplugged it. The green light on the front stayed on. This freaked me out, until i unplugged it from the machine itself and it went off. Each time i returned power to the monitor thereafter, it went 'tick tick tick' in a fashion much too remenicent of a time bomb to suit me. Diagnosis: monitor fall down go boom.

Curiously, in my place, losing a monitor isn't a big deal. Knowing there were two more in the closet, i went back to bed.

This morning, i got up and replaced the monitor. Apparently my monitors death caused my video card to freak out. I have decided that it just doesn't deal with loss well, and without another monitor to comfort it, it was a real mess. I logged out to restart X. More gibberish. I turned off the computer and turned it back on. I got a bios beep code. I didn't know exactly what it was for, but i guessed it had something to do with the video card. I tried restarting the machine again. Still beep code. I took off the side panel and jiggled the video card. No beep code.

No, this time it told my my secondary master IDE drive (my cd burner) was ATAPI incompatible. Bull. I restarted it, thinking it was fluke. Still incompatible. I learned a long time ago not to put the side panel back on a machine after 'fixing' something until the darn thing actually works again, and i was glad i had remembered that lesson now. (not that taking the thumb screws out is a big deal) I disconnected and reconnected the IDE cable from the motherboard. Restarted.

Everything is apparently fine now.

WTF?

~PS

Well folks, it was bound to happen. Due to some...stuff...at work, our little IT company is now short one staff member (3 - 1 = 2). It was a friendly parting, just a sort of a personality clash that ultimately made things too difficult.

That, however, is not what was 'bound to happen' (though, in retrospect, it was bound to happen).

When Brian left, i inherited his cell phone. Yes, you read right - i now i have a cell phone. Warren's exact words to me on the matter were "It's yours now - make it your own". Yeah, my boss is cool.

So now i have to learn stuff about how cell phones work. It only took me 15 minutes to figure out how to delete people i didn't know from the phone book. Yeah, i'm just that cool.

I also have to do things like remember i have one and turn it off at appropriate times so i'm not one of those annoying people.

Anyway, I have unlimited calling as long as i'm in the tri-cities area. The number is posted in the General Forum for those of you who are members of this site.

Add +1 to my tech score.

~PS

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I've been assimilated into a blog ring(ish) game. This is all Punkie's doing. Not that this is unexpected. I mean, she has 'punk' right there in her alias. ;)

So here's the game:

----------------------------------

The rules are:

Search your blog archive. Find your 23rd post. Find the fifth sentence (this is meant to say something about you). Post that sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Tag five people to do the same.

My 23rd post, 5th sentence:
"me: "no, i think you have the wrong number""

----------------------------------

That happens to be from This Blog post - which some of you may remember.

It could be my rebellious nature, or it could be that i'm just too lazy, or it could be that the whole thing reminds me too much of chain letters and spam, but i'm gonna have to break the rules on this game a bit by not 'tagging' anyone else.

I only have about 3 friends whose blogs i read anything like regularly (or who read my blog anything like regularly)(that is, until Llama gets one - though he would probably play along), and while Punkie didn't say "no tag-backs!", i believe it was implied. That leaves me with 2 others. Ginger has told me in so many words that she's not as amused by blog games as some, and i'm thinking Kevin's not the right sort of goofy for it. However, i will offer a shotgun attempt at compliance: if anyone reading this thinks it sounds like fun, consider yourself shot. er...'tagged' ('cept you, Punkie).

The cynical part of me tends to think that such blog games sort of violate the spirit of the blog. A blog, as it were, is generally a place for people to say things that they want to say, but really don't care who's listening. It's a sort of way of sharing thoughts, opinions and experiences with people who might actually care without having to have a captive audience including people who don't. As such, blog games seem to just be giving people something to yap about when they really don't have anything to say. (somewhat like supercalifragilisticexpialadocious)

A happier and somewhat more goofy part of me likes Mary Poppins and thinks that websites in general (including blogs) are, for most non-commercial users, in existance only for their enjoyment. As such, they're free to use them however they may choose and even sharing things that have absolutely no intelectual or philosophical merit can still promote community and fun between friends. Party on.

As usual, i think i've thought too much about this.

~PS

It may seem like i have been neglecting the site in general and my blog specifically. The first part is completely untrue, but sadly the second is mostly factual.

Over the last several weeks, i've been rebuilding my website from scratch, fixing some things i didn't like, and adding some features i'd always wanted to. After about a week and a half of labor, Penguinsushi.com version 4.0 is up and running. I'm really happy with this new site and how it works - though it may take a little getting used to for some.

Aside from the web development (for work and for fun), the last couple of weeks have had some coolness in them that i haven't got around to talking about until now.

As you've probably already seen, there are now pictures up from the costume party. Yeah. Dressing up as a giant penguin is great fun. I think i was the entertainment for the evening...at the very least, i had the goofiest costume.

We finally started the second d&d campaign with Eric & Cory last week. I thought it went pretty well. I'm still not sure how much Cory wants to play, but she didn't seem actively bored and seemed to at least enjoy goofing off with us.

Last week we had an open mic at the coffeehouse again. I left my tuner on the piano again. It was a lot of fun though. Sam & I played one of my songs together - mostly because he insisted i play it, and i insisted that i wasn't going to unless he played it with me. I also played a new song i had written called "I think you're reading too much into this." I was very happy with how it sounded, though it's a sort of intense song, and playing it about exhausted me. Anyone who says singing and playing guitar isn't physically exertive has never done it.

also, my parents came down to visit this last weekend. That was cool, i hadn't got to see them since july. It was a short visit, but it was nice.

~PS