cake

I smashed a piece of cake in my wife's face tonight while she proofread our city taxes. It was really, really funny.

What do you know, our camera worked perfectly!

catching up

Hey, I'm still here. I've been working a crapload of hours lately (including saturdays) and haven't had much time for fun things like blogging. However, thanks to the holiday weekend, I have some extra time.

I just finished our taxes. Boy, when you have a kid and a house you get a crapload of money back. I was skeptical about that, so that was a pleasant surprise. When are you going to be able to file city taxes online?

I'm a single parent today. Momma's off at a sewing class so I'm in charge. Xander was being crabby so I put him down for his evening nap. The screaming stopped so I think he's asleep. It was only 5-10 minutes of yelling. It's good that it only lasts that long. Maybe we'll go for a drive later and go to the carwash.

So for Lent I decided to give up sweets. At first I decided to just limit myself to only one per meal, but then Amanda and I were talking and I felt guilty and inspired at the same time so I chose to give up sweets altogether. It hasn't been to bad, except last night when we sat down to watch 'Live Free or Die Hard' and Amanda sat down next to me chomping on a candy bar. I did take advantage of the 'you can have what you give up for Lent on sundays' idea this morning after mass. They had free coffee and doughnuts after mass...and let me tell you, that was one of the BEST doughnuts I've had in a long, long time.

Live Free or Die Hard was a good movie. I didn't realize the Mac guy from the Mac vs PC commercials was in it. He was pretty good. I kept waiting for him to say something Mac-oriented, but he didn't. It was a good action flick. I think I'd most likely put Bruce Willis on my tough-guy list. The semi-truck vs fighter jet was a silly scene, so was the bit in the elevator shaft. It was all realistic up until then :)

addendum

I would like to add to my rant from yesterday that I think Wes Welker of the Patriots would have deserved MVP honors if the Pats would have won. His performance was phenomenal. That little squirt is unstoppable.

We had another fun Home Depot trip this weekend. Bought a hot water heater blanket, an AC cover, a peephole and some wood to build some rolling storage bins under the basement stairs. We also picked up some paint for the master bathroom. We are going to paint it Lauren's Lullaby, which is light pink.

The only problem is I'm not finding too much time to work on my favorite project which is building my little storage area with drawers on wheels in the basement.

Funny thing: while at Home Depot searching for casters for my rolling bins, I asked a HD employee where the casters were and he replied "What's a caster?". I was really surprised, 99% of the time they know exactly what I ask.

Still no hot dog vendor at HD.

Proof!

There is a God and he is just and true! Do you know what is almost as good as your team winning the Superbowl? Watching the Patriots lose the Superbowl!!

"Oooh, look at us Patriots with our perfect season. Oooh, our coach Bill Belichick is a coaching genius. Ooooh, look at Tom Brady he's so awesome. Ooooh, look at his little girlfriend Giselle (oh, but that's not his baby momma!! --classless!)"

Okay, okay, I'll stop with my childish and immature rant. Let's be honest though, how big of a rock do you have to live under if you haven't heard anybody with a soapbox rant and rave at the quest for the perfect season, how good Tom Brady is and what a coaching genius Belichick is? The rock has to be the size of Iowa if you haven't.

I guess my problem is a combination of a few things:
1. Jealousy - because Belichick used to coach the Browns and now everyone strokes his ego about what a genius he is
2. .....

Yeaaa. I guess my problem is just jealousy. But listen, that's enough of the negative comments. I want everyone with a soapbox to jump back on it and cheer for those underdog Giants! Were they 10 or 17 point underdogs? I can't remember the last time I really enjoyed the Superbowl. I really enjoyed it because it was such a close game. I certainly haven't enjoyed that much because my team hasn't been there.

Next year is our year! Remember, starting tomorrow, everyone is undefeated!

vacation?

Where should we go on vacation? We are taking suggestions. Our requirements are:

1. no giant city, -- no NYC or Chicago
2. must be within < 11 hours drive. I think that's all our little X can handle, no flying for him yet
3. it can't be north of us

I think that's it as far as restrictions go.

Last year we picked Charleston, SC on a whim and it turned out to be a great time. Good food, nice city, had some nature stuff in there, American history stuff and cheap hotels. It really was a great time.

So now what? Will the 'just pick something' strategy work for us again? I'm not so certain. I keep getting teased at work with our seemingly random vacation selection. Maybe it's the peer pressure from my peers that makes me doubt my vacation hot spot selection skills.

I'm only 28 and plan on taking many more vacations so the 'just pick something' and go with it strategy seems to be flaw free to me. And as long as we stop at an IHOP or a Waffle House on this vacation Amanda will be satisfied.

So far we've been thinking of Ocean City, MD, Virginia Beach, VA, the Outer Banks,
Chincoteague Island.

Suggestions?

Spartacus -- a real tough guy

We watched Spartacus this past weekend. It almost took all weekend too because the movie is 3 hours long. Watching this movie got me to thinking that these days there are no longer any tough guys in the movies. Sure, we have these big muscle bound guys like Arnold and The Rock. But they aren't tough guys. Sure they might have cooler fight scenes because Jet Li's cousin is the fight sequence choreographer, but they aren't tough. They aren't bad. They don't have grit. They don't make me want to try and walk with a swagger.

Here's my tough guy actor list in the order they float to the top of my head.
1. Kirk Douglas
2. Paul Newman
3. Jack Palance
4. John Wayne
5. Steve McQueen
6. Clint Eastwood

Honorable mention.
1. Harrison Ford
2. Sly Stallone (excluding everything but Rocky 1)
3. Al Pacino
4. Bruce Willis (pre-head shaving days --the cue ball look detracts from toughness)

I will never buy a belkin

So at work I've been experiencing hardware troubles with a Belkin USB KVM. KVM stands for keyboard, video, mouse. A properly working KVM allows you to use one keyboard, one monitor and one mouse to control multiple computers. And in this case, the USB indicates that they keyboard and mouse have USB connectors.

Well, this fine Belkin product (PN: F1DS104U) is a piece of crap and I want to run it over with my truck.


The problem with this KVM is that the hotkeys don't work. Hotkeys allow you to switch between one computer and the next with certain keystrokes. In my case, it is imperative that they hotkeys work because the KVM is inside a temperature controlled enclosure. Opening the doors to switch computers defeats the purpose of having the KVM.

Oh, but wait...there are firmware updates! Just plug a cat-5 cable into your PC and plug the other end of it into the RJ45 jack on the back.... Wait a tic! There's no RJ45 jack on the back! Then how do I get firmware updates?

Yea, that's a problem.

Other than that....I think we are going to watch "A Roman Holiday" tonight.