I guess I didn’t mention that we got an upgrade on the cruise - basically our room got moved to a place on the ship where we won’t be required to pump bilge water ;) Seriously though, we got bumped up about three levels on the ship, though we’re still an inside cabin. Should be a fun time, and I guess it’s getting closer and closer every day. It’s getting colder here, so it will be feeling like time to leave town pretty soon too.

My Grandma is in town tonight, so we’ll likely go over to mom & dad’s place for some cards or something. Grandma’s always fun to have around, she’s got a good sense of humour (either that, or she just laughs to humour us :) and is easy to entertain.

Went to mom & dad’s last night for the weekly family night thing, I keep forgetting to take my GT3 steering wheel back from there. Oh well, maybe someday I’ll get around to remembering it. I fixed Chew Man Fu (TG16 game) for mom - she used to be seriously addicted to it, and then it stopped working. Turns out that the contacts on the card were just dirty. All it took was a white eraser, and we were up and running. We played through the first 50 levels last night, beating the first “cloud” My thumb is out of shape for playing that game though. Interestingly, having put in literally hundreds and thousands of hours on the game, Erin pointed out something to us that we hadn’t noticed before. Apparently when you have a “bloop” (there’s no real name for it, that’s the sound it makes when you use it) you flash. Before that, we didn’t really have any way of telling, short of running into a baddie (a “bloop” lets you hit a bad guy without dying, but you can only have one at a time) It’s kind of amazing how much that game has been played, really. I figured that the TG16 itself is likely in the 10 year old range, and still going strong - I think I should order a couple of new controllers, but that’s not too bad. We still pull it out and play 5-player games on it every now and then. Not much beats a good game of Moto-roader (No, Clinton, we will not put it on rich for you.)

Simpson’s quotes are taking a long weekend - their fill in replacement will be none other than the Wizard from Chew Man Fu: “They’re tough, but they can’t dance like you” or better yet “It’s time to relax and eat rice”

I can post now and everything.

Yesterday we had a guy from Sharps Audio Visual come in to demo a projector for us. It’s one that I recommended having a look at before making a purchase decision, so I was looking forward to seeing what it could do. On the whole, I was impressed with the brightness, and the color levels that it produced, but there were a couple of issues with it that made it a poor choice. First, its not quite as sharp on really small text as the one we’ve already got, and second, the exhaust fan blows out the front of the machine, which means that if the room’s circulation blows that hot air to the side at all, the hot air billows in front of the lens, which causes strange “heat waves” on the screen. I suppose that it didn’t help that it was twice the size of the current projector either. At any rate, it looks like we’re going to buy another one of the tiny little Proxima projectors. Sounds ok to me at any rate.

Sorry that the updates for the past couple of days didn’t get posted, but I was kind of stuck without an outside link to the world. You’ll let it slide just this once though, won’t you?

I got to see an episode of The A-Team that I had never seen before this weekend. A bunch of bad guys were selling moonshine that was poisonous, and Hannibal, B.A., Murdock & Face put them out of business. That episode had more big explosions than any other one that I can remember. I guess when the show’s about people who are making explosives (moonshine) that shouldn’t be too surprising.

Simpson’s Quote of the day: “It’s not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.” - Homer

Pretty serious hardware failure apparently, outgoing email doesn’t work, though incoming does. Basically this means that I’m behind on my web browsing :) Two whole lunch hours without being able to browse the web is sending me into withdrawal. Oh well, I’ll get over it.

Today’s the day that I pay for the rest of the cruise. We filled out our passport applications last night, and they’ve been signed by one of Erin’s co-workers, so now I just have to take them over to the passport office, and wait in line. I don’t expect any problems, though I wish we’d gotten it done a lot earlier.

We had some sort of poppy seed chicken casserole for supper last night, so I hope they don’t do drug tests here today. (Seinfeld reference) It was pretty good, and I’d link up the recipe, but I can’t look it up, so I don’t know what page it’s on. Oh well, I guess seeing as you can’t read this right now anyways, its not a big deal.

Ooooh I’ve got the perfect Simpson’s quote for today: “Oh, they have the Internet on computers now.” - Homer

Apparently the web proxy is down here today, so I’ve got lots of time to write today’s entry (instead of browsing the web) Unfortunately this means that all the cool links that I was going to post are inaccessible to me, so I won’t post them (ok, there were none…)

I was researching wireless networking today, so that I can be ready to set up a wireless LAN once we finally get a laptop. I don’t want to string cabling all over the house, just to connect the laptop in the living room, and the arcade cabinet in the basement. Wireless NIC’s are a bit expensive at this point, but I’m sure they’ll come down. The real cost is going to be an access point though, cause I want it to all go through my Coyote Linux router box, so I don’t have to buy additional IP’s from Shaw. Hopefully I’ll be able to hook the PS2 up wirelessly as well, though I kinda doubt that will be possible.

Sadly, the Habs lost their first game of the season last night. That puts them at 4-1-1 after six games, which is a pretty respectable record.

Last night, Erin and I went to the 2nd Ave. Grill, which is an upscale restaurant downtown. I won a $50 gift certificate at a company social club event back in August, so we figured that we should use it at some point. Mom had us go for family pictures at the church at 6:30, so Erin met me downtown after work, and we went for supper first. I had Duck Breasts with mandarin orange and wild mushroom sauce. The sauce was pretty tangy, but good. I guess I’m not a big fan of duck breast though. It kind of reminded me of chicken gizzard, which I used to like as a kid, but no longer enjoy. Erin had beef on a bun. I would have liked to see their dessert menu, but we didn’t really have time, with the pictures and all. That’s ok though, I could stand to skip a few desserts :)

I checked the server logs for the comments system, and was interested to see that apparently I’m my own biggest fan :) Mostly just because I check the page before posting to see if anyone’s had any comments, then I check after posting to see if the post looks ok, plus all the time that I spent reloading when I was testing out the site in the first place.

I guess I’ll jump around some more with my post today. I managed to secure 2nd place in the regular season of the CFFL so I guess I’d better win this year, because my draft position is going to suffer next year… At least the trash talk can really begin now…

Simpsons quote of the day: “Maybe, just once, someone will call me ’sir’ without adding, ‘you’re making a scene.’” - Homer

What did I do this weekend you ask? Not much. I went over to Rob’s place on Friday night to play a game of Risk 2210. Overall not a terrible game, but I found it to be a bit slow. I’m not just saying that because I didn’t survive the fourth round either. I found that the game allowed a position to be defended relatively strongly, which can be a problem for someone who’s hemmed in. There are ways to become un-hemmed in, but on the whole the game wasn’t a great step up in gameplay from the original risk (unsurprisingly I suppose.) I also got to see how terrible this site looks on a Mac - heh heh heh. I’m not going to fix it either…

Saturday I slept in relatively late, then we went to Jim & Judy’s (Erin’s aunt & uncle, though not in that order) for belated Thanksgiving supper. Delicious ham and scalloped potatoes, with a fantastic salad, and stuff like that. I happened to have a handful of dice in my pocket, so we played Dice (which was a new game to a couple of people there)

Sunday, I watched a football game, and that’s about it. Erin and I planned out our meals for the next week or so, using a fantastic web-site for recipes, and got groceries. I’m looking forward to the new grocery store on 8th street opening up - it’s still under construction of course :)

Simpsons quote of the day: “What’s the point of going out? We’re just going to wind up back here anyway.” - Homer

I mentioned the pumpkin pie yesterday, so today I’ll elaborate a little. My aunt & grandma made a bunch of pumpkin pies for thanksgiving, and there were quite a few left over, so one got sent home with us. We didn’t remember to pick up Coolwhip on Monday, so I didn’t have any pie on Monday night. Erin & I both forgot about the pie, and so we didn’t get any Coolwhip on Tuesday, so again, no pie.

Wednesday night we decided that we’d try a Spinach soufflé recipe that I’d found online. It didn’t work out very well at all (at least by my standards for a spinach soufflé) so we ended up going to Burger King for supper. Since Burger King is right next door to Safeway, we decided to stop by the store and get some Coolwhip.

I wasn’t hungry for pie right away (I’d just had supper) so I figured I’d wait until later. Later rolled around, and I pulled the pie out of the fridge, only to discover that it was moldy in spots. I was quite disappointed (Note, I still ate some of it, I just cut around the moldy bits - maybe not a wise idea, but it was sooooo good.)

All in all, kinda sad. On the other hand, Erin told me that she’d make me a pumpkin pie today, so now I’m happy…

Oh, hey, I also found a better picture of Bert and Usama.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “The kitchen staff is complaining of rats in the kitchen. I’d like to hire a new staff.” - Lunch Lady Doris

I’m sure that most (if not all) of the people who read this page have seen Bert is Evil before. Well, check out the picture that’s been taken at an anti-American rally at Dhaka On the Bin Laden poster, over Osama’s left shoulder, who should appear, but Bert himself. Apparently the people who printed the posters wouldn’t know Bert from Adam, and when they went looking on the internet, they found that picture, and added it to their poster, which was then photographed, and spread around the world.

Ernie has been unavailable for comment.

Not much time to write stuff today (not that there’s much news, other than a moldy pumpkin pie that dashed my hopes) so I’ll leave it at that.

Simpson’s quote time: “This so-called “new religion” is nothing but a pack of weird rituals and chants, designed to take away the money of fools. Let us say the Lord’s Prayer 40 times, but first, let’s pass the collection plate!” - Reverend Lovejoy