I got home last night, and William was laying on the floor in the upstairs hallway with his butt up in the air. He’d just woken up, so he was a little groggy. As I was talking to him, he said “You got poker chips.” at which point I started laughing. I told Erin - next time you get me a present and you want it to stay secret until you give it to me…Don’t tell William :)

So, yeah, Erin, the kids, and my parents chipped in and got me a nice set of poker chips for my birthday. They’re pretty nice, have a nice weight to them, and they look like they’ll be durable. I had previously scouted chips on eBay quite a while back, so I thought I’d see what was available, in case I could get a different pattern or something. The thing with poker chips is that shipping them is expensive :) Anyway, I spent some time reading a feedback war between one seller (18000 ratings, 95% positive) and one buyer (250 ratings, most of the negatives from the same seller) It was amusing at first, but in the end, even though it would have been interesting to see what the chips looked like (and it seemed like a good deal until you factored in the cost of shipping) I decided to stick with what I’ve got, since they’re pretty nice chips.

I’ve been trying to get a poker game together for this weekend, but it looks like a lot of people are out of town, so it’s not likely going to happen. Maybe next weekend or something, who knows (though I’ve only heard back from one person positive and one negative on this week even.) We’ll see.

So, it’s the long weekend, and hopefully the weather cooperates so we can take in the fireworks tomorrow night. I think William is getting to the age where he’ll appreciate them enough to put up with the traffic headache.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’ll have you know the contents of that dumpster are private! You stick your nose in, you’ll be violating attorney-dumpster confidentiality.” - Lionel Hutz

I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the world, they’re rejoicing the mildness of monsoon season or something. (Not that the rain we’re getting here would really make a dent in a real monsoon…)

My birthday is coming up, and people have been asking me what they can get me. As I’ve mentioned before, it always seems wrong to me to put up a “wish-list” type of webpage, but for those of you who weren’t going to get me anything, just bypass the rest of this paragraph, and I can keep my conscience clear. I mentioned last year that I like games, and I even listed off a few that sounded interesting. The ones I’d add to the list this year are Caribbean and Gulo Gulo. I don’t know if they’re available locally or not, but you might check Dragon’s Den. (Note that of the games I posted last year, I now own Bohnanza, though it lives at Mom & Dad’s) Sorry I don’t have much more for you to go on than that.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey Kids! I’m flame-retardant!” - Krusty doll

I got to watch some Canadian football on the weekend, and it was long awaited. I finished the week at 4-0 in my predictions, which wasn’t too hard - only one game was really remotely tough to pick this week (in my opinion) and there were no upsets. It’s shaping up to be an entertaining season.

A while back, we got an inexpensive refurbished “home theatre in a box” from XS Cargo. A couple of weeks later, the silly receiver stopped working completely, which was sad, because I liked it. Fortunately they have a 30 day warranty on refurbished stuff, so I took it back, and got a new unit (and the clock started again on the 30 day warranty) Well, 30 days came and went, and on day 31, the new one died too. We took it back on Saturday, and they replaced it as well. I’m really hoping this one lasts :) All in all, I’d say the XS Cargo service has been top notch - they replaced the receiver without so much as a sideways glance after confirming that the unit was indeed broken. If this one dies shortly after the 30 days, I’m going to seriously consider just buying a non-refurbished receiver, and keeping the speakers that came with this unit. It’s a serious pain to have to unwire and pack the whole thing up every month :)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “That’s it? Hey, relax man! It could end up being the best thing that ever happened to ya. I got held back in the fourth grade myself, twice! Look at me man! Now I drive the school bus!”

Ball was good last night. We won the first game by three (I think) and then managed to stage a huge comeback in the second game (we were down 10-3 after the top of 4) sparked by my awesome leadoff “double” which let us bat the order and score 7 to tie the game up going into the fifth. The other team seemed a little disheartened by that, and we won it in the fifth.

More importantly though, the weather was gorgeous. Nice light breeze to keep the skeeters under control, and blue skies. We’re back to more rain again today, so we didn’t have to get used to the sunlight ;)

The CFL season kicked off last night, and I feel pretty good about my prognostication prowess. Initially I predicted a 37-21 Montreal win, but then after further deliberation, changed my prediction to 28-18 so when the final score came up at 31-21, I feel like I did a decent job. Pure luck, mind you :)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “You can’t be cool just by spouting off a bunch of worn-out buzzwords.” - Lisa

The screen door on our patio has a lot of holes in it. When I was organizing some of the stuff downstairs, I came across a screen repair/replacement kit that we’d bought at the old house, but hadn’t used, so I thought I’d fix/replace the screen door’s screen.

The fact that I’m writing about it should tell you that it didn’t go all that well.

I got the old screen out with no problem, and cut the new one to size on three sides, then went to put in the new spline, and realized that the splines that came with the kit weren’t going to do the job. At that point I realized it was bedtime, so the screen door is really just a frame right now. Erin thinks we can use the old splines, so we’re going to try that at some point.

Then we had a big storm last night. About 1:30 I got up and closed all the windows because large-sounding hail was falling. Lots of thunder and lightning and wind and rain. That’s two this year, and I don’t remember the last time we had a proper storm before that. Judging by the forecast, we’re in for another one tonight too.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Nobody gets into heaven without a glowstick.” - Homer

As Jason mentioned, we went to their place for supper and the draft last night. William and Mya struggled mightily to possess every toy at each possible moment, but they had fun anyway, and at the end of the night, William didn’t want to go home. I think I did ok in the draft, though I’m not as positive about my team at this point as I was last year. Since I nearly missed the playoffs last year, I don’t know that it’s a good sign ;)

The CFL season is just a day and a bit away - opening kickoff is tomorrow at 5:30 Saskatchewan time, though I won’t get to watch the game live due to slopitch (unless my ankle gets worse - it’s slightly swollen, and sore) I’m hoping that I can squeeze it in after ball, though I might be too tired to do that.

Thursday, we’ve got an A/C install scheduled. Apparently they called this morning asking if we could handle them coming out today, but Erin missed the call :( too bad, because it’s supposed to be quite hot here over the next few days, cooling off just as the A/C is installed. I’m sure we’ll get good use out of it.

I took Julia on a quick diaper run yesterday, and it’s pretty incredible the reaction she gets still. I mean, granted, she’s pretty tiny still, and even smaller than your average newborn, but you see babies all over the place. I guess the difference is that I just carried her “football style” through the store, rather than strapping her into a stroller etc. I have to chuckle a bit to myself when I hear people say “I remember when my kids were that small.” since in all likelihood, their kids were still in utero at Julia’s current size :)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Wait a minute…that smells like sodium tetrachloride bonding with chlorophyll.” - Principal Skinner

Tonight is the CFFL draft, and I’m looking forward to it in a big way. The CFL is looking to have a really strong year, and there should be some great football to watch. I’m putting my predictions in at Randy and Rob’s CFL Prediction Page, so feel free to head over there and challenge me.

Dave and Katriona were in town over the weekend, so we got to try out Bryan’s new poker chips. We played a couple of tournaments, and had fun with it (though I don’t think Darren and Dad enjoyed it much) Erin and Katriona played the second game, and Katriona was doing well before she had to call it a night, and Erin was doing really well until she called my one card flush “all-in” raise with two pair. I was sweating because I only had the four, so I figured that if she called me, she had to have me beat. She has watched me play enough times to know that I possibly didn’t have the flush at all though, so I can’t really fault her on that. Uh oh - I’ve given away too much of my game. ;)

Speaking of giving away my game, I was playing in a tournament, and I was in the final three, one guy had 80% of the chips at the table, with the rest being divided between me and the other guy. I’d been playing tight, but kind of getting tired of the game. Anyway, the big stack eliminated the other guy, so it’s heads up. First hand, I’m looking at AA. “Let’s just get this over with - I’m tired of this tournament” I said. He was on the button, so he pushed all in. I quickly called, and he cursed me quite loudly and quite strongly. I didn’t end up winning the tournament, but that one hand was fun (FWIW, he had A4o, so he was drawing mighty thin, but he did have the straight draw on the river, so I had to sweat it out a little.)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Smithers, look a bird has become petrified and lost its way.” - Mr. Burns