Announcement!

I have an announcement to you all. What better way to deliver said announcement than to send you to the Queen's blog and let her do it. :)

LOL! You should see the look on your face right now. :)

Seriously, go check out her blog.

This post was brought to you by the letters X, Y, and the number 13.

Happy Birthday to the QUEEN!!! :)

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Dear, Queenie!
Happy Birthday to YOU!

This post was brought to you by the letter D, O, B, and the number... er... (Queen's age)

Instant Party!

I was just directed to the Emergency Party Button and I think it's really cool. :) Of course, I'm a geek and this kind of thing really interests me. :)

Apparently, this guy is as much (probably a LOT MORE) of a geek as I am and just decided to make what he was thinking, happen. I WISH I have the cajones and the dinero necessary to do some of the things that pop into my head like that. Too bad I'm not rich, eh? :)

Anyway, I thought you'd enjoy the fun.

This post was brought to you by the letters E, P, B, and the number 6.

A New Ride.

Yesterday, we purchased a new ride. I'm sure the Queen will be happy to tell you all about it in depth, so I'll summarize. We purchased a Red 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT. It has Sto-n-Go seating, dual powered sliding doors, 3 zone AC and only 31k miles. We're happy to have it and our little princesses are stoked about it as well.

We now have enough room for them and all their assorted stuff without feeling crowded. We're going to sell our old family car (a Green 1996 Dodge Intrepid ES) and part ways with an old friend. We'll miss you, Lizzzie.

Anyway, this post was brought to you by the letters R, O, O, M, and the number 7.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I made the mistake of caving to the Queen's pressure to get a Facebook account in an effort to shut her up make her happy and I think it has backfired. I'm now playing this Dragon RPG on there and slowly becoming addicted to it. Woe is me...

Anyway, It's at least amusing and it plays pretty well. It isn't WoW or W:AR (Warhammer: Age of Reckoning) by any stretch, but I can at least amuse myself a bit by playing it and we have another thing in common.

You know you want to get a Facebook account and add us as friends. :) You KNOW you want to...

This post was brought to you by the letters R, P, G, and the number 6.

Are you one?

WARNING! GOOD-NATURED RANT FOLLOWS!

Are you one of those people who have a cell phone? If so, why did you get it? If you got it to be cool, then great - you're cool. If you got it to keep in touch, please do what it takes to fulfill that? If you have it for emergencies only, please be sure not to give the number out.

This post is for the people who have a cell phone to keep in touch.

I know it reads as if this is a targeted posting, and to some degree, it is. In my defense, I have recently run across this issue in personal life as well as professional life and it's truly annoying to try calling someone only to get voice mail over and over again. After finally getting in touch with this person, you find out time and again that they didn't bring their cell phone with them ("I forgot to bring it"), or the battery is dead ("I forgot to charge it"). WHAT?!

I'm going to use the Queen as an example here (please accept my apology, btw :) of how she needed to run an errand and wanted me to make a phone call to correct a situation for her. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the information I needed and when I tried calling her to ask a quick question, her cell phone which happened to be in the next room, began making pretty noises. She had left her cell phone at home, sitting on the table. I'm happy I was able to wing it and ecstatic that nothing happened to them or the car while she was out, but I would have been very hard pressed to get in touch with her in the event of an emergency.

If you don't have it with you and charged, what's the point? If you're one of the people who has given your cell number out to the majority of the people you know, do them a favor and keep it charged, on, and with you. :)

Now that I've ranted about cell phones and called out the Queen (again, sorry about that), I'll step off my soapbox, and relinquish the microphone. FYI: I am fully expecting to be flamed by this post and I probably deserve most if not all of it.

Queen, dear, please be a good sport about me calling you out. You just happen to be an easy target. Please forgive. I'll be sure to get some chocolate or something to make it up. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters C, E, L, L, and the number 5.

Job Quality

What has happened to the job quality of NFL officiating recently? So far this season, I have personally seen enough horrible calls from the officiating crews to last an entire season. I have also seen replays (in real time mind you) of others that were completely ludicrous. Why don't they have any pride in what they do this year?

Obviously, I'm not happy with the Cowboys' loss today, but I saw 3 blown calls go against the Cowboys today that could have made the difference in the 2 point loss to the Redskins. You're right that the Cowboys should have overcome the bad calls and won anyway, but if all things are equal, then the game would probably have ended differently.

That's my $.02, and you are welcome to have a different opinion in this particular game, but overall officiating has gone pretty far downhill so far this year.

This post was brought to you by the letters W, T, F, and the number 3.

First Impression...

My first impression of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is this. FUN! I have a few minor issues with the interface, but I'm sure I'll either figure out an alternate way to do what I'm trying to do, or Mythic will correct it within a patch or two. I won't tell you any specifics other than the fact that there isn't a built in PTT system like in WoW. I guess I'll have to make use of Ventrilo like most of the other folks I play with. :)

Anyway, I'm happy with the game overall in that it's fun and the graphics quality is actually a bit better than WoW's.

This post was brought to you by the letters U, I, and the number 5.

Clarification...

After reading my previous post, it's possible that I gave the impression that I never say the words. That's not the case. I just don't say them very often. I have noticed that I have said them less often that normal in the last while and I'm accepting my failing in that.

I just didn't want you to get the wrong impression from my lack of eloquence. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters E, D, I, T, and the number 4.

I Love the Queen

Just in case you hadn't heard, I love the Queen. No, I'm NOT talking about the Queen of England, I don't know her personally, though I suppose she could be an OK person. I'm talking about the Queen I married.

I know I don't say the words very often, but it is a fact. I do love her and hope that she realizes that every time I make a meal for her, or get her water, etc. I think too many people put too much stock into saying the words and not following up on them with actions. Therefore, I'm more likely to say it with actions and not the words. It's a failing of mine, but that is PART of ME. Don't try to make me change, because I won't do so. You like/love me (or not) for who I AM, not for who I could BECOME. I'm also a Taurus and very stubborn. That is also a failing of mine. :)

In fairness to her, I should and WILL endeavor to say the words more often. At least once daily when she's awake and can hear it. It's not my fault if she's ignoring me at the time and misses it. I'm at least trying. ;)

Anyway, I just thought you should know that little bit of info about me. Perhaps, it will give you a little insight into me. Then again, maybe not. Oh well, laters!

This post was brought to you by the letters F, E, E, L, and the number 11.

It's About Time!!!

I finally have my pre-order code for WarHammer Online and can download it and play early. Unfortunately, the download is huge and will take all night and a good portion of tomorrow to download. I'll be able to play it as early as tomorrow night, though. :) Of course, there's a conflict of interest because the Dallas Cowboys are playing tomorrow night.

We'll see how it all rolls around. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters R, S, T, L, N, E, and the number 6.

7 Years

It's been 7 years since September 11, 2001 changed our world. It's too bad we can never go back to the way things were. Of course, that's part of what got us into this mess to begin with, but I'm not posting this to rehash the whys.

I'm posting this to remember all those who died that day on American soil as a result of those attacks. I'll never forget.

This post was brought to you by the letters U, S, A, and the number 911.

WarHammer Online

I'm going to give new game a try. It's called WarHammer Onling: Age of Reckoning. Go take a look. It's supposed to be a bit like World of Warcraft, but more Player vs Player centric.

The biggest reasone for me to try this game is that the people I used to play WoW with have all quit and I have a ready-made guild waiting to begin WarHammer Online. I'll give it a try and we'll see what happens. I always have the option of going back to WoW since my character will remain on their servers indefinitely. :)

We'll see if I like it.

By the way, the open Beta has just begun. :) Come give it a try.

This post was brought to you by the letters W, H, O, and the number 18.

What a Person Says...

Does what a person says to you mean anything? Are we a society full of liars?

Those of you who know me know that I rarely make promises. Instead, I will tell you that I will try my best deliver on what I said, or something similar.

I have a reason for not making promises. (It seems to be a really good reason to me, but you may have a different opinion.) The reason I don't make promises, is that it absolutely tears me up inside to break a promise.

Perhaps, it's because of all the broken promises I received as a child (remember the abuse and all. Or some other leap of logic on my part, but as a result, I VERY rarely promise anything. I'm sure the Queen and the Princesses aren't too happy about that fact, but there it is.

I'm bringing this up because as much as I try not to make promises, I also try to always do what I say I'm going to do. I'm not always successful, but I try. I also, tend to expect this of others. I have an issue with people telling me they'll do something and then blowing it off. It seems disrespectful to me.

Perhaps, I'm just too caught up in the old ways, but I was raised that "A man's word is his bond" and "You have my word on it" were simple truths to live by.

Am I that old fashioned that I'm getting caught up on these things? Should I expect the worst from everyone?

I feel a little bit derailed, folks. I could use a little clarification. Better yet, don't tell me ABC unless you're going to deliver ABC.

This has been the first rant of the month by this old fart, but I really don't think it will be the last. You have my apologies for that.

This posr was brought to you by the letters W, O, R, D, and the number 9.

Last Rant of the Month... :)

I tried to give myself a bit of time to get over this one, but I did say I would post the rant, so here it is, finally.

So, here we are, paying an arm and a leg for airplane tickets on an airline that allows you to pick the seats you're purchasing and when we get there, the seats we chose are NOT available to us. WTF!!! Didn't I just mortgage off my spleen to pay for these tickets?! Didn't you allow me to choose my seats? Since that's the case, why in the living HELL didn't I get to sit in the seats I paid for?

If we don't get the option of choosing my seats, then remove that feature from your website you useless wastes of JP-10 (that's jetfuel). Along about this time, you're probably wondering who these CRETINS are who upset the Queen and I. Well, I'll tell you. The airline was Delta. Yes, I did indeed utter it aloud. It was Delta Airlines who introduced us to the shaft on this trip.

I suppose I should simply be happy we got there and back in one piece, but I can't help being a bit annoyed by their IDIOCY in screwing us over. That's why we'll try to give our business to someone else, like Southwest, United, or American the next time we fly, unless they are prohibitively expensive.

There... That's off my chest now. :) I can enjoy what's left of the Holiday. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters S, W, A, and the number 4.

Historic

Well, at least this election will be historic, whoever wins. :) We'll either have the oldest first term President and first female Vice President OR we'll have the first Black President.

And if - against all odds - NEITHER of them win and an Independent or Green party candidate wins, that will be historic as well. So for the fact that there will be some large historic strides made, I'm happy to be a part of this electoral process. As for the candidate for whom I'm voting... I'll keep you guessing on that one, unless you've figured it out already. If that's the case, please keep it to yourself. :)

America is good at doing historic things. :) I have to give us that much. We screw up a significant number of other things in the world, but we are certainly historic.

This post was brought to you by the letters H, U, H, and the number 8.

Sleep Inn - How Dost Thou Sucketh?

Let me count the ways. Not really, but I became quite annoyed when our room key stopped working each and EVERY day at our hotel stay. I swear, did they really not want our money? The service in that regard was so bad that they were constantly blaming us for the keys not working.

The room was not too bad overall, a bit on the small side, with only double beds, but other than that, the only real gripe I had was when we were continually locked out of the room and at times building unless we trekked all the way around to the front desk.

It is possible that they just had some really incompetent front desk employees, in which case they need to be either fired or trained. I don't know which was the case, and I don't care. The point is that they should have known how to program the cards so that they wouldn't lock us out each day.

This post was brought to you bu the letters L, O, C, K, E, D, and the number 5.

Family and Vacation...

Whew! We just got back from vacation. I'm not sure I can call it a vacation in that I'm as tired (or more so) as I was before we left. I suppose it's not a failure when all the people involved are still alive when it's over. I'm just not sure that some of what we went through was worth the trouble.

My girls met my mother for the first time during this vacation and I'm going to have to talk with them some time soon to see what they thought of the whole thing. They also met my mom's mother, and sisters, and a cousin and an aunt (this part was NOT planned more like SPRUNG) as the plan was to only introduce the girls to 2 people they'd never met. That part was annoying, but typical of the way that side of my dysfunctional family works.

The other side of my family has its issues (primarily planning just about anything), but once we are aware that they have planned something, we can just suck it up and realize that while it may not go as planned (and it usually won't) It's almost guaranteed to be entertaining.

So, all-in-all, it wasn't a complete wreck, but it was certainly not the IDEAL vacation that I would have hoped.

Hopefully, the next one will be better and a lot more relaxing.

Go, check out The Queen's Blog for more info and I'm sure she'll be posting pics soon. :)

The next posts will contain a few gripes about bad service, so if you're planning on flying with Delta or staying at a Sleep Inn, please stay tuned for future posts.

This post was brought to you by the letters C, F, and the number 12.

WTF!!!

So... 2 nights ago, at about 1am, we're awakened by someone banging on our door and ringing our doorbell. We don't know of anyone who would do such a thing. WTF?!

My first thought was that there was some drunk guy trying to get into the house because he was drunk and thought it was HIS house. So, I carefully come down the stairs to try to see who it is and on my way down, mystery person starts trying the doorknob. Again, WTF?!

I turn on the exterior lights and then peer through the peep hole. There's no one there, but the banging, doorbell ringing and doorknob rattling continues. I think I'm going blind, so I try the box bay window beside the door and again I see no one, but the racket continues. Are my eyes open? WTF?!

I go back and forth a few times and realize that it has to be a smaller person or they are trying to avoid being seen. I bang my door from the inside and yell at them to back off the door, but they either can't hear me or refuse to back off. Finally, they begin to get frustrated and wander back to the steps before returning to my door and I get a brief look at them. It's a 6- or 7-year old kid. WTF?!

I tell the Queen what I see and then open the door. The kid starts crying and I tell him we'll help him and to sit on the porch for a second. The Queen arrives and figures out that he's gotten separated from his parents just a few minutes earlier and it turns out he needed to go to the house next door. She leads him over and he walks up to the door, opens it, and walks in. WTF?!

So tell me, what real parent is going to lose their own child at 1am between their car at the curb and their front door 25 feet away? How can this happen if you're IN ANY WAY a responsible parent? I can't imagine the circumstances that could have resulted in this silliness.

WTF?!?!?!

This post was brought to you by the letters W, T, F, and the number 1.

Projects...

I hurt so much right now. Since yesterday morning, I've been working on the girls' bathroom. The sink (and possibly the toilet) have been leaking in such a way that it wasn't readily detectable and has damaged the floor. In order to investigate the damage to the floor and to determine just how bad it was, I had to completely disassemble the bathroom. I will post images of the ordeal once it is actually complete. :)

In the mean time, The Queen may have a few things to say on the matter and I need to get back to it so I can complete it today. I'd like the girls to be able to use their bathroom and not ours.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, R, R, and the number 5.