Pizza and Band of Brothers…wait, is this a repeat?

March 16, 2004

Well as it turned out–and I know that you’re all very happy about this–I was able to play my game after all this weekend. That’s right, breathe a collective sigh of relief for me. Or is that giant squishing sound I hear everyone rolling their eyes at once? While my new card has not yet arrived yet, it should be here either today or tomorrow, and then I can get this old one out of my nice computer.

But enough about computer stuff, games or hardware. I made yet another pizza this last weekend, originally intended for my sister but my Dad suggested that the two of us go over to Lake Oswego and hang out with him for the night since he hadn’t seen Heather (sister Heather) in awhile. While my pizza came out quite well, I think that my Dad is getting sick of my same way of making it and he’s angling for some new toppings. Perhaps next time I’ll actually use cheese and some pork products like sausage or pepperoni (which is actually a pork/beef hybrid). In other words, I’ll make my pizza UNHEALTHY. But not for a little while, at least. I have to space them out at least by two or three weekends since the process of making the dough is so annoying. At least the next time I make it for my Dad I won’t have to deal with cutting up a chicken breast into itty-bitty pieces.

The other good things that came from Saturday night’s Lake Oswego visit was that Heather and I stopped by John’s Marketplace on our way there to pick up a few beers for the night to split with Dad. She was impressed, but a little overwhelmed like I was the first time. The problem is that there’s too many to make an “informed” decision about what beer you want. Pretty much all you can do is look and see what catches your eye. In our family, we usually go to the beer aisle in the grocery store and check out the length of the micro- and Northwest brews a couple of times to see what sounds good. In John’s, that would take hours. I also left my name and number asking if it would be possible to special order some Leinenkugel’s Original beer from Chippewa Falls, WI. It’s not the best beer in the world, but you know what? I have fond memories of it from college and I like the taste. If I can get a quantity of it for a good price, I’ll go for it.

I also started watching “Band of Brothers” with Heather, too. I began watching myself last week one night when I was taking time off from my game, but I decided I’d rather watch it with someone who hasn’t seen it yet than go through all ten parts myself again.

This weekend Heather (Darrow) and I are likely going to get together, so I have to make plans beforehand. She doesn’t want to meet in Gold Beach again because she had a long drive up highway 101, so I’ll have to figure out someplace different, find someplace to stay, make sure the car’s available, etc, etc. Make sure I have money this time, too. I’m mailing off the check for my cell phone today, so hopefully this one won’t get cashed three weeks from now and do me in again. I double- and triple-checked the overdraft paperwork that came from my bank, and they paid the charges that put me over, so I don’t have any bounced checks floating around out there. On the downside, they’re increasing overdraft protection fees from $22 to $25 in May. I don’t know if that’s for everyone, or just me, though.

Hopefully I should talk to Martin, today. From the database I have been compiling since he hired me on, we’ve sent paperwork to have studies done to find out how much energy coasts they could save to three places. I’m not certain if he intends for me to call every person in the database over the course of time, but three is a good start. Of course, assuming they actually go the full length and decide to have work done, nothing will be done until next year because all the money fron the Oregon Energy Trust for this year has been allocated already. I did put in a request with Martin, however, to visit one or more of the sites when the engineering study is done and they take a tour of the facility noting the types of equipment that are there. He had mentioned that in the future this might be something that I could be doing, plus frankly, a free (for me) road trip sounds good to me.

Tomorrow, perhaps, will be a day off from my game. Time to take a break, but I have something (two things, actually) that I need to finish up. I’d like to get them done today before take a day–or even two–off. That’s the problem with games with Star Wars Galaxies. It’s always one more thing, one more place. Never fear, though, I’m not like those people who’ve died playing computer games. Yes, this has actually happened. Naturally some of the more ignorant went off on a tizzy about the dangers of playing video games and how they can actually kill you (and not just plant murderous thoughts in your head towards others!), but all the cases have been people who played for literally days straight. No sleep, little food. Do anything for that long without resting your body and you’ll die. I stop for food, I stop for sleep, I stop just to stop. Having an addictive personality doesn’t help, but I was raised with enough sense not to do anything stupid.

That being said, time to find out if the servers are up. Have a good March day.

Posted in Geekery, General