Gunna be rich

So I had a wicked dream last night, and I think it's going to be a million dollar idea.
It is the sequel to the movie gremlins 2.
It will take place in the original town that gremlins 1 took place in, except this time the movie is rated R for violence, and swearing.
After the end of Gremlins 2, some evil government group gets a sample of the dead gremlins and starts to do tests, they then travel to Kingston Falls where the first incident occurred to gather more samples. Then of course they are able to somehow clone or create the gremlins, except they go right into evil mode and start to slaughter everybody in town. Of course at the same time a local gang decides to make trouble, and the whole town is plunged into chaos.
Not sure how it ended, but I ended up killing one of the evil gremlins with two butcher knives.

The dream was quite graphic and vivid. The lab techs had all there throats clawed or chewed out. Lots of blood and gore.
Also somehow these gremlins were quicker and more stealthy than the previous ones. They stalked their prey in darkness.

Oh, and I have a few movies to review. I watched "Disaster movie", and "A Better Tomorrow" a old chinese action flick. I think I might have watched one more, but I cannot recall... I will have to scrub my brain.

Kiddlets and infections

So My weekend was super busy but super fun.
I had my kid and his brother over again, and we spent the majority of the weekend playing games of the non video variety. This was an odd thing considering we have a Wii, Xbox360, and two gaming PCs in my house.

We played extensively the game of Uno, which I have to admit is easy to learn, but hard to win against children for some reason. Even my mom was kicking my butt at it.
I definitely recommend it for both kids and adults.

We also played Jenga a bunch of times. I found that the kids tended to be less careful than the adults, and at times I suspect they wanted to see the tower fall. Super fun if you have time to kill and are patient with steady hands (caffine bad for Jenga).

We also managed to check out a community center's Lego competition. Age ranges from 4 to Adult. They were all categorized were on display. There were some pretty neat creations, and I was shocked that some 4 to 6 year olds could make some of the things that they did. I suspected a heavy parental influence.
Either way, we got Lego fever and decided to go the Toy store to buy some basics pieces. I wanted to avoid the kits because I knew they tended to cost an arm and a leg.
Wally Mart didn't have much at all, so we went to Toy's R' Us who had a giant selection of Lego Kits. They didn't really have any bulk lego (even in the cheaper Mega Blocks), and all their kits were of course, ridiculously priced. I don't know why they charge so much for colored plastic, maybe they pay the Kit designers a fortune.
Either way, we spend $27 on two small kits, so that they boys could build something.
Then when we happen to grab some groceries at coop, we found a larger kit that was decently priced. All in All I spend maybe $50 on Lego, and after it was all dumped out, it didn't seem like that much.
We still had a blast building the kits, then destroying them to build other things.

Oh, and ya, I am getting sick. My kiddo had a bad cough all weekend, and now I have a throat thing going on that feels yucky. I hope sleep, fluids, vitamin C and vicks vaporub will be enough to keep it at bay, because I hate getting sick.

Vitamin C rant

So I am again shocked that products that you would assume by their ingredient content and appearance would have certain nutritional value, but actually have little or no value at all.
I am talking about Ocean Spray craisins dried cranberries. I had bought some a while ago from Costco (huge bag) mostly because they look like they would be healthy and chalked full of vitamin C. I get half way through the bag over a period of months, then I read the back of the bag and notice that there is 0% vitamin C, also it has the blurb at the bottom "not a significant source of vitamin C". I was shocked, and angered. Apparently the Juice has Vitamin C added, but not the sugar added treat.
This comes after I discovered certain juice products from Minute Maid do not contain vitamin C, when you would assume they should. Products like Minute Maid Lemonade!!
Lemons contain vitamin C, so doesn't the juice?!!
A single average lemon contains around 40% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin C, so somehow the juice company either doesn't add any real lemon juice to their mixture, or they strip the normal vitamin C content out.
This pisses me off!!!

*note 100g of cranberries only has about 20% of your daily vitamin C....... and they do have other health benefits like antioxidants and what not.

Fun fact, that without vitamin C we would all die from scurvy?!
Also red peppers contain 4-5 times more vitamin C than oranges (per 100g), and broccoli has around twice the amount of an orange.
crazy stuff.

yummy lunch

So I've been eating a lot of leftovers for lunch at work these days, in an attempt to eat healthy and save money. I've also been trying to eat breakfast at home for the same reasons.
I was buying breakfast and lunch pretty much every day during the work week. I was probably spending anywhere from 14-25 dollars a day on food (and coffee) a day.
Which equates to 280-500 a month!! On food and coffee!
Anyways, my point is that most of my lunches have been pretty yummy. Today I had chicken, garlic masted potatoes, green beans and home made bread and cheese. I think my stomach is going to burst! :)
Eating out can be tasty, but some leftovers beat out restaurants hands down!

I didn't get to watch any movies recently, so my movie review will have to wait.
I did catch part of Gladiator, but only 10-20 mins and it was in Spanish.

Ooooo! I got to fix my GF's wireless network, which isn't a big deal, but to me it was. I took computers and business in school, and so far my job hasn't been a technical one, so I am craving reasons to fiddle with computers.
Maybe I should start my own consulting company for home computer repairs.

Super duper weekend

I had a pretty good weekend. I had Evan and his brother over, and I had my very very close friend Nikki over. Ok, ill just say it, shes my Girlfriend. I was trying to keep my blog relationship neutral for some reason (this isn't facebook after all), but my comments on my blog about her being a "really really close friend " she wasn't pleased at all. She tried to strangle me, but she was unable to do more than make me almost pee myself because I laughed so much at her being "angry" with me.

On Saturday we gave blood (not the children though), it was our third time, so they gave us a pin and a pen. I felt a lot better than last time. Last time I felt really weird and tired. Evan came with us, but his brother didn't want to go.
Evan thought it was pretty cool, and said he might donate when he gets older.
We had "make your own pizza night" props to Nikki for making the dough! The kids really seemed to like it. I enjoyed it too. I love pizza :)
After dinner we watched "Death Race" which will be reviewed here:
http://moviez-i-saw.blogspot.com/2009/01/death-race-to-clone-wars-movie.html

It's probably not suitable for kids, but I am sure they have seen much worse.
It wasn't that bad though, some swears and violence.

On Sunday, we made chocolate chip cookies, and we took them to the fire station by North hill Mall, on 16th Ave across from home depot. Nikki's brother is stationed there, and he took us on a tour around the whole place. The kids seemed like they had a good time, although Evan seemed to be shy. The trucks were pretty awesome, they were so much bigger than I had thought they were. Almost like tanks or something.
The tools they use were also pretty neato. The equipment they use to put out fires, and the stuff they need if they have to get people out of cars or buildings, pretty sweat stuff.
We saw a mini "Jaws of life", as well as a hose nozzle that can handle 7500 liters of water a minute. It is so powerful they don't have the men hold it, they but a bar on it, and put it in a doorway. When it gets turned on, it slams back into the door frame which holds it in place.
Interesting information, anybody can go for a tour (call ahead), and all the stations have free blood pressure testing, and some stations have free cholesterol testing.
I was sad because we weren't allowed to go down the pole. I guess there had been too many lawsuits.

I have been trying to add more vegetables to my diet. Although I find it a challenging task because I dislike most vegetables. Celery is evil.
Also tonight I think I might be signing up to the Cardel Fitness place for a year. I am pretty sure I can claim it and get reimbursed through my work's benefits.

blog soup

I will no longer be discussing movies I've been watching, other to say that I've seen it.
I started a new blog that will be strictly for reviewing movies I happened to watch.
I am attempting to do it semi formal, but I'm sure that wont last. It's been years since ive taken any writing courses that would prove usefull when writing movie reviews, but I hate most critics, so I might write it with a point of view of who might like the movie, not what the movie was like compared to Academy award winning masterpieces that make you cry for hours.
http://moviez-i-saw.blogspot.com/ <------ check it out! I've been doing a lot more cooking these days.... as in I have been cooking :) and not just toast or KD, I made roast chicken with veggies, and pork chops with rice and broccoli.
I have been getting some tutoring from a really really close friend of mind who did go to culinary school.
I hate cooking, but it's good to know that I can do it.
Most of my reasons for cooking are lame.
#1. I don't like the stress of buying everything, preparing everything, and trying not to mess it up so that we end up eating KD after all.
#2. I also hate it when people complain or tell me how to cook while I am cooking.
#3. I also hate thinking up what to cook and trying to cater to everyone's tastes. I try not to care, but see point #2.
#4. I hate cleaning up afterwards.
#5. I hate making sure I don't make too much, or not enough.
#6. Nothing tastes as good as when someone else makes it. Well except cereal. I make the best bowel of cereal around!
#7. I always micro manage or second guess myself adding to the stress.

career fear

I've been thinking that lately I'm not happy with my career and I might want to go a different direction. My top 5 choices are Accountant, superhero, movie critic, police officer, or stripper.
I would like to continue to work with computers, but I don't think my current employee would have many positions that are more technical in nature. We outsource most or all of our technical support or development, and so most of my days are spent talking to clients via email or phone calls. I don't fix anything, I just deal with business process issues.

I was looking at SAIT and MRC, and then I remembered that school costs time and money. boo!
Plus there is a good chance id take a cut in pay, so for the time being, I might just chilax with my current employer.

back to blog

Hey, its been a fun holiday season, and ill blog about it later.
But I was reading up on a movie about the early days of Genghis Khan and how he rose to power in Mongolia in the movie, "Mongol" via the IMDB.com, and this struck me as quite odd.
It recommended that if I liked that movie, then I might like the movie "Stardust". Are you effing kidding me!!? I heard netflicks was having issues with matching user preferences, but that was a total IMDB fail!

"Mongol" was awesome, and totally makes you feel for a historical figure that most people think was nothing more than a bloodthirsty conqueror. It was foreign subtitled movie, but it had great cinematography and it was very well scripted and acted.

my blog sucks

I keep finding blogs that are way cooler than mine. Sure most of them don't really blog about the creator, mostly they just link to funny pics, videos, articles etc, but still, way cooler.
Any suggestions on how I could make my blog cooler?
either way, check out these 2 awesome blogs
http://www.mypointless.com/
http://blameitonthevoices.blogspot.com/

*warning, the following rant contains Role playing gaming terms, a glossary might be available on the bottom of this post. If not, too bad, look it up on wikipedia.*

I think I've mentioned it before, but I am a geek who plays D&D with my friends. We had a session yesterday, I was running the game, and it seems that we might have some issues. One of the guys who plays with us might be bailing on our weekly sessions due to World of Warcraft (aka WoW) Commitments. Seriously?! He is going to bail on us because of a friggin video game? He already plays at least 20-30 hours a week for crying out loud!!!
One of our other players is also having his D&D gaming time with the group affected by WoW. He has been playing it into the night, not getting his sleep, and then showing up tired and grumpy. When this particular player shows up tired and grumpy, it doesn't take much to have him snapping at you in regards to the rules during combat. Too much arguing and (I've seen this actually happen) can go from playing to quiting the session and threatening to quit the campaign in 20 seconds flat!

The funny thing is that we all aren't the best roleplayers and I am certainly not the best GM. We metagame (although this is getting better), we min/max our characters, and we could probably be called munchkins without us being offended. It's not entirely our fault however.
I still mostly blame the RPG system called Rifts for our poor roleplaying skills. It introduced us to min/maxing, and exploiting game rules.
We also tend to put an emphasis on killing and damage as being the most important thing our characters can do, so then we get super competitive when making characters.
This takes away from any chance that a character with real personality flaws, quarks, or realism might be used when creating characters. Those things don't help in combat, so why bother :)
Also it can give way to the players being bored if combat isn't occurring which means that actual roleplaying between characters and NPCs doesn't occur as often.

Setting the scene or giving descriptions to flesh out the world and make it trigger the imagination might not matter as much, and the players might bypass entire campaign ideas or scenarios just to get back to fighting sooner.

You might think that "isn't being the best in combat is a good thing", or "isn't fighting what these games is all about?". Well combat is a big part of most RPGs, there is a great deal to do with story lines, plot, setting the mood, suspending disbelief etc. It is a game of the imagination, so if it just becomes a numbers game with no substance or interaction with the PCs and the game world other that killing, then why don't we all just multiplayer Halo?
RPGs offer you the freedom to create almost any type of character and have them do whatever you want. Video games tend to be limited by the game itself.

I think I should cultivate some new players, but I have played with these guys for so long, that it would be scary to open the table up to unknown players who could be uber RPG nerds with no social skills, personal hygiene, and are still virgins at age 30.
That is the worst stereotype, but it could happen.

****** glossary of terms ******
RPG - Role playing game. typically played with pencils, graph paper, and funny sided dice. Typically played with 4-5 people. One person being the DM or GM. The other people creating characters to play in the game. We have been incorporating software with our mapping and combat by using Maptools from http://rptools.net/

D&D - Dungeons and Dragons. A RPG that is set in a fantasy/adventure genre that deals with weapons, armor, magic, monsters etc. i.e. Lord of the Rings was the inspiration for the original game back in the 1970s, so read the books by Tolkien, and or watch the movies and you will get the gist of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons info about
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/ game site

DM/GM - Dungeon Master/Game Master. Typically the referee and architect of the adventure. Typically D&D refers to him as a DM, most other game systems use GM. By habit, I tend to refer to it as GM regardless of the system I am playing.

PC - Player character. The in-game character that the players get to control. They usually have to follow some creation rules, but the character's actions are determined by the player.

NPCs - Non player character. Characters in the game world that is created to assist, give information, fight the player's Characters. Usually the DM/GM plays these characters.

Metagaming - When the player's character acts on information that he/she wouldn't know, but the player knows. ie. if the character has no prior knowledge of Trolls, but then purposely attacks them with acid or fire which the player knows trolls are vulnerable too.

Min/Max - minimizing some stats that aren't considered combat important in order to boost (sometimes ridiculously high) the combat relevant stats. i.e. lowering social stats to boost stat that apply more damage in combat.

Munchkin - a player who min/maxes as well as uses rules/items or anything in the game (sometimes borderline game illegal) to make their character ridiculously powerful, regardless of how impossible or absurd the combination might be. This usually frustrates the DM/GM due to the fact that the DM/GM cannot adequate challenge the players when they can easily overcome any challenge with hardly any effort what-so ever. It can also wreck game balance if one player is a munchkin, and the other one makes a character based on concept.

almost there

Is it wrong that the more Christmas shopping I get done, the more excited i am about Christmas? It's that some kind of capitalistic mentallity?

I like to get it all done in one big effort, and have everything wrapped and ready to go.
I did about 5 hours of shopping yesterday, however I still have about 1/3 of the people on my list to shop for. One item for my little munchkin, I couldn't find at 3 stores. I will check out costco and maybe one more, but if I cannot find it, then im dooooomed!!

His "Santa" gift is that nerf vulcun mini dart gun. I saw one at superstore last week, but now it seems to be the most popular item as no stores have it now!!
(update) went to costco over lunch and found one! should be a fun time christmas morning, the chain gun shoots 3 darts a second!!!

I saw the end of "Fred Claus". It seemed like a pretty good holiday movie. I might have to watch it from the beginning.

And hey, those who follow my blog, and live in Calgary, how about that snow eh? :P We got about 6 inches on Saturday i believe, and today its gotten pretty darned cold. Just in time for Christmas.

I don't mind the cold and snow, and long as the streets are cleared, and my car doesn't break down and I freeze to death on the highway. I have only ever had car accidents during the icy season. In all cases ice was the main contributing factor. I hate driving on ice!!!

Vancover 2010 here i come

I played 2 and a half hours of hardcore badminton, basketball and ping pong last night, I am not sure if any of those are winter sports in the upcoming winter Olympics, but g-dammit they should be so I could compete!!!

I felt great afterwards, tired but great. I hope to keep this fitness streak up so that I can fit into my bikini for my trip to Cuba in March.
Oh crap, do you need a passport to travel to Cuba?

So Christmas is now only 23 days away. I haven't bought anything for anybody yet. I might go to sunridge mall and shop there. They have a charity organization wrapping presents for a donation. I hate wrapping presents, I usually try to buy and wrap everything in one fell swoop.

My mom decided to buy a fake tree this year. She said the cats will be less likely to attack and knock it down if it's fake.
I am 95% against it because my tradition since childhood has been the real tree. Having my mom yell at my dad to go buy one and make sure he doesn't pick out a crappy one like last year. She couldn't just go with him, that would make too much sense. Then my dad will eventually come home and the tree will sit in the yard for a week. Eventually my mom will get him to move it into the house, and that's when the real tradition begins.
The tree is usually too tall, and my dad will insist that they cut off the top. My mom will scream bloody murder and get him to cut off the bottom. He will want to cut too much and include the bottom branches. My mom will scream at him that he can't cut those ones off cause they are what makes the bottom of the tree look good. My dad will by then start cursing and screaming and then stomp downstairs. Some years he will have cut the bottom off by then, but other years I have had to do the honors.....
The rest is usually pretty easy. Lights, garland, decorations, tinsel, oh and don't forget to tie the tree up. The stands are usually not to be trusted :)

The fake tree was easy to stand up, however you have to pull down and open up all the branches which was a pain in the arse. The tree itself looks pretty good, my mom spent 400$ or more on it, she said she has been looking for the perfect fake tree for years now.

I guess fake trees are ok, they save a real tree (even though they mostly get cut down from tree farms), but then it doesn't need to be thrown out and go into the landfill or community compost.

fine!

So I was told to blog by 2 out of my 4 loyal followers to blog soon... so I will g.damit.

Um... it's been pretty busy but good. I got a month pass at the Cardel Place up in Coventry, its a fitness/recreation center that has lots of fun things to do.
Mostly I've been playing badminton and ping pong. Oh, how I rock at Ping Pong!! I also have been in the pool, they have a "Lazy river" which basically swirl ls you around with the current of the water. It's super fun! If I win the lottery I am going to build one in my house but it will be twice as fun and ten times as fast.
I am trying to eat better and exercise a bit more. I still need to work on getting more sleep (as I write this at 1:00am).

My dad had to go in for some extensive tests on his heart, and they found that his arteries were pretty blocked up. He had to go in for an angioplasty which is were they put a balloon in your arteries (though your groin to your heart), and when it gets to the blocked part, they inflate it, and put a metal shint in to hold back the blockage. Needless to say the family was a bit uneasy, but I am happy to say that my dad is back home and seems to be doing well. He is trying to quit smoking and I think he realizes that some dietary changes are now required.


I have also been catching up with Season 3 of Dexter. It's still pretty good, but I think the first 2 Seasons were better. I still think it's a great show even though it is taking some heat because of that fanboy freak in Edmonton (i think) who worshipped the show and premise and lured another man to his house to kill and video tape. They caught the guy as far I know, but I don't think they found the body. Remember kids, things on TV shouldn't always be imitated!

I saw"Bolt" the new animated movie. It was pretty good, it took me half the movie to determine that it was John Travolta's voice that was being used for the dog. The movie was funny and pretty touching. The hamster and the poofy evil cat were horribly cute. Totally had an "awwww" factor off the charts.

I finished Fallout 3, it was a bit anticlimatic. I probably could have played the game for another week doing all the side quests, but after I got to the highest possible level (20), I found it a little boring. I did finish the game 3 different was, and part of the cinimatic is different at the end, but the end fight itself was too damn easy. I should have done it without armor and with a NailBoard that the Super mutants drop....

I might still play the game, make another charater, and try going a different path. Maybe I will be evil this time and kill everyone and everything in my path. I might even detonate the bomb in Megaton city and see how that pans out. I don't know how far in the game you can go if you blow up the starting city.

Left 4 Dead is out soon (or now) and it looks promising. I might try that out next. I also saw a trailer for Dead Space, that also looks good as a Scifi Space horror game.

weeeeeeeekend

So i had a busy weekend, I had my kiddo over, and it seemed that we weren't going to be up too much. I got him to get his homework done, and we pretty much just chilled for most of friday/saturday..... Saturday night we decided to go see a movie, Madagascar 2. It was pretty good, lots of funny things in it that made it enjoyable. Sometimes these kid movies are strictly kids only and most adults dread sitting threw them. This one was all right :)

So then sunday we had made plans to meet up with Nikki and her niece and nephew and car pool it down to Shakers. I wish I was 10 again, because this would be the place I would want to live.
It was snowing, so we didn't get to do the mini golf or go carts, but the indoor activities were pretty great. There was climbing wall, laser tag (albeit not as good as laser quest, but still fun), and a climbing/play ground area. You basically purchase and all day pass, and can go as many times as you want. They also had a zillion games there including skee ball, air hockey, and basket ball.


So they also had a ton of flashy exciting games of chance, aka gambling games, that kids play with tokens to win tickets. If they earn enough tickets, they can cash them out for cheap toys or candy. Basically it equates that you spend 5-10 bucks to win an item that would cost you maybe a buck or less at a dollar store.....
I also think that the casino industry must have some kind of investment, as they really were teaching the kids how to pump coins into machines. Some kids would win a great deal of tickets right away which probably just fuels the budding addiction further.... I know that's how they get you as an adult....


Anyways, it was fun to see and play some of the games. If your going into it just for a good fun time, and don't think about the money or prizes, it's not that bad. But of course I am cheap and I look at the cost of everything and gripe about it :)

I think Evan (aka the kiddo) did the laser Tag 15 times in total, climbed the rock wall at least 5 times. Needless to say, today his legs were killing him. The other kids we went with also had a blast, so defiantly would think about heading back there someday. Preferably when the mini gold and go karts are open....

So sunday night I caught "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. It was funnier than I thought it would be. It definitely would have been worth renting ;) hehe
It has some pretty funny pranks, and funny dialogue.

I might be signing up for a month pass at the Cardel place, its a fitness/activity center up in Coventry. Hopefully I can get into some fun sports and get into shape before the new year. If I plan on going to Cuba in March, I need to get into Bikini shape.
Oh crap, guess I will need a passport as well :P

meh

So I might be getting sick again, it seems just as I get better, another cold comes along to kick my arse. It is still just in my throat as a sore funny scratching, but usually that's just the precursor to achy kidneys and then a full blown cold.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, but I managed to watch "The Foot Fist Way" a small film that Will Ferrel and Adam Mackey helped produce about a unbalanced Tae Kwon do instructor who teaches kids and adults.
It was pretty funny at times, and pretty horrible at other times, and I swear that his wife in the movie was an ex porn star, but wikipedia suggests otherwise.....

I had a dream the other night about playing Fallout 3, I dreamt I kept picking up stuff, but couldn't carry it all, so I had to choose from the items I carried, which ones to ditch.
This could be a sign that I am playing it too much, but I think maybe my brain is telling me to just stop picking up everything to try to sell.

saving a fortune

So I ate breakfast at home, and I brought a lunch today. I should do this all the time in order to eat healthy and save money, but I am pretty darned lazy and I so I don't know if I will be able to repeat this process again tomorrow.
The breakfast was leftover Vietnamese soup, or Pho as it is also known, and the lunch was generously donated by a friend and is leftover Butter Chicken.
Maybe I just need to organize all my friends so that they all make me lunches and take turns each day.
I just wont get my vegan or veggie friends to help out, cause I can't stand tofu!

I haven't blogged for awhile, but I am sure there is tons to talk about.
I bought Fallout 3 for the PC, and it is amazing. It is so immersive that I have played 3 hours straight without even realizing it on more than one occasion.
It is a First (or third) person RPG. It takes place in a post apocalyptic world that has survived a nuclear war (barely).
They have old and new weapons that can be used, plus they have mutant people and animals to fight. Their is also an underlining theme that sort of feels like it comes from the 50's, but it provides humor and additional atmosphere to the game. If you have ever played Bioshock it is similar to that.

I gave blood last Wednesday. It was fun, but I was really worried I would pass out due to lack of sleep. Unfortunately they are very good at scamming you into signing up for future sessions, so I have a date with the Canadian blood services in January and March :)

I saw the movie "Role Models" with Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, and Christopher Mintz- Plasse (thanks IMDB). It is a movie about two guys who get into trouble with the law and have to spend 150 hours mentoring kids as part of their community service. It was pretty funny all around. I would definately recoomend seeing it. Something about little kids swearing makes me laugh :) plus there is a great deal of humor in the world of live action roleplaying which is fun to watch.
As a RPGer, I do think it's a little too geeky for even me.

I spent an hour at Marlborough mall on Sunday looking at all the different Cell phones. I need one, but I don't know which one to get and whom to get it from. I haven't owned a cell phone in 7+ years, and I don't know exactly what I will really use it for.
I was just blown away at the amount of stores and kiosks that that mall had.
I still need to browse the providers web sites again to compare them and see which one has the best prices for the service I might utilize.
I should just blow a wad of dough on the iPhone and get it over with, but I really don't want too for some reason. Maybe it's the hype around it, I tend to have an aversion to jumping on the bandwagon :)

Funvember

So Halloween came and went. It was a pretty good one. The warmest Halloween I have ever witnessed. Usually it is super cold and there is usually snow on the ground. It was pretty great! Warm weather means the kiddo and his brother were able to go out extra long. I think we went for 2 to 3 hours. We started in Airdrie, then came to Calgary so that the Grand, an great Grand parents could check out the costumes. I think we were the last group of Trick or Treaters on the Street. Some of the houses where letting them grab as much candy as they wanted. By the end of the night, they both had 11lbs of candy each!!
The funny thing is, neither kid has a big sugar tooth. I think one year we ended up throwing the remaining candy out because it was almost a year old.
I am not sure if Candy goes bad.... but why take the risk :P

I didn't catch any of my childhood Halloween cartoon shows, Garfield's Halloween Special, and It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Both have a nostalgic place in my heart. Garfield made me feel as a child very alone when they were both stuck on the island with no way off. Plus add the elements of ghost pirates, you got yourself a childhood trauma waiting to happen.
Also, the Great Pumpkin with Charlie Brown was always suereal to watch. The scenes with Snoppy as a downed WWI fighter pilot navigating his way alone in the war torn french country side was very disturbing. Also I would get super enraged with Linus, having wasted his Halloween sitting in a GD pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Athough now I think that if I were waiting alone in the dark in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night, I would probably pee my pants :)
And who the hell gives out Rocks to little kids?! They should be stoned to death with those rocks!
The good news is because of the modern age of the internet and media sharing, I was able to find all the episodes on YouTube.
I will link them here enjoy! I need to ask Agent Double EE how to link with the video embedded in the blog itself.
Garfield Pt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9jjjbTt_8
Pt2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-WggLrCASs
Pt3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRj1NpEllQk

Charlie Brown Pt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecN9mLpM2mM
Pt2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSbIrR3cjMQ
Pt3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgFdCsFXoWA

happy halloween!!

So it's Halloween! I couldn't think of anything to dress up as at work. There were a lot of people that did. I think the best costume so far was a lady who dressed up as Mimi Bobek from the Drew Carey show. She had the clown makeup, the garish clothing, and the hair that looks like a wig (in this case it was a wig).

I watched Saw V last night, it was ok. It had some twists and turns and gore as per usual, but nothing that shocked or 'wowed' me as much as the first one did. When the first Saw came out, there hadn't been that type of movie out before as far as I know. It was fresh, scary, and had so many twists. The ending blew your mind!!

There is something wrong with my eye. Well not my eye exactly, the side of the nose that is right beside my eye has either been bitten by a bug, or decided to become a Stye. Either way it is achy, and it is causing my eye to swell up and look funny a bit.
Hopefully it doesn't get any worse. I am going to try a hot tea bag tonight, see if that works. My coworker told me to keep an eye on it. She isn't a professional comedian surprise surprise :P

Anyways, I've been told we can head out early for Halloween. I am going to go home and set up my fog machine and strobe light. I am taking the kiddo out tonight, so I will have to instruct my sister on how to use it.

candy mountain Charlie, candy mountain!

I am supposed to make up a song for a friend, but it's hard. The songs I have made up in the past were just randomly thrown together, and now that I have to make one up...... it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

I made a road trip out to Red Deer last night to cheer up my friend whom I made that top ten list for. We went to her weekly name that tune with her coworkers, and low and behold, we actually won!! Usually the people I am with don't like to do any of the bonus stuff, but our table got up and did every single thing asked for bonus points.
It was pretty fun :)

So today I am bagged, I even slept in a bit, but that didn't help at all. Tonight I am going to see "Saw V", hopefully it's better than #2 and #3. I thought #4 was ok, but the other two were lacking.
I really really really want to quarantine, but I promised my Vancouver buddy vegan.vwvixen (aka Laura) that we would rent it when she comes down for Christmas. She was my running and scary movie buddy. I miss her lots, she made me get my ass in shape :P
I got up to 10km, and one time she dragged me out to glenmore reservoir for a 12km run, turns out the glenmore loop is more like 21km. I couldn't walk really well afterwards, but I was proud of that accomplishment. Now I am back to square one.
*sigh*

zombies and friendship

So I am going to talk about zombies in WoW, but first I have to write about my friend Agent EE.
She has had an extremely rough couple of days, but things will always get better :)

I came up with the top ten reason Agent EE is super awesome!
Not that any proof is required, but I just needed to get it off my chest.

#1 Super cute!
#2 Super sense of funky fashion!
#3 Her Love of Cephalopods!
#4 Her passion about everything!!
#5 Best ideas of fun things to do!
#6 Creative in so many ways!
#7 Has experienced life in ways that a lot of people would never even think to try!
#8 Inspires others to seek out passion and fun in life!
#9 Gives hope to those who had very little!
#10 She is the most giving, honest, life filled person that I have ever met! No matter what happens in my life, she will have always profoundly affected me!

Ok, now that that mush is over..... I swear I am turning into a girl :P

So, I have 3+ friends who play the evil and addicting World of Warcraft. I guess for an upcoming expansion that they are releasing, and probably also because Halloween is almost here, they had started introducing Zombies to the game.
I guess there are tainted boxes and cockroaches in the game, if you click on them you get infected. At first the infection would take 10 mins to kill you, and then you become a zombie.
After that, you gain Zombie powers and lose health over time. To gain health you must.... take a guess, attack other players and computer controlled characters in the game. Doing so causes them to become infected, and eventually turns them into zombies. Eventually you can create a small army of zombies who then can roam the land spreading their unique style of culture :)
My friends who first encountered it said it was just like being in a zombie movie. Before they were killed and turned, they said that there were so many zombies coming from all over, that they were frantic and scared.
Now, days later, it only takes 2 mins or less to become infected. So it makes playing the actual game really hard as there are so many zombies running around raiding the towns and quest areas.
I wish I was still playing the game, and could have experienced the initial invasion, it would have been awesome!

Just in case the infection spreads to the real world, some required reading would be "World War Z" and "The Zombie Survival Guide" both full of stories and tips to help you survive in a zombie filled world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_Survival_Guide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z
Oh, and he does have one about robots, but robots aren't that scary are they?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Survive_a_Robot_Uprising

And yes, I google, or Wikipedia everything! It's like a joke I heard, there is no more wondering about stuff anymore like when you were a kid, just google it!

Oh, and I have to give props to my buddy to told me that all she blogs about are top ten lists. Thanks, jodiisallaboutjodi

nothing to see here, move along

I haven't wrote anything in while. I noticed I had 8 unique visitors one day, and some might have been from the US. I don't know anybody from there, so hopefully it was just a random person, and not some US stalker.

I watched the new Indiana Jones movie, and I was kind of disappointed. It was watchable, however it doesn't come close to equaling the awesomeness of the old ones. Harrison Ford is what? 66 years old? I don't really buy him jumping and running and swinging and fighting. I think if a 66 year old fell or was punched in the face, they would break multiple bones. Also I don't like the direction the went with the plot. I wont ruin it for you, but lets just say that it fails to suspend my disbelief, and this coming from a guy who watches zombies movies and plays D&D.

Speaking of D&D, we got together and played for 10 hours on Saturday. It was a pretty intense and awesome session, except when we got to the final boss, and our party got wiped out. It was just one of those chain reaction/domino effect type things. One bad decision (not by me thank god), and then things just spiralled out of control from there.

I went to Hot Yoga (aka Bikram Yoga) last night for the first time in a couple of months. It was pretty brutal, buy it was good. I strongly suggest that everybody try it a couple of times. The first time you will feel like your going to throw up. Especially if you eat too soon. I suggest hydrating all day, and having a very light light supper 3 hours before you go. One time I had pizza 3 hours before, and I almost lost it.
As far as the benefits of Hot Yoga, and what it is all about, it is like regular Yoga, but they put you in a room that is heated and humid. Sometimes up to 35 degrees.
It's pretty relaxing and good for cleansing and self reflection. I've been told that the stretching accomplished during doesn't really transfer to outside of the heated room because when your muscles are cold, they don't tend to stretch as easily. So don't try to be a super ninja after a few hot yoga sessions or you might pull something.

I bought an awesome new shirt for work, so be on the look out :P

Fallout 3 is out, I might pick that up for the PC, it's supposed to be awesome.
Oh, and I will do a separate blog out the World of Warcraft (WoW) zombie infestation later when I have time. I don't play WoW but a lot of my friends are trapped playing the evil and addicting game, and told me all about it. It sounds wild, but not enough to make me tempted to play the evil WoW game again. I have to go home now, I was blogging at work again :)